The Zombie Playground

by Brian Rowe

  “WANNNNT! EEEEEEAT!”

  Anaya kept swerving, but Lavender wasn’t going anywhere; she succeeded in crawling across the roof, coming even closer to Brin.

  I think I actually prefer the human Lavender who was so mean and selfish back in Bodie, Brin thought. She was better than this ugly psycho.

  Brin only had a few more seconds before Lavender would be trying to rip her head off. She ducked as far down as she could go, again, but she was no munchkin; Brin would have to jump to the grass if she couldn’t pull Lavender off the cart.

  But before she had to make her decision, she watched in bewilderment as Ash jumped off the side.

  “Ash! What are you—”

  Then she saw Paul roll out of the cart, too. Brin opened her mouth in confusion. She glanced at Anaya, who had in the last few seconds stopped swerving the cart.

  “Anaya? What’s going—”

  She didn’t have to finish her question. Brin looked forward to see a cliff, one that sloped straight down toward a ravine of sharp rocks.

  Oh shit, Brin thought.

  “Brin!” Anaya shouted. “Jump!”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine!”

  “Anaya!” Brin darted her head back and forth, still trying to evade Lavender’s reach. The zombie was all the way to the back edge of the roof, seconds away from falling straight onto Brin’s face.

  Brin turned back toward the ravine. It was just yards away. There was no turning back now.

  “Anaya! Promise me you’ll be OK!”

  “I’ll be fine! Now jump! You stupid bitch, jump!”

  Brin bit down on her tongue and pushed herself backward, away from the cart, landing hard on her back. She pushed herself up and looked forward to see Lavender, Anaya, and the cart, go over the cliff.

  “Anaya! No!”

  Brin leapt to her feet and ran toward the edge of the cliff, her heart pounding, her hands pressed over her mouth. She leaned over and looked down just in time to see the cart land on the rocks below, upside down, right on top of Lavender.

  “Holy shit!” Ash said, running up to Brin. “Is she dead?”

  “Now more than ever,” Brin said.

  “Oh my God, that was amazing! It was like a scene straight out of a movie!”

  But Brin wasn’t able to join in on Ash’s ill-timed enthusiasm. While she wasn’t going to soon miss the zombified Lavender, she hadn’t seen Anaya roll away from the cart in time. She waited ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Anaya was nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh my God,” Brin said. “No, no, no, no.”

  Paul walked up to Brin and Ash. Dirt covered his pale face. “What happened?”

  Brin could already feel the tears forming. She fell down to her knees and crept toward the edge of the cliff. She shouted it, for the entire world to hear.

  “ANAYA?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Brin, are you gonna help me up or what?”

  The voice was so faint Brin almost didn’t hear it at first. She turned to her left to see Anaya hanging off the cliff, her left hand on a tree branch and her right hand shoved up against two large boulders.

  “Anaya! Oh my God! You’re alive!”

  Brin rushed over to the girl, who had her legs dangling out, and most of her giant belly exposed for the trio to see. Brin couldn’t believe her weight hadn’t made her fall.

  She kneeled down and put her arm out. “Grab my hand!”

  “OK!” She reached for Brin’s hand, but before she could find a proper grip on it, Brin pulled her hand away.

  “Wait a second,” Brin said. “I don’t want to be pulled down with you.” She turned around and waved Ash and Paul over. “Guys, help me out here.”

  The boys had tight grips on Brin’s waist before she had even finished her sentence. Brin brought her hand back down for Anaya to grab hold of, and grab hold she did, kicking and screaming as Brin tried to pull her back.

  “Pull me back!” Brin shouted. “Come on! Pull!”

  Ash and Paul pulled back on Brin, Brin pulled back on Anaya, and somehow, someway, the girl kicked herself up off the edge of the cliff and landed on top of Brin’s stomach.

  “Oh God,” Brin said, the wind momentarily knocked out of her. “Anaya… get off me…”

  “My pleasure,” Anaya said with her typical cynicism, even though Brin had just saved her life. She rolled over and planted her face against the dirt ground.

