Floyd & Mikki (Book 1): Zombie Hunters (Love Should Be Explosive!) (25 page)

“We really must be going now, if you will both be so kind as to please excuse us. We have had a lovely afternoon here. Thank you so much for your most gracious hospitality!”

Everyone gaped at Mikki with their mouths wide open, especially Floyd. For all the world, Mikki sounded like a debutante queen accepting her crown at the ball. Her diction was perfect. Adelaide was seriously considering actually accepting her application.

“Close your mouth, now, Mr. Floyd. Although we have enjoyed ourselves immensely, it is time we take our leave from these good people. Do have a lovely evening! And thank you both again for such a wonderful afternoon!”

Mikki held up an apple to show Bob, and winked before taking a large bite. She laid the apple on the table, picked up Bonnie and headed out. Floyd grabbed Clyde, bowed briefly, and muttered some kind of thanks as they headed for the boat.

Catching up to her, Floyd whispered, confused, “I never heard you talk like that before.”

Mikki whispered back, “I know
how
to speak proper, Floyd. It just ain’t me.”

From out of nowhere, Raul dropped down off the roof and helped them untie the boat. “Is what you said about that place in California true?” he asked in a hushed whisper.

“Seems to be. We’re headed out there now,” Floyd answered.

“Why don’t you come with us?” Mikki offered. “Just jump in the boat and let’s go.”

Floyd looked at her like she’d gone crazy. They barely had enough room for two people in the truck. There was no way they could take three. He needn’t have worried, though, as Raul refused.

“No. You don’t understand. They took me in. Give me this gun. They feed me and keep me safe from those things out there.”

“It looks to me like you’re the one keeping them safe. And they treat you like crap,” Mikki insisted.

“Maybe, but what else can I do?”

“What else can you do?” Mikki stared right into his eyes. “Raul, remember: you’re the guy with the gun!”

They pulled away from the dock and started pedaling back to shore. Raul seemed lost in his own thoughts as he waved goodbye. After a while, he climbed back up to assume his position on the roof.

“I’m guessin’ you’re glad to be outta there,” Floyd commented, dryly.

“Tight-ass old bitch! She’s lucky I ran outta grenades.”

Floyd smiled. He could just imagine.

“No more pit stops, Floyd! Let’s just get to this California place and see what’s there, OK?”

“Fine with me. Of all the things we been through, I think that was the creepiest.”

“This from a man with a zombie bear head mounted on his hood.”

“Damn straight!”

“Them boat people ain’t got no clue what’s waitin’ for ‘em in the real world. ‘Denial’ ain’t just a river in Egypt.”

“We don’t say ‘ain’t.’ It isn’t proper. Didn’t they teach you that in school, young lady?”

Floyd laughed and Mikki punched him in the arm, hard. He swerved a bit on the road but quickly regained control of the wheel. He knew she wasn’t really mad at him. If she had been, she would have used a knife.

They raided a local gas station, filled the tank and all the gas cans, grabbed a few snacks off the shelves (and lollipops for Mikki), and were back on the road again. They even picked up a bunch of Chocodiles! Individually wrapped Zombie Cakes covered in chocolate! Whoever came up with that idea should get a medal. Floyd and Mikki both had a new hero.

Floyd was driving and Mikki chattered away while playing
Angry Birds
on the iPhone, the two RPG launchers on the floor of the cab at her feet. “So what happened back there between you and Bob, anyway?” he finally asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I can guess. I’m just wondering why you left him in one piece. Are you turning mellow in your ‘old age’?”

“Didn’t want to bring the whole town down on us, or whatever that was. McHale’s Navy? Tim Conway would have fit right in. Anyway, gut him and I prob’ly woulda had to kill ‘em all. Or scare the shit out of ‘em so bad they’d all have heart attacks. Either way, I didn’t think you’d approve.”

Floyd slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt. “What did you just say?”

“I said, ‘I didn’t think you’d approve.’ Why?” Mikki was shocked and concerned.

“You mean you actually considered what I might think about something before you went all batshit on someone?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, that’s a first! Maybe you
are
mellowing in your old age.” Floyd threw the truck back into drive and hit the gas again.

“Well, half the time, when I’m goin’ batshit on someone, it’s to save our asses!” Mikki protested.

“And the other half of the time?”

Mikki smiled. “Ah, hell. That’s just for fun.”

Floyd laughed. In a perfect world, a girl like Mikki would have thought playing Dungeons and Dragons was fun. Or Risk. Or searching You Tube for the latest funny animal videos. Or sneaking out to kiss some boy without her parents knowing. But that world had disappeared two years ago. Now, the world was dark and life was hard. Mikki had taken reality’s harsh lessons and learned to thrive against all odds. And yet, she still kept her sense of humor (incredibly warped though it was). And the fact that she actually cared about what he thought moved Floyd in a way that he never expected. It really meant a lot to him.

Floyd’s thoughts were interrupted as Mikki screamed, “Yeehaw! Finally! Made it to the next level! Stupid pigs in helmets.”

