Orthodontics in the Zombie Apocalypse

15. Plans for the Cure Include Bad Ideas (1/2)

We all take two steps closer to examine the pendant.

"What is it?" Mikah asks.

Greg quickly tucks it back under his shirt. "They say curiosity killed the cat, you know." He shrugs to himself. "Ah, well, if you're dead-set on knowing, I'll cut to the chase. This, here," he pats his chest where the vial dangles behind his shirt, "is what some might call the cure."

Angel's eyes narrow and lips pucker. She extends a hand. "You don't mind if I take a closer look, do you?"

As Angel and Greg have a silent stand-off, I analyze our surroundings better.

Two walls reach up towards the sky: one of crumbling, tawny bricks; the other grimy, gray cement glazed over by dirt and graffiti. A particularly charming image in bright green looks as though it's going into Mikah's mouth when he turns to speak. It's especially long and curves a bit, but the image was painted to be pretty darn upright.

"Why does it matter what it looks like?"

Angel snags the necklace out of Greg's hand as soon as he lifts it over his head. "Because," she says, holding the vial towards the light, "I don't think it's really the cure." She unscrews the top.

"Don't give me an axe to grind, little girl!" Greg jumps forward, trying to retrieve the cure.

Angel turns to the side, avoiding Greg's grabby hands. She--wait, I must be wrong. Nope, that's definitely what she's doing. She's smelling the cure! Gross!

"It's pee," she says after she transfers the liquid from her finger to her tongue and smacks it around inside her mouth. Double gross!

We all look at Greg, mouths agape in both disbelief and disgust.

"The cure is urine?" Mikah asks.

I roll my eyes while Angel says, "No. It's a fake. I'm sure he has the cure, but he's thankfully not a big enough idiot to show strangers what and where it really is." She tightens the cap back on the vial and hands the necklace to Greg. "Good. The fate of humanity does not rest in the hands of a buffoon."

Is she sure? Because he doesn't know how to take off my braces. He's pretty useless to me. Aside from giving me this pipe, I suppose.

Always suspicious, Shaniya and Sean eye the grisly man. "Where are you headed with the cure?"

Greg, eyes and mouth suddenly wide, appears to have stopped breathing.

"Because we're headed to a survival outpost near Sacramento."

"We are?" I blurt out.

Shaniya's focus remains wholly on Greg, despite my breathy, desperate-sounding question.

"I was heading home, but that's water under the bridge as far as you kids are concerned. I wanted to see my wife before running on to Bad Idea Labs."

"That sounds like a bad idea," I say with a chuckle. I smack Mikah with the back of my hand as I laugh. "Because it's called 'Bad Idea Labs'!" Mikah shakes his head but can't help smiling.

"I've heard of that place," Shaniya says, never paying any mind to me. "They have a poor track record when it comes to mass production. Are you sure you want to trust them with something this important?"

"I'm sure as a donkey chases his tail," Greg says with a proud smile, flashing his yellow teeth, some of which are clothed in silver. I figure I could fit my entire finger in the gap between his front teeth. "That is to say, they're good people. Pandora Medical is full of scams and scandals. Bad Idea Labs is, to my knowledge, clean as a whistle."

"Isn't Pandora Medical making more of the cure?" Mikah asks.

"Sure," Greg says with an over-emphasized nod, "but it goes straight to those monkeys in suits at the top of the food chain. The public can go to shit as far as they're concerned. Long as their tee-times aren't affected, they're happy to have middle- and lower-class society turned into zombies. That's why they started all of this."

"Why did they have to start making zombies?" I ask. "The Apocalypse totally killed my week! I was supposed to get my braces off--then I found out my orthodontist turned into a zombie!"

I stop my melodrama when an idea strikes me. My focus hones in on the one man who might still be able to help me in this world. And it has much less to do with him than with what he possesses.