by Brant, Jason
Then he planned to sleep for roughly a year.
They passed other boats still tied to docks. Several had sank, the tops of their sails protruding above the water.
Liz shrank into her seat and held her face in her hands. Her back hitched as she sobbed. Lance couldn’t blame her. It had been a rough week.
Paul climbed the ladder behind Lance and walked over to him. “I’ll take over. You look like you need to take five.”
“Thanks.” Lance stepped aside, letting Paul settle in behind the wheel. “Keep it slow. We don’t need anyone falling off.”
“No shit.” Paul gestured for him to sit down. “I know how to take care of things. I was doing just fine until you showed up.”
“How did you get here before us?” Brown asked from below. He released Cass and Eifort from the bear hug he’d wrapped them in. “And who was the man with the shotgun?”
Cass grinned at the doc. She put her left hand on his shoulder, her right on Eifort’s. “I had a little help.” She nodded up at Lance.
Their mouths dropped agape when they saw him. Brown’s head rocked back like he’d been slapped.
“Lance?” Eifort pushed through the people standing before her and jumped onto the ladder. “How is this possible?”
She cleared the top of the ladder and reached for him when he stopped her.
“Easy,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “I’m all kinds of fucked up.”
“But Colt said that one of the infected had killed you.”
“Colt shot me, twice.” Lance gestured to the red patch on his shirt. “It hurts just a bit.”
Brown came up behind her, shaking his head in confusion. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been so happy, and completely surprised, to see someone before.” His face fell when he took in Lance’s bloody visage. “I need to take a look at that right now.”
“Let’s save the making out until we’re out at sea n’at.” Paul eased the throttle up higher. “We ain’t out of the woods yet. There are still a few bridges ahead. Get a couple of fellas up on the spotlight. Give ‘em my shotgun too, in case something tries to jump down at us.”
“Eifort, Doc, this is the Wildman of Monroeville,” Lance said. “Otherwise known as Paul the Yinzer.”
“For a guy who is crackin’ jokes, you look like shit.”
Brown ogled at Paul. “You’re the Wildman?”
“Yah.”
“The man who refused to help our camp for the past month just covered us with a shotgun?”
“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. Yinz are nothing but trouble.”
“I’m sure you remember my ex-wife.” Lance eased onto a cushioned bench and gestured to Liz. His eyelids were heavy, his thoughts growing muddled.
“Of course,” Brown said. “But what is she doing here? Good God, this is confusing.”
Eifort turned to Cass, who was climbing the ladder. “You left with Colt and came back with Lance, his ex, and the Wildman of Monroeville? What the hell is going on around here?”
“It’s a long story,” Cass said. She beamed at Lance. “And we have nothing but time on our hands to tell it.”
Epilogue
The beautiful view did little to mollify Lance as he paced on the beach.
The sand, nearly white, and comfortably warm, worked between his toes.
“Stop pacing, for Christ’s sake.” Paul spun in his chair and glared at Lance. “I’m trying to work here.”
“You’re bullshitting on the radio. I’d hardly call that work.” Lance turned and followed his tracks again. He’d worn quite a path into the sand.
The sun warmed his deeply tanned shoulders. His long hair blew from a gentle breeze coming in off the reef. He touched the scar on his chest as he often did when he was deep in thought. It grounded him, helping keep the hardships they’d endured just under the surface. Things were good now, great even, but Lance always wanted to remember how quickly it could all be snatched away.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” Paul said into his radio. “The people I’m living with can be a pain in the ass n’at. You were saying about them building something?”
“Tell him I said hi,” Lance said. “Same to Ashlee and Teddy.”
“Goddamn it, Lance. Go annoy someone else.”
Nathaniel’s voice came through the speakers. “They ain’t so bad, Wildman. You tell everyone I said hello, will you?”
Lance gave Paul a smirk. “See? Not everyone is a grumpy-ass yinzer.”
Paul grumbled something incomprehensible and keyed the microphone. “What are they building?”
“Looks like some kind of giant anthill. It must be, five, six stories tall now. They keep adding to it every night. They started another one further north, up by Indiana.”
“They’re living in it?”
“I guess so. I’ll be damned if I’m going to take a gander inside. I got enough to worry about without poking my head in a beehive.”
Lance looked at the closed door again. What was taking so long? He resumed pacing. He wanted to be in there, but Cass had warned him that if he didn’t stay outside, he’d ‘be picking up his teeth with broken fingers’.
He scooped up a palm full of sand and rubbed it between his hands as he looked out over the water. “What a view,” he murmured. Every evening he sat at the tiki bar behind him and said the same thing.
Month after month had passed since they’d heard a shriek or seen the distorted musculature of the infected. The island, Anegada, and the horseshoe reef surrounding it, kept them insulated from the outside world. Their only communication with other survivors came from sailing trips to the other ports on the British Virgin Islands.
