by Perrin Briar
Liz did. Bill led her forward. She pulled back, expecting to make contact with the cliff wall, but she didn’t.
Her footsteps echoed around her, bouncing off the hard walls. The crashing of the waves dwindled until they were barely audible. Bill took Liz’s hand with the candle and placed it in a hole in the wall.
“Okay,” Bill said. “Open your eyes.”
Liz did – slowly. Her breath was snatched from her.
“Bill,” she said. “This is wonderful!”
The candle cast a glowing ball of soft light. There was a table with a small pile of books on it – including Robinson Crusoe and the complete collection of Johann David Wyss’s classic tales. There was a rocking chair and little plants in pots.
“I wanted to put a window in up there,” Bill said, pointing to the far wall. “But I ran out of time. It’s your own private getaway, whenever things become too much.”
“When did you do this?” Liz said.
“Every spare minute I could over the past few days,” Bill said. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” Liz said. “Give my gift back. It’s too insignificant now.”
“No way,” Bill said. “This Meccano set is mine! No way I’m giving it up!”
Liz hugged Bill and kissed him gently. She closed her eyes and wished he could feel how much she loved him solely through her lips. She opened her eyes to find Bill smiling.
“Oh! I almost forgot,” Bill said.
He moved to a corner, where there was a beaten up old box.
“This washed up a few weeks ago,” he said. “For the longest time I couldn’t get it to work. But eventually…”
He took a black disk out of a paper case and put it on the box. He lowered a thin arm onto it. He attached something to a handle on the side and after a moment the handle began to turn. The disk spun and music began to filter out of the single megaphone.
“There’s no volume control,” Bill said. “But if you put a sock in it, it’ll quieten it. Did you know that’s where the expression came from, by the way? ‘Put a sock in it’.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Liz said.
“Speaking of learning, I learnt how to dance,” Bill said.
“You? Dance?” Liz said, covering her laugh with a hand. “You wouldn’t even dance at our wedding!”
“I practiced by myself,” Bill said. “I’m not sure if you could term that ‘learning’ though. You need a partner to learn properly.”
The song was a soft ballad. Bill took Liz’s hand and they held one another. They turned on the spot, slow, like there was no one else in the world.
“How did you manage to make the handle turn?” Liz said.
“Water power,” Bill said. “We don’t need to worry about getting power bills any more. We’re one hundred percent eco-friendly here in New Switzerland.”
They leaned into one another.
If either of them had their eyes open, they might have noticed three man-shaped shadows fall across the entrance to the hideaway.
Chapter Sixty-Two
“YOU GUYS, come look at this,” Ernest said.
At Ernest’s feet was one of the metal traps he’d made. It had been torn apart, pieces lying strewn like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. Thick clots of blood decorated the sharp protruding wires. The Flower boys shared a concerned look.
“What could have done this?” Ernest said.
“Something strong,” Fritz said. “Something we haven’t seen on the island before.”
They ran in the direction of the mountain.
“There’s the fallen strut,” Ernest said. “It must have gotten knocked over.”
“Yeah, but by what?” Jack said.
One strut leg had been knocked aside, the pipe twisted and displaced. Water spilled from the end, dribbling onto the parched ground, forming a narrow stream down to the bottom of the incline.
Fritz grabbed the strut and lifted it, pushing it up so it was the same height as the others. The water stopped leaking and continued to roll down the pipes again.
“Something could have just bumped into it,” Ernest said.
“Something large,” Fritz said.
He turned toward the mountaintop.
“What’s that?” he said.
Something fluttered on the crest of the mountain. Ernest covered his eyes with a hand and squinted up at it.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Looks like… a blanket?”
“It must be where they had their picnic,” Ernest said.
“Great,” Fritz said. “Then where are they now?”
A low groan rattled up from below, dampened by distance. A coursing surge of terror surged up inside them. The memory of a ship at night, tossed by an angry sea, of fire grabbing at them with stinging hands, and smoke choking their lungs.
“It’s them,” Fritz said, turning white. “They’re here.”
A scream, made more horrific than anything they had ever heard before because they recognised the throat it issued from, echoed from somewhere below.
