“Oh, God, not again with the over protective, smothering, big brother routine. Poor Meg, I don’t know how she’s put up with you all these years.” I’d teased him relentlessly about this topic in the past. That earned a faux innocent smile from Jake.
“Who? Me? I know nothing of what you speak.” We laughed at our ongoing joke. Things started to feel normal and some of the eggshells we’d been walking on started to fade away. After a few seconds, Jack continued his story.
“With Target being on the water, it was easy to get there. My heart sank as we drove the boat up to the back of the store. Whatever happened there left it in shambles. It was burnt nearly to the ground and teeming with zombies. I went to a very dark place for a while. It was a good thing I was traveling with five soldiers, because it took all of them to hold me down when I made an attempt to get out of the boat and search for you.”
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry you had to experience that. Trust me, I know all too well how the not knowing can fuck with your mind.”
“Yeah, well they managed to convince me you would have made it out safely. The soldiers think you’re pretty much the baddest chick they’ve ever met.”
My pride swelled at the compliment.
“We knew the location of the lighthouse. Since it was the group’s plan B, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what shape that place was in. I didn’t even slow down as we passed it. I knew there was no way you had gone there. So, plan C in effect, we headed towards Cape Harbour. I just kept repeating to myself that you were safe and finally I was sure of the truth behind it.
“About halfway through the city’s waterways the boat ran out of fuel and we were forced to abandon it and get our feet back on solid ground. We managed to tie up in a safe neighborhood, but I guess safe is a relative term these days. Daylight hours were spent on foot as we made our way through the neighborhoods. You think those streets suck to drive on with all the dead ends? Try doing it on foot! Finding safe places to wait out the darkness was the hard part. There wasn’t one night where we didn’t have to relieve a dead family of their home. We lost one more on the third night. He was bitten before we could get to him. It all happened so fast; he gave us a stiff salute and ate a bullet.
“There were five of us when we made it to the main street that runs parallel with this river. The soles of our shoes were damn near worn through from all the walking. We thought it would be a good idea to hide in one of the stores. Running for the window shade store, a pack of undead came around the corner of the 7-Eleven. We turned to run around the other side and were greeted by another group of them.
“Jones collided with the group and didn’t even have time to scream before they ripped his throat out. Close enough that hand-to-hand combat was our only option, we took out as many as we could. Howards was taken out before we could kill the last two. Will put him down before he came back. They were best friends from childhood and joined the military together out of high school.
“The second group was almost on us and we only had one option. We covered ourselves with rotting corpses and hid. Their flesh felt waxy and the…” he shuddered and his face went green, “…the smell was so bad, month old walking corpses spending all their time in the Florida sun. Even if I could have gotten over the smell of rotting flesh, the maggot infested wounds were wet with some black goo… I’m guessing what was left of their liquefying organs.
“It seeped through my clothes and coated me in a sticky film of nauseating fluid. We spent the entire night hidden under those pus bags. The 7-Eleven cluster took hours to leave. I think they knew we were there somewhere. That brings us up to this morning.”
“Jesus. It sounds horrible. That’ll teach you to disobey your wife, bub.” I poked at his shoulder to punctuate my statement. The truth was I wasn’t even the slightest bit angry with him. I was too happy he found his way back to me. “How did you end up with Adam, Seth, and Lowell?”
“The bedding store is in the same building as the store they were going to hit. They passed right by us in the morning. I thought they were going to piss themselves when we started shoving the corpses off us. We must have looked pretty bad, because Lowell nearly shot Will in the face when he and Dale stood up. If I hadn’t spoken up when I did, he would have done it, too. Man, were those guys a sight for sore eyes. I almost lost my shit and began crying like a little girl when they found us. I knew it meant I had found you.”
Chapter 26
Oops, I Did it Again
Every one of us slept in the next morning. I woke to the aroma of lingering vomit and dog farts. I never could understand how a dog so small could produce such a big stink. Every time I called her on it she gave me a look that I swear said: yes, it was me, and I’ll do it again. The houseboat was big, but it was starting to feel pretty tight with nine adults, a little girl, and pooch extraordinaire.
We made the decision to go to Sanibel, but we weren’t ready to go yet. The houseboat was the safest place we’d been, assuming no more would-be rapists showed up, so we fully intended on laying low for a few days. It wasn’t that we didn’t believe the story Mel told us about the safe haven; it was more that we didn’t know what shape it would be in.
These days anything could happen, and it was prudent we protected each other at all costs; we were all that was left of what started as over one hundred refugees.
So, we played house for a bit. The group was insistent that Jake and I keep the master bedroom. Meg and Will moved into the guest room she and I previously shared. I had to agree with Jake; Private Will Tapper was a good guy.
He had a quirky sense of humor and a positive outlook even when things looked their bleakest. At dinner, he pulled out Meg’s chair as she sat. His pace quickened as they approached doors, insistent that he be the one to hold it open for her. Will hung like a lovesick puppy with stars in his eyes on every word she spoke, content to bask in her glow. Meg was treated like the lady she was. Ah, the honeymoon phase; to be young again.
Lowell and Seth kept the room with the twin beds and Nancy took the other guest room with Gabby. She had taken on the role of de facto mother. Adam remained on the fold out sleeper in the galley, and Private Dale Ellis, the young soldier I hadn’t gotten to know yet, took the recliner Noelle had died in. I guess it didn’t bother him because he didn’t see her die, but I knew there was no way I would ever sit in that chair again.
On any given night, most of us would wake in terror; it wasn’t out of the ordinary to hear muffled screams coming from any of our rooms. On the second night, Nancy confided that the frequent nightly disruptions were a welcome respite since it tore her from the recurring nightmare of her husband’s death.
We sat cramped into the galley as a group and ate MREs for breakfast. I now knew why soldiers complained so much about the grub. It wasn’t that they were bad; well, not all of them at least. They were boring and all shared the same blandness. The omelet was especially gross. I tried to feed it to Daphne and she snubbed her nose at it. Not even fit for a dog.
Seth stood and addressed the group. “We should think about moving soon. We’re running low on potable water again and if Sanibel turns out to be a bust, we’ll need to make a supply run. I’d rather not have to do both. So, Lowell and I were talking about the best strategy to go about reconing the island. We both agree that our best bet is for him to scout first in the helicopter.”