Flip This Zombie (23 page)

I had even managed to purge myself of most of my doubts about Dr. Barnes after many talks and explanations of his behavior, mainly to myself, but sometimes with The Kid shrugging and “I dunno”-ing at my side.

Helpful, that one.

Now Kevin and I rode up the elevator together. The Kid wasn’t with us. He was still pouting over being left out of my hunt for the day and refused to speak to me, even to say good-bye. So it was just us. Alone.

I looked in his direction as we passed from the bright lights of the lab area up into the darkness of the chamber that would eventually lead to the warehouse above. As the green and red lighting system buzzed past I could see the tension around his mouth and eyes.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay alone?” he asked as the platform reached the top and the door above us opened to flood the area with sunshine streaming in from the holes and collapsed section of the warehouse roofing. It was kind of pretty, really, as the light caught on the dust.

I nodded. “I’ll be extra careful.”

“I could come with you,” he offered.

I looked at him in his stark white lab coat and his crooked glasses. Sure, I knew he could handle a weapon to some extent, although I’d never technically seen him fire anything except for the remote guns and there wasn’t a whole lot of aim involved in that. Somehow I couldn’t imagine a scenario where he would be more help than harm.

Unlike Dave, who could always be depended upon when the going got tough.

Plus there was the little problem that if Barnes got hurt or killed or turned, there would be no one left to further develop his curative serum. Any future without zombies, at least any future I could see at the moment, would vanish along with Kevin’s mind and body.

“I have the tranq liquid,” I reminded him with false cheer as I lifted up the dart gun he’d provided for me just an hour before. “And there’s always the big cannon to use in a bad pinch.”

I frowned and looked off into the distance toward the lonely road that led out of here. “As long as Dave didn’t take it from the van when he left, that is. I’ll be fine.”

I didn’t feel fine thinking about the hunt without my partner in crime and life, but there was no point reiterating that to the doctor or myself.

“Speaking of the van…” Kevin began as we walked out into the sunshine.

I stared as he motioned his arm toward a big SUV parked right in front of the warehouse. It was a little banged up and dusty as hell, but it had a huge frame mounted to the front for pushing other vehicles around and was more than roomy enough in the storage area for a zombie, maybe even two.

Plus, it was way better than our van, which I now saw flipped on its roof over on the side of the road. The driver’s side was almost entirely caved in and I forced myself to look away and not think about what exactly that could have done to my body if I hadn’t been lucky as hell.

“What in the world?” I gasped as I hurried toward the new vehicle.

Kevin clicked the automatic lock button on the clicker in his hand and let me open it up.

“It was one of the ones left parked by our staff in a warehouse just behind ours,” he explained. “See, I
do
get out occasionally.”

I flung open the back hatch of the vehicle and peered inside. This was a full-sized model and there was almost the same amount of room as you found in the beds of some small trucks. The carpeting in the back was stained, it looked like with blood and dust, but at this point, that was commonplace.

Plus, whoever had run with the vehicle before had installed one of those roof-to-floor divider guards that kept cargo from the back from falling into the seats in front of it. I wasn’t sure how long the flimsy metal would hold a zombie when tested, but it would certainly keep me safer from one should the sedative fade while I was bringing the beast back to Kevin.

“I put all the weapons I could find from the van into the back seat,” he explained.

I moved around and opened the passenger door behind the driver’s side. Sure enough, a big collection of my weapons and ammo were stacked neatly on the back seat and the floor, including the cannon I’d so coveted.

From what I could see Dave had only taken a few weapons and enough ammo to get him out of the area. He would have to resupply soon if he didn’t intend to come back to find me.

God, I hoped he was okay.

I blinked against weirdly sudden tears and slammed the door. “This is great, thanks so much.”

Kevin stepped toward me, his face intense and still filled with something more than simple friendly concern. “Just stay safe out there, okay?”

I nodded as I got into the front seat. He handed me the keys, his fingers lingering just a moment too long on mine before I got them and was able to close the door between us.

I rolled down the window. “Look,” I started after a second’s hesitation. “If something
does
happen to me, I have a couple of friends who might be able to help you. And also take care of The Kid—”

“Friends?” Barnes looked confused.

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “I mean, I might be hurt or worse and I’d hate for it to stop your progress. These people I’m talking about, they have hunting experience. The guy was apparently a chemist at some point. Their names are Josh and Drea, The Kid met them a couple of days ago—”

Barnes’s eyes went wide and he burst in to interrupt
me. “No,
no
! Just be careful. Be careful and everything will be fine.”

I nodded even though what he said was anything but true. I started up the engine and waved as I pulled away from the warehouse, leaving him in my rearview mirror, just watching me go.

I clicked at the stereo in the hopes that there might be a CD in the changer to fill my brain with something other than thoughts of Dave and the obvious crush Kevin had on me.

The sound roared forth from a decent set of speakers. Damn, it had been a while because we’d been driving that ancient hulk of a van for so long. The CD in the changer was Alicia Keys. Nice.

As she sang to me about New York (did it still exist?) and lost loves and played out all her passion on the keys of her piano, I tried to relax and mentally prepare myself for what I was about to do.

I already knew a couple of things. First, I had to be on my best game. Fighting zombies alone was a huge risk, catching them alone… well, the idea of it danced dangerously on the edge of suicidal. But I’d basically given up my husband for this choice of a hope for the future. I wasn’t about to back out of it now and make that awful sacrifice be in vain.

