Married with Zombies: Book 1 of Living with the Dead

by Jesse Petersen

  But tonight there were no drug dealers to be contended with, there was no one lurking in the shadows hoping to take a car or a life… or at least no one who could actually be blamed for their intentions. I was sure there were plenty of zombies outside, but they didn’t know any better.

  Outside wasn’t my problem, anyway. We had plenty to deal with within the four doors of the car.

  “Climb into the back if you can,” I said softly as I turned the engine off.

  Dave flinched as he unbuckled his seatbelt. He turned sideways with a sucking sound of breath through his teeth and looked at the seat. Because the car was so low, it was a long seat but it wasn’t very high. He shut his eyes briefly and then dragged himself over the top and into the wide backseat. He managed to bite back most of his sounds of pain and cursing, but there was no doubt his leg was in a bad way.

  Once he had settled in, I slid to the passenger side of the vehicle and opened up the glove compartment. We had been able to take nothing with us in our escape, so all I could do was pray I’d find something of use.

  The glove box matched the car in that it was big, old, and dirty, but there were some cheap cigarettes and a lighter right in the front of the pile. I pocketed the lighter for future use.

  When I dug around further, I came up with a small bottle of whiskey, which I passed back to David without a word. Whether he used it for pain relief or we kept it to clean future wounds, it was a good find.

  “Hey, look at this,” Dave said from the back.

  I turned in the seat to see that he was holding up a GPS unit. I shook my head in surprise. “With such a shitty car… who knew?”

  He looked at it. It was so brand new that it still had the plastic seal over the display screen, but there wasn’t any packaging with it.

  “It was hidden under the seat, so it could be hot. Either way, it will come in handy if the satellites are still linked for the system.”

  I remained silent. The word if implied they might not be. If that was true it meant that in less than three days an outbreak that had started in Seattle had basically wiped out the United States and maybe the world.

  The hugeness of that was overpowering. It rose up in my chest and stole my breath, but I had too much to do to freak out, so I put it from my mind and kept digging through the cavern of a glove box.

  I pulled out papers and other junk until I got to the back of the compartment. My hand brushed something cold and metal and I smiled. Hidden behind everything was a small-caliber handgun and a half-full box of bullets.

  “Lookie here,” I said, holding them up with a grin as wide as any child on Christmas morning.

  “That’s great!” Dave sighed with relief. “At least we’re not totally unarmed, though that thing isn’t going to have much effect unless you get a clean headshot.”

  “There isn’t much ammo, either,” I conceded as I tossed the weapon on the seat beside him and climbed into the back. “But it’s better than nothing. Now let me see your leg.”

  He hesitated before he lifted the injured leg into my lap. I rolled up his pants and sucked in my breath through my teeth with a hissing sound. Dave’s calf area on his right leg was one big bruise, swollen and ugly.

  “Damn,” he murmured as he flopped his head back against the seat. “That looks even worse than it feels.”

  “It looks bad, but I’m not sure if it’s broken,” I said as I felt along the bone. He winced with every touch, but I didn’t feel any obvious fracture. “It could just be a deep bone bruise.”

  He nodded. “I sure wish we had some ice to reduce the swelling.” He motioned to the bottle of whiskey with a half-smile. “And for this.”

  I grinned at him, but I didn’t really feel much happiness. “I wish we had a lot of things.”

  He shut his eyes. “So let’s just assess here. We have one small-caliber handgun with what… maybe twenty shots?”

  I nodded as I rested my head against the seat the same way he was. “And no other supplies of any consequence.”

  “Right.” He looked down. “And my leg is jacked, broken or not.”

  “Plus it’s dark and we can’t get on the highway until we’re able to see better in the morning for navigation. And there might be… strike that, there are definitely zombies around here whether they’ve noticed us yet or not.”

  I shivered. I was trying to keep my voice calm, but there was no softening the bald facts.

