by Scott W Cook
“Sam~!” Andrea called out over the radio, “Are you and Andy okay? What the hell’s going on?”
“We’ve got company, as I’m sure you know,” I said, “We’re tying up and will be with you in a minute. We’re okay.”
We ran up the ramp and through the gate and were both met by our women. Tara crushed Andy to her with a laugh and Andrea did pretty much the same to me.
“Where’s Tony?’ I asked, looking around. Brenda and Carl smiled at us from either side of the main gate where they’d occasionally lean around and take pot shots at the congregating ghouls.
“Up here, Skip,” Tony said from the office walkway railing above my head, “Good vantage point although not much of a firing angle. I think your friends are bugging out.”
Now that he said something, I noticed that the firing outside the property had ceased. Although well-armed, the motorcycle gang and however many they had in their backup team were facing over a thousand relentless monsters.
“Good,” I said, “But fuck them…”
“What do we do now, Sam?” Carl asked.
“Bug out,” I said, “There’s another boat near me that we’ve been stocking and keeping ready. It’s a nice Island Packet cutter, a forty-two footer called Sexual Heeling. Yeah I know… but a good sea boat and ready to shove off. We’ll collect some of the gear we’ve been stowing aboard other boats and head out tonight.”
“We’re leaving?” Brenda asked, “Christ, we just got here.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh, “but we’re compromised. Sooner or later, that gang will be back. Mark is with them.”
“No way…” Carl said, “How?”
I shrugged, “No idea. Maybe they were out on Gulf Boulevard just as we left and found Mark and his buddy… maybe his buddy was a member of this gang… whatever the case, he’s with them now and however they did it, they found us out. We’re no longer secure here.”
“How long?” Brenda asked.
“An hour or so,” I said, “You and Carl can stay here. We know where everything is and it’ll go faster. I’ll also feel better with you guys keeping an eye out here. Tony will take command of the Island Packet with you two. I think Tara will sail with us, correct?”
She beamed at me, still with an arm wrapped around Andy’s waist.
“Okay,” Carl said.
The two boats were pretty much ready to go. All we had to do was move a few things including some of the gear we’d gotten from West Marine only the night before.
“I can’t believe how much has happened since last night,” Andrea said to me as we transferred an ammo box to the Sexual heeling.
“You ain’t kiddin’, babe,” I said tiredly. The day’s activity was starting to tell. None of us had gotten much rest since we’d woken up and rushed to help the group at Fish tails early that morning.
After a while, I said that we should just stack stuff on deck and deal with it later. The sooner we left the better. Andrea, Tara and Andy were rushing to collect all the extra food, water and other tidbits we’d stashed on boats around us. I reminded them not to forget the ten jerry cans of diesel we had set aside also.
I went below and pulled out a small bag from my cabin and went back up to the main gate.
Carl and Brenda were there, watching the zombies who watched them. There were less now, but the ghouls that remained were once again jostling each other to get close to the gate.
“What’ve you got there?” Carl asked, pointing to the bag.
“Little parting gift,” I said, pulling out three softball sized gray lumps from the bag.
I placed these equally along the gate and wired them together to a spark fuse that I stuck into the space between the gate and the fence.
“Is that C4?” Carl asked.
“Yup,” I said, “I appropriated this from the armory before I left my last posting. Took a few souvenirs, you might say. Now let’s get the hell outta here.”
We walked back to the boats and their engines were already running. Carl and Brenda climbed aboard the cutter and I took one last look around.
I’d miss my haven. I’d lived at the Harborage marina for just over a year now. Before the zombie apocalypse, it had been a friendly and social place where I’d made some great boating friends. Afterward, it had been a fortified hideaway with invaluable resources and a sense of privacy and safety. Now I had to leave it and a considerable amount of supplies behind.
I got aboard and we pulled out. Sorcerer leading the way between the northern breakwater entrance, and right and out through Salt Creek toward Tampa Bay. What had once been the two sections of the U.S. Coast Guard base fell away to port and starboard as we plied our way into open water.
