According to the online registration, the zombies were fully trained paintball experts whose priorities were “customer safety” and “delivering a rollicking good time.”
“You sound like you’re going to lose when you say things like that,” she said quietly as she got in the car. “Are we not taking this seriously, Cunningham?”
“My apologies, Distefano; I was foolishly thinking of this as a date,” I said, unable to keep a straight face. I loved that she was nerding out over zombie paintballing, and I felt a sense of accomplishment that I planned the perfect date for her. “I will now concentrate on the more important task at hand of ‘winning’ against the zombies, who are probably just adolescents doing this for minimum wage.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t underestimate the zombies. It’s a historically accurate fact that everyone who’s ever lost a battle in a war lost because they underestimated their enemies.”
“Not a historically accurate fact,” I said, shaking my head.
“But I bet it still tracks,” she insisted as she buckled her seat belt.
We fell into easy conversation on the way to the pumpkin patch, her telling me about the latest drama at her office. Apparently, there were some inappropriate relationships going on between the head of HR and one of the executives, and no one was getting any work done because they couldn’t stop talking about it.
Which made Duffy crazy.
It was soherthat she was annoyed by the fact that no one was working. She wasn’t above being mildly entertained by thenews, but she didn’t understand why people weren’t able to multitask while gossiping.
I swear to God I could just listen to her for hours because she was so uniquely Duffy.
We followed the rest of the group—there were ten of us total—into the shed and closed the door behind us. It was literally just a shed with nothing inside but a dirt floor and big wooden crates that the other players used as seats. The rest of the participants were dressed in regular clothes, relaxed and exchanging small talk as they settled into the scene—the total opposite of Duffy and her current vibe.
Duffy looked on edge and ready to hunt.
“Hey,” she whispered, stepping a little closer, distracting me with the smell of her perfume. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“What doesn’t?” I asked, letting my eyes drop down to the shine of the gloss on her bottom lip.
“Why would they drop all of us in one central shed without an official starting shot?” She tucked her hair behind her ears and said, “I mean, it makes us sitting ducks. The second we walk out that front door it’s going to be easy for them to take us all out in one fell swoop.”
I didn’t say anything because I was trying not to laugh at her hypercompetitiveness.
“I bet they love this,” she said, and she leaned closer so no one else could hear. “They get all these people to spend money to hunt zombies, then they take us out in five minutes.”
“That’s…actually probably true,” I agreed, though the idea of it didn’t really bother me.
“Let’s not let them,” she said, her eyes sparkling like she had a plan.
I was too mesmerized by her eyes to answer. People always talked about blue eyes like they were magic, but there was something about her brown eyes that felt so warm and inviting and playful andshit—I needed to focus.
“Let’s not go out with the rest of them. Look,” she said, giving my arm a tiny smack.
I followed her eyes to where she’d pointed with her chin to a window in the back of the shed.
“Holy crap, if we stealthily slide out that window, we can totally take off into the woods without the zombies even knowing,” she said.
“What?” I looked at the window and clearly didn’t see what she was envisioning.
Because it wasn’t a big window. Like, atall.
“Hear me out,” she said emphatically. “They’re expecting all of us to stumble out the front door like a bunch of idiots, where they can just tag us immediately. But if you and I quietly slip out the back window and don’t make any noise, when all of these other people go through the front door, we can take off in another direction. They won’t even realize they’re missing two people at first. Then we can hide andwecan stalkthemand we can win.”
“Is it possible to win at this? I’m pretty sure it’s just a random shooting game.”
Hell, I had no idea, even though I was the one who’d set up the excursion.
She looked at me like I was ridiculous. “If we make it to theend without getting shot and we take out a few zombies while we’re at it, then it’s a win, right? Pretty simple.”
All of a sudden this seemed like the greatest idea. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and this sounded really fucking fun.