Time of Zombies (Book 2): The Zombie Hunter's Wife (2 page)

Rule #1  
Wash work clothes every day. Blood
and brain matter are impossible to remove if you let them set.

One year later

Oakley, California

RV Storage yard, R-1 base

Michelle woke coated in sweat, shivering as the
February cold hit her wet skin. She ran her fingers through her long hair,
pushing it back from her perspiration-covered forehead. How could she be hot
and cold at the same time? Only a few seconds and the nightmare dissipated. Once
or twice a month, Mitch returned in her dreams. The worse ones were when she
killed him and he wasn’t a zombie. She shuddered, wrapping the covers around
her body.

She counted to twenty with deep breaths in and
deep breaths out. Her familiar mantra of ‘It’s only a dream’ echoed in her
head. Her heart rate slowed and her shoulders slumped in relief. The dregs of
sleep disappeared with the shouts of children outside her motor home. A thump
hit the door as someone tagged safe. A smile crossed her face and the world
seemed a little better, as strange as that was. When the world went to hell,
even small things could make it possible to get through the day.

Jumping out of the covers, she dressed in layers,
making it easier to peel off extra ones later in the day as the weather warmed
up. She was used to layers from living in San Francisco her whole life, but not
used to the warmth of a February afternoon in the East Bay.

She’d spent last February here, but it still
amazed her that winter could be so unwinter-like, with some days as warm as
summer in the city.

She sighed, missing the fog and the ocean breeze
off the bay. Pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she flung open the door to
sunshine and a wind that already carried a hint of the almost-balmy warmth they
would face in the afternoon, as if spring was right around the corner.

Her boys raced to her side. Yelling and pushing at
each other to be the first. The two oldest pushed each other, knocking over the
middle one in the process. The littlest boy reached her first today. Dylan’s
small body rocketed into her, knocking her off balance. Her arms swept around
him and gave the little one a giant hug. Two seconds later she was hit with
three more boys as the oldest, Aiden and Bryant hugged her together and Connor
squeezed in, as usual.

“How are my RVers today?”

“Mom,” echoed in four different voices with the
exasperation exactly the same. It still thrilled her to be called mom by her
adopted sons.

“That is so lame,” Aiden added, being the
spokesman for the group as the oldest and a born leader. “We aren’t RVers. We
are Rogue Vantage.”

She bit her lip to stop a laugh from escaping. Four
serious faces stared at her. Michelle reached out and ruffled little Dylan’s
hair. “Sorry. How is the Rogue Vantage doing today?”

Smiles broke out across white, tan, and brown
faces. Her friend, Emily was always sprouting off that the zombie apocalypse
allowed everyone to start anew. She could play along if her boys wanted to
sound like a ‘gang.’ Although, with the oldest being ten years old and the
youngest just turned six, they weren’t too tough of a gang. Her breath still
caught in her throat at the memory of these four kids being the only ones left
at this RV storage facility after a deadly virus took all the adults and
everyone else just left. Her eyes watered with the thought of the children
living with dead bodies too heavy for their young arms to move and dispose of
properly.

She cheered up as they pulled her toward the
eating area of the compound with shouts of
breakfast
and
food
and
now
. Today, Dylan stayed by her side as the other three rushed to get a
place in line. Over their heads she could see Beth Evans and Miranda Stevens
had food duty today. Her gaze traveled over Beth’s pregnant stomach as the
girls moved back and forth to serve the group. The stomach seemed to have ballooned
overnight. Last month Beth had started borrowing bigger clothes from some of
the ladies and now she looked like the scavengers would need to find a
maternity store for her.

Someone bumped into her from behind and she knew
without looking that it was her friend, Emily. She’d know that stomach
anywhere. If there was anyone bigger than Beth at the moment, it was her friend
who was at least a month behind the young girl in her pregnancy.

Turning, she looked down. Even knowing what to
expect she still gasped. “You look like you’re going to give birth any day.”

“Thanks a lot,” Emily said, lightly smacking her
arm. “I still have months to go.”

“No way,” Dylan put in. “You’ll explode by then.” He
spread his arms and made the sound of an explosion.

