Damage in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

“So,” he said, forcing a cheerfulness that he didn’t feel into his voice. “Eureka it is. We’ll hole up somewhere dry, get some rest, and they’ll both be right as rain in no time.”

  Skye leaned over and kissed him lightly. Her lips were soft and warm.

  “That’s the spirit,” she said. “This is just a quick detour. We’ll be back on track in no time.”

  A few hours later, Tessa said, “We’ll be fine. Just go—”

  Her attempt at reassurance was interrupted by a coughing fit. When she finally quit hacking, she spit over the rail and added, “Really.”

  The anxious, vertical line appeared between Skye’s eyebrows as she studied Tessa’s pale face. Doug felt his lips turn down, a reflection of what Skye’s lips were doing, too. Tessa was bundled in sweaters and jackets, a knit cap pulled over her head so low that her eyebrows were hidden. Her cheeks were scarlet, which combined with the many layers of outerwear made her look like a kid coming in from playing in the snow. She shivered, but the chill that caused her to bundle up had nothing to do with the weather.

  “If you need us for any reason, send up a flare,” Doug said.

  “I will,” Tessa said. Her pointy chin popped out from under the scarf she wore when she tipped her head toward the dock. “Now go, so I can sit back down. We’ll be fine.”

  Skye turned to Doug. “Ready?”

  Doug nodded, then stepped off the yacht onto the dock. He hated being forced to leave two sick people on their own.

  “Let’s make it as quick as we can,” Doug said as they started down the dock. “She ought to be in bed, not sitting topside.”

  Skye shaded her eyes with her hand as she walked. “At least it looks pretty clear. With any luck, it’ll stay that way.”

  The marina where they had moored, on the south side of Woodly Island near the confluence of the Humbolt and Arcata Bays, looked shabby, years of neglect having taken their toll. Remarkably, several boats along this dock—one a small sailboat, the others cabin cruisers—were still intact, though in need of serious maintenance. But far more had sunk. The tips of masts poked through the water’s surface at all angles along the empty slips, the shadowy outlines of the submerged vessels visible only at close range. Another dock, parallel to where they were moored, had twisted along its length before spiraling into the water. Its weathered and rotting support beams at the water’s edge were pretty much all that remained.

  Their hollow footsteps clunked against the weathered planks, the sound jarring in the silence, but this dock seemed sound enough.

  “D’ja think this has been maintained, given that the other has sunk?” Skye asked.

  “Maybe. Hard to tell how recently, though. It could be last week or a year ago. Or the other dock suffered damage this one didn’t.”

  They reached the end of the dock. A low building faced them, its fenced, outdoor patio a jumble of knocked over tables and broken umbrellas. A faded sign, Cafe Marina & Woodley's Bar, hung askew from the eave above the patio.

  “Must have been nice back in the day,” Doug said, picturing a bustling marina in the world before zombies. The tall rigging of pleasure craft would have been silhouetted by the sunsets. Tables of tourists getting pleasantly buzzed on the bar’s patio could have enjoyed the view. “Would have been a perfect place to take you on a date.”

  Skye grinned at him. She re-fastened her hair, tucking the silvery-blond ponytail into her jacket collar.

  “Maybe we can have a drink before we go.”

  A week and a day later, Mario and Tessa had improved to the point that Doug figured they could leave in a few days. After a cursory inspection of Woodley Island, he and Skye had decided to venture into Eureka proper. The island had the restaurant/bar, a lighthouse, a National Weather Service station, and not much else. It had meant a mile long trek into the town, longer than Doug would have liked, but they had at least managed to stay along the waterfront. They had a direct line of sight to the yacht and marina from the house they had chosen to shelter in at the end of Eureka’s I Street. After scrounging up a row boat they could make the trip across the water to the yacht, moored directly opposite them, in two minutes. Doug didn’t think they could have done better location-wise.

