Page 35 of Doomsdate

Damn, I’m staring again.

“So. Um.” I avert my eyes from Everett to the floor and point the tip of my gory machete at the downed employee. “Where did this one come from?”

“The back of the dressing room. It came up behind me while I was in the cubicle.” His voice is reedy with fear, and I feel guilty for being more concerned about the way he fills out those tight trunks right now.

“Good thinking with the parka.” I scratch my head, unsure where to look. The cashier zombies still stand lifeless at their registers, as though waiting to check us out. I glance back at him, landing on his socks. That’s safe, right? Until I notice how they stretch up to his shapely tan calves, fine brown hairs peeking out over top.

“That parka was way too thick, though. Needs to be small and packable, remember?”

“Right,” he says breathlessly.

“You gonna come down now? Maybe get dressed?” I ask gently as I wipe off my machete on a downy pink fleece.

It was ugly anyway.

“Y-yes,” Everett says.

This time, he dresses out in the open. After he gathers up his items again and picks out a weapon, we make for the front of the store, only to find two dark shapes standing before the automatic doors. The doors slide open, then close, open, then close, perpetually triggered by the cashier zombies standing guard.

“When did they move there?” Everett steps in closer beside me, one hand holding a shopping bag, the other the baseball bat.

“I…don’t know. I didn’t see them move.” It’s unnerving. Are they really as docile as they seem? Or is their dead blood waking up, demanding they eat again? It’s only ten a.m., so that’d be upsetting. I dimly wonder if some primal sense of duty to their employer spurred them into action to stop us flagrant shoplifters, but immediately dismiss the idea as I grab a trekking pole for my other hand. It’s long, metal, and wickedly pointy at the end, and with what I plan on using it for, I’d rather not think of zombies as anything other than oblivious bags of malice that want to eat us right now.

With the tip of the trekking pole, I prod the cashier on the left. She sways, still motionless, but her eyes look brighter. I note it just in time before she bats at me half-heartedly, and in the trekking pole goes, right through her eye and out the other side with a horrible, squelching plunk.

“Huh,” I say, yanking the pole out and wiping the gore on the collapsed cashier’s apron. “This works great.” When the second one lunges at me an instant later, I take him out in a similar fashion while Everett gags into the arm of his new coat. I yank him, still sputtering, through the doors before any more dedicated employees come after us.

Once we’re buckled in, I pull back onto the highway and let her rip. Everett takes out his laptop and begins feverishly typing away.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting down everything I know about zombies.” He sounds focused, determined. With his sleek, expensive winter gear on, those deep hazel eyes trained on his work, he looks like a sexy ski professor. He gives me a grim smile that, for some reason, flutters like confetti in my belly.

“They won’t surprise us again.”

A zombie movie academic with a sensitive gag reflex and a prepper that’s terrified to leave home…what a team. I take a deep, bracing breath and drive past county lines for the first time in my life.

Chapter Eight

Everett

By the time we reach the Rockfish Gap Entrance, the sun’s already tilting lazily across the horizon. I’ve never been here before, and despite all my misgivings about Maisie’s plan, a small ping of delight hits me as we pass the retro-woodsy Now Entering Shenandoah National Park On the Skyline Drive sign. It quickly dissipates, though, as we approach the giant barricade across the entrance station and the orange sign screaming Road Closed.

Maisie parks the car and hops out. The lean muscles in her arms and back work seamlessly as she starts hauling a chunk of the traffic barrier off to make a space for us to enter. She’s so strong and small and powerful, all at once, that feelings of safety and shame twirl around my chest. How did I end up in this nightmare with a total badass?

Chicken meows loudly from her carrier.

Ah. Right.

It takes me a full second to realize Maisie’s staring at me through the windshield.

“Well?” she calls. “You helping or what?”

“Right! Coming!” I save my work on my presentation, close my laptop, and nearly trip over my own feet exiting the vehicle. I grab the other side of a barrier segment she’s hauling, and together, we lift it to the side.

“Are you sure we should be doing this? The road’s, like, actually closed.”

“Yes, that’s what ‘closed’ means most of the time.” Maisie tilts her chin. “Do you always follow the rules?”