Lori Perkins - Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance

Hungry For Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance

A Ravenous Romance Original Publication

Edited by Lori Perkins

A Ravenous Romance Original Publication

www.ravenousromance.com

Copyright 2009 by Ravenous Romance

Ravenous Romance

100 Cummings Center

Suite 123A

Beverly, MA

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60777-308-5

This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Dedication

For the boy and girl zombies of Camp Necon

who said it couldnt be done

And double dog dared me

Table of Contents

by Lori Perkins

by Jeremy Wagner

by Francesca Lia Block I Heart Brains by Jaime Saare

by Elizabeth Coldwell Through Death to Love by S.M. Cross

by Stacey Graham

by Jan Kozlowski

by R.G. Hart

by Regina Riley

by Brian Keene

by Gina McQueen

by Lois Gresh

by Steven Saus

by Isabel Roman

by Mercy Loomis

by Jeanine McAdam

by Stacy Brown

by Kilt Kilpatrick Some New Blood by Vanessa Vaugh

by Dana Fredsti

by Michael Marshall Smith

Introduction

They said it couldnt be done.

And like the undead, I rose to the challenge.

This anthology was born in July 2009 at the 29th Northeastern Writers Conference, affectionately known by its regular participants as Camp Necon. Every year since its inception, Necon has what we also affectionately call that damn vampire panel. But this year, we had a zombie panel instead. The revolution had begun.

As soon as the panel opened, someone brought up the question of whether or not the zombie mythos could possibly have the staying power of the vampire appeal in American pop culture.

And I said yes.

As soon as the words had left my mouth, the audience responded, but you cant have zombie romance.

And I said yes, you could.

As soon as I got back to the Ravenous Romance office, I informed my colleagues that we would be doing a zombie romance anthology. They were emphatically skeptical.

We posted the thesis on Facebook and hundreds of readers said they couldnt imagine romance with rotting corpses.

Oh, ye of little faith.

The zombie mythos is the perfect metaphor for the end of an era, for a society beset with change it doesnt understand but knows is here.

Vampires were the cultural embodiment of the end of the millennium: seductive immortals with (literally) cutthroat greed. Then came the recession and the end of the Bush boom, and with it came the realization that we were all worker drones paying off our bloated mortgages, bloodsucking corporations and even each other.

We are the dead.

So, in these pages you will find zombie tales that span the possibilities and boggle the brain. Jeremy Wagners Love Aint Dead and Michael Marshall Smiths Later are two of the most romantic stories of lost love you will ever read. Dating the undead? Try I Heart Brains by Jaime Saare and Elizabeth Coldwells zombie threesome in Everyone I Love is Dead . Love among the dead? Take notes from Francesca Lia Blocks Revenants Anonymous or S.M. Crosss Through Death to Love.

And what about undead exes? Gina McQueens Apocalypse as Foreplay gives you one take youll never forget; then theres Jan Kozlowskis First Love Never Dies.

And leave it to zombie master Brian Keene to show us how we can find love and revenge in the time of the zombie apocalypse in Captive Hearts.

But its not all George Romeros zombie hordes in these pages. Old-fashioned voodoo zombies make their presence known in Isabel Romans Zombified and Mercy Loomiss White Knight, Black Horse.

Theres even a tale of zombie noir in R.G. Harts My Partner the Zombie, and some classic paranormal romance in Regina Rileys Undying Love. And if Lois Greshs Julia Brainchild doesnt make you laugh, well, then you are a zombie.

And just because this is a Ravenous Romance title, we have some zombie smut for you from two of our favorite RR authors. Dana Fredsti lets you know just how hot and bothered you can get from zombie hunting in First Date and Kilt Kilpatrick gives us the unforgettable erotic zombie escapades of a high school senior in Las Times at Ridgemont High.

Theres something for everyone.

Enjoy.

Lori Perkins

October

Romance Aint Dead

by Jeremy Wagner

I love my dead wife. Wait, let me re-phrase that. I love my zombie wife. Shes not dead or alive. Shes reanimated, brought back from death after drowning in Lake Michigan this past summer.

Id better explain.

My wife Sheri and I have been married for twenty years. Were in our late forties and live in Winnetka on Chicagos North Shore. Were quite wealthy. I owe my fortune to major successes in real estate while Sheris fortune comes from her deceased parents

multibillion-dollar medical supply company. Sheris an only child and her trust-fund releases and six-figure dividend earnings blast into our joint bank account every quarter.

Needless to say, we dont work day jobs. We enjoy our marriage full time.

Ive never been in such love with a woman. We met in college. By chance, Sheri happened to be at a bar my friends and I frequented. When I first saw Sheri, I was sucker-punched by Eros. She was amazing to me: short and curly blond hair, toned body with all the right curves, green eyes from another world. Im eating my heart out just thinking about the first moment we met. When I first saw her, she stood out in vivid, living color while the world around her turned to grayscale. Ive never seen anyone the same way.

Since then, Ive forgotten every woman I met before her and Ive never looked back.

Sheris my proof of love at first sight. Also, weve proven love aint dead, even if my better half is considered dearly departed.

Sheris demise and return to the world of the living started when we went to the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park. We hunkered down on the grass on a beautiful summer evening with a basket full of cheeses and prosciutto paired with bottles of Laeticia Pinot. We became tipsy while watching and dancing to Tony Bennett. It was a blast.

We returned home at midnight and Sheri wanted to stroll down to the sand of our beachfront property. When we reached the beach, she got the idea to go skinny-dipping. I declined because Lake Michigan is ice-cold year round. Even on the hottest days, this Great Lake is freezing.

Sheri said, Youre a freaking wimp, Bruce. She kicked off her heels and her blue Escada dress and undergarments. I laughed and sat on the sand with another bottle of red wine, admiring her sweet backside running toward the water. She squealed and dove under. She came up wet and smiling in the moonlight. She said the chilly dip sobered her up. I waved the bottle of wine at her.

I watched Sheri backstroke farther away from the beach. Then I heard the sound of an engine. Sheri asked me what the sound was and I wasnt sure.

Minutes later, the sound grew louder and I made out the shape of a yellow speedboat with its lights off, hauling ass in the moonlight. Before I could yell and summon Sheri back toward shore, the boat roared past our beach and nailed my wife in the head. The boat never stopped.

I dropped the wine bottle and ran to the water. I dove in and swam out to Sheri. I found her floating facedown in the water, bleeding from her head. I turned her over, screamed her name, but she never responded. I towed her back to shore and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She was DOA.