Dead Tide Surge

by Stephen A. North

  Mathers looked into the camera and let himself slip into character: the tireless, suave newsman with the golden voice.

  “Good evening! Lance Mathers here, on a hillside in North Carolina, outside the presidential bunker with some final thoughts. All governmental structure appears to have collapsed. There was gunfire in the bunker not long ago. Ritchie and I will go in and investigate shortly, but I think this is the end. The latest report I saw on our overseas forces is that the majority of them escaped and are on their way home. But home to what? How many of them will come home to nothing? Our government has failed to protect us. I fear that this isn’t just the end of our country but the end of humanity.”

  Mathers paused, and turned his back to the camera. He gestured at the wooded hills and the pall of smoke, then pivoted slowly back around.

  “Is this the future, my fellow Americans? A return to the wilderness? Back to a cave in a hillside? Those of us who survive, that is, while mockeries of what we once were parade around the ruins of our cities, hunting us…no, consuming us! Lends new meaning to the word, consumerism, I suppose.”

  Mathers dropped his chin and fell silent.

  After a moment or two, the cameraman coughed, and asked, “That all you got, Lance?”

  “I think so, Ritchie. I’m done.”

  “What now, then? Do we go back in there?”

  Mathers paused, thinking. “What did Bob Dylan have to say about too much of nothing?”

  The other man looked off into the distance, as if pondering. “Something about the waters of oblivion?”

  “Exactly,” Mathers replied. “If you still have that gun, maybe we can chance one last venture into the bunker to liberate some booze, and then we can get oblivious in style.”

  “So, that’s your plan?” Ritchie asked.

  Mathers nodded.

  “Better than mine. Let’s go.”

  2. Clive

  In the dream, Secret Service Agent Clive Collier relived being too slow, over and over, feeling useless and lost as he was shot repeatedly. He couldn’t believe those soldiers had gotten the drop on him. Of course, how could he have anticipated anything that had happened in the last week? Were there contingency plans for riots and chemical warfare? Sure, but reanimated corpses hungering for flesh?

  He woke, lying in a pool of his own blood. Blinked slowly. Felt detached. Stared for several moments at the twin fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Watched as the light flickered, then steadied. He had the vague thought that something must have caused a fluctuation in the power. Problem with the generators?

  Hard to think.

  He closed his eyes, tried to piece together what happened. He remembered sitting with that army lieutenant. What was his name? Green? They both were looking at a photo pinned to the wall over a map of the United States. The photo was a beautiful picture of blue water, islands with lush jungle, and a mountain rising in the distance.

  Green had said something like, “That’s where I need to be. Find a nice island girl. Build a house right there at the edge of the water and at the foot of that mountain.”

  Clive was about to reply when he heard shouts and went to investigate. Speaker of the House Candace Fiore was arguing with the survivors of the failed rescue mission. He didn’t quite catch what she’d said, but all of a sudden the soldiers surged forward, killed all three secret service agents with her, and then threw her on a pool table.

  He couldn’t just stand there.

  Trying to intervene was a mistake. My first loyalty should have been the president’s safety.

  The only other option would have been killing the soldiers. It would have been a simple thing to step into the room behind them and blaze away with his pistol.

  Next time, he vowed to himself.

  He felt so weak that it was good to lie down and stay still. That soldier named Reedy had shot him at least three times in the chest. Thank God it was with a 9mm pistol! A bulletproof vest was probably the only reason Clive was still breathing.

  As for the others, from the corner of his left eye, he could see bodies. All of them were his friends, and were the only other secret service agents left: Khalid, Andrews, and Hale.

  He couldn’t believe it. Why? Why are we still killing each other, when every day there are fewer of us, and more of them?

  He lifted his head, couldn’t see any other bodies. Wonder what happened to Green, and the speaker of the house?

  Clive was sure they were dead, but not sure they were going to stay that way.

