Z-Boat (Book 3): Z-End

by Robb, Suzanne

  Ally and Kevin found Jason first. He sat in the cabin next to the steering wheel. Five armed guards surrounded him and a nasty looking A-23 sat in his lap. She caught the glare he sent her way. The men seemed ill at ease and she wondered if Steve had shared with them how quick Jason was to discard their lives to save his own skin.

  "I don't give a shit what you did, I want to know what our next move is," she said.

  "My thoughts don't carry much weight anymore. Why don't you go and talk with Steve, he's the new leader." Jason sneered at her.

  Too tired to hide her shock, all she could do was throw Kevin with a questioning look.

  "Oh, you didn't know? Hmm, interesting. Wonder what else lover boy didn't mention."

  Ally left the room, Kevin on her heels. "Ally, I didn't say anything because we have people loyal to you who are watching them. He isn't the boss of us now. Jason is trying to get a rise out of you."

  She pushed through a crowd of men sorting out supplies. What the hell was going on?

  "Ally, can't you see he's trying to separate us?"

  She reached the end of the barge and leaned over the side. The exertion of the last few minutes left her drained. The boat sank deep in the water, the extra weight of the added crew putting them in danger. Ally eyed her surroundings. Tall ships to the right, ocean to the left. In the distance the shores of Midway.

  The barge didn't move and it occurred to her they were at a standstill. Two crews thrown together, loyalties split, and a decision to be made. She faced Kevin, his lips moving and hands gesticulating wildly.

  "Kevin, I need to figure out what's going on. I need to talk to Steve. Let me know everything that comes out of Jason's mouth."

  He put his hands around her waist when she tripped. She stared up into his face and didn't think before acting. Their lips met in a tender kiss full of promise.

  "Be careful. You're not strong enough to hold your own against a stiff breeze, let alone a renegade pirate."

  "I'll be okay."

  She sat for a bit listening to conversations float in and out around her. Her body itched in several places. Some people nodded, others ignored her. When she'd almost given up, Steve strode toward her. No guards with him and no weapon, at least none she could see.

  "Ally, glad to see you up and about. I hear you wanted to talk to me."

  She kept a close eye on him while he sat to her right. She turned so she could look him in the face. A gash peeked out of his shirt cuff and ran down to the tip of his thumb where his nail had been ripped off.

  "Why were you down there?" She kept it simple. The concoction Kevin had given her no longer soothed her throat.

  "I wanted to help. When I realized the ship was going under, I let Jason go and headed down to you." He played with a torn bit of shirt never making eye contact.

  "Your first instinct was to save me?"

  He chuckled. "No, I wanted to save my own ass. But, I knew my dad would haunt me if I didn't do the right thing."

  "Uh huh, and I was in a room full of cadavers and zombies because?"

  "I knew you'd be safe there until I could get you out with no one knowing. That's why I sent Daniel with you. He did tell you what happened with Jason, right?" He looked up for the first time and she saw dark circles under his eyes. He wasn't sleeping much. Did he watch over her with Kevin?

  "Funny place to call safe."

  "Ally, if there was an alternative, I would have used it. My men needed to see me being firm or I would have lost all credibility…not that I didn't anyways. I also wanted you to see I'm not my father. I've done bad things in order to survive." His eyes lowered to a thin row of uneven stitches keeping his thumb attached to his hand.

  She needed time, energy, a kick to the ass. Anything to sort out what was going on. Before, when you knew whose side someone was on, things were easy. Kill the bad guys, protect the good ones. Now everything had turned on its head and she was dealing with differing degrees of evil.

  Joseph, who'd lost his mind. Victor, who'd taken over the facility, and with the help of the doctor killed thousands of people. Jerry, who tortured people and screwed with things best left alone to create the perfect zombie. Jason, who dropped innocents into the ocean on a floating city. And Daniel...she'd assumed he was on the bad side of things, and he used his blood to save her life. Steve, who claimed to be the son of one of her best friends, but locked her up in a death room.

