“A boat?” Sam excitingly asked.
“Well not here, but the boat is coming. The man on the boat said so.”
“So, you can talk to them?”
“Yes, but I’m trying to talk to the city to try and get help. Can you help us?”
“Yeah, sure!”
Dylan pulls Sam to the side away from the group to speak with him.
“Hey. I don’t trust him.”
“What do you mean? This could be our chance-”
“I get that, but there’s something about him that I don’t trust.”
Sam sighs, “Well, I’ll just go.”
“No, I’m coming with you. You can’t tell me no.”
“Are you going to be ok with me? I can’t have you staring at me like you did last night.”
“Yeah. I’ll be okay,” he said.
Sam nods his head and calls the rest of the group towards him.
“Hey, Dylan and I are going with them, but just us,” Sam says.
“No, I’m coming with you!” Jess argues.
“Us too!” David adds.
“No! We cannot risk all of us going. Just the two of us. I need you guys to keep up with us, but not too close. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, we can.” Jess agrees.
Sam nods his head, walks to the survivors, and agrees to their plan.
“We’ll go with you, but it’s just going to be me and my friend, Dylan,” he mentions.
“Ok.” He agrees.
They all walked away while David and the group stayed back and listened to Sam and his plan. While walking, Sam and Dylan stayed behind them to watch their every move, but Dylan didn’t trust them one bit. Sam was watching Dylan also because he did not trust him either. His trust just with Dylan was going away and this bothered him. How could he not trust his own best friend? The woman looked back and smiled at Dylan, but he just stared at her. The same stare he gave Sam last night. David and the others walk alongside Sam and Dylan from a distance, but they all agreed to be quiet so they would not make any noise.
They arrived at the camp and Sam was amazed at how big the camp was. It was downhill, the camp had two large tents, one with sleeping bags, and another with the communication device inside, but it was vacant. To the side were three dead men that appeared to be the terrorists and Dylan knew they were telling the truth. Sam looked at Dylan and smiled, but Dylan replied with a fake smile. He still knew there was something about them that did not sit well with him. Michael turned around and smiled at them,
“So, here’s the deal. We must figure a way out to contact the people in the city. Can you do that?” he asked.
“Yeah, we can do it.” Dylan agrees.
Jess peeks around the hill and looks at Sam and Dylan, but she doesn’t worry due to the visual of them being ok. Sam and Dylan walked into the tent and began working on the device while Jess observes what the three survivors were doing. They talked to each other silently and the group stared in confusion as to what they were discussing.
“I see what Dylan was talking about. They are being creepy. I mean, what could Dylan and Sam do that they couldn’t?” David asked.
“We just have to stay here. They will be ok,” Jess said.
“And if they are not?” Faith commented.
“Then we kill them.”
“What? Why? They’re not the enemy here. If they are then we deal with them, but until then, we do nothing to those people.”
Jess looks puzzled and thought about what she just said, “Oh my God. What the hell did I just say?”
“I don’t know, but that’s not you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Later that night, Sam and Dylan are still trying to find the signal to New York, but they keep getting nothing. Dylan grunts and walks away, but Sam quickly stops him,
“Hey! Are you ok?” he whispers.
“No, I’m not. I want this to work, but I have many questions. How did this thing even get on this island unharmed? It seems like they’ve already been here if you ask me.”
Sam suddenly gets a thought, “They were here,” he noticed.
Dylan looks at him, “How do you know?”
“Think about it. They released that virus on the ship because they were planning to get off it afterward and they were going to use this island as their safe spot. This was their way of not worrying about dealing with the virus. This island was their escape plan,” he explained.
“That makes a lot of sense. So, they’re coming back?”
“Yeah, it’s just a matter of waiting. Until then, we have to get in contact with the city.”
Michael yells outside the tent to get their attention. When Sam and Dylan walked out, they are surprised with their group on the ground lined up in front of them.
“What the hell is this?” Michael asked.
Sam looks at Jess and seen that they had been captured. They tied their hands behind their backs. In their eyes were fear because they thought they were going to die.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Were y’all going to attack us?” Michael asked.
“No! We just didn’t trust you guys, that’s all. You were suspicious and we were being careful,” Sam explained.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Ok. Sorry,” the leader apologized.
“Did you hit them?” Sam muttered.
“No.”
Sam walks up to the Michael, but Zoe points a gun at him, forcing him to back away. He signals them to let the group go. The woman gets out her knife and cuts them free. They get up and walk to Sam’s side and he hugs Jess.
