Page 2 of Zomromcom

“That has to chafe,” she pointed out, cautiously getting to her feet and tucking her burrito into her cross-body bag, just in case people still needed to eat in the afterlife. “Don’t reapers get wedgies? Either the ass or toe variety?”

Because those aesthetic abominations on his feet and his sheepskin thong had to be freaking uncomfortable, fashionable or not.

There. She was fully upright again. Her legs still shook a little beneath her, but they were solid enough. They would carry her…well, wherever she needed to go next. Would Euro Reaper Chad help her cross a mystical river? Or guide her through paradisical fields of—

“We don’t have time for this nonsense.” Swiveling to face her once more, he claimed her hand in a firm, cool grip and began hauling her toward his front porch.

“Even you must know that zombies travel as a pack. If we’ve seen one, we’ll shortly see more.

We need to seek immediate shelter before we’re overrun. ”

“I don’t understand.” If she was already a goner, why worry about more zombies? “Is there some way for me to be extra super double dead?”

“You’re not dead yet. But you will be if you don’t hurry .”

Shaking her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts, she stumbled after him as quickly as she could. Because if she truly was alive and conscious, Euro Non-Reaper Chad was right. She did need to hurry.

He hustled her through the dark front yard while she dazedly scanned the tree line of his property, searching for movement.

If she had a choice, she didn’t usually go out after dusk.

Not because the zombies avoided daylight—in the First Breach, they’d murdered hundreds of humans under a sunlit cerulean sky—but because at nightfall the chances of spotting them in time for an escape dropped from unlikely to nearly impossible.

Which another zombie promptly proved by leaping up onto the side of the porch from the shadows below, jaw already stretched wide and aimed for her neighbor’s throat, growling something that sounded very much like bon appétit .

Euro Non-Reaper Chad moved faster than her eyes could track.

One moment, he was tugging her up the steps to his house, those impressive glutes bunching and releasing in rolling shifts of muscle that were honestly a little distracting despite the precariousness of their situation.

Then, before she could blink, he’d already lunged halfway across the porch.

One long-fingered hand clamped around the zombie’s jaw as the creature growled and snapped at him.

The other hand tore out its heart.

Sans knife. Bare-knuckled.

He tossed the bloody organ to the wooden porch floor, released the zombie’s jaw, and let the creature collapse at his feet, his face a mask of utter indifference.

The whole thing—attack, counterattack, release—took maybe three seconds.

Nauseated, she stared down at the slowing tremble of the creature’s bloody heart. Her own heart, which she hoped to keep safely intact inside her chest for many decades to come, thudded faster and faster, its terrified beat echoing in her skull.

Holy fuck.

Euro Non-Reaper Chad wasn’t a zombie. But he could definitely kill her just as dead.

Slowly, hoping he somehow wouldn’t notice, she backed away from him and down his porch steps once more.

“Where are you going, human?”

Human . Which confirmed he…wasn’t.

Funny, he didn’t sound like he planned to murder her with his bare hands. More patronize her to death, with suffocating condescension his unknown species’ weapon of choice.

She was in shock, though. She recognized that now.

Tonight’s terror had resurrected her worst memories from two decades before, leaving her disoriented.

Her judgment couldn’t be trusted, so she needed to stick with the emergency plan she and her parents had decided upon during the Battle for Containment, back when she’d been only fifteen.

Back when she and the rest of the world had first learned about the zombies—and also Supernaturals and Enhanced humans, who emerged from secrecy for the first time to help common humans drive the creatures back into their compound.

If you see or hear anything that worries you, go to the attic, sweetheart , her mother had said, and lovingly tugged the end of Edie’s ponytail in emphasis.

Bring the ladder up after you and lock the door.

We’ll have lots of snacks and drinks there, and you can camp out until we tell you everything’s okay .

Edie had frowned. What about you and Dad? Where will you go?

