Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 by Road Trip of the Living Dead

comforting.”
    The air whirred and the dust devil spun off into the field, pulling at the earth until he’d puffed into an impressive funnel. I stepped back from a puff of dust that rolled on the ground like a wave. In the distance, the ghost met up with two other dust devils. They swirled around each other as if in some square dance box step, and then scurried off in opposite directions. Gossip, presumably.
    Back inside the RV, Wendy was behind the steering wheel. “Jesus. What took you so long?”
    I slid into the passenger side. “I ran into a real dick.”
    “That seems to be happening a lot lately. Did you take care of him?”
    “More like he took care to finish off my shirt.” I flashed her the dirty spots.
    “All hands, huh?”
    “No hands, actually.”
    “Ew. Not sexy.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    As Wendy pulled the Winnebago back onto the freeway, I caught a glimpse of orange. The Mustang from earlier was parked on the side of the convenience store, the same tall sandy-haired man leaning against it.
    Watching.
    42 Over time, one becomes a connoisseur.
    43 Will you shut up already and apply for a research grant. I don’t know everything, Mother.
    44 A note to closeted homosexuals: keeping secrets has a tendency to make one a tad bitter over time, or so Gil says. That bitterness affects the flavor and consistency of your blood. Think about the vampires for once and get some therapy; only you can save a palate.
    45 A sentence I never expected to write, I assure you.
    46 … and I hate that.
    47 A perfect example of why I hate memories. Secrets pop up. Yes. My real name is Amanda Shutter. I had it changed during college. One of my feeble attempts to escape my mother’s reach. New name. New city. Not a chance.
    48 If you haven’t noticed, zombies aren’t big on sleep. We’re not wired for it.
    49 Thank you.
    50 Damn you, Ethel! Just when you think you’ll do things differently.

Chapter 7

Snacking at America’s
Favorite Child Abuse
Palace
    Tired of the same old same old? Remember the Golden Rule: prey upon those that have few praying for them. Sure it’s sad, poverty is a curse. But, you’ll never run out of tasty options if you stick to cruising the low-end retailers. Happy Hunting.
    —Tips for the Modern Dead
    We found the thrift store equivalent of a KOA just south of Coeur d’Alene—The Shady Glen Campground and Swap Meet proved a perfect hideout, dark, decrepit and deeply set into a hillside sluice. Where better to hide a moldy Winnebago and a lethargic vampire, only an hour into a bad blood hangover? The place was so run down, it wasn’t likely to gather many guests, unless the homeless were on holiday. 51
    Twelve grassy camper slots overlooked a tin-roofedcabana, its grayed clapboard walls so worn and knotty a deer had better not take a piss or it would sag and collapse. The sign on the front read: The Washout— which is exactly what would happen in the next big rain—I was fairly certain.
    A ramshackle cottage, tin-roofed, with paint peeling off of it in ribbons, sat in the webbing between the two hills. I was detecting a theme. 52 Cheap roofing and wood rot: downtrodden as the new cozy. Lovely. It’s a good thing I didn’t sleep anymore because there was no way I’d be closing my eyes in this shithole. Open them and find a toothless overalled hick named Hoss pumping away at your behind with a pud like a corncob. Not a pleasant image.
    Near the front of the property was the swap meet. The sale was no more than a barn filled with tables of crap that overflowed past the doors into piles of damp stuffed animals (bound for Sugar Loaf machines near you), racks of clothing (again, insipidly western-inspired), and metal-rimmed wagon wheels (destined for someone’s exterior decorating mishap or—God help us—a coffee table.
    Wendy ran into the cottage and registered for a place to park the monster, and after a particularly heinous scuffle with some tree branches—Mr. Kim shouting