Dead Sexy (4 page)

We’d met up again during our first semester at community college. I was taking Intro to Small Business Management—at my mother’s request—and she was pregnant with the quarterback’s kid. I started hanging out with her because she was a whiz at double entry bookkeeping and stuck around because she’s actually a nice person. These days we get together a couple of nights a month to eat barbecue and watch old movies.

Cindy’s gaze slid past me over to where D.S. was lurking in the corner. “You know what you’re doing, Gemma?”

“The usual. Kicking ass and taking names.”

“Uh huh.” She flicked her spent cigarette into the nearby gutter. “You want to come over later? I’ve got a bottle of wine. We can order in some pizza. Brian’s been asking about his favorite aunt.”

Brian is Cindy’s kid. He’s been getting into trouble since he came squealing into the world. Officially, I’m his godmother. Unofficially, we’re twins separated by time and genetics. We share a love of everything ooey, gooey, and gross. Last month, I took him out to Belle Isle and taught him how to spit.

It was awesome.

Unfortunately, he also had a strict eight-o'clock bedtime, and it was already closing on five thirty. I shook my head. “Sorry, how about the day after tomorrow?”

“He’s going uptown.” Cindy never mentioned her ex-boyfriend’s name if she could help it. In all the years we’d been friends, she’d never told me exactly why they’d broken up. The closest she’d come was sobbing, uncontrollably the first night Brian had gone ‘uptown’ for court appointed visitation with his father.

Her hands clenched into fists. “I was going to see about picking up an extra shift here.”

“Forget about it, and forget about the pizza. We’re going out. Someplace nice.” I grinned.

Cindy rolled her eyes. “Your idea of someplace nice is a restaurant with paper napkins.”

“Hey, at least they have napkins.”

Cindy shook her head. “I’ll pick the restaurant. You bringing the hottie?”

The hottie. I’ve got to admit, it took me a moment to figure out exactly who she was talking about. Cindy’s not a bigot, but she’s also not attracted to cold flesh.

“Tall, dead, and sexy?” I pointed a finger at D.S. just to be sure.

The guy was grinning like a banshee, strong white teeth bared to the world. Great, now he knew  I thought he was sexy. That wouldn’t make things awkward at all.

Cindy blinked in surprise. “He’s dead? He doesn’t look it. He looks hot.”

Even I had to double check to be sure. D.S. was pretty damn good looking for a zombie. His Coppertone skin hid the usual Biter pallor, and he padded forward with a vitality that had me gasping for air. Even his micro-expressions were relatively human, the slight crinkle of skin on the side of his mouth when he smiled, the way his gaze flicked over me, lingering softly on my lips.

That didn’t in any way mitigate the way he held himself when he came to a stop at my side, the fact that his chest never expanded as it filled with air, and the way his presence, made my skin tingle.

He might have started out human, but now he was completely alien.

He extended a hand to Cindy. “Friends call me Thomas.” His gaze flicked over her crisp uniform pants and tight white T-shirt. “We’re definitely going to be friends.”

Un—freaking—believable. My lips pulled back into an angry growl. His friends called him Thomas, but I was stuck with a pair of freaking initials?

I elbowed him in the side. “Stop hitting on people. It’s creepy. You’re dead.”

“I’m not hitting on anyone. I’m being friendly.” D.S. turned to look directly at me. “You want me to hit on someone, just say the word. I’ll be at your service.”

I kicked him in the shins.

“Not very ladylike.” He grinned.

“It was the best I had.” I took a deep breath, forcing air down into my lungs. “The day I ask you to flirt with me will be a cold day in hell.”

Forget the fact he was a corpse. Forget the fact that no matter how spicy our conversation the end result was always going to be bone cold. The man was a jerk who knew exactly how good looking he was… and how to use his looks to put a girl on edge. He was manipulative, controlling, and—

“That could be arranged.” He stretched slowly in the low light, raising his arms over his head. The edge of his shirt pulled free from his jeans, revealing a hard ridge of muscle; the kind of rocky torso a woman couldn’t help but fantasize about tracing with her tongue.

Damn, I swallowed hard. “Go wait in the truck.”

“The view’s not as good in the truck.”

“The view’s not as good with my foot lodged in your behind.”

