It's time, time for what you may ask? Time for a showdown!
The group followed Cherry River over to a large lake with a small beach and empty clearing with some wooden tables and a campfire pit nearby. The sight made Sarah and Jimmy think back to their time at camp. The lake was bustling with their fellow camp members as the counselors used the canpfire pit to cook food for everyone, everyone would gather around the campfire pit and sing songs while roasting marshmallows.
Despite the chaos ensuing the lake seemed calm and peaceful.
"So from here we should follow the river over to Watermelon Falls, that'll take us close close to Pineapple Desert." Kathy explained. While everyone contined to ponder the course they would take, Armando picked up a large rock, looking at the rest of the group afterwards. He did his best to remain out of everyone's sight and he waited for the right moment.
He then heard rustling from nearby bushes, as he turned to see what was causing the noise a zombie rushed towards him. Armando swung the rock and smashed the zombie's head in tiny bits, getting the attention of the rest of the group.
"Nice try motherfucker!" Armando hissed.
"Are you ok?!" Jimmy asked, many other zombies revealed themselves from out of the foliage. Everyone scrambled to defend themselves using anything around them and everything they brought with them to fight against the zombie horde. The number of zombies attacking was at least one hundred and fifteen (115).
The group fought off as many zombies as they could, Eddy used his baseball bat to kill a zombie that he was fighting while another zombie charged at him. Eddy saw the zombie and soon everything seemed to go into a sort of slow motion for him as though he was staring death in the face.
"SHAKLAHAH!"
Rolf suddenly appeared in front of Eddy and annihilated the zombie with a strike from a wooden club.
"Flat as a pancake headed Ed-boy, you must remember to stay alert!" Rolf warned.
It took a moment before Eddy snapped back to reality after being stunned by everything that had just occured.
Tony and Kevin each put on a football helmet and motorcycle helmet respectively, the two looked at each other and nodded, charging at some zombies with enough force to completely break some of their limbs off or just straight up destroy their entire body.
Jimmy and Johnny worked together to hold some of the zombies in place while Nazz, Sarah and Erin were able to take them down. Keenan helped the girls using a switchblade he had found in the campsite.
Kathy twisted a rubber band around her hand and used stones alongside Double D and his slingshot to accurately take zombies down. The two conversed and calculated the perfect angle to hit the zombies either head on or by ricocheting some pebbles off of trees to hit zombies. The two high fived each other, impressed with how well they worked together.
Marie watched them, growing increasingly more annoyed at how Kathy was interacting with her crush.
"Marie!" Lee snapped, drawing her sister's attention. "You can't get distracted now, we gotta help Mom and Janyse!"
Marie and her sisters took out their water guns and sprayed their rubber cement at the zombies, allowing their mother and Janyse to kill them using their shotgun and sledgehammer respectively.
Ed manhandled as many zombies as he could, though even he could only handle so much, Perer came to his aid holding two machetes in his hands, slicing any zombies that got close to Ed.
"Muscles can only do so much, take one of these." Peter said as he gave Ed one of his machetes.
The battle continued until James walked out of the trees, shocking Matt and the Eds.
"I thought I got rid of him!" Matt shouted.
"James?!" The Eds said simultaneously.
"A classmate of yours I assume?" Kathy asked.
"Yes, that is James. Or at least what he's become. James was an old friend of ours, while we were in Peach Creek he attacked Eddy. Matthew was able to dispose of him before but we never expected he would come back!" Double D explained.
"So youre telling me that even though hes technically an undead zombie, you killed him again and he still came back?!" Lenore Kanker asked.
"Apparently so, and if he can regenerate himself, it may be possible that these other undead monsters can!" Double D said in horror.
"They are learning!" Ed said. "We must kill it again and run!"
"That's the solution you have?!" Armando shouted. "How about this? It'll cost us some fuel but we can try using it to blow him to pieces!"