  The list was endless. The world had died long before, but hope had sustained her. The belief she could save Sean and a few others. She thought of Steve's words. Hadn't they all done bad things in order to survive? The entire world was a grey area.

  "Thanks for trying to help." Her thoughts settled and she focused on the problem at hand.

  "I'm sorry about your friend. He liked you a great deal."

  "Nah, he wanted a reason to kick Jason's ass."

  Steve smiled at her comment and she saw a sliver of Brian in it. Maybe the guy wasn't lying about everything. Then again, it didn't matter.

  "Let me guess, you want to know what our next move is, but with Jason and his cronies sitting in the control room, you wonder who's in charge."

  Ally glanced toward Midway, Eastern Island was easy to make out. "At first, but now I'm curious as to why we've been sitting here in plain view and no one from the island has paid us a visit."

  Steve stood and slipped on a pair of glasses she recognized. He shrugged his shoulders at her look of annoyance. "I thought about that as well, could be a lot reasons. None of them good. This place is still our best bet. They have supplies we need."

  She plucked the glasses off of his face before he had a chance to protest. "Perhaps, but I'd still like to know as much as we can before sailing in there."

  Kevin ran up to her, giving Steve a dirty look. "I need to talk to Ally. Alone."

  She held onto his arm when she stood. "Let's go back to whatever place you had me so I can sort some things out."

  Kevin filled her in on crew rumblings while they made their way to the back of the lower cargo hold. Sean sat on a thin blanket with Amy. The two stopped talking when they saw her. She attempted to smile but when Amy ran away, Ally didn't think she'd succeeded.

  "Sean, how are you doing, kiddo?"

  He rummaged in his pockets for a minute then stared at her. "Are we really going to live on a submarine?"

  She arched an eyebrow. "Who told you that?"

  "I don't know…someone."

  With a sigh, she eased herself onto the cot, which seemed much lower than she remembered. "I'm going to find a safe place for us."

  His eyes turned sad. "Everybody says there's no such thing as safe anymore."

  She wanted to kick the shit out of everyone on the barge. Sean was a kid. He didn't need to deal with adult crap.

  "Listen to me. I'm going to find somewhere safe. That's a promise."

  He jumped up and gave her a hug and quick kiss on the cheek. Something dropped into her lap and he ran off, saying he wanted to find Amy. Ally picked up what Sean had given her. A small worn medal. Age had ground down the engravings but she recognized it. The Saint Christopher medallion Brian had given her when she accepted the job piloting the Betty Loo. She'd hidden it away in one of her bags months before, but Sean must have found it. She slipped it into her pocket with a smile.

  "Kevin, who decided we should sit here like targets?"

  He handed her a cup of the same sweet smelling liquid from earlier and she sucked it down.

  "No one. People wanted to do different things. Problem is, we don't have the fuel to go back to the floating city, we have no idea what's waiting for us on the island, and the ocean has proven to be a danger. The sharks have left us alone, but we've seen ships going under further down the line where Steve's men ran."

  Ally weighed the information. There was no other choice but to go to Midway. They were down to one barge, and three sets of allegiances. She needed to find a way to unite them, or at least get more people on her side.
<
br />   "Does Jason stay in the control room all the time?"

  Kevin nodded and checked her bandages. Part of her wanted to swat away his hands while she plotted, but she also reveled in someone looking after her for a change. Time to live in the present with the people she cared about. He placed a kiss on her forehead and smiled.

  "Fever's gone, and you're healing up. Still a few days before you'll be a hundred percent."

  She clasped his hand in hers and pulled him onto the cot next to her. For the next few hours she proved to him she was closer to a hundred percent than he'd realized.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ally sat in the main cabin, Kevin to her right and Steve on the left. Jason hadn't left his post, and neither had his guards.

  "We need to do something before those damn mutants realize there's fresh blood here," Kevin said.

  Steve nodded. "He's right, we've pushed it too long as it is."

