Ela Halloween Special #10

The group limps along and eventually, painfully, reaches the world famous white sands of Sueno Beach Beach.  They made it this far without too much trouble from their zombie friends, but the marina is a fair piece to the south and who knows what horrors await them?!  I mean I do, but you know. The remnant of a once proud bonfire crouches low and sputtering like an old silent movie star peeking at a lady in her bloomers, surrounded by the chewed-up remains of underage teenage revelers and the treasury of empty beer cans and bottles. They stop for a moment to warm up and dry zombie water off their clothes by the fire.

Lucien checks the keg and then tosses a Solo cup aside sadly “Empty, just our luck.”

Duke looks around at the fallen partiers “Where did the zombies go?  Why aren’t they still here eating?”

Ela holds her hands to the fire and rubs them together “Zombies don’t like the water, how many times do I have to tell you that? They’re scared to death of it, they won’t come anywhere near it!”

Duke gestures angrily at the bodies “Then what happened here Ela, what happened here?!  If zombies don’t like water, who ate these people?”

“Oh it was probably just one of those cannibal families in a VW bus you’re always hearing about.”  Duke starts her way angrily and Ela levels her shotgun at him “Don’t tempt me Duke, don’t tempt me.”

Duke retreats and sits back down, but winks at her “No matter what I do I can’t help but tempt women, Sugartits, it’s a curse.”

Tina jumps up and shouts spittily in anger “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! All of you just shut the fuck up!  Elvis is dead and all you can do is . . .” She stops and takes a deep breath “I think we should all bow our heads and have a moment of silence for Elvis.”

Lucien nods “I think that’s appropriate.”

Ela rolls her eyes but she stands up and lowers her eyes with the rest of them.  They fold their hands in a sort of pray-y way but not really, standing around the flickering fire for a moment.  Ela keeps looking up to see if they’re done yet, like a kid in church.

Duke raises his head “Maybe . . . maybe someone should say a few words.”

Ela snaps her fingers “You got it chief.  Elvis . . .  what can I say about Elvis?  Elvis was a man . . . like most people he liked the things in life that he liked. Uh . . . what else, what else, what else?  He acted like his balls had dropped off but he was nice enough I guess.”

Tina stares icy daggers at her “Why couldn’t it have been you? The world wouldn’t miss a heartless bitch like you, Elvis was a warm, kind, generous, caring person.”

Ela rests her shotgun on her shoulder “You’re right, the world probably wouldn’t miss old Ela at all if a zombie chomped me all up and maybe it will miss Elvis.  But it ain’t up to the world is it?  There’s no call-in voting like American Idol.  I’m still here because I am a heartless bitch.  And Elvis is gone because he was weak – that’s the way it works.”

Sad but true.  After that there’s not much else anyone can say.  They stand around the fire for a few minutes and then move out.  That’s the key, stay on the move.  Ela once again leads the way as they walk down the beach towards the marina – a not a zombie in sight.

Martialla pulls up short “Hey, wait up! Wait a minute everybody, my foot is stuck.”

Duke tries to help her but barely even gets a pull in before he lets go and grabs at his arm with a wince “I think that stuff the doc gave us is wearing off. My arm doesn’t feel so good anymore.”

Lucien flops heavily to a sitting position on the sand “I think you’re right, my leg is starting to throb again.”

Ela waves them forward “Suck it up you two!  I’m walking on a bloody stump here and I’m doing fine.  Martialla, move your ass or get left behind!”

Tina tugs on Martialla’s leg violently “No, she’s really stuck – her foot is in a hole or something.  I just have to get some leverage and . . .”

Martialla shout in pain and alarm “Ow! Ow! No, stop, you’re tearing my foot off!  I don’t want to live without a foot!  I’ll be a freak, an outcast, the lowest sort of miserable wretch imaginable!  Without a foot I won’t deserve even the slightest human consideration!  I’ll be abused and tormented by even the lowest of the low and they’ll be well within their rights morally to do it!  I’ll be . . . oh, sorry Ela, I didn’t mean . . .”

Ela walks over to them and helps pull “You’re already a freak Martialla, and an outcast, and a miserable wretch.  Can’t you people do anything without me?”

They’re both pulling and then all of a sudden Martialla’s leg comes free and she tumbles over on top of Tina.   Ela sways like a drunk performing a field sobriety test, but manages to stay on her foot. She curses and unleashes a shotgun blast down into the sand.  The sand flies up all around them as buried zombies in Tommy Bahama spring out of hiding and grab at them.  The gang swings into action trying to club the zombies off as Ela blows them to pieces, but there’s too many. They make a run for it but their escape route is blocked by offensively buxom zombie lifeguards in ripped red swim-uniforms wielding weird plastic floaty things with ropes attached to them.  Martialla launches herself at them and bowls them over, allowing everyone else to escape. Ela fires a few more blasts and pulls Martialla to her feet, helping her run like the world’s saddest three legged race.  Martialla has been badly mauled and she can’t keep up even with Ela’s hobbling pace.

