The Zombie Whisperer (Living With the Dead)

by Jesse Petersen

  I swiveled the office chair and was surprised to find Lisa standing there.

  “You don’t look like a Stephen,” she said as she leaned on the door jam and motioned to the name plate on the desk that had once belonged to Professor Stephen Garret.

  “I don’t feel like one, either. Maybe a Stephanie.”

  I laughed and touched the belly that seemed like it had swelled a little more overnight. Once that baby went supernova, it seemed like he wasn’t screwing around. Which proved he was my boy, for sure, I guess.

  “So what are you doing here?” I asked. “I figured you’d be out and about already, being a super soldier.”

  Her mouth quirked in a half-smile. “Well, I wondered if you wanted to come out with me.”

  Both my eyebrows lifted. “You want me to come with you? Even after everything we heard yesterday about super zombie babies and my rapidly advancing condition and all that jazz?”

  Lisa shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t give a crap about that stuff. I just need help killing things and you are much better than the yes, ma’am/no ma’am soldiers who follow me around like a puppy. It’s like, shit, you’re not in the army anymore, buddy. Just be a dude.”

  My brow wrinkled. Here was a new version of Lisa, all nice and kind of funny. Were those warning bells going off in my head now? Screaming, “Danger, Sarah!! Danger!!!”

  Yeah, if they were, I ignored them.

  “I have to admit, I did enjoy zombie killing again. What do you have in mind for today?” I asked.

  She grinned and flopped down a map in front of me. It was one of the ones for new students, all pretty colors and funny little keys with things like food and fun hangouts marked. The thing that was less cute was the big perimeter that Lisa had penciled in with red pencil out in the middle of the map.

  “Well, they’ve gated off the student union now, so we’ve reclaimed a bit more of campus.”

  She indicated Husky union, which was within the fence line. I smiled: accomplishment!

  “But right behind that building-” She indicated on the map. “-here, is Hall Health.”

  I jerked my face up. “You want the medical supplies.”

  “Bingo.”

  I pushed to my feet. “Well, considering I’m apparently going to have a baby in five to ten minutes, I’m all for it. I’ll definitely help.”

  “And the bonus is that the building is way smaller than the HUB,” Lisa said.

  “Then what are we waiting for?” I asked. “Let me leave a note for Dave so he won’t be super pissed like last time.”

  “Just moderately pissed?” she asked.

  I hesitated. “Yeah, he doesn’t want me going out. But we’re not attached at the hip and if he has to do what he has to do, I guess the same is true of me.”

  Lisa smiled. “Okay, write your note and I’ll get us loaded for bear, er zombie.”

  “Just not zombie bears,” I laughed as I walked into the hall with her and headed toward the room I shared with Dave to leave my note. “I think there are some things I just couldn’t take.”

  #

  Within forty-five minutes, we were stepping from the lab building, loaded to the hilt with weaponry, walking in the cold rain toward the HUB we’d cleared the day before and Hall Health behind it.

  “So looking at your map, I was surprised you didn’t have more of the campus within the fence line,” I said. “How did you get the amount of supplies you have?”

  Lisa shrugged. “When we first got here, what we really wanted to secure was the lab. We went out to different buildings in groups and got what we needed, then brought it back. In the beginning, it was a guard and shoot thing. Then the soldiers drove out and got the fencing. Little by little, we built it up.”

  I nodded slowly. That would explain why everyone was so hesitant to blame the military force here for anything. They really had saved the day. Still did by providing a larger and larger safe haven.

  “You still do guard and shoot, though,” I pointed out.

  She nodded. “Oh yeah. The fences aren’t always completely perfect. So we keep up the guard and have them out checking the line, too. So far, the system works.”

  “I’d say so if you’re willing to expand to create a larger and larger ‘city’ within this wall. What happens when stragglers who aren’t zombies come in?”

  Lisa ducked her head, like she was looking for something, but I saw the look on her face. The pain.

