Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [75]
Robbie got out and closed the door behind him. We couldn’t hear them, but I watched in surprise as The Kid approached Kevin. The doctor opened his arms and embraced the little boy briefly, ruffling his hair as they parted. They spoke for a moment, with The Kid motioning occasionally toward us and the car.
Kevin’s smile eventually fell and he walked up to the back of the SUV. Slowly, the hatch back glided open, sending a stream of bright sunshine in to blind us since we couldn’t lift our hands to shade our eyes. Barnes stepped in front of us, though, and then he blocked the sun, becoming only an ominous shadow standing before us.
“Hello, Sarah, David,” he finally said as he leaned down so I could see his face. It was remarkably smug. “I do hope you’ll forgive my boy for bringing you to me this way. But this has become our only option, I’m afraid.”
“Fuck you,” Dave spat.
Kevin smiled slightly, though the slur made his eyes lose a bit of their pleasure. Apparently he still didn’t like the language, which made me want to sing any song I could think of from South Park if only to piss him off. “Robbie’s Dad is a Bitch” seemed like an appropriate alteration of one.
“Let’s all go inside, shall we?” he said with a gesture toward the warehouse… like he was inviting us in for fucking tea or something.
He pulled out a shotgun of his own (aw, matching father/son psychos, how cute) and motioned us out of the car with the barrel. Since we were tied, exiting the SUV took some maneuvering, but we finally managed to slowly move out of the back of the vehicle together. Back to back, we walked toward the warehouse.
Dave was in the lead, facing forward. He never dragged me, in fact we were almost in perfect tandem. Those facts made me feel more guilty than ever about not believing him… about taking the side of the son of a bitch who walked behind us, that smug smile still trained on me as he cradled the shotgun in his arms. How had I ever thought he was even remotely cute?
The Kid was in front, leading the way. I could hear the soft crunch of his boots on the gravel up ahead of us and could only imagine that poor Dave was just keeping it together having to follow the little brat.
We should have just let the damn zombies eat him back when we first found him. But hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?
Down the elevator we rode and let me tell you, that was an awkward ride. I’m sure you know what I mean. Haven’t you ever gotten on an elevator with just a couple of people, maybe even one of whom you know a little, but no one has anything to say? And it feels like it takes forever to get to your floor?
Yeah, it was just like that except with guns and bound hands. Oh and no elevator music, thank God.
Still, we somehow made it into the lab and as the doors downstairs opened, Dave shook his head.
“What the fuck with all this captive shit, Barnes? If you’re going to kill us, why not just get the fuck to it?”
I jerked to look at him over my shoulder. Was he nuts? I mean, I hadn’t fought for so many months just to get shot with my hands tied behind my back like some kind of mob moll in a bad Godfather rip-off. At least I wanted the chance to fight.
“I don’t like waste, David,” Barnes said as he stepped closer to us. “I like to use and re-use. This will be over for you soon enough. At least, I think it will be.”
“What do you mean, you think it will be?” I asked, hating how my voice shook.
He looked at me and there was a tightness, a sadness around his mouth. “We may know a great deal about how the zombie body functions, but very little about the mind. For all I know, those poor souls are utterly aware of everything going on around them, their minds intact and unable to stop themselves as they dive into their victims and roam the earth in rotting hell.”
I squeezed my eyes shut at the nightmare Barnes painted. My stomach turned and I barely kept my food from earlier in the day down. I really wished I hadn’t eaten his crappy croissant.
“Now, move,” Barnes said, the softness