Lake Yixa

by Harper, Cameron

  "Marsha?" Liam shouted as he banged on the window. "Frank, let me in." Liam moved back to the front door and hit it hard with his fist. The harder Liam hit, the louder the noises from inside grew. Liam returned to the window. This time, he spotted Tommy lying halfway in the kitchen door. Liam hit the front door hard, and pain shot across his shoulder. "Damn it, Frank. What happened?" he shouted as he smashed into the door again. With one last blow, the door crashed in, almost sending Liam to the floor.

  He was able to catch himself on the couch. Marsha was only feet from him. He kneeled down to check on her. She looked as if her neck had been ripped out. Blood had pooled on the ground around her.

  "Fuck." The sound of a growl from behind Liam made him turn just in time to see Frank stumbling toward him. Liam fell backward, landing on Marsha. He rolled off her and tried to scramble to his feet, but his left hand slipped in the pool of blood, sending him to the ground again. He rolled again, just in time to see Frank diving on top of him. He put out his arms to catch him. Liam held him as far away as he could. Frank ripped and tore at Liam’s clothing as his jaws snapped like a rabid dog.

  "Get off me, Frank," Liam said, thinking it would help, but it did little to help. He pushed hard to his right, sending Frank to land on Marsha. This time, he was able to get to his feet. Frank struggled for a few minutes before he too was able to stand.

  "What's wrong with you?" Liam said, looking around for a weapon. He saw a log sitting by the fireplace and grabbed it. He held it out in front of him. "Damn it, Frank," he shouted. "You stay back." Liam picked up the phone and punched in 911 as fast as he could, still not taking his eyes off Frank. The sound of a dead phone was all Liam got. "Shit."

  Frank stumbled forward, reaching out for Liam. Crack . . . Thump . . . Frank hit the floor. Blood already started to pour from the large head wound. Liam dropped the log. Breathing heavily, he turned to check on Tommy. He was dead from a wound on his neck, too. "Shit," Liam muttered. He looked around one last time before leaving the gruesome sight behind. He returned to his truck and sat there a few minutes. He hadn't seen so much blood and death since the war. He flipped on his engine and peeled out of the driveway. His truck bounced and bucked as it hit every rock and pothole along the drive. He had to get to the sheriff's office.

  He rounded the bend into town. He wasn't ready for what he saw—bodies lying in the road, cars and buildings on fire, and what appeared to be the Dead walking and stumbling around Main Street. The sound of his truck made them stop in their tracks. They started to run toward him.

  "Shit, Shit, Shit," Liam said as he threw his truck in reverse. But it was too late—a group of the Dead had already made their way to the back of his truck. He plowed into them, but there was just too many. He lost control and smashed into a parked car. A loud bang filled the air as a tire blew out. Liam reached for the Browning he had stuck in his glove box. He pushed open his door and fired at the closest blood-covered person that reached out for him. As it fell to the ground, he looked up and down the street. The Dead seemed to be pouring out from everywhere. He ran for the closest building. The door wouldn't open. He moved to the window, but it was boarded up from the inside.

  Pop, pop, pop. Liam fired one after another. Some of the Dead fell, while others continued to run slowly at him. He moved down an alley. With every door and window he passed, he tried to get in. He looked back to see the Dead in the alleyway.

  "Shit," Liam said as he sprinted to the end and peeked out at the street. Liam waited a moment before running past a few burned-out cars and dead bodies. He did his best not to look at the faces; he would likely recognize a few of them. Liam quickly outran the Dead and made it around another corner before they had time to catch up with him.

