Damage in an Undead Age Read online

  “Where the fuck are you?”

  Miranda kicked off her boots and grabbed a life ring. She hurled it over the side, climbed over the handrail, and dove into the dark, choppy water. Every muscle in her body contracted from the shock of cold, but by the time she surfaced, her limbs were cooperating with her brain. She stuck her arm through the life ring and looked toward the pier.

  The water churned with the zombies’ flailing limbs. They lacked the coordination to do anything besides splash, but they could still bite, or depending on how waterlogged, drag a person under. Lack of mobility never stopped them being dangerous.

  Just as she was starting to panic because she still had not seen anyone break the surface, Doug’s head bobbed into view. His dark clothes blended into the water, making him hard to see.

  “Over here,” she shouted, waving the life ring over her head. She swam toward him.

  Doug shouted back. “Where’s Mario?”

  She was now close enough to shove the life ring at him. He latched on to it.

  “I can’t see him!”

  “There,” Doug said, pointing.

  She saw Mario’s head slip beneath the choppy water. She dove for him, unable to see in the dark water. Then a light flickered, descending beneath her.

  His flashlight!

  It was him, had to be. She swam after the light, lungs burning, kicking harder, and caught an arm. She held it tight and pumped her legs hard, but with his pack and the chain mail, it wasn’t enough. She flipped back and caught him under both arms, then kicked her rigid legs to propel them up, toward the fading light above. The weight of Mario’s body got heavier the higher they climbed. Her lungs pushed against the inside of her rib cage, the instinct to breathe impossible to resist. Her head broke the surface. Icy water rushed down her windpipe as she opened her mouth to suck in air. She gasped and coughed, struggling to keep her head above the surface, and pulled on Mario as hard as she could. He broke the surface beside her, his head lolling to the side.

  Miranda’s arms and legs were jelly, all strength depleted. She couldn’t stop coughing as she flailed, and she felt Mario slip under the water again. She couldn’t keep him up, didn’t have the strength, and felt herself going down.

  Doug shoved the life ring at her and pulled her arm through. She clutched it feebly, wrapping her other arm around the opposite direction, violent coughs still racking her body, throat and lungs raw. Through the dark water splashing in her face, she saw Doug pull Mario to him. Mario coughed, then retched up water as Doug slipped his arm through the life ring. Miranda clung to the life ring, unable to do anything but let Doug do the work for all of them.

  Miranda’s whole body shook by the time they reached the yacht, her body heat wicked away by the frigid water. Doug heaved himself over the edge of the swim platform, then reached back for her. She kicked her legs feebly, trying to help him get her out of the water, only now noticing how much her knee hurt.

  “You’re in my way,” Doug said, pushing her aside when she tried to help him get Mario on board.

  Delilah barked from the cabin below deck. Miranda’s teeth chattered, in counterpoint to her shaking body, as Doug heaved Mario onto the swim platform. She could see he was shielding his shoulder, holding his arm tight to his body. They all lay gasping, muscles depleted from the cold and the sudden subsidence of adrenaline. Mario reached out and caught her hand.

  “Th-thanks,” he said.

  “Y-you two o-okay?”

  Doug pushed himself upright, squirmed out of his backpack, and pulled himself up the guardrail to his feet. “Never b-better.”

  Mario pushed himself up to sitting and started to speak to her, but Miranda cut him off.

  “I already k-know, babe,” she managed through her chattering teeth. “S-Seattle’s gone.”

  2

  As they dropped anchor near Bainbridge Island, Miranda looked back at Seattle’s dark skyline one last time. She could just make out the shapes of the oversized letters attached to the skeletal frame over Pike’s Place. The last time she had seen the giant PUBLIC MARKET sign, it had been illuminated in pink and red neon. Now it was dark and almost unrecognizable if you didn’t already know what it was.

