This is a sample of my story "Kicking the Habit" from the book Hungry for Your Love, the first anthology of zombie romance.

 

Kicking the Habit

by Steven Saus

 

I almost didn't hear her say hello over the guard's screams.

He wasn't just screaming because of me. He took a nasty header into a pit while fleeing across the construction site. His right leg was bent at a nasty angle. If you took the time to look, there was probably bone sticking out somewhere. I wasn't looking at his leg.

My eyes locked with his as I lowered myself into the hole. Or to be honest, he looked at my eyes. I stared at the grey matter a few inches behind his. Despite the decay, my stomach rumbled and my salivary glands tried to summon a few drops.

"Hello?" she called again. Her voice echoed off an abandoned backhoe. "John?"

That got my attention. Friendly greetings were rare enough since I rose, but someone calling me by name... well, that was really odd. It was a nice change from the usual greeting of "Oh dear God, no!" or maybe "Quick, get the shotgun!"

She stood on the other side of the pit, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. The jutting forms of two cranes framed her body against the clear night sky, creating an illusory archway behind her.

That was what I recognized at first: It was Maria's pose in an arch, just like the prom picture I'd stolen from the funeral home. Casual, relaxed. Except in the photo she was still a few hours away from being dead.

She lurched around the edge of the pit, turning as she shuffled so she kept me in sight. The moonlight shimmered on her skin. My memory filled in the soft lines of her face and edited out the patchwork of stitches and scars from the accident. Her gown billowed lightly around her arms in the breeze as if carried by the guard's whimpering cries. I had never thought about her rising. Never considered that I would see her again someday.

"Maria?" My voice was raspy and hoarse. I'd like to say it was just emotion, but part of my esophagus had rotted away a few weeks ago. "I remember you."

 

Read the rest of this story - and twenty more in Hungry For Your Love, the first anthology of zombie romance. You can get the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the bookseller of your choice.