  "Hey, mister," a female whispered. Liam turned to see a young woman in her early twenties waving him over from a basement window. "Hurry up, get down here," she whispered, her voice sounding anxious. Liam wasted no time moving to the window. He lay down and climbed backward into the window. He found the table she was standing on and ducked in. She closed the window just in time. The horde rounded the corner. They slowed and bumped into each other, unsure where to go or what to do. The girl put her index finger to her lips, making sure Liam knew to stay quiet. She gently got off the table as silently as she could. He slowly followed after her, unsure how far down the floor was. Despite it being late afternoon, the basement they were in was almost pitch black. Liam's butt reached the end of the table, and he had to drop the remaining few inches. The drop was a bit farther than he thought, and he fell forward. She grabbed hold of him to steady him, but it was too late. He hit a tin can or something, sending it clattering across the floor. The sound filled the basement. A loud groan and hitting of windows made Liam jump. The Dead pushed themselves up against the windows, blocking out whatever light had been getting in from them.

  "Come on!" She didn't whisper this time as she took his hand and ran into the darkness away from the windows. Liam hoped to hell she knew where she was going. His eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness. She moved quickly, and Liam found it hard to keep up with her. The shattering of glass filled the basement. Before he knew it, they had rounded another corner and passed through a large open door.

  "Help me with this," she said as she pushed the heavy wooden door closed. They then moved a desk in front of it. She started off again. Liam followed after her, finally able to make her out in the dark. They went down a long hallway and around a few corners before stopping at the bottom of a staircase.

  "What's your name?" she asked.

  "Liam. You?"

  "Sarah," she said, reaching out a hand to shake. Then she started up the staircase.

  "Thanks for saving my ass."

  "No problem. Just glad to find someone else that wasn't a zombie."

  "A what?"

  "A zombie."

  "What's a zombie?"

  "You don't know what a zombie is?" she asked in disbelief.

  "No, I don't."

  "Well, those things back there trying to kill you—they are zombies."

  "Oh." They had reached the top of the stairs that opened up into a large room.

  "Zombies are the dead coming back to life. You get bitten, you become a zombie." She stopped and looked at him. "You haven't been bitten, have you?"

  "No, not at all," Liam said quickly.

  "You're not lying to me, are you?" she asked, studying his face in the dark. Her eyes clearly had adjusted much faster than his did. Age, he thought. He wished he was young at a time like this.

  "Okay," she finally said. They began to move again across the large room.

  "Where are we?"

  "The public library."

  "What are you doing here?" Liam asked, looking around. Now that his eyes could make out more, he saw rows of books.

  "I came in to do some work today."

  "This couldn't have just happened overnight," Liam said as they started up another set of stairs.

  "No idea. Seems like it."

  "Where are we going?"

  "To the roof. It’s where I was when I saw you come into town. Didn't really think you were going to make it."

  "That makes two of us."

  "You seemed like you had no idea what happened."

  "Not really. I was on my way to the sheriff's office." Liam told her what had happened at Frank’s house, both the night before and that day. It felt like they had walked up about five floors before she stopped and turned to face him.

  "I'm sorry, but it sounds like he got bitten and became a zombie himself," she said. She turned and pushed opened the door. The sun blinded Liam. He stopped and held his hand up.

  "Shhh, they are still all around us, and I don't want them to know we are up here," she said as she crouched down and moved to the edge of the roof. Liam did the same.

  "You know, I bet Ben was one of the first in this area to have Z.D."

  "Z.D.?" Liam asked. She looked over at him with an are-you-seriously-asking-me-that look on
her face.

  "Zombie disease."

  "Oh."

  Liam looked around and saw she had lain out the words S.O.S on the roof in books. She’s smart, he thought. He saw a few jugs of water, a blanket, and a few chairs with a rug set up over it. She had made a small camp. He looked over at her. She was still scanning the streets.

  "How long have you been up here?"

  "Since this morning," she replied, not taking her eyes off the streets.

  "You did a lot for just one day," Liam said. She looked over at him and then back at her small camp.

  "Well, I fell asleep here last night."

  "Oh."

  "No, I'm not homeless," she said quickly. "I work here and took a small break to read a little. I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, everything looked like it does now. I went outside but quickly found that it was a very bad idea. I thought I was going to die." She paused for a moment. "I also read a lot of books. Zombies are nothing new to me. I mean, I didn't think they would ever be real, but I already had a plan."

