Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [32]
The child jerked a little in surprise, but quickly turned toward us. Smart kid, running toward the people who were your saviors. Trust me, in a post-zombie world, that didn’t always happen. People were a bit “Mad Max” at this point, a little wary of others who didn’t come from their own tribe or camp.
“I don’t have a clear shot of the one behind,” Dave said as he slid the action on his rifle. I heard the plunk of the empty shell hitting the mall roof.
“Just wait…” I said, hardly able to catch my breath from the excitement. “I can get him, but maybe we can use the kid to catch him instead.”
Dave jerked as he looked down at me. “Are you nuts?”
“Look, he’s perfect,” I said as I stared through the sight again. “Not too big, not too small—”
“Are you talking about the zombie or the terrified child?”
I ignored Dave’s outrage, too focused on the idea of capturing a monster to listen to him.
“Grab the rope, they’re almost here.” I moved behind the net and motioned to the kid. “Come on! Come right to me!”
The little boy didn’t need to be told twice. He rushed toward me and it was only from the closer distance that I noticed he was carrying a cute little .38 Special, just like a boy playing cowboys and Indians. Only I had a hunch his weapon was real and the zombie wasn’t playing.
“Shoot him, stupid!” the child screamed as he ran past me.
I readied my rifle to do just that, but as the zombie approached, his gaping mouth biting and his hands clawing, this time Dave’s timing was perfect. The net slung up under the rotting living corpse and sent him flying up in the air, his arms and legs akimbo as the trap closed around him and left him dangling from the awning.
The little boy and I stood below him, looking up as he clawed at the netting, chewing at the rope and snarling and spitting down at us. I tilted my head as I examined him closer. Was that a damn mohawk? Sheesh, kids these days.
“Why the fuck didn’t you shoot him?” the child finally said, and suddenly the little pissant was slapping at my arms, pummeling me with his tiny fists.
“Hey!” I cried as I slapped back out of instinct. I might have been a zombie killer, but our hands smacked like two stupid girls fighting over a washed-up singer on a reality show. “Why didn’t you? You had a gun!”
The little boy stopped slapping me and tossed the pistol aside. “Mine’s empty, dummy. Like your head. What, did the zombies already get to you, dumbass?”
“Ha, ha,” I said with a sneer.
Dave climbed down onto the van and jumped to the ground between us. “Okay, children, enough. Sorry we didn’t shoot, kid, but we were trying to catch this fucker.”
The little boy glared at us again, but this time his expression said he thought we were cuckoo. Not that I blamed him really, although I was still thrilled to look up and see a zombie swinging from the overhang.
“Catch one? You two are crazy.”
“That’s probably an understatement,” I said with a grin for David.
The little boy didn’t smile back. Instead, he reared back and kicked me straight in the shin with all his might.
“You still should have shot it.”
And that was how we met Robbie, otherwise known as “The Kid.”
Don’t forget the little people. Even when you want to.
The Kid reminded me of Bart Simpson. He had blond hair that was probably once lovingly combed into place for school pictures by his mom, but apparently he’d been left to his own devices for a while now because it was currently spiked up from dirt and not enough personal grooming. Oh, and he kept going on about a skateboard, which was apparently his major mode of transportation until it got broken by the same zombies who were chasing him across the parking lot.
Not to mention, he was kind of a little punk, as my bruised shin was throbbing testament to.
I glared at him as he sat in his place on the curb in front of the mall. He was eating some kind of no-name snack cake, his grubby little gross fingers leaving chocolaty smears around his mouth.
“So… now we have him,” Dave said with