“They were joking, but they weren’t. When I was younger and people would comment on how pretty I was, I thought they were just saying it to be nice, to try to make up for me being the ugly one. No one cared if I was smart or funny or sweet or mean or downright stupid, trust me, I tried them all. When I turned seven, all I wanted were dinosaurs and a bike. All I got were dresses and makeup. I picked out this super cool cake, you know, from those books at the bakery counter. It had a volcano and these little dinosaur figurines, it even had a styracosaurus, they’re my favorite, and you don’t see them much because they’re not like, one of the main dinosaurs everyone knows.”
Oh my god, she knows dinosaurs. Marry me?
“I was so excited, Noah, you have no idea. My friends are all there, my sisters and their friends. Mom brings out the cake… and it’s Disney Princesses.”
“No,” I murmur, my heart sinking to my toes as every hair follicle stands on end. I try to say more but my quivering lips halt my words in their tracks.
“All I ever heard was how pretty I was, from everyone except my family. Good ol’ Tussy, the ugly sister. I didn’t want to be pretty, I just wanted to play dinosaurs and ride my bike. I didn’t feel beautiful because I felt like no one saw me. I like dressing up and wearing makeup, but I love hiking and science and nerdy things that girls like me aren’t allowed to be into. That’s why I had such a crush on you.”
“Me? God, no, Felecia, I feel like all I’ve ever done is perpetuate–”
But she cuts me off with a stern shake of her head I couldn’t argue with if I tried. “You were the only person who talked to me about my volcano at the science fair. Like, you were genuinely interested. You have no idea how much that meant to me. I know how corny it makes me sound but I swear I fell in love with you that day. When you asked how I made it, I was so nervous, I couldn’t even tell you what I said but I’m sure it had nothing to do with how I actually made it.”
“You had real rocks. And little dinosaurs,” I manage to squeak out, trying to hold back tears but failing miserably. “A styracosaurus.”
“It was the only time I got my mom to buy me dinosaurs, for an eighth grade science project. When you caught me on the bleachers, a few weeks later, I was kind of in heaven. You were the first boy to ever make me feel like… me. The only one, even today. When you look at me, I swear you’re looking into me. And I know that I can be whoever I want and you’ll still find me beautiful, whether I’m in a dress and makeup with my hair done, or this.” She gestures to her chainmail vest and camo pants. I can’t see them under the dark water, but I know they’re there because I haven’t been able to stop staring at her since she put them on.
“We can talk about dinosaurs whenever you want.”
“I know,” she laughs through a smile that hides her tears. “I know we can. That’s why I love you so much. And believe me, when this is all over, we’ll be watching prehistoric documentaries and discussing more nerdy things than you’ll know what to do with. And I can’t wait. Just know that I do squats while watching, kinda how I keep my figure. So you really don’t mind how different I look without makeup?”
“Um, well, I don’t, have I seen you with it off?”
“Well, yeah, the last, I don’t know, however long it’s been since this all started.”
“Huh, I guess I didn’t notice. You don’t look any different.”
She doesn’t look at me but I can see her smile spread from ear to ear as her ponytail whooshes back and forth on our journey through the shallow water.
It’s incredible how little we know people we’ve known for so long. There are parts of ourselves we keep hidden, whether by accident or necessity. I can’t even begin to explain the guilt I feel for the way I’ve thought of her over the years. The things I didn’t know about her made me hate her. Those same things made those who knew her, hate her. She buried the girl I knew she was or they would have done it for her. How could I have ever hated her? How could I not see through the façade? Now, all I wanna do is ride our bikes into the woods and play dinosaurs with her. Well, you know, if our bike wasn’t at the bottom of the ocean.
But there’s no time, we’ve reached the, what did she call it, some kind of stage. The long rows of metal grating bob in the waves, nothing like the last dock we were on. I like the wooden ones more, the kind that don’t move. How embarrassing would it be to get seasick before even stepping foot on the vessel.
