Zomromcom

Zomromcom

1

Armed with a burrito, Edie rounded her car and sprinted to intercept the zombie.

She'd prefer to be carrying the knife she brought with her on her daily zombie-scouting walks or the cleaver she sometimes used to cut her soaps. Both weapons would actually kill zombies-by cutting off their heads or carving out their hearts, two of only three ways the creatures could be slain-rather than simply sprinkling them with medium-hot corn salsa.

Too bad Chad would be a headless corpse before she could grab either weapon.

People used to picture zombies shuffling slowly toward their victims, arms outstretched as they droned about brains, braaaaaains, but a secret, ill-fated government experiment had proven everyone wrong. She'd seen their startling, terrifying speed for herself almost exactly twenty years before, back when she was eighteen, as she'd spotted the first gaunt, gray-pale creature racing silently on all fours toward-

Didn't matter. A burrito was what she had. Thus, a burrito she would use. Somehow. Even though the various self-defense courses she'd taken had neglected sufficient coverage of the tortilla-wielding martial arts.

Her sweet idiot of a neighbor stood on the unlit front porch of his dilapidated brick rancher as the sun dipped below the horizon and shadows stretched to swallow him. Chad wore headphones and didn't react to her shouted warning. No one else came running to help either, and no matter what happened, no one would. There were eleven homes on their cul-de-sac, and only two were currently occupied. Hers. Chad's.

She was the only one who could save him. Or at least attempt to save him.

Oh gods, she didn't want to die. But she couldn't let someone else-anyone else-perish while she ran to rescue herself. Not again.

The creature was only a dozen long strides away from Chad now, lunging upward and onto its hind legs in preparation for the kill, elongated teeth yellowed and sharp and bared, claws outstretched to rip Chad's head from his absurdly broad shoulders before cracking his skull open like an egg and slurping down the tasty yolk of a brain.

She skidded into the zombie's path, panting and terrified, and kicked it in the chest with every ounce of her strength and desperation.

Mistake. Big mistake. The creature stopped, true. But it stumbled maybe a half step back and to the side, that was all, while the impact numbed her entire leg and jolted her off-balance. As she struggled to stay upright, to assume a defensive stance, the zombie growled something hoarsely-

Bonjour? That couldn't be right.

-its red-rimmed eyes now fixed on . . . her. Which had been her intent, but still. Shit.

She swatted it across the snout with her foil-wrapped burrito.

Its stare narrowed, empty of anything but feral rage. As she took several hasty steps backward, the creature stalked forward, slowly now, still upright.

It could tear her to pieces whenever it wanted. It had time to play with its food.

Like her, Chad had cleared all vegetation from a sizable area surrounding his house. No attacker could approach without being seen, because even a last-second warning was better than none. But that meant the nearest climbable tree was maybe twenty, thirty feet away.

She wouldn't make it. She had to try.

Even though she probably wouldn't survive this encounter, every moment she distracted the creature would allow Chad time to finally clue in to what was happening right beside his freaking front porch and run for his life. Preferably up a ladder, where the zombie couldn't follow.

He could call the hotline then. Sound the alarm. Alert everyone else in the Containment Zone to take shelter and wait in safety until the government helicoptered in sufficient troops to remedy the breach and eradicate the zombies once and for all.

After a final shout of warning to Chad, she turned to run as the zombie bent its hind legs in preparation for a fatal pounce.

Hopefully it wouldn't hurt too much. Please, let it not hurt too much.

After only a single stride, something warm and wet sprayed across her back as the zombie's guttural snarl cut off abruptly, and an involuntary sob tore from her throat. Oh no. No. Poor, dim, puppy-dog-friendly Chad had attempted to rescue her and died horribly for his efforts.

Why hadn't he taken advantage of the creature's utter focus on her?

Had she really sacrificed her entire future for nothing?

If she looked back, she knew what she'd see. Tearing claws and teeth. Blood. A skull cleaved and emptied in two slurps. It was her own future spread before her, steaming in the wintry cold of a late-December dusk, since the zombie could and would still reach her before she managed to heave herself up into the nearest tree and climb high enough, no matter how hard she ran.

She looked back anyway. Then promptly tripped over something-a mole hole, maybe-and fell hard on her ass. Her miraculously intact burrito thumped onto the crabgrass beside her.

