Shore Haven (Short Story): Leaving Liberty

by Reynolds, Jennifer

“Three, including myself.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Up by the bridge.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to see it. To see if there was a way off the island.”

  “You wanted to. The others didn’t?”

  “One of us did, but her older sibling didn’t, and the youngest usually does what the oldest says.”

  “They’re family, but not your family?”

  “Right.”

  “Why doesn’t the eldest want off the island?”

  “She’s scared, overweight, a follower. She’d rather wait for someone to rescue her than do something to help herself.”

  “Is that why you’re exploring alone.”

  “Yes. I needed to get away. I knew when Samantha saw the fires in Edge Borrow that I’d never convince her to help me find a way off the island. I had to get away from them before I said something I would regret.”

  “Were you leaving them for good?” the Asian woman asked. I would find out later that her name was Sayo.

  “The thought had crossed my mind, but I don’t think I can until I figure out a way off the island. You guys wouldn’t happen to know a way, would you?”

  I asked in jest, but the way the room went silent, I knew I’d voiced the right question. Of course, I had. A group that large, living so close to the edge of the island, would have to have a plan.

  “You do, don’t you? Tell me,” I demanded.

  The feel of the barrel against my back was the only thing keeping me from spinning around or jumping up and down like a toddler in my excitement.

  “Take me with you. How can I help?” I asked.

  “We might have an idea how to get off the island,” Don said in a flat tone. “Why would we let you go with us if we did and not offer the same chance to your friends?”

  “Because I’m a survivor. Samantha isn’t, and she’ll take her sister down with her and all of you most likely. I’m a fighter. I’ve been killing these things since day one.”

  “I don’t trust her. She’s too willing to abandon her people,” a woman from my right that I hadn’t seen yet said.

  “I don’t want to leave them,” I said and meant it. “I truly don’t, but those two aren’t the kind of people you want with you out there.” I nodded toward the world off the island. “Samantha isn’t anyway. All she wants to do is hide and let others care for her. She’ll only slow you down if you have to walk far to find a quarantine zone. She’ll be another mouth to feed until one of those things gets her, which will happen sooner rather than later. Her sister, Maddie, isn’t that bad, but she isn’t going to leave Samantha. Maddie is capable of thinking and doing for herself, and she does on occasion, but mostly she does whatever Samantha does, and what Samantha does is hide.”

  “Why should we believe you?” the woman I would come to know as Diana asked a she turned my head so that I was looking straight ahead and at her.

  “You don’t have to take my word for it. Join us or follow us for a while. You’ll see what I mean. In a pre-turned world, Samantha was probably great, but in this one, she’s going to get someone killed. If we get off the island, find a secure place to stay, and can get her to it safely, I’m all about coming back for her and Maddie, but until then, I say let them wait out the apocalypse in the hotel.”

  “Hotel?” Lucas, the mixed-race boy, asked, sounding a bit excited.

  “I worked at the Liberty Inn on Iowa Drive. Samantha and Maddie were guests. They arrived a few days before everyone started turning. They’re from Ashlyn, I think.”

  “I see,” Diana said. The woman watched me for a long time, contemplating what I said. She nodded to the man behind me, who lowered his gun and left the warehouse.

  “Are the three of you the only survivors on the island?” Lucas asked while Diana continued to look at me.

  Sayo along with a few others approached. None of them said anything.

  “Since you all are here, obviously not, but until now I thought so,” I said, looking around at the group.

  “Do you know anything about Shore Haven?” Sayo asked.

  “I don’t. We haven’t inspected it. I’ve been too scared to go there. In the beginning, I heard that witnesses saw people in black hazmat suits carrying bodies out of the compound. Those same people said that they thought Shore Haven had created the virus, or whatever it was that caused people to turn. I haven’t been brave enough to venture to it. What do you guys know about it?”

  “The same as you,” Lucas said. “If we can’t get the bridge down, though, we’re going to try to break in to see if we can make it a home. I’ve heard it has a power source, gardens, theater…” Before the boy could say more, Diana put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look that told him to shut the hell up.

  “You guys think you can lower the bridge?” I asked unable to hide my excitement and letting that possibility distract me from thinking about Shore Haven. I didn’t know if I wanted to follow the group to the compound or not. If it was safe, I could send Samantha and Maddie there, but I would wait to see what Diana’s group did first.

  “Probably,” the woman said, motioning for me to follow her to another section of the warehouse that they turned into a living area.

  “Have you been in contact with others off the island?” I asked, plopping down on a large sofa.

  “We have. A man named Dominic and a large group of survivors is set up in Edge Borrow right on the other side of the bridge. He and Chuck, a man who isn’t here at the moment, are working together to get the bridge down. Don’t ask me how because I don’t know, but it’ll be a few weeks. Dominic said his side of the bridge needs a good bit of repairs first, but they both think they can do it,” Lucas informed me. “Dominic claims they’re building a nice little community over there.”

  Sayo and a few other people had moved to the other side of the room to speak in private.

  “What are all the fires over there?” I asked the boy though I watched the group converse.

