Dead Rain: A Tale of the Zombie Apocalypse

by Joe Augustyn

  In a druggy haze he pondered his options. Find that teenage bitch… if she’s still alive… put a bullet in her pretty little head. Then it’ll all be good again. Then I can go home. See my beautiful wife… my family…

  That was almost an hour ago. Now he was on his way back to the pier, drugged half out of his mind and crippled, but moving with the zeal of a crusader through the flooded streets. He limped boldly through a scattering of zombies, wasting two bullets before he hit his next mark, killing the nearest one.

  Finally he reached the ramp to the boardwalk and paused for a moment to rest, happy to be getting out of the water. Resurrected bodies were moving like slow-motion sharks through the flooded streets behind him, heading straight toward him, but he wasn’t concerned. He popped another pill and adjusted the bandage around his leg, a tight bundle of towels and plastic bags he’d filched from a vacant home. He was happy to see that it had held up through his soggy trek. There was no sign of blood on his trousers. If any had dripped through the tourniquet it had cleanly soaked off in the floodwater.

  He looked at the dozens of walking corpses coming down the street, and thought of the hundreds that were up on the boardwalk and the pier. If he was to get to the funhouse to make sure the women were dead, he needed to clear the way.

  Lightning streaked across the sky. He looked around at the approaching zombies… then noticed a shiny new SUV parked on the flooded street nearby, glimmering in a flash of lightning like a sign from Jehovah Himself.

  Amen, amen I say to thee. Thy will be done... on earth as it is in heaven.

  Thy will be done…. on earth… as it is… in hell.

  Raising the rifle he picked off the nearest zombies, then he limped down the ramp, heading for the SUV.

  68

  Marissa lay on the floor of the cabin, her tiny body cocooned in the duffel bag. Ryan had cleaned her wound thoroughly using alcohol from the boat’s first aid kit and tied a tourniquet around her arm to slow the spread of infection. Her eyes were open, but her body was stiff and unmoving. She might have been mistaken for dead, if it wasn’t for her shallow breathing and the beads of feverish sweat on her brow.

  Ryan glanced over to check on her then turned back to the task at hand—guiding the boat through the channel. They were approaching the mouth of the inlet, heading for the open sea. The winds were intense, reaching gale force, shredding the tops of waves. Sprays of icy seawater and relentless sheets of rain blasted the boat like liquid buckshot.

  Bronski was topside at the moment, fighting the onslaught of wind and water, tethered to the boat by a nylon lifeline. He clung to the side of the cabin as he worked, securing a tarp over the smashed cabin roof and window. Wrestling a rope through the final grommet he tied it to a cleat, anxious to get back inside and reclaim the wheel before they entered the stormy ocean.

  Ryan heard a series of dull thuds as Bronski made his way back along the gunwale. An electric sensation tickled his groin as the boat rose and fell like an off-kilter seesaw.

  He glanced back to check on Marissa—the duffel bag was empty!

  Tiny cold fingers touched his arm. He jerked it away and leaped to his feet—startled and terrified—but was yanked back into his seat by his seatbelt. Marissa stood before him, staring with dead black eyes. She hunched her shoulders and drew back her lips, teeth bared like an angry dog.

  The door banged open, ripped by the wind from Bronski’s hand. His eyes went wide as he saw the girl’s threatening posture. “Ryan! Look out!”

  Ryan let go of the steering wheel, frantically trying to unbuckle his seatbelt while leaning away from the girl as far as he could.

  The rudder abruptly shifted. The boat swung sideways and the prow pitched skyward, climbing a ten foot swell.

  Marissa toppled backwards and slid towards the open door. Bronski’s feet slipped and he made a desperate grab to brace himself on the doorframe—but Marissa slammed into his legs and his hands slipped from the rain-soaked frame. He tumbled backwards, skittering across the open deck, struggling to stay on his feet as Marissa slid past him. His calves hit the back railing and he flipped backwards over the stern into the channel.

