by S. P. Durnin
Norris laughed heartily. “I learned how to drink in collage. You really need to have endurance to fend off all the drunken frat-boys. Ask Bee, she’ll tell you.”
“No lie. Worse than locusts sometimes.” Beatrix knocked back another shot and shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe some of the shitty lines they tried on me. If I ever hear ‘Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?’ again, I’ll probably shoot the guy. Hey! At last, a benefit of the Zombie Apocalypse! No more pushy pecker-woods trying to get in your pants!”
“Say that five times fast!” Kat pointed at her swiftly.
Bee did so. Flawlessly.
“No one likes a smart-ass,” Penny told her. “Well, since cards are out, who’s for truth or dare?”
“What are we? Twelve?” Rae didn’t look impressed with the idea and grabbed a handful of Cheese Puffs from Bee’s half-empty bag.
“Got anything better?” Penny asked.
Rae poured herself another shot. “Nope. Just asking.”
The four broke down into a collective giggle-fit.
“Alright,” Kat sat back and stretched her legs out under the table. “Who starts?”
“Since you two broke the bank earlier, how about I get the first round?” When neither woman objected, Carson looked at Rae. “Truth alright, Rae? Good. Have you slept with George yet?”
It was difficult to tell whether Rae or Bee was more repulsed at the question.
“Ghllk!” Norris choked on her Jameson’s.
“Ew! Ew-ew-ew-ew-ew!” Bee gagged and convulsed in horror. “Kill me now! Before the image hits my brain!”
Rae managed to clear her throat. “No. With a side of ‘Hell no’. Topped with a drizzle of ‘Not if you paid me.’ Dear God, Carson, I have standards! Foster doesn’t even know how to spell ‘sensitive.’ He’s more along the lines of crass, crotchety, and completely irritating. I wouldn’t go for him if the alternative was a nunnery!”
“I dunno.” Kat looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “The both of you do go out of your way to annoy one another. Sometimes, a low level of aggression between two people is actually a sign of mutual attraction.”
Rae turned to her calmly. “Good point. Let me put it this way: Shut up.”
“You didn’t deny you think he’s sexy.” Cho’s grin was mammoth as she popped a puff into her mouth. “Come on. George’s got that ‘Stephen Lang’ thing going on.”
“I hate you.” Rae said brightly.
Penny nodded over her drink. “Hey, she’s not wrong. Let’s be honest ladies: Foster’s pretty damn hot for an older guy, if you actually take the time to look closely. And you scrape off all the barnacles. He was probably Sean Connery ‘Bond’-level hot in his younger days. I don’t doubt he left a string of brokenhearted women from Moscow to Montevideo.”
“Moving on!” Rae said firmly. “My turn. This one’s for you Kat. Truth? If you could have one night with anyone—fictional or non—who would it be?”
Kat snorted. “Pppf! That’s an easy one. Goku.”
“The guy from Dragonball-Z?” Beatrix’s mouth quirked. “Why?”
“Are you kidding?” Cho began ticking off reasons on her fingers. “Totally drool-worthy, cool hair, bad-ass without being arrogant, kind of goofy, and still has a spark of innocence, even though he goes toe-to-toe against mega-powered monsters to save the world on a regular basis? Gimme some o’ that Super-Saiyan booty!”
“Wow. There’s a surprise.” Rae’s eyes went skyward.
“Huh?” Cho looked confused. “Wha’d I say?”
Penny could see that Kat didn’t realize she’d just described most of the qualities currently displayed by a certain, crowbar-wielding member of their group. But then again, she’d consumed a lot of really good whiskey by that point. Rae recognized the archetype, however. She and George had been present in the rear of the Mimi when O’Connor had finally collapsed, as they’d made good their escape from the burning Purifier compound.
When Jake had stopped breathing on the gurney, the pretty ninja-girl had a breakdown. She’d locked her arms around him and refused to move, sobbing incoherently and screaming for him not to leave her. If it hadn’t been for George’s willingness to take a few hits from Kat in the process, Rae and Gwen wouldn’t have been able to drag her from the dying man so they could perform CPR, thereby restarting his heart and respiration once more. It had been a near thing. Even once they got him breathing again it had taken a pair of transfusions—one from Cho, the other from Elle, who was also a universal donor—to stabilize his condition.
