Reckoning in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

  “Why don’t we play it by ear?” she said.

  Doug sighed. He didn’t want to play it by ear. After this dreadful day, he wanted a plan, and assurances of safety, even though he knew there was no such thing.

  “That’s the best I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He fell silent, stroking her back, enjoying the feel of her dewey skin, so smooth and soft under his fingertips. The drowsy pull of sleep began to tug on him like the horizon tugs the setting sun.

  “I meant the rest,” he said, voice hushed. “Getting married, having babies.”

  If he hadn’t been so utterly exhausted it would have made him nervous, saying it intentionally instead of spontaneously, as he had before. It wasn’t like they had talked about long-term anything, but he wanted her—needed for her—to know. He wanted a life with Skye, not just a lover and a partner in crime. He wanted to be her husband and be able to call her his wife. He wanted there to be a them, their union witnessed by their friends and sanctified by faith.

  “I know,” she said, a deep, sleepy fondness filling her voice.

  “So… If I ask, you’ll say yes?”

  Her breathing deepened, smoothed out. Doug wasn’t sure if she’d heard him or drifted off.

  “I just did, my love,” she murmured. “Go to sleep.”

  22

  The scrape of teeth against leather sent a bolt of fear through Miranda’s brain. She tumbled down, the zombie on top of her, and smacked her head against the trunk of a downed tree. She blinked, dazed. A bright stab of pain lit up her left wrist, pinned under her in a position it shouldn’t go. She knew what was happening, knew it was real, but her brain still couldn’t wrap around it. There was a zombie on her—attacking her. Only the collar of her leather jacket had saved her from its bite.

  The zombie gnawed on her upturned collar, but it wouldn’t be enough. She was wedged alongside the downed tree, the gray and white lichens and splinters of decaying wood pinching against her cheek. Moans, snarls, and hisses filled the forest. Stumbling feet, bare and in rotting shoes, closed in on her. And the smell of death, thick and cloying, clogging her senses and lighting up her lizard brain with one message: run.

  Delilah’s snarls mingled with the zombie’s grunts. Miranda could see the pit bull’s front paws digging into the earth while she pulled on whatever part of the zombie she’d latched on to. The zombie on her grunted, sounding impatient that it was making no progress through the leather of her jacket. She saw her knife—jarred from her hand, just out of reach. She scrabbled the fingers of her free hand in the decomposing leaf litter that blanketed the forest floor, writhing under the zombie’s weight. If she could push up with the arm pinned beneath her, maybe she could get out from under it, but she couldn’t. She stretched her arm, screaming out with the effort. The tip of the knife’s blade was so close. The zombie’s weight shifted, its knee digging into the back of her thigh. She screamed, but her throat was dry, making it sound like a croak. The reek of what on anything else would be its breath curled around her face.

  A low-pitched zing cleaved the air, ending with a dull thwack. The zombie slumped, dead weight pressing her against the ground. Cold liquid reeking of death dripped on her head.

  “Come on,” Phineas said, dragging the zombie away. He grabbed Miranda by the arm, propelling her forward, onto her feet. Delilah raced ahead of them, jumping onto a zombie about to stumble into Alec.

  “My arm is fucked,” she gasped.

  “Just a little farther.”

  Alec’s knife flashed in one hand, his machete in the other. They had to keep up or they’d lose the wake he and Delilah were clearing through the encroaching horde.

  “I see it!” Alec shouted.

  A zombie reached from his left. He twirled, stabbing the knife into its open mouth with an upward thrust. Miranda cringed when his gloved hand scraped against its teeth. He raised his foot and freed his knife with a kick to the zombie’s midsection.

  Her injured wrist glanced off a tree as they ran. She cried out when the fiery pain shot through her fingertips. Phineas’ grip on her arm tightened so much it hurt. Alec looked back.

  She could see it now, the blast door to the bunker, only twenty yards away. Alec hacked and stabbed ahead of them. Phineas’ labored breathing huffed in and out, along with her own. They half slid into the bowl-shaped depression leading to the ramp.

