I appreciated that she would correct herself, but she had it right the first time. Killing every zombie on the island in just a few hours was insane. I tried not to think about that voice but the others sensed my distress. 'Is something wrong, Kane? What happened last night? Why weren't we there?' Mary asked. I didn't answer and Molly turned to cover her nose with her hand. "Yuck. As if they didn't smell bad enough when they were undead." I shook off the dreary feeling as we went to walk down the quiet street. I stopped at one of the corpses on the ground in front of me and I lit up after closer inspection. "Holy crap! Check this out, Molly! This one had size fourteen stilettos!"
She turned to look at me with a confused face when Erin took control. 'Bro. You got to try those on.' I had already knelt to claim them. "Way ahead of you, bro." I stood up with my new shoes and did a pose for Molly. "What do you think?" She held back a smile as she responded. "I think you're a dork." I laughed. "Man, this is what girls have to deal with all the time? My feet hurt after only ten seconds in them. But damn, I feel sexy." Erin was already on to the next thing. 'Imagine what other cool stuff you could find on these dead people. Let's go raiding!' I nodded. "Sure, Erin. I could use some nonsense right about now."
Molly looked at me talking to myself for a moment before lifting her head to the sky as if speaking to god. "Of all the people I had to be trapped on an island with, it had to be this guy." I rolled my eyes once my attention was pulled back to her. "Come on, Molly! When was the last time you actually had some fun? We have a whole island to ourselves without any zombies to worry about! Come grave robbing with me!" She crossed her arms. "There's no way I'm patting down corpses for loose change-" She stopped herself as the sparkle of a bracelet on a severed arm caught her eye.
She hesitantly bent down to remove the bracelet and placed it on her wrist with admiration. "Okay. I'm hooked." I smirked at how quickly she got convinced. "Let's get greedy." We then proceeded to run around the island and strip everything we liked off of the dead. We acted like children, even though the situation itself was fucked up. I had so much fun with Molly that the memory of last night went away as if it never happened. We laughed as we ran, and it became a war when we found something we both wanted.
By the time late afternoon rolled around, Molly and I were on the other side of the island where the beach was sand instead of rocks. We sat next to each other and drank fine wine that we found in a storage cellar. The water was calm in front of us and we had our bare feet resting just within the tide's reach. As the cool spray washed over our toes, I sat back in my new trench coat and black suit underneath. I had my pants rolled up to the knee so the water wouldn't dampen them, and I lifted the brim of my black pimp hat with a long feather so I could see more of the reddening sky.
I fidgeted with the excessive amount of jewelry I was wearing as I spun the wine in my glass. Molly had the poof of her blue nineteen eighties prom dress tucked underneath her thighs and pulled her cheap princess gloves higher up her arm. She was wearing more jewelry than I was and had to constantly blow the red bangs of her wig out of her face. We both looked ridiculous, but today was the most fun I've ever had. I haven't received any sarcastic remarks from Molly since this morning, so I assumed that she had just as good of a time as I did. Molly finished her glass and lay down on the sand. "I forgot what my life was like before the outbreak. I'm sure that it didn't have as much stealing as we did today, but it was nice to get out of my head for once. And to stop being afraid."
I wondered what she meant by that for a moment before she turned to me. "Thanks. I never get to have fun anymore." I lay so that I was resting on my elbow to get closer to her. "You're welcome. But, don't you have fun with apple-polisher?" She looked at me, blankly. "You will call him literally anything but his name, won't you?" I shrugged. "The name James just doesn't fit right to that face. I'm just capturing his essence through fun nicknames." She sighed. "Right. Well, fun isn't his fit either." That reminded me of how I had almost gotten her to tell me the doubts she had about James. Now that we have had some wine and were alone, it would be a perfect time to slide into that topic.
"If you don't have fun together... then why are you together?" I said, innocently. She sighed. "He saved my life." Ouch. That wasn't what I was expecting. I let her go on, hoping that I could use something she said to my advantage. "He saved me kind of like how you did. When I first joined the settlement, I was disoriented from everything that happened to me. I didn't think before I shot, so I would often get my team in trouble on scavenging missions. James and I didn't know each other that well, other than I knew he liked me. I didn't care about him at first, since he acted like a know-it-all." I had to fight my mouth from going on a rant about how much that was true. I stayed silent so she would stay on track.
"One day, I thought I was tough enough to search for more supplies alone. I didn't want to get anyone else in trouble from the mistakes I would often make so I thought that it was a smarter thing to do. As you can already predict, I got cornered. Luckily, James had followed me. After that, I gave him a chance." I hoped she would go into why she wasn't happy with him but the anticipation of her pause left me weak. "And?" She turned to me. "And he has been a fantastic boyfriend ever since." I dropped to the sand in defeat. "Argh! Come on! Tell me why you're doubting!!" She sat up and crossed her arms. "You really want to know?!" I sat up after her. "Yes!!" My answer came out more desperate than I would've hoped but it got her to inhale for her response. "He's bad in bed, Okay?!"
There was a pause where we looked at each other in surprise. I could only assume hers came from how she had told me something so private, but mine was from the fact itself. Back when I lived in Mexico as a young foreign man who was yearning to feel something, I definitely had my share of romantic escapades. There was a whole month when I had a date every day. I did not doubt that I could solve Molly's Rubix cube in no time flat if she would just hand it to me. This was just the advantage I needed.