Alive inside (Book Three)

Collections Part Two

Ch. 10

'Collections Part two'

[Baltimore, the next morning]

Water lapped endlessly in front of them, breaking softly against the pavement, standing tall above them were the empty shells of what used to be civilization's great works of Baltimore.

With the city in disrepair, the water from the nearby Patapsco river had flooded the area extensively, coupled with the sewer systems no longer being pumped by the city workers, Baltimore was now effectively underwater.

Torn and tattered banners, hung from broken-out windows, Summer could make out the words on one of them. 'Desperate times' and another said 'Save us', both in bold, red lettering against the weathered gray tarps they had been scrawled onto.

"So, uh, Genevieve can swim?" Blake asked over his shoulder as he looked out at the vast body of water.

He had been covered in a zombie’s guts, head to toe, Blake could be mistaken for a member of the undead quite easily.

Summer had also camouflaged herself as a zombie, the near-miss they had back in Richmond, cost them their horses, the two barely escaped alive, yet they pressed on in hopes of finding Genevieve.

"Yeah, she learned how to a few years ago, she's nothing spectacular at it, but she can tread water, float on her back, ya know, basics," Summer replied as she crouched near the water, looking for any sign of a boat nearby.

Scanning the shore, Summer could see where boats had been launched, drag marks coming from a makeshift shack, in particular; Blake looked over to where Summer was and recognized the place.

"That's where we kept the boats," Blake said before seeing a zombie playing dead at the bottom of the stairs to the dock. "But I think we should take a different route, there's one that goes through the tenth floor of that building, with bridges connecting it to other spots," Blake explained, pointing to the building in question.

An explosion sounded a few blocks down from where the siblings stood, gunfire erupted in the same area immediately after, whoever was involved clearly didn't observe the fact that the undead would be attracted to the noise.

Standing up with eyes wide in anticipation, Summer walked closer to Blake, never tearing her eyes from the direction of the sounds. "That could be her," Summer whispered, instinctively due to the sound coming from not too far away.

Blake, who had also grown tense from the sudden loud noise, the intense gunfire had already woken the dead, the Ex-Salvation soldier decided a boat might be beneficial now. "Screw the skyscraper idea, let's see about a boat," Blake exclaimed in a low voice as he moved past her.

Summer nodded but kept her eyes fixed on the buildings that were hiding a gunfight from her, after a short moment, the woman turned to follow Blake but saw he had frozen in place.

Looking at the dock, the sound of undead came from inside a pile of rubble where the boathouse had been; it gave the siblings pause.

The duo nodded before creeping over to the pile of wood and metal as quietly as they could, the siblings turned over one of the walls that had fallen and the first first thing they saw was that these walking corpses had been blown to bits by some sort of explosion, their insides were all hanging out and some of their limbs were completely pulverized; they were all freshly turned maybe an hour ago at the max.

"What the fuck?!" Blake whispered in disbelief, seeing the grotesque scene, covering his mouth and in sheer disgust.

"I think this was Genevieve," Summer said, seeing that a knot on the fragmented tripwire matched the one Amanda had taught both her and Genevieve.