Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance

by Lori Perkins

  She checked the shotgun, and set it on the desk next to a line up of all the knives from the teacher’s kitchenette. “There are still some good things in the principal’s confiscated items box, though it’s mostly just illegal fireworks and porn. Have you ever shot a hand crossbow?” She walked up and crouched down to give me a peck on the cheek. “Morning, handsome. Like the new outfit?”

  “I really do.”

  She tousled my hair and grinned. “Get dressed, cowboy. I’m going to go get the keys to Caruthers’s Range Rover. It’s parked just right there. I think we can reach it with no problem. Then we can go shopping, try to pick up some news on the radio, head for safer ground.”

  Sounded like a plan, I agreed. She left me to get suited up. Now, where did my clothes go? I found my shorts and was still looking for the rest when I heard a crash from somewhere beyond the hall. I froze, then after a few heartbeats I stepped to the doorway and listened. “Angela?” Nothing. I went back to the desk and picked up the shotgun.

  Then I heard her: “Jeremy! Come quick!” As I ran down the hallways, I heard her add, “It’s Dee Dee!” Oh no. I was wrong about them not being able crawl up the air ducts. “Angela, don’t!” But it was too late.

  Dee Dee looked like hell, but enough like a lost waif that no wonder Angela came up to help her. The late cheerleader made a keening noise just like a crying child, and stumbled towards her with arms out wide. They embraced just I ran into the room. Dee Dee seized her and buried her head into Angela’s shoulders. I raised the shotgun, knowing that if her bite connected, I would have to shoot both of them. But had it? Had her protective gear held up? I couldn’t shoot till I knew for sure. Goddamn it! “Angela!”

  Dee Dee raised her head from Angela’s shoulder and looked at me with tear-filled human eyes. “McGowan?” I lowered the shotgun, unbelieving. She hadn’t turned. “You son of a bitch, I thought you were coming right back!” She broke their hug and came at me, but instead of clobbering me, she grabbed me and hugged me too. One miracle after another. “Were you just trying to shoot us, McGowan?”

  I ducked the question. “Dee Dee? You’re alive? But…I saw the bite…”

  She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Jerry, I told you it was just a hickey, already.” She pulled down her collar enough for me to see. So it was. It had looked worse yesterday when she was all covered in sweat and blood-splattered and growling at me in her sleep. I guess yesterday wasn’t my finest day for decision-making, though it did shape up nicely in the end.

  “Jesus—I thought the zombies had gotten you. Would have saved a lot of trouble if you had just shown it to me when I asked you.”

  “Zombies? What? I didn’t even get it then. I got it the night before…from Stephanie. We were, um—trying something.”

  Angela looked at her. “Stephanie gave you that? Dee Dee, that’s just…” she struggled for the right word. “…sexy.”

  And right then, I realized that zombie apocalypse or no, everything was going to work out just fine.

  First Date

  by Dana Fredsti

  I blame E-Compatibility. According to their Compatibility Matching System®, Barry and I were a match made in heaven, or at least the Financial District. I’m here to tell you E-Compatibility sucks.

  My date and I sat across from each other in a booth in the Royal Bank next to the window facing Sacramento Street and Embarcadero One. The Bank is a well-known bar with good grub that caters to the Financial District’s insurance crowd. I’m partial to their steak salad. Their wine list is eh, but if you’re a beer drinker, the Bank is your place. My date, a thirty-something Gecko wannabe with slicked-back hair ten years out of style, wallowed happily in his third Guinness; I sipped on my first glass of an indifferent zinfandel and wished I’d gone home after work. True, I’d be alone in my small studio apartment, but I’d be drinking better wine and not listening to my date blather on about capital gains, due diligence, and profit margins.

  I work as an office manager in a venture capital firm and sure, I hear business jargon on a daily basis, but I pretty much tuned it out unless it directly related to my job.

  I ordered supplies, made sure the place was clean every morning with no coffee cups lying around unwashed, and provided office hospitality by dint of the fact my desk was in the lobby and I actually like people. And did I mention I have a great smile? Seriously.

