But it didn’t matter, at least not for now. As I waited for the zombie, barely inching back to entice him with little shuffles, the big lug stepped onto the net.
“Now!” I screamed.
Up above I heard Dave doing something, but the net didn’t budge. It didn’t move even as the goliath of a zombie strode toward me like fucking Godzilla to my helpless Japanese city.
“Any time, dear,” I cried, my wide eyes glued on the monstrosity reaching for me straight out of some 1930s horror movie.
“I triggered it and—”
Dave hadn’t finished the sentence when the big infected creature stepped off of the net. The moment he was clear, the pulley system whizzed into life and lifted up to catch nothing but air. It kind of reminded me of those arcade claw machine things with the cheap stuffed animals I’d tried to win as a kid. Only I didn’t die when I didn’t get one.
“Shit, there’s a delay in the mechanism,” he called down.
“You think?” I called back as I started to run again. “Reset and I’ll try to bring him around for a second pass.”
I jerked from one side to the other as I tried to determine the best way to go. I was pretty sure I could get the big brainless monster to follow me, then all I had to do was make a big circle in the parking lot until Dave was reset and we’d try another—
Before I could finish the thought there was a wet thunk and suddenly the blade of a machete stuck out of the zombie’s head right between his eyes.
The massive bastard teetered for a moment, his rotting eyebrows knitted together like he had a question on the tip of his tongue, then he collapsed forward on his knees and finally face planted on the drive, his skull almost cleaved in half from Dave’s blade.
I stared at his dead body for a long moment, almost in disbelief. Then I slowly lifted my gaze to the awning. Dave stood on the edge, his rifle trained on the dead body before me.
“What the hell?” I called up as he turned the weapon away from me. “What the hell, David?”
He shrugged and looked anything but apologetic. “Look, it didn’t work and until I figure out the timing on the pulley, I won’t take the risk with your life that he’d catch you while you were running.”
“Shit, David, I could have jogged that prick around the lot for the whole day and kept trying to catch him.”
I threw up my hands and kicked the zombie to expel some of my frustration. My boot hit soft flesh with a sickening thunk. Great, now I had mung on my boots and even though that was my own fault, I’d decided to blame David for it, too.
My husband turned his face. “Yeah, and eventually the living dead coming over here from the edge of the parking lot would have reached us and then what?”
I stomped my foot (spraying ick on the pavement around me) and clenched my fists straight down at my sides.
“Well, first, the ones out there are lurching, not running, and you know they wouldn’t have started running until they could smell me, which would have taken half an hour at least. And when that happened, then you could have killed some of them. But shit, man, at least give the plan a chance. We’re never going to catch one if you give up and start throwing machetes the second a zombie looks at me cross-eyed.”
“I’m not even sure fucking catching these freaks is a smart idea,” he said with a deepening frown. “Is it really worth the risk?”
“Christ, stop being such a girl!” I snapped. “I mean, we could really do something and you’re ninnying around!”
There was a long silence from above and then Dave softly said, “Well, excuse me for trying to look after you.”
That shut me up. For a long moment we just looked at each other, kind of like the big zombie and I had around the corner. But this stare was waaaay more uncomfortable. Finally, he turned away.
“I’ll reset the pulley. From what I saw, I think I might have figured out the timing on it.”
I nodded as I turned back toward the parking lot with a sigh. I didn’t like fighting. We’d done enough of that in our life B.Z.
I guess I should have apologized or maybe gone up on the roof to talk it out with him, but before I could make any decisions about my husband, I saw something off in the distance that caught my eye. A flash of movement that was too quick and certain to be from a zombie.
I dropped down to grab my rifle and leaned it across my lap as I stared through the scope. I scanned the distance for the movement again and when I found it I nearly fell over.
“Holy shit!” I cried as I staggered to my feet. “Reset it, reset it!”
“I am,” Dave grunted from above. “Almost done, what’s your rush?”
“There’s a kid!” I cried as I trained my rifle on the scene unfolding across the lot. “And he’s got zombies on his tail.”
“What?” Dave asked as the netting dropped back on the pavement. He lifted his own gun and stared at the lot.
We both watched as the kid, maybe about ten or twelve—it was hard to tell from this distance—sprinted through the lot toward us. Behind him were two zombies, doing that run that is so Goddamned disturbing, no matter how much time has gone by and no matter how many times you see it. Seriously, the dead shouldn’t jog.
Although, to be fair, before all this started I was of the belief that I should never jog either unless something was chasing me.
So then things started chasing me.
But I digress. The poor kid was pretty athletic, actually. The zombies were still at an impressive distance behind him and he wasn’t allowing them to catch up.
“I’ve got the lead in my sights,” Dave said from above. “I’m taking the shot.”
I nodded and watched in my own scope as the explosive sound of my husband’s gun firing was quickly followed by the lead zombie behind the little boy dropping to the ground in a pile of brains and blood.
The child jerked a little in surprise, but quickly turned toward us. Smart kid, running toward the people who were your saviors. Trust me, in a post-zombie world, that didn’t always happen. People were a bit “Mad Max” at this point, a little wary of others who didn’t come from their own tribe or camp.
