Chapter 5
five
. . .
I sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase and hit the tennis ball for the seven hundredth time. It hit the wall, then the floor, then my hand. I tossed it up and hit it for the seven hundred and first time. It hit the floor, then the wall, then my hand, hard enough to make my palm sting.
The hall was littered with tennis balls. I’d been going through sports using all the old equipment my children and husband owned, kept in the storage room in case someone decided to pick it up again. Here I was, picking it up. And hitting that ball like it was a zombie.
I hadn’t gotten dressed in a week. Between zombies and missing my children, getting dressed was too hard. Lock and Wat seemed to be doing well, if the phone calls were any indication. That was good. So good that no one needed me.
After staying up all night, worrying that zombies would get my husband in our bedroom while coming after me in the closet, I’d moved into the guest bedroom on the bottom floor.
Not the most secure, but it was better for Hazen.
He’d suggested marriage counselling several times—which was an absolute no, and bought me presents—none of which were weapons.
In other words, our marriage was slowly shriveling and drying up. Like a zombie.
It wasn’t that bad. When he came home, he’d play whatever sport with me, far enough away that he wasn’t in danger of nutmeg contagion.
If we smashed something playing tennis in the hall, what did it matter?
It was just an empty house, meaningless without the boys.
Hazen brought dinner, because I’d stopped cooking.
He brought the dry cleaning, because I’d stopped running errands.
He could hire a housekeeper and replace me completely, but he just stepped up and filled in where I’d been falling short, like the capable man he was.
And so handsome. I daydreamed for a moment of running my hands through his hair while he held me close and kissed my neck and shoulder, but then my coffee maker beeped, and it was time to get my pumpkin pie decaf latte.
I’d bought a very expensive coffee maker, actually a few of them that did different things, but I wasn’t interested in experimenting and exploring their full potential.
I could have just gone with a pan of almond milk heated up with cinnamon and nutmeg with a dash of allspice, but that would be too suspicious.
I poured my drink into the biggest mug I had and carried it back into the hall. I had seven hundred more tennis swings to take.
“I’m home,” Hazen called an hour later. He came in, carrying groceries and a pumpkin spice chai that he somehow kept balanced. “Tennis today?” he asked as he passed me going towards the kitchen.
I followed him, wishing I could get closer and wrap my arms around him. I was so lonely, so starved for physical affection. And so bored.
“I guess. How was work? You haven’t come home late all week.”
“Do you miss me coming home late so you can have wild adventures losing your underwear without me noticing?” He raised a dark brow and then bent to put away a loaf of bread. He was so handsome. So absolutely gorgeous. It made me want to hit him with my tennis racket if I couldn’t touch him.
“Maybe I should get a cat.”
“Aren’t you allergic?”
“So?”
He shrugged and put away the ketchup. “If you don’t mind, I don’t mind, although don’t you kind of dislike cats?”
“But you don’t need to walk them, and you can hold them, and kittens are cute.”
“If you’re looking for something to hold,” he said, stretching out his arms and then pouncing on me. He didn’t actually touch me, just pinned me against the counter while he gazed into my eyes with his brooding, brown, sensual stare.
I stared back and was lost in that gaze. He slowly lowered his head and brushed my lips with his. Electricity swept through me and I swayed towards him, resting my fingers on his strong chest while my eyes drifted closed and I raised my head to be thoroughly kissed.
At the last moment, I ducked under his arm and grabbed the chai, heading towards the garage.
“Where are you going?” he asked, half amused, half concerned.
“To buy a cat.”
No, I was going to park down by the river drinking my chai then I’d call Tom on the temporary phone I’d bought at the corner store, so that’s what I did. I was still dressed in sweats, and looked as unattractive as it was possible for me to be. Also, no bra.
“The Hounds Theater,” he answered in his dry, bored voice.
“This is Lucy,” I whispered.
“How are things? Any signs of zombies?”
“No, but I’m going crazy. How long will the nutmeg thing last? I can’t keep living like this.”
“It’s only been a week,” he said. “You’d have to give it at least a year.”
A year without touching my husband? Impossible! “How many zombies are in the city?”
