Shaun Harbinger - Survival - Revenge of the Living Dead

“Sounds like a plan,” Sam said.

I couldn’t think of any other way we were going to get to the broken-down Land Rover so I nodded. “Sure, let’s do it.”

Lucy sighed. “Yeah, whatever.”

“You can stay with the boats if you like, Lucy,” Tanya said. “There’s no need for all four of us to go.”

“You can both stay,” Sam suggested. “Tanya and I will handle this.”

“No way,” I said. “I’m coming. I’m the one who answered the call.” I knew this mission was going to be dangerous but I felt that if I didn’t go to the Land Rover personally, as I’d promised Sergeant Locke I would, I’d be letting him and his team down.

“Okay, man,” Sam said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “You can come too.”

“I’ll wait with the boats,” Lucy offered.

“Great,” Sam said. “Let’s head north and find the harbour.”

Five minutes later, I was sitting on the Zodiac with Sam and Tanya. Sam was in the stern, using the outboard motor’s tiller to steer us towards a small harbour in the distance. Tanya was kneeling in the bow, scanning the shoreline through a pair of binoculars.

Sitting on the floor by Sam’s feet was a small box known as a Magpie. Military drones patrolled the coast and they’d take out any vehicle or personnel they detected. The Magpie emitted a signal which told the drones we were friendly.

As we sped across the water, cold salty spray flew into my face. I turned my head so I was looking behind us and I saw the Big Easy and Lucky Escape sitting out in deeper water. Lucy stood leaning on the Big Easy ’s railings, watching the Zodiac cut through the sea towards land. From this distance, I couldn’t see her face but I was sure her gaze was expressionless.

Sam saw me looking back the way we’d come and shouted so I could hear him above the splashing water and the growl of the motor. “Don’t worry about her, man, she’ll be fine.”

“It isn’t that,” I told him. “It’s just that she was really down on us helping those soldiers. That isn’t like her at all.”

He shrugged. “She’s been through a lot, man. We all have. She’s allowed to feel down whenever she wants.”

I nodded. “Yeah, of course.” I didn’t expect Lucy to be happy all the time—given the circumstances we found ourselves in, it was a miracle we found any moments of happiness at all—but I was worried that she was isolating herself from the reality of our situation. Whenever going ashore was mentioned, whether for a food run or to help someone like the soldiers who had called us on the radio, she became cold.

I didn’t know if it was because each time we went ashore we might never return or if she was trying to forget what was happening on the mainland and focus her thoughts only on the relatively comfortable and safe world of the boat.

If that was the case, I really couldn’t blame her; we all wanted to feel safe and the boat was the perfect haven from the zombie-infested mainland. But I found it impossible to remain in the bubble of protection afforded by the Big Easy when I knew someone needed help. Maybe that was where Lucy and I differed; she could ignore a cry for help where I could not.

“There’s no movement on the shore,” Tanya said, still peering through the binoculars. “And we’ll get a choice of vehicle; I can see plenty of cars parked near the harbour. No boats, though. They were probably used to get everyone from the village to safety.”

“Things are looking good so far,” Sam said, ever the optimist. He throttled down as we got closer to the harbour and guided the Zodiac to the wooden jetty.

Tanya grabbed the mooring rope and jumped onto the jetty before securing the Zodiac to a cleat. I picked up the duffel bag of weapons from between my feet and tossed it to her. Then, followed closely by Sam, I climbed out of the boat and onto the wooden planks of the jetty.

Opening the bag, Tanya selected a Walther PPK handgun and an M16 rifle, which she slung over her shoulder. Sam and I did the same. The weapons were courtesy of the government when they’d recruited us to deliver vials of vaccine to a number of army bases and had come in handy on a number of occasions. The only problem was, we were running low on ammo.

In consideration of this fact, we’d also brought three baseball bats with us. In close quarters, they were just as useful as a gun. Actually, they were our weapon of choice because they didn’t make any noise. A gunshot would attract zombies from miles around.

Brandishing a bat each, we left the empty duffel bag on the jetty and walked slowly and carefully to the shore. Tanya hadn’t seen any obvious movement through the binoculars but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be hiding in one of the buildings nearby or that there wasn’t a horde of zombies around here, standing dormant until they heard a sound.

“This place is creepy,” I whispered. “It’s like a ghost town.”

The road from the harbour climbed the cliff and was bordered by a number of houses but all of them seemed empty. A small car park near where we stood was full of cars. This was probably the place where the residents parked their vehicles since there wasn’t any space on the narrow road outside the houses.

“They definitely didn’t drive out of here,” Tanya said. “Maybe they all sailed away.”

“Or the army took them,” I said. Since the apocalypse had begun, the army seemed hellbent on rounding up all the survivors and placing them in military camps. They even used a government-run radio station, Survivor Radio, which urged everyone to go to their nearest camp.

My dad and brother were in one of those camps but I had no desire to join them. The last place I wanted to be was trapped behind walls and fences, reliant on the military to protect me from the nasties.

At least out here, I could choose my own destiny and even help others when the opportunity arose. It was a far cry from my former life as a nerdy gamer working a dead-end job and living off fast food.

We reached the cars and Sam pointed at a silver Nissan X-trail. He went over to it and tried the driver’s door. It opened. Sam leaned inside and gave us a thumbs up. “The keys are inside.”

“I guess the owners knew they weren’t coming back,” Tanya said, moving around to the passenger side.

I got in behind Sam and placed my weapons beside me on the back seat.

He started the engine and inspected the gauges on the dashboard. “Half a tank of petrol. More than enough for our needs.” He put the vehicle into reverse and backed out of the parking space, spinning the steering wheel so we pointed in the direction of the road.

Tanya took a map out of her pocket and opened it. She pointed at it and said to Sam, “We’re here.” She traced her finger along the paper and stopped at an area she’d circled with a red pen. “We need to get to here.”

“No problem.” Sam put the X-Trail into gear and drove steadily to the car park’s exit. Then he turned onto the road that wound past the houses and up to the top of the cliffs.

As we rolled past the houses, I watched their windows for signs of life. Or maybe ‘signs of movement’ would be a better term since life wasn’t required for something to be moving in those buildings now that the apocalypse was here.

After seeing nothing behind the windows, I sat back in my seat and relaxed a little. The village appeared to be completely deserted.

“How long until we get to the Land Rover?” I asked.

“A couple of minutes,” Tanya said. “It isn’t far.”

I felt a mounting sense of anticipation and fear. We knew the Land Rover had been attacked by zombies. Those same zombies would still be hanging around. And more would be arriving, attracted by the sound of gunfire.