Undead Rain Trilogy Box Set

by Shaun Harbinger

  Then I fell so fast I barely had time to register it before I hit cold water and heard nothing but a rush in my ears as I went under.

  I struggled against the sea, pulling with my arms to bring myself to the surface.

  As my face broke though, I breathed in sweet air.

  Mike was close by in the rowboat. I swam towards him but his attention was on the lighthouse. He stared up at the balcony and shouted, “Elena!”

  I looked up and my heart sank.

  For some reason, Elena hadn’t managed to clear the railing and now she hung by her hands, dangling over the sea. She looked panicked.

  “Just let go!” Mike shouted to her.

  She held her breath and let go.

  But she didn’t fall into the sea.

  Hands reached over the railing and grabbed her. Blue-skinned rotting hands.

  She screamed as they dragged her back up onto the balcony.

  “No!” Mike screamed. He dived off the boat and swam towards the lighthouse. I grabbed him and he struggled against me. “Elena!”

  Her screams had been silenced. There was nothing anyone could do.

  “It’s too late,” I told Mike.

  His eyes went to the scene on the balcony. The zombies were in a frenzy up there. Tearing. Ripping. Biting.

  He looked at me and started to cry. “It’s Elena, man.”

  “I know.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  He looked from me to the lighthouse and for a moment I was sure he was going to swim ashore despite the dozens of zombies on the rocks. Then he went weak and I had to hold him up to stop him from sinking.

  Supporting him with one arm and using the other to swim, I got us to the rowboat. He climbed aboard but then sat staring at the sea.

  I put the oars into the metal locks and started to row us back to The Big Easy.

  My friend stared at the water in a daze and I was sure I would never see the Mike I knew ever again.

  Chapter 20

  “He’s been like that for hours,” Lucy said as we sat at the dining table. Her face was still streaked from the tears she had cried for Elena. I was sure there would be more tears but for now she was too drained to shed them.

  Outside, evening fell quickly, the darkness spreading over the sea. I had managed to pilot The Big Easy away from the lighthouse. None of us wanted to see that place again. Now we were anchored farther north, about two miles from shore. We could still see the city on the coast but at least we couldn’t smell it anymore. The sea breeze was fresh and tangy. I felt more removed from those monsters than I had since the apocalypse happened. It was a shame that my feelings of safety were tinged with the darkness of tragedy.

  Mike had slumped into the easy chair in the living room when we got back from the lighthouse and had not moved since. I knew his feelings for Elena ran deep but I had never seen him in a catatonic state like this before.

  We had already lost one of our group. I didn’t know how we would survive if we lost Mike too.

  “I don’t understand why Eric didn’t warn you about the zombies,” Lucy said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “He was afraid we’d run away and leave him there. He probably stayed zombie-free out there on his rock because when the tide was low it was raining and they weren’t around. This was the first time the low tide coincided with dry weather. So suddenly he saw dozens of zombies on the beach and he knew that when the tide went out, they could get to him. That’s why he was desperate to leave immediately. If I knew then what I know now I would have brought him aboard The Big Easy straight away. At least Elena would still be alive.”

  She wiped a tear from her eye. “I still can’t believe she’s dead.”

  I looked at the night darkening beyond the windows and my thoughts went somewhere I wished they wouldn’t. What if Elena weren’t dead but had been turned into one of them? Maybe even now she was roaming the lighthouse in an undead state. I tried not to think about it. There was nothing that could be done.

  But there must be something I could do to help Mike. He was hurting in a way I had never seen before. I wasn’t going to sit by and watch my friend spiral into depression. I went to the bar and poured three glasses of brandy. Giving one to Lucy, I went over to Mike and handed him the glass.

  He took it with a muttered, “Thanks.”

  “Hey, why don’t we raise a glass to Elena. She was a brave woman. One of the bravest.”

  Lucy seemed to pick up on what I was trying to do; make Elena’s death an event we could remember but also move on from. She raised her brandy. “To Elena. A great friend and a brave survivor.”

  Mike looked over at her, then at me. His eyes were bloodshot. The drink trembled in his hand, spilling over the edge of the glass. “I loved her,” he said simply.

  “We all did,” I said. I took a hit of brandy, feeling it burn all the way down my throat. Mike threw back his glass and downed his drink in one swallow. He resumed his thousand-yard stare, the empty glass forgotten in his hand.

  I didn’t know what else to do so I went to the bar and got the brandy bottle. I refilled his glass and started back to the dining table. Mike murmured something.

  “What’s that, buddy?” I asked, turning to face him.

  He repeated what he had said but I had the feeling he was speaking to himself. He whispered the words over and over like a mantra.

  “They’re going to pay.”

  * * *

  Later that evening, after a mostly-uneaten meal of rice and beans spiced with curry powder, I took Eric’s log book from where I had put it to dry over one of the portable radiators in the living room. Mike was asleep in the chair as I walked past him to get the book. I hoped he would be feeling better when he woke up.

