Not that I was having sex. Or would be any time soon.
I hadn’t even seen an eligible bachelor in a good six months and it wasn’t like I had exactly been interested when we passed each other with guns raised and a suspicious glint in our eyes. Although there was a sort of mutual give and take between us that could have been considered an instant connection, possibly love at first sight. I let him loot the dead gentleman that had his head literally severed from his body by Feeders, and he let me raid the vending machine offering one bag of Funions that had been smashed into pathetic crumbs.
But then we both went our separate ways and I will never know if he got eaten, turned or found the promised land of Zombie-free showers and espresso machines.
Plus, I was still pining over poor, deceased, Quarterback-Chris.
Just kidding! Quarterback-Chris had apparently been less than faithful to me during our two year relationship and after things with the government, army and general world went to hell, Quarterback-Chris tried to eat me!
So I did what any loving, devoted girlfriend that just found out she had been serially cheated on by her now zombie boyfriend would do. I plunged a butcher knife into his eye socket and when that didn’t effectively do the job, I drove over him with my mom’s Escalade until his head detached from his body.
God, I was glad I held onto my v-card.
Could you imagine me as a zombie?
Ugh, it made me shudder just thinking about it.
A rustling to my left had my gun up, pointed and steady at whatever was stupid enough to make noise in a regular Feeder playground. I only had three bullets left, so this kill would have to be spot on.
That was the thing about living in a world in which it was a very likely possibility that you could end up as someone else’s meal before lunchtime, you’ve got to be very good at shooting. Very quickly.
So even though the most I knew about my gun was that it was a Beretta from the label on the handle, and the exact kind of bullets it took, .40 S&W-because those were an absolute necessity and I was always on the lookout-I knew exactly how to use it. I knew exactly how to get my bullet from my gun to the perfect dead zone right between the eyes.
In fact, it was kind of freaky how good I was at killing things.
Well, killing already dead things.
It was like I was born for the Apocalypse. No, I couldn’t find a hot shower, figure out how to make food last longer than twenty-four hours and effectively loot a Walgreens that still had hair products available. But I could stay alive.
I had an innate ability to stay alive.
And in this day and age, ninety-two weeks after the first recovering STD victim bit his doctor and the world fell apart, staying alive was very important.
Back to the rustling….
I slowed my breathing, stopped moving completely and waited for the sound to come to me.
One of the first things I learned about survival was that there was absolutely no need to go hunting down trouble. In the world I lived in, trouble would find you soon enough. It was better to cover your back, stay calm and have a loaded weapon ready and waiting.
“Reagan, check this out!” Haley squealed in a loud whisper.
“Holy hell, Hales!” I whisper-shouted back, “I almost shot you in the f-ing head!”
She made a resigned grunting noise and I heard her mumble, “Too bad, I bet they have showers in heaven.”
“We are so not convinced you’re going to heaven,” I whispered back while stepping over a particularly decayed body.
Did I say the smell was the worst? I meant maggots.
The maggots were definitely the worst.
“It wouldn’t matter,” she countered with that distraught, depressed tone even the best of us were known to fall into. “This might as well be hell.”