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

fingers over the satin smooth surface, finished with Danish oil so that nothing came between the wood and her fingers.

Mario had made it as a present for her twenty-second birthday.

Miranda returned to the bed and sat cross-legged, settling the box in front of her. She slid the lid along the carved grooves to reveal crinkled letters and dog-eared photographs, pieces of sea glass and small stones with colors that had caught her eye, or shapes that felt good in her hand. There was a lock of Michael’s hair tied in a thin blue ribbon that Emily had given her the day she stood as his godmother.

She rifled through the contents until she found the picture, the first she had printed after the ZA. Younger versions of herself, Emily, Mario, Doug, and Karen grinned at her. Happier faces from a simpler time, at least interpersonally. It had been taken near the end of the first year. Mario and Emily had not been married that long.

Miranda had met him three months earlier. She arrived at The Hut first, which was out of character. Usually she was fifteen minutes late at least. The Hut had been a student bar before the ZA. It was on the edge of the SCU campus and because it had been secured by undergrads trapped in their watering hole, was behind SCU’s original wall fortifications. In those days you could get homebrew beer, moonshine, and very bad bathtub gin. Good booze—real booze—the stuff scavenged from warehouses, vineyards, and distilleries, was hoarded as a universally accepted currency but a libation rarely imbibed.

She saw Emily walk through the door with a man.

That must be the guy.

“Miranda!” Emily called. As she came closer and the glare of the late afternoon light was blocked by the closing door, Miranda saw that she was smiling. Emily had not done that in a long time.

“Hey,” Miranda answered, hugging Emily tight.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, Miri. I can’t believe you go on those scavenging missions. You’re insane to go out there!”

Miranda shrugged. She had no good comeback to that.

“So,” Emily continued, stepping back from Miranda to include her companion in the circle, “Miranda, this is Mario. Mario, this is my good friend, Miranda Tucci.”

“Hi,” Mario said, reaching forward to shake her hand, “it’s nice to meet you.”

Wow, Miranda thought, he is something else.

The slow smile that curved Mario’s lips reminded her of the fluid grace of a stretching cat. Light-brown eyes hooded by a half-formed squint danced with good humor, as if he and she were in on a joke. He had dimples—of course—to go along with the smile, like an actor plucked from central casting. His nose was straight above a strong, square chin and his short dark hair had a slight wave that reminded Miranda of her brother Matthew. She swallowed around a sudden lump in her throat.

Mario grasped Miranda’s hand in his and a shock snapped against her palm. From his look of surprise, she could tell he had felt it, too—less pinchy than static electricity but more intense. She almost jerked away but did not want to let go of his hand. The way it fit around hers felt right.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she finally said.

Mario had barely excused himself to get some drinks when Emily blurted out, “What do you think?”

The last time Miranda had seen Emily, she had been withdrawn and depressed, flinching at any loud noise and rarely speaking, let alone gushing. Now, she vibrated with excitement.

“I’ve only said hello, but he seems nice. He’s a total dish, Em.”

“He is, Miranda. You’re going to love him.” Emily sighed.

“Sounds like you do already,” Miranda teased.

“I really like Mario,” Emily answered, then stopped and looked at Miranda, uncertain. “This is going to sound terrible, Miri, but I feel safe when I’m with him. That’s what I love. Does that make me a horrible person?”

Two months ago, Miranda thought Emily was always going to be a basket case. She just could not adjust to how the world had changed. And then she reconnected with Mario Santorello, who had taken charge of the group of survivors Emily had been among at the very beginning. When Emily went to SCU, he stayed behind to help fortify the GeneSys building and they lost touch, until now.

Only a fool would let an opportunity for happiness pass them by. You had to grab it while you could because it might never come by again. Tomorrow might never happen. If Miranda had learned nothing else from living through this zombie apocalypse, she had at least learned that.

“Only the horriblest,” she said with a grin.

Emily laughed. She honest-to-goodness laughed, and it sounded merry, not tinged with fear or hysteria. Miranda looked at her friend and then at Mario as he approached holding three glasses between his hands.

