My Zombie Honeymoon: Love in the Age of Zombies Book One (29 page)

“Which is closest?” I whispered. Michelle reached forward and held the camera in front of me so I could see the zombie. The light reflecting off my face got its attention, and it started slowly moving in my direction. Michelle pulled the camera back out of my way, and I tried to keep my bearings as I raised the axe in the air and brought it down on the zombie’s head. Once again, it was like hitting a block of ice. The first blow must have glanced off its head. Michelle whispered, “A little more to the left.”

I struck it again. This time, the axe penetrated about three inches, spraying frozen bone, hair, and brains throughout the kitchen. Michelle once again held the camera out so I could see. I raised the axe and slammed it down into the zombie’s head, near where I’d struck it before, close enough for the axe to penetrate fully into the brain, destroying it. The zombie dropped to the floor with a thud.

Through the viewfinder, I could see the zombie I had first knocked over when I came in. It was slowly trying to rise, moving faster than I had expected. I brought the axe down onto its neck and felt the spine and tissues crunch as the axe shattered them.

“Kevin! To the right!” Michelle said. I swung the axe blindly until I felt it hit the zombie. I then shoved the axe as hard as I could, knocking it over as well. As I approached it in the dark, I felt its hand slowly try to grasp my foot. I wondered where Michelle was as I brought the axe down, first hitting it in its half-rotted upper chest, then ending its misery by severing its head.

As I pulled the axe from its neck, I heard the outside door click closed. Michelle had enough sense to close the door and lock it. Thank God. The last thing I needed was to have more zombies slowly make their way inside.

I waited for Michelle to come to my side, and when she held the camera out, I could see there were two more zombies nearby. The closest one had turned its head in my direction. It couldn’t see me. I swung the axe toward its legs, hoping to knock this one down too. But the axe struck at a glance and banged against my right shin. Ouch. I raised the axe and swung it at an angle, driving it hard into the neck. With a sickening snap, the axe severed the spinal cord. It fell, landing partially on top of the other fallen zombie.

One left. By now, my arms were tired. Trying to drive the axe through frozen flesh wasn’t easy, as my muscles had obviously atrophied with the lack of exertion downstairs. I stood there, breathing hard, resting the axe on the floor. I could hear the remaining zombie slowly moving.

“Here, let me,” Michelle said, taking the axe from me. There was enough ambient light from the camera screen reflecting off the walls for her to make out the shape of the zombie. With a huge grunt of exertion, she swung the axe with all her might, snapping its neck in two. The zombie fell with another thud. “Reminds me of chopping wood back home,” she said smugly, “even though I never did.” I felt like she had one-upped me but also glad she was able take care of zombies when needed. Zombies were now scattered all over the kitchen floor. I was tired. But I knew we were not finished. We made our way through the house but only found three more. None were upstairs, so obviously they haven’t figured out how to climb stairs.

Michelle took care of two more zombies while I held the camera, and I took care of the last one. I was thankful there were none left, as I had some concern about whether I had enough strength to finish the job. That made the score five to three by my reckoning. Not that I was keeping score, like Legolas and Gimli.

The house was finally clear of zombies. But we weren’t quite through. We made our way to the side door and opened it. None of the zombies outside had moved much—it was colder outside than inside so they moved more slowly. As Michelle stood in the doorway, I made my way to the root cellar door. As I approached it, the moon broke through a gap in the clouds. Suddenly the landscape was brightly lit.

There were scores of zombies. As many as we’d seen at once. And with all the noise we’d made, all heads were turned in our direction. I turned the camera toward Michelle. Her pupils were dark pools, absorbing the infrared light from the camera. Another difference between the living and the living dead—zombie eyes are all black in infrared, not just the pupils.

I rushed over to the open hatch, kicked the two by four back down into the hole, and heard it slam closed. Then I sprinted to the house, where Michelle was waiting inside. As I rushed in, she slammed the door closed behind me. Just before it closed, we heard a low rumble of sound as the outside zombies began their throaty, raspy vocalization. They were hungry, and we had escaped.

