by Ward, Tracey
This time I fire.
Three Years Later
4 AO
Chapter Ten
Trent – Eighteen Years Old
I wake to the sound of groaning. Moaning deep and low in protest of pain and suffering, fighting against nature and demanding its will be done. It’s so loud my ears hurt and the ground vibrates under the tree, up through its branches, and into my bones. It’s louder than any swarm I’ve ever seen or heard and I’m truly terrified of what’s coming.
I snap into a sitting position, scanning the ground and coming up empty. There’s nothing. No one. I rub my eyes and search the surrounding area again, but I come up with more of the same. Nothing.
Blind to the source, all I can do is listen as the moan slows and fades out, leaving perfect silence. The whole forest stops with it. Birds, animals, insects. Everyone is listening. Waiting.
I unhook myself from my hammock suspended high up in a thick tree and I carefully climb even higher. Up into the top branches where they become thin and elastic under my weight. When I’ve gone as far as they’ll allow I wrap my body around the now narrow trunk and bring up my binoculars. I can see the highway, the abandoned houses peppered along its western flank, and the great gray ocean beyond them. Normally the beach stretches for a good mile in each direction before being interrupted by jagged black rock, but today is different. There’s a new mountain in the sand, one that wasn’t there yesterday. One that wasn’t there even five minutes ago.
A massive gray war ship has run aground.
It’s tipped on its side running parallel to the beach. The incoming tide rolls up and crashes against its hull, sending a white spray over its beached body. I try to read the writing on the side, but it’s not visible from here. All of its markings are either facing the sky, buried in the sand, or on the backside facing away from me.
I watch the ship closely for over twenty minutes but there’s no movement. Not on it, the beach, or in the forest. The animals are still spooked by the noise, still hiding in their nests or holes, so I do the same. I stay in my tree and I watch.
Another fifteen minutes later and the world starts to come alive again. A bird chirps in a nearby tree. A squirrel ventures out to the farthest point on a branch and looks at me with his round, black eyes. I wave to him. He’s not impressed. His tail twitches twice before he scurries off, looping wildly down the trunk of the tree. Still there’s nothing from the ship. Whoever is on it is either undead or dead, which explains how it lost its navigation and was pulled up on the beach by the tide. It’s probably been without a crew for days.
And it probably has some kind of supplies onboard.
Food and water, the things I can hunt or gather, those I have enough of. I always make sure of that. Other supplies, though, like bandages and Vaseline for the blisters on my feet, or better yet a pair of shoes that aren’t a size too small and won’t give me blisters to begin with – those would be amazing finds. It was hard to find clothes that fit me well when I was fourteen and wearing size nine shoes. Now that I’m eighteen, over six feet tall, and by my best guess a size twelve shoe, it’s almost impossible. Everything is too short from the sleeves on my shirts to the bottom of my pants. My sleeping bag forces me to curl my body into a ball to get entirely inside of it.
I scan the rest of the beach with my binoculars but it stays vacant and silent. No one comes rushing out to see what has happened. No one is coming to loot. If I want it, it’s mine.
I sit in the swaying upper branches of the tree watching the stagnant ship and I weigh my options. I could get on board. It’s tipped on its side, part of the deck sinking into the soft sand. There are plenty of places I could climb up but the interior will be full of tight corridors. Not a good place to be with infected. And even though it will have med supplies, odds are it’s a foreign ship.
When Oregon first went under quarantine, Russia and Japan sent coast guard and military ships to patrol the coastline. They wanted to make sure no one jumped off the coast and started sailing for their shores, but when the infection went worldwide and governments disappeared you could still spy the ships sailing up and down the coast aimlessly. There was nothing left to defend anymore because our poisoned shore was a mirror of their own, but that meant they didn’t have a home to go to. They were infection free islands floating in the ocean but if they wanted to stay that way they couldn’t come ashore. They must have done supply runs on land once in a while, risking it to stay alive at sea, and then heading back out again. Until the day when the infection caught up with them and took down everyone on board.
