Love, Lust, and Zombies Read online

  Shit.

  No way in hell I can reach my shotgun. It’s a good fifteen feet away in the bedroom and on the opposite side of the bed from where I am. Plus whoever came into the cabin will be bound to hear me on these creaky pine floorboards and get to it first. I don’t mind telling you that I don’t fancy having my head blown off.

  A moment later I hear the refrigerator door open.

  Bastard!

  I so want to catch this guy—and I’m pretty sure it’s a guy, though I don’t know why I’m so sure. Slowly I rise up from the bathwater, the Phoenix of Appalachia, ready to kick ass even though I’m naked and dripping water all over the place. By now I’m so pissed off that I don’t need a gun. I grab up my towel and wrap it around me totally half-assed, too angry to care that I’ve got half a tit showing and probably half my twat, too.

  I creep toward the kitchen, where I spy a pair of blue-jeaned male buttocks thrusting out as their owner’s head sticks itself inside my fridge. Those jeans have seen better days. I know it’s fashionable to wear denim that looks old and worn, but this is overkill. The guy’s wearing a T-shirt that might’ve been white during the Clinton administration, but is now a kaleidoscopic orgy of mud-brown smeared with yellow and rust.

  He must’ve heard me because he turns around. I see a flicker of guilt flash across his gaunt face as I catch him red-handed with a wedge of cheddar and a bread roll in a hand each. His sunken eyes widen with shock. His lips work, but nothing comes out but a tiny keening noise that sounds like a mouse whose tail has been trodden on.

  He’s young. Beneath the grime and the dark hollows etched beneath his cloudy eyes he could be a high school senior. I wonder if he’s a runaway, though I doubt they classify boys at the age of consent as “runaways” these days. Whoever he is, something very strange has happened to him. He doesn’t look… well…right.

  His dead-looking eyes appear to catch fire as they focus on the lower portion of my towel and suddenly I feel the cool air on parts of me that I should have taken greater care to keep covered. It’s all there for him to see—and boy does he see it. I can feel myself getting wet, and it isn’t from the bathwater dripping from me.

  The tip of his tongue shows up between thin lips and it’s as if it’s licking me. I swear I can feel it laving my flesh, exploring and prodding and tasting. Oh, yeah; he’s hungry, all right.

  At last I regain my senses. “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?”

  Not the most polite of greetings, but there you go.

  He doesn’t move. He’s just standing there with the cheddar and the roll, looking the kind of terrified that I should be feeling, yet don’t. I see the guilt come onto his face again as he seems to struggle to say something. I almost expect him to apologize, which I imagine would be highly unusual for a burglar. Maybe he’s some kind of new-school burglar as opposed to the old-school sort—a burglar with a conscience. I wonder if he might be some kid living rough in the woods. That’s what he looks like. Or at least it would be if he didn’t look so…weird.

  Then just like that he’s gone, vanishing out my front door with his treasures, the only sign of his having been here the open refrigerator door.

  What in the name of—?

  I lock the front door, hoping I’ll get my car back soon so that I can drive to the home improvement place and buy a better lock. I figure the kid’s not likely to come back again, especially since I caught him red-handed. He’s probably clear on the other side of the mountain range by now, maybe even crossing the state border.

  For the rest of the day and evening I try not to give him any more thought, though I can still feel that phantom tongue of his licking me. It gets so bad that I need to go lie down on the bed and twiddle myself until I come. And when I do, the ghost of his haunted face appears before me. Christ. I must really be losing it.

  The car is ready a day earlier than estimated and finally I’m back in control. Yet despite my anxiousness to do something about the lock situation, I keep putting it off. I reckon the kid’s not coming back now that the jig is up, so maybe I should just stop worrying. Even those weird noises at dusk have stopped. It’s all back to normal: woodpeckers pecking, squirrels barking, katydids chirruping. Nothing suspicious or sinister, just the forest residents doing their thang.

