The group seemed to think it was an acceptable idea.
“No way,” David said. “This is my boat. My home. I will not abandon her. If you all want to take your chances, go right ahead.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Daniel said.
“Hey,” Ike said. “Have you ever owned a boat?”
Daniel shook his head, no.
“Then don’t talk like that. This is David’s boat and he pulled all our asses out of the fire. We do it his way.”
Nobody argued.
“I think he’s right about us all going though,” Shelly said. “We’re safer if we stay together.”
Ike and David shared a look, and then nodded.
“Okay,” Ike said. “Let’s get it on.”
They took whatever weapons they could find and Jill filled a backpack with bottles of water. They left Shibumi, heading for the road. David and Ike took the point while Juan and Daniel brought up the rear.
“We’re going to stay off the road and use whatever we can for cover,” Ike said. “Keep your mouths shut and your eyes open.”
Ambroz
Ambroz was trying to ignore the knocking on the door but it was steadily getting louder. He knew who it was but he didn't want to get up. The CD had ended hours ago and Ambroz couldn't even will his body to move to hit play again or put on another classic rock song.
"I know you're in there. Let me in before I get bitten," Cesar said from the other side of the door. "You know how long it took me to get off the roof?"
Ambroz closed his eyes and wanted nothing more than to sleep. He was tired and wiped out. He was depressed, too. What was the point?
"Seriously, they're getting closer. Open this door or I will kick it in and we'll both die. It's up to you, buddy. I'll bust open a hole in the door and the wall and whistle until they rip you apart. Jesus, man, help me out."
Ambroz knew Cesar well enough to know the man wasn't going to walk away. Once he had something in that thick head of his he would keep at it until Ambroz opened the damn door. "Fine, fine… just shut up already."
Cesar knocked again harder.
Ambroz stood and stretched. He'd been in a vegetative state for too long and his back was tight. "I'm coming." He opened the door and Cesar pushed his way inside.
"What took you so long?" Cesar demanded.
"I was in the shower," Ambroz said dryly before heading back to his spot on the couch. "Lock the door."
Cesar sat down on the chair next to Ambroz. "What's wrong with you?"
"Oh, nothing much. My restaurant is a mess, everyone I know is either dead or undead, and there's no way out of this place alive. I don't want to be a zombie. I just want to go back to the way things were. Besides all of those things, I'm tired. I need a nap."
Cesar stood. "No way, buddy. We are survivors. We can get through this. We've known each other a long time. Maybe the zombies will get bored and move on and find other people to eat. We can rebuild, and get Europa back to its former glory. When the zombie apocalypse is over, people will need nice places to eat at. You'll be the only one in town."
"With no food or drink? You make no sense." Ambroz put his arm over his face and snuggled into the cushions. "Wake me when it's over."
Cesar leaned over Ambroz. "Get up, we need to keep moving."
"I don't. I need to sleep."
"The boat is coming back for us," Cesar said. "I watched them turn back. If we hurry, we can make it to the dock and escape."
"They sailed away. They are gone. They all left us here to die," Ambroz said and tried to roll over and get more comfortable. "If you want to run out there and die, have a good time."
"Stop with the whining and the crying. We need to move," Cesar said but Ambroz wasn't about to budge.
"Can you put on Led Zeppelin for me? Anything but Coda." Ambroz wanted to disappear into the music and fall asleep to dream of the good old days, when people wanted to eat food in Europa and not each other.
"No. We need to go," Cesar said.
"You're not going to stop, are you?"
Cesar smiled. "Have I ever? Right now they could be at the dock waiting for us."
"If they are, they're as screwed as we are, because I guarantee there are hundreds of zombies between here and there. Am I right?"
Cesar looked away. "I think we can get past them. We need to try."
"I need a drink. I'm positive I hid some wine around here," Ambroz said. "Find two glasses and the bottle of red. We'll get drunk and listen to great music before we die."
"I don't want to die and neither do you," Cesar said. "Don't force me to drag you off the couch. I may be smaller than you but I think I can take you."
Ambroz laughed. "I seriously doubt it."
Cesar put his hands up in an exaggerated fighting stance. "I'll go a few rounds with you if I have to. I'm not scared of you, crybaby."
"You should be," Ambroz said and stood. Now he was getting angry. "Sit down and shut up."
"You can try to make me, but I'm sure you'll quit doing it like you quit on everything else. You're nothing but a quitter, Ambroz."
"I'm going to warn you one last time. Sit back down on the chair after you put on another CD," Ambroz said. He knew what Cesar was trying to do and it was working, which made Ambroz madder. "Last chance."
"Again… you can try to make me, but I don't think you can."
"That's it. I'm going to kick your ass. After I'm done with you, you'll wish the zombies had gotten hold of you," Ambroz said. He put his hands up and prepared to kick Cesar's ass.
The knock at the door startled both of them.
"Who is it?" Cesar asked.
They heard a gruff voice on the other side of the door. "Sorry to break up your love-fest in there, but can I borrow some sugar?"
David
“You gonna be okay?” David asked Ike.
