The Swiss Family RobinZOM (Book 5)

by Perrin Briar

“What happened to him?” Ernest said. “He should be dead.”

  “By all rights it should be,” Bill said. “But then nature never held much sway over these things. There are stories of chickens losing their heads and being able to survive for days after. They’re not really alive of course, but the muscles of the creatures keep firing and it gives the appearance of animation.”

  The creature bounced off a tree, scratched it, and then spun in the opposite direction.

  “How come we haven’t seen one of them before now?” Ernest said.

  “For all we know they might be all over the world,” Bill said. “We were just lucky enough to have not have seen them before.”

  “How do we kill it?” Fritz said.

  “I’m not sure,” Bill said.

  “Usually we smack their heads in and it’s game over,” Fritz said. “But this one…”

  “This thing could very well still carry the virus,” Bill said. “We must be careful. We’ll start by breaking its limbs. With no claws it’ll be helpless.”

  Fritz watched the creature rotated in a never-ending spin, volley after volley raining down on the trees around it. It looked like a robot gone haywire.

  “It doesn’t look like it’ll be all that helpless to me,” he said.

  Ernest got up onto his knees. If the creature turned he would have been clearly visible. Bill put his hand on Ernest’s arm.

  “Ernest?” Bill said. “What are you doing? Get down!”

  “It doesn’t have eyes,” Ernest said. “It can’t see us.”

  “It might have some other way of sensing us,” Bill said.

  “We’d be better prepared if we know, won’t we?” Ernest said.

  Bill thought for a moment and then released his grip on Ernest’s arm. Ernest stood up. He looked down at the creature. Ernest’s knees felt weak. He worked his dry mouth. What if he was wrong?

  “Hey,” Ernest said.

  The creature didn’t respond.

  “Hey!” Ernest said, louder and with more confidence.

  The creature froze, turned in Ernest’s direction, and then spun around in circles.

  “It’s okay,” Ernest said to the others. “It can’t hear or sense us.”

  The creature hacked at a tree with its nails, coiling and flying out, painting the bark black with its bloody finger stubs.

  The Robinsons stood up and descended the short incline, giving one another swinging space. They surrounded the creature. They kept an eye out around them, but there didn’t appear to be more of the spinning creatures. It spun before them now, moving slowly and in no particular direction. Bill raised his cudgel and the others followed suit, waiting for the creature to strike. It never did.

  Bill took the initiative, running forward and striking the creature across the chest. There was a solid thump, and the creature bounced back from the blow, like a top that had struck a wall, toward Fritz, who beat the creature across the back. The flesh caved in, but the creature did not stop. It only spun faster, this time toward Ernest, who struck it across the left arm, which snapped. It came toward Jack, faster than ever, but he swung his cudgel and it connected with the creature’s leg.

  It rained blows on their armour as the Robinsons’ assault slowed. They could hardly keep up with the spinning creature as it was passed from one member to another, like piggy in the middle, except the Robinsons felt like they were the piggies.

  “It’s getting faster!” Fritz said, swinging at it again.

  “Break its legs!” Bill said.

  The creature’s legs were now up in the air, and it stood on its deformed arms. The Robinsons swung at the legs. The bones cracked, snapping in a dozen places. The legs flopped to one side, and the creature spun on one of its broken limbs like a child’s bicycle wheel after an accident. The Robinsons attacked again, this time breaking the creature’s ribs and spine, hips and every other bone they could target. But it had no effect. The creature only spun faster and faster, absorbing their blows and turning them into energy.

  “It’s not working!” Fritz said. “He’s just getting faster!”

  “I have an idea!” Ernest said. “Cover me for a second.”

  Fritz stepped into Ernest’s position, filling the gap. Ernest looked up at the canopy overhead and jumped, stretching for a length of vine. His fingers grazed it. He jumped again and managed to grab it. He tugged it down. The vine came loose, but Ernest didn’t pull the end free, and let it stay attached to the treetops. He ran forward and hurled the vines at the creature. It struck the creature’s torso and then hit the ground.

  “Wow,” Fritz said. “That’s an awesome ultimate weapon you’ve got there.”

  “Wait for it,” Ernest said.

  Bill batted the creature, and it spun away from him, running over the vine. It tightened, and as the creature spun the vines wrapped around its limbs, lashing the creature together tighter and tighter. The vine spilled from the trees, slowing the creature as its straightjacket grew bulky. The creature slowed, but never really stopped moving. Its body thrusted and writhed within its cocoon, but it had stopped spinning.

  “Well done, Ernest,” Bill said, hands on his knees and breathing in deep breaths. “There was no way we were going to be able to stop it the way we were going.”

  “Did you see it getting faster?” Fritz said. “The harder we hit it the faster it spun!”

  “It’s still moving,” Ernest said. “I don’t suppose it’ll ever stop.”

  The vines throbbed like a heartbeat as the creature continued to jerk, like a bird jabbing at the inside of its shell to get out.

  “What are we going to do with it?” Fritz said.

  “Burn it, I suppose,” Bill said. “There’s nothing else that will stop it.”

  The vine cocoon began to turn anticlockwise, unspooling.

  “Uh, guys,” Jack said.

  One arm came loose as the vines slackened. Then another limb came free, and the creature began to spin in the opposite direction to the one it had when it was trussed up. Soon the torso was visible. Fritz and Ernest stepped forward with their cudgels.

  “What do we do now?” Fritz said.

  “Switch to blades,” Bill said.

