The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,59
but there wasn’t any signal. “You think there are zombies hiding in those buildings on the left?” Getting outnumbered was a huge risk, especially since we’d fallen so behind the others and were essentially all on our own.
He nodded slowly. “Maybe we go right then? Fewer people, hopefully fewer zombies in the forest?”
“Sounds good. You go first as, you know, my zombie body shield.”
We examined a few of the footsteps on the trail. The imprints were still fresh, so we weren’t terribly far behind. Kneeling too close, I lost my balance and toppled to my side into fallen leaves and mud.
“You should have handed me your backpack,” Nate said, hoisting me up by my nonmuddy hand.
“I hear mud is a natural remedy for eczema.” I wiped my filthy palm on a nearby tree trunk, taking most of the filth off. Neon-green moss stains replaced the caked-on mud, which now didn’t seem so bad.
After wiping my mossy hands on the thighs of my pants, I pulled out a bottle of sanitizer and squirted my hands.
“Seriously, you have hand sanitizer?” He burst into laughter. “It’s not even trial-size. You’re such a precious snowflake.”
I corrected him. “A germ-free snowflake.”
The footprint frenzy ahead of us slowed us to a stop. There had been some kind of skirmish. A fight maybe, between contestants. Or a zombie attack?
A twig snapped behind us.
Nate and I spun around to see a figure lurching forward, about Nate’s height, maybe taller, standing twenty feet away.
Chills ran up my spine as I took a few stumbled paces back.
Nate stood his ground and slowly, from his backpack pocket, pulled out a stick. Or…a flashlight? A wand? Had my partner gone mad?
The figure drew closer and so did the rancid odor. Dead rats, sewage, outhouses, all rolled into one putrid package.
Our first zombie.
Was it real? And by real, I meant was it a human? Something about his movements was strangely familiar. Was it…could it even possibly be…a robot? Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks—the by-product of me seeing robots everywhere, both at home and in my dreams. The zombie was too far away to tell for sure.
“Gaaaaaaaaa.”
It talked. Actually, gurgled, like he was gargling Listerine. Though he certainly didn’t smell like Listerine.
The zombie drew closer, and Nate took a few steps toward it.
“Nate!” I warned, but he didn’t listen. He continued his movement toward the undead figure, holding his flashlight-wand with two hands, like a lightsaber.
“Gaaaaaaaaa!”
Closer now, I could see the zombie, with his ragged clothes, body gashes, and open wounds on his bashed-in face. My heart hammered in my chest. He was missing an eye.
Oh God, the smell.
It turned me into a statue of fear, too scared stiff to gag. I couldn’t even yell Nate’s name again.
Nate, though, was the opposite. He jolted into action and charged ahead. “Gaaaaaaaaa!” he yelled, but it was more of a swashbuckler battle cry, mocking the undead’s mouthwash gargles.
They collided. Nate’s feet were springier, but the zombie overpowered him. They both fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
“Nate!” Jolted out of my paralysis, I ran to help.
Sheer terror pulsed through me as I tried to yank the zombie from him. The overwhelming stench made me want to vomit, but I pulled and pulled, determined to free my partner. The zombie turned to me and bit toward my face. Horrified, I fell backward.
Nate took his stick and jabbed it on the zombie’s neck.
“ZAP!” A cracking sound. Then dead silence.
It flopped over. There was metal under his ripped flesh.
The zombie was, in fact, a robot. Holy shit. The burned plastic stink made me dry heave. Thank God I’d skipped breakfast.
We stared at it for a while. Finally, I asked Nate, “Where’d you get a zombie zapper?”
He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “It’s a stun gun. I couldn’t find a good bear spray, so I bought this just in