“Mule stop clowning around and give me a hand,” hollered Jed.

His echo is the only thing to holler back. He found himself suddenly sitting alone in the seat of the stalled amusement attraction. The aptly named safety bar pressing down hard as a rock causing an unsafe situation in malfunction. The cheap carnival  lights flickered rapidly off and on somewhere above in the ceiling of the claustrophobic closet of a haunted ride. His cowboy hat  was removed, flogging away the fog as the last active machine sputtered to a stop.

“Braaaaains” drooled the pack of hungry incoming zombies.

This horde was composed of fresh, relatively non-scaled undead wearing the assorted combined fashion of a funeral home mixed with a construction site. They shambled towards the living struggling to escape. The smell of sickly sweet iron fishy where it seeped. 

The dead feasted on the other guests stuffed like hogs with fair grease that fell ripped In pieces from maroon stained teeth. A corpse in a leather jacket seemingly had the same thick grease in his slicked back bloodied hair. A blazed bone was exposed while nearby an elderly zombie's dentures fell to the floor and a wheelchair zombied zoomed into battle. 

The horde was moments from devouring Jed who was involuntarily puking his guts out. Mule remained nowhere to be seen. In place of the donkey a balloon animal was constantly changing shapes in the big bucket seat. It wiggled from helium huffing holler monkey to a ballooned up hound dog howling; while under the swinging fake full moon on strings Jed prepared to die. He was going to have to accept having his final resting place being pinned under the safety bar.

“Pop!”

The air swirled in a dusty cloud obscuring vision as the balloon let out its last breath deflated. 

“Honk, honk!”

A white gloved individual honked on a comically  extended red nose. The killer looking clown was washed in freshly applied makeup, but still looked and smelled like ass. 

“Hehehe I got thee,” cackled the beady eyed trickster god. 

“HeHehehe” interrupted another bout of evil cackling from an ancient voice. 

Isabella had become zombified and infiltrated the fairgrounds. Whatever little of the humanity to survive her cultivated long lifespan had rotten away. However naturally she had still been drawn to this spooky haunted house attraction in particular.

She paced in the security room behind several CRT screens dreaming of ways to make this into a thrilling and profitable dungeon. A thumbtack board in the background had bounties for anyone possessing royal blood. It seemed that the royal system was being purged for a different style of government, but neither the posters nor the paperwork on the desk provided any further clues. The first test as dungeon master would be defeating the outlaw who had previously owned her.

“I control the former lives in this small county, but soon the dead will kill off the entire planet and be the new breed of alive, before then I intend to make a haunted house where anyone to survive get a million dollars, but they never will hehe,” she continued celebrating barking like a hoarse sea lion.

Isabella’s wicked breath killed a fly that had dared buzz too close while her cackle shook soot off the loudspeakers. Her evil essence peeled back her puppets clothes and screeched static like nails on a chalkboard into the ears of our heroes. As she checked the security desk drawers for hard candies to help soothe her throat, a metal bar groaned but remained stuck unlike the horde. They would rip them apart in a matter of seconds.

 

“Hee Haw hee haw I’m back buddy is the scary stuff over,” blurted Mule shifted back into his truest donkey form complete with attached saddle. 

He turned himself around and placed rear hoofs on the obstacle pinning his friend.

“Jeez help quick, when did you turn into a scaredy cat bro.”

“Clang!”

The metal bar ripped off its gears with a lot of horsepower and sent flying through the sky. It swung round and round straight for the zombies just reaching Jed’s flesh. They were cleaved away for right now, but there were plenty more warm worm filled corpses rapidly incoming. 

Jed rushed to his feet and kicked up a cloud of dried mud in the fight for life. He punted away the immediate threat with a steel toe boot concaving a head built of inferior dried leathery materials splintering at the seams. 

Mule kicked two zombies with his charged back hooves. The energy was so great it turned them into rockets that pasted red on the wall painted like a crypt.

“We have to find Bessie before it’s too late,” said Jed, dodging hungry chompers. 

