Fanfic: Zombies, Zombies, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! 🧟 Ep. 16: Blueberries… AGAIN

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Magic Kid. Enjoy!

Hello there! It’s Magic Kid back with the next episode (episode 16)  in my fanfiction, Zombies, Zombies, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! If you missed the last episode, you can catch it here, or if you’d like to start from the beginning, here.

Normally I would update you on the story so far, before you read what happens next, but I have one word for y’all: MWAHAHAHAHA! Enjoy!  🙂

ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ALWAYS ZOMBIES!

A Zomberry Series

Episode Sixteen: Blueberries… AGAIN

The friends were coming closer to the wall, determined that nothing could go wrong, nothing at all.

Unfortunately things were going to go wrong. Things were going to go as wrong as they tended to do with all of Poptropica amidst an apocalypse.

Agent Thorn, shaken by the recent discovery of who her boss REALLY was, was walking down a flight of stairs when she glanced out a small window. The window had a perfect view of the hot air balloon coming ever closer to the wall. Three people were visible on the balloon and Thorn knew at once who those three people were. And she knew at once what she had to do.

It was kinda fun to be the bad guy, she had to admit, even though she should be focusing on her main goal.

She ran down the stairs and alerted the wall guards on her walkie-talkie.

Thorn

Three persons aboard a hot air balloon, heading towards the wall. Capture unharmed and under no circumstances are you to zombie-fy them, copy?

Guard (from walkie)

Copy that, Thorn. Capture, unharmed, and un-zombied. Where do we bring them?

Thorn

Just put them in one of the cells when you’re done!

Guard (from walkie)

Copy that.

Thorn walked quickly down the stairs. Part of her hoped that the three would get away… but she knew what had to be done. And if she couldn’t save them, she thought as she reached an elevator and ran inside, she might as well get a front seat for it.

Out on the blimp, the three friends were nearly at the wall, determined to save Toothpick.

Jazzy Hawk

WE’RE ALMOST THERE!

Clumsy Bird

ALMOST!!

Stone

GUYS— keep it down what if—

Hawk

It doesn’t look like anyone’s keeping guard over here, come on, Stone, cheer up a bit!

The wall indeed looked unattended. At least, from their perspective.

Stone

SHHH! I don’t like the feel of this place…

Clumsy Bird

Why? What’s wrong with it?

Stone

It’s just… off.

As they reached the wall, the faint wind they had felt sweeping their hair around in the wind, had vanished absolutely. Birdy shivered.

Birdy

Brrr. I’m kinda getting that vibe too…

Hawk too was starting to become wary. He felt his spine shiver as though someone was watching him. And if he had a neck, it would have prickled uncomfortably.

The three were silent for a few minutes as their hot air balloon moved closer and closer to the wall. What happened next happened very fast:

A dart whizzed through the air, puncturing the balloon. Air immediately began to hiss out. Birdy screamed. Hawk spun around wildly to see the cause of the dart.

People — guards in kinda futuristic armor — grabbed them. Hawk yelled out, but a hand was clamped firmly around his mouth, keeping him from making a sound. Stone stomped on the guards’ feet, hoping to free herself, but to no avail.

Guard (talking to a walkie)

We got ‘em!

These guards were strong, well trained. The three friends had no hope of freeing themselves.

The three struggled as the guards dragged them across the top of the wall, down stairs, across the grounds, down more flights of stairs, past more guards, and into a room full of cells like a prison.

The guards threw all three of them in a cell and slammed the door shut. Stone immediately went up to the bars and tried to find a weak point, but a guard pushed her back.

Guard 1

BEHAVE YOURSELVES!

Stone

OH YEAH?

Birdy

Stone, please don’t—

Stone

LISTEN HERE WE AIN’T GONNA LISTEN TO YOU—

Birdy (in a squeak)

Stone!

Guard 1

Is that right?

Guard 2 (rudely imitating) 

“WE AIN’T GONNA LISTEN TO YOU–” What choice do you have? Listen, obey, and we might show you mercy in the end.

Hawk started to get a little angry too.

