The plan was to endure the quarantine until be authorized to dock on the island next to ours. We still had some canned food to eat while we waited, and a canteen of water each. We could manage everything for three days, rest a little bit in the land and then make a plan to recover our territory, in the sense of cleaning it of any contamination. I mean, the people who stayed there were going to have the first fight, right?
I looked around us. That day was particularly cold, as autumn is knocking the door, and there were signs that the temperature would soon drop considerably. I was still pretty sad and tired for my losses. Because I couldn't save Abuela and because I was sure my mother is dead. I don't know if she killed herself, or if she ask somebody to do it, but it didn't matter anyway. I hadn't eaten anything since the day before, yet I turned into the water suddenly and threw up. I had nothing in my stomach and I threw up bile and the water I drank partly from nausea from the rocking of the speedboat, partly from my emotional state.
"Drink some water, dear. Otherwise you might dehydrate bad." Carole offered her canteen, but I declined. "If you don't hydrate, it will be worse. You will get weak."
"Do you have a headache, Santana?" Finn asked sharply.
"Yes."
"Were you bitten or scratched?"
"No." I understood his and everyone's concern. I really understood. They were right to question. Still, I wanted to punch him in the face.
I took off my coats and then my shirt and jeans. I stripped down to my bra and panties (thank God I was wearing those that day) to prove I had no signs of injury. There were no bites or deep scratches. All I had was a few bruises, like everyone else there.
"Do you see, Hudson? I'm not becoming a reaper!" I said with tears in my eyes.
Carole, Rachel and Blaine were embarrassed. It was an almost palpable feeling coming from them. Brittany helped me get dressed, since I was a little weak, while she made a face at Finn.
"Hey, guys. Everything is fine?" Mike shouted projecting his voice. His boat was the closest to ours, about 20 meters away.
"Everything is fine!" Rachel yelled back, also projecting her voice. "Santana is nauseous. Just that!"
It wasn't just that, Berry. I was in double mourning, I was lost, feeling sick, and that was a lot. Obviously, I didn't say this to her face, but I wished to do so. I didn't want to throw my grief in their faces because I knew they were also mourning Kurt, although it wasn't clear what happened to Burt.
"We should approach the Boatel docks to find out about the current situation." Carole suggested, looking like she'd read my mind.
"Mom, maybe it's still too dangerous." Finn argued.
"I'm with Carole." Blaine defended. "She wants know if her husband is okay and I need to know what happened with Kurt. We're not docking. We're just getting closer. Who's agree?"
Rachel, Brittany, Carole, Blaine and I raised our hands. So we did it. Carole called out to Burt from a safe distance. He appeared at the apartment's window on the second floor to our relief.
"Are you okay?" Carole yelled.
"Yes. I am in isolation." Burt yelled back. "I don't know if the island has been fully cleared."
"Kurt?"
"He's gone." Burt yelled back and backed away from the window. "Now, you get out of here. It's not safe anymore!"
Almost six months of security, and it only took one contaminated person to destroy everything. Imagine what happened to the rest of the country?
Burt was isolated and clearly in mourning. I understood him perfectly. He must have been feeling as sick as I was. Blaine burst into tears and Carole comforted him. Finn and Rachel also snuggled and comforted each other. It was a very dreary morning, and the drizzle that had fallen was a perfect backdrop for our mood.
In the middle of that same afternoon, we heard gunfire coming from our islands, and I figured it was part of the cleaning process, which wasn't pretty: they were killing anyone and everyone scratched or bitten without first being sure of contagion. Not that I could judge, because, deep down, I would do the same if I were a stranger. If it was someone in my family, maybe I would isolate that person and wait to see what happened before giving the coup de grace.
However, at night we could hear more screams and more shots. My uncle's boat was no longer visible in the dark of night over the dark waters, but his phrase stuck in my head: it will go wrong because people are stupid. I was startled when I felt a slight thump. It was Mike's boat.
"We spent the day debating." Mike informed us. "We aren't going back to our island in the next couple of days. If Orchard or Ridge don't accept us by tomorrow, we'll run out of water and have no choice but to go ashore."
"The island is going to be cleaned up, Mike." Blaine argued. "Just be patient."
"Yes, it will be cleaned with fire." Brittany drew our attention to the huge blaze of fire that erupted at that dark night.