The boys raised the meagre weapons in their shaking hands and followed the noise.
Chapter Sixty-Three
BILL PULLED Liz behind himself, using his body as a shield. He grabbed the pile of books from the table and threw them at the zombies, smacking them in the face. The zombies hissed and growled, stumbling further into the cave.
The romantic love song continued on as Bill turned the table over and kicked at its legs, but they were strong and wouldn’t snap off. The zombies raised their rotting arms and rushed him.
Bill picked up the table and ran forward, pressing two zombies against the wall.
A third zombie, smaller than the others, came in last through the entrance. The figure reached for Bill with heavy arms.
Bill let the table fall, striking the cave floor. It broke into pieces. Bill picked up two of the table legs and backed away. He handed one to Liz, and held the other himself.
“We need to attack them together,” Bill said. “If we attack them together we can beat them.”
The smallest figure approached them, arms held out. Bill raised the table leg up high, preparing to bring it down. He roared, and then stopped, frozen, as the zombie stepped into the flickering candle light.
“Priya?” Bill said, his voice tight.
Priya’s face was torn, the skin peeled back. One round cheek was now a dark gaunt cavern. The other side of her face was almost untouched, just a smear of blood on her chin. The comparison between the two halves only made the difference more horrific.
Bill’s arm fell, the chair leg clattering to the stone floor.
“Priya…” Bill said. “No…”
A second figure entered the globe of light, and upon seeing his face, Bill whispered and backed away.
“Rohit… I’m sorry,” he said.
The third figure’s name was unknown to Bill, but he recognised him as the guy with the raucous laugh at the next table to his in The Long Journey’s mess.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Bill said. “Please, forgive me.”
“Bill,” Liz said, holding her chair leg in white knuckles. “Pick up your weapon. We need to do something or we’re both going to die in here.”
“No,” Bill said. “I can’t… I can’t…”
He stepped back, slipped, and fell, smacking his head on the hard rock.
“Bill!” Liz said. “Get up! Bill!”
But he didn’t move.
Liz flew at the zombies, letting her cudgel strike where it may, but no matter how hard she swung at them it didn’t seem to have any effect. The zombies rocked back, and then came forward again, arms outstretched and grasping. Her stick snapped in half over Rohit’s shoulder.
Liz threw her stick at the approaching zombies. She bent down to pick up Bill’s discarded chair leg, but Priya stepped on it, and then accidentally, but effectively, kicked it aside.
Liz bent down, hooked Bill under the arms and dragged him along the f
loor into the corner.
“Get back!” Liz said. “Go away!”
The zombies moaned, voices loud and deep, sensing victory on some ancient instinctive level.
Liz crouched down over Bill’s prostrate form. The mawing black holes of the zombies’ festering mouths drew closer and larger.
Just then, four roaring voices echoed up the entrance and reverberated inside the cave. The zombies turned to face this new distraction.
“Fritz! Ernest! Jack!” Liz said. “Get out of here now! Go!”
Fritz flew forward at the zombies, bringing his stick down, whomping through the air and striking Rohit across the neck, knocking him back. He pushed Priya against the cave wall. Jack used the point of his stick to jab the third zombie back.
“Haven’t any of you ever read a zombie novel before?” Ernest said. “Hit their heads you fools! Their heads!”
The zombies leaned forward and reached for Jack, who jumped back. Nips screeched and hissed through his tiny teeth. Fritz raised his stick up high and brought it down on Rohit’s head, caving in his skull. He hit the ground, leg twitching.
“One down,” Fritz said. “Two to go.”
Ernest rushed forward and drove the end of his stick into the third zombie’s eye. He pushed hard and drove it into the back of the zombie’s skull. The stick snapped off, protruding from the zombie’s eye socket. The zombie fell to his knees, and then onto his face, his head smacking into the ground, driving the stick out the back of his skull.
Priya stepped toward Fritz, who pushed her back. She floundered, but found her feet. Her head fell to one side, leaning on her shoulder.
“I can’t do it,” Fritz said. “She’s too young.”
“She’s not too young for me,” Jack said, rushing forward and smacking her over the head.
Thick congealed blood puddled on the floor, running between the cracks. The boys panted, out of breath.
