Slow Burn: Bleed, Book 6 Read online

  We put our crawling skills in reverse and made our way back down the ramp.

  Chapter 2

  I chose the ski boat drifting closest to the mouth of the cove, the one furthest from the mob of Whites wreaking their havoc on the marina. The vessel wasn’t close enough to shore to wade out to, but it was no trouble to swim. I climbed in at the stern, up the ski ladder, through deep ankle deep rainwater still standing on the deck, and took a seat at the helm. That’s when the gaping hole in my plan exposed itself.

  No key.

  No fucking key.

  Why in the hell did I have a blind spot in my brain for the necessity of boat keys?

  “Dammit.” I huffed and tried my best not to throw a toddler tantrum, and thought about punching the steering wheel as though it was the boat’s fault for requiring the key. Well, I guess in a way, it was. But noise was bad, a lesson I’d been taught at least a dozen times already.

  I calmed myself with a long, slow breath, looked over to where I’d left Murphy on the shore and signaled a thumbs-down. Murphy stepped out of his concealing shadow. I pantomimed turning a key in the ignition and shook my head. He deflated and looked around the cove. He was as disappointed as I was.

  Nevertheless, I found a rope attached near the bow. Taking it in hand, I slipped silently into the water on the boat’s starboard side and went to work towing the boat back near the shore. It was slow going, of course, but I only had to cover half the distance before my feet hit bottom, fifteen feet from shore. I stood up and waved Murphy over.

  A few minutes later we were both squatted in the boat, the hull hiding us from view. I whispered, “This one’s got no keys.”

  “Yeah, I got that.” Murphy looked around inside the boat. “You thinking we should paddle this thing?”

  Down at the end of the cove, the Whites erupted in an enthusiastic roar. I guessed that one of the people trapped in the ski boat had done something to raise their excitement and make them think their long-awaited meal was at hand.

  “No paddling,” I told Murphy. “I figured you were safer here in the boat than on shore. You can wait here while I swim to the other boats and see if I can find one that’ll start.”

  Murphy looked up over the gunwale. “Boats are scattered all up and down the inlet. Can you swim that far?”

  I looked up, though I didn’t really need to. Whether I could swim that far or not was irrelevant. I’d already decided that I would swim that far and that was that. I ditched the rest of my equipment, save my knife and pants. I removed my boots and stood up to get a good look at the boats that were scattered around the cove. I figured I’d start with boats closer to the mouth of the cove and slowly work my way through the boats in order as they got close to the end of the marina. It was a choice of order that would mean more swimming than just going from boat to closest boat, but staying away from the Whites was my priority.

  “If you can do it quietly, why don’t you bail this water out while I check the other boats? That way, if we have to paddle, this one will weigh less.” I slipped over the side. Before I swam away, I said, “Wish me luck.”

  “Luck.”

  It was a hundred-yard swim to a pontoon boat floating in the middle of the cove’s mouth. In all the time I’d spent on our old pontoon boat down on Lake Austin, I’d developed an affinity for the cumbersome but useful watercraft. As I climbed up on the pontoon boat’s deck, I was hoping pretty hard that the keys would be aboard. I spent ten minutes silently searching in compartments and under seat cushions for a hidden spare set, but had no luck. I slipped back into the water and headed for the next boat.

  Working my way from boat to boat, back and forth across the narrowing cove from mouth to marina, I spent an hour searching fourteen boats, getting more and more discouraged as fatigue set in. With each boat I reached, I got closer and closer to the drifting docks and the grasping hands of frenzied Whites. And though I knew the Whites I’d encountered so far feared the water like kryptonite, I’d also come to realize they’d eventually figure out how to swim. It was bound to happen, either on purpose or by accident. Considering how many times I’d bet my life on their fear, I knew at some point that bet would stop paying off. Nevertheless, some quirk in my psyche required that I finish searching the boats, though my hope was gone and my perception of the risk was growing.

  I dropped myself into the water and started swimming another lap across the cove. On the way, I silently cursed the marina manager for his diligence in seeing to it that none of the owners of boats in his marina had keys left onboard. I reached the stern of a boat as I felt my toes kicking rocks on the bottom. Looking around at the shore and the floating dock, I stood up and was just able to keep my head above the surface as I caught my breath. All the swimming was wearing me down. I needed calories. And I needed to start getting them on a more regular schedule.

  I managed a noiseless entry into the boat and rolled over on my back, laying my head on the deck for a moment as I reconsidered how committed I was to searching the final few ski boats. When I got up on my knees and looked around for a spot to start my search, my curiosity piqued. Each of the boats I’d already searched—I guessed—had been docked when the world had run off its rails. In every boat nearly everything inside was stowed. At least half of them had canvas covers. But this boat had two gas cans sitting in the stern beside a dirty cooler, and lengths of rope were coiled sloppily on the deck. It was littered with plastic food wrappers, empty soda cans, and brass shell casings.

  I flipped back the cooler lid and looked inside. Unopened soda cans, bottled water, and snack foods.

  Bingo?

  Something wasn’t right.

