by Bobby Adair
Murphy picked up the stern rope. I shook my head, “Let’s just leave the bow line tied in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
“Okay.”
Unfortunately, with the stern of the boat not tied, it made exiting to the dock a tad tricky, but both Russell and I managed it without getting wet. Murphy was already halfway up the paved path between the house and the dock.
Underneath the pavilion-style boathouse, Russell and I hustled past a big pontoon boat and headed toward the house. We skirted the pool. Murphy already had his face pressed to a window, peeking into the dark house.
“Anything?” I whispered as we neared.
Murphy turned as we got close. “Another rich person’s bedroom.”
“Just because it’s a million dollar house on a million dollar piece of land doesn’t mean they’re rich,” I sarcastically countered.
Murphy ignored me and moved over to a door of rectangular panes of glass that gave us a view of the kitchen. It was empty as well. Murphy tried the doorknob. Not locked. He turned to me and grinned. We slipped into the darkness and were immediately alerted to the sound coming from the next room over: the familiar sounds of feeding infected.
I was turning to leave, thinking that was the prudent path, but with his pistol held close to his body and his hatchet raised, Murphy crept through the kitchen toward a wide doorway that led to the next room.
I hesitated, torn between using my M4 or the combination of the machete and the pistol that I’d gotten back from Steph. The lump was still on the back of my head. The humiliation of getting tossed about like a rag doll by that behemoth of a man still stung my pride and underscored the fragility of the invincibility lie I’d been telling myself.
But we were in the house. It was spacious with wide doorways, so it probably had wide halls. The sound wouldn’t carry far outside. And no matter how many infected were in the house, I had more bullets than they had lives. At least that’s how the rationalization went. I really wanted the power of the M4 in my hands.
I followed a few paces behind Murphy. Russell shuffled along with me.
Murphy paused at the doorway and looked at something in the darkness on the floor. He shook his head and his shoulders sagged. But he had to move. He made a hard right turn through the doorway, staying close to the wall on the other side.
With Murphy out of the way, I saw what he’d been looking at. It was a pink tennis shoe, sized for a little girl of four or five. My heart sank.
I sidled up to the doorjamb. Across a formal dining room, a ten-foot-long fish tank divided the next room, probably a living room, leaving space on either end to move from room to room. The sounds of feeding were louder: grunting, tearing, and breathing through mouthfuls of wet flesh.
Russell whimpered.
What the fuck.
Russell was staring at the shoe. His whimpering grew louder.
All sounds from the other room stopped.
Feet shuffled.
Murphy was on the move to the end of the table to cover the far entrance. I aimed my rifle at the near entrance and waited.
Russell wailed.
Might as well get things moving. I yelled, “C’mon, fucktards.”
Footsteps.
An old man, not frail, but old, with white hair, white skin, rabid eyes, and clacking teeth rounded the fish tank and took nearly a whole step toward me before I pulled the trigger and sent him falling back. To my right, Murphy was on the move. Chairs scooted. A body hit the wall.
An old woman, plump and garishly dressed in a blinding, flowered tent of a dress stepped on her dying husband as she rounded the fish tank and came at me. Three bursts from my rifle, plus her momentum, left her sprawled at my feet, bleeding out a rapidly expanding pool of red.
The sound to my right stopped.
I glanced.
Murphy stood, ready. Breathing heavily, but ready.
No more movement in front. Still, Russell wailed louder with each passing second as he cradled the shoe in his hands.
I watched my end of the fish tank, waiting for another threat, but was surprised when a fifty-pound bag of sticks hit me from behind. Balanced as I was against a frontal assault, I went down, cursing my surprise as I hit the floor.
I brought an elbow around to smash my attacker in the skull before he had time to sink his teeth in. Through layers of thin skin, bone hit bone. Once, twice, then a miss.
Russell was suddenly above me, slapping and punching at my assailant.
I felt hot breath in my ear as strong, thin arms worked their way around my throat.
