Flip This Zombie (8 page)

“There’s only one explanation for this,” I whispered as we turned at a T-intersection in the hallway and our new “friend” slid a card through a key lock. At the end of the passage, a white door opened silently. “We’ve been attacked and
this
is how zombies see the world.”

Dave looked down at me with a shiver at the possibility that what I said might actually be true.

“Right now we’re probably eating a Girl Scout troop,” I finished with a nervous grimace.

“Don’t be silly,” Lab Coat Guy said as he looked over his shoulder at us. “There haven’t been any Girl Scouts for months. And you aren’t zombies. This is entirely real, I assure you. And now”—he slowly lowered his gun at his side—“let me introduce myself. My name is Kevin Barnes.
Dr.
Kevin Barnes. And this is my lab.”

We both stared, shocked into silence (rare for us, I assure you). Finally it was Dave who looked down at me, his face pale and his eyes wide.

“I-I guess I was wrong,” he stammered. “It turns out there
are
mad scientists after all.”

D
r. Barnes chuckled as he gave Dave a look that was normally reserved for silly children.

“Oh no, David. Not a mad scientist, I’m merely a scientist.”

“I’m sure that’s just what Dr. Frankenstein said right before he made a zombie of his own,” I whispered.

I was sort of shocked I could find enough of my voice for that. I was still half-convinced this was all a fucked-up dream brought on by too many beans and Pop-Tarts. Was this what scurvy did to a person? I’d have to look it up in one of our medical books as soon as I woke up from this whacked-out dream.

“Please, come in,” Dr. Barnes insisted as he passed through the door his key card had unlocked. “I’ll try to explain everything to you.”

We followed him. I guess we were too numb and curious to do anything else. Inside we found a tidy office, sort of like what you used to find at a clinic before you went
into an exam room. There was a big desk near the back wall with a computer on it. A computer that was on and working! Instantly all my little geek-centricities kicked in and I longed to check e-mail and see what was up with I Can Has Cheezburger.

Of course, those things didn’t exist anymore, computer or not.

In the back of the room and along the left wall were banks of windows, but built-in blinds were lowered between the panes of glass to keep us from seeing what was on the other side.

The room was cool, probably half from being underground and half from the air conditioning pumping through vents hidden somewhere in the room. Air conditioning! We hadn’t felt that in months (again, old vans have their advantages and disadvantages).

Soft light glowed from a desk lamp beside the desk and some kind of instrumental music drifted out of the computer speakers.

It was all like a weird oasis from what was just above us.

Dr. Barnes took a place at his desk and motioned us to sit across from him. As we sank into the seats and stared, both of us too stunned to do much else, he smiled.

“You must have a few questions.”

Dave snorted as a response, but Barnes ignored his interruption.

“Let me begin at the beginning. You see, this warehouse was once owned by a government facility for which I worked.”

Dave shifted in his chair as we shot each other a look. Governmental lab. Sort of like the one at the University of Washington where all this shit started.

“Making zombies, were we, Doc?” I asked softly.

Barnes’s face paled at least three shades and I thought he might pass out right then and there. He was filled with righteous indignation when he sputtered, “Of course not!”

“Then what
were
you doing way out in the desert in a warehouse obviously designed to look like a nothing hole?” Dave asked, his brow arching.

“We—well, it was classified,” the other man stammered as his eyes darted away from us. “And it really doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Doesn’t it?” I asked as I folded my arms. “Damn, I don’t want to find out there’s something worse out there waiting to be unleashed on us.”

Barnes hesitated. “Well, if there is, it wasn’t something I was involved in before the infection. And whatever I did before, there’s no longer a government to work for, at least not out here. I’m no different than you two now.”

Dave opened his mouth to argue, but I jumped in instead. “So how did you survive the outbreak?”

The doctor’s frown deepened. “When the infection began, a few of my assistants and I were downstairs in this lab. An emergency lockdown procedure was triggered at the first whiff of those
things
hitting the city and we were trapped with only satellite television to tell us the story of what was going on just twenty feet above us.”

I flinched. As bad as it had been to be a part of the outbreak, I could hardly imagine being physically trapped somewhere, only able to watch on monitors while all the horror unfolded just above you. It must have been like a bad movie… except you couldn’t change the channel.

“But after a couple of days, the television stations from
around the world slowly broke out and then died. Even the military links failed, which is when we all recognized just how bad it had gotten.” He sighed.

I tilted my head to look at him. If this was an act, he was very fucking good at it. Like “I’d like to thank the Academy” good.

“So how’d you get out,
Doc
?” Dave asked, seemingly less impressed than I was. His arms were folded tightly in front of him and his eyes were narrowed.

“After about a week, the power went out up above, which unlocked the elevator. After much debate, we went into the world to see what was happening. And found…” Barnes shuddered. “Well, what now exists… out there.”

“So how many of you are there?” Dave asked. “We haven’t seen anyone else since our arrival.”

“I’m afraid the only one left is… me.” Barnes dipped his chin to stare at his desk. He pulled off his glasses and once again the pain in his eyes seemed real, at least to me. “The rest were tragically killed either by injury or infection before we were able to figure out the warehouse’s hidden defense system that you two encountered today.”

I bit my lip. I sort of felt sorry for the guy, but I still had questions.
Lots
of questions.

