Scavengers: Collection - Books 1-4 (Zombie Gentlemen) (m/m zombie steampunk erotic romance) (9 page)

“Hide! I’ll lead’em away!” the man breathed, directing him towards the tree and then suddenly ran off, the jewels in his backpack clattering. “Come on! Come on, you scum!” he yelled, taking out a gun and shooting a way towards the mansion for himself.

James managed to mutter a very scared ‘No!’ as he watched Ira run. His heart shrunk in panic, when he heard a hungry moan only inches away.

*

“Fuckfuckfuck!” Ira hissed over and over, shooting the beasts on his way and trying to make as much noise as possible. When he stole a short moment to look back, it seemed that the tactic proved useful, as all the undead shuffled in his direction. He hoped his inexperienced companion would be all right. From what he remembered from the blueprint, he could outmaneuver them inside the mansion thanks to the separate space formerly used by servants. It even had its own door.

In the main hall, there was only one zombie, but he outran it, racing through a richly decorated corridor and into the drawing room. As he broke through the door, a creature launched itself at him, almost knocking him over, but he managed to kill it with the dagger and shoot another one before continuing the flight into yet another corridor. His heart was hammering rapidly and the growing nervousness only powered the unpleasant lightheadedness. All his senses were wide-awake in panic. He knew that a single mistake could cost him his life.

With a horde of zombies following him, his best option was to run. Following his instincts, he stormed through a small door to his side and almost fell over human skeletons piling up at the center of a sparsely decorated room that must have been a part of the servants’ quarters. He aimed for a door on the other side, but as he saw something move behind it, his mind went practically blank and he launched himself at a wooden staircase at the side of the room. He felt something grab the crossbow on his back and let it slip down without a second thought. All he cared about now was to get away. The servants’ corridor was empty, but with the sound of numerous feet behind him and seeing another way out, he stormed into every other room, seeking a way through. With downstairs blocked, he couldn't use the planned escape route and somehow, he couldn't recall the blueprints anymore either. Each time he tried to find a passage, it cost him precious distance from the zombies.

Moving through the house, he barged into a massive bedroom with yet another pair of rotting corpses on an expensive looking carpet. The smell of mold, dampness and death almost made him sick. The windows were covered, so it was dark. Though he was extremely agile, in all the chaos Ira fell over with another curse on his lips. A zombie, which was right behind him, took advantage of the situation and grabbed his jacket, but Ira turned swiftly and jabbed its forehead with a dagger. Another undead hand was already reaching into the room, when he jumped back to his feet and crushed it in the doorframe with brutal force. With other monsters already behind it, Ira locked the door, almost in a frenzy and moved a few steps away. It was literally shaking and looked as if it wouldn’t hold the zombies back much longer. The treasure hunter ran a hand over his scalp, his breath unpleasantly heavy. He noticed a window, moved across and opened it immediately. At least he had a gun. If he jumped and broke a leg, he could still shoot himself before they got him. A bitter laugh left his lips as he saw zombies moving all over the lawn. This was the side of the building he ran into and it appeared as though many undead had lost track of his whereabouts. For a moment, he stood there, not knowing what to do next, but then, a shape to the side caught his attention and hope instantly filled his heart. Urged by another crackling sound from the door, Ira put both of his feet on the windowsill and grabbed the rusty drainpipe. He didn't even check how solid it was, he simply gripped the metal piece and jumped across. The pulsing in his head strengthened as his body curled around the broad pipe, his stomach convulsing in sheer panic.

Climbing the drainpipe felt like hours. Under his heavy outfit, he was dripping with sweat, but his armor had served its purpose: he wasn’t scratched and a zombie that bit his leg never managed to pierce the leather, giving him enough time to kill it. In this part of the building, the slope of the roof was at a sharp angle, but Ira still wanted to climb. If he made it to the top, at least he could sit and think for a minute or two. He didn't feel any discomfort, completely focused on the task at hand and determined to reach the safe place. He also knew zombies couldn't climb. Ira smiled breathlessly as the brink slowly became within reach. Supporting his legs on metal pins, he straightened his back grabbing the edge with a desperate groan. Reaching a little further, he managed to place his knee on the roof and grab the lightning conductor with a hoarse laugh.

