by Hilaire, Tes
He rocks back on his heels. “Depends on the bang. Batteries are always good.”
I reach into the sack and yank out an eight pack of double A’s.
He shrugs.
I pull out a four pack of D’s.
That has him perking up a bit. He shifts from one foot to the other. He glances around, then leans in closer, taking a second look at my petite frame, though this time it’s minus the leer.
I need to be careful. I haven’t made a dent in my sack of goodies. Stands to reason what I haven’t shown is probably even better. I know it is. I also know people have been killed for less.
Yeah, Buddy, good luck with that.
“Good enough?” I gesture at the two packs of alkaline cylinders.
His greedy eyes fall on my sack. A thick tongue darts out, wetting cracked lips. “You said you have bangs. Got a box or two of large shot for a twelve-gauge?”
“I might have a box. But only if my steak is mooing.”
The bartender swipes up the D’s and A’s and spins around, heading into the back room where I assume the kitchen is. If he actually has to thaw the steak, this could take a while. I take the time to get a better look at the room. Packed. Seems the rules of post z-virus humanity stands true even here. Nobody wants to be alone at night when the zombies are said to roam. Safety in numbers. Even if the theory is wrong.
I suspect they are smart enough to know this. Zombies may be mindless, but they have an uncanny ability at sniffing out uninfected human flesh. If anything, you’re better off to go it alone. But the truth is, no one wants to be alone. Hence why there are a few of these zombie free zones around where the survivors have cautiously conglomerated. This mentality also explains my less than stellar welcome. Once these free-zones are set up, strangers are not overly welcome. All it takes is one bad egg.
I don’t think I’m the only stranger here. There is a man wandering around the bar, trying to siddle up to the locals with offers of bought drinks and small talk. He’s met with wary looks and outright rejection. I watch him for a while, noting the way he moves—like a panther prowling, the cut of his hair—buzzed, the clothes he wears—fatigues topped with a sand colored shirt. Some sort of military. Marines? Whatever, he’s obviously a recruiter of sorts.
Despite the general cold shoulder he’s been given, when he moves over into a corner and sits down there are at least a half dozen men who get up and follow him. They settle in, their heads bent together as the marine begins speaking in earnest.
I tip my head, ears tuned to catch what I can. Mostly he’s talking about the zombies, how they continue to gain ground, the danger they present, blah blah blah. I start to shift my attention away, but then he says something about an underground facility near LA that is the headquarters for the resistance movement.
Underground facility. I have been planning on finding something in one of the large cities’ subway systems, but this might be better. Easier to sleep when you don’t have to worry about waking to a zombie gnawing on you.
And there is also the human factor. The same one that causes these men to risk gathering together in the bar each night. No matter how much I’ve changed in the last year and a half, there is one thing that hasn’t changed: I still crave human contact. Dumb, I know. Someone like me should run as far and as fast as possible away from a beating heart. Too tempting.
I finger the edge of my sack, my teeth tugging at the inside of my cheek as I consider. I’m about to get up and wander over to the gathering when a plate is plunked down in front of me. I look down at the offering: a two inch thick slab of meat that is barely seared with blood gushing out of its pores.
Perfect.
I grab up the steak knife, slicing off a chunk. One bite, two—I suck on the juices, flavor exploding in my mouth. Even knowing it won’t do much for my real hunger, it takes the edge of my cravings.
“Bloody enough?”
It’s my turn to shrug. “It’ll do.”
His lips thin out, a heavy brow pulling down over his eyes. “And the bangs?”
I stuff another juicy morsel into my mouth and ply open the sack. The ammo takes a bit more rummaging to figure out which box is which. I have to take out two or three before I find the right one.
The moment I offer the box of shot he snatches it up and moves away to the back of the bar. Engrossed once more with my bloody steak, I hardly notice when he yanks a sawed off from under the counter and loads it. I do, however, notice when the biker sitting two stools down turns to stare at me.
