The Infected Dead (Book 2): Survive For Now (26 page)

Bus said, “That plateau was another big part of the plan that never got finished. If I would have had time, I was going to clear it and put a tarmac on it as a possible helicopter landing site.”

“Well, we guessed that one,” said Tom. “Is there an emergency tunnel that goes to the plateau?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact there is, but it doesn’t look like there would be much use for it now,” he said.

“And how did they get the fence to collapse on the side of the mountain we came in through?” asked Kathy.

“Sheer numbers,” said Bus. “So, I guess you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this.”

“We were wondering,” I said. I could tell the Chief and Kathy were thinking the same thing.

Bus asked, “Is your shelter big enough for us to come back with you?”

“You would leave all of this behind?” asked the Chief.

“You could use a doctor, and from what I understand, there’s a baby due. I don’t want to stay here after what I’ve seen. The view out the front windows might be beautiful, but the memories just make it look like a dead land to me. Besides, we could close this place up and use it as a fall back shelter if we ever have to leave Mud Island.”

Tom looked at Allison to see if she was on board with leaving Guntersville, and she gave him a silent nod and a half smile.

Allison said, “I’ve also heard Molly talking about her aunts and uncles, and that makes you guys all family now. If you’ll have us, I don’t think we could do better.”

There were nods of agreement all around, and with that settled, we started to pack essentials. I wished Jean was with us so she could tell Bus what medical supplies he should bring. Since we had extra people we decided to focus on medicines, MRE’s, and ammunition.

As we packed, we talked about the pros and cons of making the move to Mud Island. The biggest advantage to Green Cavern was that you couldn’t just walk up to the front door and knock, and being able to open the windows to get fresh air was an attractive thought. The disadvantages for those same things were that the elevator door wasn’t impenetrable, and the windows were within range of anyone who got their hands on an RPG launcher.

The surgical suite was bigger at Green Cavern, but the important things were the supplies, so we considered it to be a trade-off. Green Cavern also had spare seaplanes not far away, but we figured that was something we could live without. Besides, the discussion brought out a little bonus fact that we hadn’t known. Bus could fly a seaplane too, so there was no reason why we couldn’t fly over and get another one for the trip back. After all, we had done the same thing with boats.

The Chief was also convinced there was one big reason for Mud Island to be the best choice. Besides being a warmer climate, which we all agreed was more easily tolerated, the Chief believed that the coast was where rescue would eventually begin. He believed the ships already at sea had to be where civilization was being rebuilt. I didn’t think he had forgotten what happened on the cruise ship. I think he figured the military had handled it better. There were some ships that would have made the mistake of trying to treat bite victims, but even those that did might have done so under more controlled circumstances.

We had everything packed and ready at the elevator in under an hour. Bus had set all of the controls in the physical plant to just maintaining security. No heating or air conditioning would be needed, and all lights could be off. The only reason to leave power on was to operate the elevator.

The plan was simple. We would take everything down in one trip. All hands would load the plane except Molly and Allison. Molly would be safe inside the plane while Allison stood guard. If any infected showed up, everyone would stop to clear the threat using machetes. Guns would sound very loud in the entrance to the cavern. Once the plane was loaded, we would all shove it off and board.

Bus watched the elevator go back up and said, “I thought it would depress me to leave my shelter behind, but I’m feeling more alive than I have in months.”

He looked really alive to me. I was sure I understood what he was talking about because there was the feeling you get from being with a group of friends that you can’t get anywhere else. I didn’t know how lonely I was until my friends came floating up to my island in a raft. Surviving and living are two different things.

Loading went smoothly, and it wasn’t long before we were easing the plane away from the beach inside the cavern. We half expected to see infected in the water, but since they weren’t raining off of the mountain anymore, there had been no reason for them to stay around. With nothing for them to bite, the infected in the water had simply walked away, while the ones that had gone into the cavern had probably just gotten lost somewhere in the dark caves until they either fell over a steep drop or got stuck in a hole.

We were still careful even though we weren’t seeing any of the infected in the water, and we rotated the plane broadside to the beach to allow Tom and me to give the plane a shove as we jumped onto the pontoon. We climbed inside, and the Chief started the engine. I looked around the cabin, and everyone looked so happy with this decision that they were all smiles. If not for the way the world had turned out, we looked like a bunch of people going to Disney World on vacation.

