Joyce & Jim Lavene - Taxi for the Dead 02 - Dead Girl Blues (2 page)

As she crossed the bridge, I revved the truck engine and forced the vehicle to jump the ditch. A tire flew off and rolled away on the passenger side when I landed, but the momentum from the jump kept the truck moving. Several pieces of the tailpipe dropped on the ground. I felt the back axle give way.

I didn’t care. I pushed open the driver door and jumped out into the half-dead meadow grass, rolling until I got to my feet.

Jane’s face was a mask of astonishment. She wouldn’t have done what I did because she valued the old truck. That was my secret.

That, and I didn’t have to worry about dying. She didn’t either since she was technically already dead. Most of Abe’s people just didn’t get it.

I ran close to her as she tried to speed up after leaving the bridge. She couldn’t quite reach the shot gun that was tied on the back. I aimed the tranq gun at her and fired a dart that hit her in the shoulder.

The four-wheeler rolled over as she lost control of it while trying to remove the dart. By that time, it was too late. She’d dropped off the vehicle as the fast-acting tranquilizer took effect. It crashed into an old elm tree as she rolled on the ground, almost asleep at my feet.

There were tears in her blue eyes as she stared pitifully up at me. “Why? Why couldn’t you leave me alone?”

“I’m sorry. It has to be this way. You don’t realize it, but you can’t stay undead for more than the twenty years Abe gave you.” I knelt beside her. “Be glad you didn’t get away. You would’ve come back and killed everyone you cared about.”

Chapter Two

The truck was scrap, but I got the four-wheeler running again. I called Debbie’s cell phone and then tossed Jane’s unconscious body across my lap as I left the meadow. The van was waiting on the road.

“That was rough.” Debbie helped me with Jane. “Why do people run? They made the deal. They got the twenty years. They should honor it.”

I made sure Jane was comfortable on the seat and that she wouldn’t roll off. “They made the deal with Abe for the extra time in the first place. They didn’t want to die. They don’t want to leave now either. I hope I won’t be the same when my time comes, but who knows?”

Abe gave us a bonus, besides our salary, for every person we brought home to him. It was less when we brought them in unconscious. It bothered him for us to use any kind of force. We bargained with them when we could—threatened or knocked them out when we had to. The job was hard when you understood how much each person was leaving behind.

But it had to be done. I’d seen the ghouls the LEPs became when their time was up. I hoped never to see one again.

It was dark by the time we’d reached Nashville. Jane was awake and bleakly staring out the window in the backseat. She hadn’t tried to get away again. Debbie was listening to music with headphones—we’d had a few strong disagreements on music.

“Doesn’t this ever get to you?” Jane asked as we passed the Welcome to Nashville sign.

“All the time, but it has to be done.” I caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. “If it makes you feel any better, it’ll happen to me one day too. I’m a zombie just like you.”

“I’d tried to kill myself the day Abe saved me.” She shook her head. “I’d just found out my husband of twenty-two years was cheating on me. He’d said he was leaving. My kids were grown. I wanted to die.”

“At least you thought you wanted to die, right?”

“That’s right. When you’re lying there, and everything starts getting dim, you realize how precious life is. I would’ve done anything to take back what I’d done.” She held her wrist scars up for my inspection. “That’s why I agreed to work for Abe.”

“What did you do for him?”

She shrugged. “I worked at a nuclear power station. I gave him reports. It wasn’t much.”

I wasn’t surprised. The zombies—LEPs— came from all over and did a variety of jobs. Some of the workers made sense—accountants, stock brokers, lawyers, and police officers. Some of them, only he understood. I couldn’t imagine why Abe needed someone who worked at a power station.

 “What did you do before?” she asked. “How did you die?”

“I was a Nashville police officer. My husband and I died in a car wreck. He didn’t make it long enough to be offered the deal. My little girl would’ve been left alone if I hadn’t taken Abe’s offer. Now I pick people up in my taxi for the dead when it’s their time. Go figure.” I stared at the lights of the city around us.

Most of the people Abe brought back worked at their past employment. I was almost the only one who didn’t. I’d fought with him about it. He said he needed a resourceful driver to pick up his people, not another cop.

