Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [53]
Finally, Dave shouted, “Will you please shut up!”
He was only venting, but to my surprise, it worked. The zombie’s jaws snapped shut and he stared at Dave almost like he understood him. But then the moment faded and he immediately started back into wails and groans of anger and distress.
“Fuck me, it’s worse than a damn cat in heat,” Dave muttered. He motioned to me impatiently. “Now come help me.”
I moved to his side. “So what, grab sides of the net and then try to hold him still while Robbie ties him up?”
Robbie took the rope from Dave and nodded. We exchanged a quick look and then each of us took a side of the twisted net. In one swift motion we flipped the zombie over so that he was face down and less likely to get to us with his gnashing teeth. We wrapped the net tightly around his back, holding him still as best we could.
Robbie jumped in between us, his small hands working swiftly as he tied a loop around the creature. Once his arms were bound tight at his sides, we started to roll him, wrapping him in the rope the same way we had with the other zombie a couple of days before.
The creature howled out his frustration with every spin, biting at us every time he faced us. But he was pretty much impotent by that point. Without him being able to scratch or grab us, his teeth were easy to avoid. The flying sludge from his mouth sprayed against our arms, but his teeth didn’t find a home in our flesh.
I sighed as we finally let him go and he hit the ground with a thud, his face down in the dust so that his grunts were mercifully muted.
“What about his head?” I asked.
The Kid had to sit in the back of the van with the thing that now sputtered in the dirt before us and I didn’t want him to have to dodge teeth the way he’d have to if we didn’t get the zombie’s face covered.
“What about a t-shirt?” The Kid asked, tugging his dirty one off his head to reveal his little chicken-y arms and chest.
“Great!” Dave said with a smile for him.
We flipped the zombie again and pulled him to a seated position. His garbled sounds of anger were muffled as we wrapped his head in the dirty white cotton t-shirt. I hoped he didn’t still have a sense of smell because p-u! That child had some body odor. A normal human would not have been able to survive, that’s for sure.
Finally we got our unhappy guest into the back of the van with The Kid sitting watch over him. And when I say over him, I mean it literally. The zombie was face down and The Kid sat on the middle of his back, holding him still as we took off.
Midday sun filtered down on us as we got back on the highway and headed back toward Kevin’s lab. With the temperature rising in the van, the smell of rotting flesh had both Dave and I rolling down our windows. As I drove, I wished I could put my head outside like a dog and just let the breeze fill my nostrils instead of the rancid smell of rotting, dead flesh inside.
“Put Febreze on the shopping list,” I choked as I got off on the now familiar exit and turned toward the lab.
Dave smiled, but that was as good as it got. I frowned as we came up over the hill and started the last half mile or so to the warehouse and the release of our stinky companion to Dr. Barnes. I could see the sunlight glinting off the slumped metal roof of the place, we were almost there…
And that’s when the zombie got his arm free.
Protect your brand… and your ass.
Even though the zombie mind was broken and infected by God knew what, even though they had no drive other than to kill and devour people… you had to give them credit. When it came to that drive, they were awesomely good at what they did. They had no fear, so they were willing to hurt themselves, to throw themselves off a cliff if it meant reaching a victim and feeding their never-ceasing desire for brains and flesh.
And that’s what this one did (or so we figured out later). He had dislocated his