Ballistic Kiss: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey

Author:Richard Kadrey [Kadrey, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062672575
Amazon: 0062672576
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: 2020-08-24T23:00:00+00:00

I go over to Janet’s place early the next morning and they drag me straight into the bedroom, which isn’t a bad start to the day. The Zero Lodge picks us up in a blacked-out van around ten. Everyone else in the van is dressed in evening gowns and snappy suits. Janet looks great in a secondhand tux. I’m the only one in regular everyday clothes. Apparently, I’m expected to look like a headwaiter if I’m going to stick around with these people. This is getting better and better. But Janet holds my hand, chatting happily with the other Lodge members as they try to guess what today’s fun is going to be. Lava wrestling? Volleyball in a minefield? Maybe Manimal Mike taught them to play Billy Flinch but Dan and Juliette didn’t want brains splattered on the basement walls.

After a couple of hours of driving, the chitchat has worn down to an occasional grumble, and even the Lodge hard core are getting restless. We finally stop around noon and pile out of the cattle car, straight into the desert.

It has to be over a hundred degrees. We’re at the bottom of a dry canyon surrounded by dead and dying scrub and spindly trees that rise up from the dusty road where we’re parked and straight up the steep canyon walls. There doesn’t seem to be anything else in any direction.

Dan and Juliette come out of the front of the van back here with us cows. Trash wizard Kenny gets out of a second identical van.

Dan says, “I hope everyone had a good night’s sleep last night and a pleasant trip out from the city. Today’s excursion is going to be a real adventure. Juliette and I spent quite a lot of time setting it up.”

“We sure did,” says Juliette, doing her best Jayne Mansfield impression. “I almost broke a nail.”

The line gets some polite titters.

She goes on, “You all look lovely today, except for our newest member, but I’m sure he’ll get the hang of things.”

She smiles in my direction and I give her a nod because it would upset Janet if I gave her the finger.

While she was talking, Dan hauled a plastic storage box from the back of the van and set it on the ground in the middle of the group.

“Are you ready to see what’s inside?” he says. “It’s essential to today’s excursion.”

A few of the old-timers yell, “Open it!” and whoop.

Dan does it with a flourish like he’s going to reveal he stole the crown jewels. Instead, what’s inside the box is a lot of canteens, maps, and what look like oversized wristwatches.

Fuck. It’s a nature hike. Flicker should be here. This is her scene. Not mine.

Juliette tosses the first canteen and map to me and straps one of the watches on my wrist.

Dan says, “Today’s adventure, boys and girls, is a kind of race, but not against each other. It’s against the forces of nature itself.”

Juliette keeps handing out the gear, smooth as a Beverly Hills cobra.

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