“Ready?” he asked everyone.
Chris ignites the flamethrower and holds it in place while everyone lifts their guns and weapons. It was time to fight their way through the zombies.
Sam knocks on the door to talk to Dylan, but he didn’t answer. Sam grabs the doorknob and sighs, opening it to discover Dylan sitting in the corner of the room looking down, crying. The little bed inside covered most of his body, but he was still visible in that dark corner. Sam walked in quietly and closed the door.
“Dylan,” Sam said, “I wanted to talk to you, but we were on the island and I wasn’t-”
“Let me guess? Thinking? Too busy not caring what happened to Sarah?” Dylan stood up and looked at him.
“That’s not fair!” Sam argued.
“The hell it isn’t! She’s dead and you’re acting like nothing happened. Going around smiling and shit like everything’s fine!”
“I know everything’s not fine! You think I don’t know that?”
“Not by how you were acting afterward. Finding a girlfriend!”
“Jess suffered as much as I did. Losing someone you care about! She lost Julie, you know, the girl that I flirted with on the ship. I watched her die in front of me while Jess killed her. You probably haven’t been through much being on that island, but I have! Sarah too. What happened to her is nobody’s fault and I didn’t mourn her death because it wasn’t the time nor place to do so. Being on that island has damaged all of us, but we made it,” Sam’s eyes start to water, “For Sarah, for Julie, and for every other innocent life that was lost. You don’t think I miss her! She was my best friend like you. Losing her broke me inside more than I show, but I couldn’t have that on my mind while I was on the island. So, forgive me if I wasn’t being as emotional and broken as you are!”
“That’s not it. I just wanted to hear your feelings toward the situation before I go. I wanted to know you cared.”
“Go?”
Dylan pulls out a gun from his back pocket and holds it in his hand.
“What are you doing?” Sam yelled.
“Something I have to do.”
“You don’t have to do this Dylan. Come on, think about this.”
“It’s not for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Dylan rolls back his shirt and showed Sam the bite mark on his shoulder, “I’m not going to make it, Sam.”
This strikes a hard emotion on Sam as he tries to tell him to calm down, but he froze and stared at Dylan.
“Dylan…don’t do this.”
“It’s okay.”
“You can still make it. We’re on our way home. You can be treated.”
“You can’t treat this Sam. Let me do this. I can finally be with her now.”
“Please…” Sam sobs.
“In the head, right?”
Dylan puts the gun to his head, but Sam runs to snatch the gun away from him. The sound of the gunfire echoed throughout the whole boat and startled Jess and the others.
“Sam!” Jess yelled as she headed towards the door. Jess opens the door and gasps at the scene. There was blood scattered all over the wall with little traces of brain everywhere. Dylan’s body laid there with a hole on the side of his head filled with blood. Jess looks to the side and noticed Sam wrapped in a corner crying. She tries to help him up, but he didn’t have the strength to do so. Faith, David, and Trace came inside, but Faith quickly ran out when she saw the body and Trace walked behind her. David looks at Dylan’s body and saw the bite on his shoulder.
“He was bitten,” he pointed.
Jess looks at the bite mark and looked back at Sam to get him to get out of the room. David grabs the sheet from the bed and hovers it over Dylan while Jess finally manages to get Sam up and they proceeded out of the door. As they walked out of the room, Trace grabs the gun and stands up,
“Goodbye Dylan,” he whispered.
During the night, Michael had stopped the boat in the middle of the ocean and they all surrounded Dylan’s body wrapped around in the sheet as they stood quietly near the side of the boat. Jess is holding on to Sam as he cries softly while Trace and Michael pick up the body and tosses it into the water. Sam flinched when he heard the body hit the water and splash everywhere. Another life was gone. Another friend.
“He didn’t want to turn. He took the straightforward way out. When did he even get bit?” Michael asked.
“The zombie attacked him before we got back on the boat,” Sam replied.
“Well, that’s the last death. I promise you all.” Michael said.
“You can’t promise that.” Faith mentions.
“If we all stick together, sure I can.”
David stands behind Sam and pats him on the shoulder, “Sorry man.”
Everyone walks away, but Jess stays with him as he grieved for his friend. However, he was not only grieving for Dylan, but for Sarah too. He had lost both of his best friends and this affected him in a way he can’t even understand. This was the moment of grief for him. He was no longer on the island. He was somewhere safe now.
“I’m never letting anything happen to you,” he said to Jess, “Never.”
“Me too.” She says as she hugs him.
Michael cranks the boat back up and they continued their way back to New York. David pulls Faith and Trace to the side.
