I only remembered bits and pieces, but the general theme of my dream was the same. Blaze was mad, blamed me for everything, and my guilt ridden conscious sure as hell let me know about it.
My mouth tasted like I’d been sucking on rusty nails. I ran my tongue over my teeth and tried to hock up some spit. All that came out was a strained cough.
“It’s a side effect of the sleeping pills, that bad taste.”
Dr. Banks clicked off her propane stove and ladled a heaping spoonful of gummy oatmeal into a clear plastic cup. The Coleman lantern was on a low setting, covered by a thin white sheet in the corner.
“There’s a fire hazard if I ever saw one,” I joked as I shifted out of the messed blankets.
“I don’t like blinding myself
right
after I wake up.” She handed me the cup and a spork. “Instant blueberry oatmeal. I’d offer you coffee, but I ran out a while ago.”
“Never drank it anyway.” With a grin, I blew on the steaming cup.
I had a total emotional hangover. The casual banter helped me think less about what I’d told her last night, and more about the day’s plan.
“Sun should just be coming over the horizon,” she said. “If you hurry, you can get out of here before you burn much daylight.”
We didn’t exchange many words after that. I finished her generous breakfast, geared up, and followed her out of the giant, empty house. My limp seemed worse, but I wondered if it was just psychosomatic, due to her drawing my attention to it yesterday. Or was I adjusting to the stitches? Pins and needles went up my thigh and down to my knee whenever my foot hit the ground.
Once downstairs, we made a stop in the basement, where she insisted upon giving me power bars, a few flavors of bottled water, and a half-f unmarked bottle of pills. “For your leg,” she told me. “I insist. I’d say take two a day, but really? Do what you want. People always do.”
Dr. Banks must’ve been a pill pusher when she was a practicing doctor.
“What are they?” I asked.
During my raids on houses, supermarkets, and pharmacies, I had unlimited access to any kind of drug imaginable; legal or illegal. Pre-apocalypse I never took any medications beyond cough syrups or cold remedies for anything, so why would I start? Despite suffering through physical pain and mental exhaustion, I never picked up a bottle of
any
kind while on my lonesome search for Blaze. In a world where no one cared, it was only a matter of pride and personal preference that was stopping me.
“Your standard Oxycodone,” she said. “Trust me, you’ll need it. If you make it back, stop by and I’ll give you a refill on the house.”
We both knew it was unlikely I’d be coming back, so our smiles didn’t reach our eyes. Helpful people I met never survived, or I lost them along my way. Dr. Banks would be no different.
She ended the conversation before I could object to the pills, and we marched up the basement steps. Outside of the panic room, I heard the storm raging. The snow was gone, melted away by the fat drops of rain pounding down.
In the middle of the street lay a decimated torso, making painfully slow progress towards the house. It had an entire yard to cross and a flight of steps to climb. I didn’t think it would make it. This guy was the first zombie I’d seen in some time. His throat was shredded. White-washed bone jutted from his face and chest, visible even from where I stood.
“I wondered where he went,” Dr. Banks said, walking down the steps without hesitation. “Shut the door behind you.”
“You know him?”
“Sort of,” she yelled over the wind. “I keep track of everyone who stayed in the town. This is Benjamin, my neighbor from a few doors down.”
She clicked the safety off her shotgun and aimed it at his head, but didn’t pull the trigger.
“Don’t waste your bullets,” I said as I stepped next to her. I used the butt of my gun to break his head in. His skull shattered as easily as an eggshell.
“Thank you.” She gave a look of regret and discomfort. Dr. Banks was a strong woman, but killing people she once knew seemed to hit her hard.
A pang of compassion within me stretched out for her. I knew what it was like to kill a zombie-turned friend. It took more strength to kill one you knew than a hundred you didn’t.
“The dock is just around the street and down the hill.” The old woman had to shout. The brewing storm was going to be rough. She said something else, but her words were whisked away by the wind. She waved off whatever it was when I indicated I hadn’t heard. I hoped it wasn’t important.
We kept our heads bent as we made our way down the street. The road was icy, and we each had our share of slips. Besides Benjamin, there wasn’t another living or dead thing that moved on its own. The skeletal figures of maple trees and shaggy branches of evergreens danced wildly. Pinecones and twigs from bushes swirled across the road, caught up in the strong gusts of wind.
