Page 10 of Slayer Mom
I exhaled and smiled at her. “Thank you, Gloria. I’m sorry to drag you into this mess.”
“Why? It’s exactly the kind of thing I love. I mean, if you’re going to have a lust nest, I recommend you invest in something with a little more mood and eclat, but for your first time, it’s perfectly suitable.”
“In that case, thank you. I’m going to run. I have to make the pizza dough for family pizza and movie night. We do that every Friday.”
“Of course you do. You are the perfect mother you always wanted to have. Well done. Well played. No one can say that you aren’t a convincing actress.” She lounged on the bed while I took my things into the bathroom, her words hitting harder than she meant them. Was I just playing a part with Hazen as the ideal housewife? Had I become bland and weak out of my own idealization of the ‘right’ kind of home maker?
I got dressed, feeling half-naked without a base layer. Not that it mattered. I’d be home soon enough, and I’d change before anyone got back from school or the office. I hadn’t ever used to wear bras unless I was at work. What would it hurt if I didn’t change, if I just walked around without underwear? There was nothing inherently wrong with the human body. There was no reason to bind up everything so it fit the ‘appropriate’ mold. How had I gotten so passive and boring? No, I wasn’t going to put on a bra. Underwear, yes. I distinctly liked wearing underwear.
I got in my car and checked my phone. I blinked and refocused on the messages. Eighty-seven messages from Hazen? What on earth could he have to say? Did I want to read them? No. So I wouldn’t. I’d save them for some time I could think about everything with him without worrying about zombies.
I stopped at Starbucks and picked up a decaf pumpkin pie latte. I didn’t like coffee. Hazen loved his Turkish coffee and had a beautiful set in his office. Maybe my new pumpkin and nutmeg obsession would bring us closer together. We could drink together. Maybe we’d get matching coffee drinking outfits and talk about different coffee blends. It was so ridiculous. What did we have in common, other than our children? I couldn’t think of a single thing, other than how compatible we were in bed. It was like he could read my mind. Not that I’d been terribly experienced when I’d married him, so I couldn’t compare him to anyone else.
Zombies.
I shook my head and slipped my hand in my purse where I’d put the knife. I needed to get back to normal, and bathe all the time, until the scent of nutmeg wore off. It couldn’t take very long.
I pulled up at the gate to my neighborhood and waited for the guard, Tim, to let me in. “Mrs. Darnell, welcome home. I hope you had an enjoyable visit.”
I smiled at him. I’d never spent the night away from home in over fifteen years. “Thank you. How is your puppy?”
“Good. He’s at the chewing stage, you know, so I can’t keep—”
I pulled out without waiting for him to finish his sentence. Not that I wasn’t interested in his puppy, but zombies.
I drove around the neighborhood, examining the security for the first time. The entire community was fenced, with only the one gate in and out. Would the iron wrought fence keep out zombies? It would probably deter them. There were cameras recording the entire stretch of fencing, and live guards were in the guardhouse watching the cameras as well as walking the perimeter every hour. It had seemed ridiculousoverkill when we’d first moved into the seven thousand square foot home, one of the smallest houses in the community, but now it was much more essential, because zombies.
Satisfied that the neighborhood was secure, I pulled into the driveway and stopped in the roundabout in front of the door. I searched the bushes and edges of the yard before I got out, my hand in my bag around the handle of the knife. I didn’t know how to use it, but I’d watched Tom, so I had some kind of idea of how to kill a zombie thoroughly dead, or dead enough to gather up and burn. Maybe I should have learned more about how to kill zombies. No, it was better to put it all behind me.
I pressed my hand against the reader and then spoke the code. It was a very cutting edge security system, but was it as secure as it could be? I’d have to do research.
I opened the door and then screamed as a dark figure grabbed my arms and pulled me into his grasp.
“Are you all right, Lucy? I was so worried. Lock told me about your visit, about Wat. Just because they’ll be in boarding school doesn’t mean that you aren’t still their mother. Maybe we could do homeschool. I can help, stay home with you, and we can teach them together. I could work from my home office in the evenings. We could work something out that we both agreed on.”
Hazen. It was Hazen with his arms around me and his face precariously close to my brains. Also, Hazen, who I didn’t want zombies to get the scent for, even if I still had unresolved issues with him. I released my grip on my knife in my bag and wriggled out of his grasp.
“Show me the brochure for the school. I imagine they have ratings. I’ll have to see those. And when we take them, I’ll see if it’s secure enough.” I gave him aforced smile and ducked around him, walking through the house, checking the windows and doors. There were so many doors; too many for security. Maybe some of those could be turned into brick walls or metal doors you could bolt from the inside.
“Lucy? What are you doing?”
I looked up from the window I was jiggling to see if there was any give. They were very good windows. I tapped on the glass. “What kind of windows are these?”
“I don’t know, but our security company had them replaced before we moved in. They’re practically bulletproof.”
“Good.” I kept going on my tour of the bottom level of the house until I reached the front entry once more. I turned to Haze, who had followed me this entire time. “Why aren’t you at work?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You disappeared. I was about to call the police when it hit the twenty-four hour mark.”
“You could have done that from work. Tim could have called you and let you know that I’d arrived. You should go. No sense in getting behind on whatever you’re working on. Are the children at school? That’s odd. Wat should have been thrown out right away. Detention is something even private schools do. Brochures for the school?” I said, holding out my hand.
He looked at my hand then smiled at me and I felt kind of dizzy and sick. I turned around and marched towards my bedroom and adjoining closet. It was the size of some people’s houses. I needed to put on some underwear.
“Where are you going?” he asked, following me.
“Underwear. I lost mine. Don’t worry about it. I need to get a job so I can buy my own underwear.” I kicked my shoes off at the bottom of the stairs, whereI always told the boys not to leave anything because it was a tripping hazard, but maybe it would slow down the zombies. I stopped walking and gripped the banister. Zombies.
“You lost your underwear, and I’m not supposed to worry about it? I care about you.”
