Page 100 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

Ah, she’d tucked a trowel into her waistband for backup. Damn, he loved her more every second.

Nick grabbed a shovel for himself, and together they strode off towards the lightning-scorched bit at the back of the property where the orange toadstools grew with such vim.

‘Ready?’ said Zoey.

‘Let’s clear these motherfuckers out.’ Nick stomped on the blade of his shovel to gain purchase into the damp ground. The toadstools parted beneath the blade’s slice, coming away with ease. But they’d multiplied dramatically over the past months, spreading across huge swathes of the property in a giant tangerine fractal. Nick and Zoey had their work cut out for them, but the two of them were up for the job. All right, Nick perhaps a bit more than Zoey, but her enthusiasm was almost as valuable as sheer physical strength.

The two of them stomped, sliced, and hurled toadstools like they were participating in a mycological massacre. (Nick supposed that they were.) Alice joined in, tail wagging as she dug. She bit at the dirt, jawing away clumps of spores and merrily spitting them aside. Her snout was black with earth – adorably so – and she grinned with doggy glee.

‘We’re going to have to do something with them,’ said Zoey.

‘We’ll burn them,’ promised Nick.

‘Will that be enough? What if there are like … zombie spores?’

She wiped her forehead as she said it, somehow making the phrase zombie spores oddly alluring.

‘Or we can explode them. I know a guy,’ said Nick, nodding towards Bozo’s property.

‘Good ol’ Bozo.’ Zoey raised her shovel in salute, then resumed digging.

She glimmered with sweat, and every time she swiped at her hair she made a damp, sexy mess of herself. Nick was enthralled. Zombie situation aside.

‘Here.’ Stepping forward, he took the shovel from her hand and set it aside.

Then he dipped his head to press his lips to hers. Damn, she was gorgeous. Smart. Funny. Perfect.

He could feel the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he kissed her: Bozo couldn’t compete with these fireworks.

Zoey was the one who finally broke their kiss. ‘Are you sure? I was a zombie just a few hours back. What if there are … consequences?’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Nick. Laying out his flannel shirt on the ground, he gently pushed her down, cradling her in his arms so that she wouldn’t fall.

‘I was so scared I’d lost you,’ he said breathlessly, as he grazed kisses down her neck, the curve of her shoulder. ‘I would’ve walked every street in Portland trying to get you back.’

Zoey gasped as his lips found her throat. Mindful of the ground beneath them, he tugged aside her shirt just enough to glimpse the perfection of her skin.

‘I was scared I’d hurt you. I was trying to keep you safe.’

‘Well, we found each other in the end,’ he murmured. He left her bra intact, but ran his fingers over the smooth fabric, cupping his hands around the softness of her shape.

She squirmed as his hand traced the curve of her waist, then reached down to unbutton her jeans.

‘Like that,’ she whispered, her breath hot against his neck as he slid his fingers beneath the band of her underwear, then deeper still, finding the wetness he craved. Her breathing grew shallow as he opened her, dipping into her warmth.

‘Here,’ she said, her voice tinged with frustration. ‘The tarp. Before I hit you with the shovel for tormenting me like this.’

‘Wow, kinky,’ said Nick, with a grin. ‘C’mon. Let’s hear it for our good friend the tarp.’

Laughing, they rolled over to the blue tarp, the one Zoey called the deconstructed IKEA bag, and which had served them well during the fence-mending party.

Zoey dragged her jeans off in an awkward movement he found somehow both endearing and alluring. There was a vulnerability to her fight with the denim that he loved: it took a certain amount of trust to slough off a stubborn item of clothing in front of someone, and it set him alight.

As hard as it was to hold back, he pulled away to regard her for a moment. She was so flawless: lithe and vibrant, sweaty and lightly dusted from their toadstool-digging efforts. He was growing to know every part of her body, including the new dot of brown from where he’d jabbed her with the syringe earlier that day.

And of course, the new Frog tattoo on her wrist, the one that so perfectly matched his own Toad piece.

Curving a hand gently around her wrists – he didn’t want to touch the still-healing skin – he raised her arms above her head, admiring her, and marvelling at the fact that after all that had happened, she was here. That she’d decided that what they had was worth the absurdity of wrestling with a zombie future.