“Feel free to waste him right now,” Cal said. “His whining is getting right on my nerves.”
They were going to have to talk about Cal’s bloodthirstiness.
“Cal—” Mitch began, but then he stared at the blood staining Ethan’s shirt, seeping from a ragged wound in his shoulder. “Has he…”
“Yeah,” Cal said. “He’s been bitten.”
“Your fault, you dumb shits.” Ethan moaned in a despairing tone. “You did this, you stupid fucks.”
Cal gave him a swift kick. Mitch frowned, almost as hard as one of Cal’s own patented scowls, and Cal backed off a couple of steps. Mitch suddenly realized two men were watching from the cover of the trees. Cal followed the direction of his gaze and spun around with his rifle.
“Hey, dude, unarmed,” one of them called. They both put their empty hands up.
“Cover them,” Mitch said. Maybe they were unarmed. Maybe not.
“Do something,” Ethan shouted to them. He straightened up and started yelling. “Hey! I’m over here! I need help! To me! To me!”
“Nobody’s coming,” one of the two men said. “Sorry, pal. Can we go?” He addressed the question to Mitch.
“You’re really unarmed?” Mitch asked.
“Yeah. No time to grab anything.” They looked unhappy about it. Mitch couldn’t blame them. One did not walk around without a weapon in this zombie-infested land.
Mitch took out his handgun and walked over to the men. “I suggest you head to where your boats are stored. You’ve got weapons and ammo in there.” In front of them he popped bullets out of the clip until there were four left. “There are five zombies guarding the jetty and huts.” He handed over the pistol to the first man who’d spoken, ignoring the protest he heard from Cal. “You have four in the clip and one in the chamber. I suggest you hold off on using any of them until you get to the jetty.”
They stared at the gun and at him and looked nervously at Cal, who was covering them. Cal could shoot either of them before they could shoot Mitch. They looked at Ethan, their supposed leader. Did they see the blood? Realize what it meant? If they did, they said nothing. The man with the gun tucked it into his waistband. Didn’t even check the safety. Ethan’s people were apparently not big on gun discipline.
“Thanks, pal. Ah, good luck and shit.”
“You too,” Mitch said.
They ran off into the woods. Mitch turned back to the group, who were all gaping at him.
“What?” he said. “I have a spare in my pack.” He didn’t regret it. Rebuilding civilization would start with small acts of cooperation.
“What are we going to do with this piece of crap?” Cal asked, gesturing at Ethan. “Clearly none of his pals are coming to help him.” Nobody had responded to Ethan’s shout for help. “He’s finished anyway in a few days. But I’d hate to think of what trouble he could cause before then. Or after.”
They could take him back, Mitch thought. Give him the vaccine. It might save him as it had saved Cal. But it might not, and there were limits even to Mitch’s magnanimity.
“Bren said she was coming along because Ethan is her problem,” Mitch said. “I don’t say that I agree with that. But I think she gets to decide.”
Bren looked down at Ethan, still covering him with her rifle, biting her lip. He’d attacked her, knocked her out, and would have raped her if he hadn’t been interrupted. And then he’d attacked the rig over and over, trying to take her friends for his men, trying to take her for himself. Was she ready to kill him in cold blood for that?
“Give me his gun,” she said to Cal. Cal glanced at Mitch as if for permission. Mitch gave neither assent or denial. Her choice. Cal shrugged and gave up Ethan’s pistol to Bren. She checked the chamber, then popped out the clip, which was about half-full. More than enough to finish him.
“Shit,” Ethan moaned, looking up at her. He made a small sobbing sound.
Every cop instinct he possessed urged Mitch to intervene and stop her from killing Ethan. But everything he’d learned the last two years told him that with the bite, a swift death was a mercy. So he held so still he barely breathed.
Bren didn’t return the clip to the gun. She pocketed it. She showed the weapon to Ethan. “There’s one up the spout. One bullet. You know what you’re going to become. You know what to do. Untie him,” she said to Cal.
Cal didn’t look at Mitch this time, just did as she ordered. But Bren didn’t hand the gun to Ethan when his hands were free. Instead she turned and tossed it into the trees. Ethan cried out in shock.
“Go find it,” Bren said. ”And do what you have to do. Come on, you two, let’s go.” As they moved away Ethan dived into the undergrowth where Bren had thrown the gun.
