“I appreciate that,” he said, taking his bag back, “but I can handle it.”
I shrugged, realizing he was not going to be outmanned. “Fine, but if it gets too heavy or—”
“It won’t,” he said with a grin, then walked off.
“Move ‘em out, people,” Nick barked, sounding like the military officers who’d trained him, and we were off into the woods behind him, ready to face another treacherous journey.
Chapter 6
We snaked through the forest of towering trees, winding through the labyrinth of fallen logs and hedges and underbrush. As we marched along, my shoes squished in the soft, spongy earth. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the thick canopy over our heads, and I stared at the feathery shadows on the ground. My thoughts threatened to consume me, but when Jackie caught my gaze and smiled, I returned the grin.
Suddenly, her smile faded, and her expression grew more serious. “Hear that?”
I whipped my head around and listened intently, catching the sound that had her so unsettled: wild footsteps crunching through the forest. Shivers ran down my spine, and we exchanged worried glances.
Jackie stiffened and spun around. She swept an uneasy glance around the trees, her senses on full alert. Everyone else began to hear it too. With his eyebrows raised, Nick stared at the direction of the sound. Asia looked through the scope of her rifle, aiming at the area of the disturbance.
I wrapped my fingers tightly around the bat, ready to hit a grand slam with the head of any undead freak who got in my way. Just as Nick moved a few towering weeds aside, a chill shot up my spine. It was suddenly eerily quiet, except for the sound of several of us taking calming, deep breaths.
In a blur, something broke through the vegetation in a sprint. The deer staggered toward us and crashed to the ground. When I looked closer, I could see blood flowing from a gaping wound on the animal’s furry head and neck, and a second later, the doe closed her big brown eyes and stopped moving. I looked her over and saw that her stomach was ripped open; she’d practically been gutted. I cleared my throat and swallowed to try to ease the dryness, but even that didn’t help. I felt so horrible for the deer and even worse for us.
“Oh my gosh!” Jackie said. “What happened to her?”
“Definitely not deer hunters,” Asia added. “Something killed it, and it wasn’t a bullet or arrow.”
Lucas rushed over to the still-warm animal and studied it. “Zombie bite!”
“That means they’re close by,” Nick said, gripping his axe. “Nobody say a word.” He peered into the forest, squinting his eyes and listening for anything that might be following us.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I pushed branches aside, took another step into the dense vegetation, and then straightened to listen. “I don’t see anything,” I whispered.
“Are you sure?” Jackie asked.
I narrowed my gaze, and my lips pressed into a grim line. “It’s hard to tell, but it seems quiet.”
“Maybe too quiet,” Asia said, still looking around through her high-powered scope.
“I don’t see anything either,” Jackie said, then sucked in a deep breath.
I stood behind her and tried to rub the hard, tense knots out of her shoulders. As I did, I glanced around, scanning the landscape around me one last time, and again I saw nothing.
“We can’t just stand here,” Nick said. “Let’s keep moving, but everybody stay on alert.”
We inched along, constantly looking around us and over our shoulders. After a while, we hoped we’d lost them, but those hopes were quickly dashed when we heard garbled, low moans behind us.
“Those freaks are following us,” Lucas said, his jaw clenched.
In true war games fashion, Nick stopped and evaluated the situation. “If we keep moving, they’ll just keep chasing us, and they’ve got the advantage of not having to care about snake bites or thorns. We need to take ‘em out and end this,” he said.
“I’m game,” Lucas said.
“I’m afraid that’d be suicide, boys!” Val shouted.
I glanced up and saw my sister perched on one of the tree branches, squinting through the leaves.
“There’s a whole herd of them, guys, at least two or three dozen,” she announced. “There’s no way we can take on that many. We’re gonna have to lose them.”
Nick’s gaze narrowed. “How far are they away?”
“Not far enough,” she said, “and their gaining. Like you said, they don’t have to walk as carefully as we do.”
“Okay, people, let’s move it! Double-time!” Nick said.
I nodded at Jackie, trying to reassure her, then looked up at Val. “C’mon, sis. We gotta go.”
