The Zombie Chasers #4 (9 page)

A
s the yellow taxi shuttled down the FDR Drive, a thick dome of gray clouds cast a dark pall over the city. Zack gazed out the window, looking westward toward the center of Manhattan. The Empire State Building glowed bright green that night. The long, thin spire sticking up from the top of the building made the skyscraper look like an enormous hypodermic syringe injecting the clouds above with its lime-colored zombie venom.

As they approached the Brooklyn Bridge, the cab suddenly slowed. The bridge was clear of traffic, but the roadway teemed with a humongous herd of gangrenous brain gluttons marching sluggishly toward their car. At the head of the pack, a gigantic physical specimen came into focus. The shirtless zombie bodybuilder had a neck as thick as a tree trunk and wore nothing but cross-trainers and a flimsy pair of gym shorts. A road map of pulsating veins branched off from his hulking square shoulders, down around his massive biceps, and spiraled around his rib cage.

“Wow,” Zoe said. “That zombie's in really good shape!”

“I know, right?” Madison said. “I wonder what he benches?”

The undead meathead lumbered forward out of the crowd and let out a feral yowl.

“Step on it, Oz!” yelled Rice, dismissing the girls' idle chitchat.

Madison reached over the backseat and put her hand on Ozzie's shoulder. “No way, José!”

“Ozzie, you can't be serious,” Zoe said. “Turn this thing around.”

“And drive back into zombie island?” Ozzie scoffed. “No, thank you very much!”

“We'll never make it across!” Madison yelled. “Not without killing some of them.”

“Put it to a vote,” Rice said. “All in favor say aye.”

“Aye!” Zack and Ozzie both said, raising their hands along with Rice.

“Three against two!” Rice said happily. “Hit the gas, Oz!”

Twinkles pawed the window and glanced out at the zombie march. “Arf!” the puppy barked, and then cowered back down in Madison's lap.

“Ha!” said Zoe. “That was a ‘no'! Three to three. It's a tie. Now turn around!”

“Twinkles's vote doesn't count,” said Rice. “He's just a pea-brained little dog!”

“You're just a pea-brained little dog!” Madison yelled.

“That doesn't even make sense, Madison,” Rice fired back. “There's nothing canine about me.”

“Hey!” Zack yelled. “There's not going to be anything human about us either if we don't get across this bridge.”

“Time to put the pedal to the metal, ladies.” Ozzie smiled in the rearview and revved the engine.

“Whatever,” the girls both said, fastening their seat belts tighter.

“Just don't get us killed, okay, Mr. Hotshot?” Zoe said, glaring at Ozzie.

“Uh-oh,” Ozzie said, shifting out of park and locking the car doors.

“What-oh?” asked Zack, peering out ahead of them.

Suddenly, the rezombified bodybuilder ran toward the taxi and slammed into the hood with a bang.

Ozzie hit the gas, but the slime-soaked zombie horde made it impossible to accelerate and they slowed to a crawl. The yellow taxi coasted through the undead mob like a funhouse roller coaster.

“Holy snap!” Rice screamed as the muscle-bound zombie climbed up the hood and onto the windshield of the moving car. The beast's well-toned abdominals pressed against the windshield. The zombie's six-pack burbled and pulsed with crops of pustules bulging off his skin, and its red sinewy muscles peeked out from various open sores where the flesh had begun to rot away.

“Ew, gnarly!” Madison cringed, covering her eyes and Twinkles's, too.

The decomposing muscleman cranked his arm back and blasted his fist clear through the windshield on the driver's side.

The zombie's forearm reached in and groped around, trying to palm Ozzie's face like a basketball. Dark brown slime oozed from its stretched-open hand and gave off a stench like a Porta Potty at a state fair.

At the same time, the windows were getting a zombie car wash as slimy arms slapped against the side of the cab and undead fish faces pressed up against the glass. The undead swarm was starting to cover the taxi like a mass of bees on a honeycomb.

“I can't see anything!” Ozzie said, dodging the zombie's putrid hand and steering the car steadily through the multitude of tottering ghouls. “Zack, you gotta drive, man, while I get rid of this guy.”

“Huh?” Zack didn't have time to protest. He leaned over and took the wheel, then reached his foot over and placed it on the gas pedal as Ozzie took his off. Ozzie rolled down his window and stood up in the driver's seat. Holding his nunchakus in his left hand, he reached out of the taxi and bopped the undead bodybuilder repeatedly, but the hardheaded lunatic would not budge.

Inside, the psychotic muscleman's hand was still stuck through the windshield. Zack steered their zombie-covered cab onward across the bridge through the brain-hungry horde.

Outside, a zombie reached out of the mob and snatched at Ozzie's shirtsleeve.
“Rargh!”
With one swift elbow to the schnoz, Ozzie sent the zombie heathen screeching back into the swarm.

“Time for plan B!” Ozzie said, hopping back inside on the glass-strewn seat cushion and taking control of the car from Zack. He sped up a little and then slammed on the brakes hard.
Uhrrk!
They all jolted forward in their seats as the muscle-bound freakazoid flew off the hood of the taxi onto the shoulder.

