Flip This Zombie by Jesse Petersen Page B

the night before once shopped, no doubt) and possibly a Crate and Barrel, although I couldn’t tell because all the letters on the sign had crashed to the ground during the bombings and now the shell of the building was only left with a capital
C
, two of the letter
a
, and one lowercase
r
to identify it.
    “You know, I think I’d shop at a store called Ca-ar!” I shouted up to David. “What do you think it would sell?”
    He shot me a look over the ledge. “Sarah—”
    “Something Norwegian, I bet,” I continued.
    “Sarah…” His tone was a mixture of annoyance and amusement.
    “Like Ikea.”
    He leaned a little further over the ledge and his glare silenced me. “You know, just because I can manage heights now, doesn’t mean I like them.
Stop distracting me
.”
    I shook my head, but obeyed. I had to focus while I made another patrol scan all around the area anyway. The mall itself was half-collapsed, so I wasn’t too worried about it, especially since the last half an hour of our being here shouting at each other hadn’t brought out any zombie mall-walking groups looking for an easy meal.
    Behind me, a few zombies roamed at the edge of the deserted parking lots. Most of them hadn’t seen us yet (their eyesight, not so good. Must have to do with the rotting), but when I checked through my rifle scope it seemed like one or two were shambling toward us rather than aimlessly in circles. I could only hope we’d get set up before they came roaring into our space. If we weren’t, we’d have to kill them and the noise and distraction of that would probably bring more coming.
    It would be a pain in the ass if nothing else. Really, the best scenario was if we could just get one or two zombies coming at us rather than a crowd.
    But that didn’t happen very often.
    “Okay,” Dave said as he scootched to the edge of the awning and swung himself down onto the roof of the van. “I think we’re all ready up there.”
    After he joined me on the ground, we backed up andlooked at our handiwork. I’d love to say it was a really well put-together thing, destined to become the gold standard for this shit, but it wasn’t. The whole system was pretty shabby, but it was what we had.
    I sighed. “So basically I’m going to try to get one of them to stand on the net and then you’re going to drop the weight and pull them up over the pulley system you created with that tree and the awning.”
    He nodded without looking away from the trap. “You’re right except that
I’m
going to lure the zombie and
you’re
going to launch the pulley.”
    I turned toward him. “What? No way!”
    He grunted in that non-committal caveman way. Okay, so David can be a little protective of me. Even now when he knows I’ve got the chops for zombie killing, he still tries to shelter me. I love the guy for it, but it drives me nuts, too.
    “There’s only one way to solve this,” I said with a sigh as I held out my fist toward him. “Rock-Paper-Scissors.”
    “You want to Rock-Paper-Scissors for your life?” he asked after a slight pause.
    I nodded. “We’ve done it for worse.”
    “Oh. My. God,” he began, but I shook my head.
    “No arguing. Time’s a-wastin’ and zombies are a-comin’. Now let’s go, best two out of three.”
    Ten minutes later, Dave was back up on the roof and I was standing beside the net, staring up at him as I shielded my eyes from the bright sun.
    “So I’m just going to try to loop one in, okay?”
    He nodded. “I’ve got my rifle ready though, just in case you need coverage.” He hesitated. “Good luck. Be careful.”
    I gave him a little wave. “Thanks, babe.”
    With a deep breath, I turned back toward the parking lot. Now I just needed a zombie. Surprisingly,
a
zombie was going to be the hard part.
    I stared out across the big lot. The slowly shambling zombies were still, well, shambling, but they were still too far away to get to them without attracting the attention of the five or ten more