“Seriously, man, I have no idea what you’re ranting about.” I eyed his gun, which seemed poised to take my life. “But why don’t you calm down and tell us what’s going on? You might not have noticed, but we’re actually pretty reasonable people. Just a little preoccupied with our own problems.”
He straightened his posture and took a deep, steadying breath, but his hand remained on the butt of his Glock.
“We have several troops of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts at one of the group campsites,” he explained. “They’re here for the annual fall campout. Set to head home tomorrow morning.” He grimaced. “I can’t believe I forgot about them.” His expression turned apoplectic again. “Tell me you didn’t hurt them!”
“Are you completely batshit-crazy?” I straightened my back as much as my binds would allow, the awkward position putting a strain on my sore muscles. “Come on, Ranger! Do we really look like we’re here to hurt a bunch of kids?”
My own reddened face and outraged expression caused his to falter a little. Turning toward the others, he must’ve noted the troubled glaze in their eyes because, when he faced me again, all anger had drained away, leaving renewed confusion and concern in its wake. Maybe he’d finally started to believe our story.
“But why else would you need all those guns?” he muttered, as if pondering a rhetorical question.
I slumped against the backrest. “I’ve already told you why. You didn’t buy our story.” I leveled a determined gaze at the foolish man. “But, at some point, Ranger—and hopefully not too late—you will believe us.”
“We’ll see.” Squinting at me with suspicion, he headed for the doorway. “We’ll see.”
“Ranger,” George asked before he’d gone too far, “how many kids are there?”
“About a hundred and fifty boys, another hundred and fifty girls… plus at least thirty adults.” His suspicious glare amplified. “Why?”
George and I looked at each other, a silent understanding passing between us.
The thought of more than three hundred people—most of them children—camping somewhere in the zombie-infested woods of a 192,000-acre forest concerned the shit out of me. Presumably, she shared my distress. A quick glance at Clare’s ashen face, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.
The kids were sitting ducks for the zombies—or worse, they’d already joined the ranks of the undead. Either way, it was bad news. For all of us.
I glanced at Ranger Bob, who still lingered in the doorway. “Where are they?”
Please, please be far away. Preferably on the other side of the forest.
He hesitated, as if not wanting to give away their location to a bunch of potential terrorists. “’Bout a half-mile from here… just down the road from where you parked your rig.”
“Oh, my god!” George shrieked, beating the rest of us to the punch.
Somewhere nearby, hundreds of people could be utterly unaware that a world-ending crisis had occurred—especially if they had no cell service and didn’t think their families expected them home yet. All of us—George, Clare, me, even Jill—understood the danger they were in.
Unless they’re already zombies… in which case, we’re all fucked.
From the anguished look on George’s face, I figured she was thinking about her son, who was presently on his own in an enormous, zombie-infested forest. Even though I’d initially hoped that he would climb down the tree and head out to rescue us, I now found myself wishing he’d stayed high above the campsite and out of harm’s way. As skilled as he was, I doubted he would survive a battle with three hundred zombified kids.
“You have to warn them,” Clare demanded. “They’re in serious trouble.”
“We all are,” Jill grumbled, expressing aloud what the rest of us were thinking.
He scoffed. “Warn them about what? Your mythical zombies?”
“Ranger, please be reasonable,” I implored. “I know it all sounds too crazy to be true, but just remember… you’ve been out of touch for several days. Anything could’ve happened. Even a zombie invasion.”
“You might not have gotten a good look at our van,” Clare added, “but if you had, you’d know that’s not human blood on there.”
Jill huffed, glaring pointedly at the ranger. “Yeah, it looks a lot more like the crap I left next to your car.”
Clare winced.
“Fine, whatever,” the ranger said, obviously sick of the conversation. Or just sick of us. “I’ll stop by the group campsite on my way up the road.”
I opened my mouth to retort—if Casey couldn’t handle three hundred undead kids, this dimwit sure as shit couldn’t—but he’d already slammed and locked the office door.
“What an imbecile,” I spat. “He’s gonna get himself killed… and we’re gonna lose most of our guns in the process.”
Since three portable lanterns illumined the front area of the unfinished ranger station, I could observe Ranger Ramjet as he yanked open the front door and stepped outside. But instead of shutting the door and marching toward his SUV, he halted on the stoop.
“Hey,” he yelled, half-turning toward us, “there’s one of them now! I’ll just ask her if there’s been any trouble.”
“Ranger, wait!”
But he either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. Instead, he scurried down the steps and into the moonlit clearing.
Even from my awkward position in the rear office, I could see an adolescent girl approaching the building. Dressed in her scout uniform, she shuffled deliberately toward the steps. Or, rather, toward the juicy-looking ranger unknowingly awaiting his death.
“What the hell would a little girl be doing out at this hour?” George exclaimed, projecting her voice toward our foolhardy captor. “And all by herself!”
As the girl in question stumbled toward Ranger Bob, I noticed holes in her vest and shorts. And blood streaked across her limbs.
“Oh, no,” I muttered.
“What?” Clare asked breathlessly. “What do you see?”