“Yes... fuck yeah,” he mumbled, slowly scrabbling up the roof. Once he felt safe enough, he laid down with his cheek nestled against the warm metal. Only now, as the adrenaline rush wore off did he feel how much of a strain this escape had been. Everything hurt, including his overexercised lungs. From the top of the roof, he could see the tree he had left James at, but there was no sign of the aristocrat. Was he up in the leaves? Or maybe he left, taking his chance for a relatively safe passage? Letting his mind slip into pleasant thoughtlessness, Ira slowly moved up the slope of the roof, trying to ignore the heavy feeling in his limbs. His temples pulsed with pain. At least the weather was on his side, caressing him with a gentle breeze. On the other hand, the sun was slowly setting and that was never a good thing out in the open.

He felt a strange pang of loneliness gnawing at his insides as he sat on the roof scanning the area in silence. The emotions he'd experienced an hour ago came back. He massaged his face with both hands, suddenly realizing that they were red from rust and blood. He must have cut himself a number of times during the climb.

“Now where are you?” he breathed, remembering the soft, perfect skin beneath his own. He never had the chance to be with someone like James before and it felt... different. It made him want to please him even more. The man was just so honest and passionate.

The zombies seemed to be everywhere, moving slowly, with no apparent purpose and Ira sighed with worry. With the situation as it was, he could not risk going down until morning. There was a chance the monsters would forget him and disperse by then.

After a good hour of sitting on the rooftop it was almost dark when all of a sudden he heard a kind of roaring, like an automobile’s engine. He blinked, looking up from a bag of dried prunes he was eating. His heart sank as he recognized the unmistakable sound of the Firefly. James must have made it.

Ira stood up carefully, trying to see him disappear over the forest. He could not blame the man for wanting to save his own life. After all, he had a wife and son to take care of. The understanding did not stop a little pang of hurt though. Back there in the attic, he got the impression that there was a connection between them and now, being simply left behind felt... wrong.

Finally, he saw the figure rise above the trees. James wasn’t proficient with using the machine so every now and then he fell a bit lower only to rise again. But instead of the forest, he turned to the mansion. His legs dangled only a few feet above the zombies that followed him. If he would fall, a certain, highly unpleasant death awaited him.

Ira felt a tremor going through him as he watched James come closer, his long hair fluttering beneath a pilot’s cap. The man’s heart hammered violently in his chest as he observed his companion approaching. This was unexpected. Even with the feeling of disappointment, he would never have expected the man to take such a risk for him. His breath trembled as his eyes caught the other man’s gaze through the goggles.

James smiled, reaching his hand out to Ira. Nevertheless, there was a worried look to him. “I didn’t know if you would make it!”

The older man pulled him down, switching the steam engine off with one move and catching his partner as he lost balance. “Me neither,” he breathed, holding him close. Their eyes locked, but James didn’t wait a moment longer to force a kiss onto his lips. The touch sent shivers down Ira’s abdomen and he drew in a sharp breath, cradling him in his arms.

“You came back... that’s crazy...,” said Ira, in a quiet voice.

“I’m not a coward!” James said, with conviction, kissing and hugging him again. The older man studied him intently, feeling a rush of heat in his body. Now, that he had the Firefly, he knew they would survive. Both of them.

“You ain’t,” he whispered, slowly unbuckling the machine. He was more proficient in the use of it.

James kept touching him over and over again, as if he couldn’t get enough. “Promise we’ll make it to the station?”

Ira put the device on himself and expertly adjusted all the straps. His gaze ran up the aristocrat’s body, over to his lovely mouth and he smiled at him. The man was as sweet as honey.

“I promise to get ya there,” he said quietly, and gently took hold of James’ hands.

