by Megan Berry
I stand up in the boat and wave my arms to get their attention, and a few more of them putter closer. The back rows of zombies, pushing the front out into rushing water. “It’s working.” I yell to Ryan and he nods his agreement, even as he smacks the edge of his paddle against the top of the water to make an enticing splash. “Come get it.” I yell, leaning forward to hold my arm enticingly over the edge of the boat.
The arm trick works. The zombies take one look at the tender flesh of my upper arm and march into the water, completely intent on their snack, and one by one, the deeper they wade out for the promise of just one taste, they begin to get pulled by the undercurrent, until a good portion of them have all been sucked away.
Now only a few zombies remain, as well as the feasted-on bodies littering the beach. They will be trouble soon, but they haven’t completely turned into zombies yet. The beach is as good as its ever going to get, so Ryan aims the boat for the not so far-shore, finally, after what felt like forever, and then I feel the lurch as we come to a complete stop against the sand bar.
The remaining zombies set up a collective moan of excitement and haul ass in our direction, but there’s only five of them left and they are spaced out. “You’ve got this Jane.” Ryan tells me encouragingly as he gathers up his oar in anticipation, and I feel a hell of a lot better about the situation as I jump out of the boat with the enormous dog at my side and start swinging my axe.
It takes us no more than ten minutes to dispatch of the zombies that remained on the beach while their friends went for a swim, as well as the one zombie that wandered onto the scene, from somewhere else, after the fact.
I pull my axe out of my last zombies head, dripping in gore, and start to head up the riverbank to the grassy area that we only recently escaped across, when Ryan’s faint whistle has me spinning around to see what he wants.
“All these bodies are going to turn.” He whispers and that gives me pause. I don’t want to stay and waste any more time, but there’s at least thirty bodies littering the sand and thirty new zombies could do a lot of harm to our already bad situation.
“Okay.” I nod as I watch Ryan pull his long, thin blade from his belt and start to puncture each zombie through the eye, sinking his blade right into their brains. I don’t have the time, or strength to mess around trying to push a knife through the orbital bone of a zombie, so I use my axe to smash and dash between my half of the bodies.
I’m sweating by the time we are done, but my adrenaline keeps me from feeling too much. I motion for Ryan to follow me, and he does this time, and together with our weapons out, we climb up the river bank and freeze.
It’s so much worse than we could have imagined. Zombies wander the streets, and not a lot of people are left standing to fight them off. A zombie across the lawn stops its staggering, turning to see what we are up to, before changing direction and coming at us with a growl, and Ryan rushes forward to take it out. His absence leaves me standing there with a full view of the once meticulously manicured safe community. It’s in shambles now and a couple blocks away, a thick plume of black smoke rises into the air-something is on fire, and I can only hope that it isn’t the police station.
“Please Silas.” I whisper to myself. “Please be alright.” Ryan runs towards me and taps my arm to pull me out of my thoughts.
“Ready to go get Silas?” He asks, only puffing slightly from this workout, and I nod grimly as I take my first few steps towards almost certain death.
“Let’s do this thing.”
The End
Zomb-Pocalypse 6 Coming June 30, 2019
Like Megan Berry on Facebook for updates, sneak peeks, and giveaways!
https://www.facebook.com/Megan-Berry-554375344682839/