The Infected Dead (Book 2): Survive For Now (29 page)

We waited for the Chief to come back before we returned to our work. Tom, Kathy, and I put the boards in place ahead of the trailer wheels while the Chief pulled the trailer to the beach. Kathy jumped back into the boat, and as soon as we unloaded Allison, Molly, and Bus along with our gear, Kathy drove the boat back into deeper water and then came back taking aim at the trailer as the Chief slid it toward her. They worked well together, and the boat was centered on the trailer on the first try. We strapped it down and immediately reversed our process getting the trailer back into hiding. By the time we had it covered again, everyone including Molly had filled in the tracks and ruts left behind in the sand.

I took a deep breath as I dropped into the tunnel and dialed in the combination on the security lock. I was only a matter of moments away from Jean. I could picture her standing at the bottom by the emergency exit with a big smile on her face. She would tease me about something in her good natured way, and I wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say back, but one thing was certain. I would be unbelievably glad to see her again.

I unlatched the door and swung it open. I figured the others would forgive me this time for not letting everyone else go in ahead of me, and I practically dove down the tunnel. I knew that the alarm system would have warned Jean that the outside hatch was opened even before I unlocked the inner door combination lock, but I was sure she had been watching us on camera the entire time, anyway.

When I reached the door at the bottom of the tunnel, I laughed to myself and thought she was just being herself. Instead of opening the door before I got to it, she was giving me the chance to make a grand entrance.

I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I dropped through the hatch, spread my arms wide as if I had just done a magic act by appearing out of nowhere and went, “Ta daaa.”

The empty bedroom fueled my worst fears, and I didn’t wait for her to rush in from another room to yell surprise. Somehow, the place just felt different. It felt like no one was there just as if it was something I could touch.

Kathy dropped in behind me just as I started to run from the bedroom into the main quarters. I didn’t remember if I had already called her name, but I heard Kathy behind me yelling for her. By the time I came back from checking the living room and even the decontamination room, the others had checked the lower levels. Jean wasn’t in the shelter, and Molly was sitting on the bed silently crying. For a child who had seen too much already, it was more than she could bear to even look at me.

“Where is Aunt Jean, Uncle Eddie?” she asked in a broken voice.

I couldn’t even answer her. I knew if I tried my voice would break, too. All I could do was shake my head and shrug my shoulders.

Kathy was the first one to hug me and offer reassurances that wherever Jean was, she was sure she was fine. The Chief said we would find her as soon as possible, and we would start looking now. The thing that scared me the most was the feeling that she had somehow been captured by the Russians.

“We still have the houseboat to check,” said Tom. “Maybe she got stuck out on the dock and had to hide.”

I had to admit that Tom gave me some hope, and I looked at the Chief as if to say, “Can we go now, please?”

I didn’t have to say it out loud. The Chief ran past me and slapped me on the back as he went by. He was carrying a rifle and pulling on a heavier coat as he ran for the living room. By the time I got there he was turning on the TV to check the security cameras. He brought up the view of the dock and panned around to see if there was a guard or anything unusual. The sun had set behind the trees, and there was enough moonlight to cast shadows, so he didn’t turn on the night vision.

“Switch to the view inside the houseboat, Chief,” I said.

“Hold on just a second, Ed. There’s something on the dock. I’ve seen this view often enough to tell where the shadows should be, and that shadow isn’t supposed to be hanging onto the side of the dock piling.” He walked over to the monitor and put a finger on the spot he was talking about.

I looked closer at the screen and saw it too. Allison came up behind us and said Kathy had checked Jean’s gear and felt like the boots and coat she would have worn if she went outside were missing. I don’t know why it surprised me, but when I turned to thank her I saw Tom and Bus were both checking weapons and getting ready to go out with us.

Allison said, “Eddie, I haven’t met Jean yet, but I feel like I’ve known her forever. Molly has been able to hold it together much longer because of all of you, but Jean has been special to her. We’re going to find her and bring her back. I just know it.” Allison was typically a quiet woman, and it was easy to see Molly in her, especially because she was a quiet girl. You could always tell she was thinking about something, though. Allison looked as worried as the rest of us, but she looked more confident than I felt.

