Lucy joined me, playing an air guitar of her own and leaning her back against mine as if we were posing on a stage and playing for a crowd.
The song ended and we both collapsed on the bench, breathing heavily.
Lucy looked at me, her blue eyes sparkling in the morning light.
Zombie apocalypse or not, I was glad I was here with her right now.
Something passed between us and I felt for the first time that she might actually like me. Really like me, in the same way I liked her. It had taken the end of the world to make it happen but I might have actually met a girl who wasn’t a red light professional or somebody on an internet hunt for human contact with anybody at all.
She leaned forward slightly, her eyes locked on mine.
I did the same, feeling her breath against my lips.
My heart hammered in my chest.
“For fuck’s sake, you two, turn the fucking music down.”
The moment was gone. Mike stood in the doorway, his eyes bleary, his hair sticking up.
Jimi Hendrix was on the radio singing “Are You Experienced?”
Lucy and I parted. I felt the loss immediately. Turning to Mike, I said, “We need to get moving, Mike. The sooner we get into Scottish waters, the better.”
He looked at us for a moment, his eyes flickering from me to Lucy and back again as if he were trying to figure out a puzzle. “OK,” he said. “Let me get dressed first. And turn that fucking radio down, man.” He disappeared inside.
Lucy stood up. “I guess I should get dressed too.” She went over to the radio and Jimi faded as she turned the volume down. She went inside quickly.
Fuck. Now she felt embarrassed at what had almost happened between us. I didn’t blame her, I guess. She was way out of my league and she knew it. We both knew it. Everybody on board knew it. Even the zombies onshore probably fucking knew it.
I felt like jumping overboard and drowning myself. I had tried to cheer Lucy up and the music had done the trick but then I had let my idiotic expectations get too high. I was crazy to think Lucy could ever go for a guy like me. There was a reason I spent most of my weekends locked away in a fantasy game world. It was time I faced reality.
And now Lucy was ashamed because we had almost kissed. She must be down there looking at herself in the mirror and saying, “What the fuck are you doing? He’s an inexperienced geek. Even in this post-apocalyptic world, you can do a lot better for yourself.”
I went over to the radio and turned it off.
Striding through the living area to the back of the boat, I climbed the ladder to the bridge. If Mike couldn’t get up at a reasonable time because he was too busy in bed with Elena, I would get the boat started myself. After all, how hard could it be to get to Scotland? All we had to do was point North and follow the coastline. I couldn’t take any more of this drifting and going nowhere.
I sat in the bridge chair and looked at the instruments on the panel. OK, maybe this looked complex but all I needed to do was raise the anchor and start the engine. The keys sat in a cupboard that also contained maps and charts. They had a neon yellow plastic float attached to the key ring so if they fell into the sea they would float and would be easy to see. I took them out and fit them into the ignition.
And stopped myself before I turned them.
I really didn’t know what I was doing.
I took the keys out of the ignition and put them back in the cupboard. I looked out at the calm sea and the clear blue sky. Just sit here and try to calm down. No point crashing The Big Easy into Swansea just because you’re a loser.
A crackling sound made me jump. It had come from the instruments. I listened carefully.
Crackle
“…Big Easy…” A man’s voice. Coming from the radio set that sat on the wall.
I turned up the volume and moved the tuning knob a fraction until his voice came in clearly.
“…Lighthouse hailing The Big Easy. Do you read? Over.”
I picked up the handset and pressed the button. “This is The Big Easy, reading you. Over.”
“Ah, so you have got the radio on. I’ve been hailing you all morning. Saw you on deck dancing with your girl.”
Saw us? I leaned towards the window and scanned the coastline. To the north, in the distance, the dark shape of a lighthouse rose from a rocky island. If he could see us from there, he must have some powerful binoculars.
“I wondered if you knew the latest news. Over,” he said.
“What news is that? Over.”
“If you want the details, I’ll do a deal with you. Face to face. Not over the radio. Over.”
I frowned at the lighthouse. Could he see me? Was he watching me even now? “What deal? Over.”
“You get me off this rock and we can all be saved. Over.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I almost forgot to add, “Over.”
There was a static-filled pause then he said, “The Americans are coming to save us. If you get me off this rock, I’ll tell you where and when. Over.”
I looked at the radio. I didn’t want to make a group decision without the others. “I’ll have to get back to you in a few minutes. Over.”
More static. Then, “Alright, lad, but don’t be too long about it. Otherwise, we’ll all be dead. Over.”
I wondered if he had lost his mind, surviving alone in that lighthouse while the world around him went to hell. “What do you mean? Over.”
“After they pick up survivors and get to a safe distance, they’re going to drop The Bomb. Over and out.”
seventeen
“Maybe he’s just a crazy guy who got into the lighthouse and is using the radio to lure us into a trap, man,” Mike said as we sat around the dining table. We had eaten a breakfast of pancakes that Elena had made from some sort of egg powder, flour and long-life milk. They actually tasted good even though they had a rubbery texture. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the ingredients or Elena’s lack of cooking skills. The mug of coffee I washed them down with was strong and bitter. I usually took two spoons of sugar in hot drinks but had decided to cut down to half a spoon. Sugar was in plentiful supply on The Big Easy at the moment but that situation probably wouldn’t last long. We needed to preserve what we had.
