Married with Zombies: Book 1 of Living with the Dead

by Jesse Petersen

  “Shit, Gina!” Dave bellowed as he rolled behind a planter on the messy porch. “It’s us. Christ!”

  Slowly a dark head came into view in the broken door. Gina stood there, gun in hand, and she looked at us like she didn’t even recognize us.

  “David?” she finally whispered.

  “It’s us.” He nodded from behind the plant. “Put the gun down, Gina.”

  She lowered the shotgun and pushed the storm door open. Glass tinkled onto the porch as she did so.

  “Is that really you?” she asked as she came out into the sunlight.

  He got up slowly and so did I behind her. It took him longer because of his injury and his limp was more pronounced again as he moved toward her. Fuck, I hoped he hadn’t hurt his leg any more than it already was.

  “It’s really us,” he said as he put his arms around her.

  She held him tight for a minute and my throat thickened at their reunion. All my bad thoughts about Gina faded.

  Until she backed up and talked. “You’re too skinny. Doesn’t she feed you?”

  I cleared my throat and arched a brow as the two turned toward me. Gina’s face fell before she pulled it together. I guess she must have hoped that Dave had finally had enough of me and abandoned me to the attacking horde.

  “She feeds him three times a day at least,” I said, forcing a smile. “And he’s actually capable of feeding himself, too. Hi, Gina.”

  My sister-in-law smiled, but like me I could see it wasn’t any more real than my own. Yeah, we’d never really seen eye to eye.

  “Sarah,” she said, stepping toward me for a brief hug that barely involved any pressure at all. “I’m so glad you’re both here.”

  I looked at the destroyed glass door. “Me too.”

  She shrugged at my expression. “What else could I do? I didn’t recognize the car and I didn’t see you guys on the porch.”

  I waited for her to apologize for almost putting a spray of pellets in my body, not to mention her baby brother’s, but she didn’t. Instead she turned toward the house and motioned us in behind her.

  “Come inside.”

  We entered the house and I stared around in surprise. Unlike me, Gina is totally a Martha Stewart. She’s tidy, she makes things from scratch for holiday gifts that always turn out perfectly and even more to decorate her house. Her place, although small, is a bit of a showplace. The one time she came to our apartment, she sniffed when she saw it.

  Sniffed. Is it any wonder I hated the bitch?

  So I was pretty fucking shocked to find that her home was basically a wreck. Clothing was piled up all over, her little knickknacks were spread out on the floor. It almost looked like there had been zombie activity here, except that there wasn’t any telltale blood or sludge.

  Gina shut the door and bolted three deadlocks in rapid succession. When she turned to us she had her “happy hostess” face on.

  “Can I get you anything to drink or eat?”

  I looked around again. “Gina, is everything okay? You didn’t have anyone get in here, did you?”

  Her gaze swung on me, sharp and focused and angry. “What are you talking about?”

  I gave Dave a helpless look. Couldn’t he see how bizarre this situation was? Our eyes met and I prepared for him to give me a shrug and leave me to fight this battle on my own. In the past, when it came to his family, that was what he had done.

  Not this time. To my relief, he came forward and grasped his sister’s shoulders gently. “I think Sarah is just worried because your house is usually so tidy. Are you feeling all right, Gina?”

  She blinked at him. “Of course. You just caught me during a chore day. If I’d known you were coming, I would have been ready. These pop-in visits are never as organized as the planned ones. You really should have called.”

  “The phones are down,” I said softly and briefly wondered if she had Internet so I could try to reach my family again. I’d have to ask later.

  She ignored me as she pulled from Dave’s arms and went into the kitchen. “Now let me get you something.”

  While Gina bustled in the kitchen, I motioned Dave to me. We sat down on the couch together and I whispered, “This is crazy, right? She nearly killed us by shooting out the door without even looking and now she’s acting like we put her out by popping in for a ‘visit’.”

  He nodded. “It is weird, even for Gina.”

