by Ryan Casey
“We stay on water. We keep moving.”
Riley handed Pedro the binoculars, reached for the gap at the top of the cabin and started to lift himself out. Pedro was silent.
“Um, I respect your judgement, bruv, but are you sure that’s—”
“You said it would be safe,” Riley said, turning back to face Pedro in his cabin. “As long as it’s safe, we keep moving. Land is a last resort. Besides, we handled a storm last week, didn’t we?”
Pedro shook his head and gathered his words. “Yes, but that was…Riley, are you—”
“We keep moving. Divert the course slightly. That’s my choice. Feel free to consult the others if you feel you have to.” Riley stepped out of the cabin and lowered himself back onto the normal level of the boat.
“We’re going to have to get off this boat some day you know, Riley?” Pedro called. “We’re going to have to…to step on land again some day soon.”
Goosepimples spread across Riley’s skin. He knew land was the end goal. Finding somewhere safe to stay. Somewhere safe, manageable, theirs.
But life on the boat was so good. Life without the creatures. Life without looking over your shoulder at whether somebody walking your way was human or creature and if it was human, whether it would just kill you anyway.
“I know,” Riley called. He stepped around the walkway of the narrowboat. Through the window and in the main living area, he saw Chloë, Claudia and Anna, all smiling, all laughing. “Just not today,” he said, more to himself than to Pedro. “Just not today.”
At first, Riley thought it was somebody nudging him in his sleep. He got that a lot, a bunch of them cramped up on the floor.
But then he felt it again. Harder. A thump. A thump, deep in his ribs.
And that’s when the sound came.
A blast, like an explosion. He felt himself fall to one side. He heard a shout. A scream.
He opened his eyes, still a little disoriented. Claudia was by the window of the boat, gripping her daughter tightly. In front of Riley, to his right, Anna was on her back. She looked out cold. Fuck. She must’ve fallen. She must’ve—
As Riley scrambled to his feet, the boat tumbled to the other side, sending him flying towards the dining table, his face pressing up against the glass. The lights inside had all gone out but for one little lantern above the window where Claudia stood. Outside, it was pitch black. But as the boat tumbled from side to side, plates and glasses and cutlery crashing and smashing everywhere, Riley knew what was happening.
Pedro might have changed course, but the storm had changed course with them.
Pedro. He must’ve been in his cabin trying to steer this thing clear. Or maybe he’d gone overboard. Fuck—who knew? Who the fuck knew anymore?
“Hold on!” Riley shouted to Claudia and Chloë. It was all he could think to say, even though they were gripping on tightly to the railings above the room. His voice was drowned out anyway by the water, crashing against the side of the boat, battering the foundations of their new home. Water rained down on him from the ceiling. It must’ve been cracked. It must’ve been fucking cracked. It was going to flood. They were going to drown.
Riley, on his hands and knees, crawled over to where Anna lay. She was completely still. She had a large red bruise forming on her head, a bit of blood seeping out. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. He needed to wake her up. He needed to have her ready for the next step. Whatever they were going to do. Pedro would know. They’d all figure something out.
Another bash to the left hand side of the boat sent Riley crashing against the wall again.
Fuck. What were they going to do? What was going to happen?
“Anna!” Riley shouted. He shook her and shook her and shook her. She had to wake up. She couldn’t sleep through this. She’d…she’d fall underwater, and she’d die. “Anna, please—”
He heard a cracking in his right ear. An intense, huge cracking noise, like knives and forks slicing and sliding against one another.
It must be the window, he thought. Must be the window. The window must have—
He didn’t get to finish his trail of thoughts, because a heavy thump smacked him on the right side of his head, swallowed him up completely, dragged him away.
He tried to grip onto something as the water washed him out of the boat, out to sea. He tried to breathe but he couldn’t. He was surrounded in pitch black. He didn’t know where to go or what to do or what to…
Another sharp blast to the side of his head.
After that, blackness.
Chapter Two
A sharp, pulsating feeling right across his head.
He couldn’t breathe. He was trapped. He was trapped and he couldn’t breathe and he—
His eyes opened inadvertently. He coughed and spluttered, rolling onto his side on the hard, wet ground. Where was he? It was pitch black. The wind was blowing against him, so cold and so strong and damp. He clambered onto his hands and knees and, when he’d finished spluttering up the fluid from his lungs, he looked up.
No wonder he was damp. He was on a beach.
The water, that he’d originally taken as a shower of rain, was spray from the sea. The hardness beneath him was from the rocks, little pebbles digging into his body. He squinted out at sea. Squinted into the darkness, which was only illuminated by the light from the three-quarter moon and the stars above. How had he ended up here? What the fuck had happened?
He remembered. Remembered the boat, swaying from side to side, battered by the sea. He remembered Claudia and Chloë holding onto one another for dear life. He remembered Anna.
Anna. Unconscious. In danger.
After that, he remembered nothing.
He tried to rise to his feet, but as he did, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his thigh. He yelped and fell back down onto the rocks. Shit. That much pain couldn’t be a good thing. He must’ve broken it.
