Don’t forget the little people. Even when you want to.

The Kid reminded me of Bart Simpson. He had blond hair that was probably once lovingly combed into place for school pictures by his mom, but apparently he’d been left to his own devices for a while now because it was currently spiked up from dirt and not enough personal grooming. Oh, and he kept going on about a skateboard, which was apparently his major mode of transportation until it got broken by the same zombies who were chasing him across the parking lot.

Not to mention, he was kind of a little punk, as my bruised shin was throbbing testament to.

I glared at him as he sat in his place on the curb in front of the mall. He was eating some kind of no-name snack cake, his grubby little gross fingers leaving chocolaty smears around his mouth.

“So… now we have him,” Dave said with a heavy sigh. “What do you want to do with him?”

I glared at The Kid. “Kick him back when he’s not ready for it.”

Dave stared at me for a long moment and then slowly extended his finger (I won’t say which one, you can guess) upward toward the net that swung above us in the breeze.

“I meant what do you want to do about that?”

I shook my head and looked up. The creature was still thrashing around and growling at us, but apparently the infected don’t have much stamina (or maybe this particular one just didn’t have any in life or something) because his movements had become more sluggish and his growls less aggressive and harsh. Poor little guy was just getting tuckered out.

“We have to get him down, I guess,” I said.

The Kid snorted from behind us and both of us turned to stare at him. He smirked as he wiped his dirty hands on what had once been pale blue jeans and said, “You’re really smart, right?”

I’ve never wanted to strike a child as much as I did at that moment. I probably would have, too, but Dave caught my arm and held me in place.

“Sarah,” he said low and near my ear.

“Look, Robbie,” I said, using the name The Kid had given us when we demanded an introduction after he kicked the hell out of my leg. “You’re just a little brat, okay, so don’t pretend you know something about catching zombies that we don’t. Why don’t you run along?”

“Sarah!” David gasped in disbelief. When I looked at him he shook his head. “You really want to send the kid off on his own, unarmed in an apocalypse? What is he, ten?”

“I’m almost twelve, actually,” The Kid interjected with a been-there-done-that look. “Or I will be in six months. And I don’t need your help.”

“You needed it a minute ago,” I said, barely resisting the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

He shrugged. “I guess, but just so you know, I would have figured it out even if I hadn’t seen you two.”

I stared at him. He was an annoying little twerp, but you couldn’t help but be impressed by him. After all, he wasn’t even a teen and was apparently alone after three months of zombie un-awesomeness. So he was probably right he would have figured it out.

I returned my attention to the swinging zombie pendulum above us since anything I had to say to The Kid at that point wouldn’t have been particularly useful.

“We can lower him to the ground pretty easily with the pulley system,” I said as I stared again at our prey. “But then how do we secure him? He’ll thrash all over the place in the back of the van. And if he got loose…”

I shuddered at the thought of being trapped in such a small space with a zombie.

Dave was silent as he pondered that, but before he could give me his answer, The Kid piped up again. “You could lower him halfway and then use a rope to tie him tighter. You two geniuses do have a rope, don’t you?”

“Yes, we have a fucking rope,” I said through clenched teeth.

The Kid shrugged. “Well, it would be easy. Just spin him like a piñata.”

I stared, partly because it was a pretty good plan and partly because the kid’s mouth was full of something. Again.

“Where are you getting so much food?” I asked as I watched him pop a Starburst into his mouth and toss the wrappers at his feet.

Without blinking, he pointed to his cargo jean pockets.

“Those are bad for your teeth,” I snapped, even though I had to admit I wanted one myself. But I wasn’t about to ask him to share. I shook my head and returned my attention to David. “What do you think? Would that work?”

My husband nodded. “It’s probably our best bet. And maybe we can use one of those burlap sacks from the old head-collecting days to cover his head and tie it, too. Less chance for grazing bites.”

“Alrighty,” I agreed.

“Do I get a cut?” The Kid asked as we started back toward the van so Dave could climb up on the awning and run the pulley system and I could grab the rope from one of our color-coordinated storage containers.

I stared at The Kid in confusion. “What?”

“Look, I’m not stupid just because I’m younger than you,” the little boy said as he folded his arms and stared at me with the most jaded expression I’d ever seen. Even Dave couldn’t have topped this one. “If you two are going to this much trouble to catch a zombie, rather than exterminate it like your stupid van says, my bet is you’re going to get paid for it, right? So do I get a cut?”

Dave snorted out a laugh as he started to climb up onto the van. “Don’t kill him, Sarah,” he called back to me.

I decided not to deny what The Kid was saying because it would just take too long. “What do you mean, do you get a cut? Why would you get a cut?”

“It’s my zombie you caught.”

I stared. “What do you mean your zombie? It was chasing you, it wasn’t your pet.”

He ignored me. “And it’s my idea that you’re using to tie it up. So I should get a cut.”

