Damariscove

by Jeremy Cook

  ***

  Ellis crouched low in the grass, waiting for something to happen, waiting for Aran to make his move. Elle had turned around and was saying something to the man with gun, and the second man was hanging a distance behind, keeping a lookout. He couldn’t make out their conversation, but Elle seemed to go from upset to calm in a short period of time. The suspense was killing him, waiting for Aran to do something, to take control. He knew that if he tried to jump the second guy, the gunman would either draw on him, or use Elle as a hostage, and neither option sounded like a good one.

  Then, out of the clear blue, Ellis heard a shot and saw the gunman drop to the ground in a heap. He acted instantly, bursting from his hiding place and sprinting toward the second man, who was jogging over to the gunman, shouting. He leapt and grabbed the man around the neck, trying to pull him to the ground. The man was strong, but Ellis had the position and wrestled him to the ground, trying to avoid his fury of back punches. The man clipped Ellis in the jaw, causing him to wince in pain, but he wouldn’t let go. He pulled him down and bound his arms behind his back, using his other hand to force the man’s head into the ground. Elle shouted something and ran over, waving her hands around in the air.

  “They were going to give it up,” she said.

  Decisions

  Aran came down to the harbor to disturbing scene. Ellis, Elle and the second man were sitting on the porch engaged in what seemed like a lively conversation. He approached cautiously, trying to figure out why the two of them seemed to be treating the man like a houseguest.

  “What’s going on?” Aran asked as he stopped short of the porch.

  Elle stood up and walked down the steps, meeting Aran and taking his hand.

  “He’s alright,” she said softly.

  “He and his friend held you at gunpoint. Please tell me how that makes him alright?”

  “The guy he was with was a bit unstable,” she said putting her hand on his shoulder. “He didn’t plan to pull the gun on me, he thought the island was empty and I startled him.”

  “Why didn’t this guy try to stop him then?”

  “They weren’t friends. They were the only two who survived their group being overrun at some hotel.”

  “I don’t like it,” Aran said angrily. “They were going to take this place by force.”

  “Please just come and listen. He seems to know a lot about what happened. He’s not a threat anyway; we have a gun and he’s unarmed.”

  “Is the other guy dead?” Aran asked. He could tell instantly by the expression on Elle’s face that the answer was yes. Although he knew he had no other choice, Aran hated the idea that he had to take another person’s life. In the course of less than three months, he was responsible for the deaths of two human lives and even though they were both were necessary and justified, it still hung over him.

  “Lead the way,” he said, putting his arm around her.

  They walked up and sat down on the porch. Aran was trying to look calm even though he felt on edge and disgusted by the man’s casual presence on the porch.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Aran said somewhat coldly. “I had no choice.”

  The man just stared back with a blank look on his face. “You did the right thing,” he said. “He wasn’t a friend of mine either. We were simply the only two who survived.”

  “What happened?”

  The man sighed and looked at the three with obvious pain and remorse in his eyes. There was no question that he must have seen a lot over the past few months.

  “First I need to tell you that I am not a fisherman, despite these clothes. I’m a doctor, or at least I was a doctor. I worked at St. Andrews before this all happened. I was an ER doctor.”

  “Were you working when this happened?” Elle asked

  The man nodded his head. “I sure was,” he continued. “The first person came in the morning. She was a young girl. She was screaming that someone had bit her while she was out jogging. She was pale and her heart rate was incredibly fast. We tried to stabilize her but she just got worse and nothing seemed to ease her symptoms.”

  “Was it like in the movies?” Ellis asked. “You know, the fever and all that?”

  The man shook his head. “No fever at all. No signs of anything except that she was ghostly white and her heart rate kept accelerating. She died two hours after coming in. Her heart basically beat itself to death. Massive coronary.”

  “How long did she wait before coming in?” Ellis asked, “Did she say?”

  “She didn’t say, but she told the nurse on duty that she had just gotten bitten while running and she was sweaty and in her running clothes. I imagine she came right in, so less than an hour for sure.”

  “What happened to her after that?” Aran asked.

  “After we declared her dead, we left her on the table, pulled the sheet over her head and got ready to inform her family. We generally leave the deceased in the room until the family can come and identify the body. Anyway, after about a half an hour, one of the nurses comes tearing down the hallway and screaming that the girl was alive. Not believing her, I ran down the hallway and looked into the window. Sure enough, she was up and moving.”

  “Jesus,” Elle said.

  The man nodded, rubbing his hand through his thinning brown hair. “I knew something was off the second I saw her up though. She was dead. There was no question. A wave of panic and fear swept over me, like a punch in the stomach. Then, all of a sudden she turned around with this horrible look on her face. She looked like a demon. She let out a wild scream and ran at the door, slamming her head against the little window and smashing her fists against the door.”

  “Did you leave her in there?” Elle asked.

  “I locked door, called the police and put in a call to the CDC.”

  “What did they say?” Ellis asked.

  “The line was busy, I couldn’t get to anyone,” he said. “That’s just about when things started going downhill fast.”

  “Did she get out?” Aran asked.

  “No, she’s still in there I’ll bet. As I walked to find my directory to try contacting someone who could deal with serious diseases, I passed by the big board showing all the patients and their conditions. I saw seven people all with the same symptoms as the first girl and that’s when I knew.”

  “Knew what?” Elle said.

  “Knew that things were about to go to hell. I just had this feeling you know, down in the pit of my stomach. I looked at the times of the patient’s arrivals and most of them were near to the two-hour mark. So I set my watch for thirty minutes.”

  “Thirty minutes?” Elle said.

  “That was about how long it took for the first girl to wake up, or what ever it’s called,” he signed, fiddling with his fingers. “So, I sat down and called my wife, told her to get in the car and get out of town. We have a small cabin on a lake in central Maine. I told her to go there.”

  “Did she listen? “ Ellis asked. “Is she safe?”

  Tears began to well up in the man’s eyes as he looked toward the sky. “I pray everyday that she’s okay; that she made it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elle said.

  “It’s okay. I just close my eyes and picture her sitting on the front porch of the cabin. That has to do for now.”

  “What happened after that?” Ellis asked, trying to steer the conversation away from a topic clearly painful to him.

  “Things went crazy fast,” he said. “More and more people kept coming in with bites.”

  “I talked to guy on the CB on the first night and he said the virus went airborne,” Aran said.

  Again the man nodded his head. “The virus must have mutated fast. The airborne strain is way worse than the one contracted by a bite.”

  “Worse?” Aran asked, “How so?”

  “The basic timeline for the virus transmitted by a bite is a good four hours or so, but the airborne strain kills you and turns you in minutes.”

  Elle shiv
ered at the thought of dying and changing. She wondered if they had any memory of their previous lives after they turned, whether they knew what was happening. She thought of her family and how they must have turned that fast out on the boat. It was a blessing to not remember any of it. She was glad to not have the mental picture of her family turning into those things and trying to attack her. Her last memories of her family were good ones at least.

  “Once the virus went airborne, everything went to hell in less than an hour.”

  “Do you know anything about other states or countries,” Ellis said. “Is this just around here or is it everywhere?”

  “We heard a few reports from the radio before everything went dead. From what we could tell, the airborne strain went global.”

  “So this is really the apocalypse,” Elle whispered. “There is no coming back from this.”

  “I don’t see how, “ the man said. “One report we listened to talked about the airborne virus having a ninety percent infection rate. That leaves less than a billion people who didn’t turn and most of those people were attacked by the infected. There’s just no one left.”

  The entire group sat in silence, pondering the gravity of what the man had told them. Even though they all knew things were bad, they all had some hope deep down inside that everything would eventually be fixed and they could return to normal. Hearing the numbers was startling and trying to imagine nine out of every ten people being one of those things was a lot to take in.

  “Why haven’t you tried to get to your wife,” Aran asked. “If she’s alive, wouldn’t you want to be with her?”

  “You have no idea what it’s like out there,” he said.

  “We’ve been on the mainland twice, we have some idea,” Ellis said.

  “They’re like ants. They swarm and attack in huge numbers. If they surround you, it’s over.”

  “We’ve seen them, they surrounded my house in East Boothbay. We just made too much noise.”

  “Noise gets them interested, but it’s seeing a non-infected person that gets them swarming.”

  “What else do you know about them?” Aran asked. “You’ve been out there with them, you’ve gotta know more than us.” Aran flopped back in the chair, “We’re clueless.”

  “Fast is an understatement,” he said. “They can nearly double the speed of their former selves, making the ones who are in good physical shape the worst to encounter. Their hearing is acute, but from what we saw, their vision is actually quite poor.”

  “How do you know that?” Ellis asked. “A little girl saw me on our last supply run and came tearing after me. I was silent, but she still saw me.”

  “I’ll bet it took a minute right?”

  Ellis thought for a moment to the day that he tested Elle’s theory that they might be blind. He had been standing at the edge of the parking lot for a bit of time, watching the corpses wander around before the little blond girl spotted him.

  “Now that you mention it,” Ellis said. “It did take a bit of time and it was only the little girl who saw me.”

  “Kids seem to have better sight than adults, but none of them can see very well at all.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the floor. “That’s really all I know except that they’re damn near impossible to kill. Gun shot to the head seems to work, but that’s a fools errand because the sound will send any one else nearby tearing after you.” He stopped talking for a moment and stood up slowly, walking to the edge of the porch. He looked out over the harbor and the island and sighed. “You all have it good here,” he said. “This is the first time since that morning that I feel comfortable. I actually feel safe out here.” He turned around. “I know I’m asking a lot, but I’d be much obliged if I could stay for a bit, until I figure out how to get up to the lake.”

  Aran stood up and walked to the edge of the porch, standing next to the man.

  “How do we know we can trust you?” Aran said.

  “You don’t and that’s your decision to make,” he said calmly. “If you want me outta here, I’ll get on that boat right now and motor out.”

  “How long did you want to stay?”

  “I thought about a couple of weeks at the most. I need to get some rest and make a plan to get to my wife.”

  Aran closed his eyes, trying to decide what to do. The man seemed genuine, but he couldn’t shake the fact that he had not tried to stop what the other man had. Aran felt like it was his job to protect the island, from the first day forward the island had been put in his hands. It was his safe haven, his fortress, and he would do anything to keep it safe. The island needed him as much as he needed the island. They were connected in a very intimate way, each one needing the other to survive. The island had saved him and, in turn, had saved both Elle and Ellis which brang love and friendship to his shattered world. Could he really let this man possibly ruin everything? But could he really be responsible for sending him back out into the dead world?

  “You say you want to get to your wife?”

  The man nodded silently, still looking over the harbor, taking in the cool breeze.

  “You can stay on one condition.”

  “Name it,” the man said.

  “We are going to need a major supply run and we are going to need help. If you help us get things from the mainland to the boat, you can stay here as long as you need. We’ll even help you figure out a way to get you to your wife.”

  The man looked up into the light of the evening sun, a look of relief washing over his face. He turned to Aran and held out his hand. “You got a deal,’ he said, shaking Aran’s hand.

  “The name’s Todd by the way,” he said as he let his hand go.

  “Come on then Todd,” Aran said gesturing, “We’ll show you around.”

  Planning the Run

  The days slipped by on the island as July quickly turned to August and the summer heat turned up, making some nights hard to sleep and some days to hot to function. Things had been calm since Todd’s arrival and his presence on the island turned out to be a blessing. With his help, they managed to finish the protecting wall around the house, double the size of the garden and clean out the small sheds and buildings around the island. They set up the small house that was used by the government workers who would come out to the island to maintain the walking paths, turning it into a nice home.

  Todd set up the small house as his own and spent most of his time out there, coming to the main house for meals and conversation. Aran had the feeling that he was going to ask them if he could stay after he helped them with their big supply run and he could understand how he felt. It would be an arduous and dangerous job getting all the way into the center of the state and the chances that his wife was not only immune to the airborne strain of the virus, but made it out there on her own was slim to none. He discussed the proposition with Elle and Ellis and both of them were perfectly willing to let him stay as long as he wanted. He was good company and the extra hand was something that they sorely needed.

  The lobster pots were full to the brim each day, giving them plenty of food and with Todd bringing the lobster boat, he made it twice as easy to haul the traps with the special winch onboard. Even though they were all getting a bit tired of lobster, the constant supply of fresh food was comforting. The supplies were beginning to dwindle and the looming run was starting to weigh heavy on everyone’s mind.

  They all knew what needed to be done, but none of them had any good ideas about how they were going to go about doing it. The town of Boothbay Harbor had a grocery store a mile or so from the harbor, just outside of town. The Hannaford’s grocery store, would be stocked with shelved food that could help them last for many months, including non-food items like cleaning and health related goods. The trouble was getting everything from the store to the harbor without arousing the massive hordes of dead bodies that would surely hear the noise and come tearing after them. They had to somehow find a way to get in, get all the stuff they needed and get
it to the boat. It also meant that they were going to have to locate vehicles that could carry large amounts of stuff. It would be waste to put themselves in danger for a single carload of supplies.

  Todd had family friends that lived on Capitol Island, a small private island very near to Damasriscove, who owed a large pickup truck that they used for towing their boat. If they could get the truck, it would be a start, but they needed more than one vehicle because shuttling back and forth was not something they were willing to attempt. Ideas kept coming, but each one seemed to have a snag or a flaw.

  After countless discussions, it was finally decided that they were going to get to Capitol Island and try to get two more trucks from some of the houses there. Since it was early May when the virus struck, the small island would have had considerably less people residing there because not many summer residents had come up yet. Todd was pretty sure the residents that were on the island would have suitable vehicles. The plan seemed like the best choice and with the only access to the island being a narrow wooden bridge, they figured they could block it off with the truck to prevent any wandering bodies from the mainland.

  With the plan solidified, they decided that going to the island at night would be the best approach since the bodies can hear much better than they can see. If they could slip under the cover of darkness, they could possibly get what they were looking for and get off the island with little resistance. Elle was learning to drive the boat and she as going to take them to the island’s small marina, wait for them to get the vehicles and then take the boat to the public dock in Boothbay Harbor. The boys were going to drive to Hannafords, get everything they could and bring it down to the town docks on the harbor. Getting the stuff from the trucks to the boat was going to the tricky part, since they assumed the main part of town would be crawling with bodies. Todd had the idea of using the fireworks that Ellis had stuffed in the backpack and setting them off away from the dock before they went down, hopefully attracting the bodies and moving them away from where they needed to unload. If the plan worked, they could use the trucks to make a barricade at the top of the ramp to the public docks and shuttle the supplies down to the boat. It seemed daunting, but it needed to be done and there was simply no point in putting it off any longer. All they needed was a nice, clear night and they would set off.

  Capitol Island

  Elle sat at the wheel of the whaler, the moon sparkling across the calm waters. It was one of those nights with big clouds floating in front of the moon, going from pitch black to slivery bright, turning shadow to light and back to shadow. Elle had motored around the islands off Damariscove with her family countless times. So many in fact that she felt like she knew where every lobster pot and shallow rock was. She normally loved the ocean at night, but that night there was something eerie and unsettling about it. Maybe it was the fact that all the lights and power had gone out weeks ago, leaving the shoreline dark and sinister like a black wolf, ready to pounce. Perhaps it was the fact that they were trying to accomplish something they knew would be dangerous.

  Whatever the reason, Elle was all nerves and gripped the steering wheel with frightening strength, focusing her eyes on the waters ahead. She could see the dark outline of Squirrel Island on her right and the shadow of Cape Newagen on the left as she motored toward the rocky outcropping of land known as Capitol Island. As the tip of the southern end of the island came into view, she could see the green channel marker, guiding boats away from the deadly cluster of rocks that jutted out of the sea just in front of the island.

  She slowed the boat down, reducing the noise and lowering her speed so she could get a better view of where she was going. There was plenty of space between Capitol and Burnt Island, which sat directly to Capitol’s east, but she wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly.

  With the boat slowing and the motor noise dramatically reduced, Aran, Ellis and Todd sat in quiet conversation, planning their strategy once they stepped off on the dock.

  “The house we’re looking for is just past the narrow neck of the island,” Todd said. “Just off the road on the right hand side. I know exactly where the keys are.”

  “What about finding other vehicles?” Aran asked, still nervous that they didn’t have a sure way to get two other trucks.

  “As we pass by the houses on the way up, we’ll just have to look and see,” he said. “If there is a truck or SUV in the driveway, we go in and see if we can find the keys.”

  Neither Ellis nor Aran liked the idea of going into a pitch-black house that could possibly be a prison for any number of corpses, wandering around and waiting for the slightest sound. Todd seemed much more confident, but they also knew part of that was due to how long he’d survived on the mainland. He had seen and done things that they had never even imagined, so this task was much simpler to him.

