A Little More Dead (28 page)

“Eventually, we’ll find a bigger boat.”

Her eyes lit up.
“One
with a Jacuzzi!”

“And a grill.”

She took her can from the table and took
a long pull, swallowing with a sigh. “This might just be better than living in
Dwight, Kansas.”

He pressed his lips together and looked
away.

“I’m sorry, Paul. I didn’t mean it like
that.”

“I know.”

She gazed off to shore, clearing water
from her ears. “Where do you think everyone is?” she asked for the thousandth
time.

He followed her gaze to the empty beach
a few hundred yards away.
“Dead.”

“Everyone?”

“We would’ve at least seen a plane by
now if anyone was still alive. I mean, the cruise ship kind of solidifies
things, don’t
ya
think?”

She thought on it for a while and took
another drink, water running into her cleavage. “So…where should we go after we
stock up on supplies?”

His eyes swung back to the distant shoreline,
tightening around the corners.
“Anywhere but there.”

She smiled and squeezed by, the smell of
saltwater in her hair. “Let’s shower and eat.”

☠

Empty tuna and beer cans littered the
coffee table along with chip and cookie bags. Paul poured more whiskey into
their glasses before topping them off with soda, reminding him of Cora. He
passed Wendy her glass and raised his into the air, the smell of cocoa butter floating
from their clean skin. “Cheers.”

She
clinked
her
glass against his and tipped it back. “I love day drinking.”

Paul leaned back into the couch and
stared at the darkened TV, listening to someone else’s mix on an iPod they
found stashed in a kitchen junk drawer. Water slapped against the side of the
boat, testing the anchor as a nice breeze swept through the open sliding glass
door, cooling the room in the afternoon sun.

“Dan told me you did a morning show on
the radio.”

Paul barely nodded and drained half his
glass in one chug.

“I bet that was fun.”

“It
was
.”

She looked down to the rocks glass in
her hands, ice cubes popping. “Did you interview famous people?”

“Sometimes.”

“Who was the best interview?”

His gaze drifted to the ceiling as he
thought about it. “Most of them aren’t morning people but Marilyn Manson is
always entertaining.”

“Oh my God, I hated his character on
Sons of Anarchy
.”

Paul smiled. “Yeah, that got weird
quick. I could never look at him the same after that.” He stiffened when her
fingers ran across his cheek.

“You look so different shaved.”

“So do you.”

A bashful smile graced her lips. She ran
a hand down a bare leg spilling from a pair of gym shorts that were so big she had
to safety pin them. “I feel so much better. My legs were beginning to look like
tree branches.”

He tore his eyes from Wendy’s
long-stemmed
legs,
almost taking zero notice of the
fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra under a thin Disney World t-shirt she found
hanging in the spare bedroom closet. Paul glanced at the red bra and panties
drying on the patio furniture out in the sun. He didn’t think it was possible,
but he felt better. It was amazing what a hot shower and shave could do for a
man.

“I wasn’t a waitress at the bar.”

His eyes snapped back to her and zoomed
in.

“I lied.” Wendy looked away, a sheepish
smile playing on her lips. “I was a professional dancer.”

Paul frowned.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I was a
stripper
or whatever you want to call
it.”

“Why lie about it?”

She shrugged.
“Habit.”
Twisting the glass in her hands, she folded her bare legs underneath her and
bravely met his bloodshot eyes. “I hope you don’t think any…”

“I don’t.”

Taking a slow drink, Paul held her
steady gaze as the boat gently rocked back and forth. “What was your stage name?”

Wendy looked away, obviously embarrassed
by the question. “Sabrina.”

A short laugh catapulted from his lips.

“I don’t know why I even told you that.”

“The past doesn’t matter now,” he said,
disbelieving his own words because the past did matter. If it didn’t, he
wouldn’t be drowning in a sea of regret. Paul got quiet and stared into his
glass. “Two nights before our power went out and all hell broke loose, I…almost
cheated on Sophia.”

Taken aback, Wendy cocked her head to
one side.
“
Almost
?”

A seagull flew by the window, pulling
his gaze out to sea. “Her name was Rebecca.” He grimaced as the name crossed
his lips. “She worked for one of the record labels that came through the
station, trying to get us to play their new music and bands.” He paused as the
night painfully flickered through his mind all over again.

“But…you didn’t?”

“We kissed.”

She blinked a few times. “Why?”

