Expand. Why stick to just killing zombies? Or killing them just one way.

We’re equal partners, Dave,” Dave said in the falsely high voice he always used to mimic me as he drove the van down the long, lonely highway. “We’re in this together, Dave.”

I blinked and tried to focus on his voice. It was hard to overcome the gloriousness of the fact that I was clean. Really clean. I smelled like soap and some kind of coconut shampoo and I kind of wanted to lick myself.

“Oh, come on,” I said, dreamy as I pictured how the black sooty water had rinsed from my body and swirled around and around into the drain like it could wash away my sins and experiences over the past few months. “You know we were going to say yes to him in the end.”

Dave glanced at me and muttered, “Well, maybe. Still, you can’t just put us on the hook for something without talking it over with me first. We’re supposed to be a team.”

I gave him a little look. He didn’t look mad, but definitely a bit put out. Slowly, I edged a little closer to him and leaned over the gear shift between us.

“C’mon babe, admit that you like being all clean again.”

“Hmph,” was the response.

I moved closer and nuzzled his smooth neck. “And shaved.”

“Hmmm,” he said this time, though he sounded far less irritated than a moment before.

“And you like that I smell good.”

Dave shrugged before he leaned down and pressed his freshly clean mouth to my sparkling mint one briefly.

“Fine,” he said as he put his attention back on the road. “I admit it’s a good trade. That and the weapons.”

I glanced back. Yeah, we’d come out pretty well in our agreement with Barnes… Kevin. He’d handed over a stash of weaponry worthy of the most bad-ass zombie movie. We’d even gotten one of those handheld multi-shot cannons I’d coveted. I have to admit, I creamed my shorts a little every time I looked at it all awesome and deadly and stuff in the back of the van.

“We better find a place to hole up,” Dave said, veering off the highway at an exit that said Moon Valley Country Club.

“True. We couldn’t exactly go to the camps so clean and fresh, it would raise eyebrows,” I said with a broad grin as he started scanning up and down the street for the perfect mansion for us to take over.

Like the whole car thing, the housing situation was another of the few fun elements to the apocalypse. Before the outbreak we lived in a shithole of a one-bedroom apartment.

Since then? Well, we’d lived it up in the ritziest resorts, fanciest suites, and the mansions of the ultra-rich and famous. I don’t like to drop names but Paul McCartney has a ranch two and a half hours south of Phoenix. Just saying.

“You’re right about not being able to go to camp like this,” Dave said. “And I want to be able to talk freely about our plans anyway. If we’re going to catch zombies, that’s a whole other thing from blasting their brains out. I don’t even have the first clue how to do it without getting killed….”

His voice trailed off as he pulled into a long, circular driveway that led up to a gorgeous mansion.

Tudor-style turrets lifted skyward and although the desert winds and heat had fried the grass and landscaping, there was nothing about the place that didn’t scream “class.”

Well, except for the ridiculous knight that was “standing guard” at the front door, rusting away from exposure to the elements.

Really, rich people? Really?

We got out, loading up on weapons before we made our way to the front door. Dave tested it and we both tensed when he found it was unlocked. Most of the time, houses like this got locked down tight the moment there was danger. The ritzy owners and spoiled dogs that lived there holed up to wait for help that never came. Or if they ran, they barred the doors behind them so that their precious stuff would be waiting for them when this mess was all over. They were oddly more afraid of looters than the living dead. Go figure.

So an open door at a house like this either meant that the person within hadn’t been able to lock the door… or someone else had gotten here first. Either way, it was a danger zone until we got it cleared.

We pushed our way into the house carefully. Outside the sun was setting and inside the rooms were dim and dusty. There was a faint smell of rotting food just in the foyer. The fridge had obviously been stocked when the shit went down. Hopefully so had the dry pantry so we could restock our tack box and even get some extra supplies for trade.

Dave’s nose wrinkled at the gross smell as he gently shut the door behind us. “I forgot how much I missed electricity until that son of a bitch reminded me.”

I smiled at the memory of real lights and hot, clean water, but quickly checked myself. Now wasn’t the time for idle fantasies.

I grinned. “You know the fastest way to bring zombies so we can settle down for the night.”

Dave shot me a glare and sighed. But he wasn’t kidding anybody. He liked my games. “C’mon then and do it.”

I pointed my shotgun at an angle toward the ceiling and pulled off a shot. A few feet away from us, plaster cracked and fell to the marble floor and the echoing sound of the shot made my ears ring. Acrid smoke filled my nose and the foyer.

