“It was when we moved here from the other camp. We were attacked on the road. A lot of people didn’t make it.”
I couldn’t believe it. “When?”
“Two weeks ago.” He looked at me with tears spilling down his cheeks. “I miss her, Alex.” We hugged again, only this time it was because he needed physical support and I was giving it to him.
The door opened and Joe walked in. When he saw me, his face lit up. “Alex!” He came over and put his arms around me and Dad.
“We didn’t know you were alive,” he said. “You look great.”
I smiled. Unfortunately, I couldn’t return the compliment. Both Joe and my dad looked pale and drawn. There was something about their slumped postures and dull eyes that made me feel like they had both given up on life. If I had to describe them in one word, that word would be “defeated”.
But that would change. A few days at sea would lift their spirits. A new life away from this place would bring back the father and brother I knew.
“I’ve got a boat,” I said. “You can come with me and leave this place behind. I’ve got friends. You’ll really like them. And we…”
“No,” my dad said. “We can’t leave here, Alex.”
“Yes, you can. It’s okay. I’ve got a badge that gives me some authority. I can…”
“No, Alex,” Joe said. “Dad didn’t mean it that way. He meant that we can’t leave here because this is the only place we’re safe.”
“What?” I felt confused. Didn’t they realize that I had survived all this time without being in a camp?
“It’s dangerous out there,” Joe said. “We’ve been on the road. People got killed. We’re not doing it again. They look after us here.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Joe had always been the brave one, the brother I looked up to. I’d always wanted to be like him. Now he was acting as if he were afraid of his own shadow.
“I’m not saying it isn’t dangerous,” I said. “Of course it’s dangerous. But we live on a boat. We’re not confined in a camp. We’re free. Surely you can see that life is better than living like caged animals.”
Dad shook his head. “We’ve seen what’s out there. Those monsters. We don’t want to see anything like that again.”
They reminded me of the people hiding at the motorway services. But these two men weren’t strangers, they were my family. I never expected them to be like this.
“You reached out to me on the radio,” I said. “You wanted to be with me.”
“Of course we did,” Joe said. “We wanted you to come to the camp. We wanted to know that you were safe.”
“I am safe, and I don’t need a camp,” I said, suddenly angry. Why the hell did they want to live under the army’s rule instead of being free? It didn’t make any sense to me. I could never give up my liberty like that.
“It’s not so bad,” Dad said. “We get food and water and we’re protected. Come and live with us, Alex. The army will keep us all safe until this mess blows over. Then we can go home.”
Was this the garbage they were being told by the authorities? “This situation isn’t going to just blow over. Nothing will ever be the same again. There are things we can do to try and make things better but sitting in a camp and putting our heads in the sand isn’t one of them. We need to fight. If we’re ever going to beat the undead, we need to destroy them.”
“No,” Joe said, shaking his head. “There are people paid to do that. Trained soldiers. It isn’t up to us.”
“What happened to you, Joe? You used to be strong. I was the one who always needed protecting and you were there to do it. But now, it’s like you’ve given up.”
“There are some things we can’t fight,” he said.
“Come with me to the boat,” I said. “Both of you. You’ll see that we don’t have to give up and let the undead take over.”
I reached out for Joe and he shrank back as if he were afraid of me. That was when I realized I was wasting my time here. Dad and Joe had lost whatever spirit they had once possessed. Whether it was the death of my mother or simply the gravity of the undead situation, something had broken them.
“I have to go,” I said.
“No, Alex, stay,” Dad said. “I’ll worry about you if you go out there.”
I looked at them both and said, “Worry about yourself.”
I turned to leave. I knew they were safe for the moment but there was nothing I could do to help them further.
Except one thing. I took the two syringes from my pocket and handed them to my father. “These contain a vaccine that protects you from being turned if you’re bitten. I brought them for you.”
He looked down at the syringes in his hand and then handed them back to me. “We don’t need these. We’re safe here.”