  “There aren’t a lot of stragglers left. They hit this city hard, both in terms of zombies, since it was ground zero, and in terms of wiping out any population, zombie or human, with bombing runs.”

  “Sounds like we got out just in time.”

  She looked at me for a minute, her face unreadable, and then motioned to the fence. “Here’s where we’ll duck out to get to Hall Health. Ready?”

  I pulled a pistol and checked that it was fully loaded, ran a hand over the rest of my shit just to make sure I had a sense of where it was and nodded.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  She popped the gate and we hurried out and locked it behind us. A couple of zombies roaming the fence line, banging on it like they were looking for soft spots, immediately started over toward us, growling and grunting.

  “Use silent weapons,” Lisa advised. “Might as well not bring the hoard.”

  “Comforting,” I murmured as I replaced my pistol and exchanged it for a machete.

  The first zombie was naked, rotting breasts swinging in the wind as she run up on me, growling and grunting as she waved her clawed hands around. I slashed the machete and it thudded as it whisked through the softening bone and tissue of her skull. She wheezed as the top part of her head slid away and she sank to the ground in a pile.

  When I turned, Lisa had done something similar to the other zombie, a half-dressed man in what had likely been a very expensive suit.

  “Onward,” Lisa whispered.

  Luckily, Hall Health wasn’t much behind the HUB and we were able to maneuver ourselves behind trees and buildings to avoid being spotted (or scented) by the handful of zombies on the path between our current position and the one we wanted to reach. Soon enough, we were at the door.

  I had always been confused by Hall Health. A clinic was supposed to look clinical, but the building had been designed in that same “Ivy League” quality of the rest of the UW buildings. It looked more like a lecture hall than a place where you’d get your free birth control, but whatever.

  Lisa leaned against the side of the building near the door, checking our flank and getting ready to cover me as she motioned for me to open the building.

  I sucked in a breath and placed my hand on the door. But before I could push, it was yanked open, out of my hands. There in the doorway, stood Nadia.

  I stared at her. She wasn’t zombie-fied. She was just in the building, waiting for us.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Nadia?” Lisa asked as she whipped around into the doorway to look at our friend.

  She shifted. “Yeah, well, here’s the thing.”

  To my horror, she lifted what looked to be a pistol and fired it directly at Lisa. I recoiled, expecting her to fall in a spurt of blood as a bullet pierced her flesh. But it wasn’t a bullet that came out of the gun, it was a little dart that embedded itself in Lisa’s neck.

  Lisa stared at Nadia, then lifted her hand to her neck and pulled the dart free.

  “What-?” she began, but then collapsed in a heap in front of the door.

  I backed up. I’d put my pistol away, so I held my machete up like it could somehow stop her.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered. “What are you doing, Nadia?”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured as she leveled the tranquilizer gun toward me. “It’s the only way.”

  She fired. I swung the machete like a bat, like I could hit a home run with that dart, but I’d never been much good at sports. I missed and there was a tingling pain as the dart entered by chest, just at the flesh o
f my breast.

  I looked down. It was a tiny dart, so small and yet immediately the world began to spin, spin, spin around me. I staggered, trying to run toward the fence, but I didn’t even manage to turn around before I fell into the wet grass next to the door and everything in the world went pitch black.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Zombie Knows Best

  Dave held the note Sarah had left him in a fist, so hard that the paper was crumpled. How many times did he have to say to her that he didn’t want her to be unsafe? Sometimes it felt like she did shit just to piss him off.

  Only it wasn’t like that anymore. She didn’t poke at him for fun. Sarah was just… Sarah.

  He turned and stalked out of the room and down the stairs. In front of the door that led outside was a sleeping little sentry in half-military gear and a UW t-shirt.

  “Hey, you!” Dave snapped.

  The boy straightened up and his eyes went wide when he looked at Dave. He was kind of famous that way. Nadia the Nurse (as Dave referred to her in his head) had even implied that there might be a few “Cults of David” out there in the Wilds. Some kind of weirdoes who had heard of his powers and thought he was the second coming. Ridiculous.

