Fun World Read online

  A moment later, Eric crouched on the unsteady bridge, working as quickly as possible to cut the cables that bound the pontoons. Although the air was cool, sweat ran down his face in rivulets before dripping onto bridge’s wooden surface. Perspiration stung his eyes, forcing him to blink continually to refocus them. As soon as he snipped the last cable, the float he was kneeling on dipped precariously under his weight, and the other half of the severed bridge began to slowly drift away. With the first part of the job done, he crawled back toward the shore. His knees popped and his back ached as he rose to his feet. The sudden movement caused his tattered leg to throb and bleed with renewed vigor, but he ignored both.

  He’d been expecting to hear the enraged thuds of the monster inside the maintenance shed at any moment, but they never came. In fact, other than his heavy breaths and the soft sound of water lapping against the pontoons, all was quiet. That changed when Lila’s shrill cry pierced the air a second later. Up to that point, she’d remained deathly quiet, and her bloodcurdling scream filled him with panic. Staring at the closed door, he couldn’t see what had drawn the horrifying sound out of his little girl at first. He’d been so focused on the maintenance shed that the sight of several zombies staggering toward them from around the building caught him completely off guard. Shit! The zombies from the lighthouse…

  Waving his arm emphatically, Eric shouted, “Lila, get on the bridge. Let’s go!”

  Despite the urgency in his words, Lila didn’t budge. Her gaze darted between him and the zombies steadily closing in on their position. It was then that Eric saw the uncertainty in her eyes, and it made him want to drop to his knees. The fact that his little girl had even a moment’s hesitation when faced with the choice of joining him or awaiting the mangled monsters that wanted nothing more than to make a midmorning snack out of her was soul crushing. It spawned a new level of hatred for the things that had been trying to kill them for the last couple of days. When he called out to her a second time, even he could hear that his words came with less conviction. Just as he was about to plead with her for a third time, Lila finally spoke.

  “But…you’re…”

  Her words were choked and heavy, filled with the unendurable pain that comes with the absolute certainty that a loved one is going to die. The sentence knotted itself inside her throat as if refusing to come out any further; it didn’t need to. Eric knew all too well what she’d been about to say. He thought he could almost feel the embodiment of her words coursing through his body even as she spoke. His eyes softened and he implored her one last time.

  “Lila, I have to get you off this island. Please let me at least do that for you.”

  She regarded him cautiously, her troubled eyes flitting to his bloodied pant leg almost imperceptibly. Eric wasn’t sure if she saw some shred of humanity remaining in the depths of his eyes or if the sound of the zombies drawing near was simply too terrifying, but she took a tentative step in his direction. She picked up speed with each step, as though all she’d needed was to overcome the initial inertia rooting her in place. The esurient snarls coming from behind her seemed to propel her forward. He’s not one of them, at least not yet…

  Eric stepped to the side as she neared, giving her a wide berth as she moved onto the rocking bridge. She crouched near the far end, lowering her center of gravity in order to avoid falling into the cold lake. He could see that she was poised to take a plunge off the end should the need arise. Good girl. Stay smart; stay safe. As painful as it was to be on the receiving end of it, her cautious attitude provided him with a degree of comfort. The unstable

  bridge felt as though it might capsize when he stepped back onto the closest pontoon.

  SNIP. SNIP.

  SNIP.

  Freed from its moorings, the makeshift raft slowly began to drift away. With his stick firmly planted in the muddy shallows, he shoved off from the shore. Although they weren’t moving fast, they were nearly twenty-five feet from the water’s edge when the first zombie arrived. The thing wasted no time trudging into the lake after them, though it seemed somewhat confused and off-balance by the new element in its environment.

