Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance

by Lori Perkins

  She drew the chorus to its natural close and eyed him. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Why do you do it?” he asked.

  “Car sickness. I told you already—”

  “No,” he said with a chuckle. “I mean why do you help people like me?”

  She had been asked this on more than one occasion, and usually dodged the answer with trite comebacks and clever witticisms. But without thinking about it, she found herself telling Joshua the truth.

  “My grandfather taught me everything I know about magic,” she said. “He was the best. At least to me. He always had time for people. No matter how much they could pay, he would always help if he could. A week before my eighteenth birthday, he passed away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Dee shrugged. “He was old. It was expected. But what we didn’t expect was to see him again.”

  “As a zombie?”

  “Yeah. He had been feuding with our neighbor for years over the property line.

  One foot to the right of the fence post, gramps said. One foot to the left, Ferguson said.

  So when gramps kicked the bucket, old man Ferguson hired a necromancer to raise him.

  He brought gramps back and put him to work on that single foot of land out of spite.”

  Dee gripped the wheel until her knuckles were white with anger. “I still remember that day I came home from school and saw him pulling weeds from around the fence.”

  “It must have been horrible.”

  “It was. I tried to fix it. I tried everything he taught me, but I was too inexperienced. I couldn’t break a spell like that. I even went to every magic user I knew, but I couldn’t afford what they were asking. We were so poor back then. In the end, I went to the necromancer who raised gramps. I offered him…” Dee paused and swallowed the swell of sickening memories. “Everything. I offered him everything, Joshua. And he laughed at me. He said business was just business. That he didn’t want to get a reputation as a man unable to keep his word.” Dee glanced at her passenger, and his look startled her. His face was twisted in a mask of hatred, gritting his teeth while his nostrils flared.

  “That black-hearted monster,” he said.

  Dee appreciated his anger more than he could know. “My family spent three long weeks watching him fall apart and there wasn’t a damned thing we could do about it. I swore then that when I got older, I would be just like Granddad. That I would help anyone, regardless of their ability to pay me for it. Especially the dead.”

  “You’re a testament to his generosity.”

  “Thanks, but I’m really just a pale reflection of it. The day I saw his corpse staggering around that fence post I promised myself that I would never leave anyone else in the same lurch.”

  They both went quiet for a few moments, the seriousness of the discussion clipped short by her accidental pun. Dee was the first to giggle, followed closely by a chuckle from Joshua. Dee let out a loud laugh which set Joshua into a full-blown cackle. The pair of them filled the car with easy laughter.

  “Did I really say lurch?” she asked between giggles.

  “I’m sorry,” Joshua said, “but that was just rotten.”

  Dee rolled her eyes. “Are you mocking my deadpan humor?”

  “I don’t know about humor, but it’s certainly not grave.”

  “If you’re going to spend any time with me, you’ll have to keep a stiff upper lip.”

  “Of corpse I will.”

  “Okay!” Dee shouted between peals of laughter. “Okay! I give. Enough with the puns. They’ll be the death of me.”

  Joshua smiled wide as he wound his laughter down to a few occasional titters.

  They settled into a comfortable silence as Dee slowed the car to a stop beside of the curb.

  “Here we are,” she said. She leaned across Joshua to get a good look at the sign she had parked beside of. “Autumn Evenings?” Beyond the sign sat a small, sad-looking, single-story building. The brickwork was patchy, the roof was in need of re-shingling, and the outer woodwork was screaming for a fresh coat of paint. It had the look and feel of its true nature, a rundown retirement home. “She’s in there.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Dee cut her eyes at him. “Are you doubting my magic?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Your friend lives here. She might not be here right this moment, but this is where she calls home.”

  He unbuckled his belt and sighed. “I can’t believe she ended up here.”

  Dee couldn’t believe it either. No wonder he had a soft spot for the whole caring thing. His lady love was either a live in nurse or a nurse’s assistant. “Look, it’s late.

  Maybe we should come back tomorrow.”

  “No. I need to see her now. I’ve waited so long.” He climbed out of the van and stalked toward the dark entrance.

  “Joshua!” she shouted behind him as she climbed out of the driver’s seat. “Wait up, daddy longlegs.”

  Dee wondered how they were going to get the attention of the staff when the place was so obviously closed for the night. But to her surprise, someone was waiting at the door. A tall redhead in a tight, white uniform smiled as they approached. Was that Emily? Dee’s stomach dropped to her knees as she realized he was about to hook up with his woman, and Dee would once again play the third wheel.

  “Can I help you?” the nurse asked.

  “I’m here to see Emily Lane,” Joshua said.

  “Of course,” the nurse said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Dee saw Joshua’s shock, but the nurse must have missed it. Dee had to admit, she was a little shocked herself.

  “This way,” the nurse said, and held out her hand.

  Joshua nodded and followed her lead. Dee, forgotten in the excitement of the moment, fell in line behind him. Down the quiet corridors they walked, their steps echoing on the cold tiles as they went. Urine and sweat and age rose to fill Dee’s nostrils, as well as that old familiar stench of death and decay. She wondered if there was a zombie on staff, but decided that the smell was coming from everywhere. She supposed that you didn’t have to be dead to be a zombie. Just abandoned like an old, forgotten photograph; a thing to be dragged out at holidays and then pack away again until the next important date. In some small way, she was glad her grandfather didn’t have to see this side of old age.

