Page 3 of Creepy (The Zombiepidemic #1)

T he asphalt changing to gravel broke me from my daydream.

Dillon had turned off Jules Pike and onto my drive.

He parked the truck in the right spot, around back, beside my Papa’s old Buick.

Shutting off the engine, he said, “I understand you staying with your Papa, at the time, him being infected during the evacuation and all. But your promise means nothing now. You’re a Stayer, like it or not.

There aren’t many of us. Even less of your kind, around here anyway. ”

He was still on about me leaving Creepy while I’d been way out on Lake Claiborne in a canoe. My kind... It took me a second to process. “You never know, a big harem of women may come your way soon, migrating east to find some dick.”

“Speaking of dick?” Dillon grabbed the bulge in his pants.

I rolled my eyes and hopped out of the truck, slamming the door behind me. “You’re a big dick alright.”

He ignored my words and gave my home a once over. “I don’t understand why you still keep up the yard. And you still live here. I’ve let you stay in Creepy and you could have any house you want. Like that one at the end of the lane.”

“It’s haunted,” I said automatically, in all seriousness.

And it was just like a man to take credit for a woman’s work.

He’d let me... I stayed here. I’d survived staying here.

I’d buried my father in the backyard by myself.

I beat the virus, nursing myself back to health all alone.

If anyone else who stayed in Creepy had lived, I’d have welcomed them.

“This is my home, Dillon. I’m not ashamed of it,” I said as a slight to him.

He’d grown up having it all. Lived in the lap of luxury in Alexandria until two years ago, when it finally came out his ultra-conservative father who’d often rallied against the homosexual community was gay himself.

Not to mention cheating on his wife of thirty years with my Papa, of all people.

The gossip started with a few tweets from an obscure story in a local paper.

But when the story hit the 24-hour news cycle, Dillon suddenly accused me of not telling him.

He accused me of keeping my Papa’s secret.

For some reason, I became the enemy in Dillon’s eyes.

Yes, his father had been cheating on his mother with my Papa for years.

I knew. Everyone who knew them was aware.

Dillon’s mom saw it herself. We all definitely didn’t say a word.

After all, this was the south. With Dennis Hebert being the Senior Senator from Louisiana, we didn’t dare say a word.

And my Papa claimed politics was all an act anyhow.

In love himself, he didn’t give a damn what Mr. Hebert said or did to keep his powerful position, even if it was contrary to the life he lived.

The Senator kept money flowing into the Pelican State and people turned their heads at his hypocrisy. Tale as old as time.

Dillon should’ve known their secret, too.

Maybe he’d been in denial. Our fathers being business partners before lovers, we’d grown up together, Dillon and I.

He’d been like an older brother to me before we became lovers ourselves.

It sounded strange, but it wasn’t. It’d felt natural falling in love with someone I knew so well.

Always, I’d been a lot closer to my Papa than Dillon had been to his.

Hell, Dillon was closer to my Papa. None of that mattered. Or maybe it did.

I never loved my Papa any less when I found out who he chose to love. After my parents’ horrible divorce, I was happy Papa could love again. Dillon on the other hand had been ashamed of his father. So much so, he up and left Louisiana. He also left his fiancée at the time, little ole me.

Dillon not only left when the media became obsessed with his father’s personal life, he disappeared without even saying goodbye to me.

Even so, I wore my engagement ring and a smile, hoping he’d come back.

I’d given him the benefit of the doubt. That was before he was spotted in Palm Beach with another woman, a famous actress to beat all. Though, I’d never heard of her before.

Our romantic relationship ended then. With the nation’s attention on his family, I’d already become a laughingstock. What was a handsome, well-connected man doing with a nobody from Creepy, Louisiana anyhow? The tabloids had a field day with our breakup.

Little did I know, the following year, Dillon would be back burying his father during a global pandemic.

I did the right thing and took a pie over.

I even showed up at the service. I hugged his mom but left before Dillon noticed me.

However, I’d been completely unaware, Dillon stayed put in Alexandria after the funeral when his mother left for Zurich, planning to escape the disease like most of the well off.

After all, it was a chaotic time during the outbreak.

