ZOMBIE lost & found

Awkward Orchid

Fred stayed late at work, setting up replications for 24-hour-aged keratin culture. The implications of his research were still preoccupying his thoughts as he stepped out of the building, and into the arms of Wiki and Tama.

They lifted him efficiently on each side and threw him into Baz's panel van. Tama got in the back with him and shut the doors. Billy was already inside sitting morosely on top of his makeup box. Wiki strolled around to the passenger seat. Today she was wearing a summer dress covered in incongruously cheerful sunflowers

Fred got to his knees, brushing dirt and dead insects off the palms of his hands. "Is this all really necessary?"

"Door to door service, Doc," said Baz cheerfully as he put the van in drive.

The van pulled out onto the river road, and they were soon bumping along the remains of the highway. With every bounce, boxes, tools, and sacks shifted around on the back. A storm was breaking through with the dawn. Waves of rain slapped against the van, and the trees on either side of the roadside whipped in the wind.

"Can you get started back there, Billy?" Wiki asked.

"Did Di Vinci do his best work in the back of a moving truck?" Billy snapped.

"He did do it over his head while standing on a sixty-foot rickety scaffold and going blind," Tama offered contemplatively.

"Nobody asked you," Billy snapped.

Fred exchanged a somewhat sympathetic look with Tama. No one was interested in his opinion either. I'm going to get the blood, Fred told himself. So keep this simple, do whatever they want and stay unlive.

They pulled up with a lurch outside an old corrugated-iron building. The area around might have been a suburb once, but now only a few charred remnants could be seen where the verdant over-growth was being driven down by the swirling torrent.

Baz leaped out to obsequiously unlock the door and hold it open. They all got out and ran through the stormy weather into the dark recesses of the building.

Inside there were some long tables set up, and against the walls were piles of boxes. The roof was shuddering in the wind making a cacophonous rumbling sound.

"Baz," Wiki said. "If this shithouse falls apart and I get sunlight on my skin...."

"It's safe as houses, luv," he placated.

Fred looked at the work table. At one end were boxes of 'Winsome Wendy Inflatable Love Dolls', and in the middle were piles of discarded cans of grey spray paint. It looked like Baz was upcycling product for his zombie clientele.

"Sid-down." Billy indicated one of the old barstools and began his work.

Behind them, the argument continued, partly drowned out by the increasing racket of the iron sheets shuddering on the building frame around them. Fred jumped with ever clang, expecting a corrugated scythe to come sweeping down on them.

Wiki decided she'd had enough. "Look, shit-for-brains. I am not interested in getting groovy with the UV. So, me and the boy will take the van. We'll come and get you in the evie."

"Well, I don't really need to stay here either. We could all come back and get the intel once the storm is over.

"But you said it's safe as houses," Wiki said sarcastically.

"Yeah, but it's not as comfortable as houses is it, doll? We can just pop doc here in the tank to make friends and come back later."

"Tank?" Fred muttered.

"They've got a feral stored in an in-ground tank," Billy said. "And they want you to find out where his friends are hiding. Chat him up, like."

"A feral... human?"

"Well it's not a fucking pussy cat is it?"

There are humans outside the reservations? "You not leaving me in with it all day!" Fred felt his voice rise in a panicky shriek. "You can't seriously think it'll think I'm human, up close."

"Yeah, well. It's going to be dark in there, fortunately." Billy had finished painting Fred's face and started on his hands, doing a cursory job at best.

"You're not afraid of one little human are you, Doc?" Baz asked. "If you can't snow him, just finish him off. We just figure it's worth a try. Fucking hipster noshers pay top dollar for a bit of humie sushi." He made the money gesture with his fingers. "Maybe we could cut you in?"

"And maybe we could cut him into little bits and toss him in the river," Wiki added darkly.

"Wiki, doll. You catch more flies with honey."

"You catch more flies with carrion," Tama said softly. "That's why the Satyrium pumilum orchid imitates the smell of decaying flesh to lure in and trap flies."

Wiki ignored them both. She rifled through Billy's box and pulled out a jar of shoe polish and a squashed fedora hat. "So, which is it to be, d'you think."

#

Like most zombies, Fred did not have a very clear memory of the time just after he turned. Or at least he tried very hard not to think about it. He knew that he must have killed people.

As a zombie, he had twice the weight and easily four times the strength of a human. It probably wouldn't be physically hard for him to kill a human if he had to. And the zombie condition pretty much flipped the OFF switch went it came to empathy for humans.

But I am an intelligent, ethical person, Fred thought—as his orange-painted body was lowered into an empty fuel tank by a sociopath in a sundress.

He had barely hit bottom, about ten meters down, when the lid at the top was slid back on. It wasn't just dark; it was pitch black. Fred fumbled for the flashlight that was stuffed in the back of his waistband.

The flame of a cigarette lighter sprang up a few paces in front of him. The young human man holding it was sitting against the wall of the tank. "What the hell are you meant to be?"

Well, that's the question, isn't it?