“Chief,” she said, “I think I see something on the dock.” She walked over and stood next to him then traced her finger from right to left. “This line right here looks unnaturally straight, and look over here.” She pointed at a line that was parallel to the first one and so straight it looked like it was drawn with a ruler.

“You have a good eye,” said the Chief. “Those lines begin and end at shadows that shouldn’t be there. I think those might be explosives strapped to the pilings, and the lines are trip wires.”

“I’m glad you checked, Chief. I would’ve just charged out there and gotten myself blown up,” I said.

“You can thank Allison, Ed. I was just making sure there weren’t any Russians or infected dead walking around out there.” He switched the view to the inside of the houseboat, but it was so dark inside that it was doubtful she was there. He switched to night vision, and there was no change. If she was hiding, I wouldn’t expect her to be standing in front of a camera, anyway.

The Chief said, “Here’s how we’re going to do this. We approach carefully, and someone stands watch over the trip lines while the rest of us check the houseboat. It’s too dark out there for us to disarm the explosives, and I don’t want any infected dead stumbling out onto the dock and blowing us all to pieces.”

Kathy had joined us, and she said, “Molly wants to make some cookies for Aunt Jean to eat when she gets back. Bus is helping her get started, but she wants her mom to show her how to do it. Bus wants to go with us.”

The Chief turned to Kathy and said, “I hate not having my favorite cop with me, but I need for you to stay here and watch the monitors for me.”

“What am I supposed to be watching for, Chief?” she asked.

“I need someone to keep a close eye on that Russian ship for me. I don’t want to be out on the houseboat if they launch those Zodiacs full of armed men,” he answered. “I’ll have a radio on me. Give it a double click on the switch and wait for me to talk.”

“Chief,” she said, “find her and bring her back.”

Chief Joshua Barnes had a look he would get when he was kidding around. He had a very special look he would get when he was up to something that involved a practical joke. He had a poker face you couldn’t read if your life depended on it, but he had a different look when he was determined to do something. We were seeing that look now. No smile, steely eyes, and a set to his jaw.

He said, “I can promise you that Jean will be back in this shelter tonight, Kathy. Ed? Are you ready to go find your future wife?”

“You bet I am, Chief.” I don’t know if I could ever look as fierce as the Chief, but this was likely to be the closest I would ever come.

We checked the monitors for infected dead or living Russians at the entrance, and then we made it the fastest exit we had ever done. The Chief was in the lead with me close on his heels. Bus was third, and Tom was covering us from behind. It was about a mile from the shelter entrance to the dock, and I don’t think we ever covered the distance so quickly. It wasn’t really rough terrain, but we have left it as wild as possible so it would look like no one ever came to this island.

Half way to the dock there was a clear section that allowed us to stop and look at the ocean. It was typical for us to at least slow down as we passed that spot just so we could scan the beach for infected dead. To our surprise, the beach was dotted with the dark silhouettes of the slumped shouldered and shambling creatures that had once been human. It had been a long time since we had seen so many on our island. While it was still raining bodies in Guntersville, it had become much slower here. The moonlight made the beach even more eerie than it normally looked when the infected were out for a stroll.

The infected dead were too far from us to be a concern, but it did put us on guard for more to be near the dock. We passed the signal to each other to keep our eyes open by pointing at our eyes with one hand, and then at the beach. We were all heavily armed and ready for anything, but as usual the machetes were our weapon of choice, and we all had them at the ready except Tom. He had his rifle ready with the safety off. The Chief had pulled him aside and told him we needed to move fast and without delays. He told him to put a bullet through the head of anything if we missed it up front, or if there were more than two.

We arrived at the dock in record time, and the Chief dropped to a knee and put his right fist in the air with a bent elbow. We all stopped a couple of yards apart and waited for his signal to move forward.

He double clicked the button on his radio and said, “Kathy, we’re at the dock. Any changes on the Russian ship?”

“That’s a negative, Chief,” she answered. “The dock looks the same, too.”

“Okay, we’re going in, Kathy. Keep and eye on Tom. He’s going to be standing watch over the explosives.”

