Chapter 7 - SPEED

   By the time I was finished explaining my endgame to Eva, it seemed she'd run dry of tears.
   "Don't cry anymore sweet Eva," I embraced her, coiling my arms around her back and neck against her head. "It had to come to this."
   "I won't go," she kept on saying, "please Jace, I won't go."
   "You should go," I shook my head. We both knew that it would be foolish not to.
   She continued to sob in a quiet fashion now, taking several stuttered inhales at a time. I couldn't leave her like that, and maybe she knew I couldn't- why she wasn't trying to be strong for us. She didn't even know it, for I hadn't bothered to share, but I was partially dreading my return to the sea now. What Naceo had done to me yesterday was painless, but it still left a scar of paranoia lashed onto my mind, conditioning me to fear this reentry. Maybe I wasn't ready for life to end for me after all.
   "When I came here," Eva whimpered," I was ready to say goodbye. The same goodbye I told my mom and my brother and sister. Not this kind of goodbye."
   I suppose I hadn't fully grasped the depth of this farewell until she'd phrased it that way... and my goodbye would mean much more than never seeing my love again. I'd never see the light of day again. I'd never feel again. I recalled how my thoughts had been purged from my head... how I'd been left an empty vessel of complacent observation as Naceo cackled over me. Life would no longer be about playing the game... about telling a story. It couldn't be colorful anymore. It would only be one color... dark blue.
   I had to pull myself together.
   What I also hadn't told Eva was that this wasn't as much of a personal choice as I'd made it sound. Naceo owned the sea, and he would not allow me to continue making journeys back and forth. Resistance would probably result in something much more terrifying.
   "When do you leave?" I asked Eva with calm composure.
   "Tomorrow... sunrise," she trembled.
   "Go," I said, "get ready for your trip. I won't go back in yet. I'll be right here at our normal time. Is that going to be enough to prepare for a- different type- of goodbye?"
    "No! it's never enough, noth-"
    "GO!" I shouted now, "before I change my mind and return now!" She wasn't moving, so I got up and began towards the path where I would descend the rocky plateau. Finally she took off for the forest.

    I climbed down anyways, standing ankle deep and staring off into the endless blue sky. My mind was racing, flipping through possibilities of things I could do with my last moments. Yet I was frozen in my steps. As a gentle wave receded, I felt something tickling my toes. A small crab – the size of my thumb- had trailed over my foot. I bent down to pick it up, holding it by its stiff scarlet shell. Its legs slowly danced through the air as it searched for ground.
   "Where do you live?" I casually inquired while resting the little guy on my palm. It obviously had no response. It raised a claw over its head and clipped it, which I allowed myself to interpret as a hello.
    I was suddenly struck with a pathetic idea; I would allow the crab to choose my fate. If it runs onto the sand, I would fight another day, perhaps even just to deny Naceo the satisfaction of the fulfilling our deal. But if the creature allowed the waves to carry him in, so would I. I picked up the little guy up as I had before, and carefully, not to dissuade him from either option, placed him right where the phone divided the water, facing parallel to the shore.
    At first, it didn't move. The anticipation had me biting the inside of my cheeks. I was a second away from encouraging it with the tip of my foot when suddenly it took off at full speed. It went up the sand, then down again into the water, swerving along the shore like an energetic drunk. Following its path with my eyes quickly became difficult, and I began to stumble after the creature, racing behind it along the shore.

   The pursuit lasted four hours. Not all of it was spent running – the crab rested occasionally and looked up at me, curious about it's satiated predator. I, the stalker, remained fixated on the animal. It was a little red button that would show me the way. One thing remained constant: the crab did not leave the shore. It too, chose neither.
   I had time to kill and I knew eventually the guy – who's indecisive behavior was annoying me to the point where I couldn't quit – would eventually pick one of the first two. But when I became distracted by a massive shadow hiding beyond the fog of sea in the distance, I finally lost sight of where the crab had run off to. No more red button of destiny.
   Somehow it was even more curious that my ten-legged friend had led me to this eerie structure.

   As I drew closer, the steam rising off the water gradually dispersed and the picture became clear: I was looking at a ship. My memory couldn't serve me well enough for an exact answer, but it was quite possibly the same ship I've been shot on months ago. Feeling adventurous after having chased a crab miles away from familiar territory, I decided to explore. I swam to the edge of the vessel, taking shameless gulps of water to ease my headache. Between the metal siding and the barnacle-plagued wooden pillar of the dock, I was able to climb aboard.
   Several minutes of creeping around in dripping wet clothes was not only drying me off, but informed me the boat was free of any people. I was safely alone.
    I stripped and hung my clothes to dry, and begin sifting through the drawers and boxes in the indoor portions of the boat. I was trying to discover the function of each room through the items within it, but it was hardly organized. Almost everything seemed like useless junk that hadn't been tossed since it was in service.
   Eventually I made my way up to the captain's cabin. Of all the rooms this one was by far the most full of junk. Every corner was packed with storage containers which either held equipment I didn't understand or stacks upon stacks of paper which seems even more foreign.
   I knew I was heading for the wheel. Of course I was going to touch it... to pretend I was the captain of the ship guiding my pride and glory skillfully over the fearsome seas. But before my hand reached the wood-carved shape, I was distracted by a word.
   Ramecha.
   The letters popped right out at me and it was like everything else in the room grew a shade dinner. My fingers traced over the map; part of it had been damaged and ripped by water, but I could still read it. I hadn't seen a map like this since the day we took off on our bikes.

