Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End

by Daniel Cotton

  “Just a second, baby,” his mother says calmly though she is looking the other way toward the dying fire and the growing mob of corpses ready to close in on them.

  Killian rushes to the side of the pier where small crafts are moored below, dashing down the creaky wooden steps that lead to a floating dock. Walking on the surface is a challenge as it gently rises and falls beneath his feet but he manages to investigate a few boats until he finds one he can start. The smallest of the vessels, but it has an outboard motor he is able to bring to life with a few swift pulls of a cord. Letting it idle he races back up the stairs.

  Hippo is trying to see all he can before the ticking clock runs out of time. He has swung it back toward where they had come, his mother’s hand on his back the whole time. He focuses in on the dead bent on reaching them. The flames have diminished and just come up to their knees now, just enough to keep them back but not for long. One of the zombies stumbles, the eager crowd that builds behind it inadvertently knocked it forward. The corpse falls over the dwindling flames giving the rest a way through. They surge over it, using their flailing peer as a bridge.

  “They’re coming!” Hippo yells as the timer runs out and a shutter closes, everything goes black.

  “I got a boat!” the eldest boy tells them, in his arms is a large load of their supplies. “Grab the stuff!”

  Susan and Hippo get the rest of their supplies, everything they have, and head down to join Killian as the dead clamor their way in a stampede.

  Handing off the gear, Susan takes in the tiny boat, not to complain she feels the need to mention, “Isn’t this a little small.” Once all their things are loaded there’s barely room for the three of them, it offers nothing in the way of shelter or protection from the sun. It’s obviously much too cramped for them to live on for long.

  “We’re just taking this to get to that one,” Killian explains, pointing out into the water to their destination. He unties a rope where he sits aft, Susan takes a seat at the bow without needed to be told.

  Carefully, the young man eases the throttle after giving the dock a good shove to get them drifting away. He has trouble at first getting them lined up with their target destination, figuring out he needs to turn the gurgling motor opposite the direction he intends on moving. The confusing steering has them almost turned back toward the pier before he figures it out and eases them the other way. He tells himself to stay calm, panicking will just cause him to accelerate too fast or turn too much. He can’t risk capsizing or accidentally heading back to where the dead now fall from the high pier onto the floating dock they’ve just left.

  The starved ghouls are raining down, striking the wooden surface hard. The dock rocks and splashes as weight is added from so many bodies. The family can see it bow at the more congested points, dipping deeper from too much weight. The large crowd above can only watch as their dinner slips away from them.

  Still close enough to look the dead in their empty, soulless eyes. Slack lifeless faces moan as if pleading with the family to return. Some are so ravenous they continue to try to get their hands on them. They step off the planks and hit the water, sinking like stones.

  Killian allows his heart to slow, his hand trembles on the stick, before setting his gaze to the big boat he plans on taking his family. He turns the throttle to get them moving. The distance to the large ship is greater than he anticipated, and he’s thankful. He needs time to think up a plan on getting them and their stuff onboard, and how to deal with the craft’s current occupants.

  “Honey,” his mom begins a question, “did you know there's already people on this boat?”

  “Sorta,” he answers as he stops the engine to drift alongside a smaller boat that’s tethered to the larger vessel like a dog on a leash. The movement of the water gives the crafts the appearance of motion though the ship is anchored.

  The three stare up at the ship that dwarfs theirs. A gruesome face appears at the rail, a heavyset man in life, now in death his face is swollen to the point his eyes are mere slits. His features are pinched by the puffy red skin except for his mouth, his teeth visible through a jagged, ravaged hole. The corpse is blind, obviously tracking them by their voices and the sound their engine made.

  A second figure appears, a female. Her blonde hair is a stringy mess that hangs down in ratty strands over her topless torso. The three crafts find themselves being rocked by a sudden series of large waves. Killian loses his hold on the motorboat he keeps between them and the ship as he tries to tie a rope to one of its cleats. He quickly drops a pair of white fenders over the side to keep them from crashing directly into the other boat.

