Flowers vs. Zombies (Book 3): Contagion

by Briar, Perrin

  There was something about it, something that held his attention, something he remembered… He turned it around at ninety-degree intervals, and then stopped. His eyes grew wide and he dropped the square of skin.

  “Oh my God,” he said, face turning pale. “That’s impossible.”

  “What?” Liz said. “What is it?”

  “This is the tattoo from the creature we caught today,” Bill said.

  “Yeah, so?” Liz said.

  “I thought I recognised it when we were hitting it,” Bill said. “Now I know where I saw it before.”

  “Wait,” Liz said. “You’ve seen this before?”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “I have. I know who the creature was. He was the noisy man in the bar from The Adventurer, at the next table to us. I remember looking at him, annoyed because it was hard to hear the radio. He turned back to his friend and I saw this on the back of his arm.”

  Bill picked up the skin and extended it to Liz, who scrunched up her face and didn’t take it.

  “So?” Liz said. “What difference does it make who he was?”

  “It makes a difference because he was a zombie, and we killed him,” Bill said.

  “What do you mean?” Liz said. “When did we kill him?”

  “Soon after we first arrived on the island,” Bill said. “He’s buried in our graveyard!”

  Chapter Four

  THE GRAVES stood open like sardine cans, the dirt forced out, lying in ordered mounds. Scruffy trails ran from the inside of each one, the scuff marks of clawed hands and dragging feet.

  “This is great,” Fritz said. “We kill them, bury them, and then they come back stronger and worse than they were before!”

  He threw up his hands.

  “That’s just great!” he said. “All this time we thought we were wiping them out, when actually we were incubating them to become even more dangerous! Now we have an island full of mindless killing machines running rampant. A single scratch from which could well infect us with the virus!”

  “We can’t call them zombies,” Ernest said.

  “Why not?” Fritz said. “I don’t think they’ll mind.”

  “But they’re not zombies,” Ernest said. “They’re spinning demons. They’re different entities. We need to deal with them differently.”

  “Let’s call them Spinners then,” Liz said. “Everyone in agreement?”

  They all nodded.

  “I’m not sure if this is the most pressing issue right now,” Fritz said.

  “I’m just glad we didn’t bury every zombie we found,” Ernest said.

  “What do you mean?” Fritz said.

  “We burned a lot of them when the horde came, don’t you remember?” Ernest said.

  “Oh, yeah!” Fritz said. “Small mercies.”

  “How many of them do you think there are?” Liz said to Bill.

  “Judging by the number of re-opened graves, I’d say we have about three to four hundred on our hands,” Bill said.

  “Wonderful,” Fritz said. “Just when I thought it was safe to go for an afternoon stroll again. How many times do we have to kill these things?”

  “Technically they’re already dead,” Ernest said. “But death doesn’t mean what it used to.”

  “Thanks for that, Dr. Freud,” Fritz said.

  Bill frowned.

  “I said before that the virus constantly needs new hosts to continue to spread,” he said. “But what I don’t understand is what reanimated these zombies in the first place.”

  “These bodies haven’t had anything to eat in ages,” Ernest said. “They were dead. Really dead.”

  “That wouldn’t matter if there was another source of energy,” Bill said.

  “What source of energy?” Ernest said. “There’s nothing here! Unless you’re talking about worms or maggots?”

  “No,” Bill said. “It would need to be something more substantial than that. They’ve always been infected. But why did they rise again now? What’s so different than before?”

  They were silent a long moment. Ernest cast a look over the heaped mounds of earth. In places they were a deep rich red-brown colour, in others, black. He crouched down and ran his fingers over the soil. His eyes lit up and he turned to Bill.

  “Lightning!” he said. “It was lightning!”

  Fritz looked up at the blue sky.

  “There’s no lightning,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Not now,” Ernest said. “The other night when we had the storm.”

  “Is anyone else lost in this conversation?” Fritz said.

  “I am,” Jack said.