  Brin pushed herself up and tried to take a proper breath. She swallowed her own saliva a few times, then peered at Anaya. “Can we go home now?”

  Anaya sat up, her face even dirtier than Paul’s, and pointed in the distance. “Oh, if it were only that easy.”

  Brin turned around. The other zombies on the pavement hadn’t forgotten about their precious humans; the revolting yellow creatures, every last one of them, were charging through the forest straight for the remaining quartet.

  Anaya shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe this. Do we really have to run again?”

  “Guess so,” Brin said, jumping up to her feet. “Come on, Anaya. It’ll be good exercise.”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “Hey!” Brin said, as Anaya stood up and brushed all the dirt off. “You don’t get to talk to me like that! I just saved your life!”

  “No, I saved your life, by endangering mine!”

  “You know what?” Brin said. “How about we just fend for ourselves the rest of the day? How about we do that, and see who can survive the longest?”

  Ash slowly stepped toward Brin, then tapped on her shoulder. “Umm… Brin?”

  “You’re so on. How about we make it a bet?” Anaya said, pushing her face confidently toward Brin’s.

  “OK. How much?”

  “100 bucks.”

  “200.”

  “250.”

  Brin smiled. “How about 1,000?”

  Anaya flicked Brin in the forehead. “You don’t have that kind of money, liar!”

  “Hey! Don’t flick me!” Brin wanted to start slapping Anaya, but Ash turned her around.

  “Guys,” Ash said. “You care to start running? Cuz if we all die, the only ones getting paid will be the zombies.”

  Brin and Anaya turned to see the onslaught of flesh-hungry creatures headed their way. The big and the small, the young and the old, the hungry and the hungrier, were seconds away.

  “Oh my God,” Brin said. “Ash is right! We have to go! Everybody… run!”

  And run they did. Brin, Anaya, Paul, and Ash stayed close together as they sprinted to their left, up along the cliff, heading deeper into the forest, on their way to the back entrance to Grisly High.

  Brin ran out in front of the others. She could see the large fence that blocked them from the back of the school grounds up ahead.

  “Come on, guys! Hurry!”

  “I’m tired of running!” Anaya shouted.

  “Too bad!”

  Brin jumped over a boulder and almost slammed her head against a tree branch, but she managed to stay afoot. She jetted past one tree, then another tree, then another, until she saw two figures up ahead running in the same direction.

  “Who’s there?” Brin said, slowing down.

  “Dad!” Crispin shouted, grabbing his father and pulling him around. “Look!”

  “Oh, thank God,” Clyde said, out of breath. “You guys are safe.”

  “Not all of us,” Brin said. “What happened back there?”

  Clyde coughed, then took a step forward. “The zombies. They cornered us on the road and knocked our car over. Crispin and I were the only ones to make it out alive.”

  Brin’s demeanor turned more serious. “No. I don’t mean what happened on the road. I’m talking about what happened on the golf course.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me put this in simple terms,” Brin said as the other three caught up to her. “Why the hell did zombies, of all things, interrupt our golf game?”

&nbs
p; “I… I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do!” Brin grabbed hold of his finely pressed collared shirt and pulled him close to her. “You’re hiding something! Tell me!”

  “Why do you want to know—”

  “People are dying! Answer me, or you’ll be the next to die, I swear to God!”

  Anaya was the last to arrive. The roar of the zombies’ eerie moaning echoed in the distance.

  Clyde looked out, like he was waiting for someone. “Where’s Colin?”

  “What?” Brin said.

  “My son? Where’s my son?”

  Brin and Anaya locked eyes with each other. They had both watched Colin be split to pieces back on the seventh hole.

  But they didn’t have to tell this guy anything. He started tearing up, anyway.

  “No,” he said. “Nooooo. Don’t tell me…”

  “I’m sorry,” Brin said, taking a step away from the only adult figure in the vicinity. “There was nothing we could do.”

  Clyde brought his hand to his mouth and collapsed on the ground.

