Dead Tide Surge

by Stephen A. North

  “First Lady!” Booth shouted, and she looked up. He was running toward her, followed by Lassiter and Hicks.

  The meaning of what had just happened was sinking in. There wasn’t going to be any reunion with Burt. This nightmare world was real, and a hardscrabble struggle to survive was beginning for them.

  Julie turned away from the approaching men and watched the helicopter crash. Pieces of the rotor splintered and flew everywhere, while fuel spewed out from the wreckage and the flame bloomed. A moment after, she spied the figures of the two pilots stagger free, one of them burning. His companion, probably Duncan, knocked him to the ground and made him roll in an effort to extinguish the flames. Both were oblivious to the living dead that were closing in.

  Booth and the others stopped next to her. Lassiter raised his rifle, and Hicks knocked it down. “Leave them be. Save your bullets for something more worthy than those two fuck-ups. They just stranded us here.”

  Julie didn’t even look up. She was too busy focusing on the drama unfolding in front of her. She’d never hated anyone so much in her life, and she was glad they were about to die.

  “Let’s go,” Booth said. “They’ll be coming for us too.”

  “Where are we going to go?” Julie asked.

  Booth gave her a crooked smile. “Away from here! Sorry to say, I’m not sure yet, ma’am. We’ll find someplace safe first, then figure it out.”

  She nodded and felt another tear slide down her cheek. “Thank you, Sergeant. I know you are doing your best.”

  “Let me carry George for a while. We need to boogie.”

  Julie didn’t argue, and fell in right behind Booth, followed by the others.

  Somewhere, not far away, there came a scream and a gunshot.

  Julie didn’t look back.

  49. Janicea

  Twice, while Bronte dug the hole, Janicea was forced to shoot the dead. The first was Ralls. It was harder than she imagined it would be. It took three shots, mostly due to her shaking hand.

  She hated this new world and accepted, at last, that hating had been the focus of her life. Without it, she may not have the strength or will to continue. This was a world for those who could be ruthless, not for the meek or timid.

  Or regretful.

  There was no room for sentiment or love.

  Her relationship with Bronte was unsettling. She couldn’t protect or shelter it. Beth and Daric were a further complication. It was so much easier if you lived without love or expectation. There were too many things to break the heart, but she would fight to the death to save them. What else was left?

  Bronte finished digging Tracks’ grave not long after she put down Ralls. He leaned on the shovel. “I’m exhausted. Let’s lock ourselves into one of these houses, get cleaned up, and rest. Tomorrow, I’ll make sure the island is secure, and then I’ll bury Ralls and Sinclair. God help me, I can’t do it today.”

  Janicea led the kids over to him, and they shared a long hug. He laid the shovel on top of Tracks’ grave and headed for the nearest house: a single story with an attached garage, a towering tree in the front yard, and a yard sale sign in the tree for Saturday and Sunday from 9 to 4. Bronte walked to the porch and screen door. He held a pistol at his side and reached for the door handle.

  It opened when he turned it, revealing a stretch of aqua-green ceramic floor tile and a water color painting on the right wall. There was a doorway to either side, about ten feet in, and a dining room straight ahead.

  Bronte glanced cautiously through each doorway before proceeding. To the left was a living room; to the right was a closet. The closet was full of coats and had a shelf full of candles. The scent of vanilla wafted from the closet when she stepped into the living room after Bronte. The kids trailed along behind them, hand in hand.

  The living room also had a big screen TV, close to seventy inches, on the far wall, a large picture window facing the front yard, and toward the rear, a line of barstools, a bar counter, and a view of the inside of the kitchen.

  Janicea loved it.

  The kitchen was bright and cheery. The cabinets were a honey oak color, and the appliances looked new. Pots, books, and various knickknacks sat atop the cabinets most of the way around the room. Another door led to the dining room and a table for eight. More lightly stained wood and polished steel.

  “I like this house,” Beth said.

  “It is nice, isn’t it?” Janicea replied.

  Bronte kept moving. There were two more doors: one to the garage, and the other exited into a passage that led back to the bedrooms.

  “I think we can be safe here. All of you wait right here while I check the rest. Janicea, please check that the house is locked.”

  The kids followed her while she tried the doors.

  The three of them were sitting on a comfortable couch when Bronte rejoined them. The two kids snored. Janicea stroked their hair.

  “They’re good kids, aren’t they?” Bronte asked.

  “The best we could ask for,” Janicea replied.

  “That is true. It’s going to be a struggle giving them a safe home, but I know we can do it,” Bronte said.

  Janicea smiled at him. “As long as you’re with me, I’m pretty sure I can do that, and be everything you need me to be.”

  “We gotta be very careful then,” Bronte replied. “I’m sure this’ll be a good place, but I do worry about disease, or if one of us gets hurt. There’s no hospital near here.”

  “I can bear it with you, Bronte.”

  “We’re together, Janicea. That is all I need to know.”

  “So…are we just going to live here?”

  “Until we come up with a better idea,” he said, “or unless you know of someplace better, that’s my plan.”

  “I sure hope we aren’t the only survivors. There have to be other good people out there, right? I have to believe that.”

