But getting them into the store was hard enough. Into the room …
Where were the X-Men when you real y needed them?
Nick grabbed the cattle prod that Bubba kept hanging on the wal behind the counter … again for those “just in case” moments. He was beginning to not only understand Bubba’s paranoia, but be grateful for it.
Bubba was right. You never knew when these things could come in handy. It did pay to keep a cattle prod and ax on hand. The necessity of the rocket launcher and blasting caps remained to be seen.
At least the cattle prod would make it easier to corral them.
But the moment Nick touched the prod to the zombie closest to him, Brett, he realized Mark and Bubba had made some serious modifications to the voltage. This wasn’t a typical cattle prod to move people along. This one was meant to stun and stun hard. The jolt was so severe, it drove the zombie to the floor like a mil ion-volt stun gun.
“What the … ?” Nick gaped at Bubba, who grinned in al his unabashed glory.
“Neighbors don’t complain when I shock people, only when I shoot them.”
Mark agreed. “But the downside is it’s a pain to drag them out of the store, and if you leave them in here, when they can move again, they’re usual y pretty pissed and looking for blood.”
Madaug, Caleb, and Simi continued to try and beat the zombies into the holding cel .
Nick zapped another zombie that was going for Simi. It was actual y kind of fun. He’d touch them with the prod. They’d scream and then flop to the ground like dying fish. Made him wonder what would happen if they were wet, but he wasn’t sadistic enough to test that curiosity. Lucky for them.
He shocked another one who went for his head and sent the zombie flailing. A guy could get used to this, especial y if he didn’t go to jail for it.
By the time Nick had stunned the last one and Bubba and Mark were dragging the first one into the room, they made a
“shocking” discovery.
As the voltage wore off, the zombies returned to normal.
“Get your hands off me!” Brett snarled as he shoved Bubba back. “My dad’s a lawyer and I’m going to sue you for offensive touching.”
Bubba arched a brow. “You might wanna rethink that, boy.
’Cause if I’m going to get sued for offensively touching you, I’m going to make it worth my while. Think about it.” Brett’s face paled. He looked around the store as if he was waking up from a nightmare. “How did I get here?” Nick angled the cattle prod at him, stil not trusting that he was completely normal. He’d seen that movie too many times where the idiots think the monster’s gotten over whatever had it possessed, only to turn back into the monster and kil them the instant they let down their guard. No way. He wasn’t about to become intel igent-zombie kibble. “You were trying to eat my brains, you psycho.”
Brett gaped at him. “What?”
Caleb nodded. “It’s true, dude. You went for Gautier’s throat, and mine too.”
Madaug took the prod from Nick so that he could examine the prongs on the end of it. “Wow, Nick. You found the cure.
That’s how we fix it.”
“Electrocution?” Nick tried not to smile as he thought about seriously zapping Stone.
Madaug nodded. “The voltage works on the central nervous system. … I’m thinking it works like a power surge that causes the programming to dump and essential y reboot to the original that existed before they played my game. It reverses everything. Nick! You’re a friggin’ genius.” Nick rested the cattle prod up on his good shoulder. “Wel , someone slap my butt and give me a hero cookie.” Simi stepped forward and slapped him on the right cheek.
“Hey!” Nick snapped, rubbing his offended buttocks.
She blinked innocently. “You told me to. Or would you rather have had one of them men slap your butt instead?” Nick was horrified by the mere suggestion. “If someone is touching that part of me, I’d much rather it be you than one of them.” Or better yet, Kody.
“Us too,” the guys said quickly.
As they stood there, one by one the zombies came out of it.
Al of them were disoriented and baffled by what had happened to them.
And none of the twelve guys on the floor remembered having played Madaug’s game.
None of them.
Nick scowled at Madaug. “You think when I shocked them that it caused some kind of memory loss?” Which real y worried him since he had a memory lapse himself about how he’d gotten in that courtyard at the Lalaurée mansion. Had he been a zombie and not known it?
Please don’t let me have eaten any brains.
That was the only thing he knew that could make his mom’s powdered eggs taste good.
Madaug scratched his chin as he thought about it. “I don’t know. We need a case study.”
Bubba paused and turned toward him. “Case study how?”