Zombies in Paradise (Love in the Age of Zombies Book 2) (15 page)

He wondered what happened here during the Collapse. Was there a skeleton crew of workers, taking care of autumn chores as they closed up shop for the winter? Did they hear of a sudden zombie outbreak spreading north from Manistee, and leave their jobs in a panic, anxious to find safety for their families? Was the place rapidly deserted, or had a few year-round residents stayed put, only to end up being victims of zombies? Or were there still survivors in hiding?

The fact that he was standing on the dock—or sitting, actually, as by then he’d taken off his shoes and socks and was dangling his feet in the cold lake water—told him the resort had been abandoned in early October. If it had been any later, the dock would have been pulled out of the water for the winter. Likewise with the raft—he knew they didn’t leave it in the lake all year. Everyone must have left in a hurry or else been attacked and killed by zombies. Some folks must have turned. But he hadn’t seen any indication of mayhem, no signs of death, other than the corpse in the car. He hadn’t seen any blood, no signs of violence, no zombies. He felt like a character in a
Twilight Zone
episode where everybody in town has simply vanished. He was the only man left alive, abandoned on Lake Menekaunee.

Chapter fourteen

While Kevin wasn’t usually the type to act impulsively, he attempted to shake off his increasing depression and paranoia by swimming out to the raft. After all, he rationalized, this really could be his last chance. He may never come here again. He wanted to see the stars one more time while lying on the raft. With that thought he quickly disrobed and eased into the water, cringing. It was damn cold, especially when the water reached his groin. It took an act of courage to completely immerse himself. He slowly side-stroked away from the dock and into the lake, anxious to climb aboard the raft which appeared suddenly in front of him. He skirted the side of the raft until he felt the ladder.

As his feet found the steps, he pulled himself up and out of the lake. His right foot came splashing out of the water and onto the top step. He was greeted by an overwhelming stench; a split second later a crepuscular hand grabbed his wrist. With a shout of alarm, he lurched back into the water just as the teeth of a zombie grazed the skin of his forearm. He jerked back so hard he took the half-rotted zombie arm with him, wrenching it from the zombie’s body with a dull wet snap. It splashed into the black water and sank with a gurgle. The zombie paced the side of the raft, agitated at having come so close to biting Kevin. Silhouetted against the starry sky, it began making the rasping sound he had come to dread.

He swam back to shore in a panic, wading onto the beach and crawling onto the dock to retrieve his clothing.
The zombie’s been stranded on the raft. Maybe someone got bit and swam out here, knowing they couldn't hurt anyone if they turned,
he thought. It had been stranded since the fall—through the storms of November, the snows of winter, and through the thaw of spring. No wonder the arm was so brittle, having been exposed to the elements for so long! How it stayed “alive” atop the raft during the gales, when the waves must surely have bounced the raft around, was beyond Kevin’s imagination.

Every hair on the back of his neck stood up as he heard the zombie rasping. Seconds later he broke out in goosebumps as he heard responsive zombie rasps from around the lake. The calls from across the lake were barely audible, but he heard a few on the eastern side.
That’s around Simon Turner’s place,
he thought. One was nearer, close to his side of the lake. He didn’t hear any from the grounds of the resort, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He hastily put his shoes on, grabbed the rest of his clothes and sprinted the length of the dock and up the steps to the veranda. This was the second time he had run the length of the dock completely naked. The first time was fun.

He scrambled up the cement steps two at a time and stumbled over the last one, tumbling to the pavement and painfully skinning his knee. He knelt there, breathing hard, hoping the zombies couldn’t sense his blood. He strained his ears for any kind of sound over the pounding of his heart while he quickly pulled on his clothes. Despite his near panic, he knew he had to stop and listen. There were zombies around; he had to be careful. He couldn’t just run pell-mell into the night. There could be one just behind a tree or in the shadow of a cottage. The big maple by the tennis courts had a huge canopy; a good many creatures could huddle there, unseen, their bodies twitching and swaying while their jaws opened and closed.

Walking as fast as he dared in the darkness, he strode up the sidewalk passing between the inn and a small stand of trees. He imagined he could feel a presence in the woods, and nearly cried out when he heard the sound of something moving among the trees. Whatever it was bounded off and he realized it wasn’t a zombie, but probably a deer, fox or coyote.

Back in the washhouse, he hastily closed and locked the door before falling back onto his makeshift bed. The building no longer felt claustrophobic. Now it felt like a sanctuary.