If the fire stayed in one spot, we could interpret that the people who stayed on the island dealt with the problem Nazi style. But not quite. The fire spread and soon a much larger number of boats started heading towards the middle of the island. I didn't even want to imagine what happened. Not even. Then I looked at Mike. We knew that people in Orchard, even for being a much smaller population than ours, were much more focused on themselves. The Ridge community was understaffed to secure their territory and they were more likely to accept us. We had little contact with the Long Island people. Going back to our original island would be a risk in the next few days, but it was an almost certain possibility in a week or two.
"If we don't have any more chances here, what do you have in mind, Mike?" I asked.
"Rumour has it that the army has set up a fortified town in West Virginia. It might be the safest place in the Americas right now. I want to risk getting there."
"Are you crazy?" Finn confronted him. "It's just a matter of waiting."
"Besides, it's just rumours!" I wanted to beat myself for agree with Finn Hudson… again. Mike hadn't said anything new. It was one of the subjects discussed among people on radio amateurs.
"Winter is coming, we won't have anything to harvest for the next few months. Our food stocks were already dangerously low, because the lake can no longer provide fish for everyone all of the time. Imagine now with the crisis on our island? When was the last time you ate a fish, Finn? Or meat?"
"Mike, the grain stock is okay." Brittany countered. That used to be her task on the island. Brittany managed well both the collective and our individual stocks. "We aren't going to starve. We just won't have turkey on Thanksgiving."
"Okay, Britt, but since we're going to be eating corn and beans for months, our supply of medicine is still non-existent. Santana's grandmother died because there was no way to treat her. Lilly died because we didn't have antibiotics. The resources here are at their limit, and I'm not going to die trapped on an island out of fear."
Mike had a point, but I wasn't entirely convinced. Even though our island is on fire at that very moment, I would still prefer to wait and see. We heard screams, this time coming towards one of the boats. We aimed our flashlights, which had the help of arson fire lighting. We saw a freaked out guy attacking his boatmates... another one who was contaminated and didn't tell anyone. The closest boat started shooting at people, killing all of them. Seeing violent scenes like that would traumatize me for life under more civilized circumstances, but there I began to notice that it started to shock me less and less.
When the screaming was over, I shone the flashlight on Mike.
"I know I don't speak for everyone here, but we don't need to wait one more day before making a radical decision like this."
"What do you mean radical, Santana?" Mike argued.
"It's radical yes. You are proposing that we deliberately leave a place with structure, with relative safety, to venture into a land we no longer know to go after a rumour!"
It wasn't just us. We lived more than five months on that island and made other friends. We knew everyone, some more and others less, which was natural in a group of just over two thousand people. In the rush we couldn't identify who caused all this tragedy, but we learned that it was Jeff, who was an alcoholic who was sober even before the apocalypse broke. He was a guy with a lot of demons, but he was also a hard worker. Jeff wasn't my friend, but I knew him and I worked with him sometimes.
"Sorry, Mike." Carole, the only adult actually there, finally spoke up. "I understand the drive of you young people to explore the world. But I'm not a young woman. I have numerous weaknesses and physical limitations as well. I wouldn't be able to survive in the bush. I am in mourning for my stepson, and my husband is still alive back there on that island. Sorry Mike, I can't agree with you."
The matter is closed for now. The cold soon began to lower everyone's spirits.
The next morning, we approached the boat towards the Ridge and, to our surprise, we were allowed to dock. Rick, who was their leader, offered us fresh water and a bathroom. So we were able to wash up and change into fresh clothes. We walked with Carole to the edge of the Dream's bridge. There was still a lot of smoke on the other side, and a huge pile of charred bodies where we used to cremate zombies. Over the loudspeaker, which was how we communicated between the two islands, Carole called out to Burt. It took twenty minutes for him to attend to us, much to our relief.
"Are you okay?" Carole started.
"Yes. As far as possible."
"Kurt?"
"Already cremated." Burt took a deep breath for a moment. Sentences needed to be short to be intelligible over the loudspeaker. "I saw everything. We handcuff Kurt to a tree. He was sick all day. He took water. He didn't want to eat. He spoke little. He felt headache, nausea, fever. He said his skin itched. His eyes burned. Then he passed out. He was almost two hours away. He woke up like an animal. He didn't answer, he didn't think. He wanted to attack me. It wasn't Kurt anymore. Daniel shot him. I couldn't."