“What?” I demand around a mouthful of meat.
His eyes jerk from my face, down to my sack, then away. “Nothing.”
Great. For the price of some good red meat, I’ve now attracted the attention of at least one dubious sort. No, make that two. The bartender is glaring at me again.
I sigh, setting down my knife and fork. Why couldn’t I have found just one of the numerous mine shafts said to be around here?
Curious as to whether there is other danger abounding, and where it might come from, I turn my attention back to the other customers. Most of them seem oblivious to the exchange of meat and ammo, but I find two more who hurriedly cut their gazes away when I look at them.
As my dad would have said: Isn’t this just swell?
“What? Will none of you fight?”
I swivel in the other direction. Marine’s audience is starting to slip away. The last two stand up, shaking their heads.
“Cowards.” The accusation is soft, barely a rumble in Marine’s chest, but it’s enough for the two closest deserters, and me with my sharp ears, to hear.
The burly biker in the back spins around, planting his knuckles on the wobbly pine table with a bone breaking bang. I can’t see his face, but his voice is tight, threaded with a pungent mix of anger and fear. “Why should we fight? Ain’t no zombies here.” He straightens, rubbing his bruised knuckles. “Ride it out. Let ‘em die on their own. That’s what I say.”
With that, he turns his back on Marine once more, tagging his buddy’s heels as they head for the door and push out into the morning. Light streams in, and though not a beam touches me here in the back of the room, I still flinch.
Silence has settled on the room. Another customer sips his drink, his slurping lip-smack a cannon in the unsettled quiet. Marine is staring at his beer, his fist working an imaginary stress ball. I nibble my lip. Biker Dude might have a point. If the survivors can completely avoid contact with the zombies, then they have a chance at riding this out. Problem is I’ve seen a desperate zombie. Mindless they may be, but when hunger strikes? Well, I don’t doubt they’d shuffle to the ends of the earth for a meal.
Survival. It drives us all. And for me that means being in a position to kick a lot of zombie ass.
Grabbing up my sack, I hop off the stool, brazenly making my way over to Marine’s lonely table.
He raises his head, his brows drawing into a tight crease when he sees who’s disturbed his pout session.
Jutting my hip out, I rest my free hand on the top of my grand-pop’s old German Sheriff Knife. “I’ll fight.”
There is a moment of heavy consideration before he sighs and picks up his beer. “Go away, kid.”
My fingers flutter across the metal spacers of the knife’s hilt as I slide my hand around the grip. There’s that “kid” again. I really hate being called a kid. For a moment my imagination replaces reality and I see myself hooking my foot around the leg of Marine’s chair, flipping it over with him in it, and pinning him to the floor with my knife. And then? Then I’d bare my teeth and…
I shake my head, forcing my hand off the hilt. I really have to find a zombie swarm soon. My blood lust is taking over and I am starting to lose it.
With a tight rein on my instincts, I turn back toward the bar. Sitting in my vacated stool is a grizzly old timer. Bad enough he stole my seat, but he’s also bolting down my meal.
“Hey, that’s my steak!”
“Finders keepers,” he mum
bles around a mouthful of juicy meat.
I growl, stomping across the scratched and pitted flooring. Two strides and something latches onto my sack, the frayed strap digging into my shoulders. I yelp, grabbing for it as I spin around, but it’s too late. The strap snaps and the second thief wins the pot.
I give him a lethal glare but all he does is laugh, hosting up my sack. “Look what else I found, boys.” His lips curl up, revealing crooked and stained teeth as he drags his gaze over me. “Oh, and lookey here. I think we have a lost little lamb among us, too.”
There is a collective shifting of bodies and chairs. Four men, and the lone other woman, up and leave, but that leaves over a dozen “wolves” who are all eyeing me speculatively. I glance at the bartender. He is pointedly avoiding my gaze. Ass. Even Marine, who is watching the show from under a deeply furrowed brow, seems willing to let me fend for myself. Fine.
