Zombies of the Caribbean

by John Kloepfer

  “Not so fast,” Zoe said. “First we have to make sure these super freaks can’t catch up to us again.” She pulled a flare gun out of her back pocket and aimed it at the pirate ship.

  “Zoe, where’d you get that?” Zack said to his sister.

  “Shhh,” she said. “I found it.” Zoe shot the flare directly at the top sail. The sail burst into flames and the kids all watched as the skull and crossbones disappeared in a fiery blaze. Down in the water, Cousin Ben’s face twisted into a hideous grimace.

  “Nice shot, Zo!” Madison high-fived her BFF while Olivia wandered back to the group studying a piece of paper in her hand.

  “Hey, guys,” Olivia said. Her voice sounded worried. “Take a look at this. I snagged it from Ben’s pocket.”

  “What is it?” Zack asked.

  “Let me see that.” Rice swiped the paper from Olivia. “I think it’s their game plan,” he said. “I think I know why they want to capture her.”

  There was a crude drawing of a girl with the letter O next to her. The drawing showed the super zombies feeding parts of Olivia to regular zombies. The final part of the plan showed the super zombies eating the brains of the unzombified masses.

  “I don’t get it,” Olivia said.

  “They’re running out of brains,” Rice explained. “They need to turn regular zombies back into humans so they can feed on them. And the only way they can do that is you.”

  Olivia gasped in terror.

  “That’s disgusting!” Madison said.

  “There’s no way that’s going to happen,” Zack said. “Not on our watch. Are we ready to go, Ozzie?”

  “Yep,” he said. “We should be there by morning. Then hopefully we can get some answers on how to stop these super zombies before they turn everybody into brain feed.”

  The megacruiser roared its engines and left the super zombie pirates in its wake, stranded in the middle of the ocean. Next stop: Nigel’s private fortress.

  A bright ray of sunlight cut through the porthole and woke Zack. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, but he felt refreshed. Sitting up in bed, he heard the engines slow down and felt the ship begin to idle in the water.

  “Rise and shine, Zacky-poo,” Madison called into the cabin. “We’re almost there!”

  Ozzie’s voice came over the intercom as Zack ambled groggily on deck. “Everybody get ready to deboard. We’re about to hit land.” He docked the cruise ship at the small private island where they hoped to find Nigel Black.

  In the blaring Caribbean sun, the six of them plus Twinkles hopped into a lifeboat one after the other. Ozzie hit the lever and lowered the boat down into the water.

  As they paddled to shore, Zack could see a heavy-duty fence with barbed wire running around what looked to be the entire island. A steep, rocky slope walled off the beach, and jungle terrain grew above it.

  Once on land, they climbed along the sand dune until they came to a small narrow, wooden drawbridge that crossed a moat to the electrified fence. They crossed over and stood in front of an intercom fashioned to the middle of the main gate.

  Rice reached out and hit the buzzer. A few seconds later a security camera positioned just inside the fence turned and aimed its robotic gaze at the kids.

  “Look!” Olivia pointed. “The camera.”

  “That doesn’t mean anyone is here,” Ozzie said. “It could be automated.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Zack said, and began addressing the security camera as if it were an actual person. “Mr. Black, sir. My name is Zack Clarke. I’m here with some of my friends.”

  “We’re the Zombie Chasers, dude!” Rice butted in.

  “Shhhhh!” Zack made an annoyed face at Rice and raised his index finger to his pursed lips. “We came a really long way to find you. We don’t know if you’re in there. But if you are, please let us in. We need to speak with you. We have some new information about the zombie outbreak going on right now. . . .”

  Before he could finish, the electrified fence deactivated and the main gate parted. As they entered the private island fortress, the gates closed automatically behind them. Two rows of palm trees lined the walkway that led inland. The pathway they followed ran uphill toward a concrete facade built into the side of a hill. As they strolled through the grounds, security cameras fashioned to the treetops watched their every move.

  “This is totally weird,” Olivia said.

  “Yeah, didn’t you say he went crazy?” Madison said. “Are you sure we can trust him?”