Great day for a boating trip. I’m sure the ocean air will do me some good,
I thought, growing more pessimistic by the second.
Dr. Banks veered off the paved road and began a treacherous descent down a winding dirt path. Getting to the rocky shores of Samish meant traversing down the sides of cliffs. She led the way, her progress as slow as Benjamin’s, as we stepped over fallen logs and debris. How was she going to make it back up these switchbacks on her own?
I stopped myself from thinking about it. If I let myself feel more sympathy than I already did, I’d lose any courage I had left and abandon my boat trip. Dr. Banks was strong. Old, yes, but if she’d made it this far, climbing up some hills wouldn’t kill her yet. At least that’s how I justified it.
We cleared the forest area and came onto a narrow, pebbly shore. Waves crashed relentlessly mere feet away from us. Ten yards off stood a chain link fence with a jagged tear down its middle. Beyond were rows of empty docks and boathouses.
Dr. Banks squeezed through the fence first and led me to the boathouse closest to us.
Boathouse
is an overstatement. The one she took me into was a claim shanty.
I thought the boat was going to be a nice yacht, since it was owned by the prestigious
Dr. Banks
. It wasn’t. The craft tied to the bit was so small it looked like it might sink before I even got it outside. It rocked in the blustery wind that seeped through cracks in the boathouse, icy water splashing into the already growing puddle on its bottom.
“It’s a dingy, Cyrus.” The old woman laughed before handing over the key. “I never told you otherwise. You’ll need to use the ores. I tried telling you outside the house that it has no gas.”
My stomach tightened as a strong gust slammed against the flimsy, wooden shack. Blueberry oatmeal laid heavy in my stomach, threatening to come back up. My luck always ran out when I needed it the most.
Should I wait until tomorrow?
I’m going to drown.
Don’t be a coward.
Too many thoughts boiled in my brain. Waiting a single day could prevent me from going entirely. How many times had my journey picked up only to come to a standstill? Tomorrow I could be kidnapped again and sold as meat.
I was getting into that boat.
“Why are you giving me the keys when I can’t even use the motor?” I asked. Hanging on the wall was a plastic bucket. I used it to scoop water out of the bottom of the boat.
“These aren’t for that piece of junk. This is for my sailboat on the island. Her name is ‘Queen Banks,’” Dr. Banks said. “Once you get to the island, getting off it will be easier with her.”
A few buckets later, the water level in the boat decreased by a few inches. Outside, the storm seemed to have calmed. The wind wasn’t as loud. Dr. Banks gave me a lifejacket, which I would’ve declined since it was so unfashionable, but who was I to get trendy in a crisis? I still used the pink backpack from Patty’s. Practicality came first.
“Take this and tie yourself down.” Dr. Banks tossed me a yellow nylon rope after I settled onto the metal seat of the dingy.
She went to the front of the boathouse and cranked a pulley, which slid the wooden door sideways. The old woman untied the dingy and kicked it away from the dock surrounding it. She was surprisingly strong.
“Good luck!” Dr. Banks waved from inside the shadows of the boathouse as the current outside took me away.
* * *
My eyes stung from endless splashes of saltwater. My bones and muscles were frozen. I gave up on rowing after five minutes.
But there was an obvious break in the deep gray clouds above me. The storm quickly moved away. In the distance was the island. It was the last place I could search for Blaze. If she wasn’t there… I stopped thinking. I wasn’t in control anymore.
Chapter 23
When I was 13, my grandparents took my sister and me to Oregon to visit my great aunt. My grandfather warned me about the undertow the coastal waters were known for, but being young and defiant I did what I wanted. As soon as they weren’t looking, I snuck off to give the water a try. It was a particularly hot summer, and no one was going to stop me from going in. I dove under and couldn’t get back up. Wasn’t strong enough. If it wasn’t for my grandpa coming to save me, I would’ve died.
That was the first out of three times I almost drowned. The second was in Monroe in a slimy swimming pool. A rotting corpse held me under with the intent of having an underwater buffet. I almost got out on my own, but I would’ve been drowned if Blaze hadn’t grabbed me.
