Okay, so you know how last week I brought you a fabulous excerpt from Sommer's zombie book? Well guess what, beetches. She's written a sequel, and it's as amazeballs as the first one. And just for you, I've got a fabulous excerpt from that book, too.
Because nothing makes me happier than spreading the Sommer love. Especially after she went and wrote the most amazing review of Control:
http://sommermarsden.blogspot.com/2011/07/control-by-charlotte-stein-book-review.html
I swear to God, I didn't pay her. I didn't even ask her. She just did it, because she is made of all that is orsum and amazeballs in the world. Seriously, one of my writing heroines saying that. I can't even.
Instead, I will just leave you with living proof of how talented she is:
Excerpt from NO GUILT (Zombie Exterminators book #2)
Buy Link: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/323-201-107-489-2--no-guilt-zombie-exterminators-series-book-two-by-sommer-marsden.html
Also on Kindle, at ARe, Bookstrand etc.
Chapter One
“Don’t spook her,” Garrity said.
Noah was turning his big white van onto Topaz Lane, and I was trying really, really hard not to stare at Cahill. This was our first big job since moving from Maryland to Connecticut. Our first mission handed down and paid for by the county we lived in. Once we left our hometown after taking care of the Evoluminaries and their rabid leader William Tell (who had wanted to use me as a zombie baby mamma, thank you very much) we’d treated ourselves to a few weeks off.
Now the cupboard was bare, and we were itching to do something that did not involve loud music, alcohol and trading creeper war stories like old men at a veterans’ lunch.
“I won’t spook her. Why the hell would I spook her?” I snapped. Being fixated on Cahill’s offer wasn’t helping my mood. An offer of a threesome with him and Garrity—something that, yes, boys and girls, I have fantasized about more than once. It had come out of the blue after a drunken bucket-list conversation the four of us had had. Bam! In a moment of privacy, the offered was slammed down on the figurative table, and I couldn’t seem to stop poking at it. It was something I wanted, but it scared me.
I caught Cahill looking at me from the front seat where he rode shotgun to his lover Noah. I felt my face flush when I saw his cocky grin. Jeesh.
“Because you seem a bit on edge, Poppy,” Garrity said and leaned in. “Why are you so on edge, babe?”
It had taken forever and ever for me and Garrity to get together despite attraction and all that jazz. But my mother’s death and our last mission had sealed a bond that was a long time coming. So how would he feel about bringing handsome, tall Cahill in on the sex part of stuff? My brain wouldn’t let it go, but I swallowed hard and said “Don’t know. Maybe I’m rusty.”
“Nah. You’re good, girly. There’s nothing rusty about you,” he said and kissed me.
I turned my face fast—before I could analyze it—and kissed him on the lips. Part of me wanted to say those dreaded three words. I love you…part of me wanted to scream at even allowing myself to think it.
The van jumped and jittered on non-existent shocks and ripped me out of my reverie. “We’re here,” Noah said.
“Ready?” Cahill asked.
“No,” I said.
“Good.” Garrity patted my legs. “So let’s do this thing.”
We got out of the van and went to knock on Marylou Peterson’s front door.
I watched that instant—the instant that all couples seem to have—unfold. As Garrity was touching the small of my back, Cahill was touching Noah’s arm. That we-have-a-connection touch. Would Noah hate me forever if I took Cahill up on his offer? Would it ruin our friendship? Would it ruin the four of us and how we worked together? It was something I had to push out of my head as the front door swung inward. I had to focus on the complaints by the neighborhood and the county about a creeper that was loose that no one could seem to pinpoint. The last place it had been seen was Marylou’s house. I needed to focus on her.
“Hi, Marylou Peterson?” I spoke. The boys felt it better that I introduce us since I was relatively calm and a girl and there was a zombie apocalypse under way—or so the general population thought. “My name is Poppy Cooper, and we need to talk to you about a recent cree—” Garrity nudged me. Creeper was our own personal nickname for the undead. “Um…undead sighting on your property.”
“Who are you?”
“We’re county licensed freelance exterminators,” I said. Which was a fancy way of saying we kill dead things. We’re killers for hire.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice.
“May we come inside and speak with you?” Garrity asked, flipping a piece of nearly black hair out of his blue-blue eyes. He smiled. His boy next door shtick. Niiiiice.
“Sure. Come on,” she said and took a step back.
Funny. She seemed more scared of us than the idea of rogue zombies in her neck of the woods.
