Westport (Grays Harbor Series Book 1)

by James Bierce

  Running down the sidewalk toward the beach, Curtis can still hear the people behind him as they attempt to scratch and claw their way through the door. By the time they left, the woman who had grabbed his leg was joined by at least two others, both of whom were just as frantic to follow them. Forced to leave his coat behind, he has only a heavy buttoned-down shirt to protect him against the driving rain coming from the direction of the beach.

  "What about your coat?" Sarah asks Curtis.

  "I'll get another one."

  "You're gonna freeze to death before we get back to the cabin, especially out on the beach."

  "I'll be fine. We'll start a fire when we get back." He points across the parking lot toward the dunes, where a large thicket of blackberry bushes and scotch broom threaten to choke out the forest of pine trees. "Over there, the seawall is just on the other side."

  "I can see the wall ahead of us." Sarah tells him, pointing directly ahead.

  The wall is made out of concrete, and thick enough to hold back the tidal surges that occasionally make their way across the dunes. The section of the wall behind the hotel blocks any view of the ocean beyond, and separates the parking lot from the sand and surf on the other side.

  "Its too visible, someone might see us there."

  After making it across the parking lot without seeing anybody, they finally make it to the thicket just as the rain begins to fall again. Under the pines it stays relatively dry, but the droplets of water cling to the brambles and bushes in between the trees, and only a few feet into the brush Curtis is already soaked from brushing past them.

  Their surroundings are turning darker as they travel farther in, no doubt made worse by the clouds that are now blocking the moon once again. Sarah is following from the back, keeping an eye out behind them as they try to avoid the sharp thorns and tangled vines of the blackberries. The only thing that makes it even somewhat bearable is the cushioning sensation from the sandy pathway — a welcome feeling after the miles of torture their feet have been forced to endure over the last three days. As she reaches up to move another vine out of the way, she hears a crack somewhere close-by, like a branch breaking.

  "Wait..." she whispers. Curtis and the boys both stop.

  "Did you hear something?" asks Curtis.

  "I thought I did."

  "I heard it too. I think it came from up the beach." They wait another minute or so, but they hear absolutely nothing but the raging ocean in the background, and the wind and rain thrashing against the pines. "It must have been the wind knocking a branch down or something. Let's keep moving."

  When they finally approach the wall, the shade from the larger trees that grow on either side of it start to choke out the vines and brush, leaving nothing but a bed of wet needles covering the ground in front of them. The wall itself isn't quite what Sarah expected it to be. She was picturing something substantial, something you would fear to climb over. In reality though, it rises only about six or seven feet above the ground, depending on where you're standing.

  "I'm going up first. I have to make sure the other side is clear." Curtis whispers.

  "Do you have the binoculars?" Sarah asks.

  "They were in my coat."

  "I have some." Ben tells him.

  As Ben fishes through his backpack for the binoculars, Curtis waves Sarah off to the side, barely out of Matt and Ben's earshot.

  "What is it?" she asks.

  Curtis hardly looks at her, keeping his eye on the two boys at all times. "Somebody is following us. I heard another crack, and when I looked up I saw someone jump into the shadows."

  Sarah reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out the revolver, handing it to Curtis.

  "I don't really have a pocket anymore..." he tells her.

  "I don't even know how to shoot it."

  "Yeah, that makes two of us."

  She looks up at him with a puzzled expression on her face.

  "I bought it a few months ago, I've never actually used it." he explains.

  "You've shot a gun before though..."

  "Just a pellet gun. Its not exactly the same thing."

  Ben walks up and taps Curtis on the arm. "Dad, I found it."

  "Thanks son."

  After looping the binocular string around his neck, and placing the gun in the back of his jeans, Curtis steps onto a large boulder and pulls himself up onto the wall, the top of which is covered by a thick coat of moss and algae, giving the surface a slimy feel under his feet. Once he stands up, he finds that the view isn't exactly what he'd hoped for. The rain is obscuring what little visibility there is, and the beach is still hidden behind dozens of sand dunes, none of which look particularly inviting. Worse yet, the ground is several feet lower on the other side, with huge boulders stacked next to the wall along the entire length. There's no way they can jump down safely, at least not here. Curtis drops to his stomach and reaches his arms down the wall toward his family.

  "Ben, grab my hands, I'll pull you up."

  One by one he helps them onto the wall, feeling safer somehow being away from the thicket.

  "We have to walk down the wall a little ways until we find some place to jump down." he tells the others.

  The trek isn't an easy one, despite having a wide, somewhat flat surface to walk on. The wall was built to hold back storm surges that from time to time cause extensive damage to the structures along the coast — but it also blocks some of the low moving wind from pouring into the streets of Westport. Every few steps a gust of wind comes out of nowhere, nearly knocking them off of the wall. After being forced to finally crawl on their hands and knees through the onslaught of it, Curtis stops and leans over the edge, noticing that the rocks below are mostly buried in sand.

  "Figures." Curtis says, his voice raised over the storm.

  "What figures?" asks Sarah.

