Zombie Outbreak (3 page)

              “Four days of an important field trip for our science project to discover new civilizations, to go where no super sassy students have gone before!” Megan hugged Jenny again. “Come on, dude! You are no party pooper. Let's get the gear and go. A beautiful day is a terrible thing to waste.”

              “I'll get it,” Jenny scooted out of the kitchen and into the living room.

              Megan sat in Jenny's vacated seat and tried to tune in the radio. There was some faint crackling of voices amidst the noise. Then it died out.

              “Piece of crap.”

              Jenny returned to the kitchen. She laid down a digital camera, two rucksacks, sunglasses and a sun hat on the table. “Do I look like an intrepid scientist or what?”

              “Now let me think-” Megan picked up one of the rucksacks and looked inside. “Good to see you've got the water bottles, sampler boxes, pens, paper, binoculars-oh very impressed.”

              Megan held up a bottle of sun protection cream.

              “Factor 30? Are you fucking kidding? How am I ever going to get some color?”

              Megan tossed the sun cream to the side and it fell to the floor.

              “I'm looking after you, like you've looked after me.”

              “Hey, come on dude, let's get this show on the -er – trail.”

              The girls headed out of the kitchen. The radio crackled and a voice came on.

              “Stay indoors...Close all windows...”

              Cool weather ruled the day as they headed across the dirt trail. Megan stopped in her tracks and Jenny wandered ahead.

              “Wait,” Megan gazed down at the ground. “Jenny wait a minute.”

              Jenny turned around and looked annoyed. “What's the problem?”

              Megan put on a pair of gloves and picked up a dead bird from the ground. “Eww, gross, they're all dead.”

              “That's our dream of a new bird species gone then.”

              Megan followed what looked to be a trail of the dead carcasses. She knelt down and peered under a bush.

              “Look at these guys! Dozens of dead birds.”

              Megan pulled some of the carcasses out and held them away from her face. “What a stink!”

              She dropped the birds and brushed herself down.

              Jenny walked back toward her, studying the dead birds on the ground.

              “That's so strange, I wonder if they were poisoned? They're all dead, worms, insects, birds, everything-”

              Jenny got on her knees. She took out a pair of gloves from her rucksack then picked up one of the birds herself.

              “Dude,” Megan said. “You're the biology expert. What's happened to them?”

              Jenny lifted the bird to her eye line, scrutinizing it.

              “What do you-”

              “Shhh,” Jenny said. “Listen-”

              “What? I can't hear anything.”

              “Exactly,” Jenny said. “No birds singing. No wind. No nothing. It's like there's nothing else in the whole world except us.”

              “I'd say it's more a serious case of food poisoning or one hell of a big cat. We are close to the mountains you know and look at the chunks of flesh taken out of those poor birds.”

              Jenny opened the rucksack again and took out her camera. “I don't care what it is, but let's take a pic.”

              “You and your scientific evidence. I'll leave you to it. I'll see what else I can find out.”

              Megan strolled off the trail and entered the brush.

              Jenny snapped a photo of the birds on the ground. Then another. She didn't turn around when dirt-shuffling footsteps came up behind her.

              “Did you find anything else, Megan?”

              Her question was greeted with a groan.

              Jenny turned around startled.

              In front of her stood a man. He whirled and danced and spun around while his flesh blotched and bubbled and popped and oozed. His face looked like a grinning mask of festering boils.  Dressed in a floral shirt with a sunhat and sunglasses, blood poured from his mouth. He ambled toward Jenny with his one arm outstretched. In his other hand, he held a map.

              “What the -”

              Jenny screamed, scrambling away in the dirt. The zombie continued to move toward her.

              Jenny's movements were stiff and wooden, just like the zombie. She felt as if she were in a nightmare, but this was no dream. She felt her heart pounding in her chest so hard that it hurt.

              Jenny had only one thought- get the fuck away from this guy.

              The zombie's hands extended out to her, fingers bent into claws. A mixture of sputum and blood oozed from his mouth and hung in a bobbing, bloody thread from his chin as he shuffled forward.

              Jenny picked up a small rock from the ground and threw it at the walking dead man. Hitting him point blank in the nose, he rocked back slightly.

              Jenny rushed toward the brush where she last saw Megan.

              The zombie stood in place for a moment then staggered. He looked at the dead birds on the ground and picked one of them up.

              He took a bite then threw the bird back on the ground, spitting out the dead flesh in disgust.

              “Megan!”

              Jenny ran up to her friend, out of breath.

              “What the shit?”

              “Megan, there's a weird dude with blood dripping from his mouth. I managed to throw some rocks at him and get away. He tried to grab me.”

              “Where is he?”

              “Back at the trail.”

              Jenny bent over and gasped for breath. She looked up at Megan and realized her friend had more dead birds in her hand.

              “What? What do you mean? There's no one around here, this place is deserted, there can't be anyone.”

              “He was dressed like a tourist,” Jenny said.  “Bad shirt, stupid hat. Here look-” She took out her camera and sifted through the stills.

              “Look, there he is, I was taking photos, and when I turned around I took a photo of him.”