  He stretched his arms high over his head, groaning a little as he twisted onto his side inside his sleeping bag, and pulled at the zipper. The air in this bedroom of the little beach house was chilly; cool, but not enough to raise goosebumps. He smoothed his hair back as he pulled his long legs out and reached for his boots. Skye’s crumpled sleeping bag lay on the floor beside him. Doug had not realized how accustomed he had become to sleeping with Skye beside him until they needed to split the night watches between them. Neither Mario nor Tessa had been in any condition to do anything but rest and, Thank God, get well. Another day, maybe two, and they could get back on the water.

  Doug walked down the hallway, glancing through the bathroom’s open door as he passed by. Its walls and floor were padded with all the mattresses in the house, as well as several from the house next door. They had muffled the worst of Mario’s and Tessa’s coughing, even if it had been a little cramped. They had not encountered any zombies so far, but they had not ventured from the house except to retrieve items they needed from the yacht.

  He found Skye, Mario, and Tessa sitting at the kitchen table when he entered. The kitchen faced the bay, with lots of windows that gave it a nice view even on a day as overcast as this one appeared to be. Skye’s feet were propped on the lone empty chair. Skye looked up from the book she was reading.

  “Hey you,” she said, smiling.

  Mario and Tessa looked up from their game of cards. Both were much improved, and neither had been feverish for several days. Tessa had rebounded from the pneumonia more quickly than Mario had—he was still coughing—but they were both in better shape than when they had arrived here. The delay was annoying, but it had been the right call.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” Doug said, pecking Skye on the cheek. To Mario and Tessa he added, “How are you two feeling?”

  “Good,” they said in unison. Then Mario added, “We could leave today, I think.”

  “Nope,” Doug said, shaking his head. He rooted in the small bag of food on the bare kitchen counter, chose an apple, then nudged Skye’s feet from the empty chair to sit beside her. “Skye and I are going to see if we can find any meds today. Then we can talk about when to leave.” He bit into the apple, breaking its skin with a crisp snap.

  “We still have tons of meds. We don’t really need more,” Tessa said. “We should just get going.”

  Mario nodded but stayed silent. Doug hadn’t missed that Mario had left it to Tessa to argue for their departure the past two days.

  “Yeah, we do need more. Nice try,” Doug countered cheerfully. He squinted at Skye. “What are you reading?”

  She looked up from a fat, faded paperback that had either been well-loved in the days before zombies, or had not fared well in those since.

  “Little House on the Prairie. It’s as good as I remember from when I read it as a kid. And a lot more racist.”

  “They had different standards for what was considered broad-minded when those were written,” Doug said.

  Skye snorted, then resumed reading.

  “So,” he said to Mario and Tessa. “Think you can manage while Skye and I take a look around for a few hours?”

  Tessa nodded, while Mario mumbled something that almost sounded like an affirmative. They were all anxious to get underway again, but there was an urgency to Mario’s impatience that was different from that of his companions. The pinched expression, the tightness around his eyes and in his jaw, could not be put down to his illness. He rarely mentioned his brother Dominic, who had tried to kill not just Mario, but Miranda and Doug as well. Dominic’s plan had succeeded in killing good people at LO. People who had given them the benefit of the doubt when they had no reason to, who had helped them achieve their goal of developing the new vaccine for the zombie virus. Peopl
e who had become friends after giving them shelter and aid when they had needed it. Mario never mentioned his brother, who had rained down so much destruction on people Mario held dear, including the woman he loved, but Doug caught glimpses of the fury and heartache that his brother had inflicted. Usually when Mario was tired, and especially while he had been so ill. Combined with the rawness of his and Miranda’s breakup, Doug found himself worried for his friend, and helpless to ease his suffering.

  Doug pushed his worry aside and nudged Skye’s foot. She nudged his foot back, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth, her eyes never leaving the page as she read.

  “Leave once I’ve brushed my teeth?” he said.

  “Let me finish this chapter,” she said. “I’m just getting to a good part.”

  “It never stops being eerie.”