People were strange.
“It was on my property?” she asked. Her eyes were wide and frightened but off. Something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t figure out what. Maybe we’d interrupted her and her boyfriend or something.
I looked at the county’s paperwork. Connecticut was way more of a stickler for paperwork than Maryland had ever been. Go figure. “Two complaints of a lone male undead subject on your property,” I said. “But when someone is sent out to take care of the call, he’s gone. There is a note that the second complaint called was only partially sure it was a male subject. Have you seen anything?”
She shook her head. Her big brown eyes wide, her fingers twirling a piece of dyed-red hair so tight I feared the whole lock would pop right out of her scalp. “No. It’s just me and my brother here. I haven’t seen anything. My dad’s long gone—has been for years, my mom…” She shook her head and looked away.
Christ, I hated this part. I always felt like a heel. Like I was pouring salt in a wound, because I was. I had lost my mother to a creeper, I knew the pain of it. I also knew I’d been slightly luckier than most simply because my mother had been immune to the virus that was infecting all these undead. She didn’t rise. Most people had to deal with the loss and unwanted resurrection.
“I’m sorry,” I said. A few stupid words that could not possibly stem the flow of pain.
She nodded, cleared her throat. “My mother succumbed to the virus.”
“And your brother? Has he seen anything?”
“I’d have to ask him. Chuck’s not here right now, though,” she said, waving her hand around the kitchen. “But I’ll ask when I see him.”
“Can we look around your property? Maybe there’s something attracting this subject,” I said. When did I start talking like a zombie cop? I didn’t know.
“Sure,” she said and gave me another shrug. “You’re not going to find much. An overgrown yard, a shed, honeysuckle bushes and an old dog house. But go for it.”
“Thanks.” I nodded to her back kitchen door. “May we?”
Marylou stood and unlocked a series of locks on the door. Finally, she was able to pull it open. “I’ll be here when you’re done,” she said.
I eyed Garrity and his gaze flicked to the locks. Five of them by count and an old fashioned cheap battery operated alarm. It simply hung on the door knob, and if jostled it would sound an ear piercing alarm to let the occupants know someone had opened the door.
When we hit the wide planted, screened-in back porch, I whispered to him “Safety first.”
“Jesus, I’ll say.”
Cahill and Noah had already hit the property, walking the perimeter like two jungle hunters. I turned to face the house once I hit mid-yard. I stared up at the farmhouse windows that reminded me creepily of the eyes of the undead. They were there, they were open, but no one was home. The windows were uncovered, the sun bouncing off the upper panes of glass. I thought I saw something in the upper right, but then a crow flew overhead and it was gone. Probably a reflection.
The house to the right was for sale. The house to the left was buttoned up like a storm was coming. “We need to check next door,” I said to Garrity.
He grunted and checked out the shed. “Nothing but lawn stuff. Mower, hoes,” he laughed.
“Are you five?”
“Hoes,” he laughed again.
“Dipshit.”
“Snippy.”
“Childish.”
“Bitchy.”
“Hey, flirt later!” Cahill called, and when I looked up, surprised, he winked at me.
It went right to my pussy, that wink. I shook my head, ashamed of myself. We were on a job. I could worry about my sex life later.
“Anyway, just some gas and lawn care stuff. Normal shed crap,” Garrity said and put an arm around me as he passed to show we’d just been teasing.
I kissed him on the cheek, and he looked surprised. It was my penance for dirty thoughts about Cahill. Now how did I make amends with Noah? I had no idea.
Not that Noah was even paying attention. Or seemed to care. Maybe he didn’t know about…
“Hello?” Garrity rapped softly on my forehead with his knuckles.
“Sorry. Spacey. What did you say?”
“I said we need to talk to that brother. But first we’ll go next door.” He cocked his thumb at the battened-down house. “My guess is at least one of the complaint calls came from there.”
“I agree.”
“Well, someone call fucking Guinness. Or the church. Because that’s a miracle.” Noah brushed his surfer boy hair out of the way and holstered his gun. We were all armed to the teeth but trying to appear like we were just checking to see what was what.
It was nice to keep everything tucked away and hidden until we had an actual creeper spotting. On the other hand, we had to have it all so we weren’t caught off guard and didn’t become lunch for some dead things.
“Seriously,” Cahill said and put a possessive hand on Noah.
