Among the Living (6 page)

“That lying bitch. I knew she was older than 28.”

She yanks out credit cards and tosses them in a heap. There is some money, but it barely looks like enough to get a few drinks at Starbucks. She also has a small packet of blue pills.

“Oh fucking score, babe, got some free X.”

“Great,” Lester says while staring at the top of Angela’s torn dress where her breast is barely covered.

She takes out lipstick and removes the cover, rolling the color up. “Hmm, streetwalker red, my favorite.” The lipstick joins the other treasures on the table. She pulls out a box of condoms and shows them to Les with her eyebrows raised.

“I knew she was fucking around on Chuck.”

“How do you know that? Maybe they’re for him.”

“Because he had a vasectomy,” she states.

“Poor bastard.”

“Chuck or her lover?”

“Um, both?” he turns the smile into a question, his head cocked to the side.

“Hah.”

She pulls out an iPhone and holds it up. She unlocks it and looks through Marlene’s contacts.

“Shit, no signal.”

“They cut everything somehow. We’re completely isolated.”

“Babe,” Angela pleads. “We need to get out of here.”

“Tomorrow, babe, promise.”

He heads upstairs to the bedroom with Angela in tow. He studies what is left of their clean clothes. He had planned to wash today, but with no power, that plan fell apart just like pretty much everything else. He may be a drug dealer, but he hates dirty clothes. He stares down at his own shorts, which he has worn for several days, and grimaces. If the power doesn’t come back soon, he plans to fill the tub with water and wash their clothes by hand and then hang them up in the house like they are trailer trash.

Angela drops her new purse on the dresser, then shrugs out of the tatters of her dress and stands gloriously naked in the center of the room. Lester’s eyes are hungry as they rove over her body from calves to round hips, over her full breasts with pencil eraser nipples to her pert face with its sprinkle of freckles. Though she likes to bleach her hair blond, it is a shade of light brown that shows at her roots. She doesn’t have to worry about the rug matching the curtains, because she is smooth as a baby down there. Hardwood floors all the way, baby.

Lester slips behind her and runs his hands up her stomach to cup one high breast. The bubble of her implant is detectable, but he ignores it and rubs her nipple between thumb and forefinger until it grows hard as a little pebble.

She sucks in a breath and leans back into him, her hand going down to cup his balls in his shorts. If he weren’t hard as a rock already, that would have done the trick. He loves seeing her naked. He has pictures on the computer, posed, candid, some taken in secret. When she runs off to her part-time job, he likes to go through them while waxing poetic with his cock.

“Oh wait.” She giggles and dives across the bed. Their pipe is on the nightstand on her side of the bed. She picks it up and loads a fresh green bud from a baggie. Lester wriggle out of his shorts and climbs onto the bed as she lights up. He straddles her legs so he can caress her ass with both hands. He wants to dive between her legs, but he will be patient, wait until they are both good and high.

She coughs out a stream of smoke and hands the pipe up. He takes a deep hit and then passes it back while his other hand moves across her lower back, ass, and the top of her thighs. She parts her legs just enough for him to slip his hand through so he can finger her.

She takes another hit and holds it as long as she can before exhaling the smoke in a long, lazy stream. She sighs as he plays with her sex.

“Go down on me!” she begs, and Lester thinks that is a pretty fucking good idea, so he slides off her and hits the pipe one more time. She rolls over and parts her long legs. His eyelids grow heavy as the pot kicks in. His heart beats faster, but that may be because he is about to get laid. His ears ring, and sounds warble in and out of his brain.

He sighs and sinks his head between her thighs and smells HER over the burning smell of pot on his breath. She giggles as his goatee rubs against her thighs, then her hands are in his hair and she is pulling his face down to grind into her.

* * *

“I love fucking when we’re high.” Angela stares at the ceiling. She cups his now-flaccid cock, stroking it gently while she waits for it to wake up again. She feels content and warm all over. Her sex is still throbbing, wanting him to sink into her again. She has always had this need for more and better sex, and Lester fills it pretty well. Other lovers have tried, and failed. Of course none of them had access to the drugs that Lester does.

She grabs a bottle of fruit-flavored rum from the side of the bed and takes a swig. The liquor burns its way down her throat in a line of fire that erupts in her belly. She grimaces but swallows another shot of the coconut-flavored fire.

“Goddamn, that is good.” She exhales. She hands the bottle to Lester and waits for the booze to mix with the weed. It feels like the room is pulsing around her, and she has the sudden urge to crank up some music and dance naked for him.

She struggles to her feet and stands over his waist, legs parted so he can gaze up at her. The lack of electricity casts the room in midday shadows from the wide slats in the blinds. The window above their bed is wide open, but she doesn’t care if one of their pervy neighbors wants to watch. Not that she has seen anyone else today except the deaders, and they don’t really count. Some people walked by the other day, cautiously creeping by the house as if escaping from jail or something. Bags and boxes in hand like a bunch of refugees.

Soldiers stood on either side as they left the cul-de-sac. The same soldiers who pounded on the doors earlier in the day, then walked around the house like they owned the place. She had to hold on to Lester, because he was pissed and he had that big machine gun in hand, and she knew nothing ever went down like it did in the movies. If he tried to kick them off the lawn, she was pretty sure things would have gone downhill fast.

Putting the nasty thought out of her mind, she starts humming a song out loud, puts her hands above her head, and sways back and forth. The room spins, but she moves with it as if she were a dancer in front of a crowd.

She can see them in her mind: a big Las Vegas show where everyone’s eyes are on her body. The women stare, jealous; men watch in lust. She waves her hands at them and then steps over Lester so her legs are spread over his face.

