The Liger Plague (Book 1)

by Joseph Souza

  The passing beam of the headlight flashed over them, instantly causing him and Versa to freeze. Once it passed, they resumed lugging the raft toward the dock. Versa dropped the front end in the shallow water, and he continued to push the back end out over the sand. Once he dropped the outboard in the cove, he scooped out the line and attached it to one of the posts, securing the raft in place. Then he returned to the garage, soaked to his knees, and tossed the two oars into the second raft before dragging it out and setting it on the sand behind the first one.

  “It’s time, Colonel. Best go get your wife and daughter so we can take off before them Coasties come around.”

  Tag turned to go back inside but saw two poxers stumbling toward him. He pulled out his knife and quickly put them out of their misery. It troubled him that he was easily becoming numb to killing these diseased people, but what other choice did he have? It wasn’t like he was purposefully setting out to massacre them like Reverend Roberts planned to do. He killed in self-defense, out of necessity and to protect his family.

  Finding them still asleep on the couch, he helped Monica and Taylor to their feet, making sure to keep the blankets wrapped around them. Rather than escort her down the walkway, he picked up Monica and carried her through the gate, gently setting her down in the front of the raft. Then he went back inside and carried Taylor out as well, setting her down behind her mom and providing just enough room for Versa to maneuver the outboard. The two women sat back against the bottom of the boat, exhausted. He draped another blanket over their bodies despite the fact that it was still summer. It could get very cold along the coast, especially at night when the ocean breezes blew in. Versa wore a baseball cap and grimy blue windbreaker she’d found in one of Cooper’s closets. Once they were all settled in, Versa sat on the bench, positioning herself in front of the outboard motor.

  “Wait until I get picked up before you head out. Then start paddling like crazy out to one of them small islands with no people on it.”

  “Thanks so much for all of your help, Versa. And please take care of my family.”

  “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll take care of your family fine.”

  Tag waded into the water and gave Monica and Taylor a hug goodbye. They stared up at him painfully, unable to articulate their thoughts into words because of their illness.

  “I love you so much, hon. We’ll be together soon. I promise.” He kissed Monica and moved over to his daughter. “I love you, baby. Please take care until we see each other again.”

  “We don’t have all day, Colonel.”

  “I’m done here. Take care of yourself, Versa.”

  “Break a leg, Colonel,” she said, pulling the cord. The outboard motor started right up. “And don’t even think about giving me a hug.”

  “I’ve already learned my lesson.”

  “See you on the other side. Good luck proving your innocence.”

  She steered the boat out of the shallow cove and made her way toward the middle of the bay. The raft climbed over swells and in a matter of seconds disappeared into the darkness. Only the fading sound of the outboard could be heard whining above the din of waves hitting rocks, which to his ears started to sound more like explosives going off. He climbed upon the rocks and ran along the water’s edge to try to see if he could follow the raft’s path. A helicopter buzzed over the island, but it didn’t seem to notice them. Fearing he might be seen, he climbed off the slippery, seaweed-covered boulders and headed back toward the gate.

  He went back inside the house and grabbed his backpack and one of Cooper’s grimy windbreakers. Moving over to the window, he stared out at the water and saw a Coast Guard cutter cruising toward Portland. If he left soon, he just might make it. He turned to head back out to the garage when he heard a phone ringing somewhere inside the house. He searched around the futon, trying to find out where the ringing was coming from. As diligently as he looked, he couldn’t locate it. He entered one of the smaller bedrooms and saw clothes, trash and various items piled high to the ceiling. It appeared that Cooper had been a serious hoarder. The ringing was coming from this room. He pushed his way past all the piles of clothes and stacks of magazines and newspapers, throwing things out of his way. The more he pushed into the room, the louder the ringing got. He stopped when he came to the closet. Tossing aside some of the packages in front, he pushed his way toward where the ringing continued to chirp.