It made me hot all over to see those two touch, and it instantly brought to mind the times I’d accidentally seen them together. It was easy to imagine Noah sucking off Cahill. And it was never hard for me to call up the image of Cahill plunging into pretty Noah. Holding his slim hips and pushing his cock deep inside. But it had totally been accidental, me seeing them. Okay, the first time had been an accident.
The other times had been luck.
“We’ll cut through the bushes to speak to the neighbor. When we come back here we can use the back door and talk to Marylou.”
“She’s edgy with a capital fidgety,” Noah said.
“I know. But imagine that you’re a young woman living with just your brother, and he’s not here. Maybe she’s alone a lot. Her mom died.” I felt a twinge in my gut when they all looked sad for me, and I shook my head. “Don’t do that. Don’t pity me,” I snapped, and they all fixed their faces into masks of indifference.
I cleared my throat, coughing away the ball of emotion that had lodged there.
“And she doesn’t have dad to speak of. That’s gotta be hard. And then we show up—our ragtag team of killers…I gotta say, boys, I’d be a little edgy too, I think.”
Garrity sighed. “You have a point. Lucky you, you have us.” He smacked my ass hard, and I gaped at him.
“Come on,” Noah said to Cahill, and led the way. “Let’s go talk to the neighbor before they do something like fuck in the bushes.”
It was Cahill who turned and waggled his eyebrows at me. Jesus. This was getting sticky fast.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
We Kill Dead Things
So right when I was writing my zombie book, Reawakening, guess who else was doing it at twice the speed? And by doing it, I totally do not mean boffing. Except all the places where I do.
Because the person was the fabulous Sommer Marsden, and lo, I had my very own zime (see Sommer's comments below for clarification)! Hooray! And if you like zombie apocalypses, and you like hot smexing, you will love her book. Seriously, it's amazeballs. I'm hoping some of her brilliance will rub off on me, but so far all I'm getting is huh, so this idiot wrote a zombie book too, did she?
Alas, alas. I leave you with the true master, Sommer Marsden!
My name is Sommer and I like dead things. On paper, mind you. I also like dirty things, but I like those in real life as well. Somewhere along the line I got the idea to mix the two. At first I thought, Sh’yeah. Right. Naw. But then…Hmm…Maybe. Possibly. Hell yes!
So I wrote them together—sex and dead things, dead things and sex, exterminating and the horizontal mambo. Poppy is the girl I’ve always wanted to be. She wears shit kicker boots, kills things with a machete, wants Garrity but has the balls to still lust after—and admit to it—Cahill. She is a voyeur (Hello m/m action), a bad ass, a soft hearted ass buster who loves family, country and killing things that should be dead.
And she has blue hair!
I thought I’d do one—just the one. I did one. Then I thought maybe one more. So I did a second (where there is even MORE sex) and then today while out running I came across a very live (I’m almost positive) but very creepy woman who was out walking and…bam! Book three is fully formed in my head. And I have to say, the zombie exterminators are in for a sticky situation. But also…more sex!
That is the very short, very condensed, very non-earth-moving story of me and Poppy, the boys and yeah, a bunch of dead things.
Thank you, Charlotte, dead thing loving partner in zime (that is zombie crime) for having me.
XOXO
Sommer
Excerpt from WE KILL DEAD THINGS (Zombie Exterminators Book #1)
Buy Link: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/315-200-107-489-1--we-kill-dead-things-by-sommer-marsden.html
Also on Kindle, at ARe, Bookstrand etc.
Prologue
Honestly, the whole thing is Noah’s fault. We were all doing our normal closing-time bitchfest in the food square at Parktowne Mall and not really paying attention, when the first creeper showed up. That’s what we call them—the zombies—creepers.
Anyway, the first one showed up, and I assumed it was just another stoner looking for a slushie. Nope. It took all of my college logic skills to finally realize the creeper was up to no good when it lunged over the counter at me.
Garrity—Chris to his enemies—the object of my not-so-secret lust, let out a yell and rushed out with the bat we keep behind the counter at Smash It, the slushy and juice shop we run. He hit the guy on the shoulder—intending to do no real damage—but the bat sort of sank in and then made a squishy noise.
“He reeks,” I’d yelled, or something equally brilliant.
Then Noah was running out of Mamma’s Pies pizza stand with a meat cleaver of all things. Which he promptly buried in the guy’s skull. Thank God he was carving up Italian beef at the time.
The creeper gave me a stunned look that almost made me feel bad for him and Noah gave the cleaver another little shove and something cracked deep in the dead guy’s skull.
