Broken Angel: A Zombie Love Story

PUBLISHED BY:

Joely Sue Burkhart

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 Joely Sue Burkhart

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in print or electronic form
without the express, written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination
and any resemblance to any organization, event, or person, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.

Adult Reading Material

BROKEN ANGEL

A Zombie Love Story

Table of Contents

Dedication

Broken Angel

Excerpt of The Zombie Billionaire’s Virgin
Witch

Other Books by Joely Sue Burkhart

Dedication

For my Beloved Sister

I dreamed of the broken doll again.

Standing on a bridge curtained with willows
and blooming vines, I saw her in the crystal water flowing beneath
the stone arch. At first, she looked perfect: lovely porcelain
face, large sparkling eyes, and flowing silken ribbons of gold
framing her angelic features. Beautiful as she rose from the
gurgling stream, she floated up to the bridge like dandelion fluff.
She smiled with that Cupid’s bow mouth, but when she walked toward
me, her gait was stiff and jerky like a mindless robot.

Dread rolled through me, a drowning darkness
of cold waters. I couldn’t breathe. My head pounded and my heart
struggled to beat. Ice encased my hands and feet, inching up my
arms and legs. I wanted to run before she came any closer, but I
was frozen immobile.

Dead leaves rained down. Brittle flowers
crumpled to dust. Ice covered me. My face was stiff and cold, my
eyes wide open and staring. Just like that horrible, perfect doll
marching toward me with grim joviality.

There was something horrible about her face,
something so terrifying that I couldn’t remember. I didn’t want to
remember. I didn’t want to look.

Peaches and cream complexion, once smooth
and symmetrical, now drooped. The eye on the right sat lower on her
face, her mouth tugging down into a grimace. A dark slash cut
across her forehead, another down her cheek. She stumbled forward,
clutching a heavy gold watch, links of chain woven between her
wooden fingers.

I stared, frozen like a dumb animal, as that
face broke open. Porcelain cracked away to reveal…

My face.

Screaming, I jerked awake. I clawed at the
blankets, flailing toward the edge of our king-sized bed.

My husband reached for me, mumbling, “What’s
wrong?”

Relieved, I sank back onto the pillows and
rolled into his embrace. Even woken from sleep, his voice echoed
with command. He was a man used to leadership, wealthy enough to
purchase the best doctors and provide exclusive, expensive care for
me. He loved me. I remembered that much.

A wave of nausea flooded my stomach, burning
up my throat. I really didn’t want to see any more doctors. Perhaps
one…the one who…

My head hurt. Yes, he’d taken care of my
head. After the accident. The bridge. Pain exploded. Why couldn’t I
remember his face? His name? He saved me. Images fluttered through
my mind like loose papers, blowing leaves, gone in an instant.

Pillowing my face on Robert’s chest, I tried
to calm my thoughts. “I was dreaming. Oh, it was horrible. That
doll, her broken face…”

Shuddering, I couldn’t tell him the worst of
the nightmare.
She was me. I was her. What does that
mean?

“That same old nightmare again? Go back to
sleep, dear.”

His dismissive attitude stung. Rather, it
would have hurt if I could feel anything. I was suddenly aware that
I was fully awake, yet I was still numb to my surroundings. His
bare chest was beneath my cheek, but I felt no heat from him. I
smelled nothing from his skin. Hadn’t he always smelled of cologne,
even at night? His chest hairs should tickle, yet I felt nothing
but the rise and fall of his chest. Panic gnawed in the pit of my
stomach, twisting me into knots.

He made a sound of pain and took my hand in
his, lifting my fingers away from his skin where I’d gouged my
nails into him. “That hurts, Angelina. What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t speak for the dread choking me. I
was still the doll, but I was awake. He rolled up onto his forearm
and smiled down at me. Didn’t terror flash in my eyes, dark with
the screams of nightmares? Or was it the blank stare of the doll?
Which was worse?

He kissed me, murmuring against my mouth. I
felt the pressure of his lips, but not the heat or wetness, nor the
scratch of his mustache. I clutched him harder, pushing him over
onto his back and climbing onto him. Nothing. No heat, no sweaty
glide of flesh on flesh. Yet he threw his head back and groaned
deep in his throat, his hips arching up beneath me.

He was inside me, and I couldn’t feel it.
His hands gripped my hips, pulling me into a rocking rhythm that my
body knew but didn’t feel. No stirring fire burned in me. Nothing
but this spreading blackness of fear. I plunged harder, faster,
desperation driving me to feel something, anything.

He drew me down and whispered, “Are you
ready? I’m coming, oh, my love…”

Nothing. I couldn’t even cry. He shuddered
and made a masculine purr of satisfaction as he rolled to his side
and tucked me down beside him. “I like these nightmares of
yours.”

I lay there, strangled with betrayal. How
could he be so blind and oblivious? Didn’t he see? Couldn’t he feel
the coldness in my unresponsive body?

This reality was worse than the doll’s
nightmare.

The next afternoon, I found myself walking
down a dirty street in Cheapside, the darkest slum of the Upper
City. Certainly a place no woman of my standing would ever visit,
never alone and dressed in the fine shimmering materials that drew
every beggar’s greedy eye. None dared lay a hand on me, though.
They averted their gazes, turning and hurrying away even when I
called after them.

Why was I here? Why did they know me?
Perhaps they recognized my face. After all, I was the Upper
Governor’s wife. The uncanny silence was shrill even on my dead
nerves, grating like metal on metal.

They’re afraid. Of
me.

