Water

by William Esmont

“How about we pop another window?” Luke asked, hitching his thumb over his shoulder. “On the other side of the building.”

  Chris shook his head. “We’ll have the same problem if we do that. And besides,” he said, pointing in the direction the zombies were coming from, “our boat is that way.” From where he stood, he could see the harbor, which was less than three blocks away. “If we go out the other side then we’ll have to wait for them to clear.”

  Dr. Cain cursed. “We don’t have time for that.”

  Chris thought about Hines, who was hovering at the edge of death on the Gulf Star. Already, the odds were that, even if they could get back as scheduled, they wouldn’t be able to help him. Another delay would make that a certainty.

  “We’re going to have to run,” Luke said. “We don’t have any other choice.”

  Chris nodded slowly, thinking. So far, the zombies were oblivious to their presence. “I’d say we have two or three minutes—maybe a little more—before they’re on top of us. If we’re going to go, we have to go right now.”

  “How do we get the centrifuge down? The supplies?” Dr. Cain asked. “This is delicate equipment. If we break anything—”

  “Don’t worry,” Chris said, kneeling and starting to pull up the rope, all the while praying the movement wouldn’t draw the attention of the zombies. “The centrifuge goes first.”

  Luke and Cain brought over the centrifuge, and Chris tied the end of the rope to the duffel bag handle. He carefully slid the bag out the window and began lowering it to the ground. A few seconds later, the rope went slack in his hands.

  Chris turned back to them. “Who wants to go first?”

  Luke took a step forward. “I’ll go.”

  Chris flushed with pride at Luke’s offer. That was the Luke he knew and loved. “Okay. Watch your back. They’re going to be all over you once you touch down.”

  Luke gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I know. I’ll be fine.” Luke dropped to his hands and knees and shimmied out the window.

  Outside, a zombie roared.

  “Fuck! Go!” Chris motioned for Cain to take his position on the rope.

  “You first,” Cain said, his face ashen.

  Chris grabbed the man’s shoulder and urged him toward the rope. “No. You.”

  Dr. Cain backed away from the window. He bumped into a wall and crossed his hands over his chest. “No. I can’t.”

  “Damn it! We need you,” he said. “We can’t do this without you.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. Not with all those things out there.”

  With time running out, Chris knew he had to make a decision fast, or they would all die. He stalked over to where Cain stood trembling and grabbed the man’s upper arm.

  Cain let out a surprised shout as Chris dragged him across the room.

  “We’re going. Right now!” Chris said.

  The moaning from the zombies was getting louder. Chris imagined hordes of rotting corpses spilling into the street from dead buildings, cutting off their only chance at escape. He had no choice.

  Chris yanked his gun from its holster and pressed the barrel against the doctor’s temple. “Get on that rope right now, or I’ll shoot you where you stand, so help me God!”

  Cain fell to his knees at the window. With a terrified grimace, he grabbed the rope and crawled over the ledge.

  Chris jumped as a rapid series of gunshots rang out below. Luke. The noise would whip the monsters into a feeding frenzy. Their time was almost up. He grabbed the bag of supplies and took his turn on the rope. Impatient to be on solid ground, he released his grip and dropped the last several feet to the sidewalk. He screamed as his right ankle twisted on impact. Daggers of pain lanced up his calf.

  “Get the centrifuge!” he shouted at Luke. “Cut it loose!”

  Luke stuffed his gun back in its holster and dashed to the rope. He pulled a small knife from his front pocket and quickly severed the cord.

  Chris struggled to his feet. His ankle was on fire, but he was relieved to discover it would hold his weight as long as he didn’t make any sudden movements. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” He pulled out his pistol and shot three zombies closing in on their position. Two fell. One kept coming. He fired again, wincing at expending two bullets when one should have been enough. He then limped after Cain and Luke. Slowed by the weight of the centrifuge slung between them, they were moving at little more than a fast jog.

  As he had expected, the gunfire had drawn more undead from their hiding places. They oozed onto the street like pus from a wound. The area was filling quickly, although most of the threat was to their rear.