  Eric studied the zombie struggling to maintain its footing in the murky water. Before the detestable thing had stabilized itself, the other two crashed into him, sending the trio sprawling into water. The scene was almost comical, but that wasn’t why he continued staring in their direction. He could feel Lila’s mournful gaze burning a hole in the back of his head, and the thought of looking into her sad eyes was too painful. He felt like a coward for not turning to face her. When the zombies offered nothing else to see, he glanced down at his bloodstained pants and noticed that his wound had finally stopped bleeding. Having been so focused on getting them off the island, he hadn’t taken the time to inspect his injury; part of him didn’t want to. Doing so meant facing his reality, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that. His readiness, he realized, was irrelevant.

  Eric grabbed the fabric just above the knee and slowly pulled his pant leg up. The cloth stuck to his wound and he felt a tinge of pain as it broke free, exposing his bare leg to the cool air. Taking a deep breath, he looked down. As he expected to see a mangled set of teeth marks surrounded by mottled, graying flesh, the sight of the straight, three-inch gash confused him. Thinking the world might be playing a cruel joke on him, he tore a strip of fabric from his sleeve, dipped it into the water, and began scrubbing the dried blood frantically. The pain that accompanied the action was intense as the rough material grated across the edges of the fresh laceration. Ruddy brown liquid mixed with bright red blood as it flowed down his leg before disappearing into his boot. He scrubbed and scrubbed, certain that the next pass would reveal the circular pattern of tooth marks that would foretell his demise. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally turned to face his daughter.

  Still staring at him dejectedly, Lila didn’t appear to have moved since crawling onto the bridge. She couldn’t understand why he was bothering to scrub his leg so aggressively. It seemed strange to be worrying about a wound infection after sustaining a zombie bite. And why is he now smiling at me? The moment she’d realized what had happened to her father inside the shed, she’d wondered if she would ever smile again. Although she didn’t want to see the horrible thing, her gaze involuntarily drifted to his injured extremity. Like her father, she, too, was overcome by a wave of confusion. She tried to speak but found the skill lacking once again.

  “That’s not…you’re…not…” she stammered, barely able to produce words let alone intelligible sentences.

  Below his tearstained eyes, Eric’s huge smile never faltered. Voice heavy with disbelief, he said, “It’s not a bite. I’m…” His words flowed freely at first, but they, too, soon fell prey to his intense emotion. Understanding flashed in Lila’s eyes, and he was relieved to see that the situation required no further explanation, as the stranglehold on his throat showed no signs of diminishing. She leapt to her feet and covered the four-foot gap in a single step. The sudden movement nearly capsized the improvised raft, as she collapsed into his waiting arms. Neither of them could recall ever feeling anything so sweet. Father and daughter held their silent embrace, allowing all the pain they’d felt to flow from their respective bodies in the cascades of tears. When her sniffling finally slowed, Lila pulled away from her father and said, “I love you so much, Daddy. I thought I’d lost you. I was so scared. What happened in there?”

  Still crying and still smiling, Eric contemplated her question. The last fifteen minutes had been such a blur that he wasn’t sure he had an answer. It had been so dark and so chaotic. I was attacked, wasn’t I? While the thought would’ve been a statement only moments ago, now it was a question. I never actually saw a zombie, and none tried to pursue me as I fled the building. If he were honest, he hadn’t actually seen much inside the building at the end. It had simply been too dark. Despite the vivid details his mind had ascribed to the event in the aftermath, he realized there wasn’t anything that m
ade a zombie attack any more likely than him merely knocking something over, getting spooked, tripping over something, and slicing his leg open on some unseen hazard obscured by the darkness. If anything, the latter scenario seemed far more probable.

  “I love you, too, sweetie. I’m not entirely sure what happened in there; it was so dark. But I promise I’m going to be more careful from now on,” Eric said sincerely. He tore another strip of cloth and bandaged his leg. Propelled by the gentle breeze, they drifted slowly toward the bank on the mainland side of the park.

  Although he saw no movement ahead in the distance, he instructed Lila to lie on her belly to minimize her profile. He did the same. Like a sniper team silently stalking a target, they moved with imperceptible slowness. While they were still a ways out from the shore, Eric used his hands like paddles to help drive them forward, quietly pulling them through the chilly water.