  “There would need to be evidence this place was struck,” Bill said to Ernest.

  “There is,” Ernest said, holding the soil up and letting it run between his fingers.

  Bill’s eyes widened. He turned and ran toward a pine tree. He scaled halfway up it and peered down at the graveyard around them.

  “Yes,” he said. “You’re right!”

  He jumped down from the tree. Liz grabbed him.

  “I enjoy watching you lose your mind as much as the next person,” she said. “But what are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry,” Bill said. “Ernest’s hypothesis is, what if these inert creatures were reanimated?”

  “Reanimated how?” Fritz said.

  “What we know about this virus is it doesn’t need living hosts,” Bill said. “It only requires an energy source. So long as the host can spread the virus, it doesn’t care where that energy comes from. I said these Spinners evolved. I was wrong. They were created from zombies.”

  “Created?” Fritz said. “By who?”

  “Not by whom, by what,” Bill said, looking up at the sky. “Have any of you ever read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?”

  “No,” Fritz said. “Is it by Stephen King?”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Ernest said, shaking his head.

  “A bolt of lightning powered a dead body into becoming reanimated,” Bill said. “It came to life. The other day we had a huge thunder storm. There was lots of lightning. Do you remember? There would have been plenty of power. It could have struck here, giving the zombies all the power they needed.”

  “But that’s a work of fiction!” Fritz said. “How can it happen in real life?”

  “There are many things we don’t know about real life, least of all the virus,” Bill said. “We don’t know what happens when certain forces come in contact with it.”

  “But they’re dead!” Fritz said. “How can they come back?”

  “You mean, how can they come back again?” Bill said. “They already came back once, remember. There’s no telling how many times they can come back should the right catalyst occur.”

  “You mentioned they were struck by lightning,” Liz said. “Wouldn’t there be evidence of that if it were true?”

  “There is evidence,” Bill said. “You just can’t see it very well from the ground. Get to a higher vantage point and you’ll see this area is dotted with lots of black circles, the places where lightning struck.”

  “But why would lightning strike here?” Ernest said. “It’s not the highest point on the island. There’s nothing here to attract it.”

  “You don’t know that,” Bill said. “There might be an ore deposit underneath us. It would draw lightning to it. Just our luck to have set up a cemetery over an ore mine! The power could have sent a pulse through the bodies, and the virus was ready for it. What we’re seeing in these things is the virus in its purest form bypassing human consciousness. A creature that exists only to propagate more of itself. If a single scratch can do that, being an unstoppable whirlwind of destruction is the best method.”

  “You sound like you admire them,” Fritz said.

  “I admire nature’s inexhaustible creativity,” Bill said. “And how can you not admire its survival instinct? It will not die until we toss it on the fire. It will not stop fighting until the host cannot fight
anymore.”

  “Is it just me,” Fritz said, “or does it feel like this island doesn’t really want us here? It keeps throwing new things at us.”

  “The island doesn’t have a will,” Bill said. “It’s just the way things are in the world now.”

  “Then how do we kill these Spinners?” Fritz said. “If destroying their brains doesn’t stop them, what can we do?”

  “For all intents and purposes the virus does kill them,” Ernest said. “But when they come in contact with an electric current they get reinvigorated with life. There’s little we can do save burn them.”

  “We can’t set the whole island on fire,” Fritz said.

  “We could build a barrier between us,” Liz said. “Blocking them off from our side of the island.”

  “There are two problems with that idea,” Bill said. “One, there’s no guarantee a barrier would be able to stop them indefinitely, and two, there are things we need on the other side of the island. What if one of us gets ill again and we need medicine? It’s all in the middle of the island.”

  “Then what do we do?” Fritz said.

  There was another pause of reflection.

  “We smash them into pulp,” Bill said.

  “We tried that,” Fritz said. “It didn’t work.”

  “Not with cudgels,” Bill said. “Another method.”

