“They’re called Go-fast boats. It’s no helicopter but the water will be a lot less crowded than the roads. I’ve been on the water with my dad and sisters since I was little.”
“Wait, Go-fast?” Maxwell asks. “Those are the ones they use to smuggle drugs, right?”
“That’d be them. If we can find the police impound lot, I’m betting we can find the fastest ones on the market. Troy, my newest stepdad, he flies down here all the time for police auctions.”
“Well I’ll be damned, little Miss Felecia freakin’ Harmon,” Marty says with a proud chuckle, “you are just full of secrets, aren’t you? I always knew I liked ya, even back when you were a pissy fireball on the rag. How fast we talkin’ here?”
“Calm water, 90. Unless we get a drug smuggling one, then it’s even faster. Max, on the map, is there an area between here and Mexico that’s not city?”
“No, no, fuck, I’m not seeing anything. It’s all city, except where there’s mountains in the way. And it’s city for a long way inland before we hit open road. Wait! Wait wait wait wait wait. Camp Corrigan, the whole Carlsbad area, right along the coast. We were supposed to stop there to refuel originally, before they got overrun. There’s a Marine Corps base just north of there. We were supposed to pick up more troops. They had choppers that were gonna leave from there. They never made it.”
“Carlsbad,” Sami shouts. “I saw that on the map. Oh Maribel, how far is it to Carlsbad?”
“Carlsbad, California is 74 miles away.”
“Oh, Maribel,” Marty says sheepishly. “Do you uh, by any chance, ya know, do you have a boyfriend?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Oh my god, I love her. Guys, I think you should all know, me and Maribel, we’re a thing now.”
“Traitor.” Maxwell folds her arms, turning to look out the window as we pass by the devastation.
We’ve seen what the infects do, what they’re capable of, and this isn’t it. This destruction is all human. The smashed windows, looted storefronts and apartments, flipped over cars, the graffiti. This was mankind, not what we become when the infection overtakes us, but what we’d already become.
This is why humans didn’t survive. Rather than flee for safety and find ways to defend themselves, they stole flatscreens and phones. They didn’t barricade themselves in buildings, they drew on them with spray paint, they set them on fire.
They didn’t think. They turned expressways into giant clusterfucks stuck in a standstill. Those who didn’t make it to the gridlocked byways, they apparently flipped over the remaining vehicles, and sometimes stacked them on top of each other because that’s a great use of manpower when the future of your species is in jeopardy.
How many people does it take to lift a car onto another one? This wasn’t one or two idiots, this was city wide stupidity that happened all across the country.
We do it every time there’s a hurricane or a flood, a riot, a team loses a championship. Or wins. We do it when we’re happy, when we’re angry, when we’re rebelling and when we’re celebrating. We’ve become a people who don’t create, we destroy. And we finally did it, we destroyed it all. There’s no one to pick up the pieces this time. A lot of good your precious TVs and cellphones did you.
And I know it was you assholes who set these fires too, the fires that have burnt out, leaving nothing but charred remains. Why? So that whoever was fortunate, or more accurately, unfortunate enough to survive, would have nothing? I can only pray the rest of the world handled this better than America did.
Bodies that should be getting up and chasing after us, aren’t. Because they weren’t all infects. A lot of these corpses weren’t zombies, they were human. They were killed by other humans, left to rot in the street. The leftover infects are slowly eating them, crawling their broken bodies to the decaying flesh and feasting on it, the scavengers of the species. The ones with missing limbs who would rather eat the scraps than bat an eye at us weaving around the destruction on our way to the shore.
“What exactly is it we’re fighting to save?” I ask after a long moment of silence, everyone lost in their own world as we drive through what remains of ours.
“It can’t all be like this, can it?” Felecia whispers, a tear sliding down her cheek as she stares out the window.
“I think it can.” Maxwell sighs heavily, looking away in disgust. “By the sounds of it, this is what happened all across the country. Some areas worse than others. It’s like they thought it was a joke. Or that someone else would come along and fix it. Only, we never came. Do you understand why you guys are so important to them now? Why they need you? Look around. Look what your fellow civilians did, and look what you’ve done.”
“Do you think it’s like this there. In England?” I clarify. “Did other countries do what we did? Because I don’t think I want to save people who did this.”
“Fuck the rest of the world,” she growls. “You’re doing this to save yourselves. To give yourselves the lives you deserve. The lives you’ve earned. You didn’t suffer through all this to eat expired canned food and spend every day fighting just to get back some semblance of normal. At some point, those fuckers have to save themselves, just like you did. And maybe, just maybe, along the way, you might be able to make a difference in the lives of people who actually matter. Who wouldn’t have made it otherwise. Like me. And like her,” she says, nodding in Sami’s direction. “I thought we were doing this to save the world. I did. But now, now that I’m seeing it with my own two eyes, fuck the world. We do this for us.”
CHAPTER 32
“There’s a crowd halfway down the dock,” Maxwell whispers from our hiding spot behind a small pileup. “It looks like they’re eating someone. It’s gotta be at least ten. There’s others just wandering around. I’m seeing five, eight, what the hell are they doing?”
