by catt dahman
Rae wanted to tell him how sorry she was to have tackled him, that it was too late, and that she was also sorry about Misty and Jayne. Mark couldn’t hear her. When they wouldn’t let him go into the water, he buried his face in the few inches in the raft and outwitted them all.
“No, No, No, No,” Rae muttered as against his obvious wishes, she tried CPR. He didn’t respond, and she thought he wouldn’t want to.
The children huddled together and shrieked as they saw Mark’s dead eyes. Rae motioned with her head to Johnny, and they gently dragged him to the edge and let his body go into the water and drift away. That was what he wanted.
Johnny vomited into the water; she was in mild shock.
Rae sat back, shaking with fear and disgust. Had he died because she tackled him? Would he have been better trying to save Misty? She didn’t know.
She thought he was dead because she sat on him and forced his face into the water; she wanted to take back the last few hours and do things better. She wanted him to want to live. “Not Mark, he was the strong one,” she said.
“A person can only take so much before he breaks,” Rev said.
“But not him.”
“Rae, he broke long ago. This was just how it ended.”
She hadn’t asked for this and didn’t want it. These weren’t her terms.
10
Len
Evidently, the cabins had not been built as well as they should have been. A tree, caught in the waves and thrown like a missile, slammed into the side of Len’s cabin and tore away the sidewall, opening the cabin to the storm. Several more trees followed, raking branches inside the building and slicing through the air like swords. One minute they were all in the loft, still dry and glad that the wind was dying down, and the next minute, a tree was in the cabin, the wall was gone, and Matt was left holding a hand that ended at the wrist.
He looked at the hand as blood dripped from the severed wrist, not understanding. Len looked for Julia so he could go in after her, but she was nowhere to be seen. The tree had left her hand behind. It had neatly cut it off, bone and flesh sliced through. Len banged his head on the wall, trying to get the image to go away,
“Jules,” Matt screamed, but she didn’t answer. He dropped her hand, and he fell to the loft floor, covering his face with his hands and moaning. He scrambled on hands and knees, searching through supplies and trash that he threw to the side, but Julia had been standing close to that wall, humming a song and reassuring the children that the storm was almost over. His three children and several of the others were gone.
The trees had swept in, smashing and banging around, with their branches scraping the wood. Their roots flipped around in the current and shattered boxes and broke things as if they were matchsticks. How had a few trees done this much damage?
Len and Big Bill went to the edge to try to see where their friends were, but the trees had torn free and burned into Len’s brain the sight of the youngest of Matt and Julia’s children speared with one of the tree branches, blood soaking the water.
Bodies had rolled into the roots and branches like strange artwork, abstract designs of wood, cloth, and flesh, sculpted into one entity.
Big Bill had seen it too, and his face was a portrait of pure horror.
“Do you see any of them?”
“Don’t see a thing, Boss, ‘cept water,” Big Bill said. “Oh, Gawd, A’mighty, they’re just gone, Boss.”
“We can’t stay like this; we have to get into the raft, and I don’t know…maybe someone made it.”
Big Bill kept looking back to the where the wall was as if it would suddenly reappear with everyone in place. How could Julia, warrior that she was, vanish in a twist of tree branches?
He and Len unhooked the raft hanging from their cabin. Stowing it in a corner, they sat and waited, watching the water rise even as the wind began to blow less. “I think it’ll be over before too long; it’s getting better,” Len said. ”It’s not so bad.”
“That sun is good to see,” Big Bill said.
Teeg walked back from looking out. “The other cabins…some are just gone.”
“How can they be gone? Everything has a place. Nothing disappears,” Len thought. Except Julia did.
“They fell into the water; then, they were gone.” Teeg sat with his head in his hands. “Maybe it was trees, but I don’t see any of the cabins left.”
Len noticed Big Bill’s arm was dripping blood, and he got the med kit to clean the wound and bandage it, a deep cut along his forearm.
