Dead Kitties Don't Purr
Lesbian Vs. Zombies

Excerpt

Chapter One

At my dorm's October mixer, a costume party, I went downstairs wearing white jeans, a white T-shirt, and a crown of flower petals cut out of paper plates.

A quartet of girls in cowboy boots and cheek-baring shorts turned to me like sheep in a herd and bleated, "Wall-flower!"

My face burned. That obvious, was it? I got a cup of sparkling apple juice and a handful of unbuttered popcorn before finding a section of wall that might could use someone to hold it up for a while.

I'd promised my roommate and her boyfriend one hour of privacy. By my phone, it was 8:39. At 9:39, I could head upstairs and get my Catriona-proof earphones to block out this dumpidy-dumpidy-dumpidy racket.

The cold front was two days past, so only a few people wandering in and out wore cover-ups. The cotton-candy-colored furries snuggling in the corner by the fireplace were probably sweating. Maybe on purpose, to give them something to lick off each other's necks.

Someone cut off the music with its relentless three-four beat, and put on a new disk. I eyeballed a path to the nearest door, expecting the newest Catriona Wall megahit, but instead heard something electronic, vaguely familiar.

"You're Camie Wall."

I turned and stared straight at a naked cafe au lait throat and collarbones decorated with an intricate necklace of sharp claws and curved fangs, backed by a curtain of straight, glossy, black hair. I looked up. And gulped.

Risa Ruiz taught the principles of esthetics class I'd chosen for my art elective. Someone else's name was on the syllabus, but Risa, the grad student in the class, had taken over two weeks ago. And I had memorized every curve and angle of her long-fingered, capable hands.

"I'm Risa, from—"

"I know." Oh, crap! That came too fast, like I'd snapped at her. I gave a smile I knew looked sick. "I've been watching you."

Oh, shit—that was worse. I was a bitch and a dork and a stalker. Just the kind of person she'd want to know better.

She smiled gently. Her lips were full and dark. A pale thread of a scar accented the right outer edge of her bottom lip. Her white stretch-lace top was off the shoulder, baring plenty of tawny skin under that intricate necklace.

I dragged my gaze up before it could sink into her cleavage and still couldn't think of anything to say. That smile hypnotized me. She had dark-carnelian eyes, the richest possible shade of brown, and her pupils expanded as she watched me.

"Noisy in here," she commented after a moment.

Was that a hint? "If I had someplace quieter to go, I'd be out the door already."

She laughed, a sound as rich and mellow as her eyes. "Then walk with me, if you dare."

If I dared? I'd dare a lot to spend time listening to that voice, watching that mouth shape words. She called me Camie Wall, as if that were my whole name. Not Catriona Wall's twin Camie, who doesn't sing—can you believe it?

I dropped my crown and cup onto a table cluttered with used cups and spilled popcorn and followed her out into the moonlight.

She wore white, like me, but she had a long, filmy skirt instead of jeans. Her hair fell straight down her back, well past her bra-strap. I'd tried growing long hair, but the first day it stuck to my deodorant, I'd gross out and have to cut it.

Maybe I'd be more patient if my hair lay smooth and swung as hers did, in counterpoint to her hip-sway.

She turned left, toward the wall of condos, churches, and beer halls along the southern edge of campus. She strolled between the dark Methodist Student Center and the well-lit oyster bar, waving casually as someone called her name from the tavern.

The five-lane thoroughfare beyond marked the limits of what I knew of the city's geography.

She paused at the edge of the street, midblock, as if uncertain whether to go left or right. When the light at the nearest corner changed, though, she stepped quickly off the curb.

Jaywalking. Something I never did.

But I stepped off the curb with her, and a strange elation swept through me.

But then a car came rushing toward us, its blaring horn and evil little blue headlights dazzling. I recoiled, ready to run back the way we'd come.

She pulled me hard against her side. "Careful."

I'm always careful. Ask anybody.

Without thinking, I put my arm around her waist. We strode across the lanes with her skirt whipping against my shins and knees.

"Some friends of mine are practicing for a recital," she said, turning left on the sidewalk. She slid her hand under the waistline of my jeans, but not far enough to touch bare skin. "Rachmaninoff, mostly. Would you like to listen in?"

