Zombie Ever After Read online

  for Kristen

  ZOMBIE EVER AFTER

  © COPYRIGHT 2014 CARL S. PLUMER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from the author at [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. For more information on the author and his works, please visit www.carlplumer.com

  Editors:Becca Hamilton, Beth Lynne, Judi Fennel, Kristen Plumer

  Cover Art:Nada Orlic

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  Chapter 1

  Donovan Codell’s eyes snapped open as if, even while in deep sleep, he had sensed danger. Yet, the room was quiet, calm, dark. Well, he was awake now. He sat up and scratched his head as the gray morning sun clawed its way through the living room blinds. Then he forced himself off the couch and stretched.

  Yawning, he grabbed his lower back and gave his muscles an absentminded massage. He stood dead on his feet, his whole body aching. He hadn’t slept well on that old couch. The heavy drinking the night before hadn’t helped either. Wearing only his boxers, he shuffled off down the hall to the rear of the apartment.

  At his bedroom, Donovan stopped and leaned against the jamb of the open doorway. He crossed his arms and studied the woman still asleep in his bed: Cathren Whitney, a petite, strawberry blonde with gentle features. She had small hands, feet, and breasts. She was in her mid-twenties like Donovan. She still wore makeup. Subtler than last night, however, but noticeable. Like the “morning after” in movies. Or in those mattress ads on TV.

  A soft sigh escaped her lips. She turned, opened her eyes, and looked up at him.

  They smiled at each other.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he whispered.

  She giggled. “Don’t say that. I’m not beautiful...”

  Donovan’s stomach stirred at the sound of her raspy, just-woken-up voice. He cleared his throat.

  Cathren sat up in bed. “Did you mean it, though? You think I’m pretty?” She ran her fingers through her long hair.

  Who wouldn’t?

  “Yeah, of course.”

  Cathren stretched lazily and the way she slid out of bed was enough to get his imagination going. She walked over to Donovan and, raising herself on her toes, gave him a quick kiss. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Okay,” Donovan said, his hard expectations shrinking away. She swept past him to the bathroom. The noise of the shower reached him and he soon heard her humming and washing herself. Sighing, he turned around and made his way distractedly down the hall toward the kitchen.

  He switched on the coffeemaker and filled the reservoir with bottled water. Then he wandered into the front room and hit the remote. The television awoke, blasting cable news. Ah, the beauty of background noise in the morning. It helped him wake up, keeping him from focusing on his own problems. The events around the world—killings, horrors, disasters—comforted him in a strange way. His difficulties no longer seemed all that weighty. Nothing but your average relationship issues, job stuff, the usual.

  Back in the kitchen, he tuned in to the topic under discussion in the front room in a vague way. They were chatting about contaminated water or something. Chemicals in the aquifer (whatever an aquifer was). He poured himself a cup of coffee and scratched his privates as unashamedly as a puppy.

  * * *

  Donovan was sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space, when Cathren crept in. Her hair was wet and wrapped in a towel, and she was carrying a tan cosmetics bag. She sported the same jeans she had on the night before, but with one of his tee shirts on and tied at the hip.

  This was the first time in all these years that he’d ever seen her without at least some makeup on. God. She looked incredible.

  “There’s coffee,” he said, coming out of his trance.

  “Great.” She walked over, poured herself a cup, and gazed out the window as she sipped her coffee.

  “Surprising,” Donovan said, breaking the silence. “I never thought I’d see you again, you know? Let alone, we’d be back together.”

  Cathren’s gaze snapped to him. “Who says we’re back together?”

  Donavan’s throat constricted; he swallowed hard, but kept his gaze steady on her.

  Cathren shook her head and let out a weary sigh. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Don. I shouldn’t have done that. But we need to talk about last night.”

  “Let’s leave it alone. Give it time.”

  “I’m not sure we’ve got time,” she said, stiffening.

  Donovan ran his hands through his hair, his elbows propped on the small kitchen table. He stared into his coffee.

  “I don’t understand.” He slumped in the wooden chair, his shoulders sagging. “Our paths crossed last night, so what? We had a few drinks, maybe a few too many, and ended up back here at my place. As it turned out, we didn’t even sleep together.” Thunder growled in the distance. He looked up at her and frowned. “Oh, sorry, I don’t mean to be—”

  “What? An ass?” she said, not looking at him. Instead, she studied the nothing that was happening outside. “What a shitty day. What’s happened to the sun lately?” She turned away from the window and back to Donovan. “Look, I know this sounds crazy,” she continued, “but I don’t want to screw this up again.”

  Cathren stepped away from the counter and sat down at the table with Donovan. She unzipped her makeup bag and pulled a few small things out, including a lipstick and a compact mirror, then brushed some mascara over her lashes.

  Donovan hesitated. “Screw what up?” They’d tried this a few times in the past, but it never worked out, and they always ended up breaking up after a few weeks. Yet, there always was this attraction that never seemed to go away.

  “Whatever we want to call this,” she said, waving her finger back and forth between them, “you need to deal with it. Sorry, it’s relationship shit. Not your favorite, I know.” She took a pincher mechanism out of her bag and squeezed her eyelashes as she talked.

