by Won, Mark
Drunken guards are my favorite kind. You have no idea how tedious it is to try and infiltrate past sober people. They’re always looking around for something less boring than guard duty. Against sober sentinels one’s best hope (unlikely as it is) is that the watchmen will strike up a conversation with one another. If they don’t then one must spend half the night sneaking around trying to kill people quietly. I’ve met guys who claim to like that sort of thing but I’ve always felt it makes for an uncomfortable and unpleasantly tense work experience.
Making my way to the bow proved as simple as taking a walk. Knowing in advance that I might want to blend in at some point after swimming over to the barge, I had been sure to pack some light clothing in a water tight plastic bag before leaving home. Once on the main barge I took the liberty of donning the aforementioned garments over my dry suit to help me blend in. It worked like a charm, probably because everyone around me was to intoxicated to care. Once I had made my way over to the forward cabin area I opened the door and just walked right in.
Inside there was a brief series of rooms. A general bunk area, a bridge, a small galley, etc. About what one would expect from a large self propelled barge. I found a man sleeping in the captain’s quarters. Things being the way they always are I had to assume that the sleeper was Gator. The man I questioned earlier hadn’t been specific about where exactly Gator would be staying within the fore cabin area. Unfortunately, he had company in the form of a couple of women. None of them had noticed that I’d entered their space.
No matter, it was time to get to work. I moved in and abruptly stabbed each in the brain before any of the others could react. It only takes one blow if you know what you’re doing and don’t mind being quick about it. Then I went back to the general bunk area and repeated the process. The four that I killed there were all inebriated, judging by the stench coming off them, making the job effortless. Not that it would have mattered.
I found a stash of ammunition and a few high capacity, .22 caliber, fake submachine guns. The kind that are only semi-automatic but are fashioned to look like an Uzi or P90. I didn’t bother taking anything, although I would have liked to. With no easy way to transport any of it I had to leave it all. Well, everything except a single box of bullets. I had a practical short term plan for them.
I checked my watch and saw that I still had most of the night to kill, so I began more boldly checking out the outlying boats. Most were simple single cabin jobs, a few houseboats, and a recreational trawler. They also had a number of motor boats but no one was staying on them. I guessed most of the commercial fishing boats were on the lake side of the city. I made the single cabin vessels my priority.
My first choice was a larger vessel obviously designed to attract the fishing sportsman. Someone had fixed a number of human heads on a bunch of metal spikes that had been welded on, apparently for the purpose. All of the heads were gnashing their teeth and rolling their eyes. Boarding was simple enough and the lock was uncomplicated. The problem was that there were four people sleeping, uncomfortably jammed together. One noticed my approach.
Moving with alacrity, I rushed into the small space and got to work. I eviscerated one man, stabbed another through the heart, and ended a woman’s life by piercing her kidney. Then I beat a hasty retreat as the final woman grabbed a pistol and began pointing it my way.
I wasn’t too worried about getting shot, and I could easily have killed her before she drew the gun. My problem was with all the dead people getting up. The woman managed to get a shot off at me before I got out of the cabin, but it missed me by a mile. Then I jumped over the side.
I wasn’t too worried about the alarm being given, that kind of thing always happens sooner or later. The night was still young and I had a lot of damage to do before dawn. As I peeked over the water line I saw people running on the barge, moving toward the boat I’d just vacated. Shots rang out and confusion was everywhere, just the way I like it.
I unwrapped my revolver from its primitive kitchen grade plastic bag wrapper, and brought it to bear, opening fire on armed targets in the crowd. After a few shots, I boarded another boat close by to improve my angle of fire. I’m not sure how long I could have kept that up before someone noticed where the fire was coming from, if it hadn’t been for all the murderous dead. Initially, my gunfire blended in with all the rest. Shortly, however, everyone was too worried about all the dead people wandering around to give me any attention, whatsoever. Which made it even easier to keep on shooting anyone with the wherewithal to defend themselves.
I swam over and got back in my first conquest, the little cuddy, and started her up. Then I sped around to each of the boats and called out the emergency, pointing to the rising threat on the barge. As soon as people’s attention was diverted I shot them dead, leaving the dead to rise. Then I moved on to the next.
By the time I’d gotten around to the fourth repetition of that cycle I found a likely looking target with a rifle. He was already engaged with the enemy, firing into the crowd on the barge. I shot him in the head, and then I rapidly boarded his vessel. Having noticed that the rifleman had been killed, a pair of armed women came forth from the cabin. I shot them as well.
After grabbing up the rifle and searching the dead man’s pockets for ammunition I began sniping the members of all the other boat’s crews. Since it was night, and everybody else was firing wildly, and I made sure to never miss, I was able to clear a lot of ground in a pretty short time. Within about five minutes anyone with a lick of sense had abandoned the barge and was making away as rapidly as possible. Most of them had, naturally enough, went over to the fuel barge and cast off. I could see them hauling survivors out of the river. Most of the boats with remaining crews had cast off from the main barge and were also in the process of making rendezvous with the fuel barge. Perfect.
