Rain

by Shaun Harbinger

  “Plenty.”

  He looked over his shoulder and increased his pace.

  “Don’t worry, they’re not coming,” I said. I was pretty sure I understood why the city seemed deserted. Why we hadn’t seen any zombies during our night in the cave. And why they had seemed to be waiting for us on the porch at the farmhouse.

  We reached The Big Easy and managed to unload both carts into the living room area. By the time we were done and the carts on the jetty were empty, the sky had begun to clear a little.

  Mike untied us and jumped on board. “Let’s go, man,”

  “Just take us out a little,” I said. “I want to see if my theory is correct.”

  “Theory?”

  I nodded.

  “OK, man.” He climbed up to the bridge and started the engines. We sailed away from the marina, our wake bobbing the moored boats up and down like fishing floats indicating a bite.

  When we got half a mile out, I shouted up to Mike, “Stop here.”

  He cut the engines and the clanking of the chain began as the anchor lowered.

  “What is it, man?” He slid down the ladder and stood beside me.

  The rain was stopping. I removed my diving mask and stood watching the marina.

  Lucy and Elena came out from the kitchen. “What’s going on? Why have we stopped?”

  “Alex thinks something’s going to happen,” Mike informed them.

  “What?” Lucy asked.

  “Just wait and see,” I said.

  We stood on the deck while the sea lapped against the side of the boat. The dark clouds that had hung over the city scudded away farther inland and the sun broke through. Sunlight hit the boat and we basked in its warmth. The sea shimmered like glass.

  “Look,” I said, pointing at the marina.

  A lone figure moved stiffly out over the jetty. Then another. Within minutes the place where we had been standing earlier was swarming with zombies. The streets erupted with movement as the monsters came staggering out of the shops. Soon the city, which had been deadly silent, was a writhing mass of rotting undead bodies. Their mournful groans reached us even across the half mile of water.

  “I don’t understand,” Lucy said. “How did you know this would happen?”

  “It’s simple,” I said, watching the monsters roam the city. “They won’t come out in the rain.”

  fifteen

  We sat around the dining table with the lights on in the cabin. Darkness had fallen outside. Mike had piloted The Big Easy out a few miles from shore and for the first time in a long while, we felt safe. Elena and Lucy had arranged the food in the cupboards and made chicken curry and rice. Even though the curry came from a can, it filled the dining room with mouth-watering smells of savoury spices.

  The clothing and supplies from the marine shop had been stowed in the storage rooms below. Mike and Elena had claimed the largest bedroom on the stern, leaving Lucy and me with the smaller helm bedroom. Lucy wasn’t complaining about the arrangement. I tried to keep my celebration hidden by fixing a nonchalant look on my face.

  The curry was delicious and when we pushed the empty plates away, Lucy said, “Now tell us how you knew about the zombies and the rain.”

  I had kept quiet on the subject, working it through in my own mind before I was ready to explain it to the others. “I saw a TV show about how a virus behaves. Once it infects a host, it makes the host do things that achieve the virus’s goal of spreading to other hosts. There was a virus that made ants climb up high plants so the virus spores would spread farther when released. There was a bird virus that started out in a fish but really wanted to be inside a bird. So it made the fish swim erratically in the shallows where it would attract a hungry bird. Once the bird ate the fish, the virus got into the bird where it wanted to be in the first place.”

  “I don’t follow,” Mike said. “How does that apply to zombies and rain?”

  “If a virus can make an insect or a fish act like that, it shows that the virus ‘thinks’ long-term. It makes the host act in ways that will ensure the virus’s future.”

  Mike said, “A virus can’t think, man.”

  “But it’s like thinking. The virus doesn’t just infect a host and that’s that. If it has bigger plans, it makes the host act according to those plans. So this virus - whatever it is and wherever it came from - wants to spread among humans. Remember that guy who had died of a heart attack in the car crash? There was no reason for the zombies to bite him because he couldn’t spread the virus. It needs the host to be mobile and able to bite or scratch uninfected humans so it can be spread.

