The ZPOCALYPTO Book Bundle (#1 of 4), page 51
The rest of us, still inside, freeze.
A large wooden cabinet tumbles across the opening. The current catches it, and heads straight for Ash and Reg. At the last second, he grabs her and pulls her out of the way. The cabinet sinks ponderously into the darkness. A moment later, there’s a muffled crash.
A cloud of mud and silt overtakes us, but the current soon clears it away. I spot twin blue glows bobbing in the darkness ahead, moving in synchrony. My Link pings, Ashley telling us she’s okay. Kel and I let go of our perch and fall toward the opening. We flutter kick and make small motions with our hands to avoid dislodging anything else. Micah and Jake appear from the side, having drifted through before us. They reach Ash and Reg first.
Once the way ahead is clear, I send Ashley an encouraging message:
<< WAY 2 STAY KUL >>
I’d worried about her losing her air, but she seems to be handling things just fine.
She immediately pings back:
<< ABC GUM! >>
I nearly burst out laughing. A bubble escapes and roils across my cheeks. My Link screen blurs. Thinking my goggles have fogged up, I swipe a finger across the glass before remembering the condensation is on the inside. I carelessly burp out another breath before trying to suck it back in. Water fills my mouth. The space behind my eyes begins to throb. I start to feel lightheaded.
I’m dimly aware of Kelly grabbing my elbow, but I can’t seem to move. My limbs feel heavy. He turns and gestures forward before coming back to me.
He holds up his Link for me to see:
<< OK? >>
I don’t answer. Something feels wrong.
He shakes me.
Then Jake’s there. I feel him yank on my belt. My throat hurts and my eyes are really starting to burn. Everything suddenly seems too bright.
A moment later, the heaviness in my arms fades. The ache in my head is still there, but it’s diminishing, too. My vision clears.
He shows me the used cartridge he’d just swapped out, then thrusts his Link screen into my face:
<< USED UP >>
Kelly waves his hands angrily. His message is clear: How?
<< MAYBE FAULTY >>
Kelly gestures even more, but I push him away. I suddenly just want to get to the other end and breathe fresh air again. Dwelling on what just happened isn’t going to do us any good right now.
Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder, if my cartridge was faulty, how many of the others’ might be, too? Suddenly, the extras we carry feel like precious cargo.
The debris dam quickly vanishes into the gloom behind us. The tunnel ahead is wide and tall and, other than the occasional indistinct piles of garbage along the floor, still inexplicably unobstructed. I pray we don’t encounter another logjam.
Micah — or maybe it’s Jake, I can’t tell which of them it is, just that it’s someone with a yellow glow stick — directs their light onto the walls of the tunnel, illuminating old traffic signs and ancient graffiti. Old, loose wiring, like tendrils, dangle down from the ceiling. Disgorged pipes. Amputated light fixtures. Strands of shredded material dripping like tropical moss, a lifeless twin world to the tree-lined tunnel roads of Connecticut’s south shore.
A sudden burst of bubbles draws my attention to my right. We all hear it, stop and turn to look. It’s Kelly and he appears to be struggling with his mask. In a panic, I swim over to him, thinking another rebreather cartridge has failed. He sees me and waves me away. Then he points to the clearing button on his goggles. Relief washes over me. He was just purging the air.
Our Links all ping at once:
<< EVERY1 OK? >>
It’s Jake. We give him an OK signal. I can’t really tell with the masks and goggles covering our faces, but the look Jake shoots Kelly doesn’t seem like concern as much as impatience. I still don’t know what’s going on, but it’s like there’s an electric current running between them. I hate that I’m caught in the middle. Why would Jake harbor such strong feelings toward Kelly? Why is Kelly so jealous? I don’t know the answer to either question.
The look between them lingers a moment too long, then breaks, and we’re off again. I give a kick of my flippers and propel myself through the group. I want Kelly to catch up with me. I want to be in front for a while, instead of always in back and following. As long as I’m in front, I won’t have the urge to keep shining my light into the darkness behind me, fearful that we’re being followed. Alligators and sharks scare the crap out of me. I know the chances of encountering either are remote. We’re more likely to see a harmless catfish. But even they, with their alien whiskers and giant, unblinking eyes, frighten me. If there’s something out there, I’d rather see it coming than to have it slip up on me from behind.
