The Swiss Family RobinZOM (Book 4) by Perrin Briar

wheeze. A yellow liquid oozed from her lips, orange chunks dribbling from her mouth.
    Jack turned Liz on her side, into the recovery position. She threw up, the chunks splattering on the floor where Jack had placed a towel. Jack wiped his mother’s mouth clean and bent down to clean up the vomit.
    Nips screamed in the other treehouse. Jack dropped the soiled cloth and ran to the door. He paused a moment, and quickly turned Bill onto his side too. He ran to the zip wire that connected the two treehouses, hanging upside down and dragging himself along arm over arm.
    Jack met Nips, who pointed wildly at Francis. As Jack approached his youngest brother, Nips climbed along the wire to Falcon’s Nest. Vomit lay on Francis’s pillow. He coughed, choking.
    Jack turned Francis on his side, but nothing more came up. His body convulsed, lips turning blue. Jack put his fingers down Francis’s throat and scooped the vomit out of his mouth. Francis sucked in a deep life-giving breath. Jack turned Fritz and Ernest on their sides, into the recovery position.
    Jack wiped his tired eyes and let out a yawn. He was exhausted.
    Nips started screaming again. Jack held onto the zip wire and began to pull himself across it toward Falcon’s Nest, his arms heavy as concrete. Nips leapt, using Jack’s body as a springboard, to return to Robin’s Nest.
    Then the unthinkable happened.
    Jack lost his grip.
    It was an unfamiliar feeling, lacking the strength and conviction and confidence in knowing his next action would occur with the exact result he’d expected. His hands released, and his legs unwound. He found himself falling…
    Falling…
    Falling…
    Jack curled himself up into a ball, and smashed into a table on his left side. He felt something snap. The table broke underneath him and spilled him across the ground. He rolled to a stop.
    A small blurry object poked its head out of Robin’s Nest. Jack’s eyes began to close, but something jumped on him, pulling his hair and biting him on the nose.
    Jack rolled onto his side and then pushed himself up. Nips sat on his chest. Jack checked his body. He was still in one piece. Nothing was broken. He got to his feet and stumbled. He brushed a hand over his forehead and found it wet with sweat, but not drenched. He still had some time left.
    The table he’d landed on was the one his mother had used to place her birthday presents on. The feather bracelet had been snapped in half, the beads like lonely planets in the mud. The vase had been smashed, the flowers he’d picked lay broken and strewn about the clearing like forgotten love.
    Jack shook his head and felt the tears welling up inside him, seeping from his eyes, unbidden. He’d done everything he could, but it wouldn’t be enough. He sat on a tree stump stool and buried his face in his hands, gripped his hair, and prepared to scream at the unfairness of it all.
    Then he froze.
    On his sleeve were a dozen multi-coloured petals from his eviscerated birthday bouquet. And Ernest’s reported words of Bill’s final words came back to him.
    “Green stripe?” Jack said. “Greenie Stripie?”
    His eyes came alive with hope. He got to his feet, staggering a few steps, and called to Nips.
    “Come!” he said.
    Jack climbed the ladder into Falcon’s Nest, Nips perched on his shoulder like a man in a crow’s nest. He approached a cabinet that ran the length of one wall. He opened it.
    Arranged along the shelves were row upon row of small pots, some made of glass, others of china, others of coconut shell. Jack pulled a chair over, climbed onto it and took down a pot from the top shelf. It had ‘Greenie Stripie’ written across it. Jack took down the jar and sat it on the kitchen table. He lifted the lid.
    It was empty.
    “Crap!” Jack said.
    He covered his mouth, peering around. But there was no one there to chastise him.
    “We’ll have to go get more,” Jack said.
    He checked his family once more and then climbed down the ladder and ran