Corporal Stendhal proceeded down a long row of shipping containers with doors. He stopped and checked his keys. “424 and six doors down on the left 437.”
He inserted a key and opened the door. “Larger than a Tokyo airport sleeping capsule, smaller than a suite at the Four Seasons.”
A plain, metal frame bed took up most of the space, with a locker/desk combination against one wall. A chair did double duty as a nightstand.
“Bed, locker, desk. Privies are located at the end of each—” the corporal’s orientation was interrupted by a delivery.
My backpack, along with its contents, had been sanitized, repacked and delivered back to me in a cardboard box.
I unzipped a pocket and took out my cell phone. “This died the night our paths crossed.” I looked up in time to catch the smile in his eyes.
“Hard to forget last night,” Chris teased, using his husky voice, the one that made me want to jump his bones.
The corporal cleared his throat. “We’re on blackout. So no personal calls, no email in or out.” He backed out of the room. “I guess I’ll leave you two, then.”
He handed Chris the key to his quarters. “Would you like me to—?”
“I can find it myself, thanks.” Chris couldn’t shut the door fast enough.
I plopped down on the bed. “I feel like a layer of skin was removed.”
He sat down beside me. “Just the dead cell layer, nothing too painful.”
I smiled, but then I thought about Ivan. Removing any layer of skin would be torture. “Poor Ivan. I hope they gave him a painkiller, some morphine, maybe? His nerves are damaged, no myelin left to insulate—.”
“Ivan won’t be scrubbed, he’s going straight to the z-lab for an eval.”
I could feel my brow elevate. “How much do you know about this operation, Chris?”
“Not much. Just what was rumored around K1.” He hesitated, as if evaluating his next admission. “A secret base built to run secret ops.”
I stared at him. “You mean like Area 51, only this time it’s Strategic Z Comm—”
He laid a finger over my mouth. And when I continued to talk, he muffled my protest with a kiss. “Lay down on the bed.”
“I’ve never kissed you with minty-fresh breath.” I licked my teeth and lips. “Yummy.”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.
“Lay down on the bed. Is that an order?” I sighed.
“What do you think?”
Without breaking eye contact, I eased back onto my elbows. “Happy now?”
He leaned over and whispered so softly I could almost believe I imagined the words. “Charge your phone.”
Chapter Thirteen
CHALK IT UP to mental fatigue, but if I was not mistaken, Chris was worried about being bugged.
“Really?” I mouthed softly. I was tired and in no mood, but I found the charger and plugged my phone into an outlet on the desk.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, and studied me. “You need to come.”
Apparently, he wasn’t that worried about who was listening in, because he grabbed me by the hand and pulled me back down on the bed.
“Just lay back and relax.” He unlaced my new/old boots and pulled off my socks. I wiggled my toes and moaned when he gave me a foot massage.
“Keep that up, and you’ll get my dick in your mouth.”
There was a strange kind of theatre to his porn talk. I rolled my eyes slowly around the room. “I’m ready whenever you are, Captain Oakley.”
He unbuckled and unbuttoned my pants. “You’re going to come, then you’re going to sleep. I want you fully rested and ready for more activity later tonight.”
Coded words.
And yet, so fucking sexy I was already wet, anticipating the next few minutes. And later tonight.
He inched my trousers over my hips, removing one leg at time—then the skivvies. He kissed the flesh of my inner knee.
“Open your legs—show me some pretty pink.”
I was half-naked, with my girl parts completely exposed. I was also completely turned-on.
I sucked in a breath when he ran his hands up my belly and under my T-shirt. He rolled my nipples gently, plucking at them, spiking arousal.
My chest heaved and my hips thrust upward. I wanted him between my legs, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I moved to touch myself.
“No fingering your clit.” He grabbed my wrist and moved my arm over my head. “Give me your other hand.” The bed appeared to be straightforward military issue with a plain tubular railing at each end.
He placed both of my hands under the rails. “Hold onto the head rail and don’t let go. Touch yourself again, and I’ll zip tie you to the bed.” He folded my clothes and set them beside my phone on the desk top. “Arch your back and suck it in.”
