In the distance, I could see the lighthouse. If I was going to stop Harper, I had to do it now.
I looked down onto the deck. He was still too close to Mike. I couldn’t risk a shot.
Damn it. I slapped the wall in frustration.
Using the binoculars, I focussed in on the lighthouse and its rocky island. A few shapes moved around the base of the tower but it was getting cloudy and misty along the coast and it made it hard to see clearly.
At least I couldn’t see Elena.
Somewhere out at sea, distant thunder rumbled.
A few spatters of rain hit the windshield.
Then more.
Then the heavens opened and the rain came down in a torrent.
I checked the rocks near the lighthouse again. The shapes were gone, obviously taking cover in the lighthouse.
All of the zombies on the island would be in there now, roaming the lighthouse from the ground floor up.
And we were about to go in there with them.
twenty four
I dropped the anchor when we were about a quarter mile from the rocks and climbed down to the deck below, blinking against the rain as it lashed my face.
Harper had ordered Mike and Lucy inside and they sat together on the sofa while he sat opposite them in the easy chair, gun pointed at them.
I got in out of the rain and wiped my face. “We’re here,” I told Harper. “Are you going to tell us what we’re doing here?”
“I need something from the safe in my room,” he said. “You’re going to help me get in there and back out in one piece. When I have what I want, we’re done. I’ll go my way and you go yours. None of you has to get hurt. But if you try to stop me, I will kill at least one of you, maybe all of you. All you have to do to survive is fight off the zombies in the lighthouse.”
“You know it’s raining out there?” I said. “Do you know what that means?”
“Yeah, it means they’ll all be inside. Zombies don’t like the rain.”
“You think we’ll go in there and come out alive?”
He shrugged. “Maybe not all of us. I’m surprised you’ve survived this long. You look like the type of person who read zombie novels and played video games before all this went down. That normally doesn’t translate well to a real situation.”
“What do you know about it?” I said, my anger hiding my acknowledgment that he was right.
“I know plenty. While you were having fantasies about the walking dead, I was preparing. I spent my weekends at gun clubs, at survivalist lectures, at survival exercises in the woods. I knew something like this would happen someday. So I prepared for it. This isn’t a fantasy, this is reality.”
“If you’re so well-prepared, why do you have to go back to the lighthouse? Leave something behind? Doesn’t sound so well-prepared to me.”
He looked chagrined. “I admit I made one mistake. I should have taken all of my things with me when I left the lighthouse. But I didn’t realize then what was actually going down. I thought I’d have time to check out the lay of the land and get back to collect what I needed. It didn’t turn out that way.”
“What is it you need?” Lucy asked. “What are we risking our lives for?”
“Just a set of keys.”
“Keys to what?” I asked.
“My place. The place I’ve been preparing all this time. It’s remote, protected by walls, has enough food and supplies for years. Solar power, hot water, everything. While you’re fighting to survive in this hellhole, I’ll be living in luxury.” He grinned at Lucy. “You could come with me, love. There’s plenty of room for two.”
“Go to hell,” she said, crossing her arms.
“It’s you three that will be going to hell. They’re going to nuke Britain. Did you know that? Do you know how to survive in a nuclear winter? You’re already dead, you just don’t know it yet.”
“The U.N. are coming,” Lucy said. “They’re taking survivors to America.”
He snorted. “Is that right? How long do you think it’s going to take for the virus to get there? Even if they took you to their shores, it will just be a matter of time before you’re living in Zombie America.”
“You have to have hope,” Lucy said.
“I have hope, young lady, because I don’t trust in anyone except myself. You can trust in these rescuers if you want but you’ll end up dead. Anyway, we’re wasting time here. The tide will be going out soon and the lighthouse will be open to the mainland again. Come on, we’re going on a little mission.”
“I need to change first,” I said, “and so does Lucy.” We were still dripping wet from our swim and I felt a chill that reached all the way to my bones.
“Alright, but be quick about it.”
I headed for the door to the bedrooms and Lucy got up to join me.
“No, no, no,” Harper said, waving the gun. “One at a time.”
I went down to the room where we kept our clothes and changed into my rain gear… a ‘Sail To Your Destiny’ T-shirt, dark blue fleece jacket and waterproof trousers that I had taken from the marine store. Over that I put on the waterproof jacket Mike had lent me for the hiking trip and a woollen scarf. I grabbed the diving mask to give me better visibility in the rain and went back upstairs.
“Fucking hell,” Harper said when he saw me. “You look like you’re ready for nuclear winter already.”
Lucy went and changed into jeans, a sweater and her jacket and Harper told her to untie Mike. Then he led all three of us out to the aft deck.
“Bring my boat around to the ladder and get in one by one. All of you move to the stern where I can keep an eye on you.”
Mike took the rope and guided Harper’s boat to the ladder. It was a fair-sized fishing boat but Harper had loaded it with fuel cans and gas bottles so there was hardly any room on the deck. It looked like his preparation was still ongoing. He had boxes stored in the cabin and lashed to the front deck. We climbed aboard and sat among the cartons, boxes and canisters.
