Chapter 54

In any case, eventually, there she stood. “Lola,” I whispered, the fire dancing across her face. Miraculously, she looked amazing. That is to say, without decades upon decades of wilting sunshine and other various elements forever beating down upon her, she looked much like she had, I assumed, at the time that death took a front row seat. Oh, sure, she was a bit gray and certainly dusty, but, even given all that, she was, to be quite honest, rather lovely. For a long-dead zombie, I mean. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Madame.” I bowed, or at least tried my best to.

For her part, and par for the fucking course, she stared into the nothingness and groaned. And so I took her hand in mine and led her from the theater and into the lobby, returning forthwith to the bar. Luckily, there was a full canister of iodized salt still sitting there, unopened, pure as the day it’d been packaged.