He took his hand away and frowned at me. “Rose?”
“Yeah. Considering I’m heading into one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, let alone the country, with a nutso Southern girl carrying a bunch of guns, who wants to hunt down some zombies, yeah I really hope I can trust her. Well, can I?”
He nodded grimly. “I’d trust her with my life. I’m sure she’d be no different with yours.”
Great.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You know, I appreciate how fast we’re racing around here, but I think if you want to see some zombies, you’re going to have to drive just a tiny bit slower,” I said to Rose. “It’s not like zombies are known for being Olympic sprinters.”
We’d been driving around Treme and some other inner city ghetto that Rose had dubbed “No Man’s Land” for about an hour. Despite her guns in the crew cab, she was playing it extremely safe, which meant driving fast and running every single stop sign or red light. She said the minute we slowed down or stopped was the minute we were car-jacked, which I thought might be a slight exaggeration. That was until I think we witnessed a robbery at a 7-Eleven and a drug deal dispute that spilled out onto the road, guns blazing, and I realized that it was good that Rose was erring on the side of caution.
Still, if she really thought we were going to find any zombies, we’d need to go a bit slower.
“Fine,” she said, but didn’t let up on the gas. “I’m not getting a bad vibe here anyway.”
“You’re not? Because the minute I see people waving guns in public, I know the vibe ain’t good.”
She glared at me, her eyes flashing orange and grey in the passing streetlights, her hair taking on the color of a creamsicle. “Supernatural vibe. Don’t you ever pick up on that?”
“I did earlier in the week,” I admitted. “Guess I just haven’t been paying attention lately.”
“Well, I reckon whatever we’re looking for we would have picked up on already. Let’s just head back to the Quarter.”
I exhaled in relief. That sounded like a plan. Each minute we were away, I felt like Perry was being taken further and further from me. It had taken so much to get her to open up as much as she did, to let herself be vulnerable with me, and now I was afraid that door was closing and I’d never get that chance again. Yes, it was all of my doing but I couldn’t help but go over what Rose had said earlier, that it wasn’t over unless I let it be.
“Thinking about Perry?” Rose asked after a few minutes.
I stared at the window, at the darkness that did all but swallow the abandoned vehicles, the splintering houses, the people who watched the street with angry eyes waiting for an excuse to let the world know how pissed off they were at the shit hands they were dealt.
“I’m always thinking about her,” I said.
“Dex,” she began, maybe another reminder that love was worth fighting for, maybe another condolence. But it sounded like her words were getting strangled in her throat. I turned to look at her, concerned. She was staring straight ahead of her, eyes wide, mouth open in surprise.
In our hurry to get back to the Quarter, she had pulled the truck down a long, dark street where low cars weren’t loitering and people weren’t yelling. I guess hoping to bypass the worst area and cut through to one of the main drags.
But this street wasn’t as harmless or as abandoned as it looked. At the very end of it, near the lights and bustling traffic of the main thoroughfares, there was a mob of people standing in the middle of the road. There looked to be about twenty or thirty of them, but they were too far away to make out any individual features. At the moment they just seemed to be standing there, swaying back and forth on their feet. A group of people waiting for something.
“Neighborhood watch meeting?” I asked, though I was getting this particularly unsettling feeling, like my scalp was prickling.
“I don’t think so, sugar,” Rose said uneasily and slowed the truck down. “I reckon we better turn around.”
“Good idea,” I said. She checked in the rear view mirror to make sure no one was behind us, and was about to turn the wheel when suddenly the truck sputtered and rolled to a stop, halfway across the shoddily-painted dividing lane.
“The hell?” she cried out, slamming down on the gas. The pedal flopped under her weight. The truck had completely died, lights dimming down to nothing. She frantically tried the ignition, but the key wouldn’t even turn. “Shit, sorry, but shit, shit, shit!”
My heart had finagled its way out of my chest and up to my throat. I kept my eyes on the mob in front of us, watching them as closely as I could. At the moment they were too far away to be a threat, whoever they were and whatever they were doing. But if the truck didn’t start soon, we were going to get noticed. And if we got noticed by this mob in one of the New Orleans’ ghettos, I had a feeling things were going to get real ugly.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked her, afraid to look away, afraid that if I did, the people would somehow notice. At least the headlights were off now. “Does this always happen when you’re in immediate danger?”
“I don’t know!” She began pounding her hand on the wheel in anger. “I don’t know, it’s never done this. It’s just dead. Shit!”
“Okay,” I said slowly. So far the group of people were staying put, maybe not even facing our direction. Perhaps luck was on our side. “Do you know anything about cars?”
She gave me a disgusted look and quickly opened the door, hopping out of her seat and going for the hood. I jumped out too, the air cooler now and slightly damp. Though the houses on either side of the street were derelict and abandoned, I felt like a million eyes were watching me. That uneasy feeling on the back of my head slowly extended down my neck, down my spine, tickling my ass and balls.
“Do you have any experience at this?” Rose asked as she popped the rusty hood. I winced at the jagged noise she was creating and looked again to see if the crowd of people had noticed. They were still standing there, not moving, swaying like reeds in a light breeze.
“I have no idea how to fix it, if that’s what you’re asking,” I told her. “But a similar thing happened to me in New Mexico once.”
“Yeah, and?”
“I think it was the work of a few evil shamans.” I quickly glanced at her. The realization spread across her face. Of course this wasn’t her dependable truck just randomly malfunctioning. This was the work of a Bokor. Which meant…