Hissers II: Death March

by Ryan C. Thomas

  “Favorite movie?” Olive asked.

  Connor thought for a moment. “I don’t know if I have a favorite. Maybe Jaws.”

  “Aren’t you a little young for Jaws?”

  “My dad liked it a lot, so I used to watch it with him on DVD.”

  “When I first saw that movie I wouldn’t go in the water for years. Scared the crap outta me.”

  “That’s what my dad said. He said it caused mass hysteria in the country. But that shark is so fake looking and the idea of a shark stalking a boat and jumping on it is ridiculous. They proved that on Shark Week a dozen times.”

  “And yet it’s your favorite movie.”

  Connor let the blinds drop and sat back on the couch. The coast looked clear outside as far as he could see. “It is, but because I find the horror parts goofy, and the hunting part on the boat, kinda, real. If that makes sense.”

  “Sure it wasn’t because you watched it with your dad?”

  “Yeah, there is that. Seth used to come over and watch it with us. He always said part three was the best, because it was in 3D—even though we never saw it in 3D—but I know he just liked the end when that guy got eaten but had a grenade in his hand. It’s kinda bad ass if you could do that. Go out with a big blast and take the monster with you. Like cooking a grenade off and dropping it at your feet in Halo as you die, taking out your enemy.”

  “Kinda morbid if you ask me.”

  “I know. But better to die quick, I think, than get eaten alive.”

  Olive stared him down, shook her head. “Stop thinking like this, Connor, you’re too young.”

  “I’m not young. I would rather shoot myself in the head that let those things eat me.”

  They both sat silent for a minute, reflecting on those words and how it related to the world now, compared it to what Connor should be doing. Going to school, to parties, playing sports and riding bikes. Connor figured he might have actually done it on the river, just put that gun to his head and squeezed out the last shot, snapped himself into oblivion.

  He turned and looked out the window again. “Still clear,’ he said.

  The RV continued on untouched for another hour, and soon a low fog began to blanket the road.

  “Hey, Hugh,” Cleo said, where are we? This looks like marine layer.”

  Hugh called back, “Sure is, man, sure is. We’re a little west of San Grande Carlita.”

  “Where the Sam hell is that? Supposed to be heading down to San Diego.”

  Hugh pulled the vehicle down a long concrete path, past an open chain link gate, and then down through a grove of trees. “We’re heading that way, Cleo, but I saw a sign about thirty miles back for this marina up here. Don’t worry, I’m staying off the highways.”

  Everyone in the back of the RV exchanged glances. Marina? Were they already on the coast?

  “Say what?” Cleo asked.

  “Look,” Hugh said, “we know that if we stay on the road we’re gonna encounter them things. We’ve already passed a hundred cars with blood on the windshields and open car doors. Those drivers are running around somewhere. But the water, that might be different. We take a boat down the rest of the way to the coast. Otherwise we dump out in LA and we’re fucked. Too much congestion there. Roads will be jammed up for sure.”

  Andy came walking up the aisle, hands on the walls to steady himself as the RV bumped over the old road. “I don’t do boats.”

  “Hey, Hugh, Andy doesn’t do boats,” Cleo laughed.

  “Well I think it’s a good idea,” Olive said. “Long as Jaws doesn’t try to attack us.”

  “So, what, we just dump the RV?” Cleo asked.

  Hugh nodded. “I know. I know. It’s a waste, considering it got us this far. But this thing in LA, that is just a bad move.”

  The RV slowed to a steady crawl. The trees outside opened up and dumped them onto a thinner road that wrapped around two large clapboard buildings that had state license boating signs on them. A third, smaller building was a snack shack with its service window open but no one inside.

  Hugh steered them over to the closest dock. The sun cast ribbons of sparkling jewels across the tiny inlet that led out to a bigger bay, and ultimately, the Pacific Ocean. He put it in park and they all watched out the windows, trying to denote any movements outside.

  “Looks clear,” Cleo said.

  “Yeah, but will any of those boats out there have the keys in them?” Olive asked.

