Reckoning in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

  A silent scream tore Mario’s throat. He had to protect Violet. He had to leave Silas. Leave him, perhaps, to wander the earth…undead and ravenous and damned.

  Doug pulled him, pushed, almost carried Mario to the crest of the hill. When they reached it, he tried to turn back but Doug dragged him away.

  “Don’t,” Doug said. “You don’t want to see.”

  21

  When the Tesla’s batteries finally crapped out about five minutes after they passed a sign for something called Worship Central, Doug wanted to put his head down on the steering wheel and cry. It was too much. Fucking neo-Nazis, who had altered their route and sent them straight to disaster. Was it really just yesterday we left the house with the breezeway? he thought. It felt like months ago. He puzzled at it, at how skewed his perception of time had become, knowing it was a coping mechanism. If he kept his mind occupied with why time seemed so distorted, he wouldn’t have to think about the rest.

  Highway 175 had been as bad as they’d feared, forcing a lengthy detour because of a massive landslide. They’d backtracked, following a circuitous route that got them back on the highway a mile past the landslide, but it had taken close to two hours. Doug had been incandescent with rage. He knew his inability to roll with it wasn’t the detour, but he still seethed. He managed to settle down finally, which was a good thing, because not long after the Tesla gave up the ghost.

  Mario had barely spoken since they drove away, since they lost poor Silas, except to murmur words of comfort in Violet’s ear. He sat glassy-eyed in the back seat, Violet on his lap, clutching the catatonic child to him. She clutched Mister Bun Bun to herself in exactly the same way.

  Nobody spoke, and the silence was oppressive, but what were they going to talk about? Silas being eaten by zombies? Skye no longer repelling zombies? Mario hating himself for taking those three seconds to save Skye, which might have made the difference to save Silas? And then feeling guilty about feeling that way? Maybe they could dissect Doug’s bed-wetting panic when the zombie had grabbed Skye’s hair instead of recoiling, as they had for months now.

  Tortuous images had plagued Doug since. Broken, dirty teeth biting into her soft, pale skin. Her screams, the blood, needing to kill her so she wouldn’t turn. Or worse yet, not being able to, and knowing that what was left of her—once so beautiful and vibrant—roamed the Earth as a hungry, mindless, corpse.

  Nobody spoke all right, because the oppressive silence was as good as it was going to get.

  “We should get what we can carry and get moving,” Skye said. “It’ll be dark in four or five hours. We need to get settled in for the night.”

  She pushed her door open and shut it quickly, perhaps relieved to escape the oppressive silence.

  “Let’s put Mister Bun Bun in his carrier,” Tessa said.

  Immediately, Violet began to sob. “No,” she cried, so piteously that Doug’s heart, which he’d thought was already smashed into a million pieces, broke a little more.

  Doug turned in his seat. Violet held the rabbit too tight. Mister Bun Bun began to struggle, ready to bolt at the first opportunity.

  “Give Mister Bun Bun to Tessa, sweetheart,” Mario said, his voice low.

  Violet’s sobs increased in volume. She shook her head, gripping the rabbit tighter. Skye appeared in the window, her brow furrowed. Tessa looked at Doug, sending him a beseeching look to do something.

  Mario kept murmuring to no avail. Finally, he said to Tessa, “Get hold of him.”

  She did, and he pried Violet’s arms from around the rabbit. It bolted out of Tessa’s hands for the safety of the open carrier. Thank God none of the doors were open. Losing Mister Bun Bun would have been the crowning turd on this shitstorm of a day. Violet began to thrash, kicking and screaming. The empty seat in front of her vibrated every time her foot connected with it.

  “Pack up, I’ll deal with her,” Mario said as he slid his arm around Violet’s thrashing body and got out of the SUV.

  Doug joined Skye and Tessa at the rear hatch. They began to sort through the gear. Skye filled water bottles, Tessa split the meagre supply of food between their packs, while Doug rooted through their dwindling medical supplies. Violet screeched and howled over the low murmur of Mario’s voice.