“The outside of the building looks okay.” Felecia pulls the scope from her eyes, nodding. “There’s definitely infects inside though, I can see movement.”
“How are the boats looking?” I ask, pulling my sword from its sheath.
“Three that’ll work. As long as we can find the keys,” she adds with a wink.
“Screw you, so not funny.”
“Little funny.” She holds up her fingers, millimeters apart. But I’m forced to forgive her when she blows me a kiss. “If those hungry hippos make a move, Max, you ram a missile up their ass. We’ll sneak in and grab the keys.”
“Oh no, I don’t think so,” she sneers. “Not in the condition you two are in. No way. I’m not letting you go in there alone.”
“I’ll go with them,” Sami declares, grabbing the morningstar that’s become her weapon of choice, I think because it’s easy to swing with both hands and she’s not strong enough to wield a sword in just one.
“Not helping their case.” Maxwell shakes her head, pulling the night vision goggles away. “Sami, you’re eleven years old.”
“So? I’m also a badass. Would you rather have me stay out here until those things are done eating?”
Marty lets out a low grumble, gripping the rocket launcher, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Let’s just stick together, all of us. We’re too small a group to be splitting up right now. If we get separated, we ain’t making it there in time. Let’s get in there and find those keys. Felecia, you know what you’re looking for, we’ll cover you.”
After a series of approving head nods, we’re sneaking across the pier towards the building. This is something different for us, this whole ninja like approach, I mean, you know, other than my famous flying kicks. We’re not usually creeping around, it’s typically run in, guns blazing, killing everything in sight.
I’ve never seen a pack of zompires so preoccupied before. We can’t be more than a hundred feet away, they should be running up the dock by now. That must be a fresh kill, I can’t see them being so engrossed by a days old, rotting corpse. They tend to ignore those completely and go after something fresh. Which means, someon
e must have been alive here until very recently. But why aren’t they all feasting on the poor soul right now?
There’s three inside, I can see them through the windows, all staring up at the ceiling. Or the wall? They’re staring at the corner, just standing there. What the hell are they doing? Is that a TV? It is, there’s a television set hanging in the corner, and they’re staring at it as if something is playing. There’s no power, it’s just a black screen.
Leftover memories. Like their cellphones. They just stand there in a dormant state, keeping themselves occupied until food comes along. They’re like video game characters when the game’s on pause, just standing there.
Keeping low to the ground, I open the glass door cautiously, hoping it isn’t locked. This started in the morning, they may not have even been open yet, I don’t know when marinas open for the day. Do people take boats out in the morning or is it more of an afternoon thing? Even if they were open, someone inside sees zombies coming, first thing they’re doing is locking the doors. Not that a glass door is going to do much good.
Shit, bells!
I grab them just in time, holding my breath tighter than I’m gripping the little silver balls on a string. That was close, my knuckles are pressed against the glass, split second later and they’d all know we were here.
Felecia reaches around me with her katana and slices the string, sliding it back and forth like a saw. I’m not enjoying the fact that it takes a few more strokes than I thought it would to relieve the bells from their jute noose. I don’t know how many swipes of the blade it should have taken, but it’s got me worried about the sharpness. We don’t have the stones with us. They’re in the weapons box that got loaded onto the chopper. Caylee’d been sharpening them for us for days, keeping us ready for battle. Without her, this war is going to go downhill quickly.
Felecia nods, sucking in her lip before holding up three fingers and starting the countdown. She doesn’t need to tell me what we’re doing. I know. Not sure if she can read my mind or if I’m the one reading hers, but we know.
As soon as Felecia’s last finger is down, I throw the bells across the room, grabbing the attention of the three infects. The loud clanging behind the counter draws their attention, ripping them away from the fascinating documentary about black screens they were completely absorbed in.
All three race across the room. The woman launches herself over the counter while the men slam against it like they didn’t realize it was there. Luckily these three don’t appear to be all that intelligent, because if they were, no way in hell would this have worked.
We race across the room on light feet, decapitating the two men before they realize we’re here. Well, to be fair, mine started to turn, my boots might have made a little more noise than Felecia’s, but his head is rolling across the countertop before his eyes even land on us.
The woman pops up with a confused squeal before the tip of my blade enters her mouth to quiet her. Felecia finishes her off with a double handed swing that tears through her mangled throat with ease. Her body disappears behind the counter, collapsing in a heap on top of the bells, muffling their echoing ring. Her severed head is still attached to the tip of my blade.
“Fucking Nolecia,” Marty chuckles, quietly pulling the door closed behind them as they enter.
“When I’m wrong, I’m wrong,” Maxwell says with a shake of her head. “You two woulda been fine in here on your own. Let’s find those keys.”
I shake the woman’s chewed-on head from my sword and make my way over to the wall of windows. I think we’ve established I’d be of no use finding the keys to some fancy, drug smuggling speedboat. Besides, I want to get a closer look at this pack of scavengers.
It’s definitely a person. From this vantage point, so close I can hear them slurping, even through the glass, I can see that it’s a woman. The moon bouncing off the calm ocean is reflecting in her rings and painted nails. There’s not much left of her.