He exhaled a weary breath. “Sophia was
out of town for a small business seminar and we’d been trying to have a baby
for almost a year and nothing was happening. I felt like a failure and I fucked
up.” He brushed a tear from his cheek and poured more whiskey into his glass,
holding the soda back this time around. He couldn’t see Sophia’s face again and
it was suffocating, like
being buried
alive. “I was
going to tell her when she got home and beg her to forgive me but by the time
she got back, people were dying in Chicago and Rebecca became a quick
afterthought.”

Wendy took his hand and squeezed.
“Just a kiss?”

He looked her right in the eye and
swallowed hard, pulse thudding in the hollow of his neck.
“Just
a kiss.”

“Paul, that’s nothing to beat yourself
up about. I found out my last boyfriend was sleeping with my best friend right
under my nose. Now that’s something to beat
yourself
up about.”

“Was she a dancer too?”

Her face soured. “Why do you assume all
my friends are strippers?”

A loud laugh shot from him and it felt
good. “I don’t think that, I just assumed…”

“Candace was my boyfriend’s dentist.”
She paused to squish her lips into the side of her face. “Found out they were doing
it in the dentist chair too.”

“Are you serious?”

Wendy nodded. “You loved Sophia, didn’t
you?”

His eyes welled up and he tried to hide
it by turning to the window. “I do,” he said, voice
betraying
him with a slight crack.

“And she knew it; that’s what’s
important.”

They shared a comfortable silence,
watching the sea move and sipping their drinks. Paul got up and retrieved some
more star-shaped ice cubes from the tiny freezer in the mini-fridge. He
shouldn’t have told her that. He should have buried it with his wife.

Wendy stared at him when he sat back
down. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”

He poured some ice into her glass. “Do
you want to be?”

She hesitated before answering. “Yes.”

A long breath left his lungs, deflating
his chest. Time stretched like the water around them. He had nothing left to
lose and nothing to gain. Sophia’s last words echoed inside his head. He had
fulfilled his end of the bargain – so to speak – and yet he could hear his dead
wife asking for more. She wanted him to save this two-bit stripper he barely
knew and that selflessness is exactly what made him fall in love with her in
the first place. What could he say? He turned to find Wendy watching him, the
room moving around them. “We’re going to be okay.”

She matched his tear with one of her
own. “I’m sorry. I know things will never be okay and that’s not what I meant.”
She curled his hand to her chest. “I’m just scared you’re going to leave me
here alone.”

Her words coiled around his lungs and
squeezed. “I won’t.”

“I know you don’t know me, Paul, but
without you I am as good as dead.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Wendy started to say something else but
shut her mouth instead, examining his face for signs of deceit as her heart
beat against the back of his hand. He could imagine the disappointment in
Sophia’s eyes if he gave up now. Regardless of his indifference – or in spite
of it – she would want him to kick this plague’s ass in her name and show the
world the true meaning of the word: Perseverance. And she wouldn’t want him to
do it just for her, but for everyone else as well. That was her spirit, her
gift. Paul blew out a slow and low breath, gazing off to shore. No, he wouldn’t
give up. They would persevere in the face of annihilation and he would
personally see to it. No matter how many of those ugly fuckers came their way,
he would keep fighting because he has a heart and those things don’t. And
because sooner or later, good always triumphs over evil and this would be no
different.

He took his hand back. “It’s not going
to be easy.”

“I know.”

“We’ll need target practice on dry land
during the day.”

She nodded rapidly and wiped away
another teardrop, a faint smile brushing the corners of her mouth.

“We should find some
WaveRunners
and tie
em
to the boat. That way if this thing breaks
down we won’t get stranded out at sea.”

At the mention of watercrafts, Wendy
brightened. “I love
WaveRunners
.”

He offered her a drunken smile and
swirled his drink in his hand, ice cubes rattling around inside the glass.

She clutched her drink to her chest like
a cross while Paul leaned back and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. It
was settled
then. He would kill as many of those smelly
bastards as one man possibly could. If those walking cadavers could learn
anything it would be to fear his name.

Wendy followed his distant gaze out the
glass door, stripes of sunlight creeping across the thin carpeting. “There’s a
case of margarita mix under the sink.”

He furrowed his brow.
“Seriously?”

Chapter
Forty-Four

Three margaritas later, their spontaneous
bursts of laughter skipped across the calm water like smooth rocks. The iPod
playing through the sound bar mounted under the TV fueled Wendy’s dance moves
and she was wrong. She wasn’t a stripper; she was an
amazing
stripper.
Hypnotic.
Sinuous.
Her bare feet cut through the last slivers of orange
sunlight striping the cabin floor as she crossed the room, her curvy hips
sashaying back and forth with the beat.