He smiles and claps his hands in appreciation, takes a pull on the rum bottle and hands it to her.

“Like what you see, baby?” she teases.

“Look down.”

She does and is pleased to see he is hard again. She settles down slowly on his lap. Then she rides him for the audience. She drinks from the bottle and lets some dribble between her lips to splash down her chest. He struggles upright and laps at her breasts, trying to clean them of the alcohol.

Her moans grow louder. “That’s it, right there, do it! Fuck me!”

He thrusts up into her, hard, and she rides him, hips flexing back and forth. Much sooner than she wants, he unleashes a stream inside her with a long and loud moan. But that’s okay. She knows where the Viagra is, and within a half hour, he’ll be ready to go again.

She collapses against his chest and bites at his neck. She wants to stay in the bedroom for the rest of the day, smoke, drink and fuck. The world is going to shit, so it seems like a great way to give it the middle finger.

She walks to the elevator with a cool, confident step. High heels click clack as she strides with purpose across the lobby. She ignores the sign advertising continental breakfast in front of the elevator door, steers around the tiny restaurant tables with their assortment of muffins, breads, carafes and bowls of sugar and creamer laid out in perfect symmetry. It strikes her that an employee must have good discipline to line up little packets so perfectly. It smells good, like a combination fresh bakery and coffee shop.

She drops her bag on the floor and extends the sliding handle with a click. Then she tilts the combination overnight bag and laptop case back on its wheels and pulls it behind her. There are only a few people in the lobby, and the men turn to check out the chick in heels. What would they think if they knew her ‘other side’?

It’s not a classy hotel by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it a complete dump. It rides that area between the two in which she prefers to do her work. For one thing, it is big enough that the worker from the night before won’t be on duty the next morning, but not so big that they have a security camera on every corner. In fact, a day of scoping out places revealed that this particular hotel only has security cameras on every other floor, thanks to construction.

She entered this hotel once as a businesswoman in town for a night.

The second time she came in was on the arm of large man who was sweating profusely. No surprise in the muggy July heat. His hand shook, just a minor tremble as he scribbled on the room information form. He slid a credit card across to a smiling attendant who had clearly seen it all. Then the two were off, and the desk worker couldn’t help but follow the girl as she strutted across the floor in a tiny plaid shirt, torn-fishnet-clad legs on display.

She had checked in with the same attendant a few hours ago, but dressed in professional clothing with a pair of sunglasses to hide her eyes. She had an old plane ticket hanging out of her wallet so the guy could see it, just a little something to complete the illusion. She had worn a different pantsuit, a brown number with a plaid jacket. The expensive license Kate Osborne handed over proclaimed her Leslie Miller, the result of a forged birth certificate that cost her a quarter year’s pay.

No one who saw the two women enter would ever guess that they are one and the same. She checks out with a disinterested look on her face and clicks out the door after shooting the attendant, whose nametag identifies him as Steve Bolling, a quick smile meant to dismiss, to say, “I’m far too busy to engage with you. I have other things to attend to.”

The glass door slides shut behind her with a whisper, and she is on the street. The same dark sunglasses complete her disguise as she steps onto the sidewalk.

She glances around and wonders what is out of place. There is something in the air, as if the city just took a breath and forgot to exhale. People pass her, but they don’t make eye contact. A young couple holds hands, but instead of looking carefree, they are in an awful hurry to get somewhere. The young man glances around but doesn’t see Kate. He passes behind her, and the two turn right at the next corner.

Her eyes light on a man across the street. He hovers in an alley, staring at a wall, then staggers toward a green dumpster and walks straight into it. He backs away, then leans forward and bashes his head against it several times.

“Whoa, whoa, buddy, you all right?” A black guy with short dreads glances over at the lost soul. He turns into the alley and approaches the man. Kate continues to watch, half interested, as she flags down a taxi.

Second Avenue has a hundred yellow and green cabs on it. She shoots her hand up as one passes, but another pulls up, and the driver hops out so fast the trailing end of his shirt nearly catches the corner of his car door.

He pops the trunk and drops her bag in quickly. She jumps in the back and says “Airport please,” then commences to stare at an old Blackberry. She looks up at the two men still in the alley. The black guy leans forward so his hand can rest on the other man’s shoulder. He has a concerned look etched on his face as he asks a question.

“What the fuck?” she gasps as the taxi pulls away. Did that confused-looking man just attack the black guy? For a split second, it appeared that he spun around and bit the guy’s arm. Then the taxi speeds down the street as her eyes follow the action for as long as she can.

Must be imagining things, she assures herself. Nothing to see here, move along. Don’t mind the biters. She stifles a giggle at her weird humor, then turns her attention to the dead Blackberry as if checking the stocks or maybe texting her significant other. This may be an unnecessary part of her disguise, but she follows it every second or third time she makes a kill. Anything to mix up the MO.

Traffic is light on I-5, which isn’t unusual for this time of day. She stares out the window at the city of Seattle, its waterfront that teems with life as freighters arrive day and night. She has seen old black and white pictures of the city from decades ago when it was all wooden structures and people in funny hats. Now, high-rises cut into the landscape against a background of white-tipped mountains. On a clear day, you can see all the way across the Puget Sound from here. On a normal gray and rainy day, you can’t see shit.

Still, she can’t think of a better place to live, what with the cultural Mecca aspect, the intellectual side and the green Nazis that crowd the neighborhoods with recycling containers. Then there is the nightlife, which she mostly avoids. However, she likes to take in a loud concert from time to time, preferably at El Cid—the darkest metal haven in the city. Bands from all over come to play the place; the beer is cheap and cold, and the girls who work there are fucking hot.