Time of Zombies (Book 2): The Zombie Hunter's Wife

by James, Jill

  “He took Selena. He ran away and took her. You have to get her back,” she yelled, grabbing handfuls of Jack’s shirt.

  “Lila, I told you. I’m not the law. He’s her father.”

  “He took her to be his whore.”

  Jack’s face whitened and he squeezed the woman to his chest. “Even so, I can’t do anything. It isn’t my place. I have to take care of my people here.”

  “She’s your responsibility, Jack. She’s your daughter, mine and yours, not Juan’s.”

  Everyone started talking at once, with the commander’s the loudest, and Teddy slipped out of the gate.

  He eyed the truck as he limped by, but the noise would let Bennett and his men know he was coming. The element of surprise was all he had going for him. A bum leg, a gun, a knife, and a machete didn’t count for much, but it would have to do.

  Pressing a little harder with each step, he gritted his teeth and walked through the pain until it was a constant condition. One to ignore, like the monotonous hum to repel the skinbags. As he reached the red line on the street, he searched the area but no undead moaned at the barrier tonight. The tumbled dead bodies marked the group’s passage earlier. He glanced at each quickly and found none of his friends.

  Cody. Ran. Jed. Beth. He pictured each in his mind and said a prayer he would find them all safe and alive.

  Michelle. His mind stumbled along with his feet as he recoiled at the thought of her undeath and tripped over a zomb’ in the middle of the road. “Good job, Teddy. Get yourself killed before you even get there. Lotta help you’ll be.”

  He pushed the thoughts of his friends out of his mind. His friends and ... and what exactly was Michelle Greggs. Girlfriend was adolescent and not strong enough for what he felt for that woman. Friend didn’t begin to cover it. Mate. He liked the sound of that in his mind. She was his mate. His wife, if they survived the night and she’d have him. He wanted to be Michelle’s husband very, very much.

  Moans from the church parking lot greeted him as he reached the corner and moved to hide behind pine trees and brush on the corner lot. Flickering torches showed the zombie horde stumbling around across the blacktop. The cage doors swung in the breeze and clanged metal against metal. The breeze also carried the stench of rotting flesh. Teddy pressed a hand to his nose and breathed through his mouth. A crunch of twigs had him whipping around to his left and raising the machete for a skull-bashing.

  “It’s Ran and Cody,” a voice whispered in the dark.

  He lowered the weapon with a giant gasp of relief and instantly regretted the deep breath as he was bombarded with the stink of zombs. His gaze swept their faces as the young man and woman stepped out of the shadows of the house.

  “Where’s Michelle?”

  Ran and Cody both turned to stare at the church. “She said to leave if she didn’t come out but we couldn’t do that,” Ran whispered. “We got the cages open and let the skinbags out. We thought we could create a diversion or something. But the men just got their families, hopped in their cars and trucks, and high-tailed it out of here. Guess they had enough of the Fruitful Harvest Church,” she finished with an ugly sneer on her pretty face.

  “Did everyone go?” Teddy felt the blood leave his head at the thought of Michelle kidnapped and gone. It wasn’t like there was an Amber Alert or something anymore. If Bennett took her, he’d never find her. Kidnapped people were hard enough to find in the pre-Z time.

  “Bennett didn’t show and the big guy, Elias, I think is his name, came out, looked around, and went back in,” Cody provided. “I counted thirty-five, women included, the day we were here. At least that many left, minus Bennett, the big dude, and their women.”

  Teddy smiled. “You did good, Cody.”

  Miranda punched her boyfriend’s arm. “Who woulda thunk?”

  The young man smiled like he’d run the game-winning touchdown. “Now, what do we do?”

  “We don’t do anything,” Teddy said. “I’m going in there and you two are going back to the RV yard.”

  “Teddy,” they both complained. “At least let us help you get in,” Miranda added.

  He turned and counted at least twenty skinbags milling around the entrance to the church. “Okay, we do this fast. Cut a path to the door, I go in and you two run like the wind back to camp.”

