Deadtown (3 page)

Over at the bar, George’s mother waved to me. She raised her drink—something creamy and pink with skewers of fruit and a little umbrella stuck in the top—and smiled. She tossed the drink back in one gulp and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Then she got up, tied on a frilly blue-and-white apron, and left.

Disco music is not my thing. I’ve got all the dance moves of a three-legged camel. But as soon as Mama was out the door, I felt an overwhelming compulsion to dance, to boogie, to get down and shake my groove thing.
Thumpa thumpa thumpa.
The beat was hypnotic; the bass line throbbed through my bones. I tossed back my long black hair—which was odd because my hair is short and strawberry blonde. But I forgot about that as the music swept over me in waves of sound and moved my hips for me in a sexy, swaying motion.
Thumpa thumpa thumpa.
I looked down in surprise, wondering where I’d learned to move like that.

Oh, God. My clothes were dissolving. My T-shirt, which for some reason was soaking wet, was already half transparent, and my bra was missing. Okay, pretty obvious what kind of dream
this
was shaping up to be. No wonder George’s mom had left. The dreamscape was rebooted and working just fine. A little too fine. And I was getting the hell out of here.

I ran for the portal, shouting the password, and dove into the beam.

2

GEORGE FUNDERBURK WAS AWAKE.

His open eyes were the first thing I saw as the bedroom materialized around me. Maybe my abrupt exit had woken him up, but I’d made it out of his dream with maybe half a second to spare.

His lips curling in a sleepy smile, George stared at me and murmured, “Wow, you’re real. I thought I was dreaming.” His comb-over had fallen across one eye; he pushed the hair back in place with stubby fingers.

“You
were
dreaming.” Realizing what he was staring at, I crossed my arms over my chest. My shirt was still wet, and the bedroom was cold. “Tina, can you hand me my jacket, please?” I glanced in the mirror over the dresser to make sure everything else was back to normal. Strawberry blonde hair that I kept short because no matter what style I tried, it reverted back to this one after a shift. Heart-shaped face, amber eyes. Yep. That was me. Victory Vaughn, scourge of demons.

Tina, stationed in a chair by the window, tossed me the jacket and I put it on. The wet T-shirt remained clammy against my skin, but at least there was a nice, thick layer of leather between my nipples and George’s leer.

“How are you feeling?” I asked him.

“Fine.” He sat up in bed and stretched. Then he put his hands behind his head and regarded me. “I’m just sorry to wake up. I was having a great dream—first good one I’ve had in weeks.” He waggled his eyebrows.

The best way to deal with this guy was to ignore the innuendo. Be professional. I opened my duffel bag and started packing my equipment. I unplugged the dream-portal generator (it shuts off automatically when a client wakes up) and wound the cord around its base. That went into the bag, followed by my InDetect, my utility belt, my pistol, and my extra bronze ammo. As I packed, I talked.

“Only sweet dreams for you from now on, George. You had about two dozen Drudes in there, but I got rid of them all.”

“Hey, I helped.” Tina sat up straight in her chair. Next to her loomed a small mountain of empty food containers: frozen pizza boxes, candy wrappers, an empty cellophane Oreo package, a squashed-flat potato chip bag. While I’d been putting out fires, she’d been cleaning out my client’s kitchen. George glanced at her, then his eyes widened. Confusion etched lines across his forehead.

“Weren’t you . . . ? I mean, didn’t you . . . ?” He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts.

Holding up a warning hand to keep Tina quiet, I watched George as he struggled with the wisp of a memory of Tina invading his dreamscape. “What is it, George?”

He shook his head again. “Nothing. I thought I dreamed about a zombie, but I can’t remember. It must be I saw her here, before I fell asleep, huh?”

“Must be.” I needed to make sure the reboot had taken hold. “Do you remember anything else about your dreams tonight?”

His eyes returned to my chest, like he had X-ray vision through leather, and he smiled again. “You were there. In a disco.”

“Anyone else?”

“Oh, um. My, uh, my mother.” Poor George’s cheeks couldn’t have been redder if I’d given him the slap he deserved.