The dead guy fell on me.
Gross.
That had been the first creeper, and Noah had taken it out (being the only one smart enough to have the news on in his food court stall so he actually had news about the suddenly mobile undead). Garrity had to take out six more before we got the main doors locked. Nick Cahill—main man at The Beef Barn—found one making the moves on a side of beef in the walk-in. He took it out with an electric knife.
The night was pretty much what bizarre is made of, and when we found ourselves clustered on the merry-go-round drinking a good bottle of wine pilfered from the gourmet place, Noah made a joke.
“We should start a new business,” he laughed. He was a business major, after all. “Our slogan could be We Kill Dead Things.”
Like I said, it’s all Noah’s fault. Because that is what we do now. A year later, and we’re pretty damn good at it. We kill dead things.
Chapter One
“Little help over here,” Noah yelled. I tossed him a small axe from my pack, and he caught it with one hand. Noah’s the one with surfer boy hair, pale skin, freckles and an ass any girl would want to bite.
I watched him take the axe and with three economical blows behead our zombie friend.
“Nice.” Garrity laughed—sometimes I think he enjoys his work too much—and did his
own damage with a claw hammer he kept tucked in the back of his jeans. How he sat on that damn thing all day is beyond me. Garrity is the one with the dark, dark hair and the blue, blue eyes. He makes you want to—well, if you’re a girl—he makes you want to take your pants off for him. Hey, he might even make you want to take your pants off if you’re a guy, too. “Head’s up, Poppy,” he called out.
I turned—and lucky I did—because a big, bad and ugly was shuffling toward me like I was his last supper. “Not today, buddy.” My weapon of choice is a gun. I find it cleaner to just put a bullet in their brains. Or what’s left of them. Since my dad was a cop for thirty years, I know my way around a firearm. One shot and the creeper was down.
The boys still think one day I’m going to shoot them. I’ve told them that won’t happen as long as they behave.
“Where’s Cahill?” I called. Noah was sweeping the perimeter and Garrity was checking on his latest kill.
“He’s out back. The owners said the creepers come in through the back bushes.”
“Great. Nothing like sneaking off away from the pack,” I growled. I waited for the boys then we went around the side of the big farmhouse as a unit.
“Where are these bush—” I didn’t need to finish that sentence because Cahill was being tugged by six waving arms into the giant stand of bushes. “Jesuspleezus,” I sighed. “I can’t get a shot. He’s all tangled up with them.”
Garrity moved forward and so did Noah. Together they waded into the overgrown foliage and tugged two of the creepers free. That left Cahill enough room to turn fast and dispatch the creeper with his favorite butchering knife from his shop.
Cahill’s arms are about as big as my thighs and freckled. There’s barely any hair on them but what is there is a ginger-colored down. His eyes are bright green, and they can see right through to your soul. Or, at least, it feels like it. I watched him behead the thing with a fierce grunt and an even fiercer swipe of his knife.
Then I plopped onto the grass trying to catch my breath and get my heart to slow down. It was too damn fast in my chest. I felt like I was floating. Adrenaline cocktail, anyone?
“Come on, Poppy.” Garrity hauled me to my feet, and we all met up around the owner’s gazebo.
“They’ll be home tomorrow. We’ve secured the area. Those are the only creepers we could find. Anything else pops up they can give us a shout.”
I nodded. “Neighbors?”
“All alive and accounted for so far.”
Unlike the movies you see about the undead, they don’t spring up overnight in waves. They spring up one at a time like a flu victim—and like any other disease, there are some naturally immune. My own mother was bitten by the guy who broke in and killed my dad a few months back when this whole thing started. She’s a widow with a wicked scar but beyond that, totally fine.
You just can’t tell if you’ll be one of the immune or one of the infected. Best bet is not to get bitten.
“Good. Now can we go home and sleep? I’m tired.” I was tired, but I felt like a wuss saying it aloud—occupational hazard when you work with all men.
“Yep. Sleep is on the way.”
Garrity ruffled my short blue hair and I felt the touch reach my pussy. Damn him.
He leaned in, pressed his lips to my ear and said “How long is this stuff going to be blue, anyhow?”
“Until I get tired of the blue,” I growled.
He shrugged, that lazy, sexy boy shrug some men have, and said “Just asking. Don’t get all knotted up.”