“Come on,” she said, hauling him from
the couch. “Dance with me.”

“Maybe next time,” he replied, moving to
sit back down. “Think I’m getting sea sick.”

Wendy snapped him against her warm body with
surprising strength and stared up into his eyes as a slow song stepped in. “One
dance,” she whispered, wrapping her hands around the back of his neck and
smelling of cocoa butter. “Let’s just pretend it’s not the end of the world for
three and a half minutes.”

“We’ve been doing that all afternoon.”

She ignored him, her smile as unwavering
as her hips.

Paul exhaled a conquered sigh and put
his hands around her waist, caving to her outlandish demands. He was too drunk
to argue and it’s not like they were
completely
naked. He had cargo shorts on and she was wearing a thin t-shirt with no bra.

“Thank you,” she smiled, resting her head
on his shoulder.

They swayed back and forth, doing slow
circles with her breasts pressing against his chest. Everyone he knew and loved
was dead and here he was dancing with a stripper on some stranger’s two hundred
thousand dollar boat. He could smell the guilt hiding beneath the tequila on
his breath. It wasn’t right.

Wendy drew back and smiled. “Is this so
bad?”

He held her in his arms and stared into
her eyes, the painstaking truth hanging on his lips. It was bad. Sophia just
died a few days ago but it seemed like years since things went south in
Beecher’s grocery store. Time was different here and he could barely remember
what she looked like. Paul stopped dancing. “Listen, I should…”

Wendy leaned up on her toes and kissed
him on the lips, tasting of lime and tortilla chips, cutting his sentence off
at the pass.

Chapter
Forty-Five

DAY EIGHTEEN

Paul opened his eyes and it was a
mistake.
A big one.
The sunlight entering the room
agitated the dull thud pressing against the back of his eyes in lazy intervals.
He turned to find Wendy stretched out next to him in the master bed, wincing
when he discovered she was only wearing shorts. Checking himself under the
sheet, he released a pent-up breath when he saw he was still wearing someone
else’s clothing. His gaze tripped over her tattoo, triggering painful flashes
of the strip bar dressing room where he and Sophia shared a tender moment on a worn-out
couch that he wished would’ve lasted forever. They should have stayed in that
shit-hole until it was safe to come out. If he could go back in time, he would
do it all differently and this time she would live.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes,
unable to rub the guilt from his mind after sharing a bed with another woman.
When he opened his eyes, Wendy was still there and Sophia was still dead.
Flashes from the night before skipped through his
hungover
mind. He wet his lips, tasting Wendy on them. Sadness morphed into hate and he aimed
it at her and her goddamn bare breasts. And Dan was right. They were amazing, with
perfect nipple placement and all. Paul clenched his teeth against the stake
stabbing at his heart, not knowing who he was anymore. Everything had changed,
including them. He was no longer the
wanna
-be shock
jock getting everything for free even though he was making bank and buying
whatever the fuck he wanted. No, now he was a cheating scoundrel who couldn’t
even mourn correctly. Now he was broken.

“Good morning.”

Paul blinked at Wendy, bringing her back
into focus. “Hey.”

She sat up and leaned against the
headboard, hair shooting out in all directions.
“Oh, my
head.”
Wendy noticed she was half naked and quickly pulled the sheet up,
cheeks blushing. “I don’t even remember coming to bed.”

“Do you remember how that got there?”

She followed his nod to the lamp on her
side of the bed, slapping a hand over her eyes when she saw the Disney t-shirt
hanging on the shade. A moment of awkward silence gave way to the water licking
at the side of the boat. He swung his Adidas to the floor and started for the
bathroom, headache exploding with the movement.

“Does your head feel as bad as mine?”

He stopped at the closed bedroom door.
“I’m never drinking again.”

“I think we should eat popcorn and watch
movies all day on the couch.”

“I'm never watching
Fool's Gold
again either.”

“Fine.
We can watch
Couples Retreat
.”

He looked back over his shoulder, gripping
the doorknob.

“Hey Paul?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for letting me sleep in here
last night.”

The boat rocked, making him stagger. “Did
I?”

“I’m sorry,” she said faintly, pulling
the bed sheet up higher.

He tried to think of something witty to
say, but the thunderstorm in his head got in the way.
“Me too.”