“See ya,” Ozzie shouted. “Wouldn't want to be ya!” He hit the gas pedal and they shot through the zombie clearing.

But the sudden stop did more than knock the zombie off. It also severed its arm at the elbow. The dismembered forearm dropped to the floor inside the car and scurried under the seat like a frightened animal.

The zombie forearm scampered out from under the passenger's seat and into the back with Rice and the girls. It shot straight up from the floor, making a duckbill with its four fingers and thumb, and swayed back and forth like a king cobra about to strike.

Madison and Zoe let out twin screams of terror, and the rear windshield popped from the sonic force of their shrill shrieking.

“Calm down,” Rice said in a soothing voice. “He's way more scared of us than we are of him. . . .” He held out his hand as if he were letting a dog sniff his scent. Then he tried to catch the loose arm, but the undead appendage disappeared down by their feet.

“OMG, OMG,” Madison cried. “Where'd it go?”

“It's under Ozzie's seat!”

“Whoa!” Ozzie shouted, and all of a sudden the car jumped forward. The severed arm had grabbed Ozzie by the ankle and was jamming his foot down hard on the accelerator. The taxi swerved ahead and zoomed past the last remaining zombies on the bridge.

“Ozzie, slow down!” Madison yelled.

“I can't!”

Zack leaned over toward the driver's seat, trying to pry his fingers under the renegade forearm's digits and loosen its zombie grip on Ozzie's leg.

“Almost got it,” Zack said, working his middle and index finger around the thing's thumb. “There!” He yanked as hard as he could and the zombie forearm released its grip. Zack grabbed the arm with both hands, one on the thumb, the other on the pinkie, and tossed it out the window. The zombified forearm flew back behind the car and vanished for good.

“Ozzie, if we don't slow down, we're gonna crash!” Madison yelled.

Ozzie slammed the brakes and spun the steering wheel, but they were flying out of control. “Hold on!” Ozzie shouted.

Zack closed his eyes, preparing for the worst, when he heard the tires screech to a halt.

E
veryone jerked forward in their seats except for Twinkles, who flew through the windowless windshield and landed on the grass on the side of the roadway.

“You guys okay?” Zack asked, scrunched on the floor in front of the passenger seat.

“Yup,” Rice said. “I'm good.”

“Uh-huh.” Madison and Zoe both nodded their heads. Madison opened the side door for Twinkles, who jumped back inside the car.

“Arf-arf!” Twinkles was okay, too.

Ozzie eased the busted-up taxicab back in gear and drove off through the streets. The engine squeaked and rattled with every turn, and as their car trundled off into Brooklyn, Zack watched the New York skyline slowly disappear in his side-view mirror.

A few blocks down, with no zombies in sight, Ozzie pressed the brakes and they squeaked to a stop at a four-way intersection.

“Okay, Rice,” said Zack. “Which way do we go?”

“Hold on one sec,” said Rice, looking down at his smartphone. “My 4G's taking for-ever. . . .”

As Rice Googled directions, zombified Brooklyn-ites started appearing on the fringes of the street. They lurked out of the shadows, staggering slowly from the alleyways and demolished storefront windows. They limped toward the yellow taxi, which was stopped under the traffic lights flashing green, then yellow, then red.

“Ozzie, let's go already,” Madison said. “Come on!”

“Yeah,” Zoe said. “These guys look like they're ready for a midnight snack.”

“I'm trying,” said Ozzie, stepping on the gas pedal. “It's not going!”

“Turn it on again,” Rice suggested. “Maybe we just stalled out.”

Ozzie turned the ignition key over, but the engine coughed and wheezed a noise that sounded like an electric pencil sharpener before falling silent. Their getaway car was dead. The undead clamor rose up all around them, a symphony of glurping moans and murmuring wails like Halloween sound effects.

The zombie throng gathered around them in a shrinking semicircle of ravenous faces clacking their teeth compulsively.

“We gotta make a run for it!” Madison grabbed Twinkles and stuffed him in her bag. The five of them threw open the cab doors and ditched their ride, running away from the mutant horde shambling toward them.

“Rice!” yelled Zack, as they hustled down the street and came to another intersection. “We need directions, man. Left or right?”

Rice jogged behind them, bringing up the rear as he studied the map on his phone. “Right!” he called. “If we cut through the park, we'll be able to stay off the streets and be there in half the time. Come on!”

They all hung a right down the zombified street hell-bordered with brain-craving crazies. Zack led the charge and took a running jump over a small bush as they booked across a grassy lawn toward a thicket of trees. The Brooklyn zombie foot traffic listed to the left and swayed to the right as they trailed Zack, Rice, Madison, Ozzie, and Zoe into Prospect Park.

“Keep moving, guys!” Rice shouted as he sprinted with his smartphone, bringing up the rear. “Just a little bit farther!”

Zack clutched his umbrella, ready for war, as the five of them fled into a thicket of trees at the center of the park.