“Hey, I need a favor from the both of you.”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Faith says.
“I need you to watch Sam. I say that because…he lost both of his friends. That’s going to be hard on him.”
“Okay. We got it.” Trace replies.
David nods his head and walks to the back of the boat. Trace sighs and rubs his eyes.
“This is too much.”
“Everything is too much. Since we’ve gotten here, it’s been too much.” Faith replies.
“Yeah. I’m just ready to go home.”
“Same here.”
“Well…good night.”
“Night.”
Trace walks away while Faith watches Sam and Jess on the end of the boat. Faith felt bad for him, but she’s been through enough to know that they will get through it. At least that’s what she thought.
That same day, Bill opens the door and zombies ran up to them, but Chris sprays them with the flamethrower, which gives the others an advantage to run around the building.
“Go! Now!” Bill yelled as he starts shooting the zombies around them.
Zombies came running at them, but the people were fighting back. They shot the zombies, but more of them kept coming from every angle. One man wandered away from the group, but many zombies surrounded him. They bit him on the neck and chest, but one zombie started eating off his face. He screamed in pain, but his scream was covered by the zombies who feasted on his body. Two other people, a man and a woman, also trapped themselves in the horde and the zombies devoured both of them. Chris starts to run out of fuel and pulls out his pistol to kill the zombies. Alex and Tina keep close to Bill as he keeps the lead in the front. The group managed to keep them away, but they kept coming. They were running and shouting at them as they all fall one by one. Chris starts to lag and zombies started to get too close to him, but Alex saves him with his machete. He impaled the zombie on top of its head and slid the machete out of the head.
“Come on!” Alex shouted.
Chris pulls out his knife and starts stabbing the zombies away from him. The group manages to keep going at a steady pace, but in the center of the group, one of the men runs out of ammo and looks around for a weapon.
“I need help!” he yells.
He moved away from the zombies, but one grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the group. It starts eating him, which allows more zombies to pour in the center of the group. Person by person, they started the flesh-eating zombies consumed them, which causes Alex, Chris, and others to be separated from the rest of the group. Most of the zombies were focusing on the dead bodies, so Alex runs away from the horde and
attacks the other zombies. The other survivors followed behind him as he and Chris cleared a way for them to go. Once the area was clear, they ran to the old abandoned warehouse and killed any zombie that ran in front of them. Chris tries to open the door while Alex and the others fought the zombies off.
“Hurry up!” Alex tells.
“I'm trying. This fucking door won’t open!”
Chris finally opened the door, rushed everyone in, and slammed the door.
“Everyone alright?” Alex yelled.
“No!” Chris replied.
Bill and Tina continued running through the horde, killing each one with massive hits to head and gunshots forcing themselves through the zombies’ brains. Three other survivors were behind them keeping the zombies away from them while Bill ran to a nearby store. Bill ran up to the door, but the front door was jammed.
“Dammit!” he yelled.
Bill and the others ran around the store and proceeded to the back door. The zombies were coming in close, so Tina and the other survivors fought them off while Bill got the door opened.
“Get in!” he alerted them.
They ran into the store and slammed the door shut, but the zombies started hitting the door, putting a dent in it. Bill looked around for a way to block the door, but there was nothing to block the door. Bill looked around for another way to block them from getting in.
“Quick, look for a way to get to the roof!” he demanded.
Everyone walked around the store looking for a way out, but they had to move quickly. The zombies were destroying the door by the second. One of the survivors found a way to the roof, through an opening that appeared on the ceiling.
“Hey, I found a way out!” he yelled.
Bill and the others ran to him and looked, but Bill took command, “Okay, you go first!” he pointed at the two women. He picked up the radio and turned it on.
“Chris, are you there? Shit!”
He turns off the radio and puts it back in his pocket. Tina looked around and found an ax under one of the desks. She ran up to the ax and picked it up.
“Come on Tina!” one of the women yelled.
“I’m coming!”
He and the other man helped the two women up to the roof and they looked down to help Tina get up there. The zombies burst the door halfway open and Bill rushed the man up on the roof, but Tina and the other two women had trouble lifting him.
“You’re heavy!” Tina says.
“Pull!” Bill grunted.
They finally managed to get the man on the roof, but by then, the zombies had already burst through the door and headed their way for Bill.
“Oh shit!”
Bill jumped and caught the man’s hand while Tina and the others grabbed on too, but one of the zombies were able to bite Bill’s leg, tearing a piece of his flesh off. Bill screamed with pain as they dragged him on the roof and the two women cried with terror while Tina and the man just stared at him. The zombies below them were reaching out to them, but they couldn’t do anything.
