The Swiss Family RobinZOM (11 page)

He peered
down the mountain. Shadows devolved from the
darkness and ambled up the incline.

“
But fewer than before,”
Bill said.

“
Are you sure?” Liz
said.

They waited, and although
Lurchers
continued to stumble out of the
jungle, there were no more than a handful.

“
Is that it?” Fritz said.
“Is that all of them?”

“
Either that,” Bill said,
“or they got lost along the way.”

“
Or they found somewhere
better to be,” Liz said.

She exchanged a
frightened look with Bill. They ran down the
mountainside.

“
Hey!” Fritz said. “Where
are you going?”

Fritz and Ernest took after
their parents.

Robin
’s Nest rocked to one side, the gnawing at the bark like a
rat at a block of hard cheese. Francis stood at the window,
whistling into the night. It seemed to calm him, so Jack left him
alone. Jack looked along the shelves at the framed happy
photographs of times gone by. Their treehouse shook again, causing
the photos to fall to the floor.

Jack put his hand
in
his pocket and stroked the barrel of
the gun. It was a little too large for him, and he had to stretch
his hand to reach the trigger. He approached Francis from behind.
He looked so small and defenceless. Jack raised the gun, pointing
the barrel at the back of his head. Francis continued to
whistle.

Bang!

Liz came to a stop. She broke
out into a cold sweat and her heart beat a thousand times a
minute.

“
No…” she
said.

She picked up the pace and ran
faster, her legs a blur.

“
No, no, no, no,
no…”

Bang!

There was an almighty
crash, and the ground shook like there was an earthquake.
Bill and Liz came to a stop in the clearing
before Falcon’s Nest. Both treehouses lay prostrate on the ground.
Leaves descended like snowflakes from the recently felled tree. A
dozen Lurchers drifted across the space without purpose. Liz fell
to her knees, weeping openly.

“
My babies,” she said,
“my dear sweet babies.”

The muscles in Bill’s jaw
tightened and the tears stung his eyes. Attracted to Liz’s
suffering, the Lurchers turned and stumbled toward them. Liz stood
up, unsheathed Bill’s machete and ran at them. Bill chased after
her. She swung at the Lurchers. She cut off their arms, their legs
at the knee, chopped off the women’s breasts and the men’s penises.
Then she hacked their torsos to pieces, cutting open the flesh, and
getting to the internal organs.

“
Liz,” Bill said. “Liz!
That’s enough!”

He grabbed her arm and
took the machete away. Bill finished the Lurchers off with a quick
wide
swipe that removed their
heads.

“
They killed our babies,”
Liz said. “They killed them.”

“
I know,” Bill said. “I
know.”

H
e wrapped his arms around her. Fritz and Ernest joined
their parents on either side, adding to the huddle.

“
Can we join?” a small
voice behind them said.

The Robinsons turned to
see a huge shadow stop
on the fringes of
the courtyard. It was broad and squat with horns. As it emerged
into the moonlight, it resolved into Valiant the bull, the tips of
his horns stained red. On his back were Jack and Francis, who had
big grins on their faces. Liz ran forward and lifted them off the
huge bull. She held them close and smothered them with kisses. A
few Lurchers drifted close. Fritz and Ernest dispatched them with
ease.

“
What happened?” Bill
said.

“
After the first
treehouse fell we climbed the cable to the second one,” Jack said.
“But then they started biting that one too. I had the gun in my
pocket, and was about to use it when Francis started whistling, and
Valiant came out of the jungle. The Lurchers came toward him and he
charged them. He knocked them all over! A couple almost bit him,
but I shot them with the gun. We climbed down and got on his back
and rode into the jungle. The Lurchers must have kept biting the
tree after we left, I suppose, and took it down. They probably
thought we were still up there. They are stupid.”

“
I’m so glad you’re all
right,” Bill said. “Come give your dad a kiss.”

“
Dad,” Jack said, “I’m
too big for kisses.”

“
Well, I’m not,” Bill
said, and gave Jack a big kiss on his cheek, and then on Francis’s.
“My boys, my beautiful, beautiful boys.”

He hugged them tight, and
didn
’t care that he was
crying.

“
Feels like it’s going to
rain soon,” Ernest said, looking up at the darkened sky. “We’d best
grab anything we want to keep before the rain gets to
it.”

“
You go ahead,” Bill
said, hugging Liz, Jack and Francis close. “I’ve got everything I
need right here.”

“
You say that now,” Liz
said. “But what happens when you want to write in your
journal?”

Bill thought for a moment.

“
I’ll be right back,” he
said.

Fritz and Ernest picked
over the remains of Falcon
’s Nest. Most
of their possessions were smashed to pieces amongst the broken
branches. Ernest knelt down beside a bookcase. Most of the books
were still jammed inside, and in perfect condition. He took off his
jacket and wrapped them up.