  Hippo chuckles at this new arrival and utters a word he’s just coined, “Zomboobs.” His family isn’t as amused, unable to find the humor in the dead that he does and only seeing them for what they are, threats.

  Killian’s hope was that the zombies would try to get to them and fall overboard, but the ship’s rail is too high. It holds the deceased at bay. He hates to waste the bullets, but has no choice but to ready the M-16, even if he had more ammunition for it, he has no clue how to load it.

  Lining up the sights on the bloated male corpse is a challenge with the world rocking as it is, the shooter and his target both rise and fall as if riding a seesaw together. Taking a breath and holding it as his grandfather once taught him, he squeezes the trigger. The assault rifle surprises him when instead of a single shot it spits three in rapid succession. The first round plants into the zombie’s stomach, the gun raises from the recoil putting the second in the chest and the third where it was intended. The headshot causes the dead man to fall backwards.

  “My turn,” Hippo says, holding his hand out for the weapon.

  “Not on your life,” his mother corrects him, causing him to slouch in a pout.

  Without a word, Killian exhales the breath he had held. He fiddles with the levers beside his trigger guard setting to fire a single shot this time. Another unexpected fit of waves has the chain of vessels jumping on the surface of the water. The violent motion puts the female corpse off her balance, she crashes into the railing of the extravagant boat, catching it in the ribs. The unsteady boat turns her putting her back to the family, showing where she has been eaten away from the shoulders down.

  Killian fires once the ocean settles, missing her entirely. His next round ineffectually lands in her throat. He tries to relax, as best he can, and takes a third shot that finally falls the corpse.

  “Why didn’t you just do that in the first place, like the other one?” his brother pesters him.

  Killian ignores the question, as he does when his mother asks him if he’s all right. He just wants to get them onboard the large ship with all their stuff. He unties the lines and pushes the boat aside that stands between them and their prospective home. Rather than use up any fuel he pulls them forward using the other boat until he can tie onto its bow.

  Looking up at a shining steel ladder the boy tries to figure out his course of action. He knows he’s to be the first one up to dispose of the bodies and make sure it’s safe, but wonders how they will get all their supplies up. “I’ll make sure it’s clear,” he tells his mom. “You and Hippo stay here. I’ll drop some rope to haul up the stuff.”

  He doesn’t ask how the plan sounded to her, he just tells her how it will be before he begins to climb. It isn’t what he has just done, dispatching zombies is not killing in his book. It isn’t the fear that the dead above him may not be ‘dead’, he’s fairly certain they are and he has the revolver just in case. What slows his ascent, makes it feel as if he is climbing the ladder with weights on, is the gravity of what this act of high seas piracy represents. He’s taken the mantle of leader, head of the family, the Captain. From this moment until forever he is responsible for keeping his family safe.

  The deck of the boat is a grisly sight, it catches him by surprise and makes his body tingle with a chilly shiver. The expensive luxury cruiser should be gleaming white, instead nearly every s
urface is coated with blood. Hand prints, spatters, streaks and smears reveal a horror story he can’t help but imagine. The couple came here shortly after the onset, took the small craft here where they planned to wait out the madness. One of them may have been bitten, turned, and caused all this carnage.

  Killian lifts his eyes from the scarlet mess to the limp bodies. He clears his throat to see if they’ll move. The dead aren’t likely to play dead, if they detect even the slightest prospect of food they go for it. Nothing. The bodies remain inert.

  About to investigate the ship, the new Captain must overcome the sensation of dread he feels, a tension in his body that tells him he’s somewhere he doesn’t belong. It’s ours now, he repeats in his head as he takes the first steps around the corpses he knows to be harmless.

  All of a sudden he’s alarmed by a voice, his mother is calling up to him with worry, “Honey? Honey, are you all right?”

  “Just checking it out!” he answers. “I need a few minutes.”

