Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗
- Author: A.M. Geever
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They had covered half the distance, but Connor didn’t see how they were going to make it.
“When I say duck, you stop and do it!” Mike said, not bothering to be quiet any longer. Connor saw him pull the pin from a grenade.
“Duck!”
Connor stopped and ducked low. He could see the dirty gray laces of a battered pair of Converse tennis shoes that shuffled closer. Black ballet flats. Work boots. A broken high heel.
The grenade detonated.
Connor and the others leaped to their feet, toward the thinning of the almost-horde ahead of them. Mike lobbed the next grenade without telling them to stop. Connor shielded his face when it detonated, saw its lack of effect.
“Climb!” Seffie shouted, grabbing his hand.
They climbed the vehicle barrier, hands slick with sweat, fear sharp in the air. Connor crouched on the roof of the minivan on top of a car. Mike scrambled up, then leaped to the next vehicle. When Connor pushed off to follow, he felt the minivan roof beneath him shift. He looked down to see zombies pressing against the barrier from both sides.
Seffie and Mike stumbled ahead of him, swaying like drunkards as they struggled to keep their balance on the shifting car roofs. They both stopped short, and when he reached them, Connor saw that the barrier ended. The flare still burned bright, bathing the wrought iron enclosure around the wall’s outer gate in a rosy glow. They were two hundred feet short. No way they could make it. All the way from Mexico and they were going to die, here, two hundred feet short of salvation.
The barrier beneath them shifted first one way, then the other. They huddled close together on the dented roof of the finest German engineering money used to be able to buy.
“Goddammit!” Seffie yelled. “God motherfucking dammit!”
Mike put his hand on her shoulder and pulled a grenade from his pocket.
“I’ve got one more.”
The car shifted a few inches. Mike looked nervous but confident. Seffie looked as pissed as Connor had ever seen her. Connor just felt defeated. He’d never see any of them: Miri, Walter, Emily. They’d never know what happened to him.
Connor looked at Seffie and Mike. They were more than his friends; they were comrades-in-arms. A sudden rush of affection swelled in his chest.
“You’re the best people to die with.”
The car shifted again, more forcefully this time.
Mike pulled the pin.
A siren split the night, drowning out the noise of the horde. They all looked to the wall. Industrial yellow lights twirled bright, making the pink light at the gate a hazy orange. The interior gate built into the wall opened slowly, far too slowly when the perch between safety and death rocked beneath their feet. An armored delivery truck rumbled through the wall into the wrought iron enclosure. When the inner gate shut behind it, the outer gate opened.
“Holy shit,” Seffie whispered.
Suppressing gunfire mowed down zombies in the truck’s path. As it closed the distance, the rocking of the car they huddled on lessened. The over-tall truck pulled alongside as a round top hatch opened.
“Come on, get a move on!” shouted the man who popped up through the hatch.
They all leaped at once, landing on the truck with a hollow thud. First Seffie, then Mike climbed in. Connor fell down the ladder with trembling legs and clumsy feet, shaking from head to toe, and collapsed on the floor.
Their amused-looking rescuer scurried back up the ladder, secured the hatch, then slid down firefighter-style with his feet pressed against the outer rails.
“Okay, Jimmy, let’s go!” he shouted toward the front.
The truck jolted forward and began a wide U-turn. Connor crawled out of the way and leaned against a row of lockers built into the truck’s wall.
“Thanks,” he said, extending his hand to the stranger, who took it in his own, giving a firm business-like shake. “We were just about to blow ourselves up.”
“Is that right?”
“Why’d you do it?” Seffie asked, a rescue from certain death not enough to overcome her suspicious nature.
The man began to laugh.
“I made a bet with Jimmy up there,” he said, gesturing toward the driver. “He said you weren’t gonna last one minute once the flare went up. I said you’d climb and make it to the end of the cars. He said he’d drive out himself to get you if I was right.”
Seffie’s posture relaxed. Connor did not know what had happened to her, but she was suspicious of altruism. Bets, on the other hand, even those made at her expense, she understood.
