Part 31 (1/2)
”Where the h.e.l.l did you get that?” David shouted over his shoulder, hands clutching Selah's legs to keep her safely on his shoulder.
”Got them off one of Bal Shem's henchmen,” Brooks, running, yelled in response.
Behind them, flames billowed in giant fireb.a.l.l.s across the camp, consuming deadfall and leaves, tents and corpses. The trailers melted away like plastic toys, leaving only bare, charred metal frames. Everywhere they looked they saw the infected and the healthy locked in struggles for survival.
Ahead of them, the lake was close. The rain from the previous day had raised the water level, and ankle-deep puddles swallowed their feet.
”There! A boat tied to the pier!” David yelled, voice hoa.r.s.e.
A guttural growl sounded from above. Hanging in a tree were three feral infected feasting on the rotting remains of a person they must have stowed there for safe keeping. A gray-skinned arm, swollen and rotting, fell to the ground, as the three leapt from the branch. One of the infected landed square on David's back, knocking him forward. As he fell, the air whooshed out of his lungs. Selah, screaming careened forward onto the ground.
”No!” Dejah ran for Selah and s.n.a.t.c.hed her up just as one of the infected trio grabbed the girl's leg. A second zombie gripped David's back, tearing through his clothes and digging at his flesh. The third knocked Brooks off-balance, sending one of his guns flying into the mud.
Dejah grasped Selah's arm and delivered a swift face-kick to the creature clutching her leg. The blow landed hard; it snapped the zombie's neck backward and broke it. Still alive for a few moments, its head lolled on the top of its spine like a tether ball. She gathered Selah desperately into her arms.
David rolled over, sending his attacker off-balance. He crab-walked backward quickly, but when he turned over to gain his footing it reached out and grabbed him again, taking him back down.
”Get to the boat!” David yelled at Dejah. Tears filled his eyes.
Gunfire raked the ground behind him and blasted his attacker. David was suddenly free. Brooks stood nearby, his weapon aimed at the last of the now-dead trio of feral infected.
”Y'all go on; I'll cover you and come after!”
There was no argument. David grabbed Selah again and sprinted. Dejah and Dr. Robbins ran, too, despite the bleeding wound of his gunshot leg. The older man ground his teeth, keeping pace as they fled.
They reached the sh.o.r.eline and crossed the pier. David jumped into the boat. He put Selah down into the center and held out his hand, pulling Dejah and Dr. Robbins into the wobbling craft. ”Come on, Brooks!”
Brooks unloaded his gun into four more pursuers. The bullets took out half of them, but when the gun emptied, he turned to run for the pier. Brooks just made it onto the structure when the feral group sprang onto his back, pulling him down to the boards. Without a weapon, the four in the boat could do nothing to help Brooks at long range.
”G.o.dd.a.m.n it, go!” Brooks screamed as the jagged talons of the gore-besmeared infected ripped his clothes and raked his flesh, opening ragged wounds. They quickly overcame him.
David scrambled to the stern of the boat and lowered the propeller into the water. Dejah slipped a life jacket over Selah's trembling shoulders and cinched the strap tight. Robbins sat poised with oar in hand, ready to hit anything that tried to board the boat. David pulled the starter cord; the motor gave a faint whine and shuddered violently. Again he yanked the manual cord. The propellers kicked up water, shaking the fis.h.i.+ng boat, and the engine sputtered, but died again. He checked a gauge on the side of the engine. ”d.a.m.n! It's out of gas!”
A terrifying explosion suddenly blew away part of the pier, raining boards, and wood and body parts into the air and over them. s.h.i.+elding his head with one arm, Robbins threw off the rope connecting them to the now flaming pier and used his foot to shove off.
”Use the oars,” Robbins shouted, as they realized Brooks had blown up himself rather than die at the hands of the feral infected. Robbins tossed David one of the oars and began rowing.
Dejah clutched Selah to her as the men paddled as fast as they could to get away from the sinking pier. Another ma.s.sive explosion plumed above the thick treeline above the camp.
”Fuel shed,” David muttered, short of breath as he paddled the boat.
The sh.o.r.e they left behind was peopled by roaming cl.u.s.ters of raging infected, but, seeing them float away, they turned their attention back toward the camp's straggling survivors.
”Don't slow down!” Robbins yelled, as one infected made his way successfully into the lake and began swimming toward them.
David gripped the oar tighter, and put his back into rowing.
Mist lay over the distant water. The other side of the lake was a gray line on the horizon. For all the silence and tranquility of it, it might as well have been a whole other world.
CHAPTER 44.
When they reached the center of the lake, they stopped paddling to catch their breath. Dr. Robbins rested his head against his oar, panting loudly. Muscles burned in his arms and back. Dejah and Selah were still locked in an embrace in the middle of the boat. David rested his oar across his knees, propped his elbows on the oar and, eyes closed, put his face into his hands.
They stayed like that for several minutes. The boat drifted.
”Do you think they can swim this far?” Selah asked, her little voice trembling with fear, cracking and hoa.r.s.e from screaming.
Dr. Robbins smiled weakly. ”Doubt it, sugar. Lake's about seventy feet deep here. Even if those d.a.m.n infected b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had the ability to swim, their minds are so confused, they'd probably forget to breathe or something and go down like a big rock.”
Selah's eyes were wide at the suggestion.
”They're not getting out here, Selah. Look at the fire beyond the sh.o.r.eline where the camp is - probably all dead by now. I saw several of them run right into a burning tent,” David said, wiping his perspiring forehead on his s.h.i.+rt sleeve.
”Mommy, is Daddy dead?”
The adults in the boat exchanged glances. Dejah inhaled sharply. There was no point lying to her about what had happened. She saw the whole thing. She just needed confirmation. Needed to hear it out loud. ”Yes, sweetie. Daddy's dead. He's...he's in Heaven now. Nothing can hurt him ever again.”
”I thought so,” Selah said quietly, and joined the adults in their silent contemplation of recent events and where they would go from here.
David reached into the lake and scooped up a handful of water, splas.h.i.+ng the blood and grime and sweat from his face. He wiped the water from his eyes with the underside of his s.h.i.+rt.
Selah sat quietly in the boat surveying the lake around them. The water was calm in the cold autumn air with only a few ripples breaking the surface to betray where fish came to investigate. Wistfully, she leaned over the boat's side and danced her fingers over the water. ”How come there are trees in the lake?”
Dr. Robbins smiled at her question. For just a moment, he was transported a decade back in time, and was sitting on an old graying pier, on the same lake, with Kammie kicking her feet over the side, putting a plump worm on a fis.h.i.+ng hook. The happy image dissolved from his mind almost as quickly as it had formed. He smiled at Selah. ”Well, Lake Tawakoni didn't used to be a lake at all. Back in about 1960, that's a long time ago, even before your mom got herself born, somebody - and I don't know who - flooded all this land with water and made this place a reservoir. That's just a fancy word for lake. The water's used by the cities around here.”
”It's got a funny name,” Selah said, and reached her hand out to touch a gray, barren tree stripped of all bark poking forlornly from beneath the water's surface.
”Named after a tribe of prehistoric Indians who used to own the land here. You can find arrowheads on the beach and stuck in trees if you look hard enough.”
”Wow.” Selah placed her chin on the edge of the fis.h.i.+ng boat, staring into the water. She looked tired, bone weary, her body sickly thin, her hair hanging in greasy strands around her gaunt face.