After the Fall (Book 7): The Undead Sea Read online

  The Undead Sea

  After the Fall 7

  by Stephen Cross

  Copyright © 2017 by Stephen Cross

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  By the same author, find out how the apocalypse began in

  SURVIVING THE FALL

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KBPYRFM

  How England died. The story of the first few days of the zombie apocalypse, of those who lived, and those who died.

  Surviving the Fall collects eight non-stop terror tales in one action packed volume, which together tell of the panic filled dawn of a new, undead world.

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KBPYRFM

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 1

  Andy was sure the seaside town of Abermere in North Wales had once been a pleasant place to spend a holiday.

  “It’s beautiful,” Carl had told them. “I used to come here with my mum, we always had a great time.”

  Andy hadn’t doubted Carl. Looking for somewhere safe to hide, Abermere had ticked all the right boxes; small, remote, but hopefully enough houses and restaurants to scavenge supplies for a few months, or more. Andy and Jenny had happily followed Carl to Abermere after his glowing report.

  All thoughts of a peaceful retirement from the zombie apocalypse were now distant memories, however, as they ran through an industrial park, far from the high street and holiday chalets. The road behind them undulated with the largest horde of undead they had seen since the early days of the Fall and their escape from Manchester Airport.

  The three of them sprinted around another corner, passed another aluminium warehouse with piles of steel girders and pipes stacked up outside, into another featureless concrete road framed with high metal fences.

  They stopped and took a breather. The horde hissed and moaned behind them, their combined hundreds of voices becoming almost a roar. Their shuffling feet rattled through the air like the echo of an earthquake. The smell of rotten flesh invaded Andy’s lungs with potent viciousness. He choked as he took in his much needed breaths.

  “Where’d they all come from?” said Carl, panting.

  “Left overs from happy holidays,” said Jenny. “Where we going Captain?”

  The two turned to Andy. He had tried to give up his moniker of ‘Captain’; he doubted he would be flying any Boeings again soon, but Jenny, the Chief stewardess, and Carl, one of the young stewards from their last ill fated flight together, still thought of him as their Captain, and all decisions defaulted to him.

  “I have no idea,” said Andy. “Let’s just keep going. They won’t get tired. We have to find a car, or something.”

  The first enthusiastic leaders of the horde stumbled round the corner, the portend of the wave of undead to follow: ripped clothes; hanging limbs and exposed organs; faces split open, all torn flesh; eyes blank with mindless lust for living blood.

  Zombies, thought Andy, as he lifted his heavy legs to again break into a fast jog. Fucking zombies.

  They turned left at the end of the road. Ahead was the glazed grey of the sea. Arriving in Abermere a few days ago, they had stayed in a B&B overlooking the front. It had been a nice two days, relatively. Warm and safe, with food in the pantry. They had spent an evening with a bottle of wine, a fire burning in the hearth, and a game of cards. Simple, and pleasant.

  “We could stay here,” Jenny had said, the first to voice what the others had all been thinking. They were tired of running, having been on the road for three months. The visits to their old homes had proved miserable and dangerous; none of them had anything left. Andy couldn’t forget Jenny’s wailing on seeing her ten year old son claw at the windows of her house, all withered skin and dead dark eyes. His little body had bounced against the glass with a horrid desire to rip his mother’s throat out.

  So Abermere; any chance to find peace in this new world had to be grabbed at with both hands, fast and desperate.

  It all went wrong that morning, on their first supply run.

  At first there had only been a few, stumbling along the main street in the way they do, past the little stalls of kiss-me-quick hats, colourful plastic rainbows and blow up crocodiles, all waiting for the holiday season to return.

  Those few shufflers turned into more, then turned into many. Like an aggressive cancer or a fast and sneaky tide, the many suddenly became a fuck-tonne. Spilling from their hiding places in the small shops, the hotels, the restaurants.

  So their little peace was shattered again; another day just trying to stay alive.

  Andy stopped running. They were in a marina, and he was struggling to see an escape route.

  Before them boats bobbed in the gentle waters like hundreds of fisherman’s floats. The odd bell rang, eerie in its obliviousness to the end of the world. The concrete arm of the marina reached straight into the Irish sea, before curling sharply around the boats like a protective parent, keeping them safe from the rolling waves.

  “It’s a dead end,” said Andy quietly.

  “What?” said Carl, bent over taking deep breaths.

  “We’re on a dead end.” Andy turned to face the way they had come. The single beast of a hundred undead squeezed down the thin concrete path to the marina. A number fell into the water with load splashes.

  “Oh shit,” said Jenny. “What now?”

  “Keep running” said Andy.

  They carried on along the marina. The boats to their right were a mix of large fancy yachts, powerboats, simple fishing boats and dilapidated tugs.

  “What about a boat?” shouted Jenny as they ran. “Something we can just get in and go.”

  “One of these?” said Carl, pointing to a large seventy footer.

  “You know how to get it started in less than a minute?” said Andy.

