Q walks behind the checkout counter and opens a cabinet underneath. “You really gon’ try to bust Surfer Boy outta jail?”
“Um … yeah. I guess.” I shrug, losing confidence by the second.
“Good. Here.” A pink bundle flies across the room, hitting me square in the chest.
I groan as I catch it, smelling a hint of cigarette smoke and hazelnut coffee wafting off the shiny fabric.
“Is this … my duffel bag?” I hold it out and look it over in the dim light. I haven’t seen it since Carter dumped it out in front of Q yesterday—God, was that only yesterday?—when he tried to bust Wes for hoarding supplies. It feels like everything must still be in here.
“Take ya shit, and go get my boy. Hawaii Five-Oh’s too damn pretty to get turned into muhfuckin’ plant food.” Q shakes her head with sincerity. “Best scout I eva had.”
I don’t even know what to say. I thought she was going to kill me—or at least beat the crap out of me—and here she is … helping me?
“What about Quint and Lamar?”
“Who, them?” Q flicks her chin at something over my shoulder.
I turn my head to find the Jones brothers standing on the other side of the hall, huddled together but still watching my back.
“I ain’t got no use for those pussies. I hope you fuckin’ take ‘em.”
“But you said—”
“Listen, bitch. I said what I said ’cause you was disrespectin’ me in front of my crew. I snatched ya face ’cause you was disrespectin’ me in front of my crew. But the truth is, the faster y’all get the fuck up out my castle, the betta. I got enough mouths to feed.”
“Thank you, Q. Really. I don’t—”
“Eh, eh, eh, eh,” she cuts me off with an aggravated wave of her hand. “Get the fuck outta here. Go on now, ’fore I change my mind and shoot yo’ ass.”
I nod at the dreadlocked lioness and turn around to claim my last remaining friends.
Quint’s and Lamar’s eyes go wide as I walk out of the queen’s lair with blood dripping down my face and a pink duffel bag in my arms.
“Y’all wanna take a ride downtown?” I ask with an exhausted smile.
“Fuck yeah!” Lamar punches the air in front of him.
“You sure about this?” Quint asks, his eyebrows pulling together as we turn and walk toward the main entrance.
“Quint,” I warn. “Without Wes, you’d be—”
“I know; I know. I’m in. I just wanna make sure you thought about—oh shit. Look!” Quint raises a finger, and I follow his stare down the hall to the main entrance doors.
Right outside, perfectly visible through all the panes of missing glass, a swarm of Bonys has descended upon the Renshaws’ truck like it’s a two-ton piñata. Hoots and hollers and glass breaking and metal smashing echo down the corridor as they take their crowbars and spray-paint cans and steel-toed boots to the massive GMC.
“No!” I scream, shoving my duffel bag into Lamar’s arms as I take off running down the hallway.
“Rain! Stop!”
But I can’t. This is the moment when Wes would chastise me for being “impulsive.” Yell at me for “not listening.” Tell me I have “a death wish.” But Wes isn’t here. And the only hope I have of getting to him before he’s not here for good is that damn truck.
Crash!
A man in a leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet with nails drilled through it from the inside out smashes the driver’s side window as his buddy in a zombified clown mask spray-paints the words DEATH TO SHEEP in two-foot-tall letters on the side of the dented white truck. A third guy wearing a Scream mask climbs up onto the hood and holds a crowbar over his head in a stabbing motion aimed at the windshield. All three of them have on black jackets with neon-orange skeleton bones spray-painted on them.
“Stop!” I scream, pushing through the exit door and waving my hands in the air. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
My hands drop to my sides in relief when they actually do stop, but then my heart climbs into my throat as I look for an escape route when all three of their heads turn toward me like snakes spotting a mouse.
“Please,” I say, holding my hands up. “There’s a purse on the passenger seat. Take it. Take whatever you want, just … please leave the truck.”
Pinhead and the undead clown glance at each other with a chuckle, which turns into full-blown maniacal laughter as they turn and walk toward me in unison.
“Take whatever we want, huh?” the guy with the nails sticking out of his helmet asks with a snaggletooth sneer.
The rotting clown makes a slurping sound as he flicks his tongue in and out of the rubbery mouth hole on his mask.
I don’t even realize I’ve been walking backward until my heel hits one of the metal doors behind me.
“Whoa!” the guy in the Scream mask exclaims from somewhere near the truck.
His friends turn, and I watch as he pulls my dad’s Smith & Wesson revolver out of Agnes’s purse. She must have stashed it in there after she swiped it from me yesterday.
“Holy shit, bro!” Pinhead exclaims. “That looks like the gun from Dirty Harry!”
“Who the fuck carries a .44 Magnum?” The creepy clown chuckles. “Fuckin’ thing weighs, like, six pounds and only shoots six bullets!”
The guy holding the revolver lifts his mask to reveal the rounded baby face of a kid no older than Lamar. But these guys don’t treat him like a kid. They step aside so that he can approach me, eyes narrowed, gears turning.
“I know a dude who carries a gun just like this,” he says, lifting the revolver in his hand. “You know him?”
I don’t have to ask who he’s talking about. There’s a sadness in his tone, a fondness, a sense of loss that I recognize.
“Yeah.” I nod, this single ounce of compassion making my chest ache and my eyes sting.
“I saw him on TV today,” the kid says, softening his tone.
“Oh shit! The nerd?” Pinhead asks.
“No, dumbass,” the boy snaps back. “The dude from the sentencing. He was the one who used to come into the CVS all the time and pay me in hydro.”
“Ohhhh, that guy. Yeah, he cool.”
“That’s …” I clear my throat, hoping they won’t hear my voice shaking. “That’s why I need the truck. I’m gonna go to the capitol, and … I don’t know … try to …” I can’t even say it out loud. It sounds so stupid. It is stupid.
But it wouldn’t be if I had help.
“Hey … you guys could come too.” I try to smile, but it feels like a grimace. “Since you knew him. Know him, I mean. You could help me—”
The zombified clown snorts into his rubber mask as his helmeted buddy erupts into hysterics.
“Do we look like muhfuckin’ customer service to you?” The clown chuckles.
“Yeah,” Pinhead blurts out through his hyena-like laughter, clicking his heels together and giving me a salute. “Do we look like fuckin’ Captain America and shit?”
As his friends keel over, laughing, the kid shakes his head and levels me with a sympathetic stare. “Listen, I’m sorry your man caught a case, but we ain’t exactly in the helpin’ business.”