A loud cracking noise sounded below me and when I looked down, a massive piece of concrete splash splashed into ocean sending a wave up and onto my feet. The roadway fell downward, increasing the tilt to almost a ninety degree angle, and the jerking motion nearly shook my hand free, but I held on. Barely.
I felt a fingernail tear off the index finger of my left hand as I desperately dug at the roadway. Blood oozed out of my fingertips from the skin being ripped away as I tore at the pavement looking for anyway to hold on. The muscles in my right forearm screamed in protest and began to vibrate from the stress. My fingers felt like they were about to snap off, the knuckles popping loudly every other second.
My short and long term future was seriously in doubt. Hanging on wasn’t working as I saw little chance I was going to be able to pull myself up. I looked below me, trying find anything that I could grab onto if I slipped down the road. The only thing I saw was a couple pieces of bent rebar sticking off the end of the road. They were off to my right about eight to ten feet. If I could swing my body in that direction and slide down the road at just the right angle I might just have a chance to grab the rebar before I slipped off into the abyss. That was a big if.
I calculated my chances at about five percent. When I really evaluated this gamble, I felt I had a better chance of impaling myself on the rebar. At least, it would prevent me from falling into the ocean. Of course, it also increased my chances of bleeding to death.
In my last few seconds of life, I reflected on my decision to ever come to this island. Why had I become so fixated on this death trap of an island? Was I caught up in some nostalgic vision of days gone by from my childhood? Why not Idaho? I heard the state was full of preppers ready to take on any world ending event. Why not Alaska? But I hated cold weather.
A flash of lightning broke me out of my reverie and illuminated the scene one more time just as I start to push off with my feet to send me to my right and an almost suicidal attempt to grab the rebar below. Thunder quickly following the lightning booming away as the rain just kept falling.
I shifted my body, keeping my eyes down below, and released my hand, saying a lightning fast prayer just as I let go.
I felt gravity tug at my body with its irresistible pull, but just as my descent started, something grabbed my wrist and halted my downward momentum. I jerked my head up and saw a hand wrapped around my wrist, nearly pulling my arm loose from my shoulder socket as I swung along the roadway like a human pendulum.
The hand holding my wrist was attached to arm that extended over the edge of the bridge. My face scraped along the surface of the road, peeling away skin from my cheek.
A face popped over the edge and looked down at me.
“Grant, dude, you’re heavy.” It was Jay.
“What are you doing here?” I grunted out.
“Saving your life, it looks like,” he said between labored breaths.
A second head appeared over the edge.
“Give me your other hand,” Randell said.
“You’re supposed to be down on the island by now,” I said.
“All for one and one for all,” he said, “now, give me your damn hand.”
It sounded easier that it was. My body was reaching limits of what it could stand and it took everything I had to raise my left arm up. When I finally did, Randell grabbed on to it, and with Robbie holding to Randell’s belt, and tugging backwards, they gradually pulled me up and onto the safe section of the bridge.
As soon as my feet passed over the edge, the roadway island I had been hanging onto broke away from the bridge with a resounding crash. It reminded me of those videos of giant pieces ice breaking away from glaciers. A gargantuan wave splashed over us a second later.
“Whoa, dude!” Jay exclaimed as he looked over the edge watching the section of road disappear into the waves below. “That was gnarly.”
I lay on my back, panting, as the rain pelted my face.
Martin leaned in over me and said, “Grant, are you okay?”
“Sure, kiddo,” I said, “I just need a minute.”
Jessica’s face appeared next to Martin’s shoulder. “Where’s my daddy?”
That wasn’t a question I wanted to answer.
Joni moved in behind the kids, wrapping her arms around them. Her expression stricken, the rain wiping away any tears that might have been there.
“Daddy’s fighting the zombies,” she said.
“Yeah,” was the best I could do.
Randell and Robbie reached down to help me up. I resisted the urge to scream as they pulled on my arms to get me to my feet. It only hurt a little, and that is if little is wanting your arms amputated instead of have someone pull on them.
“Where’s Rosalita?” I asked, feeling panic sweep over me.
“Down the road,” Jay said. “Jane’s watching over her.”
“How many zombies are there down there?” I asked.
“A few,” Randell replied. “We’ve taken out a lot of them. There’s more than a few left, but they seem manageable. The rain is making them hard to see, but that’s working in our favor, too, because they can’t see us.”
“Can we make it past them?” I asked.
“I think so.”
“Then what are we waiting on?”
Randell’s take on the situation was right. Falling in buckets and barrels, the rain obscured our walk down the bridge for the most part. We only had to take out a few zombies, mostly by hand (or gun butt) to avoid drawing more in with gunshots. It was grisly work that Jay and Jane did the most of.
By the time we made it off the bridge and onto the island proper I could tell that everyone was exhausted. I was way beyond exhausted and felt on the edge of collapse. Fortunately, I remembered there was a lifeboat station up at this end of the island, so I set a course for it stumbling along barely aware I was walking.
