The Apocalypse

Chapter 28

Sarah

The Island



Her insides were cried out and empty, and the rain began to slacken, and her head hung. Below, the zombies ate their fill of what used to her father and most went back to the river to be washed on to their next slaughter, while seventy or eighty hung about, mindlessly milling. They were too many for Sarah with her limited ammunition.

“I know what you did,” Denise said in a choked voice. For hours on end they had sat on dreadful thin perches, which threatened to give at any moment as the wind swung the tree back and forth with a fearful creaking. And only now her mother spoke.

“I had to,” Sarah replied, unable to look at her. She hadn't once glanced Denise's way. Not once in all the long night. And now with the sun threatening to reveal the scene of Gary Rivers' murder, Sarah chose to shut her eyes instead.

Denise let out a hacking cough and said through rattled lungs, “You were right to do what you did. You kept him from pain. You kept him from becoming one of them. And I know you'll do the same for me.”

Sarah's eyes were red and they burned and she wished for tears to relieve them but they did not come. “I will if I have too,” she finally spat out.

“It's time, now.”

“No. We're not going to just give up,” Sarah said with anger and harshness in her words. “I didn't give up on you before, despite what they wanted me to do and I'm not...”

Her mother interrupted in a tired voice, “I'm not giving up. It's time. The fever has run its course.” With a start, Sarah now looked up to see her mother's face alive with the heat that baked her from the inside out. “One of them got me,” she whispered. “Just a scratch, I barely even felt it with all the excitement.”

“No,” Sarah said, breathlessly. “Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's tetanus, or a normal flu. We've been up here all night. It's a cold, only.”

“It burns like fire. It's the virus, I know the symptoms. Harry Jenkins got bit, remember? It's the same, and now it's coming on worse. Please don't let me go through this just so you won't have to feel bad about killing me. It's what I want.”

“Mom...”

“I love you,” Denise Rivers said. “Now come up above me. And please don't make me beg. It hurts too much.”

Sarah climbed with numb hands and without care. If she fell she didn't think she would mind a bit, in fact it would be an act of mercy. She climbed and couldn't look at her mother as she passed, and Denise wouldn't look at her. The older woman stared at the bark of the tree with a look of dread fear on her face.

“I love you so much,” she said again with more life. Her wrinkled hands gripped the trunk with all her might so that little chips of it fell away. “Make it fast, please. It's in my head and it hurts so bad. Hurry.”

“Love you, Mom,” Sarah said and then took a deep breath and then another, and tears dropped where she was aiming, right at the top of her mother's head. Sarah's hands began to shake so badly that she had hug the tree with her arm and neck to hold herself steady and still she couldn't pull the trigger.

Below, zombies began to gather, looking up, as if hungry for their prize, like dogs would after treeing a cat. Denise started to look up at her too and Sarah screamed with rage and pulled the trigger, and then she screamed and screamed to drown out the awful sound of her mother falling from the tree, smacking against branch after branch before thumping to ground.

And Sarah screamed hate and shook the tree because the zombies ate loudly. The wet sounds of her mother's flesh being pulled apart and the snap of her bones and the sucking of her marrow had Sarah rocking against the tree as her vocal cords began to tear in her misery.

She went on so long that as the first light of day came, the tree itself took up the cadence of her misery and swayed back and forth. Soon the swaying became somewhat dangerous and Sarah didn't care. What was left for her? Her parents were dead and her life was ruined...even her life as a whore was out the window. She had seen the sharp anger in the colonel's eyes when she had disobeyed his orders. No one disobeyed him.

Not that she would consider sleeping with him even for a second now.

It was he who had stolen their food and weapons. It was he who had turned her into a whore just so she could save her parents. And it was he who had allowed them to die by cutting the bridge. Her hatred for him twisted her face and she felt a need to kill that would have shamed the zombies below. It fueled the swinging and now the tree tipped so far over at the end of each of its inverted pendulum like swings that she unexpectedly saw how she could get off the island with her life.


At the end of each swing the tree hung out further and further over the river, which was thankfully empty of the living corpses that had choked it the night before. Sarah swung harder and then as the tree reached out beyond the wires, she let go, dropping with a light splash.

The water was beyond cold, yet the air was worse and so she felt somewhat of a relief as she let the current drift her along. She went for a few miles in this way, lazing, barely doing enough to keep afloat, letting the cold match the numbness she felt inside. Unfortunately her reality came back to her as she saw zombies along the western shoreline ahead.

Keeping low, she paddled to the other edge of the river and was surprised to see more of the creatures. They stood beneath the trees as though they didn't care for the sun that was only then crawling into the sky and even as she watched they began to drift deeper into the forest.

With the air heating up with the Indian Summer, Sarah left the water and crept along the bank of the river, leaving her small prints in the mud. And then she heard actual people: a cry and then running.

Using the brush for cover, Sarah came closer to the sound, following behind a group of zombies who were hurrying forward in anticipation of a meal. She hoped they would feast. That hope boiled up from a place of hate. It was rancid within her and the sick feeling had her wishing it was a group of soldiers who were being attacked.

However it wasn't. It was a man and a woman...or rather what looked like a man and his daughter...or so Sarah hoped. The girl was Brit's age and the idea that this guy was trying to stick it to her was revolting. She almost turned away at the thought, leaving them to their fate, but then she saw the slight man brain a zombie with a rock with one hand as he pushed the girl behind him with the other.

He was protecting her, like Sarah should've been doing for Brit all along.

“But Brit is dead,” Sarah whispered aloud in an attempt to wrest her heart from the quick guilt that had infested her. Brit had to be dead. She was one of eight million zombies in New York City—that was a sad fact that Sarah had tried to pretend wasn't, only now, after the death of her parents she couldn't pretend any longer. The real truth was that Brittany was like all the rest. She had been eaten and turned into a soulless thing weeks ago. Just like all the rest.

Just like this girl would be if Sarah didn't do anything.

The thought sent a spark through the cringing woman and before she knew it, she charged the zombies from behind. At close range she plugged two of them with shots that were like explosions in the quiet morning forest. The sound had the creatures turning and Sarah shot another, making a hole for the trapped pair to dash through.

And then they were all running, humans and zombies alike.

“To the river,” Sarah said, pelting barefoot and free with only the rifle to slow her. “The stiffs can't swim.”

The slope of the river came up fast and the young girl flashed ahead and leapt far into the water with her momentum, coming down feet first. This was in direct contradiction to the man who stopped at the edge to take off his shoes. Sarah took him by the pack and pulled him backwards while he gasped at the cold and spluttered something about not being able to swim very well.

“You can swim better than them,” the girl said, making an easy time of the river. She turned on her back and did a gentle backstroke and introduced herself. “Hi, I'm Sadie.”

The man cleared his throat and said in little more than a whisper, “And what do you say?”

Sadie smirked at him before adding, “Thanks for saving us. This is Neil. He thinks he's going to turn me into a lady one of these days.”

“Manners don't go out of style just because of a zombie apocalypse,” Neil replied. He then stuck out a small hand and said, “We really do appreciate the help...”

“I'm Sarah.” For some reason the two words had been difficult for her to speak. Just then she didn't really know who she was. Everything that had made her Sarah Rivers before, was now gone.