Love, Lust, and Zombies Read online

I nodded, careful not to look him in the face. “Sally Cross.”

  “Is that because you’re so angry?”

  “I’m not,” I said sharply.

  “Well. Do you want to know my name?”

  I shrugged and went to the chest to pull out linens for the bed.

  “I’ll tell you anyway,” he said. “My friends call me Reed.”

  I looked up at his face, which was a long ways above mine.

  “Is that on account of how tall you are?” I said.

  He laughed, sending dried mud cascading from his clothing and beard. The scattered dirt mingled with the thin layer of dust blanketing the floor. His footprints were broad and muddy and pointed out at odd angles, like a duck’s tracks.

  “Off with those dirty clothes, Mr. Reed,” I said again. “There are towels and a robe in the drawer under the bed. I’ll ready your bath downstairs.”

  “It’s just Reed.”

  I headed for the door but paused on the threshold. His back was to me as he unbuttoned his shirt, moving more slowly than old Master Parton. He slid out of the shirt and shook more of the mud off it.

  “Please, just leave it.” I reminded myself to fetch a broom to tidy up while he bathed. This room was unfit for the living.

  I smelled stale sweat, mixed with something else, a musky odor. I admired the way the muscles moved on his pale back as he carefully folded the soiled shirt.

  “Is it really an accident that you’ve turned up here?” I said. His timing was suspicious; I wondered if he were looking for something.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  He turned and grinned when he saw me staring. “You tell me,” he said.

  I darted out of the room and scrambled down the stairs to get the water ready for his bath.

  Master Parton tasked me with discovering where Reed had come from and what he wanted from us. He promised I could keep whatever I made without paying his usual share. I was curious about the tall stranger anyway and wouldn’t mind spending more time with him. I didn’t admit that to Master Parton of course, or he would have changed his mind.

  Reed startled and splashed water out of the tub when I entered the bathhouse. When he spotted me he sighed and sank back under the water to his chin. The tub I had chosen was too small for him; his knees stuck up like the peaks of the Peacemouth Mountains.

  “A bit more hot water, Sally,” he said. Then as an afterthought he added, “if you please.”

  I picked up a steaming bucket and brought it to his side. I poured the water in slowly, keeping my eyes on his face the way they taught me to pour the ale, for better tips.

  He cleaned up pretty well. It turned out his hair was as brown as the water he bathed in, not black like it had looked under all the muck and grime. He hadn’t done a good job of washing though—I could tell he was the type to leave dirt behind his ears.

  As I turned to put the bucket down his hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I struggled for a moment in his soapy grasp, but I froze when he stared at me the way he had at the food earlier. His fingers blazed hot against my cold skin—I knew it wasn’t just the hot water that made them burn so. The seasonal change was already working itself on me, and his flesh was still full of life. I felt the fire that had kept him on the road to Waring, when most everyone else would have turned back. I closed my eyes and let his body warm mine.

  “Stay a while,” he said.

  “That’s… That’s extra,” I said.

  “I just want some company.” He relaxed his grip. “I have money, if that’s what you want,” he said gruffly.

  I put down the bucket and picked up a washcloth and a loamy brick of soap. I lathered my hands then rubbed them along one of his arms, slicking it along his forearm to his hard bicep. He smiled lazily.

  “That feels good.”

  I swabbed the dirt from his skin with a washcloth, the heat from the water and his body steaming my face. I blinked sweat from my eyes and made sure I cleaned thoroughly behind his ears.

  “You need a shave,” I said, fingering his coarse and tangled beard.

  “You don’t like it?” he said. I wrinkled my nose. “Me neither. I suppose the shave will cost extra too.”

  While I cut away at his beard with a sharp knife I asked him where he came from.

  “Far away,” was the only answer.

  I had no better luck when I inquired as to the reason for his journey, or why he was interested in Waring in particular.

  “How old are you, Sally?” he asked suddenly.

  “How old do I look?”

  “Oh no. I know this old trick. There’s no good answer.”

  “Tell me honestly.”

  “Not much older than sixteen,” he ventured. I smiled and lathered along his jaw.

  “Older than that,” I said. I was twenty-two, but I felt no need to tell him that. I slowly scraped the blade against his cheek.

  “Then you’re old enough.” The blade slipped and he bellowed as it nicked him under his nose.

  I gave him a serviceable haircut too, and by the time I was done I decided that he was quite handsome. He had a square jaw and a long sharp nose that gave him an air of nobility—like those leaders pictured on our old coins. I revised my estimate of his age downward, placing him in his late twenties at the youngest, though his eyes were much older, as though he had seen a lot already in his travels.

  Without his beard and with a leather cord tying his hair in a short ponytail, Reed looked even gaunter than before. I sent him upstairs while I drained the tub and washed his traveling clothes. When I returned to the tavern he was dressed in a plain suit and seated with a huge pile of food before him. Master Parton sat across from him with his pipe clenched in his teeth.

  “I actually named this place the Ale House,” Master Parton said. “But some rascals in town climbed up there and painted on some extra letters one day and it stuck.” He nodded at me. “Sally’s father being one of them. Been the Pale Horse ever since.”

