Hot and Haunted (4 page)

She said his name, over and over as she came. She laughed with it, helpless not to in what she realized suddenly was joy. Pure and unfettered, her laughter was as much a release as her orgasm. It lifted her high, and when she came down, floating slowly, Anthony was right there with her.

Nothing was attractive in the bright white light of his LED lantern, but Lira couldn’t be roused enough to care about how the shadows carved her up into pieces or emphasized the parts of her she’d rather have kept hidden. She kissed him again with him still inside her, then found his shoulder with her lips when he rolled onto his side next to her.

Anthony put his hand on her belly and kissed her mouth. He lingered. When he pulled away, he put a finger to her chin and tipped her head to one side, then the other. He traced her collarbones. He touched what she knew must be a pattern of bruises on her skin.

“I was sure you weren’t coming back.”

She touched his face. “But I did. But, Anthony . . . we have to get out of here. Today. This morning. We have to move—”

Before she could tell him why, a muffled series of shouts rang in the corridor outside. The door to his room flew open. Candace was there, holding a camping lantern high.

Lira didn’t even bother with the sheet as she sat. “Is it Heather? What’s going on?”

“No. It’s not Heather.” Candace’s eyes glittered, her mouth wide. Her gaze skittered over Anthony’s naked backside, lingering in a way Lira would’ve laughed at if she wasn’t so busy trying to figure out why Candace was bursting in.

Lira got out of bed. She thought she had an idea of the reason for Candace’s dismay. “What’s going on?”

Candace’s gaze darted back and forth before settling on Lira, still naked. “It’s a man. From outside. He says he knows you.”

Chapter Four

M
AC LOOKED TOO
big in the dining hall. Too broad. Nervous energy crackled off him, almost visible in the dining room’s harsh yellow overhead light. He was surrounded by the rabbi and Candace. Heather stood in the corner, hands on her huge belly, eyes wide, with Danny and John flanking her. Danny had a golf club and John a baseball bat. They all looked terrified.

“Mac!”

He turned, gaze taking in Anthony beside her. “Lira. You all need to move. Now. They’re into downtown already. Street by street, but they’ll be here within hours. We need to keep ahead of them. Get across the bridge.”

“What’s he talking about?” asked Rabbi Cohen. “Who is this?”

“Mac. Jason Macnamara,” he offered.

“You’re a soldier, son?”

Mac shook his head. “Not anymore. They’re coming through with guns and fire and gas. Reclaiming the city.”

“From the undead?” the rabbi said.

Mac shook his head, giving Lira a look. “No, sir. From everything inside it. If you all don’t get out of here, you’re going to be killed along with everything else.”

Anthony’s hand had been resting on her shoulder. Now he stepped forward. “What do we need to do?”

Mac looked at him, his gaze sliding over Lira without locking on her. “Take only what you can’t live without. Be ready to go in an hour. Earlier if possible. The more time we have to get in front of them, the better. The closest bridge—”

“I can’t go up there! I can’t go anywhere!” This came from Heather, who sounded hysterical. She pushed past Danny and John. “There are those things up there! Monsters!”

“It’s leave now or die,” Lira said bluntly. She liked Heather though she’d never allowed herself to get too close to the other woman. “We all have to go, just like Mac says.”

Anthony looked at her. “Did you know each other . . . before?”

“No. We met up there.”

“She saved my life,” Mac said frankly. “Your woman’s a damned good fighter.”

“She’s not my woman,” Anthony said.

Rabbi Cohen bustled forward. “Where will we go? How . . . ?”

“On foot. To the bridge, it’s a half mile.”

“It’s daylight,” Lira pointed out. “We have a pregnant woman about to go into labor any second. Once we get over the bridge, where do we go? They’re sweeping the city. Won’t they just keep coming?”

Mac’s gaze went steely. “I don’t know. But I know that once we get out of downtown, we can start heading north. There’s a place I know of. Rumor says there’s a group there, holed up.”

“What is it?” Anthony, no longer touching her, the distance between them vast, took a step forward.

“It’s a storage facility. Used to be a mine.” Mac gave Anthony an unwavering look. “Before this all started, a buddy of mine used to brag that if anything went down, he’d taken a share in some survivalist camp. Even if nobody’s there, it’s where we should go.”

L
IRA HAD NOTHING
to pack. They had to move fast and light. She was used to that. It would be a relief, anyway, to head out without the weight of a pack on her back. She’d have the weight of responsibility, though.

The rabbi had been terrific, calming Heather’s fears and getting Candace under control. Danny and John had been their typical steadfast selves. Maybe it was their teenage confidence. Mac had outlined exactly what they were going to do, how long it would take, how they would make it. He and Anthony had worked together, getting things ready to go.

