Chapter 59 Gunner and the Shark

Chapter 59 Gunner and the Shark
Brooklynn is flooded. As they walk, things get wetter and wetter as the ocean has encroached and flooded the shoreline. They stand at the edge of the water line, looking down at the flooded zone. Cars are floating, occasionally getting bumped by something swimming in the water. 
Coral has overtaken the lower level of the mid-rise buildings. The old brownstones look more like a coral reef rather than where people used to live. As Cue looks inside a window, she sees a world frozen in time, a couch floating in front of a fireplace, its skeletal remains now a home to mussels and clams.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, the toes of her boots dipping into the clear ocean water where land meets ocean.
“We have to get to the Statue of Liberty,” Trigger said, her face pinched as she held her stomach. “I don’t know how much more time we have.”
“I didn’t expect to have to swim so soon,” Cue said back. “I don’t know how to swim.”
Shepherd looked around, his eyes scanning the rooftops. He’d been quiet since they started moving. Listening, watching. He was waiting for the Cretin in this area to come; they all knew it, they just don’t know when.
His zombies were out there searching, and they knew they would know when they were spotted, but the wait and the ominous silence were unnerving. The only sounds they could hear were the lapping of the ocean on the concrete and the seagulls soaring overhead.
“It’s too quiet,” Gunner said, stepping into the water until he was about knee deep. “Whatever we do, we need to do it soon.”
The tension in the air made it hard to breathe. Cue clutched her throat and took a few more steps into the water, her body trembling in fear. She’s faced the dead and mad men, but this calm, warm water is the most terrifying thing she’s faced, including the two-headed tiger.
Rat perched on her shoulder, chirping nervously, his large paws digging into her shoulder painfully. Shepherd eyes it, confused with her obsession with the rodent, but says nothing.
“We will have to make something that floats,” Shepherd said, looking around. High on one of the buildings, he saw water barrels. Without a word, he jumped, scaling the building with his bare hands until he reached the top and swung a leg over.
“There was an old settlement here,” he says. He marched over the roof, grabbed a few of the big faded blue barrels, and tossed them over the edge and into the water. 
On the ground, Gunner started to collect the barrels while Cue and Trigger went to the walls and started cutting long, strong vines from the buildings and stripping them of their leaves.
Cue watched Trigger closely, how on hand is always on her belly. The way her brows were pinched together. The worry in her eyes.
Trigger hissed in pain, doubling over behind a bush.
“What’s wrong?” Cue asked, walking around to her and rubbing her back.
“We have to hurry,” was all she said, straightening up and stretching. “There’s not much time.”
Cue looked from her to Gunner, taking a step towards him, but Trigger grabbed her arm and stopped her. 
“No, we can’t tell him. We need him focused on getting us there, not focused on me. If he’s worried about me, he will make us wait, I know it.” Trigger whispered, pulling Cue close. “We don’t need to worry him, or alert Shepherd either.”
Cue could only nod as she chewed her lip nervously.
They came together, strapping the barrels together with the vines and placing a giant Brooklyn highway sign on top of it. It floated, but it wasn’t the safest.
“Get on, let’s test it,” Shepherd said emotionlessly as he tossed a couple of blankets he found on the makeshift raft. 
Gunner helped Trigger on and made sure she was seated before turning to Cue, but Shepherd was in his way. Shepherd curled his lip at him in a snarl as he put his own hands on Cue and lifted her onto the raft, his eyes never leaving Gunner’s. He seemed to say ‘She’s mine’, with just his eyes.
“Stop that!” Cue said, batting his hands off of her. “We are all together, he can help me too,” she said firmly.
“Together, yes, right,” Shepherd said, his voice cold, and she could tell he wasn’t hearing her. 
“If you want her, you take us all,” Trigger said forcefully, pulling Cue close and kissing her pointedly. “She was mine first, you should count yourself lucky that I’m willing to share.”
Shepherd looked at Gunner, at his glowing blue eyes and his mechanical parts fused to his once human body, and snarled again, “I’ve seen what his kind can do; it's hard to trust one.”
“It’s hard to trust a Cretin with a horde of zombies, but here we are!” Trigger snarled, slipping a hand under her blanket to clutch her stomach.
“Stop this! More stress is the last thing we need!” Cue barked, glaring at Shepherd.
“Fine, at least he’ll work as a rudder,” Shepherd let out a rough laugh and jumped on a nearby car partially submerged in the water. “Let’s go.”
Gunner, without a word, looked at Trigger lovingly and then started pushing the makeshift raft into the water. It floated, bobbing along as Gunner pushed it and walked with it. When the water got too deep to walk, he swam, effectively being a rudder as well as an engine for the raft.
“I don’t think this will work for the ocean,” Cue said nervously, clinging to Trigger for dear life as the water got more and more rough the closer they got to the edge of the city.
Trigger said nothing, her lips pitched, her arms tight around Cue’s shoulders. With her pained face, she looked towards the skyline, staring desperately for any sign of the statue.
Around them, Shepherd clung to walls and jumped onto fallen beams, doing parkour next to them rather than floating with them.
In the water, hundreds of fish swam through the coral reef, living their lives without any fear of the boat. Big fish bumped into it, making Cue scream, but they weren’t big enough to do any damage. But as they got further out, the fish got bigger and bigger, and it wasn’t long before long fins were passing them in the steadily rougher waters.
“What is that?” Cue shrieked, pointing at a grey fin as it went by.
“Don’t look in the water,” Shepherd said, moving more slowly now, staying closer to the boat.
A double-finned one swam by next, bumping into the side of the raft and sending the women sprawling.
“What the fuck is that?” Trigger demanded, looking up at Shepherd, who watched with wide, fearful eyes.
“Sharks,” Gunner said, his mouth set in a grim line.
“The fuck is a shark?” Cue screeched, righting herself on the raft and moving with Trigger to the very middle.
“A water predator,” Gunner said, his eyes scanning the water around them.
“What is it doing?” Trigger asked, trying and failing to sound calm.
“It is sizing us up,” Gunner said.
“It’s hunting you,” Shepherd said, jumping on a nearby car and crouching over the edge, body twitching and ready to fight. “It will try and knock you off the raft,” he said, just as a shark swam in and violently collided with the side of the raft, nearly knocking them off.