Zournal (Book 2): Cruising The 'Poc

by R. S. Merritt

  We need to go fast and make sure we didn’t screw up. Zombies were going to hear the truck and come after us so we needed to be gone by the time they figured out we were there. I was good with sacrificing stealth for some speed since the truck ran loud anyway. I told Ann to turn on the brights so we could see the names of signs coming up. I used the little pen light Ginny had snagged from the mini mart to stare at the map. I called out streets to turn on and then Ann and I both looked at street signs until we saw the right one and she would turn on it. We kept this up even while hearing the sounds of Zombies screaming and running out of wherever they had started settling down for the night at to attack.

  The truck was a lifesaver, literally. Anything that got in our way we were able to easily just go off road and get around. It sucked to be sitting in the back of the truck as Ann drove through people’s front yards and over sidewalks and such without slowing down very much but it kept us out of reach of the Zombies. We finally made it through Deland and headed out into the middle of nowhere on the state road 44 headed for the turnpike or whatever road looked good.

  We kept cruising and I was thinking we would be able to keep going until bed time then hopefully just pull over, post a guard, and get some sleep. Ann slowed down.

  I looked in front of us but could not make out anything. I kept staring then saw what she saw. The road seemed to go straight up into the air. It wasn’t as obvious when there was no lights on, we had hit a drawbridge that must have been left open for the boats to get in and out. Or, maybe a Zombie had opened it to screw us over. For whatever reason, the drawbridge was up and we were screwed. There was bound to be a ton of Zombies running down the road towards us right now. All in a normal day’s work.

  Ann backed up and we saw a road going to the right. She went ahead and turned on it and we followed it along until we saw a parking lot with a bunch of RVs and such in it. If it wasn’t for the wave of Zombies sweeping up the road behind us I’d have been tempted to say we crash in the RVs for the night. As it was, Ann kept driving and then poked me in the stomach.

  “Ouch!” I gave her a hurt look. Because it had hurt.

  Like most women, she ignored my pain, “Look up there. I think those are boats.”

  Up ahead there were a bunch of docks, but all of the boats were missing from them. We kept driving and went down another road. This one wrapped around to yet another marina. This marina still had about eight or nine boats in the different slips. We stopped the truck and Ginny, Thomas, Chrissie, and I all jumped out. I sent Ginny to go try and find some keys somewhere. I sent Chrissie to watch her back. I told Thomas to follow me and started running over to where the first boat was docked.

  We jumped on board and I started looking around for how the hell you start a boat and nothing jumped out at me. Thomas and I went into the cockpit area and I could see where a key would go and saw the start button and everything, but after a quick search we determined there was no key in the cockpit so we left and went to the next boat. We scored a fail there as well. We continued our streak of failure through every boat on that side of the marina.

  I hit the talk button on my Walkie, “Hey Ginny, any luck with a harbor master or a key holder or anything?”

  Ginny came back, “I think I found the main place but I don’t see any keys in it. We’re going to run to the other side and start checking boats.”

  Ginny came back on the air a minute later as we were jogging over to where Ann was parked to have her take us to the other side of the marina so we could start checking there,

  “Freakin alligators everywhere. We’re coming back to you.”

  Then we heard the shots start. Ann started driving towards where Ginny was, Thomas and I both jumped in the back of the truck as she passed us. Ginny and Thomas came hauling ass around the corner and started running straight for the truck. Right behind them a ten-foot gator skidded around the corner and started running for them. Figuring the gun noise rule had already been violated I pulled out my nine millimeter and started taking pot shots at the gator. I must have connected because it stopped running so fast its tail almost flipped over its head. I continued to throw lead at it until it turned around and waddled off the other way.

  Ginny and Thomas jumped into the back of the truck. Breathing like they had just sprinted away from a giant alligator trying to eat them. We all heard the moans drifting in on the wind that indicated the gun shots had been heard and we should expect company in the near future. We drove out to a different part of the marina and searched the boats there and still could not find any with keys. I was looking around desperately now for dead bodies to try and steal keys off of but did not see any.

  We found a warehouse that had some airboats on trailers. I jumped off and looked at the airboats. They did not seem to have a place to put a key. I liked that about them. They were small and I had no idea how to operate one. Oh, well. We needed to get them to the water and figure it out. Thomas, Ginny, Ann and I picked up the bar holding the trailer and drug the whole contraption over to the side of the dock. We got to work untying it.

  Once we had it untied we basically tied one end to a rope to hold, then threw the whole thing off the dock into the water, which was about a five foot drop. I noticed there were some shapes moving around in the water. Looked like the gator force was out in full force tonight. We went back and got another of the airboats and started to repeat the process. We had made it about halfway when we heard the moans and yells getting closer. We stopped moving the second airboat and ran over to where Chrissie was holding the rope to keep the first airboat in place in the water.

  “Guns out!” I yelled, having caught a glimpse of bodies rushing towards us.

