I turned and patted his hand. “No need to understand, Ricky. Just follow our lead.”
He nodded his head. “Ah, now that I can do.”
And so side by side we stood, knowing something that Blondella clearly didn’t know, namely that we could combine our strengths. And she might have been strong, could command legions of undead if she so chose, but she’d never, ever have what we had, namely the power of love, of friendship. “Goodbye, old girl,” I said, the message going from my head to hers, the look on her face switching from anger to confusion to, finally, pain. Oh sure, generally we couldn’t feel that, what with us being dead and all, but when four zombies are zapping you at once with all the energy they have, pain is sort of a forgone conclusion.
She tried to fight it, to tamp it down as she’d done before, but now the odds were far in our favor. “NO!” she howled, her ghastly complexion going from gray to a blistering orange, glowing like the flame held aloft by the statue high overhead.
“Yes,” I grunted as I pushed and pushed, willing all my strength at her. “Hell to the yes, in fact. And have a great time while you’re down there, sweetie.”
She stopped in her tracks. Actually, at the sight of her, illuminated with radiation now that she was, everyone stopped, every human, every zombie, every living and undead being all around. In fact, we all stopped and stared as the goddess quickly and utterly and completely (not to mention final-fucking-ly) became one with the cosmos.
In other words, as the ship exploded one last time, its contents flying high up into the air, so did Blondella.
“Well,” I said as I powered down, “she always did like to end the show with a bang.”
And then I felt it, felt it closing in on me. It’d been hundreds and hundreds of years, but still I knew the feeling, remembered it like it was only yesterday. Death was coming, seeking me out yet again as it had when the sun went all crazy on our asses.
I turned to Dara as she turned to me. “I love you,” I managed to say just as I slipped into the oblivion, just as the blackness became all encompassing.
And the last words I heard were, “I love you, too, Creature. See you on the other side.”
Home
I blinked my eyes open, a vision of loveliness filling my field of vision, a halo of white at the periphery. “God?” I croaked out.
She laughed. “No, Creature. Just Topaz. But thanks for saying so.”
I pushed myself up on my elbows, or at least tried and failed to. It was then that I noticed that the ground beneath me was strangely vibrating. “But I was dead.”
“Technically . . .”
I nodded. “All the way dead, I mean. My salt, it ran out.” I panicked. “Dara! Where is she?” My head moved right, left. And then I realized where we were. “But how?”
Topaz was grinning. “We made a promise to you, Creature. We’re just keeping our end of the bargain.”
I looked over at the small, round window, clouds passing by in great white patches. My eyes then landed on my friends, all tied to their seats, all still very much lifeless.
“Welcome back, Creature.” It was Aflo Sheen, holding me down. And when a several hundred pound drag queen is holding, down is where you stay. “We thought we’d do you first.”
I nodded. “Thanks. For, um, doing me. And, again, how?”
I heard the shout from the front of the plain next. “Bait!” hollered VaVa, our pilotress.
“Bait?” I asked, looking at Aflo. “And you can get off me now. I promise not to bite.” Seriously. Promise. Ugh.
Aflo grinned and helped push me up until my torso was now at the vertical. Then she pointed at the bait, Ginger frowning from the seat in back. “After she told us where the rest of the explosives were hidden, she was good enough to lead you all to the plane.”
Topaz chuckled. “Well, forced to, but why mince words? Anyway, you all followed, flesh-hungry zombies that you were, and, well, here you all now are.”
“And Blondella?” I thought to ask, just to make sure. Because even in death, bitch had nine lives.