  The boat passed by the second half of the island and rounded the corner to the small marina used by the residents of the island. It was simple with a main floating dock coming down from the ramp that led to the island’s only road. Off the main dock were small fingers used for individual boats. Only about half of the marina docks had boats tied up, proving that what Todd had said about the island was true; most of the residents hadn’t come up full-time for the summer.

  Unlike most islands around the area, Capitol shut off the water and the power for the island for half of the year, making it difficult for anyone to live on the island as a permanent resident. Most houses on the island were second homes, passed down through families from generation to generation, giving it a very close-knit feel.

  Elle slowly pulled the boat up to the end of the main dock, trying to see in the blackness that engulfed the small harbor since the lights went out. The boys jumped out and tied a bowline to one of the cleats. Aran grabbed a hold of Elle and hugged her tight, running his hands through her hair and kissing her hard on the lips.

  “You wait right here,” he whispered.

  Aran was about to give further instructions, when Ellis grabbed his arm, giving he a shock of surprise.

  “I think we’re gonna change the plan,” he said quietly.

  Aran and Elle climbed off the boat and the four of them huddled together at the end of the dock.

  “Look around us,” Todd said. “This place is dead quiet, no corpses. I think we should get the trucks, fill them and bring them back here. We use the same plan of barricading, but just here instead.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Aran said as he thought about it. “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

  “Exactly,” Todd replied. “We have no idea how many of those bodies are ambling around town, but it sure will be a hell of a lot more than there is here.”

  “What should I do?” Elle asked.

  Aran didn’t have to think for a single second. “You come with us and help get the trucks. We leave the boat tied, we all go to Hannafords and come back here.”

  Aran noticed immediately the smile that formed on Elle’s face. He knew she wasn’t looking forward to going to the town docks on her own, nor was she looking forward to leaving him on Capitol.

  Todd was the first to lead the way, but as he started walking down the dock, he stopped short, something catching his eye.

  “This boat has a set of keys in it,” he said softly. “I’m gonna check to see if it starts.”

  He stepped onboard the long green Sea Ray, and turned the keys that were left dangling in the ignition. The engine started right up, hardly making much of a sound at all.

  “This thing will be perfect to have,” he said as he stepped of the stern. “You can’t have too many boats in an apocalypse you know.”

  They turned and began making their way along the dock, constantly scanning for any signs of movement and being as silent as they possibly could. Aran and Elle took the rear, holding hands and they quietly walked down the planked dock. In any other circumstance, they could have been a love struck couple going for a late night stroll down
on the docks, gazing at the brilliant stars and looking into each other’s eyes. But even though the stars shown brightly, a fear hung in the air and romantic thoughts were far from everyone’s mind.

  They started up the ramp and passed under the big white sign with the word “Capitol” written across in blue block letters. The ramp ended at the small road that lead from the mainland, across a narrow wooden bridge then up a hill to the interior of the island. Across the road from the dock was the Capitol Island Casino, a place where island residents get their mail and meet for the occasional social gathering. The building once served as a local post office, but had been turned into a game room and social hall years before. The big green front doors were shut tight; eliminating a danger that Todd had perceived to be their first possible encounter with the dead.

  “Let’s go,” Todd whispered as they started slowly up the gravel road that ascended into the blackness of the island. Every bird chirp, every creaking tree and every lapping wave made them jump, their thinly frayed nerves being pushed to the breaking point with each step they took.

  The darkness was disorientating, making the smallest shadows seem like a corpse lurking in the trees. Even with the faint light of the moon, it was hard to see anything around them, the dark houses barely visible through the gloom of night. They passed what looked like a long slender house that sat right on the road, with a red bowling pin affixed to the front railing, but no vehicles had yet come into view.

  Elle tripped on a yellow, movable speed bump that someone must have put down to keep drivers from speeding past their house. Although she didn’t fall and made no audible sound, it rattled her just enough that she felt a surge of fear build in her stomach. Aran put his arm around her as they walked, trying to calm her down, but with his heart racing like a shot of adrenaline, he didn’t know how much help he could be.

  Ellis was the first to spot the SUV sitting in the driveway of the next house on the left, and to their great excitement, a ford pickup truck with Massachusetts plates was parked just behind it. They could only hope that the keys were either in the vehicles, or that they could easily find inside the house. They quietly opened the trucks, looking for the keys wary that a corpse could be trapped inside them. To their dismay, neither vehicle had the keys inside.

  The silence was earthshattering as Ellis and Todd quietly walked up the steps of the porch, taking each one as if they were walking on broken glass. Ellis slowly opening the screen door, trying not to make a sound and very aware of how easily a screen door can slam shut. They managed to find a flashlight in the house and although the beam was quite low, it allowed them to see what they were doing to a degree.

  Todd stepped in the inky blackness of what looked like a kitchen, the laminate floor creaking under his feet as he took a few steps into the gloom. He cupped his hand to his ear, trying to make out any sounds and trying to determine if the house was truly empty or not. Holding his breath, he flipped on the flashlight, muting the darkness.

  He began to quietly fumble through the drawers he could see, hoping to find where the owners might have kept the keys and praying that they weren’t in the pockets of the poor owner who inevitably was wandering around somewhere.

  The search of the drawers came up with nothing, but as Todd panned the walls, Ellis noticed a small peg board on the far side of the kitchen, with keys hanging from hooks. He tapped Todd excitedly on the back and pointed across the room. Todd nodded with similar excitement and lit up the board so Ellis could examine the keys. Sure enough, one of the keys was to a Suburban parked in the driveway outside. He held up the key with a grin from ear to ear as he walked back across the room.

  “No pickup keys,” he said in a whisper.

  “We have to check up stairs,” he replied. “That truck is perfect.”

  Ellis just shook his head, silently pleading to leave while they were ahead.

  “This might be our only chance,” Todd said under his breath. “There might not even be another house with a truck.”

  “Alright,” Ellis agreed reluctantly.

  “We check the bedrooms,” Todd said. “Dresser tops and drawers, that’s it. We don’t have time to search the whole house in the dark.”

  They headed around the corner and found the carpeted flight of stairs that led to the bedrooms on the second floor. The stairs creaked with each step, echoing though the deafening silence that hung over the house. Ellis tripped slightly on the edge of the top step, his balance wavering

  The upstairs was a pit of blackness, giving Ellis the chills as he tried to adjust his eyes to the lack of light. Todd followed close behind, carefully using the flashlight to see the way. At the top of the stairs, they moved into the first bedroom, constantly aware that a corpse could be lurking around any corner. One false move would end it all.

  Ellis’ nerves were beginning to grab ahold of him, the thoughts and fears piercing his mind. The first bedroom was small and cramped. There was a king sized bed on the far wall and a small dresser and night set on the opposite wall. Ellis slowly walked into the room, making sure each and every footstep was as light and noiseless as possible. After a search of the nightstands and the dresser came up with no keys, they moved on to the next room.

  The second bedroom produced the same results as the first, an empty room with no keys and with each step their nerves were fraying. The last bedroom was at the far end of the hallway, and was the only one with the door closed. Ellis didn’t like the idea of having to open the door that could serve as a cage for a rotting body, but they couldn’t leave it unsearched.

  The first room they entered was clearly the master bedroom with its abundance of personal items and larger size. The second room they came upon was a teenager’s room, covered with posters of Ben Howard and the Twilight movies. If the truck below belonged to someone visiting the family who owned the house, the keys might very well be in the guest bedroom and the last one was a prime candidate to be just that.

  Todd held the flashlight low, giving Ellis just enough light to see the doorknob as he slowly began to open the door. The room had a musty smell, almost like it hadn’t been opened in months. Ellis slowly slid though the opening and into the darkness. The light from the flashlight gave him only enough to see the outlines of the bed and the large dresser to the left of the door. He felt around on the top of the dresser, trying carefully not to make a sound, or knock something to the floor.

  As he felt around, his hand came across what felt like a small, wooden box with smooth sides and hinges on the back. Squinting his eyes to see, he gripped the box and opened it. He felt inside, picking through what felt like cufflinks when his fingers closed around a set of keys. He felt his heart beat fast at the possibility that he had found the keys to the truck. But as he turned to leave the room, he felt a cold chill run down his spine, his eyes fixing on the far side of the room.

  In the gloom of the bedroom, Ellis could barely make out the figure of a person standing near the window with it’s back toward him and the door. Like a punch in the stomach Ellis nearly wretched on the spot, trying his best to keep himself together. As his eyes better adjusted, Ellis could see the figure slowly swaying back and forth as it stood fixated on the window, waiting for the slightest sound to wake it from whatever trance they went in. He knew that if anything woke it up, it would scream and come te
aring after him, alerting every other dormant corpse on the island to their presence.

  Slowly he took a single step, watching the corpse and praying that Todd wouldn’t do anything to make a sound. Each step that he took made him sick, scared to death that at any moment the body would turn around and spot him. It seemed to take him hours to slip silently through the door and out of the room.

  Todd could see his pale face and instantly know what was going on. He pointed to the room and Ellis nodded back, his heart still ramming in his chest like a drum, his pulse tearing through his veins. Todd gestured to Ellis to close the door, preventing the body from wandering out. Ellis carefully placed his hand on the knob and pushed the door closed, unsure if he should chance clicking it in place. But before he could make the decision, the hinge on the door let out a quick squeak, a quiet but piercing sound.

  Again Ellis felt the wave of panic surge through him, waiting for the scream from inside the room. He peered through the small crack between the nearly closed door and the frame, trying to see in the room. To his horror, he heard a shuffling noise and saw the silhouette of the body slowly ambling toward the door.

  Ellis backed up quickly, knocking into Todd and nearly falling to the ground. They both slowly inched down the hallway, refusing to take their eyes of the door and hoping they didn’t trip on something unseen behind them. Ellis’ heart was in his throat, his fear gripping him so tight he felt like he was going to pass out. The sweat was pouring down his forehead, stinging his eyes..

  From inside the room, a hand poked out of the darkness, just visible in the dim light coming from the moon that now shown through the windows, bathing the house in a silvery glow. They could see it reach around the door, feeling for anything in its path. They could hear the door creak open and the scraping sound of the corpse as it dragged its feet through the doorway and into the hall.

  It was as if time had stopped and each footstep toward the stairs took an eternity. They both knew that any sharp sound could potentially wake it up from its state, making every move they made crucial to their survival.

  Todd got to the stairs first, taking the first step and wincing as it slightly creaked under his weight. Ellis watched as the body moved in the darkness, walking slowly down the hallway in their direction. As Todd stepped on the last stair, Ellis began his decent watching the man upstairs coming closer. If he got to the stairs, would he stop or would he tumble down? Ellis did not want to hang around and find out. With nimble feet he started to move quickly down each step, trying to get away without alerting the corpse to his presence. On the last step, he slipped and thudded to the bottom, a reverberating sound shaking the floor. The corpse stopped midway down the hall and moved its head from side to side, trying to locate the source of the sound. With a quicker pace, he moved down the hallway, still limping from whatever damage he sustained during his final hours as a normal person.

  Ellis wasn’t going to wait around for him to reach the stairs, turning and running blind through the kitchen and out the side screen door. He closed it quietly and shut the outer wooden door behind him, hopefully sealing the body inside. With his knees weak and his hands trembling, he walked down the porch stairs where Aran and Elle were standing and waiting for him.

  “So,” Aran asked. “Did you get the keys?”

  Ellis could barely utter a word, pulling out the keys from his pocket and dangling them in the air. Elle, seeing that he was clearly shaken gave him a huge hug whispering in his ear.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Ellis nodded and let Elle hold on to him. He’d seen the corpses before, but he was always running from them, scared out of his wits, moving on adrenaline. This time was different. The suspense of holding his composure was much more difficult and he prayed he would never have to do it again.

  “Alright,” Todd said, slapping Ellis on the back. “Let’s go get the truck, drive it back here and pick these ones up. Then it’s Hannafords.”

  They walked up the moonlit road, keeping a constant watch on either side of the road for any movement. Aran kept hoping he would see a house with lights on, a sign that there were other people out there like them, fighting to survive. But deep down inside he knew he would see only darkness. The staggering statistic that Todd had mentioned the day on the porch was something that stuck with him. The airborne virus had a ninety-five percent infection rate and from everything thing they’d seen, very few people simply died. They all eventually came back.

  When Todd got to his friends house, he had everyone stay outside as he slipped into the back of the house and out of sight.

  “I hope he decides to stay,” Ellis said. “I feel better when he’s around.”

  “Me too,” Elle replied softly.

  Aran nodded, but didn’t say a word. He liked having Todd around and in many ways hoped the same as the others. Todd was another human being, another survivor and as they were beginning to learn, survivors were few and far between.

  “I thought people were going beat this thing,” Elle whispered. “I really did.”

  Aran could tell by the way she was talking that she was on the verge of tears. He pulled her in tight and wrapped his arms around her.

  “We aren’t going to make it, are we?” she said sniffling.

  “Of course we are,” Aran said softly. “We know how to survive, we can do it.”

  Elle pulled her head back and looked him in the face, shaking her head. “I don’t mean the four of us,” she said. “I mean people, humanity.”

  At that moment Aran knew exactly what she meant and he knew she was right. Ninety-five percent of the world was a walking corpse, hunting and praying on the five percent that survived the sweeping plague. By his rough math, he guessed that across the globe, only about three hundred million people survived the virus, leaving over six and a half billion people who turned into the living dead. Humanity had no chance to survive.

  Todd returned a few minutes later, keys in hand with no horror stories to report. Ellis, Elle and Aran jumped in the back of the Ram pickup and Todd started it up. He drove the truck slowly down the road towards the two trucks that were waiting in the driveway. Everyone was feeling much better now that they had nearly accomplished the first half of their task.

  After a simple exchange in the driveway, all three trucks were leaving Capitol as quietly as they could across the wooden bridge and heading for Hannafords, Silence hung over the group as they drove through the blackness toward the unknown.

  Hannafords

  Hannafords Supermarket was located off route twenty seven, just outside the busy center of Boothbay. The three trucks pulled up slowly into the parking lot, seeing for the first time the damage and destruction that the virus had on the world. Smashed cars, mangled bodies rotting in the summer sun and burnt out fires that created the wall of smoke which floated above the world for the first weeks of the disaster.

  Todd pulled ahead and drove a little ways down the road with the small backpack full of the fireworks Ellis had managed to bring back from Aran’s house the day they nearly got themselves killed. The plan was simple. Light of the fireworks a ways down the street and hope that the corpses would be attracted to the sound and light, vacating the supermarket so they could get what they needed. The others pulled the trucks up close to the entrance to the store and got out, waiting for the sound. Aran gave a hard push on the glass door and found that, with some effort, he could open it.

  As carefully as he could he pushed it open and headed for the exit door on the opposite side, trying to give any wandering corpse inside an easy way out when the fireworks sounded. After opening all the doors, he crept back to the truck, slid inside and waited.

  Just a few minutes later, they could see the Ram crest the hill beyond the traffic light, tearing down the hill. Shortly after the truck came into view, they heard an incredible sound that shook the ground. The sky above hill erupted in bright, orange light and a giant wall of flames lept high in the sky.

  �
��What the hell was that?” Aran whispered.

  Then another sound pierced the night like a siren. A chorus of screams tore through the blackness, echoing against the surrounding buildings. And just as quickly, Aran and Elle saw them. Thousands of them. Corpses came from all around them, pushing and shoving each other as they stampeded up the street towards the source of the sound and the light. They covered Todd’s truck, which sat silent in the center of the street. They flowed over it like a rock in a stream.

  “Oh my God,” Elle whispered, shaking as she and Aran watched in awe as the bodies covered the streets like a hill of southern fire ants that someone had just poked with their shoe. Dozens of corpses barged out of the open doors of the supermarket, looked around and followed the rest of the group up the hill. Others came from other stores and building around them, gnashing and tearing at each other.

  “I hope Todd’s alright,” Elle said as she watched the crowd of bodies swarm over the black truck, nearly hiding it from sight.

  “Yeah,” Aran said. “Me too.”

  He couldn’t believe how many there were and how fast they moved. When they pulled into the parking lot, it seemed so deserted and calm. It was so hard to imagine that there were that many dormant bodies waiting to be aroused.

  “I wonder how many of them are just waiting on Capitol?” Elle said.

  “I don’t want to think about it,” he said honestly. The thought of one wrong move making a hoard of bodies that size come tearing down the little road on Capitol Island made Aran shiver.

  It took about five minutes for the hoard to clear the area and the streets were once again quiet. The moon shown sporadically, giving them extra light to work with.

  Todd sat up and moved the truck into position outside the supermarket, ready to start loading. Ellis hopped out of his truck and met up with Aran and Elle to quickly discuss how to proceed.