As we reached the spot where Salt Creek met the Bay, I distinctly heard a distant clap of thunder from the west. There were no clouds that night.
I hoped it had been Mark’s gang trying to break in and not just a bunch of zombies who triggered my little surprise.
Chapter 16
From the personal journal of Samuel R. Decker
I wasn’t happy about leaving Saint Pete behind, especially because of a band of thugs. My home for the past year, and my citadel for the past six months was taken from me in a matter of a few hours and I was pissed.
The harborage had been the perfect hideaway – good location, secure and loaded with a variety of supplies including fuel and the ability to make water. Because it had been a marina, most survivors wouldn’t even think about it twice because boats – especially yachts that lived in wet slips – were probably extremely frivolous to most people living in our dead world.
“You look pensive,” Andrea said as she came up the companion with a couple of Coronas in her hands.
I stood behind the wheel, looking carefully out at the moonlit night. Neither boat had any lights on, there really was no need nor frankly did we need to be spotted, so I was carefully scanning the water for any floating debris as we motored across the bay at about six knots.
“You want to talk about it?” Andrea asked me.
I harrumphed and shrugged, “Just thinking about Harborage. It sticks in my craw that I let those assholes – including that fucking Mark – push us out of our home.”
She handed me a beer and stood next to me with an arm around my waist. It was a nice feeling and helped a little, “I understand. But what choice did we have?”
“I know,” I replied, “Hell, it was my idea to leave. To stay and fight was pointless. Still a lot of zombies and we’d never get that entire gang. So they’d just keep coming back and harassing us. There can be no rest at Harborage anymore.”
“That’s not to say we can’t go back for stuff,” Andrea suggested.
I nodded, “True. And maybe this is the push we need to move on anyway.”
She was quiet for a long moment and then asked, “Sam… why were there so many ghouls tonight? We’ve never had a horde like that before.”
“Good question,” I replied thoughtfully, “I wish I could say. Something had to draw them to us, though.”
“Object in the water,” Came Andy’s voice from the foredeck, “Looks like a palm tree. Dead ahead about a hundred yards.”
“Okay,” I called, “Good eye.”
I turned the wheel ten degrees north and into the outgoing tide. Plenty to clear the floating tree trunk.
About fifty yards behind us, I saw Tony bring the Island Packet around a bit to follow.
“Where are we going?” Andrea asked.
“We’ll anchor close to where we were this afternoon,” I said, “And try MacDill in the morning. I’d still like to stock up before we make our next move.”
“Which is what?”
I scoffed, “If I knew that, my love, we’d have already made it.”
“Any ideas?” She asked.
“Plenty,” I said, “But no idea if any of them are good.”
“What about Atlanta?”
“The CDC?” I asked, “Makes sense. If anybody had any information on th
is… plague? Or how it spread or where it came from, it’d be them. If you recall, though, in the first month or so of the outbreak, the CDC was overrun. One of the last news reports was how thousands of zombies had converged on the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, in fact how bad Atlanta was in general.”
“Yes,” Andrea replied, “But we don’t know what the fuck happened. Maybe there are still people there, or at least data.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “There’s also Stovington, Vermont. And a few other locations that might have some answers.”
“Couldn’t we just wait it out?” Andrea asked, “I mean… these things are dead bodies and a lot of them don’t look so great. They smell, which seems to suggest they’re still decaying, if a bit slowly. Won’t they all be gone in a few years at the most?”
I shrugged, “I don’t know. But look what’s happened in just six months. The vast majority of living people are either dead or have become zombies. And what if they don’t die off? Or what if the survivors hide so well these things, billions of them, start gnawing on any living thing they can. Probably screw up the ecosystem or even wipe out important species. All that notwithstanding… I’d like to live in a civilization again.”
