Dead Tide Rising

by Stephen North

  She can see Ozzie crawling toward his and Nast’s weapons, as she tries again to line the sights up on the man who is shooting everyone. He is now stepping up on shore, shooting Nast again, then turning toward Ozzie…

  She holds her breath and squeezes the trigger.

  A puff of flesh, and probably blood, appears on the man’s naked chest as he abruptly drops to his knees, one hand going to cover an expanding red stain.

  I can do this!

  Sinclair is up on her feet now, but is running after Daric.

  Janicea searches for the other two men. One, the driver of the second jetski is screaming, and has pulled a pistol. The first guy is slinging Beth over his shoulder.

  She hesitates. Who do I shoot? Who?

  Something hits her in the right shoulder, and the shock of it, literally tosses her tall, but lightweight body backwards onto the sand.

  Got sand in my mouth.

  Can’t move my arm.

  Oh dear Lord!

  Someone says: “Gotcha bitch!”

  Hot breath on the skin of her neck.

  She realizes her eyes are closed. A big sun-bronzed man is yanking her pants off. His long, brown hair is windblown and bleached blonde in places. Probably by the sun.

  He has a nice smile, but his eyes–Something wrong there. He reaches down with both hands and grabs her breasts.

  She feels paralyzed. No fight left. Don’t hurt me.

  He slaps her hard enough that she tastes blood.

  He stares down at her, pinching her nipples now.

  “Love the look baby, keep looking at me. Just like that.”

  Natalie

  She sits in the car at the end of the alley crying. Can I really make it to either of Mark’s parents’ places? By myself?

  The gun is right there.

  One shot, and all the questions are over.

  I need you Mom!

  She can’t stop crying, but turns right onto Seventeenth Avenue North, then pauses only a moment before turning right again.

  I’m a lot closer to Venetian Isles than to Tierra Verde.

  Seems strange to see all the traffic lights out.

  She turns on the radio, wind shield wipers, and lights. Floors the pedal some, and blows by the zombies crowding around the front of her house. Sails right through the Sixteenth Street North intersection, and is already looking at the cars stacked up around the Ninth Street light.

  “Oops, Martin Luther King light, I mean,” she says and giggles. The tears keep coming, though.

  An ambulance and a fire truck block most of her two lanes up ahead. Medians with curbs keep her from just swerving into the west bound lanes to get around it. She turns down a side street, Tenth, and sees more large groups of people wandering. The block is short, so she cuts across somebody’s yard, to get away from the people, and turns onto Twenty First Avenue. Martin Luther King Street is straight ahead. Once again, seeing a clear stretch, she floors the gas pedal and rockets straight through the stop sign, the four lanes of MLK and onto the red brick road on the other side.

  Forty miles an hour is much too fast for bricks. She hits the brakes, and slows down to twenty.

  Some seriously nice houses here.

  Even now it is hard for her not to dream about which one could be hers. Almost any of them can be if everyone keeps dying, at least for a while. Till they find and catch me.

  She passes over Eighth Street and sees the green grass and trees of Crescent Lake Park straight ahead of her. One of her favorite places. Remembers taking walks with her grandfather and his dog there. They’d feed the squirrels and blue jays peanuts.

  More tears.

  I’m all alone.

  She drives across Seventh Street and up over the curb onto the grass of the park. There is a large grassy opening without trees in front of her and she steers right through, then turns to the right, heading for the playground by the lake.

  Who cares if I drive on the grass?

  She parks beneath a bunch of old trees, mostly oaks. Gets out, grabs the pistol the carry bag and a blanket off the seat. Shuts the door quietly. Notices parts of the ground are almost dry under here. One of the trees is a Banyan tree, huge, probably every bit as old as the oaks, and multi-trunked. So many hiding places, and nooks: A wonderful place to play as a child.

  She heads for the favorite place of her childhood. There must be close to fifteen immense trunks, all the branches intertwined covering an area of about thirty square feet. She clambers over a huge root, and enters a hollow that delves between three of the trunks.

