“Okay, fine,” Zoe said, putting on one of the hooded sweatshirts with the vegan food truck’s logo on it.
“Awesome. Let’s roll, fellas,” Ozzie said, already geared up with his military pack, ready to move out.
“Who you callin’ fellas, fella?” Madison scowled and scooped up Twinkles under one arm.
They quickly gathered up the rest of the supplies worth taking—Rice’s backpack, Ozzie’s nunchacku, a six-pack’s worth of Vital Vegan PowerPunch, a box of ginkgo biloba they had picked up on the road, and a couple extra one-hundred-percent vegan sweatshirts—and then set out on foot.
“OMG,” said Madison as they trekked downhill through the sleeting snow toward the lakeshore. “Why is it so freaking cold?”
“It’s probably because of global warming,” said Rice. “Duh!”
“Well, then why don’t they just call it global freezing?” Madison said. “Duh!”
“Hey,” said Zack from up ahead. “Check it out!”
Not far down the shoreline, a one-story houselike structure came into view. It was situated on the waterfront next to a bunch of empty docks leading out to the frozen lake. A stack of long wooden oars leaned against the outer wall of the marina next to a few rowboats turned upside down. Everything was frosted with a surreal and undisturbed thick layer of snow.
Ozzie sprinted ahead and picked up one of the oars. He shook the snow from it as Zack, Madison, Zoe, and Twinkles caught up to him. “Now we’re talking,” he said, clutching the center and spinning the oar like a giant propeller.
Zack picked one up, too, and held it in the middle with both hands like Ozzie, whapping imaginary zombies with both ends of the oar.
“Okey dokey,” Madison said, her teeth clattering in the frigid wind. “You dudes have fun playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Nerdballs. Me and Zoe are going inside.”
“Hey!” Rice said, racing after the girls. “Wait for me!”
Ozzie flipped his attention back to Zack. “Now, you can do one of two things with this baby,” he said, gripping the oar. “First you can aim high and hit them in the temple or jaw, or you can fake high and sweep the leg out.”
“Like this?” Zack asked, mimicking Ozzie’s movements.
“More like this.” Ozzie charged at Zack with the oar and tripped his legs, making him fall back into a large pile of snow.
“Whoa!” Zack shouted, but as soon as he felt the cold snow on his rear end, Ozzie was pulling him to his feet.
“Sorry, man, it’s too slippery out here,” Ozzie said, shivering in the snowfall. “Let’s go inside.”
Zack shook the cold out of his fingers as they entered the marina. Rice tossed them a couple pairs of gloves and coats and scarves after digging through the lost-and-found bin behind the counter. “Here you go, boys. Put these on. The girls are almost ready,” he said. “They found some ski equipment in the back storage room.”
A few seconds later, Zoe and Madison came out dressed head-to-toe in cross-country ski regalia. Madison checked herself out in a full-length mirror hanging on the wall. Zoe stood behind her BFF, hands on hips, looking quite annoyed. “Tell me again why you get to be pink.” Zoe’s ski suit was white with ugly orange and blue stripes down the sides.
“Lots of reasons.” Madison pouted her lips in the mirror. “But mainly because I’m the awesomest.”
Madison clopped past Zoe in her big cross-country skis and stuck out her tongue.
“OMG.” Zoe scowled. “That was so uncalled for.”
Madison and Zoe led the way outside in their clashing ski suits and scooted down the snow-covered docks of the marina, the boys following close behind. The vast expanse of ice looked to Zack like the surface of what could have been some barren alien moon. Taking a deep breath, he stepped tentatively onto the frozen-over lake, and the sole of his shoe crunched in the stiff packable snow covering the thick layer of ice beneath his feet.
Twinkles frolicked out onto the ice ahead of them. “Arf! Arf!”
“Twinkles, shhhhh!” Rice shushed the pup loudly, and Zoe smacked him on the rump with her ski pole.
“Ouch, what was that for?”
“For shushing too loudly.” She smirked and sped off in a burst of cross-country ski walking.
The storm kicked into high gear as they trekked out across the Great Lake. Thick clouds blotted out the morning sun, and the snowy whiteout made it so Zack could barely see five feet in front of him. He lifted his arm up to shield his face from the blustery snowfall, and then he heard a weird noise like a zombie squabble nearby.