  "Oh," is all that came out of Liam's mouth. The two of them lay there, watching the town around them. Liam watched as a zombie shuffled this way and that. At one point, they saw a man running down the road, screaming as he fired off rounds from a small handgun. When he ran out of ammo, he just sat down and let the zombies fall upon him. That was a bit too much for the both of them. Liam moved over to the door and leaned against it. Sarah crawled into the tiny tent she had made. He watched her for a while. She may have come off cool about it all, but the death of that man clearly had shaken her.

  "I served in Korea, you know," Liam said. "I saw a lot of young men lose it. It was an overwhelming amount of death we saw. Most of it didn't make much sense to us. Kind of like that man out there. Who knows what made him snap? You start to ask yourself, why would he want to die that way? Or why kill himself at all? He could have done what you did. Doesn't make much sense to run down the street firing a gun and then just wait for death."

  She looked over at him, listening to everything he was saying. He could see the fear in her eyes.

  "Can't really give you a good reason for what he did. But I will tell you this: you're a fighter. You don't let a few damn zombies knock you down. Look what you have done. Made all this. What did I do? I got chased around town like a chicken with his head cut off," he said and smiled at her.

  Sarah's eyes seem to soften a little at that. "Thanks for saving me," Liam added.

  "You're welcome," she said. The two of them sat there in silence for a while. Liam looked down at his watch. It was 6:40. The sun was setting over Lake Yixa. The orange-yellow rays of light burned across the lake. It almost looked as if it were on fire as the last bit of sun dipped below the horizon. The sky turned to a dark purple and then black. It was a beautiful sunset, Liam thought.

  "You have family?" Sarah asked.

  "No, it's just me and my cat Tux."

  "Aw, I love cats. Not allowed to have one where I'm staying at."

  "What about you?" Liam asked, knowing this could be a bad topic to ask about.

  "No, my parents were killed when I was just a baby. My grandmother raised me. She lived in Seattle till she passed away four years ago," Sarah replied, rolling onto her back to look up at the night sky. Liam had gone to Seattle a number of times. Even though it was a big city, he felt like he could have lived there in his younger years.

  "What brings you to Moosetan?"

  "Grandma and I used to spend every summer up here. I just continued to come up here after she passed away."

  "I will take first watch. You try and get some sleep," Liam replied. The chilly night air made Liam pull his jacket around him. He looked over at Sarah and hoped she was warm. She only had on jeans and a t-shirt, but she had found some blankets somewhere, so she couldn't be that cold.

  The night was uneventful as well as the next few days. They waited up there for someone to save them. The cops, the army, or any government agency would work, but no one came. They didn't often leave the roof other than to find Liam a new set of clothing. His old ones were stained with blood, which made sitting around in them uncomfortable. Sarah had found a few items left in the lost and found box. Even though the jacket and shirt were a size or two too big, it was nice to get out of his old stuff. He kept his jeans and washed them in a sink one of the few times they had gone down to use the restrooms. It didn't get rid of the blood, but it did help mentally. They had even found a small bags of chips, a can of soda, and another case of water to add to the stuff Sarah had already gathered. They did their best not to eat the chips. Liam had told Sarah what he heard on the news about over-processed foods, but the pain in their stomachs made them risk it. Liam was the first to grow restless from just sitting around on the roof.

  "I think we should try and get out of town. Find some supplies and find help somewhere. I don't think anyone is coming," Liam said as he watched a group of the Dead shuffling about by a store across from the library.

  "I don't really think that is a good idea," Sarah replied as she set down the book she was reading. "Sooner or later, the military will come by here."

  "Moosetan is a tiny town on a lake that no one gives a rat’s ass about. It’s somewhere on the bottom of the list." Liam moved back slowly toward Sarah, making sure not to make too much noise as he did so. "Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma; they are on the save-first list."