  SPLASH!

  The noise made Eric freeze in place, his forehead pressed tightly against the wooden decking as though he might somehow manage to insinuate himself into the spaces between the decking boards. “Fucking clumsy hands!” he growled under his breath, as the possibility of adding the heavy bolt cutter to his otherwise nonexistent weapon cache vanished into the water’s inky depths. Though his own eyes were closed, he sensed Lila’s gaze upon him once again. Embarrassed by his outburst, he turned his head slightly and glanced sheepishly toward his little girl. Disapproval loomed large in her intense blue eyes.

  “You know that’s a bad word, Daddy,” Lila whispered matter-of-factly. Despite his best effort to keep a straight face, Eric let out a soft chuckle. Hearing her objection to his use of profanity despite the fact that the walking dead were literally trying to eat them alive was simply more than he could handle. It was also exactly what he was fighting so hard to protect. Nearly as much as he hoped to keep his daughter alive and well through this ordeal, he hoped to preserve some portion of the innocence that was capable of chastising him for swearing even amidst a full-blown zombie apocalypse.

  Regaining his composure, he replied, “I know, sweetie. I was just frustrated. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that.” After a pause, he added, “And don’t ever let me hear you say anything like that, young lady. Got it? Your mother would kill me.”

  7

  Looking up, Eric noticed they were nearing the shore. Despite the fact that the undead had been the park’s primary occupants for nearly two days, the faint smell of untold millions of corn dogs, cookies, and funnel cakes still lingered heavily in the air. Such gluttonous aromas were so deeply ingrained in the park’s very fabric that he wondered how long it would take for the last scent molecules to finally waft away, leaving only the rancid smell of moldering death in their wake. For now, sugary sweet hints of chocolate and vanilla drifted out over the water on the wings of a warm, buttery breeze. Distinctly greasy overtones with a touch of something spicy that he couldn’t identify made the air seem thicker and held the smell close to the water’s surface like a late morning fog. He imagined his pores—and his arteries—clogging up with every breath. Salivation and regurgitation jockeyed to be the first out of the gates.

  The sun’s rays reflected off the water with blinding intensity, and Eric squinted his eyes as he scanned the area intently. Roughly twenty feet ahead was a row of buildings lining the bank. Though they faced away from the water, their Western-themed motifs told him that they were coming back ashore in Fun World’s Old Western Frontier. He scrutinized every nook and cranny, and was relieved to see no walking corpses between the buildings and the water’s edge. As he’d seen many zombies milling about when he’d looked through the lighthouse binoculars, he assumed the buildings before him were merely blocking them out. Given the stampede they’d experienced the previous day and the chaos he’d witnessed last night, he still found the absence of people of any sort peculiar and, if he were honest, a little unsettling. Aside from the smoke rising from somewhere deeper in the park and the occasional body sprawled out on the ground as though exhaustion finally forced them to take a nap right where they were, everything seemed almost normal. He eyed his surroundings suspiciously as the lake’s bottom came into view. Who am I kidding? Not seeing anyone at Fun World at anytime is about the most abnormal thing I can imagine.

  Eric signaled for Lila to stay down as he gingerly stepped into the shallow water. Treading lightly, he made virtually no sound as he pulled the makeshift raft ashore. He helped his little girl disembark, and the two crouched down next to a stand of cattails growing along the bank. Carried by a gentle breeze, the rich aroma once again assaulted their senses. His stomach growled unceremoniously as the hunger pangs hit him like a punch in the gut. It was all he could do not to break from cover and make a beeline toward the source of the enticing odor. Don’t be stupid, Eric. You nearly got yourself killed once today already. Glancing over to Lila, he imagined he could see the same inner turmoil playing out in her eyes. Hoping to comfort her, Eric said, “Don’t worry, sweetie. The first thing I’m going to do is find us some food and water.”

