“You can open your eyes now,” Donovan said.
“Damn,” she said, gazing into the dark. Donovan held the lantern over her head and shone the light into the room.
“Damn is right,” he called out cheerfully. “No snacks, not yet anyway, but not too bad of a find just the same.”
The room turned out to be a linen closet. Along one wall sat stacks of sheets. The other, piles of wool blankets, and along the top of the cupboard, a bin crammed full of pillows. At the back of the room, heaped against the wall, lay a few small mattresses still in plastic.
“You can’t get better than this,” Donovan said. “It’s like the fuckin’ Sheraton. A mildewed, stinky, spider-webbed Sheraton, but still, I give it five stars.”
After they had carried two mattresses, sheets, pillows, and blankets to their “room,” they started clearing it out. They pulled the chairs out into the hall, as well as old newspapers, an ancient lace-up boot, stacks of reports, and a couple of stinky boxes filled with what first appeared to be rotten lettuce, but which turned out to be only paper that had gotten wet and had decomposed.
When they finished, they laid the mattresses on the ground. Next, they threw sheets over both, so the bed appeared as one large unit. Finally, they tossed on the pillows and blankets. Donovan put the lantern on the desk, which they’d pushed into the far corner of the room, and he turned down the flame.
“Shall we retire, m’dear?” he said to Cathren, in his most sophisticated voice.
“Indubitably,” she replied.
“Sorry, but I’m going to have to turn off the lantern altogether, to save oil. I suppose we can leave it on a little while longer, though, if you’d like.”
“Great, professor. ’Cause I like to see what I’m about in bed.”
They both giggled, stripped, and got under the covers. They kissed for a long time.
“Mmmmm,” she said. “That’s nice.”
They kissed more while Donovan gently caressed her. She turned toward him and he pulled her in close, pushing his hips against hers. But that’s as far as they got.
“Why are you stopping?” Cathren murmured.
“Shhh—do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
They held each other in the dim light, listening.
The groaning emerged from the basement of the old structure, and grew louder. Donovan thought he heard scratching, too. Fingernails against concrete.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Cathren whispered.
They sat up, listening, not moving from the bed.
“This is bad,” Donovan whispered to her. “This is real, real bad.”
“Uh, yeah. Okay, I get it. Thanks for the confidence boost.”
“Sorry, I—” Donovan couldn’t stop listening.
Had the moaning and the scratching only started? Or had they been so busy playing house they hadn’t noticed? Was it the undead, or something else? If zombies, how had they made it onto the island? It didn’t make sense. This was a lonely, abandoned place, with no easy access to or from the mainland anymore.
The moaning continued, as did the scraping noises. Donovan thought he heard chains rattling now, as well. Either a lively production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was in progress down below, or else Cathren and Donovan were in extreme proximity to zombies yet again. Donovan got up, pushed the door shut, and locked the deadbolt.
“Babe, we need to get out of here,” Cathren said.
“I agree. But to where?”
“I have no idea. If we stay, though, we’re dead.”
“Okay, let’s not panic. Yet. We’ll get out of this, somehow,” he said. “Things are just going to be more, well, unpredictable now.” The lantern was dimming, even though Donovan had opened the knob a bit more. They were running out of oil. “I don’t want to sit here in total darkness and wait to be killed,” he said.
“What other choice do we have?”
“This building has a second story. We could barricade ourselves up there. They might be able to break down a wooden door, but I doubt they’d have much success against metal.”
“You could be right,” Cathren said.
“Even if they were somehow able to climb the stairs, it should at least slow them down. I think that’s our only chance. Our last stand.”
“Our Waterloo, right? Our Little Big Horn. Um, sorry.” Cathren smiled, slightly embarrassed. “Well, let’s go, then,” she said, getting to her feet and putting on a brave face. “To higher ground.”
Chapter 60
Donovan and Cathren spent a sleepless night on the second floor. They had locked themselves in what turned out to be the remains of the prison hospital. Surprisingly, the place still smelled of chloroform, ammonia, and blood. Many prisoners had died up there, which added to the unnerving creepiness they sensed in the space. Didn’t need to be running from zombies and ghosts.
“This is worse than downstairs in our little room,” Cathren said. “Way, way worse.”
The moaning, even two stories removed, rattled them. Too horrible and foreboding for them to relax, it kept them on constant guard. Yet, for some reason, the groaners made no attempt to rise from the lower level to locate them. All night long, Donovan and Cathren were tormented by the constant moaning and something that they swore sounded like chains rattling. But no creatures ever showed.
None of this made sense, though. Donovan knew the things, whatever they were, had sensed him and Cathren.
How could they not? Why hadn’t the presumed zombies trudged up and devoured us in their sleep?
In the morning, they found themselves still alive, although not kicking much. But at least they had not been attacked.
“Let’s get outside,” Donovan said to Cathren. “I’d feel more secure if we were in the open. Isn’t logical, maybe, but . . .”
“Sure it is,” Cathren said, stifling a yawn. “More room to run. Better chance of seeing them before they see us. That sort of thing.”
