“Okay. Here you go,” he said, tossing the keys to her. “Go see if it starts up, and I’ll check the fuel and temp gauges.”
She started it, but it took a bit. It probably hadn’t been out in a while. Cam checked the gauges and gave her a thumbs up.
“Follow Brad and Nick back to the island. Remember to watch out for the sandbar too.”
Cam went to give Nick instructions. He would be leading them back. She knew Jack was probably going to give Cam an earful for letting her go.
She climbed down and tossed the mooring rope into the boat.
She let the boat idle until she saw Jack and Cam coming back down the dock. Jack had a thunderous look on his face, but he only pulled her to his chest and gave her a long, hard kiss. He wrapped his arms around her possessively for a long minute, and finally pulled away.
“Be careful,” he told her.
“I will. See you in a few minutes,” she said.
They walked back to the Humvees and started them. They idled in the parking lot and waited to make sure the boats got away safely. Jessica saw Nick reversing the monstrous houseboat back into the bay, and she followed. Brad followed her in his cruiser.
Nick finally gained enough room to maneuver the beast and turned it around toward open water. She was really glad she wasn’t tasked to pilot that thing. She throttled the engine enough to stay behind him, but not too close. The houseboat moved slowly up the lake, leaving a gentle wake sloshing along behind.
Once, they had to move further out into middle to bypass the sandbar, then they headed back in a bit.
She scanned the shores, looking for signs of life and movement. She saw some animals, but no people. That didn’t mean they weren’t there watching. She really hoped they weren’t. It would be horrible if some gang was out on the water and found their island.
Forty-five minutes later she finally spotted the island. It had taken much longer than expected to move the houseboat. It wasn’t made for speed.
She followed Nick until they got close. He would have to moor the boat on the outermost edge of the dock, it would be too shallow otherwise. Luckily, the storm hadn’t damaged it.
She saw Cam and Jack standing out on the shore, motioning where they wanted her and Brad to park the boats. Was park the right word? Or moor? Anyway, they had her pull right in to the first slip.
Jack strode toward her.
“I was a nervous wreck the whole time,” he said, gripping her shoulders and squeezing.
“Yeah, that houseboat didn’t move as fast as we thought.”
“Let’s go get some lunch, then we’ll see about getting power hooked up to the houseboat. It will be nice to sleep in luxury again,” he said.
She grinned. “And I can cook inside!”
“And I can watch movies again!” Brad shouted from the deck of his recent acquisition.
He pushed his fists in the air in a sign of victory.
They laughed and walked toward the tents.
Chapter Eighteen
A Little Rest and Relaxation
Jim
The group decided to take a couple of days off from doing any heavy work or worrying about missions. They were exhausted, stressed, and needed a little vacation from the realities of…well…everything.
After lunch, Jack checked over the generator on the houseboat.
It would need diesel. Luckily, it already had enough to get them through a few days. They powered it on and planned to take full advantage of the amenities. He couldn’t wait to kick back in one of those recliners and just take a damn nap.
Angie and Jessica helped stock the kitchen with food and the remaining dishes they had saved from the lodge. They also brought aboard various other things that women thought were extremely necessary for survival. He rolled his eyes remembering that.
Cam had decided that they three would take the largest cabin in the houseboat. He grumbled about sharing space with Jim again and made sure to point out that he was sleeping on the floor and not in the king bed with them. Honestly, Jim would have been fine on shore in a tent, but he liked giving Cam a hard time and would live it up for a few days.
Jessica and Jack would take the next largest. Monica and Jean would share the third.
Nick and Bradley were going to bunk together in the sport cruiser, and generously offered Jonah the fold-out bed there. He figured those three would be up playing video games during all hours that they weren’t working or training.
Jim walked up the steps to the large sundeck that covered the entire top of the boat. There were three couches there under the hardtop, a large table that seated twelve, a massive grill, and even a bar. Jim took care of that first thing. He stocked the bar with their favorites and went ahead and poured himself a glass.
Angie was laying out in the sun in a tiny bikini on the far side of the deck. He walked over there, intending to take advantage of the view while he could. His eyes glided over her firm ass, perfectly molded by the small black bottoms. He may be her friend, and nothing more, but he was still a man.
“Jim,” Cam said. “How did I know that I’d find you here perving on my woman?”
Jim sighed and forced his mind away Angie’s delectable body.
She opened her eyes and turned her head to look back at Jim.
“Jim, what were you doing?” she asked him suspiciously.
He put his hands out the sides. “I wasn’t doing anything!” he said.
She didn’t buy it.
“Jim, come on. Let’s get the grill going already!” Cam said impatiently. “You can eye fuck Angie later,” he tossed back over his shoulder.
Angie snorted in laughter. Jim frowned.
She stuck her tongue out at him and he was tempted to smack her ass as she always did to him. The girl needed a lesson in appropriate friend behavior.
He conveniently dismissed his own inappropriateness. It didn’t count.
