Flip This Zombie

by Jesse Petersen

  I stared. “You use the zombie virus on zombies?”

  He nodded. “It’s a remarkable agent—”

  Dave interrupted him with a snort. “You would think so.”

  Kevin ignored him, though his jaw tightened. “—it’s almost totally self-driven. It doesn’t require a beating heart to make its way to the brain.”

  I blinked. “Th-That’s remarkable,” I said with a smile over Dave’s head at him.

  He smiled back. “Thank you.”

  Dave was less impressed. “Before you start sucking his dick over this wonderful invention, I have a question, Doc. How long have you had this miracle serum in your possession?”

  I stared at Kevin. To my surprise he was going pale, his eyes wide and filled with something like guilt merged with intense and righteous anger.

  “Well?” I asked, my voice as soft as Dave’s, though less accusatory.

  “I came up with the formula about a month ago.”

  “He had this miracle the entire time we’ve met with him and he never thought to offer it to us, even though we’re out there with our asses hanging out trying to snag him some monsters,” Dave snapped, turning on me like I needed convincing. “We could have avoided the whole accident today if we’d just had some of that shit on us.”

  Dave was right, of course. But I clung to the hope that maybe it wasn’t some kind of nefarious thing that had kept the doctor from sharing his invention with us.

  “Why didn’t you give it to us, Kevin?” I asked, trying to ignore my throbbing head and sore body to concentrate on the very important answer.

  He shrugged. “I hadn’t been able to test it on a true live specimen, just like the cure for the infection,” he explained with a sheepish shift. “I wasn’t certain it would work until the moment I injected your specimen out in the van. I certainly had no idea how long the drug would be effective or what was the proper dose.”

  I looked at Dave. He was leaning on a piece of equipment in the room, just staring at the doctor. And although Barnes’s explanation made logical sense to me, Dave remained angry.

  “Can you give us a minute?” I asked as I reached out to take David’s hand.

  Kevin hesitated and then nodded as he backed out of the room and closed the door behind him. Once he was gone, I looked at my husband evenly.

  “You okay?”

  He shook off his angry glare to look at me with worry. “Me? You’re the one who lost consciousness.” He squeezed my fingers gently. “It scared the shit out of me, Sarah.”

  I nodded. “Sorry, I’ll try not to do it again.”

  When he smiled slightly, I continued, “You know, you can’t be so hard on the guy. I can understand not wanting to give us something that might not work and having us get hurt when we depended on it.”

  Dave stared at me for a long moment before he shook my hand off and backed away a step. “Gotta defend him, eh Sarah?”

  “No!” I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender mostly because I was too fucking tired and hurt to argue about this. “I mean, he could have told us and offered us the opportunity to try the stuff out in the field. He should have. But come on. The guy was a lab rat before the outbreak, and now he hasn’t had human interaction for months. He isn’t so great at it if you haven’t noticed.”

  Dave shrugged. “He seems to do just fine when it comes to interacting with you.”

  I stared in total disbelief. “Is all this piss and vinegar because you’re jealous of Barnes? Are we on the fucking Bachelor now?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time, long enough that the answer was pretty clear. It would have been kind of cute if his fury didn’t interfere with our mission and maybe even put our lives in danger.

  “Do you remember the pattern that was painted or dyed into the fur of the guinea pigs?” Dave asked.

  I blinked. The stupid concussion made me woozy and now my husband had apparently changed the very important subject that I didn’t consider closed by half.

  “Huh?”

  “In the lab when we first came here, did you happen to notice the pattern in the guinea pig fur?”

  I tried to think. “Yeah, I guess. Something with some dots and a line, right?”

  He nodded. Looking around, he moved closer and dropped his tone. “I noticed something today when I put the zombie down on the table. There was a brand or something with the same pattern on it waiting there for him.”

  “Why are you whispering?” I whispered with a shake of my head.

  “He might be listening,” Dave said, just above a breath, and motioned around the room wildly.

  “The zombie?” I teased.

  Dave glared at me. “The fucking doctor.”

  I sat up a little straighter and was rewarded by a burst of pain through my skull.

  “So what?” I snapped in reaction to the pain coupled with annoyance at Dave’s paranoia. “So he marks his test subjects, it’s probably how he keeps track of them. Dudes have done it on farms for years.” Oh wait, there weren’t farms anymore. “Or… they used to.”

  Dave leaned in closer. “Okay, then why did that… that bionic zombie we saw yesterday have the same marking as Kevin’s guinea pigs?”

  I stared. “What?”

  “It was on his neck,” Dave said softly.

  I wracked my scrambled brain. “Look, I don’t remember anything like that,” I said, but I found myself lowering my voice just like he was. Great, now he had me going all covert ops, too. “And if you noticed it yesterday, why not say anything?”

  Dave’s lips thinned. “When I looked through the sight, I saw some kind of mark, Sarah. I’m not making it up. It just didn’t click with me what it was until I saw the brand here today and remembered the guinea pigs.”

  I shook my head. “That’s crazy. Kevin has told us more than once that all his lab assistants were killed during the initial weeks of the outbreak. And he hasn’t had any live specimens to work with, that’s why he needs us to collect zombies for him. So why would a crazy, jacked-up mutant zombie be running around in the world with his mark on it?”