Second, I wanted to snag a female zombie. Kevin had two males on his tables in the lab rapidly disappearing behind me, but a woman’s chemistry was different and I wanted him to be able to test his serums and theories on a wide variety of subjects.

Settled with those goals in mind, I drove onto the highway, but I have to be honest and tell you, I had no real plan in mind. And trust me, running without a plan is always a
bad idea in the zombie-infested Badlands. Without one, you might as well just hang out a sign on the side of your car that says, “Eat me.”

And not in the way the women who sold themselves at the camps for food did. Gross.

But I plowed forward anyway, maneuvering my car until I found a school. Why a school?

Okay, so sexism says that more teachers are female than male. Lots of zombies stay in the general area of their origin. Plus, the school was in what was once a residential area. There had been lots of zombie chow here in the beginning, I’m sure.

So with all that in mind, it followed that within the walls of… Creekside Elementary (a ridiculous name since we were in the desert with no creek within any reasonable distance to the school), there were probably a couple of chicks still roaming their classrooms, hanging with the students who they had turned or who had turned them one fateful afternoon just before recess.

I pulled into the parking lot and took a space right near the door even though it said
HANDICAPPED
.

Here’s a weird thing. Even though parking wasn’t exactly at a premium in the last few months, I still felt really guilty about taking a spot meant for someone disabled. I mean, my great auntie had owned a handicapped placard because of some weird hip thing and every time I slid into one of those extra-wide spots with the little blue chair in it, I could hear her screeching voice in my ear, repeating her favorite phrase:

“For shame, Sarah!! For shame.”

Today was no different and I muttered, “Shut up, Auntie Rose,” to myself before I looked around me.

There were a handful of rusted-out cars in the lot and a sludge-covered bus parked half up on the sidewalk, both good signs that
someone
had been home when the plague hit the school. I pulled my supplies from the back seat and began to load up as I played potential scenarios out in my head over and over.

Dave always told me I needed to think more and act less on emotion, and he was right. As always.

Today more than ever, though, his advice was spot-on. He wasn’t there to protect my ass so I had to be very certain that I was ready for all contingencies before I took step one into the dark, low building that had once been a place of learning and children’s laughter.

The dart gun was vital, so I took it. Also the bat Dave had created for me just a short time ago. I admit that putting it into place at my utility belt made my heart hurt a little. I missed the goof. A lot.

And then there was the cannon. I hadn’t actually tried it out yet, but it wasn’t too complicated, especially for someone as well-versed in weaponry as I’d become. Funny, back when this started, I had no clue how to shoot and could hardly reload. How quickly things change.

But anyway, the cannon was basically a big-ass gun that could fire hundreds of bullets at once, spraying down any target (or targets) in a few presses of the trigger mechanism.

The only problem was that it was a
huge
thing. When I strapped it across my back, my knees actually buckled a little from its weight and I had to readjust all my other supplies (including the rope to bind whatever I hoped to catch) before I dared move forward into uncharted and dangerous territory.

Still, within fifteen minutes of pulling into the lot, I felt ready enough to start toward the big double doors that led into the school building.

Heading up the long sidewalk that led to the entryway, I was struck by a feeling that this was all so familiar. I could almost hear the soccer moms at the curb, yelling out directions to their children as they scurried through the yard. I could almost see the teachers herding little groups of kids toward the front of the school as the bell rang to signal the beginning of the day.

When the infection had come to the school, what had brought it? Some little latchkey kid who no one cared enough about to notice he’d been bitten by someone? Or a rabid janitor who was already kind of weird so no one noticed until it was too late? Maybe even a stuffy principal whose morning announcements that day had been
very
different.

I shook away my thoughts and tugged at the doors, but I found they were locked. It didn’t really surprise me.

When the shit started going down, there was no way the schools hadn’t gotten a “lock down” order. You can thank Columbine and other school shootings for that. It was just standard operating procedure meant to limit the
incident
as much as possible.

Only in this case, once the people in this place were locked down, they were also locked
in
with whoever and whatever had already been infected. At that point, I could well imagine all hell had broken loose amongst the kids with
ADD
and the teachers who were already burned out and waiting for retirement. Once they started turning on each other…

Well, it must not have been pretty (although maybe a tiny bit satisfying for some of the teachers).

I could only hope someone had managed to get out alive. Maybe somebody like The Kid. He was about the right age to be ending his elementary career and moving up to the junior high down the street. Smart kids like him had some kind of advantage, at least.

I reached through the already broken glass and turned the bolt from inside to get access.

The hallways were wide and had probably been well-lit at one point. I had somehow picked a school district that actually had money, because there was very little wear on the floors or walls.

In fact, staring at the happy signs and fresh paint, one could almost picture that school was just about to pick up at any minute after a good, long summer break. Kids could have just walked back in around me and started learning and fighting and breaking up into cliques.

Except for the fact that there was a dried blood pool three feet across at the base of a staircase straight ahead and black sludge smeared across every door down the hall, of course.

Yeah, I had definitely come to the right place. There had been activity here at some point. And judging from the wetness of some of the sludge, recent activity at that.

“Hey zombies,” I murmured softly as I eased through the halls.

They were still decorated with
WELCOME BACK!
signs. See, the initial outbreak had started right in the middle of August, so these rooms had been prepared for new students with new dreams.