Soothe the Savage Beast

For All Eternity

Below is my Zombie Romance (yes, you read that right) short story "For All Eternity" found in the anthology Soothe the Savage Beast. Soothe the Savage Beast is for sale at http://www.silenceinthelibrarypublishing.com/product/soothe-savage-beast/ or wherever books are sold.

The entire anthology is REALLY good and has stories by Beth Revis, Carrie Ryan, Maggie Allen, Mike Stackpole, and Bryan Young, in addition to my own. 

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For All Eternity

By Janine K. Spendlove

"You need a hair cut." Marla ruffled her long, thin fingers through my hair. "I'll give you one when we get back."

***

My worn fingers laced through the ice-cold chain link before me. The fence loomed several feet over my head and as I looked up wondering how easy it would be to scale, a frigid winter wind blew my ball cap off my head. I forced my stiff fingers to uncurl from around the links and leaned over tiredly to scoop the hat up.

It was easy to find despite the late hour. The stars shone brightly, illuminating the entire old military armory that was the heart of compound behind me. The old burned field before me was empty all the way out to the tree line. I ran my fingers through my graying hair, pulling the fringe that fell before my eyes back and neatly under the ball cap as I tugged the hat back on my head.

Another stiff wind blew right through my threadbare winter coat, and just as I wondered if spring was ever going to come, I froze in place.

A low, haunting moan emerged from the tree line, along with the familiar dragging shuffle that accompanied one of the creatures when they arrived.

My heart leapt as my hands involuntarily grabbed at the fence again, pulling my body close to the metal's biting cold.

The creature emerged and my heart sank. It wasn't her.

It was never her.

***

For our first date I thought going to the movies would be a great idea, and Marla seemed to agree. Little did I know it would be a terrible film featuring a bunch of immortals who actually turned out to be aliens trying to chop each other's heads off and something called "the quickening." Marla never forgave me for that and refused to ever watch the first film in the series, which was a shame because that movie was actually good.

As we left the theatre, I asked if I could drive her home.

"Do you mind swinging by the bakery first?" She reached back and pulled her long, honey brown hair up into a ponytail. "I need to get the bread in the proofer for Sato."

"Sure!" Too bad I wasn't looking where I was going instead of at her tanned, bare arms while she did her hair, since I walked right into concrete pillar. Thankfully Cravings was just around the corner, and Marla was able to get me a dishtowel full of ice for my bloody nose.

I sat on a barstool next to a massive metal baker's table as Marla bustled around the room, moving trays of bread dough from the freezer to a glass encased contraption that looked like some sort of sauna for the dough.

"What the heck does that thing do?" Except I sounded more like "Wha da heg duh da ting do?"

"It's the proofer and it's a way to control the humidity and how quickly the bread rises." Marla looked at the clock on the wall. It was a lot later than I'd realized. "Sato has the early shift, so when she gets in, these should just be ready to pop in the oven and be out in time for me to make the first delivery run later tomorrow morning." She looked at the clock again. "Rather, this morning."