Wait.
Boom. She got it. There might be a way.
If only …
But she could get herself killed, or even all of them killed. So many ways it could go wrong. It would be the biggest risk of her life, but if it worked, it could change everything.
First she’d have to tell them.
God, she’d have to tell them.
* * *
They went ashore in the morning. Hughes approved the idea after Kyle sailed around the island’s perimeter. It was but a fraction of the size of Orcas, just two miles long and one mile wide. Nothing stirred on the shore or in the trees. The mere handful of houses visible from the water looked abandoned.
This time they used a small private dock instead of swimming ashore. They had to. Each had only one set of dry clothes. The air temperature outside barely reached fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Six inches of rain must have fallen the previous night. Building a fire from soggy wood wasn’t possible. If they swam in the sea again and couldn’t dry off, hypothermia would kill them just as surely as a pack of those things.
The dock seemed to belong to the owners of an enormous house a few hundred feet up a grassy hill. A trim gravel path wound its way up to the expansive porch. One other boat—a motorboat, not a sailboat—was lashed to the dock. Somebody might still be on the island. They’d have to be careful.
Hughes stepped off first. He brought the rifle and had Frank take the shotgun. The dock sounded hollow under his boots. Kyle followed, then Frank, then Annie, then Parker.
Hughes saw no signs of trouble at or near the house, but it was hard to tell for sure from this distance. “Do we have binoculars in any of those backpacks?”
“I don’t think so,” Frank said.
“Should have got some binoculars.”
They started up the path. Gravel crunched under their boots. Nobody said anything. Parker limped and grimaced and grunted once in a while, but even he didn’t say anything.
The path wound its way a safe distance from a short stretch of cliff about sixty feet above the water before turning again and heading straight to the house.
Whoever built that house had serious money. It looked like a cross between a gigantic log cabin and a small mountain lodge. The roof was pitched to let snow slide off even though snow rarely fell at sea level in the Northwest. The walls were painted the color of wood, the window trim green like the forest. The front porch, held up by fat log pillars, was as big as a small apartment. It would be a nice place to rest up if it checked out.
When they were less than 100 feet away, Hughes raised his right hand and said, “Hold up.” Everyone stopped.
“Hello!” he shouted. “Anyone home?” He somehow expected his voice to echo, like it had in Olympia, but it didn’t. All he heard was the creaking of timber.
“We’re friendly!” he said. “We’re not here to take anything!”
No movement. No sound.
“Looks like nobody’s home,” Kyle said.
Hughes frowned. Somebody had tied a boat to that dock. Kyle was being complacent again, and complacency kills. It would not have even occurred to Kyle to call out ahead. He’d have just strolled up the path and knocked on the door—or, worse, just walked right on in.
But all seemed to be well until they reached the overgrown lawn in front of the house. Two corpses lay on the grass. Hughes saw a third around the right side.
“Everybody get back.” He raised his rifle and pointed it in the direction of the dead men. “Use some trees for cover.”
The forest began just a dozen or so feet from the gravel path. Hughes took a knee as the others scrambled into the woods.
The corpses weren’t skeletons. Whoever had been killed here hadn’t been eaten. Looters, perhaps, shot by whoever owned the property.
“Hello!” he said again. “We’re not here to steal! If there’s anybody home and you don’t want us here, just say the word and we’ll go!”
Nothing. No movement. No sound.
“Frank,” he said. “Cover me. I’m going to check out the porch.”
He switched weapons with Frank. He’d need the shotgun for close-quarters fighting while Frank needed the rifle to cover him from a distance.
They were short on ammunition, but they had enough for a firefight if it came to that. They couldn’t fend off a horde, but they could handle a pissed-off gunman or two.
He passed the corpses in the grass. They hadn’t shaved in weeks. Their clothing was filthy. One had a pistol in his right hand. A shotgun lay on the grass near the other. Hughes figured the dead man on the side of the house was the owner. Most likely the man was defending his property against two intruders. The three of them must have shot each other to death at the same time.
Hughes retrieved the shotgun from the grass—a 12-gauge Baikal MP220—then held his breath and extracted the pistol from the second corpse’s grip. A Jennings J22, an absolute piece of crap. It jammed constantly, which might explain why two men couldn’t take one down without everyone getting killed. He placed the Jennings in his jacket pocket and vowed not to even try firing it except as a last resort.
Nobody was home—nobody left alive, anyway—but all the same Hughes banged on the door with the flat of his fist. “Coming in! And we’re armed! We don’t want any trouble, so if there’s anyone in there, now’s the time to speak up.”
No answer, not even the creak of a floorboard.
When Hughes opened the door, it took everything he had not to throw up.
* * *
Parker gagged when he stepped into the house. He could taste the stench of rot. This wasn’t the first time he’d breathed putrid air in the last couple of months, but he’d never get used to it.
The dead man in the chair must be the homeowner. He was covered with fat flies. Parker had no idea who the three men outside were, but it seemed awfully unlikely that a stranger would make his way to this house on a remote island just to blow his own head off.
It was obvious that he’d blown his own head off, because his oozing fingers still gripped the shotgun. Another weapon, then, for the taking, but no one was in any kind of hurry to extract it.
