by Red Lagoe
"Harkness!" he called and the dog followed him outside. The rifle fired from the lake again, and John could spot the distant vessel way out in the cove.
40
The Divorce
The first shot had hit Melody in the bicep, and in an instant—before Marcus could take another shot—she flung herself backward, off the ledge of the boat, and into the gray water.
A plume of red burst from her arm and into the surrounding water as she sank. Stunned, she watched the bubbles scramble to the surface as her sinking momentum slowed.
Another bullet whizzed by her, cutting a path of bubbles between her arm and her body. She used her good arm to swim away underwater, kicking to get out of the path of his fire.
The engine started, but stalled out. She wouldn't survive the swim back to shore with her arm wounded.
Adrenaline pumped through her body and she swam one-armed, underwater, to the side of the boat, where she surfaced in the choppy water. She pulled in a silent gasp of air and gripped the rung of the ladder with her good arm. The engine kicked on again and the boat started moving.
She held her gushing left arm tight to her body as she climbed the ladder and crept onto the boat with a watchful eye on Marcus.
The boat sped over small waves in the post-storm water, as she steadied herself between the seats behind Marcus and picked up John's rifle.
She rested the butt of it into her right shoulder. Unable to extend her left arm to aim, she did her best at steadying the gun.
She hesitated.
Blood dripped onto the floor while everything became blurry, then her vision tunneled. The increasing burning sensation in her bicep kept her focused as she lost blood.
Marcus turned his head and whipped around to face her. Shaking, Melody leaned into the rifle and kept steady.
"Turn the boat around," she said as calmly as she could manage.
"You're not going to shoot me," Marcus said with a smug grin.
"Turn the boat around," she repeated, soaking wet, with bright, red blood pouring from her arm. Her ability to stand became weaker with each passing second.
Marcus turned his back to her and continued driving the boat forward.
"Mel, I'm not turning this boat around, so if you wanna save those people, I suggest you grab that life vest and start swimming."
"Last warning," Melody said, trembling behind the rifle.
Melody counted in her head, one, two, three... Marcus stayed true to his course. Four.
She aimed low and to the right of Marcus, targeting the edge of the boat to send a warning shot. She squeezed the trigger and the shot sent Marcus collapsing to his knees at the helm.
"Fuck! You shot me!" He held his ribs and inspected the graze wound on his side.
"Turn the boat around," she screamed at him, shocked that she accidentally hit him.
Marcus stared at her, bewildered, cupping the wound on his side.
An icy feeling of disconnect glazed over her eyes. The feeling reminded her of the day she received the orchid-colored envelope in the mail from her dad. It was a moment in her life when she was supposed to have some sort of substantial emotional outpour, instead, she froze it up inside so it could never escape. As if life became so hard all at once that her body—in an effort to protect itself—severed all ties to emotions.
She couldn't feel anything as she stared at Marcus, other than the throbbing pain in her left arm and a surprising feeling of worry for John—a guy she barely knew.
She looked into Marcus's eyes and tried to find what she was holding on to, but it wasn't there. Shooting him would be her best option for survival. There was no reason to keep him alive right now. Her index finger held steady on the trigger, and—as she considered squeezing it—Marcus cranked the wheel.
The boat made a slow U-turn back toward the cove.
The tiny pink cottage where John waited for her came back into view, and Melody released a breath, keeping the rifle aimed at Marcus as he held his wound with one hand and steered with the other.
A steady dripping of her own blood splashed onto the floor near her feet, and Melody began to feel more lightheaded than before. She wasn't sure if she would make it all the way to shore without passing out, but she couldn't risk setting down the rifle to tourniquet her arm.
"You're making a mistake," he said.
"Shut up." She worried that he was right.
Her vision tapered, hope that she'd make it back to John faded, but Melody was strong. She pressed her wounded arm between her body and the side of the boat to create enough pressure to lessen the bleeding, but it may have been too late. She was certain she would pass out at any moment and never make it back.
John would be alright, but she couldn't imagine traveling without him at this point. They were good at having each other's backs.
Marcus slowed the boat as it approached the dock, but it was too late. Melody's knees collapsed beneath her weight.
41
Into the Shallows
John stood on the end of the dock, with his pistol in his hand, as the boat headed back toward him. He was unaware of why they were firing from the boat.
His leg ached, and he was weak, and the rocking of the waves would make for a difficult target, so he was sure to take these factors into consideration. Even though he held the title of an expert sniper, it would be a damn-near impossible shot. He had about a twenty yard effective range for this gun under the current conditions, if he was lucky.
John was ready for whatever that pontoon boat was about to bring him, except if Melody was hurt. But he wasn't going to think about that.
The boat was almost to the dock, and John could see Marcus at the helm, slightly hunched—injured. The engine cut, and the boat drifted closer to the dock.
The sight of Melody leaning against the side of the boat alieved John's worries, until he saw her buckle at the knees and drop to the floor.