She snorted, “Really? Crime, pollution, meaningless politics, processed foods, mindless TV, Facebook… ecological rape…”
I chuckled, “I know. In a way, this plague might be the best thing for old mother Earth, in the short term anyway. I’d bet dollars to navy beans there’s somebody out there that thinks so. Yet in the long term… who knows? And it’s nice to think that as we grow in knowledge and technology, so too will we grow in wisdom. And maybe one day put aside our petty problems and reach out to other worlds and new places to explore.”
She squeezed me tight, “A Star Trek type utopia?”
“Not a utopia, exactly,” I replied, “But something like that. In the 23rd and 24th century, Roddenberry envisioned a world where we finally put all of our stupidity aside and worked to better ourselves and others. He once said, I think, something like that in the future, there’s no hunger, no war, no racism and all the children know how to read.”
“Sounds nice,” Andrea said with a sigh, “But look at us now.”
“Exactly,” I said, “A world gone mad. Either some natural disease has turned people into flesh eating monsters… or…”
“Or it’s man made,” She finished. We’d had this discussion before.
I paused for a bit. We were getting pretty close to the shoreline. My chart plotter indicated we still had a good twelve feet of water ahead for a while, so we could tuck in close.
“Point is,” I finally said, “I want to fix it.”
We were maybe a quarter mile from the shoreline and the bottom was starting to come up. In ten feet of water, five more than I needed, I put the boat in neutral and turned her bow into what little breeze there was.
“Let fall!” I called forward.
Andy released the windlass and the seventy five pound anchor dropped into the water. I put the boat in reverse and made sure we were holding before shutting the engine down. Tony set his hook about a hundred feet away and once again, the silence of our world enveloped us.
“Now what?” Tony called out.
“It’s after midnight,” I said, “let’s set a watch and get some sleep.”
I’m very pleased to report that nothing happened for the rest of the night. I’m also ashamed to report that nothing happened for the rest of the night… I was just too pooped to pump, as Andrea playfully said.
Not really – I could’ve done it, but hey, it was a long rough day.
We awoke to a gorgeous December morning in Florida. The sunrise temperature was hovering around sixty and when Andrea and I stepped out of our cabin, there was a half full pot of coffee ready and waiting. We fixed a cup and climbed up into the cockpit where we found Tara and Andy sipping steaming mugs of their own.
“Morning children,” Andrea said with a grin, “I hope you behaved last night.”
Andy scoffed, “Passed out the moment our heads touched the pillow… then got up and took watch. Well, I did. The lady was gallantly left to get her beauty rest.”
“For which she’s grateful,” Tara said with a giggle, “How about you guys?”
“Crashed and burned,” I said, settling onto one of the benches, “I haven’t had a day like that since before I left the Navy.”
“You ain’t lyin’,” Andrea agreed, blowing on her cup before taking a careful sip, “I’m a Viper pilot. I avoided this infantry shit for a reason.”
“Yeah,” I said with a grin, “No broads.”
She smacked me, “Hey, we broads can fight on the line as good as you swingin’ dicks.”
Tara guffawed. Andy only smiled and shook his head, “That’s mom.”
“I agree,” I said, “But the Corps hadn’t agreed to let women on active infantry yet.”
Andrea smirked, “Darn.”
“Hey, you guys keep it down over there!” Brenda called to us from the cutter, “Decent folks are trying to sleep over here.”
“Oh yeah?” Tara shot back, “Did you guys pick up some passengers in the night?”
Brenda laughed and stuck out her tongue.
“You the only one up?” I asked. We really didn’t have to yell, the other sailboat was floating only about seventy-five feet away, swinging loosely on her anchor.
“Yeah,” Brenda replied, “Took last watch.”
“When they get up, why don’t you guys dink over and we’ll figure out our next move,” I suggested.
Around oh-seven thirty, they did just that. Carl, Brenda and Tony piled into the Sexual Heeling’s ten foot inflatable and pulled up to our starboard entry port. Tony was the last up the ladder and grinned.