I shut my eyes and slowly counted to ten in my head as I tried desperately to remember that this was a child who was probably pretty traumatized by everything he had seen and done in the months since the outbreak. But when I looked at him again, all I saw was brat. And snot-nosed brat at that. Gross.

“No way,” I sneered.

The Kid got to his feet, sending empty candy wrappers to blow away on the breeze as he folded his arms. “Yes way.”

Above us, Dave sighed. “Am I going to have to separate you two?”

I glanced up at him. Although he had a joking tone to this voice, his face was tired. I frowned. Clearly I was creating more stress for him than he needed and over what? Some bratty little kid who would be gone from our lives before sundown. It wasn’t worth it.

Without another word, I turned my back to him and grabbed a long coil of rope from the back of the van. Positioning myself near the thrashing zombie, I gave David the thumbs-up signal.

“Ready!”

With the dead weight of the zombie in the net, Dave had to work a little harder to ease the netting down toward me slowly, but after a lot of grunting and swearing, he had gotten the net even with me, but still slightly off the ground.

The zombie hissed and growled at me, pressing his face against the net so hard that the fabric bit into his rotting flesh and left raw hash marks across his cheeks and lips that would never heal.

“Settle down, buddy,” I said as I tried to catch his lurching form to start the rope around him. He kept moving and flinching though, so I couldn’t tie him up.

“Fuck!” I said as he gave me the slip another time. “I need another set of hands.”

Dave stared at me and I stared up at him for a minute before both of us slowly turned toward The Kid.

He had moved to the front of the van and was now leaning on it nonchalantly, one ankle crossed over the other. He smiled as I looked at him.

“What’s my cut?” he asked, enunciating each word with a smug smile.

I shook my head. This was why I didn’t have kids. Finally I growled, “You can have twenty percent of whatever we get for the zombie.”

“Fifty,” the kid snorted.

Dave’s cackle of laughter was the answer. “No way. We caught it, we’re driving it and loading and unloading it. Twenty-five.”

“Thirty,” The Kid said without even hesitating or blinking. “And ammo.”

I bit my lip and nodded. “Fine. Now come here and help me.”

To his credit, once the deal had been made, The Kid hopped to it. He ran over, dodging the straining, clawing fingers and gnashing teeth of the zombie, and grabbed one end of the rope.

“Okay, first we need to pull his arms tight,” I said. “And then wrap him up with the rest of the rope and tie it off.”

To my surprise, there was no debate or argument from The Kid. He just swept his side of the rope around the infected creature in the net and we hurried to wrap the rope around him so that his arms were now fully bound at his sides. Around and around we went, trading sides to bind the creature up until he was bound like an old-fashioned play about a girl tied to a railroad track by Snidely Whiplash. Mwahahaha…

“That looks good, now tie him off,” Dave called from above as we swept the rope around the zombie a final time.

By now he was squirming like an angry caterpillar forced into a cocoon. He still snapped at us through the rope, black sludge pouring from his gray lips as he gnawed at the netting.

I took the other side of the rope from The Kid and started to work on knotting the ends together, but I didn’t make much progress before he let out a sigh and snatched them away from me.

“Jeez, lady,” he said as he gave me a ‘You-Are-A-Stupid-Adult’ look. “Learn to tie a knot, why don’t you?”

I watched as he crossed and recrossed the rope a few times and finally came out with the tightest, most complicated knot I’d ever seen.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked, sort of stunned into grudging respect as I tugged at the knot and it didn’t give even a fraction.

He shrugged. “I was in Boy Scouts before—”

He cut himself off and turned away. It was one of the few times I saw The Kid really look like he felt anything bad about the apocalypse. Like all of us, he had a coping mechanism for forgetting life Before Zombies. The little reminder of a Boy Scout knot made him more like a kid again to me. I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“Hey,” I said softly. “I’m going to put the sack over his head. Do you think you could use one of those super knots to tie it off around his neck, too?”

He nodded and when he looked at me again any regret or childlike heartbreak I’d seen in his face was gone. Jaded Kid was back.

“Whatever.”

I stifled a smile as I returned to the back of the van and grabbed a burlap sack. It would hold a zombie head like it had so many times before… only this time it would be one attached to a body.

When I returned to the netted infected I looked at him. There wasn’t an obvious way to get the sack over his face now that I considered it. The net drew shut above him, which meant you couldn’t really pull something over top of his rotting skull. There was no choice to it, I was going to have to free his head.

I withdrew my knife from the sheath at my thigh and carefully cut one or two of the net’s ropes. I didn’t want to do too much in case we wanted to use this netting method again, but just enough to give the zombie space to push his head out. It didn’t take long before he realized he could do just that. Straining against the binds, he shoved his head through the spot and resumed biting in my general direction. His teeth, grey from rot and stained from sludge, snapped as they gnashed together, grinding with the anticipation of devouring human flesh and blood.

“Sarah!” Dave called from above. “What the hell, you’re cutting up the net?”

