“… hand! Now! Come on! Grab it!”
Dan coughs and blinks and sees a hand waving wildly in front of his face. The girl is reaching down for him, and Dan uses what’s left of his strength to raise his arm and grab hold of the girl’s hand.
She immediately guns it, and the jet ski jumps forward, almost causing Dan to slip free, but the girl squeezes his hand tightly and drags him along.
As they begin moving through the water and picking up pace, Dan feels the hands grace his feet a few more times, before they’re gone. He twists his neck to look back and sees the zombies streaming into the water like lemmings, splashing and groaning before sinking.
“Hold on!” the girl calls, concentrating on steering the jet ski with one hand. “I’ll take us to a safe distance, then pull you up.”
Dan tries to tell her something—he’s not completely sure what, maybe “thank you”—but his head slips below water again, and he’s already out of breath, so he needs to save it.
His thoughts are reeling too, spinning around the fact that one of the deads just touched his ankle, even pulled off his shoe. What will he find when he checks his skin down there? He can’t feel anything, but that’s no assurance. There could very well be scratch marks from the zombie’s nails …
After half a minute or so of Dan holding on to the girl’s hand while trying to keep his head above water, the jet ski slows down and comes to a halt, bobbing in the low waves.
“Right, you need to move to the stern,” the girl says, nodding her head in the direction.
Dan just stares up at her, not letting go of her hand.
“You can do it,” the girl tells him. “You need to let go and swim.”
Dan is suddenly terrified of loosening his grip. As soon as he does, he might get pulled under. And he doesn’t have the strength left for fighting back. He doesn’t even have the strength for talking, so he just stares pleadingly up at the girl’s face outlined against the sky, hoping to communicate his fear without words.
“It’s okay,” the girl tells him, seemingly catching the message. “Here, I’ll help you.” She twists and leans back at an awkward angle, holding his hand as she guides him back.
Dan swims clumsily. It’s only a few feet, but the water feels like fast-drying cement around him, and he can barely move his body. Finally, he reaches the rear end and grabs hold of the bar he saw the girl use.
There’s no way he’ll be able to pull himself up like she did, though.
The girl slips free of his grasp, and for a moment Dan is afraid she’ll tell him to just climb up—she might as well ask him to climb a mountain wearing a fat-suit. But instead she swings her leg over, enabling her to turn around.
Dan reaches up his hand, but the girl doesn’t take it. Instead, she slips her hands down into the water and under his armpits. In doing so, she leans close enough that Dan’s face gets buried in her long, golden hair, and he picks up that sweet scent of lemons once more. He feels like closing his eyes and going to sleep into that smell.
Then she leans back and pulls him with her, raising him almost waist-high out of the water. “You’ll have to do to the rest!” she groans in a strained voice.
Dan climbs forward clumsily, heaving for breath and grabbing on to whatever he can find. He manages to crawl aboard the jet ski, ending up lying halfway over the girl. He would have felt awkward if he wasn’t so exhausted.
The girl slips out from below him, maneuvering back around with impressive agility while keeping her balance. She takes hold of the handlebars and looks back at Dan. “Sit upright. And hold onto me. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Dan mutters, regurgitating and letting out a salty burp. He leans forward and places his arms around the waist of the girl, leaning his cheek against her back. His hands meet in front of her and he interlaces his fingers.
Then he closes his eyes.
The girl tells him something else, but Dan can’t pick it up; he’s drifting off. The last thing he perceives is the jet ski starting to move again.
TWENTY-FIVE
Liv keeps her right hand on the handlebar, throttling the gas and steering the jet ski across the mild waves, while her left is clasping the guy’s folded hands pressed against her stomach.
They’ve been riding for half an hour, maybe more, and Liv’s arms are reaching exhaustion.
The coastline is going by on their left, alternating between smaller harbors, beaches and cliffs. The beautiful landscape of southern Norway would normally have been quite the sight, yet Liv hardly notices.
Now and then she sees figures out there, on land. A few of them are waving at her—probably gesturing for her to stop and bring them along—but most of them aren’t waving, they’re simply staggering straight out into the water.
Liv shivers at the thought of how many of the infected are walking around the seabed below them. She makes sure to never slow down the jet ski.
The sun is sinking and the temperature is too. Her clothes have mostly dried in the lukewarm air, and so has her hair. The guy sleeping against her back helps to keep her warm. Still, she wishes she had brought the wetsuits, but those are forever lost back in Grandpa’s car. She didn’t give them a second thought during the panic of getting the jet ski in the water.
The thought of Grandpa makes Liv’s stomach tighten. She feels the tears press behind her eyes,
