Happy New Year! Wait it's February... Well that's what college does sometimes. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
The moon was bright up in the night sky as the group approached the peak of the mountain range. The Eds looked out past the cliff and at the amusement park down below, the three almost felt nostalgic about being at the cliffside.
"He's down there Eddy..." Double D said.
"Yup..." Eddy replied, not really sure how to properly answer, looking back at the last time they had gone to Mondo-A-Go-Go. Ed was silent as he took several glances at his best friends and at the park below, the events of the Big Picture Show still a big memory to him.
The rest of the Peach Creek group had similar thoughts as the Eds.
"So your kid's down there?" Lenore Kanker asked, speaking to Eddy's dad, as he rested against a rock.
"Yup, knowing him though he's probably blacked out drunk." Eddy's dad replied, checking his amputated leg which had healed quite nicely.
"No offense but he could be dead by now." Keenan added, he expected the man to curse him out or at least glare at him but instead Eddy's father just sighed.
"He could be, but we still need to know for sure."
"Hey Mr. McGee." Nazz asked. "If you don't mind me asking, why did he leave the cul-de-sac years ago?"
"My wife and I have seen Eddy's brother, Terry, push him around when they were younger. When it had first began we dismissed it as just a bit of wrestling that they had both enjoyed watching at the time. However as they both got older it began to escalate to the point where Eddy feared Terry and began to emulate his scams on the other kids. My wife started becoming concerned and tried to separate the two whenever she could. I just..."
Eddy's dad, Robert, stopped himself for a moment. He took a deep breath and wiped his face with his hands. He looked as though he was trying to contemplate on what to say next.
"When I was Eddy's age, I also had to deal with older siblings who acted similarly to how Terry was only much more aggressive, I was the runt of the pack too, my father never said anything of it, even if he watched us fight. I had to toughen myself up to get my brothers and sisters off my back. With Eddy and Terry I thought that Eddy would toughen up just like I did, but I also wanted to be there for him whenever he needed me. Eventually I realized I failed to be there for him and my wife and I eventually agreed to kick Terry out of the house when he turned eighteen. He had friends that gave him the trailer he lives in now so that's how he ended up there. I didn't tell Eddy where he went to protect him."
Nobody really knew what to say, they looked back at the Eds, who had now begin to lie down and stare up at the stars. The rest of the Peach Creek kids had listened to Mr. McGee's story, further understanding why Eddy was the former scammer that he had been years ago.
Their silence was broken by an unholy moaning rushing up the mountain toward them, getting everyone's attention. Jimmy and Sarah screamed in terror at what they saw. The moonlight revealed the source of the moaning; a zombie with the body of a man, but the head of a buck with milky white, blank eyes. One of the zombie's arms and both feet were replaced with deer hooves.
Nazz and Erin screamed as well when they saw the abomination. Kathy and Double D watched the creature in a combination of horror and some sort of morbid curiousity. Ed, Matt, Tony, and Kevin somehow seemed to recognize the beast.
"The Deerhaunter has come for us!" Ed proclaimed.
"The what?!" Erin screamed.
"It's the name of a monster that's in a video game." Matt answered.
"You guys have played it too?" Kevin asked.
"I was just gonna ask that!" Tony added.
"Yeah it's awesome!" Ed replied.
"This Isn't a video game you idiots!" Janyse called out. "There's more of them!"
Just as Janyse said, several more Deerhaunters appeared, each with different limbs replaced with animal or human parts, though all of them had a deer head.
Several other hybrid zombies came following the Deerhaunters. There were crows with the heads of crocodile, zombies with bodies of deer but heads of humans, crocodiles with jaws that had been replaced with the torn jaws of a bear and the limbs of a human. Alongside the hybrids, a number of regular zombies followed. Amongst these zombies was James, who the survivors were horrified and baffled to see, especially since he resembled his original body much less with the parts his zombie cohorts.
Double D covered his mouth at the Eldritch horrors that were approaching everyone. The group got their weapons ready and began to fight as hard as they possibly could.
Jimmy seemed much more hesitant to enter the battle this time around, hiding behind a rock instead.
Jonny and Rolf noticed Jimmy's absence and went to go find him as they fought the zombies.
"What's that, Plank?" Jonny asked his wooden companion. "Where? ... "Rolf, over here!"
The two Urban Rangers found their third member cowering and looking at his hands in fear, much like Double D did when he thought he was becoming a bully.
"Boy Jimmy, why do you hide? This is the time in which me must defend ourselves against the reanimated carcasses!" Rolf exclaimed.
"Yeah, everyone's counting on you to help!" Jonny added.
The two sounded more concerned and in a bit if a panic more than they were upset.
"He doesn't wanna be a killer."
The three Urban Rangers looked up and saw the Kankers standing across from them. Lee has been the one who had spoken.
"What?" Jonny asked, clearly confused.