Rae had wondered since what Kat would’ve done if they had been unsuccessful. That was secretly why she’d been opposed to making the blue-haired young woman their group’s leader in the wake of O’Connor’s injury. Kat seemed to be relatively stable during his ongoing recovery, but if Jake were taken out of the picture? Norris had worried over that, daily.
“Forget it.” Penny said, and shot Rae a scathing look. “Your turn.”
Kat shrugged. “Okay. For you, Penny. Truth? What’s the craziest place you’ve ever done it?”
Carson had to think about that one for a minute. “In the Macy’s Christmas Day Parade.”
“Bullshit!” Rae’s mouth hung open. “Really?”
She nodded. “Yup. On the Swiss-Miss Hot Chocolate float, when I was twenty-two.”
“That is impressive! What did the guy say afterwards?” Kat wondered.
“What guy?” Penny asked her.
“The guy you were with. On the float.”
Penny raised an eyebrow and grinned. “I admitted to having sex in the parade. I never said it was with a guy.”
There was a round of wide-eyes, accompanied by some knowing smiles and a collective squeal of slightly-nervous laughter at her admission.
“I’m sure it was memorable.” Rae wiped tears of mirth from the corners of her eyes. “God, I can’t even begin to imagine how risqué that would be!”
Penny smiled wickedly. “The blonde I did? Yeah, she was one of the women who wore the Bavarian maid costumes. Let me tell you; those flared, mid-thigh skirts of theirs were designed for easy access. The under-bust bodices are a pain to get off, though.”
“Hah!” Kat exclaimed and slapped the table with one hand. “Deputy Carson got her fa-reak on! Oh-oh! Did you use your cuffs?”
“Not in the parade,” Penny admitted with a leer.
“Wooo!” Bee laughed so hard that for a moment she was in danger of passing out.
“Truth, Bee?” When she nodded, Penny asked, “Ever tried it?”
“Like, in a parade? No, I never thought about it before.” Bee considered the question. “I guess it wouldn’t be that difficult to get away with. Maybe at a state fair or something, but not at Disneyland. Or the one on Christmas Day, like you did.”
Carson held up one hand. “No, I mean with another girl.”
“Please,” Bee sputtered. “I’m in collage. Course I have. A few times. Just to make sure I got the full experience.”
That drew a shocked expression from Rae. “What?”
“Hey! I wanted to experiment. It’s no big deal.” Bee fanned herself with a four-month old Newsweek she snagged from the floor.
“George would have a cow if he found out.” Norris shook her head.
“I wasn’t planning on discussing any of my previous sexual escapades with my uncle, you know.” Bee shuddered for effect. “I say again, ‘Ew!’ Totally none of his business.”
“I can hear him now,” Kat giggled, “I’m positive the phrase ‘Wait till your parents find out!’ would be in there somewhere!”
“Okay there, Miss Funny-britches. This one’s for you.” Bee smirked. “Truth? Have you been with other girls?”
Cho stopped laughing and downed the rest of her Jameson’s. “Just once.”
When she didn’t elaborat
e, Bee asked, “Well?”
“Nothing to tell.” Kat said without feeling. “We were good friends, and stayed that way, but we knew it was basically spur-of-the-moment. Something we needed during a low point in our lives. We were both honestly into guys anyway.”
Penny stared at Kat. “You never wanted to try again?”
Cho’s eyes had that ‘hundred-yard-stare’ look as she remembered the night. “No. It was a one-time thing. I won’t say it wasn’t fun—and totally mind-blowing—but can’t see myself being with a woman again. It would hurt too much, and I’m a different person now. If I did, it would, I don’t know...cheapen that night, I guess.”
