 
### Dead Sexy

### By Samantha McCabe

### Copyright 2016 Samantha McCabe

### Smashwords Edition

### Dead Sexy

Rick never understood why his gorgeous wife Marilyn agreed to marry him. She's a 10 to his generous 5 and a quarter. But now that she's caught up in a racket with a shady dermatologist and his non-FDA approved skin care treatments, Rick's life is beginning to resemble the plot of a zombie movie.

Drool? Yes. Shambling bodies? Sure thing. Hungry for Brains? Ur, unfortunately. Beautiful skin? Wait, what?

Now Rick must uncover the truth about this preternatural beauty procedure before his wife becomes the latest corpse with skin to die for.

### Chapter 1

I always knew Marilyn was too good for me. That was the thought that kept running through my head as I tailed my wife's beat up little Ford Escort into the swanky part of Hollywood. I wasn't angry that she might be skipping her regular hot yoga night to have an affair. Instead, my brain kept saying, "Well, dude, it looks like you were right."

I called my buddy Spenser to tell him I was following through on my plan to, well, follow Marilyn, and he said, "Cool! I've never been on a stakeout. Text me when you get to wherever she's going."

I had shared my suspicions with Spense before—he was my best friend. Of course, he'd been telling me that I was crazy. Maybe he'd believe me when he saw where she'd gone.

It was the hot yoga that had first tipped me off. She'd been doing it for years, but about a month ago, she started coming home completely sweat free. I mean, I've never been to a sweaty hot yoga class, but she'd always come home smelling like a high school boy's gym sock.

I had to slam on the breaks when Marilyn pulled her car into the driveway of a honest-to-goodness mansion. Luckily, she never pays much attention to her surroundings, so I pulled off to the side of the street. Idling about half a block down, I watched her get out of her car and hoped mine wouldn't give me away by overheating and spewing steam.

She was wearing her pink yoga outfit all right, but she didn't get her yoga mat out of the back. Instead, I watched her go up to the oversized front door, but I was too far away to see who let her slink inside.

I texted this information to Spense, along with the address of the house.

He just replied with a sarcastic emoji.

I pulled the car as close to the house as I thought I could get away with and picked up the binoculars I'd thrown in the passenger seat. I'd found them at the bottom of my closet, a hand-me-down from my granddad. They must have weighed about 20 pounds.

If I was going to do this kind of thing often, I needed to start working out more. Then again, maybe if I had been working out more, things wouldn't have come to this in the first place.

Wait, did I see a curtain rustle? I peered harder through the binoculars leaning until they clinked against the window glass.

A knock on the passenger side window made me jump and ram my face into the eyepiece.

"Son of a—" I yelped, blinking to get the tears out of my eyes so I could see who it was, hopefully not a neighborhood rent-a-cop.

It was Spense. I reached across to roll down the passenger side window. Spense tried to lean his elbows on the window and stick his head in, but he was wearing some kind of large brimmed hat that he kept bumping on the frame.

In a voice that sounded like he was trying to talk around a mouthful of marbles, he said, "What's the damage, Jack?"

"What?" I kind of caught "Jack" at the end, but the rest...

"What's the damage, Jack?"

"What's the what?"

"The damage," he said.

"The damage?"

Spense resumed his normal upwardly mobile slight Midwestern accent. "The damage. It's detective slang for—oh nevermind."

"You scared the hell out of me. Where did you come from?"

He reached through the open window and popped the door from the inside. The outside handle had quit working last year.

"I parked around the corner," he said, sliding into the passenger seat. "You know they can see you through that huge wall of glass if they bothered to look out. You're not being particularly evasive."

The mansion did seem like it was made mostly out of glass with some improbably angled modern wood bits holding it together. But it was dark and shadowy inside, and since I hadn't actually seen anything since Marilyn had disappeared into the maw of the mansion, I hadn't really been thinking about anyone seeing me.

Working on being more evasive, I said, "It's 90 degrees outside."

"Yeah?"

"So what's with the trench coat and the hat?"

"It's called a fedora, man. Not a hat. I mean, it is a hat—fedora. Gees."

A trench coat and hat—a fedora—were not the weirdest things I've seen since moving to Los Angeles. Certainly not the weirdest thing I have ever seen Spenser wear, but it was pretty weird being the middle of August.

He pulled the fedora even lower over his face, going back to the marble-mouth speak. "These are my detectin' clothes." At least, I think that is what he said.

"I thought this stakeout would be awesome research for my new screenplay," he explained.

"Your new screenplay? What happened to the old one?"

Another thing to know about Los Angeles is that everyone either wants to be an actress—like Marilyn—or is writing a screenplay—like Spenser. Except for me, that is. I'm just a programmer.

Spense sighed. "Vampire flicks are over, man. I've got to beat everyone to the new vampire."

"And you think inappropriately dressed detectives are the new vampire?"

Spense gave me the look—the one that he and Marilyn both gave me—the one that said, "Rick, you're a nice dude, but you just don't get it."

So, I went back to my surveillance and gave Spense a rundown of what I had seen. "That's definitely Marilyn's car out front, and this is not sweaty yoga."

"Ah, the ol' car parked out front." Spense said tilting up his hat—his fedora—with a single finger. "The dame's definitely up to no good."

It occurred to me that he was trying to imitate that actor, the one in that black and white movie. But I couldn't remember his name.

"Look, Rick." Spense cut the cheesy accent and pulled the fedora off, hooking it onto the rear view mirror and running a hand through his sweaty hair.

"I know you have this complex about Marilyn—that she's going to wake up one morning and realize that she's married to a giant dork. But, dude, she already knew you were a giant dork before you got married, and she did it anyway. She's probably just at some girly thing like a Tupperware party. If you're lucky, it might even be one of those lingerie Tupperware parties."

"You're saying that she's been at a Tupperware party every Tuesday night for the past month. Wait, lingerie Tupperware?" I asked, picturing my mom's plastic deviled egg tray stuffed with lacy black bras. "Is that even a thing?"

"Yeah, it's probably why she didn't tell you, because then she would have to explain it to you, and that would take a while, and...Hey, where are you going?"

I thought about it for a second and shook my head, now even more convinced that there was something going on. "There'd be a lot more cars around if it was a lingerie Tupperware party," I said and slammed the car door, making a dash for the side of the house.

The backyard was fenced in by a combination of prickly hedges and iron fence. The bars were too narrow to squeeze through (I tried). I thought about trying to climb the fence, but it was at least 8 feet high and kind of spiky at the top. I decided it would have to be the hedges.

"Come on. Give me a leg up. I'm going to climb over this hedge."

Spense stuck a shiny silver something in my face. "Cigarette?" he offered from an open old-fashioned case.

"You aren't taking this seriously. You don't even smoke!"

"Of course, I'm not taking this seriously. It's Marilyn! She's crazy about you for some reason. I'm just here for the LOLs, man."

It was easy for Spense to say that, but I didn't feel so sure. So I backed up and, after a running start, threw myself at the top of the hedge. Hedges aren't really solid at the top, but they are definitely kind of solid in the middle. I climb-swam the hedge and tumbled out the bottom inside the yard.

Spense was already standing there.

"You aren't very good at picking up clues," he pointed out. "There was a gate."

At this point, I wasn't paying any more attention to Spense, because I could see something.

Like the front, the back of the house looked like it was made up of tall windows with no curtains to block the view. There wasn't really anything beyond the yard—just the million-dollar vista of the city stretching out below. The rooms were dimly lit and difficult to see because I'd stumbled into the pool area where bright floodlights illuminated the swanky patio and the blue pool water. Shielding my eyes against the glare, I could make out two figures silhouetted in the interior of the house. One of the shadow people looked familiar, or maybe I just expected it to look familiar. I couldn't tell for sure, so I started creeping forward.

The curvier shadow moved. She flipped a long ponytail over her shoulder, a gesture I had seen Marilyn do at least fifty times that week.

"Did you see that?" I hissed at Spenser. "It's Marilyn. She _is_ here." My detecting skills were validated. Until I failed to detect the edge of the pool and fell in.

### Chapter 2

I came up sputtering, trying to tread water in my running shoes. Instead of helping, Spense stared with open-mouthed wide-eyed astonishment at whatever was going on in the house, heedless to my demands to help me out of the pool. I thrashed around trying to get a view of what had finally gotten Spense's serious attention.

I'd swallowed about a gallon of pool water and another gallon felt like it was behind my contacts. The ring of floodlights around the pool threw off halos of light that my blurry, blinking vision couldn't penetrate.

"Spense....SPENSE....SPENSER," I said, trying to get his attention without shouting since I didn't know if that would raise an alarm. Spense reached down without taking his eyes off the window. I hiked a leg up, trying to find some foothold on the wet slippery tile.

"What? What's going on?" I twisted back toward the house, blinking furiously to get the pool water out of my eyes, trying to see what was horrifying Spense.

I had just gotten one good foothold on the edge when Spense let go of my hand with a calculated sounding "Sorry, buddy" and sent me flying back into the pool.

When my head popped up, I didn't even try to get out of the pool. I struck out for the side closest to the window, dug my hands into my eyes to wipe out as much water as I could and looked up.

Inside the house, two silhouettes bled into one another. A single body with two heads. And I'm not talking about my blurry vision. The two shapes would come together into a single shadow before breaking apart. I couldn't swear to what they were doing, but somebody was too damned close to my wife. The ponytail shadow arched her back, seeming to look up into the other shadow's face.

And that's when the other figure raised something—a hand, maybe a weapon—and struck the ponytail silhouette. Marilyn—I was sure of it now—slumped against the other figure.

She wasn't getting up.

With some kind of superhuman strength, I made it out of the pool, but Spense held me back.

"Marilyn! I've got to go in there."

"You don't even know that's Marilyn, and what are you going to do? That dude might be dangerous!"

"But that's my wife!"

Spense shook me roughly and pool water went flying off me in sheets. "Do you hear that? Sirens!" In other neighborhoods sirens are ubiquitous, but we were in the Hollywood Hills.

"They're getting closer. Let's go flag down the cops. We don't need a hero, Rick. We need the police!"

I kept struggling, pulling against Spense, digging my heels in, but I'm 150lbs—even when you add the pool water. The rush of adrenaline that had gotten me over the side of the pool wasn't enough to break me away from Spense. Physics was against me. He started dragging me away, and I should have fought harder against him. But I didn't. I let him pull me away from Marilyn.

### Chapter 3

The sirens were definitely getting closer as Spense dragged me toward the screen of shrubs I had thrown myself over. When we reached a point where we wouldn't be seen from the back windows, Spense broke out into a dead sprint, still dragging me along by a fistful of t-shirt. We burst through the gate and into the front yard just in time to see a uniformed LAPD officer leaning on his car door, reporting into a radio that "Everything looked normal."

Apparently, it is a bad idea to startle the brave men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department in the pursuit of their duties. The next thing I knew Spense and I were on the ground with our hands behind our heads while the cop and his partner trained guns on us. I couldn't focus enough on anything other than Marilyn to be frightened for myself or, trust me, I would have been plenty frightened for myself. I've never seen anyone pointing a gun in real life—much less pointing one at me.

"Officer," I panted, on the verge of hyperventilating in panic. "There's been a crime. My—"

"You don't say. We just got a call from someone in the neighborhood that two white males were trespassing on Dr. Chatsworth's estate."

"No, not that crime," put in Spense. "We saw a man inside the house—through the window. It looked like he assaulted someone—"

"—My wife!" I interjected. "It was my wife."

"Hey. We don't know that, buddy," Spense said soothingly. I think he was going to try to pat me on the shoulder, but the cop barked out, "Don't move, Scumbag!" So he didn't.

I had to convince him that we weren't the criminals, or the only criminals here. "Her car! It's in the driveway. She went in there. A red Ford Escort. The back bumper is missing and the right sideview mirror is duct taped on. Please," I begged. "Just check. Please."

I don't know if it was because I sounded so desperate or because she was obligated to investigate a potential crime, but she told her partner, "Let's cuff these two, and then we'll go check it out."

"I could've sworn there weren't any cars in the drive besides that silver Jag," the other one said.

"Well, we'll check it out. What is your wife's name?" the one cop asked while she clicked handcuffs on my wrists.

"Marilyn—Marilyn Archer. She's about 5'10". Blond hair. I think she's wearing yoga pants."

Did you know that the backseat of a police cruiser doesn't have handles on the door? And it is really hard to move while your hands are handcuffed behind your back. I was twisting around trying to see anything, nearly taking out Spense with an elbow. Because he was on the side closest to the house, I had to crawl over him.

"Ow."

"Sorry," I apologized.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Dude. You're soaking wet."

"Sorry! They're talking to someone! I can't tell if it's the guy we saw. He looks—smarmy."

"Smarmy?"

"Yeah, like an evil businessman in a 1950s situational comedy—the cops are laughing!"

I wanted to know what was going on. I tried banging my head, the only appendage available, on the window to get their attention, but it didn't work. And it didn't help my head either.

Finally, they shook hands with the smarmy character, and he flashed them an extremely large, very white toothy smile. They walked back to the cruiser and got in. The one who had called Spense a scumbag was chuckling. "That Dr. Chatsworth is such a card!"

