Peerless

It was there, in what was once vibrant and varied color, that the names and brief missives were scrawled. Beachwinds had long since ripped away the home-computer generated photographs and "Missing" posters, hastily typed and hung in the days before the power failed.

Chalk endured where ink could not.

Some of the words were faded, some of the pleas were hidden behind rusty, hardened paint-that-was-not-paint-at-all.

This was the only memorial to What Was that he allowed, and it guarded the entry to his refuge.

It had taken some doing, but he had set himself up at the end of the municipal fishing pier. He was just another tourist, stuck in paradise lost.

At first, water was a problem. He collected rainwater as he could, but he mostly solved the issue by boiling seawater and capturing steam. He predicted that the propane on-hand would last another six weeks or so.

Food was never an issue. The sea would continue to provide.

Security was his first priority, and he accomplished it quickly and well in the very first days of the crisis.

The pier was a wooden construct originally dating from the thirties. The city was constantly doing maintenance on the relic, and renovation projects were ongoing. This left him with tools and ideas; he had created a series of drawbridges.

After a one-way trip to the end of the pier with a Winnebago, he had set to work removing sections of the walkway. A series of three-meter "moats" created his castle. The bridges were all stored on his little keep; he reclaimed the two-by-sixes and repurposed them into portable catwalks to get him to and from the mainland. His only back door escape plan was a sit-on-top kayak that he kept loaded with enough canned goods and bottled water to last a couple of days. He kept the little boat next to the railing of the pier; he figured he would throw it down to the water and jump in near it, if it came to that. He knew from experience that it would float, despite weather and conditions, and all the gear was firmly lashed.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that, because he'd run enough.

The hours after selecting and staging the pier as his fortress were the toughest. Back then, he'd had a partner. She had kept him clear while he hastily made his first cuts; predictably, the noise of the circular saw drew a lot of attention.

They spent hours fashioning their series of gaps and bridges; they spent days clearing the crowds that had gathered. Using improvised spears and staves, they either destroyed or raked the walkers into the churning sea below. Before he began the construction project, after the mad-dash with the RV, the pier was blocked with parked cars. The barricade greatly restricted access to the restaurant, bait and tackle shop, and pier walkway, but noise from his tools drew a throng to his front doorstep.

It had been four months since she was bitten when they went out on a supply run. It had been nearly a year since the Winnebago had been parked on the pier.

When he went out to forage, he would pause at her name on the blackboard. He refreshed it each time he came home; new pink or orange chalk dust was his only memorial for those he had lost.