Scavengers: July - End

Scavengers: August

By K.A. Merikan

Glossary:

Bunter – a very cheap street harlot, practically a beggar

Madam – female pimp or brothel owner

Pigs – the police

Punter – a prostitute’s client

Rentboy – male prostitute

Toff – member of the upper classes, slightly derogatory

Trollop – slut

All these terms had been used as slang in Victorian England.

August 17th, 1893

Lady Juanita Shelley looked out of the horse-driven carriage. They were rare and only the wealthiest could afford them instead of steam-powered transport. Like any domesticated animals that weren’t used to produce food, horses were considered a sign of pure wastefulness. Food was scarce in times of the Undead Plague, so using it for animals enraged many purists who postulated to feed them to the poor. Juanita smiled as she watched a crowded street from inside of the richly decorated coach. She was a beautiful woman, who looked nothing like her thirty-three years. She looked dazzling, wearing a tightly fitting, bright yellow dress with a decorative bustle, accentuating her incredibly thin waist. Two stuffed chickadees adorned her broad hat matching other avian motifs embroidered by the revealing neckline of her gown and satin gloves.

The other person in the carriage though, didn’t seem to pay a lot of attention to her beauty. James Hurst was also looking out of the window, with his temple pressed to the wooden side of the door. He felt a bit uncomfortable in the presence of Lady Shelley, as he wasn’t a master of small talk. But he wasn’t ignorant or blind either. The woman had suddenly started immensely enjoying his company after he had returned from his mansion in Kent just a month ago. It was obvious to him that her new found affection had a lot to do with the small fortune he had brought from the treasure hunt.

Maybe if he were less polite, he would have declined traveling to the University together, but since they had lived in the same street, it would have been incomprehensible rudeness.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t avoid someone who worked with him in the Parliament. James only inherited his place in the House of Lords after his father died, but he agreed with the other Lords and couldn’t bear that a woman, raised abroad at that and not even noble by birth, had the same political powers that they had. Juanita Shelley was only half British, but married a Baron and came back to her mother’s homeland with him. Coincidentally, Lord Shelley died of a heart attack soon afterwards. Being the industrious woman that she was, Juanita managed to start a precedent that allowed her to inherit her husband’s position. In effect, she was swiftly joined by Lady Swanson, the only child of another deceased Lord.

Like a lot of nobles, after the Plague, the Outbreak, or the Curse, however one would call a situation when people come back from the dead as flesh-eating monsters, James lost his land and a greater part of his income. Being on the verge of poverty, broke and in debt, he decided to try and retrieve the treasures his father had hid in their family mansion. He and the man he hired barely survived that mission but they had succeeded in their quest and now he was once again a very rich man. As a reminder, he was left with burns on his neck and jaw after a zombie had scratched him and the other man suggested ‘helping’ him with a hot metal rod. That memory still sent shivers down his spine, but as horrid as it was, it worked and he did not get infected. Now, almost a month later, he was alive and healthy.

His burns did not deter the likes of Lady Juanita Shelley though. He imagined that when she looked at him, all she saw was a big pile of gold, with a diamond on top. On the other hand, she knew he was married and he found it immoral that she was swirling around him like a hungry fox. It made him think that maybe she was after some pleasures of the flesh and that was what really made him uncomfortable. James wasn’t unaware of the fact that he was not only rich now, but also attractive. Twenty-five years old, tall, quite slim but with broad shoulders and apart from the scars at the bottom of his face, he looked handsome. His body was reserved for his wife Katherine though and that was that... well... apart from one slip up that turned his life upside down, but he did not like to think of it, as it only caused him misery.

