“What are we going to do?” Zoe said.
“Listen up, you guys,” Zack said, cupping his hand around his ear.
Over the groans of the undead, Zack heard an animal—it sounded like something between a cow’s moo and a horse’s whinny, and it was coming from near one of the smaller pyramids.
“Did you guys hear that?” Zack asked, walking toward the sound. “Over here.”
The kids raced to the side of the pyramid, where they saw three healthy-looking camels. They were tied to a wooden post, their owners nowhere in sight.
“Wow, I can’t believe they’re not zombies!” Rice said. “I guess we found our ride.”
“Anyone ever ridden a camel?” Ozzie asked.
“I’ve ridden horses before,” Madison said.
“Me, too,” said Olivia.
“Good, it’s basically the same thing,” Ozzie told them. “Except camels are a little lazier. And like to bite and spit.”
“It’s better than walking,” Zoe said. “Let’s roll. . . .”
Olivia and Madison mounted one of the camels, siting on either side of its hump. Madison took the reins, holding Twinkles in her other hand. Ozzie and Rice hopped up on the second camel, with Ozzie in front. Zack and Zoe took the last one. Zack had to lift his foot up to chest level just to get it in the stirrup. He had no idea camels were so tall. The camel snorted, obviously grumpy.
“Come on, little bro,” Zoe said. “You can do it!”
“Could you gimme a hand at least?” Zack asked.
“What do you say?”
“Please?” Zack grunted.
“Please what?”
“Pretty please with sugar on top?” Zack was about to fall.
“And what else?”
“Pretty please with sugar on top and sprinkles and chocolate sauce and gummy bears . . .”
Zoe considered this for a moment. “Yeah, I guess that sounds pretty good.” She reached down and helped her brother onto the camel’s back.
“Giddyup, camel!” Madison ordered, and slapped the reins. Ozzie and Zoe copied her, and all three camels started to trot.
Zack and the gang rode straight into the crowd of mutants. The camels began to pick up speed as they moved through the zombie mob. Zack raised his leg to kick one of the zombies. “I don’t think these camels know what giddyup means!” Zoe jabbed the camel with her heel. “Come on, slowpoke, run!”
The camels sped up, and they were halfway through the swarm.
Ozzie swung his nunchaku like a knight crusading into battle, knocking out anything in their path. Zoe blasted a zombie in the face with the sole of her sneaker and popped a swollen blister on its face with a splat. Madison and Olivia’s camel was keeping up, but Ozzie and Rice were trapped by a horde of zombies. Sand whipped into Zack’s face as he squinted at something behind them. A dark brown camel raced at their rear.
Someone else was riding a camel.
A zombie can ride a camel? Zack thought.
The rider had on a dark gray robe.
It looked pale.
Wrinkly.
That ain’t no zombie, Zack thought, that’s a super zombie!
He called out to his friends. “Guys! Super zombie! Five o’clock!”
Rice couldn’t hear Zack over the crowd. “What?” he asked.
“Super zombie!”
Zoe nudged Zack with her elbow. “Quit yelling in my ear, I’m trying to concentrate.”
Zack growled in frustration. The super zombie was gaining on them. “Super zombie!” Zack yelled at the top of his lungs.
But it was too late.
“Olivia!” Zoe yelled. “Look out!”
“Growlghk!” The super zombie lunged for Olivia. It grabbed her by the arms and dragged her backward onto his camel.
“Ahhhhh!” Olivia shrieked, surprised by the sneak attack.
Zoe, Rice, and Madison all sprang into action and raced their camels toward Olivia.
“It must know she’s the cure!” Zack yelled. “These super zombies just don’t give up, do they?”
“Help me!” Olivia cried.
“We’re coming for you, Olivia. Don’t let go!” Madison called, and Twinkles barked.
But the super zombie was already getting away, heading into the city. The Zombie Chasers tried to make their camels go faster, but soon their friend had disappeared from sight on the back of the camel.
“If we lose her, this is all over,” said Zack. “Let’s go, team!”