I shot Tina a look. She was scraping the bottom of a carton of butter pecan ice cream. She had no clue what a huge problem she’d caused. She dropped the empty carton on the floor, then ripped open a box of Twinkies. She’d popped two into her mouth before I caught her eye. She shrugged, then unwrapped another Twinkie.

I was feeling confident that George’s dreamscape was whole and functioning, so I walked him through the usual post-extermination procedure. I read down the list of fears he’d provided at our first meeting: clowns, heights, elevators, falling, big dogs. With each item, he shook his head.

“Nope,” he said. “None of that stuff bothers me now. Amazing. I’ve been scared of clowns since I was two years old.” He scooched down in bed, closed his eyes, and started humming in a nasal falsetto. “Stayin’ Alive”—the song from his dream-disco. Well, if he was picturing himself as a young John Travolta, he was
still
dreaming.

I sat on the edge of the bed and held out a list of instructions, rattling the paper in his face. He blinked and sat up again.

“Follow these post-extermination instructions. You’ve already arranged to stay home from work tomorrow, right?” He nodded. “Because you need a full day’s rest. For the next week, no alcohol, no spicy food, no caffeine. And don’t eat sugar or sugary foods after nine P.M., either.” That last part shouldn’t be hard, since Tina had scarfed down every speck of sugar in the place.

George nodded again, still humming. He shimmied his shoulders and made little pointing gestures that were almost in time with the song.

“George, knock it off for a minute and listen to me.”

He blinked, slapped his own hand, and said, “Naughty Georgie.”

Tina’s bark of laughter sprayed Twinkie crumbs across the room.

I sighed and went on in my most businesslike tone. “It’s important for you to understand that Drude extermination is a temporary measure. I can offer some relief, but only you can slay your personal demons once and for all. That’s why I’ve included a list of local therapists who specialize in conquering phobias. Drudes feed on fear; unless you overcome your fears, the demons will return.”

Like most clients, George didn’t seem worried about that now. The demons were gone, and that was all they cared about. For the first time in weeks, months—even years, for some clients—they’d be able to get a good night’s sleep. And George was looking ready to snuggle back in for another round. His eyelids drooped and he leaned sideways on the pillow. His humming slowed to the tempo of a ballad, then faded out mid note.

“Hang on, George. We’ve got some paperwork to take care of.”

I made Tina clean up the debris from her pig-out while George signed the standard forms and—my favorite part—wrote out a check. As he handed it to me, a shadow darkened the room, like a huge, fast, pitch-black cloud flying across the face of the sun. The temperature plummeted about twenty degrees; the sudden chill prickled the back of my neck and raised goose bumps all over. I was glancing at the window to see if Tina had opened it to the October night air, when pain shot through my head and gut like a million-volt shock, doubling me over. My right hand clenched into a fist so tight I thought my fingers were breaking. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even begin to remember how.

And then it was gone.

When I could speak, I said, “Holy—Did you feel that?”

“You know”—George scooted closer—“I’ve been feeling
something
ever since I woke up and saw you here. What do you say you and I have dinner tomorrow night?”

From the doorway, Tina made a sound halfway between a snort and a squeal.

I felt too shaken to glare at either of them. “Sorry. I don’t date clients.” The trembling in my voice surprised me. Physically, I felt fine. Now. A slight tingle in my right forearm was the only trace of whatever the hell had blown through that room.

“Too bad.” George yawned. “Well, then, if you don’t mind, I’m feeling kinda tired.”

“We’ll let ourselves out. You get some rest. Come on, Tina.” I hoisted my duffel bag to my shoulder and walked to the doorway. Another chill hit me, and I looked back at George. He was already asleep, his mouth hanging slack like a child’s.

 

 

“DID YOU NOTICE ANYTHING STRANGE BACK THERE?” I tried to keep the apprehension out of my voice as we cruised through predawn suburban streets toward Boston. My right arm still tingled from whatever I’d sensed—if it was anything more than my imagination. Sometimes a strong dreamscape can make the outside world feel surreal for a while.

Tina laughed. “Strange? Are you kidding? This has been the strangest night
ever
.” She held her arms straight out in front of her, pretending she was turning a steering wheel. “Even sitting on this side of the car is kinda weird.”