The Chief moved only as far as the first trip wire where he laid down on his stomach and inspected the explosives. To his surprise, the wire was attached to the piling, and the pin in the grenade was tied in place with a piece of string. It wasn’t going to explode no matter how many times someone tripped on it. The Chief scooted over to the other side and found the wire was attached to the piling on that side, too.

Even though it was a dummy trip wire, the Chief stepped over it and went to the second one. It was also tied to the pilings, and a string was tied through the pin. The Chief looked confused when he came back to where we waited, and it wasn’t often that we saw him looking like that.

“The wires aren’t even attached to the explosives,” he said. “They’re both dummy traps, but I can’t think of a reason why anyone would want to even bother rigging something like that.”

“Do you think we’re being watched?” I asked.

“No,” said the Chief. “I’m sure there’s a reason, but I don’t think we’re going to get an explanation out here.”

Chapter 12

SOS

Kathy couldn’t believe her eyes. She was watching the Chief and Ed on the dock. She knew Bus and Tom were somewhere just out of her field of vision, and the beach had more infected dead wandering around than normal. The moon was so bright that she didn’t need to switch to night vision.

She almost missed it, but Allison had come up behind her and asked, “What was that?”

Allison pointed at the monitor that displayed the dark Russian ship, and Kathy looked at it just in time to see the message begin and end one last time. Then it became random. There was no mistaking what the first part said.

Kathy keyed the microphone and spoke with the Chief. As soon as she finished explaining what she had seen, she signed off and told Allison to take over watching the monitors. She ran for her room, strapped on her gear and went through the door of one of the several escape hatches that led to the surface of Mud Island.

……

We started forward as a group going over the trip wires carefully, but before we got to the houseboat, the Chief signaled for us to stop again. We watched as he pulled the microphone loose from the radio and keyed the talk button. He was wearing an earphone so we couldn’t hear what Kathy said to him, but whatever it was made the Chief reflexively turn and look in the direction of the moat. Even though we couldn’t see the Russian corvette, we all knew the Chief looked that way because it was somewhere around the curve. He keyed up and spoke several times before reacting, and we were surprised when he sprang from his crouched position by the door of the houseboat and jumped into the big boat we had tied to the dock.

I looked at the others, and I saw Bus and Tom were as much in the dark as I was, literally and figuratively. I saw Tom shrug his shoulders, but we stayed where we were supposed to be. I saw a flashlight come on under the dash of the big boat, and I moved a bit closer to see what the Chief was doing. It appeared to me the Chief was working on the wiring that he deliberately sabotaged to keep anyone from taking the boat.

The flashlight winked off, and the twin motors on the boat came to life. There wasn’t any use for stealth anymore, and we didn’t need an invitation from the Chief. It was obvious that we were going somewhere. Bus and Tom caught up with me as I was climbing over the rail into the boat. Tom grabbed the lines tied to the dock and tossed them into the boat. He gave the bow a shove and easily jumped over from the dock.

“What’s up, Chief?” I asked.

Before the words were even out of my mouth, the Chief turned the wheel hard to starboard and hit the gas. I had to grab the back of a seat to keep from flying right out of the boat, and even Bus with his low center of gravity was pinned to the back rail practically on top of Tom. Wherever we were going, the Chief wanted to get there in a hurry.

The Chief aimed the boat toward the mainland dock, which happened to be a direct line for the Russian ship. He turned and yelled over the sound of the engines and the wind, but I couldn’t understand a word until I pulled myself up to the front seats.

“Do you know Morse Code, Ed?” he yelled.

“Never learned it, Chief. Why?” I yelled back.

He answered, “Well, then it’s a good thing Kathy stayed behind to watch the security cameras.”

Tom and Bus had managed to pull their way up to the front of the boat, and they arrived just in time to hear the chief answering me.

He yelled loud enough for all of us to hear, “Kathy was watching the Russian corvette for signs of life, and she saw someone signal the shelter with a flashlight.”

“Why would the Russians signal the shelter if they don’t know it’s there?” I yelled.

“Because it wasn’t a Russian signaling the shelter, Ed,” he answered. “Kathy knows Morse Code, and she said the message was spelled out SOS JEAN.”

All four of us turned our heads in the direction of the dark ship that was rapidly growing in size as we sped toward it.