Chapter Thirty-Four

Jerry sang the entire way to the Mathmetist compound, making the ridiculously long walk that much more ridiculously longer. It blew me away how he used to make this trek on a daily basis. By the time we reached my car, I was ready to collapse. Sadly, collapse wasn’t an option.

“Where are the keys?” I asked, tossing my backpack on top of the hood of the locked Nissan.

“I left them in my room. I didn’t want anyone stealing your car. This is a bad neighborhood.”

I was so ready to be done walking. My old leg was cramping. My stump was bruised all the way up to my thigh. But the finish line—the first of many—was right there. I set the ice chest on the roof of the car and started towards the front door of the compound.

“Hey!” Jerry yelled. “Aren’t you gonna bring me with?”

“Do I have to?” I asked. “Your head is a lot heavier than you might think.”

“What if something happens and you need my help?”

“What could possibly happen that I would need your help?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

I sighed, returned to the car, and picked up the ice chest, which I lugged through the compound, past the rows of bunk beds, out the back door, past the fire pit, and up the steps into his school bus room.

Once I’d gotten the keys from his hookah table, I prepared to do the whole walk over again in reverse, but Jerry stopped me halfway to the firepit.

“Uh, dude. How many Christmas statues are there?”

I looked around and counted.

“Eight. They’re very horrifying. Why? Is one missing?”

“No, no, one’s not missing… But I’m a little concerned.”

“Why?”

“Because I only built seven.”

I closed my eyes and cursed the darkness I saw. Are you kidding me? Can’t I catch a break? Just once? Just once can’t I catch a break? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!

“Okay,” I said, reopening my eyes and scanning the perimeter one more time, counting again, hoping against all hope that I had miscounted. Turns out, I did!

There were nine of them.

At least two didn’t match the rest. Instead of Christmas clothes and Santa faces, these two were wearing clown masks. Also, they weren’t facing the forest. They were facing me. Also, they were walking slowly in my direction.

“Drop me and make a run for it,” Jerry ordered.

“I wish I could do that. But I still need you.”

“Well that’s a little harsh, but—Whoa nelly here we go!”

I ran as fast as I could. I plowed through the back door of the compound and slammed it shut behind me. Then I continued to run until I came out the other side. I didn’t stop running until I reached the car, where I focused on doing each linear task as quickly as possible, leaving no mental room to wonder how much time I had left before those things reached me. I unlocked the door. I tossed Jerry into the passenger seat. I jumped inside, cranked the engine, and hit the gas.

But we didn’t go anywhere. The wheels turned, but the car remained in place. One look in the rearview mirror showed why. A behemoth clown, too tall for me to see his face, was standing there, holding the car. I’m no physics expert, but that didn’t even seem possible. I turned ahead and noticed my next mistake. The bag of guns was still on the hood. There was only one thing for me to do.

I let off the gas, opened the door, and grabbed my backpack by one sling. The clown watched, but didn’t let go. His hands were wrapped around the back bumper. He had no idea what was about to happen.

I walked up to him, swung the bag of guns like a medieval morning star, and smashed it across his face so hard his mask turned sideways. The clown released my bumper, stepped back, and reached up to realign his eyeholes. By the time he could see again, all he got to observe was my car speeding down the path away from him.

A second later, I noticed the smell. When I turned to make sure Jerry was okay, I realized that, in my hurry to toss him into the car, the ice chest had fallen open, and his head was currently rolling around the floorboard. I’d done a terrible job of keeping him iced. And that time underground was enough to jumpstart advanced decomp. His head was a disgusting mixture of flakey and rotted meat stuck to a skull. The odor was distracting, to say the least. I almost didn’t realize that there was someone standing in the middle of the road until Jerry yelled, “Watch out!”

I looked up to see him standing center lane, facing me. I slammed my brakes. Rot-water from the ice box slushed and Jerry’s head ricocheted off the glove box as we skidded to a stop just a few feet in front of Farmer Junior.

I took a few breaths and gagged at the smell.

“Jerry?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

“I meant, is that…?”

“A mimic? Yes, definitely. Get us out of here.”

