The Zombie Whisperer (Living With the Dead) by Jesse Petersen Page A

to debate as a few of Lisa’s stragglers did, indeed, come at the sound of the dinner bell that was gunfire. Again, these were clearly fresher zombies, damaged by the serum bomb, but not completely wiped out thanks to whatever small part of them retained their humanity. Lisa shot them down while I stood there, staring and filled with discomfort and a sick feeling in my gut.
    Finally there was only one left and she glanced at me. “You have to do it, Sarah. Get it out of your head.”
    I flinched. “Right now?”
    “It’s a zombie, look at it.”
    I did look. The last one was a woman, dressed in fatigues, boots all cockeyed since her ankle had been broken and now stuck out at a weird angle. That was definitely zombie of her. Her skin was grey, her teeth were black with sludge, she reached toward us with clawing hands. Zombie, zombie, zombie.
    The difference was that somewhere deep in her red, blood-lusty eyes, I saw something. I saw… pain. Pain inside the levels of zombie rage that made her want to eat my brains.
    An animal in that kind of pain used to be put down for its own good. And as I lifted my gun and fired off a shot, I realized I was doing the exact same thing. I couldn’t fix that girl, so it was best to put her out of her misery. I certainly wouldn’t want my humanity retriggered in any way if I had been zombie-fied. I couldn’t think of a worse kind of hell, honestly.
    “Good.” Lisa reloaded. “Let’s clear the basement and get back to the base before it gets too dark, okay?”
    She walked away and for a moment I hung back, still looking at the poor dead zombie I’d just shot between the eyes. She had the same color hair as David’s sister, who I shot almost a year ago as she turned into a zombie.
    “Come on, Sarah,” Lisa said, her voice sharp as she blocked the stairs and climbed over to the basement floor side.
    I shook my head and followed, trying to swallow back my discomfort and my concerns with every step. The basement stairwell was way darker than the others had been. There was less sunlight downstairs, fewer windows and the afternoon was starting to wane, adding a bit of desperation to our charge. Nighttime in the world of zombie infestation was terrifying and super dangerous. You just didn’t want to risk getting caught off guard.
    It was as if my thoughts triggered a reaction because Lisa’s spine straightened and she started walking faster toward the bottom of the stairs and our last duty for the day.
    “All right, I’m going to throw a grenade,” she whispered. “We’ll let the gas dissipate and cover the stairs like before.”
    I shrugged. Seemed like as good a plan as any, though I didn’t look forward to the remnants of more human-zombies, thank you very much. Still, it was preferable to a roomful of zombie-zombies.
    She pulled the tab and tossed the grenade. We both backed up and readied our weapons as the metal canister clanked along the linoleum flooring below. There was a pop and I held my breath as the hiss of gas filled my ears (though muffled by that stupid, sweaty helmet).
    “How long do we have to wait?” I asked. “Last time we sort of went and took care of some errands, so is it a minute, ten minutes?”
    “Gas will clear in about five and that tends to wipe out the general population pretty well,” she said. “We’re still working on the timing, to be honest.”
    “Great,” I muttered as I leaned against the bannister.
    There wasn’t to be any thumb twiddling, though. Out of the fog below us, a zombie appeared at the bottom of the stairs. It was making a wheezy noise and had a bowling ball still attached to its swollen fingers. It swung the thing around, crashing into the wall and leaving a huge hole in the drywall.
    Lisa sniffed and fired off a shot that dropped the thing.
    “Oh yeah, the bowling alley,” I said as I fired another shot at a zombie that peeked its head around to look up into the stairwell at the noise.
    This one was in some kind of