  Carl didn’t answer.

  They turned round the bend at the end of the marina. In fifty yards, it dropped off into the sea. He spied each boat carefully. Half way along he found what they needed; a small motor boat, blue fibreglass, fifteen feet long. A small puddle of dirty water sat on its floor, lobster pots at the back.

  “This one,” he said, jumping in.

  The others followed him, their feet splashing in the water as they sat in the seats. Andy kicked and pulled at the lobster pots, clearing them out of the way so he could get to the engine.

  He had only been in a boat once, about fifteen years ago at university. A smaller boat than this, but he remembered there was a string to pull that started the engine.

  He found the string.

  He pulled.

  Nothing.

  He tried again.

  Not even a chug, or any sense there was anything to catch. He glanced over his shoulder; the horde was only twenty yards away, their moaning and clicking teeth banging into his head like a hammer.

  He pulled the string again. The same nothing.

  Panic.

  “Captain, what about these?” said Carl, picking up an oar from the under the dirty water.

  Jenny felt around the other side of the boat and found
the other oar.

  “Do it,” said Andy, running past them to the front of the boat, nearly tripping on a lobster pot. Carl and Jenny struggled to get the oars into their rowlocks.

  Andy got to the front of the boat and pushed against the harbour wall. The boat moved slowly backwards, slowly overcoming inertia. Clumsy splashing from behind indicated the oars where in the water. First Carl, then Jenny, then Jenny took another stroke, then Carl, the oars skimming the water.

  “Deep!” shouted Andy. “Get them in deep, pull slowly, with me, one, two, one, two, one, two.”

  The boat moved backwards, wobbling from side to side.

  The first zombie arrived and leapt from the wall towards the boat, its arms held out, its teeth clicking like an out of control clock. It plunged into the water, its hands momentarily grabbing the front of the boat before they slipped and the carcass disappeared into the dirty water.

  “One! Two! One! Two!” shouted Andy, realising he was smiling. Another escape. Another day alive.

  One after another, the zombies leaped into the water, their dead shark’s eyes fixated on the slow moving boat as it pulled out into the marina.

  Chapter 2

  Andy took over the rowing from Jenny, who moved to the back to steer the large rudder attached to the engine. The boat bobbed gently as they rowed past lines of expensive yachts collecting mildew on their former gleaming hulls. Pushing past one particularly large boat, a torn and pale face stared at them through a porthole, its teeth gnashing silently behind thick glass.

  “We’ll get out of the marina and back to shore further up the coast, away from this lot,” said Andy, eyeing the throng of undead tumbling and spilling into the water, still trying to get to the row boat.

  As they reached the entrance to the marina the sea took on an ominous mood, turning from flat to choppy in the space of minutes, grey rivulets of water flowing under the hull, lifting and turning them from left to right. The three of them struggled to keep the small boat straight.

  “It’s pretty rough,” said Carl. “Sure this will be ok?”

  “Let’s just keep it steady,” said Andy. He turned to Jenny, “Once we’re out of the marina, we’ll turn left. Try to keep us close to the walls.”

  Jenny nodded, both her hands gripping the rudder steer.

  They reached the twin stone piers of the exit from the marina. One side of the path clamoured with undead.

  They rowed and steered hard against the increasingly choppy waters as bodies plopped one by one of the end of the pier. The noise of the horde was lost as tall waves from the open sea crashed against the marina walls in exploding white plumes, showering the occupants of the boat in cold spray.

  “Let’s turn back,” said Jenny. “It’s too rough.”

  Andy held tight to the oar as a large wave passed under them, the boat shook as it landed on the other side with a heavy thump.

  “You’re right, turn her round,” said Andy. The horde had already thinned, most of them now crawling along the dark sea bed beneath them. “They’ll all be in the water soon.”

  Jenny pulled the rudder round and Carl and Andy rowed in opposite directions, trying to turn the boat. Another large grey wave, at least five foot high, rolled in and sucked the boat up its face. Carl fell to the middle of the boat, his oar spinning in its rowlock.

  “Jenny!” shouted Andy. He made a leap for the spinning oar, but lost his balance and tumbled to join Carl in the wet and cold water in the base of the boat. He managed to turn just in time to see the oar swing quickly with unerring accuracy onto Jenny’s head. A large thunk and she dropped from her seat, as if suddenly turned off.

  Andy and Carl struggled to get up, the sea throwing their boat around like a paper bag in the wind. A thick fountain of water spouted over the side and soaked Andy. He grabbed the side of the boat and pulled himself back onto his seat. He glanced at Jenny, she was face down in the water.

  “Carl, get the oars,” he shouted, and threw himself to the back of the boat. He slipped and banged his head on the rudder steer. Ignoring the pain he grabbed Jenny and, somehow finding purchase in the crazed motion of the boat, pulled her free of the water.

  Sitting up, with Jenny pulled tight against him, he saw a thick line of blood leaking from her forehead. He felt her chest, she was breathing, but she was out cold.

