Pulling off his camouflaged ballcap, Tyler ran a hand through his unruly hair and blew out a slow and low breath. “Well, that’s actually the plan. American Idol is holding auditions in town next month and I plan on being the first in line.” He turned to Miranda and Finn, lifting his brow. “What do you guys think?”
Clearing his throat, Finn’s lips pulled down at the corners. “I think…”
“You really play that guitar beautifully,” Miranda finished for him, leaning against her husband.
Tyler’s face flushed with blood. “It’s like a part of me now, like an arm or a leg.”
“How long have you been playing?” April asked.
“Almost two years, Ma’am.”
Everyone nodded their understanding and grew quiet. The cat got up in Clark’s lap, did a quick circle and laid back down before curling into a ball.
“Thank you again for dinner,” Miranda said, changing track. “That was so good.”
“Oh, I’m glad you liked it. It’s always a fun dish to make.” April smiled warmly. “Do you like to cook, Miranda?”
“Uh, I do. Just last week I made…” She looked to her husband for help.
“Lasagna,” he yawned, covering his mouth.
“Lasagna. Took me forever to make but it turned out pretty good, didn’t it?”
“Uh-huh,” he replied, smothering another yawn.
April looked down to the beer can in her hand, roses blooming on her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bore you with small talk. I’m just trying to keep my mind off…” Her eyes turned glassy and Clark reached over to pat her knee.
“She’ll be fine, sweetheart. She always is.”
April avoided his eyes, toying with the can’s pull-tab. “I know, it’s just the thought of her out there with those things…”
“What do they look like anyway?” Clark leaned forward in the recliner, unable to stop the question from popping out. “Up close and in person?”
“Clark,” April groaned, shuddering at the thought.
Tyler, Miranda and Finn swapped awkward glances, painful images stabbing at their minds.
“Dead,” Tyler finally answered, picking his beer can up from the coffee table. “Like they literally clawed their way out of the ground. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Clark leaned back in the chair and let his eyes stray from focus. “Sure sounds like it,” he muttered, tallboy dangling from his fingertips.
“A single bite from one of those things will turn you into one as well.”
Frowning at Finn, April stopped plucking the pull-tab. “Into a zombie?”
“My friend, Carmen, got bit after dinner tonight,” Miranda said. “We saw her attack her husband on FaceTime soon after.”
“Oh, my word,” April gasped, looking at her husband. “That is just awful!”
Miranda’s foot swung faster through the air. “You have to shoot them in the head or they won’t die.”
Grunting, Clark cheered her with his beer. “Well, that’s one way to skin a cat.”
The cat stirred in his lap and Finn yawned again. “Well, I think we’ll hit the hay,” he said, covering his mouth. “If that’s okay with you guys.”
“I’m sure you two are exhausted,” April said, nodding down the hall. “The spare room is all ready for you at the end of the hallway on the right. There’s a bathroom just outside the door with clean towels if you want to take a hot shower.”
“Help yourselves to anything you need, the fridge is stocked and loaded,” Clark told them, pushing out of the recliner and making the cat spring from his lap. “Make yourself comfortable on the couch, Tyler.”
“Thank you, sir. I mean, Clark.”
“Bailey can sleep in her old room when she gets home.” Rising from the chair, April curled up against her husband’s side and rubbed his chest. “We left it just the way she did when she moved out.”
Spreading a toothy grin, Clark took her hand and escorted her down the hall. “If you see Champ, let him in, okay?”
Zombie Slayer
Heads nestled in pillows, Miranda and Finn stared at each other through the dark. Moonlight slipped in through the room’s only window, laying down a silver stripe across the foot of the bed. Almond vanilla wafted from their hair and it felt good to scrub the zombie blood from Finn’s skin. After getting some in his mouth, he worried he’d turn into a flesh-eater but that concern was fading with each hour that passed. He felt fine and, after a long hot shower with his wife, could barely keep his eyes open.
Miranda yawned. “That was so awkward with Tyler after dinner.”
