“B-but z-zombies aren’t r-real,” he blubbered.
“Don’t believe me. Just trust your own eyes and ears.” I sighed. “I don’t know if it was the sound of your engine or the scent of human flesh that lured these fuckers here. But once one of ’em hears the dinner bell, the rest are rarely far behind. By the look of things, this shack ain’t gonna hold together much longer. Not with a hundred little zombies laying siege to the place, trying their damnedest to get to us.”
Jill nodded toward the door. “Yeah, and now that Mom and Dad have joined the kids, it’s only gotten worse.”
When Bob didn’t respond to either of us—his eyes wide with fear and confusion, the baton still clutched in his trembling hand—I decided to focus on my companions instead. Until the ranger snapped out of it, he’d be useless in a fight.
“OK, everyone,” I said, turning to the three women, “I suggest you find some kind of weapon. We gotta be ready to defend ourselves. And if anyone gets the chance, run for it.”
George glared at Bob. “Where are our guns?”
His eyes darted toward her incensed face, but once again, he seemed incapable of speech.
In a flash, she closed the gap between them, grabbed his collar, and shook him so hard, his goofy hat tumbled from his balding head and he lost his hold on the baton.
“I still have a kid out there somewhere,” she said, her dangerously calm voice belying the seething gaze she’d leveled at the hapless ranger. “My only child. And if he dies because we were forced to leave him up a tree, I’m going to kill you.” She tightened her grip and pulled his face closer. “That’s a promise.”
I doubted he understood the implication of her words. Perhaps fear overrode reason, or maybe the revelation of another member of our party befuddled him. When he’d taken us into custody, after all, we had sworn that no one else was in the campsite.
Regardless of his muddled thoughts, though, he soon snapped out of his momentary daze. “Th-they’re still in the car. I n-never got a chance to take them out.” He glanced down at his belt, where his keys dangled. “I was with y’all… the whole time.”
That wasn’t entirely true. For a short period, he’d left us locked in the office and almost gotten himself eaten outside, but technically, he was right. Back at the campsite, he’d stowed our weapons in the trunk of his SUV. Then, after dragging us inside the elevated station, he hadn’t left the building until wandering down the steps to face off with Little Miss Thin Mint.
Still, I felt the need to express my dismay. “Fan-fucking-tastic!”
George released the ranger and slumped her shoulders. “Well, shit.”
Without hesitation, Clare broke off the legs of the nearest office chair and divvied them between herself, George, and Jill. “These’ll have to do. Just aim for the heads, don’t let ’em bite you—”
“Or scratch you,” Jill muttered, a melancholy expression on her pained face.
Clare grimaced. “Yes… or scratch you.” Turning to George, she added, “And like Joe said, if you get a chance to barrel past them, run like hell. Don’t look back and don’t stop until you reach the campsite.”
Glancing at my mother-in-law, I noted how much worse she looked. The now yellow and grayish-green tint of her skin had deepened, especially under her watery, bloodshot eyes. Tossing that chair through a window had sapped what little of her strength remained. Still, her gaze intensified as it locked onto mine. She glanced from me to the Glock in my hand, down to the chair leg resting in her own, and back to me.
Without saying a word, I handed her the gun, and she gave me the makeshift club. Though determined to stay alive long enough to get her daughter out of harm’s way, she probably didn’t have enough vigor to swing such a flimsy weapon with enough force to deter, much less kill, anything. Even a zombified child. And since she’d owned a pistol during Clare’s childhood, I figured she knew enough to point the muzzle at someone and pull the trigger.
Nodding in appreciation, she gripped the Glock and took a fighting stance. George, Clare, and I did the same with our chair legs.
I opened my mouth to instruct Bob to pick up his baton, but before a word of warning emerged, the window immediately to the left of the front door cracked, and the bloody fist of a zombified Girl Scout broke through the gap. A second later, the fat kid’s head busted through the window to the right of the door.
As if on cue, glass shattered all around us. In a matter of seconds, not one of the exterior windows in the front room remained intact. The zombified kids who’d smashed them moaned loudly and groped the air, striving to reach the tasty meat treats trapped inside. The only factor sparing us from immediate devouring was the height of the windowsills, and the fact that most of the tiny shits weren’t tall enough to climb inside.
Unfortunately, though, the sheer mass of them shoving against the building, not to mention one another, had caused a pileup along the perimeter. Soon, the scouts would instinctively mount their fellow undead campers and clamber through the openings.
With a girlish shriek, Ranger Bob scooped up his baton. Gripping it with both hands, he pivoted back and forth—likely unsure which zombie to wallop first.
Clearly, we couldn’t rely on any steady help from him.
Holding the chair leg over my shoulder like a baseball bat, I prepared myself for a bloody grand slam when the groaning door caught my attention. Wooden slats buckled and splintered, pressed to their breaking points by the collective weight of the zombie horde on the