◆◆◆
They spent the next several days resting, eating, playing, dancing to music in the evenings, and just having a good time in general.
Cam and Angie took full advantage of having a big bed in an enclosed room again. Most times they locked the door and did it during the day when everyone was out. Once, they spent a full night exploring each other and testing the boundaries of passion and pleasure. The thought they had been quiet. They thought Jim was asleep. Jim had watched their shadowy forms for a moment, spellbound in the dark, as Cam dominated Angie so masterfully. Cam was made to dominate.
He had turned over and quietly pulled his pillow over his head to give them some privacy.
Jim finally pulled his thoughts back to the task at hand. He was separating their supplies into two similar stacks. One of them, containing the winter gear, would go to their new location. They were in the planning stages for that mission. They hoped to get everything secured at that place by September.
It was July now, and Jim was thinking about Ed as he sorted through the wool clothing and oil lamps. He hoped Ed was okay. They had expected him to be coming back any day now. Honestly, they really thought he would have changed his mind about going alone.
Ed would have a gotten a real kick out of the houseboat.
Jim stopped what he was doing. Why couldn’t they go check on him?
He went to find Cam.
He found him over near the supply tent, sorting through the gear they would transport first.
“Hey Cam, Jack. Walk with me a minute,” he called to them.
They put down the supplies they had been counting and came toward him.
“What’s going on?” Cam asked him.
Jim walked them toward the shoreline, out of earshot of the others.
“I want to go check on Ed, make sure he’s okay.”
“Jim, Ed didn’t want company. He turned me down flat when I suggested it,” Cam said.
“I know, but I just don’t feel good about it. I want to make sure he made it there. Worst case scenario is that he tells us to get lost,” Jim
argued.
Jack looked at Jim and Cam before speaking up. “I’m with Jim. I think we need to check on him.”
Cam paced a minute and Jim knew he was thinking about the details of a mission like that.
Ed lived on the other side of the town from the SuperMart they had stayed in. They would have to go through that town to get there. When they left it a month ago, they had literally watched it being overrun by the dead as they left.
“We’d have to plan well, maybe bypass the town completely,” Cam thought aloud.
“That will add an extra thirty minutes to our drive time,” Jim said.
“I know, but that town was full of the dead the last time we were there. We would have to recon before we attempted to go through it. I don’t want to end up trapped in that damned place.”
Jim thought back to the last couple of nights they had been in the store. It had been hell. Angie had been unconscious from the attack. Peggy…Peggy had been still and silent and had never gotten better.
Just saying it was bad was an understatement of massive proportions.
“You guys said you still wanted the supplies there too, right? At the store?” Jack asked.
“Yeah,” Jim said.
“Why don’t we get the rest of those. If the store isn’t surrounded, I mean?” Jack wondered.
Jim shrugged.
They never talked about it, but he knew Cam never wanted to set foot in that place again. He didn’t either. However, if it could get them enough supplies to last a year or two…
“Maybe we should stop there on the way through town. We could load up a few pallets of supplies. I’ll take the moving van to the store, then we can find a trailer to transport them the rest of the way to the cabin. We should be able to get a trailer up that old logging road,” Jim said finally.
Cam walked ahead and stood, boots only centimeters from the water.
Jim saw him run his hands through his hair, then put them on his hips. He finally took a deep breath and looked down at the ground. He let it out.
“Okay. We’ll make a run to town, pick up supplies and diesel, stop by Ed’s, and then go on to the cabin.”
◆◆◆
That night, around the fire, the men were silent.
Cam was deep in thought, as was Jim. Jim was thinking back to how they found Angie and Peggy their last full night at the store.
They had been beaten, tortured, and Peggy had been brutalized. It had been horrific.
Jim looked over at Cam and saw the expression on his face. He was thinking about it too.
And here they were, about to go back.
Jim sipped his drink and looked at the others. Angie was talking quietly to Jessica on the other side of the fire. Brad, Nick, Monica, and Jonah were talking about some kind of video game featuring dragons, warriors, and elves. Jean had gone to bed earlier saying she needed her beauty rest. Jack was staring silently into the flames.
Jim cleared his throat loudly, gaining the attention of them all.
“So, we’re going on another run,” he said, seeing the annoyance on Cam’s face and the puzzlement on the others.
“What do you mean? We have plenty of time before we have to start moving stuff,” Monica said.
“We’re going to check on Ed,” Cam said gruffly.
“I want to go,” Jessica said.
“No,” Jack immediately replied.
Jessica gave him an incredulous look, her mouth parted in surprise. Jim hoped this didn’t turn into some sort of dramatic relationship fight between them.
“I want you guys to stay here and keep prepping this stuff to be taken over to the cabin. It’s the most important thing,” Cam explained.
Jack nodded and Jessica held off on the questions for now, though Jim knew that she would be interrogating Jack later. Jim thought Cam may be trying to keep part of their plan from Angie, to spare her some bad memories.
