Servicing the Undead

by Isabelle Drake

  The hash went down quickly, but the lingering visions of his dream did not.

  The images were too vivid, even clearer than his recollections of the night before.

  The heavy swing of the door made him jump. Mattie rushed in and then stopped short, staring at him. “What?”

  Hayden ran his hand over his face, trying to wipe the fear and disgust from his expression. He moved his hand away and looked at Mattie, feeling as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  “Have you finally figured it out?” She crossed the room and sat on the table.

  “How does the initiation happen?”

  She started swinging her feet. “It all starts with a tea, one much stronger than the one you and Rachelle drank.”

  Mattie went on to explain the initiation process. A person drinks the tea. The tea slows their heart and the tribe leader—Matthew for them—does the work by having sex with the initiate. Climax and death must occur simultaneously.

  “He usually strangles them,” she said. “It heightens the orgasm.”

  At death, they are a dormant and are stored until the tribe leader wishes to revive them. The revival is a simple matter of another elixir delivered into the skin.

  “The spine tattoos.”

  Mattie nodded. “See, you are so smart.”

  If it could be done intentionally, that revealed a new possibility. “How is it undone?”

  “You see, Hayden, we both want the same thing. Information. You, for that job you want to get out of, and me, well, why I want it is my business. Wanting the same thing is what makes us so perfect together.”

  “You want to me figure out how to cure your tribe?”

  “You’re getting warmer.” She stopped swinging her feet. “Everything you find out is for my ears only.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to find out anything? And if I do that I’ll tell you?”

  She hopped off the table and collected the empty pot and plastic spoon. “You go find me what I want, and I’ll leave you alone.”

  “You’ll let me walk?”

  She nodded and put the pot on the table.

  He knew it wasn’t much of a choice. If he didn’t do what she wanted, he’d be right back where he was, chained to her bed or worse.

  “Rachelle?”

  “She’ll be free to go.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. You understand what’s at stake now and what can happen if you don’t deliver. I know you’ll deliver.”

  “Why should I trust you?”“

  “You don’t have to trust me.” She came over to stand beside the bed. “You just have to do what I tell you to so that I don’t fuck your life up and leave your girlfriend locked in that cage.”

  The offer was much, much too easy. He tapped the metal ring around his neck. “Who’s going to service you?”

  “I have someone in mind.”

  He watched her from the corner of his eyes.

  She smirked as she held out her hand. “I realize that for you to do what I want, I have to let you go. It isn’t like I can follow you around. Deal?”

  He accepted her hand and shook.

  Chapter Nine

  “She’s not the girl you think she is.”

  Mattie dropped herself onto one of the low steps. She crossed her legs, dangling one booted foot above the icy step. The streets were busy with cars, shuttle vans and delivery trucks, but the sidewalks seemed pretty empty.

  “Go ahead. I’ll wait here,” she said.

  Hayden made a point of looking over her pale legs and tiny, short skirt. Her torso was hardly covered by the red strips of wool. If that wasn’t enough to get her noticed, she also had on a black leather jacket. “You don’t think you’re going to attract some attention, sitting in the snow in a miniskirt?”

  She made a show of zipping up her jacket. She squinted against the sunshine and make eye contact with at him. “In case you hadn’t figured it out, Hayden, I’m not the kind of person who can walk into the library unnoticed. At least here, I can disappear if I need to. That isn’t a possibility in there.”

  Put that way, her staying outside did make more sense. “Anybody bugs you, you can tell them you’re part of the comic convention.”

  She shook her head. “No thanks, pretending to be someone I’m not isn’t my thing anymore. Just go get those books, bring them to me.”

  Delivering the books was the first piece of their agreement, the easy part. Only after reading those would they know what to do next. It was the second part—the unknown—that worried him. He had no control over what those books did or didn’t tell them. Where there the hell was he supposed to go after that? “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “I know you will.”

  At least Rachelle was safe.