  The ground is completely dry. She unfolds the blanket partway and sits down.

  If I’m not safe here, so be it.

  She listens carefully for twenty minutes, and hears nothing but the wind, and the rain pattering on the leaves. Pulls out a bottled water and crackers from the bag.

  Within in an hour, she is sleeping peacefully on the blanket, remembering her grandfather’s little, fluffy white dog.

  Jacobs

  Jacobs doesn’t sleep long. Sussu wakes him by licking his face. She has both paws in his lap, and is panting, giving him that big doggie grin of hers.

  Fell asleep with the rifle in my arms, my backpack still on, and a dead guy on the floor behind me.

  Guy I murdered

  It was an accident.

  He looks at his watch: Five till five in the afternoon. Hard to tell what time it is in this tomb. All the curtains are drawn, and he can still hear rain falling outside.

  Apparently the zombies don’t know he is in here.

  Or they can’t get over the fence.

  “They would’ve been pounding on the doors already, if they got over the fence, eh girl?”

  Sussu grins some more.

  He gives her a scratch behind the ears, then straightens up and heads for the door he never checked last night. Typical lightweight, hollow core interior door. One good kick or shoulder block would take it right off the hinges. The door opens outwards and he finds himself in a library–The room is probably twelve by twenty, and there is a window in each of the three walls.

  With large windows.

  Bookshelves line each wall, filled with books. A desk and a nice padded easy chair are in the center of the room. He steps further into the room, and sees there are no curtains over the windows. At each one window, the dead things are pressed up against the glass. Sussu sees them and barks.

  They begin to press and pound on the glass. Jacobs backs out, shooing the dog ahead of him, and shutting the door.

  The noise is horrible. Glass shatters. He stands at the foot of the staircase and debates what to do. No point pondering on how they got through the gate. He has to act now. Going up the stairs is suicide. Probably.

  Might have enough ammo.

  Back door or upstairs–Decide!

  Never found the old guy’s truck keys.

  The dog tips the balance.

  Jacobs climbs the stairs as best he can, on the bad ankle, calling to the dog to follow him. “Come on Girl!”

  At the top there is a landing with a loft over the living room, and a bedroom and bathroom over the kitchen and dining room. In the loft’s ceiling is a pull cord for a stair to the third floor.

  The windows up here are all large like in the library downstairs.

  So I jump out the window with the dog, or we retreat up the stairs.

  One last choice.

  Jacobs pulls an old stereo cabinet and analog TV combination over in front of the stairs. The things will have to climb that to get to him. Might buy him a few moments if there is an emergency. He pulls three thirty round magazines from his left ammo pouch and puts them on the cabinet, along with his pistol and four magazines for it.

  Unless the whole neighborhood comes, that should be more than enough ammo. Course, it will require a lot of patience to get one headshot per bullet, but he is up for it.

  He looks down at his feet and Sussu is there, looking nervous, but staying by him.

  The do
or bursts open below. A chorus of moans, groans and the sound of shuffling feet become clear.

  “Be good SussuGirl, I’ll protect you,” he says in her ear, and gives her a hug. She rewards him with a kiss on the nose.

  He doesn’t wipe it off, but simply tucks the rifle butt into his shoulder and aims at the head of a zombie in the library doorway. Quit breathing, aim, and squeeze the trigger. A gout of blood, brain and bone strikes the wall. The zombie slides to the floor.

  Shift aim, wait, wait, squeeze. Another headshot.

  Breathe.

  Two stumble through, stepping on the others. Aim. Wait for it. Squeeze. The bullet catches the closer one in the forehead at the fourth step. No time. Shift aim. A child of eight takes the steps even quicker, and is on the eighth step when Jacobs shoots him twice, once through the neck, then a moment or two later through the head.

  Two more, closely followed by a third appear in the doorway and climb or push their way through.

  Activate the laser, idiot! Can’t miss then!

  Wish I still had grenades.