  “We need to move,” Todd said with urgency in his voice that none of them had ever heard before. “Once those things realize that there is nothing over there, they’re going to start fanning out and hunting.”

  “What the hell did you do to cause that noise?” Aran asked. “Those weren’t the fireworks.”

  Todd shook his head. “I went down to the gas station right outside of town. It was a mess down there, but I saw the station had been damaged badly, gas everywhere. So I lit up a roman candle and threw it over there. There was just enough left on the pavement to ignite and it traveled to the underground tanks and that’s what you heard.”

  “I can’t believe you just stayed in the truck,” Ellis said shocked.

  “I told you, I know how they act,” he said gesturing for them to head toward the store. “Once they hear a noise like that, they’re focused on it and they won’t see you unless you’re right in front of them. In their line of sight”

  They quietly walked into the store, making sure that they didn’t make too much noise in case there was a stray body or two that didn’t heed the sound of the explosion. They fanned out and checked each aisle, making sure the store was clear before they started moving things.

  Once they were assured the store was empty of any threat, they started moving out all the supplies the needed, using the cloth bags the store sold to fill and move to the trucks. The time went by quickly and without any disturbance as they filled the beds and cabs of the trucks with food, hygiene and medical supplies. Because the virus hit so hard and so fast there was virtually no time for people to loot, leaving the store virtually untouched. It was clear that some people attempted to take things they needed, pulling stuff off shelves and making a general mess in the aisles.

  Aran was feeling pretty good as he hauled the last bag of food he could possibly stuff in the truck. As he passed through the cash registers, he stopped and looked into a sale bin of candy, grabbing a few boxes of Mike and Ike’s. He ripped open the green box, and poured a mouthful of the sweet candy into his mouth, savoring the sugar filled pieces.

  Ellis startled him, grabbing a hold of his arm. “We gotta go now,” he said in a panicked voice. “Now!” He let go of Aran’s arm and bolted out the front door toward his truck.

  Aran followed, a bit puzzled to why Ellis was so edgy all of a sudden. When he stepped out into the parking lot, he saw why Ellis was so panicked. The corpses were returning, coming down the road from the town in a slow wave, heading in their direction. Todd had the idea of leaving the trucks running to keep a steady noise going, preventing the harsh sound of starting them up.

  Aran ran to his truck, stuffed the bag in the back as best he could and hopped into the front seat. Todd had already started pulling out of the driveway, heading left down route twenty-seven. Ellis followed closely behind Todd, trying to accelerate without making a harsh noise that would bring them any more attention.

  Aran started out of the parking lot, Elle sitting in the front seat, looking out the window and up the street,

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  Aran swung his head to see what Elle was reacting to and in that instant his hand pushed hard enough on the horn for it to blare out in the night. Aran felt the instant panic, knowing that he’d just alerted the hoard to their presence.

  “Go Aran,” Elle yelled. “Hurry.”

  An instant was all it took for the bodies to start their tear down the road toward the source of the sound. Aran pulled onto the road, the mass of corpses filling the rearview mirror and closing fast. Elle and Todd had already made some distance up the street, but the noise of the herd of bodies swarming down the road was alerting other corpses hiding out along the route, all of who joined in the chase.

  “Aran, they’re keeping up with us,” Elle said as she faced backward, looking out of the small window across the full truck bed.

  He looked down at the speedometer, the display reading forty miles per hour. How could they be keeping up? He punched the gas pedal, knowing that he could be dumping precious supplies out the back. He didn’t care. He had to gain some distance or he was going to lead them right back to the docks. The truck was at sixty now and he could see movement all around him. Corpses were coming out of the woods along the side of the road, the roar of the engine arousing them from their trance.

  “Did we lose them?” he asked.

  “I don’t see them back there,” she replied, “but I can’t tell.”

  He had to slow down to round the statue and head down Lake Street back toward Southport Island and Capitol and as he started down toward the lake he slammed on the brakes on a short straight stretch of road, and jumped out of the truck.

  “What are you doing,” Elle said in shock.

  “Shhh,” he whispered back, trying to listen.

  After just a split second he jumped back in the truck, threw it into drive and punched the gas, the back wheels fishtailing as they tried to grip the road.

  “What was that about?” she asked, looking at the pale expression on his face. “Aran?”

  Aran gripped the wheel tight as he could, taking the turns while trying to maintain the fastest speed possible. “They’re coming,” he said stone faced. “The horde is coming this way.”

  The Swing Bridge

  Aran took the curve at the intersection of Lake drive and Western road as hard as he could, trying not to loose control of the truck, but trying to maintain speed. He felt like he put some distance between the advancing crowd of sprinting bodies, but he knew they would close the gap if he stopped. As he turned, he came up quickly on Ellis and Todd who had slowed their speed waiting for Aran to catch up.

  Aran flew up on Ellis’ tailgate, trying to edge him faster, but Ellis wasn’t getting the hint. Todd was in the lead and with the lights out there was no way he could see how close Aran was to Ellis.

  Elle kept looking out the rear window, waiting for to see if any of the advancing corpses were coming into sight, but she couldn’t see anything in the blackness.

  “Maybe they’ll go straight across and down towards the aquarium,” she s
aid.

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Aran said as they sped across the metal swing bridge that spanned the channel. Before the virus struck, the bridge used to swing open, allowing large boats to pass underneath, but now the bridge stood silent, a steel skeleton hulking out of the darkness. As they passed by the guardhouse, a faint glow could be seen coming from the little glass building. The bridge ran on backup generator power, allowing the passage of boats even if the main power was cut off. It caught Aran’s attention as the first light they had seen on the mainland since the world went dark and the power finally went out across the coast. It was almost a comfort to see the glow, a sign of what used to be.

  The truck left the steel grating and crossed onto the pavement, leaving the rusted metal cage behind them. Fifty yards from the bridge, Aran slowed the truck to a stop and quietly got out. Elle opened her door and followed him back towards the channel, heading down the road which they’d just came up. The moon was out in full, illuminating the small harbor that lay in front of them..

  Aran stopped and listened, a gentle breeze kicking up and rustling the leaves in the nearby trees. They stood for a few moments, hand in hand staring into each other’s eyes.

  “I love you Aran,” she said kissing him on the lips and pulling him tight to her body, feeling his warmth against the cool evening breeze.

  She held his hand firmly, feeling a tremble in his fingers. “Aran?” she whispered, “Are you okay?” But before she got an answer, she heard it. Floating on the breeze, a screeching mixed with the sounds of the lapping water of harbor and the rocking of the boats still moored in the water.

  “If they can make it down here,” he said. “They can get to Capitol.”

  “What do we do?”

  Without answering, he took off at a full run towards the swing bridge, moving as fast as he could run. The sounds of the dead were getting louder as the monstrous group closed in, like a rising tide of destruction. He tore down the metal gangway along the side of the bridge and yanked open the door to the small room that house the bridge controls.

  Ellis, seeing that Aran was no longer behind him, turned around and headed back the way he came, hoping that everything was okay. He stopped next to Elle and jumped out of the car, his heart racing with anticipation.

  “Why’d you stop?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  But just like before, Ellis didn’t need an answer from Elle, he could hear them for himself.

  “They’re coming?” he said. “How?

  “I don’t know,” Elle said. “Aran hit the horn back in Hannaford’s and they chased.”

  “Where’s Aran?”

  “I think he’s gonna try and open the swing bridge and keep them from crossing,” she replied.

  Ellis grabbed ahold of Elle’s hand and they both ran toward the bridge, both thinking the same thing and hoping that Aran would be able to make it back.

  Aran opened the door trying to see from the dull glow of the lights on the panel. He was trying to stay calm while also attempting to figure out how to operate the bridge. He could hear the bodies as they crested the ridge and started to flood down the hill, funneling right to the bridge. He worked fast, trying to find the switch that would enable the bridge and swing it open.

  On the far side of the panel, he found a large lever, just above the dull yellow light that illuminated the small room. He grasped the red ball on top and pulled down, sliding the lever and setting the gears into motion. The yellow light went from solid to blinking and an alarm sounded out, signaling that the bridge was about to open.

  He bolted from the room, running back across the bridge. As he left the guardhouse, the arms that helped stop traffic came closing down on either side of the bridge, giving the advancing bodies a small obstacle before getting to the bridge. He’d made it about halfway across the steel bridge when he felt the ground shaking and the road slowly beginning to move. The the horde of sprinting bodies smashed through the gate and started tearing across the bridge.

  Aran’s heart was smashing in his chest, his legs burning as he ran with all his might to the end of the bridge. He could see the bridge slowly moving and his window of opportunity to get across shrinking. He could feel the first of the corpses hit the bridge, their pounding feet vibrating through the steel latticework.

  Ellis and Elle stood at the very edge of the road where the bridge and the pavement met, watching Aran running full tilt toward them as the bridge swung slowly out.

  “He’s not gonna make,” Elle said panicked, watching the gap widen.

  “He’ll make it,” Ellis said calmly. Inside he wondered if Aran could span the distance in time. If he didn’t, he’d be trapped out on the bridge with a mass of bodies.

  “Run,” Elle said under breath. “Please run.”

  Aran saw the end of the bridge and the space between him and the road beyond and he knew he had no choice but to jump. If he hesitated, he’d be stuck and almost certainly killed. He hit the end of the metal and leapt with all his strength, pushing with his foot and stretching for the other side.

  Elle and Ellis were waiting and as Aran hit the side of the gap. They latched onto his arms, preventing him from tumbling into the black water below. With a bit of effort they heaved him up and lay him flat, his heart racing and his face soaked in sweat.

  Across the gap the horde hit the edge and tumbled into the water like a waterfall, screaming and writhing as they hit the cold, salt water below. The three of them sat there on the edge of the bridge watching in awe of the scene in front of them. Thousands of bodies poured over the bridge and disappeared into the water below, sinking like stones tossed into a pond. Their faces gnarled and twisted, devoid of the human life that used to flow through them, nothing left but the virus trying to spread itself. They were mothers, daughters, teachers, doctors and lobstermen but none of it mattered anymore because they were nothing but hosts. These carriers served a single purpose now. They spread the disease to a healthy host, insuring the survival of the virus. As they watched the countless corpses scream and fall, they felt the full impact of it all. The picture had come full circle and they knew that humanity as they knew it was over. The virus had won and there was no way anyone was going to stop it. The few people left that were immune to the airborne strain were just biding their time before being bitten and infected.

  Aran stood up slowly and brushed himself off, looking down at his torn pants. “Let’s go,” he said sadly. “We need to unload this stuff and get the hell outta here.”

  They walked back to the truck in silence, none of them feeling much like talking. Even though the night had been a success, despite a few close calls, the gravity of everything was weighing heavy on their minds. As they quietly drove the trucks towards Capitol Island, they knew that their time on the mainland was almost over and wondered if they would ever have the courage to step foot on it again. Their destiny was on Damariscove, the only safe place they knew of in the dead world. It was their home and their protector for as long as they could survive there.

  Final Journey

  Todd was already at the Capitol docks when Ellis and Aran pulled up in the trucks. He jumped out of the cab, clearly worried. “What the hell happened to you guys,” he asked.

  “We had a little issue at the swing bridge,” Aran said, retelling the story.

  “I thought I heard a buzzing sound, but I wasn’t sure what it could be. I was about to come back and look for you all.”

  They began to unload the trucks and shuttle goods down to the boat, loading up the Whaler with everything they got from the store. Once Todd’s truck was empty, he drove it across the bridge and parked it on the end, blocking any wandering corpses from coming across to the island. It took some time to get everything down to the boat, but they managed to get it all loaded without arousing any attention, keeping as silent as they could.

  “We should park the trucks back by the casino,” Todd said when everything was loaded. “That way we have working veh
icles here when we need to use them again.”

  Ellis nodded and hopped into his truck, backing it slowly alongside the casino, keeping it out of sight. He was tired and ready to head home. The night had been so mentally and physically exhausting, that he was having a hard time mustering the energy to get things done. He looked out the front window, watching Elle and Aran holding hands on the dock, knowing that he’d be a third wheel forever. He desperately wanted what they had. He wanted to be able to share affection with someone, but he knew the chances of that were next to nothing. Everyone was dead and gone. He sighed and opened the door, slowly swinging himself down out of the truck. The suddenly he felt a shooting pain tear up his arm. From out of the darkness a corpse had clamped down on him, piercing his skin.

  He let out an ear-piercing shriek, kicking at the body with his feet, knocking it back on the ground. Full of panic and rage he kicked the body over and over again, stomping on its skull and crushing it like a melon. He bolted across the driveway and ran down the ramp, crying uncontrollably and grasping at his arm. He bent down at the edge of the dock and thrust his arm into the water, instantly feeling the salt sting the open wound, biting at the exposed flesh.

  Aran, Elle and Todd looked on in horror as Ellis ran down the ramp, but before they could react, they heard the screams coming from the island. Ellis’ wail had literally woken the dead, and it was only matter of time before they came tearing out of the darkness, seeking the source of the sound.

  “You two go down to the docks and keep him quiet,” Todd said hurriedly.

  “What are you gonna do?” Aran asked.

  “I’m gonna drive that truck away and make as much noise as I can. They’ll follow me as long as they don’t see you down there.”

  “But where are you going to go?”

  Todd put his hand on Aran’s shoulder. “I’m going to go find my wife.”

  “You can’t,” Elle said beginning to cry. “The swing bridge is open, there’s no way off Southport.”

  “I’ll find a way,” he said sadly. “I have to see if she made it. I’ll take a boat from Newagen if it comes to that.”

  “Please don’t go,” Elle said crying.

  “You always have a place on the island,” Aran said, giving him a hug.

  “Thanks, this isn’t goodbye for good ya know.”

  With that he ran across the bridge and jumped in the truck. Aran and Elle made their way down the ramp and over to where Ellis was sitting on the dock, holding his left forearm. Moments later, corpses came running down the road, appearing out of nowhere. Todd turned on the ignition, roared the engine and laid on the horn. He moved slowly, making sure that the stream of bodies followed him across the bridge and up the road, away from the docks.

  Aran and Elle huddled next to Ellis, hoping that none of the bodies would decide to head down the dock. They watched as they charged across the bridge and out of sight, leaving the island silent in a matter of minutes.

  Elle tried to lift Ellis’ head to get him to look at her, but he refused to move.

  “What happened?” she said. “Show me.”

  Ellis slowly looked up at her, fear in his eyes and dread in his expression. He slowly held up his arm, close enough for Elle to see in the pale moonlight. She grabbed a hold of his wrist and pulled his arm close, examining his wound. When she turned his arm and finally saw what had happened. She couldn’t control the tears as they streamed down her face.

  “Oh Ellis,” she said, turning away to hide her face.

  Aran couldn’t control his tears either and he sobbed putting his arm around his friend. He knew from the second Ellis screamed what had happened, but it wasn’t until the moment he saw the wound that he really believed it. His friend was gone. He might have been sitting next to him on the dock, but he was as good as dead.

  Aran glanced down at his watch, looking at the time and making a mental note. Todd had told them when they first met that it took about four hours for a bitten person to turn. He looked out over the water, trying to hold it together. Ellis had become his best friend, his only friend left in the world. He’d saved Elle and become a constant in his life, a piece of the past world and a companion. Now that was gone in an instant. It was just another reminder of how fast things could change in the world and how no one was ever really safe.

  Ellis stood up slowly, looking down at his arm and wincing in pain. Elle grabbed hold of him, sobbing into his shoulder. He hugged her back, putting his arm around her as he looked out over the harbor to the dark shadows of the islands across the channel. He breathed a deep sigh of relief, a feeling of peace washing over his mind. For the first time since the virus struck, he wasn’t afraid. He felt calm and at ease. He was going to be sad to say goodbye to his friends, the best friends he’d ever had. In his real life, he had many friends that he knew better and longer than Elle and Aran, but they all paled in comparison to how close he’d become.

  He wasn’t afraid to die and he wasn’t sad to leave the world. In fact, he almost welcomed it. The last few months had been a living nightmare with a few good moments sprinkled in and the thought of having to live like that day in and day out until his final days often kept him up at night. The only thing that hung heavy in his heart was leaving his friends behind, saying goodbye to the people that saved his life.

  “I need to do this on my own,” Ellis said turning around. “I don’t want my blood on either of your hands.”

  Elle grabbed Aran and looked away from Ellis’ pale face.

  “What are you gonna do?” Aran said, choking back his own tears.

  “Take that boat there and head out into the open ocean.”

  Aran nodded, then held out his hand. Ellis took hold of it and shook hard, trying to control his own emotions.

