Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 15337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 15337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
“Yeah. Don’t you?” he asked, making it sound like I was the crazy one.
“I don’t think they’d survive well on pasta and wine,” I said, shrugging.
“No shit. You have pasta still? The shelves have been empty for months.”
“I, ah, I live above an old Italian restaurant,” I admitted, not sure why I was doing so. Sharing that kind of information was stupid. It threatened my survival.
I guess it just felt good to speak to someone for a change.
It had been so long.
“Living the fucking dream,” he said, nodding. “Right on. If you ever want to have us over for dinner, we’d bring the tinned meat and veg. We got that in abundance. Hit up the bulk store when the first zombie case was reported.”
“You bought enough canned meat and veg that you’ve been eating it for over a year?”
“I mean, I knew money would be no good once the virus went nuts. So I burned it all up that day. Double-digit grands. I mean, we ate the fresher shit first. Then the kind of shelf-stable shit. I lived on mac & cheese for a couple months. Then, well, things dwindled down.”
I would kind of kill for some veg and meat. It had been months since I’d had any.
I was almost tempted to actually do the unthinkable.
Make a friend in the apocalypse.
“Maybe,” I said, shrugging. “But what the hell are you doing out here in the middle of the night? What about the zombies? You don’t even have a weapon.”
“Babe,” he said, giving me a devilish little smirk that had no right to be as sexy as it was. You know… coming from a guy wearing a children’s necklace and rubber ducky shorts. “This is a graveyard. Where the dead people go. What red/black-blooded zombie is going to come here looking for a meal?”
“Okay. Fair point,” I agreed, shrugging. “Do you, like, live here?” I asked, since he had a lot of crap piled around.
“Nah. Me and Toddy, we took over some rich bastard’s mansion.”
“A mansion?” I asked, shaking my head. “There are so many entry points.”
“Nah, see. I think the old owner saw those Purge movies a few too many times, and took them seriously. That place locks down tight. Air can barely get in it. Gives us room. One hallway is our bowling alley. Another is our water slide. We have good times. You can come over sometime. Now, even. The rave seems to be dying down,” he added, smirking.
And, damn him, he was kind of hot when he smirked.
“You don’t even know me. I could be bit,” I said.
“What? With that rad armor you got on?” he asked, waving at me. “What is that made from?”
“Baking sheets,” I admitted.
What can I say? I didn’t exactly live near a military base. I didn’t have access to proper protection equipment. I had to make do with what I had. And what I had was a lot of baking sheets. So I’d spent hours and hours cutting and sanding them down and shaping them into makeshift armor to cover the most likely places I’d get bit.
“Innovative. Regular post-apocalypse Steve Jobs. Come on. You know you want to go have some tinned meat and veg. I’ll get fancy and use the peas and carrots.”
“Okay.”
What?
No.
Not okay.
I wasn’t going to go to a stranger’s fortress where he might hold me captive and abuse me for months or years.
“Oh, come on. You could cut my head off before I could even try anything,” he said as he grabbed a bottle of vodka, then shut the cooler, leaving it in place. “Look how sharp that sucker is,” he added, waving toward my machete. “Come on, Toddy,” he called.
And, amazingly, the damn cat stretched, yawned, then jumped down and followed as we started walking.
“So what were you doing out in the graveyard at night? Are you a zombie hunter?”
“Do those actually exist?” I asked.
“Met a few. They take themselves very seriously. And they didn’t appreciate my movie references.”
“Blasphemous,” I declared, getting a smirk from him.
“That’s what I’m saying,” he agreed.
“I’m not a zombie hunter. I mean, I’ve killed a few, but I mostly stay inside. And, therefore, you know, alive.” God, my mouth was actually starting to hurt from talking. The muscles had gotten so used to not being used.
“I was like that at the beginning. Full-on crazy prepper mode. But then I thought… fuck it. If death is inevitable, at least I’m gonna enjoy shit while I can.”
“I get that,” I said, wondering for the first time if all my time spent indoors, trying to avoid the zombies—and therefore everything else in life—was a waste.
Chances were, if this virus kept going on, someday, some zombie was going to get me. And what would I be thinking as they ate my body alive? That I did a lot of puzzles and sodoku?