Zombie Pink (20 page)

Was he someone to be feared, or could he be a friend?

The guy waved at her again. Gina gave a little wave back. He looked alright.

Wait. He was gone.

No, he was just trying to open the door. Gina stood up.

She made her decision. She would trust him.

She moved the wheelbarrow away from the shed door and allowed him to open it.

"Hi!" he said. "What are you doing in here? Are you hiding from zombies? Wow. I can't believe I just said that. It's like a line right out of the show, Dead Heads! You ever watch that? Well, they never actually use the word "zombie" in that show. Probably because they don't want to sound too fake."

"Besides, they're pink zombies!" Gina said. "I heard it on the news."

"Pink zombies?" The guy said with a sneer. "What the hell does that mean?"

Gina felt superior. She explained to the guy what she'd heard on the news.

"They get this weird pink rash on their skin and then the virus attacks their brain and they start wanting to eat people!" she gushed.

"Cool!" the guy said.

Suddenly, Gina noticed that
he was staring at her erect nipples that were poking out of the thin frilly nightie she was wearing. She wasn’t wearing any bra, after all. Gina hugged herself to cover up her breasts.

This didn't seem an appropriate time to be flashy, and yet...Gina started to feel that same warm oozy feeling between her legs that she felt when Old Man Barnaby watched her weed the Hostas
.

Talk about bad timing!

What the heck was wrong with her body?

"So the people aren't really dead," Gina went on in an attempt to get her perverted mind off the warm oozy feeling between her legs.

"What?" he asked, still staring at the girl's chest, even though he was really just staring at Gina’s arms now.

"They're not real zombies!" Gina repeated, looking all around the Mathewson's dark yard. "I wonder if the
Mathewsons
are asleep. I wonder if they know what's going on?"

"Who are the Mathewsons?" the guy asked.

"They live in that house!" Gina said, pointing at the house. "I saw someone get eaten alive! A woman! But we have to watch out for mosquitoes."

"Mosquitoes?" Nick asked, scratching his bald head and looking confused.

"
Yea! The virus is spread by mosquito bites!" Gina said, feeling a little exasperated.

Geez! Doesn’t this guy know anything
? Gina wondered
. He looks a lot older than me. Like he’s at least t
hirty
! He should know all this stuff. This is important stuff
!

"Mosquitoes. I've watched a lot of zombie shit and I never heard that one,” Nick said. “I just came to look for some more weapons.
Lemme
take a look. You're
gonna need something."

"I am?" Gina asked.

She thought she saw a dark shadow moving on the far side of the Mathewson's yard, near the swing set.

"Watch out, I see something!" she warned. "Over there, by the swing set!"

"Don't worry," the guy said, marching on into the shed.

Gina quickly shut the door behind her.

"Now I can't see!" he informed her.

"Yea, but something's in the yard," she repeated.

He opened the shed door back up.

"You're cute!" the guy suddenly said. "What's your name?"

"Gina DeFazio," Gina said.

Guys all seemed to find her cute. Probably because she was so short. People always thought she was younger than her age.
Plus she had that perfect curly blonde hair and big blue eyes.

"What's yours?" she asked him.

"Nick," he said. "Nick...your savior!"

Gina snorted.

"That's silly!" she said.

"Keep watch, Gina!" he told her.

The bald headed guy, Nick, rooted around in the shed while Gina kept watch out in the yard. The shadowy figure was still there, but it seemed to have stopped moving.

"So you really believe this zombie stuff is true?" she asked, feeling a little better since she wasn't alone anymore...even if the guy did seem like a bit of a pervert.

Then again, she was a bit of a pervert, too.

"Oh hell yea!" he answered, with gusto.

"Where's the rest of your family?" Gina inquired.

"My mom's at work and my dad split years ago, so who the hell knows?" he said picking up a trowel and then dropping it. "What about yours? How old are you anyway? Are you still in high school?"

Now he was staring at Gina's flowered shorts, which made Gina remember that she had no underwear on underneath them. She felt like Nick could see right through the flowered material.

Instantly, Gina experienced that warm oozy feeling between her legs, once again.

Then they both heard a sort of gurgling sound out in the yard. Nick picked the trowel back up and handed it to Gina.

"Stab them in the eyes if you have to!" he informed her, hustling Gina out of the shed when all she wanted was to go back in and shut the door behind her.

They both saw it... the shadowy creature slowly lumbering towards them.

A...
zombie
?

Gina thought it was so strange... hearing crickets and other late summer bugs out in the Mathewson's back yard as though this was an ordinary peaceful
summer night instead of the beginning of the end of the world.

"Why are we just standing here?" Gina whispered.

"Because we're warriors, you and I, Gina!" Nick said, putting his arm around here. "And warriors never back down!"

Wanna bet
? Gina thought.

Although she did like the feel of Nick's strong arm around her.

The shadowy figure... yes, it appeared to be a woman, or at least it used to be... came closer and Gina could see that it looked like....like.....oh, hell! What the.....it looked like the woman who had been out in her front yard eating the guy's wife!