  The boys exchanged wary expressions. Bill had never suggested they do that before. They holstered their cudgels and reached back for the handles jutting out over their heads. Bill and Fritz sported razor sharp machetes, Ernest and Jack short-handled axes with flint blades.

  The creature was winding free of the last of its prison, gaining purchase on the ground. Bill roared and ran at the creature, slamming it through the chest, pinning it to the tree behind it. It jerked and convulsed and spun around in a circle like a wheel. The boys rushed forward and hacked at it, crushing the bones and arms and rotten flesh, but it seemed to have no effect as the creature kept spinning, lashing out at them.

  Exhausted, Jack fell back. Bill took up his axe and hacked at the creature with venom. Arms shaking and unable to lift his axe again, Ernest joined Jack. Only Bill and Fritz still slashed at the creature. Bill brought his axe down on it, severing one arm, and then again, another arm, and then, with two powerful hacks, at the creature’s legs. Its limbs fell to the ground, convulsing. Bill and Fritz, panting for oxygen, stepped back.

  The creature tore free of the machete through its chest, tearing a chunk of its flesh away, a mass of decomposed innards sloshing to the ground. The creature, body still convulsing, pulled itself away. It was gone, but its limbs remained, writhing on the forest floor.

  “Don’t touch them!” Bill said.

  “I’m not going to,” Fritz said.

  He approached the limbs and made a noose with a length of the discarded vine. He lowered it around the arm and let it tighten around it as the arm twisted. He picked it up, holding it like a demon from hell. He did the same with the second arm.

  “This is pointless,” Ernest said. “We shouldn’t be thinking of them as zombies. They’re not zombies. They’re something else. We need
to approach them differently.”

  “How?” Fritz said.

  “I don’t know,” Ernest said. “But there must be a way.”

  “I’m all ears,” Fritz said. “All I know is we just got our asses handed to us. What I don’t understand is I thought smashing their brains in would end them. If they can operate without brains they’ve got no weakness!”

  “Destroying anything’s brain is meant to kill it!” Ernest said.

  “Then why hasn’t it this time?” Fritz said.

  “All viruses are known to require a living host to propagate,” Bill said. He was deep in thought, thinking out loud. “But this virus has never needed a living host. In fact, the moment it infects someone, it kills them so it can take control of all their bodily functions. There is nothing usual about this virus, except perhaps the way it spreads. It needs new hosts all the time. No new hosts, and it ceases to grow.”

  The Robinson boys held the severed body parts up like a ghastly baby’s mobile. One of the pieces, the upper right arm, had a tattoo. It was a black circle, a snake consuming its own tail.

  “Pretty groovy design,” Fritz said.

  “It’s an Egyptian symbol of everlasting life,” Bill said.

  “Looks like whoever owned the tattoo got exactly what he wanted,” Ernest said. “If not quite the way he expected.”

  “What do we do with these pieces?” Fritz said.

  “There’s only one thing we can do with them,” Bill said.

  Flap, flap.

  Flap, flap, flap.

  Flap, flap.

  “It’s coming back,” Fritz said.

  “I don’t think it’s just one,” Bill said.

  The foliage burst open, and a dozen of the disgusting creatures flew out of it, spinning and grasping, kicking and punching at any and all contenders, living or alive.

  The Robinsons ran.

  Chapter Three

  The skin cracked and popped, and the smoke smelled like fried bacon a month past its use-by date. The limbs, still jerking and jiving, crawled out of the fire in different directions, leaving a zigzag trail of fire in their wake.

  Bill collected them and tossed them back onto the fire. He watched, unblinking, as the pieces of undead flesh finally stopped moving under their own volition and only jerked under the popping of burning wood.

  The night air was chilly. Bill hugged his jumper around himself and poked at the blackened shards of bone that remained in the fire.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Liz said.

  Bill looked up and was surprised to find it was dark.

  “Where are the boys?” he said.

  “They’re asleep,” Liz said.

  “How long have I been staring at the fire?” Bill said.

  “About three hours,” Liz said. “Something on your mind?”

  “It’s nothing,” Bill said.

  Liz gave Bill a look as if she didn’t believe him.

  “It’s these creatures,” Bill said. “We had one of them. We beat it, hammered it, hacked it up into pieces until we were exhausted, and it still ran away. Nothing should still be alive after a beating like that. But it’s out there somewhere causing havoc. There’s no way to beat them.”

  “Of course there’s a way to beat them,” Liz said. “We just haven’t thought of it yet.”

  “Short of setting fire to the entire island, there’s nothing we can do,” Bill said. “They’re unstoppable.”

  “Nothing is unstoppable,” Liz said.

  “These things are,” Bill said. “There’s no way around that. Maybe if we had a pit of acid we could drop them all in…”

  Bill shook his head.

  “It’s no good,” he said. “They’ve evolved beyond anything we’ve seen up to now. I’m sick of nature being against us. When is it going to work in our favour?”

  “Does anything ever really work in our favour?” Liz said. “That’s how life makes itself interesting, by making it unpredictable.”

  She leaned her head against Bill’s shoulder.

  “I think I’d prefer a boring life,” Bill said.

  “We’ll come up with something,” Liz said. “You’ll see. Come on. Let’s go to bed and think this through in the morning.”

  Bill’s legs felt stiff. He walked bent and hunched over. He leaned back, stretching the muscles in his back. He turned to follow Liz, and stopped. He turned back to the ashes. Something was snagged on an upturned log. It was a singed square flap of skin. It had a tattoo on it – the snake swallowing its tail. Bill picked it up and held it in his hand. It was still warm.

  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 Long Journey, 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 cont
inue 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?”