Dead of Eve (21 page)

“Perhaps.” He smiled. A boyish smile I found comforting. But that strong chin made it sexy. I shoved the thought away.

“Please call me Roark.” He swallowed. “Are there others? Women?”

I tilted the bowl to my mouth and shook my head. “I’ve come a long way”—the stew was lukewarm sliding down my throat—“and I haven’t seen any. Human women, that is.”

He closed his eyes and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “How is it that you’re here? When no other women survived?”

I sat back and sheathed the blade. Did a day go by when I wasn’t asking myself that question? “Can’t find that answer in your bible?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. Was my disrespect amusing him?

Broth sloshed out of my bowl, quivering as it escaped. Was my hand shaking? Or was it the room? I set it down and rubbed the gooseflesh on my arms.

The temperature dropped and the air seemed to swirl and gather by the front door. A mist of smoke seeped from the keyhole and, within it, floated Annie. A grin lit her face and her feet found the floor, framed in tendrils of gray fog. The folds of her eyelet dress licked her legs as she skipped to the bar, curly pigtails bouncing.

I trembled, unable to meet Roark’s eyes, though I could feel them on me. He couldn’t see her, my delusion.

At the bar, she reached for the circle of sconces. I pressed myself into the chair when her fingers neared the candles. She brushed over one burning wick as she chanted.

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood

Her grin fell and her head jerked toward the door.

And burbled as it came!

Her fingers melted into the flame. The skin on her arm, then her body, followed the liquidation. Why was she doing that? Was she trying to tell me something? Please stop, Annie. Oh God.

Exposed shreds of muscle pulsated in the candlelight, clinging to her tiny frame. Still, the front door held her attention.

The candles sizzled, vaporizing her transparent figure into the smoke. My stomach rolled under the miasma of burning flesh.

I grew wary of the front door. A sting bit through my guts. I knew that feeling. My muscles tensed, readied for attack.

“Evie? Evie?”

The flames consumed her and the candlelight extinguished with a
pop
.

Roark muttered through the dark, “Wha’ in under feck—”

“Shh.” I swooped up the carbine and pointed it at the door. His hand found my back.

“I hope you know how to use that pistol,” I whispered. “They’re coming.”

“Why? Wha’ are ye—”

The door swung open and smacked the wall. A chilling gust swept through the room and with it the hum of hunger.

One, two! One, two! and through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

Lewis Carroll,
Jabberwocky

I discovered in Pomme de Terre the best way to kill an aphid was in or near the eyes and doing so required a fast hand or an accurate bullet. While I prided in both most of the time, I wavered when the luminous figures floated into the pub. Numbers in the teens, they stacked together to move through the crowded doorway. The way they hugged the walls and swept the room made it hard to believe they were blind and weaponless. Still, I kept my finger off the trigger, remaining silent, buying time.

Buzzing and vibrations bounced between them. The aphid at the front held up a claw. Another scurried to the back room.

Pans pinged across the kitchen floor. A scream followed then died. The absence of candlelight blanketed the dining room in black.

“Roark, can you see them?”

The glowing bugs paused and pointed their profiles in my direction. I tightened the carbine against my shoulder, wincing at the twinge in my damaged chest.

“There’s movement in the shadows.” His voice rasped at my ear. “Let’s flit to the door.”

We’d never make it. “Aim for the eyes. How many rounds do you—”

The priest hissed and steel whistled. A sword? His attacker fell headless at his feet.

Exhale. Squeeze. The
vhoomp
of the spring recoiling in the buffer tube soothed me. With the clanking of the priest’s sword behind me, I slaughtered my way across the pub to find Lloyd.

An aphid blocked the kitchen door. It straightened its legs, rising to its full six-foot and many more terrifying inches. A spray of flinging drool drenched my face.

The aphid sprang and hooked a claw around the carbine. Metal clanked the floor. What the fuck? I freed a dagger and buried it between the eyes.

