by Kirk Withrow
A sign that read Information rose up above a building located twenty yards beyond the chain-link fence. Something about the sign caused the image of the notice hanging next to the tunnel map to flash through Eric’s mind. It was brief and he couldn’t remember exactly what it said, but he recalled enough. A glimmer of hope flared in his gut as he muttered, “Future Land service entrance.”
Eric turned his attention back to the mud pit where he had visions of sinking so deeply into the thick mud that he could hardly move. With freedom of movement often being the difference between life and death, or worse, the thought of trudging through the morass was far from comforting. Well at least there are no zombies in there...
Looking to Lila, he said, “Do you see that information kiosk on the other side of the chain-link fence? We can probably find a map there that will show the location of the service entrance. Where there’s an entrance, there’s an exit. Maybe we can finally get out of this shithole.”
Instead of chastising him for cursing as she typically did, Lila simply nodded her head in agreement. Eric felt the smallest flicker of sadness, wondering if the omission was merely due to fatigue or if it was an early sign of her dying innocence. He could tell by the way she looked at him that she wanted to believe his words. He tried to sound certain, as he always tried to when he spoke, but he knew she’d been burned before and it was a little harder for her to recover each time. If there was one thing he wished Fun World hadn’t shown her, it was that hope was a double-edged sword. Peering through to see what really goes on behind the curtains was a terrifying prospect for anyone, much less for an eight-year-old girl. It saddened him to think that she might be starting to believe that happily ever after was something that only existed in fairy tales. Even so, he was proud of her as she squared her shoulders, refusing to give up.
Moving cautiously, Eric and Lila climbed over the railing and into the quagmire. As the sun had not yet fully risen, many of the world’s details remained obscured from view; Eric hoped they would be among them. He kept a cautious eye trained on the park that lay beyond the chain-link fence but could see very little through the mesh fabric. Thick mud squished underfoot, and the farther they walked, the deeper they sank. Every labored step was accompanied by a squelching sound, as their feet finally broke free from the tenacious mud. On more than one occasion, the suction created by the mud was so strong that pulling free didn’t seem like a guarantee. After considerable effort, he and Lila finally arrived at the chain-link fence, where they collapsed onto the muddy ground.
Breathless and filthy, Eric said, “I guess we know what a fly feels like when it’s trying to escape from a spider’s web.”
“Well, at least there are no spiders,” Lila added thoughtfully. Eric couldn’t help but smile at her lighthearted interpretation of the situation.
The sun had risen almost completely above the horizon, bathing everything in pale morning light. The information kiosk, which was designed around a pseudo-futuristic, steampunk theme, stood less than twenty yards away. Eric’s heart raced at the prospect of finally escaping the nightmare that was Fun World. They were getting closer; he could feel it.
Although the path to the kiosk was clear, it seemed too good to be true. Eric glanced around suspiciously like a mouse staring at a big piece of cheese that he knew had to be attached to a lethal trap. The air grew warmer, and a gentle breeze brought with it the faint but all-too-familiar scent of the zombies infesting the park. While many of the world’s noises had ceased to exist within Fun World over the last few days, the silence surrounding them presently seemed absolute in a way that was more unsettling than ever before. The sound of the planes and helicopters that had become nearly constant over the last twenty-four hours were conspicuously missing. Even the gunshots, which had been consistent but sporadic, were strangely absent. All of this combined to make him even more wary of the situation.
After nearly ten minutes without any gunshots, a two-second burst of automatic weapon fire rang out, sounding like little more than a woodpecker tapping on a tree by the time it snaked through the forest behind them. In its wake, the ubiquitous moans of the zombies echoed through the air, so softly that Eric wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t figments of his imagination. Keep it together. We’re so close. Just keep it together for a little longer.
Steeling his nerves, Eric readied himself to make the run to the information kiosk. A door located ten feet to his left was secured with a locking carabiner. He signaled to Lila to crouch down as he began the arduous task of trudging through the mud. The squishy, sucking sounds seemed exceptionally loud against the silence, and he tensed with each labored step. He unlocked the gate and prayed it wouldn’t screech like a banshee as he opened it. It didn’t. When he’d taken only a few steps through the gate, a sound in the distance stopped him dead in his tracks.
A loud bang followed by a thick grunt shattered the pervasive silence. It wasn’t the sharp crack of a gunshot but rather a sound like two blocks of wood slamming together. The grunt that followed was the pained sound of someone getting the wind knocked out of them. From that point on, the silence seemed to be driven farther and farther away. What began as a faint murmur quickly morphed into a low rumble punctuated by the screams that had become all too familiar.
Horror-struck, Eric watched as the first of the group came into view beyond the information kiosk. At least ten zombies advanced on a middle-aged man who staggered backward in an attempt to evade the approaching danger. As they closed ranks around him, he did his best to fight back, swinging his arms wildly in all directions, but their sheer numbers made it a moot point. It was far from the first time he’d witnessed such carnage, but it still made him feel sick to his stomach every time.