The plane slowly rotated to the left until the Chief had it pointing straight out toward the middle of the lake. He powered up, and it began racing forward. The Chief was an excellent pilot, so his take-offs and landings were always smooth. This time was no exception. We were passing over the bridge toward the resort marina in only a couple of minutes, and we could see the huge expanse of the golf course stretching out toward the hotel.

“Uh, oh,” I said as soon as I could make out the details at the marina.

“That’s what I was thinking,” said the Chief.

We had become accustomed to changing plans when we had to, and this was going to be one of those times. The docks of the marina were still overrun by the infected. We could probably land and coast up to the seaplanes that were parked in their private slips, but the risk to all of us just wasn't worth it. Not to mention the possibility of damage to the plane. Getting in close to the other planes meant we would have to watch where our wingtips were at all times. If we even bumped one against another parked plane, we wouldn’t be able to take off until we did a complete visual inspection.

The Chief turned in his seat so he could see everyone and asked, “Is there anyone who would object to Plan B?”

“Do we have a Plan B?” asked Kathy.

“Not that I know of,” answered the Chief. “This time Plan B can be to pass on Plan A. We don’t need another plane that bad. Let’s go home.”

The Chief pulled back on his collective and gained altitude as he made a sweeping turn from the north to the east. I looked at my watch and estimated that we would reach the coast at sunset. I had to resist the urge to start using the radio to call Jean. It would be less nerve racking to start calling in when we were at least half way home.

I remembered there was something I wanted to ask Bus, and now was a good time. It would also be a nice way to make the trip go by faster because there were some things he knew that could mean a lot to us in the future.

“Hey, Bus,” I said over the sound of the engine. “You and Uncle Titus knew each other because you were both members of the same group of bunker builders, right?”

He smiled at the term I used to describe his tightly knit little club. “Yes, I knew Titus because we belonged to a small group that believed it wasn’t a question of ‘if’ the world ended, but ‘when’ it would end.”

“And you tried to make the bunkers capable of withstanding whatever the ‘how’ was that made the world end, right?” I asked. “Did anyone in the group think it would be a zombie apocalypse?” I couldn’t help but smile when I said the words because it still sounded ridiculous, even though it pretty much summed up what was happening.

Bus said, “You would be surprised how many of us would have preferred a zombie apocalypse over some of the more likely alternatives.”

“Alternatives? What was the consensus in your group about the type of world-ending scenario?” asked Tom.

He answered, “Well, bacteriological or some kind of a virus has always been near the top, but the means of transmission has always been questionable. In so many ways, we might lose millions of people to a pathogen, but in the end there should be a way to contain it. The reason this type of transmission is so hard to contain is because people make the conscious choice to hide it.”

“So, a virus was the number one choice?” I asked.

“No, not really,” he said. “The number one choice has always been an event that wouldn’t kill millions at the onset, but would kill hundreds of millions over time. We always figured one of our many national enemies would explode nuclear bombs in the atmosphere instead of the more common dirty bombs that blow up cities. The EMP, electromagnetic pulse, would fry just about every low voltage circuit in the country in seconds. Imagine, no cell phones, no smart TV’s, no cars that have computer circuits or electronic ignitions, no microwaves, no computers, no tablets, no barcode scanners. Planes would drop out of the sky, reactors would go critical because their computers wouldn’t withdraw the rods or flood them with cooling water. Traffic lights would stop working, and any vehicle that would keep running because it was made before all the electronics was added would probably plow into all the cars that just came to a complete stop in the road.”

I said, “Bus, that would be bad, but how can you process the idea that someone who used to be alive now wants to sink its teeth into you?”

“I didn’t say I find this all to be preferable,” he said, “but in a way this is still somewhat limited. At least we do have a chance to fight back and still have our technology intact. Can you imagine what this would all be like if we didn’t have the capability of flying or even using a modern boat? I would be willing to bet your boat even has circuit boards in the ignition.”

“That’s true,” said the Chief. “We wouldn’t have been able to travel to Guntersville to reunite anyone because it would have been a journey that could have taken months.”

