Ryder and I finish our breakfast quickly, and I head back into the bedroom I share with Tobe to change for the day. I step into my “town outfit” that kept me alive and uninfected for so long in Louisville that I feel it brings me good luck.
It consists of a long sleeved thermal t-shirt, which is tucked into my faded blue jeans and black boots. Then I pull on a turtleneck shirt to avoid any bites or scratches on my neck. Golfer’s gloves come next, to protect my hands while allowing full range of motion.
Lastly, I tie back my long hair into a ponytail and then pull a headband on to keep my bangs out of my eyes. I don’t have sunglasses anymore; I lost them in Louisville, so I’ll have to be extra careful when it comes to my eyes.
Surprisingly, I’m ready before Ryder is. I’m not sure what’s taking him so long, but I don’t feel like waiting. If I had to get up early to go on a dangerous trip with him, the least he could do is not hold us up like this.
I pound on his bedroom door, and I hear him sigh. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
The door opens, and I find myself eye-level with his shirtless chest. His body is damp from a recent scrub, and he smells of something that might be vanilla soap. I knew that Ryder was fit, but his chest makes him look like a perfectly sculpted statue, and I don’t feel bad about ogling him.
Not only is he incredibly muscular, he also has an interesting tattoo that I haven’t seen before. It’s a line of beautifully ornate Celtic knots, and it runs across his lower abdomen from hip to hip, just underneath his navel, marred only by the thin trail of hair that leads into the waistband of his jeans. My eyes widen a little, and he clears his throat.
“Um…” I force my eyes up to his, and find a bemused look on his face.
“Like what you see?” he asks, not for the first time. His smile is arrogant and confident, but it sadly doesn’t make him any less attractive. I realize that I’m leaning towards him, and quickly pull away.
“Aren’t stomach tattoos kind of girly?” I ask, immediately deflating his overblown ego.
He clears his throat again, this time more embarrassed than cocky. “Well, I uh, didn’t exactly pick it out myself.”
“Did a girlfriend?” I ask with a smirk. I just knocked him off balance, and I’m not about to let up. “Or did you lose a bet? Because there’s no way any man’s man is going to get a tattoo in that area.”
“Actually, I was wasted when I got to the tattoo shop, and I don’t really remember that night all too well. But uh, you didn’t seem to mind it when your eyes were about to pop out of your skull just a second ago.”
And just like that, he flips it around, and I’m the one that’s embarrassed. “They were not,” I say defensively. “I was just surprised to see that you had a tattoo in such a girly place.”
“Because the rest of me is so hot?”
I shake my head and walk away. I can hear him pulling on a shirt from behind me, and I’m sorely tempted to peek over my shoulder for one last glance of his body before it disappears, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction. He already knows he’s hot; I don’t need to tell him he’s right anymore than I already have.
Reese and Tobe are cleaning dishes in the kitchen sink with boiled water from the lake, and they nod to us as we pass by. “Be careful,” Tobe says, looking at us. Her gaze turns to Ryder. “If she doesn’t come back in one piece, you won’t stay in one piece, got it?”
Reese snorts, and Ryder shakes his head. “I got it; we’ll be careful.” He nudges me with his elbow. “Let’s go. I’d like to scavenge around for some more supplies on our hike back.”
I follow him out to the front door. “What more could we possibly need right now? We have a pretty decent first aid kit, we have quite a bit of ammunition, we have MRE’s, and we have canned food too. There’s water from the lake that we can sorta purify, we have clean clothes, and we have company. Good company. What else is there?”
“We have only one flashlight, and one spare battery. We could always use more medicine or bandages just in case, and the food will run out eventually, remember that. Plus, there are probably other things we can find that we don’t necessarily miss right now. Just keep your eyes open today.”
I follow Ryder down to the dock, where the boat is tethered to one side. He tosses an empty duffel bag into the back, and I climb aboard. Next to the empty duffel bag is a bright red gasoline container, and when I pick it up, I notice that it’s almost empty. “Are we hunting for gas too?”
