Flowers vs. Zombies (Book 3): Contagion

by Briar, Perrin

  Flap, flap, flap, flap.

  Lightning and Lightfoot skittered slightly, alarmed by the sound. The goats and Clementine, normally the most skittish animals, appeared to be calm and relaxed. Every member of the family gripped their reins tight.

  “Everyone take your position,” Bill said.

  The family formed into a line, standing shoulder to shoulder. They waited as the snap of foliage grew louder, and semi-decomposed flesh flashed at them from between gaps in the trees.

  “Let’s get one on his own,” Bill said. “We can practice if we team up on him.”

  Dirt was kicked up from an unseen limb to their right, like a child’s wellington in a puddle. Another Spinner struck a low-hanging tree branch, snapping it in half, and all the time there was the whirlwind sound:

  Flap, flap. Flap, flap.

  Then a Spinner, tall and lank, burst through the foliage.

  “Ya!” Bill said, snapping his reins.

  The other riders followed his lead, darting forward. Bill sped up quickly, the chariot he rode taking the uneven surface with ease. The cartwheels rolled into a recess in the soil. Bill bent his knees to absorb the worst of the shock. At the last moment the Spinner began to turn in another direction, but Bill was already running at full speed. The goats lowered their heads naturally when they ran, and smacked hard into the Spinner, knocking it back. Bill snapped his reins and moved aside.

  “Form up behind me!” Liz said, and Ernest, Fritz and Jack made a line behind their mother.

  Liz charged at the Spinner just as it was beginning to get back onto its broken limbs. She knocked it back another five feet. Lightning grunted at the collision, rose up onto her back legs, and kicked at the fallen Spinner, her hooves cracking its skull and snapping the last of the skin that kept its head attached. The face rolled across the ground, eyes blinking and winking, nostrils flaring, like a man with severe ticks. Liz led Lightning away, and now it was Fritz’s turn. He pummelled the Spinner, causing it to skid along the ground. It flung out an arm, catching Lightfoot’s back leg, but he escaped, unscathed.

  One after another they hit the Spinner, driving him back, back, back, through the foliage, up the inclines, and down the crevasses. Those not immediately next in line circled around to join the back of the queue, working their necks hard, keeping an eye out for any other Spinners that might burst out at any moment.

  Clementine gweked and hurled her weight at the Spinner, knocking it into a tree. Leaves rained down, settling on the family’s shoulders. The creature’s limbs were broken and smashed, useless if it had been human, but the Spinner continued to twitch and vibrate, getting back up again.

  “Wait for it to move away from the tree,” Bill said.

  The Spinner got up, limped, and the moment it was away from the tree, Fritz shuttled into it, hitting it hard in the chest. If it hadn’t been such a despicable, unnatural creature Bill might have felt sorry for the beast. But it was mindless, incapable of even the most basic human emotions. It was nothing but a dangerous animal, and dangerous animals needed to be put down. Bill rose up in his stirrups, catching the smell of brine on the air.

  “We’re getting close to the sea,” he said. “Keep going. We’re almost there.”

  Jack ran Herdy forward. She threw her great hefty head up as she did so, lifting the Spinner off its limbs and over a thick bush. The Spinner stood on the cliff edge and rolled back and forth on its heels like a cornered animal.

  “Careful when you deliver the final blow,” Bill said. “The last thing we want is to go over the edge ourselves. A light tap is enough.”

  It was Ernest’s turn. He stepped forward with Clementine.

  “Remember Clementine can’t see,” Bill said. “She won’t stop automatically if you don’t pull on the reins.”

  Ernest took a deep breath and clucked out the corner of his mouth. He pushed Clementine forward at a gentle trot, and then increased speed at the last moment, connecting with the Spinner, knocking it over the side, its limbs flailing out to grab something, anything. It spun end over end, down into the frothy sea below.

  Ernest pulled the reins hard, bringing Clementine to a skidding stop, inches from the edge. Ernest could see the crashing waves below, and the twirling figure of the Spinner as it hit the rocks and exploded in a burst of red. The waves brushed the lumps against the rocks, the pieces wriggling and writhing like a fish out of water. Most sank beneath the surface.

