She nodded and continued with her ritual. “Really?”
I stopped patting and tilted my head up to the warming sun. “Probably not. But you were being maudlin, so I opted for contrite. To be frank, neither fit us all that well.”
She chuckled and probably accidentally on purpose smudged my makeup. In any case, I shut up and she continued, the makeover calming me, temporarily helping me forget that we were whisking our way across lethal water at that very moment, with quite a distance to go. Then again, with our undead rowing team, at least we didn’t have to worry about anyone getting a cramp.
Once we made out of the East River we could see the torch far off in the distance, the sun glinting off of it. “Well,” said Lola, her work on me complete, a dusty mirror held up for close inspection, “there’s the statue, but how are we going to get to her without being seen?”
I turned my head this way and that. Lola was no slouch in the makeup department, thank goodness. I then looked from her to the massive steely drag queen far across the bay. “We’ll take a left, down to Governor’s Island, then it’s a straight shot across the Hudson River. Virtually everyone lives either on Ellis Island or the stretch of pontoons that connects it to Liberty Island. If we come around the back, to the south end of the statue, it’s next to near impossible for them to spot us, especially so low to the water.”
“Next to near, but not impossible,” she replied.
I shrugged. “So what? Even if they spot us, we play dumb.”
“Er.”
I grinned. “Yes, dumber. Anyway, we’re not the enemy, at least to most of them. After all, they came and got me out of Utah to help rescue them from Blondella. Which, need I remind you, we’ve already done.”
She squinted her eyes as she gazed across the choppy water. “No, they don’t know about Blondella. They only know they were being attacked. In fact, when you think about it, you killed their goddess.”
Again I tried to gulp. “Okay, so, if they spot us, we just stick with the dumb routine, no mention of Blondella, no mention of the plot to kill them all, no mention of the traitors in their midst. Only we’ll know that we’re there to save our husbands. As to Blondella, they’re already saved from her, so I’ve done my part for them. Then, once we rescue the hubbies, I just have to save my friends back in Utah . . . somehow.” I frowned. “Sounds harder once you say it out loud.”
She shook her head. “Nope, it sounded hard even before you said it.”
After that, I simply stopped talking. Pointing out the obvious was only making us both nervous. That is to say nervouser. Because crossing the Hudson against the current was no easy going. And if I hadn’t already been bluish gray, I’m sure I would have been so green that even Kermit would’ve been less than thrilled with me, perhaps even made up a new Muppety song: It’s Not Easy Being Dead.
***
It had to have been at least an hour before the tarted-up statue was looming high overhead. As suspected, no one seemed to have spotted us, not with us coming in from around their backside, as it were. Or, if they had, there were certainly no alarms going off. There was just us and the kayak and, praise be to Allah or Buddha or Confucius or any other god of your choosing, a place to pull up to and a relatively short stairwell to climb.
I turned to the zombies as Lola and I again stood on solid ground. “Go back the exact way we came. Climb out of the kayak when you arrive at the marina. Good luck.”
I saluted them. They groaned and began to paddle once again. “Bon voyage,” Lola said as we turned away.
“Falling on dead ears,” I told her.
“Don’t you mean deaf?” She thought about it and shrugged. “In any case, it never hurts to be friendly.”
I thought of how I had left the comfort of my factory in Utah, all in the name of being, to a certain degree, friendly, but neglected to rub it in. I mean, why kick a zombie when she’s down? “So now what?” I asked, instead.
She stopped and turned my way. “We act dumb, just as planned.”
“And avoid the priestess, Topaz, and VaVa, the one that clearly worships Blondella. They were the two that looked suspicious when they thought they’d seen the disco-ball-crushed queen. They’re the traitors.”
“And probably the ones who are holding our husbands then,” Lola interjected. “So is it better to avoid them or buddy up to them?”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
She nodded and touched fingertip to nose, missing it by just an inch. “Damn,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s a hard one.”
And so we moved, keeping to the periphery, lurking in the shadows. Because, even though we weren’t the enemy, we were still zombies, and it was easy to believe that the islanders we encountered would strike first and ask questions later. And, truth be told, I’d been struck enough as of late—enough to last, well, a deathtime.
“Any ideas where they might have been taken?” asked Lola as we huddled beneath an ancient oak.
I nodded. “Ellis Island.” I pointed into the distance. “The museum there, it’s one of the few buildings not used for housing.” I then pointed much closer. “Or here, just below Lady Liberty. It’s where the priestess, Topaz, lives. There are rooms inside, an easy place to hide someone or ones.”
Lola looked from one point to the other. “It would take us much longer to get across to Ellis Island, with a higher risk of being spotted. I vote we search here first.”