Resistant Box Set

by Perrin Briar

  Poe whimpered. Hugo could understand why. He was being separated from the only two people who, for all Hugo knew, had ever cared for him. Now he was going to be left with a cantankerous old hag who only ever thought about herself. Fat chance she would take care of him. She couldn’t even take care of herself.

  “You’ll be safer here,” Hugo said. “Trust me.”

  Poe pressed himself against Hugo, his way of asking Hugo not to go.

  “Let’s go,” Dana said.

  Poe followed them to the boathouse, despite Hugo telling him to go in the opposite direction. They climbed into the rowboat. Dana took up the oars and began to paddle first. Hugo picked up his own oars and did the same, but he made only half-hearted movements.

  Poe stood on the edge of the short quay, feet shuffling side to side. He looked desperate to follow them. He got as close to the edge as he could, and then kept going. He fell into the river.

  Hugo dropped his oars and stood up.

  “What is it now?” Dana said.

  “It’s Poe,” Hugo said. “He fell in!”

  Poe splashed around, unable to swim.

  “We have to go back for him,” Hugo said.

  Dana thought for a moment and then pulled on her oars, almost putting Hugo flat on his face.

  “Dana!” he said. “He’s going to drown!”

  “He decided to follow us out here,” Dana said. “It’s his decision whether or not he wants to die.”

  “I can’t believe you,” Hugo said, incredulous.

  His brow became a deep, dangerous frown.

  “Stop rowing,” he said. “Or I’ll throw this paper over the side.”

  He was referring to the handful of printouts in his hand.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Dana said.

  Hugo extended his arm and held it over the side of the boat, ready to drop at a moment’s notice. Dana glared at him, but she could see from the deathly seriousness in his eyes that he meant to do it. She couldn’t afford to lose the information. It could point her right at Max’s location.

  “Fine,” Dana said.

  She rowed with a single oar, turning the boat around. Hugo reached for his own oars as if to do the same and then hesitated. Dare he risk turning his back on Dana? He decided not to, and sat in the stern, casting glances back in the direction of Poe’s flailing arms.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Dana said, pulling hard on the oars. “I’ll put up with no whimpering, no whining. He’s your responsibility. Not mine. Capiche?”

  Poe nodded. At that moment he would have agreed to anything she asked. They got to the spot where Poe had gone under. There was no sign of him now, save a few ripples spreading its arms out to sea.

  “Poe!” Hugo shouted.

  He took off his outer clothing and threw himself in the dirty brown water. Dana watched from the surface as Hugo quickly disappeared into the darkness. She held an oar out to extend to them once they breached the surface again. She sat there for a moment. It was so silent, so calm. Peaceful.

  Then she realized her own foolishness. She had the oars, the boat, the paper print offs. What was she doing waiting there like a nonce?

  Dana hefted the oar and set it back in its original rowing cup. Then there was a rush of water and a matching pair of gulping mouths. Hugo and Poe had resurfaced. Dana screwed up her face and peered over the side at them.

  They were covered head to toe in dirty sludge. Hugo bore the weight of a gasping Poe who could not swim. If anyone stood to die in this world, it would be them. And yet, Dana reached out a hand to Hugo, who gave her Poe’s hand instead.

  Dana pulled, releasing Poe from the river. She dumped him on the floor of the rowboat. Then she helped Hugo in. Hugo immediately wrapped his arms around Poe and rubbed his hands over his arms and chest to work warmth into his body.

  “It’s all right,” Hugo said. “You’ll be okay. We’ll get you home, washed, and then into some clean clothes.”

  Except they weren’t heading back to the house. Dana was taking them across the river.

  “Dana, we need to turn back,” Hugo said. “To get dressed again. We’ll catch our death of cold out here.”

  “Not my problem,” Dana said.

  There was no changing Dana’s mind this time. They were on their way.

