Dove: A Zombie Tale (Byron: A Zombie Tale Book 2) (10 page)

I never finished the thought. Byron stepped in, slipped his right hand to the small of my back, and pulled me close to him. Our chests bumped. For a dead guy, he smelled good. I could feel the warmth of his touch radiating through my shirt. The thrumming of his heart synchronized with mine. I craned my head back to look into his exotic eyes.

His face descended toward mine. Our lips brushed and electric shocks tickled my face, neck, chest, traveling through all my pleasure centers. I pushed my lips to his. Warm, supple. Our mouths opened and we explored each other, trying to understand this strange passion growing between us.

~ ~ ~

I pressed her tighter against my body, and she still tried to move closer. Her arms squeezed around me. Our mouths parted from each other.

“I don’t care anymore.” Her whispered words blew across my face. “I don’t care if you are dead, or living. I am just glad to have you with me.”

I wrapped her in my arms. “And I you.”

Her brown eyes studied my face.

“No more questions,” I said to her and kissed her lips again. “We have to get out of here. There will be more Lords. More Goners. We need to put distance between them and us. And we need to find your aunt.”

She bowed her head, pressing it against my chest. “I don’t want to move. I just want to stay here.”

“I know. But if we do that, we’ll both be dead. In a permanent sense.”

Her eyes turned cold. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

I shook my head. “No. I am trying to help you. To help you find your family and bring them back somewhere safe.”

“The prison?”

“Yes. We can hunker down there for a while as we re-provision. We will need supplies for the next leg of our journey. We’ll need a car. There’s lots of work to do to get to safety.”

She squeezed me tight again and reached up to kiss my lips. I savored the sensation.

“Okay.” She pressed a hand against my chest and pushed away from me with light pressure. “Let’s do this. Let’s go find my aunt and bring her back to safety.”

I turned and collected my weapons, slipping both swords into their sheaths, and running through what had just happened in my head. Out of nowhere, she had struck like an emotional storm. Passionate and convoluted. It was all wearing on her.

I slipped through the opening in the roof and gazed out in the distance.

Her hormone levels are elevated and changing in fits and starts. Is she unstable?

I ignored the voices, unable to respond with Dove so close on my heels.

“Which way?” I asked as she climbed up next to me. She stared out across rooftops.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen the city from this perspective before.”

Tall buildings brushed the sky to the south. A handful stood tall to the west, while to the east stretched residential housing. I pointed southeast. “There’s center-city. Your aunt lives on…”

“South Mildred Street. Between Bigler and Johnston. South of center-city. She’s a block or so from the stadium.”

I didn’t know much about Philly. But what I did know was that the stadium sat in South Philly, close to the airport. “So we have a lot of ground to cover, right?”

“Yes,” Dove said. “Too bad I crashed the hell out of my car.”

I smiled. “No biggie. We can snag another one.”

“Steal a car?”

I stared her straight in the face. “And who’s going to complain? One of the zombies you just killed? Or one of the Lords I killed? I doubt anyone is still alive enough to give a damn.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Hmm. Didn’t think of it that way. You’re right. It’s the zombie apocalypse. Until we hit some shred of civilization, there is no law anymore.”

I nodded. “Right. So let’s get us a car, and cover some ground.”

She looked over the side of the roof to our immediate problem. “What do we do about them?”

“Avoid them, of course. Come.” I held out my hand and made for the low wall separating the adjoining roofs. She took it and followed.

We clambered over a handful of rooftops, across a narrow gap between buildings, and finally reached the building fronting on North 26th Street.

Though the bulk of the horde lay behind us, stragglers still shuffled their way along the streets, heading toward Jake’s house. “We need to cross. Put a few more blocks between us and them before we climb down to the streets.” I turned and looked south along North 26th. “Climb onto my back.”

Dove looked at me like two extra heads sprang from my shoulders. “Excuse me?”

I pointed across Swain Street to the building on the south side. “We need to cross over to there. Think you can make that jump?”

She furrowed her brow. “That’s at least twelve feet across.”

I nodded. “At least. Either you can try the jump yourself, or you can climb onto my back and hang tight.”

She looked from me to the building across the way and back to me again. “Fine,” she huffed as she stepped behind me and grabbed onto my shoulders. “Are you strong enough to make the jump?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall. I stepped to the edge, then backed up, shifting her weight as best I could to center it on my back. Please don’t fall.

I broke into a sprint and pushed off with all my strength as my right foot landed on the top of the low wall. My legs pumped as I flew through the air. I heard bricks crack and tumble as I leapt into the air, gaining height. Dove squealed on my back, squeezing my neck tight. My jump reached its apex at the midpoint across the street and I began to descend in a sharp arc.

My chest burned. Damn! My eyes grew wide as my heart started pumping like mad. The edge of the building approached and I stretched myself out, barely crossing over the low wall on the other side. My foot landed and both our weights crashed through the asphalt and plank surface of the roof. I stretched my arms out, trying to stop us from falling through into the building below. Dove fell forward over my head, rolling across the roof to a stop on her back.

Pain exploded through my neck and shoulders. My chest burned where the Lord had sliced it open. I cried out through gritted teeth.

You have broken your collar bone
, the voices told me.
We are too weak to repair the damage. We need to feed.

My head swam as waves of pain washed over me. Fighting through it, I dragged myself out of the hole, tears streaming down my face.

Dove sat up and shook her head as if she woke from a daze. “Let’s not do that again.”

“Sorry,” I grunted. “Thought I was stronger than that. The colonies are weak and are fighting whatever that Lord did to me. I need to feed more.”