He looked down at his leg and right away, he realised it wasn’t a break.
A piece of metal shrapnel, about half the size of his hand, was poking out of his thigh. The shrapnel had a red, rusty tinge. A piece of the boat. A piece of the boat was actually stuck inside him.
He looked away, the cold sea wind battering against him as he shivered on the beach. Fuck. He needed to get rid of the shrapnel. If he wanted to get anywhere, he’d have to get rid of it.
But then what? What happened when he got rid of it? He was stuck out here. He was stuck, all alone. The boat…he couldn’t see a trace of it on this beach or out at sea, excluding the piece in his leg. Besides, he had no idea how long ago the accident happened. It could have been hours. Days, even.
Riley closed his eyes and took in a deep, shaking breath. Whatever happened from this point onwards, he needed to deal with the shrapnel in his leg. He wasn’t going to just roll over and die here. He couldn’t allow that to happen to him. Not after how far he’d come. Not after how hard he’d worked to stay alive.
Not after all the decisions he’d had to make. The decisions he’d lived with. He didn’t want those to be the decisions he died with.
He gripped the metal shrapnel. Just doing so sent a sharp twinge of pain right up his thigh. Calm it. Deep breaths. You can do this. Come on. You can do it. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Deep breath in…
He tugged at the shrapnel with a slight bit of pressure and immediately let go. The pain was so intense. He could feel it edging out of his leg, unplugging a waterfall of blood with every slight movement. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was going to have to do it quick. He was going to have to…
His thoughts were interrupted. Behind the crashing sound of the wave in front of him, and behind the wind whirring in his ears, he heard something.
At first, he thought it must’ve just been his imagination. His mind had an annoying knack of playing tricks on him, even on the boat.
He turned around. The sound definitely came from behind. There
were trees to his left; a small mountain, of sorts, completely black in the death of night. To his right, more pebbles, then a cliff, and then…
Oh shit. Shit.
Over to his right, a few hundred feet into the distance, he could see movement. Two people. Maybe three. All of them staggering down the rocks in front of a large, iron gate.
All of them staggering in Riley’s direction.
All of them groaning.
Riley’s insides churned up. It had been a while since he’d been on land with the creatures. It had been a while, but not long enough. And now here he was, at the bottom of a hill with a piece of shrapnel stuck in his leg.
Fuck. He had to get away. He had to think. Fast.
He started to stumble up the hilly pebbled beach but immediately fell to his knees. Fuck. This shrapnel, he was going to have to deal with it. He looked to his right. The creatures, although he couldn’t make out their faces, were definitely heading in his direction. And they were definitely creatures. He could never forget the sound they made, or their nonchalant, stumbling ways. A person could never forget that, not when they knew what they did when they caught up.
He took a few steadying breaths and with all his strength, he pushed himself back up again. The creatures were still one-hundred, ninety feet in the distance, but they were persistent. They’d come for him. They wouldn’t stop.
He gripped the shrapnel. Gripped it and dug his teeth into his lips. His heart pounded. His head ached. He had to get this done. The groans were getting closer. Eighty feet. Seventy feet.
He had to get this done.
Three.
Two.
One.
Now.
He yanked the shrapnel with all of his strength. Unlike the movies, it didn’t come out as cleanly as he expected.
In fact, it didn’t come out at all.
He looked down at his hands. He had a piece of bloody, sharp, rusty metal in his hand, but it was the same shape as it was when it was in his leg.
And there was still something in his leg, which bled and oozed down the sides of his torn trousers now.
He’d only snapped the edge of the shrapnel off. He’d only snapped the fucking edge off.
He looked up. His hands shook as he held the broken-off shrapnel. The creatures were fifty, forty, thirty feet away now. He had to be quick. He had to get to higher land and he had to get to the woods and into shelter. He had no idea what was in there, but he had to get away from here. He had to be anywhere but—
As he tried to run, this time, his right leg collapsed completely underneath him, blood pooling out onto the pebbles.
Riley’s head hit the solid floor of pebbles beneath him hard. Very hard. So hard that he wasn’t sure whether the stars above were actual stars or just stars in his eyes. He could feel himself drifting again. Drifting away as the pain from his leg swallowed up his entire body. Drifting away, back onto the boat, back on the boat with Pedro, and Claudia, and Chloë, and Anna.
Anna.
Before he could sink further into the thoughts, two creatures appeared above him.
They moved closely towards him. Tumbled down towards his body.
Fuck. Focus. Focus. Focus.
He swung his right hand around, which had the piece of sharp shrapnel in it, and smacked the first creature clean in the temple. A splat of blood and skull echoed against the pebbles as the creature went flying to the side and onto the ground.
The second creature grabbed his arm. The arm he had the shrapnel in.
He could see its yellow, sharp teeth getting closer to the bare flesh of his forearm. He could see its eyes, wide and focused, groaning as it got closer and closer and closer…
Riley pulled himself upright. Pulled himself through the sharp, searing pain in his leg. He grabbed the shrapnel with his left hand and pushed it over his forearm so that the creature’s teeth screeched against it as it went in to bite, like cutlery on a plate.
