The Infected Dead (Book 1): Alive for Now

  Alive For Now

  © 2015 Bob Howard

  Alive For Now

  This book is dedicated to my wife, Dawn, who always wanted me to write.

  CHAPTER 1

  Survival

  A mosquito got me on the back of my right ear, and it was itching like I couldn’t believe. I wanted to scratch at it, but I needed to be as still as I could, and there are a lot of things far worse than a mosquito bite in this world.

  Bee stings are bad. Spider bites can be really bad. Being bitten by a person……I don’t even know what to call that.

  So, I’ll put up with the mosquito bite for now, and my guess is there will be a few more mosquito bites before dawn. Warm weather and a wet climate makes for some very big mosquitoes. Noisy too. Maybe when the sun comes up, I can get to my boat and a few less mosquitoes will be able to reach me.

  My mind started to drift a bit as I got sleepy, and I remembered reading somewhere that mosquitoes never fly more than ten feet high. Someone was wrong.

  I was pretty sure I had gotten at least twenty feet up the tree where I found two large branches I could straddle. One leg over each limb allowed me to at least lean back against the trunk of the tree. Killing myself by falling and breaking my neck would be a bad idea, but it would be even worse to be paralyzed and alive. There were things down there that wouldn’t be near as unhappy about it as I would.

  My head slid to one side, and I jerked awake. Something below the tree groaned, and I quietly cursed at myself for letting my mind wander. If I wanted to stay awake, I had to do something besides remember trivia.

  I decided to put my mind to work on what I would do when I reached the boat, but I was really tired, and it wasn't long before my mind started to wander again. This time my mind went to an earlier part of my life when things were more like they should be, and much simpler.

  I didn’t get the island because I needed it. I didn’t really even want it, and I guess you couldn’t say I would have bought it, either. It just landed in my lap, and I probably gave up a lot of money to keep it. Let’s just say sometimes you get stuck with something whether you want it or not.

  There are plenty of thirty-two year old guys who would think of a ton of good reasons to own an island, but I wasn’t at that point in my life. Single, working on a career that was developing too slowly, and being constantly reminded by relatives that they had done better at my age. Maybe I just didn’t have enough imagination to get excited about owning property yet. Then again, I also didn’t know what I know now.

  When the lawyers called me they said it was a good news, bad news kind of thing. I was supposed to ask which one I wanted to hear first, but I never really liked lawyers enough to take the bait.

  After a few moments of silence, the ‘suit’ on the other end of the phone made the decision for me and went with what he thought was the good news.

  “You own an island off the coast of South Carolina. It’s undeveloped and hard to get to, but you own it.” I didn’t say anything because I didn’t really know if it was a prank call, or if it was the truth and maybe I should brace myself for the bad news. I didn’t think the undeveloped and hard to get to part was really what he meant by bad news.

  The good news sounded like a phishing email in person. You know, the kind that says you just have to reply to the email, and someone is going to give you a million dollars. They usually include a bunch of bad grammar and are from someone with an email like freakyhotlegs@weirdmail.com.

  The suit was smart enough to realize I was waiting for him to deliver the punchline, so he went on with the bad news. “You do, however, owe a large sum of money in back taxes on the property. Probably more than you can afford to pay, which means the island will go to auction, and someone will take it off your hands.”

  “You mean I own an island, but I’m not going to get to keep it. Is there really some good news here?” I wasn’t sure why they even bothered to call me if I was going to wind up with exactly the same thing after the call that I had before it.

  “Well, uh.” He cleared his throat and became so uncomfortable that I could literally picture him sticking one finger into his collar to loosen it up enough to breathe.

  “Well, uh, its sort of our firm’s fault that there are back taxes due. We somehow neglected to tell you that you inherited the island back when it was left to you in a distant relative’s will.”

  I’ve always been the kind of person who can’t resist turning the thumbscrews just a bit more when I don’t like someone, and since I don’t like lawyers, and since I especially don’t like lawyers who cost me money, I had to turn that thumbscrew.

  “How does that sort of thing happen, Mr…….What did you say your name was again?”

  “Uh, Mr. Weintraub.”

  Mr. Weintraub sounded young, said “uh” too many times for me to think he would ever be a good lawyer, and was probably getting stuck with making a phone call for a senior partner who had screwed up, so I eased up on him just a bit.

  “Forget it, Mr. Weintraub. I don’t really care how it happened, I just don’t understand why it’s a good thing that I own an island, but I can get rid of it just by letting it go to auction for back taxes. Especially if it was your firm’s fault that I owe those back taxes.”

  “I may not be a lawyer Mr. Weintraub, but usually when something is someone else’s fault, they have to face some consequences. Consequences like, oh I don’t know, paying some kind of penalty. What’s the word you lawyers would usually use?”

  “You mean settlement, Mr. Jackson?” His voice sounded smaller than before and I had the impression he had been told his career might be developing just a bit slower too, unless he could get out of offering me a settlement.

  “Yes, Mr. Weintraub, I mean settlement.” I mentally saw the thumbscrew turn, but before another “uh” could escape from the junior lawyer, a heavy hitter spoke up.

