Zombie Ever After (15 page)

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Donovan forced himself to pry an eye open.

Cathren was ripping the undead apart, tearing off their heads, their arms. Tossing aside their body parts, and then their torsos like throw pillows. She slogged through the wall of undead until she got to him and lifted him off the ground like a little girl snatches her teddy bear off her bed. Hoisting him over her head like an Olympic weightlifter, she took him back to the car. Along the way, she kicked anything that leapt in her path. In seconds they were in, doors locked, and rolling on, bumping like a low rider over the corpses spread across the tarmac.

“Jeezus!”
Donovan yelled. “Holy shit!”
 

Cathren swerved and accelerated, and got their asses far from that BP disaster.
 

“Where the fuck did the rest of them come from?” Donovan asked after they rode in silence for a stretch. “How did all of them, after the first two or three, find us so fast?” His breath came out in jagged spurts and drops of sweat dotted his forehead. “The smoke, it must have been the smoke,” he mumbled.

For the next few minutes, Cathren was unable to talk. She morphed back, mile-by-mile, returning to a mostly human state by the time they reached the ten-mile mark.

“Did you hear me?” Donovan asked.

“Yes, I did, and no, I don’t know,” she said, sighing. She turned to Donovan. “Look, because I’m similar to them, doesn’t mean I understand their behavior or can explain it.”
 

“I’m sorry, it’s just that—” Donovan stopped. “Hey, wait a minute.”
 

“What?”
 

“They weren’t afraid of you.”

“Huh?”

“Why didn’t they run off? Like they did at ATELIC?”
 

“I don’t know.” Cathren closed her eyes and shook her head as they sped through the night. “Maybe. I don’t know,” she said. “Were the zombies over by ATELIC more evolved or something?”
 

“What do you mean, evolved?” Donovan asked.

“I mean, maybe they’ve been around longer, been living—I mean
undead
—for a longer time.”

“What difference would that make?”

“Perhaps they’ve evolved a kind of sixth sense. Do you get what I’m saying? Like knowledge about me becomes part of their collective consciousness. But only after a period of maturation.”

“Yeah,” Donovan said, pondering this idea. “Perhaps the zombies at the gas station were newbs, recently undead. You know? Whatever the reason, the advantage we had with them being afraid of you has vanished. It’s become a random occurrence we can’t depend on.”
 

“Believe me, I liked it better when they feared me,” Cathren said, staring straight ahead and clutching the wheel too tightly. They drove on into the night, having no choice but to continue to drive, and drive, and drive.

Bugs splatted the windshield like moose snot as the couple cruised along a never-ending stretch of country road. Donovan and Cathren had no notion of their location or in which direction they traveled. After unbroken miles of fields and meadows, they saw an old farmhouse up on a hill. Tired of running and desperate for sleep, they prayed this place would be zombie-free.

They bumped along the pitted, pothole-filled road, over the ridges and the dips. The suspension got the workout of its life. Eventually, they emerged from the overgrowth on the sides of the lane into a clearing.
 

The house rested in the middle of fields of—what? Neither of them knew. Barley? Wheat? Do they even
grow
that in California? A small grove of trees, possibly elm, waved at them from the left side of the house. Again, they were not experts on the flora of the area, nor arborists. Could be oak. The house was formerly white with what looked to be blue shutters, but it was mostly shades of faded gray now.

They pulled up. Cathren left the engine idling “just in case.” Donovan rolled down the window and listened.

“Donovan,” she said.
 

“Shhhhh.
Wait.” He held his palm up toward Cathren. All he could hear were the sounds of the wind in the willows, or the oaks, or whatever they were. The cry of crows or ravens pierced the night. Crickets tap-danced.

“Might as well get out and look around,” he said.
 

He glanced up through the mist at the waning moon. A sliver of yellowish-brown suspended in a crack between gray clouds. He looked over at Cathren. She sniffed the air like a bloodhound.
 

Well, that caps it. She keeps getting weirder. It would never get dull being with a girl like her, that’s for sure.