Everyone got a small bag loaded with a few cans of food and some personal items. The boys carried extra bedding and the medical supplies. They were ready to go. But Anthony hung back watching as Mac herded the others toward the stairs. And Lira hung back, watching Anthony.

“We need to get out of here. C’mon,” she said.

Anthony looked at her, gaze steady and assessing. “You believe him?”

“Yes. I have no reason not to.” Lira studied him. This was not the time for a confrontation if there was going to be one, but she’d have it if he needed it. She supposed she owed him that.

He nodded sharply, looking after the crowd that had become like a family over the past few months in solitude. “Is he immune?”

That stopped her. “I . . . don’t know. He’s not sick. I do know that.”

“He’s a soldier. Maybe they got a vaccine or something.” Anthony paused. “You fought those things with him?”

“Yes, Anthony.”

He looked at her then, knowing her so well he didn’t really need to ask. “And after?”

She took his hand. Squeezed it. Lira linked her fingers with his and brought his hand to her lips. She kissed his knuckles. “Nothing else matters except that I came back here.”

He smiled and pulled her closer. He pushed her hair out of her eyes and held her face in his hands to stare down at her before brushing her mouth in an embrace too soft to really be called a kiss. He started to speak, but she shook her head.

“Later,” Lira told him. “Now, we have to go.”

None of the others had been upstairs and outside in months. They hadn’t seen daylight. They hadn’t seen what the riots had done, or what havoc the Resurrected had wrought. With Mac in the lead and Lira bringing up the rear, their small group stood on the buckled sidewalk in front of the synagogue, blinking and shielding their eyes against the sun.

Rabbi Cohen murmured a prayer. Candace turned in a circle, eyes wide and panicked. Danny and John, inseparable and still behaving like teenagers, took off to leap and cavort along some debris. Heather stood frozen until the rabbi took her by the elbow to lead her gently along the sidewalk. The bridge Mac wanted them to use wasn’t far, but they still had to get going.

From the distance came the sound of gunfire. A low, thudding boom of something bigger. Lira turned, shading her eyes against the noonday brightness she was no more used to than any of them. Smoke in the sky.

Heather let out a low, wavering scream and pointed. A Resurrected had come around the corner. Then another. Some moved faster than others, depending on the amount of decay and damage to their bodies, but they were all moving too fast to suit Lira. It was unlikely but not impossible that one or all of them could suddenly set off at a run. She wasn’t going to take a chance.

Apparently, Mac wasn’t either. He locked eyes with her and gestured. “Let’s move it. Lira, defend the rear. Anthony, flank the right. I’ll take the left.”

They couldn’t run, but they could all walk fast. Anthony and Mac worked together as a team, working their way through the debris, overturned cars, and garbage. Lira brought up the back, keeping an eye on the Resurrected, who didn’t yet seem focused on them. More appeared every few minutes, clearly being driven ahead of the soldiers. Some fell and were kicked aside or fallen upon by their comrades. Others stopped to stare up at the sky, and when one stopped, inevitably so did others, more and more until a crowd gathered. It was too much to hope they’d stay that way. As more of them arrived, moving just ahead of the driving soldiers, the soldiers broke into the groups and scattered them.

“Just keep moving,” Lira told a whimpering Candace, who was dragging her feet. “They’re far enough behind us. Get to the bridge.”

“And then what?” Candace snapped. “Are they like vampires? They can’t cross running water? What?”

Truthfully, Lira had no idea what they’d do if the Resurrected followed them across the bridge. Or the soldiers, for that matter. “Keep moving, Candace. Unless you want to be left behind.”

“We should’ve stayed in the basement! We were safe there!” Candace stopped solid.

Ahead of them, the rest of the group kept going. Lira stopped. “Didn’t you hear what Mac said? The Army is coming. They’re going to wipe out everything—”

“How do you know he’s not lying? Just telling us that to lure us away?” Candace’s hands fluttered. “What if he’s just some sicko who wants like a harem or something?”

“I believe him.” Lira looked over her shoulder at the growing horde. She could see only part of it. More distant gunshots. The thudding
whoomp
of what she thought might be gas canisters exploding. “Look at the Resurrected. The soldiers are pushing everything ahead of them.”

Candace shuddered, refusing to look. “How do I know they don’t always do that?”

“Because they—” Before Lira could finish, a woman staggered out of one of the storefronts.

She wore a bathrobe and slippers. Blood had run down her legs. It covered her face from what looked like a wound in her scalp where the skin and hair dangled, showing glimpses of red and white bone beneath.

“Wait!” she cried. “Oh, God! Wait for me!”

Anthony turned at the voice as the woman, arms out, hands beseeching, tripped over her own feet and fell toward him. He caught her neatly with one hand, the other arm out to keep Danny and John from getting closer. Mac had stepped in front of Heather and the rabbi.

“Gross,” Candace said.

