Love, Lust, and Zombies: Short Stories
Date: 2015-08-11 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies
Description: Let’s face it: zombies are hot, and baby, they’re getting hotter. Although not the most traditional of sex symbols, zombies are truly coming into their own, even landing on the silver screen in romantic roles, not to mention ambling and shambling across the pages of novels and television screens. Gone are those one-dimensional scary characters from George Romero’s grim and gruesome flick Night of the Living Dead. Zombies now have a lot more to offer to the non-zombie world.From the best-selling novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to the hit TV series The Walking Dead, zombies are taking over
Publisher: Cleis Press
Rights: All Right Reserved

LOVE, LUST AND ZOMBIES

LOVE, LUST AND ZOMBIES

SHORT FICTION

EDITED BY
MITZI SZERETO

Copyright © 2015 by Mitzi Szereto.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 609 Greenwich Street, Sixth Floor, New York, New York 10014.

Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink
Cover photograph:
Text design: Frank Wiedemann

First Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-119-0
E-book ISBN: (TK)

Contents

Foreword • MARK ONSPAUGH

Introduction

Vanilla • JANICE EIDUS

In the Red Light • A. M. HARTNETT

Smile • LAURA HUNTLEY

Dead from the Waist Down • AUGUST KERT

Sweeter than to Wake • THANA NIVEAU

The Wild Ones • ERIN O’RIORDAN

So You Want to Date a Zombie? • SHANE VAUGHAN

Still • DELILAH DEVLIN

The Dying Time • E. C. MYERS

My Zombie, My Lover • MITZI SZERETO

Come Back to Me •CHANTAL NOORDELOOS

Not Ready to Let Go • DEANNA K. DEAVERS

Night of the Lovin‘ Dead • ASHLEY LISTER

Under a Perfect Sun • ZANDER VYNE

About the Authors

About the Editor

Yeah, I know I’m ugly… I said to a bartender,
“Make me a zombie.”

He said, “God beat me to it.”

—Rodney Dangerfield

FOREWORD: LOVE AND DEATH

Mark Onspaugh

“So then, what do you believe in?”

“Sex and death. Two things that come once in my lifetime.

But at least after death you’re not nauseous.”

—Woody Allen

Sigmund Freud, many feel, was responsible for the notion that human beings are driven by two powerful but opposing forces or drives, lust (eros) and death (thanatos). One can lead to procreation and perpetuation, the other to cessation and (perhaps) oblivion.

But human beings have been putting a face on both Lust and Death long before Freud got his MD in Vienna. And humans, being creative and somewhat perverse, would sometimes pair the two.

Not sex and death, sex with death.

In the 1400s, Europe had its fair share of troubles, what with the Hundred Years’ War and the ever-popular Black Death. The Black Death, the species highpoint for rats and fleas the world over, killed off 30-60% of the population. (That’s a big disparity, and one only hopes that the next plague—zombies?— will keep better records.) By the way, here’s a fun fact for you rodent buffs: some of the Plague was spread by marmots, but historians seem loath to say that Europe was nearly wiped out by woodchucks.

Anyway, all this death and decay got artists thinking. Death struck everyone down, whether king or pauper, young or old, naughty or nice. This led to various allegorical paintings called The Dance of Death (Danse Macabre) where Death leads various folks in a conga line with an unpleasant destination: the grave. Poe, of course, revisited this gruesome theme in 1842 with the ultimate party crasher in “The Masque of the Red Death,” and it would be 135 years before John Travolta and the Bee Gees would strike back for party hosts everywhere with “Stayin’ Alive” in Saturday Night Fever (1977).

Because human beings are not content with the same old same old, someone came up with a wrinkle—Death “dancing” with one partner. These works usually featured Death as a sinister, decaying fellow fondling a comely maiden. One of the best known of these works is Der Tod und das Mädchen, painted in 1517 by Hans Baldung, a student of Albrecht Dürer. What I find remarkable about this work is not that the woman cowers before this rotting corpse, but that there is an erotic subtext to the painting—she cowers, but she is also attracted to him.

Of course, various mythological tales often portrayed the love of Death for a mortal, Death sometimes being the lonely king or queen of the underworld. Such tales seem as old as storytelling itself.

In the years since, the arts and popular culture have visited this theme again and again—Death pairing up with various partners. Sometimes Death is represented by a handsome actor, whether Fredric March in Death Takes a Holiday (1934) or Brad Pitt in the remake Meet Joe Black (1998). Sometimes Death is a handsome/beautiful vampire, or mummy, or ghost, but we all know that, for most, Death represents corruption and decay, worm food that will leave behind bones that eventually turn to dust.

In a world of zombies (in whatever form—supernatural, Romeroesque, slow or fast), why would anyone choose to love and/or lust after them? Is it some primal desire to pair those great id urges, eros and thanatos? Is it a means to hold on to a loved one? A chance to rekindle humanity, in both the undead and the living? Is it for revenge, or a perverse attraction to rot and ruin? Is it rebellion against convention, to pursue the ultimate bad boy or girl, who rots and hungers for us quite literally?

There is no single answer. Humans can’t be pigeonholed into neat little compartments. We defy normality, we eschew the average. We question, we invent, we explore. The reasons for such pairings would be as diverse as we are.

Before you are fourteen remarkable tales that examine the directions that Love and/or Lust may take when Death is personified, when the grave is no longer for restful sleep, but rather the awakening of dreadful (and all too human) appetites.

Be moved, be aroused…and be alert for the scratching at your bedroom door.

INTRODUCTION

Let’s face it: zombies are hot, and baby, they’re getting hotter. Although not the most traditional of sex symbols (at least not for most people), zombies are coming into their own. You see them everywhere: landing on the silver screen in romantic roles, ambling and shambling across television screens and the pages of novels, maybe even shopping for brains at your local supermarket. Frankly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we soon start seeing them posing provocatively in magazine centerfolds. (I wonder if this is what Hugh Hefner had in mind all those years ago when he started his magazine?) Next thing you know, we’ll have X-rated zombie channels featuring zombie skin flicks (providing there’s any skin left on them). Perhaps not the ultimate in high culture, but at least you’ll know all those grunts and groans and moans are real rather than fake.

Still not convinced? Then you need to start thinking outside the box. Zombies have evolved—they’re not from the wrong side of the tracks anymore. Gone are those one-dimensional gut-munching charmers from George A. Romero’s grim and gruesome 1960s flick Night of the Living Dead. Those were old-school zombies. Even the flesh-hungry characters from the hit TV series “The Walking Dead” are showing a bit more savvy and chutzpah than their predecessors. Zombies have a lot more to offer these days, and thank goodness we non-zombies are finally beginning to realize it!

But can zombies be sexy? Why the hell not? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. After all, when is the last time you took a really long hard look at the person you wake up next to every morning?

Zombies are infiltrating and enriching our daily lives, so isn’t it about time they had their more…er…romantic and sexy sides showcased? It’s my goal as editor of Love, Lust and Zombies to help make this happen. This anthology features a talented international cast of writers who work across the genres, from horror, sci-fi/fantasy and paranormal to mainstream and erotic fiction. Their stories run the gamut—from apocalyptic, horror and romance, to tongue-in-cheek comedy—and all with a helping of sex. And yes, these writers love zombies.

And you’re going to love them too! In fact, you’re—

Hey! What’s that shuffling sound I hear outside my front door? It’s a bit late for a delivery van and no one else ever comes to these woods, especially after dark. I guess I’d better go see who it is. Might even be some pesky critter roaming around foraging for food. You get a lot of that up here.

I don’t believe it—now whoever it is has started banging on the door. “Okay, I’ll be right there!” Boy, some people are sure impatient.

I’ll be back in a min—

Mitzi Szereto

(Writing from a log cabin in the mountains of Appalachia)

VANILLA

Janice Eidus

I‘m a vanilla kind of person, not edgy at all, or so my college friends would tell me. When we sat around in our dorm sharing sexual fantasies, I’d feel embarrassed by theirs, and they’d yawn during mine, which always featured missionary position and not much else.

They’re right, I guess. Being vanilla shows even in my choice of profession. I’ve been a librarian since I graduated from college a few years ago, and it’s a pretty vanilla job. I was drawn to it, the same way my friends were drawn to their more glamorous jobs: personal assistant to a TV producer; Apple support person; jingle writer for commercials.

I, on the other hand, was drawn to the quiet and peacefulness of the librarian’s world. No bringing work home with me; no being on call 24/7. I love the long stretches of time that go by between queries from the library’s patrons.

But right now, as this oddly attractive, craggy-faced gentleman approaches my desk at the library, my heart begins to skip, and I feel a shortness of breath. I immediately grow wet in a place I rarely do—not a vanilla response at all. I have to put up my guard. I must protect myself from this man who brings out such feelings in me. I cannot desire someone so strongly, so quickly. It’s not who I am.

He asks in a strong, commanding voice, unlike the typical patron who approaches me with diffidence, for a recommendation of encyclopedias. His blue eyes are insanely intense; they trap me in his gaze. I drink him in, all of him, wanting to gaze at every inch of him, including his privates. But no, I resist by staring down at my hands in my lap. My mind is utterly blank; I can’t remember what an encyclopedia is. I have an almost irresistible urge to throw myself into his arms. Before I can calm myself enough to attempt to respond to his query, he leans across my desk so that his face is only an inch or two away from mine. He smells of strange cologne, reminiscent of a deep, rich, wet soil. Not ordinarily enticing to me and yet on him, overwhelmingly sensual, not a word that often comes to my mind. My heart is jackhammering inside my chest.

In a voice low, powerful and determined, letting me know he won’t take no for an answer, he says, “You’ll meet me when you get off from work tonight. You’re going to the movies with me.” I nod like an automaton. As he walks away, I blink and shake my head, to clear myself of him. I watch him stride quickly away, toward the doors of the library. He doesn’t glance back, and he’s gone in a heartbeat. I’m so wet down there, I worry about soiling my underwear. I’m embarrassed and look around the library to make sure none of the other patrons see what’s going on with me, as I squirm in my seat like a besotted schoolgirl. Luckily, everyone on the floor appears engaged in his or her own private tasks, and no eyes are on me.

I head to the ladies’ room, leaving my desk unattended, and splash cold water on my face, neck, collarbone. The sharp cold is an affront to my heated flesh. As my breathing finally returns to normal, I stare in the mirror at my still-flushed face and try to figure out what was so compelling about him, why I so quickly betrayed my vision of myself for him. It wasn’t his complexion, that’s for sure, which was pasty with a grayish tinge—like he’s never been in the sun in his life. Was it that cologne? Or those piercing blue eyes? Or his shaggy, longish hair—very unkempt— not usually my taste, but on him, so sensual. There’s that word again. Against my will, I imagine myself in bed with him, and I see my hands grabbing at his hair, pulling it as I scream with pleasure. I am not myself, and it—and he—scares me.

And now I’m sitting in this dark movie theater right next to him, just as he had commanded me to. He’s in jeans and a white T-shirt, which brings out his pasty complexion even more, but also shows off his firm muscles. Once more, I drink in his dense, rich smell. He hasn’t spoken much since he met me outside the library at sunset. I’m glad I dressed neatly this morning in a green cable-knit sweater and a gold heart on a chain around my neck. I want him to find me totally conventional, so he won’t get any ideas about sex on a first date, despite my fantasies, which are raging wild as I now imagine him riding me from the back, his eyes wide open. I grow wet again.

And the movie he’s chosen for us to see! I can hardly follow it. I have to keep averting my eyes. It’s about dead bodies that come back to life and terrorize a group of people trapped in a farmhouse. Nothing overtly sexual about it, and yet I find myself lusting after the robotic zombies as if they are heartthrob leading men, and as if I’m not the tame vanilla girl I know myself to be.

“It’s a classic,” he says to me as the movie—thank goodness!—finally comes to its gory end. He grabs my arm and steers me out of the theater. The touch of his sandpapery hand on my elbow feels dizzying—strong yet ephemeral all at once. I blink to clear my head of the fantasy of him now pulling my hair and making me scream with painful pleasure.

“Now we eat,” he says, and I follow him without protest to a noisy, harshly lit neighborhood deli he appears to know well. Really, I would prefer the kind of quiet, dimly lit bistro known for its wine list and elegant salads. “Order the BLT,” he tells me, holding me in his gaze once again. His voice is even more commanding than before. “It will put meat on you.”

What an odd thing to say! Does he think I’m too skinny? I really want a small green salad, but despite myself I do his bidding and order the BLT. He’s like a force of nature. Touch me, an inner voice is crying out, waiting for him to slide his hands over my breasts and belly and down below. But I must continue to seem calm on the outside. I don’t want him to sense my turmoil.

I wait for him to order after me, but he says, “I won’t be eating yet.” He sends the waiter away, and stares at me with those intense blue eyes. “I’m building up an appetite.” He smiles and I see that his teeth aren’t great; some of them are ragged-edged and some are dark like night. He could use some serious dental work. Not that it takes away from his looks, though—and the powerful effect he has on me. As I bite into my sandwich, I imagine the bread as his flesh. He watches every bite I take, licking his lips a few times. He seems hungrier than I am although he’s not the one eating. Is this some kind of kinky foreplay? If so, I shouldn’t be playing along but I can’t stop myself.

“Have dessert,” he says, in his commanding tone, when I’ve finished my sandwich. “I like to watch you eat. The way you take tiny bites. The way you swallow delicately. Your relationship to food.” He pauses, and then resumes. “So tentative. So different from mine.” He pauses again. “Now order the ice cream. It’s homemade.”

Obediently, I order a scoop of vanilla in a bowl, the flavor that should calm me and return me to myself. He doesn’t take his eyes off me as I eat. My body is hot, and I feel self-conscious licking the cold, creamy ice cream off my spoon, while his eyes never leave my face and he runs his tongue over his narrow, chapped lips. I imagine those lips touching my own; I imagine his teeth sinking hard into my flesh and drawing blood.

When I’m done, he pays the check and we walk out into the warm spring evening. His silence unnerves me. I force myself to be brave, to initiate conversation. “That movie, why do you like it so much?” My shaky voice betrays me, and I toss my head to rid myself of my latest fantasy of him sucking and licking my fingers and toes, his tongue sharp as a razor.

He’s quiet for a long moment as we stroll. “The plight of the living dead speaks to me,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“But aren’t we meant to side with the victims, to care about their plight?” I’m confused.

It’s his turn to shrug. He touches my elbow again and I feel his coarse, rugged skin. “Depends on who’s doing the viewing.”

Is this his idea of a joke? Does he have some sort of wry sense of humor that I just don’t get? Is he deliberately trying to rattle me? But why me? Did he choose me because I seem innocent, the kind of female a misogynist could walk all over?

“In here,” he says, pointing to the entrance of a little park I’ve never noticed before. It’s dark out, and I’m not one for going into parks after sunset. But once again I do as he says, without hesitation. It’s as if my will has been drained from me. I picture him throwing me onto a park bench, having his way with me in public, cloaked only by the dark of night.

We find a bench beneath a large tree inside the seemingly deserted park.

“What kind of work do you do?” I ask, my voice still shaky.

“Did. Not do. I took a very early retirement.” He smiles widely, as if I’ve just told him a joke, showing off those bad teeth again. “I was a rock musician in a band. We toured a lot, I made enough money, I tired of the fast life, I retired young. Took the easy way out. Didn’t have any more life left in me.”

Rock musician—well, that certainly explains his edge. And probably the bad teeth and white pallor. I imagine all the groupies he had, one after another, night after night, each of them catering to his kinky whims, allowing him to douse them with whipped cream, to cruelly tickle them with feathers, to tightly bind their hands and feet, to enter them rapidly and fiercely. But what I still can’t figure out is why he’s interested in me.

“And why did you ask me out? Do you like librarians, in general?” There, I’ve boldly asked the question I need to have the answer to. I try to hide my shakiness.

“Actually, yes.” He grins widely. “Very astute of you. I do like librarians. I like them a lot.” He pauses. “Vanilla is my favorite flavor,” he adds, his teeth flashing, lunging at me as I’m enveloped by him and the darkness all around, and I understand that once he licks my vanilla clean, I will be a librarian no more.

IN THE RED LIGHT

A. M. Hartnett

Some days Robbie seemed normal. Today was not one of those days.

Deanna stood silently in front of the window. The other side of the glass was a mirror; he didn’t know she was there. He was statue-like on his cot, facing the wall.

She looked to the guard. Abel Knox sat back in his chair before a console of controls and video screens. His entire attention was focused on the paperback in his hands. Most of the guards at Walker Mountain had no personalities, or maybe they reserved their humanity for when the day was done and they could forget about what was left of the world. Knox had his books. He always had a new one. She wondered where he managed to find them all. It’s not like he could pop down to Barnes & Noble after work.

“Did he eat?” she asked him.

“I don’t think he’s in the mood.”

“Did you ask him?”

He shook his head. His gaze never left the page.

Most preferred to limit their interaction with Robbie. Knox could be detached when the job called for it, but when he spoke to Robbie he didn’t change his tone or his attitude. Knox spoke to Robbie like he was a person.

She let herself out of the booth and returned a few minutes later with a cup of instant coffee and a turkey sandwich wrapped in plastic.

Knox looked up and shook his head. “I don’t know why you bother.”

Deanna placed her hand on the metal door handle. After a moment, the light above the door went from red to green and she pushed. She repeated the same routine in the elevator-sized space between the booth and Robbie’s cell.

The room was a white box: it held a plastic table with plastic chairs, a toilet and sink behind a partition and a cot that barely accommodated his width.

He had told her he didn’t mind the room. It was bigger than the cell he had lived in before this, he’d said. She knew he was lying, at least about not minding the cell. He didn’t look her in the eye when he said it, and so she knew he hated the room and always had. In the early stages of the experiment, she had given him a box of crayons and he had drawn happy scribbles all over the walls. When he could speak again, he asked her to have his artwork cleaned off. There wasn’t even a smudge of his early frustration left, but Deanna knew it lingered. He was tired of being a prisoner.

She set the sandwich and coffee on the table and pulled out a chair to sit.

He needs his hair cut.

Still, it was better than shaved, which was how it had been when he was alive. There were tattoos on his scalp under his hair. She had seen his corpse when it had been brought to Walker Mountain.

“Are you just going to ignore me?” she asked.

He tucked his big feet against his bottom. It was a throwback to those early days, one of the things he did when he was upset. He curled up. He tried to disappear.

Not there. Not there. Not there.

“Come have a sandwich. There’s real sugar in the coffee, not sweetener. It’s too bad the coffee isn’t drip.”

After another moment of being blocked out, Deanna got up and approached the cot.

Beneath the corner of his pillow was a paperback.

Knox, you softy.

Her attention was next drawn to the red stain on his shirt. Just a few drops, but they were enough to tell her what had gone on that afternoon and why he was so quiet.

She reached for the hem of his shirt, but his hand clamped down on her wrist. The strength in him was terrifying, and it took every bit of restraint to keep from crying out.

“If you don’t let me go I’ll have to scream and Knox will raise the alarm.” Even as tears burned behind her eyes, her voice remained calm.

He turned his head to look at her and she could see the wrongness in his eyes. Like his skin, they were just a little off color, and filled with a pain she could never understand.

“Please, Robbie. Let go.”

He released her. She cradled her hand against her stomach as he sat up and turned his back on her, blocking her out once more.

Not there. Not there. Not there.

A voice came over the speaker. “Everything all right in there?” “Everything’s fine.”

Knox didn’t say anything else. He knew. He just wouldn’t make a move until he was sure she was in danger.

She sat on the edge of the bed and reached for him again. “Robbie, let me look.”

He turned his head slightly and his lips barely moved as he spoke. “It’s not like it will kill me.”

Deanna pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket. “You may not care, but I do. I don’t want to look at you if you’re bleeding all over the place.”

His thick brows came together and that firm line of a mouth softened just a little. He pulled away from her, and then stripped off his shirt. His arms were huge and laced with the tattoos he’d accumulated in his life. Stripped to the waist, he sat with his back straight and his hands on his knees.

He said nothing as she looked over the expanse of his chest and along his abdomen. One of his ribs was out of place. She tried not to think of how it had gotten that way, and followed the tail of the new scar until it disappeared beneath the waistline of his sweatpants.

“You may need a stronger antibiotic,” she said. “Take it easy until that starts to heal, okay? You’ll feel better if you eat something.”

As he wriggled back into his shirt, Deanna disposed of the gloves and pulled the plastic wrap off the sandwich. With a quiet sigh, Robbie moved from the bed and took his seat across from her.

Half an hour later, she emerged from the cell. Robbie had gone back to his cot, where he stretched on his back and read from the paperback.

Knox was waiting for her. “If he does that again—”

“I shouldn’t have just reached out like that when I know he’s on edge.”

“You forget what he is, Dr. Greer.”

“It’s easy to forget.”

“I don’t forget. I know you’ve never seen him when they take him upstairs, but I have. They turn him off. They don’t put him out, they turn him off.” He tapped his temple. “They hook him up to a machine and give him a shot. He changes. He’s like the others.”

“They have to turn him off. They can’t put him out. It might kill him all over again, and if they leave him like he is he’ll feel everything—”

“He does feel it and you know it. Every second…” Knox slid his book aside and wiped his hand over his mouth. His words seemed to bother him. “You should see him. He looks like a man now, but when it happens he becomes a thing. Almost took a bite out of Dr. Stewart, and you could see on his face that he couldn’t wait to get a second chance.”

“I know what he is, Knox.”

“I don’t think you do. The other ones scare the hell out of you, and you’d feel the same way about Robbie if he ever looked at you like lunch, and it could happen in an instant. We just don’t know for sure when something could go wrong.”

“It’s never going to happen. Robbie is the first. Robbie is the one.”

She’d meant it, but she was cold all over. She knew that without that thing in his head and the chemicals they pumped into him, he’d be just like the rest of them: rotting, ravenous flesh and bone.

Then again, without the safety of Walker Mountain, every single survivor would be in the same boat.

She took the underground walkway to the dormitory. No one traveled outdoors unless they had to. The smell was revolting, and the sound of those things on the other side of the wall could drive a person mad.

It was the middle of the day. Sunshine probed through the slatted blinds that lined one wall of her apartment, but Deanna preferred the artificial light. She was only six floors from the ground and her apartment faced the field beyond the wall. From her window she could see those things shambling on the other side of the fence.

She’d observed the ones that had been collected and caged. She’d experienced the terror of having one rushing at her with agonizing hunger in its dead eyes. Seeing those things reminded her that Robbie wasn’t alive after all, just reanimated.

She didn’t want to think of the man she knew in such terms. She had talked to him for hours, seen him fight back tears after he’d been ripped in half for the sake of what could be learned from him, had laughed at him and made him laugh.

He was still human. He just needed help.

Robert Christian Willis had been on death row when the outbreak happened. He had been in and out of youth facilities throughout his adolescence, and at nineteen, he was imprisoned for robbing a gas station. At twenty-two, he was back in prison for assaulting a guy in the parking lot of a pool hall. At twenty-six, he and two of his buddies attempted to rob the Republic Bank. Someone’s cell phone had gone off and, startled, Robbie had shot and killed the teller he had been pointing his pistol at. He got away, but was picked up sixteen hours later at his girlfriend’s apartment. His appeals were denied and he was due to die by lethal injection shortly after his thirty-second birthday.

Then all hell broke loose and no one gave a shit about the killer on death row. The infection had been at first contained in the penitentiary, but it couldn’t last forever.

When Robbie could speak, he told Deanna about what happened in the prison. The warden opened the doors and let the things swarm the cell blocks to gorge themselves while he and the guards escaped. Robbie was bitten while trying to lock himself back up. A few hours later, the military arrived, and with them was Dr. John Fleming, in search for the perfect specimen. Shortly after he succumbed to the bite, Robbie’s skull was opened up and a device seventy years in the making was implanted.

At this time, Deanna was recruited to the secret project by Dr. Fleming. She had been brought to Walker Mountain as a survivor of the Saint Louis Massacre, had been counseling other survivors, and had been relieved of these duties after she developed an addiction to pills. In spite of her sketchy background, she was recruited to rehabilitate the severely damaged Robbie.

He was her only chance at redemption in a world gone mad.

When she first entered his empty cell, he was cowering in the corner and unable to comprehend anything but terror. She ordered a cot and a blanket put in. When she returned, he was in his own safe world underneath the blanket. Deanna spoke to him, but he remained determined to pretend she simply didn’t exist.

Not there, his silence told her. Not there. Not there. Not there.

She waited. She kept coming, and eventually his curiosity got the best of him. She brought games and toys. She brought books and puzzles. She studied his development and reported every stride he made. He began to speak, to think, and then he remembered. She urged him to work harder, and not fight when they came to take him away. He was important, she told him. He was the first. He had taught them so much. He was a small, crucial step to stopping this hell that had been unleashed on earth.

She didn’t know then about the experiments. When she found out, she fought hard to put a stop to them. Dr. Fleming overruled her, and so she worked with Robbie to minimize the trauma.

After Robbie, she knew she didn’t need pills anymore. He was more than a subject to be observed. He was her only friend, and she was his.

She would fix him, even if it—or he—killed her.

Robbie turned his spoon over and let the slimy contents plop back onto the paper plate. Canned spaghetti shaped like zoo animals. He usually shoveled his food into his mouth and asked for more, but today he had no appetite.

She was worried. It wasn’t as though he would waste away. If he refused to eat, he would be nourished artificially. It had been two days since he’d last been taken out of the cell. In those two days, he had read his book or just sat and stared. Occasionally he would reach up and his fingers would disappear into his black hair to rub the outline of the device under the skin.

Beneath the table, Deanna’s shoe hung anxiously off the bridge of her toes as she shook her foot. When she left him, she would be escorted into the other facility. She would observe one or two of the others being put through their paces. They’d be given puzzles and books, but unlike Robbie they’d just shuffle about. After two years, she hadn’t seen a single one exhibit more than the most rudimentary understanding of anything that didn’t involve feeding. The chemicals would keep them from decaying, but only the implant would give them their lives back.

Robbie shoved his plate away and sat back. “I’m tired of eating crap.”

“You asked for it.”

“Because it’s better than dry bread and instant potatoes.”

“There’s a shipment coming in at the end of the month. How does roast beef sound? It comes in a bag and is microwaved, but if you haven’t had it in a while it’s practically gourmet.”

“Fuck your roast beef in a bag, and fuck you.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Are you experiencing any changes in your appetite?”

Blue eyes made pale by his condition cut to her. “Why don’t you just come right out and ask me if I feel like taking a bite out of you?”

“Do you?”

Robbie was perfectly still for a moment. Deanna waited, heat prickling along the back of her neck.

He leaned forward and his nostrils flared. “Don’t ask me that again.”

Deanna went on without apology. “I was told that you threatened Dr. Fleming when he came to see you yesterday.”

“Wouldn’t you?” His scowl turned into a nasty smirk. “I think I scared him. Told him that the next time he turned me off I’d crack his head open like a cantaloupe.”

“And stuff yourself on what’s inside.”

“That’s right.”

“Your behavior is a growing concern.”

“Then maybe they should have picked a Boy Scout to be their science experiment.”

Beneath her cool façade, desperation ate at her. Deanna leaned forward on her elbows. “Aren’t you the least bit grateful for this opportunity? You were on death row.”

His nostrils flared. “That was an accident. How many times have I told you?”

“Regardless, when they found you, you agreed—”

“I was dying. They were telling me they could bring me back, make me normal again. What did I know? I didn’t want this.”

“And you’d rather be like the others?”

“I am like the others!”

“No, you’re not. You can think beyond your hunger. You can feel. You’re smart and—”

“Stop talking about me like I’m a fucking rat in a maze!”

He got to his feet and the table jerked forward, jabbing into her ribs. That eerie gaze stopped the words she was going to speak to him. “Are you there when they do it to me?”

The hatred in his voice startled her. She was finding it harder and harder to remain calm. Robbie was spiraling, and he was taking her with him.

“No. I’m just here to talk to you. That has nothing to do with me.”

“Doesn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to report how I feel? Well, I’ll tell you how I feel.” He pulled his shirt over his head, then hunched over the table. His finger followed the pattern of stitches over his chest. “I feel like once or twice a month I’m cut into pieces and put back together again. They send you in here to ask me how I feel and you make me feel, but I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to feel what they do to me.”

“Robbie, it will be over one day.”

“You’re fucking right. They’ll put me down like a wild animal, and I can’t wait. I know I used to be nothing, but no one deserves this, not even me.”

His chest heaved as he glared down at her. Deanna opened her mouth to speak, but found her tongue stuck and useless. Robbie’s fury was breathtaking.

He spun away from her, displaying a broad, mountainous back crisscrossed with the same grotesque scars. “I miss everything, Dr. Greer. I miss peanut butter cups and cold beer. Hell, I miss having to shovel my piece-of-shit car out of the driveway in the winter.”

Deanna pushed her foot back into her shoe and stood. “Those things don’t exist anymore, not for you, not for any of us. They may never exist again.”

“What’s the point, then? Why am I here?”

“You can change it all, that’s why. I’ve seen your strength. I know what they’re doing to you is working. How long do you think it would take to cut through a wall of those things if there was a whole army just like you?”

Robbie twisted his head around. “An army of unstoppable killers with free will? No, I can’t see how that could possibly go wrong. Face it: I’m just the guinea pig. You think they can torture me for a year and then trust me not to turn on them? I don’t trust any of them. I don’t even trust you.”

No matter how much she tried to keep the wall up between them, the sting punctured through her skin and dug into the bone. “You know you can trust me.”

“The hell I do. I don’t believe for one second they didn’t choose you to pick my brain because you look like a fucking treat all the time. You’re here to soften me up so I’ll play nice.”

He took a step back and ran his hands through his hair. His fists grabbed handfuls and he seemed to Deanna to be fighting madness.

“You know what I miss the most, Deanna? I miss that thing that makes a man. God, do I miss being between a woman’s legs. Some nights I get so hard I can’t stand it.”

Deanna’s modesty made her turn her gaze away as he closed his eyes. No one talked sex anymore. It had almost become a taboo subject, some frivolous thing people did on the sly.

“I can’t even do anything about it, what with those cameras on me all the time. Can you imagine the kinds of experiments Fleming might put me through if he knew I got a hard-on every fucking day?”

In a snap he was directly in front of her. “You’re the only woman I’ve seen in over a year. You’re it. I can still smell you in here long after you’ve gone.”

“Robbie, step back.” Her throat had dried up and her words came out as a rasp. They did nothing to get him to back off.

“You’re as much of a monster as I am. You’re barely human. That’s why you sit with me like you do. That’s why it hurts you when they work on me.”

“I don’t…”

As Robbie bent toward her, Deanna tilted her chin and brought her hands up between them. His tongue slipped between his lips. With his gaze on her mouth, she knew what he was going to do, and she had no idea how to stop it.

Deanna parted her lips to speak, and Robbie closed in.

Somewhere in the background she heard a buzzing. She knew that Knox wasn’t even going to ask this time before acting.

When she spoke, it was against Robbie’s mouth. “But you’re not human anymore.”

He froze.

Behind her, the heavy door opened. “Robbie, back off.”

Robbie didn’t move from where he stood. He merely glared at Knox.

“It’s all right.” Deanna’s fingers shook as she collected her notebook from the table.

“No, Dr. Greer,” Knox said. He moved slowly into the cell, pistol in hand. “It’s not all right. Robbie, don’t make me tell you again. Go sit on your cot. Right now.“

“I’m leaving anyway.” She turned and faced Knox. He stood ready to shoot. Though he had strict orders not to aim above the neck, Deanna knew he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet into Robbie to immobilize him if he felt he had to.

At the door, she glanced over her shoulder. Robbie still hadn’t moved. She passed Knox and waited for him to back over the threshold.

By the time the second door slammed behind her, she felt like throwing up.

“Are you going to put that in your report, Doc?”

“Fuck off.”

“I didn’t think so. Not like it matters. When Fleming sees—”

“Erase it.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Fleming will want to use this and Robbie’s right. I don’t even want to think of what they’d make him do if they saw what just happened.”

“Dr. Greer, Deanna—”

“Say there was a glitch or something.” His mouth hardened and Deanna shook her head. “You know as well as I do that he’d never lay a finger on me.”

“I’m not so sure anymore.”

She entered the code to leave the booth. “I’m going to suggest his sleep disruption is causing some of his behavioral problems. An hour ought to be enough. What he chooses to do with it is up to him.”

It felt good to sound detached and clinical as she headed toward the stairs. It gave her a little shot of control and she carried herself well until she stepped into the stairwell.

And then she broke down.

Three nights later, at a quarter to midnight, Deanna sat on the edge of her bed with the little white sleeping pill pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

She had reported to Fleming and made her recommendation. It had worked. Robbie was going to three hours of semidarkness every night. Fleming had surprised her with how easily he had conceded, but she had made a good argument. Besides, anything that suggested Robbie was becoming more human pleased Fleming.

There was no mention of the incident. Knox had come through for her, and no one questioned his explanation. Outages and glitches were common at Walker Mountain.

Robbie refused to say a single word to her since his outburst. When she entered his cell, he sat with his back to her and refused to acknowledge her presence in the slightest. It bothered her. It wasn’t one of his moods. This was different. He was turning on her.

It had crossed her mind that they would “turn him off” one day. There would soon be other specimens; maybe he wouldn’t be needed any longer.

At least not to the doctors. To everyone else, Robbie made the difference between giving up and hope. Everyone needed the hope he represented. Some days, it felt to Deanna like she needed it the most.

He was right. She needed him as much as he needed her. Maybe more.

She placed the pill on the nightstand and moved through her apartment to dress. Fifteen minutes later, she slipped into the booth and greeted Knox.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” she said quietly.

“Four hours at a time. Got two hours to go before I can hit the hay.”

She pulled a can of cold beer from the deep pocket of her hoodie. “Want one?”

Knox’s brows went up. “Hell yeah. Where’d you get that?”

“You’d be surprised what they’re hiding around here.” He reached out and she held it over his head. “Go find somewhere to drink it.”

“Deanna, I can’t.”

“Don’t stop breaking the rules on me now.”

He regarded her carefully, his eyes flicking from her face to the beer, and then he got to his feet. “You win. Just keep your distance, all right?”

“I know.”

Once he left, Deanna took his seat and peered into the crimson haze. The cell wasn’t black, but blanketed in a sleepy red glow emanating from the backup lights that automatically kicked in. As usual, Robbie slept facing the wall.

After a moment of just staring at the figure on the cot, she stopped the camera and let herself in.

He rolled onto his back at her entry. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she felt the guarded stillness emanate from him as she approached. In the red light, she couldn’t detect the difference in his pallor that set him apart from all other men.

She pulled another beer from inside her sweater. “Truce?”

The springs creaked as he swung his legs over the edge of the cot. He took the beer, popped the tab and drank. He kept his eyes on hers. Deanna kept her eyes on his throat as he swallowed.

After he had finished off every drop, she slid next to him.

“This is your idea of a truce?”

“Did it work?”

“It’s not my brand, but I guess it’s a start.”

Deanna laughed. “You know what, Robbie? I miss peanut butter cups, too. And I miss cigarettes and soap operas.”

“Maybe one day...” he began, but Deanna didn’t want to hear the rest. One day didn’t exist any longer.

She turned toward him and touched his knee.

Robbie’s gaze followed her hand as it slid along his thigh. “What are you doing?”

“You’re alive,” she whispered, and leaned in so their faces were as close as they had been the other day. “You may be pumped full of chemicals and have something inside your head that makes you walk and talk, but you’re still alive. You breathe, you eat, and you piss, and you sleep just like the rest of us. Like me.”

Robbie closed his hand over her wrist. “I don’t want it if it’s only to keep me on my best behavior.”

“It’s not that. Believe me.”

She shook free of his grip and pressed her hand against his chest, just above where his heart beat. He didn’t move as she closed the gap between them, until her mouth was almost against his.

“The cameras are off and Knox took a walk. Live and breathe with me, just for a little while.”

She touched her tongue to his bottom lip, and Robbie pulled her closer.

What started as a slow exploration became chaotic. Deanna yanked at his clothes while he struck out at her with impatient hands, shoving her hoodie away, peeling her tank top over her head and shoving her sweatpants down.

He pushed her crossways over the cot. The red light made his scars stand out, bold and hideous. Hard thighs held hers apart and his hard cock bobbed against her belly.

Electricity seemed to spark from the ends of her fingertips as she touched him, tracing the map of lines across his chest. His eyelids fluttered shut as her hand moved lower, over his belly, and wrapped around his erection. She never took her eyes off of his face as she positioned the tip at the wet mouth of her cunt.

Perhaps it was the length of time it had been since she’d been with a man; maybe it was because this was Robbie, who had once thrown a stuffed monkey at her when he was frustrated but couldn’t speak; maybe it was what he was, but the sense of the unknown took her breath away.

He went deep, his breath coming out as a moan as he buried himself. His second stroke was slow indulgence as the length rubbed against her G-spot.

An insane bubble of laughter hitched at the back of Deanna’s throat. So many hours spent analyzing his physical capabilities and just how human he could be.

She shuddered and closed her legs around him.

Keeping a steady pace, Robbie lowered himself onto his forearms and rested his forehead against hers. “You haven’t been with anyone else since this all started, have you?”

She shook her head. “Can you tell?”

“You’re really tight.”

His skin was warm under her exploring hands. If it wasn’t for those wretched scars rubbing against her, she could have forgotten what he really was and where they were.

She understood his fierce words now. She had been dehumanized. The end of the world, the drugs, her loneliness and trying to understand it all had robbed her of her humanity.