Lucy barely looked at me as we discussed the lighthouse. She had dressed in blue jeans and a tight black sweater, her perfect curves amplifying the fact that she was way out of my league. I tried not to think about it.
The radio call from the lighthouse had caused us a problem. Either the man in there knew where and when the rescue ships were going to land, in which case we needed that information, or he was trying to draw us into a trap.
“It doesn’t add up, man. Why does he need us to get him off his island? Where’s his own boat? He must have got out there somehow.”
“And if all he wants is to use our boat so he can get rescued,” Elena added, “he won’t care if we’re with him or not. What if he steals The Big Easy?”
“He said he wanted to make a deal. I assume the deal is how we know he isn’t going to steal our boat.”
“Yeah, right,” Mike scoffed, “make a deal with a fucking madman.”
“We don’t know his story, Mike. He could be telling us the truth. If he’s stuck in that lighthouse and Britain is going to be nuked, don’t we owe it to him to take him with us to the rescue site? Otherwise, we’re leaving him there to die.”
“A lot of people are dead, man. A fucking lot of people.”
“So we shouldn’t care about one more even if we have a chance to save his life?”
He shrugged. “We need to look after ourselves.”
“I agree. And if he has information about the rescue mission, we need it.”
“And if this is a trap, we could all get killed, man. We don’t know how many people are in that lighthouse. There could be a dozen killers in there waiting to steal our boat.”
“So what do we do?” I asked. “Should we vote on it?”
/>
“Fuck that, man. I’m going to talk to this guy.” He got up and strode out to the aft deck.
We followed. The bridge was only big enough for two people so Elena climbed up while Lucy and I stood on the deck. We could hear the radio from there. Mike was talking into the handset. “Hey, lighthouse guy. You there?”
Static.
“Hey, lighthouse guy. You want us to save your ass, you need to talk to me.”
Static.
“He isn’t even fucking there, man.”
The radio crackled and hissed.
I looked over at the lighthouse. Was he watching us through his binoculars? I felt like raising my middle finger and flipping him off. Maybe that would get a response out of him.
Lucy came over and stood next to me. “Alex, about earlier…”
“Hey, it’s OK. Forget it.”
“No, I…”
The man’s voice came from the radio, cutting through the static. “My name is Eric.”
“Well, Eric, I’m Mike. There are six of us on this boat and we want to know what the fuck your deal is.”
More static. Then Eric said, “There are four of you.”
“Are you fucking spying on us, man?”
“I can see you. There isn’t much else to look at out here. There are four of you. Not six.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Well you’d better tell us about this deal you want to make, man.”
“I need to get off this rock, Mike. They’re going to drop The Bomb. I don’t want to be around when that happens. There’s a rescue mission taking place. I know where and when the ships are going to land. After that, everyone in this area is going to be dead. That includes me and it includes you. All I want is a ride to the rescue site.”
“Where’s your own boat?”
“That’s a long story.”
“We have a long time.”
“No, we don’t.”
Before Mike pressed the button to transmit again, I called him. He poked his head over the top of the ladder. “What is it, man?”
“He said we don’t have a lot of time so the ships must be arriving soon. Like it or not, we need information from this guy.”
“Alex, he’s been spying on us, man. The Big Easy is the best thing that happened to us since this shit storm went down and now you want to risk her? He said the Americans are coming to save us, didn’t he? So if they’re heading up this U.N. mission, America must be virus-free. Fuck this guy and his information. We just sail to America.”
“And get blown out of the water by the Coast Guard as soon as we get there,” I reminded him.
“I’d rather take my chances with the Coast Guard than with this guy. He’s probably working for some band of pirates and luring ships onto the rocks.”
Eric’s voice came out of the radio. “Are you still there? Over.”
Mike looked at me. “I say we ignore him.”
“What do you think?” I asked Lucy,
She sighed. “We need the information about the rescue but I don’t think we should risk our boat to get it.”
Mike pumped the air with his fist. “Yes. Elena, what’s your vote?”
“We should make this guy tell us what he knows. What gives him the right to keep it to himself?”
“He wants to live too,” I said. “What gives us the right to take the info and leave him to die? And how were you thinking of taking it, anyway?”
“We’ve got a gun.”
I shook my head. Even Mike’s plan of ignoring the man was better than this. Was this what we had become now? Thieves? Murderers?
“Elena’s right, man. We can’t trust him. I say we go over there and fuck him up until he tells us what we want to know.”
“Mike, listen to yourself. This isn’t you. You don’t use violence to solve problems.” All his life, Mike had only ever used violence as a last resort, in self-defence, or in defending me. I had never seen this side of him before.
He looked at me with hard eyes. “The world has changed, man. It’s kill or be killed.”
Great. So now he was on a ‘survival of the fittest’ kick. Where did that leave me—the out of shape gamer geek? How long before Mike and Elena decided I didn’t fit into their new evolutionary plan and threw me overboard to fight the sharks for survival?