"There wasn't another car in the driveway," she addressed me in the rear view mirror. "We walked through the house. No one was there, and there were no signs of a disturbance—besides the one caused by you two in Dr. Chatsworth's landscaping. He's been kind enough not to press charges for trespassing or vandalism, so we're going to let you go this time with just a warning."

The cops escorted us to our cars and out of the neighborhood. As soon as we got back to a part of town that I looked like I belonged in, they flashed their lights and sped off around me. I pulled over. I was crazy to make sure that Marilyn was okay.

I checked, but my phone had not survived the swim in smarmy dude's pool. Damn.

I didn't speed home. I'd already had one run-in with the LAPD tonight. I felt a little better when I saw her car in front of our Glendale condo, but the knot that had formed in my throat didn't start to loosen until I saw Marilyn herself looking perfectly healthy—looking amazing actually—sitting calmly cross-legged on the couch in her yoga pants.

After falling all over my wife and telling her how much she meant to me and how beautiful and wonderful she was, I had to text Spense to let him know that Marilyn was okay.

me: Marilyn's here she's ok

Spense: Told you so

Spense (again): Dude, can't believe you were going to leave your injured wife in some smarmy dude's house

Some days you just can't win.

### Chapter 4

I had learned my lesson. Marilyn had explained it all. She'd been taking acting lessons instead of going to sweaty yoga, and she didn't want to tell me because they were expensive. That's why she had gone to that neighborhood—a famous person's acting seminar. She'd just parked at the wrong house is all.

She flipped her long ponytail over her shoulder, and I experienced a momentary qualm. But bad things happen when you don't trust your wife, and I was ready to forget about the whole thing (as much as Spense was going to let me). But then Marilyn started acting weird.

I tried ignoring it for a few days, but things kept getting weirder. So I texted Spense. When I didn't get an answer, I called but just got his voicemail. Then I remembered that it was Spense's spa day.

"Hey Spense, this is Rick—again. I know you're getting a pedicure or something, but I'm really worried about Marilyn. She's doing really weird stuff...yeah. Give me a call back."

About an hour later, I got a call.

"Dude, I'm at the spa, and it is not relaxing to have my phone keep going off."

"Spense, I'm telling you, there is something wrong with Marilyn. She's eating chicken wings."

"So? Those were some kick-ass chicken wings." Spense had been over watching the game a couple of nights ago, and we'd made a batch of our special hot wings.

"You know Marilyn is vegan."

"Dude, why are you being paranoid about everything Marilyn does? Nothing is going on except you are a freak. She should be more worried about you falling into pools and getting arrested."

"It's not that, Spense, or not right now anyway. She was eating raw chicken wings. Raw."

There was silence on the line as Spense considered this or got his eyebrows waxed.

"I bet it is just some crazy new actor diet."

"The RAW chicken wing diet?"

"Yeah, dude. It's low carb. I bet it was in _Sunset_ magazine."

"Okay. Well then how do you explain the dirt? She started putting dirt in our bed."

There was a pause. "Clearly a European body treatment. It's probably dirt from the Dead Sea. That stuff is great for your pores—"

"—That's not the weirdest thing, though," I interrupted, heading Spense off before he could get lost in one of his favorite topics—spa treatments.

"Yeah, because you're the weirdest thing."

"No, listen. She keeps repeating words over and over again."

"Like what words?" Spense asked.

"Like last night she was watching a _Law and Order_ marathon, and then in the middle of the night I found her shambling around the house saying, "Order...order" over and over.

"Dude. Shambling?"

"Yeah, it's like sleep-walking—"

"—But really, shambling?"

"Is that really what you are going to focus on right now?"

"Yes, because who says 'shambling?'"

"Why can't you just take this seriously? I'm really worried."

"Because it isn't serious, Rick. Stop being such a girl."

"—says the man getting his legs waxed."

"It's called AERODYNAMICS." I heard a lot of rustling for a minute, and then the tone of Spense's voice changed. I overheard him say in a muffled voice, like he was covering the speaker of the phone with his hand. "Thanks, Greta. Give me a minute before we start the salt scrub."

"Rick, look," Spense continued. He sounded like he was actually talking into his phone now. "I know you think Marilyn is too good for you, but she doesn't think that. She's known you almost as long as I have, so it isn't like she didn't know what she was getting into. Marilyn is not having an affair. Marilyn is fine. You are overreacting."

I wanted to tell him that he wasn't understanding me. I was getting a little annoyed with everyone not listening to me. But that was when Marilyn walked into the living room dressed for a run—with a knife sticking out of her stomach.

### Chapter 5

"Rick? Are you there?" Spense's voice was like an annoying buzz in my ear as my brain tried to process what it was seeing, trying to calculate whether it was supposed to be panicking.

"Um. Hold on a sec. Honey, are you rehearsing for some kind of role?"

Marilyn just blinked at me before crunching through the stringy part of a bloody raw chicken wing. She continued to munch. She didn't look down, but I couldn't stop staring at the knife handle sticking out of my wife's belly. At least it LOOKED like a knife handle. In fact, it was a dead ringer for the seven-inch sushi knife that Marilyn's Aunt Constance had given us as a wedding present, even though we hadn't registered for one, because who doesn't need a sushi knife? But sushi knives don't just stick out from underneath your wife's running bra. Right?

"Not usually." Spence answered me so I must have been talking out loud.

It looked so real. I gingerly approached Marilyn and poked at the knife, hoping that it was one of those plastic stage props that she occasionally left lying around the house. It jiggled a little back and forth as I prodded, and then about an inch of wicked Japanese tempered steel slid out of my wife. Along with a tiny dob of congealed blood. There should be more than a dob of blood coming out of a knife wound to the belly. Right?

"What the hell is going on?" Spense yelled in my ear, which finally snapped me out of my trance.

"OH MY GOD." I screeched into the phone. Panic, definitely panic. "There is a sushi knife sticking out of Marilyn's stomach!"

"Then why are you still talking to me?" Spense shouted back. "Hang up! Call 911!"

I did, and it was like the dispatcher was right there giving me instructions—a calm, efficient voice telling me to apply pressure, that help was on the way, and that "whatever you do, don't pull out the knife." Which was good advice, because that was exactly what I would have done. I left Marilyn for a moment, the phone tucked between my shoulder and chin, to get towels out of the hall linen closet.

"Rick," Marilyn said in a quavering voice behind me. I turned back to look at her and she was gazing down at her stomach like she had only just noticed she was hurt. Before I realized what she was doing, she grasped the knife handle and pulled.

"No, Marilyn," I shouted, rushing back towards her. But the knife was already out. She held it up to me like a question.

I snatched it out of her hand and dropped the phone so I could press the towels against her stomach. But blood still didn't seem to be gushing out. Or even trickling out. I lifted the towel and saw a slight ooze. Like day old gravy.

My hands shook as I pressed the towel back against her stomach. "It's going to be okay, Marilyn. Everything's going to be okay." I wrapped one of my arms around her shoulders and kissed her hair. I kept murmuring soft and nonsensical things that I hoped would soothe her. Because they certainly weren't helping me.

My legs were getting shaky so I guided us both to the floor, careful to keep the towels pressed against her stomach, if only to pretend that this was a normal wound. Just a guy taking care of his wife after a routine, everyday, run-of-the-mill household sushi knife accident. Yep, nothing out of the ordinary going on here. I took a deep breath, reaching for the courage to look at Marilyn's stomach again when the doorbell rang.

Oh thank god.

A shadow of a thought: that was fast.

Never mind, you idiot. Just be grateful that they're here

"Come in," I shouted not wanting to leave Marilyn.

But the doorbell just rang again. And again. In that annoying double staccato of someone in a hurry.

Well, why the hell didn't they just come in? Was the door locked? I cursed as I struggled to lift Marilyn to her feet. I folded her hands over the towel. "Press down, baby." She was still conscious, her eyes unfocused and not looking terribly worried. She moaned softly as I walked us down the hall, "Riiick. Riick. Riick."

I threw open the—ahem, unlocked door—trying to hold Marilyn and the towels at the same time. But it wasn't the paramedics. It was that doctor.

And I still had Marilyn's knife in my hand.

### Chapter 6

"She's been stabbed!" I wasn't sure why a smarmy celebrity doctor would be moonlighting as a paramedic, but surely he could help her.

"Do something! She's been stabbed!"

He didn't seem particularly shocked. He put his hand on her chin and turned her face left and right. "I don't know what you expect me to do about that. I'm a dermatologist. Her skin looks amazing, doesn't it?"

"You mean except for the gaping hole in her stomach, right?"

"What gaping hole? She's magnificent!"

The wad of towels had drooped while I was trying to wrestle with the front door. I looked at Marilyn's stomach, and he was right. It was magnificent. No knife wound. No gaping hole. Not even a scab.

It had been a rough few days. In light of what I'd already been through, I don't think I can be held accountable for what happened next, and I already had a knife in my hand.

"Yes, simply better than I had even hoped," said the doctor, stroking my wife's face with professional appreciation.

"AAAARRRGHHH." The primal scream of a man protecting his mate. "Get your hands off my wife! What did you do to her?"

He seemed perplexed that I was upset. "I helped her, son."

"Tell me. What you did to her?" It seemed natural to punctuate that question by poking the knife in his face a little.

"DROP THE WEAPON. GET ON THE GROUND." Standing in the open door, the first responders had their sidearms trained at my head. I groaned, not again. I should have known that calling in a knife wound from my neighborhood would bring in the cops. They had probably been down the block dealing with a break-in.

While they were pressing my face into the linoleum, I tried to explain what had happened. "My wife! She was stabbed!" I remembered that there didn't seem to still be a knife wound "—And then she wasn't stabbed! That doctor—make him say what he did to her!"

"Son, are you on drugs?" Those weren't unusual in our neighborhood either. "Your wife doesn't have a scratch on her really amazing skin."

"Why, thank you. I'm her dermatologist," said the smarmy doctor.

"Oh yeah. I've seen your commercials on TV," said the cop. He pulled out a radio and gave some code into the static. "It means false alarm," he said helpfully to Dr. Chatsworth. The smarmy doctor sure was good at charming police officers, while I just ended up in handcuffs.

"He did something to my wife!" I told the linoleum because no one else seemed to be paying attention to me.

"Do you want us to press charges against your husband, ma'am? Was he threatening you with that knife?" The younger cop, who didn't look like he could have been out of high school, asked.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Marilyn had been nodding her head slowly, like she'd been doing all day.

The officer put a hand on her shoulder and added not at all helpfully, "If you are scared of him, ma'am, we can help you with the paperwork for the restraining order."

"Order," my wife said. "Order."

"MMMMMMMMMMWRAAAH." I surged up, totally flipping out. I reached for Marilyn, thinking to pull her away from baby cop. His partner charged me, and I was cuffed and in the back of the cop car (for the second time in less than a week) before I could say "Ow. That elbow in the face really hurt."

I guess I'm lucky that I didn't get shot. But I didn't feel lucky as I watched Dr. Chatsworth standing on my front steps, with his arm around my wife, holding my sushi knife. I couldn't hear her from inside the car, but I could see Marilyn's lips still mumbling, "Order, order." Why didn't anyone else think that was weird?

### Chapter 7

I used my one phone call to call Spence, who said he was already on his way. "How did you know I was in jail?"

"Well, I just figured...with the way things were going."

The automated voice on the line said 1 MINUTE REMAINING.

"No really. Your neighbors saw everything. They told me when I showed up. After you screaming into the phone about blood and stabbing and then hanging up on me, I thought I should make sure everything was okay."

"Everything is definitely not okay. What about Marilyn? Was she okay when you got there?" That was what I really cared about. The vision of that TV doctor with his arm around Marilyn was burned into my brain. I didn't care how good her skin looked. There was something horribly wrong with her.

"Um. Marilyn wasn't there. That nosy neighbor of yours said she drove off in a Lamborghini with that doctor from the TV commercials. According to her, Marilyn was looking great. I thought you said that she'd been stabbed."

"Just get me out of here so we can find Marilyn," I said in a strangled voice.

"On it, buddy."

I was all for storming the doctor's house again, but Spense leaned against his Volvo station wagon (because, as he says, chicks dig safety features) and refused to drive me anywhere.

"We need to talk about this, Rick," he said.

"No. We need to drive. To that dermatologist's house and get Marilyn back." I was pulling on the door handle, but Spense beeped the car locked again for emphasis.

"We're not going anywhere. I went by your house and the neighbors said you were screaming about Marilyn being stabbed and then not being stabbed. They said you rushed a cop with a sushi knife."

I kicked at Spense's unnaturally shiny tire. "Actually, it was the doctor I rushed with the sushi knife."

"Yeah, cause that's a lot less of a felony. Come on, Rick. Let's be honest. You're the one who's been acting weird."

"I know it must seem like that, but Spense you have to trust me. I'm not crazy. That doctor did something to Marilyn the night we followed her."

"We don't actually know that was Mari—"

"—I don't care what the cops saw. Or didn't see. She was there. And if she wasn't, why did Dr. Chatsworth show up at our house?"