  I don’t leave the cabin for an entire week. I would’ve stayed sequestered for another week were it not for the fact that I’m running low on provisions. I’m nearly out of toilet paper and wine. Something must be done.

  I’m only gone for a couple of hours, yet it’s sufficient time for my intruder to return to the cabin. When I get home, I find my front door unlocked and standing wide open and a familiar blue-jeaned ass at the kitchen counter, its owner apparently not having heard the car drive up. The pot of chili I’d made the other day is out on the stove being heated, an empty bowl and spoon sitting on the countertop, along with a bottle of beer, half of which has already been consumed.

  I drop my shopping bags onto the floor with a loud thunk.

  The kid turns around. Christ, he looks even worse than the last time I saw him. His face is more gaunt than ever, his eyes more sunken in. And don’t even talk about the clothes. Yet there’s something there—something that makes me overlook his battered and shabby appearance and gets that phantom tongue licking again. Oh, man, I really need to get out more.

  He sets the stirring spoon into the bowl. Yeah, can you believe it? He was actually stirring the chili while it was warming up to prevent it from burning. Talk about domesticated. His thin lips do that twitching thing again and I can see he’s really struggling to say something, but all that comes out is that tiny keening mouse. What the hell’s up with this guy?

  Oddly, I don’t feel afraid so I don’t even think to make a run for the shotgun. There’s something kind of sweet about him stirring that pot of chili and it reaches through my rib cage, touching my heart. “I guess you’ll be wanting some shredded cheese with that,” I say, going over to the fridge to take out the cheddar. He stands there watching with those haunted eyes of his as I drag the wedge over the shredder until a cheesy hill forms on the chopping block. I scoop it with my hand onto a small plate and take it to the dining table, where I arrange a place setting for my uninvited guest.

  A few minutes later he’s spooning his bowl of cheese-topped chili into his mouth, washing it down with a second bottle of beer. The kid’s got a healthy appetite, I’ll say that much. His table manners aren’t too shabby either. In fact, he’s more mannerly in his eating habits than most of the guys I’ve known who dress in a suit and tie five days a week. Despite his appearance of starvation, he doesn’t scarf down his food. Now that’s class.

  When not so much as a chili bean remains, he finishes the last of his beer and gets up from the table, bringing the empty bowl and beer bottle over to the counter. We stand there staring at each other for several minutes until he reaches a gaunt hand out toward my face, trailing his cool fingers down my cheek. I feel my nipples go rock hard beneath my T-shirt. My panties are wet; I feel them soaking all the way through to my jeans.

  I want him to touch me so bad that I ache.

  Then suddenly, just like before, he’s gone.

  That night I don’t know what to do. I’m so frustrated with desire I’m ready to scream. I use my fingers, I rub against the bedpost, I grind myself onto the heel of my foot. But the relief I need is not the relief I’m getting.

  All I want is for him to return.

  Sure, he looks like something from out of a George A. Romero film, but I don’t care. I want him.

  As if in answer to my prayers, he does come back. This time he doesn’t break in like some cut-rate burglar, but instead turns up at the front door, knocking politely yet with solid determination like a Jehovah’s Witness. I discover him there with a withering bouquet of flowers he must’ve picked up from a gravesite. I’m flabbergasted. Modern men just don’t do this kind of thing anymore. This kid’s definitely old
school. It seems I’m being courted!

  I take the dying flowers from his trembling hand and stick them in a plastic pitcher, which I fill with water even though nothing will return any life to this floral arrangement. I place the thing on the dining table and get him a bottle of beer from the fridge. I’ve taken to keeping a bigger supply on hand in hopeful anticipation of his visits. He takes it from me with a grateful look and goes to sit in the same chair he sat in last time. I grab a beer for myself and join him.

  It takes a while before I can finally understand a word he says, but once I get the hang of his disjointed verbal cadences and frequent full stops I can follow along with a fair amount of success. From what I can gather, he’s broken away from some group and is trying to get by on his own. A religious cult perhaps? At first he doesn’t say why he wants to steer clear of his comrades, but the fear in his eyes tells me plenty. Then he finally comes clean and admits that he just doesn’t want to kill and eat people anymore.