  Hayden left Mattie on the steps. Get the books and get out—that was his plan.

  Last night the three of them, Mattie, Rachelle and him, had left the camp. He’d delivered Rachelle to her doorstep and Mattie insisted she spend the night with her—to make sure she recovered from the effects of the tea, which they’d been forced to drink. He’d been forced. Rachelle was willing.

  Hayden waved at the long-haired guy behind the counter and headed straight for the stack where he’d found the book.

  It wasn’t there. The two others that had been next to it were gone too.

  Shit. Fuck.

  What sane, normal person would suddenly want those books?

  No, not sane. Not normal. It had to be a certain person, a crazy person who believed in zombies. The security guard from that night—the one who’d been carrying a copy of the Weekly.

  Hayden bolted from the stack and headed to Bates Hall. It wasn’t empty, the way it had been on that night. Even though the library had only been open an hour, groups of college students hunched over books and tapped on laptops. A single girl was already asleep, her long red hair hanging over her arms. Nobody else. The guy had to be around somewhere, he just had to be. Hayden crossed the room, weaved between the tables, the vaulted ceiling making his footsteps echo. He passed through the Government Information room, cut through the Abbey Room.

  Shit.

  Hayden was just reaching the stairs to the third floor when he saw the blur of the blue security uniform about to duck into the Boylston Room. Hayden called after the guy and the man turned around.

  “Remember me? I was here the other night, you know, when we had the storm?”

  The guard smiled and looked Hayden up and down. “Yeah, man, I remember you. You’re the zombie guy.”

  “Right. That’s me.” The zombie guy, shit, was that the way the whole town was going to be thinking of him?

  “You left that book on the table, open. The lady that works the front desk in the morning found it—God knows what she was doing up here—and she came after me, telling everyone I left it there, just because I was talking about the zombies. You know, warning people to be ready and all.” The guy squinted his eyes and leaned closer. Close enough so the scent of stale coffee blew across Hayden’s face. “She’s one of those older ladies, you know the kind who thinks she has the right to tell everyone what to think. Anyway, she waved that book around and made a huge stink about those pictures.”

  “Sorry about that.” Hayden was trying to be patient.

  “It sucked pretty bad.” He squinted again, leaned even closer. This time Hayden could see a gold crown on his top back molar. “Really bad.”

  “I bet it did.”

  The guy suddenly seemed to rethink his situation and changed positions, leaning back and folding his arms across his chest. “You come here again to look for it?”

  Hayden nodded and tried to force his mouth into a friendly smile.

  “I thought so. Seeing as you left in such a hurry.”

  “I went to look for the book on the shelf, but it—”

  “Wasn’t there.” The guard dropped his arms and started circling Hayden.

  Hayden tried to widen t
he fake friendly smile. “You know where it is.”

  The guy kept circling, slowing circling his arms. “Yep.”

  “Could you get it for me?” he asked, clinging to the patience.

  “The way I see it, you owe me.” He’d come to a stop behind Hayden.

  Hayden turned the fake smile into a frown and looked over his shoulder. “Sorry about that lady, I bet that sucked.”

  “It did. You know what else sucked?”

  Hayden’s stomach knotted. Whatever was coming next, he already knew he wasn’t going to like it. “What’s that?”

  “Looking at those pictures of you fucking that hot girl. Pictures, when I could have seen it in person if I’d been in the right place at the right time. I know those shots on the Weekly’s site didn’t do her justice. Man, that girl had some big tits.”

  “Did you stop to think you might be talking about my girlfriend?”

  The guy laughed, the scent of endless cups of coffee filling the air. “That girl ain’t nobody’s girlfriend. Even I can see that.”

  The conversation was going from bad to horrible in record time. “What about the book? Do you think you could get it for me?”

  The guard started walking again. “You’re forgetting what I said. You owe me.”

  “You took the others too, didn’t you? The ones that were shelved next to it.”