We stepped over the bodies, then pulled them off the rug over the trap door. I raised the rug until I could lift the edge of the trap door and raised it enough for us to scramble inside, where it was light and warm and safe. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, Michelle turned to me, smiling. “We did it!” She cheered. “We’d better get in the shower and rinse all this zombie crap off . . .” Suddenly Michelle’s eyes grew wide. The blood drained from her face. “Kevin! You’re hurt!!”

I looked down, and sure enough, blood was flowing freely through a gaping wound on my right shin. My immediate reaction was
I got bit!!
but then realized the axe had cut me when it bounced off the frozen zombie and hit my leg. At the time, I barely noticed it. It never occurred to me I was injured.

The implications hit me like a thunderclap. The axe head. We had used it to chop up zombies, and it had punctured my skin. We’d killed more zombies afterwards, spraying zombie tissue everywhere. It was likely I had gotten some rotting tissue in my wound. I stood there, dumbstruck, staring at the wound and the blood draining down my leg.

“Kevin! Snap out of it! Move your ass into the bathroom!
Move your ass!!”
she yelled. I finally got moving, following Michelle. She started the water running, adjusted the temperature, then turned to me. “Get in the shower! But don’t take your pants off!” I stepped into the shower and paused. Michele stripped down to her t-shirt and panties, grabbed her medical kit and took out a pair of scissors and flashlight. Kneeling on the shower floor, she cut the bottom half of the pant leg off, nicking me in the process. Her hands were shaking.

“Ow!” I said.

“Shut up.” she said matter of factly. I started to unbuckle my pants so I could take what was left of my jeans off. I didn’t want to shower with pants on.

“Do. Not. Move.” she commanded as she put a small LED flashlight she’d fished from her bag into her mouth and illuminated the wound. “This might sting.”

“Geez, Michelle, if you wanted to get kinky, your lingerie would have worked just as well,” I joked lamely, “but I thought I was the Dom! Where’s the paddle?!”

“Shut up.” she said again, her voice muffled by the flashlight. She grabbed some gauze, hastily poured hydrogen peroxide directly on the gash, then started to clean it. She was right; it did sting. When she’d cleaned it, she gently pulled the skin back and examined it in the bluish light of the LEDs.

“It’s a deep cut,” she said, “but no major arteries were hit. That’s what I was worried about.” Without warning, she poured isopropyl alcohol into the wound.

“
Aaauugh
!” I hollered. “Damn, that
really hurts!
”

“Sorry, I don’t have any saline to irrigate it with. But don’t worry, the worst is yet to come,” she said. “Get undressed.” I quickly pulled off my sodden shoes and socks, the remainder of my soaking jeans, and my wet shirt.

“I didn’t know we were having a wet t-shirt contest today,” I said. “I think you’re going to win.” Despite everything, I couldn’t help but notice her nipples and areola though her wet shirt. She didn’t grace me with a response.

She grabbed some adhesive tape and taped the gauze on top of the wound. It was immediately soaked with blood. She ignored this and overlapped more strips of tape on top, effectively making it waterproof. Then she turned on the shower and told me to get busy washing.

“Use plenty of soap,” she ordered as she turned to leave the bathroom. “And I mean
plenty
of soap.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get you some bourbon and something to bite down on. This next part’s going to be tough.”

I washed my body from head to toe, seeing bits of decomposed flesh fall down onto the shower floor. It must have been lodged in my hair. It began to freak me out. I washed my hair over and over. When Michelle came back she had a highball of bourbon and several washcloths, one of them rolled up. I held the highball out of the water. She got in the shower, still wearing her wet underwear, and proceeded to roughly wash me all over with soap and the washcloth.

“I already did that,” I protested. I expected her to tell me to shut up again, but she didn’t say anything, she just kept on washing. After she’d thoroughly scrubbed me, she nodded to the glass of bourbon.

“Drink that.” She said with a matter of fact tone of voice.