  Verifying that the top deck is danger free by rounding the cabin, Killian heads down a short flight of stairs to investigate the enclosed space. It’s a definite step up from their car, couches and chairs furnish the living area, and a table where they’ll be able to dine. They have a small kitchen, a bathroom, and two cramped bedrooms. Upon the table is a box of supplies the dead couple never put away. From the floor he picks up a partially eaten granola bar. There’s no blood in here, he notices.

  The man topside’s face is severely swollen, Killian can see on the wrapper that the product may have contained peanuts. Growing up in a household with two healthcare professionals he is able to surmise that the man had an allergic reaction. The story changes, neither was bitten when they came onboard. They were about to settle in when he ate the snack, and it killed him.

  Back on deck, Killian prepares to heave the female over the side. He’d rather not touch them directly so he uses one of the man’s Hawaiian shirts as a buffer. He fights a fit of the creeps he feels as he comes into contact with the deceased woman. Her body rolls revealing the horrible mess the man had made of her. The bloody smears all over the deck tell Killian that as soon as he changed, he followed her up here where she was unable to find escape. Perhaps she couldn’t swim, he wonders. In her panic, she could only try to keep away from the guy, but he got her, ate away what he could get his teeth on. Her shoulder, back, buttocks and legs have been chewed away. The attack left one silver lining, it made her lighter. Killian would not have been able to heave her over this easily if so much flesh hadn’t been removed, now she weighs less than his brother.

  A splash in the water catches Susan’s breath in her throat as she waits on the much smaller vessel. “Honey?” she calls up in an urgent tone.

  “I’m fine!” he calls back to her. “Just need a second.”

  The man is much heavier. He had fallen on his back onto the largest of the pools of blood, the spot the boy assumes the woman ultimately died. His body had rejected the peanut protein so defiantly it killed him, leaving his face puffed tightly like a balloon. As Killian contemplates the easiest way to toss him overboard he is derailed by the man’s condition. The swelling happened before he died, he considers the man’s swollen eyes, the lids are engorged to the point of forced closure. He was blind.

  He imagines the scenario, the woman was probably frantic when the man began gasping for air and inflating. She was probably at his side when he expired. Then when he arose she would have run out of the cabin, with nowhere to run to. He tracked her by sound, her screams, her breathing, until he got a piece of her. Then he was able to track her by smell.

  The man’s mouth is a ragged hole, self-inflicted. If Killian was to probe he bets he’d find the man’s tongue chewed off, just as the zombie had ravaged his own swollen mouth to sink his teeth into the woman by pressing his face against her and chewing through his fattened lips. Around the deck he spots gelatinous gobs of meat, the anaphylactic reaction had closed off the man’s throat, killing him. The bits of flesh had nowhere to go, and yet he kept on eating her, letting it fall out as he went back for more.

  Killian shakes the dark thoughts from his mind. He lifts the man in sections using leverage to get him onto the rail so he can roll him over the side. The second and much larger splash has his mother calling him once more. The boy uses a rag to grab the mounds of flesh that will be joining the couple in the Atlantic.

  “All aboard,” the Captain calls to his family trying to sound as normal as possible.

  Hippo and his mother have the same initial reaction to the sight of all the blood that Killian had. The oldest boy helps them onboard.

  “A boat this fancy must have something in the way of cleaning supplies,” Susan says dreading the thought of them having to look at the ghastly stains day after day. She locates a mop and bucket, some sponges, and a big bottle of bleach. Her maternal nesting instinct kicks into overdrive, she and Hippo begin cleaning, cleansing the remnants of the nightmare that befell the last occupants while Killian carefully hauls their belongings using a rope he has found. He brings their gear up item by item and sets it in the cabin for his mother to put away. In no time they make the craft a home.

  35

  “We should get moving,” a man suggests worriedly.

  “Not yet, we just got here,” another rejects the notion. They are within enemy territory and can’t risk being spotted.

  “Kenny, if they catch us…”

  “…We’ll handle it,” the leader interrupts.

  “This mission has been a complete fuck up,” one of the soldiers opines. “No guns. No food. And now we’re hiding in this shithole.”

