Then the ground began to rumble.
Clementine gweked, her eyes shifting from one wall of green to another, pulling against her reins, looking for what was causing this disturbing behaviour.
“Out of the way!” a voice shouted.
Ernest spun around to find Valiant bearing down on him. He let go of Clementine’s harness and threw himself aside. Valiant’s horns caught in the low canopy, but tore through it, the branches snapping beneath his awesome strength, tearing through it like it were tissue paper.
Ernest sat up, watching as Francis’s back disappeared around a corner. Ernest ran to Clementine, who had run to the other side of the path, and seized her harness. She tried to run, jerking Ernest forward, but he dug in his heels and skidded along the path.
“Clementine!” Ernest said. “Clementine, stop!”
Gwek!
“Stop!” Ernest said, and now that the rumbling had dissipated, Clementine calmed down, still wary and peering around at the foliage around them. “Calm down, girl. We’re going to catch up with them and get through this.”
Ernest climbed onto Clementine’s back and took her through the trail of destruction left by Francis and his runaway bull. Valiant had scythed a path through the low canopy, which Ernest was more than willing to take advantage of.
Clementine ran hard, sensing the end of the low ceilinged jungle, and when it finally came, she raised her head up high like an Olympic athlete finishing a race. She picked up the pace and powered along the track, the final corner of the island up ahead. Ernest pulled up alongside Francis, who held onto the rolls of fat at the back of Valiant’s neck, bouncing up and down, barely making contact with the saddle.
“Hi Ernest!” Francis said.
“Have you seen any of the others?” Ernest said.
“No,” Francis said. “I thought they were ahead of us?”
“It’s really not fair that you’re riding a pair of horns with legs,” Ernest said.
“You’re just a sore loser,” Francis said.
“You haven’t won yet,” Ernest said.
“No, but I will!” Francis said.
“Pride before the fall,” Ernest said.
“What?” Francis said.
“Never mind,” Ernest said.
“Bet you regret swapping with me now!” Francis said.
“Not really,” Ernest said. “I don’t really enjoy the taste of dust.”
“What?” Francis said.
Ernest burst forward, Clementine’s large feet kicking up a cloud of dust into Francis’s face.
“See you at the finish line!” Ernest said.
Ernest leaned in low and turned Clementine off the beach path and across a short stretch of marshland. Clementine sped up and leapt over a fallen tree trunk, and then cut across the corner of the beach. When Ernest pulled back onto the wet sand where Clementine could run at full speed, he looked back and saw that Francis had only just rounded the corner, having been unable to jump, nor punch through, the log.
“Haha!” Ernest said.
“Hello there!” a voice from a tree called.
Jack swung through the trees on vines, leaping from branch to branch with ease. He stopped on a trunk, whispered something to Nips, and waited. Nips climbed down from the tree, ran along a fallen tree trunk and picked up Jack’s flag. Then he began to make his way back.
“That has got to be against the rules,” Ernest shouted to Jack.
“We have to go around the track collecting our flags,” Jack said. “There’s nothing in the rules that says we have to be riding our animals.”
“Where’s Herdy?” Ernest said.
“She found a pool of water and wouldn’t get out of it!” Jack said.
“What happened to loyalty?” Ernest said.
“It’s in a dirty puddle about twenty minutes back,” Jack said. “Ta-ra! See you at the finish line!”
Clementine continued to run, and within minutes Ernest saw a pair of figures ahead, on the track that ran parallel to his own. Bill and Liz had taken the short route. Their path joined up with Ernest’s about two hundred yards down.
Ernest didn’t know what had happened for Bill to now be in the lead, but Liz had a halo of shrubbery around her temples and a look of pure murder on her face. A thick white froth covered Lightning’s neck and haunches. Horses were known to run themselves to death. Ernest wasn’t sure if the same was true of zebras.
The thought of losing made Ernest push Clementine harder, rocking back and forth like a world class jockey, driving the ostrich to take longer strides that ate the road before them. She raised her neck up to its full height, her powerful legs pushing them down the path.
