Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [22]
“So how many of you are there?” Dave asked. “We haven’t seen anyone else since our arrival.”
“I’m afraid the only one left is… me.” Barnes dipped his chin to stare at his desk. He pulled off his glasses and once again the pain in his eyes seemed real, at least to me. “The rest were tragically killed either by injury or infection before we were able to figure out the warehouse’s hidden defense system that you two encountered today.”
I bit my lip. I sort of felt sorry for the guy, but I still had questions. Lots of questions.
“So if you have a defense system and this lab apparently has some kind of generated power—” I began.
“Natural,” the doctor interrupted proudly. “We fully run on solar, which as you know is still in high supply here in Arizona. It’s the highest tech there is for natural power production.”
I nodded, somewhat impressed but unwilling to show it. “Whatever, my point is that with all you have in your little fortress… why do you need us? Why did you call us here and set up this whole ambush? You obviously don’t need a couple of two-bit exterminators.”
“Hey,” Dave said with a glare in my direction. “I’m at least three-bit.”
“Sorry.” I smiled at him. “What do you want with one two-bit and one three-bit exterminator?”
The doctor seemed less than amused by our witty, sparkling banter. “Because you see, I know how to kill these… things.”
“Zombies.”
He flinched. “A rather pedestrian term, but if you insist. I know how to kill these zombies with the protection system at the lab, but what I need is someone to catch them. Alive. And bring them back here to me.”
Dave and I stared blankly at the man, stunned into silence. Then to my surprise, David started to laugh. Like full-on laugh and it wasn’t hysterical.
“Okay, that’s funny,” he said with a shake of his head. “What a set-up, too, for Candid Camera. Fake a zombie apocalypse, nearly kill us, actually kill about a million… or ten million or a hundred million… other people and all to get us here for the big punch line.”
“David, I assure you—” the other man began.
But Dave wasn’t done yet. He looked at me with a slightly maniacal grin. “Did you hear him, babe? Catch a zombie. Where’s Allen Funt? I just can’t wait to break both his arms.”
“Honey, Allen Funt is dead.”
He scowled. “During the zombie outbreak?” he asked.
“No, back in the ’90s, I think,” I offered with a shrug.
Despite the teasing, I reached out and touched Dave’s arm to squeeze it gently. He had already threatened to pop this guy in the mouth, now I could see, behind his false joviality, that he was pretty fucking close to rearranging pretty boy doctor’s face and making him look more like Owen Wilson than Luke.
“You don’t believe me and I can’t say I blame you,” Barnes said, remarkably calm in the face of David’s subtle, yet pulsating, rage and our mutual mocking. “So let me show you that I’m perfectly serious.”
Reaching behind him, Barnes depressed a button and the shade on the window at the back of the room lifted to reveal a small room. Inside was a line of cages containing a small collection of guinea pigs, some alone in their holding cells, others in small pods. Each one had a tag in their ear and what looked like a small painted or dyed marking on their fur. Three dots and a line at the end.
I stared. “Really? Actual guinea pigs? Is this the cliché lab or what?”
Barnes ignored me. “We were using them for other types of research, but since the plague, I’ve switched my focus. Now…”
He pressed a few buttons on a computer nearby and suddenly robotic arms swung out from a folded position in the corner of the room. With a few delicate maneuvers, they reached into one of the cages and caught a fat, red guinea pig who was roaming around by himself.
The animal didn’t seem bothered by the sudden intrusion. It continued to chew on a bit of feed, staring with an empty expression at nothing in particular. As one