A Mad Zombie Party

Like Cole and Ali, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Like Bronx and his girlfriend Reeve, we worshipped the ground the other walked on. Now I have nothing but memories.

No, that’s not true. I also have pain and misery.

A big brute of a guy suddenly gets in my grille. I say “brute” only because the shadow he’s throwing is my size. I’m a big guy, loaded with heavy muscle and topping out well over six feet.

Clearly he thinks he’s tough. He probably expects me to crap my pants and beg for mercy. Good luck with that. If he isn’t careful, he won’t be walking away from this encounter—he’ll be crawling. But as I rake my gaze from his boots to his face, I lose the ’tude.

Here is Cole Holland in the flesh. My friend and fearless leader. I’ve known and loved him like a brother since our elementary school days. Over the years we’ve fought beside each other, bled with each other and saved each other. I’d die for him, and he’d die for me.

Too bad for him I’m not in the mood for another pep talk.

“Don’t,” I say. “Just don’t.”

“Don’t speak to my best friend? How about you don’t say dumb shit?”

Yeah. How about. “How’d you find me?”

“My super amazing detective skills. How else?”

“If I had to guess I’d say the GPS in my phone.” Technology is such an asshole.

Cole’s eyes are violet and freaky cool, especially as they glitter in the light of the sun—but they’re also a little too shrewd as they stare at the collar of my shirt.

“Lipstick?” He arches a brow.

“I’m on the hunt for my perfect shade,” I respond, deadpan.

“Ditch the magenta. Your olive skin tone screams for rose.” His deadpan is better than mine.

The old me would have been all over that. The new me just wants to be left alone. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll keep it in mind.” I try to move around him.

He just moves with me. “Come on.” He pats me on the shoulder, and if I’d been a weaker guy, I would have been drilled into the concrete. “Let’s go get something to eat. Looks like you could use a solid meal rather than a liquid one.”

As much as I don’t want to go, I don’t want to argue with him. Takes too much energy. His Jeep is idling at the curb, and I slide into the passenger seat without protest. A ten-minute drive follows, and thankfully he doesn’t fight the silence. What’s there to say, really? The situation is what it is, and there’s no changing it.

We end up at Hash Town, and as I walk through the doors, I suddenly wish I’d argued. Ali, Bronx and Reeve are at a table in back, waiting for us. Reeve and I have never been close; she was Kat’s friend, and like Kat, slaying has never been in her wheelhouse. She can’t see or hear zombies, but she’s watched us fight so many times, she’s accepted what other civilians never have: the monsters are real, and they live among us.

Reeve lost her dad—her only living family and our wealthiest benefactor—the day I lost Kat. For the first time, I’m struck by a sense of kinship with her. Maybe this forced interaction won’t be so bad.

As she smiles at me in welcome, however, I revert to my original unease. She has dark hair and even darker eyes, and for many years she and Kat pretended to be sisters from different misters. Right now it kinda hurts to look at her.

Who am I kidding? Everything hurts.

“Is this an intervention?” I take one of two empty seats and signal the waitress for coffee. I’m going to need it.

“No, but it probably should be,” Ali says. “You look like dog crap that’s baked in the sun a little too long.” Her mouth has always lacked any type of filter, a problem exacerbated by her refusal to lie about anything. Two qualities guaranteed to turn every conversation into a battlefield. But that’s okay. Give me blunt truth over charming flattery any day.

Cole sits next to her and kisses her on the cheek. She leans in to him, the action natural to her, wholly instinctive.

Kat and I used to do the same.

A sharp lance of pain rips through my chest, and I have to school my expression to hide my grimace.

“The good news is my dog crap is another man’s best,” I say.

“Oh, my friend,” Ali replies with a shake of her head, “you clearly haven’t seen yourself in the mirror.”

I shrug. “You look good, at least.”

“Obviously.” She buffs her nails.

It’s such a Kat thing to say, to hear. We both freeze.

This time, I can’t school my expression. What’s worse, I need a moment to steady my breathing. New conversations eventually kick off, friendly insults bouncing back and forth among the group.

Ali leans toward me and whispers, “I miss her, too.”

I hike my shoulders in another shrug. It’s all I can really manage at the moment.

In appearance, Ali is Kat’s polar opposite. While Ali is tall and slender with a fall of pale hair and eyes of the clearest, purest blue, Kat is—was, damn it—short and curvy with dark hair and mesmerizing hazel eyes that were a perfect blend of green and gold.

In storybook terms, Ali is the innocent snow princess and Kat is the seductive evil queen.

There’d been no one prettier than my Kat. Or smarter. Or wittier. Or more adorable. And if I continue along this path, I’m going to tear the building apart brick by brick.

The waitress finally arrives with the coffeepot and fills my cup. “Your order will be out in a few minutes, hon.”

I get a friendly pat on my shoulder before she ambles away.

“We took the liberty of ordering for you,” Reeve tells me. “Two fried eggs, four pieces of bacon, two sausage patties, a double helping of cheesy hash browns and a stack of pecan pancakes.” She nibbles on her bottom lip. “If you’d like something else...”

“I’m sure I can make do with so little.” I’m not hungry, anyway. “How’s Z-hunting going?”

“Better than ever.” Ali takes a sip of her orange juice. “Tell him your news,” she says to Reeve.

Reeve blushes. “I used my dad’s notes and Ali’s blood to create a new serum.”

Ali practically bounces in her seat. “It’s awesome because—drumroll please—she was able to extract and use the essence of my fire. We inject zombies with it, and it’s as if they’ve bitten me. In minutes, their darkness is washed away because I am so awesome— What?” she says when Cole nudges her. “You know it’s true. Anyway. When completely cleansed, the Zs become witnesses and float away into the hereafter.”

“It’s a miracle to watch,” Cole says.

All slayers produce spiritual fire—inner light—the only weapon truly capable of killing zombies. But after the leader of Anima experimented on Ali, shooting her full of untested drugs, she developed the ability to save Zs, too. An ability she then shared with other slayers by using her fire on them.

Multiple times she’s offered to share it with me, too, but I’ve always turned her down. I’m not interested in saving my enemy. Zombies bit Kat, which means I would have lost her to toxin even if I hadn’t lost her to a bomb and a hail of bullets. But the thing that really kills me? The toxin ensured she suffered a far more agonizing death, no matter the cause, every bit of her pain magnified. Therefore, zombies have to die.

The downside? I don’t just suffer when I’m bitten, I suffer, unbearable agony consuming me, the urge to destroy everything in my path utterly overwhelming me. I also can’t be healed without another slayer’s fire or an injection of a chemical antidote—and I have to receive either one within a ten-minute window of the bite or I’m toast.

“Do I sense a but?” I ask.