Speakeasy Dead: a P.G. Wodehouse-Inspired Romantic Zombie Comedy (Hellfire Universe Historicals) (16 page)

The music started. Gilda Gray flung herself furiously into a chair. And Beau and Ruth began the worst train wreck of a foxtrot the world has ever seen.

They couldn’t do it. They simply didn’t fit. I’d read that dead people are isolated, that they only connect emotionally when they touch someone alive. Now watching Beau and Ruth, I understood. They tried. They really did, but there was just no spark between them.

Thirty seconds into the song, Gilda Gray laughed wildly and swept the dishes off of a table onto the floor. Two men lifted her onto the surface. She threw her hands out, thrust her hips forward and, with no partner at all, started shaking her shoulders.

The shimmy.
Oh no!

People began to look her way, hypnotized. All the dancers, Beau and Ruthie included, slid to a stop. Gilda’s feathers jiggled. Her hips swayed side-to-side. Half of her seemed to dance one way, while the other half wiggled in place.

Mr. Aimsley, peeking between Presbyterian fingers, sank onto a barstool. Several other men sat down in chairs.

“Say!” Ruth grimaced. “That isn’t dancing!”

People began clapping with the music. Gilda’s feathers shimmied harder.

“Say!” Ruth pushed the dishes off another table and leapt on top. “Say, I can do that!” The next instant she was shaking too. The genie stomped her feet. She hopped up and down. She held her arms out, elbows bent, and shimmied her shoulders. The red and black beads on her stunning dress flashed in the light.

“I got it!” The genie squealed. “I got it!” Ruth’s curved figure jiggled in perfect time.

Mr. Aimsley fanned his face with his clipboard. Girls on the dance floor began to join in. Within seconds, the entire room was full of shimmying females. Men stomped and cheered wildly until the song raced to a stop.

Silence swept the room. It was precisely eight o’clock.

The crowd held its breath as Miss Pinn strode to the semi-finalist board. In the last remaining space she wrote: Gilda Gray.

I swallowed disappointment, and fear, and a last silent apology to my family. And then I gripped the hellfire in my pocket and nodded to the demon.

Hans took my free wrist, grasping tightly, hurting my skin.

Miss Pinn squeezed one more name into the bottom slot: Ruth.

Could it be possible? Was I imagining things? Had we just tied for last?

I yanked my wrist away from Hans. “We made it!”

Ruth had qualified for the semi-finals. I had another twenty-four hours before I lost my bet.

“I did it!” Ruth leapt off of the table and kissed Beau. Then she dashed toward me across the floor. “I got—” She skidded to a frightened stop. “Oh, no!”

“Don’t worry.” I hugged her. “You did great! We’ll practice harder tomorrow.”

Ruth wasn’t looking at me. She was watching Hans, who seemed to be sucking a large sour lemon.

“I had to,” she whimpered. “Please, boss. You know I had to try my best.”

“Your best,” Hans observed drily. “Proved unexpectedly good.”

“You!” I shoved between them. “You, leave her be!” I’d had enough jackass men for one night. “You know our deal. She’s working for me.”

I keep an Ithaca Lightning shotgun under the bar. It’s nothing much, just a short 20-gauge my dad taught me to hunt turkeys with when I was seven. The urge came on me now to grab the gun and start blasting. But I knew nothing short of hellfire can hurt a demon.

I grabbed a brass ashtray off of the bar instead.

“Get out!” I said. “Get out, or I’ll slug you!” It might not hurt, but he’d get a face full of ash.

The demon’s lemon got bigger and sourer. But then he shrugged.

“On that civilized note” —he bowed— “I shall retire. However, you’d better win our bet tomorrow night. Because if there’s any way for me to kill you within the scope of our deal, I will.” He leaned close and breathed into my ear. “I swear.”

“Yeah, well!” I raised the ashtray.

“And ponder this.” He grasped my wrist and pinched. My hand went numb. The ashtray clattered to the floor. “Ponder this,” Hans repeated. “If you survive, you’ll have a lifetime of dealing with demons ahead. You might consider whether you want me to be your enemy or friend.”

The demon limped away. A whiff of smoke swirled past him as he opened the front door.

“Sez you.” I muttered, rubbing my arm.

Ruth waited, warily, until the demon had gone. Then she began wriggling like a demented rabbit. “Did you see me?” She grabbed my shoulders. “Did everybody see me win?”

I grinned. “You were terrific.” The genie’s enthusiasm was catching. “Really. That dance was great.”