Murphy’s big voice yelled, “Damn it.”
A sickening crunch of wet bone vibrated through my head as my assailant’s skull pushed hard against the back of mine. Then he went limp.
Russell still beat my attacker while I squirmed to roll it off of my back. I gathered my feet beneath me and looked down. It wasn’t a he, it was a she, a bony grade school girl with a bloody blouse and a vacant, dead stare.
Looking up, Murphy’s eyes were wide with concern.
“I’m okay,” I told him without an ounce of dignity in my voice. “Stop, Russell. Stop hitting her.”
Murphy was immediately back on alert, listening and looking in all directions.
Russell stopped beating, but fell to his knees and sobbed.
We waited there in the dining room for a good while, covering the entries in case anything else in the house should find us interesting. But nothing did. Afterwards, it took fifteen cautious minutes to search the sprawling house for others. It was empty. Nor were there any Whites on the lawn or in the empty lots next door. The isthmus was deserted.
We found ourselves back in the living room, on the other side of the fish tank, standing among the remains of five or six kids, probably the older couple’s grandchildren. Russell was on his knees among them, the tiny pink shoe still in his hands, crying like a father next to the body of his own lifeless daughter.
It was painful to see, so much so that I saw the glassiness of repressed tears in Murphy’s eyes. He’d murdered his first child just minutes before. Sure, he had been saving my life, but that just didn’t make it any fucking easier when a child’s dead eyes stared up at you from the floor, begging you for an answer to the question of why they couldn’t wake up from their nightmares. Why won’t the monsters go away? Please daddy… I’m so scared.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Move the feet.
Change the subject.
Look away.
Anything.
Murphy looked at Russell and asked softly, “You think he lost his kids?”
“Maybe in that fire,” I said.
“That would fuckin’ suck.”
“Yeah.” How hard would it be retain the full depth of human emotional pain while being completely incapable of understanding it? That was Russell’s burden, another measure of the virus’s cruelty.
Perhaps needing to redirect his attention as much as I, Murphy said, “I saw a gun safe in the library.”
“If it’s open, cool,” I said. “If not, I think we’re screwed.”
“You check that. I’m gonna go take care of some business, if you know what I mean. Then I’m going to see if I can raid grandpa’s toolbox. The guy had some serious tools in that workshop.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’ll make Dalhover happy. There aren’t many tools in Sarah’s house.”
“Nothing will ever make Dalhover happy.”
“Okay, do your business,” I said. “Then work on making Dalhover less unhappy. I’ll check the gun safe, then head upstairs and get the medicine cabinets. After, I’ll come back down and try to get Russell to help me with the pantry.”
“All right.” Murphy hurried off.
Before leaving Russell to wallow alone with his grief, I spotted a nice watch on the old man’s wrist. He wouldn’t need that anymore.
I went upstairs where most of the house’s bedrooms were located. I hurried through the rooms tha
t appeared to have been used by the children visiting their grandparents. I stopped long enough to steal the pillowcases and backpacks. I dumped the contents of those on the beds without taking any time to look. No upside there. I also found three laptop computers and four cell phone chargers. Those weren’t at all necessary for our immediate survival needs, but could come in really handy in alleviating the inevitable boredom that was to come from being imprisoned in Sarah Mansfield’s house.
In the boat I stashed the laptops, two pillowcases full of medications raided from the master bedroom, and a couple of his and hers revolvers from the nightstands by the bed. Next, I checked the gun safe. It had a combination lock and a formidable appearance. I scratched that off the list.
Back in the living room, I went through the children’s pants pockets and found their phones. Then I took Russell by the hand and nearly had to drag him away from the carnage to help me with the pantry. Once back in the kitchen, where he could see no bodies, he started to improve.
Five cases of bottled water were stacked in the back of the pantry. We didn’t need that at Sarah’s house, but one case was going to the boat as part of our emergency supply, to be left there. The rest would stay in the pantry as part of our supply at this safe house. I also set aside several shelves’ worth of canned food for the same purpose.