"Well, you were in his swimming pool."

"He told the cops that he was her dermatologist," I countered. "He obviously knows her."

Spense shrugged in acknowledgement of my point. "Okay, maybe. So what did he do to her? Drug her?"

I paused, trying to find the right words. "I thought about that, but that doesn't explain everything. The raw chicken, the dirt in our bed."

Spense smirked. "Well, I explained that."

I shot back, "Well, how do you explain the knife wound?"

Spense didn't look particularly convinced. "The one that everyone says wasn't there."

"It was there!" I was practically shouting at him now. Cops walking out of the building were starting to stare.

Spense glanced at them, giving them an "everything's okay here" double thumbs up, but said out of the side of his mouth, "Dude, chill out."

I forced myself to take a step back and calm down as the cops drove away. I could see that my friend was genuinely concerned, uncomfortable even, at the direction of the conversation.

"Are you sure there was a knife wound?" It was the voice Spense used when he had to deal with irate bank customers. "You've been kind of stressed lately—"

"—And so I'm imagining things that aren't there?" Spense's condescending tone was making me angry. "It was the sushi knife that we got for a wedding present, and it was sticking out of Marilyn's stomach. I didn't make that up because of stress." I hissed at him, "I need you to believe me. Just a little while longer. I need your help."

Spense nodded. He wasn't the kind of guy who'd turn down his oldest friend when he needed him most. Because over a decade of friendship buys you a little bit of leeway. But he clearly wasn't buying it. "Okay, so what do you think is going on? And what do we do about it?"

"This might sound far fetched—"

"—It might?"

I ignored the dig. "Drugging doesn't explain the knife wound. You weren't there. There wasn't even a scratch. It just healed up—like magic." I realized that didn't exactly make me sound less crazy. "—like something that wasn't natural."

Spense rolled his eyes. "So what? That doctor cast a spell on her?"

"Maybe—"

"A spell that makes Marilyn shamble?"

"Look, how am I supposed to know!" I tried changing tactics. "Fine. Don't believe me, but you have to admit that doctor is creepy, and something is wrong with Marilyn, and she doesn't need to be with him. We need to go get her. "

I must have been getting more convincing. Spense was jingling his keys in his hand like he was thinking of unlocking the door.

"Come on, buddy." I wasn't above begging. Or ultimatums. "If you don't drive me, I'm just going to take a cab, and then who is going to be there to make sure I don't get arrested again?"

### Chapter 8

This was Spense we were talking about, so after planting the idea, it didn't take long to ignite his imagination. "Maybe it's like in _Highlander_."

"Can't you go faster?" I kept leaning forward, like my shifting weight would make us get there more quickly.

Spense gave me the we'll-get-there-faster-if-we-don't-go-back-to-jail look. We'd already had that conversation. And the do-you-want-me-to-pull-this-car-over conversation when I kept on urging him to go faster.

"They didn't eat raw chicken wings, did they?" Spense wondered aloud.

"Who didn't what?" I wasn't really paying attention. I was just thinking about Marilyn.

"In _Highlander_. The immortals didn't eat raw chicken wings."

"You think Marilyn is like the Highlander?"

"Dude, you're the one who said that it was supernatural—"

"—Not supernatural, Spense. I said it was not natural."

"I'm just trying to fill in the blanks."

"Well, Marilyn isn't the Highlander, and weren't they like...aliens anyway?"

Spense made a derisive noise. "That was just in _Highlander II_. Nobody believed that."

It was good thing we were in Spense's car. My beat-up old Camry would have stood out even more in Dr. Chatsworth's neighborhood in the daylight. Spense's Volvo wagon couldn't compete with the Mercedes and the BMWs lining the sweeping drive to Chatsworth's, but it didn't scream "I'M HERE TO ROB YOU" either.

A couple of guys in black polos stopped us before we turned in. This guy had valet parking. At his house. On a Thursday afternoon.

We looked at each other. I mean, how do you make a quick getaway if you have to stop and get your keys from the parking valet? Spense shrugged like he could read my mind. We've been friends for a long time.

No one else was pulling up. The party had obviously gotten started a while ago, and everyone was already inside. I started toward the front door. It was the size of a small castle gate—like the kind you'd need a dozen strong lads and a battering ram to knock down. Good thing we came during a party. There was a sign hung on the ornate brass handle. "Come inside!"

There was a coat check area right inside the door.

It was August in LA. Did people rent coat checks to look ostentatious? But the kid didn't offer to take our coats or anything. He didn't even look at us. He was texting frantically with one thumb on a phone that looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the screen, although I could tell it was the latest Android that had come out just a few weeks ago. Without slowing down, he grabbed something, a black bundle, and thrust it at me and then thrust one at Spense.

"What's this for?" I asked the kid.

"You wear it—duh." He didn't look up from his phone.

I shook out the bundle. It was a heavy black velvet robe, hooded and embroidered with silver symbols that were, in my opinion, clearly of an arcane nature. It was then I realized that there was a low sound coming from further inside the house. Chanting. It was definitely chanting.

What the hell? Was this dude running some kind of coven? Was he some kind of new age druid? This was California. It wasn't like I hadn't met all sorts. I mean, just look at Spense. He's an investment banker who likes to wear costumes and go to the spa. Only in LA.

Needless to say, Spense was digging the robe. At least it would keep us from being immediately recognized. Do not collect $200. Go straight to jail.

As we stepped into the main room, I was seriously expecting some kind of screwed up ritual. Marilyn tied to a stone while leering men in the hooded robes stood around her waiting to...yeah, I know. Screwed up. And why would a dermatologist have a big rock in the middle of his living room? And how would I even know they were guys or leering if they were all wearing hoods?

So, the chanting turned out to be mood music. And instead of an obscene ritual, there was mingling and munchies. It was seriously the first thing that had not been a total disaster all week. I was highly suspicious. "Mmm munchies!" said Spense. "Let's look for Marilyn over by those crab puffs first."

We didn't need to look for Marilyn. She was right there in the middle of the room. Not on an altar, not a stone one anyway, but it was kind of altar-like if you really thought about it. A circular stage or pedestal made of that clear plastic—lucite—rising from the middle of the black-robed crowd. Marilyn, in a white version of the robes that everyone else was wearing, was lying back on a lounge of some kind, her hood down and her blondish hair streaming over her shoulders.

My god. She was beautiful.

I'm not just saying that because she's my wife. She has always been beautiful. Too beautiful for me. A 10 to my generous 5 and a quarter, but today, in the light, she was a 12. A 15. And I realized that I'd been so caught up in her weird behavior that I hadn't noticed that she generally had been looking extra good lately—like she had been binging on spa treatments that we couldn't really afford with Spense or something.

Every now and then some black-robed figure would break from the general pack and wander over to Marilyn and, well, look at her. Really look at her. Examine her. I wanted to rip my robe off and throw it over her to hide her from the stares. Or just use it to strangle someone. Stuff it down their throats while they ogled her. They didn't even notice, or didn't care, that under her exceptional complexion she looked drugged, or drunk, or dazed or something.

More anger washed over me, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Spense had to put down his crab puff to grab the back of my robe with both of his hands. "Dude," he said into my hood. "Don't blow our cover."

"Spense. I swear when I find that dermatologist—"

We didn't have to look for him either. At that moment, he melted out of the crowd like the slimy bastard he was. As he approached the altar-stage, the mood-chanting music died off, and he raised his hands as if in an invocation. But no, he was just trying to silence the crowd. Everyone squeezed closer to the altar-stage, abandoning their glasses and nibbles to the servers who were circulating with empty trays.

"Dear friends," he oozed. "You have had an opportunity to see first hand the miracle." He gestured dramatically to Marilyn, who didn't move or seem to even notice that she was the center of attention, and this was a woman who lived to be the center of attention. "This lady—you may not believe it—is thirty-five! Look how beautiful she still is!"

He grabbed her chin with one hand and gestured to her cheeks while he turned her face to give the audience a better look. "I have delivered her from the tyranny of crow's feet! I have liberated her from the oppression of fine lines and wrinkles! Released her from the heartbreak of sagging skin and loss of elasticity."

There were ooohs and other noises of assent. I had assumed that the cloaked attendees were male, but a good number of the voices had a feminine quality to them.

"This is not something you can find just anywhere. Your dermatologist, or other board-certified skincare specialists, cannot prescribe this miracle for you. It isn't a lotion or a cream. It isn't a pill or an injection. It's magic. I mean actual magic.

"You don't believe me. You're thinking, 'Chatsworth is just selling us the same ineffective beauty counter balms,' but this didn't come from a laboratory. It hasn't been approved by the FDA—because the FDA doesn't regulate miracles. It's the eighth wonder of the world—the fountain of youth—discovered at last!"

When Chatsworth started talking about miracles, fountains of youth and the FDA, I tried to glance sideways at Spense.

No one loved a spa treatment more than Spense. Except maybe my wife. But Spense had about three times the disposable income as Marilyn, so he had more scope to indulge.

All I got for my effort was a face full of black hood. I pulled it back on the side and tapped Spense on the shoulder, but he didn't respond. He was leaning forward, with his mouth slightly open. Spense and Marilyn's main topic of conservation, besides what a dork I was, was various spa-related things. A black thought crossed my mind. "Spense," I hissed, poking him hard.

"And no one outside of this room knows about it—except the woman in Cabo San Lucas with the dermal elasticity of an 18-year old from Seattle—skin untouched by the ravages of the sun—even though her birth certificate said she was 61."

"Ssssh." Spense elbowed me back.

"Don't shush me." I grabbed the side of Spense's robe and spoke directly into his hood. "Did you know about this?" I demanded.

Spense couldn't take his eyes off of the evil dermatologist. "What?"

"Spense, look at me. Did Marilyn tell you about some new skin thing she was doing?" I forced him to look at me by tugging on the neck of his robe until it was cutting off the blood flow to his brain. His eyes widened when he got my drift. "What—No!"

I gave him a "really?" look.

"Cross my heart, dude. Stick a needle in MY eye."

That meant Spense was serious, because usually he would only offer to stick a needle in your eye—because why, under any circumstances he said, would anyone offer to stick a needle in their own eye?

"Besides," he whispered into my hood. "If I had known about this, you'd probably be here rescuing Marilyn and me."

Okay, so that was probably true. Thank goodness for small non-FDA regulated miracles.

"I've never seen anything like it. I've seen skin in every state of decay—dry, discolored, droopy! When I saw this woman, I could not rest until she had told me her secret." At this point in his pitch, some kind of lackey wearing a white robe over her black polo shirt came out carrying a tray like an old-timey waitress. It was stacked with small ornate wooden boxes.

Chatsworth plucked one from the top of the pile and opened it, revealing a blue velvet interior. Nestled in the folds of fabric was a tiny bottle and what looked like a syringe.

"And here it is!" He held the box high. "100% natural and never tested on animals!"

Never tested on animals? Was this guy freaking kidding me? "Just—" I started to shout, but Spense clapped a hand over my mouth, so I mumbled into the black sleeve of Spense's robe, "tested on my wife."

"But this isn't easy—something that you can just put in a pre-moistened towelette. It's not a cleanser you can put in your shower and forget to use. It is hard work, and there are side effects—there are always side effects!"

This time I tussled with Spense to keep him from covering my mouth. "Yeah, tell us more about these side effects," I called out.

Dr. Chatsworth turned in our direction. He narrowed his eyes as he scanned the crowd for the person who had spoken. "We're talking about ancient powers and magics beyond the ken of mortal minds. It cannot be without risk."

"Beyond the ken? What the hell is a ken?" Spense whispered at me.

"Hush, Spense." I really wanted to hear this part.

"But what's a little risk when you could look," he gestured to Marilyn like she was a car and he was one of those girls on The Price is Right, "like this."

At the end of his sweeping gesture, he raised his arms—it looked really dramatic with the flowing sleeves of his robe—but it turned out he was just signaling the wait staff to start circulating with drinks and munchies again. He bowed himself away from the weird acrylic platform and added, "I'll be available for questions and pre-orders for the rest of the reception."

It was a mob, and I decided it was a good time to nab Marilyn.

### Chapter 9

I sent Spense back to the robe-check to get a spare robe to throw over Marilyn. He came back with the robe and a handful of crab puffs. "These things are freaking awesome."

"Go make sure the coast is clear," I told Spense, but it looked like the only thing that was more exciting to this crowd than revolutionary skin care was free booze. I hopped up on the platform where Marilyn was still lying, staring off into space. "Hey, babe. Let's get out of here." I paused to see if she would acknowledge me, but she didn't do anything. My chest tightened.

"Sweetie, it's Rick. Do you recognize me?" Nothing. I shoved the panic about what that might mean aside and grabbed her hand. That was something I would have to deal with later. One thing at a time.

She didn't help, but she didn't pull away when I threw the black robe over her white one. I hoped it would help her blend in as I tried to steer her past the stragglers at the edge of the platform.

She was fine as long as she was going in a single direction. Her feet would slide along the polished stone floor, shuffling one foot and then the other. But once I tried to pivot her in another direction, her feet would get all twisted up.