Someone yelled for an encore. The call echoed around the room.

“Well, ladies?” King Oliver picked up his cornet. “One more time?” He started counting. The dancers cheered. Ruthie shimmied into the crowd.

Then I remembered Bernie.

“Ruth,” I shouted over the rising noise, “we’ve got to go!”

She waved and smiled. Oh well.

One dance. I’d let her enjoy her victory that long, and then we’d go track down my cousin. Across the room, I saw Beau Beauregard, and mouthed:
Thank you for trying
.

He turned away, as if he hadn’t seen.

The front door opened. A little figure staggered in, covered in grime. Grover Aimsley, I realized. His eyes were wide and staring, mouth open, hands smeared with stains that might have been blood.

“Miss Khlara.” the boy croaked painfully.

“Oh, no.” My strength left me. Without intending to, I found that I was sitting on the floor.

“Grover?” Ned rushed past me and scooped his brother into his arms.

A pair of strangers helped me up onto a bar stool.

Mr. Aimsley, the boy’s father, started our way.

“Oh no,” I whimpered. “Not Grover!” That was too awful. “Not him!”

“What is it buddy?” Ned set his brother on the bar. “What’s wrong?”

Grover reached down, found someone’s Orange Blossom, and gulped a sip before Ned caught him. “It’s those
monsters
.” He pulled his notebook out and waved it, gasping. “The ones from out of town.”

Mr. Aimsley joined them, frowning. “Harry Gibraltar’s men?”

“They’re smashing tires,” Grover reported. “Attacking people. Burning sheds.”

“Burning?” I frowned. “But why?”

“Mr. Hearst says it’s the
apopolypse
.”

“The word’s apocalypse, buddy,” Ned told him. “But I don’t think—”

A new sound reached us. A wailing, shuffling moan.

Outside, the town’s fire bell began to ring.

XII: Hard Hearted Hanna

Never put all your eggs in one casket.
—The Boy’s Book of Boggarts

Bernard:

I DREAMT OF RUTH dancing the Charleston,
au natural
, on top of the Fellowship’s slate roof. Inside, on the ground floor, bottles rolled sideways along two ninepin bowling lanes. Each time one of the bottles hit a pin, booze fountained upward and rained down burning ash.

“Hey, sweetie.” Cinders caressed my cheek. “Surprise!”

“Luella?” I blinked awake in utter darkness. “Is that you?” Cold, pungent fumes clawed at my useless eyes. My head was throbbing. “How about a light?”

Luella’s fur coat was wrapped about my shoulders. Her scent,
Narcisse Noir
, tickled my nose. But it was not Luella slicing my linen vest with razor claws.

“Ruthie?” I sat up on the coffins, seeking the radium dial of my father’s Waltham wristwatch. Eight thirty. Apart from tiny glowing numbers, I couldn’t see a thing. The air seemed vaguely smoky. “What’s going on?”

The coat slipped from my shoulders. I shook my muddled head, wishing for water to wash the fuzz out of my mouth. I’d spent the afternoon with Gaspar, playing Bunco with a set of ghostly dice. He’d won
Babe Ruth
,
Mae Murray
, and taken my i.o.u. for trading cards from ten packs of American Caramels before I’d given up and switched from playing dice to drinking gin.

My vest popped open. Feminine fingers grasped the neckband of my broadcloth shirt.

“Ruth.” I hiccupped and fumbled unsuccessfully for my lighter. “Ruth, cut it out.”

The broadcloth ripped. Buttons flew off with little pinging pops.

Gaspar—with me as host—had not been able to lift objects or, more to the point, unlock the icehouse door. At dusk, I’d tried to send him through the walls for help, but the building had been surrounded with a ring of rock salt that the ghost couldn’t get past.

So I’d sipped booze, rationed my cigarettes in the dark, and watched the glowing hands of the Waltham creep past eight o’clock, wondering whether or not my baby cousin was still alive.

Construction note: the double thickness of an icehouse wall is sturdier than a crate of booze, no matter how furiously you hurl the second item against the first.

“What happened with the judging?” I couldn’t have been asleep more than ten minutes. “How’s Clara? Where is Hans?”

Ruth climbed into my lap. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

She wasn’t wearing…. My brow furrowed. That is, she didn’t
seem
to be?

“I’m thrilled,” I said. “I can’t see anything. It’s dark.” I tried to concentrate. “Will you please make a light.”

“Sure thing,” Ruth purred. A gentle glow suffused the air.

She wasn’t nude. There was a feathered headband in her hair.