  Tag grabbed the door handle and pushed, but the pile of trash in front of the door prohibited him from opening it. He reached down and threw the trash onto the crowded bed until the door eventually swung open enough for him to look inside. The ringing got louder. The closet space was dark, and he could barely see inside. He reached up and pulled the chain, and the room lit up. What he saw shocked him. The cell phone was on the floor next to Cooper, who sat bound and gagged and staring at him with a crazed expression. Tag squeezed into the closet, squatted down, and ripped the tape off the man’s mouth. He picked up the phone and answered it, but the line instantly went dead. He’d been purposefully led here to find the old man. So why had Versa lied to him? Had Cooper balked at her plan of taking both rafts?

  “Are you all right?” Tag asked, cutting loose his hands.

  “I’m fine. No need to make a fuss over me,” Cooper said.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I have no idea. All I know is that I woke up inside this damn closet with my hands bound, my mouth taped and my damn head hurting.”

  “Versa said that some poxers killed you as you were heading out toward the garage.”

  “Obviously not, as you can see that I’m still alive and kicking. That damned woman must have done this,” Cooper said, pulling himself up and out of the closet.

  “Did you two have an argument?”

  “Why in the world would I have a jaw-down with that obnoxious woman?” he said, straightening himself out. “We kept the doors locked and all the lights off. No one else could have possibly entered this house. It had to have been her. Those two girls were passed out the last time I looked in on them. There’s no way they could’ve mustered the strength to overcome someone like me. Hell, they could barely stand, and I’m well over two hundred and fifty pounds.”

  “Which leaves only Versa.”

  “Why would that dumb bitch do such a stupid thing?”

  A bad feeling started to come over Tag as he thought about all the small coincidences that had happened over the last few days. Could she have been the one responsible for releasing this plague? The idea sounded so ridiculous that for a second he found the notion crazy. Who else could have disabled Cooper and tied him up in this closet, and then placed a cell phone next to him? She’d clearly lied about it, and she’d known his every move on the island. And what about the fact that she refused to wear a face mask and miraculously still had not come down with the pox?

  By the time he looked up, Cooper had left the room. He sprinted past the piled-high trash, hitting his shin on one of the legs of the bed frame, causing him to collapse into a pile of garbage. He cursed at his clumsiness and limped out into the living room. As soon as he entered it, he saw Cooper sitting in front of the small TV and watching the live coverage of this event, which was now being billed as ‘The Liger Plague.’ The sweeping flash of radiance from the harbor lighthouse swept through the room and briefly illuminated everything inside it. Tag suddenly remembered that he was supposed to begin rowing off the island. Or had even that plan been a trap as well? Peering through the front door, he saw a couple of poxers making their way out of the woods and down to the water’s edge. The thought of his family out there with that imposter scared the shit out of him.

  “These sick bastards are moving again,” Cooper said, shaking his head.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Those Navy Seals have landed and have already started rounding up the infected. The government’s releasing some early footage of the siege on Cooke’s.”

  “Jesus! We have to get off thi
s island before they get here, Cooper. If we don’t leave right now, they’re going to throw me in jail for life.”

  “I’ve got some rafts in the garage you can take.”

  “Versa and I already pulled them out and placed them on the beach. She’s taken my wife and kid on the raft with the outboard motor and is now heading toward the mainland as we speak.”

  “You better hope that miserable bitch is heading there,” he said. “Because them Coasties will grab her before she gets very far.”

  “That was the plan. She was trying to create a diversion so I could row out to one of the smaller islands and escape detection. Still, I don’t get it. If she was the one who cracked you over the head, then why is she trying to help me?”

  “I don’t know nothing about nothing anymore, Colonel. It’s too late for me to survive this hell, so you better get a move on if you’re going to make it. Come on, I’ll help you get off this island before them Seals get here.” He picked up his rifle and started for the door.

  “Help me get off the island? Hell, Cooper, I’m fully expecting you to come with me.”