  “That seems to be inviting trouble,” Reed said. “An omen of death, like.”

  Master Parton coughed and lowered his pipe. “Death visits everyone. Whether you see it coming or not.” He heaved himself to his feet and kicked his stool under the table. “Well, I’d best be heading home. It was a pleasure meeting you. Lock up, will you, girl?”

  “All right,” I said. I glared at him as he tapped out his pipe on the floor. It wasn’t he who would be sweeping the floors after closing. It didn’t even look like he had cleared the crumbs from the tables, and I didn’t doubt his wife had left me a nice stack of dishes back in the kitchen to deal with.

  Master Parton winked. “Make sure our guest is taken care of, Sally.”

  Reed sipped his ale then licked foam from his lip, his tongue probing the tiny cut above his mouth. I thought this one occasion where work might seem more like pleasure.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  In my time at the Pale Horse, I’ve learned that most men don’t want what they can get at home, nor can they provide me with anything worth my troubles. A few coins were usually the only compensation for the kinds of things my customers asked for.

  Consequently, I hadn’t properly been with a man since the fertility festival. Reed was gentle, as though he were afraid of hurting me, until I showed him how rough he could be. He was thin and muscular all over, and not as tired as he had first appeared. It’s amazing what good food and a hot bath can do for the constitution, though I flattered myself to think that a woman could work even more wonders.

  He gave me what I needed, and more. His heat sustained me in the cold night, as I had felt my own warmth slipping away more and more with the passing days.

  I watched him while he dozed, studying the flutter of his eyelashes and the steady rise and fall of his chest. I placed my cheek close to his mouth for the touch of his breath against it, and put my palm over his heart to feel the strong beats.

  When the sun ro
se, he finally stirred.

  “Good morning, Sally.” He reached for me but I rolled away.

  “Haven’t you had enough?” I laughed and pushed my corn-colored hair away from my face.

  “If you mean sleep, no, but I don’t miss it.”

  “You have to go, Reed.”

  “I never want to go.” A shiver passed through me.

  “If you stay you might get your wish.”

  “I just got here, love. I haven’t even been here twenty-four hours yet and I’m more drained than I was when I arrived. What sort of rest is that?”

  “I don’t think even I could handle you for twenty-four hours.”

  He grabbed for me again and this time I let him pull me closer. “Now you’re just being modest.” His eyes roved down to my bare breasts and he stroked my stomach with the back of his hand. “So to speak.”

  I heard banging downstairs—Master Parton’s subtle way of expressing displeasure that I hadn’t been there for the morning breakfast rush.

  “Now I have to go.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  I kissed him and he drew me even closer, his hand behind my neck, threaded through my hair. I pulled away and some flaxen hairs came loose, still entwined in his fingers. He stared at the plucked strands in surprise.

  “Later,” I promised, but thinking there would be no later.

  He ate a hearty breakfast and followed me around the tavern with his eyes, while the others watched us. Then he went out for a walk around the village. I smelled his scent on me all day and worked in good spirits despite my weariness, ignoring everyone’s curious glances.

  The looks weren’t because I had slept with someone outside of our village—that happened often enough, especially during the spring trading. It was that I had done it just before winter. Unless you were already pregnant, few risked sex after the fertility festival. Truthfully most people didn’t even have much interest in it as the days grew shorter and colder and life passed from the village, but I had gone without for so long and Reed was so alive.

  They couldn’t blame me though, assuming I was just doing my job; of course, if I had charged Reed for the full night, I would be a rich woman indeed. I knew it was foolish to feel too much for a man I barely knew, one who would have to leave all too soon. All I knew was that he was different, and I wanted to hold on to that as long as I could.

  When Reed came back he wanted another bath, but this time he insisted on a larger tub that could accommodate two bodies.

  “You’re freezing,” he said. “Get under the water.”

  The water did the favor of hiding how dry my skin had become overnight. I dipped low in the tub and slid toward him like an eel.

  “I always get this way around winter. Just hold me.”

  That suited him fine. As we lay against each other, the water-line tickling my back and shoulders, lapping against his neck and chin, he finally told me what I wanted to know.

  “I’m an explorer, Sally. I travel, looking for strange and unusual things.”

  “Then what do you do with them? Do you collect and sell them like trinkets?”

  He looked at me aghast. “I draw them. I describe them in my journal. And I tell stories about the things I’ve seen.”

  The idea of traveling from place to place, just for the experience, excited me. Maybe that was what drew me to Reed; it was a life I could never have for myself.

  I dragged my fingernails through the wiry coils of hair on his chest and he twitched.

  “Am I strange and unusual?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I wriggled away from him and splashed water into his face. He spluttered then locked his long sturdy legs around my waist and wrestled me back over to him. “Well, I’ve never met another like you anyway,” he said. “This town though, if it’s what I think it is, is truly unique. I never thought I’d find it.”

  “What have you heard?” I rested my head against the hollow in his chest and enjoyed the gentle vibration of it as he spoke.

  “That this place comes and goes with the seasons. It disappears in the winter.”

  “But you’re here. You found us.”