He nods. “We’re gonna need that if we ever have to leave this place.”
“Why would we?”
“Even if we manage to clear out every zombie on the island, we’ll run out of supplies eventually. There are about two hundred MRE’s, and a few days more of canned goods, but food won’t just fall from the sky. We can hunt, but the game will disappear too.”
“So we’ll make more.”
“Make more game?” he asks, starting the boat. “Wow, are you serious?”
“Yeah, why not? There’s a fenced in area, right? If we could catch a couple of deer, we could have more soon enough. Same with rabbits or turkeys. There’s even a rabbit hutch against the side of the garage. All we have to do is clean it out and find two rabbits. Then we’ll have ten rabbits. Then we’ll have fifty rabbits. Then we’ll have a hundred rabbits. Then we’ll have–”
“Alright! I get what you’re saying,” he says, shaking his head. “Even if we did successfully breed rabbit, deer, and turkey, we won’t survive out here forever. Now, let’s focus more on our surroundings than on talking.”
I shake my head, and lean over the side of the boat. It’s almost ten o’clock, and the sun is already high up in the sky. It’s not as warm as it was yesterday or the day before, and I wonder if winter is slowly approaching. “I wonder what the date is.”
“I don’t know. Early September. Maybe the fourth or fifth. If you’re worried about snow, don’t be. We won’t get that for probably another five or six weeks. We’ve got time to prepare before we get snowed in.”
“Alright, if you say so.”
Neither of us speaks for a few minutes. When Ryder stops the boat, I notice a small alcove hidden by a dense group of trees. The boat slowly coasts to a stop, and Ryder begins pulling tree branches over the boat, trying to hide it as best as he can. I watch him from land.
The empty duffel bag is slung over my shoulder, and the gas can is sitting at the ground by my feet. When Ryder is done, the boat is almost invisible to anyone sailing by, and he quickly joins me. “Not bad, huh?” he asks, grabbing the nearly empty gas can. “Come on, let’s get moving. There’s a house about a quarter of a mile that way,” he says pointing. “I’m thinking we can check for any available gas or supplies.”
I just nod my head and follow Ryder as he walks into the trees. Everything around here looks the same to me: green. I’m not sure how he can find his way through here so easily, but I trust his sense of direction. If he says we’re heading in the right direction, then we’re heading in the right direction.
We walk in silence through the trees. Neither of us has anything constructive or useful to say, so we just keep our mouths shut. It’s not like we can talk about stupid things like sports, the weather, or plans for the weekend. This is the apocalypse, and the only important thing right now is survival.
And that’s the only thing that will be important for the rest of our lives. Sports, music, movies, and weekend plans will never again be important, only survival. Every day will be the exact same as the previous one, and the next one.
Wake up, wash, eat, survive, eat, survive, eat, sleep, and repeat. That’s all our lives will amount to now that the rest of the world is either gone or infected. Can I really spend the rest of my life with just Ryder, Reese, and Tobe? Or will we eventually get too sick of each other to stay?
Ryder doesn’t actually need to stay right now. Sure, this place will be easy to defend and survive on, but the three of us are only holding him back. If Ryder decided to leave
, would Reese follow and leave me and Tobe both alone?
“Hey, pay attention!” Ryder hisses, putting his arm out. I run into it, and he yanks me back into the line of trees around us. We’ve been walking for some time, and there’s a house about a hundred yards in front of us. All of the lights are off, not that I expected them to be on, and the front door is open.
There’s a red truck in the driveway, but it looks like it hasn’t been used in a while. The grass is brown and overgrown, and there’s a mostly dead tree in the front yard. A wraparound porch leads up to the front door, and a wooden porch swing hangs at one end. Part of it’s been ripped from the roof, and it hangs at an odd angle, creaking back and forth.
But that’s not what catches my attention the most. Ryder is tense by my side, and I glance at him. “I see it too,” he says quietly. I look back at the house, looking at the large chimney near the back of the house. Smoke is rising slowly from the chimney.
