The Swiss Family RobinZOM Read Online Free Page B

Did becoming a Lurcher
make you that ugly?” Jack said. “Or were you born that
way?”
    Nip hopped down from
Jack ’s shoulders and hissed at the
Lurchers. The Lurchers stumbled toward them. Jack backed away. The
Lurchers ambled after him.
    “ Come on, Nip,” Jack
said.
    Nip climbed up
Jack ’s leg and perched on his shoulder. A
few Lurchers at the back lost interest and began shuffling toward
the jungle again. Jack rushed around the group, his back to the
jungle.
    “ Hey! Hey!” he said.
“Follow the delicious human! Come on!”
    They turned to follow
Jack , and step by step he led them back
down the beach.
    “ We’ve got company!” Jack
said as he brought the Lurchers over to his father and
brothers.
    “ Fritz, Ernest, you take
care of them,” Bill said. “I’ll hold back this lot.”
    Fritz and Ernest
tu rned and struck at the Lurchers. Jack
leapt forward and aimed a blow at their heads as often as he dared.
The last Lurcher from Jack’s group fell, and Fritz and Ernest
turned to their father, who was being set upon by Lurchers on every
side. His movements were slow and weak. Fritz and Ernest rushed to
his aid.
    KA-BOOM!
    The explosion tore the
front of the ship clean off, like a champagne cork bursting from a bottle. The pointed end hung
limp to one side by a thin strip of rusted metal. It dangled there
a moment, and then snapped off, falling to the sea below, crushing
the Lurchers struggling in the shallow sea.
    “ Better late than never,”
Ernest said.
    “ All we have to do now is
kill the Lurchers on the beach,” Bill said.
    “ Easier said than done,”
Fritz said. “There’s an awful lot left.”
    “ And more Lurchers are
heading for the jungle!” Jack said. “I’ll go round them
up!”
    “ Yes,” Bill said. “And be
careful. If we can all push through today, we can sit back and
relax for the rest of our lives.”
    Bill
turned . Jack hadn’t moved. He stood
staring at the jungle. When Bill looked up to see what Jack was
watching, the blood froze in his veins.
    “ We have to cross the
bridge,” Bill said, voice distant and cold.
    “ What?” Fritz said. “Why?
We can do this.”
    “ No,” Bill said. “We
can’t.”
    “ Why not?”
    “ Because they’re already
in the jungle.”
    Fritz and
E rnest turned to see an army of Lurchers
emerging from the dense jungle foliage.

Six

    “ Where did they come
from?” Fritz said.
    He was holding
Jack ’s hand and pulling him along as they
ran. Despite their difference in size, Jack wasn’t much slower than
Fritz. Ernest, on the other hand, struggled to keep up.
    “ The cruise liner,”
Ernest said. “They must have come out before we got here, stumbled
into the jungle and been wandering around in there ever since.
Until the explosions drew them.”
    “ Great,” Fritz said. “So
we came here for nothing.”
    “ No, not for nothing,”
Bill said. “At least now we know what we’re up against.”
    “ I think I’d prefer not
to know,” Fritz grumbled.
    Fritz, Ernest and
Jack ran across Family Bridge. Bill got
halfway across and stopped. He took out the final grey tube from
his bag, lit it, and placed it in the hollow of a bamboo cane. The
white smoke issued out through the gap in the top like a chimney.
The Lurchers groaned and staggered onto the bridge, four men thick
and two dozen deep.
    “ Dad!” Jack said. “Come
on!”
    Bill turned and ran.
    “ I wish we hadn’t made
the bridge quite so strong now,” Ernest said. “We should have used
paper.”
    The Lurchers staggered
across the bridge. One Lurcher, intrigued by the smoke and hissing
noise, reached into the gap in the bamboo and extracted the grey tube. He inspected it, and sniffed at it
with his ruined nose. His head jolted back with disgust, lips
curling at the smell. He brought his arm back to toss it. Jack saw
him and ran toward the bridge, waving his arms.
    “ No!” Jack shouted.
“Don’t throw it!”
    The Lurcher with
the grey tube turned to look