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

Miranda woke to a boot pressed against her face. The gentle rise and fall of the bed brought her back to reality with an unpleasant lurch of her stomach. Doug lay on the double berth next to her, his head by her feet and limbs sprawled everywhere. Why is he sleeping in here, she thought, then decided it did not matter. If she could blow her nose on his shirt, he could hog the bed and put his boots on her pillow.

She exited the cabin at the aft end of the sailboat and limped into the galley. Beyond the galley was a sitting area. Jeremiah was tied to a cushioned couch, snoring to beat the band. The Mystery of Doug In Her Bed: Solved.

This was easily the swankiest boat Miranda had ever set foot on, with honey-colored wood and tasteful upholstered cushions. This kitchen is nicer than in most houses. Must’ve been a dot.commer’s yacht. Beyond Jeremiah was a tiny cabin at the fore of the ship. Delilah had curled up near its door. Miranda approved of her choice. It was a good spot to guard Jeremiah.

Miranda bunny-hopped to the ladder and called above deck. A minute later, Mario peered down.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “The rest of you have been out cold most of the day.” As she opened her mouth, he added, “I got some sleep, don’t worry.”

“Is Connor feeling better?”

Mario shrugged. “Dunno.”

“I’ll check on him.”

But she just stood there, looking up at Mario. For years, without even knowing it, she had felt like a planet knocked off its axis, spinning out of kilter. Now she didn’t.

Shyly, she smiled. “This is much better.”

Her stomach began to quiver, but it wasn’t the unwelcome motion of the sea. A frisson of worry percolated inside her, warning that as much as she loved Mario, she could not afford to trust him.

Mario grinned. “It is.”

Miranda tamped down her anxiety. “I’m going back to sleep after I check on Connor. I won’t puke if I’m sleeping.”

“I’ll be up here,” he said, then raised his head and squinted his eyes at something she could not see. “I gotta get that. Dream sweet.”

Holding on to things to spare her knee, Miranda limped over to where Delilah lay. Connor was not out here, so he must be in the fore cabin. When Miranda brushed past her, Delilah began to whine.

“Quiet, Liley.”

She pushed the door open and stepped through. The cabin was tiny, just two feet between the narrow berth and the closet opposite, and maybe nine feet long. Connor lay on the berth, his head toward the bow. Miranda let go of the door, which swung shut behind her. The portholes in the narrow V-shaped cabin offered scant light. Connor’s wheezy, congested breathing sounded terrible. Whatever he had must have settled in his lungs. Maybe the antibiotics they had would work for Connor, too.

“Connor?”

She turned on the reading lamp on the wall above him. Connor lay on his side, his back to her.

“Connor?” she said again, touching his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

Connor stirred. “Like crap,” he whispered. He coughed wetly and rolled onto his back. On the other side of the door, Delilah began to growl. When the light shone on Connor’s drawn face, Miranda froze. Icy shock coursed through her veins, so overwhelming she felt dizzy.

She knew if she touched his forehead that his flushed face would not feel feverish, but cool. His sunken eyes were wreathed with bruise-dark circles. Labored breaths passed over his peeling lips and chattering teeth. Already he looked diminished. He coughed again, but it wasn’t just wetness she heard. A wheeze, almost a moan, hummed beneath the sound, undergirding the cough like subfloor.

Connor had been infected by a zombie.

His symptoms were classic. So was Delilah’s reaction, which hadn’t registered with everything else going on: the shelling, the ambush, the bite Mario received. The infection should have overwhelmed Connor’s immune system quickly, but it hadn’t. Somehow, impossibly, he had been dying by inches.

“That bad?” he wheezed, struggling to keep his eyes open.

Miranda opened her mouth, but nothing came out. How could this be? Connor would never hide a bite from them. He might hate her right now, but he would never endanger her like this.

He doesn’t know, she realized, a coherent thought penetrating the maelstrom raging inside her brain. She looked around the room for a weapon. Connor’s clothes, boots, and holster sat in a jumble on the floor beside the berth. She ripped the pile apart, but neither his assault rifle nor his handgun were there.