“Someone’s here on the island with us,” Ryder says, tightening his grip on his assault rifle.
Chapter Thirteen
“Do we turn around and find a different way back home? Or do we go knock and see if anyone is home?”
Ryder thinks to himself for a minute, and I don’t rush him. This decision could have either really good, or really bad consequences. On the plus side, we might get a new ally, a new pair of eyes and ears watching our place. On the negative side, we might get a new enemy, a new person to watch out for. This person might try to kill or rob us if we turn our back on them.
Finally, he sighs. “I think you should stay here, and let me check the house out first.”
“I don’t think so. There is no way you’re going up to that house alone. You can go up to the house, or you can turn around and head home. Either way, I’m gonna have your back on this. Now, what are we doing?”
He’s studying me intently, and I feel oddly self-conscious about it. After a minute, he nods once. “If you wanna come with me, you stay behind me at all times, and if I tell you to do something, you do it. Got it?”
“Yes.”
We slide along the side of the house, making sure to stay out of view of any of the windows. He ducks down behind the truck, and I follow closely behind. From our position behind the truck, we creep slowly up to the porch.
Ryder brings his rifle up, and steps into the open doorway, quickly scanning the room around us. Once he deems it clear, he nods to me, and I step in after him. I do my own quick sweep of the room, and follow Ryder down a narrow hallway.
There’s a loud thump, and we both pause in our tracks, guns raised. After a few seconds, Ryder motions me forward, and we slip into an open door that leads to a bathroom. There’s another door that’s left ajar, and we walk up to it, unsure of what we’re going to find.
A second thump is followed by a breathy moan, and Ryder frowns. “Are these people doing what I think they’re doing?” I ask, incredibly disgusted.
He motions for me to walk back the way we came in, but I’m rooted to the spot. Something else has caught my attention, and I’m truly hoping that it isn’t what I think it is. I take a step closer to the door, and listen.
There’s a lower, throatier moan, one that Ryder and I both recognize instantly. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me behind his back, as if he’s trying to shield me from whatever we’re going to find in this room.
He kicks the door open, and we come to an abrupt halt in the entryway of a master bedroom. What we’re seeing is so disgusting, so horrible that I can’t even believe it. This isn’t possible. It’s too terrible to be happening!
There’s a recently infected woman tied to the headboard. She’s completely naked except for a handkerchief that’s been shoved down her throat to keep her from biting. But that’s not even the worst of it. There’s someone else in bed. He’s in his late thirties or early forties, with graying hair and a potbelly, but that’s not what I can’t look away from.
It’s the fact that he’s having sex with the captive zombie!
He pauses mid-thrust and stares at us. His mouth is open wide in surprise, and he looks like he’s unsure of whether to be ashamed, scared, or furious. There’s a brief moment where nobody speaks, moves, or thinks. Then, in a swift, fluid movement, the man snatches a handgun from the table and points it directly at my chest. His eyes narrow in hatred, and he takes a few deep breaths.
“You’re interrupting.”
Ryder inches closer to me. His finger curls around the trigger, but he doesn’t squeeze it yet. “What the hell is going on here?” he asks as if he doesn’t already know the answer.
“My wife and I are enjoying a private moment, and you’re ruining it.” His face is scrunched up tight in anger, and the hand that’s holding the gun is trembling so wildly that I’m not even sure he’ll hit me if he pulls the trigger. I’m not willing to take that chance though; I want to be as far from this room as possible.
“Ryder, let’s go.”
He ignores me, refusing to take his eyes off the man in bed. “You’re sick,” he hisses, turning his head to look at the woman. There’s a massive chunk of flesh missing from her stomach, and he’s laid a sheet across it, but it doesn’t help much. I can still see the outline of the bite wound, and it sends shivers up my spine.
The man climbs out of bed, and I keep my eyes above his naked waist. “She’s my wife,” he whimpers, suddenly not looking so angry and volatile. The gun lowers a fraction of an inch, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding in for some time. “I love her too much. I couldn’t just kill her.”