  “Mostly body dumps. Dominic said that even though Edge Borrow was a small town compared to Liberty, they had a lot of bodies. You know a small percentage does not turn. They simply die, right? Well, they have those bodies, the bodies of the people eaten by the turned, and the zombies they kill. I guess due to all of the action going on in the town, they’re attracting zombies from all over. Diana and Chuck have discussed doing the same here with the bodies littering the island, but since we plan on leaving they’ve decided doing so will be a waste of time and energy.”

  I could tell that wasn’t all. It couldn’t be. The fires were too many and too large. Instead of pressing though, I said, “We’ve been doing it over by the hotel. Mostly we’re just piling them in dumpsters to get them off the roads and the like. I don’t know if we’d have enough bodies to make fires that large.”

  Seeing my look of slight disbelief, the boy said, “They’ve also had a few minor skirmishes with other survivors who’ve wanted to take over their territory. Dominic was quick in getting his people together and into a working community. He was lucky. Most places are like the island where the zombies took over before anyone knew what was happening, so no one had time to fortify their homes or town. Dominic barely did with the sickness spreading from here so quickly.”

  “You’d think it would be the opposite considering how quickly it swept the island,” I said, trying not to sound as worried about the group on the other side as I did.

  Dominic had me on edge, but the group in front of me didn’t seem to feel the same way, so I kept further questions to myself. If he turned out to be a bad guy once we were off the island, then I could leave.

  Lucas and I talked while the rest of his group conversed. All of us were waiting for Diana to come back with Chuck. She’d gone after the man once I’d settled into my conversation with Lucas to assist in investigating Samantha and Maddie. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long for their return.

  “The new woman…” Chuck looked at me
for my name.

  “Sadie,” I said.

  “Sadie’s correct.” Chuck continued. “I only found two more people. Both women. Obviously sisters. The older one is timid. I’m not saying she won’t be useful in a community like Dominic’s. For our purposes, though, she’ll only be in the way. I say we keep those two in the dark about what we’re doing and come back for them once we know what’s on the other side.”

  “The hotel is stocked and fortified,” I said. “If I leave, they won’t venture out of the building until they run out of food. I’ll stay with them until you know for sure the bridge is coming down. If I disappear now, Samantha might panic and get them killed. I’ll help them stock up on supplies and teach them some survival tricks. I’ll do my best to meet with you every day just so that you know I’m alive.”

  “That sounds like a plan. If you don’t go back now, the two women might come looking for you. If they find us, we’ll feel obligated to take them with us.”

  I agreed.

  No one said much of anything after that or asked me any more questions. Diana told me to be safe and that if I changed my mind and thought Samantha and Maddie could survive leaving the island to let them know. Dominic wasn’t picky. He’d take them all in if they wanted to stay with his people, but he didn’t want the numbers coming his way to surprise him, which I understood.

  I told her I would, but that I didn’t see it happening.

  I thought I looked calm when I left the warehouse and rejoined Samantha and Maddie at the entrance to the bridge, but apparently, I didn’t.

  4

  “What?” Samantha asked as I approached.

  The woman looked like she wanted to hug me. What kind of expression did I have on my face to warrant such a reaction from her? I honestly didn’t know how I would feel if she did. I’d probably tell her all about the people in the warehouse and the bridge if she hugged me. I couldn’t take that chance.

  I sidestepped her and shook my head in a gesture that said I didn’t want to talk about it, hoping that she would take that as a sign that maybe I’d stumbled upon the body of someone I knew or something equally as disturbing. Without saying a word, I started toward the hotel, hoping the two would follow me and not decide that they needed to examine the warehouse for themselves.

  They started walking in my direction. Samantha wouldn’t do any unnecessary exploring. I was counting on that. I caught her glancing back at the bridge and the row of buildings that I’d come from a few times, but I could tell that fear would override any need she felt to find out what I’d seen.

  Our trek back to the hotel was uneventful. I know they found my silence and disinterest of my surroundings unusual. I didn’t even notice when we passed a small clinic that looked relatively unscathed. Maddie told me about it later that night. I kicked myself for being so distracted. That clinic would have had plenty of things the two of them might need in the coming months. I promised Maddie that we’d go back to it during one of our next outings.

  Once we were back in the hotel and had washed the day off our bodies the best we could, Samantha tried to ask me again what had happened to me, but I wouldn’t answer. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even open my mouth to lie. I feared I’d tell them the truth.

  Samantha drove me crazy a great deal of the time, but she was a good woman, and Maddie…Maddie I was growing to love like a sister. She was strong, resilient, and understanding of our reality. She knew no one was coming for us. She realized that we were alone in the world and if we were going to live to see the end of the new apocalypse, we were going to have to do many things we never thought ourselves capable of doing. Samantha understood that as well, I guess, but she was in denial and too much of a coward to survive. She wouldn’t be able to withstand the horrors to come.

  Still, I felt guilty that I planned to go without them. I felt ill at the thought of leaving Maddie on the island to die. For better or worse, we were the last remaining humans on the continent, we really should stick together, but I couldn’t risk Samantha preventing me from getting off the island. If I told her what the warehouse group had planned, she’d think of some reason why it wasn’t a good idea, and they’d probably be reasonable ones. I could think of a few myself if I were honest.

