Swarm (Dead Ends)
Page 22
I turned out onto the road that according to the GPS would be a straight shot down to the marina. I was greeted with the violent screeching of rubber, narrowly missing the Mustang as it veered off the road. They were still looking for me and I had just made their job a lot easier. I floored the accelerator to create some distance between us as they tried to maneuver out of the spin I had put them into. For a while I didn’t see them but when I saw the first sign for the marina, they showed up in the rear view a second later. The road dipped down and finally I could see the water and the marina beckoning at the bottom of the hill. From my distance it looked as though the front gate was locked so I had no choice but to pick up speed and blast through it. The Mustang kept a comfortable distance behind me as the passenger lazily took shots at the SUV, missing every time. It made me wonder how these idiots were able to survive for this long. The gates flew open, buckling easily under the heft and speed of the SUV. I followed the signs, putting the SUV’s rigidity to the test with every hard corner I screeched around. I flew over the first speed bump going at least 60 miles per hour and I was hoping the Mustang would do the same. A second later I had my answer as their car came to a violent stop and they both jumped out, firing shots, and running towards the marina as they did so. There were only a few boats left and luckily one of them was the Gracie May. I gathered everything I could from the SUV. Mellie took a second to get with it after being hurled around the vehicle’s interior like a pinball but she jumped into my arms and we were ready to go.
I realized suddenly that the firing had stopped. It was quiet again for just a second then the rumbling pierced through the silence, engulfing any fleeting amount of serenity that still lingered. I looked to my two pursuers who had their guns at their sides. They were staring up towards the top of the hill that overlooked the water, their sloped shoulders and gaping mouths indicating awe. Or perhaps defeat. I followed their gaze up the crest and I couldn’t believe what I saw. In all directions, the dead were trampling the landscape like a bulldozer with a broken accelerator. The moaning rattled my insides. Mellie shook in my hands as she took turns growling and whining. She looked up at me as if to say time to go and that was enough to get me moving again. I untied the ropes that held the Gracie May to the dock and hopped in behind Mellie who was now wagging her tail at the recognition of the boat she had probably been on many times. The rumbling made it hard to concentrate once I was onboard. I’d never operated a boat this large before. It was a large sailboat with sleeping quarters and a whole bunch of levers, pulleys, and ropes that I would never understand. But it meant safety, for now at least. I turned the key and the motor surged to life.
I looked back towards the men, trying hard not to look at the swarm of undead stumbling down the hill from all directions. Judging from the noise alone, the ones I could see represented very little of the total number. The men had dropped their guns and were running towards the ship, waving their hands as if apologies still meant something in the middle of an apocalypse. The boat was about fifty yards out into the water when they reached the dock. I could see them looking back at the first wave of meat grinders who had finally made it to the bottom of the hill. They knew they had no choice. They jumped in and began swimming, choosing death by drowning over the alternative. I stopped the engine and let the boat coast for a while as I watched the first wave make it to the water. They didn’t even skip a beat. They just kept running, one after the other, splashing into the water and on top of the others that had splashed into the water before them. The coastline was soon littered with them, their mangled bodies blotting out the landscape beneath their feet. From the shoreline all the way up to the top of the hill, all you could see were bodies. And they just kept surging into the water to the point where the water level actually began to rise. Before long it was just wet decaying bodies falling on top of other wet decaying bodies. There were so many of them, the water no longer mattered. Another few minutes would turn the mass of bodies into a disturbing wall of death and decay. I had no plans on waiting around to witness it. I pulled out the slip of paper that Doc had given me before he had turned in the forest, the one with his daughter’s name and address on it. I looked it over hard and then turned to Mellie. “Ever been to the San Juan Islands, girl?” I was greeted with a confused turn of the head and hearty tail wag that seemed to say “I’m up for anything!” So with no other direction to head to, that’s exactly what we decided to do.
***
A week must have passed before we really knew what had happened. I had anchored the boat out in the middle of nowhere so we could both get some much needed rest and relaxation. It took us both a while to get our sea legs but the boat was well-stocked with everything we needed for the foreseeable future, which was admittedly only a few weeks. But even that felt like an eternity. And that was enough for me. We ate, we played, we ate some more, and most importantly, we rested our weary bodies. After a while I began to think that things on the mainland were so bad off, the military plans I had read on that laptop would never come to fruition. I began to make plans. I wanted to scavenge for food, maybe find a library where I could get some books about being a survivalist, even find an abandoned PetCo somewhere so I could spoil Mellie with every kind of toy and treat her little brain could comprehend.
Sleep became much easier to come by. Surprisingly I actually found myself relaxing. Enjoying the lapping sounds of water hitting the boat, throwing a pole in the water to see what I could catch (which was not much), even doing calisthenics on the boat as Mellie looked on in confusion. But mostly I slept with Mellie at my side, digging her nose into the recesses of my clothes in a constant search for warmth.
We were both sound to sleep when the first mushroom cloud turned night into day.
-The End-
***
I hope you enjoyed the first of what I hope to be many zombie books coming from my demented mind in the near future. I’m hard at work on the sequel now (I’m aiming for a Winter 2014 release) as well as a few short stories and other full projects (including a total Ghostbusters rip-off unsurprisingly called Zombiebusters as well as a zombie book in the world of G.I. Joe which has just been announced as a new Kindle Worlds franchise). But one thing you can be sure of: Every book released by G.D. Lang will be a zombie book. I didn’t jump on a bandwagon. I simply love zombies and I could write about them for the rest of my life. It’s a passion, plain and simple. I hope you’ll follow me as I continue to churn out new books for the foreseeable future. As always, a few moments of your time to review my book would be greatly appreciated.
I don’t have a website or mailing list just yet but if you would like to be notified of any of my upcoming releases, go to my Amazon author page and look to the right side of the screen where it says something like “Stay Up To Date” and click the link below that says “Email me when there are new releases by G.D. Lang”. If I ever get around to making a website, it will be announced on my Amazon author page. I’m not big on Facebook (nor will I ever be) and my wife has forbid me from having a Twitter account - something about a “lack of a social filter” or some nonsense - but I will do my best to connect with you in any way I can. This is all new to me and while the writing part comes easy, the marketing part still makes my head hurt. But I’ll get there, I promise.
Thank you for your support!
-G.D. Lang
Acknowledgements
To my mom:
You may not know it but from the moment I was born, I knew you were a force to be reckoned with. You imbued in me the kind of toughness that cannot be taught; only absorbed from watching you every day. You taught me to look adversity in the eye and promptly give it the middle finger. And maybe even spit in its face just to get the point across. I think it’s an Anderson thing. You’re the kind of woman who could take a knife to a gunfight and emerge victorious. Yet at the same time, you manage to have the biggest heart I have ever seen. I don’t know how you do it but I hope you never stop doing it.
To my da
d:
You instilled in me a unique sense of humor - equal parts cynical and cerebral - that naturally comes through in all of my writing. We have a different way of viewing the world and we don’t often share it with others. That, to me, is what makes it so special. Our connection goes beyond words. I suppose you could say it’s a Lang thing. No one has ever worked harder or longer to put food on the table and to make sure we never went without. But seriously, take a vacation once a while, will you?
I wouldn’t change a thing about either of you. Except maybe that pesky nicotine habit. Your unwavering support humbles me. Thank you for always letting me be myself. I love you both so much.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Author’s Note
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Acknowledgements