She stood and helped me to my feet. I nursed my arm as shocks of pain coursed through me. “Yes, you do. And I know just the place.” She pointed to the west and I gazed out across the rooftops. “Let’s go to the zoo.”

~ ~ ~

We leapt from rooftop to rooftop to Folsom Street, then followed them west. At the corner of North Taney Street, we climbed down and ran for a block to a multi-story luxury condominium complex. I cast a sideways glance at Byron. “Let’s try to keep away from that place. I don’t think it’ll be safe for us there.” A wry grin spread across his lips.

“You’re right. But, look.”

I followed to where he pointed within his finger. A number of cars crowded the street outside the building, but one of them stood out in particular. “I always wanted to drive one of those,” he said as he trotted into the street.

The boxy vehicle sported a LandRover emblem and it conjured in me images of African safari, and treks through the Serengeti in pursuit of big game. It only had two doors, but with its roof-mounted luggage rack, hood-mounted spare tire, and brush guards all over, it struck an impressive pose. Light bars graced the top of the windshield, and a large pipe with an air cleaner ran up the front of the driver’s side.

“This thing is a damn tank.” He tapped on the glass—plastic, not actual glass. “It’s plexi—will withstand abuse better than real glass.” He tried the door. Locked. Crawling under the car, he popped up a moment later with a wide, toothy grin. Dangling from his hands were a set of rusted keys on an oxidized aluminum key chain. “Hide-a-key. I love it!”

In a matter of moments, he unlocked the doors and we slipped into the vehicle. The spartan interior left little to the imagination as wires ran above and below the dashboard, and all manner of gadgets were installed in a careless fashion.

“This is a true field vehicle,” he raved.

As he slammed his driver’s door closed a shrill screech filled the air. Whoever owned the vehicle may have been foolish enough to hide keys in an obvious place, but at least had the intelligence to install an alarm system. Byron reached down to the side of the dashboard, fidgeted around, and the sound died. He sat back holding a blue two-prong automotive fuse before his eyes like a trophy. “Should take care of that problem.”

He slipped the keys into the ignition, and cranked it over. It started without hesitation. “This thing is in tremendous shape.” I closed my door. He smiled at me. “Which way?”

I pointed to Pennsylvania Avenue ahead. “That way.”

He followed my directions, turning left on Poplar, and left again on West Girard. We crossed the Schuylkill River and in a few more turns entered the Philadelphia Zoo.

Cars lined both sides of the entry road. As we rolled up, we saw the first of the Goners. He looked at me. “Wanna get out and walk, or…?”

“Crash the damn gate. The less we have to deal with those Goners, the better.”

He smiled. “My thoughts, exactly.” He pulled up onto the curb and directed the vehicle toward a maintenance road. He rolled down the windows a little and a cacophony of sounds filtered inside. The deep, throaty roar of lions. The trumpet blasts of elephants. Bears growled.

“Sounds like a party in there.” He gunned the throttle and smashed into the iron gate, busting the chains wrapped around the rails. “Oh no. Someone broke into the zoo!” He laughed to himself at the joke. “So, where to first?”

“I don’t know. What are you interested in?”

He looked up at the tree cover. “Hmm. What am I hungry for? I am thinking that until I have my strength and speed back it would suit me better to start with the smaller beasties.”

“Then you’ll want the small mammal house.” I pointed to one of the paths. “That way.”

We arrived in short time. There were only a handful of Goners shuffling around the paths. They paid us little mind as we drove past. Byron parked the vehicle and slipped out. “Lock the door and only open it up for me. None of these critters should be able to get in here while I’m gone.” He gestured to one of the shambling dead nearby.

Without another word, he disappeared into the small mammal house, leaving me alone inside the vehicle. I locked all the doors, dropping myself into my seat.

Thump! A face pressed itself up against the passenger window. Rot-blackened flesh and decay exposed its full teeth. One eye socket hung empty. It opened its mouth, a black tongue lolling out and licking the plexi. The one good eye rolled in my direction. Moans escaped from its death-frozen larynx.

Two more thumps alerted me to the fact that more creatures had arrived. One faring much worse shape than the first beat its head against the rear hatch window. The other found itself staring through the rear passenger window.

“Damn. Really?” I slumped down in my seat, sliding to the floor and curling myself up.

Thump! Bang! Thump! Thud!

I looked at my watch. Five minutes. He’d only been gone five minutes and already I attracted a crowd of creatures.

Knock—Knock.

I looked up toward the driver’s window. Byron stood there, a wild grin on his face. I scanned the other windows and found them all empty. The Goners who had surrounded the vehicle were gone.

I slid up from my place on the floor and lifted the lock mechanism. “Did you scare them off?”

Byron swiped his swords through the air, black goo splattering on the windshield. “Not quite.”

“Did you feed enough?”

He shook his head. “I want to head over to the bears. I should be able to sate my colonies with one or two. Plus, there’ll be less of a chance of Goners wandering around inside the bear cage.”

I smiled. “Ever the gentleman.”

“Whatever I can do to keep you safe, my Lady.” He slid inside and the motor roared to life. “I’ll have a couple bears, then we’re off to find your aunt.” He slammed the vehicle into gear and spun tires on the concrete pathway. “I’d like to see some damn Lord try and take me on after that.”

I turned toward him. Blood, still wet and crimson, coated the side of his face. How did I ever find a guy like this?

chapter eight

My muscles ached from their newfound strength. The infusion of blood had rejuvenated me. The tussle in the bear cage provided a little sport and a healthy dose of sustenance.

We have defeated the infection. The bacteria were controlled by our kind and proved a challenge. But we were able to isolate them from access to blood and defeat them.