  “Thanks,” Aran said, looking over at Elle, “I owe you everything.”

  “We kinda saved each other,” he replied, forcing a smile.

  Aran grabbed hold of Ellis’ shoulder and wrapped his arms around his friend, losing control of his tears. “I’m gonna miss you brother.”

  “You take care of her,” he said. “She loves you and she needs you.”

  “I will,” he said, pulling back and reaching behind him. He took out the handgun that Todd had given him. “Take this,’ he said handing the gun to Ellis.

  Ellis took hold of the gun and nodded. “Thanks,” he said.

  Elle turned around and faced Ellis.

  “I don’t know what would have happened to me without you,” she said, “I never got a chance to repay you.”

  “You don’t need to repay me,” he said. “You would have done the same.”

  Elle jumped into his arms, wrapping hers around his neck and looking him in the eyes. “I owe my life to you,” she said sobbing. “You saved me and now I can’t return the favor. I can’t save you.”

  “It’s okay,” he said holding her tight, “No one can save me.” He gave her one last hug and let her go, giving her back to Aran as he headed toward the boat that Todd found the keys to. He climbed in and started it up.

  “Are you gonna to be okay?” Aran asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m gonna to be okay.”

  “Take this,” Aran said, handing Ellis his watch. “You have until about one before you can’t take care of yourself.”

  “Thanks,’ he said holding the watch. “You two take care of yourselves okay?”

  “We will,” said Aran, tears streaming down his face.

  Aran and Elle held each other as Ellis motored out of the harbor and speed up out of sight. It took only a few minutes before the hum of his motor could no longer be heard and silence returned to Capitol, leaving the two survivors crying in each others arms, the pain of their lost friend too much to bear. They stood holding each other for a long time, neither of them wanting to talk and both of them crying for the loss of their friend. Even though the supply run was a success, it came at a terrible price. Their community had been cut in half in the pro
cess, leaving Aran and Elle to return to Damariscove alone.

  “Come on,” Aran said, taking hold of Elle’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

  Aran jumped into the boat and held his hand out for Elle. She took hold and lifted herself into the boat. As she did, the boat pulled loose from the dock just enough and she lost her balance, tumbling into the cold salt water. She let out a shriek and Aran couldn’t help but laugh, seeing her splashing in the water. He jumped off the boat and onto the dock. He reached for her hand to pull her out, a wide smile across his face. She looked up at him and started to laugh too. She clasped his hand and tried to lift herself out onto the dock.

  Suddenly she felt something rub her leg, giving her heart a start.

  “Get me out,” she said panicking. “Something just brushed my leg.”

  “It was probably just a fish or maybe a seal,” he said reassuring her. “Or it was just your imagination.”

  He grabbed her other hand and started to help her out onto the dock. She’d just about pulled herself up when she lost her grip and slipped back into the water, slapping the surface in frustration.

  “Aran, something just bumped me again,” she said swimming back to the dock. But this time instead up reaching out, she plunged under the water, disappearing from sight. Aran jumped in, diving below the spot where she went under. He felt her hand and yanked on her arm, pulling her up to the surface.

  “It’s okay,” he said pulling the hair out of her face. “You’re okay.”

  She didn’t say a word, but Aran could tell that she was scared. He helped her out onto the dock and then pulled himself out.

  “Let’s get back before we freeze to death.”

  They both climbed into the boat and made their way back towards Damariscove, leaving the mainland behind them. Aran stood at the helm, letting the wind blow against his face. He looked out into the open ocean, a vast expanse of blackness, lying beneath a brilliant blanket of stars. He thought about Ellis, out there all alone and faced with ending his own life before the virus turned him into one of them. He wondered if Ellis would have the courage to pull the trigger or if he would become one of the masses of walking corpses, milling around his boat forever. He wondered if he’d be able to kill himself if it came to that. Would he be able to pull the trigger?

  Elle sat in the back of the boat, staring off into space, a pale look on her face.

  “Are you okay,” he called back, but he got no response from her as she just sat staring out over the water. He shrugged his shoulders and faced forward, making his way past Squirrel Island and back home. As the boat rounded the tip of Squirrel, he could see the dark shadow of Damariscove hunched on the horizon like a cat ready to pounce. He breathed a slight sigh of relief as he saw the two distinct humps that made up the north and south ends of the island.

  As he got closer, he felt Elle’s hand on his shoulder as she stood behind him. He slowed the boat down as he rounded the ocean buoy. He turned and looked into Elle’s eyes, which were now glazed with fear.

  “What’s the matter,” he asked.

  She stood motionless for a second, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  “I’ve been bit,” she whispered, as she fainted, dropping to the deck of the boat.

  Hope Destroyed

  The words hit Aran like a punch in the stomach, his head suddenly throbbing with horror. How could she have gotten bit? He was with her almost the whole time and with the exception of the few moments when he was on the bridge, she wasn’t out of his sight. He didn’t want to look her over; he couldn’t bare the thought of searching her body and finding the bite, knowing that it was over.

  He did his best to hold his emotions together as he pulled the boat up to the dock, tied it off and carefully picked Elle up. He could hardly breathe as he brought her in his arms to the house, still not wanting to see the wound, not wanting to believe the words that came out of her mouth before she dropped to the floor of the boat.

  The house seemed eerie and cold, the life that it once housed snuffed out, leaving a dark, shadowed shell behind. He brought Elle slowly upstairs and laid her down in her bed, carefully pulling the sheets over her shivering body. He put his hand over her heart, trying to feel for the accelerated heartbeat, the main symptom Todd had told them came with the virus. He leaned his head down and laid it on her chest, feeling the warmth of her body and hearing the thudding of her heart. It sounded normal to him, but he wasn’t a doctor and he had no idea what it was supposed to sound like. He felt his own heart, counting the beats and then felt her hers again. Elle’s actually seemed to be slower than his own, giving him hope that maybe she was mistaken. Maybe she wasn’t bit after all.

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled back the sheets and started to examine her for any signs that she had a bite. He slowly worked his way down her beautiful body, making sure the he looked at every part of her that could have been exposed. Her arms, neck and back were fine and as he made his way down her legs, he began to think that she was imagining things. It wasn’t until he got to her ankle that his stomach sank, and the realization that what she had said was true sank in. Just above her shoe on her left foot was a small, but visible bite mark, the teeth marks clear where they had pierced the skin.

  Aran dropped to the floor. In the course of just hours, he’d lost his friend and his love, both taken like everyone else he’d ever know by those horrible things that roamed the world. He didn’t know how to feel anymore, his desperation and anguish too much to bear. He had nothing left to feel, every ounce of what he had was spent, leaving him a cold shell, sitting on the floor and waiting for the girl he loved to turn into the same creature that took her.

  He stood up and put his hand on her face, stroking her cheeks and feeling the warmth of her skin against his hand. He wished that she’d wake up, at least give him the chance to tell her that he loved her and to say goodbye. But she lay there, unconscious and unaware that the virus was taking hold of her, coursing though her veins, killing the Elle he knew and robbing him of everything.

  After a few minutes he stood up and walked out of the room, unable to sit and stare at her any longer. The pain too much to bear. He descended the stairs one at a time, conflicted about whether he should sit by her side like he did all those weeks ago when she first came to the island. You couldn’t have pried him away from her side with the Jaws of Life back then, but this time was different. There was no hope this time, no reason to believe that she could pull through and live on. It was her end and he just didn’t have the heart or the stomach to sit and watch her turn from the beautiful girl he knew and loved to the walking dead that chased him across the bridge.

  He lay down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. He glanced over that the digital clock that sat on one of the end tables across the room. He had just under an hour before he had to go back upstairs and take care of Elle before the virus turned her into a raving monster. The thought of having to do it nearly made him wretch, taking all of his will to keep himself together. He stared at the clock, watching the minutes slowly tick by, dreading what needed to be done. He wanted to scream, he wanted to curse and yell and express his feelings, but like the first day there was no one around to listen. With each passing second, he thought about her and how much he was going to miss her. Even though their time was short, he truly cared for Elle and now she was about to be taken from him, wrenched from the world like all the rest.

  The next forty minutes seemed endless, and he knew he should be sitting up next to her, getting every second he could by her side, but he just didn’t have the strength to watch her slowly die, no matter what the circumstances.

  When he could stand it no longer, he got himself up and plodded up the stairs, each step a second closer to killing Elle and ending her suffering. He should have done it the second she told him she was bitten, but he didn’t have the heart. Now the zero hour was upon him and his time had run out. No more excuses and no more procrastinating.

  He opened the door to h
er room with great trepidation, hoping she hadn’t started the phase of turning, although he had no idea what that looked like. He could see her, lying in the bed just as he left her, motionless and pale. He walked to her side and glanced down at her frail looking body, trying not to lose it. The handgun sat on the nightstand, an ominous reminder of what needed to be done and how easy it was for things to change in this world.

  Aran placed his hand on her heart, ready to either feel the insane pounding of the virus or utter stillness of her lifeless corpse, either one sent chills up his spine. But as he placed his hand over her chest, all he could feel was the slow beating of her heart, nothing like what he expected. Her pulse seemed somewhat normal, he forehead wasn’t burning and her breathing seemed normal, like she was sleeping. A flood of relief spilled over Aran as he sat by her side. Maybe she was immune to both strains of the virus? Maybe she wasn’t bitten by a corpse, but by something else perhaps.

  “Elle,” he whispered in her ear. “Can you hear me?”

  Even at the sound of his words, she was out cold and dead to the world. He took hold of her hand and held it tight in his. Elle might be okay. Maybe the virus hadn’t taken her and as he sat there for the next few hours, he was more and more sure that she was safe. Her breathing remained steady, her temperature held fast and the color returned to her face.

  He slumped against the wall, looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. Elle had been spared from the horror of turning into the masses of dead bodies, saved from suffering the fate of billions. He watched her as she lay there on the bed, like an angel. He thought of how close he was to losing her and being the one to take her life before the virus returned her. His eyes began to droop as he fought back his weariness, trying to sit with Elle. He wanted to be there if she woke up. He was so excited to tell her the news, to tell her that she no longer had to be afraid. She was immune; she was like Superman in this world.

  But Aran could no longer battle sleep and his head fell against his chest, fatigue and stress finally getting the better of him.

  Hours later he was torn from his dreams by the deafening sound of an explosion. Panic ripped through his body as he sat bolt upright, searching the room for the source of the sound. He looked up at the bed and stifled a scream.

  Elle lay slumped across the bed, face down and covered in blood. The gun that once sat silently on the nightstand was clutched in her hand.

  An Angel Sent

  Aran walked slowly across the harbor, heading for the tower path. His heart destroyed and his will to continue shattered. He hung his head as he stumbled over the brambles and the rocks, not caring if he stubbed his toe or tore his skin. He’d made the trip everyday since he lost Elle and everyday he returned to the house, unable to do what he set out to do. He was stuck on the island, stuck in a world with no one else to share it with and no one to love or love him back. He’d kept up with the everyday chores, but doing so in a trance. He didn’t seem to feel much anymore, but something kept him about his daily business on the island.

  He pulled the lobster traps, managed the household chores and made sure the electrical and water systems continued to function. He tried to keep himself as busy as possible, hoping that he could push out his devastation with busy work. Aran even managed to begin several new projects including bringing back timber from a neighboring island that he chopped up into firewood that would be necessary for the winter. He did all theses chores like he had a purpose, but each day he climbed to the tower, hoping it would be his last trip and his last day on the island.

  Even though the day was beautiful, his mind was clouded and grey, unable to wipe the sorrow of Elle’s loss away. Just two weeks ago, he’d been on the island with the girl he loved, the boy he’d become great friends with and a man who was helpful and kind. Now the island was empty and so was he.

  He climbed the path out of the harbor, towards the eastern side of the island where the rocky ledge that he visited so many times awaited him. All he carried with him was the gun that ended Elle’s life, loaded and ready to do the same for him. So many times he’d thought about all the ways he could end his own life. He thought about going back to his parent’s house, sitting in his bedroom and waiting for the hordes of bodies to break down the door. He thought about drowning himself or setting himself on fire, both brutal and painful ways to die, but at least he would feel something besides the numbness and heartache that plagued him everyday. He even found some rope and fashioned a makeshift noose in the rafters of the small house where Todd had made his home, but he never had the courage to tie it around his own neck.

  In the end, he decided that if he was going to do it, he would go the same way Elle did; a bullet to the head that would end his existence in a microsecond. The one thing weighing on his mind was the thought that he would return anyway and instead of rotting out on the rocks of the island, he would wander the island for eternity.

  He crested the small hill and trotted down the grassy slope toward the ocean and the rocky eastern side of the island. He pushed through the low brush that sat at the edge of the rocks and stepped out onto the ledge, the sun glistening off the crystal blue water. He shielded his eyes from the glare and looked out over the bay, taking in the breeze and inhaling the cool salty air. He’d been up here everyday for the last two weeks at the same time, trying to build the courage to pull the trigger and end his misery and loneliness. But for whatever reasons, he just couldn’t do it. Maybe he feared the pain of the bullet or the possibility of only brutally injuring himself that stopped him. Perhaps, though, he saw some glimmer of hope as he sat and looked over the beauty of the Maine coast that spread in front of him. The dead bodies were like a giant scar on the world, but there was still beauty in it. Did he really want to leave it for good? He remembered the peace and calm that Ellis felt once he knew that his life was over. It was like someone gave him a free pass to die without the responsibility of being the one who ended it. He would often feel jealous of Ellis and the fact that his choice was made for him by the corpse that bit his arm. He wasn’t faced with the terrible choice of living or dying.

  But, he was tired of being alone and left with emptiness that ate him like a cancer. He’d seen the movies and read the stories. He knew what total isolation and loneliness could to do to someone. That someday, without and one else around, he would go crazy and lose the ability to make a conscious choice. So each day he made the climb up to the ledge and stood looking over the sea, trying to garner the courage to send himself into the next world. The courage to leave this one behind for good and embrace the fact that he tried and failed to survive.

  Tears rolled down Aran’s face as he thought about Elle and Ellis and how they died so needlessly. He thought about Ellis’ and what his last moments out on the boat must have been like. Was he afraid to pull the trigger or did he do it with ease? He thought about Elle and how easily she had ended her own life, thinking she was doing Aran a favor by doing it herself. The knowledge that if Aran had stayed awake and by her side, that she would have been alive and cuddled in his arms was a cross that was almost to hard for him to bear. The two people whom he thought he would spend the rest of his days with on the island were both able to pull the trigger and leave the world behind and leave him alone at the same time. But just as he would muster the strength to raise the gun to his temple, it was if an invisible hand pulled the gun away at the last minute.

  Today he felt a new sense of urgency. The project of bringing wood to the island served as a reminder that winter on the island would be nearly impossible to survive. So he slowly lifted the gun to his temple, hands shaking with his finger firmly on the trigger. He knew that today was the day. He felt oddly at peace and for the first time a sense of calm washed over him like warm ocean wave. He closed his eyes and imagined seeing Elle again, holding her hand and walking down a starlit beach together. He could hear Ellis’ jovial voice echoing through the mist as he bounded out to see them. The three friends, reunited together in a place with n
o corpses and nothing to fear.

  “I’m coming Elle,” he whispered into the breeze.

  “Are you sure you wanna do that?” a voice said from somewhere behind him.

  Aran froze, unsure of whether he was imagining it or not.

  “Why don’t you put the gun down and we’ll talk,” the voice spoke gently.

  Aran slowly lowered the gun and turned around. When his eyes focused his stomach jumped and his heart raced. Looking back at him was the bright silhouette of a beautiful girl. The setting sun was illuminating her figure, making her look like an angel.

  “Who are you?” he stammered.

  “I’m Vanya,” she replied, stepping toward him and allowing him to see her face up close. She was the most beautiful girl Aran had ever seen. She was tall and graceful with long golden hair and grey-blue eyes that looked like they were drawn from the bluest sea. Her faint smile tore through his heart like a jagged knife and her face moved him so much it was as if she had been drawn and created just for Aran.

  He dropped the gun and sank to the ground.

  “You wanna talk about it?” she said, sitting down next to him.

  Aran knew he had to be dreaming or that what he was seeing and hearing had to be in his mind. Had he pulled the trigger already and this is what lay beyond?

  “How’d you get out here?” he asked.

  Vanya just shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea. I woke up on that little rocky beach. I wandered around until I saw you up here.”

  “How did you get on the beach?”

  “I don’t know. All I remember is being on the boat with my dad and the next thing I knew, I was here.”

  Aran couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was a vision of beauty. Her voice played in his ears like a symphony, perfectly tuned, giving him goose bumps.

  “I’ve lost everything,” he said softly. “Everyone.”