Nothing’s coming for you, silly.
I try to convince myself that it’s just my lack of sleep letting my imagination run wild. The others don’t appear to share my concerns at all.
Still, I kick harder, propelling myself even faster. I cut through the water like a knife. I’m like the antithesis of Kwanjangnim Rupert’s Yu. I’m not the water, but the rock shooting through it. My Link pings. I ignore it. It’s just Kelly telling me to wait. I go even faster.
My heart pounds harder. Blood rushes through my head. My thoughts are clear. Vision’s clear. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a beam of light. It’s closing in, then the red glow of Kelly’s chemical stick, and I smile. He’s just a vague shape in the gloom off to one side. A ghostly hand reaches out, and his fingers brush mine. I keep pumping my legs. My chest hurts from breathing so hard. The burn feels—
I realize something’s wrong.
I stop, and Kelly glides up next to me. He holds his hands up and shakes his head, perplexed at my behavior. I look around and realize the others are far behind us. They’ve spread out: two dim blue dots, then, even farther back and much fainter, the yellow ones.
And I’m drifting back toward them.
I grab my Link and quickly type:
<< TIDE RVRSING >>
I send it to everyone.
Five new glowing spots appear, then I see five sets of goggles reflecting five Link screens. Messages scroll across my view, first from Ash and Jake, then Micah:
<< HOW FAR 2 GO? >>
<< WE R OK >>
<< PUSH ON >>
We regroup, and Micah motions for us to wait. He types into his Link and sends it out to the group:
<< STLL TYM MR THN HLF WY STY STDY >>
I can always tell his messages apart from the others’, because he avoids vowels like each one exacts a hefty price.
He gestures at me, as if to say I should continue to lead. Maybe he thinks I’ll keep up the pace and thus urge the rest of the group to push harder. I nod. If we don’t make the effort now, while it’s still relatively easy, we’ll struggle later. Once more, I thrust myself into the waiting darkness ahead. A quick glance back confirms the others are following.
I don’t immediately sense how separated I’ve gotten, not until I realize how faint Kelly’s labored breathing has grown. I slow a bit to let him catch up, but it’s Jake who reaches me first. Kelly’s right behind him. They’re both sucking hard on their cartridges. When I stop, I spot myself on a landmark on the wall next to me. But it immediately begins to race ahead. The current is definitely strengthening.
I hear another rush of bubbles, and we all stop and wave our lights around until they settle on Reggie. He’s just clearing his goggles. Ash and Kelly take the opportunity to clear theirs, too. I want to warn Kel to save his air, but I’d only be telling him something he already knows.
My mask is almost painfully tight against my face. I’ve sealed it with petroleum jelly, just like the others. A little water has leaked in, though, not much. I go ahead and raise my thumb and find the button just above the bridge of my nose and push.
The pressure hurts my eyeballs. My ears pop. There’s a sudden snap and my goggles slip away from my face. Everything around me goes blurry. I wave my hands around trying to find the goggles, but I can’t see anything. I release the flashlight and its beam swings around and down before bouncing on the end of its leash.
Air bubbles burst from my nose. I instinctively try to pull them back in, and suddenly I’m coughing, choking. My lungs constrict. The air leaves my mouth, but the canister is gone, too. More bubbles rush past my face. I quickly lose them above me. Now my lungs are empty and so is my canister. I can’t even find my goggles to use the compressed air.
My ears ring, my throat closes off. I want to open my mouth and inhale and my mind screams at me, No! No! Don’t do it!
I feel hands on me, on my arms and legs and neck. Then my goggles are pushed into place against my face while another hand presses on the back of my head. There’s an explosion of air and my vision clears. My lungs are beyond bursting; I’m desperate to inhale the rushing air.