Michelle held her breath as Emily’s eyes watered
up and she started crying. “Oh, sure. Pick on the fat lady.”

“Crying? There’s no crying in the zombie
apocalypse. Zombie hunters don’t cry,” she said, hoping to turn the unusual mood
around.

Emily started laughing and crying at the same time
and Michelle let out her held breath. “Maybe you’ll have the first triplets or
quads of the apocalypse.”

“Bite your tongue,” her friend said. “No fucking
way.”

“Yeah, no fucking way,” Dylan parroted.

At first she’d been appalled by the boys’ behavior
and language but she’d learned quickly if she ‘mothered’ too much she’d lose
them. They were the first generation of AZ, after the Z virus. Somehow,
worrying about cussing and minor scuffles seemed ridiculous when you had bigger
problems to worry about, like being some zombie’s lunch or how to have enough
food for dinner.

Laughing, they all got their meals and moved to a
picnic table. Dylan stayed by her side and Emily sat across from them. The rest
of the boys scattered to eat with friends. She looked around and sighed.

“I never would have thought I’d miss The Streets
of Brentwood mall so much.”

Emily stuffed food in her mouth, swallowed, and
looked around. “Pretty bad, when eating at a burger place with folding chairs
and tables, seems like eating at Top of the Mark in comparison.”

She wouldn’t know anything about Top of the Mark, San
Francisco’s premier restaurant. It would have been beyond Mitch’s paycheck to
go there without some serious dollar stretching ... for months. Michelle stared
at the gray cinderblocks making up the walls of their haven and sighed. “I just
miss being able to see for miles around. All I see all day long is motor homes
and gray walls.”

“You could go outside, you know,” Emily threw out
there with an evil twinkle in her eye.

“Not me. No way. You zombie hunters can go risk
your lives. The ride here was scary enough after we blew up the old compound. Maybe
I’ll paint some hills and trees on the walls. That’s as close to ‘outside’ as
I’m getting.”

“Chicken,” Emily said.

“Bawk, bawk,” Dylan added.

“Traitor,” she murmured, pulling him in close to
her with an arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“Need I remind you, you jumped off that fence and
ran outside fast enough when I got here,” Emily said.

She shuddered. “I thought you were dead. That’s
different. If I had been thinking clearly, I wouldn’t have done it at all.”

“Maybe you were thinking clearly for once,” Emily
mumbled.

“Mr. Teddy. Mr. Teddy,” several young voices
called out.

She turned in her seat to see Teddy Ridgewood and
several other men returning from zombie hunting and killing for the morning
shift. As usual, the enormous, African-American man was covered from shaved
head to boots in blood and gore. Sighing, she got up from the table. As if
blood and gore could disguise broad shoulders, flat abs, and a face that got
her libido going in seconds flat. She swallowed and looked away. She wasn’t
going there—ever again. Even if Teddy was a dark chocolate mountain of
yumminess. Sex appeal and lust meant nothing when a man put duty before you. For
him, it wasn’t even duty. The man acted like hunting zombies was a video game
with infinite lives. She shook her head. Nope, one and dead. Or undead, and
then dead. A knot grew in her throat. Never again, she vowed silently.

“Laundry duty sucks sometimes,” she mumbled to
Emily.

“You could wait until they’re all undressed,” her
friend said.

She stared at the other woman. “No way. Do you
know how hard blood and guts is to get out if I wait for them to finally change
clothes, and to remember to bring the dirty ones to me? Impossible, that’s what.”
She turned to walk away.

“By all means, go strip Teddy out of his clothes,”
Emily said, with what sounded suspiciously like a laugh covered by a fake
cough.

Her face heated up to flame temperature. “I have
to get
all
the clothes.”

“Of course you do. I see you rushing to get Morales’
too,” Emily yelled in a sarcastic tone as Michelle stomped off. Sometimes it
sucked to have a friend who could read her so well. She needed to work on her
poker face.

Teddy Ridgewood sat on the wooden bench, trying to
pry off his gore-covered boots.

“Damn it,” he muttered as he pushed one boot with
the foot of the other. He couldn’t afford to lose another pair. His size
fourteen boots were darned near impossible to find. He’d been in sneakers for
weeks until they’d found this pair at a workman’s clothing store.

