I rushed forward with my bat, swinging it wildly. We needed to slow them down to give us time to jump over the railing. The bat connected with the head of a monster that had once been a businessman judging by his suit and tie. He went down hard and the zombies behind fought to get past the body in their way.
I ran back to the railing. Elena was climbing over, her face a mask of agony as she took her weight on the bad leg.
“You OK?” I asked as I straddled the railing. I tried not to look down. My stomach was flipping crazily and I felt off balance.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s go.” She pushed me forward the same way she had done when we rushed Eric. I felt my feet leave the railing and suddenly I was suspended in mid-air, the deep sea below me.
Then I fell so fast I barely had time to register it before I hit cold water and heard nothing but a rush in my ears as I went under.
I struggled against the sea, pulling with my arms to bring myself to the surface.
As my face broke though, I breathed in sweet air.
Mike was close by in the rowboat. I swam towards him but his attention was on the lighthouse. He stared up at the balcony and shouted, “Elena!”
I looked up and my heart sank.
For some reason, Elena hadn’t managed to clear the railing and now she hung by her hands, dangling over the sea. She looked panicked.
“Just let go!” Mike shouted to her.
She held her breath and let go.
But she didn’t fall into the sea.
Hands reached over the railing and grabbed her. Blue-skinned rotting hands.
She screamed as they dragged her back up onto the balcony.
“No!” Mike screamed. He dived off the boat and swam towards the lighthouse. I grabbed him and he struggled against me. “Elena!”
Her screams had been silenced. There was nothing anyone could do.
“It’s too late,” I told Mike.
His eyes went to the scene on the balcony. The zombies were in a frenzy up there. Tearing. Ripping. Biting.
He looked at me and started to cry. “It’s Elena, man.”
“I know.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mike.”
He looked from me to the lighthouse and for a moment I was sure he was going to swim ashore despite the dozens of zombies on the rocks. Then he went weak and I had to hold him up to stop him from sinking.
Supporting him with one arm and using the other to swim, I got us to the rowboat. He climbed aboard but then sat staring at the sea.
I put the oars into the metal locks and started to row us back to The Big Easy.
My friend stared at the water in a daze and I was sure I would never see the Mike I knew ever again.
twenty
“He’s been like that for hours,” Lucy said as we sat at the dining table. Her face was still streaked from the tears she had cried for Elena. I was sure there would be more tears but for now she was too drained to shed them.
Outside, evening fell quickly, the darkness spreading over the sea. I had managed to pilot The Big Easy away from the lighthouse. None of us wanted to see that place again. Now we were anchored farther north, about two miles from shore. We could still see the city on the coast but at least we couldn’t smell it anymore. The sea breeze was fresh and tangy. I felt more removed from those monsters than I had since the apocalypse happened. It was a shame that my feelings of safety were tinged with the darkness of tragedy.
Mike had slumped into the easy chair in the living room when we got back from the lighthouse and had not moved since. I knew his feelings for Elena ran deep but I had never seen him in a catatonic state like this before.
We had already lost one of our group. I didn’t know how we would survive if we lost Mike too.
“I don’t understand why Eric didn’t warn you about the zombies,” Lucy said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“He was afraid we’d run away and leave him there. He probably stayed zombie-free out there on his rock because when the tide was low it was raining and they weren’t around. This was the first time the low tide coincided with dry weather. So suddenly he saw dozens of zombies on the beach and he knew that when the tide went out, they could get to him. That’s why he was desperate to leave immediately. If I knew then what I know now I would have brought him aboard The Big Easy straight away. At least Elena would still be alive.”
She wiped a tear from her eye. “I still can’t believe she’s dead.”
I looked at the night darkening beyond the windows and my thoughts went somewhere I wished they wouldn’t. What if Elena weren’t dead but had been turned into one of them? Maybe even now she was roaming the lighthouse in an undead state. I tried not to think about it. There was nothing that could be done.
But there must be something I could do to help Mike. He was hurting in a way I had never seen before. I wasn’t going to sit by and watch my friend spiral into depression. I went to the bar and poured three glasses of brandy. Giving one to Lucy, I went over to Mike and handed him the glass.
He took it with a muttered, “Thanks.”
“Hey, why don’t we raise a glass to Elena. She was a brave woman. One of the bravest.”
Lucy seemed to pick up on what I was trying to do; make Elena’s death an event we could remember but also move on from. She raised her brandy. “To Elena. A great friend and a brave survivor.”
Mike looked over at her, then at me. His eyes were bloodshot. The drink trembled in his hand, spilling over the edge of the glass. “I loved her,” he said simply.
“We all did,” I said. I took a hit of brandy, feeling it burn all the way down my throat. Mike threw back his glass and downed his drink in one swallow. He resumed his thousand-yard stare, the empty glass forgotten in his hand.
I didn’t know what else to do so I went to the bar and got the brandy bottle. I refilled his glass and started back to the dining table. Mike murmured something.
“What’s that, buddy?” I asked, turning to face him.
He repeated what he had said but I had the feeling he was speaking to himself. He whispered the words over and over like a mantra.
“They’re going to pay.”
Later that evening, after a mostly-uneaten meal of rice and beans spiced with curry powder, I took Eric’s log book from where I had put it to dry over one of the portable radiators in the living room. Mike was asleep in the chair as I walked past him to get the book. I hoped he would be feeling better when he woke up.
The only time I saw him express grief in any major way was when his dad died and even then the emotion had only brought forth a few tears. Mike had been a lot younger then. I wondered if his grief over Elena’s death was bringing out unexpressed feelings about his father leaving him at a young age.
I sometimes wondered if the reason Mike’s life involved the pursuit of activities like rock climbing and hiking was because his father had the same interests. Mike had never been interested in these things until after his father’s death. Maybe he was trying to make his dad proud.
Sitting at the table, I opened the book and flicked through the pages. They were still damp and stuck to my fingers. In places, the pen had smeared but in others it was still legible. The book wasn’t meant to be immersed in salt water and was almost ruined after its time in the sea.
The entries I could read contained dates, times, ship names, weather reports and tidal records. Working carefully, I peeled the pages back until I found the last entries Eric would ever write.
Being closer to the middle of the book, these pages were less water-damaged. The handwriting was more readable. It looked like Eric had turned this into more of a diary than a log book.
The last entry read: ‘They are back on the beach again. I am only alive because of the high tide. If not for that, they would be over here banging on the door. Still no sign of Harper. I fear he’s dead. He would have come back by now. Unless he’s left me here. He used to tell me something like this would happen someday but I never listened. I spend most of my time looking out to sea for him or any other boat. I have to leave here soon.’