Into Temptation (A More Than Men Novella) (7 page)
Read Into Temptation (A More Than Men Novella) Online
Authors: Kira Sinclair
The Walking Sexy
By Andrea Laurence
745 Days since the Outbreak
18:53 Hours
"Damn, you rotten bastards stink."
Greyson Foster tossed a stray arm onto the pile of burning, infected corpses and crinkled his nose in disgust. Whether you called them zombies, biters, flesh eaters, stumblers, walkers, rotters, the undead — or his personal favorite, meat puppets — there was nothing quite like the smell of their burning bodies. It was one of the worst funks Grey had ever encountered, but over the last two years since the outbreak, it had become a familiar and comforting scent, like apple pie had been in his childhood.
Apple pie. He missed that kind of stuff. There weren’t any fresh-baked goods around these parts anymore. He was lucky to find a stale, cellophane-wrapped cupcake in an abandoned gas station. But he hadn’t given up hope of having it again one day.
There were rumors that the virus hadn’t reached the western United States yet. Most survivors had fled the South, leaving it a giant ghost town. At first, Grey thought he might go with the living he’d once considered to be his brothers and sisters, but that hadn’t worked out. Not once they saw his bandaged arm.
And the unhealed bite mark that lay beneath it.
They were right to be scared of Grey. Any other person he’d encountered with a bite from one of the infected had died and reawakened with a desperate hunger for living human flesh. That was what happened to James. His friend had been one of the first to come down with the delirious fever. He’d stumbled, frightened, into Grey’s apartment and started vomiting blood. James hadn’t meant to bite Grey. He apologized profusely. And then he was dead.
Grey had seen some terrible things while he was in the Marines. Two tours in the Middle East had both traumatized and desensitized him. It was the perfect training for what was to come after the outbreak. When James’s body shot up from the couch and stumbled after him with pale, dead eyes, Grey had fled his apartment and never gone back.
The bite also never healed. And Grey never became one of the dead, although he had changed.
He didn’t know what he was anymore. Aside from cold. Grey was outfitted in some military gear and weapons he’d found at an abandoned army base. He’d spent so many years in fatigues that the clothes made him feel comfortable and ready for battle. But it was summer gear, and fall was settling in. The first start of color had begun to touch the leaves. The cooler air was a blessed break from the oppressive southern heat. He never realized how much he loved air-conditioning until he didn’t have it anymore. Or central heat.
The sun was about to disappear for the night. Grey picked up the last of the day’s kills and tossed the body onto the grim funeral pyre. He’d dispatched twelve today, so the flames would burn most of the night and keep him warm. He’d slept by the warmth of burning biters every evening since the power went out. Destroying the bodies seemed like the most sanitary thing to do. It was also a deterrent to any of the stumblers in the immediate area.
Normally a fire would draw the undead, any light would, but they weren’t as stupid as people liked to think. They seemed to have a keen sense of smell and were drawn to the scent of the living. Grey was fairly certain they used smell to track their prey. His own sense of smell had increased exponentially since he was bitten, which was unfortunate considering hygiene was pretty substandard anymore. The warm, musky human scent was irresistible to a biter. At the same time, the scent of burning zombie bodies repelled them. They would go the other direction on pure instinct.
Grey eased back onto a concrete curb to rest and looked around him. He hadn’t paid much attention to what town he was in. It seemed like he was on the edges of a fairly large city. Last he saw, he was in Tennessee. He’d been following I-40 out of North Carolina, so this might be the fringes of Knoxville.
He scanned the various buildings and signs, but nothing offered any clues.
And then he saw it. A light.
Grey could see the five-story building about a block away. On the top floor a light was shining through two of the corner windows. He could make out a figure moving past the window, but couldn’t determine if it was a man or a woman. That was curious. And tempting. Most people’s generators had run out of fuel a long time ago.
He picked up his assault rifle and slung it over his shoulder. It didn’t take long for him to reach the building. The sign on the door read "Citron Research Laboratories." The door was locked, as it should be. But that wouldn’t discourage Grey. He wasn't just roaming around killing biters. He was looking for survivors. If there were still humans in the area, they needed to know what was coming for them. So they could run far and fast.
All the first-floor doors and windows were secure and the glass, bulletproof. Whoever was up there had chosen an excellent location to camp out. But in the alley behind the building was a fire escape. He didn’t dare pull the ladder down and give the dead a method to scale up. Instead Grey climbed on top of a dumpster and leaped up to the second-floor metal landing. He was able to pull himself up and over the railing. From there it was easy to take the stairs up to the top.
The fifth-floor windows were sealed just as tight, so he continued up to the roof. He’d expected to find gravel and rusty metal fixtures, but Grey found himself in a rooftop garden with a large solar panel. Sprawled low across the roof were raised flower beds overflowing with assortments of vegetables and herbs. Even late in the fall there were plenty of things still growing.
He walked up to one of the beds and plucked a small, ripe tomato from a vine. It burst in his mouth, warm and flavorful. He hadn't had fresh produce in a long time. He ran across the occasional wild berries, but that was it. Smart and resourceful. Grey was impressed, and he didn’t even know who lived here yet.
There was a doorway just beyond the gardens. If any door might be unlocked, it would be that one. There were no other buildings around of the same height for the living or the dead to leap onto the roof. He was about to walk over and try the knob when he heard the metal of the lock scrape and the door slowly pushed open.
Grey tensed and held his rifle at the ready. Approaching the living anymore could be just as dangerous as the dead. Humans turned on each other in a battle for limited resources. If they thought he was raiding their garden, they could shoot him in an instant.
The door swung open, and a single, small figure stepped out into the dim, dusk light. Normally he could see well in the dark, but the backlighting of sunset made the shape indistinguishable, even for him. They were carrying a basket, probably coming out to gather some things for their dinner. Grey crouched down as the figure turned in his direction and then approached a bed with lettuce greens.
It was there, with the last of the sunset outlining the shape, that he realized it was a woman. His enhanced vision adjusted to the light, and he could finally make out the long hair and trim figure in formfitting clothing. There was a handgun strapped to her hip, but none in her hands as she warily watched her surroundings and quickly picked vegetables.
Grey couldn’t risk her going inside and locking the door again, but he had to be careful not to startle her, either. He slung the gun onto his shoulder, held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and slowly stood up. "Don’t scream," he said.
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