"Not sure if you saw, but Dutch tore the house down when it came to those zombies at the swamp." May explained.
"It's true!" Jimmy cried. "I haven't been able to tap into that sort of aggression since the time I fought Double D!"
"Oh ho ho!" Rolf chuckled. "Boy Jimmy, what you are experiencing is the adrenaline and thrill of battle. You have a fire in your heart that can aid us in this quest for survival. A quest that guarantees that you and Ranger Jonny will earn your Hairy Chest of Resilience badges just as Rolf has!"
"But Rolf, you know I don't like violence!" Jimmy cried. He felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. It was Sarah...
"Jimmy, you're nicest andnsweetest boy in the world. I know it feels wrong but with how the world is now, we have to do what we can..."
The two shared a hug as Jimmy continued to cry. All of them were caught off guard by a Deerhaunter that was charging towards them, its antlers much larger than the others. Sarah and Jimmy screamed as they had little time to react to the zombie.
Ed, going on his instincts, charged at the Deerhaunter and tackled it, shattering it into tiny pieces, except for the antlers. Eddy and Double D noticed the antlers, Eddy laughed as he placed then on Ed's head.
"Cool!" The boy said, admiring his new accessory.
"Hey guys, I know we don't do scams anymore but does this remind you of anything?" Eddy called out as he jumped on Ed's shoulders. He then proceeded to shout some sort of battle cry that seemed to evoke a sense of nostalgia as some of the Peach Creek gang laughed while others smirked as they combatted the zombies.
"MUCKY MUCKY MUCKY MUCKY MUCKY!" The Eds chanted simultaneously. Eddy and Ed charged at the zombies, Ed using his antlers as a battering ram while Eddy used an iron baseball bat to destroy any that Ed had missed.
The numbers of the zombies soon began to diminish, leaving James alone.
The zombie boy simply stared at the group, not moving and not flinching when the survivors raised their weapons.
James turned around and gave off an unholy roar. A number of similar roars came from the woods behind him. Ten more zombies cane from behind him; all of them being a zombie bear hybrid, having limbs of several other animals or people as it towered over everyone. The largest of them all was a zombified bear the the torso and legs of a muscular zombie, the head of a crocodile, and instead of hands or bear claws it had two bear heads for hands!
From several miles away, a black helicopter flew towards the Mondo-A-Go-Go amusement park.
"We're coming up on the park now. Those kids are heasing in that direction and by now they should be there." The pilot said into his radio.
"Burn the place down if you have to." The radio responded.
"Roger that, detecting a large horse of people and zombies on the cliffside nearby. Proceeding to investigate. Over."
The pilot brought the plane over to the cliffs where the battle was taking place. The battle halted when the chopper shone a bright light and several U.S. soldiers aimed their guns at everyone and everything.
"I have a visual on the targets. Proceeding to move in." The pilot said before turning on a microphone. "I'm here for the kids known as Eddward "Double D" Drummond and Kathleen "Kathy" Barr."
"What do you want with us?!" Kathy asked.
From a whale shaped trailer in the amusement park, a man who appeared to be in his 20's had awoken from his sleep thanks to the helicopter pilot. The man looked similar to Eddy, though he had a goatee. In his bed there was also a woman that had blonde hair. The man got up from bed and saw the helicopter aiming at what he saw were people.
"Babe, duty calls. Can't let these army assholes kill what could be innocent people." The man said.
"Be careful baby!" The woman replied.
"Don't worry about me."
The man went outaide carrying a large, cylindrical object and aimed it at the helicopter.
"You have ten seconds to come with us or we start shooting." The pilot said.
"Time's up!"
The pilot and the other soldiers on the chopper fired machine guns and the helicopter's miniguns at all of them.
The survivors hid as fast as they could, the Eds carrying Eddy's father to safety.
The zombies were completely obliterated, except for James, who fled into the darkness of the woods.
"Who the fuck is this guy?!" Janyse cursed.
"Why does he want you two?" Tony asked.
"I don't know the answer to either of those questions!" Kathy replied.
"Well we have to do something about these psychos!" Erin said in panic.
"If we even take a step out in the open, we'll be swiss cheese!" Kevin responded.
The group didn't know what they could possibly do...
"EAT MY SHIT!"
Everyone heard the voice of a man swearing at the tip of his lungs and then what sounded like an explosion emanating from down below in the park.
The chopper tried to turn to the voice but it wasn't fast enough. The helicopter was then blasted with a RPG, killing the pilot and co-pilot. The other soldiers were blasted out of the vehicle and fell to their deaths below. The helicopter than lost control of itself and crashed down into an abandoned section of the park.
"What just happened?" Nazz asked. The gang knew that they had to move before James came back with more zombies, or the military would return with more helicopters. The descended into the now run down Mondo-A-Go-Go amusement park...
End of chapter. Don't worry about the choices, they'll come. If a chapter has no choice it is more meant to move the story itself along.