It's Complicated: A Zombie Romance Novel

Key to his heart

I had to wait. I had to draw them in.

But Zombies are nothing if not slow. It felt like an eternity until the first one touched me. It was Gideon. Of course it was Gideon, or whatever his real name was. I still didn't know how to take the fact that he was Tommy, too. It was all too crazy for me. Gideon had been the first one in the room, after all, so it made sense that he was the first to reach me.

MAAS had stopped talking. He was just standing there, like the computer generated image he was, waiting to win. He thought he had it all wrapped up. That I would just sit here and hand my own head to him on a silver platter. But I was no prophet, and this house wasn't a jail. He might be getting his present all wrapped up in a blood soaked bow, but it would cost him everything, just like me.

I couldn't wait. Catching MAAS off guard for once was going to be the sweetest victory of all, even if it had such a high price on my end.

Zombie Gideon was soon fully illuminated in the ring of light protecting the pedestal. I waited for both his hands to wrap around my waist. Instead of lifting me away from the pedestal he used his position to anchor me there. He couldn't possibly know what I was doing, could he? I just had to wait.

Then Lee Ann was right there on the other side, pulling at my back. Blood from her hand smeared my shirt before she got a hold on me. Even missing fingers, she was able to get a good grasp on my wrist. I used my other hand to chop myself free, following that up with a straight kick to her stomach. She'd thank me later when she had her mind back.

'I was doing it for her good,' I told myself. I managed to set her back a few steps and knock the air out of her, judging by the way she was doubled over, clutching her flat stomach.

'Do zombies need to breathe?' I wondered. I didn't have time to dwell on the subject. Lee Ann was up and making another grab for the key. I couldn't let her get it. It was my only ace in the hole. Without the card, everything would be lost. I just had to hold on a little bit longer. Get them all a bit closer.

Another zombie I didn't recognize was already on top of me, trying to pull me back towards the slow moving crowd. I gave that one a punch to the face. I could feel his nose break under my fingers. He didn't look all that much in pain as blood coursed down to mingle with the stage blood already there. But he did let go of my arm. That's when I saw Bite My Butt make a lunge for the space Broken Nose had created. She had both of my legs. I couldn't move, couldn't shake her.

Then they surged. I held on to the platform and the key. Bodies on top of bodies, all trying to get a piece of me. All trying to win a game they didn't even know they were still playing. Mindless bodies bent to MAAS's will.

Grotesque arms, limbs, hands, and teeth all trying to get a piece of me, the girl who'd made it to the end. The would-be winner. Only none of them knew the cost of winning. All that was in their ugly collective heads was the need to feed off my flesh. The desire to win that yet unknown ultimate prize fed to them by their computer master. A prize that had cost each and every one of them their very souls.

Like magic Gideon appeared right before my eyes in this, my most desperate hour of need. My knight in shining armor stood face to face with me under this pile of rotting human flesh. Me trying desperately not to be swallowed up, and Gideon still coming to my rescue. I could feel my strength giving out. He reached out and put his hand over mine, fighting back the inhuman hoard holding me down.

This was it. The moment I'd been waiting for. I shoved the key card into the slot. All too slowly it clicked into place.

"I win..." The voice of MAAS started to say in my ears. Then he paused mid word, frozen. All the bodies around me froze too. I turned the key to the left until it ripped, scraping my hand. It started to bleed. Gideon took it in his as if his touch could shut off the flow of blood. I gave him one last look of sympathy as the computer began to reverse the zombie-making process. Except it didn't. I looked down at the terminal and saw a hand scanner flashing at me. I couldn't risk other people's lives. I placed my hand on the scanner and felt a surge of electricity stronger than ever before. This was it. Everyone would be re-downloading back into their bodies. While I... well, I really didn't want to think about what I'd just done. I was ready for what came next. Or so I hoped.

Only too late did I realize that all the fingers in the scanner weren't mine. Gideon's and my hand were still linked. I tried to push his away, but it was too late.

I could feel it. My life slipped through my fingers into the pedestal. It was being drawn from me, memory by agonizing memory. The sad thing was, this process of direct download made you relive each moment all at once. It was a type of dream state where time stands still. Only it was my entire life in a moment.

Flashes of the reality around me mingling with memories from my past. Painful and joyful, heartbreaking and belly laughing, all at once. Each memory passed through my mind as if it was happening to me for the first time, and then it was gone. The pain was both excruciating and numbing at the same time. It was a nightmare wrapped in a title wave of emotions. Unseparated highs and lows all hitting me over and over again with each relived life event. Then nothing. That part of my mind simply gone. All the while I could see the light coming back into the eyes of the frozen people around me. Some part of my brain recognized that my plan was working.

The computer took my early memories first. The ones I didn't even know I had, like the pain of my first tooth coming in, or the feel of milk on my tongue. Each one lost before I could savor them, gone into the numbness. Then came my childhood. My Dad teaching me how to ride a bike. Every scraped knee and bruise blended into an unending ball of pain followed by a burning emptiness to match the feeling of alcohol my mom poured on my wounds to disinfect them.

Each one seemed to upload faster the closer they came to my current life, just as the minds of the mindless horde that was eating me alive just a minute ago came back to them.

Then there were my memories of Tommy, mixed up and jumbled with the frozen, pixelated face of MAAS. The pain burned through my mind like ice. My first brush with death, followed by my uneventful and even less fulfilling High School career. Nothing to write home about. It just simply was. The emotions died down here, mellowing out in a way that gave my body a break from the painful ups and downs I'd just ridden through. My blanking mind felt sad in its emptiness, but not from the emptiness itself. I couldn't really put my finger on it. Then the party hit me. Like an ocean wave in a sea of calm blue waters I finally understood the sadness in the emptiness. The last few years of my life had meant very little. I'd lived more in the last week than I had in the last four years. I'd been playing it safe at the cost of living. The life I had protected so badly from pain had accomplished very little. And in the end my body was sad that it didn't have more to give. The computer would simply have to accept my sacrifice of unused time in its place.

Really, my life wasn't that great a sacrifice. Not when I was saving people like Brian and Lee Ann. People that would make a difference, good or bad, in this world. It seemed like such a reasonable trade in that moment. All my unlived days for brains and beauty to remain alive and well. They would breathe. They would have life. And I will have won out over MAAS. What greater thing can a woman do than to lay down her life for her friends and family?

The world blurred as memories and present collided with each other. The party finished playing out down to that very moment, the reality of my memories finally syncing up with the reality around me. I didn't even struggle to hold on to a single second. I simply fed the machine what it had always wanted: me. One thought remained right before I died. The simple joy of knowing that I wasn't a waste, I was a winner to the end. I took my last breath. Every ounce of strength I had pulled on that card, breaking it off in the controls. The backlash wave emanated by the panel knocked my breath from me and everything went blank.