Dave was nodding enthusiastically and I pursed my lips.
“Fan? Sorry, I’m out of the loop. Who are you exactly and why do you have fans?”
Dave and the girl exchanged a “Wow, she’s dumb” laugh that grated on my nerves and then she stepped closer and held out one scraped-up hand.
“Hi. My name is Nicole Nessing.”
Dave grinned as I briefly shook the hand I was offered. “She’s a reporter for E.N.Z.”
I stared blankly.
“You know. Entertainment News Zone?” Dave added with an apologetic shake of his head for our new friend. “Sarah didn’t watch your show during the day.”
“I was working,” I said softly. “But yeah, I think I vaguely remember it. It was like… tabloid TV, wasn’t it? Stalkerazzi stuff where you chase some movie star all over God’s half acre and then scream questions at them on camera until they explode and you get it all on tape, right?”
Nicole shrugged at my dismissive description of her chosen profession, but she didn’t seem offended. “Hey, it got ratings, right? Paid for my cushy life for quite some time.”
“So what in the world are you doing here?” Dave asked as he edged closer and motioned around. “Why weren’t you in L.A. or New York?”
Her mouth thinned into a frustrated line. “I should have been in L.A. when the shit went down, I should have been covering the Jennifer Reynolds meltdown.”
“Oh yeah, right before the outbreak, the Pop Princess was bashing in her ex’s windows with… was it a lawn umbrella?” Dave asked with a chuckle.
I rolled my eyes. I can’t believe that stuff had been news back then. What a world. You know, we kind of deserved an apocalypse.
Nicole folded her arms with a pretty little pout. “Yup, but my stupid producer gave Jenn’s big, ridiculous story to my idiot of a coanchor and sent me on field assignment instead.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Cancun,” she said with a sigh, like she’d been delegated to Alcatraz or something. “Following Jonas Granger when he went down there to get a quickie divorce from his first wife so he could marry Poppy Stevens.”
Jonas Granger, a Hollywood playboy who had been running around with a girl almost half his age, star of one of those stupid remakes of a nineties show that had been inexplicably the rage before the zombies did the ultimate Hollywood shutdown. 90210 Place or Melrose Beverly… whatever. I was more of a Fringe kind of girl.
“Gross,” I said.
“So what happened to him?” Dave asked. “Did he get the divorce?”
I blinked as I stared at my husband. Did I know this guy? His eyes were lit up and he actually sounded like he gave a shit. I’d had no idea my hubby had been so into Hollywood gossip.
But then again, Nicole was awfully pretty under all those scrapes and bruises.
For the first time since the outbreak, I felt a twinge of jealousy. I kept it to myself, though. I really didn’t have a right to get pissy since I’d made the mistake of picking a madman over my husband just a few weeks before and nearly gotten us both killed. If he wanted to gawk at the pretty stalkerazzi girl, who was I to say anything? At least for now.
But if it went too far, someone was going to get zombiefied, and this time I would keep the cure to myself, thank you very much.
She laughed, completely oblivious to my dark little thoughts. “Oh yeah. He got the divorce all right. And then his personal assistant, who he’d treated like shit for years, by the way, took a chunk out of his arm. Last I saw, Jonas was munching on the entire divorce court… and my poor cameraman.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Well, I managed to get the video equipment from him before he totally lost his… er, head. It’s back over the berm with the wrecked bike.” She shrugged, but there was a brief flicker of emotion in her eyes. “Anyway, we all have our stories, don’t we?”
I tilted my head. I couldn’t tell if she was dismissing the death of her coworker as a defense mechanism or if she really didn’t give a shit what happened to the poor guy. I had to hand it to her, Nicole was a tough read. It had probably made her very successful B.Z.
She sighed theatrically. “Poor Jonas, he was a Vegan in life, you know, so it must have been painful to him to make the transition to eating meat.”
Dave laughed a bit too hard at her not particularly funny quip and I folded my arms.