Ignoring her, Lira moved toward them. Before she could get close enough, the woman started laughing. Loud, raucous, braying laughter. It sprayed blood. She tipped her face to the sky, eyes so wide the sun had to be searing them, but she didn’t even blink. Anthony stepped back, letting her go, but it was too late. She grabbed his sleeve with one hand, his bare wrist with the other. She dug in her heels, holding him tight even when he tried to pull away so that her feet skidded along the concrete and her slippers fell off. The laughter ratcheted up and up, higher and louder.

She was sick.

Lira had seen it before. She ran. She got between them, hacking at the woman’s gripping hands with her fists because she didn’t have time to get out her knife.

The laughter became a thick, throaty roar. The woman’s mouth yawned impossibly wide. So did her eyes. Even her nostrils flared.

“Get back, Anthony! Cover your face! Everyone, cover—”

Black smoke poured from the woman’s face. Not smoke, it just looked like smoke. It was really a swarm of tiny black spores, a cloud, and Lira held her breath to keep anything from getting inside her. It was everywhere, over all of them. She slapped at her cheeks and scraped at her mouth to keep the taste of it from coating her tongue.

It was sweet and sour, delicious and nauseating at the same time. The woman, face gushing red and black from every orifice, staggered again and went to her knees with a solid
thunk.
Then flat onto her face with a thick and meaty sound that made Lira’s throat close in disgust.

“Anthony,” Lira managed to say, “did you breathe it?”

He shook his head, a hand over his nose and mouth. Would it be enough? She had no idea. Society had broken down before anyone seemed to get a clue about how the infection spread, just that it came from those spores.

“Did any of you breathe it?”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Rabbi Cohen said. “But for now, I think it’s best we keep moving, no?”

Another volley of gunshots. Another boom. More smoke. The Resurrected mingling in the streets let out a long, low hum in unison. As one, they turned their faces to the sky. The sound and motion caused the fine hairs on the back of Lira’s neck to rise.

“Why the hell do they keep doing that?” Mac said.

“No idea,” Anthony answered. “But I vote we get out of here. Now.”

The bridge wasn’t far. Just another block or so. Beyond it, Lira had no idea of what would happen, just that they needed to get the hell out of downtown Pittsburgh.

Just as the group reached the end of the block, the hum behind them rose to a high-pitched whine. It sounded nothing like what could ever come from a human mouth. With the bridge and uncertain freedom in front of them, Lira looked back.

All of them, all the risen dead, were crawling with vines. Red tendrils, green vines, blue and purple flowers, the stink of which made her want to vomit. The flowers sprouted out of ears, noses, mouths, they burst through shredded skin and ran along the ground, taking root even in concrete and fallen metal. Stunned, she couldn’t move as she watched this sudden explosion.

As the flowers bloomed bigger and brighter and the scent grew stronger, panic pushed her to shove at Candace, still stupidly reluctant. “Go! Move!”

Behind them, the whining grew louder. So did the
shush-shush
of vines spreading out, all over everything. Almost to the bridge, Lira looked at the sky over the city. It was black with smoke. The vines spread, growing unbelievably fast, covering everything. The flowers bloomed, growing bigger and bigger.

Then, they started to open.

L
IRA COULD STILL
smell those flowers. The stench of them had covered everything, the stink of the dead, the smoke in the air, her own sweat. The taste coated her tongue and the inside of her nose.

They’d made it across the bridge before the Army appeared, and the vines and flowers hadn’t followed more than a few feet after them. Lira had expected an explosion of inescapable spores, but on the other side, as she’d looked over her shoulder, all she could see were the blooms stretching upward toward the sky.

At least they didn’t have to walk. Danny had shown a surprising skill at hot-wiring an ancient conversion van on the side of the road, giving them all a guilty grin when the engine coughed into life. They might run out of gas before they made it to the Gateway Commerce Center, where Mac said there were survivors, weapons, food. Safety. They’d worry about that closer to the time.

Lira couldn’t be sure anyone was infected, but something had definitely happened. Candace had been puking, on and off, for the past hour. The boys and Rabbi Cohen were pale-faced but not sick. Mac and Anthony were also suffering though neither would admit it. Heather was the only one of them not floundering. She sat in the back of the van with her hands over her belly moving in slow circles, staring out the window in silence. Mac drove the van slowly through the wreckage on the road as Candace hung her head out the window, and Lira braced herself for her own sympathetic gagging. A trip that would’ve taken forty minutes on normal roads would take a full day or longer, and they could consider themselves lucky it wouldn’t be a week. They’d made it, Lira thought. All of them, they’d made it this far, seemingly unscathed. But she could still taste the flowers no matter how hard she swallowed. There’d been varying stories about how long it took the infected to spore out. Three days. Four. Would they all get sick? Would they all turn on each other?