Outbreak (Book 2): The Mutation (46 page)

ONE

Ze Popper!®

Zombie, Inc., introduces the newest in home security with Ze Popper!® line of defensive containment. Keep your home safe with your own personal army of the dead! Robbers will move along when they see you’re protected by ZI mobile corpses.

A discreet system of lasers is installed around your property to create fixed and/or flexible boundaries. They are custom-matched to your yard size, lifestyle, and budget. You can set the system up in zones, or simply surround the perimeter (if you are using in conjunction with Ze Shed® system).

Your zombie(s) come completely trained. A tone accompanied by a charge alert your zombie(s) to the presence of the laser boundary–factory conditioning keeps them in!* Zones can be cleared for homeowner access with the in-home control pad or Ze Panic!® mobile remote.

You’ll sleep in comfort when you have the Zombie, Inc., Ze Popper!® system securing your worldly goods!

*A permanent collar of small charges instantly decapitates any collared zombie that wanders over the laser line, rendering the zombie harmless** to you and your family. Simply contact your Zombie, Inc., representative via their customer care scan code and the team of Zombie, Inc., Recovery Specialists will take over.

**A beheaded zombie could potentially pose a threat if you come in close contact with its mouth. Keep children and pets away from a decapitated zombie, and DO NOT attempt containment yourself. The ZI team of Recovery Specialists is here for YOU!

All warranties implied or written become void if system is not installed by Zombie, Inc., licensed and certified contractors. For a list of ZI Ze Popper!® and Ze Shed® installation specialists, please use the scan code in this brochure under “CONTRACTORS”. For general questions or to set up a free, in-home, no obligation consultation, simply use the scan code under “TELL ME MORE!”

_ _ _

The SUV was a Mazda Zecon with black-tinted windows and a complete black wrap with the Zombie, Inc., logo on each side in white, an Assessment Team scan code on each door panel, and a photo-realistic, life-sized horde of zombies plastered across the entire back. Classy, Carl thought and popped the passenger door open. The trainee sat in the driver’s seat, wide eyed and shaking. She had a small Ze Cross!® gas canister crossbow and bolt trained unsteadily on Carl’s head.

Carl raised his eyebrows. “Don’t get out much, Dillalia?”

She lowered the bow and breathed out a long, shaky whistle of air. She smiled, but even the smile was tentative. Carl had come to believe that people of Dillalia’s generation were hardened, insensitive. Not this one, though. She was smallish, not more than five four. Thin but strong looking and neatly turned out in the ZI Assessment Team uniform of white button-down Oxford, and tan khakis. It was an old-fashioned outfit, a throwback to the ’20s and before, when service-people in many fields wore such things. Of course, Carl remembered when men (mostly) had worn them in earnest. It hadn’t been a uniform back then, it had just been business casual.

“It’s ze-cedure, though,” Dillalia said. Her tone was questioning. She was looking for confirmation, instruction. “It’s right in the handbook to be on the defensive when you’re in the wild.”

Carl snorted and slid heavily into the passenger seat. “The wild, huh? That what you kids are calling it these days, Dill?” He shook his head. “That meant something entirely different when I was your age.”

“Right, I know. Jungles and stuff.”

Carl snorted again. “Well, kind of. Not really, though.” He shot her a look. “And please don’t call it ‘ze-cedure’ again. Just call it ‘procedure’–call it what it is. Believe me, all the ‘ze’ this and ‘ze’ that is not going to catch on if it hasn’t yet.”

“But the handbook–”

“The handbook is ninety-nine percent crap once you’re in the field,” Carl said. “File it away for the information regarding health care and whatever, but I’ll tell you one thing right now that will help us get along–don’t contradict me with handbook bullshit. Okay?”

Dill nodded, her face untroubled but intent, and Carl wondered what his reputation at ZI had become. Of course, everyone in Field Assessment was considered a little bit of a loose cannon. Assessment was the front line, the ones who left the safety of the ZI compound to do the dirty work. Assessment decided next steps, further measures and compensation. It took a lot of training, a lot of practice. There had been two trainees before Dill that hadn’t made it. One dead, one quit, and they both went against Carl’s record. It wasn’t bad over the course of a career to lose one or two, even four or five depending on how long you were training and the adversity of your territory, but to lose two in a row had been bad luck.