  My first thought is they’re some Appalachian cannibal version of the Manson Family and this gets me worried, especially if they might be out looking for him right now. My shotgun can only pick off one thing at a time—and I don’t fancy my luck with the flesh-eating members of a zombie cult.

  The time passes and before I know it darkness has taken hold outside the cabin, bringing with it a requisite chill in the air. I switch on the central heating and light up one of those prefab logs in the fireplace. With a fire going and a bottle of wine open, it’s beginning to feel quite cozy with my guest here. I can get used to this.

  We sit on the floor in front of the fire drinking our wine. I have to admit that being in such close proximity to him I begin to notice that he doesn’t smell all that sweet. I don’t want to be rude, so I figure I’ll be diplomatic and suggest he spend the night, throwing in the offer of a nice hot bath as incentive for him to clean himself up. He accepts my offer with an appreciative keen. I run a bath for him, pouring in a generous glop of patchouli-scented bubble bath. I also strategically place a natural bristle brush on the rim of the tub, along with a fresh bar of Shea butter soap. That should do the trick. I doubt I’ll use the brush after him, but I figure its loss could prove a good investment for later tonight, if you know what I mean.

  I return to the living room to inform him that his bath is ready, offering to refill his wineglass and bring it in to him so that he can enjoy it while he’s having a soak. He seems amenable to the suggestion and keens favorably. I follow him to the bathroom, where I watch him undress. His body is lean and in parts almost emaciated, but in the part that matters most he’s anything but. My word, the equipment on this guy! It’s standing straight up, looking like a man’s forearm rising into the air with a clenched fist. My first thought is whether it will fit inside me. He sees me staring at his assets and looks away in embarrassment, though his cock isn’t embarrassed. It gives a sharp lurch, spasming before my eyes and getting even bigger, if you can believe it.

  I decide to leave him to his bath. The threadbare condition of his jeans and T-shirt lying on the floor like roadkill makes me want to cry, especially when I pick them up (albeit gingerly), the intention being to put them into the washing machine on hot, though I have serious doubts they’ll survive the spin cycle. I decide to check the closet for some generic-gender gear I can loan him, coming up with an old flannel shirt and a pair of baggy jeans I never really liked anyway.

  I return to the fireplace, adding in a new log and replenishing my wine. The comforting warmth of the fire lulls me into an otherworldly state and I lie back on the rug, suddenly feeling incredibly aroused. I figure my guest will be in the bath a while longer, so I kick off my jeans and panties and start getting down to business. I can only imagine what I must look like lying on the floor with my thighs splayed like a Thanksgiving turkey when he returns to the living room dressed in my boyish gear. The next thing I know he’s making that weird keening sound again and his face is right down there, licking and sucking and doing all sorts of amazing and noisy things with his tongue. I’ve had guys go down on me before, but nothing like this. It’s as if his tongue is operating on an electrical current—I can feel myself flowing into his mouth like a river that has broken its banks. I come twice and still he keeps at it until I come a third.

  Finally I can bear no more. I need to get a taste of that astonishing appendage of his. Zombie cock. I laugh at the thought of it, but I stop laughing pretty darn quick when it fills my mouth so fully that I fear I’ll get a dislocated jaw. But what a way to go, eh?

  I can tell that he’s not had this done to him in a long time (if ever?) and his ghostly eyes roll back inside his head until only the whites show. I look away, since it sort of amplifies that whole undead persona thing he has going on, which I have to admit does freak me out. His flavor is a bit gamy too, but I get used to it and even start to groove on it in a rather weird way. Just when I think he’s going to let it all start flowing, he pulls out of my mouth.

  Mind you, what he does next worries me even more than a broken jaw. His bony fingers grab hold of a thigh each, hoisting them well away from each other. I’m in serious childbearing position here, minus the stirrups and lab coats. As I feel him begin to push inside me, my mind percolates with the possibility of him getting me pregnant. Like, what would it actually be?