  “Yes,” Rice said. “Duplessis vouched for him.”

  “Oh, you mean the guy who invented BurgerDog and turned everyone into zombies?” Zoe said. “That’s who we’re trusting these days?”

  “Come on, Zoe.” Rice raised an eyebrow. “He’s a good guy. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Shh!” Zack said. “He might still be able to hear us.”

  “Hello?” Ozzie called out. “Mr. Black?”

  When they stopped before the entrance to the bunker, a man’s voice sounded from a speaker overhead. “Who are you? Have any of you been bitten by the zombies?”

  The kids looked around at one another. “Not recently,” Rice said.

  “Did any zombies follow you here?” the voice asked.

  “Which ones?” Rice asked. “Regular or super?”

  “What do you mean?” The voice said with a hint of nervousness in his tone. “Since when is there more than one kind of zombie?”

  “Well, there’s the kind of zombie that walks around and tries to eat your brains,” Zoe told him. “But now there’s the kind that chases you down and tries to kidnap antidote people.”

  “We’re calling them super zombies,” Ozzie said.

  “Sir, if you just let us in, we’ll explain everything,” Zack pleaded. “The super zombies didn’t follow us here. And none of us can get zombified anymore.”

  “Unless Olivia eats a steak or something and then gets bitten by a zombie,” Madison whispered.

  “Could you not bring that up right now?” Olivia said. “Not really something I want to think about, cuz.”

  The door opened on its own, and the kids walked in cautiously. The floors, walls, and ceiling of Nigel’s bunker were made of solid concrete. Rows of potted plants lined the twin hallways that split off on either side of the foyer and seemed to go on forever.

  Standing across from them on the far side of the entrance hall, a figure was waiting, still as a statue. The man was well over six feet tall and wearing a protective suit made of high-grade plastic that covered his entire body. It looked like a space suit or the kind of gear government agents wear when dealing with biohazardous materials.

  The man in the biohazard gear lifted the helmet off the suit. Nigel Black looked exactly as he had in his videos, except a little older. He had a shaved, bald head and a bushy beard. His skin was tan and leathery, and his lips were severely chapped and cracked when he spoke. “It seems like we have a lot to talk about,” he said. “Follow me. I’ll show you around while you give me some more details.”

  “What the heck is this place?” Zack asked as they trailed behind him down the concrete corridor.

  “This bunker we’re in right now is the safest place in the world,” Nigel said. “Completely zombie-proof. I bought this island and began construction after Duplessis finished his BurgerDog recipe. I warned him of the dangers in using the immortal jellyfish, but he wouldn’t listen. I was convinced that a zombie epidemic was only a matter of time. And I was right.”

  “You must know a lot about zombies,” Rice piped up. “From your encounters with the undead during your expeditions. . . .”

  “Ah, so you’ve seen my show.” Nigel’s brow furrowed as he blinked involuntarily and looked away. “But if you don’t mind, I don’t like to talk about the past. Tell me what’s going on out there. Start from the beginning.”

  “Okay,” Zack began. “So you know that almost everyone who got unzombified six months ago all mysteriously rezom
bified like four or five days ago. We were trapped in New York City and just barely escaped.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Nigel said. “That’s awful. I actually had a feeling something like this would happen.”

  “Yeah,” Rice added. “I was a zombie for a while, too, because Madison mistakenly lost her vegan antidote powers to a piece of pepperoni pizza. But then I ate the Band-Aid in Central Park and unzombified. Man, being a zombie was cool.”

  Nigel gave Rice a sidelong glance then looked at Madison. “But you were the antidote. . . .”

  “Not anymore, mister,” she said.

  “That’s when we tracked down Olivia, Madison’s cousin,” Zack said.

  “That’s me.” Olivia raised her hand and gave an awkward smile. “Now I’m the antidote. Whoopee!” She cheered without enthusiasm.

  “So we have an alternate antidote,” Nigel said. “That’s great!”