  Courtesy of my days on the beauty pageant circuit.

  It helps to have auto-smile in one’s repertoire, especially first thing in the morning when you haven’t had your first cup of coffee and six executives from some potential portfolio company show up a half hour early for an eight a.m. meeting. Helps me say,

  “Can I get you some coffee or tea?” without “accidentally” pouring the steaming hot liquid of their choice on the laps of the occasional elitist jerk who comes in. It helped now as Barry (“Call me “Bare, hahahahah!”) did his best to impress me with how much he could talk about himself without once asking me my opinion or any information about me at all. This guy was more self-absorbed than a six-pack of sponges.

  Did I mention E-Compatibility sucks?

  I mean, honestly, we had zilch chemistry. I could see how some women might find him attractive, but he sent nary a tingle to my loins. My nipples stayed distinctly unerect, totally uninterested in the man sitting across from me.

  And his taste in movies? Jeez, Louise. When I asked him what his favorite horror movie was, Barry’s answer wasn’t Dawn of the Dead, Halloween (the original, thank you!

  I don’t acknowledge Rob Zombie’s crappy remake) or even The Grudge. “That’s easy,” he said, taking huge bite of his club sandwich. ” Hostel. I mean, that’s just balls-to-the-wall horror—” (I hate that expression and curse Eli Roth whenever I hear it) “—especially the part where the dude blowtorches the Japanese chick and her eye falls out.” Bits of rye bread and cheese fell out of his mouth as he talked.

  “That’s torture porn, not horror.”

  “Eh,

  same

  difference.”

  I focused on ungritting my teeth, choosing not to reply to such an idiotic statement.

  I tried not to watch as a slice of bacon tried to escape Barry’s Hoover-style dining, only to be snagged at the last minute between his teeth. He tossed his head back like a seal setting up a fish for the kill and the bacon vanished down his gullet.

  “Can I get you another glass of the zinfandel?”

  I looked up at our waiter and smiled my first genuine smile of the evening. He was cute, kind of David Boreanz circa Angel, but without the goofy, spiked, over-gelled hair. Plus he had a really cute Brit accent. “Sure. Unless you’d recommend something else.” Just a little bit of innuendo there, I admit it.

  “You

  like

  red?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Cutie-boy grinned at me. My body responded with an unexpected tingle of heat between my thighs. An unspoken message passed between us, a mutual interest expressed with pheromones and eye contact.

  He turned to Barry, but before he could say anything, my charming date snapped

  “Another Guinness,” with all the manners of a testy three-year-old.

  A scream from outside distracted all of our attention.

  Suddenly a woman slammed into the window like an oversized bug, her bloodied face plastered in a scream.. Her blue eyes, wide with pain and terror, met mine in an imploring stare, as if I could do something to help her from my side of the window. She was close enough to kiss if not for the piece of glass separating us. I watched in stunned disbelief as a heavyset man in a Starbucks uniform ripped into her neck with his teeth and tore out a chunk of flesh. Arterial blood spurted out over the window and the woman slid down out of sight, the bloodthirsty barista battened onto her like a lion taking down a gazelle.

  “What the fuck?” Barry stared at the gore-streaked glass. Our waiter shared his look of incredulous horror.

  “We have
to help her.” I was halfway out of the booth before the words left my mouth.

  “Are you fucking nuts?” Barry reached over the table and grabbed my wrist before I got up. “She’s dead.”

  I jerked my wrist free. “How do you know she’s dead?” I started to stand, but was stopped by Cutie-boy’s hand on my shoulder.

  “That guy tore out her carotid artery. She’s bled out by now.”

  “And that dude is totally insane.” Barry shook his head. “I mean…” He looked outside and gulped. “He’s eating her.”

