Lake Yixa (3 page)

     
"Hey,
mister," a female whispered. Liam turned to see a young woman in her early
twenties waving him over from a basement window. "Hurry up, get down
here," she whispered, her voice sounding anxious. Liam wasted no time
moving to the window. He lay down and climbed backward into the window. He
found the table she was standing on and ducked in. She closed the window just
in time. The horde rounded the corner. They slowed and bumped into each other,
unsure where to go or what to do. The girl put her index finger to her lips,
making sure Liam knew to stay quiet. She gently got off the table as silently
as she could. He slowly followed after her, unsure how far down the floor was.
Despite it being late afternoon, the basement they were in was almost pitch
black. Liam's butt reached the end of the table, and he had to drop the
remaining few inches. The drop was a bit farther than he thought, and he fell
forward. She grabbed hold of him to steady him, but it was too late. He hit a
tin can or something, sending it clattering across the floor. The sound filled
the basement. A loud groan and hitting of windows made Liam jump. The Dead pushed
themselves up against the windows, blocking out whatever light had been getting
in from them.

     
"Come
on!" She didn't whisper this time as she took his hand and ran into the
darkness away from the windows. Liam hoped to hell she knew where she was going.
His eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness. She moved quickly, and Liam found it
hard to keep up with her. The shattering of glass filled the basement. Before
he knew it, they had rounded another corner and passed through a large open
door.

     
"Help me with
this," she said as she pushed the heavy wooden door closed. They then
moved a desk in front of it. She started off again. Liam followed after her,
finally able to make her out in the dark. They went down a long hallway and
around a few corners before stopping at the bottom of a staircase.

     
"What's your
name?" she asked.

     
"Liam.
You?"

     
"Sarah,"
she said, reaching out a hand to shake. Then she started up the staircase.

     
"Thanks for
saving my ass."

     
"No problem.
Just glad to find someone else that wasn't a zombie."

     
"A
what?"

     
"A
zombie."

     
"What's a
zombie?"

     
"You don't
know what a zombie is?" she asked in disbelief.

     
"No, I
don't."

     
"Well, those
things back there trying to kill you—they are zombies."

     
"Oh."
They had reached the top of the stairs that opened up into a large room.

     
"Zombies are
the dead coming back to life. You get bitten, you become a zombie." She
stopped and looked at him. "You haven't been bitten, have you?"

     
"No, not at
all," Liam said quickly.

     
"You're not
lying to me, are you?" she asked, studying his face in the dark. Her eyes
clearly had adjusted much faster than his did.
Age
, he thought. He wished he was young at a time like this.

     
"Okay,"
she finally said. They began to move again across the large room.

     
"Where are
we?"

     
"The public
library."

     
"What are you
doing here?" Liam asked, looking around. Now that his eyes could make out
more, he saw rows of books.

     
"I came in to
do some work today."

     
"This
couldn't have just happened overnight," Liam said as they started up
another set of stairs.

     
"No idea.
Seems like it."

     
"Where are we
going?"

     
"To the roof.
It’s where I was when I saw you come into town. Didn't really think you were
going to make it."

     
"That makes
two of us."

     
"You seemed
like you had no idea what happened."

     
"Not really.
I was on my way to the sheriff's office." Liam told her what had happened
at Frank’s house, both the night before and that day. It felt like they had
walked up about five floors before she stopped and turned to face him.

     
"I'm sorry,
but it sounds like he got bitten and became a zombie himself," she said.
She turned and pushed opened the door. The sun blinded Liam. He stopped and
held his hand up.

     
"Shhh, they
are still all around us, and I don't want them to know we are up here,"
she said as she crouched down and moved to the edge of the roof. Liam did the
same.

     
"You know, I
bet Ben was one of the first in this area to have Z.D."

     
"Z.D.?"
Liam asked. She looked over at him with an are-you-seriously-asking-me-that
look on her face.

     
"Zombie disease."

     
"Oh."

     
 
Liam looked around and saw she had lain out
the words S.O.S on the roof in books.
She’s
smart
, he thought. He saw a few jugs of water, a blanket, and a few chairs
with a rug set up over it. She had made a small camp. He looked over at her.
She was still scanning the streets.

     
"How long
have you been up here?"

     
"Since this
morning," she replied, not taking her eyes off the streets.

     
"You did a
lot for just one day," Liam said. She looked over at him and then back at
her small camp.

     
"Well, I fell
asleep here last night."

     
"Oh."

     
"No, I'm not
homeless," she said quickly. "I work here and took a small break to
read a little. I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, everything looked like
it does now. I went outside but quickly found that it was a very bad idea. I
thought I was going to die." She paused for a moment. "I also read a
lot of books. Zombies are nothing new to me. I mean, I didn't think they would
ever be real, but I already had a plan."

     
"Oh," is
all that came out of Liam's mouth. The two of them lay there, watching the town
around them. Liam watched as a zombie shuffled this way and that.
 