There was every possibility that Dill, herself, was Assessment, too–Employee Assessment–the most hated and feared group in ZI.

“Scan for the Wranglers,” Carl said. Time to get down to business. “We’ve got a menzie stuck head first in a sewer grate.”

“Collared or…?”

“Yep, pretty sure. Not popped from what I can tell. One Wrangler truck is enough.”

Dill flipped down the visor and touched the corner of her eye. A laser bloomed from the small scanner tucked next to her eyelid, and she trained it on the code under WRAN. A blip came from the vicinity of her ear, and she touched her earlobe lightly with two fingertips. “This is FA 12382, and we are requesting one Wrangler truck. Location broadcast.”

“Okay, Field Assessment, Wrangler truck on the way.” The automated voice was good, very close to human, but there was always a hitch when it switched. “Is this containment?”

Dill glanced at Carl and without looking up from his clipboard, shook his head. “It’s already contained itself,” he said, muttering distractedly. “There’s nothing to panic over.”

“No,” Dill answered the voice and removed her finger from her earlobe, ending the call. “What’s next? Do we go wait out near the one in the gutter?”

“Christ, no,” Carl said. “We wait until the Wranglers–” Carl shuddered, “–get here.”

“Are they really that bad?”

Carl raised his eyebrows at her. “You haven’t seen the Wranglers yet? No? Well, they’re just, you know, different. Not as bad as the Cleaners, but you wouldn’t want to hang out with Wranglers on a regular basis.”

“I’ve heard that about them.”

“Okay, so, procedure, see here? This form? This is the first one filled out. Always. On site and in front of a homeowner if it’s regarding a defect or perceived defect in a system.”

“Assess first, though, right?”

“Yeah, well, shit, of course. You have to assess to be able to fill the damn thing out.”

Dill nodded again, unperturbed, her eyes on the clipboard. Carl swallowed his impatience. It was his own fault. He wasn’t explaining things right, and also, she hadn’t been with him. How would she know?

Okay, so he was a little rattled. There seemed to be more riding on her success because it impacted his.

“Listen, Dill, I could tell from the guy’s tone when he called that it would be a bad idea to give him an audience. You’ll learn that. Next time, you’ll come with me, okay?”

Dill nodded again. Carl couldn’t get a good read on her. She was self-contained enough to be Employee Assessment but seemed too young. She’d been scared to be in the SUV by herself, but that could be an indicator of anything. The only ones who weren’t skittish outside company walls were Wranglers, Cleaners, and of course, zombies.

Gave you an idea where the Wrangler and Cleaners’ heads were at.

“Once you have everything down on the clipboard,” Carl continued, “then you input it into the tablet.”

“Why not just put it into the tablet in the first place?”

Carl sighed, but it was a reasonable question for a young person. Most of them had probably never used pens, pencils, or paper. “It’s part of the service, part of the…what the hell is it called the, uh, the–? The mystique! Just like the khakis and the Oxfords. We’re going for old-fashioned. We’re going for reassurance.”

“I wouldn’t be reassured by a clipboard,” Dill said.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Carl said, “but you’re not in your fifties. You don’t own a house or–” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you own a house?”

She looked at him as if he was crazy. Her first real expression if you disregarded the fear earlier.

“No, see?” Carl continued. “That’s what I mean. Our territory is almost entirely houses, homeowners, richies who can afford the big systems. See what I mean? They want to see a goddamned clipboard and some chop-chop. It makes them feel good. More secure.”

Dill nodded and turned her eyes back to the clipboard. She was ready to learn. That was good, because she had a long way to–

A gas engine roar made her jump. Carl couldn’t see the Wrangler truck from here, but he recognized it nonetheless. Wranglers had actually fought for and won the right to the old gas vehicles. That’s how crazy they were. It was as if they wanted to attract zombies. Crazy.