Doug stowed all the weapons in the cockpit, she remembered, heart sinking into her stomach.

Miranda straightened up and pivoted to the door, the stab of pain in her knee barely registering through her fear. She had to get out of the cabin. She would get Mario and Doug, and they would take care of Connor together.

She jumped when Connor’s hand clasped her wrist.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, pulling away, but his grip tightened.

When Miranda turned back, Connor stood inches from her, swaying with the motion of the waves beneath their feet. The labored breathing had ceased. His face no longer looked flushed. His skin seemed to sag from his skull, sunken cheeks grotesquely overemphasizing the bones above. His clouded eyes bored through her, devoid of human sight, of everything that made him Connor.

Only hunger remained.

Miranda shoved, pushing him back into the berth. She twisted away as he fell, trying to break free, to reach the doorknob just a few feet away, but Connor’s grip on her wrist tightened. He dragged her to the floor, smacking her knees against the side of the berth.

Eldritch moaning filled her ears. Delilah’s barking grew more furious on the other side of the door. Connor yanked her hand toward his snapping teeth. She reached out with her free hand, desperation blocking out everything but the will to live. Her hand raked against something pliable, but sturdy. She grabbed it and swung, smacking the side of Connor’s head with the combat boot she now held. She hit him again, full in the face.

Miranda snatched her wrist away, stumbling backward along the berth. She reached behind, feeling for the doorknob, afraid to turn her back on him. Connor lurched upright and lunged, grabbing her by the waist. The impact knocked her on her ass and slammed her against the door. She writhed against him, screaming, kicking her legs to avoid snapping teeth.

She folded the boot’s pliable leather over her hand and shoved it in Connor’s mouth. Bright bolts of pain detonated her fingers now trapped between layers of leather and teeth. Delilah barked and voices shouted. The door nudged against her, but hers and Connor’s weight held it shut.

She pushed her hand trapped inside the boot against his face, bucking against him as he straddled her. His arms began to pull her closer in a grotesque pantomime of sex.

She had to get him off her. She pushed harder with the hand trapped inside the boot, trying to make space between them. The door bucked against her back, almost shoving her into his arms.

“Stop!” she cried, panicked.

She felt the door shudder. Miranda dug her other hand under Connor’s knee and pushed. Relieved of some of his weight, she bent her own leg, pulling her foot to her buttocks to get it flat on the floor. Then she heaved and shoved, pushing off her foot. She roared as she flipped Connor away, but the hand still trapped in his mouth pulled her with him.

Sprawled almost astride him, Miranda grabbed Connor’s hair with her free hand and smashed his head against the floor. The grip of his teeth on her trapped hand stayed vise-tight. Using hands free and trapped she pulled his head toward her and pounded it into the floor. He thrashed beneath her as she pummeled his head over and over. Bloodcurdling moans, banging, shouting, snarling, a ratcheting sound as familiar as it was irrelevant, melded into white noise.

She felt bones crunch with every impact. Black puddles oozed beneath them, spattering her arms. A sour, cloying smell filled her nose as she hammered Connor’s head off the floor.

“Miranda, stop! He’s dead!”

A hand touched her shoulder. She struck out blindly, twisting away. Mario stood in front of her, an axe in one hand. Doug was just beyond, a shotgun hoisted to his shoulder. Half of the door had been hacked away and from somewhere behind Mario and Doug, Delilah’s barking filled the cabin.

“Miri, it’s me. You’re okay.”

Miranda looked into Mario’s anxious face, finally comprehending that he wasn’t a threat. Her hand had come free, revealing crooked, broken fingers. She looked at Connor sprawled beneath her, as if seeing him for the first time. He lay still, his eyes filmed gray, brains spilling out from his battered skull.

Connor had turned, and she killed him. The horrifying knowledge blossomed in her brain, unfurling like a flag in the breeze. Connor, who had loved and come back for her. Who she had loved once, and if things had been different, might have loved again.

She had killed Connor.

A low howl, like