“But they might have it,” I said, desperate to believe that there was something I could do for Lucy. I couldn’t accept a situation with no hope.
“Hey, we’re going there anyway,” Sam said. “There’s no harm in letting Alex come too.”
Jax nodded. “Just as long as he doesn’t expect some sort of miracle. We’re not even sure we’ll find the island.”
“We got a good lead on the coordinates when we were doing the story on the island,” Sam said. “We have a chance to find it. That’s all Alex is asking for, a chance.”
He was right. The slightest glimmer of hope would be enough to motivate me into action. I needed something to hang on to, even if it was just a thin thread.
“We should get moving,” he said. “Do you want me to stay on here with you, man?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Jax climbed back onto the Escape. Sam took a seat on the bench where she had been sitting, and I climbed the ladder to the bridge. Lucy had lashed the wheel into a fixed position using cord. I untied it, thankful that she was smart enough to take the necessary actions to get The Big Easy here before she succumbed to the virus. If she’d gone off course, I would have wasted precious time searching for her.
I followed The Lucky Escape north along the coast. We kept a couple of miles offshore, aware that the army was fortifying positions at marinas and docks. We didn’t want to be taking fire from artillery on the cliffs, or tank on the beaches.
Sam remained mostly quiet, apart from an occasional, “Everything’s going to be okay, man,” or “Don’t’ worry, dude, we’ll find that island.” I knew he meant well but my natural pessimism shook off his kind words. I could only think about what would happen if we didn’t find Apocalypse Island. And even if we did, what if there was no cure? What if nothing could be done for Lucy?
The thread of hope was already unraveling in my mind.
We sailed north for three hours. The sunny afternoon became a cool evening as we reached the coast of Scotland. I switched on the running lights and asked Sam to get me a sweater. When he came back with it, and one for himself, he handed it to me quietly. I realized he must have fetched them from the storeroom and seen Lucy curled up in the corner. His earlier optimism seemed to have disappeared now that he had seen her with his own eyes.
A northerly wind whispered coldly over the decks, and the chill seemed to reach my bones.
The Escape changed course, heading away from the coast into the open sea. I followed, watching the stars appear in the darkening sky. Seeing the changes in the environment reminded me that time was running out with each passing second.
Half an hour later, the Escape stopped moving forward and began drifting. I cut the engines to The Big Easy and drifted alongside.
Tanya poked her head out from the Escape’s bridge. “This should be the place.”
I looked over the choppy sea. The sky was a deep, dark blue, and an almost full moon hung over the water, illuminating everything with a spectral silver light. If there was an island around here, it should be visible.
I grabbed a pair of binoculars and climbed down to the aft deck. Sam was leaning over the safety railing, squinting into the distance.
Moving past him, I went to the sun deck and used the binoculars to confirm what I most feared. There was no island here. We were drifting in the middle of nowhere. I lowered the binoculars.
“I see something,” Johnny shouted. “Over there.” He pointed toward the dark horizon.
Bringing up the binoculars to my eye again, I scanned the area he had pointed at. I couldn’t see anything until I adjusted the focus, and then I saw a dark shape. It was a long way from our location and it wasn’t necessarily an island. It could be a large ship drifting out there in the night.
“Let’s go,” Tanya said, disappearing into the bridge again. The Escape’s engines roared into life.
As I walked past him on the aft deck, Sam was grinning. “I told you, man. Next stop Apocalypse Island.”
I smiled thinly at him. Even if it was an island out there and not a ship, there was no guarantee it was the place we were looking for. I wished I had Sam’s eternal optimism but I climbed up to the bridge with no expectations. I had learned a long time ago that the only way you couldn’t be disappointed was if you expected nothing.
The sky was almost fully dark as we reached the island. Surrounded by steep cliffs and treacherous rocks jutting from the sea like claws, it wasn’t a welcoming place. Atop the cliffs, I could see what looked like a pine forest. There was no sign of life apart from those trees and a few gulls riding the chilly breeze.
The radio crackled and Tanya’s voice said, “Nothing much over here except rocks. “We should go around and take a look at the seaward side.”
I picked up the hand mic and said, “Yeah, okay.”
As we sailed around the island, staying clear of the rocks, I watched the cliffs for any sign that there might be people here. The woods up there looked dense. The cliff edges were vertical, sheer rock faces in most parts, impossible to climb up without the proper equipment.
I was beginning to think we had chanced upon a deserted piece of rock and trees when our course took us to the other end of the island. It was a very different story here; it looked like explosives and cutting tools had been used to build a road that led down from the trees to a small pebbly beach. Reaching out into the sea from the beach was a long dock. Formed of huge concrete blocks, it looked like it could withstand the roughest seas.
There were four boats moored at the dock. Two of them were large yachts, forty-two footers if my estimation was correct. Alongside them, two smaller boats with outboard motors rolled on the waves, covered with dark blue tarps.
Tanya’s voice came over the radio. “I’d say this is the place, Alex.” Her voice was calm.
