The Zombie Chasers #5

by John Kloepfer

  “Hey, Olivia,” said Ozzie. “You need to work on your whispering.”

  “Okay,” said Rice. “Can we please get down to business?”

  “What’s the plan, man?” Ozzie asked.

  “Hold up,” Zack said, going to use Rice’s phone again. “Lemme try Duplessis.”

  The phone rang once and then went straight to voice mail. Zack frowned. “No dice.”

  “Duplessis, schmuplessis,” Rice said. “Like I said before, he’s probably zombified by now anyway.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Ozzie said.

  “My point is I think I know a thing or two about antidotes,” said Rice. “I have an idea, but first we’re going to need some lemon-lime Gatorade, peanut M&M’s, a bag of Funyuns, and some of that Spazola Energy Cola.”

  “Why the heck do you need Gatorade and a bag of Funyuns?” Zoe asked.

  “Because I’m starving,” Rice replied. “Duh . . .”

  “I got it,” Ozzie said. “You stay there and give Olivia one of those Vital Vegans we brought. We don’t want her gingko supply to deplete.” He trotted off across the food court to gather up the supplies.

  “Dude,” Zack said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Rice clamped his hand down on Zack’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes. “Listen, man. You have to trust me. Last time around, the antidote wasn’t strong enough. I’m going to make sure that never happens again.”

  Ozzie came back carrying two baskets full of snacks for the group and a case of Spazola Energy Cola.

  “The key ingredient of my master formula is this.” Rice held up a can of Spazola Energy Cola, a twenty-four-hour super-charged energy drink. “This is going to jump-start the new antidote and make it last forever this time! Bunco even makes it himself.”

  “Wait,” said Olivia with a scared look on her face. “Does this mean that I’m really the antidote?”

  “Yes, but as long as we have this little guy,” said Rice, shaking the test tube filled with Olivia’s blood, “we won’t need you for too much else.”

  “Ugh, get that stuff away from me,” Olivia said, covering her eyes. “I will seriously pass out.”

  “Just remember that under no circumstances can you break your vegan diet.”

  “Deal,” Olivia said, and Rice put down the vial of antidote.

  Rice turned away from Olivia and back to his makeshift laboratory. He cracked open a few of the ginkgo pills and then poured the contents into half the open containers of Spazola. He shook up the energized ginkgo blend and then added in a few drops from the test tube and gave it all another good shake. Then he came back and soaked three cotton balls with the new super-charged antidote.

  “Now I’m going to need some live specimens,” Rice said. “Strike that. Undead specimens.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard,” said Ozzie. “What do you think, Zoe? You and I can go round up a couple zombies, no problem.”

  “We could do that,” said Zoe, flexing her arm muscles.

  “Well, actually,” Olivia piped in, “I think I may have a few we could use already.”

  “Huh?” Rice turned to Olivia and gave her a confused look.

  “My mom and dad and brother are all in the walk-in freezer. See, when they had all been bitten, I had to lock them in where they couldn’t get me. Plus, I thought the freezer would be good, you know, to preserve them a little longer.”

  “How long have they been in there?” asked Zack.

  “Almost twenty-four hours,” she said.

  “They’re probably frozen stiff by now,” Ozzie said.

  “Well, let’s go check ’em out,” said Zack.

  In front of the freezer, Olivia undid the padlock and pulled the big metal door open. The cold air vapor hit the kids in the face. As the mist dissipated, there stood Olivia’s parents, frozen in the middle of the walk-in.

  Puffs of freezing white steam shot out of their nostrils like from raging bulls in a cartoon getting ready for a matador fight.

  The kids stepped inside, and Madison and Olivia approached their undead freezing family members. “That’s my uncle Conrad.” Madison pointed to the shivering zombie man in the corner. Conrad Jenkins stood over six feet tall. He had a thinning bird’s nest of black hair, big arms, and a strong back, and he seemed as sturdy as an ox.

  “And that’s my aunt Ginny.” Aunt Ginny was curled up on the floor grunting to herself.

  “And this is my older cousin Ben.”

  Olivia’s brother twisted his neck around with a sound like ice cubes crackling in a glass of tepid water.

