DEAD RAIN: A Tale of the Zombie Apocalypse (27 page)

70

The pump hummed heroically but a carpet of water sloshed across the deck of the Sea Ark. Ryan sat slumped in his chair, drenched with seawater and rain. His stomach curdled and quivered. The seasickness was bad enough, but his nausea was compounded by his guilt over Marissa’s death.

Bronski wrestled with the steering wheel, struggling to angle the boat through the towering whitecaps. It was hard to tell where the ocean topped off and the rain began; it looked like an unbroken veil of white water. The trooper had to admit to himself that he was scared. It was one thing to face a raging storm on land—on the open seas it felt downright apocalyptic. One moment they were plunging into a dark gloomy trench… the next they were soaring atop a monster wave, facing an endless gray vista with whitecaps rising like an army of angry ghosts.

His eyes strained wearily to decipher the crisscrossing patterns of waves, his mind reeling as he instinctively calculated and recalculated their height and direction, which changed in a heartbeat with the fickle winds. His biceps and his injured side were burning. His fingers were numb from the cold. His ears ached from the howling wind, which wailed and whistled like a chorus of pining banshees.

Bronski
wondered if the emergency signal he’d initiated was working. The beacon flashed over and over on the prow outside the cabin, but the radio was not working and he suspected that the distress transmitter might be dead as well.

He
cut the wheel sharply as a massive wave before them dissolved into a spray of ivory foam—only to reveal another wave rising in its wake, bigger still and moving at a conflicting angle. The bow of the boat turned to meet it, crashing through the battering spray. Water sluiced in through the broken window, where the tarp was now flapping like a broken wing.

Bronski prayed they’d encounter no flotsam or other unpleasant surprises in the tenebrous sea. With the nor’easter at their back they were making good time down the coastline, but anything could be hidden among the rolling waves—a reef or an underwater berm of sand or even another boat poised for a fateful collision.

Lightning streaked across the horizon. Bronski caught a glimpse of the Cape May Point lighthouse, with mixed feelings. They’d reached the southern tip of New Jersey and would soon be turning up Delaware Bay. The waves there might diminish in size, but they’d be fighting aggressive headwinds. If he couldn’t force the tired little boat up the Jersey coast, he’d have to make a dangerous run across the bay to the shores of Delaware or Pennsylvania, delaying his urgent mission.

The boat pitched forward then slammed to a stop as waves from the bay collided with those from the ocean. It leaped into the air like a marlin, and dove like a gull to the sea. Ryan finally lost control and puked, leaning forward as low as his seatbelt allowed.

Bronski’s eyes went suddenly wide. A mountain of white water was churning their way. For a second he thought it was an illusion—a trick of unearthly light on a tower of sea spray. He spun the wheel desperately but the boat didn’t obey.

A shadow fell over the cabin as the freak wave curled over it. For a moment there was dark eerie silence, the vessel suspended in a monstrous black tube. Then the port side was slammed with the force of a freight train and the darkness turned wet and white.

Ryan’s seatbelt snapped open and he cartwheeled through the water. Bronski bounced in his seat but his seatbelt held tight, biting into his injured side.

The boat rolled like a toy, helpless against the power of Neptune. Ear-wrenching sounds broke the silence. The roar of foaming water. Metal tearing. Rivets popping. The scraping and cracking and snapping of the boat on a reef.

Ryan was sucked through the windshield by the spiraling turbulence. He broke the surface half a minute later, gasping for air. Instantly he was punched back beneath the sea by a ton of white water.

In what remained of the cabin, Bronski tugged at the buckle of his seatbelt, but it was jammed tight, warped by the impact of the wave. He reached for his knife but the seatbelt was lodged tightly over it. With no time to spare he wedged his thumb under the sheath and worked it until the hilt of knife popped free. Pulling the knife he sliced through the seatbelt, then hacked through what remained of the tarp and escaped through the broken window.

Once free of the boat he paused for a second, confused, not sure which way was up in the murky water. Pressing the palm of his hand to his face he blew a stream of precious air from his lungs, feeling the bubbles rise against his skin.

Up he went.

Breaking the surface he took a mighty breath. Then he was forced under again.

Twice more he surfaced before the storm showed him mercy. A three second lull between waves seemed like a blessed eternity. He spotted the lighthouse in the distance and kicked off into the next wave, riding it like a human surfboard.

It carried him two hundred feet before he slipped off its back. Another breaker slammed him, spinning him around. He shook his head clear, trying to get his bearings. A flash of lightning revealed a speck of orange in the distance. A lifejacket.

Ryan!

Swimming as fast as he could with his waning strength he found Ryan floating unconscious. Grabbing his collar he pulled him close.

