Shaun Harbinger: Storm

Something burst from the sea in a spray of water. I turned in time to see the wild-eyed survivor with the meat cleaver running through the shallows towards me.

I barely had time to think. Reflexively, I grabbed the bat from the damp sand and struggled to my feet. He reached me in seconds, raising the cleaver high above his head as he prepared to deal me the death blow.

I didn’t want to die. Not here on this wet, fog-enshrouded beach.

I swung the bat.

It connected with his stomach, doubling him over. He let go of the cleaver but its forward momentum carried it in a deadly arc towards my head.

I ducked and it whistled past me in the air before landing with a dull thud in the sand.

The survivor was on his knees, struggling to his feet.

I couldn’t let that happen. He had followed me all the way from the marina with murderous intent. As long as he lived, I would be hunted.

I swung the baseball bat down onto the back of his neck. The cracking sound it made as it connected with his spine sickened me. This wasn’t a zombie. This was a human being. A survivor.

Not anymore.

He lay in the sand. Silent. Still.

At least he was face down. I couldn’t bear to see his eyes staring up at me.

I walked away from the body quickly, leaving his cleaver half buried in the sand. Hopefully, the tide would come in soon and wash everything away.

As I looked for caves in the cliff wall, the sound of vehicles and voices reached me through the fog. They sounded far off but I quickened my search.

When I found a narrow crack that was barely wide enough to crawl into, I peered inside. It ran deep enough into the cliffs that it was pitch black in there. I sniffed the air. Sand, salt and seaweed. No sickly-sweet stench of death.

I crawled inside, feeling my way along the rough rock walls. The cave was small and dark but at least it was hidden from the beach. And I was sure it was far enough from the water’s edge to escape the high tide. The sand in here was dry.

I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. This was a bad day. My simple plan to come ashore and find a rowboat had quickly unravelled and now I had no idea where Lucy was or how I was going to get back to The Big Easy . Why had Lucy left the marina? Why had she abandoned me? There had to be a good reason. She wouldn’t have left me just because she was mad at me for going ashore. Would she?

Of course she wouldn’t. Lucy knew how dangerous it was on foot, how difficult to survive without the sea between us and the nasties. She would never leave me alone here.

At the moment, her reason didn’t matter. Knowing why she left the marina wasn’t going to help me get a boat and sail out to find her. I needed to focus on the here and now while I still had a here and now to focus on.

The noises of men and vehicles were louder. Voices drifted on the breeze along with the clanking of heavy machinery. It was still far enough away that I didn’t have to worry but what if one of those men decided to take a walk along the beach and found the body lying on the sand? What if that made them wary, compelled them to search the area?

My hiding place suddenly seemed exposed. I was trapped inside this tiny hole in the rocks.

I tried to calm myself down but I couldn’t resist the urge to look outside and check the beach. If I saw people coming this way, I could run.

Crawling outside, I pressed myself against the rocks and squinted against the fog. The sun had burned most of it away and I could see all the way to the marina. What I saw there made my heart sink.

The place was crawling with soldiers and military vehicles. They had a big rumbling excavator belching smoke and gouging trenches in the sand with its steel bucket. Land Rovers and armoured personnel carriers were parked on the beach and around the marina. Soldiers scurried along the jetties carrying sandbags and large pieces of metal. There was even a tank sitting there, its gun barrel pointing across the beach at me like an accusing finger.

I was sure they hadn’t seen me yet but I couldn’t stay here with the army crawling over the area. There was no way I could get a boat from the marina now.

What the hell was I going to do?

Keeping close to the rocks, I headed in the opposite direction along the cliffs. A quick glance over my shoulder now and then told me they hadn’t seen me. They were too busy doing their job, whatever that was.

The beach ahead of me terminated at a large cliff that jutted into the sea. A set of sun-bleached stone steps flanked by grey metal handrails led up to the cliff top. I didn’t want to go up there. The streets of the city were deadly.

But I couldn’t stay here and wait to be discovered by the soldiers who had invaded the beach. Besides, the tide was coming in and I was already wet and cold.

I walked over the steps but hesitated. The fog had disappeared. Any advantage it might have given me was gone. It was a sunny morning, which meant the zombies would be roaming the streets. I hadn’t wanted this. Why hadn’t I listened to Lucy and stayed aboard The Big Easy ?

Wondering how many more dumb decisions I was going to make and if any of them were going to cost me my life, I put my boot on the first step and wrapped my fingers around the cold metal handrail.

As slow as a man walking to the gas chamber, I went up to the city.

By the time I got to the top of the steps, the sky had cleared and the sun was beating down, making steam rise from my wet clothes. I cast a nervous glance around. An overgrown grassy area in front of me led to a coastal road that wound around the cliff tops. Across the road, a row of three-storey houses, some of which had been made into inns, looked empty.

I crawled into the grass, my head turning left and right as I tried to take in all of my surroundings. The noises from the soldiers at the marina were faint now. I could hear far away shambling sounds, which I was sure must be zombies coming out of hiding but I couldn’t tell how many there were or their location.

I felt exposed out here in the grass, vulnerable. Across the road, a number of cars were parked outside the houses. If I could get a vehicle, I would feel safer. I could leave the city, drive somewhere remote and decide what to do next. I couldn’t make any decisions while I was in danger of being killed by a herd of nasties or thrown into a Survivors Camp by the army. I couldn’t think of anything except my immediate self-preservation.

I ran across the road, keeping low, and rested between two parked cars. Logic told me that if the cars were parked here outside their owners’ homes, the car keys were somewhere in the houses.

Along with the owners. Alive or dead. Either way, they were a danger to me.

The house closest to me had a wooden porch painted in flaking eggshell blue paint. The sun and salty air had taken their toll on the house’s exterior, eating at the wooden window frames and fading the paint until it looked like a sun-bleached skull covered in flaking pieces of bone.

I broke cover and went up the steps to the porch. It creaked beneath my boots. The front door was made of wood painted in the same pale blue and had two panels of frosted glass running down each side. I put my hand on the rusted metal handle and tried the door.

Locked.

Using the tip of the baseball bat, I broke the pane of glass nearest the handle and reached inside, hoping the key was in the lock. If not, I would have to try another house.

My searching fingers found a bunch of keys hanging from the lock. I felt for the key that was in the door, found it and turned it. The lock clicked and the door opened.

I stepped inside, glad to be off the street. But the stench that hit me made me wonder if I was safer outside.