  “I’m a bitter old codger who’s lived here forever. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving this place. I was born on this mean spit of land, Colonel, and I’ll die on it when the time comes.”

  “Don’t be such a fool, Cooper. You got a lot of years left in you.”

  “Fool? This has been my home for sixty-nine years, Colonel, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to live out my life anyplace else. Rather die here than do that. My father grew up here and so did his father and his father before that. Whole line of Coopers lived here going way back. So if it ends with me, then so be it.”

  “Sure I can’t change your mind?”

  “There’s nothing you can say or do that’ll change it, so you better get going before you die next to me.”

  “Thanks for all you’ve done for me and my family, Cooper. You’re a good man.”

  “I’m just a man like you, Colonel. You can thank me by finding the person who done this to the island. Now be off with you.”

  They headed out the front door and walked along the pathway toward the front gate. A group of poxers roamed along the edge of the woods. As soon as they heard the latch lifting, they turned and staggered toward the beach. Out in the bay the Coast Guard vessel flashed its beam along the surface of the water, alerted to the sight of the raft trying to escape. One of the crew members shouted out a series of orders over the loudspeaker, and Tag knew instantly that the raft carrying Versa and his family had been spotted.

  The poxers poured out of the woods like ants, marching toward the beach. Tag couldn’t believe how many of them had appeared. There must have been at least a hundred poxers now making their way down toward his raft. They moved faster than usual and seemed to be chanting something that he couldn’t quite make out. He climbed inside the raft and fumbled with the oars. A shot went off behind him, and a headless poxer dropped to the sand. Cooper lowered the rifle and gave his raft a shove into the water, and he instinctively started to push off the sand with one of the oars. Cooper bolted toward the front gate and back to the safety of his house. Tag tried to insert the oars into the rubber hooks, but they were too small, so he paddled from left to right, muscling through the waves now breaking precipitously against the bow. Another gunshot went off just as a giant wave crested.

  “Hey! Wait up, Tag!” Fez shouted, dodging between poxers and heading toward the shore.

  Cooper stood near the gate, watching in surprise as the kid sprinted out of the woods and headed toward the beach. Lifting his rifle, he fired nonstop at all the poxers reaching out to grab hold of Fez. Tag plunged the oar down as far as he could into the choppy water, trying to keep the raft in place amidst the exploding stream of foamy water.

  “Run, Fez!” Tag shouted, not quite believing that the kid was still alive.

  “Don’t leave without me, Tag! Wait up!”

  Fez dodged and weaved through the diseased stumbling toward the cove. The poxers’ guttural moans sounded more like words than anything else. Tag yelled for the kid to run faster. Fez pushed a poxer out of the way and then tripped over the body of another, sprawling face first in the sand. A poxer leaned over to grab the kid, but accompanied by the sound of a gunshot, Tag saw the poxer’s brain exploding in every direction like a watermelon blown to pieces. Fez scampered to his feet and started sprinting again until he arrived onto the beach. Cooper fired again and dropped another poxer who’d attempted to block the kid’s path. As soon as Fez’s feet hit the water, he dove into the surf and disappeared from sight. He popped up a few seconds later, stroking his arms up over his head and swimming out to the raft, making sure to dive under the incoming waves. Tag held one of the paddles out to pull him in, but as soon as he did, the raft started drifting out into the bay. He paddled back toward the shore until he was close enough to help the kid climb aboard. Waves tossed the raft all over the place, bobbing and falling, but somehow it managed to stay afloat. Fez pulled himself up and inside the raft and collapsed to the bottom, exhausted, breathing hard and soaked from head to toe.

  “You little shit! You’re still alive,” Tag said happily, grabbing the kid by the collar and hugging him.

  Fez stared up at him with a smile on his dripping face.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “Thought wrong, Tag,” Fez said, gulping for air.