              Megan looked at the still photo. “What the heck is that? How disgusting. Look at all that blood, he looks like he's murdered someone-what's with the sunglasses?”

              “We need to get away from this guy, get back to the house and get our shit together and go, we can wait at the meeting point. I'm not sure I want to hang around, there's some freaky stuff going on here.”
              “Wait,” Megan said.

              Groaning noises seem to echo from the trail.

              Emerging from one of the bushes, the zombie walked toward them, screaming “heeeeeyyy” in a low-pitched voice.

              “Quick, Megan, run!”

              The girls screamed as the zombie approached. Megan pulled Jenny along the trail, both of them shaking with fear.

              “Holy shit!” Jenny said as she stopped in place, looking down.

              Megan followed her eye-line and saw a dead body of a nude man, clutching a surfboard. Gray flesh across his stomach sagged in wrinkled folds.  His upper chest bore  a scar that ran down from his neck to his stomach, the markings of a heart transplant patient. High on the inside of his right arm was an open bite eight inches long. The severed end of a rubbery artery protruded from the opening of the wound.

              The hair on the man's head was blonde but his pubis was curly black with wiry gray strands running through it. He had a mole with a hair growing atop his right eye.

              But it was his face that made the young women want to retch.

              It was covered with pink, puffy lesions that looked like a cross between acne and gangrene.

              Then the man's eyes shot open. He lerched up immediately, surfboard in hand.

              Jenny and Megan looked on in panic. They were trapped between the two zombies.

              “Quick Megan,” Jenny said. “Run this way!”

              They went off into the bushes again, running through thorns and tall grass. They finally reached a clearing after a few minutes. Making their way close to a hill top, they sat against some rocks, both out of breath.

              And the zombie groans could no longer be heard. A feeling of relief came over both of them. Still spooked, Megan felt there was something about the empty trail that gave her the creeps. Ghosts seemed to lurk in the shadow corners and behind the dark bushes.

              “I have never seen anything like that in my life. I thought it was a joke. What the fuck were they?”

              “Some kind of mutated humans,” Jenny said, breathless. “Do you remember that slug yesterday? And the birds? And the silence. There's something going on here and I don't like it. It's freaking me out.”

              The girls leaned against the rock. Megan took a pair of water bottles out of their rucksack and passed one to Jenny.

              They sat and drank, breathing heavily.

              “Somehow we have got to get back down to the house and head out of here,” Jenny checked her watch. “They'll be expecting us in a few hours at the meeting point. How long will it take us to get to the shuttle stop?”

              “An hour to the shuttle stop and then another half-hour on the shuttle to the freeway.”

              “If we can just get to the shuttle station we can sound the alarm. We need to get down to the house and avoid these things somehow.”

              “Jen, I'm scared.”

              Jenny put her hand on her friend's shoulder. “Don't be, it's okay. We'll figure something out, we can out run them at the very least, they are ugly freaky dudes and they are very slow.”

              They both stood still for a moment and just listened.

              “I don't like this silence though,” Jenny said. “What is going on?”

              Jenny stood up to look around. The surfboard zombie came behind them with a guttural growl that sounded like a Grizzly bear. He dropped his surfboard and grabbed Jenny from behind.

              Jenny struggled to get away, she screamed and fell to the spongy dirt.

              Megan jumped up and screamed like a banshee.

              The zombie froze in place and screamed just as loud as Megan, mocking her.

              Jenny crawled away from the zombie but he lunged after her, his raisin sized testicles scraping across the dirt but causing him no pain. He bit down on Jenny's calf and she screamed for bloody murder. 

              Megan screamed herself hoarse. She didn't know what else to do.

              Jenny tried to get up but her legs folded underneath her like loaves of soft dough.  The zombie grabbed her again and bit down onto her shoulder.

              “Oh God, Megan!” Jenny said. “Help me! Help me!”

              The zombie munched on Jenny's flesh. Blood poured out from her wounds and his mouth.

              Megan looked around desperately for some kind of weapon.

              “Megan,” Jenny implored. “The surfboard. Hit him with the surfboard. Hurry!”

              Megan snapped out of her funk and grabbed the board. She whacked the zombie across the head with it and knocked him off balance.

              She hit him again and he fell backward. Dazed.

              Megan dropped the surfboard and sprinted over to Jenny, helping her up.

              Jenny gasped for breath and winced in pain, holding her shoulder. “Our backpacks-”

              Megan picked up the rucksacks and helped Jenny up. Her friend limped badly as blood streamed down her leg and arm.

              “We've got to get away from that thing, where's the other one, my ankle, my shoulder, damn!”

              Megan dragged Jenny further away from the trail until they got to a clearing.

              “What are we going to do?”

              “Megan, get it together!” Jenny pulled at her own t-shirt and tore some strips from it. Blood poured from her leg.

              Megan tore her t-shirt as well and wrapped the strips around Jenny's ankle and shin. The wound continued to bleed and she held another piece tight to her shoulder and around her neck.

              “You need to see a doctor,” Megan said. “That could get infected, he took a whole chunk out of your ankle! And look at your shoulder-and your neck! We need to get back to the house, you can rest there, I can get help.”