by Bob Howard
The blond police officer asked, “Shouldn’t we bring the raft? It might come in handy.”
I smiled and said, “I think we have more than we need,” and pushed the throttle forward until we were cutting a pretty good path through the water. I glanced at the police officer and for a second I felt like I knew who she was, but the idea was too ridiculous.
It only took a few minutes for me to spot the inlet that led around to the dock on the northern tip of Mud Island. As the house boat came into view, the brunette came up next to me at the steering wheel and said, “Is that where we’re going? Is that really yours?” She had a look on her face like the one I had the first time I saw the house boat. I had thought it was great until I saw the shelter.
“Yes, that’s where we’re going, and yes, it is my house boat,” I said over the sound of the engine. I held back and didn’t tell her there was more because I wanted to enjoy the reaction she would have when she saw the shelter. When I throttled back on the speed and turned the wheel to the left so I could swing around the house boat, she had to hook her arm through mine to keep her balance, and I have admit again……it was nice.
When I coasted up to the dock, my three new friends jumped onto the dock with the mooring lines as if they were my crew. None of them was shy about being useful.
“Wow,” they said almost as one. The ladies were admiring the houseboat and the seclusion of the dock. The big guy was already admiring the plane. “I haven’t flown one of these in years, but it looks like it’s in mint condition,” he said. “Is this all yours? Do you really fly this thing?”
The brunette had gone to the far end of the dock up by the shoreline. She turned back toward me and called, “Did you know you can’t see this place until you’re practically on top of it?” They were like kids in a toy store.
The blonde police officer was already going inside the house boat. I just sat down on the dock and leaned against one of the pilings. It was kind of fun to watch them explore everything, and I would enjoy showing them the shelter even more after watching them play with the toys outside.
I guess I also wanted to see if they were just putting on a show for my benefit before they just took it from me, but I wan’t leaning in that direction. I liked these people, and I guess I didn’t know how much I needed someone like them around. I had only been on my own for a few days, but I could feel the sense of loss on them. They needed me even more than I needed them, but I was discovering that I didn’t resent them for it.
The police officer came back out of the house boat and called to the others. When she had their attention, she motioned with her hand for them to come to her. The three of them met at the door of the house boat and exchanged a few words while glancing in my direction. I thought to myself, “Here it comes.”
They walked back down the length of the dock to where I was sitting, and one by one they sat down cross legged facing me in a bit of a semicircle. If someone was watching, it probably would look a little strange to them.
“I’m Kathy, this is Jean, and this is Chief Barnes,” said the blonde police officer as she pointed at each of them.
“I’m Ed Jackson,” I answered.
We all nodded and said hello, but the question was still hanging in the air like a sign over their heads. It said, “Can we stay?”
“Got a first name, Chief?” I asked.
It was kind of funny the way the other two looked at him. Kathy hadn’t asked when she was introduced to him, and Jean had always known him as Chief. It looked like they were waiting to find out his name too.
He answered with that big smile, “Joshua, but my friends call me Josh.” He extended a massive hand for me to shake. I shook his hand and returned the smile.
“I know this would sound like a line if we were in a bar or a grocery store, but why do I feel like I know you?” I asked Kathy.
Jean sort of giggled and said, “It sounds a line on a dock in the middle of nowhere, too, Ed.”
That got me to blush and I was just about to try to defend myself by claiming I really felt like I knew Kathy when she rescued me. “We were on a cruise ship that escaped from Charleston. I avoided the reporter from WCHS TV News, but I’m pretty sure they managed to get a few pictures of me as we boarded.”
I thought back to that desperate panic at the cruise terminal and searched my memory banks. “McGinley…Officer Kathy McGinley, is that right?” I asked.
“In the flesh,” she said, “but I have far fewer super powers than they claimed on the news.”
“I watched it all on the news,” I said. “From where you were could you see how many of them were trying to get past your barricade?”
“You mean the infected?” she asked. “We couldn’t really see too far past the barricade ourselves, but I think the whole population of the city was over there trying to open the ship like a big can of tuna. It sounded like it anyway.”
“Is that what you’re calling them? You’re just calling them the infected?” I asked to all three of them.
Jean answered for the group, “It’s a long story, Ed, but the Chief explained to us why we can’t call them zombies.”
“Isn’t that what they are, though? Aren’t they zombies? I mean, they follow all of the zombie rules.”
Jean started laughing so hard she fell over onto her back. The best part was that I didn’t feel like she was laughing at me. Besides being really cute, I found myself completely captivated by her, and when I looked at Kathy and the Chief I saw that look people get when they catch you admiring someone. Neither of them looked as if they objected.
Jean sat back up and said, “There are zombie rules?”
I started to say, “Ask anyone who reads zombie books,” but Kathy rescued me for a second time.
“Ed, we call them infected dead, but that’s not so important right now. I think we need to get something out in the open. You see, we were caught up in that mess in Charleston, and then we barely escaped with our lives when things fell apart on the ship.”