“So after the shit hit the fan, you started up this way?” I asked, the chill in my tone unmistakable.
She nodded and her bright blue eyes moved back to me. “Yup, fought my way out of Cancun and started toward the good ol’ U.S. of A. Unfortunately there’s not much of it left.”
“True,” I said with a shrug. “But if you’d been in L.A., it would have been worse. They firebombed there.”
She nodded. “So I heard. But fuck, the footage I would have gotten first. Imagine, Lady Gaga zombiefied… or Brangelina going to town at Spago!”
I blinked, disbelief rolling over me. This woman couldn’t be serious, could she? “But you’d be dead.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not dead yet.”
“Thanks to us,” I muttered.
She looked at me for a minute and then she said, “So what’s your story? How did you two get to Oklahoma City-ish? Or is this where you started?”
“Nope, we started in Seattle,” Dave began before I placed a hand on his forearm and stopped him.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”
He looked down at me, brow wrinkled in confusion. “Um, yeah.” He shot Nicole a smile. “We’ll be right back.”
She shrugged. “I need to grab the camera anyway. I’m guessing with all the shooting we’re going to have company within the next fifteen minutes or so and I can’t lose my footage.”
We moved around to the back of the SUV and Dave shook his head. “What?”
“I don’t know how much we want to tell this girl,” I whispered, casting a quick glance in her direction.
She was picking gravel out of one of the scrapes on her arm and wincing as she slipped up to the ditch by the road. She stepped over the zombie bodies without even looking at them and dug around in the dirt until she came up with a big black backpack that I assumed contained her camera.
“What do you mean? Why?” Dave asked with a tilt of his head.
I stared at him. “You can’t be seriously asking me why. I mean, we have something pretty amazing on us and she’s a reporter.”
I reached up and touched the outline of the precious vial hanging around my neck under my shirt. We’d come in contact with people since getting it, of course, and we hadn’t told any of them about it. I didn’t really want to start getting into it now.
Dave arched a brow. “She used to be a reporter. Now she’s just a survivor like us.”
“One who wishes she’d been in the middle of Hell-A when the shit went down. Not exactly normal, David!”
“And define ‘normal’ again, Sarah?” he said with a laugh.
I rolled my eyes and his laughter stopped. He actually sounded annoyed when he continued, “Look, we’re not telling her anything about the vial or anything else. But she asked for our story, so we’ll tell her some of it. Otherwise, don’t you think she’ll be suspicious?”
“Maybe she’ll think we’re just not friendly-like,” I said with a fake Southern accent that made his smile widen. “ ’Sides are you sure you can keep yourself from confessing everything and anything to Miss Pretty Pants?”
Dave tilted his head. “Are you jealous, Sarah?” When I turned my head, he laughed again. “Wow. There’s a reversal. Look, I promise not to give any details about anything important without running it by you first. Okay?”
I pursed my lips and he leaned closer. “Okay? C’mon…” He winked. “Go Team Sarah and David…”
“Okay,” I mumbled reluctantly as I watched him go back around the SUV to meet up with Nicole.
They talked for a minute out of my earshot and she nodded and smiled
, then frowned. Obviously she was getting the short version of how we’d come from Seattle, running like hell from the source of the outbreak that had wiped out our world as we knew it. I didn’t really need to hear the crib notes. I’d lived it, after all. Whether I wanted to or not.
Finally they motioned to me and I made my way back to them.
“Wow, you guys have been through some stuff,” Nicole said with an impressed shake of her head. “It’s amazing you’re still together.”
I nodded as I slipped my arm around Dave’s waist (okay, I admit it was a little proprietorial, so sue me). “We’re very lucky. Anyway, it’s probably time for us to get back on the road…”
Dave’s hand tightened on my arm and he looked down at me with a “Don’t be rude” expression.
