“Okay, let's see if she works.” I grabbed my shotgun and bandoleer.
The sun had not yet set and we had plenty of light to ensure the coast was indeed clear. Back in the light tower, Robert went right to work on one of the boxes.
“Well, it looks like this is pretty straight forward.” He threw some switches and the building shook, a loud humming was heard from the top of the stairs.
“Okay, let there be light!” and he pulled a large lever upward. The humming was now accompanied by a creaking sound and light flooded the top of the tower.
“Hey, it worked. Shit, I'd half expected everything to blow up.”
“Ah, thanks, Robert. How about next time you fill me in on these little details.”
We went outside. The light made a rotation about every ten seconds. Now, all we could do is wait and hope.
“Let's lock the house down, take turns keeping watch, three hour shifts, and I'll take the first one.”
“Works for me, I'm beat. Hey, Robert, ah...no really, please let me in on the small details.”
We went back to the house, ensured all windows and doors were secured and I went upstairs to crash. I thought sleep would come easily, but as usual, it didn't. I had earlier opened all the upstairs windows to create a cross breeze, but it still had not cooled the place down.
He woke me around two, and in a fog, I went downstairs. We had a three quarter moon and combined with clear skies and the functioning lighthouse, the outside visibility was pretty good. Anybody moving would certainly make shadows. I sat in a big overstuffed chair and examined the painting over the fireplace. It was classic Homer, a grey brooding sky and stormy sea with huge waves crashing over a dark, jagged, rocky shore. I knew Homer had painted a great deal in Maine. Is this what I am leaving? The hours dragged by. What the hell are we going to do? How many people were still alive on the planet? The last I can recall is that there were about seven billion. Could there be ten million still left? Isolated groups scattered around the globe with the number dropping every day. To continue this line of thinking was depressing, so I got up and made a check of all the windows. I decided to lie on the couch, knowing full well the probable outcome, and in about 30 seconds, I was fast asleep.
Chapter 5 ~ Guests
June 2nd
When I opened my eyes, the sun had clearly risen. Shit, what time is it? My watch read eight thirty. Oh well, we both need the sleep and nothing bad happened. I got up and quietly made my way to the nearest window. I stood in front of the curtains for a minute or two trying to break the kinks out of my back and listening. Okay, so far so good. I glanced out the window. Where the hell did all the seagulls come from? There were hundreds, just sitting there, not looking at anything in particular, and just hanging out. WTF? But no zombies! I went to a few more windows and it was the same, just lots of birds and no zombies. The birds were not just gulls, but also a variety of shorebirds and even some Mallard ducks. Robert’s going to love this.
I went to the kitchen and rummaged around till I found some ground coffee (of course it was Jamaican Blue Mountain) and a French press, put some water on to boil and went up to roust Robert.
Going up the stairs, I looked out the porch window, and saw more seagulls, hundreds of them. Maybe this is where they hang out in the morning. Can’t believe Mr. Orca would have liked dealing with all the bird shit.
“All right, time for some real breakfast. Bacon, scrambled eggs and real coffee!” I felt good, no guilt from sleeping late, we've lived to see another day.
“You let me sleep? It's a quarter to nine.”
“Well, I thought you could use the rest after all the stuff we've been through, and well…”
He rolled over and gave me that look. “Fell asleep?”
“Of course.” I turned and started to go down to make breakfast. “Hey, Robert, do you like birds?”
“They’re okay, why?”
“Oh nothing, I’ll see you downstairs.”
So far, the lighthouse’s electrical system was still working properly, but we wasted a lot of energy on the stupid light. There has to be more people around.
As expected, there were plenty of eggs and thick-cut maple bacon. Combined with canned chilies, a whole bunch of different cheeses (are you kidding me? Oregon Blue Vein? Hooligan from CT?), real coffee and toast, the meal should be transcendent. I sat in the living room waiting for Robert and basking in the aroma of caffeinated bliss.