Hold on, is she… No, this doesn’t make sense. I thought her body was being jostled around because ten sets of hands were pulling on her flesh, digging their mouths into her torso like a pie eating contest. But they’re pulling away and she’s still moving. Her skeletal arm, it’s grabbing at them, trying to shoo them away.
Those aren’t involuntary movements. What the hell is going on here? Some of them are finally backing away, but two are still going to town, one on her shredded face, the other on her fingers. She’s almost completely picked clean.
Her legs are missing, from her waist down, she’s gone. It’s not like they’re discarded a few feet up the dock, they’re nowhere to be seen. Unless they ate the bones, which they clearly aren’t doing, she was already ripped in half.
“Got ’em,” Maxwell whispers, holding up a couple sets of keys. “Noah, they still distracted?”
“No, they’re done.”
“What’s up?” Marty asks, nudging my elbow with his as he comes up beside me. “You trying not to drop a deuce over here?”
“I think they just ate a zombie,” I hear myself say, not sure it makes any sense.
“They what?” Maxwell peers out the window, holding the scope to her face. I’d use it if I could but all I ever see are my damn eyelashes that Kristen and Jenny were always so jealous of. I don’t get it, but they wanted to steal them from me.
Marty looks back and forth between us and the carcass, picked clean on the dock, trying to get to her nonexistent feet. “Not possible, they don’t eat their own.”
“I know. But I’m pretty sure they just did. She was moving, trying to push their mouths away. If she were still human, she’d have legs. Plus, look at those two, they’re still eating her. She’s clearly turned by now, if she was still human when they started.”
“They’re drug addicts,” Felecia says, pressing her body against my back to look around me. “Look at how skinny they are. Their raggedy clothes.”
“She’s right,” Maxwell says, pulling the scope from her eyes. “Their faces are covered in scabs. They’re junkies. Those ones walking around the dock, look at them. Black He-Man, with the arms, no way is he on anything, unless it’s steroids. These two suits, you know they’re clean. The little girl, I’m betting she’s never shot anything into her veins.”
“What are we missing here?” Marty asks, stroking his mustache.
“We’ve seen it before, kinda, me and Felecia, last night. In Bayport, there was this young woman, ankle bracelet, clearly a junkie, she was eating some kind of rodent. Guys, they were injecting mice with something to turn them into addicts, they had to so they could try to cure them, because obviously mice aren’t addicted to anything. Kristen’s brother injected himself with both needles, no clue what he was putting into his body. He was an addict who injected himself with addiction.”
“So,” Maxwell groans, “you’re thinking the humans who were already addicts and get turned, they become even more addicted than the others?”
“And more desperate. They’re willing to eat animals, and other zombies. Look at those two, they’re sucking her dry. We’re fifteen feet away and they don’t even know we’re here. Old guy there with the combover, beer belly hiding his belt, he was chewing on her chest a minute ago. How much you wanna bet he’s an alcoholic?”
“Addicted to beer,” Marty whispers. “Son of a bitch. The ones who were already addicted to something, it just makes the cravings even worse, except now it’s human they need.”
“I bet it’s been days since they’ve seen a person.” Felecia’s gentle whisper this close to my ear makes my heart hammer for all the right reasons. “That’s why they’re getting desperate enough to eat their own. And animals. They weren’t doing it at first.”
“Not good.” Maxwell steps away from the window, shaking her head. “This means they’re evolving. Eating each other. Fucking for pleasure. It’s like their human traits are heightening. Only they’re not getting more human, they’re becoming more… that. Just with human abilities.”
> I watch as one of them sits down on the edge of the dock. “I feel like, the longer they’re dead, the more they remember. They’re just gonna keep getting more dangerous, aren’t they? Or at least, the smart ones will. Let’s get on that boat and get the hell out of here.”
Oh no, what was that? What the fuck just happened?
Every zombie in the vicinity turns to stare when a seagull touches down on one of the posts.
Shit! We’ve been spotted!
CHAPTER 33
Alerted to our whereabouts, a handful of blood addicts sprint towards the building, throwing themselves into the wall of windows. The skinny guy with dreads hits so hard he bounces back and rolls off the edge of the dock. His splashing stops as quickly as it started, leaving a column of smoke in his wake, rising from the gently lapping surface of the ocean.
“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Marty gasps, “you weren’t lying. Saltwater’s like acid to them. Holy fucking shit.”
“Guys, hurry,” Sami squeals. “Over here, there’s a side door!”
But before I can make a run for it, the doorknob beside me turns. It’s not locked, Marty didn’t lock the door behind him. Why didn’t he lock the god damn door? This is why Felecia and I do things alone. Other people mean well, they do, but not thinking, they do shit like this.
The majority of the ratty haired, tweaking zompires are too busy banging on the windows to notice their smarter, less crackheady counterparts trying to enter through the door. There can’t be more than three of them but I’m not heavy enough, my feet are slowly sliding. If I could just get the door closed, I could lock it.
I can see the anger in Marty’s eyes as he smacks his forehead, running over to help. “Sorry,” he grumbles, trying to jam the door with his foot so I can push it closed the rest of the way, but their hands are already through the frame.
Blood Type Infected (Book 5): The Departed Page 20