“Yeah, about that,” Nicole said with a glance over her shoulder toward where she’d run from. “Look, my bike is totally toast after the wreck. I don’t think I could fix it. Plus, I have to admit, my body feels like I was beaten with a bat. Do you think I could ride along with you guys for a while? Maybe even borrow some supplies to clean up these cuts before the road rash starts getting ookie?”
I bit my lip. Okay, so there aren’t that many of us survivors left, right? And over the months I’d learned, sometimes the hard way, that we had to stick together… help each other… be human. So even though I had major misgivings about bringing anyone else along on our trek to save the world, I found myself nodding.
“Sure,” I said with a short sigh. “Of course we’ll help you out. Get your gear.”
She held up the backpack. “This is it,” she laughed. “I travel light.”
“I guess so,” Dave said as he motioned to the SUV. “Now we’d better get rolling. You’re right that all that shooting attracted a new pod; I swear I heard some grumbling in the distance.”
Just as he said the words, the roar of the zombies doubled. We all turned in unison and there, coming across a wide field that led up to the road was a pod of creatures at least fifteen thick. They were still shambling, but the shamble had purpose and we all knew from close, personal experience that it would soon turn into a jog and then a tooth-gnashing, fight-for-your-life battle. Something none of us seemed up for as we all dove for the SUV. I grabbed for the front passenger side door, but Dave shook his head at me.
“Why don’t you ride in the back with Nicole and help her with her cuts?”
I might have argued, but… you know… zombies. So that was how I ended up in the backseat of my own SUV, picking glass out of a stalkerazzi’s road rash while she and my husband chatted about movie stars, television divas (reality and scripted), and rock’n’rollers. It’s a glamorous life, kids. A really glamorous life.
Nicole winced as I picked another pebble out of her flesh and tossed it on the growing pile on the floor. Despite my hesitation about trusting her, I felt for the girl. Having glass embedded in your flesh hurt like a son of a bitch. I’d had some experience with this kind of injury over the past few months (everyone gets road rash in a post-zombie apocalypse. It’s a rite of passage).
“Sorry,” I said as I patted her arm in a clumsy attempt at comfort of some kind. “But that looks like the worst of it.”
“Feels like it, too,” she said with a sigh as she turned her arm sideways and looked at herself with a grimace. “And I always got such compliments on my skin.”
I shrugged one shoulder. What was I supposed to say, that we’d stop and get some pore minimizer?
“I’m not sure we have enough antibiotic wipes and cream to take care of all this,” I said instead, mostly to avoid tension and a fight, either with Nicole or David.
She stopped looking at her battered body as our eyes met in the backseat. I felt her tense slightly. Infection equaled death in the badlands, just as much as a zombie bite did.
“I hear there’s a camp about five miles east of Oklahoma City,” she said softly. “Right after the interchange.”
Dave’s eyes came up in the rearview mirror. “Yeah? Well, they’d probably have supplies there we could trade for. What do you think, Sarah?”
I clenched my fists in and out as I thought about the question. We were supposed to make thirty miles today, but that was already way out of the question. Stopping to help Goldilocks had slowed us down considerably and if we went to this camp, that meant we would probably be done for the night by the time the trading and story exchanging was over.
But the only other option was to say fuck Nicole and keep going despite her injuries. Only we’d eventually get slowed down when she started to get an infection from her wounds. So one way or another, I guess we were screwed. That’s what you get for being a Good Samaritan.
“Why not?” I sighed. “Maybe they’ll even have some coats.”
“Coats?” Nicole repeated with a questioning tilt of her head.
I bet she’d used that same look in a billion celebrity interviews right before she ambushed her subject with a video of them doing something incriminating.
I flinched. Shit, and I’d been the one trying to keep our plans secret. “Um, well, we’re planning to head further east and north, so we’re going to need them eventually.”
Nicole was quiet for a long moment and then she slowly nodded. “I guess I’m safe to assume you’re heading for the Wall?”
We were all quiet for a tense amount of time, with Dave looking at me in the rearview mirror. I could have sworn I was sending him the “We still can’t trust her” look, but I guess he read it as the “Spill your guts” look.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re trying to make it to the Wall.”