The two roads converged a dozen yards ahead, and unless Ernest had missed his guess, he and Liz were on a collision course the moment the two paths became one. Liz had to pull onto Ernest’s path like a slip road onto a motorway. Ernest pushed Clementine hard, refusing to yield to Liz.
Liz turned her head at the last moment, surprise registering on her face. She hadn’t noticed him there before. But she didn’t slow down either. She pushed Lightning harder.
The two animals bumped against one another, mostly due to Ernest’s own attempt to knock Liz off course. Clementine was ahead of Lightning by a beak. Lightning grunted with the effort, legs pumping as hard as they could.
“Don’t push Lightning so hard!” Ernest said.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Liz said.
“Lightning isn’t going to make it!” Ernest said.
Liz looked down at the froth spreading across the zebra’s back.
“She can take it,” Liz said.
“I hope so,” Ernest said, and he stood up in his stirrups and rocked Clementine’s bodyweight into Lightning. The bump knocked Lightning off her stride, losing her rhythm.
“You’re a worse cheat than your father!” Liz said as she slipped behind him.
“From the woman who benefited from a false start!” Ernest said.
He turned to look ahead. Bill was right in front of him. In the far distance, hazy like a mirage, Ernest could make out the finish line. Bill pushed the goats hard. He had a length of wood like a fishing rod held in front of him, hanging just out of reach of the goats. The goats seemed to covet it more than their own lives as they drove the chariot faster than Ernest thought they were capable of.
Ernest pulled up behind Bill’s chariot, the dirt and muck kicked up by the wheels. Clementine gweked in outrage, causing Bill to turn his head slightly. Now he knew they were there. Ernest swung Clementine out from behind the chariot and alongside Bill. Ernest leaned in as low as he could. The ostrich’s head was two feet higher than Bill’s.
The rod had a thick wedge of grass, roots and leaves on the end of it. The goats, incensed by the luscious prize, powered their legs as fast as they could go, barely touching the ground before striding again. But they were hindered by their physiology. As fast as they might be able to run, they were no match for an ostrich. One of Clementine’s strides was worth five of the little goats’.
“You can’t fight evolution!” Ernest said. “Clementine was built for speed!”
“You’re right,” Bill said with a sly smile. “But one thing trumps evolution.”
Ernest held his breath. He couldn’t bring himself to ask what.
“Cunning,” Bill said, and he moved the clutch of foliage at the end of his rod over to one side, in front of Clementine’s beak.
She caught the scent of it. Her eyes widened, her tongue poking out. She pecked at the grass. The goats caught the blades that flittered down to them. Then Bill made thrusting motions, and a handful of grass and roots fell onto the racetrack.
Ernest’s eyebrows rose in alarm.
“No!” he gasped.
“Ta-ta!” Bill said, pulling ahead.
Clementine’s strides shrank as she slowed. Ernest jerked forward, smacking into Clementine’s thick neck. She spun and turned on the spot, feet kicking up dust. Liz ran pa
st as Clementine headed in the opposite direction. Clementine bent down and pecked at the roots and leaves on the ground, guzzling it down. Ernest pulled on the reins to no avail.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Jack said as he swung overhead in the vines. “That’ll teach you!”
“Teach me what?” Ernest said. “There’s nothing to learn from this!”
His eyes returned to Clementine, who was busy snapping up the roots.
“Except to never trust Father,” Ernest said. He turned to Clementine. “You might as well eat all of it. We’ve got no chance of winning now anyway.”
There was a loud roar, like a dinosaur on the loose, somewhere down the straight. The foliage erupted, and a loud crack like a cannon exploding echoed over the island. A dozen flocks of birds took flight. A tree that had been precariously leaning over fell and broke across the beach, the leafy top slamming into the sea. Bill and Liz skidded to a stop before it.
There was a clip-clopping sound behind Ernest. He turned to find Fritz on Lightfoot’s back, making slow but steady progress. He didn’t even look tired.