  "The end of the seawall is right up ahead of us." he says, pointing directly in front of them. "We might as well jump from here though, its hard telling what its like up there." He wipes some of the slime off of his hands, then motions for Matt to come closer. "I'm gonna jump down. After I do, go ahead and throw all the backpacks down to me. Got it?"

  Matt gives him a thumbs up.

  "Curtis!" Sarah screams.

  "What?"

  "Where is Ben? Did he jump down already?"

  Curtis turns his flashlight on, frantically shining it around on the sand below — but there's no sign of him anywhere. He moves over to the inside of the wall, but all he can see are fallen branches and brush — and then he spots something moving, twenty or so feet from the wall.

  "Ben! Is that you?" he yells, but there's no response. He turns to Sarah, who's now searching with her flashlight as well... "I'm going down, keep looking for him."

  When he jumps, his right foot lands on a small rock, rolling it over onto his ankle — but he stays upright, refusing to acknowledge the pain. It takes him only seconds to make it to the area that he saw from above. What he finds isn't Ben though — its a man that's hunched over, looking around at the ground frantically, as if he's lost something.

  "Hey!" Curtis yells.

  "What?" Sarah answers from behind him.

  "Not you. There's a guy down here." The man stands upright, looking at Curtis with a dazed look in his eye. "Have you seen a boy around here?" he asks the man.

  "A boy..." the man replies.

  "Yes, have you seen a boy around?"

  Instead of answering, the man raises his right hand, revealing a large butcher knife.

  "Oh God..." Curtis says to himself.

  As the man begins staggering toward him, scuffing his feet through the sand and needles with every small step, Curtis aims his gun at the man's head and pulls the trigger twice. The first bullet lands just below his eye socket, ripping a hole in his face before dropping the man to the ground. The second bullet flies past him and into the woods beyond.

  "Ben! Where are you?" Curtis yells over the wind.

  "Curtis, what's going on?
" screams Sarah, who's still on top of the wall behind him.

  "I'm alright, just wait up there for a minute."

  Curtis approaches the man's corpse carefully, half expecting to see his body come alive and attack. What he finds is more disgusting than terrifying though — a gaping wound pouring blood and brain matter onto the ground, and a dirty and dull knife laying next to him. The only positive thing is that the knife seems to be free of any blood, meaning there's a chance that Ben is still alive.

  After Curtis helps Sarah and Matt off of the wall, the three of them search the area thoroughly, but find no trace of Ben anywhere. Feeling sick to his stomach with worry, Matt shines his light up onto the wall, feeling somewhat foolish that he half-expected to see Ben staring back at him. What he sees instead are several bloody scratch marks in the moss and algae below the spot where they were standing.

  "Mom, Dad..." says Matt, pointing at the marks.

  Sarah gasps and places her hand over her mouth, frozen with fear.

  Curtis walks closer and examines the scratches. They're fresh, that much he can tell right away — and big, whoever left them had enormous hands. "These scratches are too big for Ben's hands, that guy must have pulled him down."

  "So where is he now?" asks Sarah, her voice shaken.

  "He might have ran off, I don't know..."

  "Do you think that guy could have dragged him off someplace?"

  "I don't think so, he could barely walk."

  They stand in silence for a moment, none of them sure what to say, or what to do. Their world, which had started to feel like it was closing in on them, suddenly felt bigger than ever. Ben could be anywhere, and all of them feel helpless to do anything about it.

  Sarah starts to walk toward the brush and away from the wall. "We have to do something, we have to go look for him. I can't imagine how scared he must be..."

  Curtis wraps his arms around Sarah as she passes by him, and she breaks down in tears, overwhelmed by the stress of the last few hours.

  "We will, we'll find him — but we have to split up."

  Sarah's heart sinks at even the thought of separating, especially at a time like this. She pushes herself away from Curtis, staring at him with a look of uncertainty. "What do you mean?"

  He opens the gun up and replaces the two bullets with fresh ones from his pocket. "There's only two places Ben could have gone — he's either hiding somewhere close-by, or he's already making his way to the cabin. One of us has to stay here and look around..."

  "And that means Matt and I are going back to the cabin... without you..."

  "I don't see that we have any other choice..."

  Curtis extends his hand out to Sarah, and at first she thinks its to comfort her, until she notices the gun. She takes it without hesitation, placing it in the side pocket of her parka.

  "It should only take you a few hours to get back to the cabin as long as you keep moving. If you can help it, don't yell out for Ben, you might attract attention that you don't want. Besides, if he's on the beach he shouldn't be hard to spot."

  "And what if he's not at the cabin... what then?"

  "Turn off all the lights, stay as quiet as you can, and find the other gun. Ben and I will follow right behind you as soon as I find him." He embraces her again, this time pulling Matt in as well. "Whatever you do, try to stick to the beach, and don't come back to town, no matter what."

  Hoping that Ben might have come this way, Sarah decides to walk the entire length of the seawall rather than cross it. She's still optimistic that he's running down the beach at this very moment, and that she and Matt will find his footprints in the sand that will lead them directly to him. As they come around the corner of the wall and step foot onto the sandy path that leads to the beach, they can see tracks in the sand illuminated by the moon overhead, but they're not Ben's — at least not all of them anyway. The pathway is well-used, and recently by the looks of it.

