Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [55]
I squeezed my eyes shut as clarity began to seep back into my cloudy mind. The boy. The zombie. Suddenly tears stung my eyes and I lifted a hand to cover my face.
“Shit,” I muttered as I swiped at the wetness that now covered my cheeks. “For a minute, I thought it was all a nightmare.”
The light that had been shining in my face was pushed away and when I moved my hand I saw that the soothing voice I’d heard was indeed a doctor, but it was Dr. Barnes. Kevin was pale and concerned as he leaned over me.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I wish I could say it was. But no.”
“You said accident?” I said as I struggled to sit up.
A blast of intense pain rocketed its way through my head like I’d put a shotgun to my temple and pulled the trigger, but somehow managed to survive the experience. I sucked in a breath as nausea overwhelmed me and forced me to cling tight to the edge of the bed as I rode out the feeling.
When my mind had cleared a small fraction, I looked around in an attempt to get my bearings. I was in one of the lab rooms just like the one we’d put the first zombie in a few days before. There were even straps along the side of my bed, though I wasn’t in them, thank goodness.
“You don’t remember the accident?” Kevin asked as he leaned over me to look at my face. I shook my head and he smiled, giving me that “cute-geek” feeling again. “Don’t worry. You have a mild concussion.”
I glared at him. “This is fucking mild?”
He gave me that same compassionate yet blank stare all doctors seem to have in their repertoire. The one that says, I care, but I’m going to forget you in five minutes.
“Actually, yes,” he reassured me. “And a little memory loss is actually very common with the kind of head injury you suffered when the van flipped. The details will likely come back to you over the next few days.”
“Well, can you fill me in a little sooner?” I asked as I collapsed back on the pillows behind me.
“Of course. You skidded on the shoulder of the road just outside my building. That gravel can be a killer, especially at high speeds. You lost control and ultimately hit an old telephone pole.” He shook his head. “Thank God I was watching for your return and saw what happened in the monitors. I was able to get out to you right away.”
“Sarah?”
I leaned around the doctor to see David at the door. The entire right side of his face was one big bruise and there was blood seeping from a small cut at the start of his hairline.
“Oh my God,” I burst out as he came into the room and grabbed me for a painfully hard hug. When he finally let me go I reached up to brush at his bruise gently. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Why?” he asked in a shocked tone.
I shook my head. “I was driving, I should have been more careful. I don’t remember—”
Dave pulled back. “The zombie we got for Dr. Nobody here got free, Sarah. That’s why you lost control. It had nothing to do with you being careful or not.”
“What?” I asked, my foggy brain searching for memory of what had happened. I vaguely recalled a rotting arm lifting up in my rearview mirror and shut my eyes with a shiver at the thought.
“But you’re okay?” I asked, my voice shaking. “And The Kid wasn’t hurt?”
Dave frowned. “He sprained his wrist pretty bad, but I splinted it and he’s managing. And his leg is all banged to hell.”
“Oh no!” I burst out.
Hey, The Kid was a twerp, but I didn’t want to hurt him… well, at least not this way. Strangle him like Homer Simpson might was more my fantasy.
“No, no,” Dave insisted. “He’s okay. He went to take that shower you kept ragging him about. The zombie got a lot of sludge on him when he attacked Robbie.”
I winced. Yes, I vaguely recalled that, too, now that Dave mentioned it. The entire situation could have been so much worse. I could hardly breathe when I pictured all the ways it could have gone even more wrong than it had.
“She’s okay?” Dave said, this time speaking to Kevin.
The doctor cleared his throat. “It’s a minor concussion. The small cuts on her face will heal on their own, I stitched