I shrugged. “I need to get to him. I’ll repair it later. Now can you lower him a bit more?”

Dave muttered something from above but the zombie dropped a little lower just as I’d asked. Now his shaking, twisting head was even with my chest and he stared at my tits. Before the outbreak, I’d had guys do this too, but for this guy they were more of a meal than a toy, no matter how cute I knew I looked in my black tank top with the little hint of lace from the bra peeking out beneath it. I ignored his snarls as I lined up the sack and then yanked it over his head.

And now I knew what riding a bull felt like. The zombie started to jerk, turning toward me, straining against the burlap until I could see his angry face outlined against the tight fabric.

“Robbie?” I said with effort as I rolled and rocked along with the creature’s jerking motions. Eight seconds, right? Well, I’m sure I beat that and then some, but will they make a movie starring me? Hmph.

The Kid rushed forward and wrapped the rope around the zombie’s neck.

“Pull tight,” I suggested as he started to tie off the rope that now caused the skin around the infected’s neck to bulge. “It’s not like you can kill him.”

The Kid chuckled and finished his knot. As soon as he was done and I’d let go, Dave released his hold on the rope and the zombie slid down to the ground with a loud, cracking thud. We all winced even though you couldn’t exactly feel sorry for the thing. Even if you broke all his bones, he’d still drag himself along to eat you.

Plenty of people had gotten turned by broken and busted-up infected friends and family members. After a while you sort of got immune to their injuries, mainly because they never stopped coming for you until you took their heads.

“Well,” I sighed as Dave came back down from the awning for the third time. He was getting so comfortable at doing it, I wondered if he even noticed the height thing anymore. “That was some good teamwork. Now, thanks a lot, Kid, but we—”

“No, no, no,” The Kid interrupted as he stomped toward me with his little fists raised in a fighting stance. A pretty good one, too. He was future UFC material with that form. “No way are you fucking me out of my pay.”

“Hey!” I snapped. “Language.”

He shot me a look that could have killed. “Screw you, lady. You owe me a third of whatever you get plus ammo.”

“And we’re going to give you that, Robbie,” Dave said, his tone so much more adult and soothing than mine.

Funny, I used to get so pissed because I felt like Dave was stuck in adolescence, but now… well, he wasn’t that guy on the couch playing video games instead of getting a job anymore.

I dropped my own tone to match his, hoping, I guess, to impress him a little. “Seriously, Kid. We’re not going to fuck you over. We’re more than happy to give you supplies equal to thirty percent of what we’re paid for this job and the ammo right now and you can be on your way.”

The Kid folded his arms. “Oh yeah, right. Like I’m going to just believe that whatever you give me is thirty percent. No way. I’m coming with you to wherever you’re going and I’m watching you get your payment. Then we’ll decide together what thirty percent amounts to.”

I gave Dave a side glance. I’m sure that would really impress Dr. Barnes… Kevin… when we revealed that we had not only brought in another person on our scheme, but that he wasn’t even in puberty yet. I hated to think of his reaction.

“I don’t know,” Dave said with a shake of his head. “That may not go over. This is sort of top-secret stuff.”

The Kid snorted. “Okay, Mr. and Mrs. CIA. If it was so secret, you never should have let me help you in the first place.”

I opened my mouth to point out, once again, that we hadn’t invited him to help us do anything, but he kept talking.

“But you did, so a deal is a deal. I’m going with you.”

I glared at the boy, then waved David over to the side for a confab. “What do we do?” I whispered. “He can’t come to the warehouse.”

Dave shot him a look over my shoulder. “I think there’s not much choice. I mean, you can’t really blame him for doubting our intentions. And he did help us out.”

“Barnes is going to think we’re a bunch of idiots,” I moaned.

Dave rolled his eyes. “I’m sure your boyfriend will get over it.”

“Haha,” I sneered as he turned away and faced The Kid again.

“Okay, look, you can come with us.” Dave hesitated. “But when we get close to where we’re going, we’ll have to blindfold you so you can’t see.”

The Kid’s brow wrinkled and there was a moment of nervous hesitation on his face that made him look as young as his years. Then he shook it off.

“Okay, I guess. But if you go all Catholic Priest on me, I’ll cut your hands off.”

Dave stared at him. “Gross. On both accounts. Trust me, I’ve no interest in going anything on you. I just want to make sure you’re not going to interfere and cause trouble with our contact. If you come, you keep your mouth shut, got it?” Dave asked in a stern and sort of fatherly tone.

The Kid stared at him for a long moment where I swear he actually looked a little impressed. So was I, truth be told. Then he nodded. “Okay.”

“Now let’s load this fucker up and get going. Thanks to all our noise those ones on the outskirts are getting too close for comfort and I’m just not in the mood for a showdown,” Dave said as he grabbed for our captured zombie’s feet and motioned me to take the shoulder area to toss him in the back of the van.