Another aphid filled the doorway. Oh hell. That one was bigger than the last. It bent over the body at my feet and screamed. Its mandibles flexed and trembled. Was it mourning its fallen comrade? A moment of hesitation slipped by. A moment of sympathy.

But I didn’t subscribe to sympathy. Not if I wanted to survive.

I drew the pistol. The bullet aimed true. Vile black matter rained from the eye socket and it crumpled upon its friend.

Did I imagine the aphid’s show of emotion? I hadn’t quite worked through that answer when I located my pack, the Maglite, and pointed the beam on the last mutant flailing under Roark. His fists thudded.
Smack. Smack.

My lips twitched. Funny just a year earlier I thought I’d never look at a man like that again. Then I’d found Jesse. And there I was, adjusting the Maglite so I could watch Roark’s biceps move under his priest uniform. There was substantial muscle on that broad frame, enough to heave steel through dozens of necks without breaking a sweat—

Fuck. He was a priest. As in the celibate kind. If I didn’t wipe the hungry look off my face, I’d find myself alone again. I lowered the light. “Lose your sword?”

“This one”—
smack, thud-thud
—“wanted it the hard way.”

I crouched before them. The skull crunched under each blow, the jaw snapping open and closed, the tusk missing. He must have sliced it off, removed the risk.

I held up a knife. “Time to end it.”

“Right.”

I plunged the blade and sat back on my heels. “Not that I’m complaining but what do you have against guns?”

“Who says I do?”

“You didn’t use your gun. Seems like it would’ve been easier than”—I swept the beam across the decapitated bodies—“the alternative.”

“Gun ownership was strictly regulated in Ireland. Never held one till the outbreak. I prefer me sword.”

“I see.” I didn’t. “Can you see them in the dark? You know, do they glow?”

He skimmed the carnage and looked back at me. Frown lines marked his forehead. “Glow?”

“This pub has no protection. I checked the perimeter for hours before entering. Where the hell did they come from?”

“Right. I kept this area clean. Ye seemed to have brought them with ye.”

“No. I—”

A groan bellowed from the kitchen.

“Oh, shit. Lloyd,” Roark breathed as he ran to the bar and lit a candle. I hurried after him, clenching my teeth at the soreness on my chest. The bodies led us to the back room.

Lloyd’s mouth hung open, foaming into a gory puddle. Sightless orbs fixated on the ceiling. His torso twisted in alien contortions. I drew the blade. Roark’s hand caught my wrist.

I pulled away. “We have to—”

“The Extreme Unction. I need to administer Last Rites.”

“Oh.”

He gestured toward the front. “Will ye stand watch? I just need a moment.”

I nodded and went back to the bar. A few minutes later, Lloyd’s cries quieted.

Roark emerged in the doorway and thrust a thumb over a slumped shoulder. “This way.”

We stepped around Lloyd’s headless body on the way to the back door. I dug my nails into my palms to distract me from the fist of remorse punching my gut.

Sword drawn, he walked the back lot. Thanks to the mysterious sensor that rattled my insides when aphids approached, I knew there wasn’t an immediate threat, but I wasn’t about to announce it.

He stopped behind a dumpster and rolled out an enduro.

“What is that?” It was more than a dirt bike fitted for street riding. Olive-drab paint, knobby tires, a weapon carrier and luggage rack?

“Ah, now this is a bloody Harley Davidson MT 350E army bike.” He smirked and regarded the ground. After a few moments, he met my eyes. “Ye must be knackered. Come with me. You’ll be safe. It’s dodgy, but—”

“Do you live alone?”

His nod gave me the answer I needed. I didn’t think I misjudged him, but I wouldn’t want to be outnumbered if I found out I was wrong.

I had to ditch Jesse’s bike miles back because the sound attracted aphids. Was riding Roark’s bike worth the risk just for the chance at a full night’s rest under the protection of a sword toting priest? “Yeah. That would be nice.”

