Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [1]
I tossed my book in the back of the van.
Oh, didn’t I mention it? We drive a van. Dave likes to call it the Mystery Machine because it’s totally circa 1975, but it runs like a gem and is heavy enough to do some push work when needed. Plus, I had way too much fun painting “Zombiebusters Exterminators, Inc” on the side and “Who Ya Gonna Call?” on the back.
That one always gets a chuckle since there’s no way to call anyone anymore. If people want us, they have to post notes in the survivor camps and we go looking for them. Trust me, sometimes by the time we’ve gotten to a job, there hasn’t been anyone left to pay us. I always feel kind of badly about that, but seriously, if you haven’t figured out how to protect yourself after three months of zombie hell… well, you sort of deserve what you get.
“Look, you’re the muscle in this operation,” I said as I settled back in my seat and slung my booted feet onto the dash. As I flicked a little piece of brains left over after our last job from the toe, I continued, “If you want to strong-arm the guy up front, be my guest.”
We were approaching our destination now and Dave slowly maneuvered the vehicle off the highway into the area of what was once southern Phoenix. There were signs of zombie activity everywhere here, both from the initial outbreak in the city and more recently. Black sludge pooled in the gutters and blood streaked the walls of buildings. It was all so commonplace to us, we didn’t really see it anymore. Nor did we flinch when a single zombie stepped into a crosswalk ahead of us.
He lurched forward, his right hand missing and his arm on the same side waving in a disconnected way as he moved. He had fresh blood on his chin and he grunted and groaned loudly enough that we could hear him even with the windows partly up.
We watched him make his slow cross for a bit, both of us staring with bored disinterest. Then Dave gunned the engine.
The sound made the zombie turn and he stared at us with his blank, dead, red eyes that never quite focused. Still, he seemed to recognize the potential for food on some primal level and he let out a roar.
Dave floored the van at the same time the zombie started a half-assed jog toward us. We collided mid-intersection and the zombie, gooey and rotting, took the brunt of the impact. His skin split, sending gore and guts flying from the seams of his torn clothing to splatter on our hood and the ground around the van. He lay half-wrapped around our bumper, staring up at us as he squealed and clawed along the metal of the hood like he could somehow hoist himself up and get to us, even though his lower body was probably gone.
“Want me to take care of that?” I asked as I reached in the back for an axe.
“No way,” Dave said. “And let you get ahead on Death Count?”
I laughed as he changed gears and rolled back in reverse. The zombie fell backward and disappeared from view until my husband got far enough away. Sure enough, his lower half was gone, split off from the initial impact of the “accident.”
Dave lined up the wheel of the van and rolled forward again. He didn’t stop until we felt the satisfying rock of hitting the zombie skull and popping it like a melon.
Once that was done, Dave put the van in neutral. He pulled his knife from his waistband and carefully etched a new hash mark on the steering wheel, which was already covered in crevices and digs from previous kills. Pretty soon we were going to have to move on to the door.
“That’s another one for the Mystery Machine.” When I laughed, he looked at me. “So if I’m the muscle of the operation,” he said, returning to our earlier conversation, “what does that make you?”
“Silly,” I laughed. “I’m the braaaaains, of course. And the beauty.”
I fluffed my hair as he threw the van in first and we roared toward our first job of the week.
Fire-bombing had been the way our government had dealt with the zombie plague. Whole cities wiped out without warning and without waiting to see if there