“That tough lass can handle herself for now let’s focus on getting out of here in one piece,” said Mule, kicking a zombie's head  spinning around in circles like a record.

A flailing dead collided with several other cadavers sending them into a coma pile.

“Escaping this ambush would be a lot easier with my revolvers,” said Jed.

“Ooowoogaaa!”

A foghorn behind them sounded. The shadows of another wave emerged from that direction boxing them in. A mummy pulled itself out of a prop sarcophagus to stalk the halls. 

“We gotta go forward, there's too many enemies to take down all at once,” said Mule, charging forward.

They stampeded forward after Jed had hitched a ride. He swung wildly hanging from a single arm around the saddle. The lights were out in this section of the haunted attraction. The metal ground rang out from the running hooves, as a never ending stream of hungry zombies cried out in the darkness. 

They ran into a cold breeze that blew in rattling things unseen. Suddenly light appeared flickering in the far distance. Mule barreled straight for it. The hooves got quiet as the drawing light revealed everything covered in thick spiderwebs. The light crystal lit a webbed monument to the hunt of spider bait.

“Gulp, I hate arachnids,” cried Jed.

“There’s far scarier creatures out there to be afraid of, like me,” said the winking Mule, who slowed to a crawl to concentrate on scowling at the crystal.

He stood directly next to the good sized glowing/humming/warming light crystal.

“AHHH that feels good,” said Mule, beginning to really scratch his back on it.

Jed turned around just in time to spot a dark shadow slowly dropping from the ceiling. The incoming giant spiders exoskeleton had  a gold and black skull on its underside revealed in the light. It stealthy  descended on them weaving a zipline of spider threads in its wake.

“Hee Haw run you fool!” The man commanded over steed.

Mule ran for cover as ordered, and kept going. Jed ducked as he flew towards a wall covered in white tapestry of many hundreds of layers of fly traps. His heart beat out of his chest seeing many wrapped things bigger than man. The wall of webs however was no match for the plowing ass.

The neighborhood zombies dressed in suits and slacks announced themselves by groaning as they followed the rails. Jed and Mule had entered a smaller haunted house overlooking the tracks. There were fake ghouls cut off from the energy stones standing unflinching above them in the windows. They two friends hid as the brainless groaning intensified outside.

 

“So you age like a tree,or not at all by magic?” whispered Jed.

“Like a rock lobster I shed my various shapes and shells fall off my featureless inner essence of crystals shining bright always until the day I supernova,” illuminated Mule.

“I see sounds scary, but I guess you have always been utilizing this to help us,” said Jed.

“Shhh you're gonna wake the dead,” whispered Mule.

They went quiet as something was banging outside the doors of a mansion cut in half so the guests could look into rooms full of mannequins. It was silent again lasting what must have been several minutes.

“I gotta say I still miss the X-ray vision you used to have,” finally whispered Jed.

“Me too buddy for over five thousand years I had it and one day my vision is going, my knees ache and I can barely hold myself together in one shape. huff don’t get old,” puffed  Mule, stopping to catch his breath.

“Shit look let’s save the talking and escape,” whispered Jed, who pointed to a shadow growing in size.

“Braaaains” it groaned.

“Guess it’s time to go loud,” they said in unison.

“Smash!”

Over a dozen enemies poured inside the set. A zombie was thrown out the top floor window breaking grips equipment. Jed kicked one over the edge before he slipped sideways and fell off by accident. He yelled “mistakes were made,” midair as one floor after another flew past in the atrium. A convenient hay bale absorbed the impact.

Nearby an old fashioned knight propped in the corner was illuminated by a fake flash  as bad sound effects accompanied. It looked kinda like lightning but was only a light stone set to cast illusions on the stage. Most of the spooky side effects were of stock variety mixing with the zombies' cries for hunger all too real. 

Jed released the armor which toppled into a heap of metal on the floor to equip the looted weapon. He heard the incoming shuffle of footsteps and was holding a flail. Now it was his turn to start swinging. The deadly ball of stone energy begins gaining speed.

“GRrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRR” said the pack of zombies shambling forward from crevices.

“Whoosh Whoosh,woose,” replied the real cool Eval weapon spinning at high RPM.

One of them climbed from a fish pond, another from a trash can, and a third from the bushes.

“Wham.wham..Blam!’”

“I can’t believe they would leave a weapon in a fair ride even if it’s mid,” He said, wielding the weapon. 

A victory dance was performed by shaking his hips and spinning the chained spiked balls like pom poms. He braked from the celebration momentarily to cave in another skull. In the loft above him bodies were packed into the small space. They started sailing over the sides as Mule kicked them to a second death against the concrete. 

He had fallen face first into an underground fight club. The indoor pond was surrounded with meditation pads of a dojo. The workout gear was ruined awash in a sea of sweat and blood.. Many of the zombies joining the action knew martial arts. The outside windows were dark as the eclipse reached totality blanketing everything in an eerie vibe.

“Shoot it looks like he's doing all the work getting rid of the enemies. I’ve got to find the staircase to get to the top floor again to escape outside,” thought Jed. 

There were plenty of bodies that had hit the floor all around him, but not all of them were down for the count. In particular all the ones to splash into the pools slowly rose to rejoin the action one after another some covered in imitation seaweed. He was surrounded by at least a dozen zombies. It was dark pretty dark indoors and the high shrubs and other assorted potted plants kept him nervous many more remained hidden in the shadows. 

“Guess Mule’s kicked enough down here for now, hurry up zombies and come at me I got big balls,” he yelled, raising the flail in an intimidating manner.

The zombies remained blind to fear as they barreled towards the living. The weapon striked once, popping a socket, then again breaking a leg. Jed turned just in time to cave in another dome from a different freak. A big boned zombie fell from above collapsing on several undead standing around. They boxed in closer and closer with every second. In the time it took the next one to fall to the flail the other two dozen were surrounding him.

“Wham,Crunch, BOING!”

“Take that you rotten maggot sacks.”

The ball of the flail lashed out at all three in close quarters. It disabled all of these enemies, but the chain became wound in between bones and crystal scales. Jed used his boots to hold back two more hungry mouths.  A cold hand grabbed him from behind. He turned around, his vision went in and out of focus. 

“Wham!”

The immediate threat was eliminated for good, but something else was wrong; he had lots of  bad symptoms like lens effects including a black vignette and a spell of heavy dizziness.  The ground pounded like a massive drum set to 11 beats per minute. Time seemed to be slowing to a crawl. 

The atrium shook again, while the four small ponds all rippled, and the fish remained dazed and confused. On the waters edge Jed was grabbed and rolled onto the mat by corpses that had crawled out after splashing down. He punched the first enemy back down the bank, but two more attacked from other directions and knew how to easily pin to win.. The martial artist zombies pulled him into the depths. The very last thing he saw before going underwater was an Ankylosaurus charging forward, and smashing aside many enemies with its tail flail.

 

The zombies hated the dinosaur's armored exterior. They didn’t see the swinging tail long enough to form an opinion. Mule charged forward trampling several, and impaling two on either side. As he reached the waters edge his energy levels faltered. There were more zombies filtering into the area to take the place of those previously re-deceased. Jed was drowning in yet another water hazard and he was a land lover. 

The Ankylosaurus disappeared into a cloud of smoke. A salmon plopped out of the dust before splashing into the pool. Jed thrashed off a sea of attackers trying to bite him under the surface. The dead chomped the bubbling waters while he ran out of air. Mule swam forward struggling to fight against the small current. His vision had even worse effects playing while his energy levels remained too low to switch shape to a predatory animal.

“Glub, glub, glub,” went the last of Jed’s air escaping.

