Zombie Playlist: A Rock Zombie Romance Read online

  Lawson had found a two-story home with an easy drop from the bedroom window to a garage roof. He seemed to be happy with the fact we had a second floor, and with the help of his notepad he told us he liked to have a couple of escape options. Noah and I were sitting on the single bed with our backs pressed against the wall. Lawson had taken up position by the locked door, his legs outstretched as he cleaned his rifle. A candle sat on the floor at his side, the orange light flickering off the pale pink walls. The kitchen of this house had been raided, not a single can of food left, and the fridge was rank with mold and decay. The previous inhabitants had obviously left in a hurry, the car gone, the garage door left wide open. We had enough food for now, in the way of canned goods. Most of which we’d pilfered from Lawson’s house. He had his own stash that he had appropriated. Between the three of us we probably had enough for a week, but then shit would go south real fast if we didn’t find more. Assuming we would all stay together. While I wanted to be the independent, confident bad-ass bitch I knew I could be, there was definitely an element of comfort in having Lawson and his nifty, murderous rifle around.

  The window to the bedroom was open to let some breeze in, and the tangy odor of death drifted through, followed by a loud thunk from somewhere outside. Noah flinched, and Lawson’s sharp gaze crossed to the window. Getting to his feet, he crept forward, and glanced out. After a few minutes of stiff silence, he moved back to his position by the door. He gave us a nod which strangely said everything was alright. Without the words though, I found myself wanting to check for myself. Lawson’s beautiful eyes found mine, and he gave me another firm nod as if to reinforce the first nod. Well, I guess that made me feel a little better. Noah’s body was wracked with a shiver, and I gave her hand a squeeze as I reached out for Maybelle. I think both of us could use a little distraction right now. Lawson’s eyes widened, and he gave me a quick shush with a finger to his lips.

  “S’okay, I’ll play softly,” I whispered, and he scowled at me. The soldier was probably not accustomed to having his orders ignored.

  With light fingers, I began to play Hallelujah. The intro was long as I plucked the strings, my left hand moving deftly over the chords on the neck. The words fell from my lips softly, each and every one of them coming from my heart. I played the hymnal song just like Jeff Buckley once had, with raw, honest emotion. Noah hummed along quietly at my side, her head rested on my shoulder, and my eyes slipped shut as I tried to pretend we were somewhere else, somewhere safe. Perhaps on a small stage in an intimate performance, just me, Maybelle, and the audience around us lulled into poignant silence. The lights would dim, except for one spotlight shining down on me. In my mind I played for them, but in my heart, I sang for me. I sang for the tiny sliver of myself I had lost today. I sang for the humanity I felt I was losing with each death by my hand. I sang for my sister who I would lose everything for just to see her survive. Once my fingers left the strings of my guitar and the final word drifted away into the night, I opened my eyes to find Lawson staring at me from across the room. His rifle lay still in his lap, the rag he was cleaning it with frozen in one hand, his lips slightly parted. In that moment I was as vulnerable as I’d ever allowed myself to be, my eyes filling with tears. I blinked them away, not allowing a single tear to fall. Those fuckers hadn’t destroyed what was left of my tarnished spirit. The anguish and torment in Lawson’s gaze was so real it felt like it was my own. Perhaps it was, perhaps we shared something inside ourselves, a hurt that our souls recognized. I was first to look away, using the excuse of placing Maybelle carefully to one side as a reason to break the heavy moment. When I looked back, he was still staring. Pointing my way, he arched a brow.

  “I’m fine,” I was quick to say, somehow understanding his unspoken question.

  Glancing at Noah I found she had huddled into the fetal position at my side, her head nestled into my thigh, her soft, slumbering snorting noises like music to my ears.

  Lawson placed his weapon to one side with the same amount of care as I had done with Maybelle. It made me wonder if he loved his gun as much as I loved my guitar. Did the wicked looking weapon have a name too? Narrowed eyes flared with something akin to anger, and Lawson shook his head. Raising his knees, he rested his forearms on them with a heavy sigh. He really was quite the beautiful spectacle. His cheek bones were high and cut to perfection. His lips full, a healthy shadow of dark hair covered his jaw. His nose had a small bump on the bridge indicating it had been broken at some time. A tiny jagged scar sat precariously close to one eye. Those imperfections only added to the man’s masculine beauty.

