Floodwater Zombies (13 page)

“Oh crap,” Rory mumbled.

The fat men vanished beneath the water’s surface just as Paisley Print screamed so loud it gave Rory the chills. She stumbled closer to the tree line and threw up without bending over, coating herself in a black goo. Her labored pace began to wane. Wet hair dangled limply across her pallid face. She glared at their hiding spot with her chest hitching. Polka-Dots stopped next to her. Paisley reached for the bush and barred her teeth. Polka-Dots tried to scream but only a whimper came out. Paisley turned back for the water. The teen followed, lumbering his brown dress shoes into the shallows with uneven steps.

Polka-Dots bent over and puked, her body twitching in the moonlight. She looked up, staring right at Rachel, Woody and Rory. Rory could hear Woody swallow dryly. The old lady drew her split lips back and sneered. She took another step closer to the woods, determined not to give up, and stopped to release another eruption of black goo from her broken mouth. She took three more languid steps before turning back to the lake with a jerky gait, moving much slower than it had been. She staggered into the crater in the sand that Clutch had made and nearly fell. When the water hit her feet, her stride began to even out. Within ten seconds, she slipped beneath the water and disappeared with the rest of the ghouls.

The quiet resumed its place in the night, the crickets and frogs and loons acting as if nothing had ever happened. Rory’s pulse hammered in his temples.

Woody turned to him with saucer-sized eyes. “What the fuck was that?”

Rory gently let the branch swing back into position and released a deep breath.

Chapter Eight

The cell phone’s screen splashed an eerie glow across Rory’s face. He looked up and shook his head. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose onto the cell’s bright screen as he hit the power button, plunging his face back into darkness.

“Damn,” Woody whispered, pacing in anxious circles. “We’re dead. The
no signal
thing always happens just before they get you.”

Rory stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “We’re not dead. We just have to get back to the cars.”

“Oh yeah, right!”
Woody laughed a little too loudly. “And how many of those things are going to be hiding in the woods waiting for us?” His eyes jerked from tree to tree, now seeing the same imaginary dead people that Rory had earlier.

Rachel sat on a decaying river birch, gently rubbing her leg and staring at a honeysuckle bush with unfocused eyes. “Our friends are really dead,” she said faintly, to no one in particular.

Rory stared at her, still not fully believing it himself. “Let me see that,” he said, kneeling next to her for a closer look at her knee. It was swollen and sticky with blood and she winced when he tried to touch it. “Can you extend it?”

She did with a grunt, grimacing with the pain that shot through her leg.

“It’s not broken,” he said, not one hundred percent sure that was a correct assessment. It didn’t matter if it was broken or not. They had to keep moving before those things came back, and God only knows how many there really were. “It’s not much further to the car.”

“This cannot be happening,” Woody said, with one leg propped up against a thick Sycamore and watching them with glassy eyes.

Rachel looked up at him. Fat teardrops rolled down her dirty cheeks, her eyes pleading for a hint of reality. “What are they?” she whispered coldly.

Woody’s eyes remained unfocused, staring past them into the woods where they had just left their scent.
“Zombies.”
His hand whizzed through the air and slapped his thigh, punctuating his statement with a startle and leaving a bloody mosquito with its stinger still in his leg.

Rory’s mouth gaped, still snatching big gulps of the warm air around them. He chuckled lightly and actually had to work at keeping it from turning into rolling laughter. It was obscene. “Zombies don’t live underwater.”

Woody’s dark eyes snapped over to him. He held Rory’s bewildered gaze for a moment and then, once again, returned his interest to the trees. That was all the argument he needed. They had all seen the same thing: zombies come out of the lake and zombies go back into the lake. In fiction, there was a discernible set of rules when it came to the undead but this wasn’t fiction.

Rachel wiped sweat from face with her hands, smearing blood and dirt across her forehead. “There are no such things as
zombies
,” she said stubbornly.

Woody’s face stiffened. “Did they look like park rangers to you?”

Rory honed his gaze. “Wait a minute, how did Jake Fletcher get in the lake?”

Woody paused to consider the point. “That’s a good question. He must’ve rose from his grave and stumbled to the lake.”

