Page 17 of Slayer Mom
“Sure. We’ll start small. I have the perfect place. I’ve been prepping things in case you changed your mind, also there’s no sense in letting my skills get rusty just because I’m the last living slayer from a long line of—”
“Tom, can we not do the history of slayers right now? We need to do this before I lose my nerve.”
“Where are you at?”
I gave him my address.
“I’ll pick you up in a few. Stay in your vehicle. You picked a place where the undead like to gather under the docks. You could get a good swarm if they caught your scent.” Yep, he soundedabsolutely cheerful about the idea of swarming zombies.
“Great. I’ll just stay in the car then.” Maybe I should go back home and play tennis with Hazen. I’d run out on him like a total jerk. I grabbed my real phone and called him.
He answered after two rings. “Thank you for calling.” He sounded sincere, not like the recorded messages you get when you’re trying to call the power company.
“I’m sorry I left like that.”
“You don’t want me to touch you. But you do want me to touch you. But you don’t want to want me to touch you.”
I rolled my eyes. At least he was having a fun time with his nuts wife. “Basically.”
“When are you coming home, or are you going to have another drunken night with Gloria? It’s okay if you do. I didn’t realize that this would be so hard for you. Maybe you should work in the kitchen at the boarding school.”
“Or take up knitting.”
“There are worse things. I’ll take it up with you. It would be better for the vases than tennis, although we could technically move that to the community court.”
“That would be too public.”
“I knew we should have gotten a house with a private tennis court. Next time.”
“Sure. I don’t know when I’ll be home. Probably after dark.”
“Take your time. Enjoy yourself. As you know, I always have more work to do.”
“Which you love.”
“Do I?”
More than me, although he had been making a point of coming home earlier since we sent the kidsaway. “I’ll see you later.” I hung up and dropped my phone into my bag before I pulled out the romance novel from the airport. Maybe that would take my mind off the zombies under the docks. It didn’t. Was Tom messing with me? I leaned over the dash to see if I could see anything, but I couldn’t, just the nice river flowing slowly past.
When Tom drove up in his van, I jumped out and then into the passenger’s seat in under two seconds. I slammed my door and then turned to him expectantly.
“Okay. We’re going to drive down to the old industrial neighborhood, where the buildings are mostly rotted and falling down. You good with that?”
No. I wasn’t. I nodded and pulled up my pants leg to draw the knife strapped to my calf. “I’m good.”
He smiled pleasantly. “I’m glad to see that you’ve taken to it. You have good instincts. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
Cue me pinned in by two-hundred zombies in the center of a spread of asphalt, a metal door at my back while the creatures crawled towards me. I smelled strongly of nutmeg, because I hadn’t showered for hours, or had my salt soak for the day, and I was wearing the horribly tacky tank top and red pleather pants. The point of today’s trip wasn’t so much to fight as to destroy. But had we really planned on this many zombies?
I was supposed to stay there until they’d all stumbled into the clearing, but there were already too many. I held my position for another hyperventilating breath before I turned and squeezed the handle that would let me into the protective shelter of the building.
The trouble was that no one had unlocked the door. It didn’t budge. So there I was, with nothing to do but crouch down and draw the knife on my calfthat looked so small compared to all those creepy faces and yawning mouths.
I held my knife, waiting for the first monster, but they were taking their time, gathering more bodies so I’d be more securely pinned. Watching them sniff was so disgusting, peeling nostrils flaring while their eyes rolled back in euphoric delight. They moaned, too, a sound that mixed with their shuffle in the most unappetizing way.
“Help!” I yelled, although if Tom hadn’t opened the door, maybe that was because he’d been caught and turned and was now one of the deteriorating creatures like the ones before me. Was I really going to die like this? I couldn’t have an unresolved marital issue hanging over me before I died. I hadn’t told Hazen that I loved him.
A zombie lunged at me with snapping teeth, but he was still five feet away, so I just flinched back and bumped into the steel door. It was a very solid door.