Well goddamn.

Soon the bar was busy. A pickup band played and lots of people were singing along and dancing. Emily had gone to the bathroom, leaving Miranda and Mario alone at the table.

“So what exactly did you do?” Miranda asked Mario. “Before.”

Mario smiled. “I was probably someone you wouldn’t have had much time for.”

Miranda’s brow wrinkled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You strike me as someone who doesn’t have much tolerance for bullshit.”

“I guess that’s true,” she admitted, feeling caught out.

“I was pretty full of myself before.” Mario sat up straighter and puffed himself up. He had a way of holding himself completely straight, even stiff, but when he moved, he reminded Miranda of water. “I have doctorates in Computer Science and Biochemistry, from M.I.T. and Stanford, mind you. I started a biotech company called GeneSys and we had just received a second round of venture capital funding. I was CEO and awfully important.”

“So you were Chief Ego Officer?” Miranda asked, grinning.

Mario laughed. “Something like that. Turned out the most important thing about me is our lab facility is built like a bunker.”

A spray of liquid accompanied Miranda’s bark of laughter.

“Oh God, sorry!” She choked as Mario tried without success to duck out of the way. He handed her a napkin while he mopped up the table with his handkerchief.

“You couldn’t have been that bad,” she said.

“I was worse. Trust me.”

“So what were you doing with those important Ph.Ds.?”

“Mycoviruses. They’re viruses that infect fungus. There were lots of applications. We were going to make a shitload of money.” Mario smiled as he shook his head, as if his former pursuits had been childish. “Now my work actually means something. We know it’s a virus that turns people into zombies, but there’s something else, I’m sure of it. Just haven’t figured it out yet.”

“So you might be able to prevent people from turning into zombies?”

“Wouldn’t that be great? I’d win the Nobel Prize.” He took a drink of his beer and grimaced. “What the hell are they making this from?”

“I stick to the moonshine. The beer is bad, and the gin is worse, and if you start comparing it to what you remember, you might as well not bother. Moonshine, on the other hand, is supposed to taste like paint thinner. It’s disappointment free.”

“You’ve thought this through.”

“Are you calling me a lush?”

“I’ve heard some stories.”

Miranda tried to glare but couldn’t keep up the pretense.

“So you’re the one who got the farming started here,” Mario said.

Miranda shrugged. “There were a lot of people involved in that.”

“A good friend of mine went to Santa Clara Law. Our favorite Frisbee spot is planted with beans.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No complaints from me,” Mario assured her. “I was reading about those Vertical Farms that Emily said you want to build.”

Here we go again, Miranda sighed to herself, another ‘Are we going to starve?’ conversation. She felt disappointed that Mario would turn out to be just like everyone else.

“I’m not sure we even can build them, but I think they could shore up the food supply.”

“So what is it? What do you love about it?”

“Love about what?” she asked, uncertain what he was getting at.

“Farming, growing things.” Mario’s eyes glowed with curiosity. “I can tell from the look on your face it’s about more than making sure we have enough to eat.”

No one had ever said that before. Miranda felt seen, known, in a way she hadn’t in a long, long time. Aloud she said, “I’ve always liked to grow things. My nana used to have this amazing garden when I was a kid. I’d help her, digging, planting, staking tomatoes—”

“Italian grandmothers,” Mario interjected. “It wasn’t just my nana’s recipe for her sauce that was top secret. She wouldn’t even tell people what variety of tomatoes she used.”

Miranda nodded, grinning. “Mine was the same.” Thinking of her grandmother, who had died long before zombies came along, made Miranda feel alone, even in the middle of the bustling bar. “Mostly I liked hanging out with my nana.”

“It’s your connection to the old world, to the people you loved.”

The hairs on the back of Miranda’s neck stood on end. “I miss them all so much,” she whispered, eyes filling with tears. She looked away, horrified that she could not suppress the grief that had welled up within her. Her pain was no worse than anyone else’s and here she was, whimpering like a baby.

Mario took her hand in his and gave