Grayland

by James Bierce

  About a quarter of a mile up the road, they turn off of the highway and onto a road that winds through some pine trees and sand dunes, before finally passing through a security gate that looks as though it’s been forced open and partially torn loose from its track. The houses beyond the gate are all newer homes, each of them with multiple stories and attached garages that look out of place compared to the surrounding area. The lawns in front of them, although now severely overgrown, were obviously once carefully planned out and manicured. In it’s time, it was probably one of the nicer communities on the coast, but the further into it that Larry drives, the more he begins to regret ever turning down this road. On every single house, without exception, the doors and windows have been either ripped off or broken, and the contents thrown out into the weather. They can see bones here and there throughout the entire neighborhood, and complete skeletons hanging from trees in the yards, with chains and ropes still wrapped tightly around their necks.

  One house in particular makes Beth divert her eyes, with it’s front wall splattered with blood, and several badly decomposed corpses still tied to the porch columns — a few of them much too small to be adults. She looks across the street instead, seeing one of the only cars in the neighborhood, it’s tires slashed and windows broken out. Then, without warning, she feels herself being thrown forward as Larry slams on the brakes. “What’re you…” She stops mid-sentence, seeing two men standing about a hundred feet ahead of them. “We need to get out of here…”

  Larry puts the car in reverse, then turns his head as he starts to back up. “Keep an eye on those two.” With the gate now in view, he carefully weaves around the debris in the road, then slows down to a crawl when he sees someone sliding the gate shut behind him, then securing it with a heavy chain. “Shit…”

  “Can we make it through if you just floor it?”

  “I guess it depends on the gate — but do you wanna risk being injured out here?”

  Hearing something to her right, Beth turns her head and sees another man coming out from behind a house, then another one from inside — both of them carrying knives and wearing no shirts. Even from more than fifty feet away, she can still see the open wounds and purple bruising on their torsos and heads. “You need to do something, there’s more of them coming.”

  After the man behind them starts throwing rocks at the back of the car, causing Amanda to scream as they pelt the trunk lid, Larry puts the car back into drive and presses the gas pedal to the floor. Not knowing whether the street actually goes down to the beach or not, he slows down some as they go around a curve, then speeds up again as they pass by the two men that were in front of them — nearly hitting both of them. When he sees a dead end up ahead, he pulls the car off of the pavement and onto a trail that wanders through the dunes. “Be ready to bail if we get stuck, this sand is pretty deep.”

  “Just try to stay on the grass if you can…”

  Coming over the last dune, Beth glances up at the ocean ahead of them and sees a large layer of debris floating on the surface. As the car begins to slide down the other side, with both front tires spinning in the loose sand beneath them, they hear a loud crunch as the bumper crashes into the ground below. He eases it forward, feeling their weight sinking further into the sand — and then slowly, the car begins to level out as they reach the hard, wet surface of the shore.

  When they get out onto the middle of the beach, where the sand is the hardest, the car turns to the right, heading north toward Cohassett again. Beth looks behind them, seeing the public access road for Grayland only a short distance away. “Where are you going?”

  “Beth, we tried, but we’re going back. Cohassett is only a few miles up the beach — we should have come this way to begin with.”

  “Larry, stop!”

  “We’re going back, I’m not having this discussion again…”

  “No, there’s something ahead of us… Stop the car.”

  Slowing down, it takes him a minute to figure out what’s covering the beach ahead of them. “It’s fucking logs,” he says, slamming his fists down onto the steering wheel.

  “Like tree logs?”

  “There must’ve been a ship that dumped them,” he says, as he finally stops the car and looks around.

  “Can we get around?”

  “Not that I can see. They’re stretched all the way from the water to the dunes.”

  “It’ll be getting dark soon. We can’t spend the night in this car, not anywhere around here anyway.”

  He glances into the rear view mirror, and then at the sunset that’s forming over the water as the night approaches from the east. “Well, it looks like we’ll be spending the night in Grayland after all.

  CHAPTER 9

  GRAYLAND: DAY 3

  Like much of the Washington coast, the industries in and around Grayland used to center around fishing and tourism, but what it was really known for was the thriving farming community that grew the one and only crop that does well in the inclement weather of the Pacific coastline — cranberries. In recent years, before the outbreak began, there were still several successful bogs in the area, and an annual festival that attracted people from all over the Pacific Northwest. The locals even had a name for the region — the ‘Cranberry Coast’, which stretched all the way down to North Cove in the south.

  Aside from the cranberry bogs, Grayland was similar to Westport in virtually every other way — in fact, if you weren’t from around the area you might not realize when you’ve crossed over from one town to the next. Short, twisted up pine trees are scattered throughout the region, their branches permanently disfigured from the constant wind, and thick patches of Scotch broom that have invaded the area cover much of the ground around the trees. The houses, mobile homes and commercial buildings are more spread out than in most towns, with no one single area that you might consider ‘downtown’. It gives the impression of privacy and seclusion when traveling through, but in reality, there was very little that happened along highway 105 that wasn’t well known by the other locals — rumors and gossip are simply a way of life along the coast.