  His left wrist was throbbing. He may have landed on it when he fell. The right arm was okay and he used that one to lever himself up. Once sitting upright, the ache in his chest woke up, and he couldn’t get his breath.

  Halfway there. Next tough assignment: standing up.

  He was exhausted.

  Something made him look up. The Speaker was sitting up on the pool table, and she was looking at him. Her legs were still splayed apart and she still wore her spiked-heeled shoes. Her trench coat was open and the red sheath dress beneath was bunched around her waist. He had a clear view of everything. For a moment, he gaped, drinking in the view.

  It’s been so long for me, but why is she doing this?

  She slid off the table, and her dress slipped back into place. She stood awkwardly, as if unused to wearing heels. With the view gone, the spell was broken. He looked at her face. Her expression could be mistaken for lust: lips parted and eyes half open.

  Her color seems a bit off…

  Is she one of them?

  She said, “Help me.”

  He spotted movement behind her.

  “Oh Jesus,” he said out loud.

  Andrews was sitting up now too.

  Clive reached under his arm, underneath his jacket, and pulled out his pistol with his right hand.

  The Speaker was lurching toward him, somehow staying on her feet. Andrews was right behind her.

  He flicked the safety off and sighted down the barrel, waiting for a clear shot. He worried that there wouldn’t be one, but the woman stumbled, barely staying upright by grabbing onto a chair.

  He squeezed the trigger. Andrew’s upper body jerked with the impact, blood sprayed, and his body staggered back a step or two.

  Clive aimed more carefully at what remained of one of his best friends. Fired. The bullet plowed into Andrews’ mouth. Andrews still didn’t stop. Hands shaking, Clive aimed again, this time between Andrews’ eyes. He saw Hale and Khalid standing up, and other people crowding in behind them. He couldn’t aim the gun from his position. He’d have to get up or slide backwards. He had to make a choice, and soon. In a moment or two, it wouldn’t matter. He couldn’t steady his hand enough to aim properly. With only five feet between them, Clive put his good arm down, shifted his knee sideways to the floor, and got to his feet. Andrews grabbed his arms and leaned down.

  Andrews was ready to bite.

  Adrenaline enabled Clive to bend his knees and then drive his arms up and out, breaking the hold. Andrews staggered backward. Clive followed, shoving the gun against the other man’s nose and firing. The body dropped.

  Hale and Khalid were within ten feet. Clive shoved the security room table into them and knocked them down. He snarled, “Candace, kick your shoes off!”

  The woman looked puzzled, but obeyed. He grabbed her right hand in his left, and although he couldn’t run, he reeled through the doorway and into the break room. Three undead soldiers staggered toward them from the exit to the main entrance to his left. To the right was the passage to the president’s quarters.

  There wasn’t time for debate—simply get out or do his duty.

  He took the right turn, pulled the Speaker along with him, and didn’t look back.

  3. Johnny

  He thought getting up would be the hard part. With cold rain pounding down, a stiff breeze blowing, and his back screaming in pain, finding the courage to move was hard.

  The back pain was no joke.

  A woman screamed in
agony. He assumed it was the woman in the turquoise dress. The need to hurry down from the mast no longer seemed as urgent.

  Getting down was bad too, and he was probably too late to save the woman.

  He was hunched over, breathing hard, when he heard another scream. The woman’s voice was quickly drowned out by a volley of gunfire. He drew up at the bottom of the steps, almost to the next deck.

  He didn’t want to face whatever had happened to the woman. He was right in the middle of trouble ahead and trouble behind.

  Johnny took the final step and walked in the direction of the scream and gunfire.

  “Who are you?” someone asked from behind him. The voice didn’t come from the stairs, so it was from the deck he was on now. He turned around slowly, trying to minimize the chance of another back spasm. He saw a white woman in her late forties standing behind him with her finger curled around the trigger of a small handgun. She wore skintight blue jeans, a long-sleeved green pullover, and boots. Her hard-eyed expression conveyed fierce determination, and her long brown hair was a tangled, sweaty mess. Overall, she was fit, and fairly attractive, but her deodorant had failed.