I rolled my eyes, and when I turned I caught Cahill staring at me. That made my stomach curl in on itself. Those vibrant eyes on me. We were all messy and gross and banged up, but Cahill wore it well. So did Garrity. Poor Noah, he was staring at Cahill as usual. Noah would climb Cahill like a tree if he could get away with it.
Hell, so would I.
“Come on. Let’s get you home. Boys check in when you get to the house. I’ll take Poppy home,” Garrity said.
We split up after one more sweep of the property. Our exterminating service would get paid pretty well for this. Corpse disposal was the job of the owner, plus it helped if they could see the work we’d done. Body count was important. Extra added bonus, the corpses served as a warning to other creepers who might stumble-shuffle-walk into the neighborhood. Garrity pulled me in with an arm to the neck. “Hanging in there?”
“It’s been a long year.”
“No girl should have to kill her dad,” he said softly.
We’d danced around our attraction since day one at the slushy bar. Now it was a steady back beat to every encounter we had. Problem was, as tongue-tied as Garrity made me, Cahill made me the same…just in a slightly different way. Lust is a funny, funny thing.
I figured it best to hang back and do nothing. Plus, we were too busy killing things to fuck. Right?
* * * *
“All’s clear,” Garrity said. We’d given the inside of my house a once over.
The good news with the infection was folks got sick first. High fever, lethargic, sores, coma even. It was pretty easy to spot them if you paid attention. And then if they did die and rise back up, you could take care of business. Problem was that apparently a lot of folks had no one paying attention to them, or they were living with people who couldn’t stomach the taking care of business part. Which I can totally understand, truth be told.
“Thanks for the help. I want a long, hot shower and then a long, deep sleep.”
“Sounds good. Got room for company?”
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. “I—”
“Do you really have to think about it?”
No! But then again, yes…
“Of course,” I joked. “I don’t go jumping into the shower with just any guy.”
“And I’m not just any guy,” he said, tracing the zipper of my black hoodie with his fingertip. Garrity is the kind of guy who takes up space—big, broad, imposing, huge—all of those adjectives worked for him. “I wasn’t just any guy when we were serving up Polar Berry slushies, and I’m not just any guy now.”
“True but—”
“But you lust after the meat whacker, too.” He grinned. Clever description of Cahill. Made him sound both perverse and silly. Honestly, Garrity won hands down. There were feelings there for him, real ones. Cahill was just a hot, hot friend that I wanted to fuck. But I’d never tell Garrity that. He’d probably run around yelling I won! I won!
I rolled my eyes. “I think you’re both…” I trailed off. We were whispering because my mother was apparently asleep already. Her bedroom door had been shut when we came home so I tried to keep my voice down. The whole effect was that of a teenager sneaking in after curfew ended.
“Nifty? Sweet? Groovy? Fun?” He laughed.
“Shut up.”
“Hey, Poppy Cooper, kiss me,” he said and tugged my hoodie hard enough to make me stutter-step forward.
“Garrity,” I sighed. “Christ.”
He shook his head. “Unh-unh. Something about watching you dispatch creepers gets my blood pumping.”
He pulled me in, and I considered raising my objections. But then his lips touched mine, and I sort of oozed against him in a highly embarrassing way and got lost in that kiss. I kissed him back after a moment. It was our first kiss. All the flirting and sexual tension made it so intense, I felt like I was vibrating. I felt that kiss in my entire body. Scalp to toe and all the naughty, willing places in between.
“Let me in, Poppy. Let me in your room. Let me in your bed,” he muttered, pulling that traitorous zipper south.
“Garrity, I can’t. My mom…she’s sleeping and…”
He laughed outright, and I heard something in the distance. We both stilled, listening. Could be a roaming creeper, if so, our neighborhood watch would notice and call it in. When the noise stopped, I managed to pull free from him.
“I’m tired.”
“And I’m beat,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to take you to bed and make you—”
“I need a shower!” I blurted. “Creeper brains.”
He cocked his head at me. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”
“No,” I sighed, grateful he saw it now.
“But I will win soon,” he said, leveling a finger at me before taking it and sliding it along my lower lip so that I felt the tug of arousal between my legs.
“I don’t doubt it.” It was the honest-to-God truth.
“Be safe. Lock up. I’ll come pick you up in the morning. Not sure what we’re working tomorrow. But someone somewhere is overrun with zombies. Infestation.”
“Wow, that’s so peppy.”
“Sad, but true, Poppy,” he said.
