Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 2): A Rising Tide

by Jeff DeGordick

  "Here," she said. She moved the branches away and picked up the duffle bag, unzipping it and making sure everything was in there. She held it open for him to inspect, and before he looked inside, she cautioned him: "Don't be shocked."

  When he looked, his eyes went big and he staggered backward. "Good lord, Sarah!"

  "I warned you," she said.

  "And just what are you going to do with that?"

  "It's just for the three of them," she said.

  He thought about it. "Where?"

  "In his office. It's far enough away from the dorms, and if anything, the explosion should go out the window. The only thing below it is the cafeteria, and nobody will be there at night."

  He looked at her as if to ask if she was out of her mind, but the more he thought about it, the more his harsh stare softened.

  "I have to do it," she said. "If you saw what I saw, you would be right here with me."

  He sighed. "Those who have the ability, have the responsibility, I suppose?"

  "I like that. Where did you hear it?"

  "Thought of it just now, to tell you the truth."

  They both started to chuckle and then wound down back to the uncomfortable and bizarre situation that they found themselves in.

  "So will you help me?" she asked.

  He stared off in the distance, thinking about how much of a head start he would have gotten on Raleigh by now.

  "Come on, Barry," she said. "I need your help."

  "Fuck it," he said. "I'll do it."

  "Barry! I've never heard you swear before."

  "I find myself doing a lot of things I've never done before lately, you know. So what's your plan?"

  She smiled. "I've set up a little distraction soon. It should make sure Noah's out of his office for a little while. When he leaves, I'm going to go in and find somewhere to plant these where he won't see them, and I need you to keep watch outside his office and let me know if someone's coming."

  "And if someone does?" he asked.

  "Then run interference," she said with a smirk.

  "Ah, I see. Give 'em the old charm, or as I like to call it, the Barry One-Two," he said, throwing a hook and an uppercut.

  She laughed. "Something like that. I might not be able to set the explosives off tonight—that'll depend on when I can get the three of them in the office together—but it shouldn't be long after."

  He took a deep breath and gave himself a little shake. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

  The cold breeze licked her cheek as she leaned on the top of the wall and stared across the field. She looked toward the back of the camp where Zed's men had planted the bomb on the wall, looked back at the camp inside the walls, looked back up the hill at the carnival—all the memories she had in the last few short months. She thought about her journey coming here with David and was sad that it felt like so long ago. Had she already become so bitter and forgetful that she started to forget what life used to be like even just six months ago living with David in the townhouses? It was a simple and boring life, but they had each other and that's what mattered. But that was gone and she couldn't have it ever again.

  Her eyes watered and she brushed two thick tears away from them.

  As she reminisced about everything that had happened to her in the last half a year, she realized that this may very well be her last night at Noah's Ark. Where she would go next, she had no idea. The thought of being completely alone was crippling, but she didn't have a choice anymore.

  She glanced again at the hotel across the field and saw movement. It was dark and hard to see, but she saw a set of hands sticking out a window and waving around on the third floor.

  She stood with her body square to the window in acknowledgement. She waited for whoever's hands they were to pull back inside and get ready. When she thought they were, she glanced over at the guards standing on the wall with her and saw that they were relaxed and not paying much attention, then she stood on her toes and reached over the wall, placing her hand against the outside of it and sweeping it in a downward arc from left to right. After she did this, she turned and strolled along the wall for the nearest ladder. She passed a guard who paid her no attention and she climbed down. She walked up the stairs to the second floor and went inside, passing Noah's office as nonchalantly as possible while also trying to peek inside.

  The door was open a crack and she could see him sitting at his desk, reading something by candlelight.

  She continued to the dorm and slipped behind the curtain surrounding her bed, then she reached her arm under the mattress and pulled out the two bricks of C-4 with the detonator and blasting caps she had smuggled in and stashed away. She left the rest of it in the duffle bag out in the woods, which she shoved in a little alcove underneath a partially-uprooted tree. She sat patiently on her bed and waited for the fireworks to begin, having counted down two minutes in her own head on the way.

  Then she heard it. It sounded like someone throwing marbles at a tin can from where she was, but when she heard shouting and commotion outside, she knew it was time. She stuffed the C-4 in her coat pocket and quickly made her way to the entrance of the dorm, surreptitiously sticking her head out into the hallway.

  Just then, she saw Noah bolt out of his office and run out of the building.

  She checked the other end of the hallway and didn't see anyone, so she strode out at a brisk pace. She stopped at the doorway of the lounge and Barry looked up from the magazine he was pretending to read. She nodded and he got up and followed her.

  They walked down to the end of the hallway, almost at the office. She wouldn't need more than a couple minutes to find a good place to hide the C-4 and prime it. Her body was already shaking and she didn't figure Barry was any better off.

  She could hear gunfire being traded outside, and Barry shot her a worried glance. She mouthed some silent words of comfort and turned her attention back to the office in front of them.

