The Swiss Family RobinZOM (Book 3) by Perrin Briar Page B

said.
    “Yes,” Bill said. “The Lurchers are on their way, and there won’t be just a few of them. They will come in their hundreds, in their thousands, maybe. But we must be ready for them. Do not hesitate. Because they will not hesitate.”
    For a moment he said nothing and looked from one son to the next, taking them in.
    “I’m very proud of you,” he said. “All of you. Fritz, for your strength. Ernest, for your wisdom. Jack, for your bravery. Francis, for his curiosity. You boys are the greatest achievement of my life. It makes me proud to see you all standing here before me today. No father could have better sons.”
    His sons smiled back at him.
    “You boys have been lucky enough never to have experienced war,” Bill said. “Today you might just get a taste. It won’t be sweet, it won’t be honourable, but we will be victorious. The Lurchers are a flood, and though it may not seem like it, their numbers are not limitless. Let’s show those Lurchers what Swiss Robinsons are made of.”
    “Yeah!” Ernest said, getting carried away. “Let’s do it!”
    He looked at Fritz and Jack with sheepish eyes and blossomed red.
    “Jack,” Bill said, “I want you in the trees with the vines attached to the coconut bombs. Ernest, I want you to take care of the trunks in the trees.”
    “Can I suggest we call them ‘trunks of terror’?” Ernest said.
    Bill thought for a moment.
    “No,” he said. “Get into your positions.”
    Jack and Ernest slung their bows and a full quiver of arrows over their shoulders. Ernest climbed a tree with slow deliberate movements with the air of a man not comfortable with his own body. Jack took to a tree and scaled it as easily as if he were walking.
    “I’m not sure whose brother Jack is,” Fritz said. “Ours or Nip’s.”
    “If he’d been born after we got to the island, I would have had serious words with your mother,” Bill said.
    Fritz chuckled.
    “What do you want me to do?” he said.
    “I want you by my side,” Bill said. “If any of those Lurchers get through this assault course, I want us ready for them.”
    Fritz felt at the handle of his baseball bat jutting up from the sheath on his back. Bill slid his machete into a specially-made sheath at his waist. They nodded to one another and took up their bows. The foliage at the end of the booby trap corridor rustled. The Robinson men nocked their arrows and waited. The foliage burst open. Liz emerged, riding Lightfoot. She led the donkey deftly around the traps.
    “They’re here,” Liz said.
    She was out of breath, face drawn and pale. She climbed off Lightfoot.
    “They’re here, and there are too many of them,” she said. “We’ll never hold them back.”
    “We have to try,” Bill said.
    “This is all that stands in their way between us and them,” Fritz said, gesturing to the booby traps before them. “I hope it’s enough.”
    “So do I,” Bill said.
    The death groans began as a deep guttural grunt. Quiet, and yet somehow piercing – not to the ear, but to the soul. The foliage rustled and shook. A torn arm hung at the side of a middle aged blonde woman who was the first to come through. Then an old man’s shredded face emerged, his moustache pink with blood, his white eyes vacant and cold. They came like they were entering through a portal from another world.
    They stepped forward, and the flood began.

 
     
    Twenty-Two
     
    The Lurcher had eyes only for the meat. She approached, arms outstretched and grasping. The meat came within a hair’s width. The Lurcher took a step forward and fell through a false jungle floor and into the pit, a dozen spikes impaling her body at once. There were hard thuds and wet cracking noises as more Lurchers piled into the pits. But still, moaning their low groan of the dead, they pushed on. One Lurcher made contact with the meat, but it swung there, above the hole, the movement making it even more irresistible. A brunette Lurcher wearing a pink bikini