The zombie swarm thinned out as they neared Cairo. But their camels slowed down to a walk and then stopped completely. One of the camels sat down and slumped over.
“Ummm . . . ,” Zoe said. “Our camel just, like, quit on us.”
“Uh-oh.” Rice pointed to the camel’s leg. “That’s no good.”
Zack saw that the camel’s foot was bleeding.
“Your camel’s hurt, too!” Zoe said, pointing to Rice and Ozzie’s.
The camel had a deep gash in its flank and a moment later dropped to a heap in the sand. Madison’s camel fell over, too, suffering from a bite wound in the right shoulder.
All the camels had been bitten by zombies.
The kids jumped off and ditched the zombifying camels.
“Come on! If we don’t hurry, we’re never going to find Olivia.” Madison took off, sprinting down the street where the super zombie disappeared.
They ran through the marketplace, which was teeming with zombies, bowls of rotting fruit, and colorful dresses stained with zombie slime. Buckets of spices were dumped on the ground, and carpets and tapestries had been knocked all over the place.
At the center of the bazaar a white van with tinted windows was parked with its door wide open and its key in the ignition.
“Looks like we’ve got a getaway car,” Rice said.
“There’s not going to be any getaway,” Madison said. “Not until we find Olivia.”
“Hey, check it out,” Zoe said. “Those look like camel tracks. We should probably follow those, right?”
As they all followed the super zombie’s camel tracks, Zack noticed the white van starting to jostle and shake. “Hey, guys, that’s not our getaway van. That’s the super zombie’s escape plan! Get it!”
As Zack sprang into action, the white van reversed toward them, and the super zombie driver looked at them and cracked a smile.
The van vroomed, kicking up a cloud of sand in Zack’s face, but he was running full speed. He caught up to the van as it skidded in the dirt and he leaped onto the back bumper, grabbing hold of the rack on top. He caught his balance as the super zombie getaway van swerved left and right and left again. Holding on tight with his right hand, Zack reached down with his left and tested the door handle. It clicked and popped open, and he ducked inside.
Olivia was tied up in the backseat with a dirty sock stuffed in her mouth. The super zombie kidnapper was up front, both hands clutched on the steering wheel, driving like an absolute psycho.
Zack pulled the sock out of Olivia’s mouth and started to untie her.
Olivia spat. “Putoohey! Thanks, Zack! This dude’s a total sicko. . . .”
Zack was pulling at the knots around Olivia’s wrists when a huge hand snagged him by the shirt collar and pulled him up toward the front of the van.
Zack nailed his funny bone on the radio dials and static blared through the speakers. The super zombie sneered at Zack, who managed to squirm away. Zack brought his elbow back and swung it, nailing the super zombie’s head. But its skull was too hard and the undead freak only grunted louder, angrier. Its arm shot out and it clasped its pale white hand around Zack’s throat.
“I can’t breathe, you freakin’ psychopath,” Zack wheezed. “Let me go!” But the super zombie wasn’t letting go. Its grip was getting tighter.
Zack tried to suck in air but got nothing. He kicked with his feet, and almost drilled the super zombie in the face but missed. The sole of his sneaker caught some traction on the steering wheel and the van je
rked wildly to the right.
“Ahhhhhh!” Zack hollered as they went careening off the side of the road and crashed into a wooden telephone pole.
WHAM-CRACK!
Zack went flying into the dashboard and the super zombie smashed headfirst through the windshield. Zack lifted his head up, gasping for air. Olivia crawled up from the backseat, her hands still tied together as the rest of the gang ran over to the car wreck.
“Whoa! That was crazy,” Ozzie said. “Are you both okay?”
“I will be as soon as someone unties me,” Olivia said.
“I’m good,” Zack said, cracking his neck as he sat in the passenger seat. “Sort of.”
“You guys, we gotta get out of here,” Madison said. “There’s a buttload of regular zombies closing in on us.”
“We have to get rid of that first.” Zack pointed to the super zombie with its head through the windshield.