  As they reached the end of the hall, the nurse stopped outside of the last door on the right. “It won’t be long now. I’m glad you could make it. Please let us know if we can get you anything.” The nurse paused and placed a hand on Joshua’s shoulder before she added, “I’m very sorry.”

  Dee couldn’t have thought such a pallid man could have gotten any paler, but what little color Joshua had to his face drained completely. He pushed past the nurse and into the room beyond.

  “Emily?” he asked in a quiet voice, before the door closed behind him.

  “Spouses are just as welcome,” the nurse said.

  Dee narrowed her eyes. “I’m not his spouse.”

  “You’re her granddaughter?”

  Dee shook her head. “Just a friend. Of his.” She almost said Joshua’s name, but her sense of danger kept her tongue still.

  “Ah. We didn’t even know Miss Emily had a grandson before tonight. None of her nieces or nephews mentioned him. I’m just glad he could make it before…” The nurse let the unspoken words fill the gap as she left Dee alone outside the door.

  Dee was confused. She didn’t want to interrupt the lovebirds’ private reunion, but enough was enough. She needed some answers, and now. She gathered her righteous irritation to her and pushed the door open.

  What lay beyond was typical of the old-style hospital rooms in its sterility and joylessness. The white walls were spotted with age and neglect, as was the equipment scattered about the place. Joshua was seated on the edge of a small bed, leaning over the still form of a sleeping elderly woman. Even in her advanced age, Dee could see the traces of beauty t
he woman once bore. But ever more present was the overpowering funk of death. The woman’s chest went nearly concave with every breath.

  Joshua had the woman’s frail hand in his strong one, stroking her paper-thin skin in slow, loving strokes. He looked up from the sleeping oldster with tear-filled eyes, and nodded at Dee. His voice hitched as he spoke. “Come in. She’s resting. I think she’s almost gone.”

  The sound of his breaking voice stirred the woman. Her eyes fluttered open, and rolled around to rest on the sight of Joshua. In a weak voice she asked, “Josh?”

  “Emily,” Joshua whispered.

  “Oh my Lord, Josh. Is that really you?”

  “Yes, my angel. It’s me.”

  A gorgeous smile spread across her aged face, lighting up the room and lifting years away from Emily. “I must be in heaven, then.”

  Joshua reached out and caressed her face. “Not yet, my love. But you will be.

  Heaven thinks they have angels now? They don’t know what an angel is.”

  Dee’s breath caught in her throat at the tender sight.

  “Everyone said you were dead,” Emily said.

  “I was without you,” Joshua said.

  “I waited so long.”

  “I know.”

  “I kept the church reserved. For three weeks. But you never came back.”

  Joshua closed his eyes and pressed her hand to his face. “I wanted to. Oh God, Emily, I wanted to.”

  “You haven’t aged a day,” Emily said as she ran a trembling finger over his cheekbone.

  “Not by choice,” he said. “I wished we could have…together…”

  “I don’t want to know what happened,” the woman said. “Do I?”

  Joshua thought about it for a moment, then shook his head.

  “Was it that horrible man?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Joshua answered.

  The answer seemed to satisfy Emily’s curiosity, but only inflamed Dee’s.

  “You always knew where to find trouble,” Emily said. She coughed a few times, and returned to her thick wheeze. “I got married.”

  “I hoped you would,” Joshua said, his words belying the sorrow on his face. “Did he take good care of you? You always deserved the best.”

  “He died young,” Emily said. “I quit after that. Twice was too much. Why are you here? After so many years, why come back now? I must look so horrible and old and—”

  “No,” Joshua said over her lament. He cupped her face in his hands. “You’re beautiful, my angel. You always will be. I came back because I had to tell you that I never stopped loving you. And I never will.”

  “I love you,” Emily said. “I always felt you out there, somewhere. They said you skipped town, said you were dead. But in my heart I knew you were there. I felt you.”

  “I felt you too.” He patted his chest. “Emily, your love kept me going, all these years.”

  Emily smiled as a pale crimson flushed her wrinkled face.

  “I have something for you,” Joshua said as he pulled the box from his pocket and slipped the ring free. Emily gasped and for a moment Dee thought the excitement might do the poor thing in. Joshua gingerly took his lady by the hand and slid the ring onto her finger.

  “I do,” Emily whispered.

  “As do I.” He leaned low and kissed the woman with such passion, such fire that Dee was sure he would crush the poor lady’s fragile bones. But Emily held up, kissing him just as fiercely in return. Dee felt a pang of guilt as she watched the age-gapped lip lock. She dipped her head under her hand and turned to the door as the sounds of their kiss drifted to her. The room soon fell quiet as the passionate moment passed.

  “You,” the old woman said.

  Dee turned to find Emily looking at her. She smiled at the elderly woman.

  “You watch him,” Emily said. “He can’t take care of himself. Never could.”

