His lips pulled back into one corner of his mouth, Wendy’s breasts floating like milky bobbers on the water. “They’re brand new. Found a whole pack in the dresser.”
She splashed him.
“Perfect fit too.”
“That guy obviously wasn’t married because the only sign of a woman I’ve found in there is a stack of Penthouse magazines in the bedroom closet.”
Paul spread a wry grin. “How lucky was that?”
She rolled her eyes and splashed him again before disappearing under water. He inspected their surroundings and tipped the beer can back, a seed of hope budding inside. It was a clean slate and those fucking things couldn’t swim. Other than going on deadly supply runs, it would almost be like being on vacation. Something banged against the bottom of the boat, jolting him from his daydream. He leaned over the edge, seeing the cruise ship captain burst from the water and pull him in, challenging his entire theory on whether or not those things could swim. Wendy popped up instead and laughed. “Scared ya!” she said, quickly scaling the ladder like something was after her.
Paul handed her a towel and sat in a patio chair, ignoring the way her wet bra clung to her breasts.
“That was so cold and scary,” she said, toweling off. “I don’t think I liked it.”
He sipped his beer, eyes avoiding the way the sunlight licked her smooth skin. “We need to find a Target or a Walmart and load up as much as we can pack onboard.”
“We should just get it over with tomorrow so we can relax for a while.” Wendy bent over and vigorously rubbed her hair in the towel. “Can you imagine how much better this will be?”
“There’s some fishing gear up top we can use; the good stuff too.”
She flipped her long locks back, sending golden water droplets spiraling through the air behind her. “This is a floating house.”
“Eventually, we’ll find a bigger boat.”
Her eyes lit up. “One with a Jacuzzi!”
“And a grill.”
She took her can from the table and took a long pull, swallowing with a sigh. “This might just be better than living in Dwight, Kansas.”
He pressed his lips together and looked away.
“I’m sorry, Paul. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.”
She gazed off to shore, clearing water from her ears. “Where do you think everyone is?” she asked for the thousandth time.
He followed her gaze to the empty beach a few hundred yards away. “Dead.”
“Everyone?”
“We would’ve at least seen a plane by now if anyone was still alive. I mean, the cruise ship kind of solidifies things, don’t ya think?”
She thought on it for a while and took another drink, water running into her cleavage. “So…where should we go after we stock up on supplies?”
His eyes swung back to the distant shoreline, tightening around the corners. “Anywhere but there.”
She smiled and squeezed by, the smell of saltwater in her hair. “Let’s shower and eat.”
☠
Empty tuna and beer cans littered the coffee table along with chip and cookie bags. Paul poured more whiskey into their glasses before topping them off with soda, reminding him of Cora. He passed Wendy her glass and raised his into the air, the smell of cocoa butter floating from their clean skin. “Cheers.”
She clinked her glass against his and tipped it back. “I love day drinking.”
Paul leaned back into the couch and stared at the darkened TV, listening to someone else’s mix on an iPod they found stashed in a kitchen junk drawer. Water slapped against the side of the boat, testing the anchor as a nice breeze swept through the open sliding glass door, cooling the room in the afternoon sun.
“Dan told me you did a morning show on the radio.”
Paul barely nodded and drained half his glass in one chug.
“I bet that was fun.”
“It was.”
She looked down to the rocks glass in her hands, ice cubes popping. “Did you interview famous people?”
“Sometimes.”
“Who was the best interview?”
His gaze drifted to the ceiling as he thought about it. “Most of them aren’t morning people but Marilyn Manson is always entertaining.”
“Oh my God, I hated his character on Sons of Anarchy.”
Paul smiled. “Yeah, that got weird quick. I could never look at him the same after that.” He stiffened when her fingers ran across his cheek.
“You look so different shaved.”
“So do you.”
A bashful smile graced her lips. She ran a hand down a bare leg spilling from a pair of gym shorts that were so big she had to safety pin them. “I feel so much better. My legs were beginning to look like tree branches.”
He tore his eyes from Wendy’s long-stemmed legs, almost taking zero notice of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra under a thin Disney World t-shirt she found hanging in the spare bedroom closet. Paul glanced at the red bra and panties drying on the patio furniture out in the sun. He didn’t think it was possible, but he felt better. It was amazing what a hot shower and shave could do for a man.
“I wasn’t a waitress at the bar.”
His eyes snapped back to her and zoomed in.
“I lied.” Wendy looked away, a sheepish smile playing on her lips. “I was a professional dancer.”
Paul frowned.
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I was a stripper or whatever you want to call it.”
“Why lie about it?”
She shrugged. “Habit.” Twisting the glass in her hands, she folded her bare legs underneath her and bravely met his bloodshot eyes. “I hope you don’t think any…”
“I don’t.”
Taking a slow drink, Paul held her steady gaze as the boat gently rocked back and forth. “What was your stage name?”
Wendy looked away, obviously embarrassed by the question. “Sabrina.”
A short laugh catapulted from his lips.
“I don’t know why I even told you that.”