The hand on my head forces me to look downward and another set of goggles is there. I’m not sure how many releases it takes before I realize there’s air rushing up and enveloping my face. I’m supposed to breathe it in. I cup my hands around my mouth and suck. A putrid mixture of river water and stale air slip down my throat. I cough and gasp and cough some more. I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like dying.
The air suddenly stops. But now my lungs are full. I feel my rebreather pushed into mouth. I still can’t see because of the hands holding my goggles in place. It feels like someone is trying to loop the headband around my head, but it won’t stay.
My mind is still cloudy. I reach up and try to push everyone away, but I feel clumsy. I bite down and exhale explosively into the canister. My next inhale is just as violent. The air tastes dirty in my mouth. It’s wet, contaminated. But it takes the edge off. I repeat the cycle, again and again, until the dizziness departs.
Finally, the hands holding the goggles move aside enough so I can see the Link held up into my field of vision. I blink until the screen comes into focus:
<< BROKEN >>
I nod. No shit.
The words scroll up and a second line of text appears:
<< OK NOW? >>
I nod again.
<< CANT FIX MUST HOLD ON URSLF >>
The text slides up.
<< CAN YOU GO WITHOUT? >>
I reach up with both hands and push against the goggles. I need them to see; swimming blind is not an option. I try to look around, but my hands narrow my field of vision. I see concern on every face. I manage to give them a thumbs up without relaxing my death grip on the goggles. Everyone nods and reciprocates.
They pull away, all except Kelly, who stays with me. Despite how little of his face I can actually see, what isn’t distorted by the bleary goggles and my hands. He’s worried. He holds up his Link so I can read it.
<< DONT DO THT AGN! >>
He removes the cartridge from his lips and leans forward to plant a kiss on my cheek. It feels cold, but it sends a surge of warmth through me.
Then he snatches up my flashlight on the end of its tether and flicks it off. If I can’t hold it, it’s no use to me. No sense to wasting the batteries.
Jake slides into view, gesturing that we need to go. I’m not sure how much ground we’ve lost in just the few minutes that have passed. But it’s distance we have no choice but to make up, and the current is growing even stronger. Once more, I’m the one holding everyone back.
Embarrassed, I let the others go ahead now. There’s no way I can lead. I hesitate, wondering once again if we should turn around. I won’t be able to use my hands to swim, putting even more strain on my legs.
But Kelly tugs me forward, his hand on my elbow. Despite what I’ve just gone through, he doesn’t push going back. It pisses me off that the others are already moving on, assuming that’s what I want.
I have no choice but to follow.
Chapter 15
My arms ache. My back is stiff. My legs burn. We’re all miserable, and yet we push on.
If not for Kelly’s hand on my arm, I don’t know how I’d make it, since I can barely steer using just my feet. Even with him assisting me, I feel like I’m fighting an invisible presence. I move as much sideways as forward. I twist my body to realign. I overcorrect, correct, slip again. The extra effort is exhausting.
The yellow and blue glow sticks pull farther away and begin to fade into the distance and murk. I kick harder, burning energy reserves I know will soon run out. My breathing grows ragged. My body’s not used to this particular kind of exercise.
Kelly’s straining, too. Then, without warning, he jerks me to the side. His hand slips off of my arm and I’m smothered in inky blackness as the beam from his flashlight winks out.
Kelly?
I spin, but all around me is nothing but black. I strain to see through the goggles, and my grip on them slips. Water leaks in. I shove them hard against my face, and twist around to find him.
Kelly!
But then I see the beam from his flashlight. It’s off to one side and seems to be drifting away. It swings around, twists suddenly, then drops down toward the floor. Did his tether somehow get detached?
I kick to get myself turned, and my flipper connects with something. It doesn’t feel like the wall; there had been some give. I wince, believing I might’ve just given my boyfriend a mouthful of rubber flipper. I reach out with one hand, and more water seeps underneath my goggles.
Kelly?
The quality of light below me changes. The distant beam swings up, and I see the faint outline of an arm, a torso. I see Kelly’s red glow stick. I glimpse his head. The beam swings around again, sweeping through the darkness. He’s searching for me. The dancing light is disorienting. He should be able to find me by my glow stick.