  He was quiet for a long time. So long, in fact, that I started to think he’d fallen asleep or passed out from the pain. But finally he turned his head and looked at me.

  “Sarah, I’m sorry I let you down.”

  I drew back at his voice and his words and stared at him. “What are you talking about? You didn’t let me down. You’ve been awesome since this happened. And you saved my life more than once.”

  “And put it in danger,” he said as he rubbed his chin where two days’ worth of scruff was present.

  “It isn’t your fault that a zombie plague is upon us,” I insisted.

  He rolled his head on the seatback to look at me. “Maybe not, but tonight you didn’t want to go to the casino. You had a million good reasons not to do it, but you did anyway because I was so insistent. If I had just listened to you in the parking lot instead of being obsessed with checking the place out then we’d still have the Escalade and our supplies and I wouldn’t be hurt.”

  I shrugged. Yes, all those things were true, but I guess all of Dr. Kelly’s lessons about marriage and partnership were beginning to sink in because I wasn’t pissed about them. Six months ago, I would have reamed him for the mistakes we’d made today. Right now I was just happy we still had our heads and each other.

  “You don’t know if all that is true,” I said. “Even if we’d done what I wanted and tried to find a house to hide in for the night, we still might have encountered totally crazy people or been swarmed by zombies or gotten injured and lost our stuff some other way.”

  “But what if —”

  I interrupted him by covering his hand. “We can play ‘what if’ until morning, but it won’t change a thing. We both made decisions, and a lot of them we made together. Remember what I said before… we’re new at this. I guess we’ve learned something for the next time.”

  Dave laughed through his obvious pain. “No casinos.”

  I chuckled with him. “A valuable life lesson one way or another. I don’t want to end up a granny zombie tugging a slot machine handle until the end of time.”

  His laughter faded. “But before the attack, Sarah —”

  I shook my head. “No, what you said to me before we went into the casino was right, even if I didn’t want to hear it. I think it’s time to stop looking back and second-guessing and hating ourselves, not to mention stop punishing each other. From now on, let’s agree to move forward.”

  I extended my hand to shake on the agreement and he hesitated for a minute before he grabbed my hand and shook. “Agreed.”

  He smiled and I had the craziest urge to just kiss him. Kiss him like we were kids in high school making out in the backseat of this crappy car in a park in the middle of nowhere. I leaned in and he did, too, but before our lips met he straightened up and looked out the front window.

  “Wow,” he murmured, “Zombie jogger.”

  I craned my neck to see what he was looking at. I couldn’t help but giggle. A hugely fat zombie was creeping his way down the jogging path in front of the parking lot. He was dressed in a green velour tracksuit and had a lime headband straight out of eighty-five. Actually, it might have been purchased at the same time as our crappy car first rolled off the assembly line.

  “Wow is right,” I agreed as I leaned back slowly. “It looks like fashion was undead for that guy long before he was.”

  “You have to give him credit for having a workout, though,” Dave said. “I mean, he’s doing something.”

  I laughed and Dave smiled as he reached out and locked the door next to him. I did the same.


  “Why don’t you rest your head on my shoulder and try to sleep?” he asked as he slipped the handgun from my fingers. “We’ll take turns keeping watch. Not that Zombie Jogger seems that interested.”

  I wanted to argue with him that he should try to rest since he was injured, but I kept my mouth shut. Whatever I said to him, however much he denied it, it was obvious that David felt guilty about the situation we were in. Maybe standing guard for a few hours would help him get over that. Plus, I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. Since I’d be doing most, if not all the driving the next day, I had to rest.

  So I put my head on his shoulder, snuggling down as his arm came around me and he held me. The seat was big and surprisingly comfortable so before long I was sleeping, but I won’t tell you about my dreams. They were far too vivid and terrifying to share.

  And when I woke up, the reality wasn’t much better.

  Find creative ways to have fun together. Looting is really underrated.

