The Infected Dead (Book 1): Alive for Now

by Bob Howard

  “So,” Kathy said, “we need to find a way to evict our tenants, right?”

  “It would seem to be the logical choice,” said the Chief.

  I asked, “What are we talking about here? You know we won’t be able to scare them off, so there’s only one other thing we can do, but there’s a difference between killing the infected and killing the living.”

  Kathy said, “Chief, in law enforcement they teach you about ethics, not how to bust heads. We’re talking about doing something to get rid of these guys when they haven’t even done anything yet.”

  “Yet may be the operative word, Kathy. We don’t know what they’ve done already.”

  In the end, we agreed that we should at least sleep on the idea, and maybe we could find a way to get them to move on. The way they were consuming the supplies on the house boat, it didn’t look like they would be able to last more than a few days before they had to go to the mainland to restock, and we were curious about how they planned to do that.

  Kathy and I had assumed they would use the Boston Whaler, but we learned from the Chief that he had rearranged the wires under the dash. If he had just disconnected them, anyone with half a brain would have reconnected them and taken the boat. If the currents tenants of the house boat had tried to start the boat, it probably never occurred to them to switch the wires to their proper connections.

  The question of how they had gotten to the house boat was a mystery, because no raft or other boat could be seen on the TV screens. Our position in the raft when we first discovered the men gave us a good view of the side of the house boat facing the ocean, and there was nothing tied up alongside that could have gotten them there. We had a feeling it was going to be interesting watching what they did when they needed to make a supply run.

  ******

  Jean was the one watching the camera feeds three days later when the drama started on the house boat. Everything seemed normal, or as normal as it could be with eight armed men and women sharing limited supplies that included alcohol and tobacco.

  The Chief had identified one member of the group as the leader and passed it along to the others. He was bigger than the others and tended to walk around without a shirt, showing off his muscles and tattoos. He even had tattoos on his bald head. He was quick tempered and had pistol whipped a couple of the men. They didn’t even put up a fight.

  Jean called to the rest of us where we were in the kitchen cleaning up after a civilized breakfast. “Hey, guys. You might want to see this. The boss has a guy by the hair and is dragging him to the end of the dock.”

  We all gathered around and watched as the other men followed behind the boss and the man who had apparently broken some rule. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was obvious that the guy was pleading with the boss. They got to the end of the dock, and the boss pointed at the water. The other guy was shaking his head back and forth and looked like he was begging not to go into the water. The boss only listened for a minute before he ordered two of the other men to take over.

  The boss stepped off to one side, and one of the others handed him an empty whiskey bottle, which he held up for the others to see. That must have been the rule he broke. After another few minutes of deliberations, the boss reached his verdict and made a motion toward the water with his hand. The two men who were standing ready didn’t hesitate. They picked up the pleading man and literally launched him into the northern inlet.

  We all knew how fast the current was at the end of the dock, so the Chief brought the other camera views up on the screen. We spotted the man trying to swim with the current instead of against it back to the dock. If he had tried to do that, he would probably have drowned in less than a minute.

  We tracked him with the cameras as he rounded the bend in our personal moat and could no longer be seen from the dock. The remaining seven men and women were filing back into the house boat because there wasn’t anything left to see. They probably assumed he had already drowned.

  The absence of sharks in the water that separated Mud Island from the mainland probably meant they were getting plenty to eat without coming this close to the coast. If they had been around, the man would never have made it to the southern tip. The current carried him close enough to shore for him to make it across the water. He stood up on the sandy beach that was on the side opposite from the southern jetty.

  We watched as he looked across the sand at the trawler that had been wrecked when its nets snagged the rocks. He was so surprised to see the boat on its side on the beach that he didn’t see what was coming out of the trees toward him. There were too many to count, and the infected were on him before he could make it back into the water. We switched off the camera because there was no reason to watch what we knew was happening.

  It was really a sobering thought to us all that we had passed through the southern inlet only a few nights earlier. We had coasted within a few yards of an army of the infected without knowing it. We had assumed they were there in the trees but not in such large numbers.

  We checked the camera in the house boat and saw that there was more activity. The men and women were once again going out onto the dock, but this time they were carrying every rope they could find. They were then tying the ropes together to make one long rope.

  “Wait a minute,” said the Chief. “Don’t tell me they threw that one guy in so they could test the current.”

  Jean asked, “Why would they do that?”

  The Chief said, “So they would know whether or not they could use the current to reach the mainland. I think they’re going to tie a rope to the Whaler and try to use it as a ferry. That may be how they got here in the first place if they came across in a raft or something from the northern jetty. They can’t go back that way because the current is too strong, so they're going to try either from the mainland side of the island or from the southern tip.”

  We all looked at each other with the sudden realization that they were about to solve our problem for us, especially if the morons all got into the boat together. They couldn’t see where their former friend had made it ashore by the southern jetty, so they didn’t know what was waiting over there.