I kick again and feel the same resistance behind me. There’s something floating in the water. Something buoyant. A log, maybe.
It coils around my ankle.
Kel? Please be you.
But it’s not him. I know it isn’t, because he’s below me.
The coil tightens. Is it a snake?
A bubble of air escapes between my lips. Water rushes into my goggles.
I twist again, jerk my leg away, and I’m free. The beam from Kelly’s flashlight stabs upward, blinding. And then I feel it around my ankle again.
It’s one of the others, I tell myself. They’ve come back. I try to relax. I want to see, but I can’t because of the darkness. Panic rises in my chest. I feel exposed, vulnerable, helpless.
The grip tightens. It has weight. Catfish! I think. It’s trying to eat me!
I grunt and pull. It’s strong, too strong. Maybe it’s Reggie; he doesn’t know his own strength. I look: no blue glow. Not him, and I revert back to the snake idea.
Until my other leg is grabbed.
I nearly scream. Now I can feel individual fingers digging into my cramping calf muscles, loosening, sliding upward toward my knee.
The beam from Kelly’s flashlight starts to swing wildly below me. I reach down to push the hands away. The knuckles are bony, slimy. The skin feels rubbery and stiff.
A face drifts out of the gloom, illuminated by my glow stick. Skin’s ghostly pale, eyes black and deep-sunk. A few scraggy, moss-tangled strands of hair. It opens its mouth and its teeth are yellow and broken. Seeing them, I’m suddenly bereft of reason. There is only terror, and the panic it induces.
I lash out. Air explodes from my lungs. I lose my goggles.
It climbs my leg like a rope. In flashes of light, I see a tongue loll out, waterlogged and swollen, putrescent, gangrenous.
I draw my knees up to kick it away, but flippers push my feet in directions I don’t intend. The movement only draws it nearer. Its grip is like steel, all bone and hardened sinew. My calf is burning in agony now.
It reaches up, grabs me just below my knee. I kick and thrash some more. The lower hand releases, reaches up, paws, finds my lower thigh. It leans in to bite. It plants its face against my leg. I feel the motion of its jaw, and a scream fills my chest.
Its teeth can’t penetrate the rubber of the wetsuit.
It’ll keep trying until it succeeds.
Suddenly, the hand slips off the slick material. I feel its fingers rake down my leg. I kick to escape, but it grabs my flipper instead. The process immediately resets. This time it’s quicker, as if it knows it nearly had me. Icy iron bands find the bare skin of my ankle, then my calf. I kick, and again my flippers get in the way. It opens and closes its mouth in some horrifying mockery of chewing. It gnaws on its own swollen tongue. Its teeth clack. It’s desperate to feed.
My head swims. My limbs grow heavy. I’m growing weak. Light flashes before me; I can’t tell if it’s real or not. I don’t have the energy to fight.
I feel my body jerk violently to one side. There’s the sensation of movement across my face. The pressure on my legs vanishes, replaced by a strong sensation of warmth. It spreads across my belly, and I realize I’ve urinated. Embarrassment brings me to my senses. I look down, and I see a hand reaching up, fingers flexing. Beyond the wrist, there’s nothing. I must be hallucinating.
The water is crimson. I kick at the drifting, detached hand. It tumbles away.
Another bump, this one against my lower back. I spin. The monster tries in vain to grab me with its stump. I see the white of exposed bones. There’s an odd thumping sound and a glint of steel. Kelly suddenly appears. He lunges, pushing me away with one hand. His knife plunges into the zombie’s neck. He twists, yanks it out. The slash gapes. Bits of atrophied muscle spill out. A fish zips in, takes a bite, spits it out, then disappears again.
I suck hard from the cartridge in my mouth, but it’s empty. My thoughts, foggy to begin with, grow even more fuzzy. Blackness suffocates me. My vision tunnels. My stomach spasms.
With my last coherent thought, I remind myself that to vomit now would be fatal.
Whiteness and warmth infuse me. My brain is shutting down.
