End of the Line (Book 2): Stuck in the Middle (11 page)

“Against the zombies,” Mike explained. “We aren’t here for trouble. We saw you last December. We couldn’t back here until today.”

“Are you from the government?”

“No, I don’t think there’s a government anymore.”

“What about hunters? Are you hunters?”

“No—I mean we hunt them if we come across them—“

The window closed. We walked closer to the entrance. A moment later the door opened. The man from the window stood in front. He looked terrible. He was gaunt and his clothes were shabby. He wore many layers of different kinds of clothing but no coat. His skin was brown and he looked Hispanic but had no accent.

“You’re the ones from the boat?” he said. “The big yacht?”

“That was us. How many you got here.”

“There were 16 of us original
ly,” he explained. “Now there are only four.”

“You lost 12 in only three months?” I asked, shocked.

“No, we’ve been here since it started. I thought it would be good place to get away from the dying. I guess not.”

“And you’ve never left Orient? Not in the last year and a half.”

“Nope. We brought food, collected rainwater. When there was still electricity and gas we ate the food in the concession stand. We saved all the non-perishables and stored them. Sucks to live on chips and candy. We fished when we could. We figured it would be over in a few weeks and we could go home but then the TV and internet went out. The radio is static except for the ham guy. Are you Mike?” He said, looking at me.

Mike looked
taken back that the guy knew his name. “I’m Mike.”

The guy’s eyes lit up. He looked at Grace. “Are you Tanya, I thought you were black.”

“God no,” she said. Probably one of the few times I heard horror in her voice.

“I’m Jim,” I said before Felix could respond to Grace. “This is Annemarie, Dave and Grace.”

“I was the one who saw you on the beach,” Annemarie said. She looked relieved. I guess she was glad to get off the boat and to find them.

“Good to meet you. You’re Jimmy, aren’t you? The one who found your dad?”

“You really like Bob’s show.” I said.

“Sure. Bob’s show is the highlight of our week, come on in.”

We followed the man into the lighthouse to an almost icy bottom floor.

“We got a fireplace upstairs where we stay most of the time. I’m Felix by the way,” he said, putting his dirty hand out. I hesitated but then shook it.

We went up a spiral staircase.

“This lighthouse burnt down. This is a replica they used as a museum piece. Everything is working the way it would in 1802, except for the water pump, so we’ve been using rainwater. Fireplace works and there’s furniture. Hate sleeping on antiques but what are you gonna do?”

I don’t respond, neither did anyone else. We got up the second floor where it was warmer and found a large room with a fireplace in the center. Two large couches and two air mattresses surrounded a roaring fire. Three people were scattered about the room, two men, one white, one Asian sat on a couch while a black woman with short cropped hair sat on the other. There were all dressed similar to Felix and were all gaunt looking, even the white guy who was heavy. They looked up when we came in.

“Randy, Justin, Gwen, we got some famous people here from the Bob Bam show.”

I wondered if Felix was bonkers after being holed up here for so long; he wouldn’t be the only one. I didn’t see any guns, just some baseball bats. The three of them got off the couch and walked to us.

“Hi ya,” the Asian guy said.
He looked to be in his early thirties. “I’m Randy. Which one of you is Mike?”

Mike raised his hand but looked embarrassed.

“It’s great to put the face to the voice,” said the woman I assumed was Gwen. She had a low quiet voice. “Tanya didn’t come?”

“No,” he said. “This is Jim, Dave, Annemarie and Grace.”

“We’ve been kind of wondering where you were,” the other white guy that I assume was Justin said. He looked like he was in his late forties. “I don’t know where everyone went after them bombs dropped. No one came out here except for some hunters recruiting.”

“Hunters?”

“Yeah, last fall two men came when there were eight of us. They were looking for people to help them hunt.”

“They asked me,” Randy sai
d. “I had been in a Merchant Marine—but I didn’t want to leave the others. They were looking for strong people mostly but we had just gotten over a bout of dysentery and none of us looked healthy.”

