“You look hungry,” a deep masculine voice announced from above me.
I whipped my head around to find an incredibly tall man standing by my discarded pajama pants holding two beach towels and a box of Pop-Tarts in one arm, while he munched casually on said Pop-Tarts with the other.
“I look hungry?” I screeched in hysterical anger.
His eyes flickered down at me for just a second, “No, you look mad.” He pointed at Abby, who had come to a stop next to me, treading water again with her short child-sized limbs waving wildly in the water. “She looks hungry.” With a mouth full of food he grinned at me, and looked back at Abby. “Want a Pop-Tart? They’re brown sugar.”
Abby nodded excitedly and swam to the edge of the pool. Not even using the ladder, she heaved herself out of the water and ran over to the stranger holding out his breakfast to her. He handed her a towel and she hastily draped it around her shoulders and took the offered Pop-Tart.
A million warnings about taking food from strangers ran through my head, but in the end I decided getting us out of his pool was probably more important to him than offering his brand new neighbors poisoned Pop-Tarts.
With a defeated sigh, I swam over to the ladder closest to my pants and robe, and pulled myself up. I was a dripping, limp mess and frozen to the bone after my body adjusted to the temperature of the water.
Abby took her Pop-Tart and plopped down on one of the loungers that were still stacked on top of two others and wrapped in plastic. She began munching on it happily, grinning at me like she’d just won the lottery.
She was in so much trouble.
I walked over to the stranger, eying him skeptically. He held out his remaining beach towel to me and after realizing I stood before him in only a soaking wet tank top and bikini briefs, I took it quickly and wrapped it around my body. I shivered violently with my dark blonde hair dripping down my face and back. But I didn’t dare adjust the towel, afraid I’d give him more of a show than he’d paid for.
“Good morning,” he laughed at me.
“Good morning,” I replied slowly, carefully.
Up close, he wasn’t the giant I’d originally thought. Now that we were both ground level, I could see that while he was tall, at least six inches taller than me, he wasn’t freakishly tall, which relieved some of my concerns. He still wore his pajamas: blue cotton pants and a white t-shirt that had been stretched out from sleep. His almost black hair appeared still mussed and disheveled, but swept over to the side in what could be a trendy style if he brushed it. He seemed to be a few years older than me, if I had to guess thirty-five or thirty-six, and he had dark, intelligent eyes that crinkled in the corners with amusement. He was tanned, and muscular, and imposing. And I hated that he was laughing at me.
“Sorry about the gate,” he shrugged. “I didn’t realize there were kids around.”
“You moved into a neighborhood,” I pointed out dryly. “There’re bound to be kids around.”
His eyes narrowed at the insult, but he swallowed his Pop-Tart and agreed, “Fair enough. I’ll keep it locked from now on.”
I wasn’t finished with berating him though. His pool caused all kinds of problems for me this morning and since I could only take out so much anger on my six-year-old, I had to vent the rest somewhere. “Who fills their pool the first week of September anyway? You’ve been to New England in the winter, haven’t you?”
He cleared his throat and the last laugh lines around his eyes disappeared. “My real estate agent,” he explained. “It was kind of like a ‘thank you’ present for buying the house. He thought he was doing something nice for me.”
I snorted at that, thinking how my little girl could have… No, I couldn’t go there; I was not emotionally capable of thinking that thought through.
“I really am sorry,” he offered genuinely, his dark eyes flashing with true emotion. “I got in late last night, and passed out on the couch. I didn’t even know the pool was full or the gate was open until I heard you screaming out here.”
Guilt settled in my stomach like acid, and I regretted my harsh tone with him. This wasn’t his fault. I just wanted to blame someone besides myself.
“Look, I’m sorry I was snappish about the pool. I just… I was just worried about Abby. I took it out on you,” I relented, but wouldn’t look him in the eye. I’d always been terrible at apologies. When Grady and I would fight, I could never bring myself to tell him I felt sorry. Eventually, he’d just look at me and say, “I forgive you, Lizzy. Now come here and make it up to me.” With anyone else my pride would have refused to let me give in, but with Grady, the way he smoothed over my stubbornness and let me get away with keeping my dignity worked every single time.
“It’s alright, I can understand that,” my new neighbor agreed.
We stood there awkwardly for a few more moments, before I swooped down to pick up my plaid pants and discarded robe. “Alright, well I need to go get the kids ready for school. Thanks for convincing her to get out. Who knows how long we would have been stuck there playing Finding Nemo.”
He chuckled but his eyes were confused. “Is that like Marco Polo?”
I shot him a questioning glance, wondering if he was serious or not. “No kids?” I asked.
He laughed again. “Nope, life-long bachelor.” He waved the box of Pop-Tarts and realization dawned on me. He hadn’t really seemed like a father before now, but in my world- my four kids, soccer mom, neighborhood watch secretary, active member of the PTO world- it was almost unfathomable to me that someone his age could not have kids.
I cleared my throat, “It’s uh, a little kid movie. Disney,” I explained and understanding lit his expression. “Um, thanks again.” I turned to Abby who was finishing up her breakfast, “Let’s go, Abs, you’re making us late for school.”
