Zombie Games (Book 4): Road Kill (6 page)

“Kylie,” said Allie, shaking her. “Wake up.”

“What?” she asked, sitting up in the truck. Her eyes widened as she stared outside. “Oh my God, Lincoln Park?”

Allie nodded. “Yeah, the guys left to go find food
inside of the zoo. We’re supposed to wait in the truck.”

“But, there’
s must be a ton of zombies swarming around this area,” she said, looking out the window towards the zoo’s entrance.

“Maybe not,” said Allie. “There aren’t that many cars in the parking lot. Obviously many people were too sick to visit the zoo before they changed.
”

“Zombies, right there. See, I told you,” whispered Kylie, pointing towards the edge of the parking lot.

“
Well, they’ve been hovering over there for the past few minutes and Kylie, they can’t hear you,” said Allie. “You don’t have to whisper.”

“Still, they give me the creeps. What if they notice us?”

“Just get ready to roll up the window if they start moving any closer. The guys should be back here soon, anyways. They’ve already been gone for thirty minutes or so.”

“I wo
nder if any of the animals survived?”

Allie’s eyes softened
. “If they did, they’re probably dying of hunger. Those poor creatures.”

Kylie stared at her in horror
. “Oh God, what if the zombies got to them?”

“Then they’re probably either dead or zombies themselves.”

Kylie bit her lower lip and looked back towards the entrance. “If they are zombies, let’s hope they can’t get out of their enclosures.”

Allie stared down at her nails, which were bitten all the way down
to the skin. “I’m sure the zombies never even got close to the animals.”

At least, she hoped.

***

“Jackpot,” smiled Luke.

Th
ey were in the zoo’s cafeteria which, although smelled almost as bad as the animal cages, still had a large supply of snacks and bottled drinks.

“I can’t believe nobody has raided this place yet,” said J
ustice, looking around apprehensively. There
was
a lot of food and some of it was in large plastic containers, as if it may have been recently packed for travel. He clutched his gun tighter.

Luke ripped open a bag of miniature cookies and groaned in pleasure
after stuffing a handful into his mouth. “Oh, man, you’ve got to-.”

The sound of gunfire cause
d both of them to hit the floor.

“Where’d that come from?” whispered Luke.

Justice crouched down and moved towards the entrance, which led to an atrium. “Outside somewhere, not exactly sure how close. We’d better get the hell out of here.”

“But we can’t leave all this food behind,” he said,
stuffing bags of Cheetos and popcorn down his shirt.

“I’d rather be hungry than dead,” said Justice, looking
nervously out into the atrium, expecting someone to come crashing into the building with guns raised.

“These days, you’ll be
both,” said Luke, moving next to him holding three packages of brownies.

More gunfire from outside of t
he building startled them once again and Justice swore under his breath.

“We have to get to the girls,
” said Luke.

“Yeah, I know.
Follow me and stay close.”

They crept outside of the building and bolted towards the next building over
, for cover, as more gunfire exploded in the distance. Seconds later, they both heard a loud, deep roar.

“
Whoa, did you hear that?” asked Luke.

He nodded.

A lion or tiger.

Sadly, m
ost of the animals they’d come across had either died of neglect or zombie attacks. Obviously, a large cat that was still alive after three or four weeks could only mean that it was loose and catching its own food, or someone else was feeding it.

“Let’s get
out of here,” said Justice, wiping sweat from his forehead as he tried not gag. The stench from the rotting dead animals was enough to make him forget about any hunger pangs. 

Nodding, Luke
wrinkled his nose. “Seriously, I didn’t think anything could smell this bad. Not even the zombies.”

Surp
risingly, there hadn’t been many zombies at the zoo and the few they’d encountered, Justice had swiftly taken out with the machete.

“Whoa,” said
Luke, a few seconds later as they rounded the cat area.

“That’s
messed up,” said Justice, looking down into the lion’s enclosure where several motionless zombies lay. It appeared that more than twenty undead had somehow thrown themselves into the lion’s den to feed, but instead, had met with their own demise.

“Why doesn’t the lion
finish off the bodies?” he asked, watching as a large male paced back and forth down below. “He must be starving.”

Justice shrugged. “He must sense they’re no longer warm, living creatures. Obviously he
still killed them because he’s a predator.”

“I kind of feel bad for him
,” said Luke. “He’s stuck down there, all alone.”

“
Well, he’s been eating something to stay alive,” he answered, pointing towards a large white sign. “It says there were three lions, total- two females and one male. Looks like there’s only one lion in this den now.”

Luke grimaced. “He ate the others?”

His lips thinned. “Looks that way. Survival of the fittest.”

“He actually had to eat
his mates,” he said, in disbelief. “I’d rather die than do something like that.”

“He’s a wild animal, but who really knows what hunger will drive anyone
or thing to do,” said Justice.

“I don’t care how hungry I get,” said Luke. “I’m not going
after another person.”

Justice opened his mouth
to respond when he noticed a group of three on the other side of the enclosure. Recognizing the two girls, all of the blood rushed to his head. “Oh shit,” he said, pulling out his gun. “This is bad. Very bad.”