He and I weren’t on speaking terms back then.

Even so, I assumed if he hadn’t left the country, he would’ve evacuated the state with everyone else once they rescued the little folk.

I, too, was supposed to leave to be quarantined despite the fact it was well known by then some healthy young adults could survive the disease.

There weren’t many young adults left in Creepy to begin with, it being the type of town folks abandoned right after high school.

Therefore, the ones still here, who’d outlived the unspeakable were tempted by claiming a life up north or out west, where they’d controlled the virus better, where they needed warm bodies to fill the voids.

By the time I met Dillon again, he was a different man.

It’d only been a few months since everyone left Creepy, thankfully, disposing of most of the zombies before they left, though it felt like years to me.

Dillon had always been a bit older and wiser.

They say tragedy can make you or break you.

The collapse of our civilized society can change a person.

It came as no surprise with his political savvy, Dillon became the leader of a gang of survivors, the Stayers, they called themselves, a little cult really.

Not merely folks from Rapides Parish and the city of Alexandria, the group rounded up and recruited wanderers from all over the state of Louisiana and beyond, anyone who’d stayed put and survived to tell tales.

The Stayers came upon me near the outskirts of this parish one day while I was making my rounds and tried to recruit me.

When I wouldn’t join them, they tried to force me, kidnapping me away to Alexandria.

That’s when I came face to face with Dillon again in a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome sort of situation.

He was the king of savages, and I was caged.

It had shocked me to see him, thinking he’d been in Switzerland or something.

Thankfully, he’d been stunned too. I think the initial jolt softened him.

Due to our past and his lingering sympathy toward me, we’d come to an agreement.

Sure, his crew could come and pillage Creepy, but luckily Dillon had the barbarians believing it was best to save their energy.

Those thugs followed his every whim. And fortunately for me, Dillon, for the most part, was a smart man.

Besides, Alexandria was much better pickings than Creepy.

I found some nice cars today, but there were car dealerships in Rapides Parish and malls, about all you could ask for.

Plus, his Stayers didn’t care one bit about finding bodies, dead or undead.

The Stayers raided houses, factories; you name it.

Unlike me, they’d adapted to not wanting certain comforts of the past as well.

Speaking of which, I let Dillon into the cool of the house. I wasn’t powering an AC, but I had enough juice to power some strategically placed fans.

“What’s this?” He bent to pick up an envelope off the floor.

Fuck. Someone must have slipped it under my door.

I absolutely didn’t want Dillon to know someone had been snooping around Creepy.

Especially since I was supposed to be the only one here.

If he knew Creepy had a visitor, that I had a stalker, he’d never let me stay.

Knowing I could take care of myself, I grabbed the envelope from him. “It’s mine. I must’ve dropped it.”

“Who are you mailing?” He turned the envelope over a few times.

“To Creepy with love...” he said, but there wasn’t any writing on it.

That was a lifesaver. Fortunately, I knew what would be inside.

Every time the same, pressed flowers. And every time, I searched the vicinity and stayed up late clutching my gun, getting no sleep at all.

“Open it up, if you want, it’s simply some flowers I pressed.”

In true fashion, Dillon didn’t trust me. He tore the envelope open, and the dried petals flew out.

Picking them up nonchalantly, I asked him, “Would you like some tea?”

“You’re stalling.”

“What do you want from me?”

It’d been a rhetorical question, but he answered, “Miss Mary.”

“Why do you want to come all the way here and fuck me, anyway? Waste all that gas...” Our deal wasn’t ideal but wasn’t unbearable given the circumstances.

I didn’t always dread it either, although I would never admit it to him.

Amongst his Stayers, there were very few women, so it only seemed logical, he’d want some sort of access, if you could call it that, to me or at least parts of me in exchange for keeping his people out of my little town.

Not to mention, he wanted a cut of my weekly haul.

“I love Miss Mary.” Him repeating the all too secret name for my vagina, the one I’d lived half my life thinking everyone else called it, was classic Dillon.

I regretted ever telling him. “I hear you have a few girls.”

“They’re of age. A few women. Where do you hear anything?”