by Anna Todd
You reach for your phone. Earlier in the day, Norman sent a picture of himself blowing you a kiss from his trailer, but there are no new texts or pictures. Not that you’re surprised. It’s not as if he can carry his phone around on set—it might ruin the postapocalyptic image if an eagle-eyed fan spotted the latest smartphone in Daryl’s pocket. For something to do, you idly browse Facebook and then Twitter. A smile breaks out on your face. Shortly after sending you the picture from the trailer, Norman tweeted a wedding photo, captioned as the anniversary of the happiest day of his life. It’s not the professional picture that hangs on the wall opposite, but one Norman had taken himself on his phone. Your faces take up almost the whole shot, with only a hint of lace at your shoulder, peeking out from under Norman’s arm as he hugs you. Both of you are beaming, grins of true happiness, and it makes you smile the same way now. The Twitter feed is jammed with messages of congratulations from people all over the world. It’s a little unnerving to know that people you’ll never meet seem to care so much about your wedding, but that’s another thing that any celebrity spouse has to get used to. It’s not always easy knowing that so many other women see your husband as a sex symbol, but those are also the fans who have supported him from the beginning. And you suppose you can’t necessarily blame them for undressing Norman with their eyes; you did exactly the same thing when you met him.
Of course some people will always take it too far. You were outraged to learn that an overeager fan actually bit your husband at a convention, but fortunately such occurrences are few and far between.
Dropping your phone onto the couch beside you, you start scratching Eye in the Dark’s ears. You’re not one of those girls who spent years dreaming of the perfect wedding, but this isn’t how you imagined you’d spend your first anniversary.
But it can’t be helped. Norman warned you about his hectic work schedule, and with a teenage son still living with his mother back in New York, Norman’s free time can’t always be spent with you. You’re happy for every second you’re with him. The demands of being Mrs. Reedus can be challenging, and maybe other people couldn’t handle that, but it’s worth it to be with him.
“I don’t suppose you have anything romantic planned,” you say, scratching Eye under the chin.
The cat just looks solemnly back at you.
“I didn’t think so.”
You sigh. As hard as it is for you to be away from Norman today, it’s got to be hard for him too. After a long day’s filming, he’ll go back to a trailer where there’s nothing waiting for him but a fridge filled with out-of-date noodles, and possibly Andrew Lincoln’s beard in a bag. If only you could be there to surprise him, but it’s not really appropriate to hang around the set when they’re already worried about their tight shooting schedule.
Eye in the Dark meows, demanding attention, and you resume ear scratching. Maybe you should cheer yourself up by pouring a glass of wine and watching a mushy romcom. Or maybe you should just stay where you are, warm and weighed down by a bundle of cat. Resting your head on the back of the couch, you close your eyes and drift away.
A LOUD RUMBLE OUTSIDE jerks you awake. Eye in the Dark flies off your lap, eyes wide, ears pricked. You didn’t even realize you’d fallen asleep. But it was light when you sat down, and now the world outside the windows is pitch-dark, a black sky scattered with silver stars. The rumbling continues outside, a growl that’s suddenly all too familiar. It’s the sound of a Triumph Scrambler headed up the wooded driveway.
But it can’t be.
You leap to your feet, your heart thudding in your chest. This must be a dream. You must still be asleep. The front door is only a few feet away, but you’re rooted to the spot, waiting to wake up to the silence and the company of a single cat.
The growl of the engine cuts out, and footfalls crunch on the ground outside. The front door opens.
It’s not a dream. There he is, standing in the doorway, your wonderful Norman. Still dressed in his Walking Dead clothes, the tattered trousers and leather vest emblazoned with a grubby pair of angel wings, he stands there like a vision, his bare arms streaked with dirt and fake blood, and a bruise-darkened eye thanks to the makeup team. He often doesn’t clean up before leaving work and riding home on the motorcycle, which can lead to some strange looks from people who see him.
Your lips twitch. In one hand he holds a bunch of red roses. He must have bought them before heading home as they’re looking a little worse for wear, the satin-soft petals bashed and wind battered after zipping along on the Triumph.
Norman looks ruefully at them. “Maybe I didn’t think that through.”
You run to him, flinging your arms around him and burying your face in his neck. “They’re perfect,” you whisper.
Like Norman himself, the roses are disheveled but beautiful, perfect in their imperfection.
“I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” you say.
His arms tighten around you, crushing you against his broad chest. He’s probably smearing fake blood all over your T-shirt, but you don’t care. Clothes can be replaced. Moments like this are one of a kind.
“I couldn’t leave you alone today. I had to be here.”
Releasing him, you stand back to look at him. Despite modeling for Prada in his younger years, your husband has come to be considered a sex symbol only since appearing on The Walking Dead. He’s not handsome in that pretty, polished way that Hollywood leading men tend to be. He has something rougher and more rugged about him, an intriguing quality to his face, an intensity in his blue eyes that makes him stand out from the crowd and landed him those modeling gigs long before he took up the crossbow. He looks like the kind of man who really could survive the zombie apocalypse. Something about him captivated you from the first moment he appeared on-screen as Wesley Snipes’s sidekick in Blade II, but you never expected to actually fall in love with him. You never even expected to meet him.
