Half Past Dead

by Zoë Archer

  “It’s been an honor serving with you, sir.” Wally spared Simon one long look before they both turned to face the enemy.

  They could see the helicopter now. It was coming in for a landing. If they timed it just right, they could make a hole through the mass of creatures for Wally to run through and jump onto the chopper. It was his only shot.

  “You know, sir, it’s been more than a minute and you’re still standing,” Wally observed as they waited for the opportune moment to launch their offensive.

  Simon stopped breathing for a split second, thinking about what Wally had said. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Could be the science guys were wrong. You might live.” Wally shrugged but Simon could feel the air vibrate around him as the helicopter came closer. It was almost time. “I think you should come with me, sir.” Wally had to shout to be heard above the roar of the helicopter’s blades.

  “I think you’re right, Wallace,” Simon shouted back, a grin splitting his face as the helo descended toward the grassy clearing. “We’ll both get out of this mess.” Almost there. They had to time this right as the monsters tightened the noose around them. “On three. One. Two…Three!” Simon gave a war cry as he ran toward the enemy, hoping like hell that brute force would allow him and Wally to muscle their way past the armada facing them.

  He pushed past the first row of stinking flesh easily. The second line was a little harder. He looked over at Wally, but the kid was holding his own. This was like an evil game of football where the stakes were life or death. Simon fought through the secondary line, dodging grasping hands and shouldering through the ranks of dead Marines.

  He made it to the open door of the helicopter and looked back to see Wally, in the grip of Lieutenant Hsu. Simon turned to go back and help Wally but hands from inside the chopper grabbed him, tugging him forcefully aboard. He fought against them, but there were too many people gripping him in too many places, pulling him into the hovering helicopter.

  The last Simon saw of Wally, he was surrounded by zombies, their teeth ripping into his living flesh. Then Wally pulled the pin on his last remaining grenade.

  Chapter One

  He watched from the bushes, gauging the woman’s reactions as she peered up at the full moon from her back porch. She wasn’t wary, and that was a dangerous thing. For her.

  Dark things prowled the night. Things out of nightmares. Things a woman like her should never encounter.

  If he had his way, she never would. It was his job to see that she remained in ignorance of the creatures that stalked the forest behind her home. He was her silent protector, though she would never know it.

  If things went as planned.

  A few hours later, Simon cursed his bad luck. His plan had gone right out the proverbial window, but he was a hell of an improviser. His fast actions and lightning reflexes had saved his life more than once in the past. This time, however, he might’ve cut things just a little too close. Only the dawn pinkening the eastern sky had saved him tonight, sending the creatures he hunted to ground.

  In the night, the hunter had become the hunted and now he was injured. Blood drew the undead creatures like moths to a flame. Simon had left a blood trail through the forest that would have the zombies in a frenzy when they rose again.

  Thankfully, the day was sunny and he knew the reanimated corpses shunned the sun’s cleansing rays. They’d be in hiding until sunset. Or until storm clouds showed up. Cloudy days were the worst, because then he had no respite from hunting the creatures that should never have been let loose in the first place.

  Simon headed for the deep woods that would take him eventually to Quantico, the Marine base from which he was currently operating. He had been recruited to eradicate the threat in the woods surrounding the base before it could spread any further.

  Ostensibly, he was a civilian contractor doing some unspecified work on base. Only a select few high up in the command structure knew his true identity and his real mission. One man against a potential army of the undead wasn’t great odds. Simon’s training, unique skill set, covert operations experience, and immunity to the contagion that had created these monsters tipped the scales in his favor.

  Until today. Today he would be lucky to make it back to base without passing out. He would head straight for the small clinic that served as an infirmary for men in the field. He would go there even though he’d been avoiding that one particular place for weeks now. Not the place really. In truth, it was the woman who worked there he had been trying so hard to avoid. He’d guarded her. He’d watched over her from afar, but he’d been avoiding a face-to-face confrontation with the woman out of his past. The one he’d let get away.

  Now, if his rotten luck held, he would be unable to avoid her.

  Dr. Mariana Daniels arrived at the base infirmary early, as was her habit. She had only a few more weeks left as a naval officer before she finally returned to civilian life. It had been a long time since she had first put on the uniform. At one time, she had thought to make the military her life’s work. Now, over a decade later, she was ready to start a new adventure in the civilian world.

  She opened the door to her office and set her coffee cup down on the cluttered desk. A commotion from the front of the clinic made her turn. Usually, she had a good half hour alone before the rest of the staff started reporting for duty in the small infirmary that was just a field branch of the larger medical facility on base. She retraced her steps, curious to see who was early.

  She rounded a corner and stopped short in the hall, face to face with a man she’d thought never to see again.

  “Simon?” Shock colored her voice.

  “Damn.”

