“That’s fine. I can’t stay locked up in this building any longer.”
“Let’s go,” Tanya shouted.
We left the studio and ran back down the hallway with Johnny Drake and Cheryl Ginsburg in tow. The two soldiers Tanya and Sam had dealt with still lay in the same positions. I didn’t know if they were unconscious or dead.
As we descended the stairs, we heard boots running along the hallway below.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and Jax stuck her head and arm out through the doorway, firing her rifle. The bursts of fire cracked the air in the enclosed space and made my ears ring.
Jax sprinted across the hallway into the room we had broken into earlier. She looked across at me. “Alex, put down some suppressing fire!”
I handed my bat to Johnny Drake and shoved my rifle out through the doorway, pointing it along the hallway and squeezing the trigger. It spat out bullets and kicked in my hand. The soldiers in the reception area took cover.
Sam went across the hallway with Johnny and Cheryl as I continued to let off bursts of deadly bullets. The windows in the reception area shattered.
Tanya went across and beckoned me to follow.
I leapt into the room. Sam closed the door and pulled the vinyl sofa across it. “We’re out of here, man,” he said as he ran for the broken window.
We went out onto the cement walkway one at a time. By the time it was my turn to climb through, the soldiers on the other side of the door slammed into it. The sofa slid across the carpet.
“Give me that,” Sam said, grabbing my rifle. He let off a burst of rounds at the door. The pushing from the other side stopped.
Dropping down into the Zodiac was easier than climbing out of it. With six people, it was a tight squeeze but we found our places and sat tight while Jax started the engine and turned us around in a wide arc so we faced downriver.
As we started out of the city in a cloud of gasoline-tinged engine smoke, Sam pumped his fist into the air. “We fucking did it, man!”
I couldn’t share his enthusiasm. I was glad to be alive but I had no idea if Lucy had heard my message. The meeting place I had suggested worried me.
The lighthouse where Mike and Elena had met their deaths.
Somewhere I had vowed to never return.
The rain began to fall from the night sky as we approached Falmouth Harbour. I wished the heavens had broken earlier so we didn’t have to endure seeing the rotting mass of zombies lining the river banks. I was sick of them. I wanted to take the rifles and fire every last bullet into the crowd of yellow-eyed monsters. It would be a waste of ammunition and even if every bullet delivered a killing headshot, it wouldn’t make any difference to the huge population of zombies but it might make me feel better.
Instead of actually carrying out my plan to waste all of our bullets to fight the depression that was dropping over me like a heavy, dark blanket, I just closed my eyes and thought about it while Tanya and Sam filled Johnny and Cheryl in on the events of the last few days.
I had already heard Johnny say that he never had access to the Survivor board—the list of survivors and camps—and that he was given the Survivor Reach Out recordings on data sticks. He had no idea which camp they came from or when they were recorded.
After hearing that, I tuned out.
I needed to get my hands on one of the networked military laptops if I was to have any chance of finding Joe.
The harbour looked as deserted as it had earlier except for the drowned hybrid bodies floating face down in the water by the boats. The ones that hadn’t jumped in after us had disappeared. Probably hiding in the shadows of the buildings. The hybrids seemed to go into a dormant state when there was no prey around. They found a place out of sight and stayed there until triggered into action by sound or movement.
I thought back to the hybrid in the village, standing in the middle of the road waiting for us. He hadn’t been hiding because he knew the prey was already aware of his presence. But when he first saw us, he was hidden in the trees at the edge of the field.
As we got closer to the metal barricade, I stared at the shadows between the buildings, waiting for a tell-tale movement. There was none.
“We’re going to have to get the boat over the jetty,” Tanya said. “And we’re going to have to do it fast. Those bastards are around here somewhere.”
Sam picked up one of the L85s. “No problem, man. We’ve got guns now.”
Tanya picked up the other rifle and nodded. “Only shoot if you have to. We need to preserve ammo.”
