Chapter 3: Blood on the Leather
The stairwell spat them out into a concrete cavern that reeked of exhaust fumes and stale gasoline. Jennie's lungs burned with each gasp, the metallic tang of blood coating her tongue. Emergency lights flickered overhead, casting long shadows that danced between the rows of parked cars like specters.
The underground parking garage stretched before them, a maze of expensive metal and reinforced pillars. Her Range Rover sat three levels down, parked in the reserved spot she'd purchased specifically for events like this—secure, monitored, impossible to miss. She'd never imagined she'd need it to escape the end of the world.
"Keys," Leonid said, his voice tight.
She patted her clutch—still miraculously clutched in her hand—and felt the familiar cold weight of the fob. She tossed it to him, and he caught it without looking, his eyes scanning the shadowed corners of the garage.
They moved at a run, their footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. The silence was wrong. The city above them screamed and burned, but down here, in the belly of the beast, everything was still. Too still.
"There," she said, pointing toward the sleek black silhouette of her Range Rover.
Leonid pressed the fob, and the lights flashed twice, the doors unlocking with a soft click. They piled in, slamming the doors behind them, and the sudden silence was deafening. Jennie pressed her back against the leather seat, her chest heaving. The knife was gone, lost somewhere in the ventilation shaft. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop the trembling.
Leonid fumbled with the keys, his hands shaking as he tried to slide them into the ignition. They clattered against the steering column, and he cursed under his breath.
"Fuck."
She reached over and stilled his hands with hers. His skin was hot, slick with sweat. She squeezed his fingers, feeling the tremor that ran through them.
"Breathe," she said.
He looked at her, his dark eyes wild in the dim light. For a moment, he was just a boy again, nineteen and terrified, hiding in her dorm room during a thunderstorm. She'd held him then, the same way she wanted to hold him now.
He exhaled, long and slow. Then he slid the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine roared to life, a sound so ordinary it made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.
They sat there for a moment, listening to the engine hum. The air inside the car was thick with the smell of cheap champagne and expensive fear. Jennie caught her reflection in the rearview mirror—smudged makeup, wild hair, a smattering of blood across her cheek that wasn't hers.
"Jesus," she whispered.
"Are you hurt?" Leonid reached for her face, his thumb brushing against her skin with impossible tenderness.
"It's not my blood."
He didn't ask whose it was.
The distant sound of breaking glass echoed from somewhere above them, followed by a scream that cut off too abruptly. Jennie felt the manic energy bubbling up inside her, that familiar electric current that always preceded one of her episodes. She could feel it in the way her heart raced, in the buzzing beneath her skin, in the sudden urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
"Is this real?" she asked, her voice too high, too bright.
Leonid turned to face her fully, his hand still cradling her cheek. "What?"
"This." She gestured vaguely at the window, at the world beyond. "The apocalypse. You. Me. Is this real?"
His brow furrowed. "Jennie—"
"Because I feel like I'm dreaming. Like I'm going to wake up in my penthouse with a hangover and Morris calling me about the quarterly reports, and none of this will have ever happened." She laughed. "And I can't decide if that's comforting or disappointing."
Leonid's hand slipped to the back of her neck, his fingers threading through her tangled hair. He pulled her closer, his forehead pressing against hers.
"It's real," he said. "But we're alive. We're together. That's real too."
She closed her eyes, letting his presence anchor her. The buzz didn't fade, but it settled, becoming something she could control rather than something that controlled her.
"I love you," she whispered. "I hate this. I love you."
He laughed, a low, incredulous sound. "I know, baby. I know."
For a moment, neither of them moved. The engine hummed. The world burned. And in the bubble of the Range Rover, they held onto each other like survivors clinging to driftwood.
Then a sound cut through their cocoon.
It was the scrape of a body against concrete—close, far too close. Jennie's eyes snapped open, and she saw a figure silhouetted in the headlights of a car two rows down. It moved with that now-familiar jerky gait, its head tilted at an unnatural angle.
"Leonid," she whispered.
"I see it."
"There are more."
She looked past the first figure and saw them emerging from the shadows, drawn by the sound of the engine. Five, maybe six of them. Maybe more. They surrounded the car like sharks circling a wounded seal.
Leonid eased his foot off the brake, and the Range Rover rolled forward. The figures didn't scatter. They advanced, their arms outstretched, their mouths open in silent screams.
"Hang on," he said.
He floored it.
The Range Rover surged forward, and the first figure bounced off the hood with a sickening thud. Jennie felt the impact travel through the chassis, felt the slight bump of the body rolling over the roof. She didn't look back.
They tore through the garage, weaving between the parked cars as more figures emerged from the shadows. Leonid drove with a focused intensity she'd never seen before, his hands steady on the wheel, his jaw set.
"Which way?" he asked.
"Ramp. Two o'clock."