  After a few minutes of this, Doug looked around them. If there were any zombies nearby, Violet’s cries would attract them. He knew it, Mario knew it, they all did.

  “What are we going to do with her?” Skye said, looking anxious.

  “Goddammit, Violet,” Mario’s strangled voice shouted. “Shut the fuck up!”

  Doug heard the sharp smack of a hard hand on soft flesh. The screams ceased. Doug looked at Skye for a split second, then he, Skye, and Tessa dashed around the Tesla.

  Violet was backed up against the vehicle, holding her cheek. She looked up at Mario, her dark eyes wide with shock. Tears still leaked from them, and her lips trembled, but she was silent. Mario recoiled from her, his face a mirror of the shock on Violet’s, but mixed with a horror so profound he might as well have been looking at a monster, not a little girl. His mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. He backed away, reeling on unsteady feet. He fell to his knees in the road, mouth contorted by a silent scream. His whole body convulsed, as if it were trying to vomit out the pain.

  Doug followed and crouched beside him. Mario’s sobs were raw and wild and utterly devastated, as if the entire world around him had collapsed in on itself. Doug put his hand on Mario’s shoulder. It heaved like a ship buffeted by a storm, wave after wave of grief threatening to swamp him, when Violet appeared. Her furrowed forehead, wide, dark eyes, and almost pouty frown made her look like a miniature Black Madonna. She walked to Mario’s other shoulder and began to pat it with her small dimpled hand.

  Doug started crying, too. She was six years old, yet somehow she knew that what Mario had done a few moments ago wasn’t who he was as a man, or a father. Mario turned to Violet, remorse and grief carved into his bones. He looked ancient—vanquished—as he pulled her into his lap and held her tight.

  “I’m sorry,” Doug heard him whisper through his sobs. “I’m so, so sorry, Violet. I’m sorry…”

  Doug stood and stepped back, wiping his eyes. He cast a quick glance around, to make sure no zombies were in sight. He walked back to the Tesla, where Skye and Tessa stood crying, too. Without a word, he went back to the open rear hatch and picked up where he’d left off.

  They were back on Highway 29, walking this time. It had only been about an hour, but it already felt endless. Their boots striking the pavement, the occasional rattle of the wire mesh door of Mister Bun Bun’s carrier, and the crinkle of the pages when they consulted the atlas, were the only sounds from the party of five. Or six, if you counted Mister Bun Bun, and Doug did.

  Tessa walked up alongside him. “We need stop soon,” she said. “Mario looks like he’s going to pass out, and he won’t let us carry Violet.”

  “There’s a group of buildings up ahead. Let’s check them out. Tell Skye to stay with Mario and Violet.”

  Tessa nodded and fell back to do as he asked. He hadn’t talked to Skye, not really, since they’d started walking. Every time he looked at her, panic welled up and fogged his brain. He couldn’t afford to be panicked right now.

  Tessa rejoined him, and together they walked over the brittle brown grass to the access road that ran parallel to the highway. A ribbon of Live Oak trees edged most of the property they were going to, and more shaded the cluster of buildings.

  They walked up the dusty drive, machetes at the ready. A small, one-story building painted a cheery yellow announced itself as the Otter Bay Winery tasting room.

  “That’s out,” Doug said, seeing immediately that the small building, with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, would be impossible to secure.

  “Let’s check out the house.”

  He looked beyond the tasting room to a house, an old one. It was two stories and made of red brick, which was unusual in Califo
rnia. It looked like the kind of Colonial style houses back east—the real ones—that whether made of brick or wood had the same spare lines. The window shutters on both stories were closed and nailed shut. When they found the front and back doors locked, Doug began to feel optimistic. He banged on the door. When nothing moaned or shuffled inside, he banged again. After another minute of silence, he said, “Check it out?”

  “Yes,” Tessa said. “And if this and the other buildings are okay, let’s find the wine. I need a drink.”

  An hour later, they’d confirmed there were no zombies in any of the adjacent buildings, so they closed them back up to keep it that way. The house was hot but not stifling once they opened the upstairs windows. They found the wine—a lot of it—and brought a case of Cabernet into the house. The label said it was organic and biodynamic, whatever that meant. Doug was pretty sure Mad Dog would’ve been deemed acceptable, but they hadn’t sunk that low—yet. He’d had a sip from Tessa’s glass and the little Cab wasn’t half bad.

