That Risen Snow: A Scary Tale of Snow White and Zombies (Wattys 2014 Award Winner)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Snoozy

AT LAST, A ROPE wiggles blindly down the shaft, almost within grasp. Just three more rungs to go. The rope sways back and forth like a worm on a hook. Snoozy hauls his bulk up another rung and chews, chews, chews.

Two more rungs.

Hays climbs right below him, pursued by two Horrors. Hanging to a rung, Hays kicks at the Horrors and stomps their fingers. Further below, the darkness swells deep and dark as an apple core. The seed. Need. Freed. Snoozy pops his last root into his mouth.

“Almost there?” Hays says, panting.

Before Snoozy can answer, a Horror grabs Hays’ ankle. The soldier kicks free, but his face hangs all weary. Snoozy looks up and chews, chews, chews.

One more rung.

But then a mangled Cobb plummets down the shaft. Snoozy raises an arm over his head before Cobb’s blood-splattered ass slams into him like a sack of coal.

“Ahh,” Snoozy yells.

He grabs the rope, except the rope keeps coming. He falls only a short distance before the rope jerks taut. He gasps with the impact, and the jumble of root flies out of his mouth.

He screams in horror.

His precious root.

Snoozy doesn’t even notice frail, mutilated Cobb dangling from his ankle until the ghoulish Page gnaws on the toe of his boot. That snaps him back to reality.

A reality he can’t face.

He’s dangling from a rope. Over a greedy darkness. An undead human’s gnawing on his boot. His roots are all gone. Gobbled by the darkness. By the core. By the dark hunger that threatens to consume him—to end his own hunger. His own desperation. He takes a resolute breath and closes his eyes.

And lets go.

He is ready to return to his roots.

But someone grabs his wrist. His eyes snap open. Hays swings him through the air against the wall. The impact shoves the breath from his body. Below, Cobb swings with him, colliding with the Horror attacking Hays. The two Horrors’ heads thud together, and they flail into the darkness with a trailing moan and an irritated hiss.

“Grab on,” Hays says. “We ain’t out of the sizzle yet.”

Two more demented soldiers scurry upward. Hays climbs quickly, much faster than Snoozy. Snoozy was holding Hays back, and the soldier never complained. This realization gives Snoozy a bit of hope. He climbs after Hays.

Hays reaches the rope and shouts upward, “I’m coming up.”

“I’m ready,” yells Battson.

The apple’s core calls to Snoozy from below: Don’t leave me. I have your roots. Be my soil. We can make such beautiful fruit.

The Horrors are closing in, just five rungs away. Snoozy spits at them, hoping to expel the root taste out of his mouth, to push the voices out of his head. Meanwhile, Hays and the rope rise upward. Snoozy looks alternately up and down, gauging the progress of the Horrors against the rope.

Four rungs away. Hays hoists himself over.

Three rungs away. The rope trails down the shaft, a dull grey snake biting at the dark.

Two rungs away. Snoozy grabs the rope and yells, “Pull.”

One rung away. The rope jerks upward. The frayed material digs into Snoozy’s blistered palms. The rope slowly ascends, but abruptly stops.

Now it lowers.

His stomach lurching, Snoozy sees that a ghastly soldier has grabbed the bottom end of the rope. The Horror hisses at him, a line of bloody drool dangling from its lower lip. Too much weight. Too much wait. Too many patients.

Snoozy looks down into the darkness, where the apple core whispers.

Don’t leave me.