A day that apparently is today.
I don’t read Russian or Japanese. I won’t be able to decipher the labels of anything I find on board. More weapons would be good, though. Bullets for my gun. Maybe even clothes. Shoes.
But is it worth the risk? And if it’s a Japanese ship what are the odds anything would even fit me? Not a lot of six foot four Japanese guys running around in size twelve shoes.
Still, bandages and bullets don’t need a translator to operate and I might find other supplies that don’t care how tall I am. A hat. Socks. Clean underwear.
I scan the beach one last time and come up empty. If I’m going to do this, now is the time.
It takes me about an hour to get out of the forest, across the highway, and down onto the beach, and that’s the easy part. Climbing the ship is a pain. Worse than I anticipated. There’s plenty to grab onto in order to climb up the deck, but it’s all spaced so far apart it’s almost impossible. I have to make several leaps sideways to grab onto the next piece of the ship that will help hoist me up to a door and I worry I’ve broken my ring finger on my left hand by the time I’m finally there. I’ve sprained it at least and I’ll have to splint it to make sure it heals straight.
Even before I make it inside I’m wondering if it was worth it.
When I get to the door I know immediately from the writing on the signs around it – this is a Japanese ship. It’s not a battleship or an aircraft carrier. Probably more of a recon or interceptor meant to patrol the open waters with the speed to chase down any boat they found leaving the United States coastline.
Luckily the door opens toward the ground and I’m able to pop it and let gravity bang it down against the wall. Inside is dark, lit only by low emergency lights meaning their generator is still going. I listen closely to the sounds coming from inside but the wind is whipping against me and the waves crashing against the hull are making it impossible. I’ll have to go in.
My finger aches as I brace myself on the cold steel doorframe. I drop down inside, doing my best not to make a sound, and I listen to the ship’s silence. Just the groan of the hull angry at the shore and howl of the wind outside.
I make my way carefully down the sideways hall, crouching in the short space and watching where I step to make sure I don’t put weight on a door that is ready to swing open and drop me sideways through a room like Alice tumbling into Wonderland.
I can’t read any of the writing on the signs but I know it when I find the med unit. The familiar blocky cross that looks like a plus sign is stuck to the outside of the door. It’s blue instead of red, but the shape is the same. I’m lucky that it’s not one of the rooms above my head and behind one of the doors I keep cracking the back of my skull on. It’s just a few feet ahead of me. I put down my pack and pause, listening again. Nothing, and that nothing is starting to bother me. I want to get off this ghost ship and back out into the light. Back to the roar of the ocean and the hum of the dead because it’s what I know. It’s all I’ve known for the last three years.
Shaking out my hands, I go to crouch by the door. I stand just to the side of it, grab the handle, and let it swing open with an angry creek. My heart hammers in my chest and vibrates in my ears as I wait and I listen, but again there’s nothing. No undead hands reach up to get me. There’s not even that strange, sweet scent they put out that makes you never want to eat again. It’s just a room. An empty room.
I slowly creep forward and look down inside. It’s dark. My eyes find nothing but black and I hate it, but I have to reach inside that darkness and feel along the wall for the light switch. My fingers fumble for it over cold steel and hard edges until finally they find a little round button. I breathe out slowly, then I press it.
The room explodes in sound and light.
I fall back away from the doorway and land all wrong on my back. My shoulder connects with the steel wall painfully sending a bolt of white fire through the right side of my body. My ears are ringing from the crack of sound and as I flex my jaw uselessly trying to pop ears that don’t need popping, my vision readjusts to the light pouring out of the doorway into the hall.
There’s a uniformed Japanese man peeking out of the hatch. Sweat is dripping down his face, terror is in his eyes, and a handgun is pointed right at me.
I put my hand out toward him in a pleading gesture for him to stop. “No, please! I’m alive! I don’t have the Fever!”
