Authors: Margaret Madigan
Randy’s box held the ammunition for the launcher. I grabbed it from him, and followed Doc as he went to the helipad to set up the launcher. The oncoming horde had reached the gate. They were working to shove it open further, so they could climb over the dead zombies in their path.
“Ammunition,” Doc said, holding out his hand as if he were a surgeon asking for an instrument. I grabbed the ammo–a pop can stuffed with a kerosene-filled plastic bag, a steel wool wick sticking out the back end. I handed it to Doc, who shoved it into the open end of the pipe that formed the barrel of the cannon.
“Accelerant,” Doc said, holding out his hand again. I handed him an aerosol can of hair spray. It was a cheesy weapon accelerant, but effective. Most importantly, it was easy to loot from anywhere. He filled the combustion chamber with hairspray before screwing the end cap back on.
He pushed the ignitor. The gun blasted the makeshift grenade, sending it hurtling in a graceful arc over the hill. Dropping out of its arc, it hit the road below. Burning steel wool ignited the kerosene inside the can, blowing the whole thing into a beautiful fiery explosion. Unfortunately, it fell short. The zombies that were squeezing through completely ignored the flames. The whole crowd was jammed up against the iron gate, so if Doc could adjust the aim, a rain of good shots into the middle of them would work wonders.
“Reload,” Doc barked. We all jumped to oblige.
Doc sent another flaming grenade down the hill towards the zombies. This one exploded right inside the gate, catching several of the zombies on fire. Because the infection dulled their nervous systems, they didn’t react to the flames barbecuing their flesh. They just kept coming while the fire ate away at them. Doc shot about ten more times, each of them hitting right in the center of the crowd beyond the gate, splashing burning kerosene all over the milling pack of zombies. The flames had no problem jumping between the bodies crammed together, so it wasn’t long before there was a hefty conflagration going. Zombies started dropping like bowling pins.
“Now, that’s the best part of this job!” I said, the excitement of victory rushing through my veins.
The boys all cheered.
“Rocky, Roger, how about you finish off the last few flaming stiffs down there? Otherwise, I think this one’s in the bag, boys.”
Rocky and Roger made easy work of the remaining zombies who’d made it through the gate. After the last one dropped, the boys sent up a collective whoop, fist-bumping each other in celebration.
“Let’s party,” Ricky said. That earned another whoop as they all headed for the door to go downstairs.
“Clean up here, first,” I called after them. Hell-bent on celebrating, they hurried to collect all the guns, boxes of bullets and spent shells before they disappeared downstairs. Gwyn leaned on the railing, pushing her hair out of her face as the breeze blew it around. Without saying a word, she watched the zombie torches crumble and burn.
Doc looked between her and the boys. He turned to me and said, “I’ll supervise them. Make sure they don’t burn the house down.”
I leaned on the railing next to Gwyn as Doc headed downstairs.
“See? Told you I’d keep you safe. Guaranteed.”
I smiled, but when she turned her face to me, she didn’t look too happy about it. In fact, she looked seriously pained.
“They’re people, Rafe. I told you that. You just killed dozens of them as if it was a video game.”
“They may have been people once, but they’re not anymore. Given half a chance, they’d rip you to shreds.”
“And eat my brains?”
The comment was meant to tease me, but I took it seriously.
“I don’t know where you’ve been living since the world went to hell, but when my condo complex was overrun, the residents who didn’t end up zombie food took to the streets. I survived day to day by hiding in abandoned buildings. I had to scavenge for food. When I went to sleep, I didn’t know if I’d wake up the next day. In that time, I had plenty of up-close experience with those abominations down there. They may resemble people in a general sense, but they’re not as bright as normal people. It’s like they run on instinct. Some of them are stronger and faster. Even though some of their senses are dulled, like their ability to feel pain, some senses are sharper. They can smell more, hear more, and I swear they can see in the dark. They aren’t people, they’re killers.”
She nodded thoughtfully, still watching the fire.“Those are the effects of the virus, in combination with the bad vaccine, on their DNA,” she said.
“Oh? How do you know that?”
“I’m a geneticist. I worked at Paragon when the virus hit. I was on the team trying to develop a vaccine.”
I faced her, flabbergasted. “So what the hell happened?”
She turned so we faced each other, her expression pensive, but I saw the energy in her eyes as she talked.
“Basically, if you caught the original virus, on one end of the spectrum you were either completely immune which amounted to a very small percentage of total population. Or you got sick, your immune system fought it off and you recovered, which was another small slice of the total population. I assume you were one of those cohorts?”
“Cohort?”
“You were either immune or you got sick but recovered?”
“Oh, yeah. I never got sick.”
She considered that for a moment, as if it were significant in some way. It was significant to me, because I was thankful I never caught the bug, but it apparently meant something else to her.
“Apparently you’re lucky. Genetically speaking.”
“Guess so.”
“Indeed. So, anyway, at the other end of the spectrum, if you caught the disease and you had no immunity at all, you died. That was a very large percentage of the population.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve never seen or smelled so many dead bodies. So where do the zombies come in?”
She cringed, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of my dead bodies comment, or something about the zombies.