We’ll come with you if we can. If we can’t, we’ll take care of ourselves. Your only job is to take care of you. Do you understand? Her mother had met Edie’s eyes directly, searching for an honest answer. Promise me you’ll go to the attic and lock the door behind you, no matter what, Edie. Please.

When Edie had finally, reluctantly said I promise , she hadn’t truly understood what that promise would mean.

She hadn’t been able to grasp how it would feel to abandon her parents to their deaths, even when that was what they wanted, even though her life meant more to them than their own.

It was unimaginable—until the moment it became her reality three years later.

But she’d survived in that fucking attic once, and she could do it again. She would do it again, zombies and terrifying neighbors be damned.

“I have a safe place in my house.” She took another step backward, away from Definitely Not Human Chad.

“I’ll call the emergency number from there.

I’ve got enough supplies to last until help comes, so don’t worry about me.

” Her forced laugh sounded far too loud.

“Not that you would. Worry about me, I mean.”

He stared at her, his face hard and expressionless.

“Good luck, Chad.” Against her will, her eyes drifted to the heart resting on the wooden boards of his porch. It lay still now, curls of steam rising from it like smoke. “Although maybe you don’t really need luck, huh?”

He scrutinized her for another moment before lifting a broad shoulder in dismissal. “Very well.”

He began to turn away. Then his head tipped to one side, and his brows drew together.

“They’re close,” he said abruptly. “I can hear them. Come with me.”

She heard zilch. “No, really, I can—”

The next thing she knew, he was dragging her back up the steps, across the sagging porch, and through his front door, her wrist caught in his painless but inexorable grip.

He flipped over a faded rug in the hall and opened a discreet hatch in the floor.

A wide metal ladder descending into an inky void suddenly appeared at their feet.

“Down,” he ordered. When she hesitated, his tone turned biting. “I’m waiting, human. Dither much longer and we’ll both die.”

He could have torn out her heart a hundred times by now if that were his goal. Then again, perhaps he simply preferred murdering at a more leisurely pace. Like the homicidal equivalent of the Slow Food movement.

Whatever. Either of the two zombies would have killed her if he hadn’t intervened. She was willing to gamble that his intentions were good, or at least good enough for now.

Once she began clambering onto the ladder, he reached out to steady her, his grasp light and careful on her hips, her shoulders. “When I close and secure the hatch behind us, it’ll be completely dark. Keep hold and keep descending.”

Fantastic.

She began climbing down. He maneuvered onto the ladder above her, then reached for the hatch. Her palms turned damp, and she grasped the sturdy metal rungs tighter.

Thud. Thump. Click. Click. Screech.

The hatch was closed now. Closed and locked.

Absolute blackness, as advertised. She might have been in a cave, miles underground. She might have been in a coffin, buried alive.

Her chest tightened, and she couldn’t seem to slow her breathing.

She halted on the ladder.

What had she done? Why had she let herself be locked into a godsdamned tomb with someone who could tear out her heart with a single thrust of his hand and twist of his wrist? And why had she done so based on his claim that he heard zombies when she hadn’t heard a thing?

“Human?”

She gulped for air.

“Edie.” Before her next rushed, rasping breath, he somehow managed to climb over her until he was leading the way down the ladder, a rung or two below her. He shingled his body atop hers, using it to brace her from the shoulders down. “Edie, listen.”

The ladder was wide enough that he could grasp it on either side of her waist, and his hard belly pressed against her ass. For all intents and purposes, he was holding her in his arms.

Her brain promptly blue-screened. Her anxious thoughts sank beneath a tide of sheer physical awareness and pleasure, even as the chill of his half-clad frame, its solid support behind her, helped her breathe more easily.

Damn , she thought dimly. If she’d known he felt this good wrapped around her, she might have lured Bro Chad to her house with Grand Theft Auto and a bong freakin’ years ago.

“Listen,” he repeated, and her synapses began firing again at the insistence in his tone. “What do you hear?”