  I realized that this boat probably belonged to the scavengers trapped in the marina on the other side of the floating docks. They’d probably arrived on this boat to do their scavenging. The white horde showed up unexpectedly, and when they were running to get back to their boat, they got cut off and jumped into the first boat they could get to. Unfortunately for them, that boat was trapped in the end of the cove by the docks that were jammed across it.

  A muted splash behind the boat startled me. I grabbed my knife and spun, peeking over the stern of the boat as I did so.

  A head was on the surface and coming at me.

  I got ready to stab as it occurred to me that the person in the water wasn’t white—not Caucasian white, and certainly not virus white. One of the trapped scavengers, a black woman, must have swum under the floating docks, managed to get far enough up the cove to surface unseen, and come over.

  The scavenger was nearly within arms’ reach, and I extended a hand out to help her. But she looked up and gasped, making a sudden desperate effort to change her direction.

  That confused me for half a second and I leaned farther out.

  Duh!

  I was white-skinned and still pretty close to bald. I was naked from the waist up and wielding a knife in one hand while I reached for her with the other. She saw that I was infected.

  I laid my knife on the deck, raised my palms to show that I wasn’t a threat, and whispered, “It’s okay.”

  The girl came to a stop as she started to tread water, confusion on her face.

  I waved her over. “C’mon. It’s okay.”

  The girl cast a look at the Whites on the floating docks, gave me the same fearful look, and continued to tread water.

  I pointed over the ski boat’s port side, the side that couldn’t be seen by the Whites on the floating docks. “Swim over here. They won’t be able to see you.”

  The girl stayed where she was.

  “It’s okay. You can stand up over here. It’s not that deep.”

  It took a few long moments of thought, but the girl eventually complied, swam over out of view, and stood up in water that came up to the middle of her chest. She kept herself well out of reach.

  Whispering, I said, “Look, I know I look like them, but I’m a Slow Burn.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Does
n’t really matter. I got the fever, but I recovered. I’m normal now. Well, except for my skin color.”

  “You look just like Them,” she said.

  “I know. It’s a problem,” I conceded. “Look, we’re here to help you guys. You don’t need to be afraid.”

  “We?”

  “I’ve got a buddy in a boat, down over there.” I pointed toward the mouth of the cove.

  “What are you doing in our boat?”

  I gestured across the other boats in the cove. “I’ve been trying to find a boat with keys in it.”

  “If you don’t have a boat,” she asked, “then how’d you get here?”

  “We walked.” I was running low on patience. “Jesus Christ, do you want to get in or not?”

  The girl looked around, thought about it for a minute, and said, “You had a knife a moment ago.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Give it to me,” she told me.

  “You’re not going to stab me are you?” I smiled, not sure if I was serious or joking.

  The girl glared back. “I just don’t want you to stab me. Give me the knife and I’ll come on board.”

  “You know you’re not really in the best negotiating position, don’t you?”

  “The knife.”

  Rolling my eyes to show the pointlessness of it, I picked my knife up, took a good look into the shadows under the trees on the bank, turned it handle-out, and reached it out to her.

  Not making any effort to reach up for the knife, the girl turned toward the woods and asked, “Who are you looking for?”

  “Seriously?” I rolled my eyes again. “There are Whites everywhere.”

  “Whites?”

  I pointed at the infected on the docks, hooting and jumping but still focused on the survivors trapped in the boat on the other side. “That’s what we call them.”

  “Not exactly politically correct.”

  “Really?” I laughed harshly, but quietly. “Is that still a thing?”

  The girl looked at me sternly.

  I asked, “What do you call them?”

  “Them,” she said.

  “Just…Them?” I asked.

  The girl nodded.

  “Imaginative.” Sarcasm is such a handy device to communicate so much while saying so little. I asked, “Are you getting in the boat or not?”

  The girl reached up and took the knife, finally allowing me to let go and drop my arm. She said, “Go up by the bow. I’ll get in at the stern.”

  “Whatever.” I duck-walked to the front of the boat to keep myself out of sight. I squatted while she climbed over the stern, dripping a whole new puddle onto the deck.

  With the knife held ready for use, she crouched and moved up to the middle of the boat next to the helm.

  “Can we be friends now?” I asked.

  “You said you were going to help us. What did you have in mind?”

  I shrugged and looked around.

  The girl heaved a long, tired sigh. “You were just going to steal the boat, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, well no. Not really.” I pointed back up the cove. “My buddy thought we should, but I was thinking maybe we could help you guys out.”

  “Really.” She didn’t believe anything I was saying. It did sound like lies.

  I said, “We were going to start up one of these boats, drive it over in the middle by the docks, and shoot a bunch of them so you guys could cross over and get out.”

  “You watch too many action movies.” The girl looked at the mob of Whites.

  “We have grenades, too.”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Do you have a better idea?” I asked. “I mean, you obviously swam over here. What’s your plan?”

  The girl looked down at the deck.

  I asked, “Are the others going to swim over as well?”

  “I made it most of the way under water. None of the others can swim that far. If they come up for air too close to the floating dock, some of Them might jump in on top of them.”

  I looked over at the Whites who were howling loudly again. “It could happen. So what’s your plan?”

  “We have people.”