“That was pretty dramatic, wasn’t it?” Fritz said as he trotted up to Ernest.
“You’ve only just caught up?” Ernest said.
“It seemed pointless trying to win on the back of Lightfoot,” Fritz said. “So I decided just to take a nice stroll. Enjoy the view.”
Francis burst from the foliage ahead of the fallen tree on Valiant’s back. The bull shook his giant horns, dislodging the tree bark and detritus. He reared up, snorted, and ran up the track toward the finish line.
“Valiant,” Fritz said. “The great tree destroyer.”
He looked at the food on the floor that Clementine was pecking at.
“Father?” he said.
“Who else?” Ernest said.
“You know how much he likes to win,” Fritz said.
“He hasn’t won yet,” Ernest said.
“What do you mean?” Fritz said.
“No one has finished yet,” Ernest said. “Looks like Francis will be the first one to the finish line though.”
“Wait,” Fritz said. “You’re telling me no one has crossed the finishing line yet?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Ernest said.
“And to get ahead like that, Francis must have skipped a large part of the course, failing to pick up all his flags…” Fritz said.
He shared a look with his brother, the same thought passing through both their brains. Even Lightfoot could travel faster than Valiant.
“Ya!” Fritz said, snapping Lightfoot’s reins and making him run.
Ernest pulled on Clementine’s harness. She resisted once, and then relented, letting Ernest lead her in a trot in the direction of the finish line. Fritz slowed Lightfoot down as he approached the fallen tree. He let Lightfoot take him over it, the animal’s naturally cautious sense now paying dividends as it carefully climbed over the tree trunk and emerged on the other side.
“Haha!” Fritz said, turning back and waving at the others. “See you at the finish line!”
The tree was massive—over seven feet tall with huge arm-like protruding limbs. The goats and Lightning snapped at the leaves on the tree, and no matter how hard they tried, Bill and Liz couldn’t get them to stop chomping.
Clementine powered up a tree branch, her broad feet good at scaling such objects. She flapped her wings as if she were about to try and fly, but really she was just balancing herself to come down the opposite side with grace.
Despite Francis’s long head start, he was only halfway to the finish line. If it wasn’t for Valiant’s powerful hooves kicking up sand Ernest was certain he’d be able to see the finish line. Fritz had already closed half the distance to Francis. Lightfoot was fast, but not the most graceful of creatures. Fritz bounced all over the place on his saddle. There was enough straight for Clementine to catch up.
“Ya!” Ernest said, spurring Clementine on.
It didn’t take long for her to reach full speed, powering along the beach. They were on the home straight now, down the short length of the east coast.
Clementine raced along the sand, her strides growing longer as they ate up the beach. Fritz checked over his shoulder and moved his arms even faster to coax as much speed out of Lightfoot as he could. But they grew larger as Clementine drew closer.
Ernest turned his head to one side to avoid the sand that had been whipped up into a thick fog by Valiant. When he emerged out onto the other side he was startled to find he couldn’t see the finish line. As the sand began to settle he realised he had already crossed it. There was no one ahead of him.
“Yes!” Ernest said, fists raised high in the air. “Come on! Yes! None of you thought an ostrich could win! Haha! I showed you! I showed you all!”
Ernest reached up and kissed Clementine on the beak.
“You beauty!” he said. “You’re the most beautiful creature in the world! Well, maybe not actually the most beautiful, but metaphorically you might be. In a sense.”
He stopped cheering, realising no one was listening to him. The dust died down and the air became clear, revealing the rest of the Flower family two dozen yards away. They had all gotten off their animals, which stood milling around on the fringes of the jungle, skittish, uncertain and fearful. They cast wary glances toward the black shape lying on the beach at the Flower family’s feet.
Fear gripped Ernest’s heart. Had Fritz or Francis come off their animals? Of the two he feared most for Francis. If he had pushed Valiant too hard he might have fallen, the mighty bull rolling over him and crushing him beneath his enormous weight. Ernest held his breath and drove Clementine toward them.