  The warm water of the shower felt almost sweltering, like tropical rain. She thanked God again that they had this swanky yacht, not some basic sailboat. She stood underneath the light but steady stream, soaking in the heat. She heard Mario enter their cabin, then the suck and plop of removing his wet overclothes followed by the metallic slurp of wet chain mail hitting the floor. The shower curtain pulled away, and he stepped into the small shower stall with her. She shifted to make room as he wrapped his cold arms around her.

  “That was close,” she whispered.

  Mario nodded, his cold lips pressed against her shoulder, and held her tighter.

  After the shower, Miranda inspected Mario for cuts and bites. She trailed her fingers over the welts on his arms and legs from zombie bites that the chain mail had fended off. A welt on his calf dribbled blood from a tiny cut, and there was a hole in Mario’s chain mail in the same spot that needed to be repaired. There was no way to be certain if the cut was from a bite or from the chain mail. Mario was vaccinated—they all were—so if it was a bite, he would not become a zombie. He would need to take antibiotics, however, because zombie bites always went septic. They had a pretty decent store of antibiotics for now. Her hollow stomach twisted inside out at the thought of not having any, of watching him die of septic shock. She took a deep breath, shoving the morbid thought aside.

  “You’ve got a cut on your right calf. More antibiotics and chain mail repair, but you’ll live,” she said, taking his hand.

  He grinned at her, and she felt the familiar flutter in her chest. What would she do without him? He kissed her, then pulled away and shrugged into a robe.

  “I need to look Doug over.”

  “Naked priests. They never let a girl have any fun.” She pulled on a pair of sweats, then a t-shirt. “As his best friend, I’m deeply wounded.”

  She gave it five minutes before heading to the lounge area. Mario stood in the galley, sucking down a bottle of water while nimbly avoiding Delilah’s uncanny ability to be underfoot when there was any possibility of food. She kissed the back of his neck as she squeezed by, trying to ignore the swooping sensation in her stomach when she leaned over to catch the dog’s collar and pull her out of the way.

  Doug huddled under a blanket on the long built-in couch. Miranda sat beside him, stealing some of the blanket and snuggling close. When he protested, she said, “Payback for choosing Mario to inspect your hot bod.”

  Mario joined them, sitting on the floor at Miranda’s feet. He rubbed Delilah’s batwing ears, and the dog’s leg started jiggling like crazy. Even as discouraged as the slump of Mario’s shoulders showed him to be, the way he looked at her warmed Miranda from her toes to her nose.

  Carnal warmth notwithstanding, she was not able to tamp down the despair taking root behind her sternum, so powerful it ached. Mario and Doug were safe; that was what she had to focus on. She just could not fucking believe it. She could not believe that Seattle University, their safe harbor, was gone. She did not understand how she had the capacity to be surprised by this kind of setback anymore, but she was. This was supposed to be it. Their destination, their goal. The warm embrace of allies and the chance to let others mind the whack job for a little while. A chance to get off this nausea factory that masqueraded as transportation. Instead, their refuge was gone, and zombies roamed its grounds as freely as they did the rest of the city.

  “You two were gone so long I was hoping it was because you were with people,” Miranda said. She leaned her head back against the cushions and concentrated on her breathing so she wouldn’t throw up.

  “Just hard to move around, you know how it is. Clear one minute, a block party the next,” Doug said. His lips were still tinged blue from Puget Sound’s cold waters.

  Mario tipped his head toward t
he fore cabin. “He give you any trouble?”

  “Nah,” she said. “The asshole behaved himself.”

  Delilah settled her head over Mario’s thigh with a contented sigh. He scratched her head absently with one hand. With the other he found Miranda’s foot under the blanket and wrapped his hand around the back of her heel, running his thumb back and forth over the top of her foot.

  He said, “Of all the problems we might run into, I have to admit I did not see this one coming.”

  Miranda nodded her agreement. “Do we set up shop here anyway? If we took Jeremiah with us, it would be easier to move around. We could see if the lab is salvageable.”

  “You didn’t see the campus, babe,” Mario said. “Half the buildings were burned down.”

  “I don’t want to take Jeremiah off this boat unless we have a destination in mind,” Doug said. “He’ll try to escape first chance he gets. I don’t want to risk it if we don’t have to.”