  Aim, settle the red dot, squeeze. Another corpse back down!

  Sweat rolls down his face, some beetling on his brow. Ignore it. Shift the dot, hold breath, squeeze the trigger. Woman’s eye bursts and her corpse tumbles down.

  Shift, aim, squeeze…

  Trish

  They make another block, and the road splits. Both branches lead to finger peninsulas that have houses on each side of the street.

  “Not going to win this race, Trish,” Anton says, while letting go of the wheels of the wheelchair. “Keep going, you can do it!”

  “No, don’t do it Anton, no,” she says, slowing her pace to his.

  The wheel chair hits something–A hole, a rock, she isn’t sure what, but he almost tips over. Their pace slows considerably.

  The ghouls are coming from every direction. At this moment, they are actually heading toward a larger group than the one behind them. There is a small chance of reaching a gap and escaping through them, however. Behind and to the north side, there is no such choice.

  Jumping into the water of the canal is the last choice.

  I can help him swim.

  They slow some more. In desperation, Trish gets behind him and starts pushing–All hundred and five pounds of her.

  The gap disappears.

  They slow to a crawl–Anton has given up.

  “Run Trish,” he says, wheezing. “I’m sorry.”

  They have just passed a long line of boat slips with a roof.

  The walking, shambling, lurching dead people are closing in, the closest less than twenty feet away.

  Anton aims the pistol at one of them. The sound of the shot echoes off the water and surrounding buildings. He fires again, and she can smell the gunpowder. Doesn’t really matter whether he hits any of them–There are too many.

  Another shot, and one falls, almost at his feet.

  “Leave me Trish! Live for another day!”

  They are within arms’ reach.

  I could push him over the seawall.

  Too late for that.

  Three sets of hands settle on him, while another person reaches for her. No telling how deep the murky water is. She runs three steps and leaps, arms arrowed together over her head and cuts cleanly into the water.

  Stops after a stroke or two, and turns back. The water is deep enough for her to have to tread water. The bag is weighing her down, though. She lets it go. Hears more shots, and Anton screaming in agony. People are tearing pieces of him away with teeth and clawed fingers.

  Two zombies stumble over the seawall’s edge after her.

  Time to go–Past time actually.

  She kicks her feet and shifts into the crawl and starts swimming toward the exit canal that has rows of houses along each side. Another row of covered docks protrude into the water on this side, and she has to swim further out to get around them.

  She keeps her eyes open, having no idea whether there are sharks in here or not. Probably good odds that there are. Hopefully they will be drawn to the two zombies thrashing around in the shallow water near the seawall.

  Over where the feast is over too quickly despite the size of the prize. Most of the hunters soon after revert to near mindless wandering.

  Forcing the morbid images out of her mind isn’t easy with his scream still ringing in her head, but she focuses on swimming. Ten minutes later she swims into the canal, and then sets her sights on a dock with a ladder about a football field and half away, on the left side.

  Trish has been in the water for close to a half hour when her fingers close around the ladder rungs. She floats, exhausted, but poised for flight, and looks around. No boat is on this dock. It isn’t very large. Someone has left three fishing rods laying on a bench though, and a nasty looking cooler. She pulls herself up and out with her sneakers squishing on the rungs, and her soaking wet clothes hanging off her.

  She pulls off her soaking wet shirt, careless of who might see her bare chest, and squeezes the excess water out. A huge screen enclosure covers the backyard of the house with a lot of lush plants, and a pool. The pool itself is tiled, and the concrete around it is coated with river rock.

  She glances out to the west, toward Boca Ciega Bay. The sun is going down, mostly masked by rain clouds. The rain has stopped again.

  The screen door is unlocked. She enters and pulls it closed behind her, locking it. Crosses over to the pool, and strips off everything. Leaves the clothes and shoes in a pile by the edge. She can see herself reflected in the patio doors of the house as she lowers herself into the water.