At one point, they saw a man running down the
road, screaming as he fired off rounds from a small handgun. When he ran out of
ammo, he just sat down and let the zombies fall upon him. That was a bit too
much for the both of them. Liam moved over to the door and leaned against it.
Sarah crawled into the tiny tent she had made. He watched her for a while. She
may have come off cool about it all, but the death of that man clearly had
shaken her.

     
"I served in
Korea, you know," Liam said. "I saw a lot of young men lose it. It
was an overwhelming amount of death we saw. Most of it didn't make much sense
to us. Kind of like that man out there. Who knows what made him snap? You start
to ask yourself, why would he want to die that way? Or why kill himself at all?
He could have done what you did. Doesn't make much sense to run down the street
firing a gun and then just wait for death."

     
She looked over at
him, listening to everything he was saying. He could see the fear in her eyes.

     
"Can't really
give you a good reason for what he did. But I will tell you this: you're a
fighter. You don't let a few damn zombies knock you down. Look what you have
done. Made all this. What did I do? I got chased around town like a chicken
with his head cut off," he said and smiled at her.

     
Sarah's eyes seem
to soften a little at that. "Thanks for saving me," Liam added.

     
"You're
welcome," she said. The two of them sat there in silence for a while. Liam
looked down at his watch. It was 6:40. The sun was setting over Lake Yixa. The
orange-yellow rays of light burned across the lake. It almost looked as if it
were on fire as the last bit of sun dipped below the horizon. The sky turned to
a dark purple and then black.
It was a
beautiful sunset
, Liam thought.

     
"You have
family?" Sarah asked.

     
"No, it's
just me and my cat Tux."

     
"Aw, I love
cats. Not allowed to have one where I'm staying at."

     
"What about
you?" Liam asked, knowing this could be a bad topic to ask about.

     
"No, my
parents were killed when I was just a baby. My grandmother raised me. She lived
in Seattle till she passed away four years ago," Sarah replied, rolling
onto her back to look up at the night sky. Liam had gone to Seattle a number of
times. Even though it was a big city, he felt like he could have lived there in
his younger years.

     
"What brings
you to Moosetan?"

     
"Grandma and
I used to spend every summer up here. I just continued to come up here after
she passed away."

     
"I will take
first watch. You try and get some sleep," Liam replied. The chilly night
air made Liam pull his jacket around him. He looked over at Sarah and hoped she
was warm. She only had on jeans and a t-shirt, but she had found some blankets
somewhere, so she couldn't be that cold.

     
The night was
uneventful as well as the next few days. They waited up there for someone to
save them. The cops, the army, or any government agency would work, but no one
came. They didn't often leave the roof other than to find Liam a new set of
clothing. His old ones were stained with blood, which made sitting around in
them uncomfortable. Sarah had found a few items left in the lost and found box.
Even though the jacket and shirt were a size or two too big, it was nice to get
out of his old stuff. He kept his jeans and washed them in a sink one of the
few times they had gone down to use the restrooms. It didn't get rid of the
blood, but it did help mentally. They had even found a small bags of chips, a
can of soda, and another case of water to add to the stuff Sarah had already
gathered. They did their best not to eat the chips. Liam had told Sarah what he
heard on the news about over-processed foods, but the pain in their stomachs
made them risk it. Liam was the first to grow restless from just sitting around
on the roof.

     
"I think we
should try and get out of town. Find some supplies and find help somewhere. I
don't think anyone is coming," Liam said as he watched a group of the Dead
shuffling about by a store across from the library.

     
"I don't
really think that is a good idea," Sarah replied as she set down the book
she was reading. "Sooner or later, the military will come by here."

     
"Moosetan is
a tiny town on a lake that no one gives a rat’s ass about. It’s somewhere on
the bottom of the list." Liam moved back slowly toward Sarah, making sure
not to make too much noise as he did so. "Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma; they
are on the save-first list."

     
Sarah didn't say a
word back. Liam realized she probably didn't even think about it like that.
Here he was crushing her hopes. He looked toward the lake. The water looked
like glass. Liam could see a small boat sitting in the harbor.

     
"I know you
want to believe someone is coming. I really hope someone is, but we can't sit
on this roof forever."

     
"Why?"
she finally asked. "Even if no one is coming, why do we need to leave?
There are stores around us. We could go out and find food."

     
"It sounds
great, but we are sitting right in the middle of all the Dead. Sooner or later,
they will find us."

     
"We will be
really quiet and sneaky," Sarah added, almost sounding like a child. Liam
looked at her. He never did ask her age; she looked no older than twenty two.

     
"What about a
boat?" Liam replied.

     
"A
boat?"

     
"Yeah, we are
sitting next to a lake. There are tons of boats down at the harbor." Sarah
stood up and looked over at the harbor. A large number of boats, both tiny and
big, dotted the harbor.

     
"What about
supplies?"

     
"My house is
not far off from the lake, and I have some food and other supplies," Liam
said, walking over to her. "We can stay on the coastline and search
lakeside homes."

     
"The harbor
is pretty far away. What about any zombies on the boats?"