Page 9 of Zomromcom
To be fair, Max’s Jetsons couches were actually quite comfortable, and one of them was even deep enough that Edie’s arm didn’t hang over the edge. And his bathroom—his bathroom!
It was a wonderland. Given a sufficient number of pillows, she could easily sleep in that huge honkin’ bathtub.
His multi-head shower felt like a really high-end massage, the type where you paid extra for hot stones and lavender and a scalp rub or whatever, and apparently he made up for the spartan contents of his refrigerator by hoarding every expensive beauty product imaginable.
Shampoos. Conditioners. Hair masks. Face masks. Serums and powders and gels and lotions and exfoliators and primers and moisturizers and…essences, oh my?
He had luxury-brand makeup too. Lots of it. More than she’d ever owned. Which was interesting, since she’d never actually seen Chad/Max with anything but a bare face.
It was for the best, really. The sight of her dim-but-hot-and-far-too-young neighbor in guyliner or with a smoky eye would have caused her a great deal of turmoil as her hormones waged battle against her common sense and urged her to Mrs. Robinson that shit, pronto.
After she toweled off and stole some of his heavenly-smelling lotion for her dry hands, she reluctantly put back on her not-especially-fresh-and-turned-inside-out panties and her tank top—sans bra, since she was going to bed soon—and wandered out into the hallway.
He was sitting at his computer again, inside his media room, scanning the output from his various security cameras. She lingered in the doorway, unsure whether she wanted an update or not. There wasn’t much she could do until the morning anyway, right?
The softbox in the room’s corner kept niggling at her, reminding her of…something. “Hey, Max, why do you have a—”
“There are blankets and a pillow on the sofa. I’ve set a charger there for your use, and I’ve transferred the classified footage and information we discussed onto your phone,” he said flatly, without turning around. “Once I’ve gone to bed, don’t disturb my rest, human.”
Her eventual Yelp review of his B and BBB—bed and blood-based breakfast—was going to contain a decidedly mixed evaluation of his hospitality. “What, no bedtime story?”
At that, he turned to glare at her, and she raised her hands, palms out.
“Sorry. Sorry.” She leaned against the doorframe. “Thank you for letting me use your toiletries and your spare toothbrush.”
When he merely grunted and returned his attention to his monitor, she gave up and headed for her makeshift bed. After arranging a blanket beneath her and plugging in the charger, she sat cross-legged on the sofa and checked her phone.
Sure enough, there were new files saved there.
She tapped the screen to open the first file and began reading. Tomorrow would arrive soon enough, and if she intended to venture outdoors to warn others about the breach, she needed to be as mentally prepared as possible.
The official reports confirmed what Max had already told her about the creatures but also gave her new insight into their capabilities and behaviors.
Continued inability to climb, swim, or use tools. Extremely limited, guttural speech , one official wrote. French, for reasons yet to be determined.
She hadn’t hallucinated that! Hooray!
Maybe a handler or scientist in close contact with them had hailed from France? She supposed she’d never know. All the compound’s employees had died long, long ago.
Subjects can go without sleep for several days at a time.
Don’t seem to age past peak physical fitness.
When injured, don’t appear to feel pain and barely bleed.
All nonfatal wounds eventually heal, and creatures fight until moment of death.
Only known ways to kill the subjects remain: (1) removing heart, (2) removing head, or (3) drowning.
Suffocation alone is insufficient; water must be involved, and creatures must remain underwater for an extended time.
Hunt prey as a pack. Will not battle or consume creatures of their own generation, but will kill and consume the brains of all others, including members of previous cohorts and their own offspring.
For Edie, that was by far the worst revelation.
The zombies were intended to be a sustainable military resource, as the documents indicated, which meant scientists had designed them to reproduce and replace any brethren killed in battle.
After that last, fatal tinkering with their DNA, though, reproduction no longer served to swell their ranks.
Instead, in the absence of other food sources, it sated their hunger.
They had a very short gestation period, and they fed on the brains of their own zombie progeny. Edie was trying very, very hard not to picture that.
The most recent report ended crisply and coldly:
If the creature bites hard enough to draw blood but is interrupted before killing its victim—a rare occurrence—said victim begins exhibiting symptoms of transformation within ten minutes. No available cure. Victim must be put down for public safety.
A chill racked her body, and she shivered despite the blanket she’d tugged over her bare legs. Gods, she couldn’t even imagine the horror of being savaged by such a creature and miraculously surviving the experience—only to be euthanized like a rabid dog minutes later.
“Do you require more blankets?” At some point, Max had silently returned to the kitchen, where he was studying her with one hip resting against the island. “Humans have such an inferior range of acceptable temperatures.”
“No. Thank you,” she said. “I just…”
Just feel very scared and alone .
“I just need to get some sleep.” She tried to smile at him. “I’m fine.”
He watched her closely, and she shivered again, for an entirely different reason.
“Don’t watch the footage if you haven’t already,” he told her abruptly.
“What?”