  “And how are we going to do that, exactly?” Fritz said. “They’re as different from zombies as zombies are from us. They’re unstoppable.”

  “Nothing’s unstoppable,” Bill said. “You just have to figure out its weakness.”

  “But these things have no weakness,” Ernest said. “No self-control, nothing. They just go mad.”

  “Then that is their weakness,” Bill said. “They’re blind to their actions, to where they’re heading.”

  “So?” Fritz said.

  “So, we’ll give them a little prod in the right direction,” Bill said.

  “Which direction is that?” Liz said.

  Chapter Five

  THE WAVE smashed into the rocks, turning the sea foamy white. It hissed with bubbles as another wave came in. The Flowers stood on the edge of the cliffs on the west coast, looking down at the rough sea and vicious rocks.

  “We’ll lead them here,” Bill said. “And push them over the side onto the rocks below.”

  “Sorry to be the wrench in the works,” Fritz said, “but how exactly are we going to lead them up here in the first place? They’re not like normal zombies. They’re not going to follow us just because we look tasty. These monsters can’t see or think.”

  “Fritz, it pains me to say, is right,” Ernest said. “We can’t get near these things. If we do, they’ll scratch us and that’s it. Game over.”

  “Then how do we overcome these bloody things?” Fritz said. “We can’t go near them, and we can’t attack them. So what can we do?”

  “We’ll push them,” Liz said.

  “And call them names?” Fritz said.

  “No,” Liz said. “They spin, right? So why don’t we use their momentum against them? They don’t have eyes or ears or know which way they’re going, so why don’t we gently—or rather, not so gently—nudge them in the direction we want them to go in?”

  Bill nodded.

  “We’ll push them like bumper cars,” he said. “We’ll make strong shields and push them back until they go over the cliff edge. They’ll land on the rocks, exploding into a thousand pieces.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Liz said.

  “We’d better get started soon,” Bill said. “Eventually they’re going to find our home and tear through everything we’ve built.”

  “Then let’s get started,” Liz said.

  Chapter Six

  “THERE THEY ARE,” Bill said. “Is everyone ready?”

  The family hefted their tall wooden shields—Jack requiring both hands to lift his—and carried them forward, toward the Spinners. They stopped a dozen yards away and lined up into one long row. The shields were thick, made from the hardy outer shell of bamboo trees. They were relatively light considering their size. They were each the same height as the bearer, and two feet wide.

  “Remember,” Bill said, “we’ll separate one of them from the rest and shepherd it toward the cliff edge. Jack, Ernest, you’ll watch our backs in case any of them sneak up on us from behind. If one gets through, shout. We’ll turn and defend ourselves. Is everyone ready?”

  They all nodded.

  “All right then,” Bill said. “Let’s do this.”

  They moved forward with their shields raised, one step at a time, closing on the Spinners. The Spinners twisted, beating the ground and trees, cartwheeling away in a dozen directions. One broke away from the rest and headed straight for the family.

  Flap, flap, flap, flap.

  “Form up!” Bill said.

  The family slammed their shields down, forming a solid wall like something from the Roman era, bracing their shields with their shoulders. They waited but nothing made contact. They exchanged confused expressions. Bill peeked through the gap between his and Liz’s shields.

  “It’s gone,” Bill said. “It must have changed direction at the last moment.”

  The family lowered their shields. The jungle was empty of Spinners.

  “Where did they go?” Liz said.

  “Deeper into the jungle, I suppose,” Bill said.

  “They’re so fast,” Liz said. “How on earth did you manage to catch the one yesterday?”

  “He had half his limbs already missing,” Bill said. “Come on, let’s head farther into the jungle.”

  The trees had a thick series of scratches in their bark. There was a sound like a schizophrenic woodpecker drilling at a nearby tree. The family followed it.

  “There’s one,” Bill said. “It looks like it’s alone.”