  Dave ground his teeth. “Well, maybe he fucking made it, Sarah. Maybe he’s been making them all along. He is a mad scientist.”

  I threw up my hands. “Scientist, Dave. That’s all. You just don’t trust him because you’re jealous for some weird reason and because scientists are what started the outbreak. But that’s not his fault—”

  He stared at me. “Do you want to be naïve or are you that badly injured?” he snapped. “I. Saw. The. Marking.”

  I struggled for an explanation. “That thing was far away and seeing it freaked us all out. Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it?”

  He backed away even farther, the chasm between us suddenly uncrossable. “I didn’t imagine it. I saw it.”

  But I’d looked at that thing for a long time, too. And I hadn’t seen it. My head was too cloudy and pained to try to figure that one out.

  “I don’t know,” I sighed as I rubbed my eyes. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense, Sarah,” he said, folding his arms and staring at me. “If only you pay attention.”

  I opened my mouth for what I hoped would be a stinging retort when the door behind Dave opened and Kevin stepped back in.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I wanted to check Sarah again,” he said with an apologetic smile.

  Dave snorted. “I bet you do,” he snapped, but he stepped away regardless and let Kevin in between us.

  He checked my eyes and took my pulse, his hands cool and clean against my skin. “Better now,” he reassured me as he stepped away. “But I’d give it a day or two before you start capturing zombies again. I have two specimens to work with in the interim.”

  Dave’s jaw dropped open like it was on a hinge and he stared at Kevin blankly. “Wait, go back out and catch more zombies?”

  Kevin nodded, his own expression just as confused as my husband’s. “Of course. I realize there
was a little accident today and I can understand how that might throw you off, but I do hope you’ll continue to bring me infected things to work with.”

  “You are fucking batshit crazy,” David roared, pushing forward.

  He grabbed Kevin by the stark white lapel of his lab coat, smudging it with blood and sludge as he slammed him against the door and held him there.

  “We aren’t going out again. I’m done. And she’s sure as hell done. We’re done.”

  There was silence in the room for a long moment and then the sound. A sound I knew all too well. The sound of a Colt .45 being cocked between the two men.

  And I knew for a fact that Dave wasn’t the one holding it.

  Partnerships don’t last forever. The zombie apocalypse just might.

  I edged over to the end of the bed and slowly found my feet. When I got up, I was greeted with an entire war’s worth of explosions of pain in my head and all through my body, but I fought through it. Oh, and also through the waves of nausea that came with it (you didn’t want to see beef jerky and breakfast bars come back up, especially together, I assure you) and managed to wedge myself between the two men. One thing was for sure, if they made me, I was going to puke on both of them just to teach them a lesson.

  Jackasses.

  “Stop it,” I said, placing a hand on the .45 Kevin held and turning it away from Dave and me. “Stop it both of you. You’re acting like schoolboys on a playground except the guns are real. Shooting each other will get us nowhere. Don’t forget who our enemy is.”

  “I know exactly who the enemy is,” Dave growled behind me. “Mr. Comic Book Villain here. All you need is a thought bubble, asshole.”

  I spun to face him. “Stop,” I insisted, grabbing his arms. “I know you think you’re right, but you are being crazy. And as much as I appreciate your protection, you don’t speak for me on this.”

  Dave stopped glowering at Kevin and instead jolted his face down at me. “What?”

  “You told him that she isn’t going out anymore. But you didn’t ask me what I want to do,” I said softly.

  He stared at me for what seemed like forever, eyes wide and face pale, before he finally pushed my arms aside. “You can’t be serious.”

  I looked at him and then at Kevin, who was smiling slightly, I suppose in support of what I was saying. Or maybe he was just a smug son of a bitch.

  “I realize you two have wildly differing views on this, but I do think that what Kevin is working on could change our world,” I began.

  Dave snorted. “Oh, I totally agree, Sarah. I’m sure all those bionic zombies will change everything once there are enough of them.”

  I froze in my spot. I never thought he’d go straight at Kevin and accuse him of something so vile. Especially without more proof than a marking he thought he’d seen in the heat of a really crazy, unbelievable moment.

  Kevin moved forward. “Bionic zombies?” he repeated, blinking behind his glasses. I noticed now that there were flecks of… something on them. “What are you talking about?”

  “So your major at the University of Crazy was mad science and your minor was bad acting, right?” Dave asked.

  I backed up to the bed and sat back down because my head was throbbing.

  “Over the past few weeks we’ve heard reports of a new kind of zombie.” I sighed. “Yesterday we saw one for ourselves. They appear to be bigger, maybe more alert, stronger. I started calling them bionics.”

  Kevin drew back, but after a moment he nodded. “Bionics. And you think I created them?”

  The question was directed toward Dave.

  My husband folded his arms. “I’m pretty fucking certain, actually. Hell, maybe that’s why you want us to bring all these zombies to you. Maybe you’re making your own little souped-up army.”

  “And why would I do that?” Kevin asked with a humorless laugh.

