The Infected Dead (Book 2): Survive For Now (13 page)

We couldn’t argue with Tom about the facts, but for some reason I wasn’t swayed, and I was sure my friends weren’t either.

“Tom,” I said, keeping my voice at the same level he had used. I wanted to come off as sincerely as he had.

“The soldiers and police officers made the same mistake repeatedly. They didn’t think they could be taken down. They thought there was safety in numbers, and they expected civil obedience. The reason Kathy, Jean, and the Chief were the only survivors on a ship with five thousand people was because they knew something with certainty that everyone else ignored. They knew families would lie about who was bitten in order to protect loved ones. They got it then, and they get it now. This group knows that we survive together, but we don’t take someone else down with us. That’s why we’ve survived.”

The Chief wanted to get his turn, too, and he quietly reminded Tom of what Jean had said when she had come within an inch of being bitten when they were dumping an infected dead off of the floating dock of the cruise ship. She didn’t need to convince them that she was telling the truth when she said she would jump overboard with the infected that had bitten her before she would endanger someone else.

Kathy added, “Tom, there are still people out there, and plenty of them still think they won’t die if they get bitten. No matter how many times they’ve seen it, they still think it won’t happen to them. The difference between them and us is that we get it. We aren’t ready to die, but we know we will die if we’re bitten just as surely as we would know if we jumped from a plane without a parachute. That’s what keeps us alive. We get it.”

Tom asked, “And that’s why I should believe that we have a chance of making it from here to Guntersville?”

The Chief said, “The only times we have to land are when we get there, and to find fuel for the trip back. I’ve played it really cautious with the fuel and had alternative fueling sites in mind when we flew to Goose Creek, but the de Havilland DHC-3 Otter can carry a payload just over a ton and still travel over seven hundred miles on one tank of gas. The combined weight of five adults and the Munchkin would leave us close to twelve hundred pounds of payload. Like I said before you came in, this is going to take some planning, but if Bus has fuel, we could go to the maximum cruising altitude of eighteen thousand feet for most of the trip, so we wouldn’t be getting shot at. To economize fuel we could cruise at about one hundred and twenty miles per hour. That way we could detour for fuel if we had to. My best guess is we would have enough fuel for an extra one hundred and fifty miles.”

Tom’s eyebrows were raised at the thought of being with Allison in just over four hours. We could see that the Chief was beginning to sway him.

“Listen, Tom,” said the Chief. “We want to do this or we wouldn’t be talking about it. This group isn’t a bunch of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts even if Molly is getting lots of cookies.”

Molly grinned at the reference and glanced at Jean. I don’t know if it’s some kind of mother radar or what, but Jean produced a box of cookies for Molly like magic. For some strange reason, that small gesture seemed to sway Tom over the tipping point. It was like Jean showed him that helping was our signature. His shoulders slumped a bit because he wanted to give in so badly. He just didn’t want us to pay the price for it.

Kathy said, “You know what? We didn’t talk about it this long the first time we went out.”

We all laughed, but it was true. When we decided to go, we practically just went. The second time out we did some real planning, and we learned the rivers inside and out. This was going to be the same thing in some ways. We would need to get Bus’s exact location without giving it away to anyone else, and we would need to have back-up plans for fuel. That would be the Chief’s department.

“One last thing,” said Tom. “I think you’re forgetting about your problem back here? What about the water dropping in the moat and the nets collapsing your power cable?”

“We have two issues,” said the Chief. “One of them is the power cables, and the other one is getting you home. The way I see it is that one of the issues we can do something about, and the other issue we can’t do anything about. So, let’s take care of the one we can do something about, and let’s just hope for the best with the other issue.”

It was settled, and by the looks on the faces of my friends, we were about to do what made us feel good about ourselves, and it was time to start planning. It had been a long day, and we could wait to hear the rest of Tom’s story about the fire station. For now it was time to have a late meal and get then get some rest……but that wasn’t exactly how it worked out.

What started out as a simple late meal quickly turned into an all-out celebration. No real plans had been made, but the mood was the first thing that told us this was what we really wanted to do. To be honest, there was at least a small amount of selfishness. We could live a long time in the shelter even if we lost the mainland power lines, but the four of us who had brought Tom in didn’t want to spend our remaining days hiding from the world. I was the least likely of the bunch to be a hero, but I was all in when it came to what my friends wanted.