We trudged there with Robbie and Randell carrying Rosalita who looked near death. I wasn’t too far behind her, but used what little strength I had left to direct us across a parking lot and through some low cut scrub and finally onto a beach where we saw the large dark outline of the only man-made structure around for miles. The dark form became clearer as we approached. It was a two story building with a lookout tower on its east side.
The place was completely dark with no signs of life. We crossed the beach and saw bits of siding and other debris torn from the building by the storm. With little or no caution, we climbed the stairway to the deck that surrounded the first floor, looking for any people, living or dead. When none appeared, we broke inside, using a rifle butt to crash through some glass and opened a door.
It only took a few minutes to check out the inside and we quickly discovered that the place was empty. From the looks of it, the place has been abandoned for quite awhile, but building supplies lay about the rooms. I could only guess that a renovation had been in progress, but the zombie invasion had put an end to that.
Randell established a guard schedule and refused to let me take a turn. In protest, I took a spot on the floor next to the door, but was out, sound asleep in seconds. The last thing I remembered was the howling of the wind and the driving rain against the side of the house.
As it almost always was after a big blow on the ocean, the next day was spectacular weather-wise. The sun shone brightly overhead and the sky was mostly blue with some mottled clouds floating about. The seagulls, which had taken cover during the storm, were swooping and diving overhead, letting out their loud caws.
As far as how my body felt, it seemed as the entire force of the hurricane had been directed at me. Randell lied about getting me up for my shift and I slept through the night and into the next morning.
When I awoke, I found Joni kneeling at my side, peering at me with an expression caught between curiosity and dread.
“Hey,” I said, my throat dry.
She held out a bottle of water. I took it, screwed off the stop, wincing as my hands still ached, and took a long pull. The
water felt good, but nothing was going to wash away the feeling of guilt I was experiencing.
“So, Dave,” she said haltingly, “did he...did he...?” She stopped and looked away.
I hesitated before answering. “I’m certain he didn’t make it,” I said. “I wasn’t looking at him when he detonated the charges, but he was right on top of the explosives.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, slumping against the wall and then looked out the window across the room. There was no other way to describe her face other than lost. Large silent tears began to flow down her cheeks. Being emotionally stunted, I wasn’t sure what to do. I sat up next to her and after about a minute, I put an arm around her shoulder and patted her back. It was the best I could do at the time.
We sat like that for several minutes until I heard footsteps on the deck outside and a moment later Randell passed by a window followed by Jay. Just before they entered the room, I pulled my arm away from Joni, feeling guilty about keeping it there, but feeling equally bad about taking it away.
Randell said, “I found a dump truck over a dune to the south. The keys were in it and it started. It doesn’t have a lot of gas in it, but more than enough to get us to the south side of the island.”
“That sounds good,” I responded. “Any deaders?”
“A few washed ashore, but most were in pretty bad shape,” Randell said.
“Jane put down a couple that must have been on land during the storm,” Jay said proudly as if he has done it himself.
Another set of feet sounded on the deck and Jessica and Martin rushed into the room.
“I saw a giant sea turtle!” Martin shouted.
Jessica, on the other hand, saw that her mother had been crying. “What’s wrong, mommy?”
Joni sat still for a moment and then wiped the tears off her cheek.
“Is it about daddy?” Martin asked, any hint of excitement gone from his face.
“Do you want me to tell them?” I asked.
“No, I’ve got it,” Joni said, pushing herself off the floor and standing. She walked across the room to the two kids and put a hand on each one of their shoulders. “Kids, let’s go outside, I have to tell you something.”
Both of them knew what she was going to say, but had to hope she would tell them something different. Maybe some good news for a change. Joni led them both outside and they dutifully followed, quietly as if they were being taken to the gallows. Jay, Randell, and I stayed inside, all three of us looking very uncomfortable. It didn’t take long. Jessica cried first, a long shrill mournful sound, cutting into the souls of everyone who heard. Martin joined in and it was brutal for the next few minutes.
Robbie rushed into the room with his little radio in hand, unaware of the drama that had just unfolded, and said, “The President’s called off the dropping of nuclear bombs.”
“That’s gotta be good news,” Randell said.
“No, they’ve proven to be ineffective,” Robbie replied. “The virus is spreading unchecked.”
The good times just kept rolling.
It was more than an hour before the kids calmed down enough to even consider moving. The rest of the party wasn’t in much better shape. Rosalita looked like she had aged another twenty years overnight. I was thirty years younger than her and I was beat, broken, and battered. It was wonder she even moved at all.
Still, we had to move. None of us had eaten in twenty four hours and water was going to become an issue soon. The irony of an endless gallons of water surrounding us, but being undrinkable struck me, but that’s how life was in the apocalypse. Like it had a real sense of humor. A dark sense, but it had one.
The supply of bottled water we had with us was running low. There was no rest for the wicked, I guessed. Compounding the situation was the fact that we had no idea what the rest of the island was really like. It could be teeming with the undead for all we knew.
Randell took charge while I stumbled about trying to come up with some sort of muddled plan to move us southward. Within a half hour, he had the dump truck beside the house and ready for us to board. It was a large industrial truck with a lot of rust, but it ran. It wasn’t a luxury ride by far, but it could accommodate all of us easily.
