Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [50]
“If anything is bullshit about this situation, that is. Come on—” he started, but I wasn’t about to hear it.
I snatched the net gun from his hands. “I’m going out to try out our new weapon and catch me a zombie. You’re welcome to come with me or not. Whatever.”
I turned on my heel and started for the door, but I admit I was listening for him behind me, hoping he’d say exactly what he said next.
“Come on, Robbie,” he called out, frustration still lacing his strained voice.
The Kid had gotten into one of those fake beds they have in home and department stores to show off their comforters and burrowed down in the covers with a comic book he’d gotten from one of his many pockets. I swear, he was like a secret agent with all that shit. Double-O-Annoying at your service. License to pester.
“We’re going,” Dave continued to call back into the unseen depths of the store. “If you want to stick with us, it’s time to mount up.”
I heard a lot of grumbling as I pushed my way through the once-automatic doors, but when Dave came out a couple minutes later, The Kid was trailing at his heels, rubbing his bleary eyes and muttering to himself about crazy grown-ups and stupid ideas.
I smiled with relief as I got into the driver’s side of the van and started her up, setting the net gun awkwardly between the two front seats so one of us could have easy access.
The drive was uncomfortably quiet. Robbie was still half-asleep and jostled around gently in the empty expanse of the back of the van. For once, I wished he would talk so that I wouldn’t have to face the fact that Dave and I were still pissed.
Still when I looked at my husband from the corner of my eye, he was scanning the area for zombies. Even angry, he was dependable and I appreciated that.
Especially when he held up a hand to catch my attention and said, “Two o’clock.”
I followed his direction and saw two zombies about three hundred yards away down the long, wide road we had been following through town. They were hunched over a wrecked car that had flipped onto its side, its passenger windows facing the sky and wheels occasionally turning when the car was jostled to one side or another.
It was a late model sedan of no real description. It looked like every other car on the road had before the outbreak. Just the run-of-the-mill family car that got taken to church and the store and to soccer practice by a distracted mom or a weekend dad.
I know that’s probably disappointing to all you Mad Max, post-apocalyptic junkies who figure the second the shit hits the fan, we’re all going to start modifying our vehicles with flame throwers, but it just doesn’t happen. Or at least, not this early in the game. The Road Warrior types tended to get eaten because they were stupid and took silly risks at the front end of the outbreak.
So this wasn’t a Road Warrior Special, but just a car. From how little rust marred the dark paint, it appeared it had been driven until recently and even taken care of on some level. At least until it clipped the front end of an older wreck that was sticking half out in the road. In one instant, with one mistake, that older wreck had flipped this car onto its side the way it was now.
The accident had to have been recent, not only because of the lack of desert wear on the car, but because the two zombies actually had an interest in it.
See, the infected, they didn’t seem to have any desire to eat older dead bodies. They wanted live victims or ones that had just bitten the dust less than five or six hours before. There was something about fresh meat, fresh brains that gave them what they wanted. And right now they were shaking and quaking, almost with excitement, though the living dead don’t actually seem to feel any real emotion, as they reached in and out of the car with bloody fingers.
“Get the net gun ready,” I said softly as I slowed the car to a crawl and inched toward the pair of them. “And Robbie, wake up. We may need your help if we have uninfected victims in the