LZR-1143: Evolution (31 page)

“I need to rest a little. Leave me here.”

I understood, and mutely reached into my belt, handing him my pistol. “You’ve done something special here,” I said.

“You won’t ever see it, but you made a difference.” He simply nodded and leaned against the cold metal bulkhead, eyes closing.

I walked outside, throwing the latch and starting down the hallway. A single shot rang out, reverberating in the enclosed space. I kept walking, always moving forward.

Above-decks, the bus was pulling forward to a parked position. George was throwing off the last line, and Ted was directing the bus. I yelled to Ted, who told me Kate was in the bridge, and I turned to run upstairs. As I rounded the corner onto the top deck from the ladder, a loud metallic crash whipped my head around.

Under the weight of hundreds of creatures, the chain link fence had succumbed. They poured over the flattened metal in droves, and George was jumping onboard as I stared. The bus was firmly situated, and Ted was running to the control panel to raise the ramp. Only several feet of water separated the ferry from the pier, fewer when the tide pushed us inland with every wave—enough space that many of the creatures could luck onto the deck if they tried at the right moment.

Underneath my feet, I felt something shift, and the large boat moved slightly.

But it was moving in the wrong direction.

The ramp, only halfway up, obscured the impact, but the hull pushed gently into the tire-wrapped pier-side, jolting Ted at his perch and sending George onto his face as he tried to run to the bus.

I burst into the bridge, which had a musty, mildewed odor. Kate stood behind the wheel, right hand on the throttle controls.

“Other way!” I shouted, and she shot me a dirty look.

“I know, genius, I get that!”

The boat shifted again and, for one frightening moment, ground against the pier as the hull moved back off the tires. Then we pulled forward, slowly easing into the bay. Behind us, the gap between the ship and the pier widened, even as the first of the creatures reached the water’s edge. They floundered at the gap and, pushed by the horde behind them, the first of the pack tumbled into the cold water, legs and arms thrashing.

I sighed, leaning against the control panel and staring out the window toward the bay. It was a calm day, and the water was smooth. The sun was sinking low over the opposite shore, and I wondered absently whether we should overnight onboard and risk something happening with the engines, or a night landing on an unfamiliar shore in a noisy boat. I turned to Kate to ask, and stumbled backwards under the force of a full-armed slap to the face.

She was standing in front of me, eyes blazing and a tear in one eye.

“I told you not to leave me like that again,” she said, voice angry, but somehow scared as well.

I raised my hand to my face. Before I could reply, her hand was in my hair, and she was kissing me. I held her close, remembering how good it felt to have her in my arms. The engine thrummed beneath us, and I vowed to myself not to leave her again.

We turned the ship into the bay, and plotted our destination coordinates in the GPS. After much deliberation, we decided to drop anchor in the bay overnight and approach the shore in the morning. Ted had a passing familiarity with the ship, having served in the Coast Guard twenty years ago, and was comfortable enough with the controls to set the engines to idle for the eight hours of night. The fuel was sufficient, and after we cleared the majority of the ship, we retired to the main passenger deck to talk, and catch some sleep.

We discussed the next steps, and agreed on a plan after poring over a map of the area. We needed to reach the Pentagon. That was the end goal.

The question was the best route. Before the plague, or infection, or whatever you called it, there were millions of people in the city and its surrounding areas. Now, we had to assume there were millions of zombies. Although Kate and I had been out of the loop, George and Ted and Ky filled in some blanks. There were reports of D.C. being overrun, and of military build-ups in and around the Northern Virginia area. Holding the city was impossible, but the government had apparently been successful in retreating to hardened facilities in the Northern Virginia suburbs, including the Pentagon. Scattered reports had everyone from the President to a single low-level Cabinet secretary surviving the outbreak, and no one was sure of anything other than consistent reports of military presence in Virginia. Freeways and major arteries needed to be considered off-limits, and major seaports like Baltimore and Annapolis were out of the question. Our strategy had to be a quiet approach, and as little contact with likely centers of infected as possible.