Now that he was giving some of it back to her, one hard thrust at a time, Deanna found she was ravenous for it.

She dug her fingernails into his ass. “Fuck me, Robbie. Harder.”

He rose up on his hands. A grimace came over his face as he pounded into her. She tipped her head back, releasing energy in a moan as the friction against her slick inner walls spread through her entire body.

“Can I come inside you?”

She opened her eyes. The frown he wore clued her in to the question behind the question. Could this infect you?

“It’s only in the bite,” she said in a pant. “Only in the bite.”

He shifted, arching his back. He was done giving; now he was taking. The cot squealed as he slammed into her.

She’d never come first before, ever, but her orgasm hit her like a rocket. The red haze of the room vanished, replaced by splotches of white and gold that burst before her eyes. As her cunt squeezed around his cock, she squeezed her eyes shut and kept on begging.

Harder. Harder—don’t stop!

Deanna couldn’t drag her eyes away from his visage as it transformed. Violent need manifested itself in the sneer that pulled his lips up over his teeth.

She met his final thrust with one of her own, her moan echoing his when his cock throbbed and he emptied inside of her.

Deanna closed her eyes and sighed as he turned his face into the damp slope of her neck.

I’m alive again.

“He’s incredibly cooperative this week.”

Dr. Fleming said this with a pleased chirp to his voice. She stood next to him before the small rectangular window that overlooked the lab.

On the floor below them, Robbie ran on a treadmill. Sweat ran down his bare chest as he pumped his legs in an unbreakable pace. His eyes focused forward.

She wondered where he was in his head. She couldn’t imagine he stayed there as half a dozen doctors milled around the room. Did he visit the life he had led before his death? A fantasy?

Or was he alone in the dark with her?

“I told you a few hours of privacy a night would do him good. A few hours in which he doesn’t have to think about being a science experiment.”

Fleming chuckled. “He’s much more than that.”

“That’s not how he sees it.”

The treadmill stopped and Robbie stepped off. He took a deep breath, planted his hands on his narrow hips, and looked up. His gaze found Deanna.

“There will be others,” Fleming said, “but I think we still have a lot to learn from Robbie. We know so much about the flesh and blood, but we’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to the psychological impact.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You can’t learn much more by turning him off. Start integrating him. He needs what makes us all. That’s what he’s getting.”

“And what’s that?”

She held Robbie’s gaze through the window. “He’s getting his humanity back.”

SMILE

Laura Huntley

Nothing feels more eerie than a silent playground: the still swings, the motionless roundabout, the suffocating quiet. Gone are the giddy shrieks and happy laughter of children; they are forgotten echoes. There’s nobody here, except me. I sit on the bench and just look. I used to bring my little sister here. I would stand at the bottom of the slide as she deliberated, high up at the top. She would bite her bottom lip, nervous at first, but with a little encouragement and promises to catch her at the end, she would come flying down, her long blonde hair flailing behind her and joy in her big blue eyes. The memories hurt, all of the memories hurt, but at least when I feel the pain, I know that I am still alive.

The others don’t understand what that means. We argue a lot about this. They say that the struggle to remain alive is about survival, extreme caution, barricades and only leaving the house if we absolutely have to. That isn’t life, not to me; that’s existing, eking out a few more hours, and then a few more, and then a few more until it has been another day.

I have to venture out. I would go crazy cooped up in that house all the time, far crazier than the creatures we hide from. I need to feel the air on my skin; I have to watch the rolling clouds and let my ears find noise, a trickling stream in the background, the squawk of a passing bird, anything. Each morning, I say good-bye to their disapproving eyes and pursed lips. Each night, they look surprised to see me, shocked and amazed that I made it again. They check me for bites and grazes, suspicious that I can take care of myself. I’m not stupid, I don’t advertise my presence, and I am methodical. I stay in the shadows mostly, out of sight. There aren’t as many of them as they think and I am faster and more coordinated. Occasionally, if there is a crowd of them, I pretend to be just like they are. I adopt the same slight shuffle and vacant expression and remain undetected, blending into their sorry world.

I do feel genuine sympathy for them, but I am definitely the only person in the house that does. Of course they are dangerous, but I still view them as people. They once had full lives, families and friends; they loved and were loved in return. To see them wandering so aimlessly and without hope is heartbreaking.

I think of my little sister again and desolate tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I still can’t say her name, despite all the time that has now passed. She didn’t make it. I fought so hard to keep her safe with me, but it was too difficult to conceal her once she had turned. Our neighbor shot her in the head. She died quickly. I gaze at my hands. They are clean now. But sometimes I think I see her blood. I close my eyes as the harrowing flashback consumes me; the excruciating agony never lets go.

That’s when I hear it, the snap of a twig beneath a shoe. I stay as still as I can and hold my breath. There it is again, footsteps behind me. I open my eyes and I can feel my heart beating wildly in my chest. As slowly as I dare, I turn around. A man. One of them. He is still some distance away but he is heading in my direction. I have to remind myself to breathe. He stares straight ahead. I gingerly look around me and I see the tree, a few yards away on my right. I contemplate making a dash for it and climbing quickly up the thick branches. I know that I can do it because I have done it before, years ago. My sister’s kite had got tangled and her bottom lip sulked so I went up and retrieved it for her. I know that if I make a run for it, I will be drawing attention to myself and that doesn’t feel like the best idea. Also, he has all the time in the world; I could be stuck up that tree for all eternity.

I wonder why he’s alone. Just as with us, over time they tend to congregate. Even they must subconsciously feel the need to stay together. I haven’t seen one out alone for a while. What has he been doing out here in the woods? He’s getting nearer now but I am certain that he hasn’t even noticed me; I can’t understand how that could be. I tell myself that I ought to move but it has become a peculiar experiment. Something is different about him. He’s close. I panic, concerned that my actions are outrageously stupid, yet I am frozen to the spot. He’s in his own world as he walks on by.

I study his features and I realize that, actually, he is quite beautiful. He has shoulder-length dirty-blond hair and dark-brown eyes. He wears a black leather jacket and other than a small cut to his cheek and some rips to his jeans, he doesn’t appear as though he has had too brutal an experience. He walks to the other side of the playground and sits on a bench, just like me. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. He hasn’t noticed me; I feel invisible. He has such a handsome face. He’s tall, well built and, just for a moment, I forget he is one of them. I concoct a lurid daydream in my head where I strip him naked and drop to my knees. In another lifetime, I would have chased him; he is exactly my type. Arousal races around my body, which comes as a shock; it has been an awfully long time since I thought of such things. My cheeks blush scarlet at the insane notion. I need to compose myself and stay alert.

He stands again and I watch him as he slowly walks, as they all do, as though putting one foot in front of the other has become a forgotten and challenging task. I admire his cheekbones; he has such a perfectly sculpted face. I admire his ass. I feel like a voyeur; it is surely wrong to be thinking such thoughts but I can’t seem to stop them. What the hell has got into me? He approaches the swings and stops for a moment and hesitates. I am convinced that he’s trying to piece together a memory, but everyone says that they can’t recollect their past, that they don’t feel anymore. The confused and anguished expression in his face makes me doubt everything that I thought I knew.

He stops by a swing, the one in the middle, and he pushes it. He looks upset but compelled to do it. I suddenly feel like crying and before I know it, salty tears begin to wet my face. I long to dash back and tell the others what I am witnessing but I don’t think they would believe me. He’s weeping and I am so moved that I find my feet plodding toward him. I know that I am risking everything but I cannot stop. I walk as calmly as possible, hoping that he might believe that I am one of them.

He sees me. My heart gallops and I feel dizzy as he looks right into my eyes. There are severe lines of pain etched into his handsome face. We are close now and I spot the gaping bloody wound on his left shin; I can’t help but wince. I yearn to speak to him, to learn how much he still comprehends, but then I would completely give the game away, so I keep my lips tightly shut. I try and communicate with my eyes; I attempt to show him that I am friend, not foe.

He raises his hand and moves toward me. My stomach is in knots. His outstretched fingers curve, he wipes away my tears. It is such a momentous event that fresh tears appear immediately; his hand tries to catch them. I raise my arm and stand before him. I see his body flinch and I shake my head, hoping that he understands that I will cause him no harm. He closes his eyes as my fingers brush over his long fair eyelashes. His mouth is set in a frown; he has forgotten how to smile. I realize that we’re not so different. Human, zombie, alive, dead, or half-alive as he seems to be, we’ve all forgotten how to smile. None of us feel pleasure. Only pain.

I step away, ever so slightly, allowing him a little time to compose himself, for whatever ounce of working brain there is left to piece together what just happened. He opens his eyes and he looks more collected than before. He starts to tug at his leather jacket, struggling to remove it. I tentatively step back toward him. I help him pull his right arm out of the sleeve. I move to his back and assist him; his jacket drops to the ground.

He turns around to face me, in a tight black T-shirt; some blood obscures what I think is the name of a long-gone rock band emblazoned across the front. I gasp at the hint of the tight abs underneath, at the part where sleeve meets flesh as I notice his incredibly strong muscles there. I wish that I had met him before all of this. I’d have been all over that body; I’d have made sure of it. I bite my lip as he struggles to lift up his right sleeve; every extra inch of him makes me want him that bit more.

But then I see it; I understand what he is trying to show me. He wants me to look at his tattoo. I lower my head and examine the pretty picture, a red rose in full bloom. I read the letters underneath: ALICE. I turn to face him at once. Alice. He misses Alice. A picture forms in my mind; he used to push Alice on the swings. I know his pain, and perhaps shame; it’s an all-too-familiar feeling. He couldn’t save her. I think of my sister coming down the slide. He starts to push the swing again; the torment distorts his face. He’s a few years older than me, perhaps he’s thirty or so; I expect that Alice was his daughter. Just imagining the tragedy and intensity of grief of such a tremendous loss makes me shiver; I feel cold all over. His eyes scan the ground; he dips to the ground to reclaim his jacket. He hands it to me. He knows that I am not like him, that I feel the cold, and he is trying to protect me.

Huge sobs catch in my throat as I put it on. By remembering Alice, he is keeping a vital human part of him alive. I get ahead of myself; I have just witnessed a miracle and my arms clasp around his body, pulling him toward me. His arms linger awkwardly at his sides and I desperately want them to embrace me. I withdraw, feeling ridiculous and unhinged. His eyes are still sad, possibly apologetic. I drop my gaze to the ground, unsure of what to do next. What the hell am I doing? I remove his jacket and hand it back to him, still unable to make eye contact.

I walk away, not worrying about my pace now; what’s the point? I sense that he is following me, which makes the situation complicated. I can’t very well lead him back to the house. I feel no threat or danger from him but the others wouldn’t understand; they would be irate just to see him. They would throw me out. It’s what they did to Miriam at the old house when she’d been followed. They discarded her, they left her out there, alone, afraid, abandoned. We all heard her screams. We moved on the next day. As I think about this, I realize that there is more humanity in my new zombie friend than in all the members of that house added together. They’ve become cold, hard and resilient. They cork their sorrow, turn it into rage and call it survival. We humans have really lost our way.

I continue walking and wade back into the woods. I hear him following; our feet crunch on the bracken. I haven’t got a clue where I am heading. I don’t want to venture too far; it won’t be long until sunset and I certainly don’t wish to be creeping around here in the darkness. I am confident about my sense of direction during daylight but that doesn’t remotely apply to dusk.

I stop dead. I still hear his footsteps padding behind me, but I also seem to hear another set of footsteps from somewhere ahead. I look amongst the trees but I can’t see anyone. I can definitely hear it though, the slow-paced rambling. I keep as still as I can and I turn around to face him. I beckon for him to stop but he ignores me and keeps on coming. I shake my head to try and halt him. I need quiet, I need to listen. Between the two sets of footsteps, my ears and brain are confused.

I see pain splash across his face. I don’t know which memory of Alice has riddled his mind but this is just not the time. He mimics me, shaking his head too, telling me no. No, what? His speed picks up. He tries to talk, to use his voice but all that comes out is a howl, a yelp of panic and terror.

And then I feel strong arms around my neck, dragging me into the trees. I snag my leg on a thick fallen branch and it hurts; my skin is burning. I try not to scream; I’m scared of alerting yet more of them. I see my new friend coming after me. His nose wrinkles, most probably at the scent of my fresh blood. For a moment I think he is lost to me. But the clouds in his eyes roll on by and clarity returns; I see it. He picks up the branch that cut my leg and he lumbers toward whoever the hell currently has me in a vise-like grip. I can’t see him as he moves out of my view but I hear him hitting at someone and I urge him to succeed or I’ll be either choked or eaten within seconds. I begin to cry as I hear the branch piercing skin. I can’t tell who is hurt until I hear a sickening splutter and the hold around my neck slackens enough for me to finally struggle free. I fall to the ground, my sobs making it difficult for me to get my breath back. I stand, but scrunch my eyes shut. I don’t want to see.

I jump as I feel hands covering my eyes but it is a soft touch, gentle, not tight. I know that my new companion won this bloody battle and that he covers my eyes so that I don’t have to behold a disturbing scene. A gush of relief and appreciation makes me tremble. He lets go of my eyes and spins me around to face him. I feel the leather jacket adorn my shoulders again and I dare to look at him.

A crashing wave of love rushes over me. All I can do is stare at him in awe and wonder. He takes off his T-shirt; I attempt to gulp away the intoxicating arousal. He rips the fabric into strips with his strong hands and he wraps some around my leg wound. I am astounded by his rare capacity to care, how thoughtful and focused he can be.

I can’t help but ogle his naked upper torso and I can’t disguise the lust in my eyes. I want to touch him. My fingers reach out and lightly stroke his skin. It’s still so soft and human; the hue is a little gray but I don’t care. He is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. His breaths come faster. I search his eyes for consent. I need to know that it’s okay for me to touch him like this. Parts of me awake that have been dormant for some time. A series of barely familiar electrical jolts fire up my body and throb between my legs.

He mirrors me; his hand snakes up my top and rests on my midriff. He strokes me in exactly the same way as I touch him. It’s slow and sensual and I am lost in this moment; all my senses are sharper. It dawns on me that he is copying my actions, and I wonder how far I dare to go. My head pleads with me to stop but my body wants more. My body wants all of his body. Does he feel like I feel? Is he capable of desire? I would guess not but he has surprised me so many times already, how can I be sure? I feel a strong urge to test this theory.

He takes my hand and leads me away. I’m initially crushed until I remember the gruesomeness behind us and I know that he’s right. I don’t want to see it, I’ve seen enough to last me a thousand lifetimes. We walk around the back of the park and find a footpath. I’ve never been this way before. I hope that we don’t run into any more trouble, though I now feel considerably safer with him.

We emerge from the woods and come out at a gate that leads to a row of houses. Birds call out overhead but otherwise it’s very quiet here. I follow him up the path of the first house and we go through the back garden. There is a trampoline and a pretty pink bike with flowers on the basket and stabilizers. As we approach the back door, he points to the right pocket of his jacket. I pull out a bunch of keys that he takes from me. He struggles with the lock so I gently nudge him aside and open the door.

I can’t believe that we’re at his home, that he remembers where he lives, that he manages to hold on to his keys. I feel odd stepping into the kitchen. It is clean and everything seems to have an exact place. There is no sign of an intruder or tragic occurrence; I guess that whatever happened to Alice did not happen here. I ponder over how he can stand to stay here, amongst her toys and so many memories. I could never return to my family home, not ever. He is far braver than I am.

He squeezes my hand and closes the door behind us, making sure that it is locked, and he ushers me into the lounge. I see the photograph on the wall, pride of place. Looking at it is to feel stabbed in the stomach. Before any of this craziness, he was so happy; his easy contented smile is framed for me to see. Such a gorgeous smile, beaming warmth; I mourn the loss of it. He’s hugging his daughter, Alice; she looks so much like him. They have the same color hair, the same almond-shaped eyes, the same magical smile. She only looks about four or five. He points to his tattoo, confirming this is Alice, his precious girl.

There are other photographs dotted around the room; all except one feature Alice. In the other picture, he kisses the large expectant abdomen of an attractive, laughing, pregnant woman; there don’t seem to be any more photos of her after this. I suppose that she died having Alice. It’s so sad that I can barely take it. I grieve for them now, despite never knowing them, and I love him a little bit more.

I nod toward the door and he lets me lead the way, even though I don’t know where I’m going. We make the ascent up the stairs and then loiter on the landing. I see a big sign: ALICE’S ROOM. I can’t face going in there. We walk past the bathroom, leaving just one more room: his bedroom.

I face him with my hungry eyes again, needing some sort of permission. He points to the door. I hurry through; the room is plain and functional. There’s a large bed on the right, blue duvets and pillows, the usual wooden furniture, quite unremarkable. I would like to make it remarkable, no longer merely a space in which to sleep and dream haunted dreams.

I perch on the end of his bed; my hand pats the empty space beside me. He joins me and looks at me as though he is awaiting my next instruction. I touch him again, just as I did in the woods, and I am overwhelmed by his physique. Like my own reflection, he strokes me back.

I want to test how much, if at all, he is affected by my touch. I pull my hands away from him; it’s interesting that his remain. I shrug off his jacket and pull my top off over my head. I unhook my bra and toss it to the floor. It feels fairer now; we’re the same. His eyes move to my chest; he looks at my breasts. I can’t tell what he is thinking. I let my hands run through his hair. His hand rises to stroke my head. Every small caress is perfect. I touch his lips with my fingertips; he has such a sexy mouth, full, soft and kissable, irresistible. His fingers run around the shape of my mouth and I’m melting.

I have a growing urge to slip one of my fingers inside his mouth but I am fearful. I saw him lose himself, albeit just momentarily, in the woods when I cut my leg. But, I tell myself, I also saw him compose himself; it is far too late now for me to start questioning trust. I’m in his house, in his bedroom; what will be, will be.

I can’t stop myself; I need to know. I slide the tip of my finger inside. I squirm as it feels delicious, hot and wet. Straight away, his finger pops through my lips and touches my tongue. I lick and suck at it, waiting for the delectable second that he is lapping at mine. He copies and although it’s just my finger in his mouth, it is the most erotic sensation of my life. The bizarre situation more than adds to the intensity; this is a massive risk and I know it.

I am soaking wet; I feel the telltale drip between my legs, and it seeps through the denim of my shorts. I want to forget about how insane I am being and totally surrender myself. I want to give myself to him. The nagging knowledge that he could take my life doesn’t leave me. I try to remember that he saved me and that if he chooses to take life from me, it’s probably his to take.

I move closer; my face almost touches his. I remove my finger from his mouth and my hand cups his cheek; his stubble tickles my palm. I position his face at such an angle that our lips brush. It’s cautious and apprehensive, but my mouth finds his. I close my eyes as I start to kiss him; at first it’s openmouthed and slow, teasing. I feel like I’m on fire; my body aches, searching and hoping for more from him, worried that I won’t find it.

At last, proof and confirmation: he kisses me back, and not like before; he isn’t copying my movements. His fingers run through my hair with urgency; he pulls me nearer and speeds up our kiss. It’s fast and animalistic and it’s all his doing; he is in control and sets the pace. His tongue darts in and I am rapidly losing my mind, I am so turned on.

I feel greedy. I want everything at the same time. My head is swimming. Why hadn’t I found him before all the madness? My hand touches his chest, right where I want him to touch me. I don’t feel patient so I drag his head down to touch my excited nipples. His hardness pokes at my leg; he’s erect. I can’t help it, I have to touch it, and I’m full of pure joy that he wants me too.

There’s no stopping me now. I press his head against me, telling him with actions, yes, kiss me there. He’s so ardent that the fear pricks at my mind again. What if he bites me? His teeth graze my nipples and my entire body convulses; fear and sexual stimulation is a heady mix. I peer down at him; he has his eyes closed and looks perfectly serene and content.

His hand wanders down and tugs at the button of my shorts. I am desperate for him to touch me; I need him to help put out the fire down there. I stand to unfasten the damn button and wriggle free. My hands seek his jeans; they are tight and I can clearly see the outline of his large bulge through the taut denim. I help him to undress, being careful not to aggravate his wound, which I vow to dress later, once my bursting mind has stopped imagining all the things that I long to do with the rest of him.

I quickly strip him of his boxer shorts and then I just stare, my mouth agape. Men like him belong in a blockbuster movie, on the center pages of a glossy magazine, on a poster of a teenage girl’s bedroom wall. I want him so much. I grab him and he shudders. I run my palm up and down the length of him. I rub it against me and already feel the tingles and growing pressure of my own orgasm beginning. His fingers play and tease, stroking my starved clitoris and then slipping down to dip inside me. He licks a finger, savoring my personal taste. I know what he wants to do and I want him to do it, although the prospect leaves me fretful. He pleads with me with those dark doe eyes; he tries to reassure me that I am safe.

He sinks to his knees and buries his face in my lap; his hungry tongue licks at me, causing my knees to buckle. I sit on the end of the bed and watch him enjoying me. As his tongue slides up and down, I’m about to erupt. The pressure builds and builds until it almost can’t be stopped. But he pulls away. His chin glistens; he kisses me and I smell and taste myself on his lips. I pull him on top of me and eagerly await the explosive moment. I want it more than anything.

He’s inside me, loving me softly, clearly afraid of hurting me. I wrap my legs around his body, pulling him closer, forcing him deeper and deeper inside. His hand reaches down to caress me, and it’s all too much. I want this to last forever; the pleasure is incomparable to anything I have ever experienced, but I can’t take it. One look at those biceps and his hand coaxing my release and it’s over. Sweet wave after wave hits me. I cling to his arms and groan out loud; the powerful orgasm rages through my body, all the way down to my curled toes. As it begins to fade, I am left whimpering as his begins. He shouts out at the top of his voice, no words, a primal sound, and I feel every last spasm.

He flops limp and exhausted back onto the bed beside me. I study his face and smile; I see the amusement in his eyes, and also a tenderness. I embrace him for a while, planting kisses upon his Alice tattoo.

I realize that I must have fallen asleep as I see that it is dark outside. I imagine the others, back at the house, watching the clock, smiling smugly at one another from behind their rationed mug of cocoa. It finally happened, they will think, the stupid girl bit off more than she could chew. I roll my eyes as I play out the scene in my head. They couldn’t be more wrong. I celebrate the fact that I see things differently than they do. I would hate myself if I was so narrow-minded and callous.

My arms reach out for him on the bed but he isn’t there. I find my clothes, dress and timidly walk down the stairs. He stands in the middle of the room, still naked, with his back to me. I don’t understand what he’s doing. I walk over and stand beside him; he’s looking at his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. And he smiles.

DEAD FROM THE WAIST DOWN

August Kert

Getting a needle in the arm has to be my least favorite part of the day. But I have to suck it up. After all, the shot does keep my flesh from rotting off my bones.

The ocean-blue liquid is pumped into my arm. I feel it hit my veins, flow down, electrifying each one of my senses. I open my eyes, seeing the world in color once again. The disadvantage of being a zombie: when the infection starts to take over, the only sense I have left is my ability to smell blood. I become a monster.

I stand up and move over to the breakfast bar, waiting in line the best way a zombie can, moaning, and watch as the others in front of me are handed food. When it’s my turn, I stare at the hunk of bloody fat, probably from the ass of a cow, take it and stumble to my table next to Marcus.

I hate what I am. I hate what I feel. Picking up the mass, I gorge down as much as I can. The hunger subsides, but never quits. Food has lost its taste; everything in sight is flat and uninspiring. Just my sense of smell remains, leaving me with the salty sweat of bodies, the iron in blood, even the death of sheep in wool. It is so exact that I can detect a human yards away to almost the exact spot. But what good is that? I’m not allowed to eat humans. That is, when they’re found. The human race has become scarce. I haven’t seen one in months. Much like a vampire with the sun, my enemy is time and one day I will turn to dust.

I bury my face into the chunk of fat, feeling the squishy lump roll around in my mouth until I swallow. Marcus is watching me eat, blood running down his chin. Pulling away, I snarl at him. He is my best friend, but he can’t have my breakfast. We don’t have many conversations. He’s more of the silent type, like myself. I know what he wants and he knows what I want: food. That’s all any zombie wants.

The bell for school rings as I finish my last bite. Why send monsters to school? Each of us is taught different skills, the number one being not to eat anything that isn’t dead. In this world, that’s a very fine line. School makes my dead skin crawl.

I trudge down the hall to my first class and my least favorite. Its occupants are an array of monsters: zombies, vampires, ghosts and harpies. Marcus and I are the only zombies present. Most are vampires. Those sick bastards love to taunt us. They get off on being supreme beings. It’s not my fault I can barely speak, or do anything. Just like it isn’t the ghosts’ fault they aren’t corporeal. Harpies are nasty creatures. One moment they sit still, keeping a penetrating stare on whatever is closest to them. The next minute they’re snapping and gargling, crying out for support from their comrades. No one is sure why, but they seem to think they’re always under attack. Maybe it’s the bird instinct?

I sit at a desk with etchings ground into the wood. My fingers trace each marking. A heart. Not the kind I eat, but the kind showing love. Some names are inside of it. If my lips weren’t cracked and peeling, I would smile. Seeing this sign of affection reminds me of Dani. She’s a vampire, but not like any of the others. Dani doesn’t do the stupid shit the others do, like lace flesh with cocaine.

“Hey, corpse!”

As I turn, I’m hit in the head with a book. In response I grunt and try to kick the book, but my feet move too slowly to get any distance on it. Drac’s deep, breathy laugh fills the room. He’s one of the richest vampires, only drinking pure blood, not the twenty percent crap the rest get. Other females rub against him, each flashing how long their fangs are. Strange, the longer the fang the sexier the girl. As zombies, we feel in our hearts what we like, but our bodies don’t respond.

I turn back to the front of the room as Dani walks in. She tucks a lock of her golden-blonde hair behind her ear as she glances at me. I half wave, trying to get my arm to work. She smiles, mouths, “Hey,” and sits down two chairs over.

Marcus begins laughing next to me.

“W-what?” I ask.

“You pathetic. T-talk to her.”

My head sways a bit to the right while I think. Finally I ask, “What I say?”

“You want to screw her?”

My top lip pulls up in a snarl. Marcus may be right, but I can’t tell Dani that. Thankfully it isn’t possible for me to turn red, or I would. My answer is to moan at Marcus. He grunts.

Class is a blur like always. My teacher moves his hands over the whiteboard, describing coping skills to deal with the hunger. I don’t pay attention today. I watch as Dani twirls her pencil around her fingers like a baton, clicks her blood-flavored gum between her fangs and digs her razor-sharp nails into the wooden desk. Every move she makes is like magic, such grace, such innocence, like she doesn’t know I’m watching her. But a girl this beautiful has to know she’s being watched. Is she putting on a show for me?

Dani glances over at me and smiles, her fangs gleaming in the fluorescent light. What do I do? Should I look away? Try waving again? If I don’t do something soon she’ll think I’m creepy, if she doesn’t already. Maybe it’s the gray shirt I chose to wear? Bloodstains never do it for the ladies.

The bell announcing the end of class rings. As I’m bending over to get my things, Drac walks past, slamming his shoulder bag against my head, forcing it to crash into the wooden desk. It doesn’t hurt, well, not physically. My pride does take a hit. My fist comes down hard on the desk, echoing throughout the room. I grit my teeth together and grunt as loud as I can, my way of telling him to go to hell. Drac puts his hands on his cheeks, mimicking a scared child. It reminds me of Home Alone.

“Oh, help me! The scary zombie might do something!” Drac says in a girlie voice.

I want to get up, sink my teeth into his throat and rip him to shreds. I want to feel his cold blood trickle down my chin. But I can’t do that. In the end he’ll heal, as all vampires do, and I’ll get my punishment: a week without food. So I opt for staring him down, trying to make my lifeless eyes blaze with hatred. He smiles, shakes his head and leaves the room.

Then it hits me. Dani is still in the room and probably witnessed the entire scene. Fabulous. Nothing like being knocked around by the biggest dumbass and the girl you like watching it. I grab my books and walk as fast as my stiff legs can carry me. If I can avoid Dani maybe she won’t say anything about Drac, or me staring at her. I’m almost to the door. One more step…

“Hey, Nicholas,” Dani says, standing in the doorway.

“Hey, D-Dani. How are you?”

“Oh, okay. Want to go to a party tonight?”

I can feel my lips part, or maybe my mouth muscles have loosened, but I concentrate on finding an excuse not to go. I’ve never been on a date. I’ve never even seen one. What does a zombie do on a date? How do I dress? Will there be special food, like brains?

Marcus slaps me on the back. “Of course, he’ll g-go. He’s been…wanting to go out for…long time.”

Dani smiles. “Okay. Meet me at Brad’s around three.”

I nod.

She winks before heading off to her next class. I watch her move, the way her hips sway, how each leg steps with a purpose. I want to reach out and smooth my dry hands over her soft flesh, show her how much she means to me. I may be only eighteen, but Dani is the same age. Each year that I’ve known her, I find myself intrigued by her even more.

Marcus pushes me through the door. “You have date.”

“What I do?” I ask.

“When school over, I t-take you home. Make you look n-nice.”

I take Marcus at his word. He’s never done me wrong before. I try to keep moving my fingers so they don’t stiffen up, another zombie side effect. They shake, so I opt for putting them in my pockets. If Marcus knew how nervous I am, he might decide to talk a bit more, probably poking fun at me.

The rest of the school day I focus on what I’m going to say. When you’re not a man of many words, each one counts.

I walk into the house, taking my time to look for Dani. I’m surrounded by the vampires who think they’re hot shit. The girls are dressed with skirts hiked high, but not enough to show any bits. Low-cut blouses and glimpses of side boob finish their looks. I grunt and turn in the other direction. Vaguely, I can make out the forms of ghosts. Their bodies or what could be called bodies sway, floating above the ground. One turns my way, its eyes becoming red. Ghosts hate zombies. They believe all dead should be spirits. I think they wish they still had bodies.

The lights in the room hurt my eyes. I took my anti-rot shot before I left, but it isn’t stopping the strobe lights and disco ball from reflecting horribly in my pupils. I decide it’s best to go somewhere…darker. I know, cliché that a monster hides in the darkest room, but what can I say? I am what I am.

On my way I am knocked into and stumble against a side table. A harpy snaps at me, her eagle-like wings quivering with her anger. Harpies, the beasts that think they should be on top of the food chain, are nasty and hard to deal with. It’s best to stay away from them. I moan, nod and keep going.

I walk down the hall, getting as far from the deafening music and jumping monsters as I can. Why am I here? Dani asked me, so where is she? Maybe she invited me as a joke? Maybe she and her sick friends wanted to see if I’d actually come? I begin to regret my decision to attend. The dark corner seems so far away. Time to leave.

I trudge back around, counting down the seconds until I can leave.

“Nicholas! You came!”

I see Dani standing by the main party room, holding a clear cup filled with blood. I can smell and almost taste the copper liquid from here. She runs up to me, and kisses me on the cheek. Her lips, much warmer than mine, send shivers through my body. What is this sensation? It makes me feel alive and not like a corpse. Those cells she touched are dancing, moshing at the feel of Dani’s skin. I want more of it. I want more of her. My hand moves slow, too slow, to reach for her. Instead she grabs me, pulling me down to the open space in the middle of the living room. She lets go of my wrist, smiling as a new song begins blaring out of the speakers. Dani sways her hips to the beat, gyrating ever so close to my body.

They say people feel music in their bodies and react. I don’t. At least, it doesn’t seem I can. I’m waiting, but nothing is happening to my body. I try tapping my foot. Still nothing. Dani sees me struggling and takes my hands in hers. She lifts them up and down, side to side, apparently attempting to get some movement out of me. Looking over, I see a male harpy bobbing his head to the beat. Maybe I could do that…

“Nicholas, you look like a chicken after its feed,” Dani says, laughing.

I stop, grunting in shame. So much for being smooth. I turn my attention to a vampire. He has another against him, her ass shaking. His hands are on her hips, helping her grind more into him. They seem to be having fun, but I can’t see myself being that confident or disrespectful to the girl I finally got to talk to me.

Dani takes my face in her hand. “Hey. Don’t pay any attention to them. Let’s do things our way.”

Dani places her palms on my hips from behind, moving them with the beat. It feels odd, like an insect is crawling over my body and I’m trying to get rid of it, but I go along. The more I work at it, the better I feel I’m getting. Dani comes back in front of me. She takes my hand and twirls herself in circles, her blonde hair flowing in the air. There is a glow about her, like someone has a flashlight beneath her skin. If this is the reaction I get from dancing with her, I never want to stop. She does another twirl, then another. I see a vampire dip a girl. I try it, bending her down, hoping to support her back. Utter failure. My grasp isn’t as tight as I would have hoped and I drop her.

My eyes widen. Stupid. How dumb can I get? I help Dani up. At first she scans the room, looking for anyone who may have seen our mishap. When it seems we’re in the clear, she turns to me and rests her cheek on my chest. I’m not sure what I’m doing, but my arms wrap around her, holding her close to me. It’s probably the vibrations from the music, but it feels like she has a heartbeat pressing against me. I never want to let go. Spending both of our immortal lives in this very spot doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“Want to go somewhere more…quiet?” Dani asks.

I nod. “Sure.”

Taking my hand, Dani leads me down the hall to an empty bedroom. My nerves almost shake from my body. She opens the first door. We hear giggling and the sound of sheets rustling. Dani quickly closes the door, turns to me and covers her mouth to stifle a laugh. The next room has practically the same scene. We reach the end of the hall. The darkness is welcoming against the craziness of the party behind us. She tries the door, and when we walk in, it is completely dark except for the moonlight shining in through the window. Dani takes my hand and leads me to the bed. Again, her touch is magical, electrifying, like lightning. I want more. I never want her to let go.

Dani sets her blood-filled cup on a table and rests her hand on my thigh. I stare at it, noticing how much more properly manicured they are than mine. To my surprise she has her nails painted with sunflower-yellow polish, not the typical crimson her friends wear. I shiver as her finger moves ever so slightly on my leg. What am I going to do? I don’t want her to move it, yet shaking doesn’t seem like much of a turn-on. I opt for focusing on the way Dani’s blonde locks brush her shoulders. If only I could reach out and feel those strands. I bet they’re silky, like satin. As I’m moving my hand to feel them, Dani turns to me, her fangs tainted red.

“Thanks for coming,” she tells me.

“No problem.”

She smiles. “If I tell you a secret, can you keep it to yourself?”

I nod, anxious. Not many tell me their private thoughts, even though I’m not known for running my mouth.

She gets close to my ear and whispers, “I’ve always thought you were cute. You’re not like the other guys. Those dumbasses that think muscles and mouth are everything. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”

Again, if I could blush, I would. I don’t know what to say, so I try to smile, but my dry lips aren’t exactly working.

She pulls away, smiles like she’s a child who’s just seen Santa, and says, “I know you feel the same about me. I catch you checking me out.”

My eyes shift from side to side. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. My friends wouldn’t approve, you know, you being a zombie and me a vampire.”

I nod.

Dani lifts her leg, straddling me. She seems weightless in my lap. Her breasts are inches from my face. I’ve never been in this position before in my afterlife. Something tells me I wasn’t much of a player before I died. I can’t really remember life before the infection. My earliest memories are of me falling to the ground, feeling each ounce of my being dying. The pain like needles stabbing my body, the headache like a sledgehammer to my scalp.

Dani shifts in my lap, bringing me back to the present. She smiles, showing me impressively long fangs no longer blood-tainted, and places a kiss on my lips. At this point I can’t help myself. This is something I’ve wanted for years: to touch her, to kiss her. I rest one hand on her waist while the other moves to cup her face. Her tongue slides in my mouth. I become worried. My teeth aren’t exactly in great shape and are razor sharp at that. But Dani maneuvers that problem with ease. I try to massage her tongue with my own, but I can’t seem to get it working right. I can feel my body begin to shake. What if she thinks I’m weird? What if she realizes this is a mistake?

She pulls away, smiling at me. “I know zombies aren’t exactly known for being slick, but don’t worry. Here, lie on your back. Let me take care of you.”

I do as she asks, trying to relax on the sheets. Dani lifts my shirt and begins kissing my stomach. Not knowing what to do with my hands, I keep them at my sides. Her touch feels even better over my abdomen. I love the way her tongue dances over my flesh, tracing the veins of my body. I close my eyes and take a mock breath, melting more into the bed. I feel a button unclasp and hear the sound of a zipper being slid down. Now we come to the problem. I’ve never had an erection. Don’t even know if I can get one.

Dani slides my pants down over my hips. I gaze down at my exposed prick. No life to it. Limp like bad sushi. Concentrating on making it hard doesn’t help either. What a time to have erectile dysfunction.

Dani takes it in her mouth anyway. She’s careful with her fangs not to cut off anything I may need later. Her tongue slides around the base, massaging every inch of it. Her hand gently cups my balls. I moan, not sure if it’s my typical zombie moan or one of pleasure, but she giggles. The vibrations bring me to life, so to speak. An erection is coming, I know it. My hand tangles in her hair, moving with her as she bobs over me. Her tongue flicks the tip of my penis and I shiver, wanting more of her. She releases me and begins rubbing her breasts on my cock. I don’t even know I’m doing it until it happens, but I find myself reaching down her shirt, feeling the firm mound, the peaked nipple and the goose bumps from my touch. She smirks, continuing to grind her chest against me.

