Slow Burn: Bleed, Book 6 (9 page)

We docked the cabin cruiser in an empty slip next to a houseboat among dozens of other boats. That kept it pretty well hidden. Of course, the smart thing to do would have been to sink it, erasing any clue as to our whereabouts. That thought never occurred to any of us at the time.

Murphy was the first one off the boat, and I was right behind him. Several Whites were hiding in the morning shade under the dock’s canopy, probably wondering what the cabin cruiser was and whether the people getting off of it were of the tasty variety.

Murphy and I were the first two off the boat for a reason.

A long, straight dock ran down the center of the marina, and the Whites were at the far end. Murphy and I headed right toward them. As we neared, they first seemed curious. They stood up and postured aggressively, hoping to drive us off, as whatever was left of their brains made the determination that we were coming for them. By the time we were a dozen steps away, the Whites were afraid and backpedaling until their heels were hanging over the water.

Murphy took a businesslike approach and raised his hammer as he got within a few steps. I had my machete up, ready to hack when the first one lunged. I was certain that one would. They were simple-minded beasts, and backed into a corner, would turn on us.

But they didn’t.

First one, then the others, turned and dove into the water.

“Motherfucker.” Murphy was surprised.

I looked at Murphy and agreed. “Motherfucker.”

“Fucking swimming Whites,” he said. “That island’s not going to stay safe.”

“No.” Watching the Whites swim slowly and clumsily across a hundred yards of water toward shore, I said, “This changes everything.”

Running footsteps on the boards behind us reminded me that talking out loud was almost always a mistake. I spun and raised my machete. A White was only a few dozen feet away and running at full tilt.

Murphy stepped back a bit, knowing what was coming.

Just as the White got within reach, I swung my machete around in a fast arc that ripped through his throat. The White tumbled to the boarded walkway, bouncing his face on wood as he came to a rest at my feet. Blood gurgled out of his open throat while he twitched and tried to move.

“Might as well get the rest of ‘em.” Murphy called up the dock, “Hey, buddy! We’re right here!”

Murphy’s hollering had the desired effect. Another White came running from the far end of the dock. Four more popped up from places where they’d been hidden on the decks of boats.

“You got it okay?” he asked.

I gave Murphy a glance. “As long as I don’t have to shoot any, I’m fine.”

“If you get in trouble, I’ll jump in. Cool?” replied Murphy.

I readied my stance and held my machete back, ready to hack.

The Whites tumbled out of their boats and rushed toward us. The one from the far end of the dock began sprinting in our direction. Murphy’s words had him convinced that we were edible despite our skin color.

When the runner got within reach, I swung my machete around and caught him across the throat just as I’d cut his predecessor. I had to step aside as his momentum carried him through the place where I’d been standing. He tumbled into the water.

The other Whites were busy doing me the favor of not coming together in a gang but at intervals of twenty or thirty feet, leaving me plenty of time to dispatch each before the next arrived. The last of them was a young blonde woman in one of the tiniest bikinis I’d ever seen. She was also the wiliest of the bunch.

My throat-slashing technique worked perfectly on all except her. When I swung, she was ready. She ducked under my blade and plowed into me with all of her momentum.

I fell, losing my machete as I hit the deck. She was immediately clawing and biting; whether trying to kill me or eat me alive, it didn’t matter. I was punching wildly and pushing, trying to keep her teeth off my skin.

Murphy grabbed a handful of her long, oily hair, pulled her head back, and punched her hard in the temple. That stunned her for a moment, and Murphy punched her again, and a third time. Her eyes rolled back and she went limp.

“Fucking bitch.” I crawled out from under her.

Murphy smashed her face into the dock a few times and rolled her into the water. She splashed and floated face down.

“You all right, man?”

I looked down at myself. “Embarrassed.”

“That you got tackled by a chick?”

“That I got taken down by somebody whose IQ is a hundred points lower than mine.”

Murphy chuckled. “Or both.”

Still checking myself, I nodded and bent down to pick up my machete. Looking up, I saw Rachel up on the deck at the bow of the cabin cruiser, worry on her face.

Murphy raised a thumb to indicate that we were okay.

She nodded, looked around, and squatted on the boat’s deck.

I followed Murphy over to the cabin cruiser. To Rachel, he softly said, “The marina is clear for the moment. Me and Zed’ll go check that brown houseboat up there. Get the others.” Murphy looked at me. “You ready?”

Smiling, I said, “Ready to get beat up by another blonde?”

Murphy chuckled, and we jogged half the length of the marina’s main dock to arrive at the stern of a houseboat similar to the one we’d been quarantined in the night before. Showing its age, its paint was oxidized and its metal fittings were rusted, leaving thin trails of orange down the sides of the boat.

Murphy stepped off the dock and onto the houseboat’s stern. I jumped across beside him.

Looking at me, he asked, “You wanna knock?”

I stepped over to a closed door and did so.

We waited. No sound came from inside.

I knocked again. I looked up and down the dock to see if any other attention was being garnered.

Nothing.

“Try the door?”

I tried the knob. It was locked.

Murphy looked around. “I don’t want to kick it in. Let’s check around.”

There was no side deck on the boat, so I climbed a stairway that led to the rooftop deck, but there was no door down from there to the boat’s interior. “No way in up here.”

Murphy looked around again. “You see anything?”

I shook my head.

He jumped over to the dock and walked up along the walkway beside the boat, reaching across to check each of the windows he passed. He cursed quietly under his breath after trying each one. They were all locked.

When he was walking around to the other side of the boat, I heard the sound of boat motors. “Hurry, dude. I think I hear something.”

