Zombie Moon

by Lori Devoti

  Now she had to wonder what Caleb would have done if she hadn’t used the blade to spear the zombie’s brain, if the zombie had reached her first and bitten her.

  She shivered and walked faster to keep up with the man she knew in her heart would kill her with zero hesitation.

  Chapter 6

  G etting away from the truck stop was easier than Caleb could have hoped. While he and Samantha had been occupied near the Dumpster, a second zombie had apparently staggered out of nowhere and into the path of a semi.

  With random zombie parts scattered over the parking lot, Caleb’s attack on the van seemed to have fled all memory. In fact, thanks to the smell there weren’t even many onlookers. The few there were had shirts or some other cloth tied around their faces. Taking their cue, Caleb jerked off his shirt and followed suit. With his face hidden, he’d be a lot less likely to jog any memories of his earlier run-in with the van.

  As they came around the corner to the front entrance, a policeman stopped them. “You see anything?” He glanced from Caleb to Samantha, who looked appropriately green.

  Caleb grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the restaurant’s door. “We were in our car…uh…looking for something.” He ran his hand down Samantha’s backside, cluing the officer into exactly what kind of search they had been conducting.

  The policeman frowned, but waved them on. “A nice guy would give the lady the shirt.”

  Caleb smiled even though the other man couldn’t see it. “But I’m not a nice guy. That’s why she loves me.” He glanced at Samantha. “Ain’t that right, sweetie?” Then he shoved open the door and hustled her inside.

  Samantha stumbled into the restaurant feeling sick and shaken.

  Caleb glanced over his shoulder as the door closed behind them, then grabbed her by the elbow. “Are you okay?”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer. Was she? “The smell…why is it so bad?” She coughed into her hand, struggling to keep from throwing up. She’d already done so once in front of the hunter; she didn’t want to repeat the act.

  “I’m not sure. Might have something to do with its age, but I’m guessing it has more to do with how it died…the last time. Smashed by a semi. More organs exposed means more rot exposed.” He shook his head. “Guess that’s another way to rid the world of a zombie although I don’t often have a semi sitting by waiting on me.” His voice was dry, as if truly considering the idea of adding a semi to his arsenal of weapons.

  Samantha shivered. Caleb pulled her against him, against his bare chest. She placed her hand on his skin, and again reveled in how warm he could be when it was so cold outside. Wanting to see if the scent of licorice was still there, still as soothing, she leaned closer until her nose brushed his neck. It was. All bad memories of zombies fled. She edged closer still, until her entire body was flush against him, until his heat seemed to be hers.

  She stared into his golden eyes, and he stared back at her. He was going to kiss her; she could feel it. She parted her lips and rose ever so slightly onto her toes, waited for him to pull down the shirt that covered his lower face and capture her lips with his.

  The door behind them flew open. Cold air rushed in, followed closely by two women in sweatpants and parkas. One fell; the other raced to a nearby trash can, gagging.

  Samantha jumped away from Caleb, flushing as she did. The hunter made her forget where she was, what was going on around them and that she barely knew him. She had never been this susceptible to anyone before.

  “What was…?” the one who had fallen began, but Caleb turned away, placed his hand on the small of Samantha’s back and steered her toward the booth where they had sat when they had first entered.

  “I’m not… I couldn’t eat,” she mumbled. Now that she wasn’t pressed against Caleb, she realized the stench had followed them inside. It seemed to cling to her hair like cigarette smoke. Everything she ate would taste of it—not just now, maybe forever. She grabbed a napkin from the table and spat into it, then grabbed another to keep pressed to her mouth and nose.

  A waitress strode toward them. “Did you see the sign? No shirt, no—” Her nose curled. She paled then turned and jogged back to the kitchen.

  Caleb didn’t seem to notice her. He left Samantha standing next to the booth then redirected his path to the lunch bar at the back of the restaurant, next to the kitchen. One of the truckers they’d encountered on their first visit sat sprawled over one of the tiny stools. Caleb stepped close to him, lifted his shirt briefly from his face, then leaned even closer, apparently to mumble in the man’s ear.

