Zombie Island

by Samantha Hoffman

  Nobody says anything for a minute. We just sit there and think about what she’s saying. Strangely, I haven’t even considered it yet. Can they starve to death? Will they decompose into nothing and become harmless? We have no idea what they’re capable of.

  “What if they start evolving?” Tobe continues. “They could get smarter, they could start working together, they could figure out how to use weapons against us. I mean, who knows? We may never find out just how intelligent or dangerous these monsters really are.”

  Ryder opens his eyes. “I’m not so interested in what they’re capable of as opposed to who created them.”

  “What do you mean? I thought it was the wrath of God,” Tobe says, leaning forward. Her eyes are wide and she looks awed. “Are you saying that you think someone made these things? Like in a lab or something?”

  Ryder shrugs. “I’m not sure. But I doubt these things are the wrath of god, he sneers. “If there was a god, he’s long gone. Look around us; god is supposed to love those that worship him, and it doesn’t look like a lot of love to me. Instead, I see stupidity. Man’s stupidity.”

  “So, which country do you think first created them.”

  Ryder snorts. “My best guess would be ours. It seems like the US is always the first to fuck up, then the rest follow in our footsteps like stupid ducklings. Nobody ever learns.”

  “Don’t say that,” Reese snaps over his shoulder. “You’re a United States Marine, Ryder. That means you’re supposed to love and honor your country. Why don’t you try that for a change, instead of all the pessimism?”

  He laughs. “What country? In case you haven’t noticed, everything is gone, and nothing is ever gonna bring it back. There will never be new music, new books, new movies, or new life. We’re the last of the human race, Reese. There’s no denying that.”

  Reese doesn’t say anything. There’s really nothing to say to that, because he’s right. There’s a good chance that nothing new will ever come into this world. We might very well be the last of our kind, and that’s a scary thought that makes me consider curling up and holding myself until the nightmare ends.

  Reese turns off the boat’s engine some time later, and we all get to our feet. Beaver Island is a relatively small island with a small year-round population. If the infection has gotten to here, it shouldn’t be too hard to wipe out the infected zombies and make this place safe.

  The sun is starting to go down, and it casts a reddish orange glow around the numerous trees, ground, and water. For a second, the island looks so beautiful that I begin to relax and feel at peace for the first time in a while.

  Then I notice the blood.

  It covers the end of our small dock in thick splashes, and everyone in our group instantly tenses up. Ryder and Reese are the first two off the boat, and Tobe and I follow closely behind. I take the Glock from my belt, and grip it tightly. I hate not knowing what I’m walking into, and this is definitely unknown territory.

  When we reach the end of the dock, the trail of blood stops. There’s an armless torso lying in the pool of blood, and I can’t tell how old the body is, but he can’t be older than ten. Tobe and I both stare at him, unable to look away from what’s left of his mangled body.

  There are several crescent-shaped bite marks along his shoulders, stomach, and what’s left of his face. There’s a large hole in his stomach, and I can see some of his intestines trailing out. That, plus the scent of blood and the sound of buzzing flies nearly drives me to my knees, and I have to fight to push back the nausea bubbling up.

  Tobe loses that fight, and turns away to throw up in the grass, away from the boy’s remains. We let her take care of it in peace and quiet, and when she joins us again, she looks miserable. “It made it all the way out here. Is no place safe?”

  “Come on. There’s a house up here on the hill. All we have to do is head up these stairs and walk down the driveway, and we’re home. Let’s carry only what we need for the night, in case we have to make a quick getaway in the morning.”

  We all scramble to grab what we need, mostly food, water, and blankets to keep warm. Ryder is the only one not carrying something, but he’s keeping up a vigilant watch over the surrounding trees as we ascend the rickety wooden steps to a house that looks in slight disrepair.

  We come out on level ground, and find ourselves standing in front of a large, dark brown wooden home. There are steps leading up to the main floor, and it has a wooden railing that surrounds the deck, giving us something to shoot from in the event of an attack. There’s a beat-up four door sedan in front of the garage, the grass is overgrown, and the trees look bare and dead, but the place definitely looks livable.

