Zombie Survival Crew

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The incessant dinging of the doorbell could either mean trouble or the neighbor kids. Titus opened the door just as Mindy dropped dead at his feet. Again. She needed to stop doing this. He snatched her up off the ground and carried her into his back room, laying her on the metal table. It looked like blood loss was the culprit this time. He lifted her shirt to see two stab wounds. Holy crap. She had to take more time off. Using the searing wand, he burnt the wounds closed while covering his nose. Burnt flesh smelled bad enough, but Mindy’s burnt flesh creeped him out like nothing else could.
     Finally, when he was certain she wasn’t just going to die all over again, he stabbed the hypodermic in her chest and flooded her heart with the solution before he hit her with the magnetic pulse.
     “C’mon, Mindy,” he whispered. He watched the monitors for her vital signs to spike.
     Crap. He hit her again with the magnetic pulse.
     The beat of her heart made him sigh. Her wounds started closing up as the enriched blood pumped through. Every time he did this he experienced a Dr. Frankenstein moment where he wanted to yell, “It’s alive,” but Mindy probably wouldn’t appreciate it… at all. Then again, he didn’t appreciate her dying on him.
     Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled at him.
     “Hey, Beautiful.” Titus leaned over her and brushed some hair from her eyes. “You woke up just in time. I was starting to worry I was developing necrophilia. It turns out you look hotter alive than dead.”
     She laughed.
     “So, stop dying on me,” he said.
     She winced suddenly.
     “What? What’s wrong?” She really needed to stop the vigilante business.
     “My shoulder. I think that freak I took down knocked it out of its socket,” she said.
     His jaw tightened with disapproval as he leaned over and felt her shoulder. She just had to stop. If not for herself… for him….
     “Don’t, Titus.”
     “Don’t what, Mindy? Don’t worry about you?”
     “It’s not that bad.”
     He shoved down and pulled on her arm. She screamed in pain and curled into a ball. Tucking his frame around hers, Titus rubbed the muscles on her back. She already showed signs of healing, but that hurt them both every time.
     “I’m fine.”
     “You’re not, Mindy. This is getting ridiculous. Do you know how hard it is seeing you dead? No, you don’t because I don’t keep dying on you.”
     “It doesn’t KEEP happening,” she said, sitting up.
     “Fifth time, babe. Fifth time,” he said, cleaning up the crash kit he kept near the door for just such occasions. “What if I can’t get to you within eight minutes? You know how complicated it is to restore brain cells in someone with oxygenated blood and a beating heart. They don’t always work right. You could end up as a real zombie.” He threw the syringe in the disposal, and it shattered which actually seemed to help his mood. “Not to mention I’ve never done this more than nine times on anything. Chester might have had nine lives in him, but who knows if you do. You’re a lot more complicated than a freaking cat, Mindy.”
     She wrapped her arms around him from behind. “Shh, Titus,” she said. Her skin felt warm, and he tried to pretend it wasn’t nice… that he didn’t like the heat radiating off her. He rubbed his hands across her arms. If her skin was cold, it wouldn’t matter; he’d still love her… with all his cold, silent heart.

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To read more and find out what happens to Mindy, Titus, and the zombie monkeys, check out Undead Is Not An Option.