“I don’t have a clear shot of the one behind,” Dave said as he slid the action on his rifle. I heard the plunk of the empty shell hitting the mall roof.
“Just wait…” I said, hardly able to catch my breath from the excitement. “I can get him, but maybe we can use the kid to catch him instead.”
Dave jerked as he looked down at me. “Are you nuts?”
“Look, he’s perfect,” I said as I stared through the sight again. “Not too big, not too small—”
“Are you talking about the zombie or the terrified child?”
I ignored Dave’s outrage, too focused on the idea of capturing a monster to listen to him.
“Grab the rope, they’re almost here.” I moved behind the net and motioned to the kid. “Come on! Come right to me!”
The little boy didn’t need to be told twice. He rushed toward me and it was only from the closer distance that I noticed he was carrying a cute little .38 Special, just like a boy playing cowboys and Indians. Only I had a hunch his weapon was real and the zombie wasn’t playing.
“Shoot him, stupid!” the child screamed as he ran past me.
I readied my rifle to do just that, but as the zombie approached, his gaping mouth biting and his hands clawing, this time Dave’s timing was perfect. The net slung up under the rotting living corpse and sent him flying up in the air, his arms and legs akimbo as the trap closed around him and left him dangling from the awning.
The little boy and I stood below him, looking up as he clawed at the netting, chewing at the rope and snarling and spitting down at us. I tilted my head as I examined him closer. Was that a damn mohawk? Sheesh, kids these days.
“Why the fuck didn’t you shoot him?” the child finally said, and suddenly the little pissant was slapping at my arms, pummeling me with his tiny fists.
“Hey!” I cried as I slapped back
out of instinct. I might have been a zombie killer, but our hands smacked like two stupid girls fighting over a washed-up singer on a reality show. “Why didn’t you? You had a gun!”
The little boy stopped slapping me and tossed the pistol aside. “Mine’s empty, dummy. Like your head. What, did the zombies already get to you, dumbass?”
“Ha, ha,” I said with a sneer.
Dave climbed down onto the van and jumped to the ground between us. “Okay, children, enough. Sorry we didn’t shoot, kid, but we were trying to catch this fucker.”
The little boy glared at us again, but this time his expression said he thought we were cuckoo. Not that I blamed him really, although I was still thrilled to look up and see a zombie swinging from the overhang.
“Catch one? You two are crazy.”
“That’s probably an understatement,” I said with a grin for David.
The little boy didn’t smile back. Instead, he reared back and kicked me straight in the shin with all his might.
“You still should have shot it.”
And that was how we met Robbie, otherwise known as “The Kid.”
Don’t forget the little people. Even when you want to.
The Kid reminded me of Bart Simpson. He had blond hair that was probably once lovingly combed into place for school pictures by his mom, but apparently he’d been left to his own devices for a while now because it was currently spiked up from dirt and not enough personal grooming. Oh, and he kept going on about a skateboard, which was apparently his major mode of transportation until it got broken by the same zombies who were chasing him across the parking lot.
Not to mention, he was kind of a little punk, as my bruised shin was throbbing testament to.
I glared at him as he sat in his place on the curb in front of the mall. He was eating some kind of no-name snack cake, his grubby little gross fingers leaving chocolaty smears around his mouth.
“So… now we have him,” Dave said with a heavy sigh. “What do you want to do with him?”
I glared at The Kid. “Kick him back when he’s not ready for it.”
Dave stared at me for a long moment and then slowly extended his finger (I won’t say which one, you can guess) upward toward the net that swung above us in the breeze.
“I meant what do you want to do about that?”
I shook my head and looked up. The creature was still thrashing around and growling at us, but apparently the infected don’t have much stamina (or maybe this particular one just didn’t have any in life or something) because his movements had become more sluggish and his growls less aggressive and harsh. Poor little guy was just getting tuckered out.
“We have to get him down, I guess,” I said.
The Kid snorted from behind us and both of us turned to stare at him. He smirked as he wiped his dirty hands on what had once been pale blue jeans and said, “You’re really smart, right?”
I’ve never wanted to strike a child as much as I did at that moment. I probably would have, too, but Dave caught my arm and held me in place.
“Sarah,” he said low and near my ear.
“Look, Robbie,” I said, using the name The Kid had given us when we demanded an introduction after he kicked the hell out of my leg. “You’re just a little brat, okay, so don’t pretend you know something about catching zombies that we don’t. Why don’t you run along?”
“Sarah!” David gasped in disbelief. When I looked at him he shook his head. “You really want to send the kid off on his own, unarmed in an apocalypse? What is he, ten?”
“I’m almost twelve, actually,” The Kid interjected with a been-there-done-that look. “Or I will be in six months. And I don’t need your help.”
“You needed it a minute ago,” I said, barely resisting the urge to stick my tongue out at him.
He shrugged. “I guess, but just so you know, I would have figured it out even if I hadn’t seen you two.”
I stared at him. He was an annoying little twerp, but you couldn’t help but be impressed by him. After all, he wasn’t even a teen and was apparently alone after three months of zombie un-awesomeness. So he was probably right he would have figured it out.