Russell and I filled pillowcases with canned soups, canned meats, olive oil, pasta, and boxes and boxes of wonderfully sugary breakfast cereals, the kind that kids love, exactly the kind that was absent from Sarah’s house. We made five trips to the boat to carry it all. Once done loading, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Murphy the whole time.
Damn it.
I should have noticed sooner.
I instructed Russell to stay close and quiet. Mostly, I just hoped he would. We hurried off in the direction of the garage. After passing through a large washroom, I stood in the doorway to the garage and workshop. There were no windows in the garage. It was pitch black. I shined my flashlight around, but saw nothing. “Murphy.”
Nothing.
“Murphy.”
I went in and searched around a partially assembled antique pickup, inside, underneath, and in the bed. Murphy was nowhere to be seen. Tools were scattered everywhere. He had to have been there.
A loud noise from somewhere outside panicked me.
I reversed direction in the dark garage, nearly running Russell over in the process, and headed back toward the laundry room door. I sprinted through the house, pausing at each window I passed, looking for movement outside.
I reached the kitchen in seconds that passed like agonizing minutes. Through the windows, I was able to see out to the boathouse. I spotted a dark figure standing at the stern of the pontoon boat. I immediately thought the worst and rushed through the back door with my weapon up, aimed at the shadowy figure.
Fear didn’t occur to me in that moment. I was in Null Spot mode. If Murphy needed help, I’d help. I ran around the pool and down the slope toward the boathouse.
Getting closer and closer, I slowed. All of the detail, previously obscured by darkness and distance, resolved. It was Murphy standing by the stern of the pontoon boat.
When he turned, his big grin shone like a beacon. “Oops.”
“Oops?” I asked.
“Yeah, man.” Murphy pointed to a big red box, five feet long and three feet wide, lying on the flat deck of the pontoon boat. “I was trying to roll this toolbox onto the pontoon boat.”
“What?”
“I was trying to—”
“Why?” I asked impatiently. “We have a boat.”
“I scrounged up all the good tools in the garage, but there were a lot of them, and you never know what you’re gonna need.”
“So you brought all of ‘em?” I asked.
“There were more in there,” Murphy answered defensively.
“And?” I asked, very deliberately looking at the heavy toolbox causing the boat to list slightly to stern.
Murphy looked from the box to me as though I was a little slow for not figuring it out already. “We’ll just take both boats back.”
My first instinct was to say no, to argue, but then I thought, why not? The pontoon boat wasn’t fast. But we didn’t need fast. If anything, the pontoon boat might be better for scavenging than the ski boat. With its long flat deck, it was kind of the water equivalent of a pickup truck. It made sense.
I pointed over to the ski boat and said, “I think Russell and I got enough food for three or four days, maybe more.” I checked the time on my new wristwatch.
“Nice watch,” Murphy complimented me.
“It’s kind of loose.” I fished a second big gold watch out of my pocket. “Here, I got one for you, too. The guy had a whole collection of them in his closet. One for every day.”
“Man, you know what this watch is worth?” Murphy asked.
“Does it matter anymore?” I asked.
“More than my car,” Murphy told me anyway.
Chapter 33
We’d planned to be back at Sarah’s house by midnight, but it was just after ten o’clock. So we went upriver to check out a second location on the south bank. We left the pontoon boat at the safe house, with plans to pick it up on the way back.
I said, “I know I was the one who argued that Russell could be helpful in carrying stuff if we brought him along, but I think he’s too unpredictable.”
“Yeah, man,” Murphy nodded. “He’s a liability. You never know when he’s gonna sound off.”
“Nope.”
“Man, do you see that?” Murphy asked, tension suddenly in his voice.
“What…?” I slowed the boat. I peered into the darkness and was just able to make out a geometric shape on the river, maybe a half-mile ahead. It wasn’t an immediate danger. But it was out of the ordinary, and that was reason enough for caution.
Murphy stood and pulled his rifle up to the ready.