  “Good work,” Bill said, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “Fritz, Ernest, Jack, you form one team. Liz and I will form another. We’ll do as we did just now. Strike, and then come back around. Strike again, and come back around. It’ll be a lot tougher when there’s more than one of them. Try to break them apart and concentrate on one at a time, if you can. And keep your eyes open for other Spinners that might creep up on you from behind. These things are stupid, but they’re fast. Don’t underestimate them. Any questions?”

  There were none. The atmosphere was thick with tension.

  “Good luck,” Bill said.

  They split into two teams, in sight of each other as they scouted the same area of jungle.

  “Are you scared?” Jack said to his older brothers.

  “Nope,” Fritz said.

  “Ernest?” Jack said.

  “No,” Ernest said, his eyes moving like a pair of tossed marbles.

  “Me neither,” Jack said. His voice had a shiver in it.

  Flap. Flap, flap.

  Knuckles grew white around reins. Hoof steps became softer, taking smaller, more careful strides. Fritz waved his arm, catching Bill and Liz’s attention. He pointed in the direction of the flap sound. It came from beyond a rise six feet above them. A torrent of snapping branches and crushed leaves underfoot assaulted them, like a stampede was heading right for them. Jack’s mouth grew dry. Herdy shuffled from one foot to another. Dust and fragments of foliage drifted up over the rise and rained down on the family. Whatever was coming, it was big.

  The sound grew in volume as they approached, closer and closer. Then the foliage exploded. Six Spinners fell from the rise, writhing even while they were falling, smashing into the earth. They were up and moving instantly, regardless of broken bones or injury.

  Fritz waited, watching, just as Bill and Liz did on the other side of the clearing. Another two Spinners fell from the rise and rushed in random directions.

  “Fritz, hurry!” Jack said. “We need to start!”

  “No,” Fritz said. “We’ll take our time and pick the right mark.”

  Bill burst forward, ramming a Spinner that had drifted away from the pack, knocking it farther from its comrades. Liz was hot on his heels. She didn’t run straight for the Spinner, but instead took a route between two trees to change the angle of approach. The Spinner was back on its limbs and began to spin away when Liz rammed it, knocking it down again. Bill had already circled around and was coming in for another strike.

  Liz kept an eye on their backs. The other Spinners were preoccupied with their own activities, fighting and tearing at each other. She glanced over at her children, tore her eyes away, and then took off into the jungle in pursuit of her quarry.

  “Fritz!” Jack said. “We can’t just sit here! We need to do something now!”

  But Fritz wouldn’t be hurried. The Spinners were bunched together in a single group, scrapping like a gang of angry bikers.

  “There!” Fritz said. “That one!”

  A Spinner had been forced out of the group by a pair of larger Spinners. It revolved in place and then began to head away. Fritz surged up the incline, picking up speed quickly. Lightfoot whinnied as he struck the Spinner, hammering it onto its front. Fritz moved aside as Ernest bashed it next, and then Jack, on Herdy, who, with her great weight, cracked the creature back twice as far as the others.

  They soon caught up with Bill and Liz, who were having trouble keeping their quarry going in the direction they wanted. Liz pulled back as Fritz’s Spinner almost side-sw
iped her. Ernest slammed into the Spinner, forcing it aside.

  “Careful, Mother!” he said.

  Liz clucked out the corner of her mouth. Lightning trotted forward. Liz looked around for Bill but found no sign of him. Her saddle creaked in the silence.

  Smash!

  Something crashed through a fern to Liz’s left. Lightning rose up on her hind legs in surprise, front legs clawing at the air. Liz pressed herself against the zebra’s mane. The Spinner flailed its limbs like an old man having fallen on his back and couldn’t get back up.

  “There you are!” Bill said to Liz, emerging from behind a thick copse of green.

  The two teams jostled for position as they forced their Spinners back. Herdy overdid it, knocking the Spinner ten feet, where it struck Bill and Liz’s target. They interlocked, one hand grasping the other, and pirouetted in a duet. Liz raced forward and pounded Fritz’s Spinner, breaking them apart.