  The only time I saw him express grief in any major way was when his dad died and even then the emotion had only brought forth a few tears. Mike had been a lot younger then. I wondered if his grief over Elena’s death was bringing out unexpressed feelings about his father leaving him at a young age.

  I sometimes wondered if the reason Mike’s life involved the pursuit of activities like rock climbing and hiking was because his father had the same interests. Mike had never been interested in these things until after his father’s death. Maybe he was trying to make his dad proud.

  Sitting at the table, I opened the book and flicked through the pages. They were still damp and stuck to my fingers. In places, the pen had smeared but in others it was still legible. The book wasn’t meant to be immersed in salt water and was almost ruined after its time in the sea.

  The entries I could read contained dates, times, ship names, weather reports and tidal records. Working carefully, I peeled the pages back until I found the last entries Eric would ever write.

  Being closer to the middle of the book, these pages were less water-damaged. The handwriting was more readable. It looked like Eric had turned this into more of a diary than a log book.

  The last entry read: ‘They are back on the beach again. I am only alive because of the high tide. If not for that, they would be over here banging on the door. Still no sign of Harper. I fear he’s dead. He would have come back by now. Unless he’s left me here. He used to tell me something like this would happen someday but I never listened. I spend most of my time looking out to sea for him or any other boat. I have to leave here soon.’

  I skipped back to the previous page. Eric hadn’t bothered to date these entries. I got the feeling he was using the log book, something he had developed the habit of writing in every day, as a way to express his thoughts as he became isolated in the lighthouse. I felt sorry for him. At least I had faced the end of the world with three friends. It sounded like Eric had been alone apart from the person he referred to as Harper. And even Harper had left. Why hadn’t Eric gone with him?

  I scanned down the page.

  ‘Harper has decided to take the boat up along the coast to get a sense of the situation. This is the kind of thing he used to talk ab
out but I don’t think even he believes it is really happening. All we receive are garbled radio reports from some of the ships. Even those have stopped now and I fear the ships I see in the distance are crewed by something other than men.’

  And further down the page.

  ’No sign of Harper. It looks like I will be facing this situation alone.’

  Then at the bottom of that page I found the entry referring to the U.N. rescue mission.

  ‘Radio picked up a military broadcast. American ships coming to rescue survivors. Everyone moving north to be picked up. I can’t be left here alone. I need a boat. I dare not travel by land. The tide is out at the moment but thankfully there is no sign of those things on the beach. I pray for the sea to come back in and protect me again.’

  My heart sank. He hadn’t written down the location of the rescue. He said north, which probably meant Scotland, but that didn’t help. We were heading that way anyway. Without a specific location, we would be drifting around aimlessly off the Scottish coast. I flicked back through the pages but the other entries were all in the standard report format before the apocalypse.

  Lucy came over from the kitchen carrying two bottles of beer. “Anything?”

  “Nothing. He wrote that the rescue will be in the North but that’s all.”

  She took a swig of beer. “Do you think if we had let him on board he would have taken us to the rescue site?”

  “From what I read in here he was just scared and lonely. There was someone called Harper in the lighthouse with him. Harper took their boat up the coast to find out what was happening and never returned. I think Eric was being honest when he said he wanted to make a deal with us. He just spooked at the last minute and tried to use his shotgun to make sure he ended up on the boat. He knew the tide was going out and the zombies were on their way.”

  “What happened in there, Alex?”

  I shrugged. “Mike lost it when Elena got shot. I think we approached the situation the wrong way. We went in with force. If we had dealt with Eric the way he wanted, we’d probably be on the way to being rescued now. And we’d all be alive.”

  She nodded and took another drink of beer to stop herself from crying. “Do you think Mike is going to snap out of it?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to see how he is when he wakes up.”

  With tears in her eyes, she stared at the night beyond the window. “This is never going to end, is it? Things aren’t going to get any better. I put the radio on when you left for the lighthouse and the Reach Out came on. All those people looking for loved ones they’ll never find. They won’t ever know how they died or even if they are dead. Their relatives could be out there wandering around as zombies, spreading the disease. And none of it is going to get better. They’re just going to bomb the country. It’s like they want to wipe the slate clean but they’re wiping away all those lives and memories.” She started to cry, her face in her hands.

  I put an arm around her and she leaned into my chest. She was right. The world would never be the same again. There was no going back from this. Whether the virus was man-made or nature’s attack on our species, the human race would never recover.

  We went to bed and lay in the darkness, fully-clothed, holding each other against the pain and sense of loss.

  We both cried for what was gone.

  I cried for my parents, for Joe, and for Elena. I even shed a tear for Eric. He hadn’t been trying to steal The Big Easy, he was just as frightened as we were. He was simply trying to survive.

  We fell asleep in each other’s arms, two lost souls surrounded by a vast sea of darkness.

  It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning, as sunlight started to seep in through the windows, that we were both startled awake.

  Something big had bumped into The Big Easy.

  Chapter 21

  I went up to the aft deck, rubbing sleep from my eyes. Mike was still dead to the world in the easy chair. The room smelled of curry and beer as I walked through to the deck. Dark clouds were forming farther out to sea. The sea was calm at the moment, rolling gently beneath The Big Easy and lifting her into a slow rocking motion. I leaned over the side and looked towards the bow.