  Three years and the first word out of his mouth was a curse. She shouldn’t have expected anything different. Her time with Simon Blackwell had been a low point in her life from which she was still recovering. To be fair, he had also been a high point. Their short-lived relationship had made her happier than she had ever been. Then he’d left with little fanfare. One day he was there, the next he was gone, leaving her to pick up the pieces.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s what special forces guys were like. When they got called up for a mission, they had to leave and couldn’t say where they were going or when they would be back. At first she had waited. Only when she’d run into one of his teammates a few months later had she finally realized he wasn’t coming back. At least not back to her. He was alive according to his friend, but the prolonged silence where she was concerned told her all she needed to know.

  He still looked as handsome as ever, those twinkling blue eyes all too serious and clouded with…pain? She looked him over and realized he was holding his arm abnormally close to his chest and leaving a faint blood trail down the crisp white corridor.

  “You’re hurt.”

  He nodded, still apparently a man of few words. “I wouldn’t have come here otherwise.”

  Now that hurt. She tried not to flinch, but Simon had always been a little too perceptive.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Mari. I figured it would be better for you if you didn’t know I was here, on base.”

  She ushered him into a curtained treatment area and watched as he sat unsteadily on the paper-draped table. She didn’t like the pale look of his tanned skin.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Field exercise. Training accident.” His clipped words told her there was a lot more to the story than met the eye. His tone told her not to pry.

  She’d known going into their relationship that he was a special operations guy. What he’d been doing in the years since she had last seen him was a mystery. Simon Blackwell lived much of his life on a need to know basis. It had been hard to deal with while they’d been dating, but she had always understood duty and honor. She had even admired him for his devotion to both.

  Mariana stepped closer and started examining his injuries. There were multiple gashes running along one side of his body and some of them loo
ked deep. A few would probably require stitches.

  “Well, your field exercise seems to have put you in the path of…are these claw marks?”

  “Ran into a badger. Got scratched up.”

  “Ah, I see. A badger…with what looks like a serrated edged weapon in addition to some very nasty claws.”

  She gasped as he grabbed her hand, stilling her motions. “Don’t push, Mari.” His tone was both familiar and forbidding.

  Silence passed between them as she regarded him. He had always had an intensity about him that made her want to swoon. A badass vibe that turned her on like nothing else. He had locked eyes with her a couple of times while they were making love and she’d thought she’d seen her future in his bottomless blue gaze.

  She’d been wrong.

  “All right. I won’t ask any more questions. Other than medical questions, of course. You’re up to date on your tetanus, right?”

  He nodded, letting go of her hand and she relaxed fractionally.

  She took a closer look at his wounds. The slashes and claw marks extended over his biceps and onto his chest. The shirt had to go.

  He wore a dark green camouflage Battle Dress Uniform shirt. They were called BDUs for short, and the shirt was more properly called a blouse, but that had always sounded a little too feminine to Mariana. It buttoned up the front, which would make it easy to get off him.

  With deft movements, she began unbuttoning the heavy weight cotton shirt. She was surprised when he stilled her hands as she worked her way down his muscled abdomen.

  “I’ll get the rest.”

  She nodded tightly and turned to locate the scissors. They were on the instrument tray kept ready in every treatment area. Simon’s olive drab undershirt would have to be cut off him. It was torn and tattered already, as was the heavier cotton of the BDU shirt. The undershirt would be easy to cut through to clean and dress his wounds, while the BDU top would be too much for her little scissors.

  Turning back to him, scissors in hand, she got her first good look at his physique, clad only in the form-fitting undershirt. It had been three years since she had last seen him. Damn, the man still had the power to push the breath from her lungs. He followed her movements with a guarded expression as she drew closer. She tried desperately not to betray the unwanted attraction that still flowed through her body for him.

  Simon had always been a bad boy she should have known to stay away from in the first place. Unfortunately for her heart, he was also too compelling to resist. He had never been overly talkative. Of course, when they’d been together, the furthest thing from her mind had been conversation. Theirs had been an explosive passion. Even memories of their time together were enough to get her hot and bothered.

  So she tried her best not to think about him. It worked, more now than it had in the beginning. It had gotten so that now she could go whole days without something triggering a memory of their short time as a couple. She’d given her heart to the man, though she’d never said it to him in so many words. She’d been afraid of scaring him off.

  Simon had always been the strong, silent type. A man of few words, he was all about action, and all of his action was devastating. He had just about ruined her for other men, though he’d never done anything to deliberately hurt her. Except leave and not come back.

  She kept reminding herself that they’d made no promises to each other. Mariana had been rudely awakened when he didn’t return. She realized then that any emotional attachments in their relationship had been totally on her side. Simon hadn’t led her on. She didn’t blame him for toying with her affections. She had done the hatchet job on her own heart.

  And now, here he was, bleeding and in need of help in her clinic. He still didn’t talk much, and she could see a new wariness that hadn’t been there before. Those pretty blue eyes were truly the mirrors of his soul. He didn’t betray much in his expression, but she had often thought she could tell what was going on in his active brain by watching the subtle nuances in his stunning baby blues.

  Maybe that was self-delusion as well.