“Maybe something’s attracting them to the lake,” Rachel suggested.

Rory rested his hands on his hips and sighed.
“Doesn’t make any sense.
How’d Jake get out of his coffin?”

Woody shrugged. “Maybe he used his super powers to bust out. Or maybe grave robbers unknowingly let him out.”

“Who cares?” Rachel whispered. “Let’s just get to the cars.”

“Well, we can’t go to the cops.” Woody pushed off the tree and began pacing the weedy trail, his brain in maximum overdrive.

Rachel and Rory turned to him with disbelieving eyes. “What?” they said in unison.

“If the cops come back to that campsite, they’re gonna find roaches from those joints all over the place, not to mention all of the empties lying everywhere.”

Rory shook his head like someone had just slapped him. “Who cares? People are dead, Woody. You think they’re going to mess with writing us some misdemeanor tickets for weed?”

“There are no bodies. We have no proof.”

Rory opened his mouth to argue but Woody beat him to the punch.

“And what if those…
things
don’t come back?” he continued in a whisper. “What if there’s no sign of
em
? No sign of Clutch or Kate or Ashley? The cops are going to think we are wasted. I mean, listen to our stories.” His eyebrows pulled closer together.
“Zombies?
Really?”

“We are going to call the police,” Rachel said sternly.

“They’re going to think we’re crazy!”

“Don’t be stupid, Woody! Our friends were just killed!”

“I’m just saying that…”

“Woody!” she cut him off, shooting him the evil eye. “We are going to call the cops.”

Woody held his hands up in surrender. “All right… but that’s what would happen in a movie. In a movie, we
’d get arrested
and then the
power’d
go out while we’re locked in jail. Next thing
ya
know, all the cops are dead and a bunch of stiffs come shambling by and start reaching through our jail cell bars.”

“This isn’t a movie!” she shrieked, sending an echo zigzagging through the thick trees.

Rory cringed with the outburst and interlocked his fingers behind his head.

Woody sighed and lowered his voice. “I’m just throwing it out there.”

“Enough,” Rory said, helping Rachel to her feet. “We’ll try the phone again at your car. Either way, we’ll drive to Doc’s and figure things out there.”

Woody wiped sweat from his face with both hands. “They’re going to think we’re nuts.”

Chapter Nine

“Jeez, Dad, have another cigarette why don’t
ya
!” Kourtney said, over the dishwasher.

“That’s a good idea. I think I will,” he said, coughing into his fist again and making his beer belly bounce like a water balloon. “Thanks for the reminder.”

She rolled her eyes, her hands working the glassware up and down spinning brushes that vibrated the stainless steel sink. “That cough is horrible!” Her brown ponytail bounced over her shoulder as she pulled the pint glasses from the brushes and dunked them through a sink of cool rinse water. As she went to set them on a drying rack, she noticed Rob and Mick staring down her v-neck t-shirt. She paused. “Enjoying the show?”

Their eyes jerked to hers and quickly returned to the Miller High Life bottles on the bar in front of them. Doc let out a laugh that slid into another succession of wet sounding hacks.

She flipped a switch on the washer, silencing it in mid-spin. Gary Allan’s
Smoke Rings in the Dark
swooped in and serenaded the small Monday night crowd from a tired Wurlitzer, lit up like a robot in the corner next to an outdated
Golden Tee
and
a stand-up
Asteroids
in perfect working order. A burst of laughter erupted from four
women,
planted around a square table near a large window up front, busy gossiping about their coworkers at Trinity Health. “I mean, if she even thinks about looking at me, I’ll know it! My
gaydar
came from the Apple store, sister. It’s top of the line!” one of them blurted, producing another eruption that briefly trampled upon Gary.

Kourtney dried her hands on a white bar towel stuffed into her belt. “Sounds like you’re about to cough up a lung.”

“Well then turn up the stereo!” Doc bellowed, taking a drink from a red draft of Killian’s.

Rob and Mick chuckled.

“Now that’s funny right there! I don’t care what anyone says,” Mick said, doing his best impersonation of Larry the Cable Guy.

“
Git
-r-done,”
Rob drawled out the corner of his mouth.