Zombie Ever After (11 page)

Donovan made out the sound of high heels clicking toward him in the dark. A woman appeared before him in the circle of light from one of the only working streetlights. Donovan stopped running and stared. She wore a white trench coat, a gray beret, and high-heeled boots. An unexpectedly beautiful sight at that moment. Her long white-blonde hair fell over her left eye like a Hollywood starlet from a bygone era. She looked Donovan over real quick and smiled.
 

“You have survived. Good,” she said, extending her hand. “Nice to meet you. I am Alena Portanova, Burkhart Egesa’s right-hand woman.”

“Please, we have no time to waste,” Alena said. “The killing gas, it is almost upon us. Follow me—this way.” Flicking her hair behind her, she turned and headed back down the street. They approached a white BMW convertible. Alena beeped the door open and got in the driver’s side. Donovan—seeing the clouds of gas, the voracious remaining zombies, and the approaching armies—figured he had no choice. He got in, and she jammed it into gear. They roared away, bullets screaming past them. Zombies momentarily screaming and clawing right beside them.

“So-ooo,” Donovan said, exhaling loudly. “What about you and Egesa, anyway? The man’s a disease, in my opinion.”

“We were lovers, once. I still work with him, to tell you the truth,” Alena said. “I’m the head scientist at ATELIC—well, what’s left of it. But everything has gone to shit. Zombies? I mean, what the freak?” She checked her rearview mirror and then continued, “Egesa knew we were dumping mutant run-off into the drinking water. He didn’t care. I was too—I don’t know … too intimidated? Too in love?—to force him to fix it. Now with Cathren Whitney, it’s no good. He thinks he’s doing the right thing, trying to fix what’s been broken. Find the answer....”

“Yeah, so he told me,” Donovan said.

They made a right on an on-ramp and headed south.

“He seems to think, despite all the damage he’s done, that he’ll still get his Nobel. If he can only find the cure.”

“Well—” Donovan said.

“He’s not looking for any antidote, though,” Alena said, slapping her knee suddenly. “He only wants Cathren’s body for one reason—to find the key to immortality! Because she has survived it. She has lived.”

An awkward silence engulfed the car while Alena navigated through the dark night. Her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her shirt and snapped it open. “Yes?” she said into the receiver. “Yes, he’s with me now.” It made Donovan wonder what else was down there. A gun? Knockout gas? Cyanide pills? Nunchucks?

“We’re about five minutes away,” Alena was saying. “No, he’s fine.” She brushed her long hair back behind her shoulders. “Mmmm-bye.”

Alena sighed. “First of all, Donovan, you should know that the authorities don’t have this problem under control. Not really. They are containing it, yes. But that’s only temporary. The zombie numbers are climbing. They are being joined by every fighter bitten or killed.” She sighed and flipped on the signal light. “No, the only way we can control this—short of blowing up half of California—is with Cathren. She’s the answer. She’s able to fight these things somehow.” Alena straightened the wheel and decelerated off the freeway. “For some reason,” she continued, “the zombie effect, for her, has had quite a different outcome. She seems to have acquired almost superhuman powers. Because of the bite, her DNA, or for some other reason, she’s special. Very possibly one of a kind.”
 

They drove along the residential streets right outside the city. Streetlights illuminated the way, although a surprising number of them were dark. Finally, after about fifteen more minutes, they pulled into the driveway of a pleasant bungalow. Painted white, with pink shutters, it rested on a small plot of well-tended lawns and gardens. A big, twisted oak tree squatted in the middle of the front yard like a guardian.
 

As they extracted themselves from the car, a couple of dogs barked from somewhere in the neighborhood. It sounded so normal, so safe. They walked to the front door and Alena knocked gently, then went in without waiting for a response. Donovan followed. When they got to the living room, she gestured to the couch, then left the room. The barking outside stopped. Donovan waited, wondering if it would start again, but it stayed quiet. Very quiet. Like the jungle before the lion attacks.

Donovan did not sit on the couch. He chose a forest-green recliner that had threadbare arms and worn cushions. He chose this seat because, unlike the couch, it gave him a full view of the entranceway. Also because it looked cozy and would let him put his feet up, something he hadn’t been able to do for days.