"Marilyn, come on," I whispered as I tried to maneuver her around a ginormous abstract sculpture jutting away from the wall. She slumped against me, her legs twisting like taffy as I tried to keep her upright.

"Spence," I hissed, wrestling with Marilyn's dead weight. "Help me."

From a couple feet ahead, Spence turned around. "Uh, Rick. Problem."

"Yeah. Problem. We're going to have to carry her out of here."

"No. Another problem." Leaning out of the way, he pointed ahead.

Dr. Chatsworth was between us and the door, talking to the robe-check boy. The doctor was looking around, anxiously glancing out the front door and then back toward the crowd. "You're sure you didn't see her leave?"

Crap. He'd noticed Marilyn's empty pedestal.

"Rick, that way." Spence pointed toward a hallway. But I still hadn't finished with my last ten-point turn to get Marilyn around the sculpture. Jogging back, Spence grasped Marilyn's other side and between the two of us we hoisted her down the hallway.

The chatter of the party died away and other noise began to emerge. The clink of glass on granite and water running down drains

"Oh good, more munchies." Spence had found the kitchen. Putting Marilyn down, he headed for the platter of crab puffs. Marilyn walked directly forward and found the steak tartare.

I looked around, but there didn't appear to be an exit. Just a large bank of windows, looking out over an impressive view of the LA skyline. The catering staff, presumably no one else wore black collared shirts and white aprons to swanky parties, were pulling double duty as waiters. They loaded up their trays and headed back to the party—too overworked to care that Spence and Marilyn had just turned the kitchen into their private buffet.

"What do we do? Wait out the doctor and then head for the front door?" I asked, but no one really seemed to be paying attention. Spence was still eating. Marilyn had finished the raw steak and was looking for more nibbles.

She wandered around the kitchen, changing direction when she bumped into the counter. She did a slow-motion ricochet that placed her directly in front of a door that I hadn't noticed before. She grasped the handle and opened it.

"Is that a way out?" I asked.

Spence had the better view. "No, it looks like some kind of basement." Leaving the puffs, he moved behind Marilyn to get a better look.

From the dark hall came a sound. Some kind of thump. And then, "Mwwarrr."

Marilyn perked up. "Mmwwa"

Spence slammed the door. "What was that?"

Marilyn had a light in her eyes that had been gone for days. Spence tried to pull her away. But she turned—ALL BY HERSELF—and opened the door again.

From out in the hall, I overheard, "Have you seen anyone go into the kitchen? A blonde woman. About 35, skin like a 14-year old?"

"The doctor, quick." I grabbed Spence by the collar of his t-shirt and pushed him toward the open door, herding Marilyn in front of the two of us.

I grasped the door handle, shutting us into the dark. "Hush. Both of you."

All three of us were crowded onto the top platform that quickly descended into a set of stairs. Marilyn kept trying to walk off the platform, but I held her by the waist, angling her toward the wall. Undeterred, she kept turning herself toward the stairs.

"Mwaaa," she said with a bit of a whine. Her new way of saying, "What gives, Rick?"

A rustling sound came from below, like something being slowly dragged across the floor. It stopped. I waited the length of a breath, then heard another rustle and a long eerie squeak.

Spense jumped as something thumped at the base of the staircase.

He pawed at my hand, trying to pry it away from the doorknob.

"The doctor's still in the kitchen," I whispershouted at Spense.

"But there's something down there, man."

I pressed my ear to the door, holding Marilyn—who was still trying to walk over the edge. "She's about 5'10'', doesn't say very much." I could hear the doctor talking to the caterers through the door.

There was a thud, but it was more than a sound. I felt the reverberation from the platform through the soles of my running shoes. "It's crawling up the stairs!" Spense whispered hysterically. He was clawing at my shirt. And I wondered if he even knew what he was doing.

"Mrhhaaa," Marilyn called out and Spense stilled. I held my breath.

"Mrrhh," it rumbled back.

"Wait, did you hear something?" I heard the doctor's voice through the door.

Spense yanked on my arm, and I tried to shoulder my friend away from the doorknob. "It's not safe! He's still out there."

"It's not safe in here!"

The thuds were continuing, a creepy rhythm that I could feel all the way to my bones.

Spense jumped, the way he did when he saw a spider crawling across the floor. "Something touched me!"

"No, I'm sure I heard something," came the doctor's muffled voice, which was getting louder as he approached the door.

Something icy gripped my ankle and I jumped, nearly spilling down the staircase as Marilyn pulled in that direction.

"It's on me. It's on me." Spense screamed and ripped the door handle away from me. He threw the door open and was still screaming as he pulled me and Marilyn through.

We didn't bother shutting the door as we ran, half dragging Marilyn, past an open-mouthed doctor and the aghast caterers. Spense continued to shriek intermittently, although by now it was probably for distraction. We made our way down the hallway to the great room and past the slightly less bored-looking but still not impressed robe-check boy.

Behind us others began to scream. Dishes crashed and doors slammed. But we didn't wait to find out what had been in the basement or what it was now doing to the doctor's house.

Marilyn struggled against our hold, thrashing in our arms and twisting violently so that she could keep the doctor's house in sight. Her feet made a Morse code of tracks through the well-watered landscaping. She wailed and then growled, snapping at my face when I buckled her in the back of Spenser's station wagon. I jumped into the front seat, trying not to take it personally when Marilyn wouldn't let me sit next to her in the back. Slamming my door shut, I yelled at my buddy to drive.

### Chapter 10

Spense took us to his place. It was one of those big boxy things, the kind with lots of amenities and no soul. You know, the ones with a fancy stone façade out front and vinyl siding everywhere else. Normally I hated it, but now I was just too damn glad to have Marilyn back and safe.

Well, mostly.

Spense and I leaned against the granite countertop and nervously watched Marilyn as she sat in the conveniently adjoined family room. She had finally quieted down with the help of a package of frozen chicken wings and a _Law & Order_ marathon on TV.

Spense picked at the plastic wrap of the Styrofoam package I had left on the counter. "There is something really wrong with Marilyn." He said in a low whisper.

"That is what I have been saying!" I snatched the trash out of Spense's hands and threw in into the can under the sink.

"I mean, really. Did you hear her? When we were in the basement with...whatever the hell was down there. She was making the same noises. It was like she was communicating with them!"

I went through the motions of washing my hands, snapping off the faucet with aggravation. "I don't care about any of that. How do we fix her? Should we go to the emergency room?

"No, man! You can't do that. You heard the doctor. Whatever he did to her was not natural. Not western medicine." Spense griped me by the shoulders and gave them a shake. "Remember when you said that the only explanation could be a SPELL?"

"And you didn't believe me," I pointed out as I jerked away from Spense's grasp.

He shrugged, letting his hands fall to his side, the only concession I would likely get on that score. He was already onto the next thing. "No ER doctor is going to help you break a spell. What you need to do is find that dermatologist dude's number and make him tell you what he did to her."

"Yeah." I glanced back toward the family room. Marilyn was being awfully quiet.

Spense punched me in the arm. "YEAH." He had that maniacal gleam in his eye. The one he got before binging on spa sessions. "And if he won't tell you, then we'll just have to make him."

I mumbled something noncommittal, just wanting this whole ordeal to be over. I ran my fingers through my hair and let my mind filter through the crazy details of the past week. Thinking that Marilyn was cheating on me. Flipping out and deciding to follow her. Falling into the pool while trying to follow her. Marilyn's knife wound. I thought things couldn't get any worse than that. But then came the things crawling around in the doctor's basement.

A couple of gun shots echoed through the family room and my gaze flicked to the TV screen, where Lenny was tossing the gunman into the back of his squad car. Yep. I'd been there too. Twice. I shook my head, hoping for some clarity. Normally, I would have just gone along with whatever Spense said. But this was Marilyn. Was I really going to skip the ER and stalk some Hollywood dermatologist instead?

"Uh, Rick." Spense elbowed me in the ribs and nodded to Marilyn, who had started rocking back and forth.

I rushed from behind the counter, with Spense cornering the granite slab behind me.

Marilyn slumped over, sliding down the sofa cushions, invisible to me until I rounded the arm. I slide to my knees in front of her.

"Babe? You okay?"

Marilyn's eyes were glazed. A sound escaped her throat. Something low and garbled. Not like any of the sounds she had made since this whole thing started. Her fists were still clutching chicken wings, but she was starting to shake. Spittle bubbled from her mouth.

"A seizure?" Spense asked. I could hear the rising panic in his voice.

"Who knows?" I hovered over Marilyn, not knowing what to do to help her. "When has it been that simple?" She was jerking violently now, her head flailing about, the rest of her body boneless.

"Should I get her to the floor?" I asked helplessly, my voice wavering. I looked behind me at Spense. He was standing at a distance, staring at Marilyn, his eyes wide and his lip curling, clearly appalled.

"Spense," I shouted. He jerked his head toward me, but he could only shrug his shoulders. He didn't know any more than I did. That was usually the case, but normally I could rely on him for some dumb scheme.

"I've got nothing, Rick," he mumbled.

Turning back to Marilyn, I prayed for some sort of plan.

The foam kept dripping from Marilyn's mouth, dribbling onto her sports bra and spattering across the sofa cushions. I tried to straighten her neck. Surely, it shouldn't be able to bend like that.

I was so desperate to do something.

But when I touched her face, her head stilled, her eyes suddenly focused. Thin red lines webbed the whites of her eyes, and her pupils trained on my face.

"Rick, look out!" Spense clawed at my t-shirt, hauling me back just as Marilyn lunged towards my outstretched hand, her teeth snapping hard at the empty air where my fingers had been.

She keened her disappointment. Her body still jerked violently but that didn't stop her. She snapped at me again and her motion tipped her over the edge of the sofa. She spilled onto the floor. Both Spense and I jumped back as she sprawled, spasming on the floor.

My stomach clenched and unclenched. What the hell was happening to Marilyn? I reached out a trembling hand, and then thought better of it when Marilyn's head twisted to _Exorcist_ levels trying to reach it. Instead, I crawled around and grasped her head from behind. One hand on each temple.

"Shush, Marilyn. Just try to relax." With both hands I tried to keep her head in-line with her spine. If anything, her shaking intensified.

"Spense," I cried out, even though I knew he couldn't do anything.

A cell phone rang. Huh. What? It was Olivia Newton John. Or at least that was the muffled song. "You're the one that I want." Marilyn's ring tone. "Woo Hoo Hoo, Honey"

Spence shot me a disturbed look.

"What? She loves that song." I always felt the need to defend Marilyn's aesthetic choices to Spense.

Spense shrugged, in that "there's no accounting for taste" way, but then went still. "Is that always her ring tone? I haven't heard it before. Or is that the one just for your phone?"

My throat went dry. "That's mine." I shifted in my seat, keeping hold of my shaking wife, but I didn't feel the familiar weight of my phone in my left jeans pocket. "I had it before we went to the doctor's place."

"The One I Need. Oh Yes Indeed..." Spense eyed Marilyn's running shorts. "It must be in an inside pocket."

I nodded at Spense and he slowly reached across Marilyn's torso, whipping his hand back when her flailing arms knocked it.

"It's gonna go to voicemail," I yelled at Spense. Impatient and frustrated and tired as hell.

"What if she's contagious?" he whined.

"Oh, for crying out loud." I let one hand go and waved it in front of Marilyn's face, digging my fingers into her hair with the other hand to keep her from sinking her jaws into my fleshy bait.

"Got it." Spense fished out the cell and then answered it. "Hold on one second," he told the phone. "It's the doctor," he whispered to me and then pushed the button for speakerphone. "You still there?"

"Look, you idiots. Right now I imagine that Marilyn is on the floor convulsing."

Spense waited a beat. "Maybe."

There was a grunt in the background and a corresponding yelp from the doctor.

"Listen, I can help her. But you have to bring her to me. She doesn't have much time."

"Yeah, right. You'll help her. Like you helped her in the first place." Spense drawled in return, like he was right out of a 1930s mob movie.

I grunted to get Spense's attention, and then punted him in the thigh when he didn't look at me soon enough. "What are you doing?" I mouthed. Hadn't he just said 5 minutes ago that we needed the doctor's help?

Spense covered up the mouthpiece and whispered, "I'm negotiating."

I shot a panicked look down at Marilyn. "I don't want the best deal. I want her alive." And that's when I realized that Marilyn had stopped moving.

"Oh god, Oh god." Marilyn's prone body was infinitely more terrifying than her shaking. I waved my hand frantically in front of her face, with no response. I ripped the phone out of Spense's hand and shouted into the receiver. "Can you help her?"

"I can try," the doctor added, "but there are conditions."

Spense snatched the phone back. "Money's not a problem." And in that moment I would have hugged him, if that was the kind of thing we did. Instead, I picked up Marilyn.

"Not money. Guns. You morons let the other specimens escape! I'm not helping Marilyn until you take care of them."

Other specimens? Is that what Marilyn was? A specimen?

"Money—guns—whatever." Spense was already headed for the door.

"Whatever? Where are we going to find—" Marilyn started to slide out of my arms, her head lolling at that undead angle again. I hoisted her up. Was she even breathing? I just looked at Spense, letting him know that this was on him. Whatever.