  “People?” I asked.

  “I was going to go get help.” The girl looked out at the dark lake.

  “Cool, let’s start this puppy up. My buddy is down there in the boat by the mouth of the cove. We can pick him up on the way out, and if you could drop us off somewhere up the lake, that’d be great.”

  The girl cast a worried look toward the mouth of the cove.

  “Trust me,” I said. “You’ll like him. He never stops smiling except when he’s talking, which is a lot. You’ll love him.”

  The girl wasn’t convinced.

  “Look, I don’t want to steal your boat,” I said. “Just take us around the bend and let us out. That’ll get us past these Whites and we can go about our business. You can go get your people and we’ll all be cool.”

  “What business do you have in the middle of the night?”

  I looked back at the Whites and into the shadows. “Probably the same business you have, okay? Looking for food. Trying to find our friends. Trying to stay alive long enough to see the sun come up.”

  “You’re looking for lost friends?”

  I was getting a little perturbed. “You’ve got lots of questions for somebody who doesn’t seem to want our help. Can we just get going and get out of here? We’ll leave you to help your friends or whatever.” I pointed at the boat up the cove that Murphy was in. “Can you at least drop me off at that boat? We’ll just paddle it across the cove and be on our way.”

  The girl looked at me without giving away anything with her expression. I waited for a few moments for a response then said, “Whatever the fuck. Look, I’ll just swim back down and you can do whatever. But I want my knife back.”

  The girl looked at my knife still in her hand.

  “It was my grandpa’s knife.” Sure, it was a lie, but the next part wasn’t. “It has sentimental value. Will you at least hand it to me when I get back in the water? You’re not going to try and steal my fucking knife, are you?”

  It took the girl a moment before she said anything. “Okay. I’ll give you a ride down there and I’ll drop you off a little north of the cove if that’s what you want.” She held my knife out toward me. “Sorry about your grandpa.”

  “Me, too.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Mr. Mays.”

  “You called your grandpa Mr. Mays?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  I put the knife back in its old leather sheath. The girl started the boat’s motor. A thousand white faces turned our way and a tremendous wave of jubilant screams drowned out all other sound.

  As she pressed the lock button and shifted the throttle into reverse, the engine revved and the boat moved away from the shore. Still in the bow, I looked into the trees to see if any Whites were crazy enough to make the jump out of the shadows. But as soon as I put that thought together, the rope that was attached to the bow and to a tree on the shore lifted up out of the water snapped taut, and jerked the boat to a stop. Having no such rope attached to me, I kept going and fell backwards onto the deck, bouncing my skull on the fiberglass.

  Through the stars, I heard the engine rev higher. I heard the rope snap and heard it whip through the air in the space where I’d just been standing. “Ouch.”

  The boat was moving.

  My feet were still in the bow, and I was on my back on the deck, my head next to the girl where she sat behind the wheel. She looked down at me. “You okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “Sorry about that. Can you get up?”

  “Give me a sec’ for my brains to stop rattling around.”

  The girl reversed the throttle, he sound of the engine changed, and the boat started to move away from shore. My head rolled to the side as the boat turned and I found myself looking at her feet, and especially at her ankle. She had an owl
tattoo.

  Chapter 3

  When I started laughing, she probably thought I was nuts.

  “What are you laughing at?” she asked.

  I pulled myself up into a sitting position and as I maneuvered myself into the seat opposite her, I asked, “Did you go to Rice?”

  She looked at me and then down at her feet. “Oh, the tattoo. I’ve never had anybody laugh at it before.”

  “Is that a popular tattoo for Rice alumni?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Your name wouldn’t be Rachel, would it?”

  The girl’s mouth dropped open. Then her eyes turned angry. “How do you know that?”

  We’d covered half the distance to the boat where Murphy was patiently waiting. “You’re never going to believe who I’m with.”

  Still wary, Rachel asked, “Who?”

  I thought about making Rachel wait on the answer but figured that her being on the edge of suspicion wasn’t good for either of us. “Murphy.”

  Tears flowed. “Murphy.”

  I nodded.

  “My brother, Murphy Smalls.”

  “Yep.”

  She shook her head. “If this is some kind of trick…”

  “We’ll be there in a second. You’ll see for yourself.”

  Rachel slowed the boat and cut the engine so that we could drift up to the other boat.

  It was my turn to worry. Murphy’s head didn’t pop up to see us coming. He didn’t wave. Something was wrong.

  “Quiet,” I whispered.

  The girl was immediately tense. “What? What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  I stood and hurried to the bow of the boat. Out of some innate protective habit, I motioned for Rachel to stay behind. She didn’t.

  The bow of our boat nudged the other ski boat on the port side and I grabbed a handful of chrome rail to hold the two boats together. I leaned over to get a look inside. Murphy was lying on the deck. His head was on a cushion. He was asleep. “Motherfucker!”

  “What?”

  I turned to Rachel. “He’s taking a nap.”

  Rachel squeezed past me as I sheathed my knife. With all the grace of a gymnast, she hopped into the other boat and landed on the deck beside Murphy. Tears were flowing in earnest. She knelt beside him and shook him until he woke.