  Kathy said, “Hey, guys. They’re easing the Whaler way from the dock letting rope play out from it like a kite. Two guys are in the boat and five are on shore.”

  Once again we switched from one view to the other and watched as the group of men guided the Boston Whaler around the island. It was almost two miles of labor for the five men on shore to keep the boat from pulling away too fast, and they were beginning to get worn out. Sweat was dripping from their faces, and their hands were beginning to slip on the rope.

  The boss didn’t want to take the chance that they wouldn’t be able to guide the boat all the way to the southern tip and began ordering the men to pull the boat back to the island. After a long struggle against the current, they managed to get the Whaler to shore and tied off to a tree.

  “So much for kite flying in this current,” said Kathy. “I wonder what they’re going to try next.”

  “They’re probably wishing they had that other man right now,” I said.

  That earned a laugh from the rest of my friends. When you got down to it, this was some of the best entertainment we’d had in a long time.

  Jean said, “Too bad the house boat won’t start up. It would be fun to drive it away while they are trying to get into the ferry business. Then again, they probably thought they were going to be able to drive it to shore when they moved in.”

  After several minutes of arm waving and bickering, they seemed to have come to a decision about something. The rope looked like it might be just long enough for them to leave it tied to the big tree where it already was. To our astonishment, they all got into the boat together and let the rope out fast. The end result was that they got past the center of the moat before the current really got them too far off course to the south.

  As the rope grew taut, the Whaler began to swing like a pendulum toward
the curving shoreline of the mainland, but not quite in view of the southern tip……the place where the eighth man had washed ashore. Instead, the boat came went ashore almost half-way between the mainland dock and the southern inlet.

  Kathy asked the rest of us, “Haven’t we seen this movie already?”

  The Chief said, “Except this time the seven stooges have guns, and they should at least thin out the infected dead that are about to come out of those trees.”

  As soon as the Boston Whaler beached, the men and women jumped onto the sand. One of them spotted the mainland dock further up the beach and pointed at it. They all turned long enough to see what he was talking about and missed the grand entrance of the horde of infected dead emerging from the dense trees. When one of them sounded the alarm, it was too late for them to get back into the boat and push it free of the shore. If they had stayed in the boat long enough, they probably could have pulled hard enough on the rope to reach the shelf under the water where the infected couldn’t follow, but that was their biggest mistake.

  Without discipline they fired at the infected at point blank range, not aiming for the heads. They would go down, but precious ammunition was wasted before their boss got them under control. One by one they ran out of bullets and began swinging their rifles like baseball bats, and one by one they disappeared under the teeth of the infected.

  The Chief said, “Well, the good news is that our tenants have moved out. The bad news is that it looks like the other end of the rope is tied to the boat.”

  “Why is that bad news?” I asked.

  Kathy answered for the Chief, “Because we have to go out there and pull it back.”

  ******

  Uncle Titus was a true genius. Among the many crates stored in the lower levels of the shelter was one with the words Gas Powered Winch stenciled on the side. It might be a bit noisy, but it would get the boat back to the dock faster than the three of us pulling it against the tide. It also solved our problem of navigating the oyster beds that lined the banks on that side of the island.

  Our tenants probably didn’t plan the time of day when they tried to cross with the boat, but the tide was high enough where they tied the rope to the tree for them not to get hung up on the oysters. Now that the tide was going back out, there was no way we could cross the oyster beds without cutting ourselves to shreds. We could have waited until the next high tide, but we didn’t want to tempt fate. Although chances were slim that someone would be able to make it through the gauntlet of infected roaming around in the trees on the far shore, we didn’t want someone else to use the boat as a ferry and cross over to Mud Island.

  The plan was to attach the rope to the winch and then to draw the Whaler away from the opposite shore until it was more or less in the center of the inlet. Then we would move the winch back toward the dock, reel it in a bit more, and then repeat the process. If all went well, we would have the boat tied up to the dock in no more than an hour.

  Kathy and Jean kept watch while the Chief and I worked as quickly as we could. As soon as the boat was free of the sandy beach, the current tried to pull the boat toward the southern tip of the island, but the Chief had the winch running at top speed for the crucial few minutes we needed to keep the boat’s momentum from taking it too far.

  It took closer to two hours than the one we expected, but we eventually got the boat back where it belonged. The Chief said, “Now all we need is to go get the plane, and we’ll be back in good shape.”

  I thought he was kidding at first, but there wasn’t his usual half smile on his face that always appeared when he was in a joking mood. My mouth was open, though.

  “Better close your mouth before you catch a bug,” said the Chief.

  “You must be kidding, Chief. We just got back, and you already want to try for the plane?”

  “I was thinking,” he said. “We almost lost the boat, and we need it to be able to get the plane back. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan to try going through Georgetown to get back to Wando Farms Road. By now I imagine they have their hands full with the horde that was being funneled down Highway 17 from Simmonsville.”

  “But why do we have to go back for it now, Chief? Why can’t we hole up and give it a rest at least for a few weeks?” I asked.