Not that I always thought women should do all the cooking, but Kathy and Jean were wizards in the kitchen. They could make anything taste good, and we had more than enough in the way of quality food stashed in the deep freezer. Tonight they brought up a rack of prime rib that had been moved to the refrigerator to thaw. If any of us was thinking of it as a last supper, it didn’t show. There was laughter, friendship, stories from the past, and more than a little love.

Kathy told us what it had been like at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Academy on the good days. She told how everyone got close and felt the bond that can only really be explained to another police officer or a comrade in arms. She didn’t dwell on the days when she had to pay the price for being one of the prettiest officer cadets they had ever had. Those days were hard, but she rose above them and earned the respect of her peers, not only in the classroom, but in hand to hand combat training and small arms skill.

She told us that one of her best days was when a group of the male officers approached her during supper. She said it made her a little nervous because they came up to her at her table all together and didn’t speak immediately. She thought it was a confrontation of some kind, but for the life of her she didn’t know what she had done to earn it. Kathy said one of them spoke up for all of them and asked if she would consider running a study group. He explained that they were falling behind in some of the classes and they knew she was doing well. She remembered thinking there was a time when some of the big egos would have accused a woman of sleeping her way to good grades, but these guys weren’t giving a hint that they felt that way. They really needed her help. So, she ran the study group, and every one of them gave her the credit for them passing.

She said that every graduating class nominated one person from their ranks for a special award. It was nicknamed the ‘wingman’ award, but it was officially for outstanding support of your fellow officers. She was nominated by her class, and she said she would have given up all of her marksmanship and academic awards for that one nomination. Kathy had one sad moment when she wondered what had happened to her friends in that class, but she shook it off and said this was a time to celebrate life because Tom and Molly were going home to Allison.

She passed the conversation baton to the Chief and asked him how he got started with his love for the oceans. Of course the Chief gave us an ‘aw shucks’ attitude at first, but he really did like telling sea stories. He said one of his favorite stories was our trip down to Charleston to bring back our plane, but we all knew that one.

Chief Joshua Barnes was six and a half feet tall and skinny as a rail when he went to Boot Camp at the Naval Training Center at Great Lakes, Illinois. None of us had ever been able to pry his age out of him, but the popular guess was around fifty. He kept his beard full but trimmed, and nothing ever seemed to faze him.

Kathy said, “Hey, Chief, how many times have you been in love?” She gave him a sly smile, and the rest of us kept quiet to hear the answer.

The Chief looked like he was thinking it over, and once in a while he would say something in a low voice like, “No, that’s not right. Let me start over again.”

I finally asked him what he was doing, and he said, “I’m trying to count the number of different cities where I’ve made port.” He said it with a straight face, as usual, but we rolled laughing.

The Chief said, “Seriously, I fell in love with the sea, and I never met a woman to take her place.”

The truth was, it was where he fit in the most. Navy food is healthy because they have limited storage space on ships. They don’t waste space with things that aren’t good for you. The end result was a bigger, healthier Joshua Barnes. He also loved the job, and he learned anything they wanted to teach him. He rose through the enlisted ranks as a machinist, and he was a natural leader when he was promoted to Chief Petty Officer.

The title stayed with him when he retired from the Navy and signed up to work on cruise ships. He could have been an officer on any cruise liner he wanted, but he liked being the senior enlisted man too much to accept the promotion. He was also popular with everyone who worked for him and trusted by every officer. Well, almost every officer.

“Hey Chief,” I said. “Tell Tom about the time you had an officer locked up in the brig on the cruise ship.”

“Not much to tell,” said the Chief. “He got in Kathy’s face, so I had him locked up.”

Jean said, “He was great, Tom. The ship’s doctor was a pompous ass who thought he was God’s gift to the nursing staff, and he didn’t like how Kathy had invaded his little kingdom by setting up an examination plan on the ship. When the Chief had him locked up, we were all ready to become Mrs. Joshua Barnes, but he wouldn’t have any us. It turned out to be a good thing because I was still single when I met Eddy.”

“Oh,” said Tom. “I knew you two were together, but I didn’t know you were married.”

I must have been my typical beet red because Chief Barnes looked like he couldn’t get enough of where this conversation had gone. I looked at Kathy and it was obvious that she was waiting for something to come out of my mouth that would either make or break me.