“I have another question for you, Bus,” I said. “How many members were there in your club, or should I ask, how many members got around to building their shelters?”

Bus had a smile on his face like the one the Chief got when he was really amused. It was a cross between funny and the cat that ate the canary, and it usually had that innocent ‘who me’ appearance complete with the raised eyebrows.

He collected himself as if he was savoring the moment and said, “Thirty-two of us finished our shelters.”

I hadn’t expected that many, and judging by the mouths hanging open in the plane, I wasn’t the only one who was surprised.

Kathy asked, “Do you know the locations of all of the shelters?”

He nodded his head and said, “Yes, and we liked to call them redoubts because it means the same thing as stronghold. A shelter is something that sounds weaker, and as you have undoubtedly noticed, they can withstand a siege. The supplies found in one redoubt would collectively be greater than some cities have been left with.”

The Chief looked like he had some major questions he wanted to ask Bus, and I had already known him long enough to know he was making some plans. He turned almost completely around and looked at Bus before asking slowly, “Is there another redoubt in South Carolina?”

“Yes, there is, Chief, and from what you have told me about your adventures since this all began, you have been close to it a number of times.”

The Chief started to ask Bus where it was, but instead he held up one hand and said, “Wait, save it for when we get back. I have an idea how we can use that information to do exactly as you said we can do. We can fight back. These redoubts can give our forces a foothold on the land, bases where we can take a stand.” The Chief looked positively cheerful as he said, “First, let’s get home to Jean. Then we have some people to contact.”

Chapter 11

Dark Passages

It was quiet in the little room with the cell, but from time to time there was a noise on the other side of the door that sounded like something bumped into a wall. Sometimes it sounded like something being dragged along the floor. Jean had little doubt about what was making the sounds. She also had no idea of what she could do to save herself. At least the door was locked, but that also meant she would have to figure out how to escape the cell and then escape from the room. 

Even if she could work some kind of magic with the cell door and the compartment door, she had no idea where she was in the ship. She could be on an upper or lower deck, but judging by the regularity of the noises outside her door, she was far from being alone. 

Jean didn't know much about ships except what she had seen on cruise liners, but from what the Chief had told her military ships were much different from civilian ships. They were utilitarian, which meant nothing to her when the Chief had said it, but he explained there is no wasted space on military ships. There's very little privacy because so much space has to be sacrificed to machinery, storage, and weapons. He had also told her to expect to find cabinets in the strangest places, which gave her something to think about. 

Jean got to her feet and decided she was going to inspect every square inch of the tiny room. She started with the door.

"I know what's behind door number one," she thought. There was some kind of storage locker in the bulkhead next to the door to the left, but that wasn't any help because it was much too far out of her reach. She put that door as first on her list of things to check after she got out of the cell.

"That's positive thinking, Jean," she said out loud.

As soon as she said it there was a groan on the other side of door number one.

"Think it, but don't say it," she scolded herself.

She continued her survey and saw there were two recessed latches along the wall on the right side of the door. Judging by the distance between the latches, she felt like she knew what those were for. If you opened them at the same time, a bunk would drop out of the wall. That would be number two on her list of things to do.

That brought her to the walls of her cell, and she had already been up close and personal with them. She inspected them, anyway, and she felt along the floor just in case. It didn't surprise her to come up empty handed. The cell would be positioned as far from anything as possible. As a matter of fact, the only thing she could reach from the cell was the light fixture. 

Jean stepped over to the bars closest to the recessed fluorescent bulb and looked along the inside edge down the length of the bulb. There was a latch right in the middle. Something was beginning to make sense. The bunk was along one wall, and the light was along the other wall. "What if this had been an officer's cabin at some point in time?" she thought.

If she stretched far enough, she could just barely reach the latch, but she wanted to release it without having the whole fixture fall out of the wall. If she broke her only source of light it would be pitch black in the little room, and she felt like that would be the last straw for her. It would make her suicidal to sit in a totally black room with those things wandering around outside door number one.

Jean got a finger under the edge of the latch and eased upward on it gently. As she felt it release the locking mechanism, the entire recessed fixture pushed upward against her hand. She kept some pressure on it so it wouldn't raise up too quickly, and she said very quietly, "God bless you, Chief. It's a cabinet. Now it just needs to have a set of keys inside it, preferably within reach.”