“What’s for breakfast, Skip?” He asked.
“Omelets,” I replied, “Got a big western downstairs hot off the pan for you guys. There’s fresh coffee and even some sweet rolls.”
“God-damn,” Carl remarked with a broad grin, “Like the fuckin’ Ritz over here.”
I scoffed, “Yeah, with powdered eggs. But still…”
With everyone eating and their mugs mostly full, I began our impromptu meeting. The sun was well over the tree line on the shore and the day was warming a bit, although still in the low sixties.
“I’d still like to try for MacDill,” I started, “We need ammo and other supplies we might find there.”
“We’re game,” Carl said.
“There’s a problem, though,” Tony put in.
“Exactly,” I said with a sigh, “Last night’s little ruckus has left us in a bad position.”
“I thought we were pretty well provisioned and stuff,” Brenda said.
“True,” I replied, “But I’m talking literally. That was a large and well organized gang that Mark’s hooked himself up with. And I doubt they’re just going to let things go. That doesn’t seem to be the way things work anymore, especially for those of the asshole persuasion.”
There was a chuckle and sounds of agreement.
“They can’t get over here, though,” Carl offered, “I mean with the Gandy and the Howard Franklin clogged with dead cars and stuff.”
“Probably not,” I said, “But there’s always the water. Or maybe there’s a way around up north… or maybe they’ve already been over here. I’m pretty sure they had a Humvee with a fifty caliber machine gun mounted. That’s definitely military equipment.”
“So we can’t just go ashore and leave these two large and easily spotted boats unattended,” Tony finished.
“Shit,” Andrea said, “More splitting up.”
“Yup,” I said, “We need a team here to guard the boats and a team to go to the base.”
“Maybe we should recon the marina too,” Andy suggested, “Not to mention grab those pontoons. We left one at the fuel dock, one on J dock and one on B dock and they all hold a good number of people and they all run and have nearly full tanks of gas.”
I nodded, “that’s a good point. Although there are only about ten thousand boats in Saint Pete alone, so I’d have to bet there’s no shortage of transportation.”
“So we just leave the pontoons?” Carl asked.
I frowned, “Well, I don’t plan on staying in Tampa Bay long. Frankly, I think it’s time to move on and do some exploring and some research. My plan is to recon the base, grab what we can and head for Key West. After that… not sure. But we don’t need those pontoon boats and I’m not sure going back over there is worth the risk or not.”
“Why Key West?” Brenda asked.
“Well,” I explained, “We’ve got to go around through the Keys to go up the east coast. And Key West may be a good place to stop and pick up supplies or maybe information.”
“You think there might be people alive there?” Brenda asked.
“Possible,” I said, “There are people still alive here.”
“There’s Naval Air Station Key West,” Tony offered, “and only one way onto and off the island over ground… or bridge, as it were. Theoretically, Key West could have been easily defended from hordes of walking dead, provided they cleaned house first.”
“The zombies would have to come via the overseas highway,” Andy said, “So they could barricade US-1 somewhere or even blow a bridge further up the Keys to stem the flow?”
“Exactly, L T,” I said with a grin, “No idea if they were able to get organized, but it’s possible. There’s plenty of fishing to sustain a small population and many of the city’s homes and businesses still have cisterns for rain water collection.”
“Hell,” Tony put in, “There’s the Turkey Point power plant which supplies Monroe County. If somebody is still alive to run it, the nuclear reactors could be providing electricity to the entire Keys, or what’s left of it.”
“Damn,” Brenda said thoughtfully, “It’s been so long without power… it’d be weird.”
“I’d have to bet there are still pockets of powered humanity somewhere,” I said, “We can only hope that somebody is still overseeing the nuclear plants, or at least has shut them down safely. Anyway, since we’ve got to go around Key West, we might as well stop and go to Sloppy Joes.”