I flip the snap off the hilt of my knife, the blade rasping against the leather sheath as I draw it out and brandish it dramatically at the thief before me. “Give it back, or lose the hand.”
He drops my sack, spreads his arms wide. As if on cue, two other men push back their chairs and cross the room to flank him. “Come and get it.”
So I do. I launch myself across the room, diving under the charge of one of the two latecomers. My shoulder barrels into his beer gut. He grunts as he doubles over onto my back. I see the thief smile, expecting me to go down, but instead I hoist the barrel chested biker up and over so he tumbles down with a heavy thud on the floor behind me where he lays, groaning.
The room stills, multiple sets of eyes blinking. I know what they’re thinking: What the eff?
The bigger they are…
I straighten, leveling my knife once more at thief boy and his buddy. “Last chance. Give me back my property, and say you’re sorry.”
Thief’s eyes narrow, anger flushing his face except around his mouth and nose where the skin is pinched tight. He roars, drawing his own wicked knife from his waist.
Stupid stupid. When am I going to learn not to be a drama queen? The problem with knives is they require a certain amount of skill—which I don’t have, and the wielder to possess a certain amount of homicidal tendencies—which I do have, but not for backwater idiots.
He charges. I spin out of the way, sheathing my knife as I do. His buddy is right there behind him, and has already anticipated my move. He grabs me, a laugh on his face as he lifts me off the floor and tries to squeeze the breath out of me. Jokes on him. He’s just raised me to his level. I tip my head back, snap it forward. There’s a loud crack as his nose gives. He yowls, dropping me, and I drop him with a massive blow to the solar plexus.
“Lucas!” The bartender yells, followed by the unmistakable sound of a gun ratcheting.
I spin around. The bartender has in his hands the sawed off I’d so wisely provided ammo for. The good news is that the thief is standing close enough to be in the line of fire, so maybe I won’t have to pick buck shot out of me today.
I glance at my sack, then the two men I’ve felled. The first one has crawled away from the fray and is eyeing me warily from a dozen or so feet away. The second is silent and unmoving on the floor.
“We done?” I ask the thief.
He works his mouth, spits out a huge wad of slimy saliva onto the floor. “Bitch.”
I sigh. “I’m taking that as a no.”
He charges—really, did he not learn? I don’t even have to step out of the way, simply snap my hand out, grabbing and twisting the wrist of the arm that is trying to skewer me on his knife. There’s a loud pop as his bone snaps. The knife clatters onto the floor. Relentlessly, I bear down on the broken arm, forcing him to follow.
The moment his face touches the dirt laden planking, his will evaporates. I toss his arm away. He sobs, curling his body up around the mangled arm. I start to lean down, ready to impart a kindly word of advice, when a large hand closes over my bicep, spinning me around.
“Knew you were going to be trouble,” the bouncer, Lucas I’m guessing, says, frowning down at me with disappointed eyes from their mountain perch in his head.
Somehow I don’t think “they started it” is going to fly. So… I bare my fangs.
A thick black brow flies up, but otherwise he shows no shock—or fear. “Pretty. But you buy drinks here, not feed off the other customers.”
He starts to drag me toward the door. I try to jerk my arm free, but his grip is as strong as an ox. Stronger. I could break an ox.
“I don’t feed off humans,” I say.
He stops dragging me, looks down. “Then who?”
“Zombies.”
“Really?”
“Swear it on my undead heart.”
The bouncer grins, releasing my arm.
“What are you doing?” the bartender demands, the sawed off shaking in his grip. “You have to kick her out!”
Lucas shakes his head. “She ain’t hurting anyone.” His gaze goes past me to the three men in various states of decreased health. “At least not anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
I watch dumfounded as he crosses to the bar and casually reaches out to grab the shotgun out of the barkeeper’s hand. He ignores the man’s indignant “hey!” and begins to whistle, heading back to his post just outside the door.