  Just before they reached it, the door leading outside opened and a long line of armed guards filed into the hallway.

  Sarah and Barry stopped dead in their tracks, their hearts leaping into their throats, as they backed away from the office and tried to be inconspicuous.

  The men walked down the length of the hallway and spread themselves out evenly in a line, a dozen of them in total.

  Barry tried to head for the door outside as Sarah followed, making it look like that's where they were headed all along, but one of the guard's stopped them.

  "What's the matter?" Barry asked.

  "Return to your sleeping quarters," the guard said unemotionally.

  "But we're just going for a walk," Barry protested.

  The guard stepped directly in front of him. "Return to your quarters now."

  Sarah stepped out from behind Barry. "What's happening?" she asked, pretending not to hear the gunfire.

  "The camp is under lockdown right now," the guard said. "Everyone has to return to their quarters and stay inside for the rest of the night."

  She and Barry looked at each other, out of ideas. They reluctantly turned around and started walking back to their dorms as more people who were out and about around the camp were led back inside.

  As she walked, she felt her feet grow heavy like she was wearing cement shoes and being pulled down in the water, slowly, slowly until she reached that scary black depth that no one living knew, and no one who knew would live.

  Noah knew. It was the only reason for this. She knew there was nothing outside but a handful of potshots out a window from a handgun. There was no way it would warrant a reaction like this.

  As Barry broke off from her with an apologetic look, she felt like she was walking into her tomb. Before she crossed the threshold of the dorm, she wanted one last look outside of it, because she knew she would never see it again.

  She stopped at it and turned around.

  Behind all the guards, at the end of the hallway, Noah and Wayne stood in front of his office. They stared at her w
ith stern expressions on their faces, and she stared back. They made no acknowledgements of her, no form of message, nothing. They just stared until she turned and walked down the aisle of the dorm. She passed all the graves on either side of her until she hid the C-4 away again and settled finally, eternally, into hers.

  21

  A HIKE IN THE WOODS

  She didn't dream. She didn't feel. She didn't have memory of anything that happened through the night.

  But her eyes opened. They were confused and sore, and they looked around, slowly soaking up the starkness of her surroundings: the white ceiling; the pale green curtain; the white sheets wrapping her; and the dead rose sitting in water.

  Her body started to move and she realized she had complete control of her motor functions and that she hadn't been restrained. She was alive and awake, and as the morning light filtered into the ladies' dormitory through the windows, there didn't seem to be anything out of place.

  She got out of bed cautiously and peeked through the curtain, but everything was normal and quiet. She opened the drawer to her dresser to take the gun she stored there, but then remembered that Mark had somehow found it and used it to kill Kathy. That horrible memory made her stomach turn and a crushing sense of guilt set in. He had asked her for a gun and she told him no. She thought that would be the end of it, and she never considered that this would happen. She stole that gun from Zed's camp to protect herself, and not only was it gone now, but if she hadn't taken it at all, Mark would still be alive; Jenny and their kids would still be in camp. Mark still would have been in bad shape and none of it would have been easy, but at least they would be safe.

  She remembered the C-4 and related items she stuffed under the mattress and she reached underneath. Her hand felt the familiar shapes and she pulled them out. Her plan to kill Noah last night failed and she didn't know if she would get another chance. But for whatever reason, she was still alive, and that had to mean something.

  She knew Wayne told Noah what he saw her do at Zed's camp. The way they looked at her the night before, she could see it in their eyes. It was the only reason that he would have put the camp into lockdown; he knew she would try to do something like that. She wondered if he somehow knew exactly what she had tried to do, or if there was still some element of surprise to her plan.

  Sarah put on her coat and stuffed the explosives in her pocket, trying her best to hide the shape of them as she walked out of the dorm. If by some miracle Noah hadn't decided to kill her and she still had a chance, she would need to take the C-4 away and hide it. She knew they might search her bed and find it, and then that would really be the end of it. But for now, maybe just for right now, they only vaguely suspected her and she was safe.

  The lockdown had apparently ended, as there were no guards in sight and the residents were up and about. The door to Noah's office was closed and she wondered who was inside and what was happening. She had never felt so close to something and yet truly been so far away from it in her life. Her mind started to race, trying to come up with other locations where she could plant the C-4 and catch him off guard, but his office was the only consistent place that he stayed and regularly met with Wayne and Kenny. But for right now, she needed to hide the explosives.

  She turned the other way and walked toward the back end of the building. She glanced at the floor as she went and saw that they had cleaned up every trace of blood from the carnage the day before, almost as if it never happened at all. The guilt rattled her and she tried to take her mind off it. She crept down the stairs and walked out the back door.

  The morning was chilly, but the sun was shining. She never thought she would ever feel the sun again, let alone spend another day at Noah's Ark. She decided it would be best to hide the C-4 back in the duffel bag in the woods, leaving no chance of someone from camp stumbling upon it.