“Globble blobble globble . . .”
“What was that?” Zack yelled out.
“You hear that?” Zoe called back.
“Globble blobble globble . . .”
“Rice, I swear if that was you . . .” Madison scolded the notorious prankster as they all slowed to a stop to listen.
“I didn’t say anything!” Rice yelled into the howling wind. “I swear!”
“All right, come on, let’s pick up the pace,” said Ozzie, pointing dead ahead. “If we keep going straight, we’ll hit the other shoreline.”
Zack, Ozzie, Rice, Zoe, and Madison began walking again, pushing through the curtain of snowfall as bits of sleet pelted across their cheekbones and gusts of wind stung their faces.
All of a sudden, a monstrous figure wearing a fuzzy, hooded parka emerged from the whiteout and flailed straight into Zack. BLAOW!
Zack bounced off the big mama zombie’s padded belly and flew back a few steps, skidding on the ice.
“Wha!” Ozzie cried, and swept the oar around, taking the undead brain guzzler’s feet right out from under it. “Haw!” He made more kung fu noises and sent the fallen zombie’s body sliding across the ice. Another snow zombie ambled into Ozzie’s line of sight. Raising the oar again, Ozzie swept the paddle into the undead iceman’s knees, flipping it upside down. The frozen fiend landed on its tailbone, hammering the ice beneath their feet with a dreadful crack.
“Back up!” Madison side-kicked with her ski and took out two more zombies in one shot.
“No, retreat!” Rice called, swinging the nunchaku still on loan from Ozzie as waves of more frostbitten ghouls shambled into view.
“No, this way!” Zoe shouted, and pointed toward what looked like a zombie-free clearing up ahead.
The boys bolted away in a flash, slipping and sliding on the icy ground beneath their feet while Madison and Zoe followed close behind on their cross-country skis. Zack took the lead, dodging left and right through the undead tundra.
“Arf! Arf!” Twinkles was gaining ground just behind him.
Zack squinted, using his hand like a visor to shield his eyes from the pelting snowflakes, when suddenly he slid to a halt, feeling slicker ice beneath his feet. Uh-oh! Zack’s heartbeat pounded in his eardrums and he gasped. He was standing on the unfrozen brink of the free-flowing river. “Stop! Go back!” he yelled, scooping up Twinkles off the ground and turning around to warn his friends. “It’s not frozen over here!”
The kids tried to back away from the freezing waters of the Niagara River, but it was too late. The zombies had forced them away from the Canadian shore, and now they were stuck at the edge of the Great Lake’s frozen ice shelf.
“We just need to get over toward the Canadian side,” Ozzie said.
“Which way is that?” Zoe yelled.
“I don’t know anymore!” Ozzie shouted, trying to see land through the blustery snow.
“Heads up, guys!” Rice hollered. “They’re getting closer!”
A huge phalanx of ice zombies was closing in around them and another barrage of undead maniacs was following close behind.
“We’re surrounded!” Madison shrieked.
Nowhere to run. No way to swim. Everyone froze.
The kids huddled together, backing away from the semicircle of undead snow creatures inching nearer and nearer. As the zombies closed in, a massive crack jigsawed through the ice from the extra weight of the roving undead ho
rde.
A quick plan flashed in Zack’s mind like a dream in the night.
“Zoe! Madison!” he called out to the BFF ski partners. “Start chipping at the ice. Hurry!”
“What?” Madison yelled.
Zack pointed to the deepening crack in the ice, then at the zombie snow-swarm. “They’re too heavy!” he shouted. “We need to break away to have a chance!”
“Gotcha covered, little bro!” Zoe shouted over the howling wind and the grunting moans of the zombies. The girls went to work with their ski poles, chipping at the fissure between them and the zombies.
As the zombies converged into a massive pack, the cracking ice creaked loudly and then split in two, which sent the kids’ tectonic plate of frozen lake drifting up the river. It buoyed in the freezing water for a moment, then was whisked swiftly upstream by the arctic current and floated under the Peace Bridge, where they had been just a short while before.
A few precious seconds later, Zack watched as another massive piece of the frozen lake detached behind them and began to sail in their direction. It was covered with the zombies.