Val clambered down the tree and wiped her hands on her pants to get rid of the mud, bark, and moss. She stumbled a bit on a protruding root, but I caught her before she fell. “Thanks,” she said. “Now let’s get outta here.”
The thought of a big herd on our tail made me more than a little nervous, and my breath quickened as we rushed through the forest.
All of a sudden, Claire grabbed my shoulder, pulling me back. “Stop!” she yelled.
Stop? No way! Why? I craned my neck, trying to see over the giant plants in front of us. I parted the large fronds and peered through them, and my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. I broke through the high grass and froze. No freaking way. I eyed the ravine, a vertical drop of hundreds of feet, and it was at least a good 200 feet to the other side. The steep, rocky formations of the two opposing cliffs made me frown. We couldn’t possibly climb down without breaking our necks, and if we made one wrong step, we’d become shish kebob for the zombies, impaled on one of the millions of razor-sharp, red-stone spires that lined the canyon floor. I scanned the trees, bushes, and ferns for a more viable escape route, but that only made it clear that we were, quite literally, caught between a few rocks and a hard place. I knew the zombies were slowly advancing, like old-fashioned monsters in some B-grade horror movie at the Saturday drive-in. Turn off the projector already! I peeled away my sweat-drenched shirt and kept looking around in desperation, hoping for another way out.
Kate grimaced as her blonde hair was tossed around in the wind. “We’re trapped!”
“There’s always a Plan B,” Lucas said, pointing. “We’ve just gotta be stupid enough to try it.”
I glanced to the left, and my jaw dropped. The treacherous structure was made of wood, a long, frightening bridge with several missing and broken planks. That scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom came to mind, but I wasn’t sure if we had it any better than Harrison Ford. He only had to run away from heart-ripping, stone-stealing cultists, but we were facing an undead army—and we didn’t even have a bullwhip and fedora or a Hollywood script to write us to safety. I was quickly learning that in real life, the good guys didn’t always win.
Nick’s brows furrowed above his intense blue eyes, and the wind whipped through his hair as he met my gaze with a questioning look on his face; he was obviously thinking the same thing I was.
My heart thumped in my chest. “Do you think it can hold our weight?” I asked.
“Do we have much of a choice?” he retorted. “Zombies are coming from everywhere.”
“Then we have to try,” I said.
Val stepped on the shaky bridge and tested it by shifting her weight. “I think we’ll make it,” she said. “It seems sturdier than it looks. I’ll go first.” After a few steps, she called for the next person to follow.
I stepped forward onto one of the dry, brittle planks and felt a flutter in my stomach; I’d never been one for skydiving, particularly without a parachute and with such a spiky landing beneath me. The bridge swung with my weight, and as I looked down, the distance to the bottom seemed to multiply right before my eyes, dizzying me. I focused on every step, but by the time I reached the middle of the flimsy crossover, the thing was bouncing and rocking like crazy. I was paralyzed with fear, unable to take another step, and when C
laire caught up to me, the bridge swung even more. I swayed backward, almost losing my footing, and grabbed the rope. As my grip began to falter, my heartbeat doubled its pace.
“Dean!” she said.
“I’m fine,” I said, regaining my balance. The planks wobbled and twisted as I took every tense step, and I took a deep breath to regain my composure.
“Faster! We gotta move, people!” Nick yelled, his voice echoing over the canyon.
I glanced back, and my gut clenched when I saw zombies following us onto the rope bridge. “Doesn’t matter,” I whispered, trying to encourage myself. “We’ll be across in no time.”
“Nick!” Val yelled. “How weak are the planks?”
“Pretty brittle,” he said. “A bunch of them are cracking.”
“Good! Kick ‘em out behind you as you go,” she suggested. “Those suckers will fall through and get skewered!”
My brother and Lucas, the last two in line, tried to kick the planks lose and break them, but it wasn’t as easy as Val thought. Many of them weren’t rotted or petrified and were securely fastened in place.
“Val,” I yelled, “give them your axe!”