  The trucker glanced from Caleb to the scene outside the window where emergency workers dressed in gas masks and white biohazard suits stood around the grill of a semi. They stood in a half circle, shaking their heads and gesturing wildly. The trucker pressed his lips into a line, then without saying a word handed Caleb a bag. Caleb’s laptop bag, Samantha realized. Caleb slapped the man on the back and strolled back to her.

  “Time to roll,” he said. “But we need to talk and soon.”

  Still bare-chested, he jerked the shirt from his face and walked back out into the stench and cold. And Samantha, idiot that she was, followed him.

  They drove ten miles before Samantha’s curiosity beat down her shock. “Where are we going?” She glanced at Caleb out of the corner of her eye. He hadn’t bothered to put his shirt back on. As he reached for the stereo the muscles in his shoulders bulged. He punched a few buttons, scanning radio stations, then apparently not finding anything of interest, flipped the radio off.

  She fidgeted in her seat, trying not to stare, trying not to notice the lines of definition in his arms, even down his neck and over his ribs. He was solid sinewy muscle. She doubted there was an ounce of fat on him.

  “Texas,” he replied, startling her out of her thoughts. She moved her gaze away from his naked chest.

  “Waco for now. When we get a chance I’ll stop and finish charting the sightings.” He paused. His hand lay on his camo-covered thigh. He tapped his middle finger up and down. “I found another one, one you missed.”

  “Really?” She turned back to the door, trying to hide her surprise. After a moment, she looked back at him. More zombie sightings. The nightmare she was caught in got bigger and bigger. “Where did they come from?” she asked.

  He glanced at her.

  Realizing she had messed up, she waved her hands and tried to cover her stumble. “Not the ones in Texas. The others. The ones you were fighting when I first found you and the one…” She shuddered. “The one who attacked me at the truck stop.”

  His finger moved again, slower. “Tell me what happened. You headed to the bathroom. What happened next?”

  Samantha closed her eyes, not wanting to live through it again. “I made it to the bathroom and finished what I had to do. It was a one-seater and someone was rattling the knob. I yelled at them that I was almost done, but they kept jerking on the door so hard I thought the lock would break. It made me angry.”

  She huffed, a half laugh at how stupid she had been. “I jerked open the door ready to glare at whoever it was and came face-to-face with that zombie.”

  “Face-to-face and it didn’t get you?” Caleb asked.

  His tone was neutral, but the question made Samantha suspect he didn’t believe her. It annoyed her, but it also made her realize he was right. The zombie had been right there. Yes, she had moved quickly. But quick enough to evade the undead if the creature had been intent on catching her?

  Beside her, Caleb cleared his throat, waiting for an answer.

  Glancing back at him, she blurted, “I’ve taught and trained in self-defense for years. My judgment may not always be sound, but my reflexes are.”

  Her tone must have been harsh. His eyebrow twitched.

  She swallowed both her ire and her unease—the first because he’d doubted her and the second because she suspected there was more to the encounter with the zombie than she had assumed. She placed her hands on her lap and
continued. “He lunged at the doorway. His arm hit the actual door, keeping me from shutting it—not that that would have been the best move. He probably would have just come in after me, trapping me….” She was quiet for a second, thinking of the horror of being trapped in that tiny space with a flesh-hungry monster.

  “You had your knife,” Caleb offered, as if that would have saved her. She’d had it out in the open too and had almost been forced to use it on herself.

  “Anyway, I dropped to the floor and shimmied between his legs. By the time he realized what I had done, I was back on my feet and running.”

  “He ran after you.”

  It was an obvious truth, one she didn’t bother acknowledging. She did, however, take a moment to study the hunter. His attitude had changed. There was something off about it.

  “The parking lot was crowded…there were a lot of people coming and going. I didn’t want him to get any of them so I ran behind the building.”