That seemed to put a damper on the party. The others played a few more rounds, but Kat didn’t take part and, shortly thereafter, gathered herself to head back to the post office. Rae and Bee rose and, grabbing their respective weaponry—no one walked around without a firearm any longer—said their goodbyes to follow her through the door. That left Penny alone with her lanterns and candles, half-drunk and extremely frustrated.
Carson sighed and poured herself another, then mumbled a rebuke to the walls of her cabin. “Well, what did you think was going to happen girl? She was gonna throw herself at you, after ripping their shirt off like a barbarian-babe and trilling a Xena battle cry?”
That brought an arousing image to mind.
“Well, shit,” Penny gulped her shot. Was it too much to ask for, that—in the middle of the damn Zombie Apocalypse—she might be able to find someone to blow off some steam with? Nothing long-term, just a partner who wanted to enjoy themselves, no strings?
Penny rubbed her face, rose, and insured her door was locked. Even though Langley hadn’t experienced an intrusion since the town’s barricades had risen, it didn’t hurt to double-check things like that. After blowing out three-dozen candles, she felt a bit lightheaded, and made for her bed. The way the world tilted couldn’t have been due to all the alcohol she’d consumed earlier. That was just silly. Penny slid wobbly out of her cargo pants, holding on to the wall for support so she wouldn’t nosedive into the floor, tossed her Beretta on the ugly nightstand, and flopped gratefully onto the bed. She stretched luxuriantly and pushed her dark hair away from her face, thinking how nice it would be not to sleep alone for a change...
* * *
Penny woke a few hours later to the smell of Cheese Puffs.
The first thing she noticed—after the smell—was the fact that she wasn’t alone in her bed any longer. There was a shape kneeling over her on the comforter. Carson almost reached for her pistol, but drew up short once her brain started working.
The second thing was that the bed’s other occupant was definitely female. Even with only weak moonlight filtering through the boarded-up bedroom window, there was enough illumination for Penny to see the shadow-woman’s high, firm breasts as the she straddled her. They were nice, even though the fabric of her tank top, and certainly confirmed the woman’s arousal, even in the mid-August, Oklahoma heat.
The third was that her shadowy visitor was there for a very pleasant reason. She caught on to that when the woman took hold of her shirt’s lower edge and proceeded to pull it up over her head as Carson watched, revealing the pair of very nice breasts.
That brought Penny fully awake. She reached upward, smoothing her hands up the woman’s torso to cup said endowments, and roughly flicked her fingernails over tightened nipples. A lusty groan floated through the room and, when she pinched them between her thumbs and index fingers, the woman’s spine bowed sending her shadowed face quickly towards the ceiling. Strong hands came up to grasp her wrists, keeping them firmly in place while she toyed with sweat-moistened areolas causing a sharp breath to hiss from her visitor’s lips when she gripped their hardened tips.
Smiling at the desired reaction, Penny pulled the shadow down by her nipples, earning another breathy gasp, and was stunned by who’s face came into view above her.
“Wow! I didn’t expect to find you back here.” Carson ran her hands down over her guest’s bare flank.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“How much farther is it?” Jake growled around his cigarette.
He was on edge that morning. The newly-risen sun glared at him from the rear-view mirror as he sat behind the wheel of the Troll, and the pounding within his head almost made him believe one of Santa’s elves was at work against the inside of his skull with a jackhammer. O’Connor had been awake damn near all night waiting for Cho to get back to the Mimi—so they could go over how to retrieve needed items from the Costco in Vanita—only to learn the ladies had planned a ‘girls night’ after the fact. Rae, Kat, and Beatrix stayed at Deputy Carson’s until late and, after imbibing quite a bit of alcohol, had opted to spend the night in unoccupied rooms at the Sunset Bar and Grill.
Kat had shown up shortly before dawn, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with not even the ghost of a hangover—which Jake thought was just unfair since he felt like seven different shades of powdered shit—ready and raring to go. When he’d mentioned this to her, Cho had sympathetically offered to get him some ibuprofen, shrugged his grumpiness off with a vapid smile, and told him once their scavenging party reached the Costco they could simply ‘wing it.’ The ache in Jake’s head—directly behind his left eyeball—increased after her professed lack of concern. He developed a brief, noticeable tick under his right eye, but wisely decided not to press the issue since his brain-holder was still pounding in time with his pulse.