“And now you smell like cordite,” Dave pointed out as he swiped at the smoky air around us.

I frowned. Damn, he was right.

“I’ll air out,” I said as I stepped further into the foyer. “Hey, zombie assholes! Come and get it!”

Silence was the only response. I turned back around with a shake of my head. “I guess nobody’s home.”

“Shit!” he said. “Duck!”

After so many years together, and after so much time slaying zombies side by side, Dave and I sort of have a rapport. You know how it is… after enough time you start to “get” what a person is saying without having to clarify. So instead of asking for more info or turning to see what he was freaking out about, I dropped flat to my stomach on the marble floor.

The instant I was down, he pulled off a shot with his shotgun and then a second. My heart throbbed and my ears rang, but I couldn’t get into shocked mode, I had to act. Keeping low, I flipped onto my back and lifted my shotgun. But there was nothing there.

“Clear?” I asked, my voice weak and soft from the ground.

“Clear,” he panted.

I pushed up on my elbows and looked down the length of my body to see what he’d been shooting at. There, collapsed across the broken plaster I’d caused, were two zombies, a man and a woman. I got up, rubbing my elbow (I don’t recommend dropping down on marble if you can avoid it, just an FYI) and looked at them.

The woman was wearing a fur coat. Not kidding. A fucking fur coat. Who even owned one of those in Arizona? Apparently this woman, though it was ill-fitting on her all-but-skeletal frame.

She also had on bunches of jewels. A ruby and diamond pendant, a big honking ring on each finger (all of which looked real, not costume) and the crowning glory were her earrings. Huge droplets of diamonds.

Unfortunately, their weight had tugged at her rotting ear lobes and now they were dragged almost to her shoulders like some native woman on a National Geographic special.

“I guess she must have put them all on to escape,” Dave said with a shake of his head. “God, she’s skinny.”

I nodded. Here’s a tidbit—most zombies are not thin. In fact, quite a few of them are fat fucks. I guess it comes from the never-ending food supply right outside their door. Also, I’m not sure how digestion of their prey works for them. If you know, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.

But this lady, well, if she’d been anorexic in life, apparently she’d continued that trend in the unlife, too.

“What about the guy?” I said, turning my attention to the person half-hidden under fur-coat zombie.

“His clothes aren’t so expensive,” Dave said. “Maybe he was her butler.”

I laughed at the mere idea of someone having a butler. Then again, it was a gloriously overpriced house before the zombies had significantly affected home values in the area. It’s a bubble you just don’t want to see burst, I promise you. It’s waaaaay worse than subprime mortgages.

“Why the hell are they still in the house?” I asked as Dave kicked the front door open. We lifted the woman with effort and heaved her onto the drive. Tomorrow we’d kick her out of the way of the car, at least. Maybe.

He shrugged as we returned for the servant. “I have no idea. Most of them got a clue when they got turned and started out in the world looking for food. But this lady sure looks like she belongs here. Do you think she might have come home at night?”

“Like a homing pigeon?” I asked with a laugh. “They like to stay in one area, but I’ve never seen them actually come home. No, if this was her place, I’m guessing she never left after she turned.”

We looked around the foyer, now damaged by my shot and the blood and sludge left over from the zombies.

“They were pretty crazed,” Dave admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any come so fast and look so hungry. Maybe they didn’t know what to do to take care of themselves in life, so they just never figured it out in death, either.”

“Either way, they’re done now.” I shut the door on our latest kills. “It’s too bad we couldn’t have caught them.”

Dave looked at me sharply. “Yeah, they would have been perfect for your mad scientist. I bet he would have appreciated the fact that they were rich before they died.”

I looked at him with a wrinkled brow. “You don’t like the guy.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” he grunted.

I cocked my head. “But doesn’t it excite you just a little that he maybe has a cure for all this?”

Dave shrugged. “I guess I just wonder what he was doing before he was so benevolently working on a cure. He seemed pretty ashamed… or at least unwilling to tell us when we asked him.”

I stared at him. “We all have things we’re not proud of from B.Z.”

“B.Z.?” Dave sighed.

“Before Zombie,” I said and he smiled despite himself. “Anyway, let’s check out the rest of the house and then try to figure out how to catch a zombie for Kevin.”

“Dr. Barnes,” Dave corrected softly as he led the way to clear the house out. We’d learned the hard way to always check every room before declaring a place clean.

I followed him quietly, but in my head I corrected him back. Kevin.