Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance (11 page)

“You think after ten years, they’re still there, and functional?”

“The ropes I used were top of the line climbing ropes and we hid them pretty well, but we won’t know for sure until we get in there.”

We grabbed everything we could carry, packing Alice’s saddlebags with some of the smaller stuff, and headed in.

Unlike most of the world, nothing much had changed in this little stretch of woods in the past ten years. Paths were fainter and a few of the trees had fallen over, but there was little evidence of human presence or interference.

It didn’t take us long to run up alongside Lassiter’s property lines. The big metal fence rose out of the underbrush, barbed wire glinting in the early-morning sun. We followed it along the perimeter, checking for breaches and doing recon on what was going on inside. From what we could see, all was quiet, but Alice let us know there was definitely decaying meat somewhere close by.

96

I found the access tree just about where I remembered it. Mandy hadn’t been much of a climber when we started seeing each other, so by necessity this tree featured a lot of large, low branches that got us about ten feet up before having to switch over to a rope ladder that took us up into the much bigger oak that spanned the fence.

Following the old
Romeo and Juliet
route was harder than I remembered. Shana and I had a few scary moments when ropes were too frayed or missing, but we took it slowly and carefully, and eventually all eight of our feet touched down safely inside Lassiter’s compound.

We tried to stick to the edges and keep obstacles between us and the house’s windows, but there came a point when there was nothing to do but make a flat-out run across a big chunk of open yard in order to reach the back of the house.

We were halfway across when I heard Alice’s deep warning growl and saw her cut off to the right. Shana saw it too and we peeled off after her. Alice had picked up the Zom’s scent and led us right to them. There were three of them milling around a fenced enclosure about the size of a large dog run. Off to the side, a wire-covered, human-sized chute connected it to the house.

“What do you think? Is that our way in?” I asked.

Shana craned her neck to check out the cage’s perimeters. “I don’t see any insulators or battery boxes, so Lassiter didn’t bother to electrify it. I’m going to say, yeah, this is probably our best bet. I’ll get rid of the meat, you get the bolt cutters for the cage.”

Shana attached the silencer to her piece and popped off three brain buster rounds.

Her shots were dead center and all three Zoms went down quick and clean. Ten seconds 97

later we were through the fence and checking out the door and the chute for locks and booby traps.

Sometimes guys like Lassiter fall into the same trap as the drug dealers used to.

They figure they’ve got these vicious beasts running around protecting the place, so they don’t need to take regular everyday security precautions. They get sloppy about closing and locking doors and windows, figuring nobody’s ever going to get past the guardians, so why bother? Guys like that make my life as a cop a lot easier.

Lassiter, unfortunately, was not one of those sloppy guys. The door that led from the cage into the chute was easy enough to breach. But the door that led from the chute into the house was solid steel, with no locks, handles, or buttons on this side to allow humans in. Obviously no one was ever meant to use this door as an entrance.

“Shit, dead end,” I said.

“No pun intended, I suppose,” Shana said, staring hard at the door as she ran her fingers around the edges. “Hold on a second. I think I’ve got it.”

Shana pulled a screwdriver out of Alice’s magic saddlebags and went at the hinges on the door, which surprisingly were completely exposed on this side. Zoms don’t use tools so I suppose it never occurred to Lassiter to cover this particular base. Within a couple of minutes we had the pins out and were ready to pull the door away.

“Ready?”

“Go.”

The door came down, our guns came out and we moved quickly into the house.

Alice wasn’t alerting to any new threats, but she was moving slowly, swinging her huge 98

head from side to side. I had worked with her long enough to know she was searching for something she knew was out there, just beyond her sense range.

The house still had an early-morning quiet feel to it. Like its residents weren’t accustomed to acknowledging the brighter half of the day. There were four doors on this lower level, besides the one we came through. When Mandy and I were dating, they led to a family room, a half bath, the furnace room, and the garage. We checked them out: three were empty and the family room was padlocked from the outside. Whatever was in there wouldn’t be getting out any time soon, so we agreed to move upstairs.

