Shaun Harbinger - Rain

Mike took off his T-shirt and placed it on his seat. Bare-chested, he slipped into the sea and swam ashore. When he climbed out onto the rocks in his jeans and boots, he looked like a model on a shoot for a cologne commercial. Only the gun in his hand looked out of place. “Come on,” he said.

I removed my sweater but left my Slipknot T-shirt on. It was already ruined by sea water anyway and our display of power might be ruined if I was standing there feeling self-conscious. As I was about to jump in, Mike called, “Throw me the rope, man.”

I tossed it over to him and he slung it over his shoulder.

Elena slid gracefully into the water and breast-stroked towards shore. It wasn’t until she climbed out of the water and onto the rocks that I realized she had stripped to her black bra. With her khaki cargo pants, boots and toned physique, she looked like Lara Croft. The axe in her hand enhanced that illusion.

I grabbed the baseball bat, jumped in and came up gasping for air as the cold sea took the breath from me. Using a combination of doggy paddle and breast stroke, I got to the rocks and clambered out of the water. The T-shirt clung to my back like an icy second skin. I stood up and pulled it away from my goose-bumped flesh.

“Careful on the rocks,” Mike said. “They’re slippery.” He climbed up to the lighthouse, Elena close behind. I steeled myself and followed them, the unwieldy bat making the climb difficult.

When I got to the top, I was out of breath and shivering with cold. The little island had been levelled and reinforced with concrete to facilitate the building of the lighthouse. We stood at the base of the building and looked towards the beach.

“There’s a hell of a lot of zombies over there, man.”

I nodded. Although the lighthouse was built on an island, it was no more than a quarter mile from the mainland. And the water separating us and the beach looked shallow. The monsters on the sand could see us and they came to the water’s edge, staring at us with their dead, yellow eyes.

“They won’t go into the sea,” I said. “If the virus compels them to protect themselves from rain, they won’t go walking into salt water.”

“I hope you’re right, man.”

“If I wasn’t, they’d be wading towards us right now. Look at the hunger in their eyes.”

Mike shouted at them, “You fuckers. You want some of this? Come and get it.” He laughed and watched them react to the sound of his voice. More of the things came from distant parts of the beach and gathered at the water’s edge.

“Look at them,” Mike said. “Stupid fuckers. I’m not scared of them.”

“Mike, we should meet with Eric,” I reminded him.

“Yeah. I’m not scared of him, either.” He strode to the metal door of the lighthouse and banged on it with the butt of the gun. “Hey, open up.”

“It’s open,” Eric shouted from inside. He sounded distant, like he was a few floors up, shouting down at us.

Mike looked at us and tried the metal handle on the door, pressing it down. Elena held her axe ready and I had the baseball bat in both hands. I wasn’t sure I could actually hit a person with it; I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out.

The door clicked open and swung outward. We stepped back, ready for whatever waited inside.

My heart pounded and the cold I had felt a few minutes ago was gone. All my attention was focused on the interior of the lighthouse.

The circular room beyond the door was empty. Coats hung on hooks and boots stood beneath them but there was nothing else there. A circular steel staircase led up to the rooms above.

“Eric,” Mike shouted, “where are you? It’s Mike.”

“Up here,” Eric shouted back.

I didn’t like this one bit. Why was he up there waiting for us? Why hadn’t he come down? If he wanted to leave the lighthouse, he had to come down at some point. There was no other door, only the one we had come through.

“Why don’t you come down?” Mike shouted. “Is this any way to treat your guests?”

“You come up.”

“Should we close the door?” I asked Mike.

He shrugged. “Why? There’s nobody else on this shitty piece of rock. Leave it open in case we need to get out of here fast.”

We moved to the base of the steps.

Mike put his boot on the bottom step and I grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. “This doesn’t feel right,” I whispered.

He held the Colt up in front of my face. “Don’t worry, man.” He ascended the steps, gun held in both hands, eyes darting around as if he expected Eric to come jumping out from somewhere up there.

I didn’t share Mike’s gung-ho attitude. I wished I had stayed on The Big Easy with Lucy, but Mike was my friend. As well as having something to prove, I wanted to look out for him. We went back a lot of years and what he had done for me meant a lot. Even so, my stomach was going crazy with butterflies and my mouth felt dry. My heart hammered in my chest and my breathing was fast. The baseball bat felt like lead.

Don’t panic.

There’s just one guy up there.

Mike has a gun.

We’ll be OK.

I followed my friend and Elena took the rear.

We ascended to the first room, a living area with a wood-burning stove, sofa, easy chair and bookshelves. No sign of Eric. Mike stood on the steps waiting for us. He looked eager to find the lighthouse keeper.

“Keep up,” he whispered as he went up to the next level.

I looked down at Elena, wondering if she was as eager to find Eric as Mike seemed to be. Coming here in force had been her idea, after all.

“Move it, Alex,” she urged.

I looked back up. Mike had disappeared around the curve in the steps.

Then I heard a gunshot.

“Mike!” I ran up the steps, all thoughts of self-preservation blown out of my head by the fact that my friend was in trouble.

I reached the room above. The kitchen. Eric stood behind the kitchen counter with a shotgun in his hands.

Mike was flattened against the wall by the steps. The shotgun had blown a hole in the wall inches from his head. The air smelled of gunpowder.

“Get back,” Eric commanded, “or your friend dies.”

I halted on the top step. “You OK, Mike?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Now, we’re all getting out of here,” Eric said. “We’re going back to that boat of yours.”

“What’s the hurry, man? We can talk about this.”

Eric shot a glance out of the window. “There isn’t time to talk. Either you take me back to your boat with you or I shoot you and go back by myself.”

Elena whispered into my ear, “If we rush him, we can take him down.”

I was about to protest, thinking how much ground we had to cover between us and Eric, but she was already counting down.

“3… 2… 1… Go!”

She gave me a push and I went sprinting forward, bat held in front of me in both hands. Eric jerked his head in our direction and surprise crossed his face. He swung the shotgun so the muzzle pointed at us and he fired. The blast sounded like an explosion in the confined space.

Ears ringing, I jumped up onto the kitchen counter and slid across it on my butt, pushing the bat into Eric’s face. He managed to twist away and lifted the shotgun again.

This time I swung the bat at his stomach. It connected and he went down with a groan. The shotgun clattered away across the floor.

I considered delivering another swing but he was down and out, holding his stomach and gasping for breath.

Elena was writhing on the kitchen floor, holding her leg where a gash in her jeans revealed a bloody wound. Mike was holding her, telling her everything was going to be OK. He looked at me with tears in his angry eyes. “I’m going to kill that fucker. He shot Elena.”