“I was on the vaccine team,” she said. “The team leader was a woman named Miriam Armstrong. She’s a brilliant woman, but her aspirations clouded her vision, so when I came up with a workable vaccine, she stole my formula. She re-engineered it, thinking she could make improvements. I complained, but no one was interested. Because she was the team leader, she took credit for the vaccine. When the vaccine was distributed and administered, my best guess is that it reacted with the live virus to cause mutation.”
“That’s just shitty.”
“It appears there are a couple of levels of mutation, producing a higher level of functioning in the infected individual, much like what you described–strong, fast, cunning, violent and with some heightened senses.”
“Right. But there are also some who are just lumbering meat sacks. I think the smarter ones eat those when they can’t find anything fresher, so to speak.”
She shuddered. “The point is, I can fix them. I can still cure them. That’s what I’ve been working on for the last eighteen months, but I need my journals at the lab to reconstruct my original work.”
I cocked a brow at her, displaying my best you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me expression.
“You really think you can cure those things out there?”
“I know I can.”
She pushed the hair out of her face again, looking me in the eyes. The conviction shining there and echoed in her voice, almost made me believe her. But, I had no faith those animals would ever be human again. The point was she believed they could be cured. Now I had a much better grasp of the guilt and pain that ate at her conscience.
Not only was she gorgeous, she was smart, she was vulnerable and she had an adorable awkwardness that did crazy things to me. I’d never met a woman like her. Ever. I tried not to, but I fell for her, just like that. This was probably not the reaction she was looking for–it sure as hell surprised me–but being the go-with-your-gut kinda guy I was, I did the only thing I could in the circumstances.
“What the hell,” I said, and leaned in to kiss her. The shock when our lips met sent a jolt down my spine, settling somewhere just south of my belt buckle. I couldn’t stop the growl in my throat as I took her deeper. My hands reached up, fingers tangling in the hair at her nape. I gave into the need and pulled her body into mine. She kissed like she didn’t know how, tentative, almost dainty. I smiled against her lips at her sharp intake of breath when I introduced my tongue into her mouth.
God, she tasted so sweet it made me dizzy. She mewed a little sound, returning my kiss, convincing me she
had
actually done this before. When I placed my other hand at her lower back and pulled her against the enthusiastic bulge in my jeans, she broke the kiss. She took a step away, a shocked look on her face.
“What’s the matter, Princess, too much for you?”
Chapter 3
I’d just have to chalk the past few days up to tuition paid in exchange for expensive knowledge. I’d learned that Infected could follow scent. I was horrible with guns. I’d become a hussy. I’d barely met Mr. Charming and here I was communing with him. With my tongue no less.
I stepped back from him, well out of reach of those arms that seemed to pull me against him every chance they got. Kissing him had been a terrible idea, mostly because it only made me want to kiss him that much more, but also because it muddied our business relationship. But whether I wanted to or not, I had to admit the man could definitely kiss. And when he’d pulled me snug against him? Oh my.
A blush burned its way up my neck, sweeping over my face. From under my lashes, I glanced in his general direction, too embarrassed to meet his gaze directly. “Why did you do that? We hardly know each other.”
He grinned at me. “Sure we do, Princess.”
“Stop calling me that, Mr. Charming.” His nickname for me was nothing short of exasperating. At least exasperation made it easier to focus on the task at hand. “We should talk business. When can you leave to get my journals?”
He blinked. When he spoke it was obvious I’d insulted him. Granted, I didn’t have the best track record with people, but he really had stepped over the line.
“Really? I’m still Mr. Charming? I think we know each other well enough by now to have moved on to first names. After all, you were just kissing me.” He glared at me, hurt gleaming in his eyes. “But fine. Let’s talk business, if that’s what you want. How do you intend to pay me so it’ll be worth my while to break into Paragon Pharmaceuticals?”
I ignored his kissing comment since I couldn’t rebut it. My lips still tingled from his kisses. It took considerable willpower not to lick them to get one last taste.
“You know what I can offer. You must have talked to Doc.”
He laughed at me. “Yeah. We can always use more food, but what you brought wouldn’t feed my boys for two days. We also have a stockpile of firearms that’d leave you speechless. So what can you offer that’s worth risking my life and my boys’ livelihood for?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but shut it again instead. When he put it that way, I wasn’t just asking him to risk his life. He had children depending on him. I endangered all of them by asking Rafe to retrieve my journals. But I needed my journals. Even more lives depended on me getting them back.
As I stood there, trying to come up with a cogent response, he caught my hand, grinning wickedly, once again throwing me off balance.
“Actually, now that I think about it, I know exactly how you can pay me.” He brought my knuckles to his lips. My breath caught as he kissed each one, all the while holding my gaze with his amber eyes. “You can pay me in kisses. I can always use more of those.”
I pulled my hand free and shoved down my flustered flicker of interest. That was not going to happen. This man was dangerous in ways I couldn’t even fathom.
“Mr. Charming–”
“I told you. Call me Rafe.”
I leaned forward, embarrassment all gone. “Okay Rafe. How about this? I can fix those people out there. The friends you thought you’d lost. Your family. Anyone who is still out there, anyone who is not too far gone, we can save. How can you not be a part of that, just because I can’t pay you more? I know I risk more than just you or me, but I have to make this right. I need you. Please help me.”
He straightened, folding his arms across his solid chest. Silence stretched between us as he measured me with serious eyes. The breeze blew across my face, bringing with it the smoke from the battle they’d just fought. I waited, hoping desperately.