  The water on her body is the perfect temperature, not as warm as the canal, but almost invigorating in comparison. She floats face up on her back, closes her eyes and drifts.

  Goodbye Debbie, Anton.

  What am I being saved for?

  Daric

  Shame makes him stop running. He isn’t more than forty feet into the mangroves before he stops, and kneels. Out of sight, but not out of hearing range.

  He still has the gun. Bronte didn’t notice when he rescued him on the ship. Probably too busy being mad. He kneels beside a mangrove tree and its large fan-like mass of roots. Almost immediately, he hears Sinclair come crashing through the trees after him.

  A few last shots are fired, and then they hear: “Gotcha Bitch!”

  “They shot Janicea,” Sinclair whispers in his ear. She has her rifle, but is missing her shirt. Her bra is frilly, bright red, and almost transparent. She doesn’t seem to notice.

  They are close enough to hear the guy say something else, and start to grunt and groan. Janicea is grunting also, but it sounds like pain.

  “Bastards are raping her,” Sinclair mutters. “I can’t just let that happen, Daric, I’m sorry. If I don’t come back for you, hide and wait for Bronte and the others to come back. Don’t let these men catch you.”

  “No ma’am.”

  “I’ll be right back if I can.” Her lips tremble a bit, but there is a determined look in her eyes and the set of her jaw. An adult who is being serious. He knows the look.

  He nods.

  She stands up, and moving slowly, and almost silently she returns the way she came.

  The man and Janicea are still doing something.

  Sinclair must have re-appeared. Daric hears her give a couple of short commands.

  The man laughs and says, “Maybe when I’m done honey. Just have a seat–There’ll be plenty for you when it’s your turn.”

  “Fuck off!” Sinclair says, then a moment later she swears again, “Gonna pay for that Soldier Girl!”

  “The hell with that!” Sinclair says.

  A moment later someone punches someone else. He thinks he hears Sinclair moan in pain.

  Twenty minutes go by. He retreats further away, deeper into the island.

  She never comes.

  Bronte

  The three of them are about to confront the people picking up the bodies, when the gu
nfire begins.

  The other group apparently misses the first burst or two before someone hears it and commands the others to be quiet.

  “Sounds like gunfire over near Googe Island, Mikel. You reckon Ray found some more?”

  “Maybe so. Been a lot of people around here in boats.”

  “Maybe he’ll find some prime ass this time?”

  “Maybe Charlie, we’ll see.”

  “Might be too late for you, Charlie,” Bronte says, and steps around the SUV with his rifle ready.

  He sees five men walking next to an idling Ford Ranger truck. Two of the men are just dumping a body in the bed.

  “Now wait a minute, fella,” says the guy called Charlie. The other men step away from him.

  “Stop where you are!” Bronte shouts. Ralls and Tracks have stepped out from the other side of the SUV, the hood side.

  “Sounds like to me,” says Ralls, “that these guys are talking about our people, Bronte. Sure hope that isn’t true.”

  “If it is,” Bronte says, while looking into the eyes of a guy he assumes is Mikel, “they are all dead men.

  “I kill them Bronte, then we go back.”

  Tracks is serious.

  “Go ahead.”

  Tracks doesn’t even hesitate. The machine gun chatters, and most of the men don’t even get a chance to scream. Two of them manage to die with their backs turned, trying to run. The pick-up truck is riddled. The driver slumps over, with one arm dangling out the window. Blood runs down the corpse’s arm and drips from the fingertips.

  All of them had guns, but no chance to use them.

  “We need to get back to the island now!” Bronte says. He doesn’t wait for them to answer, but simply turns and runs back the way they came.

  The front door to the house is still open, and they run through the house and out onto the patio. Googe Island is visible from here, but they can’t see around the mangroves to where the catamaran and lifeboat are anchored.

  Bronte and Tracks untie the moorings, while Ralls fires up the engine. They swing away from the dock in an artful, skilled loop to the right. Ralls is no amateur.

  They almost bounce across the waves, throwing a large wake.