Looking up, he spotted Michelle Greggs. The woman
was a firecracker for sure, always yelling at him for his dirty clothes. As if
she thought they could kill the skinbags all day and come home looking as clean
as if they’d been to the office, writing reports or something.

He tried to be extra nice to her, but something
about him always set her off. He smiled every time he saw her. He talked to her
quiet-like, knowing his big booming voice startled some women. He spent time
with her boys, which was no biggie. The little ones tugged at his heart, making
it ache at the thought of them here all alone for months. A chill went up his
spine at the thought of the world they were inheriting.

But the woman didn’t crack a smile at him. Although,
he did catch her staring at him at odd times. He would glance back and she
would whip her head around fast enough to wrench her neck something awful.

“Mr. Ridgewood,” she announced as she approached. Her
hips swayed in a feminine way that made his hands itch to explore, even with
her ‘don’t touch’ airs. Her face could have graced the Madonna as a statue in a
chapel. Her voice was sweet, when it wasn’t yelling at him. Sometimes he sat
out of view just to hear her talk to her boys with those soft, dulcet tones.

She snapped on Latex gloves and he jumped in his
seat. Miss Emily had explained that they were an idiosyncrasy,as if they all
weren’t already infected, but they made him feel dirtier than the blood, guts,
and gore alone. Her gaze raked over him and heat covered his face. He lowered
his head even though the red wouldn’t show on his dark cheeks.

“Sorry, Mrs. Greggs. I know you got things to do. Seem
to be having trouble with my boots.”

Michelle squatted down and started untying the
laces.

It shouldn’t have been erotic in the least, having
his shoes taken off like he was a child, but tell that to the erection
straining against the zipper of his pants. He stared at her glossy dark hair,
pulled back into a ponytail he’d like to let loose and run his fingers through,
and he imagined her all too easily in this position, and not for untying his
shoes.

She stood and he realized his boots were off. The
woman turned her back and held out her hand. “I need the rest of your clothes. I’ll
try to save your boots, but I can’t make any promises.”

Peeling off his clothes, Teddy wondered, not for
the first time, what she thought when she looked at him. Even if she hadn’t been
such a petite woman, he would still have been large next to her. Even with his
boots off, he didn’t believe she would reach much farther than his chest with
the top of her head.

He’d never considered himself an overly modest
man, but his time of being alone as the self-proclaimed King of Pittsburg had
changed him. Being alone was a lot easier than being surrounded by people all
day long in the small confines of the RV facility. Standing near Michelle and
stripping was nerve-racking as well. He needed the time away from the yard each
day before it started feeling like a prison.

At last, he was down to his boxer briefs, which he
was able to leave on. Teddy grabbed a towel from the bench and wrapped it as
far as it would go around his ample waist. He shot a quick glance to reassure
himself that the erection was hidden. He pressed it down. Good enough.

Michelle turned around to stare him in the face
and it returned to full attention. At least her glance seemed to stay on his
face, at least most of the time. That glance did seem to wander to his chest a
few times. Her cheeks were red and she seemed to search for words.

“I—I’ll have these ready by dinner.” She bent and
picked up his boots. “These may take longer to dry.”

“I can clean them.” He reached for the boots and
caught her hand instead. She pulled back so fast the clothes fell to the
ground. They both reached for them, but she yanked them away.

Standing, he stepped back. “Thank you, Mrs. Greggs.”

“No problem, umm—umm Mr. Ridgewood.”

She strolled back to the laundry area, holding his
boots in one hand and his clothes in the other with her arms straight out, as
if they were contaminated with more than zombie guts.

Teddy shook his head and walked across the cracked
asphalt to his motor home. He laughed and felt a smile break on his face. Just
because it was the zombie apocalypse didn’t mean men had any better hope of
understanding women than before the world went to hell in a hand basket, as his
mother used to say. But he sure wanted to understand Michelle Greggs. Because
for just a second there she’d looked at him as a man, a man she liked looking
at, not as a nuisance.

A shower and a set of clean clothes later and he was
ready to find his friend, Seth Ripley to see if he understood women any better
than Teddy did.