  “Don’t need keys,” Hugh said, his eyes still studying the reflection in his side mirror, “we have Cleo.” Now he turned back and smiled. “You can hot wire one of these, right?”

  Seconds passed, then Cleo nodded. “I can hot wire a UFO if you give me a chance. But boat motors aren’t the same as car motors and we’re in a time crunch. Can’t stay out here in the open like this. I’ll do my best is all I can say.”

  “Well, if it craps out in the water, we just swim I guess. Can you swim?”

  “What is that, a black joke? Brother, I will swim circles around you. All state swim team, 1972. I’ll put you all on my back and dolphin your asses to San Diego.”

  “That’s what I want to hear.”

  “I don’t do boats,” Andy said,

  “Andy doesn’t do boats,” Cleo repeated yet again, still amused with the joke.

  “I’m serious,” Andy said, desperately trying to get his point across without it being taken for humor. “I’m not kidding around.” The look in the man’s eyes scared Connor, but the others didn’t seem to care.

  “Well, let’s not sit here dawdling,” Olive said. “It’s already afternoon. If we don’t get on the water soon we’ll be doing it in the dark, and it’ll definitely be colder. And I don’t need to remind you that these things aren’t afraid of water.”

  “They walk on the bottom and follow you,” Connor reminded them, realizing that the monsters were not so unlike the shark in Jaws. They followed you and waited to get you when you were in trouble.

  Hugh opened the door and they all filed out. The air was chillier here. Autumn had arrived, and it was coming in full force.

  They scanned the docks together, moving as a unit, guns ready. In a far slip, they found a twenty-five foot motor boat with a spacious enough interior to fit them all. Had they been unsure that this was their boat, Connor put any question to bed when he pointed out its name: Castor Oil

  “I don’t get it,” Hugh said,

  “I’m from Castor. Olive’s nickname growing up was Olive Oyl. Castor Oil. Different spelling but… It’s a sign, right?”

  “Works for me,” Cleo said, looking at Olive.

  “I hated that nick name,” she said.

  “I don’t do boats,” Andy said, right as a hisser popped up from inside the snack shack, leapt over the service counter, and sprinted down the small parking lot at them.

  Suddenly, Andy did boats.

  SATURDAY, 3:12: PM

  Amanita’s head fell to her lap. She felt Nathan’s hand drape across her shoulders. She wanted to care that this cute boy was feeling for her, but she couldn’t. She was too empty inside. He took it away when she didn’t move. Doug’s voice sounded more baritone than usual as he stared at the ham radio.

  “Since last night?”

  Ron nodded, finally turned down the volume on the radio. “Since last night. We first heard the broadcast about six o’clock. Nothing we can do about it though. We tried to send a reply but they aren’t getting it. I’m not sure if they’re emergency system is busted or if it’s just designed for one-way use, but they aren’t hearing us.”

  Even though the sound was down Amanita could still hear the message being repeated: “Please help. My name is Peter Klaus and my team and I are trapped in Aminodyne labs at UCSD La Jolla. We are in the sublevel bunker, but those things are inside and somehow they have shut down our air system. We don’t have much time left. Please help. Please help. My name is Peter Klaus…”

  Amanita finally looked up, wanting to curse the heavens.
How was it the exact place they were going to was the exact place where the people they needed to find were going to die? Was the universe just one big cruel joke?

  “Before you ask,” Ron said, “we’ve had other transmissions from other places. But those have gone off line. This is one of two we hear continuously now. The other is just a lopped recording from the Emergency Broadcast System telling people to remain calm. But this one…it’s new.”

  “Why haven’t the army gone in to free them?” Am asked, knowing full well what the answer was. “If it’s such a military town and all.”

  “Like I told Doug, the military is scattered, weakened, got their hands full,” Ron replied. “What do they care about a handful of scientists in a lab somewhere? Good chance those people are dead.”

  What a way to die, Amanita thought. Not by the hissers, which was gruesome but quick, or by a bullet or some other fast method, but to sit and just let your air run out until you asphyxiated. She could only image the pain they were feeling, the panic, knowing what was coming.

  “And we’re how far away, do you reckon?” Doug asked.