  “Is that why you were gonna use that?” she asked, pointing to the gun.

  Aran nodded. “It’s been two weeks today since I lost them.”

  “Who’d you lose,” she asked.

  “My family, my friends,” he said. “Everyone.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she replied.

  “Are you an angel?” he asked, looking into her beautiful eyes.

  “I don’t think so,” she smiled.

  “Then why are you here?” he asked

  Vanya looked around, her long hair blowing slightly against the breeze.

  “I’m sure there’s a reason,” she said smiling. “Everything happens for a reason I think.”

  Aran didn’t know what to think. He was still sure that this was a dream or a hallucination. Just at his final point of desperation, the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on comes strolling up the island. It was just too surreal.

  But there she was, looking at him with her warm eyes and bright smile, even though her face hid sadness. He could tell that she thought deeply about things and that she had also been though tough times, maybe even seen the death of family and friends. He slowly moved closer to her, sitting right beside her and facing out over the water which was reflecting the rose and red colors of the setting sun.

  “Did you lose someone?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she said sadly. “I don’t remember much of anything.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she replied. “I remember stuff from before. My mom, my family and friends. But I can’t remember anything after we fled the house.”

  Aran was captivated listening to her talk. It was as if her voice was a perfect match for his ears.

  “Did you leave because of the virus?”

  She nodded. “Our neighbor warned us. We started seeing stuff on the news and my dad was worried so we got in the car and left. I lay down in the back. I didn’t want to see the things my brothers saw.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I don’t know,” she said sadly. “When I woke up, I was here on the rocks”

  Aran could feel her confusion and her sadness. It must be so hard to not remember what happened to you, to be completely unaware of things. He suddenly wondered if she knew what the world had become since the virus struck. He remembered back to when Elle finally woke up and the heartbreak is caused her to know what had happened to her family and to the world.

  He watched her sitting with her hands holding her knees, the wind blowing through her hair and he couldn’t imagine a more beautiful girl in the entire world. As much as he cared for Elle and as much as the anguish of her death still ate at him, his immediate connection to Vanya was like a soothing medicine, washing away his pain. Never in his life had anything stirred up so many feelings inside him. Never had he experienced such a deep-rooted longing for someone before. There was something so angelic about her. Everything seemed perfect and inside him a ray of hope began to spring.

  “Do you live out here?” she asked.

  “Well,” he stammered. “I kinda do now. This place is safe.”

  “It’s beautiful here,” she replied.

  Aran looked behind Vanya at the setting sun and the brilliant rose-colored clouds that hung in the sky and realized how right she was. All this time he saw Damariscove as a safe place, a shelter, but he forgot how simply beautiful it was.

  The two sat in near silence for quite a long time, taking in the island and listening to the sounds of the waves crashing against the rocks. Aran didn’t need to talk, he was comfortable just being in her presence, accepting the moment for what he assumed it was; a figment of his inner imagination.

  The sun sank below the horizon and the wind blew a chill across the island, rustling the grasses and signaling the coming of night. Aran stood up and looked over at Vanya who was still sitting and looking out over the water.

  “Do you wanna stay here with me?” he asked.

  She looked up at him with pain in her eyes. “Of course I would,” she said sadly. “I have no where else to go.”

  Aran held out his hand and she took hold of it. When their fingers touched, a tingle ran down Aran’s arm and through his body, making him shiver and his heart beat faster. There was something magical about her, something powerful that Aran couldn’t quite place. It was as if she washed every hurt away, every bad memory. He felt as if everything that happened had vanished from his mind and all he knew was that evening. All the pain that he held in his heart from the loss of his parents, to the death of Elle was being soothed by Vanya’s presence.

  They walked slowly down the worn path back to the house, the stars beginning to shine as they reached the porch.

  “How long have you been out here?” she asked as they made their way up the steps to the front door.

  “Since the beginning,” he said. “I was out here when it happened.”

  “I don’t remember anything,” she said. “My family, my friends. I know something terrible happened, but I don’t know what happened to them.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I don’t know what happened to my parents either.”

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Did you look for them?”

  Aran nodded. “I went back to my house, but they had gone.”

  “Maybe they’re okay,” she said. “Maybe they’re safe somewhere.”

  Aran hung his head; the feelings trying to flood back over him again. “They knew I was out here. If they were okay, they would have come here,” he replied. “They’re gone.”

  “You don’t know that though.”

  “No, I don’t know that, but I have to accept it. Even if they are alive somewhere, how would I ever find them?”

  “I have to have hope,” she said, “I have to find my father and my brothers. They have to be alive.”

  Aran could feel the panic in her voice, yet she held it together so well. How awful it must be to not remember anything and to be stranded on an island with a stranger with no clue how you got there.

  He led her into the house and ga
ve her a brief tour.

  “Don’t you get lonely out here?” she asked as they sat down in the living room.

  Aran choked back his initial reaction, trying not to think about how nice it was when the four of them all lived out here together.

  “Of course,” he said sullenly, “But it wasn’t always like that.”

  “There were others?”

  Aran nodded. “Yes, there were”

  “Tell me about them,” she asked.

  Aran took a moment to process her question. In the time he’d been stuck out on the island, he’d never really talked to anyone about how he felt or about what happened to him. When Elle and Ellis came, it was about them and their ordeal and while he talked about his parents, he’d never let his true emotions out. And ever since he lost them both, he had no one to talk to about it, no one to share his feelings with. He’d been utterly alone and wallowing in his own self-pity.

  He looked Vanya in the eyes and saw nothing but sincerity, a kind of honest look that he rarely ever saw in other people. He could tell that she truly meant what she said when she asked him to tell her. She really was willing to listen and not for any reason but that she cared. He’d always been hesitant to share his inner feelings, to let people know how he really felt, but for some reason Vanya made him feel at ease.

  “So much has happened,” he stammered. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Why did you come out here?” she asked.

  Aran started from the beginning and told his story as best he could, trying hard not to leave anything out. He could tell that some of the things he said were news to her, but he kept moving forward as if the end of the world was simply common knowledge. He spent a lot of time talking about Elle and how he felt about her, trying to convey his inner feelings without losing control of his emotions. When he finished, it was like a weight was lifted off his soul and he was finally able to breathe a bit. He had been holding in his pain for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to release it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Was she the love of your life?”

  Aran was taken aback by the question, unsure of exactly how to answer it.

  “Of course I loved her,” he said quickly.

  “I know you loved her, but was she the love of your life? The one who you can’t live without.”

  As Vanya spoke, he looked at her face, the sensation welling up again, like someone filling him with air from a powerful compressor. He thought about her question and about whether Elle was really the love of his life, or just a girl who he cared about very much. He knew he loved Elle, he could feel it, but was she the one he couldn’t live without? Until the moment Vanya walked up onto the bluff, he would have said yes in a heartbeat, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  “I don’t know,” he said unsurely.

  “I’m sorry for asking,” she said. “It doesn’t matter anyway, what matters is that you cared for her and now she’s gone.”

  Aran just nodded, he couldn’t muster the words to respond. He thought back to the first time he laid eyes on Elle and how she made him feel. The feelings were so clear in his mind as if he had just lived them yesterday, but one thing kept swirling around. He never felt the same ache in his heart that he felt when he looked at Vanya. This feeling was very different somehow. It was as if he finally found something he’d lost long ago and he was scared he might lose it again if he wasn’t careful.

  “Tell me about your family,” Aran asked.

  Vanya told Aran everything about her family and her past. It was so evident how much of a connection she had to them, especially to her father. He could see her tearing up when she described her father and the relationship they had together. Aran had a good relationship with his parents, but he didn’t have the bond that Vanya seemed to have with father and at that moment he actually was glad for it. It made the loss of his family just a tiny bit easier to bear.

  “How long will you stay?” Aran asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

  “I need to find my family,” she said.

  “How are you going to do that?” Aran asked.

  She just hung her head, and lightly shrugged her shoulders. “How can I search for them if I can’t remember anything? Where would I start?”

  “You couldn’t.”

  He could see the tears in her eyes and feel the pain in her demeanor and it broke his own heart to see it. He had no idea why he was so emotionally moved by her, but it was powerful. There was nothing more he wanted than for her to stay with him, to live out on the island together. The thought made his heart skip.

  “You could stay here until your memory returns,” he said, sitting close to her and putting his arm around her shoulders.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t have anywhere to go or any way to get there anyway.”

  “If you get your memory back, I’ll find your family with you,” he said.

  She raised her heard and looked into his eyes. Her eyes suddenly filled with a kind of puzzled wonder. “You’d do that?” she asked, almost shocked. “Why?”

  Aran didn’t even know himself why he offered, but even after hearing the words from his mouth, he still was fully ready to go. He would forgo the safety of Damariscove if it meant helping Vanya and being with her. He had no idea why or how, but deep down he knew that it was the only solution.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “But I’d leave tonight if I knew where to go.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “I know,” he said with a smile. “I’d be honored to though.”

  The rest of the evening was quiet and comfortable. Aran made dinner while Vanya talked about where she grew up, what she liked to do and what she wanted to do when she finished college. As the conversation progressed, he began to realize the gaps in her memory and how much she didn’t know about what was going on. She knew about the virus and how it was causing havoc, but she never mentioned the dead and she kept talking about the future as if she didn’t know that everything was gone and there was no going back to normal.

  He knew he was going to have to explain everything to her, but he didn’t know what the right moment would be. She was in a very fragile state and if he told her about how few people survived, he knew she would immediately worry about her family. He knew that they probably didn’t survive and it wasn’t just a pessimistic view, but sheer reality simply because the infection rate was so staggering.

  “You look exhausted,” Aran said as he put away the dishes after dinner.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I really need a shower too.”

  “Anything you need,” he said and he led her upstairs and showed her the bathroom and her bedroom, then he left her to get cleaned up.

  Aran lay down on the bed, breathing deeply and staring up at the ceiling. He was trying to make sense of the day, trying to get a grasp on what was happening. He was still convinced that he was either dreaming or dead; he just wasn’t sure which one it was. Down the hall was the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on, someone had an invisible hold on him. He’d just met her only hours before, but he knew that he’d do anything for her, anything she wanted or needed.

  She was a complete mystery and he kept trying to piece together the events that could have led up to her being on the island. How could she have just washed up on the shore? With each possible scenario bouncing around his head, the more convinced he was that he was dreaming it all, or hallucinating it. It was almost too perfect, like an angel sent down to him in his most desperate hour. Sent to save him from himself and save him from ending his own life. And suddenly he felt a longing for Vanya, a need to simply be in her presence, to experience those feelings that rushed through him when he looked at her.

  A few moments later she tapped on the door to his room and stuck her head through.

  “I’m going to go to bed,” she said, the tiredness beginning to take over her.

  “Of course,”
he said. “You sleep as long as you need.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

  “I’m the one who owes you the thanks,” he said, looking down at his feet. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along. You saved my life.”

  “I don’t think you would have done it,” she said.

  “You don’t know how low I was.”

  “You’re too strong to take that road,” she replied. “That road is for cowards, and you’re not a coward.”

  “Thanks,” he said as his heart pounded in his chest like thunder.

  He reached out his hands and took her in his arms, embracing her for the first time. Every part of his body was alive with sensation almost as if Vanya emitted a kind of electricity that flowed through him. He pulled back and looked her in the face, unable to take his eyes off her.

  “Goodnight,” was all he could manage to say, choking on the words.

  She gave him a weak smile. “Same to you,” she replied as she turned and walked down the hallway.

  Aran closed his door and got ready for bed and as he lay in the darkness, he could feel a fearful thought welling up in him. If this was all just a dream, what nightmare was he going to wake up to?

  The Day After

  Aran awoke the next morning much later than he’d expected and although he gave up keeping track of time weeks ago, he could tell by the mid august sun that it was midmorning already. The day was glorious as the warm sun baked the blankets, erasing the cool chill of the evening.

  He got himself dressed and made his way down the hallway, unsure of whether he should open Vanya’s door and check on her or not. His decision was quickly made for him though as the door to her room stood wide open. He poked his head inside, but the room was empty. There wasn’t a single sign that anyone had even been in the room, let alone spent the night there. No clothes on the floor, bed perfectly made and everything just as he remembered it.

  His heart sank, a feeling of sadness washing over him like a flood of muddy water. Had he really dreamt everything from yesterday? Was Vanya just a vision in his head? It felt so real to him. She felt so real that he could still hear her voice in his ears as if she had just spoken to him.

  He closed the door and made his way down to the kitchen, unable to shake the sadness that hung over him. He was right back where he started yesterday, the ray of hope that Vanya had given him had been doused, extinguishing the hope of companionship.

  Aran tried to make his breakfast and have a normal morning, but he found it impossible to keep his mind away from his feelings. So he left the dishes on the table and headed outside, hoping to clear his head and decide what he was going to do next. Yesterday he was seconds away from pulling the trigger and ending his life, so how could he go back to living day to day when nothing changed? He was still alone on the island, still wracked with grief from the loss of Elle and Ellis and living is a world taken over by the dead.

  He started slowing walking the island path, not having a particular destination in mind, but just feeling the need to move. His mind was spinning. He’d had so many terrible dreams over the last few months that it was actually a relief to have such a normal, run of the mill dream. He couldn’t quite understand how his feelings seemed to be so tied to the dream, like someone had torn out a piece of who he was, leaving a hole behind. But how could a dream leave such a lasting impression? Maybe he’d met Vanya at some point in his life and without ever realizing it, she had imprinted in his subconscious. It was always possible, but Aran couldn’t help but think that he would have remembered her. There simply wasn’t as way for someone like her to not make a lasting impression.

  Aran spent the day wandering the island, picking up trash that had washed ashore and laughing at how silly he was to think that someone like Vanya could just wash up on shore and wander onto the island. As the afternoon approached, he made his way back up to the ledge. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but something drew him up there.

  Lying on the ground, exactly where he remembered sitting the day before was the handgun he nearly used to kill himself. Seeing it just laying on soft ground brought new confusion to his already muddled mind. If the previous night was a dream, how did he get back to the house? At first he thought that he may have dreamt the whole incident, but seeing the gun there in plain sight proved he’d been up on the hill.

  He quickly turned and ran down the path, a new vigor in his step. He couldn’t have dreamt everything; the gun was proof of that. Somehow he had gotten back to the house the evening before and something had stopped him from pulling the trigger. His heart was racing and he felt the brambles tear at his legs as he dashed down the un-kept path towards the house.

  She had to be there. He’d never actually considered that maybe she went out for a walk, or took the kayak out for a paddle. From what she’d told him, she tended to be a very private person and someone who enjoys reflective time. She probably got up before him, didn’t want to wake him and headed out on the island to be alone. A wide smile broke across his face as he remembered how he felt when he was around her, the electricity he felt when he hugged her goodnight.

  He burst through the front door and into the house as the last light of the sun gave the living room a dull glow filled with shadows.

  “Vanya,” he cried. “Are you okay?’

  His voice was met with silence. A silence so stark that it sent a chill down his spine.

  “Vanya,” he shouted again, piercing the stillness.

  It was in that moment he knew that it was all in his head. Vanya was about as real as the characters in the stories he written even though for just a few moments, he was so sure that she had been real. The feelings he had for her still resonated through him as if she was standing right there in the room.

  He suddenly couldn’t bear another second. All he wanted to do was curl up in his bed and close his eyes, hoping to fall asleep and rejoin Vanya again in whatever dream world he’d first met her. It was his last best hope to be happy again. He desperately wanted to feel something other than the emptiness of the island.

  It took him hours to get his mind to calm itself down enough for sleep to take hold, but he was finally able to close his eyes on a day he wished he could forget.

  It was the incessant thumping that woke Aran, ripping him out of his dreams in the dead of the night. He sat bolt upright in bed, heart smashing against his ribs. From the first night he’d spent in the house, he was used to silence. Silence so complete that sometimes that his ears rung with the lack of sound waves pressing on his eardrums. The constant thudding sound that filled his room was a sound so alien to him on the island, but yet so familiar in his mind.

  He crawled over to the window and slowly peered outside, dreading what could be causing such a commotion. As his eyes adjusted to the dull moonlight, horror pierced through him like a stake in the chest, knocking the wind from his lungs. Down below him, surrounding the house on all sides was a horde of corpses beating against the walls, trying to get inside.

  Panic kept Aran frozen to the spot, unable to think or breathe. The hundreds of hands continued to slam against the boards of the house like a drum corps gone berserk. Aran snapped himself out of his trance and flew across the room, heading for the other bedroom. He ran across the moonlit room and looked through the mullioned window. His eyes were met with the same scene as the other window; hundreds of corpses madly bashing themselves against the house.