He smiled, amused that none of this bothered him. Not the strange behavior. Not the unpredictable transformations. Not even the strange growths and gaps her body occasionally produced, nor the intermittent loss of body parts.
 

I’ve dated worse.

“You okay?” he asked her as they approached the front door.
 

“What? I’m good, yeah,” Cathren said, still sniffing the air again, if a bit more discreetly now. “You?”

“Good. Crazy day, but I’m doing all right.”

They surveyed the yard from the front steps. The car, the surrounding yard and fields, the slice of the road down below still visible in the delicate moonlight. Midnight descended and brought with it a new chill.
 

Donovan grabbed the doorknob and eased the door open, listening for signs of danger. Cathren leaned against him, so close he was practically giving her a ride on his back.

“Hello?” he called into the void. Donovan had no idea why he did that. Was he trying to warn any human being in there that he was friend, not threat? Of course, if these beings were not human, he’d just announced that dinner had arrived.

They stepped into the house, which smelled of cat litter, dust, and spoiled apples. The furniture sat in all the right places. None was toppled. No splatters of blood, guts, or other human remains anywhere. In fact, there were no signs of a struggle at all. As they said on
Law and Order,
“no sign of forced entry.”
 

They circled the entire first floor from the entry to the living room, to the kitchen, and back. “All clear,” as they also said on
Law and Order.
 

Next, they made their way up the stairs. Two pictures hung in the stairwell. One a crude painting of a clown, the other a photograph showing a stern-faced man glaring at the camera. He wore a too-small wool suit, his black skin reflecting the flash. Great, great, great grandpa from the Civil War days. At the second floor landing, Cathren and Donovan split up; she went left, he went right.
 

Donovan checked two bedrooms and their associated closets. In the hall bathroom, he checked the small linen closet, glanced under the sink, and moved on. Then they quickly finished checking the rest of the house.

Now that the house was checked, they
did
feel a little bit safer.

“Do you think we’re okay here?” Cathren asked.

“Safe as houses,” he said. “Well, safe as any house can be during a zombie apocalypse. Let’s get this place locked up tight.”

They made sure all of the windows and doors were locked. There was nothing in the way of lumber to use to close off the windows so they moved furniture around, piling as much as they could against as many windows as possible.

“That will have to do,” Donovan said, his back aching and his arms shaking from exertion. “Now let’s see if there’s anything at all to eat here. I’m starving.”

They strode, hand-in-hand, into the kitchen. Donovan opened the refrigerator door and let go a sigh of relief. Not only were the shelves well-stocked, but, just as important, the fridge light came on. Meaning, the refrigerator still worked.

“Hmm.
Let me see. Meat loaf?” he asked. “Oh, and sweet potatoes. And no mold on either one!”

“Sounds perfect,” Cathren whispered. She fell against him, her head against his chest. She hugged him tight. Donovan slowly put his arms around her small body as she cried quietly into his shirt.

The leftovers were from who-knew-when-or-why, but they heated up nicely. Donovan and Cathren could have been at the Four Seasons for all they cared. After they’d eaten a full meal, they were ready for rest.
 

The headed upstairs and collapsed, fully dressed, onto the bed in the master bedroom. The bed was soft, but not too soft, and a faint breeze drifted through the open window. The room smelled of lilac soaps and lavender powders.

“Reminds me of Granma’s house, don’t you think?” Donovan said.

“One of my grandmothers lived in a small apartment in the city. The other in a nursing home the whole time I was growing up. But, yeah, I get the sentiment,” Cathren said.
 

Donovan gazed at her in the dark. The moonlight gave her face an alluring, almost magical, glow.

“Penny for your thoughts and all that,” Donovan said, resting his head on his arm.

“Me? I don’t know,” Cathren said. “Just thinking about all that’s happened these last couple of days, I guess.”

They lay in the darkness in silence for a minute or two.

“When I was a little girl,” Cathren said. “I wanted to fly away, far from my dumb town. Mom and Dad were always telling me what I should do, what I did wrong. All the small-minded people hated me.” She yawned and curled against Donovan, drawing her arms and knees to her chest. “I wanted to fly across the sky and be a princess on a magical island in the clouds. An angel princess.” She smiled and searched Donovan’s eyes. “Does that sound silly?”

