Resurrection: A Zombie Novel by - (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📕

They anchored the boat 200 feet out and swam in. The water was so cold that Kyle’s lungs briefly seized up, but Hughes insisted it was far better to be cold and wet for a spell than bring the boat onto the beach where it would not be secure.

They left the handguns, but Hughes brought the M4 rifle and held it over his head and swam with one hand to keep it dry. Kyle and Annie brought crowbars. Frank brought his hammer. And that was it. They weren’t relocating to the island just yet. This was a recon mission.

Kyle shivered and dripped on the shore and tried to hug himself warm. He had forgotten how rocky the beach was. Soft sand is created by pounding ocean waves, but the water around the San Juans behaved more like a lake, aside from the tides. The silence of the sea made them safer since crashing waves would conceal threatening noises.

“I need to go inside,” Annie said through chattering teeth. Her waterlogged clothes sagged off her shivering body. “The hotel will have towels.”

Kyle shivered too. Frank shivered. Even Hughes, with all his insulating bulk, shivered a little.

“Agreed,” Kyle said. “Our clothes will still be wet, but we can dry off and warm up before we have to put them back on.”

“We’ll get dry clothes in some of the houses,” Hughes said.

“We leave the houses alone,” Kyle said. “They belong to someone. We should at least wait until we’re certain they aren’t coming back. There should be a clothing store on the next street.”

They crossed Main Street and followed a handpainted wooden sign in front of the hotel that said “Office.” The office was dark, and Kyle had to cup his hands over the glass to see inside, but it did not look abandoned. It just looked like it was closed for the day.

He pushed and pulled the door handle. It was locked, so he knocked. He knew no one would answer, but it felt like the right thing to do.

“Hello!” he said. “Anyone in there?”

“Just break the glass,” Hughes said.

Kyle hadn’t felt averse to breaking and entering for more than a month. The very concept of breaking and entering meant nothing anymore on the mainland, but Eastsound was different. It still looked respectable.

He felt like a criminal, but he whacked the glass with his crowbar. The shattering was extraordinary. It gave him one jolt of adrenaline and another of fear. Surely that sound could be heard from a mile away.

“You guys okay?” Parker called from the boat. He was hundreds of feet away, but with no wind, no rain, no surf, and no traffic, his voice carried like he was standing right there.

“Just bustin’ into the office,” Frank said. He didn’t yell it, he just said it, and of course Parker could hear him. For a second Kyle was surprised that Parker showed concern for their well-being, but only for a second. Parker was concerned about his own ass. Anything that threatened them threatened him even if it threatened him less.

Kyle reached through the broken glass, unlocked the door, and stepped into the office. It was just as cold inside as out. The heat had been off for a long time. He could see well enough in the gloom to step behind the counter and grab four room keys.

“Just grab one,” Hughes said. “We should stick to one room,” Hughes said.

“I need to take off my clothes,” Annie said, still shivering.

Kyle handed her a key, kept one for himself, and returned two to the desk. “You take 17. We’ll be next door in 18.”

“We should get ourselves a raft,” Frank said, “so we don’t have to freeze our asses off like this every time we go to and from the boat.”

“The hell are we going to find a raft?” Hughes said.

“I’ll make one out of shoestrings and twigs,” Annie said, “if I don’t have to do this again.”

“There’s a dock down the shore a ways,” Kyle said. “We can tie the boat there when we know for sure the island is safe.”

“It’s not safe,” Hughes said.

Annie stopped shivering for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“This place looks perfect, right?” Hughes said.

Like heaven, Kyle thought. A city on a hill at the end of the world.

“But it’s empty,” Hughes said. “Why would a place this nice be empty? People here ran away from something.”

“From what?” Kyle said. “There’s nothing here.”

“I don’t know,” Hughes said. “But Annie girl, you’re coming into room 18 with us. You can dry off and warm up in the bathroom. Nobody should be alone on this island.”