Pandora 2: Death is not an Option (12 page)

Breaking the surface, Mel could hear several bodies splashing into the ocean from the sides of the boat. He swam aft and made it to the skiff that was being towed behind the cruiser. The water was rough due to the passing storm. Mel, a very good swimmer all his life, found he really had to struggle to reach it. He pulled himself out of the water and into the bobbing boat. He reached down into a small box and pulled out a flashlight. Turning it on, he waved it around, calling out. He then untied the towline and started the small outboard motor. Hearing splashing in the water, he moved the flashlight until he spotted someone. A bespectacled man was swimming toward him. He steered the boat in his direction, reached down, and pulled him up out of the waves. The drenched man flopped into the bottom of the skiff, breathing heavily. He circled to the other side of the burning cabin cruiser, where he could see two heads in the water.

“Señor, please,” called a voice.

As Mel steered toward the two heads bobbing in and out of view, he heard a voice calling from the other side. Coming up alongside the two people, Mel and the other man pulled the man and woman on board. As they were getting the two new passengers situated, they drifted closer to the burning boat. A zombie, his clothes all ablaze, climbed on the rail and jumped toward the skiff, arms reaching out. Missing by at least six feet, he floundered in the water, clothes sizzling, and then quickly sank.

“Help us.”

“We’re drowning, please.”

“Help!”

Mel steered the boat through the chops. He took the turn wide because of the surface conditions and because he was afraid of the
furiously burning vessel exploding. Heading toward the fading voices, he waved the flashlight around so he could be seen. The fire was producing light so he could see the choppy seas around him. Mel and the others on board called out, but their calls went unanswered. The several voices they had heard were now silent. They could see no one in the water. They were gone.

Mel set the throttle, and they sped off to the east. As the wet, exhausted people huddled together, Mel’s cabin cruiser exploded spectacularly in a big orange ball of flame. Fifteen minutes later, one of the survivors pointed and said in an accented voice, “Look, look. There is a boat.”

Indeed, ahead of them they could see the lights of Jake’s yacht glowing in the darkness. Pacing over, they were suddenly bathed in a bright light. As the searchlight found them, they heard Mario Brutolli shout out, “Ahoy, is that you, Gorman?”

Smiling and relieved, Mel called back, “Yes, it’s me. I have some survivors with me.”

“Come alongside and we’ll take you aboard,” Mario answered.

Twenty minutes later, the four soaked passengers were sitting in the galley and wrapped in blankets. Sean passed out shots of brandy to them. Everyone was sitting and talking of their experiences. The three new people introduced themselves. The one man, shivering and straightening the eyeglasses on his face, had a heavy accent. His name was Konrad Stasser. He and his wife were on holiday in the United States when Pandora first arrived. They were from Düsseldorf, Germany, celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Konrad’s wife, Greta, had to be hospitalized during the first Pandora outbreak. By the time she was well enough to fly and they could get tickets, the Pandora 2 Mutation reared its ugly head, and
they found themselves stranded here. By the next week, the poor, unfortunate Herr Stasser had to beat his wife’s head in with the hotel lamp when, after “resting” for a while, she woke and tried to rip her husband’s throat out.

The second man was Hector Campos, a laborer for a local landscaper. He lived with two other landscape workers in a trailer park on the eastern end of Key West. He was fortunate enough to be working overtime in one of the big resort hotels in town when some residents decided to barricade off the west end.

The third and last survivor of the attack was Tina Brown. She was the owner of a popular and very active bookstore in the tourist portion of Key West. She always had book signings and poetry readings in her store and was the president of the Key West Rotary Club. Because of Pandora, she was scheduled to have Vernon Knox, author of the popular book
The Coming Plagues
, come down to do a book signing and reading. However, the mutating virus ended that event.

Up on the bridge, Luis was at the helm. Tommy and Jake were engaged in a tense discussion.

“I know you want to get to Antigua as quickly as possible. Especially now, after Key West,” Tommy said.

“Yes, I do,” said Jake.

“I know I may be asking a lot, but those of us who want to stay stateside…Could you make a detour up to, say, Miami? Drop us off at a marina and we’ll requisition a boat and be off on our way.”