“So if you have a defense system and this lab apparently has some kind of generated power—” I began.

“Natural,” the doctor interrupted proudly. “We fully run on solar, which as you know is still in high supply here in Arizona. It’s the highest tech there is for natural power production.”

I nodded, somewhat impressed but unwilling to show it. “Whatever, my point is that with all you have in your little fortress… why do you need us? Why
did
you call us
here and set up this whole ambush? You obviously don’t need a couple of two-bit exterminators.”

“Hey,” Dave said with a glare in my direction. “I’m at least three-bit.”

“Sorry.” I smiled at him. “What do you want with one two-bit and one three-bit exterminator?”

The doctor seemed less than amused by our witty, sparkling banter. “Because you see, I know how to kill these…
things
.”

“Zombies.”

He flinched. “A rather pedestrian term, but if you insist. I know how to kill these zombies with the protection system at the lab, but what I
need
is someone to catch them. Alive. And bring them back here to me.”

Dave and I stared blankly at the man, stunned into silence. Then to my surprise, David started to laugh. Like full-on laugh and it wasn’t hysterical.

“Okay, that’s funny,” he said with a shake of his head. “What a set-up, too, for Candid Camera. Fake a zombie apocalypse, nearly kill us,
actually
kill about a million… or ten million or a hundred million… other people and all to get us here for the big punch line.”

“David, I assure you—” the other man began.

But Dave wasn’t done yet. He looked at me with a slightly maniacal grin. “Did you hear him, babe?
Catch a zombie
. Where’s Allen Funt? I just can’t wait to break both his arms.”

“Honey, Allen Funt is dead.”

He scowled. “During the zombie outbreak?” he asked.

“No, back in the ’90s, I think,” I offered with a shrug.

Despite the teasing, I reached out and touched Dave’s arm to squeeze it gently. He had already threatened to pop
this guy in the mouth, now I could see, behind his false joviality, that he was pretty fucking close to rearranging pretty boy doctor’s face and making him look more like Owen Wilson than Luke.

“You don’t believe me and I can’t say I blame you,” Barnes said, remarkably calm in the face of David’s subtle, yet pulsating, rage and our mutual mocking. “So let me
show
you that I’m perfectly serious.”

Reaching behind him, Barnes depressed a button and the shade on the window at the back of the room lifted to reveal a small room. Inside was a line of cages containing a small collection of guinea pigs, some alone in their holding cells, others in small pods. Each one had a tag in their ear and what looked like a small painted or dyed marking on their fur. Three dots and a line at the end.

I stared. “Really?
Actual
guinea pigs? Is this the cliché lab or what?”

Barnes ignored me. “We were using them for other types of research, but since the plague, I’ve switched my focus. Now…”

He pressed a few buttons on a computer nearby and suddenly robotic arms swung out from a folded position in the corner of the room. With a few delicate maneuvers, they reached into one of the cages and caught a fat, red guinea pig who was roaming around by himself.

The animal didn’t seem bothered by the sudden intrusion. It continued to chew on a bit of feed, staring with an empty expression at nothing in particular. As one arm held it, the other lifted a syringe and injected the little animal right at its neck, then set it back into the cage gently.

“This is the infected blood from a…” Barnes sighed, heavy and put-upon, “
zombie
.”

We all watched as the animal began to convulse. It flopped helplessly for a few agonizing moments, but just as suddenly it went still and limp against the cage floor. Within seconds, it got back up.

I couldn’t help but flinch because we had seen this so many times before, although always in people, which was worse… so much worse. Although I have to say, a zombiefied guinea pig was pretty hideous, too.

The creature’s beady eyes were now red as it lunged toward the cage edge and snarled and bit at the guinea pigs in the adjoining cage. The other little animals cowered back, huddling in a group that put me in mind of the camp just a short drive away.

Black sludge poured from the poor infected creature’s mouth and it banged its head against the bars of its cage in an attempt to get into the other cage and satisfy its craving for… um, guinea pig soufflé, I guess.

“So you
can
make an animal into a zombie,” I whispered.

The ramifications of that were horrifying. Small animals, small spaces to hide in—the risk of infection had just gone up. The chances of survival… not so much.

“Yes,” Barnes said with a solemn shake of his head. “But it doesn’t appear to happen in any natural environment I’ve studied. The outbreak began in humans and the infected only seem to attack their own kind. So far that means the animals have been safe.”

“Until they start eating the rotting flesh from zombies,” Dave muttered.

My heart sank at the idea, but Barnes looked at me with a small smile that was somehow comforting. “Actually, there is something in the smell of the infected that puts animals off. I’ve observed them devouring the flesh
from dead who were uninfected by the outbreak, but not the corpses of the…
zombies
. At least so far.”

I nodded slowly. That was something at least. So far.

“Now, let me show you what I’ve developed,” the doctor muttered, almost to himself.

He flipped another switch and the robotic arms returned to the cage. The infected animal lunged for them this time, biting them mercilessly until they caught his little writhing body and lifted him to inject him a second time. Through the glass we couldn’t hear the sound, but it opened its mouth in what seemed like a howl of pain and frustration (if a guinea pig, especially one who is now a zombie, can feel such an emotion) as he was set back into his isolated cage.