Even from this distance, they could hear both Kylie and Allie sobbing
as the man motioned towards the lion’s den with his shotgun.

***

“No!” cried Kylie, as the older man demanded her to leap down into the lion’s enclosure. “Are you freaken crazy?”

“Jasper’s hungry,” said the man, rai
sing his gun. “And I can’t let him starve.”

They’d been sitting in Justice’s truck when the
stranger appeared out of nowhere. With his neatly combed hair, kind brown eyes, and a zookeeper badge proclaiming him to be “Darren”, they’d trusted him instantly and had gotten out of the truck. Then he pulled out a gun and the next thing they knew, he’d was forcing them into the zoo because his lion needed nourishment.

“What’s wrong with you?” sobbed
Allie. “How can you do this? Are you on drugs or something?” The goofy grin on his face was definitely not normal, in face it made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

The man
shook his head. “Drugs? No, not anymore.”

“Why…why are you doing this?” she asked
again, relieved to see Justice creeping up slowly behind Darren.

“It’s my job. To feed the lions,” he said, smiling proudly. “Jasper needs to eat
and I’m his caretaker.”

“We’re not lion food,” said
Kylie.

The sound of Justice’s gun being cocked wiped the smiled
off of Darren’s insane face.

“Put the gun down,
” said Justice, holding the barrel of his revolver against the back of the man’s head.

The man’s lip began to t
remble. “I…but Jasper…he needs to eat.”

“
He’s going to have to skip this feeding,” said Justice, in an even tone. “Now, put the gun down, man, unless
you
want to be his next meal. I’m sure Jasper isn’t that picky.”

He
dropped the gun.

Justice
pushed him away from the gun and picked it up.

Kylie let out a ragged breath.
“Thank God. I still can’t believe you were going to feed us to that lion. You’re almost as bad as those zombies.”

Darren just stared blankly
.

“Are you the only one here?” asked Justice
, handing Luke the gun.

The man ignored him
.

“What abou
t those gun shots we heard?” asked Luke. “There must be someone else around.”

“
It was probably just him,” said Allie. “He shot the gun up into the air a few times when we first refused to go with him.”

“
Hmm…Do you live here at the zoo, Darren?” asked Justice.

The man nodded. “Yes. I have to take care of Jasper.”

“Yeah, we get that. Why don’t you feed him something besides people?” asked Luke.

“There is nothing else,”
he answered, “and lions need meat to survive.”

“What about the zo
mbies?” asked Kylie. “Can’t you just feed them to Jasper?”

“
No…no…no….Jasper doesn’t like the dead people,” he said. “Jasper likes the warm blood.”

“That’s sick,” whispered Kylie
, stepping farther away from him.

“
Speaking of zombies,” said Luke, “looks like we have company.”

T
wo naked, bony zombies stumbled towards them, moaning and foaming something green at their mouths.

“I’ll take care of these two, just keep an eye on him,” said Justice.

Luke raised the gun and
pointed it towards Darren as Justice removed the machete from his belt and walked towards the zombies.

A
llie looked away as Justice swung the machete twice with ease and the two heads tumbled to the ground.

“
Hey!” yelled Luke as Darren took a few steps and then bolted away. “Crap, let’s go get him!”

“
No, just let him go,” said Justice, wiping his knife on his jeans. “Don’t waste any bullets on that weirdo.”

“That’s gross,” said Kylie
, looking at Justice’s jeans. “Now you have zombie crud all over you.”

Justice shrugged. “I need to
change anyway. Got an extra pair in the trunk.”

Jasper began to roar again and they all turned towards the lion
, who was pacing down below.

“The poor thing,” said Kyle, peering over the edge of the wall, “he’s all alone down there.”

“It’s so sad,” said Allie, “and the only person he has left to care for him is a raving lunatic.”

“I wonder if we can set him free, somehow,” said Kylie. “At le
ast he’d have a better chance at surviving that way.”

Justice snorted. “
Set him free? Like that would work out.”

“
Yeah, maybe we
should
set him free, so he’ll take out more zombies,” said Allie, pointing towards the bodies below. “Look how he finished those off.”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Justice. “Not only would he take out more zombies, but us and everyone else
that crosses his path. He’s not a tame animal, he’s a ferocious killing machine.”

“We could find one of those lion-whips,” said Allie, ignoring him. “
And maybe we could actually train him to kill zombies. That would be so cool!”

“
I doubt they’d have whips here. That’s what they use at carnivals, you know, for tricks,” said Kylie. “Besides, that’s cruel. I could never whip a lion.”

Justice closed his eyes and rubbed
his temples. “Girls, we really have to-”

Allie grabbed her wrist. “Oh my God, remember that time we saw Billy Jameson at the car
nival with that tattooed chic and they were slobbering all over each other?”

Kylie laughed. “She had on those
super tight jeans and when she bent over, you could see the thong riding up her crack.”

“That was so gross,” said Allie.
“Everything about her was sleazy.”

Kylie smiled. “You’re just saying that because you liked Billy.”

Her eyes widened. “I did not like Billy!”

Jasper roared again
in the distance.

“Aw…he soun
ds so sad,” said Kylie. “And lonely.”

“That’
s because he got rid of his two girlfriends,” stated Luke.