  “I’m sure there are. We have boats. We can explore the coast and be safe. Might even find a better place that way, too.”

  Bronte took her into his arms and kissed her tenderly on the forehead, her nose, and her lips. She kissed him back, and pressed her body against his. She let out a gasp. His eyes, looking into hers, were startled for a moment, but then he caressed her shoulders and picked her up, kissed her neck.

  “Where you taking me?” she asked.

  He carried her back down the hallway without comment. When they entered the master bedroom and she saw the king sized bed, she murmured, “Oh.”

  That was the end of the conversation.

  50. Natalie

  The doorway opened into an entryway. There was a lot of glass overhead, filling the room with sunlight that fell on a gleaming wood floor. The front doors were to her left, large wooden monstrosities with stained glass. Another arched doorway, directly across from her, led to a sitting room, and a wooden staircase was to her right.

  Natalie threw herself at the front door, grasping the handle of the one on the left. It was locked. She grabbed the deadbolt and turned it to the left, grasped the smaller locking switch on the door handle, and turned it too. A lean teenaged guy, missing the right side of his face, crashed into her.

  The two of them stumbled away from the door in an awkward dance and her back crashed against the wall beside the sitting room’s entrance. The guy’s teeth were visible—both from his open lips and a hole in his face. The latter revealing more teeth and even gums. He wrapped her in an intimate embrace and leaned in.

  His teeth snapped at her face.

  The loose, stubbly skin of his cheek flapped.

  A panicked inhalation brought to her nose the mingled scents of Axe, excrement, and sweat. Natalie gripped his shoulders. She tried to hold him back—a losing battle. His nose brushed hers. She threw herself to the side. Without the wall behind her, she stumbled backwards and into the sitting room. She used the momentum to pivot and sling him away from her. He lost his grip.

  I’m free!

  He tumbled to the floor, his b
ack on an oriental rug.

  Natalie spun around, heart pounding, breathing raspy, and found herself nearly face-to-face with a tottering grandmother baring her teeth. She swatted the woman down with a clenched fist. It felt like she’d hit a Styrofoam figure. No substance to the woman at all, and she stayed down. Natalie stepped over her.

  More zombies were coming!

  None were close enough to stop her from opening the door and dashing outside. But there were more of them outside. Several turned their heads in her direction when she stopped onto the stoop outside the door.

  What to do? Should she try to get back to the car or run?

  Dead people closed in from all directions. She forced herself to run to the left, dodging shrubs, trees, and uncoordinated people. Someone grabbed her arm. She broke free, stumbled, felt her ankle twist. She fell to her knees sobbing. She raised her head. The circle of corpses drew closer still. She forced herself back to her feet and ran, trying to ignore the pain. She pumped her arms as she ran, brushing by people who reached out to her like worshipful fans, hungry for her.

  The avenue was made of red bricks, lined on either side by tall oaks. She ran beneath their shadows, and small patches of blue sky peeked through gaps in the canopy. She ran back into the sunlight and saw huge, puffy clouds floating serenely overhead. It was safe up there.

  Natalie’s chest heaved, and her breath came in gasps. She slowed down, almost to a walk. Up ahead was a small park with a creek. There was a little bridge, benches, and lots of tall, majestic trees. It was an old neighborhood with large, well-maintained houses, and beautiful lawns.

  She was still being followed, but at a distance now.

  She had no idea where she was going, or what to do. She’d keep walking until they cornered her.

  Without any forethought, she turned left again when she reached Martin Luther King Street. She saw a car wrapped around a pole. There were downed power lines but no sparks. There were a few dead people lying in the street, trash, downed branches everywhere, leaves, broken glass, cars abandoned with doors open.

  The only sounds were the wind in the branches, rustling leaves and trash, her footsteps, and her breathing as it gradually returned to normal. She was still hungry and thirsty, and a headache pulsed behind her eyes.

  The corpse of a middle-aged black woman lay flat on its back in the gutter, eyes staring up at the sky, a gory, cratered hole in its forehead. Flies flittered around the wound and the woman’s open mouth.

  Natalie wondered how long she’d been dead. The blood didn’t look dry.

  A moment later the dead woman was forgotten as a car pulled up alongside of her. The driver’s side window was down and she heard what sounded like the squawk of a walkie-talkie as the car slowed to match her pace.

  The driver was a lean young Asian guy with a wispy beard. She could see a baseball bat in the passenger seat.

  Troy.

  He was one of the guys who’d been chasing Nella .

  “Where is she?” he asked. No beating around the bush with these guys.

  There was no sense pretending that she didn’t know who he meant. “She’s dead and so is your friend.”

  “Don’t lie to me, bitch,” he said.

  She wasn’t impressed. Not many threats could get a rise out of her now.

  “Fuck off,” she said, and kept walking.

  He followed her, with one hand on the wheel and an elbow on the window frame. “So, you just expect me to take your word?”

  She stopped and leaned over, almost into the car. “What does it matter, Troy? That is your name, right? Are you really going to care about anything I say? It’s the fucking end of the world and here you are chasing after some other man’s woman! Don’t you have a life to live? You have nothing better to do than that?”