Only two dozen people had been on the island when they’d arrived. Most had fled to Tortola, the big island, when the worldwide infection broke out.
That had been their downfall.
A cruise ship, brimming with Vladdies, had crashed there over the summer. Most of the people on the island didn’t make it through the week. It was a familiar tale to Lance, but not to the people of the BVI. They weren’t prepared.
The ships had been in communication with Paul when they’d left an unnamed port out of Europe. Their transmissions ceased two days later. By the time they reached Tortola, the entire ship had been lost. They were floating bombs set adrift on the open sea, ready to detonate on any surviving population.
Other ships were purported to have crashed into Jamaica and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
But Anegada was a different beast. The reef made it nearly impossible for ships to come ashore. They had to maneuver perfectly through the coral heads, which prevented boats carrying the infected from making it.
Water was their biggest problem. There was no fresh water on Anegada. Paul had rigged up a series of tarps and buckets to catch rainwater, but it hadn’t been enough. They often made trips to the other islands in the mornings to scavenge for bottles of Gatorade, soda, and anything else they could find.
In the fall, they’d discovered a machine Doc Brown called a Solar Oven. It made close to five liters of fresh water a day from the unending salt water surrounding them. They’d found two more a month later.
So far, they’d been able to get by.
With a half dozen children on the way, things would get more complicated, but Lance had little doubt they could adapt.
Though, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, he was getting damn tired of eating fish all the time. They had some chickens and a couple of cows, but they were in the process of breeding them to greater numbers and couldn’t slaughter any yet.
Just thinking about the day he could eat a steak made Lance salivate.
Several tiny cottages lined the beach down from the bar, their white paint practically glowing under the clear sky. Adam and Greg stood waist deep in the ocean, a net held out between them. Greg rambled about the best way to catch the fish while saying ‘bro’ every ten seconds.
Adam, shirtless and heavily tanned, pleaded with him
to shut up—to no avail. They lived in adjacent cottages and worked together to keep up with maintenance and scavenging. How Adam hadn’t killed him yet, Lance didn’t know.
Each of them lived with one of the pregnant women, helping them prepare for the coming births. Though neither had confirmed it, Lance and Cass had discussed the probable romances occurring behind closed doors. Most of the survivors who’d made the trip with them had gravitated to someone, however unlikely the pairing.
No one wanted to be alone at the end of the world.
“Lance.” Paul switched off the radio and walked to the tiki bar. “Have a drink. You’re making me nervous with all that pacing.”
“Cass will kill me if—”
“Cass is preoccupied. It’s either have a drink with me, or risk having my head explode.”
Lance thought about it for a moment before shrugging and walking over, sitting on a weathered stool. The bar they’d found at the end of the island had been stocked with enough booze to last them years.
He’d promised Cass that he wouldn’t have any until the baby arrived. Because she couldn’t imbibe, then he would suffer through a few months with her, though he'd only agreed to wait until the birth, not the end of her breastfeeding. The beach, the views, hell, the weather, begged for them to share fruity drinks while sitting under some shade. He’d looked forward to this day for the boozing almost as much as he did for the birth of his child.
Well, not quite, but he always teased Cass with that.
While she hadn’t technically given birth yet, this was close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades.
Paul mixed each of them a drink with vodka and canned coconut water. “Here’s to a bunch of annoying rugrats running around here soon.”
Lance tilted his glass to Paul, and then downed the drink. He coughed and gave his chest a few pounds. “Smooth.”
“Does the job though.”
“Give me another one.” Lance slid his glass back to Paul. “What did Nathaniel say about big anthills?”
Though they’d remained in contact with several people around the world, they didn’t keep up with the ever-changing mutation of the infected as much as they probably should. Getting enough food and water was their primary concern now, not horrible events happening thousands of miles away.
In the fall, Nathaniel had reported that he’d set up night-vision cameras in the woods surrounding his underground bunker. He’d recorded the vampires hunting in packs. They were still making those guttural noises, which resembled a primitive form of speech, more than ever before.
The packs had leaders and followers. A hierarchy had formed. And now, apparently, structures were being erected above ground.
“He thinks they’re building an underground city, and this is some kind of primary entrance.” Paul made the next drink even stronger. It barely had a splash of coconut in it. “Seems they’re forming some kind of new, simple society. I dunno if that’s the right word, but that’s what he said.”
A society of monsters. Lance wondered how survivors would be able to stay that way for much longer. The Vladdies could think again, however rudimentary, making them more horrifying than when they’d been mindless, rampaging animals devouring everything in sight.
But small pockets of people were getting by. The Nathaniels of the world were still out there, still trudging along.
Three times in the past month, Lance had seen jet contrails overhead.