And now, with him standing in front of you, filthy as he is from the set, his hair a windswept tangle—as strangely and inexplicably beautiful as only Norman Reedus can be—you honestly can’t imagine how you lived your life before him.
He wipes a smear of dirt off your shoulder and pulls a face. “Sorry. Guess I shoulda cleaned up first.”
You smile and shake your head. It’s probably a good thing you don’t have any neighbors. They might not be Walking Dead fans and therefore wouldn’t understand that your husband’s turning up covered in blood and bruises is actually pretty understandable.
“They did a good job with that black eye,” you say, reaching up to touch it.
The makeup on the show is always exceptional, hence the awards it takes home, but sometimes it makes you nervous to see how lifelike it is on the man you love. It’s a little too real for comfort.
Norman gives you a sheepish little smile. “They didn’t. It’s real.”
“Oh, baby. Did you hit yourself with the crossbow again?”
He just gives you a little shrug. It’s hardly surprising that on a show packed with gore and violence, the cast sometimes gets a bit banged up, but that doesn’t stop the flicker of concern in your chest as you look at his eye. It’s only a bruise, a far cry from the time an on-set injury led to a number of stitches in his head, but he’s still hurt, and when he hurts, you hurt.
You have to remind yourself that it’s not the first time Norman’s managed to hit himself in the face with the crossbow that has made him such an iconic character, and it probably won’t be the last. So you can’t fuss too much over it.
Norman runs his fingers through his hair, dislodging a small leaf that flutters to the floor. Although it’s Norman himself you fell in love with, you can’t help a little tingle of excitement when he’s dressed as his alter ego. There’s something primal, almost wild, about him like this. Plus, you love the show, and having him here in costume makes you feel like you’re a part of it.
“I’ll just put these in water,” Norman says, waving the roses. A coup
le of battered petals flake off and join the leaf on the floor.
There aren’t any vases in the house, so he jams the roses into the neck of a wine bottle you finished the weekend before. They’re no longer quite the vibrant, crimson bouquet they must have been when he bought them, but you don’t care.
“Come with me,” you say, taking his hand. You love the house you and Norman have together, but you love the outside more. Maybe you’re a hippie at heart, but something about the smell of the wild and the touch of the wind makes you feel alive in ways you can hardly explain. And there’s no one you want to share that with more than your husband.
You leave the lodge and step off the wraparound porch, heading past the small pool behind the house to where the trees of the Georgia countryside crowd in. The night is still and hot, humid air clinging to your skin, and alive with the rustle of animals and the click of insects. It’s never truly quiet out here, but you prefer the sounds of nature to the hustle and bustle of city life.
The sky overhead is silver-spackled velvet, glittering and endless. You’ve lived here for weeks now, but every time you see that sky, it’s like you’re seeing it for the first time. And when Norman pulls you to him and kisses you, it’s like you’re kissing him for the first time. Out in the woods, with only unseen animals for company, it almost feels like you two are alone in the world.
This is all you’ve ever wanted. You don’t need huge bouquets, expensive gifts, or fancy dinners. You don’t need extravagant gestures that you can boast about to your friends. All you need, all you want, is this wonderful man by your side.
The shadows cut strange shapes on his face, making the bruise and the fake blood seem darker. In this environment he looks more like his bow-wielding alter ego than ever, and though you know it’s silly, you can’t keep a little frisson of fear from shivering up your spine. You’ve always been a sucker for a good zombie flick, but The Walking Dead blows everything else away. The walkers are so realistic that you always feel as if they’re about to lurch out of the TV screen and shuffle across the living-room floor on rotted feet. Out here, the lights of the house just a faint twinkle through the trees, it’s not hard to believe that walkers are real and that it’s them shambling around out here instead of squirrels and raccoons.
And Norman doesn’t have his crossbow.
“Hey, you okay?”
You realize you’re clutching the edges of his leather vest, casting nervous glances at the woods around you. You manage a laugh. “Fine. I’ve just been watching too much of your show.”
The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles. “You afraid the walkers are gonna come get you?”
“Maybe.” You plant another kiss on his lips. “But if they do, I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got the best zombie hunter in the world to protect me.”
You both snort with laughter. Norman’s famous for playing a badass, but you both know that the man behind the crossbow isn’t nearly as much of a survivalist. The excess gore on the show has been enough to drive him to vegetarianism. A zombie prank played by his costar just about made him jump out of his skin. If The Walking Dead were real, he’d probably die before you did.
Tilting your head back, you gaze up at the stars and pull Norman’s arms around your waist. Maybe he isn’t as tough or hot tempered as his TV counterpart, but he makes you feel safe and loved, and that’s all that matters.
“There was a sky like this when we got married,” you say. “I remember looking up at it and thinking how very small we both were.”
Norman prods your ribs. “Is that a short joke?”
You smile but don’t take your eyes off the stars. “It made me feel small, but not insignificant, like the whole sky was reminding me that I was just one more heartbeat in the universe, but at the same time every star had turned out to watch us getting married.”
Norman kisses your ear. “Have you been drinking?”
