Stephanie Plum, off-road warrior. Now, this was the way it should be, I thought. Taking action. Hauling ass in the woods behind Diesel. Well, okay-truthfully, I wanted to be in front of Diesel. I wanted to ride point, lead the charge, be the big kahuna. Unfortunately, Diesel was the one who’d memorized the aerial map. And he was supposedly the one with super senses.

“Big whoop-de-do, super senses,” I said.

“I heard that,” Diesel yelled back at me.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

Every now and then I’d catch a glimpse of a monkey with a hat, sitting in a tree or running across the path, but I didn’t see Carl. We skirted a boggy area and came on a rusted-out trailer set up on cinder blocks. An equally rusted-out pickup truck was parked not far off, and an old man sat smoking and drinking beer in front of the trailer. His face and hands were weathered by the sun and the years. Everything else was hidden away in a pink bunny suit that had seen much better days. The bunny ears hung limp alongside the old guy’s head, and the fur was moth-eaten and matted. A monkey with a helmet hunkered on the hood of the pickup, watching us.

“What the hell?” I mouthed to Diesel.

“Easter Bunny,” Diesel said. “Retired.”

We got off the ATVs and walked over to him.

“Why is the monkey wearing a hat?” I asked.

“Not my monkey. And I don’t know. Just one of the many weird-ass things happening in the Barrens. Are you folks tourists?”

“No,” I said. “We’re bounty hunters.”

He gave a hoot of laughter, and I was able to count his teeth. He had two. They were big buckteeth in the front of his mouth, and they weren’t in such good shape.

“Bounty hunters,” he said. “I like that. We got a bunch of characters here, but I think you’re the first bounty hunters.”

“What other characters are here?” Diesel asked.

“Sasquatch has a place up the road a ways. And Elmer the Fire Farter is there, too.”

“Does he really fart fire?” Diesel asked.

“Fuckin’ A,” Easter Bunny said. “I’ve seen it. He has to be real careful what he eats or else he farts in his sleep and burns his house down. And then there’s the Jersey Devil. I don’t know where he lives, but he flies over my yard sometimes.”

“Anyone else?”

“We got a monkey horde. A bunch of them showed up to watch me make dinner last night. And they were all wearing hats. And there’s someone in the woods to the north, shooting lights into the sky at night. Damn lights mess up my tele vision reception. I got a dish on the roof of my mobile home. It’s not cheap running that dish, and now my reception is crap. And sometimes when the reception is crap, all my fur stands on end. And then it rains. But it only rains next to my truck. You see that big mud puddle? That’s where it rains.”

“I can’t help noticing you’re wearing a rabbit suit,” I said to him.

“Seemed a shame to throw them all away just ’cause I retired,” the guy said. “And anyways, the zipper’s stuck on this one. I can’t get it off.”

“I’m looking for Wulf,” Diesel said. “Have you seen him?”

The Easter Bunny made the sign of the cross and hugged his beer bottle to his chest. “No. And I don’t never want to see him.”

“Why am I the only one who never heard of Wulf before?” I asked Diesel.

“You’re not an Unmentionable. You don’t get the news letter.”

“There’s a newsletter?”

Diesel gave a snort of laughter and tried to grab me, but I jumped away.

“You’re scum,” I said to him.

“I know,” Diesel said. “I can’t help myself.”

We got back on the ATVs, and I followed Diesel down the Easter Bunny’s driveway and along the road that presumably ran past Sasquatch and the Fire Farter. We saw no sign of Sasquatch or his house, but we passed a patch of scorched earth and two charred remnants of small mobile homes. We paused for a moment and looked at the ruins.

“I bet it was chili,” Diesel said.

FOURTEEN

IT WAS DUSK when we returned to the Subaru. We hadn’t encountered any more people or habitable houses. We’d ridden around for hours, but we covered only a very small portion of the Barrens. Diesel secured the ATVs and locked the back gate on the trailer. He pulled onto the paved road and headed toward Marbury.

“This isn’t the way home,” I said.

“I’m looking for a place we can hang for a while. I’d like to see the lights.”

Five miles down the road, we found a soft-serve stand, closed for the season. The small parking lot was empty and dark. No ambient light for miles. Diesel positioned the Subaru so we were looking north, and we settled in.

“What about food?” I asked Diesel. “I’m hungry.”

“Sorry,” Diesel said, “you’re going to have to live off your fat for a few hours.”

I gave him a shot in the arm.

Diesel grinned. “Let me rephrase that.”

“Too late,” I told him. “You’re in big trouble.”

There was a flash of light in the sky, and then it was gone. We sat perfectly still, and two more flashes shot out of the pine forest.

“Those weren’t beams of light,” Diesel said. “They were tails from a rocket.”

We had our windows rolled down, listening for rain or the crackle of electricity. Nothing carried to us.

“Hard to tell exactly where the rocket originated,” Diesel said, “but I have an idea of the general area. I’ll go over the aerial maps again when we get home, and tomorrow we’ll do more off-road.”

We found fast food just outside of Hammonton and collected bags of burgers, fries, onion rings, fried chicken, and doughnuts. Diesel took the Atlantic City Expressway and connected with the Jersey Turnpike, eating while he drove. Who says men can’t multitask?

I WOKE UP with a start. The phone was ringing. It was still dark. Someone must be dead, I thought. My grandmother or my father. Heart attack while they slept.

Diesel reached across me and got the phone.

“Yeah?” he said to the caller, listened for a moment, and handed the phone to me. “It’s Lula.”

“Lula? What time is it?”

Diesel looked at his watch. “It’s five a. m. ”

“I’m a sick person,” Lula said. “I got the flu back. I can’t stop sneezing. And I can hardly breathe. I’m just about breaking out in a rash. And I haven’t got any of my meds. Tank and I went out last night, and I left my purse in his car. He got everything. He got my decongestant and my antihistamine and my car keys.”

“And?”

“And he isn’t answering his phone. He sleeps like a dead man. I need a ride over there so I can get my purse. Or else I need to find some store open so I can buy drugs.”

“Why don’t you just call the Rangeman control room?”

“He don’t live in a Rangeman apartment anymore. He’s got his own place. It’s brand new. I haven’t even seen it yet.”

“Give me a couple minutes to wake up, and I’ll be right over.”

“You could call her a cab,” Diesel said. “And then you could stay in bed with me.”

If there was an argument that would get me on my feet, that was it. I rolled out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, got dressed, and stumbled out to the lot. I stood for a moment inhaling the cold air, willing it to go to my brain. I sat my ass behind the wheel and drove on autopi lot to Lula’s house.

Lula rented the top floor of a very small house. Small living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchenette. Lula fit the apartment like she fit her clothes. It was all a tight squeeze. She was sitting on the stoop, waiting for me, when I stopped at the curb.

“You could just drive me to the cemetery,” she said, slumping into the passenger seat. “It would save time.”

“I can’t believe you left your purse in his car. That purse is practically attached to your shoulder.”

“He picked me up, and we were gonna get some Chinese takeout and bring it back to his house on account of I’ve never been in his house. And we didn’t even get to Chang’s and I started getting sick. Came on me like BANG. So I told Tank I wanted to go home. By the time we got to my place, I was sneezing my head off, and I wasn’t thinking good. I don’t even remember getting out of the car.”