  Carl got in the middle of the oarsman’s seats and struggled to hold the two oars in place as he was buffeted from side to side, white water spilling into the boat as they rode up and down another wave, another flat thunk shaking the boat to its bones. Andy feared the hull would crack.

  The marina wall floated away, each wave pulling the boat further out to sea. Carl dug the oars into the water, trying to pull against the relentless and unforgiving waves, but it was no good; their destination was now with the whim of the current and tide.

  “Is Jenny ok?” shouted Carl.

  “She’s out cold,” said Andy.

  “What do we do Captain?”

  Andy laughed inwardly at his moniker. He had never felt further from being a Captain of anything in his life.

  “I can’t let her go, if she falls in the water, she’ll drown. Just try your best, keep rowing to the shore.”

  Carl huffed and puffed, his efforts to steer the boat useless against the rollers. Each oar sank into the grey murk, one after another, and Carl pulled, but their direction didn’t change; further and further they were pulled out to sea.

  Carl gave up rowing after thirty minutes, his arms too tired and heavy to move. Andy shivered as the cold of the water and the wind bit into this bones. Carl joined the two of them in one big bear hug, sharing their body heat to fight the cold, the battle against the sea long lost.

  Andy’s teeth chattered, his hands were numb, and his face stung from the brazen wind and freezing spray.

  Jenny’s heart still beat and her chest was still rising and falling gently, oblivious to their peril. Andy almost envied her - she wouldn’t have to face the slow sink into exposure, the painful death of cold as one by one the body’s organs shut down to preserve energy. He hoped his mind would go first; did madness precede death from exposure? He hoped so.

  He closed his eyes and rested his head against Carl’s. An image of his wife flashed before the darkness of his closed eyelids. Six months pregnant when she had died in a car crash, just before the Fall. Although, he was almost glad that she hadn’t witnessed this world, that his unborn child had never experienced the terror, the loss of humanity that surrounded him. Would they have been with him here, on this boat, freezing to death?

  “Captain, wake up, come on, wake up,” said a distant voice.

  He felt something sharp and stinging against his cheek. Something hitting his face.

  He opened his eyes and through heavy lids stared at another face, was it Carl? It could have been his wife. A white glow surrounded the face. It changed through all the people he had ever loved.

  He smiled and closed his eyes, his body warm again.

  Chapter 3

  Swaying from left to right in gentle arcs; sudden rises to the top of the world followed by falls to the depths of the sea with its shadows and its dark.

  Andy opened his mouth and gasped in cold air, his lungs burning and spitting. Cold sea water emptied from his chest in harsh coughs.

  He opened his eyes, the darkness split by bright lights swaying on a rising white beast, its belly beside him, ready to engulf him. A sudden dark mountain crawled high and then fell, cold and wet and all encompassing. The black covered him.

  He breathed in deep, and the cold clasped his lungs, his chest cramped in pain. Instinctively he raised his arms and kicked wildly with his feet; they moved slowly, an invisible resistance surrounding him.

  Light shimmered above.

  He was under the water, he was drowning.

  A rush from below, sound exploded around him, and he was on the surface again, momentarily glimpsing the world of the living; was this how it felt to be a zombie, conti
nually under water, drowning in the dank half world of being neither alive nor dead?

  “Grab the buoy!”

  A voice in the void.

  “Captain, the buoy, to the left!”

  The left. He turned his head both ways, he couldn’t’ remember which was left. A red and white shape beside him. He reached for it.

  The sea spawned another small mountain and he rose with it.

  He grabbed the buoy. Cold and hard and plastic. He wrapped his heavy arms around it and pulled it tight to his chest, where it felt warmer that any mother’s breast.

  “Hold on Captain, hold on,” said the voice from the void.

  Water crashed over him and it tugged at his legs, trying to bring him deeper, reluctant to let go.

  He popped out of the water, his weight suddenly on his arms. He slipped, then pulled tighter; he wasn’t letting go, never again.

  A clink of machinery sounded above the crash of the sea. He was being pulled up the side of the white beast. Hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him over the top of the beast’s sides.

  He landed on a hard wet surface. He coughed, water pouring from his lungs. His body clanged in pain, the sort he used to get when, as a kid, he would warm his numb hands against the fire; but this was ten times worse, reaching right into his bones.

  “Get him inside,” said a different voice. He looked up to see three figures around him. Two he recognised, the third he didn’t.

  He was lifted clear off the floor.

  A boat, he was on a boat. A bigger boat, a real one with a deck and a cabin and an engine.

  “Carl,” said Andy looking at the person next to him.

  “You ok Captain? We thought we lost you, thank God.”

  Jenny hugged him. He knew it was Jenny. “You went overboard when the boat hit us.”

  “Get him inside!” said the other voice.

  He awoke in a good sized room with plush purple curtains and dark wooden furnishings. Small portholes let in the light of the day, grey and soft. The bed was comfortable, with deep purple silk sheets. It was warm.