Undead Honeymoon

by Quinn, Austin

  Banshees were still shrieking around us, and the sprinters were going berserk. It was only a matter of time before one of them crashed into us full on. I looked around and found a good spot. I lit the cocktail, and after waiting for a clear shot I pitched it through the glass of the “Create-a-Friend” workshop on our right. We watched as flames quickly engulfed its interior.

  The heat to our side intensified as the fire reached the stuffed animals. The entire deck started to shift as every topside corpse started shambling toward the inferno. The sprinters were the first to reach it, and they darted around like demons as the flames licked at their grey flesh.

  The fire had given us a clear shot to the Ferris wheel. We ran the rest of the way, going as fast as our suits would allow. When we got to the base we nearly tripped over the rope line; it was getting dark.

  I grabbed Lily’s spear and stuck it between the duffel bag and my back, along with my own.

  “Climb!” I urged.

  We scaled the spokes with relative ease and made our way to the maintenance ladder. From there it was another twenty feet before we reached the top. We climbed around the drive rim and settled into the top cab. The air around us was completely silent; no helicopters.

  The sky that night was eerily dark; there were no stars at all. The deck beneath us was a different story. It was completely illuminated by fire. My Molotov had spread to the boutiques, and the flames gave us a front row seat to the zombie bonfire below. They seemed to think the fire was alive, and kept trying to attack the flames that twisted around them. Dark plumes of smoke rose from the zombies as bits and pieces of them started to fall away. The smell of decayed and burnt flesh reached us just as I realized it was starting to rain.

  I’d been sweating nonstop for hours, and the climb up had only made matters worse. The suits were waterproof, but the storm brought cool air in; a welcomed change from the endless heat we’d been plagued by. Before long the sprinkle turned to a downpour, and Lily and I huddled together as we waited for it to end. Thinking back, it was probably one of the more romantic parts of our honeymoon.

  The rain finally slowed to a drizzle after about half an hour. I looked down and saw that most of the fire was out. Little islands of flame still clung to life, and smoldering heaps of undead were milling below us. Lily had somehow fallen asleep, and her head rested on my shoulder. She looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to wake her up.

  I didn’t have a choice, though, because that’s when I heard it.

  “Lily, wake up,” I whispered, trying to contain my excitement. I gently nudged her with my shoulder.

  “Did I fall asleep?” she grunted.

  “Just a little. Do you hear what I here?”

  “Huh?” she said groggily.

  “Listen,” I breathed and pointed into the darkness in front of us. It was faint, but I could just make out the unmistakable sound of rotors slicing through the night air.

  “Is that…”

  I smiled and nodded. “A helicopter, and it sounds like it’s the only one.”

  I’d expected her to cry, but she didn’t. Instead she just hugged me harder than she ever had before. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. I let out a long sigh of relief as the sound of the chopper drew nearer. I finally let myself think we were going to be okay. It was a thought I’d deemed too dangerous to think about for weeks.

  I suddenly felt the cab shake.

  I peered over the side to see what had caused the jolt. The zombies below were piling up near the base of the Ferris wheel. The ones that weren’t being trampled were reaching toward the sky, toward us…

  “Finn, do they know we’re here?” Lily squeaked as the cab shook again.

  “How? We‘re way the hell up here and in the suits,” I replied as I grabbed a hold of my spear.

  Sick with fear, I tried to calm my breathing and think of what to do, but nothing came to mind. My body was bursting with adrenaline, but there was nowhere for us to go. The Ferris wheel had gone from our saving grace to a deathtrap in an instant.

  To make matters worse, the corpses directly below us were like a catalyst to the rest of the horde. I watched in horror as their knowledge of living flesh rippled through the deck. Banshees started going off from the base of the wheel all the way back to the Atrium. Dozens started filtering out from the shops and specialty restaurants. They swarmed from every nook and cranny, all making their way in our direction.

  “The rain!” Lily cried. “It must have washed the zombie slime from our suits!”

  I froze, and then swore as I realized she must be right. It should’ve been the first thing on my mind when it started raining. I pulled open the duffel bag in front of me and tore through its insides, looking for the spray bottle we’d packed. I took care not to touch the towel that was tucked in the corner. I swore again when I found the bottle. At some point during our scuffles on the deck the nozzle had come undone. The bottom of our bag was soaked in the foul smelling mixture. Only a few precious drops remained in the container itself.

  I fastened the nozzle and sprayed what little was left onto Lily‘s suit.

  “Finn! Save some for you!” she screamed. I ignored her as I emptied the bottle and scanned the night sky. The sound of the chopper was louder, but I still couldn’t see it. Our cab was shaking more and more with each passing second. The corpses below were stacking on top of each other, slowly inching their way upward.

  Metal started to creak and groan as the pressure of hundreds of zombies started to take its toll. The support cables were shaking violently, but somehow they still held. Lily grabbed my arm as we both frantically looked for our rescue.

