I edged into the hallway, with my zombie making occasional little breaths in and me grunting from the effort of pulling the cart around with dead weight. Oh and also, the burden of her body kept the fucked-up wheels from spinning freely. Basically it was a clusterfuck, but it was the best I could do.
I cursed as the back wheels caught on the divider between the classroom and the hallway and started to tug, slamming the back wheels against the low edge again and again. The sound echoed in the empty halls, thwack, thwack, thwack!
And then the thwack was joined by another sound.
“Ehnrrrr!”
I let go of the cart, pulled my 9mm out, and spun toward the loud burst of nonsensical sound.
“Oh fuck,” I whispered.
My gun started to shake. Standing at the end of the hallway were two zombies. Little kid zombies in uniforms. A boy in short khaki pants and a white dress shirt, and a girl in a khaki skirt with the same white shirt.
They were filthy, covered in sludge and sticky blood. The girl zombie’s face had half rotted off, revealing some of the teeth beneath her cheek. The boy’s arm was gone at the shoulder and he hunched unnaturally in the other direction, like he couldn’t adjust to the misbalanced weight.
Remember that scene in The Shining with the twins where they want the little boy to play with them? Forever.
Yeah, I was having flashbacks, especially when both of them turned their heads sideways at the same time and sniffed the air together.
I turned to see if I had an escape route the other way, but what was at the other end of the hall was actually worse. Three zombies. One normal zombie, probably another teacher, judging by the brightly colored soccer ball tie he had once worn. It was now just a knot at his throat with tattered threads at the end (the shirt collar that had once held it was long gone).
But the other two were something different. Not children, not normals.
These two were bigger and they had a brightness to their red eyes that spoke of some kind of remnants of intelligence.
These two were bionics.
Building relationships is building business. Also you sometimes need other people in order to kill all the motherfucking zombies.
I swiveled from one side to another, but all my mind could think of was, now what? Dave’s voice echoed in my head with the same thing he always said to me when the going got tough.
Stay calm.
I drew a deep breath and leveled my 9mm at the little kid zombies first.
What? They’re smaller and easier to take care of. Also, I was fucking terrified of the bionics and I wanted to just ignore that issue as long as I could.
Of course the second I pulled off the first shot and dropped the little girl zombie, the little boy started jogging toward me. Behind me the other three roared with blood (er, brain) lust and as I spun toward them, they started after me, too.
“Shit!” I shouted as I made for the classroom I’d just left.
Unfortunately, the cart with my unconscious teacher zombie was half-blocking the door and I couldn’t close it. The closed door wouldn’t offer me much protection, but at least it was some kind of barrier between me and the attacking group that now gathered at the entrance, staring at me, turning their heads to the side like confused dogs.
All three regular zombies, including the child, ignored the cart and just started crawling over it to get to me. On top, my unconscious zombie chick whined in protest about the extra weight squashing her back… literally. But the zombies didn’t care, zombies never do, they just kept reaching out toward me, grunting and groaning.
But the bionics were different. They hesitated at the cart, staring at the unconscious zombie, then looking past her at me. I’m not going to say that their eyes reflected really clear thoughts on what I was doing… or even what they should do in response, but fuck man, they were certainly a lot more lucid about the situation than the others.
I backed up against the wall as I stared at them staring at me. The windows were behind me and beyond them the yard and escape, but they were the safety kind of window that tilted in so that the kids who were all amped up on sugar wouldn’t crawl out during class. By the time I figured out the safety releases, I was pretty much fucked.
The two bionics looked at each other now. The one in front had to crane his neck a little to do it and when he did I sucked in a breath of shock. The world slowed to half time and all I could do was stare.
There, on his neck, was a brand. Three dots and a line.
Kevin’s mark for his zombies.
I could hardly believe it and I shook my head like it could clear my eyes. But the mark was still there, bright red and tinged with black against the gray, rotting skin of the zombie’s neck.
Seeing it proved everything Dave had been saying to me all along. He had seen the brand on the other bionic a few days before. And Kevin had fully admitted to me that he marked his specimens with the thing.
So if both those things were true, Kevin… Dr. Barnes had made these horrible things. And he’d looked me right in the eye and lied about it.
He really was a mad scientist.
Even worse than that, when the bionics started shoving the biting, growling normals out of the way and began to move the cart to clear a path to me, I got a better look at the bionic in the back.
He had long, stringy hair that fell over his face, wild, wide eyes that bugged out just a little, and dirty clothes, but they weren’t rotted away by weeks or months of lack of career. He was a fresh zombie, bionic or not. And an all-too-familiar one, at that.
“Jimmy No-Toes,” I said out loud.
He jerked his head up almost like he recognized the name, but then he went back to pushing the cart. Finally, the two of them got it over the lip of the door and shoved it with all their considerable strength. The cart flew out of the way, crashing against the desks in front of me, and cleared a direct path to me.
I lifted my handgun and fired off three shots in rapid succession. Even shaking, I got all the normal zombies right between the eyes. They crumpled in a big pile while still in the doorway, but the barrier of their bodies didn’t slow the bionics down. They just stepped over them and started toward me in a steady, flat-footed walk that kind of reminded me of Drago in Rocky IV.