Fluffing up his pillow, Finn yawned too. “If only his singing matched his guitar playing.”
“I know,” she whispered. “He plays sooo good, but that singing… I didn’t know what to say.”
Smiling, he studied the curves in her pretty face, tracing her full lips with a finger. “I’m going to tell him.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“He can’t audition for American Idol; he’ll spend all day waiting in line for nothing.”
Miranda covered her mouth. “Don’t make me laugh,” she whispered through her fingers. “I feel bad laughing after what happened to Carmen and Chad.”
His smile fizzled and the air-conditioning kicked off, planting a high-pitched tone in Finn’s left ear. “Yeah, me too.”
“I mean, Carmen actually turned into a zombie and killed Chad right in front of us.”
“Don’t remind me.” He blew out a long breath. “I can’t get the look on his face out of my head.”
“I know,” Miranda agreed, wiping away a tear. “And Carmen looked so…”
“Dead.”
“Yeah. That.”
Another yawn forced its way out of Finn’s mouth. He punched at the pillow some more, struggling to find a comfortable position. “This is the strangest pillow talk I’ve ever had.”
This time, Miranda smiled and a knock on the door jerked their heads around in the spare bed. Throwing back the covers, Finn grabbed the handgun from the nightstand and crossed the room. He stopped at the door and listened, the cold laminate flooring seeping into his feet. “Hello?”
“Finn?” Tyler whispered through the door.
Cringing, he glanced back at Miranda, wondering if Tyler heard them talking about his shitty singing. “Yeah?”
“You have to see this.”
Miranda sat up against the headboard and pulled the quilt up. She gave Finn a slight nod and, reluctantly, he cracked the door open.
Tyler held up his cellphone. “There’s a new Instagram Story of a zombie attack going viral.”
“Instagram Story?” Finn’s brow creased in surprise. “Seriously?”
“Well, it’s more like an Instagram Horror Story, but, as far as I can tell, it’s the first video to get out.”
“Where’s it from?” Miranda asked.
Tyler poked his head into the room. “You just have to watch it, Miranda.”
Glancing over his shoulder, Finn hedged. Miranda was still wearing the tank top, minus her bra and jeans. Just the red lace panties he’d planned on ripping off with his teeth after dinner with Carmen and Chad tonight.
“It’s a short video,” Tyler said, jerking him from his thoughts.
“Finn, let him in.”
Looking down at his boxer briefs, he groaned and pulled the door back, letting Tyler barge inside the room.
“I didn’t want to scare April and Clark; they’ve been so nice to us and all,” he told them, sitting on the edge of the bed and making it dip. “But this is off the charts crazy.”
Locking the door, Finn crossed the room and sat next to him. They huddled around the brightly lit screen and Tyler let the video play. Miranda inhaled sharply and clutched her chest, eyelids peeling back in her head. Adrenaline spiking, Finn’s heart skipped a beat as he watched himself push the shotgun against the bowtie zombie trying to eat his face off in the Famous Footwear parking lot. They could h
ear Miranda yell something in the background as the dead guy snapped at Finn’s face. A gunshot rang out and the zombie’s head exploded. The camera panned over to Tyler still pointing his gun at the dead man who hitched a ride in the back of his pickup.
“Jesus Christ,” Finn whispered.
“Tell me about it,” Tyler said, putting the phone to sleep when the video ended. “My Instagram is blowing up with new followers and people commenting on my last post.”
“Oh my God,” Miranda breathed out. “Are you serious?”
He nodded and looked at Finn. “Nathan tagged me in it and now the whole world thinks I’m a hero.”
Finn’s jaw dropped. “You’re the hero?” Miranda shushed him and he ran a hand down his face, pulling a sigh from his lips. “What was your last post?”
“A picture of a large mouth bass I caught yesterday at the lake.” Tyler shook his head in awe. “I thought it was a pretty fish and now they’re calling me the Zombie Slayer.”