  We carry our supplies up those stairs, and find the green front door wide open. There’s blood pooling at the front of the door, but no body, meaning that whoever bled to death there didn’t stay dead. Ryder realizes that, and brings up his rifle, going directly into ex-Marine mode.

  He quickly checks the house, going room to room, for any signs of life. When he comes back, he’s visibly relaxed, and we all breathe a huge sigh of relief. Reese throws his bag of food down onto the nearest couch, and hops down beside it. He kicks his feet up onto the coffee table, and reclines back. “This might be the first decent night of sleep we’ve gotten in ages.”

  “Let’s hope,” Ryder says, grabbing the bag of food from the couch. He heads into the nearby kitchen, and we all follow him. It’s a very small kitchen, but it’s mostly undamaged, aside from a broken cupboard door.

  The cabinets are made of light brown wood, and the appliances are white and fairly new. However, there isn’t any electricity, and the fridge and microwave won’t work. While inspecting the rest of the appliances and cupboards, I notice there are magnets and drawings stuck to the fridge. At some point in time, there was a little kid living in this place, and I wonder if it was the boy down at the dock.

  I shake off those bad thoughts, grab a can of vegetable beef soup, and take the can opener from Reese. He grins at me over an open can of fruit cocktail. “I feel really good about tonight.”

  I nod, and start to slurp at my soup. It’s cold and slightly congealed, but I don’t really care. It feels so nice to be in a semi-safe place, with people I can trust, and decent food, that I’m beginning to feel as optimistic as Reese is. He’s right to look on the bright side, and so am I.

  After the four of us finish eating, we take a look around the rest of the house. The place is nice, but it doesn’t reek of money. It has a nice, homey charm to it, until we get to the bedrooms. There are only two of them, so we’ll be doubling up, but it’s not the number of rooms, it’s the way the rooms are.

  The first room is a large bedroom with a queen-sized bed, pine dresser and bedside table. It’s pretty basic, and Ryder and Reese will be taking turns sleeping on the bed and on the floor. The second bedroom once belonged to young children, and it makes me uncomfortable being in their rooms, knowing that they’re never going to come back.

  There are two twin-sized beds separated by a large pine dresser like the one in the first bedroom, and there is a chest of toys in one corner. The walls are covered in drawings and artwork, and I can tell that it was two boys living in this room. But not anymore.

  This is the room Tobe and I will be sharing, and I can’t help but feel like we shouldn’t be here. For a minute, I’m tempted to claim the couch as my own, but I’m going to need a decent night’s sleep if I’m going to help tomorrow. So Tobe and I throw our stuff against the wall, and we strip down to our underwear. As much as I want to sleep in a bed for the first time in days, I can’t do it.

  I take a blanket from our supplies, and curl up with it and my sweater. Tobe crawls into bed beside me, and sighs. “How long do you think we’ll be able to stay here?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admit. “But this place seems like it could be fortified. Plus, we know there won’t be any increase in the number of zombies. Once the ones on the island are gone, they’re gone.”

/>   “I know. We might be able to actually start a new life out here. I’m kind of excited.”

  I wish I could feel so comfortable here…

  Chapter Eleven

  In the morning, I head into the one bathroom with a bottle of peroxide, a cotton swab, and a fresh bandage. After peeling away the old bandage, I notice the cut on my thigh is a light red color, and it throbs gently when I touch it. The cut is healing, but I don’t want to take any chance it’ll get infected. So I clean it carefully, dry it, and stick a new bandage on it.

  Then I dress for the day in the new clothes that Tobe grabbed for me, and I feel fantastic. For the first time in months, my clothes aren’t dirty, torn, or covered in blood. They’re nice, fresh, and clean, and I feel like a brand new person wearing them. It’s strange to think that something as simple as brand new clothes could lift the mood, but they do.

