The Infected Dead (Book 2): Survive For Now (28 page)

Jean took about three seconds to collect herself and then was on her feet running. She went straight over the infected that was now spread across the corridor, and as she did she hoped anything coming this way would trip over the body. Ahead she could hear more movement, and the ship seemed like it was too narrow for another corridor to be running parallel to hers. That meant she was likely to run into more of the infected as long as she was in a corridor. The best she could hope for was an empty cabin, and she hoped the Russian ship builders had the same way of thinking that most shipyards had. They tended to put accommodations areas aft of the engine room for the officers and crew to be nearer to the area where they worked. She didn’t bother to turn off the flashlight because she had already advertised her location to the entire dead crew.

Only a few more long strides down the hallway brought her to a cabin door that was open. She panned the flashlight around the room and saw that it at least looked like it was empty of the infected. She decided she had enough of playing hide and seek in the dark with things that bite, so she ducked inside and locked the door. With her back against the door, Jean stood panting for a few moments, wondering if it was possible to get out of the ship. She shone the light around the room again and saw that it might have been the Captain’s quarters. The best part was the porthole.

Jean checked the lock on the door again then went to the porthole. It was facing Mud Island. She tried to remember everything about her time on the ship so she could figure out how long the others had been gone, but time went by fast and it went by slow. She had no idea when they would be back. For all she knew they could already be back.

For the first time since the lights had gone out, she felt real hope. It was dark outside, and if her friends had returned, they would be watching the Russian ship through the security cameras. They would be wondering why they weren’t seeing signs of life, but most of all, they would be wondering where she was. Jean lifted the light to the porthole and gave the universal signal for help……SOS. She may have only been a nurse on a cruise ship, but everyone working at sea had to know the basics.

Jean repeated the SOS several times, knowing that even if they had seen it, there was no way to signal her back. She could only hope they were getting their gear together for a rescue attempt. She didn’t notice that she was dripping with sweat, partially due to her arm, and partially because the ventilation system was off. She also didn’t notice she was already just randomly flashing the light, having lost the ability to remember the sequence. When the flashlight slipped from her fingers, she was already unconscious before she fell to the floor.

Chapter 12

Hope

The flight from Guntersville back to the coast was uneventful, but with each passing minute Ed was becoming more and more worried. The only break in the monotony was when they circled the area around what had been Fort Jackson to see if they had done any good when they sprayed fuel on the infected.

Bus looked down on the charred horde and let out a low whistle. “You did that?” he asked. “I think you wiped out a couple thousand of them. Maybe we could fuel up the plane and spray more of them along the coast.”

The Chief looked like he was considering it at first, but when he weighed their need for the fuel against the effectiveness of the tactic, it didn’t seem worth it.

He said, “Maybe if we could get them to all squeeze together in a nice little group, we could wipe out a bunch of them, but they’re too spread out. I think there are too many of them hanging around in the trees, and a forest fire wouldn’t be my first choice. So far the weather has been too dry to take the chance.”

Small talk wasn’t working very well. Everyone in the plane was thinking about getting home, and after Fort Jackson I had started trying to get Jean on the radio. No response didn’t mean something was wrong, but any response would have made us all feel better. To make matters worse, Kathy reached up and rubbed my shoulders from time to time, as if she knew I was getting more and more worried. The usual smile was absent from the Chief’s face. He was good at finding things to feel happy about but not today.

Molly was her usual astute self and asked, “Why is everybody so sad? Is Aunt Jean okay?”

I thought I was going to break down when she asked that, and Kathy came to the rescue. She asked Molly to tell her about when she had gone to school in Guntersville, and what was it like to watch her daddy play baseball. Allison and Bus even pitched in by keeping Molly busy with questions.

As we began to be close enough to the coast my anxiety grew because I knew we were in radio range. We were at a high enough altitude for me to see the ocean, and I started looking for landmarks.

The Chief could see me stretching my neck, so he reached over and tapped my arm to get my attention. He leaned closer and said we were going to approach Mud Island from the south to avoid detection as we retrieved the Boston Whaler. He was being patient with me because he knew I was worried, and he spoke in a soft but firm voice when he said Jean was fine. I was getting to see the Chief’s fatherly side for the first time. He had always been like a protective big brother, but if he wasn’t flying the plane he would probably have been rubbing my shoulders, too.

