Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance by Lori Perkins Page A
Authors: Lori Perkins
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anything you think we can use.”
It took an hour to collect and load everything into the car. The hardest part was leaving room for Alice, who filled the back seat with her hulking presence. The sun was just coming up as we rolled across town to the Lassiter homestead.
We drove past the house once slowly and parked one street over. Lassiter’s house was fairly isolated for central New England suburbia, surrounded by woods on three sides and a long gated driveway out front. Danielle had said the whole place was fenced in, electrified, and razor-wired, which weren’t unusual upgrades for those who had survived the initial attacks.
“I assume you have a plan for storming the castle…”
“I told you that when Mandy and I used to date, her father wasn’t happy about it,”
I said. “So we spent a lot of time sneaking her in and out of the house. Even back then he was into heavy security, but like most people, the one thing he always failed to do was look up.”
95
“Look
up?”
“Yeah,
up . The house is surrounded by old-growth trees. Great for keeping prying eyes out, but even better for getting up and over fences as well as flying above Daddy’s radar.”
“That’s all well and good for you, Monkey Man,” Shana said, “but what about Alice and me? I failed rope climbing in gym and Alice left her wings attached to her special-occasion collar.”
“Give me some credit. I grabbed Alice’s harness, saddlebags, and a blanket we can use for a sling. There’s also rope in the trunk. Mandy and I did the up and over so often, we had a whole series of ropes and ladders permanently set up in the trees.”
“You think after ten years, they’re still there, and functional?”
“The ropes I used were top of the line climbing ropes and we hid them pretty well, but we won’t know for sure until we get in there.”
We grabbed everything we could carry, packing Alice’s saddlebags with some of the smaller stuff, and headed in.
Unlike most of the world, nothing much had changed in this little stretch of woods in the past ten years. Paths were fainter and a few of the trees had fallen over, but there was little evidence of human presence or interference.
It didn’t take us long to run up alongside Lassiter’s property lines. The big metal fence rose out of the underbrush, barbed wire glinting in the early-morning sun. We followed it along the perimeter, checking for breaches and doing recon on what was going on inside. From what we could see, all was quiet, but Alice let us know there was definitely decaying meat somewhere close by.
96
I found the access tree just about where I remembered it. Mandy hadn’t been much of a climber when we started seeing each other, so by necessity this tree featured a lot of large, low branches that got us about ten feet up before having to switch over to a rope ladder that took us up into the much bigger oak that spanned the fence.
Following the old Romeo and Juliet route was harder than I remembered. Shana and I had a few scary moments when ropes were too frayed or missing, but we took it slowly and carefully, and eventually all eight of our feet touched down safely inside Lassiter’s compound.
We tried to stick to the edges and keep obstacles between us and the house’s windows, but there came a point when there was nothing to do but make a flat-out run across a big chunk of open yard in order to reach the back of the house.
We were halfway across when I heard Alice’s deep warning growl and saw her cut off to the right. Shana saw it too and we peeled off after her. Alice had picked up the Zom’s scent and led us right to them. There were three of them milling around a fenced enclosure about the size of a large dog run. Off to the side, a wire-covered, human-sized chute connected it to the house.
“What do you think? Is that our way in?” I asked.
Shana craned her neck to check out the cage’s perimeters. “I don’t see any insulators or
It took an hour to collect and load everything into the car. The hardest part was leaving room for Alice, who filled the back seat with her hulking presence. The sun was just coming up as we rolled across town to the Lassiter homestead.
We drove past the house once slowly and parked one street over. Lassiter’s house was fairly isolated for central New England suburbia, surrounded by woods on three sides and a long gated driveway out front. Danielle had said the whole place was fenced in, electrified, and razor-wired, which weren’t unusual upgrades for those who had survived the initial attacks.
“I assume you have a plan for storming the castle…”
“I told you that when Mandy and I used to date, her father wasn’t happy about it,”
I said. “So we spent a lot of time sneaking her in and out of the house. Even back then he was into heavy security, but like most people, the one thing he always failed to do was look up.”
95
“Look
up?”
“Yeah,
up . The house is surrounded by old-growth trees. Great for keeping prying eyes out, but even better for getting up and over fences as well as flying above Daddy’s radar.”
“That’s all well and good for you, Monkey Man,” Shana said, “but what about Alice and me? I failed rope climbing in gym and Alice left her wings attached to her special-occasion collar.”
“Give me some credit. I grabbed Alice’s harness, saddlebags, and a blanket we can use for a sling. There’s also rope in the trunk. Mandy and I did the up and over so often, we had a whole series of ropes and ladders permanently set up in the trees.”
“You think after ten years, they’re still there, and functional?”
“The ropes I used were top of the line climbing ropes and we hid them pretty well, but we won’t know for sure until we get in there.”
We grabbed everything we could carry, packing Alice’s saddlebags with some of the smaller stuff, and headed in.
Unlike most of the world, nothing much had changed in this little stretch of woods in the past ten years. Paths were fainter and a few of the trees had fallen over, but there was little evidence of human presence or interference.
It didn’t take us long to run up alongside Lassiter’s property lines. The big metal fence rose out of the underbrush, barbed wire glinting in the early-morning sun. We followed it along the perimeter, checking for breaches and doing recon on what was going on inside. From what we could see, all was quiet, but Alice let us know there was definitely decaying meat somewhere close by.
96
I found the access tree just about where I remembered it. Mandy hadn’t been much of a climber when we started seeing each other, so by necessity this tree featured a lot of large, low branches that got us about ten feet up before having to switch over to a rope ladder that took us up into the much bigger oak that spanned the fence.
Following the old Romeo and Juliet route was harder than I remembered. Shana and I had a few scary moments when ropes were too frayed or missing, but we took it slowly and carefully, and eventually all eight of our feet touched down safely inside Lassiter’s compound.
We tried to stick to the edges and keep obstacles between us and the house’s windows, but there came a point when there was nothing to do but make a flat-out run across a big chunk of open yard in order to reach the back of the house.
We were halfway across when I heard Alice’s deep warning growl and saw her cut off to the right. Shana saw it too and we peeled off after her. Alice had picked up the Zom’s scent and led us right to them. There were three of them milling around a fenced enclosure about the size of a large dog run. Off to the side, a wire-covered, human-sized chute connected it to the house.
“What do you think? Is that our way in?” I asked.
Shana craned her neck to check out the cage’s perimeters. “I don’t see any insulators or
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