Harper dropped onto the deck, told Mike to untie us from The Big Easy, and went into the cabin to start the engine. He pulled away from our boat and steered towards the lighthouse.
Lucy looked at me and I knew she was thinking the same thing as me: how would seeing Elena affect Mike? I gave her an almost imperceptible shrug. When I got changed, I put the flare gun and flares into the inside pocket of my jacket. I couldn’t risk a shot now with all the petrol on board Harper’s boat; it would go up like a bomb.
The rain washed down on us as we approached the rocks. The sky was gravestone grey. I put on the diving mask so my eyes were more comfortable in the rain.
Harper pulled the boat up to the rocks and told us to get off. We climbed out and stood in the rain while he tossed the mooring rope to Mike. Gathering up an armful of weapons, Harper kept the gun trained on us as he got out of the boat. He tossed the weapons at our feet.
A hand axe, a baseball bat and metal bar.
“Arm yourselves,” he said.
Lucy chose the axe and Mike picked up the metal bar, leaving me with the baseball bat. I hefted it and gave it a couple of swings in the air. We were about to go into a lighthouse full of zombies, so I wanted to be sure I knew my weapon.
“Right,” Harper said, “we’re going up to the bedroom level. That’s above the kitchen and living room.”
“We know,” Lucy said, “we’ve been here before.”
I looked over at Mike. He was staring at the lighthouse, the rain falling unnoticed on his face.
“You OK, Mike?” I asked him.
“I don’t want to go up there, man.”
I looked at Harper. “Maybe Mike should wait here. His girlfriend…”
Harper laughed. “Wait here? He’s the biggest guy among you. You think I’m going to rely on a geek and a girl to keep me safe? This guy is the only reason you’re useful to me. There’s no way he’s staying here while we go inside.”
He gestured with the gun towards the lighthous
e. “Let’s go.” While we walked ahead, he stayed far enough behind us to be out of our reach if we decided to rush him.
The door to the lighthouse was open. In the darkness beyond, I could see five sets of yellow zombie eyes watching us. They began to groan as we got closer.
From what I guessed about zombies, I had no doubt that they would come out into the rain if they thought they had a chance of catching prey. The herd I had seen in the supermarket had stayed inside because I was too far away from them to be caught easily. I would run and get away. So their conditioning told them to stay out of the rain.
But the way Mary and Dan had laid their trap on The Hornet, hoping to lure people to open the door, then smashing down the door when that didn’t work, made me think that these ‘rules’ the zombies followed weren’t rigid. They were adaptable to specific situations.
In general, they didn’t come out in the rain but if there were easy prey they would. It would be in the virus’s best interests to infect another human even if it meant quicker decay of the host that it used as an attacker. That host might decay faster after getting wet but now there was a new zombie to help spread the virus. The math made it worth the risk, probably.
So these monsters taking shelter on the ground floor of the lighthouse would wait until we got too close to run away easily and then they would attack.
“Be careful,” I said to Mike and Lucy.
Mike was the first to reach the doorway. He swung his steel bar and it slammed into the skull of a zombie in a wetsuit, sending the creature down to the ground like a dead weight.
Two more came staggering out, their primitive senses obviously sensing that we were now close enough to kill. Lucy swung the axe up and it cut through the jaw of a woman in a sundress. Her face split in two as the axe blade travelled up into her brain.
I stepped forward to deal with the third attacker, a man in a ‘Sail To Your Destiny’ T-shirt and jeans. I wondered if he was an employee at the marina store. He had no stock to sell now, I had taken it all. I swung the bat as hard as I could at his head. He fell heavily and lay twitching on the ground. His eyes stared up at me with hatred. He was still alive… whatever alive meant to these creatures… but his neck was broken and he couldn’t move. He lay there gnashing his teeth at nothing in particular.
The remaining two came staggering out, arms reaching for us. Mike smacked one down with the bar and Lucy axed the other in the top of the head.
We stood in the rain, letting it wash their black blood and blue flesh from our clothing. The smell of death and putrefaction hung thickly in the air.
We went inside and I removed my diving mask before it got misted up. From the floors above, we could hear them moving about, shuffling around and moaning. It sounded like there were dozens of them up there. And I somehow knew one of them was Elena.
I couldn’t see my best friend experience the pain of seeing her again. I would do anything to spare Mike that torture.
He was staring up the steps, swallowing hard. He knew she was up there.
Outside, the storm passed over and the rain slowed to a gentle trickle before stopping completely.
“Come on,” Harper said from outside the doorway. “Get up the steps. My safe is on the third floor. There’s plenty more killing to be done yet.”
Mike took a deep breath and put a boot on the lowest step. The pain etched on his face killed me. No more.
I reached into my jacket and gripped the handle of the flare gun. I yanked it out, arced it towards Harper and pulled the trigger.
twenty five
The flare shot at Harper like a rocket, leaving a snaking trail of smoke in its wake.
