Time of Zombies (Book 2): The Zombie Hunter's Wife (17 page)

Rule #14   
Protect the woman you
love. She is worth dying for ... even to the undeath.

“I’m going with you,” Seth said with
a growl.

Teddy put his hand on the man’s
shoulder. “You are not. You are staying here with Miss Emily and the children.
If I don’t make it back ...” He swallowed harshly. “Take the kids and go with
Jack and the others.”

Sweat dripped off his face and ran
into his eyes. The effort of dressing had his nerves jangling. He slid a knife
into the sheath on his belt and slammed his gun into the holster. Seth handed
him a machete.

“Tell Miss Emily I’m coming back
with Michelle, or I’m not coming back at all.”

Seth nodded and turned away, his
shoulders slumped as he walked to his trailer. With them all talking at once,
he was surrounded by the Rogue Vantage. Aiden’s eyes were red and wet streaks
ran down his cheeks. Bryant took a deep breath and pulled his shoulders back.
Connor and Dylan looked up at him with belief shining in their eyes. He
wouldn’t let them down.

“I’ll get your mom back and the
others. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t
keep,” Bryant said, glaring at him.

He shook his head. “You’re right. I
won’t bullshit you. I could get killed. But that is all that will stop me. You
understand? I will die to get your mother back to you. If we don’t make it, go
with Miss Emily and Seth.”

The boys swarmed him in hugs. His
eyes watered and he blinked to clear them. Stepping back, he patted each on his
back and watched as they turned and walked away. Dylan went last, turning every
few steps to stare at him, before Connor took his hand and pulled him to the
fire.

“Jack.” A woman’s scream resounded
from the front gate. The hairs on his arms rose at the desperation inherent in
the simple word.

By the time he hobbled his way to
the entrance, Jack had it open and a petite woman stumbled into the man’s arms.

“Lila,” Jack whispered. “What
happened?”

“He took her,” she mumbled through
her split lips. “Juan took her.”

Now Teddy recognized Mrs. Morales,
even with the rags barely covering her bruised and cut body and her chopped off
hair.

“Juan took who?” the commander
questioned, sprawling on the cement with Lila cradled in his arms.

“He took Selena. He ran away and
took her. You have to get her back,” she yelled, grabbing handfuls of Jack’s
shirt.

“Lila, I told you. I’m not the law.
He’s her father.”

“He took her to be his whore.”

Jack’s face whitened and he squeezed
the woman to his chest. “Even so, I can’t do anything. It isn’t my place. I
have to take care of my people here.”

“She’s your responsibility, Jack.
She’s your daughter, mine and yours, not Juan’s.”

Everyone started talking at once,
with the commander’s the loudest, and Teddy slipped out of the gate.

He eyed the truck as he limped by,
but the noise would let Bennett and his men know he was coming. The element of
surprise was all he had going for him. A bum leg, a gun, a knife, and a machete
didn’t count for much, but it would have to do.

Pressing a little harder with each
step, he gritted his teeth and walked through the pain until it was a constant
condition. One to ignore, like the monotonous hum to repel the skinbags. As he
reached the red line on the street, he searched the area but no undead moaned
at the barrier tonight. The tumbled dead bodies marked the group’s passage
earlier. He glanced at each quickly and found none of his friends.

Cody. Ran. Jed. Beth. He pictured
each in his mind and said a prayer he would find them all safe and alive.

Michelle. His mind stumbled along
with his feet as he recoiled at the thought of her undeath and tripped over a
zomb’ in the middle of the road. “Good job, Teddy. Get yourself killed before
you even get there. Lotta help you’ll be.”

He pushed the thoughts of his
friends out of his mind. His friends and ... and what exactly was Michelle
Greggs. Girlfriend was adolescent and not strong enough for what he felt for
that woman. Friend didn’t begin to cover it. Mate. He liked the sound of that
in his mind. She was his mate. His wife, if they survived the night and she’d
have him. He wanted to be Michelle’s husband very, very much.

Moans from the church parking lot
greeted him as he reached the corner and moved to hide behind pine trees and
brush on the corner lot. Flickering torches showed the zombie horde stumbling
around across the blacktop. The cage doors swung in the breeze and clanged
metal against metal. The breeze also carried the stench of rotting flesh. Teddy
pressed a hand to his nose and breathed through his mouth. A crunch of twigs
had him whipping around to his left and raising the machete for a
skull-bashing.