  The Spinner bounced off a tree and headed at a perpendicular angle to them. It smacked into another tree, having been unfortunate enough to have gotten ensnared in a dense section of jungle. It could hardly spin before colliding with another tree, unable to build up momentum. The family surrounded it on one side, Jack and Ernest standing with their backs to Bill, Liz and Fritz, defending their rear.

  “Go!” Bill said.

  Bill, Liz and Fritz ran forward, smacking their shields into the Spinner, sending it rebounding backwards, colliding with another tree. The Spinner was brown skinned with one undamaged arm, the other a fingerless club of a hand. Its legs were in worse shape, one ending at the knee, the other at the ankle.

  The Spinner spun in a different direction, heading away. Bill forced his shield forward and connected with the Spinner. Its arms struck the shield, bouncing off, sending it off in another direction. Fritz was on it, pushing it back with his shield.

  “That’s the wrong direction!” Bill said, waving his arm. “This way!”

  Liz ran forward and blocked the Spinner, preventing it from going the wrong way farther. The Spinner hammered her shield, knocking it back. Liz was squashed underneath it. The Spinner pummelled her shield without remorse. Bill ran forward and grunted as he took the brunt of the Spinner’s aggression. The Spinner pulled back, stamped its feet, and then spun away like the Tazmanian Devil into the foliage. Fritz gave chase.

  “Are you all right?” Bill said, helping Liz up.

  “I’m fine,” Liz said. “I just slipped.”

  Fritz came walking down the slope toward them, raising his arms.

  “It’s no good,” Fritz said. “It’s already gone.”

  Liz’s eyes went wide.

  “Look out!” she said, pointing behind Fritz.

  Fritz spun around to find the Spinner racing toward him. He raised his shield, but not fast enough as the Spinner’s club of a hand smacked him across the face, a loud slap echoing across the open space. Fritz fell back like he’d been dealt a knock-out punch. The Spinner’s leg smashed into the underside of Fritz’s shield, snapping its weak rotten bone. It drew its ruined
leg up to bring it down on the unconscious Fritz, but Ernest was there, crouching over Fritz, his shield over his head.

  Ernest managed to keep hold of his shield, though his muscles and tendons strained at the effort. The Spinner pummelled his shield in rapid succession like a boxer on a helpless opponent. Flesh and bone smacked and sprayed across the shield, but Ernest held on. Bill ran forward, adding his own shield to Ernest’s. The Spinner changed direction again and headed away.

  It smacked into a tree, bounced off, and came rushing back, this time toward Liz and Jack. Together they braced their shields and let the Spinner collide into them. The handle on Jack’s shield snapped off and his shield flew out of his hands, skittering across the jungle floor. Liz pulled Jack behind her shield. She stepped forward and thrust her shield into the Spinner, knocking it back. It floundered, but its weight pressed it forward again.

  Liz planted her shield in the earth. The Spinner smacked it with its clawed hand, and then turned away at a sharp ninety-degree angle. It turned again, toward Liz. Her eyes widened, and she tugged on her shield, but the Spinner was already on her. She backed away, working around to the front of her shield. The Spinner tore at the unprotected inside of the shield, exploding into woodchips.

  “Watch Fritz,” Bill said to Ernest.

  Bill ran forward and pushed the Spinner. It rolled up an incline and then fell back on itself, the incline too steep. It landed on its back and spun around uselessly. The Spinner pushed itself up onto its feet, slow, like a body rising from the dead.

  Bill roared and flew at the Spinner, throwing himself on top of it. Its arm and legs jammed into the earth. Bill raised his shield above his head and thrust it down, severing the creature’s stunted arm. Then he brought the shield edge down and cut off the creature’s other arm. He flew back in time to avoid the creature’s congealed blood flying at him in a wide spray.

  The creature spun, powering up into a standing position. It spun around and around, pushed itself up onto two working limbs and cartwheeled away. Though it disappeared through the foliage and out of sight, no one took their eyes off the jungle around them. The Flowers panted for breath.