Against a dusky blue sky rapidly fading to darkness, a silhouette wavered in front of her watery stare. Someone-or something-tall, standing far too close, with thick, muscular legs braced for battle. Holding a knife, its edge dripping and dark.

Zombies couldn't use tools. Not since that last, fatal dose of serum.

Gasping, she dashed her wrist over her eyes, and he came into focus.

Chad. Not dead. Not clad in a baseball cap, faded jeans, and a Miller Lite tee. Not smiling goofily at her. Not harmless.

The zombie had leapt upon her, clearly, and she was near death herself, hallucinating in her final, semiconscious moments upon this earth. Because Chad-just Chad, dude, last names are dumb-was wearing an open black leather hoodie, hideous black cloven-toed shoes, and what appeared to be sheepskin underwear. Also a bored, disdainful expression directed unmistakably at her.

That was all. That was everything.

No shirt. No pants. Not even a hint of gratitude or friendliness.

At his feet lay the zombie, rent in two distinct pieces, both soaked in sickly yellow blood. The head to Chad's right, the body to the left, separated as neatly as any guillotine could have done. Robespierre would have been envious.

For some reason, her poor dying brain supplied a propulsive yet chilly European beat to the sight of Chad the Zombie Slayer staring down his nose at her.

With a graceful flick of his hand, he tossed aside his over-the-ear headphones. Nightfall had darkened his golden-brown hair and transformed his blue eyes into shadowed black pools. His brows were thick slashes drawn over that strong, straight nose, and his full mouth drew thin in seeming disapproval.

"You're a fool," he pronounced.

She didn't take offense. Given her current state of abject confusion, he might very well be correct. Although if Bro Chad had ever made such an accusation-which he never would-she'd have howled with laughter before removing the Miller Lite from his hand and pouring it over his head.

Even his voice was different now. Deeper, more clipped and supercilious, with the faintest hint of a French accent, even though she could have sworn he was one hundred percent Mid-Atlantic Bro down to his marrow.

Numbly, she took stock of herself.

When she prodded her throat, her neck felt entirely intact. When she scanned her surroundings, she saw exactly what she'd have expected to see, excluding Euro Chad.

His ranch house, with its sagging front porch.

All the other crumbling homes arrayed on either side of their street, empty since the Breach twenty years ago. Which would now be called the First Breach, most likely, since a second had clearly occurred.

Her little brick split-level next door, its windows pitch-black, its shutters unsecured for the night. She hadn't anticipated an after-Christmas rush at the post office, and by the time she'd dealt with all her packages and hastily supervised the construction of her burrito, she'd been running far too late for comfort.

Wall Two still hunkered in the near distance, a reliable landmark and one of four thick stone barriers arrayed in concentric circles around the zombies' once-secret fireproof, bombproof underground compound. As always, the wall blocked the low-hanging moon early in the evening, along with any lights from the houses on the other side.

She patted her head. As far as she could tell, her brain remained unmasticated and still in her skull. But if she'd somehow survived intact, she didn't understand how, and she couldn't explain the appearance of Euro Chad.

Was this a dream?

The dampness from the grass had begun seeping through the thick fabric of her coveralls, though, making her butt increasingly clammy and cold. Just like it would if she were alive and conscious and not either dying horribly or thrashing through a nightmare.

She stared up at Euro Chad, trying her best to ignore the body at his feet. "Am I asleep?"

"No." He wiped his blade off on the grass, then tucked it somewhere in his hoodie. "Get up."

"Are you some kind of reaper, then, here to escort me to my afterlife? Because you don't look like one, frankly." She squinted at him, her ass still planted on the ground. "Although maybe all reapers wear sheepskin granny panties. I don't know your lives. Er, afterlives. Non-lives, whatever."

His sneer became a scowl. "These aren't granny panties. They're fashion."

"Look like furry granny panties to me."

Muttering something under his breath, he turned his back to her, the movement abrupt and impatient.

Her brows rose at the sight of a thong, as well as what surrounded that thong.

Say what you would about Euro Reaper Chad-both versions of him, each aggravating in his own way-but he apparently did his share of squats. Gluteus maximus indeed.