  “I sure did. I know you smart types always come back. And I was right. Here you are ready to pay up to get what you need.”

  Hayden let the fake expression go completely and reached back to get out his wallet.

  The other man shook his head. “No, not like that.”

  “What then?”

  “I want what I missed. The girl. In person.”

  Hayden was speechless.

  “Yeah. You and her.” He stopped walking, this time right in front of Hayden. “That was hot. I can’t do her, ’cause I have a girl myself. But I can watch, that’s not cheating.”

  He couldn’t be understanding the guy right. “You want to watch me fuck that girl?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re serious?”

  The man had the nerve to look insulted. “What’s it to you? You used her to sell papers.”

  True. And it was a mistake that never ended. “If I go get her now, and we do it, you’ll give me all the books.”

  “Now?” The guard smoothed his hair and straightened his blue uniform shirt. Then he rose up on tiptoe to look over the shelves. “She’s with you?”

  Hayden moved toward the stairs. “I can go get her.”

  “Meet me in Rabb Lecture Hall in five minutes. It’s in the basement.” The man pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Don’t make me wait.”

  * * * * *

  Mattie was right where he’d left her.

  “Come on.” He grabbed the collar of Mattie’s leather jacket and pulled her up. “It’s your turn to perform.”

  “I don’t want to go in,” she said, tumbling along behind him, slipping on a patch of ice by the door before finding her footing and shoving him off her. He grabbed her hand and pulled. Once they were on the stairs headed down to the bottom floor, Hayden explained. The situation sounded even more unbelievable when he said it out loud.

  “Whatever, Hayden. Nothing surprises me anymore.” She shrugged out of her jacket and thrust her shoulders back. “It’s not like I haven’t done this sort of thing before.”

  They reached the basement, found the door and went in. A stage was on the left and raised, stadium-style seating on the right. The only light in the large auditorium was a spotlight focused on the center of the stage.

  The security guard’s voice came through the darkness. “On the stage. In the light.”

  Mattie swung up onto the stage and went straight to the spotlight. She stood there, dangling her leather coat in one hand. She reached for Hayden with the other.

  Hayden climbed up and went to the center of the stage. Light streamed across her, illuminating her skin, brightening her face.

  She dropped her jacket, grabbed the hem of her skirt, and started to lift it slowly, with none of the urgency he’d come to associate with her and sex. There was no green glimmer in her gaze. Instead, her eyes were a warm brown and framed by long lashes he’d never noticed before. Her hair, its usual mass of tangles, outlined her face and made her skin pale and delicate.

  She’d been pretty once, he realized. She’d been more than walking sex, a creature with unavoidable tits and the kind of long legs a man dreamed about having wrapped around him. She hadn’t always been the kind of woman who promised to make a man feel right in all the wrong ways.

  Hayden gritted his teeth and grabbed his belt, jerked it open and let his pants drop to his knees.

  “You aren’t hard,” she said, her voice soft as she reached for his cock.

  He meant to push her hand away and take care of it himself, but he found himself watching her hand wrap around him, slowly curing her fingers around his soft shaft. Her hand was cold, but his body was hot and welcomed her touch. He braced himself for the fierce carnal hunger, but it didn’t wash over him or even drip down his spine. He felt nothing except a normal, typical rush of lust and need.

  “Put your hands on her tits.”

  Mattie winced but stuck her breasts out, encouraging Hayden to grab them. He did. The strips of wool were dry, and he tugged them down, freeing one breast and then the other. He reached up and let the weight of her flesh fill his hands. She arched her back and he flicked his thumbs across her nipples. She sighed and closed her eyes, dropping her head back to reveal the soft skin of her neck. She let go of his cock and wrapped one leg around his waist.

  She rocked, using the tip of his shaft to caress her clit. “Fuck me, Hayden.”