  “Yeah, it was great.” Olivia looked pointedly at Rice. “Until someone turned my brother, Ben, and my mom and dad into super zombies.”

  “How did that happen?” Nigel asked.

  “I was only trying to make the new antidote even stronger,” Rice jumped in, defending himself. “So I infused it with some of Bunco’s Spazola Energy Cola. But it turns out that stuff has Caribbean sea plankton in the ingredients, so instead of making the antidote stronger, it actually made the zombie virus stronger, because of the—”

  “Because of the jellyfish.” Nigel finished Rice’s sentence. “This is bad. The virus has mutated.”

  “You have no clue, mister,” said Zoe. “Super zombies ain’t no joke.”

  “Yeah, Nigel,” Madison said. “They’re way smarter and more organized.”

  “And your family members were the only ones?” Nigel asked.

  “Well,” Zack stammered, “they were . . .”

  “But then when we were at the bubble gum factory something kind of not that cool happened,” Rice continued.

  “Okay,” said Nigel as a befuddled scowl crossed his face. “Now I’m confused.”

  “Long story short,” Ozzie said. “More zombies got exposed to the Spazola, and now the whole state of Florida is filling up with a super zombie army.”

  Nigel took a deep breath and sighed with a long, low grumble. “I see. Then we must act quickly. Time is of the essence.”

  There followed a long pause before Rice broke the silence.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is, you guys,” he said. “All we have to do is find the jellyfish and boom: super zombie antidote.”

  Nigel nodded, scratching his bearded chin. “The Turritopsis nutricula would be valuable samples to have, but I don’t think it will be enough to counteract the super zombie virus. We need something that will break down the jellyfish DNA already present in the viral strain.”

  “See?” Zoe said. “I told you we needed a real zombie expert.”

  Rice glared angrily in her direction. “All right, then,” he said, turning back to Nigel. “What do you propose, Mr. Zombie Expert?”

  “I’m quite familiar with the jellyfish breed in question,” Nigel said. “And there’s only one species of deep-sea dweller known to feed on them exclusively: a rare breed of giant frilled tiger shark. Its digestive system has a particular acid composition that dissolves the jellyfish’s DNA. If we can get a giant frilled tiger shark, it’ll be our best bet to make an antidote for these so-called super zombies.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Zack said. “Let’s find this sucker!”

  “How do you know all this, sir?” Ozzie asked.

  “Come, I’ll show you,” Nigel said, ushering them into a spacious den with a home theater. They sat down on the couches while the aging explorer rustled through his collection of VHS tapes. “Aha!” he said finally, pulling out an unmarked cassette and popping it in the VCR.

  A deleted scene from Unnatural Wonders came on the screen. “I had been watching the jellyfish for some time when I first saw the beast,” he said as he fast-forwarded the video and pressed Play. “Here.”

  A shadowy form hovered below the water’s surface and then zipped underneath Nigel’s boat. A moment later the sea monster emerged fully out of the water on the other side. Its eel-like body looked more like a sea serpent than a shark, but it was huge, maybe twenty feet long. Its face was dead-eyed and its wide jaw was lined with many rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  That thing looks . . . terrifying, Zack thought.

  “Yo,” cried Rice. “That thing’s bigger than the Loch Ness monster!”

  “Yeah,” Nigel said. “Except this thing is real.”

  “What are you saying?” Rice scoffed. “That the Loch Ness monster isn’t real?”

  “Is he kidding?” Nigel said, looking to Zack.

  “No,” Zack said. “Unfortunately not.”

  “Nigel,” Olivia butted in. “You have to help us find this frilled sea monster.”

  “I can tell you where a couple of the hot spots for the jellyfish population are located. There’s one just off the eastern coast of the Bahamas. And there’s a colony that thrives off the southern coast of Jamaica. The giant frilled tiger shark was reported to have been spotted there recently.”

  “So wait. You’re not coming with us?” Madison asked.

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much good to you.” Nigel lifted his pant cuff to reveal a wooden leg. “My adventure days are far behind me.”

  “Whoa,” Rice said. “How’d you lose your leg?”

