Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [12]
But for sure the convenient little plastic trays with farmed meat wrapped in Saran Wrap were already a thing of the past. In the camps, we had canned goods, dried things, and sometimes not a ton of that. The cook on duty shoveled some beans onto my plate and a stale Pop-Tart (blueberry from the looks of a fake azure icing) and motioned us on our way. I sighed as we took a seat in the cafeteria tent and started to pick at the grub listlessly.
I was pretty fully into my funk when I looked across the way and saw a little girl, probably no more than five, who was eating her Pop-Tart with enough gusto to make me smile. She smiled back and revealed teeth tinted blue from the icing, then dug into her beans.
The woman who was with the child just ran her fork through her food. She looked drawn and tired. She was probably a “camp-y” as we called them, people who had only lucked into survival of the initial outbreak, but hadn’t actually learned to take care of themselves. Once camps were established, they stayed in them full-time and never ventured past the gates into the new outside world.
After such a long time of being penned in, they had a look about them. Actually, it was a lot like those cows the History Channel said were doomed.
The woman glanced down at the girl and her exhaustion seemed to fade as she smiled. They didn’t look much alike—in fact I doubted they were related. It was entirely possible they had just found each other in the camp and formed a makeshift family right here. It happened a lot.
I was about to offer the child some of my Pop-Tart when there was a ruckus on the other side of me. I glanced over to find three big guys sitting down at the bench down the way. They were all talking at once as they slammed warm bottles of beer down beside their trays.
“Bigger than normals,” one of them grunted. “With fangs.”
“Ha!” another one said with a shake of his head. “I hear they can eat a man’s head in two bites. If you think zombies are bad, they say these are worse. They might even be smart enough to storm the camp someday. Like a brainless army. Wipe us all out, that’s what they’ll do.”
I glanced at the little girl and found she had huddled closer to her mother, turning her face into the woman’s chest, though the mother looked no less terrified by the overheard conversation.
“Hey!” I barked to the men. “You’re scaring the kid.”
The three glared at me for my interruption, but then one of them actually looked at the child and saw his foolishness was traumatizing. His expression softened and he shook his head.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said to the little girl. “We’re just telling stories.”
She didn’t look convinced, nor did her mother as she gathered up their trays and moved off to a quieter corner.
“Smooth,” Dave grunted as he shoveled the last of his beans down his throat.
The guys had the sense to look a little chagrined, but then they slid down the bench across the table to be closer to us.
“You’re David and Sarah, right?” one of the younger men asked with a blush. “The Zombiebusters?”
David arched a brow my way as if to tell me, “I told you so,” and then he nodded. “That’s what the van says.”
The men exchanged glances, apparently impressed. And I admit, my chest puffed out a little at the attention. I guess on some level I was more Paris Hilton than Maggie Gyllenhaal. So sue me!
“What have you heard about the special ones?” the same guy who had apologized to the little girl asked, but this time in a lower tone.
“C’mon.” Dave rolled his eyes. “You guys are too old for fairy tales.”
“They aren’t fairy tales, man!” one of the men insisted. “This shit is real!”
Dave shook his head. “So I guess one of you has actually seen something out there beyond the normal, average zombies? Yourself, I mean.”
That stopped them. They exchanged looks