Resurrection: A Zombie Novel (19 page)

Annie and her companions took what appeared to be the least-traveled roads and weaved their bikes around the old world’s detritus: shattered glass, abandoned cars, leaves, tree branches, and human skeletons with their bones picked thoroughly clean.

They didn’t enter Olympia. They bypassed it entirely. It was too dangerous.

But her sister Jenny was in there. And Jenny might be immune. She and Annie were full sisters. At least one of their parents was also most likely immune.

Mom and Dad were definitely still back in South Carolina, but Jenny was probably gone. Most people who got bitten didn’t turn. They were killed. The only people who turned were those who managed to flee to relative safety after getting bitten. Not many people could do that. One percent at the most.

Annie was lucky. Damn lucky.

And that must be why she and her friends could ride for miles without running into anyone, infected or not. Almost everybody was dead. The world was emptier now than it had been for thousands of years.

The chances that her sister was alive and well were catastrophically bad. Annie could not go into the city and look for her. The others wouldn’t go with her, nor would they let her go alone. And how, exactly, would she explain herself?
Oh hey, guys, by the way, I got bitten, I turned, and I ate a few people, but I’m fine now and maybe my sister is too.

That wasn’t going to happen.

But since one or both of her parents were likely immune, and since the eastern United States knew what was coming long before it got there, Mom and Dad might both be okay.

How on earth, though, was she supposed to get to South Carolina?

They found a marina just west of Olympia. All they had to do was ride a couple of miles along Highway 101. She saw it off to the right not two minutes after she first saw the water.

It was a small private marina with just three sailboats, two recreational motorboats, and a weathered wooden dinghy tied to the dock.

A motorboat wasn’t an option without ignition keys, so they had to take a sailboat whether they liked it or not. That was fine, though, actually, because as Kyle pointed out, sailboats are like bicycles. They don’t need keys and they don’t need gas.

Kyle said the largest one would be a bit harder to sail, but not excessively so, and in any case it would be more comfortable and provide better shelter and more room for storage. It occurred to Annie that the larger one would also be safer if the infected swam up to them and tried to climb on. The deck was several feet above the water, which should be enough.

 She had no idea what kind of boat it was aside from being a sailboat. She found it surprisingly spacious, even luxurious, with not even an inch of space wasted. It had two bedrooms below the waterline—Kyle called them staterooms—and two foldout beds in the main room. Plenty of space for everyone to spread out.

She wouldn’t mind living on a boat like this. It seemed to offer decent protection. And she could sleep in a bed!

It felt like years since she’d slept in a bed.

Parker claimed one of the staterooms for himself. No one argued because nobody wanted to share one with him.

But who was she going to share space with? Kyle was the obvious choice, which made him the wrong choice.

She didn’t want to share space with anyone. As the group’s only woman, she should have a room to herself. Parker was being a jerk for not seeing that. But only one person could have a room to themselves, since there were five and the boat only slept six.

“I’ll sleep on one of the pullouts in the main room,” she said.

It was that or share a bed with someone, and that wasn’t going to happen.

“I’ll share the bed with someone up front,” Kyle said.

He could have taken the other foldout in the main room. What did it mean that he didn’t? Maybe he didn’t want to sleep near her. Maybe he didn’t want her to know that he
did
want to sleep near her.

Neither Hughes nor Frank called the other pullout in the main room. The idea seemed to make them uncomfortable. Nobody wanted to say in front of the others that they wanted to sleep near the group’s only woman.

How long would the gentlemanliness last?

She sat on the edge of the dock while the others unpacked and Kyle got the boat ready. How many bodies might be floating in it or sunk below the surface? She pushed the thought from her mind, slipped off her shoes and socks, and stuck her feet in. God, the water was cold. The Atlantic Ocean was so much warmer, especially in South Carolina and Florida. The waters of the Pacific felt to her southern skin like ice water. The water was so cold that she didn’t worry for even a moment that a submerged infected might grab her ankle from below and pull in her in. No one could survive in that cold for long.