Although the sight of the boats meant that this probably was Apocalypse Island, it didn’t mean we could just go strolling up those cliffs and ask for a cure for Lucy. The security for these types of places was strict even before the zombie apocalypse; now, it probably worked on a shoot first, ask questions later basis.
“Got any ideas?” Tanya asked.
I had to admit that I didn’t. I hadn’t thought ahead this far. We had no idea what we would be walking into if we went along that road into the woods. “Maybe a couple of us should check it out before we all go blundering in,” I said.
“Yeah, sounds good. Why don’t you tie up on that dock? You and Sam can take a look around. I’ll keep the Escape out at sea, just in case.”
Her plan was logical. There was no need to risk both boats. Sending The Big Easy in to the dock while the Escape held back was the safest plan for everyone. Well, it was safest for everyone except Sam and me, the sacrificial lambs.
I relayed the plan to Sam, shouting down to him from the bridge. He gave me a thumbs-up sign, said, “Cool, man,” and began to get the ropes ready for docking.
I took the Easy in nice and slow, keeping her at the end of the dock, next to one of the forty-two footers, in case we needed to escape here in a hurry. Sam sorted the ropes, and I went down the ladder to the aft deck. “What about weapons?” I asked him.
“Yeah, bring two bats,” he said, his eyes on the dark road that led up through the cliffs.
I grabbed two bats, threw him one of them, and stepped off the boat and onto the concrete dock.
He grinned at me. “Let’s go find some scientists.”
As we walked along the dock, the moon gazed down at us with an unemotional, uncaring face.
2
The road at the end of the dock was wide enough for vehicles and had been topped with asphalt. As we walked along it, I expected a Jeep to come barreling toward us, full of armed men shining flashlights in our faces. I had seen too many movies; this wasn’t the secret lair of a James Bond villain, it was an island that belonged to the British government. We weren’t looking for a man sitting in a chair stroking a white cat, but a team of scie
ntists.
Sam had been quiet since we’d left the Easy, which was unlike him, but was probably the best idea in the circumstances.
“What are we going to do if we see anybody?” I whispered.
“Nothing, man. We’ll check out as much of this place as we can, then go back and tell the others what we found. Then we can make a plan.”
“But we’ll have to make ourselves known to the people here at some point,” I said. “How are we going to get them to help us if we don’t?”
He looked at me, the moonlight shining in his eyes. “Alex, you’re really naïve, man. Do you think that some government scientists are going to help us, a bunch of civilians? They only look out for their own. They only gave the vaccine to the soldiers, not the general population. They won’t give us anything. If there’s a cure here, we’re going to have to take it.”
I wondered if I’d teamed up with a group of journalists or a sleeper cell of anarchists, poised to cause trouble for the government after the apocalypse hit. Sam, Tanya, and Jax seemed more capable than most when it came to survival and they were possessed of a certain kind of courage that was usually borne of a fundamental belief in something.
I told myself that was crazy. They had worked in some of the most dangerous places in the world and it had toughened them up, that was all. Still, taking over Survivor Radio and broadcasting a message to the listeners was the kind of operation usually carried out by people who had an agenda that went way beyond investigative journalism.
I hoped that their eagerness to find Apocalypse Island wasn’t spurred on by some ulterior motive. If they did anything to jeopardize my chances of getting help for Lucy, I was going to flip my shit—and God help anyone who stood in my way.
I was out of breath by the time we reached the trees, but, looking back down the path, I realized how steep it was and how far we had climbed from the beach. I was in much better shape now than I had been when I was trudging over the Welsh mountains with Mike and Elena. If Mike could see me now, he’d be proud of how far I had come from the whiny, out of shape person I had once been. The zombie apocalypse was stripping me of pounds that I thought I was stuck with for life.
“Look at that, man,” Sam said, pointing up into the trees. “I guess staying hidden isn’t an option.”
A small silver camera with a flashing red light above its lens watched us from high up in the branches of a pine tree. I was willing to bet we had already walked past a dozen more that we hadn’t seen.
I waved at it.
Sam frowned at me. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Like you said, staying hidden isn’t an option anymore,” I said. “And we want them to know we’re friendly. If they’re going to help us…”
“Trust no one, man. I thought you said you hated the authorities?”
“I do. But what choice do I have?”
He set off into the woods, following a dirt trail that wound through the trees. “Stop waving at the cameras.”
I followed him through the dark woods. The sound of our boots crunching over dead leaves and fallen twigs on the road seemed so loud that anyone on the island must be able to hear our approach.
Sam stopped suddenly, putting a hand on my chest to halt me in my tracks. “Did you see that?” he whispered.
My eyes scanned the gloom ahead. “No. What was it?”
“Something moved in the undergrowth up ahead. By the side of the road.” He pointed to the area I had already been watching.
I shrugged. “You sure?”
He nodded, tightening his grip on the baseball bat. I did the same, wondering why, if our own footsteps were so loud, we hadn’t heard anyone walking in the undergrowth ahead of us.
Maybe they weren’t walking. Maybe they were just waiting for us.
“What do we do?” I whispered.
Sam crept forward, gesturing for me to follow. I moved forward as quietly as I could, staying close behind him. Sam had a much better chance against whatever was in those trees than I did.