  Bubbling white foam engulfed him as he tumbled deeper, deafened by the roaring water. Tangles of coarse brown seaweed wrapped him in their slimy embrace. He kicked and flailed and finally found his safety line, stretched taut by the powerful undercurrent.

  Clutching the nylon line he dragged himself forward, slowly ascending through the turbulent wake of the boat. His face finally broke the surface and he sucked in a lungful of air, then quickly looped the rope around his wrist to keep himself from drifting too far down. He screamed for Ryan but his cry was drowned by the bellowing storm.

  The boat hit a wall of water and reared up like a wild stallion. Bronski held his breath as it crested the wave and tipped into its descent, sliding like a bobsled into the trough, dragging him back underwater. He shot forward like a human torpedo—heading straight for the spinning propellers. Kicking and flapping his arms he veered away and broke surface off the side of the stern. The sea slapped his face like an icy hand, flooding his nose and mouth with salt water.

  He barely had time to gulp another breath before the boat rose and dipped down again, jerking him back beneath the waves. Clinging for dear life to the nylon lifeline he surfaced again, desperately gasping for air, and knew his life would be counted in minutes if he didn’t get back on the boat.

  He grasped the lifeline tightly as the boat climbed another peak and teetered there for a second… then as it started its descent he kicked his legs furiously, propelling himself into the peak of the towering wave. As the boat dropped into the trough he jerked the lifeline with everything left in his tank and shot forward from the breaker like a leaping dolphin.

  Sailing across the railing he slammed down on the rear deck. Searing pain flared through his shoulder as he thumped down shattering the cartilage in the joint. He rolled and slid wildly across the flooded deck but finally grabbed a railing and held on.

  The deck was empty. Marissa was nowhere in sight. The door to the cabin was open, banging back and forth in the wind.

  Oh God no. The kid…

  Bronski held onto the railing as the boat rocked upward. When it nosedived again he let go, and slid forward into the cabin through the open door.

  Ryan was in the pilot seat, wrestling with the wheel. Marissa was not in the cabin. The tarp he’d fixed over the missing window was flapping but holding its own against the hammering rain.

  Bronski made his way to the front. “Where’s the girl?” he shouted over the howling wind.

  Ryan shook his head, looking like a lost soul.

  “Take a break.” Bronski gestured and Ryan happily surrendered the wheel, strapping himself into the co-pilot’s seat. He was already tired from wrestling the wheel, his arms aching, and he was in a state of near shock after losing the little girl.

  Bronski buckled himself in and took the wheel. The sea ahead looked like a field of cotton plants rustling in the wind, an unending carpet of whitecaps. Lightning streaked across the sky. Thunder exploded like cannon fire. Bronski tried to recall if aluminum was conductive… if they were sailing a giant lightning rod.

  He turned the wheel sharply to cut through a breaking wave, and felt a knifelike pain in his shoulder. He twisted his body to compensate and felt an aching tug at his side. He looked down to find his seatbelt stained with blood. His stomach wound was weeping.

  Dammit, Bronski. You have to keep it together.

  He settled back in his chair, studying the patterns of the waves rolling in on the storm. They were closely set and sweeping in at a rapid rate. It was going to be a long demanding journey. If he was to last long enough to get them around Cape May Point and up into the Delaware Bay he had to conserve his energy, and to do that meant steering efficiently, choosing the optimum angles to maneuver through the turbulent waves. Even then he’d need every drop of luck in the universe.

  They sail
ed through the mouth of the channel and he guided the boat out a mile to sea before he changed course and headed south. Although the ocean was a gauntlet of monster waves, the wind was now at their backs. That was no small blessing considering the urgency of their mission.

  Bronski lowered his head and whispered a prayer for Marissa, silent but heartfelt—praying that the sea that had swallowed her would grant her eternal peace. Then he looked at the angry ocean ahead and whispered a prayer for himself.

  69

  Emma woke suddenly, jolted awake by an ominous feeling, the kind of dark cloud that lingers after a very bad dream. But she hadn’t slept long enough to dream—she couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep at all. She’d dozed off despite the freezing rain and the punishing wind, her body and mind depleted, her muscles cramped with pain.