  They’d screwed this up before, that was true. Breaking up and getting back together more times than Donovan could count.

  “Anyway, this isn’t about ‘death do us part’ or anything, so relax,” Cathren said. “I’m just wondering whether we have a real connection or if we’ll just end up killing each other.”

  The sky outside filled with murky clouds. Donovan looked around for an opportunity to change the subject. Catching sight of one of his books, he lifted it from the counter and held it up.

  “So, um, I have a lesson today,” he said, half mumbling. “This afternoon.”

  “A lesson? Impressive. There’s hope yet. What are you taking?”

  “I’m not taking anything. I’m teaching. I’m an instructor, remember? Paragliding? Parachuting. Parasailing. Para-anything.”

  “God, are you still doing that?”

  Donovan laid the book back down on the counter and sighed. “Well, what do you suggest I do instead?”

  “I don’t know, a real job, maybe?”

  Oh, no. They weren’t goin
g down this road again.

  “Maybe you should try it sometime,” he said. “I could teach you. I’m a good instructor, or so I’m told.”

  Cathren switched the device to her other eye before answering. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t like scary things.”

  “Come with me today, anyway,” Donovan said, tapping the table like a snare drum. “We could go up after my two o’clock.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, fine.” Donovan busied himself by going through the pile of mail while she finished her makeup. “So, you want to get breakfast?”

  “Sounds good,” she said. “I’m so hungry I could die.”

  “At least we have something in common.” Donovan smiled and then, reluctantly, so did Cathren.

  Perhaps this can work. She could be right about that connection thing.

  Outside, mud-colored clouds rolled through the sky, spitting rain against the kitchen window.

  Chapter 2

  Welcome to Investigation Nation! This week’s scandal: Dead Men Walking: ATELIC Industries and the Promise of Cryogenics.

  I’m Zoë Krant. Good evening.

  Tonight, we take a look at the strange world of cryogenics, or cryonics as it’s sometimes called. We pull back the curtain on the mysterious man behind ATELIC Industries, the leading organization in the world today in the so-called cryogenics field.

  ATELIC, as some of you may not know, stands for—now let me see if I can get this right—Advanced Technologies for Enabling Lifespans to Infinity via Cryogenics.

  The company, whose slogan is “We’re Heading Into The Future,” offers the somewhat controversial practice of soaking the pampered heads of the famous, the brilliant, and the wealthy in chemical baths until some future time when humankind may have the technology to literally raise the dead. Unfreeze the heads. Create new bodies. The dead would walk again! However, problems have arisen before that can happen.

  ATELIC. What do we know about them? What do we know about their enigmatic, charismatic leader, Dr. Burkhart Egesa? Moreover, what are they up to in their shiny, secretive, cylindrical buildings in Redwood City?

  We’ll find out tonight.

  Stay tuned. We’ll be right back after this break.

  Chapter 3

  The radio in the car droned on with the same contaminated aquifer story from back at the apartment. Something about people shouldn’t drink the water, blah-blah-blah. And more on ATELIC Industries, Inc., whoever they were. Donovan hit the AUX switch, and music from his iPod pumped through the speakers. Dead Kennedys.

  “How can you listen to this shi–stuff?” Cathren asked. She scrunched her face up as if she’d smelled a rotten onion.

  “Old-school punk, what’s not to like?” he said. “Rancid, Dead Boys, Bad Brains. You know I love it.”

  “Whatever.”

  “My car, my rules. If I’d known you’d be with me today, I’d have made a mix tape.”

  Donovan was going to say more, but his attention was now focused on a klatch of senior citizens teetering along the shoulder by the fast lane. The blue–hairs appeared agitated. “What’s this?” He tilted his chin forward, using his head to point. With each car that drove by, the elderly gestured and yelled like aggressive monkeys in a laboratory cage.

  “Should I stop to help the old dudes out?” Donovan asked.

  “No way,” Cathren said. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so abrupt. It’s just that something’s not right.”

  “Okay,” Donovan said. “No stopping. No helping. Fuck ‘em.” He smiled at her as they rolled down Central Avenue toward Haight-Ashbury. “The breakfast place is here, off Haight. I think you’re gonna like it.”

  “Good,” Cathren said softly. “That’s good.”

  “You okay?”

  “What? Yeah, I’m fine. That was so weird, though. I’m going to blog about them, for sure.”

  “You have a blog now?”

  “Doesn’t everybody? Mine gets a thousand hits a week, and I have sponsors now, too. My ambition is to expose bad things, especially corporate and government evil. Large scale, make a difference.”

  “Cool.”

  “I want to get the dirt on the dopes and then drag them down right to the ground.”

  Donovan grinned. “Sounds like a tee shirt.”

  “Or lyrics,” Cathren said. “Back to what I was saying. I’ll put the bad guys out of business if I can. Believe me, I will. So what’s up with this ATELIC organization, anyway?”