He swerved, and the car tilted as they descended to the next level. The garage was a labyrinth of concrete and shadow, but Jennie had memorized it the same way she memorized everything—obsessively, completely, with the ruthless precision of a woman who needed to control every variable.
"Lower level," she said. "Service exit. I left a key card with the attendant."
"Attendant?"
"Security. He owed me a favor."
Leonid glanced at her, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "Of course he did."
They hit the bottom level, and the garage opened up into a cavernous space reserved for deliveries. A single guard booth sat near the exit gate, its window dark. No attendant. No sign of anyone.
Leonid slowed the car, rolling to a stop in front of the gate. Jennie reached for the glove compartment and pulled out a key card—one of several she kept stored in case of emergencies. She climbed out of the car, her heels clicking against the concrete, and swiped it across the reader.
The gate didn't move.
She swiped it again. Nothing.
"Fuck," she hissed. She looked at the guard booth, at the blood smeared across its window. "He's dead. The system's locked."
Leonid climbed out of the car and joined her, his eyes scanning the booth. "Can you break in?"
"It's a reinforced security station. I can't—"
She stopped.
The blood on the window wasn't just smeared. It was arranged. Letters, crude and deliberate, scrawled by something that had been human once and now was something else entirely.
"Let us in."
Jennie stared at the words, her blood running cold. The man in the booth—Garcia, his name was Garcia—he must have been bitten. Must have turned. Must have written this before the infection consumed him completely.
"Jennie." Leonid's voice was low, urgent. "Get back in the car."
She turned to face him, and saw him looking past her, toward the far corner of the garage. More shapes were emerging from the shadows, drawn by the sound of their voices, the scent of their fear.
She climbed back into the Range Rover, her heart pounding. Leonid slid into the driver's seat and slammed his door shut, locking it.
"We're boxed in," she said.
"Not yet."
He threw the car into reverse, screeching backward toward the ramp they'd descended. The figures were closing in from all sides now, their moans rising in a chorus that made her skin crawl.
"Leonid—"
"I see it."
He spun the wheel, and the Range Rover fishtailed before surging forward. He drove straight at a cluster of figures blocking the ramp, and Jennifer cried out, bracing herself for impact. But instead of hitting them, Leonid swerved at the last moment, clipping one and sending it spinning into its companions.
The car roared up the ramp, and they burst out onto the next level. But the garage was swarming now, the infected pouring in from every entrance like water through a cracked dam.
"Hold on," Leonid said. "I'm going to make a run for it."
"Where?"
He didn't answer. He just drove.
They careened through the garage, Leonid weaving between the rows of cars with a skill that bordered on supernatural. Jennie gripped the door handle, her knuckles white, her heart in her throat.
The exit ramp appeared ahead, its barrier arm still down. A body lay crumpled beside the booth, attended by none.
"Go," she said. "Just go."
Leonid floored it, and the Range Rover smashed through the barrier arm, sending it flying. They burst out into the street, and the world exploded into chaos.
The city was burning.
Buildings she'd known her entire life, landmarks she'd grown up with, all wrapped in fire and smoke. Cars were abandoned in the middle of the road, their doors hanging open. Bodies littered the sidewalks, and the streetlights flickered like strobes over a scene out of a nightmare.
Leonid drove. He didn't stop, didn't slow, didn't look back. The Range Rover tore through the city, past burning storefronts and overturned buses, past screaming people and snarling corpses.
Jennie watched it all pass like a movie, her hand still gripping the door handle, her mind struggling to process what she was seeing. This was real. This was happening.
This was the end of the world.
She laughed.
It was a broken sound, high and sharp, and it fell out of her before she could stop it. Leonid looked at her, his eyes wide.
"Jennie?"
"I can't—" She laughed again, the sound turning into something like a sob. "I can't believe I wore heels to the apocalypse."
He stared at her for a moment. Then he laughed too, a raw, disbelieving sound that seemed to crack something open in his chest.
"We're going to die," she said, still laughing. "We're actually going to die."
"Not today."
"How do you know?"
He turned to look at her, his eyes blazing in the flickering light. "Because I'm not going to let you. Not today. Not ever."
Something in his voice cut through the hysteria, grounded her in a way that nothing else could. She swallowed, the laughter fading into something quieter, something rawer.
"Pull over," she said.
"What?"
"Pull over, Leonid. Now."
He looked at her, confused, but he obeyed. The Range Rover rolled to a stop in the middle of an empty side street, surrounded by the distant sounds of destruction.
Jennie unbuckled her seatbelt. She climbed over the console, her gown catching on the gear shift, and straddled his lap before he could say a word.
"Jennie—"
"Shut up."
She kissed him. It was not gentle. It was desperate and hungry and tasted like blood and fear and the metallic tang of adrenaline. She fisted her hands in his collar and pulled him closer, her lips bruising against his.