We reached the coast just south of Georgetown, and the Chief made a sharp turn to the north. He kept his altitude and began searching the coast with binoculars. Mud Island came up fast, and it was easy to see with the Russian corvette parked between the island and the mainland. None of us expected to see Jean outside waving at us, but the irrational side of me would have preferred that over nothing.

“There’s no one topside on the corvette from what I can see,” said the Chief. “I would expect some activity.”

“Maybe they’re just laying low,” said Kathy. “Maybe they’re playing possum in case they get spotted by the Navy.”

“That would make sense,” I said, but I think I was just trying to be normal by making conversation.

The Chief changed course again and headed straight out to sea. A couple of miles out, he turned south to bring us back around to where we hid the boat.

“Is there enough light for you to spot the Boston Whaler, Ed?” asked the Chief.

“Put us lower to the water, Chief, and I’ll be able to spot the two trees I used as landmarks,” I answered.

Allison leaned forward and watched as we rushed back toward the coast. “It looks so barren,” she said.

“This time of year makes it look that way,” said Kathy. “Cold salt air tends to take the green out of everything. Wait until you see how green it gets in the spring.”

“There it is,” I said. I pointed toward two trees that looked bigger than anything around them, and then drew an imaginary line down to where the boat should be.

The Chief started to throttle back as we got closer and then let the pontoons begin to skim the surface of the water. I had a momentary emotion that could only be described as the way you feel when you get over homesickness. It was strange to think that this had become home. It seemed like yesterday since I had gotten the call saying I owned an island. The lawyer had said it was good news and bad news. Little did he know it was good news for me and bad news for him.

The trees seemed to grow right before our eyes as we decreased speed but continued in a straight line for the coast. The Chief expertly turned the seaplane into a boat and began cruising toward the camouflaged Whaler. I heard Kathy explaining to Allison and Bus that we had left the boat hidden a little south of the island in case the Russians did as we expected and tried to hide their ship behind our island. She told them we called the waterway that separated Mud Island from the mainland our moat because it kept the infected dead and dangerous people from walking onto the island. It was deep and dangerous, and we had recently learned it was even more dangerous than we had realized.

The Chief brought the plane up alongside the Boston Whaler, and I was all too glad to climb out onto the pontoon and jump over to the boat. The Whaler was big enough to carry all seven of us and our gear, so everyone started tossing over backpacks and duffle bags. We hadn’t discussed what we were going to do about the plane, but there was no way we could take it back to the dock. The Russians may be laying low, but we were sure they would come out at night to look around. The sun was going down, so we knew we had to move fast.

“We don’t have enough tarp to completely cover the plane,” said the Chief, “but let’s anchor it and then cover the side that faces the island. If they’ve been looking this way, they saw something over here before, but they shouldn’t really know the area well enough to tell that it’s bigger.”

With the help of Tom and Bus, we got the plane covered and were finally starting the engine on the Boston Whaler. I felt like I was holding my breath the whole time, and we worked quickly and quietly. The sun was going down, and we wanted to be back inside the shelter before the Russians sent out a patrol.

We steered the boat out of the tiny cove where it had been hidden and headed slightly out to sea. There was a fishing trawler on its side at the mouth of the southern entrance to the moat. I thought of it more as an exit because the current rushed from the moat out to sea and was very strong.

We had a bad moment when we turned the corner around the trawler and found a half dozen infected standing on the beach. We were in shallow water and not far from the beach, so they didn’t need anyone to ring the dinner bell. They came straight for us with arms outstretched and gaping jaws moving.

Kathy had taken the helm from the Chief so he could prepare to pull us onto the beach of Mud Island, and she knew what to do. She turned to the right and put us back into deeper water where the current was the worst. The infected tried to follow us and began dropping out of sight as they were swept away by the current. I could have sworn one of them was wearing a Russian navy uniform.

Once we had led the infected from the beach into the water, Kathy turned us back to our original course. We stayed in deeper water only long enough to be sure there were no infected dead walking around on our side of the moat, then she pointed us toward the shore. As soon as we hit the beach on Mud Island, I was over the bow and running for the overhanging bank at the tree line where we had dug out a garage for the Boston Whaler.

I was hoping Jean was watching through one of the cameras and was inside the shelter doing a happy dance because we were back, but I had a responsibility to the other members of our group, and that meant getting the boat inside where no one would be able to detect that we had been on the beach. As bad as I wanted to, I couldn't take the time to pop down through the tunnel to see if Jean was okay. I also knew it would take more than a minute to say hello to her.

