I smiled, despite the dire circumstances we were in, namely Dara’s capture and our being trapped inside, the guards probably having already returned. “Yeah, her talents were few and far between when she was alive, so Lord only knows what they’re like now. Still, we know she can command zombies, just like I can. And we know she’s a zombie, seeing as she still, um, is. So what differences can there be?”
He shrugged and did a little knee dip: cute if not dangerous, all things considered, because a zombie who falls generally stays felled. “Hard to say what the differences are. But it is curious, as you noted, that she’s doing whatever she’s doing now and not years ago.”
“Unless she just got bored being a local bitch and decided to move it on to a grander scale,” I countered with.
“She that bad?”
I stopped shuffling and swaying. In truth, we had been friends. Like I’d said, she turned me, protected me, laughed with me, cried with me. She was a bitch, fine, but so were we all when it came down to it. It made for better tips, stronger drinks, bigger laughs. It made us larger than life. Ironically, that’s what we all now were: larger than life, beyond life, kicking sand in the face of life. Suck it, life!
“No,” I eventually replied. “Well, not the best lip-syncher, no, and not the best stylist, no, and certainly not the prettiest drag queen you’ve ever seen, but, no, she’s not that bad. Or at least wasn’t. A long, long time ago.”
“Time changes people, Creature,” he said, now also standing still.
I stared down at my mottled skin and bony fingers. “Tell me about it.” Then I stared up at him. “Come on, let’s just go find Dara and get out of here.” I looked around at the wall of zombies and forced a sigh. “One good thing you can say about time: it’s the great equalizer.”
He nodded. “Yep, we certainly do blend in.”
I cringed. Not what a drag queen likes to hear. “Please don’t repeat that.” Then I looked around again, hoping to spot where Dara had been taken to. “You’re right, though. At least no one can tell us apart from all the others. Unless Blondella—”
“KILL THEM!” her voice bellowed from a catwalk high above.
I gulped and finished the sentence. “Spots us.”
Donna gave way to KC & The Sunshine Band. Boogie Man indeed. “Now what?” Ricky asked, eyes wide as saucers as the entire club instantly turned on us.
“Do you trust me?” I asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
I shook my head. “Not really, but trust me anyway,” I reiterated. “Fall forward, onto your hands. Then start crawling to the door.”
“They’ll catch us in seconds,” he hollered above the moaning din.
I fell forward. “They can’t bend down this far. And if they fall, they can’t get up. And zombies, apart from the likes of us, don’t crawl.” I turned my head and looked up at him. “Fall, damn it! Now!”
He fell and landed next to me, while the crush of zombies, well, crushed, knocking into one another and not getting very far.
“KILL THEM!” shouted Blondella yet again, her voice insistent, full of menace.
“I thought we were friends!” I hollered in return, now crawling, knocking as many zombies over as I could, which I knew would make a barricade against the others that followed.
“Silence!” she shouted, her voice echoing above KC’s. “Do not question the queen!”
Ricky tapped my shoulder as we continued our crawl, the zombies trying and, thankfully, failing to bend far enough down to reach us, most of them toppling over as they tried. “I think she’s lost it,” he said.
I nodded. “Well, she didn’t have far to go in that regards.”
And still we crawled, zombies writhing on all sides of us now, the music at last silenced, the colors no longer swirling. “Not to rain on your parade, Creature, but, um, falling was one thing. How about getting back up again?”
I paused. Clearly I’d forgotten that I no longer had my human minions around. In any case, right about then, that was the least of our worries. “We have your partner!” she yelled down at me, the words stabbing like daggers into my very soul. “Stop or I’ll kill her!”
“Technically—” I started to say.
“I’ll lop off her pretty, little head!”
I stopped crawling. Ricky stopped crawling. I turned to him and frowned. “Um, that would do it, alright.” Then I added, loudly, “Let’s call it a trade then: take me and let the other two go!”
“No,” grunted Ricky.
“It’s the only way,” I replied.
“How about: run away and live to fight another day.”
“She already has us,” I countered with. “How far can we get like this before she stops sending zombies and simply rains fire down on us once again?”
His grunt repeated. “I’ll come back for you.”
If I could’ve cried, I would’ve. “Don’t. Too dangerous. You and Dara go find your wife, go back to Utah, or stay on Liberty Island. In any case, just leave me. Perhaps she can be reasoned with.” Even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. In life she was unreasonable; in death, she was obviously a few french fries short of a Happy Meal.