He responded immediately, his hands finding her hips, gripping her through the ruined silk of her gown. He pulled her harder into him, and she could feel him growing hard beneath her, feel the answering heat of his body through the layers of expensive fabric.
"I need you," she breathed against his lips. "I need you to fuck me right now or I'm going to lose my mind."
"Where—"
"Here. Now. I don't care."
She was already reaching between them, fumbling with his belt, her fingers clumsy and desperate. He helped her, his hands shaking as he unbuckled and unzipped and freed himself.
He was hard, impossibly so, his cock thick and straining. She wrapped her fingers around him, feeling every vein, every ridge. A sound escaped her, somewhere between relief and craving.
"I love this," she gasped. "I love how hard you get for me."
"Always," he groaned. "Always, baby."
She shifted, tugging the soaked fabric of her panties aside. She was already slick, her thighs wet with want. She positioned herself over him and sank down in one motion.
They both cried out.
Jennie was ached, taken, stretched around the impossible fullness of him. She leaned back, bracing her hands on his thighs, and began to ride him with furious abandon. Her stilettos dug into the leather seats, her heels scrambling for purchase as she moved.
Leonid threw his head back, his mouth falling open on a shuddering exhale. The veins in his neck stood out as she drove herself down onto him again and again, her body slick and greedy for him.
The city was burning around them. Somewhere a building collapsed, a distant thunder that rattled the windows. A zombie scraped past the car, its fingernails screeching across the glass, but Jennie didn't see it, didn't care. She was elsewhere, her entire body tuned to the cock inside her, the weight of Leonid beneath her, his hands roving everywhere.
He slipped his hands beneath her ruined gown, gripping her bare ass in both hands, kneading the taut flesh with desperate fingers. He dug his fingertips into the smooth skin, pulling her open, drawing her down harder onto him.
"God, your ass," he breathed. "I can't—Jennie—"
She arched her back and moaned, reaching behind her to press her own fingers against the spot where they were joined. She could feel stretch, feel how full she was and the sensation made her head spin.
"Do it," she heard herself say, the words falling out of her on a shudder. "Use your fingers. I want you to fill me."
Leonid growled, low and primal. He shifted his grip, his thumb finding her entrance. She was tight—impossibly tight—but she was so wet that when he pressed against her she opened for him.
He pushed his finger in and she cried out, a raw sound that had him grinding into her harder.
"Fuck," he gasped. "So fucking tight."
"More," she demanded. "I want more."
He gave her another finger, pushing deeper. She felt a fullness in her ass that made her clench around his cock, a wave of sensation that made her shudder.
Leonid fucked her with his fingers while she rode him, his thumb pressing against his own hand, letting her feel the thickness stretching her. She moaned, her head thrown back, the manic laughter from before now a memory of breathless, mindless sounds.
She loved this. She loved the vulnerability of it, the way he handled her, took her apart. No one else knew about this indulgence, this secret desire he alone unlocked in her.
Leonid's hips bucked up, meeting her frantic rhythm. His fingers were a persistent pressure, working in tandem with his cock, driving her higher, higher.
"Look at me," he commanded.
She opened her eyes, her gaze slamming into his. The gentleness was gone, replaced by something raw and hungry.
"Tell me you're mine," he said.
"I'm yours," she gasped.
"Again."
"I'm yours, Leonid. I've always been yours."
He pulled her down and kissed her, his thrusts growing harder, his fingers curling inside her. She was close, so close she could feel the edge approaching, a cliff she was about to fall off of.
"I want to feel you come," he whispered against her lips. "I want to watch it happen."
He pinched her clit with his free hand—thumb, light pressure, a brutal flick that sent her over the edge. She shattered with a scream, her inner walls clenching convulsively around his cock, her body shaking with the force of her orgasm.
He followed her, driving into her with a husky curse. She felt his cock twitch, felt the hot flood of his release as he spilled inside her, deep and plenty. His fingers stilled in her ass, holding her together as he shook.
They collapsed against each other, their bodies slick with sweat and sex. Jennie rested her forehead on his shoulder, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She could feel his semen leaking out around where they were still joined, a wetness that was somehow grounding.
"I meant it," he whispered, his voice roughened. "If we both turn into monsters, I'm still not letting you go. I'll keep you. Even then."
She laughed, a dark and beautiful sound, manic at the edges. She kissed him, tasting blood and salt and something that was purely Leonid.
"Then I guess we'll be the most dangerous monsters in the city."
"Good."
She drew back, examining his face—streaked with blood and sweat, still the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She pressed her lips to his once more, a promise, a seal.
"Hang on," she said. "I'm going to get us out of this."
She climbed off his lap and back into the driver's seat, adjusting her ruined gown. His seed was still dripping down her thighs, and she could feel him watching her as she started the car.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
She revved the engine, a wild look in her eyes.
"Somewhere they'll never find us."