Love Lies Bleeding (12 page)
Read Love Lies Bleeding Online
Authors: Meghan Ciana Doidge
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Romantic Comedy, #Comedy
Zombie Pamela joined Zombie Grady at the front of the church. Zombie Grady loosed the Minister so he could clasp Zombie Pamela’s hands. They expectantly turned to the Minister, who could not find his voice in the face of his fear.
Grady loosed one of Pamela’s hands to give the Minister a comforting pat on the shoulder.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness … a … a … truly blessed event, a … a marriage of equals, of friends, of life partners.”
At the back of the church, the bridesmaid that Pamela had snacked on earlier woke as a zombie. She began feasting on the last few guests, effectively cutting off the main doors as an escape route.
Zombie Pamela, utterly in love, looked up at Zombie Grady with a gaze of absolute adoration. He leaned down to kiss her.
The Minister keeled over in a dead faint.
•••••••••
Later, outside the church, the street was blocked by police vehicles. Scattered across the lawn and sidewalks, the surviving wedding guests spoke to detectives and uniformed officers.
Phil arrived at the scene in a nondescript car. As he exited the vehicle, he was immediately approached by Dan Sullivan, the officer in charge. “Special Agent …”
“Phil. Just Phil. Phillip, if you prefer.”
“Dan Sullivan. We expected you over an hour ago.”
“Sorry, reports are coming in all over the city. But I hear you have the two we’re looking for.”
“This way.” Sullivan directed Phil toward the side street and a police van. “What the hell is going on?”
“That information is need-to-know only. A containment leak, but we’ve got it under control. It’s what happens when asshole rogue agents think they know better than their partners.” That last bit was more muttered to himself than shared with the officer.
Officer Sullivan yanked open the back doors of the van.
The Zombie Groom was held down by multiple chains to one side of the van. He, quite literately, was chomping at the bit to bite his terrified bride, who was curled in the far corner of the van. She was just outside his reach, and had somehow managed to not get a scratch on her, though her hair was a bit disheveled.
“What the hell is this?”
“Took five guys to get this one chained up and muzzled.” Officer Sullivan indicated the Zombie Groom, who watched both men for a moment, and then lunged at his bride again. Each time he did so, she shrieked. “Had to put another one down ourselves, bullet to the head like you guys advised. A woman. Nasty stuff.”
“A bride?” Phil asked, his voice laced with concern.
“No, that’s your bride there.”
“That’s not the bride I’m looking for. Her dress was a cap sleeve, pink-flowered bustier, and a bias-cut meringue skirt with a train. This one’s dress is obviously off the rack.”
Officer Sullivan, mouth agape, just stared at Phil. The Zombie Groom lunged and the bride shrieked again.
Phil sighed heavily and turned to walk back toward his car. Once there, he pulled out and dialed a cell. “It’s not them. Send in an extermination crew. It seems we’ve lost them.”
He hung up the phone and opened the driver’s-side car door. He glanced up at the church and a slow smile spread over his face. Pamela and Grady were together at last, he had always believed in happy endings.
Still grinning, he climbed in the car and pulled away.
THE CODE
This Agent became attached to the “Love Lies Bleeding” case, so named by said agent, when Agent Grady Nolan (status: infected; location: unknown) was the target of an assassination attempt and presumed dead. Agent Nolan had previously informed on his then-partner, Agent Erwin Monroe’s (status: deceased) involvement with the [REDACTED: under active investigation], a terrorist organization of known war lords, who routinely and illegally supplied foreign countries including, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] with weapons.
This faction was headed by a Mr. Doyle (given name unknown) (status: deceased; location: in containment), who had his enforcer, Shep (surname unknown) (status: deceased), attempt to murder Agent Nolan. The attempt on Agent Nolan’s life was due to his involvement with the procurement and further refinement of the serum known as SS222 (two twenty-two). SS222 was obtained by Agent Nolan through clandestine means from the [REDACTED] organization. Just before his presumed death, Agent Nolan informed the department of the further duplicity of his then-handler, Agent Karli Gibbon (status: deceased; location: containment), who, unbeknownst to her department, had set up a covert testing facility and was using Agent Nolan’s hypothetical modifications to perform her own experiments with SS222.
After Agent Nolan’s presumed death, Agents Monroe and Gibbon, separately, assumed that Pamela Alexander (status: infected; location: unknown), Agent Nolan’s true love (in this agent’s honest opinion) and fiancée, had knowledge of a code contained within a series of emails she had received from Agent Nolan only days before his presumed death. Agents Monroe and Gibbon, independently kidnapped, tortured, drugged, and then, inadvertently, infected Ms. Alexander in an attempt to gain access to this code, and therefore access to the information about SS222 hidden within the so-called “Barcelona” email transmissions.
There is some conjecture that Agent Nolan was able to perfect said serum, on a theoretical basis, and create the super soldier. However, seeing as how the laptop and all information housed at Agent Gibbon’s covert location are currently missing, the validity of this claim is unknown at this time. This Agent can only hope that the information, if it exists, resides safely with Agent Nolan and Ms. Alexander, rather than falling into the wrong hands.
In regards to containment, with the exceptions of Agent Nolan and Ms. Alexander, all known infected have been identified, located, and exterminated. This agent feels that any potential outbreak has been thwarted, though further monitoring of the situation is paramount. This Agent is happy to continue to oversee the Love Lies Bleeding case.