  A stronger wave of nausea rose in Miranda’s throat.

  I will not puke, I will not puke, I will not puke.

  Mario stopped petting Delilah and rubbed his eyes. “We should try Portland.”

  Despite her joy at their miraculous deliverance, Miranda bristled. “You mean the place we passed six days ago? Six days that I could have been on dry land?”

  Doug leaned forward and spoke to Mario across Miranda. “Where’s the stuff we got for her?”

  “Oh, right, I forgot.”

  Mario unglued Delilah from his leg and got up. He rifled through his oversized wet backpack, still in the corner where he had dropped it earlier. He pulled out bottle after bottle of pills, each ensconced in vacuum-sealed plastic bags.

  “Oregon Health and Science University is in Portland,” he said. “It was a teaching hospital, and there was a vaccine institute. We’ll probably have an easier time finding the equipment we need there. I almost said something when we were approaching the Columbia River, but they were expecting us here with a lab that was ready to go. I don’t know what we’ll do for power, but, ah, here we go.”

  Mario held up a huge white pill bottle, and Miranda knew she was going to be sick.

  “Oh shit,” she moaned, bending double to put her head between her knees. A second later, a bucket was shoved under her face. She heaved into it, the meager contents of her stomach riding an acid-tinged wave the wrong way through her esophagus. Sweat chilled her skin as she spat into the bucket, waiting to see if any more was coming.

  “Take this,” Mario said, kneeling beside her. He handed her a pill and some water.

  Miranda swallowed the bitter pill. She swished the water in her mouth before spitting it into the bucket.

  “What is it?”

  “Metoclopramide,” Mario answered.

  “Not helpful,” she said more sharply than she meant to.

  Doug patted her back. “It’s prescription strength Dramamine.” He grabbed the bucket as he stood up. “We got stuck in a CVS on the way back. You’re welcome, Miri.”

  Miranda sighed. They had only just been delivered from death’s door, and she was already snapping and crabby. “I’m sorry. Thank you, both of you.”

  Mario pulled her to her feet and turned her toward their cabin. “You should lie down till that kicks in. You look green. I’ll be in as soon as I sort through all the meds we picked up.”

  She made it to the galley before he said, “Your limp is worse.”

  “I know,” she said, but did not stop.

  “What happened?”

  Miranda turned back to face him. Between the fear, the icy water, and her stomach’s latest act of rebellion, a deep exhaustion had settled over her, weighing her down like a heavy cloak. She wanted to lie, tell him she had tripped, but they had promised no secrets this time. It wouldn’t be a big lie, but little lies made the big ones easier. If she wanted him to hold up his end of the bargain, then she had to hold up hers.

  Besides, she had a work-around.

  “I jumped into Puget Sound to save your ass, that’s what.”

  Mario’s eyes narrowed. “What else? Swimming would not screw it up that much.”

  Fuck, she thought. Resigned, she said, “The zombies started moaning when you were coming back, and I couldn’t see anything. I thought I might be able to see if I climbed the mast to—”

  “You climbed the mast?” Mario said, interrupting her. “Are you trying to permanently screw up your knee?”

  “Of course not,” she said as Delilah began to whine. “Not any more than you’re trying to screw up your shoulder.”

  Mario took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. “A bum knee might kill you.”

  She could tell by his tone he was forcing himself to stay calm.

  “So might a bum shoulder,” she said, annoyed. She was not giving him a hard time about his injuries or how he might be making them worse. Why was he giving her one?

  “Be reasonable, Miranda—”

  “Be reasonable?”

  If there was one thing that made Miranda see red, it was a man telling her to be reasonable because she did not agree with him. Mario was out of practice; that was for fucking sure.

  “I was trying to see if I could help you.”

  “Watch Jeremiah and don’t do anything stupid,” Mario snapped, shouting at her. “Jesus Christ, Miranda! That’s all you had to do!”

  She took a step back, Delilah covering her retreat. The dog did not exactly growl at Mario, but the rumble in her throat was close.