Ela yanks on her unhelpfully “God damn it Martialla get the lead out!  We have to move!”

Martialla gasps weakly “Just leave me, I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.”

Ela drops her to the sand “You got it champ.”

Ela and Duke continue to the marina, but Tina and Lucien stop and look at each other.  They glance down at Martialla trying to get into position to fight.

Lucien speaks first “I’ll do it.”

Tina shakes her head “No, I’ll do it.  I don’t even care anymore.  Just make sure that if no one else is going to make it that Ela doesn’t either.”

Lucien hugs Tina and pats her on the back “You know I will.”

Lucien manfully hauls Martialla to her feet and helps her stagger away as Tina turns to face the on-coming horde of the walking dead.  She’s softly humming the tune of “Thriller” to herself as Lucien and Martialla catch up to Ela and Duke – who aren’t moving so fast themselves anymore as their injuries are starting to catch up to them.  When they reach the marina they immediately run out onto the dock, looking for a good boat, but just as immediately, zombies start climbing out of the water and onto the dock from every side.  They try to run but even more zombies start coming out of boats and rafts and whatever’s handy for a zombie to be hiding in. Duke and Martialla are between Lucien and Ela – who’re doing their best to keep the zombies back.

Ela blasts a water-logged zombie into a fine spray like chunky mustard being thrown into a box fan set on high “You know, I’m starting to think that maybe this whole zombies not liking water thing isn’t exactly true.  I may have been wrong about that.”

Lucien knocks a zombie back into the water with an oar “You don’t say?”

Ela is blasting and reloading as fast as she can “Well it looks like our water escape is turning out a tad more suicidal than how I planned, what now? I’m pretty much out of ideas.”

Duke ducks and pulls Martialla down with him as Lucien nearly knocks them off the dock with a backswing of his oar “We need to get to the WSBF channel fourteen television station, the channel fourteen eye in the sky – we can get away in the news copter.”

Martialla weakly kicks a zombie off the dock “Yeah, yeah, copter fourteen will save the day!  I like this plan.”

Lucien is trading off between swinging his oar and using it to hold himself up “Do we know how to fly a helicopter [untranslatable Canadian gibberish]?”

Martialla smiles “I do.”

Ela whirls around and points her shotgun in Martialla’s grill “No more of your Canadian trickery!”

Martialla looks her in the eye coolly “I can fly a helicopter.”

A zombie grabs Ela from behind but with a karate shout she flips it over her shoulder and blasts its skull to kingdom come. She whirls around, shooting and blowing another zombie back into his friends and knocking them into the water.  She goes to reload, but all that’s in her clown shirt is what the good lord gave her. Using the shotgun like a club, she knocks the last standing zombie to the ground.

“Go! Go! Go!”

They don’t need to be told twice, let alone thrice.  Duke helps Martialla up and they dash as best they can off the dock back onto dry land.  A zombie pops out of a jet ski rental hut, but Duke uses Martialla like a battering ram to knock it down and run past. Lucien and Ela are holding off the zombies coming up from the end of the dock.

Lucien jerks his head over his shoulder “Go on, go, I’ll be right behind you!”

Ela hurls her empty shotgun at the zombies and then runs after Duke and Martialla – stepping on the zombie they knocked down and pushing its face into the sand like in a hilarious slapstick comedy. Lucien is backing away towards the shore as he clubs away with the oar, but zombies are climbing up behind him too.  He backs into them, whirls around with a yell swinging wildly with the oar, breaking it in the process.  He tries to leap for the shore but with the weight of all the zombies in the water the dock comes apart right from under his feet and he falls into the water with a scream and a splash. Ela turns around as Lucien disappears under the water with zombies clutching at him.

Ela lifts her hand “[untranslatable Canadian gibberish] my friend [untranslatable Canadian gibberish].”

Duke sneers that’s not how you say “[untranslatable Canadian gibberish].”

One zombie comes lurching out of the water and Ela leaps on it with an animalistic howl – knocking it down with her foot-cooler and tearing it limb from limb with her bare hands as Martialla and Duke watch in disbelief.  Spattered with gore, she leaves the twitching body parts behind and staggers up beside them.

Ela grabs Martialla by the face “Can you really fly a helicopter?” Martialla nods dumbly “Let’s go then.”