  When I join Ryder and Reese, they’re sitting at the small, circular dining room table. Each of them has a bottle of expensive Fiji water in their hands, and they both look incredibly happy about something. When I sit down beside them, they look at me. “Guess what we found in the pantry.”

  “More canned stuff?”

  “Better. Mountain House prepackaged meals; they’re like MRE’s. They have a shelf life of seven years, and all you need to do is add a cup of boiling water, wait ten minutes, and then serve. It beats fruit cocktail and Vienna sausages any day.”

  “What kind of food?”

  Ryder nods his head to the kitchen counter, where two blue bags are sitting. “Right now Reese and I are making two pouches of scrambled eggs with ham and red and green peppers. After this meal, you’re gonna feel better than you have in months. I guarantee it.”

  Reese gets up, checks the pouches, and grabs four plates from one of the cupboards. Tobe comes out with two more bottles of Fiji water, and hands one of them to me. Reese sets a plate of scrambled eggs and chopped ham with green and red peppers, and I inhale appreciatively.

  The eggs smell amazing, and my mouth actually begins to water. As I take the first bite of warm eggs, a small moan escapes my lips, and I don’t feel embarrassed about it. After months of canned beans, tuna, and the occasional vegetable, this is pure heaven. Even though the eggs are a little soggy, and the peppers don’t have much taste, this is amazing.

  Everyone quickly finishes their breakfast, and Tobe takes the plates away to wash later. “We’ll need water to wash these. How did you heat the water to make the meals?”

  “We dragged a bucket of water up from a well in the front yard, and heated it over a fire pit nearby. There’s some left in the pot, and it might still be warm.”

  “So, what’s on the menu for today?” I ask, stretching and rubbing my stomach. For the first time in months, I actually feel full. “Are we gonna start clearing out the island? Or are we gonna fix up the house first?”

  “Well, Ryder and I are going to finish unloading the rest of the supplies from the boat, and then we’re going to scope out the property. We think there’s a wooden fence that goes around a portion of it, and we wanna know if it needs maintenance. If you guys don’t mind, we need someone to clean the blood from the front door and the steps. Then maybe straightening out the rest of the place.”

  He’s asking, not telling, so I don’t have a problem with cleaning the house all day, especially since I won’t be much use elsewhere. Tobe and I glance at each other, nod, and then turn back to them. “I don’t have a problem with cleaning. At least it’s something constructive to do.”

  “Alright,” Reese says, standing. “There’s an outhouse out back, there’s some more of the prepackaged meals in the cupboard, and just holler if you need anything. We’ll come running.” Ryder heads out the door, but Reese hesitates for a minute. “I don’t like the idea of leaving the two of you here by yourselves. Neither of you is particularly skilled with a gun. If something happens…”

  “We’ll be fine,” I assure him. “I’ve got a gun, and two extra magazines. If anything does happen, I can hold down the fort until you guys get back.” He still doesn’t want to go, and I have to nudge him toward the door. “Reese, we’ll be fine. I promise.”

  He sighs. “Alright. But if you need anything–”

  “I know, just holler, and you’ll come running.”

  He nods once, and jogs down the steps after Ryder, who’s already waiting impatiently in the front yard. They have a quick conversation, and jog off into the trees, leaving the two of us standing around, wondering what to do first.

  “I think we should take care of the blood first,” Tobe says, looking at the pool of red liquid by the open door. “Then we can clean any rotten food out of the kitchen. It should make this place smell a whole lot nicer.”

  I had noticed a slightly uncomfortable odor, but didn’t want to complain since this is the safest place we’ve been in since leaving my apartment a few days ago.

  I head back down the hall to the bedroom that Tobe and I are sharing, and tuck my handgun into the waistband of my jeans. She’s waiting for me by the front door, and we make our way around the side of the house and into the garage, where we find a large five gallon bucket.

  Tobe carries the bucket down to the lake, while I follow closely behind, searching for any sign of movement. She fills the bucket with as much water as she can carry, and we head back up to the house. Tobe finds a bottle of lemony dish soap under the sink, and squirts a little on the blood.

