For Those In Peril (Book 1): For Those In Peril On The Sea (25 page)

I nodded towards them. ‘We’ve got company.’

Jon peered into the water below the dock. ‘Looks like we’re going to have to swim for it.’

‘I’m not going in there.’ Andrew sounded panicked, ‘There’s sharks, even in here; big ones. Especially this time of night. It’s feeding time.’ He
looked over his shoulder, ‘I can hide out in the lighthouse until the infected are dealt with. It’s not like there’s a lot of them. I’ll be safe in there till you can come back and get me.’

Before I could say anything, Andrew turned and
ran back down the dock. My eyes flicked from Jon to the infected. They’d sensed Andrew’s sudden movement and were starting to move faster.

‘I’m not leaving him here on his own.’ Jon glanced at me briefly and then ran after Andrew. I felt I had no choice but to follow. By the time I caught up with them, the infected were close enough that we could no longer make it back to the dock even if we wanted to. In the distance, more were coming into view.

We made it to the lighthouse a few seconds ahead of the first of the infected and I slammed the door shut behind Jon moments before they reached it. There was nothing we could use to bar the door and although we had our full weight pressed against it, I could feel it move as the infected pushed and pounded on the other side. It would only be a matter of time before they forced their way in.

Jon looked up the spiral staircase, ‘Maybe there’s somewhere safer at the top.’

‘There is.’ Andrew was looking up the stairs too.

I was sceptical. ‘We’ll never make it up before they get us.’

‘I’m faster than you.’ Jon braced himself as the infected increased their assault on the outside of the door, ‘You go first and I’ll be right behind you by the time you reach the top.’

I was reluctant to leave him there. ‘You’ll follow us up, no heroics? Promise?’

‘Yes. Promise.’

Andrew started up the stone staircase and I followed suit.
Shortly after, I heard Jon coming up after us. A few seconds later there was a crash as the infected broke through and surged into the base of the lighthouse. While confused at first, it didn’t take them long to realise where we had gone. I raced up the stairs as fast as I could, hearing Andrew ahead of me and Jon behind. Further below, but gaining fast, were the sounds of the infected. Suddenly, the stairs stopped and I found myself in a small, circular room. To one side was a steep wooden staircase leading up to a pair of doors set into the ceiling. Andrew had the left-hand door raised and was beckoning to me. ‘Quick, up here.’

I climbed up and was surprised to find myself in a room surrounded with thick glass windows, then I realised I was inside the light itself. As I waited for Jon to emerge into the room below, I looked at the doors that would soon be the only thing separating us from the infected. They were made from thick wooden planks, and opened like saloon doors. The right-hand door was bolted, explaining why Andrew had only opened the left one.

Suddenly, Jon appeared and leapt onto the staircase, the fastest of the infected was only a few feet behind. He made it up just in time for Andrew to drop the open door onto the pursuing infected. It struck with a sickening crack and, as Jon and I piled on, adding our weight to Andrew’s, I heard the infected fall to the floor. For a moment I wondered if that was it, then I felt others starting to push up from below. With the weight of the three of us on the door, the infected couldn’t quite force it open but they were persistent. They knew we were there and they wanted us.

‘Now what?’ I looked at Jon and Andrew.

‘We won’t be able to keep them out forever.’ Jon was breathing heavily. He glanced at the right-hand door, ‘We need to bolt this one too.’

‘But it doesn’t have any bolts,’ Andrew’s voice was wavering. ‘Only a lock and there’s no key.’

‘What if we jammed something through the handles? Something like that.’ I pointed to a large wrench lying a few feet away.

Jon eyed it up.
‘That’d work ... If we can get to it.’

I reached out with my foot, trying to keep as much of my weight on the door as possible but it was just out of reach. ‘One of us is going to have to get off and grab it.’

‘Will we still have enough weight to stop them getting in?’ Jon sounded close to panic.

‘We’ll just have to hope so.’ I
considered our options. ‘Andrew, you’re probably the lightest. You should go. Just be quick.’

