by Lori Perkins
When we entered the living room, four women were sitting around a card table. I guessed they were playing bridge. Rafe’s mother had a big smile, big breasts, and wore tan pants with a pink cardigan sweater.
“Ronnie, how are you?” one of the other women asked in a snarky tone. “Do you have a job?”
Even though we had a lot less money, the words sounded exactly like ones spoken at my house. People could be so mean.
“I’m doing this and that,” Rafe replied as he looked at his shoes.
This annoyed me. The woman was insulting him. He wasn’t doing this and that, he was saving humanity from those flesh-eating, brain-dead creatures living in our village. “He’s doing a lot,” I taunted. “As a matter of fact, he saved—”
“Come on, Claire.” Rafe pulled on my arm. “Let’s go downstairs. I’ve got a new video game I want to show you.”
“What?” I said to Rafe as he dragged me out of the room.
Once he had the basement door open, he turned on me. “They can’t know what I do,” he hissed. “To them I’m just a jobless, PS3-playing loser living in my mother’s basement.”
“Why not?” I protested. “You’re saving—”
He interrupted me again. Rafe couldn’t open a door but he certainly could get his point across when he wanted. I kind of liked that. “Do you think they’d believe me if I told them zombies lived among us?” he snapped at me. “Or do you think I’d be thrown in the loony bin?”
He pounded his chest. “Right now, I’m the only line of defense between the good people of this town and those flesh-eating monsters.”
Okay, he had a point. I snapped my mouth shut as he led me down the stairs to his basement. Once we were past the washer and dryer, which I might add were high-end and brand-new, Rafe pushed his way through a door. When he turned on the light I felt like I was in Dexter’s laboratory. Computers lined one wall. Maps papered the other and a pink rug covered the floor.
“This used to be my sister’s playroom,” he said quickly when he noticed me looking at the rug. “She moved to Boston and found an acceptable job.”
I nodded. The story sounded familiar.
Rafe treaded across the room towards a grey cabinet on the far side. With a devil’s grin, he opened the doors. An array of guns were pegged on a board inside. Light reflected off their shiny barrows and black handles. He pulled out a pistol and turned towards me.
I blinked a few times.
“Do you know how to shoot?” he asked, completely ignoring the stunned look on my face.
I nodded.
“Good,” he said grimly. “It’s only a head shot.” Without asking my permission, he strapped a gun belt around my waist and tightened the buckle at my thigh. I know my reaction was completely inappropriate, but there was some tingling happening down there, especially when his fingers brushed my inner thigh.
“What are our next steps?” I asked and cleared my throat.
“We go back and kill them,” he said.
“Okay,” I breathed. Suddenly I was in deep. Really deep. I lifted my chin and knew I could do this. After all, wasn’t I looking for action?
When we got back to the office things hadn’t changed. “How—how do we do this,” I asked Rafe. I ignored the catch in my voice and he did too.
“You put a bullet in the head of the girl and I’ll take care of Mr. Nil.” He passed me a pair of black gloves. I hesitated in taking them from him.
“Claire, if we don’t do this, they will kill again,” he said firmly. “We must protect our community.”
Since he put it that way, civic duty was something I could feel comfortable with.
“Do the police know?” I asked him.
“We won’t get arrested, if that’s what you’re implying,” he explained while climbing out of the car. He was two steps ahead of me and looking pretty confident as he swaggered up the walkway to the building. He didn’t have any problem with the door when he held it open for me.
Eliza sat at her desk. Before she had a chance to moan Rafe commanded,
“Eliminate her.”
I lifted my gun, sighted her eyeball, and pulled the trigger. She splattered all over the desk and computer screen. Before I had a chance to say anything, Rafe was in the other room taking care of Mr. Nil. Our job was done.
After we left the building, Rafe put his arm around my shoulder. “I sensed something in you, young Claire Defoe,” he said, sounding a lot like Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“You did good,” he added.
I smiled and placed my head on Rafe’s shoulder. “Do you think I’ll be doing this again?” I asked as we approached his car. Maybe the police force wasn’t right for me.
Maybe fighting zombies was my calling.
He nodded. “You’ve got the talent and there are always zombies to kill.” Then he opened the passenger door for me. “Do you want to get something to eat?”
“Are you taking me out on a date?” I teased him. I was feeling a little giddy after putting a bullet through Eliza’s head.
“I guess I am.” He smiled at me and pushed a piece of hair behind my ear.
Feeling like I had nothing to lose, I leaned over and kissed him. Since he was a nerd, I could tell he didn’t know if he should kiss me back. So I let my tongue sink deeper into his mouth and he quickly got my meaning.
Rafe may not know his pants are too short or how to open a door, but he can kiss and he can kill the undead. At that point in my life, those qualities were everything I wanted in my zombie-hunting boyfriend.
The Magician’s Apprentice
by Stacy Brown
Carla Nash just couldn’t believe the note she held in her hand.
Dearest Carla:
I’ve been thinking about you recently. I would love to see you again. Please have my office arrange a flight at my expense and be my guest in Vegas. There’s so much I need to tell you. Love, Ray Stellar.