It was fucking hot to be forced to wait, legs trembling, breasts and clit swollen, and aching for more. I’d never been with anyone so alpha-dominant in bed or in battle. Everything was thrilling and new to me. “Make love not war,” I sighed, “unless it’s zombies.”
I gripped the rail and arched for him.
“You are beautiful, Lizzy. But now Beauty is going to have beg for it.” He leaned over me and whispered in my ear. “Talk dirty to me.”
“Lick me.” My harsh whisper received a measured smile.
“Lick you?”
This time I begged. “Lick my nipples, please, Chris.”
He pulled the thin T-shirt taught over a breast and licked—moistening the fabric until I could feel the flick of his tongue. He sucked a nipple into his mouth and nipped.
My entire body convulsed with pleasure, and I moaned as he pushed the damp cotton shirt over my breasts, exposing wet peaks to cold air.
“Hard nipples,” he narrated for the hidden listening device in the room. A new wave of arousal swelled inside me—the sex club exhibitionist Lizzy had been awakened.
“Oh yes, Chris—suck my nipple,” I gasped. He took one into his mouth while his fingertips rolled the other. Beneath him my clit swelled and pussy moistened. “Teeth,” I demanded, and when he scrapped my whole body shuddered.
“Lower,” I whispered.
Chris released a nipple with a pop. “Belly button lower? Or pussy lower?”
My eyes narrowed. “Clit lower.” I wanted that orgasm—craved it.
“Lizzy’s clit wants it bad.” Chris licked and kissed his way down my torso, and my hips thrust up to greet him. His tongue moved over my belly, and circled my navel.
“Please Chris—lick my pussy and make me come.”
“I’m going to do everything but touch you there.” His eyes smoldered with pent up arousal. “So that when I finally lick—”
He swept the tip of his finger my between labia, careful to move in around the throbbing, swollen nub that ached for release.
“So close,” I whispered, arching up to him. “I’m begging you, Chris.”
He pushed a finger inside me, then added another, pumping in and out, twisting his fingers to find the G-spot and deepen my pleasure.
“There,” I gasped, as his fingers stroked, and his mouth found my clit.
All it took was a flutter of tongue, and a tsunami-sized swell of pleasure broke over me. “Oh God, Chris, I’m coming!”
His gentle touch kept the climax going a few seconds longer.
“Don’t stop—” I whispered, floating on waves of orgasmic bliss.
z z z
“Lizzy.” His voice filled my senses, drifting like fog on the surface of a pond. The familiar, husky tone grew more insistent. “Lizzy—wake up.”
I barely opened an eye. “What time is it?”
“Coming up on seventeen hundred hours.”
I groaned into a pillow. “Civilian time, please.”
“Almost five o’clock…PM.”
I managed to pry both eyes open. Chris sat on the bed beside me, looking rested and handsome. Nice to wake up to his face.
“H
ello, Captain Oakley.”
He cracked a smile. “Hello, gorgeous.” Splayed fingers stretched over my torso and slipped under my T-shirt. “You’ve had your eight hours—time to get up.” He stroked my nipples. “Mess hall is serving fried chicken and waffles.”
I was out of bed and dressed in minutes. “Ready.”
His smiled and then frowned.
“What?”
“Tight T-shirt over those tits?” He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
I found a pink hoodie in my backpack and zipped it up. “Better?”
He pulled me close, nuzzling the soft hairs at my temple, and rocked me in his arms. When he finally backed away, all I could do was stare, open-mouthed. Where was this sudden affection coming from? “Chris—what’s going on?”
He rolled his eyes and opened the door. Even though he appeared rested, his ability to communicate had become weirdly cryptic. He also needed his last shot of interferon and I’m a worrier. I didn’t want to think about a setback now that he was so close to beating the z-virus.
I jogged to keep up with his long strides. “Please tell me you got some sleep?”
