Zombie Romance

Chapter 4

Lexi’s feet were numb and her skin clammy, but she didn’t have time to worry about either. The man who had attacked Mitchell was getting away. Without her phone to photograph him or call the police, she had to follow, had to see where he went so she could tell someone, so she could save Mitchell.
As she raced forward, he was already disappearing, but in an impossible way. He seemed to be lowering his body into the street.
She stopped, stymied. The sound of metal hitting metal broke through her confusion—a manhole cover. He was going into sewers.
She licked her lips and looked back the direction she had come. Now would be a good time to leave and find a phone. Going underground would be insane. She had no idea where the tunnels went. She took a step back toward the school.
But a new thought stopped her. She didn’t know where the sewers went, which meant she didn’t know how far away he could get and how quickly. He could leave the tunnels through some other route and be gone for good.
She turned back around and scanned the street.
A few feet to her right lay a strip of metal, fallen from some ramshackle car. She grabbed it, then scurried forward. Not giving herself time to rethink her decision, she slipped the metal strip under the edge of the manhole cover and pried at the disc. Then sucking in a breath, she lowered herself through the hole.
Above her the lid clanked closed.
She was left in complete darkness.
***
Twenty feet away from the manhole he’d entered through, Bryce froze. He knew that sound.
Someone had followed him. The woman.
A gasp, followed by a soft cry, confirmed the guess.
His first instinct was to keep going, to let the idiot female figure her own way out of whatever problem she’d landed herself in.
Tiny whimpers echoed through the concrete passageway.
He thought of the duty assigned him, or tried to. His mind floated instead to an image of the female’s face, lost, afraid and determined.
His teeth gritted, he stalked back to the sewer entrance.
The underground tunnels were black as death. Lights hung from the ceiling, but none were operating. The darkness didn’t bother Bryce. He and his kind thrived in the dark, but it was obviously an issue for the female.
She clung to the ladder that led from the street, as if she were dangling from a rope over a sea filled with sharks. Of course, unknown to her, the monster she dangled over was much more dangerous than any shark.
He swallowed, his mouth dry, his body aching.
She was built like women of his youth when breasts and buttocks were celebrated, not starved away.
Her hair had fallen into fine waves atop her shoulders. His fingers opened and closed. The locks would be soft to his touch, would wrap around his fingers and trap him like cotton candy.
And her taste—his tongue moved over his fangs—like the candy, would be sweet and addictive.
He should walk away.
But he couldn’t.
His fangs heavy in his mouth, he took a step forward.