Chapter Nine #2
The moon reappears, revealing the gaggle of park rangers in various stages of eaten.
Arms missing. Legs lacking calves, chewed-up knees.
One young ranger resembles Goldie Hawn in 1992’s Death Becomes Her, though the hole gaping wide in her abdomen is much messier.
A few are waving their arms dumbly in the trees beyond, trying to reach our food bag.
Almost all are still wearing their felt campaign hats.
Rangers to the end and, it seems, beyond.
“Jesus,” I hiss, hands clammy around my Fun & Stun. I can’t decide whether to hold it like a baseball bat or a spear, switching it back and forth as the horde advances. I fire it up, even though it’s likely pointless. Why didn’t I opt for the ice axe at REI? Or the butane torch? Or the—
Maisie raises her machete as they draw near. “You ready, Professor?”
The word strikes my dick like a mallet to a gong, and I groan, leaving my erection to veer wildly left and right in my softly structured tech pants as the zombies come for us in a wild, clumsy sprint.
I aim the stabby end of my Fun & Stun for one’s eye socket, just like Maisie did in REI, but it glances off its cheek as the zombie pivots, taking a huge flap of dead flesh off in the process.
I stumble to the side, catching myself just before my calf meets burning log.
Something connects with my ankle, and I yelp, only to see the zombie trip over my outstretched leg.
It makes no noise, no cries of pain or last gasps, as it careens into the fire, devoured by flames.
“Good,” Maisie purrs from somewhere beside me, and the completely unearned praise lights up my chest. “Now take this one down with a front kick.”
Something clicks within me, the old conditioning to do, obey, submit ingrained by years of military school whirring to life as a tall zombie comes at me.
My heart’s about to burst from adrenaline, but I hinge my right leg upward, delivering the power from hip to foot to the zombie’s chest, just like she taught me.
It’s a beautiful kick, or it would’ve been if it hadn’t sent my erection slapping into my balls hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.
I lose balance as the punch of nausea claims me, but the kick still manages to take the zombie down.
Unfortunately, I go down with it. It’s a race to see who can get to their feet first—the person with feet, or the one who wants to eat them.
I barely make it up before he grips me behind each knee, yanking his crumpled body forward, reaching.
His jaws are open wide, but there’s only one piece of me he’s aiming for.
I scream, but Maisie kicks him in the head before he manages to bite off my dick.
“You’ve really got to”—she pauses as her machete hacks into dick-biter’s neck—“do something”—she pulls it clean—“about your cock”—hacks again. The last strike severs his head. She’s too busy wiping her blade to see zombie Goldie Hawn behind her.
“Maisie, watch out!” I push between her back and Goldie’s advancing mouth.
This time, I plunge the Fun & Stun’s four metal prongs directly into Goldie’s embroidered name tag, where there’s still enough chest left to aim for.
The thick stitching keeps the sharp points from embedding, but the charge sends arcs of bright blue lightning across her torso anyway.
Goldie convulses once, then pitches backward into the snow.
Panting, we stare at the zombie’s downed form. Maisie blinks down at her. “Did that—Taser—just zap her dead?”
I’m still gaping when another zombie lunges at us. This time, I don’t hesitate. I zap that fucker in the head. Still, it comes.
“Fuck!” I screech.
“Try his neck!” Maisie suggests as she splits another zombie’s skull apart like a bad melon. The human skull is way easier to destroy than I thought.
I try his neck. I try his gut. When he slips a little, I inadvertently try his armpit.
Each charge jolts the ranger, but he keeps advancing.
Meanwhile, I feel like Inigo Montoya, poking the six-fingered man over and over, but without the rousing speech to lift my spirits.
The zombie’s close enough now to slash me with its fingers, some bitten down to the bone.
This time, I aim straight for the name tag.
And this time, it works.
The blue lightning bolts make it twitch down dead. Er, re-dead.
“It’s the heart!” I shout. “Zapping the heart kills them!”
Maisie’s eyes light up with their own blue bolts of electricity. “We’ve got to get more of those.”
I grin, spinning on my feet and zapping the next motherfucker to try me like I’m an ol’-timey tap dancer with a shiny black cane of death.