  Marlene was sitting on a patio chair near the radio. She finally turned it off. “About three hours. Maybe less if you could drive really fast.”

  “We have to go,” Amanita said. She knew her destiny wasn’t here in this make-shift fort. It was with Connor, and whatever data that drive contained. She had started this journey with her friends, back in Castor, which seemed a million years ago, and she was going to end it with her fellow Castorians. What other options existed? Stay here and live in a shack and date a boy that was admittedly too old for her, even if he was super cute. What then? Fight zombies every night, have babies to repopulate the world again when and if they won the war. Hope and pray jets didn’t bomb their camp? What a boring, trite existence. What would she do with her time? Farm? She wasn’t a farmer. She was a shopper, and a gossiper, and all the things that teenage girls were, but she wasn’t a worker, at least not the kind of work that would be required of her if she stayed here. If she was going to work, it was going to be in Forever 21 or someplace she could get a forty percent discount on new jeans. “We have to, Doug.”

  “I know, Am. I reckon we might be their only hope. And we’ll need them if your friend’s going there with this package.”

  “What package is that?” asked Marlene.

  “Don’t know. Even Am here doesn’t know. We just know it might be hope.”

  “Sounds like bad poetry,” Nathan said. “If you head out there you’re gonna die. You should stay.” He put his hand on Am’s shoulder.

  She looked up at him, caught his eyes. They were the eyes of a young man afraid to be alone. He was still here with his mother, which had to be grounding him, even if his dress and attitude spoke of rebellion. No, he was going to stay with his parents and never leave. Am was not ready for that. With her parents dead, there was little else to dedicate herself to except finishing this last stretch of road.

  She needed to find Connor. She had been thinking of him too much lately. How he was the last thing that existed that represented a sense of home. Maybe he needed her too. Who knew.

  “No,” she said to Nathan, “we have to go. My friend is going there.”

  “How do you know he’s…?”

  “I know Connor. I know he’s alive. You just have to know him to know he’s…he just doesn’t give up, you know. He’s probably already there. Maybe scared and alone but there.”

  “Maybe he got there and is in the lab?”

  That thought hadn’t even occurred to her, but now it made her heart race. She couldn’t lose Connor too. “Well that certainly settles it then. Doug?”

  “Yeah, Am, let’s get rolling before it gets dark.”

  “Just like that, huh?” Ron said. “After all we’ve told you, you’re gonna play the fools-rush-in game?”

  “Yup.”

  “What’re you gonna do for weapons? We don’t have any we can lend. Maybe some lead pipes and stuff but we’re keeping our firearms. Like I said, it’s barren hills for the next one hundred and fifty miles. You’re gonna need something.”

  “I guess we’ll figure something out.” With that, Doug looked at Amanita, at Nathan, and gave them a quick nod. He waved goodbye to Ron and and Marlene and left the structure.

  Amanita turned and faced Nathan, once again studying his features. His green eyes, bed head hair do, and bathtub chain necklace. “Sorry,” she said. And then without thinking, without giving herself a chance to back down, leaned in and kissed him. He stood frozen, shocked, but finally kissed her back, his flushing face almost red enough to light up the sheet metal wall beside them. His mother coughed, but there was amusement behind it.

  Their lips parted and she said, “See ya, drummer boy.” She raced after Doug and got in the truck.

  SATURDAY, 3:35

  The boat jumped the waves, nearly tossing its occupants into the ocean. Connor held onto the gunwale with white knuckles, salt water mist stinging him in the face. Andy huddled behind the driver’s seat, doing his best not to shake with fear. Cleo and Hugh watched the waters ahead of them with narrowed eyes, scoping out any danger and looking for ways around the choppy parts.

  Olive sat at the stern, watching the waters behind them, gun in hand. She still squinted like she could see something beneath the water, even though there was likely nothing. The zombie from the snack shack had kept pace with them for a little while, shuffling through the waves, then along the bottom of the water, until Cleo was able to get the boat hotwired. But the odds that any hissers were following them now was slim. Still, no one was taking any chances.