The middle level consisted of the kitchen, dining room, and living room, all in an open-type floor plan. Nothing unusual except the amount of filth and garbage banked up in the corners. It looked like whatever food was consumed in this place didn’t need a cooking or refrigeration. All clear. One more level.

Shana and Alice finally made Mrs. Lassiter’s acquaintance as we reached the upstairs hallway. She charged out at us from the bathroom, but in the second between our guns going off and the bullets blowing through the back of her skull, Shana and I both registered that not only had she been moving at a pretty good clip, but she was armed with an axe and had been quite clearly cursing us out.

“Shit,” both of us said in unison.

“She was alive when we shot her, Ryan. Danielle was wrong. What if she was wrong about everything? What if she fucked us over just to get out of doing time? What if we just broke into a fucking law-abiding
civilian’s
house and gunned down a woman who was protecting herself from fucking
intruders
?”

99

“Calm down. Shit. Let’s just take a breath. Okay. First of all, law-abiding civilians don’t keep fucking zombies in a kennel out back. Second, Danielle told us she was only guessing about Mandy and her mother.”

“If that bitch is fucking us over, I’ll hunt her down and…”

BOOM.

The muffled gunshot echoed down the hall, followed by a scream and what sounded like furniture being thrown around. Shana, Alice. and I ran to the last door at the end of the hall. Alice alerted, so we were prepared for a Zom, but when we opened the door, no way in hell were we prepared for the scene playing out in front of us.

Lassiter lay sprawled on the floor, rifle on the rug next to him, blown-out lamp off to one side. Curled over him like a hungry vulture was a naked, bloody Mandy, ripping his torso to shreds with her bare hands. She was so intent on her prey she never even acknowledged our presence.

Shana recovered before I did, but instead of following protocol and firing off a kill shot, she dragged me backwards out of the room, slamming the door shut behind us.

We sat in the hallway listening to slurping and smacking noises for what seemed like a very long time, tears running down both of our faces.

“Do you want me to handle this?” Shana asked, breaking the silence.

“No, this is all mine.”

I got slowly to my feet and walked to the door. The feeding sounds had stopped.

Usually right after a good meal, they were a little slower and marginally easier to handle.

They never really slept, but temporarily fell into something like a post-Thanksgiving stupor.

100

I opened the door carefully. Mandy wasn’t near the body any longer. She was curled up in the corner on the far side of the room, about as far as possible from her father’s remains.

She must have seen me come in, but she didn’t move. She just sat there, her thin body slightly bloated by what was probably more food than she had ever been allowed to consume. I raised my arm and lined up the sight.

“I’m sorry about everything, Mandy. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

And I pulled the trigger.

When I finally stopped sobbing and went over to check Mandy’s body, I swear, the half of her face that was still intact was smiling.

101

My Partner the Zombie

by R.G. Hart

I sat behind my tan oak desk watching our new client drip on our carpet. The carpet was just dry cleaned yesterday.

My partner, Matt Butcher, sat opposite me behind his desk, his dark eyes watchful. I sensed he was waiting for my indignation to explode, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. The steady drone of traffic on Bleeker Street three floors below our office windows filled the silence. It was early in the day so delivery vans were busy making their rounds.

“Mr. Jens,” I began, keeping my tone even, “how is it you’re so wet?”

His round face and coal-black eyes turned from Matt to me. He was a small man.

Some would say he was a midget. Having seen every oddity this world can offer—and some of my best friends are midgets—I prefer the term little person.

“I require the services of a private investigator, but I’m not sure I came to the right place.” Jens’s eyes flitted to Matt, then back to me. “Is he gonna eat my brain?”

I laughed. “No, Mr. Jens. Matt’s a vegetarian. He only eats tofu brains.” I glanced at Matt. One side of his generous mouth curled in a half smile and the corners of his eyes crinkled. I confess I shiver every time he smiles. Truth is, I’d loved Matt since the day I met him. Too bad he didn’t share my feelings. Zombie and redheaded PI loving just wasn’t in the cards, I guessed.

I saw Jens scowl at me. He obviously didn’t appreciate my twisted sense of humor.