  “Several reasons,” he answered. “First, strategically the plane gives us an edge. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but we could drive the boat out to deeper water and anchor it. There’s less chance of losing it to someone at sea than someone on land. We could fly back to the island and then fly out to get the boat when we need it. I also want to paint it black so it won’t be so easy to see.”

  “That’s only one good reason for going now, Chief. I don’t know about you, but I would be happy to just hide in the shelter for another month.”

  “Well,” he said, “I have a nagging feeling that the longer we wait the more likely it is that someone else will find the plane first.”

  “Have you mentioned it to Jean and Kathy?”I asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m planning to today,” he answered.

  “Well, don’t expect it to go so great, Chief. They look like they feel a little ragged. I know I do.”

  Once we had the Whaler tied to the dock, we felt like we had accomplished something major. It looked like it belonged where it was. Standing there looking at it, I realized it was a major tool for our survival.

  “You know, Chief, if Uncle Titus was here, I would bet that he would say his one regret was not building some sort of hideaway for the boat.”

  The Chief got that big smile back that was missing over the last couple of hours and said, “Sounds like a British spy movie, Ed. We come speeding back to the island, a big door opens, and we disappear into the island. The bad guys come zooming around the island after us just after the door shuts.”

  “Doesn’t sound so far fetched when you put it that way, Chief.”

  That got us both laughing just as Kathy and Jean came down the dock.

  “What’s so funny?” Asked Jean.

  “The Chief and I were just working on an idea about how we could build a garage for the boat so no one will find it.” Just saying it caused us to start laughing even harder.

  Kathy was smiling, but she said, “That’s a good idea. Why’s it so funny?”

  The Chief and I kept laughing for a few seconds, but we saw she was serious, and it gradually sank in that her mind was working on something. Jean was also looking at her expectantly.

  “Kathy, you have everyone’s attention. What are you thinking?” asked Jean.

  “I’m thinking we could do it with the winch and a little hard labor. You know that hatch on the southern tip? We could make it bigger, put the winch inside, and then use it to drag the boat in. I think our only problem is making it a smooth drag for the hull, and we could solve that problem just by getting a boat trailer out here.”

  Kathy was a planner, and she could do it on the fly. We knew that she could think things through in a hurry because of what she did in Charleston at the terminal, but there wasn’t one of us with a clue of how she planned to get a trailer to the island.

  “Chief,” she said, “as much as I would like to stay here forever after our last trip, do you think the plane is big enough to carry a boat trailer strapped to its bottom?”

  The Chief looked thoughtful for a moment and answered, “We don't need a big trailer because we’re not planning to tow it on a highway, so we could go smaller than normal. Yeah, Kathy, I think we could strap a small boat trailer to the bottom of the Otter without it affecting the take offs and landings.”

  Jean and I were like spectators watching cliff divers. They were making us nervous just talking.

  “I don’t want to break up your fun,” I said, “but are you planning on landing the plane at a boat store to pick up a trailer?”

  The Chief was looking at Kathy with a totally mischievous look as he answered me. “We don’t need a boat store, Ed. There’s a whole
boat landing full of trailers only a few hundred yards from where we left the plane.”

  My fellow spectator, Jean, was as uncomfortable as I was, and she tried to come to my aid by asking, “Is there any reason we can’t wait a few weeks to do this? I mean, we could do the grunt work here on the island first. Then we could maybe try for the plane.”

  “Jean, take a look at the calendar,” said the Chief. “Have you noticed the weather is getting cooler? That’s because it’s the last week of October. I’ve been amazed that we didn’t get any tropical storms this year, but I’m sure as hell not complaining. I think we need to do it while we can. It doesn’t really get cold here, but it gets cold enough that I’d rather do this before the temperature starts to drop. Warm sand is easier to dig by hand than cold, wet sand.”

  That silenced the spectators. Jean and I were both looking at our feet in resignation, while the Chief and Kathy were smiling at each other like two kids who just got told they were going to Disney World.

  “Okay,” I said. “If we’re going to do this, let’s hear the rest of the plan. For starters, the woods are crawling with the infected. We made it back once, but making it out through those woods and then through Georgetown won’t be so easy a second time.”

  “We won’t be going back through Georgetown,” said the Chief, “but we will need to at least go back to the cars for the gas cans. We’re going to use the boat to get back to the plane, so we’ll need plenty of fuel for the round trip.”

  The Chief looked over at me and Jean with real concern on his face. What he and Kathy were saying made perfect sense, but it didn’t mean it was going to be easy. As a matter of fact, it was far more dangerous than our first excursion down to Goose Creek.

  Kathy said, “Let’s take a couple of days to plan the trip, and we can talk out every detail. Whatever the risks might be, we can try to anticipate them. Pardon the pun, but we were winging it on the last trip.”

  As always, our group seemed to have a knack for bad puns, but they were usually delivered with a straight face and fair amount of innocence. Kathy pointing out it was a pun was a sign that she knew we were once again jumping from the frying pan into the fire.