“What’d ya do?” It needed stitches, but this wasn’t the time and place, so Len glued the gash together and taped it before he bandaged it. “You keep it dry.”
“It was that tree, Boss. It tried to take me. I thought I was going with it, but then, it let me go. I’d rather it have taken me than Julia and them kids.”
“Beth will take it awful hard…”Len broke off mid-sentence. He had never been one for premonitions and fortunetellers, especially, but he had seen magic since Z day in his lover, Maryanne (who had died with a child she adopted long ago), and Zane and Pascal. He had a very bad feeling about Beth.
“You okay, Boss?”
Len laughed with humor. “I keep having these…what...epiphanies? Things just suddenly make sense to me. When George was dying, he said to look to Zane. We waited, but nothing happened, and then it did happen. Zane was dead, and so was Pascal, so we figured that was a balance, see, you can’t have one without the other: dark and light….”
“You can’t have too much bad or too much good; they gotta both be there; that’s what you mean,” Teeg spoke up as he listened.
“Yep. Zane’s going meant there was this split second of time that Pascal could go, too, but George said something else I didn’t understand. He said Zane was the Omega. Now, that’s a Greek thing, and in the Good Book, God says He’s the Alpha and the Omega, meaning he’s the beginning and the end, see?”
“I know that part, Boss. What did he mean about that boy being the Omega?”
“I wondered, too. I think as long as that battle was there, there was a battle for the world itself, and we thought it was awful that the horde came through and got all those people and even came down here. But with this storm, what do ya think has happened to all those deaders? I think they are floating as fish food and will rot in the water or will sink and rot. We didn’t need bombs or stuff; nature wiped out thousands with this storm.”
“Got our people, too,” Big Bill muttered.
“Yes, but had we not been here, the zeds wouldn’t have massed here, and the storm couldn’t have wiped out so many. I bet there were fifty-sixty thousand in the city, shambling about. It was like Zane and Pascal. Balance. The good had to go in order to remove the scourge.”
“That thinking hurts my head. Miss Julia having to be taken off so some bad Zs could die? Naw. That ain’t right. Hurts my heart and my head.”
“Mine too, Big Bill. But that’s what ole George was saying. Zane was the end to that bit of badness, and he meant things like sacrifice would be needed. Omega.”
“God is a jealous God. He demands sacrifice, and He is awful vengeful if you read the Bible. I can’t read it, but I’ve listened to it being read,” Big Bill said thoughtfully. “It’s about sacrifice, you’re saying?”
Teeg shook his head, “Uh-uh, It’s not sacrifice alone. Len is saying it is balance. I don’t see how one of ours equals a thousand Zs though.”
Len patted Big Bill’s shoulder. “Call it God or call it nature, but it’s all about balance. When you get your ticket punched, you decide your terms, and you go. George knew that. I think he was a wise man.”
“You’re as wise, Len if you’re getting that right,” Teeg said. “I just hate that any balance or God or nature needed Julia and those kids and the rest of our people. That’s a hell of a sacrifice.”
Len shivered, remembering how Matt had been left holding Julia’s severed hand. He looked towards the corner where Matt sat, but the a
rea was empty.
“Matt?” Len looked everywhere, but the man was simply gone. Len figured that he had lost his father, cousin, wife, and children and had given up and slipped away into the floor waters. He finally gave up looking and wondered what Matt had been thinking when he went into the water; he thought Matt meant to swim and look for them.
“Just us?” Teeg asked. “Four of us?”
“Just us,” DeVon said. This was the first time she had spoken although she had listened. “We aren’t good enough to sacrifice; we’re the bad ones left in hell.”
“Naw, De, that isn’t so,” Len said. But he looked at the rest. Big Bill and Teeg were very good men. She was wrong.
“I’m right about me. I am left in hell. I had sisters that I will never see again. They were good kids; the good ones get taken. We’re bad.”
“I ain’t bad,” Big Bill pouted.
“You knew this was a bad thing coming, ” Teeg remarked.