  I push the thought out of my head and concentrate on not being split in half. I will myself to open, using my muscles to push out as he pushes in. In a way it’s like giving birth, except in reverse. Talk about an electrical current, his thing is like a jackhammer and just as big as one too. And he’s getting it in me, dammit, he’s actually getting it in me. I keep pushing out until finally I feel him bumping up against my cervix. He’s done it.

  And I’m still alive!

  I grab on to his thin, flannel-covered shoulders and gaze into his hollowed-out eyes as he takes control, riding me like nobody’s business until I feel another orgasm creeping up on me—and this one is going to be massive. When it finally hits I scream with the impact, wondering how I could make so much noise, until I realize that he’s keening right along with me as he experiences his own climax. They can probably hear us all the way to town.

  I still don’t even know his name. He’s told me enough times, but I’m finding it harder and harder to understand him. His speech seems to be getting worse with the passing of each day, each week. Not that it really matters what his name is. I guess you’ve probably figured out that he stayed more than just that one night. What can I say? It can get a bit lonely up here in these mountains, you know?

  COME BACK TO ME

  Chantal Noordeloos

  A trickle of sensation on her skin drew Odette’s gaze to her dark-skinned breasts. Her nipples protruded against the thin white fabric of her nightgown, which was translucent in the light of the moon. Drops of sweat lay on her skin like pearls. Tonight the heat in Île-à-Vache was merciless. Odette swatted at a mosquito that buzzed near her ear. The swamp attracted thousands of the little monsters and they danced elegantly above the water, performing their insect ballet. Hardly a breeze to break the stifling humidity, and there on the porch of Grandmè’s house—an old wooden building that had been part of her family for many generations—the air was stifling.

  The moon illuminated the dark water; Odette pretended it was Jack’s face staring up at her. She loved him, but she hated him also. He broke her heart when he told her he was leaving. Odette could not forgive his callousness, but the longing never ceased.

  Oh Jack!

  She first saw him at the hotel she worked at. He smiled at her, his teeth whiter than the seashells on the beach, contrasting with his honey-colored skin. The wind played with the strands of his wheat-colored hair, tousled it and let it fall across his temples and forehead. His eyes are so blue that the sky is jealous of them, Odette thought. She knew she belonged to him, and she offered him her maidenhood the same day. Her grandmother would never approve. It was Odette’s first step toward the darknes
s that lurked in her soul.

  The memory of his warm body made her skin tingle and it brought tears. When she closed her eyes she could feel the faint pressure of his fingertips. Warm hands that felt their way from the nape of her neck to the eager points of her nipples. He pinched them, not hard, but enough to send little bolts of electricity down to that warm place between her legs. His hands explored her breasts, squeezing lightly. A warm mouth followed; it sucked and nibbled until she felt a longing so strong she thought she would scream. His fingers explored farther down, past the warm soft flesh, and they ran teasing circles across her lower belly. She wanted him to touch her, to slip his fingers inside of her, but he took his time. She unfolded her legs for him, spread to reveal the hungry opening of her vagina. He kissed her breasts again and then her belly, his fingers hovering near the promised place. Then his hot lips kissed her vulva, his tongue exploring the thick pulsing lips. She could feel his fingers enter her. It was painful at first, but the warm moist touch of his tongue, which ran roughly over the bud of her clitoris, softened the pain. His fingers pushed rhythmically; they tickled the inside of her urethral opening and her knees jerked with the sensation. She felt naughty, and that aroused her even more.

  He took his time to get her wet and susceptible. One push and his penis found its way inside of her. She screamed, partially with pleasure, but also with pain. Jack moved softly at first; he let her vagina get used to the feel of him. Then he moved faster, his breath rapid now, a curious look on his face that she had never seen before. His cock felt delicious and she clutched her legs around him, inviting him to push deeper.