“Aw, man!” Rice complained. “We just got away from those guys.”
“Arf! Arf!” Twinkles barked at the undead ice floe cruising up at the rear.
The undead creatures struggled to stay balanced on the floe, a few slipping off the edge and kerplunking into the ever-quickening current. Some zombies gulped water into their undead lungs while the others surfed awkwardly on the far end of the iceberg.
With the zombified glacier drifting about twenty yards behind them, Rice bent over and started packing the snow that was covering the ice, balling up handful after handful into a little stockpile of firmly packed baseball-sized snowballs.
“Rice, what’re you doing?” Zack asked.
“Come on, dude. We’re from Phoenix,” he said, taking aim at the undead ice floe. “How many chances do we get to have a snowball fight?” He launched a well-placed snowball high in the air that arched in the sky but plunked just short of the zombie ice floe.
“Okay, so, like, where are we going?” Madison asked coming over, totally bored with Rice’s snowball fight.
Rice turned around and crinkled his forehead as Zack threw a snowball that splatted at the iceberg zombies’ feet. “If my geography serves me correctly that would be Niagara Falls.”
“Niagara Falls?” Zoe dropped her jaw and went bug-eyed. “Rice, that’s not funny.”
“I’m not kidding,” he said. “But don’t worry. Pretty sure we got a long ways to go before we hit the rapids and the Falls.” He tossed another snowball at the zombified iceberg, which fell short again. “Darn! I was this close.”
“Let me show you how it’s done,” Ozzie said, stepping up with a single snowball. He leaned back and brought his arm forward like a catapult. The snowball soared through the now-waning snowstorm and curved on a gust of wind before it sailed directly into the zombified face of one of the undead iceberglers.
SPLAT!
Ozzie let out an excited yelp and pumped his fist, then high-fived Zack and Rice.
Kids: one. Zombies: nothing.
THWAP!
Zack’s face stung as a snowball smashed against his cheekbone. He turned toward the culprit to see his big sister firing snowballs like a crazy person. ZIP! ZIP! Two more snowballs whizzed by his head and Zack ducked to avoid them. “Ha! Right in the face, little bro! Stings, don’t it?”
Zack wiped the wet slush from his face. “Not cool, Zoe.”
Zoe sidled up next to her brother and put her arm around him. “Come on, Zacky-poo, what fun’s a snowball fight if you can’t drill your little brother in the face?” She pulled a snowball out from behind her back and smashed it into Zack’s mouth.
“Zoe!” Zack squirmed away and spat out the snow. “You’re so annoying.”
“All right, you guys, chill out. We’re almost there,” Ozzie said, pointing to the Canadian shoreline on their left. “So here’s the plan. We’re going to have to get close enough to the riverbank to jump off before the current gets the best of us.” Ozzie threw his oar to Rice. “You and Zack guide this thing to that side.”
“Aye-aye, cap’n,” Rice said, taking the oar. Zack and Rice moved to opposite sides of the ice raft and began paddling with the current. But before they could gain control of their course, the floe struck a string of three orange-and-white buoys.
BAM! BAM! BAM! The floe careened off each buoy, spinning cockeyed in the water.
“Come on, guys,” Zoe screamed, her balance a bit wobbly. “Start paddling better!”
“We’re trying,” Zack and Rice both called out simultaneously.
“Look out!” Madison cried, pointing behind them to the zombies. “They’re almost—”
WHAM! The zombie-infested iceberg plowed into them from the rear with a powerful clunk. The two ice floes locked together, and the zombies staggered toward Zack and the gang like a crew of undead pirates laying siege to a ship.
Ozzie whirled around to face the brain-guzzling mutants. “Rice, quick, toss me the nunchaku!”
Rice reached behind his backpack and detached Ozzie’s prized nunchaku. He gave Ozzie his best underhand toss, but it was way too high. The nunchaku sailed over Ozzie’s head, catching a glint of early-morning sunshine piercing through the storm as they plunked into the river.
Ozzie’s eyes went wide with horror.
“Arf-arf!” Twinkles chirped, and started running after the thrown object as any puppy would.
