Chapter Twenty-Five
Maisie
Something soft bats my nose, persistent. A plaintive, tremulous mewwwr? I rise reluctantly through the depths of sleep upward, toward the noise. I fell asleep? I don’t remember falling asleep.
A loud hisssss followed by an angry yowl brings me all the way awake. I lurch up to sitting, heart pounding hard.
Chicken’s zombie alarm.
Ice-cold terror spills down my spine as I glance furtively around the small, metal-walled bunker. Nothing moves, nobody’s there. Gramps’s body is outside the hatch. Chicken hides behind my back.
Then I remember.
“Everett!” I scramble up to my knees and reach for the Taser, my heart breaking in real time. His cage is silent, still, dark.
I turn on my phone’s flashlight.
Slowly, I lean down and peer into his cage.
Bright, round moons of light shine up at me.
I sob out a scream and jam the Taser through the bars, aiming directly for Everett’s heart. I can’t bear it, I can’t see him lunge for my flesh, a mindless monster of another’s making.
I can’t, I can’t.
The prongs make contact with the rounded muscle of his chest. I press the button, releasing an arc of blue energy.
Everett screams, his body convulsing. “Jesus FUCK!”
I scream in shock also, falling backward on my ass, Taser sparking freely in the air. “Everett?!”
“GOD fucking DAMMIT, that hurt!”
“Oh, Everett! I’m so sorry, I thought you were—your eyes! They’re glowing!” I lean closer, terrified this is all some delusion, that I’m hearing Everett only in my head from wishful thinking and that a zombie version of my beloved awaits me in the cage.
“Argh, you mean my glasses?!” Everett rolls onto his back, clutching his upper left pec where I zapped him on the highest setting, whimpering.
“Maisie, Maisie, come in, this is Gemma.” The radio sings to life. “Please report, Maisie, do you read me?”
Chicken hisses again toward the radio console and the high-pitched whine it’s emitting. My head whips back between Everett, mewling on his back, and Chicken, who just leaped upon the radio control board, bucking like a pissed-off bronco. It was the radio she was hissing at.
My mouth forms a small O.
I gingerly raise the phone flashlight again into Everett’s cage and see that he is, indeed, still human. Albeit a very pathetic one. “I’m so sorry!”
“It’s—fine,” Everett grits out. “Very glad to—see—you—observing the rules.”
I scramble over to the radio and press the talk button. “Gemma! This is Maisie, Everett is still human! I repeat, he’s still human!”
“Holy hell, that’s wonderful news!” Gemma cries out over the air. “By my calculations, it’s been ten hours and forty-two minutes since the bite!”
“He should’ve turned by now…” I twist to face Everett. My heart swells painfully in my chest at his wide, fearful eyes, too scared to hope but unable to stop himself. “Is that what you’re saying, Gemma?”
“That’s what I’m saying.” The same timid hope trembles through Gemma’s voice. “I don’t understand why, but he should’ve turned hours ago. Think, Maisie—was there anything about the bite that was different? Anything about Gramps that may have interfered with successful transmission?”
“I—don’t know! I—” I run my fingers through my hair, thinking hard. I cleaned Everett’s wound last night in a blur of agony while he was unconscious. Was there anything weird? “The—wound. It was very neat, actually. A clean cut, I mean.”
“What do you mean, a clean cut?” Everett asks. He runs his hand over the bandaged wound on his arm and winces.
“Did it look like teeth marks? Crescent-shaped indentations? Was there a tear of flesh?” Gemma’s speaking so fast, it’s hard to parse out one question from the next.
“I don’t remember! It just—it looked like a sharp line, I think. I used butterfly closures to keep it closed, just like before…”
“Here, look at it now.” Everett pulls at the surgical tape holding his bandage in place until the layers of gauze come loose. He gently peels them back.
And there it is—the straight, red line across the meatiest part of his forearm.
“Huh,” he murmurs. “How would a zombie’s mouth make a cut like that?”
“Is it possible that it wasn’t his teeth that made the incision?” Gemma asks. “Gramps was old, correct? Did he wear…I don’t know, dentures or something?”
My eyes bug wide. “He wore a plate! He wore a dental plate! His upper teeth are all fake and connected by a wire bridge across his palate. He complained about it constantly!”
I get right up close to the cage to look at Everett’s cut again. A neat, straight line, maybe an inch and a half long. No chunks of flesh missing. No jagged tears. “I don’t think his teeth actually touched you.”
I jump back on the radio’s mic. “Gemma, I think Gramps’s partial plate made the incision, not his actual teeth. But does that really change anything? Wouldn’t there be saliva on his partial?”
