One by one they climbed up the waterpark’s mega-slide. Twenty feet in the air, Zack gulped, looking over at the two twisting slides of the Double Helix. It was a long way down, but the landing pool was well away from the zombie hordes below.

Ozzie was the first to reach the top. “See ya later, alligators!” he said as he dove down the slide headfirst.

Next in line, Rice was gathering his courage to jump, readying himself with a little song. “One for the zombies. Two for my bros. Three to get ready. And four to— Whoa!”

Zoe gave Rice a good shove in the rear. “Ahhhhhh!” Rice screamed like a baby as he went flying down the Double Helix waterslide.

Zack looked down the ladder behind him. Olivia’s super-zombified dad was climbing after them, scrambling up the rungs as fast as he could.

“Hurry up, guys,” Zack said to the girls. “Uncle Conrad’s a climber.”

The girls slid down one by one—first Zoe, then Olivia, then Madison, who was carrying Twinkles, leaving Zack alone at the top.

Zack took one more look behind him and then leaped off the platform, spiraling down the slide. He twisted and turned, shooting down the slick, hard plastic chute. He spun down the Double Helix, catching flashes of Fun World in a wild, dizzy blur. Then, as the water slide approached the dreaded drop, Zack’s stomach sank to his ankles and he shot straight down into the massive pool below.

Zack bobbed to the surface and sucked a shock of air into his lungs. Ozzie, Rice, and the girls were all treading water around him. Twinkles was doggy-paddling and barking incessantly.

“Everybody okay?” Zack asked, trying not to get any of the slimy zombie water in his mouth.

“Yep!” the gang said in unison, and they started to swim to the edge.

“Yo,” Ozzie said, pointing down to the bottom of the deep pool. “Keep your feet up everybody. There’s zombies on the bottom!”

Zack glanced below the surface, and the waves bobbed with the distorted images of submerged zombie bottom-feeders shimmering through the pool water’s dark prism.

As they continued to cautiously make their way to the edge, two waterpark zombies slid out of the adjacent waterslides at rapid speed. Swimming next to Olivia, Zack quickly ducked as one of the airborne ghouls belly-flopped over him into the water.

“Eeek!” Olivia shrieked as the other zombie landed directly on top of her.

“Olivia!” Zack cried, stopping mid-swim and turning around to see if she was okay.

The zombified waterslider plunged Olivia underwater, and she started splashing wildly in the middle of the pool. Olivia kicked the waterslide zombie away from her, and it sank to the bottom, unable to swim. But another zombie on the bottom of the pool now had her by the ankle, yanking her down. Zack swam over and caught her by the wrist. He pulled up, trying to keep her head above water, but the underwater zombie had all the leverage. Zack’s hand slipped from Olivia’s wrist, and she gurgled the pool water before disappearing in a sinkhole of air bubbles.

Zack took a massive gulp of air and dove down after her.

The chlorine stung his eyeballs something fierce as he looked around desperately underwater. Then he spotted her, struggling to free herself from the zombie’s death grip. Zack dove deeper and stuck his fingers between Olivia’s ankle and the zombie’s grasp. He wedged his own grip around the zombie’s thumb as the rest of the undead bottom-feeders tugged at his clothes, pulling him down farther.

Zack felt the burn in his lungs, running out of air. He pulled back the zombie’s thumb as hard as he could and heard an underwater pop that released Olivia from her zombie anchor. Olivia kicked wildly and shot upward above his head. Zack planted the sole of his shoe on the face of the undead underwater beast tugging at his pant leg and propelled himself upward as well.

A second later, Zack exploded to the surface, gasping for air.

“That was a pretty close one,” Olivia said, treading water next to Zack. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Zack said, knocking some excess water out of his ear.

“Okay, guys,” Rice called from the pool deck. “Free swim’s over!” He pointed skyward to the top of the Double Helix. Up above, Uncle Conrad was already spiraling down the enormous mega-slide.

Zack and Olivia swam frantically for their lives to the side of the pool where Zoe, Madison, Ozzie, and Rice cheered them on and then helped to lift them out of the water onto the cement deck.

SPLASH!

Uncle Conrad torpedoed into the pool and floundered for a moment before doggy-paddling slowly toward the edge of the zombified landing pool.

“Ha!” Rice scoffed. “Look at him. He can hardly swim!”

“Rice!” Madison shouted. “We gotta get out of here!”