by James Bierce
The kitchen looks like someone had simply walked away in the middle of cooking dinner, with moldy food still sitting inside the pots on the stove-top, and three empty dishes arranged around the small table in the middle of the room.
"Don't open the fridge." says Curtis.
"Why"
"Its probably full of rotten food. We'd never be able to get rid of the smell."
He touches the silverware, still aligned neatly on either side of the plates, then remembers the unlocked front door. For reasons they may never know, these people left in a hurry. A quick check of the cupboards only confirms that suspicion — they left all of the food behind.
"Go get your mom and brother, tell them its all clear."
With a fire roaring in the wood stove, and all the windows propped open to get rid of the stagnant air, the Lockwood family sits comfortably in front of the flames, waiting for their dinner of canned meat and vegetables to finish cooking. Sitting beside the pot of stew on top of the stove is also a mixture of apples, sugar and cinnamon — a rare dessert that they all have high hopes for.
"I'll be the first to say it, this is a lot more comfortable than the cabin." says Curtis.
Sarah smiles. "The cabin was only a slight improvement over the pickup — it doesn't take much."
"Are we gonna move here?" asks Matt.
"No, it lacks some essentials." answers his father.
"Like what?"
"Like water. The cabin has a hand-dug well, I'm sure this one doesn't."
"Don't some of the older houses?" asks Sarah.
"Yeah, they could, if they haven't filled them in already."
"Why would they fill them in?"
"Some of them collapsed on their own in the sand, and the rest were filled when they brought in city water."
Sarah stands up and lifts the lid on the pot, stirring the contents inside — then she looks around the room, noticing for the first time some photos hanging on the wall. "It feels odd."
"What does?" asks Curtis.
"This place was somebody's home just a couple of months ago. They were probably sitting here watching TV without a care in the world, having no idea that in just a few weeks they'd be dead, and that we'd be sitting in their living room eating their food."
The mood in the room turns sullen as the others consider the thought. Then Curtis speaks, his voice somber... "Well, tomorrow we'll be robbing them blind, imagine how they'd feel about that..."
After waking up before daybreak, Larry spends most of the early morning hours arguing with Jake over whether or not to steal another boat — and in the end they compromise and decide to only take the fuel from a few of the boats docked alongside of them. Despite its current condition, Larry doesn't want any other boat besides his own. He's grown accustomed to every quirk and trick that's proved necessary to keep it running. More importantly, he has experience with it on the ocean — although some might not call the inside passage from Alaska the ocean. Still, the waters off the Washington coast really weren't all that different, at least not until they got to the mouth of the Columbia River.
The four-hundred mile long stretch of water from Tillamook Bay, Oregon to the northern tip of Vancouver Island has been known as 'The Graveyard of the Pacific' since the early days of exploration along the western coast of North America — and for good reason. Through the years, thousands of ships and nearly as many lives have been lost to the sea in this region, most of them at the Columbia Bar, a sand spit that provides only a small window into the river beyond. The sand there shifts continuously and unpredictably beneath the water, manipulated by both the tidal forces of the ocean, and the seasonal flows of the river.
This wouldn't be Larry's first time crossing the bar, he's done it several times in the past. It will be his first time doing it with untrained crew members though. Even though he's spent much of the last few weeks preparing them for what they're about to take on, you never know how a person will react when faced with a life or death situation until it happens.
While Beth prepares everything below for the journey ahead of them, Jake and Larry untie the boat from the dock, then take a final look at the city — its streets now empty in the bright sunlight overhead.
"Its strange how they disappear in the daylight, isn't it?" asks Larry.
"Beth is half convinced they're vampires or something."
"I'm pretty sure vampires could figure out how to climb a fence."
Jake smiles at the thought, then points to an overturned school bus sitting right outside the marina fence. "Do you see that bus over there...?"
"Yeah."
"A week ago, Beth and I saw twenty-two of those things crawl out of it right after sunset. Every night since then, the exact same group comes out, minus one person."
"How many came out last night?"
"Fourteen."
"How can you tell they're the same people?"
"Its not hard, they never change their clothes. A couple of them aren't even wearing clothes."
Larry gives the dock a kick, pushing the boat away from the wooden deck and into the lane of the marina. He's overheard Jake and Beth talking about the people on the other side of the fence in the past, both of them coming up with theories about what's going on, each one more fantastic than the last.
He watched the crowds himself the first few nights they were here, desperate for what few answers existed — but as the days turned into weeks, his search for the truth became muddled with a need for blissful ignorance. Eventually he stopped paying attention all together.
"Well, I'm sure there will be others to watch down the road." he tells Jake, coiling the rope up and securing it on the deck.
Jake glances toward the cabin, where he can see Beth organizing things in the front berth — then he leans down, speaking in a low voice that he hopes Beth can't hear. "I've been meaning to talk to you about something..."
