The Lake Diary

Chapter 10

As I swam my mind was stuck running around in circles of despair and regret.

Our scavenging party had been so successful over the past few months that I'd grown over confident. We hadn't had a casualty in over a dozen raids. That over confidence led us so much further south than we'd ever gone. Of course we could pull it off.

But we didn't. And the trip had taken so long that Peter, Nicholas, and I weren't in the water long before the sun fell behind the trees on the shore. What little heat we'd been getting was lost, we had to make land fall and dry off soon or we'd fall to hypothermia out in the lake. Our bodies would shut down piece by piece until we drowned or just faded away, our core slowly spinning to a stop.

The zombie herd that had chased us to the sailboat followed as we jumped off and started swimming. I knew they would, they were attracted to motion. It was no different than when they followed the sailboat except this time we couldn't outpace them. Swimming, we were so slow that they were able to match our pace, stumbling parallel to us on the shore. And it was getting colder, we were slowing down.

Every once and a while during our swim, Peter, Nicholas, and I would exchange looks. We were all thinking the same thing, if the something didn't change fast we were all going to die.

The light was fading, the zombies and shore were getting less and less distinct. Shadows moving within shadows. The sound of moans and branches breaking let me know the movement wasn't my imagination, they were still following us.

I heard part of an argument between Nicholas and Peter. Nicholas was on the shore side, ahead of me, Peter on the lake side. One sounded resigned, the other angry.

"We don't have a choice," said Nicholas. He turned toward the shore. Peter tried to grab him but just got a handful of water.

"No," shouted Peter but Nicholas just kicked harder.

I was confused and slowed next to Peter.

As Nicholas got to shallower water he started shouting and splashing water. He was tired, weak from the cold, his efforts were pathetic but more than enough to attract the zombies.

At first I didn't understand what was going on, then it dawned on me. Nicholas was doing for us what we had tried to do for Malik's team. The man was drawing the zombies to him, giving us a distraction so we could escape.

Peter was just treading water, watching in horror. I grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. He was just dead weight.

"We can't let him die like that," said Peter.

"We don't have a choice, don't let his sacrifice be in vain."

After a moment I could feel Peter start to swim again. We tried to minimize our movements and splashes, kept a low profile in the water. Nicholas' distraction would only work if we didn't attract attention ourselves.

It wasn't long before the screams echoed across the water. They went on for what felt like hours. I hear them still.