“You’re okay?”
“Yeah.”
Sam glances at Michael, “Sorry.”
Michael stares back and laughs, “Now, it seems that this is awkward, yes? I think it is best if we do not mention this again. We’ll resume in the morning.”
Sam walks away and brings Jess along with him while Dylan stays back and checks on everyone else. Sam calls his group in the tent to sleep in there together, but he tells them something that they would want to hear,
“Ok, Dylan and I figured out what’s going on. They are using this island as their safe zone, but they weren’t expecting all of us to be here. The ship crashed unexpectedly and brought the zombies here. Since then, they have been bringing supplies to the island because they still want to make this happen, so this could be our chance. We can’t find a signal to the city, so we’re going to use the boat to get off this island. Got it?”
Everyone smiles at this news and lays down knowing that they were soon getting off the island. Trace moves his ear away from the tent and walks off. Later, Sam and Jess are still awake with everyone sleep and she looks up at Sam and smiles,
“We’re getting off this island finally!” she quietly says.
“Yeah, we are.”
“You got family at home?”
“Yeah. My mom.”
“What about your dad?”
“He and my brother went on a cruise just like me a while ago. They were so excited to go, but I wanted to stay home. I was a big ‘go-to-school’ boy and that’s what made me stay. Two days later, my mom pulls me out of school and tells me the unwelcome news.” Sam begins to cry, “My brother and father had died due to an accident. There were no survivors. Ever since then, I’ve told myself I would never get on a cruise ship ever, but my friends wanted me to go. I wanted to ignore what happened and enjoy myself. That’s why I brought a picture of them with me. To enjoy the cruise for them. Now, look where it got me. Fighting for my life on this stupid island.”
Jess sits up and looks at him sadly, “I’ve always believed things happened for a reason. They happen to either make us suffer or make us stronger. You do not stop fighting for your life. You do it every day, but we don’t know it because we always come out alive afterward. Do not let this get to you. We are going home and even though they may have attacked the cities, we still have to believ
e that there is hope in the world. Okay?”
Sam nods his head. She leans on his chest and they both go to sleep. Sam exhales and stares deeply at the tent. It was quiet. Peaceful. Sam thought about his brother and father and how would events happen if they had been alive. Maybe they would be with Sam right now. Alternatively, dead.
In the morning, Tina wakes up in a bed that was not familiar. She didn’t even know how she had gotten here. The room was clean as if no one was living there at all. Tina looked around the room and glanced at all the objects inside. The window exposed the outside world and the sun shot its light into the room. For a second, she thought she was in between heaven and hell. Alex walks in and gives her a plate with a sandwich on it. He appeared different from last time. He had different clothes on. Just a plain shirt, pants and tennis shoes. She sits up and asks Alex,
“What happened?”
“You passed out a couple of minutes after…Beth.”
Tina reminisces about what happened but ignores her thoughts.
“Where are we?”
“Almost out of the city, but the number of zombies has gotten larger. It’s getting worse for us, so we have to go,” he says.
“Ok.”
Minutes later, Tina walks into the kitchen and looks at Alex preparing his gun. She looks at the knives and grabs the biggest one she saw.
“Good one!” He smiles.
“Well, it’s better than nothing. It’s not a gun, but you don’t have to reload it.”
“But you do have to get close.”
They walked out of the house and into the street, but there were no zombies. All they had seen was bodies and the streets looked dead. This was a good and bad sign for both of them. Tina looks around in an unfamiliar place and she follows Alex to one of the cars. People were in the streets, barely noticeable. Tina does not want to be out here longer because she fears she will end up like them.
“How could they abandon these cars?” Tina asked.
“They can’t drive them.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re dead.”
Tina looks around and sees what the world had become. The streets had become dead and the atmosphere of life had become unknown. For a quick second, she is thankful that her husband and two sons are not experiencing this kind of situation. Little does she know that Sam is alive and fighting for his life. Explosions boomed in the distance and the sound of gunfire and zombies filled the air. Downtown covered in smoke and the red smoke disappeared into the air. Alex finally turns on the car and tells Tina to get in. They both get inside of the car and drive out of the neighborhood to get out of the city. While driving, they pass up some zombies that ran towards their car, but they couldn’t reach them. The further they went, the more zombies appeared. Alex stops the car and puts the car in reverse, but zombies hit the back of the car, slowing him down until the car stopped. Zombies surrounded the car and hit the windows, but Alex forces his foot on the pedal and slowly starts rolling over the zombies, peeling their skin off their body as they slide underneath the car.
