There was little to actually see. Just a long line of numbers as data was fed back for the technicians. I was sure it meant something to them, but to me, it was just pointless numbers.
For a moment, I wished it was like the films where you could see the helicopter from any angle and had well-lit footage of what was going on. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be the case.
A shiver ran through me and not just from the cold. I had a sudden urge to go home and check on the twins. To pick them up and hold them close as I hoped that their father would come home safe.
“They’ve reached the target,” a tech said, her voice calm and measured, eyes never leaving the screen.
I waited, anxious, for more news. It seemed that everyone in the control room was holding their breath as they stopped what they were doing and turned to listen.
“First man has descended to the boat.”
That would be Ryan, of course. There was no way he would let anyone else go in before him. Stubborn man that he was.
“No response to their query.”
I glanced over at Cass who met my gaze evenly. She was as worried as I was. Gregg was her brother and since the loss of Pat, she was terrified of losing him too.
“Message coming in.”
“Play it for the room,” Admiral Stuart said, and I smiled my thanks at him.
“Send the helicopter back,” Ryan’s voice came through the speakers surprisingly clearly. “Now.”
“Ryan.” There was a pause. “Admiral Stuart here. Repeat that, please.”
“Abort the bloody mission. Send the helicopter back.”
The normally stoic admiral frowned deeply as he spoke into his microphone. “Why?”
There was nothing but static for what seemed like an eternity as my heart seemed to try to claw its way up into my throat. My stomach churned and I very much feared I might be sick. Cass rose from her seat and quickly moved around the table to sit beside me, her hand reaching for mine.
I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t see the sympathy and the worry in her face. It would be too much for me to bear and I would lose myself, breaking down before everyone. None of the techs would meet my eyes. They too knew what it would mean if the helicopter was recalled without him.
“There’s a sickness here,” Ryan said, his voice surprisingly calm.
“What sickness?” Admiral Stuart asked urgently.
“Plague, Ebola, who the hell knows? I’ll make sure these people don’t rise again, then burn the boat.”
I stared at the speaker, more than a little shocked by his words. Burn the boat. So very calm and rational. Never once mentioning how the hell he would be getting back home if the helicopter was gone and the boat, he was on burning brightly!
My finger stabbed down on the microphone button without my even realising it and as the static sounded, my mouth dry and stomach seeming to spin and twist, I spoke.
“You promised.”
Just that. Nothing else to be said and, if I were honest, to say more would be to break down. I felt that my heart was about to break.
“Didn’t say I would be burning with it,” he replied, as cocky as ever. I could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “There’s an inflatable I can use.”
“He wouldn’t have a chance with the seas as rough as they are,” Admiral Stuart said softly. He tapped his chin with one long finger and then pressed the mic button. “Ryan. Can you pilot the boat?”
“Probably, why?”
“The Tower of Refuge.”
Someone gasped and it took me a moment to realise it was me. I looked over at the Admiral though a sheen of tears and smiled my thanks. He wasn’t going to let him die easily.
“Will be a long shot, but better that than a small inflatable in those seas.”
“Worth a try,” Ryan replied, then added. “See you soon.”
The line went silent and no one seemed to want to look at me. A long shot was an understatement, but it was better than nothing at all.
Out in the harbour, on a partially submerged reef called St Mary’s Isle, was a stone built castellated structure that had been built to afford shelter to mariners who wrecked on the rocks. Something that I guessed had happened a lot back in the eighteen hundreds when it was built.
The tower, looking more like a miniature castle than any tower I had ever seen, would not be comfortable but it would be safe from the storm winds and rough seas. If he could guide the boat to it, of course.
“Why not just fly him back,” Shepherd asked. “Whatever illness is being carried, it’s unlikely he’s already exposed.”
“We can’t risk any infection getting back to the island,” I said, heart aching. “More than that though, we need to know what those people are sick with.”
The Admiral nodded slowly, a smile playing on his lips. I’d guessed correctly that that was one of the reasons he had suggested bringing the boat back.
“By my estimation, we have a little more than an hour to wait,” Admiral Stuart said. “I shall go and rouse our doctors.”
He strode from the room without another word and I watched him go for just a moment. He meant Vanessa of course. She was a difficult woman and one I didn’t often agree with, but she had worked with all manner of infectious diseases back in the old world. If anyone could figure out what we were facing, it would be her.
“He’ll be fine,” Cass whispered softly. “I’m sure of it.”
“I know.”
Ryan, strangely enough, wasn’t my primary concern. A boat full of sick people. Ones that were ill enough for Ryan to want to prevent them from coming to the island. He wasn’t a doctor, so whatever he had found there must be bad.
Which had my stomach lurching for an entirely different reason.
Whatever their illness, they had set out to come to the island. Now, it was fair to say they had come searching for aid. We could even explain their refusal to answer the radio as a fear of being turned away. I didn’t think so though.