Even while in such discomfort, the suffering man wasn’t stupid enough to intentionally start an argument in a car full of dangerous, heavily-armed women. He was surrounded, and drastically outnumbered—Kat, Elle, and Beatrix were all along for the ride, so he chose the better part of valor and kept his mouth shut about her late-night absence.
Besides, he just knew some conversations wouldn’t go anywhere good.
“Two more blocks, then hang a right.” Cho told him from the navi-guesser seat, more commonly known as ‘shotgun’.
“How can you eat that for breakfast?” Bee asked her.
Kat nibbled at the remains of an MRE pineapple-cake dessert pack that set his guts rolling. Since his near-death experience, O’Connor hadn’t been able to stomach anything in the wee-hours of the morning (until about 10:00am or so), except for blessed coffee and a couple of cigarettes.
Cho chomped her cake. “It’s good. Reminds me of Thanksgiving. You know, pineapples on the ham, pineapple cake...”
“But for breakfast? Ugh.” As Kat scarfed down the last square, Jake’s own discomfort was mirrored on Bee’s face. “You’re weird.”
“You’re just now noticing this?” Cho asked her, with raised brows.
O’Connor turned north, gripped the wheel, and—again—wisely kept his thoughts to himself as he scanned the road ahead.
He could see Vanita hadn’t been spared during the outbreak. While there weren’t many bodies left intact after months of exposure to the elements, remains were still scattered about the streets, the sidewalks, in doorways, even hanging from windows in places. Some of the bodies had been picked clean, others looked like they’d died from their wounds and become desiccated mummies. Jake realized the only way that could have happened was if either a living human had killed a zombie, or the creatures had stripped a victim too clean for them to reanimate. They’d all seen far more of the latter.
It was strange driving through a place such as that; empty as a lawyer’s soul while so very full of old death. O’Connor never had the opportunity to visit an honest-to-goodness ghost town prior to civilization coming to a swift, bloody end, and came to the realization he likely would not have enjoyed it. What allure did a place where humans used to dwell, now full of faded signs, abandoned buildings, and the too-stark bones of its former occupants have? Maybe it hit too close?
That made a lot of sense. During the time he’d been a civilian combat journalist attac
hed to Britain’s SAS (Special Air Service), Jake had traveled to many of the sites his ancestors once called home. He’d done copious amounts of research, and actually managed to trace his family back to Ballymahon. The small village was located almost dead-center between Galway on the east coast and Dublin on the west, nearly smack-dab in the center of the Emerald Isle. He’d spent a week roving through the town’s streets, trekking around the surrounding countryside, and hiking through its forests. Jake had absorbed the area, made it a vibrant part of his memory, just in case he never made it back again.
But none of those places, not a single one of those blood-quickening, ancient battlefields, bailiwicks, or shrines, affected him the same way driving through an entire country of humanity’s desolation had over the last few weeks.
“You’re quiet this morning. What’s up?” Cho inquired as she double-checked her Glock.
O’Connor kept taking in their surroundings and drove on. “Nothing. Just ready to be done with this, I guess.”
Kat pursed her lips. “Uh-huh. You’ve been more surly than normal for the entire drive. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or am I gonna have to get creative?”
She began jabbing his ribs with swift fingers, attempting make O’Connor laugh, or at least draw him out of his funk.
“Goddammit Kat, let it go.” Jake drove around a burned-out Chevy Cavalier and ran over a stray ghoul. “I’m not in the mood, alright? Besides, I need to concentrate on the road.”
As if to emphasize his point, another zombie stumbled towards from the sidewalk towards their vehicle. Jake swerved towards the nasty thing intentionally, stomped on the gas pedal, and nailed it with the driver’s side of the Trolls heavy, front crash plate. Thick steel met goopy, dead flesh, which messily splattered the hapless creature across the Humvee’s hood and windshield. He hit the wipers to clear its body fluids from half-obscuring his view and drove on.