Shaking his head to clear it, Finn gaped at him. “The Zombie Slayer? Come on.”
“You should check your Instagram, man, because he tagged you too.”
Laying back on the bed, Finn ran both hands through his hair. “I can’t believe Instagram is even still working!”
“Right? Hang on, there’s more.”
Holding his head up, Finn sharpened his gaze.
“That Nathan dude posted a new story about twenty minutes ago, but I had to go to his profile to find it.”
Finn sat up and leaned in closer with his wife, the screen casting an eerie glow over their warped features. Tyler shifted on the bed and let it play. Heart pounding in his chest, Finn could see Nathan’s frightened face in the reflection of the store’s glass separating him from at least a dozen zombies clawing at the doors and windows. “Oh shit,” Finn whispered, watching Nathan pan the camera around the parking lot. Three more dead things limped closer beyond the tangled pickup and minivan and this wasn’t good.
“And just like that,” Nathan said on the video, zooming out to show all the dead people in one screen, “I’m fucked.” The camera flipped around to show his colorless face. Dark, greasy bangs dangled in his glasses; neat rows of new shoes stacked like dominos behind him. “Mom, I’m sorry about your van, but some fat guy crashed into it. Wasn’t my fault.”
Pursing his lips, Tyler grimly shook his head.
“I’m sorry about everything. I love you and Dad,” Nathan continued in a grim voice, reaching out and stopping the video.
“We have to go help him,” Miranda said, pulling the quilt up higher to ward off a sudden chill. “We can’t leave him trapped in there. He probably doesn’t even have any food.”
Finn got up and started pacing the room in his underwear. The multitude of zombies littering the parking lot slashed through his mind in painful bursts of light, each corpse as dangerous as a pissed off king cobra. Poisonous as all hell. “Shit,” he hissed, checking the time on his phone connected to a charger Clark loaned him.
“Shit is right, brother.” Tyler put the phone to sleep and released an uneasy breath. “That’s a whole lot of dead people to wade through.”
Pulling on the pair of blue jeans Clark loaned him, Finn slipped into his new socks and shoes.
Miranda sat up straighter in bed and the quilt slid down her chest, exposing the nipples poking through her shirt. “What’re you doing?”
“We can’t just sit here.”
“Maybe we should wait for your cop friend to show up.” Tyler started counting on his fingers. “That would give us at least five guns.” He shrugged loosely. “If April can shoot, we’d have six.”
Finn pulled on a John Deere t-shirt Clark loaned him to replace his bloodstained dress shirt. “We can’t wait for Mac to show up. For all we know, she’s already dead.”
“Don’t you say that!”
Frowning at Miranda, Finn slipped the holster inside his waistband. “We have to go right now.”
Miranda leaned back and sighed. “I agree.”
“Alright, I’m with you, boss.” Tyler got up and crossed the room, stopping at the door. “Let me get my stuff rounded up and I’ll meet you out in the living room.”
“Should we wake up Clark?” she asked.
“We’re going to need him,” Finn replied, rolling the jeans up at the cuffs. Clark was too tall and they’d need to hit a clothing store and soon. He couldn’t afford tripping over a pair of jeans with a thirty-six-inch inseam. “I’ll wake him up on our way out.”
Tyler nodded and quietly left the room. Finn shut the door behind him and locked it. Miranda sprang from bed and pulled on her jeans before slipping into her running shoes.
“Poor kid must be terrified.”
“That sonofabitch should’ve come with us,” Finn whispered, stuffing his gun into the holster.
“He was scared, Finn.”
“I know but, shit, now he’s putting all our lives in danger.”
“He didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“Yes, he did! We told him what was going to happen.”
Miranda ignored him and put on her gun. Inhaling a calming breath, she crossed over to him and planted a warm kiss on him that tasted like strawberries. “I love you,” she whispered against his lips, accepting his heartbeats into an open palm.
“Don’t say that.”
Her face fell. “Why not?”
“Because you’re saying that like it might be your last chance and it’s not. We will make it through this and whatever else comes our way after that. Okay?”
