Page 91 of Foes & Cons
The competition doesn’t seem as important suddenly, and I sit up, pushing the coffin lid off to the side. I blink in the light then find that Charlie’s lid is also at an angle and his coffin is empty. I look up at Headset Lady.
“He left,” she says.
“When?” Rashawn and I ask in unison.
Headset Lady looks down at me, her eyebrows tilting up in sorrow.
“Just before you told him you’re sorry, and that you miss him. Sorry, love.”
I nod and look around. There are still quite a few in the audience, including my lot and Vivian and Sadie, who’re all frowning at me. Roxy looks over her shoulder at the double doors, so I guess Charlie Chamberlain is long gone. I sigh and look back at his coffin.
“I’m so sorry he wasn’t here for all that, Eliza,” says Rashawn, “but I guess that makes me the winner now, though, right?”
CHAPTER FORTY
COX THE OBSERVER
The answers are right there in front of your stupid, distracted, mortal eyes.
BUD LEROY
(looks up from phone) What he say?
Vampire Falls. Season three, episode twenty – “It’s Always a Mary”
“What did he say though? He looked upset when he got out,” Roxy says, smooshing my face with a damp and cold sponge. “We could hear mumbling, but we couldn’t make out what you were saying.”
After the coffins, I looked for Charlie Chamberlain in the lobby, the coffee shop, the restaurant – but I couldn’t find him. I don’t know what I would have said to him anyway, but I figured something would come when I saw him. I’m not usually lost for words, as you know.
“Not much,” I say, not sure why I don’t want to tell her exactly what he said. “Just the usual Charlie stuff, I guess.”
“Charlie?” she says, straightening up and looking at me in the mirror. “You never call him Charlie.”
“I always call him Charlie. It’s, like, his name, Roxy. Have you bumped your head?”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, babe, but you always call him CharlieChamberlain, like he’s a villain.” She dabs make-up into the crease of my nose. “Or a superhero.”
“Do I?”
“You do,” Roxy says. “Right, writing time’s over. Close youreyes.”
I click my pen off and close my notebook, but my fingers itch to get back to scribbling down the ideas that have been bubbling inside my brain for the last couple of days. I didn’t realise how much I missed that feeling.
I close my eyes and flinch every time the sponge touches my skin. For the Vampire Apocalypse party, we’re in the Taylor High soccer strip, but slightly bedraggled so we look like we’re in search of human brains.
“I wish Iris was here,” I say.
The dabbing stops and I risk opening my eyes. Roxy’s blinking at me, the sponge frozen in mid-air.
“Do you?”
I nod. “She’s much gentler.”
Roxy frowns and smears make-up over my eyelid without warning. I guess I asked for that.
“Right,” she says, rubbing strawberry smelling hair wax through her fingers. “I’m not spending ages on hair as we have headsets apparently.”
“What’ve headsets got to do with a zombie apocalypse?”