Before she could answer, Claire screamed. My head whipped around, and I couldn’t believe the nightmare before me. Groaning and growling sounds sliced the air as a group of zombies slowly shuffled toward us from the other side of the bridge, right in front of us.
“Crap! This bridge will never hold all this weight,” Lucas muttered. “We’re gonna have to throw some of these freaks off it!”
“Nick, more are coming from the front too!” Asia yelled over her shoulder.
I trembled as a feeling of dread encompassed my body. “What do we do, man?” I threw a terrified glance toward Lucas. As much as I wanted to be everyone’s hero, we were standing on a rope bridge hundreds of feet above jagged, fatal stone spears, with zombies coming at us from both sides, and we were armed only with a bat, a rifle, and an axe. There’s no way we could jump or escape, and we would have to fight.
“Asia, Lucas, and I got the back!” Nick hollered. “You guys take the front.”
I could hear Claire’s screams and Val’s shouts as she fought them off with her axe. Zombies pushed forward, and the girls fought harder, with the bridge shaking violently beneath us. Asia fired several shots, the loud bangs echoing through the chasm beneath us. When I glanced over my shoulder, I realized the dead-again corpses were piling up, creating somewhat of a barricade. Our soldiers in back had taken care of the zombie assault from the rear, but there were still plenty of cannibalistic freaks coming at us from the front. I was suddenly glad for all my videogame experience; it wasn’t exactly PlayStation, but with all of them lined up neatly on a narrow bridge, they’d be easy enough to kill. Just like batting practice, I thought, raising my Slugger above my head as my adrenaline surged and I scooted past Jackie, Kate, and Claire.
“What are you doing, Dean? Get back!” Val shouted.
“No can do, sis. You need my help, and you know it.”
Realizing she wasn’t going to win that argument, she nodded and made room for me to stand next to her.
The bridge swayed and jerked beneath my feet with the weight of the oncoming undead. I frantically looked ahead to size up the herd of enemies, trying to determine just how many I would need to take down for us to make a smooth exit from the bridge. Beads of sweat trickled down my face, but I did my best to keep my cool and think clearly, without panicking. Hey, batter, batter, batter… I thought, trying to give myself a pep talk.
A man in a grimy plaid shirt and jeans hissed at me as he shuffled toward us. I jumped on a wooden plank in front of me, and the bridge swayed. The zombie lost his balance and fell sideways, and Val removed his head from him with one quick slice of her axe. The headless torso ceased to move, so that was one target eliminated.
Widening my stance, I swung at the next zombie in my path. The bridge twisted, and everyone behind me screamed, hanging on for dear life. Taking a deep breath, I gathered my strength and swung. I continued hitting one after another, knocking them dead or out of my way, with my sister slicing and dicing right alongside me, and before I knew it, there was a pile of permanently dead, headless or bashed-head bodies in front of us, blocking our path. Peering over top of the pile, I bit my lip hard. Another dozen were coming, but they were blocked by a wall of their rotting friends. We were safe, but we were also trapped from both sides. We’d effectively barricaded ourselves in, with no way out.
“Here!” Val said, handing Asia’s gun to me and stuffing extra ammo in my pocket.
“What’s this?” I asked, looking at her in confusion.
“Dean, you’re the best sharpshooter we’ve got. Show us what you’re made of, little brother.”
I jumped on top of the pile of zombies and knelt down for leverage so I wouldn’t fall off. I let out one head shot after another, not wasting a single bullet. One after another, they crashed in a heap. The bridge creaked and moaned, and I feared it might break any moment, but the path in front of us was littered with dead zombies, and when I peered through the gun scope to scan beyond the bridge, I saw no movement. “I think I got ‘em all,” I said, slinging the gun over my shoulder. “I don’t see anything waiting for us on the other side.”
“Then what are we standing here for? Let’s go!” Val yelled, giving me a tiny shove forward.
I started climbing and crawling over the undead, hanging on to my bat with one hand and gripping the pile to keep my balance with the other. We were twenty-five feet from solid ground when cold, dead fingers wrapped around my ankle. I thrust my bat into the fiend’s head, killing it yet again, then scurried off the bridge. “All clear!” I said. “C’mon, you guys.”