  “The humans it infects, it kills then rises from the dead. As we’ve seen… and smelled… the bodies rot. That means they will eventually rot away completely and be useless as hosts. The virus needs to slow that rotting process for as long as it can so the host has a longer ‘lifespan’ and can infect more victims.”

  “That makes sense,” Lucy said. “Keep the host body as intact as possible. Wet meat attracts microbes. So it makes the zombies avoid the rain.”

  I nodded. “When those zombies were hiding out on the farmhouse porch, they weren’t hiding there waiting for us. They were sheltering from the rain. Cartwright and Brand just happened to go outside while it was still raining and the nasties were there. That’s why they didn’t chase us to the Land Rover. The virus wouldn’t let them. Rather than take one or two victims at that moment, it wanted to keep the hosts in good condition for longer so they could infect more victims in the future.”

  “So it makes sense,” Elena said, “but how does it help us?”

  I had been thinking about that during our meal. “It means that if we have to move over land, we do it when it’s raining. We time our raids to coincide with rain and we can move about the streets freely. We’ll only have to deal with the zombies inside the buildings we enter. We couldn’t even think about entering a city any other way; we’d be outnumbered as soon as we hit the streets. So it gives us a tactic we can use to increase our chance of survival.”

  “But we aren’t going to be raiding cities,” she said, “because the U.N. ships are coming, remember? We just need to hold out on this boat until then and we’ll be saved.”

  “We don’t know when that will be,” Mike said.

  “So get on that damn radio and find out. Has anyone even checked the radio lately?” She got up from the table and took her plate over to the sink, throwing it in angrily before going out on deck.

  Mike went to follow her. Before stepping out into the night, he turned to us. “This is all getting to her.”

  “It’s getting to all of us,” I said to Lucy after Mike was gone, “but she’s right. We haven’t checked the radio since we heard the emergency broadcast.”

  “I’ll get it.” She went below deck to where we had put the rucksacks and came back up with the radio. As I switched it on and placed it on the table, Lucy sat close to me. She had showered earlier and her hair smelled of apple shampoo. Beneath that, I detected a faint hint of her musky perfume.

  The radio came on and the EBS played, exactly as before. “Damn,” I said, “no change.”

  “Try the other stations. You never know.”

  I moved the dial gently, pausing whenever the static seemed to falter, hoping for a transmission. As I was about to give up, a male voice broke through.

  “Hey, people, this is Johnny Drake at Survivor Radio wishing you a great evening. Don’t let those nasties get you. Here’s a classic tune from Zager and Evans.” The song ‘In the Year 2525’ started to play.

  I looked at Lucy. “Survivor Radio?”

  She grinned, reflecting the grin I felt on my own face. It was good to hear another voice, to know that somebody was out there somewhere playing music for survivors like us.

  Mike and Elena came through the door. “What’s that music, man?”

  “Apparently it’s Survivor Radio.”

  They started to dance in the kitchen.

  Lucy looked at
me and raised an eyebrow. “Shall we?”

  I had never danced before but I joined her on the living room floor and gyrated to the music. The next song was ‘Break On Through’ by The Doors, and by now I had gained some confidence and threw out some sixties moves I had seen in movies. Lucy laughed and joined in.

  We danced like that for half an hour while Johnny Drake played tune after tune. He sounded like a professional DJ with his smooth voice and slick lead-ins to the music. He even had a station jingle which was, ‘Survivor Radio: Lifting the spirits of survivors everywhere.’ The music was a mix of everything from old classics to modern rock. Our situation made some of the lyrics even more poignant and we sang along with the songs we knew.

  We collapsed, exhausted, onto the seats and Johnny said, “OK, all you folks out there, it’s time for Survivor Reach Out. Want to reach out to a loved one? Need to get a message to a fellow survivor? Contact Survivor Reach Out. You know how.”

  Another man’s voice spoke. The quality of the recording was bad, as if the man were talking through a walkie-talkie and had been recorded on an external microphone.