"Chuck!"
Marcus dove to her side.
The boat bumped against the dock and John holstered his pistol to tie the boat to the post.
"What happened?" John shouted as Harkness jumped on board.
"They got on the boat!" Marcus yelled, "They got her! She's infected. Stay back."
John froze, and he looked over to Melody in disbelief.
Harkness licked at Melody's arm, and she opened her eyes.
She locked her gaze on John as he was about to climb on board. She shook her head at him with a panic-stricken face—a warning—as Marcus lifted the rifle from the floor.
He reached for his pistol, but Marcus had already fired a shot into the unsuspecting John—center mass.
Melody jumped to her feet as John felt the jolt of pressure against his chest that flung his body backwards. He fell off the side of the boat, and his head smacked against the dock.
Shock and fury ignited in Melody's gut. She aimed low and plowed her body into Marcus like a tackling dummy. Melody's attack was swift and fierce, roaring with ferocity, as she threw Marcus off-balance and overboard into the shallow choppy water.
"John!" she screamed. "John!"
She stared at his body as it floated on the water face-down. He thumped into the dock post.
"Get up!"
Harkness barked as Marcus got to his feet in the shallow water. Melody knew she wouldn't have much time to make a decision. She untied the boat from the post, hoping John would come to and climb aboard, but his body remained lifeless.
Her heart wailed so hard she wanted to puke, but she moved to the front of the boat and started the engine.
Marcus stomped through the waist-deep water, toward the shore, readying his rifle on his shoulder.
"Mel!" Marcus screamed with a savage fury.
"John!"
Harkness stood on the back of the boat barking, while Melody looked to John's body once more as it floated face-down in the water. She threw the throttle forward and pulled away from him, still in disbelief.
"Get up," she demanded under
her breath, waiting for movement, but he didn't move.
Marcus scrambled on shore and took aim at Melody's head to fire a shot. The bullet whizzed through the air.
She ducked below the seat back and kept the boat moving forward. Her eyes welled, but this time she could not keep herself from crying. Her face streamed with unrelenting tears, and she sobbed in gut-wrenching pain that trumped the throbbing in her arm.
Harkness whimpered behind her.
Marcus fired again but could not get her from that range.
"Fucking, Bitch!" His voice became distant.
Melody cut the engine in the middle of the cove and dropped to the floor for her backpack while Marcus screamed at her from the dock.
"Survive," she whispered, spilling tears and blood onto the floor of the boat.
She pulled out the bungee cord that she collected from the house that morning, and made a tourniquet for her arm, pulling it tight with her right hand and her teeth.
Her entire body trembled as she opened the bottle of tramadol for pain relief. Without knowing the dose, and without caring if it was right, she popped three pills in her mouth.
She looked back up, hoping to see John was alright—maybe climbing to shore—but instead, she saw the girl with the flaming red hair right behind Marcus.
About twenty others were in pursuit. A mass of infected followed the sounds of gunfire and made it to the lake. They rolled, slid, and stumbled down the slope toward the sound of Marcus's yelling, but he was too furious to notice them.
The redheaded girl scuffed her feet along the dock, with her focus locked on Marcus. She collided into his back and swung her arms in a frenzy, clawing and biting, and they both fell to the dock while he screamed out in pain.
She dug into him and bit his shoulder as two other infected threw themselves on top of the pile. The mound of bodies thrashed.
They wrestled and entangled themselves on the dock, and Marcus's screams became lost in the gnarling growls of the infected.
Melody watched in horror as her husband was torn apart, but her attention pulled toward John.
She couldn't see him anymore. His body had likely washed against the edge of the bank and tangled below the surface in the weeds, like the infected man in the pineapple tie that had walked into the water earlier that day.
Infected bodies from Barton Road tumbled down the bank and, one by one, dropped into the water around where John had fallen. Many of the infected were too weak to get back to their feet once they'd fallen to the base of the hill, and the rest dragged themselves onto the dock and tumbled over the edge.
She couldn't watch any longer. The icy glaze took over her body and Melody collapsed to the floor of the boat and stared to the gray sky for strength, but there wasn't any strength left.
42
The Orchid Envelope
"It's the living that's the hard part," her dad had said. He had no clue.
Everyone she had ever known or loved was gone, including the man she barely got a chance to know.
Melody pulled her pale orchid envelope from her pocket and decided it was time to read her father's last thoughts, before she entertained the idea of giving up on life, right out there on the open water.
She carefully ripped open the seal of the soaking wet envelope and pulled out the folded sheet of yellow, lined paper—soaked through from her fall into the lake. The paper had been torn off of the legal pad with the same reckless motion that one would make with a grocery list. Her dad's messy printed handwriting—similar to that of a teenage boy—looked back at her:
Dear Melon Bee,
If you're reading this – well I guess you know what it means if you're reading this.
I'll be gone.
I love your mom.