Sitting behind the desk with her mother, she had an unobstructed view of the front door, but without her glasses, she couldn’t make out the horrifying details—even on a moonlit night.
“Ranger, get back,” I hollered. “Don’t go near her! She’s probably infected!”
Having remained at the foot of the steps, he could apparently still hear me, as he pivoted toward the office, flashing me a disdainful glare.
“For Christ’s sake,” George shouted, “we’re not lying to you!”
“Listen to us,” I pleaded. “Or hell, just look at her if you won’t take our word for it!”
To be clear, I didn’t much mind if the undead Girl Scout decided to take a chomp out of Ranger Dumbass. Someone that dense was bound to become zombie fodder at some point.
But I did indeed mind if his dumbassery allowed the zombified brat to traipse into the ranger station while we were all still restrained.
As he turned back toward the girl, edging away from the building and leaving the front door wide open, I figured he was a goner. But all I cared about was that he’d left the rest of us dangerously exposed—especially if the girl wasn’t alone. She did, after all, have nearly three hundred buddies and thirty chaperones who were likely as deadish as she was.
I stretched my back and tugged at my wrists, futilely attempting to break the zip tie—but, damn, that sucker was strong. No wonder cops often used them in lieu of handcuffs.
Meanwhile, Ranger Bob strolled unconcerned toward the young girl, clearly unalarmed by the torn, bloody green-and-white uniform she wore. As she continued walking—or, rather, stumbling—toward the ranger, I tried to guess her age. Maybe twelve, or a little older.
“OK, that’s it,” I shouted, bolting to my feet.
With my wrists still attached to the backrest, I wasn’t the only thing that rose from the hardwood floor. The chair had come with me, banging painfully into my upper back and the underside of my thighs.
“Oomph!”
> Then, without thinking my plan through, I squatted and tried to slam the chair against the floor. I hoped the impact would break the flimsy wooden chair legs, but in my desperation, I hadn’t factored in an inability to maintain my balance. So, when the chair hit the ground, the only thing that buckled under the pressure was you-know-who. I tipped over and tumbled face-first toward the unyielding floorboards, smacking my knees and my left temple so hard that my vision momentarily blurred.
“Ooh, that looks like it hurt,” Jill said, a hint of pleasure in her voice.
A chair scraped on the other side of the desk, as if someone had edged closer.
“Oh, baby,” Clare soothed. “Are you OK?”
I groaned in response.
“Uh, Joe,” George said, “I appreciate your determination, but there might be a safer way to break our bonds.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumbled.
“Why don’t we—”
But before George could finish making her suggestion, I heard Ranger Bob ask the Girl Scout a question—which was cut short by a yelp and a thud. From my crumpled position on the floor, I no longer had a view of the front doorway, but apparently, the juvenile zombie had made her move.
Chapter
12
“You know, somehow, ‘I told you so’ just doesn’t quite say it.” – Detective Del Spooner, I, Robot (2004)
With my hands still secured behind me and the stupid chair still attached to my wrists, it would’ve required more strength and coordination than I presently had to stand on my own two feet again. But with sheer grit and determination, I managed to rock onto my knees and straighten my back enough to peer through the windowed door.
Even from my compromised vantage point, I could see that Ranger Bob had stumbled backward and landed hard on his ass—hence, the yelp and the thud. I also observed the zombified girl hastening toward her fallen quarry. Worse, I could now detect that someone—likely a former fellow scout—had ripped out half the kid’s stomach before she became one of the undead.
How Ranger Bob had missed that little detail, I’d never know.
But he’d certainly noticed the scout’s unsightly condition now. As the ranger scrambled to his feet, the skinny, five-foot-nothing adolescent propelled herself toward him, whereupon he unleashed a shriek more befitting of a young girl than a pudgy, fortysomething forest ranger.
“Shoot her,” George screamed from behind me.
“She’s a fucking zombie,” I added. “Shoot her in the head!”
Bob fumbled with his belt, but not in time to do much good. All the guns, knives, batons, and pepper spray in the world couldn’t save him as the undead girl pushed him to the ground and settled on top of his chest.
Though undoubtedly scared, the ranger had enough presence of mind to grip the zombie’s biceps and push upward before her nasty maw had a chance to reach him.
Hovering above him like that, with her arms effectively pinned to her sides, the zombie could neither bite nor scratch her prey, but she certainly hadn’t given up yet. She just kept jutting her head forward, snapping at the ranger with her teeth.
The awkward standoff might’ve lasted for quite some time—if Bob hadn’t jerked his head to the side and spotted something that must’ve terrified him even more. Summoning all his strength, he abruptly shifted from holding the zombified girl aloft to hurling her off his torso.
She crashed against a solid object beyond my line of sight—perhaps a tree or the golf cart—as Bob once again scrambled to his feet and darted toward the station.
Suddenly, I glimpsed what had frightened Ranger Dumbass: a steady stream of girls and boys, all dressed in their official-yet-tattered uniforms, rushing toward him—and, yes, toward the open door of the building. In a flash, our stubby, over-the-hill adversary had become an Olympic sprinter.