We rode in my baby, a 1964 E-type Jaguar in classic racing green. My father had shipped it across the Atlantic when he moved here from Wales in 1975. Because of its right-hand drive, I sometimes got puzzled looks from other drivers. But Dad had taught me to drive in this car, and I loved it.

“I don’t mean ordinary strange,” I said. “I mean, did you feel anything creepy right before we left?”

“I can’t think of anything creepier than Georgie-poo asking you out on a date. He had snot in his moustache—did you see? Eww.”

If Tina had felt the force that swept through that bedroom, she wouldn’t be thinking about George Funderburk’s snotty moustache. Whatever it was had felt—there was only one word for it—
evil
.

But Tina hadn’t noticed. George hadn’t seemed to, either. I relaxed a little, feeling like I’d been holding my breath since Concord. I rubbed the tingling spot on my arm. The sensation was fading. It must’ve been the aftereffect of spending all that time in George’s dreamscape; I’d never been inside someone’s dreams for so long.

“So anyway,” Tina asked, “what happened in the big top after I got out of Weirdoland? I mean, you came through the portal looking like the third runner-up in a wet T-shirt contest.”

I ignored the third-runner-up crack. So what if Tina, zombified at fifteen, had a couple cup sizes on me? Slender but strong—that was how I liked to think of myself. Besides, it was time to tell her off for the trouble she’d caused.

“I had to extinguish the fire you started, remember?”

“Yeah, right. Uh-huh.” Tina’s smirk was just visible in the light from the dashboard. “You sure lit Georgie’s fire. Burn, baby, burn.” She launched into “Disco Inferno” in an earsplitting soprano.

Was I going to have to spend the entire night listening to
Disco’s Greatest Hits for the Tone-Deaf
? I clicked on the radio, set to my favorite classic rock station, and turned it up loud. “Born to Run” blared from the speakers. No way Tina could compete with The Boss at full volume. After a minute of trying, she shut up. I reached over and turned the volume back to a level that didn’t threaten hearing damage.

“So when’s our next job?” Tina asked.

“
Our
next job? Let me see. That’d be when hell freezes over or snow falls in July. Take your pick.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means there is no ‘next job.’ I’m not taking you with me again.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You ignored everything I said and acted like Mr. Funderburk’s dreamscape was your personal playground. That man hired me to kill his demons, not to cause permanent psychological damage—which you almost did. You blasted his mother with a flamethrower, for God’s sake.”

Tina didn’t answer. She folded her arms and slouched in her seat. As much as a zombie can slouch.

“I said you could come with me tonight as research for your school project.” Zombies had only recently gotten a school of their own. Tina had been in tenth grade when she died. Three years later, she was finally getting the chance to go back to high school. “I never said we were going into business together.”

“But . . . you told me you had more work than you could handle.”

It was true; I had said that. I was the only professional demon exterminator in Boston, and in the past year there’d been a spike in personal demon attacks. Not that I was complaining. The money was good, and I loved my work, being on the side of the forces of good and all that. It was just that sometimes I wouldn’t mind a little help.

But not from Tina. She’d ignored my instructions by jumping into George’s dream in the first place; once there, she made the proverbial bull in a china shop seem like some prim old lady at a tea party.

“Sorry, Tina. I’m not cut out for a partner. I work best alone.”

She started arguing, and I turned up the radio again to tune her out.

Up ahead on the right was a 24/7 Donuts. At the moment, coffee seemed like a wonderful idea. I pulled into the lot. Tina sat up, then pumped her fist in the air and shouted “Yes!”

“Nothing like a little snack to lift your mood, huh?”

“Hey, zombies eat. It’s what we do.”

“Yeah, but all that sugar?” I chose a space and shifted into Park. “You ate enough back at Mr. Funderburk’s to give an entire kindergarten class a week-long sugar rush.”

“I could eat every donut in that shop and I wouldn’t gain an ounce,” she said, getting out of the car. “It’s the only thing that doesn’t suck about being reanimated.”

The donut shop was typical of the kind you find in Boston—bright pinks and purples splashed across the walls and table-tops, long rows of donuts climbing the wall behind the counter. A fiftyish woman stood behind the cash register, her scowl clashing with her perky pink uniform. She held out her hand like a traffic cop.