Flip This Zombie (28 page)

It sunk in a couple of inches and when I tugged to free myself, some flesh came with me as the zombie staggered backward toward the wall.

That left Sergeant Ugly, but by the time Dave made the 360 degree turn, the military bionic was already right up against us. As my boot came around to find a home in his side or his neck, he reached out and he caught it.

For a moment all of us stopped… or maybe it just felt like that because it was so fucking creepy. But there we were: Dave was looking over his shoulder. I was staring at the zombie. The zombie held my ankle and was staring right back at me. The frozen feeling might have lasted a second or ten minutes, I don’t know, but when it ended, it ended with a bang.

The zombie tugged and I slipped out of Dave’s grip. I slammed down on the floor on my back and the wind went out of my lungs as my head, still hurting from the concussion by the way, slammed on the linoleum. Dave pivoted instantly and threw a punch, but the military zombie dodged.

Yeah, you read that right. He fucking dodged.

With a moan, he tugged and I slid across the floor toward him. That woke me up and I kicked upward with my opposite foot. It caught him right between the legs and the zombie’s eyes widened just a fraction as he whimpered ever so slightly.

He flung my foot and I twisted into a half somersault and hit the ground again, this time on my stomach. Pain ricocheted throughout my chest, vibrating through my entire being as lightning exploded in front of my eyes.

Still, I fought through it, trying to find focus again, trying to remember that we were talking life and death here. I could whine about my owies later.

I managed to get up to my knees and then staggered up just about the time the second zombie I’d hit pushed himself from the wall and started after me.

I left Dave to deal with our uniformed friend and headed toward the other bionic with all my weight. We slammed back against the wall a second time and the zombie leaned down, his snapping jaws just missing my ear as I twisted out of the way.

I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck and joined them together in a tight, interlocked fist. Then I thought of every MMA fight I’d been forced to watch by my husband and tugged the zombie’s head down with all my might.

He bent at the waist with the weirdest whining screech and I threw my knee upward with all my might. It connected with his forehead and there was a wet squishing sound as the skin exploded against my jeans. Instantly I felt the wet sludge seeping through the cotton fabric. I threw the knee again and the bionic’s head caved beneath the force of the blow.

I let him go and backed up as he collapsed forward, face first on what used to be the clean floor, but was now far less stark.

I spun around. Dave was grappling with the military bionic. The two of them staggered around the room together in almost a dancelike fashion. I’m sure
Dancing with the Zombies
will be a big hit once we all get television back.

Admit it, you’d watch it.

I would have rushed to Dave’s aid at that point, but the grunting moan to my right stopped me. The first zombie I’d hit, the one whose head was half caved in, was starting to get up.

I stared in utter disbelief at what I was seeing. Normally once you broke any part of their brain, zombies were pretty much toast, but this one could clearly still function only partially intact. The brightness was gone from his stare now, but the bloodlust remained.

I dodged as he swung one clublike arm toward me and staggered in my direction. He was really pissed now, if a zombie could feel such a thing, and he still had pretty good speed even with only half a brain.

I glanced around the room as I dodged a second attack. It was barren, devoid of anything that would even remotely pass as a weapon against the hideous creatures bent on our destruction.

In short, we were fucked. I mean, even if we got past these three sweethearts, we were still locked inside this room, just waiting for Barnes to use us in another “test” of his minions.

So not only did we have to kill these fuckers, but we had to get the hell out of Dodge. And fast.

The zombie lunged for me and this time I couldn’t quite get out of the way. He hit my shoulder and the two of us fell back. The window where Barnes was watching took the brunt of our weight and as I sucked in for air and grabbed for the zombie’s shoulders, I heard a sound.

The sound of glass being strained. It was faint, but it was there. And it gave me an idea.

I shoved back, sweeping my feet against the infected beast’s legs, which sent him staggering wildly. I shuffled to the side and his sludge-y, brain-leaking head smacked the glass a second time. This time, in the corner, a hairline crack appeared.

Barnes must have noticed it, too, because through the glass, I saw his eyes widen. He backed up and stared, first at his zombie, who was trying to claw his way back up to his feet against the slippery barrier between them, and then to me.

I smiled at Barnes and then took off across the room, hoping the bionic would follow me. He spun around, this time slower as his body and brain became more and more damaged by my attacks, and faced me. For a moment he wobbled and I held my breath, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t keel over quite yet. I was strong, but I needed his increased weight and power to shatter the treated window.

Finally, he shoved toward me. He moved like Frankenstein’s monster as he lurched across the room, one arm dangling uselessly at his side, one reaching for me, clawing at me.

The zombie lunged and I dropped down and slid, face first between his legs. I hit the wall below the window and got to my feet just in time to see the zombie come around
like a big, dopey ship. He had woken himself up a little and he lumbered across the room with ever-increasing speed.

“Sarah, don’t,” Barnes’s voice came through the speakers.

Dave jerked his head toward me as he kneed his own zombie in the gut. He stared at me, then at the freight train of a zombie coming my way.

“Be careful!” he cried.

I didn’t look at him, just kept my eyes on my prize as it got closer.