“
Thank God for that,”
Ernest said to Fritz. “I thought I’d lost them. Did you find what
you were looking for?”

“
I don’t really have
anything worth looking for,” Fritz said.

Cheep
cheep. Cheep cheep.

“
Did you hear that?”
Fritz said.

“
Hear what?” Ernest
said.

Cheep cheep.

“
That cheeping noise,”
Fritz said.

“
You’ve got birds on the
brain. And not the good kind.”

Fritz kneeled down to
look closer at a long tube of red satin, what had
once been Beauty’s perch. He picked it up and
felt the soft material in his hands. He paused when his fingers
came across something jagged. He turned the perch over and found a
hole. Inside it was the cracked surface of an eggshell. He lifted
the top.

Cheep
cheep
. Cheep
cheep.

“
It’s a chick!” Fritz
said to Ernest. “It’s Beauty’s perch. Inside it I found this! This
must be why she never wanted to get off it the past few days! She
must have laid an egg!”

Fritz inspected the chick.

“
It’s a he,” he said. “I
mean, it’s a him. A male!”

“
I wonder if fatherhood
makes everyone so eloquent,” Ernest said.

“
I’ll name him Beast. Got
to keep up with tradition.”

Fritz turned to his
parents.

“
Mum, Dad,” he said.
“Look at this!”

“
He looks hungry,” Liz
said.

“
I’ll go find him
something,” Fritz said, walking away. “You know, you’ve got some
pretty big claws to fill,” he said to the chick. “But don’t worry,
I’ll train you.”

Liz and Bill
shared a smile. Liz looked over the destroyed
area that had once been their home.

“
Nothing will ever grow
here again, will it?” she said. “Too much of their tainted blood
was spilled.”

“
Something will grow
here, given enough time.”

A spot of water tapped
Bill on the head, then another, and all at once, a torrential rain
fell out of the sky.
The rain coalesced
and made streams that ran downhill to the sea. The water was red,
and then turned pink, then no colour at all. Eventually enough
water fell that it carried the rotten corpses away. Bill
smiled.

“
Wiped clean like a broom
to the past,” he said. “It might take some time, but life here will
return to normal. There are still Lurchers out there in this
jungle, and we have to be careful, but we will find
them.”

“
But not tonight,” Liz
said.

“
No, not tonight. Tonight
we’ll go to the cove and sleep.”

They turned and made
their way back up Sharpie. Ernest cradled his books, Fritz his
chick, Jack with
Nip in his arms, and
Francis led Valiant with his hand on his neck, not needing to use
the nose ring.

“
How are we going to
rebuild the Nests?” Liz said. “The
Adventurer
sunk months ago.
You’ll never bring anything else back up.”

“
Who said anything about
the
Adventurer
?” Bill said. “How do
you fancy living in the Presidential Suite of a cruise
liner?”

Liz smiled.

“
Sounds great,” she
said.

“
Let’s get some sleep,”
Bill said. “We’ve got an awful lot of rebuilding to do.”

“
Yes,” Liz said. “But
we’ll do it together.”

THE END

The apes
screamed at the top of their lungs, concealed
behind their leafy hiding places, and peered at something in a
clearing. It was another ape, lying on his back. Rain patted his
upturned cheeks and dampened his fur, sticky and matted with blood,
an ugly open wound on his forearm. His breaths came shallow and
forced, rasping with life. He closed his eyes, breathed in a thick
breath, let out a deep sigh, and fell silent. The apes screeched
for another minute before following suit and falling silent
themselves. The apes turned and moved away, into the darkness of
the jungle beyond. The jungle returned to its normal background
noise of crickets, hooting birds and something pecking at a tree
trunk in the distance.

T
he sounds stopped, and the jungle was silent.

A black finger twitched.
His eyes flashed open,
white as snow. A
low groan escaped his lips. The jungle erupted into screams once
more.

The
Swiss Family RobinZOM
is set in the world
of my epic zombie series
Blood
Memory
. If you enjoyed this novella, why
not check out
Blood
Memory
? The first episode is available
absolutely FREE!

You can get it from the following store:
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Perrin Briar is an English
author best-known for his
Blood Memory
series, black comedy
Keeping Mum
,
and revenge tale
Square
. He was born in
Huntingdon, grew up in Norfolk, graduated from Bournemouth, worked
in London, and then chucked it all in to live in South
Korea.

He has written for BBC
radio, and worked in the production and development departments of
the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

You can email him at
[email protected]
or tweet at
@perrinbriar
. He
loves corresponding with fans, so don’t hesitate to contact him if
you have a question!

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher except for
the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Published by Briar Patch
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