“Okay, they’re here,” Carl said. “Sneak on up there.”

Dill pressed the steering wheel at the top. The car hummed and rolled forward, slowly gathering momentum. She rounded the corner, and the Wrangler van came into view. Her eyes widened.

“What the fu–?”

Carl laughed. He’d been watching her face, waiting to see what happened once the Wranglers were in sight. “Something else, huh?”

She glanced at him and then turned her stunned gaze back to the vehicle twenty-five feet down the road, turned sideways curb to curb. It was a big pickup truck, flat black, with the Zombie, Inc., logo on each door panel in red. The tires were easily four feet high with heavy, studded tread, and the body of the truck sat an additional eighteen inches over the tires. A cowcatcher grill, also flat black, covered the front, and a rack of bullhorns with zombie heads on each of the two points sat above it like something from a wild-west nightmare. A red cap on the back had the word ‘Wrangler’ in loopy writing made to look like rope.

The engine roared, shaking the truck, and then the sound died. In the sudden silence, Dill took a breath to speak, but then the doors of the Wrangler truck opened. Two Wranglers tumbled out.

The men were dressed as old-time bikers in heavy blue jeans and leather chaps and leather vests over bare skin. Their forearms were laced up in black leather, they wore studded collars around their necks, and the sun glared and sparked off the metal spikes. Steel-toed cycle boots with chains and do-rags of flat black emblazoned with red skulls completed the look.

They ran, whooping, toward Carl and Dill.

“They…they, uh…” Dill stuttered. The Wranglers looked like bandits, like pirates, hooligans, ruffians. “Are they coming to kill us?”

Carl’s shoulders rose and dropped. “Man, you just never know,” he said, and then his door clunked open, and he pointed to the legs in the sewer grate, redirecting the Wranglers’ furious attention.

They turned like flocking birds and their whoops increased in both volume and frequency when they saw the legs. One or two ‘yee-haws’ popped out of them like uncontrollable burps.

“I’ll be back,” Carl said and began to close the door.

“Wait!” Dill said, her voice edged with panic. “What about me?”

“You’ll be okay. You have your crossbow, right? Keep it handy.”

“Yeah, but what about, you know, learning the job?”

“Do you see those two?” Carl asked and hooked a thumb back over his shoulder. The Wranglers had the errant zombie by the ankles and were pulling as they laughed, dragging it from the sewer. “Shit, Dill, you’re going to have plenty of on-the-job, okay? For now, just observe, okay?”

Dill nodded and sat back in the seat. She scanned the rearview and big side mirrors. Always be aware of your surroundings. Alertness was the number one rule when you were outside the compound wall. It wasn’t written specifically anywhere in the training materials, but the stories of lives lost through sheer inattention were many and frightening. Even if at least half of the stories were more office lore cautionary tale than factual account.

The Wranglers nodded to Carl and resumed their tugging. The zombie finally pulled free and one of the Wranglers stumbled back and landed hard on his ass. The standing Wrangler bugled a laugh as the grounded Wrangler cursed.

“Haw! You idiot! Watch where yer own big damn feet is, idiot!”

“Fuck you, Floyd! It wan’t my feet the problem! It was this ’un!”

“Floyd, this old feller never got nowhere near them bloated boats you calls feet. Now get on ’em boats, and let’s get this feller took care of.” The standing Wrangler turned and spit a thick stream of tobacco onto the road. He turned back and grinned broadly. “You idiot.”

The grounded Wrangler cursed again and turned the zombie’s foot with a sharp, businesslike twist, snapping the ankle. The standing Wrangler crouched and twisted the zombie’s other leg in a similar fashion, snapping the other ankle, splintering the fibula with a crunch. Then the Wranglers stepped back.

The zombie pushed, grunted, and gained his knees. His head dangled almost to the ground. The Wranglers crossed their arms over their burly chests and tilted their heads in observation. They were quiet, watchful. All pretense of idiocy and rambunctiousness seemed to have drained away clean.