Almost as soon as Andrew leapt off the door, I felt it start to lift. Suddenly, a finger appeared in the gap between the two doors, then another one. I looked down through the gap and saw a sea of infected fighting to get up from below, their faces contorted with anger and their arms reaching up towards us. Those at the top of the steps were only inches from me and I could almost feel their breath on my face as they roared with rage.

The door lifted further and a grasping hand appeared. I swivelled round and kicked out, hearing bones snap as I made contact. Another hand appeared and I did the same again. Then I felt Andrew land back on the door. ‘Got it.’

While his weight stopped the door being lifted any further, because of the pressure from the infected it was no longer enough to force it back into place. The gap was so wide that the handles no longer lined up and Andrew couldn’t slide the wrench into place. Then the door started to lift again.

‘What’re we going to do?’ There was a look of fear in Andrew’s eyes.

‘I know.’ Jon rolled over onto his knees and keeping his weight on the left-hand door, he grabbed the handle of the right-hand one. He pulled as hard as he could and the left-hand door started to move downwards. Then a new hand shot through the gap, followed by another, and another, stopping the door closing any further. While I kick
ed at the grasping hands, Andrew swung the wrench, but almost as soon as we cleared one another appeared. Jon started kicking out as well, and we began to win. After what seemed like an age, the handles finally lined up again and Andrew jammed the wrench home. I could hear the infected pushing and scratching at the door, trying to get it open, but the wrench was holding. We were safe … for the time being at least.

I sat back and looked at the others. They appeared to be as sweaty and scared as I was. I thought about what had just happened and how close the infected had been to getting in.

Andrew was the first to speak. ‘How the hell do we get out of here?’

I’d been concentrating so hard on our need to keep the infected out that it hadn’t occurred to me to worry about how we might escape.

‘I don’t know.’ I got up and wandered round the circular room. ‘But I think the first thing we need to do is to find a way to let the others know we’re still alive.’

‘What about using the light?’ Andrew
nodded towards the centre of the room. ‘The lighthouse has never been modernised. It’s still got its original clockwork mechanism. As long as there’s fuel left in the storage tanks, we should be able to get it going.’

I walked over to the light and inspected it. It
was just as it had been left when the outbreak overran the Abacos, ready to be lit come nightfall. For the keepers, nightfall had never come again. If we lit it, the others would know where we were and would know we were safe.

‘Okay, let’s see if we can get it lit then, but we’ll need to be quick.’ I looked at my watch, ‘The sun will have set in a few minutes and then it’ll be pitch-black in here.’

Andrew and I searched around in the growing gloom and eventually found a box of matches tucked away on a ledge just beside the hatch. I uncovered the kerosene-soaked wick and drew back the covers that shielded it from the midday sun. With my hands shaking, it took several attempts to get a match lit but the wick burst into flames as soon as they touched. Inside the light itself it didn’t seem very bright, but I knew the lenses that surrounded it would magnify and concentrate the light onto a beam visible from fifteen miles away.

As the light rotated, casting its glow on each of us in turn, I saw Andrew slumped against one of the windows, while Jon sat with his head in his hands. Both were undoubtedly thinking much the same as me. How had we ended up trapped in here? I stood up and looked through the glass. I watched as the light’s beam swept across the sea and I hoped those out in the anchorage would realise what it meant. Beyond the boats that were just visible in the inkiness of the harbour, the beam moved across abandoned buildings that were already starting to decay. Everywhere infected were emerging, from buildings, from the bushes, moving inexorably forward, drawn towards the brightest light they’d ever seen. I couldn’t help thinking this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I could see that the longer the light was on, the more it would draw them towards us and the more of them that were in the vicinity, the more difficult it would be for us to get out when morning came.

After five minutes, I saw a light flashing on one of the boats in the harbour. Someone had seen our signal and understood what it meant. There were already a great number of infected crowding the shores and I didn’t want to attract any more, but just as I was about to put the light out, it briefly fell on Jon. His legs were pulled up to his chest and his shoulders were heaving up and down. It took me a second to realise he was crying. This surprised me. Yes, we were stuck for the night, but we were still alive and we’d managed to escape from a worse situation in Little Harbour. While I didn’t quite know how we’d do it, I was sure we’d get out of this one too.