I could almost see one of the bionics saying, “I must break you.”
Oh and they would, too. No fucking doubt about it. That was what they were made for.
I shot again, but my hands were shaking so hard that I only winged the front zombie (Non-Jimmy) in the shoulder. He growled as he looked down at the wound and then back to me. Okay, so that had apparently only irritated him. Shit.
I pulled for the cannon on my back, expecting it to pull free as easily as my shotgun always did.
Yeah. Not so much.
It was so heavy that it took a fraction of a second longer than I’d expected. And that fraction of a second was enough time to allow the front bionic to launch into a sprint.
I screamed as he bore down on me, but I somehow managed to barely dodge his attack by diving to my right. He smashed into the windows where I’d been standing a moment before. His heavy arms shattered what was left of the glass and sent the metal frame spiraling across the room like a deadly boomerang.
Well, there was a way out now, but a fucking monster blocked it, so not much help there. I raced for the back of the room, hoping I could get the two hideous beasts to follow me and clear a way to the door. All the while I worked to get the damn cannon from its sling across my back, but it was just so awkward.
I spun around to see if my plan was working. Fuck no. The Jimmy No-Toes bionic hadn’t come inside like a normal zombie would have. He was waiting for me at the door, his stringy hair hanging over his once ratlike face as he growled at me. The other one was right behind me, herding me like a lamb to the slaughter, I guess.
I was boned. This was it. There was no way out. Panic overtook me and I had the strangest urge just to dive under the closest desk and co
ver my eyes like we had done during earthquake drills in school.
But before I did something so foolish, there was the loud burst of shotgun fire from the hallway. Bionic Jimmy’s head exploded like fireworks in front of me, his black-tinged brains spraying across the room and raining down around me before he fell forward and thudded to the floor.
I didn’t have to be asked, I jolted for the escape route and whoever had been my savior.
“Human!” I screamed as I burst blindly into the hall. “Don’t shoot!”
Dave stepped out of the doorway of a classroom across the hall. He smiled at me as I skidded to a halt and stared at him in utter shock.
“I have no intention of shooting you, babe.” His eyes widened as he looked past me. “Unless you don’t move!”
I dove for the floor, flattening out as I skidded across the hall toward him on my stomach. His shotgun exploded again, echoing in my ringing ears at such close range. As I flipped around, I watched as the Non-Jimmy zombie collapsed forward into the hallway, most of his face gone from the shotgun blast. He hit the linoleum with a thud that reverberated all the way to me and then lay still.
For a long moment Dave and I were both silent, just staring at the carnage before us. And then I got up and threw myself into my husband’s arms.
“You came back,” I sobbed, not even aware I was crying until I felt the wet from his shirt against my face.
“Of course I did,” he said, holding me tight. His heart was throbbing just like mine. “I wasn’t about to let you get hurt. Once you got on the highway, I followed you all day today. I would have followed you for the next year if I had to.”
I pulled back and looked at him. He was beautiful and dependable and whole and mine. And I owed him a big fucking apology. And probably a blow job or something, because I had truly screwed up.
“You were right,” I said as I swiped at tears and pulled myself back together.
“I can never hear that enough,” he chuckled.
I didn’t laugh with him. The situation was just way too messed up. “No, I mean you were really, really right. The bionics do have that same brand as Kevin’s, just like you said they did.”
His smile faded and he looked at the dead bionic in the hallway with a deep frown. What was left of the creature’s head was turned away from us and even now I could see half the brand on his neck.
“They did come from his lab, David,” I whispered as I turned away from the proof. “He did make them, or at least he knew they were out here rampaging. And he lied straight to our faces about it.”
Dave blinked. “I sort of hoped I was wrong,” he finally whispered.
I stared at him. “You did? I thought you hated Barnes.”
“Not Kevin anymore, is he?” Dave asked with an arched brow that made me blush.
I shook my head. “Asshole, prick, freakazoid… but not Kevin, that’s for fucking sure.”
“Well, I do hate him,” Dave said with another slightly smug smile. “But that doesn’t mean I wanted what I said to be true. There was some part of me that hoped maybe he really did have everyone’s best interest at heart. That we really did have a prayer of ending this shit.”
“Hope, huh?” I asked as I took his hand. “I thought you didn’t believe in that.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Dave laughed. “Now, where’s The Kid? I think it’s time for the three of us to pick up and go to new pastures. Barnes will be looking for us as soon as he figures out we know his secret and I’m sure as hell not delivering any more new lab rats for him.”
My eyes went wide. The Kid!
“Oh Jesus,” I said, pacing away from Dave down the hall. “The Kid, oh Christ, The Kid!”
“What?” Dave asked, staring at me. “Is he hurt?”
“No,” I shook my head. “Oh God, I don’t know. He isn’t with me.”
Dave’s mouth dropped open. “Not with you? Why isn’t he with you?”