  “You going to answer me, or am I going to shoot you?” she asked with a sneer.

  Johnny pointed at the name badge still clipped to his shirt and tried to smile.

  The woman squinted and leaned over a little to read his name.

  “Ha, ha, are you a funny man? You may have noticed that I’m not laughing.” She wasn’t smiling either.

  Johnny shrugged, and smiled. He knew she was thinking over what to make of him. Perhaps deciding whether to kill him or not. The gun didn’t waver an inch. Her eyes were still squinted.

  “You either can’t speak, or won’t. Do you want to live?”

  Johnny nodded enthusiastically.

  “Follow me, then! Don’t make me regret not killing you.”

  Following her wasn’t too much to ask, even with his back injury. Making her not regret killing him might be a taller order. So many people didn’t understand him. Somehow he managed to annoy people and couldn’t figure out how most of the time. Too much of what motivated people was beyond him. From his perspective, life was fairly simple: don’t covet anything, expect nothing from people, and appreciate what you do have. It worked most of the time. At least it used to.

  The woman’s walk was provocative. Whether her hip sway was calculated or not was debatable, but as usual he pushed such thoughts aside.

  Expect nothing. Don’t anticipate! Live in the moment.

  There was nothing else.

  Nothing at all.

  He followed her through a doorway and into a fairly wide passageway lined with doors on either side. The doors were all spaced widely, probably pricier cabins on this level.

  A corpse wearing a black suit, white shirt, a scarlet cumber bun, and a bow tie was sprawled not far from an open door on the right. He’d been shot through the head. Before Johnny could look away, he saw white bone, tattered gray flesh, and matted greasy hair. Blood and what looked like brain matter were sprayed across the brown carpet a few feet away.

  Could be me soon. The thought skittered across his mind, and the image stayed.

  The woman didn’t even break stride. She strutted right by, and stopped briefly to peer through the open door. He saw a ‘6’ on the door above a peephole and heard a man’s voice greet the woman.

  “Come in, Gretch.”

  She entered, and waved for Johnny to follow.

  The room beyond was large. There was ample room for a king-size bed, two dressers, a TV stand, a bookcase, and some tasteful watercolor paintings on the walls. French doors led out to a balcony on the far side of the room, and there was a walk-in closet, and what appeared to be a large bathroom. A small, dapper man was seated at a desk inside the doorway to the right. A big handgun sat on the desk next to a writing pad and a phone.

  “You found someone new, Gretchen?” the man asked. His eyes were hooded, half-open, giving the guy a look of calculation. The skin of the man’s face was a little droopy with bruised bags of flesh beneath his eyes, a dew flap hanging beneath his weak chin, and a saggy neck.

  “Yes I did, Gary. I think he must’ve fell off the bridge or something. I think people were jumping off. What are the odds of him timing it right?”

  Gary laughed. “With only one eye, there must have been some luck involved.”

  Inwardly Johnny shook his head. I’m not even human. Not even with real monsters out there.

  The woman was smiling, but it was mirthless.

  If Death Incarnate could smile would she look like this woman?

  Gretchen’s smile faded. “He doesn’t speak, either. Not sure what to make of him.”

  Gary appeared to be thinking this over. He laid his fingertips alongside his temples and with a musing tone said, “Perhaps he could be of use? He looks strong. There’s a glimmer of intelligence behind those eyes. What do you say, Gretch?”

  “He fell from the sky, Gary. He hurt his back or something, but why not give God’s gift a try? Like that? I rhymed it.”

  “Well, we can’t rely on the Navy anymore. Take God’s gift with you and go get him hooked up with Billy Ray down in sick bay. Get him some pain pills or something. If nothing else, we can use him to get rid of some of these stinking corpses.”

  “Come on then, Big Boy,” Gretchen said, and waved the pistol.

  Johnny followed her back out into the passage.

  He guessed they couldn’t read a name badge. They weren’t too concerned about his injury either.

