Flowers Vs. Zombies (Book 5) Buried Read online

  “Bill!” Liz said.

  She tossed the torch to him. He caught it and waved it in front of the apes. The fire made a tearing sound as it passed through the air, the light dancing in the apes’ vision. They looked at it, entranced by it. They reached for it, to touch it, but they pulled their thick hands back, feeling the heat.

  Distracting them and forcing them over the side should be a piece of cake, Bill thought. If they were this enamored of the flame, they could be easily manipulated.

  But then something changed.

  Something in their faces, their expressions, altered. It was there for just an instant, a flicker, and could have easily been missed if it hadn’t been present on all their faces at the same time.

  Their brows drew down into a look of concentration. They were no longer mesmerized by the flames. They took on the look of an intelligent man, a human who knew a trap when he saw one. What was even more telling was they looked at him with the same determined expression.

  “Stand back,” Bill said to Liz. “There’s something wrong with these apes.”

  Liz took them in, how their knuckles dragged along the ground, taking no notice of the welts, scratches and burns on their person.

  “Are you kidding?” Liz said. “There could be nothing more wrong with these things!”

  “No,” Bill said. “There’s something else wrong with them. They’re smart. One minute they were consumed with the fire, and now they don’t even give it a second glance. There’s something very wrong here.”

  The apes, still wary of the flames held in Bill and Liz’s hands, began to move around them, pinning them in. One ape had to move around to the back of the kitchen, climbing and working his way round the outside by clinging onto the edge.

  Bill saw his opportunity.

  He dashed forward and thrust and swiped at the great ape. The first blow missed, as did the second, but the third struck home and singed the side of the ape’s face. It lifted one arm in instinct and clutched it to its face. Bill was ready to jam the fire onto the ape’s grasping hand. The ape fell backward, but he wasn’t done yet—his feet still had a strong grip.

  Bill swung the torch around and struck him across the top of the toes. The monkey screamed again, belying the fact they weren’t entirely consumed by the virus, as human carriers never felt any pain. Some part of them, on some level, was still connected to what made them living things. They felt pain. Bill wondered what else they might feel.

  The ape fell, but Bill sensed this Overlord In Black in charge of these units wasn’t all that worried about it, because though the fall was far for a human body, it wasn’t too far for a stronger, reinforced chimp’s body that made that kind of fall often.

  But what the Overlord In Black hadn’t bargained on was the bear trap that sat just below.

  Snap!

  The poor creature didn’t even know what got it.

  “Bill!” Liz said.

  She was being pushed back by the two remaining apes, her back to the counter. If they got any closer, they would get their teeth to her bare flesh.

  Bill yelled and ran at them, bringing his bat back and thrusting it forward, striking an ape hard over the head. The top of the bat snapped off, clattering to the floor.

  Sparks from the oven issued forth and lit up a plank of wood on the floor. Liz was on it in an instant with a damp dishcloth, smothering the flames.

  Smack!

  A backhand from the lead ape sent Bill sprawling. Black spots danced in the corners of his eyes and he felt like he was going to pass unconscious at any moment.

  But he couldn’t afford that. His family needed him.

  He struggled, getting to his hands and knees, and began to press himself up onto his feet when the ape was on him again, slapping him, open palmed, across the face. Bill’s ears rung and he could barely stay conscious.

  He saw the blow coming, and though he couldn’t avoid it, he moved with it, and spun round, letting most of the force fly off him. It still stung. He felt the skin of his cheeks flare red as the blood rushed to the surface.

  The ape bore down on him, an unrelenting monster. He was big and ugly, massive and muscular. All at once, Bill was a child again, cowering before his own father. The ape even had the same look of sinister disappointment on his face. Bill was shocked because he never suspected an ape could have this kind of expression on his face.

  A very human expression.

  Bill believed Francis, every word. This was no mere animal. Only a man could be so wantonly cruel to his fellow man. The ape grinned, and it was the most human expression he had ever seen.