  “My name is Frank Jones and I’m trying to contact my son. His name is Lee. Lee Jones. He was at work in Regent Street when the… when everything went wrong. If anyone sees Lee, please tell him I’m alive. His dad is alive.”

  Johnny Drake’s voice came back, sombre this time. “Survivors, keep a look out for Lee Jones in the London area. Let him know his dad is OK. Lee, if you hear this, go to your nearest Survivors Camp and tell them your name. They’ll make sure you get back together with your dad.”

  I was sure everyone on The Big Easy and Johnny Drake were thinking the same thing. If this man’s son had been in London when the virus broke out, he was probably dead. Or wandering around Regent Street as a zombie.

  A woman’s voice came crackling out of the radio. “My name is Linda Williams. My husband is Jim Williams. He was taking our daughters to school on the morning when the virus hit. The girls are Jessica and Olivia. They’re six and nine years old. Please, if anyone sees Jim and the girls, ask them to contact the army. They know which Survivors Camp I’m in. That’s Jim, Jessica and Olivia Williams. The school was in the Birmingham area. If you’re out there, Jim, please get in contact.”

  Drake said, “If you have a relative or loved one out there, remember to listen in to Survivor Reach Out every hour on the hour. Now here’s Billy Joel and ‘Piano Man’.”

  The music drifted from the radio but I wasn’t in the mood to listen anymore. Hearing those survivors pleading to the their loved ones… loved ones who were almost certainly dead or worse… left a sour taste in my mouth. Also, Survivor Radio, or at least the Reach Out slot, seemed to be run by the army. The appeals were telling survivors to go to Survivors Camps. The people appealing were in the Camps already. Was this the military’s way of keeping spirits up among the survivors? Giving them hope that they could contact loved ones? It sounded like Johnny Drake was either on the military payroll or being forced to play the Reach Out segments on his station.

  There was no news about the U.N. rescue mission.

  “What shall we do?” Mike asked. “We don’t know where the U.N. ships will land or when. Are we just going to drift out here hoping it’ll get mentioned on the radio?”

  “I don’t think the army are telling anyone about the rescue ships,” I said. “It’s probably on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Or those two soldiers you overheard on the radio were just talking bullshit,” Elena added.

  “That’s possible too. Either way, if we just drift out to sea, we won’t know anything.” I had found a map of Britain in the bridge earlier. Now, I laid it out on the table between the dishes. “We need to figure out the most logical place the U.N. will land so we can be in the area when they arrive.”

  “It could be anywhere, man.”

  “Not necessarily. It depends where the ships are coming from and what the conditions near the ports are like. If the ships come from Europe, they’ll be landing on the East Coast. Unless the ports are too dangerous. Since the main ports on that coast are near majorly populated areas, they’re probably too risky. So the ships would probably come around Scotland and sail along the West Coast.

  The main ports on the West are also in densely populated areas. Except in Scotland or the Isle of Man. Now, if the U.N. ships are coming from America, they would most likely dock on the West Coast.”

  “So it looks like the West Coast is the most likely, man.”

  “Yes. We don’t know for sure but I think it’s the best bet. Luckily, we’re sailing off the West Coast at the moment. The question is which port would they use?” I discounted the Isle of Man because that would require the army to transport all the survivors from mainland Britain to the Isle. The port must be on the mainland but in a less-populated area.

  “Scotland?” Lucy suggested.

  I looked at the map. It seemed logical. That would mean we would have to sail north along the coast to get into the right area. But the Scottish coastline was huge. How would we know where the ships were headed?

  “If we get close enough, we should be able to pick up their radio communications,” Mike said. “There’s some equipment on the bridge that we can use. But we need to get in range.”

  It was a long shot. The area we were talking about was huge and we didn’t even know the time, never mind the place, that the ships would arrive. So we planned to sail up and down the Scottish cost until we picked up radio communications or saw the ships coming across the Atlantic. I didn’t hold out much hope for the plan. Unless we found some more information soon, or even evidence that U.N. ships were actually coming, we would probably spend the rest of our days sailing around the British coast, raiding the mainland for food and supplies. The Big Easy was probably going to become our permanent home.

