Love in the Time of Zombies (10 page)

I didn’t hear anything, but my fillings could. Rubbing my jaw, the pain stayed and wouldn’t go away. Others must have felt it too. I heard hissing and people grabbed and rubbed their faces. Elderly Mr. Buster slapped a hand to his forehead and I remembered he had a steel plate there, a souvenir of the Iraqi War.

I heard the click of a button and it stopped.

“When this played at the hospital the zombs just stood there. Swaying to something only they could hear. The other guys, the live ones, could walk among them and nothing happened. They put vests on them. They made the zombs into suicide bombers. They took down the hospital in minutes. They killed almost everyone.”

“Almost everyone?” Jack asked.

Jed stuttered. “They took the young women and some doctors. They had lab coats, I think they were doctors. Killed everyone else.”

“When was this?”

Shannon spoke up. “We left a day and a half ago. We took the back roads so it took longer, but we didn’t want to run into General Peters on the freeway. I was sure I wouldn’t find you guys still here, but we had to take a chance to let you know what you’ll face. General Peters’ men said The Streets of Brentwood were next.”

A cacophony of voices rose in the theater. Everyone wanted to know everything at once. Jack raised his hands again. “One at a time.”

I half-listened as questions were asked and answered. My mind was far outside the walls of this shopping center. Besides, I only had two questions and neither Shannon nor Jed could answer them. Where was Seth? And why wasn’t this ‘General’ Peters here yet?

Apartment 10B

Concord, California

Miranda Stevens’ mind was a centrifuge on overdrive. Should she stay? Should she go? Was it better to go it alone? Or was it better to wait for Seth? It had taken most of a day to get Seth Ripley up ten flights of stairs in the apartment building next to the pharmacy. Height equaled safety, as far as she was concerned. All the apartment doors had been open as if an evacuation had taken place at some time. She’d found no one inside, but plenty of supplies. If they’d been forced to leave, the tenants had left in a rush. Cupboards overflowed with boxed and canned goodness.

A moan from the bedroom drew her attention back to the present. She stood up and went to the doorway. Seth writhed on the bed like a caged animal, his wrists and ankles tied to the bed. Had it been two days? No, maybe it was three—in any case, he hadn’t turned. He’d soaked the sheets through and the acrid smell of sweat wafted through the whole place. She didn’t dare open a window for ventilation with his yells and screams coming without notice.

She tugged off her cap and ran a hand over her buzzed hair. Grimacing, she yanked the cap back on. Her gaze swept to the man’s injured hand. Blood crusted on the bandage wrapped around what was left of his hand. Miranda swallowed the bile in her throat. She’d thrown up enough when she’d amputated his pinky and ring finger to try to save his life. And the jury was still out on that. Maybe she’d done all that damage for nothing.

The stench of burnt flesh would never leave her. She leaned up against the doorjamb. It was what it was. The curling iron that ran on butane was all she could find in the drug store to cauterize the wound she’d made of his hand.

“Now we wait,” she whispered in the empty silence of the dwelling, only broken by Seth’s thrashing and whimpering.

“Mama,” he cried from the bed.

She went over and brushed the greasy strands of hair back from his heated forehead. He was burning up. Getting a bottle of water from the nightstand, she forced some down his throat and poured some on a washrag she’d used to wipe him down.

“No Mama. I’m sorry, Seth. You just have me.”

His eyes remained a beautiful hazel color every time she raised the lids to look. No glassy, opaque look—yet. She pulled down the sheet and ran the damp cloth across his chest. He was so beautiful, so young. At least compared to Peters. A shudder ran through her body as her fingers trailed down his chest with the washcloth. Dark hair covered his torso and ran straight down to the buckle on his pants. Her fingertips grazed his belt buckle and she jumped back with a hiss as if the metal had burned her. The man was incoherent. She wouldn’t be any better than Peters or his men.

Flinging the cloth across the room, she covered her eyes and the sobs broke. She wouldn’t be one of them. They hadn’t changed her that much. They’d taken her innocence; she wouldn’t let them have taken her beliefs and values.

“I won’t. I’m not a monster.”

Her fingers trembled as she pulled the sheet back up to his chin. “You have to live, Seth. I can’t do this alone.”