  I drew back in surprise. Dave had never even implied that his sister was… weird. And God help me when I did.

  “Do you think she’s in shock?” I asked. “She was at the parade when the zombie outbreak began in Longview. Conrad even said she was attacked. I assume she saw some shit go down and she’s been alone ever since.”

  “Maybe we can snap her out of it.” Dave said, then smiled up at her as Gina came back into the room carrying some sandwiches and diet Cokes. Even though I was worried, I couldn’t help but dig in. Since the night before we left Seattle and had a frozen pizza, this was the closest thing to a real meal we’d had.

  Gina watched me shovel my food down with another of her hated sniffs and then turned her attention to Dave.

  “So how are you?”

  He shot me a side glance. “Well, actually Gina, I’m hurt.”

  He set his plate aside and gingerly rolled up his pant leg. I leaned in closer to see his injury even as I guzzled my drink. Although the bruises from his fall were really ugly and the thing looked like it hurt like a son of a bitch, the swelling had thankfully gone down, lending credence to our thought about a bone bruise.

  “What happened?” Gina squealed as she dropped down on the floor to get a better look.

  “So much.” He stared at her evenly. “During the attack, we had to run away from some bad people, Gina. And I got hurt during our escape.”

  “Bad people?” His sister glared at me like I was the “bad people” he was referring to and then looked back at him. “I have told you again and again that the city is no place for a decent person to live. But no, Sarah has to insist on staying there for her ‘career’.”

  I gritted my teeth because none of that was remotely true. Seriously, she couldn’t have gotten it more wrong. Oh man, did I want to say something. In the past, I would have. But I kept thinking of something Dr. Kelly had said during our therapy about respecting family boundaries.

  Dave tilted his head. “Gina, this isn’t about the crime level in Seattle. And it isn’t about Sarah. You have to know that, don’t you?”

  “I’ll get you an ice pack,” Gina snapped as she got up and huffed off to the kitchen. When she slammed the fridge door, both Dave and I flinched.

  She came back and handed the ice pack to him. He rested it on the injury with a sigh of relief and leaned closer to her. Since she didn’t seem to be responding to what he’d said earlier, Dave tried something else.

  “We saw Conrad, Gina. He told us you were at the parade when it was attacked.”

  There was a long moment’s hesitation and Gina stared at Dave without blinking. Finally she whispered, “Hoodlums. Probably from Portland.”

  I wrinkled my brow at her utter disregard of what was happening around her. She had told herself this elaborate fairy tale and now she believed it.

  “You’re right that they probably came from Portland,” I said slowly. “But Gina, you had to see that they weren’t just some hoodlums come here to cause trouble. They bit people, right? They ate people. And then those people turned into things just like the other monsters.”

  Her gaze moved to me and narrowed. “You and your foolish thoughts, Sarah. Seriously, you’re describing something out of a horror movie. I know the radio and television ramble on… but-but they’ve got it wrong. This is just some roving gang meant to scare us, meant to —”

  Dave slammed his palm against the coffee table and both Gina and I jumped. I’ve known my husband a long time and I’ve never seen him do something like that. Nor had I ever heard the take-charge tone he took next.

 
; “Gina, snap the fuck out of it. This isn’t a game, this isn’t a gang and it isn’t some whacked out crime spree you’ve got in your head from watching too much CSI and Murder, She Wrote reruns.”

  He made a grab for her hands and she gasped as he took them.

  “There has been an outbreak of some kind of infection,” he said slowly, like he was trying to explain this to someone too young or confused to understand. “When an infected person bites another, it turns them into a monster. A zombie, for lack of a better term. You have to accept that.”

  “David —” She pulled her hands away and started to clear the plates, but he shoved them away and grabbed her again, yanking her down on the chair.

  “God damn it, Gina. Tell me you understand what I’m saying. It could mean the difference between life and death.”

  She stared at him and her eyes started to fill with tears. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. For years I’d been telling Dave he needed to stop being the youngest kid in his family and start acting like an adult when he was around them. We fought about that almost every time we visited Gina or his parents.