  "We know you want to go to Midway, we're on board with that," Ally said.

  Jason laughed. "I'm supposed to believe you trust me, Ally? I know Daniel told you what I tried to do, if he didn't, your new best friend did. You bet your ass I'm going to Midway, but I have no intention of getting stabbed in the back."

  She raised her hands. "That's what you think? We need every able-bodied person here. We've lost over sixty percent of our people. I don't care what you've done before, we need you now. So grow a set and prepare to move. No more hiding in here like a coward."

  "You're not in charge. Do not mistake a need for your skill as making you the boss. I'm sure we can find some survivor on the island more than willing to take your place."

  Ally stared into his eyes. "Don't mistake holding a gun for control. If I wanted you out of here, you'd be gone."

  Ally left the room before he responded. Kevin followed her and she heard a faint chuckle. The last day and a half, pain aside, had been great. She'd made time to talk with Sean and allay his fears, even played a few games with him. He won all the time, which she suspected had to do with the ever-changing rules.

  She and Kevin were inseparable, and she'd never seen him so happy. A niggling memory fluttered at the back of her mind, but she pushed it down. Things were going to get better.

  The next morning, the barge moved toward Midway. Three separate islands that made up the area came into view within an hour. The crew tried to ignore the splashes and moans of the zombies dropping off the ships on their starboard side as they floated by.

  Eastern Island, comprised mostly of runways and hangars, was deserted. Scans didn't show any warm bodies or movement. They wrote off Spit Island, a small little thing of no use. A nautical mile later, they approached Sand Island, their goal.

  Turtle Beach was covered in the same muck and grime as everything else touched by the ocean. No sign of warm bodies, but did register movement. Steve had taken over steering and guided them to Fuel Pier, also known as the Fuel Farm to anyone who ever spent time there.

  Jason and a group of his guys jumped off the boat before anyone else was ready. Ally counted on this, knowing the guy was a selfish ass and would want first dibs on everything. He didn't share.

  A grim smile settled on her face. She hoped he didn't realize until it was too late that rushing onto the island without surveying first would only give him first dibs on crazed survivors and hungry zombies.

  "Should we…do something?" Kevin checked his pistol.

  "Yeah, we need to get those hoses in and charge our tanks. If he finds trouble, I don't want him bringing it back here."

  Steve landed on the pier with two other men. They pulled a large hose off a reel near the barge and refueled while another small crew covered them. Ally noted how close the fuel line was and checked the other slips. A few boats floated into one another, but nothing was tied off.

  Thirty minutes later, Steve returned. "We're topped off. Let's take a look around."

  He took the wheel and eased out of the spot with some help from a machine on the pier that used a large metal rod with a giant tire on the end to push them back. The North Beach sprouted three sniper towers, but they were deserted. On the paved area, there were three sharks and two whales, all long dead.

  Steve traveled around the whole island in less than twenty minutes. When the high-powered lifting system used to elevate a submarine out of the water for repairs came into view, Ally felt her heart pound in her chest. There were two in the air, mid-lift. One was a newer model, the other a good thirty years old. Her spark of hope flared, and she vowed nothing would get in her way.

  After a group vote, they decided to enter the Inner Harbor and tie themselves to the tug pier. Again, Ally noted nothing was secured, small boats and cargo ships float adrift, no signs of life or unlife. Three subs were under, either waiting to be picked up or ready to launch when the world ended. The hatches were closed, but she knew that didn't mean anything. They'd need to get in and do a search of their own.

  "This place will be secure from the sharks once we get the entry gate closed, but if we run into problems…" She left the thought of them being trapped inside, unable to make a hasty retreat, unfinished.

  Steve chimed in. "It's worth the risk." A few others jumped off and made fast the barge's lines. She watched as they used an outdated, hand-operated wheel to close the gates.