Time passed as the sun traveled from the living-room window in the morning, baked the small apartment through the day, and then sank on the horizon out the bedroom window. Miranda filled the time with checking on Seth, keeping him alive with sips of water every hour, and searching the building and nearby stores for supplies.

Each morning she rushed from the couch to find him still unconscious, but not turned. Each evening she said the prayers she’d thought she’d lost, begging God to see Seth through this. Three more days passed before his fever broke. She checked his hand as she cleaned it and bandaged it up again. The burn scars made her stomach clench, but there were no red or black streaks running from the mutilated flesh. Thank goodness for medical shows on television. She smiled at the thought of the television being good for something.

Getting Seth cleaned up and settled with more blankets, she decided to take a sponge bath herself. Grabbing two gallon-bottles of water, she headed to the bathroom. She stripped and stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t do anything about her missing hair, but her face looked fuller and her ribs weren’t showing anymore. She now had all the food she wanted, not how much she earned.

“Fuck you, Peters,” she whispered to her reflection. “Fuck you all.”

She turned away from the hatred flooding her eyes.
No time for hate, only time to live.

The lukewarm water flowed over her as she poured the first bottle. She didn’t need shampoo but she grabbed the bottle anyway and squeezed a handful of strawberry goodness into her hand. Rubbing it over her head and body was the best she’d felt in a long time.

She was pouring the second bottle over her head when the screams began again. Cursing, with shampoo in her eyes, she did the best she could and grabbed a towel to whip around her body.

“Emily. Emily. Emily. Emily.”

“Shit, “Miranda said, as she ran into the bedroom.

Seth had pulled a hand free. She grabbed it as she jumped on the bed and straddled his hips. “Shush,” she begged, putting her other hand over his mouth.

His movements slowed and stopped. He pulled his hand free and put it on the back of her neck. Pressure forced her to lean down over him. Her hand fell from his mouth seconds before he pulled her closer and his lips found hers. No forcing needed then. Oh my God, his kiss was heat and fire and sin. Everything she’d read about in romance novels and nothing like Peters’ wet slurping on her face and in her mouth. Her head grew light and colors flashed behind her closed eyelids.

His lips left hers and trailed over her cheek to the sensitive skin behind her ear. His teeth nibbled at her earlobe and her legs grew weak. The only thing stopping her from collapsing on his body was the hand on her neck.

“Emily,” he whispered in her ear.

She whimpered. Steel flashed up her spine. She removed his hand and put it on the covers. Slowly, she stopped straddling his hips and moved from the bed. Untying his other hand, she moved to his feet and untied them as well. Seth rolled to his side and settled into a comfortable sleep, snoring included. She covered him and backed out of the room.

“Damn, Emily, you are a lucky woman,” she whispered, wiping a tear from her cheek.

Seth’s eyes fluttered open. Pain shot from his hand, up his arm, to his head. He grabbed his hand and screamed in agony. Opening his eyes, his gaze traveled over his bandaged hand. The shape was wrong. He ripped the gauze off and it fell to the bed. He knew something was wrong, but his brain couldn’t comprehend how this mutilated—burned thing could be his hand.

He sat up in the bed, the covers falling off. A whispered sound had his head spinning around. A young boy stood in the doorway. No. His view of the front of a T-shirt changed that thought. A young girl stood there. Flashes of her being there bombarded his mind.

A flash pierced his mind of the destroyed hospital.

Another flash slammed into him, of his mother turning into one of
them
.

His breath left him. His mother was dead. He’d killed his mother.

“Fuck.”

“Yep, that about sums it up.”

He winced. “Sorry about that.”

She laughed. “No problem, Seth.”

He sat up straighter. “How do you know me? Where are we? How did we get here? Are there others?”

“Whoa,” she said, walking across the room and sitting on the bed beside him. “One thing at a time.”

She gathered up the bloody gauze and rolled it into a ball. “Let’s get that covered again.”

When she left, he heard her in cabinets, presumably the bathroom. His hand throbbed where his missing fingers should be. It beat in time with his heart. He prayed there were some painkillers wherever she was.

“How do you know me?” It shot out the second she returned with gauze and ‘Thank God’ a pill bottle.