“You’ll need some skills, something to offer if you want to live here,” the man continued. “They don’t let you stay just because you made it.”
“We’re not going to San Jose,” Mike said.
For the first time, their rescuer looked surprised. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“SCU,” Connor said. “We’re here to see Father Walter Brennan.”
The man looked, if anything, even more surprised than before.
“You better be ready to pull the tiger’s tail if you’re going to see the Jesuits,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, they run a tight ship, but they piss the City Council off on a regular basis.”
“That sounds about right. Jesuits have always been troublesome priests,” Connor said, feeling suddenly exhausted. Dying would have been clear-cut. Surviving in an unfamiliar landscape was always a murky, dangerous business.
Even tucked away in the chapel of the Jesuit Residence, Connor could feel the energy that seemed to make the building hum. He, Seffie, and Mike had been parked in the chapel with the promise of a meal and an assurance that Father Walter would arrive soon. When the chapel doors whooshed open a few minutes later, Connor turned in his seat.
“Connor,” said Father Walter, the relief in his voice making the lilt of his Irish brogue more pronounced. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”
Connor found himself wrapped in an embrace before it seemed that anyone had moved. “Not as much as you are, Father Walter.”
The middle-aged priest stepped back, his hand on Connor’s shoulder. He was a small man, slight of build. His brown hair was shot through with gray, but not in a manner that looked particularly distinguished. His nose was too big and his chin weak, but his hazel eyes were startling in their beauty. Despite a ready smile and genuine desire to connect with others, Connor knew that Walter sometimes came off as aloof. In reality, he was quite shy.
“You look like a Santa Cruz panhandler!” Walter said, seeming to recover a little from the emotional wallop of seeing his former student.
Connor burst into laughter. “You just couldn’t resist, could you, Old Man? Even now.”
“And you smell like one, too!”
They laughed, wiping tears from their eyes. Walter ushered Connor back toward his companions. At the back of the room, the chapel doors opened again, this time revealing a young man carrying a tray of sandwiches, a bottle of milk, and three glasses. He beat a hasty retreat as the hungry arrivals swarmed him.
“So, what’s the craic and scandal? When did you get here?” Walter asked.
“Half an hour ago. I’ve never been so happy to get through a fortified gate in my life,” Connor replied around a mouthful of his sandwich. He swallowed and proceeded with introductions.
“This is Mike Sealy,” he said, motioning to the burly man on his right. “And this”—he hooked his thumb to the left—“is Seffie Johnson. Mike, Seffie, this is Father Walter Brennan. He leads the Jesuit Community here at SCU.”
The pew creaked as Mike Sealy shifted his barrel-chested frame. He took a moment to finish chewing his food before he stood to greet Walter.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Mike said, looking Walter in the eye, every movement performed with an economy of motion that betrayed his military background.
“I’ve heard good things about you from my brothers in Mazatlán,” Walter replied.
Seffie swiped at a dribble of milk on her chin. She wiped her hand on her blue bandana as she looked Walter up and down. She gestured at the crucifix on the wall.
“I don’t have much use for this crap. Or priests. Especially after this clusterfuck of a trip.”
Connor watched Walter freeze for a moment at Seffie’s acerbic sally.
“Yes, well,” Walter said, “we’ll find you a comfortable bed for the duration.”
“Don’t pay too much attention, sir,” offered Mike. “She’s naturally crabby.”
“Fuck you, Mike,” Seffie said, but with fondness.
“Now, now, little girl,” Mike chided, grinning at her.
“What happened?” asked Walter. “We expected you six weeks ago. Fourteen of you, not including this one,” he said, tilting his head at Connor.
“What didn’t happen, is more like it,” Connor answered. “We ran into some weather just north of Santa Barbara and lost the sailboat. We couldn’t get another, so we walked.”
“What?” Walter said, a horrified expression on his face. “But that’s three hundred miles!”
“Three people didn’t even make it to shore,” Connor continued. “It’s bad around Santa Maria. We lost
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