Resurrection: A Zombie Novel, - [ereader manga .TXT] 📗

They anchored the boat 200 feet out and swam in. The water was so cold that Kyle’s lungs briefly seized up, but Hughes insisted it was far better to be cold and wet for a spell than bring the boat onto the beach where it would not be secure.

They left the handguns, but Hughes brought the M4 rifle and held it over his head and swam with one hand to keep it dry. Kyle and Annie brought crowbars. Frank brought his hammer. And that was it. They weren’t relocating to the island just yet. This was a recon mission.

Kyle shivered and dripped on the shore and tried to hug himself warm. He had forgotten how rocky the beach was. Soft sand is created by pounding ocean waves, but the water around the San Juans behaved more like a lake, aside from the tides. The silence of the sea made them safer since crashing waves would conceal threatening noises.

“I need to go inside,” Annie said through chattering teeth. Her waterlogged clothes sagged off her shivering body. “The hotel will have towels.”

Kyle shivered too. Frank shivered. Even Hughes, with all his insulating bulk, shivered a little.

“Agreed,” Kyle said. “Our clothes will still be wet, but we can dry off and warm up before we have to put them back on.”

“We’ll get dry clothes in some of the houses,” Hughes said.

“We leave the houses alone,” Kyle said. “They belong to someone. We should at least wait until we’re certain they aren’t coming back. There should be a clothing store on the next street.”

They crossed Main Street and followed a handpainted wooden sign in front of the hotel that said “Office.” The office was dark, and Kyle had to cup his hands over the glass to see inside, but it did not look abandoned. It just looked like it was closed for the day.

He pushed and pulled the door handle. It was locked, so he knocked. He knew no one would answer, but it felt like the right thing to do.

“Hello!” he said. “Anyone in there?”

“Just break the glass,” Hughes said.

Kyle hadn’t felt averse to breaking and entering for more than a month. The very concept of breaking and entering meant nothing anymore on the mainland, but Eastsound was different. It still looked respectable.

He felt like a criminal, but he whacked the glass with his crowbar. The shattering was extraordinary. It gave him one jolt of adrenaline and another of fear. Surely that sound could be heard from a mile away.

“You guys okay?” Parker called from the boat. He was hundreds of feet away, but with no wind, no rain, no surf, and no traffic, his voice carried like he was standing right there.

“Just bustin’ into the office,” Frank said. He didn’t yell it, he just said it, and of course Parker could hear him. For a second Kyle was surprised that Parker showed concern for their well-being, but only for a second. Parker was concerned about his own ass. Anything that threatened them threatened him even if it threatened him less.

Kyle reached through the broken glass, unlocked the door, and stepped into the office. It was just as cold inside as out. The heat had been off for a long time. He could see well enough in the gloom to step behind the counter and grab four room keys.

“Just grab one,” Hughes said. “We should stick to one room,” Hughes said.

“I need to take off my clothes,” Annie said, still shivering.

Kyle handed her a key, kept one for himself, and returned two to the desk. “You take 17. We’ll be next door in 18.”

“We should get ourselves a raft,” Frank said, “so we don’t have to freeze our asses off like this every time we go to and from the boat.”

“The hell are we going to find a raft?” Hughes said.

“I’ll make one out of shoestrings and twigs,” Annie said, “if I don’t have to do this again.”

“There’s a dock down the shore a ways,” Kyle said. “We can tie the boat there when we know for sure the island is safe.”

“It’s not safe,” Hughes said.

Annie stopped shivering for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“This place looks perfect, right?” Hughes said.

Like heaven, Kyle thought. A city on a hill at the end of the world.

“But it’s empty,” Hughes said. “Why would a place this nice be empty? People here ran away from something.”

“From what?” Kyle said. “There’s nothing here.”

“I don’t know,” Hughes said. “But Annie girl, you’re coming into room 18 with us. You can dry off and warm up in the bathroom. Nobody should be alone on this island.”

Annie locked herself in the bathroom, hung her wet clothes in the shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and sat on the floor. The room had no window so she couldn’t see anything, but she didn’t care. She felt warm and safe and comfortable. The floor was cold, but the towel kept the chill out of her shoulders and core. It also covered the bite mark on the back of her shoulder. She’d need to make damn sure nobody saw that. The three men on the other side of the door might only keep her safe as long as they didn’t know her little dark secret.

But safe from what? She had a hard time believing the islanders ran away from disaster. What disaster? There had to be a benign explanation. Or if they did run from something, whatever it was had moved on.

“The light’s weird here, isn’t it?” Frank said on the other side of the door. She couldn’t see him—she couldn’t see anything—but she could hear him just fine.

“The color is a bit strange,” Kyle said, “but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just something to do with the clouds.”

The light in the sky had looked a bit odd, now that she thought about it. It took on an odd fluorescence similar to the light in a meat locker or Walmart. But Kyle was right. It didn’t mean anything. Frank was just a little on edge. They were all a little on edge, especially Parker.

She dreaded the thought of getting dressed again. She’d freeze the minute she put her wet clothes back on.

She stood up, wrapped the towel around her body—taking care to ensure that her bite mark was covered—and opened the door. Kyle, Hughes, and Frank were drying off in the next room. None had any clothes on.

“Sorry!” she said and went back into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar so they could talk.

“Kyle,” she said, “I understand what you’re saying about not breaking into anyone’s house, but we need some dry clothes and we don’t have time to look for a store. We’re going to get hypothermia walking around in wet clothes. And what if we got attacked right now?”

“We’re not going to be attacked,” Kyle said.

Hughes and Frank said nothing.

“Look at us,” she said, “freezing our bare asses off. This is ridiculous.”

“She’s right,” Frank said. “I’m still freezing my ass off even now that it’s dry.”

“I agree,” Hughes said. “Like it or not, we need to bust into somebody’s house.”