“And that’s all we’ve seen,” Felix continued. “Until Gwen and I saw your boat. Hard to imagine all of the island deserted.”

“I think some went to Montauk or left the island entirely.”

“Could you leave?” Felix asked.

“The Throgs Neck Bridge was intact. I don’t if it still is. We managed to make it to Albany to drop off a friend going west. That was before the bombs.” I thought about Ashley and wondered if she ever made it. I hoped she did, but I would never find out.

“Suppose it’s not there anymore,” Felix said, looking dejected.

“I don’t know.”

“We thought about leaving and going north,” Gwen said. “But decided it would be madness. I can’t imagine how many other people tried the same thing.”

“The government walled off most of Manhattan and parts of Queens and Brooklyn. I can’t tell you if you made the right decision.” I wasn’t sure myself. I often wondered if we should have left the island when we had a chance. “I think you can get to Connecticut by boat.”

             
“We’re running low on supplies,” Gwen explained. “We have a car on the beach with half a tank to get us off Orient but not sure if there’s anywhere else better. How bad is it out there?”

             
“Most of the bodies haven’t been buried or burned,” And I hated thinking of the death toll, the sheer amount of dead people made my stomach clench. I found it too overwhelming to think about. “How come you didn’t burn the people at the pavilion?”

             
No one said anything, for at least ten seconds before Gwen spoke up.

             
“We didn’t have anything to burn them with,” she explained. “And we didn’t want a fire. We thought about burying them but we didn’t like straying far from the lighthouse. I know it sounds cold, but did you burn and bury every body you found?”

             
She was right. Ernie burned the zombies at Costking, but on the road, we left the bodies where they lay, even Ashley’s daughter.

             
“We need to start that,” Mike said. “Nature’s going to take some, but we need to clear out as much dead as we can.”

             
“Here’s a good a place to start,” I said and instantly regretted it.

              We all carried a first aid kit, so we had a lot of gloves. I really didn’t want to do this and wished I hadn’t volunteered.

             
Park maintenance had left equipment around and there were plenty of shovels and wheelbarrows.

             
Grace didn’t help dig the ditch. I didn’t want to argue, so I told the others she would be look out even though we haven’t seen a single zombie since we got here. Mike looked pissed, but didn’t say anything. He liked her too much. They both shared this bizarre obsession with guns I didn’t get. Annemarie rolled her eyes. She thought Grace was lazy. She never did dishes, or laundry. She only sailed, shot, and gave people lessons. At least she didn’t get paid in drugs anymore.

             
This was a good exercise to see if we could trust Felix and his group. We weren’t sure who was leader, Felix or Gwen or maybe with four people there was no leader. While digging, Felix and Gwen took turns explaining their story. Randy and Justin didn’t want to share.

             
“I lived in a house in Centereach,” Gwen explained. “My first house. I had a zillion years to pay the mortgage, but it was mine. No more roommates. When the flu started my work load dropped. I didn’t put two and two together that dying people don’t need real estate lawyers. I didn’t worry about the flu but about my mortgage.” She giggled slightly but her brown eyes looked sad. “Turns out I could stay in the house mortgage free. When my sister died, I finally realized something was wrong. How could a healthy 21 year old runner die of the flu? When they passed the flu laws, I told my job I’d work from home. Half of the staff was out and they told me a few were dead.

“At first I stayed in my house. I had some food, plenty of electricity, water and the internet. I talked to friends online, all of which said they had friends and family die. My friend Brianna posted ‘I have the flu. I know I’m going to
die. God has brought the rapture. Save your souls before it’s too late.’ She never posted again.” Gwen paused. I remembered using Facebook to look for Cameron and hearing horror stories.

“When everything stopped working and the food ran out, I split. I didn’t even know where to go. I loved Orient beach and I wasn’t thinking straight. So here I am.”

I thought she would go on but she didn’t.