  Dawn sent rays of sunshine flooding into our car and I stretched my back as I looked down at Dave’s pale face.

  “Well, we’re alive,” I said as I smiled at him in the hopes he would smile back. “That’s step one.”

  He nodded, but I could see how much he was hurting. He hadn’t been able to elevate his leg much last night and I doubted he’d gotten more than an hour or two of sleep. I mentally added getting painkillers and sleep aids to the running ‘to do’ list in my head.

  “Yeah, thanks to your good shooting in the middle of the night.”

  I shrugged. Although the night had been surprisingly quiet, we had encountered a couple of zombie incidents. There were half a dozen or so bodies scattered outside the car as a testament to that fact. I was definitely becoming a better shot through all of this.

  “Still, it was better than we thought,” I offered.

  He leaned forward in his seat. I reached back and began to rub his back. He let out a sigh of contentment as he said, “Whoever would have believed that being attacked six times and having to kill things in the middle of the night would be better than we thought?”

  “The world, she is a-changing,” I muttered.

  He nodded, his gaze distant at that thought. “Yeah. You know, I think we’ve got to find a sporting goods store and a grocery today before we get back on the road.”

  He shifted and I massaged harder even as I found the GPS on the seat next to us with my free hand.

  “The grocery store has to have a pharmacy, too. We need supplies for your leg,” I added as I turned it on. We both stared at the loading screen. There was a bar across the bottom that said, “Searching for link-up…”

  Slowly a red-colored bar inched across the bar, filling it up as the system searched for communication from the wider universe. We waited, neither of us breathing, to find out if we were all alone in the world, or if it was still possible that someone was out there.

  When the screen turned blue and it said, “Link-up found. Where do you want to go today?” I could have cried. It was a slender reed of hope, but it still existed.

  I used the “Search Points of Interest” function and quickly accessed all the local sporting goods stores. I figured we’d need weapons before food and other supplies.

  “The first listing is Bingo’s Sporting Depot. It’s less than a mile from here,” I said.

  “Sounds good,” Dave replied.

  I started to climb over to the front seat, but Dave caught my belt loop and pulled me back. “I can’t do that again, it hurts too much. I’m taking my chances with the zombies and getting out.”

  “Let me come around and cover you, at least,” I said.

  I hurried to get out of the car and was greeted with a burst of cool morning air. There was a light, low fog all around that made the vacant parking lot and far-too-quiet park even more eerie. I made a quick scan for zombies, then rushed over to his side of the car and helped him step onto the asphalt. Gingerly he put his weight on his leg and we both breathed a sigh of relief when he was able to bear the strain.

  “You may be right about the bone bruise,” he said as we limped to the front seat and got him settled in.

  I hoped that was true as I took the handgun and went around the back of the car. Last night it had been too dark to check for supplies, but since I was already out, I was going to go all the way. I checked in every direction probably a hundred times before I used the key to open the trunk and looked inside.

  There was both a baseball bat and a tire iron inside and I grabbed them both in one hand. In addition there were some blankets and a first aid kit. I swept them all up and slammed the trunk shut.

  The sound brought a rustle in the woods to my right and I spun to face it, holding my shaking handgun as a defense against the potential onslaught. There was shuffling and movement through the brush and trees and then a cat rushed from the darkness with a hiss.

  I tensed, thinking of my conversation with David the first day this started. Was it possible this was a zombie cat? Just because we hadn’t seen a lot of animals since this started didn’t mean they weren’t out there… waiting.

  But the tabby simply sat down in the middle of the parking lot and began to clean her leg with long, luxurious licks. It was like nothing in her world had changed. From her bored demeanor, at least it seemed like she hadn’t been chased by zombies for two days. Which probably meant animals were uninteresting to them. Whatever the horde wanted, they only found it in humans.

  “Lucky you, kitty,” I muttered as I let out a huge sigh of relief.