  Still holding her breasts, he pressed into her, feeling the wet, cool tightness of her pussy squeezing over his shaft. She moved against him. He matched her rhythm, rocking into her, sliding in and out, feeling the inside of her as though it was the first time. She groaned and held on to him, arching her back. Hayden moved his hands around to her back and then lifted her skirt and grabbed her ass. He pulled her even closer, grinding his hips into her pubic bone. Using her leg, she held him to her. He filled her perfectly.

  Hayden didn’t find the bleak, lonely darkness of before. He fell into a different kind of abyss and this time he didn’t fall alone. He fell with Mattie. They exploded together, their pants and moans becoming one, building together as one.

  Even before the last pulses of cum left his cock, Hayden jerked up his pants and hooked his belt. He didn’t look over at Mattie as she readjusted the strips of wool binding her breasts.

  “I’ll meet you out front,” she said and then hopped off the stage, trailing her jacket behind her.

  He wanted to feel relief at her quick exit, but felt an awkward emptiness instead.

  The guard was already up front, marching toward the stage with jerky steps. “It wasn’t hot like before.”

  Hayden jumped off the stage. “Fuck you, asshole.”

  “No, fuck you.”

  Hayden grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it behind his back. “You got what you asked for. Take me to the books. Right now.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  Hayden lifted the man’s arm, shoving it up between his shoulder blades. “Start walking, I’m right behind you.”

  Even wonder kids had their limits.

  * * * * *

  Clutching the straps of his backpack, Hayden rounded the corner and paused, taking his time to admire the white blink of the tiny lights hanging from the trees lining Commonwealth Ave. The snow was gone from the well-trimmed branches of the trees, so the lights glowed more brightly than the last time he’d bothered to think about them. Also gone was the dread that had been following him nonstop all weekend.

  He was a long way from being done with the undead, but he would soon have new information that should satisfy Mattie for the immediate future. Thanks to an all-acc
ess press pass Bob had given him for the comic convention, Hayden would be able to get to every event—and that included a cocktail party being put on by the publisher of the book that had started the whole thing. According to the convention website, the author was going to be there, downing the custom drinks being served to match the party theme. Maybe the guy would drink enough alcohol to tell Hayden every little thing he knew. If the drinks didn’t do the trick, Hayden would find another way to get the information out of him.

  Things were looking up, absolutely. Bob Keeler was going to be thrilled, out-of-his-mind ecstatic. Now that he thought about it, he ought to get Bob to deliver on that promise to give him something in return. Maybe he’d make him agree to giving him time to work on his other stuff, his real projects, and set him up with some of his contacts at the Globe.

  Who knows, maybe a couple months from now Hayden wouldn’t be dodging those nosy questions asked at parties. Shit, he’d like to see the looks on his cohorts’ faces when his feature stories started showing up in the Globe.

  No, his life was far from perfect, but considering how things could’ve turned out, he was ready to pretend it was damn near close at least for a couple hours.

  Even though the wind was blowing harder than was actually comfortable, the boulevard wasn’t empty. A couple strolled hand in hand, swinging their arms as they walked. Four kids, bundled up so much they could barely move, circled a lumpy snowman. The hat they’d brought for him was an oversize straw sombrero embroidered with flowers, probably a souvenir from Mexico someone was more than happy to get rid of. Across from them, an old man sat on a bench, huddled into his coat and scratching his collie’s head. Picture-perfect Back Bay Boston on a dark mid-December evening.

  Snowmaggeddeon was a memory and the harsh blizzard was forgotten. Soft, bright piles of snow and lighthearted stories about making do with whatever was already in the refrigerator, the only lingering effects. Looking at the scene now, a person would think nothing could ever go wrong here in this row of distinguished brownstones.

  A nasty burst of wind whipped across Hayden’s face, grabbing his scarf from his neck, making it whip out in front of him. He tucked it back into his coat, and started toward his place, thinking about whether he’d be celebrating with a beer or if he’d finally open that bottle of Luis Felipe his uncle had given him for graduating. Once he made that decision he’d call Rachelle.