Hawk

You call THIS mercy? Chucking us in a cell, puncturing our balloon, WITH NO EXPLANATION AT THE VERY LEAST!?

Stone

YEAH!

Birdy

THAT’S A FAIR POINT ACTUALLY—

Guard 2

Awww, shut up!

The guards walked out of the room with all the cells, leaving three angry Poptropicans in a small cell, shouting after the guards.

Stone

WHAT WAS THAT FOR?

Birdy

YEAH, WE NEED ANSWERS!!

Hawk kicked the wall, which was very hard, so he stubbed his toe, which fueled his anger even more.

Hawk

AARGH!

Birdy

Good news: We found the bad guys, who may have Toothpick somewhere.

Stone

BAD NEWS: They LOCKED us up!!

Hawk

Not cool. Not cool.

Stone

More bad news: WHERE’S TOOTHPICK? AND WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH HIM?

Birdy

Oh no!! Oh no…

Hawk had gone very white.

Hawk 

Maybe he’s somewhere in here…

Birdy slumped down the cold concrete wall.

Birdy

But what if he isn’t? We don’t know what these people want!

Stone jumped onto the small creaky bed and sat down.

Stone

We have to get out of here.

Hawk

I’m not sure if we can— I mean, they always make it out alright in the movies, but we’re not in a movie, this is real.

Birdy (dejectedly)

True.

Stone

But we can’t let the bad guys win, there must be a way out!

They were quiet for a few minutes, thinking it over.

The silence was broken by a voice coming from the cell across from theirs.

Voice

Oh hey, it’s you three! Guys, wake up, come on!

The three looked over at the cell next to them. It also had three people in it. Three blond kids, two of them asleep, one on the bed and one on the ground. They had streaks of dark purple dye in their hair, and the corners of their face still had some indigo paint on it. The eldest of the trio was shaking awake the younger two. Hawk recognized them at once.

Hawk

Oh! Hey! How are you guys?

The one on the bed, Fast Lizard, grumbled as the oldest tapped his face repeatedly until he woke up.

Fast Lizard

Aw, come on, Magic, I was having this great dream about nachos…

He realized that Hawk, Birdy, and Stone were in the other cell. He pointed at them.

Fast Lizard (continued)

HEY I KNOW YOU!

With that loud announcement, the youngest on the floor, Fearless Dragon, popped up.

Fearless Dragon

HI HOW’S A GOIN’

Hawk

Ha! So how have you guys been?

Magic Kid

Just chilling. We found this island not long after we dropped you off at Monkey Wrench, so we thought we’d explore the place, y’know, see what’s it about.

Fearless Dragon

But they saw right through our zombie disguise—

Magic Kid

Oi, who’s tellin’ the story? Yeah, they saw right through the chalk dye and face paint, so we ended up here.

Fast Lizard

We’ve been keeping up with you guys though!

Stone

What?

Fast Lizard pointed down the hallway of cells. At the end, there was a large television screen with live footage of Poptropicans who seemed to be just barely surviving.

Magic Kid

They record footage of anyone surviving on drones, to keep an eye on them, y’know? We’ve been rooting for you! 

Birdy saw on one of the cameras’ views, C.J. from Shrink Ray island duct-taping together a ram-shackled fort on the bland side of Goofball Island.

Birdy

Oh that’s cool! So you could see us?

Fearless Dragon

Yep! We’ve even made a few bets on how long the remaining survivors will last! Lizard thought you’d get caught or zombied LONG before you actually—

Lizard

—Anyway, the remaining survivors are C.J., Ashely Lange, and Jeff— well, we don’t know his name, but we just call him Jeff. Jeff’s probably my favorite, he understands the importance of a good meal—

Birdy

By any chance, have you seen Toothpick?

Each of the chaos trio’s faces fell.

Magic 

Well, um—

The sound of a door being banged open echoed through a hall.

A handful of guards marched down the stone steps. One had a small cardboard box, but the others had take-out boxes. Hawk was excited for the food.

The guard with the box fit it through the bars of the cell Birdy, Stone, and Hawk were in.