  Alec jerked to a halt under the lintel that sheltered the blast door. Shouting into the intercom, he said, “Kendall! Let us in!”

  Another jab of pain lanced her side as she and Phineas stumbled up the ramp, but it was just a side stitch.

  “Kendall,” she gasped, her breathing labored. “Please! Let us in.”

  The moans that they had briefly outdistanced grew louder. Phineas’ pleas were frantic with fear. The zombies had started to stumble into the bowl. Some tripped over the zombies that littered the ground from the last time they’d entered, pursued then as now. Sweat stung Miranda’s eyes. She looked up to the camera.

  “Kendall,” she said, so desperate that she’d agree to whatever he wanted. She didn’t care—she’d do it. “Please! Open the—”

  Everything else became a roar of background noise when the pneumatic hiss of the door’s locking mechanism engaged. Slowly, so slowly, it hissed like a punctured tire slowly losing air, then was followed by a soft clunk. They crowded at the gap as the door swung inward. Alec shoved her forward, heedless of her cries when he grabbed her by her injured wrist. The door wasn’t open quite wide enough, and the knobby bones of her upper back scraped against the wall. She tripped over Delilah as she fell into the entryway between the two blast doors. Phineas, then Alec, squeezed through. Phineas slammed on the red button that reversed the door’s direction.

  A desiccated, rotting hand shot through the gap as the door thudded shut. The hand sagged but didn’t fall, still attached to the crushed arm—and zombie—on the other side. The gasps of their labored breathing echoed off the concrete walls.

  “We made it,” she said. The hiss of the second blast door sounded like a symphony.

  “I’ll take tigers any day,” Phineas wheezed.

  A minute later, running footsteps echoed from beyond the first switchback down into the bunker. Miranda wiped at her sweaty forehead, then looked at Alec. His face was flushed, with dirt and mud and splashes of black zombie gunk.

  “I can’t believe he let us in,” Alec said.

  Kendall burst into view at the switchback, barely missing a step when he saw them. Miranda climbed to her feet, the effort gargantuan. Kendall only slowed when he was almost to them. His eyes were wide as he looked them over. Then he looked at Miranda. She had never been happier to see that puzzled owl blink.

  “Are you okay?” Kendall asked.

  Tears began to pool in her eyes, then overspilled. Wonder and gratitude overwhelmed her.

  “You saved us.”

  It took a second to remember where she was. The bunker, she thought, relief flooding her system. The lights in the living area of the dome were dimmed, and a blanket had been thrown over her. She heard Delilah wuffle in her sleep. When she looked to find her, she groaned and rubbed her neck with her right hand. She had a crick in her neck, right at the base of her skull, but after today it wasn’t worth mentioning. Delilah wuffled again, and Miranda located her on the couch. The pit bull’s paws twitched, carrying her as she ran in her dreams.

  Miranda remembered sitting in the recliner earlier. The gel ice pack wrapped around her wrist—which was immobilized by a splint—was a mushy room temperature. She pressed the button to lower the footrest, grateful it wasn’t something that required her injured arm. Her body felt heavy when she stood, the muscles depleted after all the running, but she didn’t think she’d fall back asleep. After getting a decent stretch of sleep without nightmares, she wanted to quit while she was ahead.

  She got a drink of water and took more of the anti-inflammatory meds that Kendall had
supplied from Med/Surg, then decided she’d go the library to get a book. Even as she walked down the outer ring corridor, she knew she wasn’t going there. Part of her shied away from talking to Kendall, but she knew she had to. Only when she bypassed the closest lounge leading to the center of the dome did she admit to herself she was seeking him out.

  Palestrina, or something very like it, was playing. Not “Like as the Hart,” she’d have recognized that, but an acapella choral piece with melodies and harmonies that swelled and receded, sometimes together, sometimes apart. The warm, moist air of the garden dome wrapped around her like a hug, but her heart still pounded in her chest. Her palms were suddenly tacky with sweat. She could hear Kendall’s warm tenor singing along with the music and allowed herself a moment to enjoy it. This was the Kendall she liked most—the guy who grew vegetables and sang so beautifully it made her heart ache. The fact that he’d let them inside had to mean that this was who Kendall was fundamentally—didn’t it?

