If a virus could control its host like that, it explained why the zombies were seeking out prey. The virus wanted to spread. But we already guessed that, so nothing new there. Thanks, brain, but you’re on the wrong track. An old TV show about ants and fish isn’t really relevant in a zombie apocalypse.
I was bored and hungry. Tomorrow we needed to find a boat and food. As for boredom, staring at a rainy beach for an hour was mind numbing. I unzipped the pocket on my jacket and took out the army radio we had taken from the soldier. It looked and felt dry. The hiking jacket had waterproof pockets but I didn’t think that included being immersed in the sea so I was surprised that the radio seemed to be intact.
I clicked it on. Static came out of the speaker. I turned the volume down and found the tuning dial. With the radio to my ear, I searched for a signal. Maybe I could pick up a conversation between soldiers in the area.
I thought I caught a fragment of a word for a second but it got lost in all the hissing static. Maybe the water had affected the radio after all. I turned the dial the opposite direction slowly, scanning back across the channels.
“…That’s what I think, anyway. Over.”
My fingers froze on the dial.
“Yeah, I know but we have to follow orders, Jim. These things are decided at a much higher pay grade than ours, mate. Over.”
“The fucking U.N. Who put them in charge? And why do they get to come sailing in on their fucking rescue mission and get all the fucking glory when it’s us who’ve done all the grunt work? Have they been separating the uninfected from the zombies? Have they? Fuck. We run all the risks and they come in for the medals. It pisses me off. Over.”
“Relax. It’ll all be done soon. Over.”
“It’ll be done alright. Done and dusted. Do you know what they’re going to do to this country once they get the uninfected out? I heard they’re going to nuke it. Nuke Britain. What gives them the right to do that to our country? Over.”
“That’s just a rumour, Jim. Don’t go spreading it around. Anyway, once we’re gone, there will only be nasties left so why not nuke the place? Over.”
“Because it’s…oh, fuck, I’ve got to go. The captain is coming this way. Over and out.”
I sat staring at the green military radio in my hand, trying to process what I had just heard. The U.N. were staging a rescue mission and then they were going to launch a nuclear strike on the zombies? That meant the entire world wasn’t affected by the apocalypse. If the U.N. were still operating, they must have a base somewhere. If they were rescuing survivors, they must have somewhere to take them.
That explained the Survivor Camps. The British Army had been instructed to separate the uninfected in preparation for a rescue mission. The soldier on the radio said the U.N. were going to come ‘sailing in’ so that probably meant they were coming here on ships.
I scanned the other radio channels, desperate for more information, but all I got was static.
When I woke up Elena for her shift, I told her to try the radio every now and then to see if she could pick up any more military chatter. She nodded wearily and took her post by the cave entrance while I crawled back into my sleeping bag.
I lay looking up at the darkness for a while before I could get to sleep. There was a way out of all this. We just needed to find out where and when the U.N. ships were going to land. Maybe Joe and my parents would be rescued too. If they had been taken to a Survivors Camp and avoided infection, they could be among the ones waiting to be rescued.
The chance of that was slim. I knew that but still my spirits were lifted. We just had to make it to those ships. Maybe Mike had been right to be optimistic earlier and there was a way to escape all of this.
I closed my eyes and dared to dream.
But my dream wasn’t about rescue ships or Joe or my parents. I stood on the beach outside the cave. The sky was clear and the sun shone brightly. The beach was deserted, the golden sand stretching off into the distance, but I didn’t mind having the place to myself. This was a good day to be at the beach. I raised my face to the sun and felt its warmth bathe my skin.
Movement in the sea caught my eye and I looked out to where two shapes were rising from the waves. One dark-haired, one blonde. Both naked. Elena and Lucy. They waded in towards the beach, their long hair covering their faces. As they got closer, I could see their breasts; Elena’s small and perky, Lucy’s rounded and full. I got a sudden erection and realized I was naked too.
The girls were in the shallows now, the sea water lapping against their thighs. They stopped there and I knew they wanted me. Their need pulsed from them like a thick, heady scent.
I went to them, running over the hot sand until I was ankle-deep in the warm sea.
Both girls looked up, the hair falling back from their faces.
They glared at me with their hateful yellow eyes.
I sat up, immediately awake and disoriented. Where was I? The rock walls felt like they were closing in on me. The cave. I was in the cave. It was just a dream. A nightmare.
I lay back down and glanced over at the cave entrance. Lucy sat there, gun in hand, army radio on the sand by her feet. She leaned back against the rock, watching the rain hiss down over the sand outside.
“It’s still raining,” she said, looking over at me.
“Typical Welsh weather.”
She nodded. “I didn’t pick anything up on the radio.”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. We had kept the fire burning all night and I had slept in my clothes so despite the weather I felt warm and dry. “We need to find out where those U.N. ships are going to land.” We had relayed the information I picked up from the radio during the night. Now all of us were hoping to be rescued.
“We’ll keep checking.” She stood up and stretched, those perfect breasts I had first seen at Doug Latimer’s house pressing against the fabric of her T-shirt. She waved me over. “Look at this.” She pointed out along the coastline.
I squinted into the rain. “What am I looking at?”
“About three miles along the beach. Just offshore.”
I saw a white shape but it was too far to distinguish any details. “What is it?”
“I think it’s a boat. It’s been there all night.”
I delved into Mike’s rucksack and brought out the binoculars. It was a boat. A long, white yacht. The type of pleasure craft wealthy people spend their summers on, cruising the Riviera or the Bahamas. I concentrated the binoculars on the windows. No movement inside that I could see. Painted in blue script on the white hull was the name The Big Easy. I hoped the name was prophetic.
“Looks like it’s anchored there.” I handed Lucy the binoculars.
She took a look and nodded. “So how do we get out to it?”
“There must be a rowboat or something around here somewhere. There’s a marina just along the coast.” I didn’t want to go to the marina if we could avoid it. It was situated in the city, which meant zombies. A lot of zombies.
That boat, anchored tantalisingly close to the shore, seemed like our best option to remain safe while we tried to figure out the U.N. rescue plan. I judged the distance from the shoreline to the boat to be maybe half a mile. We could cover that distance in a rowboat in a short time and be in a zombie-free environment. We still needed food but we could sail along the coast and find a house or a village to raid.
I hoped it was going to be that easy. The beach was eerily quiet except for the constant sound of the sea breaking on the pebbles and the rain hitting the rocks. It seemed too quiet. We weren’t all that far from Swansea, a city with a population of 240,000 people before the virus outbreak. There should be more zombies around. I didn’t believe the military had eradicated that many of them.