  She then dumps some of the water over it, creating a bubbly pool of reddish water. The two of us take brushes with bristles from the kitchen, and start to scrub the blood stain from the wooden porch. It’s had a little bit to settle in, and the stain doesn’t want to clear away.

  It takes almost an hour to clear away the blood stain. When we’re done, we use the rest of the water in the bucket to wash away the soap and the remaining bloody water. With the porch outside the front door clean, the two of us head back into the kitchen to begin going through the cupboards for any signs of rotten food.

  Tobe is taller, and can reach the top cupboards with ease. I open the fridge, and immediately wish I hadn’t. The smell of six month old rotten milk hits me so violently that I start to cough and gag. Alongside the gallon of spoiled milk are a bag of soft, rotten apples, a carton of eggs, and a container of what looks like homemade, moldy banana bread.

  She hands me a black trash bag from under the sink, and I toss the nasty items inside. The fridge still reeks, but once we get the rotten items outside the smell should clear up a bit. I set the trash bag on the floor beside me, and take everything else from the fridge, tossing it in with the milk and apples. The fridge hasn’t been running in a while, and we can’t trust anything that’s been in here.

  “Dammit.”

  I glance over my shoulder. Tobe’s holding two boxes of cheesy rice, and there’s a frown on her face. “These might have still been edible, if only the damn mice hadn’t gotten to them,” she says, showing me the boxes. There’s a chewed hole in the bottom corner of each, and dry rice and mouse pellets are falling to the counter. “What a waste.”

  She tosses the boxes of rice into the trash bag, and six more quickly follow it. She sets some cans of corn on the counter in an “edible” pile, and continues going through the cupboards. While she does that, I grab a washcloth from the sink, dip it in the bucket of lake water, and start scrubbing the shelves in the fridge.

  The lemony smell of the dish soap helps the horrid smell, but it’s still there, lingering in the air now that the fridge has been opened. As I scrub the fridge clean, Tobe finishes going through the cupboards. She’s found twelve cans of food to add to our supplies, but nothing else is edible.

  I take the nearly full trash bag and set it out by the front door on the deck. When I head back to the kitchen, Tobe is spraying a bottle of air freshener around the room. It helps, but I can still smell a faint hint of sour milk.

  She smiles at me. “What should we do now?”

  “I’m gonna wa
sh my dirty clothes, so I have more than one thing to wear.”

  “Oh, that sounds like a great idea. Then I don’t have to wear the same thing day after day. That’s something I really miss; being able to wear nice things, like that dress I just got, instead of just practical ones.”

  We take another garbage bag from under the sink, and grab up everyone’s dirty clothes, even Reese’s and Ryder’s, and head outside. Tobe and I gather another bucket of lake water, and sit out back beneath an old-fashioned clothes line that goes from one tree to another.

  We can’t thoroughly clean the clothes with just cold lake water, but we can scrub away the dirt that is caked on. When the clothes have soaked and been scrubbed, we hang them with pins on the clothesline. “I think that’s as good as they are gonna get,” Tobe says, standing with her hands on her hips. “Now I think it’s time I get cleaned up.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower.”

  She laughs. “I know. It’s been so long I think I’ve forgotten what hot water feels like.”

  “Well, as long as the water makes me clean, I don’t care whether it’s cold or not. In fact, I think I’m gonna go for a swim in the lake. The guys should be back anytime; do you think they’d wanna join us?”

  She shrugs. “I’m not sure, but I’m definitely in.”

  The two of us head down to the lake, and I set the handgun on the edge of the dock, where I can get to it quickly if I need to. Then Tobe and I strip until we’re standing in our underwear and camisoles. We don’t have swimsuits, but this will have to do.

  Tobe does a perfect swan dive off the end of the dock, and I go for a cannonball. The water is frigid this late in the year and this far north, but it feels great on my skin. I know that we should be more careful about being so exposed, but we’ve only seen one zombie since arriving, and he was already dead. Speaking of the boy, I crane my neck around, looking for his body, and find nothing.