“Hey, John!” It was Robert from upstairs. “Have you looked outside? Have you seen the birds?”
“What birds?”
He came thundering down the stairs and went to the porch window. “The yard is full of fucking birds.”
“Yes, but there’s no zombies.”
It took him a second. He looked at me, looked outside and went to the kitchen via the mudroom muttering something under his breath.
Breakfast was great and once again, I had that full and safe feeling. We’re going to find a way of surviving this.
“Well, let's go shut the light off and see what the day brings.”
We checked to see if the coast was clear and made our way to the tower.
“Robert, what’s up with the gulls?”
“No clue, I think they are afraid, like us.” Robert went inside and I walked over to check out the birds and the scene on the wharf. Wow, I actually had a whole day to fuck off and a real lunch and real dinner to look forward to, so not bad John, not bad. Then I looked up.
“Oh shit No! Hey, Robert, the light worked! You have got to see this.” Here we go again.
I heard him approach from behind.
“Oh fuck! You have got to be shitting me!”
While the light did not attract any boats, it had done wonders for the zombie population. The two hundred or so undead that was on the wharf at sundown had now multiplied into at least a few thousand. They were everywhere, on every side street with more coming in.
“Well, at least we had no plans on going to the mainland,” he said half stunned.
“Robert, we should have known.” Another mistake, our luck could not last forever. Just standing there was enough to excite the masses. The din of so many hoarse, dead voices, grew louder and louder. I could see others running to the wharf. The crowd grew so large that every half minute or so, one was pushed in and carried out to sea. Yes, we were definitely not going anywhere near land now. The wind suddenly shifted and we were again immersed in the putrid smell of decaying flesh. My work in forensic anthropology had put me around the not so recently dead before and it's kind of funny, but compared to animals, humans have this almost sweet undertone to their odor, I guess it must be what we eat. I intentionally took a big whiff; something was a bit odd. Yeah, there was the overwhelming flesh is starting to go south bouquet, but with a distinct industrial undertone, something almost metallic. Strange.
We went down to the boat, Robert to recheck things, and me to grab some binoculars, the video camera, and a notebook. By now, we were feeling more comfortable with our water buffer. None had come close, but I made a mental note to take a look in a few hours and see what changes the low tide brought. For now, I planned on making the most of our unique situation and spending as much time as possible observing what zombies do. Zombies! You have got to be kidding me! Why did I once think they were so cool? All the movies I watched. All the books I read. I fucking hate zombies.
When I got to the tower balcony, I made myself comfortable and scanned the mob onshore. They had calmed down a bit and were slightly dispersing, although more were stumbling into town every minute. I tried to make a count but ended up confused once I got to two hundred. Yes, once again, if only we had thought our actions through.
I gazed down on the mass of former humanity and thought that a well-educated man like me, with all I had been through, would have some quotable insight into my current situation, but all I could come up with was, Fuck Me.
After a couple of hours observing and note taking, I started to doze and daydream. During my earl
y days of sobriety, I got lots of advice, but the one that stuck and eventually played a key role in my recovery was the concept of mindfulness, staying in the moment. It’s a very Zen thing about walking that razor’s edge, no past, no future, just the present. It was hard for me to do with school, research, and a lack of any real significant social life, but eventually, it started to stick. In the end, I thought, what if the whole world was practicing this ‘mindfulness’? Well, I guess we all are mindful now and that razor is literally cutting us in half. By now, the sun was starting to bake and I decided that it was best to retreat and come back later in the day.
As I approached the house, I could hear music coming from the windows that Robert had opened to cool the place down, and help reduce the stench. I recognized it as one of the few operas I knew. It was Caruso singing the aria ‘Che gelida manina’ from Puccini's La Boheme. I sat down on the meticulously cut grass that’s going to need mowing in a day or two and in about a minute, I was weeping uncontrollably. How can something so beautiful be so easily lost? Maybe it’s not lost. It’s just going to be misplaced for a long while.