  And now he was doing it. He wasn’t Gina’s baby brother or the golden youngest child of his family at that moment. He was a man taking charge in a bad situation.

  Is it wrong that I kind of wanted to send Gina to the store and jump his bones? Yes?

  Well, what can you do?

  Gina’s face crumpled. “I saw them do things…” she started, her hands beginning to shake. “People I knew, people who have been my neighbors… parents of the kids I teach at the school… David, they changed and started trying to kill people. If Conrad hadn’t grabbed me —”

  She broke off and David put his arms around her as she pretty much collapsed, sobbing into his shoulder as he smoothed her hair gently.

  “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  He looked at me over the top of her head. We both knew it might not be okay. In fact, after everything we’d all been through, I think we’d guarantee it in some way. Nothing would be the same, that was for sure.

  But Gina needed to hear it. And I think David needed to say it.

  She pulled back and he patted her hand gently. “I’ll get you some tea, okay?”

  I tensed as he got to his feet and moved toward the kitchen, his walk stiff and slow. Shit, he was going to leave me alone with her. She looked at me as she sank back into the chair and I tried to smile.

  “I can imagine it’s been tough,” I said. “Especially since you’ve been here alone.”

  She nodded slowly and I could see she was thinking about whatever had happened that she hadn’t yet shared. “The last couple of days have been scary. Conrad came to check on me a few times, though. That was nice.”

  I tilted my head as I looked at her. Huh. The way she smiled when she said Conrad’s name was a little… unexpected. I wouldn’t have thought he was her type, really. Martha Stewart and… um… I guess, Jeff Foxworthy? An odd couple, but I smiled at her.

  “He was the one who told us you were okay. He’s coming by later to check on us.”

  Her eyes brightened a little and her hand fluttered up to smoothe her hair in another telltale reaction. “That will be nice.”

  The silence set in. Gina and I had never had very much to talk about, really. We were different and you know we never liked each other. For a long time we just sat, staring at each other.

  I fought for something to say to her, but I couldn’t think of a damned thing. Finally, she was the one to break the silence.

  “So I guess you guys saw a lot, too? Coming from Seattle, I mean.”

  I thought about everything that had happened for the past three days and shook my head. She didn’t look at me. I don’t think she really wanted to hear it all any more than I wanted to say it out loud, so I just whispered, “So much, Gina, it would take me a year to explain it all.”

  Before she could respond, David came back into the room with two cups of tea. He set them down in front of each of us and then took a place beside me.

  “Okay, so now we’re here and we’ve all acknowledged what’s going on,” he said as he put the ice pack back on his leg and propped it up on the table with a sigh. “So the next step is where to go now.”

  Gina had been sipping her tea, but she choked on it as she stared at her brother. “Go? What do you mean where to go now? I’m not going anywhere.”

  Dave and I exchanged another look at her resistance.

  “This place isn’t safe,” Dave explained with the patience of a saint. “You’re too isolated and with so many people here turned to zombies —”

  “I don’t want to leave,” she snapped. “It’s not safe out there. It wasn’t safe before, but now there are zombies or the infected or whatever you want to call them. We just have to wait until the government —”

  “According to some people, the government is burning down cities where the infection is located,” I interrupted, searching for something, anything to say that would make her get what was happening. “What’s to say they won’t come here? That they won’t decide to wipe out the entire West Coast if they think it will stop this?”

  She blinked at me. “Burning?”

  Her brother nodded. “Yes.”

  I swallowed. “And Gina, I have family around here, too. My Dad is just down in San Diego and I haven’t been able to talk to him since this started except for one e-mail the first day. Do you want me to abandon him? To just forget about him?”

  A tear slid down my cheek and I wiped it away in surprise. When I first brought up the subject, I admit it was to manipulate her into agreeing to go with us, but I realized now that it went deeper than that.

  Just like every good little girl, in that moment I wanted my Daddy.

