The End (20 page)

“That’s a suicide mission; you will have to
go through all of them just to reach the bridge, park the truck and
then what? You won’t be able to run through all of those creatures
without getting infected, that’s if you survive that long, I can’t
allow this,” William said angrily.

“We crash it, the ocean is right there, don’t
worry about the escape, we just need a way to blow it from a
distance,” Jason said.

“Sorry, but we don’t have anything,” William
said.

“That’s too bad, would have been a lot
easier, either way if you want to keep Key West safe then this
needs to be done, it’s the only way that bridge has to go,” Jason
said.

“We have gas cans, small and really big ones,
we use them for the gas stoves, if you can find that to be of use
then you can use the stock we have here,” William said sighing.

“That’s too heavy and since the group is
small, we won’t have the power to carry them that far,” Jason said
disappointed.

“We don’t need much, just one large can and
we are golden,” Conway said smiling.

“So what are you suggesting?” Jason
asked.

“We take one large canister, load it into the
front of the truck, before we crash it, we drain some fuel over the
body and some inside the truck, open the gas flow, crash the truck,
make our escape and find a way to set it on fire, which won’t be a
problem either, I mean its gas it will set fire fast, we can do
that from a distance by just using a bottle of whiskey with a piece
of cloth,” Conway said, explaining this will be safest and the
easiest method.

“Sounds like a plan, we will do that then and
pray thatit works,” Jason said.

“It will, I wasn’t done though, if we can
scavenge some speakers from the cars I can wire them to the truck
in a few minutes, we can make a lot of noise, we can lure a few
then blow it, if it doesn’t blow the bridge then at least we know
we took down a bunch of them,” Conway said, confident his plan will
work perfectly.

“Then it’s decided, I will go with you, Jason
I need you to stay and help out here, with your barricade plans,”
William said.

“I am coming to, I feel safer on that trip
then staying here to defend a full on assault,” Sarah said.

“Whatever you prefer,” Jason said.

“We will leave immediately, it will only take
a few minutes to get to the harbor, where you have seen the tanker,
that’s if we stick to the shores,” William said.

“If anything goes wrong and you can’t hold
out any longer, here are the keys to the boats take the remaining
survivors and retreat back to Fort Jefferson if you must,” William
said.

“No problem, you better get going we don’t
have time, the faster we can do this the faster we can put that
search party together,” Jason said.

Chapter 10: Defensive efforts

William and Conway sets out with the gas canister, its large, full
and heavy making them slightly slower, a long exhausting trip, if
Sarah could only help. Jason was full on busy with everyone pushing
around cars blockading them self in, they are getting more and
more, yet easily contained, allowing Jason to get extra cars to
enforce the strength of the blockade.

Jason rounded up everyone, handing out fuel
that needs to be used on and inside the cars, they should also try
and make holes in the cars gas tanks, its simply to get the extra
juice and let fumes escape, they don’t want any explosion that
could risk the strength of the barricade.

The defenses is looking extremely good to
Jason, once they light up these cars there should be enough light
for them to see, the generator is ready if they need it, all that
is needed is a good distraction, Jason considers Martins idea to
use pots and pans to lure them. He starts tying them to long pieces
of rope, hanging them, the wind is blowing so it will make noise
but anyone can bang on them to make extra noise.

Everything is set up, everything is looking
good except for the weather, the clouds is thick and heavy,
lightning but so far no rain yet, if it does rain the plan will be
destroyed entirely, the won’t be able to destroy the bridge
either.

Since the streets still look decently clear
and safe, Jason orders everyone to take the remaining gas tanks and
just set them at random places, once done each one should make a
few Molotov cocktails, there is enough alcohol, this will surely
make it one hell of a hard trip for them.

William waits patiently as Conway set up the
last few speakers, the truck starts perfectly, it’s hard to breathe
in the truck with all the fuel, William can only hope Conway knows
what he is doing, one wrong move and this entire thing can go up in
flames with them still in it.