Ike took his eyes from the horizon and looked at David.
“Don’t have many choices,” he said.
“Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Nope.”
They continued on in silence, off the road, but not too close to the tree line either. From the back of the pack, Juan complained… “We walkin’ too slow.”
David turned to address the situation. Ike stopped him. “I got this,” he said.
David nodded.
Ike fell out of line and let the group pass him. At the back of the pack, he fell into step next to Juan.
“Problem?” he asked.
“Yeah, mon,” Juan said with a nervous glance over his shoulder. “Why we got to walk dis slow?”
“First of all, it’s 90 degrees out, there’s no need to kill ourselves in this heat. Second, we’ll all live a lot longer if we’re careful.”
Juan opened his mouth to speak, but Ike cut him off, pointing a finger at him.
“We’ll also live longer if we’re quiet…especially you.”
After seeing the acceptance in Juan’s eyes, Ike returned to the front of the line.
“That guy…” he started to say to David.
“Shhh,” David said, stopping in his tracks and dropping to one knee.
Ike followed suit, motioning to the rest of the group. Darlene low-walked to Ike’s side.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Thought I saw something moving at the bridge ahead,” David said.
“Great, another fucking bridge,” Darlene said.
“We don’t have to cross this one,” David said. “The marina is under it, on this side, but I thought I saw…”
A scream from the rear interrupted his thought.
They turned to see the Juan struggling against two zombies. Angela screamed again and Shelly led her away by the arm as Juan’s screams died off.
The two zombies looked up from their trophy toward the group.
“Here we go folks,” John said as he fired an arrow into the throat of one of them.
The other zombie moved toward Amanda. It grabbed her arm before she could get aw
ay and Daniel leapt at it. Daniel and the zombie rolled to the ground and Angela took shelter behind Shelly. She screamed as the zombie sank its teeth into her husband’s face.
“Across the street, everybody,” David yelled.
Shelly, Angela and Amanda stood to run. Angela stumbled slightly and Shelly hoisted her by the arm. Amanda plowed into Shelly’s back and fell to the ground.
“Get up, Amanda,” Shelly called over her shoulder as she dragged Angela across the street.
From twenty feet away, Brewski saw the zombie shuffling toward Amanda, just two or three paces away. By the time he ran over and obliterated the zombie’s head with a five-iron, Amanda had already been bitten several times.
“Son of a bitch,” he said as he swung the golf club at her head.
In the brief instant before the head of the club made contact with Amanda’s skull, she looked at him with un-human eyes and let out a low growl. A second later most of her brain was splattered all over the grass. Brewski ran to the rest of the group.
“That didn’t end well for her,” he said to Ike.
David looked ahead toward the marina, then back in the direction from which they had come.
“We’re about halfway to the marina,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”
“Press on, McDuff,” Ike said.
“Nice,” David said with a grin. “I didn’t have you pegged as the literary type.”
“I’ve read a couple of books,” Ike said. “Brewski, I want you bringing up the rear,” he added
“Copy that.”
They resumed their journey toward the marina, David leading the way, Ike two paces behind to his right…Brewski and John at the back and the five women – Darlene, Jill, Shelly, Marybeth, Angela – in the middle. All eyes diligently scanning for undead.
When they reached the base of a bridge, they stopped and knelt behind a large barrel-palm.
“Okay,” David said. “We get across the street and it’s about a hundred yards through open parking lot to the marina.”
“Great,” Ike said. “Can you run?” he asked Angela, looking at her swollen belly.
The pregnant woman looked to Shelly for assurance.
“You hold my hand,” Shelly said. “Yes,” she said to Ike, “she’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” Ike said. “Weapon check.”
Brewski held up his golf club, John showed his crossbow and Darlene brandished an iron rod she had taken from Shibumi.
“I got my machete,” David said. “Hasn’t let me down yet.”
Ike checked his .45. “Full clip and this,” he said holding up a long-handled sledge hammer.
“I have this,” Jill said, holding up a rolling pin.
The other 3 women were weaponless.
“You three stay close to us,” Ike ordered. “Let’s do it in the road.”
Ike stood and trotted to the middle of the road. After checking for unwanted visitors, he signaled to David to bring the group. They walked across the street and followed the entrance to the marina down a slight incline. There was nothing between them and the marina but a vast expanse of asphalt and a few light poles.
“We may be exposed, but at least we’ll see them coming too,” Ike said.
They trotted across the lot to the marina. When they reached the main building, they stopped at the corner.
“Take a look,” Ike said to David. “See anything we can use?”
David scanned the marina and pointed at a sailboat at the far end.
“There’s a Mariner Sloop down there. It looks like it might work,” he said. “It’s the white one next to the blue cabin cruiser.”
“Of course it has to be the furthest one away,” Shelly said.
“We’ve come this far,” David said, “another couple-hundred yards won’t kill us.”
“Let’s hope not,” Marybeth said.
When they stepped onto the deck of the sloop, Marybeth gasped.
“What happened here?” she said.
“Same thing that’s been happening everywhere,” Ike said as he pushed a bloody corpse of an elderly man overboard.
