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

followed her anxious gaze around the trees. “You brought your phone?”
     
    Rachel’s head snapped around one hundred and eighty degrees. “They could be everywhere,” she said so softly it was barely audible.
     
    Woody grabbed Rory’s bicep and spun him around. “What is going on?” he asked sternly. The moonlight cut across his slender face turning his eyes into dark caves.
     
    Rory took a deep breath and held it. “Something…came out of the water.”
     
    A frown collapsed Woody’s face. “What the hell are you talking about? What came out of the water?”
     
    Rory shook his head, the pain from the scratches covering his arms and legs beginning to register. “I don’t know. People.”
     
    Woody’s head jerked back like someone had just slapped him. “ People ?” he said with a nervous laugh. “What people?”
     
    “They’re dead,” Rachel sobbed.
     
    Woody turned to her and sharpened his gaze. “Who’s dead?”
     
    “All of them!” she screamed, sending an echo bouncing into the night. “They’re all dead! The things in the lake! Our friends! All dead!”
     
    “Jesus Christ,” Rory hissed. “You are going to get us all killed.”
     
    Woody passed them by and Rory latched onto his arm. “Where are you going?”
     
    Woody shook him off. “I’m going to see what the hell is going on,” he said, continuing back down the path to the campsite.
     
    Rory ran up and bear hugged him from behind, like that thing had done to Kate.
     
    “Are you crazy? I’m naked!” Woody shrieked in horror, his arms pinned beneath Rory’s.
     
    “You go back there and you will die,” Rory grunted through gritted teeth, struggling to maintain his hold. “We are not fucking around!”
     
    Woody squirmed a little longer and then gave up. “Then tell me what is going on!”
     
    “On the way back to the camp.”
     
    Rachel’s face folded. “I’m not going back there,” she said gravely.
     
    “All right?”
     
    “Let me go, dude,” Woody said softly, anger brimming within each word he spoke.
     
    “All right?” Rory repeated.
     
    “All right!”
     
    Rory released him and staggered backwards, ready to pounce on Woody again if he tried returning to camp. Rory didn’t blame him for being bone-headed right now. After all, no one could ever believe a story like this. But the last thing he was going to do was let Woody go waltzing naked back into camp, right into those things’ outstretched, mangled arms.
     
    “We are not going back there,” Rachel repeated.
     
    “We have to. The car keys and my phone are back there,” he told her, pointing in the direction of their campsite.
     
    She shook her head with her mouth agape. “We can just walk to Doc’s.”
     
    Rory put his hands on his hips. “That’s three miles around the bend.”
     
    “So what?”
     
    Woody laughed. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but if you think I’m walking three miles anywhere you’re nuts. I’m naked!”
     
    “ Shhhh !” Rachel and Rory hissed together.
     
    A branch snapped around them but it was impossible to tell where it came from. The three stood like statues, waiting to hear footsteps that didn’t come.
     
    Rory sighed, looking back towards camp and then in the opposite direction to where the cars were parked. It was a half mile hike to the small lot, which in the daylight wasn’t bad. At night, it would be a different story. The highway was another half a mile from there, maybe more, and without keys they weren’t going anywhere. Even if they did hike to the road, no one would be driving by at this time of night on a Monday. Doc’s was the closest place they could go for help, but Rory was sure those things would never let them make it that far on foot.
     

    “Shit!” Rory kicked a pine tree’s low hanging branch, sending long pine cones skittering across a slick sheen of brown needles coating the ground below. He turned back to Rachel and Woody and exhaled a