  A second yacht floated on the water in front of us.

  I walked through the dining room to the bow, picking up my baseball bat as I went.

  The first thing I thought of was pirates.

  These were lawless times. The military exerted some control on the mainland but the sea was a no-man’s land. We knew there must be pirates out here somewhere. Had they finally found us?

  I stepped onto the sun deck, bat clutched in my hands.

  Lucy joined me, holding the Colt gingerly. “Is there anyone on board?”

  “It doesn’t look like it.”

  The yacht was smaller than The Big Easy. Her name, written across her hull in green script, was The Hornet. She had collided with our bow and floated away about twenty feet. Her engines were dead and everything was silent but a creepy atmosphere hung over her.

  “What do you think?” I asked Lucy.

  “Looks like she’s been floating out here with no crew.”

  “So how did she get out here?”

  “Maybe she came loose from her moorings at the marina and just floated away.”

  It was possible.

  But unlikely.

  It was more likely that The Hornet had been piloted out here and something had happened to the crew.

  They were either dead or turned into monsters. And they might still be on board.

  “We could just let her float away,” I suggested. After our experience at the lighthouse, I didn’t see any reason to risk our lives just to explore a ghost ship. The possible rewards were far outweighed by the deadly risk.

  Lucy nodded. “I think that’s the best idea.”

  I was glad Mike was still asleep inside. I was sure he would insist on going on board The Hornet. I had zero desire to explore that eerie ship.

  “Back to bed?” Lucy suggested.

  I took a glance at The Hornet. She was floating away slowly on the gentle waves. She wasn’t going to bump into us again. “Bed sounds good.”

  We turned to the door and I held it open to let Lucy inside.

  Then we heard it.

  A bang.

  From the Hornet.

  We both froze and looked over at the boat.

  Another bang came from inside. It sounded like someone slapping their hand against a wooden door.

  “We don’t have to investigate that,” I said.

  She bit her lip. God, she was so cute. “What if someone’s trapped below deck?”

  “The only thing trapped below deck on there is probably a zombie. We should let it go.”

  I thought she was going to agree with me. I looked forward to getting back to bed. It was still way too early to get up, never mind explore a zombie-infested boat.

  Lucy didn’t agree. She said, “What if it’s a person on there? What if they need our help?”

  I sighed. The bed suddenly seemed an unfathomable distance away. “What are you suggesting?”

  “We could check it out. We don’t have to go on board. We could row up to The Hornet and look through the portholes. If it’s a zombie, we let it drift away.”

  It sounded safe enough. I hoped that whatever was on board The Hornet could be seen from the portholes. At least we’d know what we were dealing with.

  “Only one of us should go,” I said. “In case Mike wakes up. I don’t want him to wake up and be alone.”

  “I’ll go,” she said.

  I didn’t see any reason to argue with that. It wasn’t like I had to step up to the plate and volunteer for Lucy’s protection. Looking through the portholes of a boat wasn’t exactly dangerous. Besides, she was capable of looking after herself. I just hoped she saw a zombie through the window. Then we could forget about The Hornet and let her drift away.

  We went through to the aft deck, passing a sleeping Mike. Lucy
climbed down into the rowboat and I handed her the baseball bat. “Take this.”

  She held up the Colt. “I’ve got the gun. I don’t need the bat.”

  “I’ll get a speargun and cover you.” I was dying to try them out but hadn’t had the chance yet.

  “Don’t point those things anywhere near me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Just promise me you won’t go on board.”

  “I promise. This is just a reconnaissance mission.”

  I untied the rowboat from The Big Easy and went back through the boat to the sun deck to watch her. She waved as she came into view then put her back into the rowing. The Hornet had drifted thirty feet away, now. Lucy rowed half the distance then shouted to me, “Throw me the mooring rope.”

  I frowned at her. “Why?”

  “If I tie her on, she won’t drift away. Otherwise I might have to row half a mile to get back to The Big Easy.”

  She had a point. I picked up the thick rope, swung it a couple of times to get momentum, then let it go. It snaked across the water and landed a few feet from the rowboat. Lucy fished it out of the sea with an oar and coiled it by her feet. She rowed the rest of the distance to The Hornet and tied the rope around one of the aft railings.

  Even being connected by a rope felt like too much contact between us and The Hornet.

  The banging had stopped and The Hornet was quiet again. But the silence was unsettling.

  Lucy knelt in the rowboat and used her hands on the hull of The Hornet to pull herself to the first porthole. She peered inside. After a few seconds she pulled herself along to the next porthole and shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked through the glass. The Hornet had four portholes on this side and after Lucy had inspected the interior of the boat through each one, she rowed around the other side to check there. I waited until she reappeared around the stern.

  “Nothing,” she shouted. “Should I climb aboard and have a look?”

  Sudden panic rose in me like acid in my throat. “No! Come back and we’ll decide what to do next.”