“Sleep well,” I said, guilt staining me on the inside. I wanted to try to explain to him just how much I actually wanted him. But I sucked at that stuff.
“You, too.” He started for the porch steps and hesitated. “Last chance to take advantage of me. Change your mind and lead me upstairs and ravage me like the easy man that I am.”
I snorted and covered my mouth. “Good night, Garrity.”
“Goodnight, Poppy Cooper.”
And he was gone. I watched his big, lumbering, ugly-ass green truck pull away and patted my pockets. I had my cell, I had my gun. I crept inside being as quiet as I could and locked the bathroom door behind me. I would take a long hot shower and then hit the sack.
It was just what the doctor ordered. You know, before reporting for duty tomorrow morning to dispatch a bunch of dead things.
Because the person was the fabulous Sommer Marsden, and lo, I had my very own zime (see Sommer's comments below for clarification)! Hooray! And if you like zombie apocalypses, and you like hot smexing, you will love her book. Seriously, it's amazeballs. I'm hoping some of her brilliance will rub off on me, but so far all I'm getting is huh, so this idiot wrote a zombie book too, did she?
Alas, alas. I leave you with the true master, Sommer Marsden!
My name is Sommer and I like dead things. On paper, mind you. I also like dirty things, but I like those in real life as well. Somewhere along the line I got the idea to mix the two. At first I thought, Sh’yeah. Right. Naw. But then…Hmm…Maybe. Possibly. Hell yes!
So I wrote them together—sex and dead things, dead things and sex, exterminating and the horizontal mambo. Poppy is the girl I’ve always wanted to be. She wears shit kicker boots, kills things with a machete, wants Garrity but has the balls to still lust after—and admit to it—Cahill. She is a voyeur (Hello m/m action), a bad ass, a soft hearted ass buster who loves family, country and killing things that should be dead.
And she has blue hair!
I thought I’d do one—just the one. I did one. Then I thought maybe one more. So I did a second (where there is even MORE sex) and then today while out running I came across a very live (I’m almost positive) but very creepy woman who was out walking and…bam! Book three is fully formed in my head. And I have to say, the zombie exterminators are in for a sticky situation. But also…more sex!
That is the very short, very condensed, very non-earth-moving story of me and Poppy, the boys and yeah, a bunch of dead things.
Thank you, Charlotte, dead thing loving partner in zime (that is zombie crime) for having me.
XOXO
Sommer
Excerpt from WE KILL DEAD THINGS (Zombie Exterminators Book #1)
Buy Link: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/315-200-107-489-1--we-kill-dead-things-by-sommer-marsden.html
Also on Kindle, at ARe, Bookstrand etc.
Prologue
Honestly, the whole thing is Noah’s fault. We were all doing our normal closing-time bitchfest in the food square at Parktowne Mall and not really paying attention, when the first creeper showed up. That’s what we call them—the zombies—creepers.
Anyway, the first one showed up, and I assumed it was just another stoner looking for a slushie. Nope. It took all of my college logic skills to finally realize the creeper was up to no good when it lunged over the counter at me.
Garrity—Chris to his enemies—the object of my not-so-secret lust, let out a yell and rushed out with the bat we keep behind the counter at Smash It, the slushy and juice shop we run. He hit the guy on the shoulder—intending to do no real damage—but the bat sort of sank in and then made a squishy noise.
“He reeks,” I’d yelled, or something equally brilliant.
Then Noah was running out of Mamma’s Pies pizza stand with a meat cleaver of all things. Which he promptly buried in the guy’s skull. Thank God he was carving up Italian beef at the time.
The creeper gave me a stunned look that almost made me feel bad for him and Noah gave the cleaver another little shove and something cracked deep in the dead guy’s skull.
The dead guy fell on me.
Gross.
That had been the first creeper, and Noah had taken it out (being the only one smart enough to have the news on in his food court stall so he actually had news about the suddenly mobile undead). Garrity had to take out six more before we got the main doors locked. Nick Cahill—main man at The Beef Barn—found one making the moves on a side of beef in the walk-in. He took it out with an electric knife.
The night was pretty much what bizarre is made of, and when we found ourselves clustered on the merry-go-round drinking a good bottle of wine pilfered from the gourmet place, Noah made a joke.
“We should start a new business,” he laughed. He was a business major, after all. “Our slogan could be We Kill Dead Things.”
