by Aline Riva
Isolation Z: Book 2
Island of the Dead
By Aline Riva and Nathan D Ward
Isolation Z Book 2: Island of the Dead by Aline Riva and Nathan Ward
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
A Kindle Original 2018
Copyright © Aline Riva and Nathan Ward 2018
Cover Design Copyright © Nathan David Ward 2018
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved. No part of this publication be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Island of the Dead
Chapter 1
Five years had passed since the survivors of the oil rig had found a place of safety at Wolfsheer Island. The time had passed almost peacefully, with the patrols occasionally turning up a corpse wandering on the beach, having been washed out from the mainland. Stacy's death had been a memory imprinted on the minds of the islanders – a deadly realisation had been made - all it took was just one of the undead creatures to find its way to the island and there would be disaster.
Apart from the washed up corpses that had been quickly dispatched with a bullet, there had been two murders and a suicide – the price of being forced to stay in a small community because the world beyond it was filled with the living dead. It sent people crazy, there were a small number who could not get used to the fact that the world would never go back to the way it used to be. Both murders had been traced to one disturbed man who had later shot himself before execution could take place. But Wolfsheer was still a safe community - compared to what lie beyond the island.
It was late in May and summer was blooming with the heat building and the wind off the sea salty and warm. Wild flowers were growing near the pond in the village green, the trees were heavy laden with green leaves and those that bore fruit were already growing it well. The crops were thriving and the structures well maintained. Wolfsheer was surviving the end of the civilised world and doing it successfully.
Today a small group of young children were playing on the green, their mothers sat nearby as the older woman watched by the pond as some of the older children were at the edge with nets, keen to find frogs. Today the school that was now run part time from the farm house was having an open air learning session. As two girls chased a white haired boy around a cluster of trees, he broke off from the group, dashing over to the older kids at the pond, standing beside their teacher until she looked down at him.
“What are you doing?” the five year old boy asked, tugging at the fabric of her white summer dress as he looked up at her.
She looked down at five year old Zodiac Fitzroy and smiled. It had not taken much time at all to warm to the strange little boy born to Stacy, fathered by Greg Fitzroy while he carried the bite virus. Christian had monitored his progress from the start and had been able to reassure the community that the child with the silver hair and white eyes who had the tendency to bite when agitated, did most definitely not carry the virus. And as their leader Parsons had kindly pointed out, the child did not have eyes like the undead,whose gaze was dull and lifeless, this childs eyes were white and translucent and sparkled with life.
Zodiac was an odd child when compared to others – physically he was five but mentally, he was something comparable to a super smart twelve year old – until his mood was upset or agitated, then he would either bite or swiftly react as a normal five year old. There was no way of guessing which way these moods would go. She guessed the biting urge couldn't be easy to handle, but Greg was a good father, so loving and patient...
“I'm teaching the children about how tadpoles change into frogs,” she said to Zodiac, ”You'll learn all about it when you're seven and you join the class with other children.”
He stood there paused for thought in his faded blue jeans and tie dyed cotton shirt – the shirt had been a gift last Christmas, so many people warmed to the unusual kid and wanted to be kind to him... Zodiac was still thinking, then he looked up at her and started to speak.
“Why do I have to wait until I'm seven to learn stuff I already know at five? A tadpole grows teeth and has skin over the gills by four weeks. At six to nine weeks it develops legs and a head. At nine to twelve weeks, it will go through metamorphosis which takes a month to complete, and then its a frog. I can draw you a diagram. How about I take over the lesson for you?”
He was still looking up at her. She looked down at him kindly.
“As clever as you are, you're not old enough to be in class, Zodiac. That's how we do things here on the island. I know you're a bright boy but you still need your playtime.”
His face grew red as he glared up at her.
“It's not fair!”
“It's very fair. Now, go and find your friends, go and play.”
Zodiac stamped his foot, slipping into a sulk that very much fitted his young age, then he turned and walked back the way he came, heading for the shade of the trees where the other young children were still playing.
“I know the old world - the way it used to be – is gone. I'm not denying that for one moment, but living here, it's easy to forget sometimes. I look around and I see the kids playing, the people working the fields...and not a corpse in sight. No threats anywhere on this island...I do forget, don't you do that too?” As Greg finished speaking, he looked across the table at Emma.
They were at at a wooden bench enjoying iced tea in the sunshine. Today was her day off patrol and she missed the weight of her gun even though she rarely needed to use it. Today she was wearing a short summer dress and her lack of weaponry was only missed by way of habit – and as she thought of the last time a corpse had stumbled out of the sea, she suddenly missed that gun more keenly. But there were patrols around the island every day, security was tight enough.
“I can't exactly forget!” Emma replied.