  “We’ll take this one!” Bill said.

  “Hey! That’s ours!” Fritz said.

  “Sorry,” Bill said, not sounding sorry at all. “When needs must.”

  Fritz’s team took control of Bill’s Spinner. After another fifteen minutes of battering and cajoling, the family emerged with their quarries onto the broad flat rock of the cliff edge.

  Bill and Liz thumped their Spinner over the cliff first. They were treated to a satisfying SPLAT! as the Spinner slammed into the rocks below. Jack dealt the final blow to their Spinner, which made a rasping noise as it fell.

  “One to me,” Jack said. “Zero for Ernest and Fritz!”

  “Like you did it all by yourself!” Ernest said.

  “I hit it last,” Jack said.

  “This isn’t football,” Ernest said.

  “All right, lads,” Bill said. “There’s no need to keep score.”

  Jack still had a self-satisfied look on his face.

  “Besides,” Bill said, “it was my Spinner, so technically it’s my kill.”

  “Sorry to rain on your parade,” Fritz said. “But I didn’t hear a splat noise that time.”

  He was peering over the side. He turned to look at Jack with a smile on his face.

  “Looks like you’re on zero too,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Jack said, joining Fritz.

  “It didn’t hit the rocks,” Fritz said. “Look!”

  The Spinner spun through the water, like a skimming stone with a turbo thrust. It disappeared beneath the surface and then popped back up again, twisting through the water. The others joined in looking down on the creature far below.

  “It’s coming back!” Liz said.

  The Spinner turned back on itself in a haphazard zigzag toward New Switzerland. It climbed onto the shore and headed into the jungle.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Bill said. “We’ll just have to round it up again later.”

  “Goody,” Liz said drily.

  The family turned, hearts heavy with disappointment, and headed back into the jungle.

  Chapter Ten

  THE SPINNER suddenly changed direction, getting snagged on the tree roots that crisscrossed the jungle floor. It tore free, but before it cartwheeled even once, Bill slammed into it. A single goat strike did little, but one after another, like a pulse engine, it produced the desired result.

  The Spinner banged into a tree, its humerus snapping in half. It stood on its floppy appendage and maimed leg, but before it could complete a full revolution it was clobbered into again, this time by Liz on Lightning. The Spinner teetered on the edge of the clifftop, the strong wind dying down for a moment, exerting no pressure on the creature.

  Bill gripped his reins tight, eyes boring into the beast’s mottled chestnut brown eyes, lifeless in a caved-in skull atop its head. The creature had bronzed sun-beaten skin that had been torn and shredded almost beyond recognition. Almost.

  “What is it, Bill?” Liz said.

  “It’s Rohit,” Bill said, his voice strained. “Or, was him. In a past life.”

  “You don’t have to watch,” Liz said. “I can take care of him.”

  “No,” Bill said. “I want to do it. That’s not him. It’s just a lifeless body with too much energy, that’s all. I’d like to put him to rest once and for all.”

  Bill snapped the reins and the goats charged forward, heads down, necks in alignment with their spines, and all four careened into the creature at once. The body fell over the edge and exploded on the sharp rocks below.

  “Rest in peace,” Bill said quietly.

  The water was tainted red with blood, lumps of flesh floating on the surface, squirming and disappearing into the depths. Liz put her hand to Bill’s back. Bill smiled at her, though it was tinged with sadness.

  “Come on,” Liz said. “Let’s cheer ourselves up by sending a few more of these monsters to where they belong.”

  Chapter Eleven

  FRANCIS HATED being the baby of the family. Not all of the time, of course. He liked getting more than his fair share when his brothers gave him some of their food. But he hated when he was treated like a baby. He wasn’t a baby. He had his own teeth and could go to the toilet by himself. How much more proof did they need? He shook his head and crouched to begin climbing down the ladder.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he stood up and hit the railing with his hand in frustration. He massaged away the pain in his palm. He’d hit the railing thirty times in the past three hours.