  “I think we’ll be okay,” I breathed. “There aren’t enough of them down there to topple us over, and it doesn’t look like the know how to climb.”

  BAM.

  Lily and I were jolted as something hit the infrastructure of the wheel, hard.

  “What was that?” Lily cried.

  “No idea,” I said as I looked down.

  We didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  BAM. BAM. BAM.

  Sprinters were throwing themselves into the metal at full speed. Their crumpled remains hung from the spokes like dirty pieces of laundry. Lily’s hands dug into me as the wheel started to tilt. I felt myself sliding into her as our weight shifted.

  “Hold on to me!” I yelled as I grabbed wildly at the edge of the cab. Lily wrapped her arms around my waist as my spear fell into the abyss. I tried to hold our weight with both hands, but it was nearly impossible. I couldn’t get a proper grip with my gloved hands, and I could feel my fingers starting to slip.

  CLANG.

  Metal twisted and bent as the wheel came to a sudden stop halfway to the deck. We’d slammed into something behind us. I never did see what it was, but it saved us.

  We looked up just as the wheel stopped. The helicopter had finally arrived.

  A search light cut through the darkness, nearly blinding us as it centered over our heads.

  A woman’s voice blared over a loud speaker. “We’re lowering a harness. Strap yourselves in one at a time and we’ll haul you up!”

  “You first, Lily,” I said firmly. She made a move to argue, but I gave her a look of such ferocity that she nodded without comment. The helicopter centered twenty feet above us just as a harness toppled out its side. It stopped a few feet short, and the pilot had to adjust in order for us to reach it. My hands fumbled with a tangle of belts as I started to strap Lily in. I was seconds from giving the thumbs up for them to reel her in when something stopped me.

  A zombie had managed to scale the tilted Ferris wheel and was reaching inside the cab. I ripped the meat cleaver from my side and sunk it halfway into its head. The rancid corpse skidded from the side as I tore the blade from its skull. I heard Lily scream behind me, and I turned around so fast I lost my footing. I fell into the corner of the cab, hitting my head on its metal side. Sight and sound nearly escaped me as I fought to stay conscious. Somethi
ng was moving a few feet above my head, and it took a moment for me to realize it was Lily. She was still screaming, dangling just out of reach. The pilot had pulled up when the zombie had attacked, and Lily hadn’t been fully strapped in yet. She was upside down, arms flailing as she swung like a pendulum.

  That’s when everything went from bad to horrible.

  The pilot overcorrected, which caused Lily to crash into the steel drive rim of the Ferris wheel, hard. Her body went limp, and I nearly fell from the cab as I reached out for her. I watched in horror as they hoisted her upwards, further away from me. Blood fell like rain as two figures pulled her motionless body into the chopper.

  Everything seemed so surreal after it happened; for us to have come so far…

  I shook all over, and all sense of balance seemed to leave me. My chest felt like it was caving, and all I could think about was how far away Lily was. She couldn’t have been more than thirty feet above me, but it felt like she was on another planet. I had to get to her.

  Another set of grey, festering hands were reaching over the side of the cab as the harness dropped down a second time. I didn’t have time to grab it before the head of the zombie came into view. The flesh had peeled away from what was left of its face. The pale, off white color of its skull stood in stark contrast from its putrid grey skin. I kicked at it and felt the crunch of broken bones, but it continued to reach toward me. I swung the cleaver and hacked clean through a wrist, causing the corpse to lose its hold with the other hand. It fell out of sight as something hit my back; the harness.

  I dropped the cleaver and put my legs through. I pulled every strap as tight as possible, which wasn’t easy with so many layers on. I threw the duffel bag back over my shoulder and looked up, giving them the thumbs up. The straps dug into my thighs as I felt the rope tighten.

  Thinking back, I remember this was the moment I thought it was finally over.

  I was wrong.

  I was five feet above the cab when yet another corpse made its way to the top of the ride. At first I paid it no attention, until I realized it was moving erratically, and fast. It was a sprinter. I held my breath as I repeated the same thing over and over in my head. It won‘t be able to jump. It won’t be able to jump. It will not be able to jump…

  But it did.

  My ankle exploded with pain as the zombie grabbed a hold of it. I tried shaking loose, but it had a vice like grip. I heard something snap and realized it’d broken my ankle. My vision darkened as pain shot up my leg. The corpse flailed as it tried to swing its other hand up. The wench stopped grinding, and I was overcome with dread as I realized they weren’t going to pull me up with a zombie attached.

  I had no spear, no knife, and the duffel bag was on my back. I kicked like a madman, but hard as I tried, I couldn’t free myself. Each time I moved another bolt of pain would shoot up from my ankle. I took a deep breath and prepared to unlatch the harness. I didn’t even know if Lily was still alive, but I wasn’t going to chance putting her in any more danger. Our window could close at any minute and we could be shot out of the sky.

  I loosened the main strap and felt the pressure lessen around my legs. When I gripped the side buckle my fingers brushed over something smooth; it was glass. I still had the Molotov cocktails!