  His words seemed to have the desired effect, as the wild edge faded from her eyes. After he had spotted the shotgun in the arms of one of the fallen soldiers, his original plan had been to head to their position and procure a weapon with a little more bang than his club. The trusty stick had served him well, but he would feel a hell of a lot safer with a gun in his other hand. Even so, neither he nor Lila had the energy to walk that distance let alone deal with anything they might encounter along the way.

  When he turned his face into the breeze, Eric’s nose led his gaze to a small Pueblo-style building to the right of their location. Without making a sound, they stepped out of the reeds and crept along the bank, moving swiftly toward the establishment. The ground sloped up from the water’s edge. When they were directly across from the building, Eric motioned for Lila to lie down and use the embankment for cover. Satisfied that she was more or less out of sight, he crept cautiously toward the building, all the while trying to keep his recent experience in the maintenance shed out of his mind.

  With his back pressed against the stuccoed wall, Eric advanced toward the building’s lone back door. He paused to read the sign, which read The Gold Rush—Food Deliveries Only. Once again, his stomach lurched, only this time it wasn’t due to his hunger. Thick, ruddy swaths crisscrossed the door, painting it in varying shades of maroon, crimson, and deep brown. So close to the source, the sickening, coppery smell overpowered the culinary aromas with ease, giving nausea the upper hand. He glanced back toward the place where he’d left Lila and was simultaneously anxious and relieved when he couldn’t see her.

  Holding his breath as though that might somehow shield him from whatever horrors awaited inside, Eric reached for the doorknob. Having assumed it was of the self-locking variety, he was pleasantly surprised when he turned the knob and the door clicked open. If he’d thought the smell had been revolting before, the impenetrable shroud of stink that wafted out was otherworldly.

  Through tearing eyes, Eric caught a glimpse of the horrors that lay inside the eatery. It was a scene of absolute carnage that he desperately wished he could’ve unseen. Bodies, or at least what had been bodies at one time, lay scattered throughout the interior. So badly mangled and dismembered, it could’ve just as easily been one or ten people. Blood—so much blood—painted every surface in sight.

  “My God,” Eric said, his voice a choked whimper.

  Not in his worst nightmare could he have imagined a more horrific ending for the restaurant’s patrons. Although he and Lila needed food and water badly, he wasn’t prepared to head into the godforsaken establishment to search for it. Starving or dying of thirst felt like far less unpleasant alternatives. Gagging, he pulled the door closed, hoping the action might somehow simultaneously close the door on the memory of what he’d seen and smelled as well. Although his back was turned to her, Lila’s head popped up like a gopher when the door latch clicked.

  As Eric turned to signa
l to her that it was a no-go, he was suddenly forced to reconsider his stance on the establishment. Out of the corner of his eye, two unsteady shadows emerged from the side of the building. If their jerky, unnatural movements weren’t enough to tell him what was coming, the hungry snarls that followed certainly were. Instinctively and without hesitation, he opened the door once again and slipped stealthily inside The Gold Rush. Before the door closed to the outside world, he looked for Lila, but she was nowhere to be found. Good girl. Stay out of sight… He hoped the fact that he couldn’t see her meant that the zombies couldn’t either.

  Concealed in the shadows, Eric peered out through the grease-smudged window. He held his breath—partly to avoid the pervasive smell of death, and partly to keep from making even the slightest sound that might give his position away. With their mangled heads held high like animals tracking a scent, the two zombies staggered forward in search of the quarry they sensed nearby. The undead fiends came to a halt right outside the restaurant’s back door, and Eric’s heart nearly stopped when the pair turned toward the water’s edge in unison. No. No. No. Stay down, Lila. Please, stay down. The tension building inside his chest felt heavy enough to collapse his lungs as he waited to see what the zombies would do.

  Crouched by the water’s edge, Lila didn’t have a clear view of her father. Obeying his command, she did her best to stay out of sight, pressing her small frame as close to the ground as possible. When she heard the sharp metallic sound of the door latch engaging a moment later, her curiosity took over, and she raised her head to investigate before she had a chance to think better of it.