I give her a boost onto the unstable steel walkway, lined with fishing boats. Lobster boats? Are they the same thing? They all look the same to me. White, little closed in room in the front, big open deck in the back. Actually, now that I’m closer, it looks like some of them have another room underneath, I can see windows. Wait, is someone moving–
“Shit! Felecia, they’re in the boat! They’re already inside!”
CHAPTER 12
The mangled remains of his once human face slam against the tiny window. Through the blood smeared glass, his lone eye locks on me, throwing him into a rage. He bangs on the wall that separates us as if his fists can burst through on sheer will alone. His other eye, dangling from the gnawed off socket, connected only by the optic nerve, flaps about, before being squished between his cheek and the window. The hot breath from his savage cries fog up the glass with every exhale.
His eyeball pops, crushed under the pressure. The splintered bones of his exposed jaw probably didn’t help matters any. A thick goo squirts out, running down the glass like when you put too much jelly on your sandwich and it oozes out between the bread. The fluid drains from his deflated eye, a grape with its innards squeezed out, trickling into his overgrown Viking beard. God do I hate this age of scraggly beards and no it’s not because I’m jealous that I can’t grow one. Something tells me zombies don’t shave so let the age of pubic beards continue.
“Noah, give me your hand, hurry! There’s more coming up the dock.”
One Eyed Willy thrashes against the window as I climb past him, the eyeball goop caught in his facial hair smears the porthole until he’s nothing more than a blur through the slimy substance.
Felecia’s right, I can hear more of them, their feet clanging off the unstable dock as it rocks back and forth beneath their ungraceful footsteps. They reverberate through the metal grating as our uninvited dinner guests draw closer. There must be five of them running down the wobbly dock.
Make that four. It’s wiggling too much, one of them just lost her balance and disappeared over the edge in an epic slide that deserves a slow motion replay. Bet she’s wishing there was a safety railing right about now.
Her little tumble may have helped even the odds but this dock is maybe three feet wide, if that, way too narrow to stage any sort of fight that doesn’t involve us going right over with them. I can’t even get to my feet, the damn thing’s shaking too much.
Oh this is just perfect, Grizzly Adams found his way out of the below the deck quarters. His popped eyeball is dangling like a deflated balloon on a string, just smacking off his cheeks as he stumbles towards us, clearly having a little difficulty with the whole depth perception thing.
Felecia’s trying to steady herself but it’s not going so good, she looks like a beginner trying to stand on a surfboard. We can’t even get to our feet, let alone fight off five then four now five again of these ruthless bastards. Six if you count this guy’s beard which upon second glance might be a small child he hasn’t fully swallowed yet.
We have no choice, we’re going to have to jump back in the ocean and hope they decompose before sinking their teeth into us. What would happen if they did bite? If a little saltwater stopped Felecia from turning back on the island, it would have to do the same in the freakin’ ocean, right? You don’t get much more saltwater than that. At the speed they’re traveling, I’m afraid we’re going to find out sooner rather than later.
Son of a bitch. There’s more coming, I can make them out through the orange glow of the dim lighting. They’re racing down the dock in a mad s
cramble to get to us. They know we’re here. If we leave this rickety staging, we’re never getting back on. We can’t risk it, we need to get on one of these boats and get the hell out of here before it’s too late.
“If I hold them off, can you get one of these things started?”
“If I can find a key,” she shouts, using her sword to steady herself on the shaky platform.
“They take keys?”
“How did you think they started? Noah, I’m not leaving you here to fight them off alone.”
“You have to, they’re just gonna keep coming. Go, find us a boat.”
“I’m gonna try one that doesn’t have the undead Gorton’s Fisherman on it. If you need me, scream.”
I feel like screaming already. Their frontline of four can’t be more than twenty feet away and at the speed they’re moving, I won’t have a chance to utter Felecia’s name before they reach me. And Duck Dynasty here is about ready to throw himself over the edge of his massive fishing boat. I can feel his arms flapping about as he reaches over the edge, grabbing at me, no clue how close he is with one of his eyes missing. The answer is, a lot closer than I’d like. If I could actually make it to my feet, he’d be yanking me up by my ears right now.