  “You could have run into the restaurant, to me.”

  She stiffened. She could have. She should have. Running off alone had been insane, but she hadn’t thought. She had just reacted and her first instinct had been to get out of the building where she knew the zombie was. Her second had been to get him away from all the people milling around outside. There had been children there—a family with twin toddlers. The little girls had been squabbling over a bag of jelly beans when she’d raced by. The sight had sent an icy thrust of terror through her core.

  Caleb put on the blinker before changing lanes, then glanced at her. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  She stared at him, thinking, analyzing him. His finger had stilled, but there was a shadow in his eyes. A suspicion. “I guess I wasn’t sure if push came to shove that you would save me.”

  The skin around his mouth hardened. “You didn’t think I’d kill the zombie?”

  “No, I knew you would do that. I just wasn’t sure you wouldn’t kill me and anyone else who got in your way while you were doing so.” Like those toddlers. Would Caleb have worried about them? Or would he have mowed them down with his shotgun as he fired on the zombie? He had done it to Samantha, fired when she was well within striking range.

  He turned to look at her. A part of her tensed, waiting, hoping for his denial. Then he turned back to the road. “Next time come to me.”

  She sighed and leaned her head back against the seat. “You’re right. I should trust you.”

  His eyes still focused straight ahead, he murmured, “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

  She closed her eyes and wondered what the hell she was doing in this car with him and why, despite his words and her actions, she suspected that at another time in another place, she would have run to him.

  Caleb forced himself not to look at Samantha. The quiet peace that had existed between them before the truck stop had disappeared. She didn’t trust him. That was good. She shouldn’t. No one should. But even as he reminded himself of that fact, a tiny piece of him objected, wished that it wasn’t a fact, that it didn’t have to be.

  They rode in silence a few more miles, her staring out the window and him lost in disquieting memories of who he used to be. Finally, unable to take the quiet any longer, he said, “So, the zombie came after you while you were in the bathroom.”

  Apparently as lost in her thoughts as he had been in his, she jumped. “Yes,” she replied.

  The zombie’s appearance and targeting of Samantha couldn’t be coincidence. Either she was a fraud and the attack had been staged or whoever was behind the lab in Texas was having her followed. Except, he realized, the zombies had been real. Which left only one possibility. The lab in Texas was behind the attack.

  “He was wearing a collar,” she murmured.

  Her statement was so close to what Caleb was thinking, his suspicions rose anew. They were almost to Minneapolis and neither had eaten yet today. He glanced at her. “You up for another stop?”

  Her hand moved to her stomach. She nodded. “After what I saw and smelled, I’d say I’ll never eat again. But I’m studying to be a nurse and I know whether I feel like it or not, I need food. I didn’t eat yesterday, either.”

  Twenty-four hours with no food. Caleb watched for the first highway sign advertising restaurants, then flipped on his blinker. In no time they were sitting in a fast food joint’s parking lot mowing through bags of burgers. At least Caleb was mowing through burgers; Samantha was picking through her garden salad.

  She forked one piece of unnaturally green lettuce from the plastic box it was served in and twirled it around. Caleb lifted his gaze from his laptop, which he had fired up as soon as they’d pulled into a parking spot, after getting their food at the drive-through.

  Seeing him watching her, she put the lettuce into her mouth and smiled. He shifted his gaze back to the computer and reached for a third burger.

  “That meat is factory farmed, you know,” she said.

  He paused, expecting her to say more, like why the hell he cared, but she only stared at him expectantly. Turning back to his computer screen, he chomped into the meat and chewed slowly.

  He felt her shudder. He took another bite. “Have you seen the conditions—”

  He set the burger down. “Have you seen what I do?” Had she seen what zombies did? After living with that for twenty years, no amount of animal misfortune could move him and it certainly couldn’t stop him from enjoying his favorite burger.