Len didn’t answer. He had felt this was a bad storm, and it was.
He dozed a little, but when he awoke next, the water was higher. He said they should load the raft with whatever supplies they had. Len didn’t know where they would go or what they would do, but they had to do something.
“We’ll go look around and see if we can find anyone else; then, we’ll come back. We wanna give the Zs that were massed on shore time to be fish food.”
“Sounds good,” Teeg said.
“DeVon, you aren’t bad. I’m not religious, but say there is a God, I think He’s a betting man, a pretty sharp dude, too. So, the devil still gets to rule with the Zs even while a bunch got wiped out; don’t you think God hedges His bets?”
“What’d mean?” It was the first time her eyes were clearly focused.
“Oh, I am thinking if I were God, I’d say, okay, some of you good people need to go, so y’all can come on to Heaven, but I’ll be damned, pardon the pun there, if the old devil is gonna win that easy.”
“Okay. And?”
“And God hedged. He thought to Himself He would let a few of us make it, say us four who are pretty tough customers, and I can promise you we’ll find some more because this isn’t done. We still have a purpose. We’re God’s paladins.”
“His pala what’s?”
“Paladins, knights who work for the good.”
DeVon shook her head, “I’m done tired of being that.”
“It ain’t your choice unless you check out; ain’t that right, Boss?” Big Bill grinned. “Ole George, he knew.”
“And it was George who always whispered to me that God hedges His bets.” Len smiled grimly. “Come on, knights, we have work to do.”
Len, DeVon, Teeg, and Big Bill settled into the raft and paddled out to look around. Three cabins were completely gone; two had been full of people. The other cabin was intact, but it was a little lower than the rest, and the water was to the roof. He saw bloated, dead animals, wood, trash, clothing, and trees floating around them.
“Look….” DeVon pointed. She was staring forward and pointing, sure that she saw something important. “Len, do you see there?” Her face was lit with happiness.
Len and Big Bill paddled hard and pulled alongside a large section of wood that was covered in heaps of clothing. “It’s people,” Big Bill said.
“Hey, Hello, ” Len called. “Are you okay?” He almost asked if they were alive.
Misty looked up tiredly as she heard talking. “Len?” Surely she was imagining this or dreaming.
“Oh my, Len, Len, you said we would find people…” DeVon was amazed.
Len and Big Bill pulled her daughter into the raft first, and the little girl looked around curiously. “Hi, Jayne,” Len said as he handed her to DeVon.
Next, he pulled Misty into the raft. She was so exhausted that she was like a rag doll.
A few bodies drifted past, and the group speculated who they were, wondering if they should look. If they came close enough, Big Bill or Teeg looked and then shook their heads sadly. So many of the bodies were small.
“That’s Mark,” DeVon whispered once, meeting Len’s eyes. They kept looking as the wind continued to decrease and the water became calmer. The island was gone, and if not for one cabin peeking above the floodwaters, they wouldn’t know there had ever been an island.
They paddled around, looking at wood and trees to see if anyone had managed to survive.
It was a long time before they found two other survivors.
11
Z is for Zombie
“Where are we?” Rae asked
“No clue,” Rev said.
“The flooding here isn’t so bad.”
“I bet I could walk through it.”
Rae wrinkled her nose. “Don’t look at all the bodies; this is going to be a sloppy, rotten mess soon; you could catch something.” She watched the bodies with curiosity; there were so many. “Are they drowned Zoms?”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess. There are many; there must be tens of thousands; what else would it be?“ Over to the side, the bodies were packed together.
“Len says they hate salt water; they sink or float, whatever. The fish eat them,” Johnny said.
“The fish will have a feast then. Yuk,” Rae said. Thousands of bodies bobbed. The flood had swept into the massive horde, and now the floodwaters tossed them about.
As Rae watched, a large fish darted to the surface and snapped at the body of a woman. The corpse shuddered, and the fish swam away. “The salt water, it kills them, right? They die?”