Murphy looked up at me with a question on his face.

“Boats,” I told him in a harsh whisper.

He ran around to the other side of the houseboat. I climbed down the stairs, crossed the deck, and hopped over to the dock. When I went around to the boat’s port side, I saw Murphy’s legs sticking out of a window as he tried to crawl his way in.

Figuring he had that problem solved, I ran down the dock until Rachel and I made contact. I pointed toward the lake as I ran.

She understood immediately and jumped down from the bow to gather up the others.

The sound of high-revving boat motors grew more distinct. I looked toward the end of the cove and wondered how much time we had before Jay’s boats arrived.

Feet hit the wooden dock behind me. Fully expecting those feet to be one of the cabin cruiser’s occupants, I glanced over my shoulder. It wasn’t one of my new friends. “Damn.”

Just a dozen feet behind me, a strong-looking young man with short hair and white skin was looking at me, trying to figure out if I was food or friend.

“Hey, dude,” I said.

That was enough. He rushed at me and reached for my throat. I ducked under his arms and sliced his abdomen open as he ran by. He fell to the deck, writhing, feebly wheezing his pain with what little breath he could muster. I stepped over and hacked at the back of his neck, bringing his misery and noisy death to an end.

When I looked up, the rest of the boat’s passengers were running up the dock. I waved them forward and ran to the houseboat, jumping over to the houseboat’s deck as Murphy swung the back door open. A moment later, Freitag rushed past, followed by Rachel. Gretchen and Paul, older and slower, came next. Dalhover, self-appointed rearguard, was last. Murphy closed the door behind us.

Once inside, Dalhover found a window through which to peek and see up the cove. Murphy found a spot at another window.

“How did they get here so fast?” Gretchen softly asked anyone who would listen.

“Jay is crazy,” Freitag said, as if that was sufficient to answer the question. She started peeking through curtains.

Rachel said, “My bet is that when Jerry didn’t come back when Jay expected, he sent a boat out to see what happened.”

“And they came across Gerald and Melissa paddling back in that kayak.” Paul cast a worried look toward the windows. The sound of the motorboat engines was audible through the houseboat’s thin walls. “It was the right thing to do, but we spent too much time finding a boat for those two. We probably should have left them on the shore somewhere.”

“You survive. You help your loved ones. Fuck everybody else.” Even as I said it I knew I was being a hypocrite. I’d broken those rules and suffered the consequences too many times. “That’s just the way it is now.”

Paul looked at me and his mouth twisted as though he was chewing on a bitter grapefruit rind.

He seemed like a nice man, so I kept my “fuck you” to myself. He’d spent the whole epidemic on the island, trying to build an idealistic, mutually beneficial, post-apocalyptic utopia. The problem with any utopia is that it discounts the vile ability of humans to turn it into the same ugly world they create in
every
utopia. Jay and Jerry had just given Paul his first lesson in that course of study, and Paul hadn’t understood any of it yet.

“Jay is a hothead,” Gretchen said. “He will race his boats all the way to the next dam. That’s the way he thinks.”

“So we’re safe, then?” Paul asked.

The engines of the boats were louder inside than our voices, but they revved just as high. Murphy, Frietag, and Dalhover all crouched.

Dalhover, in a hushed voice said, “They’re at the end of the cove.”

Everyone froze.

“They aren’t slowing,” Murphy said.

More than one breath of relief escaped into the air.

The sound of the motors whined lower.

Dalhover changed his angle on the window. “They’re going by.”

I looked at Gretchen and said, “You were right.”

“Some people are easy to predict,” she said.

“But you didn’t predict that he’d mount a coup and try to kill us,” I said, some anger coming out in my tone. I was immediately ashamed for having said it. “That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

Gretchen looked away.

Paul looked like he wanted to slap me. Had he been a younger man, he might have.

Freitag said, “You’ll get used to him. He’s an ass.”

Well, fuck her. I gave her the meanest look I could put on my face. “Or you can ditch me somewhere for the Whites to eat while I’m doing you a favor.”

“Kiddies.” Murphy’s sounded like a dad threatening to stop the car and spank the children in the back seat.

“I knew Jay and Jerry were—” Gretchen took a moment to look for the right word. “Unusual.”

Rachel laughed nervously as she looked at one of the windows. “They’re more than unusual.”

“Nobody could have guessed they would plot to kill us,” said Paul.

“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about that. I’m just angry because he kidnapped the girls. I know this kind of stuff is hard to see coming.” Involuntarily, I looked at Freitag, but turned away before she saw it. For the moment, we were on the same side, even—or so she said. But I feared she might be as crazy as Jay and Jerry, and any insult might tip the scales of her stability in the wrong direction. That made me nervous.

“They’re gone,” Dalhover announced.

Everyone relaxed.

Turning back to the room, Dalhover said, “They’ll be back. They’re hauling ass up the lake trying to catch us before we get wherever they think we’re going, but they’ll be careful on the way back and search for us. They’ll come into this cove, and they might find the boat.”

After a short pause, he added,“They’ll have more guns than we’ve got.”

“Do we hide here?” Gretchen asked, “Or do we go onto shore and try to find a place?”

I looked down at the bloody machete, still in my hand. “There are Whites around. Plenty, I’d guess. If they see us making for a house, we might be double screwed. They’ll trap us inside, and if there are enough of them around when Jay’s men find the cabin cruiser, the Whites might give away our hiding place. I can’t imagine that will turn out any way but badly.”

“He’s right,” Dalhover told everyone.

“He likes being right,” Freitag sniped.

I ignored her.