WBotFAW Ep 33: Beware the Rising Tide

 

Episode 33: Beware the Rising Tide

 

         Chambers integrated well into the OBX community, he quickly passed the test and became a sheriff’s deputy. Even Quinn was given a house and after passing the lifeguard test found herself a job. Rebecca worked as a head physician at the hospital. Everyone was doing their part in the new community, trying to bring back a way of living from the past. 

         Across the beach of a j-like curve into a rocky shore on the bay Samuel and Tyrell ate their lunch outside of the oil refinery. They began taking their lunches outside after they stopped the leak and cleared a section of the beach of all the dead fish and oil. This bay was now the only beach opened to the public and just so happened to be where Quinn was working. 

Every day at noon Deputy Chambers would come around to hand out lunches. Annie was sitting on the bench with Quinn when Chambers arrived. Annie was spending the day with Warren and Jackson at the beach. Warren threw Jackson’s favorite stick in the water for the dog to fetch. And Samuel watched his son from across the bay.  

         “The system's almost fixed,” mumbled Tyrell with his mouth full of sandwich.

         “Having hot showers again is going to feel really nice.” Samuel exhaled.

         They were finally getting back to normal, or the closest thing to it. Samuel’s job at the refinery was to solve the oil leak. The first thing he did was stop it. Now he was still trying to figure out a way to get the rest of the oil out of their half of the bay. The leak bordered the roped area for the public beach. If someone swims close enough to it in the water they could feel the grease.

         Chambers was still trying to court Quinn. He had a special place in his heart for her. If it wasn’t for the eye-patch Quinn might have one day succumbed to Chambers’ advances, the policeman’s outfit was really doing it for her. The deputy and the lifeguard would flirt every day, expecting, now, that their ends were far ahead of them. But ever since New York, when they put his eyeball back inside Chambers’ head, he had been unsure of himself. Every day the burning in his head got worse. Aspirin and oxy subdued it for a long time, but now that things were calm, drugs no longer worked as well.

         A kid out near the deep end dock jumped off towards the oil leak. Unseen by a distracted lifeguard he tried to swim in the oil. Quinn had her back turned while talking with Annie and Chambers at the picnic table. Chambers was finding it particularly hard to kick the heat today. 

The boy out in the oil leak got tired from swimming in the thick mess of oil and started to cry out. His mother heard him from the beach and immediately got up. Chambers wanted to ask her out to dinner, he knew he could only do it if Annie wasn’t there, watching them. It was awkward and Chambers was sweating.  

         The boy slipped under, and his mother screamed out. Quinn and Annie looked back, out into the bay.

         “Do you…” Chambers mumbled, “want…to…go…to the…hospital…” before he fell to the ground.

         Quinn did not notice him as she sprinted into the water. When she got to the edge of the oil leak she told the kids around her to make a chain. Quinn swam into the oil anchored by the chain. Too thick to open her eyes, Quinn had to reach around for him. She grazed an arm that grabbed her by the elbow and pushed for the surface, but the boy was stuck in the mess that kept them in the bottom. The chain of children and adults that extended to Quinn pulled her up. She yanked on the arm and wouldn’t let go until it snapped free.

         They were pulled through to the shore. She emerged and cracked her eyes open, looking around for the boy. Everyone was standing around her…frozen. Nobody wanted to admit what they were seeing.

         It can’t be, not here.

         What was Quinn holding in her hand but a snatched-from-the-oil-claw of the undead, waterlogged but still clumsily animated. She screamed in disgust and threw it away. People started to panic. The boy was gone, and there was a zombie in the water.

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WBotFAW Ep 32: Last Thing You Would Ever Expect

 

Episode 32: Last Thing You Would Ever Expect  

 

         Samuel got out of the truck and sprinted through the Dairy Queen parking lot. Jackson immediately barked at him, grabbing Warren’s attention. Warren was wearing a navy blue baseball cap. Samuel could recognize his son in that hat from a mile away, his favorite New York Yankees hat, of course, he would be wearing it. Samuel should have checked for it in the house before he left. But that was all in hindsight now.

         “Dad?”

         Samuel was reunited with the only living member of his family left on this earth. They cried in each other’s arms, he could only say one thing. He could only ask about his sisters and mother…

         “…Mom and the girls?” Warren stood up out of his father’s arms and wiped away his tears.

