The Zombie Playground Page 14

  Brin narrowed her eyes and stared at Anaya’s wide, stretched visage. She had been acting playfully competitive toward her, until now. Brin wanted to annihilate her. She wanted that year of free golf. And she wanted the respect her big win would bring her.

  But as she made her way to the first tee, she remembered the impossible truth: she hadn’t played in over a year, and Anaya was apparently practicing every day.

  You can do it, she thought. Just focus. Don’t let your emotions overwhelm you. We need to beat the beast!

  Brin and Anaya walked side by side up to the first tee box. Colin followed close behind, which Brin assumed he did so he could stare at her ass. Brin set her golf bag down and stocked up on her supplies. She dropped two Titleist golf balls in her pocket, as well as five brown tees. Then she unzipped the bottom pouch and pulled out her glove. It wasn’t the large glove she’d been wearing for the past few years, but the small one she had found in her dad’s empty coffin.

  “Oh God,” Brin said, the glove resting on her hand. She had tried to let this day be one of total escape, but this small object brought back the painful memory of not just her father’s death, but of the night in the cemetery with Lavender. She put it back, took out her adult-sized glove, and wrapped it over her left hand. She walked forward.

  “Brin?” a voice said. “Ladies first?”

  Brin snapped out of her momentary melancholy and turned to Colin, who had his hand pointed toward the colored tee boxes.

  “As long as I don’t have to play from the goddamn women’s tee box,” she said.

  “We’re all playing from the tournament tees,” Colin said with a smile. “Sucks for you.”

  “Oh?” Brin said. “And why is that?”

  “Cuz guys can drive the ball twice as far as girls. Duh.”

  Now Brin and Anaya found themselves teaming up on the misogynistic Colin. “What did you say?” they bellowed in unison.

  He smiled and backed up toward his dad and brother. “I’ll shut up now.”

  Brin grabbed her three-iron from her bag—after so many months of no playing, she felt more comfortable starting out with a low iron than a driver—and teed up her ball. She looked out on a fairway that dipped down a small hill, then took a sharp right around a large tree. She could see a frozen lake running alongside the fairway, one that was the same shape as the lake back in Bodie.

  Come on, Brin. Clear your head. Focus.

  “Don’t hook it,” Anaya said. “You don’t want to hit the ball in the water on your first shot.”

  “Shut up,” Brin said, “and learn from the master!”

  Brin took five practice swings. She was rusty but found herself gaining confidence with every swing. She knew she could do well today. Sometimes, Brin knew, a golfer could play super great after months of hibernation because all those bad habits haven’t yet crept back into the grip, stance, and swing.

  Here goes nothing.

  She brought the club head down to the ball, and stood so that the ball rested in front of her left foot. She breathed through her nose, pulled the three-iron up over her head, and swung.

  Brin hit the ball perfectly. It started out going left, but then it faded right, landing on the center of the fairway and rolling down the hill just past the large tree. She was in perfect position for her second shot toward the green.

  “YES!” Brin shouted. The scream echoed in every direction.

  Brin turned around and smiled at the aggravated Anaya, as her echo was met with an unexpected response from afar.

  “NOOOOOOOO!”

  The scream from the back of the fairway didn’t just get everyone’s attention; it stopped everyone dead in their tracks.

  Finally someone spoke. “Uhh… what the hell was that?” Ash said.

  “I… I don’t know,” Brin said.

  “It was probably an animal,” Clyde said, motioning for Anaya to tee up her first shot. “Come on, let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”

  Anaya didn’t move. She just stared at Brin, not out of jealousy for her perfect opening shot, but out of worry that the horrors weren’t over.

  It’s OK, Brin told Anaya with her eyes. There’s nothing to worry about. We’re on a golf course for God’s sake. What could go wrong?

  Anaya nodded and prepared her first shot. She wiggled her driver all around, almost as much as she wiggled her butt in every direction, and quickly slammed it down against the ball. Her swing itself was unusual—she didn’t commit to a full rounded swing but instead awkwardly struck the ball at a low angle like she was swinging a baseball bat—but the strategy worked. Anaya’s ball sailed down the middle, all the way past Brin’s ball.