Ozzie, Zoe, Madison, and Rice all grabbed part of the passed-out super zombie and wriggled its head out of the busted glass, then tossed it out of the van.
They all hopped in and slammed the doors shut. Zoe turned the key in the ignition and the engine sputtered and died. “Come on, don’t do this.”
Zack looked out the windows as a gigantic herd of brain-cravers tottered around the van.
“Let’s go, Zo,” Zack shouted to his sister. “Get us out of here!”
Zoe turned the key again, and the engine sputtered, then rumbled to life. She shifted into reverse and backed up into a dense mob of undead ghouls, who pawed at the back windows, trying to scrape their way inside.
The zombie moans were deafening, coming from every direction.
“Whoa! Watch out!” Rice yelled from the back as a wooden telephone pole toppled and the power lines snapped. The post landed on a pile of undead mutants and the thick black wires danced through the crowd, zapping them all with a huge electric shock.
“Go, go, go!” Ozzie yelled at Zoe and she floored the gas, zooming away from the electroshocked zombie swarm.
Zoe swerved through the undead and then slammed the accelerator again as they shot out of Cairo and sped for the airport.
The sun was setting as they passed abandoned buildings and wove through stray zombies. The twilight cast a weird light on the city and made everything feel like a waking nightmare. Zack was grateful when they finally arrived at the runway and found a working plane. It even had enough gas to get them to China.
“Okay, we’re taking off in T minus ten minutes,” Ozzie said as he warmed up the engine.
Zack let out a sigh of relief.
They were on their way again.
Flying over China, Zack gazed out the window of the airplane. The sky was a crisp blue and the morning sun beat down.
After leaving Egypt, they’d jetted forward for twelve hours, following the coordinates Nigel had given them. They were heading for Hangzhou, where they would find the ancient ginkgo tree at the kung fu temple.
Zack could make out the Great Wall snaking through the mountains. He squinted, and thought that he could make out a mass of zombies crawling all over the gigantic fortress. But the plane was too high up for him to tell for sure, and it was possible that his mind was playing tricks on him. He hadn’t been able to sleep the entire flight, sitting up in the copilot’s seat next to Ozzie. Zack wished he had gotten a little shut-eye.
The rest of his friends reclined in the passengers’ seats, snoring away. Even Ozzie was out like a light. He had put the plane on autopilot and given Zack strict instructions to wake him up in case of any emergency or when they were close to their destination.
So Zack couldn’t fall asleep even if he wanted to. Plus, the last time he dozed off on the way to Egypt, he’d dreamed about super zombies attacking him. If he couldn’t even get away from zombies by falling asleep, then he preferred to stay awake.
But Zack let his friends sleep. Only an hour and a half remained on their flight time, and if they were going to survive in the most zombified country in the world, they were going to need everyone as well rested as possible. And if the super zombie virus had spread to China as well, then getting to the ginkgo root was going to be extra dangerous.
Zack and the gang touched down at the airport in Hangzhou, which was pretty close to the ancient ginkgo tree—the final ingredient they needed for the super zombie antidote.
Ozzie parked the plane on the runway and opened the door. They hurried out of the airport and followed the directions Nigel had given them. Zombies were everywhere.
“Over there!” Olivia shouted, pointing at a couple of golf carts at the outskirts of a massive traffic jam.
They sprinted through the abandoned cars and hopped in the carts. Zack got behind the wheel. He had driven one of these things before when his dad had taken him golfing, plus he was pretty good at the go-kart track.
He shifted the golf cart into gear and hit the gas. Rice and Madison hung on tight as they zipped off toward the city of Hangzhou. Zoe, Ozzie, and Olivia rode in the cart next to them.
As they zoomed through the city streets, Zack looked up and saw a humongous billboard flashing over their heads: Spazola Energy Cola!
“Guys,” Zack said, “be on the lookout for super zombies. They could be anywhere.”
“And they’re probably going to try to kidnap Olivia again,” Rice said.
The city of Hangzhou was long and narrow, running alongside a peaceful river. The two golf carts whizzed down the highway and into the city proper.
