I grinned. “I only recently found out about you. In fact, up until a couple of days ago, I didn’t even know Lester. In fact, up until a few days earlier than that, me and my husband, Dara Licked, who’s also captured in the same disco, were living, pardon the word, in a salt factory in Utah, before an island of drag queens reached out to us to help them defeat the evil bitch in said disco holding said husbands captive.”
She didn’t reply. I guessed she was trying to process it all. Good luck with that, I figured. “Your husband, Dara?”
I nodded. “You do seem to sink your hooks into the oddest parts of what I’m saying.”
“It’s all odd, though.”
My nodding amped up a notch. “True, but, to be fair, the whole world is odd now.” I pointed to the forest around us. “Case in point: this used to be a park.”
Her nod suddenly echoed mine. “And I used to take coffee breaks here.” Again she looked around. “And the sound, the hum at the periphery?”
My nodding and my grin promptly ceased. “Zombies. Millions of them. Everywhere. But at least they only eat humans, not other zombies, and they all heed my commands, except for the ones that heed the commands of the evil bitch, Blondella.”
“Uh huh,” she replied. “At least.” She tilted her head. “Blondella? Does everyone have strange names now?”
“Long story,” I replied, the grin quivering again. “Your husband, in fact, well, we call him Ricky.”
“Ricky?”
My nod made a triumphant reappearance. “Ricky Shea.”
She snorted. “My husband, the doctor, is going by the name Ricky Shea?” The snort repeated. “Happily?”
And now I shrugged. “More like resignedly, but still.”
She sighed. It was probably the last bit of air still in her lungs. I envied her that. “So, if we don’t rescue my husband, Ricky, and your husband, Dara?”
I pointed past the trees. “Without the salt, they’ll turn back. And she’ll release them. And, more than likely, we’ll never see them again.” I returned my hand to my side. “And then Blondella will kill all the remaining humans and be the queen of the zombies for all eternity, or at least until the radiation that keeps us animated runs out.”
“I’d say I was dreaming, but I have a feeling that that’s no longer possible, right?”
“Sorry.”
This time the sigh was forced, as it would be from here on out, for the rest of her, well, life. “So why do you need me then? Why not just command an army of zombies to go rescue them? Why not find all the salt in New York City, bring a thousand people back and take my husband and your husband from her? Wouldn’t a thousand thinking, uh, people find that easy enough to accomplish?”
I held her hand and moved us out of the clearing. In a minute, we stood behind the fence, watching the parade of zombies as they trudged past, hundred and hundreds in every direction, the constant groan instantly jarring. “You listed two points, Lola. If I did the first one, if I commanded an army to attack, then she would just do the same, until the streets were littered with bodies and we’d be no closer to rescuing our husbands.” I pointed to the throngs. “These things are slow, unthinking, unfeeling. If we started a war, it would take days to reach a conclusion. By then, Blondella would more than likely be long gone.”
“And the second point?” she asked. “Bringing back a thousand zombies to, well, to this state we find ourselves in? Wouldn’t you at least have an army, perhaps to help find our husbands should they be released?”
I squeezed her hand tighter in my own and frowned. “If I don’t give you more salt in about a week’s time, you’ll revert back, Lola. I’ve given you, for lack of a better word, life. How could I forgive myself if you didn’t get the salt? How could I send you back to . . .” Again I pointed to the undead all around us. “To that.” I looked back her way. “You’re my responsibility now, Lola. As is Lester. As is Dara. As are the few minions I have with me in Utah. All of them. All of you. Forever.”
She nodded her head, slowly. She understood. “So what do we have to do?”
I grinned and scrunched my shoulders up. “Beats the hell out of me.”
“You’re joking.”
I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. “Not without tips. In any case, you’re my Plan A and my Plan B. In truth, it’s fairly miraculous that I thought to come and get you in the first place and that I found you.” I looked her way and winked. “So, tag, you’re it.”
She rubbed her temples. “You’re giving me a headache.”
My smile spread. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Even if it is technically impossible.”
“Tell that to my head, Creature,” she retorted. “Because it doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.”
The Plan
The moon was high in the nighttime sky by the time we made it back on to the expressway. During our drive, I filled her in on what the world was like now, plus my world in particular, seeing as my world pretty much encompassed all that was left. She remained fairly silent throughout the retelling. Probably from shock, I assumed. After all, this shit was fairly shocking, even for me, and I’d lived (sort of) through it.
“So, not only do we need to rescue our husbands,” she said, once my recounting had fully recounted, “but also we have to vanquish this drag queen bitch of yours.”
“Vanquish?” I said, with a chuckle. “Good word for it. Very theatrical.”