Floodwater Zombies (34 page)

Rachel licked rainwater from her red lips. “What if it doesn’t?”

He was about to answer when a gray haired man in a blue kayak came paddling down the flooded highway, happily whistling
Camptown
Races
with half a dozen ghouls hot on his tail. The stiffs swam face down, arms at their sides, wiggling their ragged bodies back and forth through the water like hungry bull sharks. Their slick speed was gut-wrenching. Rory grabbed Rachel’s arm as she stood up to flag the man down. The fat stiff behind the boat snapped his eyes up to them, causing Rory’s heart to jump into his throat. He pulled her back down behind the wall as the kayaker’s cheery tune faded off into the distance. Hooper cast a sideways look their direction and Rory let out a long breath. “Okay, that was weird.”

She stared blankly at the decaying hands reaching through the cracked rooftop door. The corpses’ incessant moaning blended with the rain, producing the perfect Halloween soundtrack. “He looked like he didn’t even know those things were right behind him,” she said faintly.

“Or care.” Rory met her glassy eyes before poking his head up over the wall again. The fat man in the suit was gone, the boat still rumbling.

“I say we go for it,” Rachel whispered, peering over the edge with him.

Rory ducked back down and leaned against the wall. “The trick is going to be getting five people into the boat, one at a time, before those things realize we’re in it,” he whispered.

“I just don’t get why this is happening. Why here?” they heard Kourtney moan.

Rachel shivered in the rain and leaned in closer to Rory. “How far of a drop is it?”

“Not that far. Maybe ten feet,” he said, staring at the dead hand clamped around his ankle.

Hooper snorted. “You’re gonna need a crowbar for that thing!”

Alex leaned forward, his eyes wrapped in wonder. “Can I touch it?”

“No!” Kourtney said, pulling his arm back.

A thunderous crack startled them. They turned to see Woody spill out onto the rooftop, the door swinging wide open and the chair lying on its back with bent legs. Woody stopped on wobbly legs that were so long it looked like he was on stilts. He stared off into the nearby Elms and Maples as the dead poured from the cramped stairwell behind him. Slowly, Woody rotated his head around until his gaunt eyes found Rory and the others.

Chapter Nineteen

Hooper shot Woody in the face, dropping him like a fly against a window. Rory grimaced and climbed over the wall, putting what little plan they had into action. He took one last look at his childhood friend’s lifeless body and let go, landing in the ski boat with a violent splash. He shook water from his face and looked up to see Rachel climbing over the wall. Rory got to his feet and was about to yell for her to jump when he heard a shrill cry from inside the bar. He ducked down and peered over the driver’s seat. Things looked much worse from this level, making him doubt the plan altogether.

The floodwater had risen to the windows of Hooper’s patrol car, rendering anything that wasn’t a boat useless. If the ski boat wouldn’t come free, it was game over. The throaty exhaust continued its low rumble, which had fortunately been enough noise – combined with the heavy rain - to mask his splashing fall. Rory felt the heady horsepower running through the narrow floorboard, tickling his feet as more gunshots rang out on the rooftop above. He looked up just in time to see Rachel’s plummeting body. She fell into his arms and drove him hard into a red and white striped seat. The gun tucked into the small of her back gouged his stomach and drew blood. He didn’t have time to notice. Hooper was already leaning over the wall with Alex ready to drop next.

Rachel and Rory sprang to their feet, nearly knee deep in water, and heard Kourtney shooting her dad’s gun. Rory gestured with both hands for the sheriff to let go. Hooper said something only Alex could hear and released him. They caught him in their outstretched arms and quickly deposited him into the back of the boat, where he immediately drew his BB gun and began keeping an enthusiastic lookout.

Chapter Twenty

Rory jammed the throttle in reverse, praying it wouldn’t stall. The motor whined, sending plumes of white smoke coughing out the stern. The boat backfired, its loud pop blending with the gunfire going off around him, and lurched backwards but remained stuck in the window frame. Rory let up on the throttle. Several drenched heads inside the bar lethargically turned to the boat at the same time, the parking lot light glinting off their eyes. “Oh crap,” he mumbled dully, yanking the throttle backwards and sucking the stubborn wall outward. The boat thrashed from side to side like a great white after wedging itself in a shark cage while trying to eat the divers inside.

“You
gotta
rock it!” Hooper yelled over the throaty inboard, aiming his gun with a shaky left hand at the things coming out of the bar.

“Hurry!”
Alex screamed, trying to melt into a vinyl bench seat in the back with his mom.