  “Where is my wife?” he asked, trying to keep his tone calm so he wouldn’t end up with the nervous young man’s bullet in his skull.

  “Who?” the boy replied.

  Dave shut his eyes and counted to a slow ten. He could smell the kids sweat and the sweetness of his brains. Utterly disconcerting, no matter how long he’d had the advanced sense of zombie smell.

  “My wife, Sarah. The pregnant one that everyone is so concerned about. She left here with the Colonel’s girlfriend, Lisa.” He held the boy’s stare so he would be able to know if the solider was lying when he answered.

  He shifted, sweating even more. “Oh, um, yeah. They left a few hours ago, to clear out Hall Health.”

  Dave clenched his fists. Wonderful. Sarah was outside the semi-safety of the fence again, roaming around with Lisa, who he didn’t trust and who was certainly a bad influence. He pulled the pistol from his belt and started outside, leaving the boy at the door to sputter after him as he slammed the door shut behind him.

  Sarah called it his “caveman” thing. Which he hated, by the way. Shit, why couldn’t a guy not like it when his pregnant wife put herself in danger just for the thrill of it? Especially now, his reaction just didn’t seem that outrageous. And he wasn’t even sure Sarah thought he was being ridiculous. She just still went out without thinking.

  Hall Health… Sarah had gone to school here what seemed like a million years ago and he recalled heading to Hall Health with her when she had the flu or something. He sort of vaguely remembered it being behind the HUB, so he headed in that direction.

  He didn’t have to worry as he walked. Even if zombies had somehow made it past the fence line, it wasn’t like he was their prey. Where once he had battled and fought, now he herded and fired. His life was so utterly boring.

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t all that far from Sarah and her desire for a thrill.

  He moved around the big university student building and there he saw the fence, freshly put up behind the HUB to signify that Lisa and Sarah had cleared the place the day before. And when he looked at how big the damn building was, he was pretty proud of his wife for covering all of that pretty much by herself.

  Sarah was a badass, that was never something he would debate.

  He stopped as the fence line became clearer from behind a couple of overgrown bushes. There, lying just inside the gate that led to the buildings that hadn’t been cleared, was a body. A woman’s body, judging by the size of it.

  He took off running toward her, holding his breath as he prayed, actually prayed, that it wouldn’t be Sarah crumpled there. Zombie-fied maybe, because that was all he could think that could have happened to the victim. They just hadn’t gotten back up yet.

  He dropped to his knees beside the person and flipped her over from her stomach to her back. Relief swelled in him as he stared at the bruised face before him. It wasn’t Sarah, it was Lisa.

  More interestingly, she wasn’t zombie-fied. There was no greyness to her flesh, a small wound on her cheek bled red, not black sludge. She was just unconscious.

  But where was Sarah?

  “Lisa,” he said, shaking her. “Lisa, wake up.”

  She grumbled at his sharp tone and slowly her eyes came out. Nope, definitely not a zombie, there was life and light and recognition in her stare.

  “David?” she moaned. “What’s going on?”

  “You tell me!” he burst out, unable to control his emotions. “Where is my wife? Where is Sarah?”

  Lisa started to sit up and he helped her, resting a hand on her back to help support her as she rubbed her forehead and then her eyes.

  “They-they took her,” she said.

  He stared at the woman beside him, almost unable to comprehend what she was saying. It didn’t make sense.

  “Who, zombies?” he asked. “Zombies don’t take people, Lisa.”

  “No, not zombies… men. There were men and-”

  Dave stopped helping her sit up and jumped to his feet, staring at her and trying, with every human fiber left in his being, not to go ape shit on her.

  “Men,” he repeated. “Huh, interesting since this place is so heavily guarded and all. Or do you mean men who you let in? Men who you and your little boyfriend are allies with? How much did you get for getting Sarah and the baby in her? What did you trade?”