Smart, Mitch thought. If she’d handed it to him, he might have decided to take one of them out with him before the other two shot him. This way by the time he found it, Mitch, Cal, and Bren would be long gone. Would he have the guts to do it? Mitch wondered. Finish himself quick? Or would he sicken and die a slow death and in five days start wandering the land looking for someone to bite? Either way he’d never lead a raid on their home again.
They’d walked almost a mile when they heard a distant gunshot. It could have been Ethan or one of his people still in the woods. It didn’t matter. Ethan was no longer a problem.
* * * *
They headed back to their boat. Mitch didn’t like walking around at night. Made it too easy for the zombies, who had no problem finding humans in the dark. But he didn’t dare stop either, since Ethan’s people were still around, and some of them might be better armed and less forgiving than the two he’d given the pistol to.
But they got to the boat safely and took turns driving it while the other two slept. By noon they were approaching the rig. Mitch woke from an uncomfortable position on a tarp on the deck—this little boat didn’t have the nice cabin the poor old
Cora
had boasted. He sat up blinking in the bright sunlight. Bren smiled down at him from the wheel.
“Wake up the Zombie King there. We’re almost home.”
Cal lay at his side, and Mitch shook him awake. Cal blinked at him owlishly, then figured out where he was and sat up, rubbing his chin, which rasped audibly.
“Shit, I need a shave,” Cal said as he and Mitch stood up, stretching. Mitch groaned at his stiff neck and back. A nap on a hard deck was not the same as a proper sleep on his cot, with Cal’s naked body pressed up against his.
“A shave?” Bren said. “Hell, you need a landscaper. You’re not a zombie, Cal. You’re a werewolf.”
“This coming from someone who hasn’t shaved her legs in two years.”
While Cal and Bren went on bantering, Mitch wandered to the prow of the boat and watched the rig as they approached. At least he didn’t have to be so afraid, this time, that he’d come back to find it attacked and overrun. His home was safe. But how much longer would it be his home?
He glanced back at Cal. The man who could walk untouched through a crowd of zombies. Seeing that had made something click inside Mitch. A new future. A new plan. Even the small amount of sleep he’d managed to get had helped it coalesce.
But there was no time to talk about it now. In just a few minutes they were closing on the rig, and packing up and tidying the boat. A few minutes after that, they were winched up and stepping aboard.
Mitch hung back and let Bren make the announcement that the threat from Ethan was over. She left a few things a bit vague—about exactly how Cal got to the inner wire for one. Mitch appreciated that and suspected Cal did too. He wouldn’t want the whole rig calling him king of the zombies.
There was a ragged cheer from the people on deck, some gags from the soldiers about how they were disappointed they didn’t get to fight. But Mitch doubted they meant it. Storming that compound with twenty people, even without the zombie “guards,” would have been suicide. Some folks ran below to spread the good news, others were about to start a party right there and then, and Inez was hugging Bren hard enough to squeeze the stuffing out of her. But Bren calmed things down. Organize a celebration for tomorrow night, she said. The recon team were all exhausted and needed sleep.
They headed to the infirmary first, though, where the doctor listened, enthralled, as Cal related his previous encounters with zombies and his walk through the zombie moat.
“That’s why you asked me that time why zombies don’t bite other zombies,” Phyllis said. “You think whatever it is they’re detecting in each other, they’re also detecting in you.”
“It’s gotta be the vaccine,” Bren said. “It definitely works.”
“So give it to me,” Mitch said. “I’ll be your guinea pig. If it works for me, you can give it to everyone else.”
“Mitch, we can’t know for sure it worked,” Phyllis said. “We discussed all this before. He might have natural immunity. He might never have been infected.”
“I must have been,” Cal said. “Why else would they ignore me?”
“I don’t know! Maybe they don’t like your aftershave.”
“Well, you know there’s only one way to find out,” Mitch said. “You give it to me too, and we see what happens.”
“And me,” Bren said. When Mitch frowned at her, she said, “Hey, if I want to be queen of the zombies, you can’t stop me.”
“Bren, this is serious. It’s…” World-changing. It was more than serious. It was the start of the new world. “Please, think about it, Doctor. I’ve got some ideas about what we do now, but I can’t make concrete plans until I know if the vaccine works. But right now, I’m ready for my bed. You coming, Cal?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll just stick around and chat with the doc for a bit longer,” Bren said. Mitch heard Phyllis sigh. By the time Mitch woke up tomorrow, Bren might well be queen of the zombies.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cal came out of the shower, clean and freshly shaved, to find Mitch in bed, not asleep, but looking thoughtful. And looking quite delicious, with his hair still mussed and damp from the shower. Cal tossed aside his towel and slipped under the covers beside Mitch, naked, cuddling in close and warming himself against Mitch’s skin.