“It’s Ran and Cody,” a voice
whispered in the dark.

He lowered the weapon with a giant
gasp of relief and instantly regretted the deep breath as he was bombarded with
the stink of zombs. His gaze swept their faces as the young man and woman
stepped out of the shadows of the house.

“Where’s Michelle?”

Ran and Cody both turned to stare at
the church. “She said to leave if she didn’t come out but we couldn’t do that,”
Ran whispered. “We got the cages open and let the skinbags out. We thought we
could create a diversion or something. But the men just got their families,
hopped in their cars and trucks, and high-tailed it out of here. Guess they had
enough of the Fruitful Harvest Church,” she finished with an ugly sneer on her pretty
face.

“Did everyone go?” Teddy felt the
blood leave his head at the thought of Michelle kidnapped and gone. It wasn’t
like there was an Amber Alert or something anymore. If Bennett took her, he’d
never find her. Kidnapped people were hard enough to find in the pre-Z time.

“Bennett didn’t show and the big
guy, Elias, I think is his name, came out, looked around, and went back in,”
Cody provided. “I counted thirty-five, women included, the day we were here. At
least that many left, minus Bennett, the big dude, and their women.”

Teddy smiled. “You did good, Cody.”

Miranda punched her boyfriend’s arm.
“Who woulda thunk?”

The young man smiled like he’d run
the game-winning touchdown. “Now, what do we do?”

“
We
don’t do anything,” Teddy
said. “I’m going in there and you two are going back to the RV yard.”

“Teddy,” they both complained. “At
least let us help you get in,” Miranda added.

He turned and counted at least twenty
skinbags milling around the entrance to the church. “Okay, we do this fast. Cut
a path to the door, I go in and you two run like the wind back to camp.”

The two nodded and he prayed they
listened. He needed all his concentration on getting Michelle and the others
out alive, he didn’t need two more people to worry about. His heart raced and
thumped in his chest. He took a few deep breaths, ran/limped as fast as he
could, with Ran and Cody on either side of him.

He grunted as he hacked through
necks and chopped into skulls. Pulling the blade from the last head, he took a
deep breath and whipped around. The area was clear to the door. He shoved the
two kids toward the street. “Go; don’t stop until you get back.”

Staring until they were swallowed by
darkness, Teddy slowly opened the door. He stepped through and closed it with a
quiet click. With a flick of his wrist, he flung the blood off the machete and
raised it at his side.

Voices came from the end of the
hallway. Knowing that was where the church was, he stepped in slow, measured
strides to the brightness at the end of the carpeted space. He hugged the wall
as he reached the light. His gaze swept the room. A man with a bloody back hung
from the wall. He swallowed as the figure turned and light shone on his eyeglasses.
Jed moaned. A woman’s cries had him rushing forward. Light-brown hair shielded
her face, but he still recognized Beth tied to another pillar, blood dripping
off her naked body. Teddy gazed long enough to note her chest moving with
breaths.

Bennett stood over a form on the
floor. He saw red as he glimpsed Michelle’s half-naked body sprawled on the
carpet at Billy Joe’s feet. The man smiled as he yanked her up and pulled her
in front of him, his hand cupping her breast.

“If it isn’t the man himself,” Billy
Joe drawled. “The great Teddy Ridgewood. The world’s greatest lover, or so I’m
told.” The man squeezed Michelle’s breast until she screamed. Her head came up
and her eyes widened as she stared over his shoulder.

Teddy turned, raising the machete.
Something hit him in the back of the head. Darkness and the rough texture of the
carpet greeted him as Michelle’s cries reverberated in his head and the room.

Rule #15   
Love isn’t a
requirement in the zombie apocalypse. But without love, what are you surviving
for?

Tears streamed down her face as
Elias turned Teddy’s limp body over and tied his hands together in front. Then
the large man slapped him across the face. Moans rolled from him as Teddy
stirred and sat up.

He was still alive. There was
still hope.

He opened his eyes and anger filled
them as he stared at her in Bennett’s lap. A shudder ran through her. She never
wanted that hatred directed at her. She struggled to get away, but Billy Joe
put the knife to her throat and she stilled.