The beam of the lighthouse swept over them. Bronski swam toward it, clutching Ryan with a painfully cramping arm. The shoreline was miles away. It would be a miracle if they made it even halfway there. They were fighting a monstr
ous current in a merciless sea.

Who are you kidding
? the devil on Bronski’s shoulder taunted him.
You can’t fight this storm. Give it up. Let go. You did the best you could.

Shut up,
he argued.
Keep swimming. It’s not over ‘til it’s over.

As if to nip his rally in the bud, a ton of water reared up and blindsided him. Gasping and retching he bobbed to the surface, surprised that he was still clinging to Ryan’s half-drowned body.

“God please! Enough!” Bronski shouted, too weak to swim another meter. He cried aloud as a cramp seized his calf in its painful grip. His teeth chattered. He was trembling uncontrollably. He realized he was slipping into hypothermia. With his last ounce of strength he clung to Ryan’s lifejacket. Determined to hold him on the surface to the very end.

Suddenly the sea lit up with a heavenly glow. The profane darkness gave way to a feeling of hope. For a fleeting moment Bronski thought he had drowned and crossed some mystical threshold.

Then he heard the rotors overhead.

Looking up he saw a Chinook helicopter, its twin rotors fighting the storm, its beam focused squarely down on them. A rescue harness was already coming down, with a Coast Guardsman in the cage.

The Guardsman flashed a cheery smile as he arrived, swaying wildly in the wind. “Good evening. How are we doing down here?”

Bronski smiled as he heard the casual greeting. Then he blinked a tear from his eyes… and when he opened them again he was rising into the air, swirling off into the night with Ryan at his side.

71

Sheriff Leeds was baffled when he saw Cat’s poncho sail past him and settle on the floor a few yards away. When a flash of lightning revealed its coating of fresh wet blood, the revelation hit him like a lightning bolt.

Bitch!

Hoisting himself to his feet he limped quickly towards the broken out picture window, hoping to beat the approaching horde. A shot sent him diving for cover. He dropped behind the boxy windowsill, his mind a muddle of fear and narcotics.

A symphony of distant thumps echoed through the rain, like a thousand dead piano keys striking their broken strings. The floorboards vibrated under his prone body. The rhythmic thumping grew steadily stronger. The floorboards shuddered more emphatically. A gust of stench wafted in through the smashed out window and Leeds realized he was
hopelessly trapped.

He peeked up over the windowsill and saw an army of Resurrecteds marching towards the storefront. They were too close already. With his wounded leg he’d never be able to climb over the window ledge and hobble to safety before they were on him. And he knew if he tried, the damned bitch of a trooper would finish him off with her gun.

His drug-addled mind was a cesspool of panic and confusion. Finally his instincts took over, forcing him to make a move.

There has to be another way out!

He pulled himself to his feet and scrambled backwards, dragging his wounded leg, which flared with pain with every little movement. Using his rifle as a crutch he hobbled deeper into the darkness of the store, digging into his pocket for more pills. If he couldn’t find a back door he’d exit another way.

The first wave of dead bodies came through the window, stumbling and falling and rising and tumbling in
to the room.

Leeds popped the top on his pill box but he tripped and went down and the pills flew across the floor. Scrambling to his knees he scurried forward on all fours, leaving his rifle behind. He reached the rear of the shop and found a door. He twisted and pulled on the doorknob—then noticed the double deadbolt
locked tight. He yanked hopelessly on the knob, then turned and looked around for another exit.

There—a staircase on the far side of the room.

He started across the room, cursing himself for not noticing the staircase before. The room was dark. He should have cased it earlier, just to be safe. He cursed the wretched pills for fogging his mind.

The cloying smell of decay rolled over him. He turned and saw the darkness filled with a phalanx of teetering black shadows—halfway across the room and coming closer.

Leeds limped faster. His heart was ready to burst as he reached the stairs and hoisted his injured leg up the first step. He winced and cried out as the bullet in his leg scraped a nerve.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, jerking him off-balance. His bad leg buckled and he spun around to find himself facing a wall
of stinking black silhouettes.

Icy fingers wrapped around his face. Cold hands clutched his arms. He tumbled backwards but they pulled him forward again. Putrid faces pressed to his.

Lightning flashed. Snapping a picture he would never forget. The Sheriff who’d spent his life serving a singular god tried to muster a final prayer. But his mind was frozen on the sight of a dozen hellish faces and the demonic odor of the dead. A sorry whimper burst from his throat.

Teeth closed over his nose and his ears and his soft fleshy cheeks. His skin wept blood as mouth after mouth found what they longed for. The pain was excruciating but the crunching of bone and cartilage was worse. Wet crunching sounds filled his dying ears as they were chewed from the side of his head. Infected teeth ripped the flesh from his skull, in exchange for a payment of organisms.