Dani sighs and gets off me. My brow furrows until I see the problem. My prick still has no life to it. I may have felt it, been turned on to the point of exploding, but that didn’t matter to it. Apparently it stays dead. I pull my pants on and sit up. My shoulders have a noticeable shrug to them. How on earth am I going to be with Dani, the woman I’ve dreamt about for so long, when I can’t even react to her touch? I want to run, to get out of this house and away from my afterlife forever. I can’t even look Dani in the eyes.

She grasps my chin, forcing me to look at her. “Hey, you’re dead. But only from the waist down. We can still have fun. We can go to carnivals and ball games. And if sex is so important it will be fun to see what you can do to me.” She winks.

I nod. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not. It was worth trying, right?”

“I guess…so. Been better if worked. Thing’s broken.”

She waves a dismissive hand. “Nothing is ever broken. We’ll just have to work at it.” She takes my hand, leading me out of the room. When we hit the hall, she plants another kiss on my lips, again sliding her tongue in my mouth. This time my own tongue responds playfully, touching hers. Her hands wrap themselves in my hair, tugging on my short locks. I pull her close to my body, enjoying her warmer frame against mine.

She steps back, beaming. “See? We can get things working. Now, how about we go enjoy the party?”

I nod. “Sure. Would love to.”

Dani takes my hand, leading me back to the loud chaos of the party. Again the strobe and disco lights blind me, burning my retinas. She grabs a glass of blood for her and fat on a cracker for me. I’m not the type of zombie who enjoys fat, or crackers, but I take it anyway.

“Corpse!”

I turn and see Drac, the asshole from school, about to throw a football at me.

Dani steps in front of me, placing her hands on her hips defiantly.

Drac speaks up. “Dani, why are you protecting that lump of flesh?”

“Because,” she loops her arm in mine, “he’s my boyfriend. And I don’t want to hear any shit about it. And stop calling him ‘corpse.’ His name is Nicholas. Now go back to your own little girls, douche bag!”

For the first time since I died, I feel a smile tugging at my lips. I like this new feeling. I want more of it. And I want to hear Dani call me her boyfriend again.

We sit at the bar in the kitchen. Dani sips her blood. I pop the fat and cracker in my mouth. Dani slides her hand over mine, rubbing my knuckles. For the first time I feel confident enough to look in her eyes. So beautifully crimson-colored, highlighted by sunset orange. I touch her cheek, feeling the softness with my own rough skin. She leans into my caress.

“You beautiful,” I murmur.

She smiles again, that award-winning glow to her.

My own smile comes, a sensation I’m still not used to. But I’ll take it. And I’ll take being dead. Maybe becoming a zombie wasn’t my first choice of an afterlife, but if it brings me to Dani, I can’t complain.

SWEETER THAN TO WAKE

Thana Niveau

What do the dead dream? Do they dream of life? Of the living? Do they dream of us?

Liam had always loved to watch Colleen as she slept. He loved the protective feeling it stirred in him, the sense that he was watching over her while she was at her most vulnerable. Her eyelids would flicker with whatever strange adventures she was having, sometimes good, sometimes bad. He himself never remembered his dreams so he loved hearing his wife’s. But he could never join her in them. Only when she woke could he share her sleeping world, listen as she told him of fantastic landscapes and impossible creatures.

Now, however, her eyes were still, her face pale and serene, her skin cool as she thawed. He had been unable to protect her this time. A single bite was all it took. Within minutes she was dead. Liam had allowed himself no time to grieve; he had carried her at once to the mortuary, placing her in one of the refrigerated drawers to keep her from waking. For now anyway.

He hadn’t wanted her to become like the others and freezing was the only way of delaying the Waking. All across town the Woken roamed like sleepwalkers, in a state that was neither life nor death. They weren’t especially aggressive; most of them merely seemed lost, confused. They moved slowly and clumsily through familiar places, shying away from the living. They didn’t speak or respond like the people they once were. Rather, they behaved like frightened animals in the wild. If they felt startled or threatened, they would attack. And if they were hungry, they would bite.

Liam laid Colleen on the embalming table and began to massage her hands, her arms, her shoulders. He stroked her face, setting her features as if for viewing before a burial. He kissed her cold lips and parted them to see her teeth one last time. Her dazzling smile was gone forever but her teeth were still dangerous. When she woke she would be frightened. And hungry.

With infinite skill and patience he drew the curved suture needle through the mucosa beneath her lips and pulled the silk thread taut. He placed the stitches as deep inside as possible so as not to make her mouth look pursed. He didn’t want to mar her beauty in any way. A little blood ran over her lower lip as he finished the final stitch. She was starting to thaw. He didn’t have more than an hour or two before she began to stir.

Now that her limbs were more pliable he could restrain her. He wrapped the ropes around her wrists and ankles as gently as if she were still living, securing her to the table. The bite on her arm had turned black just before she died; now it was shading to a virulent red. It was what happened just before they began to move again.

With a pair of scissors he slit her dress open down the front, exposing her pale breasts, the porcelain skin of her belly. She was like a sleeping statue, a sculpted Galatea he could wake with a kiss. She would wake, of course, but her new life would be short unless he intervened.

The reanimation didn’t last long and within a week or two the moving bodies began to fail, to fall apart. The streets and buildings were littered with body parts. Bones and joints weakened until they could no longer support the weight of arms and legs. That would never be Colleen’s fate. She would suffer none of the indignities he’d witnessed since the Waking began. She would be preserved.

His hand trembled slightly as he positioned the knife above her belly and he steadied it with the other hand. Then he took a deep breath and pressed down, making a quick, firm incision from the bottom of her rib cage to her navel. He set the bloodstained knife aside and teased the folds of skin apart, slipping his hand into the dark cavity.

Inside her organs were slick and wet but still cool. Her body would never warm them naturally but the heat of the sun would eventually cause them to rot. The blood in her veins would pool in unsightly bruises. He’d seen it happen to others and he was determined that it would not happen to Colleen.

He stroked the smooth surface of her liver before grasping it firmly and pulling. He cut the fleshy threads that held it inside and deposited it in the dish beside her. It was then that she began to move.

Her fingers opened and closed experimentally and she raised her head. Her eyes scanned the room before coming to rest on Liam and he saw her lips move. She was trying to open her mouth. Whatever instinct made them wake, it was presumably now telling Colleen to bite. Here was prey: eat.

“My love,” Liam said softly, reaching out to stroke her face with the back of one gloved hand. “Don’t worry. It will be over soon.”

She was still as he spoke, as though listening intently. Her eyes seemed a little more focused, her expression a little more attuned. As though she knew him. Liam hadn’t dared to dream that anything more than her physical beauty remained. He’d seen too many of the Woken in the past few weeks to hope that they retained any memory of who they were before. But something drew his gaze back to Colleen’s again and again as he worked. He worked; she watched.

He lovingly lifted each organ out while she lay still, incapable of feeling any pain. There was something strangely intimate in touching parts of her he’d never seen before. Even her insides were beautiful. He cradled her delicate kidneys, her pristine womb, her tiny ovaries, caressing each soft pulpy mass before setting it aside. He left her heart until last.

Throughout the procedure Colleen remained passive. She didn’t struggle in her bonds or try to resist in any way; she merely watched, her eyes wide and curious. Her skin was smooth and cool and Liam found himself stroking her absently as he worked, emptying her of the parts she no longer needed, the parts that could now only hasten her deterioration. They weren’t what made her who she was anyway. They were no more “Colleen” than her hair or fingernails were. Or her clothes, her makeup, her jewelry.

At last he filled her with soft cotton wool, as though she were a lovingly crafted doll. A lifelike figure of his wife. Dead but not dead. Lost but not lost. As Liam sewed up the incision, he became more and more certain that the essence of his wife, her soul or her being, was still there. Buried perhaps, muffled in her newly Woken form, but unmistakably there. He would keep her with him and care for her as long as he was able, even if he were the last living man on earth. And when her preserved body at last began to succumb to the disintegration that eventually claimed all of the Woken, he would join her in death. Real death.

He drained the blood from her veins and injected a warm solution of chemicals to preserve her, to keep her from becoming like the ones outside. Even now Liam could hear them scratching at the door of the funeral parlor. Many of them were quite docile and several were so badly decomposed that they were no threat to anyone. But all it took was a single bite. His eyes watered as he gazed down at Colleen. His beautiful Colleen, his wife of only two months.

When he was done he stripped off his gloves. He untied the ropes and Colleen reached for him as soon as her arms were free. The solution had brought some warmth and color back to her skin and he lifted her off the table. He set her on her feet and she stood gazing at him, a little uncertain, a little hesitant. Then her lips moved in something like a smile. She took his hands and drew them to her, placing them against her face.

Liam closed his eyes as he stroked her soft cheek and let his fingers trail down the curve of her throat, her shoulder, the swell of her breasts. He knew and adored every inch of her, could have sculpted her likeness if he were blind.

“Oh, Colleen,” he murmured.

Colleen sighed in response and guided his palms over the firm, warm flesh of her newly eviscerated torso. He drew his fingers along the line of stitches, down past her navel, then down a little farther. Then he stopped. He opened his eyes to find Colleen watching him intently.

Her eyes roamed over his face, not with the fear and confusion of the Woken, but as though he were someone familiar that she was trying to place. She looked like someone shaken from a dream, trying to remember the details even as they faded. In her short sleep of death, had she dreamt of him?

“My love,” he said, hardly daring to speak the words. “Do you remember me?”

She cocked her head to one side with a puzzled expression.

“It’s Liam. Your husband. You know me, don’t you?”

Her lips parted slightly and she brought her face close to his. Then she took his hand and pushed it down, pressed it between her thighs. Liam gasped, surprised to find her warm and wet. He met her eyes again, a little startled by the intensity in her piercing gaze. It was not the dull, glassy stare of the Woken; it was the loving gaze of his wife. Colleen moaned softly as she writhed against his touch.

Liam felt his own body begin to respond. No matter what had happened, no matter how she had changed, she was still Colleen. And she knew him; he was certain of it now. She wasn’t like the others. Her body remembered his touch even as what remained of her spirit remembered his face, his voice.

He touched his lips to hers, gently at first, then with a little more passion. Her jaw worked hungrily and he was grateful for his presence of mind in stitching her mouth shut. She knew him and loved him. And of course she wanted him. Wanted him to join her, to be like her. But he couldn’t follow her there. He had to stay as he was to look after her, to keep her as long as he could. All he wanted was a little more time with her. He wasn’t ready to let her go.

“Oh, Colleen,” he said, burying his face in the hollow of her throat. “I missed you so much.” It had only been a day but any time apart felt like an eternity. And eternity without Colleen was unthinkable, unbearable.

Her arms slipped around his neck and she moved her pelvis against him, grinding against the hardness in his crotch. She whimpered with desire and Liam could resist her no longer. He swept her up in his arms and carried her into the next room.

He deposited her on the plush carpet and began to undress. His fingers trembled as he unfastened the buttons of his shirt and Colleen crouched there on her knees, gazing up at him with animal eagerness, unnatural hunger.

When at last he was naked Colleen reached for him and he pushed her down gently onto her back. Kneeling above her he allowed his hands to roam over every inch of her supple flesh. He’d massaged her with cream to keep her skin soft. She felt like silk. He entered her and she whimpered softly, as though she were gagged. He smiled, remembering all the games they had played before the world changed.

A tide of memories swept over him as he pushed himself deep inside her. Colleen arched her back and wrapped her legs around him, urging him deeper, harder. She threw back her head, closing her eyes in bliss as she moved with him. Her body responded in all its familiar ways. Liam knew every step of her sexual choreography and there was no mistaking it: Colleen was here with him, fully and completely. Not even death had been able to separate them.

He thought of their honeymoon, two weeks of paradise in the Caribbean. Colleen bronzed and naked on the beach, spreading her legs in the surf, gasping as the waves lapped between them and chilled her nipples into stiffness. Later, at dinner, she had kicked off her shoes under the table and slipped her feet into his lap, smiling impishly as he tried to eat in spite of her distraction. She’d kept him hard through the entire meal and as soon as they’d got back to their room he’d flung her down on the bed and ravished her, tearing her dress and making her scream into the pillows as she came. Then again in the shower. And then on the balcony under the full moon. And then. And then…

They came together, their limbs entwined, their bodies one. Colleen trembled beneath him, her cries of pleasure muffled. Liam enfolded her in his arms and covered her sealed lips with his.

Days passed like a dream. Outside the Woken shuffled by, growing weaker and more frail while Colleen retained the blush of new life. The new life Liam had given her. But he knew it wouldn’t be forever. Each moment was precious to him because each moment only brought them both closer to the day when she too would begin to grow weak. He had extended their time but not stopped it and his heart ached that it was all he could do.

There were still living people out there. Liam had heard vehicles, voices, seen notices. Doctors and scientists were searching for a cure. But even if it were possible, it would never come in time for them.

He’d heard a single radio broadcast. A man was asking for information on the Woken. Had anyone, anywhere, seen any evidence of personality remaining after waking? Was it possible for the Woken to recognize the living? Any information—any hope—would be welcome. Please come forward, please contact us…

Liam had turned the radio off. He wanted nothing to invade their private world, to taint their final days.

It was time. Colleen could barely lift her arms now and she seemed frightened and confused, as though aware that they would soon be parted. She made soft mewling sounds and her eyes shone with tears.

But Liam reassured her with a smile as he kissed her. He wrapped her naked in his arms, dancing a slow waltz with her as he led her back to the embalming room. There he took up a pair of manicure scissors and gently, so very gently, snipped away the stitches holding her lips closed. He held her face in his hands and kissed her.

“I love you,” he whispered. Then he offered her his wrist.

At first she merely blinked in slow confusion. She licked her lips and closed her eyes as though smelling something sweet, something tempting. She kissed the skin of his hand and he felt the tip of her tongue like a final caress before she sank her teeth into the thin skin of his inner wrist. He hissed with pain as blood ran from the wound and Colleen, strengthened, held his wrist against her face, lapping at his blood as though it were a fine wine.

The wound itself wasn’t enough to be fatal but the poison in her bite was. Liam’s head swam and he sank to his knees, his heart throbbing in his ears, deafening him. Twin images of Colleen swam before his eyes and she sank to the floor with him, nuzzling her cheek against his as his vision began to fade and the world grew soft and gray. He closed his eyes.

And then he opened them again.

The soldiers had swept the town and so far found only piles of limbs and body parts littering the streets and houses. Checking the funeral parlor was almost an afterthought.

Inside was evidence that a couple had been living there for weeks. On the floor of one room lay a woman’s white velvet dress and a man’s shirt and trousers. The clothes were strewn like a trail left by lovers as they stripped on the way to the bedroom. But instead of a love nest, the trail led to the embalming room of the mortuary. There they found a tangle of limbs, two bodies so entwined that at first it was impossible to tell them apart.

“Carlson! I think you should take a look at this.”

The two men swept their torches around the room and Carlson shrugged, unimpressed. “You dragged me all the way in here for this, Fletcher? One killed the other and then died. Again. We’ve seen it before.”

Fletcher moved closer and gestured at the bodies. “No, it’s not that. It’s the stitches.”

On closer inspection they could see that it was clearly a man and a woman, wrapped in a tight embrace. The woman’s mouth was slightly open and her teeth were stained with blood, her lips trailing the snipped ends of black stitching. A pair of manicure scissors lay on a table nearby. The man’s wrist had recently been bitten.

The soldiers were quiet as they pieced the scene together.

“Why didn’t he wake?” Carlson asked at last.

Fletcher frowned at the scene, pondering the question. After a while he spoke. “I think he did. He just never left her side.”

They lay peacefully in each other’s embrace, as though they had simply fallen asleep while dancing cheek to cheek. There was no sign of a struggle.

Suddenly Fletcher gasped.

“What? What is it?”

Fletcher pointed with a trembling hand. “Her eyes. I swear I saw movement.”

“Her eyes are closed.”

“I know. But they moved. Like she was dreaming. Look! His just did too.”

Carlson crouched beside him and they both peered closely at the faces of the dead couple. From time to time their eyes did indeed flicker beneath the lids.

“But that’s impossible. They’re dead. I mean, they already woke and now they’re really dead.”

Neither man had an answer or an explanation. They watched the dreaming lovers for a little while before silently turning to leave. They closed the door behind them, neither intent on telling anyone what he had seen.

Outside on the streets the Woken lay scattered, having died their second and final death. Their eyes were still. No dreams danced beneath their closed lids.

Elsewhere in the world the living dreamt of the dead. But in one room, in one town, a pair of lovers dreamt of each other. In happy dreams they were as one, slumbering sweetly on, never to wake again.

THE WILD ONES

Erin O’Riordan

I awoke to the touch of something cold against my skin. I’d fallen asleep cold, so it took me a split second to realize the icy presence in the bedroom was nothing natural.

Without opening my eyes, I forced myself out of the fog of sudden wakefulness, giving my full attention to my surroundings. I was in bed with Aimee, underneath white sheets and the thickest blanket we could find, still not thick enough to keep us warm on this winter night. I lay on my side, facing Aimee, and although no part of me touched her, I knew her back was only inches from my fingers.

The intrusive, alien burst of cold that had come seeking around our bed retreated. At first it seemed Aimee had slept through it undisturbed. Moments later, she turned to me and whispered, “What was it, Ava?”

I put my arm around her, squishing my breasts against her back, touching my cold nose to the back of her neck. Aimee shivered. “Ghost,” I said.

She made a soft sound, not quite a sigh. “I wish they wouldn’t watch us when we sleep.”

I wished they wouldn’t watch us any time, but the Wild Ones had chased us out of every human city except the City of Ghosts. The ghosts protected us, but when we let our guard down, they could play with our minds.

Nights were the worst. Some of the dead were benevolent tricksters, but others were ill intentioned. The really malicious ones could make us hurt ourselves—and the remaining human population was precarious already. I held tightly to my wife, grateful we had her to lead us.

In the morning, I sat alone at a table in the corner of the dining room. We shared the long-abandoned hotel with about three hundred other survivors. Although the Wild Ones didn’t dare cross the ghosts, after all we’d been through to get to the City of Ghosts we still believed in safety in numbers. A few of the others lined up for their breakfast of fruit and hard bread rolls, but I waited for Aimee. She was always busy, but I knew eventually she’d keep her word and meet me at our usual table. I stared out the window at the gray sky.

“You think it’ll snow today?” The male voice was surprisingly close to me, causing me to jerk around to face him. The tall, dark-haired man who lived down the hall from Aimee and me pulled out a chair at my table.

“Excuse me?” I said, offended he’d invited himself to sit with me.

He sat beside me, ignoring the tone in my voice. “Ava, right?”

I nodded. “…And you’re Steven.”

I’d learned his name the day Aimee and her scouting party came back with his band of survivors. We’d considered them an especially lucky find—an entire town relatively untouched by the Wild Ones, including strong adults with survival skills. I still don’t know how they held out so long without the help of the ghosts. They’d been running low on food, and with my nursing skills, I’d taken care of Steven and some of the other men who’d let themselves get malnourished to give the women a better chance. Steven had injured an arm in a building collapse, and the wound was badly infected.

“You remember,” Steven said, smiling. He had a nice smile; I’d always noticed that about him. When we met in the halls, we were cordial, but we’d never been friendly. I thought Aimee had assigned him to the security detail. “Of course you remember. You saved me.”

He’d probably felt close to death, but except for a high fever and a manageable electrolyte imbalance, his case was far from the worst I’d treated. Two members of his band had succeeded in starving themselves to death.

Given how he remembered me, it seemed rude of me to ask him what he was doing at the table I customarily shared with Aimee. Most of the survivors were so grateful for Aimee’s leadership, they treated everything she touched with a certain respect.

Aimee strode across the room from the direction of the kitchen and sat on my other side. “Steven, thanks for coming this morning,” she said.

“No problem.”

I looked at Aimee. “You asked him to our table?”

“Yes. I have a new assignment for you two,” Aimee said seriously. “Something I want you to work on together.”

I was perplexed—I wasn’t aware that Steven had any medical skills, and if I was correct that Aimee had assigned him to security, I couldn’t imagine what I could do to help him. “What is it?”

Aimee took my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. “Please don’t be upset,” she said. “This has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

“What are you talking about?” I interrupted her. I looked over at Steven, but he looked as perplexed as I was.

“Ava, I want you to make babies.”

I pulled my hand away from hers and stood. “How could you even think I would go along with this? Because you’re our leader, you think you can give me to some man we barely even know?” I was so angry, I couldn’t even look at her. I started off toward the door.

“Ava, wait,” Aimee said. She caught up to me quickly, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Listen to me. I’m not giving you to anyone. You’re my wife and you always will be.”

“We’re not animals!” I shouted. Everyone in the dining room stared at me, including the unseen ghosts, but I didn’t care. “You can’t breed us!”

“Ava, listen.” She got in my face, forcing me to look into her big brown eyes. “We’ve been here almost a year. How many babies have you delivered since we reached the city?”

“Two,” I admitted. I wasn’t the only medic who performed midwife duties, but I still knew that with our population of slightly under 2,000 survivors, we had an extremely low birth rate. Without any mass communication systems, we had no way of knowing if there were other survivor groups or if we represented all that remained of the human race. “We’re still trying to survive.”

“We’re safe here, Ava. We have enough food to sustain a larger population.”

I didn’t share her confidence. There was still so much we didn’t know about the Wild Ones.

“I need you to try, Ava. People look to me for leadership, and if my wife feels safe getting pregnant, maybe the other women will feel safe, too.”

“I don’t feel safe.” I looked over at Steven, who waited patiently at the table. A good soldier, he’d wait for Aimee to dismiss him before he went anywhere. “Why does it have to be him?”

“It doesn’t have to be him. I chose him for you; I know you’re attracted to him.”

I crossed my arms defiantly. “I am not. He’s a neighbor and a fellow survivor, and that’s all.”

She put her hand on my shoulder, but I jerked away. “I understand why you’re upset, but think about it, Ava. You dated men before you and I got together, and you may be married, but you’re not dead. I’ve sat in meetings with you; somehow, you and Steven always seem to sit near each other. I’ve seen you exchange glances.”

Despite my protest, she wasn’t wrong. Before and during my relationship with Aimee, I’d always had dreams and fantasies about both men and women. Aimee’s responsibilities and her absolute fearlessness meant she’d left me alone many nights. Had I thought about Steven like that? I had; he was the most attractive of our neighbors, and we’d formed some kind of bond when I’d cared for him at his most vulnerable.

“You’re not asking me to sleep with him, right?”

She smiled. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with, Ava, but think of this as a hall pass.”

I couldn’t help but smile back at her use of a phrase that seemed to come from another life, one far removed from the City of Ghosts. “How could you even think that I would cheat on you?”

“You can’t think of it as cheating. You have to think of it as survival. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, Ava. I know I leave you alone too much.”

“But I love you, Aimee.”

“I know you do.” She took my hand and led me back toward the table. I followed her hesitantly. “You’ve fought so hard to survive, and this whole time, you’ve been helping others do the same. You could pass that on to the next generation, Ava.” Aimee sat next to Steven, who stared out the window. He seemed to be avoiding looking at Aimee or me. “Look, I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. I will ask you both for a favor, though: spend some time together.” She turned around to face me. “Ava, will you at least sit down to breakfast?”

We got in line for our portion of fruit and bread, then sat down to a very quiet meal. I didn’t have much of an appetite for my mango slices and strawberries. I couldn’t believe Aimee had blindsided me with this; we’d never even talked about having children. She’d told me a childhood bout with cancer had left her infertile, but we’d never talked about my fertility. We’d never discussed the possibility of raising children together.

We’d certainly never discussed the possibility of bringing a third person into our marriage.

“Excuse me,” I said, pushing my plate toward Aimee.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Aimee told me.

“We sure as shit will.”

I seethed at Aimee the entire time I worked at the med clinic. When I came home that evening, Aimee was out. I went to bed alone, still angry that she’d brought the topic up in the dining room, in front of Steven—in front of everyone—without bothering to discuss it with me first.

Worn out by anger and my long shift at the clinic, unbothered by ghosts, I slept late into the morning. Aimee never came in—not uncommon if she and her captains had to deal with an electrical or food problem. I awoke to a knock on the door. I pulled on a warm sweatshirt and answered.

“Steven.” On this cold morning, his leather jacket didn’t seem out of place indoors. He carried a messenger bag.

He gave me a half smile. “This is awkward, huh?”

“Come in,” I said. “Sit down.” He sat on our battered chair, setting his bag down on the table. It made a clinking sound— glass bottles, I guessed. Since our water source was the sea and our desalination process was still a little crude, we’d taken to fermenting beer to make our water more palatable. The alcohol content wasn’t very high. Beer was strictly rationed—everyone got two bottles a day, and if you missed your ration one day, you couldn’t claim it another. “Look, you can’t take it personally that I’m not jumping at the chance to be the mother of your children. Aimee should have talked to me privately before she brought you into this.”

“Ava, I understand. When I was married, I couldn’t imagine being with anyone but Susan.” I knew his story of how he’d lost his wife; he’d shared it with me soon after we’d met. The way the zombies had destroyed her was gruesome. “No one would be here if it wasn’t for Aimee. I have nothing but respect for her, and for you. It’s one of the reasons I never tried to get to know you better.”

Our eyes met for a moment, and I quickly looked away. Aimee wasn’t wrong; the attraction between Steven and me was palpable. To distract myself, I unzipped his bag. It was full of beer bottles, six of them.

“Aimee brought me my ration, plus hers and yours.”

My anger flared. “She told you to get me drunk and take advantage of me?”

Steven shook his head. “She didn’t, Ava, and I wouldn’t. She asked me to talk to you, and I promised her I would. I know you’re upset…”

I popped the top off my first ration of the day and took a long sip. “I’m not upset at you.”

“…And I also know how it feels to be used.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said quickly. I didn’t need to hear all his secrets. “We all did things to survive—things we never thought we’d do.” I watched his hands as he took a beer from the table. We finished the first one in silence, then started on the second. “What else did Aimee say to you?”

“She said you and I made perfect sense, and she hoped you would take this as a gift instead of an insult. She said she thought it might make you happy.”

“I am happy,” I said quietly.

He leaned back in the chair, looking up at the ceiling. “When I married Susan, she was still in the military. We agreed we were going to wait a few years before we had kids, but Susan got pregnant within the first year. It changed all of our plans, but it was the best thing that ever happened to us.”

I felt a sudden tightness in my chest. “You had a child.”

“Two. A boy named Fenton and a girl named Maddie.”

Without thinking, I reached out to touch his hand. When he looked at me, his eyes were wet. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “How old were they?”

“Seven and four.” He wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, but then his hand came to rest in mine again.

“Even if we…do this, I can never replace…”

“I know.” We sat quietly for a moment. Then he said, “Ava, I don’t want to come between you and Aimee. I respect your marriage. I try to imagine how I would have felt if Susan had wanted to have a child with another man; I could never have been okay with that…even if she did the turkey baster thing.”

I wonder if we have any turkey basters in the City of Ghosts?” I thought aloud. “I can honestly say, for all the things I’ve ever done in the med clinic, I’ve never had to do an insemination.”

I knew who did it every winter, though: the ag people who raised our sheep and goats. My anger resurfaced; I clenched my jaw and balled up my fists.

“I should go,” Steven said, setting down his empty bottle. Realizing I still held his other hand, I let go.

“I’ll tell Aimee you fulfilled your promise.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you around, Ava.” He let himself out, and I locked the door behind him. I needed to think. I needed Aimee to be home so we could work this out. First, I needed to wash up.

I was still sponging myself when Aimee burst in. “Ava, can you get to the clinic, ASAP?”

“What’s wrong?”

“New band of survivors—eight men, three women. I need all hands on deck.” She kissed me. I twisted my black hair into a wet bun and hurried to get dressed as Aimee spouted off what medical details she could remember about the new band.

Despite all she told me, I was still shocked when I saw the refugees, quarantined from the clinic’s handful of routine cases. Each looked as if something had, quite literally, tried to tear them apart.

I spent the next five hours cleaning, sterilizing and suturing wounds. One of the women lost an eye. After we got her resting comfortably, I went to leave her to sleep, but she grabbed hold of my wrist. “What is this place?” she asked me. She had a heavy accent I couldn’t place.

“We call it the City of Ghosts. We don’t understand what attracts them here, but we can sense them all around us. They seem to want us here; the ghosts keep the Wild Ones out. You’re safe here.”

“We thought we were safe on our island, but they found us. They were enormous—taller than men, but hairy like gorillas. They’re like something out of a nightmare, or a campfire story. They can’t be killed. They’re like zombies; shoot them, blow them up, they just keep coming at you, trying to tear you up and eat you.”

I squeezed her hand. “All the survivor bands have different names for them. Here we call them the Wild Ones. We think they can be killed—cutting off their heads seems to work, and so does burning them to ashes.”

She exhaled in a bone-weary sigh. “When we first reached the island, there were four dozen of us.”

They were down to eleven people from almost fifty—and some of the eleven were unlikely to survive the night. They had no children with them.

“I know you don’t believe me, but we’ve been here for over a year safely. Please try to get some rest.” I patted her hand in a way I hoped felt reassuring.

I spent the rest of the day and most of the night working with the medic team on the new survivor band. We lost two of the men and one of the women in surgery. When we finally had the survivors stabilized, I wandered back to the hotel in a daze to rinse the blood and bits of flesh and bone from my body. Aimee wasn’t home. As soon as I dried myself, I sank into the bed and slept.

After a solitary breakfast the next morning, I decided to find Aimee and learned she was holding a meeting with her captains in the hotel’s ballroom. I joined her there, taking an empty chair near Aimee’s side.

“People are scared,” one of the captains said. “The new band describes the Wild Ones doing things we didn’t know they could do, like using boats to reach a populated island. They describe a mob of these things working together, not a few isolated individuals.”

“We’ve never had a good handle on their numbers,” Aimee reminded them. “We’ve always assumed their numbers were limited, based on the fact that we had so few credible sightings of their species before they began preying on humans. We have no way of knowing if their numbers are increasing. All we can do is tighten our security measures.”

“…And pray the ghosts don’t turn on us!” one of the captains shouted. “We know they can get inside our heads!”

“There are factors outside of our control,” Aimee said, cool as ever. “We may not be able to depend upon the protection of the ghosts forever. We still have to make preparations to ensure that the colony survives. For all we know, we could be the end of the human race. I, for one, am not going down without a fight.”

Aimee and her captains continued to talk, but Aimee’s message remained steady: the colony could not allow fear to get the best of it. As I listened to her, I made up my mind: I would get pregnant. I would put Aimee’s ideals into practice and show the community that its leader herself was starting a family. Our future may have been far from certain, but I would use my body and all my energy to show my confidence in Aimee’s leadership.

Hours later, when the meeting ended and Aimee walked me to the dining room, I told her my plan. Her reaction surprised me; she threw both her arms around me and sobbed into my shoulder. Her big, sloppy tears of joy rolled down the back of my shirt.

I laughed. “Aimee, I never knew you were such a big softie.”

“It’s your faith in me,” she said, sniffling. “It means everything.”

“I’m still not sleeping with Steven,” I said. I took a step back and looked her in the eye. “I feel like a sheep—but we’ll do artificial insemination.”

“Whatever you want,” she said.

“I want you to be there for the insemination. I want to feel like this baby is yours and mine.” As I said it, I thought of Steven. We’d talked about what I wanted, and we’d talked about what Aimee wanted, but Steven never told me what he wanted. He’d said he respected my marriage, but would he be happy as a sperm donor, or would he want to be a co-parent? Of the three of us, he was the only one who’d raised a child before.

“Of course,” she said, squeezing me and kissing my cheek. Our lips met, and most of my anger and fear melted away. She told me to sit at our table and volunteered to get our evening meal. As I waited, I spotted Steven sitting at a table with some of the other single men. I decided not to interrupt his meal.

When Aimee returned with two bowls of rice and vegetables, I asked her, “How involved do you imagine Steven being with this baby?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to talk it out with him.”

As she finished speaking, she looked up at something behind me. I turned around; Steven stood a few inches from the back of my chair. Aimee beamed at him. “We’re going ahead with the project.”

“Turkey-baster style,” I added.

“Looking forward to it,” Steven said. He smiled, but his eyes looked serious.

“Ava wants to know if you’re planning on being the hands-on type of dad.”

He stared at Aimee a moment. Then he turned to me. “I would love to be hands-on,” he said. “From the moment you hold them the first time, you can hardly stand to have your babies out of your sight.”

I looked into Steven’s eyes, and I saw his love for the baby we could have. Desire shot through me. I reached out and took Aimee’s hand, lacing my fingers through hers. I wanted them both, but couldn’t stand the thought of being disloyal to Aimee. A short time later, Steven went back to the men’s table. Later that evening, Aimee and I figured out I would be fertile in about two weeks.

I saw Steven occasionally during the intervening days. When we passed on the stairs or in the dining room, I felt awkward. It felt even stranger to bring a large syringe home from the med clinic and knock on Steven’s door. I woke him up; his hair was rumpled, and his chest was bare under his leather coat. He laughed softly as I handed him the syringe. “Bring this to us when you’re…done.” He nodded.

At home, I kissed Aimee, stripped from the waist down and lay across the bed under our familiar brown blanket. When Steven knocked, Aimee answered the door. I closed my eyes and kept them closed even after I felt Aimee’s reassuring presence among the curious ghosts crowded around our bed. A moment later, I was inseminated. Aimee collapsed on top of me, kissing my lips, my neck, my collarbone. “We’re going to be mommies,” I said excitedly, combing my fingers through her auburn hair.

Our first attempt failed. The next month, and the month after that, we tried the same procedure with the same disappointing results. “Don’t be discouraged,” Aimee told me as I sat on the bathroom floor, holding my knees and sobbing. “We’ll keep trying.” The air stirred, and I heard the ghosts whispering faintly. I couldn’t make out their words, but I believed they were encouraging me.

On the night before we’d scheduled my next insemination, I woke up alone. Aimee was off dealing with some food storage crisis. I couldn’t fault her for that, but I was angry at being alone. I was angry at the cold, impersonal syringe and at not being pregnant yet.

I threw on a sweatshirt and walked down the hall to Steven’s. After I knocked for several minutes, he came to the door. Despite the cold, he wore only black pants. I looked at the long vertical scar down his arm and remembered suturing it. “Ava,” he said, sounding surprised. “It’s early.” He let me in.

I looked into his eyes, noticing for the first time they were no fewer than five different shades of blue. Blue eyes were rare among the survivors, but Steven had them, and so did I. “Make love to me.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Are you sure about this?” I nodded. I leaned in to kiss him, but he held me at arm’s length. “What does Aimee think about you being here with me?” He moved in closer.

“Her idea.” I put my hands on his shoulders, closed the space between us and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around me, and even through my sweatshirt, I could feel his skin was cold. His lips were warm, and his mouth felt wonderful. He kissed me back, admitting my tongue as it gently touched his lower lip.

I couldn’t deny my desire any longer. Reluctantly pulling away from his kiss, I whispered, “I want you.”

Steven didn’t hesitate. He lifted me off my feet, carried me to his bed and sat me on the edge. He undressed quickly and slipped under the brown blanket, identical to the one I shared with Aimee. After I’d joined him under the blanket, he helped me peel off my warm clothes. I unhooked my gray bra and took off my unmatched green panties. We lay face-to-face, studying each other’s eyes for a moment, his fingers lightly grazing my belly, before he held me to him. I ran my hands over his arms, trying to take the chill from his skin.

I closed my eyes as our lips met. I surrendered easily, rolling onto my back. He covered my body with his. I parted my thighs, wrapping one leg around him, inviting in the hardness I could feel against my inner thigh—another part of him that felt warm and alive.

“Are you sure?” he whispered.

“More than anything.” He groaned and kissed my lips. I only had to angle my hips toward him, and he shoved his cock inside me. I gasped at how deeply I could feel him, then ground my hips against him. We moved in imperfect unison. The thrill of this stranger’s thighs slapping against mine while he touched long-untouched places inside me overwhelmed me. The desire I’d been trying to suppress for months came back with a vengeance. Pushing down hard with both hands on the muscle of his lower back, I made my muffled howl into his smooth chest while I came.

I felt the excited pounding of his heart, and I could tell Steven was close, too. In a few quick, hard strokes, he made a loud sound of bliss. With my head still pressed against his chest, I opened my lips and bit him underneath his collarbone. His moan became a shout and we clung to each other, desperately trying to catch our breath. This felt right.

He withdrew suddenly and rolled over to his side of the bed. “Ava, I’m sorry. You feel too good.” He sounded exhausted.

I opened my eyes. “Don’t be sorry. That was perfect. Next time we’ll go slow.” I caught a glimpse of his beautiful smile. It was even prettier now that he was, in some way we hadn’t quite figured out yet, mine. “Are you one of those guys who doesn’t like to be touched while he sleeps?”

He shook his head; his dark hair looked gloriously messy. “I want to hold you all night.” I rested my head on his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me.

I slept deeply, but not for long. Before the sun came up, he nudged me gently awake and said into my ear, “Is it next time yet?” Laughing, I rolled over on top of him. I kissed my way down his chest in slow motion. I wanted to taste him, to taste me on him, but I would take my time. Our first time was short, but sweet—the product of months of self-denial—but our second time would be an experience to savor.

The next day as I walked through the hotel’s halls, I heard bits of songs hummed softly. I didn’t know what it was until the woman from the new band, the one who’d lost an eye, told me. She’d lost the sight in her remaining eye after a series of infections, and in her blindness the ghosts spoke to her.

“Lullabies,” she said. “They want to sing to your baby.”

“My baby?” It would be weeks before I knew beyond a doubt I was pregnant, but she knew.

