Moriah (29 page)

“Was that some kind of
he’s-a-man
,
he-can-bleed
crap?”

“It wasn’t a man,” Dee shook his head disdainfully, “but, yeah, it could bleed.”

“He was a man, Dee. Human.”

“No. Not him.”

“I saw it back there,” Kevin said from under the awning. “I think ‘humanoid’ is the word. It didn’t look as bad as the other ones. That one with the foot growing out of its head? I can’t get
that
out of
my
head.”

“I just got tired of running, Riley.”

“Now you sound like Moriarity.”

“Why should I run? My dad never ran. Tris never ran.”

“What did you think was going to happen?”

“I wasn’t thinking. Either it was going to kill me, or I was going to kill it.”

“Yeah, well,” Kevin concluded, “we Kentucky-fried its ass.”

“When you guys left…It was talking to me. It sounded…like us. Like a person.”

Riley asked him what it had said.

“It said it didn’t hurt the hermit.”

“Probably lying,” asserted Kevin.

Dee looked down at the back of his hand. “I don’t think it was lying about that.”

“Why not?”

“It was honest about other things.”

“You’re either very brave,” Riley looked at him sitting there in his underwear, “or very stupid.”

“Look who’s talking.”

She grinned at that.

They reached the barrier islands. Many had long washed away, erosion and a lack of upkeep leaving entire islets disconnected one from the next. Hurricanes had come through and halved still more, rending tears and washing out fresh channels. Others were reduced to dunes and piles of driftwood sprouting from the blue. Tides from what had been known as the Atlantic Ocean rushed out, sucking the waters of the sound to sea.

Among the smaller islands they spotted one larger landmass, carpeted in green. Kevin brought the motorboat in closer. Ringed by beach and plant life, the vegetation grew dense towards the middle of the island, which was wooded and hilly. If there was anything there it was masked from their eyes at this distance, from this vantage point.

“Think this is our island?” asked Riley.

Kevin squinted towards the shore. “Could be.”

“Let’s see what this brings.” Dee fired a round from Kevin’s AK-47 into the air, the crack reverberating across the sea to the shore. He fired another shot for good measure.

Riley was laughing quietly.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You should see yourself.”

Dee sat there in his damp underwear, his injured leg and foot stretched out ahead of him, the AK pointed skyward in one hand, his back against the side of the boat. His revolver was snug against his midsection in its bellyband. He put his free arm on the gunwale and looked down on his legs. The flesh was goose-bumped from the damp and chill.

“I look ludicrous, don’t I?”

“You look ridiculous.”

“I’m cold.”

* * *

Some time later the sun was directly overhead. There was a nippy bite to the air out on the water. The heavy nylon of a sea anchor kept them in place as they waited to see if their earlier gunfire would draw any zombies to the shore. Kevin had an arm over his eyes, flat on his back on the deck, assault rifle across his stomach. One of the two thin blankets Riley had found was draped over her shoulders, her clothes still wet from their earlier plunge. Dee wore the other blanket over his lap.

Much time had passed silently between them like this until Dee saw the look on Riley’s face. “You’re thinking about Anthony again?”

“No.” She could have let it go at that and he would have let her, but she felt the need to answer this man. It wasn’t because she had to or felt she owed it to him. Riley
wanted
to talk to Dee, his leg extended out over the side of the boat, his foot re-bandaged. “I was thinking about Lim.”

“Who’s Lim?”

“He was my
Sabum-nim
. My taekwondo teacher.”

“Yeah, I see how you move. How you hold yourself. Like when I first met you at the bomb. You got into this stance, holding your arms…” Dee tried to physically replicate what he remembered from his seated position but couldn’t. Both he and Riley laughed at his effort. “You looked like you were going to mess me up.”

“I work in a
dojang
back home.”

“What’s a
dojang
?”

“A gym. I teach taekwondo.”

“You teach?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re a master?”

“Not quite.” Riley thought about her own training, about her sixth
dan
. “Not technically. In taekwondo, there’s belts, right? When you get your fourth degree black belt, you’re
sabum
-
nim
—you can teach.”

“
Sabum-nim
isn’t master?”

“Not in the sense that you’re thinking. You’ve mastered the art well enough to teach it to others, but true mastery—
Sahyun
—is rewarded with the seventh and eighth black belts.”

“So you’re…
sabum-nim
. What are you, like fourth or fifth degree?”

“Fifth. Working towards my sixth.”

“Man, seventh or eighth sound like they can take forever.”

“They can. And they should.”

“Lot of hard work and suffering for anything desirable, huh? That it?”

“Well, look at you guys,” Riley answered him. “Out here fighting zombies for decades. But taekwondo isn’t about suffering. It’s about discipline.”

“Lim was your
sabum-nim
?”

“Yes, until I was fourteen.”

“What happened at fourteen?”

“He died.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“He had cancer.” The boat rose and lowered on the swells. “He taught right up to the end. I went and saw him before he died. He was so weak. He smiled this little smile for me and lifted his fingers from the bed. He was waving at me. I didn’t let him see me cry.”

“Sounds like you were a tough girl. And Lim was a tough man.
Mentally,
I mean.”

“He was. I always thought—
that’s
how I’d want to die. Like he did. I mean—when the time comes, and you know there’s no way out of it—quietly. Bravely. He didn’t whine. He didn’t say,
why me
?”

“You think that’s what you’re doing, is that it? Whining about Anthony? About your friends?”

“In
my
head I am. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. I just have this feeling that things are going to get so much worse before they get better.
If
they get better.”

