She stood in the rowboat and grabbed the edge of The Hornet, craning her neck to see over onto the aft deck. “It looks deserted,” she said.
“Lucy, come back!” If she went on board, I was going to have to jump in and swim over there. I couldn’t let her go onto The Hornet by herself. It might look empty from the windows but that meant nothing.
She reached up as if she was going to pull herself up onto the deck.
“Lucy, you promised!”
She stopped and looked over at me.
Hesitated.
Sat back down in the rowboat and made her way back to The Big Easy.
I breathed a sigh of relief but I knew this wasn’t going to be as simple as untying The Hornet and letting her float away. Lucy’s curiosity had gotten the better of her and she wanted to investigate. I felt like cutting the rope now and watching The Hornet disappear into the distance. That would be that. But that would just delay the inevitable. At some point we were going to have to raid the mainland for food and then we would have to deal with zombies. Maybe facing one or two on a boat was a good way to get us ready for that confrontation when it came. The world was full of monsters now and there was no way we could avoid them forever.
Lucy shouted to me from the aft deck. I went back there, the baseball bat feeling heavy in my hands. It looked like I was about to face a nerve-shredding situation again. I would have thought that after playing hundreds of video games involving sneaking around and trying to avoid enemies, I would be prepared for this kind of thing. But my games had only prepared my nervous system so far. Just the thought of going below deck on The Hornet made my palms feel sweaty and my hands tremble.
I climbed into the rowboat and took the oars from Lucy.
As I rowed towards The Hornet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something really bad was about to happen.
Chapter 22
I stood on the deck of The Hornet, bat ready in my hands, while Lucy climbed up to join me. The boat swayed gently beneath my feet but there was no other movement. No zombie rushing at me from inside, yellow eyes blazing. Even the banging we had heard earlier had stopped and the eerie quiet had descended over the yacht again.
“Anything?” Lucy asked as she stood next to me.
“I wouldn’t be standing here calmly if I’d seen anything.”
“That’s true.” She stepped to the door that led below deck and turned the handle. The door opened slowly with a slight creak. A small flight of wooden steps led down to living quarters.
I sniffed the air. It smelled stale and underlying the staleness was a hint of decomposition. Lucy wrinkled her nose. “Something’s dead down there.”
I could deal with the dead. It was the undead I wanted to avoid.
Lucy went down the steps with the gun held up in front her face. I followed, leaving the door open behind me to let fresh air into the cabins and cleanse the stench of death.
Lucy poked her head around a doorway and said, “He’s in here.” She stepped into the room and I took a quick glance along the corridor before joining her.
It stank worse in here and that was because of the corpse on the bed. He was a man in his thirties. He had a neat haircut, linen shirt, jeans and what looked like a real gold Rolex on his left wrist. In his day, this man had been wealthy. But his day was gone and there would be no more. On the nightstand, an empty bottle of pills and a drained bottle of whisky told the story. In case we didn’t get it from the booze and tranquillisers, he had left a note on the bed next to his body. I picked it up and read it out loud.
“Mary and Dan have changed. I have locked them in the store room. I can’t live without them. Max Prentice.”
I looked over the paper at Lucy. “He said he locked them in the store room. They’re still on board.” Instinctively, I glanced at the door, expecting this dead man’s wife and son to come staggering in, reaching for us.
“Why can’t we hear them banging anymore?” Lucy asked.
I shrugged. “If they know we’re here, why aren’t they going crazy to get to us? I’d at least expect banging on the door if they’re locked in somewhere. Why are they being quiet?”
“You’re the zombie expert; you tell me.”
“I don’t know.” Were they lying in wait for us? I had assumed that the zombies at the farmhouse hadn’t been waiting for us to leave the house… that they had only been on the porch because they were sheltering from the rain… but now I wondered if they had been hiding after all.
A sudden bang from within the boat made us both jump.
I put my finger to my lips and we stood there in the silence that had again descended over The Hornet. I wanted to get out of this room of death more than anything but I needed to know if my theory was correct. I tried to put myself in the shoes of the virus. It wanted to spread. If it was trapped and unable to infect others, what would it make the host do to increase the chances of escape?
Another bang sounded from along the corridor.
“They’re trying to attract our attention,” I whispered to Lucy.
“By banging on the door?”
“They’re locked in a room. There’s no way for the virus to spread. So it’s trying to attract the attention of somebody… anybody… to come open the door. They’ve probably been banging like that since they got locked in there. Just biding their time and waiting.”
“Do you think they know we’re here?”
“Yeah. They probably want to try and tear that door down to get to us but they know we’d run. So they’re luring us to them. Think about it… the only reason we came on board was because we heard that bang. They’re using human curiosity to get us to open the door. And if we did that…”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“I say we don’t open the door.”
“Sounds good to me. We should take a quick look around to see if there’s anything worth taking before we leave.”
We left the last resting place of Max Prentice and went to the kitchen, ignoring a bang from down the corridor.