  I tore one from my side and hurled it toward the sprinter. The bottle grazed its skull, but didn’t break. I reached for another and realized it was the only one left. I raised it above my head and came down with every ounce of strength left in me.

  I yelled out in triumph as the bottle made contact and shattered.

  Shards stuck from the creature’s mangled, oil drenched face, but it still hadn’t let go. In my panic I hadn’t thought to light it. The lighter was still in my pocket, but I couldn’t get close enough to make any difference. Just then the zombie’s second hand swung up and grabbed my foot. The pain was unbearable as my ankle strained under the added pressure. The bones in my toes started to crack as the zombie started pulling itself up, its fractured jaw inching closer and closer. I could see the oil dripping from its teeth.

  The oil.

  I pulled the lighter from my pocket, and I nearly dropped it as I swung from the harness. We’d moved again, and the pilot had me over the center of the deck like a piece of bait. Small patches of fire still lit the deck like flares, and I could see sprinters as they tried to leap up to me. I ignored them and held the lighter to my side. I didn’t know if it would work, but it was my only chance.

  The lighter briefly came to life before it succumbed to the wind. I tried again, nothing. It took four tries before a flame finally sprung up. I touched it to my suit and waited.

  Just when I thought it wouldn’t happen, the oil from the cocktail that shattered on my side earlier caught fire. It moved down my suit and reached the sprinter just as its teeth were closing on my shoe. Flames engulfed its face as it twisted and turned. The vice like grip loosened just as black slime started oozing from the creature’s eye sockets. I kicked with my good leg and felt its skull cave in under my shoe. A strange gargling sound escaped what was left of its face as it finally released its hold. I watched as it plummeted toward the ship, crashing into the horde below in a fiery ball of flesh and bone.

  I felt the wench shudder to life again as the fire started to burn through my suit. It was strange, but I never felt it during the struggle. By the time I patted the flames out they were already hauling me into the chopper. I spotted Lily immediately. She was on a stretcher, but I wasn’t allowed near her. Three figures cloaked in tactical gear tore at my clothes, checking for bites and wound marks. I lost track of how many questions they asked me, all the while ignoring my own about Lily. I eventually passed out from exhaustion, and by the time I woke up, we were both in a hospital.

  We had been dropped off and admitted into Mercy Hospital in Miami, and we’re both still here. The only trace of the rescue team was a note that was delivered the day I woke up. It said not to speak of anything that had happened to us, and that we’d be contacted when things calmed down.

  That pretty much brings us up to the present. Lily is lying in the hospital bed next to me. She has an IV in her hand, and there are tubes sticking out in every direction. Her head is still bandaged, but the doctor said the swelling has gone down considerably. We won’t know if there’s any permanent damage or memory loss until she wakes up. I know when she wakes up she’ll say it wasn’t my fault, but I still blame myself for what happened. I was the one who wanted her to go first.

  Elliot made me wait a week before he finally called. Turns out it was him… he was the mastermind behind our rescue. I wouldn’t have believed it, not in a million years, but he organized the entire operation.

  We talked on the phone for over an hour about how he’d been keeping tabs on the events in Haiti, which in turn led him to The Wellspring.

  He knew the real story behind The Wellspring almost as quickly as Lily and I did. I don’t know how much he shelled out for the information, but my guess is that it was more than most people make in a lifetime. Government officials had been paid off, pilots were bribed in order to clear air space, and he even made sure we were admitted into the hospital under false names to throw anyone off our trail.

  “My contacts in Port-au-Prince say they’ve contained the infection for now,” he’d said, “but we can’t take any chances. I’ll be flying to Miami just as soon as I take care of a few things here. Once I‘m there we‘ll talk about you and Lily‘s options.”

  I tried asking him what he meant by options, but he hung up.

  “Will you be staying here again, Mr. Pike?” a nurse asked as she walked in to check on Lily.

  I nodded without looking up from the journal. “Of course.”

  “Okay, I’ll pull the futon out again. I know you want to be close to her, but remember you have your own room and bed, too. You need plenty of rest if you want to mend properly. If you keep walking around you’ll never heal.”

  I shrugged and looked at my leg.
I was due for another round of treatment in the morning because of the burns, and I still had a pretty impressive brace on my ankle and foot. I’ve had to walk with a crutch ever since they let me out of bed. I’ve got another couple of weeks before the bones are healed enough to walk without it. They say the ligaments will take longer.

  The nurse looked up from her clipboard and tilted her head.

  “What’s that noise?” she asked curiously.

  “Noise?” I replied nonchalantly. My eyes darted to a storage closet where I’d put the duffel bag.

  “You don’t hear that? It’s a strange clicking noise.”

  “Probably my cell phone, it’s in our bag. I’ll put it on silent later.”

  “We can‘t have it disturbing your wife, Mr. Pike,” she said as she made for the closet. “She needs to rest even more than you do.”