  She walked toward his voice, past the potting table and the music player in the center of the garden. He looked up as she approached, then went back to his work. He didn’t stop singing, and she didn’t interrupt him. She looked around and saw a five-gallon bucket with two inches of water at the bottom. She tipped the water out and turned the bucket upside-down so she could sit.

  Kendall worked for another ten minutes, then fiddled in a pocket of the gardening smock he wore. The music faded low enough to become background music. He looked at her, though his face was tipped down, like a shy teenager might do.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Okay. Alive, thanks to you.”

  Kendall looked away, dismissing her praise. “Now I know what to do with a dislocated wrist.”

  “You and Alec did a good job.” She took a deep breath, working up her nerve. She wasn’t good at this, but it was past time she started working on it. “I’m sorry for the way I acted before we left. I was so out of line. Rich dying wasn’t your fault. How I felt about it is beside the point.” She sighed. “You came through when it counted, and I owe you my life. We’d be dead if you hadn’t let us in. I certainly didn’t give you a reason to want to.”

  He looked at her again from the cover of his downcast face. Then he tipped another nearby five-gallon bucket upside down and sat down next to her, gnawing on his lip. “I don’t know why I lied about how long the codes were good for except… This is all I have. I know it’s a lot. Too much, really. You were right to be angry.”

  You idiot, she thought. How on Earth had she missed it? Of course Kendall was afraid to lose what he had—it was all he had. Of course he’d be ambivalent, and withhold, and be unsure about their motives. In retrospect, it was incredible that he’d been so generous. Or so starved for human interaction that he felt like he needed to buy their interest and attention. A wave of sadness crashed over her, that anyone would feel that desperate. She’d seen how much Kendall had, and taken his ambivalence for greed and selfishness, but she’d been wrong. He’d been afraid, and why wouldn’t he be? Alone all this time, and then they show up. And we do want his food, she thought.

  And on top of all that, she’d been a bit of an asshole to him.

  “I should have realized,” she said softly. “I misjudged you, Kendall. I’m sorry for that. We do want something from you.” She chuffed out a laugh. “Shit, we were planning to take it from you, if you wouldn’t give it. You were right to be afraid, and to question our motives.”

  “Really?” Kendall said, surprise raising his eyebrows almost to his hairline.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We lost a lot of our crops when the zombies got inside our defenses, when San Jose attacked LO. Then we lost most of what was left to a blight. We don’t have enough food, and we’ve got people coming for the vaccine that we can’t turn away. Everything nearby has already been picked clean, so we have to send people out farther, for less, and it’s really dangerous. And it still might not be enough.”

  Kendall said, “Huh.” He owl blinked at her a few times. “I knew there was something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. But you were all so…nice. I wasn’t sure what to think.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Us, neither. I mean, we’d want to help you even if we didn’t need the food, but we didn’t know you, so we couldn’t just ask. If you said no, that would get awkward fast. And then—” She stopped. She could feel a hot blush creeping up her face. “And then you seemed to like me… I didn’t want to lead you on, but we needed to see if you might just give us the food so I…kind of played along.” Her voice trailed away, and she sighed. “Christ on a bike…it’s all so…”

  “Tawdry?”

  She laughed, startled by his suggestion. “Yeah,” she said, and was pleased to see that he smiled. “Tawdry.”

  She enjoyed the feeling of sitting together, the shared joke softening the edges of what had been difficult to admit.

  “Are you still planning to just take the food?” Kendall asked her.

  Miranda shrugged. “Do we need to?”

  “No,” he said.

  The relief that washed over her didn’t feel like a wave. It felt like tsunami. “That’s good, because we don’t know where it is.”

  Kendall owl blinked and actually grinned. “If you’d asked before, I probably would have said no. You weren’t wrong.”

  Miranda sighed. “Why are words so damn hard? I’ve always sucked at this.”