  Over an hour has passed since they watched their stalker drag another man into the church across the street, and every minute that goes by George is more convinced that his injuries are likely too severe for him to move on, especially if they’re being pursued. Seeing the worried look on Christine’s face, he knows that she’s aware of it as well.

  They have maybe two or three days worth of food and water, and after that it would be up to her to venture out and gather more supplies, which is something that she’s never done on her own before.

  “It’ll be dark soon,” Christine says, carefully peeking out of the window.

  Still lying on the floor, he looks up at her standing beside the window, and sees the orange glow of a sunset against her pale skin. “You shouldn’t be there, he might see you.”

  “He’d have to be a hell of a shot from all the way over there.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t know who he is. Maybe he’s a sniper.”

  “He’s one of the others, one of the strong ones — otherwise he wouldn’t be out walking in the daylight.”

  “He might not even be sick.”

  “Healthy people don’t act like that. He’s sick, just the dangerous kind of sick.”

  Letting out a gasp, she drops to the floor and lies down, unconsciously holding her breath as she slides next to her father. Fighting through the pain, he sits up slightly and faces her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a car coming down the road, I saw its headlights.”

  “From which direction?”

  “North.”

  Careful not to make any noise for the effort, he struggles to get to his knees and looks out the window to see for himself. Just as she said, there’s a car weaving its way through the debris on the road. When it reaches the church it slows down, then stops just past it, the engine sounding as if it’s about to die. Christine kneels d
own next to George, and they watch as the car just sits in the middle of the road, then slowly turns into the parking lot across the street.

  “We should warn them shouldn’t we?” Christine asks.

  “They’ll see the blood on the steps, and on the door knob.”

  Both the driver and the passenger doors open, and a man and woman step out onto the gravel and make their way around to the trunk. The man reaches in, then jumps back quickly as if he’s scared of whatever is inside. Then he tries it again, using his jacket to wrap around whatever it is, then pulls out a young girl who appears to be tied up with ropes and bungee cords.

  “Oh my god, do you see that?” Christine whispers, in shock at what she’s witnessing.

  “Shh…, I see it.”

  The man carries the girl in his arms as she struggles to get away, while the woman carries their bags to the side entrance of the building — and then they disappear inside.

  “Dad, we have to help her…”

  George sits down again, his legs finally giving out on him. “I can’t do anything, and you’re not going to either.”

  “But you saw…”

  He cuts her off abruptly. “I know, and there’s nothing we can do.”

  Christine looks back at the church, and sees the woman come back out to the car and lift two rifles off of the backseat before heading back inside. Her mind, already in tatters over the idea that her dad might be gravely injured, begins conjuring up every horrible scenario possible for what the girl has already been through, and what her captors have planned for her next.

  “Did you find anything?” Beth asks, as she lays the rifles down on one of the pews.

  Larry walks in from the back, then sits down across the aisle from her, groaning in relief. “Not down here, the place looks cleaned out. I haven’t checked upstairs yet.”

  “We need to find another car and get out of here.”

  “Our car is fine, I think it’s just out of gas.”

  “Then let’s siphon some out of another car and get back on the road — I don’t really wanna spend the night in town.”

  “It took us all damn day to make it a few miles down the highway with all the shit on the road. If we’re gonna have to stay the night somewhere — it might as well be here.”

  “Do you think this is far enough to dump her?”

  “No, I’m sure she knows where we’re at. It wouldn’t take her long to figure it out even if she doesn’t.

  “Where did you put her?”

  “In the kitchen, in some sort of pantry in the corner. I think she’s falling asleep.”

  “She must be getting hungry by now.”

  “I offered, again.” He stands up and looks across the street, at the fading sunset and pine trees that cover the sand dunes. He never thought that any place could be as eerie as Aberdeen was, half of the city burned to the ground and the other half crawling with savages and lunatics. Hell, Aberdeen wasn’t exactly the land of prosperity even before the outbreak — but while Grayland didn’t have people wandering the roads, or ash falling from the sky like some apocalyptic scene from the bible, there’s still something about it that doesn’t seem right. It’s too quiet, with no sign of life anywhere.

  “What do you think those gunshots up there were all about?” Beth asks, breaking the silence.

  “One of them probably got hold of a gun, ended up shooting themselves.” In the faint light still left, he can see her rearranging the same bag for at least the third time. “Do you want to go back?”

  “No, but I do feel guilty about leaving them. It feels like we have something there.”

  He stands up and switches on a flashlight. “Yeah, but on the bright side, you’ve gained a daughter.”

  “Ha ha,” she replies, unamused.

  “I’m gonna go check upstairs. You should figure out where we’re gonna sleep tonight.”

  She pats her hand on the hard wooden pew, sending loud echoes throughout the building. “Already found it.”

  “Lovely, sounds restful.” He walks back to the kitchen, looking in on Amanda to make sure she’s still there and breathing, and he hears her softly crying with her head buried in her hands.

