Jeff Strand - A Bad Day for Voodoo

“No clue?”

“None.”

“No guesses?”

“None. I mean, it was something with voodoo, I assume.”

“I think you know something.”

“I don’t.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“I’m not going to stop bugging you.”

“Then we’re just wasting time.”

“So we waste time.”

“Don’t forget that the cabdriver has the doll.”

“Dammit!”

“It’ll be okay,” Adam assured me. “The doll has to be safe, or you’d be dead, right?”

I ignored that comment. “I’ve got his card. We’ll find a pay phone and call him. Maybe since he’s had a few minutes to chill out, he’ll be in a more understanding mood.”

I had to stay calm and think positive. Ultimately, what was the driver going to do with the doll? He wasn’t going to take a hacksaw to it or anything like that. There would probably be some blackmail involved, but that was okay. At this point, I was fine with a little light blackmail.

“What do we do with him?” asked Kelley, pointing to Mr. Click.

“Do we need to do anything with him?” Adam asked. “Let’s just go.”

“We can’t leave a zombie on the street.”

“Why not?”

“He’s dangerous.”

“Like that? Who’s he gonna outrun?”

“What if somebody sees what they think is a poor, injured man flailing around on the ground and go over to help?”

“Right. Because this place has been swarming with Good Samaritans so far. It’s unbelievable how many people ran over to help us with our carjacking problem. People had to take a number. I wish we’d had those flashing signal things you get at busy restaurants that let you know when your table is ready—it was a shame that people had to stand around waiting their turn to help us when they could’ve been window shopping!”

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” said Kelley, “but I’ll admit that was kind of clever.”

“Thank you.”

“But we obviously can’t just leave him crawling around in the street.”

“Should we put a ‘Warning: Zombie’ sign around his neck?” Adam asked.

“Stop being clever now.”

“If we had a car, we could hide him in the trunk,” I said. It was kind of a dumb thing to say, because we did not have a car, and if we’d had a car, it would have saved us all of our problems from the carjacking forward. Unfortunately, sometimes your mouth opens and words come out and they aren’t the greatest words in the world and there’s nothing you can do about it except hope to do better the next time you talk.

Kelley rolled her eyes. “If we had a car, we never—”

“I withdraw my comment.”

“What if we chopped off his head?” Adam asked.

“We’re not chopping off his head!” I said.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yes. My dumb comment about us having a car was a better idea.”

“He can’t hurt any innocent pedestrians without a head.” “Didn’t this whole thing start because you were scared that we’d go to jail for using the doll on him?” I asked. “We had a zero percent chance of actually getting caught for that.”

“Not zero,” said Adam.

“Zero point two.”

“Zero point six or seven at least.”

“Fine. But we at least agree that we probably weren’t going to jail for it, right?”

Adam shrugged.

“So if you were worried about getting caught for the voodoo doll, why in the world would you think there wouldn’t be a problem with dismembering him?”

“I didn’t say dismember. I said decapitate.”

“Same thing.”

“Well, sure, if you think that chopping off somebody’s arms, legs, and head is the same as just chopping off their head.” “You’re missing the point.”

“My point is that you’re accusing me of wanting to dismember an innocent man when I only wanted to decapitate him.”

“Well, we’re not doing either of them.”

“I bet if Kelley said we should chop his head off, we’d do it.” “I am absolutely not suggesting that we chop his head off,” said Kelley.

“But if you did.”

“Enough!” I shouted. “All we’re going to do is put him someplace where he won’t hurt anybody. Any ideas?”

“Let’s just drag him to the back of an alley,” said Adam. Kelley shook her head. “I don’t want to go into those alleys even without a zombie teacher.”

I looked around. “This is a little disrespectful,” I admitted, “but what about the sewer?”

“You mean flush him down the toilet?” Adam asked. “You get all whiny because I want to cut his head off, and now you’re suggesting we cut him into toilet-sized pieces?”

“Adam, think about what you’re saying.”

Adam was silent for a moment. “Okay, maybe I didn’t understand your plan.”

“We lift a manhole cover and throw him down. He won’t be able to hurt anybody down there, and if we need him, we’ll know where to find him. The worst thing that can happen is that rats chew on him.”

“You say ‘worst thing’ as if being eaten by rats wasn’t actually

the worst possible thing that could happen to somebody,” said Kelley, cringing.

“He’s a zombie. He won’t care,” I said.

“We don’t even know that he’s a zombie. He could be possessed.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s a zombie.”

“Either way, I’m not convinced that he can’t be fixed. If this happened to you, wouldn’t you want people to make sure that rats didn’t gnaw on your body? You’re all panicked about your foot, but he could wake up without a nose!”

“For the record, I’d like to say that I’ve been very easygoing about my toes,” I said. “I could be doing nothing but bawling and going ‘Wahh! My poor toes!’ but I’ve hardly mentioned them at all. So I’d like an apology.”

“I didn’t say that you were being a baby about them. I said you were panicked. And I’m saying that having your nose gnawed off by sewer rats is worse than losing two of your little toes.”

“I’m not sure I agree with.” I considered the two options. “Okay, the rat nose thing is worse. But still, we don’t have much choice. It’s either drop him in the sewer or drag him into an alley. And we don’t know how long we’ll have to leave him, so he might have time to crawl out of the alley and kill an old lady.” Kelley sighed. “Okay. Sewer then.”

INTERMISSION

Take a break and read The Hunger Games again.

CHAPTER 16

“So what if we let the air out of his tires, and then we rig the car so it crushes his arms when he goes to check? He can’t give you another F if he doesn’t have arms.”

“Seems extreme,” I said.

“Well...maybe his arms don’t actually have to come off. We could just make it so they don’t work anymore.”

Here’s the thing about Adam: I knew he was only kidding, but a small part of me suspected that he really would help me rig Mr. Click’s car to crush his arms if I asked. Does it make me look bad to admit that my best friend might be a tiny bit psychotic? I hope not.

Whoa. Why did the first chapter suddenly show up? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Must have been a software glitch. Sorry about the technical difficulties.. guess that intermission threw everybody off a little bit. We’ve got it sorted out now, though, and here’s the real Chapter 16.

In the movies, manhole covers look like they weigh about three ounces and are made out of Styrofoam. In real life, they weigh about 82,319 pounds and are made out of lead. Though the three of us finally lifted it out of the way, it was a semi- pathetic display of muscular power.

A couple of cars drove by, but they didn’t seem concerned with either the three hooligans moving a manhole cover or the onelegged man in a hospital gown crawling around on the road. (Both vehicles were polite enough to steer around him, although their concern may have been the cleanliness of their automobiles.)