I went over and sat next to him.

‘Hey, don’t worry. They’ve seen the light, they know we’re up here, that we’re still alive. Jack will come up with some way of getting us out of here.’

Jon lifted up his head. His face was soaked with tears and sweat, and there was a terrified look in his eyes. I tried to reassure him again. ‘Come on. Things looked a lot worse in the container and we got out of that, didn’t we?’

Jon wiped his arm across his eyes and cleared his throat. ‘It’s not going to be alright, I’m screwed and that means you’re screwed too.’

There was a steeliness to his voice, a certainty in it. I hadn’t heard Jon talk like this before.

‘Jon, what’s going on?’ Andrew was as concerned as I was.

Jon said nothing. He just looked from me to Andrew and back again, then held out his left arm. There was a series of ragged
red lines on his forearm that were oozing a dark liquid.

I stared at the marks. ‘Jon, what’s that?’

‘One of them got me when we were trying to get the door shut.’ As he spoke, the weight of what he said sank in. ‘As I was pulling down on the handle, one of them got me. I’m screwed.’

Jon buried his head in his knees and started sobbing again. Suddenly, he looked so young, almost like a child. I wanted to pick him up, to hold him, but I just sat there not quite knowing what to say. I had grown to like Jon, to rely on him and now I was going to lose him. I thought of the others and how they would feel. In particular, I thought of CJ.

‘Hey, you might be okay.’ Andrew was clutching at straws. ‘You never know, it’s only a scratch.’

Jon looked up. ‘No, it’s not. I can feel it. I can feel it burning its way through me. I’m screwed!’ Jon’s voice tailed off and his head nodded forward as if he was falling asleep and rested on his chest for a few second. Suddenly, it snapped back upright. He shook it and blinked his eyes as if trying to pull himself together. He stared at Andrew and me as if he was seeing us for the first time. A look of realisation mixed with horror spread across his face. ‘You guys have to get out of here. Now!’

I saw panic spread across Andrew’s face. Jon was infected and, whether it was sooner or later, he would become one of them. When that happened, he would attack us. In the tiny space inside the light, we wouldn’t be able to get away from him and he’d most certainly kill us. It was inevitable and by the looks of Jon, it would happen soon. His head had sunk against his knees again. He was no longer crying, just sweating profusely. Jon slid over onto his side and his head fell into my lap. As he lay there, I could feel the heat radiating from him. He was barely conscious and I heard his breathing become shallow and erratic. I knew what had to be done but I didn’t know if I could bring myself to do it. I cast my eyes around the room but I could see nothing I could use. The only possible weapon was the wrench keeping the infected from forcing open the door.

I felt Jon go limp, the infection had won and he was about to turn. I looked around again, and again I came up blank. Then I saw a way out. At the bottom of one of the windows, a small door led out onto the balcony that surrounded the light. It was there so the lighthouse keepers could clean the outside of the windows. I felt Jon twitch and I knew there were only seconds left. I leapt over to the door and scrambled out into the night. As I did so, I felt Andrew pushing me from behind, desperate to follow my lead.

Once Andrew was through, I slammed it shut and closed the latch. I watched the beam of light sweep around the room we’d just left and saw Jon stirring. The light passed on, enveloping him in darkness. By the next time it came round he was gone. Then something hit the glass in front of me. I staggered backwards against the guard rail. The light came round a third time, momentarily silhouetting Jon against the glass. He sensed our presence and he knew he wanted to get to us but in his changed state, he couldn’t work out how. As he hammered on the glass it shuddered and shook. It was old and thin, and I wondered how long it would hold out. Jon turned and paced within the light, I could see the rage etched on his face, his eyes bloodshot and burning with intensity. The infection coursed through his body and all he wanted to do was to rip, to tear, to kill. He threw himself at the glass again and again, screaming, and, pummelling it with his fists. It seemed only a matter of time before he’d break through.