After a long period of waiting without any news, Geoffrey and Delphine were becoming increasingly anxious. Indeed, after encountering the group of zombies on their way here, Delphine was becoming paranoid. She was scrutinizing the neighbourhood, thinking about zombies coming out of nowhere at any time.
She was unconsciously shaking her right leg in anxiety when she suddenly jumped in fright when Geoffrey's phone vibrated.
He had just received a voice message from Nicolas, "Get ready to leave as soon as possible and please text me your GPS position now". Nicolas's voice was almost out of breath and very anxious.
"This does not sound good, right?" asked Delphine nervously.
"Indeed, we'd better get ready!" answered Geoffrey while sharing their GPS position.
Five minutes went by, and then suddenly the phone rang.
"Hi! Get ready to leave! I am almost there on your left!" shouted Nicolas on his phone.
Geoffrey turned his head on the left, while he was about to answer his friend his mouth stayed open, frozen.
"What is happening?" Delphine could not understand, so she looked in the same direction as Geffrey and widen her eyes. "What in the world…" she did not finish her sentence "Gooo, go now!!!!!" she started panicking.
A hundred metres from their position, even if they could not see clearly with only the street lights, they were still able to distinguish Nicolas running like his ass was on fire, while at least 20 zombies were tailing him frenziedly!
Geoffrey readied the truck and position it in the middle of the road, pulled the brake and waited nervously for Nicolas.
Delphine was becoming hysterical, she screamed from her window to Nicolas. "Hurry!!!! What the hell are you waiting!! You want us to die with you?"
Nicolas wanted to give her a piece of his mind but he could barely breathe as he has been running at full speed for a while now. His lungs were burning, he could feel his legs getting stiffer with each meter, and he was sweating so much that he was completely drenched as if he went from a walk under the rain.
With his last strength, he jumped at the back of the small truck and shouted, "Gooooohhh".
Hearing a screamed that sounded like a pig getting butchered, Geoffrey pushed the accelerator pedal without a second thought!
At full speed, they took the direction of the small harbour.
Five minutes later they were getting extremely close to the harbour. Nicolas was still feeling bad from the run before, the aftershock was terrible! Running for more than 1.5 km (more than a mile) at full speed, and with his level of fitness, was really out of his league. But he could not stop smiling! Inside a small military container, a meteorite bigger than the one he took next to his apartment was lying at the bottom.
He did not know why but looking at this piece of green rock he felt better. After a few seconds of contemplation, he closed the lid of the container carefully and put it in a small bag.
Suddenly the van stopped. Nicolas stood up and could see a huge portal with "Raffles Marina" written on it. The portal had been forcefully opened and the guard post next to it was burning.
"What in the hell?" Nicolas was wondering what was happening, he did not know that the other group before him had to show some muscles to force their way in.
They went inside, driving slowly toward the dock. After reaching the port, they could see two cars, some of their friends and more than a hundred boats floating in the marina. Under the shining moon, and with the sound of the water gently washing the dock, this scene was stunning and uplifting.
Most of those boats were between 12 and 18 metres (39 ft – 59 ft) while only four were above 28 metres (92 ft).
Their group of friends had already emptied the cars and were now waiting for the truck.
Upon seeing the pickup van arriving, Sunny yield at the others to gather! And without waiting for a minute, the group came to transfer all water bottles. Some of the bottles were 5L big while others could be 15L, so each could take what they could according to their strength.
Nicolas went down on the ground, he had two guns at his belt and an assault rifle hanging on his shoulder. Upon seeing the firearms, Delphine asked him, "why you did not shoot the zombies?"
"First, I don't think that's very reasonable to face so many zombies, even with an automatic rifle, second my problem was that I was out of ammo, as I already killed quite a lot of them back there." Nicolas was annoyed by Delphine's aggressiveness, was she not supposed to care about his health first?
Jiajin came into the twos conversations, "why are you not with Baptiste and Jesper?"
"We had to split, they will arrive soon I guess?"