“You got it,” Sam replied.
Jax steered us around the floating bodies to the steps that ran up to the top of the jetty. Sam took the rope and jumped out onto the lowest step, pulling the Zodiac towards him. We grabbed our weapons, Johnny taking Tanya’s crowbar and Cheryl picking up Sam’s tire iron. We all got out and picked up the boat, carrying it on our shoulders as we ascended the steps. Once we were past this obstacle, we would be back on the Lucky Escape. I could hardly wait. My nerves were frayed. I felt exposed out here.
Not long now. Just get across this jetty and we’d be safe.
But as we got to the top of the stairs, all hell broke loose.
Sam was in the lead and he was the first to react. He shouted, “No!” and let go of the Zodiac as he brought his rifle up. The boat crashed down on one side as Sam started firing.
The hybrids were everywhere, getting up from where they had been lying on the cement jetty. They had been silent and patient while we blindly stumbled into their trap.
I realised with a sudden cold clarity that in our absence, they had not gone into a dormant stage at all.
They were waiting for us.
twenty-eight
The Zodiac crashed to the steps then slid into the water.
Sam brought up his rifle as a hybrid leapt at him. The gun spat twice and the hybrid crumpled at Sam’s feet.
Tanya joined Sam and began shooting into the mass of yellow-eyed ex-soldiers. The ones they hit dropped to the cement but there were so many others, it was only a matter of seconds before they would overwhelm us by sheer numbers.
We had no choice but to get back onto the Zodiac. Sam and Tanya were already backing down the steps as they fired into the advancing hybrids.
The Zodiac’s rope floated on the water like a dead snake. I grabbed it and pulled the boat closer to the steps.
I didn’t need to tell anyone that the Zodiac was our only chance of survival. Cheryl and Jax jumped on board, followed by Johnny and myself. Tanya and Sam came backwards down the steps, the L85s kicking and spitting in their hands. Hybrid bodies littered the steps.
Jax pulled on the starter cord. The engine spluttered and died. She shouted, “Come on!”
Tanya and Sam continued shooting until they both ran out of ammo.
There were still dozens of hybrids on the jetty.
They leapt into the Zodiac and Jax pulled the starter cord again. The engine coughed out a cloud of gasoline smoke. Jax tried again but the engine still did not start.
Sam and Johnny grabbed the metal oars from the floor of the boat and used them to push us away from the jetty before beginning to row us out into the harbour.
We weren’t going to put the distance between us and the hybrids in time.
Two hybrids jumped from the steps and grabbed the side of our boat. They attempted to scramble on board but I swung my bat into the skull of the one closest to me and it collapsed into the water.
Sam jammed his rifle butt into the face of the other, sending it sprawling backwards. It still held onto the boat with one hand until Sam smashed its fingers with the butt and the hybrid sank into the depths. Sam picked up the oar again and rowed furiously to get us farther from danger.
Four more hybrids jumped down on us. One of them missed the Zodiac entirely and splashed into the water. Two landed short but managed to hook their arms over the side of the boat. Sam and I went to work on them. I smashed the bat down on the head o
f the one closest to me. The impact was so hard it sent a blast of pain through my hands and wrists and up my arm. The hybrid sank into the water, leaving a stain of blood spreading across the surface.
Sam attacked the other with the rifle butt, sending it reeling away.
Behind me, I heard a scream. I turned in time to see the fourth hybrid land in the boat and scramble for Cheryl. She kicked at it but everything happened so fast, nobody else had time to react. The hybrid lunged forward and sunk its teeth into Cheryl’s neck. Her scream became a garbled choke as the hybrid’s forward motion took them both over the side of the boat into the harbour.
“No! Cheryl!” Johnny cried, reaching for her. She and the hybrid splashed into the water before Johnny could even get a hand on her. He stared over the side of the boat at the place where she had disappeared.
