“I’ll take a fritter and a black coffee.”
As she gets my food I wonder if I should tell her what’s coming. That she should turn off the lights and close early, but I know what she’d think. The concept of zombie hordes is something regular people have to experience to believe. Maybe she’ll be one of the lucky ones who gets to see it from a distance and makes it home in one piece. Maybe I’ll be ripping out her spine tomorrow. I hope she makes it home first. It would suck to be killed and reanimated while wearing corporate antennae. Though, it wouldn’t be as bad as reanimating dressed like a crab or a taco because you were pimping a new restaurant when you died. There’s a difference between a bad death and the universe stopping by to take a great big shit on you.
I pay her and sit in a booth by a window at the far end of the place where it’s quiet. I sip my coffee and dial Lucifer again. No answer.
There are sirens in the distance. Cops and fire trucks. Three, then four plumes of black smoke curl into the sky south across the city. The aether twitches and twists, giving off a metallic smell of panic. If I hold my breath and sit very still, I can hear the Drifters moving underground. They sound like ants scratching at the packed dirt walls of their caves, digging out new tunnels, undermining the soil until they pull the whole city down into the Jackal’s Backbone.
“Are you okay?”
I look around.
Antenna Girl is standing by the booth.
“What?”
“Are you okay? Do you know you’ve been sitting here for two hours and you haven’t moved? I mean totally haven’t moved.”
I glance up at the clock over the counter. She’s right. Two hours have passed. My coffee and fritter have long since gone cold.
“I got lost. I have a lot on my mind.”
“I guess so. I’ve never seen anybody sit that still that long before. I couldn’t decide if you were high or meditating.”
I smile.
“Both. Neither. If I told you something unbelievable, would you listen without running away?”
“Okay.”
“You hear those sirens? See that smoke? Something is going to happen. Maybe tonight. Maybe sooner. But something is going to happen and it’s going to be bad. Go home. Lock the door and turn on the TV. Call your friends and tell them to do the same. Most of them won’t listen, but some will and later you’ll know you saved them.”
She squints.
“Are you a cop?”
“Never.”
She curls her lips in a smile.
“Maybe you’re my guardian angel.”
“Could be. Of course, not all angels are created equal.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s those kinds of angels.”
I point up.
“And those kinds of angels.”
I point down.
She leans her hip against the table.
“Which kind are you?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Probably neither. But please don’t tell Dad I said that.”