A heavy-set lady with gray curls and a denim dress dropped out of the sky and landed on the passenger seat with a volcanic splash, making the boat dip. She got to her bare feet, studying them with ravenous eyes that were black as a snowman’s. Hooper fired the gun and missed her wide frame completely. The lady growled at him and turned back to Rory, snatching his arm with a mushy, yet firm grip. Instinctively, he elbowed her in the face, knocking her back into the passenger seat. She sneered, exposing a mouthful of blood smeared teeth, and bull rushed him. He fumbled his gun from its holster. Before its barrel was free, a gunshot exploded in his ear, sending a bullet slamming through her nose. The fat lady flipped backwards over the edge of the boat and splashed into the water like a Honolulu cliff diver.

Rory twisted his neck around to see Rachel lower Rob’s .38, a slight grin creeping across her face. “Nice shot!” he said, punching the throttle again. The boat rocked back and forth as zombies wiggled free of the bar’s broken window.

Kourtney shot a man - clad in a black tuxedo - climbing up the side of the boat. He splashed into the murky water and sank out of sight. Rory’s breath hitched when he saw all of the rotting corpses swimming out of the nearby woods, closing in from all sides. It was now or never. He shoved the throttle forward and gave it gas. The bar’s window frame groaned as the boat pushed back into the bar. Sets of decomposing hands began slapping down all around the boat’s edge. Rory jammed the throttle into reverse again. The boat jerked from side to side in the sticky window frame, rolling smoke making it difficult to see any of the ghouls pulling themselves aboard until it was nearly too late.
 

A skinny man with a receding hairline and red bowtie clumsily flopped into the boat and got to his brown penny loafers. Hooper pulled the trigger but the bullet missed its mark, breaking out the bar’s glass front door instead, allowing the stiffs to get out that much quicker. Kourtney blew the head off a one-eyed fireman climbing up the boat’s rear ladder while Rachel shot the man with the bowtie in the head, sending him hurtling back into the water. She turned the gun on a short woman approaching the side of the boat and blew a hole through her stomach. Intestines unraveled into the water and floated around her waistline, barely slowing her progress. Surrounded by her own waste, she hobbled to the side of the boat and grabbed the edge. Hooper pulled the trigger again, this time clipping a war veteran in the left arm. The man jerked backwards and kept climbing over the front end of the boat with a sinister grin slicing through his decaying cheeks. Rachel kicked him in the face and sent him back into the rising water.

Rory let up on the throttle. “Hang on!” he yelled over the gunshots and driving rain, hitting the throttle again. The boat responded with a series of violent spasms, the engine whining so loudly Rory was certain it would blow. The corpses surrounded the ski boat, easily outnumbering the ammunition onboard. A man in a cheap insurance salesman suit and tie reached over the side and grabbed Rory’s right wrist. Rory recoiled in surprise and grabbed the gun from his right hand and shot the man in the face with his left hand. In a heartbeat, the man back flopped into the deluge of fresh water. Rory got into the gas again, relieved to see the man’s hand hadn’t stayed clamped around his wrist.

With one last shudder, the boat dislodged from the bar with a bone chilling screech, jumping backwards and throwing Rachel forward. She fell and hit her forehead on the boat’s steering wheel but quickly regained her balance. Rory looked over his shoulder and kept the throttle down, using the spinning prop as a deadly weapon. The engine sputtered as the blade shredded waterlogged flesh-eaters into pieces and evened out once free of their bones, turning the wake a thick red, littered with mangled arms and legs spilling out the bow. Rory let up on the gas and cranked the wheel to the right, sending the front end sliding smoothly to the left. This wasn’t his first time driving a boat but if he wasn’t careful it might be his last.

He yanked his gun from its nylon holster and sunk a round into the neck of a teenager pulling himself over the front edge of the boat. The bullet entered right where the teen had tattooed someone’s name in cursive across his neck. His head flew off and hit a short man in the face behind him. The teen’s headless body hung limply over the edge, pouring a chunky dark liquid into the water splashing about the inside of the boat. Rory jammed the throttle forward, the gun still in his hand. Gunshots peppered the air around him as he steered towards the flooded highway, taking out bloated carcasses with the boat and his gun as they went. Dull thuds assaulted the sides of the newer ski boat but didn’t impede its momentum up the small hill to US Highway Ten. The motor revved as the boat climbed the short embankment and slipped into a stream of water rushing to their right.

The gunshots ceased and Rory looked back to see the stiffs stop swimming and get to their feet. They stood there swaying with the water and staring longingly after the boat for a moment before languidly returning to Doc’s Bar & Grill for other prospects. “Hope you like candy bars!” Rory laughed and returned his attention to the flooded highway, the wind whipping through his hair while the reanimated corpses faded further into the background. “We made it!”