"I'm very sorry!"
"I know."
"I want to be with you."
"It's not safe yet. We need more time."
I picked up the speaker.
"My mother. What did she do?" I asked Burt.
"Maribel killed herself. Right after you left. She didn't think twice. She shot herself in the head. I'm so sorry, Santana."
I just handed the speaker to Mike and the tears ran free on my face. It was an odd feeling to be sad and at the same time super proud of my mom. She had to be very brave because, in those circumstances, her suicide was an act of responsibility towards the rest of the community and of compassion for herself. The apocalypse generated this terrible kind of paradox.
"Burt. How's the food?"
"It's popcorn now! It's gone. Our central warehouse caught fire."
"What happened?"
"Aaron has gone mad. His two children were infected. He burned down his house and then some others. The warehouse burned too. We had to kill him while also killing those things."
"How many dead?"
"We counted 108 in two days. 474 dropouts, including you. Island in total isolation. There are no boats here anymore. Curfew. We are checking all the houses. We need to be sure."
Well, 108 people killed on an island with just over 2,000 inhabitants was a massacre. It all started with two infected, two reapers that transformed inside the island without the neighbors noticing. Two became 108 in two days! And no one was counting the number of people who had been killed on a boat the night before. It was scary. If this happened on a small island, imagine the despair in big cities?
My uncle was allowed to dock his sailboat. But only he got off the boat. Lara and Amber remained on board. As Uncle Carlos was one of the leaders of our island, Rick received him with fake smiles and gathered us in the hall of the old restaurant on that island, where, as it was said, the meetings between them took place.
"We are currently 521 inhabitants, 453 adults and 68 children under 18 years old. We have seven pregnant women. Our biggest difficulty is the extensive green area to be watched. We found most of the zombies trapped in the swamp area in Lucy's Pond, so we focused our security there and on the first bridge because is where those things try to access our island. You all can stay as long as you like. Almost all the houses are occupied, but the trailers are all available. Our law is simple: you work, you eat. You work, you have access to medication. There are few of them, and they are here in a safe place. You don't work, you don't have food, you don't have the right to a doctor. The boys and I are primarily responsible for security and trade. Our job is to bring the food. Point two, weapons are collective goods, if you want to stay, you need to hand over your rifles and boats."
Working was no problem for any of us. I glared at Mike, but he didn't seem too interested in the offer. So I pulled him into a private conversation.
"Do you still want to leave?"
"Yes."
"Behind a rumour that you don't even know if it's real. You're crazy, Mike! Wherever we go, we will find the same reality, or worse. In apocalyptic terms, this is Palm Beach!"
"I will give you a week."
"You're the one who wants to leave, Mike. Nobody is stopping you."
"Be alert."
I grabbed my rifle and handed it to Rick.
"Welcome." He smiled sympathetically.
My revolver was still on my leg, hidden in my pants, and would remain there. Brittany and I were allocated a rather disgusting trailer that appeared to be abandoned. Our most immediate neighbors were Mike and Tina on the right and Sam, Joe and Blaine in the trailer on the left. Carole stayed with Rachel and Finn. Quinn and Aisha shared the latest trailer.
My uncle didn't accept the offer. He wouldn't hand over weapons, much less his sailboat. Before he left, he pulled me into a private conversation.
"Santana, how old are you again?"
"19."
"You're 19, so you're an adult who knows very well what you want and what you don't want to do. But you are still inexperienced, so I recommend opening your ears and eyes wide to those who know more than you."
"Okay?"
"Mike said he wants to leave, but he won't because of you."
"Because of me?"
"He considers himself the brains of the group, but you are the glue. Your decision has more influence than his."
"Excellent!" I rolled my eyes.
"It's true, Santana. He really is the smartest, but you are the natural leader, so you have the responsibility and obligation to know how to listen. Since we blew up the bridge, Rick has cut a lot of the collaborations that we could have between communities. He was the first community leader to venture to the shore, but he never shared any information beyond the basics. That's because he started to see us as competitors and not as collaborators. The same can be said of Orchad's people. They have another system, another philosophy. One where the feeling of security can be false. If you leave now, you can follow me. I have plans to leave the lake early tomorrow. But if you decide to stay, I can only wish you the best of luck."