I pulled back the camouflage that hid the trailer from view and began pulling out the boards we had used to make it easier to cross the soft sand. A stiff breeze kicked up, and on the breeze I smelled the familiar scent of decay. Tom came up along side me and started helping with the boards. I could see by the look on his face that he smelled it too.

The infected dead came from the darkest corner of our boat garage but was still on the other side of the trailer. That didn't stop it from trying to reach us by climbing over the trailer. Kathy came up between the two of us and delivered a vicious blow to its head with her machete.

"How did that thing get inside?" asked Kathy.

"Better yet," I said, "isn't that a Russian navy uniform?"

Tom said, "It looks just like that one infected dead we just saw over on the other side of the moat near the trawler."

Kathy took a closer look at the body and said, "There are bite marks all over this guy. Something must have happened over at that Russian ship. I don't think this guy was bitten over here."

"What makes you think that?" I asked. "He could have been bitten and then crawled in here before he died. He got stuck behind the trailer and couldn't get out until we motivated him to climb over after us."

"Check out these bite marks," she said. "There are stitches in some of them. I think this guy was bitten and someone tried to treat the wounds."

Tom leaned in and took a closer look at the dead Russian sailor. He rolled the body over and said, "Pull his shirt back and look at this. There's blood coming through the material."

Kathy pulled back the shirt and exposed a large bandaged area that was soaked in blood. When she removed the bandage, the injury was obvious. Something had bitten the sailor deeply enough to rip out a huge chunk of his side, and stitches weren't going to help him. Both hands were also bandaged, and one hand was missing two fingers.

Tom said, "If I had to guess, before this guy died he was trying to defend himself using his bare hands, but when we do it, we grab at the infected dead by getting a handful of clothing somewhere around the chest. That way we can control the face and keep from getting bitten."

"What are you getting at?" asked Kathy.

"I think he was flailing at so many infected that he couldn't get a grip on one without being bitten by another," said Tom.

Kathy involuntarily looked around to be sure we weren't being surrounded by more infected dead. The Chief was coming toward us, probably to see why we didn’t have the trailer on its way to the water yet.

“What’s up?” he asked. “You guys find something in there?”

“You might say that,” said Kathy. “Check this out, Chief. This guy looks like he had a really bad day before he died, and it’s another Russian sailor.”

The Chief took a quick look, and as he almost always did, he filled in the blanks for us. The Chief seemed to have a wealth of knowledge on more subjects than most people, so it didn’t surprise us when he pointed out that the Russian sailor was wearing a ring worn only by SCUBA divers. It was silver, and engraved in the top on the flat surface was a trident spear.

“Russian navy divers all wear that ring after they’ve been in the water at least one hundred times for a minimum of thirty minutes. We’re talking about fifty hours of underwater experience,” he said, “and judging by his injuries, I would be willing to bet he went diving in the moat and got too close to the nets.”

Tom let out a low whistle and said, “That would explain how he lost his fingers. He was flailing around in the water, and was getting bitten repeatedly. It looks like they grabbed him and pulled him into the nets.”

“I can’t even think about what that was like,” I said. “Can you imagine dropping over into the moat and landing right on top of those things?”

The Chief shook his head slowly from side to side, “Remember when I went into the water, I went in face first so I could see what was in front of me. This guy probably went into the water the way divers usually do. He let the weight of his tanks pull him in backward and upside down. If he landed on the nets, he was bitten before he could even get right side up.”

“Oh my God,” said Kathy. “He’s bandaged and stitched. That means they pulled him out of the water and back into the ship. I think we all know what happened next.”

“Same thing that happened on the cruise ship when the infection started to spread fast,” said the Chief.

“How many divers would they have put into the water to see what was keeping the anchor from coming up?” asked Kathy.

The Chief answered, “Never one diver by himself. They would have put at least two in the water, and then at least two more to pull them out.”

“So they most likely had at least four divers who were bitten and then carried back on board, maybe more,” I said. “Maybe that’s why it looked so quiet over there.”

“I imagine we’ll find out in due time,” said the Chief. “Let’s get inside and check on Jean. We can worry about the Russians later.”

The Chief spread one of the tarps out on the ground and then lifted the Russian sailor’s body onto it. He didn’t ask for help, and he was so strong he wouldn’t have needed it, anyway. We watched him wrap the tarp around the body. He closed it at the ends as best as he could before lifting the body and carrying it out to the water. He walked out far enough for the current to start pulling at his legs before he lowered it into the water. One sailor to another, he paid his final respects.