“I know what I’m doing,” I said and prayed for once I was right.

The zombie staggered and at the very last moment I bolted out of the way. He bent over like an angry bull and his head hit the window at full speed. The impact shook the glass and then the window exploded out into the observation room where Barnes was watching and waiting.

The zombie fell forward, impaled on the glass, his head nearly severed by it, and landed on Barnes’s control panel. The buttons all went on at once from the weight of the now-dead body on them and there was a hot smell of burning wiring as the entire thing shorted out. All the doors opened in the room at once.

Barnes stood there for a second, his face pale with shock, his eyes wide. He stared at the carnage around him, then his gaze lifted to me. I couldn’t help it. I smiled.

Without a word, he spun on his heel and tore the door behind him open to sprint out into the hallway. As much as I wanted to chase him, I spun away and back into the room where Dave still struggled with the final bionic in our way.

The military zombie was already staggering, his face battered, skin peeling away and skull damaged by Dave’s attacks while I was busy dealing with my own problems. As I watched, Dave pulled back to throw a finishing punch.

The zombie’s cheek collapsed under the strain and I stared in slow motion horror as my husband’s hand disappeared into the mouth of the zombie. And even further horror as the teeth of the nearly dead infected creature closed around his hand.

N
o!” I screamed, but my voice sounded far away and odd. It mixed with Dave’s howl of pain as the zombie teeth sank into his palm.

I lunged for the zombie, grabbing it from behind by its rotting uniform seams and pulling as hard as I could. Dave’s hand popped free from the diseased mouth and the zombie and I fell backward onto the ground. Like a turtle, the
thing
clawed at the air and tried to get itself upright.

But I was faster and up on my feet almost as fast as I was down. With another scream, I slammed my foot down into the zombie’s skull over and over again. I relished the feel of my foot crushing away its unlife until there was nothing left of it but a body in a uniform and a splat where its head used to be.

Panting, I spun around to face Dave. He had sunk to his knees in the middle of the room and was clutching his hand, staring at the spot where the zombie’s teeth had pierced the skin.

Wounds mean something different when the world as you know it has ended. Because of infection, even the smallest non-zombie-related injury can mean death in the Badlands.

And when it comes to the zombie-related ones, well… there’s no difference between having a zombie rip your throat out with his teeth or just barely scratch the skin. You’re fucked. You’re the living dead.

“I-It’s nothing,” I lied as I dropped down in front of him to look at the mark.

Yes, it was just a little break of the skin. But already the black edges were beginning to appear around the torn flesh. Telltale sludge was creeping into his bloodstream and making Dave bleed black-red instead of normal.

He looked at me, his eyes wide and steady. “It doesn’t matter, Sarah. It’s all over.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. That was the one truth I couldn’t hear. “No. No.”

He grabbed my upper arms and squeezed. “It
is
, babe. The best I can do now is help you get out of here before I turn. Then we have to put a bullet in my brain.” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “You know that’s true.”

“No!” I shouted in his face.

He grabbed me and tugged me against his chest. I hung tight to his neck, burrowing my face into his skin and biting back sobs as I felt his warmth all around me. Soon there wouldn’t be any warmth. Just cold death.

Unless…

I tugged back to stare at him.

“Small injury on a hand gives you about thirty minutes until you change,” I said, hardly able to breathe as my mind put together pieces. “And maybe forty if you hold
still and stay calm so that your heart doesn’t pump the poison through your system as quickly.”

“Thirty minutes, forty minutes, what does it matter, Sarah?” he asked as he reached for my cheek to brush a tear away.

“There
is
a cure, David,” I whispered.

“It’s a pipe dream,” he grunted, his voice already strained.

“No! No, it’s not. We
saw
it work when we watched Barnes test the guinea pigs. He made a cure, maybe to protect himself and the kid, maybe to just fuck with the zombies, I don’t know. But it is here… somewhere. And if I can find it before you turn, I could save you.”

“No way.” Dave shook his head. “Even if that shit
would
work on me, and there’s no guarantee that it would, that asshole is armed by now, Sarah! He’s not going to just let you take his cure and come back here to me. And he’s definitely not going to let us waltz out of here even if you can find it.”

I grabbed his shirt and pulled him close for a quick kiss. “I’d like to see him try to stop me. Now lay here, stay still, and like you always tell me, stay calm. I
will
be back.”

He reached for me as I pushed to my feet. As he stared up at me, I couldn’t help but notice that his pupils were dilating rapidly. That his skin was getting pale already.

“Sarah, if it takes longer than half an hour, you have to run. Just leave me, okay? Leave me and
run
!”

“I promise,” I said as I bolted for the door that had swung open when I blew the control panel in the observation panel.

I lied.

*       *       *

There were guns in the dining hall area and that was close enough to the guinea pig lab that I headed there first.

What? I was crazed, not stupid. I needed weapons since I was pretty fucking sure I was going to encounter Barnes again before this was all played out.

I stared for a second at the key card slot that would allow me in and then kicked it. The mechanism shorted out and the door popped open at the same moment that a high-pitched alarm began to whir over and over again from the speakers strung throughout the hallways.