  “Dad!” Crispin said. The thirteen-year-old didn’t seem to understand the disturbing news. “Dad, get up!”

  The father shook his head. “They told me it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “What wasn’t a big deal?” Brin had her hands pushed up against her sides, Anaya’s warm breath wafting against the back of her neck.

  “The lot… it wasn’t… it wasn’t big enough… we needed to expand.”

  The zombies were gaining. The first of the bunch could be seen near the cliff in the distance.

  Ash pulled onto Brin’s arm. “Brin. We have to go. We have to keep running.”

  But Brin wanted an answer. “What did you do, Mr. Cleaver?”

  A tear dropped from his right eye. “The lot wasn’t big enough for eighteen holes. We needed more space. So we built onto Grisly Cemetery. We moved the tombstones over but didn’t move the graves.”

  “You built part of your golf course on top of dead bodies? Like that movie? The one with Craig T. Nelson and that small high-pitched woman?” She turned to the expert. “Ash, what’s that movie called?”

  “Poltergeist,” Ash said. “1982. Universal. Tobe Hooper directed it, but there’s evidence to suggest that Steven Spielberg was the actual director—”

  Clyde didn’t bother listening to the end of the geek’s sentence. “The land was perfect. The profitability, tantalizing. We just… we needed extra space!”

  “People are dying,” Brin said, “because you wanted to make a few extra bucks?”

  Ash pulled again on Brin. “We have to go! We have to keep running!”

  Brin turned around to see the zombies marching toward the six humans. The creatures were moving faster than ever, all in one large intimidating bunch.

  “I didn’t think it was a big deal… I didn’t think it would harm anyone…”

  Brin shook her head and shoved her fists against Mr. Cleaver’s stomach. She wanted to scream at him for his stupidity. But because his son had been one of the victims, she had no choice but to show sympathy.

  “All right,” Brin said. “What’s done is done. There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “Yeah,” Ash said, pointing forward. “Except… you know… keep running.”

  “You have a point, Ash.” Brin sighed and glanced quickly at everyone. “Let’s go!”

  Brin grabbed Paul’s hand and started running toward the fence. She forgot how tall it was; the fence reached up at least fifty to sixty feet.

  “Crap!” Anaya said. “What do we do?”

  “What do you think?” Brin said. “We climb over!”

  The six survivors clasped their hands against the wire fence and started to pull themselves up toward the sky.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The first zombie smacked against the fence when the survivors were halfway up, and the rest of the zombies collided with the first zombie five seconds later. As Brin and the others continued to climb, they had a scary realization resting on their heavy shoulders: if any of them were to fall, they would be torn to pieces.

  Brin reached the top first. She kept a death grip on the fence as she pulled herself to the other side.

  At least if I fall now, I won’t land in any zombie mouths, she thought.

  “Anaya! Hurry up!” Brin shouted, noticing that the big girl was farthest down the scarier side of the fence. Brin secretly hoped that the zombies would be too stupid to even know how to climb a fence.

  Wrong again? But of course.

  Brin was starting to climb down when she noticed ten zombies or more latch onto the wire fence and start making their way up. Anaya lost her grip for a second and almost fell.

  “This is not the time to be weak, Anaya!” Brin shouted. “Come on! Get going!”

  Brin looked up to see the tiny Crispin climb over the top. He leapt down to Brin’s side and almost struck his foot against her head.

  “Careful,” Brin said.

  “I know,” the boy said.

  Ash was next, then Paul. Four of the six were on the safe side of the fence.

  Next was Clyde. His hands reached the top, but he suddenly stopped moving.

  Brin climbed down far enough so that she could jump to the ground without hurting herself; she didn’t want to stay latched to the fence with a dozen zombie hands reaching out for her trying to twist her head off.

  She leapt from the fence and landed on her butt. She fell harder than she expected, but she jumped right back up to her feet, unfazed. She looked up just in time to see Crispin leap toward her.

  “Crispin, no—”

  Before she could tell him to jump in another direction, he knocked Brin back down to the ground.

  “Sorry,” he said, rolling off of her.