“You know,” Jake said, “after all that has happened here and all of the misery Bouchard caused, some of you may have changed your minds. I hope you realize that you’ll be heading back into hell again.
And there are the new people. I’m including Regina and Frank with them. They were never in the equation. Now that they are, they should have a choice.”

“I know that,” Tommy nodded, “and will give them a choice.”

Jake looked at Tommy. “I can’t change your mind?” Jake asked sadly.

Tommy smiled and put his hand over the wealthy stockbroker’s hand. “No. You know I have to do this. I know the others feel that way too.”

Jake leaned in with a serious expression. “I know why. I do,” he spoke. “You’re looking to find America again. I know you think it’s there somewhere. Hiding. Waiting to gather strength again. And believe me; I hope to God you’re right. I really and truly do. But…but in case that place you’re hoping to find just isn’t there anymore and all there is turns out to be death and zombies, I want you to come to Antigua. There is an important place there for a man of your caliber. And for Manny and Sean and Mike and your brother Jack also. All of you.”

Tommy looked fondly at his friend. “I will. If it gets too bad out there, we will turn around and head to Antigua.”

Jake sat back and smiled. “All right then. I’ll take you up to Miami. We’ll find you a boat, make sure everything is good, and then we’ll take leave.”

“Deal!”

They both rose. Tommy stuck out his hand to Jake. The old man stepped forward and hugged his young friend hard. This was going
to be a new chapter in the group’s life. As they stood there together, they both thought,
Dear God, I hope this is the right decision. And I hope we’ll all live to find out
.

10

A
fter an uneasy night of tossing and turning, Steve awoke to a gray morning. Rain was imminent. At one point during the night, he heard a bunch of zombies passing by. One or two scraped the sides of the bus in their passing. He peeked above the window rim as they left. He couldn’t see all that well in the dark, but there looked to be about a dozen of the ragged creatures. It did not make for a peaceful sleep nor bode well for the morning.

Steve could see that Max and Ana were awake also. She was looking at him.

“Rough night?” she asked.

“Yeah. You too?”

Ana nodded and rubbed her eyes. Max was carefully looking around through the school bus windows.

“It seems pretty clear out there,” he said, “of zombies, I mean. It looks like it’s going to pour any minute.”

Josh stirred and then sat up, looked around, and said, “Morning, guys.”

As they gathered themselves up, Luke and Karen woke. They all exited the bus and, grabbing some things from their cars, ate some crackers and jelly. Karen opened a medium-sized can of fruit salad, and they all shared.

Looking down toward the entrance ramp, Max said sadly, “I guess Dan didn’t make it.”

“Do you think we should give him more time?” asked Karen.

“No,” Steve said. “If he didn’t get here by now, I don’t think he will.”

No one said anything for a while. They could hear the moans of the undead coming from up the highway. Looking around nervously, they could just see the heads of several zombies weeding their way through the stalled cars.

“I guess it’s time to start moving,” said Luke.

The small group got their things together and entered their vehicles. Steve said before going,” Okay, we’ll all go in a single file. I’ll lead.”

The caravan moved on down Interstate 95. The survivors threaded their way through the still and sometimes twisted vehicles. At times they had to pass close to some cars, and it was extremely unnerving to see the trapped undead inside, clawing at the windows and slamming their snapping mouths on the glass. Some cars’ windows were open, but the undead drivers were buckled into their seats. Their arms and hands reached out, trying frantically to grasp the passing cars. There
was a good number of zombies out and roaming the highways. At first, Steve tried his best to steer around them, but eventually he just ran into the creatures. Most of the time, he knocked them off to the side, but occasionally they fell in front of the car and, with a double bounce, he ran them over. He just tried to think of them as speed bumps, but that was not always easy. It was slow and nerve-racking.

Finally, two hours later, they reached Boynton Beach. For some reason, the highway was clearer of zombies by the Woolbright Road exit. Steve pulled off on the shoulder before the exit ramp. They all got out of their cars.

“Man,” said Steve, “that was grueling.”

“Christ,” Luke added, “there were times I thought we were not going to make it.” He walked up to his side window. “Look,” he said.

There was a greasy blood smear along the window, continuing onto the back window.

“Some freaking zombie in a car reached out and slammed his filthy hand on my window, trying to get me. Scared the shit out of me.”