  “Mr. Jackson, this is Amanda Lee. I’m a senior partner with this firm, and……”

  “Ms. Lee, isn’t it considered impolite to not tell people when they are on a speaker phone? Something tells me you’ve been hanging over Mr. Weintraub’s shoulder for the last few minutes listening to every word.”

  I couldn’t resist going on the offensive now that I had warmed up on Mr. Weintraub. It was clear from the silence on the other end of the phone that Weintraub was frozen in his tracks, and Lee was probably fuming. She wasn’t used to being put in her place by anyone, and she undoubtedly had a pretty good idea she was talking to someone whose total assets were less than the cost of her weekly dry cleaning bill.

  “Mr. Jackson, maybe Mr. Weintraub could have made better use of your time by getting straight to an explanation of how this is going to benefit you.”

  It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it was a step in the right direction. “Our firm is prepared to make arrangements for payment of the back taxes on the property in return for your consideration.”

  “Consideration for what, Ms. Lee? Not making a public spectacle of the fact that your law firm screwed up?”

  “Something like that, Mr. Jackson,” she said without being fazed at all. “As a matter of fact, we are prepared to cover the taxes and a few amenities that we believe you will find to be very attractive.”

  She said the whole thing as if the words were liquid gold, and each word was delivered slowly. She made “very attractive” into about ten syllables, and despite my better judgement, a small part of me hoped she was one of the amenities.

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “As Mr. Weintraub said, the island is undeveloped, but it isn’t worthless. We could make you an offer for the island that I’m pretty sure would
be beyond your wildest dreams. You could retire on what we are prepared to pay you to take this problem off your hands.”

  Up until that point I was seeing dollar signs, Ms. Lee in a tight dress, maybe my own business, or just retiring young. There was just something about the way she was acting...like she would be doing me a favor. It made me feel like she didn’t just consider herself richer than me, but smarter.

  She was right about the richer part, but sometimes money can make you think you’re smarter than you are. That rich guy with the world’s worst comb-over who ran for President was living proof of that.

  A big part of me was saying, “Draw up the papers.”

  A smaller but more stubborn part of me said, “I think your firm is trying to take advantage of me, and I think I have a different settlement in mind, Ms. Lee.”

  Was I actually turning down an offer of money that hinted at a lifetime of luxury? Was I passing up on being rich just because I didn’t like being talked down to by a successful woman?

  I guess I was, and Mr. Stubborn went on to say, “Why don’t you take care of those taxes for me and give me a call when you do? We can get together and get a notary seal on a deed to that island, and if I decide I want to sell it, I will be happy to consider your offer…along with a few offers from others.”

  I hung up the phone and then just stood there staring at it. I think I was trying to will it to ring. I would answer, and a voice would say I am forgiven for being the biggest idiot in the world. That I’m really a smart guy, and I didn’t just turn down the opportunity of a lifetime.

  The phone didn’t ring. Eventually, I looked around my apartment from where I stood and realized I must have been dropped on my head when I was born.

  ******

  Perched on my tree limbs, I looked around and my thoughts came back from that moment just a few months ago. I remember I even considered sitting down on my worn out, curb-treasure couch and playing some video games. I figured a few hours of war games or zombie bashing would make me feel just a bit more superior than I felt.

  There was just something so unreal about the phone call that playing video games seemed to be the right thing to do. I could go from one unreal thing to another. It seems I didn’t have a clue back then about the definition of unreal.

  Something moved past the bottom of the tree, and I held my breath. There was a mosquito buzzing my right ear again, but it could abuse me until it got fat and fell off as far as I was concerned.

  In the near total darkness, I listened and thought again about how I felt when I hung up the phone. I didn’t know it yet, but I was one of the smartest men alive.

  I dozed off before sunrise, and I was lucky I didn’t fall out of the tree, but I needed to clear my head. You can only get so tired before you have to shut down. Going through so much combined with a lack of sleep will make you screw up in a perfect world, and this wasn’t a perfect world anymore.

  The sleep seemed to help because I felt hungry. Up until now, I had been too scared to be hungry. In my half awake, half asleep, very hungry world I remembered when the phone had rung, and when the whirlwind changes began.

  ******

  The law firm had neglected to give me plenty of the details. The will specifically said I got the island and everything on it. The relative who had become my benefactor was the family nut. I called him Uncle Titus, but he was more like my cousin’s stepbrother, and I was the only one who ever listened to his far fetched claims about survival.

  Uncle Titus left me the island, but according to the will, a key left in a safety deposit box would fit a lock in Uncle Titus’ fallout shelter somewhere on the island. The island was so overgrown and so bug infested that the law firm didn’t even bother to inventory the shelter. They just made me sign paperwork that said I had to provide a list of all valuables for tax purposes. It was probably also because they couldn’t even get inside.

  The shelter…if you want to call it that, turned out to be more of an underground mansion as far as I was concerned. It was a modern day ark with an inventory worth far more than the island. Of course it wouldn’t be worth a damn if I couldn’t get to it again.