I returned my attention to the swinging zombie pendulum above us since anything I had to say to The Kid at that point wouldn’t have been particularly useful.
“We can lower him to the ground pretty easily with the pulley system,” I said as I stared again at our prey. “But then how do we secure him? He’ll thrash all over the place in the back of the van. And if he got loose…”
I shuddered at the thought of being trapped in such a small space with a zombie.
Dave was silent as he pondered that, but before he could give me his answer, The Kid piped up again. “You could lower him halfway and then use a rope to tie him tighter. You two geniuses do have a rope, don’t you?”
“Yes, we have a fucking rope,” I said through clenched teeth.
The Kid shrugged. “Well, it would be easy. Just spin him like a piñata.”
I stared, partly because it was a pretty good plan and partly because the kid’s mouth was full of something. Again.
“Where are you getting so much food?” I asked as I watched him pop a Starburst into his mouth and toss the wrappers at his feet.
Without blinking, he pointed to his cargo jean pockets.
“Those are bad for your teeth,” I snapped, even though I had to admit I wanted one myself. But I wasn’t about to ask him to share. I shook my head and returned my attention to David. “What do you think? Would that work?”
My husband nodded. “It’s probably our best bet. And maybe we can use one of those burlap sacks from the old head-collecting days to cover his head and tie it, too. Less chance for grazing bites.”
“Alrighty,” I agreed.
“Do I get a cut?” The Kid asked as we started back toward the van so Dave could climb up on the awning and run the pulley system and I could grab the rope from one of our color-coordinated storage containers.
I stared at The Kid in confusion. “What?”
“Look, I’m not stupid just because I’m younger than you,” the little boy said as he folded his arms and stared at me with the most jaded expression I’d ever seen. Even Dave couldn’t have topped this one. “If you two are going to this much trouble to catch a zombie, rather than exterminate it like your stupid van says, my bet is you’re going to get paid for it, right? So do I get a cut?”
Dave snorted out a laugh as he started to climb up onto the van. “Don’t kill him, Sarah,” he called back to me.
I decided not to deny what The Kid was saying because it would just take too long. “What do you mean, do you get a cut? Why would you get a cut?”
“It’s my zombie you caught.”
I stared. “What do you mean your zombie? It was chasing you, it wasn’t your pet.”
He ignored me. “And it’s my idea that you’re using to tie it up. So I should get a cut.”
I shut my eyes and slowly counted to ten in my head as I tried desperately to remember that this was a child who was probably pretty traumatized by everything he had seen and done in the months since the outbreak. But when I looked at him again, all I saw was brat. And snot-nosed brat at that. Gross.
“No way,” I sneered.
The Kid got to his feet, sending empty candy wrappers to blow away on the breeze as he folded his arms. “Yes way.”
Above us, Dave sighed. “Am I going to have to separate you two?”
I glanced up at him. Although he had a joking tone to this voice, his face was tired. I frowned. Clearly I was creating more stress for him than he needed and over what? Some bratty little kid who would be gone from our lives before sundown. It wasn’t worth it.
Without another word, I turned my back to him and grabbed a long coil of rope from the back of the van. Positioning myself near the thrashing zombie, I gave David the thumbs-up signal.
“Ready!”
With the dead weight of the zombie in the net
, Dave had to work a little harder to ease the netting down toward me slowly, but after a lot of grunting and swearing, he had gotten the net even with me, but still slightly off the ground.
The zombie hissed and growled at me, pressing his face against the net so hard that the fabric bit into his rotting flesh and left raw hash marks across his cheeks and lips that would never heal.
“Settle down, buddy,” I said as I tried to catch his lurching form to start the rope around him. He kept moving and flinching though, so I couldn’t tie him up.
“Fuck!” I said as he gave me the slip another time. “I need another set of hands.”
Dave stared at me and I stared up at him for a minute before both of us slowly turned toward The Kid.
He had moved to the front of the van and was now leaning on it nonchalantly, one ankle crossed over the other. He smiled as I looked at him.
“What’s my cut?” he asked, enunciating each word with a smug smile.
I shook my head. This was why I didn’t have kids. Finally I growled, “You can have twenty percent of whatever we get for the zombie.”
“Fifty,” the kid snorted.
Dave’s cackle of laughter was the answer. “No way. We caught it, we’re driving it and loading and unloading it. Twenty-five.”
“Thirty,” The Kid said without even hesitating or blinking. “And ammo.”
I bit my lip and nodded. “Fine. Now come here and help me.”
To his credit, once the deal had been made, The Kid hopped to it. He ran over, dodging the straining, clawing fingers and gnashing teeth of the zombie, and grabbed one end of the rope.
“Okay, first we need to pull his arms tight,” I said. “And then wrap him up with the rest of the rope and tie it off.”
To my surprise, there was no debate or argument from The Kid. He just swept his side of the rope around the infected creature in the net and we hurried to wrap the rope around him so that his arms were now fully bound at his sides. Around and around we went, trading sides to bind the creature up until he was bound like an old-fashioned play about a girl tied to a railroad track by Snidely Whiplash. Mwahahaha…
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