“It’s time for a little game. You boys are going to tell us where you got all the supplies in that boat of yours, and where you’ve been for the past month?” Jake’s hands were clenched in fists so tight his knuckles cracked. “I’m not gonna lie. This is going to hurt. A lot. I should also warn you, there is very little chance you will be leaving this boat breathing. I’m not heartless though. I’ll let you choose. I can shoot you in the head, or I can feed you to them.” He pointed to the moaning group that still lined the shore.
Mel was full out crying now, blubbering like the village idiot. Dave lost his indignation and he looked to each of us, probably seeking mercy.
“Mercy left the building when you tried to rape my sister-in-law, douchebag.” I stood up and gave Jake a quick kiss, at the same time reaching for his carbine. His grip tightened briefly but loosened when he saw the resolve on my face. “Here’s how I see it, Dave. We only need one of you to give us information, and frankly I never want to hear the sound of your voice again.”
I raised the rifle and put the muzzle to his head. He dissolved into sobs and begged for his life. “Please. Don’t do this,” he cried.
I hadn’t fully committed to the act until he uttered those words. A fury unlike nothing I’d felt before whooshed through my body and I swear I saw red. “I seem to remember saying those same words to you once.” I pulled the trigger, and this time I really did see red. The deck behind him was coated in a fine mist of blood. Dave’s eyes rolled back and his head made a wet, spongy, sound when it hit the deck.
“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus. I’m sorry,” Mel was sputtering. He put his head between his knees and covered it with his hands like they would somehow protect him from the same fate bestowed on Dave just moments before.
This time Meg came forward. Pressing her gun to the back of his head, she barked out commands. “Talk, asshole, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Please don’t shoot me. I’ll do whatever you want. It was all Dave’s idea. It’s his fault they kicked us out.” His words brought us all up short. We weren’t expecting him to say anything about other survivors.
“Who are they and where can we find them?” Meg punctuated her question with a hard knock to the back of his head with the carbine. Mel let out a strangled whimper.
“The camp we were at. It’s on Sanibel Island. They blew the bridges to Fort Myers and Captiva early on and managed to keep the infected off the island. Since it wasn’t season yet, most of the island’s residents were still up north. They ran into some problems initially because it spread so fast, but they exterminated them all. Every once in a while they get floaters drifting onto the beach, but they always keep guards on duty, and they moved everyone to a fenced in area just in case.”
“So, why did they kick you out?”
“I met up with Dave a day or two after shit went down. It took us a week to find the others. We had the boat and just kept moving from place to place hoping to find people. Dave got a little too friendly with one of the women in camp, beat her up real good, and they voted for us to leave. I was guilty by association, and was exiled along with him.” Given what went down below deck earlier, I didn’t buy his innocence for a second.
“Bullshit,” I said. “Where did you get all the food and water?” I had taken a moment to lean over the deck behind me and saw a blue tarp pulled to one side revealing boxes of MRE’s and bottled water. It was obvious they’d been feigning starvation just to have a reason to board the ship and take advantage of us.
“The soldiers brought in trucks of food before they took out the bridges. They knew exiling us was pretty much a death sentence without any food, so they gave it to us and sent us away.”
“How many of them are on the island?”
“Christ, I don’t know. Three, maybe four hundred? Almost half of them are soldiers. I’ve told you everything I know. I cooperated. Please just let me go. I’ll never bother you again, I swear.”
Seth stroked his scruffy chin in contemplation. “I bet that’s the other platoon we lost contact with. The houseboat has a full fuel tank. Do you guys think we should try for the island?”
We all agreed, getting back to dry land and some type of civilization was something we all longed for.
“Let’s move everything useful from the cigarette boat, then secure the boat to the back. In case something goes wrong, we won’t end up stranded and dead in the water,” Seth said.
“Wh-what about me? They won’t let me back on the island.” Did this pile of dirt rapist think he was coming with us? Spilling a little information at gunpoint did not make up for what he tried to do to us.
Jake took his gun back and stepped closer to Mel. “No one said you were coming with us.”
“But I told you everything. I answered all your questions.”
“Yeah,” Jake said as his face turned to malice, “but you also tried to rape my wife and sister. There is no democracy anymore, asshole. You don’t get a trial. You get an execution. I lied when I said you could choose how to die.” Mel threw his hands in front of his face, but it did little to ward off the bullet with his name on it. He fell on top of Dave and as their blood mixed, the puddle around their bodies grew larger until it reached the edge of the deck and dribbled off.
Daphne stepped in cautiously and sniffed at the air. Letting out a huff of vindication, she jogged away from the bodies and went to lie in the sun. As she moved away, her tiny paws left prints of blood on the deck. Something had to be said for the fact that I thought the little paw prints were adorable. I had become one sick and twisted woman. I guess the apocalypse will do that to you.
“Too bad. So sad,” was my eulogy to the newly dead.
It was getting dark as Dale and Will heaved their bodies off the deck and into the water. Nancy, using buckets of sea-water, rinsed the deck clean of the blood. The only trace of them remaining was the little prints made from Daphne. Not one of us felt remorse for ending their pitiful existence. They had brought it on themselves when they attacked us.
We went below deck after transferring the food from the other boat. Nancy was organizing and inventorying our new cache of supplies as the men brought it in, and Seth was trying to micromanage her progress between trips. Gabby was chipper as usual; she was one resilient little girl. I broke down though; I was emotionally spent from the last twenty-four hours, having lost so much… but I had gotten my husband back.
I caught a glimpse of Adam looking at me and could tell he wanted to be the one to comfort me. This was going to get weird; there was no way around it. He was a good man, and under different circumstances I could see us together.
Meg and Nancy filled me in on what happened after I got cracked in the face. Daphne had attacked Dave and bit him in the leg. I remembered watching her go over the side. Apparently she had fallen into the cigarette boat instead of landing in the water. I’d never been so happy to have such a cliché play out in real life. Dave barked orders at Mel as they grabbed the two girls and dragged them kicking and screaming into the two guest rooms. I was proud of them for putting up so much fight. They kicked, bit, slapped, and Meg even spit on Mel. They still ended up hogtied the same as I was. After they were bound and gagged, our assailants carried me down and tied me up.
Gabby had been hiding in the galley when they brought us down. She went nuts on Mel when he dragged Nancy into view. This resulted in her being dragged by her hair into the bathroom and locked inside. I felt bile rise in my throat thinking of them putting their hands on her. After Meg kicked Dave in the balls, they’d gone in her room to enact their revenge. Dave held Meg down on the bed and pressed a pillow over her face while Mel groped her and told her all the obscene things they were going to do to her. My skin crawled. Memories of the events repulsed me, and I noticed the rips in Meg’s shirt. I could see angry, red welts where the torn fabric revealed her skin.