Free Floodwater Zombies by Sean Thomas Fisher, Esmeralda Morin Page A

Six
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “What the fuck, man!”
     
    “Woody!” Rory gasped.
     
    “What is your problem, dude?” he moaned, sitting up next to an unwinding roll of toilet paper and rubbing the back of his head.
     
    “We’ve got to get out of here,” Rory panted, glancing behind them for the first time since fleeing the campsite. It was dark and quiet. Moonbeams cut through bare spots in the canopy of trees above, leaving ominous blotches of pitch black with God knows what lurking inside.
     
    Rory turned to Rachel, who was still nervously looking behind them with her breath coming hard and fast. Tears left shiny paths down her face that mixed with the blood running from a long scratch just below her left eye. It was a miracle she had managed to keep both of her flip-flops on.
     
    “Hey, hey,” he wheezed. “Come on, take it easy. They’re gone.”
     
    She turned to him with horror-stricken eyes and dropped her head into his bare chest, sobbing uncontrollably. His arms instinctively wrapped around her and gently squeezed - something he had dreamed about for the past three years. But not like this.
     
    “Who’s gone?” Woody asked, getting to his bare feet and brushing dirt from his rear end in the speckled light.
     
    “ Shhhh !” Rory sneered, wiping sweat from his brow.
     
    Rachel pushed away from Rory and threw up. He jumped back, narrowly avoiding the spray of red wine, hotdogs and brownies. She dry heaved as Rory rubbed her back, checking behind them every few seconds. Rachel stopped choking and spit into the dirt, resting her hands on wobbly knees, trying to catch her breath.
     
    “Wow, she must really be wasted,” Woody snorted, his white necklace glowing even brighter than his skinny rump in the darkness. “I told ya we shouldn’t of had those shots at Doc’s.”
     
    Rachel stood back up, her chest undulating like she had just gone through a haunted house and lived to tell. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at Rory with bloodshot eyes. “What the hell where those things?” she asked grimly.
     
    Woody’s face stiffened. “What things?”
     
    Rory glanced behind them again. “I don’t know,” he said, turning back to his naked childhood friend.
     
    Woody stared at them with his mouth hanging open. “Man, you guys shoulda never smoked that bud! You are so baked right now.”
     
    Rachel tried pulling herself together. “Let’s just keep going.”
     
    “What?” Woody laughed. “I just got my second wind and I am gonna pull Kate tonight, gangster!”
     
    “Kate is dead, Woody!” Rachel snapped.
     
    Woody jumped, his devilish grin quickly fading.
     
    Rory shushed her, his eyes nervously roaming the surrounding woods. He rotated in full circles on the narrow deer path. Every silhouette of every tree trunk looked like one of those things, standing there watching them. Rory could see dozens of corpses surrounding them, trying to pick the best time to move in and close the circle. “We have to be quiet.”
     
    Woody made a dry clicking sound when he swallowed. Cotton-mouth had set in. “You guys picked the wrong time to be messing with me. I haven’t used any hand-sanitizer yet.” He held his hands up and grinned.
     
    “Woody, I swear to God we’re not messing with you,” Rory replied.
     
    Woody began searching the treetops. “Wait a minute, am I on Scare Tactics ? Where are the cameras?”
     
    Rachel burst into tears again. “We have to get help,” she moaned, rubbing the gash on her cheek and wincing.
     
    “We will,” Rory said.
     
    “We don’t have any phones,” she cried.
     
    Rory hesitated, his chest heaving. “Yes we do.”
     
    Rachel took a deep breath that wheezed into her lungs, her eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”
     
    “Mine is in the tent,” he replied, nodding back towards camp.
     
    Rachel’s head slowly gravitated with the nod. “Those things are back there.”
     
    Woody