  Doug nodded. He knew exactly what Skye meant. Eureka was a ghost town. Lots of human skeletons, falling down buildings, and disintegrating roads relentlessly reabsorbed into the natural world, but so far, no zombies. They had seen foxes, bald eagles, a pack of wolves that had melted back into the trees, and even a fleeting glimpse of a mountain lion. Doug half-expected to cross paths with a Grizzly bear. Before the zombie apocalypse, they had been extinct from California for over a hundred years, their existence acknowledged only by their inclusion on California’s State Seal. Doug knew that Grizzlies had reclaimed their place in California, even though they were not the same subspecies native to California. He had never seen one himself. This far north, he reckoned his chances were higher. He hoped that when it happened, it would be at a very far distance.

  He said, “Should we keep going or call it quits?”

  “I don’t know,” Skye said, squinting up at the clear sky, then back to him. “We’ve been gone a good three hours, and we lucked out at the hospital.”

  “Yeah,” Doug said. “That was weird, there being meds after all this time.”

  “Don’t look a gift horse and all that,” Skye answered. “We haven’t seen a single zombie and none of the animals we’ve seen have seemed spooked by anything but us. There’s no reason to stop.”

  “Except not pressing our luck.”

  She smiled at him, the make-his-heart-flutter-in-his-chest smile. “You love pressing your luck.”

  Doug shrugged, unable to refute it, but also knowing that this truth didn’t fit him quite as well as when they had met. He had loved to push the envelope, to balance on the edge of what was prudent and what was foolhardy, even dangerous, for as long as he could remember. He still did. But he didn’t enjoy it with the same abandon as before, when it had been just him.

  Skye could handle herself. No one survived this long who couldn’t. And they were good together beyond the protective walls that sheltered what was left of the human race. Not like he and Miranda, who were almost one organism after the years they had spent partnering on missions and patrols, but that would come in time. He could tell already. They anticipated one another’s moves, noticed what the other overlooked, instinctively understood when the risk was worth it and when it wasn’t.

  But the idea of returning to the world before Skye, to a life that had felt so full until—abruptly—it hadn’t, that had become gray and flat until she breathed life into it with her laugh and resilience and the way she moved, tempered the thrill. He didn’t know how to tell her this, didn’t have the language to parse this feeling of temperance, to distinguish it from hovering or lack of confidence in her capabilities. Maybe one day he would, but not today. Today he had to live with the emotional dissonance and trust in them both. He had to take that leap of faith.

  “You know me too well,” he said. “Let’s give it another hour and head back.”

  They continued south, continually scanning the wide, flat street, buildings, and parking lots. After a few minutes, Skye stopped in front of what had once been a charming, green cottage turned dentist’s office. Now it was now a ruin.

  “Maybe we should go back,” she said. “It’s just going to be more of the same, and you’re right. We’ve already found a lo—”

  Doug’s mind raced as he tried to identify the threat that had caused her to stop speaking mid-word. His heart jumped into this throat for a moment when he didn’t see her before he realized she had crouched down. It looked like she was pretending to tie her bootlace.

  “What is it?” he said, keeping his voice low.

  Never raising her eyes she said, “Don’t look or I think he’ll bolt.”

  “What? Who will bolt?”

  “The kid on that balcony.”

  Doug felt his eyes go wide but stayed still. “Where?”

  “The building on the other corner behind you, same side as this one.” She pointed to the green cottage, the movement of her arm casual, then looked up at him. “Gray, with blue gutters. Looks like apartments on the second floor.”

  Irrationally, Doug felt eyes on the back of his neck when the moment before he had not. “What the hell is a kid doing out here?”

  Skye shifted onto her other knee and raised her foot that had been tucked behind her. She began to re-tie the shoelace on this boot, too.

  “Doesn’t look well cared for.”

  “Feral?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Doug held his hand out to her. “Kiss me. We’ll hold hands and keep walking so he won’t figure out that we’ve seen him.”