“Bah— bah—” My head was woolly. Perhaps that’s why I bleated like a sheep.

Ruth leaned forward, sliding her palms downward along my union suit.

“Bah—” She was the loveliest woman I’d ever seen. I turned my head to keep from looking. “Th-thank you,” I stammered. “Now how about opening the door?”

The genie licked my ear.

“Ruth, please.” I grabbed her shoulders and held her at bay. “Tell me what happened with the dance.”

“I won!” she squealed. “That is, I qualified. It turns out all I had to do was this.” She slid my hands down to her bosom and started wiggling.

“B-bah?” She was the loveliest woman I’d ever
felt
, as well.

“That’s the shimmy. In case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed! I mean, I know!” I tried to will my hands to move away. My hands shot back that they’d willed me to fondle girls dozens of times, and I rarely complied.

Ruth kissed me. And then we kissed again. And then her hands began to fondle me.

It tickled. I would have jumped like a rabbit if there’d been more room.

“Wait, Ruth.” I quivered like a plucked ukulele string. “Not here! We need to talk.”

“I don’t think so.” She pushed me down onto the coffin bench and tweaked my—well, my chest—right through the one-piece union suit. “I want you now.”

Parts of me enthusiastically agreed. Parts were perplexed. “When you say want…?”

Ruth sent a clearer signal of what she had in mind.

I quivered.

“Good boy.” The genie snuggled on top of me. “Come to mama.”

“Wait. Stop.” I pushed her back. “What’s the big rush?” I sat up awkwardly, trying to clear my head.

It wasn’t easy. I’m not a saint. And Ruth was powerfully distracting.

“Men wear too much.” She grabbed my back collar and jerked the open shirt and vest clean off my body in one impressive yank. Then she snuggled against my union suit and purred.

I had to hold her, purely in self-defense. She had to hold me to keep from falling off my lap. Ruth’s mouth met mine, liked what it found, and stayed. And since no proper gentleman orders his guest away, we spent several delightful minutes visiting.

But I had sense enough to wonder
why
. I’m handsome, sure. Around campus, coeds call me Hot Stuff, and several have gone for long drives in my Nash without complaint, even when I was in the car.

But Ruth was no coed. She was a demon’s servant. And demons prize intimacy, to put it bluntly, above all things. If I gave in to Ruth without negotiating, things could get ugly. I might, decades from now, father an unknown child. I might be targeted by nasty spells. What’s scarier, Ruth might owe
me
a favor and I’d have no control over the way she chose to pay it back. Sex isn’t evil among demons. Or so my golem tells me. But it’s worth karma and, in demonic circles, everything’s a trade.

These thoughts were sobering.

Ruth, wriggling in my lap, was not.

I groaned. We kissed again. My hands made up for girls un-fondled in the past. And not just bosoms. Her soft, sleek nakedness seemed tailor-made for tender touch.

Ruth whispered an invitation in my ear.

I blushed.

She added adjectives.

My blush grew hotter. Gladys’ childhood warnings rose in my mind, and my enthusiasm dwindled.

That’s when I saw the ghost, arms crossed, leaning against a wall.

“Gaspar!” I flailed, knocking the genie off my lap.

“Go right ahead,” he drawled. “Luella never lets me watch.”

“I don’t either.” I bit my lip. “That is, there’s nothing—”

“Oh, sweetie.” The genie rubbed her head and stood up slowly. “Stop playing games. There’s not much time.”

“Not time for what? That is, I know for what, but why right now? Why not the same
what
later in another where?”

Ruth’s head tipped sideways. “Huh?” She grabbed my battered bracers and yanked them off. “Trust me. I’m doing you a favor.” The genie’s hands went to my waistband. Mine went there too. We tugged in opposite directions.

“I think” —Gaspar glanced through the wall— “somebody’s coming.”

“Luella?” I squeaked in horror.

Ruth ripped my slacks in half and pulled them off my feet, taking my shoes.

“No, not Luella,” Gaspar replied. “Stoneface, looks like. With some more thugs.”

“Oh, sweetie, hurry!” Ruth clutched my BVDS.

“I’ve had a thought.” I grabbed her wrists. “Please, jump in if you spot a flaw. How about we all escape?”

“Huh uh. How about this?” She demonstrated…something….

My head arched back involuntarily and thumped the wall. I saw stars and felt comets shooting along my spine.

Ruth pressed her nakedness against me.

I ducked and rolled onto the wooden floor. “You know,” I gasped. “As rescues go this leaves something to be desired.”