The house was unusable. It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference where in the world Parker went. Death preceded and followed.
But there was a guesthouse alongside the main house that had looked like a separate wing of the same house from the shore below.
He, Hughes, and Frank made sure both were clear, then everyone sat on the porch in front of the guesthouse.
“We’ll be all right here for a while,” Kyle said.
“Well isn’t that a relief,” Parker said. “Don’t worry about all the dead people, folks. Kyle here thinks we’ll be fine.”
“We’re only going to rest here. Until we’re ready for the next phase of the plan.”
Parker exchanged glances with Frank. Hughes raised his eyebrows. Annie looked a little perplexed.
Parker had his green light. “Listen up, Kyle. Your ass is done making plans for the rest of us. Done. That’s twice now you damn near got us all killed. Both times because, despite what you look like, you’re twelve fucking years old.”
“All right!” Annie said.
Parker ignored her.
“From here on out, you’re not allowed to piss without permission from both me and Hughes,” he said.
“That’s enough,” Hughes said and stood up.
Annie glowered at Parker. Kyle wouldn’t look at him.
“Fine,” Parker said. “What’s your plan, bright boy?”
Kyle sat on the top step of the porch and rested his elbows on his knees. “You are going to hate the idea. Of that I have no doubt.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it either. But let’s hear it. Let’s have everyone hear it so we can agree to take your pissing privileges from you.”
Kyle sighed. Annie looked away and into the trees.
“We have the guns and ammo from the dead guys in the grass,” Kyle said. “Most likely
every house on this island has more. These people lived in the middle of nowhere. The cops aren’t minutes away—they’re hours away, if not days. They were in charge of their own security. They had to be.”
“That worked out well,” Parker said. At least the corpses outside didn’t smell too bad from a distance.
“So here’s what we do,” Kyle said. “We hit every house on the island and stock up as much as we can. Then we get back on the boat and go sweep and clear Orcas.”
Nobody said anything.
“We can sweep and clear from the water,” Kyle said. “We don’t even have to get off the boat until we’ve killed most of them.”
Nobody said anything.
“That’s it?” Parker said. “That’s your plan?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Your plan is that we go to war.”
“You have a better idea?”
Parker did, in fact, have a better idea.
“Not a terrible plan,” Hughes said.
“The hell it isn’t,” Parker said. “You know what we do? We take this boat and sail up to Alaska. Every single one of those fuckers is going to freeze to death stat in Alaska. Most of them are probably meatsicles already.”
“You want to live off the land in Alaska?” Annie said. “Where it’s too cold to farm?”
“We can hunt,” Parker said.
“Hunt what?” Kyle said. “Bears?”
“Would you rather hunt up there or be hunted down here?” Parker said.
“Guys, I think I’m with Parker on this,” Frank said.
“Well, I’m not,” Annie said. “I’m from the South. I can’t survive on an ice cap.”
“Sweetheart, Alaska isn’t an ice cap,” Parker said.
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
Kyle stood up. What, did he want to fight? He’d get his ass kicked for sure.
“Everybody just chill,” Parker said. “How about we sleep on it and discuss it again in the morning?” He would not change his mind—that was for damn sure—but maybe by morning everyone would be a little less touchy and see that peace in Alaska was better than war in Washington.
“Fine,” Kyle said.
“There are islands up in Alaska, you know.”
Kyle sighed.
“We could go up for the winter and then come back down,” Parker said. “See if those things have died off.”
Kyle nodded, but Parker could tell he wasn’t listening. Nor was he interested.
But Kyle needed to get interested. The dumb shit moved through life as though he had duct tape over his ears, but what he needed was duct tape over his mouth. Kyle had managed to convince Parker that Orcas Island was safe. He was as persuasive as he was naive and delusional, and his ludicrous ideas were sure to get everyone killed. The group needed joint leadership by Parker and Hughes with Kyle beaten down and shamed into obedience. That’s exactly what was going to happen, and it was going to happen first thing in the morning.
* * *
They carried half their supplies up the hill and into the guesthouse. The rest had to remain on the boat. It would take two trips to bring everything up, and if they had to make a run for it in the dark, there’d be no time for two loads of gear. It was a good plan, but they mistakenly left behind the backpack with all the night vision in it.
When darkness fell they used a half-dozen candles for light inside the guesthouse. Parker parted the curtains, looked outside, and saw nothing at all. The moon was down now, the darkness absolute. “We should go get the night vision,” he said. “In case something happens tonight. Flashlights are fine for getting around when everything’s normal, but not if someone—or some thing—busts their way in here at four o’clock in the morning.”
“Agreed,” Hughes said.
“Me too,” Kyle said.
“I’ll go,” Parker said.
“I’ll go with you,” Kyle said.
“The hell for? I don’t need you to hold my hand.”
“I need to burn off more calories,” Kyle said. “I’m not tired yet and I’ll go crazy here in this cabin.”
“Fine,” Parker said. “Grab a flashlight.”
He didn’t want Kyle along, but whatever.
