She adjusted the focus and whispered, “What the hell?”
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“I…don’t know. There are only a couple of soldiers on the jetties. Everyone else is on the beach. There’s a big tent there. I don’t know…take a look.”
Sam crept forward and took the binoculars. “What the fuck are they doing, man?”
The curiosity was killing me. I found a pair of binoculars on the floor and trained them on the sandy beach. The rain smeared the window and made it hard to see clearly but almost all of the soldiers were gathered outside a large olive tent.
They were lined up outside in the rain, filing in when they were called. Two Land Rovers parked next to the tent had the army medical symbol on their doors, a red cross in a white square.
I adjusted the focus and concentrated on a soldier coming out of the tent. He rubbed his arm gingerly through his combat jacket.
“They’re being inoculated,” I said. “They must have a vaccine or something.” Was it possible they had a vaccine against the virus?
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Tanya said. “They’re all over there on the beach. I count four soldiers on the jetties, two on each. This is our chance.” She went over to the sales counter and rummaged around until she found a bunch of keys. She brought them over and spread them on the floor.
Five silver-coloured keys, each on a ring that also held a round neon yellow plastic float, so the keys wouldn’t sink if dropped overboard, and a white plastic tag stamped with a number. On the reverse of the number tag was the slogan, “Sail To Your Destiny” written in dark green script.
I arranged the tags so they were all number-side up.
42.
45.
59.
63.
71.
“Can we see any of these boats out there?” I asked, pointing my binoculars towards the moored boats.
Tanya did the same. “I see 71,” she said. “It’s tied to the jetty on the right, closest boat to the shore.”
“That means we’d have to sail it out past all the other boats before we got out to sea,” I replied. “Keep looking.”
“We need to hurry,” Jax said, “Some of the soldiers are coming back.”
At the moment, there were only two soldiers on each jetty. They stood in the rain with their weapons slung over their shoulders. They looked bored. I didn’t intend to provide them with action to relieve that boredom. If possible, I wanted to sneak past them unnoticed.
I hurriedly scanned the names and numbers on the boats. “I see 42. She’s all the way out at the end of the jetty. Near the fuel pump.”
Tanya adjusted her binoculars and searched for the boat.
Jax sounded panicked. “We need to move.”
“There’re four soldiers coming this way, man,” Sam said.
“Let’s go,” Tanya said, opening the door. “We’ll go for 42 but bring all the keys just in case.” She scooped them up and went out into the rain.
I followed her out. As soon as I got onto the pebbled beach, I was soaked. The cold rain hissed down onto the beach and the sea. Tanya was headed for the jetty but I caught her arm and pointed to the yellow rowboat lying on the pebbles.
It was the boat I had tried to take out once before. The tide had brought it back in and beached it. We went over to it and glided it into the water before climbing aboard.
Sam took the oars and began to row us out, keeping to the sterns of the moored boats to provide us with more cover.
I hoped the rain and boredom had dulled the senses of the soldiers on the jetties.
We were silent as we slid through the waves. The water slapped against the hull of the rowboat and the oars made splashing sounds as Sam raised them dripping from the sea but none of us spoke or even dared whisper.
I focused on the stern of boat number 42. Beneath the number, the boat’s name was painted in blue. Lucky Escape. I gripped the wet wooden edges of the rowboat tighter and willed it to go faster. We were exposed out here. What had made me think trying to sneak a bright yellow boat past soldiers was a good idea? My poor judgement could kill us all.
A moment later, as I was still gripping the edges of the rowboat and trying to concentrate only on the Lucky Escape, a shout went up from the jetty.
The soldiers on the jetty nearest us were hidden by the boats tied in their slips but the soldiers on the opposite side of the marina had seen us and were shouting and pointing.
“Fuck!” Tanya said, hitting the side of the rowboat in frustration.
The soldiers across the marina unslung their weapons. I could hear the soldiers closest to us running along the jetty, their boots pounding the wooden slats as they tried to get into a position where they could see us.
“We’re going to have to swim for it,” Tanya shouted. “If we stay in this boat, we’re dead.”
As if to confirm what she was saying, a bullet smacked into the hull of the rowboat.
We all jumped.
seventeen
The freezing water shocked my body as I went under. I surfaced, gasping for breath.
More shouting erupted from somewhere close.
I swam for boat number 42 along with Tanya, Jax and Sam.
There was so much splashing, I wasn’t sure if we were still being fired at.
Tanya got to the Lucky Escape first. She lifted herself out of the water and climbed the stern ladder with ease. As she vaulted onto the aft deck, she leaned over and shouted at me. “Come on, Alex!” She began fumbling with the keys, searching for the ones labelled 42.
I couldn’t swim any faster. The weight of my clothes dragged me down and swimming while holding a baseball bat was difficult.
“Untie the boat!” I shouted. A mouthful of salty water rushed into my mouth, making me gag. I spat it out and continued swimming.
Tanya darted to the front of the Lucky Escape and untied the ropes.
I looked toward the jetty. The two soldiers had almost reached the boat. They would be on the Lucky Escape in seconds.