“We all need a break,” said Max.

“Listen,” said Karen, “a couple of nights a week, I teach an aerobics class in Boynton. There is a Home Depot and a Lowe’s up that road.”

“How far?” asked Steve.

“Right off the road. A couple of hundred feet I guess.”

“Do we need anything there?” Ana asked.

“Well,” said Luke, “we could probably use some weapons. I’ll bet if we went to the tool department, we could find some axes and hammers and stuff.”

Steve looked off in that direction. Biting his lip in thought, he said, “Sounds like a plan. We could use something for defense. The couple of guns we have I’d like to use only when necessary.”

“Why?” asked Max. “I’d rather kill them at a distance than have to stand right next to them and do it.”

Steve looked at the feisty old man. “You that good of a shot, ace?” he said, smiling. “Besides, the noise just brings more in.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Max agreed reluctantly.

“Do we all go or what?” asked Ana.

“Well,” thought Steve aloud, “I really don’t want to split up the group. I think it would be best if we all stuck together. Something happens and we have to go in another direction, there’s a good chance we’d never reconnect.”

Agreeing, they reentered their respective vehicles and drove up the exit ramp. Making the right onto Woolbright, they drove to the light and made another right to go into Home Depot. Two or three zombies they passed turned and followed.

Entering the nearly deserted lot, they drove right up to the entrance. Steve and Josh jumped out and ran to the glass doors. Tugging ineffectively on the handles, they turned to the group and said, “Locked. I guess they closed early.”

“Yeah,” said Luke, “they took off for National Zombie Day.”

Chuckling, Steve grabbed a large, rolling lumber cart and, backing up, said, “Okay, look out.”

Taking a running start, he wheeled the heavy steel car toward the glass doors. There was a loud crash as the car hit the doors and, with glass shards flying everywhere, smashed through and into the store. Immediately, an alarm started ringing.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, really?” Steve bellowed. “A fucking zombie apocalypse and this asshole manager is worried about somebody stealing a power drill? Come on, let’s hurry.”

They all ran in and headed for the tool section, which was right in the front. Everyone quickly went about finding an appropriate defensive weapon. Steve grabbed a hatchet and hefted it in his hand a few times. It felt right. As he turned, he saw Josh coming down the aisle brandishing a chainsaw.

“Are you for real?”

“What?” said Josh. “Chainsaw…zombies…right?”

“With what electricity?”

“That’s the beauty,” responded Josh, smiling broadly. “It’s gas.”

“And where are you getting the gas?” Steve said, exasperated.

Josh stopped and looked at the impressive power tool. “Oh,” he said and threw it down.

Walking to the end of the aisle with his hatchet, Steve saw Luke running back from the gardening center. He was carrying a palm-trimming saw in one hand and a root cutter in the other.

“You are scary!” Steve said, smiling.

“Max is coming back with a grass sickle,” Luke said with a laugh.

Josh came up carrying a claw hammer; Ana had a large screwdriver; and Karen had an ax handle.

“Where’s the rest of it?” Max asked Karen, walking up.

“Too heavy to swing,” she answered.

As they started happily for the exit, they saw three zombies entering the shattered glass door. They skidded to a halt and looked on fearfully.

With uneasy bravado, Luke strode up and said, “Well, let’s see if these stupid things work.”

Luke may have been overweight, but he was still solid. As he neared the first zombie who entered, he planted himself and, with a mighty swing, swung the palm cutter with all his might. The large, shiny blade flew in a long, swift arc and hit the zombie in the side of her neck. With the sheer momentum of the swing and the razor-sharp blade, her head was cleanly separated from her shoulders. Her head, sailing off, bounced over the checkout counter and hit the cash register. Her body stood wavering for a second and then collapsed.

“Whoa!” said Luke, astonished by his handiwork. He was so mesmerized by the lethality of the blade that he didn’t see the others coming up. As the second zombie in the group growled, Luke spun his head around and then jumped back as it grabbed his wrist. This zombie opened his jaws, anticipating a meal, and tried to bring Luke’s arm up to his mouth. He was a young black man in a Dunkin’ Donuts
uniform. The pink-and-orange polo shirt was stained red with blood. Apparently, Luke was not his first victim.