102

“Sorry, Mr. Jens. A little joke.” I eased back in my tan oak captain’s chair and shifted my weight. I’d been sitting too long and my
gluteus maximus
was sore. The concord grape-colored chair cushion had long ago been mashed into uselessness.

“Truth is, my partner is a fifty-fifty zombie.”

Jens blinked. He didn’t get it. Not surprising, considering that in my line of work I didn’t believe half of what I was told either. “He wasn’t fully zombie when he escaped from the undead factory.” Yeah. Right. More like the island where the
Mambo
created her zombies.

“Ever hear of Zombie Away?” he said sarcastically.

I shook my head. “Allergies.”

Jens
humprfed
and crossed his arms over his chest. “I was told, Miss Armstrong, your agency was the best. Now I’m not so sure.” He waved a dismissive hand at me. “A zombie and a model? I mean,
really,
how would anyone ever take you seriously?”

I narrowed my eyes and rose from behind my desk. I was pleased when he took a step back, but winced when his runners squished more water onto the carpet. I rounded the desk and went to the coffee maker we kept on top of an army-green filing cabinet. I poured myself a mug.

“Mr. Jens, I have not, nor have I ever been, a
model
. I used to be a federal agent with the Legal Investigative Protection Service and have brought many criminals to justice. Surely you’ve heard of the Zero case.”

Jen’s brow creased, his eyes skeptical. “Yeah. I’ve heard of it.”

103

I walked back behind my desk with my mug in my hand. “Well, Matt and I were heavily involved in that case.” Of course I didn’t tell him I left the L.I.P.S. because of that case. It was need-to-know information, and that he didn’t need to know.

“Okay.” He paused, then suddenly his words spat out machine-gun style. “I’m soaked because I was pushed into a tank of water from forty feet up. Someone’s trying to murder me.”

* * * *

Jerry Jens is a circus midget. At least that’s the billboard next to the ticket booth screamed in large red and purple letters. I glanced at Matt and grunted. He was wearing my favorite grey pinstriped double-breasted suit and grey felt fedora. Man, did he look like a professional private dick right out of a Raymond Chandler novel. Cool.

I was wearing my usual uniform of black spandex leggings, four-inch spiked heels, and billowy cotton sweater. I wore a bulky sweater because I hated it when men talked to my breasts as if they were microphones. A thirty-eight C cup could be a real detriment in my business.

Jerry had gone home to change, but he’d given me a card for Maxmillian Q.

Quiet. Quiet was the general manager and ringmaster of the Dingaling Brothers Circus.

The much traveled circus was camped on the edge of town.

We approached the ticket booth to find the oldest woman I had ever seen seated on a stool behind a wall of dirt-smudged Plexiglas. There was a half moon-shaped opening just above the counter for the exchange of money for tickets. Her weathered face was a perfect representation of the Grand Canyon. “That’ll be seventeen fifty,” she said in a gravel-crunching voice.

104

She didn’t look up when I handed her Quiet’s card. “We’re here to see Mr.

Quiet.”

The old woman’s sky blue eyes finally lifted from the
Racing Form
she’d been reading to peer at the card, then at us. Her world-weary, unemotional eyes flitted between Matt and me. “Staff entrance is round back.”

I smiled. “We’re private investigators. We really need to speak with Mr. Quiet.

It’s a matter of life and death.” Yeah, I know, a little dramatic, but sometimes theatrics can take you a long way. Especially when you’re dealing with theatrical people.

“Why didn’t you say so?” she said, her tone heavy with sarcasm. “Once you’re inside, turn left, then make a right at the second tent. Follow the tent until you come to a row of trailers. In the fifth trailer from the left you’ll find Maxie.”

“Thanks.”

She nodded, then turned her attention back to the paper. I retrieved Quiet’s card and we started to walk away when she called me back. I went back and leaned toward the window as the woman motioned me closer with one crooked finger. “Yes?”

“Don’t tell Maxie I sent ya.”

I glanced at Matt. He shrugged. I looked back into the old woman’s blood-webbed eyes. “Yes, certainly.”

Once inside the entrance we were greeted by the smells of fresh cut grass and sour hay.