  I climbed into the car and shut and locked the door. Dave took my additional supplies and the gun and we buckled in. He held the GPS as I pulled out of the lot and back onto surface streets.

  The turn-by-turn directions kept us busy for a little bit. I had to navigate around cars and bodies strewn everywhere, so the “time to destination” increased rather than decreased as we puttered along, but finally we pulled into another huge parking lot in front of a sporting goods store. It wasn’t one of the big box ones, but it would do as long as there were weapons to be found within.

  “Maybe you should stay in the car,” I suggested as I looked at the big building rising up ominously before me.

  Dave turned toward me, the baseball bat gripped tight in his hands. “Are you nuts? There’s no way I’m letting you do this alone. At the very least, I’ll push the cart so you can have your hands free.”

  I stared at him. He could stand and walk slowly, but in a zombie attack I was terrified he wouldn’t react in time. What if I couldn’t help him?

  But I could see from the firm set of his jaw and the determination in his eyes that this subject wasn’t open for debate. And in all honesty, I would have acted the same way if the situation was reversed.

  With a sigh, I motioned for him to open his door.

  We crossed the parking lot slowly, taking our time both to accommodate Dave’s injury and to keep an eye out for any infected who were lurking around. I actually saw a few on the outskirts of the lot, but they didn’t seem to be aware of us as they lurched and moved around like confused dogs or lost children.

  The doors to Bingo’s Sporting Depot were automatic, but someone had turned off that function at some point, so I had to push the heavy glass and metal weight apart, wedge myself in, and then shove with my back to get us inside the store and out of the dangerously open area of the parking lot.

  Once we were inside, I was overwhelmed by sensory overload. It wasn’t that the place was a big store, but there was a lot of inventory. Enough that the areas with racks and fixtures were almost too tight to walk in.

  “I don’t like this,” I whispered. “We won’t be able to see or move much if we get off the main walkways.”

  Dave nodded and looked around above at the brightly colored signs hanging from the ceiling that labeled where all the different equipment was located. There were golf areas, team sports, stuff to boat and fish… but tucked in the back, in a special
area was a sign that read, HUNTING AND GUN SUPPLIES.

  We smiled at each other as we grabbed a cart from the front of the store and made our way to the back. As we passed by racks of clothing, I pulled off a few shirts for me and for David, as well as a new pair of hiking boots, the really expensive kind that I never would have paid for before the attack.

  To be fair, my Keds were soaked with blood and I was going to need something heavier duty if we encountered more roadblocks on our way to Longview.

  Finally we reached the back corner of the shop and entered an area that was partly enclosed, sort of like a shop within a shop. Also known as Mecca. Behind the counter were racks of shotguns and rifles and in the glass case there were handguns. It all seemed to glow beautifully in the fluorescent lights and we stared at it for a long time with matching dopey grins on our faces.

  “I’ll get ammo,” Dave finally offered before he limped off toward the shelves, using the cart as a walker.

  As he did so, I looked at our weaponry options. Shotguns had proven themselves more than useful already, but in closer quarters I thought a 9mm handgun would be helpful, too. I laid a few shotguns on the counter and then dropped down to open the lower cabinet with the handguns. Just as I feared, the rack was locked. I sighed as I grabbed for one of the shotguns and bashed open the glass with the butt of it.

  Immediately an alarm began to squeal in the background. I winced as I sent a look toward David.

  “Sorry,” I mouthed.

  He shrugged as he wheeled the cart toward me and loaded up the weapons I’d already set out.

  “You know, William may have been right about one thing,” he mused as gun after gun went into the cart.

  I tilted my head with a frown as I handed him another shotgun. “Zombies: scourge of God to cleanse the world?” I asked.

  He flashed me a quick grin. “Well, that remains to be seen. But I mean he might have been right about loud sounds like the blast of a gun bringing zombies to investigate. We might want to get some sharp and blunt weapons for close-quarter fights just in case. Save the guns for just clearing the highway.”