“I’m glad you did.” His smile so practiced with false praise. “Excuse me, I am so happy to see my daughter is alright where are my manners?”
Paul held out his hand to Kiefer.
“Paul Shore, I am Amy’s father as you’ve guessed I’m sure.” Fake smile. Fake laugh.
“Kiefer.” He shook.
“Bob Sanders. Pleased to meet you. You have an extraordinarily brave daughter Mr. Shore.”
“Thank you, Bob, and you Paul will be fine. Come in, come in, we have room for all.”
Rebel rolled her eyes at her father’s fake generosity and stayed behind as she let her dad take Kiefer and Bob into the house for the grand tour.
She shuffled her feet over to Forrest who was pulling his dirt bike down the back of the truck with a few ramps they had pilfered from the parking lot of the gas station. He put the kickstand down and went back to the truck and grabbed his backpack and started to fill it with bottles of water and protein bars.
“You going somewhere?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said not bothering to even look her in the eye, “I’m getting the fuck away from you once and for all. You’re going to have enough swords battling over you as the world dies and I just don’t care to see you let them all win.”
“Ouch.”
He ignored her.
“Where are you going to go?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she said too fast.
“Why?”
“Please don’t push me. I can’t do that. I can’t be that perfect person you want me to be.”
“I didn’t ask you to be perfect, Rebel, I just asked you to be mine and not everyone else’s behind my back.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t know why I do the things I do.”
“I gotta go before it gets dark.” Forrest got on his bike turned the key.
“No,” she said clasping her hand over his, “It is going to get dark soon. Stay tonight. Please? I won’t fight you in the morning but stay for tonight.”
If Forrest had stayed on his bike and driven away from Rebel that moment, he would have met a pretty ginger named Astra at a turn off in a one of those small New England towns that get lost in the White Mountains. Astra knew side roads that were only used by dirt bikes in the warm weather and snowmobiles when the snow fell. These roads led into Canada where there were a group of Canadian soldier’s and doctors screening the living and allowing the entrance as they strengthened the wall between the two countries.
If Forrest had gotten on his bike and left that very moment and pushed Rebel’s hand away, he would have slept next to Astra under the stars on the first night to Canada and by the third his hand would have been intertwined with hers even when the two pink lines appeared on the pregnancy test.
“Come inside,” Rebel whispered to him.
Forrest pushed down the kickstand and dismounted the dirt bike.
Chapter 9
“Bob. Kiefer.”
“Tuck,” Bob said.
The sun was starting its decent behind the mountains and casting an array or oranges shades across the lake. Tuck had left Brittney and Garrett back at the house they were squatting in after he had found a large gun cabinet in a billiards room. It didn’t take him long to work the combination and bypass it. He left Brittney with a handgun, shotgun, and a six shooter for Garrett should shit hit the fan. He would have to teach the kid how to shoot sooner rather than later. Tuck had decided to head back to the bridge after taking a tour along the only road on the island and looking for weaknesses. He had found one.
Only one.
“What brings you out on this fine evening?” Kiefer asked.
“Guessing the same thing as you.”
Kiefer, Bob and Tuck approached the bridge and the small blockade of expensive cars. Fredrick Pike was still there with his rifle while a new man had appeared. They hadn’t met everyone on the island yet and that was the plan for tomorrow but for tonight he wanted to make sure they survived the night on the island and were not overrun by zombies.
The Summit Avenue bridge was the only way on or off the island.
“Mr. Pike?” Tuck called to the man they had briefly met earlier, “I don’t think we were given the chance for proper greetings. I’m Tuck and this is Bob and Kiefer. We met Rebel – well I guess you call her Amy – back in Tilton and she lead us here.”
Fredrick Pike walked over and shook Tuck’s hand. “That girl is a wild child, Tuck, but she has a good heart. We wouldn’t have let you pass if it weren’t for her.”
“Ransom Palmer.” The tall frail man said with the black and white beard that laced his face like a helmets strap. His hair was unusually long for a man that looked to be in his mid-seventies and he wore a three-piece suit even though it was warm this evening and the world – well the world had gone to shit.
“Pleased to meet you,” Bob said and everyone shook hands and did their pleasantries.
Fredrick Pike and Ransom Palmer returned to the blockade and lifted the rifles they had to guard the bridge.
“What’s your plan here gentlemen?” Bob asked.
“We keep watch,” Fredrick said, “We had the boys push the cars back and add a couple more to the pile on the other side of the hill. It should be enough to keep away the dead as for the living, well, you folks didn’t have much trouble getting through so I can only believe that a more sinister and aggressive group would also not find it hard to breach our small gate.”
Tuck squeezed between the vehicles and Bob and Kiefer followed. He started to walk up toward the hill when Ransom and Fredrick joined the three. At the top of the hill Tuck looked around, walked to the guardrail that prevented cars from going into Winnipesaukee and looked down. There was room for a boat to pass under but none of these larger yacht types.
“What are you thinking?” Fredrick asked Tuck.
“We blow the bridge,” he said.
“What?”
