Chapter 24: The Next Great Scramble
The first few were shot in the knees to slow the others down, but that just clogged the center and forced them up the winding staircases riding both walls over to Samuel, Chambers, and Marcus. They used their ammunition sparingly, only shooting one and then kicking it back on top of the rest behind it trying to climb the stairs. The mess in the middle let out and up the main staircase. Marcus looked back and forth at Samuel and Chambers nervously. He was the only one without a gun. He took a deep breath and stepped forward. Marcus felt the resistance of Samuel grabbing his shoulder and could have cried.
"There's no stopping them. Fall back, c'mon, let's get out of here."
They started retreating back, all three, unharmed, Samuel, Chambers, and Marcus, but the zombies were following closely behind them. Annie hurried down the stairway and out of the fire exit with Quinn right behind her. Outside the fire exit was the alleyway. Rebecca and Atticus were out in the adjacent street firing back towards the inn’s main entrance. Everyone else staggered outside in an all-out sprint.
Quinn left her pack behind, barely getting her glasses on to catch up with Annie. Tyrell and Jill on the other hand stopped to fix each other up and get their clothes back into their bags when Samuel, Marcus, and Chambers came rushing in to get them.
Everyone shuffled out of the inn's fire exit. In the madness, Chambers knocked into Tyrell and Jill, landing all three of them on the ground. The zombies poured out of the stairwell right on top of them. Samuel grabbed Tyrell as Marcus grabbed Chambers; both he and Tyrell went for Jill, but it was too late. The zombies had her leg pinned down and now everybody was caught in a game of tug of war.
Samuel pulled Tyrell, who pulled Jill along with Chambers. The rabid undead got stuck in the doorway behind them as they struggled. They crawled out to Jill and bit into her leg and side. Jill watched as everyone else ran away, too scared to face the door and what they were running away from. By now the zombies were too close.
The pain was insurmountable, and so she just blocked it out, it was warm, numb, and wet. But the horror was real. People with feral eyes and torn up faces eating her alive all the while Tyrell writhing like a madman in Samuel’s arms. Chambers forced himself to let go of Jill and dive at Tyrell before the zombies broke free from the door. He helped Samuel get them out of the alleyway safely. Samuel, Tyrell, and Chambers left Jill behind and caught up with the others.
Tyrell punched and shook his way free of Samuel and Chambers. With the boardwalk cleared, it took the added force of both Atticus and Marcus to get Tyrell to calm down and give up going back.
“SHE’S DEAD, MAN!” Chambers kept yelling as they dragged him through the sand.
“We have to go, Ty” Samuel insisted.
“I can’t leave her,” Tyrell cried as he clutched his own head in agony and let them drag him away.
They were finally at the beach. Annie was showing them the zombies stuck in their own quicksand, as they loosely navigated around them.
“I don’t see a boat anywhere.”
Everywhere they looked down the beach there were no signs of boats or docks, just lifeguard benches and dunes. Now the day would get them, with all the options and chances failing, the zombie horde stormed over the boardwalk and onto the beach.
“We need to choose now!” Atticus yelled.
Nobody had ever been to this place before. The only reason they came here was because of a hunch. A hunch which turned out to be like every place else, desolate. Back when Corey and Jill were still alive. That’s when Samuel realized; splitting up often ended in death but was necessary to their survival and the greater good. So, Samuel split the group in half: Samuel, Rebecca, Atticus, and Tyrell, and then Marcus, Annie, Chambers, and Quinn. One group went up the beach and one group went down.
Samuel fell back and let Atticus lead their group in search for a boat. He needed to make sure Tyrell was alright, along with Rebecca who was back in doctor mode, making sure Tyrell wasn’t scraped or bit. “He appears to be clean.” She told Samuel, “But I don’t think he is okay emotionally.”
“Who would be?” Samuel logically deducted. It is normal to be shocked or devastated when you lose someone close. If any two people could relate, it was Samuel and Rebecca.
“In time he will get better."
The division of the group confused the horde, and after they split in two, more of them chased after Marcus’ group rather than Samuel’s group. Many got caught in the sand, or so confused that they stopped chasing all together and wandered back up to the boardwalk or into the ocean. By the time they started to catch up with the survivors, only four were after Samuel’s group, unfortunately four times more were after B Squad.
Samuel and Atticus kept luring the zombies on, long away from anything else. They left the town of Cape May and got into some wilderness as the sand dwindled to rock. Marcus and the others on the other hand walked up the beach, which was the town’s back spine, wrapping them around to the bay. Chambers stayed behind and let the sixteen pass him.
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Chambers shot three consecutive arrows, cutting the number to thirteen and finishing the arrows in his quiver. He panicked. Lately Chambers had been too distracted with the goods he got back at the church, you know… the goods he shared with Rebecca, to maintain his ammunition. Now they were expended. Luckily, he took down the back three and the other dead heads didn't seem to notice.