The undead masses shuffled across the pavement, dripping slime from every wound and orifice. The entire city was completely zombified. Undead men, women, and children filled every corner.
“We have to get out of here, you guys!” Ozzie called over the zombie grunts.
“Let’s go!” Rice shouted. “The temple should be that way!” He pointed toward a bridge by the river, which led away from the zombie-infested city.
They traveled down a maze of narrow roads, till they reached the temple, where the ancient ginkgo tree was said to grow.
The temple was at the top of a steep cliff, surrounded by a bright-green bamboo forest that swayed slightly in the wind.
Up a very long stone staircase, Zack could see the pagoda, made up of three ornamental towers. In front of the temple was a courtyard planted with smaller trees and bushes.
“That’s gotta be it, guys,” Zack said with a smile. “We made it!”
They approached the step and noticed a man sitting with his legs crossed. Zack did a double take—that dude definitely hadn’t been there a minute ago.
“You must be the Zombie Chasers,” the man said in slightly accented English. “My name is Zhang Wu. I knew you would come.”
“Did Nigel call you or something?” Rice asked.
“I do not know this Nigel you speak of,” Zhang said. “But I knew you would be here. In this moment.”
Zack’s eyes widened as he stared at the man’s face, his long beard and bushy eyebrows. The man wore a long, dark robe that tied at the waist. Zack had seen his face before somewhere, but couldn’t quite place it. And then it dawned on him. He had never met the man in person, but he had seen him in his dream. The kung fu master, Zack thought. He couldn’t believe it, and yet there he was.
How did you know we would come?” Rice asked.
“I dreamed it,” the man said, and then looked at Zack. “You remember, don’t you, Zachary?”
“What’s he talking about, Zack?” Zoe asked her brother.
“I had a dream on the plane when we were flying into Cairo,” Zack explained. “I was training to fight off a bunch of super zombies and I had a kung fu master teaching me. My master was . . . it was . . . him.” Zack nodded to the old Chinese man.
“But how is that possible?” Madison asked. “How can you have a dream about someone you’ve never met before?”
Zack was stumped. He had no idea, but before he even tried to answer the question, the old man spoke.
“There ar
e untold mysteries in this world,” Zhang Wu said. “And some of them have no logical answer. The important thing is that you made it here, and now you must fulfill your destiny.” The old man pointed up the steps to the temple. “In the garden of the temple is the ancient ginkgo tree you seek.”
“Awesome, mister, thanks for the help,” Ozzie said. He then brushed past the kung fu master and headed for the steps leading up to the temple.
“Not so fast, my young pupil,” the kung fu master said. “You are not ready to ascend those steps.”
“But you just said the ginkgo tree is up there, right?” Ozzie asked.
“I did,” said Zhang Wu. “But I did not say you were ready to receive its magic.”
“Whatever, man.” Ozzie brushed off the kung fu master. “Come on, you guys! Let’s go get this ginkgo root and then head back to Nigel.”
In a flash Zhang Wu bent his knees and jumped into the air, executing a perfect backflip. He landed between Ozzie and the first stair. “I don’t think you understand my meaning, young one.”
“Well, then why don’t you stop talking in these backward riddles?” Ozzie said to the master.
“Hey, Ozzie,” said Zack. “Maybe not such a good idea to talk back to this guy, huh? I mean, after all, he was kind of in my dream and stuff.”
“Let me handle this, Zack,” Ozzie said without taking his eyes off Zhang. “This is between me and him.”
“I think you should listen to your friend’s advice,” said Zhang. “It is not wise to defy your master.”
“Please, you’re not my master,” Ozzie said. “I studied with Wong Fei Li when my dad was stationed in Japan. And there’s nothing you can do that’s going to stop us from going up those steps and getting that ginkgo root.”
“And I say there is,” said Zhang very calmly.
“Then you’re about to get a rude awakening, pops.” Ozzie struck a martial arts stance and pulled out his nunchaku, ready to do battle.
World Zombination Page 6