  I didn’t know the group. They could be lying. Why lie? I don’t know. Possibly to enslave me, take my supplies, or worse. The island was theirs just as much as it was ours so they were welcome to whatever they could find, but perhaps they weren’t willing to risk their lives in search of what they needed.

  Dominic was another unknown. The fires worried me. I believed Lucas when he said they were death pyres, but they were so large. Larger than I would expect, not that I’d ever tried to picture burning piles of bodies. Liberty Island had a decent population, but the towns surrounding it were small. The next largest city was Larkin, and it was at least a day or more’s walk from the island. Edge Borrow and Concord, the town next to it, were more like small suburbs of Liberty. Once you left them, you mostly came across small farming communities. Where was he getting enough bodies for all of those pyres to be as big as they were and to burn as long as they did?

  To stop myself from talking, I shook my head again at Samantha and went to my room. I hoped my behavior expressed grief and nothing more. They would take it as sorrow over finding someone I knew and not over leaving them, but that was all right as long as they saw it as something other than relief.

  I didn’t leave my room until Maddie knocked on my door to tell me supper was ready.

  Conversations were random and short-lived while we ate. Maddie and Samantha watched my every move. I tried my best not to appear distracted, skittish, or relieved. Keeping my secret was turning out to be harder than I thought, especially listening to Maddie’s excited chatter over how they could turn the hotel into a proper home and even plant a garden on the roof for when the canned food ran out, or they wanted something fresh to eat.

  Hearing her plans only slightly relieved me of my guilt. If Samantha listened to her baby sister, the two of them would be all right until I could figure out a safer place for them to go. I offered up bits of advice and tried to make sure I worded things in such a way as to include myself in the planning.

  Maddie didn’t notice the few slip-ups I made or my slight change in demeanor, but I was sure Samantha did. She watched me closely all through the meal and clean up, and the more she watched, the angrier she got. I knew that I’d have to think of something to tell her, and soon.

  Finally, that night, just before we went to bed, Samantha had had enough. She pulled me to a stop outside my bedroom door.

  “Okay, what the hell happened in those warehouses?” she demanded.

  Knowing her question was coming didn’t stop her actions from shocking the hell out of me. A part of me hadn’t believed she had it in her to be so straightforward and commanding. If she would grow that temperament, she might survive.

  I quickly masked my surprise with annoyance, pulled my arm from her grip, and snapped, “Nothing.”

  “Something happened. You’ve been an entirely different person since you came back from exploring them,” she all but yelled, getting Maddie’s attention.

  “I haven’t.”

  “You have,” Maddie said, joining the conversation.

  Maddie wasn’t angry like her sister. She was mostly curious, which made me miss her already.

  “I have?” I asked, trying to sound as if I hadn’t known I’d been behaving any different than I had since I welcomed them to the hotel the weekend of the outbreak.

  “Yeah,” Maddie said, gently, knowing that if her sister continued to lead the conversation, Samantha and I would end up in a fight.

  God, I was going to miss her.

  Without realizing how emotional I was going to be about the situation, I burst into tears. Maddie and Samantha must have assumed the tears were from sorrow because they hugged me tight and didn’t press me anymore.

  When they let me go, neither asked any more ques
tions and went to bed without saying another word. I spent the entire night going over the situation in my head, rationalizing why taking Samantha and Maddie with us was a bad idea, and imagining what life off the island was like.

  I understood that in many ways the outside world was probably worse. Liberty had a surplus of homes, businesses, grocery stores with food and other supplies to last us months. The bridges being up also meant that the island had a finite number of zombies that we could, over time, eliminate. Their numbers were already dropping. On top of that, the group in the warehouse meant that there were more survivors. With the zombie population gone, the others might come out of hiding, and we’d find out that we had enough people to start over again as we did the last time.

  Thinking that almost had me deciding to stay, but then I thought about my family, all of who were not on the island. Logically, I knew they were probably dead, but I needed to know. I needed to understand how zombies were even possible and what our government was doing about them, and I needed to know that we weren’t stuck on the island. Being able to raise and lower the bridge would be a perfect solution to all of my problems.

  Once we found answers, we could come back to Liberty and set up a home. We would lower the bridge only when necessary so that we could control who got on the island and who left. We’d need a way to communicate with each other when one of us wasn’t on the island.

  All night my brain raced. I barely slept, but apparently, my thoughts and imaginings had calmed me enough that Samantha and Maddie saw me as my usual self the next day and in the days and weeks that followed.

  5

  Every day I woke pretending nothing had changed. Sometimes Samantha, Maddie, and I would venture out of the hotel for supplies, but mostly I would be the one to go scavenging. I was good at coming up with one reason or another to leave the hotel. Those were the only times I was glad that Maddie bowed to her sister’s wishes and only left when her sister did. No, I didn’t like fighting off the zombies alone, but being alone made it easier to go to the warehouse.