"Are you really leaving, Uncle? Where?"
"There are many surviving communities in Canada. People in the far north have noted that the cold is an inhibitor of these reapers, as you call them. We are going to cross the border through North Dakota."
"Mike thinks we should go to West Virginia."
"Yes... that's where we diverged."
"But uncle, it's not just my will or Mike's. Carole knows that her husband is alive. What if Burt and the others manage to clean up the island?"
"I see your point, Kid."
"Are you really leaving?"
"At the first ray of sunshine."
"On foot?"
"I prefer not to say."
My uncle hugged me and wished me good luck. It was hard to see people from my family, from my blood, leaving me.
...
The first night in a new and different place than you are used to is always the worst, especially if this place is inferior to what you are used to. Like I said, Rick had us put them in trailers that were abandoned and turned over and whatnot. It stank of piss, it was filthy, and I wonder what Rick's point would be to put us in the worst place possible when there were slightly better things, including others trailers available?
"Thank goodness we won't have to work to pay for water." Brittany said with her usual good humor. It was one of the things I loved most about my girlfriend: that optimism and lightness to face life, even in the worst moments.
It took us all day to make that place livable. There was nothing extra, just the trailer and the stuff that already existed in it. At the end of the day, Brittany and the rest of us gathered on the street where our trailers were, built a fire and talked.
"Orchard and Ridge are not good places." Mike insisted.
"Maybe not, but we were running out of food, and we were freezing at night. One more night on that boat and we would die of hypothermia." I justified.
"I know. But we must leave tomorrow morning. We should get Burt and leave.
"Where would we go?" Quinn questioned.
Mike drew a rough map of the area.
"You know there are people still living on the shores, especially in Dunns. It's not a very big group, but it's taken care of some of the farms around. Some farmers survived the first wave of reapers by preempting and fortifying houses and barns. They are also armed to the teeth. The farm where we and the entire Indian Lake community got the corn was this one. But the crop is already gone. Bellefontaine is a den of reapers, and so is Columbus, just with a few holes in the middle. There are many gangs in Marion that have taken over supermarkets and department stores. They use it to trade. This is what I know concretely."
"And that base?" Quinn asked, and she seemed more interested in Mike's proposal.
"They say it's in West Virginia on the Ohio River. I hear they are doing a cleanup in a large area. That West Virginia is the best place to be right now."
"I don't know boys. My intention is still to go back to Burt." Carole confessed.
"We'll get him, Carole. I guarantee! He is not contaminated and wouldn't lie to us if he is. I trust him."
"I still want to exhaust the possibilities here." Finn positioned himself. "We can still clean up our island."
"This place may be our neighbor, but it's like we're in another country. The conditions to stay seem reasonable, but there is something odd here." Blaine opined.
"Perhaps we can fortify a house on our island and buy a few more days before making a decision." Sam speculated.
"What is the point of fortifying a house on our island, or on the shore, if here all we have to do is close the doors and windows?" Aisha had a point.
"I vote to wait." Rachel said.
"I vote to leave." Brittany ran her hand over my shoulder. "It's said that cavemen have good survival instincts. People should respect Blaine's scent power."
I would laugh out loud if the situation wasn't serious. Ever since Blaine's damn gel ran out, Brittany has started calling him a caveman.
"A vote is in vogue. Who would like to leave, raise your hand and those who want to stay, keep your arms down." I determined.
Carole, Blaine, Brittany, Mike, Tina, Joe, Sam and Quinn raised their arms. Me, Finn, Aisha and Rachel stayed with our arms down.
"Would you four go with us or would you prefer to stay?" Mike asked.
"I would go with you against my will, but I would. I wouldn't leave Brittany alone with you guys!" I positioned myself and got a kiss on my girlfriend's cheek.
"The same."
"The same."
Rachel and Finn decided. We all looked at Aisha.
"You are my family now, but I think venturing to Virginia in the best John Wayne style is stupid. I still want to live."
"Is this your final decision?" I asked Aisha. "Are you sure about that?"
"No, but I'm scared, guys. 500 people on an island are more likely to survive than 13 people running around."
"It's decided. Tomorrow we leave." Mike smiled in satisfaction.