Elias dragged Teddy up to his knees
and placed a knife at his throat. Bile rose in her throat. They were going to
die and she’d never told him of her love for him. Of her respect for him. Of
her belief in him. She mouthed the three little magic words to him and smiled
as he mouthed them back.

“None of that,” Bennett growled,
nicking her with the knife. The warm blood trickled down her neck to her bare
chest.

Teddy tried to get up, but Elias
yanked an arm around his throat and pulled his head back. The point of the
knife pushed his chin up.

“Stop, I’ll do whatever you want,”
she cried. “Just don’t kill him, please.”

Bennett’s laugh skated across her
nerves like fingernails on a metal door. “I wouldn’t kill Mr. Ridgewood. He
would become the new beginning of my Resurrected. He would live forever.

“Besides, I knew you would say that.
All women are weak. They will use their lustful bodies to get what they want.
All women are whores at heart. They think nothing of breaking their marriage
vows. They think nothing of whoring themselves for
the church.
They
think nothing of everyone knowing what they are doing. They think their sons
don’t know, but they do.”

His spittle hit her bare skin as
Billy Joe ranted and raved. The knife on her skin wavered and fell. She pushed
away and jumped up. He grabbed her hair and pulled her back before she could
get anywhere. Pulling her back against his chest, he moved the knife to her
face. She caught her breath and held it. The man had lost it, even more than
before. She didn’t even know if it were her he was mad at or some other woman
or all women.

“Bet you wouldn’t want her if her
lovely, lying face was all cut up,” Bennett shouted across the room.

Teddy pulled his body straight and
his warm brown gaze locked onto hers. “I would love Michelle no matter what she
looked like on the outside. I know she is even lovelier on the inside.”

Billy Joe stood, taking her with
him, his hand still locked in her hair, the other gripping the knife at her
throat. “Let’s put it to the test, shall we? Let’s see if true love is really
that true.”

“I told you I would do anything to
save Teddy,” she whispered.

“Of that I have no doubt,” Bennett
hissed against her ear. “Women are weak and use their feminine wiles at the first
sign of trouble. But what will Mr. Ridgewood do to save you?”

He turned his head and yelled across
the room. “What will you do, Teddy, to save Michelle?”

“I’ll do anything to save her,” he
said, loud and clear. “Kill me, you can do whatever. Just let her go.”

“Teddy, do you know what I thought
from the minute I laid eyes on you?”

He shook his head.

“I thought what a great breeder you
would be. Like a bull in a pasture of cows. I could breed up an army of
warriors. God had a plan for me. The start of a kingdom. And now that is all
gone because of you. You and your slut.

“But you are going to fix all of
that, Teddy Ridgewood. If you want her to live, you are going to give her to
me. To make my wife. And once I do, I’m going to take her here, in this holy
church and the last thing you see will be your blood pumping out across the
floor as I make her my wife; mind, body, and soul.”

A buzzing started in her head. The lighting
dimmed and her knees shook. Billy Joe yanked her up as her knees tried to fold.

No. No. No. No.

She yelled the words, but only in
her head, as her mouth moved and no sound came out.

Bennett pulled back her head and
placed the cold steel of the knife on her throat. She gagged as he increased
the pressure until she couldn’t swallow.

Just do it. Everything would be
over so quickly and she could leave this insane world and she wouldn’t see
Teddy die. She couldn’t see another man she loved die.

Teddy. She’d found love twice in
this lifetime. Some people never found it once and she’d known two amazing men.
Mitch and Teddy. So different from each other, but so alike in some ways too.
They’d give their lives for her. She’d always known that about Mitch and now
Teddy had proven it as well. Even injured, he’d rushed to save her. She
straightened her back and stared at the man she loved. Putting all her love
into her thoughts, she prayed he would see it in her eyes. And in her hand. The
one she formed into a gun shape like the kids did and pointed it at Teddy.

Sweat gathered in her eyes and
rolled down her face before Teddy blinked back at her. Two blinks. A pause. Two
more. Do it, she mouthed to him.

“What do you say, Ridgewood?”
Bennett pressed the knife to her neck. She flinched, afraid to move, to
breathe.

She stared as Teddy swallowed, his
Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. The man fought to do what must be done, while
she could see it went against everything inside him.

“I give Michelle Greggs to you as
your bride. I renounce all claim to her,” Teddy whispered. In the silent room
it carried as loud as a yell.