He folded his arms over his chest, biceps stretching the sleeves of his Henley. “You have firsthand knowledge of how they move and attack, and the written reports will supply any other details you need to know.”
“I was saving the videos for last.” Putting off their eventual viewing, to be honest. Anxious that the filmed sequences would dredge up more memories from two decades ago, memories that were already far too close to the surface tonight. “You don’t think I need to watch them?”
“No.”
It was a firm, unequivocal answer, and she decided to accept it. With a couple of swipes, she closed the documents, then found herself returning his stare.
Her heart skittered under that heavy-lidded scrutiny, her skin blooming with heat, and she wondered if he could sense her involuntary reaction. Maybe even hear the increasingly rapid rush of blood in her veins.
Now that she knew he wasn’t in his early twenties and astoundingly obtuse, the mental barrier that had stopped her from ogling her neighbor seemed to have crumbled.
In the dimly lit distance, his eyes were obsidian newly forged from molten earth, his hair a swirl of shadows and glinting gold, and her eyes traced the path her fingers wanted to follow.
Through that thick hair, over that high cheekbone, along that stubble-shadowed jaw, down that strong neck, and over—
What was the weird shadow below the shoulder seam of his shirt?
“Come here,” she told him.
He exhaled heavily, nostrils flaring, but crossed the concrete expanse between them with slow, deliberate steps, only to halt inches from her knees. She reached out an arm and gently tapped just above the stain, which was now unmistakable in color.
“Did you spill some of your dinner?” He’d chosen to bring a blood pack into his media room instead of eating in front of her, so it was possible, albeit unlikely. “Or are you hurt?”
His shoulder lifted, even as his brows drew together in seeming confusion. “A small puncture from the second zombie’s claws. It’s mostly healed already.”
His black hoodie must have concealed the wound and the blood. “Is rapid healing another vampire thing?” When he nodded, she skimmed a light circle around the stain with her fingertip, his deltoid cool and firm beneath her caress. “It still hurts, though, when you get injured?”
“Yes.” He made a sound low in his throat when she stopped touching him. “Edie…”
She pressed her forefinger to her pursed lips and laid it, feather-light, over that little patch of blood. “My mom did this. It shouldn’t have made me feel better, but it always did.”
She dropped her arm to her side. His throat shifted in a hard swallow as he twisted his neck to study the spot where she’d done her best to kiss his wound and make it better.
“That’s not sanitary,” he eventually muttered.
This time, her smile felt genuine. “No. Most good things aren’t, I’ve found. Which is ironic, coming from a soap maker.”
He smiled back at her then. Not Chad’s goofy grin or Gaston’s superior smirk, but an actual smile. Possibly the first he’d ever offered her.
Soft with humor and something that might have been fondness, the curve of his perfect mouth crinkled the corners of those piercing eyes and wrung the oxygen from her lungs.
It crackled through her nerves and set off countless mental sirens, and she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Not when he was looking at her like that.
He licked his lips. Her breath caught.
Then he stepped away—one stride, two—and the earth spun back into motion.
His hand raked through his hair. “If you toss and turn all night, you’ll keep me awake too. Take the bed, human, and shut the door behind you.”
“And you’ll sleep out here?”
She didn’t completely understand his change of heart, but she wouldn’t argue or question it. Not when she needed every bit of energy and strength she could muster to face what was coming tomorrow.
“Yes. So move,” he ordered, and waited impatiently as she disentangled herself from the blankets, gathered her few belongings, and heaved herself to her feet. “Don’t show your face again until morning. I don’t like having my rest disturbed.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sweet dreams to you too.”
His back muscles shifted in mesmerizing ways as he bent over the sofa and began rearranging the blankets in what he clearly considered a neater, superior fashion.
Tearing her gaze away took more effort than she was comfortable admitting, but she finally headed for the distant hallway.
Only to halt again, unable to stop herself from asking the most crucial question of all.
“You told me so much tonight. About yourself, your species, and the zombies, and…I think it was the truth. I think all of it’s the truth.” He’d stilled, one hand braced on the back of the sofa, when she turned her head to watch him over her shoulder. “Why, Max?”
Between them, the silence stretched like taffy.
“The sort of noble fool who’d try to save Chad from his well-deserved fate?
” He shook his head, still facing away from her.
“She wouldn’t betray anyone willingly. And even if you passed along everything I told you, it would simply be one story among many, no more or less believable than all the others. ”
That sounded like the beginnings of trust to her, however reluctant and tattered.
Still: “If I did betray you, you’d make me regret it, I presume.”
“Obviously,” he said after a moment. Oddly enough, it felt like the first lie he’d offered her in hours. “Go to sleep, Edie.”
So she did, wrapped in the embrace of a mattress she’d legally marry if such a thing were possible. She sank into that premium memory foam, tugged his silky-soft sheets and ornately quilted blanket over her, and closed her eyes.
After the shocks she’d experienced that night, after the documents she’d studied and the horrors they’d revealed, she expected nightmares.
To get to her, though, any threat would have to go through him.
She slept like a child in her mother’s arms.