### Chapter 11

Spense had to ease off the gas as he entered the doctor's driveway. He slowed down as we edged into the drive, the station wagon rocking back and forth as we drove through deep furrows in the gravel. Tire tracks?

Someone must have wanted to get away in a real hurry.

I was in the back seat, holding Marilyn's head in my lap. I brushed the hair off her face. "We're almost there, Marilyn." The convulsions hadn't returned. Part of me was thankful. I had been praying, a continuously whispered "please let her be okay" sent out to the universe, that they wouldn't return. But then another part of me, the one terrified by her unnatural stillness, just wanted her to move. At least then I wouldn't be checking her pulse, her breathing to make sure that she was still alive.

She looked paler than ever. Her breath came in short pants. I kept touching her hair, grateful for each tiny puff of air that I could feel against the back of my hand. Because she didn't have a pulse. At least, not one that I could find. And those breaths were the only thing keeping me together.

Impatient to reach the doctor, I looked out the window. Whoa. I sucked in a breath.

The gravel wasn't the only thing damaged. The front lawn was littered with overturned planters, the landscaping shredded by cars running over it and through it. In the path of Spense's headlights, I could see the shimmer of broken glass and tinted plastic, the kind you see dusting the asphalt after a car crash. There were dark lumps all over the lawn. Discarded robes? It even looked like a few ladies' purses had been tossed aside and then left in the hurry to leave.

"It looks like the day after a frat party," I said to Spense as he maneuvered around an obstacle. The wagon bucked again as he drove over something not worth the effort to steer around. I held fast to Marilyn, not wanting the jostling to disturb her.

She didn't seem to notice.

"That, or the set of Zombie Buster 2000." Spense slowed to a stop as we finally reached the front of the house. "Director's Cut."

He cut off the engine and got out, heading to the back to get our "guns." I shimmied out from under Marilyn and then pulled her across the back seat, to a place where I could pick her up. I stumbled, trying to balance her limp weight in my arms.

"You want this?" Spense thumped me on the shoulder. I tried to juggle Marilyn, keeping her in my arms while I attempted to free up a hand. Spense slapped it into my open palm.

Not a gun. My wife's Taser. The one we always teased her for keeping in the glove box of her car. Not exactly heavy firepower. Spense took a practice swing with his baseball bat. The one he kept under his bed. The one we'd had to go back to Spense's house to get when he finally admitted that he had no clue where to get guns either. "But you've got to sound like you know," he'd explained. Yeah, I didn't get it either.

I'd insisted that we go to the doctor's, even without guns. I wasn't going to waste anymore time.

I jumped to reposition Marilyn, whose head was lolling off to the side, as limp as a wrung chicken's neck. I managed to get a better hold on her while still aiming the Taser in front of us. But there was no efficient way to carry both her and the weapon. Her head dangled over my bicep. And I just let it. Speed was now my best option.

"Let's get this over with," I said to Spense as the two of us walked into the doctor's abandoned house.

We recrossed our old path, going through the entryway toward the main room with its bank of glass walls. The place was trashed, just like the front yard with furniture overturned and paintings hanging at skewed angles or lying smashed on the floor. There were smudged handprints all over the windows like the guests had tried to get out that way. At the far end of the room, someone had thrown a chair through the glass and made his own exit. A slight breeze came from that opening, a warm evening wind that snaked through the room and tunneled toward the front entrance. We hadn't bothered shutting the door behind us just in case we needed to make a quick exit.

The whole scene was uncanny, so different from how it had been with all the guests just a few hours earlier. There was no mood music, no burble of conversation, just the crunch of catered munchies underfoot. And something else. A muffled noise. Moaning?

"Sounds like the thing in the basement." Spense held his bat in front of him like a sword and headed toward the kitchen. We sneaked down the hallway and entered the kitchen, our feet sticking to the floor as we stepped through piles of exploded crab puffs. I nearly slipped in a puddle of dipping sauce. The door to the basement, the place where we had hidden, was wide open.

"Oops." Spense shut the door. He jerked his hand back from the door handle when finished, his bodying shaking in an exaggerated shiver.

"There. Did you hear that?" A noise. But not from the basement.

"Yeah. Sounds like it's coming from the back of the house."

We reversed direction, heading back towards the main room when I noticed that Marilyn was starting to perk up.

"Marilyn?" She was holding her head up. Well, not totally. She would lift her head to the level of my bicep and then it would fall back, as if she were unable to support the weight. She did this a couple times, like someone trying to sleep on an airplane but in reverse, her head slowly rising and then plummeting back in the other direction.

"Is she responding to the noise?"

"I don't know." I waited and the next time she raised her head I shoved my upper arm underneath it. Now supported, her face rested against the inside of my bicep.

It hurt, trying to hold Marilyn and the Taser. And now my shoulder was straining at this awkward angle. The muscles in my arm trembled.

But then she moaned, in a happy way. And relief washed through me. I sent a mental "thank you" out to the universe as she nuzzled her face against my t-shirt, accidently bunching the material until her lips were pressed against my skin.

"Uh, Marilyn?" She brushed her mouth back and forth across my skin, moaning, and then she started to bite. Nothing painful. More like a lazy gumming.

"What's she doing?" Spense tilted his head, trying to get a better look.

I twisted away so he couldn't see, using Marilyn's body to shield what her mouth was doing. Some things are just private. "Don't worry about it."

Spense shrugged but kept craning his neck to see. I walked past him, not bothering to make room in the small hallway. Marilyn's shins hit him right in the gut.

"Oof. What was that for?"

"NoTHING." I jumped, because Marilyn's teeth bit into my bicep. "Let's just find the doctor."

And that was when we heard the scream.

Spense and I looked at each other, Marilyn's weird behavior forgotten as he made a line for the back of the house. I followed, huffing with the effort.

Once in the back yard, the screams continued. They seemed to be coming from some kind of large tree. I'm not much of a horticulturist. So I had no idea what kind of a tree it was. It wasn't a palm tree. That much I can tell you.

I couldn't see the doctor but there were figures surrounding the trunk. They were clawing at the bark, reaching into the leaves.

"Get off! Get off! Get off!" Dr. Chatsworth repeated over and over. Occasionally a loafered foot would emerge from the foliage and kick at one of the figures clustered around the base, making it stumble back before it would shamble forward to the base of the tree.

As the figures around the tree bumped and shuffled about, there was a break and I saw a body splayed on the ground. It was face down, and I had a feeling that even if it wasn't I wouldn't be able to make out much. The only thing recognizable about the body was the black polo shirt that the service folks had been wearing earlier. And the cell phone clutched in one partially gnawed hand. It was still chiming out incoming texts.

I've never really bought that line about how movies desensitize you to violence, but, man, my brain just couldn't process that this was real. We stood there for a couple minutes, grossly fascinated, unable to look away

"Dude...Rick," breathed Spense. "Do you know what this reminds me of?"

"Yeah, man," I replied. "Zombie Buster 2000, Director's Cut."

"Those things are totally shambling."

"Totally."

### Chapter 12

There were five zombies standing between me and the man who could help Marilyn—not including the one Spense found splashing around in the swimming pool, but it didn't look like he'd be getting out of the pool any time soon.

I flipped open Marilyn's phone and hit redial. I wasn't getting any closer to those things than I had to. They were gnawing on everything: the poor kid, each other, the tree trunk.

"Rick, this is freaking me the hell out, man."

Yeah. Understatement. And Spence didn't have one of those things nibbling on his elbow (my hold on Marilyn had slipped).

I stopped myself, feeling as disgusted by my thoughts as the carnage around me—things? Like Marilyn? Was she a thing now too? She was making the same soft moans as the other...zombies...although from her it sounded less frantic, more satisfied.

I could tell when the doctor picked up on his end in the tree, because now I could hear the moaning in stereo. "Is that you, Marilyn's Boyfriend, the pale guy who doesn't exfoliate?"

"You mean Marilyn's husband, Rick?" I ignored his comment about my skincare regimen. Exfoliation, whatever that is, was the kind of thing that Spense talked about with Marilyn during half time.

"Whatever. Where are you?" he barked.

"Yeah, we're here—"

"—Did you bring the guns?"

"Uh." I looked at Spense. He was hefting his baseball bat like a guy who'd never played a day of little league in his life. "Well—we've got it covered."

"Then, if you're here, you see what's out here. Get me out of this tree!"

"Tell me how to help my wife first."

"Take care of my patients first."

"You mean like take care of them?" I said in my best New Jersey accent.

"I mean like kill them. Dead."

All right then. Since I wasn't positive Spense and I could actually accomplish that, and the doctor was literally up a tree, I said, "I'm not the one stuck in the tree surrounded by zombies. I think I'll be the one making the terms here." I sounded tougher than I felt, but Spense gave me a double thumbs up, so I thought I must be on the right track.

"Quit stalling, Ron. She needs help now. I can sit in this tree longer than Marilyn can go without the serum that only I can give her. Keep arguing and then see what happens to her."

I was contemplating my next move when the skin on the back of my neck prickled. It was that uncomfortable sense you get when you are being watched. In the air, there was a faint scent of surf wax. But we were nowhere near the beach.

"What the—" Spense must have sensed something too because he whipped around. "What the hell!"

I spun around and behind us, not two feet away, was a lanky dude in baggy board shorts. He looked to be about mine or Spense's age with sun-bleached hair and a glazed look in his eye. He took a shambling step toward us and I frantically backpedaled, trying to get me and Marilyn away.

"Spense, watch out!"

And that was when Spense flipped out. He started wailing on the guy. He swung the bat over his shoulder and thwacked the surfer across the chest, pounding his ribs again and again.

"Would you cut it out?" the surfer guy said with more annoyance than actual pain. He'd brought up his arms to deflect some of the blows. Wait...was this guy actually talking back to us?

Spense didn't seem to notice. He arced the bat over his head and brought it down with full strength on top of the guy's head. I definitely heard a crack, but the dude just stood there, dumbly blinking at us.

"Uh, man." I edged toward Spense. The guy still hadn't moved. Not even to crumble and fall over. "Spense, I don't think he's a zombie."

"Then he should be on the ground."

I couldn't argue with that.

I squinted, trying to get a better look at the guy. He was shadowed. The florescent light from the pool filtered through the landscaping and cut patterns through the lawn chairs.

"Hello...Hello." The doctor, momentarily forgotten, was still yelling at us in stereo. I think I mumbled "hold on" into the phone. "HOLD ON!" he shrieked, and I switched off the phone.

I kept looking at the blinking guy, but I couldn't make out any blood. A blow like that should have at least split the skin on his temple. But there was nothing. He looked perfectly healthy. His skin had this weird glow. Nothing supernatural or anything. I mean, he wasn't phosphorescent. Just really...I don't know what you would call it. Well scrubbed?

I remembered the effort Marilyn put into applying sunscreen. Every day, 45 SPF. Sun damage, she explained. It was a killer for women living in LA. Looking at this guy, it just didn't make sense. No one who surfed in Southern California should have skin that looked like this. I got this uncomfortable feeling low in my stomach.

I looked down at Marilyn, who was still lazily gnawing on the inside of my arm. And then I looked back at surfer dude.

This wasn't good. Surfer dude might not be acting like the others, but his skin sure looked like Marilyn's.

Spense reached forward and poked the dude with the tip of his baseball bat.

And the guy's eyes instantly focused. "Not cool, dude." He grabbed Spense by the throat and then flung my buddy in the air. Spense flew, like a flailing human Frisbee disk, ten feet before he landed with a sickening thud.

He didn't move.

"Spense!" I rushed toward him with Marilyn still heavy in my arms. Behind me, I could hear the doctor shriek.

The so-not-human surfer dude with the great skin and killer throwing arm was advancing toward the tree. One of the zombies had stumbled away from the others, maybe attracted by all our noise. And it got the same treatment as Spense. Flung into the air over the surfer dude's shoulder. It bounced to a landing not fifteen feet from us.

The zombie had no problem getting up.

It shook its head, more disoriented than usual, and took a few stumbling steps in no particular direction. It started to turn towards all the commotion at the base of the tree.

And in that moment Marilyn decided to raise her head from chewing on my arm and moan. It was a sweet, delicate "mmmwwa," which I took to mean "quit it with all the motion, Rick." I must have been irritating her with all my twisting around.

I shoved her face back into my arm and jerked my head back toward the zombie. Had it heard her?

The zombie tilted his head, its eyes skimming over me and resting on Marilyn. In that moment, I swear its dead eyes brightened. Probably just the reflection from the pool lights bouncing off its retinas, but it still looked damn creepy. My arms tightened around Marilyn. I tried to calm my beating heart, to keep my breath from coming out in pants. I was probably ringing the dinner bell for the damn thing, but I still couldn't control my body.

I stared at the thing, willing it to turn away. But it didn't. It started shambling our way.

"Ryan!" the doctor screamed. A quick glance at the tree and I saw that the surfer was dispatching the zombies one at a time, plucking them away from the base of the tree and flinging them aside. The guy squatted, seeming to check on the robe-check boy. He pried the phone from kid's hand and looked like he was scrolling through the sent texts.

