Shaun Harbinger: Storm

Sam attacked the other with the rifle butt, sending it reeling away.

Behind me, I heard a scream. I turned in time to see the fourth hybrid land in the boat and scramble for Cheryl. She kicked at it but everything happened so fast, nobody else had time to react. The hybrid lunged forward and sunk its teeth into Cheryl’s neck. Her scream became a garbled choke as the hybrid’s forward motion took them both over the side of the boat into the harbour.

“No! Cheryl!” Johnny cried, reaching for her. She and the hybrid splashed into the water before Johnny could even get a hand on her. He stared over the side of the boat at the place where she had disappeared.

“It’s too late,” Tanya said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She took the oar from him and began rowing while Johnny slumped against the side of the Zodiac, tears running down his cheeks.

More hybrids leapt from the jetty, grabbing for us as they hit the water. Like last time, they didn’t seem to realise when it was time to give up the chase. We were out of reach but they still tried to get us, drowning themselves in the process.

As we rowed farther out, the hybrids stopped, finally understanding they couldn’t get us. They stood on the steps and jetty and stared at us with their hateful yellow eyes.

Sam and Tanya stopped rowing and we drifted in the darkness. The wind was picking up. It bit through my clothes and chilled me. The water became rougher. We bobbed up and down on the waves.

“What now?” Jax asked. “I can’t get the engine started.”

“One thing is for certain,” I said, “We can’t get around the barricade by going across the harbour. We might have to go around it at the other end, across the bay.”

Tanya shook her head. “We’d have to go into those fields. They’re heaving with shamblers.”

“What if we went over the barricade, man?” Sam asked.

“Climb over it?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

I looked at the army barricade. The metal wall sections were at least ten feet high and made of smooth steel. If I couldn’t get over the wall at the radio station without help, there was no way I could climb over a sheer metal barrier. “We can’t get the Zodiac over,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Sam replied. “We can swim to the Lucky Escape once we get on the other side. We can all swim.” He prodded Johnny Drake. “Hey, can you swim, man?”

Johnny, who had been lost in his own thoughts, looked up and nodded.

“It’ll be easy,” Sam said.

In the distance, thunder rumbled. I wondered if it was an omen.

“It’s a half mile swim,” I said, “and the sea’s getting choppy.”

Tanya looked at me. “Have you got a better idea? It looks like there’s a storm coming. If we stay out here with no engine, we’ll get washed up on shore and become hybrid chow.”

Johnny winced and I realised he was thinking about Cheryl.

Tanya seemed oblivious. “That’s not the way I want to go out,” she said. “I’d rather take my chances swimming for the boat.”

“We could wait for the rain,” I said, “and go across those fields when all those shamblers take cover. It’s definitely going to rain soon.”

“Yes, it’s definitely going to rain soon. There’s a storm coming.” As if to emphasize her point, lightning flashed over the headland. A deep rumble of thunder followed. “We aren’t going to be able to row the Zodiac across the bay in a storm. It’s miles to the other side. Do you want to row? If we get over the barricade now, we can be on the Lucky Escape by the time that storm reaches us.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. She was right; there was no way we could row all the way across to the far end of the barricade, especially in a storm.

Lightning flickered across the night sky again and a cold drizzle began to fall. On the jetty, the hybrids stood glaring at us through the rain, oblivious to it.

I heard something in the distance. A low rumble.

“What’s that sound?” I asked.

“It’s thunder,” Tanya said.

“No, listen.”

We all went quiet. The sound of the rain hitting the Zodiac distracted me but if I listened carefully I could hear the distant rumble getting louder.

Worry darkened Sam’s face. “It’s a boat,” he said. “It’s coming down the river.”

Tanya peered across the water to the mouth of the river. “Do you think the army followed us?”

“Probably,” he replied.

Of course the army followed us. We had used their radio broadcast to get our own messages out. We had taken Johnny Drake from them. Did we really think they wouldn’t retaliate? Now we were floating in the middle of the harbour while they bore down on us. They would blow us out of the water without a second thought.

The boat appeared at the mouth of the river. The same size as the Lucky Escape , it was painted dark green and had searchlights mounted on the top of the bridge. Their powerful beams cut through the night in a wide arc, skimming across the waves towards the moored boats and the jetties.

“What are we gonna do, man?” Sam asked. His voice was tight, frightened.

We had nowhere to run. We could easily swim to shore from here but the hybrids would tear us to pieces. If we stayed on the water, we would be killed or captured by the army.

“We’ll have to swim for the shore,” Tanya said. If she was nervous, it didn’t reach her voice.

“The hybrids…” I said

“There’s no other option, Alex. Unless you’d rather be shot.”

I shook my head and grabbed my bat.

“Let’s go,” Tanya said, sliding gracefully into the water and pulling herself towards the shore with a strong breaststroke.

Sam threw down the empty rifle and picked up his tire iron. “See you guys on the Lucky Escape .” He jumped into the harbour and front crawled after Tanya.

What did he mean by that? Was it every man for himself now? We had more chance as a group. We could fight better as a unit. Alone, we would be hunted down and killed.

I looked over at Jax and Johnny.

“Let’s stick together,” Jax said.

I nodded.

We lowered ourselves into the cold water and swam slowly for the shore. I was in no hurry to get killed. Ahead, Tanya and Sam climbed out of the water, ran up the sandy incline to the parking area, and sprinted between the buildings.

“They made it,” Jax said.

Behind us, the rumble of the army boat seemed to fill the air. The light swung across the harbour buildings and over the jetty, illuminating the hybrids.

Then I heard the death rattle of a machine gun and our Zodiac was torn to shreds.

There was no doubt about the army’s plans.

They wanted to kill us.

The search light found us and the blinding beam cast a circle of light around Jax, Johnny, and me.

Bullets tore into the water next to my face.

We weren’t going to make it out of the harbour alive.

I heard one of the soldiers on the boat shout, “Get us closer!” and I knew he was taking aim again. He wouldn’t miss a second time.

I glanced back over my shoulder but the light was too bright to make out anything more than the looming bulk of the boat. In an effort to get closer to us, the pilot steered the craft closer to the jetty.

He obviously had no experience of hybrids and did not know how they behaved when their prey was nearby.

They leapt from the jetty onto the boat. I heard someone shout, “What the fuck? No!” The last word became a scream then died instantly.

The machine gun fired again but the gunner had turned to aim it at the attacking hybrids.

More screams came from the boat. The gun went silent. Smoke and the smell of cordite drifted over the water.