The troubled waters had become increasingly bloody while they spun up kinda like a garbage disposal below the drain. There were lots of air bubbles popping while pieces of chewed up arms and legs started surfacing. Just below the surface Mule worked overtime in piranha form biting at the zombies flesh. One dead waitress cried out, surprised to have had the tables turned on the order of meat eaters. Meanwhile Jed climbed towards the surface in a low oxygen dream-like sequence.

“Splash”.

The man spit water as he doggy paddled back to the shore. He pulled himself up while the water fell off his back. There were at least 50 lifeless corpses littering the nearby vicinity, however none of them appeared to be walking. On the other hand neither did he who stumbled forward like a drunken sailor. Jed fell to the ground dropping with his blood pressure. The dirty waters parted behind him as a donkey shape emerged out of thick goo.

“C’mon bud hitch a ride, let's go,” said Mule.

Jed weakly nodded in acknowledgement.

“Hey man you gotta live, I'm more tired than a tick gorged from the host to it’s breaking point, but too stubborn to quit,” mused the Mule.

“Let’s hope I don’t turn out to be a host and cut the chit chat and split before more zombies show up directed by the witch that broadcasted her warning,” said Jed, climbing onto the saddle.

“I’m pretty sure that was a recording. All  part of the attraction, don't worry buddy,” laughed Mule.

“I just saw you scared you faker,” stammered Jed.  

The path forward  marked with emergency lights. A door hacked apart through a makeup room. They ran through an office floor. Each cubicle looked identical except for a few cheap plastic toys. A whiteboard displayed a budget, while a poster marked this year's fair in cartoon violence. Another print advertised a hidden mascot to find. 

“Shudder, this is the scariest part of the attraction,” yelled Mule.

The charging beast skidded around a corner. His hooves loudly smashed past the bathrooms, a boardroom, and the executive offices. Mule smashed aside a metal door to emergency lights headed up a metal staircase.

Jed’s head was getting dizzy rushing up step after step. He would have never climbed floor after floor. There didn’t seem to be an end in sight with him stuck looking down. He counted numbers in his head to remain from going away, and never coming back. Mule conquered step after step like a champion mountain goat. Despite being near as low on energy as Jed he didn’t show it.

 

The bell rang as an emergency exit was pushed open. The light outside had begun to return  on the edges of the sun as the blocking moons went upwards. The temperature remained cold. There were many wires run into holes in wood fencing, a loud generator loudly blasted right next door, and a combination of trailers, and RV’s littered the area. The trash blew in the breeze and a club song started blasting bass from speakers all over the fair as people stopped watching the natural phenomenon to return to man made entertainment. 

Everything seemed normal except Jed who had passed out.  Mule darted through back alleys, and employee areas. A man and two women smoked around a fire pit. He hid behind their clothesline and used the back gate to re-enter the fairgrounds.

“Hey daddy look a show pony,” said the snot nosed brat grabbing hold of the tail.

“Honey, that animal is as dirty as they come.”

Mule went to kick by instinct as his tail was yanked, but happened to see a stroller being pushed by the living and paused his muscles just in time. It appeared the other parts of the holiday fair were still going on as normal. 

“WATCH IT,” yelled Mule, sending the kid hiding underneath her mothers skirt. 

They trotted through the crowds pushing aside a path until he saw the familiar sign of the farm stand.

“Hey Mule how was the view.. wait a second what the heck happened to Jed looks haggard as shit pardon me,” blurted Bessie running forward with a concerned expression. “This might be the worst I’ve ever seen him, what the farc just happened? Tell me”.

“It’s a long story, I've seen him in plenty worse shapes, and we should get going if we don’t want to be eaten by zombies,” said Mule, scowling.

“There’s a chiropractor shop set up not far from here that could provide temporary medical support,” said Bessie, looking into Jed’s face with utmost concern.

She started feeling his forehead.

“Ca-ugh,cough, hack,” he sputtered to life, spitting all over her festive blouse.

“Hahahaha,” laughed Mule. “Seriously though guys save the flirting for later, and clean the register out.”

“Ok yeah let’s get out of here as fast as possible,” agreed Bessie.