Like I said, it’s all Noah’s fault. Because that is what we do now. A year later, and we’re pretty damn good at it. We kill dead things.
Chapter One
“Little help over here,” Noah yelled. I tossed him a small axe from my pack, and he caught it with one hand. Noah’s the one with surfer boy hair, pale skin, freckles and an ass any girl would want to bite.
I watched him take the axe and with three economical blows behead our zombie friend.
“Nice.” Garrity laughed—sometimes I think he enjoys his work too much—and did his
own damage with a claw hammer he kept tucked in the back of his jeans. How he sat on that damn thing all day is beyond me. Garrity is the one with the dark, dark hair and the blue, blue eyes. He makes you want to—well, if you’re a girl—he makes you want to take your pants off for him. Hey, he might even make you want to take your pants off if you’re a guy, too. “Head’s up, Poppy,” he called out.
I turned—and lucky I did—because a big, bad and ugly was shuffling toward me like I was his last supper. “Not today, buddy.” My weapon of choice is a gun. I find it cleaner to just put a bullet in their brains. Or what’s left of them. Since my dad was a cop for thirty years, I know my way around a firearm. One shot and the creeper was down.
The boys still think one day I’m going to shoot them. I’ve told them that won’t happen as long as they behave.
“Where’s Cahill?” I called. Noah was sweeping the perimeter and Garrity was checking on his latest kill.
“He’s out back. The owners said the creepers come in through the back bushes.”
“Great. Nothing like sneaking off away from the pack,” I growled. I waited for the boys then we went around the side of the big farmhouse as a unit.
“Where are these bush—” I didn’t need to finish that sentence because Cahill was being tugged by six waving arms into the giant stand of bushes. “Jesuspleezus,” I sighed. “I can’t get a shot. He’s all tangled up with them.”
Garrity moved forward and so did Noah. Together they waded into the overgrown foliage and tugged two of the creepers free. That left Cahill enough room to turn fast and dispatch the creeper with his favorite butchering knife from his shop.
Cahill’s arms are about as big as my thighs and freckled. There’s barely any hair on them but what is there is a ginger-colored down. His eyes are bright green, and they can see right through to your soul. Or, at least, it feels like it. I watched him behead the thing with a fierce grunt and an even fiercer swipe of his knife.
Then I plopped onto the grass trying to catch my breath and get my heart to slow down. It was too damn fast in my chest. I felt like I was floating. Adrenaline cocktail, anyone?
“Come on, Poppy.” Garrity hauled me to my feet, and we all met up around the owner’s gazebo.
“They’ll be home tomorrow. We’ve secured the area. Those are the only creepers we could find. Anything else pops up they can give us a shout.”
I nodded. “Neighbors?”
“All alive and accounted for so far.”
Unlike the movies you see about the undead, they don’t spring up overnight in waves. They spring up one at a time like a flu victim—and like any other disease, there are some naturally immune. My own mother was bitten by the guy who broke in and killed my dad a few months back when this whole thing started. She’s a widow with a wicked scar but beyond that, totally fine.
You just can’t tell if you’ll be one of the immune or one of the infected. Best bet is not to get bitten.
“Good. Now can we go home and sleep? I’m tired.” I was tired, but I felt like a wuss saying it aloud—occupational hazard when you work with all men.
“Yep. Sleep is on the way.”
Garrity ruffled my short blue hair and I felt the touch reach my pussy. Damn him.
He leaned in, pressed his lips to my ear and said “How long is this stuff going to be blue, anyhow?”
“Until I get tired of the blue,” I growled.
He shrugged, that lazy, sexy boy shrug some men have, and said “Just asking. Don’t get all knotted up.”
I rolled my eyes, and when I turned I caught Cahill staring at me. That made my stomach curl in on itself. Those vibrant eyes on me. We were all messy and gross and banged up, but Cahill wore it well. So did Garrity. Poor Noah, he was staring at Cahill as usual. Noah would climb Cahill like a tree if he could get away with it.
Hell, so would I.
“Come on. Let’s get you home. Boys check in when you get to the house. I’ll take Poppy home,” Garrity said.
We split up after one more sweep of the property. Our exterminating service would get paid pretty well for this. Corpse disposal was the job of the owner, plus it helped if they could see the work we’d done. Body count was important. Extra added bonus, the corpses served as a warning to other creepers who might stumble-shuffle-walk into the neighborhood. Garrity pulled me in with an arm to the neck. “Hanging in there?”