“Is this the good stuff or the cheap stuff?” I asked. She raised her head to glare at me.

I glanced away and drank the bourbon. It felt like fire in my stomach, and the warmth spread through my body. She took the tape and gauze off the wound. She handed me the rolled up washcloth and said, “Lean back against the wall and bite down on this.”

“Wait!” I said. I reached down and pulled the Petoskey stone out of my pants pocket which lay in a heap on the shower floor. I then put the washcloth in my mouth as I squeezed the Petoskey stone in my hand.

I leaned against the wall, all the weight on my left leg. She took the remaining wash cloth, poured alcohol onto it, pulled back the flap of skin, and began to scrub the wound. Now I knew why she gave me the wash cloth to bite down on. I’d never felt pain like this. Through squinting and watering eyes, I looked down and saw the floor of the shower turning pink with my blood. She kept scrubbing, continuing to add alcohol liberally. After about three minutes, she sighed and said, “That’s the best I can do.”

She turned off the water and I stood there, dripping wet and tears still leaking out of my closed eyes. As soon as she stopped scrubbing, the respite from the pain was such a relief I couldn’t even speak. I rested my head back against the shower wall, and willed my pain receptors to back off and my heart to slow down. My breathing became regular.

She got out of the shower and reached into her bag, pulling out a needle and thread. With tears in her eyes, she said, “I’m sorry, Kevin, I know this is going to hurt. But I have to.” She held her free hand out to me and helped me to the toilet seat where I sat with my leg propped up. She proceeded to suture the wound. By now the bourbon had kicked in. It didn’t help much, but it made the pain a little soft around the edges. Compared to the scrubbing, suturing the wound was actually tolerable. When she was finished bandaging my leg she put her arm around me and helped me hop to the bed. A bit ago she brought me my laptop. So here I am.

My leg has started to ache, and she says she’s bringing me some Motrin, then a Lortab later to help me sleep. But first she wants to talk to Doc.

My hand hurts from squeezing the Petoskey stone so tight.

New Year’s Eve

After I finished writing yesterday, she brought me the Motrin and ordered me to stay in bed. I got bored and asked her to bring me a book. I didn’t even care what, just something to pass the time. She brought me the Bible. At least it was The Message, not the King James Version. I spent some time reading Ecclesiastes, getting a fresh take on the words
Much learning earns you much trouble. The more you know, the more you hurt.

At 8:55, she came in with the shortwave radio and turned it on. Then we sat there waiting. Finally, we heard him give his call sign then say “Kevin, are you on tonight?”

I spoke into the mic “I’m here, for better or for worse.”

“Oh? Something going on?”

I told him about the zombies in the house, and how I’d chopped my leg with the axe while dispatching them. He asked Michelle a few questions, and she described how she’d cleaned the wound and stitched it.

“You sutured his leg? Ever done that before?”

“On occasion,” she replied. “I’m a Nurse Practitioner, or I was. I put a few stitches in now and then when the situation called for it. Plus my father was a doctor and I’ve watched him sew folks up plenty of times. I also stitched up Kevin after he’d been shot by the intruders.”

“Good girl! What did you use for an anesthetic?”

“I gave him some bourbon when I was cleaning it out, which may have been a mistake, because then I couldn’t give him anything else for a while except Motrin. So basically he didn’t have any anesthetic.”

“Kevin, how’d you do?”

“It hurt. But I behaved.”

“Good man. I know it was tough.”

“So Doc, here’s the thing. Since the axe had zombie skin and tissue on it, we’re afraid he may be infected.”

“You mean, infected so he’s going to become a zombie?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what we mean.”

Doc was silent for a moment. “Back when the web was still up, a lot of doctors were discussing this. The docs who worked in the city had the most experience. They claimed it was only through the bite of a zombie that someone could become infected. Zombie flesh is not contagious. That didn’t make sense to the rest of us, but they swore they saw it over and over. So, if they were right, I don’t think Kevin’s at much risk.”