When the boat pushed off into the waters in the late afternoon, she sat on the deck and dangled her bare feet over the side while Hughes helped Kyle with the sails. The boat moved slowly and she figured they’d pick up speed after a while, but they didn’t. She had never been on a sailboat before and had no idea they moved so slowly.

But now that she was on one, she didn’t want to get off. All she could see, aside from the receding dock, was dark blue water, cloudy skies, and trees. She could almost pretend everything was okay, that the world hadn’t fallen apart, that her sister was alive and well and hanging out on the balcony of her apartment in Olympia.

The smell of salt in the air took her right back to her childhood, to the warm sandy beaches where she used to run and play with her dog Andy. The cool wind on her face and her hands, the slush of blue water as the boat made its way forward, the tall spires of evergreen trees, and the Olympic mountain range in all its craggy magnificence—it was all so stunningly beautiful and serene.

“Kyle,” she said. “I need to ask you for something.”

“Sure,” he said.

“It’s huge,” she said.

“Sure,” he said again without hesitating.

“I mean it’s really huge,” she said.

He paused a moment. “What is it?”

“My sister lives in Olympia.”

Kyle tensed up. He seemed to have an idea what she was going to ask him, but he didn’t yet know it wasn’t quite as bad as he was expecting.

“She did anyway,” Annie said. “I mean, I’m not sure if she’s … you know. I realize we can’t go in there and look for her, but I do need to ask you something.”

He relaxed slightly.

“Can you pull up to the shore next to downtown,” she said, “so I can call out her name?”

“Annie—”

“I know,” she said. “I know. The odds are one in a thousand that she’s still alive and even less that she’ll hear me and run to the boat, but I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life if I don’t at least try.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it again. He did not want to do it, but he understood and was considering it.

“Let me go below and check with the others,” he said.

“You’re the captain of this boat. You don’t need permission from Hughes. You sure as hell don’t need it from Parker. You know what Parker will say anyway.”

He nodded.

“We have to sail past the city anyway, right?” she said.

“Actually, no,” he said. “We have to sail north to get around this peninsula on our right, then we’d have to turn south again to get to Olympia. It’s a bit out of our way.” He paused and then added, “But only a bit.”

“Can you give me like, half an hour?” she said. “And let me fire off one or two shots? We can stop hundreds of feet away from the shore. We can’t get attacked.”

He thought about that for a couple of moments.

“You realize,” he said, “that if anyone is still alive in that city and hears you firing into the air, they’re going to come running whether or not they’re your sister. What if a hundred survivors show up at the beach and ask for a ride?”

That, she hadn’t thought of.

“I suppose that could happen,” she said. “You’re the captain. You can make a decision. Tell them to get their own boat.”

“And what if someone like Lane shows up on the beach and
demands
a ride?”

“She’s my
sister
, Kyle. Do you have a sister? Or a brother?”

“I’m an only child.”

“But if you did have a sister or brother, would you leave them to die without even trying?”

Of course he wouldn’t. Not even Parker, the bastard, was that cold.

“Okay, Annie. For you, we can try. For your sister.”

Kyle did not ask the others. He just told them what they were going to do.

Frank said, “Okay.”

Hughes said nothing. He didn’t look happy about it, but he said nothing. He must have lost somebody. Everyone lost somebody.

Parker groaned, then checked himself and likewise said nothing. So it turned out the man did have an editing function in his brain. He did know how to shut up at least once in a while.

When Kyle took the boat north around the narrow peninsula, Annie saw Olympia’s port and low skyline a few miles away to the south. The city was dead, of course, or at least mostly dead, but it looked normal from a distance.

The wind picked up and a sound like a parachute opening in the sails drowned out the little waves lapping the sides of the boat.

Annie had the odd sensation that the boat wasn’t moving, that it was stationary, that the waters of Puget Sound were slowly rolling beneath her as the shore slid by. She figured she could swim to the trees and walk into town in less than an hour.

It took almost as long to get there in the boat.

