Haven From Hell (Book 2): Warrior's Chronicle

by Won, Mark

  I took a closer look at the map she was holding. It was an old one with many small tears and rips, but I doubted that the little town displayed would have gone anywhere since the map’s original printing. Unsurprisingly, there were towns to both the north and south, but they were both pretty small, too. I didn’t see any better option so I told Felicia that it was a good choice, and that she should steer us in closer to the docks that served the target destination. The other three boats followed us closely.

  At the docks we saw the same kind of crowd which I had encountered previously. My wife wouldn’t let me keep as large an arsenal as I would have liked, but I did have an excellent bolt action rifle as well as a very reliable revolver. My main concern was running out of ammunition. I tried to do a quick head count of the enemy, but I couldn’t be sure if I’d have enough ammunition or not. I would be close.

  I called around to the other boats only to learn that I was the only American citizen responsible enough to exercise his second amendment rights. That was disappointing and about what I had expected.

  You see, back then if you tried explaining to people how firearm ownership is essential for the maintenance of a free society, all you’d get is a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics screaming mindless insanity.

  Anyhow, I started picking off my targets at about twenty yards. At that range a blind man could manage head shots consistently. My only problem, minor as it was, was with the rising swell. My daughters both thought that their daddy never missed. I would have hated to disappoint them.

  While I cut down on the enemy’s number Felicia had the unenviable job of trying to explain to the kids how daddy wasn’t actually murdering a bunch of sick people. She had her work cut out for her, even for a former grade school teacher. Hell, I thought I was murdering a bunch of sick people. It had to be done though, there was no other way.

  Once I’d cleared the landing I called Tony and Zander over so we could coordinate our supply raid. Fuel first, food second, ammunition third, and miscellaneous a distant fourth. With those priorities set we made a quick job of refueling all four boats. I even managed to get my hands on a number of old fuel drums someone had left secured to the pier. I filled up those, also.

  There was a nice little convenience store right by the docks. We went through the place like a tornado while the ladies kept watch from the water. Marge and Lucy had a crow’s nest which was made for lookout duty. We each were starting our second trip to the store when Marge shouted a warning. She yelled out that a whole bunch of ‘monsters’ were coming our way. I risked a quick jog around the corner to see for myself. That was foolish of me.

  There must have been thousands of them moving in on our location. They had runners out front and I could tell we were fresh out of time. I beat a hasty retreat. My guess was that they had heard all the gun fire and had come along as best as they were able. The girls were screaming at me to hurry by the time I got back on board. With my feet on deck I glanced behind me.

  A pair of runners were quickly closing on our location. They were impossibly fast for human beings. Whatever had changed them had its work cut out for it. One of those guys must have weighed over three hundred and fifty pounds, but he was running along faster than I could ride a bike. One look and I could see my wife would never be able to get us far enough away in time. Maybe the fatty wouldn’t be able to make the leap from the pier to the Puddle Jumper but the other two sure enough would.

  I dropped my grocery bags and brought my rifle up. My first shot missed, and I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t missed a target as close as that in over twenty-five years. My next shot took the forerunner in the forehead. The way that chick had been bouncing around I really had to focus on my timing. I’ve had easier targets at six hundred yards. The next one was almost to the edge of the pier when I took him down with a shot through the left eye. Fatty made a stellar jump but, as I’d hoped, physics saved the day, and he fell short. There was a massive splash from which he did not emerge. I was beginning to conclude, optimistically, that none of the enemy could swim.

  I wondered where they had come from. The town hadn’t seemed all that large. A thousand, tops. The nearest population centers were a few miles away. Most of the enemy traveled so slowly I didn’t see how they’d had enough time to get to us. After contemplating the matter for a few more minutes I realized that I was curious enough to do something about it.

  I asked Felicia to keep her distance from the docks, and then I shot three of them in the head. They fell into the water with their places being promptly taken by other members of the horde. Then I dove in to see what I could learn.