Tanya climbed up the ladder to the bridge as Sam reached the stern. He pulled himself up onto the aft deck and untied the tire iron from his backpack.
The Lucky Escape’s engine coughed then died.
I heard Tanya curse from the bridge.
The engine spluttered again.
This time it started.
The water behind the boat churned up as Jax reached the ladder and got on board. I was almost there.
The two soldiers reached the bow and stepped onto the boat, their rifles waving at Sam and Jax. The two military men were young, probably in their early twenties. One had dark close-shaven hair, the other brown. Both looked nervous.
“Hey!” the dark-haired soldier shouted. “Stop!”
They moved forward.
Sam and Jax raised their hands. Sam still held his tire iron in his right hand.
While the dark-haired young man trained his weapon on Sam and Jax, the fair-haired soldier took a radio from his jacket and held it to his mouth. “This is Williams. We’ve got two people on a boat here. On the South jetty. Over.”
The reply came immediately. “Detain them. Do not let them get away. We’ll be there in a minute. Over.”
“Copy that,” Williams said. “Over and out.”
I reached the lowermost rung of the metal ladder that led up to the aft deck. Williams had said two people. The soldiers across the marina knew there were four of us but Williams and his companion hadn’t seen us. They didn’t know about me or Tanya.
I gripped my bat in one hand and curled my fingers around the metal ladder. Tanya, Sam and Jax had made it look easy to get on board the Lucky Escape in a matter of seconds but I knew it would take me a lot longer to pull myself out of the water and climb those few rungs then get over the chrome safety rail at the top. By the time I got up, I’d be shot easily.
Tanya dropped down out of the bridge and I heard scuffling. One of the soldiers shouted then dropped over the
side into the water. His rifle, still clutched in his hands, fired a burst of three rounds. I reflexively flattened myself against the boat but the bullets hit the jetty, slamming into the wood with a trio of rapid thunks. The soldier splashed into the sea.
I climbed the ladder.
When I reached the top, Williams stood with his back to me. Tanya was poised in her fighter’s stance and Sam brandished his tire iron while Jax held her bat tightly.
Williams had no idea I was behind him.
I swung for his legs, hitting him on the backs of his knees.
He let out a grunt of surprise and went down to the deck, his gun toppling over the side of the boat.
“Get us out of here!” Tanya shouted to me.
I went up to the bridge and got the boat into reverse, backing away from the jetty slowly and turning the wheel to point our bow out to sea. Through the rain-smeared windows, I could see at least a dozen soldiers running up onto the jetty.
I took us out of reverse and increased the throttle as much as I dared to take us out of the marina. When the Lucky Escape started to move forward, I increased our speed.
As we left the jetty behind, I let out a breath of relief but we still weren’t in the clear.
Shouts from behind us were followed by the sharp crack of rifle shots.
“I can’t believe they’re firing on us when we have one of their soldiers on board, man,” Sam said. “That’s fucked up.”
I looked back. Half a dozen soldiers were firing at us while the other half ran back along the jetty. The dark-haired soldier, Williams’ companion, was pulling himself out of the water and climbing one of the jetty ladders.
Either we were out of range or the soldiers were bad shots; none of their bullets hit our boat. When we increased the distance between us and the marina, they stopped trying and stood watching us.
I looked down at the aft deck. Sam was standing over Williams, looking towards the marina. He said to Williams, “Can you swim, man?”
Williams nodded.
Sam pushed him over the side.
Williams went under for a moment, surfaced, then started a slow breaststroke back to shore.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I shouted down at Sam.
He looked up. “Why not? He said he can swim.”
“We could have got some information out of him. We could have found out what they were doing in that tent.”
Sam sighed. “You should have said that, man.”
He dived over the side and started swimming towards Williams in a fast front crawl.
What the fuck was he doing? Didn’t he realise we had to get out of here? I slammed the Lucky Escape into neutral and we bobbed on the waves of our own wake as the rain continued to lash down on deck.
Not that it mattered. We were all soaked to the skin from our dip in the sea. I shivered with cold.
Sam reached Williams and grabbed him around the neck, dragging him back through the water like a lifeguard rescuing a drowning victim. Faced with superior strength and size, Williams seemed resigned to his fate and let Sam bring him back to the boat.
Tanya and Jax helped get Williams on board and sat him on the cream-coloured, padded vinyl bench that ran around the bow.
I went down the ladder.
Sam looked at me. “Well, he’s here, man. Ask him your questions and we’ll throw him back overboard.”
Williams looked up at me with defiance in his eyes.
“Are you going to answer our questions?” I asked him.
He said nothing.
“Look, this isn’t a prisoner of war camp,” I said. “There isn’t a war on and we are not enemies. The zombies are our enemies. We’re survivors of a terrible event and we should work together. Don’t you agree?”
Williams remained silent. He probably didn’t want to get back to shore and have to tell his superiors he had given us information.