  So many questions swirled through his mind that he couldn’t even try to answer them. How did they get out to the island in the first place and why in such numbers? What sound could possibly have drawn them to the house with such fervor when the night had been so silent and still? Was it his shouting for Vanya earlier in the night?

  As he looked out over the crowd, the corpses began to look up toward the window, their demonic faces beginning to show signs of decay. He could feel the countless eyes fixating on him from below.
/>   “They know I’m here,” he whispered to himself, “But how is that possible?”

  He spun around and dropped to the ground, getting out of the window and slinking his way across the floor to the bedroom door. He leaned against the wall in the hallway, trying to plan his next move. The crashing of glass broke through the thumping and Aran could hear the sounds of the bodies as they tore apart the window frame and thudded against the floor of the downstairs.

  “So this is how it ends,” he said.

  He could hear the moans and the wails of the dead as they filled the downstairs like water fills an empty container. They piled into the living room in an instant, crawling over each other trying to get to the stairs.

  Aran squeezed his fists and pounded the floor, the vibration echoing across the hallway. He slowly stood up and walked toward the stairs, his heart racing. At the top of the stairwell he could hear the clamor from the rooms below and the house bulged with the pressure of the flood of corpses that were flowing through the broken window. It wouldn’t be long before they found the entrance to the lower hallway and then the stairs themselves. He took a deep breath, letting the cool night air fill his lungs. After everything he’d been through and all he’d suffered over the last few months, his life was going to end at the top of the stairs. There was no other choice, no other way around the inevitable. He’d spent the last months avoiding the dead like the plague, trying to find any excuse to stay far away from them. Being bitten seemed a fate worse than death to him, but yet here he was after everything, about to be torn apart by the very creatures he feared the most.

  He looked down the stairs into the blackness below, waiting for the first pair of eyes to look up at him and the first scream to tear through the night.

  “Let’s end this!” he shouted down into the blackness as he stood defiantly at the top of the stairs.

  The screams from below were earth shattering as the horde of bodies all surged toward the sound of Aran’s shout. He could see the first of the dead at the base of the stairs. A young woman came screaming up the stairs, followed by a dozen more. He readied himself as the girl came to the last step and closed his eyes, waiti`` for the pain to sear through him as she clamped down on the closest part of his body she could reach.

  But instead of a bite, he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders, shaking him violently and the distant sound of a voice calling out to him.

  “Are you okay?” it called, barely audible.

  Aran felt as if he was being sucked out of the house, as if some invisible force was pulling him away. The walls blurred and the room began to spin, ripping him from top of the stairs. Then everything went bright white, blinding his vision.

  His eyes burst open. He was no longer at the top of the stairs, but on the hard floor and the girl looking down on him wasn’t a mangled corpse, it was Vanya.

  “Are you okay?” she asked calmly, putting her hand on his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said unsurely. “What happened?”

  “You tell me,” she said with a bright smile. “You’re the one having a nightmare.”

  New Life, New Island

  “You’re here!” he said with a start. “Where did you go?”

  “I was sleeping,” Vanya said, “I woke up because you were shouting in your sleep. You must have been having a hell of a dream.”

  “I guess I was,” he said rubbing his eyes. Aran was confused and a bit disorientated, but things quickly began to make sense. The dream had been so vivid so real that he was having a hard time moving from dream to reality. Could he be dreaming this as well? He slowly stood up and made his way to the window, looking out over the harbor. It was still and calm without a single corpse in sight or the incessant sound of them beating on the sides of the house.

  “You wanna tell me about it?” she asked, standing behind him, her beauty reflected in the dull windowpanes.

  “I dreamt that you weren’t real,” he said. “I woke up and you were gone. Not just gone though, it was more like you never existed.”

  “Well I think I exist,” she said smiling.

  Aran turned around and looked into her eyes. He could feel the sensation again tugging at him from inside. It was like a magnet, pulling him to her. He knew that some of it was attraction, but this feeling was something different. He’d had crushes before. One time he was head over heels for Maddie in fifth grade and another time he was crazy for a girl who was several grades above him, but this was much more than that. This was way beyond a simple crush or infatuation. He’d only known her for a few hours, but in that span of time he felt a stronger pull toward her than any other person he’d ever met.

  “You should go back to bed,” Aran said.

  Vanya shook her head. “It’s almost dawn and I won’t be able to get back to sleep anyway.”

  “I’m not too keen on going back to dreamland right now either,” he replied, sitting down on the bed.

  “You wanna go out and take a walk?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  Aran and Vanya walked up to the bluff and watched the sunrise, talking about everything from music to life and enjoying the quiet serenity of the island.

  “This part of Maine is so beautiful,” she said. “I’ve been to Boothbay before when I visited a friend. It’s a really cool little town.”

  “I have to ask,” Aran said unsurely, “Do you know what’s happened out there?”

  Vanya just sat and stared out over the water. “Not really,” she replied. “I mean I know that some kind of virus spread and that people were getting sick really fast.”

  “Do you know what happens to the people who get sick?” he asked.

  She just shook her head. “No. My dad wouldn’t tell us anything. He didn’t want us to panic.”

  Aran just hung his head. He had a feeling that she was in the dark about the whole situation, but he wasn’t sure how much he should tell her. She seemed strong, but such a huge blow could rattle just about anyone.

  “You can tell me the truth,” she said, putting her hand in his shoulder.

  Aran sat and thought for a moment, trying to figure out where to start.

  “The infected ones die and then come back,” he said bluntly. “The world is full with billions of living corpses and all they want is to get to the uninfected.”

  Vanya sat in silence, a blank look on her face. “Billions?” she whispered.

  Aran nodded. “Yeah, almost everyone.”

  “Why are we alive?”

  “A few people, like us, are immune to the airborne strain of the virus.”

  “A few?”

  “There was a doctor that was living out here with us for a while and he said that he heard that about five percent of people were immune.”

  Tears began to stream down Vanya’s face and Aran knew that in that second she had done the math. Just five percent of people were immune, making the likelihood of any of her family surviving very low. He had done the same math with his own family when he heard Todd talk about the immunity rate.

  “We’ll find them,” he said, putting his arm around her. “You can’t give up hope.”

  They stayed up on the bluff for a long time, sitting in silence. Aran never took his arm from around her, giving her the comfort he knew she must have needed.

  Later that afternoon, they took a long hike around the island and Aran showed Vanya all the places he used to come and write before the world died. He shared some of his stories and told her his version of the apocalypse. It was a wonderful hike for Aran and for the fist time in his life felt like he simply couldn’t run out of things to talk about.

  Day after day they took walks and worked on the house. Aran began to fall deeper and deeper in love with his newfound friend with every passing moment. They would take daily walks together and talk about life as if nothing had happened. Vanya’s memory was still unchanged and Aran was beginning to wonder if her entire memory after the virus would be permanently m
asked, like Elle’s memory of her parents coming back to life. Maybe she’d seen something as terrible as Elle did and her brain was protecting her from the trauma.

  Aran decided to use the CB radio to make a daily broadcast to see if Vanya’s father was out looking for her. He also decided that it was a good idea to see if anyone else was out there too. He never gave specifics of their location, but let anyone listening know that he had shelter and safety. He was torn and conflicted. Part of him hoped that they would find other survivors and begin to build a community, but the other part loved having Vanya all to himself. Deep down, he hoped that she wouldn’t find her family because he knew that unless they came and stayed on Damariscove, she would choose them over him.

  Regardless, every afternoon at four, he would get on the CB and broadcast a message for anyone listening and each day was met with radio silence. Aran began to wonder if there was anyone left out there at all.

  He and Vanya continued the work that Elle, Ellis and Todd had started before everything fell apart on the night of the supply run. They pulled the lobster traps, foraged the local islands for firewood and kept themselves busy keeping the island looking nice.

  Vanya took over the job of the house garden and began harvesting the vegetables that Elle planted when she first dug it. With Aran’s help, she managed to can a lot of tomatoes, harvest corn and pick a bunch of peas. Some of the strawberries became ripe and Vanya stumbled across a patch of wild blueberries on a sheltered part of the island near the small pond. They would spend nights talking, often staying up to all hours of the night. Sometimes they would stay in the same room, which Aran loved because nothing made him happier than waking up next to her beautiful face in the morning.

  The weeks passed with much of the same routine and Aran quickly began to forget his sadness as his feelings for Vanya continued to grow and solidify. He knew that soon he would have to divulge how he felt, but he was hesitant. It had been almost two months since Vanya first appeared on the island and she had never given him any sign that she had feelings toward him at all. He could feel that they had a connection, a friendship, but he didn’t pick up on anything more than that. He was afraid of how she might react if he opened up to her and let his feelings out.

  As the time passed, his feelings came more into focus and Aran was quite sure that he understood what Vanya was. She was his soulmate. She was the missing piece of himself. The one person who could make him complete; make him whole. The more he thought about it, the less he believed it and the more he knew it in his heart. Never had he been so confident, so sure of exactly what he was feeling. He just had to find a way to tell her.

  The arrival of October brought with it much cooler weather as the warm days and cool nights gave way to cool crisp days and cold, clear nights. Aran always loved the fall season in Maine and always looked forward to October. School was in full swing, Halloween was approaching and the holidays were just around the bend.

  But this October brought with it a hint of fear. It would be just a month or so before the weather would turn to winter and the Atlantic storms would rage across the sea, pounding Damariscove with brutal force. He knew the house would stand up to it, but he they would struggle against the cold.

  No one had lived in the house during the winter and Aran was unsure at how it would stand up to the cold and how hard it would be to keep it livable inside when the weather got really bad.

  Aran was a child of the twenty-first century, born in the nineties, but used to the modern technology that came along a ten years later. Smart phones with weather apps, the internet providing answers to problems you needed to solve and the ability to connect with people from all over the world if you needed help. Now he had no way to see what was coming. The next day could bring a massive storm or a heat wave and he wouldn’t know about it until it was upon them.

  The fresh water had finally run out, leaving them with the brackish well water, which they used to shower and wash up. By Aran’s count they had more than enough water to last them for the winter, but he still used it with caution. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to make another supply run.

  It was end of October that they woke to the howling of wind and pounding of the sea. Even the normally calm harbor was rolling with swells, tossing the whaler and the sailboat around like toys in a bathtub. Just a few weeks before, Vanya had found the storm windows and they had managed to put them in, giving the house a bit more protection from the wind and weather. But even with the storm windows in, they could hear the earsplitting whistle of the gale as it slammed against the house.

  “I want to go outside and see the waves,” Vanya said as they sat in the living room.

  “We should go out and make sure everything out there is secure anyway,” he said. “I’m up for it.”

  The wind nearly tore the door off as they opened it, taking all their effort to close it behind them. Outside the wind pushed against them like a thousand invisible hands, forcing them back against the house.

  “Is this a Nor’easter?” Vanya yelled against the sound of the wind.

  Aran shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he yelled. “This wind is coming from the south and it’s got some warmth to it. I think this could be a tropical storm or even a hurricane” Aran hadn’t been through many tropical storms growing up in Maine because they rarely made it up his way. He remembered a few from his childhood and how the people in town ran around like crazy trying to batten everything down.

  “How do you know?” Vanya asked.

  “Nor’easter winds blow in from the northeast, not the south.”

  If Aran understood one thing well about weather, it was the nor’easter. As a coastal Maine dweller, everyone knew about the deadly force that a nor’easter could bring.

  They circled the house, trying to keep their balance against the wind, checking to make sure that everything was in good order and that nothing had broken loose or looked like it was about to give way.

  Satisfied, they made their way down to the harbor and watched the boats. The sailboat was big enough and tied up tight that Aran didn’t worry that much about it breaking free. The Whaler, however was tossing around like a twig caught in rapids.

  “I’m worried about the Whaler,” he shouted. “Looks like it could give way.”

  “What can you do?”

  “Nothing I guess, just hope it makes it.”

  They decided that even with the harsh winds, they would make the ascent to the tower and look out over the island. It was hard going, but they made it to the top of the hill and looked down over the whole of the island. The rain had begun to come in sheets, covering much of the island in a haze of water and mist. The shrubs were bending to the force of the wind, making the island look shorter and flat. The southern wind was tearing up the hill from the harbor, and some of the low bushes on the hillside were beginning to break loose from the ground and take to the air. The southern sky was black as night, the clouds seeming to roar with anger as it churned in their direction.

  “This is only the beginning,” Aran shouted. “We better get back.”

  They hurried back down as quickly as they could, the winds picking up and the gusts becoming more and more powerful. The house seemed to be groaning on its foundation as the wind picked up speed. There was a small weather station set up in the living room, which gave the temperature and wind speed. He walked over and looked at the LCD readout. His heart nearly skipped a beat as he saw the number. The wind speed was fluctuating between seventy and seventy five miles per hour. He knew from science class that hurricanes were named once they hit seventy-four, so if this wasn’t a hurricane, it was damn close to one.

  “We need to tape the windows, just in case they burst,” he said.

  They found a roll of duct tape in the kitchen and made the rounds, taping across the panes which would prevent the glass from bursting all over the room if the wind shattered them.

  After they taped the windows, they ate dinner and lay d
own in bed, listening to the storm and talking like they usually did.

  Aran had grown to love their evening talks. Each night he looked forward to learning more about Vanya and telling her more about him. He’d never revealed so much about himself to another person in his whole life, but somehow he felt so eager to share his secrets. It was as if he felt like himself for the first time in his life. He was so comfortable around her, so sure of himself as a person that he almost had to look in the mirror to see that it was still him.

  Each night he lay in bed thinking of how he was going to tell her how he felt, how he was going to muster the courage to spill out his very soul to her. He thought long and hard about whether that night was the night he should tell her. He found it fitting that he had such an emotional storm raging inside him at the same time that the hurricane was doing its best to disrupt the outside. In the end he chose to wait until the perfect moment or until he could no longer hold it in, one of which he was sure was right around the corner.

  The Storm Passes

  The storm hammered the island for the rest of the night and the following day. The rain beat down on the windows and roof with such ferocity it sounded like the house was going to cave in. The wind raged all night long, but started to slow a bit as the morning came, giving a little relief. Between the rain and the tape over the windows, it was impossible to see outside to assess any kind of damage or problems with the surrounding area. Aran hoped that everything outside was relatively safe, but it was impossible to tell. The wind gauge showed that the wind hit a high of just over a hundred miles an hour. In his whole life he’d never seen or felt wind that strong and it just amazed him that a storm like this could batter the coast in the same year that human civilization came to a crashing end.

  Vanya came walking over and looked over Aran’s shoulder at the gauge. “It’s like Mother Nature is trying to wash up after the mess,” she said.

  Aran thought about her words for a moment. Could this all be the Earth’s way of cleansing itself? Was this Mother Nature’s way to mopping up?

  “I wonder what effect this storm will have on the corpses?” Aran said. “And the cold and the snow. What will happen when the nights freeze and they are out there roaming around?”

  The thoughts gave Aran hope. Hope that maybe the bodies would act like real people who died and begin to rot away. If they could outlast the corpses and hold out, they should just collapse and decay.

  “Vanya, what if the corpses just rot away?”

  “What makes you think they will?” she asked stoically.

  “They have to don’t they?” he said. “I mean they’re flesh just like us. When an animal dies, after a while, it rots away.”

  “I don’t know if you can apply the normal rules though. I mean normally when an animal dies, it’s dead and gone. It doesn’t get back up and hunt other living animals.”

  It was true. Everything she said was exactly true. Mother Nature didn’t have to play by the rules and the fact that a virus came along, killed billions of people and then re-animated them was proof that nothing was for certain anymore. For all they knew, those corpses were destined to walk the earth forever.

  Late in the afternoon the storm began to die down and the rain subsided a bit. The wicked winds eased up, a clear sign that the storm was passing. Aran ventured outside late in the afternoon to try to survey the damage and assess what repairs might be needed once the weather improved. The wind was still strong and the rain was falling hard enough that the gusts were swirling the droplets around, making for a wet and uncomfortable experience.

  After a quick look around the house, Aran discovered that there were going to be more repairs than he’d originally thought. The wind had broken loose quite a few sideboards from the house and debris from around the complex had blown around, causing some damage to the house. The small caretakers quarters where Todd had set himself up was in total shambles with much of the roof and sides caved in. Aran was sad to see it in such bad shape considering the amount of work that Todd had put in during his time on the island.

  Looking at the broken down structure got Aran wondering about Todd and what could have happened to him. He was cut off from the mainland on Southport, with no way off except by boat. Could he have found a way off, or had he suffered the same fate as Ellis and Elle? It made him shudder to think back to the horrific loss he suffered on the supply run. It was a harsh reminder of how quickly things can change and how nothing could be taken for granted.