As they dodged and weaved through the tree trunks, a pale white zombie man with a scraggly blond beard hobbled toward them through the dark woods, emitting a continuous choking noise, as if he had just swallowed his own tongue. He was dressed in old ratty clothes, and a snake's nest of braided dreadlocks sat atop his head. He was so covered in grime and pus that he looked more like a swamp creature than anything else. His teeth protruded off his gums at unnatural angles, like the spiked inner mouth of a horror movie alien.

The undead albino man dived as the kids shot through the forest. His outstretched arm caught Zoe by the ankle and she screamed bloody murder, stuck with one foot wrapped up in the zombie's tight clutch.

“Zack!” she shouted for her brother, and he stopped in his tracks.

Zack bolted over to his sister while she struggled to kick free from the zombie beast clawing her ankle. Another zombie popped out from the darkness, a five-foot-tall young zombie woman with short-cropped blond hair and a guitar case slung over her shoulder.

Zack sprinted toward the zombie guitarist chick and sidestepped around the back of her, catching the latches of the guitar case with his fingertips. He flicked it open, and the zombie girl's acoustic guitar fell to the ground. Zack picked it up in a flash, raised it over his head, and smashed it down on its owner's undead noggin.

Bloomph!

The zombie spun around, thrashing and flailing. With her head still inside the splintered instrument, she dropped to the ground in a heap.

Zack turned and lined up the albino zombie swamp creature, toe-blasting him in the face with a soccer kick from Rice's sneaker. The zombie man yowled hideously, letting go of its grip around Zoe's leg.

“Thanks, bro!” said Zoe as she and Zack sprinted double-time into the woods to catch up with Ozzie, Madison, and Rice.

As they did, Madison let out a bloodcurdling scream and skidded to a halt. “Guys!” she cried. “Wait!”

Zack stopped running and looked over at Madison, who was staring petrified at two shadowy figures—a man and a woman—traipsing into the park forest up ahead.

“What's the matter, Madison?” Ozzie called over to her. “It's just a couple of zombies. . . .”

“Nuh-uh!” Zoe shook her head, standing next to her BFF.

The shadowy undead figures were not alone. Zack squinted through the darkness. Two wild swarms of zombified animals swirled about the rezombified man and woman. A flock of squawking zombie pigeons flapped around the ferocious flesh-guzzling man, while a pack of rabid squirrels spiraled up the legs and torso of the rezombified woman. There were dozens if not hundreds of the wretched little creatures roiling all around the rancorous animal hoarders.

Zoe let out a loud involuntary shriek cut short by Rice's hand clamping around her mouth.

“Shhhh!” Rice shushed her.

Zoe spit Rice's unrezombified hand out of her mouth and gagged. “Eww!” she whispered. “You taste like rotten pepperoni!”

The squirrel lady's fluffy-tailed zombie critters zeroed in on them with their bug-eyed gazes, their all-sensing noses sniffing out human brains like trained bloodhounds tracking a wounded animal through the forest.

This is not good
, Zack thought.
If any one of those things catches a nibble of Madison or Ozzie, they'll turn into zombies like that!
He turned to Madison and Ozzie. “You two need to get out of here!”

“What?” Madison said.

“Me, Zoe, and Rice will lure those things that way,” he said.

“We will?” Rice asked incredulously.

“Did you lose your mind or something, little bro?” Zoe said.

“We can't risk either of them getting bitten by one of those things,” Zack explained. “But if the three of us get bitten, then it doesn't matter. We'll still stay human.”

“He's right, Madison,” Ozzie said, grabbing her by the arm. “You guys, take those things that way. We'll go around the other way and meet back up with you at the vegan warehouse.”

Rice showed Ozzie the map of the neighborhood on his smartphone.

“Got it!” Ozzie said, giving the thumbs-up, and he and Madison raced off in the opposite direction. Zoe and the boys then started shouting, diverting the squirrel lady's and pigeon man's attentions away from their friends.

“Over here, Squirrel Lady!” Rice shouted as he jumped up and down, waving his hands in the air. The hoard of undead squirrels skittered around the zombie man's ankles. Pigeon Man snarled, leading his pack like some psychotic pied piper of Brooklyn.

“Hey!” Zoe shouted. “Squirrel Lady! This way!”

Squirrel Lady's head whipped around at the sound of Zoe's voice. “Raaaargh!” The undead animal hoarder lifted her mangled arms and moaned, walking straight for them. The man's flock of zombie pigeons launched off the ground, flapping their undead wings laboriously, flying slowly, as if they were carrying invisible bricks with their talons.

“Run!” Zack shouted, and bolted into a sprint as the birds flew at them.

Rice and Zoe took off, the herd of zombie squirrels chasing them through the trees.

“Zack,” yelled Zoe to her brother. “This was your worst idea ever!”

As they raced through the park, the twin swarms of undead animals were gaining ground. The squirrels were right on their heels, and the pigeons lumbered through the night air, catching up fast.

All of a sudden, Zoe tripped in a ditch and fell in the dirt. “Ahhhh!” she cried as a trio of zombie pigeons descended on her head.