“It’s going to get better.” He tried to reassure her. “The last few days? They were about as bad as it can get for someone. For you, for me. But, personally Riley—and I only met you not too long ago, right?—I don’t know how you’re holding up as strong as you are.”

“Thanks, Dee.”

“And it is going to get better.”

“When?”

“From this moment on.”

“You promise?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I do.”

She favored him with a winsome grin and he paused to savor it. When she looked away he asked her, “What happened after Lim died?”

“My dad found me another
sabum-nim
. I trained with him.” She moved her hand around in the air before her, balled fist opening to a knife hand. “Took over his
dojang
when he thought I was ready, when he felt he couldn’t continue.”

“He couldn’t continue?”

“Cancer.” She pushed back at the atmosphere with her palm. “Again.”

“Yeah, there is a lot of that.” Dee looked into the blue sky. “Damn this world of ours.”

“He’s not dead. Not yet. He’s still alive and doing okay. I saw him a few weeks ago, actually.”

“Well, that’s good then.”

“You know,” she lowered her hand, “I’ve never talked to anyone about this.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I never thought it would be interesting to anyone.”

“I think it’s interesting, Riley. I think you’re interesting.”

She blushed and looked away.

“Sorry, Riley.”

“No, it’s—”

“No, you know what it is? I
get you
, Riley.”

“You get me, huh.”

“Yes I do.”

“Yeah.” She thought about it. “Maybe you do.”

“We’ve still got a few hours left of daylight.” Kevin had risen from his nap, joining them. “You guys want to take a chance, go check it out?”

They scanned the shore with Dee’s minocular. No zombies were in sight.

“I don’t think we should get off the boat.” Riley sounded hesitant.

“And I agree with you.” Kevin nodded. “But we don’t have enough fuel to get anywhere else.”

“You guys took the time to douse the pier with fuel, but you didn’t bring any extra for the boat?”

“Those drums were heavy, Dee.”

“So,” Riley hadn’t taken her eyes from the island, “we either go and explore it, or…?”

“Or we sit here and wait,” Kevin laid out the other option, “for whatever, whenever.”

“Let’s take our chances on land,” suggested Dee. “Riley.” She looked over at him. “What’d I tell you?” The towel covered his bare legs. “From this point on—it gets better.” His bandaged foot. “I promise.”

Riley couldn’t help it.

She started to laugh again.

* * *

As they approached the shore, Kevin trimmed up the motor, pointed the bow towards the beach and let the engine idle. The boat glided forward until they all felt the first touch of sand under the hull, at which point Kevin gave the boat a little fuel, effectively beaching it without damage. Riley leapt from the deck to the shore. Her AR-15 was in hand but no suitable targets presented themselves.

“Do we need to tie it up or anything?” Dee asked as Kevin and Riley helped him over the side of the boat.

“We can anchor it later on.” Kevin didn’t add that, depending on what they found here on the island, they might be in a rush to get back out onto the open water. “Tie that blanket around yourself, Dee.”

“I’m not embarrassed.” Dee looked down at his underwear, at his naked legs.

“We are.”

“Oh, that was a good one, Riley.”

“Glad you think so, Dee.”

A dog’s bark brought them up short halfway between the surf and the tree line. She came out of the trees raising a racket, a medium-sized, mixed-breed collie-whippet.

“Riley, wait,” Kevin said. She had raised the AR to her shoulder.

The dog launched itself into a sprint towards them.

Riley was sighting along the barrel when Kevin—“Wait!”—stepped in front of her. The dog reached the three and began to circle them, its hind legs shaking, tail between its legs, tongue hanging out of its mouth. It looked wary but happy to see them, its face just about smiling.

“You’re not gonna hurt us, are you, boy?” Kevin took a knee, placing his assault rifle in the sand, leaving Dee to stand in his towel on one leg. The dog came in close and smelled the hand Kevin held out before licking it. “There, there you go…” She leapt up, her front paws on Kevin’s shoulders, licking his face furiously. “Hey, there you go,
okay
!” Kevin turned his face from the onslaught, sputtering happily.

“Glad you made a friend.” Dee had his hands out at his sides, one filled with the Python, trying to balance himself.

“There’s a dog, there’s no zombies, right?” It made sense to Riley.

“Hopefully not,” Dee agreed.

“What about it, girl—” Kevin had gotten a look under her tail “—there anything on this island we need to worry about?”

The dog prostrated herself on her back, twisting her body and offering Kevin her tummy.

“That’s cute.” Riley had to grin, lowering her AR, returning to Dee, who thanked her as he placed an arm around her shoulders.

Kevin stroked the dog’s belly. “Yeah, you’re a good girl, I can tell. You’re looking a little skinny, girl.” Kevin tore open a sealed package and found something edible for the dog. “Here you go, here you go. You came out to meet me and my friends, didn’t you?”

“Feeling better about leaving the boat?” Dee asked Riley.

“We’ll see.”

Kevin was feeding the dog out of his hand, stroking her flanks, talking to her.

“Hey, Kev? Maybe we can get a move on?”

“Yeah.” Riley glanced towards Dee leaning on her. “This guy is heavy.”

Their new companion accompanied them as they trekked through the sand, circling small dunes, leaving the lap of water on the shore behind them. The beach grasses transitioned to eastern prickly pear, the low growing perennial cactus bearing red fruit. They stepped into the first of the trees, Pindo palms with thick, strong trunks. As they progressed, the land rose slightly, and the palms grew taller. The going was slow with Dee and his foot, but the afternoon was sunny and cool, the palm fronds swaying in a slight breeze. The dog ran ahead of them and then returned, dancing around the trio, leaping into the air, excited, joyful.