  Dave shrugged. “Maybe you saw too many Resident Evil flicks and found yourself always rooting for Umbrella Corp rather than the hot chick. Maybe you like how it feels when you play God with dead things. Maybe you think you can take over the Badlands or even storm this supposed Midwest Wall that everyone believes is out there. I have no idea what your twisted mind would have as a reason to fuck with monsters that are already bad enough as it is.”

  “David, please,” I whispered, although I have to admit, I was watching Kevin for his reaction to Dave’s accusations. For now, there wasn’t one. All the emotion was wiped from his face and his gaze held steady on my husband.

  His hand held just as steady on the .45.

  Finally he sighed. “David, you’ve been in the Badlands, as you call them, a long time. I can’t imagine what you’ve seen and done and been through. And I suppose it’s because of those experiences that you have such a low level of trust, such a low level of tolerance for hope. But I promise you, there is no way I would ever participate in making ‘bionic’ zombies, as you put it. I’m trying to eradicate this infection, not mutate it to my own devices.”

  “Hm,” Dave said without hesitation. “Sounds like something a mad scientist would say.”

  Kevin’s eyelids fluttered just a little, his only tell that what David said annoyed or angered him. His voice remained calm, though.

  “Very well, you’ve made your point clear. You have no faith in me. And I suppose none in any hope that this thing that has happened to our world can be changed. But what about you, Sarah?”

  His gaze turned on me, piercing behind the glasses. I shifted slightly beneath it, especially when I felt Dave’s stare with equal intensity and force. I felt like I was being tugged between two worlds.

  Dave was the world I could see, the world of today. And you may not believe it, but there was some comfort to that. After all, now I knew exactly what this world entailed. After a few months, I understood the whole zombie thing and the camp thing and the survivalist thing. I knew how to endure.

  But I wouldn’t call it living.

  As for Kevin… well, he represented a world I couldn’t yet see. A future world where maybe zombies wouldn’t exist anymore. Where maybe there was hope of getting back to what we had all lost. It was all very shadowy and unclear so far, this world he painted for me. And terrifying because I had no idea what would happen if we managed to get ourselves to that new reality.

  But that thing, that ideal this man represented… it was hope.

  “I-I want to believe that what you say could happen… is possible,” I admitted, trying hard not to look at David from the corner of my eye.

  It didn’t work. I saw the betrayal on his face. The pain that I would take some other man’s side over his. My heart hurt as much as my head as I dipped my chin and stopped looking at him.

  “Then will you stay?” Kevin pressed. “Can I depend on you to keep helping me?”

  I looked up. This was it, my last chance to back out. My last chance to keep things status quo. Only I knew I would regret that choice. Especially if somewhere down the road Kevin did find that cure. I would always regret not taking a stand to save this world.

  I nodded. “Yes. I want to continue helping you.”

  Dave sucked in a breath beside me and I finally forced myself to look at him straight on. I owed him that much. I wished I hadn’t. Beneath the bruises, his face was pale, his eyes almost dead as he stared at me.

  I reached for him, but he backed out of my reach.

  “Please,” I whispered. “Please stay and help me.”

  He shook his head. “No way, Sarah.” His voice was as soft as my own. “I’m not going to help him bring down this world. And I’m certainly not going to watch him bring you down with it.”

  “Dave?” I said, the sound almost not carrying.

  He didn’t answer. He just turned on his heel and left the room without looking back. Without saying another word.

  “David?” I called again. “David!”

  But he was gone.

  * * *

  I guess on some level I thought he would c
ome back. I mean, so he left, but he was a hothead. I figured he would drive around that afternoon (although I hadn’t really thought about the fact that he had no vehicle now that our van was toast) and maybe even go into camp for the night. But then he’d cool off. He’d come back.

  But he didn’t. As I watched the sun rise on the monitors in Kevin’s lab, there was no David on them. Not even a hint of him or where he was or what he was doing or if he’d ever bother to return.

  I blinked to keep tears from falling and looked around. I was on my own for the first time since the outbreak. Really for the first time in years before that. Even at our worst, Dave had always been there. I hadn’t ever been truly alone.

  Until now.

  Behind me, I heard a door open. I turned to watch The Kid enter the viewing room. He glared at me in accusation. It kind of reminded me of my own dirty looks for my mom when she and my dad got divorced when I was just a little younger than the boy before me.

  “Is he back?” The Kid demanded without preamble or explanation of his question.

  I shook my head. “No. Not yet.”

  I looked at him. He was clean, at least. Even his clothes were new, so I guess Dr. Barnes had gone all out and found each of us something to wear (or maybe from the stock here in the lab). Dave’s set sat untouched on the chair in my room. Accusing me as much as The Kid’s expression.

  “How’s your arm?” I asked, motioning to his wrapped wrist.

  He moved it a little and cringed slightly. “Sore,” he admitted. “But I’ll get over it.”

  I turned back to the monitors, my thoughts back to David. “Yeah, me too.”

  “So he’s not returned, eh?”

  This time it was Kevin’s voice at the door and I turned once again to face him. He was holding a tray, but from my angle I could tell what was on it.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” I said softly.

  “It’s too bad, but I suppose each of us has to make a choice in life,” he said as he put the tray down.