“I’m Ben by the way,” he called out to my back. “Ben Tyler.”
I snorted to myself at the two first names; it somehow seemed appropriate for the handsome life-long bachelor, but ridiculous all the same.
“Liz Carlson,” I called over my shoulder. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Uh, the towels?” he shouted after me when we’d reached the gate.
I turned around with a dropped mouth, thinking a hundred different vile things about my new neighbor. “Can’t we… I…” I glanced down helplessly at my bare legs poking out of the bottom of the towel he’d just lent me.
“Liz,” he laughed familiarly, and I tried not to resent him. “I’m just teasing. Bring them back whenever.”
I growled something unintelligible that I hope sounded like “thank you” and spun on my heel, shooing Abby onto the lawn between our houses.
“Nice to meet you, neighbor,” he called out over the fence.
“You too,” I mumbled, not even turning my head to look back at him.
Obviously he was single and unattached. He was way too smug for his own good. I just hoped he would keep his gate locked and loud parties few and far between. He seemed like the type to throw frat party-like keggers and hire strippers for the weekend. I had a family to raise, a family that was quickly falling apart while I floundered to hold us together with tired arms and a broken spirit. I didn’t need a nosy neighbor handing out Pop-Tarts and sarcasm interfering with my life.
Please enjoy an excerpt from Rachel’s zombie novella series, Love and Decay!
Chapter One
647 days after initial infection
Oh, god.
The smell was the worst. The absolute worst.
It wasn’t enough that I had to pick my way through dismembered and half-eaten bodies, or that at any moment one of them could spring up from the ground and make an afternoon snack out of me.
It wasn’t enough that I hadn’t had a shower in over a year and a half, hadn’t worn eye liner in even longer than that and my hair was somehow simultaneously disgustingly greasy while frizzing into a perpetual fluff ball.
Oh no, that would never be enough. My ugly tan work
boots were a size and a half too small, I ripped my too big Grateful Dead t-shirt off a very, very dead man, and my jeans…. or what was left of my jeans was the last of my stash from my once excessive closet.
After all of that- and I mean, the shower alone should have been enough suffering for any living being to suffer through- it was the smell that got to me.
Putrid, rotting flesh from both the dead that littered the ground around me and the remnants of stench that lingered in the air when the Feeders were finished was what triggered my gag reflex and watered my eyes. There weren’t enough words in the English dictionary to describe my revulsion, or the way my empty stomach flipped with every breath.
I probably would have puked if I had eaten anything in the last two days.
The best thing about the Zombie Apocalypse? I was no longer addicted to sugar and caffeinated beverages.
I wiped my forearm across my sweaty forehead and re-aimed my handgun in the general area in front of me. This is the point of the story where I’m supposed to tell you what kind of gun I’m carrying, but let’s be real…. Before the end of the world I was a cheerleader at a small town school, where I was the debate team captain and student council secretary. I lived for throwing parties when my parents went out of town, making out with my football captain boyfriend and doing the occasional trip to the homeless shelter where I would put in my monthly two hours of good deeds.
I’d never even held a gun-- scratch that-- I’d never even been in the same room as a gun until the world went to shit. Who knew the cure for herpes would turn all those sexual deviants into people-eating, brain-dead, infection-giving assholes?
Not me.
The whole phenomenon gave a girl a serious complex about safe sex.
Not that I was having sex. Or would be any time soon.
I hadn’t even seen an eligible bachelor in a good six months and it wasn’t like I had exactly been interested when we passed each other with guns raised and a suspicious glint in our eyes. Although there was a sort of mutual give and take between us that could have been considered an instant connection, possibly love at first sight. I let him loot the dead gentleman that had his head literally severed from his body by Feeders, and he let me raid the vending machine offering one bag of Funions that had been smashed into pathetic crumbs.
But then we both went our separate ways and I will never know if he got eaten, turned or found the promised land of Zombie-free showers and espresso machines.
Plus, I was still pining over poor, deceased, Quarterback-Chris.
Just kidding! Quarterback-Chris had apparently been less than faithful to me during our two year relationship and after things with the government, army and general world went to hell, Quarterback-Chris tried to eat me!
So I did what any loving, devoted girlfriend that just found out she had been serially cheated on by her now zombie boyfriend would do. I plunged a butcher knife into his eye socket and when that didn’t effectively do the job, I drove over him with my mom’s Escalade until his head detached from his body.
God, I was glad I held onto my v-card.
Could you imagine me as a zombie?
Ugh, it made me shudder just thinking about it.
A rustling to my left had my gun up, pointed and steady at whatever was stupid enough to make noise in a regular Feeder playground. I only had three bullets left, so this kill would have to be spot on.
That was the thing about living in a world in which it was a very likely possibility that you could end up as someone else’s meal before lunchtime, you’ve got to be very good at shooting. Very quickly.
So even though the most I knew about my gun was that it was a Beretta from the label on the handle, and the exact kind of bullets it took, .40 S&W- because those were an absolute necessity and I was always on the lookout- I knew exactly how to use it. I knew exactly how to get my bullet from my gun to the perfect dead zone right between the eyes.