She was shaking.
Carla had always loved Ray. She loved him in kindergarten when she would chase him into the arts-and-crafts closet and kiss him until he squealed. She loved him in junior high when he would play his exploding chewing gum and plastic dog crap jokes on her. And she loved him in high school when she would allow him to practice his lame magic tricks and sleight of hand on her to impress the cheerleaders who would never give him the right time of day.
But Carla always knew Ray didn’t feel the same way about her. Her best friends said he used her, but she just told herself he didn’t appreciate her love yet. After he knocked up yet another tall, thin, big-breasted bimbo, while bedding her on the side, she’d had enough. She moved to the West Coast, where she got her degree in massage therapy, a nice pair of C implants, and a yearlong tan, and broke the hearts of wannabe actors who thought her love was the real thing. But she would always love Ray.
Carla packed her bags and drove to Vegas. She sublet her apartment for the month of June. She just knew this was it, that Ray had finally figured out that no woman on Earth would ever love him like she did.
Ray had a penthouse suite at the Mirage, where he performed six days a week.
She loved driving down the strip and seeing those huge billboards touting Ray as the future of magic. She couldn’t wait to get there and give him the love she always felt he deserved.
They knew who she was when she checked in. Her bags were whisked away to
“Mr. Stellar’s suite.” She had imagined this moment for years—in the shower, driving through L.A. traffic, rubbing the aches and pains of her Botoxed clients. It was her favorite daydream.
Ray greets her at the door and takes her in his arms, smothering her with kisses.
Finally, he pulls away and looks into her eyes, saying, “Carla, I’ve been a fool. I never realized how much I loved you. Will you ever forgive me?”
But, of course, that was not what happened.
The door to the suite opened and Antonio, Ray’s high school sidekick who always unnerved her, greeted her. How could s
he have forgotten about Antonio? Half the time Ray was begging for a blow job in the back seat of his dad’s car, Antonio was driving and trying to watch in the rear view mirror. She could never decide if he was in love with Ray or with her.
“Hello, Carla,” Antonio said, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. “You look wonderful.” He looked first at her face, then let his gaze travel down her body in an oddly intimate appraisal, one that actually sent a charge through her. She’d spent so much time and money on this new and improved body, it always gave her a thrill when someone noticed just how hot she was now.
She took a good look at him. He was so much better looking—the pimples were long gone and he’d grown out his hair from the crew cut his overbearing parents always made him wear. His once-awkward lean body had been replaced by lanky muscle, and he appeared pierced in all sorts of interesting places.
“You look pretty good yourself, Antonio,” she said. And relaxed.
“It’s Tony, now,” he said. “No one calls me Antonio anymore, except Ray.”
She thought she remembered hearing through the Central Valley High grapevine that his parents had both been killed in a fairly gruesome car accident, leaving him pretty well off.
“Well, Tony,” she said, rolling his new name around on her tongue. “I’m kind of surprised to see you’re still with Ray after all these years.”
“He’s my …”
Ray breezed into the room from an inner hallway, and spun her around to face him. “Hey, baby,” he said, stepping, back and looking her over. “You look hot!”
Ray was not as handsome as Antonio, or even as well built, but he was a natural performer who had finally blossomed—if a man could blossom—into his body. At thirty, he exuded charm. Carla melted.
Carla spent the next two weeks in a Ray trance. They were connected at the hip.
He set her up in her own adjoining suite, and bought her every dress and bauble and cutesy stuffed animal she’d ever wanted from him. Aside from performing, Ray never left her side.
Then one night he sent Antonio over to tell her she should wear something very special. They were going to have a big night. When she tried to wheedle information out of Antonio, he just shook his head.
“You don’t approve?” she asked, hurt by his lack of enthusiasm for them as a couple.
“It’s not that. You and Ray mean the world to me.” He started to say something, then shook his head again. “Just be careful with Ray. He’s a showman.”
She wore her new little black Zac Posen dress and a diamond necklace Ray’d given her that said, “Forever.” She loved it. She loved him. And she was sure he finally loved her.
Although he hadn’t said it yet. But she knew men were like that.
They went to Alex, the most expensive and extravagant French restaurant on the strip, and Alessandro Stratto actually came and talked to them while they dined.
Moments like this made it hard to believe this was finally her life.
Finally, after the meal had been served and eaten, Ray took her hand and began to say what she hoped would be the magic words she’s been dreaming of since she was five.
“Carla, I have something really important to ask you. You don’t have to give me an answer right away, but you’re the only one I could ever ask.”
She couldn’t believe this was finally happening. God, she loved him so much.
She wished she could stay frozen in this moment forever, staring into Ray’s brown eyes looking at her so intently.
“I know you love me, and that you’ve always loved me. You told me once that you would die for me.”
Yes, she had said that once, in high school, when he’d literally thrown her out of bed to make room for Eileen Reardon, who chewed him up and spit him out. Carla had put him back together again. It was not one of her favorite Ray memories, and she wasn’t overjoyed that he brought it up at a time that this.
“I need you to die for me now.”
What? She pulled her hand away, and pushed back against the booth they were sitting in. Had she heard him right?