“What do we do?” one man asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Cut it off!” Bill yelled.
“What?” Tina yelled.
“Just do it!”
Everyone started yelling at one another and Tina zoned out from everyone and everything. She gripped her ax and thought about what should happen. She looked at Bill and the others and watched them argue. Bill looked at her yelling, but she couldn’t hear anything he was saying. Tina spared no time and grabbed her ax, thus forcing it through his leg, cutting it off halfway.
“Ah!” Bill yelled.
“What are you doing?” the woman yelled.
Tina grabbed the ax again and swung it down on his leg, cutting it off completely. Blood flowed out of his leg as he screamed loudly, but soon he passed out from the pain.
“Give me your jacket!” she alerted the man.
The man took off his jacket with nervousness and handed it to Tina. She wrapped it around Bill’s leg and put pressure on it.
“Come on. Don’t die,” she whispers.
“What the hell did we just do?” the man whispered.
“I don’t know. We tried to save him.” Tina responded.
She tied the jacket around his leg tight and asks the man the lift him up and move him away from the opening in the roof to prevent him from falling in. Tina looks at his leg and begins to worry due to the amount of blood that continued to flow out.
“Okay.” she grunted, “We have to find a way to get to Alex and the others.”
“If they're alive.” the man murmured.
“They are…and we have to hurry up and get to them before any of us are dead.”
Chris slams the door and runs around the warehouse looking for a way out. He throws down the flamethrower and puts his knife away. Everyone is standing around panting while Alex looks around for a way out.
“What are we going to do?” one survivor asked.
“Well.” Alex explained, “We have to hurry up and find a way out.”
One of the women cried, “This world is going to shit! We’re all going to die! I can’t do this anymore!”
Her husband grabs her, “Hey! We’re not going to die! I promise.”
Chris sighs and picked up his radio,
“Bill, are you there?”
The radio remains quiet on the other end, which worries Chris, “Answer me, Bill. Are you there?”
The radio continued to stay silent, so Chris clips his radio to the side of his pants and walked around the warehouse again. Alex and the other survivors are catching their breath, but Alex sees how much Chris is worried about Bill.
“Chris!” he yelled.
“What?”
“Calm down.”
Chris scoffs, “Yeah, let’s try to remain calm about the whole situation! How in the fuck am I supposed to remain calm? We went out with 20 of us, but now, we may be the only ones alive. So, you tell me, Alex, how am I supposed to calm down?”
“First, you can start by being quiet! In case you have not noticed, noise attracts them in the first place. Shooting those zombies only made our situation worse. Second, you told me that people were going to die. Remember that? You told me not to play hero, but you are standing here right now. You would have been dead if it wasn’t for me. So, process all of this now before we go back there because I can’t promise I will have your back next time!”
The radio starts to pick up someone talking:
Hello, Chris! This is Tina. We’re on the roof of a store near a warehouse. Please pick up.
Chris yanks the radio off his pants and talks quickly, “Where’s Bill?”
He got bit, but I…cut his leg off. It’s bad Chris.
They all looked scared as they listened to Tina’s nervous voice projecting over the radio.
“Why did you do that?”
He told me too! I was just doing what he said.
Chris sighs, “Ok. We’re in the warehouse next to you. Just stay there.”
The zombies began to bang on the door and scared all of them inside. The other survivors, three men and one couple, took no chance and ran to the stairs that led to a door, supposedly leading up to the roof.
“Stay there. We’re on our way!” Chris yelled.
Chris and Alex followed the survivors up the stairs as the zombies broke the door wide open and followed them.
“Come on!” one of the other survivors yelled.
The woman tried to open the door, but it was locked.
“It’s locked!” she panicked.
“Why is every fucking door broken or locked!” Alex yelled.
Chris comes in front of them and starts to hit the door trying to force it open. The zombies start coming upstairs, but Alex kicks one of them down, preventing them from coming close to them. The zombie rolled down the stairs, but there were many others that ran over the zombie. They fell, but they got back up and continued their way towards them. Chris finally burst through the doo
r and runs outside. Alex hits one more zombie and runs outside with the rest of the group. Chris closes the door, but Alex and another man helped him keep it closed. One woman looked across the way and saw Tina and the group right across from them.
“Hey! That’s them! They're alive!” she shouts.
Tina looks across and notices the woman waving and shouting.
Z Island Series (Book 1): Escape From Z Island Page 12