“The ghosts love babies. New skin, bones and blood remind them of life. They miss it. That’s why they keep us.”

I put my hand on her shoulder, leaned in and kissed the top of her head in the center of her smooth, black hair. In the old world, we’d been more independent, but the Wild Ones had eaten away at some of our boundaries. I would learn to play by the new rules.

SO YOU WANT TO DATE A ZOMBIE?

Shane Vaughan

The zombie apocalypse lasted a week, before everything reverted back to normal. Well, as normal as things can be with half a billion undead looking for all their old stuff back.

We’re still not sure exactly why it happened. Some say it was God, some say aliens and some that it’s all those preservatives we keep eating. Who knows?

All I know is one day I’m walking down the street and there’s my dead aunt walking up. “Jeffrey! Jeffrey!” she called out, waving her one remaining arm in the air while hobbling up on blunt ankles. “Oh Jeffrey! Isn’t it lovely? I’m alive!”

Then I passed out.

It all started on a Wednesday. A Wednesday! Nothing ever happens on a Wednesday. It’s been universally panned as the most boring day of the week. But not this Wednesday; this Wednesday felt it had a point to prove, a need to be different, a desire to fulfill some sort of ritualistic destiny.

Like on any other midweek day, the sun shone dimly through autumn clouds, the breeze keeping us all cool. People shopped and worked, and worked to shop. Children played in the mud, catching disease and friendship.

A family processed from a funeral home to a small idyllic church on the outskirts of the large, nondescript metropolis.

The grieving wife mourned the passing of her dearly departed; her children bowed their heads, thinking of home; the family dog panted in the warm air, wondering where “master” was.

As the dearly beloved gathered, the priest said a few kind words and they each siphoned off a handful of dust. Ceremoniously, they sprinkled earth onto the mass-produced coffin and shed a few tears.

Then screamed as the hand of their departed broke through the plywood and, quivering, kicked off the apocalypse.

The poor wife fainted and fell. The priest tried to run, but tripped on a loose headstone and didn’t last much longer. The children screeched and made it almost all the way to the gate. The woman, now in the grave, had cracked her head open on account of the fall and her husband, now free, slobbered over his wife of twenty years. The priest moaned as he crawled his way into the path of an oncoming horde, and the children’s voice boxes gave way as teeth gnashed and ground on their throats.

The zombies treated their heads much the same way we treat Halloween monkey nuts, splitting them open and greedily scooping out brain matter.

Of course, brains don’t actually taste all that good. After a few quick, barely digestible morsels the zombies, like sharks, spat out the tasteless human flesh and awkwardly apologized to the dearly departing.

“Needs. More. Salt!” they stammered before their memories of speech came back and they remembered how to talk without sounding like a B-movie.

Wiping their mouths with the backs of no-longer-decomposing hands, they turned their eyes to the next edible thing: the family dog. He barked and he growled, but, like candy at Halloween, he was unwrapped and devoured quicker than you can say, “Oh my god, are those zombies?”

It was a symbiotic solution in the end: the zombies promised not to eat our brains if we mushed up our pets. The apocalypse lasted a week, but the pets only held out for three days. And so the great dog-food company of the world was created, animal rights groups abolished and the dawning of a new era of human-zombie relations began.

The lawyers were the first to accept the zombies, doing so with open arms. They rubbed their hands at all the lack of legal clarity as a host of undead sought to fit back into the society they had left. The prostitutes were next to accept, as humanity’s never-ceasing curiosity caught up with itself.

Though there were a few zombiephobes kicking around who liked to kick around zombies, most people found that, after a while, there wasn’t all that much difference between humans and their resurrected subspecies. Except of course for the undead part.

So You Want to Date a Zombie?

“Jeff!” Brian said, poking me in the arm as we lay slouched on the couch. “Have you seen this?” He pointed to an advert on the telly with the other hand.

“What is it?” I asked, squinting from the copious amounts of smoke we released from a homemade bong, resisting the urge to rub my eyes raw.

“It’s called ‘So You Want to Date a Zombie?’”

“Is it like the ‘Z-Factor’? That was rubbish; the one without the vocal chords was the best.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that, you twat. It’s like, I dunno, ‘Blind Date’ or something,” he said, waving around the remote to illustrate his point.

“So, what, the zombies go on a date blind? Sounds shit. What’s the betting they get an actual blind one to do it? Reality TV…there’s nothing real about it.” I took another hit from the bong to emphasize my apathy.

“Actually, it sounds pretty good,” he said, scanning his laptop for details. “They put a human male, or female, on a stool and they describe three players who sit behind a curtain. The contestant doesn’t know anything except what the host tells them.”

“I thought you said it was reality TV?”

“I never said that, spanner; I said it’s like ‘Blind Date.’” He paused to watch me as I exhaled white smoke. “I think you should do it.”

“Do what?”

“Go on the show.”

“Why in the name of sweet Jesus would I do that?”

“’Cos when’s the last time you fucked anyone, Jeff? That’s why.”

I held my tongue, counting back the days, weeks, months. Nearly a year. A whopping three hundred and fourteen days since I’d last had sex. Three hundred and fourteen miserable wanks with me and my laptop. A year of disappointing Saturday nights and revenge chips.

“A while,” I said, shrugging.

“Come on, what if you got a zombie?”

“That’s gross,” I said, passing him the bong.

“I dunno, I’m half tempted.”

“But isn’t that necrophilia?”

“Not really,” he said, pausing to take in a breath. “’Cos they’re not dead really, are they?”

“Yeah, but they’re the undead.”

“That’s the same as the living.”

“Hardly!” I said, motioning for the bong back. “What’s the opposite of necrophilia anyway?”

“Sex?”

I woke the next day with a bad case of fear, one shoe missing and an email clarifying my entry to “So You Want to Date a Zombie?”

“What have you done this time?” I yelled, but Brian had already left.

The studio was jam-packed with crew, cast and “support” for the poor victims who would sit in the chair and play dice with their sexuality. Brian had gone and invited himself along for “shits and giggles,” bringing his trusty hand-cam for “funzies,” as he put it.

“Why am I here?” I said, pacing up and down the small strip of floor they’d designated for [Participant 011-67]. “Seriously. Why am I here? I could leave, right? I could just walk away right now and never have to come back here. Why don’t I do that?”

“Think of the pussy.”

“What if I get a guy? What if I get a zombie-guy? What if I get a zombie-guy who died four years ago and hasn’t worked up the cash to get both his legs sewn back?”

“What if you get some pussss-ay!” Brian squealed unhelpfully as he pointed the camera into his own face, sticking out his tongue and making the “Rock-On” symbol with his free hand.

“This isn’t like college, man. I could fuck anything then without even giving it a second thought because I was young and high and stupid!”

“Yeah…” said Brian, lowering the camera for a second. “Now you’re just old, high and stupid! Woo!” He screamed like a pent-up jock at a Hooters and tongue-wagged at his camera some more.

“Careful, boy, they’ll think you’re food,” said a darkly clad techie as he passed. “You’re on in five,” he whispered before darting off to the crevice of studio-hell whence he came.

I felt my face drain of blood and my hands began to jerk. Sweat dripped and slipped into my eyes. I tried to rub it out but the sweat on the back of my hand only made things worse.

“Oh shit,” I whimpered. “Oh shit, I don’t wanna do it, Brian.”

“Shh, buddy. Worst case scenario you get a bad date, best case you get a good seeing to.”

“Best case is I die of embarrassment, worst case is I fuck a dead chick, and then I die of shame!”

“It’ll be fun. Go get ’em, tiger!”

Brian slapped me on the butt and I felt myself lunge toward the stage as an ethereal voice overhead pronounced: “Participant Eleven Sixty-Seven to the floor, participant Eleven Sixty-Seven to the floor, please. This is your one-minute call.”

I had the weirdest moment where all I could think about was where participant Eleven Sixty-Six was. Why couldn’t I see him? What had happened to him? A host of images flashed before me involving spare body parts, green flesh and a deep, unsettling fear of the little blue stool edging gradually closer.

“Sit down, shut up and follow my lead,” the host said through a gritted smile as I plonked my butt down.

I barely had time to nod before a flood of lights washed over me and a million eyes, some even belonging to humans, began to watch.

“Ladies, gentlemen and those who haven’t quite figured it out yet, welcome to ‘So You Want to Date a Zombie?’ I’m your host Chuck Lanigan. Our guest tonight is Jeffrey…” He paused to read my surname: Feuk. Clearly no one had told him it was pronounced “Fwek.” Childhood memories of torment and anguish slithered back into my head. I was about to mouth Fwek! but he didn’t give me a chance.

“Jeff, welcome to the show.” Chuck glided over the problem like a true patriot.

“Um—”

“The rules are simple, Jeff. Behind this curtain are three lovely prizes, but you only get to choose one. Will it be A, our Brilliant Blonde from Bombay; B, a Budding Brunette from Belfast; or C, the Bad-Assed Auburn from Blackpool!”

“I—”

“Each round we’ll reveal one thing about our prizes and you’ll reveal something about yourself until, after three rounds, we hit the sucker-punch, and you give us your verdict, and explain why.

“And remember, you at home can text, email or phone in to vote who you would pick! One lucky contributor might win this grand prize!”

The lights bathed center left of the studio as a shiny scarlet Ferrari spun around on an elevated platform, shrouded in dry ice and disco-ball spotlight. I clacked my tongue off my dry mouth, licking my lips in vain. I forced my eyebrows down from their nesting ground somewhere mid-scalp and told myself to stay cool. I grabbed one hand with the other, then clutched my quivering leg, mentally trying to force the shakes away.

The host seemed to like doing the talking so, as long as I stayed with him, I figured I’d survive. The host rambled on about the car for a bit and asked me a few basics about myself. I answered like a robot, firing off the usuals with barely any mental thought. Name? Jeffrey Feuk. Age? Twenty-seven and counting. Occupation? TBC. Why are you here, Jeff? Good Question.

“Stay tuned for this commercial break!” Chuck said, and my brain turned back on.

The lights dimmed and I felt the room dip four or five degrees. A lackey rushed over with a glass of water and I reached out to take it, but Chuck slapped my hand away. “Does that glass have your name on it, kiddo?”

“Uh—”

“No. No, it doesn’t, so don’t touch it, you sick pervert.”

“Wha—”

“Fucking zombie freaks,” he muttered as he walked away from me.

I was stunned for about two milliseconds, then realized how apt it was, how fitting, that the host of a zombie love game would hate zombie-lovers. I huffed, hacked and spat a globule of mucus onto the floor, hoping he’d step in it. I waved off another lackey as she tried to dab my face in powder. I crossed, then uncrossed my arms, my legs. I let my limbs hang loose then brought them back to heel. It’s amazing how nerve-wracking it is to try and get comfortable when a camera is watching you.

“Lights up in five, four, three—”

“Welcome back. Tonight’s show sees Jeff paired up with three hotties, but which one will he choose? Let’s find out a little more about our cats and kittens. The first question: where do you see yourself in five years’ time? Jeff?”

“Um, I guess I’ll be here, in this city, I mean. Doing pretty much what I’m doing now.”

“A real settler, ladies. Nothing says marriage-worthy like a man with a plan.”

I was still trying to figure out what he meant when he roared “A!” as though I’d just passed quantum physics. He spun to face the curtain, shouting out to the things behind: “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”

A pause ensued before text on a cinema-sized screen behind me began to scribble. I tilted my head around, watching as the scrawl marked its way across.

A: Well, Chuk, i would luv to work for Paws and Jaws as Im a hughe doggie fan, if Jeff piks me he can style my doggie all night long.

The audience woo-ed as a neon sign flashed WOO and my eyebrows successfully found their way atop my head again.

“Strong words, A. What do you think, Jeff?”

“Uh, the spelling is atrocious…” I said as a metaphorical tumbleweed passed by.

“But the meaning is crystal clear!” Chuck said without a pause. “Next up is B, B, Be my baby. Where will you be in five years’ time?”

B: Well, I’m a really laid back kind of person and I try not to plan ahead too much. I like to live in the moment. All you’ll have to do with me is think about tonight!

Another artificial woo rose from the audience as Chuck let out a big smile. “Well, well! What do you say to that, Jeff?”

“She didn’t even answer the question!”

“Who needs answers when you have that, Jeffy?”

“Don’t call me Jeffy.”

“Finally, prize C, what can we see?”

C: Jeff, pick me and we can live out our days together, forever. One year, five years, twenty years; as long as you want me.

The final woo arrived on time, perfectly synchronized with my rolling eyes.

“Yikes, bit quick for that, yeah?” I said, jumping the gun on Chuck who was momentarily distracted, wiping snot from his shoe.

“Tough love from our hard-to-please Fweker,” Chuck said through gnashed teeth. “Stay tuned for round two, and keep those votes coming in!”

The lights dimmed again and Chuck rounded on me.

“Try to be a little more professional, kid.” He stormed off just as his lackey stormed on, casting his head around to see his boss/master.

“Any chance of a donut?” I asked, but it seemed too much to compute for the poor intern as he merely inhaled sharply and ran off again.

I sniggered and realized that, for all my qualms and worries, I was starting to enjoy myself. Not because the show was good, but rather because it was so bad. I was beginning to see why people watched this crap, but I reminded myself I had two rounds left to go and I was still in the running to date a limbless zombie man-whore.

“And live in five, four, three—”

“Welcome, welcome, welcome. The polls are up and down, the votes are piling in, but who will ultimately win a date with Jeff? Why don’t we find out a little more about our contestant tonight?

“Jeff,” he said, spinning to face me. “We talked a little bit about work, but what is it you actually do for a living?”

“Well, on weekends I like to sit around playing games and on weekdays I do the same.”

“So you don’t work?”

“Maintaining my kill-death ratio is pretty hard work.”

“But you don’t earn any money?”

“I earn…respect…”

“From?”

“Fellow…teammates? Look, I don’t really go in for the whole work thing anymore.”

“Oh really, why?”

“An aunt died a few years back. Actually she returned with the Rising, but of course by then the money was mine and… yeah, I sorta have enough to live on.”

“A wealthy man, ladies and gents; we all love to have a bit of cash to splash. What about our prizes, let’s find out what they do. A?”

A: I’m teh no-holes-barred type who’ll do anythin, Chuk.

“Ho, ho!” said Chuck from the bottom of his empty soul. “B?”

B: I do everything. Over and over and over.

“Work it! And C?”

C: I used to just work part-time, but together, all I’d want to do is work at making you happy.

“Some great professions there, but what does our contestant think?”

“Well,” I said, pausing to think straight in a topsy-turvy world. “A sounds like she’s either grossly misunderstood the meaning of her words or is an absolute bimbo. I guess she, and it must be a she, can’t be a zombie ’cos they ate brains for a while and this one clearly has none!”

The audience laughed, genuinely this time, as I started to warm up.

“B makes it seem like she or he is a prostitute, and I’m starting to think it’s a he… And C, well, C seems a bit needy. First we’re together forever, now you’re working to make me happy? Thanks, but I already have an ego-stroker, and he goes by the name of Brian, my best friend!” I winked to Brian offstage as the audience guffawed.

“Wise words from our in-house psychologist!” Chuck said, feeding off my good vibes. “Why don’t we see where the votes are at?”

The screen’s text was replaced by three bars: one red for A, one blue for B and one yellow for C. The bars ran up and down the screen while some technobabble occurred before they leveled off with A coming in slightly ahead of the others.

“No holes barred, no votes lost! A is in the lead with a slight majority, but it’s anyone’s game right now as we enter the final round. Don’t go away!”

The lights dimmed once more and Chuck walked off without a word, which was a vast improvement. Brian rushed over to me to pat me on the back and gave me a rigid thumbs-up before being bullied offstage again by three macho-men and a zombie with two heads.

The shaky intern came around with a box of donuts but saw Chuck coming back and darted off as I reached out, grabbing air.

“Five, four, three—”

“Tonight on ‘So You Want To Date a Zombie?’ our stud Jeff lines his pockets while he mulls over our three prizes, but which will he choose? The needy number threesy? The ‘I’ll do you’ two, whose passions include fucking and sex? Or audience favorite numero unero, the lots of fun number one? Find out in our final round!

“Jeff, the question on everyone’s lips is: what would be your ideal date?”

I paused to wonder whose lips this question was on and why they were asking it before I thought of three hundred and twenty eight days previously. I felt the weight of the audience watching me. The show was funny, granted, but out of nowhere I was deadly serious. Just thinking back made me sad, made me want to turn off the cameras and the lights and go home, crawl under my duvet and cry into my pillow.

But I wasn’t home. I was on TV, on a game show where I might get the chance to be with someone superficial for a few hours. So I mustered the courage and, for the first time in the history of the show, I acted like a real person.

“My perfect date, Chuck? My perfect date is a really simple one. It starts with jam and toast, a cup of coffee and my morning paper. We do the crossword together and she dances to the radio. Later we have a long shower and spend way too long getting dressed before going for a walk by the river. She picks buttercups and checks if I like butter, and then I…I…”

I began to choke up, thinking of it. The audience was dead silent, not least because half of them were actually technically dead. Chuck put a clammy hand on my shoulder and, in his best funeral voice said, “A beautiful, simplistic date. One befitting the most…complex, of individuals. What do you have to say in return? Why don’t we go with audience fave A first.”

A: That’s soooo sweat Jeff, I nearly cryed. But I don’t have any eyes left, so I can’t. All i can say is the perfect date fr me would be to see you happy. Xxx

B: Jeff, my perfect date would be to make you forget about all those sad thoughts and force you to be the happiest guy on earth!

C: Jeff… And you’d pick Daisies and tell me you love me, and this time I won’t fall in the river and drown. I promise.

A gasp came from the audience. The neon lights flickered to SHOCK. Chuck’s mouth dropped and my eyebrows hit the stratosphere. There was no way. Literally no way.

But of course, it had to happen like this and suddenly I realized how much of a fool I was. The zombies, they all came back to life. Anyone who died in the last five years whose body was able enough to exist came back. That means dead enemies, dead friends, dead aunts and, yes, dead girlfriends.

So there I was, sitting on a small blue stool with a million crying eyes watching me as my ex came back from the dead. I felt hot tears stream down, the salty tinge as they struck my tongue. I literally sobbed as she stepped forward and then I realized why I had never thought of her, why I never looked for her. Why after a year I hadn’t thought to go after her: because she’s a mother-fucking zombie.

My Zombie and I

First class flights with champagne, five-star hotel for four nights at a ski lodge, complimentary breakfast, lunch and dinner, free bar tab, hampers and our very own chauffeur to hang on our every need. The company paid for it all. They said the ratings were at an all-time high thanks to us: the magical, interspecies, love-never-dies couple. There was talk of a movie coming out: he loses everything, she brings it all back from the dead.

I probably won’t go and see it.

Everyone had been calling and texting and emailing, congratulating us on finally finding each other again. People cried. It’s always pretty awkward watching other people cry when all you want to do is shrug your shoulders and walk away.

Of course, it wasn’t like that to start.

When she stepped out from behind that curtain, I ran for her. I was blinded by the euphoria, the adrenaline, the rush of love coming back from a dark place. It seemed perfect, the girl I’d pined for for a year ending up on the game show I was participating in. Perfect. Like two tangential lines that take a wrong turn and find each other, forming a perfect circle. Narrative gold.

But I instantly knew something was wrong. Something had changed. She was still my girl, still my Daisy, but now…she was Daisy the Zombie.

The first revelation was the skin tone. Where before she had been milk-bottle white in winter and lightly tanned in summer, now she was a sort of off-blue. I wondered what that would look like after a few hours on a beach without the lotion. The second was the smell. We embraced aptly, and she clung to me, crying into my shoulder, saying my name over and over. I gagged and tried to push her away, but she’d lost me once and wasn’t letting go again. Then came the third revelation. Her once-slim body had bloated out and her speech made a gurgling sound every now and then. As I tried to push her away I struggled to find a bit of flesh that wouldn’t move around every time my hand pressed into it. Of course, drowning is a hard way to die. The water would have filled her; the fish would have nipped at her; the weeds would have tangled her. Slowly, ever so slowly, her body became what it was. And then she arose.

In the middle of all the celebration, as my heart tore itself between ecstasy and revulsion, I felt a new and peculiar feeling, one I had never associated with Daisy before: pity. Her hair had fallen out so she wore this unsightly wig, this vivid red thing that perched on top where her blonde locks had been. Her clothes were baggy and sopping; she was still getting water pumped out of her. Her teeth were yellow; some had fallen out. She was deformed; I was ashamed, and yet there we were in the middle of a stage, confetti floating around us, hands clapping, people whooping. Brian was actually crying backstage. I saw a stagehand shush him and Brian punch back.

Every ounce of my being wanted to walk away. To run away. To sprint a marathon away. She kissed me smack on the lips and I swear I tasted seaweed. The host announced our big prize trip for two and I scraped a smile onto my face. Somewhere in the back of my mind as all these revelations about the girl I’d once loved came to the fore, something else kept repeating: she’s still Daisy.

“So, what was it like?” I asked over dinner on our third night together.

“The steak?”

“No, not the steak…”

“The veg?”

“No…”

“The…?”

“The…you know…the…”

“Spit it out, Jeff.”

“Oh, come on, don’t make me say it.”

“You’re the one who wants to know.”

“Yeah, but don’t make me say it.”

“Coward.”

“Bitch.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’d love to, but I hear you can get done for fucking corpses in this state.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

“Is it nice there?”

Yep, same old Daisy. Same old shit. I’d missed her so long I’d forgotten how much of a bitch she could be. Three nights sleeping as far away as one can from someone else on the other side of a bed. Three nights watching the girl I’d fantasized all year about devour up a dog, paws and all. Three nights of tense, awkward, skirting-around-the-edges conversations and I’d had enough.

The fourth night was our last paid night away. The ski resort was nice, though Daisy said she wasn’t up for the hot tub as she had developed a strange fear of water. I sunk myself into the steamy bubbles and prepared myself.

I needed to confront the facts: I simply wasn’t prepared to go quite that far for love. After all, she was a zombie, an undead, a living nightmare.

Then again it had been a year.… A year of joyless, sexlessness. Three hundred and sixty-five long nights with my five-fingered amigo and Google’s incognito mode. Heck, I’d even watched some zombie-human porn; it was the fastest growing niche in online porn.

The door to our cabin loomed. I stood outside freezing my nuts off, wondering if I was able to do it. My hand raised itself and knocked.

“Come in.”

I entered, stepping gingerly on the cloud-nine carpet and feeling the fluff itch between my toes. She was standing by the mirror, her back turned to me, brushing her garish wig.

“How was the hot tub?”

“Fine.”

I inched closer, every step seeming harder to take. My feet cemented to the floor, like they didn’t want to move on. “Did you go down the slope?”

“No…”

Online, there’s a trick called the Widower. The man fucks a zombie girl till she’s about to fall apart, then she snaps back and munches on his brain. It’s pretty gruesome stuff and has only been done once. I wonder though, if, after getting it on with a zombie, that wouldn’t be better?

I reached out a hand, mere inches away. My fingers trembled and the towel I wore after the sauna slipped away, falling deftly to the floor. I tried to swallow, but my throat was like an ashtray.

“You should have. I went down earlier and it was great. So fast, I think I lost some ear though.”

I gently touched her shoulder with the tips of my fingers, rubbing the rough skin that had once been so smooth. I held my hand there, my grip firm, and turned her around to face me. She paused and stared, one eyebrow raised questioningly. I stepped closer, pressing myself to her. It had been so long since I’d felt the touch of another body on my own. Even one so hideous, so meticulously messed up. But then there was something beautiful about the state of decay. I began to think of her like a piece of art, something Tim Burton-esque. I stared into her yellowed, bloodshot eyes, ran a hand over the edge of her jaw, feeling the blood clots under the skin. She raised her hands to my flesh, touching me.

“Cold…” I said, not sure why, maybe just to fill the silent air and cut the awkward tension.

“Warm,” she said, pulling her hands around me, her face looming toward me.

After all, it had been a year, for both of us.

She pushed me to the bed and I grabbed her by the arms, pulling her to me. She sat on my torso, writhing against me. I was hard, but she was starting to turn me off. I flipped her onto the bed, facedown, and tore the remaining clothes from her. I wish I’d turned the lights off first. Zombie parts are revolting at the best of times. I rubbed against her for a bit, trying to resurrect my own dead organs.

“Do you have a condom?” she asked.

“A what? Why would we need one of those?” Surely zombies can’t get pregnant.

“For STDs!”

She might be dead but her meticulous sense of health had clearly gone nowhere. I flipped through a few jeans pockets, searched the contents of my wallet, opened drawer after drawer after drawer; no luck.

“I can’t find one!” I said, hand on penis, trying to keep some inkling of the love going. “But look, I can assure you, I haven’t been with anyone since you, well, since you, um—”

“I get it, okay, fine. This one time! But next time, use a condom!”

I was really hoping there wouldn’t be much need for a next time.

I knelt behind her, one hand on her moist back, the other gripping her bloated bum. It was time. Mr. Johnson, as I like to call him, was back in business. I pressed myself closer to her; she whimpered a little; I shuddered. My premonition from before was correct: she was oh-so-cold. I closed my eyes and let the rhythm take over, trying to block out the odd gurgle that mixed with her moans of pleasure.

Smoke filled the room as we shared a cigarette afterward. Sweat dripped from my body and my head felt like a lead balloon. Daisy was grinning, twirling a finger around my hair, lacing my chest when she wasn’t smoking.

I felt weird. Relieved, but weird. I tried not to look at her directly, preferring the vision from my periphery, as though I could see what was meant to be rather than what was. We didn’t say much, just lay there in the smoke and thought of each other; at least I thought of us. I thought of what a life with a zombie would be like, if I could really go in for the long haul. People were supportive, sure, but there were so many more questions to be asked. Do they age? Will I be eighty and old and wrinkly while she’s young and— Actually, that might not be so bad. But what if they age super-fast, their bodies unable to stay sinewed together until they deform into a floating head in a jar of pickled water? That’s not the kind of life I want.

After a while we both got up. I showered and pulled on a robe. She toyed with her wig some more, easing out the knots. The moon hung in the sky and the clock ticked on, counting down till tomorrow. I got into the bed and pulled the cover up over myself. She watched me again and I patted the side of the bed. She moseyed over, easing herself in and snuggling up to me.

With her head on my chest and smoke in my head, I smiled.

“So, how’s life with the living?”

Same old Daisy.

STILL

Delilah Devlin

Over the long days since his infection, I noted how the mindless screams lessened in their intensity. He ceased slamming his fists and head against the walls and glass until they were bloody. His features, though coarser than they’d been before, and gray tinged, were no longer frightening. Bruising faded. Split lips and cheekbones healed.

The clumsy jerking motions he made as he moved around the space where we’d trapped him eased into something less inhuman. Still unsteady on his feet, he used his hands to push off the walls or press against the ceiling to keep the wavering from sending him to his knees.

Physically, he was improving. I recognized him now beneath the dirty clothes and scruffy beard. But his eyes still betrayed his savage soul. They gleamed red. The darkening of his blue irises had been the first sign the disease had struck my lover.

I’d defied the law, refusing to report him or quarantine myself, and instead, had locked him in the garage studio he’d built when he’d been an aspiring musician, but which now served as his prison cell.

I’d watched the news as the disease continued to spread. The virus, which caused an unending hunger for red meat, turned average citizens into mindless murderers. At first, the sick had been quarantined in hospitals, and then prisons. Now they were loaded onto train boxcars and sent to internment camps, or so the government said, until a cure could be found.

But rumors had started almost immediately that everyone who boarded those trains was destined to be “put down”—a humane solution, which protected the rest of the population. But still, the disease ran rampant.

Businesses operated, but only because people needed basic commodities and the money to buy them. But there were curfews, and a military presence on every street corner.

Hiding Danny had proven tricky. The need to purchase large quantities of fresh meat meant I spent a good part of the daylight traveling to grocers in other counties so that my buying habits weren’t noted. I couldn’t risk having my home raided and losing Danny.

I’d do anything to protect him from extermination. No one knew whether the illness was reversible, but I was willing to wait and hoped the signs of improvement that I noted every day in my journal weren’t just my wishful thinking.

Today, his gaze followed me through the thick Plexiglas without blinking. The raw, intense hunger was tinged with something else. Regret perhaps? Was he remembering us?

As I did every day, I unlocked the door to the studio and carried in a fresh set of comfortable clothing, a towel and washcloth, soap, and a tall pitcher of warm water.

Unlike days past, he didn’t rush toward me only to be jerked back when he reached the end of his chain.

I slid everything as close as I dared, and then backed away from the door, all the while holding his smoldering gaze. “Please bathe, Danny. I’ll bring you food in a little while.” I reached the door and turned the knob behind me. “I love you.”

My life was reduced to this. Foraging for food. Cleaning the perimeter of the dirty enclosure where I kept him. He’d helped prepare his own prison, installing a toilet where the old mudroom sink had hung on the wall before he’d converted the space. Welding chain to a manacle, and testing the length to ensure my safety when I entered. He’d removed his equipment and instruments. Placed a sturdy metal cot in the corner.

The morning he’d woken, feeling as though he had the worst hangover ever and rushing to the fridge for the hamburger I’d thawed the night before, he’d recognized the signs.

I’d awoken with him standing in the doorway, his eyes haunted.

“What’s wrong?” I’d asked.

He’d given me a tight smile, but then I’d noted the deep gray shadows beneath his eyes, the slick of perspiration on his forehead. The red irises. “Danny?” I asked, sitting up on my elbows as my stomach tightened in rejection.

No, it can’t be happening. Not to us. We’d done everything right. We’d stayed clear of quarantined areas. Used our own vehicles rather than public transportation to get back and forth to work. Never drank after another. Didn’t eat out in restaurants where we couldn’t watch the cutlery and plates being sterilized. Didn’t kiss.

The disease was passed in saliva.

“How?” I’d asked, my throat thickening with tears.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, baby. But I have to go. I’ll walk to the center. Turn myself in. I won’t tell them where I live, but you’ll need to sanitize when I’m gone.”

“You aren’t going there.”

His smile had stretched, although his eyes watered with unshed tears. “I don’t have any choice. I’m already scared to death I may have infected you.”

I shook my head, the back of my throat burning. “You know what they say about those places. I won’t ever see you again.”

He spread his hands and gripped the door frame. His head bowed. “I love you, Terry.” Then he backed away from the door.

“No! We’ll find another way. Wait this out. They’ll find a treatment.”

But he walked away, down the hallway toward the front door.

I’d scrambled from the bed and followed. Before he reached the door, I encircled his waist with my arms and held him back. “Don’t do this. Stay with me. We’ll find a way to keep me safe. You still have a little time.”

While he’d finished the raw hamburger and I’d drunk a pot of hot coffee, we’d conspired. By the end of the day, I’d hit the hardware store two counties over, and he’d cleared his beloved studio.

That hug at the doorway was the last time I’d touched him.

I locked the door and walked around to the glass. The pile was where I’d left it, and my gaze shot to Danny. He hadn’t torn the clothing to shreds as he had every day since the illness had taken his mind.

Instead as I watched, my eyes filling, he hobbled toward the clothing and soap. He shucked the grimy, blood-encrusted sweatpants he’d worn since he’d slipped the manacle around his own wrist. He bent and picked up the washcloth and clumsily soaked it in the water, rubbed it on the soap and began to wash.

The fact he could think through the process of cleaning himself made me sob.

The sound must have penetrated the glass because his dark gaze found mine. His features were still cast in a dull, emotionless mask, but his red eyes told another story. He was there. A glimmer of my lover was fighting to come back.

I smiled at him, dashing away my tears, and walked toward the glass to press my splayed fingers there. “I’ll wait,” I said. “I’m still here. I won’t give up.”

This day, I was followed home. Although I’d been careful to hit a new store and to wind my way home keeping to back roads, I spotted the nondescript car parked in a distant neighbor’s driveway where a car shouldn’t be. My neighbor had been taken away weeks ago.

I left the meat in the trunk, not wanting to unpack until it was dark in case I was being watched. Maybe I was paranoid, but the hairs on the back of my neck rose.

Pretending unconcern, I stopped to check the mail in the box beside my door and took my time unlocking the front door. I betrayed nothing furtive—not a glance over my shoulder or a deepening breath. Once inside, I stood beside my living room window and lifted a slat in my blinds to take a look.

The driver’s-side door opened. A tall man in familiar dark cargo pants and a long-sleeved black shirt, an enforcer, stepped out, his gaze on my house.

My heartbeat thundered against my chest. I backed away from the window. I picked up a remote and turned on the stereo, upping the volume. Should he knock at my door, I’d pretend I hadn’t heard.

I raced to the garage.

The moment I entered and turned on the overhead light, my gaze found Danny’s staring back at me.

He sat on his cot. An astounding fact since he’d overturned it and flung it against the wall the first day I’d refused to free him. It had stayed in a far corner ever since, forgotten.

He looked better. His hair was clean. His body free of grime and gore. He’d piled his dirty clothing and the linens he’d used to bathe himself in the same spot where I’d left the clean stack. They were folded haphazardly, but the effort he’d made was apparent. He really was becoming more organized in his thoughts.

I pressed my hand against the window, and then lowered my forehead to press against the cool glass. “We’ve run out of time.”

Shuffling footsteps drew near. Although my head was lowered, I caught the movement of his hand. I glanced up to find him pressing his splayed fingers over the spot where mine was pressed—only the Plexiglas between us.

“Waaaa,” he said, his lips twisting then firming as he pressed them closed.

Was he trying to speak? “What’s wrong?” I guessed.

He gave a harsh nod.

There wasn’t time to rejoice at the fact he was communicating. “Someone’s here. An enforcer. I’m afraid he knows.”

His eyes closed for a moment, and then opened. Regret shone in his gleaming eyes. “Tiiime.”

“We’re out of time.” I nodded. “We came so close.” My voice wavered at the end, edged with a shaky sob.

He shook his head and raised the manacled arm. “Tiiime.”

I shook my head. “You’re not ready.”

“Nnnnow.”

My mind raced. He was speaking—after a fashion. His emotions weren’t wild and raw.

What other choice did I have but to free him? If the enforcer saw him like he was now, he’d call in an extraction team. Danny would be gone, and I’d be jailed for failing to report.

“I’m afraid,” I said, meeting his gaze. Afraid to free him. Afraid that if I didn’t, he’d be killed.

His head bent, forehead touching the glass. “I… sssstill.”

What did he mean? That he’d hold still? Or that he was still my Danny?

The doorbell rang in the distance. I was out of time.

I scurried to the studio door, unlocked it, pulled the key from my pocket and held it up.

Danny slowly raised the manacled arm and stepped closer. He’d either lunge for me and take a bite, or…

He held still.

I unlocked his cuff then took a deep breath and turned slowly on my heel. My shoulders tight, I walked away, aware of the shuffling steps following behind me.

I walked into the short corridor, through the kitchen, where I grabbed sunglasses from the purse on the counter, and a beer from the fridge, which I opened and poured into a towel and then used to blot Danny’s face.

He grimaced, but didn’t move. Not even when I placed the sunglasses on his head.

I grabbed his hand and led him to the living room, shoving him gently into an armchair. I put the beer bottle in his hand, and leaned close...I whispered, tuning off the stereo and hurrying to the door.

The moment I unlocked the door, the man in the black uniform shoved past me.

“Excuse me?” I said, stepping into his path and lifting my chin.

“Step aside, ma’am. I’m with enforcement.”

I didn’t like the coldness in his features, the flinty eyes.

“Leave herrr beee.”

I held my breath as the enforcer’s gaze shot past me.

His eyes narrowed. “Sir, would you please stand up?”

Danny set his beer beside his chair, then slowly pushed off the seat. He was taller than the enforcer, and swayed only slightly.

“Hell of headache,” Danny said slowly.

“He has a hangover,” I said. “Try not to speak too loudly. He gets pissy when he’s drunk.”

The man walked closer, his gaze locking on the sunglasses. His nostrils flaring as he sniffed.

But he could only smell soap and beer. I knew because I sniffed too.

Danny’s lax expression hardened. His mouth lifted in a onesided snarl.

“Seriously, you’re welcome to look around,” I blurted, getting more nervous by the second, “but it’s just us.”

The enforcer glanced at me, and then back at Danny who stood so still I couldn’t detect a breath. “Be sure to keep your doors locked. This whole area is red-zoned.”

“Thanks for your concern,” I murmured, quivering with relief as he turned and stomped toward the front door.

I shot Danny a charged glance before following the enforcer to the door. I turned the bolt, then slowly faced Danny, unsure of what I’d unleashed.

I pulled up sharp when I realized he’d moved closer. His hand reached out, touched my shoulder then my hair.

“The glasses, Danny,” I said, my teeth chattering. I needed to see his eyes, be reassured the savage gleam wasn’t darkening again.

His head dipped.

Reaching up slowly, I took off the glasses, and let them fall to the floor beside me. I hadn’t stood this close to him in forever, so close the air warmed between our bodies.

His fingers clenched around my shoulder, a little too hard. I winced. “That hurts, Danny.”

His features hardened. “Lllock meee.” Shuffling backward, he turned, swaying so hard he nearly fell. He strode toward the kitchen.

I followed him into the garage where he walked to the studio door. His hand pawed at the knob, but couldn’t quite grasp it.

Sensing his growing frustration, and fearing it would escalate to anger, I patted his arm. “Let me,” I said, doing my best not to show my trepidation as I stepped between him and the door and twisted the knob.