Guard 1

These are your approved belongings.

Another guard slid three of the take-out boxes under their cell. Hawk immediately passed them around, starving. He opened the box and saw some crackers, old cheese, and a stale blueberry muffin. 

Hawk

BLUEBERRIES?!

By this point, the guards had finished passing out the boxes, and were walking back out.

The chaos trio threw their muffins after the guards. One of the muffins hit one in the back of the first guard’s head, but the guard pretended as though nothing had happened. Birdy and Stone both stared in horror at their muffins.

Stone

Do they really expect us to eat that?

Lizard

Nah, they always throw in a blueberry something in our meal to remind us of the zombies. Blueberry pancakes, blueberry candy, blueberry tart, blueberry—

Magic

But remember that one guy that actually ate his muffin?

Lizard

Oh yeah. Stupid idea.

Dragon

The crackers are good though! Don’t eat the cheese, Lizard did that once and he got sick. They should have something better for dinner, they always do!

Hawk scarfed down the stale salty crackers and looked in the cardboard box. Inside were some of their things!

Magic

Oh yeah, they sort through your stuff and let you keep the stuff that’s not dangerous! We got to keep our CD player, so at least we still got music!

Clumsy Bird was peeking over the box as well to see what was inside. There was some colorful yarn, a compass, some random items that must have been in Hawk’s pocket, and… Toothpick’s Rubik’s cube.

Stone

Aww, they didn’t let me keep my Swiss army knife!

Birdy

Or my knitting needles… but look.

She pulled out Toothpick’s cube.

Hawk

Oh.

They were silent for a moment, and then Hawk asked the chaos trio a question.

Hawk

So do you know what happened to Pick? You must have seen him on the cameras…

Magic

Well, um.

Dragon

He—

Lizard

He, uh—

Birdy

—Just tell us, already!

Magic

Okay, he—

The door banged open again.

Voice

SURPRISE CELL CHECK UP! EVERYONE TO THE BACK WALL OF YOUR CELL WITH YOUR HANDS UP!

Five Poptropicans, each in formal, dark suits with purple ties, marched like robots down the hallway of cells. The three friends backed to the wall as they were told, Birdy still holding onto Toothpick’s Rubik’s cube.

They heard as each cell was checked, the clanging of bars, the creaking of the steel door. As the cell that Birdy, Hawk, and Stone were in was close to the whole other end of the hallway, they had to wait a while.

CLICK. Creak. Click. Rustle-Rustle. Click. Creak. CLANG. CLICK.

Those sounds repeated over and over again on each side of the hallway simultaneously. Like some cruel drum beat.

And then the five Poptropicans in suits came up to their cell. One of them stood in the middle of the hallway, while the four remaining split to search both cells on either side.

Two came over them, unlocked and opened the door, handcuffed the three friends and began looking under the bed mattress, under the bed, in the corner by the bed (the creaky bed was the only furniture in the small cell).

All three of the friends, Jazzy Hawk, Icy Stone, and Clumsy Bird gasped in shock. One of the Poptropicans searching their cell WAS WITTY TOOTHPICK. He was there!

Birdy

TOOTHPICK! PICK!

The three in the cell grinned, full of happiness to see their friend again!

Toothpick didn’t react. He just kept looking around their cell and stood up.

Hawk
YOU’RE ALRIGHT!

Stone

WE’VE BEEN LOOKING ALL OVER POPTROPICA FOR YOU!

Toothpick

What are you talking about? Prisoners are supposed to remain quiet at all times. 

Birdy got really confused. The other two were disturbed, concerned, as though they had just walked into a hyper-realistic nightmare.

Birdy

But Pick, you’re right here? What are YOU talking about?

Hawk

Pick? D—don’t you know who we are?

What was even more unsettling was the fact that in Toothpick’s face, which normally spilled out some sort of expression, this time was blank, controlled. There was no light of recognition in his eyes.

Toothpick

No.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Magic Kid. If you did, you might also enjoy their Pop Quiz: Which Pop Character Are You? post.

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