THE ZOMBIE PLAYGROUND

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Brin crawled her way back up to her feet. She shrugged her shoulders at Tristan. “I don’t hear anything. You sure it was this hole?”

“It was this hole. Percy reached into the hole to grab his ball—and he never came up.”

Tristan’s face had turned into pale white stone. Brin thought he was going to throw up.

“This is so stupid,” Anaya said. “This isn’t Bodie! There are no vampires in Grisly!”

“We don’t know that,” Brin said.

“And besides, say Tristan’s buddy was pulled through the ground. Wouldn’t there be a big dirty mess over here? Look! The putting green’s in perfect condition!”

Yes, Brin thought. As was my father’s grave when I returned.

“What’s going on over there?” Colin said, walking toward the green. “Why are you guys taking so long?”

“You said you’ve played this course before, right, Colin?” Anaya said.

He nodded. “Twice.”

“Have you seen any vampires roaming the fairways?”

He stared at her, dumbstruck. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

Anaya smiled at Brin. “You see?”

Brin wasn’t terrified like Tristan, but she wasn’t as skeptical as Anaya. She had seen a yellow hand a few minutes ago, after all.

She turned to her right to see a row of tombstones beyond the black fence.

“We really are close to Grisly Cemetery,” Brin said.

“So what?” Anaya said. The girl was getting antsy.

“The proximity… to all those dead bodies…”

“Oh come on, Brin! You’re going mental!” Anaya shouted. She pointed at Tristan. “You gonna putt or what?”

He didn’t nod or shake his head. He just stood there, like his feet were magnets and the putting green was the face of a refrigerator.

“All right, fine,” Anaya said. “I’m gonna make my par.”

She pulled the pin out of the hole and threw it down against the green. She didn’t take two seconds to consider her shot. She knocked the ball straight into the hole.

“Sweet,” Anaya said, reaching for her ball. “You better make your putt, Brin.”

Anaya dropped her hand into the hole, and Tristan screamed.

“I can’t look!” the boy bellowed, his eyes closed.

Anaya grabbed her ball and turned toward him. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

He opened his eyes and sighed with relief. No strange yellow creature had emerged. Anaya’s hand was still firmly in tact.

“See?” Anaya said, waving at him, then pointing at all five of her fingers. “Nothing. Come on, let’s go.”

Tristan’s hands were still shaking, but he managed to hold his putter with a firm grip and commit to a stellar stroke. Tristan’s ball went straight for the hole.

“Whoa, this could go in,” Brin whispered.

“Has a good shot,” Anaya said.

The ball hit the edge of the cup, but rolled out and stopped an inch to the left.

Tristan collapsed to the ground in disappointment. “Damn it!”

“Wow! That was so close!” Brin said. She gave the boy a short round of applause. “Good effort, good effort.”

“OK, Brin,” Anaya said. “You’re up.”

Brin’s putt to make a par was a lot easier than Tristan’s, but infinitely harder than Anaya’s easy up and down. Brin took a quick walk around the cup to see if there would be any fading to the left or right. She didn’t see any weird slopes. It looked like this was straight in.

Brin took her stance, brought her putter back only an inch, and plugged the ball straight at the hole. She smiled as she watched it drop in.

“Ha-ha!” Brin said, pointing her putter at Anaya like a shotgun. “Take that!”

“All luck,” Anaya said, shaking her head and storming angrily off the green. “I’m gonna get you on the next hole!”

“Yeah. Sure you will.”

Brin grabbed her Titleist 3 from the cup and walked to the edge of the green. She turned around to see Colin back on his cell phone, standing to the left of the bunker.

That guy had so much confidence earlier, Brin thought, but at the end of it all, it turns out he’s nothing but a schmuck with an ego who can’t make a par to save his life.

“Tap your putt in, Tristan,” Anaya said, “and put the pin back in, too, will you?” She tossed her putter into her bag and grabbed her three-iron for the eighth hole tee box.

“OK,” he said.

Tristan made his bogey putt, but he didn’t reach down into the cup to retrieve his ball. He just stood there.

Anaya shook her head. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to put my hand down there.”

“Then leave it! I don’t care!”

Tristan bit down on his tongue and glanced at Brin, who nodded to him. You can do it, her eyes said.

He nodded back, then, in a flash, crouched down and grabbed his ball from the cup. He returned to his feet and smiled.

“I did it,” he said. “Phew! I did it! I got the ball!”

“Woo hoo,” Anaya said sarcastically. “Yay for you.”

“Maybe it was just a nightmare,” Tristan said, grabbing the pin and putting it back in the cup. “Maybe Percy didn’t disappear after all—”

A hand burst through the ground, but it didn’t erupt through the cup this time.

Brin turned to her left just in time to see a huge, yellow, rotting creature emerge from the sand trap and latch onto Colin’s torso. 

“Oh my God!” Colin screamed. “What the—”

Another creature jumped out of the sand, and then a third appeared at the edge of the lake. Brin and Anaya didn’t scream; their mouths dropped open, but no sound came out. A fourth creature crashed up through the green and grabbed onto Tristan’s leg. He fell hard against the ground and screamed.

“Brin! Anaya!” Tristan shouted. “Help me!”

Brin looked at Tristan for a second but then quickly turned back to Colin. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth creature leapt on top of him, and before she could extend a hand to help the poor boy, she watched in terror as the creatures pulled him down into the bunker and started ripping through his flesh. 

“Oh my God,” Anaya said.

“Oh my God!” Brin screamed. “It’s not vampires at all! It’s… it’s…”

“I know!”

“IT’S ZOMBIES!”