“I don’t want to talk about my family,” Felix said. He paused for a long time. He pulled up two shovelfuls of sand
before continuing. “Only they’re all dead. I wanted some place without a lot of people and ended up here, but a good fifty people showed up, some with food, some without and some infected with the flu. Others got infected until were there were 16 of us left, but a bunch of people who died became zombies and killed two people. We killed the zombies and decided to stay in the lighthouse until the government told them it was okay to go home. That never happened. We had problems, poor sanitation, dysentery, not the best selection of foods. None of us had survival skills except maybe Justin.”

“Four years
as a Merchant Marines 15 years ago doesn’t count,” he said as he dug sand. Mike, Randy, Annemarie and Dave carried two bodies over and dumped them next to the hole. The bodies had decayed so much they were gooey. I wondered if we should have left them as is. But at least I was getting to know the lighthouse people.

             
They didn’t have a Costking which mean no almost unlimited food or someone like Abe who knew how to survive.

             
“No one else had skills,” Felix continued. “I was a school custodian. Boy I can tell you how much food those kids wasted-- Afterwards, four people committed suicide, two near the beginning and two recently. Two people just died. I didn’t know why. They went to sleep and never woke. Wasn’t there a news special or something on that? People who will themselves to die? Three froze to death the winter before and one person vanished in the summer. We found the boat on the other side of the beach but the car with gas hadn’t been touched. And what remains is us. Lonely people on a lovely beach.”

             
We managed to bury ten bodies in a shallow grave that we covered with rocks. We got ID’s off of six.

             
I knew we couldn’t leave these people here, not in this state without food, even if they could be psycho killers. Spring wasn’t far. A few more warm days like this we could settle at Harbor.

Chapter 7             

              Four days later, a blizzard hit. It started snowing lightly in the afternoon and everyone loved watching the fluffy flakes, but by late afternoon, the temperature dropped and bigger flakes began falling. The big picture window turned white.

             
Around dinner time a howling wind rattled the boat and caused it to violently move back and forth. Hannah had to drug Henry because he couldn’t stop barfing. Tanya ordered Dave who was on watch inside.

The wind and snow were relentless. I knew because it was my turn to shovel the deck. We turned the flood lights on, but it just illuminated white.

Felix joined me. Despite the miserable weather, he was upbeat.

“It’s so cold, I’m going to flick my bic in my pocket.”

He went on with a few more corny jokes, but it didn’t lighten my mood. I had a hat and a hood and a scarf around my month but still I couldn’t keep the icy snow or the biting wind off my face.

“Come on, Jim, you’re gay. Don’t you have some kind of flaming super power?”
             

             
Yesterday I told the new people I was gay and if they had a bad opinion they should keep it to themselves. Actually Tanya told them if anyone didn’t like it they could leave. Justin, Felix and Randy said they didn’t have a problem, but they looked at Gwen who remained silent. I hoped she wasn’t some kind of kooky Jesus freak because I already liked her. I didn’t bug her about it but her silence spoke volumes. I guess it wouldn’t be a problem as long as she kept it to herself.

             
“Our only super powers are floral arrangements,” Felix was a jokester, good hearted but he didn’t care who he offended. He was born in the US to Puerto Rican parents who died before the flu. He made more ‘Rican jokes than Don Rickles.

             
Felix laughed. Even after only a few days on the boat and regular meals not made of junk food, the lighthouse people began losing their gaunt look.

Gwen ended up rooming with Grace, and the three men roomed with Dave. Nobody asked why Keith had the storage room to himself but I knew they wondered.
If they asked, I didn’t know what the answer would be. Getting the bathroom for five minutes alone was a miracle. Dena started fighting again with everyone because there was no place she could hide.

             
The one good thing about shoveling a boat was you threw the snow overboard but the wind was so strong that I felt unsteady on my feet. I didn’t want to fall in like Annemarie. Not only was the howling wind penetrating to the bone, but the rocking and wind made it hard to maneuver around the deck. The worst part was shoveling near the sails because of the thinner paths and lack of places to hold on. Even the zombies stayed away. Not a single floater to be heard.