Playfully you swat his arm. It’s like smacking concrete. “Nope, just getting sentimental. Give me a break, it’s our wedding anniversary.”
He just rests his head on your shoulder and gives you a cheeky, boyish smile.
“I bet you’d understand what I was talking about if we were looking at roadkill and not the stars,” you say.
His grin gets wider. Before you even married him, you knew that Norman was passionate about his artwork, particularly the photos he takes of roadkill. He used to explain to you how it was all about finding beauty in the macabre, and though you never really understood it, you loved that he could find beauty in it. But as you were heading to the store one day, a couple of months after you and Norman met, your eye was caught by a dead bird lying in the road. It shouldn’t have stood out to you—it’s not like you’d never seen such things before. But one wing was still raised, the tip pointing to a sky it could never fly through again. Something about it was almost defiant, as if the bird had made a final gesture before it died, and as you stood there, transfixed, a car rushed past and set the wing fluttering. Even then you still couldn’t fully vocalize what was beautiful about it; you just knew that something was.
That was the day you went home to Norman and told him, “I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Now he pulls his phone from his pocket and holds it in front of you both. “Don’t move.”
Cupping your face with one blood-streaked hand, he presses his lips to your cheek. Usually he’d lick you like an overexcited puppy, but this is softer, gentler. The camera flash briefly illuminates the darkness around you as he takes a picture. It’ll probably come out vague and grainy thanks to the poor light, but he’s still captured the moment forever. Indistinct or not, it’ll be a photo you treasure.
“I love you,” he whispers, the scruff of beard on his chin tickling your ear.
“I love you too.” You melt back into his arms.
He takes your hand and leads you deeper into the woods, deeper into the shadowed privacy of your own little world, but something about his expression is distracted now, a frown pulling his eyebrows down.
“What’s wrong?” you ask. Maybe he hit himself with the crossbow harder than he admitted, and he needs to be resting, not traipsing through the woods because you think it’s romantic.
“I almost didn’t make it home tonight. There’s going to be a lot of things I might not make it home for.”
“I know that.”
He stops suddenly, holding your hands and facing you. His face is uncharacteristically serious. “Do you?”
“Are you worried that I can’t handle your lifestyle?”
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at the ground.
Although he’s dressed in his Daryl Dixon clothes, he’s undeniably your Norman, the man who isn’t afraid to say that his cat is his best friend, the man who finds beauty in roadkill, the man who welcomes each and every fan like an old friend—even the crazy ones—the man who loves Ray-Ban and fluffy bunny slippers, who doesn’t quite know how to deal with being a sex symbol. He’s funny and humble and down-to-earth and honest. He is who he is and he makes no excuses for that. And you love him with every single part of yourself.
“Norman”—you put a finger under his chin and lift his head until his eyes meet yours—“I knew exactly what I was getting into when I married you. I know things won’t always be easy, but it’s worth it. Yes, you spend a lot of time away from home when you’re working. And, yeah, sometimes I get lonely, but at the end of the day, you still come home to me.”
You raise his hand to your cheek again, pressing his palm flat against your face. “You’re here now, aren’t you, walking in the moonlight with me? We both thought you wouldn’t be, but you managed to find time. I know you won’t be able to do that every time, but I’ll take what I can get.”
He pulls you into his arms, his beautiful blue eyes shining in the darkness. The road ahead of you isn’t always going to be straight and narrow, but you can’t wait to spend the journey with him.
“It might be hard someti
mes, but you’ll always come home to me,” you whisper against his lips, tangling your fingers in his hair. “And that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
A crazy, roadkill-photographing, bunny-slipper-wearing, animal-loving man who maintains a childlike sense of playfulness and wonder even though he’s in his forties, and who makes a living chasing zombies through the woods.
You couldn’t ask for more.
Escape from Ashwood Manor
Marcella Uva
Imagine . . .
A thrum of falling raindrops pattered against Ashwood Manor’s parlor window, marking yet another dreary evening in the heart of Amsterdam. You peered through the glass as the misty rain cast its veil on the canal beyond and below. When you placed your hand on the windowpane, you thought back to another rainy day not so long ago when the invitation to attend the exclusive reopening of the legendary escape house had arrived at your flat.
A shiver went through you at the memory of breaking the seal with slightly trembling fingers and unfolding the ancient-looking parcel with care. As you did so, something had fallen out of it and landed between your feet with a thump. It was a curious little key with a note attached. What could this open? you quietly speculated. Then you read the note; once, twice, three times, but even at the third reading, the meaning wasn’t quite clear in your mind.
To open me, you need a key.
Not the key that rests in your hand,
But a key that only I will understand.
Since then, you had kept the key and parcel neatly tucked away in the inner lining of your old, camel-colored coat. Even through the wool, you could feel the weight of it—the thrill of it. For weeks, your mind had been racing, pondering the message and every possible solution. Perhaps if you could stop thinking about it for just a moment, the pieces would fall into place by themselves. Despite this, you smiled with anticipation. It was as if, with a sweep of its arm, Curiosity had found you and drawn your mind toward the strange key. You couldn’t help but follow.