  I found their bodies at the bottom and quickly searched through their pockets. I’d made sure to kill men because I thought it more likely that they would have wallets in their pockets. They did. No sooner had I gathered them up then I sensed a movement in the water at my back. My first thought was that it was a shark. That turned out to be wishful thinking on my part.

  While I’d been picking through the pockets of the dead, Fatty had been moving closer. I hadn’t even given him a second thought. When he hadn’t returned to the surface I’d assumed that he’d drowned. As his pudgy hands full of fat little fingers reached for me I had the sudden realization that I truly had absolutely no clue what the limitations of the enemy were. If you’ll pardon the wordplay, I was in over my head.

  Fatty grabbed hold of my arm and began to draw me into a bear hug. I wasn’t having any of that. My training kicked in and I managed to slip free and got around behind him. When I’d dove in the water I hadn’t bothered to bring a knife or any other gear. I’d thought that it would be a quick little trip.

  From behind, I managed to get my hands around Fatty’s head. I had a pretty tense moment there when half his hair came off in my hand. I wasn’t prepared for that. I managed to recover before Fatty could bite me and performed a standard neck twist. I felt the bones snap and almost let go. Fatty wasn’t done with me yet. He was still trying to tear my legs off of him with his hands while trying to bite the hand I had gripped around his chin. With a broken neck. It was as if that particular injury meant nothing to him.

  Then I heard a splash from up above. Looking up, I saw another of the enemy plunging in to join us. I was just beginning to feel the strain of holding my breath, while the thing I was holding onto clearly had no such consideration. I quickly kicked off of him, making sure to get away clean, and went for the surface.

  On the way up, I noticed the second enemy reaching for me but with no real dexterity to speak of. Neither of the two seemed capable of swimming, though Fatty did manage to move along the bottom pretty well. I wasted no time climbing back on to the boat and yelling out that it was time to leave.

  I told everyone about my undersea adventure while I dropped Tony and Zander off at their respective boats (they had been the first to refuel). Then I pulled the two wallets that I’d managed to hang on to out of my pockets, and opened them up. Inside, I learned that both of those men had come from further inland. According to their drivers licenses they had lived about five miles inland from where I’d encountered them. I wondered what had caused the mob to head for the coast. A strange destination for something that couldn’t even swim. My best guess was that they’d been following something else before spotting our shopping trip.

  Meanwhile the chop had grown significantly worse. Things were shaping up to be stormy and we didn’t exactly have a safe harbor to cling to. I know they say ‘any port in a storm’ but none of those people had a bunch of superhuman weirdos clogging the docks moaning for their blood. The universal consensus was for us to head north along the coast and see if our situation would improve.

  Things got steadily worse. The wind picked up and we began to have some real trouble staying together. I called out over the radio for everyone to follow us into the waterways of a nearby nature preserve, to the north. I knew of a place or two where we might be able to ride out the squall. We had some tough going and almost lost the ladi
es, but we managed to keep together and got to relative safety.

  The spot I had picked out was still a bit rough. To escape the rising waves, the sisters took their boat in too close to shore and it grounded. That was an unfortunate situation. I managed to calm them down enough to keep them from trying to abandon ship during the storm. With the waves crashing against their hull I wouldn’t have been surprised if their ship had taken on some water, but I was positive that it wouldn’t break up. In such shallow, sheltered water I knew they’d be safe enough until the storm passed

  No sooner had the waves begun to subside then we discovered incoming company. A pair of boats came cruising toward us from another inland waterway. It looked like they had fared better than we had. Tony, Zander, and I were trying to haul Lucy’s and Marge’s ship off the bottom when those newcomers rounded the bend. We had plenty of time to get ready to say hello as they seemed in no hurry to help. When they finally did get in close enough I could see they were all sporting sporting equipment, in the 12 gauge, .308, and .30-06 categories. I wish I could say that I was surprised. I decided to call them on the radio but didn’t get a chance.