But what I did made me feel more like a bounty hunter.

She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry. I guess we only see our own problems.”

“That’s okay. I don’t regret staying for her. I guess things got better for you when you came back.”

“Yes. My husband has been faithful for the past twenty years. Our children have had grandchildren. Life has been sweet.” She began sobbing quietly again.

“You’ve had your time. Someone else gets to have their twenty years now. It’s fair.”

Headlights flashed toward us, but not from the direction they should have been. A heavy, older vehicle was rushing toward us, no slowing down. I called out a warning to Debbie and our passenger just before the car T-boned the van.

Debbie squealed as she was pushed against the door. We were propelled sideways into a brick wall. The heavy van rocked once or twice before the engine died and steam started sputtering out from under the hood.

“What the hell?” A trickle of blood slid down from my forehead. There was a sharp pain in my wrist. The car backed up and the headlights came our way again.

I took out my Beretta.

“It’s my husband,” Jane yelled. “This was the second part of our plan in case I couldn’t get away at the house. I’ll stop him. He doesn’t understand. Please don’t hurt him.”

She wasn’t tied up. The seatbelt slipped from her quickly, and she scrambled out the back door.

“Yeah. Like I believe that.” My seatbelt was stuck. It was one of the old kind that was just a lap belt. I cut it with the Swiss Army knife I always kept in my pocket, the material easily giving way.

My door was another thing. It was too crushed to open.

“What are you gonna do?” Debbie asked as she stumbled into the backseat. Her door was pinned closed against the building. She couldn’t get out that way. “You can’t kill her.”

Debbie and I got out the back door. Jane was making good on her promise to stop her husband. She stood between the van and his car, silhouetted in the bright headlights. Even though she was keeping the car from hitting the van again, that didn’t mean her protection would last.

“The plan hasn’t changed,” I told Debbie. “We’re still a few blocks away from the mortuary. We’ll get her and walk.”

But it appeared Jane had changed her mind. Once she convinced her husband not to slam his older Mercedes into the van again, she climbed into the car beside him, and they took off.

“She’s gone,” Debbie sighed. “How are we going to find her again in this traffic?”

“Call Abe and let him know there’s been a snag.” I spied a motorcycle parked on the side of the street close next to us. It took me a few minutes, but I hot-wired it and got behind Jane and her husband in the heavy mass of cars.

Despite their lead time, it was easy to catch them and keep up. Cars and trucks were bumper to bumper as police tried to clear an accident. I stayed with them, waiting for traffic to slow and stop as it reached the blue and red flashing lights ahead of us.

I impatiently wiped the blood still running down my face. This might be a messy pickup, but Abe better have a bonus waiting when I got Jane back to the mortuary.

Horns blew, impatience bringing out the worst in everyone. One good thing about a motorcycle was being able to weave in and out of traffic. I got up beside the Mercedes on the sidewalk. As soon as it stopped for the accident, I abandoned the motorcycle for a more direct approach.

Walking up to the side of the car, I shot out both tires on the passenger’s side. They weren’t going anywhere now.

Jane yelped when I opened the car door and pulled her out. “I understand why it’s important for me to go back to Abe. I just can’t convince my husband.”

It was a weak excuse, but I could see the terror in her eyes. It ended up being a diversion as her husband got out of the Mercedes and stalked around to us with a pistol in his hand.

“Leave her alone. Let her go—or I swear I’ll kill you.”

I stared into his terrified eyes. “You can’t kill me. I’m already dead, just like your wife. You have to let this happen. You don’t have any choice.”

He was desperate enough to shoot me. I didn’t want him to do that even though I’d heal. It still hurt. I didn’t want to shoot him either. And it wasn’t only because I’d lose my bonus.

People were starting to notice what was happening even with the heavy traffic. It wasn’t long before we heard sirens approaching.

“Good,” he mocked me. “The police will sort this out. I don’t think they’ll believe that my wife is dead. But they’ll believe that you attacked us without provocation.”

I felt sorry for the Darcys. They had no idea what was going on and probably believed the police would get them out of this. But Abe had people everywhere. There was no going back to the life they’d known.