Yup! That was Mikki! The mind of a serial killer trapped in a teenage body. Like some brain transplant experiment gone horribly wrong. Cold as ice, tough as nails, vicious, ruthless, and pig-headed, with a playful heart of pure gold. She could out-cuss a sailor and beat a biker in a bar fight, yet she’d take pity on a zombie kitten, play a video game for hours, and cry over the death of an old man she barely knew. She was your best friend if you treated her right and your worst enemy if you pissed her off.

Floyd was much simpler. He had been a working man all his life. As a boy, he did his chores. At the auto shop, he did the jobs he was given. He never complained; he just got the work done. It was no different now. Take out the trash, chop some wood, replace a carburetor, shoot a zombie in the head, kill a few raiders—it was all the same to him. He did the job he had to do, whatever it was. If he had to kill someone to protect himself or someone else, he would. But he didn’t like it.

Unlike Mikki, Floyd avoided a fight whenever he could, even if the odds were in his favor. He understood that fickle fate was nobody’s friend and nothing in life was predictable. Anything could go wrong at any moment and really screw up your life—or end it.

Mikki took the opposite approach. She’d jump in head first and claw her way through any situation on sheer guts and determination alone. She avoided running from a fight unless it was crystal clear that there was absolutely no chance of winning.

Mikki wasn’t stupid or suicidal, but her ego and her anger could easily override her brain, getting her into battles she didn’t need to fight. She knew when danger was real, but danger neither frightened nor deterred her. She was incredibly smart and quick witted, acting on instinct, while Floyd preferred to plan things out.

In the end, Floyd figured that’s why they made such a good team. They looked at life from completely different perspectives. Floyd would plan things out, and if the plan went to shit, Mikki would find some way to pull their asses out of the fire. Somehow, that gave them the edge. Somehow, they had managed to work together to find the right solution for any problem, even if they drove each other nuts in the process.

And Floyd no longer worried about his private parts ending up on Mikki’s trophy belt someday. He
trusted
her. He had learned the hard way not to trust anyone but himself, especially a woman, but he trusted
her
. That was the one thing they in common, and it was the most important. They trusted each other.

“Theoretically,” Floyd began, “We should be in Long Beach in five hours, assuming the roads are all clear.”

“Ha! When does that ever happen? ‘Theoretically,’ we shoulda been there days ago.”

“Can’t argue with that. I’m waitin’ to see that the hell else will blow this trip all to shit.”

“Speaking of blowin’ shit up. I still gotta get me more grenades.”

“And how the hell are we gonna do that? Find some army depot and spend weeks shootin’ up brain-eaters, poking into every building to try and find something that’ll go ‘boom’?”

“Nah, I guess not. Maybe if I pray to Saint Margaret, she’ll find me somethin’.”

“I don’t think it works that way, Mikki. Pray to God for hand grenades? Might as well write a letter to Santa Claus.”

“Hey, don’t you go bustin’ on Santa, Floyd! You’ll get coal in yer stockin’. Besides, it cain’t hurt none.”

“Well, we gotta find a place to stay the night, anyway. Sun’s startin’ to go down and I don’t want to head into some new place at night.”

“We could just stay in the car on the Interstate.”

“Yeah, if you want to sleep like a sardine crammed into a little can. Just keep your eyes open and maybe we’ll see somethin’.”

It took a couple more hours, but they finally saw a big road sign that said, “Welcome to Californ.” Apparently, a chunk of the sign had fallen off. Another state, another big unknown.

The road was pretty clear, as usual. When the contagion started, people generally got infected in a city. That meant they either jumped in their cars to head out and crashed not long after, or they got infected after leaving their cars, once they arrived in the city. Zombies weren’t the best drivers and never made it far onto the interstate. Living drivers didn’t stop. Only when you were near a city, town, or tourist attraction of some kind did you start to see a lot of cars stalled or crashed on the road, usually in the outbound lanes.

When a few wrecked cars began dotting the other side of the highway, Floyd knew he was heading into a populated area of some kind. He also knew the place had to be fulla shamblers. That’s exactly what he encountered heading down the I-40 into Barstow, a couple of hours later.

“Oh, crap!” Floyd exclaimed, as he slammed on the brakes, waking Mikki who had fallen asleep after playing
Angry Birds
for an hour and a half. He came to a stop about 20 feet from the edge where the bridge had collapsed. He pulled out his maps and found one that included Barstow.

“This here must be the bridge over Main Street. If we take that exit we just passed, we should be able to get around back onto the interstate up ahead there. Should be flat road after that.”

Floyd backed up and made a Y turn. As they headed back, they could see over the rail down into a little shopping center. Floyd stopped to get a better look.

Barstow Station. Only six buildings spread around a couple of parking lots, but what caught Floyd’s attention were the railroad cars. Apparently, someone had put a bunch of old railroad cars together to build a combination restaurant and tourist trap. There was a building connected to the train cars. A set of wooden stairs on the outside that had clearly collapsed long ago pointed to a second floor.