  No way. I slid back across the booth to the window and looked down. The barista’s teeth were buried in the woman’s neck, his head moving back and forth as he worried a chunk of flesh free—and swallowed it. He couldn’t possibly have heard my choked gasp, but his head snapped around and he glared up at me with the soulless bluish-white eyes of a corpse, all color leached out of the cornea. Blood, tissue, and gristly bits of flesh coated his mouth, a flap of skin hanging from his bottom lip.

  Our booth was semi-private with tall backs separating it from the ones on either side, so the other diners hadn’t seen the incident, but they’d heard the screams. Outside, cars swerved to avoid several bystanders who’d seen the incident and now ran across the street. Others weren’t so fast, stumbling towards the Royal Bank as if they couldn’t quite control their limbs. A gypsy cab didn’t maneuver fast enough and slammed into a woman in a power suit staggering across Sacramento. She flew into the air and landed hard on the street. A red Escalade rear-ended the cab, only to be sideswiped by a Smart Car. The result was inevitable. But when Power Suit gal staggered to her feet, blood and fluids leaking out of a smashed body, and lurched towards our window. No one could have foreseen that.

  I suddenly noticed a growing number of people like Power Suit Gal among the normal-looking concerned bystanders. People with skin a sickly pallor, clothing either askew or ripped, and, well, pieces missing from their flesh. Things dangling out of gaping wounds that should be safely tucked away. Like intestines. It was like one of those stupid 3-D pictures, where you stare and stare at it and suddenly see a hidden image within the patterns. In this case, I suddenly saw a lot of fucked-up people. And they were attacking the people who weren’t fucked up. And by “attacking,” I’m talking full-on, flesh-ripping, gut-tearing, eviscerating mauling.

  Shit.

  “Zombies,” said our waiter.

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “Are you both fucking crazy?” Barry looked at us as though we were the ones chewing out throats and swallowing chunks of flesh, like we were responsible for the carnage outside.

  “Do you have a better explanation?” I stared at him, incredulous. “That woman just got smushed by an Escalade. You don’t get up and walk after that!”

  “It’s a terrorist attack.” Barry nodded emphatically, validating his own words.

  “Nerve gas. Or …or …PCP.”

  “PCP, my ass.” Someone screamed near the front door. “Shit.” I grabbed my purse and scrambled to my feet. “We have to get out of here. This is a death trap.”

  Barry shook his head back and forth, back and forth, as if each shake would convince him he was right. “We can’t go out there.”

  “We can’t stay here.” I scrambled to my feet in time to see several mangled yuppies stagger into the Bank and attack the people nearest the door. “Get your ass up, Barry, or you’re going to die here!” I grabbed our waiter’s arm. “Is there a back door out of here?”

  “Yeah. Downstairs. There’s a door into the alley.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Cutie-boy nodded. “I’ll show you the way.”

  “Barry?”

  My date looked up at me, disbelief and outrage in his expression. “This can’t be happening.”

  We

  so did not have time for a generic default proclamation of disbelief. “It’s happening, Barry, and you can either deal with it and move your ass now or die here.”

  Frozen in his seat, Barry watched some real-life balls-to-the-wall horror as two men in Armani rip apart a group of Irish tourists seated at the bar. Agonized cries of

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” gave away their nationality.

  I grabbed Barry’s arm and turned to the waiter. “Show us the exit.”

  He took my hand and together we managed to yank Barry to his feet. I didn’t like the guy, but I’d be damned if I left him to die on our first date.

  We ran towards a stairwell at the back of the restaurant. A tipsy woman was ascending the stairs when we hit the top, her high heels making the trip up an adventure.

  “Turn around and go back down,” I said.

  “Huh?” She looked at me, her blue eyes glazed with too much alcohol. “My date’s waiting for me.”

  “So are a lot of things you don’t want to meet,” I snapped.

  She shook her head and shoved past us, oblivious to the screams of terror and pain emanating from the restaurant.

  I would have reached for her, but our waiter slung an arm around me and hustled me down the stairs. I liked the way his strong arm felt encircling my waist. Barry clutched my other arm in a death grip and dogged our steps to the basement. Points for survival instinct.