“It’s too late,” Tanya said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She took the oar from him and began rowing while Johnny slumped against the side of the Zodiac, tears running down his cheeks.
More hybrids leapt from the jetty, grabbing for us as they hit the water. Like last time, they didn’t seem to realise when it was time to give up the chase. We were out of reach but they still tried to get us, drowning themselves in the process.
As we rowed farther out, the hybrids stopped, finally understanding they couldn’t get us. They stood on the steps and jetty and stared at us with their hateful yellow eyes.
Sam and Tanya stopped rowing and we drifted in the darkness. The wind was picking up. It bit through my clothes and chilled me. The water became rougher. We bobbed up and down on the waves.
“What now?” Jax asked. “I can’t get the engine started.”
“One thing is for certain,” I said, “We can’t get around the barricade by going across the harbour. We might have to go around it at the other end, across the bay.”
Tanya shook her head. “We’d have to go into those fields. They’re heaving with shamblers.”
“What if we went over the barricade, man?” Sam asked.
“Climb over it?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I looked at the army barricade. The metal wall sections were at least ten feet high and made of smooth steel. If I couldn’t get over the wall at the radio station without help, there was no way I could climb over a sheer metal barrier. “We can’t get the Zodiac over,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter,” Sam replied. “We can swim to the Lucky Escape once we get on the other side. We can all swim.” He prodded Johnny Drake. “Hey, can you swim, man?”
Johnny, who had been lost in his own thoughts, looked up and nodded.
“It’ll be easy,” Sam said.
In the distance, thunder rumbled. I wondered if it was an omen.
“It’s a half mile swim,” I said, “and the sea’s getting choppy.”
Tanya looked at me. “Have you got a better idea? It looks like there’s a storm coming. If we stay out here with no engine, we’ll get washed up on shore and become hybrid chow.”
Johnny winced and I realised he was thinking about Cheryl.
Tanya seemed oblivious. “That’s not the way I want to go out,” she said. “I’d rather take my chances swimming for the boat.”
“We could wait for the rain,” I said, “and go across those fields when all those shamblers take cover. It’s definitely going to rain soon.”
“Yes, it’s definitely going to rain soon. There’s a storm coming.” As if to emphasize her point, lightning flashed over the headland. A deep rumble of thunder followed. “We aren’t going to be able to row the Zodiac across the bay in a storm. It’s miles to the other side. Do you want to row? If we get over the barricade now, we can be on the Lucky Escape by the time that storm reaches us.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. She was right; there was no way we could row all the way across to the far end of the barricade, especially in a storm.
Lightning flickered across the night sky again and a cold drizzle began to fall. On the jetty, the hybrids stood glaring at us through the rain, oblivious to it.
I heard something in the distance. A low rumble.
“What’s that sound?” I asked.
“It’s thunder,” Tanya said.
“No, listen.”
We all went quiet. The sound of the rain hitting the Zodiac distracted me but if I listened carefully I could hear the distant rumble getting louder.
Worry darkened Sam’s face. “It’s a boat,” he said. “It’s coming down the river.”
Tanya peered across the water to the mouth of the river. “Do you think the army followed us?”
“Probably,” he replied.
Of course the army followed us. We had used their radio broadcast to get our own messages out. We had taken Johnny Drake from them. Did we really think they wouldn’t retaliate? Now we were floating in the middle of the harbour while they bore down on us. They would blow us out of the water without a second thought.
The boat appeared at the mouth of the river. The same size as the Lucky Escape, it was painted dark green and had searchlights mounted on the top of the bridge. Their powerful beams cut through the night in a wide arc, skimming across the waves towards the moored boats and the jetties.
“What are we gonna do, man?” Sam asked. His voice was tight, frightened.
We had nowhere to run. We could easily swim to shore from here but the hybrids would tear us to pieces. If we stayed on the water, we would be killed or captured by the army.
“We’ll have to swim for the shore,” Tanya said. If she was nervous, it didn’t reach her voice.