  Instantly she was alert. There was no groggy lull, no forgetting the living nightmare that she and Cat were immersed in. Without looking down she knew the dead were still there all around them. It was the stench that telegraphed their presence—a nauseating stew of putrid fat and festering wounds and odious rotgut gases. Their bodies were crushed together like sardines against the base of the roller coaster, unmoving, as if God had pressed a cosmic button, putting them all on hold.

  Emma shifted her hip and met resistance. As she felt the tug she remembered slipping the strap of the tac bag under a metal track and around her waist.

  Cat felt the shift of her legs. “Emma?” she murmured wearily. “What’s going on? Where are we?”

  “You don’t remember?” Emma asked softly, keeping her voice low for fear of rousing the dead.

  “I remember the funhouse… and… oh…” Sketchy memories of Emma dragging her across the pier and up the roller coaster tracks came flooding back, along with the smell of the dead. She looked down at the pier and saw the bodies so tightly packed she could have walked across them. Whispering a curse she lay back again.

  The women lay in silence for a moment, processing the strange tranquility. The generator had finally run out of gas and the noise of the funhouse had ceased, along with the lights and the movements of the devilish ringmaster. But that didn’t explain the somnolence of the zombie horde on the pier.

  Cat realized the wind was carrying the scent of her blood away, far above the heads of the mob. With no other movement or sound on the pier, the steady patter of rain was the overriding sensory stimulus.

  Emma seemed to understand it as well. Both women breathed easier, grateful for the eerie respite. The pain of Cat’s wound had dulled, still strong but not as acute, thanks to the soothing cold and her lack of physical movement. Already she was feeling a little better—more like a capable state trooper and less like a victim, her warrior instincts stirring.

  A sudden blaring racket disrupted the peace, sparking an eruption of motion and sound from the dead. There was no mistaking the obnoxious din— a car alarm, honking and beeping from somewhere not very far away.

  Hundreds of limping soles started shuffling across the pier, headed in the direction of the sound. The women couldn’t believe their luck as the crowd beneath their perch dissolved, shambling away toward the boardwalk, taking their sickening fetor with them.

  “They’re going,” whispered Emma excitedly.

  “We need to get out of here,” said Cat.

  “Where?” asked Emma, terrified at the thought of facing those things again.

  “Anywhere. We need to find someplace safe. Out of this rain. Before hypothermia sets in. Before we get hit by lightning. Before that alarm shuts down.”

  Emma’s elation melted in a hot rush of fear as she realized Cat was right. They had to take advantage of every opportunity. If the alarm shut down, the zombies could come plodding right back to the pier, bringing their maddening stench and their monstrous appetites. And the fear of a lightning strike on the metal tracks had been preying on her mind as well.

  “Where can we go? You think it’s safe now back in the funhouse?”

  “No. That’s the last place I want to be right now. We’ll head to the boardwalk and break into a building. Hole up someplace warm and dry. Someplace with food if we’re lucky.”

  “Sounds like heaven right now,” Emma conceded. “Are you sure you can make it that far?”

  “I think so. But we have to be careful. The wind will be at our backs and I think those things can smell us. Smell me. Smell my blood. And if it turns out I can’t make it… if I can’t outrun them… I don’t want you waiting on me. If I say run, you run. You run for your life.”

  They were silent for a moment, both having second thoughts. But they knew Cat was right. Her bloody wound was like a bugle at reveille to the walking dead.

  “Do you still have my gun?” Cat asked, and she reached out her hand. Despite the pain of her injury she was determined to take control. She hadn’t survived two tours in Afghanistan to surrender her life to a bunch of tottering corpses. Emma handed her the Sig and she slid it into her shoulder holster.

  A minute later they were down on the pier, creeping toward the boardwalk. They moved stealthily from cover to cover, pausing to rest behind boarded up ticket booths and carnival stands. The bottom of Cat’s poncho flapped wildly in the wind, but it was belted around her waist to keep the top part from pulling her scabby wound open and exposing the odor of blood.