I sighed. “Okay, Williams, listen to me. If you don’t tell me what was happening in that tent on the beach, we’ll throw you overboard but we’ll wait until we’ve sailed out to the middle of fucking nowhere.”
Sam looked at me, horrified. Luckily, Williams couldn’t see his face.
“You may be able to swim for a while,” I said, “but eventually you’ll get tired. And then it’ll all be over.”
Williams looked down at the deck but said nothing.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll start the engines.”
I started to walk to the bridge ladder.
Williams’ voice was low and weak, resigned. “They gave us a vaccination,” he said.
I turned to face him. “Tell me more.”
He shrugged. Keeping his eyes locked on the deck as he struggled between the need for self-preservation and orders from his superiors, he said, “I don’t know what it was. They said it would keep us alive if we got bitten.”
“Who gave you the injection?”
“The army medics.”
“Where did they get the vaccine?”
He looked up at me. “How should I know? The government, I suppose. Probably some scientists.”
I thought about what Jax had said about Apocalypse Island. If her story was true, the vaccine had probably been developed there. Did the fact that the army had a vaccine prove the existence of Apocalypse Island? Not necessarily. It proved there was a government still active somewhere and they were still pulling the strings but Apocalypse Island could still just be a myth.
“Are they vaccinating the people in the Survivors Camps?” I asked Williams.
He shook his head. “They’re doing the military first. Then they’ll get around to…”
“They’ll never inject the ordinary people,” Tanya said, stepping forward. “The best way to control them is through fear.”
“They will inject the survivors,” Williams said, looking at Tanya earnestly.
She shook her head and raised an eyebrow. “Do you believe everything you’re told?”
He looked down at the deck again.
“Listen,” I said, “do you know what the Survivors Board is?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s a list of all the survivors in the camps.”
I leaned closer to him. “Where is it? Where can I find it?”
“You have to go to a camp. It’s on their computers.”
“You mean it’s a database?”
He nodded. “The survivors in the camps can ask if their relatives and friends are still alive and the soldiers in charge consult the database.”
“And it’s in every camp?” I asked.
He nodded. “As far as I know.”
“How do they keep the list updated, man?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know much about it,” Williams said, “but I think each camp updates it if someone dies or new arrivals come to their camp.”
“You mean it’s networked?” Sam asked.
Williams nodded.
Sam rubbed his chin. “Holy fuck, there’s a network.” He looked at Tanya and Jax.
I rolled my eyes. They probably wanted to take that over as well as Survivor Radio.
“Okay, we’re done with you, Williams,” I said.
Sam stepped forward to throw him over the side but Williams held his hands up. “No need for that. I’m going.” He dived over the side and started swimming for shore.
I turned to the others. “Let’s get…”
Something splashed into the water thirty feet off our bow. It exploded and the sea fountained up to join the falling rain. A second later, we heard a deep boom from the beach.
“They’re firing mortars at us!” I shouted, running for the ladder and climbing up to the bridge. I took us out of neutral and increased the throttle. The waves from the explosion hit us and the Lucky Escape rolled from side to side. I held onto the wheel and turned our nose into the waves, increasing the throttle as the boat steadied.
Another explosion off the port side seemed closer, maybe twenty feet away. The accompanying boom reached us after the sea
had erupted in a fountain of salty spray.
Again we were battered by the sudden high waves. The spray from the explosion hit the bridge windows like watery bullets, streaking over the glass. I slammed the throttle up to max and headed for deeper water, turning south in a gradual arc.
The next explosion hit twenty feet behind us. The spray soaked us but at least the Lucky Escape was intact.
I took her deeper. The shore was so far away now that the soldiers were no more than dark dots on a dark yellow band of wet sand.
The mortar fire ceased.
I sat back in the pilot’s chair and breathed a sigh of relief when the marina disappeared from view. Keeping close enough to see the shoreline through the rain but far enough away to feel safe from guns and mortars, I kept us on a southerly bearing.
If the military presence at Swansea was anything to go by, the army would be in full force at Falmouth Harbour. They might even have boats. If that was the case, we were dead. The plan might have to be changed before we got to Falmouth. It might be safer to get to Truro over land.
There was a radio fixed to the wall. I switched it on and Britney Spears’ voice filled the bridge, singing about someone being toxic.
I wondered if the vaccinations they were giving the military could really protect them against a zombie bite. If it could, that meant the scientists probably knew what the virus was, how it reacted in the human body.
It probably meant they had prior knowledge of it.
Apocalypse Island.
The evidence pointed to the existence of such a place.
Tanya appeared at the top of the ladder. “Hey,” she said, climbing in next to me.
“Hey,” I replied.
“We’re going to have to get some food from somewhere,” she said. “The boat is empty. There’s a kitchen but no food.”
“It’s just a hire boat,” I replied. “I guess the customers had to bring their own food on board.”
“So show me how this works,” she said, pointing to the instrument panel.
“You want me to show you how to pilot her?”
She nodded.
“Okay, but I only know the basics. My friend showed me once, so we could still pilot the boat if anything happened to him.”
Undead Rain (Book 2): Storm Page 7