"Use up our fuel? Are you crazy!" Nazz snapped though Armando refused to listen as he took a bucket of the sunflower fuel Rolf's family had gathered, took out a large cherry bomb and a strange type of firework from his pocket and lit it.
The group tried to stop him but they were too slow as he doused James with the fuel and threw the cherry bomb in it, Armando ran behind a tree as fast as he could. James caught the cherry bomb, the fuse quickly ran out and he looked at the bomb and then the group before the bombs exploded. A huge blast of orange and white flames covered the lake as the firework scattered into small multi-colored lights that scattered throughout the area, hitting everyone and knocking them unconscious.
When the noise died out Armando surveyed the effects of the blast. James's body was completely destroyed and his body parts were completely scattered and blown apart, mixing in with the destroyed parts of the other zombies. The group was all unconscious from the blast, allowing Armando to sigh with relief. He packed everyone up onto the wagon Rolf's family ownes and despite the weight, he managed to push it along...
Hours passed by, one by one the group awoke in the desert.
"Oh my aching head." Eddy said as he woke up. Nearly everyone was awake though not everyone who was with the group from the start was present, or so it appeared...
Eddy saw his father kneeling, the man was crying. Eddy walked over to his father to see what had him so upset by as soon as he saw what his father was holding his heart stopped for a moment. It was the head of his now dead mother. Eddy sank to his knees and clutched his head in his hands, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Guys... She wasnt the only one..." Erin called out, her voice cracking in fear as she began to panic. Those who chose to see saw the head of Dr. Vincent
"Swriously?!" Keenan shouted as he cautiously went to go inspect the head of the doctor.
"W-where's all our stuff?!" Sarah asked, the wagon holding everyone's supplies was not with them.
Kevin, Rolf and Kathy were the first to connect the dots, Double D was too busy consoling Eddy.
"That motherfucker!" Kevin shouted.
"The Lemon boy has done this! Rolf had a feeling that he was not to be trusted!" Rolf said before cursing in his native landed.
"The last thing Armando did before we all blacked out was use the fuel we had to blow up that zombie boy, then he must have brought us all here and obsconded with out supplies!" Kathy explained to everyone.
"But why would he kill my mom?!" Eddy snapped, his face had a look of grief and anger.
"To send a message..." Ed replied. Ed was looking off into the vast distamce of the desert as everyone looked at him in confusion.
"A message, Ed?" Double D asked.
"Mhmm, he was only using us so that he could survive and this is his way of telling us that he doesn't need us anymore and now he wants us dead." Ed explained.
"How does he know this?" Peter asked.
"I believe Eddward mentioned earlier that Ed is a very genre-savvy person. He knows about zombie apocalypses so it isn't outside the realm of possibility that he has read about this kind of scenario." Kathy explained.
"So what do we do now?" Keenan asked.
"We gotta do something!" May noted.
"We must find shelter!" Ed proclaimed, his words echoed throughout the desert, the setting sun began cascading an orange glow that seemed to illuminate the entire desert.
"Ed's right." Kevin said. "I don't think we'll last too long if we just head out right now. We've got to be in Pineapple Desert right now but we don't know what part of it." Kevin explained.
"So we must set up camp for the night and aet off for our next destination in the morning." Double D said.
Rolf and his family set up a fire using parts of their clothes, even though it took a while to get it going, they had heat to help them get through the night, in the morning they would be forced to traverse through the desert...
Hours earlier after Armando had dragged the wagon with the group away from the lake something horrifying happened. The zombies James had arrived with reassembled themselves and reassambled James as well, with every piece they had. However some pieces of James had been obliterated and could not be salvaged, this forced James to attach himself to another zombie and gain control of it, as though he was some sort of parasite leeching off it its host. James signaled the zombies to continue moving, the horde pressed onwards, although they didnt seem to have a goal, they pressed forward, seemingly to make their numbers grow...
The group is left at what could be their lowest point, can they survive? Or will this be their end? Choices for the story will return in the following chapter but for now i'd love to hear what you think.