“Exactly,” Donovan said. “Being trapped like rats is the part that’s getting to me.”
He rose and stretched. Every muscle in his body ached. This whole catastrophe over the past few days had been like participating in a hundred back-to-back triathlons. Took its toll.
He helped Cathren to her feet, and she stretched, too—only her stretching resembled yoga moves, whereas Donovan’s had been rather herky-jerky like the Tin Man doing the robot dance. When Cathren finished her workout, she reached around through the bars with her massive key ring and unlocked the cell door.
They both headed for the stairs, listening for any activity below before descending. They made their way down the spiral staircase warily since they had no weapons. Even Cathren, who appeared to have lost her extraordinary powers for the time being, was not an asset. They were sitting ducks, or to be more accurate, wandering ducks.
At the first floor, they listened again. Silence. All quiet on the zombie front. They proceeded with haste toward the double-door exit by which they’d entered the night before.
“Wait,” said Cathren. She took her key ring, flipped to the big skeleton key, and locked the inside door behind them. “Just in case. You never know.”
“Good thinking. Should slow them down, if nothing else.”
Outside, the sky was as dull as ever: a damp, gummy gray. Thick churning fog had rolled in and most of the grounds were hidden beneath its shroud.
“This isn’t good,” Donovan said, scanning the area around him. “This damn fog puts us at a definite tactical disadvantage.”
“Why not just say this whole thing sucks, General Washington?” Cathren said.
They stood in silence, Donovan distracted for the moment, rubbing his stubble and biting his lower lip, until at last he spoke, almost as if he was talking to himself. “We need to find something we can use as a weapon, that’s the thing. Something to slash, smash—”
“—or stab with,” Cathren interjected.
“Yeah. That’s right. Let’
s move carefully. Follow me and keep your ears and eyes wide open,” Donovan said. They tip-toed along like Shaggy and Velma.
“You spot anything?” Cathren whispered to Donovan.
“Nope, nothing,” he whispered back.
“What’s that—up ahead?” she said.
Donovan squinted into the miasma. “One of the outer buildings, I think. Yes. I can only make out the roof jutting up out of the fog. I can’t say for sure yet, but it seems to be in pretty good shape.”
“Oh, I hope it has a kitchen, or if not, at least kitchen-y stuff,” she said. “Would solve two problems at once: nutrition and defense.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Knives, babe. Butcher, steak, and carving ones. I’m hoping to find at least a small steak knife for the taking. And I don’t care what kind of grub we find or when the expiration date is, either. If there’s food, I’m eating it.”
“I agree on both counts,” Donovan said. “Food and weapons. Let’s go.”
Donovan and Cathren made their way toward the building, their hearts pounding. They kept a keen ear out for anything sounding even vaguely “zombie—esque.” But they didn’t catch a thing, merely the slapping of the waves against the Rock. The fog collected in such thick banks they could only view the area at arm’s length around them.
“Cathren, stay right behind me. We can’t be sure this place is zombie-free,” Donovan muttered.
She remained silent, which, at this point, was a first-rate strategy. Donovan kept creeping on, like a blind man in mousetrap factory.
“We’ve almost made it, I think,” Donovan whispered. “Stay close.”
Cathren kept silent. Again, excellent job. He reached back for her hand.
There was no hand.
He turned around. Not only was her hand missing, but the rest of her was, too.
“Cathren!” he called in a strained whisper. He rushed back into the fog. If anything had happened to her, after all this, he would never forgive himself. He continued running through the curtains of fog.
They collided before he’d taken ten paces.
“Oww!” she said.
“Cathren. Damn! Where’d you go?” Donovan pulled her close and wrapped her in his arms. She pressed her cheek against his chest and breathed deeply.
“I lost sight of you,” she said, sniffling a little. “It happened so fast. Next thing I knew you were enveloped by the fog and I, I, I couldn’t tell which way you’d gone. So, so I picked a direction and just started walking.”
“Baby, why didn’t you call for me?” Donovan said. “I would have come right away.” He stroked her hair and then took her chin and gently pulled her face towards his.
“I-I should have, but I didn’t want to take the chance,” Cathren said. She sniffled and wiped her hand across her face. “I didn’t want those things to hear me, to give away our position.” She grinned sheepishly.
Donovan smiled and tried to be comforting, despite the undeniably crazy situation they were in. He let her go, but kept one hand in constant contact with her. “Let’s get to that building, whatever it is, and no matter what’s inside. Be safer than waiting out in this fog for something to leap out at us.”
“I’m right behind you.”
“Yeah,” Donovan said. “And please keep it that way.”
Chapter 61
Their luck held and they made it to the building. Up close, they could see the paint was a faded blue, like winter sky. The siding was blistered, warped, and peeling. Most of the windows were broken. It looked like a guard house of some kind, or perhaps a small administration building. Too little to be a home, therefore, not the warden’s house, nor anyone else’s.
“Well, got the door open,” Cathren called softly from around the corner. “In we go.”
Donovan felt his way down the side of the building. Then he held the door open for Cathren, who was busy stuffing her mega-ring of keys into her back pocket. They stepped in together.