"That has to chafe," she pointed out, cautiously getting to her feet and tucking her burrito into her cross-body bag, just in case people still needed to eat in the afterlife. "Don't reapers get wedgies? Either the ass or toe variety?"

Because those aesthetic abominations on his feet and his sheepskin thong had to be freaking uncomfortable, fashionable or not.

There. She was fully upright again. Her legs still shook a little beneath her, but they were solid enough. They would carry her . . . well, wherever she needed to go next. Would Euro Reaper Chad help her cross a mystical river? Or guide her through paradisical fields of-

"We don't have time for this nonsense." Swiveling to face her once more, he claimed her hand in a firm, cool grip and began hauling her toward his front porch. "Even you must know that zombies travel as a pack. If we've seen one, we'll shortly see more. We need to seek immediate shelter before we're overrun."

"I don't understand." If she was already a goner, why worry about more zombies? "Is there some way for me to be extra super double dead?"

"You're not dead yet. But you will be if you don't hurry."

Shaking her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts, she stumbled after him as quickly as she could. Because if she truly was alive and conscious, Euro Non-Reaper Chad was right. She did need to hurry.

He hustled her through the dark front yard while she dazedly scanned the tree line of his property, searching for movement. If she had a choice, she didn't usually go out after dusk. Not because the zombies avoided daylight-in the First Breach, they'd murdered hundreds of humans under a sunlit cerulean sky-but because at nightfall the chances of spotting them in time for an escape dropped from unlikely to nearly impossible.

Which another zombie promptly proved by leaping up onto the side of the porch from the shadows below, jaw already stretched wide and aimed for her neighbor's throat, growling something that sounded very much like bon appétit.

Euro Non-Reaper Chad moved faster than her eyes could track. One moment, he was tugging her up the steps to his house, those impressive glutes bunching and releasing in rolling shifts of muscle that were honestly a little distracting despite the precariousness of their situation. Then, before she could blink, he'd already lunged halfway across the porch. One long-fingered hand clamped around the zombie's jaw as the creature growled and snapped at him.

The other hand tore out its heart.

Sans knife. Bare-knuckled.

He tossed the bloody organ to the wooden porch floor, released the zombie's jaw, and let the creature collapse at his feet, his face a mask of utter indifference.

The whole thing-attack, counterattack, release-took maybe three seconds.

Nauseated, she stared down at the slowing tremble of the creature's bloody heart. Her own heart, which she hoped to keep safely intact inside her chest for many decades to come, thudded faster and faster, its terrified beat echoing in her skull.

Holy fuck.

Euro Non-Reaper Chad wasn't a zombie. But he could definitely kill her just as dead.

Slowly, hoping he somehow wouldn't notice, she backed away from him and down his porch steps once more.

"Where are you going, human?"

Human. Which confirmed he . . . wasn't.

Funny, he didn't sound like he planned to murder her with his bare hands. More patronize her to death, with suffocating condescension his unknown species' weapon of choice.

She was in shock, though. She recognized that now. Tonight's terror had resurrected her worst memories from two decades before, leaving her disoriented. Her judgment couldn't be trusted, so she needed to stick with the emergency plan she and her parents had decided upon during the Battle for Containment, back when she'd been only fifteen. Back when she and the rest of the world had first learned about the zombies-and also Supernaturals and Enhanced humans, who emerged from secrecy for the first time to help common humans drive the creatures back into their compound.

If you see or hear anything that worries you, go to the attic, sweetheart, her mother had said, and lovingly tugged the end of Edie's ponytail in emphasis. Bring the ladder up after you and lock the door. We'll have lots of snacks and drinks there, and you can camp out until we tell you everything's okay.

Edie had frowned. What about you and Dad? Where will you go?

We'll come with you if we can. If we can't, we'll take care of ourselves. Your only job is to take care of you. Do you understand? Her mother had met Edie's eyes directly, searching for an honest answer. Promise me you'll go to the attic and lock the door behind you, no matter what, Edie. Please.

When Edie had finally, reluctantly said I promise, she hadn't truly understood what that promise would mean. She hadn't been able to grasp how it would feel to abandon her parents to their deaths, even when that was what they wanted, even though her life meant more to them than their own. It was unimaginable-until the moment it became her reality three years later.