  The same horrific crackling sounded again as Uncle Conrad craned his neck around and looked down with a soulless, blank-eyed glare at his still-human kin. Aunt Ginny turned around, too, flashing her teeth like a mad dog baring its fangs.

  They crept slowly toward the kids, who were standing in the doorway of the walk-in freezer.

  “How are we going to unzombify them?” asked Olivia, who was staring wide-eyed at her half-frozen family.

  “These guys need to be sedated first,” Rice said.

  “Good idea,” Zack said, watching Olivia’s parents and brother slowly crick and creak toward them in the dark, chilly freezer.

  They all backed up, luring the frozen ghouls out of the walk-in and into the main seating area of the Fun World food pavilion.

  Rice went into his pack and quickly produced the bottle of ginkgo pills. He came over to the tables and started popping them in the Jenkins’s hungry open mouths.

  “What does this do exactly?” Olivia asked.

  “Ginkgo biloba,” Madison explained to her cousin. “It kind of knocks zombies out after they swallow it.”

  Within a few minutes, the gingko began to kick in, and Conrad, Ginny, and Ben toppled over into a deep slumber. Ozzie and Rice then picked up Olivia’s dad, Zoe and Madison grabbed her mom, and Olivia and Zack took Ben over to the food court tables so they could thaw out.

  Rice brought over the bowl of ginkgo-energy antidote and then began to administer it to the Jenkins family by dropping the cotton balls soaked in the concoction one by one into their mouths.

  “Rice,” Olivia asked, peeking through the cracks between her fingers that were covering her eyes, “do you really think this is going to work?”

  “Yes,” Rice said, standing back to watch. “Definitely.”

  Within seconds, Olivia’s parents started convulsing and writhing on the tables.

  “Is that what’s supposed to happen?” Madison asked.

  “Uh . . .” Rice furrowed his brow with a look of bewildered amusement on his face. “I mean, we’re kind of in uncharted territory here.”

  “Well, you better get into some charted territory,” Olivia shrieked. “That’s my family you’re messing with.”

  “I-I’m not quite sure what’s going on anymore!” Rice yelled back defensively.

  “You sure were sure a minute ago,” Madison snapped.

  “Well, that was a minute ago, okay?”

  “Guys, stop fighting and check this out,” Zack said, watching the zombie specimens get up off the tables.

  “You did it!” Olivia said to Rice as her parents rose to their feet. “Mom! Dad! Ben!”

  But the reanimated bodies standing up were still zombified, and somehow even more so. “Flurghle!” The trio of zombies wailed and thrashed through Rice’s bootleg science lab.

  BANG! CRASH! The re-rezombified zombies walked forward and ripped out the tables bolted to the floor.

  “I don’t understand. This is not what was supposed to happen!” Rice yelled over the mayhem. Frantically, Rice examined the ingredient label on the back of the energy drink more closely. “Of course,” he said, smacking his forehead. “This stuff has Caribbean sea plankton in it!”

  “So?” Olivia raised her eyebrows.

  “Turritopsis nutricula!” Rice exclaimed incoherently. “The immortal jellyfish! They breed in the sea plankton. The plankton must have super-cha
rged the virus and somehow neutralized the antidote! And now they have smarter, faster zombie brains!” Rice was clearly freaking out.

  “Umm,” Olivia said. “Does he have an off button?”

  “Unfortunately not,” said Zoe. “The nerd virus is permanent.”

  “So,” Olivia turned back to Rice. “Are you trying to tell me that you just turned my entire family into a bunch of super zombies?”

  “Look on the bright side,” Rice said sheepishly. “At least they’re super.”

  “Do you even know how to turn them back?” Olivia was starting to hyperventilate.

  “We know your blood worked to cure Madison. If we can get them a dose of the antidote without the Spazola, they should be as good as alive again.” Rice looked at his friends with confidence.

  “Well, right now we have to stop them,” Ozzie said, butting in. “Listen, Olivia. I promise I won’t do any permanent brain damage, but maybe you don’t want to watch this.” Ozzie then rushed at the trio of super zombies and launched into a kung fu combo: right-left-right followed by a high, straight kick to Uncle Conrad’s sternum. Olivia’s super zombie father dodged to one side and blocked Ozzie’s onslaught by grabbing Ozzie’s ankle with one hand and knocking him to the floor with the other.