Someone was fueling and flying the damn things.
Why they were up there and what they were planning, Lance didn’t know. And he didn’t care. They were happy here, content.
Living in paradise during the end of times.
Lance tipped the second drink back and let his eyes drift to the door again. The building wasn’t particularly large with only a few rooms inside. It had served as the kitchen and prep area to the tiki bar and a tiny, outdoor restaurant.
Cass wouldn’t even let him wait inside the front door. She’d forced him to stay on the beach until it was time. If he’d tried to listen, let alone watch, she would have gone nuclear.
At least it wasn’t raining.
“When are you and Liz going to try?” Lance asked.
Paul choked on his drink. He eyed Lance as if he’d just asked when Paul planned to sprout wings and fly to the moon. “Hopefully never. If I had to deal with her and a kid, I’d lose my damned mind. Got enough problems to deal with, for Christ’s sake.”
“Paul, I was married to that woman for a lot of years. There’s no chance in hell you aren’t having kids.”
“Son of a bitch,” Paul grumbled. “She’s already been bringing it up. Don’t know how much longer I can keep holding out.”
The door finally opened, and Eifort stepped out. She cleaned her goo-covered hands with a towel and smiled at Lance. Her stomach protruded under her t-shirt. She was already five months along. “Ready to meet your son?”
Lance jumped up, knocking his stool into the sand. “A boy?”
“A big boy. He’s almost ten pounds. Cass was less than thrilled.” Eifort tossed the towel to the floor and met Lance in the doorway, throwing her arms around his neck. “And he’s healthy,” she whispered in his ear.
Lance squeezed her back, lifting her feet from the ground. He wanted to laugh and cry, to dance and run madly across the beach.
He put her back down and held her at arm’s length. “I’m a father. Holy shit, I’m a father.”
Eifort laughed. The sun twinkled in her watery eyes.
Lance looked down at the towel she’d used to clean her hands. “I’m going to pretend I don’t see that nasty stuff.”
He walked inside, his pulse quickening with each step. His eyes struggled to adjust as he stumbled through a small kitchen, his hips bouncing off counters and the industrial-grade oven.
Cass sat in a chair in the second room, her face flushed and drawn, hair soaked through. She held a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.
Brown stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder. He grinned at Lance as he came in. “Congratulations.”
Brown stuck his hand out for a shake, but Lance brushed it aside and gave the big man a hug. Emmett laughed and patted Lance on the back. “We’ll give you two a little privacy. I’ll be outside if you need anything.”
Cass tilted her head up to Lance as he walked over. He bent down and gave her a soft kiss, feeling the sweat on her lips and cheeks. Her body radiated heat as he bent down and put his arm around her.
“I hear we have us a little football player.”
“He’s big enough to be a lineman already. For a guy who supposedly couldn’t have kids, you somehow made a giant.” Cass brushed a corner of the blanket away and revealed the baby’s face.
He was asleep already, his cheeks and eyebrows pinched as if he were dreaming of something intense.
Lance kissed Cass on the top of the head. The mohawk was gone, replaced by the long hair she’d had when they’d first met. She nuzzled into him, resting the top of her head against his neck.
“I think we did pretty good here. As crazy as it sounds, this right now, where we are, how we’re living, is the happiest I’ve ever been.” She let out a small, exhausted giggle. “I’m really glad I picked you out of that garbage pile outside of the meth lab, dumbass.”
“I’m glad I carried you through Pittsburgh while you were taking a nap after the office building exploded, bitch. I even got to cop a feel.”
“Well, I’m glad that I didn’t let you drown in the river outside of Heinz Field.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I’m glad that I jumped in front of a knife thrown at you by a lunatic.”
“He threw that knife at me because he hated you. So, really, it’s your fault that—”
Lance squeezed her shoulder, whispered, “OK, OK, you win.”
As they watched the baby sleep, Lance held his family close.
He’d come a long way.
Found a purpose in life. A true love. Had a baby boy.
> The collar around his neck felt like anything but a noose.
*****
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Did you love Ravaged? Then you should read The Dark by Jason Brant!
Christy Barnett is sleeping when her aging German shepherd Molly growls into the darkness outside her bedroom. She wakes to a dim glow provided by her Kindle’s screen, thankful that she had fallen asleep while reading again. The power has gone out, the world outside her window is eerily dark and silent. And Molly is wary of something that waits in the hallway, hiding in the shadows.
A dark cloud has fallen over the city of Aberdeen, MD. The population disappears in an instant. For the handful of survivors, those lucky enough to have a light source not connected to the power grid, it's more than terrifying. They’re left alone, walking through a nightmare, and that is a fate that could be worse than death itself.
The darkness is alive and it is the reason we fear the night.
Read more at Jason Brant’s site.
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