But before he could get comfortable, Cathren stepped into the room.

She was all cleaned up, wearing a black dress that no doubt belonged to Alena. Cathren looked sexy, sweet, and like herself again. Most importantly, she looked alive. Not dead/alive, but alive/alive. She glided into the room and kissed Donovan, then sat down next to him on the arm of the chair.
 

“You had me worried,” he said, taking her hand. “I thought you were.... Actually, I didn’t know what to think. I’m glad you’re safe.”
 

“I’m glad you’re safe, too,” she said, stroking the side of his face. “So glad.” She sighed. She kissed him again and smiled. He twisted in the chair to hug her. They kissed.

“We have a battle in front of us,” she said, pulling back but keeping her face close to his. “But for now, all I want is for you to hold me in your arms.”

“Me, too,” Donovan said. They kissed again.

“We’ll talk more in the morning,” said Alena, entering the room and interrupting the lovers. “We can work out our strategy then. The guest room is at the top of the stairs, first room on the left. Get a good night’s sleep. You’ll need it.”
 

Donovan trudged tiredly up the stairs with Cathren, his hand on her back, Cathren’s arm around his waist. It had been one hell of a day. One hell of week, actually. Donovan was glad they were together again. Glad that she was alive and safe.
 

They lay in bed, holding each other, for a long time. Even in this joyous moment, though, something ate at Donovan. Their magical reunion. This safe house. It just didn’t feel real. Or permanent.
 

After Cathren drifted off, Donovan lay in the dark, as if listening for burglars. Or ghosts. Or the undead.

The next thing he knew, he awoke to Cathren gently shaking him.

“What? What time is it?” Donovan said, realizing he had slept, at least for a little while. The room was still shrouded in darkness.

“
Shhh.
Listen,” she said, staring at the door.

Donovan propped himself up on one elbow. Then he heard it. An argument. Hushed shouting.

“You hear that?” she said. “See?”

“Yes. Quiet.” Donovan threw the covers back. He opened the door and peeked out into the hallway. Night filled the whole house, except for a slight glow downstairs. He padded to the stairwell and peered down. He turned back to Cathren, who stood at the door. “Stay here,” he said, mouthing the words and waving his hand at the ground.

He took each step slowly, trying without much success to keep the stairs from creaking. When he finally got to the first floor hallway, he noticed a light under a door across from the kitchen. He walked over and put his ear against it. The shouting had stopped. Now, it was only talk and whispers.

Donovan twisted the doorknob and eased the door open as quietly as he could. It squeaked badly. Donovan stopped and waited. The voices continued. From the sound of the muffled conversation, he figured no one had detected him. He looked down into the basement. The steps were dark, but a light shone from below. He decided to descend the staircase. No gun, no flashlight, no common sense.

These stairs thankfully didn’t creak. Maybe the joints were so dust-covered, Donovan thought, that the dust and dirt acted as a damper. As he descended, his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. He could see light came from somewhere deep in the basement. It grew brighter with every step.

At the last corner before he’d be seen, Donovan stopped and listened. The talking continued so Donovan was confident he hadn’t been detected. With great care, he peaked around the corner, and with every part of his being and self-control, forced himself not to gasp out loud.

Sitting in a small wooden chair under a bare bulb cowered Alena Portanova. A man stood at her left, another to her right, their backs to Donovan.

Standing in front of the three of them, facing Alena, stood Egesa, the inquisitor.

Donovan studied the scene as long as he dared. Then he pulled his head back, breathing heavy. They had come for Cathren. The odds seemed bad to attempt rescuing Alena. That was suicide. Besides, his true allegiance was with Cathren. He knew he had to get to her, to get the hell out of this house.
 

Donovan started back up the stairs. Now, while these stairs hadn’t made a sound when he descended them minutes earlier, apparently, the forces involved going down a set of stairs were quite different from going up. They creaked like a motherfucker. Donovan held his hands out to his side as if he walked a tightrope instead of a staircase. But the creaking continued. Out of options, Donovan ran up the steps as fast as possible. He dashed through the kitchen no longer concerned about being stealthy.

Gun shots flared behind him in the dark.
 

