Soulless (A Zombie Erotic Romance) (5 page)

But I didn't jump to the other
side.

The last of our group of chasers, the
one who had never come inside to begin with, content with slamming
his open palms against the glass instead, staggered around the
corner of the building. The three inside approached the broken
glass around that time, too. All four of them surveyed the yard,
spying their fallen companion. Slowly, seeking, they scanned for
Evan.

And then they saw him. Evan grabbed
onto the tree and lifted himself up. Or, he tried to. He used the
wrong arm and winced in pain, then jumped back to the
ground.

The group of others saw him and
regained their desire for the chase. The one already on the ground
bolted forward, intent on getting to Evan before the rest. One of
the ones on the second floor of the library furrowed his brow for a
moment, but then leapt to the ground. Better prepared than his
predecessor, he landed lightly in the grass, ready to
hunt.

This time with his other arm, Evan
grabbed the lowest branch again. He tried to climb one-handed, but
wasn't making much progress.

I stared at him, then glanced towards
his soon-to-be attackers. Back and forth, my eyes darted from one
to the other. He couldn't get up, wouldn't be able to make it in
time.

Laying flat against the top of the
wall, I reached one arm down and stretched it out as far as I
could.

"Evan!" I screamed.

He saw me, saw my hand. With one last
ditch effort, he snatched a branch with his good arm and reached up
for my hand with his bad one. I touched him, felt the heat flare
into my palm. It shocked and startled me, even now, but I clenched
my hand into a fist and squeezed his hand in mine.

Clamping my eyes shut, too scared to
look, I pulled. Hard. Harder than I ever thought I'd pulled
anything before.

Evan's shoulder popped; I felt it. My
eyes opened, shocked, and I gasped aloud. I'd meant to help him but
I'd hurt him even more. I couldn't bear to look, didn't want to see
the others descend upon him in bloodthirsty panic. And yet I didn't
want to never see him again, either. I wanted to hold his hand and
feel his warmth. I wanted him to touch my cheek and smile at me and
talk to me as if I was just a regular person again.

I wanted it so badly it hurt. Unlike
physical pain, this pain wasn't dulled.

Dumbfounded, scared and panicked, eyes
wide and fearful, I watched as Evan scrambled up the tree easily
and leaped onto the top of the wall. He sat down next to me, legs
dangling over the sides, while the others below us tried to grab
his feet.

"Whew!" he said. "That was
close."

"What happened?" I asked, staring at
him. I didn't understand any of this.

"Oh. Thanks for that. I must have kind
of popped my shoulder out of place a little when I caught you
before. Nothing too bad, just really painful if you don't let it
fix itself. I could have done it if I had some time, but, you
know?" He offered a curt nod to the ground and the others snatching
for his boots. "Your way was much quicker."

"Oh," I said. "You're
welcome."

Evan grabbed his crossbow and quiver
and strapped them to his back again, then twisted around and jumped
off the wall into the alleyway below. Standing patiently and
waiting for me, he held out his arms as if to catch me.

"I'm not letting you catch me," I
said.

He laughed. "That might be for the
best."

I jumped fine and landed beside
him.

"Do you have a place to stay?" he
asked.

I blinked at him, eyes hazy. "What do
you mean?"

"I don't actually know how that works.
I assume you go somewhere for the night, though? Or just whenever?
I'm not sure. Do you have a home or, uh... do you wander around the
city?"

"Oh," I said. "Yes. There's a house
outside the city in the forest. It's off a side road. I usually go
there. It's not too far away and it's quiet and nice. I..." I
paused because I didn't want to say this to him, but I knew I had
to. "I should go now, then. It was nice meeting--"

He stopped me. "I'll walk you home."
Taking my hand in his, offering me his warmth once more, he smiled.
"It's the least I can do, right?"

...

After sneaking through the city and
leaving by way of one of the back roads, Evan and I walked easily
the rest of the way to my home. My home, I thought. I was going to
show it to him, but I hadn't expected to ever show it to
anyone.

It wasn't truly mine, either. I'd
claimed it, as it was, though who knew if the previous owners cared
too much. I hadn't seen them--or anyone--in the few months that I'd
stayed there.

The driveway was long and winding;
hardpacked dirt surrounded on either side by trees. At the end, in
a clearing, was the house and the yard. Whoever lived here before
probably liked their privacy, and I liked mine, too. I never really
went into the yard, but it was nice, with a fenced in section in
the back and a more open space in the front and sides. A big place,
but not in the grand scheme of things. Just a small cutaway section
in the middle of nowhere, nothing that would ever really catch
someone's eye.

Or so I thought.

"Wow," Evan said. We walked side by
side, holding hands, arms swaying back and forth. "How did you find
this place? Was it yours before?"

"No," I said. "They abandoned it. I
don't remember how I found it."

"You don't remember?"

Halfway down the driveway, only a
little more to go. I thought maybe I should've ignored his question
and changed the subject, but the words came out of my mouth,
unbidden.

"I think it's this way for everyone,"
I said. "Everyone like me; the zombies. We get lost. I don't know
how to explain it besides that. Almost all the time I feel lost and
alone and confused, like I should be going somewhere, but I don't
know where to go. I wander a lot because of that. Just kind of in a
daze, you know? I walked out of the city one day into the woods and
then I ended up here."

We reached the end of the driveway,
walking the last few steps in silence. I started to head for the
stairs up a tiny hill that led to the front porch and door, but
Evan stopped me. Pulling me back to him, squeezing my hand, he
said. "You're not a zombie, Sadie."