I shook my head. Well, it was out now, couldn’t take it back. The best we could do was try to use the information to our advantage.
“So, you’re a reporter, what do you know about it?” I asked.
Nicole shrugged and rested her head back against the seat. “Probably as much as you do, honestly. I haven’t met anyone yet who has actually seen the Midwest Wall. I can tell you that the Border Wall down south is a reality. But then again, it was already pretty much there before the outbreak; they just had to reinforce it since it wasn’t immigrants or drug coyotes they were trying to keep out anymore.”
Dave nodded, but I wasn’t appeased by her answer. In fact, it only sparked a whole new set of questions. “So wait, if you were in Mexico, how did you get over the Border Wall and back to U.S. soil?”
“Well, I used my feminine wiles, Sarah.” She smiled, but it was a tight expression that didn’t say, I’m proud and happy of what I did. In fact, just the opposite.
I stared, my eyes going wide enough in my head that if I’d been a zombie, they would have fallen into my lap.
“Yuck!” I finally burst out.
I’d never been much of the “trade sex for what you want” kind of girl. Even in our worst moments, I hadn’t even withheld from Dave to get my way. So the idea of trading body for safety was pretty awful.
Even though, on a level I refused to admit out loud, I got how it might become a necessity.
“Oh, come on,” Dave snorted. “She’s fucking with you. She doesn’t really mean—”
“Oh yeah,” Nicole interrupted. “I really mean it.”
Both of us stared at her silently and finally she shrugged, though she seemed less than comfortable with the subject now that she was facing judgment for it. “Oh come on! You guys are grown-ups. You know how the world works. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. I learned that ages ago in Hollywood.”
I guess eventually one of us would have said something. Dave certainly looked like he had something on his disillusioned tongue, but before he could choke it out, five beaten up, sludge-covered vehicles careened onto the road ahead of us, while another three peeled up behind us, effectively blocking us in.
“What the fuck?” Dave sputtered as he slammed on the brakes and came to a jarring stop that flopped all of us forward against the seat belts.
I looked out the window. People were getting o
ut of the cars and trucks, weapons drawn and ready. They were dressed in raggedy clothing, their hair unkempt and hanging around their faces as they motioned us to get out of the vehicle.
“What do we do?” I whispered.
My question was directed toward Dave, but it was Nicole who answered as she reached into her bag and grabbed for her camera. “Well, I guess we get out.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” I muttered just under my breath, but Dave was already slowly unbuckling and reaching for his door handle.
“Actually, I think she might be right, babe,” he said, his voice low and steady. “It doesn’t seem like we have much choice.”
There’s power to positive thinking. Also to planning an escape route.
There was one clear leader of the group who held us at gunpoint: a tall, gangly guy who looked like he was around fifty years old. Of course, in these dark days that didn’t mean anything. He could have been twenty and just not taking to the zombie death march all that well. Some people thrived in the outbreak; others… not so much.
He had a big scar that cut across his face, and it was still red, which meant it was fresh enough to be a souvenir of the apocalypse.
“Now everyone just stay calm,” he said as the three of us exited the vehicle with our hands in clear view. For some reason collectively we didn’t think coming out guns ablazing would work this time. Huh.
“Hard to do when you’re pointing a—what is that, an AK-47?—at us,” Dave said, his voice level and cool even though I could see a vein popping in his neck. He wanted to go ape shit so bad….
“It is an AK-47,” the other man drawled with an impressed smile. He had a Southern twang to his tone that made me wonder if he was a local who hadn’t left even after the shit hit the fan. “Nice, city boy. Now you…”
He turned his attention on Nicole, who was standing behind Dave and me.
“I’d appreciate if you put that camera away.”
I spun on Nicole. Fuck if she wasn’t shooting all of this with a very expensive looking handheld camera and a tight little smile on her face.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
EAT SLAY LOVE Page 3