He jumped to one side as soon as he saw me aim the gun at him but the flare was propelled with such speed it hit him in the thigh, sending him tumbling to the cement. He cried out in surprise, clutching his leg. The flare bounced off his trousers and shot up into the sky.
Mike was out the door and on Harper like a wild animal, straddling the survivalist with both legs, fist raised. He hit Harper in the face. The blow made Harper’s nose erupt with vivid red blood.
“You fucker!” Mike shouted over and over, bringing his fists down again and again.
“Please,” Harper begged, trying to shield his bloody face with his hands, “no more.”
“Mike, we need to get out of here,” Lucy said. We could hear the zombies coming down the steps from above. We had to get out of here now.
He looked up at us. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “What about him?”
Harper looked pathetic cowering beneath Mike, his face a bloody mess. I had tried to kill him a moment ago but only to spare Mike the pain of seeing Elena. If we didn’t move right now and get back to The Big Easy, all that would have been in vain. The zombies were right behind us. Their heavy footfalls thudded on the steps. I tried not to make out Elena’s voice among the hungry groans.
“Bring him with us,” I said, desperate to leave. “We can deal with him later.”
Lucy cast a worried look over her shoulder into the lighthouse. “Alex, we need to go now!”
I wondered if she saw Elena back there. I didn’t have time to look.
I rushed forward and helped Mike get Harper to his feet. Taking an arm each, we hustled him along to his boat. Lucy took up the rear, urging us to, “Move, move, move!” I could hear the zombies behind us, coming out of the lighthouse and shuffling across the cement towards us.
We got to the boat and lay Harper on the deck. He was conscious but dazed. Blood from his nose stained the front of his sweater and his eyes seemed unfocussed.
Lucy grabbed the mooring rope and threw it aboard, following it quickly. Mike rushed into the cabin and started the engines.
As we backed away into deeper water, I risked a look at the zombies on the rocks.
There she was. Elena.
She stood at the water’s edge. Her T-shirt was ripped and bloody, hanging off her in tatters. The left side of her neck was a big black gash, dark against her mottled blue skin. Her eyes glared at us with no recognition, only hunger. To her, we were no longer friends she had survived with. We simply were prey.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
“I hope Mike doesn’t see her,” Lucy whispered back, closing her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to see Elena like this any longer.
In the cabin, Mike stiffened. He looked at the herd of zombies. There was no way he didn’t recognize Elena standing there.
He said nothing. He simply reversed the boat into deep water then turned her around and headed for The Big Easy.
“Should we mention it?” I asked Lucy.
“Only if he talks about it first. Otherwise, we keep quiet.”
We sat silently in the back of the boat while Mike piloted us to The Big Easy.
He pulled up alongside the ladder and Lucy climbed out. As she ascended to the deck, Mike came over to me. There were tears in his eyes. He had seen Elena. No doubt about it. “Hey, man, give me that flare gun so I can cover Harper.”
I handed him the gun.
“And a flare, man.”
I gave him a flare. “You need any help with him?”
“Nah, he won’t put up much of a fight. You get on board The Big Easy, man.”
I put a hand around the cold metal of the ladder. I turned to him. Something didn’t feel right. “You OK, Mike?”
“I’m fine, man.”
I climbed the ladder and as I put my feet on the deck, I heard the engine of Harper’s boat rev up. Mike piloted the craft out into the water off our stern.
He started taking the caps off the petrol cans and pouring the liquid over the boat.
“Mike, what are you doing?”
Lucy joined me at the railing. All we could do was watch as Mike doused Harper’s boat in petrol.
“Mike!” Lucy shouted.
He ignored us, his eyes fixed on the zombies on the rocks as he covered the deck with gasoline. The smell reached us, so strong I felt like retching.
There was nothing I could do. Mike loaded the flare into the flare gun and went into the cabin, revving the engine and giving the boat full throttle.
Harper realized what was happening and his face turned into a pale mask of horror. “No!” he screamed. “No!”
The noise attracted the zombies on the rocks. They came to the water’s edge, reaching out for the boat speeding towards them.
Elena stood with them. Mike aimed the boat for her.
Lucy’s hands flew to her face and she turned away, unable to watch.
Harper continued screaming, fully aware that he was hurtling to his death.
As Mike got within twenty feet of the rocks, he fired the flare at the deck.
The boat became a fireball.
It hit the rocks and went off like a Molotov cocktail.
The flaming hull split apart on the rocks and flaming gasoline spilled onto the zombies in burning torrents.
The boat exploded.
I didn’t know how many zombies had been destroyed. There must have been twenty at least.
One of them was Elena.
I closed my eyes and felt tears stinging my cheeks.
She and Mike now rested in peace.
Black smoke curled up into the grey sky from the rocks around the lighthouse. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Leaving Lucy curled up and sobbing on the aft deck, I climbed to the bridge and started our engines.
We had to get away from this place.
twenty six
For two days, everything was a blur.
I somehow managed to pilot The Big Easy north, keeping to the deep water well away from the coastline.
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