Elliot had always wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty. It was the symbol of the country, after all. Lady Liberty, standing proudly in New York Harbor, in all her glory. To this day she was still an impressive site to behold, and yet, now she was less a symbol of the United States and more a beacon leading survivors to a remote island where they could be safe from the undead. That was the theory, anyway. By whatever means unknown to Elliot, zombies were still able to get there.
The quarantine had been lifted, though. Elliot felt his teeth chattering, either from cold or sheer anticipation for what was to come, he wasn't certain. Probably a lot of both. They were on the water in November, after all. It was freezing. Elliot would've been lying if he'd said he didn't feel the cold, but that concern ranked second place to the more important matter.
David Zimmerman was alive. Rae had said so. And despite what David had always said about Elliot being the stronger one? He wasn't weak. No one was, given the right circumstances. David would've found a way to survive, because there simply couldn't be any other alternative in Elliot's mind. Call him delusional, but he wasn't about to believe his brother was dead until he'd seen the man's body himself.
Elliot felt himself smiling as childhood memories bubbled to the surface of his mind. Wandering around an old family friend's pumpkin patch, he and his brother pretending to be Charlie Brown and Linus, searching for that perfect pumpkin for their grandmother's famous (at least in Bellevue) pie. Or maybe they'd be out raking leaves — generally interpreted as Elliot rolling in the leaves and David trying to bury him. Elliot would've given just about anything at that moment to go back to those simpler zombie-free days.
He blinked back to the present time when Rae nudged him and then spoke. Inhaling a deep, trembling breath (which may or may not have been due to the cold), the man nodded. "Yeah. I could say I'm nervous, but I'm sure that's not what I'm really feeling," he replied in a quiet voice that no doubt was carried to the ears of everyone on board the boat. "It's not that I'm afraid we won't recognize each other, but..." Trailing off, he shook his head. But I'm worried about how much he's changed. Is he still the brother I grew up with?
Elliot was vaguely aware of a dull thump vibrating across the bottom of the boat, which was immediately dismissed as a wave or a bit of debris. A few minutes later, there came another bump, this one more noticeable than the first, yet with the various articles of trash and pieces of broken boats, Elliot didn't pay the disturbance much mind.
A cursory glance in Miriam's direction told him that she, too, had felt it. Her nervous expression invited him to reach out and give her hand a reassuring squeeze. The woman had been on a boat before, and wasn't a victim of seasickness like one of their number who kept hurling over the side of the boat every so often. The other immune, who was rowing with the second oar, frowned when the oar seemed to catch on something.
"Maybe I'll actually even be able to run around outdoors again," he mused. It had been ages since he'd been able to venture out and stretch his legs for any length of time.