Val climbed over the dead bodies swiftly but carefully so the bridge didn’t sway any worse than it already was. She grabbed my hand so I could pull her off, and after a quick hug, she started to pace around and secure the perimeter.
The other girls made it across just fine, and Claire clutched her heart as Jackie threw her arms around me. Asia, Nick, and Lucas were next to exit the bridge, and Nick immediately motioned us forward through the forest.
Asia reached for her gun. “You did it, sharpshooter,” she said, smiling. “You’re a regular sniper, eh?”
“I guess,” I said, feeling like I’d conquered the world.
Triumph flickered in Jackie’s eyes as she looked up at me, with her dark, blonde-streaked, wild hair being tousled by the wind. “You did it,” she echoed, smiling.
“We all did,” I said.
Jackie cupped my face. “You coulda died standing on that pile of dead zombies. The bridge was so shaky. You might’ve fallen into the ravine.”
“Some risks are worth taking,” I said, smiling down at her. “You make life worth fighting for, Jackie. I’d die before I’d let anything happen to you or my brother and sister,” I said.
“Dean, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I gazed into her eyes. “Good, because I mean every word of it.”
She cupped my face with her hands. “I’m so glad I met you, in spite of the circumstances.”
“Me too.”
“We just crossed a bridge.”
“Uh…yeah.”
“No, I mean…well, it seems like there’s more to it than that.”
“Huh? How so?” I asked, cocking a brow.
“Well, it seems symbolic. We’re going through a real-life journey, Dean, and no matter how deep and dark of a void we might have to face, we can always find a way to overcome it.”
Jackie always seemed to have a positive attitude and read a lot into life, and that was just one thing I loved about her. “Hmm. You’re right,” I said.
She grinned and squeezed my hand. “You were awesome back there, Dean. I’ve never been more proud of you.”
“It was a team effort,” I said, “not a one-man performance.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but you were the star of
the show.”
I gave her hand a squeeze as my boots crunched through the leafy vegetation. As we hiked along, neither Jackie nor I said another word, but we didn’t have to. Somehow, she made me special, like no other girl had before, and that made everything so much easier in a very cruel and difficult world.
Chapter 7
After a while, I took the lead through the dense foliage; after I’d proven myself back on the bridge, Nick and Val didn’t seem so reluctant to follow their little brother. The tree canopy rose high and thick, and the ferns grew sparse, giving the jungle the impression of a great, green cathedral. Birds chirped overhead, and insects hummed and clicked in the thickets and grass; I was a bit jealous of the animals, who seemed oblivious to the horror that was unfolding on the planet we shared with them. My breathing was labored, but we steadily moved along. We pushed through the thick undergrowth, moving quickly and quietly, still hoping to find a city where we could find antibiotics and a vehicle. We limited our noise to the inevitable thudding of our feet and the snapping of twigs against our clothes and underfoot. Anxiously, I brushed away the ferns, leaves, and vines and stepped over fallen, moss-covered logs, all of us ever alert for signs of danger. A loud snap of a twig caused us all to stop and investigate, but we were relieved to find that it was only a curious, bushy-tailed squirrel.
I gently pushed Jackie’s hair out of her face as I placed a peck on her heated cheek. “Doing okay?” I whispered, handing her a thermos of water.
She nodded and took a long swig, then handed it back to me. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed that.”
“Thank Lucas,” I said. “He thought to pack it.” I took a few gulps and kept moving.
Finally, we broke through the woods to a clearing and saw signs of civilization in front of us. We cautiously made our way into the town, around a brick building. Peeking through the tangle of overgrown weeds, I scanned the city in front of me. The place was deserted, the streets devoid of life. Rows of long-abandoned buildings were dark and empty, and the storefronts were unkempt; the windows were boarded up, weeds were overgrown, glass was broken, and all the paint was peeling. It would have been a great place to film a horror movie, but it was, unfortunately, all too real, and that quiet, eerily vacant ghost town gave me very real goosebumps that I never would have felt in a movie theater.
The Zombie Chronicles - Book 5 - Undead Nightmare (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) Page 6
