He stared up at the moon, probably one of the only things that had remained unchanged in all this time, a constant. He squinted into the light. “Lola.”
I grinned. “Was she a showgirl?” I knew as soon as I said it that it was in bad taste, but old habits, like old drag queens, die hard. “My bad.”
He grinned. “Ironically, she was a showgirl. On Broadway. The Shubert Theatre. In fact, Barry Manilow sang her the song on her birthday last . . .”
Again I patted his shoulder. “Sorry, Lester.”
His grin quivered. “Lester is dead, Creature. Long dead. Just like Lola, just like Barry. So you might as well keep calling me Ricky. If anything, it helps me forget that I have a past.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we never forget, that we can’t forget, that our brain cells stay locked and loaded. And then a lightbulb shown brightly above my head, brighter than the moon even. “I, um, I don’t want to get your hopes up, Ricky, but—”
“My hopes, Creature,” he interrupted, “are lower than the Mariana Trench right about now. So, well, up is the only way they can head.” He lowered his face and locked eyes with me. “She’s out there, though, right? Like me, like us?”
“A zombie, yes,” I replied. “More than likely. And the sun went berserk during the day in the middle of the week. The zombies you see now are the ones who were outside when the flare hit. The rest, most of everyone in North America, were and still are locked inside. Without consciousness, a doorknob, a handle, they mean nothing to a zombie. So your wife, Lola—”
His face amped up a few hundred watts. “Is more than likely still at work.”
“Talk about your overtime.”
His frown, however, abruptly reappeared. “But we’re across the East River now, not to mention miles away from lower Manhattan, not to mention on rickety feet, without any form of transportation.” He sighed, loudly, and pointed skyward. “For all its worth, we might as well be on that moon up there.”
“What are the odds that Lola had a dream to be on Broadway and then actually made it to Broadway?”
“She had better odds of winning the lottery.”
I nodded my head. “And yet she made it there just the same.”
His sigh repeated. “It’s not the same, Creature. Nothing is the same.”
I too pointed heavenward. “Some things stayed the same. The moon, for instance.” I then pointed to the building in front of us, to where I knew Dara was being held. “Love,” I added.
He didn’t say anything, not for many seconds; he eyed me instead. “You made it from Utah to New York.”
“On an ancient plane flown by a drag queen,” I told him. “So anything is possible.”
“Lola had to have been at work. If I’m here in Queens, then I was at work, probably just on a break at the time of the flare. And Lola never, ever took a break.”
“Which is how she made it to Broadway. And we’ll make it there as well.”
“And then you can change her.”
Normally, I hated doing just that. But there was nothing normal about this, about any of this. And I changed Dara for love, so why not Lola? “Did your wife wear yellow feathers in her hair?”
His smile returned. “Only on Halloween.”
“Good enough,” I told him. “And, yes, I’ll turn her.”
He rubbed his parched, cracked, gray hands together. “Then let’s rescue Dara and get the hell out of here.”
“And the diversion?”
His hand stopped rubbing. “Leave that to me.”
***
“Why are we here?” I asked him about twenty minutes later. “Looks like a school of some sorts.” It was a big, imposing building with thick columns, all of which had stood the test of time.
“Med school, actually.”
“Um, I know you said you were a dermatologist, but brushing up on your skin diseases now isn’t going to help the likes of us.” I pointed to the milling zombies on all sides. “Or them. Heck, a truckload of Clearasil wouldn’t clear up those complexions.”
“What happened to ‘sarcasm will get you nowhere’?”
I shrugged off the comment. “Do as I say, not as I do?”
“Nice try,” he replied. “In any case, we’re here to get the one thing that will lead those guards away without anyone thinking you had anything to do with it. Because you can’t command them, as we well know, and having a zombie posse suddenly attack will be a dead giveaway, pun intended, that you’re somewhere nearby.”
“But nothing will lead them away. If she commanded them to stay and guard, then stay and guard is what they’ll do.”
“Wanna make a bet on that?”
I reached inside my dusty dress pockets. “Does this casino take lint?”
He grinned. “Never mind. Just follow. And don’t worry because there’s one human vice which almost always trumps all the others.”
“Vanity, dear Ricky, is not a vice. It’s simply a way of life. Or death. Take your pick.”
He climbed the stairs, however slowly and wobbly, then pushed open the front door before turning my way and replying, “No, Creature, not vanity. Gluttony.”