Floodwater Zombies

by Sean Thomas Fisher

  Rory tried not to laugh and snorted. “Nope.”

  “An eagle soars highest when the mountain glistens from afar…”

  “Wrong,” Rory replied flatly, shaking his head. “Not even close. You just ruined the whole thing.”

  Woody frowned and leaned back in the chair. “You just ruined the whole thing,” he grumbled under his breath, returning his attention to the campfire, which gladly picked up the slack in the conversation.

  Kate inhaled a wheezing breath and slapped Woody’s knee, making him jump. “You’re so weird!”

  Rory leaned back in the chair and cracked his back. He stared longingly into the night and sighed again. “Everything I see reminds me of Facebook. If only I had my phone.”

  Kate cocked her at him. “Really, Rory?”

  Clutch chuckled, his jaw line looking even sharper in the orange light. “Wow, you need some help, dude! Hey Kate, you wanna frisk us for cell phones again?” A sly grin crept across his cheeks, like the awkward silence creeping across the group of friends. “I mean, just to be sure.”

  Kate and Ashley traded glances and began twisting their hair around their index fingers, neither knowing how to respond.

  “Okay, I’m done here,” Rachel muttered, finishing her cabernet in a single gulp and getting up. “Anyone need one?”

  Everyone shot a hand into the air at the same time. They paused to look around the ring before erupting into a rolling bout of laughter. A loon cried out from across the lake as if yelling at them to keep it down.

  “I’ll help you,” Ashley said, joining Rachel at a worn-out picnic table.

  Rachel clicked on a battery-powered lantern, lighting up a portable grill, buns, chips, marshmallows, two Ziplocs stuffed with homemade brownies, empty beer cans, and an old leather football littering the table’s surface. Graffiti, mainly pot leaves and bulbous mushrooms, poked out where it could. Ashley moved a beer bong from the top of a large cooler taking up half a bench and popped it open.

  The conversation around the campfire subsided into a lull that can sometimes even sneak up on the drunk and stoned. Crickets chirped off in the woods while hundreds of frogs croaked along the muddy banks. A massive throng of locusts, hiding in the tall trees above, joined in the chorus, orchestrating a symphony of rising and falling buzzing.

  “So did you really get high with Eric Church?” Kate asked.

  “Once,” Clutch grinned. “And you’ll never believe what happened.”

  “What?” Kate and Woody replied at the same time.

  Rory glanced behind him to the picnic table, admiring Rachel’s firm backside in the jumping light while the group’s chatter drifted a thousand miles away. He still couldn’t believe it had been three years. He had hoped she would have gained weight or a trout-pout from too much lip filler, but she looked better than ever. Not that it mattered. He couldn’t sit around ruing the day he had left her and this town in his rearview mirror. Some things just weren’t meant to be. Plus, if she had decided date this Clutch guy, she had obviously lost her mind. But those shorts… He cringed for letting his eyes wander for too long and turned back around to find Clutch staring right at him.

  Clutch lifted his eyebrows until they disappeared beneath the bill of his cap. “You all set, bro?”

  Rory shifted in the lawn chair and jiggled his empty can. “Just waitin on that beer,” he smiled.

  Clutch nodded somberly.

  “What if we turned around and we were completely surrounded by flesh-eating zombies?”

  “Woody! Quit freaking me out,” Kate said, digging another tightly rolled joint from her oversized black purse. “You don’t have to scare me to get me to sleep in your tent tonight,” she said, getting up and taking Rachel’s seat next to him.

  “No, you just have to get her some more wine,” Ashley snickered, coming back over with a bottle of nine dollar cab.

  “Don’t do it, Kate,” Rachel warned, handing Woody a cold one. “You two work together.”

  Kate shrugged and held her glass up for Ashley to refill it. “Hey, you only live once.”

  “Or twice,” Woody chimed in. “If you’re a zombie.”

  Kate rolled her eyes and sparked the joint, taking a deep drag and passing it around the circle. “Is that all you ever talk about?”

  “No wonder you haven’t been laid since the Bush/Cheney administration,” Ashley said, emptying the rest of the bottle into her glass.

  Clutch took the joint and studied Woody with a nonplussed look covering his face. “Fast or slow?”

  Woody frowned. “Huh?”

  “The zombies. Are they fast or slow?”

  Woody shrugged. “Fast, I guess.”

  Clutch hit the joint and pushed a hand through the air at him. “Fuck that,” he said, holding his breath. “Those aren’t real zombies.”

  Rory sat up straighter, his butt going numb from the taught canvas. “How are those not real zombies?”

  Clutch coughed plumes of white smoke out like the Hogwarts Express and passed the joint to Rachel. “Because, real zombies are shamblers and when they have you surrounded, that’s where the tension is at.” He paused to cough some more. “When they slowly move in for the kill is what gets the viewer every time. It’s all about tradition, Ror-dawg.”

  Ashley twirled her long blond hair around a finger and grinned at Rory, awaiting his response.