Chill bumps prickled my skin. Even my nipples puckered to match. I couldn't be mistaking her intent, could I? How could I? I hitched my step to match hers. I didn't know Rachmaninoff from Checkov, but . . . yeah. "I'd love to."

She looked at me, all Egypt-eyed. "I thought you might."

We crossed a side street, and then turned away from the thoroughfare and the streetlights. Azalea bushes crowded the narrow, cracked sidewalk, and crickets chirped unseen. Our shadows stretched way out in front of us, undulating with our matched steps.

A door slammed in a house as we approached it, and a man yelled, "See if I care!" He came down the short walk to the sidewalk, as if he didn't see us in his way.

I shrank back. Yes, he was talking and walking in a coordinated manner, but even if he wasn't infected, I've always hated brushes with angry people.

He recoiled too and gave us a short bow. "Your pardon, damsels."

Huh?

He waved us to pass, and stomped in the opposite direction.

Risa had, I realized, gone taut under my hand. Had I done something, or was it the guy? I decided to give it a couple of steps. If she stayed tensed up, that meant the problem was walking along with her. But the tension dissipated.

"His name is Dustin," she said after a bit. "He's unpredictable. Avoid him when you're alone."

Not my doing. I relaxed. A little bit. "Your friends won't mind me being there?"

"It's my place. If they want to use it, they won't mind anyone I bring." She spoke calmly, like a queen.

My sister Tri would have giggled if she'd tried to speak like that. Which was, I guessed, part of her charm.

We'd fallen out of step. I hitched again to synch with her and lengthened my stride, even though I had to swing my hips to stretch out like that.

Her thumb traced the top edge of my hipbone. I didn't know how to respond. Halfway? She'd draw back to match, wouldn't she? So should I take initiative on the next step?

The Internet couldn't be down tonight. Couldn't. Because I had to look up body language and stuff before the next time I got a chance to walk with Risa Ruiz.

If I ever got another chance.

"I like your taste in colors," she said into the night.

Was that a dig? "I like white."

"White is the ultimate canvas. I own an entire wardrobe of white tops. Of course, mine are ice-whites and yours is more ecru, but that's as it should be. Too stark a white would clash with the subtlety of your coloring."

Subtle is the nicest possible way of saying blah, isn't it? But her thumb traced the crest of my hip again.

The dorm's safety rules echoed in the back of my head. Never leave campus with someone you've just met. If you see anyone walking strangely, having convulsions, or standing too still, run as fast as you can to where the people are. Never approach anyone lying down, or anyone sitting in the wrong place. Stay on well-lit streets. Let someone know where you're going, who you're with, and when you'll be back. Keep a phone on you at all times, and never turn it off.

And I, the careful one, the most timid freshman in the quietest dorm on campus, didn't give a shit.
I had my hand on the top edge of Risa Ruiz's gauzy skirt, feeling her flank muscles stretch and contract.

We reached another corner and turned into one of those dark cul-de-sacs that don't even rate a single working streetlamp. I blinked, trying to see.

She pulled me off the sidewalk.

I wondered for half a second, but then a bicycle whispered by.

She was paying attention—something I should be doing, as well. But there we were, off the sidewalk, away from the streetlights and headlights, and the crickets rasped as if giving coded messages, only all the messages overlapped and competed with one another, and the moonlight glittered on Risa's pectoral of claws and fangs while it shimmered on the swirling lace below.

"I want to kiss you," I said, my voice a stranger's. I swallowed, waiting for her to laugh at me, to push me away.

Instead, she pulled me closer, hip-first, and tilted her head. "What's stopping you?"

I reached up and gathered fistfuls of that hair, cool and warm at the same time, and I pulled her face down into reach, and I touched her lips with mine. And there it had to end, because I'd never opened my mouth to a kiss without wanting to gag.

But there it didn't end. She cupped my head in her hands, opened her mouth, and gently sucked my bottom lip between hers. My pulse pounded in my lips, in my temples, in my breasts where they nestled against hers. For what seemed a long time, she played with my bottom lip, licking it, then licking inside it.

She tasted of popcorn, or maybe that was me, and she smelled of something deep, woody, and rich—sandalwood or cedar, or both, or something I'd never encountered before. I desperately wanted to wash in whatever soap made her smell like that.