  “Faster!” Chris screamed, even though he didn’t think he could go any faster on his bad ankle.

  They still had over a block to go until they reached the boat. A crashing sound to Chris’s right startled him, and he turned and spotted a rail-thin zombie shuffling toward him. Not wanting to stop, he drew his bat and swiped at the monster as he ran past, sending the creature to the ground in a thrashing heap.

  Chris’s lungs were on fire and his injured ankle was almost at its limit by the time they reached the dock. They piled aboard the RB-M, and Luke cast off the lines just as the leading edge of the zombie horde reached the shore and plunged into the water.

  ***

  Ten minutes later, they were safe in the open water of Galveston Bay. For Luke, the horrors of their close encounter on shore was a quickly fading memory as he shifted his attention to the task ahead: getting back to the Gulf Star as fast as possible so Dr. Cain could get to work.

  Luke took the microphone from the radio console and keyed the transmitter. “Gulf Star, this is RB-M One. We’re on our way back.”

  The speaker crackled, and Marla Wells’s voice came through loud and clear. “Copy that, RB-M One. Good to hear your voice, Luke. What’s your ETA?”

  “About an hour,” Luke told her.

  “You may want to hurry that up,” Marla said, trepidation filling her voice. “We’ve got a situation here.”

  Luke looked over his shoulder and saw that Cain and paused in his task of wrapping Chris’s ankle. Both were watching him, hanging on his every word.

  “What kind of situation?” Luke asked.

  “Tinsley… um…” Marla said. “I’m sorry—”

  “What about her?” Luke shouted. “What’s wrong with Tinsley?”

  “She’s taken a turn—”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her fever spiked a little while ago. We can’t get it to come down again.”

  Cain came over and ripped the microphone from his hand. “Drive,” he growled. Then he keyed the handset and started peppering Marla with questions about Tinsley’s condition and giving her instructions on how to stabilize her.

  Luke swung the boat around the northern tip of Galveston and pointed it toward the gulf. The twin turbo-diesel turbo jets screamed with authority, sending the craft bouncing across the wave tops more quickly than Luke had ever seen it move.

  Cain handed the radio back to Luke. “Go easy on her. Marla’s only the messenger.”

  Luke nodded and took the radio. “Marla?”

  “Yeah?” Marla answered.

  “We’ll be there soon. Take care of her, please.”

  “Will do,” Marla said. “And Luke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hurry.”

  Luke gritted his teeth. “Will do.” His hands were shaking so hard it took him two attempts to return the transmitter to its hook.

  “I was afraid of this,” the doctor said, sinking down on one of the bench seats lining the cabin of the RB-M.

  Chris hobbled to the front of the cabin and took a seat beside the doctor. His face was as white as a sheet, and he looked as if he would pass out at any moment. “Are you sure we have everything we need?” he asked. “Because if we don’t…”

  Cain gestured at the centrifuge. “Assuming this thing works, I’ll need about six hours to put together a batch. But you have to remember, thi
s is only a wild-ass guess. I can’t guarantee anything.”

  Chris nodded. “I know. I know. You’re doing your best.”

  “What about the baby?” Luke asked without turning his head. “Will it be okay?”

  “I don’t know, Luke,” Cain replied. “We won’t know until we get back. And there is one problem we haven’t discussed yet.”

  Chris straightened up in his seat. “What’s that?”

  “Until we get the process figured out, we’re only going to be able to make small quantities of the serum. I can only inoculate one person at first. Maybe two if I’m lucky.”

  The wheel house fell silent except for the sound of the hull slamming against the waves and the roar of the engines.

  Finally, Chris said, “Do Tinsley first. Tinsley and the baby.”

  Luke sucked in a breath. “No. There are others more sick.”

  “Chris is right,” Cain said. “For the baby. Tinsley should go first.”

  “But—” Luke started, grappling with the enormousness of Chris’s decision. Moving Tinsley to the front of the queue meant almost certain death for Hines.

  “It’s okay,” Chris said in a hollow voice. “This is the way it has to be.”

  Unable to speak through the tears streaming down his face, Luke jammed the controls to their stops, seeking more horsepower from the already overtaxed motors.