  4. Trish

  The temperature of the water was warm on her skin as she floated on her back in the pool. All she could hear was her breath as she inhaled and exhaled, and in the background, muted by the water covering her ears, the sound of rain on the metal roof of the screened enclosure. The patter of rain always made her want to sleep.

  As tired as Trish was, the memory of losing her last three friends prevented her from sleeping and kept her mind racing. Each of them had died horribly right in front of her, while she’d lived to escape. It was so hard to believe that her past and everything that had meant anything to her from before was over. How could she accept that life as she knew it was changed forever? Why wouldn’t she give up?

  I should’ve died with Anton. I wouldn’t be here all alone now. Living alone was a fact of her life, though. She’d been alone in her one-bedroom condo, and she’d liked it that way. People cluttered and complicated things.

  She swam to the edge of the pool and climbed the ladder to get out, then padded over to her clothes and shoes. She looked around. A hose with a sprayer attachment wasn’t far from the sliding glass doors into the house. She turned the faucet handle and it worked. She rinsed her clothes and shoes thoroughly, thinking it was best to get the salt out of them now before they dried. There was no one around to care if she was bare-ass. It had never mattered before either.

  When she was satisfied that everything was clean, she spread the clothes out on a lounge chair near the pool. She noticed off to the side, near a screened patio door, there was a sink and cutting table arrangement, probably for scaling fish. A still-strong dead fish smell hung in the air, and dried blood and scales were in the sink. Two knives sat on the edge of the sink. One was an old butter knife, and the other some kind of folding knife with a six-inch blade.

  She picked up the folding knife and opened it with a flick of her wrist. The blade looked razor sharp.

  She took one last look around the backyard, the dock, and across the canal. Nothing moved in the downpour. For a moment she watched the sky and the nearly solid sheet of rain pounding down and then, with knife in hand, she walked over to the glass patio doors and peered into the house through open venetian blinds. A big dining room and tables were visible and the outline of a doorway. She shifted the knife to her left hand and grabbed the handle of the door. It slid open at a tug. Her bare feet sunk into plush carpet as she stepped inside and paused, listening while
pulling the door closed behind her.

  Hot in here.

  All she could hear was the rain thundering on the metal frame of the screen enclosure. A pile of newspapers were stacked on the table, and all the chairs had been pushed in. Through the doorway across from her, she could see a living room, and a second doorway to her left led into a kitchen. Both rooms were dark. The curtains were all pulled closed in the living room. Anything could be waiting for her in there. Her heart raced, but freezing up or panicking wasn’t an option. She decided to look for a flashlight in the kitchen. At least she could see in there.

  She walked around the table to the left and peered into the kitchen from the doorway into a large room with a skylight, wooden-framed fluorescent lighting and mahogany cabinets. The refrigerator, dishwasher and oven were chrome, and a large prep island was in the center. A countertop ran beneath the cabinets and wrapped around the room. She didn’t see any doors, or a way out. Through a window she saw the hedge separating this house from the next.

  The room was clear.

  Despite her hunger, she was determined to make sure the house was safe before relaxing.

  There were a number of drawers beneath the countertop. Three were between the sink and the right hand wall. She decided to try them first, starting from right to left.

  On the first try she found a blocky six-volt flashlight. She pushed the switch and the light revealed blood all over the sink and some dishes piled there. There was more blood on the terrazzo floor. Not a lot, but it was there.

  Something was inside with her.

  She walked back into the dining room, her bare feet sinking into a deep shag rug, and stopped by the entrance to the living room. She played the light beam over a recliner, and a big screen TV. She took a step and felt something crusty matting the carpet beneath her right foot.

  Dried blood.

  She quickly panned the light around the rest of the room. Saw a glass coffee table piled with magazines, and a large black leather couch. A short hallway led to the front door, not too far right of the recliner, and another hallway deeper into the house. A door was in the wall on the far side of the room to her left.

  Trish decided to try the door first.