Jean was also looking at me. Tom hadn’t directed his comment at either one of us in particular, but it was obvious that everyone felt like it was my obligation to make it good. I thought to myself, “Sometimes when you lead a horse to water, he’d better drink.”

I said, “We’re not married yet, Tom, but I’m ready as soon as she says she is.”

Maybe that wasn’t the best thing I could have said, but it must have been close because all five feet of Jean was off the floor and wrapped around my neck. Kathy had both hands to her face in shock, and the Chief was one big smile.

“Was that a proposal, Ed?” the Chief asked around a mouthful of food.

I thought, “Man, is he enjoying this.”

I looked down at Jean, and I knew it wasn’t time for something witty. I said, “Jean Mitchell, will you marry me?”

Jean, however, wasn’t going to miss a chance and said, “Can I have a day or two to think about it?” Before I could get too serious and think she really wanted a day or two to think about it, she added, “Of course I will.”

Believe me when I say, that wasn’t how I expected the evening to turn out.

The evening eventually wound down when Molly started to yawn. She asked in a sleepy voice if Jean and Kathy could be her aunts and if the Chief and I could be her uncles. We all agreed to her request just as Tom scooped her up to carry her off to bed.

Kathy said, “She’s seen a lot for a kid, but she’s taking it so well.”

“Kids heal fast,” said Jean. “She’s got a lot of trust in her dad.”

The Chief joined the conversation by saying, “An apocalypse has a way of bringing people together. Look what it did for you and Ed.”

Beer went up my nose. I had come up with that one earlier but didn’t say it because I thought it might get me clobbered, but when the Chief said it, it sounded funny.

“And I thought I was just a one apocalypse stand,” said Jean.

I thought I was going to drown with beer in my nose.

……

Breakfast always seemed better when we had something we wanted to plan, and the next morning was no exception. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes smothered in syrup, and hot coffee were dished out around the table, and everyone dove in as if we hadn’t eaten a prime rib feast the night before.

The discussion immediately went to logistics. The Chief made it clear that he wanted everyone to be thinking Plan B, Plan C, and Plan D. He said not to think about negative things as problems, but to think of them as barriers to be overcome. If the plane breaks down, think about where we would prefer to have it break down and where we could get another plane.

Tom said, “So we should anticipate that it will break down, and when it does, we should make sure it breaks down near an airplane dealership?”

“That’s it exactly, Tom. If we run out of fuel, we should be able to see a fuel pump. If we run into weather that’s too bad to fly in, we should have a boathouse big enough to hold a plane right there at our disposal. We don’t need to be lucky. We need to be smart. Everyone getting the idea?”

We all nodded and told him we did, so we started working on lists of things we had to consider as barriers. At the top of that list we had to put the infected dead. A second list was started that would have the solutions to the barriers, so we listed guns, machetes, and protective clothing. Tom suggested that we should find something that fits easily in the plane like the pikes he had used at the fire station. The beauty of the pikes was that you didn’t have to waste a bullet, and you didn’t have to let them get too close.

Kathy said, “We have the oars for the raft. Can’t we use them as weapons, too?”

“No, I think I know what Tom has in mind,” said the Chief. “We could hold them at bay with the oars, but the pikes would kill them. I think we have room for a couple of them in the gear payload. Go ahead and add them to the list.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “We have pikes? Where?”

“Believe it or not, on the houseboat,” said the Chief. “Lots of gear is stowed up on the top of the houseboat.”

I thought to myself that it was kind of funny that the Chief knew what we had better than I did, but I probably looked right at the pikes and never gave them a thought.

“Hey guys,” said Jean. “I’m going to take Molly into the living room and get the radio tuned into whatever might be out there. It’ll keep her a little busy while we plan the trip. The details might bore her just a bit.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” said Tom. “Molly likes to feel useful, too. Right, Baby?” Tom mussed up her hair a bit, and Molly gave him that look kids give their parents. She liked it, but she had to pretend she didn’t.

I watched Jean take Molly’s hand and walk her from the room. I couldn’t help but think about how natural Jean was around children. I guess I was thinking ahead, and I could see her as a mom more than I could see myself as a dad.

The others had already gone back to planning, and I tried to figure out what project they had moved to after the pikes. The Chief had his maps rolled out onto the table and was pointing at different lakes. Some were in South Carolina, some were in Georgia, and some were in Alabama. There was no shortage of big water to land on. Now all they had to do was figure out where the fuel pumps were likely to be on each lake. The Chief had topped off the fuel when they had used the plane the last time, so they wouldn’t need to refuel until the trip back, but like the Chief said, they needed a Plan A and a Plan B for fuel.