With a plan, Donovan ran upstairs to retrieve Cathren. If he was still being chased, he would keep running to the end of the hall and out the nearest window. This strategy was half-baked, but he wanted to give Cathren a chance to get out of there alive, rather than both of them being gunned-down in the guest room.

He reached the top of the stairs and started yelling, “Cathren, we’re going. Now!” He ran into the bedroom, shut the door, and wedged the chair under the knob.
 

A loud crack and a lot of shouting came from downstairs. Before he could put two and two together, the shooting stopped. There was another crack. More yelling. Donovan realized, at last, that the sound he was hearing was of bones being broken. He turned around to address Cathren.

But she wasn’t in the room.

Donovan jerked the chair aside and opened the door again. Against his better judgment, he made his way back downstairs and around the corner. There she was. Not in danger, but in control.
 

The two men lay on the ground. Surprisingly, they were not ripped to pieces, but rather completely intact. Albeit with most of their extremities at sixes and sevens. Even more surprising, Cathren was not in her half-zombie state. She stood there in her underwear, perfectly normal so to speak.

“What’s going on here? Where’s Alena?” she said, breathing heavy.
 

“I don’t know. She was downstairs last I saw, in the basement.”
 

“Okay. Show me.”
 

“We need to be careful. She’s conceivably in cahoots with the enemy— ”

“I strongly doubt that.”
 

“—or being tortured by them.”
 

“Why, what did you see?”
 

“I’m not sure, but—”
 

Cathren started down the steps at a fast clip. Donovan headed off after her. She might be strong, she might even practice martial arts or whatever the hell she did, but she wasn’t ready to face Egesa again.
 

Ahead of him, Cathren turned the corner in the dark as Donovan reached the bottom of the stairs.
 

Then he heard her scream.
 

He ran to her as fast as he could, knowing all too well she was now face-to-face with Alena’s dead body. He called out, “Yes, Cathren, I know, it’s not pretty. But be careful, Egesa is down here somewhere.”
 

Donovan rounded the bend and skidded to a stop on the dirty cement floor, cutting the bottom of his feet.

“Oh, fuck,” he said. Not because of his burning feet, but because the chair was toppled, and the basement door to the outside was wide open.

Egesa and Alena had vanished into the night.

Cathren was out the basement door before Donovan could say, “You haven’t got any clothes on, you know!” Which he did say, actually. Immediately after she’d disappeared into the night. He was not fast enough to convince her to put on something more appropriate for battling evildoers. She was scarcely wearing a tank top and thong panties, and Donovan had on only his boxers.
 

The couple ran through the gloomy, pre-dawn morning on a rescue mission only Cathren truly understood. They jogged along the sidewalk of the gray San Mateo street, looking for something—anything—that would indicate where Alena had gone. Or, more accurately, been taken.
 

Outside, at night, in his skivvies, in a world newly-populated by the undead, was not Donovan’s idea of a good time. For some reason he felt vulnerable. This happened every time he was outdoors in only his underwear. Which he’d done a total of, until now, never. But now he knew how it felt. It felt just as bad as he thought it would.

“There!” Cathren pointed to a car roaring around the corner. It was just a couple of blocks up ahead. “I’m sure that’s them in that Mercedes.” She picked up the pace. But Donovan knew even a girl with superhuman strength (and maybe speed) was no match for a car.

“Cathren,” he wheezed, catching up. “We need to stop. I don’t mean stop going after them. But stop for a minute. We need to find a car or a motorcycle or something. We’ll never be able to follow them on foot, let alone catch up with them.”
 

She wasn’t listening. She was pounding along in her bare feet, her legs like pistons, arms like smaller pistons. Donovan was running out of steam. Plus he needed to relieve himself, something he became acutely aware of when he’d first witnessed Alena’s interrogation.

Cathren sped on far ahead of Donovan, machine-like. He faltered, drifted, and ultimately stopped, mortal-like. Puffing and grabbing his side, Donovan turned the corner. He could see Cathren in the distance. Still half-naked, running in the middle of the road. Beyond her, he glimpsed cars at a standstill on the freeway on-ramp. An older Mercedes sat at the end of the congested mass of vehicles. As Donovan got closer, he could make out the license plate: SMRT-DOC.