  Lisa stared up at him like he was speaking some foreign language. “What the hell?”

  “She never fully trusted you,” he continued. “Neither did I. She said, be careful, the military isn’t a good thing. And I told her it was fine and rambled on about the cure and now you guys have screwed us just like she thought you would.”

  He moved toward Lisa one long step, but before he could continue a tirade or make demands about Sarah, he felt the barrel of a shotgun against his back. He froze. Zombie powers or not, he really didn’t want half his chest blown out. He doubted that would go well for him.

  “Stop screaming.”

  The voice he recognized. Colonel Fenton, come to save his girlfriend’s day. How super-fucking-romantic. Except that they were the bad guys in this tale. They weren’t supposed to get a happy ending.

  “God damn it Fenton, stay out of this,” he growled.

  “Shut up and turn around,” Fenton continued.

  Dave did as he was told and found himself facing ten fully armed military guys, all aiming various and sundry guns toward him. The military goons included the little sentry from the lab. Nice, so he’d gone to tattle.

  Not that Dave could really blame him.

  “What’s going on?” Fenton asked. His gaze was still on David, but it was pretty clear he was talking to Lisa.

  She struggled to her feet and staggered slightly. Shit, was she still pretending to be hurt for her boyfriend’s sake?

  “Sarah is gone,” she said and then promptly fell over in a new heap.

  Fenton’s lip tensed, but he didn’t race to her, he just flicked a wrist and one of the bigger guys moved to her side and swept her up.

  “David, we’re going back to the lab for a talk.”

  Dave looked at him, but said nothing. Not much to say with so many guns pointed at his chest.

  Fenton ignored his silence and his sour look and continued, “Henson, carry Lisa and make sure she goes straight to the med staff. In fact we’ll have our meeting there so she can explain herself once she’s awake.”

  He glanced at the younger man who was the guard at the lab. “Ward, you retake your post at the lab entrance and try not to let hell break loose this time. The rest of you, fan out, if Lisa’s statement is true, we seem to have a breach of some kind. Check all the fences, radio in if you find pods and keep your eyes out for enemies with brains, as well as brainless ones. Go!”

  He returned his attention t
o Dave as the crew fanned out. He leaned in, pressing the gun barrel right into Dave’s chest. There was anger in his stare, Dave could see it, he could smell it, too. So he really did have feelings for Lisa… maybe was blaming Dave for her injuries.

  “After you,” Fenton growled, pushing him toward the lab with the gun.

  “No, I need to find my wife,” Dave said, just as low and angry. “If she’s been taken, we don’t have much time.”

  “I agree,” Fenton said with a raised brow. “And you’re wasting that time by arguing. Let’s go back to the lab, let me find out what’s really going on and then we’ll decide the best course of action when it comes to Sarah. Now move.”

  Dave wanted to scream. To zombie roar. To rip Fenton’s arm off. None of those things were going to happen in this scenario, at least not without taking a shot to the chest first. And, more importantly, none of it would help Sarah. He clenched his teeth and started moving.

  #

  “Did you do this?” Fenton asked later, motioning to Lisa and her bruised and battered face as The Kid and Josh looked her over. Somehow they couldn’t find Nadia, so chemistry nerds were as good as it got.

  “I doubt it, unless you have a dart gun, Dave,” The Kid said as he pushed some of Lisa’s hair out of the way and pulled a tiny dart from her skin. “I think that should help with the wooziness.”

  Fenton stared as Robbie handed over the dart and stared at it. He stared at Dave.

  Dave shrugged. “Shit man, I don’t have a dart gun. Why would I want one? I kill zombies by roaming into the middle of them and firing off shotgun blasts. Those darts wouldn’t do a damn thing to any of them.”

  Josh nodded. “I’d say that’s true. As Robbie knows, it’s very difficult to manufacture a serum that would incapacitate a zombie or affect it in any way due to the compromised circulatory system.”