The Gold Coast

CHAPTER 1 : RUSSELL

As the sun began its descent on the horizon, a young man in a tattered dress coat and slacks sat on the sand weeping. He saw no harm in it, as no one would hear him and he felt he deserved to weep and no one would argue that. After all, what happened had been his fault, he knew better. He cursed himself as night slowly stole the last remnants of the day away.

Why had he gone to the mainland? What other choice did he have, they would have starved without the meat? To hell with those stinking vulturous barbarians with all their rage and greed! It was all there fault that any of this had ever happened in the first place. The tears began to flow again and a blood curdling roar ripped its way from his lungs.

He awoke several hours later with sand caked in his dark brown hair with the musty smell of his clothes mildewing from the river moisture filling his nostrils. How long had he slept? He still had a long way back to the cabin from here and the beasts on the island roamed at night. What if he came across one of the infected? In the daylight he could outmaneuver them, but at night they had the advantage. He cursed himself again for bringing only his crossbow with him.

He picked himself up off the barren stretch of beach and prepared himself for the venture home. The air was already chilled on his damp clothes, he needed to get back before he fell ill from the cold. A doctor was not an option and his pilfered supplies from the deserted mainland hospital were running short. Squaring his shoulders and notching a bolt in the crossbow, he set out up the dirt path through the copse of trees separating him from Russell Drive.

Though it was only a small clustering of leafy giants he still half sprinted until he was on the other side of Russell. His mind began to wander again as he headed southeast at the intersection of St. Clair and Riverview. Its funny how the mind will slowly blur the edges of memories we try to hold on to, but the inane details somehow remain vivid. He could remember Saginaw in the summer when he was a kid. He remembered the smell of his mother's rose garden, carried on the cool lake wind, as he chased the shade to the eastern corner of the two story brick house they had lived in, at the west end of Gallagher Street. He could remember listening to her hum old tunes through the kitchen window as she prepared supper in anticipation of his father returning from work. All these things he could remember, so why could he no longer summon up a mental picture of his parents' faces?

He felt the tears coming again and this time bit them back, remembering this was neither the place nor time to be blubbering about the past. A tree limb scrapping against an old tin roof to his left snapped him out of his foolish reminiscing. He looked around to regain his bearings to discover he had already crossed over Temagmi and Algonac and quickly approaching Walpole to which he lived on the other side. He really needed to focus! What would have happened it he had come across someone or something out here while he was fantasizing about things that would never be again?

He was almost home now, as he entered the wooded area surrounding the cabin he had selected as sanctuary on the lonely island, he felt another knot rising in his throat as he remembered there would be no one there waiting for him. No one worried about where he had been and what he had been doing. Knock it off you ignorant sap, he mentally scolded himself. He did not allow his well honed senses and paranoia to ebb until he was safely within the confines of his hand crafted fortress.

He had assembled his one room sanctum out of welded steel plating he had found in a small barn at the north end of the island. Probably some husband's unfinished project, left unfinished when he either died of the infection or struck out in search of the fabled Spared Lands. No such place in Russell's opinion. Just some fairy tale survivors had made up to take their minds off of what was happening around them.

He chuckled to himself at the thought of his name. An alias stolen from a welcome sign he had seen hanging over the docks at the harbor on the island. This place was called that once, Russell Island. It suddenly escaped him what state he was in, not that it mattered anymore anyway. They were the Disconnected Zones of Chaos now! He laughed at his own private joke!

Sometimes he wished he hadn't ran all the gas and batteries out in the golf carts on the island, dragging supplies and building materials out here. Just to relax in a cushioned seat as an engine, and not his own two feet, transported him about the island. That was just a dream though. He had burned all the gasoline he had found on the island either powering the carts to move the steel, propane tanks, rebar, and tools out here, or starting fires last winter when kindling and burnables were becoming hard to come by.

He engaged all ten of the deadbolts he had built into the reinforced aluminum door he had taken from one of the houses over on South Russell Drive. (Good thing his father had been an architect, and took pride in bonding time teaching his son his way around a job site and its various tools. This thought made Russell smile.) He laid the wooden beam, hand carved down from a tree stump, across the cradles on either side of the door to further reinforce what he thought of as the weak point of his domicile. He then placed his crossbow back in its respective place among his other compiled weapons he kept at the back of the hut.

He closed the one vent in the structure he had put in to let out the smoke from the charcoal grill he used for both cooking and heating the place. The vent was small, barely large enough for a squirrel to get in if it wanted to, and he had a bolted shutter to cover this as well. He then stripped off his damp clothes and laid them out over the table and chair, he had taken from the local cafe, to dry.

He changed into a baggy t-shirt and shorts he had taken from the house where he had found the coat and slacks in, the only house that had men's clothes that would fit him. He settled into the mattress on the floor and pull the covers around his neck to fight back the chill in the room. The covers still smelled like Delilah and he began to feel lonely again.

He felt the anger rise in him. Feast on my canine companion tonight, you psychopaths! I hope you all choke, because those of you that survive the night won't feel so victorious tomorrow! Tomorrow I come back revived and carrying a loaded shotgun! Russell dozed off wondering what barbecued thug tasted like with an evil grin on his face.