An empty plastic cool box on the table seemed an ideal way to transport goods back to the rowboat so we set about placing cans inside. There weren’t many. I had the impression Max and his family had taken The Hornet out on a weekend cruise. Their pleasure had turned to horror when somebody on board turned. Maybe it was Mary, the mother, saying that morning that she felt well enough to go out on the boat despite being a little sick. Maybe it was Dan, the son, keeping his illness hidden from his parents because he had been looking forward all week to a weekend out at sea.
Either way, the consequences were tragic. A mother and her son turned into monsters. A father, unable to deal with the loss, taking his own life.
“There’s not much here,” Lucy said, searching the cupboards.
“No, let’s go.”
“Wait, what’s this?” She brought out a gun from the cupboard underneath the sink.
“Flare gun. There’s one on The Big Easy too. It’s in a cupboard up on the bridge.”
She found a box of flares and stuffed it into her pocket along with the gun. “Might as well take them.”
“Sure. Although I’m not sure who we’ll be signalling.”
“You take that box outside and I’ll check the other bedrooms.”
“Don’t go near that storeroom.”
She turned to me. “How will I know which door leads to the storeroom?”
“It’s the door that’s locked.”
“Oh, yeah.” She went down the corridor to search for more plunder. A loud banging came from down there.
“It’s the door that’s being pounded on,” I shouted after her.
“Got it. Avoid the noisy door.”
I picked up the cool box, carried it outside and laid it on the deck. I was about to go back inside to help Lucy search the bedrooms when I heard something break and then a high-pitched scream. I ran in, bat ready in my hands. “Lucy!”
There was ban
ging coming from down the corridor. And that god-awful low moaning.
“I’m in a bedroom,” she said, “They’re trying to get in. I can’t hold the door closed.”
I didn’t even think. I sprinted down the corridor and around a corner to come face to face with Max’s wife and son. They had broken through the storeroom door. It lay in splinters on the floor. They pounded on the door opposite. With every blow from their fists, the door opened slightly and Lucy grunted as she pushed it closed again.
“Hey!” I shouted at the zombies.
They turned their greedy yellow eyes on me.
Mary was dressed in a light brown sweater and jeans just like any normal woman on a weekend getaway with her husband and son. Except she wasn’t a normal woman. Her long blonde hair covered most of her face but the blue skin and yellow eyes were apparent. She opened her mouth and moaned hungrily at the sight of me.
Dan, dressed in a Slayer T-shirt and black jeans echoed his mother’s pitiful cry and came for me, staggering forward in the cramped confines of the corridor.
I backed away, hoping to lead them into the kitchen where I could get the space I needed for a good swing of the bat.
They followed. My mouth was suddenly dry and my heart felt like it was beating in my temples. I felt repulsed by these creatures with their stink of death and rabid eyes. They were no longer the wife and son Max Prentice had come on board with; they were foul monsters, killing machines with a single purpose: destroy humanity.
I backed into the kitchen. They were getting closer, picking up speed as they anticipated the taste of their prey.
I refused to be that prey.
I swung the bat at Dan’s head. The wood cracked into his skull, sending him down to the floor.
Mary stepped over her son, her maternal instincts long gone, and gnashed her teeth at me.
I pushed her away with the tip of the bat, giving her a hard shove into the kitchen cupboards. The cupboard doors flung open and plates and dishes fell onto the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.
Dan got up and lurched forward, his rotting hand brushing my arm. The revulsion rose in my throat like hot bile and I reflexively hit him with the bat again.
I heard his skull crack. The bat sunk into his head and he dropped heavily at my feet.
Mary came at me, pushing me out of the doorway onto the deck. She was a thin woman but she had strength lent to her by the virus that inhabited her body. I fell backwards and she was on top of me, teeth biting and tearing at the air in front of my face.
Her breath smelled like rotted leaves, rancid meat and open graves. I wretched as I fought to hold her head away from me.
Her yellow eyes seemed to bore into my skull with their hatred.
She came in closer, her fetid smell making me want to vomit.
Just as I thought she was going to get close enough to bite me, her body lit up with sparks and flame. Her grip on me loosened and I pushed her away, rolling out from under her and scrambling to my feet.
She staggered backward, her entire body lit up like a firework, flame licking the blue skin. She seemed unable to comprehend what to do and chose to make a final lunge at me.
I hit her with the bat and she went toppling over the back of the boat.
Lucy stepped forward, flare gun in hand.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Thank you for distracting them so I could get out of the bedroom.”
Beyond the stern, smoke drifted into the air. The crackle of flames reached our ears.
“Oh, shit!” I said, leaning over the edge and looking down.
Mary’s flaming corpse had landed in our rowboat. As the zombie lay like a heap of flaming rags, the rowboat burned around her.
I untied the rowboat and let her drift away before she set The Hornet on fire.
Lucy looked at the burning boat and sighed. “Looks like we’ll be swimming back.”
Great. Just what I needed after fighting zombies—a swim in the cold sea. Although it might get rid of the grave smell I felt was clinging to me. I wanted to get back to The Big Easy, burn these clothes and take a shower in disinfectant.
On the water, the rowboat still burned. The zombie corpse emitted a foul-smelling black smoke.