  The two nodded and he prayed they listened. He needed all his concentration on getting Michelle and the others out alive, he didn’t need two more people to worry about. His heart raced and thumped in his chest. He took a few deep breaths, ran/limped as fast as he could, with Ran and Cody on either side of him.

  He grunted as he hacked through necks and chopped into skulls. Pulling the blade from the last head, he took a deep breath and whipped around. The area was clear to the door. He shoved the two kids toward the street. “Go; don’t stop until you get back.”

  Staring until they were swallowed by darkness, Teddy slowly opened the door. He stepped through and closed it with a quiet click. With a flick of his wrist, he flung the blood off the machete and raised it at his side.

  Voices came from the end of the hallway. Knowing that was where the church was, he stepped in slow, measured strides to the brightness at the end of the carpeted space. He hugged the wall as he reached the light. His gaze swept the room. A man with a bloody back hung from the wall. He swallowed as the figure turned and light shone on his eyeglasses. Jed moaned. A woman’s cries had him rushing forward. Light-brown hair shielded her face, but he still recognized Beth tied to another pillar, blood dripping off her naked body. Teddy gazed long enough to note her chest moving with breaths.

  Bennett stood over a form on the floor. He saw red as he glimpsed Michelle’s half-naked body sprawled on the carpet at Billy Joe’s feet. The man smiled as he yanked her up and pulled her in front of him, his hand cupping her breast.

  “If it isn’t the man himself,” Billy Joe drawled. “The great Teddy Ridgewood. The world’s greatest lover, or so I’m told.” The man squeezed Michelle’s breast until she screamed. Her head came up and her eyes widened as she stared over his shoulder.

  Teddy turned, raising the machete. Something hit him in the back of the head. Darkness and the rough texture of the carpet greeted him as Michelle’s cries reverberated in his head and the room.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Rule #15 Love isn’t a requirement in the zombie apocalypse. But without love, what are you surviving for?

  Tears streamed down her face as Elias turned Teddy’s limp body over and tied his hands together in front. Then the large man slapped him across the face. Moans rolled from him as Teddy stirred and sat up.

  He was still alive. There was still hope.

  He opened his eyes and anger filled them as he stared at her in Bennett’s lap. A shudder ran through her. She never wanted that hatred directed at her. She struggled to get away, but Billy Joe put the knife to her throat and she stilled.

  Elias dragged Teddy up to his knees and placed a knife at his throat. Bile rose in her throat. They were going to die and she’d never told him of her love for him. Of her respect for him. Of her belief in him. She mouthed the three little magic words to him and smiled as he mouthed them back.

  “None of that,” Bennett growled, nicking her with the knife. The warm blood trickled down her neck to her bare chest.

  Teddy tried to get up, but Elias yanked an arm around his throat and pulled his head back. The point of the knife pushed his chin up.

  “Stop, I’ll do whatever you want,” she cried. “Just don’t kill him, please.”

  Bennett’s laugh skated across her nerves like fingernails on a metal door. “I wouldn’t kill Mr. Ridgewood. He would become the new beginning of my Resurrected. He would live forever.

  “Besides, I knew you would say that. All women are weak. They will use their lustful bodies to get what they want. All women are whores at heart. They think nothing of breaking their marriage vows. They think nothing of whoring themselves for the church. They think no
thing of everyone knowing what they are doing. They think their sons don’t know, but they do.”

  His spittle hit her bare skin as Billy Joe ranted and raved. The knife on her skin wavered and fell. She pushed away and jumped up. He grabbed her hair and pulled her back before she could get anywhere. Pulling her back against his chest, he moved the knife to her face. She caught her breath and held it. The man had lost it, even more than before. She didn’t even know if it were her he was mad at or some other woman or all women.

  “Bet you wouldn’t want her if her lovely, lying face was all cut up,” Bennett shouted across the room.

  Teddy pulled his body straight and his warm brown gaze locked onto hers. “I would love Michelle no matter what she looked like on the outside. I know she is even lovelier on the inside.”

  Billy Joe stood, taking her with him, his hand still locked in her hair, the other gripping the knife at her throat. “Let’s put it to the test, shall we? Let’s see if true love is really that true.”

  “I told you I would do anything to save Teddy,” she whispered.

