Waking Up Dead

the zombies might have learned.”

She moved quickly, quietly, across the small place and eyed the door. Luke sighed to see her stance. She was in fight mode. Hell, she was always in fight mode and it had not slacked off over the last few days. If anything, it had gotten worse. He suspected it was being in close proximity to the zombie that had her strung so tight, because she constantly looked like she was a hair trigger away from sending Mandy slicing through someone, and just last night she’d woken up screaming.

“Then by all means invite the courteous zombie in,” he said.

She turned, scowled at him, but gripped the handle. She was still in a snit about their conversation in the lab. Not to mention the fact he’d witnessed her full-on nightmare, something he suspected bruised her bad-ass ego a little. So yeah, it was snit all around. He knew it, she knew it, and right now there was a certain sort of barrier between them. Oh, it wasn’t a breaking barrier. They still spent time together, eating and talking and making love. But the barrier was there, and they were both aware of it. It colored their conversations, gave a hard edge to their time in bed, and it would have to be resolved. Only Luke didn’t have any clue how.

“No need for the ax,” Nancy said when Jackson opened the door.

“Force of habit, and it’s a machete not an ax.”

Nancy shrugged. “Same difference.

Nancy looked the same as she always did. Harassed. She was wearing an outfit very like Jackson’s. Jeans, a tee, boots, and a healthy dollop of attitude. Her hair was scraped back into a braid but strands of it were falling free and as he looked at her she brushed one back impatiently. Luke got the impression the woman was personally offended by her unruly hair and he jumped out of bed with a smile.

“Something funny, Luke?” she asked and he shook his head before pulling on a tee.

“Nope. Just wondering what’s up.”

Nancy grimaced. “We have a situation.”

“Which is?”

Nancy turned from him and fixed her gaze on Jackson. “One that needs you, apparently,” she said. “Sebastian asked me to get you ASAP.”

“Right.”

There was no need for her to get dressed. Jackson slept in her clothes. Jeans, tee, and socks. All she had to do was slip into her boots. He, on the other hand, loved the fact that he could just wear a pair of boxers. It reminded him of the old days. He dragged his jeans on, slipped his gun in his waistband, and grabbed his ax. Nancy saw his action and frowned.

“We only need Jackson,” she said.

“I’m coming.”

His tone left no room for argument. The last two days had been bad enough. Jackson setting out with Sebastian and leaving him behind every goddamn morning. When she got back she told him what she’d been dong, taking great pains to let him know that everything was safe, and that it had been almost dull. She spoke of the experiments and the possibility of a cure but Luke didn’t want to believe too much in it. It seemed impossible, really.

That, combined with the worry, ate away at him. He was angry and riled up and he hated the distance between them—but didn’t know how to fix it. He did not want her working with the zombies and the weird doctor. She wouldn’t give up something she thought was important—and hell, maybe it could be! Just because he was skeptical didn’t mean anything. They were in a stalemate.

“We’ll go together,” Jackson said surprising him, and he smiled automatically.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, come on.”

They sorted themselves out and followed Nancy out the door. Jackson somehow made her way to the front and made her way down the stairs ninja style. Despite the fact it pissed him off to see it, Luke couldn’t help but admire her style. It was the dual desires all over again. The desire to see her a little bit more normal, the desire to make her happy, and then the knowledge that she was bad-ass, good at this life. But that it was dangerous, and no matter how bad-ass you were, your luck always ran out in the end…

As they stepped outside the air was noticeably cooler than it had been in their room and Luke wished he’d thought to grab a sweater. There was no time to go back though because Jackson was striding forward. Her gaze was fixed on Nancy.

“So what’s up?” she asked. “Sebastian surely doesn’t want to hit the shack at this time of night?”

“It’s madness going there at night despite our security sweeps.”

Jackson laughed softly. “Yeah, well he wouldn’t see it that way if he got one of his ideas in his head.”

“I know,” Nancy said, “and sometimes it is necessary.”

Her words sent a chill up Luke’s spine and he was glad he’d insisted on coming along, sweater or no. Something was up and whatever it was he was going to be part of it. Jackson out and about in the heat of the day was one thing. The cool air of the night was something else entirely and she’d need him. Whether she wanted to admit it or not. He flexed his ax a little and was surprised at how good the wood felt in his hand. Though not as gung-ho as his girlfriend, Luke too had missed the feel of his weapon.

They made their way across the courtyard, around the opposite cluster of houses, and past a long row of greenhouses. Luke couldn’t help but look around the perimeter and was pleased to see people up there on the towers, chatting softly, laughing now and then but, more importantly, keeping an eye on the outside. At this time of night they stood between everyone and the zombies, and though Luke didn’t want Jackson doing it, he was grateful to those who were doing it, would probably take a turn himself at some point.

“Here we go,” Nancy said.

She opened the door of a large bungalow-type building.

“Whose house is this?” Luke asked.

“It’s the medical building,” Jackson replied. “Seb lives here. Keeps his stuff here.”

“It’s always useful to have things on hand,” Nancy said. “Things are necessary sometimes.”

She gestured to the end of the hall, and they followed her into a large kitchen. Of course, it wasn’t a kitchen anymore. The cooking equipment from every house—at least in those that it had been installed in—had been moved into the main house to create a large kitchen where everyone could eat their rations. And it was clear immediately that Sebastian had turned the faux kitchen into some sort of workstation. Luke gaped a little as he looked over the equipment because it had been so long since he’d seen anything remotely like it. Several laptops were plugged into an overflowing circuit breaker, and though he had no idea what was on the screens, something was. The laptops worked! Not to mention the printer he could see plugged in and a small circular thing that looked suspiciously like a satellite dish.

We have some things working. He remembered Nancy’s words and whistled slowly. This was more than he’d thought possible, put his shitty radio set to shame.

“Does he have Bejeweled Blitz?” he wondered and Jackson smacked him in the arm.

His muffled words were enough to pull Sebastian from whatever world he was in, because he started, his hair standing on end, a puzzled look chasing across his face. Luke opened his mouth to speak but Jackson beat him to it.

“What’s going on?”

“Erm, we have a small problem,” Sebastian replied, the puzzled look still in place. “We need your help here, Jack.”

“What sort of problem?” Luke asked, stepping forward.

Sebastian shot him a grin, surprising him and beckoning him forward. “Good to see you too, Luke. We’re going to need plenty of hands. Mack’s sent some people to get Pete and a couple of his friends.”

“For what?

Sebastian’s grin slipped into a frown and he pointed across the room. “For that.”

…

The red-haired zombie was inside some sort of cage, like one people would have used in the old days for a large dog, so Jackson guessed that was what Nancy meant by Sebastian keeping stuff here that was necessary. There were no dogs in the camp and he had several of these same cages at the shack. The zombie was also