  Reaching for his notepad, he scribbled something down before holding it up.

  Sorry

  Scoffing, I asked what he was sorry for.

  5 minutes earlier…

  He was referring to what happened with Quarterback.

  “You don’t control time,” I shrugged. “And you don’t control fate and sometimes she’s a bitch with a hell of a swing. You don’t need to even worry, it’ll take more than that to knock me down and keep me there.” There was no point in Lawson’s regret, he showed up and that’s all that mattered. If he hadn’t, well, I wasn’t even going to go there.

  Shaking his head frantically, his mask of detachment gone, guilt stricken eyes found mine.

  “Look, I really don’t wanna hash it out. You shot him, you shot them. You saved me from something that was going to be a million times worse than what you stumbled across. Let’s just leave it be, huh? There’s no room for guilt in this world.”

  Silence engulfed the room in its greedy clenched fist, and I tried to shift into a more comfortable position. Dragging my backpack to my lap, I retrieved the compass and pocket knife.

  “I guess these belong to you.”

  Lawson raised one eyebrow in a way that softened the hard line of taught features, the corner of his lips twitched as if he were stifling a smile.

  With one shake of his head back and forth, he resumed cleaning his gun, and I dropped the items back into my pack. Then I reached for the tags that hung around my neck. His intense gaze lingered there for long moments before repeating the order to keep them, and my hands fell away. Weren’t soldier’s tags some kind of sacred belonging? In fact, how was he a soldier if he couldn’t talk? Surely that kind of medical issue would warrant a discharge? Maybe he wasn’t a soldier anymore, even though he looked the part. So many questions tumbled around my mind, but it was the shiny, pretty medal that lodged up front, and guilt weighed heavy on my shoulders as my fingers whispered across the pretty velvet box inside my pack. From the object of my fascination to Lawson and back again, my eyes moved from one to the other. The medal had been hidden away in a drawer in his home, which didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t want it, he just didn’t want to see it. I found myself reluctant to give up this treasure though, which made me realize that if I could find value in it, then perhaps Lawson did to. Most of the things I stole meant nothing to me, material objects I could easily dismiss but for some reason my heart had snapped up this pilfered object, and I was loath to give it back. The battle with my conscience ended with me pulling the box free. Leaning forward I offered it to Lawson. Unlike the compass, pocket knife and tags, Lawson’s eyes widened slightly, and he reached to take it from me. Somehow, I let the medal go, disappointed over its loss. Lawson sat and stared at the box for the longest time, before raising it up between us and arching a questioning brow.

  I hated feeling insecure and embarrassed, which was what I felt right now under Lawson’s scrutinizing gaze. Shrugging, I searched around my backpack until my fingers brushed over the cool, tin box I was searching for. Pulling it free I pried the lid off and slid a joint between my fingers. My beautiful pungent weed, how I have missed thee. It had been too long since I’d last indulged. Moving to the open window, I lit up, thinking that today was a shit-has-got-real type day that warranted me getting a little stoned.

  “I never won a medal,” I confessed, ligh
ting up, and dragging the smoke deep into my lungs before blowing it right back out again. “It felt like a waste having it hidden away in the drawer like that. If it were mine, I’d treasure it and put it on display for all to see.” Smiling, I glanced at Lawson. “I’m showy like that.” He nodded and slid the boxed prize into his own backpack. Taking a deep breath, I added, “I also have Compulsive Stealing Addiction. Sometimes I see something that intrigues me, and I take it. I have to take it, it’s like this burning need that festers from a slight itch into something crippling.”

  With a smirk, Lawson wrote in his notepad and flashed me the words, Amee Angel? The girl from American Idol?

  I snorted at the memory of the incident he was referring to, an incident that rocked the world. TMZ had run with that juicy tad bit of gossip for weeks. It was obvious now that Lawson knew who I was, and I found myself disappointed. It meant he most likely had preconceived notions of me, and since he was aware of the alleged grand theft, he likely assumed I was an out of control, spoiled rocker, like the rest of the world.