Either he doesn’t understand, he can’t hear me through the ringing in his own ears, or he simply doesn’t care. He fires on me again. He’s aiming for my head but he rushed it. It’s too low. But not too low to clip my already aching shoulder.
I cry out and crumple to the floor as he fires again and again. I’m down. He’s going to hit me eventually. He’s going to kill me if I don’t make him stop.
I fire back. Only one shot.
It’s all I need. It’s all I ever needed.
The bullet enters through his forehead and the back of his skull explodes down the gray hall behind him. His body drops out of view back down into the room.
The entire encounter took less than ten seconds. There was no time to think. Barely time to react. And now it’s over. He’s dead. I killed him. The first living human being I’ve spoken to in over three years and I killed him.
I turn and vomit on the floor.
Blood trickles down my arm, curves around my elbow, traces the lines of my veins on my forearm as though it’s trying to get back inside. Eventually it pools around my hand on the floor with my vomit and tears. I don’t know when I started crying but I can’t stop. I don’t make a sound, at least I think I don’t, but I don’t know anymore. My shoulder is in agony. My ears ache. My heart hurts.
I close my eyes, tears pouring down my cheeks, and I try not to remember. I try to bury it but I can’t. I can see it so clearly. The image. The moment. The flash of firelight in the forest with my dad’s face and a demon’s eyes.
I’m a killer
I’m a murderer.
I deserve to be alone.
Chapter Eleven
Vin – Twenty Two Years Old
“Where are you goin’, baby?” she whispers sleepily, her eyes still closed.
I pull my shirt on over my head. “I got a fight today.”
“Against who?”
“Some guy from a new gang. The Westies.” I sit down on the edge of the bed to tie my shoes. “I don’t know him. He’s a wildcard.”
“Are you gonna win?”
“I always win.”
“You’re so conceited,” she laughs.
“I’m not conceited,” I correct with a smile. I shrug into my moto jacket, my body filling it more completely than it ever has before. It’s the fighting. The sparring in the ring for money and control. “I’m confident.”
“To-ma-to, to-mah-to. Label it how you want, it’s still the same vegetable and you’re still a jerk.”
“Then why do you keep asking me here?”
“Because,” she laments dramatically, batting her brown eyes at me, “I love vegetables.”
“You’re in the minority.” I yank open the heavy steel door, turning to look back at her still lying in the bed. “I’ll see you later.”
“Tonight?”
“No.”
“Where will you be?”
“Out,” I answer evasively.
“Fine,” she groans, giving up. “Whatever. See you later.”
I head into the hall, letting the door slam shut behind me. It’s dark when it’s closed. The light at the end is the only way to see and I follow it out onto the football field, taking the tunnel that the players used to take before they all went insane and ate each other. That’s one zombie I wouldn’t want to face off with. Three hundred pounds of fury, speed, and sure hands.
We took the football stadium by the water a couple years ago, just like Marlow wanted. I thought it was a pretty baller move when I heard he wanted to do it but the reality was a little bit of a letdown. No one was here, no one has ever tried to take it from us, and once we had the gates locked it was unquestionably ours. ‘Taking’ the stadium couldn’t have been more boring than if we’d gotten a high interest loan and bought the damn thing.
We spent the first year bringing in dirt and good soil from all over the city to spread over the fields and convert them to farmland. We raided every home improvement and gardening store we could find. Once we had thick grass growing we brought in the animals. Sheep, goats, cows, chickens. Our herd has been growing with the number of people we take in. A number that has skyrocketed in the last year. Word has gotten out about us. About how safe we are, how well taken care of, and if you’re willing to work for your keep Marlow is willing to let you inside. For people not accustomed to fighting it’s a better deal than living outside in the wild with the zombies.
It’s been three years and they’re still a problem. I’m part of a patrol that goes outside the gates three times a week with one purpose – dropping infected. They make supply runs nearly impossible and we’ve exhausted the resources close to us. We need to branch out but the infected make it tough.