Once inside, he held himself erect as I returned the manacle to his wrist. “I’ll bring you food.”

Two more days passed. I skipped work, calling to reassure them I was fine. I didn’t want another visit from enforcement.

I hadn’t slept well the night before. Had avoided Danny’s cage, feeding him, but then claiming fatigue so I could leave quickly.

Watching him, not being able to touch him without fear, was taking a toll. I missed him. And the more his appearance returned to normal, the more I fought my desire to draw closer. But I couldn’t be sure I was safe. His hair was shaggy, and I longed to comb it, but just because he’d somehow restrained himself enough to behave when the enforcer had threatened our safety didn’t mean he was fully in control.

I watched him feed, with his hands, his teeth tearing through the meat like an animal. His hunger still drove him. He might still be infectious. If I wasn’t well and able to care for him, what would happen to us both?

So I’d stayed away, keeping to my bed, where memories of us lingered. His scent was still on the comforter, and I’d balled it into my arms, wrapped a thigh over the bundle and pretended I slept beside him, until my dreams had turned to carnal thoughts, and I’d rummaged through the bedside table for my vibrator.

I was lonely and horny. Depression made me tired as well. The news offered little hope. I scoured the Internet for the whack-job sites, anyone who might offer me a glimmer of hope. Was I the only one who’d fought back? The only one willing to wait out the illness? Or was everyone afraid to admit they hid their loved ones for fear they’d be traced?

A pounding sounded through the house, all the way upstairs. An almost rhythmic banging.

Afraid the sound might be detected outside as well, I slammed down the stairs, through the house and into the garage. “Are you crazy?” I shouted, my words reverberating against the walls. “Do you want everyone to hear?”

Danny stood in front of the glass, his hands raised. “Misss you.”

Rage blasted through me. “I can’t be here 24/7. I can’t do it anymore. I’m tired, Danny.”

His hands slid down the glass, squeaking as they dropped away. He turned away, his broad shoulders drooping.

I felt instant remorse. If I was afraid and bitchy, how much worse was it for him? He didn’t have control of his body. Didn’t know whether he was going to live or die. He was completely dependent on me for everything. And he’d always been the strong one. The one who solved the problems, fixed the broken appliances, soothed my tears.

And now, he was a shambling monster. How must he feel?

Pity filled me, but I blinked away my tears. “Danny…I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond, simply shuffled to the cot and lowered himself. Today, he wore his red Razorback T-shirt. A pair of jeans, he hadn’t been able to button, so they hung loosely at his hips. From the back, he seemed his old self.

“Danny, please.”

“Misss you,” he said so softly I almost didn’t hear it. And then he pulled at the tee, rucking it up, and ripping it over his head. He shoved down his pants and stood staring downward, as though wondering how to free them from the fabric pooled at his feet.

I went to the door, and unlocked it. I approached him slowly, because his mood was strange, his expression too watchful.

“If you lower yourself to the cot, I’ll take off your pants.”

Danny’s red eyes narrowed, but he dropped to the cot and sat with his back against the wall. I came closer and bent, pulling the jeans from one foot then the other. “Would you like your sweats back?”

His gaze was steady, locking with mine. Below, I noted his hand closed around his penis. He stroked it up and down, watching my eyes, his expression closed.

It was the first time he’d shown any hint of arousal or sexual interest.

My heart thudded in my chest. My gaze dipped, watched his large hand smooth up and down his shaft. His coordination wasn’t there. His grip seemed tight, but when he loosed it, he growled.

“Can’t quite get it right?” I asked softly.

“Dooo it.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how you’ll react if you get too excited.”

“Find…waay.”

I backed away slowly, my face filling with heat, my sex throbbing, nipples prickling. What he wanted was wrong in so many ways, but already my mind was racing for a solution, because I missed him, too. Missed being with him, missed feeling his body claim mine.

The question of how much of Danny was still inside the monster weighed on me. If he was fully cognizant but unable to fully control his body and his speech, shouldn’t I give my lover ease? Just as I kept him clothed and fed?

At the door, I paused and glanced back. I didn’t tell him I might return. Didn’t want to anger him if I got cold feet. There was so much to consider. The safety aspects, the fact he was changed. Would I be able to follow through or bolt when it didn’t feel the same?

In my bedroom, I sorted through my toys. I found condoms and a ball gag. They’d have to do. My hands shook as I removed my clothing. I walked through the house nude, letting the cool air-conditioned air waft between my legs. My breasts bounced, nipples stiffening.

When I reached the garage, I stayed at the doorway, waiting for the moment he saw me.

His head whipped toward me and he lunged from the cot.

I drew back, alarmed, my heartbeat thudding dully in my chest.

His chest heaved. Fists curled at his sides. And then he turned and pulled the cot closer toward the door. Far enough that when he sat again, his manacled arm was stretched behind him.

My breath held as fear dissipated. He was offering me what protection he could. I entered. Inside the studio cage, I set aside the condoms and raised the ball.

His lips twitched.

A smile, perhaps? Again, I wondered whether I put my own spin on his expressions to serve my own need for connection. But still, I drew near. “You’ll have to open for me. I’ll put the ball inside, but I can’t touch your mouth.”

His jaw widened, and I swallowed hard. Trust was something I had to drag from deep inside me, but I tucked the ball into his mouth without touching him, then lifted the strap. He held still while I put it in place, latching it behind his head.

Now, I was safe from his bite.

My hands shook as I rolled the condom down his shaft. “Not even sure why I want this. No one’s said it’s not safe to fuck a zombie,” I said, making a joke, but failing to smile when I met his steady gaze.

I wished he could speak to me. Murmur sexy things to make me feel less like I was about to commit the mortal sin of bestiality. “I used my vibrator last night,” I whispered. “I thought about us, in our bed, and I couldn’t stand another night of longing for you. It’s why I was so bitchy today. I felt ashamed that I resented the fact I couldn’t fuck you.”

He made a garbled sound behind his gag. With his free hand, he reached out and grabbed my upper arm to pull me closer, pressing so hard I gasped. “Easy. You don’t know your strength.”

His hand dropped away to clutch the edge of the cot. He leaned back and spread his legs. An invitation.

His erection was thick, jutting straight from his groin. Mine to claim. Mine with which to do anything I pleased. And what I wanted was him, deep inside me, crowding my walls, filling me to bursting—hot and thick and male.

I stepped between his legs, lifted a knee and set it beside his hip, then lifted the other, climbing over his lap, over his hard stalk. My breasts ached, and I leaned toward his chest to rub the tips against his hair and skin.

Again, he gave a garbled growl, but I wasn’t frightened now. I palmed my breasts and held them high. Twisting and squeezing the tips, then leaning up to rub a nipple against his chin and cheek.

His eyes closed, and he rubbed his beard, rasping the tip.

“I think I like you scruffy.” I settled back, his cock trapped between my slit and his belly. “I’ll have to fuck you quick, Danny. It’s been too long.”

I rose, reached between our bodies and fit his corona against my puffy lips. Moisture glazed the head, and I rubbed against it, anointing it before I sank slightly, taking in just the cap.

His growling intensified. His red eyes glared.

“What? No teasing allowed?” I flattened my palms against his chest and pinched his nipples between my fingers. Then I sank lower, taking him inside me, bouncing softly and swirling my hips to fit him inside. “I always liked how big you are. I can almost come from just the fullness.” I sank deeper, hissing because the stretch was delicious.

When I’d slid far enough that our groins met, I sagged against him, breathing hard from excitement. “Gimme a second,” I said. “God, it feels so good.”

Danny’s free arm snaked around my back.

I opened my eyes, saw the dark intent and tried to push away.

His hand flattened on my ass, anchoring me against him, and then he crawled backward taking me to the floor with him.

We bounced, his deeply imbedded cock hitting my cervix, my knees slamming against the hard floor. Fear left a bitter taste in my mouth. “Danny, that hurt.”

He shook his head and tucked me closer, then got up on his knees and came over me, pinning me beneath him. Cool concrete against my back, I held my breath, wondering if I’d made a horrible mistake. But Danny’s hips flexed, he withdrew, then lunged forward, stroking hard toward my center.

I grimaced as he drove into me, fucking me against the floor. His movements halted.

His gaze narrowed on my face. Then he tucked his arms beneath me, cradling my body, and resumed his quick, sharp strokes.

They were barely rhythmic, but gaining strength and direction. I tilted my hips, curving them to form a cradle for him to rock against, then gently pushed against him every time he stroked to show him how to move with me.

My channel grew hotter, wetter. The lusty sounds of his cock churning inside me was beautiful, hypnotic. I lifted my legs, riding the crest of his hips, my ankles crossed and held tightly to his frame.

His grunts were thickening, so deep and growling I felt free to answer him in kind, grunting with each deep thrust, moaning in his ear. My fingers raked his skin, dug into his back and ass, encouraging him to pound harder.

Here was my lover, rutting, growling, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe, not so different from the primal couplings we’d enjoyed before. With Danny, sex always began gentle but ended fierce. Bruises weren’t uncommon, and I’d cherished the twinges on my ass and inside my tender channel.

Letting my head fall back, I stared upward, watching the grayness in his features wash away with a flood of pink suffusing his cheeks. Sweat broke on his forehead and upper lips. His body writhed, each undulation grinding his cock deep inside me. We were so close his exhalations freed me to drag in air. We found our rhythm, found the pulse that connected our hearts until it drummed in our chests and ears.

Danny murmured, two distinct sounds.

“I love you, too,” I murmured, reading what I wanted into his sounds.

Whatever the future held, however long it took for science to replace fear, I’d wait. Moments like this, lying beneath my lover who fought so valiantly to return, I could do no less.

“I love you,” I repeated, digging my fingers into the deep indentation of his spine.

Water dripped onto my face, his tears. His head jerked back, and he halted his motions as I carefully wiped them away.

“They didn’t land in my mouth.” No one had warned about tears, but then, who knew? I used my thumbs to dry his tears, holding his gaze as he cuddled me close. “I love you still. Always.”

With a sharp, deep nod, he resumed rocking, his motions more fluid, his breaths deepening steadily. His red gaze locked with mine, a hint of primal hunger gleaming as he glanced down to my breasts then back to my lips.

“I wish we could kiss. I love your kisses.” Before, he’d hold me forever in his lap and lavish me with short, playful pecks that never failed to grow into hot, luscious kisses that melted me like warm butter.

His face rubbed mine, gently abrading, and then he lifted it and gathered me closer. My breath left in a gasp when he brought me up to straddle his lap and he knelt on the hard floor.

But he wasn’t leaving me to do the work; he wanted more friction. Something I didn’t have to guess at the moment his hands clamped hard on my ass and he began to move me in big motions, up and down his cock.

My thighs strained as I helped him, rising high then sinking, my cunt engulfing him from tip to root. I rocked forward at the end of each deep stroke to rub my clitoris against him. Soon, I was breathing so hard my head grew light. “Danny, I’m close, so close,” I whispered.

His fingers clamped hard around the corner of my hips and he bounced me faster, taking over the labor, lifting me, shoving me down hard. I loved the harsh motions, loved the heat he’d built inside my channel. Moisture overflowed, soaking my cunt and his cock, and still we moved together.

I held back my orgasm as long as I could, biting my lip to concentrate, until at last I heard his graveled rumbling and muffled, throaty shouts. I gripped his head, dug my fingers into his scalp and screamed.

I was aware of his fingers roaming my back and buttocks. Of his hips quivering beneath me. When arms encircled me and squeezed so tightly I couldn’t draw a breath, only then did I open my eyes.

He was there. Staring at me. Tears brimming, but not falling.

I reached behind his head and undid the strap. He turned his head and spat away the ball. “Won’t kissss.”

I rubbed his mouth with my fingers. “Won’t kiss,” I agreed.

“Won’t bite.”

I offered him a small smile. “Good to know,” I whispered.

“Lllove…you…ssstill…”

I leaned forward and kissed his chin, his cheek. Bit his ear, then nuzzled into the corner of his neck. We rocked together, bodies swaying forward and back. The sweetest embrace after a long, nightmarish night.

If this moment was the only joy we’d ever find, it was worth the sacrifice. The boy I’d fallen in love with in high school, the man I’d planned to marry, was here. Whether he was trustworthy around others didn’t matter. He’d never knowingly harm me.

A kiss landed on my shoulder, his tongue swept up my neck. I turned my head…toward him. His mouth sealed over mine.

Time is measured by hunger, by the escalating gnawing in my gut. I feed. I sleep. I snarl until he brings me meat.

Today, he brings me a pile of clothing. I sniff the air, lips curling at my own acrid scent. I wash, my gaze following him as he moves on the other side of the glass. He removes the dark shades hiding his glorious red eyes. His smile stretches, greeting me.

Although I’m not in full control of my body, not yet, I clumsily push off the sweats and wash. Then I wait.

“You know me,” he says as he opens the door.

“Yessss,” I say, the words coming from the farthest recesses of my jumbled mind, but feeling right. “Dannn-y.”

He draws closer, and I lunge against my restraint. He doesn’t pull away, but lets me come close.

I stand with my chest against his and lift my head.

His hands bracket my face; his kiss lands on my mouth. Our tongues taste then slide together. Our hips grind. An old hunger rekindles.

When he draws back, I blink away tears. “Ssstill.”

THE DYING TIME

E. C. Myers

The stranger arrived just before the dying time.

I spotted him first. He was so tall that he had to bow his head to enter the Pale Horse. A cool night breeze pushed past him into the tavern—a reminder that he shouldn’t be here so close to winter.

The drunken din hushed as the others noticed him. The stranger’s clothes were caked in mud; every year the autumn rains flood the only road into town, but that obviously hadn’t discouraged him. Scraggly black hair fell over a haggard face, which was further obscured by a thick beard. He dropped his satchel and swayed unsteadily in the open doorway.

“Stop gawking, Sally,” Master Parton whispered and smacked me on my bottom. I had long stopped squealing when he did that—it only encouraged him—but this time I jumped with genuine surprise.

My eyes met the stranger’s before I lowered my head and busied myself drying a mug behind the bar.

“Close that door, boy!” Master Parton said. Though the stranger looked well into manhood, everyone seemed young to Master Parton, who clung to life the way his wife held to every coin that passed through the till.

The stranger turned stiffly and shut the door, cutting off the chill draft. At that, the whispers gradually grew back to their natural volume. Everyone pretended to ignore him, though I knew they followed his movements as closely as I did. We all wondered how he would be received.

Master Parton squeezed his bulk out from behind the bar. “Welcome to the Pale Horse, sir,” he said.

The stranger looked around the room curiously. The customers were gorging on the last of our food at the long tables, a final celebration before autumn ended. His eyes lusted after the thick slices of beef and ham, skewers of roasted vegetables, and heavy mugs of soupy dark ale, the Pale Horse’s signature brew. He placed a hand flat against his stomach and took a few hesitant steps toward the bar, dragging his satchel along the floor behind him.

“What town is this?” he asked.

“We call it Waring,” Master Parton said.

“Waring. I’ve heard the name, but it doesn’t appear on my maps.”

Master Parton shrugged. “It seems late in the season for travel. What brings you here?”

“Just passing through. I hoped to find a place to stay the night.”

“Regrettably, the inn is closed for the season. We don’t get many visitors during the winter.”

The man stumbled toward a stool and collapsed onto it, draping one mud-spattered arm over the oak bar-top for support. The cleaning rag in my hand twitched.

“A shame. I would pay double your usual rates.”

“We can’t send him away in this condition,” I whispered to Master Parton. “We might as well kill him ourselves and do him a favor.” He glanced from me to the stranger and narrowed his eyes.

“Let no one say Waring lacks hospitality.” Master Parton nodded to me. “Make our guest comfortable, Sally.”

The man followed me upstairs. I fumbled the keys at the door to the largest room while I felt his eyes on my back. When the last of the traders had left two weeks before, we had bundled up the bedding and sealed off the rooms, not expecting to take in any more lodgers for the next few months.

I eyed the muddy trail left by his boots on the wooden planks; I would have to mop them myself, since Tess was still laid up, her belly swollen like an overripe melon. She was already several weeks overdue and time was running out, but we all still hoped her baby would make it. Seeing how miserable and scared she was made me a little less bitter about my failure to conceive during the fertility festival.

I bustled about the room, opening the windows to air out the musty smell and dust that had already gathered. That’s how it was in Waring around that time of year—everything covered in dust and decay.

“You should get out of those clothes,” I told the stranger.

“You’re a pretty girl, but I could do with a wash and some food before recreation.”

My face burned, but I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment. “I’ll clean them for you,” I said.

“Sally, is it?”

I nodded, careful not to look him in the face. “Sally Cross.”

“Is that because you’re so angry?”

“I’m not,” I said sharply.

“Well. Do you want to know my name?”

I shrugged and went to the chest to pull out linens for the bed.

“I’ll tell you anyway,” he said. “My friends call me Reed.”

I looked up at his face, which was a long ways above mine.

“Is that on account of how tall you are?” I said.

He laughed, sending dried mud cascading from his clothing and beard. The scattered dirt mingled with the thin layer of dust blanketing the floor. His footprints were broad and muddy and pointed out at odd angles, like a duck’s tracks.

“Off with those dirty clothes, Mr. Reed,” I said again. “There are towels and a robe in the drawer under the bed. I’ll ready your bath downstairs.”

“It’s just Reed.”

I headed for the door but paused on the threshold. His back was to me as he unbuttoned his shirt, moving more slowly than old Master Parton. He slid out of the shirt and shook more of the mud off it.

“Please, just leave it.” I reminded myself to fetch a broom to tidy up while he bathed. This room was unfit for the living.

I smelled stale sweat, mixed with something else, a musky odor. I admired the way the muscles moved on his pale back as he carefully folded the soiled shirt.

“Is it really an accident that you’ve turned up here?” I said. His timing was suspicious; I wondered if he were looking for something.

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“What are you looking for?”

He turned and grinned when he saw me staring. “You tell me,” he said.

I darted out of the room and scrambled down the stairs to get the water ready for his bath.

Master Parton tasked me with discovering where Reed had come from and what he wanted from us. He promised I could keep whatever I made without paying his usual share. I was curious about the tall stranger anyway and wouldn’t mind spending more time with him. I didn’t admit that to Master Parton of course, or he would have changed his mind.

Reed startled and splashed water out of the tub when I entered the bathhouse. When he spotted me he sighed and sank back under the water to his chin. The tub I had chosen was too small for him; his knees stuck up like the peaks of the Peacemouth Mountains.

“A bit more hot water, Sally,” he said. Then as an afterthought he added, “if you please.”

I picked up a steaming bucket and brought it to his side. I poured the water in slowly, keeping my eyes on his face the way they taught me to pour the ale, for better tips.

He cleaned up pretty well. It turned out his hair was as brown as the water he bathed in, not black like it had looked under all the muck and grime. He hadn’t done a good job of washing though—I could tell he was the type to leave dirt behind his ears.

As I turned to put the bucket down his hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I struggled for a moment in his soapy grasp, but I froze when he stared at me the way he had at the food earlier. His fingers blazed hot against my cold skin—I knew it wasn’t just the hot water that made them burn so. The seasonal change was already working itself on me, and his flesh was still full of life. I felt the fire that had kept him on the road to Waring, when most everyone else would have turned back. I closed my eyes and let his body warm mine.

“Stay a while,” he said.

“That’s… That’s extra,” I said.

“I just want some company.” He relaxed his grip. “I have money, if that’s what you want,” he said gruffly.

I put down the bucket and picked up a washcloth and a loamy brick of soap. I lathered my hands then rubbed them along one of his arms, slicking it along his forearm to his hard bicep. He smiled lazily.

“That feels good.”

I swabbed the dirt from his skin with a washcloth, the heat from the water and his body steaming my face. I blinked sweat from my eyes and made sure I cleaned thoroughly behind his ears.

“You need a shave,” I said, fingering his coarse and tangled beard.

“You don’t like it?” he said. I wrinkled my nose. “Me neither. I suppose the shave will cost extra too.”

While I cut away at his beard with a sharp knife I asked him where he came from.

“Far away,” was the only answer.

I had no better luck when I inquired as to the reason for his journey, or why he was interested in Waring in particular.

“How old are you, Sally?” he asked suddenly.

“How old do I look?”

“Oh no. I know this old trick. There’s no good answer.”

“Tell me honestly.”

“Not much older than sixteen,” he ventured. I smiled and lathered along his jaw.

“Older than that,” I said. I was twenty-two, but I felt no need to tell him that. I slowly scraped the blade against his cheek.

“Then you’re old enough.” The blade slipped and he bellowed as it nicked him under his nose.

I gave him a serviceable haircut too, and by the time I was done I decided that he was quite handsome. He had a square jaw and a long sharp nose that gave him an air of nobility—like those leaders pictured on our old coins. I revised my estimate of his age downward, placing him in his late twenties at the youngest, though his eyes were much older, as though he had seen a lot already in his travels.

Without his beard and with a leather cord tying his hair in a short ponytail, Reed looked even gaunter than before. I sent him upstairs while I drained the tub and washed his traveling clothes. When I returned to the tavern he was dressed in a plain suit and seated with a huge pile of food before him. Master Parton sat across from him with his pipe clenched in his teeth.

“I actually named this place the Ale House,” Master Parton said. “But some rascals in town climbed up there and painted on some extra letters one day and it stuck.” He nodded at me. “Sally’s father being one of them. Been the Pale Horse ever since.”

“That seems to be inviting trouble,” Reed said. “An omen of death, like.”

Master Parton coughed and lowered his pipe. “Death visits everyone. Whether you see it coming or not.” He heaved himself to his feet and kicked his stool under the table. “Well, I’d best be heading home. It was a pleasure meeting you. Lock up, will you, girl?”

“All right,” I said. I glared at him as he tapped out his pipe on the floor. It wasn’t he who would be sweeping the floors after closing. It didn’t even look like he had cleared the crumbs from the tables, and I didn’t doubt his wife had left me a nice stack of dishes back in the kitchen to deal with.

Master Parton winked. “Make sure our guest is taken care of, Sally.”

Reed sipped his ale then licked foam from his lip, his tongue probing the tiny cut above his mouth. I thought this one occasion where work might seem more like pleasure.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

In my time at the Pale Horse, I’ve learned that most men don’t want what they can get at home, nor can they provide me with anything worth my troubles. A few coins were usually the only compensation for the kinds of things my customers asked for.

Consequently, I hadn’t properly been with a man since the fertility festival. Reed was gentle, as though he were afraid of hurting me, until I showed him how rough he could be. He was thin and muscular all over, and not as tired as he had first appeared. It’s amazing what good food and a hot bath can do for the constitution, though I flattered myself to think that a woman could work even more wonders.

He gave me what I needed, and more. His heat sustained me in the cold night, as I had felt my own warmth slipping away more and more with the passing days.

I watched him while he dozed, studying the flutter of his eyelashes and the steady rise and fall of his chest. I placed my cheek close to his mouth for the touch of his breath against it, and put my palm over his heart to feel the strong beats.

When the sun rose, he finally stirred.

“Good morning, Sally.” He reached for me but I rolled away.

“Haven’t you had enough?” I laughed and pushed my corn-colored hair away from my face.

“If you mean sleep, no, but I don’t miss it.”

“You have to go, Reed.”

“I never want to go.” A shiver passed through me.

“If you stay you might get your wish.”

“I just got here, love. I haven’t even been here twenty-four hours yet and I’m more drained than I was when I arrived. What sort of rest is that?”

“I don’t think even I could handle you for twenty-four hours.”

He grabbed for me again and this time I let him pull me closer. “Now you’re just being modest.” His eyes roved down to my bare breasts and he stroked my stomach with the back of his hand. “So to speak.”

I heard banging downstairs—Master Parton’s subtle way of expressing displeasure that I hadn’t been there for the morning breakfast rush.

“Now I have to go.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

I kissed him and he drew me even closer, his hand behind my neck, threaded through my hair. I pulled away and some flaxen hairs came loose, still entwined in his fingers. He stared at the plucked strands in surprise.

“Later,” I promised, but thinking there would be no later.

He ate a hearty breakfast and followed me around the tavern with his eyes, while the others watched us. Then he went out for a walk around the village. I smelled his scent on me all day and worked in good spirits despite my weariness, ignoring everyone’s curious glances.

The looks weren’t because I had slept with someone outside of our village—that happened often enough, especially during the spring trading. It was that I had done it just before winter. Unless you were already pregnant, few risked sex after the fertility festival. Truthfully most people didn’t even have much interest in it as the days grew shorter and colder and life passed from the village, but I had gone without for so long and Reed was so alive.

They couldn’t blame me though, assuming I was just doing my job; of course, if I had charged Reed for the full night, I would be a rich woman indeed. I knew it was foolish to feel too much for a man I barely knew, one who would have to leave all too soon. All I knew was that he was different, and I wanted to hold on to that as long as I could.

When Reed came back he wanted another bath, but this time he insisted on a larger tub that could accommodate two bodies.

“You’re freezing,” he said. “Get under the water.”

The water did the favor of hiding how dry my skin had become overnight. I dipped low in the tub and slid toward him like an eel.

“I always get this way around winter. Just hold me.”

That suited him fine. As we lay against each other, the water-line tickling my back and shoulders, lapping against his neck and chin, he finally told me what I wanted to know.

“I’m an explorer, Sally. I travel, looking for strange and unusual things.”

“Then what do you do with them? Do you collect and sell them like trinkets?”

He looked at me aghast. “I draw them. I describe them in my journal. And I tell stories about the things I’ve seen.”

The idea of traveling from place to place, just for the experience, excited me. Maybe that was what drew me to Reed; it was a life I could never have for myself.

I dragged my fingernails through the wiry coils of hair on his chest and he twitched.

“Am I strange and unusual?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I wriggled away from him and splashed water into his face. He spluttered then locked his long sturdy legs around my waist and wrestled me back over to him. “Well, I’ve never met another like you anyway,” he said. “This town though, if it’s what I think it is, is truly unique. I never thought I’d find it.”

“What have you heard?” I rested my head against the hollow in his chest and enjoyed the gentle vibration of it as he spoke.

“That this place comes and goes with the seasons. It disappears in the winter.”

“But you’re here. You found us.”

“It wasn’t quite winter when I stumbled onto a part of the trail. And even then I almost didn’t make it. I’ve also heard…” His eyes searched my face but I didn’t know what he was looking for. Did he know about the changes? Would he push me away if he knew the terrible truth about Waring?

“I’ve also heard that those who live here never die,” he said.

I laughed. Never dying sounded pretty good to me. “We aren’t immortal. You’ve seen Master Parton. He’s ready to drop any day now, especially the way he carries on.” It wasn’t a complete lie, I told myself.

Reed’s face relaxed and he smiled. “Well, I’m still fascinated by this place. Do you know, I didn’t see any animals in the fields? No dogs or cats in the streets. Not even birds in the forest on the edge of town.”

I shrugged and his eyes indulged in my breasts as they emerged from the water. I ignored the stiffness in my shoulders and the creeping chill in my bones.

“We slaughtered our livestock. There’s nothing to feed them in the winter,” I said.

“Then what do you eat?”

“We have provisions.” We had preserved a portion of our meat and other supplies in a location only the elders knew about. They were under lock and key until the spring.

“That’s not the only odd thing. Almost every woman your age had a babe on her hip and milk swelling her breasts.” His calloused fingers rubbed like sandpaper over my nipples.

“Haven’t you noticed? The women here are lusty.” I grabbed at him under the water and squeezed softly.

Reed laughed. “I had noticed that. Once I start telling people about Waring, you’ll have a lot more visitors.”

“We don’t want visitors. Not now anyway.”

“I had thought the reception a little cool at first.”

“Reed. You have to leave tomorrow morning.” Master Parton had been upset that Reed had stayed on, but he hadn’t done anything about it yet, which frightened me. “Promise me you will. The next day is the winter solstice, and then it might be too late.”

“Too late?”

I didn’t say anything else. I just mashed my lips against his and slid onto his lap, holding tight to him.

They pulled Reed from our bed in the morning. Despite his larger size, the posse knew what they were doing. When they were done with him they propped him against the wall, his arms and legs held fast by the Parton boys. They asked him what he wanted in Waring.

He looked at me while he spoke. “I came looking for your magic. The secret of eternal youth.”

Master Parton guffawed. “Do I look young to you, boy? If there was any such thing, I’d be the first one in line.”

Reed’s eyes pleaded with me, but all I could do was watch. If I showed how much it hurt me to see them beat him, it would only go worse for him. I covered myself with the blanket when I caught Bobby Ratter ogling me. He had tried to force himself on me in the spring, but he finally listened when I said no with the little dagger I always carried. He had limped for a week afterward, but not for the reason he bragged about.

“There’s something strange here,” Reed said.

“You’re the only strange thing, and you’re leaving,” Bobby said. He kicked him in the ribs and Reed gasped. I flinched. “One way or another.”

“Sally—” He coughed, twisting against the hands holding him down.

Master Parton glanced at me. “The whore can’t help you.” The words stung as if he had struck me himself.

“Stop it,” I said. “He doesn’t deserve this. He’s our guest”

“Are you going to kill me?” Reed said.

“There’s too much death already,” Master Parton said. “But you can’t stay here. This is for your own good.”

“Sally?” Reed said.

Silence settled on the room as everyone looked at me.

“Go, Reed. There’s no place for you here.” I closed my eyes but I had already seen the look on his face.

When Reed left he took part of me with him, though he didn’t know it. I felt torn in two, between my ties to Waring and whatever I felt for him. In the end neither of us really had a choice— he couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t leave.

He didn’t speak to me. He just gathered his things, tossed a handful of coins onto the bed beside me, and left.

Things quickly returned to normal as we made our final preparations for winter. We boarded up the village and finished off as much food as we could before it spoiled. After we lost our appetites we burned the rest—we didn’t need rotting food around, when we would soon be rotting ourselves.

It was the dying time.

I left Reed’s room open and began spending nights there, until I couldn’t smell him anymore. I couldn’t smell at all. I cried into his pillow until there were no more tears.

Two weeks after the solstice I discovered that Reed had left something with me as well: a tiny seed, blazing like a beacon in my cold womb. It should have been impossible to carry life within my wasting body.

Tess’s baby hadn’t made it. The night of our solstice celebration she locked herself in her house while the life ebbed from the unborn baby trapped inside her. It had been a boy, we later learned, when we cut it out of her, too late. That’s how it had always been: babies born before the dying time change like the rest of us, but if they were still in the womb as winter settled on the town, they suffered permanent death. We kept trying each spring, hoping that one of them would break the curse.

We hate to look at each other during the walking death of the dying time. While the rest of Waring holed up in their houses to work on their crafts and metalwork, preparing items to trade in the spring, I wandered the empty rooms of the Pale Horse, fretting over my own pregnancy. I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I might never find out. The fire within me flickered like a guttering candle. It would surely die because I couldn’t feed it—then I would have nothing more to worry about.

But I wanted to see that child. I wanted to see Reed again.

Then another impossible thing happened. Someone knocked at the door of the Pale Horse, the sound echoing through the barren tavern.

I swept a cloak around me and lifted the hood to cover my face. I opened the door and Reed lurched inside and into my arms. I caught him and managed to lower him roughly to the floor. Cold air whipped around us but I felt nothing. I pushed the door closed and lit a fire in the hearth, hoping that no one else was outside to see the smoke.

Reed was coated in frozen mud, as he had been on his first arrival. His face was covered in bruises and cuts, red and raw with exposure to cold and wind. His hands were chapped and blackened and his eyelids were rimmed with ice.

The blue faded from his lips as he warmed before the fire. I watched him enviously as he came back to life. He stirred and mumbled something. I leaned closer.

“No way out,” he said.

“Reed…”

His eyes opened and his bleeding lips formed a smile when he saw me. “Sally?”

I nodded under my cloak but he couldn’t see the motion. I stroked his hand reassuringly.

“I’m here,” I said.

“The roads are gone. They don’t lead anywhere except back to Waring. There’s no way out.”

“You’re trapped,” I said. “We all are.” The only difference was that we were unable to leave even during the other seasons.

“I’m so hungry.”

“We have no food.” Another twinge in my belly. The life that grew inside me was hungry too. Should I tell Reed that he was a father? Would he be pleased?

I hunted behind the bar until I found a small, dusty jar of pickles that looked like it dated back a hundred years. I handed it to Reed doubtfully. He lacked the strength to open the lid himself so I did it for him. I fed him and when he had finished the last pickle he drank the brine greedily, the juice matting his wild beard.

Seeing how thirsty he was, I filled a bucket with snow from outside and hung it over the fire.

“Sally. Why do you wear that cloak? I’ve missed your pretty face.”

“I’m cold.”

“Then come closer to the fire.”

I didn’t move. “Oh, why didn’t you leave when I told you to? You might have made it then.”

“Can’t you show me the way?”

“The way won’t open for you until March at the earliest.” It was then that I finally felt despair. I would lose him, and I would lose his baby. When the others found out, perhaps I would lose my life for jeopardizing our secret shame. That last thought was consoling—it would be an end to this, a release from my strange half-life.

“What’s happened here?” Reed said. “It’s become a ghost town. Where did everyone go?”

He was going to die anyway, so I decided to tell him.

“Every winter we… Death touches all of us, for a time. When the spring comes, life returns to our bodies and we can go on like normal people. But for now, we’re walking dead.”

Reed was quiet for a long time. “But the stories…”

“It isn’t eternal life. It’s eternal death.” We did live longer because of our strange condition, but it was only an extended lifetime of small half-deaths.

His eyes showed fear. I felt more naked than I ever had with him.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“You were right about one thing: there is magic here. But not the kind you can bottle and sell, if you could find someone who wanted it. You never should have come here.”

“Come closer, Sally.”

I reluctantly sat next to him in front of the fire. “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I can’t bear it.”

“I have to see.” His hands moved toward the hood of my cloak and I flinched. He grabbed the cloth firmly and slowly lowered it, his eyes focused on mine.

To his credit, he didn’t scream. I was glad of that, afraid he would bring the whole of Waring to discover us. He drew back, his eyes wide and his mouth parted in shock.

When he recovered he touched one of my waxy cheeks with one hand and gazed into my clouded eyes. “Strange and unusual,” he said.

His fingers caressed my cadaverous lips and I closed my eyes. Then he surprised me. He kissed me. His lips were feverish against mine.

“No,” I said. I pushed him away. “I don’t want that. It’s disgusting.” I pressed two fingers against my mouth, but the warmth faded too quickly.

“Is it?” he asked.

“If it isn’t then it’s just pity, and I don’t want that from you either.”

“What about what I want?” he asked.

I opened my cloak so he could see how my dress hung on my shrunken frame, and how my decaying flesh was mottled and discolored. The loose clothing hid my engorged stomach.

He jerked back. He lowered his eyes and I was relieved that he couldn’t see my dismay. “Sally, I—”

“Shhh.” There was nothing he could say to make this all right.

He lay by the fire, my cloak draped over him for extra warmth though he still shivered beneath it, coughing. I sat watching him. I thought he might have contracted pneumonia from wandering in the cold forest for two weeks, already weak and injured.

“What will happen to me?” he said finally, when the fire was beginning to die. I could go out for more firewood, but there didn’t seem much point. I would do it for him though, as long as it could keep him alive.

“You’ll starve to death,” I said simply. There was no way to make the outlook any less grim. “And then I’ll bury you.”

“There must be food somewhere.”

“It’s all locked away, Reed, and I don’t know where.” I thought about what would happen if I went to the elders and begged them for the keys. It was better that they didn’t know about Reed. “Even if I could get to it, I wouldn’t. I’m sorry. We need that food in the spring. When we waken, we’re ravenous.”

“Are there no wild animals to hunt? Maybe with your help, with some weapons—” He coughed violently.

“Reed. You’re the only living thing in Waring. You’re the only…”

I trailed a cold finger along his jaw. The fire inside me blazed in response. It was hungry. I was hungry.

“What is it, love?” he asked.

I looked at Reed sadly. “Shhh…” I stilled him with a kiss, my hard lips rasping against his. I leaned into him and pushed him onto his back with me on top of him. He hissed with pain. I cast aside my cloak and I pulled up his shirt, tore it open. Buttons snapped off and scattered on the wooden floor like bones tossed from a gambler’s cup.

His eyes widened. “Sally…”

I ran my hands all over his bare chest. I pressed a palm against his breastbone and held it there for one, two, three beats of his heart. I imagined my own still heart throbbing in time with his, hot blood pumping through my body.

When I touched the broken ribs on his left side, he cried out. “Gently,” he moaned. “Oh, Sally. Dear pretty girl.”

“Gently,” I replied. I leaned over and lapped at his neck with a rough tongue, my mouth watering now at the taste of him. The little fire in me flared in concert with Reed’s quickening pulse. Despite his initial revulsion, even halfway to death, his body was overcome by passion. It still had desires, as did mine.

I straddled his legs.

“I finally realized,” I murmured. “This is why they call you Reed, isn’t it?” I cupped the stiffening bulge at his crotch that strained the fabric of his breeches. I remembered him as a man of tall proportions in every respect. He arched his back and grinded his pelvis urgently against me.

He fumbled to untie the drawstring of his breeches with clumsy, frostbitten fingers. I pulled my dagger from my slack bodice. I stroked the flat edge of the blade up and down the taut front of his breeches. He shuddered and tensed between my legs.

Reed lifted his head to stare at me intensely. A growl lurked in the back of his throat.

As he watched, I sawed through the knotted drawstring of his breeches with the tip of the dagger then eased his pants off him. He shivered, as much from my touch as the chill air against his exposed skin. I rested the blade beside him and licked my lips.