He pushed the creature back. Pulled himself forward, even though he could feel the blood oozing from his leg, and he pushed it further back until he was the one on top of it and he was looking down at it.
As the creature struggled for a bite of whatever part of Riley it could get, Riley moved the shrapnel back into his right hand and smacked it against the creature’s forehead.
And then he smacked it again.
And again.
And again.
Every time he hit it, the creature was knocked back just as hard against the solid rock pebbles. Its head was cracking to pieces, blood painting the rocks like some kind of morbid landscape art piece.
“You did this,” Riley shouted as he plummeted the shrapnel further and further into the creature’s head. “You fucking did this…You…fucking…did…this…”
He realised the creature had long ago gone silent. He panted. His arm was covered in blood—the blood of the creature. The creature’s head looked like it had merged with the pebbles below, a mash of flesh and brain and broken teeth.
He climbed from on top of the creature and, slowly but surely, managed to stand on two feet. The pain in his leg was burning and searing. He could feel blood trickling out of it. He had a deep sense in his gut of what was going to happen to him. He didn’t know any first aid for anything of this level, and he didn’t have a clue how effective tying something around the wound would be.
He knew what was going to happen to him. He was going to pass out, just like he had before the creatures attacked him, and he was going to die, right here wherever he was.
He gulped, took a deep breath, and staggered up the pebbles towards the darkness of the woods. A trail of blood dripped to the rocks beneath him with every tiny, meek step he took.
But he had to go to the woods. Go into the woods and, like an animal, find somewhere comfortable to die.
He didn’t want that to happen. He was terrified. More terrified of death than a life even in a world like this. That’s why his suicide attempt a few years back didn’t add up, not even with himself. He was frightened to death just thinking of the unknown.
But what choice did he have now?
The walk through the pitch black of the woods was long, difficult and absolutely fucking terrifying.
He could hear all sorts of things around him. Hear the branches of the trees creaking as the wind blew against them. He could hear rustling up ahead; the sound of little footsteps. But no matter where he looked, he couldn’t see a thing. Nothing but the partly moonlit sky above.
But he wouldn’t have to see for very long. Not long left, now.
The further he got into the woods, the steeper the path seemed to be going. Fuck, he’d probably pass out and die before he even found a place comfortable enough to die in. He’d probably die before he reached the top of this hill.
Deep breaths, Riley. Come on. You can do this. Keep moving.
Just before he’d got into the woods, he’d made the best attempt he could at wrapping his shirt around his leg. It didn’t seem to have worked—blood had already soaked through the material. And now he was freezing. His lips were cold as ice. His teeth chattered, rattling his skull. If the blood loss didn’t kill him, hypothermia would. Typical. Survive a month of a zombie apocalypse and end up dying of the frigging cold. Just typical.
A rustling up ahead. Larger this time. Larger than the small, presumably animal footsteps. He looked up. Looked to his left and to his right, but he couldn’t see a thing. Just the dark, tall silhouettes of the trees, watching him, peering down at him, judging him.
And then, a light.
He wasn’t sure how far away it was because it was hard to judge distance in this place. But there it was. A small, round light, shining up ahead, up the top of the path.
He took a step forward. It could be one of his group. It could be Pedro, or Anna or Claudia or Chloë. It could be one of them.
He stopped. It could be another group. An outsider.
Somebody like I
van.
But fuck. He was dying here. He was dying, and he wouldn’t know until he—
The light disappeared.
Riley froze on the spot as he was engulfed in complete darkness again. The light had gone. Shit. Whatever it was, they didn’t know he was out here. They could help him. They could help him, but only if they knew he was here.
“Hey!” he shouted and crept a bit faster up the steep path. “Hey! Please, I…I need help. Please.”
He heard himself in his mind. What the fuck was he doing? If there were any creatures in here—which he assumed there would be after the confrontation on the beach—they’d be all over him in no time.
But he didn’t have much choice. He had to try to survive. Even if it meant dying and coming back undead trying.
“Hey!” he shouted again, taking another step.
This time, his foot didn’t hit the ground.
It went right through into an open space. All of his weight followed. All of the weight that he’d put on his good leg followed, and before he knew it, his whole body was falling down this empty space, falling off the path, falling into whatever fate lay below.
He felt the smack on the right side of his body. It winded him, like a strong punch to the gut. He turned over onto his back, coughing and spluttering again, unable to stop, unable to resist.
The pain was intense and all through his body now. He couldn’t move. He was still, completely still as he looked up at the starry sky and the tops of the trees, and he watched, waited as his vision blurred, waited as he passed through into whatever awaited him after life.
As his eyes closed, he swore he saw a little light again, just above his head.
Chapter Three
The searing pain in his head was still there.
Wait. He could feel pain. In his head and…and shit, still in his leg. His heart picked up in pace. He could feel. He should be dead. Had he just drifted in and out of consciousness? Was he dying? Was this what dying felt like?