I sucked in a gulp of air that hurt my chest. “He-he was still hurt from the accident. His wrist… I thought it wouldn’t be safe to take him when he might not be able to handle a weapon or fight off a zombie. So I…” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I left him behind. W-With Barnes.”
Dave covered his face. “Shit, oh shit. He’s back at the lab? He’s alone with that fuck face?”
I nodded as the tears I’d shed earlier came flooding back to my eyes. “Oh my God, David. That bastard was going on this morning about needing new specimens, ones of all types. He must want kids, too. He could do anything to Robbie. He could hurt him, he could test horrible things on him… he could kill him if he wanted to without us there to protect him.”
“Shit,” Dave whispered. “We have to get him.”
I was about to nod but before I could, the sound of a rifle action sliding into place cracked through the silence of the hallway. Both Dave and I turned slowly to face the sound.
My first reaction was relief because standing before us was The Kid himself. The only problem was that he was holding a rifle… and it was aimed at us.
“Robbie,” I mouthed.
“Hey,” he said, his tone completely normal and even sunny. “You know you two don’t have to worry about me. I mean, my dad would never do anything to hurt me. But he does want me to bring you back to his lab.” He slipped the safety off the rifle. “Now.”
Rich dad, poor zombie.
Your dad?” Dave repeated, just above a whisper.
Robbie nodded solemnly as he held his rifle steady on us.
I shook my head. So Robbie had lost it. That was okay, it happened all the time out here.
“No, honey.” My tone was ultra gentle. “You’re just confused. He’s not your dad.”
“Oh yeah, he is,” The Kid insisted without an ounce of hesitation.
I stared at him, then looked at Dave. “I-I don’t understand.”
“Who do you think left the note in the camp for you?” The Kid asked before he motioned toward himself with a finger he lifted briefly from the rifle. “And why do you think I just happened to show up and lead two zombies right to you when you couldn’t get your own the first day you were hunting for him?”
Dave swallowed hard. “Then why didn’t you just tell us who you were then? Why did you act surprised about the warehouse and the elevator and the electric lights and all that shit?”
“It was all part of that sick fuck’s game,” I whispered.
Robbie nodded again. “He wanted you to do what he wanted. And he needed someone to watch you. If you knew I was doing that, you wouldn’t have been so… honest.”
“You little punk,” I snapped as I reached for him.
His finger tightened on the trigger. “Please don’t make me shoot you, Sarah. I like you. I don’t want to hurt you or kill you.”
I stopped. At some point I don’t think I would have believed Robbie would pull the trigger. Now I didn’t know anything anymore. Turns out I was a shitty judge of character, as my choices of friends clearly indicated. At least friends in the Barnes family.
There was a bang off in the distance that sounded like desks being turned over and all of us looked toward it.
“Sounds like all the shooting brought some zombies from the upper floors,” The Kid said, watching us with a wary side glance. “So we should probably get a move on before they come. Grab your specimen.”
“What specimen?”
He tilted his head. “The lady on the cart, Sarah.”
I stared. “You knew I got one? You watched me?”
He nodded. “Of course. I had to follow you to make sure you were doing what you were supposed to do.” He glanced at the dead bionics in the classroom doorway. “Dad’s not going to be happy about that, though.”
“Son of a bitch,” Dave grunted through clenched teeth.
Robbie shrugged. “He has his reasons. I’m sure he’ll explain them if he feels like it. Now grab the woman and let’s go.”
Dave and I looked at each other briefly. I think we
both were thinking about defying him, maybe even trying to disarm him, but I’d seen The Kid fight. One or all of us could end up dead that way.
So we climbed over the bodies, took the unconscious zombie off the cart and let The Kid walk behind us as we made our way to the SUV parked outside.
“Keys?” he asked mildly, just like it was any other day with him.
“In my pocket,” I grunted.
He shook his head as he slipped his little hand inside my pocket and grabbed them. As we moved around to the cargo hold, he shook his head.
“No, I think you two are more dangerous to me than she is in this state. So why don’t you put her in the back seat and you two can sit behind the gate in the cargo area.”
I shook my head as he unlocked the vehicle.
“Robbie,” I said, trying to keep my voice free of the anger and betrayal I felt. “You have no idea how long that shit I gave her will last. She’s been out for almost half an hour already and she could—”
“Two hours,” he said as he motioned with the gun for us to put her in the backseat.
“What?” Dave said.
“She’ll stay out for almost exactly two hours unless I inject her again.” The Kid smiled but there was a hint of pity in his stare, too. “Come on, Sarah. You know my dad lied to you about a bunch of other stuff, do you really think he hasn’t tested all his stuff on the zombies like hundreds of times?”
I blinked. Of course he had. But if that was true, why had he needed us? I guess I’d have to ask him the second I saw the fucker.
We slung the zombie into the back and propped her up against the opposite door. At Robbie’s insisting, we even buckled her in.
“What are you going to do, use her to ride in the HOV lane?” Dave asked with a shake of his head as we closed the back door.
“Maybe,” Robbie laughed. “Wouldn’t want to get a ticket, right? Now, you two get in the back. It’s unlocked.”
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