         “I’m sorry, Warren,” Samuel looked up, having failed them, and him, “But, they’re dead.”

         Warren did not want to blame his father, but the resentment was there. He knew if Samuel had been home they would not have stayed in the city for so long…for too long. Warren let the anger fill a hole in his heart that was left after losing his family. For now, it made him strong, but eventually it would take him over, and ruin his life; like so many before him. Warren brought them over to his bosses Gibbons and Jonah, who were loading boxes of frozen hotdogs, hamburgers, and fries into their truck.

         Annie was out of the car with Jackson, playing in the parking lot. Annie was convinced that he was a special dog. At the very least Jackson was a good luck charm, bringing Samuel’s son back to him. Annie would keep Jackson close from now on; she would never leave him again. She threw a stick down the parking lot and Jackson retrieved it.

         Samuel and Warren helped Gibbons and Jonah finish their route for the day and returned to the hotel they were currently living in. Dakota took Annie and Jackson back up to the memorial building where Atticus and Marcus were finishing up. Rebecca greeted them at the door and got down on one knee to pet Jackson. Adam had returned without Tyrell who stayed at the oil refinery. Annie and Jackson led Marcus, Atticus, and Rebecca to the Surfside Hotel, where Samuel and Warren were already settling in. They had to walk the distance, but it was a beautiful day, so no one really minded.

         When they arrived at the Surfside Hotel Samuel was all too excited to introduce them to his son, having Atticus and Rebecca regale his progeny with their stories of Maryland and Hartford, saving New York for Samuel. Samuel took Warren down to the beach with Jackson as the rest sat by the hotel pool. He told him everything, from the bomb shelter to Cape May. And then Warren told him his story…

         After leaving the city he went as far west as he could. Getting through Jersey was a breeze, but when he hit Pennsylvania he was lost in the mayhem. He hunkered down along the mountainous terrain of the Delaware Water Gap, until a group took him in. Some of them had come from the North, saying that a horde bigger than they had ever seen was heading south towards them. So, they followed the Water Gap out of Pennsylvania and into Delaware. 

It wasn’t until they hit the coast that they realized they were completely surrounded. By then there were only five of them left besides Warren. Three wanted to go west, two wanted to go south, hearing rumors of a safe zone in North Carolina…

         “I thank my lucky stars every day that I decided against the majority..”

         “What made you decide against going west?”

         “It was when we found Jackson.”

         “I can’t imagine the toll everything took on you…”

         “NO YOU DON’T GET IT, DAD!” Warren broke down, “…I gave up on you…”

         “And it saved your life.” Samuel tried to make his son not feel guilty.

         “You stopped at nothing to get back to us; you even passed up permanent safety in the bomb shelter…If it were me,” Warren despaired, “…If it were me I would have failed…”

         Samuel let his son grieve, realizing that this could not be fixed overnight. They sat on the beach in the twilight and came to grips with the world around them. Samuel was finally at ease, the closest thing he could get to happiness. It didn’t take long for him to get to thinking that from here on out it would only be further loss and despair. Out there it would be inevitable. So maybe they should stay…

         The next day Samuel talked with Marcus and Atticus. After discussing it with Warren at length in the morning, they had decided to stay in the Safe Zone for as long as they could. “If civilization is ever going to start again, it’s going to be a place like this… not some prison.” Samuel rationalized.

         Atticus and Marcus would not be budged, but it would take about a week for them to work off the boat they were purchasing from the owner of a marina. He was having them siphon all the rest of the boats and filling spare cans of gas. Once they finished, Charlie, the owner, agreed to let them go with their choice of boat and enough gas to make it to Florida.

         Samuel, Chambers, Quinn, and Rebecca officially integrated into the community. Rebecca joined the hospital and Samuel was brought to the oil refinery after being requested by Tyrell. Chambers became a deputy and Quinn a lifeguard.

         For the most part they had all settled in by the week’s end. Atticus and Marcus were just about done working off their boat, tomorrow Charlie would give them the keys and then they officially set sail for Florida. Marcus had convinced Annie to go with them. They had been spending almost every night together. It was quite clear what they were becoming. Annie was only scared of one thing more than the risen dead, being alone. Marcus relit something inside of her that she had not felt since Wilf. It gave her hope and made her feel safe in this cruel world. It also helped that she knew how to navigate a boat.

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