So.
They're on the run from zombies.
No, no. Do not adjust your television sets. You did, in fact, hear that right.
Granted, they're technically not zombies by definition because they're not really the undead. They're just an alien life form that's come down to Earth to replenish their numbers by feasting on the brains of adolescents. Like a Justin-Bieber-obsessed buffet table, and here they are.
Of course, they can't be killed with a shotgun blast to the head, either. No, that would be too easy.
Instead, she's got to stab them with some kind of knife thing in the throat. Have you ever been up close to a zombie? Close enough to stab it in the throat? Yeah, it isn't so easy. It's kind of a little freaky, and while Wendy's not exactly close to a Bieber-obsessed teenager, she isn't quite so far away from it that a hungry -
Equindoharian, Dubbie, the Middleman says -
and yes, okay, that - she's not quite so far from teenagehood that a hungry alien zombie wouldn't want to feast on her brains. Her brains have got quite the feast to them.
And, to be honest, the whole day's sort of got this weird Scooby Doo Where Are You season 2 vibe to it (yes, she has the DVD sets - let's move on from that, people), with the roundabout chase sequences and the dated sixties music. (What kind of alien zombies bring their own boomboxes? These people - aliens - need to be stopped!)
But the Middleman keeps grabbing her by the hand because the longer the chase goes on, the more tired she becomes, the easier a target she is.
"Hang on," she pants, as they hide behind a giant haystack. "Why do you keep doing the - the thing?"
"Dubbie, they're wearing you down so they can eat your brains. We're trying to keep you alive here!"
And it's that weird fifties sensibility sound (can sensibility sound like anything?) that sneaks in and it makes her even more exhausted and that's when she sees the long forked tongue strike at the spot where her head is.
He tackles her to the ground and all she can hear is the baritone squeaky yelp of the alien monster thing, and then it hits her.
The metaphor, she means.
Well, and the fact that the Middleman is heavy. Heavier than she expected.
"You okay, Dubbie?"
She moves to sit up. "Yeah, I'm fine."
He checks his watch, gives it an experimental tap with his finger. No Ida, just the crackle of static.
"What?" she asks, weakly. "No signal? It's like literally being trapped in Children of the Corn."
"Don't be ridiculous," Middleman says. "That took place in the '70s in the Midwest. We're on the west coast."
Oh, yeah.
That puts her right at ease.
There is, of course, an abandoned warehouse.
Honestly, when isn't there an abandoned warehouse? Wendy's surprised some older man with a beard and an odd Southern accent and some missing teeth didn't come out from behind the building to tell them some kind of obscure legend where a whole bunch of people died or something.
"They're aliens, Dubbie. This isn't an Unsolved Mysteries episode."
Wendy just arches a brow, a little impressed. "Did you just try to make a pop culture reference?" She hits him lightly with her first. "Right on."
His lips just turn down at the corners.
"We should probably try to make camp."
"Yeah, sure," she intones. "Home sweet abandoned creepy warehouse."
"Dubbie, one of the things you have to learn as a potential Middleman is the benefit of recognizing your surroundings and being prepared for all kinds of strange scenarios. Like, for instance, I carry around with me at all times a banana-and-coconut-scented spray. Ever since that incident with the irascible chimps in '05, I never leave home without it."
Wendy just ignores most of the speech.
"Do I want to know about the incident with the irascible chimps in '05?"
They don't have a tent and the warehouse doesn't really have any supplies, so Wendy just chalks it up to their being in a real life zombie movie. They take off their jackets, laying them down on the ground to sleep on. It doesn't really make much of a difference.
The Middleman strips down to his undershirt, using his shirts to make a makeshift pillow.
It's easier for her to believe that he used to be a Navy SEAL when he's like this.
"Stop thinking about it," he says.
"What?"
"That I used to be a Navy SEAL."
She's a little cold without the button-down on, but the shirt is too crisp to be comfortable to sleep in. Something rustles outside the warehouse.
They are so going to die.
"We are not going to die."
"You don't know that. Usually, one of us goes out to investigate or pee, and then, bam, the zombies strike. Usually only one person makes it out of the horror movie alive."
"Dubbie, they're aliens who are here to feed. They're not monsters."
"That's exactly what they are!"
"Just... try to sleep."
"Yeah, right."
Like there's any chance of that happening.
They sleep side by side although inevitably, she shifts closer to him for warmth during the night.
It's when she jolts awake out of a dream she can barely remember that everything sort of … changes. And not in the weird zombie movie way where one of them gets bit and forgets about it until suddenly, there's a giant craving for brains and everyone's growing that same shade of movie make-up dead pale.
She wakes up and the Middleman is just sitting there, looking at her, his eyes dark.
"You were dreaming," he says, tersely.
