Page 40 of The Red Rider
Aeron cupped my ass and started walking back towards the hotel.
“I’ve been known to sometimes make a good point. Let’s see if we can get you some supplies. Dice probably scavenged some because he knew you were coming. I expect a huge painting of me on top of Meremoth with the sun shining out my ass.”
“Am I allowed to paint those big, sexy wings of yours? I might want that one for the bedroom.”
“In that case, I’ll pose nude.”
I moaned at the picture in my head of Aeron, sitting naked on his murder horse with his wings out.
“I’d never get anything done.”
Aeron just chucked.
“That’s the idea. Let’s go find you some supplies so you can get famous documenting history, Speedy.”
These were probably going to be the most important paintings I’d ever done in my entire life, and they didn’t involve painting the future.
Chapter 21
C
an I say I can’t believe I used to be uncomfortable around Dice? Aeron found an entire stash of paint in his hotel room, and it was the good shit too. It was the type of paint I’d spend a whole paycheck on. Paint wasn’t exactly a desirable item for scavenging during the apocalypse, and he had an entire rainbow of colors. He snagged a few canvases and canvas making supplies too.
People had been humoring me when I asked to help, but now they were super curious when I was out by the picnic tables building canvases and painting. They all wanted to know what I was doing and wanted to make sure I painted them right.
I hadn’t gotten to Florida yet. I’d started painting what I could remember about Gabriel’s Haven. I figured I should start from the beginning because those memories were going to fade first.
It was pretty great. No one in Florida had heard of it, so they stopped to ask me. It allowed me to talk to people and make some friends other than my three angels.
I was happily going about my business working when Aeron just casually dropped a bomb.
“So, Ariel. Want to take a break and go kill Leonard and Beavis?”
“I thought it was a random Bubba. Wait. What?”
“Asher reported in. Leonard and Beavis have made it to the New Jersey sign like in your painting. We decided to go to New Jersey and kill them. Want to come?”
“You say that like we are going to the mall, and it’s not the apocalypse.”
Aeron just shrugged.
“Going to the mall, killing Beavis and Butthead. It’s all the same to me.”
“Can I clean my brushes, then we leave?”
“Excellent.”
I got everything cleaned and put away. Dice and Leif met us at the hotel. I wondered if I was going to meet the mysterious Asher in New Jersey. Dice pulled out a laptop and started clacking on the keys. How were we even going to find these guys in all of New Jersey? Was New Jersey some sort of safe haven like California, Mexico, and Florida? I was sure they would object to a politician and a redneck dragging zombies to their state. I was pretty sure that sentence could only ever be uttered during the apocalypse or a really fucked up zombie movie, but here we were.
“Are we just going to walk around the entire state of New Jersey until we come across an RV making a lot of noise?” I asked.
Dice just scoffed.
“You should know me better than that by now, Speedy. We’re going to land right on top of that RV, and I made a new toy to kill the stragglers.”
“I get you’re angels, and you have all these superpowers, but they could be fuck all anywhere by now. My visions aren’t exactly precise, and Asher just said he overheard a phone call where Leonard was checking in at the New Jersey state line.”
They all just started laughing, and I fucking hated when they did that. They were about to angelsplain some superpower about how it would work, but I had no fucking way of knowing that, and they didn’t have to laugh about it. I didn’t know how shit went down in Heaven, but on Earth, it was considered gauche to make fun of someone who had lost their memories and didn’t know something.