“The ship didn’t make it?” I knew the answer to that question was obvious, but that meant thousands more people died. “What went wrong?” I asked.
“People tried to protect their family members by doing exactly what you were worried we were doing, Ed. By not telling others about bites they got in Charleston, we wound up with a bunch of infected dead all over the ship, and when they started dying, we lost control,” Kathy explained.
Jean added, “And the situation was made worse by a pompous ass who happened to be my boss. The Chief Medical Officer could have benefited by knowing a few of your zombie rules, Ed.”
The Chief had been quiet and watchful, but he stepped into the conversation with a soft but firm question, “Ed, can we stay here? We won’t make you let us stay, but this looks like the safest place in the world right now, if not at least the safest place around here.”
Kathy said, “We can tell you everything you want to know about what happened on the ship if you want to know, and we can do it now or later. If I were you, I’d want to know why only three people survived out of five thousand, but what you see is what you get, Ed. We three are good people, and we’d like to stay if you’ll let us.”
I looked from one to the other and realized they really didn’t know for sure. Whatever hell they had been through was stopping them from seeing I was also a good guy, which is what I was thinking they were.
“Kathy, Josh, Jean…I’d be really happy if you decided to stay,” I said.
I could see the tension fall off their shoulders, and the best was yet to come, but they didn’t know it.
“All we need to do is figure out how to sleep all four of us in the house boat,” said Kathy. “I looked it over pretty good, and there seems to be enough room and supplies. Do you have a fresh water source? I saw a lot of bottled water, but I didn’t want to take any because I didn’t know if we would be allowed to stay, and you’re probably already rationing.”
I couldn’t help smiling since I
knew life was about to get much better for them. If not for what was happening to the rest of the world, this was an ideal setting, but from what little I had seen first hand and the things I had seen on the news and Internet, I knew that being out here on this dock was still pretty dangerous. It suddenly dawned on me that I had slipped out of my survivor thinking by keeping them sitting out on this dock enjoying the pleasant day and their company. We were even in the shade as the sun had moved behind the tallest trees on the mainland.
I looked around toward the beach and the trees and got serious. “Chief, I wonder if you could give me a hand with that big crate in the Boston Whaler. The four of us need to take a little walk, and I have a feeling that you could speed up the process a bit.”
Chief Joshua Barnes was as smart as he was big, and he had always been good at reading people. Just as he had read Kathy McGinley right from the start, he was reading Ed Jackson. Without a word he quickly stood and jumped into the Whaler. He was already climbing back onto the dock before the rest of us were even on our feet.
I was happy that Jean accepted my hand when I offered it to her to help her stand up, and I saw Kathy get that look again.
“Kathy, I’m sorry to keep you waiting for that water just a bit longer. You three are probably all thirsty and hungry, too. I didn’t even think to ask how long you had been out there in that raft, but that can wait a bit longer too. In the meantime, I have something else to show you.”
They traded looks with each other, but they fell in behind me when I started to walk the length of the dock. It was a seriously good feeling to have the trust of this little group so quickly.
Kathy looked longingly at the door to the house boat as we passed it, and Chief Barnes was looking at the plane. I thought it was pretty good karma to have a survivor show up who could actually fly the plane. If I had thought it was possible, I would have accused Uncle Titus of arranging that.
Jean made me feel even better when she came up and walked along side me rather than behind me. I was rewarded with a pretty smile when I looked down at her.
I glanced again at all three of them as I stepped into the foliage of Mud Island. As Uncle Titus has described, the path at the end of the dock wasn’t immediately visible until you were actually stepping off of the dock. Jean had a look on her face like she thought I was going to go straight through the bushes, but then she saw where I slipped in between the thickest patches, and I got to see that smile again. Kathy and Josh followed, and the three of us disappeared from the view of anyone who might have been watching from the mainland. I immediately felt much safer for all of us.
We walked in silence, turning sideways at the thinest parts of the path. Not having to carry the big crate helped us make good time. A mile was much shorter with the Chief doing the heavy lifting, and after only fifteen minutes we were standing at the entrance to the shelter.
Being dramatic can be fun sometimes, and if I could have gotten a drumroll for this part, I would have. As it was, I got to enjoy the expressions on their faces, and I wasn’t disappointed.
I reached up and twirled the combination on the big door lock. Just before I pulled the door open I turned and faced Kathy and said, “Yes.”
Kathy looked between me and the door and asked, “Yes what?”
As I pulled open the big door, I said, “Yes, we have a fresh water supply.”
******
I offered to let the ladies have the master bedroom, but both declined saying they had put me out enough already. I wasn’t sure why they felt like they were putting me out at all, but it was probably just a case of being totally overwhelmed.
The Chief didn’t seem to mind sharing the bunk room with two pretty women, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him. They could have taken separate rooms, but they all seemed like they wanted to be near someone else. I also think the Chief was still in shock over the armory. He picked up the weapons one at a time, handled them with loving expertise, then moved on to the next one. Every time he would pick one up, he would quote the specs as if he was reading the manual.