The breeze blew warm and salted off the sea and ruffled Greg's hair. He ran his fingers through it, then paused to sip an iced tea from a tall glass.
“Okay, I admit sometimes I'm reminded this isn't the old world, especially when we're late with a supply run and the bar runs out of booze. But I've been running that place for three years now and even when there's no alcohol it still feels like normal life.. a new kind of normal.”
She looked at Greg, sitting there in a dark pin stripe suit as a diamond glittered in his tie pin. He had welcomed the chance to open up a bar in the community hall on the weekends, and he was perfect for the job of running the place. He had settled here well over the past few years, the grief of losing Stacy to the corpse attack had faded away as he had recovered from his injuries and got on with the task of raising their son. Zodiac was a special child, different in his ways and partly in his looks because he had been conceived while Greg had been infected. That had brought a whole new set of challenges to his life. Time had moved on and brought this new life with it.
“I keep looking to the skies and wondering when we're getting the supplies from the mainland,” he remarked.
Now she glanced to the empty skies, too – it had a been more than three weeks since Parson's supply team had left on their twice yearly flight to the mainland in a large military chopper to seek out medical supplies and anything else of use that could be brought back – the community was self sustaining but drugs and medicines needed to be kept in good supply and as time had gone on, searches had to be made further afield. When Emma had first see
n the chopper she had volunteered to fly it, but Parsons had told her he already had a pilot and the team were small but well established and did not need an extra member.
“They've never been gone this long,” she said, as she silently hoped her worst fears were not about to be realised – that the team had run into trouble on land, where the dead outnumbered the living. Very few boats were moored here, and travelling to land by sea and then trusting their luck on foot would be perilous if the chopper was lost... Greg caught the worried look in her eyes.
“I guess we're both thinking the same thing,” he said, “They'd better find some booze on their travels or my bar will be very flat this Friday night!”
Emma laughed and shook her head.
“Oh, Greg!”
“What's so funny?” Greg asked, looking confused.
Just then a scream pieced the air. Greg jumped up from his seat, knowing that sound only too well.
“Not again...” he muttered, then he turned away and dashed across the green. It had been several years since he had recovered and managed to finally ditch the cane and he had never been more thankful that his deep wounds received on escaping the oil rig five years before were so well healed as he sprinted towards the shade of the trees, leaping over a small sand pit and then making a dash for the gathering of parents, where the youngest children stood about, no longer playing but staring as a small girl held up her arm, showing off the indentation of teeth marks.
“He bit me!” she wailed as her chubby face turned red and tears rolled down her cheeks, “He bit my arm!”
Her mother, a young, fair haired woman with a shocked expression, looked in fury at Greg.
“Your child has bitten again!” she fumed.
Greg held his hands up in apology.
“I'm so very sorry, Dawn! Are you okay, Sarah?”
The little girl named Sarah was sobbing as she clutched her arm and looked up at him tearfully.
“My Daddy, he said to my Mummy -”
“No dear, that's enough,” Dawn said quickly, shooting a nervous glance to her child as she heard her husband calling from across the nearby field. But as her father, also young and very worried, raced to the scene, Sarah gave another sob as her eyes burned with anger and she glared at Greg.
“No!” she said in defiance, “I'm telling him because that boy is bad! Zodiac's Dad...listen! My Dad said keep me away from your zombie kid because he bites, he does bite, he hurt me!”
The young man named Kris had reached the scene in time for Greg to turn around, his eyes blazing with anger.
“What did you call my boy?” he demanded, and as an argument broke out and only the presence of many children watching prevented him punching the other guy for insulting his child, Greg launched into his usual angry response.
“He didn't break any skin! He nips when he gets excited or upset...He's just a kid, don't compare him to those things on the mainland! He's a child!”
“A child who bites!” Dawn said accusingly.
Greg turned back to her, caught between anger and apology as he tried again to explain the situation. Zodiac stood there saying nothing as the accusing eyes of the other children fell on the white haired, white-eyed kid who looked sadly back at them. It had been a game of chase and he had been laughing as he was caught and suddenly his teeth were on her arm and she was screaming... playtime always ended badly when that happened, but he didn't know how to control it. Voices were raised all around him now.
“I'm sorry,” Zodiac said quietly, but no one heard him.
He turned away and ran off sobbing as Greg continued to argue, and he was still sobbing as he collided with someone at the end of the path and looked up to see he had bumped into Emma.
“Have you been biting again?” she asked.
Many words flooded his clever mind, but at that moment it was all too much. Five year old Zodiac burst into tears, flung his arms about her legs and buried his tearful face in her skirt as he wailed.
She looked up the path, towards the centre of the argument where things were calming now as Greg spoke apologetically yet again. She called his name and he looked over and she indicated to the weeping child as he clung to her. By now, Greg had apologised yet again, and then hurried up the path to try and calm his crying child.