  “Ooomph!” Ozzie hit the linoleum hard, knocking the wind out of him.

  Aunt Ginny and Cousin Ben lunged for him, but he was up in a flash.

  “Hey, man, hurry up!” Zack called to Ozzie as he limped quickly toward the pull-down gate at the exit. “We gotta get outta here!”

  Ozzie dodged the swiping arms of the super zombies, who were maneuvering through the food court in a three-pronged, synchronized attack. He rushed away from the super zombies and ducked under the gate.

  As soon as Ozzie stepped out, Rice slammed the gate down hard. The super zombies clung to the metal grate, face-to-face with their creator. Rice stared back seemingly in shock as he watched his Frankensteinian zombie monsters turn away and huddle up.

  “Blarghle blarghle blarghle,” the super zombie family communicated with one another, grunting back and forth in some crazed zombie caveman speak.

  The super zombie trio then placed their decaying arms in the middle of the circle and stacked their pus-dribbling hands one on top of the next.

  “Flugh-ghlarghle!” they chanted and swung their arms up like teammates before a game.

  Rice gasped as the trio of zombies rerouted through the food court and headed directly for the emergency exit on the opposite side of the pavilion. “Oh no, they’re learning,” Rice said in a far-off voice. “What have I done?”

  “Come on!” said Zack, pointing away from the direction the super zombies were headed. “That way!”

  “Blarghf!” A slew of zombie moms and dads came barreling through the entrance hall to the food court, their bare skin crispy and flaking from their bright pink sunburns.

  “Okay.” Zack stopped in his tracks. “Maybe not that way!”

  “AHHH!” Madison and Olivia both shrieked as another zombie pack of undead Fun World children shuffled around the corner and forced them down the side hallway, leading to the service doors that went through the back kitchens. With no other way out, they retreated through the doors and down the grungy hallway intended for employees only.

  “You guys, over here!” said Olivia, finding a side emergency-exit door off an adjacent hallway. The alarm sounded a series of ear-piercing beeps as they burst out into the heat of the stinking, undead night.

  Zack and the gang ran back outside into the amusement park and hid behind a Fun World ice cream shack. They stopped for a moment to catch their breaths.

  “Yo, man,” Zack said to Rice. “What happened back there?”

  “I’ll admit,” Rice said, putting his hands up and backing away from Olivia, who was scowling at him with a mean mug on her face, “it was a rookie mistake.”

  “A rookie mistake?” Olivia said, the anger growing in her voice.

  “Come on, guys, we can’t stay here and play the blame game,” Ozzie said. “Those things are going to find us eventually. Rice, you said they can communicate?”

  “Uh-huh.” Rice nodded. “And they know what we look like.”

  “Well, those things are my mom and dad and big brother.”

  “Sorry, Olivia,” Zack said. “I know it’s messed up. We’ve all been there, but we have to get out of Fun World and get you to a safe location before it’s too late. We’ll find a way to un-super-zombify them.”

  As they sprinted to the exits of the food court pavilion, Zack noticed a distinct lack of zombies milling around outside.

  “Where did all the zombies go?” he asked, limping on his sprained ankle.

  “Who cares?” said Zoe. “Just keep up, slowpoke.”

  They hurried through the undead ghost town, but when they reached the main entrance, they saw a massive pack of ghouls blocking the front gates, the only way they knew out of Bunco’s Fun World.

  Super zombie Ben was at the front of the crowd, hunched over, prancing from one foot to the other like a dancing baboon. He seemed to be barking orders at the zombies, but they weren’t listening. Ben grunted angrily and started to grab the normal zombies by their decaying arms, hurling them into the massive cluster to block off the main entrance even further. He turned his head abruptly toward Zack and the gang, and a crooked smile flashed across his pallid, undead face.

  “Are you seeing this?” Madison said.

  “OMG,” Zoe said. “He’s using them to trap us inside the park.”

  “He’s trying to control them,” Rice said.

  “This is way worse than we thought,” said Ozzie.

  Ben pointed toward Zack and yowled a battle cry in his native zombie tongue. Zack watched as Ben’s platoon of undead civilians turned and started advancing toward them.