I sailed around to the far side of the main barge and climbed aboard, making my way back to the forward cabin area. On the way I encountered a few remaining walking corpses but I was easily able to dodge around them or knife them quietly. Most of the dead were assembled on one side of the main barge looking over the way to the fuel barge. The people lined up on the fuel barge, meanwhile, were busy making a distraction for me by shooting at the enemy on the main barge. Like some famous ancient general once said, ‘I love it when a plan comes together’.
Back in the captain’s cabin I grabbed the footlocker holding all the spare ammunition. It was an eclectic selection with something for everyone. Then I got myself back to my new cuddy and sailed off into the night.
Once I got back to where I’d hidden my lifeboat (and making sure that I hadn’t been followed) I hauled it up on board and decided to wait out the night. I reasoned that it would take at least an hour before the enemy would consider the events of the evening to be a planned attack and at least another half hour before they decided to try and do anything about it. So I took a well deserved nap.
An hour before dawn the sky lit up with a beautiful gasoline explosion. I made sure to take a picture of the explosion to show everybody waiting for me back in Port Rich.
I still had to confirm that the situation was taken care of, so I took my new boat back to the scene of my earlier predations. All that was left of the pirate fleet was a burning ruin making enough smoke to easily cover my approach and departure. Everything looked good.
I made good time getting back to my family. To my mild surprise not everyone was as confident of my success as I was. Bill Zimmerman seemed suspicious of my efficacy until I showed him the pictures that I’d taken. That man would have made a good officer. Just in case I haven’t been clear, that wasn’t a compliment.
Anyhow, we were on the road again. By the time we’d reached New Orleans the fire had burned itself out and, aside from the wreckage of a number of boats and barges, the way was clear. It was night again when we sailed on by. The only boat I recognized from the previous altercation was the recreational trawler, it was situated at the city docks. I made sure to tak
e us around the area of the wreckage using the far side of the river. From there on it looked like smooth sailing.
Chapter 5: Family Reunions, Indifferent Archery, and Like Father Like Son
On the trip north we encountered numerous other survivors. Most of them seemed happy enough to ignore us and be about their own business. A few decided to join our group, apparently feeling that we represented a safer alternative to going it alone. By the time we reached the Missouri shore we must have doubled our size. It had become increasingly apparent that our food reserves wouldn’t last long, so I knew that if I wanted to get the in-laws on board I’d have to hurry. Meanwhile, everyone else was tasked with fishing the river in an effort to stretch our rations.
We had also encountered a number of drifting boats and barges. I kept everyone else back while Zander and I investigated the first such drifting vessel for potential salvage. Once we got close we noticed an enemy stumbling around the deck and gave up on the idea of salvage as not worth the time and risk.
The island which we decided to use as a base of operations was a skinny muddy swell just above the surface of the river. Its primary purpose for us was as a gathering point, although it also supplied us with wood for our cooking fires.
Once everyone was settled in I took one of our inflatable rafts to the west bank of the river and began a short trek to an infinitesimal blip on the map called Cottonville. I made my approach at night. Once there I found very few of the enemy wandering about. I was careful to stalk them one by one until I had enough of them eliminated for me to risk hot wiring a car without interruption. All of my available options for vehicular appropriation were of run down older models, so it didn’t take me long to get on the road.
I knew that I had an annoyingly long drive ahead of me, especially once I discovered the number of wrecks in the road. The situation wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t drive around the obstructions, but I was forced to keep my speed down to avoid crashing. As I traveled along, I found the roads around the towns to be significantly more dangerous. More pile ups and more of the enemy. Sensing a pattern, I consulted my map and made a point of giving former population centers a wide berth. Compared to how things were for me on day one of the disaster the driving was fairly safe. When I did find the occasional road blockage too large to bypass, I was able to turn around and find another way with little difficulty.
I didn’t encounter a single fast moving enemy during the entire trip to Southgreen. My first impression of the village, in the morning light, was that it was a ghost town. That changed when I turned the corner and came upon my father-in-law’s address.
The yard and street surrounding his home were littered with the bodies of the slain. There were hundreds of them, each with a bullet injury to the head. It looked like Dad had been busy. The stench was oppressive as all the corpses were clearly over a week old. When I approached the house a veritable cloud of black birds took to the air, announcing my presence.
The bodies were too thick for me to enter the driveway. I was worried that if I tried my vehicle would get hung up. Then I reconsidered, and just plowed my way through the human remains anyway. I figured that I’d probably want to hot wire a new car for the return journey, anyway, preferably one with a full tank of gas. With all the biological matter clogging the driveway there was no way any cars in the garage would be leaving any time soon, either, at least not without a lot of messy cleanup.
I waited in the car for a couple seconds, just sitting there. Anybody keeping a lookout would have surely seen and heard my approach. I was just about to honk the horn when the front door opened and Felicia’s dad stepped out and said hello.
“Paul, is that you? Where’s Felicia? How are the kids? Where is everybody?”