Then she caught it too. A few feet higher, through a single locked hatch…

Faint scratches. Grunts. Shuffling.

The half-forgotten sounds came from above this time rather than below. Still, they made her shudder. He hitched tighter against her, keeping her pinned to the ladder.

Dammit, he was right. This go-round, she wouldn’t have made it to her attic in time.

With his superior hearing and because of his insistence that she accompany him to his own shelter, he’d saved her life. Again. Which she was thankful for, obviously, but also found somewhat irritating since she’d initiated this entire delightful encounter for the sole purpose of saving him .

When she swallowed, her spit tasted metallic. “You’re sure they can’t get in?”

What if the zombies had somehow evolved after the First Breach and broken through Wall One without outside assistance? The compound no longer had any real oversight or governmental presence. How would anyone even know?

“Yes.” When she didn’t resume her descent, he elaborated. “There are still a few functional cameras within the compound. They’re monitored at all times, and nothing has changed. The creatures can’t use even simple hand tools. Penetrating my hatch would require explosives.”

Since the age of eighteen, she’d devoted most of her free time to researching the creatures.

Their origin. Their capabilities and weaknesses.

Their underground compound, which government officials had declared near impregnable, its complete destruction requiring the sort of drastic measures that would cause unacceptable damage to surrounding communities.

She’d paid special attention to the creatures’ current state, studying the theories of various experts and drone footage of the zombies’ very few excursions outside their compound.

Not much reliable information actually existed, though.

The creatures might not be smart, but they’d stopped venturing outdoors after the first few attempts resulted in missile strikes and slaughtered brethren.

The military had long ago ceased sending troops inside Wall One on doomed missions.

And in all her years of research, she hadn’t found a single reference to operational cameras within that damn compound.

Was Definitely Not Human Chad lying to her? And if he wasn’t, where exactly had he gotten his information?

He heaved an impatient sigh. “They can’t climb. They can’t swim. Even if they did somehow get past the hatch, they couldn’t use the ladder. They’d fall into the water pit and drown. They have no chance.”

According to official reports, drowning the creatures was the third and final way to slay them, so that made sense. Only—“There’s a freaking water pit beneath us?”

“We can bypass it.” The strained tolerance in his voice was rapidly leaching away, replaced by the tonal equivalent of an eye roll. “I’ll guide you.”

She didn’t trust him, but she couldn’t keep hanging on this ladder forever, and she certainly didn’t intend to pop back out of that hatch and become Zombie Lunchables.

Her questions would have to wait.

Her chest expanded in a slow, deep breath, and she registered his scent for the first time. Piney and faintly sharp, like eucalyptus. It was surprisingly pleasant.

She’d always assumed her neighbor would smell like beer and noxious body spray up close. “I’m good now. You can move down.”

The cool wall of strength at her back promptly disappeared, much to the displeasure of her hormones. Reluctantly, she loosened her death grip on the metal rung before her, shifted to a single-handed hold, and wiped her slick palms on the thighs of her coveralls one at a time.

She began descending again, rung by rung, matching his measured pace.

A minute passed. Two. Three. As far as she could tell, they still weren’t near the end.

Her fingers hurt after a while, so she paused to shake out her left hand, then her right.

As she did, she considered the heavy earth-moving equipment such an absurdly deep tunnel underground had required, how much said equipment and the labor required to use it might have cost, and what awaited her at the bottom of this oversized well.

What sort of shelter had he built down there, beyond his freaking water pit , and what herculean efforts had that construction necessitated?

He drummed his own fingers against the ladder. “Come on. Keep going.”

“How deep is your damn basement, anyway?”

“Deep.”

“If you’re not human, what are you?” Given everything she’d seen and heard, her best guess was—

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

She supposed she would.

Once again, she resumed her descent into darkness, with Chad—this new, unfamiliar version of him—as her fearless, bethonged guide.

Somewhere along the way, she forgot to be afraid.