  Mario and Violet were sacked out in one of the second-story bedrooms at the front of the house. Doug had looked in on them, saw that they were dead to the world, and crept away. The first-floor windows were already boarded up from the inside, and they’d blocked the front and back doors with large pieces of furniture.

  Tessa lounged on the couch in the living room when Doug got downstairs. Beside the couch, Mister Bun Bun was in a puppy pen they’d found in one of the outbuildings. He drank water from a dish, his little nose always twitching. Several half-eaten crackers that Skye had given him littered his pen. She knelt down beside him, wiggling her fingers through the mesh.

  She looked up when he entered. “This poor thing is going to be a junk food junkie if we don’t get him some veggies soon.”

  Doug wasn’t sure what Skye had said. It was like when it took a moment for his brain to catch up with what his ear had heard, but this time, the catch-up part never happened. He was distracted by how pink her lips were. Her dirty face. How her hacked-off hair, though still long enough to pull into short pigtails, hit at about her shoulders, and was shorter on the right than on the left. Now that they were in as safe a place as they’d been in what felt like years, all he wanted was to be alone with her. He needed to hold her close, to know she was really here.

  She must have seen it, for she said to Tessa, “You mind keeping an eye on things for now? We’ll do the next watch.”

  To her credit, Tessa kept the smirk out of her voice. She held out the open bottle of wine and a glass, passing them off to Skye. She picked up another and started ripping off the foil with the corkscrew they’d found.

  “I’m too wired to sleep. Knock yourselves out.”

  Doug followed Skye into the bedroom farthest from the one occupied by Mario and Violet. He crossed to the windows and opened the top sashes another foot, hoping to get a cross breeze. He turned back to Skye. She’d pulled the door shut behind them but hadn’t come farther into the room. She leaned against the door, looking at him. She’d kept her cool today, kept it together in a way most people, in Doug’s experience, didn’t. But now that they were alone, he could see the fear in her eyes. The sadness and loss. The hunger.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She shook her head no, then took a swig of wine straight from the bottle as she pushed off the door. She stooped to set it on the floor next to the empty glass. Doug felt hypnotized, watching her as she walked around the bed, drinking in the grace of how her body moved as she came to him.

  “Are you?”

  “No,” he said.

  She touched his hand. He pulled her to him, harder than he meant to. An inferno raged through him, fanned into being from one second to the next. His lips found hers, and the desperation fueling his desire, born of a fear more complete than any he’d known before, demanded that he touch her, taste her, fuck her—artlessly, without restraint.

  She moaned into his mouth, her body pressing into his. She tugged his jacket off his shoulders. He pushed her shirt above her head, inhaling the heady mixture of her scent mingled with dust and sweat. They stumbled in a semi-circle as she kicked off her boots and he yanked away her bra to squeeze her milky, yielding breasts. She pulled on his belt, the snap of the leather flipping out of the buckle cracking like a whip that electrified every nerve ending in his body. He pushed her fumbling hands away, but his own were so clumsy in his haste that it probably wouldn’t have made a difference if he’d let her finish the task.

  She shoved her pants and panties down, kicking a leg free. He gripped her naked ass, his fingertips boring into her flesh as he lifted her against the wall. Her eyes, so impossibly blue, held his like a magnet. The hacked edges of her hair clung to her sweaty neck, a jarring reminder of how differently this day could have ended, fanning Doug’s ache to possess her body with his. Her long legs wrapped around his hips, her arms wrapped around his neck. He groaned into their kiss as her silky body enveloped him, his lips rough against hers. Doug hurtled into her, the heat between them fanned by his longing, her lust, their need to connect.

  Her breath grew sharp, as harsh as his own. The desperation, the speed, his raw need for her and hers for him, sent them rocketing toward consummation like a runaway train. He could tell she was almost there, almost gone. And he wanted to fall with her into that euphoric release while she writhed and pushed against him, her hard nipples pressing against him through his shirt.