...
Mike, Finn and I went to Rick's house at the crack of dawn. I was in a terrible mood because the broken spring mattress in that damn trailer had bent my back and I was sore all over.
"If it isn't the newcomers." Rick smiled. "What can I do for you?"
"We came to say goodbye." Mike took the lead. "We're going back to our boats. Maybe help clean up our island."
"Oh, that won't be possible." Rick made a cynical, disappointed face. "When you agreed to stay on the island yesterday and handed over your weapons, your boats now belong to our community. I cannot hand them over to you. It's ours now. So sorry."
"What?" My body shivered in nervousness. "Those boats are ours, you piece of shit."
Rick signaled, and his henchmen approached with rifles drawn. It was a clear sign that if we questioned their terms, game over.
"When you accepted our accommodations, you accepted our rules. I'm sorry if you don't understand, but the boats and the weapons are ours now. If you want to go to your original island, that's fine. You can swim."
"That's it?" Mike challenged. "Okay, we can swim."
"Your backpacks stay too. Now they are part of the collective."
"If we decide to go out, is it only with the clothes on our back?" Finn was outraged.
"These are our rules."
Mike, Finn and I walked to the edge of the collapsed bridge for a moment. The distance was approximately 200 meters. No big deal. The water was very cold, but 200 meters in that polluted water, full of algae and water hyacinth, wouldn't be too much. I spent more than five months consuming boiled water from that lake and I didn't die. But that wasn't just up to me.
"Rachel can't swim." Finn warned visibly worried. "Neither does my mother."
"That's not the point." Mike snapped. "Carrying them would be easy. The question is, are they really going to let us out?"
"There is an even more serious issue." I pointed to our island. "Burt said there are no more boats on our island. Swimming 200 meters is easy. Swim 1 km not so much." I was referring to the shortest distance to reach the shore. Considering that on the way we would have to overcome algae, water hyacinths and maybe floating zombies. I made this observation what good would it be to swim to our island if we couldn't get out?
"We need a plan." I said to Mike.
"Yes we need one. Give me a week to plan something."
"What do we do meanwhile?"
"Let's play their game."
I went back to the trailer and found Brittany finishing making our breakfast: the last packet of instant noodles we had. I smile awkwardly.
"What is it, Santana?"
"Our departure… it will have to wait a few days." She said regretfully.
"Was the caveman right?"
"Yes he was. Blaine was right."
The first thing I did was find a place to hide my revolver and ammunition. I chose to place it under the trailer that was unoccupied, next to ours, because as soon as we left there to work in exchange for food, like slaves, the henchmen would search our things. Britt and I shared half of the pasta packet, which was supposed to be a single serving. We explained the problem to the rest of our group, that it would be best to play their game until Mike managed to plan an escape. Mike argued that it was important that we didn't know anything to avoid any leaks. That means people who wouldn't shut up, like Rachel Berry, or people who might deliberately give us away if they had a better offer, like Aisha and, maybe, Quinn.
We all introduced ourselves to the henchmen to find out what we were going to work on. On the first day, my job was to sweep the streets. I received in return nothing more than half a pint of dried corn. You know that scene from Disney's Star Wars? The only interesting one where it shows Rey working hard for half a portion of kibble? Yes, that was us. I felt like Scrap Rey.
On the second day, the third day, and the fourth day, I was pulling weed and water hyacinth out of the lake to dry it on the docks. I sometimes saw people pulling them out of the lake, but I never had the curiosity to ask why. I thought it was to avoid damaging the boats' engines and because of the fish. But the reason for cleaning the fucking lake was because Rick dried the plants and composted them. With that, he had a product to trade in exchange for food.
On the fourth day, I saw a zombie when I was assigned to wash the boat that the men used to fish in the middle of the lake. I don't know which stinks more: the zombie or the boat. As the zombie was too slow, I killed it with the paddle. It was horrible to crush that thing's skull! That same day I was forced to be trapped in isolation just because I had contact with the zombie. The animal didn't touch me, but I slipped on the mud on the floor of the boat and injured my arm. So they put me in isolation for a full 24 hours in the old restaurant's fridge. At least the glass in the door window was gone, or I would suffocate. I've never been in prison, and I don't know what it's like to be in solitary confinement, but the experience trapped in the fridge must be very similar. And for all that, all I got was half a cup of dried corn. Every time I returned to the trailer with an American cup of dried corn after a very hard day's work, Mike and I would exchange glances. He avoided talking to us all this time, but I think that was part of his plan. I was counting on it, because I was about to swim across the fallen bridge and leave everything else behind.