“Twinkles!” Madison shrieked and dove across the ice for her precious pup, who had put on the brakes too late and was sliding across the ice into the rollicking river. Madison nearly dropped over the side, too, but Zoe snagged her by her ski before she could. Madison now dangled headfirst off the edge of the floe, splashing in the freezing cold water. “Twinkles!”
“Zack, help me!” cried his sister. “She’s slipping!”
Out in the cold dark rapids, Twinkles dog-paddled frantically.
Zack quickly brought his oar out of the water and hustled over to grab Madison’s other ski. Zack and his sister hung on to Madison’s feet for dear life and tried to pull her back to safety.
“Twinkles, come back!” Madison cried, lunging again as the current swept her puppy farther out of reach. She sobbed and wailed, half in and half out of the water. She was still reaching futilely for her puppy when he disappeared in the Niagara’s frigid current. “Twinkles!”
Finally, Madison gave up her desperate attempt to save her beloved pup, and Zack and Zoe began to pull her out when suddenly, a zombie river monster lurched to the surface and did a chin-up on Madison’s waterlogged arm.
“No!” Zack screamed.
The hypothermic undead beast cranked open its mouth wide, stretching a web of thick, infectious mucus between its lips, and then chomped down hard on Madison’s forearm. “Nom-nom-nom!”
“Yowie!” Madison cried in pain, and pulled her arm back as Zack push-kicked the zombie in its face with the bottom of his sneaker, sending it bobbing way away from them. Zoe then hoisted Madison up over the icy ledge and back onto their floe.
“Guys, Madison’s been bitten!” Zack yelled to Rice and Ozzie, who were fending off the last of the zombie stragglers.
Two big zombie oafs sporting red-white-and-blue Buffalo Bills football gear lurched across the floating ice island, their goatees frozen with snot and slobber.
In one swift maneuver, Ozzie swung his leg up in a high kick and chopped it down hard on the collarbone of one of the zombies. As the undead iceman dropped to its knees, Ozzie launched in the other direction and attacked zombie number two with a sharp one-two punch combo.
Rice then blasted one of the frostbitten ghouls right in the kisser. Flecks of frozen slime sprung off its desiccated face and floated through the air in slow motion as the undead beast back-flopped into the river with an enormous splash.
Rice and Ozzie ran over to join Zack, Zoe, and the soon-to-be-zombie Madison,
who was sprawled out in a state of shock, taking slow, deep breaths.
The river rushed audibly, drowning out the gurgling moans of the zombies bobbing in the quickening current.
“We gotta get off this river, like, now!” Zoe yelled.
With every second, the roar of the rapids grew louder and louder as the whipping wind whisked them ever closer to the horseshoe-shaped cliff ahead.
“Rice!” Zoe screamed over the wind. “I thought you said we weren’t going to hit the Falls yet!”
“My bad. We must have been going faster than I thought.” Rice shrugged nervously while Zoe glared at him with her signature mean-girl scowl. “It’s okay, we can do this,” Rice said. “We just need to create some kind of leverage. . . . Like this!”
Rice stabbed his oar into the edge of the other iceberg still riding side-by-side with their own. Zack did the same, and Ozzie followed suit with one of Madison’s ski poles.
“One . . . two . . . three!” Ozzie shouted, and they pushed off with all their might. The two ice floes separated, and theirs drifted safely into a mass of tree branches at the edge of the Canadian shoreline. Zoe and Rice jumped ashore first while Zack and Ozzie carried Madison behind them by her arms and legs.
After they unhitched Madison’s skis and set her down, Zack grabbed the binoculars from Ozzie and scanned the river for Twinkles, but all he saw was the water spilling endlessly over the mountainous waterfall.
Madison Miller lay on the beach, clutching her arm, speaking some kind of mean-girl gibberish. She sat up and slipped the pink parka off her shoulder, and pulled up the sleeve of the hooded sweatshirt that she was wearing underneath. The zombie virus had spread darkly through the veins around her bite wound.
Rice produced an Ace bandage from his backpack and started wrapping Madison’s forearm.
Madison gritted her teeth and gulped back her tears. “It stings!” She groaned and stamped her foot. “Did we find Twinkles?”
The Zombie Chasers #5 Page 2