  “Amanda, are you okay?” he asks, leaning down to try to see her face, but still keeping his distance.

  She lowers her hands, exposing a look of heartbreak on her face. “I hurt.”

  “What hurts?”

  “My throat.”

  “I’ll see if I can find something that’ll make it better, okay?”

  She nods and lies back down, watching as he proceeds toward a doorway marked ‘Steeple Staircase’. He doesn’t see the intense look of hatred on her face as soon as he turns away from her.

  Before opening the door, he notices a speck of red on the doorknob, still wet — then he sees a small puddle right below it on the floor. He glances back at Amanda, who’s now sitting up and staring at him with an innocent look in her eyes. With the gun still in its holster on his hip, he slowly opens the door and shines the light up the staircase, which has a bright red streak of blood all the way to the top. When the beam reaches the top landing, he sees a man looking back at him, his clothes and face soaked in blood, and his chest heaving with every breath drawn. Larry immediately shuts the door again, then locks it with the small rusted chain beside it. He looks around the room for something else to secure it, then spots a tall cabinet in the corner that’s roughly the same height as the space between the door and the opposing wall. He struggles with the cabinet, sliding it across the tiled floor while also hearing footsteps coming down the stairs, then he pushes it over with a loud crash, and wedges it in front of the door.

  “What the hell is going on?” Beth yells as she enters the room.

  Right after she speaks, the man begins pounding and scratching at the door, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “We’re not alone,” Larry replies, pointing at the rattling door.

  “Is that yours?” she asks, pointing toward the counter beside the door.

  Larry turns around and sees a revolver, covered in mud and blood. “No, it’s not.” Grabbing a dish towel off of the counter, he wraps it around the gun and then walks back toward the nave. “I’ll be back in a minute, I’m gonna sanitize this thing before handling it.”

  The man’s screaming quiets down, then stops altogether, but he’s still beating and clawing on the door as Beth kneels down in front of Amanda with a bottle of water held out. “You have to drink something, sweety — you’ll get sick if you don’t.” She has to be careful not to get too close, since the girl already tried biting Larry right after they tied her up the night before, but when Amanda lifts her head to take a small sip, Beth can see red and purple streaks underneath the skin on her chest and down both arms. She’s seen something like this once before, when Larry’s wife died of the disease.

  Larry walks back in, wiping down the revolver with a sanitizing wipe. “It still has one round in it, the others are empty shells.”

  “I think Amanda is really sick. Did you notice these lines on her skin?”

  “Yeah, I saw them earlier.”

  “She needs antibiotics, and something to warm her up before she catches pneumonia.”

  Larry sits down on the cabinet blocking the steeple door, feeling the sharp impacts every time the man throws himself against it. “What she needs, what we all need, is a place without someone trying to kill us, but there isn’t much we can do about that right now.”

  “We have antibiotics out in the car.”

  “Beth, she’s dying, pills aren’t going to save her. She’s barely strong enough to sit up.” He shines the flashlight on Amanda, seeing her chest rise and fall dramatically as her breathing becomes more strenuous. He noticed the markings on her skin when he carried her in, but he can see now that they’re more pronounced than before, and the skin itself looks almost transparent. “Try to get some sleep, sis, I’ll take the first watch.”

  “What about tomorrow? Are we moving
on?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever is behind this door is gonna wake up the entire neighborhood.”

  CHAPTER 10

  COHASSETT BEACH: DAY 4

  Lying on the ground, wishing that he had better eyesight than he does, Curtis impatiently watches his son, Matt, as he spies on the cabin in the distance with binoculars. It’s still early in the morning, and he can feel the cold dampness of the wet fir needles as they soak through his coat from the rain the night before. The sun is shining to the east of them though, filtering light through the trees and giving them a reasonable amount of visibility.

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing, everything looks normal.”

  “Do any of the windows look like they’ve been broken?”

  “The ones on this side look fine.”

  “Come on, let’s see if we can spot anything on the highway.”

  They walk, crouched down along a narrow ridge that winds its way through the trees, paralleling the property that the cabin sits on, until they come to a bend that gives them a view of the highway below, and the sand dunes beyond. Curtis takes the binoculars from Matt and looks down on the road, seeing the same abandoned cars that normally litter the asphalt.

  “When you were in Aberdeen, did you see any other people?” Matt asks.

  “I wasn’t actually in the city, I was on the other side of the river.”

  “But you could see it, right?”

  “Sort of.”

  “So did you see any other people?”

  “You mean like us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Did you see any that weren’t like us?”

  “I did.”

  “How many were there?”

  Curtis would really prefer not having this discussion, especially not right now — he hasn’t even told Sarah the full extent of what he saw across the water. Knowing that Matt won’t be satisfied with no answer at all, he puts the binoculars down and looks at the dunes with his naked eyes, searching for any signs of movement in the grass and shrubs. He can hear the crashing of the waves on the other side, and the seagulls hollering overhead, but the fog is still too thick to see the water itself. “There were a lot of them, more than I thought there would be.”