The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,78

my death? Probably not. I rubbed my eyes, an attempt to clear the fear-onset blurriness.

We didn’t have much time. Cyclops took firm, confident steps toward us. Stomp, stomp. Gaaaaaah! Stomp, stomp. Gaaaaaaah! He was maybe thirty feet away, tops.

“Kate, do you have your pyro shit?”

“What do you mean, my pyro—”

“Your fire shit! The shit you use to make fires?” This was no time for eloquence. I needed her fire shit. NOW.

Behind me, she dug deep into her backpack. “Here.” She handed me matches and a lighter. My plan was to take off my shirt, set it on fire, and throw it at him. At best, that would give us more time to think. If he kept coming, I’d zap him. Who knew. I wasn’t exactly in a prime decision-making state.

I tore off my outer layer shirt and put a flame at the seam, but it wouldn’t light. Stupid REI poly-techno-ultra-moisture-wick-featherweight piece of unflammable garbage!

Kate threw me her Team Magenta shirt. One hundred percent cotton. Flammable. Disposable. And the ultimate symbol that our partnership was dead. My team shirt was buried at the bottom of my abandoned backpack. Was leaving it behind that much different than setting it ablaze? I turned my back to her so she couldn’t see the sadness in my eyes when I ignited her shirt.

I held it above me like the Olympic torch and tossed it over to the zombie. It landed by his feet, stopping his movement, but not catching him on fire.

Kate shoved a bottle in my hand. “Hand sanitizer!”

“For what? Germs?”

She unscrewed the top, and it clicked. Nate, you idiot. Accelerant. Of course! Like a shitty Molotov cocktail.

Slightly unsteady, I heaved it squarely at the zombie’s chest.

Or, at least, that’s where I aimed.

The bottle clinked against the zombie’s groin, splattering the disinfectant all over his lower extremities, then fell into the scorching shirt blaze. Instantly, his junk lit on fire, as did the bottom half of his body. In a cloud of black smoke, the zombie stumbled back three giant steps, then deactivated and crumpled to the ground. The inferno spread to his midsection, up the neck, and melted part of his face before it died down enough for me to stomp it out.

The putrid smell of burned plastic and electrical fire filled my nose. Tears pricked my burning eyes. Breathing deeply and steadily had already been difficult enough, and now acrid pollution filled the air. By sheer luck, the breeze changed course and blew the black smoke away from us. But the unforgettable smell was still there, in my nose, in my lungs. It would never leave me.

The zombie was too heavy to move, or more accurately, I was too weak to move it. When the zombie cooled down enough, I stepped over him. Kate took her turn, and at the exact moment she was on top of it, I scoffed, “So you could have crawled on me after all!”

She shook her head. “You’re way bigger than this guy. And please, no ‘that’s what she said’ jokes.”

Damn it.

Up past the zombie obstacle, the path widened. Kate cheered, “Hey, look! We have maybe fifty yards left to go on this trail!”

We’d come this far, and so much was at stake. Winning the money and fulfilling our dreams was still top of mind. The whole fear of heights setback was a minor blip in this competition. I had to make it. For Kate.

I turned to face her. “Yeah. Apparently, the zombie distraction technique works wonders.”

We approached a sizable gap between our cliff and the next cliff that lead to the end of the journey.

We needed to jump to the other ledge.

But one slip meant instant death.

Oh, hell no.

I backed up straight into Kate. The Clif Bar wrappers in my sling pouch crunched against her face.

“Owww!” she yelled, pinching her nose.

Not even a simple “sorry” came to mind. My entire body screamed for me to continue retreating. That’s all I had on my mind. Back, back, back. Go back times infinity.