  Everyone applauded, and Anaya bowed for the crowd. Brin took a deep breath. The challenge to win today was going to be a vigorous one.

  But she knew she could do it.

  She watched as Colin took his stance, swung fast and awkwardly, and shanked his ball into the bushes by the tree.

  “Damn it!” he shouted.

  Brin snickered. She knew she was going to wish him bad luck today, to denigrate his confidence, and shrink his burgeoning libido.

  “All right,” Colin said. “Who’s the last member of the group?”

  Brin turned around. Even she didn’t know. She watched as a small figure emerged from the crowd and took his stance on the tee box.

  It was Tristan.

  He plugged the ball out onto the fairway and returned to his golf bag.

  Brin waved good-bye to Ash and Paul as she and the three others started marching down the fairway. The grass was yellow, and the ground was damp, but there was no stopping them.

  It was official. The game was on.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Brin and Anaya were neck and neck after five holes. It wasn’t so much a competition between the two of them as it was a fight to the death. Anaya had already thrown her club into the air twice, a no-no on the high school team but merely frowned upon out here on the desolate course. Brin was ahead by two when she sliced a shot into a sand trap on the fourth hole and spent a few minutes and three extra shots trying to find her way out of the muddy dirt. Anaya sunk a long bogey putt on the short par-three fifth hole, and by the time they both approached the sixth hole, they had the same score—two over par.

  “Almost halfway done, and all tied up,” Anaya said. “You gonna choke now, or you gonna choke later?”

  “That year of free golf is mine,” Brin said.

  “No way in hell, bitch! It’s gonna be mine, all mine!”

  “But it would be impossible with you, Anaya! Free food and drinks for a year?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Brin almost said it; she almost wanted to get cruel and brash. But she grabbed her driver and stepped up to the tee box. She figured it was best not to stoop to Colin’s level.

  “Hey, hey,” Anaya said, pushing past Brin, “I believe it’s my honor.”

  “We tied on the last hole.”

  “Yeah, and I beat you on the hole before that. So technically, the honor is still mine.”

  “Oh, come on. Enough with these stupid rules.”

  “Nope! The rules must be abided by!”

  Brin and Anaya stopped their yacking and turned to the tee box to see Tristan take his stance. He already had his ball teed up, a driver in his hand. He smiled at the ladies.

  “Did you guys forget?” he said. “I outscored all of you on the last hole!”

  Anaya kicked Brin’s driver away. “Whatever.”

  Tristan, only fourteen but still holding his own among the other players, smashed the ball down the middle of the fairway. Brin decided to step aside and let Anaya go next, and she watched with enthusiasm as Anaya’s ball took a bad slice and landed in the tall rough on the right.

  Brin turned to Colin, whose joyful visage from before the tournament had transformed into one of a sad, lonely hobo. “What’d you get on the last hole?”

  “I don’t know. A seven I think.”

  She gla
red at him. “A seven? Are you high?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t be like how my grandpa was. Score a twelve and then say you got a rotten six. Take it like a man.”

  “I got a seven.”

  “You hit two balls in the water. That means you were lying four before you even hit your first shot. It took you six shots to get the ball in the hole. Four plus six is ten, last time I checked.”

  “Shut up! I got a seven!”

  “Do you want me to go back to the last hole and prove it to you?”

  “Hey!” Anaya shouted from the cart path. “Come on and hit, Brin! We don’t have all day!”

  Brin walked up to the tee box and found her proper stance. This was the longest hole on the front nine. She had to swing with more power on this tricky shot than on any other. She sped her way through a trio of practice swings, then pulled the driver way up over her shoulders and swung hard at the ball.

  Brin felt it as soon as her club made contact with the ball. She didn’t hit the sweet spot. She didn’t even hit a decent spot. She pushed her left arm out too much, sending the ball high up in the air. She watched in terror and annoyance as the ball faded right, past Anaya’s ball, all the way out to the dirt mounds that faced Grisly Cemetery.