She felt around the inside of the cabinet and locked her hand around something that felt familiar. Cylindrical, flat on one end and a switch that could slide with a thumb. It had to be a flashlight. She pulled it out and carefully pulled her hand back through the bars. Even though she had enough light in the room, she knew she could be plunged into total darkness if power failed on the ship. The flashlight at least gave her the added security of knowing she could find her way around the ship if she got out of the cell.

After putting the flashlight safely in the corner of her little prison, she went back to the bars and stretched to reach the inside of the cabinet for a second time. There was plenty of paperwork in the cabinet, which was to be expected, but it was in the way, so she started bringing back whatever she could grip at one time. Most of it was Russian, but there were a few things that were souvenirs of their visit. The men's magazines were probably picked up in Norfolk.

"Men," thought Jean. "The world's coming to an end, but you can still find this stuff lying around. It's like styrofoam cups that never totally disintegrate."

Jean caught herself flipping through the pages, and even though no one was watching, she still got embarrassed and tossed the magazines into the corner. She kept pulling back paperwork until she had it all, then she went back to feeling along the deepest part of the cabinet she couldn't see. Her hand landed on something else that felt familiar. She pulled it out and was surprised to find another souvenir. This time it was something useful, though. It was a Statue of Liberty letter opener with about a six inch blade. It wasn't a machete, but it was something. She tucked the blade through her belt so she could get to it in a hurry if she had to.

On her next reach into the cabinet, she found what she was looking for. Almost out of her reach was the rim of a metal circle. She carefully dragged it toward her, and she was gratified when she discovered it was a key ring. She was already starting to wonder if she could use the letter opener to pick the lock, but she didn't have a clue how locks worked, and she would have been doing nothing more than just digging around inside the lock. Once she got a finger through the ring, she pulled it over with a death grip on the keys. There was no way she was going to drop her prize.

When she got her hand back between the bars, Jean finally quit squeezing on the ring so hard that it had started to make her hand hurt. If one of the half dozen or so keys on the ring didn't fit the lock, she was going to scream, and she didn't care if it woke up every infected dead on the ship.

She went to the lock and selected the first key. No luck, but with five or six to go, she hadn't expected to be that lucky. It turned out to be the fourth key, and when it slid into the lock, she felt her heart start to pound. There was always a chance it was just made for a similar lock, but her hopes were already up, so she gently turned the key. Nothing happened, and she held her breath. She tried again, and it turned, but it didn't unlock the door.

Jean was ready to do the scream that would wake the dead when it occurred to her to check to see if she was turning it in the right direction. Her head wouldn't fit between the bars, but she could get it against the bars well enough to see what her hand was doing, and she was both relieved and frustrated to find she had been turning it in the wrong direction. She mentally kicked herself until she remembered she was just as likely to turn a screwdriver in the wrong direction.

She forced herself to be mentally calm as she turned it back the other way. Aside from screaming, she planned to bend the bars with her bare hands if it didn't work. Then she was going to pull one of the bars out of the cage and go out that door and beat the hell out of every infected Russian sailor she ran into. She heard the click inside the lock, and the door swung open.

It was such a relief to be free from the cage that Jean wasn’t even concerned with the fact that she was still in a little room, somewhere on a Russian ship and had no idea how to get back to the island.

She looked at the bars on the cage and said, “You’re lucky. You were just about to get bent.”

The sound of her voice caused a chorus of groans to start again on the other side of the cabin door, and for one moment she seriously considered locking herself inside the cage again. She wondered how many there were in this one corridor. She knew Captain Aristov had disposed of one, and if he was bitten, he probably took care of it himself. There were six in sick bay, but there was no telling how many there were all together. If she could let them into the room one at a time, maybe she could take them out, but she didn’t know what she would be able to do against a group of them.

Jean thought, “There has to be something around here I can use as a weapon.” She felt the letter opener she had stuck in her belt and pictured herself thing to stab one of those things with it.

“I’d probably bend it on the first one’s skull, then I’d really be in trouble,” she thought. “I wouldn’t even be able to open a letter with it.”