On reaching his son, as Emma said Daddy's here, Zodiac turned around to see Greg crouched eye level to him, and the boy gave another sob.
“I didn't mean it...”
“I know that,” Greg said kindly as he placed his hands on his shoulders and kept steady eye contact as he continued to speak, “But son, you can't keep biting your friends – or you won't have any friends left! They don't like being hurt! You have to try and control it. I know it's difficult but... just stop bloody biting, please!”
The boy nodded, wiping his eyes as he started to calm down.
“I will try, Daddy. I do try, all the time.”
Greg looked up at Emma and in that moment she saw utter frustration in his eyes as he struggled to cope. It was understandable, Zodiac was the only one of his kind on the island. It was likely there would be other bite virus kids out there somewhere and no doubt their parents had the same difficulties, but with no way of reaching others in the same situation, Greg's struggle was very much his own problem.
“Let's go home,” he said, and got up and the boy took his hand. Emma watched as they walked off together, wishing there was more she could do to help, but it seemed no one could offer a solution. With the passing of time the rig survivors had become close friends, but young Zodiac was in a league all of his own. No one knew what to expect from him next, or how to control him. Emma silently hoped that in time the boy's urge to bite would fade, to think it could possibly increase was a terrifying notion, with the all possible consequences that could follow...
Far from the drama that had unfolded in the children's play area, Marc stood alone on the beach, his weapon holstered as the sea breeze blew through his dark hair and he kept his eyes fixed on the female corpse that slowly moved, then fell still once more. He had radioed in the find and when he said she looked recently deceased and the message had come back from the infirmary at once, Christian had ordered him to have her restrained and said he was on his way.
Two other patrol men stood back watching, and Marc knew if this was the perfect specimen for Doctor Wells to use for study, his colleagues could damned well carry her back, too – his jeans were wet and his boots soaked through from hauling her from the water, right before she had turned, snarling to life and he had dealt a blow to her head with the butt of his gun.
They all knew a freshly turned corpse had to be handled with care because Christian was set on a live specimen for experimentation. He had never given up hope of finding one fresh enough to possibly respond to his efforts to find a cure for the virus.
“Oh yes! She's perfect!”
As Christian said those words he hurried toward the corpse, then stood beside her, looking intently at the body:
She looked to be in her mid twenties, her hair was long and dark and her features were delicate. She had a single bite wound festering dark on her lower arm and her skin had turned a deathly hue. She wore a blood stained yellow bikini top that covered firm breasts and a pair of shorts with a rip in the left leg that had gone through to skin and that wound looked like a superficial graze. He had already estimated how much flesh to take out to remove the bite from her arm.
“This one will do very nicely!” he said, still looking down at the body, “Oh, what's this...” the thin gold chain she wore around her neck had caught his eye, on that chain was her name in delicate lettering.
“Her name was Lillith...” he turned to the men who stood with Marc.
“Take her to my lab and secure her, please.”
As they lifted her roughly and the undead woman showed no sign of waking, he spoke again.
“Be careful with her! Lillith could be the key to curing the virus!”
As the men carried her
off and Christian looked on anxiously, he heard one of them laugh, saying, “It's a freaking corpse! They don't have names...”
“This one does...” Christian murmured as he watched through his round rimmed glasses and the men disappeared through the woodland, heading back to the infirmary.
“Are you sure about this?” Marc asked.
Christian paused for thought, turning to him as the tide rolled to shore in a calm silk roll and washed sand in its wake.
“I don't believe there's a virus in existence that can't be cured or destroyed,” he replied, “When the virus began it was passed from drinking water to the first victims, then it mutated and reanimated the corpses and their bite spread it onward. That's as far as it goes. No more evolution. Therefore there has to be something capable of destroying it, or at least neutralising it. We don't understand anything about the process -it hit so fast civilisation was brought to its knees with no time for research. But here, I have a facility that allows for experimentation and testing. I can try. I might not succeed, but I can at least try and make a difference.”
“But even if you found a cure, there's no way to distribute it,” Marc reminded him.
Christian replied without hesitation.
“It doesn't matter if we save one life or a thousand – what matters is, we learn, we understand and we make a breakthrough! I'm not giving up, Marc. I don't doubt there's many others like us, in safe places, trying to survive. The next step is fighting back. If I did find a cure, we wouldn't be alone with it forever.”
The past five years had not changed Christian, it was clear as Marc looked at him, he still had that same determination he had adopted from the start – this was a chance to start again, to survive and make a better future. Doctor Wells clung to that theory, but as Marc glanced to sea and the distant outline of a far off mainland, he shook his head.