  “Rice, that’s not polite to ask,” Olivia said.

  “No, it’s okay,” Nigel said. “It was the first time I ever encountered a zombie virus. I was excavating an Egyptian tomb. We found an old coffin in some underground catacombs. When I opened it up, the mummy popped out. I jumped back, but it grabbed me by the leg and bit me right here.” He pointed to his shin bone.

  “It bit your whole leg off?”

  “No,” said Nigel. “It just nipped me, but I knew I was infected. So I had to amputate my own leg.”

  “Cool!” Rice said. “I mean, that’s messed up!”

  “So you see, I wouldn’t be much use out there,” he said. “I’d only slow you down. But I’ll be here when you get back. That I can assure you.

  “I can also lend you my boat. I designed it myself. Now follow me. You’ll need a few other things to help you on your mission. . . .” He led them down to the doomsday bunker beneath the main estate and into a room filled with nautical equipment. He grabbed a pair of optical goggles off one of the storage shelves and handed them to Zoe. “Here. These will help you spot the jellyfish. The Turritopsis species is very small and can be hard to locate, but their chemical makeup is quite unique. Through these lenses, the jellyfish will appear bioluminescent and much easier to find.”

  “What’s bioluminescent?” Zoe asked.

  “In other words,” Nigel explained, “when you view them through these goggles, they’ll start to glow.

  “And take these.” Nigel pulled two large harpoon guns off the wall and a leather case full of tranquilizer darts. “When you’re ready to capture the frilled shark, hit him with these tranquilizers. Then you can easily reel him in. This way.”

  They trailed Nigel down a dark, dank hallway and through a doorway that led to an underground cavern that smelled like the sea. As they walked through the island cavern, the cement floor turned to sand, and there was a faint hint of daylight. At the mouth of the cave the Caribbean water shimmered. A wooden dock creaked and swayed on the water’s surface.

  “There she is,” Nigel said. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  Nigel’s shark-hunting boat rocked back and forth, tethered to the dock. At the stern of the ship, a large fishing crane with a huge reel of steel cable was fashioned to the deck. The pilothouse featured what seemed to be top-of-the-line radar and GPS equipment. A bright fluorescent green pod hung from the starboard side. It had a mechanical crank that raised and lowered it into the water.

  “That’s a submersible pod, also
my own design. It’s a state-of-the-art observation center with turbo thrusters, LED lights, and a video display that records underwater expeditions. The lights could come in handy—the giant frilled tiger shark is attracted to bright flashing light. There’s also a cabin down below,” Nigel added as he led them on board. “You should all be able to fit. It’s pretty spacious.”

  Ozzie fiddled with the controls at the steering column. The boat’s motor chugged and sputtered, then started to hum. “I think we can take it from here,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Olivia chimed in. “Find the thing. Tranquilize the thing. Reel the thing in. And then bring it back to you, right?”

  “Yes,” Nigel said. “Are you sure you’re up to the task?”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Rice said. “We’ve got this under control.”

  We do? Zack thought, unconvinced.

  “Very good,” Nigel said. “If and when you recover the beast, return here and I’ll have everything set up for test trials.” He stepped back to shore.

  “Nigel,” said Zack. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” Nigel asked.

  “We ran into some super zombies out there. I don’t think they could have tracked us here, but we can’t know for sure. So just be on the lookout. They’re not your average zombies, okay?”

  “Thank you, Zack. I’ll keep an eye out,” Nigel said. “Now go on. You have everything you need to complete this mission. There isn’t much time to waste.”

  “All aboard!” Zoe yelled.

  They all waved good-bye to Nigel and hit the high seas in search of the elusive giant frilled tiger shark.

  The sea stretched endlessly in every direction as Zack and Ozzie sailed Nigel’s explorer boat toward the Bahamian coast of Exumas. Zack peered out the window, searching the ocean for signs of jellyfish.

  Ozzie double-checked the coordinates against Nigel’s directions. “This is the place.”

  “Awesome. I’ll go get the others,” Zack said, and went to the cabin below.