D.S. Crossed his arms in front of his chest. He considered me for a long moment, his expression, dark and ominous. Clearly, he didn’t like being told what to do. He must have remembered the stun gun because he gave Cindy a deep nod—if I didn’t know better I’d call it a bow—and wandered off into the darkness.

Damn, the man had a nice ass.

“You sure he’s dead?” Cindy asked.

“He lifted a car off me this afternoon.”

She nodded slowly. “Too bad. I could use some time in the sack to unwind. It wouldn’t hurt you either.”

I flushed. “Uh huh.”

“Still holding onto that v-card. Don’t you know it’s five years out of style?”

“What can I say? I’m retro.” There was a moment’s pause, and we both broke down laughing. That was the best part about being friends with Cindy. Underneath her prissy princess exterior, she was always up for a laugh. After a few more comments, she gave me a warm hug and vanished back into the building. The sound of accordion music ghosted out into the alley behind her.

I wandered around to the side of the building where they kept the kitchen dumpster's and waited. A few minutes later, a stocky man in a dishwasher’s uniform appeared holding a bag of trash in one-hand and a giant paper bag full of hamburgers in the other. “You Cindy’s friend?” he asked.

“You see anyone else out here?”

“I don’t want to get in trouble,” he said.

“Don’t worry.” I grinned. “I’ve got you covered.” I took the bag and almost gagged on the smell.

“Twenty-four of Whacko World’s finest Whacky Burgers will do that to you,” The dishwasher said. He slung the bag of trash into the dumpster with a bang. “We keep petroleum jelly in the kitchen. Rub a little under your nose at the beginning of the shift, and you can’t smell anything for hours.”

It was a good tip. I smiled wryly and headed for my truck. I was pretty sure I’d left it locked, but that hadn’t stopped D.S. from climbing into the driver’s seat. Biters aren’t allowed to drive—their reflexes are impaired by necrosis—but telling D.S. that would probably earn me a death threat.

Or a sarcastic look.

I got in on the passenger side and thrust the bag into the foot well.

“You smell that?” I asked.

“Like someone died? It’s hard to miss.”

Good to know. The current theory is that Biter’s choose their food based on their sense of smell. In the beginning, their sense of smell is supercharged… along with their killer instinct. After a few days, their hyped up senses calm down as their sense of being returns. I figure it’s all a load of hooey, but that didn’t make his information any less useful.

“I hope that’s not dinner,” D.S. said. “I’d rather eat you.”

“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes. “We’ll pick up dinner on the way to Indian Village.”

There was a long pause. Clearly the man was new to Detroit. I dragged my keys from my pocket and thrust them into his hand. “The neighborhood where we met earlier. That’s Indian Village.”

“Of course.” The rusty old truck roared to life, and D.S. directed it smoothly out of the parking lot. “I waited in the truck because you were talking to a friend. I respect that.” The truck hit a pothole, and the shocks crunched. “It was a kindness. I won’t do it again. I’m a man, not a dog.”

6.

Indian Village is a nice neighborhood with grand boulevards and big ass houses, but it’s still in Detroit. That means industrial grade fences and—at night—empty streets. We’d stuck the burger bag under a working streetlight and camped out down the road.

Now, I don’t have a lot of experience with men, but sitting in my truck’s two-butt cab, listening to music, and eating Thai food with D.S. felt suspiciously like a date. Even if his beef curry was bloody.

It was beginning to piss me off.

I’m a consummate professional. I kick butt, take names, and never miss a chance to nail a Biter to the wall. I don’t get involved, and I definitely don’t fantasize about a white picket fence, a dog named Spot, and two-point-five undead kids in the yard.

“Tell me about yourself.” I picked at my Pad Thai. “Where are you from?” I waited a beat. “How did you die?”

D.S. shrugged. “Not much to tell.”

“Tall, dead, and mysterious. It’s a good look on you.”

“Glad to know you think I look good.”

It took everything I had not to hit him. “Seriously, tell me something about yourself. Something real.”

I needed to hear that he was a baby-eating monster who dripped embalming fluid and tortured cats in his spare time.

Anything to keep me from jumping his bones.

“Wisteria,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“I used to be a gardener. Back when I was alive.” He ate a piece of meat. “I don’t remember much—Biters don’t remember—but I know that I loved gardening. Sometimes at night I can still smell wisteria.”

Not the most-useful piece of information in the world. I considered it. “Okay, but have you ever killed someone?”