"You've got to save me. If he gets me, he'll kill me. And you'll never be able to help your wife!" The doctor was trying to claw his way further up the tree, out of the reach of all the things with great skin that were after him.

What was I supposed to do? There was a zombie shambling our way. I did a double take. More than one. I could feel the sweat dripping down my back as I counted...three...four...five. The other zombies had been thrown in our direction, and were now more interested in us than the doctor. Could I not catch a single break?

How was I supposed to take out five zombies, stop something superhuman with Marilyn hanging off one arm, and still protect my best friend?

I kicked Spense. "Wake up, buddy. I need you. I can't do this by myself." Spense was always there to get me out of trouble, but now he just groaned and twitched. "Spense!" I screamed at him.

"Riick?" Marilyn lifted her head, the first lucid word from her since the incident with the knife.

"Oh, thank god," I whispered and brushed a quick kiss into her hair. There wasn't time for anything else. My palms were damp, and she nearly slipped as I jumped to resettle her higher in my arms.

"Marilyn, I'm gonna need your help here." I jogged as long as I dared to across the lawn away from both Spense and the tree. Back to the place where Spense had dropped his baseball bat.

"Come on, baby." I set—okay, more like dumped—Marilyn onto the ground. She barely moved, her eyes still unfocused. I waved my bleeding arm in front of her face, which perked her up a little. She leaned forward, smacking her lips. I cast a quick look over my shoulder and the zombie pack had nearly reached Spense. He lay on the ground, unmoving. If this didn't work, I'd just left my friend totally unprotected, at the mercy of five inhuman things ready for to shred him for dinner.

Here went nothing. I shoved my arm right next to Marilyn's mouth and then jerked it away right before her teeth chomped down. And like a champ she moan-whined. Loud.

Glancing up, I saw the lead zombie tilt its head toward this new sound. And after a few unsteady steps, it changed course, now heading away from Spense and toward me and Marilyn.

I was so distracted that I didn't notice Marilyn. She'd managed to sit up and scoot herself toward me. I felt a sharp sting as her fingers dug into my torn muscle. "Ah," I yelled as I yanked her hand away.

"Mmwwaarrrhhh," came a garbled noise from the pack.

Well, at least now the rest of the zombies were headed in our direction. I grasped Marilyn's outstretched hand, careful to keep the rest of my body at a distance, and folded her fingers around the Taser. "I don't know if you can understand me anymore, but if anything comes near you, taze it." She didn't respond. But I didn't have any more time to repeat my words. The first zombie was only a few shambling steps away.

I sucked in a couple of deep breaths and hoped they were clearing my head rather than clouding it. Was I really about to do this? I got to my feet and gripped the baseball bat. "AAAAAGGGGHHHHH," I yelled because even computer programmers need battle cries, and I hurled myself towards the zombies.

My pulse was banging in my ears as my bat connected with the first zombie. There was a wet splat, but I didn't stop. I couldn't think too much about what I was doing or where the bat was connecting. I just swung and swung. I put all my strength into those blows, stepping over the first downed zombie, and then hauling it until I reached the rest of the pack.

Crack, crack, crack. Sweat was dripping into my eyes, but I wasn't seeing anything. Not really. My mind flashed through images of Spense and Marilyn. Spense passed out, hopefully nothing more serious. And Marilyn laid out as serious zombie bait. If any of them got past me, they would go straight for her. So I kept swinging. For my wife and my friend. I couldn't let them down.

I felt the zombies' hands tearing at my shirt, their fingers searching for soft places. I twisted and feinted. I screamed in their faces, my adrenaline flowing like a rip tide. I used my bat and my elbows and the hard edges of my feet. Anything that could hammer against their bodies. And they fell, one at a time, until I was the only one left.

I heaved in breaths, barely able to balance on my two feet. I stumbled, nearly tripping over a downed zombie, before I leaned over and braced my hands on my knees. The air just wouldn't enter my lungs fast enough. I was sucking in oxygen before I'd really finished exhaling. Blackness seeped into the edges of my vision, and I blinked viciously to keep it at bay.

I knew I wasn't finished.

I found the strength to tilt my head up and glance toward the tree. At the base the surfer had the doctor in a choke hold. Both were looking at me.

The surfer leaned in close and whispered something in the doctor's ear. I was too far away to hear any of the particulars. Besides, my ears weren't really functioning all that well. All the blood whooshing. But the doctor looked terrified. I could see the tendons in his hands straining as he frantically tried to pry the surfer's hands from his throat. His eyes locked on mine as he mouthed, "Ryan. Help."

Good grief. I was trying to save a guy who couldn't even get my name right.

I took a strained step forward. "Stop." My voice sounded hoarse, weak. The surfer didn't take any notice. I tried again, more forceful, as I stumbled closer to the pair. "Let him go."

"Can't do that, Ryan."

Oh, for crying out loud. But I didn't even have time for an eye roll because surfer dude jerked his hands and I heard a loud pop. The doctor slumped to the ground and it dawned on me. Board shorts had just snapped the doctor's neck.

### Chapter 13

"Noooo!" I ran to the base of the tree and kneeled beside the doctor's body. I leaned over, pressing my ear close to the guy's face, hoping to hear some breath escaping.

That was a no go. I checked for a pulse, ignoring the obvious crook in the guy's neck. No pulse, no breath, neck flopping around in a way that necks usually don't. I'm no doctor, but these were all bad signs, weren't they? But they didn't necessarily mean death. Hadn't I been hoping to bring Marilyn back from exactly this state?

Although, the doctor's skin didn't look so good. I mean, he obviously took care of himself, but there wasn't that appealing glow. He was starting to look a little pale under his spray tan. "He was the only one who could help my wife." My voice cracked under the strain.

The surfer shrugged and stepped back from the doctor, not seeming all that interested in the two of us. He strolled toward the pile of downed zombies and started popping off their heads. It didn't seem like that much effort for him. There wasn't any blood, not like you would imagine anyways, but my stomach was still shaky so I turned away.

I refocused my attention on the doctor and gingerly tried to realign his neck with his spine. But the ground beneath the tree wasn't level, so his head rolled back to its initial resting place. At a right angle from the rest of his body. So much for that plan. His glazed eyes stared unblinkingly in my direction. I squirmed, the heebie jeebies running up and down my spine.

This guy sure seemed dead. All the way dead.

I noticed the doctor's arms were covered in scratches, probably from climbing the tree. They were bleeding. Not a lot, but steady streams of red crisscrossing his bare skin.

They didn't seem to be healing.

At that moment, every part of my body ached. Whatever had been keeping me going till now ebbed away, and I was left tired and shaking and desperate.

I heard footsteps in the grass—the surfer returning. To do what exactly, I wasn't sure.

"Is the doctor coming back?" I asked. I didn't bother turning around. My eyes were scanning the body before me, hoping to find some hint of life. Even weird zombie afterlife.

"Back?"

"You know, like miraculously heal. What you did when Spense hit you with the baseball bat." I paused. "What Marilyn did." Although, I knew that last one was mainly wishful thinking. Marilyn had healed from the knife wound, but she still wasn't better. I was beginning to wonder if she would ever come back completely.

"Nope." He didn't elaborate.

Well, that wasn't particularly helpful.

"No zombie doctor?" I shot back. My fear and tiredness and guilt turning into anger.

He gave a short laugh. "Zombies, huh? I guess that's as good a name as any. No. He's staying right where he is." The dude was still standing a few feet away, watching me. "No dawn of the dead for this dermatologist."

I sucked in a breath and it burned going down. My throat was so dry. I looked back at the doctor. His face was turning white. And frankly, now that I was paying attention to it, he kinda smelled. I got to my feet. Slowly. My body still a little woozy.

"Are you going to pop his head off?" I asked, getting uneasy at the way the surfer kept staring at me.

"No need."

He seemed so sure. Could that really be the end of it? My mind rebelled against the thought. It couldn't end here. With no chance to cure Marilyn. Wait...the functioning parts of my brain started yelling at me....if he knew that there was no chance of the doctor coming back all zombified—did that mean? Did he know what all this was about?

"Do you know what he did to the others? Can you help my wife?" I stumbled toward the surfer, my hunch giving me hope that I didn't have a moment ago.

"Is your wife one of the fouled ones?"

"She's over there. The doctor said he could fix her." I was practically screaming in his face I was so close.

"Fix her?" Surfer dude said incredulously. "He broke her in the first place. He couldn't have helped your wife. He was lying to you," he replied flatly. "Like he lied to all these poor schmucks. Your doctor was in way over his head. He had no idea what he was messing with."

The surfer turned his back to me and was ambling toward the doctor's house. He sounded so calmly sure of himself, like he had just said, "the sky is blue" or "today is a good day to go surfing." I just stood there, bent over and heaving, like he had punched me in the gut.

He was halfway across the yard before my brain stopped reeling. Now that the doctor was dead, he might be my only chance. I couldn't let him out of my sight.

I ran after him and lunged to grab him from behind. "There's got to be something—"

"—Whoa, dude." The guy flicked off my hand and sent me flying back into the grass. "You don't realize what you're messing with here."

I bounced up immediately, not down long enough to register the pain. He didn't know what he was messing with was what he had said about the doctor. "Why don't you tell me then!" I yelled.

Surfer dude sighed and looked down at a watch. He said, "Well, first you might want to collect your wife. I think she's gnawing on your friend."

I looked toward Spense, and sure enough Marilyn had crawled over to him. He was still lying on the ground, but it looked like he was slowly regaining consciousness. He was swatting away Marilyn, who kept trying to snatch his hand and presumably stuff it in her mouth.

"I'll see if the doctor kept any beer. You look like you could use it."

"But—" I gestured at Marilyn.

"Oh, she'll keep for another couple of hours. Well, one at least. 45 minutes definitely. You don't know where the beer is, do you?"

My brain went haywire, all my thoughts and emotions spiking together. What the hell did he mean 45 minutes?! Yay, someone other than the doctor knew what was going on! But he said she couldn't be fixed. Yet he seemed to be zombie superman. Could Marilyn be something like that? How would that change our relationship if she had the strength to accidentally pop off my head? It was all too much. My brain shorted out trying to process it all. I struggled to know where to begin, my mouth working but nothing really coming out.

So I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and went with the easiest thing. "The kitchen is through the broken window, down the hall."

"Awesome."

### Chapter 14

I limped like an old man over to Spense and Marilyn. If we all got out of this, I decided to take up Spense on his offer to get me an appointment with Greta, his favorite masseuse.

Getting closer to the pair, I could see Marilyn leering at Spense. She was trying, without a lot of success, to catch Spense's hand. She'd snag it every so often, but he would promptly shake her off with an irritated moan. Saliva dribbled out of the corner of her mouth, and I could see that Spense's hand was covered with it.

"Uhh," Spense groaned. In that way nearly everything around me today had groaned. I sped up my pace. Geez...if something happened to Spense too...I just didn't know if I could handle it. Not to say that I was handling things now. Just. No. Not Spense too.

"Spense," I shouted and he sat up. He was clearly disoriented and I had a moment of sheer unrelenting panic as his glazed eyes looked right at me without any sign of recognition.

Then Marilyn began sucking on his fingers. "Eww, Marilyn, gross." Spense snatched his hand back.

I just looked up at the sky, noticing the tiny pinpricks of light through the pollution. I sent a thank you out to the universe. I had one of them back.

The surfer dude stepped through the broken window carrying a six pack of Amstel Light still nestled in its cardboard carrier and a Styrofoam tray of uncooked steaks—they looked like fillets. He nodded towards the doctor's patio furniture.

I helped Spense up as the surfer put down his pilfered snacks and righted the upended poolside table. He didn't seem at all concerned about chilling in a back yard with six, not counting the zombie still thrashing in the pool, dead bodies. So I decided not to care either. There were too many other things to worry about.

It took me, Spense, and Marilyn a minute or two to make it across the yard. None of us were moving all that well. But we settled in around the pool, with me and Spense sitting at the patio table with the surfer and Marilyn lying on one of the plush pool loungers. She was quiet now, chewing daintily on the fillet the surfer had tossed to her.

I stared at her for a moment. She was lit up by the cool blue light coming from the pool. It flickered over her luminous skin and turned her blond highlights aqua. My gaze drifted around the patio. The ground was dusted with shattered glass from the busted windows, glinting in the rippling blue light.

The furniture that we weren't using was overturned, some knocked into the pool. Where a zombie was frantically treading water while trying to capture some of the floating debris. The thing was remarkably uncoordinated as it tried, unsuccessfully, to grab something and stuff it in its mouth. I looked back to Marilyn who was curled up on the lounger, sucking some of the steak juices off her fingers.

"Sorry I knocked you out, man." The surfer offered Spense a beer.

"Oh, no problem." Spense took a glug from the bottle. He was over it. "What happened to Dr. Chatsworth?" He twisted in his chair, looking for the doctor in the backyard carnage.

I took a long drink from my own beer. "He's dead."

"Zombie get him?"

"No." I pointed to the surfer. "It was him."

"Kevin," the surfer said by way of introduction. Spense gave him a little wave.