  A half mile off to their left, the coastline steadily slid by as if it were on a dolly. Connor marveled at some of the large houses on the cliffs, not just because they were luxurious, but also because they look so precariously perched above the beaches it was a wonder they didn’t fall in at the first strong gust of wind.

  The air over the land was becoming browner, hazier, and Hugh remarked that they were definitely entering southern California. Connor wanted to feel excited for some reason. Perhaps because he and Seth had played some many video games that took place in Los Angeles that he always figured the first time he saw the place it would be sunny and green and full of movie stars and fast cars. But it just looked useless. Drab. A little dirty as well.

  Olive moved away from the back and sat next to him. “Hey, kid, we’re almost there. I can’t believe it myself. I just hope we don’t walk into a city of those undead things. Being out in the woods and on the highways fighting them is one thing, being in a major city is another. Let’s pray we’re ahead of the plague.”

  “Either that or it’s all we’ll find.”

  “Not funny, Connor.”

  “Olive, what do we do if the information on the drive is worthless? Where do we go from there? I mean, what if all the world gets changed and we can’t fix it?”

  “I dunno. I suppose we go wherever we want. It’s not like it’s our job to fix it anyway. They’ve still got fighter jets in the air and I can’t imagine the entire military is disbanded so we can just sit and wait until they regroup.”

  “But what if they don’t. Where do we go?”

  “Maybe some island that never got infected. Or some far off stretch of wilderness so far removed from life no one would find us. What are you thinking?”

  “Some place safe where we don’t have to fight every day. I just don’t know where that place is anymore. Maybe some big cruise ship we can anchor off the coast of an island, just in case. That might be cool. Although I did play a video game that took place on a cruise ship that was overrun with aliens, so maybe it’s not a great idea. ”

  “I think it’s pretty good. Hang on.” She approached the helm. Connor heard her asking Hugh how long before they got to a dock. He said he didn’t know and that it likely wouldn’t be for another couple hours.

  Connor watched the water, wondering if there were sharks down there
. He thought about the couple of times he’d gone fishing at the lake with his father. He’d caught a large mouth bass once that had put up a fight for about twenty minutes. It was a hard won victory, but he had eventually gotten it reeled in. Then he’d felt bad once he saw it in the boat. It was bleeding from its mouth, and when he’d yanked the hooked out he’d ripped open one of its gills. He’d tossed it back and it had disappeared under the water in a flash. Even wounded and yanked from its element, its instinct to survive had never waned. Whether it had lived or died he didn’t know.

  “Something is in the water,” Cleo said, pointing over the starboard gunwale. Connor scanned the water, expecting a small boat or maybe even a shark fin. But he saw nothing.

  “Where?” Hugh asked. Andy managed to sit up high enough to look over the side and take a look.

  “I swear I saw something,” Cleo said. “I saw, like, something come up out of the water for a second.”

  “A fish?” Olive asked.

  “Bigger.”

  “A dolphin. Don’t they swim off the coast of Southern California?”

  “I know what a dolphin looks like. It wasn’t a dolphin. It looked like an arm. A human arm.”

  Now everyone except Hugh—who was driving the boat—was on the starboard side looking at the water.

  “Nothing,” said Olive

  “I’m telling you,” Cleo answered. “I know I’m not crazy. It looked like—”

  A massive geyser of sea water hit them, and an undead beast of arms and legs and heads burst out of the water and grabbed the side of the boat, yanking it down and spilling everyone into the frigid Pacific.

  Connor felt the cold of the ocean engulf him; his body threatened to go into shock as the icy water chilled him to the bone. Sound was cut off as he flipped himself over underwater, his heart pounding, righting himself and lurching for the surface which seemed years away. Something hit him. He gasped, salt water rushed down his throat, choking him, burning his insides. It hit a second time, kicked him in the ribs, and panic set in. He was sure it was the creature, sure that it would start tearing him into bite-sized chunks. But he felt the rubbery soles of sneakers and realized it was one of his boat mates kicking as they swam. When his head broke the surface, he sucked in a gulp of air and looked for the boat. It was way off to his right, floating in the waves, evidently having continued on its path.