I holstered my weapon and raised my hands as the police officers swarmed over us. They took all of us to the nearest police station. We were separated, and I was detained in a small room by myself.

There were voices in the hall, and phones were ringing. They’d taken my cell phone so I amused myself by reading the scribbling on the walls for about thirty minutes. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the right police officer—one of Abe’s people—finally figured out what was going on.

The door opened, and a handsome young cop nodded to me. “You’re free to go. Abe wants to see you right away.”

“What about Jane Darcy?”

“That’s already been taken care of.”

Which meant no bonus for me and Debbie.

I walked into the hall, ready for this day to be over. Mr. Darcy was seated inside another small room with the door partially open. Jane wasn’t with him. He was sobbing, his head bent forward.

What could I say that hadn’t been said? I hated it, but he saw me.

 “All we wanted was a few more months,” he said. “Our youngest granddaughter is about to graduate from college. Jane just wanted to see her finish. Was that so much to ask?”

I had no answer to his sorrow or mine for that matter. I needed a drink, and I needed to see my daughter. I left him there without a word.

Chapter Three

I was surprised to see Debbie waiting outside the police station. The weather had turned, and heavy clouds hung over the mountains in the distance. No doubt people were praying for rain.

Sometimes I felt so far from the normal, everyday aspects of life that nothing seemed to mean anything. I didn’t care if there was a drought or there was flooding. I didn’t follow the Tennessee State Volunteers anymore. I got through Christmas for my daughter. It was as though part of me never came back to life at all.

I’d decided it was my heart, thinking about it through many long, sleepless nights. The organ was still beating in my chest, but it was empty of emotions. It was the twenty-first century. We all knew emotions came from some part of your brain. But it was my heart that felt dark and lifeless.

“Abe sent me back for you.” She shrugged. “What are we gonna do about the van?”

“He’ll have it fixed like he always does.”

“Why doesn’t he buy you a new one? I’m sure he could afford it. You know he must be rich after all these years.”

We started walking up the sidewalk together toward Simon’s Mortuary and Deadly Ink, Abe’s tattoo shop next door. Traffic was still heavy. People rushed by us on the sidewalk with their heads down, destinations and plans for the evening in mind. Women clutched their bags, and men held their briefcases close to them.

“I don’t speculate on Abe’s finances,” I told her. “As long as he pays me, I don’t care. I suppose if the van is ever wrecked badly enough he’ll get a new one or at least another used one.”

“Yeah, but how are we supposed to get home?”

“He’ll think of something. He always does. You gotta figure he’s been at this for a long time. His first drivers must’ve had wagons and horses. Who knows what will come after us?”

Having a free moment, Debbie started her daily diatribe on what was happening with her husband. “So things have gotten even weirder with Terry. I’m not sure what to do.”

She’d agreed to take on the twenty-year service for Terry, a cop, after he’d been shot and killed at a convenience store robbery. Debbie was the only LEP that I knew of that had done such a thing.

Abe had visions of them being together—we all knew it. Debbie was devoted to her husband and two children. I didn’t see them having a relationship any time soon. Still Abe courted her in his weird way. I was glad I didn’t have to face that problem.

But again, like Abe’s magic affected his dead workers after twenty years, something unusual had begun happening with Debbie’s husband too.

“He won’t eat anything but raw meat now,” she continued. “It has to be really bloody too. I had to start going to a friend of ours who hunts. The meat in the store was too clean and old for him. What do you think of that?”

Considering the last time I’d seen Terry, his legs had become shorter and covered in thick hair, I didn’t know what to say. He was going through some sort of transformation—into what I wasn’t sure. I knew Debbie was frightened by it, but it was beyond my understanding. It wasn’t like I was knowledgeable about supernatural happenings before this. I’d been learning about things as I went along.

“How is he doing with the kids?” I asked. Debbie had a daughter, Raina, who was eight like my daughter, Kate. She also had a teenage son, Bowman, who was fourteen.

“They don’t seem to notice what’s going on with him,” she said. “Bowman doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore. I think it’s because he’s so disappointed about Terry quitting the highway patrol. Bowman still wants to be a cop, too, even though his father was shot and killed—not that I would ever tell him about that.”