In fact, it was kind of freaky how good I was at killing things.
Well, killing already dead things.
It was like I was born for the Apocalypse. No, I couldn’t find a hot shower, figure out how to make food last longer than twenty-four hours and effectively loot a Walgreens that still had hair products available. But I could stay alive.
I had an innate ability to stay alive.
And in this day and age, ninety-two weeks after the first recovering STD victim bit his doctor and the world fell apart, staying alive was very important.
Back to the rustling….
I slowed my breathing, stopped moving completely and waited for the sound to come to me.
One of the first things I learned about survival was that there was absolutely no need to go hunting down trouble. In the world I lived in, trouble would find you soon enough. It was better to cover your back, stay calm and have a loaded weapon ready and waiting.
“Reagan, check this out!” Haley squealed in a loud whisper.
“Holy hell, Hales!” I whisper-shouted back, “I almost shot you in the f-ing head!”
She made a resigned grunting noise and I heard her mumble, “Too bad, I bet they have showers in heaven.”
“We are so not convinced you’re going to heaven,” I whispered back while stepping over a particularly decayed body.
Did I say the smell was the worst? I meant maggots.
The maggots were definitely the worst.
“It wouldn’t matter,” she countered with that distraught, depressed tone even the best of us were known to fall into. “This might as well be hell.”
We were still whispering, there was no other option, since Feeders were drawn by sound. And sight, and smell, and light and movement…. But since we were rummaging around a dilapidated department store somewhere in what used to be southern Missouri, we had a little bit of cover.
The floor was covered with dirt and grime; metal racks that had been looted a long time ago were scattered and broken across the floor and we’ve already discussed the body count problem. We were using what was left of the evening light streaming through the broken window fronts to see and from the sounds of things we were alone, at least on the first floor.
One of the best things about Feeders was their incapability for stealth. They were heavy mouth breathers and tended to stumble over anything in their way. It was like they had their own warning bells.
Well, if you stayed alert, kept yourself surrounded by noisy debris and never fell asleep, you could sense their presence.
“What is it?” I asked; at the exact same moment my stomach growled.
Haley shot me a sympathetic look and shook her head, sending her dark blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. “Not that.”
I sighed, but continued to follow her down a dark hallway. Track lighting hung at awkward angles, the glass long shattered, the bulbs broken since the beginning. The once white walls were smeared with streaks of what I had to assume was blood and dirt. But the stench was less overwhelming here, the air easier to breath.
“I hit the jackpot,” Haley said excitedly in almost a full-volume voice. We rarely spoke above a whisper so I was taken aback at first. I had almost forgotten what her real voice sounded like.
“In?”
“Jeans!” She turned back to look at me over her shoulder, giving me a goofy smile and waggling her eyebrows.
Now this was a jackpot.
We exited the hallway straight into the Junior’s section. The racks were less knocked-over in this part of the store and still stocked with clothes. Racks and racks of fall fashions from almost two years ago filled the floor. A discount shoe rack with boxes of clearance items sat in one corner and in the middle of the department was a makeup counter.
An f-ing makeup counter.
Eyeliner!!!
At this point, you might be wondering who I could possibly want to look good for. And that is a valid question. But it wasn’t like that.
In the last two years, I had been forced to live as a homeless, basically-starving pe
rson, with shredded, usually-covered-in-blood clothes, no shampoo, let alone conditioner and perpetually covered in dirt. I was tired of looking ugly.
Tired of it!
I just wanted a little bit of makeup, just something to make me feel like the world hadn’t completely blown apart in the prime of my life and left me a wandering vagabond.
I had given up on finishing my education. I had given up on feeling guilty for killing what used to be human beings. I had given up on being happy again, living in a house, having a hot shower and whatever dream I had imagined myself living out. I had even given up on finding love.
Hell, I had given up on finding sex.
I just wanted to look anything but tired, weary and worn out.
Was that so much to ask?
“Welcome to the promised land, my friend,” Haley whispered proudly before turning to a rack of longs-sleeve tee’s.
I had a theory about why this section of the department store was untouched and it went something like this. In the beginning of the end, families protected their young. If you were a teenager, you were home, holding down the fort. Especially if you were a girl. The whole raping and pillaging thing didn’t apply to most kids that still had parents around. And if you were young and stupid enough to try to make it in a world where sane people spent their time looting, overthrowing local government and shooting at any and every potential threat, chances were your inexperience and still rose-colored-glasses-of-the-world made sure you ended up dead.
How Haley and I survived living on the street and dodging not only the Feeders, but the crazed militia, and all the old man creepers that thought we would make fantastic sister wives was a straight up miracle. We got lucky in the beginning by sheer location. Small town, middle-of-nowhere Iowa finally paid off.
Well, except for the whole Quarterback-Chris thing.
But it wasn’t like we didn’t get Feeders in Atlantic, Iowa. Of course we did. Herpes was a worldwide disease. Everybody got Feeders, even remote islands in the middle of Oceans. If there were people there, then there were people having sex. And that meant STDs. Why? Because men would always be sluts. Always.