I touched my face to assure myself that my
features weren’t shattered like the doll. My cheek felt strange, my
flesh firm, unyielding, cold, like porcelain. Shivering although I
didn’t feel the damp that cloaked the soiled sky, I quickened my
step. Aimless yet determined, I hurried toward the unknown
destination that called me.

The dreams had been happening more often, no
matter what shots and potions the doctors forced me to take. I
couldn’t deny the image any longer. I had to find that bridge.
Maybe if I stood there beneath the willows and smelled the flowers
trailing in the mirrored water, the dream would cease haunting
me.

Whether hours or minutes passed, days or
weeks, I honestly had no sense of time. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t
cold nor tired, merely possessed. Yes, possessed. Anger filled me.
I didn’t understand why, but oh, joy, I felt something, and so I
kindled that fragile flame.

A passing woman gasped, her mouth and eyes
rounded with horror. Her little boy stared at me, his whisper
carrying on the breeze. “What’s wrong with her, Ma? Why does she
walk like that?”

“Shhh.” The woman hurried her child away,
glancing back over her shoulder worriedly.

I began walking again, paying attention to
my body. My steps lurched, awkward and uneven, my body
uncoordinated. Crazed laughter exploded out of my throat. “I’m a
doll, a walking talking doll.”

My voice sounded strange and my body felt
disconnected from my mind. I could barely see, whether it was night
or my vision failing as my body shut down, but at last I recognized
something familiar. A tree-lined brook curved ahead, stone arching
over the tinkling waters.

I stumbled down the path, struggling to make
my numb body work. My loud breathing wheezed in my ears. This was
the end, then. I’d die on this bridge. Maybe the doll would come
and take my place. Or was she here already? Is that why I couldn’t
feel anything?

Stone pressed against my face. I’d fallen.
Damp, hard, unforgiving, stone and flesh were
indistinguishable.

“Angel!”

The voice tugged at my darkest memories. Not
Robert, but familiar, the way this bridge was imprinted into my
mind. He knelt beside me, metal flashing, clinking, and something
pressed to my neck. A flood of fire shot into my vein, startling a
moan out of my mouth.

“I know, I know. Forgive me, Angel. It’s my
fault you feel so badly. I couldn’t think of any other way to reach
you, though.”

I tried to sit up and see his face, but my
body still wasn’t mine to command. Molten lava crept through my
veins, melting my bones and boiling blood. Pain seared me, but I
didn’t cry out again. It was a blessing to feel, even pain, so I
endured. I didn’t want to forget a single sensation.

Especially his hand against my face, his
thumb smoothing the silent tears from my cheeks. “Do you remember
anything at all?”

“Bridge.” Pain sliced my throat like shards
of glass. “Doll.”

“This bridge is the only place I thought you
might remember. What doll?”

At last, I could see his face. Wild and
unkempt, dark hair hung down his forehead. His face was heavily
lined and grooved, his eyes dark but burning like coals.

Every cell in my body recognized him. So I
dared to tell him the horror of the dream that I’d not mentioned to
my husband. “I’m the doll. She’s broken. Somebody cracked her head
open, and I’m inside.”

Sorrow lined his face even more, his hands
shaking as he drew me to his chest. His arms locked about me.
Sensation exploded, so painful and overwhelming I couldn’t separate
scent from feeling, hearing from sight. He enveloped me, swallowing
me up and holding me safe, yet I still couldn’t remember his name
or how I knew him.

“I had to replace your drugs with a placebo
so you’d experience the memories. I couldn’t think of any other way
to break through, Angel. I’m sorry, so sorry.”

“I’m broken, my face, and the water…”

A shudder wracked his body. His hands
smoothed my hair and his fingers trembled. “What else do you
remember?”

I closed my eyes. “You. I remember you.” I
inhaled deeply, sandalwood spice, and touched the thick hair
hanging across his forehead. My heart steadied, beating in time
with his, and I suddenly remembered everything.

I’d been married to Robert for only a few
months when I met the eccentric, brilliant doctor at a fund raiser.
My husband had promised millions to research, but even I knew he
made billions on the sales of those drugs to the aristocracy, since
he had part ownership in all the major drug and research
facilities. The newest research proved to be especially
earth-shattering: reanimation. Restoring life to dead cells,
reversing damage, healing cancer—altruistic promises on everyone’s
lips.

At a price. Always at a price. And this
price had been set so extravagantly high that only the extremely
wealthy in Upper City would ever benefit from the miraculous cures.
Robert had seen to that personally, lining his pockets on other
people’s misery and hopelessness. He loved nothing like he loved
his money, not even me, his treasured trophy wife of only the
highest beauty and purist Upper blood. He’d joked to his cronies
that my blood didn’t run aristocratic blue, but gold to match my
hair…and his money.

His cronies never knew my dreadful secret.
My blood had indeed hoarded something very rare but malicious,
discovered only after I’d miscarried our first child. Of course,
Robert had insisted that I consult with his brilliant doctor. I was
the first human experiment, a stunning success story that would
never be told. The Upper Governor’s wife could never be less than
perfect. He’d lose status, no matter how many billions he
possessed.

With my health returned—and Robert’s progeny
assured—I’d betrayed my husband by falling in love with my
doctor.

This bridge had been our meeting place. Oh,
I remembered his kisses, his touch, the horrible burden of
guilt.

“Kade.”

He laughed and cried, pressing frantic
kisses to my eyes, cheeks, and mouth, clutching me close. “I
thought I’d lost you.”

Awful certainty filled my stomach with lead.
I pulled away and forced my stiff limbs to straighten so I could
look down over the stone railing to the swirling waters below. I
remembered floating in that stream. The moon had been a bare sliver
in the sky and the scent of lilac had been strong in the spring air
the night I died. “You did.”