A Valentine from Harlequin

zombies—the older ones are not as durable. That could prove to our favor.”
    “Durable?” Growing queasy, she wilted into his arms. “I can’t do this.”
    “You don’t have to, sweetie. Stay by me. I’ll get you to safety.”
    “Wait, first we’ve got to find Tina. I don’t want my best friend to get eaten by zombies!”
    “Right. But we gotta move, and fast.”
    He lifted her and carried her over the zombie’s still-twitching body, then set her down. She brushed bits of something she didn’t want to examine too closely from her floor-length gown, and then they both dashed through the eighteenth-century mansion where Tina’s family had hosted her party.
    Social event of the season? More like six o’clock news disaster. John swiped a silver candelabra from a marble-topped table as they rushed by. “Arm yourself,” he said. “They are intelligent. After their initial feed they only have to consume small portions of flesh to survive, and there is very little mental depletion.”
    Charlotte accepted the candelabra with a wince. Yet she couldn’t help but swoon a little over his take-command attitude.
    Sucking in a fortifying breath, she steeled herself to stay strong and not turn into a weeping Wilma that John would have to abandon to the zombies because she was too frantic to deal. They were in this together. And they would have their wedding day.
    Then she remembered the seemingly compromising position in which she had found her fiancé just minutes before, and Charlotte couldn’t help but ask, “John, who was that woman on the balcony?”
    “What woman?” John kicked open a pair of swinging doors that led into a gallery, only to be greeted by delirious moans and groping arms. A fresh stew of zombies in fancy evening dress—guests of the ball—lurched toward them.
    “Wrong door.” John grabbed her hand and they raced away from the approaching horde, taking a sharp turn into the kitchen. John grabbed a steel-legged bar stool and shoved it through the door handles, forming a sturdy barricade. “That should keep them back. For now.”
    Charlotte wondered if her ribs could withstand the torture of her thudding heart as she looked around her. The deserted kitchen was beautiful in the moonlight, the stainless-steel appliances shimmering silver.
    Their lives had been blessed up until now. Would it all end tonight?
    A strange hissing noise alerted her.
    Candelabra in hand and prepared to swing, Charlotte crept around the butcher-block counter. Hunched on the other side and clasping a rosary sat the priest whom Tina had introduced to her earlier. “Father!”
    “Back!” The priest wielded his rosary cross as if it were a weapon.
    “I’m not a zombie,” she said, kneeling before him. “Are you okay?”
    John swung around the other side of the counter to join them, which startled the skittish priest once again. He swung the rosary like a lariat and clocked John on the eyelid.
    “Ouch. Is that what I get for missing confession for the last five years?” John rubbed his bleeding brow.
    “He’s not a zombie, either?” the trembling priest asked Charlotte.
    She shook her head.
    “So sorry, son.” The priest sighed. “Demons I can exorcise. Spirits I can cast out. But zombies? What do I do with zombies?”
    “Best option?” John shrugged. “Run.”
    “I can’t run. My ticker can’t take it. It’s the end of the world. You two are young, the lucky ones.”
    “We are.” John clasped Charlotte’s hand. His eyes—the right one now a little clouded with blood thanks to the skittish priest—reflected all the love she held for him. “And since it’s the end of the world, I have a favor to ask of you, Father.”
    “I can perform final rites, if that will give you peace.”
    “Final—no!” Charlotte protested. “We’ll survive this. We have to. We’re to be married soon.”
    The priest wobbled his head as if to say good luck with that.
    “Right now,” John said, nodding encouragingly to Charlotte. “Will you marry us, Father?”
    “Really?” she asked on a gasp. “You’d be okay with a priest officiating our vows?”
    “I know how important it is to you. If we’re going to die tonight, I want to die in my wife’s arms.”

Chapter Two
    “Oh, John, that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me. I want to be married tonight, too.”
    “You two are crazier than the zombies,” the priest muttered.
    A loud bang shook the kitchen door.
    “It’s them,”