  They gunned their engines and began firing on us while making a rapid approach. Their intentions seemed obvious so I took up my rifle and shot the first pilot dead. The water was still rough enough to make accuracy an issue but I was feeling motivated. The second boat’s pilot had learned nothing, so he got the same treatment about fifty yards closer in. Then I told Felicia to try calling them.

  The fools didn’t seem to understand their situation. New pilots stepped into the old one’s shoes and got the same treatment. I heard gunfire from the pirates’ boats but it wasn’t directed at us. I kept alert and whenever I saw another target of opportunity I took it. Once I took a shot and thought that I’d missed. Not so, it was one of the enemy. An ordinary human that I’d already shot and killed. Apparently, killing people was one way to transform them into the enemy. Yet another thing I didn’t understand.

  After a while all of their gun play subsided and I got tired of failing to hail them. I decided to head over and see what they had to offer us. Just because pirates want to steal your stuff doesn’t mean they don’t have anything worth taking. I went over with Zander and then made a quick boarding action. All I found left alive were the transformed enemy. They were all quite slow and clumsy, making them easy to put down. All I had to do was go nice and slow, then they would then reveal themselves with pointless moaning and stumbling about. Easy kills.

  I looted their galleys and took their weapons, ammunition and limited medical supplies. We really needed the ammunition; I was down to my last few bullets for the rifle. Once I got back to Zander I began sharing out the weapons. We still had the problem of the ladies boat being stuck on the bottom.

  I took a couple of inflatable life rafts and put one on each side of the mired craft. Then I strung ropes under the hull to each life boat opposing. Using winches, we managed to get enough displacement to free her from the bottom and haul her out into deeper water. Then we had some target practice.

  It takes years to become as proficient with a firearm as a sniper, but even just a couple hundred rounds of practice can make the difference between being able to hit a man sized target at a range of twenty yards half the time, and shooting oneself in the foot. Anyhow, even though all the practice had reduced our ammunition store to practically nothing, I still felt safer with everyone armed.

  -

  From there the sea made for some smooth sailing. Traveling north along the coast I had either Marge or her sister, Lucy, in their crow’s nest at all times. I did not want to be taken unawares by any more pirates. I was also leery of anchoring the vessels. I had an unreasoning fear that the enemy dead were following us around on the bottom of the sea, just waiting to climb up an anchor chain. I was careful to not tell anyone about that last one since it seemed a bit crazy, even to me.

  We came upon a number of other travelers sailing about. Every time we met someone I’d hail them and we’d have a chat. Once it seemed like they were team players (as opposed to pirates) I’d invite them to join our little exodus. We met a nice couple off the west coast of Florida by the name of Susan and Dirk Hampton. Also, the Zimmerman family and Mr. Johnson joined us south of St. Rose island. Traveling west from there, we met Jim and Clair Dee and their extended family. They were all crowded into a single tug boat drifting helpless off the coast of Mississippi. With that tug boat added to our fleet, fuel had become a major problem again.

  I thought that maybe we’d have enough to make it to New Orleans, but I couldn’t be sure. We couldn’t afford to take the chance, so I decided to try and fuel up at the first handy dock. So far, every one of the docks we’d passed had been crowded with the enemy. I wasn’t thrilled about tackling the situation when so low on ammunition, but I didn’t see that we had any real choice.

  With most of the boats hanging back about a mile or so, Zander and I tried to lead the enemy away from the refueling centers. Our plan was to sail as close to them as we could and then lead them off, along the coast, by making as much noise as we possibly could. We had some success. Enough for an attempt to be made at refueling. The trouble was that the electricity had stopped flowing some time back. Without the juice the pumps wouldn’t run. I asked around and discovered that the tug had an excellent fuel pump of its own, perfect for our purposes.