He scurried up the steps, launched himself across the threshold, and slammed the door shut. I opened my mouth to remind him about securing the lock when I felt a cold piece of metal slip between my wrists. I turned and caught sight of Jill standing behind me, sawing at my restraints with a small, rusted pocketknife.
Noting the open desk drawer beyond her—the one that Ol’ Bob had unwisely secured her to—I realized she must’ve slid it open during the ruckus and spotted a multitool that our captor had forgotten to confiscate. Not the sharpest implement for the job, but with a little elbow grease, it did the trick.
A few seconds later, I was free and able to stand. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing,” she replied, a wan smile on her gaunt face.
She liberated Clare and George as I tried to rub some circulation back into my hands.
A couple minutes more, and the four of us were standing in a line against the inner windowed wall, watching Bob struggle to drag one of the wrapped-up desks toward the door. We might’ve offered to help him if he hadn’t decided to tie us up like a bunch of fucking criminals.
By the time he’d finished positioning his makeshift barricade against the building’s solitary entrance, many of the zombified children had climbed the gentle, three-foot slope that encircled the station. We could see their rotting faces through the curtainless windows and hear their juvenile fists banging against the glass.
“Holy shit,” Ranger Bob sputtered, bending over and propping his palms on his thighs. He panted for a few seconds, no doubt reeling from the longest sustained exercise he’d had in decades. “What the fuck was that?”
“Watch the language, Bob,” I quipped, noting the wide-eyed undead scouts bumping against the outer walls and moaning for the tasty meals that awaited them inside. “There are children present.”
Startled, he straightened his back and whirled around to face us.
Without ceremony, Clare banged on the glass. “Open this door,” she demanded.
His eyes widened, as if suddenly realizing his captives were no longer zip-tied to the flimsy chairs in his office. Nervously, he fumbled with his holster and yanked out his Glock, but instead of targeting any of the formerly cute faces now smearing zombie goo on his brand-new windows, he aimed his weapon at me.
Jill sighed. “You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me.” Then, wincing in pain, she grabbed my discarded chair, gently pushed her daughter aside, and, with an anger-fueled burst of energy, swung the chair at the upper half of the door.
Her impulsive stunt could’ve compelled the imbecile to shoot us, but luckily, much of the window blew apart in a hail of glass shards, forcing him to duck his head and lower his weapon.
“Vandals!” he cried, his voice muffled by his forearm.
Quickly, Jill reached through the opening, unlocked the doorknob, and stepped into the front room. The rest of us naturally followed suit.
The shattering glass must’ve incited the zombified scouts outside, as the thuds and moans noticeably loudened. More troubling, however, were the creaking sounds coming from the front door, as more and more kids pushed against it.
“That desk is not gonna hold long,” I observed.
Bob, meanwhile, hastily recovered from my mother-in-law’s so-called vandalism. Uncovering his face, he lifted his gun and pointed the muzzle at me—again.
Seemed quite sexist of him, given that my three female companions weren’t exactly weaklings.
“Hey, asshole,” George shouted.
As Bob pivoted his head toward her, his gun still trained on me, she tightened her fist and punched him as hard as she could. Her initiative would’ve delighted me, if not for the fact that, as the ranger fell to the floor, he squeezed the trigger of his Glock. A bullet whizzed past my left ear, shattering one of the inner windows behind me.
Instinctively, I jumped to the side. “Holy shit!”
Standing over the supine ranger and cradling her knuckles, George flinched. “Sorry, Joe.”
My heart raced from the close call, but I was still intact. “No harm done.”
Clare, meanwhile, plucked the gun from the surprised ranger’s hand and placed it gingerly in min
e. Unlike Ranger Ramjet, however, I didn’t point the pistol at him. Instead, I aimed the muzzle at the door, which strained from the pressure of a frenzied undead pileup on the other side.
But the door, still blocked by the unused desk, served as the least of our worries. Despite the din of groans and thunks surrounding us, I discerned the unmistakable sound of cracking glass. Tracing the disconcerting noise, I noticed the face of an obese, ten-year-old boy pressed against one of the front windows, where a faint “spiderweb” had appeared. Likely not because of the overweight kid, but thanks to all the voracious undead souls shoving against his back.
Clearly, the glass couldn’t withstand the pressure for much longer. The other windows seemed equally overburdened, and based on the heavier thuds higher up on the door, it seemed the zombified scout leaders had arrived.
Not for the first time since waking up in my courtyard with a throbbing headache that had yet to abate, I silently wished that someone had had the wherewithal to nuke India when they’d had the chance—before Earth was overrun by zombies and forever torn asunder.
True, I hated the thought of Samir, Dibya, and a billion other innocent people perishing in a nuclear strike, but since they were surely all dead anyway, heading the undead problem off at the pass might’ve at least spared the rest of the world.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Again.
Chapter
13
“Well, hello, Mr. Fancy Pants. Well, I’ve got news for you, pal, you ain’t leadin’ but two things right now: Jack and shit… and Jack left town.” – Ash, Army of Darkness (1992)
The thuds and creaks amplified all around us. No time for wishful thinking. Or napping. Or eating. Or any of the other countless activities I would’ve preferred.
Protecting our little group and surviving the night… that was all that presently mattered.
Zombie Chaos Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 56