She cradled his hand, her fingers soft and sure. He looked away until she’d covered it up again. Shaking out a couple of pills into his other hand, she waited until he threw them in his mouth and handed him a water bottle.

“Sorry about that,” she said, pointing to the bandages.

“Did you do that?”

“I had to. Let me start at the beginning. I’m Miranda Stevens. I saw you at Peters’ compound in the Delta when you brought supplies and stuff.”

His mouth dropped open. Miranda Stevens had been a beautiful young woman. She’d had brown hair to her waist and a smile for him every time he’d arrived with stuff for the group. He’d known some young man was going to be very lucky to win Miranda’s heart someday. He couldn’t reconcile that vivid memory of a sweet girl with the tough soldier chick before him.

She blushed, brushing a hand over her buzzed head. “It’s not important. I don’t want to discuss it.”

“No problem,” Seth added quickly, sorry he’d upset the young girl. “How did we get here? I remember the hospital.” He swallowed harshly, his throat dry and tight.

“I found you after I escaped the General and his men. You had a woman in your arms. I figured she was your mom. She looked like you. So I buried her, the best I could, and got you here. Someone bit you. It didn’t look so bad so I cut off your fingers, cauterized the wound, and waited for you to heal or turn. Whichever came first.”

He stared at his hand. She talked so matter-of-factly of doing the things she’d done to save his life, but they couldn’t have been easy. From the conversation, he got that there was only the two of them here. Wherever here was.

“How long since…since the hospital? What happened there?”

“It’s been four days, no, maybe five, since General Peters and his zombie horde took the hospital.”

“Took the hospital? Zombie horde?”

“He has a way to control them, to use them to attack people. He’s going to The Streets of Brentwood next. He destroys everything he touches. God, I hate him.”

“The Streets,” Seth cried, jumping up. He collapsed back to the bed, the blood leaving his head. “I have to go. I have to warn them.”

“Seth,” Miranda said, placing a hand on his arm. “That was five days ago. Whatever was going to happen, has happened.”

“But…Emily.”

“You called for her in your sleep. A friend?”

He took her hand in his. “More than a friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

Seth dropped her hand. He put his palm over his eyes and hot tears scalded his face.
Emily couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t be.

His tears dried as fast as they had come. All this world did was take, take, take. Well, he was damned tired of it taking; it was time to take it back. It didn’t belong to the undead bastards and it didn’t belong to the General Peters of the world either.

He pushed himself off the bed with his good hand. “Where are my clothes?”

Miranda walked to a chair and brought him a pile with jeans and a shirt he didn’t recognize. She shrugged. “Your shirt was too far gone, but I found a Goodwill store down the street and got you those. I figured you might like some clean jeans too.”

He forgot and tried to grab the material with his right hand. A hiss escaped him as he jumped back when the denim brushed his injury. The pile fell between them. He cradled his hand as Miranda bent down and got the clothing for him.

His face heated. He was not going to be an invalid. What were a few fingers? At least, he was alive. He’d seen truckers in the past with missing parts of fingers. Just one of the many hazards of being a truck driver. He could do this.

Seth took the clothes from Miranda. “You shouldn’t have done this. It’s too dangerous to wander around by yourself for some jeans and T-shirts.”

She blushed. “It wasn’t so bad. I’ve seen hardly any undead at all. I think most of them died at the hospital.”

She turned to go. “I’ll let you get dressed. There’s some fruit and veggies in the kitchen when you’re ready.”

He started to speak up, but the young woman had already gone out the door and shut it behind her. Dropping the stuff on the bed, Seth struggled to get out of his jeans and pulled on the new pair. He managed most of the way with minimal cursing and grabbing of his damaged hand. He zipped up the jeans but couldn’t manage the button with one hand.

Letting it go, he slid a shirt over his head and called himself dressed. He paced the floor. Standing still just gave him time to mourn Emily, his mother, his old life. This world handed out nothing but crap. He’d told Emily that life mattered as long as they had it. She’d been right to see it for the load of bullshit it was. This wasn’t life. This wasn’t living. This was a big cosmic joke, and God was laughing at them all.

A sob built and broke loose as he slid to the floor, his head in his one good hand, the mangled one dangling by his side.