He paused to take his boots off and tread barefoot in the sand, tying his laces to his belt. Chambers slid a blade out from under his vest. He sneaked up on the first one. It was a decrepit old thing, just some meat on a mobile skeleton. So, Chambers popped his blade in its neck and snapped the head off, like plucking an apple from the branch. Chambers picked up its head and threw it at the next one.
Except when it hit they all turn around.
“Oh, shit.”
By the time Chambers caught up with the group only one was left which Marcus took upon himself to chop to shreds with his ax. They wrapped completely around the Cape and were walking parallel to the bay when they came upon a restaurant called the Lobster House. Behind the Lobster House was a yacht that was docked and serving as its bar and waiting area.
"There's our girl," Chambers notified everyone, “Find a way to dislodge it.”
They began cutting the carpet and taking apart the floor. Chambers walked up to a statue of a pirate decorating the bar. He put his fingers around the statue’s black eye-patch. He popped off a clip around the back; it was a legitimate eye-patch. Chambers adjusted his headband back to his forehead and put the eye-patch on.
This was meant to be.
The sails dropped. Annie was nowhere to be found. Marcus left the boat and went to look for her inside. She was dragging stacked boxes of food from the kitchen along the dining room floor on a tablecloth. Marcus smirked as he walked around her and helped get the food to the boat. When they returned the yacht was now free from the deck of the Lobster House, but something was still docked.
Annie pulled the tablecloth over the gaped ledge and onto the boat, dragging it to the center of the bridge and letting go before going over to Chambers, “Hey nice eye-patch. What a find!”
“Thanks. I know, right."
"So, what’s holding us up?” asked Marcus.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been on a boat before.”
Marcus laughed, “Some pirate you are!”
He really thought Chambers was joking at first. But the blank look on Chambers’ face finally sunk in and Marcus realized. “Well did you bring up the anchor?”
“Anchor! That’s right!”
Annie laughed as she leaned in on them by the doorway with her hand holding her elbow, and her finger hooked in her mouth, tooth under nail. Chambers ran out the other door, a little embarrassed, and went to get the anchor. Once it was reeled up from the depths, the sails took the wind and carried them out of the docks.
“Do you know what you’re doing, luv?” Annie asked him.
“Excuse me?” Marcus looked at her.
Annie kept forgetting he was American, that this was America, and she just used a non-threatening colloquialism on a man that she actually had feelings for. In short, Americans are so wound-up, even the men.
“My father had a yacht. He took me out on it every weekend of my childhood,” Annie explained to him.
“I think I can handle turning a wheel, darl-ing.”
Annie blushed and walked out smiling. He was just as awkward as she was. What a refreshing notion. “Call me if you need me!” she yelled out from the deck, very casual, right? The Lobster House yacht left the bay and swept the beach from not too far out so they could look for the others.
Once they got to the southern tip of Cape May, the shore became rocky and grassy with wild grown weeds and trees everywhere. That was where they caught up with Samuel, Atticus, Rebecca, and Tyrell, taking cover on a beach next to what looked like concrete wreckage but was really once a ship called the Atlantus.
Samuel sent them out into the ocean one by one, as he, being last, made a run for it, lingering zombies caught them. There was nothing more terrifying than running from a zombie, other than having to do it in waves of saltwater. As Samuel fended them off they swamed over to the yacht. Once he got to where the zeeks couldn't stand it was easy. The rest of A Squad safely climbed aboard and set sail with food, free of zombies, for the South, and Florida, putting the nuclearized Northeast behind them, while completely avoiding the nation’s capital.
As they sailed away Annie sat on the deck, staring out at the drifting beach, growing smaller and smaller. Annie felt horrible. She thought he would come back. They said he always came back.
Samuel sat down next to her, and put his hand on her back, patting her. “I know what you’re feeling.” He went on, “Part of me wanted Jackson to get back before we left too, but I guess too much happened.”
“Was he your dog?” Annie wiped away her tears.
“No, he was my neighbor’s dog. But my son loved him. And I thought…”
“What?” Annie turned to Samuel, who was choked up, “Go on, you can tell me.”
“I just thought Jackson would help me find my son.”
“I’m sorry, Samuel.”
Samuel and Annie stared out at Cape May leaving them in the distance, as they drifted out east, deeper into the ocean, and safety. Atticus, Marcus, and Tyrell were inside, looking at maps, trying to figure out where to go, and how to get there. Chambers was getting sea sick off the edge of the boat with Quinn and Rebecca tending to him.
Chambers had saved all of them on multiple occasions, now it was time for them to take care of him, even though he was a tweeker. Everyone was finally able to get a good night’s rest. It was the first night, for many in a while, that they didn’t have to worry about being torn apart in their sleep. The Lobster House yacht took them away, took them to safety, took them south.
End of Saga One