Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 by Road Trip of the Living Dead Page B

or so it would seem.
    “What’s that on your lower lip? Are you trying out a new liner?” I prodded.
    “Huh?” Wendy scraped the chocolate with the point of her nail and examined the roll of brown that clung there. The evidence. “Aw shit. Alright, already. You know it’s chocolate. Of course, it’s chocolate. What else would it be? Why do you have to do that?”
    “Do what?” I raised my palms to her, horrified. Had I committed a social faux-pas? 35
    “Be so goddamned critical all the time. It’s called an addiction, okay?”
    “I … uh …” I didn’t know what to say. One of the few times I’d been at a loss for words. Wendy stomped off down the sidewalk knocking on each of the motel doors along the way. She did so love to disturb the humans. “Sorry!” I called after her.
    She raised a fist in the air, then flicked up her middle finger. She knocked on the last two doors and then turned the corner toward the back of the building. As she did, the frazzled guest in the second room down, stuck his head out, a question mark where his face should have been. “What the fuck!” he yelled.
    I pointed out the skateboarder, watched him launch off toward the poor kid in his loose-fitting boxersand bare feet, and ducked into the manager’s office, just as the man unleashed a torrent of expletives on the unsuspecting youth. 36
    With Wendy off sulking somewhere, I had no choice but to rouse Gil from his eternal slumber. I banged on the door to the dirty camper john, and yelled, “Gil! Wake up! I need to talk!”
    “Wha-wha?” His voice slurred like a dementia patient’s.
    “Wendy and I had a fight.”
    “So?”
    “So? Help me get over it?” I leaned against the door and kicked the bottom with the toe of my shoe.
    “Stop that racket. You know I’ve got to sleep.”
    “C’mon. What should I do?”
    “Jesus. Apologize?”
    “Why do you assume it’s my fault?”
    Silence.
    “Well?” I asked.
    “Isn’t it?” he sighed.
    “Shut up and go back to sleep already.” I turned and examined Fishhook.
    With the vagrant and nothing but four “budget beige” walls to occupy my mind, I was left with no other choice than to give him a makeover. I stood in the camper doorway eyeing the biohazard. His hair was shoulder length and ratty, starting on the top and working its way around his mouth like a dirty mohair scarf. What skin left exposed was ruddy and dry to the point of flaking. And the clothes—Christ—too tattered to salvage.Thank God for American Express Black; re-imagining Fishhook’s persona was going to cost a fortune.
    “I … uh …” he whispered. Because that’s all he ever seemed to say, except for those comments.
    They’re comin’, girl.
    My first thought rushed to the vampires, those gluttons that fed from the poor guy so liberally. But it was daylight, and there was no way they were following, right now. Then I wondered if he could be referring to Markham and his werewolves. But how could he possibly know about that? We didn’t even know that, for sure. I suspected Markham was on our trail, but I hadn’t seen any proof. Madame Gloria hadn’t mentioned it, and, honestly, wouldn’t she have? I thought back to the moment she spoke to Wendy privately and a strange theory batted its way into my brain.
    Maybe she was in on it. But, she’d led us to a safe place for Gil. Didn’t make sense.
    I was getting completely fucking paranoid.
    I shook off the fog of thoughts and eyed my quarry. This time he was responding to my visual assessment and seemed to know he was looking down the throat of a bored zombie with a keen fashion sense. For a crazy guy, he seemed to put together the puzzle pretty well. He reached up and brushed his beard into a point, loosing food debris and at least one cockroach that dropped to the table and scuttled through the grid of doll heads and buttons, taking refuge in a toppled thimble.
    “Oh yeah.” I nodded. “It’s project time.”
    Fishhook flinched.
    He was