  "We might want to stay off the trail..." Sarah tells Matt, who nods in agreement.

  After studying the footprints and landscape in front of them, they finally settle on what looks like an older path that winds through a grove of pine trees and grass-covered dunes. As they climb to the top of the first dune, the rain finally tapers off to a light shower, then gradually stops altogether, leaving only the gusts of wind for them to deal with — and even that seems to have warmed up over the last several minutes.

  Sarah's legs are aching miserably, tortured by the soft, unstable sand under her feet, not to mention the three grueling days of non-stop walking they've endured. The strange thing is, if not for her legs, and the gut-wrenching feeling in her heart, this could actually be a pleasant walk for this time of the year. The air feels warm, the moon is shining bright in the sky, and the sounds and smells of the ocean are starting to overwhelm her senses.

  She never spent as much time on the coast when she was a child as Curtis did, but she does remember the stormy weekends spent in Seaside with her parents, when they would wake her up in the middle of the night so she and her sister could run on the beach. Those memories of exhilaration stay with you, and there's something in the air tonight that reminds her of back then. The air feels refreshing and crisp.

  "Mom, do you think Dad will find Ben?" Matt asks her, bringing her back to reality.

  "We might find him first..."

  "But if we don't... Do you think he'll bring him home?"

  "Of course he will. If Ben is still in town, your dad will find him."

  It was a line delivered with as much confidence as she could possibly muster, but it felt like a lie. Westport is a big area, and if Ben ran in any direction besides the beach, its hard telling where he might have ended up at. It could take Curtis days or even weeks to thoroughly search the town, even if it were empty — and although her mind isn't yet ready to deal with it on a conscious level, deep down she wonders if she'll ever see her son and husband again.

  As they reach the top of the next dune, they quickly realize that its the last one. The only thing between them and the water is one-hundred yards of wet, flat sand and a few scattered pieces of driftwood that were no doubt brought in by the storm.

  "Mom, look..." says Matt, pointing down the beach.

  Silhouetted against the iridescent waves in the background, Sarah can see two people walking near the water. At first glance she can't tell if they're sick or not, but they're walking up the beach in their direction.

  "Lets wait here a minute, we don't want them to see us."

  They crouch down, then watch as the two figures make their way up the coastline only twenty feet apart from one another, each one seemingly unaware that the other exists. The one nearest the water keeps falling down as the waves come crashing in, but their struggles don't draw the least bit of attention from the other. The one falling down seems unfazed as well, showing no signs of changing course to prevent another wave from crashing into them.

  "Why does he keep doing that? Why doesn't he move?" whispers Matt.

  "I don't know sweety. I think they've gone crazy."

  "From the virus?"

  "I think so."

  Sarah watches as the waves finally overtake the one figure, their body vanishing as the water is sucked back into the undertow. Hoping that Matt hadn't noticed it too, she tugs at his shirt.

  "Come on, lets stick to the dunes for a while. Its gonna be all night before the other one passes by."

  They walk south across the dunes, always staying within view of the ocean. All around them they can see flashes of lightning, filling the air with the muffled sound of thunder in the distance. The trees to their left have now disappeared, and in their place they can see the beach-houses that make up the southern portion of town, a mixture of new and old homes clustered uncomfortably together. In the distance behind them is a series of wind turbines in the hills east of the city, their propellers locked in place and glowing bright white against the dark skies. They walk in silence for a while, both of them exhausted, but unable t
o shut out the thoughts running through their heads. Then after about twenty minutes, Matt finally speaks up.

  "Things are never going to be the same, are they?"

  "The same as what?"

  "Before the virus. Like they were when we still lived at home..."

  "No, things will never be the same."

  "Do you think there's anyone out there like us?"

  "You mean people that aren't sick?"

  "Yeah."

  "I suppose so."

  "Do you think they'll find us?"

  "Maybe someday, after the virus has run its course."

  Matt returns to silence again, which Sarah is perfectly fine with. She knows he has questions, but she doesn't know how to explain to him that there are no answers, at least none that she knows about.

  "Get down!" Sarah whispers, pulling Matt down to the ground with her.

  "What?"

  "Do you see something over there, in front of that farthest dune?"

  She points ahead of them and slightly to the west, where they can barely see a hint of movement where the sand flattens out.

  "Yeah, I see them."

  "How many do you see?"

  He begins to softly count out loud, making Sarah nervous as the number continues to grow.

  "It looks like fourteen, but there might be more behind them. I can't see that far."

  "We need to move, they'll pass right next to us if they keep walking in the same direction."

  She starts looking around for places they could hide, but the dunes have flattened out in this area, and the trees were cut down years ago to provide views for the homes and hotels along the highway, leaving them completely in the open. The only place close-by that she can see is an older single-story house that sits less than a hundred yards from where they're hiding.

  "Come on, lets try to make it to that house up there..."