  Rory’s bloodshot eyes grew even thinner. “Yeah but, what if you’re out in an open field? You could easily outrun them, which is boring for everyone.”

  A perplexed look stole across Clutch’s chiseled features. “Why would you be out in an open field with zombies all over the place?”

  Rory laughed, watching Rachel pass the joint to Ashley. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re on a supply run or something.”

  Clutch twisted his face in the orange light and pulled out another cigarette. “It’s gotta be Romero zombies or nothin,” he concluded, lighting up and expelling a stream of rolling smoke that mingled with the billowing campfire. “Anything else is a total joke.”

  “So…just because they’re fast, means they’re not zombies? How’s that possible? They’re dead, their bodies are rotting, and they eat people.”

  Clutch took another drag and blew smoke in Rory’s direction. “Because real zombies are too deteriorated to move that fast. Their muscle-mass is in decline.”

  “Well, then how come they can overpower people so easily if they’re so deteriorated?”

  “They’re power lies in numbers, Rory, not with the individual flesh-eater itself.”

  Rory laughed. “Yeah, try telling that to Barbara’s brother.”

  Clutch scrunched his face up. “Who?”

  “Exactly,” Rory muttered.

  Woody squinted through the rising smoke. “So you didn’t like 28 Days Later?”

  Clutch pounded his beer and threw the empty can over his shoulder without looking. “It was all right,” he said dully, cracking open a new can and wiping his hand on his shorts. “I wouldn’t call those things zombies. They were infected, but at least it was better than the piece of shit sequel.”

  Rory sucked in a long breath of warm air and released it. “That’s true, but 28 Weeks Later does have one of the best openings of any zombie movie of all time.”

  Clutch let out a booming laugh that bounced off the surrounding hillsides. “You can’t be serious!”

  “I don’t know, baller,” Woody started. “When that one dude is sprinting across that field with thirty decomposing stiffs hot on his ass, that’s pretty awesome.”

  Clutch made a sound that ruffled his lips. “Well, it was better than Contagion anyway. I’ll give ya that, Daddy-longlegs.” He winked at Woody, who blushed with the praise. “Matt Damon ruined a perfectly good zombie movie by not having any zombies in it.”

  Rory couldn’t help but laugh. It was so true. Ashley leaned over and passed him the joint, flashing some serious cleavage. Her warms fingers brushed against his as he took it, sending butt
erflies fluttering inside his stomach. It had been a long five weeks and counting since Danielle had dumped him and the touch of a woman made his heart tremble. He sat back, trying to act casual, and blew ash from the joint’s end while Ashley swept a wine-red tongue across her lips and watched him with mischievous eyes.

  Rachel cast a sideways look at Ashley and turned back to the fire. “Okay, can we change the subject please? This is the wrong thing to be talking about out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Especially at night!” Kate added.

  Rory smiled and took a long drag. He held his breath and nudged Kate’s arm. “Ear.” When he turned back around, Ashley winked at him. She was also looking better than ever and could have passed for Rachel’s sister. Both had pretty, pale faces and slender bodies that turned heads wherever they went and maybe hooking up with Ashley tonight wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Besides, he didn’t see any herpes. It would piss Rachel off but so what? She was with Clutch.

  Despite Rory’s firm resolution, his eyes defied him and landed on Rachel’s red-painted toes, which, of course, led to her silky smooth legs and eventually her perky breasts, hidden by the skimpiest of tank tops. Before he could accidentally make eye contact with her again, he pulled his gaze away and found Clutch hitting him with a cold stare. Rory kept his eyes moving to Kate who was busy blowing smoke through her puckered lips.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Ashley said, staring at him with dreamy eyes as if she had been reading his mind.

  Rory was certain he could read hers. His face flushed. “I’m glad to be back.”

  “This summer is going to be so fun, Rory! Wait till you see new Ricky’s new boat,” Kate said, sending the joint around the circle again.

  “I heard. It sounds sweet.”

  “Wait’ya see the wakeboard rig. It’s sick, dude,” Woody told him.

  Kate nodded with thin eyes and a wide smile. “You’ll never want to leave again!”

  He grimaced with her statement and forced a smile, catching a look from Rachel he couldn’t quite decipher.

  “All I know is,” Clutch said. “If I saw a zombie right now, I’d put my fist through its rotten face.”

  Woody gulped loudly. “You would?” he quivered.

  Clutch nodded. “Damn straight, stretch. Cuz I got the glow.”

  An eyebrow leaped across Rory’s forehead. “The glow?”

  Clutch nodded.

  “You mean like…Bruce Lee?”

  The DJ leaned forward and grinned widely. It seemed like an open invitation for a challenge.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Woody mumbled.

  Rory followed Woody’s stoned gaze to see Ashley standing naked on the other side of the fire, her yellow sun dress crumpled around her bare feet.

  “Who wants to go skinny-dipping?” she asked, bravely letting it all hang out. “Rory?” she said brightly, biting on a pinky.