A stream of microbes streaked into his bloodstream, coursing through his veins and arteries toward his brain, swimming upstream like salmon desperate to spawn—the last few inches of a journey that began in the festering soil of a lonely graveyard—alien microbes brought by a meteor that had landed just days before the Mayflower landed on Plymouth Rock.

The Sheriff’s black heart shuddered to a standstill but his brain kept working.

In seconds the pain would be over.

In minutes the spawning would
end and the hunger would begin.

Sheriff Leeds would rise again.

Resurrected.

72

“Go,
Emma! Run!” Cat yelled.

Emma
hesitated, staring at the herd of zombies loping across the boardwalk into the open storefront.

“Go, damn you! One of us has to live! You’re our last hope to warn the world what’s going on here!”

Emma choked back a sob and ran. She turned up the boardwalk, running away from the horde at the storefront. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She thought of Cat, alone and abandoned behind her. At the mercy of the zombie horde.

Overwhelmed with guilt, she stopped. About to turn and go back.

“Run, you stupid bitch!” Cat screamed furiously. “Get the hell out of here!”

The zombies turned towards her voice. Cat waved her arms wildly, drawing their attention away from the fleeing girl. “Come on, you bastards! Over here!”

Emma watched the corpses change direction, heading towards the amusement pier. It was too late to turn back now. Cat had paid for her life with her own. She turned and started running again—but once again stopped in her tracks.

A zombie stepped onto the boardwalk in front of her, coming up a ramp from the street.

Others followed closely on its heels. And in a flicker of lightning she saw dozens more wandering down the boardwalk ahead of her.

“Shit.” She stood for a moment, weighing her dwindling options… then turned and raced back towards the amusement pier. The zombies from the storefront turned toward her
 as she ran into view, but she cut behind a ticket booth onto the pier.

She darted past the head of the herd and caught up with Cat in the center of the pier, staggering weakly but determinedly back towards the funhouse.

“Cat!” Emma blurted.

Cat turned, astonished and angry to see her. “What the hell did you come back for? You stupid bitch!” Looking past
Emma she saw the nearest zombies closing in, just ten yards away. “My God! Come on!” Grabbing Emma’s arm she pulled her forward. “Why didn’t you run?” she shrieked angrily.

“I couldn’t,”
Emma replied. “They were everywhere. There was no place I could go.” Throwing Cat’s arm across her shoulder she dragged her forward across the slippery pier. The wind from the ocean battered them with stinging rain, as if determined to drive them back into the arms of their ghoulish pursuers.

Lightning surged across the horizon. The army of corpses lurched after them, spurred on by the smell of Cat’s blood, which was trickling freely down her uncovered uniform.

Suddenly Cat tripped and fell forward—bringing Emma down on the rain-soaked boards, just fifteen feet ahead of the approaching herd.

“Go! Run!” Cat yelled, smacking at
Emma and shoving her away. But the girl was too exhausted in her body and mind. Her spirit was gone.

The zombies closed in. Raising their clawlike hands.

A flash of lightning revealed Kerri in her EMT uniform, at the front of the pack.

Cat gazed at her hideous face, glaring ghostly white in the shimmering lightning, then she turned and looked at
Emma, who was slumped sobbing on the deck, her head bowed in a final prayer.

Kerri lurched closer. Cat raised her pistol and put a bullet through her head. She looked at the mass of zombies limping towards them. Hundreds. Too many to shoot. Too late to escape.

She turned and aimed the pistol at Emma’s bowed head. Her finger froze on the trigger, whispering a silent farewell. The shadow of the zombie horde fell over them. Lightning flashed over their hideous faces as a jarring clash of thunder boomed.

Blood and gore exploded across th
e deck, splattering Cat’s face.

The booming of thunder became a steady chatter and the zombies disintegrated where they stood.

Cat looked up in wonder through a blinding spotlight to see a pair of Cobra gunships rising over the end of the pier, airborne gunners raking the dead with their chainguns.

The horde of cadavers stopped and stood quietly, staring up at the airborne spectacle, mesmerized by the
rattling gunfire and dazzling muzzle flashes. The meat grinder of hot metal chewed them to pieces, limb  by limb, body by body, row after row, as the choppers danced like dragonflies in the sky.

Suddenly the gunfire paused and a third copter swooped into view, with a rescue basket dangling. Bronski leaped off as it settled on the pier.

“Somebody call a cab?” he shouted.

Cat smiled and kissed him as he lifted her into the basket.
Emma clambered in beside her and Bronski signaled the crew.

The basket rose skyward, whisking the women to safety.

Bronski backed away as the zombies lowered their gaze toward him. He gave a signal and the chainguns started barking.

By the time the basket descended again, Bronski stood alone on the pier.