My Zombie Honeymoon: Love in the Age of Zombies Book One by James K. Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

looking around. She immediately opened the door and motioned me in. As soon as she closed and bolted the door behind me, she said, “Holy crap, Kevin, you scared the bejesus out of me!”
    “Sorry,” I said, “but I wanted to check on you. What do you think that explosion was?”
    “I was wondering the same thing. It might have been a gas station. It wasn’t the gas lines—I checked and the natural gas is still on,” she said.
    “You holding up okay over here?”
    “I’m not fishing for an invitation, but being alone is wearing on me. I feel like I’m in solitary or something. Don’t take that as a hint—I know it’s not safe to go traipsing back and forth between your place and mine. Have you noticed there are more and more of those things out there?!”
    “I had noticed. I guess they’re coming from downtown or the university. Who knows, maybe even Detroit. How are you on food and water?”
    “To be honest with you, I’ll be glad when this is over. I try to keep a stocked pantry, but I never planned on being stuck inside for weeks at a time. I sure hope things get back to normal soon,” she said ruefully.
    I thought, Back to normal? I’m afraid this is normal. The old normal may be gone forever. I also wondered who she thought would get control soon—the police? From what I saw on the net before it went down, the chain of command had fallen apart. There are no more police, or none on duty. I haven’t seen a patrol car in weeks.
    But I didn’t say it—instead, all I said was “Okay, I just wanted to check on you. Being neighborly and all that.” Parroting her earlier words, of course.
    “You don’t have to leave! I could use some company. And we should at least check the, shall we say, traffic before you open the door.”
    “True, I need to start remembering that.” I noticed she’d covered her windows with aluminum foil. “You have foil on all your windows?” I said.
    “Yep, every window is sealed tight. I did leave a small gap at the top of each window to let light in, otherwise it would be nearly dark in here”
    “Nearly?”
    “I have a skylight in the kitchen. I spend most of my time either there or by the fireplace, since it gives off light when the fire is lit. Who knows how long the gas will stay on. C’mon, I’ll show you the kitchen.“
    She led me through the dim light into the kitchen, which was indeed much brighter.
    “How do you see to get around at night? I’ve learned my lesson—you’re not an idiot and didn’t walk around with a flashlight or anything that could be seen,” I said, hoping to regain some ground I lost by implying she wasn’t very bright.
    “I mostly feel my way around once it gets dark. Now I know how blind people do it. I know where everything is even when I can’t see it. I’m also going to bed earlier, since there’s nothing else to do. Can’t read, can’t make a fire, can’t cook . . . it’s miserable really.”
    “Too bad it’s not safe for you to come visit me now and then,” I said, “I have lights on 18 hours a day. No way any light can possibly leak out. I can cook, and I can watch DVDs, I can even read at night.”
    “How can you do all that? The electricity’s been out for weeks!” she asked me.
    “I started reading a bunch of end-of-the-world books. I was in an apocalyptic mood. I also read books about tough characters in rough situations. I even went back and read Jack London’s books. It was fascinating to see what the characters would do to survive. A lot of the current books involve survivalists. I took a look around and realized how fragile my lifestyle was. One catastrophe—a pandemic, an electromagnetic pulse bomb, a terrorist attack, a severe climate disruption a hundred times worse than global warming—and I could lose everything and die a horrible death. If the grid went down, life as I knew it would disappear . . . it scared the hell out of me. I started stocking up on food and water, but the more I thought