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

Gabe Rivera squatted down from the gun turret, rain dripping from his waterproof jacket. “We going dark?”

“Yeah,” Miranda said.

She flipped the bulky night-vision goggles down over her eyes. The world around her lit up in shades of day-bright fluorescent green and black. Dilapidated buildings lined both sides of the wide road. Cars littered the street. Weeds and trees sprouted from cracks in the pavement and zombies wandered around them. Not a lot, not yet. A decoy vehicle had gone out ahead of them to draw zombies in the area north, but the longer they were out, the more zombies they would attract.

Miranda had done a good job of not thinking about anything by slipping into frosty mode. Her friend Ellen, the nurse practitioner, had told her that what she called frosty would be classified as a mildly dissociative state. Miranda didn’t worry about it. Shrinks seemed to think if they could give something a name and a set of symptoms, it must be unhealthy, but people with enough time on their hands to care about that sort of thing never ventured beyond the safe zones. Unhealthy in safe places kept you alive in dangerous ones.

But now, Emily’s words echoed in her head, demanding that she pay attention to them. He still loves you, Miranda. You should forgive him if you can. Miranda did not know what she had expected Emily to say, but it had not been that. When she and Mario had been together, Emily had managed to let Miranda know that she knew without ever acknowledging it, so neither had Miranda. They simply carried on.

When did he decide to leave her? Miranda had made Mario promise that he would never leave Emily. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if Emily had fallen apart again. It was the one thing she had insisted on, and the only thing they had argued about as bitterly.

Did he love me that much?

Delilah nuzzled against her neck as if she could sense Miranda’s distracted reverie. Miranda snapped back to attention. She looked at Connor in the driver’s seat in front of her and felt more confused and conflicted than ever. You idiot… Keep this shit up and you won’t make it to Los Gatos.

She gnawed on her lower lip when she thought about the reserve fuel tanks. The front Humvee that she rode in had one twenty-gallon tank at the rear; the Humvee that followed them had four. Even though the fuel tanks were armored, the reserve fuel was a terrible risk in a firefight, but they had to take it. Humvees were one of the best vehicles for the terrain they faced but with gas mileage at twelve miles per gallon—at best—they might not make it to Santa Cruz otherwise. If they had to take a detour on the circuitous mountain roads, they might need more fuel.

The next hour passed almost in silence. As they approached the main commercial area of what had once been the Town of Los Gatos, the Humvee slowed. At first, Miranda thought Connor was navigating around an obstacle or zombie, but then they stopped.

“Why are you stopping?” Doug asked.

Connor turned in his seat just as the comm crackled to life. “Because they did.”

“Alpha, we’re dragging something. We need to take a look, over.”

“Miranda and I will join you, over,” Doug said. He put the comm back in its cradle and surveyed the street. “This is a bad place to stop,” he said. “Come on, Miri, time to sing for your supper. Connor, keep the engine warm.”

Miranda stepped into a puddle that reached her ankles. She shut the door to stop Delilah from following her, then tipped her head back to look up at Gabe. Rain pelted her forehead. “Eyes sharp, Gabe.”

She took a slow look around, up and down the row of shops along the once upscale shopping district. The area was surprisingly clear of zombies, but Doug was right, it was a bad place to stop. The two-story buildings that lined both sides of the street created a narrow, man-made canyon. The number of abandoned and rusting cars in the street could make a quick exit difficult.

Miranda stepped around the back corner of the Humvee just as Doug did the same from the other side.

“Let’s see what the kids have done now,” he said.

Miranda smiled as they walked to the Bravo Humvee, which had stopped a hundred feet behind them. From not far away, she could hear zombies moan.

“You would think they’d get tired of doing that all the time,” she said.

Doug laughed softly. “You’d think they’d get tired of eating the same thing all the time, too, but you’d be wrong.”

The front passenger door swung open when they reached the other Humvee and Mike Sealy, resembling a miniature mountain, got out. Mike wasn’t wearing his night goggles and carried a Maglite. “It’s a piece of scrap metal, to judge by the sound,” he said without preamble. Seffie got out of the Humvee and stood by the driver’s door.

“Miranda, watch our perimeter,” Doug said, “Seffie, stay where you are in case we have to move. I’ll help Mike.”

Miranda nodded, then began a circuit around the Humvee.

Even after a decade, it was still apparent that Los Gatos had been an expensive place to live before the ZA. In the green-black shadows of broken out windows, Miranda saw movement. A gaunt frame lurched forward, followed by another. The moaning grew louder.

“Shamblers at your four and six, fifty yards,” Miranda said