The third time was when I decided to let a storm navigate my boat.
My throat felt as dry and scratchy as it did when I woke up. How much saltwater had I swallowed? I turned onto my stomach and vomited diluted oatmeal and water.
An icy cold shock of liquid crashed over me, pushing me farther onto a gravel shore. I opened my eyes, but shut them once the white, cloudy sky blinded me.
After one more cough I got to my feet, stumbled, then stood straight. I looked down and shielded my eyes with my hand then opened them again. The skeleton of a crab, now covered in vomit, greeted me. I focused on it while regaining my balance and thoughts.
Am I here? Did I make it?
I squinted as I faced the water, trying to figure out where I was. Sure enough, across the now relatively calm Puget Sound, sat a large body of land. It had to be Samish.
Sticking out amid the gray rocks and driftwood was my pink backpack, about fifteen yards away. My rifle was nowhere in sight. Gone, most likely, resting at the bottom of the sound.
I had to walk slow, picking each step carefully, in order to make it there without passing out. My hands shook as I unzipped the pack a few inches to pour the water out.
Dragon fruit flavored water quenched the dryness in my throat. I drank half in one long gulp, but set it down. My water supply was limited. Drinking it too fast and vomiting wasn’t part of the agenda.
The shore was narrow, much like the one I’d just left in Samish, but this one didn’t recede into a steep cliff. Instead it went straight into a dense forest of bushes and evergreen trees. A pathway I missed at first glance broke up the forest edge. It was too wide to have been created by animals.
I remembered the crazies Dr. Banks warned me about. Every part of me hoped she was wrong about them, because I was unarmed. I had a knife, but that didn’t count. It wasn’t going to do me any good if I was fighting a pack of them.
Then again, I
did
manage to get out of the cannibal situation. That was pretty damn grim, but the knife and my clever thinking made all the difference. I could do it again.
With a newfound determination, I searched the immediate area of the beach for the dingy or my gun, but found nothing. I didn’t let it get to me as I headed toward the path.
My boots squelched as the ground turned from sand and rocks to viscous mud. There was barely any snow. That was Washington for you: inches one day, slush the next. The storm blew it away or the rain melted it. Other than the noise of my footsteps and wet gear, the quiet of the forest was unsettling. The pine trees were so numerous they could’ve been cutting off sounds of trouble elsewhere. But as I limped along the path, I swore I heard the soft echo of a gunshot.
Snap.
I stopped when a twig broke somewhere nearby. It could’ve been an animal, but I wasn’t going to risk my cold, skinny ass on it. If I hadn’t glorified the power of my knife and let my ego boost, I would’ve been scared out of my mind. Yet, this time, fear wasn’t a factor.
Whatever it was, I’d find it and kill it.
That telltale groan gave him away. Directly to my right, but I wasn’t sure how close. I crouched down on my good leg and waited for the attack, gripping my knife for all it was worth. The undead knew I was there, judging by the eager grunt that drew closer.
Tiny beads of water flew from the branches of the pine tree when my zombie friend emerged. His momentum sprayed me with water and sharp green needles. He was about my height and build, but I wasn’t expecting him to come hurdling towards me.
I hadn’t had to fight an undead for a few days. Between being rusty and recovering from my boating incident, I couldn’t stop him from knocking me to the ground. Mud squished under the collar of my shirt and into my hair. The corpse snapped as I held him at bay, his decayed hands grasping at me.
With a burst of strength I pushed him back, placing my free hand flat against the middle of his chest. I rammed my knife into his head. I’d been aiming for his temple, in hopes of destroying his brain. No such luck. It went in at an angle, starting at the top of his cheekbone. It sliced through his mouth and emerged on the other side, through the bottom of his jaw.
The zombie’s mouth parted. A trickle of bile splattered my face. I tried to block his swings, but he managed to get a fistful of my hair. He held on with an iron grip, intent on ripping my scalp off for easier access to brains.
I spewed profanities as I strained to push him off. His body hit the ground beside me with a loud thud. Unfazed, he wiggled in the mud for a moment before rolling onto his stomach and coming after me again.