I Am Zombie Bait

Chapter 24

Bagheera stared at me with his head cocked slightly to the side. I knew he was basically a giant cat, so I was pretty sure he was giving me the this-human-is-crazy look. I let out a grunt as I kept pulling on the rope in my hands with every ounce of strength I had. I slipped a little as my shoes went from carpet to tile on the floor. "Holy fudge ripple!" I screamed as I regained my balance, making sure I still had a good grip. Once I did, I stopped a moment, panting heavily and looking back at the panther. Now he was giving me a look like he'd confirmed that I was crazy.

Sure, why not? It wasn't like convincing panthers not to eat me wasn't already crazy. Not like letting them move in with me wasn't already crazy. Not like having said panthers lead me to a giant zombie and basically ask me to deal with it resulting in me building a freaking giant death trap so that I could do just that wasn't already crazy. After all that, what kind of person would even want more crazy in their life? Me. This person, apparently. Because there I was dragging a rope that had been tied to the end of a wire. Not any wire. Industrial strength, heavy as all freaking fudge wire. So pulling it up to the hole I'd bashed out of the side of this building, five stories up by the way, was rather difficult. And exhausting. And infuriating. And lots of other negative and unhappy things I wasn't about to waste energy thinking out. As much as I hated it, I kept pulling. I needed to get the end of the wire up here so I could secure it and then get to work on the other side. Judging on how exhausting it already was, I might save that for another day. But I knew I couldn't wait forever. I had to do this seven more times.

At this point, I pretty much had my plan for the death trap finalized. There were probably a few more kinks to work out, but I would deal with them as I came across them. As far as how successful I thought it might be... eh. Fifty fifty I'd say. Not the best, but I was already working on contingencies. The first few involved my potato cannon. Before, I had thrown the idea of using the potato cannon out because, well, it fires potatoes. And while this is fun, it wouldn't do much good against a zombie like Bubba. But then I had an idea. So the way potato cannons work is by using pressure. A minor explosion is triggered which pushes something away. Very similar to how the pistons in an engine work except, your launching a potato, not driving a car. I realized that if I modified the barrel to be a little wider, I could fit all kinds of things in there and launch them to my hearts content. What about something that doesn't quite cover the hole to allow for optimum push? Well I could wrap it with rags and clothes to properly fill the gaps. Basically, the only thing that would limit me was size. Other than that, I could launch anything I wanted. Cans, sticks, bottles, old sandals (because why not?), even rubber duckies (also why not?). Away it will fly.

And so I asked myself, how can I use that to my advantage? Well, me, I'm glad I asked. Now, given that I can launch just about anything, it opens all kinds of possibilities. If I could find a way to weaponize a projectile or two, then I basically had myself a makeshift grenade launcher. Which was very exciting.

While that sounded useful, there weren't exactly piles of grenades or explosives lying around. So I asked myself, what could I possibly launch that could help my against a two ton zombie? Well, me, I could make smoke bombs. When I first looked at using smoke bombs, I was missing an important ingredient in the mix. Potassium nitrate. Not exactly on the spice rack at the local grocers. Or so I thought. I discovered it completely by accident. I was gathering supplies for the death trap in the hardware store when I saw it, stump remover. Main active ingredient, potassium nitrate. At that point I did a literal fist bump. People don't do fist bumps as much as they should anymore. Granted, most of them are zombies, but still. Suddenly making potato cannons was actually productive. Talk about a dream come true.

And then I asked myself, why stop there? I didn't have a good answer, so I started gathering even more supplies, because I obviously needed them, for crafting other things. My first idea, Molotov cocktails. Because what's the point of a zombie apocalypse if you don't get to set things on fire? It was pretty easy to make them too. Get a bottle of alcohol, soak a rag in the stuff, stick it halfway down the bottle neck and boom, you're one lit match away from committing arson and vandalism all in one. My next idea was wood dowels and fabric. What for? Well, in almost every video game were a bow is used, you're able to craft arrows for ammo. So, why not real life? I got some super glue, some fabric scissors, and zombie printed cloth because irony, and I went to town. It took about 15 minutes to cut the shapes out of the fabric, glue it to the dowel, and then sharpen the tip. I knew that because I made at least 60. I wanted to be prepared. Suddenly, I didn't have to watch my arrow count as much, because I could make more of the fudgers!