Pressing her lips together to stop them from quivering, she barely nodded.
“And I love you, too,” he said kissing her forehead and hugging her hard.
A soft knock at the door snapped their heads around. Crossing the room, Finn opened the door and Tyler barged back inside. “What happened?” Finn whispered, shutting the door behind him.
Tyler paced back and forth, rattling the mirror on the bureau, breath rushing in and out. “It’s not good, man.”
“What is it?” Miranda asked, planting her hands on her hips.
He stopped and stared at her, face white as a ghost in the moonlight. “Dude went on Facebook Live and filmed himself escaping out the store’s backdoor.”
“Who?” Finn’s face soured. “Nathan?”
Tyler nervously stroked his beard. “I don’t even want to show you what happened. Let’s just say that Facebook Live is more like Facebook Dead these days.”
“What happened?” Finn heard himself ask in his ears like a fool, knowing the answer would scar him for life.
Tyler sighed. “He didn’t make it out of the back lot. There were more things waiting for him out there, like they could smell him hiding inside.”
“Goddamn it,” Finn whispered, interlocking his fingers behind his head. “He should’ve come with us!”
“Dude took a dead Jimmy John’s driver out with a metal shoe measuring thing,” Tyler panted, grimly shaking his head. “After that, it was game over, man. They stepped up to him like flies to honey.”
Miranda sat on the bed before her legs gave out. “Damnit.”
Exhaling a mournful breath, Tyler set a hand on Finn’s shoulder and squeezed. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” Opening the door, he turned and studied them through frightened eyes. “See y’all in the morning.”
Finn locked the door behind him and leaned against it, listening to his footsteps fade down the hallway. “If there is a morning.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“I know,” he lied, pulling his gun out and setting it on the nightstand. Kicking off their shoes, they removed their clothing and kissed goodnight without another word. Finn laid there in the dark for a while, staring at the spinning ceiling fan, blurring the blades into a propeller. The silver stripe of moonlight crept to their knees and, despite the fact he didn’t sleep well the night before, Finn’s mind refused to shut down. It was too much to process for the human brain. When
the sandman finally found him, he would awake the next morning with a scream stuck in his throat.
10
Cannibals
The next morning, Finn and Miranda found Tyler bent over his guitar on the couch, the smell of coffee hanging thickly in the air. Morning sunshine streamed through the windows, catching the steam rising from a mug surrounded by a horde of empty tallboys littering the coffee table. Tyler ran a thumb down the strings and looked up, dark circles ringing his eyes. “Mornin,” he said in a thick voice, forcing a weak smile.
“Good morning,” Miranda replied, sitting next to him with a steaming mug of coffee wrapped in her hands.
He frowned at her, ballcap askew on his head. “You okay, Miranda?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Thought I heard you scream a little bit ago.”
“Oh, that was Finn,” she explained, blowing on the mug.
“What?” Finn screwed his face up. “No, it wasn’t.”
“He had a bad dream.”
Tyler tipped his head back in understanding. “I had my fair share of those last night, too.”
“Did you get much sleep?” Finn asked, dropping into Clark’s recliner and setting his coffee on the side table.
“Some,” Tyler replied, strumming a few chords. “I stayed up half the night drinking like a fish and I am hungover as fuck today, pardon my French.” He sipped some coffee and set it back down amongst the forest of empty cans. “I wrote a song for my mom that I think she would’ve really liked,” he said, searching their faces through glassy eyes. “Y’all wanna hear it?”
“Not really.”
“Finn,” Miranda groaned, shooting him a pointed glare.
Finn leaned back in the recliner. “Where’s April and Clark?”
Tyler shrugged and started strumming the guitar again. “Still sleeping I guess.”
Finn’s phone vibrated in his pocket and before he could even dig it out, he knew it was Mac calling. It was like a sixth sense he couldn’t explain, stirring his heart into a fever. Pulling the phone out, he studied the screen.
First Zombie Page 8