Jiajin already knew that the two were on their way here as she was constantly texting with Baptiste since he was sailing here. But she was wondering why Nicolas split with them since even Baptiste and Jesper did not know.
However, Nicolas did not want to explain that he came back to the crash site to loot one of the meteorites. Talking about it right now would be troublesome, unproductive and tiring. And most of all, he was not sure if he wanted to share his prize with them yet.
Indeed, after seeing someone turning right away after a small bite, versus the RIP Alice, who after having been exposed to the meteorite, needed to die first to turn. He was now sure the meteorite was giving at least an advantage, so why not more?
Nicolas was about to give some half-baked answer when Lexie came running and jumped at him.
"BB! I was so scared!!! I miss you so much, please don't leave like this again!" and she kissed him profusely.
'Good job BB! You saved my day!' though Nicolas smiling.
Being ignored, Jiajin was looking at them dejectedly, she said nothing, took a bottle of five litres and left.
"Haha, easy, easy, I am really tired, I need to rest," Nicolas was really happy to reunite with his girlfriend.
"Oh! You're bleeding!" Lexie could now see blood on his t-shirts and pants.
"Don't worry, this is just small scratches I got while running and jumping in an area full of dumps. My legs hurt a bit too, but it should heal quickly." He then looked at her with an expectant look, "did you find a boat?"
"Yes! We are super lucky! We found a great yacht with two skippers! And they have already agreed to come with us!"
"With two skippers?" Nicolas was first surprised, then when he saw under the starry light a huge yacht, at about 30 metres long (about 100 ft), at the end of the pontoon, fully lit. He understood that whoever was owning this yacht, they obviously could enrol a crew to manage it for them.
"The yacht is super luxurious and big! Enough for all of us!
The owner was just in transit in Singapore. He and his friends are rich people from Europe, they were taking a week of rest on the island.
They were supposed to leave tomorrow to go to Bali, but it seems that Miguel, one fo the crew member, can't reach the owner anymore, neither the other passengers and the two other crew members.
So when we discussed with them about our plan to go to Europe, they agreed to go with us.
I guess having a gun and a rifle helped in the discussion too." Lexie made a small summary of the situation and finished her last sentence with a meaningful look.
"Do you think they are trustworthy?" Nicolas upon hearing the crew could not reach the owners, he first felt lucky, but at the same time, he started to feel paranoid, 'did they lie?'
Trusting his friend was easy, but two complete strangers have just agreed to bring them to Europe, on a yacht they were supposed to operate for a rich tycoon, just like this! No negotiation, no anything. This was just too good to be true!
"Mhhh, I don't know. I think they are just opportunists.
We provided them with some critical information, in particular the zombie situation. If you add the fact they can't reach the owner and we own guns. I guess they did not have a reason to say no." answer Lexie, not giving any justification to believe they were trustworthy at all.
"Ok, I guess we share the same goal so it should be enough, but I fear that with so many people, they might feel stressed about how to manage the food and supplies." Nicolas was pondering.
"We told them about the water already, and they said with the yacht cittern and what we are providing, if we rationalize, we will have enough for more than one month's worth of water!
They told us, if we go without pause, the trip should be three to six weeks depending on the route and the weather."
"And the food?"
"Food… this is indeed a small problem. They already have food since they were about to leave, but it is enough for two weeks at best, taking into account what we brought.
Miguel and Markus are trying to get more food from the marina club, while Alfred is setting everything in the boat with Georgy and Ramesh."
Miguel and Alfred were the two new companion of the group. Both in their forties, they were easy-going men with huge experience in sailing.
It took the group half an hour to move the water in the yacht, in addition to an extra 500 kg food supply (about 1100 lb) that represented a bit more than two weeks worth of food for the whole group. Miguel had access to a lot of cash belonging to his former employee, so he showered the staff of the marina with euros and they parted with some of their food stock with a big smile.
Soon a loud engine noise could be heard, it was a military boat that was entering the port.
Baptiste and Jesper were waving at their friends from the side of the boat, smiling.