  So, we tried the plan all over again. I stayed behind with the refueling group during our second attempt while Zander managed the decoy work on his own. A surprisingly effective tactic. The only problem was our own impatience. Those stupid would-be cannibals took forever to get from point A to point B. Eventually, after an hour of doing nothing but watch morons stumble, we got bored and just made a dash for it. I don’t doubt that the enemy saw what we were doing, but by the time they got turned back around we were full up and well on our way. From there it was a short jaunt to the Big Easy.

  Chapter 4: Small Town Living, Parley with Pirates, and An Unpleasant Altercation

  By the time we reached the mouth of the great river we were out of food. The Dee family were a numerous and hungry bunch. A simple enough problem to solve as soon as we reached a tiny town in the shadow of a modern lighthouse, just inside the mouth of the Mississippi.

  Their weren’t any of the enemy malingering about the docks, and that had me feeling pretty good about making a quick shopping trip. Considering the flat and muddy open nature of the terrain everything seemed reasonably safe. I hit the pier with Zander and Jim, and we made for the convenience store which had been visible from the boats. At the entrance we noticed movement inside coming our way. Zander gave out a yell and spun about. Some of the enemy were also closing in on us from both flanks. The way those horrors must have been hiding, the whole thing almost looked like some kind of trap.

  The eerie aspect of their approach was the general silence. No loud moans, just a bunch of low groaning. The kind of noise that was hard to hear over the wind and the cries of the birds. We were in a potentially bad spot, so I called for a general retreat, and we began making an expeditious withdrawal.

  I say it ‘almost’ seemed like a trap because we had no trouble making back to the boats. None of our would-be pursuers had the speed to be a threat. Also, they were simple enough to eliminate. Once we got back on board our respective boats, we cast off a few feet, and I got to work clearing out the docks. They had conveniently followed us, presumably with some pathetic hope of catching us before we could escape.

  With the enemy dead we tried again with much better results. It looked like the whole hamlet had showed up to eat us, about twenty former people, so with them dead we could take our time and haul off everything that we wanted. There was a small restaurant in addition to the convenience store, and it had some canned goods which also contributed to out larder. The few houses had very little to offer, but we striped them also. We were still low on ammunition. After a few hours of rest we continued upriver.

  Alo
ng the way we came upon a couple of other small towns that looked like they would be well worth the ransacking if only we had the bullets remaining to get the job done. I hated the idea of just leaving behind all that low hanging fruit, but it seemed unlikely that we would be returning anytime soon even if we did stumble upon an ammunition store sometime.

  As we sailed along, one of my daughters, Lindsy, pointed out a figure along the bank who was obviously trying to wave us over. He was looking in pretty ragged shape, with neither a weapon nor a pack with which to hold supplies. I took a lifeboat over to investigate, making sure to alert everyone regarding the possibility of a trap. His name was Jack, and he had recently escaped from the small village that we’d most recently passed. We welcomed him aboard and asked for any news. He had nothing to offer, having spent the last few days hiding up a tree, waiting for the enemy to wander off. Apparently, the passage of our tiny fleet had done the job, giving Jack the opportunity that he’s been waiting for.

  As we sailed up the Mississippi, my first impression of New Orleans was that of unbridled disaster. Before I even came into sight of the city itself I could see the smoke rising in the distance. That’s never a good sign. Once we rounded the final bend of our approach I had led us well into the center of the river. From that distance the city looked like a war zone. Many buildings were demolished and others were still on fire. There were gunshots being fired in the distance and we could see combat on the docks. None of it looked like the kind of thing that I felt comfortable interrupting. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a choice.

  Some entrepreneurial sorts had parked a few boats and barges out in the middle of the river. When we tried to sail around they sent out eight boats to cut us off and surround our group. I took stock of our diminishing ammunition supply and decided that it was time to try negotiating with the riffraff. A reasonable payoff was not out of the question, if it would secure safe passage for us. If I just began blazing away it seemed uncomfortably likely that we might loose someone.