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

They carried half their supplies up the hill and into the guesthouse. The rest had to remain on the boat. It would take two trips to bring everything up, and if they had to make a run for it in the dark, there’d be no time for two loads of gear. It was a good plan, but they mistakenly left behind the backpack with all the night vision in it.

When darkness fell they used a half-dozen candles for light inside the guesthouse. Parker parted the curtains, looked outside, and saw nothing at all. The moon was down now, the darkness absolute. “We should go get the night vision,” he said. “In case something happens tonight. Flashlights are fine for getting around when everything’s normal, but not if someone—or some thing—busts their way in here at four o’clock in the morning.”

“Agreed,” Hughes said.

“Me too,” Kyle said.

“I’ll go,” Parker said.

“I’ll go with you,” Kyle said.

“The hell for? I don’t need you to hold my hand.”

“I need to burn off more calories,” Kyle said. “I’m not tired yet and I’ll go crazy here in this cabin.”

“Fine,” Parker said. “Grab a flashlight.”

He didn’t want Kyle along, but whatever.

Outside, the flashlights barely lit anything. Parker could see the ground in front of his feet okay, but everything else was as dark as before. He’d have to be damn sure to stay on the gravel path where it wound near the edge of the cliff. The stars sure looked great, though. And he could see the sea below and the black shapes of more islands off in the distance.

The air was cold. Parker used to enjoy the cool air of the Pacific Northwest, but that was back when climate control still existed. The main house had a fireplace, but the guesthouse didn’t. And all the wood was wet anyway.

His and Kyle’s feet on the gravel path made a hell of a racket. No one, and no thing, would be able to sneak up on the house in the dark. Not on the path, anyway.

“Cold out here,” Kyle said.

Parker said nothing.

He had never used night vision before and wondered how well it would work with so little ambient light in the atmosphere. There was some light from the stars at least. His eyes were adjusting. He could almost, but not quite, make out individual pieces of gravel on the path.

The cliff was up ahead somewhere. As long as he stayed on the path, he’d be fine, but he felt spooked not knowing quite where the edge was.

And what was back in those trees? He wasn’t entirely convinced the island was clear. Hence the night vision. This island, whatever its name was, was more likely clear than Orcas, for sure, but he’d thought that island was safe even though it was not. It made no difference how he or anyone else felt. The island was either safe or it wasn’t.

Anyway, those things weren’t the only possible threat. Three dead bodies up on the lawn and a half-decomposed corpse in the main house made that abundantly clear. Humans could be predators too. How many human survivors were behaving like Lane and his boys? Most of them, probably.

And what about mountain lions? And bears? Did big animals live on this island? Parker had no idea.

He and Kyle remained silent all the way down to the boat. Parker had assumed Kyle wanted to talk, perhaps even apologize, but he wasn’t talking.

They reached the boat and went below to retrieve the backpack with the night vision in it.

“I want to try it out,” Kyle said.

Parker felt tempted to argue on general principle, but he wanted to try it out too.

The night-vision devices were monocles. They only worked in one eye. Parker took one out of the box and attached it to his head over his left. He flipped the switch and gasped in astonishment. He could see everything below deck, even things his flashlight wasn’t pointing at. The flashlight itself was so bright, he had to squint and point it at the floor. He already knew these devices rendered everything in green for whatever reason, but he had no idea he’d be able to see so much rendered in green. He could read a newspaper if he had one.

“Wow,” Kyle said when he turned his on.

“These are extraordinary,” Parker said. “Turn your flashlight off.”

They both turned off their flashlights and Parker could still see everything. He wasn’t sure he’d still be able to read, but he could find his way around in the dark without any problems.

When he stepped up onto the deck, the full awesomeness of the night vision revealed itself. The sea and the islands were bathed in otherworldly green light, as if an alien sun had just appeared in the sky.

“Holy shit,” Kyle said. “All this just from just starlight?”

“And the stray beams of moonlight still bouncing around,” Parker said.

He couldn’t make out the distant islands in detail, but he could see the boat, the sea, the dock, their own island, and the roofline of the house up the hill perfectly.

“Imagine,” Kyle said, “if we’d had these on Orcas. We could have walked through that horde in the dark and been fine. We’ll have a huge advantage when we go back there to clear them.”

Parker wanted to punch Kyle in the ear. Instead he went below again to retrieve the backpack with the other night-vision devices and returned to the deck.

“It’s too bad these only work in one eye,” Kyle said.

Parker exhaled. “They only work in one eye so that your other eye can adjust to the darkness. You wouldn’t want to be blind if the damn thing ran out of batteries.”

That wasn’t the only reason, of course. You’d need to know what everyone else can and can’t see in case you’re trying to hide in the shadows. Wasn’t that obvious?

They trudged up the hill. Parker could see everything now. He could make out individual pieces of gravel without any problem. He could see individual blades of grass. He could see every single needle and leaf on the trees at the edge of the forest. And the number of stars overhead was simply extraordinary. At least ten times the usual number.

The trail became steeper as it wound its way toward the top of the cliff on the left.

“We’re going to be okay,” Kyle said as they walked.

“All we’re doing here,” Parker said, “is delaying the inevitable.”

“Man, can’t you stop being yourself for even five minutes? If we’re safe now, we can be safe in the future.”

“Doesn’t matter if we’re safe here because we’ll die if we stay. You said so yourself. We’ll starve to death. We can’t grow any food. There’s no farmland on this island.”

“There are no farms in Alaska, either, but that’s where you said you wanted to go.”

“Farms or not, people live off the land up in Alaska.”

“People live off the land here.”

“No, they don’t. The people who lived here loaded up on supplies from Seattle. This island is not a self-contained system.”

Kyle stopped and turned around. He looked like a glowing cyborg with that night-vision thing on his eye. “We’re not going to stay on this island. We’re going back to Orcas.”

“The hell we are.”

“We’ll sweep it and clear it and start new lives there. We’ll plant crops and build irrigation ditches and raid the mainland for solar power. We’ll cut trees for firewood and sleep in beds and raise chickens and barbecue deer steaks and eat apples and cheese for dessert.”

“Good God, listen to yourself. Apples and cheese? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Apples grow here, you know. And cows live on that island. It can’t be that hard to figure out how to make cheese. We can hit a library on the mainland and bring back books that teach us how to do all that stuff.”

They weren’t far from the cliff edge. He’d missed it coming down when all he had was a flashlight, but he could see it now with the night vision. There it was, yawning over the beach below and the bright green sea beyond.

Parker started walking again. Toward the cliff. Kyle followed.

“What I want to know, Kyle” Parker said, “is why you think you get to make these decisions for everyone. Nobody appointed you captain. Every decision you’ve made since I met you has been a disaster.”

“We’ll vote,” Kyle said. “And you’ll lose. You can go to Alaska by yourself if you want. No one will stop you because no one will miss you.”

Parker stopped in his tracks. Kyle stopped too.

“Excuse me?” Parker said. He flushed with heat and anger. And shame. Anger because Kyle had said it, and shame because he knew Kyle was right.

“You’re welcome to stay, but no one will mind if you go. You treat everybody like shit. It should be obvious even to you that everyone hates you.”

“Annie doesn’t hate me.”

“Of course she does, Parker.”

And with that Kyle turned back around and started walking again.

Parker didn’t plan what happened next. He had no idea he was going to do it until he was already halfway through doing it. And once he was halfway through doing it, it was too late to stop.

He reached behind Kyle and ripped the night-vision monocle off his head.