  “Of that I have no doubt,” Bennett hissed against her ear. “Women are weak and use their feminine wiles at the first sign of trouble. But what will Mr. Ridgewood do to save you?”

  He turned his head and yelled across the room. “What will you do, Teddy, to save Michelle?”

  “I’ll do anything to save her,” he said, loud and clear. “Kill me, you can do whatever. Just let her go.”

  “Teddy, do you know what I thought from the minute I laid eyes on you?”

  He shook his head.

  “I thought what a great breeder you would be. Like a bull in a pasture of cows. I could breed up an army of warriors. God had a plan for me. The start of a kingdom. And now that is all gone because of you. You and your slut.

  “But you are going to fix all of that, Teddy Ridgewood. If you want her to live, you are going to give her to me. To make my wife. And once I do, I’m going to take her here, in this holy church and the last thing you see will be your blood pumping out across the floor as I make her my wife; mind, body, and soul.”

  A buzzing started in her head. The lighting dimmed and her knees shook. Billy Joe yanked her up as her knees tried to fold.

  No. No. No. No.

  She yelled the words, but only in her head, as her mouth moved and no sound came out.

  Bennett pulled back her head and placed the cold steel of the knife on her throat. She gagged as he increased the pressure until she couldn’t swallow.

  Just do it. Everything would be over so quickly and she could leave this insane world and she wouldn’t see Teddy die. She couldn’t see another man she loved die.

  Teddy. She’d found love twice in this lifetime. Some people never found it once and she’d known two amazing men. Mitch and Teddy. So different from each other, but so alike in some ways too. They’d give their lives for her. She’d always known that about Mitch and now Teddy had proven it as well. Even injured, he’d rushed to save her. She straightened her back and stared at the man she loved. Putting all her love into her thoughts, she prayed he would see it in her eyes. And in her hand. The one she formed into a gun shape like the kids did and pointed it at Teddy.

  Sweat gathered in her eyes and rolled down her face before Teddy blinked back at her. Two blinks. A pause. Two more. Do it, she mouthed to him.

  “What do you say, Ridgewood?” Bennett pressed the knife to her neck. She flinched, afraid to move, to breathe.

  She stared as Teddy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. The man fought to do what must be done, while she could see it went against everything inside him.

  “I give Michelle Greggs to you as your bride. I renounce all claim to her,” Teddy whispered. In the silent room it carried as loud as a yell.

  “Submit to me,” he whispered in her ear. “Submit and Ridgewood will die instead of being resurrected. “ Her body trembled as the knife moved from her throat to the back of her head. She lowered her head, stared at the dark carpet through a haze of tears, and wished a thousand anguished deaths on Billy Joe Bennett.

  “I claim you and mark you as my wife and helpmate,” he intoned in a smug voice. “I mark you with shorn hair to show your fidelity and loyalty as a good wife.”

  The blade sliced through her hair and she was unable to stop the angry tears from flowing down her face. She stared as handfuls of hair pooled at her feet and a breeze wafted across her bare nape. His hands shook as they grazed her neck. Each slice took eons as he dragged the torture out, fondling her hair and rubbing himself against her body.

  “It’s only hair,” she whispered to herself.

  At last, he stopped and dropped the knife to the floor with a muted thud. He clamped his hands on her shoulders and pushed her to her knees.

  “Go with God and may you find your wife submissive and pure,” the large man intoned from where he stood by Teddy.

  “Now you are mine and in your rightful place as a woman, at the feet of a man.”

  Her teeth clenched as she imagined the gloating smile on his face, his cold-blue eyes heated with lust. Then she reached for the gun in her boot. The tiny .380 that her husband had said was useless for anything bigger than a rat.

  She’d left the camp with a gun in a holster and a knife in a sheath in plain view and just as she’d imagined, they’d taken them. But in Bennett’s greed to get her partially naked, he’d left her jeans and boots on. He would pay for that stupid mistake.

  “Now I’ll take my wife, Ridgewood, and it’ll be the last thing you see,” he crowed, grabbing her neck and spinning her around.

