The Adventures of Steve and Terry: The Zombie Chronicles (17 page)

“I’m Terry, that’s Steve.”

“Did you come through the
Forbidden Forest?” Parry asked.

“Uh, sure, why not,” Terry said.

“Wait. You’re muggles!”

“Your mom!” Steve said angrily,
shoving his finger in Parry’s face.

Terry grabbed him and forcibly
pushed him back. “Just take it easy, okay?”

“He called me a . . . whatever a
muggle is,” Steve said, glaring at Parry. “I mean, he talks awfully tough for a
guy in a dress.”

“These are
robes
,” Parry
said haughtily.

“Yeah? Where’d you get ’em, your
sister’s closet?”

“Hey, hey!” Terry said, keeping
himself between the two. “I’ll handle this, okay?” Terry turned back to look at
Parry. “Here’s the thing. We ran out of gas and we were hoping maybe you had
some to spare.”

“Gas? What do you mean?” Parry
asked.

“You know, to put in a car to make
it go.”

“We don’t have cars. And we can’t
spare any brooms for you.”

Terry suddenly choked. “Brooms?”
he wheezed out. “You . . .”

“Ride them,” Parry finished.

Terry turned to Steve and mouthed,
“crazy.”

“Do you guys have any idea what’s
going on out there?” Steve asked.

“The same war that has been
brewing since I was a child,” Parry said.

“O-okay. So you know there are effing
zombies taking over the world, right?”

“You mean the inferi. They were
sent by he-who-must-not-be-named.”

“Okay, that’s getting really
annoying,” Steve said angrily. “Obviously we accidentally crashed your crazy
party. We’ll just be on our way.”

Steve turned to leave when one of
the boys stepped in front of him, pointing his polished stick at his chest.
“You can’t leave,” the boy said.

“Watch me,” Steve said.

“Latin-ish term!” the boy yelled,
flourishing his stick.

Everyone stood frozen. Steve slowly
opened one of his eyes. He then opened his other eye and looked around. He let
out his held breath and turned back to Terry with a nervous laugh. “Whew, that
was close.”

All of the kids looked as if the
devil himself had just entered their midst. “That’s impossible,” Parry said. He
leveled his own stick at Steve. “Butchered Latin!” he yelled with a flourish.
Again nothing happened.

“Their completely immune to
magic,” the girl next to Parry said in complete shock.

“Magic?” Steve asked. “You have
got to be kidding.” The kids just looked at each other, slack jawed. “Okay, I
guess not.”

“I told you it was an asylum,”
Terry said.

They started to leave when another
kid burst into the room. “The inferi have breached the walls!” he yelled.

The kids started to scream and run
about. “Quick, this way,” a boy said.

“We will hold them here,” Parry
said, the boy and girl he had been standing with originally, nodded behind him,
pulling their own polished sticks.

Steve and Terry followed several
of the kids out of the room and up several flights of stairs. The kids reached
a balcony where several brooms sat propped against the wall. Two of them
grabbed the brooms and mounted them. They stepped onto the railing of the
balcony.

“Oh you have got to be kidding,”
Steve said, flabbergasted.

“It’s the only way,” one of the
kids yelled. Together they jumped from the balcony, and plummeted to their
deaths below.

“Volderwart must have cursed the
brooms,” another of the kids cried in shock. “We’re doomed.”

“Yeah, cause that’s the only
explanation for why you can’t fly on a broom,” Steve said.

“Obviously,” the kid said without
missing a beat.

Steve and Terry just looked at
each other in shock. Finally they nodded and grabbed their shotguns and each
pumped a round into the chamber. “Follow us,” Terry said.

They reentered the castle. They
made their way to lower levels. There they found a small group of kids waving
their polished sticks at charging zombies. They were quickly overrun and died
screaming as they were eaten alive.

“Why is our magic having no
effect?” a girl asked in tears.

“It must be a spell cast by
he-who-must-not-be-named,” a boy said.

“Did it ever occur to any of you
that maybe, just maybe, there is no such thing as magic?” Steve asked in
disgust.

“You’re a muggle, what would you
know of it?”

Steve and Terry opened up on the
zombies feasting on the kids below. Their buckshot tore chunks of flesh from
the undead and even split their skulls like watermelons. The kids all stood in
mute shock.

“That’s the only magic I believe
in,” Steve said as he and Terry charged down stairs.

“That is powerful magic, indeed,”
a girl said as they followed in their wake.

Steve and Terry quickly cleared
the castle, leaving any who witnessed the power of their shotguns in shock and
awe. Finally they found Parry and his two friends cornered by zombies. They
were frantically waving their sticks and yelling terms that at one time may
have been Latin, but now sounded like gibberish. Steve and Terry quickly put
the zombies down. Finally everyone stood in the deafening silence after the
attack. All were staring at Steve and Terry, open mouthed.

“You are powerful indeed,” the
girl with Parry said with a flutter of her eyelashes.

“Huh, well,” Steve said, smiling
and resting his shotgun on his shoulder. “We certainly try.”

Terry shoved Steve, who glared at
him. Terry mouthed, “no,” to which Steve flipped him off.

“It is obvious you fight for
good,” Parry said. “Would you stay and help us finish off
he-who-must-not-be-named for once and all?”

“Look kid,” Terry said. “We enjoy
the crazy train as much as the next guy, but we can’t stay here babysitting.
There are people out there who need our help.”