"He pulled the doctor out of the tree and snapped his neck. And then he ripped the heads off all the zombies."

"Whoa. That's crazy. How do you—"

"—No." I held out a hand to interrupt Spense. "Tell us about this serum. I'm not convinced that you can't help Marilyn. You just launched Spense like a Nerfball, went commando on the dermatologist, and tore off some zombie heads with your bare hands."

Kevin shrugged, then nodded towards my bloodied arm. "She do that to you?"

"Don't change the subject. You said Marilyn only had 45 minutes, 40 minutes now, to live. You need to tell me about this serum."

"I didn't say she had 40 minutes to live. She's already dead, or at least not alive. You can't come back from that."

"What?" I cried. "So what is going to happen to her in 40 minutes?"

Kevin didn't answer. At least not right away. He started picking at the corner of the paper label on his beer bottle. He rolled the corner down while looking back and forth between Spense and me. I think he was deciding how much to tell us.

"Look, man," Kevin said, peeling the label off and flicking it to the ground, "that was, like, an estimate. I don't know when she's going to turn. I honestly don't know why she hasn't already turned, but when she does..." He looked pointedly to the zombie thrashing, albeit a little less manically, in the pool.

"What are you saying? That she's going to turn into something like the pool zombie?"

"Yep, that's where she's headed. And when that happens I'll have to..." Kevin stopped. His shoulders tightened and he took a slug of beer. "I'm sorry, man. You seem like a nice guy."

"What's gonna happen?" Spense glanced back and forth between Kevin and me, not following the innuendo.

Kevin made a twisting motion with one hand and a sound like a cork popping out of a bottle of champagne.

Spense's eyes widened in dawning comprehension.

I felt like I might throw up my Amstel Light.

"I might be able to save you, though."

What was he talking about? I wasn't the one who needed saving. "I don't care about me," I said. "What about Marilyn? Can't you just give her some more of that serum stuff that they were hawking at the party? The doctor said that would help her. Surely he must have some more around here. We can keep her from," I couldn't say it. "You know...What you said."

Kevin got a second beer from the cardboard carton and twisted off the spiky top with his bare hand. I shuddered.

"Look. It's complicated." He paused, maybe fumbling for a word that Spense and I could understand, like he wasn't used to explaining this to people. "Basically, your wife got injected with a prion."

It didn't work. I still didn't get it.

"The prion—let's call it a rogue protein—is attaching to other proteins in her body and inducing them to refold, essentially replicating the rogue protein and causing the aggressive anti-aging you can observe in your wife."

We all looked at Marilyn to observe her aggressive anti-aging. She was just chilling in the lounge chair. Besides occasionally twitching, she looked pretty normal (or better than normal), except for the discarded piece of fillet mignon in her lap. That was just like her. You buy her an expensive meal and she never finished it.

"Look, do you really need the technical explanation?" he groused. Kevin's accent and manner had changed. He seemed less chill, more scientific, more with it. Apparently, he was some kind of scientist in his spare time, which I guess if you were an immortal zombie you had a lot of that.

"It took me forever to figure out how this stuff worked. If you take the serum, the one your dermatologist obtained through underhanded means and shot into people without knowing what the hell he was doing, it'll stop the aging process—"

Spense breathed out a long soft "whoaaaa."

"—well, in the sense that it kills you," Kevin backtracked. "But then you live forever. You wake up beautiful, strong, and indestructible. Of course, you're also drooling, vacant, and hungry for brains."

He reached into one of the velcroed pockets on his shorts and pulled out a small vial and a capped syringe. He held up the vial between his thumb and forefinger. "What your dermatologist didn't know is that if you take a second compound, one that can inhibit the prion, the rogue protein, and establish the proper equilibrium between the normal and for the sake of this conversation let's call it the 'zombie' protein, you end up like me."

Spense said, "So, it's like Botox. Toxic but good?"

I scratched my head. "What's Bow-tox?"

"Botox," Spense repeated, "You inject Botulism...Botulinum toxin into your face and it paralyzes your muscles."

Leave it to Spense to know the scientific name for Botox.

"Dude, that's messed up. Why would anyone do that?"

"Because it smooths out your wrinkles," Spense said. "Trust me, people do some mad crazy stuff to get rid of wrinkles." Trust Spense to know about that.

Well, I mean, I knew that too. My wife had been sneaking around behind my back accepting non-FDA approved skincare treatments from a shady dermatologist, and it had turned her into a freaking zombie.

Had Dr. Chatsworth given Marilyn the same sales pitch he'd made at his party, right before we let the other zombies out of the basement? I guess those were his previous test subjects. This guy had created half a dozen zombies and only then had he given his serum to my wife.

A red haze was creeping into my vision. I felt hot. And violent.

"This is way more than wrinkles. I've been taking this serum for 300 and ..." Kevin started counting on his fingers. "What year is this? I always lose track of the decade." He continued to do the math, then seemed to give up. "Whatever, you get the point. I'm really flippin' old."

I lifted the bottle to my lips, thinking the cold beer would cool me off. But I got a whiff of it as I brought it closer to my face. It smelled gross. Weird. It had smelled fine before.

"Aside from the eternal youth and beauty, this thing can be a drag." Kevin was rolling his little vial around on the table. "If you ever miss a dose of the inhibitor," he snapped his fingers, "that's the end. You can't get rid of the zombie protein once it has been produced. You have to keep it in check in the first place. That's what happened to my friend Dominique."

Spense's eyes had been getting wider and wider as Kevin described this stuff. He was leaning forward, his arms pressed against the table. He couldn't have gotten any closer to Kevin without vaulting the table and dropping into the guy's lap.

"So there are others?" he asked, a little breathless. He was real subtle.

"A few. It's rare stuff—hard to get—I don't hand it out to just anybody. It usually just ends up being a hassle for me. Like now." He gave us a look that clearly said, yeah, I'm talking about you. "I hooked Nikki up back in the 60s."

I wondered if he meant the 1960s or the 1860s.

"We weren't together or anything, but we were friends. I made sure she was always well stocked—just in case. Well, I'd been off on a surf trip to Costa Rica, and the next time I swung by her place she was bouncing off the walls trying to chew her way out of her condo in Cabo. All her supplies were missing. I couldn't figure out why she missed a dose, until I heard that this doctor had been sniffing around her. He was pretty loose with his name, the famous LA dermatologist Dr. Chatsworth."

He trailed off with a grimace. I thought maybe he was imagining popping the doc's head off. After a minute he shrugged it off and said, "So I made my way up here. He wasn't hard to find, what with his face on the all those billboards along Wilshire Boulevard. Then I hear he's hawking some 'miracle serum.' He must have stolen her stash, tried to reproduce it. Idiot didn't know what he was doing. All I can figure is he must have mixed the serum and the inhibitor to cause such a delay in zombification. But the proportion was still off."

All the words were starting to fade into a steady buzz in my ear. Kevin had said something important. Something that could help Marilyn.

"Like Marilyn!" I interjected, reminding him of who else had been hurt by Dr. Chatsworth.

Kevin waved toward the pile of headless zombies on the lawn. "Her and quite a few others. I'm just saying, man. I'm sorry about your girl. At least you don't have to take care of her yourself, like I had to with Nikki."

What was it that I needed to say?

"So how long does it usually take to go full pool zombie?" Spense asked. "We were here earlier, and those others were hidden in a basement. I couldn't tell you for certain but it sure seemed like they had already changed."

Kevin paused, considering. "It usually doesn't take any time at all. I mean they die and they wake up all moaning and stumbling."

"Like Marilyn," I repeated.

Spense elbowed me, like we'd just shared a joke. He mouthed, "Shambling, dude."

Kevin didn't notice. "There was this time in New Orleans—1843—no 1853. This guy got his hands on the serum and went all voodoo witch doctor with it. Bam! Zombies all over Louisiana."

"Whoa." Spense was clearly impressed. "How'd he get it?" It was hard to tell if Spense was trying to steer the conversation, or if he was really caught up in Kevin's story.

Kevin added reluctantly, "I might've lost the serum in a card game. They didn't have cable TV back then and only the Polynesians knew about surfing."

I needed to get things back on track, including my brain. Maybe I'd had too much beer. "Like...Marilyn."

Both Kevin and Spense turned to look at me. "Hey, buddy, are you feeling alright?" Spense asked.

"Like M—" I started to say. My mouth was stuck on repeat. I shook myself trying to dislodge my brain. I felt light-headed. Maybe it was what hope felt like. "—Yeah. So we just need to give Marilyn a big dose of that inhibitor stuff." Right, that was it. Why was I the only one to think of that?

Kevin looked uncomfortable and turned away from me. He put his forearms on his knees and looked at the ground, examining a tear in the sole of one his flip-flops. Kevin didn't seem to be the kind of guy who knew how to handle his conflicts with words.

"Look, man. I'm sorry, but the inhibitor only maintains. It keeps you where you are. It can't bring back what's gone. It doesn't bring folks back from the dead and it doesn't heal fried zombie brains."

"But Marilyn's different. You said so yourself. So if you give her the inhibitor—"

Kevin shook his head. "—I'm not going to do that. You two need to accept that the woman you knew is gone."

Spense and I exchanged a look, which was a little bit more difficult than normal because there were two of him. He deliberately avoided answering that question, my look said. Yeah, I think you're right, both the Spenses said.

"Look, she might not be as aggressive but she's still biting folks, and she's contagious. The inhibitor might freeze her—and I say might because I've never heard of this working before—but it's not going to bring her back. And I'm not going to waste stash on something that I'll have to babysit till Armageddon. She continues to bite people and you've got the start of zombie apocalypse."

"So, Kevin," Spense said, "Does that mean if you bite me..."

"Not a chance, man." Kevin took the opportunity to scoot his chair away from the two Spenses.

I chose to ignore him calling Marilyn a "something." Zombie or not, she was still Marilyn to me. Raw chicken wings couldn't stand in the way of real love. Come to think of it, chicken wings didn't sound half bad right now.

"But you," Kevin pointed at me, reclaiming my attention, "you can still be saved." He pulled out the robe-check boy's cell phone and fiddled with the cracked screen. "I'd give you another twenty minutes before you have pain knifing through your stomach, and another ten before you keel over dead. But," he added brightly, "if you take my inhibitor before then, you'll be like me!"

I didn't say anything. The buzz was back. It had turned into ringing, or not ringing exactly, something that repeated Mar-i-lyn, Mar-i-lyn, Mar-i-lyn.

Kevin must have taken my silence as a no.

"Come on, man. We've just had a beer together. I don't want to pop your head off. Because that is what's going to happen. You're going to die and wake up a pool zombie. And I can't let you wander around like that. You seem to care a lot for your wife, so I'll assume she was a cool girl. Would she want you to die, needlessly? I can't help her. But with enough of the inhibitor we can counteract the doctor's jacked up stuff that's dripping out of your wife's mouth and festering in your arm."

"Dude," Spence said. "Festering doesn't sound good. If anyone is going to live forever and have great skin—I mean—I'd rather it be you than anyone else." Spense looked pointedly at Kevin. "If it can't be me, of course."

Mar-i-lyn, Mar-i-lyn, Mar-i-lyn.

Kevin seemed pretty oblivious when he wanted to be. He didn't even bat an eyelash at Spense. "It is pretty sweet," he agreed.

I didn't respond to that, because instead I fell out of my chair and started convulsing.

### Chapter 15

"Oh shit," said Kevin. He grabbed the little vial of inhibitor right before it rolled off the table I was jostling with my tremors. Spense jumped out of his chair and rushed over to where I was lying. He rolled me over on my side.

"Give him the inhibitor," Spense yelled. He held out my arm to Kevin. I tried to pull it away. Marilyn and Spense were the ones who cared about being beautiful, and I didn't want to live forever without my wife. "Marilyn...give it," I managed to say.

"Marilyn's gone, Rick," Kevin said sharply. "No one's ever come back if they don't receive the inhibitor before death."

I couldn't let it go—like I let Spense pull me away when Marilyn was alone in the house with Dr. Chatsworth. "Mar—" I couldn't even get the whole word out. I was choking.

"Marilyn wouldn't want this, Rick!" Spense was shouting right in my ear, then in Kevin's face. "Just do it!"

There was a prick in my arm and a rush of coolness in my veins. It swept through my body. It felt a lot like that one time when I had to have my appendix out, and they injected me with iodine to take a CT scan. Except this was cool rather than warm. They had said I would be able to feel it dispersing, and I remember it felt like I had wet myself as it washed through my body.

I rolled over on my back and took a few heaving breaths. Kevin was right. This stuff was fast acting. The haze in my head was clearing, like the smog after a thunderstorm.

"Sorry, man." Kevin sat back on his knees. "I shouldn't have gotten the timing wrong like that, but you'll be fine now—as long as you keep this up." He got up and reached out a hand to me. Kevin looked happy. It made me think that maybe the guy was lonely. I let him help me unsteadily to my feet. He pointed to the bend in my arm where Marilyn's bite was—had been. It was already healing, and then, after a moment, it was completely gone. "See there?"