They could have lied, over the radio. That they hadn’t spoken at all and had been aiming directly for the island told me that someone had sent them. A ship full of people that were sick with something highly contagious.
People who would die and resurrect as zombies, ones that were perhaps equally contagious as they roamed the island biting people.
I vaguely recalled my history teacher, many years ago or so it seemed, telling his classroom of rapt teenagers about how the bubonic plague was used as an early form of germ warfare. Humanity had a long history of using such diseases as a weapon.
From catapulting plague corpses over the walls of cities at siege, to giving smallpox exposed blankets to natives. People, it seemed, would stop at nothing in their quest to kill others. I had to wonder who on our growing list of enemies would be willing to do such a thing.
Two sprang immediately to mind. Briony could have done it. She was medically trained and certainly ruthless enough from what I had seen of her when she had wreaked havoc on us before fleeing.
I couldn’t quite see what she would gain from it though, other than revenge for her current infected state. Which, I supposed, was as good a reason as any.
The most likely culprit though was Genpact. They had a vested interest in wiping out any survivor groups so that they could reclaim the world as their own once the zombies died out. More than that, I was pretty sure they would have access to all manner of lethal diseases in their bases.
They were, first and foremost, scientists. Their work would continue in their secret bunkers while the world outside died. They had been the architects of the apocalypse and as such, were well prepared for it. They would have had ample time to prepare for any eventuality.
Such as not everyone dying by zombie.
Cass still had a tight grip on my hand, and I patted hers with my other as I shook myself from my reverie. It had been a distraction I needed, to stop me worrying about Ryan, but that came back full force as I saw the worried face of my friend.
&n
bsp; “It will be fine,” Cass said. “You’ll see. He’s harder to kill than a cockroach.”
She smiled as she said it and I offered my own in return. It was true. He was a stubborn son of a bitch and should have died any number of times. Sheer force of will had kept him alive more than once and I realised something.
I didn’t really doubt him when he said he would come home to me.
With another smile for Cass, I pushed myself to my feet. In the morning we would have the election results and I would be out of a job. Until then, I was still in charge and I was damned if I wasn’t going to make sure that I would do everything I could to get Ryan home safe.
Chapter 6
The boat rose up on a swell, listing to starboard and sending me tumbling against the wall as I tried to return my knife to its sheath on my hip. I glanced down at the dead man behind me and grinned.
He’d resisted at first, but after losing a few of his fingers, he had finally spoken freely. What he’d told me though, well, it hadn’t been good.
I turned as the door opened and a damp and clearly upset Gregg stumbled in. There was a tinge of green around his lips and he shivered visibly, though whether from the cold or the trip down from the helicopter, I couldn’t say.
“What are you doing here?”
He reached behind himself and unhooked the cable from the harness before tossing it out the door, which he then pulled shut. With the fury of the storm blocked out, it was almost quiet inside the small cabin.
“I do not want to have to do that again.” He looked down at the dead man behind me, brow furrowing at the bloody stumps on the ends of his hands. “Should I even ask?”
“Tried to shoot me and didn’t want to tell me why,” I said with a shrug as I braced myself against the control console. “Why are you here?”
“Someone has to look out for you.”
The next wave washed over the boat and sent Gregg to the deck. He landed on the corpse of the pilot and scrambled back, a look of disgust on his face as I chuckled.
“You have any idea what to do with this?” I asked him as I offered a hand to pull him up.
There were a number of dials and panels set into the polished wooden console. A computer screen was fixed off to the left and a radio to the right. There was even an actual wooden wheel like those seen in old movies.
Whoever had owned the ship either had a penchant for the old fashioned or simply couldn’t afford to upgrade to a more modern setup. Either way, it left me scratching my chin as I stared at the controls.
There were some levers to the right of the wheel, and I pushed them forward. The wheel started spinning as the boat began to move once more. I gripped it quickly and grunted as I used all the strength I had to keep it from turning.
“That’s the coordinates, mate,” Gregg said as he tapped a display. He tilted his head as he listened to his headset and nodded. “Right, turn us left until I say stop.”
“Port,” I muttered as I struggled with the wheel. “It’s turn to port.”
“Whatever.”
He watched the numbers on the display change as I moved the wheel, bit by bit, to port. Despite the cold, I began to sweat, my muscles aching.
“There! Hold it!” he pointed at the display and grinned happily. “Keep it on course and we’ll go straight towards the harbour.”
“Then what?”
“When you see the reef, aim for it.”
I doubted that it would be that simple, but it wasn’t like I had much choice. What the man had confessed had been of some concern. While I was fairly certain that just being on the ship wouldn’t have infected me, I couldn’t risk taking it home to my family.
“You were foolish to come,” I said, quietly, eyes not leaving the display. “Might have been a one-way trip.”
“Yeah, well, you need me.” There was no hesitation in his voice as he said that and I almost smiled.
“You’re a good friend. Better than I ever expected to have.”