  Thirty-Three

  Isla Perpetua

  Jack awoke shortly before dawn. For a long while, he remained on his back, his eyes closed, while he soaked up the sounds of the people slumbering around him. Megan snored softly on the next cot. When he couldn’t remain still any longer, he sat up and ran a hand through his greasy, matted hair, slicking it back against his skull. Reaching over the side of his cot, he fumbled in the dark for his shoes and gave each one a vigorous shake to knock loose any spiders that may have crawled in during the night. He pulled them on and got to his feet. He still wore his clothes from the previous day.

  He went to Megan’s cot, knelt, and gently squeezed her shoulder. “Megan.”

  “I’m awake,” she said, rolling over to face him.

  Someone a few cots away shushed them. Megan dressed in silence, then she and Jack crossed the crowded room to the front door and exited the building. The cool, almost crisp pre-dawn air came in sharp contrast to the miasma of stale body odor permeating their sleeping quarters.

  The scent of marijuana announced Roman’s presence. “Morning,” the old man said, getting up from his seat under the dead palm tree and coming over. The light from his joint cast an eerie glow over his face as he took a drag.

  Jack murmured, “Morning,” but Megan said nothing.

  “If you guys are ready,” Roman said, “we should get going. We’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us.”

  “Do we need to bring anything?” Megan asked. “Food? Water?”

  “Nah,” Roman answered. “This won’t take long.”

  “Let’s go,” Jack said. “Lead the way.”

  ***

  Twenty-five silent minutes later and a mile south of the bunkhouse, Roman stepped from the rutted track and plunged into the jungle’s tangled embrace. Jagged-toothed palm fronds clawed at Megan as she pushed and shoved her way through the dense vegetation. Just when she thought there was no end, she spotted a glimmer of light amongst the green. With a grunt, she broke free of the jungle and saw Roman waiting on a narrow game path. Jack emerged from the brush immediately after her.

  Roman dabbed at a thin line of blood leaking from a cut over his left eye.

  “Are you okay?” Megan asked.

  Roman waved her off. “Yeah. I’m fine.” He turned and set off down the trail at a brisk pace, his wound seemingly forgotten.

  The narrow path forced them to walk in single file. They traveled a few yards then rounded a corner where the path opened into a wide clearing. In the center of the space stood a wooden shack about the size of a mobile home. The door lay face down in the weeds. The corrugated tin roof sagged, and the hand-hewn timbers supporting the entire place leaned at drunken angles. A strong breeze, Megan suspected, would be more than enough to knock the whole thing down.

  Roman nodded toward the shed. “What I’m about to show you… not many people on the island know about. You have to understand. This isn’t me. This was here before us all.”

  “I get it,” Megan said.

  “Yeah,” Jack added.

  Roman stared into Megan’s eyes for an uncomfortable moment, as if trying to convince himself of her sincerity. Finally, he turned and set off for the building.

  Megan and Jack followed him inside, where the only light came from a network of holes dotting the rotted ceiling.

  Jack stopped just inside the doorway. “Jesus Christ, man! What the hell is that thing?”

  Megan’s heart skipped a beat as she took in the figure perched in the center of the room. At first glance, she thought Roman had brought them to the zombie from the stadium, that their trek had all been some sort of elaborate ruse to dispose of her and Jack. Her fear dissipated quickly when she realized what she was seeing. Swaddled in tattered black cloth fashioned like a dress and holding a rusty scythe in one hand and a cracked-glass orb in the other, the skeleton stared at them through empty eye sockets. Megan took a step forward.

  Roman threw out his arm and blocked her way. “No! Don’t touch her! No one is allowed to touch her!” His angry tone was tinged with fear.

  “What? Why not?” Megan asked.

  “Just… don’t.” Roman said. “Please. I brought you here so you would know. That’s all.”

  “It’s the zombie from the stadium,” Jack said, circling around to the side of the woman. “It looks just like her.”