I looked to Lucy for some common sense but she didn’t seem to care that we were entering Lord of the Flies territory just so long as we didn’t risk the boat.
“I’ll stay with The Big Easy,” she said to Mike. “We can’t risk losing her.”
He grinned. “Awesome. What about you, Alex? You staying on board or coming ashore?”
“I’ll come with you,” I said reluctantly. I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to stay part of this group of survivors. It felt like the rules were changing by the second and I couldn’t let myself be the outcast. So just like when I was at school, I went along with the stronger kids to ensure my own survival.
“Cool.” Mike went back into the bridge and keyed the radio. “Yeah, we’ll talk with you.”
“We can talk when I’m on your boat, OK?” The calmness that had been in Eric’s voice earlier seemed to be breaking. Maybe he was going mad up there.
“No,” Mike replied, “we’re coming to see you.”
“Listen, you don’t understand…”
“See you in a few minutes, man.” Mike turned off the radio and Eric’s voice was silenced.
The Big Easy’s engine started up and the anchor chain clanked as it drew the anchor up from the sea bed.
I felt a nervous anticipation run through my body as we started moving towards the lighthouse.
Like it or not, we were going in hard.
And nothing would ever be the same again.
eighteen
Mike brought The Big Easy to a stop a quarter mile out from the lighthouse. As we rocked in the ocean, our own wake hitting the stern, I inspected the lighthouse for signs of danger.
It rose from the rocks like a white cylinder. Windows were placed at various levels and at the top, the huge light sat like an eye looking out over the sea. It reminded me of the eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Around the light ran a balcony, and leaning over the railing was a dark-bearded man dressed in green waterproof trousers and a dark blue sweater. He waved at us and shouted. “Let me come aboard.”
Mike snorted. “Yeah, right.” He turned to us. “OK, here’s the plan. Lucy stays with The Big Easy and we take the rowboat to the island. I’ve got the gun. If that fucker tries anything, he’ll be sorry. Alex, where’s that rope you got from the marine store?”
“In the hold, but…”
“Go get it.”
There was no point arguing. I went below deck to fetch the rope I had slung over my shoulder at the marine store. I’d had no idea then that we would be using it to tie up a man. If I had known, would I have still brought it aboard? Depressing as the answer was, I knew I wouldn’t have done anything differently.
Mike’s earlier reference to the survival of the fittest hadn’t just been an off the cuff remark. The world as we knew it had ended. Survival was a prize that had to be fought for. Mike’s tactics may have seemed barbaric but the world had slipped into a new reality. I didn’t know where I fit into the new world order but at the moment I was with people who could thrive in it. I had to keep my head down and survive the best I could. At the moment, that meant following Mike’s plan to get the information we needed from Eric.
I took the rope up to the aft deck and threw it over the stern railing into the rowboat.
“You need a weapon, man,” Mike said. He had the gun in his hand and Elena had the hand axe.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I’m not taking you ashore unless you have a weapon, man. What if it’s a trap and there’s ten guys in there?”
I sighed. I had seen a wooden baseball bat in one of the storage closets earlier. I went to get it. Returning to the deck with
my weapon, I said, “Let’s go,” before tossing the bat into the rowboat.
Mike started down the ladder to the rowboat, Elena close behind. Before I set foot on the top rung, Lucy came over to me.
“Be careful, Alex.”
“I will. Look after The Big Easy.”
She smiled and I started down the ladder. I felt a cold knot in my stomach. As I sat in the rowboat, Mike took the oars and grinned. “Hey, lighten up. Everything will be OK.”
I nodded and gave him a thin-lipped smile.
On the lighthouse balcony, Eric seemed as resigned to what was going to happen as I was. He grimly turned from the railing and went inside.
As we rowed across the water to the rocky island, I was glad I had brought the baseball bat along. Mike was right; there could be a dozen men in there waiting to ambush us and take our boat. It was better to have a fighting chance than no chance at all.
The lighthouse looked much bigger as we approached it, towering above us like a finger pointing at the clear sky. The rocks it stood on were closer to the mainland than they had appeared from The Big Easy. Beyond the rocky island, I could see the cliffs and shoreline. Zombies swarmed over the beach, staggering in the sand. Their pitiful moans reached my ears and I wanted to club every last one of them with the baseball bat just to shut them up.
Mike stopped rowing and let the little boat drift to the rocks. He took the anchor, which the previous owner had made out of a bleach bottle filled with gravel, and threw it overboard. The bottle sank and pulled the rowboat back slightly as it settled on the bottom. Mike looked over the side. “It’s deep here. We’re going to have to swim ashore.”
A dip in the icy sea was not something I had planned on today. The jeans, T-shirt, sweater and boots I wore had only recently dried after the last unplanned swim. Salt stains had ruined the clothes but I still preferred them over the T-shirts from the marine store with their nautical slogans. In this post-apocalyptic world, a T-shirt that said ‘Sail To Your Destiny’ was just depressing.
I looked over the edge of the boat. The rocks dropped straight down into the murky depths. “Why couldn’t we tie the boat to the rocks?” I asked Mike. “Then we don’t need to get wet.”
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