  Across the clearing, something slapped the thick foliage. Francis jumped in surprise. His breath froze in his throat and suddenly he did feel like a baby. He felt betrayed by his own heart. Something pale and festering emerged out of the bush, like a monster out of a portal from one of Ernest’s movies. It made a strange noise, like when Mark Jonson shook his head, letting his flabby cheeks slap against his teeth.

  The figure moved into the dying sunlight. Francis’s mouth fell open. He had seen zombies before. He had seen more of them than he would ever wish to, though he would never admit that to his parents and brothers. But every time he did see one he was mesmerised, unable to think clearly, looking at their every detail. There was something somehow otherworldly about them, forbidden, like he was watching a film with an inappropriate age rating. He was excited and yet scared at the same time.

  The figure that emerged out of the foliage did not really resemble a zombie, at least not the ones he had seen. It didn’t have a head for a start. Although that was strange, it wasn’t really what captivated him. It was the way the figure moved—jerking, like a break dancer receiving electroshock therapy. No wonder his family called it a Spinner. It never stopped moving. There was another boy in his class at school in Switzerland who was epileptic. He dropped to the floor one day and shook when he saw flashing lights. That was the kind of movement the man had. He didn’t seem to know which direction he was heading in, wandering one way, and then another. He walked on his hands, then one hand and a foot, and then two feet, like he couldn’t decide what was best.

  The animals in the pen on the other side of the treehouse bayed, crowed and grunted, rising up on their back legs and kicking in the figure’s direction, as if they could reach him from a dozen yards away. Even Valiant looked spooked. He snorted through his nostrils and dug deep divots in the ground with his front leg.

  But the creature didn’t seem to have heard them. Francis watched it as it rushed over the clearing and smacked into the flint block at the treehouse’s base, leaving a bloody splatter. The man bounced away. He spun, heading across the clearing in spiral circles.

  Francis picked up some rocks they kept in a pile for when a zombie had found their treehouse in the night while they slept. Francis couldn’t pick up the bigger ones, but he could toss the mid-sized ones. He missed twice before striking the Spinner on the chest. It tilted back, almost losing its balance, before rocking forward again, getting closer to the animal pen. Francis tossed more rocks at the creature, but there was little reaction. The man wandered around the treehouse, drawing
closer to the animal pen.

  The animals pressed themselves into the farthest corner of the enclosure. The fence posts holding them did not give way under their combined weight. Valiant stood before the other animals, pacing up and down and displaying his impressive bulk and muscles, strutting in an effort to scare the assailant away. It didn’t work. The creature wandered closer.

  “No,” Francis said. “No…”

  He gripped handfuls of his hair, watching the horror unfolding. His parents and brothers would all be so disappointed in him. It was his job, his responsibility, to protect the animals, but he was going to fail. This was his chance to prove to them he was a grown up, a man. He had to prove to them he wasn’t a baby anymore. In that instant, he made a decision. He would save the animals. First, he would have to climb down the ladder. For the thirty-first time that day, he crouched down.

  This time he descended it.

  Chapter Twelve

  LIZ RAN at the Spinner as she had done with two dozen of the creatures before. As she flew at it she recognised there was something different about this particular specimen. It wasn’t until she was almost on it that she realised what it was. Liz’s eyes widened in fear, and she pulled back on Lightning’s reins. The zebra’s front legs locked but failed to stop in time. Lightning’s chest plate struck the Spinner across the head, and not the chest like other Spinners.

  The creature hit the ground and spun, striking Lightning low on the legs, sweeping them out from under her. Lightning screamed. Liz threw herself off the zebra for fear of being crushed. She hit the ground hard but knew instinctively she hadn’t broken anything. Lightning got to her feet and trotted to the treeline.

  Flap, flap, flap.

  Liz turned in time to see the Spinner head straight for her. She raised her arms. The Spinner smashed against the shield attached to Liz’s forearm, knocking her arms aside and slapping her over. She returned to her defensive position as the Spinner’s small but powerful limbs struck again, this time beating Liz to the ground. She began to get back up, but the Spinner was already on top of her, striking the shield again and again and again with the force of a wrecking ball. Liz screamed as her shield was dented, pressing into her skull.