“We’ll leave out the day after tomorrow, spend one or two days out there checking on Ed and moving some supplies around, then come back here. I want Jim and Jack to go along on this one,” Cam said.
“I’m going too. I can’t sit here on my ass doing nothing,” Monica said.
Cam raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Okay.”
Jim wasn’t pleased, though Monica hadn’t attempted anything inappropriate for several weeks, he still caught her looking sometimes. He didn’t want to get caught up in her possessive, dramatic shit again. The sex wouldn’t be worth that.
Damn it, Cam…
“Come with me a minute, Jim.” Cam beckoned him toward the shoreline.
“You sure bringing Monica along is a good idea?” he asked.
Cam considered it. “I don’t like leaving the island with one less fighter, but we may need her.”
“And Angie? What are you going to tell her?”
“The bare minimum. Nothing about the store,” Cam said.
Jim nodded and sipped his drink.
Chapter Nineteen
Ed’s House
Ed
Ed grunted in pain as he walked over to his front door and turned the lock. His feet were starting to get bad. It had only been a matter of time…
He had been remarkably lucky to go this long without a flare-up. He was going to take some pills and go to bed. His very own bed.
He had made it home without incident. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t seen trouble, but he did manage to avoid most of it. On the way back, he decided to hit the edge of town and see if it was still being occupied by that herd.
He was pleasantly surprised to see very few of them milling around in clusters. Once, he even caught a group in their hibernation, or whatever it was called.
He had seen them standing still on the southbound lane of the highway, about fifteen altogether. When he got closer, he had expected them to turn toward him, seeking his old flesh for a little snack.
They didn’t.
They just stood there like statues— ugly, rotting, stinking statues. He drove past slowly, and not one of them stirred. If he had been feeling better, he might have gotten out and put them all out of their misery.
He had finally made it through town, expecting to be cornered by a herd at every turn. He wondered where they had all gone. He didn’t see any signs of life either. It was eerie. That was a pretty good-sized little town, there should have been more survivors somewhere.
He took a sip of his hot tea.
When he had pulled up into his yard, he parked behind his house. He lived back off the road a way, but he didn’t want to take any chances of someone seeing the truck there. He was pleasantly surprised to find his power still on. Some folks up at the dam must have been thinking ahead. Maybe they were still there…
He sat down in his recliner in front of the fireplace.
Yes, it was good to be home.
He had his things. He had his pictures of Brenda around him. He had everything he needed right here.
So why did he feel so lonely? Isn’t this what he wanted?
He needed rest, that was all. Perhaps things would look better tomorrow. He got up and set the cup in the sink and turned off the small light over his stove. He didn’t want to chance leaving it on. He triple-checked the locks, made sure all the blinds and curtains were shut tight, and went to bed.
“Goodnight, Brenda,” he said to the photo on his nightstand.
He took a couple of painkillers and lay in the silent darkness. The ticking of the clock in the hall was familiar and comforting, yet it amplified his loneliness.
He missed the sounds of talking and laughter that used to come through his walls back at the lodge. He drifted off to sleep, contemplating his return to his friends.
No…his family.
◆◆◆
Ed woke in the night to a thunderstorm moving overhead.
The wind was howling around his house, and the trees nearby were whooshing under the force of the gale. He looked out the window and saw lightning flashing in the distance. Rain obscure
d much of his vision, but he could see the violent swirling of clouds overhead.
He hoped there wasn’t a gol’danged tornado. He didn’t want to go out to the storm shelter in the dark.
He watched for a while longer, until the fury of the storm caused him to move into the bathroom.
The safest room in the house, it was in the very center and had no windows. He sat there on the toilet lid and waited for it to pass.
The lights flicked and went out.
“Oh, wouldn’t you know it! First damned day I get home and find my power on, and now it’s gone.”
He muttered to himself as he flipped on the small lantern he had taken from the nightstand and settled in to wait.
He heard the crashing of thunder and felt the vibrations rattle his whole house. The rain beat furiously at his roof, eventually turning to hail. He hoped his truck window didn’t get damaged. It was the only vehicle he had.
Twenty minutes later, all that remained of the storm was rainfall and melting hail.
◆◆◆
The next morning, Ed stood on his front porch surveying the damage.
There were a few dents in the hood of his truck, but miraculously his windshield was unbroken.
He stepped down off the porch and walked around the outside of his house, using his cane to take a bit of the weight from his feet. There were some limbs laying out on the ground, but nothing major.
He was glad of that.
In the early morning hours, laying restlessly in his empty bed, he had decided to go back to the island. He thought he had needed solitude and the comfort of his own house, but he was wrong.
He needed friendship and the comfort of their presence.
This house only provided some pleasant memories, now tainted by the whole apocalypse business. It was a cold comfort.
He would spend today packing, then leave out first thing tomorrow morning. He didn’t plan on ever coming back.
The first thing he did was make a small list of things he wanted to take.
Refuge From The Dead | Book 2 | Dead Summer Page 23