Flip This Zombie (17 page)

“If he’s a chemist, maybe he could help us,” The Kid said softly.

Dave shook his head. “Well, I don’t know about that. There’s no reason to tell our business to the world.”

“At least not yet,” I said as I steered our little group toward the doors that led to the library foyer. “But maybe in the future.”

Dave nodded and as we exchanged a look I could tell we were on the same page. Nice since we hadn’t been the past few days.

“Yeah, I could definitely see turning to them in the future,” he said.

I shook my head. Right now the only future I could think about was the one that involved a new toy.

I grinned at the very thought. I’d always liked toys. “Let’s get out of here and get to the hardware store. If we can get this gun built today, we could have a new zombie by tomorrow midday!”

Dave opened his mouth as if to say more, but then shut it again. I was almost glad. We’d been bickering way too much lately and I really didn’t want to start round three
with a library full of strangers and a child who was likely to blurt out that I had a secret boyfriend to my surprisingly jealous husband. Or a stolen book to what could quickly turn into a mob.

I led the way out of the building and into the desert sun. As soon as we were out the door, though, we were greeted by not only the late morning heat and the sparkling blue sky, but a collection of three zombies pacing around our van across the small parking lot.

The area around the library was known to be a “no shooting” zone. It wasn’t mandatory or anything, I mean there weren’t exactly cops or anyone to police that, but it was a matter of common sense.

Shooting a zombie was the easiest and fastest way to kill it, of course, but it was also the loudest. Shooting often brought
more
of the living dead flooding to an area, looking for the source of the big noise. And since the library was a hub for humans, we really didn’t want to create a fast-food joint for the shambling horde by alerting them to our presence here. Would you like fries with that brain? Supersize it?

“Machetes and clubs, please,” I whispered as we edged closer to our van.

I pulled out the cool bat with the blade Dave had created for me. He went for his machete and even The Kid pulled what looked like a police baton from one of the many loops on his cargo pants.

“Ready?” Dave asked.

I nodded and then squared up my body in preparation for battle.

“Hey!” I called out to get their attention… or whatever you want to call it. “Dumb asses.”

The zombies stopped pawing at the van door and slowly turned to face us. After so many months, all the undead were in an advanced stage of rot, though they seemed to hit that stage and then just…
stay
there. I don’t know how the chemical interaction worked, but I guess it was something like zombie botox. You know:
keep eating brains, never age a day past disgusting
.

Their clothing, though, didn’t get the benefit of daily brains injections. Or washing. So while at the beginning of the outbreak, you saw zombies in suits, uniforms, and bathrobes and could easily identify what they were doing before all hell broke loose, now it was harder. Cotton clothing was the first to fray away. Anyone who got turned wearing 100 percent cotton was now roaming around like Adam and Eve. Trust me, there is nothing more disturbing than rotting jiggly parts. Blech!

But other fabrics held up better. For instance, the group in front of us contained a nurse. Her polyester uniform had kept up pretty well, though it had long since stopped being pristine white. Red, sludgy black, and filthy brown were now her United Colors of Benetton. Her shoes had fared worse, though. She was missing one and the other was filled with holes and I swear I saw a cockroach climb from one to the other before she started moving.

She was joined by two male zombies. One was a cotton wearer so he was butt-ass naked except for what had once apparently been the waistband of a pair of jeans. The pockets were still attached to it and flopped around in the breeze along with his… er… bits and pieces.

The third zombie was a smaller girl. Maybe in her late teens, and her demin skirt was clean and fresh enough that
I had to guess she’d been turned sometime in the last few weeks, rather than earlier in the outbreak.

I would have felt a bit sorry for the girl except that at that moment the three zombies started for us with growling grunts and a lot of angry tooth gnashing.

“I’ll take Nurse Betty,” I said as I started toward the zombies. “You take Bits and Pieces.”

“I’ve got Miley Cyrus,” The Kid said and forward we charged.

As the zombies swarmed, I turned my attention on the nurse. Her fingers clawed, with long, chipped pink fingernails grown out and slashing the air around me.

I dodged her attempts to grab me and swung my bat. I connected with her neck rather than her head and there was a crack. Her neck twisted at an awful angle, but she only grunted with frustration before she grabbed my arm in a literal death grip and started to yank me forward. I jammed the knife blade at the end of my bat toward her and slashed her face.

Again, she only winced a little, but continued to shake me like a rag doll as she moved me toward her ever-biting mouth.

But the third time was the charm and this time when I stabbed at her, my blade pierced her forehead and slid into her brainpan with the ease you’d expect from cutting a boneless chicken breast.

The infected woman howled this time and thrashed, but that only made the blade scramble around in her skull and quickened the inevitable. With a whine, she slumped and my bat yanked free, the sharp blade severing the top of her head as she fell at my feet.

I turned to offer assistance to The Kid first, but found
that he was already done and wiping the blunt baton off on what had once been the younger zombie’s jean skirt. He looked bored by it all and gave me a look.