  Miranda looked at Mario, puzzled. She could count on one hand the times he had lost his temper like this and still have fingers free. Something else was going on; she just did not know what, but her temper was up, too. Trying to figure it out was not something she had the bandwidth for, tired and nauseous as she was. Mario and Doug had just given her the fright of a lifetime and he was giving her a hard time about saving him?

  Her voice became a growl. “Don’t take that tone with me.”

  “Or,” Doug said, raising his voice, “you could just admit that maybe climbing the mast was not the brightest idea, Miri, and that you’ll do a better job convalescing from now on. And you could try being less judgy, Mario, because you’re deep in hypocrite territory.”

  Doug shook his head at them like they were unruly children.

  “You two love each other, and unlike long-suffering Father Doug here, haven’t taken a vow of celibacy. Why don’t you do what normal people do when they’ve just cheated death and get a room?”

  A pink flush of embarrassment crept up Mario’s face, despite his narrowed eyes and fierce glare. Served him right, Miranda thought. Doug smirked at her, his blue eyes brimming with good cheer.

  “Oh fuck you both. I’m going to lie down.”

  3

  Mario watched Miranda hobble off to their cabin, Delilah at her heels, not quite sure what had just happened. What the fuck had that been about? He should not be surprised that her own safety would be the first thing out the window if she thought he or Doug were in danger, but he had only just gotten her back. She had forgiven him, which he didn’t deserve after what he had put her through, and he was fucking it up. Fear flooded his belly at the thought that he was driving her away. He followed as far as the galley, then stopped. If he tried to talk to her now, it would just prolong their argument.

  Doug made an extravagant display of yawning and stretching.

  “I’m going to let Jeremiah out,”

  Doug went to the fore cabin. A minute later, Mario heard him say, “You wanna stay here and mope, fine by me, but you won’t get your book.”

  Jeremiah muttered something Mario could not make out.

  “Just put the damn things on,” Doug said.

  A smile quirked Mario’s lips upward. After three weeks, even Doug’s patience with their captive was wearing thin. Doug stepped backward into the lounge area far enough to clear a path from the fore cabin to the table across from the couch. Jeremiah shuffled through the door, the metal of the shackl
es that bound his hands and feet clinking.

  Jeremiah looked smug when he said, “Your failure to impose discipline and obedience, to tolerate such willfulness, is why your woman behaves as she does. If you believed in Our judgment, in the truth of Us, God the Heavenly Father on Earth, it would be a simple thing to banish her defects of character.”

  Mario sighed. The guy was like a skipping record.

  “I happen to like those defects of character. They keep things interesting.”

  Doug pointed to the built-in bench that curled around the table at a ninety-degree angle. A book sat on it.

  “Sit. Read.” Doug put his finger to his lips. “And for the love of God, shhhh.”

  Jeremiah shot Doug a venomous glare. “We shall mete Our judgment eventually, apostate. It will be swift and merciless.”

  But he did as he was told, eagerly scooping up the paperback. Jeremiah’s man overboard escapade the third day out from Santa Cruz had almost derailed everything they had fought so hard for, that their friends had died for. They had clamped down hard. A few days later, they discovered they could extort him into middling-good behavior with books. It was a surprising discovery at first since there had been few books in New Jerusalem. But Jeremiah was crazy, not illiterate, even if reading popular fiction undermined his claim of rejecting everything to do with the ‘fallen world’ beyond his mountaintop cult. Luckily, the yacht’s owner had been a voracious reader. Paperback novels were crammed everywhere, and letting him read made watching him less labor intensive. Jeremiah liked thrillers and mysteries, especially Jack Reacher.

  Poor Jack, Mario thought, having read some Jack Reacher books himself. He was certain Jeremiah identified with the honorable hero of the series; he lacked the self-awareness to realize he was anything but. If Jack Reacher were here, he would kick Jeremiah’s ass and not lose a wink of sleep over it.

  Doug joined Mario in the galley. It was far enough away that they could keep a watchful eye on Jeremiah but still converse without being overheard.