“I’m okay. How is everybody there?”
“Mom and Dad are completely freaked. They put posters up all over town. And people have these brown and white ribbons on their trees that they say they’re not taking down till you come home again.”
“Brown and white?”
“Like a cow.” She sucks in her breath. “The cops are looking for you, Cameron. They traced your credit card to New Orleans. Cameron, why don’t you just come home? Please?”
“I can’t do that, Jenna. Not until I find the guy who can cure me.”
“What are you talking about? What guy?” She sounds like she’s about to cry.
“It’s … complicated. But I promise I’m okay. Listen, Jenna, I need you to do me a favor.”
There’s a pause. The line is really bad. “Okay.”
“Just let Mom and Dad know I’m okay. I’ll call back as soon as I can. I promise. I …”
Another phone picks up.
“Cameron? Cameron! Is that you? Where are you?” It’s Dad’s voice. In the background, I hear Mom telling him to let her talk. “Cameron, just tell us where you are and we’ll come pick you up. We love you. We—”
More clicks. A finger comes down on the clicker. “They’re tracing the call.” Dulcie’s standing there. Something serious in her eyes makes me obey. Slowly, I put the receiver back into its cradle.
“You have to let them go, Cam. You have to move forward. You’ve got a mission.”
“I know that, okay?” I explode. “Just leave me alone, would you?”
“Leave you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Totally alone?”
“Yes! God.”
She bites her bottom lip. “Okay. See you around, cowboy.”
“Yeah. See you.”
I run across the parking lot to the bathroom island and push my way into the filthy hole of a men’s room. The E-ticket scratches against my arm. Frontierland’s gone even lighter, the lettering getting hard to read. How much time do I have left? In the cracked mirror, I look like Grade-D crap—pale and stubbly.
“What the f**k are you doing?” I ask my fractured reflection. Tears sting at my eyes. A big guy in cowboy boots comes in and I splash water on my face.
Out in the parking lot, two trucks gas up at the pumps. A family eats their fast-food meals in their station wagon with the windows rolled down. Two guys stand by a stack of tires, away from the pumps, smoking like a couple of idiots. And over where the bus was parked earlier, I see nothing but a big empty space.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
I push through the MegaMart doors so hard, the bell jangles like it’s caffeinated. Gonzo’s still at the Captain Carnage game.
“Gonzo!” I snarl.
“Dude, not now! The Teddy Vamps are on me.”
“I thought you were watching the bus!”
“The bus?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the game.
“Yeah. You know, that long, rectangular vehicle that gets our asses out of here and is nowhere to be seen?”
Gonzo finally looks up, wide-eyed.
“Yeah, exactly,” I say.
We race outside to the parking lot and stand in the empty space where there used to be a bus to Florida.
Gonzo swallows hard. “It’s …”
“… gone,” I finish. “Congratulations. We are officially f**ked.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Wherein We Take a Van Ride with Possible Serial Killers
“I don’t understand. I looked outside, like, maybe two seconds before and it was there, dude. I swear.”
“Two seconds,” I repeat.
“I swear!”
“Let’s go to the replay. Hmmm, oh, looks like maybe Gonzo was so busy smoking Little Miss Muffet he forgot. To watch. For the damn. Bus!”
“I’m sorry,” he says, hanging his head like a little kid who just peed on your carpet by mistake.
“Just keep looking for signs of civilization.”
We’re on a dirt road in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. So far, we’ve passed a farm that stank to high heaven, some cotton fields, and four ancient husks of tractors getting their rust tans in the sun. It’s bright and the heat’s beating hard on the back of my neck.
“Try calling her again,” Gonzo says.
“I’ve tried. She’s not coming.” I started yelling for Dulcie the minute we realized the bus was truly gone and we were on our own. But I guess she’s taking that “leave me alone” edict seriously.