"Yeah, what is it?" Larry replies in full voice.
"I was wondering if we could make a stop in Dungeness Bay."
"Why?"
"There's a police station there, I know the layout pretty well."
Larry stands up, looking at Jake suspiciously. "So?"
"You guys gave Sean most of our ammunition back in Port Townsend. I'd feel a lot better if we could stock up again."
This time Larry is the one whispering. " That doesn't sound the least bit crazy to you?"
"I know it sounds..."
"Yeah, it does... What if those things are inside?"
"We could watch it for a while... make sure nobody is there..."
"Its not gonna happen. There's no marina at Dungeness, just a shallow boat launch."
"So you're saying there's no possible way to get there?"
"No, I'm saying there's no good reason to risk it."
"Thirty-four."
"Thirty-four what?
"That's how many bullets we have left. Is that enough of a reason?"
The small town of Dungeness is only a few miles north of Sequim, protected from the rough waters of the Straight by one of the longest natural sand spits in the world. In some respects it seems like an ideal place to lay low for a while. Calm waters, small businesses and houses nearby to scavenge, an open view of the Straight to the north — and of course, a police station that at one time was the training center for all of the officers on the peninsula. It was perfect, except for one small detail... it has no seaport, not even a dock.
Larry is keeping a close eye on his depth finder as he guides his boat through the narrow inlet and into Dungeness Bay. Silt and sand cover much of the shallow bottom, forcing him to stick to man-made channels that are slowly filling in with every change of the tide.
"That's the station over there." says Jake, who's standing next to Larry, and pointing to a large, white concrete building near the bay.
Larry nods his head, then turns the boat toward a paved launch that's only a short distance from the station. The building sits by itself near the beginning of the sand spit,
surrounded by nothing but tall grass and sand — and a couple of police cars in the parking lot. The rest of the town is a few blocks to the east. Everything seems quiet and deserted, with no sign of human activity in sight.
"How close can you get us?" asks Jake.
"Not very, you'll have to swim part of the way. Are you sure you wanna do this?"
"We need the ammo, and whatever else they might have."
"What if those people are in there? There isn't much for cover around here."
Larry was right, the only trees visible were far off in the distance, leaving both the station and the town exposed for everyone to see. The only plant life in the area is tall grass and short shrubs.
"If they are, I'll deal with them."
Larry pulls the throttle back, letting the boat slowly come to a stop about a hundred feet from the launch. He turns around just as Jake starts making his way down the ladder to the deck below.
"When you say 'deal with them', you mean kill them, right?" asks Larry.
"Is that a problem?"
"There doesn't appear to be a lot of people around anymore, I'd just hate to see anything happen to the few that are still with us."
"Yeah, well, I'll do my best not to kill anyone."
After watching Jake and his sister swim toward the boat launch near the police station, Larry sits down in the pilothouse and watches both the station and the town through binoculars for any signs of life. They all agreed that if he saw anything at either location, they would call off the mission and move on ahead to Neah Bay. Besides a couple of small fires burning on the outskirts of town though, everything else seems to be quiet. For reasons they've yet to figure out, fires seem to be a common occurrence in the communities they've come across so far — even when the area is seemingly abandoned.
As the soft, sandy bottom of the bay changes to concrete under their feet, Jake knows that he and his wife have finally reached the boat launch. Just up ahead is their destination, a large, spread out single-story block building with over-sized windows along the entire wall facing the Straight — many of which are cracked or shattered. Jake is already beginning to wonder whether or not this was a good idea.
As soon as they step out of the water and onto the gravel roadway that leads away from the launch, they both stop in their tracks when they smell something foul in the air.
"Jake..." Beth whispers, pointing to the marshy edge of the bay just to their right. Sticking out of the water, only a few feet off shore, are at least a dozen human bodies — none of them recently deceased.
Jake stops for a moment to take in the scene, then continues on without saying anything until the gravel under his feet turns dry, then he unzips a duffel bag he's been carrying and examines the contents. There's only four items inside — a bottle of water, a box of gallon-sized sealable kitchen bags, and two .40 caliber semi-auto pistols that have been sealed in two of the bags. He grabs both guns, closes the duffel bag again, then hands one of the guns to Beth.
"Be careful, there's only a few rounds in each one."
"You still want to do this?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Someone dumped these bodies here... Whoever did it could still be around."
"I doubt it. Look at 'em, they look like they've been here for weeks."
Looking closely, Beth can see that he's right. Most of the bodies have little to no flesh left, and those that do are so deteriorated that its impossible to tell if they're even a man or a woman.
"Still, we can't assume anything..."
"We also can't assume that these people didn't have it coming." he says, pointing to the bodies. "Besides, they could have washed up from anywhere."
