The Boat

by Christine Dougherty

  Steve’s jaw tightened. “Because no one is asking us to.”

  Maggie sighed and nodded, deflated and a little bit ashamed of herself. It wasn’t Steve’s fault…no one person was deciding what was best for them all.

  Adam crossed her mind at that thought…he was the closest thing they had to a leader. No one on ThreeBees or Big Daddy had informed him of their decision. Partly because it seemed a somewhat private matter but also because, Maggie had to admit to herself, the people on Flyboy had become superior under Adam’s watch. As if they truly believed themselves at least slightly more important than the people on the other boats.

  She glanced across to Flyboy. There were lights on over there, too many. They were getting lax with resources. Why not? When you always had a ready supply that had been supplied to you without any personal risk, it held a lot less value.

  ThreeBees was intentionally dark.

  “I wish we had Carl here,” Steve said, but the big pirate was still nursing the gunshot wound on his leg. Steve had accepted Singer’s demand that Mrs. Allen be buried on land, but only on the condition that he–Steve–dictate the scope and boundaries of the mission.

  His first decision was that Jade was not allowed to come with them. It would be himself, Dave, Singer, and Brian. The less people the better. But Jade had insisted she go and Singer had backed her on it. Steve told Singer he was being ridiculously and dangerously short-sighted but they wouldn’t budge. Jade was going with them.

  Steve had relented but now, seeing Jade on the deck, a slip of a shadow amongst the other shadows, he had another uneasy twinge.

  “Jade,” he said, his voice calm. “Are you sure you want to do this? Go with us? You could say goodbye to her now. Not put yourself at risk.”

  She looked at him, her eyes glittering eerily in the dark. “We are all at risk, all the time.”

  Steve nodded and then turned to watch as Singer and Brian lifted Mrs. Allen’s body down into the rowboat. They would take both rowboats, using the small electric motors until they were close enough to paddle in. Silent and dark, they should be able to get in and out without alerting any of the walking dead.

  Or so Steve hoped.

  He turned to Maggie. “Wish me luck.”

  She nodded and her face was full of feeling that Steve didn’t know how to interpret. “Good luck,” she said and then faded back into the doorway to the salon. Steve turned to Dave.

  “Giddy up,” Dave said, his face a grave mask.

  “Yeah, let’s go. I want to be in and out before dawn.” Steve looked at his watch. “We’ve got no more than four hours, keep it to three to be extra safe.”

  “Shallow grave, then,” Dave said, leaning in and whispering, a strange grin on his face.

  Steve’s laugh was a startled snort. He glanced back to the salon doorway but Maggie was gone.

  “Come on, dumdum, let’s get this show on the road,” Steve said.

  He and Dave would take the smaller rowboat and take lead. The other three–Singer, Brain, and Jade–would take the larger rowboat with the body. And the shovels.

  They skimmed across the black water, engines humming. Steve scanned the shoreline. Everything looked quiet. They would tie up at the same shallow pier that had held the Jeep raft and go inland from there. Steve wondered briefly if Jade would consent to burying Mrs. Allen right on the beach, but knew she wouldn’t. She’d lost all perspective.

  Or maybe I have, Steve thought, feeling unnerved. Maybe it is important to bury the dead but I’ve already forgotten why.

  He leaned lower and cranked the engine another notch.

  Fifty yards from the pier, they cut the engines, rowed the rest of the way in and tied up. The water was rougher near the pier, tossing the small boats. They got the body up onto the pier. Brian was about to toss the shovels up and Steve stayed him with an outstretched hand. He shook his head at Brian. “No sound,” he breathed. Then he looked around at everyone assembled. “No sound, follow my lead, and don’t separate,” he said, meeting the eyes of each person. “If we do get separated, come back here, try not to lead the walkers back with you, wait with the boat. If the boats are gone, hide, use your walkie-talkie–don’t forget that you have to switch it on–a jet ski will come for you. Don’t jump in the water under any circumstances. You know what’s down there.”

  They all nodded.

  “Ok, here we go,” he whispered.