She pulled back, disengaging my trembling fists from her hair. "You're not used to this, are you?"

My skin shrank against my face. "I'm sorry."

At least I hadn't gagged on her. Hadn't had the first inclination to gag, come to think of it.

She brushed a kiss over my cheekbone. "Don't be. Don't be nervous, either. And whatever you do, don't hesitate to tell me to slow down if I take this too fast."

"Okay."

She gave my hands a brief squeeze, then led me past an overgrown camellia and turned up the walk to a bungalow with a screened front porch and a bedspread for a front window curtain. Light glowed through the gold-and-red mandala design, barely illuminating the porch swing.

The door opened onto a narrow, dark foyer, with light angling from the other end. I smelled scorched popcorn and espresso, and Risa's woodsy scent. Women spoke quietly, in the English and Italian mix that means music talk has gone all technical. Worse, I heard a ripple of notes from what had to be one of those huge harps.

My soul shriveled, remembering my sister's tutor telling Mom I had all the musicality of a rusty typewriter.

I hesitated in the foyer, with one hand on the door and one on the lock. Ahead of me, Risa glided into the light from the room, then paused and looked back at me.

The conversation stopped.

My face burned. I was a dork and making her look awkward in front of her friends.

She took two steps back into the dark with me and laid a warm hand on my shoulder. "What's wrong, Camie?"

"I—" I couldn't talk. I shook my head and swallowed. I'm shy, okay? I just am. It's not a crime and it's not a mental illness. It just is.

She touched my hand. "Come on in. If you don't know music, I can tell you what to listen for. It will be good."

I hesitated. Could I find my way back to the dorm if she threw me out now?

She leaned in, brushing my breasts with the soft warmth of hers, brushing my cheek with her cool hair. "Trust me."

The words whispered over my cheekbone, where I still felt her kiss.

I gulped and let her lead me inside.

The front room was small, dominated by the gleaming black mass of a piano with bared white teeth, crouched on a raised platform, and a giant floor harp. Between them, in a red leather chair, a plump girl with shining red-gold braids and very thick glasses squinted, looking up from the violin on her lap. I nodded a vague greeting at her. She didn't respond. I wasn't sure she saw me. A white guy with a scraggly beard sat on the floor behind the harp, his long, skinny legs stretching out on either side of it. He stared at me with his eyes half-shut, his hand resting possessively on the soundboard.

"Hello."

I flinched. I'd walked right past someone. A cellist, and her cello, leaned against the wall. She was not even my height, and darker than the wood of her instrument. She wore a crimson headband that matched the ribbons tied about the neck of the cello.

"H-hi," I whispered. My face burned.

She smiled slightly, polite but not showing her teeth or crinkling her eyes. "I take it you're not a music major?"

"No. I don't play at all."

The redhead bubbled a laugh. The guy kicked her chair leg, and she shut up.

Risa drew me closer to her side. "The one with manners is Mindy. That's Junia, and our token dude is Didier. Y'all, this is Camie. She's in that esthetics class I've been subbing in."

Didier snickered. "Like you'd sub."

Risa stiffened beside me. "Fuck off, Didier. We don't need harp tonight, anyway."

He scowled. "Apologies. I really need to work on Stairway tonight. Want me to make some more espresso?"

The redhead took off her glasses and rubbed at the dents along her nose. "Are we going to practice or bicker?"

"Practice. Didier can play piano. Camie and I will listen."

Didier flashed a grin, the first likeable thing I'd seen about him. "Sure."

Mindy carried her instrument to the other side of the piano and took a kitchen chair. She framed the cello with her splayed knees. "Ready. Could you please get the light, Risa?"

"Sit right where you are, Camie." Risa pointed at the hardwood floor. "Listen for a four-note pattern."

I slid down her legs to settle on the floor, careful to leave room between me and the wall. Just in case she wanted to occupy that space.

She flipped the switch, leaving us in complete darkness. I couldn't see my hand spread on my white jeans.

But seeing was an extra I didn't need. Risa settled behind me, one leg on either side of me, her crotch hot against my butt. I couldn't be mistaking that heat, that intimate positioning.

"One, two, three, four."