“Submit to me,” he whispered in her
ear. “Submit and Ridgewood will die instead of being resurrected. “ Her body
trembled as the knife moved from her throat to the back of her head. She lowered
her head, stared at the dark carpet through a haze of tears, and wished a
thousand anguished deaths on Billy Joe Bennett.

“I claim you and mark you as my wife
and helpmate,” he intoned in a smug voice. “I mark you with shorn hair to show
your fidelity and loyalty as a good wife.”

The blade sliced through her hair
and she was unable to stop the angry tears from flowing down her face. She
stared as handfuls of hair pooled at her feet and a breeze wafted across her
bare nape. His hands shook as they grazed her neck. Each slice took eons as he
dragged the torture out, fondling her hair and rubbing himself against her
body.

“It’s only hair,” she whispered to
herself.

At last, he stopped and dropped the
knife to the floor with a muted thud. He clamped his hands on her shoulders and
pushed her to her knees.

“Go with God and may you find your
wife submissive and pure,” the large man intoned from where he stood by Teddy.

“Now you are mine and in your
rightful place as a woman, at the feet of a man.”

Her teeth clenched as she imagined
the gloating smile on his face, his cold-blue eyes heated with lust. Then she
reached for the gun in her boot. The tiny .380 that her husband had said was
useless for anything bigger than a rat.

She’d left the camp with a gun in a
holster and a knife in a sheath in plain view and just as she’d imagined, they’d
taken them. But in Bennett’s greed to get her partially naked, he’d left her
jeans and boots on. He would pay for that stupid mistake.

“Now I’ll take my wife, Ridgewood,
and it’ll be the last thing you see,” he crowed, grabbing her neck and spinning
her around.

Her arm rose with the gun in her
hand. She shoved it against Billy Joe’s crotch and fired. The sound hummed in
her ears as the man fell over, screaming and grabbing himself. His blood shot
across the floor and splattered her face.

Michelle spun around to shoot Elias,
praying she’d miss Teddy. Her jaw dropped open as Ran and Cody rushed into the
room. Ran swung her machete and hit the large man in the neck. Blood sprayed
across the young woman as he toppled to the floor, twitched a few times, and
went still. He’d be back in a moment, but she’d let them deal with Elias.

She stood up and turned to finish
off Bennett. An older woman knelt beside him. She recognized Roberta, his wife.
Reaching down, the woman picked up the fallen knife and turned to Michelle.

She kept her hand steady on the gun.
“Don’t make me shoot you. He isn’t worth it.”

“No, he isn’t,” she whispered, as
she plunged the knife into his chest. “You are the Resurrected, my darling.”

Michelle jumped, her finger
tightening on the trigger as Roberta turned the knife on herself and plunged it
into her stomach. She rushed forward, but the veil of death was already
appearing in the woman’s eyes.

“Why?” she asked, her hand grabbing
and clasping the older woman’s.

“Now he will be all mine again,” she
whispered and closed her eyes.

She stood, pulled her jeans up, and
took stock. Ran and Cody had cut Teddy loose and rushed to check on Jed and
Beth. Ran stepped back and shook her head, raising the machete in front of
Beth’s mutilated body.

“No,” Michelle cried out. “We can’t
do that to our friends. They deserve to go in peace.”

She stood by as Ran cut the ropes holding
Beth’s limp body to the pillar. The young woman laid her friend on the floor
and covered her with a blanket. Cody did the same for Jed. Michelle jumped as
they twitched beneath the covers. She moved closer and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
The sound of the gunshot echoed twice in the cavernous space.

She grabbed a torch off the wall.
“This place has known evil, but it once knew goodness.” She threw the torch to
the floor in front of Roberta and Billy Joe and stared as the flames caught on
the carpet and the clothing of the dead.

The others rushed around and
followed suit. Teddy ripped the isolation curtains from the rear and added them
to the growing flames. The rest caught fire quickly and smoke roiled against
the ceiling and started filling the space.

The crackle of fire and the groans
of the newly turned followed them as they all rushed to the hallway and the
door beyond.

They ran outside and Michelle took a
deep breath of fresh air as Teddy took off his shirt, wiped her face, and pulled
it over her head.

He grasped her close and kissed her
lips.

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“If you’re done with the lovey-dovey
stuff, do you think I could go with you guys?” An unknown voice wavered and
cracked from the young girl standing by the empty zomb’ cages.