Here his wife had barely been dead for a
week and he was already sharing a bed with another woman. Paul felt like bashing
his head against the bedroom door until he woke up from this endless nightmare
or died trying. A double thud snapped his gaze to the bedroom door. He let go
of the knob and took a step back, heart rate increasing.

“What was that?” Wendy whispered.

Paul stared at the door without
answering, his hand brushing the bare spot on his leg where his gun normally
hung. His pulse quickened and he put an ear to the door, begging his racing
heart to shut up so he could hear. “I don’t hear anything,” he said, opening the
door and stepping out into the narrow hallway. Blood pumped thickly in his
temples when he saw the sliding glass door at the back of the boat. Tunnel
vision set in, stretching the hallway like an old mirror. His heart sank.
“Oh no.”

“What is it?” Wendy said, throwing the
sheet back and springing to her feet.

He darted back into the room, slammed
the door shut and locked it.

“What’s wrong?” she cried, throwing on
her shirt.

Leaning against the door, he stared at
her through wide eyes, throat too dry to speak.

“Paul!”

He winced with her rise in volume and
spoke in a choked voice that sounded like someone else. “They’re outside the
boat.”

His words turned her to stone. “What do
you mean?” Someone started hammering on the sliding glass door and Wendy
covered her mouth to stop a scream but was a second too late. Paul scanned the bedroom,
trying to clear the fog of sleep from his head so he could remember where the
guns were. He started for the nightstand on his side of the bed just as the
sliding glass door gave with a loud crash. Wendy screamed again. He made it to
the nightstand, figuring the locked bedroom door would buy them a few minutes
before smashing in as well. Pulling the drawer open, his brow folded. Outside
of some
ChapStick
and Kleenex, there was only the
Leatherman.

“What the hell is going on, Paul?” Wendy
shouted, hurriedly throwing on her tennis shoes.

“The anchor must’ve come loose,” he
replied, grabbing the Leatherman and scrambling to the porthole window.

“What?
How?”

He squinted through the elevated window,
gut twisting into knots at the sight of some nearby beach houses soaking up the
morning sun. “We drifted to shore,” he said, opening the multi-tool to the lone
blade hiding behind a can opener inside.

Wendy pulled at her hair.
“Oh my God!”

“Where’re the guns?” he asked as the first
sloppy fist pounds reached the bedroom door, making them both jump. “Wendy!”

Her wide open eyes slowly rotated to
him.

“Where are the guns?” he repeated,
yelling when a rotten hand broke through the porthole window and grabbed him by
the hair. Startled, Paul dropped the knife to the floor and clutched the slimy
wrist in both hands, fighting to keep the thing from yanking him through the tiny
window and skinning him alive. He could smell the thing’s rancid breath when it
coughed. Pulling on the arm, wet flesh peeled off in his hands.

Wendy grabbed the small lamp on her
nightstand but it didn’t budge. She broke the brace connecting it to the stand
and smashed it over the hand, catching Paul in the forehead in the process. The
hand slipped just enough for Paul to break free. He grabbed the knife and stabbed
at the arm until it retreated from the room. More glass broke in the main cabin
and the boat tilted sharply to the right. Wendy stumbled into Paul as the pounding
on the door grew in number.

“What’re we
gonna
do?” she cried, frantically looking around the room.

Paul searched the room with her, already
knowing the bag of guns and ammo were stowed under the pull-up couch. He could also
see their personal handguns hiding in a top kitchen drawer, useless to them
now. The wet hacks and groans sounded like they were already inside the room,
making it difficult to think. The clock ticked loudly inside his mind, headache
and panic doubling his vision. Everything in the room
was bolted
down
to prevent sliding around in rough seas and they couldn’t even
barricade the damn door with the dresser. Shit!

“Don’t tell me we don’t have any guns in
here!” Wendy yanked her nightstand drawer open and threw an empty M&M’s bag
and two condoms to the floor. “Shit!”

Paul stepped inside the small bedroom
closet as the undead pulverized the door behind him. There had to be something
they could use. His head snapped back around at one particularly strong blow,
positive the door would give right then and there. When it didn’t, he turned back
to the closet and started rifling through the contents inside. Clothes flew out
first, followed by some boots and stray tackle.

“There has to be something!” Wendy
insisted, helping him dig.