“Where’s Francis?” Liz said.
“He’s outside, keeping watch,” Fritz said. “He’ll come running in if more of them arrive.”
“How’s Father?” Ernest said.
Liz sat with Bill’s head in her lap, stroking his hair.
“He’s alive,” she said.
Bill’s eyes flickered open. He cast around, looking at the three unmoving lumps dotted about the cave, and then up at his sons standing over him.
“The boys saved us,” Liz said. “It turns out it was us who needed protection all along.”
Chapter Sixty-Four
BILL STOOD before the long rows of wooden crosses. Just two had names engraved into them. Bill held his hat in his hands.
“I’m sorry it happened like this,” he said. “But at least now you can rest in peace. I wish I could have known you better, longer. I wish I could turn the clock back and warn those people like you wanted to. I wish more than just us could have escaped to this island. Thank you for the sacrifices you made. We will live every day of our lives in your honour.”
Bill kissed his fingertips and pressed them to each of the crosses. He walked across the sand and joined the rest of the Flowers sitting on the beach, a metre short of where the water reached. Liz smiled at him as he sat down. He smiled back.
“There’ll be a lot more challenges yet for us to face,” Bill said to them all. “This won’t be the last time we’ll have to face these monsters. There will be more of them, and they could come at any time. We have to be ready for them.”
“Will we still be allowed to move around the island by ourselves?” Fritz said.
Bill was silent a long moment.
“Yes,” he said. “But remember it isn’t only your lives you have to think about. Every decision you make will reflect on the people sitting here. If you put yourself in danger, you’re endangering them too.
“We have to defend this island. Switzerland might not exist anymore, but we do. This is New Switzerland. There might be others out there, but until we meet them, we have to assume we’re all that’s left. And if others do come, we must be cautious. It might not seem like it, but we have a good life here. Some people might do anything to take it away from us. We must be ready and alert at all times.”
The foliage rustled.
The Flowers spun around. A rabbit stood up on his back legs and twitched his pink nose at them. He turned and ran back into the hedge.
The Flowersrelaxed, and looked at one another. They each had a weapon in hand, weapons that until a moment ago weren’t even visible. They smiled at one another.
“Somehow, I think we’ll be ready,” Ernest said.
“I hope so,” Bill said.
“Come on,” Liz said, getting to her feet. “Let’s get to bed. We’ve all had a tough day. And tomorrow we get to do it all over again.”
The family dusted the sand off their clothes and walked along the beach to their treehouse.
The sun, a yellow-orange orb, sat on the horizon, leering down at the island. A large shadow with black sails floated past it. High in the crow’s nest, grinning and grimy, a Jolly Roger flag. It snapped and flapped in the wind.
It looked like it was laughing.
Enjoy Flowers Vs. Zombies?
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Contagion
The Robinsons are rebuilding their lives after surviving the recent zombie onslaught. They've rebuilt their treehouse, fixed the water supply, begun to farm again, and carry out dangerous scouting missions to sweep up the last of the zombies. Just when everything is going well they each catch a terrible illness. They're in a race against time to discover their illness's cause and its cure before it's too late.
Spark
There's a new zombie in town. The virus in its purest form. It bypasses human consciousness and tears through every obstacle it comes to. It never hesitates to kill. The Flowers face their greatest adversary yet, and must rely on their survival skills to keep one step ahead of this new terror.
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Also by Perrin Briar
Have you read them all?
Series
Sink
Skip
Z-Minus
Resistant
Compulsion
Blood Memory
Tomorrow’s World
Plants Vs. Zombies
One-Off Novels
Square
Keeping Mum
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Perrin Briar is the author of the popular Blood Memory, Z-Minus and Flowers Vs. Zombies series. He makes his online home at www.perrinbriar.com. You can connect with Perrin on Twitter at @perrinbriar, on Facebook at facebook.com/perrinbriar and you should send him an email at [email protected] if the mood strikes you.
Copyright © 2015 Perrin Briar
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.<
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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Perrin Briar.
Cover design by James at goonwrite.com.
Want to know more about Perrin Briar’s books?
Visit www.perrinbriar.com.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