  “Do you hear something?”

  “A bunch of whining,” Kenny answers.

  “No. It sounds like…music,” the man listens to the air, still as a statue, his breath held. There is definitely music outside, approaching. They’ve all heard about their neighbors, those who’ve run into them speak of them like bogeymen. They travel the land with their music blaring, loud and bold. “Oh my god! They’re coming! It’s the Rubies!”

  ####

  The house within Rubicon territory was newly acquired, it stands on a stretch of road roughly halfway between them and Florida. It was meant to be an outpost to monitor the highway, mainly to give them an advanced warning about movement, both living and dead, but mainly military. The Army has a base south of Rubicon and have been coming periodically trying to recruit them. The Rubies have only two people stationed at the house currently to get it set up for surveillance, a half hour ago they realized they had lost contact with them when the hourly radio check went unanswered. All available vehicles are now converging on the run down dwelling, the last to arrive is an old, black Buick Riviera.

  “I like these crackers,” the driver says licking his fingers. “They remind me of Jumpin’ Jack Doritos.”

  “Were those gross too?” his passenger asks.

  “You ate plenty of them for someone who doesn’t like them, Abby.”

  “It’s all you brought,” the younger man remarks.

  “You’ll be less crabby once you have some pudding,” the driver consoles. “Abacab makes the best butterscotch pudding, you can taste love in every spoonful.”

  “You said they were pudding cups,” Abby says, he hasn’t known the little man long and is often confused by him. For some reason Brass has taken a special interest in him, taken him under his wing.

  “Trust me, you’re gonna love it,” the man assures. “Speaking of love, you’ve never met Abacab, have you?”

  “No. What’s up with her name?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s the Mortal Kombat blood code from the old NES,” he says as if everyone should know this. “She’s our resident adorable techie. Out here rigging our new post with cameras and sensors. Setting up communications.”

  “And, eating pudding,” Abby adds.

  The last to arrive, the Riv joins the vehicles that surround the house. The Rubies have been waiting f
or Brass to show up, he carries a lot of respect among his people. They all look up to him.

  “There’s a big ass bus parked out back, Brass,” one soldier reports since from the front one would only notice the small hatchback Abacab had taken here.

  “Thank you, Soul Train,” Brass ponders what they may be in for and grabs something from the trunk of his car, a back pack that he slings by one strap. “We’ll make contact. Everyone hold positions. Come on, Abby.”

  Brass knocks on the door and waits. A second knock is required to elicit an answer, a male voice trying to sound confident and in control tells them to go away.

  “This is our place,” Brass says calmly. “We have people inside.”

  “It’s our place now,” the voice says sternly.

  “Who is that?” Abby asks.

  “Shh. Let me do the talking,”

  “Do you ever stop?”

  “Good point, but it proves mine. I have more practice at it,” Brass says then addresses the unseen man. “Now look here, we have the place surrounded, and we are all deeply concerned about our friends. I don’t think I should have to tell you what will happen if even one hair has been harmed, do I?”

  Nothing. There’s no response from inside. They’ll have to barge in. Brass motions for one of his men to come to the door with Abby and himself. “Rough Rider, if you’d please?”

  Brass and Abby flank the door, Abby has an AR-15 shouldered, Brass holds a western six-shooter with both hands as Rough Rider prepares himself to kick in the door. One swift kick is all it takes to gain access, the three wait off to the sides in case those inside are jumpy. All that is fired at them is a command, “Go away!”

  “Not gonna happen,” Brass responds. He holsters his weapon and enters without fear, but slowly. He jingles spent shell casings in the palm of his hand with every step making it sound like he’s wearing spurs. Scanning the faces that stare at him, Brass reads the reactions that range from relief to rage. Some, like his friend Abacab are happy to see him, others, like one man he recalls expelling from Rubicon look at him from down the barrel of a gun. There is a pair of faces that are scared, unsure of what’s going on. “So, what’s up?” Brass asks the room.