  Skye took his hand, a grin splitting her face as he helped her up and pulled her to him. He could feel her distraction in the tilt of her head, the angle not quite right since she was trying to peek over his shoulder. When they parted, she kept hold of his hand.

  He kept his gaze straight as they continued down the road but held his head a little higher. The building Skye had described was so near that Doug could reach it in seconds. Darkness framed by the jagged edges of dirty, broken plate glass windows lined the building’s lower story. Rusting cars were parked, bumpers touching, parallel to the building’s edifice to block the ground floor entrances. In the periphery of his vision Doug saw the balcony, which ran the length of the long building. Tucked in the corner at the near end, the top of the boy’s head peeked over the handrail, the rest of him hidden behind the solid wall of the balcony. The boy’s brown hair looked matted and ratty, his face covered in dirt. Even though he only caught a glimpse, Doug thought the kid looked too thin.

  “What about that blue building down there?” Skye said, her voice raised. She pointed to a building farther down the road. “That pharmacy.”

  “Okay,” Doug said.

  It really was a pharmacy, one that looked half burned down. Between the pharmacy and the building where the boy was hiding was a large parking lot.

  Dropping his voice again, he said to Skye, “The balcony stairs are on the end, by the parking lot between the buildings. Dash over when we reach them?”

  “We could,” she began. After a moment’s pause she continued. “Yeah. If he’s following us, he’ll see. Might as well make it fast.”

  As they neared the balcony stairs, a door slammed. They looked at one another for a second, then dashed for the stairs. Skye pulled ahead, both of them knowing by unspoken agreement that a woman might be perceived as less threatening. Doug took the steps three at a time. He turned onto the balcony a few seconds behind Skye, in time to see her tumble through the first door as her shoulder rammed it. By the time he crossed the threshold, a low moan came from the back of the apartment.

  So much for no zombies, Doug thought.

  Less than a minute later when Skye returned to the main room, wiping her gore-spattered machete on her pants, Doug had finished searching the rest of the small apartment. Doug hadn’t examined the balcony before, wanting to be there to back up Skye. He did so as they hurried from the apartment and groaned with frustration; every door was closed. They would have to take them one by one. Even though Skye repelled zombies, it was smarter to stay together.

  “We should stay together.”

  “We
don’t have time,” Skye said, already running to the next apartment. “We spooked him.”

  Doug entered the third apartment while Skye went into the second. He checked every room as quickly as he could: kitchen, living/dining, two small bedrooms, bathroom, closets, and cupboards, but no boy.

  “We’re going to lose him,” Skye said as they hurried to the next apartments, desperation creeping into her voice.

  A muffled whimper stopped Doug in his tracks. Skye whirled around to face him.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked, only mouthing the words.

  Another whimper, louder, and more distressed than the last. They crept down the balcony. As they reached the second to last apartment, a loud groan was followed by a body slamming against the closed door. Definitely a zombie there. They approached the last door, the zombie in the apartment next door now moaning and snarling as it thrashed and pounded. Underneath the noise made by the zombie, Doug could hear whimpers, now louder and more distressed.

  Skye looked over to him, eyes excited. He nodded and she turned the knob.

  The door didn’t open. From its other side came an anguished cry.

  “Bunbun!”

  Doug kicked the door open. Two voices, one crying, were coming from one of the bedrooms. They raced to the back of the apartment. Doug reached a bedroom door just as two small hands let go of the windowsill.

  “Wait!” Skye cried.

  At the window they could see that a lower roof extended from the back of the building about eight feet below the window. Two small figures ran across it, the larger of the two pulling the smaller, howling figure along.

  “I’ve got this,” Skye said, already halfway out the window. “Go around!”

  Before Doug could answer, Skye had disappeared. Racing from the apartment, he sprinted down the balcony. He leaped down the staircase in five soaring strides that left him stumbling on the uneven concrete walk. The tactical soles of his boots found purchase as he sprinted alongside the building’s short end. As he skidded around the corner, he heard shouts ahead. A burst of adrenalized energy propelled him forward.