   I began to think about the road Eva would be taking to get back to Ramecha. She'd be traveling alongside Team D to finish the route and return... how long would it take them to reach the SafeZone? The way we had gotten down to Port Antigone, we'd taken as many exits as we could to scan through abandoned cities via their outskirts. But now the team was just focused on making it back, and as soon as possible. They would trek up the highway parallel to but east of the coastal road we'd taken. It was the fastest, safest route.
   Or was it?
   The map still pinched between finger and thumb, I rested my hands on the wheel, gazed beyond the window, and realized I was standing up on the answer to my own question.

 I hurried back to our meeting point, although I knew I'd be waiting for Eva for another few hours. To my surprise, she showed up much sooner than I'd expected
   "Eva!" I embraced her with excitement, "I have a brilliant idea..." But then I saw someone approaching from a few feet beyond her.
   I quickly dove behind the rocks, scraping my elbows badly as I prepared for a softer landing.
   "I'm sorry," I heard Eva call out. "I couldn't stop him from following."
   Who was that? My heart was racing and my skin burned. Before I could react again, I heard a familiar voice asking the same question.
   Augustus's face appeared from above the rocks I'd slipped on. "Oh my god," he breathed, "she wasn't kidding. You're really here."
    "You told him?" I grimaced up at Eva.
   "He wouldn't leave me alone after I came back to the hospital in that shape. He followed me out here, so I told him on the way to shore."
   Augustus was still a stuttering mess. But I had no desire to waste the little time I had left explaining my condition to him."Help me up," I asked of them after realizing my arms had been weakened, "I have something to show both of you."

   I laid out the map, drawing my finger up from Port Antigone to the coast west of Dimon. "Instead of taking all the families by land, borrow a ship. On sea, not only will you move faster, but you'll move safer."
   There was silence for a few seconds, only a crackling ocean in the distance. "Its not a bad idea," sighed Eva, "but you know how many people are going to be opposed to it."
   Augustus was one of them. "By sea? Did you forget the sea is the reason we even have zombies in the first place?"
   Eva came to my defense. "The sea may be toxic, but it will be safe to sail on. I haven't seen what recruiting with a couple families tagged on looks like, but I have an idea."
   It was obvious that the pace had been slowed quite a lot, and the responsibility had overwhelmed them. Augustus even seemed much more mature from the last time I'd known him. "It wasn't easy. No thanks to you, quitter."
   Eva raised her fist at Augie and for a moment I thought I was going to witness her knocking out the pearly whites of his cheesy grin.
   "Eva, don't!" I exclaimed, grabbing hold of her meaty wrist and pulling her into me. She was breathing unevenly as her back landed between my knees.
   Our posture was intimate. Augustus had crab-walked a few feet back and was now eyeing us peculiarly. "Ohhh..." he sung lowly, "I think I get it. You faked your death... so that you and Eva could live in Port Antigone together, huh? Is that what this is?"
   Eva and I looked at each other. Should we tell him what I'd become? She shrugged, placing her hand on my leg. It was my choice. And I couldn't lie anymore.
   "I really did die, Augie. Well... I was shot. You don't remember?" No, Augie had been rceovering as well when that incident occurred. Even if he remembered what happened, it was easier to admit that the medication could have tricked his eye than to even try to comprehend that I could still be alive.

   After we explained to hum the mechanism of my mortality, Augie couldn't wipe the twinge of his eyebrows. "You live... in the ocean?"
  "It's as boring as it sounds," I scoffed, "but I've been able to maintain myself. And Eva... is my happiness."
  He was to busy processing the fact that I was technically a living zombie to comment on our relationship, though he did offer a quick roll of the eyes.

   Augustus stood up quickly. "I'm going to talk to Captain Krev about this ship idea. It would be a lot smarter to have the families on a boat with a few recruiters while the rest of the team gets the bikes back." He saluted me with an enlightened grin and charged off into the forest.
   "If this works out," I told Eva, "I will get on the boat with you. I can retrieve all the water I'll need from aboard."
   Tears of joy began to spill from the corners of her eyes. She grabbed my hair and pulled our lips together for a brief, passionate smooch, and then scrambled to her feet and began hurrying away.
   "Where are you going?" I called to her.
   "To help Augie!"