He felt the floor with his hands, seeking one of the washcloths he’d knocked over. He was unsure whether or not he was bleeding, and if so, how badly, but he knew he did not want his bloody skinned knee to draw any zombies.

He found one of the wash cloths and, pressing it tightly to his knee, limped to the window. Of course he saw nothing except blackness. His eyes were useless. He would have to rely on his ears.

His sense of hearing had gotten much sharper without the constant white noise of civilization in the background—all the noise people and their machines make—and he could hear things he might not have noticed a year ago. He could hear the low rumble of the Lake Michigan surf in the distance. He heard the breeze rustle the young leaves in the line of maple saplings bordering the gravel drive. He heard a coyote; he heard two owls.

He heard a rasping.

He held his breath, afraid to make any noise. It sounded like it was near the Irish Blessing, a few hundred feet away. Kevin stood taller to hear better. Yes, it was definitely near the Irish Blessing.

He knew by experience they couldn’t see in the dark and didn’t usually move much at night. However, if zombies somehow knew he was here and slowly migrated this way, in the morning it could be a problem. And he had no idea whether there were others nearby. If the dozen or so he had heard were to somehow congregate around the washhouse during the night, it could be disastrous.
Damn my reckless impulse to swim to the raft!
he chastised himself.

Had the zombie communicated with the others. He didn’t hear any rasping until the one on the raft started, then the others responded. Was this new behavior, had he simply not noticed before, or was it just coincidence? If it was some kind of communication, and they all knew he was here, they probably planned to have him as the main attraction at a communal meal.

He reluctantly concluded there was only one option. He had to leave now, while it was too dark for them to see or follow. But where would he go? Back to M-22? That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t detour around the blocked bridge at night without using his lights. If he had just a little more light, he might be able to find a canoe and row it out into the middle of Lake Menekaunee  .  .  .  but he didn’t dare use his flashlight and wasn’t sure he’d find a canoe anyway.

Around the washhouse were 360 degrees of danger. It could come from any direction. The lake was safe, other than the raft, but nowhere on land was safe. Lake Michigan was safe, too. If he were on the beach of Lake Michigan, he’d be much safer. No zombies would be rising out of the water to attack him. A zombie that got into Lake Michigan would fall and flounder in the surf, too slow to ever rise again, and eventually be dismembered by the action of the waves against the sand and rocks. With so few houses along the shore, there wouldn’t likely be many zombies.

He pulled the washcloth from his knee and gingerly felt his knee. It was sticky, and very sensitive, but it didn’t seem to be bleeding any more.

Kevin pulled on his jeans, grabbed his cooler and quietly slipped out the door. He crept to the Jeep, but stood outside the driver’s side door trying to decide whether to start the engine and drive to the beach access point, or grab the bike and ride. He caught a whiff of decay in the air and decided it was unwise to ride the bike in the dark, so he climbed inside. Feeling much trepidation, he started the engine. It seemed obscenely loud. He decided to use the foglights instead of the headlights.

When he turned on the lights, he flinched back. There were three zombies within twenty feet of the Jeep! One was moving his jaw up and down methodically. Two had their arms outstretched, reaching for him. The other had only one arm to reach with. All three showed signs of decay and injury. The nearest one was missing part of his skull and Kevin could see black, decomposed brain tissue dripping down onto his shoulder. He put the transmission in reverse and backed up, knocking one down in the process, then quickly pulled forward, knocking down another. He felt a loathing satisfaction that made him shudder as it crunched and snapped under his tires. He saw several more zombies on the quarter-mile drive to the beach access/dead end. There were more here than he had anticipated. If he’d stayed all night in the washhouse  .  .  .  he stopped that train of thought and focused on his situation.
If I get to the beach access point and it’s filled with zombies, then what?
But his fears were allayed when he rounded the final curve and saw a clear road. Sand and leaves had blown over the road, but it showed no tire tracks, no human footprints, no scraping zombie tracks. In some places the sand had blown into shapes resembling snow drifts. The dunes were reclaiming the land.