"I know you're trying to act kind," I
said, taking my hand away; feeling sad when he let me go. "I am,
though. I don't have a heartbeat anymore. I've tried to feel it
before, but I can't find it. I'm dead, Evan. I don't know how to
tell you that and I don't want to be that, but that's what I
am."

"Let me try," he said.

"What?"

"I don't think you're dead. Let me see
if I can find your pulse."

I furrowed my brow at him,
harrumphing, but decided to give in. Shoving my arm out towards
him, palm upraised, I said, "Go ahead, but you won't find
anything."

His blazing fingers wrapped around my
wrist. Resting his thumb on the outer part of my upturned hand, he
went about proving me right. I stood there, watching him, knowing I
shouldn't get my hopes up but wondering if maybe I was wrong. I
knew I wasn't, though.

I breathed in and out, and still
nothing. Evan waited patiently for a few seconds, shifting his
thumb a little this way and that, but I recognized that look on his
face. He hadn't found anything either and would soon need to accept
what I'd told him.

He frowned, looking from my wrist to
my face, ready to speak, but then he hesitated. His eyes lit up, a
smile on his face, and he shook his head fast.

"No," he said.

"No what?" I asked. "What are you
saying?"

I sounded desperate, I knew it, but I
needed him to say something more than "No." What did he mean? Why
did he look excited? What was going on?

"It's faint. A little weak, but I can
feel it. Your pulse is very low, though. That's probably why you're
body temp is lower. I can't say with absolute certainty, but I
think it's maybe six or seven beats per minute."

"I don't believe you," I said. I
wanted to believe him. I wanted to cry and hug him and tell him he
was the only person who'd given me any hope in such a very long
time, but I couldn't. If I believed him, I knew it would only hurt
me more when I realized the truth later.

"Here," he said. "I'll show
you."

"I appreciate the nice lie," I said,
gazing off into the trees while he took my other hand and placed my
fingers on my wrist. "I think it's nice of you to do that and I
don't hate you for it, but you can tell me the truth. We're both
adults here."

My fingers lay on my wrist,
motionless. Everything was motionless. I had no pulse, no
heartbeat. Maybe I had no heart? What if that's what happened? Four
chambers in my chest, shriveling up inside me, transforming into
nothing more than a hardened lump of muscle.

A throbbing bump.

My eyes widened and I stared at my
wrist. It had taken awhile, but I felt something.

Evan laughed, excited.
"See?"

"It was a mistake," I said. "Let me
feel more."

He nodded and moved close to me,
resting his hands on my forearms by my elbow. I felt glistening,
warm, and giddy. Maybe ten seconds or so later, I felt it
again.

Bump!

I laughed. I wanted to jump around and
dance and scream at the sky, but instead I grabbed Evan and kissed
him. I didn't know where that came from, except maybe I needed to
because he was the only person around? Was that all,
though?

A flood of emotion swelled through me
as our lips touched. I felt alive and healthy, warm and pulsating.
I wasn't dancing, I was kissing, but my body couldn't quite tell
the difference at the moment. Some quivering cadence of molten fire
surged through me.

I nearly passed out from the raw
feeling of it. Overwhelmed, the warmth crashed into me and made me
shaky on my feet. I teetered from side to side in a strange,
intoxicated state, and would have fallen if Evan hadn't caught me.
The warmth of his fingers was softer than the heat of his lips and
it leveled me to a more balanced state of pleasure.

I stared at him. He looked at me,
concerned, but not too much. Happy, yes, and worried, and curious.
I liked Evan. He seemed like a nice person.

"Do you want to come in?" I
asked.

...

I shouldn't have invited anyone into
my house, because I never cleaned it. Not to say it was horribly
dirty, but it wasn't in the best of shape before I arrived, and I'd
done nothing to fix it up afterwards, either. I used the kitchen
for the bowls, spoons, the microwave, and a can opener, then the
bedroom for the bed and the bookcase, and that was about
it.

We stumbled inside, tripping over a
clutter of jackets laying on the ground near the coat
closet.

"It's nothing fancy," I said. "I
should clean more, but it's difficult to remember to."

"This is a really nice house," he
said, awed. "I love it. I used to live with another guy before
everything happened, so I don't mind the clutter too much. It's not
even that bad to be honest."

"I try to take out the trash at the
very least," I said. Why was I telling him this? I sounded like
some dirty loser. "I don't eat much, though. I get full really
fast. I think that's a part of this? I'm not sure."

Evan nodded, listening, peering around
my home. He moved past me and walked into the dining area with the
open kitchen to the right. There was a living room off to the left,
open as well, then a glass door in front of us leading to a porch
and the backyard.

"This is nice," he said, removing his
crossbow and quiver from his back and tucking them into a corner of
the living room. "Too bad that huge TV doesn't work."

I laughed. "It does work, actually,
but I don't use it. There's nothing ever on."

"Huh?" he asked.

"Look. Come here." Pointing the way
through the rear glass door, I showed him the generator hidden near
the back side of the house. "I fill it with gas from a nearby gas
station. It's been running fine since I came. I try not to use it
often, though, because I don't know how long it'll last. I love it,
though. It's not much, but..."

"What?" he asked. "It's alright. You
can tell me if you want. I won't think it's strange."

I laughed because that was exactly
what I'd been thinking. Strange, Sadie. Why are you telling this
man you've just met about all the terrible things that are wrong
with you? I was kind of surprised he hadn't run away screaming
yet.

"I turn it on for a few minutes every
couple of days to use the microwave," I whispered. "I heat up a can
of beans or soup or whatever I can find while I'm out and about--"
Oh, yes, out and about. Like I was just heading to the store to do
some weekly shopping. "It really helps. I know it's dumb, but when
I eat hot food, I feel normal for a little while. I don't know how
long, but it helps."