  We stood in a firing line and took care of the first round of unwelcome visitors pretty quickly but the gunfire caused all kinds of other yells to spring up.

  “Jump in the boat. Everybody jump in the boat. Chrissie, tie it off so it doesn’t float away and jump in. Ginny, on watch, Thomas jump in the boat and try to figure out how it works. Ann, help me get Reeves.” I rushed towards the truck to grab Reeves, Ann right behind me.

  We heard yells all around us now. The night was filling with the moans of the disease possessed. Reeves was awake and pulling himself out of the truck already when we got there. I threw him over my shoulder, ignoring his yelps of pain, ran for the side of the dock where we had thrown the boat in. Getting there I looked and Thomas was holding his flashlight on the airboat and looking seriously confused. Chrissie had just finished tying the airboat to the dock and was trying to figure out how to get in without missing the boat and being eaten by the large gators floating around.

  Ann caught up with me and I told her to get in the boat. She jumped down and I lowered Reeves to her, by lowered I mean I basically dropped him the last three or four feet and Ann managed to keep him from falling out of the boat and becoming an alligator appetizer. Ginny had started blasting away with the M-16 on single shot while I had been lowering Reeves. It had made it even more exciting to lower him knowing at any second we both could be headed towards the water with a Zombie latched onto my back.

  I told Ginny to jump in and I grabbed the M-16 from her and started blasting away. After a few shots, the clip ran out and I dropped the weapon on the ground and pulled my nine millimeter out and started in with it. It was dark. I could barely see anything. I was shooting at shapes and sounds. There was starting to be a shitload of shapes and sounds.

  “Cut the rope!” I yelled as I pulled out a fresh clip and kept blasting away at the wall of death moving my direction.

  I emptied the clip and turned and jumped for the boat.

  It wasn’t where it used to be. I went straight into the dark, cold water.

  A big scaly thing brushed against me.

  It was a nightmare. I was struggling to swim up to break the surface. I had not taken a deep breath so I had no air in my lungs. I heard muted splashes and yelling around me. I wasn’t entirely sure which way was up.

  I
hit the surface and heard everyone yelling for me to swim towards them. I started swimming. Around me alligators were moving in on the stream of Zombies jumping from the dock into the water. The Zombies hit the water and just sank. I think the alligators were used to this happening which is why they had not followed me when I started swimming away. They were going for the easy meals they were used to.

  Zombies continued to pour into the river as I swam as hard as I could for the airboat, which seemed to keep moving away faster than I could swim. Any second I expected to feel an alligator’s teeth latch into me and pull me to the bottom.

  Ann yelled, “Catch!” and threw a long piece of rope towards me. I was able to snag it, on the third try, and she pulled me over to the boat where her and Ginny pulled me aboard. I was beyond relived. It was ridiculous how good it felt to be out of that water. I was also happy, for the Zournals sake, that I had put my phone in two different Ziplocs before shoving it in a pocket of my cargo shorts.

  Entry 11: Adrift

  The airboat had a little battery box looking thing with some switches on it. The switches weren’t labeled and none of us had a clue as to how to get the airboat started. There were some paddles tied down to the side of it though. I grabbed one and Ann grabbed the other one and we worked to basically keep ourselves in the middle of the river. The moans of the Zombies and the thrashing of the water as the Zombies mindlessly jumped off the dock into the writhing pile of alligators slowly faded behind us.

  It was hard to verify in the darkness but between myself, Reeves and Thomas we were pretty sure the St Johns river was one of the few in Florida that flowed North. None of us could remember where we heard that at or verify if it was true but it ‘felt’ true. We should be able to figure it out in the morning based on the location of the sun when it rose. Well, Reeves could figure it out, none of the rest of us knew what the hell he was talking about with all that nautical star gazing bullshit.

  Hopefully we were going North, because we were moving at a decent clip. We took turns sitting in the stadium style seating trying to sleep while two people manned the paddles to keep us away from shore. That wasn’t a huge problem as pretty soon it became more and more difficult to even see the shore. Turns out the little tiny blue line on the map was a pretty decent sized river. We all came alert as the sun started coming up and stared at Reeves. He saw us all looking at him.

  “You guys make me feel like I’m some kind of astronomical master mind. Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Never, eat, shredded, wheat. C’mon? Really? Still?” Reeves paused for a minute to look around at all our blank faces. “We are going North. Also, newsflash, the earth is round.”

  Having made his pronouncements on our course with the solemnity of Punxsutawney Phil checking out his shadow, Reeves put his head back down and tried to fall back asleep. The boat shifted violently beneath us, Ann flew out of the boat, the rest of us tumbled all over each other. There was some sort of loud whirring noise. I drew my pistol and squatted. Looking in the water to find Ann about thirty feet behind us and rapidly disappearing from my view as we cut through the water. We were moving?

  I looked down at Thomas, who was laying on his stomach on the deck in front of me. He looked up with a face covered in blood from his attempt to stop his fall with his nose.