—
Agent Phil Phillips, March 3, 2013
CHAPTER TWELVE
An Office, Yet Another Undisclosed Location - Weeks Later
A parcel waited on a desk in a cubicle office. At first glance, the desk appeared cluttered. However, on closer inspection, each pile of files or papers was quite stealthily organized. It was a system developed to confused any intruders or co-worker looking to steal cases. A knitting Page-A-Day calendar written by the Yarn Harlot declared the date as April 2.
Phil wandered in, cradling his morning cup of coffee and attempting to read a
Lock and Key
graphic novel while walking. He had almost finished the series and he wasn’t sure the character of Tyler was going to survive, which was seriously upsetting. Though he was behind in his reading, he’d managed to avoid spoilers.
Phil promptly spilled his coffee in the surprise of seeing the parcel waiting on his desk. Though happily, he didn’t splash the comic.
The parcel was badly beaten up, and more than a little bloody around the edges. The shipping stamp indicated that it had originated in the Yukon, Canada, but there was no return address.
Phil frowned, leaned down, and listened to the box.
Seemingly satisfied, he shrugged, set down what was left of his coffee, and opened the package.
Amongst crumpled newspapers, he discovered Pamela’s laptop, the hard drive and map-memo from Karli’s office, and a DVD. The disc titled,
Pamela & Grady Are Getting Married,
had the number 7:32 scrawled across it.
A messily handwritten note was also included in the package. The note read, in crayon and large childish letters:
AZ PROMMIZED.
The note was signed with the initials:
P&G
. These letters were encircled with a clumsily drawn heart.
Phil eagerly placed the disc into the DVD tray of his computer, and, once the video playback began, dragged the playhead to the timecode, 7:32. Grady’s face filled the screen. “
Ah, the first kiss was perfection itself
,” Grady-on-the-DVD said. “
Filtered street light, after hours spent talking … but a gentleman never tells tales
.”
Phil hooted with glee, hit the escape key on the keyboard, and grabbed the ejected disc. He then gathered up the box and sprinted from the office, yelling, “The emails are voice activated, pass phrase protected!! They did it! They came through!”
The note, blown from the box with Phil’s abrupt exit, fluttered to the ground.
And they all lived happily ever after …
For Michael
without whom love wouldn’t conquer anything at all
With thanks to:
My Screenplay Story Editors
Vivian Danielson, Heather Doidge-Sidhu, Eric Finkel, Scott Fitzgerald Gray, Ita Margalit, & David Spencer
My Novella Editor
Scott Fitzgerald Gray
For their continual encouragement, feedback, and general advice
The Cold Reading Series (for hosting a read of the first act), all the actors who read (for helping me find rhythm and hone dialogue), & James Holt (who called it a crazy, fun roller coaster ride and informed me that, no matter how good it was, there was no way to finance it).
For her Art
Irene Langholm
And, of course,
my friends and family
, who put up with endless hours of film plot & structure dissection, dialogue honing, and character discussion. Through all the ranting and raving, some writing does happen, and at least I knit & gift. A lot.
Meghan Ciana Doidge
is an award-winning writer based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She has a penchant for bloody love stories, superheroes, and the supernatural. She also has a bit of a thing for chocolate, potatoes, and sock yarn.
LOVE LIES BLEEDING is Meghan’s first novella. It is based on a screenplay of the same name. This screenplay, one of Meghan’s bloody comedy series, is one of her absolute favorite scripts, and she plans on making it a feature film one day.
Novels
After The Virus
Spirit Binder
Time Walker (Fall 2012)
The Seer of the Wastelands (December 2012)
Novellas
Love Lies Bleeding
You can connect with Meghan on:
Her personal blog,
Twitter,
Facebook,
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
Copyright © 2012 Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions 2012
Vancouver, BC, Canada
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada
Doidge, Meghan Ciana, 1973 —
Love Lies Bleeding/Meghan Ciana Doidge — Kindle edition
ISBN 978-0-9916977-00
Cover image & design by Irene Langholm
Stock by Nichelle Nolan, Australia
Used with Permission
An excerpt from the novel
AFTER THE VIRUS
Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions
Vancouver, BC, Canada
The complete novel is available as an ebook and in paperback.
HER
Waking up was never a good idea, and this morning she had momentarily thought she was… before, before them, before this life. If this was what it was to survive the virus, she didn’t much like it, but the alternative, killing herself, seemed cheap and easy.
She could hear a woman weeping; something she hadn’t ever done.
Shut the fuck up, you’ll just entice them
; the walking horrors and their keepers.
They hadn’t raped her… yet. They had other plans.
If you weren’t for breeding, they fed you to the Infected; that’s how they kept them alive, inhumanly strong and terrifying — the blood of the immune.
It felt like months, but she was sure she had only been here a few days. She was also very sure her friends-of-necessity were dead.
It was difficult to gauge in the dark. They, all women, were crammed into some concrete box, not chained but definitely trapped. There was a toilet; the door had been removed and it didn’t flush, but at least they weren’t continually sitting in piss and shit.
She was definitely in some city they were working to get back online, but food still came in cans.
There’d been a power surge yesterday, and when her eyes adjusted, she’d seen the door through which she would find freedom or death.
Chair like cages, stirrups, and women with electrodes to their heads and bellies — baby mills?
They made sure she had seen it all, like they were giving her some sort of insanity tour when they dragged her in.
She was either going to go crazy, die of boredom, or kill the woman who kept trying to fiddle her whenever she succumbed to sleep.
Footsteps.
She could also hear the chains they kept around the Infecteds’ necks.
Why bring them at all?
These few women were too broken to bolt.
They came every few hours to either take women or drop new cattle. Normally, along with all the others, she pressed against a gritty wall, eyes downcast, willing them not to see her.
Not today.