Other gangs help with the patrol, the people who join earning a chance to fight for money in the Underground. No one out there has our numbers, though. Most gangs have under ten members, women and children included, while we’re sitting in the stadium with close to a hundred head. It’s an impressive empire Marlow has built, one I’m lucky to have gotten in on the ground floor of. I like being top dog and if I got the chance I’d take—
“Vincent!”
Marlow and his guard are coming toward me from the sidelines of the field. His long hair is tied back smoothly in his signature ponytail, the temples going gray and showing his age, and his smile highlights the lines in his skin.
He’s making the rounds to mingle with the people. Shaking hands and kissing babies the way he likes to do to stay visible and in everyone’s minds. He’s friendly and smiling but everyone knows what he used to be, where he came from. All disputes go through him and what he says goes – no question. There is no prison here, we can’t spare the resources, so if you step out of line you’re out the door. Easy as that. No weapons, no supplies. It’s as much a death sentence as a bullet to the face and Marlow isn’t afraid to pull that trigger. Some people resent living under that kind of system, but they don’t hate it more than having their brains cooked out of their skulls by the infection so they’re still here.
“I didn’t see you at breakfast this morning,” Marlow comments. “Where were you?”
“Squeezing in a workout.”
He grins knowingly. “Nora?”
“She’s a good trainer.”
“So I hear.”
I let the jab go unanswered. I know I’m not the only guy Nora sees. Ordinarily that shit would piss me off but considering she’s young, hot, and fixed, I’m willing to look past it. Not surprisingly, I take a lot of issue with ditching a kid and the guarantee that I’m not putting one inside anybody is golden. A lot of guys don’t care. They look the other way and figure it’s the chick’s problem if she gets knocked up, not theirs, but that’s not me. That can never be me.
“Looking into the shortage?” I ask, gesturing to the fields around us.
He nods, leading me forward. “I’ve been through the books with the gardeners and the cooks. Everything is accounted for.”
“So then how are we coming
up short every meal?”
“That’s the million dollar question. One I hope I’ll find the answer to when the head count is finished.”
“Another one? We just did one three months ago.”
“And it was high. I won’t be surprised to find this count high too.”
“What are you thinking?” I ask in a hushed tone. “Smuggling?”
“That’s my guess,” he agrees solemnly. “Guard members running side operations. Trading a blind eye at the gate for a little extra coin in their pocket. We’ll flush them out, correct the errors, but in the meantime we’ll have to up the harvest and the farmers tell me that means a strain on the soil and the water supply and about a billion other things that will hurt us in the long run.”
“We need more land to farm.”
“Yes, we do.”
I stop walking, forcing him to turn to face me. I try to keep my voice even and my face blank, but when he turns to look at me I can tell he knows exactly what I want. “The baseball stadium. We’re finally making a play for it?”
“Do you think it’s time?” he asks, but he doesn’t care what I think. He already knows what he’s going to do.
And still I have to play along. If I want to ever run a game of my own, I have to play his first.
After seeing how easy it was to own the CenturyLink Field I told Marlow we should secure the Mariners baseball field too, but he didn’t want to. I get it, it was a lot to take on and defend with the small numbers we had at the time. Just him, myself, my piece of shit dad who wouldn’t stop shadowing me, and about ten other guys. Not exactly a strong army. But then our numbers started to grow and so did our confidence. Ever since then I’ve been practically begging him to let us march on Safeco Field. It’s a stone’s throw away from CenturyLink and the people living in it are a lot like us – sustaining life inside through farming and security. They’re smaller, though, or they are for now. In a year or two who knows? Maybe they’ll be larger and we’ll have to worry about them coming after us.
If we took them now, Marlow wouldn’t be able to oversee both areas. He’d have to hand one over to someone else. Someone he trusts. Someone he knew before the fall. Someone like me.
