When we reached the quarantine pool, the boat rocked gently on the other side of the release gate.
It was built solid, a working vessel with a working engine, and right now that made it the most valuable thing we had.
Jeff and Ethan hauled totes onto the deck while Callan and I passed them up and over the gate.
“Stack toward the bow,” Jeff called down. “Keep the weight balanced.”
Ethan dragged a tote across the deck with a grunt. “How much food do we even need?”
Callan shrugged. “Depends how long we’re running. Plus, food is going to be useful when we get to Finn’s.”
“Three hundred miles,” Jeff said. “Better to have too much than not enough.”
We made trip after trip. Back through the aquarium, down the corridors, back out to the boat. Each run a little slower than the last, the work had a rhythm to it—grab, carry, stack, return—and the rhythm kept the silence from getting too loud.
By the final trip, the sun had shifted to late afternoon, the sky outside turning that hazy gold that made everything looksoft and almost normal if you didn’t think too hard about what lived beyond the fences.
Ethan wiped sweat from his forehead as he shoved the last tote onto the deck. “Man,” he groaned, stretching his back. “I’m gonna sleep like a rock tonight.”
Jeff laughed. “You’ll sleep like the dead.”
Ethan grimaced. “Bad choice of words, Dad.”
We secured the final tote, and they climbed back over the gate onto the pool floor. Callan already had his hands on the empty dolly, pushing it toward the corridor.
“Let’s head back in.”
Jeff nodded, scanning the treeline beyond the marina. “Yeah, I don’t like being out here longer than we have to.”
We started walking toward the service door that led back inside the aquarium.
Halfway there, Ethan slowed.
“Uh…”
Something in his voice made every nerve in my body tense at once.
I turned. “What?”
He pointed toward the tall chain-link fence surrounding the outdoor pool and marina slip.
At first, I didn’t see it.
Then one of them moved, a figure staggered out from behind a tree, colliding with the fence. Arms slack, its head lolling, that horrible, boneless gait that looked off in so many ways.
Then another appeared behind it, followed by another.
My stomach dropped, and I felt bile rise in my throat.
They gathered along the fence line. About ten at first—shuffling, bumping into each other, fingers finding thechain link and curling through the metal diamonds. Then I noticed more shapes farther out along the marina walkway, emerging from between buildings, rounding corners, seemingly drawn by us.
Slow, shambling, but converging.
Jeff swore under his breath. “Those weren’t here earlier.”
Callan released the dolly. “No. They weren’t.”
The nearest corpse slammed into the fence, fingers clawing through the links, its mouth working open and shut. The rattle of chain link carried across the water, sharp and metallic, and more joined it. The sound multiplied—a chorus of scraping and banging that raised every hair on the back of my neck.