  Another gunshot sounded behind them. Rocking up and down in the raft, Tag watched the water’s edge and saw Cooper standing on the shoreline, pointing the rifle at the mob of poxers converging on him. Cooper backpedaled until he stood nearly waist high in the ocean and fired his rifle until it clicked. So intent was he on helping Fez make it out of those woods, the old lobsterman had neglected to make it back inside his house. The first poxer caught up with him and tackled him into the water, and the others soon followed, ripping him to pieces. Tag started paddling frantically out to sea, not wanting to look back, hearing the anguished cries of the old fisherman being dragged underwater and torn to pieces. Fez took up the other paddle and started working opposite him, and together they moved through the swells.

  The further out they went, the bigger the waves breaking over the bow of the raft. In seconds Tag was completely drenched, but he kept pumping his arms in order to steer the raft into the waves rather than get caught blindsided. They paddled until they were well offshore and totally engulfed in darkness. A chopper soared overhead, and he prayed the pilot hadn’t seen them. Tag paddled toward open water and faced the waves head-on so as not to overturn the raft. They paddled in a northeast direction, climbing up over the walls of water. Glancing back toward the mainland, Tag could see the faint lights along Portland as well as the Coast Guard vessel picking up Versa and his family.

  Tag barked at Fez to paddle faster. Another chopper buzzed overhead, its beam of light flashing along the surface of the bay but somehow missing them. Luck was on their side as they seemed to be evading the chopper’s searchlight. A loud explosion sounded behind them, accompanied by a quick series of flashes along the island’s coast.

  “How’d you manage to stay alive out there, kid?”

  “Climbed up one of them trees and stayed there as long as I could. I was so hungry I could have eaten one of them poxers. Lucky I climbed down when I did or you would have left without me.”

  “I’m really glad you made it, kid.”

  “Me too, Tag. Any idea where we’re going?”

  “Nope. Now that you’re here, I was hoping you could help me find a nice, out-of-the-way place to hide for a while.”

  “I got the perfect place. Keep going in this direction, and I’ll tell you once we get close to it.”

  Tag’s arms started to ache after fighting the turbulent water. The winds picked up the further out they went. He saw the Coast Guard vessel heading in their direction from the left and wondered if the Coasties had seen them. Despite the pain in his arms, shoulders and ear, he continued to paddle as hard
as he could. The chopper circled around the island again, but at this point they were well out of quarantine range. More explosions blew around the island as they paddled up a rogue ten-foot swell.

  The Coast Guard vessel cruised through the bay, keeping an eye out for any craft trying to escape the island. They’d gotten out just in time. The Coast Guard vessel moved between their raft and Cooke’s Island, blocking their view of Cooper’s house, which now resembled a speck in the distance. The boat was roughly fifty yards from their raft and much too close for comfort. Tag told Fez to stop paddling and duck low inside the raft. He lay next to the kid, riding the swells and praying that no crew members onboard had seen them. The beam of the lighthouse arced over their heads and then disappeared just as quickly. Tag peeked over the lip of the raft and saw the cutter flashing its headlight toward the island, believing they’d kept the perimeter safe. Had the Coast Guard looked just outside the quarantine line, they’d be sitting ducks.

  Once the vessel passed and moved toward the eastern end of the island, Tag and Fez grabbed their paddles and started to row. The swells got larger, and the wind picked up considerably the further they ventured. It took considerable effort for them to paddle through each wave, but they didn’t stop for fear of being capsized and swept out to sea. The further they got from Cooke’s Island, the more confident Tag became that they would somehow make it out safely. Now they just had to survive the rough seas.

  “So where are we going, Fez?”

  “Rabbit Island.”

  “Rabbit Island? Where’s that?”

  “About two miles due northeast from Cooke’s. They call it Rabbit Island because it’s got a crap load of wild rabbits living on it.”

  “Is it inhabited?”

  “There’s one guy living on it, and he’s completely nuts. Thinks the world’s going to end any day now. Got himself lots of guns and won’t let anyone on the island he doesn’t know. Thinks he owns the place.”