On the seventh day, we girls were invited by Irene, who was a young woman who lived in one of the best houses along with three other equally young women. The only thing we did to go to that dinner was shower. I only had two sets of clothes, and there was no more homemade soap that could remove the dirt and the odor impregnated in the clothes. So it was me, Brittany, Quinn, Rachel, Aisha and Tina for that dinner to get to know each other and to get acquainted with society. At least that was the justification. What I was hoping for was a little talk, some shared trauma, and a dinner of fucking dry corn. By the way, have you tried couscous without salt and without seasoning? It was my daily meal in the Ridge, because it was the only thing you could do with the fucking dry corn. It was either that or try to make popcorn. I would give my kingdom for 100g of salt. Just thinking about it made me miss the pepper that Amber planted and that we used to season our food.
We tell Irene and the other girls the story of how school choir friends stuck together through the apocalypse. They told of how a college bet saved them. Irene and Hanna bet something dumb like Irene using her parents' house on Indian Lake to throw the biggest ever off-campus party at OSU. She had the party, most of the people left the next day, while she and Hanna, plus a few other people, including their boyfriends, stayed behind to clean the house and spend the weekend relaxing. Then the apocalypse happened. I asked who the boyfriends were, and the girls explained that they were part of Rick's henchmen. Then I connected the dots.
Irene announced dinner. We all sat down at the eight-seater table, and that's when I got the biggest surprise of the night. There was a piece of chicken on our plates. Stewed chicken, rice and cucumber pickle slices. It wasn't a very big piece, but it was stewed chicken seasoned with salt and pepper. SALT AND PEPPER! I hadn't eaten chicken or any meat other than fish for six months. I thought about my stomach and ate the dish like it was one of those puppies that ate the kibble in seconds. Not a grain of rice remained. Even former vegetarian Rachel Berry could care less about animal rights and gobbled up every piece of chicken on her plate. Rachel sucked the chicken's bones. Rachel Berry sucked the chicken's bones! Then I noticed that one person hadn't touched the plate: Tina.
"Don't like stew chicken?" Irene asked.
"I love it." Tina replied.
"Then eat."
"What is the price?"
"What is the price?" Irene pretended not to understand.
"Here, you receive food according to the work. What kind of work do you do to earn the right to a chicken?" Tina pressed.
The conversation definitely interested me. Tina must have questioned that way at Mike's behest.
"We participated in negotiations to get Ridge food and medicine." Irene explained. "So we get more food."
"How do you do it?" I tried to press.
"Adding value to our products." Irene said in a cynical tone.
"Wait a minute..." Rachel also stopped to think. "Trading dry weed and maybe fish, is it worth chicken and medicine?"
"Not exactly, Rach." I said in a small, low voice. "They don't negotiate, they add value to the product with, maybe, entertainment?"
"What?" Rachel was dubious for a minute, then she glared at Quinn and me, who had already gotten the message. "Oh… that kind of entertainment?"
"It's not a big deal." Irene smiled. "We need more girls like you. The more of us, the more we can bring to the community, and the more we will be rewarded."
"I don't think that's an option for me." Rachel was adamant.
"Maybe not an option, girls. It might be your only way around here." Irene's tone of voice changed. She wasn't inviting us, she was letting us know what our role in the community would be from now on.
"And will we have decent food and medicine when we need it?" I played along with Irene.
"Total privilege."
"Will we still have some time before we participate in this… entertainment?" I tried to press for more information. "Will we have a chance to… prepare ourselves?"
"Don't worry, girls. In a few days you won't be in those miserable trailers anymore. It's not a big deal. We just need suck them. Most of the time, that's enough."
"But there are times when this is not." Quinn asked.
"The deal is that they are obliged to compensate with one more commodity if they want to put in. The ass worth twice as much. As they are stingy, they are generally happy with oral." Hanna said no locks or shame. "It's not bad, really. Once, a guy made me come. It was the best sex I ever had and I got a box of clonazepam for it."