“Probably, but that’s assuming saliva is the viral vector. Some viruses live exclusively in biofilms on the teeth.”
“Biofilms?” Everett asks helplessly as he smooths his bandage back into place. “What are you saying?”
“Plaque, dingbat. Buildup. Gross shit that accumulates on your teeth when you haven’t brushed since, oh, the start of the zombie pandemic because you’re DEAD!”
Everett stares at the radio half-lidded, his mouth in a flat line. “Well, the loving concern for my well-being is officially over.”
“Oh, cry me a river, you utter zombie failure,” Gemma says, her voice high-pitched and gleeful. “Can’t even die and un-die right.”
“Can you not—” Everett begins, but Gemma’s transmission cuts over top.
“brB, gonna go break the news to Mom and Dad that their only son will never live and die up to his full zombie potential. Toodles!”
Everett throws his head back and groans, but it’s a nice, normal, human groan, full of relief and release and glorious, terrifying hope.
“Should I…unlock your cage now?” I ask, staring at him. My palms begin to sweat.
“No,” Everett says vehemently. “What if I still turn? What if I hurt you?”
Heart racing, I reach for the key hung high on the wall. “It’s been over ten hours, Everett.”
“Maisie, don’t do it! I could be dangerous!” Everett swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Eventually.”
I slide the key into the lock. It clicks, my ears rushing with adrenaline.
I’m really doing this.
Everett pushes to the back of the cage as I swing the door open. A frightened stray, terrified of a kind hand.
“Come out,” I say softly. “I trust you, Everett.”
“But—but—what if I—”
“You won’t.” My voice is firm. “I trust you,” I repeat, louder this time, then laugh. “Oh my god, I really do. I trust you, Everett. And more than that, I believe everything’s going to be all right. Please come out?”
“If I come out,” he finally says. “Can I—kiss you? Would that feel safe?”
“Yes,” I breathe. “I want that very much.”
“Will you also hold the Taser, just in case?” Everett looks at me sternly. “Don’t use it unless you’re sure I’m changing, though.”
A small laugh tumbles out. “Yes. I’ll hold it.”
Everett crawls out of the cage. He approaches me on his knees, looking at me with big, hope-starved eyes. I cradle his cheek in one hand, and he leans into it, his eyes fluttering closed.
“Maisie, I thought—” His voice breaks off, choked.
“I thought we were out of time.” He slides his soft hand over mine, then pulls me gently to him.
We face each other on my bed of blankets.
He eyes the Taser and twitches involuntarily, which makes me laugh.
Smiling cautiously, he flicks his gaze back to mine.
It’s tender and brimming with all the love I’ve craved my whole life but never dared believe I’d find.
“No.” I bring his hand to my chest and press the warm flat of his palm against my skin. The weight of it there eases something inside of me. “We have all the time in the world.”
He gathers my face in his hands and leans in, the kiss pouring between us.
Soft and yearning, the silken slide of his mouth on mine foments something more, something electric all its own.
The Taser drops to the floor, forgotten.
The kiss travels everywhere, along my jaw, the apples of my cheeks, the bridge of my nose, while his hands cradle me like I’m the most precious thing in his world.
I think, perhaps, I am.
It makes me laugh, then cry, weak with the happiness I thought I lost. I’m not alone in this world. Maybe I never was. But now I have Everett, and he has me, and whatever groaning monstrosity tries to hunt us down next, it doesn’t change this fundamental truth.
I dig my fingers into his wavy hair, tilt my hips into his, and pull him even closer, setting the desperation I felt on fire and watching it burn between us.
His hands slide down my ribs, thumbs trailing across the sides of my breasts, until he takes me by the hips, firm, grinding me into him.
I moan as he swiftly, decisively lowers me onto my back, pulling me by the backs of my thighs until I lie open for him.
The movements are rough, barely controlled, and the fervor of our combined energy makes me clench with want.
I rip off my thermal shirt and the tight tank I wear beneath it while Everett unbuttons my pants and banishes them to the corner of the room. The look he gives my dark gray panties, darkest where I flood for him, is almost animal.
What we feel for each other is not gentle.
He falls to his stomach before me, his shoulders pressing into the tender spot where ass meets leg.
His hands wrap around my thighs, yanking me into his waiting mouth.
He groans into my wet flesh, the stubble of too many days on the road electrifying the sensitive skin there, and feasts.
Biting the insides of my thighs hard enough that I gasp and grab the Taser.
It zings to life, and he looks up, devilish and lusting, between my legs.
“That’s my good girl. I’m going to eat you alive.”
He grins wickedly and returns to devouring me whole.