  And she strongly considered just leaving. If she could sneak out through the hole in the wall, why would she come back? It surely would be better to just take only what she had on her person in that moment and leave. Maybe wink at Barry on the way to give him the heads up and he could come with her. They would travel to Raleigh together and live a simple life in good company.

  But then the harshness of the outside world set in. She was so used to being pampered for the last few months, relatively speaking, that she didn't know how she could fare on her own. If she didn't go with Barry, she would be truly alone, and then she knew that tiny wriggling worm in the back of her mind would put bad thoughts in her head. A large part of her felt like the moment she left these walls and decided she would never come back, she would have nothing to live for and that would certainly be the end.

  Barry was nowhere to be seen as she made her way to the shed, and she hoped he was okay. Just as she made it to the front of the main building with her hands in her pockets, still holding onto the C-4, a voice stopped her.

  "There you are," Wayne said. He came from around the corner of the building and he seemed strangely casual.

  She froze and waited for something to happen, but he didn't seem any different from any other morning she'd seen him.

  "You're coming with us this morning," he said.

  She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. "Coming where?"

  "You'll see."

  She looked at the shed, which was only a few yards away. "Now?"

  "Right now," he said.

  The words tied her stomach into knots and she suddenly felt very weak and shaky. She stared at the shed like it was a beacon of freedom, standing right in front of her and taunting her. The explosives in her hand felt heavy. She stood there stubbornly, trying to think of anything she could say that would get her out of it, but she knew there wasn't.

  She reluctantly turned and followed him as he led her to the gates.

  Noah stood there, waiting for her.

  She braced herself when they reached him, but to her surprise, he smiled at her.

  "Good morning, Sarah," he said.

  "Good morning," she said quietly.

  "Ready to go?"

  "I guess so."

  "Great," he said, and he motioned to the guards and pushed open the gates. The three of them left the camp as the guards shut the gates behind them, and they headed east-by-southeast. Noah walked in front of her and Wayne walked behind, keeping her closed in between them.

  "Where are we going?" she asked.

  "You'll see," Noah said.

  The normal procedure was to always wear body armor before leaving the camp, but they offered her none. The only explanation that could be drawn in her mind was that they weren't interested in her wellbeing this morning.

  They traveled along a quiet path that stuck to relatively rural areas, keeping away from homes, roads and storefronts. They walked for a long time, always keeping the same sandwich formation, and her heart pounded at the same speed and intensity the whole way, never easing.

  She thought of every movie she'd seen in the past where the antagonists brought someone out to a remote location and disposed of them, and the farther they went, the more her fear got the better of her. Even though her coat kept her warm, she started to shiver. But neither of them said anything about it.

  When they had traveled for what seemed like hours to her, they came to the edge of a wooded area that must have been near the edge of town and stopped. They stood on a worn gravel path that led on a slight decline and wound around a corner, disappearing through the leafless trees. The path quickly became narrow, and it almost looked hidden, like not many people could have stumbled across it.

  They all stood there for a long time, and she waited for something to happen.

  The sun still kissed her cheek as the bitter wind rolled across it, and aside from the wind's subtle whistling, not a single sound was made anywhere in the woods. The trees were tall and stretched on for as far as she could see. The ground was covered in dead leaves, and despite the situation, there was a beautiful serenity to the location.

  Noah turned t
o her at last. "Well, ready to go?"

  "Go where?" she asked again.

  "You'll see."

  He was still all smiles and was being nothing but friendly to her, acting as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  He started in on the narrow gravel trail, which soon turned into dirt, and she followed behind him, Wayne still following behind her. She stared at Noah's broad shoulders lumbering forward and backward as he walked, and occasionally she would glance behind her at Wayne. He always stared off in random directions, acting as if she wasn't there at all. She was surrounded by two men who she used to think were good people, and yet she'd never felt so isolated.

  They followed the trail as it wound its way through the trees, getting deeper and deeper into the woods. From time to time they would hear something scampering through the leaves as something darted by, unseen. Sarah's eyes snapped to the sound every time, thinking it was a zombie or an elaborate trap they had waiting for her, but every time it would be a small critter or something off in the distance that she couldn't quite make out.

  She still held onto the C-4 in her coat pocket and searched for a spot and an opportunity to toss it away, still terrified that they would search her and find it. But she knew it probably didn't matter anymore; every step she took forward, she knew that it would be a step she would never be allowed to retrace.

  The trail eventually opened up and as they rounded a bend, a small wooden shack stood before them. It was fifty feet away, and it stood at the side of the trail, weathered and dilapidated. It was such a small structure, but the color of the wood, the way it leaned, told a story.

  A deep sense of foreboding gripped her as the shack called to her. Gaps between boards leered at her like black eyes; another board that had fallen apart at one side sat angled down to the ground—a queer and sinister smile.