             
After 15 minutes, I looked over the deck decided it was good enough, and because I couldn’t feel my face figured it was time to go inside. I told this to Felix who wholeheartedly agreed.

             
“Maybe in a few days I can feel my balls again.”

             
I knew the feeling. Every part of my body was frozen. Shame I couldn’t warm up in my bedroom with Eric.

             
I returned to the salon, breathed a sigh of relief against the warmer air. Even Felix’s cheeks were red against his brown skin. I saw several sleeping bags lined up on the floor. This meant the crew quarters were too cold and people decided to stay up here. It was much colder in the crew quarters than in the suites, probably not by accident.

             
I think it took me ten minutes to take off all my winter implements. Even with all I wore, I felt wetness from the snow on my pants and shirt. I knew I should probably go to my room and change but I had to sit and warm up for a few minutes.

             
“It’s hell out there.” Tanya who sat at the table nodded.

             
Coffee had already been made. Besides a round on the table, two steaming mugs had been left for Felix and me. I grabbed one, added powdered creamer and sipped, allowing the warm liquid to bring up my body temperature. I didn’t care about the taste which was nasty. I wondered if I would ever drink good coffee again. Cam used to call me a coffee snob because I loved locally roasted fairly traded coffee.

             
Keith, Tanya, Gwen, Justin and Randy were at the table. Dave was on the floor playing tug of war with Olive. I counted four sleeping bags and knew Grace was the only one hadn’t planned to come up. Tanya bought Idiot so there was some hissing and howling, although both of them knew each other. I figured I could keep Idiot in my room.

             
“Should I rearrange things?” I asked.

             
“Grace is the only one still downstairs. We’re fine with floor space.” Tanya said and took a sip of coffee. She took it black. I needed the fake creamer or condensed milk, though I would kill for real milk. I wondered what the government camp did with their animals. Did they take them?

             
I got the map of Harbor out and figured this would be a good time to talk to Tanya about creating a perimeter fence.

             
“Don’t want to talk about the farm tonight,” she said and folded over the map. “We got to keep an eye on that storm.”

             
“This is a perfect time to talk about it.”

             
“I’m on watch.”

             
“Who’s going to come? People? Zombies? You can’t see a damn thing out there,” I looked out the window and only saw whiteness. The wind rattled at the doors to prove my point. The ship rocked back and forth and I had to hold the table to settle myself.

             
“I don’t know anything about perimeter fences. I kill zombies. Whatever you say is right.”

             
I’d been peeved at Tanya for a while about this. Every time I wanted to talk about the farm, she told me whatever I wanted was fine. She often added that she trusted me to make me feel extra guilty.

             
“Okay,” I said. Then I grabbed another map. I unfolded it and put it in front of Tanya. It was a street map of Montauk. “Let’s talk about other locations to look for Aisha.”

             
Tanya looked at me. She was mad but couldn’t say anything. She’d never say no about looking for Aisha. Last fall, we had spent a few days near Montauk, searching campgrounds for any sign of the government camp and turned up empty. On a supply run, I located a detailed map of Montauk. I could cross off the places we’ve been and circle places the camp might be.

             
I could do all this on my own but I wanted Tanya to get involved with decision making. Being the leader meant more than dealing with zombie attacks. It meant overlooking everything, farms, her people’s welfare, and building up society.

             
Tanya looked over the map, at the places Xed off. She pressed her finger down in one place, “here.”

             
I looked at where she pointed. Her finger touched a green area at the edge of the Island.

             
“The airport?”

             
“It’s a secure place, don’t you think?”

             
“Not a lot of food.”

             
“Jim, there’s canned food everywhere.”

I didn’t like that Tanya took five seconds to make the decision, but she was right. The airport might be a secure location.

              “Okay.”

             
“We’re done, fold up your maps.”