  At least he didn’t think it could. But Samantha apparently had a different opinion. She began a twenty-minute lecture on the entire life cycle of a factory-farmed cow. On and on she droned, until he couldn’t stand to hear another word.

  “Enough,” he said, tossing a grease-stained napkin onto the floor. “I bought eight burgers. I’m going to eat eight burgers and then tomorrow I will buy eight more. I don’t care about the fate of some cow. I don’t care about the fate of anyone or anything as long as every day I survive and a number of zombies don’t.”

  He stared at her. “If you can’t live with that, you need to find another ride.”

  Her fork hovered halfway between her mouth and the plastic plate. Slowly she placed it onto her half-eaten salad and slid what remained of the meal onto the floor.

  Then she opened the passenger door and got out.

  Caleb closed his eyes and cursed, loudly.

  His burger slipped from his fingers and fell onto his pants. The sandwich fell open, its contents landing on his lap. Ketchup smeared his pants.

  With another curse, he hopped out of the car and brushed the debris onto the ground. Samantha stood with her back to him, her arms wrapped around her body.

  He glanced into the car at her salad and his bag full of burgers. Then he reached inside and grabbed both. He walked to her and held out her lunch. She eyed him with suspicion, but took the salad.

  He stood beside her holding the warm bag for a second, then he walked to a trash can and shoved it inside.

  Without looking at her, he stalked back to the car. “Get in. We have fourteen hours to go and I still need lunch.”

  Five minutes later they were back on the road.

  Chapter 7

  C aleb hadn’t said anything since he’d pulled out of the last fast food place. Mexican. He’d listed off his options and she’d shaken her head at each. Finally he’d ordered six bean burritos, no dairy, and peeled out.

  She stopped herself from telling him what else, be sides beans, were in the things, or that white flour tortillas really weren’t the healthiest choice.

  She shouldn’t have said anything about the burgers, either. She’d never done that before. Allison was the radical vegetarian. Samantha had given up meat years ago, too, but until today had never harassed anyone else about it. That was more what Allison would have done.

  Maybe that was why she had stormed at Caleb. Doing what Allison would have done made her mission feel less futile. As if she were preparing for her friend’s return.

  Caleb, however, hadn�
��t seen it that way.

  But he had dumped the burgers.

  The edges of her lips turned up. He’d done that for her. A small, unimportant gesture perhaps, but she didn’t think so. She doubted Caleb Locke had ever altered himself to please another person before.

  The fact that he had done so for her warmed every inch of her.

  As he munched on burrito number five, she leaned her head against the window and drowsed off. Maybe she’d misjudged him. Maybe he wouldn’t sacrifice her or anyone to kill a zombie.

  It had been dark four hours when Caleb saw the lights ahead. As they got closer, he could see a semi was jackknifed across the interstate.

  Samantha was sound asleep in the passenger seat. They’d driven steady with only stops for gas and food. After the scene over the burgers, he had steered clear of any meat and settled on peanut butter crackers and trail mix. If there was any problem with his choices, Samantha didn’t offer a comment.

  He’d only eaten half of the crackers, though. He placed his hand on his stomach. Apparently, even a werewolf’s digestive system took issue with six fast food bean burritos. There was a lesson there somewhere, but what?

  Not to let a woman’s irrational demands get to him? To stay true to what he was? Werewolves ate meat and a lot of it. Samantha was lucky he hadn’t decided to shift and find his own lunch in one of the fields they had driven by.

  He slanted a glance her direction, wondering how the sight of him tearing into a freshly killed rabbit would have affected her. Of course, at least the rabbit would have had the benefit of free range before becoming dinner. Maybe that would have appeased her.

  He grunted. The werewolf zombie hunter and the yoga instructing nurse. A match made in heaven…or hell. Zombie hell, to be exact.

  As he followed the example of the cars in front of him and slowed to get around the semi, he let himself think about her a bit more. Why had he thrown away his lunch? Why had seeing her upset made him want to make her happy?