  “Geronimo!” a voice bellowed.

  The ape turned to see who had exclaimed it, and just as he turned his head, a small body slammed into him with a meaty thud. Though the ape did not lift up off his feet—he was too solid and strong for that—he did stumble backward, his little legs failing to find the next step he needed.

  He fell and drifted over the side of the platform. He reached out with his thick powerful fingers, but it was too little too late. He fell to the ground below. He bellowed, and an awful Snap! noise put a dramatic end to the scream. It might have been a crocodile down there waiting for him.

  The figure that had slammed into the ape got to his feet. He had put all his weight and strength into the strike and left nothing back to land softly. It was Ernest, having swung himself down from Robin’s Nest on the zipline. He’d timed his descent so he would slam into the ape just at the right moment. If the ape had decided to end Bill faster… Well, thankfully that wasn’t something they had to deal with.

  Ernest helped his father up.

  “You couldn’t have come sooner?” Bill said.

  “Sure I could,” Ernest said. “But then I’d end up looking like you.”

  Bill smiled and put his hand to his own cheek.

  “You cheeky little money,” he said.

  “No, that was what we just sent into the trap, wasn’t it?” Ernest said.

  There was a whirring zipping noise as Fritz came hurtling along the zipwire and joined the family in Falcon’s Nest.

  “Thank God that’s over with,” Fritz said.

  There was an Earth-shattering roar from the foliage.

  “Oh no,” Liz said. “Not again.”

  “What was that?” Ernest said. “King Kong?”

  “I’ll tell you what it is,” Bill said. “The next round.”

  Chapter Seven

  THE GIANT lump of muscle came hurtling out of the foliage like a runaway freight train. He bellowed a cacophonous roar, an open challenge. It was the most powerful thing Bill had ever seen with his two eyes. A silverback gorilla.

  Defeating a family of baboons and a troop of apes was one thing, but could they defeat this colossal lump of muscle? Bill thought not. They were all going to die.

  Something struck the top of the huge creature’s head and made a comical plonk! sound, like a pebble on a coconut shell. The monster, barely registering it, looked up at who had hurled it.

  He was met with a pair of grinning faces from the foliage above. Nips waved. Jack tossed another stone, and it again struck the top of the creature’s head. The gorilla is nothing if not a proud creature, and any insult upon its stature was not to be accepted on any count.

  The monster looked from Bill, back up to the canopy, and then back at Bill. It was wrestling with something in its mind, trying to come to terms with something. It shook its head and took on the angry expression of a gorilla at the zoo.

  The great beast growled and turned away from Bill and the rest of the family. He would deal with them later. He moved to the main trunk of Falcon’s Nest and began to climb.

  Jack and Nips had already disappeared beneath the canopy and, whatever they were doing, Bill hoped to God they had a plan.

  Chapter Eight

  THEY HAD no plan, besides surviving in any way they could.

  Admittedly, tossing small rocks at a colossus such as the silverback was perhaps not the b
est way of achieving that end. But here they were. Their main strategy so far had been to make things up as they went along, and so far, it had proven a good strategy.

  The tree shook beneath them as the giant monster came after them. He would be surprisingly spry, Jack knew. He had seen the silverback before, before he was infected, and he had always moved with grace and power.

  Jack led the silverback to the top of the tree and ran around the thick canopy, so dense that it was difficult even for Jack to slip between the many branches. The great ape thundered onward, getting closer and closer. The tree shook, feeling like it was afraid.

  The higher they went, the narrower their chance of escape. After all, how could they escape such a large beast when it blocked their exit? The ape growled as it reached for Jack and attempted to swat him. Jack only barely managed to slip past him.

  They came to the top of the tree. There was nowhere else for them to run.

  Jack pushed off the solid fiber of a strong branch and darted right suddenly, and without warning. He began to climb down, back toward the treehouse.