Jake picks the bag up and begins walking up the road, his eyes fixed on the station just ahead of them. Beth's attention, however, is on the small community of Dungeness to their right. The houses, shops and farms that occupy the area are fairly spread out, separated by rolling pastures and gardens that still look somewhat managed. She can see a few cows grazing on top of a hill in the distance, and a horse standing in the front yard of a large house only a few blocks away. The only things missing are people, which at the moment is a huge relief to both Beth and her husband.
"Is it me, or is Larry acting a bit odd lately?" Beth asks Jake, as both of them climb the road away from the launch.
"Larry always acts odd."
"No, I mean more so than usual... He never wants to talk about what's going on."
"We're in the apocalypse, I think we've all earned the right to act a little strange."
"This is different, its not healthy."
"Let's just focus on the task at hand. We can figure out your brother after we're done."
She shakes her head, wondering why she expected to have a decent conversation with her husband. As much as she loves him, he's always had an annoying habit of ignoring uncomfortable conversations — an attribute that doesn't seem all that useful given their current situation.
They finally reach the top of the rise where the gravel surface flattens out and turns to pavement. As exhausted as they are, the view from this spot stops both of them in their tracks. In front of them are lush green meadows and golden wheat fields spreading for miles around, interspersed with mostly older Victorian-era homes surrounded by small orchards and gardens. In the background, only a few miles away, the sun is shining brightly on the snow-capped Olympic mountains that rise up seemingly out of nowhere.
After taking in the view for a minute, neither of them saying a word about their surroundings, Beth notices a nearby farmhouse that sits across the road from the police station. Its front door and windows on the ground floor are boarded up.
"That house over there is all closed in. I wonder if there's still people around here...?"
Jake starts walking again, his eyes focused on the farmhouse. "They're pretty isolated, maybe it hasn't reached them yet."
"Wanna check it out?"
"No, I doubt they're in the mood for company."
She looks over at the empty streets of Dungeness. There's something surreal and eerie about the town, about the way it looks. The other areas they've come across have looked abandoned, or worse. Some, like Sequim, look war-torn and defeated, with homes and buildings burned to the ground or severely damaged by the large crowds of people roaming the streets at night. Dungeness is different though, its streets are more or less clean, and its buildings all look to be in one piece. Even the lawns and flowerbeds in front of the houses look well cared for. Normalcy though, or even the appearance of it, is something to be suspicious of these days.
"Do you ever wonder what things will be like from now on?" asks Jake.
"You mean after this is all over?"
"I don't think its ever going to be over. I think this is it."
She stops, looking at him as if she feels sorry for him. "You don't really believe that, do you? That everything is gone?"
"The fact that the GPS wasn't working on the boat isn't exactly a good sign — or the lack of any radio signals for that matter."
They continue once again, glancing back and forth between the farmhouse and the station — and occasionally back at the bay where Larry's boat is still waiting for them to return. As they turn off the road and start down the driveway to the station, Beth turns her head and takes a look back at the house again, this time seeing movement in one of the second story windows.
"I just saw something move in that house..."
"What did you see?"
"The second story window, all the way to the right, the curtains just moved."
He watches for a minute, but sees nothing. "It was probably just the wind, maybe the window is open."
"No, it looked like someone shut it."
They watch for a few minutes longer, but neither of them see any other movement. The house looks dark and empty, but he notices an extension ladder resting on the porch roof, accessible only from the second floor. Whoever is in the house has apparently been coming and going.
"Come on, lets check out the station."
Beth follows Jake to the entrance of the station, but continues to keep an eye on the house behind them. She can't shake the feeling that someone is watching them.
When they reach the double glass doors at the front of the police station, Jake pauses once he realizes the doors are unlocked. 'Could the station still be open?'. As he looks through the partially shaded glass at the front desk and waiting area beyond, however, he can clearly see that the place has been ransacked. File cabinets, tables, chairs and virtually everything else has been tossed around the room in front of him. Almost the entire floor has been covered with scattered papers and garbage.
"Looks like someone beat us to it." whispers Jake.
"Should we head back?"
"No, they might have missed something. We might as well check it out while we're here."
With his gun held firmly in one hand and his flashlight in the other, he slowly pushes the door open and steps inside, his wife following right behind him. They make their way to the left past the waiting area and into a large room filled with desks and cubicles, all of which are in the same disarray. The main aisle runs along the edge of the room and leads to a hallway in the back. Rows of desks, a dozen in all, are off to the left, with a wall of windows beyond them looking out at the rolling meadows in the background. Nearly all of the windows are broken, just like the wall looking out at the water on the other side of the building. The only sound they can hear is from the wind whistling through the broken panes of glass.
As they walk down the aisle, both of them looking closely at the cluttered desks beside them for anything useful, Beth looks up and notices something written on the wall just before the hallway. The message is scrawled in huge red letters, reading... "THEYR COMING".