I looked at the shadows on first the right and then the left bank with ambush on my mind. There was nothing unusual, just the trees and the water.
When we’d halved the distance, I saw that the shape was a tourist boat with two decks made to resemble a riverboat from the eighteen hundreds. It was probably seventy or eighty feet long, with lots of space on the decks for a hundred tourists to eat fajitas, drink margaritas, and enjoy the sunsets. It looked deserted.
Pointing at the boat, I said, “It’s not drifting. It must be anchored there.”
“That’s not a bad idea, man.” Murphy was giving it some thought. “The infected can’t get to you out in the middle of the river. I mean, I guess. They can’t swim, can they?”
“Don’t know.” I’d assumed that they couldn’t, but realized that that was the purest of assumptions. I hadn’t seen one swimming, and that was all of the supporting evidence I had.
“Swing wide around it,” Murphy said. “I wouldn’t get too close yet.”
“Yet?” I asked, navigating the ski boat closer to the north shore.
“Man, it could be a great place to get away from the Whites.”
As we got a clear view of the starboard side, we saw three ski boats tied off there. I grew wary and stopped watching the shores, focusing instead on movement on the decks.
“You think there’s anybody alive on that boat?” Murphy asked.
Shaking my head, I said, “All I know is that I don’t like this one bit.” Not waiting for a response from Murphy, I pushed the throttle forward a little. I had a bad feeling about the derelict boat.
We were passing fifty or sixty feet off of the starboard side of the boat when Murphy said, “I think it’s deserted.”
“Murphy, if we were on that boat, we’d be hiding, right? We’d be doing our best to make it look deserted, right?”
“Exactly.” He said it with little enthusiasm.
“Exactly?” I asked. “That sounds like agreement, but I know it’s not.”
With the tourist boat behind us, but not yet at a safe dist
ance, Murphy leaned over and pulled the throttle all the way back, leaving the boat to idle while the current sapped our momentum. “Either there’s nobody on the boat or there’s somebody.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I mocked. “And you call me professor.”
“Man, I’m just sayin’, if there were infected, we’d have seen them moving around.”
“Probably,” I nodded.
“If it was some kind of ambush,” said Murphy, rubbing his chin, “they would have shot us already.”
“Maybe,” I agreed.
“If they were hostile, they probably would have been up there on the top deck, pointing guns and acting like assholes or something. So, it’s either empty, or there are some regular people up there hiding from us because they don’t know our intentions.”
“And?” I asked, prompting Murphy for a conclusion before our boat drifted too far back down the river.
Murphy told me, “It’s safe for us to get on the boat.”
“Look, Sherlock,” my tone heavy with sarcasm, “I don’t think those are all the possibilities. That boat looks like nothing but risk to me. I see every possibility of getting shot or chomped, and I don’t see any upside.”
“Man, it’s cool,” Murphy reassured. “Take us over there. I’m gonna check it out.”
“It’s a bad idea.” I didn’t make any move toward the throttle.
“Take us over there,” Murphy insisted.
Oh, well.
Murphy stood in the bow with a rope in his hand, ready to jump over to the lower deck of the pseudo-paddleboat when we got close. Having only driven a ski boat rarely, I was cautious in my approach, not wanting to bounce the bows together with enough force to damage anything. As much as I wondered what lay hidden behind the waist-high rails on both decks of the big boat, my attention was pulled back to driving the ski boat.
“Okay. Okay,” Murphy coaxed. “Another couple of feet.”
“Don’t come any closer,” a female voice commanded out of the darkness.
Chapter 34
Startled, I fumbled with the throttle as my eyes darted around for the source of the voice. I accidentally pushed the throttle forward. The engine revved, and a second later the ski boat glanced off the big boat. In the collision, momentum carried Murphy over the bow and he landed roughly against the railing that went all the way around the lower deck. The ski boat drifted back out, leaving a cursing Murphy hanging on the rail with his feet dangling in the water.