  They turned and began trotting down the pier, Steve leading, Brian and Dave next with Mrs. Allen between them, Singer behind them with the shovels and Jade bringing up the rear.

  They got to the place where the pier disappeared onto the sand and they stopped, crouching and watchful. There was a fifty-foot stretch of sand glowing in the moonlight and edged by a two-lane highway. On the far side, a small motel office sat surrounded by miniature log cabins that served as the rooms. Behind the motel and cabins was the expanse of the woods known as the Pine Barrens.

  They were dark with pine trees, mountain laurel, blueberry bushes and scraggly pinoaks. Nothing stirred; even the wind off the ocean seemed to have trouble penetrating the dense boughs of the pines and seemed to die at the edge of the forest.

  Steve knew that the combination of dirt and sand of the Pine Barrens floor would be ideally suited to a quick internment. Plus, there were fewer walking dead in the woods. Or at least, that had been the case when he’d arrived. Amelia flirted into his mind, as she had been before everything and then as she had been that last morning. He pushed the thought aside.

  He scanned the cabins. They were dark blobs against the darker forest and nothing moved there. Colorful mounds littered the beach and the area around the cabins–ten or twelve that Steve could see–the survivors of the flu who had not survived the rampaging dead.

  Steve didn’t know why some people (most) got back up after dying and others never did. He also didn’t know why the handful of survivors that had made it to the boats had never gotten the flu. They had to be immune. Did that mean they were safe from reanimation? Like the sad bundles around them?

  Would he rather reanimate or rot?

  He pushed all extraneous thoughts from his mind and concentrated on the task at hand: get the old lady buried and get the rest of his people safely back to the boats. He double-checked that the walkie on his hip was powered off–it would be a disaster if someone (Adam) radioed him while they were on land. The reanimated corpses seemed to have pretty good hearing.

  He stood and started across the beach, everyone following behind. Brian was puffing under Mrs. Allen’s weight and Steve heard each hiss and gasp like a shout. When they reached to road, he turned to Brian and pointed to his own chest and then to the wrapped body: do you want me to take your side?

  Brian shook his head, but lowered his eyes. Sweat had broken out across his forehead. He was still panting. Steve tapped his shoulder and he looked up. Steve put a finger to his own lips. Brian nodded and took a deep breath. He gave Steve a thumbs up.

  They trotted lightly across the highway and skirted the motel’s gravel parking lot. The cabins stood dark and ominous, the twin windows of each looking like blank, accusatory eyes. Steve paused between two of the units and waited for the group to reform. There were too many of them. It was too unruly, too chaotic. He passed a nervous hand over his eyes. Then he took a breath and slipped from between the cabins and into the woods.

  The forest floor was soft and forgiving, a layer of pine needles covered the sandy soil, making their passage noiseless. Steve led them about fifty feet in and stopped when he found a small clearing. There would be roots, because pines sent their roots wide, not deep, but they should be able to dig a good grave.

  Singer, Jade, and Brian watched the woods on all sides, searching for movement while Dave and Steve grabbed the shovels and went to work. Mrs. Allen glowed whitely, like a pill-shaped apparition. Steve tore his eyes away from her and concentrated on digging…looking at her body was creeping him out.

  They dug the grave long
and thin and within a half hour had dug down four feet. Steve tapped Jade’s shoulder and armed sweat from his eyes as she turned to inspect it. Steve raised his eyebrows at her: good?

  She nodded and he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes, the thankfulness. She put a light hand on his arm. She nodded again.

  Brian and Singer lifted the body into the grave and Jade made a furious, rotating gesture with her hand. Mrs. Allen’s face was in the dirt. They hastily turned her and a small sob escaped Jade’s lips. The front of the body was covered in black soil and pale sand.

  Jade kneeled at the edge, trying to brush away the dirt and then Steve put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Doesn’t matter, please hurry.

  Jade sat back and her lips moved in a silent prayer. Then she leaned over and placed a small object on the corpse and stood, turning away, her face in her hands.

  Dave shrugged at Steve: is that it? And Steve shrugged back and nodded. Guess so, yeah.