  “Is Jimmy dead, too, then?” he asked after they stared at each other for a minute.

  “Yes.”

  “You got somewhere to go?”

  She shook her head. “No, do you?”

  “Not if Nella is dead. Sid will kill me for failing.”

  “Should you kill him first?” she suggested.

  He grinned. “You willing to help?”

  “I have lots of time and no agenda. How hard could it be?”

  “Depends on how many of us are left.”

  “You sure about that, Troy? Why don’t we just take your car and run?”

  “How do you know my name, anyway? Did she tell you?”

  She shook her head. “I heard you and Jimmy arguing. He said your name.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Natalie.”

  “Okay then, Natalie, Sid is a vengeful fuck. If he found out that I ran off with you, he’d have us hunted down. He’s a prick like that.”

  “So why don’t we kill him first, then? Aren’t you a man?”

  The young man’s eyes blazed. She studied him carefully, wondering if she’d pushed too hard.

  “I am a man,” he declared, spitting each word out. “Don’t doubt it. The question is though, are you enough of a woman for me?”

  She smiled. “Let’s go kill Sid and find out. I need a man, Troy.”

  51. Johnny

  Huff drove the forklift right into the warehouse’s door and almost knocked it right off its hinges on the first try. Johnny stood off to the side with Marcel and Anna. The big biker shouted something, and Huff had better luck the second time. The door was a shattered mess.

  Johnny wondered what could possibly be so important.

  “You,” Gretchen said, pointing at the husky kid with a bat, “stay out here with Huff. Keep a lookout, and come get me if anything happens. The rest of you come with me. We’re looking for five pallets labeled as hazardous waste. Spread out when we enter, and search everywhere. We won’t leave until I know for sure that the pallets aren’t here.”

  She stepped over the remains of the door and entered the shadowed interior. A moment later, Johnny followed her, trailed by Marcel, Anna and the rest.

  The room beyond was huge, and pallets filled the vast space. Two pathways, slightly larger than the pallets, led deeper into the building. Every pallet visible to Johnny was filled with cardboard boxes, most of a uniform size. Gretchen directed him, Marcel, Anna, and the biker to take the right hand pathways. “Start at the back and work your way forward,” she instructed. “Come get me immediately if you find anything.”

  Johnny nodded, and Gretchen frowned at him. He figured his silence was getting on her nerves.

  Marcel answered, “We will, ma’am. Count on it.”

  Gretchen shook her head at that. “Get going, kiss-ass.”

  Johnny looked at the older biker and waited to see if the man would take the lead. He had an impassive, stoic air. He wore jeans, heavy motorcycle boots, and a threadbare dark blue button up shirt open to the waist that exposed a muscular but gray haired chest. The hair on his head was buzzed to the scalp, and he had a neatly trimmed, pure white mustache.

  “Take the lead, mutie,” the biker told him. There wasn’t any venom in his voice. He might as well have been saying, “Nice day.”

  Johnny shrugged and took the lead, glancing down each aisle as they walked to the back. He estimated that each aisle was over a hundred feet long, and that it was twice that length to get to the rear of the building. Marcel had a flashlight and was reading something printed on the floor in front of each aisle. Johnny noticed this too late to read what the first two aisles read, but the third advertised, “Automotive.”

  He heard the other group moving along but couldn’t see them. Some sort of shelving divided the warehouse in two. It looked like there was stuff stored on the shelves also.

  “What’s your name?” Marcel asked, and Johnny turned and saw he was talking to the biker.

  “I’m Ike, now buzz off, fat boy,” the man answered.

  Marcel shrugged and turned toward Johnny. “Wish I knew what we’re looking for, Johnny,” Marcel said. “I have a really bad feeling. At first I t
hought it was drugs, but now I’m not sure. Don’t imagine you know, do you?”

  Johnny saw his friend looking at him in the gloom. He could feel and smell fear coming from the other man. He wanted to ask him what he was afraid of but pushed the question away. The price he paid whenever he attempted to communicate was never commensurate with the effort required to get a direct answer.

  He resisted constructing elaborate stories in his head. It was all too easy to do when you weren’t able to communicate in a normal fashion. He knew he was insightful enough sometimes to be right about what someone was thinking, but not always. He didn’t know Marcel at all and didn’t know what made him tick. Anna was even more of an enigma.

  He reached the end of the aisle and turned right, looking carefully at each pallet. What he saw were pallets of cheap appliances: coffee makers, toaster ovens, and can openers for the most part.

  He turned back the way they came, and the next aisle was full of cheap electronics, like boom boxes and generic home theaters.

  Anna’s baby picked that moment to start crying. Johnny was surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner.

  Ike said, “Shut that fucking kid up, bitch.” There still wasn’t any passion or heat to his tone, but the message was rude. Johnny was sure he’d shut the child up if Anna didn’t.

  Marcel turned to the man and said, “Don’t talk to her that way.”

  The biker laughed. “You got some spunk, fat boy, and I admire that, but you better help your girlfriend keep that brat quiet, or else.”

  Johnny wondered what he meant by or else. There was only so much he’d be willing to take from this guy before it would be time to…do something.