“Don’t torture me, Sally,” he pleaded. “I need you.”

“I need you, too,” I said.

I dipped a corner of my cloak in the hot water over the fire. I wrung out the dripping fabric, heedless of scalding my skin. The nerves in my hands were already dead, depriving me of any sensation of pleasure or pain.

I swabbed Reed’s neck with the damp cloth then rubbed it down the center of his chest. He closed his eyes and moaned as I tenderly washed away the caked-in sweat, dirt, and dried blood from every part of him. I took special care to clean behind his ears.

He opened his eyes as I retrieved my dagger. He smiled. “Let’s skip the shave this time. I remember your light touch with a knife.”

He grabbed me with firm hands at the waist and lifted me up, easing me forward, first gently, then more roughly as I resisted. He was stronger than he’d seemed only moments ago. His fingers dug into my thighs. His chest rose and fell as though he was gasping for breath, and his heart sounded drumbeats in my head.

I leaned over him on spread knees. The point of my dagger hovered only inches away from his throat.

Would this work? It seemed possible, if I was quick. If I didn’t falter.

“Please, Sally.” He voice was thick and ragged with lust.

The silver blade flashed in the glowing embers from the fire. Before I could veer from my chosen course, I plunged it hilt-deep into his heart, putting all of my weight into it while his body convulsed beneath me. Air escaped from his mouth, a soft sigh of surprise.

I leaned close and whispered in his ear, wracked with dry tears. “I’m sorry, Reed. But you’re the only food here.”

His voice gurgled. “You…monster.”

I shook my head and straightened, still sitting astride him. His blood soaked the front of my dress.

“It’s for our baby.” I lifted his hand to my belly and pressed it against the warm bump there.

I thought I saw understanding flicker across his face. Or maybe I just wanted to see it. His pulse faded. His hand fell lifeless from mine, and his eyes stared vacantly up at me, accusingly. My throat tightened as I looked down on him.

There was no time to waste if I wanted a chance at saving our baby, of sustaining it until spring came. I needed to drag Reed to the abattoir before his flesh cooled. I had helped the butcher bleed a pig before, and I felt confident I could do the same with his body. I would need to store as much of the blood as possible, then cut up the flesh and cure it. Reed was a big man—he might just last us the whole winter if I rationed carefully.

I caressed Reed’s cheek and pressed his eyelids shut. It was a more merciful way to die than starvation, and this way his death would have some purpose. I kissed his forehead and tugged the dagger from his body.

I licked the warm blood from the blade. The baby liked it—it yearned for more.

I clasped my hands over my stomach. “Soon, little monster,” I said, wondering what was growing inside of me. I wiped the dagger off on my dress then tucked it away.

I opened the door of the tavern and faced the long night. A few flakes of snow drifted inside and alighted on Reed’s still face. When they melted, they looked like tears.

MY ZOMBIE, MY LOVER

Mitzi Szereto

There’s that damned sound again. I’ve been hearing it a lot lately now that the weather’s getting cold. At first I figured it was an injured animal. In these woods we get all sorts—deer, bears, wild turkeys, not to mention every kind of bird and snake and creepy crawly you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Bigfoot lived in these mountains. The Appalachians are pretty ancient. There might be species here no one’s even discovered yet. Some of the locals definitely look as if the gene pool’s been muddied.

I moved up here last month for some peace and quiet. You see, big city life hasn’t exactly been helping my blood pressure. I live in a log cabin on top of a mountain. My nearest neighbor lives more than a mile down the road and he never comes up this way. And that’s just how I like it. I’m not a big fan of the human race. I tend to keep to myself. Some might call it “solitary.” I call it “smart.” The less dealings you have with people the less trouble you’re going to get.

Anyway, back to this noise business. At first I thought it was that pesky woodpecker that’s been hanging around. I swear the bastard wants to peck through the logs of this cabin so he can settle in by the fire with a hot toddy. I should probably take a potshot at him with my rifle to scare him off, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. He’s annoying, but this is his hood, after all. Although I do keep a loaded shotgun by my bed, I’ve never had cause to use it. I didn’t buy it for hunting or killing animals (or woodpeckers). I think hunters are the scum of the earth and should be hunted down (preferably by the animals they enjoy killing), shot in strategically painful locations (I can name some good ones), then left to die a slow and painful death. You can probably tell I’m not a Republican, despite my owning a gun.

I bought the thing on the off chance that some burglars or serial killers from the big city might decide to pay a visit to the countryside and find their way up to my cabin. Not that I’m easy to find, but burglars and serial killers have nothing better to do but to locate victims. It’s their job, if you think about it.

The noise always comes at dusk. It starts out as sort of a low keening, escalating here and there into a sharp wail, which stops abruptly. Then it all goes quiet again. It’s weird as hell. I’ve gone out onto the deck several times to try to see what’s causing it. My deck is pretty high up, so if it were some kind of animal—and possibly a rabid one—it can’t get to me. Yet I never see anything other than a squirrel scrabbling about. Whatever this thing is, at least it isn’t one of the local inbreeds creating more inbreeds beneath a romantic mountain sunset. I’ve had a couple of folks in town tell me to watch out for pink-eyed boys carrying banjos. It’s advice I take very seriously.

Eventually I give up trying to uncover the culprit. Whatever’s making that weird sound isn’t bothering me personally.…

Until the other week, that is. I’d just come back with my food shopping when no sooner do I get in the door than I feel something isn’t kosher. It’s not a burglary—at least not an obvious one, since everything of value is right where I’d left it: laptop, printer, TV, shotgun…. I couldn’t quite figure it out until I opened the fridge to put away my perishables. I’d left half a roast chicken on the bottom shelf, which was supposed to be my dinner that evening. Well, the plate’s still sitting there on the bottom shelf, and so is the cling film I’d covered the chicken with. But there’s no chicken.

My first thought was that maybe I’d begun to sleepwalk and gone into the kitchen in the middle of the night and eaten the bird. That morning I’d been in a rush and only opened up the fridge to get some milk for my cereal, so I could’ve overlooked the plate of chicken—or make that the plate of not chicken. I don’t usually sleepwalk, but there’s always a first time for everything, right?

Anyway, I put it out of my mind.

Until it happens again.

When you live in the woods and food goes missing, it’s usually a bear that’s responsible. They’re known to get into bird feeders and trash bins and even cars to scavenge for a meal; it’s not entirely unheard of for them to get into a house, if they smell an opportunity. However, unlike the mess from foraging one might expect from a lumbering and hungry bear, this latest incident has a more premeditated consciousness behind it, as if it knows exactly where to look, but doesn’t want to make a mess while doing the looking.

It would appear that I have a trespasser in my midst—and this trespasser knows how to pick a lock. It has to be someone who comes up here a lot, because this only happens when I’m not home and my car isn’t parked out front. The thought of someone lying in wait for me to drive off is pretty creepy. Considering that I’m almost always at home, my food thief has to be nearby, possibly even living rough in the woods. My first thought is that it’s some smelly old pothead hippy that got lost hitchhiking home from Woodstock or maybe even an Appalachian Unabomber waiting for a chance to wreak havoc on an already paranoid country. Neither prospect appeals.

I consider reporting it to the local sheriff next time I’m in town, but the idea of filing a police report about the missing half of a roast chicken and some missing slices of ham, cheese and bread to a good old boy Southern cop has about as much appeal as the anticipated identity of my uninvited lunch guest. So I decide to wait it out and catch the culprit in the act, though with my car parked outside my trespasser isn’t likely to show up. I think of parking it down the road at my neighbor’s, but the idea of engaging with him in any substantive way doesn’t appeal to me either. Then fate intervenes.

I should probably mention that it’s serious hell on a car up in these parts what with all the steep and unpaved roads, which likely explains why everyone seems to drive a pickup. So there I am on my way to the home improvement store to buy a new lock for my front door when I hear a horrendous rattle coming from beneath my car. After I finally manage to locate a service station with what passes as a mechanic on duty, the news I receive isn’t good. Nor is the fact that I’ll be sans voiture for a couple of days while they wait for the necessary part to arrive to do the repair. They don’t have what are called “fern car” dealerships around here; it’s Ford and Chevy and that’s all you’re getting, buddy—you wave them American flags high now, hear? The fact that I drive a socialist European car will likely add dearly to the cost of my repair, if the dirty look I get off Bubba the service station owner is any indication. After finally figuring out how to fit the key into my car’s ignition, he gets one of the guys to give me a lift home, with the promise to come collect me when the car’s ready. I can only hope he’ll keep to his word, since there’s no such thing as a taxi around here.

By the time I get in the door, I feel so grimy from sitting around the garage’s grimy little waiting room that all I want is to take a nice hot bath. There’s a chill in the air with an overnight freeze being forecast, so I figure I’ll get a head start on the warming-up. As far as I can tell, my food thief hadn’t taken advantage of my absence to come inside to make a sandwich; therefore when I sink down into the steaming hot bathwater it doesn’t even occur to me that my car being gone from out front would make it look as if I’m not at home. It’s only after I dunk my head under the water that I hear the sound of the front door opening.

Shit.

No way in hell I can reach my shotgun. It’s a good fifteen feet away in the bedroom and on the opposite side of the bed from where I am. Plus whoever came into the cabin will be bound to hear me on these creaky pine floorboards and get to it first. I don’t mind telling you that I don’t fancy having my head blown off.

A moment later I hear the refrigerator door open.

Bastard!

I so want to catch this guy—and I’m pretty sure it’s a guy, though I don’t know why I’m so sure. Slowly I rise up from the bathwater, the Phoenix of Appalachia, ready to kick ass even though I’m naked and dripping water all over the place. By now I’m so pissed off that I don’t need a gun. I grab up my towel and wrap it around me totally half-assed, too angry to care that I’ve got half a tit showing and probably half my twat, too.

I creep toward the kitchen, where I spy a pair of blue-jeaned male buttocks thrusting out as their owner’s head sticks itself inside my fridge. Those jeans have seen better days. I know it’s fashionable to wear denim that looks old and worn, but this is overkill. The guy’s wearing a T-shirt that might’ve been white during the Clinton administration, but is now a kaleidoscopic orgy of mud-brown smeared with yellow and rust.

He must’ve heard me because he turns around. I see a flicker of guilt flash across his gaunt face as I catch him red-handed with a wedge of cheddar and a bread roll in a hand each. His sunken eyes widen with shock. His lips work, but nothing comes out but a tiny keening noise that sounds like a mouse whose tail has been trodden on.

He’s young. Beneath the grime and the dark hollows etched beneath his cloudy eyes he could be a high school senior. I wonder if he’s a runaway, though I doubt they classify boys at the age of consent as “runaways” these days. Whoever he is, something very strange has happened to him. He doesn’t look… well…right.

His dead-looking eyes appear to catch fire as they focus on the lower portion of my towel and suddenly I feel the cool air on parts of me that I should have taken greater care to keep covered. It’s all there for him to see—and boy does he see it. I can feel myself getting wet, and it isn’t from the bathwater dripping from me.

The tip of his tongue shows up between thin lips and it’s as if it’s licking me. I swear I can feel it laving my flesh, exploring and prodding and tasting. Oh, yeah; he’s hungry, all right.

At last I regain my senses. “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?”

Not the most polite of greetings, but there you go.

He doesn’t move. He’s just standing there with the cheddar and the roll, looking the kind of terrified that I should be feeling, yet don’t. I see the guilt come onto his face again as he seems to struggle to say something. I almost expect him to apologize, which I imagine would be highly unusual for a burglar. Maybe he’s some kind of new-school burglar as opposed to the old-school sort—a burglar with a conscience. I wonder if he might be some kid living rough in the woods. That’s what he looks like. Or at least it would be if he didn’t look so…weird.

Then just like that he’s gone, vanishing out my front door with his treasures, the only sign of his having been here the open refrigerator door.

What in the name of—?

I lock the front door, hoping I’ll get my car back soon so that I can drive to the home improvement place and buy a better lock. I figure the kid’s not likely to come back again, especially since I caught him red-handed. He’s probably clear on the other side of the mountain range by now, maybe even crossing the state border.

For the rest of the day and evening I try not to give him any more thought, though I can still feel that phantom tongue of his licking me. It gets so bad that I need to go lie down on the bed and twiddle myself until I come. And when I do, the ghost of his haunted face appears before me. Christ. I must really be losing it.

The car is ready a day earlier than estimated and finally I’m back in control. Yet despite my anxiousness to do something about the lock situation, I keep putting it off. I reckon the kid’s not coming back now that the jig is up, so maybe I should just stop worrying. Even those weird noises at dusk have stopped. It’s all back to normal: woodpeckers pecking, squirrels barking, katydids chirruping. Nothing suspicious or sinister, just the forest residents doing their thang.

I don’t leave the cabin for an entire week. I would’ve stayed sequestered for another week were it not for the fact that I’m running low on provisions. I’m nearly out of toilet paper and wine. Something must be done.

I’m only gone for a couple of hours, yet it’s sufficient time for my intruder to return to the cabin. When I get home, I find my front door unlocked and standing wide open and a familiar blue-jeaned ass at the kitchen counter, its owner apparently not having heard the car drive up. The pot of chili I’d made the other day is out on the stove being heated, an empty bowl and spoon sitting on the countertop, along with a bottle of beer, half of which has already been consumed.

I drop my shopping bags onto the floor with a loud thunk.

The kid turns around. Christ, he looks even worse than the last time I saw him. His face is more gaunt than ever, his eyes more sunken in. And don’t even talk about the clothes. Yet there’s something there—something that makes me overlook his battered and shabby appearance and gets that phantom tongue licking again. Oh, man, I really need to get out more.

He sets the stirring spoon into the bowl. Yeah, can you believe it? He was actually stirring the chili while it was warming up to prevent it from burning. Talk about domesticated. His thin lips do that twitching thing again and I can see he’s really struggling to say something, but all that comes out is that tiny keening mouse. What the hell’s up with this guy?

Oddly, I don’t feel afraid so I don’t even think to make a run for the shotgun. There’s something kind of sweet about him stirring that pot of chili and it reaches through my rib cage, touching my heart. “I guess you’ll be wanting some shredded cheese with that,” I say, going over to the fridge to take out the cheddar. He stands there watching with those haunted eyes of his as I drag the wedge over the shredder until a cheesy hill forms on the chopping block. I scoop it with my hand onto a small plate and take it to the dining table, where I arrange a place setting for my uninvited guest.

A few minutes later he’s spooning his bowl of cheese-topped chili into his mouth, washing it down with a second bottle of beer. The kid’s got a healthy appetite, I’ll say that much. His table manners aren’t too shabby either. In fact, he’s more mannerly in his eating habits than most of the guys I’ve known who dress in a suit and tie five days a week. Despite his appearance of starvation, he doesn’t scarf down his food. Now that’s class.

When not so much as a chili bean remains, he finishes the last of his beer and gets up from the table, bringing the empty bowl and beer bottle over to the counter. We stand there staring at each other for several minutes until he reaches a gaunt hand out toward my face, trailing his cool fingers down my cheek. I feel my nipples go rock hard beneath my T-shirt. My panties are wet; I feel them soaking all the way through to my jeans.

I want him to touch me so bad that I ache.

Then suddenly, just like before, he’s gone.

That night I don’t know what to do. I’m so frustrated with desire I’m ready to scream. I use my fingers, I rub against the bedpost, I grind myself onto the heel of my foot. But the relief I need is not the relief I’m getting.

All I want is for him to return.

Sure, he looks like something from out of a George A. Romero film, but I don’t care. I want him.

As if in answer to my prayers, he does come back. This time he doesn’t break in like some cut-rate burglar, but instead turns up at the front door, knocking politely yet with solid determination like a Jehovah’s Witness. I discover him there with a withering bouquet of flowers he must’ve picked up from a gravesite. I’m flabbergasted. Modern men just don’t do this kind of thing anymore. This kid’s definitely old school. It seems I’m being courted!

I take the dying flowers from his trembling hand and stick them in a plastic pitcher, which I fill with water even though nothing will return any life to this floral arrangement. I place the thing on the dining table and get him a bottle of beer from the fridge. I’ve taken to keeping a bigger supply on hand in hopeful anticipation of his visits. He takes it from me with a grateful look and goes to sit in the same chair he sat in last time. I grab a beer for myself and join him.

It takes a while before I can finally understand a word he says, but once I get the hang of his disjointed verbal cadences and frequent full stops I can follow along with a fair amount of success. From what I can gather, he’s broken away from some group and is trying to get by on his own. A religious cult perhaps? At first he doesn’t say why he wants to steer clear of his comrades, but the fear in his eyes tells me plenty. Then he finally comes clean and admits that he just doesn’t want to kill and eat people anymore.

My first thought is they’re some Appalachian cannibal version of the Manson Family and this gets me worried, especially if they might be out looking for him right now. My shotgun can only pick off one thing at a time—and I don’t fancy my luck with the flesh-eating members of a zombie cult.

The time passes and before I know it darkness has taken hold outside the cabin, bringing with it a requisite chill in the air. I switch on the central heating and light up one of those prefab logs in the fireplace. With a fire going and a bottle of wine open, it’s beginning to feel quite cozy with my guest here. I can get used to this.

We sit on the floor in front of the fire drinking our wine. I have to admit that being in such close proximity to him I begin to notice that he doesn’t smell all that sweet. I don’t want to be rude, so I figure I’ll be diplomatic and suggest he spend the night, throwing in the offer of a nice hot bath as incentive for him to clean himself up. He accepts my offer with an appreciative keen. I run a bath for him, pouring in a generous glop of patchouli-scented bubble bath. I also strategically place a natural bristle brush on the rim of the tub, along with a fresh bar of Shea butter soap. That should do the trick. I doubt I’ll use the brush after him, but I figure its loss could prove a good investment for later tonight, if you know what I mean.

I return to the living room to inform him that his bath is ready, offering to refill his wineglass and bring it in to him so that he can enjoy it while he’s having a soak. He seems amenable to the suggestion and keens favorably. I follow him to the bathroom, where I watch him undress. His body is lean and in parts almost emaciated, but in the part that matters most he’s anything but. My word, the equipment on this guy! It’s standing straight up, looking like a man’s forearm rising into the air with a clenched fist. My first thought is whether it will fit inside me. He sees me staring at his assets and looks away in embarrassment, though his cock isn’t embarrassed. It gives a sharp lurch, spasming before my eyes and getting even bigger, if you can believe it.

I decide to leave him to his bath. The threadbare condition of his jeans and T-shirt lying on the floor like roadkill makes me want to cry, especially when I pick them up (albeit gingerly), the intention being to put them into the washing machine on hot, though I have serious doubts they’ll survive the spin cycle. I decide to check the closet for some generic-gender gear I can loan him, coming up with an old flannel shirt and a pair of baggy jeans I never really liked anyway.

I return to the fireplace, adding in a new log and replenishing my wine. The comforting warmth of the fire lulls me into an otherworldly state and I lie back on the rug, suddenly feeling incredibly aroused. I figure my guest will be in the bath a while longer, so I kick off my jeans and panties and start getting down to business. I can only imagine what I must look like lying on the floor with my thighs splayed like a Thanksgiving turkey when he returns to the living room dressed in my boyish gear. The next thing I know he’s making that weird keening sound again and his face is right down there, licking and sucking and doing all sorts of amazing and noisy things with his tongue. I’ve had guys go down on me before, but nothing like this. It’s as if his tongue is operating on an electrical current—I can feel myself flowing into his mouth like a river that has broken its banks. I come twice and still he keeps at it until I come a third.

Finally I can bear no more. I need to get a taste of that astonishing appendage of his. Zombie cock. I laugh at the thought of it, but I stop laughing pretty darn quick when it fills my mouth so fully that I fear I’ll get a dislocated jaw. But what a way to go, eh?

I can tell that he’s not had this done to him in a long time (if ever?) and his ghostly eyes roll back inside his head until only the whites show. I look away, since it sort of amplifies that whole undead persona thing he has going on, which I have to admit does freak me out. His flavor is a bit gamy too, but I get used to it and even start to groove on it in a rather weird way. Just when I think he’s going to let it all start flowing, he pulls out of my mouth.

Mind you, what he does next worries me even more than a broken jaw. His bony fingers grab hold of a thigh each, hoisting them well away from each other. I’m in serious childbearing position here, minus the stirrups and lab coats. As I feel him begin to push inside me, my mind percolates with the possibility of him getting me pregnant. Like, what would it actually be?

I push the thought out of my head and concentrate on not being split in half. I will myself to open, using my muscles to push out as he pushes in. In a way it’s like giving birth, except in reverse. Talk about an electrical current, his thing is like a jackhammer and just as big as one too. And he’s getting it in me, dammit, he’s actually getting it in me. I keep pushing out until finally I feel him bumping up against my cervix. He’s done it.

And I’m still alive!

I grab on to his thin, flannel-covered shoulders and gaze into his hollowed-out eyes as he takes control, riding me like nobody’s business until I feel another orgasm creeping up on me—and this one is going to be massive. When it finally hits I scream with the impact, wondering how I could make so much noise, until I realize that he’s keening right along with me as he experiences his own climax. They can probably hear us all the way to town.

I still don’t even know his name. He’s told me enough times, but I’m finding it harder and harder to understand him. His speech seems to be getting worse with the passing of each day, each week. Not that it really matters what his name is. I guess you’ve probably figured out that he stayed more than just that one night. What can I say? It can get a bit lonely up here in these mountains, you know?

COME BACK TO ME

Chantal Noordeloos

A trickle of sensation on her skin drew Odette’s gaze to her dark-skinned breasts. Her nipples protruded against the thin white fabric of her nightgown, which was translucent in the light of the moon. Drops of sweat lay on her skin like pearls. Tonight the heat in Île-à-Vache was merciless. Odette swatted at a mosquito that buzzed near her ear. The swamp attracted thousands of the little monsters and they danced elegantly above the water, performing their insect ballet. Hardly a breeze to break the stifling humidity, and there on the porch of Grandmè’s house—an old wooden building that had been part of her family for many generations—the air was stifling.

The moon illuminated the dark water; Odette pretended it was Jack’s face staring up at her. She loved him, but she hated him also. He broke her heart when he told her he was leaving. Odette could not forgive his callousness, but the longing never ceased.

Oh Jack!

She first saw him at the hotel she worked at. He smiled at her, his teeth whiter than the seashells on the beach, contrasting with his honey-colored skin. The wind played with the strands of his wheat-colored hair, tousled it and let it fall across his temples and forehead. His eyes are so blue that the sky is jealous of them, Odette thought. She knew she belonged to him, and she offered him her maidenhood the same day. Her grandmother would never approve. It was Odette’s first step toward the darkness that lurked in her soul.

The memory of his warm body made her skin tingle and it brought tears. When she closed her eyes she could feel the faint pressure of his fingertips. Warm hands that felt their way from the nape of her neck to the eager points of her nipples. He pinched them, not hard, but enough to send little bolts of electricity down to that warm place between her legs. His hands explored her breasts, squeezing lightly. A warm mouth followed; it sucked and nibbled until she felt a longing so strong she thought she would scream. His fingers explored farther down, past the warm soft flesh, and they ran teasing circles across her lower belly. She wanted him to touch her, to slip his fingers inside of her, but he took his time. She unfolded her legs for him, spread to reveal the hungry opening of her vagina. He kissed her breasts again and then her belly, his fingers hovering near the promised place. Then his hot lips kissed her vulva, his tongue exploring the thick pulsing lips. She could feel his fingers enter her. It was painful at first, but the warm moist touch of his tongue, which ran roughly over the bud of her clitoris, softened the pain. His fingers pushed rhythmically; they tickled the inside of her urethral opening and her knees jerked with the sensation. She felt naughty, and that aroused her even more.

He took his time to get her wet and susceptible. One push and his penis found its way inside of her. She screamed, partially with pleasure, but also with pain. Jack moved softly at first; he let her vagina get used to the feel of him. Then he moved faster, his breath rapid now, a curious look on his face that she had never seen before. His cock felt delicious and she clutched her legs around him, inviting him to push deeper.

They merged together, the way lovers did, riding and wiggling, overcome by passion, until he exploded in an ecstatic orgasm.

Odette’s eyes fluttered with the vivid memory. Her hand rubbed the inside of her thigh through the soft fabric of her nightgown. Something in the house fell over; it made a loud crashing noise, startling her. Her cheeks burned with excitement and shame, and she pulled her nightgown straight. Soft noises came from the house and Odette could hear the raspy old voice of Grandmè, the grandmother who raised her when her mother ran away, coming from the shadows of the house.

Erzulie Freda, embrace my heart, keep my love close

And let no one ever steal the light from my eyes.

Keep me safe from foolish passion

Keep me grounded, keep me sane.

Erzulie Freda, hear my plea, may no man break my heart again.

The words to the song stung, and Odette fought tears of shame and guilt. Her throat burned with the effort and despite the heat of the night, her skin felt cold.

“Are you ready for the ritual, child?” Grandmè called.

Odette stood frozen on the porch. What we are about to do is wrong, she thought. I will be a murderer if I go through with this. A mosquito landed on her arm and she looked at it. But I will have Jack. She slapped at the mosquito and squashed it. With a sweep of her hand, she rubbed its remains and the small blood splatter from her skin.

“Odette, petit, you keep me waiting.” The voice was stern now, and Odette felt the pull to obey. No one ignored the call of her grandmè, not even Odette. Her grandmother was known for her explosive personality. The old woman was the only Bokor, or Vodou sorceress, on the island, which gained her the respect of the people as well as their fear. The natives whispered of the dark magic that the Bokor used to get what she wanted.

I’m doing this. I am. And there is no way back. Her fingers trembled, and she pulled at the cord around her nightgown, unhooked the thick knot and cast the thin fabric off like a snake shedding its skin. I am embracing the darkness of my grandmother. I am embracing Vodoun. The thought of using the black magic of the Haitian voodoo tore at her heartstrings. She longed for the innocence she had lost when she gave away her maidenhood. Her life was simple then; she did not have to make choices about life and death.

The men called her beautiful; she believed them and liked to taunt them with her looks. Never more than taunt, she was too afraid of her grandmè, too afraid to sully her reputation. Yet she wanted to believe that beauty was a gateway to a life of romance and pleasure. Each day she gave careful consideration to how her long brown hair sprinkled with golden streaks was combed and groomed. She rubbed coconut oil on her light brown skin to keep it supple and fragrant. Her beauty was her weapon, and she used it to snare Jack.

And now she was going to kill him.

“There is doubt in your heart, petit.” The voice of her grandmother was sharp. Odette looked into the eyes that lay sunken in the wizened face, black irises surrounded by yellowed whites. Her grandmother’s skin was as dark as coal, and when the light hit it just right the skin almost looked gray. The old woman wore a white dress adorned with beads and jewels. Odette was naked; no cloth would inhibit her skin while she cast this curse.

“This plan feels wrong,” Odette whispered.

“Any more wrong than what he did to you?”

Her mind reeled back to earlier that evening when Jack had told her good-bye.

They had spent two glorious weeks together and made love each night in a different location until they were too tired to move. Odette loved Jack with all her heart. She knew she was his from the moment their lips touched; she wanted no other man. He, in turn, told her he loved her, and he whispered sweet promises of eternal devotion in her ear. She believed he would stay with her or come back to her; they belonged together.

“I’m going home tomorrow,” he said one night seconds after he had his orgasm. He pulled away and tears stung in her eyes. This moment was inevitable, but it still hurt. She wasn’t ready to speak of his departure, not so soon after they made love; his words made her feel cheap.

“When will you be back?” she said. She saw an expression on his face that worried her.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I will be back. Île-à-Vache is beautiful, but it’s not the sort of place you would visit twice. There is still so much of the world to see.”

“Then I will come with you,” she said. Her hand touched his naked skin; her fingers drew circles on his chest. He grabbed her fingers tightly, her bones pushed together in a painful way, and she winced.

“I don’t think that is a good idea, Odette.”

“But then I would never see you again.” The tears ran down her dark cheeks; they glistened in the light of the moon that shone on the lagoon. The crickets hummed softly in the high grass, singing a wordless song of romance and heartache.

Jack leaned over and placed his index finger under her chin. “We had such a wonderful time together, Odette,” he said, and he kissed her gently on her lips. “Let’s not spoil it with tears.”

“You said you loved me,” she cried. “I gave myself to you.”

“And I am grateful you did,” he said with warmth in his voice. “It was the most precious gift anyone could ever give me.”

“Then why can’t I come with you?” And then it dawned on her. She could see it on his face. “There is someone else.” Her voice was little more than a gasp. In his eyes the guilt was clear and he looked away. Horror appeared on her face; her mouth was twisted with disgust. The man who sat before her now—this man who had another woman in a land that was far from this island and who had lied to her all this time—was not the same man she had spent two weeks making love to. The Jack she knew professed his love to her, told her that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. Once, before he slipped his penis between her wet, waiting labia, he told her he wanted to run away with her. There was nothing left of his promises of love and affection now. That Jack was dead.

“Why are you acting like this?” she asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “What has come over you?”

“I am leaving tomorrow,” he answered, his voice cold. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Odette scrambled to her feet, her emotional world attacked by the vicious harpies of reality. She wanted to say something, to make him take back his words, to hear him say there was no one but her. She wanted to hurt him, to push her weight on his body and force his face into the sand. He would be too strong for her, so instead she kicked the ground, which caused grains of sand and pebbles to fly in his direction. He shielded himself with his arm. Then she turned on her heel and walked off, hurt and insulted, feeling the sting of rejection. I gave myself to you, she thought with a painful bitterness.

“Come on, Odette,” he called. “How did you think this would end?”

She didn’t turn to him no matter how angry she felt. Odette kept her dignity; she would never beg him to love her. The women in her family were too proud. She barely felt the sharp little rocks and pointy twigs that crunched under her bare feet as she made her way through the mangroves. Her mind was too tormented for her body to suffer. Only when she reached her grandmè’s house did she relent and give in to the pain. With a loud sob, she dropped to her knees on the rickety porch that connected the house to the swamp. She lay down, her soft cheek against the rough wood while tears streamed down her face in uncontrollable rivers of pain.

“Petit, what has happened to you?” a familiar voice asked. Odette did not have the strength to sit up and look at her grandmè. If she looked the old woman in the eye, she might see that Odette had gone against her wishes. She had let a man inside of her.

“A broken heart,” the wise woman said. Odette looked up, surprised at the kindness in her voice. Gnarled hands stroked her moist face. “Come inside, petit, where it is cooler. Come now.” The touch of her grandmother felt as hard as the wood of the porch, but Odette let the woman pull her up. Relief flooded through her mind and limbs. She’s not mad at me.

“Tell your grandmè about your suffering,” the old woman said as she ushered Odette into the cool of the wooden hut.

“He said he loved me,” she said, her voice flat; her eyes stared dead at the floor. “But he is leaving. He is leaving and he doesn’t love me. He used me. And I let him. Oh, Grandmè, I let him touch me.” She sobbed for a few minutes; she felt the sting of grief in her throat before she wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her arms were covered in sand and she could feel the grains against her skin. When she looked at her grandmother’s face, she saw darkness. Odette knew she spoke to the Bokor, not her grandmother.

“You were foolish, petit,” her grandmè scolded, but her anger was not turned to Odette. “Giving your flower to a stranger only because you loved him. You are like the other women in our family; we love too easily and get lost.” Her face was gentler now.

“Were you ever lost?” Odette asked the old woman. Sadness appeared on the wrinkled face.

“I was lost with your grandfather; he was a beautiful man, full of pride. He lacked the ability to love and I lost him almost as soon as I found him. Your mother was the same, bore you in her belly because of it. The same way I bore her before that. It is the curse of our women.”

“You never married my grandfather?” Odette said. She knew her grandfather died many years before she was born, and her grandmother never spoke of him.

“No, petit,” she said, her voice grave. “He left me with a child in my belly the same way your father left your mother.” A malicious twinkle shone in the yellowing eyes of the old woman. “I took away his choice and made him mine.”

“How did you do that?” Odette was intrigued now; her pain called for vengeance too. It screamed out like a dark spirit waiting to be released.

“I killed him, petit.” There was no remorse in the old face. The wrinkled mouth was a thin line of determination and the dark eyes with the yellowed whites looked at her resolutely.

“You killed him?” Odette let her hand slide over her heart. She could feel the rapid palpitations under her skin. “How?”

“Vodoun, petit, with Vodoun.” The old woman waved at the interior of the house. Everywhere around them was the evidence of Vodoun, the Haitian voodoo. There were candles that dripped thick wax on the large wooden table. Small wood and stone carvings of deities were gathered in between the candles, some covered in the same wax. Dolls sewn from burlap with thick coarse thread were scattered around the room, each staring up into the nothingness with stitched dead eyes. Even the scent betrayed her grandmother’s craft. The air was heavy with spices and the smell of extinguished fire.

“I could not kill Jack, Grandmè,” she argued. “I love him.”

“Death is just a gateway, petit,” her grandmother said. She waved her hand in the air with nonchalance. “Nothing is final.” There was a spark in the yellowed eyes of the woman that sent a shiver down Odette’s spine. Her grandmè had taught her in the ways of Vodoun, but Odette was a stubborn student. She cared little for the dark magic and the sacrifices it required. Vodoun always asked for blood, and Odette was squeamish.

“I can’t kill him,” she said again, but there was doubt in her voice this time. Her grandmother leaned in closer. Odette could smell the coconut oil on her tough old skin.

“You can let him go now or hold on to him for a long time still.” She wrinkled her forehead and if the old black face had had eyebrows, they would have been raised. “Once you bring him back, you can’t have him forever…only a few years. Then the spell will need to be broken or it will go rotten.”

“But it is not what I want,” Odette protested. “I wanted a lover, not a zombie.”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” Grandmè asked. Odette wanted to say: Yes it does. I want him to love me and date me and eventually ask me to marry him. I want a man who is alive and will give me children, not a zombie. Instead she shook her head.

“If you want him, this is the way. Otherwise just let him go,” her grandmother said. She threw her hands in the air. “But at least give him syphilis for breaking your heart.”

Odette laughed, but she felt a pull at her heart. Should she just let Jack go? Her whole body protested against the thought of it. But Jack obviously did not love her, he only used her; how could she force someone who did not love her to stay? And then again…she could make him love her. The dark irises, set in yellowing whites, peered at Odette from the old woman’s face.

“It wouldn’t be right,” Odette said, but she knew her resolve was weakening. Her grandmother had a dark spirit and Odette wondered if she, perhaps, shared that inner darkness. “Murder is wrong.”

“Not murder.” The old woman smiled. “Never murder. Just a simple curse. We let nature murder him.”

Something pushed at Odette’s mind, a deep and twisted longing. She would have Jack, and that was all she wanted. No one would know and he would be hers. The voice of reason screamed at her to realize what she was doing; she wanted to take the life of another human being, but the serpentine voice of want covered her reasoning. Vodoun is my destiny, she told herself. I see that now. The thought of performing the ritual aroused her in a strange way. Her conscience begged her to reconsider, but she turned to her grandmè and said: “What do I do?”

The darkness in her soul spread like a deep shadow. The inside of the little house was even warmer from the heat of the lit candles. Her grandmother looked taller in the candlelight, as if the shadows somehow elongated her small body.

“This man has done you wrong, Odette,” her grandmother said. “And he will pay for that. Tonight we curse him to his grave; soon after we will raise him from the earth.” The woman handed Odette a bowl of pig’s blood, which she poured over her naked skin. Odette threw back her head and embraced the Vodoun. Tonight Jack, you will die.

Nature didn’t take care of her problem, Odette observed; another tourist took Jack’s life. The tourist, who was said to be high on drugs, stabbed him in the abdomen after a heated argument. The wound was fatal; one of the policemen, pale-faced with shock, told Odette it only took a few hours for Jack to die. The people of the island whispered softly about the incident, but Odette heard their stories. They said that the man who killed Jack never understood why he did it. He told the police that it felt as if another force had driven him to do it.

The body of Jack was buried on the island. Odette oversaw the funeral plans herself. Jack had no living relatives, no one to claim his remains, so Odette claimed them. She cared little for the other woman who lived across the sea; Jack was hers now. I embrace the darkness, she thought.

The funeral was simple; only a few came, and Odette realized they came more out of respect for her and her grandmè than they did for the fallen tourist.

That night on top of Jack’s grave a ritual was performed. She dressed in white. Rituals of life and death should always be performed in white. Her grandmother wore a black dress. Odette performed the ritual; Grandmè only showed her how to do it. Between them stood a fat chicken, who pecked at the ground peacefully, unaware of the sacrifice that needed to be made.

Grandmè built a small fire in front of the grave. With her hands she pulled a handful of strongly scented spices from a large cow-skin satchel. Her voice was low as she chanted the words to the ritual used by many ancient Bokor before her. At the end of each chant she poured the herbs onto the fire, which sparked and burned and created a thick noxious gas that was slightly pinkish in hue. Odette joined her young high voice with the deep voice of the old woman and the chanting grew louder, a haunting melody that sent shivers down her spine. First there was silence around them, but then the crickets and the other creatures of the graveyard joined in with the Vodoun song. The chicken between them clucked weakly; it lost all interest in pecking.

Then Odette drew a knife from the pleats of her skirt and while Grandmè held on to the chicken, with the strength of a grown man she quickly killed the creature. The warm blood poured over her hands and arms, her white dress soaked in the thick crimson liquid. She dipped her hands into the chicken blood and covered the skin of her arms and her face with it. Her grandmother followed her lead. Odette walked around the grave and let the chicken blood drip onto the ground. Softly she chanted while her grandmother stood at the edge of the grave. The old woman’s eyes rolled back in her head and she went into a trance.