As we got closer, I saw a movement in the undergrowth, and nearly jumped out of my skin. I calmed my ragged breathing when I realized it was something small, maybe a squirrel or a bird.
But apart from the gulls we had seen on the other side of the island, I hadn’t seen or heard a single bird since setting foot on the dock. In fact, now that I thought about it, the woods were eerily quiet, apart from the sounds we were making.
Sam strode up to the undergrowth and peered into it.
I heard a low moan that I knew all too well. The wail of a zombie.
“Get back!” I shouted.
“No, it’s fine. It’s just a head.”
I went over and looked at the head lying on the ground. Its skin was the familiar mottled blue of the zombie, its eyes yellow as they glared at us. It opened its mouth and moaned again when it saw me.
The zombie had once been a man with a neat, short haircut, wearing a blue shirt beneath a white lab coat. But something had shredded the coat, shirt, and the rotten flesh beneath. The zombie had a head, neck, and part of his chest, but that was it. The arms had been ripped off, leaving a bloody mess where the shoulders had once been. Entrails lay on the ground like dead snakes.
“What do you think happened to him?” I asked Sam.
“I don’t know, man. Either he got torn to pieces and then turned, or he was already a zombie before he got eaten or something.”
My head snapped up when I heard another sound. Something was coming this way, running through the undergrowth toward us.
“What the fuck?” Sam whispered.
“We need to get out of here,” I said. I could see the figure crashing through the woods. He wore a dark blue security guard’s uniform, complete with a baseball cap sporting the logo of whichever security firm he had worked for, and a black gun belt with a holstered sidearm. The veins in his neck and face were dark blue, spreading beneath the skin like a network of tentacles.
A hybrid. There was no way I could outrun him. Sam seemed unsure whether to run or fight, his hands flexing around the bat.
“The trees,” I said. “I don’t think they can climb.” My limited experience with hybrids suggested they couldn’t perform many actions beyond running and eating, but I was no expert when it came to monsters.
Sam nodded, and we began climbing the nearest pine. I had never been a tree climber, even when I was a kid, and the unwieldy baseball bat made the task even more difficult. Sam went up the tree like a big, loose-limbed monkey, and was out of the hybrid’s reach in seconds.
My slow pace wasn’t getting me out of danger quickly enough, and when the hybrid reached the tree, it reached up and grabbed my boot, pulling down with tremendous force.
Sam began to come down the tree to save me. “Hang on, man.”
Hanging on was precisely what I was doing. My hands gripped the branch above my head so tightly that my fingers went numb. The hybrid was yanking at my boot as if trying to pluck an apple from the tree. Its yellow eyes stared up at me, its face contorted by a mixture of determination and anger. I could see blue flesh hanging from its teeth, and I knew what had happened to the zombie on the ground; this hybrid had eaten it.
I couldn’t hold on much longer. My body felt like it was being stretched on a medieval torture rack. My grip slipped, and I hit the ground so hard that it knocked the wind out of me. As I struggled for a breath that I knew would be my last, I tried to claw my way backward out of reach of the monster.
He came forward, moving quickly and preparing to claim the plump morsel he had pulled from the tree.
Sam was still too high in the branches to do anything to help me. I looked up at him, hoping he would do something to save me, but his attention was elsewhere, and he was staring at something behind me. Maybe the hybrid had a friend who wanted to feast on me too, and Sam was unable to look away, like the people who rubbernecked as they drove past a gory car crash.
Then I saw three red laser dots dance across the front of the
blue uniform. The sound of automatic fire cracked through the air, and the hybrid fell to the ground.
I sat up and looked over my shoulder. Six men wearing identical security guard outfits as the hybrid had been wearing advanced to my position, assault rifles raised, red laser sights bouncing off the trees. They took up firing positions on the road, aiming their weapons into the woods.
A seventh man strode up to me and stood with his hands on his hips. He had a military buzz cut and wore trousers patterned with woodland camouflage. A dark blue T-shirt clung tightly to his heavily muscled upper body.
“Gentlemen,” he said in a rough voice, “come with me if you want to live.”
3
They led us along the road to where three dark-green Jeeps were parked. The man and his colleagues were silent as they led us to the vehicles. They bundled us into the back seat of a Jeep. Buzz Cut got into the front passenger seat, while one of his men drove us along the road.
“Right,” Buzz Cut said, turning to look at us. “Let’s get some names. Who are you?”
“I’m Alex, and this is Sam,” I replied. Sam gave me a sideways glance that told me he didn’t want me to give away any information, but I didn’t see any point in being quiet now. These men were obviously connected with the island so maybe they could help us get to the person we needed to see regarding a cure. If there even is a cure, I reminded myself.
“My name is Ian Hart,” Buzz Cut said. “I’m in charge of security on this island. Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you’re doing here.”
“We need help,” I said. “Our friend has been bitten. I want to talk to the scientists here to see if they can help her.”
He frowned. “There’s no help for people who get bitten, son. They die. Then they come back as zombies. Then we shoot them. Game over.”
Undead Rain Trilogy Box Set Page 31