  They advanced to begin filling the grave, but first, Steve leaned over to look in. A small picture frame sat at the level of Mrs. Allen’s bosom. Three beautiful, tow-headed children were held in the frame. Her grandchildren. Steve felt a wave of black depression sweep over and into him, like cold cement filling every inch of his body. Is this what it had come to? This poor old lady buried in the woods with a picture of her (most likely) dead grandchildren? What were they doing? Why didn’t they all just lay down and die?

  He drove his shovel furiously into the mound of carefully piled dirt and threw it down into the grave. He turned for another shovelful and his felt his throat close with an ache of unshed tears.

  He hadn’t been able to bury Amelia. He had…at the end…when she wouldn’t stop coming at him…he had…

  Chunk! Another shovelful of dirt. He was working like a dervish, the dirt flying in an arc as he turned with each load. He didn’t notice the look of concern in Jade’s eyes, the pity. He didn’t see Dave lowering his head in embarrassed silence.

  He saw Amelia. Amelia of the beautiful, honey-colored hair. Her adorable bare feet now covered in swampy black mud. She was on her stomach, but her head was turned around, facing him from between her shoulder blades. Her head twitched and her mouth worked, opening and closing, but the rest of her was still. Her eyes rolled, searching for him, accusing and alive but still dead. Dead and alive. Then he had…in his panic and disgust he had…

  A hand on his back made him jump and he dropped the shovel. Jade was looking at him; they all were. He ran his hand over his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Sorry about that.”

  Dave reached forward and thumped him on the shoulder; Jade squeezed his hand in hers. He nodded. “Let’s go, let’s get back to the boats.”

  They were almost to the beach when it happened.

  They had moved quickly back through the woods, making better time on the way out because they weren’t burdened with a body. Steve was in the lead, Dave behind him and then Brian. Singer and Jade ran side by side, holding hands like young children.

  They neared the edge of the woods and Steve felt a rise in his spirits: he could see the pier from here; they were almost home free. He slowed and signaled for everyone to stop as he searched the area around the cabins, looking for signs of undead movement. Singer squatted next to him.

  “Let’s go, what are we waiting for?” Singer whispered, his voice laced with impatience. He, too, had felt a hopeful lift at the sight of the pier, but it was still tinged with electrifying anxiety. On the way in, he’d been bolstered by the fact that they were doing the right thing, the thing that Jade wanted, but now that it was done…he was chafing at the possible foolishness of the act. He wanted everyone to get back safely.

  Steve hushed him with a gesture, his eyes never leaving the cabins. They were squat and spooky, surrounded with black shadows that could have concealed anything. Anything at all.

  The five of them were crouched in a rough line, using the scrub and blueberry bushes for cover, watching the cabins. No movement; no sound except the eternal shushing of the waves lapping the shoreline.

  Singer shifted again, bringing one knee up, and leaned to put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “There’s nothing there,” he whispered. “Come on, let’s–” A sharp, searing pain burned into his calf.

  Reflexively, Singer threw himself forward into the clearing, bellowing. Steve looked back just in time to see the black pine snake that Singer must have kneeled or stepped on slide away in the other direction.

  It was gone in a second.

  Singer rolled, still bellowing, grabbing for his calf and Jade jumped up. “Singer!” Her voice rang out, a panicked and breaking bell, as she watched her brother writhe in pain.

  Steve threw himself toward Singer.

  “Listen to me,” he whispered, trying to grab Singer’s terrified face in his hands. “It was a snake, just a snake, please calm down, it was just–”

  Behind him, Jade continued to scream. Dave grabbed her from behind, putting a hand over her mouth as his eyes went wildly to the cabins. She panicked and bit his hand. He jumped back, hissing and Jade stumbled away from him, panting in harsh little bursts.

  A low, sighing moan froze them all into stasis. The sound could almost have been the wind, passing through tree branches, but they all knew better. They’d all heard that sound, so distinctly and disturbingly human, and yet not…it was the sound of the living dead.