"What?" Rachel asked.
"Rivotril, Rachel." Quinn said. "It's an antidepressant."
That conversation was making me sick. I already hated it when girls at school talked about sex in detail, in part because I was in the closet and secretly hated sex with men. Sam and Finn were horrible fucks, and they were my friends, persons I know. Okay, Puck was good at getting laid, but since I'd come out and Brittany and I had become exclusive, the thought of having sex again as a mechanical act with men made me sick. Even worse if I'm prostituting myself for the benefit of people I hated. All of that conversation made me want to puke the chicken.
I was afraid. Very afraid. We were the girls who showed up here looking for shelter. We didn't belong to the community. What would it cost for these people to make us out of commodities? We were isolated for so long on our islands that we didn't even realize that maybe human trafficking was a new currency. When we got back to our trailers, everything to me loomed ominous. I could see men passing with rifles in the streets and for me it was more than a certainty that they weren't there to keep us safe, but to keep us trapped.
That's when Mike broke down and knocked on my door.
"San, we're leaving in an hour. Take what you still have and watch for my signal."
Mike was short and blunt. He didn't even have to go into the house. Rick's henchmen took everything from us. Our sleeping bags, our backpacks, our flashlights. By a miracle they haven't taken our clothes off... yet. But something told me that if we stayed a day or two longer, these guys would rape our bodies and "pay" us with half a glass of rice. So I put on the warmest clothes I had. I left the trailer, went to where I had hidden my revolver and it was a relief to still find the box of ammo, the leg holster and my gun. I ran into the house, finished getting dressed. I took the ammo out of the box, loaded my revolver, and put the rest of the bullets in my and Brittany's pockets. I had already killed seven zombies in all that time. Seven walking bodies. No reaper and no human yet. But I swear to god I would kill any men on that island.
"We never should have come here, San." Brittany said. She was also afraid, I could tell.
"I know. We should have gone with my uncle."
"And now?"
"Now we wait for Mike."
"Are they not filming us?"
"I don't think so." I reassured my girlfriend and kissed her on the lips. "There is no power here other than generators and car batteries. They won't waste electricity on us."
Mike's signal was a whistle. We were all there except Aisha. The important thing was that we were silent at that moment. Mike led us through the forest, as was my primary emergency plan. The inner forest was more complicated than imagined because if you stayed too close to the road, or the lake the security guards would see you, but if you went too far inland, you would sink your boots in the marsh full of frogs. Our boat was moored at the docks at the beginning of the island, but that area was the best guarded at night, as the reapers that appeared on the shore always tried to cross the water channel. Reapers couldn't swim, never mind if they were champion swimmers. Those who reached the other side of the bank, by some miracle, were killed or mortally wounded with spears.
Mike headed toward the shore. We arrived at a huge house that was once a kennel. Mike asked us to wait in the woods, until he went towards a fishing boat of those simple ones that I once used to collect weed and water hyacinth to make that fertilizer. A watchman appeared and made a little round there. I saw that Mike hid and I signaled for everyone else to be absolutely quiet. This watchman looked very bored, and he decided to leave the area. When he left our field of vision, Mike signaled that we should walk calmly and silently. So we did, in single file. As we arrived at the docks, Mike quickly helped us into the boat. That boat was small and supposed to have capacity for six people, but there were 11 there. Patience!
Mike and Sam pushed the boat into the water and it glided more slowly than it would have liked because of the excess weight. Blaine took one of the oars and Finn took the other. They rowed back and away from the shore as quietly as possible. We had already moved about 200 meters from the shore, when we found ourselves enveloped in total and complete pitch due to a moonless night with a lot of clouds. I could only see in the distance the pinpoints of light from the flashlights that the watchmen used.
"They must have already noticed that the boat was stolen, but they won't come after us." Mike said quietly.
"How can you be sure?" Quinn asked.
"The guys who watch the night aren't exactly Rick's elite crew. They're scared of him. It's better to report that they didn't see anything than to say that they failed."
It was so cold that if I hadn't chosen to carry my coat on my body, I would have hypothermia, even though we were all leaning against each other. And to top it off, it started to rain. I was so cold that, even with adrenaline running high, I felt the urge to go to sleep. I closed my eyes and blacked out.