I didn’t argue. They were in total denial of what was going on around them if they thought they were 100% safe.
I put the syringes back into my pocket. “Goodbye.” I walked out into the rain and over to the car. When I slid into the passenger seat, my face was wet with rain and tears.
“Hey, man, where are your folks?” Sam asked.
“They’re staying here,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. He started the car and drove toward the gate. As we drove through it and onto the road beyond, I looked back at the camp with its wire fence and guard towers. After what I had seen Jax and Vess do at Prometheus, Camp Achilles looked vulnerable.
Sam didn’t say anything during the drive back to Swansea. He might be loud and brash sometimes but when it mattered, like now, he knew when to keep quiet.
I just sat, looking at the road ahead and thinking about the people I knew who had died in this apocalypse: Mike, Elena, Johnny, Jax. And now I could add Joe and my father to that list.
They might still be breathing, but they were already dead inside.
* * *
We spent the rest of the day taking the boats out into deeper water. I told the others about my father and brother and the fate of my mother. Everyone was sympathetic but I didn’t want their sympathy, only their friendship. We put Survivor Radio on and fished off the aft deck and played cards in the living area.
When night fell, the rain stopped. I stepped out onto the foredeck and stared up at the bright stars and silver moon. My thoughts were unfocused. I felt adrift like the boat.
Lucy came out and snuggled close to me in the evening chill. “Are you okay, Alex?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It was a shock seeing how much my dad and Joe had changed, and learning about the death of my mother. In a way, I wish I hadn’t found them. At least that way, I’d remember them how they were. I’d have some hope that my mother was still alive.”
We stood together in silence for a while, enjoying the physical closeness we shared.
It was Lucy who broke the silence. “What are we going to do now?” she asked.
“We’ll do what we’ve always done,” I said. “At one time, my dream was to put all this behind us and just keep sailing. But today, I told my dad and brother that we have to keep fighting the undead. And I was right. I can’t turn my back and sail away while there’s still fighting to be done.”
“So we fight,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, holding her close and watching the dark coastline. “We fight.”
34
Two Days Later
Brigadier Gordon hated flying. As the Chinook dropped out of the sky to the parking lot below, he felt his stomach lurch. Still, even though his insides were churning, he ensured that his outward appearance remained calm. No need to let his men see his weakness.
The Chinook, which had flown from an Air Force base specifically to fly Gordon on this mission when he told them of its importance, touched the ground and he let out a mental sigh of relief. He exited the chopper first, as befitted his rank, but did not rush. Once his feet were on the asphalt parking lot, he felt much better.
This was definitely the correct location. The bus was parke
d exactly where the drone operator had said it was.
The dozen guards he had brought with him assumed firing positions around the Chinook, near the bus, and on the road.
Gordon put his hands on his hips and surveyed the area. The run-down cafe looked like a possible hiding place for nasties but he hoped they wouldn’t be here long enough to have to worry about that.
If Price had done his job properly and stopped the damned bus on the motorway like he was supposed to, Gordon wouldn’t have had to contact the drone operators and tell them to watch the coast for the vehicle, those four miscreants wouldn’t have buried the Type 1’s body beneath the elm tree in the field across the road, and Gordon wouldn’t be here now.
He could have stayed at the camp, of course, and simply sent the men to recover the body, but after Price had let him down, he felt the need to supervise this operation himself.
Two lance corporals he had tasked to dig up the body joined him as he crossed the road. Each man held a shovel.
Gordon halted at the edge of the road and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “Under that tree,” he told them.
They hurried over the wall and to the tree in double time.
Gordon turned and looked out to sea. It was a clear day and the sea was calm, almost like blue glass.
Forty minutes later, he saw the lance corporals pull something out of the ground. He waited patiently while they carried it across the field and heaved it over the wall. They laid it at Gordon’s feet.
When he saw the body, he frowned.
It was the body of a man.