We put Rosalita in the cab to make it easier on her. For the first time since I had known her, Joni declined to drive as she stayed in the back of the truck with the kids and let Randell take the wheel with Robbie as co-pilot. Jessica’s eyes were red and raw from crying and little Martin looked as lost as a kid could ever be. Just looking at them tore at my heart, but there was nothing I could do. What they were going through was something they had to go through on their own because the path of grief is a solitary one. People can walk beside you, but they can’t walk it for you.
The ride in the back was bumpy, but we felt relatively safe. The only way down the island was a narrow stretch of land less than a mile across. We passed by the Pea Island National Refuge where seagulls and pelicans went on doing those things that birds do, ignoring the fact that the world was ruled by the dead. The wind felt refreshing as it blew over us after the punishing rains of the previous day. There was nothing but low scrub bushes and grass on the east side of the island and a whole lot of beach on the other side. Waves, a little rougher than normal, crashed against the shore in that rhythmic and soothing way that waves do, lulling us down into a complacent posture. Of course, those of us in the back had no idea what was coming up. That was left to those in the cab and I was fine with that.
Randell slowed as we reached the first major population center on this part of the barrier islands, Rodanthe. Like any other place that could accommodate a beach house on these islands, developers had crammed the houses in as close as they could. Short streets streamed off the main drag like little tributaries with houses lining each one. Many of the houses were missing long strips of siding, ripped off by the powerful winds of the hurricane. Several had gaping sections of roof torn away, too. The storm had not been kind to the island.
Before starting off, I had contemplated having Randell stop somewhere in Rodanthe to check on supplies, but we decided to head to our final destination and then come back once we got settled in. It was an optimistic plan because the house could have been taken by the hurricane or by others, but we banked in it being there. If it wasn’t, we would improvise.
Randell slowed down even more, making me curious why, but before I could do anything, he gassed the pedal and we shot forward rapidly. I thought I felt a subtle impact and this was followed a second later by a crushed body rolling down the road in our wake. I guessed it was one of the undead and this was quickly confirmed as two deaders appeared in the street, arms outstretched toward the back of the truck, stumbling along after us. As usual, they paid their crushed colleague no heed. Dinner was driving away and they had to catch up.
We quickly left Rodanthe and drove along on another uninhabited section of road bordered by the ocean on both sides. Avon came up next and was much like Rodanthe, dead and deader. The houses looked hit a little harder as we saw two house flattened entirely and several missing the roofs. A large warehouse building looked like Godzilla had stepped on it with its walls spilling out onto the road. Randell deftly maneuvered the truck around the debris. There were more undead here, too. Randell dispatched two with the truck, but we saw more than a dozen outside the local grocery, aimlessly wandering in the parking lot. They could have been waiting for the next sale on meat for all we knew. Of course, we were meat and were always on sale as far they were concerned.
Avon came and went and after a two mile stretch of nothing but ocean and more beaches, we made it on to Hatteras Island finally. We had to pass through Buxton first. It’s claim to fame was great surf fishing and the famous Hatteras Lighthouse.
The north side of the town was in bad shape. It looked like the place had taken a direct hit by the storm. More than a dozen houses were smashed to pieces. Shingles, siding, and entire parts of buildings lay strewn about the streets. Several beachsid
e houses tilted frighteningly forward, their pilings broken, leaving the structures in ruins.
There weren’t as many zombies, though. The ones we did see looked waterlogged, as if they had washed in from the ocean. Several were missing clothing entirely. That wasn’t a pretty sight as their gray and mottled skin looked bloated and wrinkled from spending too much time in the water.
We passed Brigand Bay and I renewed my fervent hope that the house was still there. Why I was transfixed on this house wasn’t entirely rationale. Maybe it was because the world had just taken away everything I had ever cared about and if I could just have this one thing that I cherished from the past, then maybe, just maybe I could find some way to balance things out? To give me some kind of hope that everything could be alright again.
What I saw in the Bay didn’t give me much hope as the boats left behind by those who escaped before the storm hit lay strewn about the shoreline like a giant angry child had tossed his toys about. Most were badly battered, with their masts snapped off. A large yacht sat on its side with two small boats rammed into its deck. When we came upon the campgrounds on the south side of Buxton, we encountered a small herd of zombies. Randell showed them no mercy and rolled over the few that stumbled into the road. The battered bodies of the undead rolled under the dump truck and down the street like undead tumbleweeds.
We were in the homestretch now. My grandfather’s place was on an inlet on several acres of land on the east side of the island. He had made sure to hold onto as much land as he could to act as a buffer against the “damned” tourists.
Even though I was nearly dead on my feet, I rose from my place in the back of the dump truck and stood on one of the wheel wells to get my head above the lip of the sides. The wind whipped at my face, but I could smell the sea salt in the air and something about it energized me. It was just like when I was a kid and my body ached with an overwhelming anxiousness to be out of the car and running on the beach again. We just couldn’t get their fast enough.
Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America Page 18