  “It wasn’t quite winter when I stumbled onto a part of the trail. And even then I almost didn’t make it. I’ve also heard…” His eyes searched my face but I didn’t know what he was looking for. Did he know about the changes? Would he push me away if he knew the terrible truth about Waring?

  “I’ve also heard that those who live here never die,” he said.

  I laughed. Never dying sounded pretty good to me. “We aren’t immortal. You’ve seen Master Parton. He’s ready to drop any day now, especially the way he carries on.” It wasn’t a complete lie, I told myself.

  Reed’s face relaxed and he smiled. “Well, I’m still fascinated by this place. Do you know, I didn’t see any animals in the fields? No dogs or cats in the streets. Not even birds in the forest on the edge of town.”

  I shrugged and his eyes indulged in my breasts as they emerged from the water. I ignored the stiffness in my shoulders and the creeping chill in my bones.

  “We slaughtered our livestock. There’s nothing to feed them in the winter,” I said.

  “Then what do you eat?”

  “We have provisions.” We had preserved a portion of our meat and other supplies in a location only the elders knew about. They were under lock and key until the spring.

  “That’s not the only odd thing. Almost every woman your age had a babe on her hip and milk swelling her breasts.” His calloused fingers rubbed like sandpaper over my nipples.

  “Haven’t you noticed? The women here are lusty.” I grabbed at him under the water and squeezed softly.

  Reed laughed. “I had noticed that. Once I start telling people about Waring, you’ll have a lot more visitors.”

  “We don’t want visitors. Not now anyway.”

  “I had thought the reception a little cool at first.”

  “Reed. You have to leave tomorrow morning.” Master Parton had been upset that Reed had stayed on, but he hadn’t done anything about it yet, which frightened me. “Promise me you will. The next day is the winter solstice, and then it might be too late.”

  “Too late?”

  I didn’t say anything else. I just mashed my lips against his and slid onto his lap, holding tight to him.

  They pulled Reed from our bed in the morning. Despite his larger size, the posse knew what they were doing. When they were done with him they propped him against the wall, his arms and legs held fast by the Parton boys. They asked him what he wanted in Waring.

  He looked at me while he spoke. “I came looking for your magic. The secret of eternal youth.”

  Master Parton guffawed. “Do I look young to you, boy? If there was any such thing, I’d be the first one in line.”

  Reed’s eyes pleaded with me, but all I could do was watch. If I showed how much it hurt me to see them beat him, it would only go worse for him. I covered myself with the blanket when I caught Bobby Ratter ogling me. He had tried to force himself on me in the spring, but he finally listened when I said no with the little dagger I always carried. He had limped for a week afterward, but not for the reason he bragged about.

  “There’s something strange here,” Reed said.

  “You’re the only strange thing, and you’re leaving,” Bobby said. He kicked him in the ribs and Reed gasped. I flinched. “One way or another.”

  “Sally—” He coughed, twisting against the hands holding him down.

  Master Parton glanced at me. “The whore can’t help you.” The words stung as if he had struck me himself.

  “Stop it,” I said. “He doesn’t deserve this. He’s our guest”

  “Are you going to kill me?” Reed said.

  “There’s too much death already,” Master Parton said. “But you can’t stay here. This is for your own good.”

  “Sally?” Reed said.

  Silence settled on the room as everyone looked at me.<
br />
  “Go, Reed. There’s no place for you here.” I closed my eyes but I had already seen the look on his face.

  When Reed left he took part of me with him, though he didn’t know it. I felt torn in two, between my ties to Waring and whatever I felt for him. In the end neither of us really had a choice— he couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t leave.

  He didn’t speak to me. He just gathered his things, tossed a handful of coins onto the bed beside me, and left.

  Things quickly returned to normal as we made our final preparations for winter. We boarded up the village and finished off as much food as we could before it spoiled. After we lost our appetites we burned the rest—we didn’t need rotting food around, when we would soon be rotting ourselves.

  It was the dying time.

  I left Reed’s room open and began spending nights there, until I couldn’t smell him anymore. I couldn’t smell at all. I cried into his pillow until there were no more tears.

  Two weeks after the solstice I discovered that Reed had left something with me as well: a tiny seed, blazing like a beacon in my cold womb. It should have been impossible to carry life within my wasting body.

  Tess’s baby hadn’t made it. The night of our solstice celebration she locked herself in her house while the life ebbed from the unborn baby trapped inside her. It had been a boy, we later learned, when we cut it out of her, too late. That’s how it had always been: babies born before the dying time change like the rest of us, but if they were still in the womb as winter settled on the town, they suffered permanent death. We kept trying each spring, hoping that one of them would break the curse.

  We hate to look at each other during the walking death of the dying time. While the rest of Waring holed up in their houses to work on their crafts and metalwork, preparing items to trade in the spring, I wandered the empty rooms of the Pale Horse, fretting over my own pregnancy. I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I might never find out. The fire within me flickered like a guttering candle. It would surely die because I couldn’t feed it—then I would have nothing more to worry about.

  But I wanted to see that child. I wanted to see Reed again.

  Then another impossible thing happened. Someone knocked at the door of the Pale Horse, the sound echoing through the barren tavern.