Rev stopped paddling and looked confused. “No, I mean it takes a blow to the head, right? It’s just that in salt water, they can’t swim; they aren’t that coordinated, so they get tossed about. Well, the fish eat the zombies, they’ll rot with the water, and they go away. They are eaten away and no longer exist.”
Johnny looked at the bodies nervously. “Then, they aren’t dead.”
“Rev, we don’t need to be here,” Rae said. The body she had seen nipped by the fish, jerked again. “We need to go now.” She dug deep with her paddle. The bodies were everywhere.
“Hey, ” John, Misty’s thirteen year old, slapped at a hand that reached over the side for him. “What was that?”
“Sit down.”
“Get us out of here,” Johnny screamed.
“Sit down, John,” Rae repeated. He was standing, trying to keep his balance.
He grabbed for the side but slipped over and came to the surface with a scream. “Get off me.” A creature was floating next to him but had wrapped its arms around John and was chewing into the boy’s throat. Blood bubbled in the water. Rae tried to reach out with the paddle and slap the creature away.
Johnny clasped her daughter Roxy to her chest. She threw things at the zombie who came up and leaned on the side. They were moaning. Zombies turned over, and when they weren’t swallowing seawater, they all moaned. It was loud now that they were alert to a food source.
Three joined in grasping at the side of the raft, and water poured into the little boat.
Rae threw herself across the raft, beating at a creature with the paddle, but it fell into the water with Rae’s oldest. She kept hitting it as it clamped down on the boy’s arm, ripping flesh away in chunks. Another joined the feast.
“Get off him, you bitch.” Her child screamed for help, and Rae, in agony, began pulling chunks of her own hair out buy the roots, the bloody ends sticking to the raft.
Rev threw his paddle down and pulled at his child while one of the creatures dug its face and hands into the screaming child’s stomach to yank away slippery intestines. Rev lost two fingers as he fought for his child.
Johnny refused to let go of Roxy and was about to be pulled into the water. Johnny couldn’t hold her baby and fight at the same time. Johnny grabbed her gun and shot at the creatures attacking the others; one was eating Misty’s baby.
“Mama loves you, Roxy. Mama loves her baby, ”Johnny kept screaming the words over and over as she got h
er pistol turned and blew her daughter’s brains out. “Mama loves her Roxy.” She fired into the side of her own head. Their bodies fell into the bottom of the raft.
Rae kept shooting, but for every one she killed, another two took its place.
Rev, already bleeding from his hands, arms, and face, dove in to try to get his youngest, but the water frothed with bloody foam as he was torn apart. It was like a piranha-feeding frenzy.
“No, No, No,” Rae screamed as she rocked in the raft. All around her, the creatures she had fought and beaten for fifteen years fed on the fresh bodies while fish darted back and forth for scraps of flesh and took fingers and lips off the zombies.
The fish didn’t care whom they ate. A hammerhead shark swam in and grabbed a body; who it was, Rae didn’t know. In time, the fish would eat all the zombies, but there were thousands in the water, and it would take a very long time. Until then, the creatures would be able to attack the living. In deeper water, however, they sank and were no threat.
She reloaded her pistol with a new clip.
The massive horde of zombies, led by Berserkers, had been wiped out. Only a hurricane could have destroyed such a large group.
Rae heard the screaming and watched the bloodshed for a while and then stood in the raft. “Fifteen years I have put you off. Fifteen years I cheated you.” She could possibly paddle away. They might get her; some were trying. She asked herself if she could ever get past the sight of her children and husband being ripped to pieces by the zombies and had her answer.
In a slight imitation of Johnny, Rae whispered, “I love you. Mama loves you. Oh, Rev….” And she did what Johnny had done; she blew her head off.
12
Raft
When they heard screaming and gunshots, Len took it as a sign they should row farther out to sea. There was nothing they could do for anyone who had accidentally rowed into a mass of zombies. He rowed hard. Once in a while, they found supplies floating, and took them from the water. Len rowed to keep his mind off things.