  I surveyed the tree I was sitting in and realized I could see the ground better. That meant dawn couldn’t be too far off. I was probably twenty feet up, which meant anything that passed by below wasn’t likely to notice me if I stayed quiet.

  I silently hoped there wasn’t anything hanging around once the sun came up, because I didn’t think my body could survive another day and night in this tree. Of course, I wouldn’t have much choice if there were more than a few things hanging around. I had at least fifteen yards of dried brush to thrash my way through just to get to the beach, so I was going to make noise.

  I would have to find the strength to run another fifty or so yards to my boat…if it was still there. There was always a chance that someone did what anyone would do under the right circumstances. They would steal the boat to save their own lives and say a quick “thank you” to the person who had done them a favor and left it there to steal. They would also be thinking the poor slob who owned the boat was dead and wouldn’t be needing it anyway.

  I started thinking about Amanda Lee and my visit to the law firm. She was every bit as good looking as I had expected, but she was ten times the witch. She held out her hand and dangled a key at me. As soon as I took it, she turned on her expensive high heals and left me alone with Weintraub.

  He was also as young and nervous as I expected. He had me sign all the papers and told me the name of the island, Mud Island. Nice……there had to be a reason, but I had my suspicions.

  I would have to look into how to go about changing the name of an island if I decided to sell it. I thought about asking Weintraub why it was named Mud Island, but he read the look on my face and volunteered the answer before I could ask.

  “Mr. Jackson, your benefactor was…how should I put this, eccentric?” Weintraub was looking at me as if I didn’t already know how Uncle Titus ticked.

  “When he came to our office to write this will, he wanted it kept very quiet, so he said he had named the island Mud Island because no one would really think much of it. They would just see it as being a worthless sandbar with trees on it.” Weintraub was giving me another look, as if his explanation was enough.

  “Why would he do that?” I asked. “He had to know he was devaluing his own property.”

  I had already considered the possibility that Uncle Titus was going to use the island as a survival base rather than develop it, but it seemed like even he was going too far. Besides, I felt like it was a good idea to do as Uncle Titus had and act a bit naive.

  Weintraub looked like he was searching for the right words. “Exactly, Mr. Jackson, he didn’t want it to be worth anything to anyone, even if it meant life or death.” Those were his exact words.

  “Frankly, Mr. Jackson, your uncle made me a bit nervous. He asked me if I had made plans for what was coming, and when I told him I hadn’t, he just looked sad and said to pray that the end is quick. What did he mean by that?”

  Sitting on my numb rear end looking down from a tree, I wondered how Weintraub would have reacted if I had said, “Well you see, Weintraub. People are going to start dying and then they’re going to start getting back up. Then they’re going to start trying to eat you. Who knows? Maybe that hot senior partner of yours, Ms. Lee, will try to eat you.”

  I think Weintraub would have understood one thing……why crazy Uncle Titus was leaving Mud Island to me. I was the crazy nephew. He would also feel safer knowing I was out on Mud Island and not running around out in public. I signed “Edward C. Jackson” in about a hundred places and initialed a hundred more then headed home.

  ******

  I saw Mud Island a week later. I flew down from my small but comfortable apartment in Charlotte to see what I had gotten into. I knew that there were plenty of small, uninhabited islands off the coast of South Carolina, but I was fairly sure that South Carolina didn’t even
know about this one.

  It was an easy living sixty degrees in Charlotte when I got on the plane. Forty-five minutes later I was in Columbia, and it was close to ninety with one hundred percent humidity. I always thought one hundred percent humidity meant it was raining outside, but what it really means is that you sweat even if you aren’t moving.

  A charter plane took me to Myrtle Beach in about an hour, and from there I headed south in a rented Jeep. The map I followed took me through rich, full magnolia trees, green with leaves but heavily spotted with big white blossoms. Then there were oak trees covered with hanging moss, looking like they hadn’t changed since the Civil War, and then through Cyprus marshes. Trees with no branches until their canopy blocked out the sunlight.

  The water between the trees was black and didn’t look like it was a great place for people. This was a spooky place, and the only sound was from the tires rolling over the gravel on the mostly dirt road. I saw an alligator and wished I had stopped at a bathroom earlier. Alligators…I wondered if they think people taste like chicken.

  When I came to the end of the road, it just ended, and I mean that literally. It just stopped being a dirt road. There was a wire fence strung across the end of the road with a rusty sign on it that said No Trespassing. I laid my map out across the steering wheel and studied the route I had taken, pretty much sure that I had made a mistake and taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

  On the map the road ended too. There was a wide stretch labeled as marsh, and then there was a narrow strip of beach. Across from the beach was Mud Island. I didn’t see any way to get to it other than straight through the marsh. I thought about the alligator and decided Uncle Titus was more nuts than I had suspected.

  I climbed out of the Jeep and walked up to the rusty sign. I don’t know why……maybe because this was already totally weird, but I looked at the back of the sign. Taped to the back was a small package wrapped in plastic.