I went inside and made a sandwich of sliced aged wild boar and some cheeses like, Constant Bliss from Vermont, Vermont Shepherd from, well Vermont. Yes, of course the mustard was Grey Poupon.
“Hey, we got at least a thousand, more coming in. Think we should turn the light back on tonight? Kind of like fishing for zombies,” I yelled.
“NO!” Robert was lost in the music.
Ah, screw it, and I went back to the tower office. I half-heartedly turned the TV on. He had a dish on the back of the house and probably got a billion channels. After scanning several dozen with nothing but snow, I was shocked to get a picture. It was WNBC out of New York City. It didn't show a picture, just a blue screen with the words, Please Stand By, and the station’s logo. I started to think about The City. I haven't been there in a couple of years. There still had to be thousands and thousands of people there, holding up in some high-rise apartments, waiting to dehydrate or starve to death. They are stuck with no hope of ever being able to leave their fortress alive. God, was I lucky? Just chance? Was all this really just chance? Sure, I had done what was needed to stay alive, but without a lucky break or two, I would be trapped sitting in my condo in Bangor waiting to die.
I went back up top, once some clouds moved in and the temp and humidity started to drop. This time, I brought along a folding beach chair from the mudroom. The video camera was still up there, and without thinking, I just picked it up and began to shoot. Just a general overview of the town and our little wafer thin slice of paradise. After some inane commentary, I heard a beep and I saw I had reached the end of the cassette. For maybe five minutes, I just looked at it, and the tiny blank screen that stared back at me. I was tempted to rewind, but was not sure of what I would find and where I would be. The more I thought about it, the more the whole concept scared the shit out of me. I broke out of my brain-fart and rummaged through the camera bag, eventually finding another cassette and I ventured into one more episode of how the hell do you unwrap these things? Why does everything seem hermetically sealed these days and made to last a hundred years. Oh well, maybe considering, never mind, popped in another tape. Scanning back and forth, I kept noticing some flashes. I assumed one of the zombies was playing with something that reflected, so I had to see this. I grabbed my binoculars and started searching, and I quickly found the source.
Oh, fuck me! My God, it’s people! It looked like two, a man and maybe a woman on the roof of a three story red brick building that looked to be an old warehouse. I waved and they signaled back. Yep, the undead generally don't wave back. Holy Crap, real people! Once I was pretty sure they knew I had seen them, I raced down to get Robert. How had someone held out surrounded by Hell for over a week? At least, I almost always had a change of scenery.
Puccini had ended and he was in the living room looking through a large rack of CD's.
“You are not going to believe this, but we got survivors in town!”
“What,” he stood and looked at me as if I was stoned, “are you sure?”
“They’re on the roof of some building and definitely not the undead.”
“Then come on!” and we raced for the tower. As we entered, it dawned on me how careless I had been in leaving my shotgun up on the railing. Yes, I had the Ruger, but I made that mistake before and it almost killed me.
When we got to the top, I handed him my binoculars. “Just to left of the main road about four blocks up, red brick, on the roof.”
“Okay, got them...Holy cow! Hey, he's holding up something…looks like a walkie-talkie. It's got be a radio. And he's holding up fingers. You look, you've got better eyesight.”
He handed me the binoculars. “Okay, it looks to be a one three, yeah a one three, I think.”
“Let's get to the boat.”
As I raced down the stairs, I was overcome with this giddy feeling of anticipation, kind of like you get as a kid on Christmas morning.
As we got to the boat, I could tell that the zombies were sensing something was up, as they became louder and more active than usual. We went below deck and Robert got the radio going.
“This is Providence, do you read me? Lighthouse to you guys on the roof, do you read me?”
“Thank God! We read you, Providence, Bill and Barbara here, over.”
“Well, you got Robert and John here.”
“We were beginning to lose hope, nice to hear your voice. So, you guys are the Einstein brothers that thought to turn the lighthouse on!”
“I'm afraid so. Sorry. What's your status?”
