Clash of the Worlds

“Good!” Cordelia shouted. “Now take a deep breath and dive! Dive back into the water where they can’t shoot you or find you! Swim along the huge red bridge towards the shore on the other side. Then I’ll tell you how to find Brendan!”

Fat Jagger nodded one last time and then suddenly Cordelia and Eleanor felt their stomachs drop as Jagger dived deep into the San Francisco Bay, essentially becoming a living submarine. The two girls hung on to Fat Jagger’s huge molars for dear life as the colossus made a break for the Golden Gate Bridge.

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Deep within Fernwood Cemetery, Brendan Walker stumbled away from the zombie that had somehow managed to clamp its deadly jaws on to his forearm. Brendan yanked free from its clutches, and in the process tore off one of the zombie’s arms. But the damage had been done.

Brendan slumped down into a sitting position and looked at the gory bite wound on his forearm. This was it; he was a goner. Everyone knew the first rule of zombies: if they bite you, then you will eventually turn into a zombie.

He swore to himself. He had always believed he would thrive in a zombie apocalypse. He’d read instructional books, had escape routes mapped out, and had even drawn up construction plans for a fortress on the cliffs of Battery Crosby. Now here he was about to become the world’s second zombie, literally the worst you could do in this situation.

He looked up and noticed more zombies stumbling towards him. Some of the walking corpses looked much fresher than others. A few looked old enough to have even fought in World War One.

They continued to advance on Brendan. Didn’t they understand that he’d been bitten? He was already as good as dead.

He only had himself to blame. Not only had he failed to raise the spirit of Denver Kristoff, but he had somehow managed to accidently raise the dead! Brendan had just accidentally jump-started the end of the world with a zombie apocalypse.

But that didn’t mean he’d go down without a fight. The knowledge of his own impending doom erased any fear and replaced it with pure rage and courage the like of which he’d never experienced before. It was almost like drinking some sort of hero potion. It made him feel invincible – because, in a way, he sort of was.

Brendan leaped to his feet, still holding the zombie’s severed left arm. He stepped forward and reared it back like a baseball bat. Then he swung at the nearest zombie like he was back in T-ball. The zombie arm connected with its head and it flew into the trees at least fifty feet away, still groaning the entire time.

“Home run!” Brendan screamed, before pivoting and taking another swing at a different zombie behind him.

He connected again; this time the zombie’s head stayed attached to the neck, but exploded on impact like an old rotting pumpkin. Bone and dirt and dust sprayed everywhere.

“Gross!” Brendan yelled.

He whirled around swinging the severed zombie arm as fast as his injured arm would allow. Brendan stayed near the mausoleum since it provided protection on at least one side as more zombies began showing up.

Eventually, he climbed up the three stairs on the mausoleum. He looked around and then promptly dropped the zombie arm he’d been using as his weapon. From his new vantage point, he finally saw just how hopeless his situation had become.

The sea of zombies spread out around the mausoleum had grown to rock-concert proportions. If he weren’t feeling so hopeless, he might have even performed the Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days” that had saved him back in Emperor Occipus’s Colosseum.

But, instead, he slumped against the ornate bronze doors and waited for the zombies to devour him.

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Fat Jagger came bounding into Fernwood Cemetery still dripping wet from the ocean water he’d been soaking in for the past ten hours. His mouth was open just enough for Cordelia and Eleanor to see outside so they could direct his movements. He’d been careful to avoid smashing any houses on the short walk there, just as Cordelia had instructed. But now, inside the cemetery, he was crushing people with each step.

“Oh, no!” Eleanor gasped. “He’s smooshing all those people! Wait … what are they all doing in a cemetery at three in the morning?”

“Those aren’t ordinary people, Nell,” Cordelia said, straining to see over Fat Jagger’s huge lower lip. “I think they’re … zombies!”

“But zombies aren’t real!” Eleanor said. “That’s impossible.”

“So is a colossus with two kids in his mouth walking around Mill Valley, California!” Cordelia reminded her.

Eleanor was about to admit that Cordelia made a good point, but was distracted by shouting somewhere far below them.

“Down here!” the tiny voice yelled. “Jagger, down here!”

“It’s Brendan!” Eleanor yelled, pointing to their left. “Fat Jagger, can you see Brendan down there? He’s in trouble! Save him!”

They saw Brendan on the landing of a white marble mausoleum, jumping up and down hysterically. There were hundreds of zombies closing in around him.

Fat Jagger closed his mouth to keep Cordelia and Eleanor from falling out and then reached down and pulled the entire mausoleum from the ground. Brendan clung desperately to one of the marble pillars. The bronze doors had burst off from the force of Jagger’s grip. The roof of the mausoleum crumbled.

Fat Jagger opened his mouth wide and shook the mausoleum over it like a box of sweets, dumping a screaming Brendan inside. Then Jagger closed his mouth and turned back towards the ocean.

A SFPD helicopter suddenly hovered down into view from the clouds above the giant. A man in a blue SWAT uniform sat inside the open door of the chopper. He raised a huge rocket launcher, pointed it at Fat Jagger, and pulled the trigger.

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Brendan fell into Fat Jagger’s mouth, not having any idea why his friend would eat him. Maybe Fat Jagger had become a colossus zombie himself?

In spite of the dizzying headache gnawing at the back of his skull, it didn’t take Brendan long to figure out that Fat Jagger had never intended to swallow him, even. Part of it was the fact that he was still in the giant’s mouth, sitting in a pool of gooey saliva on a massive tongue. The other clue was the arms of his sisters wrapped around him.

“Brendan, you’re alive!” Eleanor said.

“Did it work, did you manage to talk to Denver Kristoff?” Cordelia asked, getting right down to business.

Before Brendan could answer, the sound of a helicopter outside interrupted their reunion. Brendan had never heard a real rocket launcher being fired before, but he’d played enough video games to recognise the sound right before they were all tossed around inside Fat Jagger’s mouth from the impact, like toddlers in a bouncy castle.

Fat Jagger bellowed in pain. In the split second that his mouth was open, the Walkers saw a gaping and bloody hole in the colossus’s left shoulder.

“They’re going to kill him!” Eleanor shrieked. “Jagger, get back to the bay! You need to hide!”

Cordelia screamed too, but for an entirely different reason. Rising up slowly behind Brendan … was the Storm King!

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It wasn’t a spirit version of the Storm King. It was the real flesh-and-blood version. That much was obvious as they jostled and bounced inside Fat Jagger’s mouth as he ran back towards the bay.

Brendan spun around, yelped, and then quickly scampered over to Cordelia and Eleanor.

Fat Jagger dived back into the water, shaking his four passengers together like dice in a cup. Once the colossus was smoothly swimming through the bay and his mouth was settled, the Storm King climbed slowly to his feet again with a loud groan.

The Walkers scrambled away from him; towards Fat Jagger’s right molars. Their mobile phone flashlights cast an eerie glow on to Denver Kristoff’s rotting face.

“Denver?” Cordelia ventured. “I know we’re not exactly best friends or anything … but we really need your help.”

The Storm King had never looked worse. His normally putrid face was even more hideous than usual. If it weren’t for a few greenish flaps of rancid flesh clinging to his head, he would have basically just been a skull with hair.

The Storm King finally opened his mouth to reply.

“Graaanghhhhh!” the Storm King moaned. “Brrrraaaaoooohhhhrrrr!”

“Um, what?” Cordelia said.