Outside, the flashlights barely lit anything. Parker could see the ground in front of his feet okay, but everything else was as dark as before. He’d have to be damn sure to stay on the gravel path where it wound near the edge of the cliff. The stars sure looked great, though. And he could see the sea below and the black shapes of more islands off in the distance.
The air was cold. Parker used to enjoy the cool air of the Pacific Northwest, but that was back when climate control still existed. The main house had a fireplace, but the guesthouse didn’t. And all the wood was wet anyway.
His and Kyle’s feet on the gravel path made a hell of a racket. No one, and no thing, would be able to sneak up on the house in the dark. Not on the path, anyway.
“Cold out here,” Kyle said.
Parker said nothing.
He had never used night vision before and wondered how well it would work with so little ambient light in the atmosphere. There was some light from the stars at least. His eyes were adjusting. He could almost, but not quite, make out individual pieces of gravel on the path.
The cliff was up ahead somewhere. As long as he stayed on the path, he’d be fine, but he felt spooked not knowing quite where the edge was.
And what was back in those trees? He wasn’t entirely convinced the island was clear. Hence the night vision. This island, whatever its name was, was more likely clear than Orcas, for sure, but he’d thought that island was safe even though it was not. It made no difference how he or anyone else felt. The island was either safe or it wasn’t.
Anyway, those things weren’t the only possible threat. Three dead bodies up on the lawn and a half-decomposed corpse in the main house made that abundantly clear. Humans could be predators too. How many human survivors were behaving like Lane and his boys? Most of them, probably.
And what about mountain lions? And bears? Did big animals live on this island? Parker had no idea.
He and Kyle remained silent all the way down to the boat. Parker had assumed Kyle wanted to talk, perhaps even apologize, but he wasn’t talking.
They reached the boat and went below to retrieve the backpack with the night vision in it.
“I want to try it out,” Kyle said.
Parker felt tempted to argue on general principle, but he wanted to try it out too.
The night-vision devices were monocles. They only worked in one eye. Parker took one out of the box and attached it to his head over his left. He flipped the switch and gasped in astonishment. He could see everything below deck, even things his flashlight wasn’t pointing at. The flashlight itself was so bright, he had to squint and point it at the floor. He already knew these devices rendered everything in green for whatever reason, but he had no idea he’d be able to see so much rendered in green. He could read a newspaper if he had one.
“Wow,” Kyle said when he turned his on.
“These are extraordinary,” Parker said. “Turn your flashlight off.”
They both turned off their flashlights and Parker could still see everything. He wasn’t sure he’d still be able to read, but he could find his way around in the dark without any problems.
When he stepped up onto the deck, the full awesomeness of the night vision revealed itself. The sea and the islands were bathed in otherworldly green light, as if an alien sun had just appeared in the sky.
“Holy shit,” Kyle said. “All this just from just starlight?”
“And the stray beams of moonlight still bouncing around,” Parker said.
He couldn’t make out the distant islands in detail, but he could see the boat, the sea, the dock, their own island, and the roofline of the house up the hill perfectly.
“Imagine,” Kyle said, “if we’d had these on Orcas. We could have walked through that horde in the dark and been f
ine. We’ll have a huge advantage when we go back there to clear them.”
Parker wanted to punch Kyle in the ear. Instead he went below again to retrieve the backpack with the other night-vision devices and returned to the deck.
“It’s too bad these only work in one eye,” Kyle said.
Parker exhaled. “They only work in one eye so that your other eye can adjust to the darkness. You wouldn’t want to be blind if the damn thing ran out of batteries.”
That wasn’t the only reason, of course. You’d need to know what everyone else can and can’t see in case you’re trying to hide in the shadows. Wasn’t that obvious?
They trudged up the hill. Parker could see everything now. He could make out individual pieces of gravel without any problem. He could see individual blades of grass. He could see every single needle and leaf on the trees at the edge of the forest. And the number of stars overhead was simply extraordinary. At least ten times the usual number.
The trail became steeper as it wound its way toward the top of the cliff on the left.
“We’re going to be okay,” Kyle said as they walked.
“All we’re doing here,” Parker said, “is delaying the inevitable.”
“Man, can’t you stop being yourself for even five minutes? If we’re safe now, we can be safe in the future.”
“Doesn’t matter if we’re safe here because we’ll die if we stay. You said so yourself. We’ll starve to death. We can’t grow any food. There’s no farmland on this island.”
“There are no farms in Alaska, either, but that’s where you said you wanted to go.”
“Farms or not, people live off the land up in Alaska.”
“People live off the land here.”
“No, they don’t. The people who lived here loaded up on supplies from Seattle. This island is not a self-contained system.”
Kyle stopped and turned around. He looked like a glowing cyborg with that night-vision thing on his eye. “We’re not going to stay on this island. We’re going back to Orcas.”
“The hell we are.”
“We’ll sweep it and clear it and start new lives there. We’ll plant crops and build irrigation ditches and raid the mainland for solar power. We’ll cut trees for firewood and sleep in beds and raise chickens and barbecue deer steaks and eat apples and cheese for dessert.”
Resurrection: A Zombie Novel Page 23