  “Shit! Double shit!”

  Anaya chuckled and pressed her hands against her hips. “Good luck with that shot.”

  “Shut up, bitch.”

  “Oooh,” Anaya said. “Testy.”

  “It won’t be that bad.”

  “Sure. If you can find it.”

  “Shhh,” Colin said, teeing up his ball. He had an iron in his hand. He hadn’t had the best luck with his driver so far today.

  Everyone quieted down, then marveled at Colin’s first decent shot of the day. His ball sailed down the left side of the fairway.

  Brin, Anaya, and Tristan broke out in polite applause. Colin didn’t bow. He just said, “Jesus Christ, finally.”

  The boys went to the left, and the girls, to the right. Brin and Anaya walked side by side but didn’t say a word. They both needed to concentrate. Anaya found her ball, sunk deep in a blanket of tall grass. Brin walked over to the dirt that ran alongside the black fence. She didn’t see her ball. She was too busy staring back at Anaya to make sure she wasn’t kicking her own ball into a more desirable spot.

  Anaya didn’t try to be a hero. She pulled out a pitching wedge, aimed not toward the green in the far distance but the fairway, and struck the ball with barely any power at all. It landed a hundred yards up the center of the fairway.

  “Ha,” Anaya said. “Beat that.”

  “I will,” Brin said.

  “Have you even found your ball yet?”

  Brin darted her eyes to the left, then to the right. She didn’t see it anywhere. “You wanna help me?”

  “Nope,” Anaya said, and started making her way out to the fairway.

  Brin chuckled to herself. Nobody was watching, so she could easily throw another Titleist 2 down on the ground. But she wasn’t that kind of player. She knew winning wouldn’t feel the same if she had to get there by cheating.

  She set her golf bag down and started roaming the area. She looked for a speck of white, but the only thing white she could see was a bed of flowers poking through the tiny fence gates of the cemetery.

  “Did you find it?” Anaya shouted from afar.

  “Still looking!” Brin shouted back.

  Brin bit down on her tongue as she roamed the area, narrowing her eyes, trying to locate her Titleist 2. She dug her hands through two plant beds, but there was nothing. She pressed her face against the fence to see if the ball had rolled into the cemetery. Again, she didn’t see it. Brin even looked up at the tree to see if the ball had somehow landed on a branch and hadn’t fallen to the ground.

  “Damn it,” Brin said, shaking her head in frustration. She turned back toward the tee box to see Ash and Paul, along with two others, approaching to make their tee shots. She didn’t have time to go back. It would be easier to drop another of her balls and just cheat.

  “Let’s go!” Anaya shouted from afar.

  She looked down into her pocket to see a Titleist 3, not a Titleist 2, and wondered if any members of her team would notice. Brin raised her hand to announce to Anaya and the others that she had found her ball.

  But then Brin lowered her hand. She heard a noise behind her, and it wasn’t one she expected.

  It could be a squirrel. Or a chipmunk.

  “No,” she whispered, because along with the audible movement, a low groan echoed against the back of her head.

  This was no animal, no furry friend.

  Something was emerging from the ground behind her.

  Oh my God.

  Brin spun around, just in time to see her Titleist 2 roll forward, no more than a few yards, up against one of the dirt mounds.

  She turned to her right to see who had thrown it. She watched in amazement as a small yellow hand disappeared below the dirt surface.

  “What the—”

  Brin ran up to the side of the fence and peered down into a tiny black hole. A figure’s hand had emerged from the dirt and thrown her ball back into play, as if a vampire from beneath wanted to ensure Brin would end the tournament with a winning score.

  “Is someone down there?” Brin said, pressing her hands against the dirt. The girl had courage, but even Brin wouldn’t consider placing any of her body parts down the scary hole. “Hello? Answer me!”

  Brin didn’t get a response in words. All she got in return was a chill-inducing child’s giggle, uttered softly under the ground.