Without another second going to waste, they
take off; driving slowly for as long as they can before they are
forced to speed up as much as possible, there is so many, William
won’t be surprised if the truck just stops moving.

“Damn it, it stinks badly,” William said.

“Stop complaining, get ready we are only a
few blocks away,” Conway said.

“Let’s do this, go faster,” William said.

“This is the fastest it will go, beside don’t
want to jack knife this around a tight corner,” Conway said.

“I just realized, this plan will only work if
we destroy the bridge before entering Stock Island,” William
said.

“I know, it’s a long shot but we have to
try,” Conway said.

“Once we get on that bridge there is no going
back, we also have to set fire to it manually there won’t be time
to clear distance to use a Molotov, unless there isn’t to many of
them around , otherwise we head for the roof of the truck, set it
on fire and make a jump for it,” Conway said.

“Agreed, try to go not too far, I’m not the
fittest person and I hear Florida rank high when it comes to shark
attacks, I’m sure a bunch fell of and it’s a feeding zone by now,”
William said.

Conway tries to speed up on the bridge but
instead the truck only slows down, the bridge is full of them,
Conway crashes the truck into a bunch of cars, its far enough, it
will have to do, he turns on the radio playing a music Cd as loud
as possible, both of them head to the roof, those monsters are
everywhere along the bridge as far as the eye can see, so much that
some of them get forced over the bridge and into the ocean.

“You were right there are a lot that falls
over the edge, we need to swim deeper when we jump, you will never
know how long they can keep their breath for,” Conway said.

“Just a good distance from the bridge, that’s
all we need they can drown like any normal person,” William
said.

“If you say so,” Conway said as he prepares
his lighter.

Conway put his lighter back into his pocket
then aims his gun at the cars, firing only a few shots at the
tanks, leaving the fuel to run out, Conway makes sure that William
is ready, both are ready to jump, Conway lights his lighter and
hold it up against the part where they leaked some fuel, William
jumps, though Conway makes sure the flames are spreading fast like
it should and only jumps right before it could enter the
tanker.

They swim fast as far as possible, it
wouldn’t be wise to be under the bridge, and Conway can only hope,
hope that part of the bridge is weak and it will collapse easily,
the two stares patiently at the burning tanker, no explosion, it’s
simply burning.

William is starting to freak out, if that
thing doesn’t explode like planned, then they are stuck with a long
swim back to land, the gas can explodes into a large ball of flames
setting many of them on fire, but the tanker haven’t gone of yet,
approximately 4 minutes later after they started swimming back to
land they hear a loud explosion, looking back they can see only a
trail of black smoke and burning hot flames.

“See now we need to swim back and actually
see if it did any damage to the bridge,” Conway said as he starts
swimming back.

Close enough, Conway could see that their
plan failed, the blast wasn’t powerful enough, the bridge is
perfectly fine, he could see that some of the other cars also went
up in flames, followed with a small explosion, there were at least,
a large crack in the bridge, large enough for them to fall through,
though with the steel reinforced beams, there is no way this bridge
will collapse.

It will stop some of them but eventually they
will pass as they fill up the crack with their own rotting flesh.
The two starts swimming back it’s going to take a while, it is most
likely that they will be dead before they get back. Hopefully Sarah
is ok, what a brat to come along just to steal a boat and take off
like that, Conway wonders, if she ever knew that this is a global
epidemic and that there is no safe place to hide.

Sarah is already miles away from land, only
to realize she has no idea where she is going, the sea is rough,
with the thunder strikes in the distance it’s a sure way to freak
her out, making things even worse the boat suddenly dies, even the
lights went off, she is left on the water in the pitch dark
night.

Water splashes against the boat; Sarah can’t
help but pray as she cries, she hears the water splash against the
boat but she can tell, some of the splashes aren’t against the boat
directly, too afraid to stand up, she sits down holding her knees
up to her face, while something keeps bumping into the boat.

