Chapter 13

Chapter 13
For a moment the two of them sat silent, Atlas staring at his feet.

“Well,” Jenga said, breaking the silence, “there’s no reason to feel down, is there? Nothing terrible happened when we did this before.” “You.” Atlas said.

Jenga nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’re right – and glad to have you talking, by the way – I suppose you don’t have much to do with all this. It was a different time, too. But! There’s no reason to be down. We’ll get what we need and be on our way.”

Jenga poured another slug of junk, and pushed the cup toward Atlas who just stared at it without moving.

“You need your strength,” Jenga said. “Drink up, only a little more until you’ve had the last of it.” Atlas just stared.

“Come on now,” Jenga said, putting his hands on his hips. “I really don’t want to have to act the part of a puppet master, but I will if you make me.” He scratched at his chin through his beard, which sent the knotted mass to jingling and jangling. “I know you don’t want to do this, but I’ve got no choice Atlas. It’s either we steal, or we give up all of this luxury.”

Looking around his house, he gazed fondly at a blender with one working motor out of two, the light dangling over his head, and then let his eyes fall on the thing he valued most – a seventy-two inch plasma television.

“Move?” Atlas groaned.

“Me? Move? To town?” Jenga waved his hand dramatically over his head, which irritated a lizard that had settled in his hat. “I’m so very happy you’re talking by the way, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. There’s no nature there, there’s no pretty things like this,” he snatched the scurrying lizard. “No, I just couldn’t. I don’t fit in there, I’m just a broken down old witchdoctor looking to enjoy my retirement. These old bones don’t have the energy for—”

“Jenga?” a woman’s voice from down by the road – some thirty feet from Jenga’s rickety door – startled him. She was quite excited.

“Jenga! Are you there! Where are you?” She was ruffling up the path, and Jenga was rubbing his temples.

“I don’t have energy for this, for her, not now. Can’t you do something, Atlas?” Jenga groaned massaging his nose. “Just I don’t know, hold her down or—”

“There you are!” Mary was a shrieking, wild-eyed, holy mess of a woman. Old doesn’t begin to describe her leathery skin, or her knobby, root-like fingers. “I’ve been asking after you from the road! Why are you not talking? Why are you so rude? Why won’t you say anything? Why won’t you talk? Atlas? I’m so tired of these zombies, Jenga, I’m sick of it.”

Moving his eyes around behind his closed lids, Jenga let out another impatient groan. “I’m not answering,” he said, “because you won’t let me get a word in. And what business is it of yours what I do with my time?

Zombies weren’t illegal last I checked the ordinances.”

“No,” Mary said. “No, they’re not, but theft is! Scaring people isn’t but horrifying drunks and taking their money is illegal, Jenga! Doesn’t matter anyway, I’m fed up with your smells and the smoke and the noises, I told the Alpha!”

Jenga’s drooping eyelids shot open. “You did what? What did you tell him? I haven’t done anything.”

“I think I told him anyway. It might’ve been someone else. I think I told

Leon, actually. Or maybe...”

“Mary!” Jenga shouted, grabbing the ancient woman’s shoulders. “Who did you tell what?”

“That you were going to rob the bank again. Like you did last time. Only I’m not sure I told anyone about that. And if I did they hardly believe anything I say on account of... well, I’m not quite certain why no one believes me. It’s my birthday after all, but no one believes me.”

“So you told... Leon? About my plan? How did you know about it?” Jenga started pacing, nervously, along the back of his dilapidated couch.

She shrugged. “I didn’t, I made it up. The smell is so awful with whatever you do all the time that I made it up to get you in trouble. I figured you did it once so you’d probably try it again. Only thing I didn’t figure on is you doing it the exact same way. So I guess I was right after all.”

Before he really knew what he was doing, Jenga backed Mary to the front door and distracted her for long enough that she forgot what she was talking about. As soon as she began wandering down the path back to her tree house, Jenga closed the door, turned and rested his back against the aged oak.

“I think,” he took a deep breath as Atlas turned his head and stared. He even stared slowly. “That this just got a lot more complicated.”

The walk from my apartment to the courthouse, and then to my little office across from Erik’s took about ten minutes, but that afternoon it felt like ten hours.

My feet felt so heavy, that they matched my heart. I never thought this would happen, never in a million years. Everything was going so well, so perfectly, and I thought I’d finally gotten myself to a place with people who were just weird enough that I didn’t have to worry about who I was anymore.

But of course, who I was didn’t matter.