This morning reminded me of the day we decided to make the trip down to Charleston by boat. We laid out the maps and decided Plan A was the easy trip straight into the Charleston harbor and up the Cooper River. Plan B was to go further to the South and up the Stono River. As it had turned out, Plan A was cut short by snipers in Fort Sumter. If not for Plan B, we would have been forced to forget about the plane. For a longer trip like this one, the Chief wanted a Plan C and even a Plan D if we could think of one.

Without the internet to to offer us satellite views of the lakes, we had to try to figure out from the maps which marinas were likely to have fuel pumps. According to the Chief it was really a no-brainer. If there was a convenience store at the boat landing, they were likely to also have a gas pump where people could fill up before putting their boats into the water.

The maps the Chief had were stashed in the shelter by Uncle Titus, and it looked like he had them printed professionally from satellite shots, but there was nothing like being able to zoom in and study the images. The Chief had a map spread out on the table that was about as high resolution as a map could get, and he was peering through a magnifying glass to get a closer look.

In the living room Jean and Molly had made contact with someone, and Molly was showing her uncanny ability to figure out foreign words. I heard her telling Jean that she knew a girl in school from Russia, and she had taught Molly a few words while Molly did the same for her. Molly told Jean that Russian was easier than English. She said English had too many rules and too many times that you had to break the rules, but she admitted our alphabet made more sense. 

I drifted into the living room because something didn’t sound right. I heard Molly say to Jean that the Russian man kept asking her where she was, and she kept telling him she was somewhere safe. Then he would ask again where she was. It sounded like even Molly was getting uncomfortable with his insistence. Jean was close to Molly listening to what the man said, trying to hear not so much what the man was saying but how he was saying it.

When I came up behind her, Jean turned around and gave me a worried look.

“This guy isn’t being friendly,” she said. “It sounds like he’s demanding to know where Molly is calling from. He’s scaring her.”

I listened for a moment, and I could hear it in his voice even though I didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. Molly was looking at me as if she wanted me to take over, so I just reached out and switched off the power to the radio.

It was when I turned around to go back to where the Chief, Tom, and Kathy were pouring over the maps when I saw what was on the outside monitor. I stopped in front of the screen and stared in disbelief. It was on the grid view that showed every camera on the island, and every view was filled with the infected dead. Even the camera directly in front of the main entrance to the shelter showed at least six. They weren’t moving much, but there were more on the island than we had ever seen.

Jean called for the others to come see what was happening outside, but before they could even reach the living room, we saw the first one fall in the violent motion that could only have come from a head shot. It was in the view we had created when we moved the houseboat, and the infected were crossing the sand bar at low tide. As the rest of our group joined us, a second one flew backwards and disappeared, and a third head snapped back a split second later.

“The tide hasn’t been low for too long. How could so many be on the island already?” asked the Chief. He didn’t ask anyone in particular, but none of us had the answer anyway.

“A bigger question is who’s shooting them,” said Kathy. “Those aren’t close up shots, and I don’t see anyone in any of the long range views.”

“Has to be a rifle,” said Tom. “Could it be someone in the view we blocked with the houseboat?”

Kathy said, “No, the heads are flying back in the opposite direction, so the shooter would have to be somewhere in this camera view.” She raised her finger just as a shot was fired from a sniper position on the beach facing the ocean. The shooter was so well hidden that they wouldn’t have seen him if they had gone outside.

“Who the hell is that?” asked Tom.

We were all wondering the same thing, and as we watched he stood and advanced on his targets. He was wearing camouflage, but it was a uniform of some kind. There were patches on his left shoulder, but the camera view was too grainy to make out the details.

I said, “Chief, uniforms would be your territory. Any ideas about his?”

“Unfortunately, Ed, I’ve seen that style helmet he’s wearing, and I think it’s Russian.”

Jean, Molly, and I all exchanged looks. That was just a little too much of a coincidence for me.

“Chief, I said, “we were about to call you into the room when this guy started shooting the infected like ducks on a pond. There was a Russian on the radio, and he kept demanding that Molly tell him where she was.”

“This guy obviously isn’t the dude she was talking to, so where are his buddies?” asked the Chief.

