pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 1

CHAPTER 1

As his beloved Elizabeth shattered the nearest zombie's skull with a perfectly placed axe kick, Fitzwilliam Darcy saw in her eyes something that had been missing for a long, long time: joie de vivre.

Much as he would have liked to revel in it—to bask in the rekindled warmth of his wife's delight—he could not. She was already ducking beneath another dreadful's clumsy lurch, for one thing. And then there were the three unmentionables that were closing in on him.

Although one couldn't say the creatures had joie de vivre, both joie and vivre being long beyond them, they were undeniably enthusiastic in their quest for succulent flesh. His. Which he denied them—temporarily, at least—with a backward flip that delivered him safely out of their reach.

Darcy landed directly behind the tallest of the dreadfuls. He drew his katana and, with one stroke, made it the shortest. The others whirled on him howling as even more zombies clambered out of the abandoned well in which they'd apparently wintered.

Darcy danced back a few steps and then stopped and set his feet, readying himself for the onslaught.

Something pressed up against him from behind.

"I'm so glad you suggested we check that well for dreadfuls," Elizabeth said, her back pushing harder into his with each panted breath.

"I thought it might bring you some amusement."

"Oh, it has. More than I've had in quite a while."

"So I noticed."

Mindless as they were, the unmentionables could be instinctively wary, and, rather than rushing in one at a time, they spread out around the couple, encircling them. Darcy raised his sword.

Elizabeth, being a married lady, had left the house unarmed.

"Would you like to borrow my katana?" Darcy asked.

"Oh, that wouldn't be proper, would it?" Elizabeth replied, sounding sour. Then she took in an especially deep breath, and her tone brightened. "At any rate, I can make do."

Darcy had little doubt she could—to a point. Elizabeth was no longer a warrior, but she sparred with him and his sister every day. Her way with the katana, longbow, musket, flintlock, dagger, mace, pike, battle axe, blow dart, and (most fortunately of all, at the moment) death-dealing hands and feet were nearly as sharp as the day he'd wedded her.

Yet that was in the privacy of the dojo; she hadn't faced a dreadful since becoming Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy four years before. Now they were surrounded by a dozen of the creatures. Her wedding ring would be no replacement for the saber or throwing stars she couldn't, as the wife of a gentleman, be seen wielding.

Their only hope, Darcy knew, was that the unmentionables would prove every bit as out of practice with killing. These were the first zombies of spring, still stiff from the long months they'd spent packed together in hiding. Some were men, some women, some whole, some disfigured, some as new to death as the previous autumn, some little more than rag-wrapped skeletons. One thing could be counted on, though: They would all be hungry. That never changed.

As if at some silent signal, the unmentionables charged en masse.

There was a bloodcurdling shriek, but it wasn't a scream of terror or the fabled zombie wail. It was Elizabeth unleashing the warrior's cry that had been bottled up within her for so long.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAA-IIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Darcy lopped off one head, and another, and split a third dreadful down the middle. And then, to his surprise, he was able to just stand back and watch.