“I haven’t counted them for some time.” Was he mocking me?
“Maybe we should count them.” My heart pounded at the thought of facing another zombie, but it would be better than spending the next year locked in my house while my husband watched me go insane.
If there were only a dozen or so zombies, we could kill them, and then I could touch my husband without worrying about him being attacked.
That made sense. Maybe. I was too spiced up to know for sure.
“You want to go zombie hunting?” He sounded absolutely delighted at the prospect.
I swallowed hard then nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “I want to go zombie hunting. You said it would be easy, that we’d find slow and mostly deteriorated ones to kill first, right?”
“Sure. We’ll start small. I have the perfect place. I’ve been prepping things in case you changed your mind, also there’s no sense in letting my skills get rusty just because I’m the last living slayer from a long line of—”
“Tom, can we not do the history of slayers right now? We need to do this before I lose my nerve.”
“Where are you at?”
I gave him my address.
“I’ll pick you up in a few. Stay in your vehicle. You picked a place where the undead like to gather under the docks. You could get a good swarm if they caught your scent.” Yep, he sounded absolutely cheerful about the idea of swarming zombies.
“Great. I’ll just stay in the car then.” Maybe I should go back home and play tennis with Hazen. I’d run out on him like a total jerk. I grabbed my real phone and called him.
He answered after two rings. “Thank you for calling.” He sounded sincere, not like the recorded messages you get when you’re trying to call the power company.
“I’m sorry I left like that.”
“You don’t want me to touch you. But you do want me to touch you. But you don’t want to want me to touch you.”
I rolled my eyes. At least he was having a fun time with his nuts wife. “Basically.”
“When are you coming home, or are you going to have another drunken night with Gloria? It’s okay if you do. I didn’t realize that this would be so hard for you. Maybe you should work in the kitchen at the boarding school.”
“Or take up knitting.”
“There are worse things. I’ll take it up with you. It would be better for the vases than tennis, although we could technically move that to the community court.”
“That would be too public.”
“I knew we should have gotten a house with a private tennis court. Next time.”
“Sure. I don’t know when I’ll be home. Probably after dark.”
“Take your time. Enjoy yourself. As you know, I always have more work to do.”
“Which you love.”
“Do I?”
More than me, although he had been making a point of coming home earlier since we sent the kids away.
“I’ll see you later.” I hung up and dropped my phone into my bag before I pulled out the romance novel from the airport.
Maybe that would take my mind off the zombies under the docks.
It didn’t. Was Tom messing with me? I leaned over the dash to see if I could see anything, but I couldn’t, just the nice river flowing slowly past.
When Tom drove up in his van, I jumped out and then into the passenger’s seat in under two seconds. I slammed my door and then turned to him expectantly.
“Okay. We’re going to drive down to the old industrial neighborhood, where the buildings are mostly rotted and falling down. You good with that?”
No. I wasn’t. I nodded and pulled up my pants leg to draw the knife strapped to my calf. “I’m good.”
He smiled pleasantly. “I’m glad to see that you’ve taken to it. You have good instincts. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
Cue me pinned in by two-hundred zombies in the center of a spread of asphalt, a metal door at my back while the creatures crawled towards me.
I smelled strongly of nutmeg, because I hadn’t showered for hours, or had my salt soak for the day, and I was wearing the horribly tacky tank top and red pleather pants.
The point of today’s trip wasn’t so much to fight as to destroy.
But had we really planned on this many zombies?
I was supposed to stay there until they’d all stumbled into the clearing, but there were already too many. I held my position for another hyperventilating breath before I turned and squeezed the handle that would let me into the protective shelter of the building.
The trouble was that no one had unlocked the door. It didn’t budge. So there I was, with nothing to do but crouch down and draw the knife on my calf that looked so small compared to all those creepy faces and yawning mouths.
I held my knife, waiting for the first monster, but they were taking their time, gathering more bodies so I’d be more securely pinned.
Watching them sniff was so disgusting, peeling nostrils flaring while their eyes rolled back in euphoric delight.
They moaned, too, a sound that mixed with their shuffle in the most unappetizing way.