I turned to Dave, but he too was finished. His machete dripped as he sliced it through the air around the headless, naked body of the male zombie. Apparently I had been the only one to have a bit of trouble with my zombie. Maybe it was all the distraction of late, but I didn’t like that I’d been a bit weaker than the rest, including a fucking
child
.

“Well, now that
that
little chore is done,” I said in a falsely bright tone, “how about we hit the Lowe’s up the street?”

Dave was watching me. Maybe he’d noticed my uncharacteristic struggle with my zombie, but he didn’t say anything. He just unlocked the van and got into the driver’s seat to drive us to our net-gun-making future.

A
lthough we had directions and all the PVC piping and netting materials we could ever want, need, or
hate
at the Lowe’s down the street from the library, creating the gun wasn’t as easy as the directions implied. In fact, it took us all the way until dark to get the damn thing even half made. There were at least three tantrums during the exercise (and only one of them was The Kid having a meltdown) and one half-assed threat of divorce (from David to me when I got tired and cried… just a little).

But by the time the morning light started peeking back through the broken glass doors of the home improvement store, we were looking at a net gun.

It was jacked up. It was ugly as hell. I think some parts of it were held together with only duct tape and a prayer, but it was a net gun. And as our five test runs with it had proven, it would work. In fact, we had caught a barbeque, several lawn chairs and even a pallet full of useless grass seed with it.

Surely those were viable replacements for writhing, biting, highly infected zombies who were just itching to devour our brains, right?

I guess we were tired, because at that point, we thought so. I smiled at Dave as he carefully reset the netting into the contraption. It had to be done perfectly or the gun wouldn’t fire.

“Think it will work?” I asked.

He shrugged even as he stifled a yawn. “I like it better than the stupid pulley system. At least we don’t have to be right on top of a zombie to get him netted.”

I nodded with enthusiasm. “So let’s get out there!”

He stared at me in blank disbelief. “We’ve been up all night fucking around with this, Sarah.”

“I know,” I said with a laugh. “But I have a new toy now and I want to play with it.”

He didn’t laugh with me. In fact, his dour mood was starting to bum me out. “Do you
really
want to go out and get into a fight with zombies while we’re exhausted? Especially after what happened yesterday?”

I flinched and turned my full focus on him. He was frowning at me, his face lined with worry and upset.

“And just what do you mean by
that
?” I asked though it was completely obvious to what he was referring.

“Yesterday you could hardly put down one zombie,” Dave said softly. “And we both know full well that catching is way harder and far more dangerous than killing.”

I stared at him. Not since the beginning of the outbreak had he actually questioned my abilities. He had been protective over the last few months, but never judgmental. So this was a new thing and I didn’t like it. Not one fucking bit.

“You know,
everyone
has an off day,” I ground out past clenched teeth. “And
you
were just barely flicking the blood off your blade when I was done. So that means it took me what, one
minute
longer to take care of Nurse Betty than it did for you to take care of Ugly Naked Zombie?”

He held my gaze evenly. There was no hint of apology in his stare as he said, “A minute is an eternity, Sarah. A minute can mean the difference between safety and me having to put you down before you turn into a monster.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he plowed on without letting me. “You know that as well as I do. We’ve both seen the same fucked-up crap over the past few months.”

“That’s bullshit,” I snapped, even though I knew it wasn’t. “You are just so against anything to do with this mission that you are willing to say and maybe even
do
anything to sabotage it.”

“If anything is bullshit about this situation,
that
is. Come on—” he started, but I wasn’t about to hear it.

I snatched the net gun from his hands. “
I’m
going out to try out our new weapon and catch me a zombie. You’re welcome to come with me or not. Whatever.”

I turned on my heel and started for the door, but I admit I was listening for him behind me, hoping he’d say exactly what he said next.

“Come on, Robbie,” he called out, frustration still lacing his strained voice.

The Kid had gotten into one of those fake beds they have in home and department stores to show off their comforters and burrowed down in the covers with a comic book he’d gotten from one of his many pockets. I swear, he was like a secret agent with all that shit. Double-O-Annoying at your service. License to pester.

“We’re going,” Dave continued to call back into the unseen depths of the store. “If you want to stick with us, it’s time to mount up.”

I heard a lot of grumbling as I pushed my way through the once-automatic doors, but when Dave came out a couple minutes later, The Kid was trailing at his heels, rubbing his bleary eyes and muttering to himself about crazy grown-ups and stupid ideas.

I smiled with relief as I got into the driver’s side of the van and started her up, setting the net gun awkwardly between the two front seats so one of us could have easy access.

The drive was uncomfortably quiet. Robbie was still half-asleep and jostled around gently in the empty expanse of the back of the van. For once, I wished he would talk so that I wouldn’t have to face the fact that Dave and I were still pissed.

Still when I looked at my husband from the corner of my eye, he was scanning the area for zombies. Even angry, he was dependable and I appreciated that.

Especially when he held up a hand to catch my attention and said, “Two o’clock.”

I followed his direction and saw two zombies about three hundred yards away down the long, wide road we had been following through town. They were hunched over a wrecked car that had flipped onto its side, its passenger windows facing the sky and wheels occasionally turning when the car was jostled to one side or another.