Out of the corner of his eye, Eric caught sight of a streak of silver in the distance. Focusing his eyes, he realized that a person had darted out of a doorway and was hurrying away from the zombie horde. Although he couldn’t make out any facial characteristics, the distinctive outfit led him to believe it was a young woman. She wore a shimmering, silver miniskirt supported by several stiff hoops that encircled her thighs like the rings of Saturn. They bounced around, erratically orbiting her slender body as she ran. Her matching silver halter top was trimmed with white fur that looked like little cloud tufts hovering around a celestial body. Tied around her tiny waist was a standard server’s apron, which was the only thing that separated her from what he imagined a space hooker might look like.
Given that the zombies were preoccupied with their recent kill, she might have gone unnoticed were it not for the click…click…click of her high heels against the pavement. A couple of zombies on the edge of the group turned to investigate the sound before she’d taken two steps. Sensing another opportunity, they broke away to pursue the woman. Eric’s initial instinct upon seeing this was to try and help the soon-to-be-imperiled woman. Thinking of Lila crouching in the mud alone, however, gave him pause; the last thing he wanted was to endanger his little girl. He felt bad for the young woman, but he couldn’t risk drawing the zombie’s attention. As difficult as it was to do nothing, he crouched down and watched the scene unfold.
Although the zombies were slow, the woman in the heels proved to be even slower. Click…click…click… The zombies moaned louder, spurred on by the noise the young woman was making. Click…click…click… They were so close that Eric imagined she could hear them right behind her. Click…click…click…
The sound of her heel strikes came closer together as she approached the maximum velocity allowed by her impractical footwear. As the zombies drew nearer, his concern for the young woman slowly morphed into anger at her stupidity. What the hell is wrong with you, lady? Keeping the uniform is bad enough, but the heels? Come on! You’d stand a hell of a lot better chance running barefoot in your underwear.
With the space waitress’ death seemingly imminent, Eric was about to look away when the young woman did something that surprised him. In a single, deft move, she grabbed one of
her heels, spun around, and drove the long spiky, stiletto deep into the orbit of the closest zombie. While it didn’t kill the vile monster, the impact threw it off-balance and sent it careening into the other zombie. They both tumbled to the ground.
One shoe on and one shoe off, the space waitress changed course and began moving in Eric’s direction. She hobbled along with a wobbly, zombie-like gait owing to the fact that she was now wearing only one heel. Click…thwap…click…thwap… After what seemed like an unimaginable amount of time, she finally realized that she could move more efficiently sans heels. Removing the second heel, she chucked it unceremoniously at the zombies who were once again in pursuit. Unlike her first well-aimed blow, the dainty shoe ricocheted off the closest zombie’s chest with no perceivable effect.
Without the stilettos to slow her down, the distance between the woman and the zombies tailing her increased. The hooped skirt bounced around wildly as she continually glanced over her shoulder toward the trailing zombies. With all her attention focused behind her, she didn’t see the zombie rounding the information kiosk ahead of her until she collided with him. Stunned by the hard impact, she didn’t realize what was happening even as she was skidding across the concrete. The lead zombie was on her before she could let out the first bloodcurdling scream.
Much like the woman on the ground, the zombie was decked out in full space attire. Eric stared in disbelief as the zombie version of Johnny Asteroid collapsed on top of the terrified and confused space waitress. Johnny Asteroid, the main character from Fun World Inc.’s wildly popular film franchise of the same name, wore a helmeted spacesuit with a clear, retractable face shield. On the silver screen, he was an affable yet bullish member of the Intergalactic Protection Agency—a space cop that fought to protect the galaxy against purveyors of evil. Now, Johnny Zombie was looking to dish out some evil of his own as he strained to sink his teeth into the woman’s flesh. The zombie drove its head hard against her face, but rather than its bared teeth, it was the closed face shield that smashed against her skin. Less than an inch away, the monster’s vile teeth snapped harmlessly, closing only on the air inside its helmet.
That the zombie couldn’t bite her didn’t matter; she screamed as though she were being burned alive. Johnny Zombie, for his part, growled like an angry pit bull trapped inside a fifty-five-gallon drum. The place that had been virtually zombie-free only seconds ago was being overrun, and once again, Eric saw his avenue of escape being closed right before his eyes. The first to arrive was a zombified family of three—well, four. Strapped to the mother’s chest, the neonatal zombie’s tiny gray legs kicked and squirmed as its gums snapped harmlessly. Another two zombies dressed as the aliens often pitted against Johnny Asteroid on the silver screen arrived next. Now, however, they were all on the same team—that of the undead. Zombie aliens…what’s next? Zombie unicorns? The space waitress quickly vanished under the pile of undead. Late to the show once again, it looked like the game of zombie Twister was nearing its end when the shoe-faced zombie finally arrived.
Trying to remain unnoticed, Eric had been slowly backing toward the gate since the woman first started in his direction. When he was safe inside, he lowered his head and stared at the ground. This wasn’t to avoid the horror or the violence, which had become so commonplace that it was essentially the new normal. Instead, he looked away out of frustration at the possibility that his escape plan, however rough and unlikely, might be thwarted yet again. Fun World was bad enough by itself, but Fun World besieged by zombies and under military quarantine was an unrelenting vortex from which escape felt virtually impossible. The thought made the bastard lion currently smiling at him from his perch atop the rocket on the other side of the fence all the more infuriating. It took everything he had to keep from lashing out and trying to tear the fence apart.