When I woke up, I felt Brittany holding me from behind. That way, we used each other's bodies to keep warm and not die. The night was still fading when Mike finally started the outboard motor to take us to our Island. We had to be very careful, because we heard terrible noises coming from there. There was an active reaper, and we could see this animal's penumbra when we approached our bank.
"Dock the boat now!" I said, and Sam complied. We stopped about 30 meters from the bank.
I could observe the reaper better at that distance. I had no idea who he once was. But this thing waited for us on the shore moving like something alien. It was fascinating and horrible at the same time. Until the sun actually started to rise, to appear on the horizon, and this creature ran to hide somewhere. The boys raised the anchor and the rest of the journey was made smoothly until we docked.
There were three zombies prowling the area. We didn't see the reaper at that time, but it was scary to see three zombies walking freely through the streets. They were zombies that I knew and by their agility, they were recent. Mike and Sam countered two of them with the paddle. I shot the third one in the face, and then shot the zombie that was attacking Sam, as he seemed to be having more difficulty. Mike ended his in the most grotesque way possible, shattering the skull. We stayed tuned to see if more zombies appeared. But the way was clear to the old condos/boatel.
We saw when Burt looked like he had moved all the furniture in the house in front of the door. He looked exhausted but he was fine and with no signs of infection. The kiss exchanged between him and Carole was very emotional.
"You shouldn't. This island has reapers! We manage to locate some during the day, but some always escape. We're low on ammo. And every day there are more."
"We came to get you." Carole said firmly. "This is over, my love. There's no other way. It will be a matter of time before everything is destroyed."
Burt looked at us and called us into the apartment, where Daniel and Father Hugo were also there. It wasn't his apartment, but that place had been prepared with boards nailed to all the windows and doors. As I had imagined, the main door was blocked with timbers that provided the door to run along the rails and open, and with furniture as barriers.
"We have to leave and it has to be now." Mike said urgently. "We have to go before the other people on this island want the boat.
Burt nodded and quickly called the two companions over. They took all the useful provisions left in the house, including the rifles and other ammunition. No more than a box of bullets. Once again we crammed into the underpowered boat, but somehow it didn't sink under the weight. We moored the boat right next to the highway, next to a tiny island called Artists Island. Mike led everything and explained nothing. He was in a big hurry. We walked through the abandoned farm to the Honda factory, which was also abandoned in the apocalypse. Mike made a beeline for an outside garage for new cars and lifted a couple of doors. Inside were two trucks.
"I wanted to take credit, but Carlos planned it all." Mike finally explained. "One day, when we were picking corn, he called me to come here. The building is full of reapers, but there were brand new cars in these outside garages. All we had to do was get gas out of parked cars and fill up three of them. We found some processed food in one abandoned farmhouse. We killed the zombies and took from there some water, two rifles and useful things. It took us two months to prepare everything in secrecy!" Mike told and showed us that in the back of the trucks there was a bag full of processed food, water bottles, blankets, flashlights and a bag of clothes.
"You kept this secret from us." Burt was outraged. "Why?"
"Because if we had an emergency exit, the risk of being robbed would be much greater. As I said, there were three cars. Carlos took one and left. These two are ours."
Mike took a conventional map of the state of Ohio and placed it on the hood of one of the trucks.
"We need to go all the back roads, mostly between the farms, to the Ohio River. We have to avoid Columbus and the larger cities at all costs. We can look for a safe place on a farm or in a small town before dark."
Mike's plan seemed too brave, too optimistic. We had three rifles and my revolver, food for a few days, water that should have been rationed until we were able to find some good source or stop to boil and strain water. I looked at Mike and then at my friends… my new family. The lake was a good experience, until everything went wrong. Mike and Burt took over driving the cars, and we split between them. Carole and Father Hugo went in the cab with Burt, while Rachel, Finn, Sam and Blaine went in the back. In the other car, Mike, Tina and Quinn were in the cab, leaving the bodywork for me, Daniel, Britt and Joe. There was nothing more on the radio. Six months after the apocalypse, there was no one else who cared to be broadcasting on a radio station. At least not in that part of Ohio.
This bothered me because the event asked for a song. I tried to pull some memory and I was surprised to find that my mind had erased an entire catalog of songs. All I could remember was that crappy song.
"Just a small town girl living in a lonely world…"