Through the binoculars, Floyd could see ladders on the sides of some the cars and a sign that said, “Keep off the trains.” Floyd didn’t think anyone around would mind if he disobeyed that sign. They could easily climb on top of the trains to reach the roof. No brain-eater would be able to come after them.

And there were quite a few around. They weren’t active. Probably hadn’t seen a living soul in more than a year. A couple dozen were standing motionless throughout the area, sticking to any shaded area they could find. Moths were attracted to light. Zombies to shadow.

“Hey, Mikki.”

“Yeah, Floyd.”

“Feel like drivin’?”

“Maybe.”

“Feel like bowlin’?”

“You bet!”

Mikki’s face lit up as she climbed into the driver’s seat vacated by Floyd. He came around to the passenger side and reentered the cab. Mikki was thumbing through her CD collection.

“Ah! Perfect!”

In a moment, Steppenwolf’s
Born to Be Wild
was blasting through the cab speakers, as Mikki gunned the engine. She lifted her foot from the brake and they were on their way, barreling down the onramp into a field of standing undead. Munch started meowing and jumping around in the bag hanging from the hook behind Mikki.

Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space
. Yup. That was Mikki alright. Floyd decided he had finally found Mikki’s theme song.

Mikki slammed into the first wave, taking out about six creepers in a row. “Yeehaw!” The girl loved her work.

The area was split, with half of the buildings on each side of the street. Mikki spun the car around in any direction that offered the most targets. They weren’t lined up as thick as in the last city, so it took more maneuvering to maximize her score. This would have made one helluva video game! Mikki was as happy as a pig in slop.

First, she cleared the McDonald’s parking lot. Then Popeye’s Chicken. Then across the street to Grill It! and Starbucks, and then back over to Tom’s Burgers and Panda Express. Once again, the world was safe for fast food. For the moment, anyway.

They debated staying in the upper floor of the Travelodge, but Floyd said he didn’t want to pay the room tax. Mikki didn’t get the joke at first, but then she laughed. In reality, neither one felt like slogging through zombie-infested hallways blowing away everything that moves just to sleep in a dusty bed that may or may not have fallen apart and may or may not have zombie rats.

When they were satisfied that no more creepers lurked near enough to pose an immediate threat, Mikki parked Freedom in the back parking lot, next to an old caboose. The truck was tall enough that they could jump onto the roof of the caboose from the top of the cab. From there, they made their way to the top of a long raked gable, then over to the McDonald’s roof. Perching themselves in one of the corners, they had a fairly wide view of the area below them.

Floyd unfolded two canvas chairs he had pulled from Freedom and dropped a bedroll beside them. Then he spread five motion detectors in a semicircle around the roof about 20 feet away. They would take turns sleeping, and the motion alarm would provide plenty of notice if something made its way towards them. That seemed pretty unlikely, since brain-eaters weren’t likely to parachute in any time soon, but Floyd worried about undead rats climbing up through a pipe or something.

Sitting in the chairs, Floyd mixed up some fruit juice powder in his water and went to work on one of the MREs. Chicken Fajita. Mikki agreed it tasted pretty good. Lemon poppy seed muffin top from another pouch for dessert.

Mikki lit up a cigarette and sat there with it hanging half out of her mouth, keeping an eye out for movement below. As night fell, creepers began waking up and wandering about. Both Floyd and Mikki had their rifles, and took turns popping off a round into the brain of some creeper that was unlucky enough to wander into view.

“Boy, look at them stars, Floyd! It’s like the whole sky is lit up.”

“Yup,” he said, blowing off the head of a brain-eater as it emerged from the 76 gas station across the street. The moon was out, and he could see clearly enough in the twilight. Mikki had her night vision scope turned on, and was having fun playing with it.

“Don’t remember seein’ so many stars before,” Mikki continued. “Guess I never really looked up before. Too busy looking around on the ground for what might jump out at me.”

She drew a bead on the head of a half-decomposed dog about a mile away. To her delight, it blew apart and the body dropped to the asphalt. Helluva shot. She was quite pleased with herself. She clearly had the sight adjusted perfectly, now.

“I used to sit on the roof of an old gas station somewhere in New Mexico.” Floyd reminisced. “Was my base of operations for a while. You can see a lot of stars away from city lights. Of course, cities ain’t had lights for a while now, but my eyes were always on the ground, too, lookin’ for anything that moved.”

Puff
came the
muffled blast from Mikki’s rifle as she sent another creeper into oblivion.

They had plenty of ammo, so they enjoyed themselves for a few hours. Since both rifles were silenced, the creatures below had no idea what was happening to them, but Floyd and Mikki each kept one of the Mini Uzis with them (as well as Bonnie and Clyde) just to be safe.

“Sure is a beautiful night for killin’ zombies, Floyd.”
Puff! Another zombie head exploded.

“Sure is, Mikki.”
Puff! Puff!
“Sure is.”