  Even that future looked grim if the rest of the world decided to nuke Britain.

  In that case, The Big Easy would become our tomb as we all died of radiation poisoning.

  Our chance of finding those ships was slim but it was the only chance we had. We had no other choice. I looked at Mike. “Can you plot a course to get us to Scotland?”

  “Sure thing, man.”

  * * *

  The bedroom that Lucy and I were expected to share was small, wood-panelled, and contained twin beds. After a shower, I changed into one of the T-shirts I had plundered from the marine shop, a black shirt with a green logo that said ‘Sail To Your Destiny’ above a picture of a sailboat. With the addition of a fresh pair of boxers from the same pile of plundered goods, I felt fresh and energized. I had found some paperback thrillers in the living room and planned to spend a couple of hours reading.

  I climbed into bed and lay there for a moment before cracking open the book I had chosen. The swaying motion of The Big Easy lulled me into a sleepiness that crept over me like a heavy blanket.

  I closed my eyes and slipped into a dream where I was sailing across miles of ocean to reach an island scorched by nuclear destruction and plagued by zombies.

  sixteen

  When I got up top the next morning, Lucy was on the sun deck looking out over the sea. The sun was already up and the sky was clear. A good day for zombies. Lucy wore a ‘Sail To Your Destiny’ T-shirt the same as mine. It was long enough to reach down to her knees and I wondered if she was wearing anything beneath it. Her hair blew in the gentle breeze as she leaned on the rail, her eyes on the distant shoreline. The air smelled faintly of sea salt with an underlying tang of rotten meat. Even at this distance from the mainland, we could smell the monsters.

  “Hey,” I said as I approached, ‘did you come to bed last night?”

  She looked at me and smiled. I felt my heart melt. “I did. You were fast asleep.”

  I had really gone under fast last night. The stress of the last few days must have become too much for my body and mind. They had simply shut down. Actually, my mind had stayed active; I could still remember a nigh
tmare of walking across a zombie-infested land which had been ravaged by a nuclear winter. I shuddered. Even when I was deep in the middle of gaming weekends involving the most horrific video games, I never had nightmares like that one.

  Lucy saw the troubled look on my face. “You OK, Alex?”

  “Yeah, I just had a nightmare last night.”

  “Me too. Then I woke up and realized it was real.”

  “At least we’re still alive.”

  She stared at the dark shape of the coastline. “Sometimes I think we might be better off dead.”

  “Don’t you mean better off undead?”

  “No, not one of them. They seem so tortured. I mean really dead. At peace.”

  I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Lucy was usually so resilient despite the circumstances. There was a lightness about her that lifted my spirits when I felt low. If she spiralled into depression, it wouldn’t be long before I followed.

  “It’s peaceful on the boat,” I said, “and we’re safe. Those things can’t hurt us out here.”

  “I know. We’re lucky to be alive. It’s just that I can’t shake the feeling that it won’t be long before we’re fighting to stay alive again.”

  I went inside and got the radio. Maybe some music would lift the mood. It might also wake Mike and Elena. I was anxious to start our journey to Scotland. The sooner we got there, the more chance we had of intercepting those rescue ships.

  Lucy saw the radio in my hand as I came back out on deck and smiled.

  “Care for some early morning music?” I put the radio on one of the padded benches.

  “As long as it’s not Survivor Reach Out.”

  “Yeah, that was a bit depressing.” I clicked the radio on and Bon Jovi filled the air, singing about living on a prayer.

  Lucy laughed and head-banged along. I did some lame dancing and air guitar, which made her laugh even harder.

  “You’re crazy,” she shouted over the music.

  That made me add in even more ridiculous moves to my heavy metal repertoire and as the solo began, I contorted my face into a grimace as I played my air guitar.