“Not at all,” Donovan said, stroking her face. “Funny, when I was little, I wanted to live in a big house overlooking the sea. Far, far from the masses of humanity. With the girl of my dreams at my side. And a dog. A big, friendly dog.”

“We’re pathetic, you know?” Cathren laughed. “Here we are at the end of the world and we’re sharing childhood fantasies of happily-ever-after.”

“Worse, we’re nostalgic about the whole thing.” Donovan chuckled.

He got up on his elbow to face her. He kissed her cheeks and her eyelids and then her lips.
 

She returned his gentle kisses with one of her own. Despite their growing passion for each other, they drifted off to an exhausted, restless sleep, only to awaken with a start a couple of hours later.

Someone had entered the house.
 

Cathren and Donovan had dozed off and foolishly let their guard down. The house, the location, the food—all conspired to make them think they were safe. Lunacy.

Doors banged open downstairs, and things tumbled over loudly. Home invasion.

Donovan got up and raised his finger to his lips, caught her eye, and signaled her to stay put. She shook her head “no” and started to tiptoe over to him. Again, he waved at her to stay where she was, in vain.

They crept toward the head of the stairs. A loud crash came from below. Donovan strained to listen for the telltale moan of the zombie, but he didn’t detect one. Nothing upstairs resembled a weapon, so they’d have to go down and get a knife from the kitchen.

At the bottom of the stairs, they went through the dining room, away from the noises in the living room, and snuck into the kitchen. The serrated carving knife used to cut the meatloaf lay on the counter. Dried bits of meat and ketchup encrusted the blade. Donovan decided it would do.
 

So did his opponent.

Donovan dove for the knife at the same time his adversary did. They grappled by the counter in the darkness, both trying to fend off the other, both reaching desperately for the knife to take the first strike.

Whoever or whatever Donovan was grappling with stopped and called his name.

“Donovan?”
 

Donovan stopped fighting, loosened his grip, and stepped back. Cathren turned on the light.

“Rudy?” Donovan said. “What the hell—?” Before him stood his best friend, looking sheepish. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story, man,” Rudra said. He laughed. “You would so not believe it.”

“Try me,” Donovan said, not amused.
 

“Well,” said Rudra, exhaling. He did not take his eyes off Cathren for most of his story. “You heard about all this crap going on with ATELIC, right? And these zombies everywhere? Well, I decided yesterday to get the
hell
out of town.” Rudra snapped his fingers as he said the word
hell
.

“Makes sense,” Donovan said, rubbing his chin. “So did we. How did you end up here, though, in this town, in this particular house? That’s my question.”
 

Rudra laughed again. “Come on. It’s a coincidence.
Damn,
you make it sound like I was tracking you or something.”

Donovan said nothing.

“Okay, fine. My aunt and uncle live in this neighborhood, right across the way.” Rudra pointed out the kitchen window. “This house has been abandoned for a few days. Belongs to Mrs. Boojie.”

“Boojie?” Cathren said.

“Anyway, I went out driving to see what was going on, checking for zombies.”

Donovan still kept quiet. Cathren edged up to him, slipping her hand under his arm.

“I, um, noticed a car parked up here, that’s how it happened,” Rudra continued, as if trying to remember the sequence of events himself. “So, I decided to investigate. Right. Dumb of me not to knock, though, agreed. I mean, zombies don’t drive, only people do. I guess I thought looters had broken in.”

A moment or two of awkward silence passed. Donovan spoke at last.

“Um, whatever.” He gathered his thoughts. “So, has everyone in this town fled?”
 

“Pretty much,” Rudra said, swallowing. “It’s a small community to begin with. Most folks decided to head north, away from the epicenter.”
 

“What’s your aunt’s first name?” Cathren interrupted.

“What?” Rudra said.

“Your aunt’s first name. What is it?”
 

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Didn’t understand your question. Um, Millie. I mean Mary, Aunt Mary.”