  Chapter 4

  By the time Donovan and Cathren arrived downtown, the air dropped out of the sky in warm, sticky clumps. Rainwater dripped in splotches here and there from broken gutters, rooftops, and canopies. Meanwhile, threatening skies grew darker to the west.

  They parked and strolled along the storefronts to the restaurant. As they passed one particular store, Donovan lingered.

  “Whoa.” he said. “Whoa!”

  “What is it?”

  “The Flying Fox. The ultimate tandem paragliding kit, and my dream.” Donovan had a huge, goofy smile on his face. “This baby is state of the art, unlike anything before it.”

  Donovan stepped up to the shop window and stared, like the kid in A Christmas Story, eyes glued to the BB gun in Higbee’s Department Store window.

  “What’s the big deal?” Cathren asked.

  “This thing is the iPad of paragliders. Thin, new, groundbreaking. Most of these babies need such a large case, people mistake you for a Sherpa with a steamer trunk on your back. Not this baby. Light as air. Packs up into a standard-sized backpack. Black paraglider, too—the first and only—with a matching matte-black backpack. Think of Batman’s cape and you’ll get the idea.”

  “Hmm,” said Cathren. “And yet, I don’t get it.”

  “Anyway, I’ll never be able to afford one,” he said, dreamy-eyed. “Maybe one day, though.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You never know.”

  Cathren dragged him away from the object of his desire and they continued maneuvering down the sidewalk until they came to a quaint coffee house on the corner.

  “Here we are,” Donovan said. “This is the place.”

  Inside, they found a table by the window. A server soon approached, his long blond dreads swinging behind him like soft spines.

  “And how are you two today?” he asked.

  “Good,” Cathren and Donovan said in unison.

  Turning his attention to Cathren, Donovan said, “You should get the vegetarian frittata. Fantastic.”

  “Yes, excellent choice.” The waiter proceeded to recite the ingredients in a slow monotone, pausing between each component. “Fresh mushrooms. Tomatoes. Avocado. Cheese. Topped with our most tasty, house-made salsa.”

  “Yum,” Cathren said, smiling.

  “Two of those, then.” Donovan looked at the waiter again. “And two coffees, too.”

  The waiter stiffened, his eyebrows pulling together. “Haven’t you heard, dude? You can’t drink the water now. No way. We can’t serve water, coffee, or any other water-based drink.” He stared at the couple as though offended. “We’re sold out of bottled water, but have no fear, I can find you a bottle of juice or natural soda or—”

  “No, thanks,” Donovan said.

  “I’ll take a juice. Whatever you’ve got,” Cathren said, most likely only ordering the juice to make up for Donovan’s borderline rudeness.

  “Cool. Two veggie omelets, one juice,” the waiter said as he walked away, scribbling on his pad.

  Outside the window, an army tank and two military Hummers sniffing its rear crunched their way down the block. Soldiers—guns loaded, raised to their shoulders, and pointed straight ahead—stomped in close formation on both sides of the street.

  “Something’s not right,” Donovan said, deciding it was time to leave without eating.

  He dropped a couple of bills on the table and poked Cathren with his other hand. She turned to him, smiling. He tipped his head toward the escalating militarization.
Cathren’s smile disappeared. She nodded, grabbed her purse, and together they stood up and left.

  * * *

  People were stopping along the sidewalk in bunches. They looked as if they were watching the start of a parade. Donovan and Cathren strolled uptown, walking in the opposite direction of the troops’ movements.

  At the corner, the couple made a left. Then, hoping for a successful evasive maneuver, they took a right at the next block. They began to relax, convinced they had gotten away from the mounting craziness.

  Instead, they walked right into hell.

  A large group of people formed a circle in the middle of the road, their backs to Donovan and Cathren. The couple stopped, transfixed, and studied the people in the crowd.

  Oozing wounds dotted the beings’ flesh. Open sores pocked their necks, arms, backs. Rotting skin dripped to the ground. A couple of them had bits of bright white bone showing through, like headlights in a tunnel.

  “What’s going on?” said Cathren. “Who are they? They look so sick. Are they lepers? Are they hurt? Should we help them?”

  “Water drinkers,” Donovan said darkly. “Unfiltered tap water drinkers.”

  One of the people in the crowd turned their empty gaze on Donovan and Cathren. Then another turned around. And another. And another. Until they were all facing Donovan and Cathren. Growling, they gnashed their teeth and walked toward them with shuffling, limping, broken determination.

  “These poor, poor people.” Cathren said, her hand snapping up to cover her open mouth, her eyes misting over.

  “No, they don’t need our help,” Donovan said, barely able to deliver the sentence. “We need our help.”

  Chapter 5

  Burkhart Egesa straightened in his seat as the makeup person touched up his face, powdering his nose and forehead. When she finished, she spun him around in his chair to confront the cameras and the burning lights. Egesa’s stomach roiled at the very idea of doing an interview, especially for a show with as large a viewership as Investigation Nation. It wasn’t stage fright. He loved being on stage. The bigger the crowd, the better, but only when he had complete control. Giving a speech, a presentation, yes. Not, most certainly, when giving an interview. Too much could go wrong.