His chestnut hair was tied neatly at the back of his neck with a dark, silk ribbon, but apart from that touch, his clothes were balanced between fashionable and elegant. He wasn’t fond of the strange new fashions some people were bringing in from abroad. No one would have heard of women in trousers before, or even worse - trousers that were so short they could be considered pants. It was said that some worked around all sorts of steam machines and even zeppelins which produced such heat, that female operatives would work in just their corsets and trousers. He couldn’t imagine that kind of obscenity outside the docks and Soho, where most prostitutes worked and he hoped to never see that kind of abomination. It seemed unavoidable though. Lower and middle classes got drunk on new technology and it all sped up the wheel of change. Even morality wasn’t spared.

A sudden touch to his knee brought him back to reality. The woman was leaning forward slightly with an innocent look on her face, but in this position, he could almost look between her cleavage, enfolded in a bed of soft feathers that decorated the neckline of her dress. “Are you not feeling well?” she asked.

“No, no! I’m fine.” He looked out of the window. “We are almost there.”

“You know the city so well!” said Juanita in an appreciative tone. James couldn’t bring himself to think of her as a ‘Lady’, especially with being touched by her like that!

She had moved to London two years ago, after marrying Lord Shelley. Raised in Spain, she had only visited her mother’s native Britain two times before the Plague. Her breasts shook a bit, as the coach stumbled over something and James averted his gaze back to her face, feeling extremely uncomfortable. He wished she would take her hand off his thigh.

“Not all of its parts,” he felt the need to underline that fact.

“Oh, you are much too modest!” the woman exclaimed, pouting slightly.

“Modesty is a virtue,” he couldn’t help but say, even though it could have been considered an affront to Juanita’s dress. 

“Perhaps you know where the Johners Walk is going to take place? We could watch it together,” she answered in a sweet tone.

“I do not think it will be a pleasurable thing to see,” he said and even the sole thought of the Witnesses of the Apocalypse, or ‘Johners’ as they were called, made him lose his temper and scowl.

“Oh, their postulates might be a bit over inflated, but I do believe that there is quite a lot of sense in it, actually,” Juanita stated, smiling sweetly. “After all, what do we have left now but ourselves?”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Shelley, but what is it that you mean? These people consider the Book of Revelation their guide in the new world. And what they mean by that is abandoning all hope and giving in to the Plague. I must admit those postulates do not appeal to me at all.” James shifted in his seat, waiting for the god forsaken carriage ride to be over.

“But don’t you agree that the situation is hopeless?” she breathed, slowly stroking his thigh. “We should be enjoying the time we have left. No need to think about further generations, as they will perish too.”

“I have no appreciation for such nonsense,” he said. “As nobility, we should be the ones setting a good example to both the lower classes and future generations. Johners ideas of going rampant are out of the question. Soon enough we will see them fornicating with the undead.” An expression of disgust was present on his face as he spoke.

“Good heavens!” she laughed in disbelief. “How in the world could you even imagine such a thing! Your mind cannot be as pure as you claim, my dear Lord Hurst!” she teased, fluttering her thick eyelashes.

James felt heat climb up his neck but to his luck, he was saved from answering as they finally arrived at the University of St Catherine. “Here we are!” His smile was a bit stiff but he felt relieved nonetheless. The institution was situated in a large complex of elegant neo-gothic buildings with tall windows and numerous stone decorations on the elevation.

“Oh... that was not very far,” Lady Hunt said, sliding her delicate hand from his knee in a slow stroke.

He was so relieved, in fact, he exhaled quite loudly. “It is not,” he agreed, “but I did not want you to walk through those dirty streets.”

The coachman appeared behind the window and opened the door for them. “St Catherine’s,” he informed, with a short bow.

Because the air in the city had become so dirty in recent years, everyone that could afford it wore protective masks, both for the sake of appearance and health. That being so, James donned his elegant gas mask made from brown leather, to match his shoes. He was the first one to leave the steam carriage and once outside, he held out his hand to Lady Shelley. Her mask was covered with a layer of nacre and shaped like a canary’s beak. Instead of putting it on, she held it by her face with a silver handle. The woman took James' hand and exited the coach gracefully.