“At least we know they’ve already been here,” Ike said. “David, check below for a patch kit, I’ll go up and get the shroud.”
“Sounds good to me,” David said.
“The rest of you hang lose and watch for visitors,” Ike said.
At the top of the mast the boats gentle rocking motion was more noticeable, but he didn’t mind it at all. Before going to work on the shroud, he took a minute to take in the view. He could see for miles in every direction. Looking back to the south, he saw the massive concrete bridge that crossed the Intracostal and beyond that the roof line of the European Village over the …the place they had fought to get into, and then fought to escape.
He looked at the carnage of dead and abandoned vehicles littering the bridge and cursed.
“Son of a bitch,” he said. “My fucking bike is gone.”
He disconnected the shroud and descended the mast. David came up from below with a small box in his hand. He was shaking his head.
“What’s wrong?” Ike asked.
“The body you pushed overboard,” he said. “Looks like his wife was sleeping below when the undead paid their visit. Probably never woke up.”
The group sighed collectively; Shelly bowed her head and did the sign of the cross.
“Do we have what we came for?” Shelly asked. “Can we go back and fix your boat now?”
“We should be good to go,” Ike said. “Now we just have to get back there alive.”
Tiki
Tiki grabbed Crista by the hand and they ran down the hallway and away from the slowly creeping death of zombies. At the other end of the hall they mounted the stairs and began their ascent, getting to the next landing without incident.
"Which way?" Tiki asked. "We could head back to the apartment or see if they're on this level yet."
"We need supplies, and very soon the entire apartments are going to be overrun. Then we'll have nothing. We'll end up starving," Crista said. "I say we make a run for the other side before it's too late."
"What about the apartment?"
"There's nothing there. We have no food and no real supplies anyway. I say we hurry up and stop talking about it so much."
"Yes, ma'am." Tiki slowly opened the door to the third level and peered down the hall. It was empty. "Let's go."
"After you," Crista said.
Tiki moved quickly but quietly down the hall, trying doors as he went. He knew the chance of an open one was almost impossible to find but worth a shot while they moved. When they got to the other end of the hall and to the door leading into the stairwell, he stopped and peered into the small window. There was a zombie directly on the other side of the door, facing away from him.
He put up one finger to Crista. In order to get to the catwalk, they'd need to get onto the stairwell and then they could cross.
Tiki gently opened the door, crack by crack, until he had it open wide enough to step out. He brandished a broken chair leg and stepped forward just as the zombie began to turn. Tiki drove the wood into the zombie's left eye socket, using both hands to shove it home.
The jagged piece slid right into the eye and into the brain, but the force of impact pushed the zombie into the rail and over. Tiki tried desperately to grab the zombie and keep it from falling but the chair leg slipped from his hand with all the gore running down it, and the zombie spun, heels kicking in the air as it disappeared into open air.
"Shit," Tiki muttered. He looked over just as the zombie crashed into the steps below, bounced once in a shatter of brown blood, and dropped another level.
Immediately zombies began shuffling up the steps below.
"Let's move," Crista said and opened the door to the catwalk.
They ran across, aware of the dozens and dozens of zombies below them in the courtyard. Tiki wondered if any of them were looking up and noticing them as they ran. And if it would send a surg
e of zombies at them, not that they had any room to get to Tiki and Crista.
Tiki opened the door on the other side of the catwalk and stopped short, Crista bumping into him. "Turn back slowly," he whispered.
The hall before them was packed with zombies.
Two of the closest undead looked right at them as Tiki closed the door, knowing he couldn't lock it and wondering if anywhere in European Village was safe now.
Shawn
Shawn bashed a zombie in the head with the shovel and kicked it down to the ground, where he finished it off. There were zombies all around them in the parking lot and it was all they could do to keep them at arm's length until Stew figured out which way they needed to go to safety.
Becky ran past him, swiping at a zombie with her shovel.
"Stay behind me before you get bitten," Shawn said to his wife. She was smaller than him and didn't have the range, having to get too close to a zombie before she could strike. One false move and she was gone. At least with his height, Shawn could hit them from a better distance.
"I'm fine," Becky said with a smile as she connected with a face with her shovel. "I'm getting the hang of this zombie killing now."
Shawn had to return her smile despite the danger all around them. She was like a playful kid, and he couldn't imagine being anywhere else right now except with her.
"Move this way," Stew shouted. "To the car."
Shawn drove through four zombies, keeping their teeth at bay with some sideswipes of the shovel. He wished he had a better weapon but it was better than nothing. He couldn't imagine fighting them hand to hand.
Becky was back at his side.
"Stay close to me," he said to her. "We're going to get out of here."
The couple made their way across the parking lot, swinging and keeping the zombies away. Bethany and Gerri were using the baseball bats to keep in the general direction of the car and clearing a path for Shawn and Becky.
Stew and Barbara were in the lead, Stew chopping off heads with the katana like it was nothing. Barbara, without a weapon, was yelping every time a zombie got near her.
Dying Days Ultimate Box Set 1 Page 42