“The hybrids…” I said
“There’s no other option, Alex. Unless you’d rather be shot.”
I shook my head and grabbed my bat.
“Let’s go,” Tanya said, sliding gracefully into the water and pulling herself towards the shore with a strong breaststroke.
Sam threw down the empty rifle and picked up his tire iron. “See you guys on the Lucky Escape.” He jumped into the harbour and front crawled after Tanya.
What did he mean by that? Was it every man for himself now? We had more chance as a group. We could fight better as a unit. Alone, we would be hunted down and killed.
I looked over at Jax and Johnny.
“Let’s stick together,” Jax said.
I nodded.
We lowered ourselves into the cold water and swam slowly for the shore. I was in no hurry to get killed. Ahead, Tanya and Sam climbed out of the water, ran up the sandy incline to the parking area, and sprinted between the buildings.
“They made it,” Jax said.
Behind us, the rumble of the army boat seemed to fill the air. The light swung across the harbour buildings and over the jetty, illuminating the hybrids.
Then I heard the death rattle of a machine gun and our Zodiac was torn to shreds.
There was no doubt about the army’s plans.
They wanted to kill us.
The search light found us and the blinding beam cast a circle of light around Jax, Johnny, and me.
Bullets tore into the water next to my face.
We weren’t going to make it out of the harbour alive.
twenty-nine
I heard one of the soldiers on the boat shout, “Get us closer!” and I knew he was taking aim again. He wouldn’t miss a second time.
I glanced back over my shoulder but the light was too bright to make out anything more than the looming bulk of the boat. In an effort to get closer to us, the pilot steered the craft closer to the jetty.
He obviously had no experience of hybrids and did not know how they behaved when their prey was nearby.
They leapt from the jetty onto the boat. I heard someone shout, “What the fuck? No!” The last word became a scream then died instantly.
The machine gun fired again but the gunner had turned to aim it at the attacking hybrids.
More screams came from the boat. The gun went silent. Smoke and the
smell of cordite drifted over the water.
“We need to move now while the hybrids are distracted by the boat,” I whispered to Jax and Johnny.
We swam for shore as fast as we could. The screams continued on the boat, mixed with staccato gunshots and shouts of terror.
The hybrids swarmed onto the boat and I was sure nobody was left alive on board. As we emerged from the water and ran for the cover of the military Land Rovers parked near the buildings, I had to reappraise my earlier theory that zombies only bit a vaccinated person once. Maybe that’s what shamblers did but the hybrids, who shared the same vaccinated blood as their prey, tore their victims apart and devoured them. I could hear sickening sounds coming from the boat.
I ran for the buildings but Jax whispered urgently, “Here!” She opened the door of a Land Rover and got in. Johnny climbed into the passenger side and I climbed into the back. “The keys were on the dashboard,” Jax said. She jammed them into the ignition and started the vehicle.
Turning the steering wheel violently to the right, she turned us around and gunned the engine. A small road led between the buildings and she took it, driving us away from the harbour.
The road intersected with a wider road at a crossroads. Jax turned left.
“Are you sure this is the way?” I asked.
“No, but it should take us back to the water.”
The road curved between clusters of tall gas holders then wound towards the sea between tall trees, which bent in the strong wind.
A few splatters of rain hit the windscreen. Jax turned on the wipers. More rain hit the glass at a faster speed until it showered onto the screen so fast the wipers could barely deal with it.
Lightning briefly lit the landscape with a ghostly light then thunder boomed all around us. The storm had begun.
The road opened onto a slim sandy beach. Jax hit the brakes and the Land Rover slewed across the sand, coming to a halt at the water’s edge. From this location, the Lucky Escape seemed a long way away. The waves were high with white tips.
We got out into the lashing, cold rain. The sea crashed against the Land Rover’s tires and the thought of getting into that churning water seemed deadly.
Undead Rain (Book 2): Storm Page 13