What kind of stupid plan was this? How the hell am I going to fight them off? I can’t even stand up. And now I’m gonna die with Felecia thinking I’m an idiot because I didn’t know boats needed keys. Let’s just hope they keep them in the visor above the steering wheel like trucks in movies because I don’t think the one eyed fisherman would take kindly to me rifling through his overall pockets in an attempt to boat-jack him. Would that make me a pirate? Alright scallywags, time to walk the plank.
I am so glad I didn’t say that out loud. Felecia would certainly regret sleeping with me and it’d probably never happen again. I’m embarrassed I even thought it. Even more embarrassing, I have no idea how I’m going to hold them off long enough for her to find the boat keys. Okay, seriously, who knew you needed a key to start a damn boat?
A failed attempt to spring to my feet sends me back to my knees. I can’t fight them off from down here. I’m gonna be at the bottom of a pig pile in two and a half seconds and Duck Dynasty’s about to topple over the edge of his unnecessarily large fishing vessel and land right on top of us. Are both stories really needed? What’s he catching on that thing, dolphins, sharks, Ursula?
I spring from my crouching position and lunge towards the one eyed fisherman hovering above me. I know it’s stupid but I don’t know what else to do. They’ll be on top of me before my next blink.
I latch onto his scraggly beard and swing out of harm’s way, dangling over the thin strip of ocean between the dock and boat. His throat slams against the railing which actually gives our tandem performance a little much needed stability.
Here they come. I lift my legs like I’m doing crunches and swing my sword, not that it’s entirely necessary. The first one launches himself at me, completely missing my legs. He torpedoes face first into the side of the boat. The rest of him slams against it a second later. He falls into the narrow gap, crashing awkwardly off the side of the dock on his way down. I can hear his agonizing screams as he fries in the saltwater while the next in line stages his attack.
I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto this tangle of wiry hairs. Not because it’s disgusting, which it is, but because I’m slipping and his hair’s tearing. And what the hell is crunching under my palm? Is that, it is, it’s a freakin’ cheese puff. He’s got crumbs in here. I swear to god, if a beard beaver pops its little head out and tries to bite me, I’m clubbing every one of these things to death with it.
Praying nothing nibbles on my fingers, I kick myself off the side of the boat and swing both feet at the dock dwellers like I’m trying to run across their faces. It’s working! Holy shit it’s working. All three stumble backwards but only one of them loses his balance enough to take a tumble off the other side.
Uh oh, it’s ripping. The hair’s breaking off in my hand. I fear my George of the Jungle days are over. Why did I think a beard could hold a seventeen year old, plus all the added weight of the cheese puffs, crumbs and possible beard critter dwelling in there?
We’re going down.
The hairs break under the strain and I go sailing through the air like when we used to jump off the swing and see if we could hit the sandbox. And I always sucked at the landings. But I think you know that by now.
Some things never change. Owww! But at least I landed on the dock, even if it is on my side in an awkward heap. And more important, I did not stab myself in the process. Really not a bad landing, all things considered.
Oh lovely, as if I don’t have my hands full as it is, here come the Children of the Corn again, filing onto the dock like it’s Disney World. All shapes and sizes, pushing and shoving each other into the water just to get to me quicker, not a care in the world for their classmates evaporating in the sea. How many buses did they squeeze into that amusement park? Shouldn’t at least some of them be strapped into their bumper cars or ferris wheels and not running around the beach trying to eat me? Where the hell are all the chaperones?
Well, there’s one, I think. It’s hard to tell with that much of her missing but she appears to be an adult. The possible chaperone is clambering to her feet after my swinging kick to the face.
Mrs. Hooper. She’s got a name tag sticker on her chest. She’s one of these kids’ mothers.
This was supposed to be a day of fun. How did it turn into this? She just wanted to ride the damn merry-go-round with her child. Probably took the day off from work and had to listen to all her co-workers lament over the fact that they couldn’t be out there eating cotton candy too.