The pavement was relatively clean, so there was no need for her to continue lifting the hem of her dress once she was on the ground. James smiled and they started walking towards a group of men already standing at the top of the marble stairs. He really hoped someone would get Lady Shelley’s attention off him. Five years after the appearance of the new, terrible illness, a professor Hiltrub established the first department of morphysiology in the British Isles, which was second only to the one at a University in Berlin. The new branch of science was concerned exclusively with the physiology of the undead and was supposed to find a cure in the long run.

A young professor who was supposed to be their guide in the building was introduced to James as Arthur Fairfax. After a short welcoming talk, the whole group entered the university. James didn’t know much about medicine but as one of the parliament's representatives, he tried to learn, and inspecting the new department was one way to go about it. One of the conservative lords, Richard Barnett was strongly opposed to this new development, but the majority supported the research in hope of helping the ill and preventing further spread of the Plague. Another major advantage of having undead subjects in a medical faculty was the possibility to learn about the functioning of a human body on a working organism. Undead bodies did work, even though their physiology was much slower than that of regular humans. This not only accustomed future surgeons with functioning bodies, but also presented the possibility to observe how they worked.

“And you said that you are transporting them safely to the university?” James inquired, as they were walking down a clean, white corridor. “Who would take on such a task?”

From the whispering that followed his question, he recognized that other members of this party were wondering the same thing.

“I’m happy you asked, sir,” their guide smiled, turning into a spacious corridor with a chequered floor and tall windows. The light inside was dyed by colorful stained glass images depicting important concepts and personas from the history of medicine. “Thankfully, London has a varied population and the recruitment was not difficult at all. Some are even working today,” he explained.

“On a Sunday?” James raised his eyebrows suspiciously. “Are they godly people?”

The professor shrugged. “They are, but their beliefs are somewhat different from ours,” he explained. “And they have a day off on Saturdays.”

“Jews?” asked Lady Shelley blinking in surprise. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

Until a few years ago the Jews enjoyed a growing tolerance and some even worked in Parliament, but with the Plague it all changed. From just a few pieces of gossip, to then hateful articles in the newspapers, the Jews became suspected of causing the horrible illness in an attempt to bring the Messiah to earth. Many claimed they were just as depraved as the Johners. Because of the hostile attitudes, most of the Jewish population in London started keeping to themselves, moving into particular districts, even though it was not enforced by law.  They still could practice their religion legally, but all persons of Jewish origin have been abolished from public functions.

This once, James had to agree with Juanita. “That does sound extremely dangerous. What if they decide to release the undead in the city. Somewhere in the Christian districts. You don’t know what to expect of these people!” he said, extremely worried. Police reported numerous conflicts between Jews and Christians, especially in less affluent areas. Lord Barnett lobbied to pass a law constricting the former to Bylondon, parasitic districts growing on the outer side of London’s protective walls. This suggestion didn’t go through in the parliament, but still gained more support than Barnett’s quiet advocacy of Johners.

“Oh come on now, Hurst!” one of the older Lords said, accompanied by some other men. “Its the nineteenth century! We are not living in the middle ages anymore!”

“I just want to raise the issue,” murmured James, pouting a bit.

“You are only saying that because you live far away from their district, Lord Meldrum!” exclaimed Juanita, “But you certainly would not employ one of those people!”

“Or allow your daughter to marry one, right?” James smiled with a bit of satisfaction, straightening his back and walking behind the professor.

His opponent drew in a deep breath, speechless for a short moment.  “I would not, because she will marry her social equal! You know very well a shopkeeper or sailor wouldn’t be good enough for her either!" he spat.

“I’m sure the men we recruited are quite well adjusted to polite society!” the young professor said, trying to lead them further down the corridor. He sped up to open a large, wooden door. “I think you will want to use this menthol salve under your noses,” he proposed, opening a small jar and smearing a little over his upper lip.

Why? Does it smell of ‘Jew’?
James thought, but managed to keep it to himself while doing as the professor suggested. The salve stung his skin but it was bearable.