“The building we’re on top of is my Army Navy store. We got plenty of freeze-dried and survival shit, but running low on water. Our purification system hasn’t worked from the very start. We had planned to make a run for it to the lighthouse. I guess that's now all changed.”
“Yeah, Bill. Let's put our heads together. You armed?”
“Shit, we got more weapons than God, a bit of an obsession of mine. At first, I thought we might be able to take out the locals, and make a run for it, but your arrival changed all that. Not your fault really, we have had several boats stop by, but no one stayed. Turning on the light sealed the deal.”
While Robert traded info and continued to brainstorm with Bill, I went up top and scanned the shore. They would have a four block run to make it to the water. It was a straight shot, straight run, maybe two hundred yards and all. Everything’s downhill. I mean you could fall and roll to the water. It should be no problem, except for the zombies wandering about. Just don’t trip. I’m sure it’s just paranoia but it seems they are real fast at picking up when something is going on, and that’s not good.
I left the boat and went to the southernmost part of the island, still within sight of our onshore friends. The zombies followed me, a massive mess jostling for position to be the first to greet me in case I decided to swim over and pay a visit. Their obsessive one mindedness is fascinating. I bet if I ran from one side to the other that I could get them moving in unison, kind of like dancing in a chorus line. This all-consuming constant drive to obtain living flesh had to be a key to their defeat. I continued to study the town as I reviewed our options. Maybe they could move from building to building, do it at night and get closer, or even make the whole run at night. We might be able to join forces and thin the crowd a bit. We could shoot from the boat, and Barbara and Bill from the roof. Robert and I could hoist the sails and distract them, draw a majority of the undead away from the wharf. We had many shitty options to choose from.
Wait a minute. A short distance down the beach, the town became less Bar Harbor and more like a real working fishing village. You know, fishing boats, cluttered docks and a seventies era rusted Buick. Surrounded by a high chain link fence was a large industrial sized propane tank, one of those big guys that everyone draws off of. Boy, if we could blow it up and shock wave the town that would qualify as one hell of a distraction. My assu
mption was that these things are designed not to explode, but it wouldn't hurt to run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.
Robert was on deck staring at the harbor with binoculars.
“You know, with enough of the right kind of distraction, we might thin them out, and give them a chance.”
“Huh?” He was moving the glasses in such a way that I knew he was running their most probable route.
“Move our uninvited guests on the wharf away. Clear a lane. There's a large propane tank south of us. Pull them south with the boat, and blow up the tank. It might distract enough of the crowd and they might make it.”
Robert looked over to where I was pointing, thought for a minute and scratched his head. “Yeah, it might work. It would be one hell of a bang. The only problem is that those tanks are not designed to go bang, and we don't have the firepower to puncture it. I do like the idea of trying to draw them off with the boat. I'll talk to Bill and see what he thinks.”
Robert went below deck and I continued to study the village. The undead had become a writhing mass. I had no clue how anyone could make it through without being scratched or bitten. About ten minutes later, Robert returned topside, a big smile on his face.
“Well, Bill’s got a big toy that he thinks will do, an M82A1. He has the right kind of rounds to do the job.” His eyes were wide with excitement.
“An M what?” I asked.
“In layman's terms, a really big-ass gun. And he's got armor piercing bullets, phosphorous tracers.” He was almost drooling. “The best part is, and this is GREAT, they are both going to do the run with BXPs akimbo, extended clips and modified rounds, shit, this just might work.” Robert paced back and forth. He almost sounded jealous.
I just folded my arms. “I'm assuming a BXP is not a bike.”
“South African version of a MAC-10, better than ours, whole apartheid arms embargo thing. He certainly didn't buy the cheap stuff.” With the way Robert’s voice sounded, Bill did not indeed buy the cheap stuff. I was just curious how people got a hold of the not so cheap stuff, because hell, I would be happy to get the cheap stuff.
Brutal Planet: A Zombie Novel Page 7
