Science Fiction Smackdown II Entry (Zombie-Fun-Excitement-Spectacular!!!!)

Chapter 16: Atlantis-on-Sea

By the time David forced his eyes open, he was somewhere under an unbroken expanse of blue sky. His brain could not process what had happened, but he felt naked and exposed. There should be tree branches up there, he was sure of that, and perhaps the edge of a building – not this endless, intense blue. He closed his eyes again. His head ached, and his stomach felt even worse. It felt like he was rising and falling, the ground underneath him heaving like a stormy sea. It smelled like the sea, too, the intense, slightly sickening scent of salt and rotting seaweed.

"Hey!" Amy's voice was piercing. David could feel himself wince as she continued, "I think he's waking up, Jenna!"

Jenna's reply sounded muffled to David's ears. He could tell she was talking, and that she was sitting quite, quite close, but he couldn't refine the sounds into meaningful words.

"Are you okay?" Amy's face suddenly filled David's field of vision. Her fair hair hung down, and a tendril brushed David's cheek.

The movement was more sudden than even David expected. He jerked sideways, the pain in his head exploding as he forced himself away from the soft touch.

"It burns!" he said, his voice thick and hoarse. His tongue felt like it was ade of lead, and it felt much larger than usual, like it wasn't meant to fit in his mouth at all.

"My hair?" The girl sounded confused, but she tucked the unruly lock behind her ear.

Jenna again said something that David could not force himself to understand. Amy, looking back over her shoulder, shouted "I don't know! He is a awake, though," in painfully high tones.

David forced his heavy tongue between his teeth. With a slight hiss of air, he began to speak. "Where are we?"

"Sailing!" Amy said, cheerfully.

Sailing? David's stomach lurched again. He supposed he was lying on the bottom of the aluminum boat. "Where? Atlantis?"

"Tim said we should take you to his colleagues on the mainland," Amy said. After a moment, she added, "Because you're sick."

"Not Atlantis, then," David agreed, weakly. "Shangri-La"

It took him a moment to realise that Amy's brow had wrinkled in confusion, the corners of her mouth turning down in concern.

"Like the song," he said faintly, "though then the sky would be blood-red, not blue. And we'd wash away like sand castles." Amy's expression did not change.

"We're going to Milford-on-Sea," she said.

David's eyelids felt even heavier than his tongue, and he allowed them to close.

~*~

David was much heavier than he looked. He had woken when they had run the boat up on the beach, but he had trouble standing. He leaned heavily on Jenna's shoulder as the stumbled up the shingle. There was a concrete terrace then a wall with a staircase at the top, which took an eternity to navigate.

Jenna wished that Amy could have helped her, but the girl had her hands full with little Oliver. The boy wanted to be in the water, or on the beach, or to kick the base of the staircase, or anything but to follow his elders quietly.

And least Jenna was confident that she had found the right spot. Tim had called it 'The White House', and while it certainly was white, 'house' was perhaps not the best word. The building was enormous. It was somebody's early twentieth-century fantasy, with multiple wings and arcaded walkways that faced the sea. From the water, it had looked like a palace behind its intimidating mound of riprap, a seawall on which the waves crashed in foamy specks. They had beached the boat near the carpark to the east, where there actually was a beach, and now, at the top of the staircase, they walked through a gate and onto a grassy lawn.