“We can come and go by boat and we have supplies and shelter on the island. Eventually others, like you suggested sir, sinister people, are going to realize the same thing and want this place for themselves. They might not give us a choice about staying or living. The dead will come to. But if we blow the bridge it will give us a small bit more of security.”
“And how do you propose to blow up a bridge?” Ransom Palmer asked.
“We gather the cars, some smaller boats put them under the bridge. Cover everything in gasoline, light a match and hope it works just like it does in the movies.”
“That’s a big gamble?”
“If the bridge doesn’t fall,” Bob said siding with Tuck, “Then you’ll still have a hell of a scorched mess above and below that you would have to get over. At least there would be a better barricade.”
“We should gather everyone,” Ransom said to the group, “Take a vote. Let the people know what our plan is.”
“With all due respect, sir, this is no longer a democracy. If larger issues arise that you feel you need to build a government on this island to address these issues then you will have time. Right now, we need to secure this island so you have a land to play president on.”
“He’s right, Ransom. I don’t think there is enough time to gather everyone and debate this.”
“I don’t like it,” Ransom said.
“It’s just a bridge,” Kiefer said tugging on his cap.
“You say it is just a bridge and I say it is a small decision that starts the gears of a greater machine.”
Tuck clapped Ransom on the shoulder and smiled at him.
“Like Kiefer said, sir, it’s just a bridge.”
Chapter 10
Ransom Palmer and Fredrick Pike would continue to guard the bridge while Tuck, Kiefer and Bob went off to find cars to use as explosives. Kiefer confessed he knew a bit about boats and would start to find what he could to get them under the bridge for the impending explosion. They also needed to find as much gasoline as they could and load that up. Th
ere were generators on the island that could bring electricity to the houses but everyone thought it a better idea not to light up the island like a beacon until the bridge was out. After that they could take some of the larger boats up the lake to find more supplies and gasoline. Small raiding parties.
Bob stood outside of Rebel’s door and took a deep breath before he knocked. He was leaning up against the molding when Rebel opened the door in a fresh tee shirt with Care Bears on it and wearing lace pink panties. Forrest was on the bed with all of his clothes on thankfully.
“What’s up?”
“I need to talk to Forrest and you if you have a minute?”
“Sure thing. Come in.”
“Any chance you’d like to put some pants on?” Bob asked.
“Nope.”
“Figured I’d at least ask.”
Rebel jumped on the bed next to Forrest and her legs opened a little wider as her shirt came up to her bellybutton. She was smiling coyly at Bob as if counting the seconds in her head until she caught him looking at her panties.
“I’m leaving,” he told them, “and in order for me to get to where I need to be, I’m going to need your bike, Forrest. I don’t have any money or anything to trade for it but you two should be safe and secure here for now. Tuck assured me when they go out on raids that he’ll help you find a new bike if you want but I need yours. Tonight.”
“Yeah, Bob,” Forrest said standing up from the bed. “Of course. Anything you need. But why are you leaving?”
“I have my own family down south. My daughter. I need to make sure she is ok. I can’t live here with all of you not knowing what has happened to my daughter.”
Rebel wrapped her arms around Bob’s thick neck and hugged the old man that built more like a linebacker.
“I’ll miss you, Bob.”
“You too, kid.” Bob reached out a hand and shook Forrest’s hand before he was handed the keys to the dirt bike. “You take good care of her, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alright enough of this whiney bullshit I got a bag to pack.” Bob turned and grabbed the door to close it behind him, “You two might want to get down to the bridge for the show.” He winked at them and walked out.
Chapter 11
Bob sat on the revving engine of the dirt bike with a backpack loaded with supplies strung tightly to his shoulders. On the handlebars he had tied a sleeping bag inside a tarp with enough rope to hold together a small tent. He had said his good-byes and made them as quick as possible feeling a knot starting to tie in his throat. They would be all right now. The group was isolated on the island with enough boats to go on raids and enough firepower. Tuck was a good person to have in their corner and Kiefer was always full of ideas. Rebel was back with her dad and she had her boyfriend. Things could settle back into somewhat a normal life until this all ended. That was how he justified it to himself. Clover he had to leave behind with Kiefer and the cat had scratched Kiefer across the hand the moment he was handed over and took off into the woods in the center of the island.
This was it.
Bob looked down at his watch and waited for the end of the countdown. Tuck had found a couple watches and synced them so that both men could ignite their side of the bridge at the same moment for the most devastation.
It was like shitting into the wind.
Bob cocked the flare gun and watched his watch as the minute hand clicked to twelve and he pulled the trigger. Across the bridge on the shore of the island another flare went off and Bob’s went high as the other went low into a cluster of boats that had been marooned beneath the bridge.
The explosion was larger than Bob had expected and the heat that came from the bridge was like sitting in front of a fireplace when a new log is tossed on. He watched as the bridge exploded from the top and beneath and as more gas tanks caught the fire grew with each boom as black smoke plumed into the sky. A giant signal for anyone looking. This had been a big risk but as Bob watched the bridge collapse in the center he knew as Tuck had explained that it was the best thing for the group and islanders. Others would come eventually. Announcing their presence now did nothing more than speed up the inevitable.
Bob tucked the flare gun into a side pocket of his pack and grabbed the handlebars.