Spense grabbed my arm and peered at it. "Oh. My. God. Kevin—"

What had we been talking about before I turned into a zombie? I let Spense keep badgering Kevin about hooking him up with some serum. It was really a shame that it was me and not Spense who got to become good looking and immortal. The realization slammed into me like the cop who had tackled me in my front hall this morning.

Oh. My. God. I was a zombie now. Kevin had given me the inhibitor. I was going to live. The inhibitor. That's what we had been talking about. I had been asking why we couldn't try giving it to Marilyn. Kevin had said that he wouldn't waste it on her when it wasn't going to make her normal again.

What if...I flexed my arm where Marilyn's bite had healed. What if I gave her the inhibitor? Was that even possible? I guess I could wait until tomorrow's dose and give it to her instead, but who knew what would happen between now and then. She needed it now, and I thought I had a plan.

Did this stuff make you smarter, I wondered? But then, how smart would I be after I got another dose of zombie protein? Because the only way I could see of getting the inhibitor into Marilyn was through my blood.

Would it make Marilyn better? Even though Kevin didn't seem too optimistic, he also said that he hadn't seen a case like hers either. Or would it only make me worse? Then Kevin would have to pop off both our heads. I didn't want Marilyn to be alone. She hated being alone.

I didn't think Kevin would like this plan, though. What I needed was a distraction. I scanned the yard looking for something and caught sight of the pool zombie still thrashing about in the shallow end of the pool. I grinned and quickly looked at Kevin to see if he had picked up on my sudden change of mood, but he seemed to be assuming that I was just happy about getting the inhibitor.

He was saying something about how great it was going to be with another dude in the club. Spense knew something was up though. He was disappointed about being left out of the immortality thing, but he was a good guy—the best—so he casually gave me a "what's up?" look.

I started trying to subtly signal my plan to him, drawing on everything I'd ever learned from Marilyn about acting. Luckily, Spense won the Jackson County charades competition when we were in high school. Charades—it's the truth, I swear. When I caught his eye, I deliberately flicked my gaze to the pool zombie, then made the tiniest of gestures at Kevin.

Spense raised an eyebrow, not quite getting it—what? I looked from Spense, to Kevin, to the pool zombie again—significantly. Spense cocked his head—are you crazy, man?

Just do it—I glared, then softened my gaze—please. Spense rolled his eyes—okay, okay, I'm on it. He flicked a glance at Kevin and then looked back at me—I'm never going to get the serum now. I hope you're happy.

Kevin was still going on about all the advantages of being beautiful, strong, and immortal-like.

"Hey, Kevin," Spense said, nabbing his attention a second before launching himself at Kevin with a roar. He had his head down and his shoulders squared and he rammed Kevin on the right side, pushing him towards the edge of the pool. I don't think Spense would have been able to move him if Kevin hadn't been so surprised. They both fell into the pool.

I don't care if you are an immortal zombie; everyone has trouble getting out of the pool.

I thought I had a good couple of minutes, but I didn't want to be stopped. I picked up one of the empties on the table by its neck and slammed it against the side, like I was about to start a dirty bar fight in a western. The bottle smashed into pieces—not neat pieces like they do in the movies. Who knew that was some kind of special effects trick? I fished out one of the larger pieces and, closing my eyes, slashed it down my arm.

Marilyn hadn't moved during all the commotion, but as I approached her with blood dribbling out of my arm, she perked up and even sat up a little.

"Hey, babe." I waved my bloody arm under her nose. "How do you like this?" I let out a little yelp as she clamped onto my arm. I might be super human now, but stuff still hurt. "That's it," I encouraged her. She even let me stroke her hair. Her attention was focused solely on licking up the blood.

Every now and then she would nip at me, but mostly she just seemed interested in drinking my blood. It crossed my mind that it seemed more like a vampire thing than a zombie thing, but whatever.

Spense was still getting in Kevin's way, pulling on his legs as he tried to get to the side of the pool. They were buffeted by all the lawn furniture floating in the water, churned up by their struggles.

And then the pool zombie got into the mix.

"Ahhh," Spense shrieked, trying to keep hold of Kevin while staying out of the pool zombie's reach. I think he knew that Kevin wouldn't be so giving with the inhibitor if he were bitten.

Kevin grasped Spense by the shoulders and tried to launch him toward the pool zombie. But things must be pretty slippery in the pool, because Spense wiggled out of Kevin's grip and clambered over him, using Kevin's shoulders like a stepping stool and dropping in behind him. He latched onto Kevin's neck from behind and clung like a rhesus monkey.

"Get away. Shoo. Pool Zombie."

I winced as Marilyn took a long pull from my sliced up arm. The red-hot pain made me flinch, and I jerked my arm away. Marilyn licked her lips, and in a deliberate move she slowly raised her hands and curled them around my bicep. It wasn't manic. It was purposeful. Dexterous even, all things considered. She gently tugged, bringing my arm back to her mouth.

I brushed my hand over her hair. It was messy and tangled, with bits of grass caught in the strands. But it was so soft. "I love you, Marilyn."

Her eyes lifted to mine. And there, behind the demented zeal for my blood, it looked like her. Marilyn. The girl I'd had a crush on since I was 13 and who for some reason seemed to feel the same way about me. The skin around her eyes crinkled in that way that I loved. It meant she was happy. She was always so worried about her smile lines. But I thought they were a sign we were doing things right.

Marilyn brushed her thumb against my skin, and I could have sworn her bite lessened. Into something closer to a kiss. Albeit with teeth. The whole thing made me light-headed. My knees trembled, and I was glad I was already kneeling on the ground.

And then Spense started screaming. It kinda spoiled the moment.

I looked up and saw that Kevin had started swimming toward the pool zombie. With Spense still clinging to his back.

Spense fought against Kevin's grip and dove away. He backstroked toward the other end of the pool as Kevin carefully approached the thrashing zombie. Being a surfer and all, I shouldn't have been surprised at how mobile Kevin was in the water. He kicked at the pool zombie, spinning its snapping jaws away from him, and then lunged, grabbing the thing by its head. Kevin's weight dunked the thing under the water, and I could see the surfer's shins on the zombie's shoulders. Kevin yanked.

Pop.

A red stain spread across the water.

"I'd get out of the water if I were you," Kevin warned. Spense didn't need to hear it twice. He made a beeline for the pool steps while Kevin freestyled his way to the ladder.

They hauled themselves over the lip of the pool at the same time, their bodies wetly smacking against the pool tiles. Kevin easily sprang to his feet while Spense rolled onto his back, coughing up pool water and sucking in air. Both were soaked.

Kevin's board shorts might be water resistant but his cotton shirt was saturated. It released streams of water, which trailed down his legs and puddled around his bare feet. He must have lost his flip-flops in the pool.

He stood, his eyes clearly taking in me, my blood, and Marilyn. He yanked his t-shirt over his head and threw it to the ground. It landed with a wet splat on the patio tiles. He looked pretty miffed.

"This hasn't solved anything, Rick. There's not enough inhibitor for the both of you. She's probably still contagious. And if that's the case, then I won't wait. Not for a second. I'll rip off her head to keep her from spreading this." He gestured behind him, to the now headless zombie bobbing in the deep end. "Same goes for you."

A chill spread through me at his words. It traveled from my face and neck down through my torso, radiating quickly to my legs and hands. I couldn't tell if it was fear or blood loss. Probably both.

Spense was making a racket by the pool edge. He alternated between coughing and spitting, trying to get all of the pool water out of his mouth. "Can you just," he paused for more spitting, "give them some more inhibitor?" He'd managed to raise himself from the tiles. Hunching over, he checked himself for zombie bites.

"I don't carry around a crate of the stuff," Kevin answered.

I thought that seemed pretty careless when you had to take the stuff to keep from turning into a manic shambling zombie thing.

Spense lumbered to his feet and dragged himself over to Kevin, "—must be something else we can do." He shoved his hands through his wet hair, slicking it away from his face but making it stick up in odd patches. He was still fighting for us. Marilyn and me.

Kevin took a menacing step forward and starting poking his finger in Spense's face, but my buddy didn't back down. If anything he pushed forward, getting right up in Kevin's space.

After yelling something at Kevin, Spense shot a furtive glance at me. I could see the worry in his eyes. I tried to nod. To tell him that everything was going to be okay. That this was the plan. That this was working.

He looked like he wasn't so certain.

Maybe I wasn't either.

I think that's when my body started shaking.

The night breeze was so cold. It cut through my clothing, making my teeth rattle. I looked down to see if Marilyn could feel it too.

But her skin looked warm, pink even. A flush reddened her cheeks. She blinked up at me, her gaze clearing. Letting go of my arm, she used the back of her hand to wipe away a smear of blood from her mouth. She looked a little confused as she licked her fingers clean.

I tried to speak, but my tongue was heavy and thick in my mouth. It refused to wrap itself around any of the words that I still knew. The ones that I wanted to say to her.

I knew what was happening. I'd gone way past the point when I should have stopped her. But that was my choice. I knew that I'd given away most of the inhibitor and that I'd probably end up a pool zombie. And that Marilyn still might too. But I couldn't have lived with myself, spending the rest of eternity surfing with Kevin, if I hadn't tried something. It might not be good enough. I might not be good enough. But now I knew that I'd never stop trying.

The edges of my vision began to darken. Marilyn leaned toward me, scooting to the edge of the pool lounger. "Rick?" she said, concern shading her voice. She reached out her hand and interlaced our fingers.

I pressed a kiss to our joined hands and felt her squeeze my fingers. They were so warm and solid. My hand shook but I didn't let go. Had this actually worked? Maybe Marilyn might make it through this.

I continued to hold onto Marilyn as my vision dimmed. It felt like I was only seeing through a pinprick now, but it was all her. If I have to die, I thought, this wasn't so bad.

...

"Rick." Marilyn's voice. It was slight, hoarse from misuse. But it was her.

Marilyn.

She pulled me close. Our joined hands rested in her lap, brushing against the steak discarded on her knees. I glanced down at the chewed edges and then up into Marilyn's eyes.

Marilyn.

My Marilyn.

She smiled down at me, and it reached all the way to her eyes, crinkling the delicate skin at the corners.

I grinned back at her.

I couldn't help myself.

Looking up at my wife, and then down into her lap, I could tell that she and I were thinking the same thing. That steak sure looked mighty tasty.

### Epilogue

Spense here. I'll save you the suspense—Rick's okay. I mean, he died, but he's okay. His vocab isn't what it was when he made an 800 on the SAT in high school, so I'm going to finish up his story.

After Rick died, Kevin had to book it back to Baja. He'd given all of the inhibitor he had to Rick and Marilyn, and we know what happens when you miss that. He was pretty angry when he finally got away from the pool zombie. I wasn't sure whether he was going to be in a mood to pop heads when he got back, or whether he'd have cooled off enough to keep giving Rick and Marilyn the inhibitor.

I knew he'd have to come back to deal with the business of the doctor's miracle serum. So I thought I might be able to generate some good will for my buddy if I took care of it. Nothing easier. I just put it out on the spa grapevine that Chatsworth's party had been raided by some overzealous FDA agents. They wanted to ask him some questions about his "miracle," but he had unexpectedly relocated his practice—to a country without an extradition treaty to the US. Then I started a nice side business in supplying a faux version of his miracle serum to the disappointed customers. They never saw the stuff before, so I just got my esthetician, Margo, to mix me up something with plenty of antioxidants and some pomegranate—I love the way that stuff smells.

It doesn't hurt anyone, and I use the money to take care of Rick and Marilyn. Plus, Kevin was so happy he didn't have to do anything when he got back that he keeps Rick and Marilyn supplied with inhibitor. So long as I look after them and make sure they don't bite anyone. It's not a big deal. They only seem interested in biting each other. Luckily, they heal super fast.

I still haven't given up on getting some serum for myself. I even talked Kevin into some surfing lessons—man loves some surfing. I better get some of that serum. Salt water is killer on the skin.

### The Earl and The Electric Venus

For their next trick, Sam and Mac are working on a series of regency romances about ladies who use their sciency smarts to make all of their dreams come true. If you would like to receive a note when they release new ebooks, sign up for their New Releases Mailing List at <http://eepurl.com/bRNIC1>. They promise not to share your email address with anyone or clutter up your inbox.

### About the Author

Samantha McCabe is the pen name for two writers who love tacos, rice crispy treats, Gothic heroes, and stories that start with spies.

_Dead Sexy_ started as a joint writing exercise and proves that they are "finishers" as well as "beginners." Who would have thought that a magazine photo of Johnny Depp in a fedora would incite our crazy tale of shady dermatologists, beautiful zombies, and bromancy high jinx?

One of the writers, Mac, is a graphic artist who designed the awesome _Dead Sexy_ cover. The other writer, Sam, has a PhD in English and is therefore highly qualified to write popular fiction about zombies.

For their next trick, Sam and Mac are working on a series of regency novellas about ladies who use their sciency smarts to make all of their dreams come true.

We hope you get in touch with us at samanthamccabe10@gmail.com or www.samanthamccabe.com to talk about all things writing, design, or dabbling in new adventures.

We also appreciate it when readers review our books at their favorite retailers.

