We ran for a few more seconds before Duffy stopped and crouched behind a tree and its surrounding bushes.
“Can you see anything?” she asked, gesturing in the direction of the shed.
I stood and looked, impressed by our vantage point. She’d taken us up a hill, so it was easy to see what was happening below, and I started counting. Every person who’d been in the shed with us had apparently been taken out—or they just didn’t care—because the entire group was walking with the zombies.
We’d been given a cute little pamphlet of the “zombie squad,” along with the map, so we knew the five that were coming for us.
I immediately spotted Conan the Zombarian, the green-haired zombie who was as tall as I was, and I also had a visual on Zedd the Undead, a scrawny little guy in purple face paint. Zombie Quinn—dressed like Harley Quinn but with a green face and blood around her mouth—was walking behind the group, twirling her paint guns as she did her best to look menacing.
But the twins—Shaun and Zaun—didn’t appear to be with them. Duffy must have realized the same thing, because she looked at me and whispered, “We’re missing two.”
I nodded. “Let’s just hold tight for a minute because they have to be circling somewhere.”
It got a little eerie when the group disappeared from our line of sight and the woods grew quiet. It actually felt like we were hunting or being hunted. “This is a little creepy.”
“Are you scared?” she teased, her eyes dancing in the darkness.
“Of course not,” I said, making a face and reaching out a hand to give her a little push.
“Sure you’re not,” she said, pushing back. “Do you need a snack, by the way?”
“What kind of snack?” I asked, looking down at her in surprise. “You brought snacks?”
“I mean, just some energy bars, a few nut mixes, and a couple sandwiches,” she said, quietly taking off her backpack.
“How long do you expect us to be camping out here?” I asked. “You brought fucking provisions?”
“I believe in being prepared, and the twins are still unaccounted for,” she said with a shrug. “Do you want something or not?”
“THE TWO REMAINING PAINTBALL GAMERS!”
Someone was shouting into the woods.
At us.
“YOU NEED TO COME OUT NOW!”
“No,” Duffy said, grabbing my arm. Her eyes were a little wild when she whispered, “Don’t move. That’s what they want us to do.”
She was insane and I loved it. “I think we should probably—”
“No,” she insisted, frantically shaking her head. “They’re just trying to get us to come out so they can shoot us.”
I tried not to laugh but it was impossible. “We can’t just hide forever, Duff.”
“I know, but if we just wait a few minutes and they come looking for us, then we can get our shots in.”
My phone buzzed—hers did, too—and when I pulled it out of my pocket, I could see it was a notification from the Zombie Hunt app (which she hadn’t allowed me to download until I turned off my location).
REMAINING PLAYERS—RETURN TO THE SHED. THE PARK IS CLOSING IN 15 MINUTES.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I know it sounds crazy, but I just want to shoot them. You paid for us to hunt zombies, dammit, and we should be allowed to finish. If we wait a couple more minutes, just until we get them in our line of sight, then we can take them out and return to the shed.”
“Duffy.”
“I know I sound crazy—”
“No, I love it,” I said, and I meant it.