  “Tell me your name,” Brin said. “Tell me who you—”

  “Hey!” Brin jerked her body around to see Anaya marching toward her. She was sweating, obviously exhausted from all this walking. She shook her arms out wide like she wanted to strangle Brin. “What are you doing? You’re lagging!”

  “Sorry,” Brin said.

  “Were you just talking to the ground?”

  “No!”

  “Brin, we’re not in Bodie anymore. Vampires don’t live underneath the surface of every city in the world.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I do.”

  “But what if—”

  “Did you find your ball?” Anaya said, veering her eyes toward the ground. She pointed to the Titleist next to the mound. “Is that it?”

  “Oh… uhh… there it is! You found it.”

  “Titleist 2, right?” Anaya said, kneeling down to inspect it.

  “Yup.”

  “Damn.” She turned to Brin, a scowl plastered on her face. “I guess you’re still lying one stroke. But come on, hurry. The other players are waiting.”

  “OK,” Brin said, grabbing her seven-iron and approaching the ball.

  Anaya didn’t pay attention to Brin’s stance or swing. She just stared at her face.

  Brin made two practice swings but stopped when Anaya wouldn’t cease in her staring. She could tell something was on her mind. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Anaya said. “I’m just…”

  “What? Tell me.”

  Anaya bit down on her tongue and shrugged. “It’s just… I’m worried about you, Brin.”

  “You don’t have to be worried about me.” Brin returned to her stance.

  “You were talking to the ground.”

  “I thought I saw something, all right? Is it that unusual to think there may be something out of the ordinary here? We ran into vampires two weeks ago! Who the hell knows what surrounds us here in Grisly!”

  “You’re spooked from everything that happened. I know. I am, too. But we’re OK now. We’re back home, and we’re safe. And we’re on a freaking golf course. If history has taught us anything, the only scary thing to ever come out of a round of golf is a triple bogey.”

  Brin nodded, and even managed a quiet laugh.

  “So come on,” Anaya said. “Hit your shot. And let’s keep moving.”
>
  “All right. Stand back.”

  Anaya pressed her back up against the fence and watched as Brin hit her shot perfectly, nearly 200 yards up over the tree toward the oval sixth-hole green.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Did she hit?”

  The sun was shining into the four players’ eyes, so Ash had to extend his hand out to block the blinding light.

  “Yep!” Ash said. “We’re good to go! Who’s up first?”

  Per the usual with the last few holes, Paul didn’t say a word. He just stood back, content to be the fourth player to hit.

  “I got a par on the last one,” the thirteen-year-old Crispin said. “Anyone beat that?”

  “Bogey here,” Martin, the pockmarked friend of Clyde, said. “Although it should have been a damn par. If I weren’t surrounded by so many young ones, you’d be hearing a lot more descriptive words coming out of my mouth right now than ‘damn,’ trust me.”

  “I trust you,” Ash said. “All right. You’re up, Crispin.”

  The four players hit. Ash couldn’t stop hooking every shot off the tee, and this one was no different. He topped the ball, too, and watched as it rolled into the rough fifty yards ahead. Crispin and Martin both hit decent but unspectacular shots down the middle of the fairway. And then Paul approached the tee.

  “All right,” Martin said, dropping his driver back into his bag in frustration. “Let’s see you do it again.”

  “OK, I’ll try,” Paul whispered, still uncomfortable to be surrounded by (mostly) strangers. He knew Ash a little bit, but they hadn’t exactly been best friends up to today. Ash didn’t think it made sense for Paul to live with Brin, and he certainly hadn’t changed his mind.

  Paul teed up his ball half an inch higher than everyone else, and then placed the edge of his club to the right of the ball. He didn’t take a practice swing, and he didn’t stretch out his arms. He just stared down at the ball, as if he could move it with his own eyes, before finally taking his swing. The trio watched in amazement as Paul’s drive ignited into the air, down the middle, fading down the right side of the fairway.

  “My God,” Ash said. “You must’ve hit that 300 yards!”

  “How long have you been playing golf?” Martin said.