  Chapter Five

  The river’s surface was lightly dimpled and offered little resistance. The boat drifted from side to side in a gentle, pleasant movement that would normally have induced sleep. Poe actually did fall asleep, sitting on the floor between Hugo’s legs. Hugo was exhausted. The swim under the surface had sapped him of energy.

  Dana’s arms and shoulders hurt too. It wasn’t a very long distance to row, but it was long enough. The wound on her neck began to seep blood. When the wind kicked the scent in her direction she had to turn her head to one side. Lucky they’d found medicine right when they needed it, otherwise, she wouldn’t be feeling very good.

  If there was any pain, she couldn’t feel it. A benefit of her affliction, she supposed. She never expected Hugo to even attempt to row. They needed to rely on each other’s strengths, and physical activities certainly wasn’t one of his. Still, any help that he offered would aid her. She could feel his strength, what little there was of it, when she timed her own strokes with his.

  If it wasn’t because of Hugo’s fitness level or his ability to fight that had made Dana turn the boat around in the first place, what was it? Clearly, it wasn’t considering him a friend. She cared for him no more or less than she did anyone else. Max was the only thing that mattered to her now, had perhaps ever really mattered to her.

  Hugo’s strength was also his greatest weakness. His fear. He turned tail and ran more often than not. If something was too hard or difficult or dangerous, he ran the other way. But when forced to confront a problem, he could identify all the possible areas and instances where it might go wrong. The reverse was Dana’s problem. She was not afraid. The only thing that scared her was not seeing Max again. But she could even learn to live with that if Max was in a safe place surrounded by people who loved her.

  Dana, she hated to admit, was simply more likely to get to the end of her journey and find Max if she had a second pair of eyes to keep a lookout. Especially when those eyes saw everything that might go wrong well in advance. That was Hugo’s strength, and by teaming up with him, it became her own.

  The boat gently tipped to one side. Hugo jolted awake as if he’d been dreaming he was about to drop into the precipice. He’d fallen asleep, slumped uselessly over his oars. He struggled to sit up, lines drawn on his face from the position he’d been sleeping in. He yawned and exhaled, breathing through his nose. He smacked his lips and peered around. They were getting close to the coast now. There was no sign of undead, or anyone else having spotted them. It was a good sign.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Hugo said.

  Here we go, Dana thought. Thinking was all he ever seemed capable of doing.

  “We need to call ourselves something other than infected,” Hugo said.

  “Do you think that’s of prime importance right now?” Dana said.

  “Maybe not,” Hugo said. “But it’s nice to belong to a tribe, don’t you think?”

  Dana rolled her eyes. If she was in a tribe, the absolute last one she would want to belong to was one who would accept Hugo as a member.

  “How about Immunies?” she said in an effort to end the conversation.

  “But we’re not immune,” Hugo said. “Poe is, or might be. We’re only resistant.”

  “Resistant, then,” Dana said.

  “If you’re not going to put any effort into it, don’t bother,” Hugo said, folding his arms.

  He was grumpy in the mornings. He was the type who needed a good thirty minutes and follow a uniform pattern every morning to fully stir himself to life.

  Reeds tapped and gave way under the weight of their rowboat as they came to the coast of Bainbridge Island. Hugo gently shook Poe awake as D
ana climbed out of the boat. Together they pulled their little rowboat up the bank and into some reeds. Dana tied it off and hoped it would still be there for them on their return journey.

  Chapter Six

  The main street of the town lay adjacent to the beach. It consisted of a profusion of shops selling all items required for a seaside holiday. Swimming suits and shorts, sun cream, brightly colored children’s shovels and pails, disposable cameras. They grabbed some camping gear and extra food. Hugo and Poe went to the men’s restroom to wash and change their clothes.

  “Five minutes,” Dana said.

  Hugo knew not to be one second late. Dana would be counting them down one by one. Hugo found he was right to be concerned as, when he and Poe rolled up in matching surfer dude T-shirts, Dana was indeed counting back from twenty.

  “We ought to find somewhere to sleep,” Hugo said. “It’s getting dark.”