“There are?” Steve asked, having
been under the assumption that it was every man for himself.

“Maybe,” Terry said.

“You’re so brave,” the girl with
Parry said, gushing.

“Well,” Steve said, sidling up to
her.

“We gotta go,” Terry said,
grabbing Steve and pulling him back.

“I understand,” Parry said. “Until
we meet again then.”

“If it’s in this life it’ll be too
soon,” Terry said with a smile and nod. He and Steve turned and left the
castle.

“That chick was hot,” Steve said
as they made their way back to the forest.

“She was like, fifteen,” Terry
said in disgust.

“It’s the apocalypse, who cares?”

“You’re sick. No, seriously, there
is something wrong with you.”

“At least I’m not waving a wand
around thinking I can do magic,” Steve said.

The two kept arguing as they
disappeared into the forest. Parry Hotter and his friends watched them go,
speaking ever after of their encounter with the two powerful wizards.

XI. Ahoy
Mateys

“That has got to be the ship,”
Steve said. He and Terry were on the docks in the middle of the night. Steve
had night vision binoculars he had picked up somewhere, but refused to tell
Terry where, for his own protection, he insisted.

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s the only ship just sitting
out there.”

“And this is the ship that some
crazy old man—”

“Prophet, he was a prophet.”

“Yeah, whatever. A ship this guy
said had the cure to the plague?”

“Right.”

“Why did I never see this guy?”

“He disappeared into the night.”

“Like a ghost,” Terry said in a
tone that clearly indicated he was humoring Steve.

“Or a ninja,” Steve said,
completely oblivious to Terry’s gibes.

Terry just sighed in resignation.
“How are we supposed to get out there?”

“We’ll take one of those other
boats.”

“I don’t know how to drive a
boat,” Terry said.

“I do.”

“You do?”

“Oh yeah. I have a boat license.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Am not, scout’s honor.”

“You were a scout?”

“Briefly. We had a difference of
opinion and I moved on.”

“For a scout, you sure as hell are
useless.”

“Hey, let’s focus on the task at
hand,” Steve said grumpily. “I was a damn good scout,” he mumbled under his
breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.

“When do you want to do this?”

“Probably best to wait for light.”

“Why is that best?” Terry asked.
“Then they are gonna see us coming.”

“This is about the cure to the
greatest plague to ever ravage mankind, not about us storming an enemy
compound. They’re not gonna shoot us on sight.”

“Really? ‘Cause that’s exactly
what I would do.”

“Well, you’re . . . an asshole.”

Terry was about to argue, but then
nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. How do you know they won’t mistake us
for zombies?”

“Uh, we’ll be driving a boat.”

“Riiighht. Smart.”

“And you call
me
an idiot,”
Steve said, shaking his head.

“Well, let’s bed down for the
night, we’ll head out in the morning.”

The next morning both woke late. “Ugh,
I’m hungry,” Steve complained.

“I have a granola bar.”

“I want bacon, and eggs, on top of
a doughnut.”

“You really are disgusting. Let’s
just find a boat.”

They found a speedboat with fuel
still in it. Steve started it up and pulled out of the slip. They got away from
the docks and Steve really opened up the throttle. The boat quickly picked up
speed, ramping off small swells. Steve let out a whoop of joy and they sped out
onto the water, and right by the waiting ship.

“Hey, moron,” Terry yelled over
the wind. “You missed the boat.”

“It’s called a ship,” Steve yelled
back.

“Either way, numb nuts, you drove
right past it.”

“This is a hundred thousand dollar
boat; we gotta have a little fun,” Steve insisted.

“Just get us to the ship, you
dummy.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Steve said
with a mock salute.

Steve spun the boat and launched
over their own wake. Terry flew out of his seat and fell hard to the floor of
the boat. He got up with a groan and pulled his pistol.

“I
will
shoot you,” he
said, pointing the gun at Steve.

“You should be careful pointing a
loaded gun on a boat that’s bouncing all around. It could accidentally go off,”
Steve said nonchalantly.

“Or on purpose.”

Steve just glared at Terry and
they flew right by the ship again. “Dammit, you made me miss it again,” Steve
said, completely unfazed by the gun.

He turned again and aimed right
for the large ship. As they got closer, he throttled down. He got within feet
of the boat and turned, steering toward a ladder hanging over the side, but was
still coming in fast.

“Uh, slow down, slow down!” Terry
cried.

“Boats don’t have breaks!” Steve
yelled, bracing himself.

Terry looked for a place where he
could brace himself as well, but it was too late and they nailed the side of
the ship, knocking Terry clear across the boat to land in the bow where
cushioned seats were set out for lounging. The boat scraped along the side of
the ship with the sound of screeching steel. Finally it stopped, right below
the ladder.

Terry pushed himself to his feet
and again pulled his pistol. “I am this close to surviving the apocalypse
alone.”

“Oh, stop being a baby,” Steve
said indignantly as he got back to his feet. “I got us right under the ladder.
See? I know what I’m doing,”

“You’re still an idiot,” Terry
insisted, grabbing the ladder and pulling himself up.

“Please, you can’t even drive a
boat,” Steve said, climbing up behind him.

“From the looks of it, neither can
you.”

“Whatever, you totally woulda sunk
us.”

“Oh, whatever. I could have done
what you did.”

“Puh-leeze. You woulda—ugh, did
you fart?!”