  “I’ll try,” Dee said, surprised at the crack of her own voice. She didn’t even realize she was crying until the salt of her tears reached her quivering lips.

  Emily turned back to Joshua. “She’s very pretty.”

  “Not as beautiful as you, my love,” Joshua said. He caressed her face again. “No one ever was, or ever will be.”

  “I have to go now,” Emily said.

  “Please don’t,” Joshua said. A single tear broke free and rolled down his pale face. “Not so soon.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s time.”

  “Emily. Please don’t leave me.”

  She reached up and slowly daubed at his weeping eyes. “I’m glad we could say goodbye this time.”

  Joshua nodded but said nothing else.

  Emily drew a rattling breath and in a single burst of excitement said, “I have something for you too. A box for you. Under the bed. That man sent it to me a few weeks after the wedding. My mother told me to throw it away, but I kept it all these years because I knew. Somehow…I knew…you’d come back…to me.” After she spoke the last words, she closed her eyes and fell still.

  Joshua sat in silence for a minute, just looking down at his lost love as his tears dried. He leaned low and kissed her on the forehead, the eyes, and the lips one last time.

  “I love you, Emily,” he whispered. “Godspeed you to your eternal rest.”

  Joshua got to his feet and retrieved the wooden box from under the bed. Clutching it to his breast, he silently passed Dee and exited the room. Dee pointed the fingers of her right hand to the corpse and laid out one quick motion, a sigil of her own design, ensuring that Joshua would never see his lady love up and about now that she was gone.

  Dee caught up with Joshua halfway down the hall. As they passed the nurse’s desk, each woman in white nodded their sympathies without even asking what happened.

  They knew when the reaper had done his deed, just as Dee could smell death in the air.

  She and Joshua were well in the car and halfway back before he spoke again.

  “Thank you, Deetra,” was all he said.

  They rode for a little longer in silence, until Dee couldn’t stand it any more.

  As if sensing her frustration Joshua said, “Go on. Ask your questions. You deserve much more than anything I can offer you.”

  “How long have you been dead?” she asked.

  “Seventy-three years,” he answered.

  “I see. Do I want to know what happened?”

  “Let’s just say I dug my own grave. One should never embezzle when one is the accountant for a necromancer.”

  “That was a punishment for stealing from him?”

  Joshua nodded. “He killed me on my wedding day. He knew for weeks, but let me ride it thinking I had beaten him. I was surprised when he asked me over for drinks. Said he wanted to celebrate my nuptials. He isn’t a celebrating kind of man.”

  “Few necromancers are.” Dee thought of Maggot, and how lucky her friendship with him really was. She would have to be nicer to him in the future.

  “A few arsenic brews later and I’m a walking corpse. Then he fixed me up so I would never go sour, as he put it. Not living, never dying, and all this knowing my Emily was growing older and older and would eventually die without me. His last punishment was to take the one thing that led me to steal from him.”

  “Your heart.”

  Joshua nodded. “We didn’t have the money to start a life together, so over a few months I cooked his books, hoping he wouldn’t notice.”

  “You stole for her.”

  “And died for her.”

  “All because of that black-hearted monster.”

  Joshua narrowed his eyes at Dee.

  “Silas Croomer was the same man who raised my grandpa.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Joshua said.

  “No,” Dee said. “Don’t be sorry. Be angry. Be furious. Be pig-biting mad as hell and not want to take it any more. But don’t be sorry. Don’t you ever be sorry again.”

  This finally got a smile from the dead man. “Yes, ma’am.”


  “How did you get out from under Silas? Did he die? Please say he’s finally dead!”

  “No, unfortunately not. He bound me to his second cousin who lived up in Vermont. Roger was a good man, surprisingly enough, but all the while my absent heart ached for Emily. He wanted to set me free so I could go to her, but we both knew Silas would just kill all three of us. So Roger fixed the spell to slip at his death. I am no longer bound to him, or Silas, or anyone. Except you.”

  “Me?”

  “I owe you everything. If you hadn’t stepped in I would have missed my chance to say goodbye to Emily again. I can never repay you for what you’ve done. Please accept my servitude instead.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Please, Deetra. Don’t make me beg again.”

  Dee nodded to the locked box. “But you have your heart now. You can rest.”

  “Is that what you truly want?”

  She sighed. What she wanted was to have a chance at him, now that he was on the market again, so to speak. She also wanted him to be happy, and she knew that the one thing the dead wanted more than anything else was to find eternal peace. “Yes. Put your heart back and when we get home I’ll work on lifting your curse and the zombie spell.

  You can finally join her, where you belong.”

  “You are unlike anyone I have ever met, Deetra Jones. There is not enough karma in this universe to pay you back for this deed.” And with that, he snapped the rusted lock and opened the box. He looked inside for a moment, then started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked. He held the box to her and she glanced inside. It was empty, save for a few words scribbled at the bottom. “Come and get it,” she read aloud. She supposed Joshua was laughing because there was nothing else he could do.

  “Silas was always the sly one,” he said.

  “You mean he was always the asshole.” She blew an exasperated breath and strummed the wheel with her fingertips.

  “What do we do now?”