“I do okay on three or four hours.” He shrugged. “Once we get out of this mess, I plan on sleeping for days.”
Something about the phrase “get out of this mess” made me uneasy. We were safe in the bunker, weren’t we?
Chris led the way through a labyrinth of prefab structures. An impressive span of trusses arched overhead creating a strange, twenty-four hour twilight in the quasi-underground complex. The grit and scratch of our footsteps echoed down a corridor lit by utility lamps.
We passed several construction zones to get to the other side of the bunker. Chris kept his voice low and pointed to a large bulletin board full of notices. “Keep your eyes open, and memorize anything that might help you find your way around.”
“How did the lab work and your debrief go?” I asked.
“Fucking vampires drained my blood, then they handed me a juice box and told me to get some rest.”
He shot me a lopsided grin. “So I went exploring and found Ivan in the zombie tank next to the lab. I spoke to him for about a minute, before a hazmat suit kicked me out.”
“How is he?”
“See for yourself.” He nodded ahead, toward a row of modular prefab units that looked like corrugated metal boxes punctuated by doors. The neon yellow hazmat sign read, Z LAB Authorized Personal Only.
Chris opened the door enough to peek inside.
Before I had a chance to ask if we should we suit up, he pulled me inside. The so-called zombie lab looked more like a hospital ward, than a testing facility. Rows of beds were curtained off from each other. At the far end of the unit, technicians were performing some sort of procedure on a body. Hard to tell if the patient was alive or undead.
We slipped under a nearby privacy curtain, and tiptoed around a large oval container the size of a bathtub. A puddle of dark red ooze bubbled in the stainless steel cauldron. I could barely make out the shape of a human body. Open eyes stared blankly out of the crimson-colored goo. Pinpoint pupils on red orbs, dilated suddenly.
I jerked back in horror, mesmerized by the liquefying process.
“Keep moving—it gets worse.” Chris held up the next curtain.
“Patient 1038.” I read off the chart. “Sex: Female. Age: Approximately 25. Excise of the hypothalamus and thalamus, the amygdala and hippocampus.” The z-patient lay quietly strapped to a gurney, but otherwise appeared normal, as zombies go.
Chris tugged on my arm, but I wanted a closer look at the crater in her head.
I exhaled a gasp. “Jeezus.” I blinked several times and squinted just to make sure I was actually seeing what I was seeing.
“What, Lizzy?”
“She’s got an implant, check it out.”
Chris peered over my shoulder. “There really is a zombie matrix.”
The undead female opened her eyes and snapped her jaws in agreement. We both stepped back and stared. “Do you think she heard us?” I asked.
“She can hear you, but they haven’t got her eyes working yet.” The disembodied voice cackled. “Brings new meaning to the tagline, Intel inside.”
The acerbic remark came from the bed next to us, and I’d recognize that craggy snarl anywhere. Chris and I dove between the bed curtains.
He’d turned a deeper shade of gray since I’d last seen him, and he seemed scared, or paranoid. And why wouldn’t he be? For starters—one of his hands was manacled to the bed. Pale eyes darted back and forth between us.
“Ivan, are you all right?” I asked.
“I see you met my new girlfriend.”
I skirted his bed, and took hold of his free hand. “We thought you might enjoy some company, but I’m not so sure now.”
“She’s a Turkish Kurd who only speaks Zaza. We don’t converse much.” A tight-lipped grin caused him pain, because he grimaced.
Chris picked up his chart. “I’m not an expert at reading one of these things but it looks like you’re scheduled for surgery.” He handed me the clipboard. “Tell Lizzy what you told me earlier today.”
“They’re using smart zombies as wranglers to drive the hordes south, into the Persian Gulf. Sea water rots them.”
I glanced up from his chart. “We met the blob of gurgling red meat in the hydrotherapy tub, one bed down.”
Ivan’s pained grin reminded me of the sardonic smile on a skull. “Seven hours in saltwater does the job. After that, they’ll mop up and nuke the bunker.”
“But why would they destroy the bunker?” I asked.
“Welcome to ground zero for the z-virus.”