She looked around the room and remembered there was a cabinet by the door, and there were the latches to what was probably a bunk on the other wall. She very quietly pressed one hand against the cabinet door while she released the pressure on the latch. The last thing she wanted was to pull the door open and have stuff come falling out. Before she pulled the door to her, she wondered how long it had been since the last time she heard a human shouting or the sound of a gunshot. She thought it had been maybe an hour, but there was no way to be sure.

She pulled the cabinet open and blinked, trying to make sense of what she was looking at. There was a black handgun sitting on a shelf with a box of ammunition next to it. The box said it was nine millimeter ammunition, and she recognized the gun as a Glock 17. The Chief had found several of them in the armory and had shown her why it would probably be the best gun for her if she was in close quarters and couldn’t swing a machete. There was also a bottle of Russian Vodka, and she really wasn’t too surprised to find that. 

Jean rotated her head and looked back at the cell. They keep the keys within reach from the cell, and they leave you a loaded gun. I can’t wait to see what’s inside the bunk.

“This must be the Russian version of Andy of Mayberry,” said Jean, “but the Russian Barney had more bullets.” She picked up the gun and ejected the clip to see if it was full, and a visual check showed there was a round in the chamber. The Chief had told her they were made to hold ten rounds or seventeen. She was lucky and got the seventeen round version.

Thinking it through, Jean figured the Russians didn’t really have a discipline problem on this type of ship, and if someone was locked in the cell, it was probably to sleep off a good night in town. A guard was probably in here with the bad boys to keep an eye on them, and a gun wasn’t likely to be needed. Captain Aristov was undoubtedly not worried about Jean escaping and taking control of the ship.

When she thought about Captain Aristov, she felt a little sorry for him. All he really wanted from her was to hear her say there was something they could do to save his men. She hadn’t been able to give him that kind of false hope, no matter how much she wanted to say it. The last time she saw him, he was sacrificing himself for her. She hoped he had died in a way that would keep him from turning into one of those things. Her real fear was that she would find him outside the door waiting to bite her.

Jean tucked the Glock into her belt and emptied the box of ammunition into her pockets. If she was really lucky she wouldn't have to stop to reload, but if she did, it looked like she had enough rounds for the entire crew.

Her next stop in the tiny cabin was the pair of latches that looked like they would lower a bunk from the wall. She gripped both latches at the same time and squeezed them to the unlocked position. The weight of the door caused it to drop down on her, but it wasn't too heavy to lower by herself, and it was quiet. There wasn't anything remarkable about it, but the mattress gave her at least one idea, and there were two pillows that could be useful for the same thing she had in mind.

Jean pulled the bedding out into the open area by the cell, and that was when she figured out what she had to do. She dragged the mattress into the cell and added the two pillows. She took a quick look around to see if there was anything else she could do to make her plan better, but she didn't see anything she had missed.

The door to the cell opened outward, probably because the cell was barely big enough for one person anyway, but that was important to her plan. If it opened inward, then she would have to find a way to reinforce it. She didn’t know how many times she had said a quite prayer of thanks that the infected couldn’t figure out the difference between pushing and pulling. All they knew was to come straight at you with their mouths open.

“Okay,” she said. “Here we go.”

Jean took the key out of the lock. If she had time when the fun started, she would lock the door, but she doubted there would be time. She left the cell door open and went over to the cabin door. She quietly turned the lock to the unlocked position and then backed all the way to the open cell door.

She drew in a deep breath and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Hey, dirt bags and scum buckets. Come and get it.”

Jean backed in the cell and pulled the door shut behind her. She was just about to reach around and lock the door when the cabin door flew open. It wasn’t like the infected dead rushed to get anywhere. It was just the sheer weight of them that made the door slam open harder than she had expected. Three of them were trying to come into the cabin at the same time. She had hope for one at a time, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now.

The first of the infected to get through the narrow cabin door was one of the guards Jean had seen earlier with the Captain. He was missing a large piece of his neck, but his face was undamaged, so she knew it was him. He had been one of four that she had seen including the Captain. The next one was the young guard who had brought her the soup. Behind him was Captain Aristov and the other guard who had tried for a peek at her when the Captain had first come to see her. It saddened her because they were all so young.