  “We haven’t traveled any distance yet,” Dana said. “We should keep going.”

  “We could trip over and break our necks,” Hugo said. “How far do you think we’ll get then?”

  Dana knew where his fear was really coming from. Poe. He knew he would almost certainly lose his feet if forced to walk in the dark.

  “We set off late because of you and your little friend,” Dana said. “Right now, Max is in Olympic Park. The longer I take to get there, the longer it’ll take for me to rescue her from the facility they’ve got her locked up. You made us late. Now, we’re going to make up for it. And give Poe a bag. He can carry extra provisions.”

  That was the end of the discussion. Hugo let Poe choose his own color rucksack. He went for the red one with yellow smiley faces. Then Hugo set to filling it. He made sure not to overload it. Poe was going to be moving slow enough without having a large weight on his back.

  Dana waited for them outside the store, keeping a lookout in case something, or someone, tried to sneak up on them. It might have once been a beautiful place, somewhere quiet and largely untouched by the hand of man, but now it was a cold and desolate place. It felt like something evil had happened here.

  An island would surely have been the safest place for someone to hole up until the end of the world had passed. If that was the case, where was everyone? Dana wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She had her own mission, her own goals. She wasn’t about to be distracted by someone else’s.

  “There’s a map over here,” Dana said.

  She led them to a tourist board. It pointed out their location with a bright ‘You are here!’ star.

  “We need to follow the coast north, and then head west,” Dana said. “Toward Agate Pass Bridge. Once we get there, we’ll hop across to the mainland again.”

  Hugo ran a finger along a motif in the middle of the map. It described Bainbridge Island as the second best place to live in the US in 2005.

  “I wonder where was first,” Hugo said.

  “Who cares,” Dana said.

  She turned and marched away and approached a trio of parked cars. With a little luck, at least one of them would work. It would save hours of walking, and who knew what was on these roads.

  Dana first checked the security systems on the cars. One was a new model and came with all the usual mod cons. Dana could perhaps hack her way into it, but it was best to avoid it if possible. The other two cars were old models. She peered in through their windows.

  They both appeared relatively easy to break into. But she opted for the very oldest model. The last thing they needed was to set the alarm off by accident and for the undead on the island to rush them. If they were overrun, they would have no choice but to rush back to their boat and row to their house and try again on the morrow. For Dana, that wasn’t an option. They were going to get to the other side of the island, and they were going to do it now.

  Dana paced around the car, taking her time to check for any and all security equipment. One of the most effective and successful security measures was the perpetrator’s suspicious appearance when casing a car. These days, that was not something to be overly concerned with.

  The doors were unlocked. Dana reached out to open it, and then paused, hesitating. She didn’t want to make a stupid mistake, so she checked the car once again, ensuring there were no undead tucked underneath the seats or in the footwells. Satisfied, she approached again.

  She was relieved when the door opened and no alarm went wailed. She checked all the usual places for keys but found none. No problem. She pulled the plastic casing under the steering wheel off and jerked the wires free. She took out her knife and sliced open the wire casing and snipped the wires. She peeled back the casing and crossed the relevant wires. The car engine coughed, wheezed, and turned over.

  “Get in,” Dana said, shutting her door.

  Chapter Seven

  The island was not large. The roads were empty and devoid of detritus, at complete odds with the fallen city of Seattle where no road was without its own roadblock. Dana swerved around the empty cars abandoned in a hurry, doors thrown open, possessions spilled like intestines across the black tarmac.

  The sun was heavy and setting just beyond the horizon when they finally pulled up before the bridge. The mainland was right on the other side. But that wasn’t what grabbed Dana’s attention. It was the bridge itself.

  It had been destroyed, snapped clean off in the middle. It was black and twisted from where the explosion had ripped it apart. Jagged charcoal spikes stretched on either side as if trying to make contact. The gap was not large. In fact, it did not need to be large. Undead could not jump. Approaching the gap, they would simply plummet to their death—or rather, re-death—and get swept by the river to the ocean beyond.