As the space waitress’ screams fell silent and the sounds of the zombie feeding frenzy faded, a sense of clarity washed over Eric’s mind. Anger and frustration weren’t going to help him get his daughter to safety. Glancing to the side, he caught a glimpse of Lila’s reflection in a mud puddle, and almost instantly an idea surfaced in his mind. His dejected demeanor morphed into a strangely optimistic one as he looked up at his daughter.
Lila’s expression told him she didn’t understand why he had such a hopeful expression on his face when there were so many zombies standing between them and the kiosk. Before she could ask him about it, he spoke. “I think we can get past the zombies and still get the map,” he said, staring out over the group of roughly twenty zombies fighting over the scraps of the waitress du jour main course.
When she didn’t respond, he continued. “Have you noticed that zombies never attack one another for some reason? And you remember how the zombies in the woods seemed to lose interest in us once it began to rain?”
Eric noted the confusion on her face and said, “Here, watch this.” He lowered himself to the ground and began wallowing in the mud like a pig. When he was completely covered from head to toe, he stood up, moved to a section of the fence that was lacking the mesh fabric covering, and gave it a little rattle. As expected, several of the zombies at the edge of the feeding frenzy shambled over to investigate the noise.
Even though there was a fence between him and the approaching zombies, Eric’s heart raced as they neared. This had less to do with fear than the possibility that his little experiment might fail. When the trio of undead was only a few feet away, he held his breath and bumped his arm against the fence a couple of times. While they clearly responded to the rattling fence, it was as if a ghost or the wind had caused the sound. Finding nothing of interest, the zombies staggered off almost immediately. Relieved by his success, he turned toward Lila who was grinning at him like a Cheshire cat.
“I think the mud must disrupt their ability to smell or see us. Or at least to see us as something to attack. I was less than two feet away from them and might as well have been invisible for all the attention they showed in me,” Eric said, slogging back to where Lila was crouched down. He knew Lila would’ve found the act disgusting on any other day, but after his explanation of what she’d just witnessed, she couldn’t have looked any more excited about coating herself in filth. A moment later they were both rolling around in the mud, making sure that every inch of their bodies was covered.
Rising out of the mire, they looked like monsters in their own right. Burdened by the weight of the mud and with no traction on their shoes, they had little trouble looking the part of zombies as they struggled toward the gate. They stopped just inside the fence and gazed out toward the information kiosk. The twenty yards standing between them and the map they hoped to find had become a veritable zombie minefield. At least fifteen zombies milled about looking bored. Despite the apparent success of his initial experiment, Eric wasn’t quite ready to put his daughter’s life on the line to confirm his theory’s soundness.
In a voice barely above a whisper, Eric said, “I’m going to head out there. I want you to wait here. Close the gate as soon as I’m outside. If it’s safe and all goes well, I’ll signal you. Come out and do exactly as I did. Don’t say a word and try to keep your breathing slow and steady. No quick or sudden movements unless absolutely necessary. Promise me you won’t come out until I signal you, no matter what.”
Lila’s electric blue eyes beamed at him from the otherwise indistinct pile of mud before him. Steadfast and resolute, they blazed like beacons of life. Their contrast with the mud was so great that he wondered if they might be enough to blow her cover. She nodded wordlessly.
As an afterthought, Eric bent down and scooped up a handful of mud. He stared at it warily for a long moment before taking a sizable bite out of the brown muck. Although he spit most of it out, it wasn’t before he swished it around inside his mouth, smearing it on his teeth. Whether the smell of his breath made a difference or not, he didn’t know, but given how close he was going to be to the zombies, he wasn’t about to leave anything to chance. As nasty as it was, it
seemed like a small price to pay if it helped keep him safe.
Lila regarded him with a disbelieving look that told him there was no chance in hell that she was going to follow his lead. He stared at her expectantly, the mud in his mouth making it difficult to speak clearly. She stood fast, pinning him with her gaze until it seemed obvious that he wasn’t going to budge on the issue. Without taking her eyes off of him, she bent down, took a scoop of mud, and smeared a small amount just inside the lips. He apparently deemed it adequate, as he nodded and turned toward the gate.
Eric shot Lila a quick glance and said, “Huggh goes uffing. Wiii me wuck.” She understood him to say, “Here goes nothing, wish me luck.” She nodded and offered him a mud-caked half smile.
As quietly as possible, Eric unlatched the gate and eased it open. Moving slowly with all the grace of a zombie, he inched out of the muddy construction zone. The once-clear thoroughfare was now home to over twenty undead tourists and employees with countless others undoubtedly lying in wait. He staggered forward, trying hard not to draw attention to himself in the process. Looking the part of a zombie wasn’t difficult. His filthy clothes were heavy with mud, making it easy to blend in. Anyone looking at the scene from an outsider’s perspective would have a hard time distinguishing between him and the actual zombies milling all around. The most challenging part was controlling his fear that the walking corpses, like many other animals, might somehow be able to sense the emotion.