“The shower wasn’t very hot,” Cal said. “I’m freezing.”
“You’re pretty warm for a man who’s part zombie,” Mitch said, enclosing Cal in his arms.
“I know. I’m the hottest zombie on the planet.” Cal yawned hugely and rested his head on Mitch’s shoulder. “Hell of a day.”
“Cal, what you did…” Mitch paused, and Cal wondered for a second if he’d gone to sleep in the middle of speaking. But after a moment, he went on. “It was the stupidest, the scariest, and the bravest thing I ever saw.”
“You’re making me blush. Go to sleep.” Cal closed his eyes. He
was
blushing, to get such praise from Mitch. He drifted toward sleep, hoping he wouldn’t dream about dropping into a crowd of zombies. Why should he have nightmares about them, though? He had no reason to be afraid of them anymore.
When he woke, he found Mitch sitting up in bed and writing on a pad. Cal leaned up on one elbow.
“Whatcha doing?” Cal asked in a goofy voice. “Writing me a love letter?”
“Just some ideas I’m working on.” Mitch put the pad and pen aside.
“What are you cooking up? Your council election campaign?”
“No. In fact I don’t think I’ll be on the council much longer.”
“What? What are you up to, Mitch? Let me in on it.”
“You’ll hear it soon enough.”
“Tease.” Cal leaned across Mitch to look at his watch on the crate that served as a nightstand. “God, it’s only four a.m. We don’t have to get up for hours yet.”
“So go back to sleep,” Mitch suggested. It was another tease. Mitch was getting good at that. But Cal was still better.
“Okay,” he said and lay down, flat on his back, eyes closed, and controlling the grin that wanted to break out on his face. He arranged himself in a position that showed off his body under the blanket to best effect. He counted.
He didn’t even get to twenty before the springs went
glink
and the cot shifted as Mitch moved. Cal kept his eyes closed as Mitch’s body slid against his. He suppressed a gasp when lips pressed against his own, then moved to his ear, down his neck. Mitch dabbed with his tongue at the hollow between Cal’s collarbones, and Cal’s cock started to fill instantly. He couldn’t hold in the moan of desire and opened his eyes.
“D’you mind?” he said. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Mitch pounced on him, pinning him to the bed and kissing him hard. Cal wriggled out from under him, lay on his side, and wrapped a leg over Mitch’s hip.
“Your stubble is already coming through,” Mitch said, stroking Cal’s face. “We need to look more seriously into the possibility that you are a werewolf.”
“Yeah, I’m a wolf, baby. Big and bad. I’m gonna huff and puff and blow your… Well, let’s just say the rest of this story isn’t suitable for children.” He pressed Mitch onto his back and began kissing his chest and shoulders, working his way down. “Tell me about your mysterious plans.”
“No,” Mitch said, sounding short of breath. “And if you think you can get round me this way, you’re wrong.”
“Bet I’m not. Come on, I’m your boyfriend. I get first look.”
“You’re my
what
?”
Cal froze and looked up at Mitch, who was staring down at him. “Boyfriend. What, you think I’m too old to be called a boy?”
“Maybe a tad.” Mitch smiled. “Sorry. Just never thought I’d hear that from you. Boyfriend.” He chuckled. “How about lover, or is that too close to the L word?”
“I can say the L word! I said it before.”
“You don’t have to, Cal. Actions speak louder than words. And your actions—”
“Don’t go on about that right now. It’s kind of a boner killer.”
“Fair point. So, you, um, got any thoughts on what you’re going to do with said boner?” He raised his hips off the bed, rubbed his hardening cock against Cal’s. “Feels like it’s ready for action.”
“I want to be inside you.” Cal chose the less crude way of saying it. Mitch, the romantic, needed gentle words and persuasion.
“Y-yes,” Mitch said, a small hesitation in his voice.
“Don’t sound so nervous. You liked it last time. You’ll like it even more this time. I promise.” He knelt over Mitch on all fours, looked down into his face. “But say it, Mitch. If you don’t want it, we don’t do it.”