Odette sank to her knees on top of the grave. She rubbed the fresh earth on her bloodstained body. Then she lay down on the grave and rolled back and forth while she chanted and prayed. Her consciousness was somewhere else now; she felt as if her spirit were on the outside looking in. Her fingers rubbed her body, her breasts and between her thighs. She slipped the grainy fingers, slippery with blood, between the lips of her vagina and rubbed her clitoris until she moaned with pleasure.

Jack, she thought while her mouth screamed the words of the ritual. Jack, come back to me.

Two days after the ritual was performed, Jack’s corpse dug its way out of his grave and came to the call of the granddaughter of the Bokor. She waited for him on the porch of the little wooden house. She was anxious to see what he looked like. Images of Hollywood movies flashed before her eyes, but when she saw him walking in the light of the moon, she knew he was nothing like the rotting undead of the silver screen.

Dressed in the suit he was buried in, he came to her. The Haitians would call him a Zonbi. His skin was unnaturally pale, a slightly gray color that looked almost luminescent in the moonlight, his hair a waxen version of his golden locks. He looked very human; in the darkness it was difficult to see the death. The only thing that looked really dead was his eyes. A milky skin covered the irises; it made them look white. Can he still see the world with those pale eyes?

“When his eyes turn black, it is time to break the spell,” Grandmè told her the night after the ritual. “That is when the spirit of the Zonbi goes bad.” There was no stumble in his step; his tread was slow but deliberate. Something stirred in her loins when she saw him, and she felt that sweet spot between her thighs go moist with desire.

“Come to me, Jack,” she said, holding out her hands to him. He walked toward her, but never spoke. His hands felt cold and tough against her skin, nothing like the warm hands that had once touched her, but Odette did not care. The cold fingers explored her breasts with even more fanaticism than they had done when he was alive. He was here to please his mistress, and he would do only what she wanted him to do. She lay down on the wooden porch of the house and spread her legs. He pulled off her clothing, tearing it with the strength of the dead. She pulled at his clothes with a similar force, which revealed his grayish flesh. There was a mark on his body where he had been stabbed. Odette drew her fingers over it; she realized that it symbolized his obedience to her.

Jack pushed her down. His cold lips, dry and rough, found her nipples and he sucked them. Then he moved his head down, nipping at her flesh. His tongue was as cold as ice and rough as sandpaper and when he scraped it along her clitoris, she felt a jolt of painful pleasure. His fingers pried her labia aside and his tongue slithered inside like a frosty snake. She shuddered with pleasure at the contrast of the hot weather and the cold flesh of her lover. His tongue flicked inside her, the top lip of his mouth massaging her clitoris as it moved.

Odette screamed with pleasure and begged him to put his penis in her. It was swollen and looked larger and harder than it had in life. With force he brought the thick flesh inside her. Like his tongue it was cold, which brought an extra pleasure to the sensation of it slipping in. He pushed and she felt the delicious motion rubbing inside her. His fingers played with her clitoris as he pushed deeper, retracting a little, only to push again. Odette did not worry about his pleasure, only about her own. She had killed him and she could embrace her selfish nature now. Once you stepped into the darkness, you could never go back. Her body twisted under the weight of his corpse and she shivered with pleasure. Only when she felt fatigue did she push him away from her, and he obediently left. I love you, Jack, she whispered, but there was no expression on his dead face. You are mine forever. She felt no guilt and no regret.

She lusted for the dead Jack more than she had ever done for the living man. He was everything she wanted, a walking pleasure slave. He did not age, nor did he ever complain of his fate. He made love to her whenever she desired it. There was no shame in his eyes if she asked him to perform those things that a living man might find repulsive; he obeyed her every command.

Odette learned more about Vodoun from her grandmother. She decided to follow in the old woman’s footsteps. Two years after Jack was returned to her, Grandmè died. Odette took over the small house and the tributes that the people on the island paid the Bokor. Odette knew that everyone knew about Jack, but no one spoke of him. It was as if he did not exist. She realized the natives were as afraid of her as they had been of her grandmother; Odette had the same darkness. Her life with Jack alienated her from the living. She had a hunger for power and Jack made her feel invincible. All she had to do was spread her legs and his eager mouth would run its cold tongue over her labia and push its way into her warm gaping vagina. He was never tired, never found her unattractive, even as her flesh lost that tightness of youth. When she saw herself in his dead eyes, she saw the young beauty the living Jack had lusted for. Her lover was undemanding and ever loyal, but as the years went on, the milky white of his eyes grew grayer. After forty-five years, the gray was turning black.

“Break the spell when the eyes go black.” The warning words of her grandmother were not quite forgotten. But if she broke the spell, she would lose him. Jack was her all; without him she would be lonely, there would be an emptiness in her life. She had no living companions.

I am a powerful Bokor, she thought with the arrogance of old age, far more powerful than my grandmè ever was. I can handle Jack. She could not let him go, not after all these years. He was still so beautiful. I can’t live without you, Jack, not yet.

One night when she beckoned him to come to her and he pushed the chilly flesh of his penis inside her, she saw something in his eyes that frightened her. There was some spark there, something she hadn’t seen before.

I will break the spell tonight, she thought as her legs shivered with pleasure. Jack put his hands on her breasts, squeezing the nipples so hard that she cried out in shock and pain.

“Jack!” she scolded, but before she could go on she realized what was happening. Jack’s movements were faster now, more painful. She struggled to get away from his grip, but he would not let her go; he pounded into her vagina with such force that it brought tears to her wrinkled eyes. He pulled out of her, but when she tried to scramble away, he grabbed her hair and jerked her back toward him. Then he forced her to bend over, pulling her hair roughly downward. His thick meat pushed painfully into her as he continued to fuck her with the ferocity of an animal. Odette screamed; she tried to remember the chant she needed to control a Zonbi, but her head spun with the pain. Then he pulled her toward him again, forcing her upright, his cock still inside her. Two cold hands wrapped around her neck and squeezed. Her fingers clawed at his hands, but they were dead and could not feel a thing. Her breath was forced from her throat; she tried to gasp for air, but it was no use. Her throat burned and she saw black spots before her eyes. It took a few minutes for her to lose consciousness, and when she finally did, she died moments later.

Officer Couchan found the Zonbi Jack and the Bokor a week after Odette died. The officer told the horrific story of what he found in the little house that afternoon. The Zonbi was naked, as was the corpse of the Bokor, and the undead man was still making love to the lifeless figure. One of the officers took pictures of the dead woman to serve as evidence. There was nothing beautiful about Odette now; she lost all beauty years ago. Her thin gray hair was spread out in the shape of a Chinese fan. Her eyes bulged from their sockets and a thick blue tongue protruded from her pale lips. A pair of old breasts wobbled gently with the rhythm in which the Zonbi rode her. Officer Couchan pulled the animated dead man away from the body, but the image was burned on his mind’s eye. Later, in the dead of night, he would wake up in a cold sweat and remember that moment. The officers did not know what to do with the Zonbi of Jack. The only thing they could think of was to burn him. They decided to burn the corpse of the Bokor as well and all her Vodoun possessions. The wooden house was old, so to make life easier they set it on fire, burning the Zonbi and the Bokor together. No one but brave children and foolish tourists dared to come near the spot where the burned remains of the house stood. A new ghost story was brought to life on the island of Île-à-Vache, but the spirit of Jack was finally free.

NOT READY TO LET GO

Deanna K. Deavers

I closed my eyes, unable to bear the pain that I saw in his. The burning in my chest increased as each breath lingered just out of my reach. I longed for the rich, deep scent of the honeysuckle bush by the back patio. Each spring we stood together and inhaled the aroma with long, deep breaths. To feel that one more time. To take in air. To live. I knew the pain would be unbearable. It would rip into every part of my being and turn me into something I would not recognize. But to leave this world in the dark silence of nothing, a medicated coma, was something I could not, would not do. His strong hands holding mine, gentle eyes bringing me comfort and soothing words made the pain worthwhile. I opened my eyes and smiled.

He leaned in and whispered, “Let go, baby.”

“But, will you…” I said as fragile air escaped my lips.

“Be okay?” he said, then squeezed my hand. “Yes, I’ll be okay.”

I knew better, knew the truth. I could see his heart ripping from his chest as tears filled his charming green eyes. “I can’t leave you.”

“Stop the pain. Find peace.”

I watched as his gaze dropped to my lips. “I hurt for you,” I whispered. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I won’t be,” he said as he leaned in and kissed my cheek. “You’ll be with me always.”

The kiss was so soft I hardly felt it. I turned to look at the photo on the nightstand. We were at the beach, in the sand. Our little girl with her blonde curls and pink swimsuit smiled at me with a grin so familiar I could pick it out of a million smiles. The pain eased for a moment as the thought of joining her in death brought comfort. I would see her again, my little girl.

“She’ll be waiting for you,” my husband of fifteen years said to me.

“Yes, she will.” I turned back to stare into his eyes. Stifling a moan I continued. “But…she has others, my mother, your grandmother. You need me here more than she needs me there.”

“Kay, it’s all right. I’m all right. Let go. Stop the pain. Just… let yourself go.”

I reached deep within myself and fought. I fought the desire to let go. Fought my failing body and the invader that had taken over. I must live, I must hold on. Minutes turned into hours as I lay in my bed and listened to Thomas read my journal to me. We relived every moment of little Liza’s life, our life together. As he approached the week of her death he stopped reading and made excuses to fetch dinner. I knew he was not hungry and he knew I could not eat. It was more pain than his weakened spirit could take.

I grasped the leather-bound journal in my hands and hugged it up under my chin. This could not be it, all of it. So much life left to live. A pain greater than I could imagine gripped my chest and squeezed. I was losing no matter how hard I tried. No matter how hard I prayed. I muffled my cries and waited as the locomotive of pain barreled ahead, then rolled past. I could hear him in the kitchen and hoped he would get back before it was too late. Focusing on the picture again, I concentrated on every breath. Quick, shallow and raspy, death selfishly consumed my life.

“Do you want some broth?” he said as he walked back into the room.

I turned to face him. My eyes told him all he needed to know. He fell to his knees by the bed and slid his hand under my head. His fingers laced through my short, thin hair as he stroked my cheek. The tears that flooded his eyes earlier now rolled down his cheeks. Without a word he smiled and reminded me of why we fell in love. I slid the journal to the side and reached for his shirt. He leaned closer and whispered, “I love you madly.”

“Kiss me,” I said with no sound.

The last breath that death allowed escaped my parted lips as I closed my eyes in anticipation of his contact. I felt the warmth of his face as he lowered it close to mine. My husband always had full, smooth lips but in all our kisses, they never felt so sweet, so gentle as they did in that moment. The electricity that flowed through my body with the taste of his tongue filled my senses one more time. What felt like minutes was probably only seconds as my body gave up and death took over. The last thing I felt in life was his kiss.

The first thing I felt in death was pressure. A pressure on my chest that provided warmth and maybe…comfort? Yes, comfort and no pain. No pain! It must be heaven. I tried to open my eyes to see, to face what lay ahead, but I only found the dark and the nothingness. I lay there in the murkiness of the in-between, unable to move. Time took on a different meaning as I sought another existence. The minutes could have been years as my somber state evolved into a semblance of life. The first thing I noticed was sound, and then light that seemed to filter through my closed lids. I heard Thomas weeping and the pressure on my chest grew stronger. Is this heaven? But where is my daughter? Why isn’t she greeting me? My heaven would not include a weeping Thomas.

The pressure gave way to lightness as Thomas stifled his sobs. Now. Now she will come. The weeping turned into a hushed conversation as I discovered the ability to open my eyes. Although cloudy, I could see the light-blue ceiling of my bedroom and the large ceiling fan. A shadow stretched across the room drawing my attention. As if learning to move for the first time, I clumsily turned my head to see Thomas blocking the window. With his back to me, he spoke smothered words on the phone. Ending the call, he put the phone in his pocket and leaned against the window frame. His forehead pressed against the glass; he allowed the tears to return. Maybe this is my heaven after all. I’m with Thomas. How could it be any other way? With each passing moment, control of my body was turned back over to me. I slowly pulled up and reached for him.

“Thomas,” I tried to say but only a gargle escaped my dry lips.

He lifted his head and turned to find me sitting up in bed. He rushed to my side and sat down. “Oh my god, Kay. You’re… you’re…alive?” He squeezed my hands. “But…but how?”

I’m in heaven. My personal heaven, I thought, but could not yet speak.

“You’re…with me. You’re…alive?”

He held my face in his hands and kissed me. This kiss was deeper, harder than the last. I sensed his excitement as his tongue explored my mouth. I wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him into me, closer and with purpose. He tasted as he always did but it now seemed different…something was different. My desire for him intensified as he laid me down on the bed. With his body covering mine, my urges for him were growing, changing.

He released my mouth to explore my neck and shoulders. As his lips teased my skin, his scent wafted up and filled my nose with a delicious aroma and my belly with hunger. As I reached for his head and ran my fingers through his wavy hair he stopped.

“My god, it can’t be. Jesus. Thank you. Thank you.”

I smiled and focused on the perfect jawline and freshly shaven skin that covered it. I wanted to taste him there. As I placed my lips against his hot flesh he said, “Babe, you are so cold. Too cold.”

He sat up and grabbed the blanket at the foot of the bed. “Let me cover you up.”

No, I want your body to cover me up, I moaned as I pulled him back on top of me.

He looked into my eyes and said, “Wait. Wait. This isn’t the time for this. We need to get to the doctor. This is…all wrong. You died. You were here for thirty minutes, lying here…no pulse. Nothing. You…” His voice cracked as he cleared his throat. “You…died.”

I rubbed his face and smiled, then I shook my head and squeezed his cheek. Thomas reached up and grabbed my wrist. Holding on, he placed the fingers of his other hand on my neck at the carotid artery.

Babe, I started to say but still couldn’t get the words to form. I wanted to comfort him, convince him that I was okay but my words came out as groans.

“SSSHHH.” He looked into my eyes.

What are you doing? I pulled from his grasp.

“I can’t feel your pulse. Kay, at its weakest I could always find it.” He placed his ear against my chest. He lay motionless on my chest for several seconds before he said, “You’re not breathing, Kay. You’re not breathing.”

He jumped from the bed and stood over me as I thought again about his delicious flesh. I sat up and leaned against the headboard with my arms crossed. Come here, baby. Sit with me. He heard only groans and gasps.

Thomas sat on the bed and grabbed my hand. He looked into my eyes, then leaned in and took me in his arms. “You’re back. You’re with me. I don’t understand how.”

I’m here. I rubbed my lips against the soft lobe of his ear.

“But…” he started as he sat back up. Holding me at arm’s length, he looked deeper into my eyes.

But what? I tilted my head and focused on his face. Things were still cloudy and blurry.

“We need a doctor. No way this is possible.”

I leaned in and tried to say, Does it matter?

“Your eyes. They’re…can you see?”

They’re what? His scent filled my head as the moisture in my mouth increased.

“They’re cloudy. Gray.”

Through the haze, I could see the worry in his brow, feel the tension in his grip. My husband has always been strong, sturdy. I needed for him to see it was okay, to be strong again. I also needed to nibble on his lip. Nibble his lip? Why? What am I thinking? I fought the urge to lunge forward and hold him down. Instead, I leaned in and licked the side of his neck. As my tongue reached his jaw I felt a sudden loss of control again. I wanted to taste him, really taste him. I closed my teeth on his jaw and nipped. He tried to pull away as I sucked a small drip of blood from his skin.

“Kay, dammit, what are you doing?”

He tried to remain calm but I could sense his confusion. Can you sense mine?

I could not think of the answers to his questions as my thoughts became foggy with desires, hunger and my newfound appetite. He grabbed my wrists and held my hands on my lap.

“That hurt, baby. Please. Just lie down and rest. I need to get the doctor and we can figure this out. Is there no pain?”

There was pain. The pain related to need and the fulfillment of hunger. The other pain was gone but was replaced by new sensations. A part of me could hardly speak but another part told me to ease his mind, lessen his pain. That’s why I was still here wasn’t it? Because he needed me still? Or because I was not ready to let go?

“No pain,” I moaned as my mouth began to form words. “Better.” I’m not better, I’m not right. Nothing is right. Isn’t this what I wanted? To be back with him? Am I alive or dead? Does it matter?

He glanced at the photo on the nightstand then looked back at me. “You’re not you.” He released my wrist and stroked my face again. The perfect contrast of his steamy-hot skin against my ice-cold flesh stirred the desire again, stirred my appetite. I needed him now more than ever.

“Look at me,” I mumbled as I placed his hand on the large scar hidden beneath my gown, the place that used to be my breast. “Feel me. I am me.”

“You can hardly speak. You’re not breathing. You’re ice cold. You bit me,” he said without moving his hand.

I lay down and placed his other hand on my right breast. My only breast. I am here. I need you. I love you, my cloudy eyes relayed.

He dropped his head as a tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek to the circular line of blood droplets on his jaw. Without words, he crawled over and lay beside me. I pressed my body against him as he rolled toward me, face-to-face. I felt heat as he ran his hand up my back. It was difficult to focus on the things I used to think about when we were lying together like this. I felt his hardness as he pulled my leg up over his. He squeezed my bottom and buried his face in my neck. His kisses felt warm and moist. I wanted him still, as I used to. I thought of our many romantic moments and many nights making love in this very bed, our bed.

As his musky scent floated up into my face again, I found my thoughts drifting from making love to…to eating? My mouth filled with saliva as my arousal took on a different meaning. I wanted to eat and felt an overwhelming craving for him, his flesh. With each kiss and passionate caress, I fought harder and harder but remembered less and less. I went from remembering fondly the last time we had sex in the car to the pleasure I would feel by sinking my teeth into the thick muscle of his chest.

Thomas pulled away as I scratched my nails down his arm. “Ow, babe, what…why are you doing that?”

I pulled him closer and rolled over on top of him. Pinning him down between my legs, I leaned in and pursued the taste of his mouth, every inch. Our tongues fought for control as I thrust my hips and rubbed myself against the hardness beneath me. I slowly pulled myself up and lifted my gown over my head. With a toss, it was on the floor and I was pressing myself against his chest. My thoughts of love, passion and pleasure were replaced with hunger, need and delirium. I fought again to uncover the memories and reasons I never wanted to leave him. But as he rubbed my back and squeezed my bottom in his hands, I became foggy and confused. Night was day and dark was light. I did not recognize my thoughts or my feelings.

The desire to feel him inside of me quickly lost out to a searing anger that crept in and demanded control. The combination of an undefined hunger and unconscionable rage bloomed in my spirit and forced me to bite down on his lip and tug. Blood filled his mouth and flowed into mine, fueling the rage that I did not understand. As he pulled away, I pushed closer. The taste was an explosion of satisfaction akin to a cold drink of water in a hot desert. I needed it and fought to keep it. I gripped his head and drank in the metallic flavor as if there was nothing else in the world. My hips continued to thrust and grind against him, growing faster with the approach of my climax.

Galvanized by fear and survival, Thomas managed to tear away from my teeth sunk into his flesh, and struck me across the face. I felt no pain as he erupted from the bed with blood dripping down his chin. The rage driving me and forcing me to feed picked me up and lunged me back at him. He swung at me again and I fell into the trail of blood on the floor that he left behind in his escape.

“Shit, Kay, what in the hell are you doing?” he yelled as I fought to sit up.

“I’m…sorry?” I moaned as I looked up at him, fighting to remember what just happened.

“What’s going on?” Thomas said as he walked to the chair in the corner and sat down. “Why is this happening?”

I pulled myself back up onto the bed and carefully watched him. My aroused state remained as I relaxed back against the pillow and allowed my fingers to explore the damp place between my legs. I slowly stroked myself as I inhaled the coppery scent of his blood in the air, which sparked my memory of why he was bleeding. The remaining tendrils of humanity in me wanted to cry, beg for his forgiveness, but it was short-lived as I watched him stand there and sensed the fear that had been building. He glared at me from the corner as I savored the aroma that consumed my senses and helped me reach an orgasm.

“Stay here,” he said as he rushed from the room. The loud bang echoed off the walls as the door slammed. I stayed.

Thomas paced across the hard tile floor as he stared at the photos on the door of the refrigerator. Fun times, holidays, picnics, all the things he would miss out on now. But would he? She’s still alive. Kay is here. Thomas let a smile form as he thought about having his wife back. He had been resigned to losing her forever. He had accepted their fate and was prepared to be alone. The sickness invaded their lives, allowing her to linger for years. Just when they thought it was beat, it reared up in true carcinoma fashion and destroyed the future they had planned. His acceptance, however, was not reciprocated. Kay fought every ounce of it, would not accept her destiny. After the loss of Elizabeth, she would not allow another death to consume her husband again. She almost refused to let it take her. Every moment, every treatment, every hope, filled her heart. He knew she would lose the battle. And now…

And now she was lying there in the bedroom, waiting for him, wanting him. But what was she doing? Why couldn’t she speak to him clearly? More importantly, Thomas thought, where was her heartbeat? He thought about her pale, cold flesh and how odd it felt. She didn’t feel like his wife. Even during the chemo, her skin was soft and supple. Thomas dialed her doctor’s number, then slammed the phone down on the table as the answering machine picked up. He waited, then dialed again. Leaving a message that was sure to confuse the doctor, he poured a snifter of whiskey and sat at the kitchen table.

He stared at the closed bedroom door as the first sip of Johnny Walker Red stung his injured lip. A warm, sharp sensetion filled his mouth and flowed down his parched throat. The burn met his stomach as tears formed and threatened to flow down his cheeks again. By the fourth sip he was evaluating her once-beautiful eyes. Now when he looked into her face, he saw only dull gray eyes, cloudy and lifeless. Thomas finished off his whiskey and set the glass on the table with a thump. He traced the rim with his finger, fondly remembering the first time he convinced her to try scotch. He wiped at a tear that had escaped his eye as a sharp pain reminded him of the bite on his jaw. It continued to throb with each beat of his heart. And that…what was that? She attacked him. What more would she have done had he not struck her? He winced as he remembered the sound of the slap. He had never raised a hand to his wife and never would. But this was not his wife. She was…something else.

Thomas watched the shadows grow long as the sun set behind the house. Time didn’t exist, or at least didn’t matter as he tried to make sense of the day and what he had witnessed, what he was feeling. He stood in the window and squinted at the bright orange glow, listening to the birds sing. He closed his eyes and pictured the day they had installed the bird feeders, and he allowed another smile. She loved the birds, the flowers, the spring. In his heart, Thomas felt the desire to hold her. Regardless of the circumstances, his wife was in there, waiting for him, needing him. She was there, after he had thought she was gone forever.

Thomas lifted the window to hear the orchestra of birds a little clearer and a small breeze lifted up and carried the scent of honeysuckle into the room. His senses were consumed by the aroma and his mind drowned in the familiarity of it. He was not ready to let go after all. His desire to hold her blossomed into a desire to feel her body, taste her skin, fill her with his need. Thomas moved toward the bedroom door, drawn by an unseen force. It was his soul being pulled to hers, needing her, wanting to be one with her. Their love was too strong. It was staggering, the purity with which they could love each other, and this unconditional love would not allow the bewildering reality to keep them apart. Thomas leaned against the door and grasped the knob. The low throaty moan of a voice he recognized resonated from the other side. His mind became jumbled as he tried to distinguish his feelings of excitement from his feelings of fear.

I waited on the bed, swimming in my own pool of confusion. I felt nothing that made any sense. I wanted to make love to my husband. I wanted to eat. Why were my only feelings those of hunger? A sexual hunger and a ravenous, feral hunger? Why did my heart not beat? How long had he been gone? Where was everything that used matter to me? I found myself slipping away and what used to be me was almost gone. Kay did not exist anymore. I had to mourn the death of my body and now I mourned the death of my essence, my soul. I was no longer there to fight the fierce predatory urges. I had no power at all. Each of my senses was alert to my surroundings but for only one thing—him. I wanted him, his flesh. I felt nothing else, heard nothing else, saw nothing else.

His aroma drifted through the cracks around the door. The wonderfully musky fragrance of a man as well as the metallic scent of fresh blood. My nostrils flared as I drew in his smell. His presence was a magnet to me and it brought me up from the bed and toward the door. My hunger responded to him, like a ship to a beacon on a stormy ocean. I pressed my hands against the door as the knob slowly turned. The door swung open as I stumbled back. Thomas walked in and grasped me in his arms. The warmth of his body and the feel of his strong hands sparked the old Kay in me as he pressed closer and squeezed me tight. Maybe I was not all the way gone. Maybe I could fight this a little longer.

Thomas walked me to the bed and laid me down. With his eyes closed he leaned down and kissed me gently on the forehead, then the cheeks and finally the lips. It was familiar and sweet and I reacted as I used to by kissing him deeply and without restraint. As his tongue explored my mouth, his hands explored my body. Stroking my thighs, my stomach and then my breast, his lips found the sensitive crease of my neck above my collarbone. I arched my back and ran my finger through his damp hair. Oh, Thomas. I was back in my world, my life, my love.

I felt the intensity of his desire as he settled between my legs, his body pressed firmly against mine. Our sensuality returned us to a time of no sickness, no medication, no death. I was winning, controlling it all. Thomas pulled my arms above my head and brought his lips to my mouth again. Planted beneath him, I savored the feel of his body and delighted in the surge of excitement that filled my stomach and stilled heart. For the first time since I awoke, my cold body generated heat. My need for him became intolerable as I rolled my hips up and allowed that precious warmth and moisture to caress and tease him.

“I want you,” I murmured into his ear.

“I love you so much,” he whispered as he struggled to sit up and remove his jeans.

As he pulled away, the space between our bodies did more than increase my longing; his taste on my lips woke the untamed Kay. I followed him up and grabbed his face between my hands. Pulling him to me, I placed my lips on his mouth, then nipped his lip. He jerked back for a moment, then took me into his arms and threw me back on the bed. With my arms pinned over my head again, he lowered his body onto mine. He looked into my eyes as his reservations dissolved. He ignored the things that bothered him before—the cloudy eyes, the cold skin, the nonexistent heartbeat. Tears rolled down his cheeks and landed on mine as I tried to reach his tender flesh with my mouth.

Thomas tightened his grip on my arms and lowered his face to mine. He kissed me again with such force that my own lip began to bleed and the once-soft kisses became a battle to consume each other’s mouth. The taste of his blood coated my tongue and enraged the new me. I fought it desperately as the weight of him between my legs fueled my eagerness to feel him inside me. Each of my desires was at war with the other, creating an agony that devoured my existence. Thomas moaned and pulled back from my face as I tilted my hips up and opened to him and the joining we both desperately needed. I watched his face through the cloudy mask of my vision as he entered me and began to satisfy my craving.

We moved together as one, like we used to do when we lived and loved and the world made sense. My pleasure, matched by his, escalated and made everything else cease to exist. No more life, no more death, no more pain and no more fear. He groaned over and over as our lovemaking overwhelmed and endured. Thomas released my hands as his thrusts became sharper, stronger and wild. I grabbed his back and raked my nails down his sides as blood from his lips dripped into my mouth. I caught sight of the wound on his jaw and pushed myself up and flipped him over onto his back.

Straddling him, I leaned forward and took his jaw into my mouth as I rode him toward climax. The old Kay retreated as the new Kay sucked the blood from the newly opened wound. Thomas moaned, then fought to push me away. Lost in my hunger, I planted my teeth deeper into his jawline. His moan turned into a scream as I pressed harder, then slid my lips down to the warm pulsating artery that ran down the side of his neck. I could sense Thomas reaching his climax so, as was always my habit, I forced the apex of my own and our coupling ended—two people, one shared explosion. At this most vulnerable moment, I tore into his neck and let the warm blood flow. Thomas screamed and tried to push me away.

“Stop…Kay…stop,” he mumbled as he let his arms fall back to the bed. “Why baby…why?”

The new Kay won as I devoured some of the lean muscle of his neck. He grabbed my head but could not move me as I continued to take what I wanted. Weakened, his grip on me slipped away as the life slowly flowed from his body. I leaned back and lay on the bed beside him, the blood covering us like a blanket. With both of my hungers momentarily satiated, I found my senses returning. I watched patiently as the light left his eyes.

“My Thomas,” I groaned.

The scent of honeysuckle flowed through the open door, reminding me of a life I had once lived. The metallic aftertaste on my tongue reminded me of a death I must endure, his death. I didn’t know how long I’d be waiting there but I knew somehow, with time, Thomas would be back.

NIGHT OF THE LOVIN’ DEAD

Ashley Lister

A my refused to succumb to fear.

She was the only woman walking into the depths of the night with half a dozen elder clansmen from the aédre village council. She was dressed in a sacrificial robe: a ghost-white, gauze-thin sheet that clung to the sylphlike contours of her otherwise naked figure. Tobin, the council’s senior woodsman, held a blazing lantern to lead the way. He was taking them through the strange and winding paths of the forest that hid the sacred warrior burial ground of the neighboring Blackwood clan.

But Amy refused to succumb to fear.

The untrustworthy companions, the ceremonial robe and the eerie destination would have petrified any other woman. But Amy was not scared. In truth, she couldn’t bring herself to feel any emotion other than intrigue. She was curious to learn how the night would develop and find out whether or not it would prove satisfying. She suspected, if the rumors she’d heard were true, the whole experience could prove to be very satisfying. The thought made a sly smile creep across her lips. It was a chilly night.

The robe offered no protection from the night’s cool air. They were taking a meandering path through the overgrown forest that surrounded the Blackwood burial ground. The skeletal fingers from hanging branches swayed down with each breeze and snatched at her flaxen locks. The sounds of the night were lost beneath the stomp of heavy boots breaking bracken, the swish of kilts and traveling swords catching undergrowth and the grunts of labored breath.

Her nipples stood hard with the cold.

The beads of stiff flesh thrust obviously against the gossamer fabric of the robe. She was aware that most of the men in the party had already noticed this detail. The thought made her cheeks burn dully with unenthusiastic embarrassment. At the back of her mind she rationalized that most of the elder clansmen had seen her exposed nipples at some point or another during her twenty-four years with the ǽdre village, so there should be no real sense of shame. And whilst that thought inspired a rush of smoldering, proud arousal, it also made her wonder if she had been chosen for this adventure because she was easy to bed.

Tobin walked briskly ahead. The wavering glow of his lantern, a flame cleverly captured by their mage in an open-topped glass phial, guided them like a mythic star. Tobin moved with the lithe assurance and light-footedness of someone born to walk moonlit forest pathways. He moved as though he was a spirit carried by the forest’s winds.

“Watch out for the roots,” Tobin warned. His voice was a soft whisper. “We’re almost there now. You should all keep your eyes skinned and your voices low.”

Amy made no response. She had not been speaking anyway.

To her left and her right she was escorted by two burly spearmen: Harald and Erik. They wore the dark orange hauberks of the ǽdre village militia. The council’s mage walked behind her whilst, ahead, Rex and Jorund remained side by side behind Tobin huddled together in the collusion of a whispered conversation.

Amy lowered her gaze to watch where her bare feet were treading.

Pine needles stung sharp against the exposed soles. Fallen bark and branches underfoot made each step unpleasant but not unbearable. The idea of being tripped by a bulging root was a threat to the pleasure of this experience so she kept her gaze fixed deliberately on each footstep.

From the periphery of her vision she could see the rigid thrust of her erect nipples. Despite the lazy chill of the night she was darkly aware of the rising heat that tingled in her loins. She could picture her broiling desire as a slowly warming need. She dearly hoped the ceremony would prove fulfilling. Her inner muscles clenched as though excited by the idea. A smile of lust-fueled anticipation spread across her lips. Her nostrils flared as she drank in lungfuls of the night’s softly scented air.

“Hurry up, Amarantha!”

Her smile disappeared. She didn’t need to look up to see who had called her name. Only Jorund was formal enough to use her full birth name. Jorund was a senior figure on the council and the most trusted advisor to their leader, Rex. In his stiff tunic of authority, decorated with the gold sash of his rank, Jorund looked like the embodiment of pomp and ceremony.

Amy did not care for Jorund.

His lips were twisted in a perpetual scowl. His scowl, on this journey it seemed, was perpetually directed at her. “Hurry up, Amarantha!”

“What’s the rush?” Amy raised her voice louder than necessary. Her retort rang sharply through the night air. “They’re dead. It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”

In a low voice, too low for her to hear the words, Jorund mumbled something to Rex. It was a comment that was also caught by Tobin and the three men laughed together. Their shared mirth was an unkind sound.

Amy stiffened. She was aware that this suggestion of unpleasantness had the potential to spoil the mood of the entire evening. It was the first thing that had genuinely managed to make her feel an inkling of fear.

She held her breath.

A sliver of moonlight broke through the black canopy of trees above them. She saw it was the full moon that the elders had predicted. Seeing the glimmer of its silver surface, Amy knew the promised magicks were going to happen this evening. Her heartbeat quickened and her breathing resumed as she understood this was a sign. Despite Jorund’s dislike for her, and despite the unkind laughter his comment had generated, the ceremony was going to be as wholly satisfying as she had hoped.

There was no need for her to succumb to fear.

“For fuck’s sake,” the mage snapped angrily. “Can’t you bastards show the lady some respect?” He had been behind her but, as he spoke, he stepped forward, pushing past Harald and Erik to glower at Rex, Jorund and Tobin.

He nodded his head, urging Harald to let go of Amy’s arm. Once the spearman had stepped aside, the mage extended a hand to Amy. The sleeves of his robe covered his hands but she could feel his cool, slender fingers as they wrapped tight and unseen around hers.

After shrugging her left arm from Erik’s grasp, Amy freely walked alongside the mage. Rather than the two of them being part of an illicit ceremonial procession, it was almost as though he was escorting her on a personal walk through the forest.

Like all masters of magicks, the mage wore a cowled robe, the hood covering his face. From the shadows of that hood she thought she saw the glint of a reassuring smile.

“We’re approaching consecrated ground.”

The mage was still talking sternly to Jorund, Rex and Tobin. He spoke with the stiff tone of authority she would have expected from a parent scolding unruly brats. “You’re asking this young woman to be central to the spell I need to cast. And yet not one of you has the decency to treat her with the respect, civility or cordiality she merits. For fuck’s sake, gentlemen, what are you thinking?”

He let the question hang in the air.

Rex, Jorund and Tobin each exchanged uncomfortable glances.

“Perhaps it would be easier if I cast a spell that allowed the Blackwood clansmen to vanquish us entirely?” the mage suggested. “Perhaps you all want to see your kith and kin from the ǽdre village slaughtered or enslaved?”

Rex raised a hand for the mage to stop. He summoned Jorund and Tobin to press closer to him. Rex adjusted the golden crown that sat atop his golden curls. The yellow metal shone with a fading luster in the moonlight. He approached Amy with his features composed into a mask of contrite solemnity.

“Forgive us, Amy,” Rex said earnestly. “We wronged you with our disparaging attitude. A lot depends on the success of tonight’s endeavor. We’re in unfamiliar territory and, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, none of us is truly comfortable around magicks. I hope you understand that we’re more than a little nervous. I’d appreciate it if you could forgive us our indecorous behavior.”

Tobin muttered an apology.

Jorund stepped into shadows, managing to look like a wholly unapologetic silhouette hidden in the darkness. The word “Sorry,” flat and unconvincing, came from somewhere near his lips.

“I understand,” Amy said. She encouraged Rex and Tobin to move forward, uncomfortable with the idea of elders from the village council apologizing to her. “I know that there’s a lot at stake tonight so I don’t take upset at mere words.”

“You’re too gracious,” Rex said. “And, come the morrow, your sacrifice will be remembered in legend.”

She bit her tongue.

If the magicks were successful, her sacrifice would be remembered as being secondary to the mage’s skill. No one ever praised the fatted calf for providing a satisfying banquet: credit was always given to the senior cook. But if things didn’t go to plan, then her sacrifice would be a snippet of gossip shared by the dre village survivors who would be forced into slavery by the Black-wood clan. If things didn’t go to plan, from what she understood of the magicks, there would be unnecessary sacrifice, reanimated corpses and an end to the ǽdre village and its council.

She didn’t say as much.

Jorund was the one who had organized this last-ditch attempt to save the village. He had identified the Blackwood clansmen as a threat to the liberty of those residing in ǽdre village. His research confirmed the Blackwood forces were unbeaten and formidable and intent on expanding. Jorund had taken advice from the village’s mage and devised a plan to summon dead Blackwood warriors to protect dre village from the threat of Blackwood forces.

Because she was known to be of a willing disposition, Amy had been called on to be an integral part of the magicks that would call the warriors from their graves.

Amy knew very little about magicks.

She only knew that the mage had said she would be needed as an essential part of the spell he intended to cast to secure loyalty from an army of the undead. He had said her involvement could possibly require some intense sexual satisfaction.

On hearing that, Amy had decided she ought to do the right thing to help her friends and family from ǽdre village. She shivered at the memory of those negotiations, keenly aware that the promise of satisfaction still held her in its thrall.

“We’re here,” Tobin said. He spoke with a lowered voice.

Amy glanced up from studying her footsteps. She saw they had reached a circular clearing in the forest. The light from Tobin’s lantern shone on a series of small wooden markers that stood like miniature trees identifying where fallen Blackwood warriors were buried. In the center of the clearing was a circular marble plinth.

Unbidden, Amy thought of that raised platform as a sacrificial altar. She didn’t know why her mind should think of it in such a way. But the epithet somehow seemed perfectly apt.