  Judging by the chunks of meat that had snagged on the metal protrusions, many undead had at least attempted to make the leap.

  “Well, that’s that,” Hugo said.

  “That’s what?” Dana said.

  “How do you expect us to get across now?” Hugo said. “There is no way for us to get across.”

  “It’s not a big gap,” Dana said.

  She shrugged off her backpack and pulled her arm back. She threw her bag across the open space. It landed and slid across the tarmac on the other side. Dana surveyed the gap’s length. Perhaps three meters. A good run up and she ought to make it.

  “You can’t seriously be thinking about jumping it,” Hugo said.

  “I am, and I will,” Dana said.

  “What about Poe?” Hugo said. “How’s he going to get across?”

  “Not my problem,” Dana said.

  She took the camping gear bag from Hugo and tossed it over to the other side of the bridge too.

  “See you on the other side,” she said. “Or not.”

  She took off at a run and threw herself over the gap. For a moment, she thought she had misjudged the jump and leaped too high. She hit the other side of the bridge with a couple of feet to spare. She dusted off her hands unnecessarily and proceeded to pick up her own bag and camping gear. She did not stop to watch Hugo and Poe attempt their jump.

  Hugo moved to the edge and peered over the side. The river rushed at a furious pace below, white and frothing at the mouth. It looked hungry. Hugo gulped. He hoped neither he nor Poe would be on the menu today.

  With a big enough run-up, Hugo guessed he could make it. But Poe… With his shuffling footsteps and awkward demeanor, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Hugo scanned the bridge. He needed to come up with an alternative plan.

  He paused when he looked at the gap and the internal cross-section of the bridge. Bridges were fascinating objects, Hugo thought. They looked so simple, and in the olden days, perhaps they were. But with modern design and technology, as well as the heavy trucks and cargoes they transported, the bridges needed to be built to last, as well as for potential worst-case scenarios. This bridge had a complex girder system, consisting of a multitude of bulging metal frames.

  One of the main load-bearing struts had been blown to smithereens, but not all of i
t. It was blackened and dark from raging fires. The jump there was a lot less intimidating than the jump Dana had made. But there was a trade-off. The girder was only two feet wide, and who knew how strong it still was. But it was the only way across for Poe.

  Hugo tilted his head up to see Dana busy pitching up the tent. She’d placed it not more than a dozen yards from the bridge’s precipice. He could see why. But if anyone—or thing—was to come at them from the mainland, they could easily run and jump back across to the island. Then wait for the danger to leave or fall to its death.

  At least, Dana and Hugo could make the jump. Poe would be as helpless as a newborn lamb.

  “Come on, Poe,” Hugo said. “Let’s practice our jumping dance moves. Follow me.”

  Hugo stood facing Poe. He bent his knees and pulled his arms back and forward. Then he released, springing forward. Three feet. Poe replicated Hugo’s preparation and leaped. He managed half a foot.

  “Okay,” Hugo said. “That’s good. But let’s try to jump a little further, shall we?”

  On the other side of the bridge, Dana was in the process of strapping the tent down. Then she took out a can of baked bins and set to tucking into it. Pure pleasure on a plate. She shook her head at Hugo’s efforts. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to get himself killed alongside the great witless wonder.

  Hugo and Poe made another practice jump, this time managing over a foot. It still wasn’t enough. Hugo held out his arms to hug Poe. Poe jittered from foot to foot and whined under his breath. He was excited. He loved being cuddled.

  “Listen to me, Poe,” Hugo said.

  Poe didn’t stop whining with joy.

  “Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh,” Hugo said. “You need to be quiet and listen to me. We need to get across this bridge. Do you understand? If we can get across, we can eat and sleep. Okay? Nod if you understand me.”

  Poe nodded, very slow and deliberate.

  “Good,” Hugo said. “Now, let’s do a few more practice jumps, shall we?”