I love her with so much of me that when she died, too much of myself died too. I'm a shell now, and I choose to quit.
But you know what? I have loved. I have loved in a way that people dream to be able to love. And I have lived. Really truly lived a full life, but I can't keep going any more now that half of me is missing.
Be strong, Melon Bee. I know you will be, because you're far stronger than me.
Days will come that are so hard that you want to give up, but don't. Don't quit life until you've lived—truly lived. Even when you're 101 years old, don't die until you've enjoyed life.
I'm not saying you'll get to do all the things you want to do, but you will get to experience sunsets and the stars at night. You'll get to experience love and friendship and all the things that make life worth living for.
Don't let the crap that happens to you in life keep you from living. Live with a fire in your heart and a fire under your ass and fight like mad.
I love you...More than I could ever say or prove.
-Dad
Harkness wiggled himself up against her and whimpered, curling into a bundle. Melody clutched the paper against her chest, and squeezed the orange vial of tramadol in one hand. She wadded up the note with spiteful rage and nearly chucked it overboard.
"Asshole," she said, tears still falling.
Then she tucked her note back into her pocket and pulled herself together.
She followed her instincts, and a bit of her dad's advice. She dressed her bullet wound, looked back to where John had fallen in the water, and bid her friend adieu.
She drove the boat up the lake with her emotions stuffed inside so deep that she was unable to think about anything other than survival.
She dropped anchor for the evening before she reached the northwest tip of the lake so she wouldn't have to traverse the state forest by foot in the dark. After the sun had set, and that day's storm had moved far to the south, the clouds broke apart and exposed patches of clear sky. She and Harkness dined on a can of mixed vegetables while the sky to the west fade from orange to purple as that familiar icy feeling of don't-give-a-shit shrouded her heartache and despair.
43
The Chest
While John had been watching the boat on the water—before he had been shot—he had heard a crash from inside the cabin.
Kayla was in the midst of a violent grand mal seizure that sent her head thumping into the black chest with the gold clasps.
He aimed his pistol at her head, and—right before pulling the trigger—her body settled down.
Kayla sat upright and stared out the window with the emptiness of a corpse, so John refrained from shooting her.
He dragged the black chest away from Kayla, propped it open, and the quarter inch layer of dust on the lid didn't move. Sitting on top of the things in the case was an empty gun holster and a neatly folded police uniform. He pulled out the contents—more certificates and awards, a baton—which John stuffed into his pack.
At the bottom of the memorabilia was a faded vest.
"No shit," he said.
He stood up to look out the window toward the pontoon boat which moved away from the cottage, farther out into the lake.
He would have to go after her. John picked up the 1980s-era Kevlar vest and strapped it on beneath the palm-frond button down shirt. Too much time had gone by, and he needed to get to Melody out there on the water. John ran to the canoe leaning against the tree, as sharp stabbing jolts of pain shot from his stump. His leg was not ready for the prosthetic yet.
Another shot fired, confusing the hell out of him. Countless scenarios played through his mind as to who was shooting and why.
With every ounce of strength he could muster, he flipped over the canoe and pushed it through the grass. Each heave, sent the canoe a bit closer to the edge of the slope, and each heave sent a wave of excruciating pain and nausea through his body.
He knew he'd never catch up with her by rowing.
He didn't know whether or not Melody was even on that boat, but he had to try.
He remembered the boat with the red lightning bolt down the road, but wasn't sure if he could get the front end of the truck out of that house quickly enough to catch up.
His h
ead pounded. His body was weak, leg throbbing, and while he decided what to do, the pontoon boat made a sudden turn and headed back in their direction.
John met them at the dock as they pulled in, unprepared for Marcus to turn on him.
After John was shot in the chest—into the Kevlar vest—his head smacked into the dock and sent his body into the shallow water, unconscious.
From under the dock, he pulled his face out of the water and sucked in a deep breath, lucky he wasn't out cold any longer—but not lucky enough.
Melody's boat pulled away without him while Marcus fired shots from the dock. John stayed low, and close to the dock posts in the water. Then he headed toward the bank, staying out of Marcus's line of sight, so he could sneak up behind him.
Before he could get out of the water though, there were countless infected pouring down the slope. He was uncertain of his strength, and not confident enough to take on so many of the infected, even with his pistol—which was now wet.
John tucked himself along the edge of the bank, under the dock, hiding from view of the infected as Kayla stumbled down the hill and attacked Marcus.
An infected man dropped into the water in front of John, then another. John remained still, with his knife at the ready, as Melody stared back toward him in the water, unaware he was alive.
As more infected dropped into the water around him, he protected himself with quick and covert attacks, remaining tucked against the bank.
Melody drove away without him, probably assuming he was dead. He would have done the same.
He had to follow her but pulling himself out of the water would draw their attention, so he waited...and waited...but the infected kept coming. Each second that passed was another second longer that it would take to catch up with her.