  Smash!

  A huge forearm, thicker than Jack’s whole body, slammed through the trees and wiped them clean from the tree’s existence, cleaving a path through them. Jack got the feeling the great creature had done it on purpose, having wanted to corner him. Now it would toy with him before it… before it…

  Jack gulped. He shifted and headed in the opposite direction. A minute movement from the great silverback, and Jack slammed into the thick arms of the gorilla. It hadn’t even moved against him nor tried to inflict any harm, but it had nonetheless near knocked him out.

  Jack floundered, his hand missing the handhold of the branch, and hit the floor, sliding to a stop.

  Jack raised his head, but it was slow and lethargic. He felt something press down on his body and realized it was the hand of the great beast. It had laid hands on him. Now there was no hope for Jack. He would never get free of its grip now.

  The beast picked him up like he was a rag doll. He felt like one, head stuffed with cotton buds. The monster picked him up, held him just a few inches from its own face, and sniffed, pulling back like he had a terrible odor. Jack let him do it. To fight him now would be a mistake. Let him grow bored with him, and perhaps he’d escape with being tossed aside.

  He brought his eyes around and, though he didn’t mean to, he couldn’t help but look into the eyes of his captor. What he saw there terrified him. Humanity. That was what he saw.

  They were not the eyes of an animal, but of something real and conscious. Playing dead wouldn’t have the effect Jack had hoped. He would be at the whim of whoever was in charge of this monster, and that terrified him. Anything could be done to him, and no one would be punished for it.

  There was a loud, high-pitched screech as Nips tore out from the foliage and ran up the gorilla’s leg. The intelligent look in the great ape’s eye was gone instantly, its instinct taking over, as it searched for this little creature, a distant cousin. It didn’t like the idea of it crawling all over its body. It slapped at its huge muscles in an attempt to squash the little Capuchin monkey.

  But Nips was so fast, a blur. Whenever the gorilla slapped itself, the little monkey was out of the way and gone. The gorilla became more and more irate as it tried again and again to slap the little monkey, more than once raising its hand to peer at the unmoving body. Except the monkey wasn’t there. Nips was on its back, pulling out handfuls of its fur. The beast spun round and slapped itself again.

  There was no way the gorilla was going to knock itself out. And the longer Jack lay on the ground like this, the longer Nips had to distract the monster, and the more likely the next slap might be the last.

  Jack got to his feet. He didn’t have any plan, but he knew he couldn’t just sit by and let Nips gets smooshed.

  “Hey!” Jack said. “Hairy!”

  The great silverback turned. He locked his single good eye on Jack—another reason his aim was off—and lowered his head and snarled under his breath. He rushed forward. Jack threw himself down the tree, barely even catching himself before he swung to another branch. He was falling, barely catching himself, moving at a fair clip. Going down was far easier than climbing up. Unfortunately, that was also true for the silverback, as he ploughed right through the branches like they weren’t even there.

  Bill, Liz, Fritz and Ernest dived aside as the tree’s upper canopy fell like heavy snow and smashed into the floor where they had been standing, destroying half the kitchen. Jack landed and rolled forward, almost colliding with the island. Before anyone could ask if he was all right, there was a groan and an almighty thud as the giant gorilla slammed into the treehouse.

  The whole tree shook. The floorboards shifted beneath their feet and skittered over the side. The dust settled and revealed the great hulking ape as he slowly got to his feet. He shook his head. Clearly it had been a long fall. He turned to see the family arranged before him in an arc. He roared, bellowing, and beat on his mighty chest with his fists. He stamped his feet.

  The boards beneath him creaked. They were never built to hold something as heavy and powerful as him. They gave way in slow motion, sliding out from under his feet. The great ape leaned forward to run and jump, but he was too late. He fell.

  After the dust had settled, the family approached the edge of their platform to peer over the side at the unmoving body of the giant gorilla on the ground.

