Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [4]
“I don’t got nothing else,” he insisted.
Dave moved forward. “Look, you little looting scum, I know you keep finding pods because you’re hauling all over gathering up shit to trade at the survivor camps. You can’t say anything that’s going to make me believe otherwise. And this time I want payment up front or no killy the zombies, bud.”
Jimmy shot me a look as if he hoped I might take his side in all this, but I just shrugged as I flicked a piece of lint off the blade at the end of my baseball bat. Finally his shoulders slumped.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go get you some shit now and I’ll give you some more when you come back with zombie heads.”
Dave smiled, ignoring Jimmy’s muttering of all kinds of slurs as he turned on his heel and headed toward the doors that led to the basement area where he kept his stash.
“Nice,” I muttered when he was out of earshot. “Very brawn, not brains of you.”
“He’s finally fucking cracked,” Dave said with a shake of his head. He paced around the cramped barber shop restlessly. “Bionic zombies? And thank you, by the way, for encouraging him with that little label.”
“You saw his face, though,” I said as I stared where our little friend had disappeared. “I think he’s genuinely scared.”
“No way.” Dave shook his head. “He’s probably just high. Or drunk. Or both.”
“He certainly reeks of it, but I don’t think so,” I said. “Whatever he saw, he believes it’s real. Are we going to check it out?”
Dave chuckled as we heard Jimmy coming back in the distance. “Of course we’re going to fucking check it out. We’re the Zombiebusters, aren’t we?”
The question: What color is my parachute? The answer: Blood red, brains gray, sludge black.
We ended up with quite a haul as pre-payment for the bionic zombie job. Two large first aid kits with actual antibiotic ointment (quite the coup because infection took down as many survivors as zombies did by this point) and a three-pack of Ramen.
Doesn’t sound like much to you? Well, sit there in your non-zombie paradise and judge then. Trust me, that shit was worth its weight in gold and then some in the badlands.
But neither of us was thinking about our good fortune as we slowly pulled around a few burned-out vehicles and maneuvered past a portion of a once-four-star hotel that had collapsed months ago.
No, when we pulled into the Basilica’s half-empty parking lot, I think both of us were pondering the idea of a bionic zombie. A zombie with powers. Superpowers.
Well, at least with a little more awareness.
David shut the van down and both of us looked up at the imposing building. On some level, I sort of understood why idiot “pilgrims” would keep coming here despite the danger and even almost certain death (or living death).
Every other building on this block had been flattened, so with all that destruction around it, the old-fashioned mission-style building did stand out like a beacon. The only signs that anything within its walls had changed were the burned-out cars in the parking lot and the streaked blood that stained the stucco walls on all four sides and from the base of the building to about six or seven feet high (about as high as a person could reach).
Of course, inside was a whole different matter.
“I hate this place,” I muttered as we got out of the van and went around the back to load up on weapons.
Unlike at Jimmy’s hideout when we’d been lightly armed, this time we each took multiple weapons and grabbed for plenty of extra ammo, plus a big burlap bag for zombie heads. We’d been around this block a few times, we knew to be ready.
“Well, you were always more of an agnostic,” David said as we moved through the dusty parking lot.
The front doors of the Basilica were the same material as the stucco walls, meant to blend into them almost seamlessly. The bloody handprints that stained the walls also covered the door and were heaviest all around the handle. I wrinkled my nose with disgust as