Jeff Strand - A Bad Day for Voodoo

I was still proud. Then, of course, I remembered my ear and my toes and the pain, and my sense of pride was replaced by pain and panic and stuff.

“I understand why you did that,” said Mildred. “Harm my children again, and I’ll kill you, but I’m letting that one go. Now let’s get out to the minivan, so we can go to the junkyard, so you can outwit the cabdriver, so you can get the doll back.”

CHAPTER 22

Franklin was still unconscious in the living room. I don’t mean to be rude, but what a freaking wuss.

Mildred and Glenn decided to leave Donna and Franklin behind, a decision of which I totally approved, but Glenn and Kelley carried Adam (now with his shirt back on) out of the house and put him on the rear seat of their dark blue minivan. The back of the van was covered with bumper stickers advertising several different religions, and the dashboard was lined with bobble- heads of religious figures who can’t/couldn’t possibly have been happy with that kind of depiction.

Adam could move his arms a little, so the venom was wearing off, which was good, because despite his lack of helpfulness so far, we might need him later.

Kelley and I sat in the second row of seats while Glenn drove and Mildred sat in the front passenger seat. “We need a plan,” I said, holding what had once been a purple towel against my head. (It was still a towel, just not purple.)

Mildred turned around and looked at us. “Excuse me, young man, but we’re right here. We can hear you.”

“Not a plan against you. A plan against the driver.”

“Oh. That would make more sense.” She turned back around. A small suitcase rested on my lap. It did not have ten thousand dollars inside. Instead, it contained a few newspapers (approximate value: $2.75). If Zeke actually opened the suitcase, we were pretty much solidly screwed, but my hope was that there was a way to get him to do the trade without opening it. Not likely, I know. If we’d had more time, we could have come up with a plan better than “Hope Bad Guy Doesn’t Open Suitcase Containing Blackmail Money,” but we didn’t.

“Can you sit up yet?” I asked Adam.

Adam very slowly sat up, wincing with the effort. “Do you think spider venom has any long-term effects?”

“You mean like superpowers?”

“No, that would be a nerdy thing to ask. I meant like muscle damage.”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better, aren’t you?”

I removed the bloody towel from my ear. “Do you think I want you to feel better?”

“Okay, point taken. So I think I have a plan to get the doll back,” he said. “It’s kind of crazy, but it might just work. What if we.?”

“No,” I said, thirty-six seconds later. “Are you sure?”

“No. We’re not using that plan.”

“But if we—”

“No. Kelley is our planner.”

“I would just like to point out, and I’m not trying to be disrespectful to her intelligence or anything, but it’s not like things have been all sunshiny since you asked Kelley for help.. .and yes, I see her eyes narrowing right now, and so I’d like to blame my comment on the venom. Kelley’s awesome. I’m done talking.” “He’s right, though,” said Kelley. “We need a better plan.”

I nodded. “But not that one.”

“Oh no, of course not. God, no. Not that one.”

“It would’ve worked,” said Adam.

“No, it wouldn’t have,” I said. “But we can do this. We’re smarter than a cabdriver. Maybe he’s more street-smart than we are, since he’s a cabdriver, but we’re more book-smart. We can come up with a plan!”

Glenn pulled the minivan in front of the junkyard. We still didn’t have a plan. Or at least a good one. We had several bad plans and several plans that would be good if we had the necessary equipment like a military tank.

Mildred dialed her phone and handed it to me. Zeke answered. “I see you. Get out of the soccer mom van. Alone. Tell them to drive away. I’m holding a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade up to the doll’s throat right now, so don’t try anything that makes me nervous. Understand?”

“I understand,” I told him, even though, quite honestly, a tiny little pin would’ve worked just as well as a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade.

“Good.”

I sighed and did my best to summon the necessary courage. “Wish me luck,” I said.

“Why the hell would I wish you luck?” asked Zeke.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” I hung up the phone and gave it back to Mildred. “After I get out, you’re supposed to drive away. He wasn’t specific, but I don’t think you have to drive all the way home or anything like that. Just park a couple of blocks away.”

Kelley stifled a sob and then leaned over and gave me a passionate kiss on the lips. It was as if for one moment all of our problems had disappeared and our souls were joined as one... although I also have to say that vampires are lying to you about kissing with blood on your lips being arousing. It’s really kind of gross. Don’t try it.

“Be careful,” said Adam. “We need you to come back in one piece.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “I could be headed to my death, and you think the last thing I want to hear is a joke like that?”

“What?” Adam looked genuinely confused, and then realization hit him. “Ooohhhh. No, I wasn’t trying to be funny. I honestly wasn’t even thinking about your missing toes and ear. That’s just what you say to people. My bad.”

“Look, I know I don’t have much time,” I said. “And I don’t want to make any big speeches because I’m pretty sure I’m not going to die. But I am going to put myself in a situation where the guy with my life in his hands could go into a murderous rage, so if it does come to that, I’m gonna miss you guys.”

Now Adam had tears in his eyes. “We’re gonna miss you too.”

“So, um, I don’t know how I’m going to behave if he really does decide to kill me. I’d like to think that I’ll be dignified about it, but I can’t promise that. What I’d like to ask is that if I do anything that you know I wouldn’t want to be part of my legacy.I don’t mean crying, that’s okay, but if I do anything that’s utterly embarrassing, just completely cowardly and pathetic, could you leave that part out when you tell people about this? I mean, you don’t have to say that I acted like Conan the Barbarian or anything like that. Just don’t share anything where my family would be glad I’m dead.”

“We’ve got you covered,” Adam promised.

Mildred pressed a button, and the electric rear door of the minivan slowly slid open with a loud whirring noise. I gave Kelley one last kiss and then got out of the vehicle. The electric door slowly slid closed again, and the minivan drove away, leaving me alone on the sidewalk, holding the suitcase.

It would be okay.

Certainly no harm could come to a teenage boy holding a suitcase in a high-crime area after dark.

I stood there for a moment, my heart racing, my stomach in knots, and my elbow twitching. And without a family of psychos to distract me, I had the opportunity to reflect upon how much my ear hurt.

It really hurt.

I could barely think straight. It’s not as if I had been making quality decisions before my ear exploded or even before my toes launched, but this was like trying to concentrate with a million stinging fire ants squirming around in my ear canal.

I kept standing there. It would definitely be anticlimactic if I bled to death before he showed up. The rest of this book would just be blank pages. I was feeling woozy, but I’d been feeling woozy most of the night, so I didn’t worry about it.