  Sarah didn't say a word back. Liam realized she probably didn't even think about it like that. Here he was crushing her hopes. He looked toward the lake. The water looked like glass. Liam could see a small boat sitting in the harbor.

  "I know you want to believe someone is coming. I really hope someone is, but we can't sit on this roof forever."

  "Why?" she finally asked. "Even if no one is coming, why do we need to leave? There are stores around us. We could go out and find food."

  "It sounds great, but we are sitting right in the middle of all the Dead. Sooner or later, they will find us."

  "We will be really quiet and sneaky," Sarah added, almost sounding like a child. Liam looked at her. He never did ask her age; she looked no older than twenty two.

  "What about a boat?" Liam replied.

  "A boat?"

  "Yeah, we are sitting next to a lake. There are tons of boats down at the harbor." Sarah stood up and looked over at the harbor. A large number of boats, both tiny and big, dotted the harbor.

  "What about supplies?"

  "My house is not far off from the lake, and I have some food and other supplies," Liam said, walking over to her. "We can stay on the coastline and search lakeside homes."

  "The harbor is pretty far away. What about any zombies on the boats?"

  "Well, we will have to kill them," Liam said, watching her closely. He wasn't sure and never asked if she had killed a zombie. They stood there a while, not saying anything. They both just watched the tiny boats. Finally, Liam added, "There don't look to be that many zombies down there. If we can get down there without any following us, we should be okay."

  "I don't know. It's risky." Sarah went back to the makeshift tent.

  "We are just about out of food. We are going to have to risk going to the stores around here."

  "But we can get back here faster."

  "Sarah," Liam said as he walked over to her. "We can't stay here. We have nothing left. I won't let anything happen to you. Once we get a boat, we can head out into deep water. They won't be able to get us at all."

  "Okay," she finally said.

  "Thank you," Liam said. "I will figure out a plan to get there safely. We will stay here another day or two. We will need to find what we can here."

  Sarah stood up and headed toward the door. "I will be right back," Sarah said, turning to look at Liam.

  "Do you want me to come?"

  "No."

  "Be careful."

  With that, Sarah disappeared down the stairwell. She worked her way quickly down to the basement level and stopped a few feet from the door
they had piled junk in front of. She listened for a few minutes. The soft scraping and groans of the Dead on the other side could be heard. She slowly made her way past the door to the far wall. A single door stood there. The door clicked open as she turned the knob. She let out the breath she was holding in as the door quietly opened up.

  The room was filled with rows and rows of metal shelves filled with tubes. She turned on a tiny pen light and moved along, looking at each of the labels on the caps. She grabbed a few and headed toward the door.

  She let out a scream and dropped the tubes onto the floor. A few of the Dead stood in front of the doorway. She quickly picked up the tubes and headed to the back of the room. The Dead followed as fast as they could shuffle. A pair of arms reached through the shelves, sending tubes scattering across the floor. She dodged the zombies but nearly fell over doing so. Sarah saw the open door behind them. Fuck, she thought. How could she forget the other door? It went right into the big room where the zombies were trapped. She found herself up against the back wall. Zombies were coming down each of the aisles. She looked around and saw a fire extinguisher in the corner. She grabbed it with one hand and swung it at the Dead that got within range. It smashed hard into its shoulder, sending it to the wall. It stumbled and went down. She swung again as it struggled to get up. Blood covered the wall and the fire extinguisher as its head crumpled under the force of the attack. She quickly stepped over it and attacked the next one. She was able to make her way through a few zombies while the bulk of them got stuck on the bodies of the fallen ones. She dropped the weapon, scooped up the last few tubes she had dropped, and closed the door with a heavy thump. Looking around, Sarah saw nothing to put in front of the door, so she ran up the staircase at full speed.

  Liam turned as he heard the door bang open. There stood Sarah, out of breath, carrying a handful of long, plastic tubes.