I glance over at the bar. My seat is empty again. In fact, half my steak is still there. But I don’t especially like hanging out where I’m not wanted. So I take myself to one of the tables that had been vacated before the fight and plop myself down on one of the wobbly chairs. I’m stuck here all day now. This is effing great.
Heavy footfalls cross the room, stopping behind me. I tense, ready for whatever, except for the blur of motion before my sack plunks on the table.
“Still want to fight, kid?” Marine.
I shrug. I’m still mad at him over the fact that he’d been willing to let those men do whatever to me. Still… “You said this place is underground?”
“Yup.” He pulls out the chair beside me, gingerly lowering himself onto the questionable support of the chair. “You fight, you get your own room, and we supply you with any sort of weapon you can dream of.”
I smile, flashing my fangs—not that he could have missed them before, but I want to see his reaction. “I have my own set of weapons.”
“So I see.” He swallows, clearing his throat. “But there is one more perk.”
“What’s that?”
His lip twitches, as if holding back a smile or even a laugh. “All meals included. Though for you it will have to be on a catch your own basis, of course.”
“Well. Since you’re going to throw in the meal plan…” I smile my fangy smile, offering up a hand to close the deal. “How can I pass that up?”
Read on for a sneak peak at
Life Bites
Book 1 in the Hunger Chronicles
Cover design by Patricia Schmidt (Pickyme)
1.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I cross my arms across my barely-there breasts, watching, through half-lidded eyes, the confrontation on the other side of the room. Barrel-chested ex-con is having a shouting match with muscle-heavy marine. Convict has age and girth on his side. Marine has pride and authority. Not because he used to be a marine, but because he’s clawed his way to leadership of this rag-tag militia.
“Look at her!” Convict gestures to me with an ink-stained arm. “Thing couldn’t squash a bug. My team will spend more time protecting her than following my orders. And that’s assuming I’m not too busy protecting her from them to give those orders! Do I need to remind you what the ratio of male to female is down here? I’ve been in prison, man. I can tell you right now this isn’t going to work. You should put her down on C-level where she belongs.”
I sigh. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what C-level must be: The women and children’s ward. I’d known from the start my presence here wouldn’t exactly be welcome. But I’d figured those o
bjections would come later. Yet Convict has taken one look at me, my spiky pixie-cut, my freckled nose, my twiggy arms and legs, and gone into an epileptic fit of nuh-uh’s and no-way’s. And he doesn’t even know what I am yet. And won’t that be fun when he finds out.
I suppress the impish thought, concentrating on looking tough, mean, and indifferent. Tall order. Short stature aside, the truth is I do care. This is my out. I need the protection of this underground desert compound if I’m going to stay under the radar. I’d bucked the system too long, pissed off the Queen Bee, and after months of running and hiding from her wrath I’m definitely looking for a new place to hang my spurs.
Hang my spurs. I almost laugh aloud. It’s something my dad would have said. One of those quaint sayings he picked up from his father and seemed determined to pass down. I used to roll my eyes at them, now I find myself using them more and more, as if by doing so I can somehow cling to a part of that life. The one I had before all this went down. The one I still dream about after another shitty day.
Don’t think about it, Eva. Here and now. Past is the past. Take the tomorrows as they come.
Even though I know it breaks my don’t-care-about-anything persona, I can’t help but peek at the rest of the party in the room. There’s only one other female, a muscle-bound Hispanic who might have been pretty if not for the jagged scar running from one temple across her smashed nose to her jaw line on the other side. She holds herself with authority and I suspect she might have been a cop or something before. I’m not intimidated by authority, but I find this woman scary. And given the dismissive glance she gave me when I walked in, she’s not into any sort of chick bonding.
Besides her and Convict, the rest of the group look like frazzled out newbies who have more training in the gym or on X-box consoles than in real life. They come from all walks of life, brought together by a common enemy. Zombies. Death without death. I know all about both.