While it didn’t look big from the outside, it was somewhat of a labyrinth inside, with various hallways and passages and quite a few rooms. To add to the confusion, the fog had seeped into the building, filling the space with dense vapor up to the couple’s knees. The mist swirled ominously like wispy gray sharks in the dark house. There was no way to tell what was below the surface.
Cathren and Donovan surveyed the space, trying to get a sense of the layout. They stayed together; strength in numbers versus being divided, conquered, and consumed. Cathren reached over and held Donovan’s hand. They proceeded through the building. It was surprisingly similar to the cells in the prison. Room after identical room. Disappointingly, there was no kitchen, so their hunger increased a few notches. Donovan suffered from further hunger-induced weakness, and he could tell Cathren hurt, too.
They carefully made their way to the back of the house, into an area where there were no windows. It grew darker with each step, the fog swirling, the two of them faint from lack of food. If a zombie jumped out at them, Donovan and Cathren would most likely simply drop to the ground, defeated by their own starvation than by a zombie.
“Let’s get out of here,” Donovan whispered to Cathren. “Not such a good plan, after all.”
“Donovan, I have an awful feeling,” Cathren said, a worried expression on her face.
They turned to leave. That’s when they heard a thump at the front of the house.
“Did you hear that?” Cathren whispered, the hand on Donovan’s bicep trembling.
“Shit, yeah. Don’t move.”
They stood in the dark fog that swirled around them like ghosts and heard another thud from by the front door. Something got kicked and clanged across the floor at the front of the house. Then the door creaked closed.
“They’re here,” Donovan mouthed. Cathren squeezed his arm tighter, her whole body starting to shake. They had no weapons, no plan. And they’d managed to get themselves into the only area of the house with no windows and no options for exit. They backed into the corner together.
“Kneel down, into the fog,” he whispered to Cathren. They both squatted together, inexplicably and reflexively taking a deep breath of air before they did so, forgetting that they could breathe under the fog.
Then they waited.
The sound of footsteps heading their way increased in volume, but not in speed. Whoever, no, whatever it was, was having almost as much trouble navigating the fog and the dark as they had. Donovan could hear its feet shuffling along the corridor toward them, as if they had left breadcrumbs to lead it directly to their hiding place.
Donovan shook from hunger, and now from fear as well. It was one thing to fight these creatures in the open, with his full strength, quite another to be a hundred percent defenseless. Donovan was not too proud to admit to himself that it’d been cool to have an ace in the hole with Cathren. Now, however, that option was out. They were goners.
A shadowy figure entered the room and stopped just at the door. Donovan couldn’t make it out through the fog, and hoped that it, too, couldn’t detect the two of them crouched in their fog-shrouded dark corner.
Then, the raspy breath of the creature filled the room as thickly as the fog.
Chapter 62
“What are you doing here?” a man’s voice called out. A reasonable-sounding, living, human voice at that.
Cathren and Donovan both chose to say nothing for the time being, hoping that the fog still hid them, and perhaps the man behind the voice was just calling out, a shot in the dark. Neither assumption was valid, however.
“You two. Crouched down there in the corner. I said, what are you doing here?”
“You can see us?” Donovan said, regretting this as soon as the words left his mouth. Their existence and position now both verified.
“Of course. I am wearing army surplus night vision glasses.”
“What?” Donovan said. He stood up, dragging Cathren to her feet along with him, as if they were handcuffed together.
Before them stood a man whose shaved head was tattooed with a coyote on one side and wolf tracks on the other. When he removed the night vision goggles, the moon eclipsed the middle of his forehead. He had a gold hoop piercing one ear and a feather looped in the other. His torso ended in the fog, where his legs disappeared, making him appear to be floating on the smoke from a magic lantern.
“Who, who are you?” Donovan said.
“I am in charge here, that’s who. This is my island, our island.”
“How did you find us?”
“You left a visible broken trail through the fog,” the man said. “I heard you come in here. I could tell you were humans, not zombies. I came to get you, to find out why you came here. And to tell you that you must leave, immediately.”
“Well, believe me, we don’t want to be here,” Cathren said, talking rapidly and trying to catch her breath. “You see, we washed ashore. We hoped to find a place to wait out this whole shit storm. We’d hoped this island would be free of the undead, and become our new home. But last night, we learned that was not the case. And then we heard these noises and so—”
“In reality, you are quite safe,” the man said, cutting off her nervous talking. “Despite the troubles here.”
“What do you mean?” Cathren and Donovan said in unison.
“Come,” he said. “Follow me and I shall explain.”
Chapter 63
My name is John Pallaton. My wife is Nina Amitola. With our children, our families, and our friends, we claim this island as our own. The island is the remaining outpost of the United Indians of All Tribes,” Pallaton said. “We have been here since before the troubles began. Unlike you, we did not arrive seeking refuge. Two hundred and twenty-seven of us have come out to Alcatraz in small groups over the past year.”
Donovan and Cathren simply nodded, not knowing what else to do. Pallaton went on.
“My ancestors were here before the white man, before Santa Ana and his armies. It was ours from the beginning, from before the beginning.”
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