Clickers vs Zombies by Brian Keene, J.F. Gonzalez Page B

from Australia and began heading back, Hank mentioned that he thought things were different in the water. “It’s probably due to the earthquake,” Hank had said. The two of them had been fishing on the starboard side, reels constantly bending with whatever happened to snag onto their baited hooks. “Animals can sense that shit. Remember that tsunami that hit Indonesia and Thailand? Right before the first waves hit, people reported that the birds took off, animals started heading inland, even the fish started acting up. That’s what we’re seeing here.”
    “The tsunami hit last week, though,” Kyle had said.
    “Don’t make no difference,” Hank had said. He’d been leaning back in his seat, strapped into his harness for the next big catch. “They’re probably still freaked out. They’re more sensitive to this kind of thing.”
    If that was the case, they’d been feeling it for the past week now. In addition to the influx of seagulls there was also more dolphins, whales, sharks, marlins, and other fish. They’d observed them swimming past their boat as if on some migratory quest. Melody had commented one night that it almost seemed like they were fleeing from something. “What could they be fleeing from?” Hank had asked. They’d been hanging out on the top deck, lounging in deck chairs drinking beers. Carrie and Hank were smoking some Thai stick which they’d brought along with them from California—a good few ounces. Kyle hadn’t smoked pot in years and indulged for once after Carrie told him he was being a wuss. Whatever. She didn’t have a lot of shit hanging over her head like he did. “They’re swimming like something’s chasing them.”
    “There is something chasing them,” Melody had said. “The tsunami waves.”
    “Now I know you’re full of shit,” Carrie had said.
    Melody had turned to her friend. “I’m serious. Think about how it affects the sea life. It’s gotta fuck with them in some way, right? Water pressure and all?”
    “That only works with us,” Hank retorted.
    “Yeah, but if the water is thrown off balance like that, it creates waves of increased and decreased pressure as the waves move along the ocean floor. Some fish live way deep in the surface, so deep that if they ascend higher up, they’ll die. Other fish can’t live that deep because they’ll die. So when shit is off balance like that, they know it. And that’s what we’re seeing here—the wildlife fleeing what they sense to be something unnatural to their habitat.”
    Hank turned to Kyle. “Your woman’s full of shit, Kyle.”
    That had been last night. Now as Kyle scanned the ocean with his binoculars, he saw a very peculiar thing far off in the distance.
    He focused in on the object. Way off in the distance there was a white line along the tip of the horizon. The foaming of the sea? The approach of a giant tsunami? Further up and a tad bit ahead of this line was what appeared to be a dark cloud that Kyle immediately recognized as a huge flock of birds.
    The birds were heading straight their way.
    Kyle lowered the binoculars. “Hank! Carrie and Melody! Come up here! I think you should see this.”
    Hank climbed down from the upper deck. “What’s going on?”
    “Take a look at this,” Kyle said, raising the binoculars again.
    Carrie and Melody were approaching from below deck. Hank called out to them. “Carrie, can you head up deck and get my binoculars, please?”
    A few minutes later Hank and Kyle were gazing out at the ocean through their binoculars. The women were staring out at sea, hands held above their eyes to cut out the glare. “Looks like the most gigantic flock of seagulls I’ve ever seen,” Carrie said.
    “They’re flying so far away!” Melody sang. She laughed, then quickly stopped as she realized the others weren’t laughing.
    “Fish still zooming by?” Hank asked.
    “Yeah, I think so,” Kyle answered.
    “I think what we have way out there is the biggest goddamn