  He discovered the worst loss of all after walking the perimeter. The Whaler had torn loose from it’s mooring and was smashed up against the rocks on the far shore. Although the sailboat was still intact and undamaged, it wasn’t a substitute for the speed and maneuverability of the Whaler and Aran grimaced at the thought of having to use the dirty old lobster boat that Todd had come in on to do anything more than pull up the traps.

  An hour later, soaked and freeing cold, Aran made his way back into the house.

  “Well?” Vanya said as he pulled off his soaking jacket. “How bad is it?”

  “We lost the Whaler,” he said sighing.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay I guess. Could have been much worse. We still have the lobster boat and the sailboat for longer trips.”

  “The house okay?”

  “A little damage,” he said. “Nothing that can’t be fixed though. Considering those winds, we got lucky.”

  “You should take a hot shower,” she said looking at him dripping wet in the doorway. “Before you catch a cold or something.”

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  Aran tramped up the stairs, heavy with thoughts. He knew he had to tell her and tell her soon. The suspense was killing him. His feelings had grown so strong it took all his mental energy and restraint to keep himself from blurting out his true feelings at the top of his lungs. No matter how many times he tried to convince himself that he was just being silly and that he was trying to replace the loss of Elle with something else, the more he knew that this girl was the one he was meant to be with.

  He even thought that it was possible that this whole mess was just a way to get two people destined to be together to meet and fall in love. He knew it was ridiculous and completely outlandish, but his feelings were so powerful that he felt anything was possible.

  He slid into the shower and let the warm water run over his freezing cold body. He knew it had to be soon, but he wanted it to be special. This could potentially be the turning point in his life and he wanted it to be as perfect as it could be under the circumstances. He’d practiced over and over again what he wanted to say, creating a script in his head of what points he knew he needed to include. He had to make sure he told her everything.

  After a long shower deeply immersed in thought, he decided that he would ask her on the last Thursday in November which was just a couple of weeks away. Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect day to tell her and he was planning a nice dinner, trying to keep some of the past traditions alive. Besides, what could he be more thankful for but her? She had saved his life and brought him love, true love. She showed him what loving someone and being connected to a person truly felt like. It wasn’t this fluttery infatuation that he’d felt in the past; it was a deep and cutting love and one so strong that you didn’t know if you could live without the other person.

  The days following the storm were spent fixing up the house and repairing the damage to the harbor and the surrounding area. After the storm passed, the weather became spectacular. The skies dawned crystal blue and the sir was crisp and clean. They spent most of their days outside, soaking up the sun and taking advantage of the weather before the darkness and cold of winter started to set in.

  They spent the mornings working around the island and the afternoons walking and talking. Aran never tired of spending time with Vanya and they had the perfect balance of conversation and silence when they were together. They never ran out of things to talk about, but they also didn’
t feel the need to fill every quiet second with talk either. Sometimes it was nice to just enjoy each other’s company. In those days, he learned so much about her. He listened with such intent, a focus that he could never remember giving to anything before. He hung on each word she said, creating the pictures of her past, her family and her life in his head. With each day, each conversation he was positive that he was right about her. She was part of him and she needed to know how he felt.

  Heartfelt

  Aran could barely sleep the night before Thanksgiving. He’d spent the past two weeks thinking about the moment he was about to live. He’d planned it out in his head and he hoped that everything would go as he envisioned. He was going to take Vanya back up to the rocky ledge where he first met her and saved his life. He was going to take her hand in his, get down on one knee and proclaim his feelings for her.

  Over the months that they had been on the island, he always wondered if she knew how he felt towards her. Could she sense his love and his immense feelings? If she did, she was damn good at hiding it because he had no hints at all that she suspected anything at all.

  He was particularly quiet that morning, working out the thoughts in his head. He their usual breakfast and sat down at the table, staring out the small kitchen window.

  “You okay?” she asked, seeing that he was clearly acting slightly off.

  “I’m fine,” he lied, “Just a lot on my mind.”

  “I’ve been listening to the CB a lot,” she said.

  Aran had noticed that she was in front of the CB radio quite often lately, tuning the channels and trying to see if she could pick up some chatter or voices.

  “Anything?” he asked already knowing the answer.

  She just shook her head. “I was hoping to hear my dad,” she said with a sigh.

  Aran didn’t know what to say when Vanya talked about finding her dad. He knew deep down inside that the chances of him even being alive was slim to none. It was the world they lived in, a world where there was no happy ending. No one was riding in on a white horse to save the day. The dead had won and the bad guys never got the justice that they always did in the stories.

  “I’ll do my best to help you find him,” Aran said. For a while he almost guaranteed her that she was going to find him, but lately he started to back off that position, taking a more practical approach. He fully planned on doing whatever he could to help her, but he didn’t want to promise things he couldn’t deliver on.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  The two of them spent a wonderful morning in the kitchen, preparing the food for their Thanksgiving meal. Aran had found a frozen chicken in the chest downstairs that they had taken from the marina all those months ago. They had bread stuffing, cranberry sauce and some frozen green beans and peas, all courtesy of the supply run to Hannafords. It was a bittersweet moment for Aran. He was elated to be spending the time with Vanya, making food as if nothing outside was different, but his heart still hurt knowing the price he paid for the food he was preparing. Two friends taken and one missing was steep for the comforts of the old world.

  With the chicken in the over and the food nearly ready to be served, Aran and Vanya took their usual walk up to the ledge. For Aran, it was the longest walk of his life. He knew what was at stake at the end and it scared him. He had no idea what her reaction would be to what he was going to tell her. Even in his head, it sounded crazy. Could he really be so sure after just a few months? But no matter how he tried or spun it around in his mind, he kept coming back to the same conclusion.

  The afternoon was beautiful. It was just cold enough to needs jackets, but the sun still felt warm and comfortable against their faces. They sat in silence on the rock, looking out over the water.

  “I wanna tell you something,” he said, his voice shaking.

  “Okay,” she replied, a bit puzzled.

  “When I lost Elle, I thought my life was over. I thought that I would never be happy again. I spent everyday for two weeks coming up here with that gun, planning to end my own life. And everyday, I failed at pulling the trigger. The day you came, I really thought I was going to do it. It thought it was truly the end. But you saved me. You saved my life. I can never repay you for that. Ever. But I realized after that this was all meant to be.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You coming here and saving me,” he said confidently.

  “Why was that meant to be?”

  “Because I love you,” he said surly. “I love you more than life itself. You are the missing piece of me that I never knew I was missing until I saw you.” He stood up and looked down on her, her beautiful hair blowing in the wind. “You saved my life when I was just seconds from ending it. I would give up my life to save yours. You’re my soulmate. You hold half of my heart; half of my soul and I’m complete with you. You’re my one true love”

  Vanya sat in silence for a moment, the seconds she waited to respond ticked by at a snails pace. He couldn’t tell right away what she was thinking, but the butterflies in his stomach were churning like a washing machine.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly, not looking up at him.

  It was at that very second he knew. She didn’t have to say another word. Those two simple words said everything. She didn’t feel the same way. She didn’t have feelings for him. She didn’t share the same connection that he did with her.

  It was like a punch in the stomach knocking the wind from his lungs and leaving him gasping for air. He felt his knees weaken and his legs sway and it took all his concentration to keep himself balanced. He dropped to the ground, letting his weight sink against the rock shelf.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “But I needed to tell you. I needed you to know how I felt.”

  “Thank you for telling me.” She said, avoiding his eyes. “I’m sorry I don’t feel the same way.”

  “Could that ever change?” he asked. Vanya didn’t immediately respond, instead she gazed out over the water with her hands around her knees.

  “I can’t say anything is impossible.”

  Aran didn’t know how to respond. Normally he was a very grounded and realistic person, understanding when things were and were not meant to be. But this was different.

  “I’ll wait for you,” he said.

  “But…..,”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said cutting her off. “I’ll wait until the day I die. Until after I die. I’ll always be here for you,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You don’t have to be though.”

  “This is what I’m supposed to do. This is my destiny. You’re my fate.”

  He grabbed hold of her hand and looked into her sad, blue eyes. Even though she’d pronounced that she didn’t have feelings for him, he loved her even more than before. His love for her was undying and unrelenting. He would always love her no matter what her feelings were for him.

  “Stay here with me,” he said. “I can keep you safe. We can have a good life out here together.”

  “I still need to be with my family,” she said sadly.

  “I promised you I’d help you look and if we find them, we can all stay out here.” He stood up, lifting her to her feet. Holding her hands, he kissed her on the cheek.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I need to find them,” she replied. “I just don’t know where to start.”

  “If they’re alive, they’re looking for you,” he said firmly. “We’ll scan the CB and we can take the sailboat out everyday and look.”

  She nodded and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight. It was a feeling of complete joy for Aran as he felt the warmth of her body against his. Inside he was still devastated that she didn’t feel the same way for him, but he was grateful for having her around. It was her he loved and her company that made him content. He could never lie and say that he didn’t long to press his lips against hers and have her kiss him in retur
n.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been on this island though,” she said. “You sort of saved me in a way.”

  Aran smiled at her. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, but you could’ve survived out here without me. I would have been gone for sure.”

  “I don’t think you would’ve done it.”

  “I know I would have,” he replied, hanging his head. “I’m not proud of it either.”

  “Sometimes people just get to the end of their rope.”

  “But I shouldn’t have let myself get that way.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said with her head against his shoulder, “This world isn’t a happy place anymore. It’s natural to want to leave it.”

  Aran pulled back from Vanya’s hug and pushed the hair from her face. “We need to stay together. We could be the last people left.”

  “I don’t wanna think like that,” she said, pulling away from him. “I need to believe that my family is out there. Somewhere. Looking for me.”

  “And if they are, we’ll find them,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “But we can’t split up. We have to stay together.”

  Vanya turned around. She gave him a weak smile and took hold of one of his hands.

  “Of course I’m not going to leave. This place is safe and if we find them, I’m bringing them here. You’re not going to have to say goodbye, I promise.”

  Aran felt a warm feeling building inside him. He wasn’t going to lose her, at least not her company. She was going to stay with him no matter what happened and that made him happy. It was a ray of light in what would otherwise have been a bad afternoon.

  “Let’s go eat,” he said, leading her away from the edge.

  They made their way back to the house and enjoyed a warm Thanksgiving meal and even though Aran’s heart was sad, he felt like he could eventually come to terms with it.

  They cleaned up the remnants of their meal and tidied up the kitchen. The late afternoon sun was still shining low on the western water. How Aran longed to be watching football, enjoying time with his family and waiting for his mother to bring out the traditional Thanksgiving dessert assortment. But instead of cheering for the Patriots and a house full of loud, overstuffed relatives, all he heard was silence.

  “Let’s go for a sail,” Aran said as they finished cleaning.

  “Right now?”

  “No time like a beautiful Thanksgiving afternoon to start looking for your family.”

  Vanya’s face lit up and Aran saw a light in her eyes that wasn’t there before.

  Sails and Snows

  It was a magnificent afternoon on the water and Aran was excited to get the sails up and cruise with the wind. They had only used the Bella Notte a couple of times and only once under sail. Vanya brought the nautical maps from the house and started marking off zones for them to search. Based on where she washed up, they decided to search east of Damariscove. They navigated around the outer islands, looking for signs of a boat that was tied up or people on the small islands. Vanya’s memory was weak, but she remembered the boat that her family’s friends owned and was almost positive that they went out on it. It was a larger boat, by her description, so it couldn’t have been pulled up on shore or easily hidden.

  They sailed around the edges of the main harbors and circled the islands, but saw nothing of significance.

  “Can we just sail out into the open ocean for a while?” Vanya asked after an hour of looking. “I just want to feel the wind and forget things for a bit.”

  Aran headed out past the island and into the open sea. It had been a long time since he took a boat out for pure pleasure and he was glad that Vanya had suggested the idea. The sun was sitting low over the water and the chill fall air was cold and brisk. The day was so beautiful; Aran could barely remember the horrors of the mainland. He looked at Vanya who was sitting out on the deck, face to the breeze and thought about everything he’d said to her. Even though she didn’t feel the same, he was happy that he got his feelings off his chest and that she understood.

  Aran and Vanya took the Bella Notte out everyday the weather allowed and each day they searched farther out for signs that her family was out there. Each day they were met with nothing but silence. Occasionally they saw glimpses of movement on the shores of the more populated places, a sure sign that the corpses were still walking around hunting for the scattered uninfected people.

  The weather had turned cold and winter was beginning to set in. Somewhere in the middle of December, they woke up to a coating of snow across the island, blanketing the hills and shrubs in a dusting of sparkle that shimmered in the morning sun. The house stayed remarkably warm despite the frigid nights and the biting winds that blew across the cold ocean. Everyday at four, Aran would broadcast his message across all the channels of the CB, hoping that someone, would respond. It had been so long since he’d had contact with another person besides Vanya and he was truly beginning to wonder whether anyone else was left. Vanya was starting to become more and more convinced that her family wasn’t out there and Aran hated the sadness that she felt, but he understood.

  Life on the island continued all through the winter, which was long and dark. Despite the cold, if they could sail, they would always go out in hopes that they would find something. Aran spent each morning scanning the horizon with his binoculars, looking for wafts of smoke that might signal that someone out there was trying to survive, but he never saw a wisp. It wasn’t until early March that Vanya came running up the stairs and burst through the bedroom door.

  “I heard my father on the CB,” she shouted, “He’s on Monhegan Island.”

  Life and Death

  “Wait. Are you serious?” Aran replied.

  Vanya just nodded her head. “I heard him calling for help.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No, but I heard his voice and I know it’s him. We’ve gotta go. Like now!”

  Aran’s head was spinning at the news Vanya had just brought him. Her father was alive and in trouble out on Monhegan Island. Could it actually be true? It seemed so far fetched, but yet she seemed so convinced.

  “How do you know it was him?” he asked trying to make sure she was positive.

  “It was his voice, I know it,” she said confidently. “He said he was trapped and needed help.”

  Monhegan was a small island community nearly thirty miles off the coast and out all on it’s own. Almost all of the residents only lived there in the summer because it was too harsh and cold to be out there in the winter. Not to mention that the only way on and off was a nearly ninety minute ferry ride. It was a quaint little island with artsy shops and beautiful hikes out to massive cliffs that faced the rough Atlantic seas. It was plausible that someone could be trapped out there, but it just seemed so crazy. They hadn’t heard anything for months on the CB and suddenly the first voice to break the silence was her father’s? It was a bit too much for Aran, but he’d promised Vanya he would do anything and he was going to follow through.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”

  The day was blustery and cold, but the weather was holding. The trip out to Monhegan was not always the most stable and Aran was a bit afraid of making the journey. Vanya was so dead set on the fact that her father was out on the island; he had no choice but to do it. The Bella Notte cut through the waves like a knife and she rolled up and down with the huge ocean swells. The spray came splashing over the bow and the boat dipped down between the waves, covering the deck in white water.

  Vanya had learned to operate the boat over the winter because Aran felt it necessary for her to have some basic knowledge in case an emergency ever came up during once of their searching missions. She loved standing behind the wheelhouse of the boat, steering it into the wind and feeling the cold against her face. Aran loved watching her standing at the helm, a goddess in the bright sunlight. He never took his eyes off her. She was more wonderful than the endless blue see could ever b
e and he never wanted to spend a second without her.

  As they headed toward the island, Aran began to wonder what they would encounter when the docked. He and Vanya would often discuss what they thought might have happened to the corpses over the winter and how the cold would effect them. Simple logic would say that the bodies would have to eventually rot away from decay, but nothing about what happened followed any kind of logic. Aran had a feeling the corpses would be wandering the earth for a long time, making any kind of human resurgence next to impossible.

  Vanya was much more hopeful about the whole thing. Maybe it was because she was less bitter and jaded than Aran, or maybe it was because she’d never come face to face with the hoards of screaming bodies that roamed every corner of the world. Regardless, she thought that this was something that humanity was destined to overcome and so many times Aran wished he could share her optimism.

  “How long till we get there?” Vanya called from the wheel.

  “I have no idea. I’ve only been out here once and it was a while ago,” he yelled across the wind.

  Aran looked at the chart that he found on the boat and tried to see where they might be, but with the GPS satellites down, there was no way to tell out in the open ocean exactly where they were. He knew the were heading in the right direction, but he also knew that just veering a little might cause them to miss it completely. On a crystal clear day, they would have been able to see the island already, sitting on the horizon like a giant sea turtle.

  Aran walked over and stood behind Vanya, putting his arms around her.

  “Are you ready for what you might see out there?” he said.

  “I don’t think anyone would ever be ready to see it,” she replied.

  “I’ll never get used to seeing them.”