  “No,” Gina whispered and for the first time maybe ever her expression was soft as she looked at me. “Of course you can’t just forget about your father. My laptop is here, do you want to look?”

  My heart swelled as she motioned to the dining room table where her laptop rested. “Can I?”

  “Of course!”

  I rushed over and flipped the top up. The machine blinked to life from its sleep mode and I hurriedly entered in the address to access my e-mail from the Internet. As the little hourglass rolled in the corner, I prayed. Prayed I could connect, prayed I’d have some kind of message from my Dad.

  Finally, the page loaded. “Fuck,” I muttered as I scrolled down the line of messages. “God damned SPAM, now isn’t the time to increase my penis size.”

  “There’s never a wrong time to get a bigger penis,” David said with a quiet chuckle as he came to stand behind me. His hand settled on my shoulder and I appreciated the comfort of his touch more than ever.

  “There!” I gasped as I saw the new message from my father. I clicked it and it opened. As always, since my Dad wasn’t a man to write a page when three lines would suffice, it was short and sweet.

  City overrun. Heard Chicago might be free of infestation. Be careful, love you.

  I stared at the thirteen words. Maybe the last ones I’d ever have from my dad.

  “He’s gone,” I murmured. “He had to run.”

  Gina got up. “I’m sorry.” She actually sounded like it, too.

  David cupped my chin and turned my face toward his. “He’s tough and he’s smart. He was in ’Nam, for God’s sake. He’ll be okay.”

  I nodded. I believed it, actually. My Dad was the toughest guy I knew. If anyone would survive, it was him.

  “And he says there might be safety in the Midwest,” David said as he turned toward his sister and back to our problem at hand. Her reluctance to even consider leaving might get us all killed. “And that’s all the more reason to think about leaving this place.”

  Gina swallowed hard, but then she jerked out a nod.

  “Now maybe we don’t have to leave today,” Dave continued, “But we’ve got to face facts that at some point we’re going to have to run. So why don’t we ma
ke some dinner and see if we can figure out how to do it with the least chance at zombie infection?”

  Gina and I stared at my suddenly take-charge husband and we both nodded at once. It was the beginnings of a plan starting to take shape. And right now a plan was the best thing we had.

  Hang out with other couples. It will remind you how lucky you are not to be a zombie.

  We had almost finished making dinner when the power went out.

  “It must be a fuse,” Gina said brightly as she turned away from the still-glowing gas range top.

  “I don’t think so,” Dave said, his voice flat and filled with concern as he looked around the dark room for a flashlight or a candle.

  He finally found it and I shivered as the bright globe lit up and filled the dim kitchen with a sickly glow.

  My voice cracked as I whispered, “They turned off the lights.”

  He nodded as Gina started to light some candles.

  “Yeah. Or whoever was supposed to keep them on is…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence, so instead he smiled at Gina. “Hey, I’ll check the fuse box, though. It can’t hurt. Basement, right?”

  She nodded, but her frown remained long and drawn and her face worried as she looked at him. Taking the flashlight and a shotgun, David left the kitchen and with a brief smile toward Gina, I went back to tending the chicken breasts cooking on the stove.

  I guess I did it for her sake, but also for my own. As many zombie fights as David and I had been in together, him going into the basement made me nervous. His injury slowed him down and in the dark…

  Well, I didn’t want to think about it.

  And I didn’t have to for long, because Dave hadn’t been gone for five minutes when there was a banging at the front door. I jumped and turned toward Gina.

  “That’s probably Conrad,” she said as she pushed off from the counter and moved toward the living room. “I’m glad he made it in time for dinner.”

  I grabbed her arm before she could get too far.

  “No,” I whispered. “Let me. You stay here.”

  I took the handgun that was on the kitchen table and slid toward the front door like I’d always seen people do it on Law and Order and about a billion other cop shows and movies. When I reached the door, I rose up on my tiptoes to look out the peephole and sighed with relief.