  “No, one of her girlfriends was wearing the five-thousand-dollar diamond choker. It was on lone for a red carpet event. Anyway, this friend, whose name may or may not have been Taylor Lake, America’s virginal sweetheart who I can say with all certainty is definitely not virginal…Sorry, I digress, anyway, Taylor was wired on Espresso Martinis and coke but still had the foresight to ask me to hold the damn thing while she threw herself in the pool, completely naked, mind you. Anyway, I stuck it in my pocket, and someone saw it happen and accused me of trying to steel it. With my reputation for acquiring items in a less than legal manner, it meant I was automatically judged and found guilty by the media.”

  Lawson scrunched up his face, and I guess that was his version of well, that sucks.

  Reaching out, I offered him the joint and much to my surprise, the good boy all-American soldier took it from my fingers and took a toke, before handing it back.

  “Yep, trust me, if I do something wrong I own that mother. If I didn’t do it, I won’t own up to it.”

  Nodding, he wrote down another name, flashing Cullen Creed at me. It was my turn to scrunch up my face.

  “What about him?”

  He looked about the room, as if looking for someone, and raised his hands in question.

  “Definitely not here. He slipped, and his dick accidentally fell into my best friend,” I unapologetically replied. Lawson nodded slowly, his face carefully nonchalant. “Then he got sick, and I killed him.”

  At that Lawson’s eyes widened. I’d managed to surprise him. Go me!

  “And my anger at his cheating didn’t make it any easier. Hitting him with my club was a survival instinct, pure and simple. He was a zombie, so I killed him.”

  I took a few more deep drags from the joint and offered it back to Lawson who declined with a shake of his head. Carefully, I butted out the burning ember and tucked what was left of the rolled paper back into the tin. I had a nice buzz going, my mind drifting lazily, and my body relaxed. Here was hoping I didn’t have to run anywhere anytime soon. At least I’d sleep well for a few hours tonight. For a long time, marijuana had been my medicinal cure for insomnia, but I’d began to indulge so frequently it brought on the nasty side effects of anxiety and dulled my creative output. So now I was an occasional stoner only. Scribbling for some time in his notepad, Lawson tore the piece of paper off and handed it to me.

  You did what you had to do to survive. Good for you. Someone once told me there’s no room for guilt in this world. And they’re not zombies, they’re infected.

  I giggled like a teenage girl, and I never giggled, but I was stoned and it had been a shit of a day.

  “Lawson, if it looks like a zombie and smells like a zombie and groans like a zombie, I think we have ourselves a fucking zombie.”

  Lawson smiled and started to scribble in his notebook again. This not talking thing was going to push the boundaries of my patience.

  Heart rate lowers, breathing becomes labored, patient becomes unresponsive. It’s a dramatic decrease in the brains activity, and the patient begins to hemorrhage internally. Patient appears to die, but they don’t. They merely fall into a vegetative state before a burst of adrenaline pumps them back up again. Infection, not zombie.

  “For how long?” I asked, completely enthralled by the information.

  A crinkle between Lawson’s brow told me he didn’t understand my question.

  “How long do they continue to live like that? I mean, their body is bleeding out, they must die eventually.” Lawson shrugged. “How do you know all this?” I asked after a pause.

  Lawson scribbled in his notebook.

  I was an Airmen. At my blank stare he added, Like an army medic. I have a friend in the CDC who was able to give me some of the basic facts.

  After a short silence I decided my mind was too lazy to be bothered with any more questions. I made my way back to the bed, and the softly snoring Noah. I curled up beside her, not bothering with a blanket. It was too hot to cover up.

  “So, for someone so smart, why the fuck would you leave your key under your front door matt?”

  For the first time since we’d met, Lawson offered me a full and genuine smile, dimples and all, and I blew out an inaudible sigh. He really was stunning in such a way that I wouldn’t ever attempt to garner such a beautiful man’s attention. He was too pretty, too put together, too smart, too charming, too good. That’s basically what it came down to. I was a useless, thieving muso, and he was a medal recipient soldier and medic. We couldn’t be more different if we tried. Like bourbon and water, or broccoli and chocolate, we were opposites. Did I find him attractive? I’d have to be dead not too, but I wouldn’t even pursue him if the world wasn’t falling apart, so there was no way I would now. I didn’t have time to chase hopeless dreams and impossible fantasies. I needed to concentrate on living and getting Noah safely to Elmendorf.