  “I think I figured out how to start it.” He said.

  I did not offer to help him up or help him mop the blood off his face. I thought I was being very kind to just ignore him. I started moving for the chair I’ve seen people sit in to drive these things. I sat down in it. There was a big pole sticking up beside it. There was a pedal on the ground. The pedal was easy. I yelled for Chrissie and Ginny to keep a look out for Ann and I pressed the pedal and started screwing around with the pole. It looked like if I pushed the pole forward we went right, back was left, and in the middle, was straight. I kept an eye on where Ginny and Chrissie were pointing and headed the boat in that direction. I slowed down as I saw Ann side stroking her way over to us.

  Ginny and Chrissie pulled her aboard. Thomas was sitting with his head held down.

  “You figured it out! Awesome!” I thought Ann was talking to me but nope, she was patting Thomas on the back. The same Thomas who had just caused her to have to take an unexpected swim in the gator infested water. I loved that about her. She was able to see the positive in events and people. The only major positive I saw from Thomas flinging her overboard was that the water made her clothes stick to her really tight. Before I could make a comment on that she whipped her clothes off and hung them up to dry. Standing there in her bra and a pair of green boy shorts. Thomas was my new hero!

  Ann walked back to where I was. “If you can stop staring at me for five seconds maybe we could turn around and keep heading North?”

  I personally felt like another five seconds was time we could spare, but dutifully spun the boat around and headed North up the river. I kept the speed reasonable on the boat as I did not see any need to get excessive. I felt the risk of hitting a log or something outweighed the current need for speed. Plus, Ann kept getting up to check if her clothes were finished drying yet or not and I was having a hard time paying attention to the driving when she did so. She finally decided the clothes were dry enough and shrugged back into her shorts and gray uniform shirt.

  She looked up at me, “Shows over.”

  I looked down at her from my lofty perch on the driver’s seat. “We haven’t even had our first date yet and you’re walking around in your underwear. For shame!”

  As I grew more comfortable with the air boat controls I started taking us a little faster up the river. About an hour later we saw a marina off the port (left side of the boat when facing the pointy end) side of the boat. I slowed down the engine and we moved in closer. Even shut down, the engine was pretty loud and Zombies started appearing in the parking lot of the marina and running towards the river. We had the guns to pick them if we wanted to. I was thinking it might be nice to snag one of those bigger boats though if we could find some keys and if we started shooting it would only attract more Zombies.

  “Hold off on the guns. I’m thinking that may just attract more of them. Let’s just sit off the end of the dock and let them dive into the water and drown.” I maneuvered the boat over to about twenty feet off the end of the dock and waited.

  Within about five minutes, multiple Zombies had made the jump into the water and been carried upstream or just disappeared under the water. Zombies continued to appear for the next ten minutes as I kept the air boat in place as bait. My plan was to stay at least another ten minutes. The airboat ran out of gas. Or air, or whatever make the fan spin on those things. I grabbed a paddle and Ann grabbed another one and we struggled to get the airboat over to the dock. The current pushed us past where the ladder on the dock was but we were able to grab a boat moored at the end of the dock and tie off the airboat to it.

  I reached up to pull myself onboard the boat and was bowled over by a Zombie making a leap for the air boat. I fell into the water, whacking my head on our boat as I did so, the Zombie fell on top of me. I could feel the Zombie grabbing at me as I struggled to get away from it and out of the water. I kicked hard at the Zombie and reached for my knife. I was able to get the knife in my hand but stabbing a Zombie underwater when you are out of breath and have just gotten your tenth concussion of the apocalypse proves problematic. I stroked my arms and legs hard and moved past the Zombie who drifted upstream, thrashing around and eventually drowning.

  When I finally broke the surface, Ann was waiting for me with her arm stretched out. She helped pull me on the boat then checked me for any bites or scratches I may have taken from the Zombie.

  “Aren’t you going to take your clothes off to let them dry?” She asked me, obviously holding back a laugh, relieved enough I was alive to be making jokes.

  “Sorry, I’m more old fashioned than you evidently.” I answered primly and held out my hand to help her onto the boat we were tied to. As she was pulli
ng herself over the side I pinched her butt. I thought she was going to fall into the water as she struggled to turn around and smack me. It was hilarious.

  She finally pulled herself up and stood there waiting for me. Great, now how was I going to get on the damn boat?

  “Quit being a baby.” Ann reached her hand down for me to grab and helped pull me up onto the other boat. There were no keys in this boat so we went to the next to inspect it. Not expecting to find anything I was pretty excited to see a dead man lying in the third boat we checked. This goes to show how much our perspectives had changed in the last few months. Not too long ago, I would have freaked out and called the cops and probably spent the next few weeks in therapy. Now I just saw the bloated-up corpse as a possible container for a key to this, very nice, boat we were on. That would be a very good thing since there were moans off in the distance that sounded like they were coming closer.