The trees on the side opposite of the lake cleared out revealing the source of the mosquitos. A sludgy looking scum covered pond was spread out on the right side of them. It was the overflow and treatment center for the crystal blue rich people water in the lake. Not that money mattered anymore. Anyone who’d gone into the apocalypse with a bunch of money sitting in their bank accounts had wasted the opportunity to spend a bunch of money. The inflationary power of an oncoming cataclysmic event had been pretty amazing. Stocks may have fallen but the value of a case of spam had gone through the roof.
It was getting late by the time they’d made it back to about where they’d started that morning. There was no way they were making it all the way back to the house they’d left their dad’s body in before dusk. At least not on foot. Once they got there, they still had to secure the Hummer and bury their father. They didn’t even know if they’d be able to find the keys to the Hummer or not.
“Find a boat?” LeBron had stopped walking and was pointing at the row of docks visible along the lake. They might not be able to figure out the pulley system holding the nice boats up out of the water but there was bound to be a simpler boat somewhere. A canoe or two would actually be perfect. Drew and Yue paused to consider what LeBron had just suggested. They both came to the conclusion it was brilliant. Worse case if it got too late, they’d just sleep in whatever boats they found. That way they could have the funeral for their dad and reclaim their supplies in the morning.
Not another word was spoken as they got into the residential area on the developed side of the lake again. They were all very much aware that the area around them was infested with surgers. At least they didn’t have to worry too much about the crawlerz until the sun went down. Expect for when they actually went into the houses. From now on they planned on opening every outside door and window before entering any houses so they could let in as much light as possible. They all agreed that was a better tactic than getting surrounded by vicious man-eating monsters in small, dark enclosed spaces.
Shoes sinking into the squelchy leaf littered ground they followed a path that wound its way through the trees by the edge of the lake. They’d already made it past two docks when they saw something that looked promising. Yue spotted a john boat sticking out from behind one of the detached garages. Trying to make as little noise as possible they slid the boat down to the lake and pushed it in. There was a small motor on the back, but they used the paddles they’d found by the boat until they got a decent distance from shore. The last thing they wanted was to be trying to get a motor to work in waist deep water within easy jumping range of the shoreline.
Once they got out on the water, they put a little more effort into figuring out the motor. Drew had assumed it was a gas motor. He’d thought that since every movie he’d ever seen with a guy with a john boat showed the guy pulling the rip cord to get the motor started. Once they’d determined it was an electric motor, they still almost gave up on figuring it out. Luckily, Drew happened to randomly decide to hold down the correct two buttons while pulling up on the stick attached to it. The little motor hummed along smoothly and quietly propelling them effortlessly over the clear blue water.
“Is that it?” Drew asked pointing to a dock up ahead. All of the docks looked pretty much the same. The one he was pointing at had a body lying on it.
“We only killed one of them?” LeBron asked. He remembered a lot more shooting than that. Letting his eyes wander up the dock to the yard he realized there were probably quite a few more bullet riddle corpses up in that direction. Then again, the infected were insanely hard to kill between the adrenaline-fueled crazy speed and the fact that that they kept going way past the point a normal human would’ve just keeled over.
There were still a couple of hours left before it’d get dark outside. Rather than trying to sleep in the boat Drew decided to go scout out the house and see if it was empty. If it was empty, they could go ahead and do what they needed to do without bothering to spend an uncomfortable sleepless night out on the water. Instead he wanted them to spend an uncomfortable sleepless night out on the road somewhere in the Hummer. It didn’t take a ton of convincing for Yue and LeBron to decide a little recon mission was the best way to go. All Drew really had to do was casually mention the AC the Hummer would have.
The main dock was too high out of the water for them to tie the john boat up to it. They tied it to one of the pilings beside a ladder and used the ladder to climb up on the dock instead. They’d talked about leaving one person behind to get the boat moving if needed but since none of them wanted to be the one to stay behind they nixed that idea. They agreed that they’d bug out and run back to the boat at the first sign of any sort of complication. None of them really believed they would though. Everything they did now was complicated.
Jogging quietly in single file they made it off the dock quickly and settled in behind the