When he got within a dozen yards, Clementine got spooked and wouldn’t go any closer. Ernest climbed down off her and let her run back to the other animals. Ernest approached his family on foot.
“What’s up?” he said. “Is anything wrong? Is Francis okay?”
A black lifeless object lay across the sand, head flopped to one side. It lifted its head and emitted a deep groan that was full of pain and fear, as powerful and full of heartbroken emotions as a slave’s blues melody. Though it was weak, it still resonated across the entire beach and several miles out to sea, a warning to any creature listening that it was not yet dead and would not be an easy kill. One look at its wounds proved the falsehood of that claim.
“First a tiger, now a jaguar,” Bill said. “I wonder what other dangerous creatures there are on this island.”
“With zombies out there I think Pantherinae are the last thing we should be worried about,” Ernest said.
The beast’s big yellow cat eyes stared back at them all.
“They look a lot bigger in real life, don’t they?” Ernest said.
“Really?” Jack said. “It looks small to me.”
“What do you think happened to him?” Ernest said.
“He’s dying,” Bill said. “Something attacked him.”
The jaguar was smothered in blood, deep cuts across its body like it had been used in a tic-tac-toe championship.
“But by what?” Ernest said.
“Couldn’t it have gotten into a fight with another jaguar?” Liz said.
“It could,” Bill said, nodding. “Except for the marks on its flanks.”
Bill put his hand to the jaguar’s haunch, which was crisscrossed with deep gouges. His fingers fit perfectly against them.
“You did it?” Jack said.
“Yes,” Bill said. “While you all sleep I’ve been wrestling and mutilating jaguars. Of course I didn’t do it.”
“Some of the blood on its fur looks coagulated,” Ernest said.
“This was done by human hands,” Bill said. “Or something similar to us.”
“Zombies,” Liz said.
“Do you think more of them have gotten to the island?” Fritz said.
“Could be,” Bill said. “Or they’re from the same cruise liner we saw before, just having managed to avoid us al
l this time. Either way, we have to check and make sure there aren’t too many of them. We’ll have to go scouting to find them.”
“If they came here by the sea, we’d better do a sweep of the beaches, hadn’t we?” Fritz said. “In case there are more on board.”
“We just rode around the seashore,” Ernest said. “I’m sure one of us would have noticed a boat.”
“Maybe not,” Bill said. “We were distracted.”
“But it couldn’t have been a large ship,” Ernest said. “We would have noticed it.”
“Either way we have to do a scout of the island,” Bill said. “To get rid of these things.”
The jaguar looked around at its audience and let out a deep groan. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth. Bill wore a deep frown.
“Is something wrong?” Liz said.
“It’s probably nothing,” Bill said. “It’s just, jaguars sleep in trees. And I don’t believe jaguars are particularly slow creatures.”
“So?” Liz said.
“So how did slow moving zombies manage to maul a jaguar so badly?” Ernest said. “That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Pa?”
“It is,” Bill said, nodding. “He must have fallen out of the tree and gotten injured, though I don’t see any broken bones. How else could the zombies have gotten him? I don’t understand why he didn’t run way. Zombies could never hope to keep up with him. They’re slow and stupid. No, something fast got to him and wouldn’t let go until it was done with him. Which makes me wonder why they didn’t kill him when they had the chance.”
“Then it wasn’t a zombie?” Fritz said.
“I don’t know,” Bill said. “But it’s mighty strange.”
The jaguar let out another low groan of pain. Bill kneeled down next to it and placed his hand on its head. It raised its paw in defence, but lacked the strength to do much more than gently pat Bill’s arm.
“Sh, sh, sh,” Bill said. “It’s all right.”
Bill slipped his knife deep into the jaguar’s neck. The big cat’s eyes snapped open wide, a snuffled squawk escaping its throat. Its eyes rolled back into its head and its tongue lolled out of its mouth, body going lax. Bill laid the jaguar’s head down.
Flowers vs. Zombies (Book 3): Contagion Page 14