I answered, “The situation is under control. I felt it was safer to leave them on our boat, just in case. May I come in?” He said yes, I did so, and we got down to making a few plans.
George had done pretty well for himself. There had only been a few hundred people in his village to begin with, so killing all the transformed hadn’t been that great of a challenge. Once he opened fire they all just lined up outside his door. At first he had been terrified as his bullets seemed to have no effect. Once he learned, through trial and error, the secret of shooting them in the head, his situation became much more tenable.
As soon as the enemy had been put down he’d searched the town for any survivors to invite home. He also looted the local grocery store and collected whatever ammunition he could. That last part proved difficult due to the lack of a local gun shop and George’s reluctance to enter anyone’s house. He was intimidated at the thought of meeting any of the enemy at close quarters.
We decided that any of the town’s survivors would be welcome to come back to the boats with us. There was no sense remaining behind. All the village of Southgreen had left was diminishing food reserves. Once back with our flotilla we could continue to loot as we traveled up and down the river, greatly increasing our options. In addition, if anyone wanted to try for a more sustainable method of food production, that would be just as easy by the river as it would be in the village. Of course, the major selling point for life on the river was that the enemy couldn’t seem to swim.
Finding cars for everyone was simple enough. They were littered in every street and driveway. It was actually easier to hot wire the ignitions than it would have been to root around all the pockets of the dead searching for keys.
The journey back to the river was even simpler than the journey to Southgreen, since I already knew a safe way. I even felt secure enough to take a nap and let Nancy, my mother-in-law, do the driving. Altogether there were thirty-one of us in twenty-four separate vehicles. That included all of Felicia’s brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and, of course, mom and dad, as well as everyone else who had survived. Since many of the newcomers to the fleet had more space on their boats than they needed I anticipated few difficulties finding a place for the townsfolk to sleep.
You can imagine the tearful nature of our family reunion under such circumstances. I think some of the others were just a bit jealous. I made sure that everyone knew I was open to the idea of any rescue mission for anyone with a reasonably confirmed location. The only person who could offer that was a fellow by the name of Dan. But his ex-wife and kid were in California and he knew that was just too far. It was one of those situations where even if I got there, overcoming whatever obstacles, the journey back would actually prove more dangerous for his family than just leaving them in Yosemite. The last Dan had heard was that someone with a gun (probably a park ranger) had killed off the enemy in that region, leaving it relatively safe.
Even with everyone fishing, our food shortage was beginning to become a real problem. Our preferred method of gathering was to sail up to the river bank and kill any of the enemy that showed themselves. Then we’d go ashore and take whatever was handy. With that being our policy I couldn’t help but notice that our ammunition situation was constantly and rapidly getting worse. We had been fortunate that so many newcomers to our group had survived with a store of ammunition and were willing to share. Without that kind of esprit de corps I would have been out of lead a long time ago. Even as it was I was down to four bullets for my rifle and nine for my revolver. Kill a few zombies here, a few zombies there, and it all adds up, eventually.
I started practicing with a bow that I’d picked up during one of our raids. My early training had included archery but I’d never been that great of a shot. We made some extra arrows for it and I practiced on shore bound targets. The main problem with that method was that it was real slow going. Home made arrows are crap for accuracy. At least mine were.
My intention was to take everyone back to New Orleans. The place seemed like crap, but at least we would be safer from the monsters. I would have liked to show up with enough supplies so that it didn’t look like we were a bunch of beggars. I had hopes that I could get a job helping out the local police.
The day I decided that it was time to begin our southward journey, about a week after bringing the in-laws back, we got a call on the shortwave from some guy up north. He claimed to be part of a ‘community of survivors beginning a new civilization’. Mark, the guy making the call, made what he had going on sound pretty good. At least he didn’t have a major pirate problem. We also had some talk, among ourselves, about the probability of the zombies all freezing to death come winter. In order to get to Mark’s ‘Haven’ we’d have to pass through some Illinois waterways. I didn’t tell anyone, but I figured that when we got close enough I’d scout ahead to see if everything was as advertised. The last thing I wanted was another New Orleans debacle. If Haven was a trap then we could always head south and take our chances in a warmer clime come winter.
The further north we traveled the more boats we picked up. Eventually, our food situation became bad enough that Zander and I began clearing the decks of any drifting vessels that we came across. Reduced to archery, the process was quite a job. Then I’d board and finish off any of the enemy trapped in a cabin. My wife had made some real nice leather bracers for me to protect me from getting bitten. We didn’t get much food, but at least there was more than enough space to go around after we reclaimed a few of the drifting pleasure craft.
When we reached the southern tip of Illinois I made time for a sit down with all the ‘captains’ (for lack of a better description of the leader of an individual boat). It was decided that we’d all get together for our discussion on a big trawler that had joined us somewhere along the way. It was a real nice luxury job. The captain’s name was Smith
The captain had a nice big table set up so we could all get right down to business. There were pictures on the cabin walls depicting various fisherman trophies taken in the past, presumably from the deck of that very ship.