I turned to Lucy. “So was it worth coming aboard?”
She nodded. “Of course. We learned a valuable lesson.”
“And what lesson might that be?”
“We learned that flares kill zombies.”
“Yeah, it nearly killed me too. You could have just used the Colt.”
“Not nearly as dramatic.”
“At least we’d still have our rowboat.”
“Hey, it was you who hit her overboard, slugger.”
“She was about to kill me.”
Her face went suddenly serious. “What are we going to do with Dan and Max?”
“I assumed we would untie The Hornet and let her float free.” Their bodies would float around on the boat until it sank or someone else found it.
A voice came from the bridge radio. A man’s voice. “Hornet.”
We looked at each other and went to the radio. I hesitated before answering. Maybe these were the pirates I had been thinking about earlier.
“Hornet,” the voice repeated.
“Should we answer it?” Lucy whispered.
“I don’t know. The last time we answered the radio, it didn’t turn out well.”
The man’s voice sounded frustrated. “Come on, you two. Don’t just stand there staring at the radio. Pick up.”
“What the hell? Can he see us?” I scanned the ocean for boats. Apart from The Big Easy and the slowly sinking rowboat, the sea was empty. Could it be someone with high-power binoculars? We were too far from the coast to be seen that clearly.
I picked up the handset. “This is Hornet. Who are you?”
“Name’s Harper. Frank Harper. I’m the guy with a gun to your friend’s head.”
“What?”
“Don’t take my word for it. Here… listen.”
Mike’s voice came over the radio. “Hey, man, I think you’d better get back here.”
Harper was on board The Big Easy. While we had been investigating The Hornet, he had boarded our boat.
I looked over to The Big Easy. Mike was sitting on the aft deck, his arms secured behind him. Leaning out from the bridge, radio handset in his hand, a fair-haired man in a black knitted cap, sweater and trousers stared right at me. In his other hand he held a revolver pointed at Mike’s head.
“You two get back here. Don’t even think about running. Your friend will end up dead.”
I felt angry that he had the nerve to try and take over The Big Easy. “What do you want, Harper?”
“It’s simple,” he said. “We’re going to take a trip to a lighthouse.”
Chapter 23
As soon as Lucy and I climbed out of the cold water and onto the deck of The Big Easy, Harper pointed the gun in Lucy’s direction. “You drop that gun and the flare gun you used to finish off that zombie and kick them across this way.”
She did as he asked. She had no choice.
“Same with the baseball bat,” he told me.
I tossed it across the deck. It clattered at his feet.
I felt mad at myself for letting this happen. Harper had piloted his boat up to The Big Easy while Lucy and I were on The Hornet, left it on the opposite side of the hull so we couldn’t see it, and climbed aboard while Mike was still sleeping. We never should have left Mike on board alone. I looked at Harper’s boat bobbing in the sea. It was filled with boxes, petrol cans and gas canisters. It also had an outboard motor. A means of escape?
I looked at Mike. His hands were tied behind his back with rope. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, man.” His eyes were dead, his voice flat. He had been forced awake by Harper but he was still in shock over Elena’s death. Whatever happened, I couldn’t let Harper take us back to that lighthouse. I had the terrible feeling that E
lena was still there, wandering the place in zombie form. If Mike saw that…
“There’s no point going to the lighthouse,” I said. “It’s overrun with zombies. Your friend Eric is dead.”
“I know that,” he said unemotionally. “I saw it. It was only a matter of time before those things got to the place. Poor Eric should have stuck with me. I told him to come with me and we’d find out what was going on but he wanted to stay at his post, find out what he could from the radio.” He pointed at me with the muzzle of the revolver. “Do you know how to drive this boat?”
I nodded.
“So let’s weigh anchor and get going.”
“I just told you, the lighthouse is crawling with zombies.”
“And I told you I know that. That’s why I couldn’t go back on my own. I couldn’t take on all those creatures. But you three… well, I just saw you make a flame-grilled zombie burger over there, so clearing the lighthouse shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
There was no way I was going to ‘clear’ the lighthouse if Elena was in there. And there was no way Mike should even be going back to that area at all. “What’s the point in going back to the lighthouse?” I asked Harper.
“Never mind that. Come on, we haven’t got a lot of time. The tide’s high at the moment so any zombies on the island are stuck there and no more can come from the beach. In a couple of hours that situation will change when the tide goes out again. So move it. Get us to the lighthouse.” He jabbed his thumb at the ladder that led to the bridge.
“What about The Hornet? She’s still tied on.” I needed to stall him, needed time to think.
“You go untie her,” he said to Lucy, “then come straight back here.”
She went through to the front of the boat and I climbed up to the bridge. I watched Lucy through the window as she untied The Hornet and set her adrift. The tragedy of Max Prentice and his family would soon be in our past but I feared a much deeper tragedy in our near future. Lucy stood on the foredeck watching the boat slip away. I wondered if she had any plans on how we were going to get out of this mess. I hoped she did because I was out of ideas.
Undead Rain Trilogy Box Set Page 13