Chapter 30: The Problem with Nice Things
At the Oil Refinery, Tyrell desperately tried to stall the undead from coming ashore. As the first couple began to wash up their feet were so waterlogged they crumbled beneath them. Tyrell ran out of the factory with two containers of gasoline and a shotgun. He put one by his feet and threw the other into the oil-filled water. Tyrell cocked a shell into the shotgun and fired it into the submerged gas tank. The shot exploded the flaming gas all over the shore. The oil lit on fire and spread into the bay. Tyrell coughed as fire rained down all around him. The crawlers on the beach made their slow way towards him with their backs on fire.
Tyrell made one last trip into the oil refinery, dodging the raining fire and grabbed his things. He got his jacket, put his gun-belt on with the pistol he found on the road, back when Jill was still alive. He set the explosives he created along key areas of the refinery and placed a trigger he fashioned on his gun-belt. Its so funny, everyone here wanted him to turn the lights of civilization back on, pretend like the zombies never happened. They found the one guy who could do it and the first thing he did was rig the whole place to blow incase of an outbreak.
Somewhere along the line for Tyrell, whether it was seeing his family get devoured when this thing first popped off, watching Jill go the way she did, or maybe he was just flat out smarter than everyone else, his pragmatism took over. There was no going back to the way things were. They would all have to learn the hard way, but not Tyrell. He put his pack on over his coat and picked the shotgun back up. Man was it hot outside, but he knew the coat might make the difference between getting bit or not. By now it had stopped raining fire from the explosion outside.
Even the bay of fire could not stop them. What a nightmarish scene the beach had become. Groggy bodies emerged from the firewater and stumbled onto land, catching fire themselves, and taking it with them. They looked like demons coming from hell. It was an unholy baptism by fire. The sweeping fire freed some of them from the oil and their sloppy flesh.
People were screaming bloody murder. Filled with pure panic over being stuck on an island with the undead. Their sanctuary had suddenly turned into a death trap. Boney fearsome creatures came out of the water. Ones soaking wet and flaming at the same time marched past the crawlers. They caught people too distracted and inexperienced to get away and tore into their flesh like marshmallow, because it was sticky. No one ever talks about how sticky flesh and guts can get.
Tyrell started to lose his calm under pressure watching this horror show go down. He wanted to do something. He wanted to look away. Instead, he ran around back only to find more zombies clawing up the docks into the refinery parking lot, ones that weren’t on fire. He decided to take his chances with them.
Chambers had died a long time ago. Now he was biting at Rebecca’s neck inside the hospital room, pushing her into the wall and then down to the floor. With Samuel on the floor and Annie out of the room, zombie Chambers seemed to want to make the one who did this to him pay. Rebecca took an oath a long time ago to do no harm, that night after Central Park she unwittingly broke that oath with Chambers. Now she might pay the ultimate price.
Rebecca kicked him off of her and searched around for a weapon. For some reason that they might never be know of, their fiendish friend stopped his blood-pursuit. Zombie Chambers popped his dead eye out. The crooked ghoul looked at it and ate it, continuing to chew on it in his mouth. Rebecca wanted to puke. Samuel watched in horror, unable to get to his feet, cornered by the risen Chambers.
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Annie brought Warren of all people into the room with Jackson. They immediately pounced on the situation. Jackson started gnawing at Chambers’ boot and Warren jabbed the fetch-stick down through the neck, dropping the corpse. He helped his father up, “It’s not over, they’re comin’ down the road.”
“Okay, let’s move people,” Samuel ushered Annie out of the door with Warren and Jackson.
“Oh my god,” Rebecca stumbled, fixated on Chambers’ bloody remains on the floor.
“It’s okay, Rebecca, we gave him a chance.” Samuel urged her forward. “It’s not your fault. We need to forget about it for now. Wait ‘til we’re on the boat with Atticus and Marcus and nothing but water all around us to mourn the dead. But for now, I need you here with me. Okay?”
“Okay. I’m okay.”
“Great. Did you do what we discussed, Doctor?”
Rebecca blinked like she was coming out of a coma, she ran through the list in her head, opened a cabinet, and pulled a bag out filled with bottles of pills and supplies. The halls were barren, some patients were left to die, Rebecca thought about helping them, right about the time she felt Samuel’s hand grabbing hers. He was already anticipated her going back to help them. He knew she would want to, but not be able to. So, Samuel made the decision for her.
Outside in the parking lot, the zombies were getting between fleeing people and their old community station wagons. Samuel got back to his car where he had their weapons. He threw a pistol to Rebecca and handed his son a machete, taking a baseball bat for himself. Annie got to the passenger seat and took her snub-nose revolver out of the glove-compartment. They got together, Samuel and Warren leading with a gun-wielding lady on both wings and protected the people.
“Get behind us!” Samuel yelled, smashing waterlogged zombies over for his son to finish with his machete. “They’re not from the beach, no oil.”
“Oh god.”
“They’re coming from everywhere now,” Samuel had to say it out loud to get them all prepared for what was to come next.
A car pulled up beside them. It was Adam and Alana, the founders. Adam ran in to the hospital to get the supplies and Alana talked to them.
“We’ve got reports from all over the islands, their coming ashore,” Alana looked down, trying to hold back her tears, “We’ve sent word out to evacuate.” Alana forced herself to make eye contact with Rebecca when she finished saying, “It’s not safe here anymore.”
Adam ran back out and threw a bag in the back of their car before giving them a dirty look and getting back in the driver’s seat.
Warren shouted, “Let’s go!” at Rebecca, as he hung out of Samuel’s car.
The zombies stumbled all over the road in their way. Samuel drove, with Warren riding shotgun and Rebecca, Annie, and Jackson in back. Their car followed Adam and Alana’s car, swerving down the road, weaving through the rotten flesh-eaters.
Over south in Cape Hatteras, an explosion distracted Adam from seeing a roadblock. It caught the driver-side tire snapping it off the axel, flipping the car at forty miles an hour. Samuel tried his best to avoid hitting the flipping car, but that just made things worse. His car spun out of control and careened off the road. Both cars were totaled. Two smolerding heaps of twisted metal turned upside down on the side of the road waiting for any survivors to rise as they undead approached them from all around, attracted by the loud sounds.