  She shrugged off the thoughts of what had been and what could have been. He held his BDU shirt in one hand. She took it from him and tossed it onto the counter.

  “That shirt is ruined.”

  “I have a few things in the top pockets I’d like to get before we chuck it in the trash.”

  She turned back to him, armed with her small scissors. “I’ll leave it here for now. Let’s get you fixed up and then we’ll deal with everything else.”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

  She went to work on his undershirt, cutting it away a little at a time. The gashes on his arm and chest were deeper than she had originally thought and they got worse the more they were revealed.

  “How long ago did this happen?” She was all business now. He had to be in serious pain, but nothing showed on his face.

  “About oh four hundred.”

  “And you walked all the way in?” She consulted the clock on the wall. “It took you three hours to get here?” Damn, the man had a will of iron. Any normal guy would have collapsed by now.

  “About that.” He shrugged his uninjured shoulder as if walking three hours through rough terrain while seriously wounded and dripping blood was no big deal. Perhaps to him, it wasn’t. The thought was chilling.

  “All right. I’m going to start an IV to replace some of your fluids.” She reached for a blood pressure cuff and wrapped it efficiently around his uninjured arm. The slashes and scratches were on his left side, leaving his right arm relatively unscathed. She knew he was right handed, so at least he would have the use of his dominant arm as he healed.

  She heard the front door open and the chatter of two of her nurses arriving. Thank goodness. She shouted to get their attention and in short order she had them bustling around Simon. His blood pressure was lower than it should be and she monitored him closely as the IV began to do its work.

  Simon lay back on the padded table at a slight incline, watching Mariana as the three women bustled around him. He was out of it. The blood loss had been worse than he had expected. He was so light-headed at this point, it felt like the small treatment room was spinning around him. Luckily, his own personal guardian angel knew what to do. She would save his miserable hide so he could go on protecting her from afar.

  The situation was truly fucked up. If he’d had a choice he would have stayed far away from Mariana. He was no good for her. A guy with his baggage could only drag her down. He’d glimpsed it during their brief affair. He’d seen the way she looked at him, with forever in her eyes, and he knew he couldn’t be that guy. He couldn’t be the guy who would make her life the fairy tale it was supposed to be.

  No, all his fairy tales ended in death. There was no happily ever after in his world. Never had been. And now there never would be. All chance of changing his luck had been taken away on that last mission. The mission that had changed his life and put Mari forever out of his reach.

  When duty had called him away from her addictive presence, at first he’d had every intention to return. Then things had happened—changes had been made to his very being—and he knew he would have to stay away from her. Far away. He had kept tabs on her from afar though. He hadn’t been able to help himself. And when he’d been tasked with clearing the woods near Quantico, he’d been unable to keep himself from watching her. The woman mesmerized him and made him yearn for things he could no longer have.

  Then a moment of miscalculation last night and here he was, lying on a thinly padded examination table while she fussed over him. She touched him with gentle fingers, even while she probed and cleaned the deepest of his wounds. Her warm breath breezed over his skin as she put a few stitches across the worst of the cuts and his gut clenched in reaction. If those nurses hadn’t been in the room, he didn’t know what he would have done. It was all he could do to control himself when Mariana was this close.

  She smelled as good as he remembered. A little
hint of gardenia mixed with her own delicate scent. It was intoxicating.

  But she wasn’t for him. He had to keep reminding himself of that sad fact. He could only screw up her life with the weirdness that had taken over his world. Mariana was better off without the likes of him. Too bad her big brown eyes made him want to forget all his damned good reasons for staying away.

  “Almost done,” she promised as she went to work on the last of the deep gouges on his chest. Her touch was soft and gentle, but being stitched up hurt, regardless of the topical anesthetic she had applied. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” His head was clearing and he noted the way she glanced at her assistants—particularly the nurse who still had his right arm in the blood pressure cuff.

  The nurse reported some numbers that sounded markedly better than his last reading and deflated the cuff. Simon clenched his fist a few times to dissipate the tingling sensation in his arm. He found himself unable to look away from Mariana. She was still just as beautiful as she had been three long years ago. More beautiful, in fact, with more character in the gentle lines of her face and a slight roundness to her cheeks, and the soft curves of her body made his mouth water. She had filled out in all the right places.

  He knew medical school and residency had taken a lot out of her. She had been just a little too skinny, in his opinion, when they’d been dating. He was glad to see she’d recovered from those early stresses in her life and had the womanly curves to prove it. Just looking at her now made his mouth water. He did his best to suppress any outward display of interest, knowing it probably wouldn’t be welcome. He’d left her. He’d hurt her. There was no doubt in his mind that was the case. She was too soft-hearted not to be hurt by his complete lack of communication.

  He had taken the coward’s way out by not saying good-bye. At the time, it had seemed the best thing to do. He hadn’t been sure he would be strong enough to end it if he had to see her again. She was as addictive as any drug. At least to him. Though she probably hadn’t known it. Simon had been careful to hide his feelings. He hadn’t wanted to lead her on.