George and Ted had never lived in, or visited, D.C., leaving it to the rest of us to plan an approach. The first part was easy. We would take rural roads through Maryland to approach D.C. from the Northeast, avoiding the larger suburbs on the East side of the city. Our map was already marked with routes, and we marked alternative routes around possible population points, where we might be more likely to encounter packs. But when we started to plan for the approach to the city proper, we were stumped.

Surprisingly, Ky proposed the breakthrough strategy.

“We can’t take the beltway, or Route 50 into town, right?” she asked, looking at the map. Romeo’s head lay on the table, and her hand absently scratched his ears.

“Right. Too many vehicles and undead. We have to find a way to get into town through the path of least resistance.” Kate had a finger absently twirling a strand of hair, and I smiled.

“And we can’t fly in,” Ky said absently. Then her eyes lit up.

“If we can’t go over, or on top, we should go
under
! The subway!” She looked up, eyes bright as we considered the idea.

“Might work,” I conceded, looking at the others one at a time.

“There’s as good a chance as any that the subways would be somewhat empty, and it does give us a quieter way to come into the city than the roads. Plus, it gives us a surefire way to get across the river, and the Pentagon has its own stop.”

I was getting more excited.

“We could bypass a lot of headaches by going under the main city, and if we picked up the line far enough outside of town, we’d have a straight shot through.”

Kate looked at me and frowned, staring at the map.

“I can’t love the plan, but it seems the best option. I just hate to think of being cornered underground with hundreds of those things.”

“That’s the beauty, though. Aboveground, they can group together, draw from other packs, and attract more. Underground, there are limited access points. Whatever is there when we get there is likely to be all we have to deal with. There can’t have been that many people underground when this hit, and how many have since grouped together with other packs and left?”

George spoke up, voice serious.

“But how many trains were sealed underground when this thing hit? How many people stuck underground, unable to move through the turnstiles and up the elevators? How many creatures are wandering those tunnels, unable to leave? It’s fine if there aren’t that many that can find their way down, but how many can’t find their way up?”

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. It was a good point, but we had to make the hard decisions.

There had to be fewer underground than above. It was simple math.

I said as much, and Kate nodded, along with George.

Ted refrained from comment, but stood up, grabbing a soda from the snack bar and popping the top.

“What the hell, right?”

He said it resignedly and dismissively. As if it were the only option.

What the hell indeed.

We rooted through the tourist information that was floating around on board until we found a dusty map of the D.C. subway. The pamphlet was dated, but it had the station information, which is all we needed. We circled our access point, cross-referenced the road map, and finalized the plan.

As the others got ready to sleep, Kate and I escaped to the observation deck and stared over the railing at the opposite shore, lulled into a fair rendition of calm by the hum of the engine and the gentle rocking of the ship.

“Seems unreal, doesn’t it?” I asked, watching the last of a purple sunset fade behind the tree-line of the coast.

“Tell me about it. Every day since I showed up for work all those light-years ago seems like an out of body experience. It’s such an unreal world out there. I used to watch those horror movies as a kid, and I never got scared. You know why?” I shook my head, still staring at the far coast.

“Because I knew there were no real monsters in the world. That all those ideas—all those creepy slime-covered aliens and fang-toothed Lotharios—were fiction.” She stared at the fading light on the coast. “Not any more.”

I understood the feeling. “Hey, you’re talking to a guy whose business is fiction,” I said sympathetically. “I hear you, loud and clear. You know what the worst part is? Really, if I’m being honest?”

“No more cheeseburgers?”

I laughed. “Well, other than that.”

“No more cold beer?”

“Ouch. Okay, behind that.”

She smiled. “What?”

“I went down during society. I mean, my whole thing—the trial, the guilt, the set-up—it all happened at a time when the internet functioned, cable news broadcast everything at light speed to every corner of the globe, and everyone knew everything at every minute of the day.” I sighed, realizing how selfish this was.