“Christ! It must be bad if you’re getting all soppy.” He was grinning as I glanced up at him and I smiled in return.
“Fatherhood has softened me.” His gaze moved to the dead man behind me and he cocked an eyebrow as I shrugged. “Not that much though.”
The journey seemed to take an eternity. I clung on to the wheel, fighting against the fury of the storm and the sea. The boat lurched from wave to wave, water washing over the deck and cabin. The cold bit deep, not kept at bay by our wet clothes.
There was no light beyond that of the cabin. The moon and stars obscured by the storm clouds above and only the roar of the wind that managed to drown even that of the engines. There was little to speak of and we would have had to shout to be heard, so we stood in silence and worked together to keep the boat on course.
I looked at my friend as he stared out of the window, searching for signs of our destination in the black beyond. His face bore the scars of an encounter with a Feral and he had begun to shave his head to avoid the plague of lice that seemed to swarm our island home.
My own short beard and hair itched at that thought.
When I had first met him, I had killed the man tormenting his sister and, on a whim, had taken them back with me to Lily and the others. I would never have thought that he would become one of the few people in the world that I trusted.
I would have laughed, back then, at the suggestion that he would become one of my closest friends.
“Light ahead,” he shouted to be heard above the wind.
I narrowed my eyes and peered through the glass, straining to see through the falling snow. Then I caught it, a flash of light in the distance, seen only as we rose up on a wave. Something like relief washed over me and, with a start, I realised I had been concerned about seeing my family again.
A strange thought and one that was both unexpected and new. It indicated I was still changing, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
No matter, I pushed it to one side and pulled on the wheel, aiming straight for the flash of light.
“How do we know the boat won’t sink when we hit the reef?” Gregg asked with a mild look of concern.
“Well… it’s a reef. The water should be too shallow to sink in. That’s kind of the point.”
“Yeah, but won’t the boat break up?”
That, I realised, was a good question. If it broke up or sank, and what was contained in the hold got out. That would negate the whole point of trying to land on the reef and not the island proper. Anything that got out of the hold could well end up making its way to the island.
“Dammit!”
There wasn’t much I could do about that, other than make sure that anything that got out, couldn’t become a zombie. I looked over at Gregg and held back a soft sigh.
“Take the wheel.”
“What! Why?”
He grabbed a hold of it as I let go, stepping back and drawing my knife. His eyes went down to it and then back up to meet mine as he shook his head.
“I heard what you said, mate. Don’t go into the hold.”
“We can’t risk it. If any of them die and come back as a zombie…”
“It’s fine! You don’t think the Admiral will have thought of that? He’ll have every part of the coast covered. If anything comes ashore it will be killed on sight.”
That made sense, but my children were on the island. Lily was there. If something went wrong and a plague-carrying zombie made it ashore, they would be in danger.
“Can’t risk it.”
“You have to!” His face twisted with some emotion that I couldn’t quite recognise, and I reached for the door. “Mate, don’t! If you go down there you might be the one that could bring it to the island.”
“It’s a risk, but one that is necessary.”
“Crap!”
I grasped the door handle and twisted, as the radio came to life and a voice I knew so well came through loud and clear.
“We see you, Ryan,” Lily said. “Tell me you’re ok
ay. Please.”
There was an urgency in her voice, and I looked over my shoulder at the where the radio was fitted into the wooden console. The handset was right there, beside Gregg’s hand but he didn’t reach for it.
“You better answer, mate.”
“Ryan? Please respond.”
I knew that if I went over to answer the radio, I would be stuck. She would ask questions and I would answer. The boat would get closer and closer to the damned reef and I wouldn’t have time to do what needed to be done.
That urgency in her voice though, it told me that they were going to take measures to protect themselves if we didn’t answer. I looked at Gregg and saw that he understood that too. He still made no move towards the radio.
With a snarl I stomped across the cabin and grabbed the radio, thumbing the switch and speaking.
“We’re here. Alive and well with a hold full of sick people.”
“Thank God!” she said. “Look. Aim for the reef. As soon as you come aground, head for the tower. You can stay in there till the storm passes and then we’ll come for you.”
“You can’t allow this to come ashore,” I said insistently. “If the boat breaks up on the reef…”
“We have measures in place. Trust me.”
I did trust her. I really, truly did. She was top of the very short list of people I actually trusted with my life. But even so, since becoming a father, I found my need to be in control, to protect them, outweighed most rational thought.
It was galling at times, but also made it incredibly difficult to trust that anyone other than me could protect them.
Gregg kept his eye on me, and I grunted as I gripped the handset. Indecision warred in me and I very much wanted to lash out in anger. More than that. It had been so long since I had killed anyone and the dead man behind me had done little to salve that need.
A hold full of people I was justified in killing was entirely too tempting.
“Dammit,” I said as I put the handset down. Gregg grinned and I shook my head. “Just head to the reef.”
Killing the Dead Season 3 Box Set | Books 13-18 Page 71
