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)
Kind of pathetic.
I guess I’d been operating under the assumption that someday the government or military or some other country even, would show up, take out the zombies, and save the rest of us. Then my “second life” would begin.
But if this was all there was ever going to be, maybe this guy had it right. Maybe I should have been enjoying myself while I could.
“I’m Catie, by the way. With a C and ie,” I told him, because it was habit.
“I’m Caleb. With a Q and xt,” he quipped, making a strange little giggle bubble up and burst out of me, something that made Caleb turn to look down at me with oddly intense eyes.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. It’s just been a long time since I heard someone laugh. It’s a nice sound,” he decided, turning away, waving toward the street in front of us. “So Catie with a C and ie, what were you doing in the graveyard in the middle of the night dressed like that if you aren’t a zombie hunter?”
“Oh, ah. This is kind of ridiculous.”
“Babe, I’m the king of ridiculous,” he said, waving down at himself. “I mean, look at this,” he said, twisting to show me a horrible little cat tattoo. A stick figure cat tattoo.
“Did you do that yourself?” I asked.
“I came across a tattoo machine. Figured, how hard could it be?”
“What is he holding?” I asked, squinting at the tattoo, trying not to look too hard at the muscles right by it. You know, the ones that lead a delicious path down into his board shorts.
“A purrito,” Caleb said, making another of those laughs bubble up again.
“Alright. Well, I was just sitting by my window getting my twenty minutes of fresh air for the day,” I told him, wincing at how lame it sounded that I had a schedule for how much fresh air I got. I also had a schedule for how much direct sunlight. But I wasn’t fessing up to that.
“Naturally,” Caleb said, nodding as he clasped his hands behind his back, oblivious to any threats, to needing his hands in case one arose.
“And I saw someone I used to know.”
“Ah, so you were out to save someone.”
“Actually, it was my zombified, no good, serial cheating, ex-boyfriend.”
To that, when he turned to look down at me, his grin was big.
“You were going to slay your ex? That’s pretty fucked up, babe,” he told me. “Kind of hot, but fucked up.”
“He’s a zombie,” I said, shrugging. “I’m reasonably sure I wouldn’t try to cut his head off if he was still human.”
“Reasonably sure,” he repeated, letting out a little chuckle. And, yeah, I had to agree. It was a nice sound. “Alright, milady,” he said, pressing a hand to his stomach as he did a small bow. “We have arrived to my palace. Sorry,” he said when Toddy the cat let out a little meow. “Our palace,” he clarified, reaching down to scoop up the cat.
It was that, too.
In that cold, modern style I’d never been a fan of.
If I had been lucky enough to be a billionaire before the world ended, I would have wanted my home to resemble something right out of Regency books. Something full of character and opulence.
These modern houses with their stucco and straight lines, they all kind of resembled prisons to me.
“I know. Kind of ugly, but it does the trick,” he said as he led me up the front path, the grass, weeds, and wildflowers all nearly hip-high.
That was another unexpected thing about the end of the world.
Nature was taking back her place in the world. It was actually oddly refreshing after seeing nothing but perfectly mowed, useless lawns for most of my life.
“Wow,” I said as Caleb led me inside, putting Toddy down on the floor, then closing the door behind me, then yanking down this lever that had no less than ten wood and metal bars sliding into place, reinforcing the door.
“It’s a bit overkill since the door itself is still reinforced internally. But I have to respect the attention to detail,” he said, then waved his arms around the massive open space. “This floor is mostly open, save for two separate secret passageways.”
“You can’t drop a phrase like secret passageways and not explain further. Where do they go?”
“The bunker,” he said, shrugging in a way that said I should have known that. “Though there is an alternate route as well to a room in the attic that has an escape latch to the roof. For helicopter rescues.”
“Of course,” I agree, tone dry. “I mean, everyone has a helipad on their roof, don’t they?”
“If not, they certainly should. It would only cost a million or so,” Caleb said.
“What’s the bunker like?”
“You want to see?” he asked.
“Gee, let me think. Do I want to follow a stranger that I don’t know from Adam into a super secret, presumably underground and impenetrable, bunker? I’m going to have to pass.”