             
I rolled my eyes, but did what I was told.

             
“Jim, stop making things so complicated. Let’s make some cocoa and play monopoly or something.”

             
I nearly laughed. I was usually the one who suggested playing games or making cocoa.

             
“Sounds good,” said Keith who had silent through the whole conversation.

             
“Yes,” Gwen said, brightly. “I plan to own boardwalk and park place before the night is over.”

             
We were interrupted when Hannah came into the room. She looked annoyed and I didn’t like that she made a beeline for me.

             
“Jim, I don’t think Grace should sleep in the crew quarters tonight. She won’t come up. Maybe you can convince her otherwise.”

             
While Grace had significantly improved the last few months, she could still be a major pain in the butt. When it came to getting her to do something she didn’t want to do, everyone came to me.

             
“I’ll handle it, Jim,” Tanya said. “I’ll get her ass up here, real fast.”

             
“No, I’ll do it.” I winked. “It’s one of my duties.”

             
I walked the stairs to the crew quarters. Icy air hit me. I knew Tanya and Keith had slept upstairs a few times and occasionally I’ve been finding Dave and Olive asleep on the couch but I didn’t realize how cold it had gotten.

             
I went to her room and knocked.

             
“Go away, James,” I heard through the door. Her voice sounded bored and annoyed.

             
“Can we talk first?”

             
She didn’t say anything but I heard her walk. The door opened a crack. She was wearing her winter coat.

             
“Come upstairs.”

             
“I thought we were going to talk.”

             
“We’re talking. Come upstairs. You can sleep next to Eric.” She actually giggled when I said that. She had a strange giggle that would come out at inappropriate times. “We’re making smores.” I lied because we didn’t have marshmallows. “Grace, I don’t want to find an icicle tomorrow.”

             
“I’m not cold.”

             
“It’s 30 degrees in here. The kerosene heaters won’t be enough and we need them for upstairs. Tanya’s going to drag you upstairs kicking and screaming if you don’t come up.”             

             
“I’m not afraid of her.”

             
“You should be. She doesn’t want drama and you’re giving it to her. Come on, Grace, be a team player for once.”

             
“I’m not creating drama, I don’t like people and I got enough blankets to stay warm.”

             
“We’re not all awful.”             

             
She didn’t respond. I tried to think of some way to accommodate her. But it required someone giving up their bed and I didn’t think anyone would.

             
“Let me stay down here and freeze to death, James, it’s my choice.”

             
“You rather die than deal with the peasants, is that it?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“The peasants don’t care. At least come upstairs and warm up.”

             
“Fine,” she said. I think that was her compromise or maybe she didn’t want to admit being cold.

             
We went up to the salon. I closed the door to the crew quarters sealing in the tomb. The warm of the salon greeted me and I was glad to feel it. I was going to keep Grace upstairs, no matter what she said.

             
When I got to the salon Eric was at the table. He took one look at Grace, then me and walked out without a word and headed to our room in the front.

             
“Isn’t it good I came up?” Grace said, in her amused voice.

             
“Shut up, Grace—“ She gave me a pouty look but wasn’t mad. I left the salon and moved to the bedroom where I found Eric staring out the window even though all you could see was flakes. I knew everyone could hear but I didn’t care.

             
“Eric?”

             
He didn’t respond. I sat on the bed next to him. “You’re going to have to deal with all this sooner or later. Grace didn’t kill your mother.”

             
“She shot her in the head while she was still alive,” he said his voice low.

             
“It’s what Maddie wanted.”

             
“How do you know?”

             
“Tanya told me. Maddie wanted you to leave. She knew if you stayed, you were going to get killed.”

             
Eric grow mad. Before Maddie died, he never got angry. “You know nothing about her. You think because you knew her for a year, she was like your momma?”

             
That hurt me. I had been close to Maddie and loved her. I swallowed that hurt. “Eric, you knew her. Maddie wanted you to live.” I touched his shoulder but he pulled away.