Midlife Zombie Hunter (Forty Proof, #5)

by Shannon Mayer

“Love all, trust few, and do wrong to none,” he said. “Will Shakespeare got it close, but maybe it should be love deeply the one you love, trust few, and do wrong only to those who need an ass kicking.”

“You gonna be okay,” Feish burbled softly, “I promise. Pain is just weakness leaving the body. Sometimes also a bad angry worm, but I don’t think you have worms.” Hand it to Feish to make me smile when I felt like I was dying. “Worms would be bad,” I whispered. “Oh, terrible, and they make your butthole itch like fire ants been biting down there.” I shouldn’t have laughed, really I shouldn’t have. But I did. The contractions of the laughter on my belly only intensified the pain, but I didn’t care. Maybe dying laughing was the way to go?

He looked me in the eye then, and for just a moment I thought he was trying to . . . get into my head? Was that what he was doing? I squinted back at him. “You have some nose hairs you need to trim.” I reached up as if to pluck them myself.

My butt hit the railing around the deck, and I flipped right

over and into the bushes. Twigs and branches jabbed at me, and I couldn’t help the giggling that followed.

For just a moment, I didn’t see myself. Not my forty-one-year-old face or body. Not the wrinkles I was earning every damn day or the increasing laxity of my skin. Not the failure I so often saw. Certainly not the girl who wondered if she’d ever get it right. No, I saw someone else. I saw a damn boss bitch ready to take on the day. I saw a woman who had earned her scars. I saw a woman who faced each day with all the energy she had left. I saw a woman who loved with all her heart, even when it hurt her. I saw a woman I liked very much; a woman I’d like to see more of.

“Always a choice. You just might not like the choices you have is all.”

“This is where I’ll wait. I can feel a boundary line up ahead. In animal form, you won’t trip any alarms, not if you cross it one at a time. Spread out. Be cagey. Like a cat.” Her wink at me was not lost on Eammon. “What shape are we taking?” he barked. Though it might have been a bit more like a meow. As he was talking, I got a serious twinge in my guts to let out a fart. Like the cramping, bloated feeling of air trying to push its way out of your body, and you cross your legs in the hopes that it doesn’t escape you and, if it does, no one notices. Suzy leapt out of the car, and apparently, I wasn’t the only one struggling. A fart tore out of her that sounded as though it could have ripped her pants. Kinkly giggled. Eammon laughed. Only when he laughed, it came out both ends. He was still in the car. The noise was not lacking in smell. Gagging, Eric and I tumbled out of the car at the same time. Again, my guts grumbled, and a squeaker snuck out. “That’s the spell activating in your body,” Penny said. “I’m going to use that excuse the next time I let one slip.” I leaned on the trunk of the car as a chorus of rumbles worked its way out of all of us. Kinkly squealed and flew to the other side of the road. “I swear there is a green fog rolling from all of you!”

He spun around and tried to jump back into the car, but his legs were too stubby, and he bounced off the step instead and flipped over. I shouldn’t have laughed. A fart tore out of me, and the cramps doubled down. I struggled to breathe over the snickers as Eammon cussed Penny out and she shushed him. “Don’t be a pussy, Eammon,” I said. He shot a look at me. “Don’t you start with me.”

My stomach rumbled, and I let out a rather loud kitty fart. Crash chuckled. “A farting cat?” Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Not by a long shot. The change in my body was so swift and violent, accompanied by a fart comparable to the sudden deflating of a ten-foot balloon as I went from tiny little kitten to large-bottomed naked woman, that I knocked Crash backward and off the chair. As if the propulsion of the fart had compelled us.

Sometimes you can’t save the person you love. “He said he loves me,” I whispered, and Suzy jerked. “Bastard.” I gave a wobbly laugh. “Totally.”

And just like that, we were as ready as we were going to get to save the day, rescue Sarge and Corb, and maybe, just maybe, stop the zombie apocalypse. I could not wait for this week to be over.

Handed the phone back to the demon on the left. “Thanks.” “Shouldn’t thank a demon,” he said. “Might be the end of the freaking world as we know it,” I said. “But I can still have manners.” The ground rumbled, dust fell from the ceiling, and the lights flickered. I nodded. “I think that means it’s time to go kick some zombie ass.” Stavros laughed. “I don’t want to like you, demon hunter.” “There’s a club,” Sarge said. “I started it on Facebook. All the people who didn’t want to like Bree but now do.”