  Roman folded his arms across his chest. “Like I told you, there were other people here before us. Bad people. People that make Purdue look like a saint.” He nodded at the skeleton. “This thing? This was their god. This was what got them through the rising. Through all the ensuing chaos.”

  “So the rumors of this island being a safe zone?” Megan said. “That was all bullshit?”

  Roman nodded, looking sad.

  What happened to those people, the ones who were here before you?” Jack asked.

  Roman sighed and dropped his arms. “You’ve got to understand. There weren’t many left when we arrived, maybe a half dozen. They were savages.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if forcing himself to recall painful memories.

  “And Purdue?” Megan asked, frowning in disgust. “How does he fit in here?”

  “We didn’t realize what was going on at first,” Roman said. “We killed them all, put them out of their misery. A week later, a man stumbled into our camp. He was mad, insane from hunger and thirst. We had missed him, I guess. He brought us here. Me and Purdue. Told us what the flesh could do for us.” Roman pointed at a fist-sized iron ring fastened into one of the vertical timbers supporting the roof. “The woman from the stadium, the one you fed from, she was chained to the wall right over there.”

  Megan spotted three identical rings attached to the other vertical pillars. “And then you killed him?”

  Roman shook his head. “No. Not yet.”

  “You made him eat the flesh,” Jack said. “You experimented on him.”

  Megan saw the shame in Roman’s eyes when he answered Jack’s accusation with a mumbled, “Yes.”

  “What happened next?” she asked.

  “Then we fed.”

  Thirty-four

  Gulf Star Oil Platform

  Luke was about to crawl out of his skin by the time the RB-M settled into its berth. Taking hold of the bowline, he leaped from the boat and landed in an inglorious heap on the rough wooden planks of the dock, nearly losing the line in the process. He secured the line to a cleat and took off running, his arms and legs pumping as he sprinted for the stairs.

  He reached his cabin in record time. Breathless, he pushed open the door and burst inside. The room was still as a crypt, cloa
ked in deep late-afternoon shadows. The air smelled sour, stale. He put his hand on the light switch.

  Tinsley croaked, “No.”

  Luke left the light off and crossed the room in two quick strides. He fell to a knee at her bedside. He found her hand in a jumble of sheets. Her skin was hot and slick with sweat. Her eyes shone bright and glassy.

  “Hey,” he said, trying to control his emotions and barely succeeding.

  “Hey, you,” Tinsley whispered. She coughed, the sound like grinding gears.

  “How’re you feeling?” Luke asked, gently disentangling his hand and placing it against her forehead. Heat radiated off her in waves. Luke swallowed back his fear. A plastic cup and a pitcher sat on the nightstand next to a folded washcloth. “How about some water?”

  “Please.”

  “Tin—”

  The corners of her mouth turned up in a faint attempt at a smile. “Marla said you guys were on your way back.”

  “Shh,” Luke said, reaching for the pitcher. He filled the cup almost to the rim and put it to her mouth. He carefully tipped it against her lips.

  After she drank her fill, she asked drowsily, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Luke gave her a little smile. “We did.”

  Someone knocked on the open door. Marla Wells asked, “Is this a good time?”

  “Yeah. Come in.” Luke waved her over.

  Marla approached the bed. “The doctor was asking for you. He says as soon as you’re ready.”

  Luke swallowed hard. Events were moving faster than he had anticipated. “I’ve got to go now,” he said, turning back to Tinsley.

  Tinsley didn’t respond. She had drifted off to sleep again.

  Luke stood and locked eyes with Marla. “Take care of her. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “I will,” Marla said. “Go.”

  So Luke did.

  Thirty-five

  Isla Perpetua

  A sense of malaise filled Megan in the days following the visit to the shack. And she wasn’t alone. Roman, previously talkative and quick to share a smile, became increasingly insular. He spent the majority of his time either huddled with Sienna or off in the jungle alone for hours at a time. Megan tried to follow him on several occasions, but he moved like a ghost on the narrow trails, and she inevitably lost sight of him. Even Jack, who normally carried enough energy to fuel two people, was affected, retreating to his cot with increasing frequency for hours-long naps from which he always awoke complaining of lingering exhaustion.