Like the others, it falls down dead. No fuss, no muss.
I blow on the tip of my Fun & Stun, which, wow, aptly named, like it’s a smoking pistol.
Then I gag because it’s got some burning flesh stuck to it.
Maisie throws her head back and laughs. “You are ridiculous.”
Clearing the remaining horde is as easy as roasting marshmallows.
Really gross marshmallows. All told, we dispatch eight zombie rangers, and we do it as a team.
I’m filled with an outrageous sense of pride and accomplishment as I swing each corpse over the edge of the mountain with Maisie.
Once the campsite’s clear, we sit back down on our bench, shoulder to shoulder.
Chicken reappears, licking her paw, fairly unimpressed as always.
“The Fun & Stun.” Maisie lets out a long whistle. “Who knew?”
I raise my hand. “Ahem, me? Clearly me.”
She looks at me sidelong, her smile crooked with relief. “Your discovery just made this apocalypse a whole lot more manageable, Professor.”
I hold up a finger. “Less messy, too.”
She laughs, the sound free and easy and happy.
I did that.
“Good job tonight, Chicken,” she says as my cat bounds into her lap, circling three times before plopping gracefully down. She scratches Chicken behind the ear, just the way she likes it. “You woke me up when you heard the zombies, didn’t you?”
“That’s how you knew?”
Maisie nods. “Chicken batted me in the nose, then hissed at the back of the tent. My mom taught me that animals sense danger quicker than we do and to always listen to their warnings.”
“Damn, Chicken.” I scratch her other ear, and she lifts her head in feline superiority as she gets it on both sides. “You little badass.”
I glance at Maisie, who’s gazing down at Chicken so pleased, it fills my veins with serotonin. There’s something about seeing other people love your pets that feels like they love part of you, too.
“Thank you, Maisie. If you hadn’t been there, I’d have…well.” I pause, remembering my brush with having my dick chomped off. “Just. Thank you. Again.”
“You’re welcome. I know that was really…hard on you.” A hint of laughter lies beneath her words.
“Maisie.” I raise an eyebrow. “Was that a dick joke?”
“No,” she says innocently enough, though the corner of her mouth has gone rogue, turning up even as she tries to tamp it down. “I’m just impressed, that’s all. I’ve never seen a three-legged man fight before.”
I roll my eyes and groan, and her smile splits wide, a big, loud laugh spilling out.
“To be honest, I was afraid it would never go away,” I admit, and she laughs even harder.
I realize with a jolt that I love the sound of it.
That I love everything about this moment, in fact.
The sunrise painting the snowy mountains in an otherworldly sheen that glitters with ice.
The feeling of fighting danger and winning.
The relief and simple happiness of sitting here, safe. Being on a team again. Her team.
I was good, too. The thought sends a small surge of pride through me, countered immediately by the memory of me stumbling into the snow after my dick slapped my own balls. I reflexively cringe.
Okay, maybe more like decent. I was decent. But I kicked and zapped my way through a horde of the undead and didn’t hide in a tree once. I was there when she needed me.
“So, is it a newly discovered zombie kink? Or, yikes, maybe an old zombie kink? Or was it those”—she swipes at her cheeks, chest rumbling, as she hiccups—“big—felt—hats?”
“I was thinking about you,” I blurt out.
Maisie’s laughter stops abruptly, her eyes wide. “Oh?”
“Er, your proposition, I mean. The sex lessons.” I twist on the bench to face her, feeling more confident than I have in ages.
Maybe I’m not great with gory decapitations, but I will happily electrocute every zombie who dares get close to her.
I can, really and truly, help protect her, and I know, without a doubt, that I can make her come.
Maisie’s lips part subtly, taking in the determination in my eyes, and the memory of our kiss barrels back, heating me from the inside out.
I want to gather her in my arms, then press her back into the ground and bury my face between her thighs.
I want to growl, make her scream from the force of her own undoing.
And then, I want to fill her up with my hard, aching cock and teach her everything that I know about the kind of pleasure that melts you down to nothing but fire, until finally you cool and form once again, anew.
Most of all, I want to give in to this want I haven’t known in years. I want to feel things again.
I want to be her professor.
“When do we start?”