  Finally they reached the edge of the boardwalk. Cat peeked around the side of a ticket booth and saw the excited herd pushing its way down a ramp towards the blaring alarm. Leeds had initially triggered it, then raced up the ramp to the boardwalk, fighting past any lumbering corpses in his way until he slipped safely into hiding behind a trash barrel.

  The car alarm continued its uproar, kept active by the swarm of zombies constantly jostling the vehicle. Judging from its volume, Cat realized it was parked just below the boardwalk—but who or what could have triggered it in the first place? Had a zombie blundered into it by accident? Or had—?

  A rifle shot answered her question. Missing Cat’s head by mere inches, it splintered a six inch crack in the side of the booth.

  “Get down!” Cat tackled Emma to the deck behind the ticket booth, then crawled to the other side of the booth and scanned the boardwalk for the source of the shot. She muttered a curse as the pain in her arm flared up again, and she felt the blood dripping from her wound.

  Another shot whizzed by. Its sound was muddled by the car alarm and the sounds of the raging storm but Cat spotted the muzzle flash—in the dark interior of a storefront across the boardwalk.

  Cat rolled back to safety next to Emma. “Jesus. That fat bastard is still after us. He’s in a storefront across the boardwalk. Looks like he smashed out the picture window to get inside.”

  Emma offered a hopeful thought. “If he keeps shooting, those things will get him. Then we can make a run for it.”

  Cat shook her head. “They can’t hear him over that damned alarm. He set it off purposely so he could get to us. It’s all they’re fixated on right now.”

  “It has to stop sometime.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. As long as they keep swarming that vehicle, they’ll keep reactivating the alarm. It might go all day and night. Depends on how much juice is left in the car battery.”

  “Well we can’t stay here waiting to see what happens,” said Emma despairingly. “We have to go back.”

  “That’s what he wants,” Cat replied. “To keep us trapped here. He obviously turned on the power at the funhouse. Who knows what else he has up his sleeve?”

  They sat quietly for a moment. Cat considered a full on defensive assault. She checked her Sig. The mag was loaded, ready to rock. But she knew it would be suicide to get into a firefight with someone who was better armed and had better cover. Not to mention that the barking of two high-powered guns might be enough to lure the zombies from their current distraction.

  On top of that, her wounded arm made it impossible to support her shooting arm for more than one or two shots, which would serious
ly compromise her aim.

  Emma seemed to read her mind. “I can’t take this any longer. Maybe we should just rush him from two sides at once. One of us might get lucky.”

  “No. Hang on. I have a better idea.” Reaching into the tac bag Cat pulled out the yellow gun rag. Holding it out along the side of the booth, she released it—and watched as it blew across the boardwalk on the powerful wind and disappeared into the darkness of the storefront. Right where the Sheriff was hiding.

  Leeds watched the cloth float past his head and disappear into the darkness behind him. His drug-addled mind considered its possible significance but quickly dismissed it.

  “I’m going to try something,” said Cat. “If it goes wrong, I want you to run for your life. That means you get up and go without me. Run as fast as you can down the boardwalk and don’t look back. If you can’t make a clean break down the boardwalk, get back to the roller coaster and climb as high as you can. Wait there ‘til Bronski returns. He’ll be back for us. I know he will.”

  “No. I’m not leaving without you.”

  “Listen to me, Emma, it’s your only chance. I’ve lost a lot of blood. I’ll try to go with you, but I can barely walk let alone run and I’m not going to take you down with me. If I have to die, I don’t want to die in vain. Now just sit tight for a second.”

  Cat uncinched her belt and peeled off her poncho, then rubbed it against her open wound, smearing its plastic surface with as much blood as she could. After a minute she folded it carefully, enfolding the blood inside. “Hold this. And be careful not to get any on you.”

  She handed the bloody parcel to Emma then got to her feet and peeked out at the macabre horde. They had jammed the ramp leading to the street. A few dozen were stuck on the boardwalk at the back of the herd. The Sheriff was less than forty feet from them, in the second storefront from the corner building—a custard shop with a big neon sign in the shape of an ice cream cone hanging from a metal rig.