It's still really dark out. "Why aren't you sleeping?" She takes his hand. He doesn't look at her. "You okay?"
Okay.
In retrospect, Wendy still isn't really sure how this happens.
It's sort of like calculus. Just like all the math before, there's a point A and a point B but at some point, there's some sort of weird conic section or line segment and then math suddenly involves fractions upon fractions with some sort of Greek symbol thrown in for good measure (a Sigma's always good, or a Delta) and about a sixth of the letters of the alphabet suddenly become involved.
Why you would need Is, Ys, Xs, and whatever else to figure out how to get from A to B is something she doesn't really understand.
But anyway -
There's this weird five minute gap in between her putting her hand on his and asking him if things are okay, and then they're kind of making out.
Which.
She knows that Lacey has a thing for him, but they're in the plot of a zombie movie and it may be more than possible that she accidentally had a sex dream about him without knowing it (damn it, Freud) and because he was keeping watch because he's a grown up Boy Scout, things got weird. And then things kind of got hot.
She's got to admit - aside from the weird return to '50s mentalities, and that includes all the weird milk drinking, he's still -
Okay, no, this is very weird.
His lips are on hers, and he knows what he's doing (not his first time at the rodeo, to use a really terrible line), and his hands are in her hair and everything kind of tastes like dust and desperation, but there's something so raw about it. His lips are chapped and the angle she's twisting her body makes everything sort of hurt in this uncomfortable way, but she can't even focus because his mouth is hot and he smells good in that way that laundry detergent commercials make you think detergent smells like. There's something crisp about the way he smells, and then he just sort of pulls her towards him, hauling her onto his lap, and she wonders if in about a week or something, she'll just find out that this is like the latter stages of Middleman pon farr or something. Sex pollen from the alien zombies. Hey, weirder things have happened, right?
But anyway.
It's all sort of a blur.
Like sex while drunk. Except this time, she knows she'll remember everything.
Everything.
Like the way his knuckles brush against her once he's slipped his hand down her pants, like how she presses her mouth to his adam's apple and sucks hard and he makes that sound, a groan that makes her feel like if he doesn't fuck her right that second, she's going to kill him (and that is not something Wendy Watson thinks often, okay. She dates sensitive people. Artists. Animal rights activists who recognize that PETA sucks. Those kinds of people.), like the way she rolls her hips, pushing down against his hardness and he just sucks in a breath through his teeth and swears (and fucking god, she will never forget that ever).
He presses his mouth to her breast over her thin t-shirt.
The wind howls outside.
And then, she's throwing a leg over him - fuck fuck fuck, and he doesn't tell her not to swear - sinking down on him, her legs wrapping around him. She squeezes her thighs and he exhales obscenities - fuck, Dubbie - and she doesn't think anything ever sounded so fantastic.
"Stop trying to make me swear," he says.
"You're a Navy SEAL," she says. "It's kind of already there."
"Was a Navy SEAL," he says, and then he's turning them over, pinning her upper body to the ground as he drives into her. His mouth settles on the bare spots of her neck that he can reach, his teeth sliding down her sensitive skin and she just gasps, pushing against him hard and fast.
Her hair kind of goes all over the place, and he doesn't help matters - he buries his hand in it, moving it aside so he can suck at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
"You got a weird neck thing?" she gasps out.
He slows his pace then, his jaw clenched as he changes the angle, and all she wants to do is dig her nails so hard into his back he can feel it.
He flicks his tongue against her pulse point.
Yes, she thinks, is the answer.
He does have a weird neck thing.
He leaves her with like five bruises that she can actually see: two on her hips, two on her neck, one on her collarbone.
It's a little awkward when they're heading out in the morning, getting dressed, and all the same questions sort of crop up - Where are my pants? Have you seen my bra? - except they're in an abandoned warehouse on the run from zombies. So.
Still, she thinks she sees a hint of a smirk on his face when she's looking at the bruise on her collarbone.
Ida calls the Equindoharians' natural predators.
The zombies leave.
They leave behind the boomboxes.
"Why is it," Wendy says, trying to find the power button to switch it off, "that no matter where you go, even the far reaches of the galaxy, somehow, a society will find a way to make really annoying pop music?"
He gives her one of those smiles she sometimes finds patronizing. "The universe works in mysterious ways, Dubbie."
She takes the Zippo lighter out of her pocket, fidgets with it.
When they're back in the locker room at HQ, the bruises and bite marks somehow look worse in the mirror.
"You know I'm going to have to wear coverup for like two weeks. And my mother's coming down!"
He fixes his tie, staring down fixedly at the Windsor knot, and, voice husky, murmurs, "We could just keep you at work the whole time."
Wendy shudders.
(Okay, it might not be sex pollen.
Or pon farr.)