"Oh God! It's her!" Gina exclaimed. "She's the one I saw eating the other one! Oh God!"

T
he woman was grinning a sickly looking grin. She had blood all over her teeth. There was so much blood, it was dripping out of the corners of her mouth making little rivers down her face.

And her skin! Even in the dark, Gina could see it wasn’t right. It looked all pink and purple and gross looking! And the eyes...they definitely didn’t look right. They didn’t even look...human.

"I have to bash her skull in," Nick announced. "It's the only way...."

He held his hammer up, in position.

"I can't watch!" Gina cried.

She broke free of his grasp. Gina planned to run in the other direction, except that she saw more shadowy figures looming in the distance. Thunder boomed all around her.

Panicked, she raced back into the Mathewson's shed and slammed the door shut behind her.

Then Gina pushed the wheelbarrow up against the door and huddled in the dark corner with her hands over her ears.

She never would have thought it possible, but the Mathewson’s shed was the only place in the whole entire world that she felt safe.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A cute girl and zombies all in one night
? Nick thought.
Hell, it doesn’t get much better than this
!

It was like he'd died and gone to heaven.

"COME ON, SKANK!" he bellowed, as Daniella shuffled over to him. "Man, you're disgusting! You kiss your mama with that mouth? Ha-ha...."

This was it! This was his chance! He, Nick Cooper, was going to be a star. A fucking hero! This would be his first kill. One of many.

His adrenaline was up...up so high...even higher than when he spotted that doe that time one of his mom's boyfriends took him hunting.

Man, he was so shaky with the gun, he couldn't do it. Couldn't kill the damn deer. That guy... Rob...he said it was okay. He said it happens all the time with beginners and that it was "no biggie."
His words, not Nick's. To Nick it was a biggie. He had failed. He had failed at being a man.

But he wouldn't fail this time.
Nosiree
!

Nick would prove to that adorable little cutie with the button nipples that he wasn't just a man.....he was The Man!
He was up for anything. And not just his dick, either.

However, t
he closer the diseased skank got, though, the more freaked out Nick felt. This wasn't some TV show. That wasn't make-up and fake blood.

This shit was real
!

Except maybe for those stupid glasses.

Why would a zombie need glasses, anyway?

What if she scratched him?

Was that enough contact for him to get zombified
too?

Man! What if some of that nasty blood
splashed
on him?

She was making some sort of noise.

"Leshhhhhh.....ahhhh........foooooo....."

What the hell? The zombies on Dead Heads never put syllables and vowels together like they were trying to form words
.
They just growled and snarled.

"Broooooo" she gurgled, baring her teeth.

Nick swallowed hard. She was so close. He could lunge at her and bash her head in right now.

So why wasn't he doing it? What the hell was he waiting for?

"Bitch!" Nick stated
, trying to build up his courage by putting her down. "Fuckin diseased skank!"

But the words sounded hollow. They didn't mean anything. He was just copying something
Lionelle would say on Dead Heads.

The woman stopped dead in her tracks, like she was thinking of something... or remembering something... .

Suddenly, she gasped
.
The evil sinister grin melted off her face leaving the bitch with a startled and slightly scared expression.

And then...holy hell... she spoke! Real words
!

"Where am I?" She asked, in a perfectly normal voice.

Was Nick
supposed to answer?

Uh, well, you are a zombie and you were just about to eat me, lady...

This isn't Live Action Role Play! Nick thought, feeling like a fool.

Or....was it
?

She was wearing those dorky hipster glasses just like Blakely on the show....

"What time is it?" the woman asked, again in a perfectly clear voice.

Was this some kind of trick?

M
aybe this wasn't real after all
?

"Who are you?" the woman
asked Nick, sounding completely confused.
"Are you a contractor? Why are you holding that hammer that way?"

"Damn," Nick swore, dropping the hammer on the ground. "Time to go!"

He opened the door to the shed and grabbed the little cutie. Then he led her out pushing the back of her head down, while instructing her not to look.

"Trust me, you don't want to see!" he warned.

Gina came out willingly
with her head bent down.

Then Nick steered Gina away from the fucked up zom...
what-ever-the-hell-it-was.

"Just keep walking," Nick instructed.

"Did you bash her head in?" Gina asked, gripping Nick's arm so tightly he was afraid she was bruising him. Not that he minded. Actually, he kind of liked it.

"Yea," he lied. "She's dead."

"I didn't hear anything!" the girl said.

"I know," said Nick. "I was quick. More humane that way."

Nick led Gina out around the side of the Mathewson's house, where he saw the curtains rustle in a downstairs window. When they were back on the street, he allowed Gina to look up.

"I can't believe that just happened!" she said.

"Yea well...believe it sister!" Nick said, switching over to Hero Mode. "I told you I was a warrior."

The words sounded a little hollow to him, but Gina seemed to buy them, and that’s what counted.

"Hey...where's your hammer?" she asked.