Follow for Follow
The sudden thought that I might be dreaming comes roaring to the forefront of my mind, but it changes nothing. All I have are the choices ahead of me, and right now I choose to keep my gun trained directly on the chest of this singing, dancing superstar corpse.
“Be … cause … the,” he starts, slowly ramping up the volume as he takes two steps forward.
When the song kicks back in he puts his hands together cutely, creating a symbolic globe with his fingers.
He tilts his head back and belts along with the recording, confident and self-assured despite the presumed lack of a heartbeat.
“… world needs a star like me! I said the world needs a star like me! I’m one of a kind, I think you’ll agree, the world needs a star like me! ”
Eddie does a spin and then begins to shuffle and slide down the aisle, the booths framing him on either side. His dancing is distinctly old-fashioned, a kinetic language that would actually be kind of silly if it weren’t so fucking terrifying.
“Stay right there!” I bark as the corpse gleefully makes his approach. My hands are trembling against the pistol grip, something that’s never happened any previous time I’ve been forced to pull my weapon.
I step back, but Eddie’s movements take up much more space in much less time. He’s closing in on me, grooving and spinning through the entirety of this instrumental section. The music thunders with piano-rock bombast, adding a cinematic punch to Eddie’s lurching choreography.
“Get the fuck back!” I scream, eyes wild as spit flies from my lips.
Finally, Eddie comes to a stop no more than five feet away. From here I can see the bruising around his neck and the shards of bone poking out from his skin in a brutal pattern of white and red.
Eddie grins, frozen for a moment as though he’s lost in thought. He closes his eyes ever so slightly, an expression of bliss, and in this poignant break the popcorn scent makes itself even more apparent.
“I want you to remember this,” Eddie finally says, his voice dropping to a lower register as he allows the song to keep rolling past without his vocal accompaniment.
Eddie’s grin flattens, his manic joy deflating to reveal the shape of something terrible underneath.
“I want you to remember I’m in control.”
Eddie motions toward my handgun.
“Go ahead,” he continues.
I’ve seen this one before, variations of the scene flashing through my mind in a thousand different pop culture mutations.
There will always be a ruthless killer to challenge our hero with a gun, a badass villain who shoves the barrel against their own forehead with casual confidence, turning the tables with a steadfast understanding that the hero is not a real killer. Not like they are.
Fortunately, Eddie doesn’t know me that well.
I pull the trigger.
Instead of a bang, I’m greeted by a quiet metal click. It’s barely audible over the music, but I don’t need to hear it to understand what it means. The bullets have been removed.
A look of amusement springs back into Eddie’s face. “Well, damn! I thought I’d have to ask a few more times than that!” He laughs.
I flash back to running around my truck in a panic, remember frantically searching for the keys that had mysteriously gone missing in all that commotion. If Eddie—if this thing that was once Eddie—took my keys, he could’ve easily unloaded my weapon and stuffed it back in the glove box.
“I’m just trying to show you that I’m not—” the reanimated body continues, but before he can finish I reach into my back pocket and pull out my extra clip, the one I always keep on me for deliveries.
I move in one swift motion, letting the empty magazine pop out and replacing it with my other hand.
I slam the fresh bullets into their chamber so fast the empty clip has just barely hit the ground—a maneuver you might see from someone with extensive military service or, in my case, obsessive visits to the firing range—then I lift the gun to Eddie’s face and pull the trigger.
Bang! A blinding white flash erupts across my field of vision.
Eddie’s head jerks back with such force that it would snap the neck of any living person, the lens of his glasses giving way to what is now a massive hole. The opening leads out through the back of Eddie’s skull by way of his eye socket.
He rocks on his heels, somehow still upright despite his head tilted straight back and flecks of his gray matter dotting the nearby booths and tile floor. I keep waiting for his legs to give out, for his body to finally succumb to all the damage and take its final bow.
It appears my bullet shattered the glass of the jukebox behind Eddie, cracking the mechanical arm and causing the record to skip through some incredible twist of fate.
It begins to repeat the same two-second loop, Eddie’s wobbling serenade droning over and over again.
“Like me. Like me. Like me. Like me. Like me.”