I shimmied in to fit more precisely against her, the sounds of our movements swallowed by the aggressive piano notes.

"Four notes. Hear them?" She played my ribs like they were piano keys. "Stop! Didier, what kind of lento do you call that? What happened to lento lugubre?"

"I was about to say," Junia grumbled.

"Piano sets tempo," the guy said loftily. "You don't need to count."

"From the beginning." Risa snapped her fingers. "Lento lugubre."

"One," interrupted Didier. "Two, three—"

Crack!

My skin shrank.

No, maybe something outdoors just broke. The swing, maybe. But everyone else seemed to hold their breath as I did, and I smelled fear. Risa's heart pounded as fast and hard as my own. Her arms came up about me, either to shield me or use me as a shield.

C-c-c-c-c-c-crack! A volley.

"Rifle fire." Mindy's voice quavered. "They're here."

Risa sprang up behind me. Overhead, an electric motor whined.

"Didier, would you please get the back room's shutters down?" Risa strode across the room to the side door.

How could she sound all this-is-only-a-drill like that? I'd smelled her sudden sweat, heard the hammering pulse.

The heavy slats of hurricane shutters slid like a shade over the window. So she had a reason to be businesslike instead of terrified.

Didier moved from the questionable cover of the piano slowly, creeping through the open archway to the dining/kitchen area as if hoping someone else would get to the back room's shutters before he did.

I watched him. Once I knew where the switch was, I could race him for it next time. Bet I'd win.
Assuming I was around some other night. And that I had the courage to unball myself.

A loudspeaker echoed in the distance, blaring something that became coherent as it moved closer. ". . . on the street will be tested and/or shot. I repeat: Everyone remain indoors! Lock your doors; lock your windows. A curfew is in effect immediately. Anyone seen on the street will be tested and/or shot."

"Meaning shot, and then tested and found to be merely drunk or something." Junia lifted her violin and played something creepy. "Everyone knows the Z-bug never made it out of Miami, right? That guy who went berserk in the Jacksonville airport yesterday was just having a grand mal seizure, right?"

Didier kicked her chair. "Quit that!"

Junia played on, the music oozing from her strings growing creepier by the bar. "Why? We have to practice, right? With the security Risa put in to protect the instruments, we're as safe as we would be about anywhere."

"We don't have to practice that Nightwish crap!"

"Okay. When everyone's back, let’s do Stairway."

Risa reappeared. "Bathroom and bedroom secured. Let me make sure Gramma's sewing room is locked up and we'll be snug."

Someone hammered on the front door. Everyone jumped. Me too. We all looked at Risa.

"Risa!" A guy yelled. "Risa, let me in! They're shooting people out here!"

Risa's dark lips thinned to a white line. "Didier, slip to the back real quick, and if the porch is empty, toss his sleeping bag out there." She raised her voice. "You can sleep it off on the back porch, Dustin."

"Bitch! Let me in! You owe me!"

Risa's face went blank. I hugged my knees. Blank faces scare me.

The back door opened and closed very quietly. Didier reappeared and nodded.

Risa took a deep breath. "The sleeping bag's on the back porch, Dustin. There's a door you can shut against the boogeyman, but that's all I owe you."

"No sense trying to play until he's gone," Mindy muttered. "Remember last time? With him out there thumping and howling and messing with the meter? Why don't you just have him arrested?"

Risa flashed a tight-eyed, unfriendly look at her. "He's family. Or close enough."

Didier gulped and looked away.

We waited quietly. My nerves stretched tight, and my stomach twisted. What did Risa owe this guy, for real? And since when was it any of my business? I kept reminding myself that the best thing I could do there was not get in the way.

My hearing sharpened in the silence. I heard shuffling on the porch, along with muttering. After a little while, I heard a heavy creak. The swing? Or the screen door?

Junia's whisper echoed harshly. "Think he's going to sleep on the swing?"

Mindy shook her head. "Didn't sound drunk enough."

Risa stared at the covered front window. "Don't think it's alcohol tonight. I smelled him a couple of minutes ago. No booze then."

Junia plucked one dissonant note. "Z?"

Risa shook her head, brushed her hair back, and tied it in a loose knot I knew wouldn't hold. "Too coherent."

The creak came again, then shuffling across the porch floor. The screen door slammed.