  In her eyes he saw the forlorn ache, the senseless loss, the urgent need to know they were alive.

  “Doug,” she gasped.

  She smacked her head hard against the wall, her body bucking against his, quaking as she came. He followed, groaning, falling into her shuddering body. He pinned her to the wall, panting against her neck, her hair sticking to his face. They froze in place, gasping, caught in the voluptuous fog of their frantic coupling. Her legs still held him tightly to her, hands tangled in his hair. He gripped the flesh of her thighs in his hands with bruising force.

  Then her legs slackened, and his hands fell away. Skye nestled into his embrace as her feet hit the floor, her strong arms encircling him. The first sob took him by surprise. He clung to her as if he were drowning, sobs racking his wiry frame. His terror prowled around them like a hungry ghost, searching for a chink so it could spirit her away.

  When his fear receded, and his tears subsided, Doug held her face in his hands. Her eyes shone with love and relief and still more hunger, promising that they would soon repeat this rite of the living, of lovers who had cheated death.

  “I thought you were dead,” he whispered. “I thought… Oh Skye. I thought I’d lost you.”

  Tears glittered in her eyes before trickling down her flushed, dirt-smudged faced. He’d seen her cleaner, but never more beautiful than she was in this moment.

  “You didn’t,” she said, pushing the hair that had fallen into his eyes out of the way. She wiped his cheek with a cloud-soft touch, then slid her arms around him once more. “We’re here, together. That’s all that matters.”

  Later, they were gentler, more tender than before. Doug explored Skye’s contours—the swells and hollows, the pliable and firm—with languid intention. The parts that tickled under his touch. The parts that reduced her to a puddle while he kissed and caressed and stroked and teased. The parts that set him ablaze, which was every inch of the wonderland of her body. When he kissed her to release, the musk of her sex filling his nose and making him hard, her body shaking and shuddering, her usual throaty cries were almost noiseless, like the fluttering of wings. When they moved together, while whispered promises flew fast and thick between them, the constant refrain of Thank God, Thank God, buzzed in the back of Doug’s brain like a ward, or a charm, an unconscious benediction of how much he loved her, needed her, wanted her with him—always. When he finally came, long after having coaxed the same from her obliging and eager body, nothing could penetrate the pleasurable oblivion of his offering to the goddess beneath him.

  They lay to
gether, limbs entangled, ensconced in a haze of drowsy contentment. “I can’t lose you,” he murmured into her hair. “When we get home, I’m done with this shit. I want to stay where it’s safe, get married, have babies. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  For a split second, he cringed. He meant it—all of it—but hadn’t meant to say it like that. Against his chest, he felt her cheek lift in a smile.

  “That’s the fear talking. Not you,” she said through a yawn. “It’s sweet, and I love you for it, but you’d be climbing the walls.” She raised her head, her chin resting on his chest, and arched an eyebrow. “Besides, what about what I want?”

  Doug looked down at her, scowling.

  “You know I’m right,” she said, her voice a teasing singsong.

  “I don’t have to like it,” he grumbled.

  Skye’s burst of laughter was contagious, because it sounded like tinkling bells and sunshine and fairy dust. The kind of thing Miranda would razz him about without mercy if he ever admitted to it, but it was true. She reached over him and picked up the bottle of wine from the floor, half hanging off the bed, giving him a view of her ass so magnificent that he reached out to hold it. She took a swig, once again straight from the bottle, swishing the wine in her mouth before swallowing.

  “My God, that’s good.”

  She twisted toward him, the swivel of her lithe body sending a ripple of desire through him that he was too exhausted to act on. She held the bottle up in question, but he shook his head. She crawled up him to kiss. When her tongue met his, he thought that this was a much better way to taste the wine. She looked at him so tenderly when the kiss ended, stroking the side of his face with her hand, then lay back down, snuggling her head to his shoulder. The weight of her breasts against the side of his body, her head on his shoulder, her leg twined around his, were sticky in the too warm room, but Doug didn’t mind.