He came around and sat next to her in the booth, then put an arm around her.
“I sent Antonio to study the black arts in Haiti. He’s a master now. I need you to let him put you under, so to speak, so you can be in my show. He can always bring you back.”
She squirmed away, feeling the steak’s béarnaise sauce churning in her stomach.
She felt like she did in high school, when she’d learned he’d been sleeping with her younger sister for six months. She felt used.
She stood up and pushed him away.
He fell to his knees. “Please, Carla, I’m begging you. Please do this for me. I’ll make everything up to you.” His stage voice bellowed and everyone in the restaurant was watching them now. She couldn’t help thinking that this was going to be on Inside Edition and TMZ tomorrow.
She didn’t know what came over her, but she said, “Yes, but only if you marry me.”
“Whatever you want,” he said, and hugged and kissed her. Alessandro came over with champagne. Desserts appeared out of nowhere. Minor Vegas celebrities and old Vegas moneyed couples came over to congratulate them.
In the morning, she woke up alone, and thought she’d had this really weird dream about Ray asking her to let him kill her.
But when she got out of the shower, Antonio was sitting on her bed waiting for her.
“I can’t believe you agreed to this,” he said, shaking his head again.
“I love him,” she said, trying to explain.
“I know. We all know, but it’s not enough.”
“He’s going to marry me.”
“Oh, Carla,” he said. “The only one Ray loves is himself.”
“But I promised him,” she said, suddenly wondering what she had agreed to.
“I’m going to be okay, right?”
Antonio stood, took her face in his hands, and stared into her eyes. It was such a surprisingly intimate gesture that it took her breath away for a moment.
“I love you, Carla, and I would never let anything truly bad happen to you, but this is a bad thing you’ve agreed to. Anyone who truly loved you would never ask it of you, but as long as you love Ray, there is no escape.”
“I love Ray,” she said sadly.
“I know,” he said again. “Carla, please remember this. I can only save you from the fate you have chosen for yourself if you are loved back by someone.”
She nodded, but he knew she didn’t really understand.
“No matter what happens, just remember that I love you.”
Carla bought a Vera Wang wedding dress. Ray let her redo the Mirage suite in Target Modern. She hung all her new dresses in Ray’s walk-in closet and had shelves built for all her new shoes. She was happy.
She did notice that Ray kept her suite of rooms, and she thought she saw the hotel staff move a coffin into the room at one point, but she understood that the trick she was going to help him with involved her playing dead. He’d had her fitted for a whole bunch of glittering magician’s apprentice costumes that showed way too much of Carla’s toned flesh, but they seemed to make Ray happy, and more than anything in the world she wanted to make Ray happy.
On the day Antonio was to put her under the spell, Ray asked her to wear one of the sparkly rhinestone Danskin outfits. He even did her hair and makeup, which she thought was a little weird. She looked a little too hooker-ish for her taste, but she knew he was applying makeup to be seen from the audience.
Antonio knocked and came into the suite.
“Whaddya think?” Ray asked, stepping back from Carla as if she were a painting.
“A vision, Ray. I will always remember her like this.” He took a camera from his pocket and asked them to pose.
Then he locked the suite doors and said, “Are you ready, Carla?”
“Ready as I’m ever gonna be, I guess.” Because she really didn’t believe this was going to work. She knew how all Ray’s trick
s were done. There was no such thing as magic.
Antonio asked her to sit on the new couch. He pulled a cloth bag out of his pocket and sprinkled some sort of ash into his hand. He took her hands and looked into her eyes again.
“Remember what I told you the other day?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. He was freaking her out a bit, but it was nice to know that two hot guys loved her.
He blew the ash into her face, and that’s the last thing she remembered.
Carla was dreaming. She felt like she’d been dreaming endlessly, and her dreams were not pleasant.
She dreamed that she died. There was a big Vegas funeral, with her body driven down the Vegas strip. She saw her mother crying, and her sister, Valerie, was there too.
She saw Ray comfort her as her own coffin closed, and Carla got the distinct impression that Ray and Valerie were going to pick up where they left off in high school.
But her head hurt when she thought too much.
It felt like days had passed. Carla woke in her old suite at the Mirage, without the Target Modern furniture. She tried to sit up, but she had no energy or muscle tone.
Everything felt wrong. She tried to call Ray, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out.
“Aaaaaaay,” she said, and he came running in.
“It worked,” she heard him shout.
Ray moved her to a sitting position and smothered her with kisses, but she couldn’t feel anything. But she remembered she loved Ray, and the trace of a smile graced her chapped and over-lipsticked lips.
She saw another man in the room. Antonio, she thought. But thinking about him too much made her head hurt.
Because she was starving. All she could think about was eating. She thought about a burger—raw. Or Ray. She wanted Ray.
Ray took her hand. She could smell him. He smelled good, like grilled meat.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “you’re going to be my new apprentice in this trick.
Remember?”
But Carla didn’t remember anything. She looked at his tanned hand holding her very pale one and wanted to bring it to her lips.
“So in this trick, I’m going to cut you in half and put you back together in front of the audience, okay?”