  We hit the bottom of the steps and Cutie-boy pointed to the left. “The door out to the alley is back there.”

  The basement consisted of the bathrooms off to the right, some extra furniture, and some boxes stalked in a corner. Not a hell of a lot .

  “Can’t we just stay down here?” Barry’s grip on my arm was cutting off circulation.

  I pointed to the stairs. “No door. We need to get some place we can barricade the entrances.”

  “And no food down here.” Cutie-boy grabbed one of the boxes, ripped it open, and extracted a butcher knife worthy of an ‘80s slasher film.

  “Nice. Got any more of those?”

  He grinned and pulled out two more, handing them to me and Barry. Barry took his as gingerly as an arachnophobic handed a tarantula. I seized mine and hefted it, liking the way it felt in my hand. Then I spotted a crowbar lying in a corner. Shoving the knife in my purse, I grabbed the crowbar and gave it an experimental swing. I grinned at Cutie-boy and said, “Even nicer.”

  “Any ideas where to go?”

  I nodded and unzipped a little side compartment of my purse. I pulled out a cork keychain with three keys and a gray fob dangling from the ring. “My office. It’s in the Charles Schwab building around the corner on California Street. If we can get there…I think we’ll be safe. At least for a while.”

  “If?

  If we can get there?” Barry’s gaze jerked around the room, taking everything in little segments. He reminded me of a somewhat spastic bird.

  “At this point,” said the waiter, “everything is a risk.”

  I nodded. “Here’s the plan. We go out the back door and haul ass to my building.

  If someone…something tries to attack us…” I held up the crowbar. “Once we’re in the lobby, I’ll open the stairwell and we can get to my office. There’s food and water there.

  We should be okay for a while.”

  “That’s it? That’s your plan?” The veins on Barry’s neck throbbed. I bet he had high blood pressure problems.

  “You got a better one, mate?”

  I smiled gratefully at Cutie-boy, vowing to find out his name as soon as we had a second to breathe.

  We didn’t wait for Barry’s answer; the screams from upstairs were building in intensity and growing closer, which meant the mayhem would soon make its way downstairs.

  Cutie-boy led the way to the door, slid the deadbolt open, and cautiously cracked the door. I pushed past him and poked my head out, glancing in either direction.

  So far, so good. I could hear screams in the vicinity, but the alley was clear of both people and zombies.

  “Come on.” I stepped outside, crowbar at the ready in one hand, keys in the other, and thanked the fashion gods that I’d worn low-h
eeled boots today instead of fuck-me-but-don’t-ask-me-to-outrun-zombies pumps.

  The men followed me out the door.

  “Stick close to me,” I said quietly. “I’ll get the door open as fast as I can.”

  I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it; the alley reeked of Dumpster innards and stale urine. “Now!”

  I took off at a run towards Front Street, hoping against the odds the street would be clear when we reached the mouth of the alley. It wasn’t.

  The minute I rounded the corner, I collided with a beefy man who smelled worse than the alleyway. His face—what was left of it—had a grayish pallor . His—no, its breath wafted out in a charnel house reek as it reached for me, gore-rimmed mouth gaping to show a full set of hungry, bloodied teeth.

  “Oh,

  gross! ” I brought up the crowbar and swung it down in an arc, burying the two-pronged hook in its head. The zombie swayed for a second, then collapsed onto its knees, then facedown on the asphalt. I kept my grip on the crowbar and yanked it out as the zombie hit the ground.

  “Let’s go!” I ran down Front Street towards California, trusting the men to follow me. The door to my office was only a half block and a door away, but given the chaos around us, it felt like miles. I could see other mangled yet still ambulatory people shambling towards us from several directions. Slaughter raged all around us, a mini-apocalypse. I saw the local homeless guy who always perches in front of Lee’s Deli get swarmed by several well-dressed Financial District types, blood and guts splashed on their business suits, skirts, and designer shoes. He’d never shake his paper cup filled with spare change again.