He shifted in his seat until he was facing me full on. “You want me to tell you all my deepest, darkest secrets? The horrors I’ve lived through. The things I’ve done.” There was a slight pause. “You want me to make this easy for you?”

“Please.”

He nodded slowly. His kissable lips twisting up into a wry smile. “I wasn’t always a gardener. For a long time, I was a soldier. I killed men. A lot of men. Have you ever been to war?”

“I cleaned out a Biter nest on Grand River about a year back. There were only supposed to be three of them.” The building had been full to the brim with zombies. Horror movie monsters with gaping holes in their neck. The smell had been incredible, so much rotting flesh in one place.

I’d taken out two before the first one noticed me… After that it had been a free for all. “I still wake up nights, sweating.”

“War is nothing like that,” D.S. said. “War is hell. It’s being stuck in a hole in the ground. Eating mud. Wearing mud. After a while, the only thing I could see was my gun, and the only thing that mattered was watching out for the guy sitting next to me.”

The world outside the truck was dark and ominous. Only a few lights flickered on the street. The stars were bright, and when I took a breath I could still taste the last pungent traces of Whacko World burgers in the air.
Definitely not wisteria.
I nodded slowly, trying to picture D.S. in a war zone.

“There’s a lot of mud in Afghanistan?”

“I told you, I’m older than I look.”

Iraq then. I nodded slowly. War had stopped after the dead rose. Governments were too busy fighting their own people to worry about the dictator next store. Still, I remembered the newspaper photos from my childhood. I could imagine D.S., in desert cammos with a gun on his hip and a shit-eating grin on his face.

“I’m sorry.”

“You weren’t there.” He shrugged. “When the enemy came over the wall, I just started shooting. Hacking. Tearing. I didn’t know what I was doing—it wasn’t what I’d been trained for—and I shot a man. Just a kid, really. He was so damn close. I can still see the look on his face. So full of shock and surprise.” There was a short pause. “That monstrous enough for you?”

I’d have preferred a story with baby eating, but it was pretty good.

There was something moving outside. I put my Styrofoam container down on the dashboard and leaned forward. It was just a flicker—blonde hair in the moonlight—but it was definitely there. M
aybe
. “You see that?”

D.S. didn’t answer. He put his food down and opened the driver’s side door.

I followed him out onto the street. It was warm and sticky outside. The wind was blowing off the nearby river, and the night air smelled sweet and fresh. “This needs to be delicate. No major damage.”

He snorted in disbelief. “
You’re
worried about
me
being heavy handed?”

“I’m worried about her parents suing my ass if you break her arm.”

There was the flicker again, followed by the rustle of leaves. The girl stepped out into the street. Andrea Mitchell was a cute kid. Big blue eyes, masses of blonde hair, and dimples on her cheeks. I’d seen the crime scene photos; she’d been wearing a fluffy pink skirt and a purple tank top when she died.

Now, she was in loose white slacks and plain white T-shirt that the hospital put on all baby Biters. After a day outside, her clothes had taken on distinct gray overtones. Goo coated her bare feet.

She approached the bag of burgers warily, her shoulders hunched over, her head darting back and forth. Like a feral animal. A dog that knows it’s been bad and is about to receive some well-deserved retribution.

I took a step forward.

“Easy,” D.S. said. “Let her get something to eat.”

“She gets the bag, she’s going to run. They always run.”

“We’ll find her. She’s not an animal. She a little girl.”

“Maybe last week, tonight she’s an animal.”

Andrea snagged the bag and ripped into it with her teeth. Proving my point. Burger meat littered the street as she began to hustle away, moving as fast as her short legs would carry her. The kid moved pretty well for someone newly dead, but the glimmering of her pale hair in the darkness made her easy enough to track.

We followed her down two blocks, D.S. padding along beside me like some kind of night predator. He paused on the corner to sniff the air. “There’s something out here.”

“Yeah.” I nodded toward the baby Biter scurrying down the road. “Her.”

“Stay behind me,” D.S. ordered.

“Like hell. This is my job. Remember? You’re just along for the ride.” And because he’d offered to pay for the Thai food. “I’m not taking orders from a dead guy, and I’m definitely not taking orders from a federal agent. This is Detroit, remember? Up here, the government’s about as useful as a zombie dick at a whorehouse.”