  Track Ten: Demi Lovato, Heart Attack

  CHAPTER 10

  Lawson pointed at the gun hanging over his shoulder, then the Walmart store before us. He wanted to look for ammunition in there. I shook my head, and he raised a challenging brow. Walmart? Fucking Walmart? It seemed to feature in every apocalyptic book or movie I’d ever seen, and it always ended badly. I didn’t know much about survival, but I knew you should avoid large shopping complexes at all costs. I mean, hello people, Dawn Of The Dead? Noah stood beside me, looking at the department store with the same mistrust I was currently watching it with. The front sliding glass doors were forced open with a trolley resting between them, one of the large window panes further down had a gaping hole in it. The store appeared deserted, but that was bullshit. There were zombies inside, Walmart zombies, surely the worst of the worst.

  The parking lot was practically abandoned, only four cars sat in the large area of asphalt spread out before us. Finding out Lawson might be able to hotwire one certainly lifted my spirits, but then my gaze returned to Walmart and that mood quickly soured. I had a bad feeling sitting like a lump of cement in the pit of my stomach. My mood was already shitty this morning, this was just dragging me down further, and I clenched my fists wanting to hit something. Lawson pointed at Noah and me and then pointed to the ground. Then he pointed toward his chest and then the store. He wanted us to stay while he went inside to check things out.

  “I don’t wanna wait outside,” Noah wined as she fiddled with the strap of her helmet under her chin.

  “I don’t wanna go inside,” I mumbled.

  Lawson shook his head with frustration and started storming off toward the store, Noah hot on his heels. I didn’t want to go in there, but I didn’t want to be left outside by myself even more. There was also no way in hell I was trusting Noah’s safety to a stranger, even if he was a hot soldier who had saved our asses just yesterday.

  It was early morning, but it was already hot as balls, the hard ground beneath my boots ablaze beneath my rubber soles.
The air didn’t smell too bad, only a slight tinge of death and decay hanging in the gentle breeze. It bolstered my confidence marginally, knowing we weren’t surrounded by nasty rotting flesh. As we reached the door and the darkness beyond beckoned, my confidence fled like a hooker’s panties. Lawson signaled for Noah to move back while his gun rose into position against his shoulder, and he edged forward. Obviously in no rush, Lawson watched the Walmart shadows until he finally pushed the trolley to one side and gestured for Noah and me to follow. We pulled our bandanas over our mouth and nose and entered the store. Lawson confirmed this morning the virus was spread with bodily fluid, we sure as shit didn’t want to get any nasty zombie juice in our mouths. Our boots crunched on the glass and the stifling warmth of a large store without air-conditioning hit us as we entered. It smelled a little funky, something akin to rotting food, urine and death, but without the pungent slap of an infected up close. My club was clenched in my fist as we drew further into the store, the darkness swallowing us.

  With the tilt of his head, Lawson beckoned us in the direction he wanted to go, lowering his weapon only slightly. Aisle after aisle was empty, food and debris scattered across the white, tiled floors. The silence was stifling, the desolation of a store that would normally be teaming with life unnerving. Noticing a large, empty tote bag tossed carelessly on the floor, I scooped it up. If we couldn’t find anything edible, we might at least find other supplies we would need. The feminine hygiene aisle caught my eye, and I immediately turned down it, tugging Noah along with me.

  “Shy!” She snapped, obviously not liking that we had deviated from Lawson’s course. She didn’t need to worry because the soldier was quick to follow us. From the look on his face, he wasn’t impressed with my sudden deviation either. Pointing at the boxes of tampons before us, understanding crossed his features. I began to grab what was left on the shelf, uncaring if they were organic cotton, rayon, junior, regular or super freaking regular. These were items we would eventually be without, and I was going to prolong that for as long as possible. In the same aisle, I grabbed a bunch of toothbrushes, a stack of toothpaste, and some shampoo and conditioner, then followed Lawson as he ducked around the corner still looking for the weapon section.