“Who is this?” he asked the two men. “Is he one of ours?”
“I don’t think so, Sir,” one of them replied.
What the bloody hell were those four survivors playing at? Had they guessed that he would access the drones, and switched the body of the woman they called Jax for this unknown man? The victory he had felt at outsmarting those hooligans faded when he realized he might have been outsmarted himself.
No, there was no way they would go to the trouble of burying a body that was unimportant. There was something more going on here than met the eye.
“Right,” he told the lance corporals. “Get this in the chopper. I want the scientists to have a look at it.”
“Yes, Sir,” they said in unison. They picked up the body and hurried to the Chinook.
Gordon followed them at a leisurely pace, not wanting to get on board the damned chopper just yet.
Ten minutes later, he could hesitate no longer. He ordered the guards onto the Chinook and strapped himself into his seat. He looked over at the body, which was now wrapped in a blanket and lying at the rear of the aircraft.
He was going to order a full investigation of that corpse in the lab.
If it held any secrets, it would soon give them up to the scientists.
Epilogue
Two Weeks Later
New York Harbor, New York
Officer Gary Ramirez stepped out of his patrol car and into the cold night air. He’d been about to finish his shift and go home when he’d received the call telling him to get his ass to the docks. Someone had called in a disturbance and he was the closest unit.
He didn’t really mind that he was going home late. It wasn’t as if there was anyone there waiting for him.
It had been almost two months since Lydia had gone and ever since the day she’d walked out, most of his evenings were lost to binge-watching cop shows on TV, during which he would laugh at the inconsistencies between real cop work and TV cop work, and binge-drinking Coors, during which he would eventually pass out.
Everything looked quiet at the docks. Ramirez made his way between the shipping crates, wondering where the stevedores were. Every other time he had come down here, the place had been bustling with activity. Now, it was dead.
He could see ships and hear activity in other areas of the harbor but the area he was standing in, the area where someone had called in a disturbance, was as quiet as the grave.
Disturbance my ass, he thought. Probably a crank call.
But the hairs on the back of his neck were rising, as if there was something here that he was sensing but not seeing.
He suddenly wanted to return to his car. A night of TV cop shows and Coors held more appeal right now than it had a couple of minutes ago.
“Don’t get spooked,” he told himself.
He drew his gun, a Glock 19, from its holster and decided to proceed along the dock despite the fear that was gnawing at his gut.
He saw a boat that looked like it had crashed into the dock up ahead. The craft was listing to one side and its hull was torn open. Was this the disturbance someone had called in? A crashed boat?
Ramirez walked up to the vessel and admired it. This was the type of boat that belonged to rich families who spent their weekends cruising on the Atlantic. He checked the name painted on the hull in swirling black and gold letters. The Broken Promise.
He looked around. The dock was deserted so who the hell had called 911 about a disturbance?
“Hello?’ he called out. “Is anyone on board?”
No answer. He shook his head. This was crazy. Where was the Port Authority? Wasn’t this their problem?
Should he go on board and check it out?
He stood, looking at the boat, undecided about what to do. Maybe he should call for backup. But if this turned out to be nothing but a damaged boat, the guys at the station would never let him live it down.
He was about to step onto The Broken Promise when he heard a noise behind him. He whirled around, Glock coming up to firing position. He saw a figure running between the shipping crates. Ramirez had to blink twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things because he was sure it had been a naked woman.
“Really?’ he asked himself. “Did I really just see a naked woman running along the dock?” Hell, why not? He had seen crazier things during his thirteen years on the force.
She looked like she was covered in tattoos. Some sort of dark vine design, maybe.
Where had she come from?
Leaving the boat, he walked back along the dock to where the woman had appeared. A warehouse door was open. Ramirez took his flashlight and shone it into the darkness beyond the doorway.
He saw many faces staring back at him.
And all of them had hateful yellow eyes.
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Wildfire- Destruction of the Dead Page 16