It didn’t matter that it was raining that morning. It probably wasn’t even raining here, just wherever I’ve been for the past four days. Five days? Four? I don’t even know anymore. They’ve all blended into one long shit show that never seems to end. And every time there’s an end in sight, it gets yanked away by someone who should be dead but clearly isn’t.
“I’m sorry.” I hope Mrs. Hooper finds it in her undead heart to forgive me. I have no choice. She’s standing, I’m not.
I swipe her feet out from under her with one powerful kick that sends her toppling over the edge of the dock. For all our sakes, I hope there’s an afterlife that makes all this worth it.
CHAPTER 13
“Felecia, any luck?” I shout, trying to find my footing before the young fisherman is fully vertical. I don’t know for sure if he’s a fisherman but I’m hoping the ugly overalls weren’t his regular attire because if they were, this poor kid died a virgin.
“I can’t turn it on. Nothing’s working. I swear to god if you tell me to try rubbing my tits or twerking– wait, wait. It’s doing something!”
The boat spits and sputters, it sounds like my little brother trying to start the lawnmower. I reject the memory as quickly as it entered my subconscious, I don’t have a brother anymore. He was gone long before the apocalypse to end all mankind, thanks Dad. Dad. I almost forgot, they’re waiting for us at the hospital. We would probably be returning right about now. What are they going to do when we don’t come back?
I promise, we’re coming. We’re getting on that helicopter if it’s the last thing we do. I am so done with this zombie infested wasteland. I’m sick of the running and the fighting, the blood, the smell, the constant paranoia that can’t really be considered paranoia because the threat is so real that if you don’t spend every second of every day on high alert, you don’t make it through that day. I’m done.
The young fisherman in his bloodstained overalls gets to his feet at the same time as I do. I’m telling myself it’s fish blood, yes I’m aware fish don’t have blood. I feel like we’re a couple of cowboys embroiled in a duel.
He shoots first, lunging his hipster body towards me. I’m assuming he’s a hipster, judging by the scraggly mohawk. All I can do is swing the sword at his neck and ho
pe it decapitates him in one swipe because that pack of disgusting, vile little creatures, who also happen to be zombies, are running down the dock so fast you’d think it was time for recess. And the one eyed-ripped beard-fishing-people eater is growing restless on the deck above me. I have a feeling he’s going to say ‘screw a safe way down’ and topple over the edge at any second just to get to me before the Garbage Pail Kids do.
This son of a bitch dodged my swing. The hipster fisherman stops short to avoid the blade. I’m assuming he played basketball at the rec center before having a locally brewed ale at the vegan bar, and apparently he was quite good. I don’t have time for this. I need to get the fuck on that boat!
His oversized overalls drop to his knees. The blade must have nicked him just enough to slice the fabric. He attempts to charge again but trips over the pants falling down around his ankles. I prepare to swing again, and not miss this time, but the kids are so close I can feel the snot bubbles bursting from their diseased little noses.
What else is there to do but throw myself down on the back of Fishin’ Hippie and roll over him like I’m a gymnast? Unfortunately I am not a gymnast so rather than a super cool luchadore roll, I look more like a fat man tripping over an old lady at a buffet. But it does the trick. It got me out of the way of their grubby little hands. Barely. There’s no more than a body separating us.
Wait, where’d that shadow come from?
One Eyed Willy slams into the frontline of warrior children in a sloppy cross body press off the top rope. Something tells me he was aiming for me and I rolled out of the way at exactly the right time. I mean, yeah, I knew that’s what was happening and this played out exactly as I planned it. Yep, I’m just that good.
His sea battered body crushes what must be three or four kids under his weight. This is no small man, he’s the guy they send onto the rocks to push the boat back in the water if they wash ashore or run aground or whatever it’s called. What? We’ve already established I’m not a boat guy. But this dude who happens to be the size of a boat just smooshed a bunch of children and–
Blood Type Infected (Book 4): Betrayal of Hope Page 8
