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

“I’m living proof you can die of seasickness.”

Miranda rested her sweaty forehead on the icy metal of the yacht railing. The raw wind lashed from the north, needles of cold sinking deeper into her chilled bones. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering, wiped her mouth with red knuckles, then spat into the choppy waters of Puget Sound. The bitter taste of bile still filled her mouth. Three weeks of feeding the fish. One more and she would be dead for sure.

“Miranda, come see.”

Mario’s voice sounded a thousand miles away. She did not want to come see anything. She wanted to be left alone to die in peace.

Doug’s voice this time. “Miri, you’re going to want to see this.”

She straightened up. Another wave of nausea hit her, but what she saw through the morning fog caused a dizzy head rush of relief. The white spire of Seattle’s Space Needle raced up from the earth to pierce the sky, its flying saucer observation deck hovering just below the iron-gray clouds. In the fog, the Needle’s graceful tripod legs seemed to melt in and out of focus, but the dark band of the observation deck’s windows hovered in place.

The Space Needle.

If she had not been so exhausted, Miranda would have whooped for joy. Instead, she leaned against the rail and gave Mario a wan smile. They were almost to their destination. They could start looking for a marina and meet up with the Jesuits at Seattle University. They might even get word of what was happening at home. A shiver of apprehension raced up Miranda’s spine. They did not know what had happened in San Jose after they had tried to smuggle out the zombie vaccine serum. Doug’s contacts in Santa Cruz had not heard from anyone at Santa Clara University. She wanted to know if Father Walter was all right, hear his lilting Irish brogue. That something might have happened to him sent a shot of fear through her, so deep she almost could not breathe.

Get your shit together, Tucci.

She pushed the worry and speculation aside, shoved it down deep where it could not distract her. She would concentrate on what she could control, on what they were here to do. Since they had lost the zombie vaccine serum they had smuggled out of San Jose, Mario would need to develop another at Seattle University. The Jesuits had a lab ready to go. The madman Jeremiah, with his naturally immune blood, was imprisoned below. He would make a new vaccine possible.

She looked over to Mario and Doug, standing in the yacht’s cockpit. Father Doug Michel’s skinny six-foot-four frame stood ramrod straight, as if the wind, cold, and rain did not affect him. His blue eyes were vivid patches of color against his pale skin and the grayed-out horizon. He kept tossing his head to get his sandy-colored hair out of his eyes and looked as if his restless energy might make him burst. Miranda could tell he was excited to finally get here. Mario only reached Doug’s ear but looked shorter with his shoulders hunched against the wind. His dark, wavy hair reminded Miranda of Medusa’s writhing snakes with the wind whipping through it from every direction. He watched her expectantly, his dark eyes filled with excitement, and a very different kind of shiver flitted down Miranda’s spine.

She limped over and took Mario’s hand as she carefully stepped down into the cockpit, ignoring the lurch and swoop of her stomach. He gathered her in his arms and held her tight against him, pressing his cold cheek against her own. He was beyond stubble but not quite sporting a full-on beard. It had surprised her that it suited him. She looked over his shoulder at Doug, whose beaming smile would match the brilliance of the sun had it not been so cloudy. He reached over and rubbed her auburn peach-fuzzed head like he was shining a lucky penny.

“See, Coppertop? You did live long enough to get here,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling.

Miranda grinned at him over Mario’s shoulder. “Saying ‘I told you so’ is bad form.”

“It probably is,” Doug answered, “but so is making our boat smell like a vomitorium.”

Half an hour later in their cabin, as she watched Mario getting ready to leave, Miranda thought, I just got you back. Mario stopped zipping his jacket and looked up, his brown eyes filled with concern.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah,” he said, and smiled, just a little.

He sat next to her on the edge of their berth, his warm callused hand slipping comfortably around her cool red ones. She had grown tired of taking off her gloves every time she threw up over the rail but was paying the price. At his touch, she could feel her dread lighten by the tiniest fraction. He looked haunted for a moment, as if the years they had spent apart were waiting to pounce and snatch her away again.

“If your knee was okay, you would be going with Doug to make contact with the Jesuits, not me,” he said. “I know you would rather do anything else than be the one who waits.”

She sighed. “How’s that for karmic payback?”

In the grand scheme of things, the guy who could make a new vaccine was far more valuable than she was. Mario would never be going with Doug to find their allies if she was not still recovering from her sprained knee and hairline-fractured shin bones. She had lost fifteen pounds if an ounce since they started their voyage. Being sick all the time left her weak, which made her feel useless and helpless. To add insult to injury, she had to mind whack-job Jeremiah. Life wasn’t fair sometimes, but she already knew that.

“I promise, Miri. I’m coming back.”

Miranda gave herself a mental shake.

“Of course you will,” she said, but her forced cheerfulness sounded hollow.

She stood up as Mario shrugged into his backpack. He pulled her close, and when his lips brushed hers, the feeling that she would never see him again overwhelmed her. She wanted to hold him tight and never let go. She wanted to pull him to their bed and make love, knowing it would be the last time, so she could commit to memory every contour of his body, the firm and the soft, the rough and the smooth. She wanted to feel their bodies move together one last time, feel the gratitude that they had found one another again crackle and snap as it ricocheted between them until it could not be contained.

When the kiss ended, she took a step back and smiled at him. “You should go. Doug’s waiting. Don’t get dead.”

When she heard the moans, Miranda knew they were in trouble.

She had known for hours that the day was not going to plan but had made herself ignore it. The sun would be setting in thirty minutes and the moans were the first sign of anything since Mario and Doug left that morning. No calls on the radio. No flares. Not even a fucking smoke signal.

She climbed to the highest point of the yacht’s deck above the cockpit seats, keeping hold on the canopy rail, and raised the binoculars with her free hand. The moans were faint but growing louder. She could not tell how serious the trouble was from their slip at the end of Bell Harbor Marina’s pier. Across the roadway, cookie-cutter low-rise condos blocked her view.

“We hear Our children!”

Jeremiah’s voice, coming from the parlor below deck. He must have heard the zombies moaning.

“Your blasphemous treachery against Us will end, and God the All-Father will judge you as you deserve,” he continued. “But first We will teach you submission and obedience! Perhaps We will keep you for Ourselves if you can learn. You will be an example of Our power and truth...”

Ignore him, she said to herself as he kept ranting. The moaning might not mean anything. The zombies could be chasing a shadow for