My ears are ringing and, despite bracing myself for the intensity of the recoil, a sharp pain radiates across my wrist.
“Like me. Like me. Like me. Like me.”
The song begins to lower in pitch, every passing round of the pithy little phrase degrading more and more until the whole machine just short-circuits in a pop of white sparks.
The record takes its time, but gradually the circular vinyl disk glides to an excruciatingly long stop as the word me is stretched into horrible oblivion.
Then silence.
Eddie’s body remains frozen in place as he stares up at the ceiling and a few cold pieces of brain drip from his open skull. I can hear them slap against the floor in soft, wet clumps.
I realize now that I’ve been holding my breath this whole time, finally letting out all that pent up air in a single puff.
Eddie’s head snaps forward, his toothy grin wider than ever. “Boo!”
I raise my weapon again, but this time he’s ready. Before I can pull the trigger, Eddie makes a clear, direct command that stops me in my tracks.
“Don’t shoot,” he bellows.
I don’t shoot.
It’s not for lack of trying, though. My brain is commanding the tendon across the top of my hand to pull taut, a simple retraction of the pointer finger that I’ve accomplished a million different times in a million different ways.
The trigger is right there, resting coolly against my skin and waiting for me to take the next step, but for some reason my hand refuses to accept the command.
It’s as though this part of my body has gone rogue, announcing a conflict with the rest of my biology and then promptly switching sides.
I try again, straining to produce the tiny, insignificant movement, but it seems no amount of willpower can get the job done.
Eddie takes off his sunglasses and winks at me with the one cloudy eye he’s got left. “That was fun, sport, but we’ve got work to do.”
* * *
In a strictly objective sense, I understand how I got here, but leaving my experience at that would be a disservice to the utterly bizarre events that just unfolded.
I could tell you that I simply put one foot in front of the other as Eddie and I exited the restaurant.
I could describe the way Eddie made me wait some twenty yards back while he inspected the truck, including a few minutes under the hood, then handed me the keys.
I could tell you that I climbed into the driver’s seat while he closed up the back and then got into the cab next to me, and I could explain the careful, steady manner with which I pulled onto the road.
But even then, a critical question remains: Why?
My process varied slightly, depending on the commands I’d been given by Eddie as he led the charge.
“You feel like walking back to your truck” was a very different experience than “Climb into the driver’s seat.
” The former was something I wanted to do—at least, that was how it seemed.
The latter command was like riding along as a passenger in my own body.
During this experience, I was more disturbed by the second feeling, but in retrospect I’m having a harder time processing the first.
“You’re not going to signal anyone or ask for help,” Eddie informs me. “You’re not going to wreck the truck. You’re just here to help me have an easy, smooth night.”
My eyes are fixed on the asphalt ahead as we travel down a long desert road in the opposite direction of our previous journey. We’ve charted a course back to the heart of Palm Springs.
“Give me your wallet and your phone,” Eddie says.
I obey his commands without hesitation.
Eddie opens my wallet and extracts the driver’s license. “Alice Roosevelt,” he reads aloud. “328 Springwater Drive. Nice to meet you, Alice.”
The way he says all this is a little odd, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. Right now, I’m mostly just thankful that my habit of carrying a fake ID on these excursions has finally paid off.
Eddie shuts off my phone and throws it out the window, then tucks my wallet into his pocket.
I feel compelled to glance over at him, not through the power of some supernatural force, but thanks to the gnawing insistence of my own curiosity. To be honest, I still haven’t convinced myself this is actually happening.
Sure enough, Eddie Michaels is right there in the passenger seat, a new pair of gift shop sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose.
These pink frames are bent into the novel shape of two large hearts and covered in shimmering rhinestones that pop against the dark lenses.
Despite a bargain-bin price tag, Eddie has managed to find the perfect approximation of something bold and brash from his high-end personal collection.
“You like them?” Eddie asks.
“Like what?”
“The glasses?”
I consider how to answer, wondering whether I should be buttering him up. “Yeah,” I finally admit.
“You sure about that?” Eddie presses, a slight alteration in his tone.
The question hits different this time. A single word bubbles out of me involuntarily. “Yes.”