  More men joined them when one of the gears jammed. After several tries, the gate shut with a lurch. She hoped it would open fast if need be. It rattled and they watched a shark rise ten feet out of the water, its teeth rotten. When it plunged back into the ocean, she felt Kevin's grip on her arm and gently pried his fingers open.

  "We're okay," she said.

  He offered a smile, but all she saw was terror in his eyes.

  "Hey, trust me. We're on my turf now."

  Sean's head bobbed at the top of the stairway leading to the storage area and she waved him forward. "Come on up, kiddo."

  He eyed Kevin and took Ally's other hand possessively. She almost laughed, but stopped herself.

  "Ally, you ready to do a sweep of the island?" Steve held a pistol and had a rifle slung over his shoulder, while four heavily armed men waited behind him.

  "Yeah, but if Jason tries to slink back, we need to keep men posted here," she said.

  After much protesting, Kevin stayed behind with a dozen other men. They agreed to set off a flare if they ran into any trouble. Ally decided her group should secure the old seaplane hangar, since it was the closest building and the likeliest place survivors would hole up. Steve headed toward the clinic, and another group went for the back-up generators.

  Ally knew the corroded monuments they passed were from a time long ago. Their meaning was lost over decades of neglect and Firm propaganda, but she knew the truth. Not going straight to the sub crane made her a little insane, but safety trumped everything. Even if Jason found a way to operate a crane and lower a sub, she would know what he was up to.

  Seventy feet ahead of her loomed the hangar doors. The whole building had been painted a mixture of brown and black to disguise it from spying eyes from the sky. She caught sight of a small opening and tapped the side of her glasses to zoom in. She registered a faint heat signature.

  "We might have a survivor, keep your eyes open." She ran forward, taking cover behind the base of an old water tank.

  She and the rest of her group crisscrossed their way to the entrance, yanking it open when they arrived. Ally waited with her seven people, weapons raised. Flashlights shown on several misshapen forms on the floor. Whimpering broke the silence. Ally felt the inside wall for a switch and flipped it. Lights flickered on, and she guessed the team had arrived at the back-up generators, or there was still some residual power in the batteries.

  Over three dozen men and women leaned against the walls in varying stages of decay. A few moved; most were deformed in some way. A man with an ear dripping down the side of his face. A woman with an eye growing out of her nostril. A man with an extra set of fingers on his left hand. Each mutation
was more grotesque than the last.

  Ally knelt next to a woman who bled from her ears and tasted the air with a serpentine tongue coming out of her right eye socket. Her words were incoherent, a mish-mash of thoughts.

  "You gonna put her out of her misery?"

  Ally shook her head, and a friend of Steve's fired a single shot into the woman's head.

  The room held several barrels of water festooned with caution stickers. Food ration packets littered the floor and a picture of what happened formed. The people here used the water barrels from the salvage submarines, not knowing they were radioactive. Ally suspected the Firms did something else to cause the mutations, but God knew what. The poor bastards never stood a chance. News of the outbreaks had probably freaked them out, and when communications went down, a group must have locked themselves in here, thinking someone would rescue them.

  She glanced at the open door and knew at least one person escaped. The beam of her flashlight landed in a corner. Insects writhed over one another in an attempt to get at the meatier parts of the bodies. Bloody hand and footprints led in different directions. She hefted the A-19 and prepared for an encounter with something new.

  "Make sure they're all dead. Use knives." She walked around the rest of the hangar to see if anything was salvageable.

  The group came up with a few pouches of military meals. Ally noted the lack of weapons; even the small sidearms every Firm employee carried were missing. Gunshots stopped all of them in their tracks, their eyes scanning the sky. After a count of thirty and no flare, they moved on. Ally grabbed an Etch-pen and scratched a message on the front doors informing anyone who arrived that the hangar was no good. She included an arrow pointing west, just in case.

  Next, office buildings with shattered windows, upended desks, and more dead bodies. Ally knew something was out there, watching them, following them. The others picked up on her tension.

  "You want to take a break? I can take lead." That was Emma, a short woman with red hair and multiple piercings.