“It’s been a long year.”
“No girl should have to kill her dad,” he said softly.
We’d danced around our attraction since day one at the slushy bar. Now it was a steady back beat to every encounter we had. Problem was, as tongue-tied as Garrity made me, Cahill made me the same…just in a slightly different way. Lust is a funny, funny thing.
I figured it best to hang back and do nothing. Plus, we were too busy killing things to fuck. Right?
* * * *
“All’s clear,” Garrity said. We’d given the inside of my house a once over.
The good news with the infection was folks got sick first. High fever, lethargic, sores, coma even. It was pretty easy to spot them if you paid attention. And then if they did die and rise back up, you could take care of business. Problem was that apparently a lot of folks had no one paying attention to them, or they were living with people who couldn’t stomach the taking care of business part. Which I can totally understand, truth be told.
“Thanks for the help. I want a long, hot shower and then a long, deep sleep.”
“Sounds good. Got room for company?”
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. “I—”
“Do you really have to think about it?”
No! But then again, yes…
“Of course,” I joked. “I don’t go jumping into the shower with just any guy.”
“And I’m not just any guy,” he said, tracing the zipper of my black hoodie with his fingertip. Garrity is the kind of guy who takes up space—big, broad, imposing, huge—all of those adjectives worked for him. “I wasn’t just any guy when we were serving up Polar Berry slushies, and I’m not just any guy now.”
“True but—”
“But you lust after the meat whacker, too.” He grinned. Clever description of Cahill. Made him sound both perverse and silly. Honestly, Garrity won hands down. There were feelings there for him, real ones. Cahill was just a hot, hot friend that I wanted to fuck. But I’d never tell Garrity that. He’d probably run around yelling I won! I won!
I rolled my eyes. “I think you’re both…” I trailed off. We were whispering because my mother was apparently asleep already. Her bedroom door had been shut when we came home so I tried to keep my voice down. The whole effect was that of a teenager sneaking in after curfew ended.
“Nifty? Sweet? Groovy? Fun?” He laughed.
“Shut up.”
“Hey, Poppy Cooper, kiss me,” he said and tugged my hoodie hard enough to make me stutter-step forward.
“Garrity,” I sighed. “Christ.”
He shook his head. “Unh-unh. Something about watching you dispatch creepers gets my blood pumping.”
He pulled me in, and I considered raising my objections. But then his lips touched mine, and I sort of oozed against him in a highly embarrassing way and got lost in that kiss. I kissed him back after a moment. It was our first kiss. All the flirting and sexual tension made it so intense, I felt like I was vibrating. I felt that kiss in my entire body. Scalp to toe and all the naughty, willing places in between.
“Let me in, Poppy. Let me in your room. Let me in your bed,” he muttered, pulling that traitorous zipper south.
“Garrity, I can’t. My mom…she’s sleeping and…”
He laughed outright, and I heard something in the distance. We both stilled, listening. Could be a roaming creeper, if so, our neighborhood watch would notice and call it in. When the noise stopped, I managed to pull free from him.
“I’m tired.”
“And I’m beat,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to take you to bed and make you—”
“I need a shower!” I blurted. “Creeper brains.”
He cocked his head at me. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”
“No,” I sighed, grateful he saw it now.
“But I will win soon,” he said, leveling a finger at me before taking it and sliding it along my lower lip so that I felt the tug of arousal between my legs.
“I don’t doubt it.” It was the honest-to-God truth.
“Be safe. Lock up. I’ll come pick you up in the morning. Not sure what we’re working tomorrow. But someone somewhere is overrun with zombies. Infestation.”
“Wow, that’s so peppy.”
“Sad, but true, Poppy,” he said.
“Sleep well,” I said, guilt staining me on the inside. I wanted to try to explain to him just how much I actually wanted him. But I sucked at that stuff.
“You, too.” He started for the porch steps and hesitated. “Last chance to take advantage of me. Change your mind and lead me upstairs and ravage me like the easy man that I am.”
I snorted and covered my mouth. “Good night, Garrity.”
“Goodnight, Poppy Cooper.”
And he was gone. I watched his big, lumbering, ugly-ass green truck pull away and patted my pockets. I had my cell, I had my gun. I crept inside being as quiet as I could and locked the bathroom door behind me. I would take a long hot shower and then hit the sack.
It was just what the doctor ordered. You know, before reporting for duty tomorrow morning to dispatch a bunch of dead things.
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