He saddled the bike and patted the seat behind him. “Just a few kilometers up the road.”

I hugged his waist and clenched my thighs around his. Heat spread through me. Was it from the sharing of body warmth? Or was it a sudden surge in my libido?

He sped out of the lot. The moldering bones of the surrounding buildings chipped away in the absence of life.

Where was Jesse? A void resonated in my chest. A wanting wrenched my gut. He was a piece of me and that piece wasn’t where it should be. At that moment, that piece could be anywhere, fighting to stay alive, or already dead.

As the wind whipped past us and battered my body to exhaustion, I clung to the priest and what was left of my composure.

Roark slowed the bike on a narrow street lined with skinny double story pads set a few feet from the road, all connected with single garages. He throttled the motor. We coasted in front of their brick facades and picture windows bordered with frozen flowering baskets. The bike stopped at a white garage door, which looked identical to all the others in the row.

He lifted the unlocked door. Once inside, he locked it behind us.

I paused at an uncovered window. A graveyard of flies and gnats littered the sill. Brittle legs curled against dried up bodies. How different were their humanoid adaptations?

“How long do they live?” I turned to find him staring at me.

“Who?”

“Aphids.”

His expression transformed from quizzical to pained, taking me with him. “I den’ know.”

Did anyone know what we were up against? “Can they starve to death?”

He pushed a ropelike braid behind his ear. “I should bloody well hope so. This way.” He pulled a large duffle off the bike’s luggage carrier and strode to an opaque corner in front of a short bed Nissan truck.

His broad body folded into a graceful squat beside a lid on the concrete floor. “It’s gonna be a wee bit baltic.” He slid the lid to the side and eyed my feet. “But your stonking boots should keep ye dry.”

A ladder receded into a dark cavity under the garage floor. “What the hell is that?”

“No foostering. We’re not safe till we’re through the tunnel.” He threw our gear in the hole and descended. From the bottom, he shouted, “Pull the lid back on your way down.”

An underground tunnel was not what I expected. If Darwin was with me, I’d know if I could trust that man. I eyed the enduro. What I needed was clean clothes to redress my wound, and a good-night’s sleep. The priest was my best option.

I drew a knife from each arm sheath and dropped in the hole.

The bore at the bottom stretched six feet in diameter and held about a foot of water. I followed the priest through the tunnel system. For the first ten minutes, I kept a map in my head of the paces between left and right turns, but as we sloshed on I gave up.

“Does the water keep the aphids out?”

He paused at an alcove in the sewer. “Mostly.”

Water dripped from the ceiling, echoing from one end of the tunnel to the other.

“Mostly?”

He crouched at the rear of the recess where the shadows concealed a portal secured with a large oval submarine door. “Seems some of the mutants are adapting their skills. Some can crawl through these pipes without touching the water.” He shrugged. “Some can’t.”

“Are you sure?” Evolving skills would explain the aphid battalion at the pub.

“They’ve been maturing in the last few months.” He ran his hands along the seal around the door.

“What is this?”

“It’s me dodgy bunker. Bugger is”—he removed something from the seal and opened the door—“it doesn’t lock from the outside. A bloody bother. So I rig it a bit.”

He held up a small square box wrapped in plastic with dangling wires. “Just a wee explosive to let me know if any gits been faffin’ about.” Then he bowed. “After ye.”

Hand on my back, he guided me through the dark. His hand moved away, a rustle of clothes, and light flooded the room.

The entry opened into a large domed room with exposed beams and pipes.

My inhale filled the silence. “Electricity?”

“Solar. Lashings of panels on the houses we passed above.”

“You built this?”

He closed the door and turned a wheel that slid three heavy bars in place. “It was here. Built pre-outbreak by some paranoid fanatics.” He chuckled. “Not so paranoid, em? I spotted the panels from the overpass and traced them here. Thought I was a bit of a mentaller, but I eventually found it.”