  Kendall didn’t reply at first, then said, “I don’t think words are the problem, Miranda. It’s taking a risk and being powerless to change the outcome.”

  Unbidden, she thought of Mario’s smile, the one that softened his hard edges. The dark eyes that changed from severe to approachable as soon as the crow’s feet that crinkled their corners appeared, the swell of his cheek as it morphed from chiseled to…she didn’t know what to call it, but it was softer—sweeter.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yes,” she said, relieved to have her train of thought derailed.

  “Did you ever feel…anything for me?”

  She forced herself to look at him, because it would be easier to look at her feet. Kendall deserved more than that. “Beyond friendship, no.”

  “You’re in love with Alec, aren’t you?”

  She was too stunned to speak for a moment. “You know about that?”

  Kendall gave her a pained look. “I’m socially awkward, Miranda. I’m not blind.”

  “No,” she said softly, with a rueful smile. “I guess you’re not. And no, I’m not in love with him. I like Alec a lot, but it’s new. I’m not looking for anything serious.”

  Kendall’s appraising stare seemed to go right through her. It surprised her, in part because she’d never seen this before. He was analyzing, calculating, evaluating, and a glimpse of the CEO he’d once been peeked out from across the years. “But there’s someone.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s not.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and looked as if he were about to disagree, then nodded. “It’ll be better this time, won’t it? You being stuck here because of all the zombies outside.”

  “No lies? No ulterior motives? It’ll be downright boring,” she said. She fell silent, thinking about the disaster of getting halfway down Mount Hood, then needing to fall back. They’d only left the bunker twelve hours ago but it felt like a lifetime. “I don’t know how we’re going to get home. If we had a vehicle, we could do it, but on foot? It’s not going to happen right now.”

  “I’ve got a couple vehicles.”

  “You do?” she said, a squeak of surprise in her voice.

  “Of course I do,” he said, the owl blink making him looked puzzled. “It’s a secret doomsday bunker, Miranda. I’ll show you everything tomorrow, okay? With Alec and Phineas.”

  “Okay,” she said. It was a wish coming true—the food, a vehicle, this lightness between them. She ought to be able to manage something better, but she added, equally lamely, “That�
�ll be great.”

  She stood, feeling a thousand pounds lighter than when she’d entered. Even her wrist didn’t feel as sore, though she knew it would again, and soon.

  She fell in step beside Kendall, thinking about how different this week was ending, compared to how it had begun. Grace undeserved and freely given—that was what Connor had said to her once—was what she was feeling now. She wondered how much food there was, and what Kendall was willing to give them. How they’d get it to LO safely with so many zombies roaming around, but she’d think about that tomorrow.

  Unable to help herself, she craned her neck to look up at Kendall, feeling the crick in her neck. “I don’t suppose you have a lot of trucks. Like a fleet of zombie-proof vehicles we can use to get the food home?”

  The faintest trace of smile ghosted over Kendall’s face. He looked like the cat that’s eaten the cream.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “If we can find someone who can get it working, I have something much better.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Phineas’ voice was hoarse and filled with disbelief. Miranda nodded, even though she knew none of the others were looking at her. Above her, the lights clanked on by sections, from one end of the cavernous space to the other.

  When she’d seen the food storeroom, she thought nothing else could surprise her. She’d severely underestimated Kendall’s ability to boggle the mind.

  They’d been right about there being more to the bunker, and access was through Kendall’s quarters as they’d thought. The revelations began with his quarters, which hadn’t started out that way. Originally, his double dome had been the armory, which accounted for the weird layout, and the utilitarian kitchen and bathroom. Kendall had moved all the weapons out, torn down shelves, added lighting and fixtures, and repurposed dividers to hang his art collection. This was after he realized the security guys who’d been his only company weren’t coming back. He’d needed something to do, he’d told them, and something big, because he’d started cracking up. Everything he’d shown them so far had been gobsmackingly stunning. Stunning in the truest sense of the word—senses overwhelmed to the point of being dulled, astonishment that rooted you in place and left you dazed.