“I think that would be his buddies coming around the jetties right now,” said Kathy.

A long ship was coasting into view around the northern jetty, and it was being trailed by two smaller boats that had fifty caliber machine guns mounted on their bows. They looked like Zodiacs that had probably been carried aboard the larger ship. It looked like a naval vessel about the size of a small destroyer, and it wasn’t one of ours. We all looked at the Chief at the same time, and what we saw we didn’t like. He looked the opposite of his normal self.

“That’s a Buyan-class corvette,” he said. “It can come in close because it only drafts about seven feet. It can carry those two Zodiacs on the aft deck along with a helicopter, and if you’re thinking they’re Russian, you would be correct.”

“How many crew?” I asked.

“Anywhere from thirty to fifty, maybe a few more,” he answered.

“We can’t handle that kind of firepower,” said Kathy. “What should we do?”

The Chief looked at each of us one at a time as if he was about to break some bad news, but all he said was, “Nothing. There’s nothing we can do.”

We settled back like a family that was getting ready to watch its favorite television show. Jean went to the kitchen and came back with some snacks and cold beer then curled up against me. The Russians didn’t seem to know we were here, but they seemed very interested in our northern jetty.

The Zodiacs beached on the sand bar, and crew members got out into the shallow water to take a closer look. It seemed like they were trying to figure out how big the sand bar was and how fast it dropped off into the deeper water on both sides.

It didn’t take them long to figure out that something had knocked a hole in the jetty, and that the sand bar was being formed by longshore drift. I had learned in a Geology class that longshore drift was when beach sand from the north was carried to the south where some lucky beachfront property owner could get lucky and watch his beach get bigger. The problem was it could be a double edged sword. You could lose your beach the same way.

The corvette stayed at the tip of the jetty waiting, and the advance party eventually turned its attention to our houseboat, the powerful twin outboard boat, and the plane. Tom wasn’t letting it show, but he had to be thinking this turn of events marked the end of his chances to fly home. He just sat and watched with the rest of us. Like the Chief said, all we could do for now was nothing.

Both Zodiacs went into combat mode as they reached the dock, and they worked together using the same tactics any military group would use to clear an area. They went in weapons hot and cleared the houseboat first. One came out and signaled the others who had stayed back to provide cover. They relaxed and began checking the boat and the plane. Once they were satisfied that neither was operational, they boarded their Zodiacs and headed back to the corvette.

I glanced at the Chief and asked, “What do you make of that, Chief?”

“Pretty sloppy if you ask me,” he answered. “First of all, the range of a corvette isn’t so good. How they got on this side of the ocean is anybody’s guess because they’re more like armed Coast Guard Cutters than warships. They’re relatively new and sophisticated, but without shore support, they’re not something our Navy couldn’t easily handle.”

“What about the fact that they didn’t even post a guard on the dock?” asked Kathy.

“That’s what I mean by sloppy,” said the Chief. “They think this place is deserted. Maybe the number of infected dead roaming around on the beach was an advantage. They must’ve dropped off the sniper and pulled back to let him clear the area first. Their crew compliment may also be less than they can afford.”

We watched for several hours as the corvette crossed to the opposite side of the jetty away from Mud Island and then came slowly closer to the beach. The hull was probably only clearing the bottom by a couple of feet.

One of the Zodiacs returned to the sand bar while the other Zodiac trailed the corvette until it was directly across from the hole in the jetty. Sailors played out heavy rope and grappling hooks until they had enough line to pull the hooks around the huge stones that had somehow been knocked out of place.

“Are they repairing the jetty?” asked Kathy.

“I was going to ask the same thing,” I said, “but I didn’t want to sound stupid.”

Kathy gave me a mock stare and asked, “Did you just say I sounded stupid?”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said.

She looked at the Chief, and without looking at me he said, “Uh, huh. He said you sounded stupid.”

Tom and Jean both nodded their heads at the same time without taking their eyes off of the scene that was playing out at the jetty. When I looked back at Kathy, she was just smiling.

“You’re so easy,” she said.

The corvette began to rotate until it was parallel with the beach, its stern facing almost straight at our camera. Then it slowly built up forward speed until the ropes began to get straighter and straighter. When they looked like they were about to break, the huge rock began to pull free from the sand that had partially buried it. It was like watching an iceberg being pulled to the surface. There was so much more of it than I had thought.