  “How fast are they?”

  “Too fast,” he replied, remembering the swing bridge and how fast the hoard swallowed up the space between them. “You can’t outrun them.”

  “Not like the movies,” she sighed.

  “No, nothing like them at all.”

  It took them two hours, but they finally saw the island ahead of them, rising out of the mist that had begun to swirl around. Even though Aran remembered Monhegan as a quaint and happy place, it looked so ominous and forbidding as it lay in the water. The island had a small public wharf where boats could pull up, including the large ferry that was used to carry people to and from Boothbay Harbor. Aran was hoping that the dock would be clear so that they could tie up the sailboat and not have to deal with the hassle and danger of using a dinghy.

  They lowered the sails and came around Manana Island, which stood between them and the harbor of Monhegan. With the sails lowered they were under power to make maneuvering easier. When the harbor came into view, it seemed empty and desolate. Just a couple lobster boats were moored out in the water and there was no visible movement on the shore.

  “Why so few boats?” Vanya asked as they slowly made their way toward the dock.

  “The virus struck in early May and there aren’t that many people out here at that time of year.”

  “Maybe there won’t be many of those things out here,” she said

  “We can only hope.”

  Aran quickly switched on the marine radio and began scanning channels to see if he could hear anything. He wasn’t exactly sure that Vanya had actually heard her father, but what he was totally unsure of was whether she heard anything at all. Was the voice in her mind? Over the course of the last ten months, Aran had often felt like he heard voices talking to him; voices that came from somewhere in his mind, but many times reason sounded so real. He hoped that she was right, that her father was out here somewhere, stranded. He desperately hoped that he could bring him back to Damariscove where he’d be safe with his daughter. But for some reason he felt like it wasn’t going to work out the way he hoped.

  The shores of the small island were dead and quiet as they pulled the Bella Notte up to the wharf where the ferry boat would drop off and pick up it’s passengers. They were as silent as possible tying up to the end of the dock and making sure that she was as secure as possible. Aran dreaded the thought of the boat breaking off its tie ups and floating out into the sea.

  The wharf was a wide concrete slab with a single road that ran up to the island and branched off into other streets that snaked around the small village of Monhegan. Directly in front of them and up the road a bit was an inn. It was a fairly large hotel, constructed in the classical Maine styling with grey and white painted sideboards, quaint windowsills and all the trimmings.

  “Is that an Inn?” Vanya whispered, clearly nervous.

  “I have no idea,” Aran said. He was starting to feel nervous. He didn’t like the idea of not having a plan. Every other supply run that he had made was well planned and thought out. Someone always had intimate knowledge of the location they were going to. But this time there was no plan and they both had no idea where to start looking.

  “Let’s up there and see,” Aran said.

  They slowly and uneasily walked up the street toward the hotel, scanning every building and street corner for signs of the dead. The island was like a graveyard, silent and eerie. They rounded the corner and walked up the road, passing some small building and houses. As they got closer to the inn, they could see the sign out front clearly. It was the Island Inn, the exact place where Vanya had said that he father was.

  “That’s it,” she said with anticipation. “That’s the place!”

  Aran had to admit that it could be plausible now. She did get the name of the hotel right. Aran began to actually have hope that her father was in the hotel and that they could help him.

  Aran and Vanya walked up the steps toward the front door. Vanya tried to look in the windows, but there were huge pieces of plywood covering them, blocking out every pane on the ground floor.

  “Why are the windows boarded?” she asked.

  “Maybe because of the storm,” Aran whispered. “Maybe they haven’t take them down yet.”

  But something wasn’t right. Something felt off. But before Aran could even process the thought, Vanya was opening the front door. Just as she did a voice rang out in the silence, startling them both.

  “What the hell do you think your doing?”

  Aran turned around and saw a man running across the road toward them in a mad frenzy.

  “Don’t touch that door!! Whatever you do!”

  Vanya let go of the handle as the man reached the inn in a huff. He was skinny, exhausted and malnourished. The skin on his body seemed to hang loose on him like he was wearing a droopy undershirt. His face was gaunt and his eyes were sunken in his head, leaving huge gaping chasms in his face that was covered in grime and dirt. It was impossible to tell if the man was forty or seventy because of the way he was dressed and his overall physical condition.

  “Do you have any idea what’s in there?” he panted, grabbing hold of the railing.

  Aran looked at Vanya and she glanced back at him. Neither of them knew exactly what to say.

  “My father,” Vanya said confidently.

  “Your father?” he blurted, shaking his head. “You don’t have any idea what’s inside that inn!”

  “My father is trapped in there!” she shouted.

  “That inn is filled with hundreds of those walking nightmares. I trapped them in there and boarded up the place.”

  “But my father’s in there!” she cried.

  “You’re out of your mind. That inn has been filled nothing but dead bodies for three months now. If your dad was in there, he’s one of them.”

  “But I know he’s alive in there now!”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I heard him on the CB radio,” she said. “He said he was trapped in the Island Inn on Monhegan. I wouldn’t make that up.”

  The man’s shoulders sunk and the angst in his manner eased. He put his hands in his face and rubbed them back and forth.

  “That wasn�
�t your dad you heard,” he said. “It was one of them.” He pointed to the inn, his arms shaking.

  “One of who?” Aran asked.

  “Them. The dead.”

  Aran laughed. “They can’t use their voices or make radio calls.”

  “When was the last time you saw them?” he asked.

  Aran had to think for second. He suddenly realized it had been since the previous summer since he had any encounters with the dead. The last corpse he clearly saw where the ones chasing after Todd’s truck as he sped away from Capitol Island.

  “August I guess.”

  “Then you don’t know what happening with them!”

  Aran just shook his head. The man sat down on the top step and took off his faded hat, tossing it on the step next to him.

  “It in December,” he began. “After the first snows, I noticed that they were acting differently.”

  “How can you see them?” Vanya asked.

  “I have a section of the window out on the other side of the inn where I can look in and watch what they’re doing.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, up until then, all they did was slowly wander around in their hibernating state, or whatever it’s called. But after it started to get really cold, some of them started to show signs of curiosity.”

  “Like what?” Aran asked.

  “Picking up things and looking at them.”

  Aran felt a cold shiver running down his spine at the thought of those things starting to inquire and think.

  “So the one afternoon I’m sitting in my house and I hear a crackling voice on the radio. I bolted in the kitchen and turned it up, trying to listen to who it could be. I was desperate to hear someone’s voice. I sat and listened for a while until I heard it again. It was an odd moaning sound, but it was calling for help. I tried to respond, but it stopped and I never found the source. Then weeks later the voice was back, but this time it was a bit clearer and I could actually make out the words “Help” and “Island” and” Inn”. I froze in panic. At first I thought what you thought. Someone was trapped in there. So I bolted down and looked through the window. What I saw made me wretch. I could see the Marine radio on the counter by the front desk, and a corpse with the microphone in its hand.”

  Aran could barely keep himself standing. It was like some awful campfire story or Stephen King novel only it was real and the thought of it made Aran’s blood turn cold.

  “But that’s impossible,” Vanya said, almost under her breath.

  “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I woulda said the same thing.”

  Aran was still trying to fathom what the man was actually implying. These corpses that were once just mindless creatures hell bent on infecting the living could now think and reason? He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

  “If they can use a radio, why can’t they get out?” Vanya asked, nervously looking up at the boarded up windows.

  The man just shrugged. “No idea my dear. But I’m guessing they’ll figure that out soon enough.”

  Aran paced around the porch, his mind racing with thoughts. If they were evolving, then it wouldn’t be long before they would be able to actively seek out the places where the uninfected were hiding. Survivors hide from a small group of them of them, but if millions upon millions of reanimated and functioning corpses were all trying to find them it would be impossible to hide. He felt like the walls of life were closing in on him quickly and trapping him.

  “How’d you all survive?” The man asked.

  “We’re living on Damariscove,” Aran replied, not even caring about giving up his location anymore.

  “It’s nice out there.”

  “We have to burn this place down,” Aran blurted out. “Like right now.”

  The man just looked up at him in disbelief. “Are you serious?” he said almost laughing. “Burn down the inn?”

  “Look if those things are starting to think, they’ll get out soon enough and then what?”

  “What if they’re turning back into themselves,” Vanya said. “What if the virus dies out over time and people become people again?”

  “Once someone dies, they die,” the man said.

  Aran stopped pacing and just looked at her. Could she be right? Whether she was right or wrong though, she was so rational and level headed. He was ready to burn the world down and she was trying to find the positive in it. In that moment he knew she was perfect. Maybe not a perfect person, but she was perfect to him.

  “How would we find out?” Aran asked.

  Vanya just shrugged her shoulders.

  “Like this,” the man said suddenly on his feet. He walked over to the window and started pulling on the plywood that was fastened to the side of the inn.

  “What exactly are you planning to do?” Aran asked.

  “If we rip of this board, they’ll see us. If they’re turning back into real people, we should be able to tell by their reaction to seeing us.”

  “We need to give it more time,” Vanya said. “It could take months or years.”

  “They’ll get out before then,” the man said. “It’s now or we go with his plan and burn the place down.”

  Aran wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. He knew exactly what happened when the corpses caught sight of people who were uninfected. They screamed, beat and pushed on anything that stood in their way.

  With a crack, the man yanked off the plywood panel, exposing a large window with the glass still intact.

  Vanya slid over toward Aran and held his hand tight. He could feel her hands trembling as she squeezed with all of her might.

  “We need to run!” Aran whispered.

  “What?”

  “Run. Now,” he said pulling on her hand.

  The two broke out in a flat run as the hideous sound of shattering glass rang out in the air. Aran heard the familiar screams mixed with a collection horrid voices. The dead were not only screaming, but shouting as well and the voices that echoed against the building were muted and gurgling. The virus was somehow mutating and giving them voices and intentions. They were no longer mindless slaves. They were thinking. They were becoming a much more formidable enemy.

  They ran down the hill in a flat run toward the Bella Notte with the hoard of bodies shouting behind them getting louder. The distance to the boat was closing, but the corpses were gaining fast. Aran turned slightly and saw how close they were. They both couldn’t make it without the bodies catching them. From somewhere deep within him he could hear that voice again. The voice that he swore was Elle’s when he needed strength to kill Tuck so many months ago. The voice that comforted him when he thought all was lost.

  “You know what you have to do,” it said softly. “You know it’s the only way.”

  Aran felt a calm flow through his body as he stopped dead in his tracks halfway down the concrete dock.

  “Go!” he yelled to Vanya as she ran towards the boat. “Get out of here.”

  Vanya stopped at the boat and whipped around.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled. “Hurry up!”

  But even Vanya could see that the corpses were too close.

  “Aran!” she cried

  Aran just smiled. “I love you Vanya,” he shouted. “I will love you for eternity. It’s my turn to save you!” He turned and faced the horde of corpses tearing across the concrete. He let out a shout and ran full speed into the oncoming crowd with his arms raised above his head.

  Vanya watched with horror as the corpses engulfed Aran, veiling him from sight. She stifled a scream and leapt onto the boat. Before the first of the corpses realized it, the Bella Notte was out of harms way, silently gliding across the harbor, Vanya behind the wheel.

  Final Moments

  Aran was fading fast, the virus coursing through his weak and frail body. Vanya held him in her arms as the Bella Notte rocked back and forth in the rough seas along the coast of the island. She looked down into his eyes as he fought the infection that instantly entered his bloodstrea
m the moment he was bitten. His eyes still shone brightly with the same fire that she first saw when he confessed his feelings up the ledge on that fateful afternoon.

  Vanya could feel her tears welling up inside as she looked into his tortured face that was so full of fear. He’d saved her. He’d given his very life to insure that she lived to see another day. It was a sacrifice he’d promised since he proclaimed his love for her. Until this moment, she hadn’t felt love in return, at least not the love he so desperately craved and professed over and over again for her. But until that very moment, she had not felt anything in return. 

  “How did I get here?” he said coughing.

  “I went back for you,” she said softly, stroking his hair.

  “But,” he stammered. “How?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said tearing up.

  Even though she held her feelings back, she knew from the moment they had met on the bluff that he was her savior; that he was brought to the world to protect her. She knew that somehow her life would go on because of him and it had been a comforting feeling. He had the look in is eyes, the look of complete devotion and love. How could she have not felt the same way? How could she have denied him the love he gave her so readily?

  She suddenly was unable control her tears, letting emotion drain from her like a faucet. She began to realize the power of Aran’s love for her and now that he lay dying in her arms, she understood how strongly he felt about her. She thought back to the day when he professed his love to her. The day he got down on one knee and told her everything that was in his heart. She knew from the second she saw him that he had feelings for her, but until he poured his heart out, she had no idea how much he was connected to her and how much he needed her. She was his everything and he would forever be tied to her existence and to her heart.

  She put her hand on his chest, feeling the rage of his heartbeat as the virus began to take hold, stealing the precious time that he had left. He slowly opened his eyes again and looked up at her face and even with the pain and fear he must be feeling, he looked into her eyes with a love so deep and true that it broke her heart. 


  “I love you,” he said. “You are my everything, my purpose for being.” 


  She stroked his forehead, tears streaming down her face. “You just rest now,” she replied. “Just rest.” 


  Aran struggled to gasp for air, his breath becoming short and labored. “It was all for you,” he said. “All of it, everything I’ve done. It was all just a path to you. My whole life has merely been a road to finding you.”

  Aran smiled as he looked into Vanya’s sparkling eyes. Fighting the pain and the heat the virus caused, Aran lifted his head.

  “Just knowing that you will live on, that you will survive is all that I need to know,” he said, choking back his tears. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel the same for me, but it doesn’t matter. I love you. I love you now and for all eternity and I will die knowing that I helped you live.”

  He always wondered if people could feel themselves changing or if there was nothing but pain. He knew the answer now. The virus was taking hold of him, clouding his mind and tearing at his insides like an invisible hand. The pain was immense, but against it all he could feel Vanya’s smooth touch and he knew everything would be okay.

  
Vanya began to sob as she could feel the connection to him and she finally understood it. Aran would never leave her, now matter what happened. Even in his dying minutes, he was there, protecting her, loving her and making sure that she was okay. When he passed into the void, she knew that he would always be there for her somehow. She knew that he would never leave her. 


  “What am I going to do without you?” she whispered as the light in Aran’s eyes began to slowly fade.

  Aran opened his eyes again, barely able to focus on Vanya, his pupils glazed white. 
“You will live,” he said. “You will live on. You will survive and I will always be with you right here.” Aran lifted his hand and placed it over her heart and his head fell into her lap, the last of his strength fading. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.” 


  She couldn’t control her tears any longer and she felt the giant heaves of pain and sorrow wrack her body. If she had only known. If she had only realized what his love really meant, she could have prevented all of this. But it took Aran’s act of courage and sacrifice to reveal the truth to her and nothing less would have opened her eyes to the depth of his love and devotion. It was his destiny. It was meant to be. In order for her to understand his love, he had to perform the ultimate sacrifice by giving his own life for hers.

  With his last effort, Aran raised his head and slowly grasped her hand in his own. With his life fading, he struggled to look her in the eyes, trying to keep her face in focus. His grip on her hand was becoming weak and frail. 


  “Please don’t forget me,” he rasped. 
She could feel the last of his life fading from his fingers as he held her hands in his. She looked into his pale brown eyes.

  “I will never forget you’” she whispered. “How can I ever forget my true love?”

  With her words, a small smile crept over Aran’s face as the last bit of life left his body. Vanya felt the warmth leave him and the remainder of his strength disappear. His body fell limp in her arms and she knew then what she had to do. She knew that in order to prevent him from returning she had to end it for good.

  She reached across the deck and grabbed the pistol that lay on the seat. She pulled his limp body close to hers, holding him as tight as she could.

  “I will always love you,” she whispered into his ear.

  She took one last look into his face, trying to hold the gun steady through the sobs that now took over her body. “I promise I will never forget you,” she said. 


  She turned her head and squeezed the trigger. The blast rang out in the salt air, piercing the silence. With her arms shaking, Vanya lifted Aran up and brought him to the side of the boat. With all her strength, she slid him over the side and lowered him slowly into the murky water.

  “Goodbye my love,” she cried.

  She let go and watched silently and his body disappeared into the blackness of the sea. As his face vanished below the waves, she fell to her knees and wept. She wept for her father and her family. She wept for her lost life. But most of all she wept for Aran. His undying love had saved her and now his body lay at the bottom of the Atlantic where it would remain for all time. His love for her would endure for forever, filling her heart and her world with a gentle touch. It would live on inside of her as a part of who she was and no matter what lay in her future, she would always feel his presence surrounding her like a warm blanket. His love would forever protect her until the day she could join him in the beyond.