  “It’s over,” Liz said.

  “No,” Bill said. “This is just the beginning.”

  Chapter Nine

  THE REMAINS of the Flowers’ treehouse lay scattered over the area. It looked worse than it actually was. It might take a week or two, but the homes could be fixed quickly. That didn’t concern the Overlord In Black. He wasn’t in the business of recovery, but destruction. He merely wanted the death of the family, and so far, they had thwarted him.

  He had been surprised by their resourcefulness. But he was sure now they had nothing else up their sleeves, no other way they might attempt to outfox him. They were on the island, his island. It had been his ever since he turned up here. It belonged to him, and so did all of its inhabitants.

  The Flowers were merely unwelcome guests. They would not be on the island for long. Not if he had anything to do with it.

  The Overlord In Black moved from one dead animal to the next, dipping his finger into their blood. He grimaced each time he did so. A human’s blood was clean and pure, an animal’s was murky and dark. He got images, sounds, impressions of things he couldn’t quite understand. It was as if their memories were written in a code he simply wasn’t able to read, like a family European language that used the same letters but did not carry the same meaning. It was frustrating.

  He had lost control of the great silverback, and he had lost it because it was never totally under his control. Its instincts were too strong. Its need to follow the internal workings of its desires ruled it, and led it to a violent death the same way it had ruled it in its life. It was not good enough.

  Despite all their obvious strengths and advantages, if he could not control them completely they were of no use to him. He would not make the mistake of using them again. He’d already sent his superior human warriors to make short work of the beasts. They could at least serve that purpose: and fill the bellies of his useful creatures.

  The silverback was still alive, gasping through its teeth. Both its legs were broken. It moaned deep and low under its breath, in agony. It would be torn to pieces as punishment, he decided. But first he would need to sample its blood. It might know something useful.

  He bent down and ordered the ape to extend its lacerated arm. It winced as it did so. The Overlord In Black didn’t care. More than that, it angered him that a living thing could be so weak.

  As he expected, the images were muddy and unclear. He sighed, got to his feet, and began to walk away. Then he stopped. Wait… There was something else, something more. Something the ape hadn’t pick
ed up on or noticed, simply because he was unable to speak human language. But that did not mean he could not listen to it. The sound was off, odd, like it had been recorded by a faulty microphone.

  But the Overlord In Black understood it. It turned out that, after the attack, the family decided to go to the cave where they had a boat they could escape in.

  Humans, the Overlord In Black thought, shaking his head. So predictable. Good thing he already had a plan in place…

  He thought about letting the ape have a quick death for providing him with this information. But he hadn’t provided it for him. He had simply taken it. And besides, the Overlord In Black hadn’t ever played with an infected creature before. It would be fun to see what levels of pain it could withstand.

  The Overlord In Black unsheathed his blade and got to work. The things we do for the things we love.

  Chapter Ten

  THE FAMILY packed up and left Falcon’s Nest as quickly as they could, knowing the enemy would chase them as soon as he was physically able. He might even be following them now, as he seemed to enjoy playing games.

  They checked over their shoulders every few seconds, fearful he was right behind them. By the way their necks swiveled, he could have been lurking behind every tree and rock. But the family did not stop, would not stop. Not so long as there was a chance they might get out of there.

  Jim lay on a stretcher between Fritz and Ernest. He was still out cold. Bill had some medicine he had swiped from their supplies. It would keep Jim comfortable for a couple of weeks. After it ran out, all they could do was hope for the best. It was the best they could do. Then there was Bill himself, who had never felt this exhausted in his entire life. And that was including multiple one-hundred hour shifts at the hospital.

  He’d suffered poisoning at the hands of Rupert, and had to trudge through the jungle in an effort to save Francis. And then defend their home from marauding undead creatures. It was exhausting. He didn’t have the patience to keep stopping and starting to check there was no one following them. If they were going to be followed and get caught, then so be it.