“This is it,” the mage agreed. “We’re here.”

Like a groom leading a bride to a waiting cleric, he slowly escorted her to the marble plinth. Respectfully, the others fell back, allowing the mage to lead the way. Because she was holding his hand, Amy had no choice except to follow and she tried not to show her reluctance. But, for the first time since this adventure had begun, she detected a small snake of unease loosing its coils in her belly.

“Drink this,” the mage said, passing her a tall brown bottle. “It will help steady your nerves.”

Obligingly, Amy unstoppered the neck and took a swig. She recognized the exotic taste of fire wine. She took a second mouthful and held on to the bottle. The liquid seared the back of her throat. It filled her blood with a tingling rush of excitement.

“Undress,” the mage told her simply. “Your role will begin in a moment.”

He called for Tobin, and then went to Harald and Erik. Pulling two fresh bottles of fire wine from the pouch on his belt, he gave one each to the spearman and said, “Read the grave markers. Find the names of the most accomplished warriors. Splash a measure of this blessed fire wine on the sod above each chosen man.”

Harald took his bottle. He saluted the mage by clenching a fist against his breast. Erik followed his colleague’s example and did the same. Together, helped by the light from Tobin’s lantern, the two men started to walk amongst the markers splashing fire wine onto the night-black soil and muttering softly when they struggled to understand the names on the markers.

The mage glanced at Amy.

“You’re still dressed,” he observed. He placed a solicitous hand on her elbow and bowed his head with concern. “Is something wrong?”

She shook her head, ready to tell him that she had just been hesitating because she wasn’t sure what she should be doing.

The mage grabbed a fistful of the robe and tore it from her body.

The fabric was so flimsy it didn’t even pull at her flesh. One moment she was shielded from the cool elements by the thin gauze-like fabric. The next moment she was standing unclothed in the night: the only woman surrounded by half a dozen unscrupulous men from the ǽdre village council.

“Jorund. Rex.”

The mage was now in charge. The authority in his tone cut through the night and carried across the burial markers. “Come here and help Amy,” he insisted.

She fought the urge to wrap protective hands across her breasts. She was naked now. Whatever happened from this point onward was destined to happen.

“Do you know what will be expected of you in this ceremony?” the mage asked.

“I’ve heard a little about what’s expected.” She pushed her chest forward and fixed him with a defiant gaze. “But I wouldn’t be so bold as to say that I know the ceremony.”

From the shadows inside his cowled hood she could see no sign of his features or expression. “It’s a simple exploitation of magicks,” the mage explained. As he spoke he spread the rent cloak across the marble plinth and motioned for Rex and Jorund to help Amy lie down.

Rex smiled at her with good-natured approval.

Jorund’s features were set in a mask of distaste.

The plinth was cool beneath her buttocks. Through the flimsy remnants of the robe she could feel its icy chill against her skin. First it touched the heat of her backside. Then it stiffened her shoulders whilst she made herself as comfortable as the unyielding plinth would allow.

“Harald and Erik are dousing blessed fire wine on the graves of those warriors we’re calling to our aid.” He spoke with the soft lull of patient understanding. “There are three things needed to summon warriors from the grave,” he went on. “Wine is one of them. A war is another.” He glanced toward Rex and Jorund who both nodded softly as though they were confirming that they had a war for the warriors to fight.

“What’s the third thing?” Amy asked.

“That’s where you come in,” the mage explained patiently. “To summon the dead, we also need a willing woman to satisfy the needs of the warriors we’re calling.” He paused and lowered his head. If she had been able to see his face Amy suspected she would have seen the mage frowning.

“Are you ready to be our willing woman?”

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

“Are you able to show that you’re willing?”

“I’m laid naked on a plinth for you,” Amy pointed out. “What more can I do to show you that I’m a willing woman?”

The mage’s head tilted to glance at Rex and Jorund. “Undress,” he snapped stiffly. “Help Amy prove that she’s the willing woman that’s needed for this sacrifice. I want to summon a large militia from the undead this evening.”

Amy was pleased that it would be Rex first.

If it had been Jorund first Amy thought that would have spoiled the mood.

But it was handsome Rex, the leader of the village, and she knew from experience that he was a capable man between a woman’s thighs. She watched as he removed his golden crown and placed it solemnly on the floor beside the sacrificial altar. With the same slow deliberation he removed the scabbard from the belt at his waist and placed that and his traveling sword beside the crown. Carefully, he pulled his emblazoned tunic over his head and then stood there wearing only his dark leather boots and a plain black kilt.

He was attractive.

His chest was broad and barrel-shaped. His arms were large and muscular. His skin was fragranced with the balms and unctions of ceremonial preparation.

Amy’s longing for him was sudden and inarguable.

She was conscious of goose bumps prickling her bare arms and rippling across her thighs. The rush of greedy need for him built swiftly in her loins but she hid her desire. Instead of making her need apparent she remained motionless on the plinth, waiting for Rex to make the first move.

Behind them the mage began to chant.

Amy knew nothing of the language of magicks but she guessed he was calling on the Blackwood warriors and promising them wine, war and women if they climbed from their graves and came to his assistance.

His cries became a background noise as Rex mounted the marble plinth and knelt between her parted thighs.

He was hard. His erection pointed skyward and pulsed softly as though inflamed with need. She wanted to reach out, encircle him with her fingers and guide him into her center. But she also knew that she was only there to be a willing woman, not a wanton woman.

“It’s been too long since we did this,” Rex murmured. He said the words in a whisper beneath the kiss he placed against her cheek.

She pressed a kiss against his earlobe. “Your wife would probably think we should have stopped altogether.”

He laughed uncertainly. He moved his head back and considered her eyes. She guessed it was when he saw the shine of greedy need that he decided to act. He pushed his length into her. His lips devoured her mouth with avarice. He tasted of fire wine and arousal and she wanted to drink him.

“Amarantha,” he groaned.

His erection was fat and solid.

The muscles of her sex were filled and spread apart as he urged his shaft into her. She could feel him thickening with excitement and wondered if he was aroused by the idea that the others were watching him as he performed his ceremonial duty between her legs.

She closed her eyes and imagined all the men in the graveyard swelling with arousal as they grew excited by the demonstration of her desirable nudity and the thrall of her womanly skills.

When she opened her eyes she could see Rex grinning at her as though he had been driven insane with lust. His thrusting had increased in ferocity. His breath was a guttural pant. She knew he was on the verge of filling her with his precious seed.

All too suddenly it was over.

He exploded between her legs and filled her with his hot, viscous ejaculate. He groaned as the climax took him and Amy bit back a wail of disappointment. She had wanted him to take her past the pinnacle of pleasure that her body now craved. Instead, he was pulling his dwindling member from her hole and she had yet to taste the release that she needed.

Amy swigged another mouthful of bitter fire wine as Rex slipped from between her legs and Jorund took his place.

The most trusted advisor to their leader had also removed his sword and tunic. He had taken off his kilt to reveal a body that looked uncomfortable in nakedness. His length was not as thick as the one Rex possessed but Amy thought it looked surprisingly long.

“Amy,” Jorund said stiffly as he brushed his lips against her cheek.

“Chief advisor, Jorund,” she returned.

The forced formality seemed ludicrous for two people lying naked together. It seemed even more ridiculous when she felt the tip of his shaft slip between her swollen sex lips and start to fill her.

His erection seemed to take forever to slide inside.

It was not what she had been expecting. Even though he did not possess the broad thickness of Rex, the lingering length of his penetration made the experience surprisingly exciting.

Jorund took more time to enjoy his pleasure than Rex had. Whilst she suspected that Jorund was taking longer because he didn’t find her particularly attractive and was having difficulty maintaining his erection, she thought the development worked well for her own arousal.

Jorund’s rhythmical assault on her sex was enchanting. She had always thought he was a slippery, coffer-loving, gold-worshipper. When he demonstrated his prowess as a lover she was left breathless. He plunged in and out with mechanical deliberation.

He allowed his length to furrow deep inside, then pulled it back until it was on the brink of falling from her sex. Then, with slow urgency, he pushed himself deep into her hole and repeated the process.

Amy was dizzy with the need for climax by the time Jorund’s shaft spat its hot, wet explosion into her depths. She felt so close to being sated that she wanted to kiss him and thank him for pleasuring her to such an intensity.

Tobin was the third man to appear between her legs.

She accepted him with a greedy embrace and a silent prayer that he would be able to push her body to the cataclysmic rush of bliss that had so far eluded her.

She had stopped comparing penises and performance techniques. It was now only a matter of listening to the mage’s musical chants and clenching her muscles tight around the hard and throbbing member being pushed into the depths of her sex.

She felt the same apathy for Tobin as she felt when Harald took his place between her legs. The only difference with any of them was that the rounded head of Harald’s shaft was large enough to make her shiver with a surprised thrill of pleasure.

“You’re doing just fine.”

The reassurance came from the mage. He said the words as Erik pushed into her. The second spearman’s rhythm transported her to that plateau she needed to crest. But, Amy thought, the true source of her pleasure came from something more perverse than Erik’s penetration.

Amy was the only woman in a graveyard with half a dozen lecherous men. She was dabbling in dangerous magicks and she was hearing words of comfort from one man whilst another pushed his fat length into the oily depths of her overused sex. She was taking her pleasure from the knowledge that all of them were using her and she was happy to be used by them.

“You’re doing just fine,” the mage insisted. “I can feel that our magicks have been successful. Something is coming.”

She nodded.

Amy knew something was coming but she didn’t know if it was the magicks.

She tightened her embrace around Erik and squeezed the muscles of her sex around his shaft. Her body throbbed with the need for a fulfilling release and she was determined to wring it from Erik’s cock.

When he came, Amy’s resultant orgasm finally flushed its way from her body.

Her climax came with a shriek into the night that was loud enough to fill the air. She pushed the spearman from her embrace, aware his shaft was pulsing and spilling precious seed as she thrust him away.

The mage’s chant was interrupted by a cry of protest.

She thought she heard Rex or Jorund make an exclamation of dismay.

But the pleasure was coursing through her body and she had no time to think about anything other than her responses.

Whilst the climax should have been a joyful, blissful experience, Amy was appalled by the shocking images that accompanied her release. She could see Rex, Jorund, Tobin, Harald and Erik. Each man’s throat had been sliced open. Black and crimson wetness splattered down the bare chests of the ǽdre village council. Their flesh had turned pallid with death.

The mage was close to her—standing at her head and chanting. For the first time she caught a true glimpse inside the cowled hood of his robe. Instead of a face she saw only a grinning skull.

As she pulled away from him, she saw that she must have been mistaken to believe that anything had happened to Rex, Jorund, Tobin, Harald or Erik. The five men stood waiting to take their turn on her again. This time they were accompanied by an army wearing the black and maroon hauberks of the Blackwood clan. The air in the graveyard was scented with fire wine and freshly unearthed soil.

The mage stepped away from her.

One of the undead warriors staggered forward. Moonlight glinted against the helmet he wore. He gave her a gap-toothed smile as he stepped between her spread thighs. “What would you want from us?” he growled.

Amy remembered what the mage had said. She smiled contentedly to herself and lay back down on the plinth. “You’ve tasted fire’s wine this evening,” she told the warrior. “Our council has a war for you to fight tomorrow. So, for tonight, I think you and the rest of your warriors should try to satisfy this willing woman.”

As the first of the undead climbed onto the plinth with her, Amy knew they were all going to try. She knew they wouldn’t be leaving the graveyard until she was totally satisfied. And her smile broadened as she realized she was still a long way from being scared.

UNDER A PERFECT SUN

Zander Vyne

Today

Outside, snow capped the Santa Catalina Mountains. Winter rain fell against the glass walls and ceiling of the Biosphere.

Inside, the cornfield was a controlled seventy degrees under its grow lights. Rain soil testing was not scheduled for another month.

I’d be gone. The corn harvested and studied. I would write up my findings, stressed out by tight deadlines and long hours. This mission would be a memory. I didn’t know if I would sign up for another.

Today, tomorrow felt far away. Ears of corn nodded silk-topped heads above me, casting lacy shadows on Michael’s naked body. I licked a droplet of sweat from his neck, shivering under the fan-generated breeze.

He flipped me over and pulled me to him, digging his fingers into my hips.

On my knees—fingers planted in the dirt between the rows, hidden deep in the field where we’d thrown our blanket down—I bit my tongue to keep from howling with pleasure when he slid into me.

“Jesus Christ! Unless you’re sharing, you need to knock off the love-in-the-wild shit,” Richard said, standing in our row, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

Shit. How long had he been there?

Michael eased me back into the spread of his thighs, dragging our red-plaid blanket over my breasts. His cock was hot and slick against my back. Heat tingled in my cheeks. Reaching back, I found his hand and held it tight.

“Sorry, Doc. We lost track of time. Noon already?” Michael said, his voice dripping with the Louisiana charm that hooked me the first time I heard it.

“Susie’s looking for you. You should’ve been in Receiving fifteen minutes ago,” Richard said.

“Then you better hurry up and go so I can get dressed.” Michael kissed the tip of my nose.

My gaze flickered to Richard.

His eyes dipped to where I clutched the blanket to my chest. “Thanks to you blowing off your kitchen duties, I get to pull my shift without lunch.” He scowled just to be sure I understood that he was pissed at me too.

“I’m sorry. I’ll bring you out something in a little bit.” I did feel guilty he’d missed lunch because of us, but didn’t regret the stolen moments alone with my husband.

He shrugged, still not turning around, still not leaving. “I’m hungry now.”

At my back, Michael’s body was coiled and hard like a spring. “We know we fucked up. Won’t happen again.”

He stood, wrapping his fingers around my arm and pulling me up to face him. He draped the blanket like a wrap around my shoulders and then dragged his thumb over my mouth, still swollen from his kisses. “Better run on back, darlin’. I’ll see you after first shift.” His blue eyes twinkled and made everything all right. Just another lark. Another laugh.

I loved him so much that just looking at him made my heart clench, as if the burden of it might be more than it could survive.

Gaping at Michael’s erection, unabashedly displayed, and still impressive considering the rude interruption, Richard finally turned away. He walked down the row, swatting at stalks, his long white lab coat flapping like wings behind him.

“You can bring me a little lunch too. We’ll be a while unloading that crank shaft, and I’ve worked up a powerful appetite already,” Michael said.

Clutching the blanket to my chest, I rose on tiptoe, slipping my arms around his neck and stealing one last kiss under the perfect, artificial sunlight.

“Love you!” I called back to him as I left, running over warm dirt in my bare feet as the corn swayed overhead.

“You too!”

It was with a light heart my morning ended. Tomorrow had not been on my mind at all.

Tomorrow

I’m writing it all down because that’s what Michael said to do. I don’t know why it’s so hard because I write all the time. It’s what I do. I’m a scientist. But I write facts and figures, and I study results. I don’t journal. I do not have a diary. I don’t even like Facebook.

I hope this is a story of survival. Of beginnings, not endings. I hope you find something you need in it.

Yesterday

“Thanks for showing up, fucker,” Susie said when Michael rounded the corner into the receiving garage. She’d already opened the door and stood smoking a cigarette on the concrete ramp.

He took the cigarette from her fingers. Tucking it between his lips, he inhaled deeply then passed it back to her. “They said Susie and crank shaft, and I came a-runnin’.”

“Just in time, looks like.” Susie finished the smoke and crushed it beneath her heavy work boot, tucking the rule-breaking butt into her pocket.

A white cargo van pulled up at the top of the long delivery ramp and stopped.

“What’s he doing?” Susie frowned into the sun, shielding her eyes with her hand slanted over her forehead. “Something wrong with the van?”

“Hell if I know.”

The driver’s-side door of the van opened.

“What’s up, dude? You don’t expect us to carry that shaft down from there?” Michael shouted.

A low growl filled the air. Michael thought of the mountain lions he’d heard in California, howling at night, the sound like a woman’s terrified screams. Prickles stung the back of his neck.

Starting up the ramp, he stopped as the driver appeared— ejected from the van with such force that someone must have pushed him, or thrown him. He landed on his face, and skidded over the concrete, making a sickening, wet noise as he went. Ssssslllllpppphhhhss.

“What the fuck, dude?” Michael headed toward him.

The driver jumped up as if drawn by strings. He lurched forward, making that freaky cat screeching sound. One of his arms lay crooked, his palm facing the wrong way. None of this seemed to affect him; he was coming faster. Bloody teeth gnashed in the tattered black hole that had once been his mouth.

“Something’s wrong with him. Run!” Michael yelled to Susie as he started back down the driveway. “Shut the door! Shut the fuckin’ door!”

The driver tripped, fell, and rolled down the slide-like ramp.

Susie screamed, frozen, ten feet from the gaping garage door. The driver crashed into her and sent her backward. She landed on her ass. Her head slammed into the pavement. The driver crawled, like a creature from a nightmare, over her. She moaned, trying to sit up, but he pushed her back down, growling louder.

Michael grabbed his blue Biosphere jumpsuit and pulled him off.

The driver yanked away. His flailing hands slammed into Susie’s outstretched arm. His fingers closed on her hand. He brought it to his lips, hauling her to her feet as he bit into the meaty part of her palm.

She screamed. The sound echoed off the walls of the narrow driveway. “Get him off me! Get him off me!”

Michael’s fist shot out, clipping the driver’s chin and coming back again with a second punch that landed squarely on his nose. He howled and jerked backward. Susie shot to her feet and grabbed Michael’s hand. They ran. Just inside the gaping opening at the bottom, he hit the button that started the giant garage door downward.

Up the ramp, the driver turned and shuffled toward them.

“Come on! Come on!” Susie said as the door came down. “Faster!”

The driver moved with plodding steps toward them, but he wove his way as if blind, bumping into one wall and heading the other way like a human pinball.

“He’s sick or something. Look at him.”

“I don’t want to look at him! Let’s go!” Susie tugged Michael’s arm.

“I’m not leavin’ until I know he’s locked out. Something’s wrong with that dude in a bad way.” Michael made a circuit of the garage. He found a large pipe wrench propped against a wall and, hefting it to his shoulder, brought it back to the closing door.

Three feet to go. The driver was four feet away, but he veered off to the left.

“If he gets in, you’ll bash him in the head with a wrench?” Susie’s eyes were bright with fear, shiny and glassy. She held her wounded hand close to her chest, wrapped in the hem of her bloodstained shirt.

“He fuckin’ bit your hand like a goddamned zombie! Hell yes. If he gets in, I’m taking him out!”

The door crashed closed.

They grinned, coming together, wrapping their arms around each other. “We’re okay!” Susie said. “He didn’t get in!”

“Thank Christ! Let’s get you fixed up,” Michael said, easing out of Susie’s embrace, ignoring the hurt and sullen set of her expression.

He left the large wrench next to the garage door.

From Michael’s Notes

The doc did all he could do for us. I want to make that plain. No one could have seen it coming. I was there, and I didn’t believe it until it was too late.

You might read some things in my journal, but it was all testosterone talking. That and twelve weeks locked up with one other man and five women. The doc wasn’t that bad. None of them was.

They did all the right things. Called Security. Went into lock-down. Tended Susie. Doc even gave us Valium after he investigated and saw the driver for himself. “He’s just walking into the door, over and over again. His face—” He didn’t have to finish. I’d seen it too.

I was happy to take the pill and hang out with Susie while the rest took care of everything and waited for Security to show up. No one’s doing but mine, what happened next.

We joked about zombies. Crazy talk, we agreed, laughing it off. There would be a logical explanation. Maybe a bug, combined with the shock from his injury acting like a drug, making him crazy.

It happened so fast. One minute, Susie was joking around, and the next, she was on me.

I killed her, or at least I think I did. She didn’t go down easy. I should let them know. They don’t stop until their brain does.

Have I lost my mind?

Either way, I locked myself in the storage cage, kept the key. I hope I’m wrong, and they don’t need these notes or the notebooks I piled up outside for them, about the mechanics of the Biosphere, and what to do in case of an emergency. How to keep things going. I hope I’m here to wait it out with them. They don’t have a chance in hell without someone who knows how to keep the power on.

I hope they understand why I killed Susie.

I want to make love with my wife in the cornfield again. I hope she’s okay and knows how much I love her.

Three Years Later

The power went out today.

We’d followed Michael’s instructions, dropping to emergency power only, shifting all resources to the Biosphere 1’s apartment wing and the farm dome. We operated days with no lights, and used as little power as we could get away with at night. Clutching Michael’s notebooks like bibles, we’d capped off and rerouted plumbing and electrical, reducing our loads to minimums, conserving everything to stretch out life for as long as possible. We planted seeds, sprouted legumes and kept the water-collection systems humming throughout the Biosphere. The doors were always locked, and we never, ever went outside.

Michael had managed to get most of it down until he could hold a pen no longer. We filled in the gaps. We survived. We waited.

When it happened, I was in the basement, walking through one of the long, connecting hallways lined with piping. I’d come from Michael, who’d eaten his share of veggies as ravenously and mindlessly as always, clawing at the bars when the food was gone, his once-vibrant blue eyes dimmed and distant.

He was clean. He was fed. He was still Michael. He was not Michael at all. I loved him so much it hurt.

Tears blurred my eyes as I walked away from him. Just like every day, I asked if I was doing the right thing, keeping him alive, but not truly living. The others had no choice. We’d agreed right away that all decisions would have to be made jointly, and I was not prepared to let Michael go. I didn’t know if I ever would be.

The lights went out with a pop of electricity, plunging the basement hallway into darkness. I thought that this was it for one crazy moment. The end had come. The aching in my heart told me that I was still alive. I am ashamed now to admit my disappointment when I realized we’d only lost our power.

It took us a week to get it back. Plenty of time to think about what my life had become. What might happen next. What was lost forever. Plenty of time to understand the fragile nature of my new life.

Later

“I won’t do it.”

“I realize it’s difficult,” Richard said.

“Difficult? As a concept, it’s difficult. In reality, it’s a fucking horror movie.”

“No pun intended, right?” His goofy smile did little to change my mood.

“You’ve been elected to convince me?”

“Pretty much.”

It didn’t surprise me. The other women still seemed eager to put someone in charge, someone who would figure things out, make things happen, change things back to the way they used to be.

“They can’t force me to do it.”

“They’d like you to consider letting one of them do it if you won’t.”

“Let me guess. Christina wants to be first in line?” She’d always had the hots for Michael.

“No one wants to do it. We’ve tried everything else. You know that. I just keep asking myself what’s the point of surviving if it all ends with us.”

“We don’t know that it will end. Maybe we’re not the only ones left.”

“We’ve had no contact with anyone else. Ever.”

We’d tried everything while things were still working. Someone always survived in the movies. Surely there were people who’d holed up somewhere, waiting for the day when the world snapped back to normal. We’d even spent time mapping out this new world as we imagined it, targeting the most likely candidates for survival with our communication efforts. The list was depressing, and our efforts had been wasted.

Richard sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a long, thin finger. His eyes were tired when he looked at me again. “Just think about it, okay?”

I nodded. Sure thing. Just think about having sex with my half-dead husband, and letting the other women do it too, to produce babies who would carry on the race, just in case others had survived who’d started their own breeding program and we managed to connect with them.

No fucking way.

Five Years later

Tesla died today.

I said before that no one ever went out, and that’s almost true. I went out once. I’ll never do it again.

The Others—that’s what we called the people like the driver, and Michael now—had taken down the people who came to the Biosphere. I guess everyone in Tucson knew about the place. They came in droves at first, and we watched through the heavy-duty glass of the dome as they were taken down, eaten, turned into Others.

After the people stopped coming, the Others hunted javelina, mice and stray dogs and cats.

The cat had wedged herself against one of the outer doors. I saw her from the cornfield, a ball of red fur jumping onto an electrical cable attached to the outside of the building. The Others saw her too. They’d turned from the path above the dome, and a pack had started down the steps.

The door was a few feet away. The Others at least thirty feet from the cat. I couldn’t watch. Not again. I had the cold bar of the bolt lock under my fingers before I could think it through. Yanking open the heavy steel door, I lurched to the side, scooped up the cat, all teeth and claws then. She shot out of my arms. I went after her. At the corner, she stopped, cowering against the concrete, her back arched and her hair standing on end.

“Here, Puss, Puss. Come on, baby. It’s okay.”

The Others were ten feet away. Tears blinded me. I would have no choice soon but to leave the cat and save myself, and my friends—I’d left the door wide open.

I lunged into the corner and grabbed for its fur. Catching it at the neck, I yanked it up and away from me. It hissed, and the Others moved faster as the sounds of something alive and struggling reached them.

“Jesus Christ, Sam!” Richard shouted from the open doorway. “Drop the fucking cat and run! Now!”

I ran, but I didn’t drop the cat. I named her Tesla.

She wasn’t young. She wasn’t old. She lived for a long, and seemingly happy, time with us. Still, her death—from old age by all appearances—took us all by surprise. We buried her in what used to be the rainforest dome. Everyone cried. We hadn’t seen a cat, a dog, or another person except Others outside the glass in a long, long time.

After, we opened the jars of wine we’d put up with grapes from an unusually good crop. We’d been saving it for a special occasion, and this seemed as good a one as any.

We drank until dawn. In the middle of it, just for a fleeting few minutes, I was happy. Content to sit in the kitchen and drink homemade wine, and reminisce about a cat.

“Have you thought anymore about what Richard talked to you about? About Michael?” Christina asked.

Everyone else had gone to bed. We were alone in the kitchen. A candle burned between us on the table. I was drunk. Christina blurred when I looked at her.

I closed my eyes, resting my head on the back of the hard metal chair. “Yes. I think about it all the time. About him, all the time.”

“You love him.”

I nodded, without opening my eyes. “Yes. I do.”

“You know, he loved you too.”

A hot surge of anger flared in my chest. Opening my eyes, I found my eyes still blurred and my tongue quick. “You don’t know anything about him. About us!”

“Look. It was no secret I had a crush on Michael. He was smart, gorgeous and funny. Who wouldn’t be attracted to that? But he loved you. I admit it. I flirted with him. A little. Just enough, you know, to know maybe he thought I was cute too. I didn’t mean any harm, and he wouldn’t have any of it. All he talked about was you. He loved you.”

“Stop talking about him like he’s gone! You want me to do this thing, but you’re talking about him like he’s not even here!”

“He’d want this, Sam. He’d want to be a part of something bigger than just keeping him alive because you’re too chicken-shit to end his suffering.”

I stood up, knocking my chair over. It clanged on the tiles, bouncing off my shin so hard it would make a mark I would not find until later. “You don’t know what he’d want!”

This time, it was tears blurring my eyes as I ran away.

Alone in my apartment, I cried on my cot.

I had no pictures there to remind me of Michael—I hadn’t realized when I packed that I would need them—but he was all I thought about. His smile was becoming hazy in my memory. Did it tilt to the left or right? Were his eyes more sky blue or robin’s egg? The thing in the cage in the basement was Michael now. I’d come to accept it, and thought of him now like that— restrained, tested, drugged, bathed, fed, and always growling, always mindless, always staring with those vacant eyes.

What would Michael want? Would he have wanted to be studied the way I finally had allowed? They were gentle, kind, and did nothing to hurt him, but still…would he have wanted to be a lab rat?

Would he want all this to mean something? Would he just want to be dead?

Would he feel me, if I went to him? If he was drugged but aware, still, and unable to hurt me, would my touch reach him in a way nothing else had? Would it be that flash-fire, hot quickening that came over both of us like a fever; sudden, and only cooled when we fucked, the world dwindling away to nothing, every problem I ever had gone when he touched me? I’d never needed a man the way I had Michael. I’d never let down my guard so much, trusted as intensely or loved as fiercely. He’d returned it all and then some.

I owed him. I needed to do what he would want if he were able to tell me. Why didn’t he write that down in those fucking notes he took before he turned into one of them? Why hadn’t he told me what to do? Had he not realized this might be it? The end? No hope of rescue, of a cure, the human race facing extinction.

Days Later

“I’ll do it,” I told them at breakfast.

The Next Day

I let Richard sedate him. I never could bear to watch, and I didn’t then. When Michael was out, in the same kind of aware but immobile twilight sleep used for surgeries, I went to him.

His naked body was thinner than I remembered it, his flesh pale. Still, he was well muscled from days spent pacing his cage, climbing the bars. His arms were powerful, biceps budging, his stomach a washboard of muscle. He hadn’t seemed to miss meat, and physically he appeared to be in the best shape of his life.

I bathed him. Filling a bowl with warm water, using soap and a soft cloth, I washed him. His nipples hardened and his balls lifted into a tight little sack I remembered well. He hadn’t come in a very long time. I didn’t think he masturbated. He didn’t seem to have control over what his body did. I didn’t know if he wanted this, even though his flesh responded to the warm licks of the cloth and my soapy hands. His cock grew long, and thick, its head weeping a single droplet, the way it only did when he hadn’t had sex in days.

It had been so long. Alone in the sphere, Richard a constant temptation. I admit it. I had thought about going to him. It wouldn’t take more than an invitation; he’d made this clear though he was now sharing a bed and apartment with Christina.

But it was Michael I dreamt of when I was alone at night, touching myself.

My body responded. Still in my Biosphere blue coveralls, my nipples tingled and lifted, my breasts feeling fuller, a surge of heat between my thighs as I stroked his cock.

He lay so still. Like he was sleeping. His eyes were closed. I was glad. I didn’t know if I could look into them and go through with it, even though my body wanted to. I didn’t have to touch myself to know my cunt was wet and swollen, ready for the cock that Michael now pushed up at me, hips lifting from the bed as he strained against the restraints that bound him. I wanted so badly to untie him, to have him touch me again. For him to make everything the way it used to be. But I knew I couldn’t do that.

I wanted him to tell me this was okay, but all I had to go on was what his body said. And it said, yes, yes, yes.

The sound of my zipper was loud, stirring Michael from his slumber. He moaned and tossed about, but calmed when I lay my naked body alongside his and put my head on his chest. Tears wet his stomach and thighs as I took him in my mouth and loved him the way I had on a day that now seemed so far away, in a cornfield, under a perfect sun.

I knew how to do it. I knew what he liked. Soon, his hips were lifting off the cot, and my mouth held the taste of his excitement. I closed my eyes, and the world dwindled. Nothing mattered but this place, this moment.

When he was about to come, I stopped, wiping my lips with the back of my hand. Straddling him, I held his cock at the base and teased my slit open with its head. I wanted to come the moment his velvety hot flesh slid over my clitoris.

Inside me, he didn’t last long. I didn’t either. It was like it used to be. It was nothing like it used to be.

After, I cried. Head on Michael’s chest, listening to his heartbeat and the rumble of his stomach, I hoped I carried his child. I hoped this had all meant something, that it mattered. I hope as you read this that you understand why I did it.

Michael

Inside, his heart sings with love, drowned out by his urge to lick her and bite her, even as something primal within responds to the sex. It is good. It eases his need to taste her while inflaming his longing for what he cannot have. If he gets loose, he will kill her unless she kills him first. But he knows she doesn’t have it in her.

Sometimes, he wishes she would put a bullet in his brain. He thinks of the way he’d fucked Christina, lying to Samantha. The way he’d fucked them both sometimes in the same day, and he felt sick. If Sam knew the truth, would she let him die then? He wished he’d told her when he’d had the opportunity. But it was too late now. Too late now. He had let her love a lie, and now he was paying the price.

He’d heard them talking about what was going to happen. He heard Doc ask Sam one more time to consider letting the others be inseminated, and her angrily telling Richard they’d have to fuck him just like she was going to do, but not until she was ready to allow it, which might be never. He liked the idea of that, of fucking all the women, even in front of the doc, especially in front of the doc, whose boys couldn’t swim.

I don’t deserve to live, he thinks. He wishes his wife would let him die. But not until she finishes fucking him.

Seven Years Later

The girls played in the dirt of the tomato garden. Laughter filled the air and brought back memories of other times when children used to play outside in the sunshine. But those days are gone and will never return. I’ve accepted this. Some days are good, because of the children. They are happy and healthy, and that’s all that matters now.

Sometimes, I wonder if keeping Michael alive, but in a cage, is the right thing to do. He was a good man when things were different, the father to these precious children now. He doesn’t deserve to die. He deserves better than to be kept like a mindless animal in a zoo. Still, I hope—when I am gone, if he lives on—the children we leave behind will care for him forever and love him as I do.

Outside, zombies still roam, unable to die yet not fully alive.

Inside, we bide our time, and go about our lives, no longer waiting for things to change back to normal.

I don’t know who’s better off.

One Day

We were in the kitchen, making breakfast.

And everything changed.

A man’s voice came through the speaker of the handheld radio Christina had been tinkering with for weeks. “Hello? Is there anybody out there?”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DEANNA K. DEAVERS is a freelance writer and elementary school substitute teacher living in Beckley, WV. A member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, she primarily writes middle grade and young adult adventure, horror and paranormal fiction. Her short story “Not a Usual Day” was featured in Clubhouse Magazine.

DELILAH DEVLIN writes erotic romance with edgy stories and complex characters. She has published over 120 stories in multiple subgenres with Atria/Strebor, Avon, Berkley, Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ellora’s Cave, Kensington, Kindle, Running Press, Samhain Publishing and Montlake Romance, publishers of her Shattered Souls and Lost Souls. She lives in central Arkansas.

JANICE EIDUS is a novelist, short-story writer, and essayist. Her books include The Last Jewish Virgin and The War of the Rosens. Her work has appeared in Mitzi Szereto’s Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers. She is a writing coach and has won two O. Henry Prizes. She lives in New York City.

A. M. HARTNETT has been writing erotica since 2006 and her work has appeared in more than a dozen anthologies, including Cleis Press’s Sudden Sex, Irresistible and Best Erotic Romance 2013. She graduated from Mount Saint Vincent University with a degree in English. She currently resides in Nova Scotia, Canada.

LAURA HUNTLEY is an author from Sheffield, England. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and has won five competitions. Laura’s first novel, Black Eyed Boy, has been published by Crooked Cat Publishing. She is now working on the sequel and the final book of the trilogy series.

AUGUST KERT resides in Ohio with her husband and four pets. Her first publication Bring Me to Life comes out in summer 2015 from Samhain Publishing.

ASHLEY LISTER is a creative writing lecturer and the author of How to Write Erotic Fiction. He is also the author of the Sweet Temptations trilogy from HarperCollins. His many short stories include “Here There Be Dragons” in Mitzi Szereto’s Thrones of Desire. He lives in the northwest of England.

E. C. MYERS is the author of numerous science fiction and fantasy short stories and three young-adult novels: the Andre Norton Award-winning Fair Coin, Quantam Coin and The Silence of Six. He currently lives in Philadelphia with his wife, son and two cats.

THANA NIVEAU is the author of the British Fantasy Award-nominated From Hell to Eternity. Her stories appear in Mammoth Best New Horror and many publications including Zombie Apocalypse: Endgame; Interzone; Whispers in the Dark; Steampunk Cthulhu; Terror Tales of Wales and Best British Horror. She lives in Bristol, England.

CHANTAL NOORDELOOS was born and raised in the Netherlands and lives in The Hague with her beautiful daughter and wacky husband. She writes mostly in English and her work has been featured in several magazines and anthologies. In 2013 she published her first Steampunk novel and a horror collection.

MARK ONSPAUGH‘s sequel to his first novel The Faceless One (Hydra, Random House) will appear this fall. His novels The Thetis Plague and Kua’Mau: Kaiju Mother of Wrath are available from Severed Press. He has had over fifty short stories published and writes for film and television. He lives in California.

ERIN O’RIORDAN, (erinoriordan.blogspot.com) based in the Great Lakes region of the United States, writes in many subgenres of erotic romance. Her short stories have been published in webzines including Clean Sheets and The Erotic Woman. Her erotic romance novel series begins with Beltane.

SHANE VAUGHAN has been published in Cellar Door, The Useless Degree and Roadside Fiction. He runs the event Stanzas in his hometown of Limerick, Ireland; the theater group Cannibals Not Canadians; the music podcast #KantKopeOrchestra and works for the Munster Literature Centre, where he tweets about words.

ZANDER VYNE‘s (zandervyne.com) literary erotica has appeared in several anthologies, including Mitzi Szereto’s Red Velvet and Absinthe; Thrones of Desire and Darker Edge of Desire. She lives and writes in Chicago with her family and an adopted basenji mutt.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

MITZI SZERETO (mitziszereto.com) is an author and anthology editor of multi-genre fiction and nonfiction. She has her own blog, Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog (mitziszereto. com/blog) and a Web TV channel, Mitzi TV (mitziszereto.com/ tv), which covers the “quirky” side of London. Her books include The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray (a sequel to Oscar Wilde’s classic novel); Darker Edge of Desire: Gothic Tales of Romance and its precursor Red Velvet and Absinthe: Paranormal Erotic Romance; the quirky crime/cozy mystery Normal for Norfolk (The Thelonious T. Bear Chronicles); Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire; the Jane Austen sex parody Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts; In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales; Getting Even: Revenge Stories; Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers; Dying For It: Tales of Sex and Death; the Erotic Travel Tales anthologies and many other titles as well as short stories. She’s known for having pioneered erotic writing workshops in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe and has lectured in creative writing at several British universities. Her anthology Erotic Travel Tales 2 is the first anthology of erotica to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Mitzi’s next book will be Rotten Peaches (The Thelonious T. Bear Chronicles), the second installment in the series cowritten with her celebrity bear, Teddy Tedaloo. She divides her time between London, England and various locations in the United States, where she occasionally provides safe harbor to lost (and hungry) zombies.