Near a copse of trees the road ended and became a narrow sandy path leading past a huge, ancient oak tree. There was a wooden fence barrier with reflectors and a Beach Access sign
.
Kevin drove to the very end of the pavement then hopped out of the cab and opened the hatch. He yanked his bike out of the cargo bay, grabbed the backpack, and threw a bottle of water in the side pocket. He locked the Jeep and placed the keys on top of the front tire, hidden in the wheel well. He pedaled off, heading up the slight slope of the beach access path. He was glad he was on a hybrid bike—a street bike would probably have sunk in the sand. This bike could navigate on pavement or comfortably in sand as well. The sand, undisturbed for many months, was packed down and easy to ride upon. The moon was on the rise, offering Kevin precious little light to steer by, but he didn’t need much light for this part of the trip. He could hear the sound of the Lake Michigan surf and crested the small dune.

He rode the bike down the path to the beach, barely able to make out the shore and water under the canopy of brilliant stars and rising moon. The surf didn’t sound overly rough, but wasn’t placid, either. Even with his eyes fully adjusted to the dark, he could barely make out the dunes around him. He heard nothing other than the surf and the wind. He rode the bike to the water’s edge and headed north, his shirttails flapping in the lake wind.

He’d never ridden a bike on this or any beach in the dark. The shoreline was somewhat scalloped, slowing him down. Twice he wrecked the bike as he ran into various obstacles: driftwood, what may have been a chunk of fiberglass plate, and one foul-smelling lump that was either a zombie or a dead person. Fortunately he didn’t land on (or in) it when he fell!

As he scrambled to get up, a wave washed over his right leg. The water was freezing! It was much, much colder than the water in Lake Menekaunee. He scrambled onto his bike and pushed on. He debated what to do as he pedaled along, using the surf to guide him. Should he hide behind one of the small dunes and wait until daylight to move on? How would he know if a zombie was hidden in the dunes?

He knew he couldn’t go all the way to Frankfort in the dark. That would be idiotic. But  .  .  .  on the other side of the lake outlet, the land forms a very long, fairly narrow forested peninsula, and likely would be secure. However, there could easily be several zombies on either side of the outlet, clustering as they seem to do on river and creek banks.

There were small dunes overlooking the channel of water, and southeast was a bowl-shaped are filled with scrub brush and trees rising to the top of a dune. It was unlikely any of the creatures would be back there. Even so, Kevin decided against riding to the outlet, not knowing what to expect. He decided to hide on the other side of the first line of dunes, before the tree line. It had to have been around midnight. He was cold, he was tired, and he was still shaking from the adrenalin surge he’d had when he was nearly bitten by the zombie on the raft, and again when he turned on the fog lights.

He set his backpack down and walked about ten feet away, afraid to go further lest he lose his gear in the dark. He urinated into the sand, then headed back to lie down, using the backpack as a pillow. As he tried to relax, he desperately missed Michelle and Doc. He remembered what it was like to spoon in bed, nice and warm under the covers. At that moment he would have given anything to hold Michelle in his arms, or to share a glass of bourbon with Doc.

It was a long, cold, miserable night. He must have dozed off at some point, but not much. Most of the time he lay there, shivering, listening to the cold sound of dark waves falling onto the beach. Every other sound he heard or imagined was a zombie. Or a ghost.

Around the beach fires all those years ago, he’d heard the outlet was haunted. One couple told the story of being at the outlet near midnight, making out, when they saw the faint image of an oddly dressed woman walking through the outlet and then standing on the beach, audibly weeping as she looked out over the water. Then she faded away. They realized after the fact that she made no splashing sounds as she crossed the outlet, and her feet made no noise walking on the sand. They were freaked out and headed back to the inn. The next morning they laughingly told the story at breakfast, and an older man at a nearby table overheard them. He said he’d been on the wait staff forty years ago, and he’d seen the same thing. The man told the same story as theirs, except he was standing near the lake and the apparition stood only ten feet away, facing the water and weeping despondently until she faded away. Just before she disappeared, she turned and looked into his eyes. They were the loveliest eyes he had ever seen, but so incredibly sad that they broke his heart.

One early history of the lake reported newlyweds who tried to cross the frozen outlet while driving along the beach in winter. At that time the outlet was dredged deep and wide enough to float logs from Lake Menekaunee to Lake Michigan for transport. The car broke through the ice, drowning the couple. There were reports of haunted tire tracks in the snow nearly every year, tracks which lead to one side of the frozen outlet and disappeared. They didn’t come out the other side. Kevin used to suspect it was just four-wheelers having fun on the frozen beach. Shivering on the cold, dark beach, he wasn’t so sure anymore.