“Good luck, folks.” He revved the accelerator and drove into the drawing night in the direction that led back to the highway.
I’m coming, Virginia, he told himself and felt the first genuine smile since all of this had begun.
Chapter 12
No one had bothered to invite the Trinity Twins to the fireworks but they were smart and coy and saw what was happening and found their own place among the trees to watch the festivities as the bridge was blown to pieces.
“Fucking morons,” Elvis Stockholm said from behind his mask.
“Everyone and their mother have a boat. What do they think they’re stopping?” Jesse was the youngest of the Trinity Twins. He wasn’t identical like his brother’s Elvis and Aaron but a fraternal twin born last of the three and after midnight so the three didn’t even share the same birthday. He was the largest of the three though and the most feared of his brothers. His finger had been broken by the stranger with Rebel and from that moment he had begun to plot his revenge.
The three boys had grown up on the island. Their father was a architect and their mother was superintendent of the Gilford school district. The boys knew every inch of the island. Including the old burial tomb beside the island’s cemetery.
The knowledge of the hidden crypt had been an urban legend on the island for as long as anyone could remember until the day that the boys decided to find it themselves. Beside the graveyard was an unmarked stone just outside the stone wall. A grave that might have been left for a thief or someone who had fallen out with the residents of the island sometime back in the sixteen or seventeen hundreds.
When the boys had cleared away the forest, that had grown around and over the stone marker, they found it was much larger than any stone marker should have been. They cut away the earth and used crowbars to pry up the stone until they flipped it over and found a staircase of stone that led into an underground room built of stone as well. There were spare parts of human remains. Bones that didn’t belong to any one particular skeleton and strange markings carved into the stones in the walls. They had thought it might have been Indian but when they researched the symbols nothing relating to Native Americans came up.
For years the boys had used the secret tomb as first a fort and then a place to smoke their weed and take their parents pills and drink their liquor. Now it was a prison.
Aaron pushed another zombie the three had roped and dragged through the woods of the island. Jesse gripped it by the back of its neck as the other two pushed back the zombies that were already living in the tomb that they had captured. Gnashing teeth and echoes of coughs came to the surface as Elvis and Aaron slammed metal poles into the dead as they came toward the living and Jesse pushed the zombie down the stairs to join its brethren.
“Drop it,” he ordered his younger brothers and the tomb was covered again and buried to history until the Trinity Twins decided it was time to open it again.
“What now?” Elvis asked Jesse.
“We wait,” he said and stepped over a large fallen trunk. Tied to a tree was a young girl about their age, maybe a year or two younger, that they had found cowering in town while they had gone out on a raid themselves before the strangers arrived. She was a pretty thing and they had each enjoyed her for days in their house before the strangers arrived and Jesse didn’t think it was safe to keep her anymore.
“Wait for what, Jesse?” Aaron asked.
“Our revenge. We play nice with all of them for now and then when the time comes, they won’t suspect a thing when we strike.” He took a pocketknife out and unfolded it. Pressing his hand against the girls mouth he carved an inverted cross on her forehead and watched the blood pour down over her face.
“Anyone want
one last go?” Jesse asked his brothers.
Both just shook their masked heads as they watched their brother.
“No,” Jesse huffed and pulled his mask up so that it sat on top his head like a hat, “I guess you’re all used up now.”
Jesse grabbed the girl by a clump of her hair and forced back her head as he pushed the tip of the pocketknife into the side of her throat and opened it up. Blood exploded on him like a burst pipe covering him from chest to feet in her warmth.
Aaron tried to turn away by Elvis grabbed him by the shoulder and forced his head in his younger brothers’ direction. Elvis knew that if they even flinched let alone looked away that they could be the next one tied to a tree. While the world might have been plunging into eternal Hell for Jesse Stockholm this world was Heaven.
The two brothers watched as their younger sibling pulled his mask over his face and his pants down and pushed his hardness between the dead girls’ legs. They stood still for close to twenty minutes until their brother finally finished.
“No use wasting a warm body,” Jesse laughed. “Throw her in the hole and let the zombies finish her off.”
Chapter 13
Kiefer was sitting on the beach with his feet in the cold water. The sand was almost as cold on his ass but he could feel the heat coming from the fire on the bridge as he watched it continue to burn. Clover had found his way back and sat between Kiefer’s legs and let him pet the cat. Selfish fucking things cats were. Clover hadn’t given a damn about him until Bob upped and left and he was sure once daylight came and the others on the island were out messing about that Clover would find a new companion.
He had wanted to go with Bob and continue their adventure together. It had been nice to have a friend again. The people on the island were all good but he had more fun with Bob. Kiefer didn’t imagine there would be much fun to be had on marooned on an island with a bunch of families and teenagers.
There hadn’t been time for him to leave with Bob. The old man had had his heart set on leaving the moment he got the keys to the dirt bike. Kiefer knew that Bob was going to get those keys whether Forrest wanted to give them up or not. It was lucky for Forrest he had been willing. God forgive a man for what obstacles he needs to go through to get to his daughter. Bob was willing and ready to do just about anything to find Virginia.
Beyond Dead | Book 4 | The Island Page 3