“She’s already dead! You’re keeping her tied to your bed. Why? So you can have sex with her whenever you want? You’re a monster.” Ryder sounds more disgusted than I’ve ever heard him sound before, and I wonder which of us this bothers more.
The man’s gun comes back up, but it’s pointing at Ryder’s chest now, and I realize what he’s doing. Ryder’s baiting him, trying to get the gun off of me and onto him. “Don’t pretend to be the heartbroken husband. You’re really just a sick pervert that gets his rocks off screwing his dead wife!”
The man lunges for Ryder’s throat, apparently forgetting that he’s holding a gun. Ryder steps to the side, bringing his knee up into the man’s stomach. The gun drops to the ground, and the man swears. He reaches for it, but Ryder grabs his arm and twists, dislocating the shoulder.
The man falls to the ground, where he lays in a crumpled heap. “I couldn’t save her…it was just too late…it’s all my fault!” He begins to sob pitifully, but Ryder isn’t watching him. He’s watching the woman that’s tied to the bed and, when I pick up the gun, he holds his hand out for it. I pass it over to him, curious about what his plan is.
“You need to put her out of her misery.”
What he says surprises me. His eyes are softer and more caring than I’ve ever seen them, and I realize that he doesn’t pity the man on the ground, he pities the woman in the bed. And I don’t blame him one bit, because nobody should be forced to live like this.
If I were ever bitten and turned into one of those things, I would hope that someone had the strength to kill me. I wouldn’t want to walk around like a soulless monster for the rest of time.
“I can’t,” the man whispers, barely noticeable above the moaning of his dead wife. “I just can’t do it. I love her too much.”
“You love her so much that you could let her stay like this?” Ryder snaps. “If I ever loved a woman so much that I could marry her, and want a life with her, I couldn’t bare to see her like this. And then to have sex with her in this position?”
I’m not sure whether he sounds more angry or more disgusted, but it’s definitely a mix of both. The gun in his hand is shaking slightly, and that tells me that he’s truly unnerved by this. Nothing ever shakes Ryder; at least, he doesn’t show fear or nervousness. I wonder now how many times he was scared out of his mind, but just didn’t show it.
“You have to do this. End her suffering,” Ryd
er says, practically pleading with the man now.
The man’s eyes harden, and he glares at both of us. “You can’t begin to understand!” he screams, getting to his feet. One arm is hanging uselessly at his side, and the other is clenched in anger. He doesn’t pose much of a threat, but Ryder shields me anyways. “You can’t understand because you still have the person you love!”
“I don’t love her,” Ryder says, taking a step forward. “But even if I did, I would never do this to her. I know that she would deserve better than this! And I certainly wouldn’t use her for sex.”
The man’s features soften, and he slumps again. He sniffles, wipes his face, and looks at Ryder pleadingly. “Give me the gun, and I’ll do it.”
Ryder nudges me, and I raise my own gun, just in case. The man takes the gun from Ryder, and turns away from us. He takes aim at his wife’s head, but the gun is trembling so badly I know he won’t hit her if he pulls the trigger. He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself, and then tries again.
With one last shuddering breath, he turns the gun around, sticks the end in his mouth, and pulls the trigger. The back of his head explodes, coating us in blood and skull fragments, and I scream as the man drops to the ground, missing half of his face. I’m still screaming when Ryder takes the gun from him and shoots his wife.
When he turns to me, all I can see is the man’s blood that coats Ryder’s shirt and arms, and then I look down at myself. Bits of blood, brain matter, and bone coat my clothes. I slap at my arms, trying to scrape everything away, trying not to see it as I do. Right now, I don’t want to think about what’s sticking to me and soaking into the carpet, I just want to clean myself off.
Ryder drops the gun on the bedside table, takes a handkerchief from his pocket, and then grabs one of my hands. It’s trembling wildly, and he sighs. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says, gently wiping the blood from my arm. “I thought he might do it, and I should have warned you.”
Zombie Island Page 12