He also found the ample supply of different adult beverages that Uncle Titus had generously stocked and was sipping a glass of Scotch whiskey with no ice.
While the Chief was in his toy store, Jean was in hers. When she saw the medical center, she immediately started to do a complete inventory of the supplies. Not only was it fully equipped to do major surgery, it had a complete pharmacy. She was reading off the names of the drugs in the supply cabinets and was in awe of the variety.
“We won’t have to worry about garden variety infections,” she said. “There’s an unbelievable supply of antibiotics in here. I should do health histories on all three of you so I’ll know if you’re allergic to any of these things.”
I was standing between the armory and the medical center watching the Chief and Jean have the opportunity to enjoy their own private worlds. Jean started laughing about something, but I couldn’t imagine what it might be in the medical center.
“Ed, would you have considered your uncle to be an optimist or a pessimist? I mean, I would consider a survivalist to be a pessimist, but I think your uncle was an optimist.”
I was confused about what had generated the question until I saw what she was holding in her hands. It was the biggest box of condoms I had ever seen.
Jean was giving me that smile again, and she had her eyes looking straight up into mine. I didn’t know what else to say, so just like an idiot, I said, “Those aren’t mine.”
Jean walked past me toward the kitchen level and was doing her best not to fall apart laughing. The Chief and I made eye contact with each other, and he was having a hard time keeping himself together too. All he could say was, “Smooth.”
The ladies each had a sandwich and drank a bottle of water and then headed for the showers. The whole time they were eating they kept marveling at what I had in my hideaway. When I told them to consider it all theirs too, the three of them just stared at me for a long time. They looked like they were ashamed to have been so lucky, but while I thought I was being generous, I didn’t realize they were going through survivor’s guilt. They were the only people to escape from a ship with five thousand people. I guess if they weren’t feeling the effects from that, they wouldn’t be good people.
Kathy was the first to break the silence by saying, “We’ll earn our keep, Ed. I’m sure we can do something to help around here.”
Not immediately sure how to answer the offer, I had the sense to remember we were still in danger. The outside world had become a place where death was not only likely, it was a certainty.
“There’s plenty of clothes in the closets by the bunk room. Apparently my uncle cleaned out a military surplus store that was selling uniforms that had never been worn, and they’re in all sizes. There are coveralls that the Navy wears on submarines, and I think everyone will find them comfortable, even you, Chief.”
While the ladies showered, I showed Josh the closed circuit TV system and all the views of Mud Island. I told him about the layers of safety from intruders, whether they were living or dead.
“So, Ed, for something to reach us, they have to watch out for alligators, snakes, thick undergrowth, deep water with a strong current, and sharks. Is that all?” He had a big grin on his face that was probably as much relief as humor.
“Josh, when Kathy said you guys could earn your keep, I started thinking maybe we should have a rotating watch schedule. It can get a bit boring, and there are alarms to let us know when something has entered the field of one of the cameras, but I think we need to know what’s outside at all times, at least until things get better.”
Josh looked down at his big hands, and I thought I’d said something wrong at first, but he said, “Ed, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but I don’t think this will get any better in our lifetime. From what we saw out there, no ecosystem can survive this. All it can do is spread. As strongholds fall, the infected will just replace other infected. For every o
ne of those things that walks off the edge of a building, two more people will get bitten. It’s not like the world will run out of people any time soon.”
“Chief, I know I got away really fast when it started, but I’ve been watching the news, and reality set in pretty fast too. I’m under no illusions of how bad it is, but I do think it will get better. I mean, if every living human being out there dies in the next year, the infected dead must have a shelf life. Right?”
“You mean you think these things are going to die off? I might agree with you if they weren’t dead already. For all we know, if they freeze they’ll just thaw out and start looking for victims again,” said the Chief.
I thought about what he was saying, and the grim truth set in. If the whole human race ran out and let themselves get bitten, then this thing would be over fast no matter how long the infected dead would last. The problem was that there would be survivor pockets everywhere, and there would be isolated places that hadn’t even be touched yet. One by one they would be added to the infected dead population, and the number of uninfected areas would decrease, but they would remain a source for the future infected population.
“Josh, I guess I wasn’t saying that I think things will get better. I was really saying that despite the security we have in place, we could use a live set of eyes on the island at all times.”
“What about at night? Do we have night vision on these cameras?” He asked.
“The switch is on the console.” I checked my watch and said, “It should be dark outside by now. The sun was already in the West when we came inside.”
The Chief looked around on the console and found the night vision switch. He flipped it on, and then tuned the TV to the closed circuit cameras.
Every screen turned a bright, eerie green. There were nine screens in a three by three grid, so you could watch them all at one time or zoom in on one if you needed to examine the view in more detail. I switched to the first screen and could see the southern tip of the island, but the green light ended at the water, and it was pitch black from there on.