I put the car in reverse and gunned it, slammed the brakes once I had a running start, then put it in drive and gave the gas everything it had. The look on FJ’s face was priceless as I plowed into him, sending his body flying over the roof of the car. Jerry yelled “Whee!” as I stomped the brakes again, put the car in reverse, and backed up over the crumpled body. Then, I put us in drive and drove over him again. Just for good measure, I backed over him and drove over him a few more times, until he was nothing but a splattered painting of red and black goo in the middle of the road.

With that out of the way, I started driving again. As far as I could go before I couldn’t handle the smell anymore. A couple miles from town, I pulled over to put Jerry back into his box and throw up a couple times. Maybe I should just boil the rest of his skin off… A human skull is, after all, a lot less suspicious to carry around.

“Hey Jack,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not thinking about boiling me, are you?”

“No, of course not. Now shut up.”

 

***

 

I unzipped my backpack and dropped the contents in front of the heavyset man at the pawnshop. He had huge forearms, comically small glasses, and more hair on his knuckles than his head. I’d seen him around the gas station a few times which, sadly, meant he knew who I was.

He looked at the mountain of weapons, silently left his post to lock the front door, then came back and made me a pretty decent offer. I probably could have haggled for more, but I was in a hurry. He handed over a lump of cash.

“Anything else I can do for you today?”

“Car freshener?”

He grabbed a green one from a stack by his register. “Anything else?”

“I know this is a stretch, but do you guys sell bear traps?”

He stared at me with an emotionless resting face. Eventually, he asked, “How many you need?”

“I don’t know. Like, maybe six?”

He opened a cabinet, then handed over a clipboard and pen.

“Local ordinance requires us to record the sales of all bear traps, complete with name, address, and reason for sale.” I broke the wad of cash in half without counting and handed it back. The man put the clipboard away. “Or I could just do that part for you.”

 A minute later, I was back in the Nissan. Six heavy steel traps in the trunk, a minty mojito-flavored car freshener dangling from the rearview mirror, and Jerry’s headbox secured by seat belt and riding shotgun.

“Alrighty!” he said. “Back to the gas station.”

“Not yet. There’s one more stop we have to make.”

 

***

 

It was a Mexican restaurant named “Que Pasa.” I didn’t go in, of course. I couldn’t let her see me like this. She might cause a scene. But I had to know. I had to know if the Russian radio was telling the truth. If it were, if Rosa had been turned into one of those things, it could change everything. I sat in the driver seat, trying to get a good look. Trying to see if she was even working today. If she wasn’t, I didn’t have a backup plan.

“I told you already,” Jerry explained, “you were right! The Russian radio lies. I noticed a few inconsistencies myself. I think it just says whatever you need to hear to get you to do what it wants. You can say it. You told me so. The radio was poison and I was an idiot for believing. I just couldn’t handle the thought of Van being gone, and the radio used my grief against me.”

I don’t know how long he was talking, but it was already dark by the time the front door of the restaurant opened and I saw her. Rosa walked outside, and I shrunk down in my seat. But she wasn’t coming towards me. She was walking around to the edge of the building. I turned on the car, backed up, and slowly followed from a distance.

What is she doing?

When I saw the answer, my heart sank. She was leaning against the side of the restaurant, smoking a cigarette.

“Jerry?”

“Yeah?”

“Are we close enough? Can you see her?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“I suddenly realized why you hated me smoking so much. Ugh, and she’s a menthol girl. I should have known it.”

“Jerry!”

“What?”

“Has she been replaced?!”

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you in suspense. I was just so shocked about the smoking thing, but now I realize why you probably just wanted the answer and not my opinion on—”

“JERRY!”

“No, Jack. She hasn’t been replaced. That’s our girl, Rosa.”

A laugh escaped my throat. A weird, creepy, Joker-style laugh. I couldn’t help it. I was just so relieved. I hit the gas and sped out of the parking lot. As soon as I hit the main road, I rolled down all the windows and blared Louis Armstrong as loud as my eardrums could handle until we got back to the gas station, where we found what was left of Liam’s body torn to pieces behind the register.

Ricardo couldn’t explain what happened, but judging by the wounds, I think it was safe to say that Liam went fast. I got the wheelbarrow and a contractor bag and set to work burying the poor, stupid teenager before laying out the perimeter traps.

All in all, this shaped up to be one of my better days.