"Think he'll get arrested, wandering around out there?"

Risa shook her hair loose of the knot, then shook the tension out of her arms and shoulders. "Not our problem. We'll leave the lights on for now, though. We need them to read Stairway for the next few run-throughs anyway."

"Speak for yourself." Junia smiled.

"She can hear it and play it," Didier said to me. "Like Mozart. I just wish she wouldn't listen to all that Euro-goth metal. It creeps me out."

"Operatic power metal." She corrected him.

Didier returned to the harp. "Stairway to Heaven. We agreed."

What about drums? I loved the drum score on Stairway. I hugged my knees. "How do you play Stairway to Heaven without drums?"

"Carefully." Risa sat at the piano, her white skirt spilling gracefully over the bench. "Our drummer disappeared in Miami, so we downloaded a score orchestrated for trio."

Drums . . . I remembered the feel of the swinging sticks in my hands and hugged my knees tighter.
"Did you keep the drum set?"

Risa regarded me from her place at the piano. Her eyes were large and dark, and deep enough to drown in. "I know where a set is stored. Can you play?"

Reality struck; I hid my burning face against my knees. "Never mind. No, I can't."

When Dad caught me playing around with a friend's drum, he'd immediately arranged tutoring. The tutor gave up on me early . . . and eventually had given up on the lessons too.

After a moment, paper rustled. Risa played a few adagios and then counted down to the launch of the song.

My phone buzzed. My roommate. "Where are you? They shot some drunk down by the oyster bar and now the campus is crawling with National Guard."

"I'm okay. I'm off campus."

"Well, stay wherever you are. They won't let Ted go back to his dorm. Is that live music?"

"Yes." I hung up.

They played Stairway twice, then the Rachmaninoff trio they'd planned to start the night with. They played some Tchaikovsky thing the Rach Trio was supposed to be written in homage to, and were playing one of them again when I nodded off.

I woke up when Risa urged me to move to a pallet of blankets that had appeared at the edge of the room, but I didn't stay fully awake long. They played on and on. The songs were so long and so similar I couldn't tell one from the next. Especially when they took to repeating bits, discussing whether to contrast them or emphasize the echoes.

Clearly, what the group got from Junia was precision, and she got the feedback she needed to put heart into her accurate notes. Didier poured passion through his hands but needed discipline. He also needed sheet music and light to read by.

I was glad of the dark. My dad, who survived the Miami quarantine, said the z-things were usually much calmer in the dark. Bright light hurt them, made them go psychotic. So did car horns, stepping on a hot road, thirst. Their throats went raw, so that swallowing was agony. Even if nothing else sent them into their deadly rages, the thirst eventually did.

The magic of the night happened when Didier touched the harp. Sometimes, the others stopped playing to listen to him. He didn't seem to notice; the music shifted his existence to some other reality.

I wondered if that other reality had Rabies Z, the z-things, and deputies who went door to door shooting family pets unless shown a current vaccination certificate. I remembered the nightmare of searching for my cat Hufflestuff's rabies certificate and finally getting the vet to fax me a copy. Only to find that my mom had taken Huffie to a Voluntary Surrender station.

Honestly, Camilla! Get hold of yourself. With us on tour and you away in college, he would've been boarded for months on end. What kind of life is that?

I'd burned all my precious things that night. The next morning, I'd gone to a Navy recruiter. He showed me pictures of his young daughter and her cat, lost behind the quarantine line in Miami, and he let me use up half a box of his tissues. He'd advised me to leave for college early, instead of enlisting. I'd lived in a motel room until the dorms opened. I think my mom knew better than to try to talk me out of it.

My eyes burned, remembering. A dull headache, the one I'd carried around like a dead weight since losing Huffie, pulsed at the back of my skull. I let the tears spill, since nobody was watching me. But the music sweetened my tears, made the memories less bitter. And the headache slowly eased.

Long after midnight, Didier escorted Mindy and Junia to one bedroom while Risa led me to the other.
The bed wasn't a big one. She might have had it since she was a kid. Which just meant I had to snuggle in close. I was sleeping with Risa Ruiz. And I was so tired that all I could do was wrap my arm around her waist and go back to sleep.

I slept better than I had in months.