“The past doesn’t matter now,” he said, disbelieving his own words because the past did matter. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t be drowning in a sea of regret. Paul got quiet and stared into his glass. “Two nights before our power went out and all hell broke loose, I…almost cheated on Sophia.”
Taken aback, Wendy cocked her head to one side. “Almost?”
A seagull flew by the window, pulling his gaze out to sea. “Her name was Rebecca.” He grimaced as the name crossed his lips. “She worked for one of the record labels that came through the station, trying to get us to play their new music and bands.” He paused as the night painfully flickered through his mind all over again.
“But…you didn’t?”
“We kissed.”
She blinked a few times. “Why?”
He exhaled a weary breath. “Sophia was out of town for a small business seminar and we’d been trying to have a baby for almost a year and nothing was happening. I felt like a failure and I fucked up.” He brushed a tear from his cheek and poured more whiskey into his glass, holding the soda back this time around. He couldn’t see Sophia’s face again and it was suffocating, like being buried alive. “I was going to tell her when she got home and beg her to forgive me but by the time she got back, people were dying in Chicago and Rebecca became a quick afterthought.”
Wendy took his hand and squeezed. “Just a kiss?”
He looked her right in the eye and swallowed hard, pulse thudding in the hollow of his neck. “Just a kiss.”
“Paul, that’s nothing to beat yourself up about. I found out my last boyfriend was sleeping with my best friend right under my nose. Now that’s something to beat yourself up about.”
“Was she a dancer too?”
Her face soured. “Why do you assume all my friends are strippers?”
A loud laugh shot from him and it felt good. “I don’t think that, I just assumed…”
“Candace was my boyfriend’s dentist.” She paused to squish her lips into the side of her face. “Found out they were doing it in the dentist chair too.”
“Are you serious?”
Wendy nodded. “You loved Sophia, didn’t you?”
His eyes welled up and he tried to hide it by turning to the window. “I do,” he said, voice betraying him with a slight crack.
“And she knew it; that’s what’s important.”
They shared a comfortable silence, watching the sea move and sipping their drinks. Paul got up and retrieved some more star-shaped ice cubes from the tiny freezer in the mini-fridge. He shouldn’t have told her that. He should have buried it with his wife.
Wendy stared at him when he sat back down. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”
He poured some ice into her glass. “Do you want to be?”
She hesitated before answering. “Yes.”
A long breath left his lungs, deflating his chest. Time stretched like the water around them. He had nothing left to lose and nothing to gain. Sophia’s last words echoed inside his head. He had fulfilled his end of the bargain – so to speak – and yet he could hear his dead wife asking for more. She wanted him to save this two-bit stripper he barely knew and that selflessness is exactly what made him fall in love with her in the first place. What could he say? He turned to find Wendy watching him, the room moving around them. “We’re going to be okay.”
She matched his tear with one of her own. “I’m sorry. I know things will never be okay and that’s not what I meant.” She curled his hand to her chest. “I’m just scared you’re going to leave me here alone.”
Her words coiled around his lungs and squeezed. “I won’t.”
“I know you don’t know me, Paul, but without you I am as good as dead.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Wendy started to say something else but shut her mouth instead, examining his face for signs of deceit as her heart beat against the back of his hand. He could imagine the disappointment in Sophia’s eyes if he gave up now. Regardless of his indifference – or in spite of it – she would want him to kick this plague’s ass in her name and show the world the true meaning of the word: Perseverance. And she wouldn’t want him to do it just for her, but for everyone else as well. That was her spirit, her gift. Paul blew out a slow and low breath, gazing off to shore. No, he wouldn’t give up. They would persevere in the face of annihilation and he would personally see to it. No matter how many of those ugly fuckers came their way, he would keep fighting because he has a heart and those things don’t. And because sooner or later, good always triumphs over evil and this would be no different.
He took his hand back. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“I know.”
“We’ll need target practice on dry land during the day.”
She nodded rapidly and wiped away another teardrop, a faint smile brushing the corners of her mouth.
“We should find some WaveRunners and tie em to the boat. That way if this thing breaks down we won’t get stranded out at sea.”
At the mention of watercrafts, Wendy brightened. “I love WaveRunners.”
He offered her a drunken smile and swirled his drink in his hand, ice cubes rattling around inside the glass.
She clutched her drink to her chest like a cross while Paul leaned back and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. It was settled then. He would kill as many of those smelly bastards as one man possibly could. If those walking cadavers could learn anything it would be to fear his name.
Wendy followed his distant gaze out the glass door, stripes of sunlight creeping across the thin carpeting. “There’s a case of margarita mix under the sink.”
He furrowed his brow. “Seriously?”
Chapter Forty-Four
Three margaritas later, their spontaneous bursts of laughter skipped across the calm water like smooth rocks. The iPod playing through the sound bar mounted under the TV fueled Wendy’s dance moves and she was wrong. She wasn’t a stripper; she was an amazing stripper. Hypnotic. Sinuous. Her bare feet cut through the last slivers of orange sunlight striping the cabin floor as she crossed the room, her curvy hips sashaying back and forth with the beat.