“There isn’t much point any more in holding back. Let’s hear it, Ivan.” Chris encouraged him.
“Several months ago, this post was given the go signal to do a limited test, to see if a tightly controlled biological agent would be a more effective alternative to making the sands glow.”
When Chris and I blinked, Ivan appeared annoyed. “Hey, I didn’t elect the asshole, you guys did.”
“What the fuck? I didn’t vote for him,” Chris protested.
“Neither did I,” I added.
Ivan’s head jerked back. “Congratulations. We’re still on the verge of extinction.”
I pushed him for more. “So what happened?”
“During one of the trials, there was a breach. The z-virus had spread beyond the test group. When they finally realized how many civilians had been contaminated—”
“It was too late,” Chris finished the thought.
“That was just the beginning. Soon after, several of the lab workers turned, then the doctors, and to make matters worse, they got double whammied—the virus mutated.”
His eyes were vibrating again. “To quote Jeff Goldblum, ‘Life finds a fucking way.’ The newly infected began turning in a matter of minutes, not hours or days.”
“I thought that was Spielberg,” I said.
“Spielberg directed the movie,” Ivan corrected me.
Chris just looked impatient. “And Michael Crichton wrote the book.” He paced alongside the bed. “Christ, this is so fucked up.”
I nodded. “Yeah, and without the cool dinosaurs.”
Ivan shrugged. “It got away from them. And all this—” he waved his hand in the air “—is proof.”
“Which is why the bunker has to go.” I exhaled a sigh. My mouth was dry and my throat felt like it was closing up. I hardly knew how to deliver the next piece of bad news.
I pointed weakly to his chart. “You’re being prepped for surgery. It looks like they’re going to excise your gray matter and do an implant.” I could barely croak the words out.
Ivan stared at me, the shimmy in his eyes steadier. “I don’t want to die here. I want to die sitting on a beach sipping on a bottle of Tres Agaves.”
“A tequila man.” Chris offered a backhanded fist, and Ivan bumped him.
The honk of a ventilator alarm joined the high-pit
ched beep-beep of a heart monitor. The patient at the end of the medical unit was coding.
“There’s another one like me down there,” Ivan explained.
I peeked through the curtain. “Crash cart just arrived. This might be a good time for us to leave.”
Chris turned back to Ivan. “As black ops CIA you went through survival training, right?”
“I was a SERE instructor.”
“You fucking cunt, I should let you rot in here.” Chris dug in his pocket and handed Ivan a paperclip. “Be ready to move out at twenty-three hundred.”
Ivan appeared genuinely touched.
Chris backed away. “Stay frosty.”
Chapter Fourteen
“WE’RE BUNKED ON the far west side of the base, along with ordnance—both arms and ammo. See that red beacon up in the rafters?” Chris pointed directly ahead. “The light marks due north—that’s where the helipads are.”
He continued my z-base orientation as he led the way through a maze of pre-fab housing units. “Barracks, dining facility and z-lab wrap around the east side of the Command and Control Center. Keep a look out for signage, it actually helps.”
Something was in the air, and Chris wasn’t exactly letting me in on his plans. The weirdest piece of the puzzle was that Ivan seemed to be a part of his plans.
“What are you planning to do with Ivan once you break him out?” I asked.
“Drop him on a sandy beach somewhere.” His cryptic answer only made me more curious. He backed into a metal door and held it open for me. “Let’s do some carb loading.”
The military cafeteria was toasty warm and reeked of hot grease and maple syrup. Chris and I wolfed down a pile of fried chicken and waffles without talking much.
“Are you going to eat that?” He eyeballed the lone half a breast on my plate.
“It’s all yours, I’m stuffed.”
He stared at the piece of chicken for such a long time I began to get concerned. “Chris, are you—?”
He looked up at me. “If you could go anywhere—right now—where would you go?”
I answered without hesitation. “Home, why?”
EAT, SLAY, LUZT: A sexy wild ride through the dark heart of the zombie apocalypse. Page 12