  Her arm rose with the gun in her hand. She shoved it against Billy Joe’s crotch and fired. The sound hummed in her ears as the man fell over, screaming and grabbing himself. His blood shot across the floor and splattered her face.

  Michelle spun around to shoot Elias, praying she’d miss Teddy. Her jaw dropped open as Ran and Cody rushed into the room. Ran swung her machete and hit the large man in the neck. Blood sprayed across the young woman as he toppled to the floor, twitched a few times, and went still. He’d be back in a moment, but she’d let them deal with Elias.

  She stood up and turned to finish off Bennett. An older woman knelt beside him. She recognized Roberta, his wife. Reaching down, the woman picked up the fallen knife and turned to Michelle.

  She kept her hand steady on the gun. “Don’t make me shoot you. He isn’t worth it.”

  “No, he isn’t,” she whispered, as she plunged the knife into his chest. “You are the Resurrected, my darling.”

  Michelle jumped, her finger tightening on the trigger as Roberta turned the knife on herself and plunged it into her stomach. She rushed forward, but the veil of death was already appearing in the woman’s eyes.

  “Why?” she asked, her hand grabbing and clasping the older woman’s.

  “Now he will be all mine again,” she whispered and closed her eyes.

  She stood, pulled her jeans up, and took stock. Ran and Cody had cut Teddy loose and rushed to check on Jed and Beth. Ran stepped back and shook her head, raising the machete in front of Beth’s mutilated body.

  “No,” Michelle cried out. “We can’t do that to our friends. They deserve to go in peace.”

  She stood by as Ran cut the ropes holding Beth’s limp body to the pillar. The young woman laid her friend on the floor and covered her with a blanket. Cody did the same for Jed. Michelle jumped as they twitched beneath the covers. She moved closer and whispered, “I’m sorry.” The sound of the gunshot echoed twice in the cavernous space.

  She grabbed a torch off the wall. “This place has known evil, but it once knew goodness.” She threw the torch to the floor in front of Roberta and Billy Joe and stared as the flames caught on the carpet and the clothing of the dead.

  The others rushed around and followed suit. Teddy ripped the isolation curtains from the rear and added them to the growing flames. The rest caught fire quickly and smoke roiled against the ceiling
and started filling the space.

  The crackle of fire and the groans of the newly turned followed them as they all rushed to the hallway and the door beyond.

  They ran outside and Michelle took a deep breath of fresh air as Teddy took off his shirt, wiped her face, and pulled it over her head.

  He grasped her close and kissed her lips.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  “If you’re done with the lovey-dovey stuff, do you think I could go with you guys?” An unknown voice wavered and cracked from the young girl standing by the empty zomb’ cages.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “We were kidnapped by Bennett’s men,” the young woman started talking. “They gave me to Elias. Said we were married.”

  She stared over Teddy’s shoulder, the flash of flames brightening her green eyes. “He is dead, right?”

  Wrapping her arms around her body, she fidgeted from foot to foot like a spooked animal. He wanted to pat her on the back and let her know it would be okay but she looked like a piece of glass that would shatter at a man’s touch.

  Michelle obviously felt no such concern as she rushed forward and enveloped the girl in her arms. Sobs broke and filled the air with devastation and anguish. The girl’s shoulders shook with her cries.

  Teddy’s jaw clenched and his teeth ground together. No human being should know such despair. Marriage was a sacred bond, of love and understanding. Not abused by psychopaths for sanctioned rape. The heat at his back and the smoke billowing in clouds around them were a vivid reminder that Bennett and his twisted beliefs were done.

  But nothing could bring back Jed and Beth. Two young lives lost in an instant. His hands clenched into fists and tears blurred his vision. The thought of telling Jim his young daughter was dead almost sent him to his knees.

  “What’s your name?” Michelle’s hushed voice reached him.

  “April. April Reynolds,” the girl replied, her voice cracking. “We were in Antioch, trying to get to Sacramento, but our car broke down on the freeway. Bennett and his followers showed up and we thought we were saved. Saved. What a joke. They killed Aunt Mary. Said Terri was a liar and chopped off her head. Bennett took Maya and gave me to that bastard Elias.”