Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗

Hours later, Miranda stepped back to survey her handiwork. She stretched her arms over her head, several vertebrae in her back popping. All the bean teepees were tied and placed, all one hundred and thirteen of them.

Her fingers felt thick and clumsy after tying all day long, but there was no denying the feeling of accomplishment. As Ops Director, she didn’t have to do fieldwork, but she liked it. It was good for morale, not that it needed a boost after her fight with Alan. If the staff wasn’t gossiping about the fight, they were buzzing about how she brought Timmy back into work yesterday.

She checked her watch. Almost six, well past time to go home. She whistled for Delilah and was rewarded a moment later with the scuffle of paws on metal. She turned at the end of the row and saw the pit bull waiting for her by the fire doors, tail wagging, when she felt a buzz in her pocket—her phone, vibrating for attention. She fished it out and answered.

“Hello?”

“Ah, Miranda, how are you?” a voice with a thick Irish brogue asked.

“Father Walter! I’m fine, but I’m falling on my face. I’m just about to head home.”

A pause, then, “Could you swing by here, if it’s not too much trouble? I need to talk to you.”

“Can it wait? I barely got any sleep last night and my day has been insane.”

“I can hear that you’re tired, Miri, but this is important.”

“And you can’t talk to me on the phone?”

“Not really.”

Fuck.

“Okay, I’ll come by. Do you happen to know what the traffic report is for Guadalupe River Park?”

“I checked since I knew you’d ask. Very little zombie activity. There was a riot outside the gate yesterday, but you should be fine. You can always backtrack on the Expressway.”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head even though he could not see her. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

“Okay, Miri,” Walter answered. “We can feed you dinner if you’re hungry.”

Saliva flooded her mouth. The cook at the Jesuit Residence knew how to put a meal together. “I will definitely take you up on that.”

She hung up and groaned. Even with a meal thrown in, Father Walter’s timing sucked.

“Looks like we’re going to see the Holy Fathers, Delilah. Maybe there’s a bone in it for you.”

Five minutes later, she paused at the Julian Street Gate and waited while the massive structure opened like the maw of a monster. Similar to the Expressway entrances and exits, an exterior electrified fence and double gate awaited her. She pulled forward and waited while the gate closed behind her with a deep, shuddering thud.

Beyond the gates, signs of yesterday’s riot: shell casings, rocks, scorch marks on the wall, a shoe next to a trampled bandana. Bodies below the overpass and blood, lots of blood. More than two people had died if the amount of blood on the concrete was any indication. Miranda realized that her jaw was clenched. A sense of building energy swelled beneath her skin.

“Do not get angry,” she said to herself. “You make mistakes when you’re angry. Let it go.”

She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down, and followed the curve of the road for half a mile toward Guadalupe River Park. The trickle of water within its boundaries barely constituted a stream, let alone a river. Twilight began to fall, soft and silent. She turned on the Rover’s headlights.

This is inconvenient, but if I get a good dinner out of it, it won’t be so bad. Maybe we’ll just stay the night.

She turned left at Hedding and looked ahead—all clear. She started to relax as the Rover crested the overpass when she saw it. Seventy yards ahead of her, a very old two-door Honda Civic hatchback approached a clutch of twenty shamblers. The driver seemed unsure of what to do. Miranda laid on the horn.

“Speed up! Keep going!” she said as if the driver of the Honda could hear. The worst thing they could do was stop. Either turn around or barrel through, but don’t stop.

“What the fuck are you doing, you idiot? You have four fucking lanes! Go around!”

Picking up on Miranda’s agitation, Delilah began to growl. Then the car stopped. Heads and torsos twisted out of the windows.

They were going to try picking them off.

Such a reckless course of action took a moment to register. Miranda watched for a moment, aghast, then checked her rearview mirror. She was all for killing zombies, but this was the kind of stupid that got you killed.

She had the Rover half turned around when she saw the shapes spilling out from the shadows on the far side of the underpass. Large and fast, moving with a contradictory mix of awkwardness and grace. And speed. Whatever they were, they were fast.

“Holy shit,” she said, her brain catching up with her eyes.

It had been ages since she’d seen one, but there was no mistake. Dashers, a lot of them, four or five, maybe more. Their fat, bloated bodies belied their unnatural speed as they hurtled up the roadway. They looked like a pack of stampeding rhinos, mindlessly intent upon their target.

Panicked shouts carried on the breeze. The people in the Civic started firing at the dashers. I am out of here, Miranda thought, but she made a mistake; she hesitated. Leaving them to deal with a mess of their own making was the smart thing to do. She didn’t know these people. They were nothing to her. But she couldn’t leave them so outnumbered by Dashers. She wouldn’t sleep at night if she did.

She flipped the flamethrower “ON” switch before she knew she had made a decision. Small blue pilot lights popped brightly along the Rover’s undercarriage.

“Delilah, down!” she shouted, jamming the clutch into first.

The Rover roared toward the Honda. A dasher had already dragged the driver out through the Honda’s window. She barreled into the mass of fat, inhumanly fast creatures and flipped the “FUEL” switch. Pillars of fire billowed up the sides of the Rover. Three dashers caught fire as she sideswiped the dasher attacking the driver. She felt the satisfying thuds as she ran over two more. She braked hard and turned the steering wheel sharply to the right, skidding the back end of the Rover around a hundred-eighty degrees.

The driver of the car slumped on the ground, bleeding from wounds on his neck and arm. The girl in the front passenger seat slid behind the wheel of the car and kept shooting at the remaining dashers. The other passenger had scrambled into the front seat and rolled up the window, which would hold off the shamblers approaching from the other side for a few moments. The girl handed off her weapon and opened the driver’s side door, reaching for her fallen friend.

Miranda sprang from the Rover. She stood behind the open door.

“Hey, over here,” she shouted, catching the attention of the last dasher. In a detached part of her brain, she realized the people in the Honda were teenagers, just a bunch of stupid kids.

Miranda aimed for the last Dasher and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. She squeezed again, but the firing mechanism had jammed. Lightning quick, she ducked behind the lower section of the door. She tossed the gun inside and reached for the crowbar next to the seat. She braced herself as the dasher slammed into the door. She fell to the ground. Knocked from her hand, the crowbar clattered on the concrete and skittered under the Rover.

She rolled onto her back and kicked at the door with both feet. The dasher staggered back as the door smacked against it. Miranda flipped onto her stomach and stretched under the Rover for the crowbar. She