  Brian, who had been the last to react to Singer’s screams, stood in the scrub and bushes, frozen with shock. Then he saw a shadow the seemed to coalesce from the deeper shadow between the two closest cabins…the undead had found them.

  “Guys, guys it’s…” His voice was breathy, shaking. “It’s one of them…a sinker.” He pointed, unable to take his eyes from the shuffling horror that had now come fully into the moonlight of the clearing.

  It was, or had been, a kid…maybe six or seven. A little boy in footie pajamas detailed with red, cartoon cars. One of his arms was gone, but the shoulder under the flannel bunched and rotated in imitation of the arm that had risen, grasping. The boy’s face was gray and beginning to peel at his hairline.

  One of its eyes was gone.

  Its mouth hung open and the curious breath of unlife coursed over its spongy, rotting vocal chords. It was less than twenty feet from Singer and Steve.

  Steve saw the boy and stood, pulling singer with him. “Get to the boats,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper, and shoved Singer in the direction of the beach.

  But Singer only turned in a half circle, favoring his leg, and saw the undead boy. He felt a crazy free fall of fear in his stomach and searched automatically for his sister. She stood next to Dave. They both stared at the boy and her hands were laced over her mouth. Her eyes were large and swimming with panicked tears.

  Brian was still standing a few feet back in the woods.

  Another shadow lurched to life from between the cabins.

  And then another.

  Now there were three corpses between them and the beach.

  Now five.

  Steve felt the cold cloak of decision-making descend, washing away the panic. He turned to the others, his voice a harsh and commanding whisper sawing through the dark.

  “Run!”

  That broke everyone’s paralysis. They all ran, dodging the sludgily moving dead whose numbers were growing at an alarming rate. Steve broke left and Dave followed while Singer and Jade ran shoulder to shoulder between another set of cabins with Brian not far behind.

  The sighing moan became louder, a chorus of rot and ruin, of despair so great that it existed even without the consciousness of those souls in despair. They sighed with both hunger and longing, some deep primal need encouraging them to possess what they now lacked.

  At least half were children.

  The children and caretakers of children had not fared well in the plague that had decimated the world.

  They were past the cabins and across the highway and Steve felt a tri
umphant lift that pumped his legs harder. They were going to make it.

  He pounded down the pier, counting the footfalls behind him: Dave, Jade, Singer, Brian…they were all going to make it.

  The boats bobbed complacently at their tethers. Steve stopped ten feet short, ushering everyone past him with a wave of his arm, and looked back the way they had come. The first of the walking dead were just now shuffling onto the pier. They had time. Enough. He turned it time to see Dave and Brian lifting Jade into the larger boat.

  Dave jumped into the smaller boat and stationed himself at the oars while Brian did the same in the larger boat. Jade had gone to the rear, her hand on the engine, ready to push the button that would bring it to life.

  Singer looked back at Steve. “Come on!” he said and stepped forward. But he missed his footing and stepped between the pier and the edge of the boat, sinking, hitting his chin on the way down.

  Steve stared in shock at the place Singer had been a split second before. He’d gone down so fast; it was like an optical illusion, a pratfall.

  Then Jade’s scream sliced into his shocked consciousness and he was moving, throwing himself belly down on the pier, reaching down.

  Singer’s head broke the water and he reached for Steve’s hand, but in his panic, he missed his grip and flailed wildly.

  “Singer, take my hand!” Steve said and was aware of the rowboat rocking furiously as Brian advanced to help. Singer’s panicked waving finally put his arm within Steve’s grasp and Steve pulled, dragging Singer from the water. Brian pulled too and Singer slid like a leaded eel into the rowboat.

  Then Steve felt hands grasping greedily on his outstretched legs.

  He rolled, kicking and cursing. A woman was chewing on his jeans over his heavy work boot. He kicked reflexively with his other foot, connecting with her face. It sloughed off like a thick, spongy mask, taking her nose and lips with it. She lifted her head, her face a blackish ruin, her jollily rolling eyeballs seeming to bulge from their black sockets.

  Her teeth were soft, chalky ruins that crumbled and fell across Brian’s leg. She bent to bite again.