  “Uhhhhh,” he said, temporarily mesmerized by her perfect breasts and smoothly shaven body. He swallowed hard and turned away, noticing Rachel eagerly awaiting his response as well. “I’m probably good for now, but maybe later.”

  Ashley folded her arms across her chest and covered her boobs, his punishment for being a wet blanket. “Oh come on, Rory! I won’t bite,” she said, the fire dancing in her bloodshot eyes. “That hard…”

  Rory tugged on his collar. “Well, it is pretty hot out.”

  Clutch sprang to his feet and dropped his shorts, which took his boxers with them to the dirt. “Who just made you a winner?” he shouted.

  “Oh my God!” Rachel shrieked, staring in horror at his tiny package. “What are you doing?”

  “The fire’s too hot, babe. I need to cool off.”

  Rachel turned her bulging eyes to the woods. “Okay, you have just officially crossed a serious line here,” she said crossly.

  “What? There’s nothing wrong with a little late night swim. That’s what summer is all about!”

  “I’m in,” Kate said matter-of-factly, setting her wine glass on the ground and pushing herself up from the chair. With a casual air, she wiggled out of her denim shorts, aiming a sultry stare Woody’s way, making sure he was paying attention this time. The shorts hit the dirt about the same time his jaw did. She pulled her tank top over her head and let it slip through her fingers to join the shorts.

  “All right, all right, all right!” Clutch smiled, doing his best Matthew McConaughey.

  Kate pulled her hair from its ponytail and shook her head, letting long, shiny hair swing freely across a set of gratuitous fake breasts.

  Woody was staring so hard, Rory waited for drool to start running from the corner of his mouth. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want Rachel catching him stealing glances of the two beauties in the buff, but he didn’t and wrote it off to old habits dying hard.

  “Wow, okay,” Rachel said, glancing at Kate’s naked body. “This is getting way too weird.”

  “Oh come on, Rachel!” Kate laughed. “Live a little.”

  “No thanks.”

  “It’d be a lot cooler if you did,” Clutch said, handing Rory what was left of the joint. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” he yelled, running for the water and screaming like a banshee. He high-stepped through the shallows, his white butt cheeks glowing in the bright moonlight, and dove in head first. A few seconds later, he came up for air and howled into the night. “Damn that feels good!”

  Woody stood up and dropped his long board shorts, making Kate’s and Ashley’s eyes widen.

  “Really?” Rory said, looking away as if Woody had just opened the Ark and released a whirlwind of swarming evil spirits. “You’re just gonna bust that thing out right here?”

  “Oh my God, I did not need to see that!” Rachel laughed, shielding her eyes with a hand.

  “Woody, you didn’t tell me you were related to Tommy Lee!” Kate exclaimed, her hand covering her wide grin and nothing else.

  Ashley giggled, making her boobs bounce. “Well, what’d ya expect? He’s like ten feet tall!”

  “Is it always that big or are you just happy to see us?” Kate smiled, studying Woody through impressed blue eyes.

  “That’s up to you to find out,” he said, pounding the rest of his beer, tossing the can into the fire and dashing for the shoreline.

  Ashley and Kate squealed with laughter and gave chase, kicking up brown sand as they raced to the water’s edge. Rory tried not to gawk at the way their boobs and butt cheeks bounced with each step they took, but the beers delayed his plan to turn away.

  The girls splashed into the warm water and screamed, their nude bodies glistening in the moonlight.

  Rory smiled from ear to ear. “Wow!” he laughed lightly, turning to Rachel. “Your turn.”

  “Are you crazy? I’m not going in there after that toxic waste spill.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “You’re still on that kick? That was ten years ago!”

  “Well, I don’t see you going in.”

  He took a deep breath and grew silent, returning his attention to the water. “Yeah well, I’m not big on growing a third nipple, so I think I’ll pass.”

  She laughed, watching the others dunk one another with wild splashes. Their erupting screams splattered the rolling hillsides, dotted with tall pines and oaks.

  “They’re crazy,” Rory said, offering her the joint.

  She held up a hand and shook her head.

  Rory poked the ground with the joint until it stopped smoking and left it sitting under his chair, the silence between them becoming as oppressive as the fire’s heat. His mind scrambled for something to say, something that wasn’t about the weather or the price of gas or how long it had been since they had last seen each other. He got up from his chair and took the one next to her. She smiled warmly and turned to watch the others frolicking in the water like excited puppies. Rory refrained from asking her how she had been and convinced himself he didn’t really want to know.

  “So, how long have you and Clutch be
en going out?” he asked instead.

  She chuckled and dropped her forehead into the heel of her hand, hiding her face like he had just found a neon green vibrator stashed inside her glove box. “A few weeks.”

  “He seems like a good guy,” he lied.

  “He’s better when he doesn’t talk.”

  Rory snorted. “And when is that?”

  “Never!”

  Their laughter faded. The popping fire and croaking frogs grew louder.

  “I’m sorry he was so rude.”