  “That’s OK. You’re light. Didn’t hurt a bit.”

  She looked up and silently prayed that Anaya wouldn’t jump on top of her. But she didn’t know what she was going to do yet; Anaya was still on the other side of the fence.

  “Dad?” Crispin said, moving his hands in front of his eyes to block the sun. “Dad, why aren’t you moving?”

  “I’m stuck,” he said. “Goddammit, I can’t move! It’s my foot!”

  Brin looked forward to see twenty zombies now climbing up the fence. She couldn’t risk getting too close. She couldn’t commit suicide for an older man she barely knew.

  “Just twist it!” Ash said, after he landed. “Twist your foot out of there!”

  He was too high up to tell for sure, but it appeared that Clyde’s right shoe had become tangled in one of the twisty wires.

  “I can’t! It won’t budge!”

  Anaya crawled her way past Clyde and reached the top of the fence. In the heat of the moment, Anaya hadn’t even noticed that the boy’s father was having a serious problem.

  “Anaya!” Brin shouted.

  “I’m coming! What?”

  “No!” Brin said, pointing frantically. “Grab Clyde’s hand and pull him toward you! He’s stuck!”

  “What, are you crazy? He’ll pull me down into the zombies!”

  “Just do it, damn it! No one else is going to die today!”

  She gave Brin an angry glare and reluctantly found the other side of the fence. She leaned forward and dropped her hand down for Clyde to reach it. He grabbed it right away.

  “Oww!” Anaya shouted. “Not so hard!”

  “Help me!” Clyde screamed. “Help! They’re grabbing me!”

  Crispin looked ready to start crying. “Daddy! Nooooooo!”

  Two zombies were already gnawing at Clyde’s legs. A third joined in. Clyde screamed as his blood squirted out in five different directions.

  Brin grabbed Crispin and pulled him around so that they were facing the back of Grisly High. She wrapped her arm around his stomach and whispered into his ear, “It’s OK. It’s OK.”

  “No,” he said. “My dad… he needs help…”

  “Shhh. Don’t look. Don’t look, Crispin.�
�

  The boy stared at the ground while Brin calmly turned her head around to see at least ten zombies munching heartily on the father’s legs. There didn’t even appear to be any cartilage left. All she could see below the waist were bones.

  “Oh God,” Brin whispered.

  She looked up. Amazingly, Anaya was still trying to pull him up and over the fence. She tugged at him really hard. She didn’t seem to understand the man was a goner.

  “I almost got him!” Anaya shouted.

  Brin didn’t want to let Crispin go, but she felt like she didn’t have a choice. She dropped him to the ground and waved her arms up high in the air.

  “No! Anaya! Let him go!”

  “What?” She started pulling him up over the fence.

  “For God’s sake! Let him—”

  Brin didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she brought her hands to her cheeks and watched in horror as Anaya pulled Clyde’s severed body up over the fence—and not expecting him to be so light, Anaya tumbled backward and dropped toward the ground.

  “Oh God!” Brin shouted. “Somebody catch her!”

  She looked at Ash, and he shook his head. “You’re not serious.”

  But before she could push Ash into harm’s way, Paul raced over and let Anaya slam her body down against his, the top of Clyde’s half-eaten body falling down to the ground as well.

  “Jesus Christ,” Brin said, grabbing the little Crispin again and pulling him toward the school. “Let’s go over here. Let’s stay over here.”

  “Is my dad OK?”

  She didn’t know what to say. She went with: “You have nothing to worry about. I’m gonna take care of you now.”

  “You mean… like, to live? I’m gonna live with you?”

  Brin stared at the boy like he had spoken to her in Japanese. “Uhh, what? No, no. We’ll talk about it later.”

  The thirteen-year-old started crying against Brin’s waist as she turned around to see Anaya stumbling up to her feet, Paul clutching his chest with both his arms, and Clyde crawling forward for a brief moment, before stopping and dying right there on the bloodied lawn.

  Brin shook her head. She didn’t know much grislier this day could get.