Paul stepped back and looked up to the
small vent letting light through the ceiling. As with the porthole window, only
a cat or a small dog could escape that way. His eyes scoured the room,
searching for a hidden door or compartment that didn’t exist. The primal grunts
in the hallway got louder. Paul backed into a wall and slid down to the blue
carpeting, pulling his knees to his chest. He wouldn’t be going back for
Sophia’s pictures after all. She would remain alone on that hill forever and no
one would even know her name. She didn’t deserve this.

“Damn,” he said under his breath,
rubbing his face. How could he have been so stupid? Shoes and hats and
Penthouse magazines flew from the closet and landed at his feet as Wendy
continued her futile search. He didn’t have the heart to tell her what she
already knew. Suddenly, she stopped digging and turned to face him. “What’re
you doing?!”

He stared at her through watery eyes
with nothing left to say. His face said it all. He had failed everyone else and
now it was her turn. There was no escape from this scourge and he was a fool to
think they could outrun the inevitable, their complacency a cruel death
sentence.

A loud Hawaiian shirt slid from Wendy’s
fingers to the floor along with her hope, crumpling at her feet. “How can this
be happening?” she asked, no longer flinching with the crashing blows against
the door. Stopping her hunt, she joined him on the floor against the wall, tilting
with the boat as it shifted in the sand. Her sad eyes gravitated to the jiggling
doorknob. “How long do you think it will hold?”

A long exhale sunk his chest, the knife
hanging loosely in his hand. “Not long.”

Tears cascaded down her pallid cheeks as
reality, once again, set its grubby meat hooks in and squeezed. “I don’t want
to end up like one of those things,” she said, her voice faint and frightened.

Paul wrapped an arm around her, ignoring
the blood running down his face from the gash in his forehead. “I’m sorry,
Wendy. I really am.”

She dropped her head onto his shoulder and
cried. “Without you, I would’ve been dead a long time ago. This is someone
else’s fault.”

He pulled her against him as another rotting
hand reached through the window and snatched at pieces of air.

She watched it through blank eyes. “At
least you’ll have someone waiting for you.”

“You’ll have someone too,” Paul
responded on auto-pilot, not wanting this conversation to be their last. Those
things
would like that too much.

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“What about your dad?”

She lifted her heavy head from his
shoulder and met his eyes. “My dad was a convicted felon. I doubt he’ll be
waiting for me at Peter’s gate.” She stopped for a sniffle. “I’ll be lucky to
make it there myself.”

He rubbed her arm, his eyes rising to the
bony fist clawing at the air, the blasts on the door spreading to the walls. This
was their swan song and it might just be the darkest one played yet.

“I wish I had the chance to know you
better, Paul.”

He turned and lingered in her eyes for a
moment, trying to find the right response but her sudden kiss bailed him out. Her
hand slithered around the back of his neck and pulled him close. She kissed him
hard, the sweet taste of lime still on her lips from last night’s margaritas.
Overcome with feeling, he kissed her back, hating himself for taking solace in
her warmth. She broke the kiss for air and stared into his eyes, the mangled
hand writhing in the background. A splinter shot from the door and landed at
their feet. The symbolic nature of that tiny piece of wood did not escape Paul.
It was the warden, come to walk them to the chair. Another splinter landed next
to the first. His eyes searched the room. There had to be something.
Anything.

Another
splinter.

Dead man
walking.

Wendy brought the back of his hand to
her lips and kissed it as if he were made of glass. “Thank you for staying with
me after Sophia and Dan. You didn’t have to do that and it says a lot about you.”

He ignored her attempt at some brave
last words, mind spinning. There was nothing in the room to save them, turning
their newfound fortune into their tomb. The mangled arm pulled free from the
window and
was quickly replaced
by the owner’s angry face.
Torn strips of flesh revealed the man’s high cheekbones and nose cartilage. He
stared straight ahead and didn’t notice them at first, slowly sniffing at the
air. They watched his head jerk back with each snuffle, repulsion hardening
their faces. Paul bit his tongue until the metallic taste of blood filled his
mouth. If this was a bad dream, this was the time to wake up. The man stopped
sniffing and, slowly, turned their way. Paul watched the thing’s cold dead eyes
peel back in its rotting head. The middle-aged man’s partial nose twitched up
and down at them, internalizing his next move. Wendy buried her face into Paul’s
shoulder, refusing to let this be one of the last things she ever saw but it
was too late for that. The thing hissed like a pissed off cobra and jerked free
of the window. Paul was about to blow out the breath he’d been holding when the
man’s arm returned and started frantically grabbing at the air with a renewed
spirit.