“This is not good!” Alex yells.
The car begins to lift because of the zombies under the car, so Alex took the chance, put the car in drive, and accelerated. Luckily, he builds up enough speed to run over the zombies and escape, but blood strongly covers up the windshield and blocks their visual outside. He wipes the windshield with the wipers, but as soon as he finally sees, he runs over a light pole. Alex and Tina are fine, so Alex forces her to hurry up and get out of the car. Once they got out, they ran away from the car, but the zombies are quickly approaching them from behind. Alex turns around and shoots a few zombies in the leg, which causes them to fall and trip the other zombies. This gives Alex and Tina a head start advantage. Alex spots other survivors on top of a short building and he shouts for their attention.
“Hey!” he yells.
The man on the roof spots Alex and runs inside of the building. Alex screams at the man to save them, but the man does not show. Alex runs in front of the building and tries to get in, but the man had the door barricaded.
“Shit!” he screams.
“What’s wrong?”
“They blocked the door!”
Alex turns around and shoots most of the zombies from approaching them and Tina braced herself to fight off the zombies with her knife. The man opened the door and shouted at them to get inside. They ran inside, but the zombies were too close. Another man ran up to them and sprayed all of them with a flamethrower and the zombies screamed while running away from them. They all closed the door and barricaded it again while Alex and Tina are panting heavily. They looked around and saw many civilians inside the building. Some were women with children and others just looked afraid. There was at least 20 of them and they all seemed to have been here since it started. The two men finish with the door and force Alex and Tina up the stairs. While walking with the group, the two men walk away from them, but Alex asks for a favor,
“Excuse me, do you know where the nearest safe area is?” he asked.
Tina stops him, “Wait. You don’t know where you’re going?”
Alex sighs, “No. All I know is that we have to get out of the city.”
“So, where do you plan to go afterward?”
“I don’t know. New York clearly isn’t the answer.”
They opened the door that brought them to the roof and Tina looked around the city and seen lots of smoke everywhere. The world was slowly dying.
The two men, both look in their mid-30s with beards, stopped their conversation to answer Alex’s question.
“We’re going that way,” the man pointed to a neighborhood far away, “There, we can be safe.”
“Wait, isn’t that another neighborhood?” Tina asked.
“Yes, but hopefully they won’t kill us if we show that we haven’t been bitten. We have seen people with guns rush in there. The neighborhood looks secure. No doubt, we will be safe there. For now,” the other man replied.
“I highly doubt that,” Alex mutters.
“What are you talking about?” the man asked.
“They’re killing everyone who was within this border, but it spread too far. Now it is everywhere. They were trying to contain it.”
“By killing everyone?”
“Yes. This shows how much protection we really have.”
“Well, that’s why we need to get there fast.”
That same morning, Sam and Trace are still trying to figure out how to find signal while the others were out looking for food and water. While searching for a signal, they slowly started to give up. Every time they were close to getting a perfect signal, the radio would go back to static. Trace smacked his lips and put his head down in shame. Suddenly, they started to hear a low speech on the device. Sam and Trace get excited as they turned the nobs to clear up the signal, and luckily, they succeed.
This is Bruce. We are on our way. I repeat this is Bruce. If you can hear me, James, we’re on our way. ETA 12 hours. Bruce out.
Sam changes the signal and laughs, “They’re coming!”
Trace gets excited as they both walk out of the tent and walks to Michael,
“They’re coming!” Trace says.
Michael laughs and hugs both of them, “Oh, this is amazing!”
“Yeah. They’ll be here in 12 hours!” Sam adds.
“Good. Then we get ready. We need to find the others and tell them the good news. We’re getting off this island.”
Meanwhile, Jess is leading the group back to the camp with few rabbits and plenty of water. Faith grunts and carries the rabbits,
“God, I hate rabbits!”
“But you’ll love them soon,” David laughs.
Faith shivers, “Ugh. I still won’t like them then.”
“Do you want to hear the good news? We have buckets!” David shouts.
“Yes. Finally, we have water!”
Dylan kept walking ahead of them, but no one said nothing to him. He looked depres
sed. David was worried about him.
“Dylan?” he says.
Dylan stops and looks over his shoulder, “What?”
“Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?” Dylan walks up to them, “How can anyone be okay? I just lost my girlfriend! So no, I’m not okay!”
Z Island Series (Book 1): Escape From Z Island Page 10