  “There’s gotta be another way out!” Zack yelled, spinning around. “Let’s go!”

  But as Zack and the gang moved back through the park, they soon spotted Uncle Conrad sitting behind the wheel of a golf cart trying to herd more zombies toward another Fun World exit.

  “It looks like they’re getting smarter!” Zoe yelled.

  They all watched as Uncle Conrad drove himself into the fence around one of the rides. Not knowing how to reverse, the super zombie kept driving forward into the fence. He smashed the steering wheel with both hands and then hopped out of the cart.

  “Well,” Zoe corrected herself, “maybe not that smart.”

  Uncle Conrad’s head cranked around slowly as his eyes locked with the kids’ gaze. Olivia’s super zombie pops then lifted the golf cart off the ground, aimed it directly at the kids, and set it back down before getting behind the wheel and driving right toward them.

  “You guys,” Olivia said, quickly dragging Zack away, “we just need to get to the waterpark. There’s a parking lot on the other side of the fence there, and if we can get over the fence, we can get to my parents’ rental car.”

  “Good idea, Olivia!” said Zack. “But we’re going to have to get through these guys first.”

  Waves of moaning zombies surged toward them down the main thoroughfare and up the rainbow brick road.

  “Over here!” Rice shouted, pointing toward the Fun World go-kart tracks.

  Zack, Rice, Ozzie, Zoe, Madison, Olivia, and Twinkles raced through the gates. Ozzie jumped behind the check-in counter and started tossing everyone helmets. Then they hopped in the go-karts and buckled up. Zack nestled snugly into the go-kart’s leather padded seat and turned the key to start the motor. “Ready?” Zack shouted over the roar of motors and zombie groans. Ozzie raised his arm and his go-kart led the way. The six of them vroomed off the track and into the fun park.

  Zack steered right then left, zipping past the undead droves, swerving in and out of the zombie foot traffic.

  All six go-karts banked to the right and away from Cousin Ben’s crew of zombie cronies. A fearful thrill ran through Zack as he jerked the steering wheel back
and forth, swerving like a Formula 1 racer. He floored the accelerator, and his go-kart sped past Bunco’s statue, by the batting cages, and finally toward the waterpark.

  As they cruised into the waterpark, the go-karts all slowed down amid the many water rides. Zack, Rice, Ozzie, Madison, Zoe, and Olivia threw the go-karts into park and jumped out onto the pavement. In front of them, they could see the Double Helix: the tallest, fastest slide on the East Coast.

  Rice gazed skyward, admiring the Double Helix. The giant mega-slide was actually made up of two separate slides wrapping around each other in a spiral. It was forty feet high and twisted from one end of the waterpark to the other before dropping at a sharp angle nearly straight down. “Whoa,” Rice said. “Check this thing out!”

  “No more rides, Ricey-poo,” Zoe said. “Time to get out of Freak World for reals.”

  Ozzie put his foot on the tall wooden fence bordering the parking lot and then climbed his way to the top. On the ground, Zack squinted through a hole in the wood. Staring back at him, a bloodshot eyeball dripping with zombie goop bulged through the peephole.

  “Ozzie, wait!” Zack shouted as his friend peered over the fence.

  “Whoa!” Ozzie said, seeing that the pack of zombies led by Aunt Ginny was waiting to ambush them on the other side.

  “Uh, dude,” Rice said, nudging Zack away from the fence. “We gotta go!”

  Zack whirled around away from the zombified fence and looked back into the waterpark and Fun World beyond it.

  Olivia let out a shriek that resounded throughout the thick, stench-filled air.

  Coming toward them in the dinged-up golf cart, Uncle Conrad herded a dense, impenetrable pack of zombies, blocking their only route to backtrack out of the waterpark on foot. The super zombie jumped off the golf cart and limped slowly on his bum hip, licking his undead chops.

  Behind them, Aunt Ginny’s zombies were scaling the fence, piggybacking one another and flopping over inside the waterpark.

  “Looks like you’re going to get your wish after all,” Olivia said to Rice. “Let’s go!” They took off running away from the now zombified parking lot fence toward the sky-high ladder of the Double Helix waterslide.