There wasn’t much to see up close at first. Just some trees, a few scattered houses, and what looked like a park. The government buildings were still a ways off in the distance. She shuddered when she saw the dome of the capitol building. Such a grand piece of architecture. The most important decisions in Washington State had been made there for more than 100 years. Now it would slowly give way to wind, rain, and ruin. Even the governor was probably dead.

The inlet was narrow, just a half-mile wide at the most, but that still left plenty of clearance between themselves and the mainland. If any of the infected spotted the boat, they’d have to swim a good quarter-mile before even trying to board. They’d either get shot or whacked long before they succeeded.

Hughes stood watch on the deck with his rifle in his hands and squinted at the landscape like he was mad at it. Frank helped Kyle with the sails. Parker remained below.

Soon the port came into clear view. It was absolutely silent and still. She saw no movement of any kind, heard no traffic or heavy machinery operating. She sensed that nothing but fish, birds, insects, and small animals lived in any direction. Just beyond the port was Olympia’s downtown. She sensed no life or movement coming from that direction, either. God, was Seattle like this too? It must be.

Only Seattle was bigger.

Much bigger. It must be swarming with the infected.

“Do you see anything?” Frank said to Hughes.

“Nothing,” Hughes said, almost like he was disappointed.

“There must be a ton of those things in there somewhere,” Frank said.

Annie twisted her face.
Those things
. She hated that term. They were people, human beings. Sick human beings, yes, but human beings all the same. They weren’t demons. They weren’t aliens. They had an alien-like pathogen in their system, but it could be beaten. Some people recovered. She had recovered. She couldn’t be the only one. There’s always some percentage of the population that’s immune to even the worst kinds of viruses. Jenny could be immune too.

But what, realistically, were the odds that her sister hadn’t been killed and that Annie would find her? Practically zero. She knew that. But she had to try, and she’d be forever grateful to Kyle for bringing her here.

The inlet narrowed considerably after they sailed past the port. Downtown was straight ahead. So was the end of Puget Sound. They were just a few hundred feet from the shore and couldn’t sail any farther south if they wanted to.

 Kyle lowered the sails and stopped offshore from a hotel and marina. “This is as far as we go. We’re not dropping anchor because we may need to leave in a hurry.”

Annie was shocked to see that the docks straight ahead were crowded with boats. Hadn’t
anyone
fled by water? Did the infected take over the city that fast? No way would she find her sister.

Nothing stirred. The city was as silent as the deepest wilderness. Seeing a shattered little town off the interstate was one thing, but seeing a major city—and a state capital at that—in such a condition was something else.

She tasted acid in her mouth. She’d been kidding herself. Not about Jenny. She never actually thought she’d find Jenny. She’d been kidding herself about South Carolina. The East Coast couldn’t survive if the West Coast was this desolate. The plague was an unstoppable planetwide biological hurricane.

“Jesus,” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Kyle said.

“Well,” Annie said, “at least my voice is going to carry. I’m going to shout her name now. You ready?”

Hughes nodded. He was ready. And he was ready with his rifle.

“Can those things swim?” Frank said.

“No idea,” Hughes said, “but I don’t see why not. Question is, will they?”

“Okay,” Annie said. “I’m going to call her.”

But she was all of a sudden reluctant. The earth was so hauntingly quiet that her voice would carry for miles. Hundreds—no,
thousands
—of infected were going to hear her. The city was quiet, but it couldn’t be empty.

She cupped her mouth with her hands, faced the government buildings, and shouted the name of her sister.

“Jenny! Jenny Starling! It’s Annie!”

At first she heard nothing but water lapping the sides of the boat followed by a faint and distant echo, but then there was something else. She wasn’t sure she actually heard anything. It was like the city’s eyelids twitched open.

“Anybody hear anything?” Kyle said.

“I thought I heard something,” Frank said, “but I don’t know.”

“If your sister can hear you calling,” Hughes said, “you’ll hear her answer.”

Annie wasn’t sure about that. “What if she’s trapped somewhere? Maybe she can’t call out.”