Sarah believes that this is water that got
splashed into the boat and with the little courage she have, she
gets up to find a bucket in order to remove the water. Little does
she know that there is a leak in the front of the boats nose, too
dark to see, busy for several minutes she realize that the water is
only getting deeper.

With the boat almost entirely sunken, she
knows there is no point of staying on it; she slides into the water
with a life jacket to help her float. She has never been so afraid
in her entire life, every few minutes there is a flash of light
caused by the lightning, she swims slowly, another flash of light
before its pitch dark again, she continues to swim in the direction
that she believe is the right way to Key West.

Another flash of lightning and she could see
that she wasn’t alone in the water, she can hear splashes, freaking
out she swims much faster, continues flashes of multiple lightning
strikes and she could see multiple fins, not a second later she
could feel this tight pressure over her ribs, another grab her left
arm, before she was dragged down, deep into the dark ocean.

Chapter 11: Revenge

Jason
and everyone else are ready and prepared, ready to take down this
horde approaching, knowing that there will be a lot. If they only
had the view Conway had, only then they would know they had
absolutely no chance of surviving the attack.

Beside of the over whelming numbers, Jason
had no idea of what would happen next. Luke had finally reached him
and he can’t wait to put an end to Jason’s miserable life, staring
from a distance patiently, observing them, it didn’t take him long
to figure out their plan.

There is a lot more with him then he expected
but he will make use of the neatly placed gas cans, he will use
that in order to get to Jason. Luke knows as soon as the defenses
are broken they will all freak out that will be his chance to take
him out.

The moaning is getting louder and louder,
Jason and everyone is standing ready to fire, Jason is in open
sight, and Luke readying his gun figuring a good shot will do good,
it will save him a lot of effort, before he could pull the trigger
Jason hear screaming, Jason knew that scream, that sounded exactly
like Jacky.

Jason order everyone to set the vehicles on
fire as he leaps over a car, he can see the horde, he could see a
flash light from one of the homes nearby, knowing that must be them
and if not obviously someone else that is still alive.

He rushes over, firing his pistols multiple
times, barely making it to the front door, with joy and happiness
he starts to cry, he finally found his daughters and Conway’s
girlfriend.

“We can’t stay here, we have to head back
now,” Jason said.

“We need to reach the barricade and help
defend it for as long as possible,” Jason said as he opens the
door, pushing Jacky slightly to start running.

They run over to the barricades climbing over
the car Martin kept unlit, Jason opened fire on the horde as soon
as he got over. Martin lit the car and it went up in flames, the
entire idea is working well, the bodies are stacking up fast, those
that catches fire only lasts a few seconds before dying. At this
rate they will have it cleared in no time, before it got better it
only got worse as it started to drip slightly only for a minute or
two until it started to rain heavily.

The rain quickly killed any large fires it’s
dark and hard to see, especially with the rain; Jason tries to
start the generator with Martin but realizes that it’s too late,
with people screaming horribly some out of fear others out of pain
and suffering.

The blockade had fallen it’s a fact, the only
reason for such screaming, they have no option but to head back,
Martin convinces Jason to stay a little longer, try and hold the
Fort slightly longer, they still have enough ammo and for all they
know not there could be only a few left.

Jason send his daughters to the boats to take
cover and if anything had to happen or these things had to reach
the boat they should take off and head straight to Fort Jefferson,
Maggie knows exactly where it is, it’s her favorite place to go
snorkeling.

Jason and Martin quickly return, trying to
assist anyone one with cover fire, only three of them made it back,
together as five they stood strong taking down a lot more then
Jason figured.

They are getting less and less by the minute,
Jason could only hear one loud scream, as he runs back to the boat
with Martin following, he can see a man holding a weapon toward
Maggie’s head, Martin lights up the man’s face with a flash light
and to Jason’s surprise, he sees Luke holding a revolver to her
head, before Jason could even think of taunting him he pulls the
trigger and makes a run for it.