“I know this is narcissistic, but it’s one thing to lose someone you love and be framed for the murder. It’s another thing to never be able to clear your name. I feel like I’m going to go through life with this banner-ad above my head, you know? When everyone knows your face, but the last they heard, that face was the face of a murderer ...”

She was quiet for a moment, then spoke softly.

“I understand the frustration, I do. But maybe it would help to reframe it. Those conceptions and judgments were made in a world
—
in a job and profession
—
where it mattered very much what people thought of you—even more so than us normal people,” I laughed and squeezed her hand.

“But what people think of you now doesn’t matter as much. You said it yourself. There’s no cable news, no internet. Fuck, Mike. There aren’t even that many
people
. And the ones that are left, like the ones on board this boat,” she turned her head as Ky’s voice rang from inside the cabin, trying to teach Romeo to roll over.

“They don’t care about that crap. They care about what you’re doing now. For them. With them. Not who you were, or what you allegedly did.”

I knew this, and I knew it was damned selfish to think of it that way. I smiled at her and reached my arm around her shoulders.

“You’re right. From hereon in, I will eschew the labels placed upon me by the remainder of an uncaring society, and fight for truth, justice and the human way.”

“Don’t go too far, hero. It’s not the movies. Case in point,” she said, stepping away and frowning. “You stink. Why don’t you check and see if that crew shower is working?”

I smiled at her and grabbed her in a huge hug. She groaned and squirmed as I held her tighter.

“Sure thing,” I said, looking at her as she smiled despite herself. “Wanna join me?”

One eyebrow shot up, and she smiled broadly as we walked toward the crew’s cabin together.

Chapter 33

The four adults traded two-hour watch shifts through the night, but nothing eventful occurred. I relieved Ted, who relieved Kate. The quiet was slightly unnerving, and the night was dark. Stars shone brightly in a sky unviolated by ambient light.

As the sun rose on the far horizon, I awoke, splashing some water on my face. I spared a brief kiss for Kate as she stirred, and made my way to the bridge. George stood at the wheel, hands in his pockets, staring at the far shore. His bristled white beard seemed to glow in the brightening daylight, and his pipe, now lit and with a small wisp of smoke curling from the bowl, was a compliment to his Santa-Claus appearance. His bright blue eyes glowed as he turned.

“Morning,” he said simply.

“Sup?” I asked pertly, checking the fuel levels and engine temperature before yawning once.

He chuckled softly.

“I’ll assume that’s some manner of greeting in urban slang,” he intoned, before sitting down in the captain’s chair.

“Oh yeah, me and my homies are tight with that. It’s just how we roll.” I smiled as he nodded sagely, as if he understood the nonsense I had spouted.

I grabbed the intercom microphone and pressed the transmit key.

“Good morning, campers. It’s time to rock and roll. Please bring your seat backs and tray tables to their full upright and undead positions, grab your ankles, and kiss your asses goodbye. We are starting the engines, and we will be on dry land within the hour. The temperature at our destination is a balmy ‘who the hell knows,’ and the baggage will be available at carousel three.” I depressed the key and smiled at my humor.

Behind me, I heard George leave.

Killjoy.

George signaled from below when the sea-anchors were pulled up, and I gave him a thumbs-up. I pushed the throttles forward slowly and felt the large boat move sluggishly against the water.

We had pulled up the GPS coordinates of the ferry terminal on the hand-held unit I had taken from Ted’s shop. It wasn’t a refined or precise marine unit, but it gave us an idea of which direction to head. Besides, if I was any judge of my own driving abilities—and I was—I didn’t think I’d be doing any fancy maneuvering with the ferry. I just needed to know which direction to point.

Twenty minutes in to the trip, Kate stuck her head in the bridge and let me know that the supplies we could salvage from the ship were loaded on the bus. This included some bottled water, some snacks from the gift shop, and a toolbox from the engine room. We also found ten gallons of reserve diesel fuel in the engine room that we had transferred to the reserve tank on the bus.