“Come on,” she said, hauling him from the couch. “Dance with me.”
“Maybe next time,” he replied, moving to sit back down. “Think I’m getting sea sick.”
Wendy snapped him against her warm body with surprising strength and stared up into his eyes as a slow song stepped in. “One dance,” she whispered, wrapping her hands around the back of his neck and smelling of cocoa butter. “Let’s just pretend it’s not the end of the world for three and a half minutes.”
“We’ve been doing that all afternoon.”
She ignored him, her smile as unwavering as her hips.
Paul exhaled a conquered sigh and put his hands around her waist, caving to her outlandish demands. He was too drunk to argue and it’s not like they were completely naked. He had cargo shorts on and she was wearing a thin t-shirt with no bra.
“Thank you,” she smiled, resting her head on his shoulder.
They swayed back and forth, doing slow circles with her breasts pressing against his chest. Everyone he knew and loved was dead and here he was dancing with a stripper on some stranger’s two hundred thousand dollar boat. He could smell the guilt hiding beneath the tequila on his breath. It wasn’t right.
Wendy drew back and smiled. “Is this so bad?”
He held her in his arms and stared into her eyes, the painstaking truth hanging on his lips. It was bad. Sophia just died a few days ago but it seemed like years since things went south in Beecher’s grocery store. Time was different here and he could barely remember what she looked like. Paul stopped dancing. “Listen, I should…”
Wendy leaned up on her toes and kissed him on the lips, tasting of lime and tortilla chips, cutting his sentence off at the pass.
Chapter Forty-Five
DAY EIGHTEEN
Paul opened his eyes and it was a mistake. A big one. The sunlight entering the room agitated the dull thud pressing against the back of his eyes in lazy intervals. He turned to find Wendy stretched out next to him in the master bed, wincing when he discovered she was only wearing shorts. Checking himself under the sheet, he released a pent-up breath when he saw he was still wearing someone else’s clothing. His gaze tripped over her tattoo, triggering painful flashes of the strip bar dressing room where he and Sophia shared a tender moment on a worn-out couch that he wished would’ve lasted forever. They should have stayed in that shit-hole until it was safe to come out. If he could go back in time, he would do it all differently and this time she would live.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, unable to rub the guilt from his mind after sharing a bed with another woman. When he opened his eyes, Wendy was still there and Sophia was still dead. Flashes from the night before skipped through his hungover mind. He wet his lips, tasting Wendy on them. Sadness morphed into hate and he aimed it at her and her goddamn bare breasts. And Dan was right. They were amazing, with perfect nipple placement and all. Paul clenched his teeth against the stake stabbing at his heart, not knowing who he was anymore. Everything had changed, including them. He was no longer the wanna-be shock jock getting everything for free even though he was making bank and buying whatever the fuck he wanted. No, now he was a cheating scoundrel who couldn’t even mourn correctly. Now he was broken.
“Good morning.”
Paul blinked at Wendy, bringing her back into focus. “Hey.”
She sat up and leaned against the headboard, hair shooting out in all directions. “Oh, my head.” Wendy noticed she was half naked and quickly pulled the sheet up, cheeks blushing. “I don’t even remember coming to bed.”
“Do you remember how that got there?”
She followed his nod to the lamp on her side of the bed, slapping a hand over her eyes when she saw the Disney t-shirt hanging on the shade. A moment of a
wkward silence gave way to the water licking at the side of the boat. He swung his Adidas to the floor and started for the bathroom, headache exploding with the movement.
“Does your head feel as bad as mine?”
He stopped at the closed bedroom door. “I’m never drinking again.”
“I think we should eat popcorn and watch movies all day on the couch.”
“I'm never watching Fool's Gold again either.”
“Fine. We can watch Couples Retreat.”
He looked back over his shoulder, gripping the doorknob.
“Hey Paul?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting me sleep in here last night.”
The boat rocked, making him stagger. “Did I?”
“I’m sorry,” she said faintly, pulling the bed sheet up higher.
He tried to think of something witty to say, but the thunderstorm in his head got in the way. “Me too.”
Here his wife had barely been dead for a week and he was already sharing a bed with another woman. Paul felt like bashing his head against the bedroom door until he woke up from this endless nightmare or died trying. A double thud snapped his gaze to the bedroom door. He let go of the knob and took a step back, heart rate increasing.
“What was that?” Wendy whispered.
Paul stared at the door without answering, his hand brushing the bare spot on his leg where his gun normally hung. His pulse quickened and he put an ear to the door, begging his racing heart to shut up so he could hear. “I don’t hear anything,” he said, opening the door and stepping out into the narrow hallway. Blood pumped thickly in his temples when he saw the sliding glass door at the back of the boat. Tunnel vision set in, stretching the hallway like an old mirror. His heart sank. “Oh no.”
“What is it?” Wendy said, throwing the sheet back and springing to her feet.
He darted back into the room, slammed the door shut and locked it.
“What’s wrong?” she cried, throwing on her shirt.
Leaning against the door, he stared at her through wide eyes, throat too dry to speak.
A Little More Dead Page 24
