by Dirk Patton
I fired a total of eleven rounds to bring down nine infected with head shots, with the last one dropping close enough to me that I could smell the stench coming off its body. Damn fine shooting if I say so myself.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Rachel approaching a large white cabin cruiser, pull her pistol and shoot an infected before boarding. We needed more time. I scanned the area around me and made note of several males dressed in dirty coveralls that were approaching from my left. I had time to deal with them a little later. Right now I had more females coming in fast.
I started picking targets and putting them down, occasionally having to use a second shot to do the job. Hey, you try hitting something the size of a human head that is running at you full speed. It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies.
I had dropped another dozen females when I had to change magazines. Old training paid off and I swapped mags in under a second and resumed firing. I was stopping a lot of infected, but I wasn’t holding my own. The females were too many and too fast for one shooter to hold off indefinitely. Slowly, the distance shrank until I was getting nervous. I hadn’t forgotten the males approaching from my left, but I couldn’t take my attention off the females. I sent five more rounds downrange then heard the sweetest sound I could imagine, a boat horn.
I shot the three closest females, leapt to my feet and started running. The pavement sloped more steeply here, ending at a chain link gate that stood open allowing access to a wooden dock. The dock was over two hundred yards long with additional wooden docks spaced periodically at right angles to create spots for what must have been 300 boats of all sizes.
I skidded as I approached the gate, grabbing the chain link and slamming the gate shut behind me. The gate swung out towards the pavement, so less than two seconds later when the first female slammed against the gate it rattled but held. She screamed at me and tried to force her arms through the chain link to reach me. Quickly more females started crashing against the gate and fence, their combined screams deafening.
I trotted down the main dock towards the boat Rachel had boarded. The boat was in the first slip closest to the main dock and would have to be backed out of the slip and motored down the side channel for a good distance before reaching the open lake. A sharp 90 degree turn at the end of the dock meant we’d have to take it slow and be close to the dock and other boats when we made the turn.
Rachel was visible on the flying bridge of the boat which sat well above all of the surrounding boats. She’d found us a large cabin cruiser and I could hear the low, throaty rumble of the engine as I pounded down the dock.
Rachel was yelling but I couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell me. She resorted to pointing and I looked over my shoulder to see one of the females finish scaling the fence and drop to the dock. Soon the others were following and I picked up my speed.
They were only forty yards or so behind me as I reached the boat and there was no way I could get it untied, board and sail to safety without all of them swarming aboard. I raced to the bow line, releasing it from the heavy cleat bolted to the dock, then rushed to release the stern line.
“I’ll hold them. Pick me up at the end of the dock,” I yelled at Rachel.
I didn’t wait to see what she was doing. Dropping back onto my knee in the center of the dock I raised the rifle and acquired my first target. In the half second between acquisition and firing I saw what had probably been a pretty suburban soccer mom with long blonde hair. A fraction of a second later my bullet shattered her skull and her body tumbled to the dock.
The dock was a better place tactically than the open road. Here the infected were funneled onto a surface no more than six feet wide which made acquiring targets much more efficient. Acquire – Fire – Acquire – Fire. I burned through thirty rounds and now the flood of infected was hampered by the growing pile of bodies. They had to slow to climb the pile and when they did they made themselves an easier target.
Females were still arriving and climbing the fence, but I was keeping them a steady twenty yards away. Unfortunately I didn’t have unlimited ammunition. Swapping mags I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw that Rachel had cleared the end of the side dock and was slowly approaching the end of the main dock. Firing four more shots that brought down four infected I stood up and ran for the end of the dock.
The screams behind me rose in volume, perhaps in frustration at their escaping prey. I ran hard, probably harder than I have ever run in my life. I could see the big boat negotiate the final turn then surge forward towards the main dock. I ran past the final side dock and now only blue lake water surrounded the wooden planks I ran on. I was less than 10 feet from the end of the dock when a scream sounded right behind me and a body crashed into me knocking both of us flat on the dock before we skidded over the edge and into the water.
20
The infected clung to my pack as we sank, the hundred plus pounds of gear I wore dragging us down. After what seemed an eternity my toes and then my knees settled onto the muddy bottom of the lake. I was thrashing, trying to break the grip the infected had on me, but she clung tight.
Gathering my legs I pushed against the lake bottom and arched backwards hoping to crush her into the mud and break free. Instead of flipping over backwards we smashed into something solid that loosened her grip slightly. It took me a moment, but when I realized it was one of the giant wooden pilings that supported the dock I used all the strength in my legs to keep ramming us backwards into the piling.
My lungs were on fire and felt ready to burst when she finally released me. I thrashed away from her and pushed for the surface, needing air more than I was worried about her.
Swimming with heavy packs and weapons strapped to your body may sound impossible, but not only can it be done but the military trains all of its Special Forces operators how to do it. However, having been trained years ago and executing on that training now were two different things. I didn’t think I would make it and was preparing to dump my pack when my face broke the surface and I was able to draw a deep breath.
I had surfaced under the dock and quickly grabbed on to a brace so I could keep my head above water. The infected that had gone into the water with me bobbed to the surface a moment later, face down and not moving. I didn’t believe my smashing her into the piling had killed her, rather believed that she had drowned.
Right above my head were dozens of infected females milling around on the dock. The occasional scream pierced the air, but it didn’t seem like they had spotted me. The rumble of the boat motor grew as Rachel approached the end of the dock, but she veered away as one of the females launched herself at the boat. The infected came up short and hit the water with a splash. She thrashed violently for almost a minute before going still and bobbing on the surface.
They couldn’t swim! And I realized that they didn’t recognize the danger of the water as more of them leaped off the end of the dock in an attempt to reach Rachel who now had the boat sitting 30 feet out in the lake. I waved from my hiding place but she couldn’t see me.
Taking a few deep breaths I went under the water and started swimming out. The boat wasn’t far, but you don’t move fast with a ton of gear on your body and I was forced to surface for air about halfway. A chorus of screams greeted me and was almost instantly followed by splashes all around as they tried to catch me.
Rachel spotted me now and I saw her disappear off the flying bridge and a moment later appear at the stern of the boat, rope in hand. I struggled towards the boat, fending off a female that landed close enough to get a fingertip grip on my pack. I had to hit her twice and the loss of concentration caused me to sink. I fought my way back to the surface and struggled towards the boat as more splashes sounded behind me.
Already tired from the run to the lake I was weakening when a rope smacked onto the surface of the water a couple of feet in front of me. With renewed energy I swam to it, grabbed on and started pulling hand over hand towards the boat. Minutes later I was
holding on to a small platform with a ladder that was bolted to the boat’s stern to allow easy access for swimmers.
Resting for a few minutes I looked up into Rachel’s smiling face and grinned like a stupid teenager, happy to be alive. Holding tight to the ladder I got my feet under me and with what felt like Herculean effort slowly climbed out of the water and into the boat. Rachel greeted me with a hug then helped me out of my gear before I dropped to the deck, exhausted.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“Thought I’d lost me too there for a bit,” I answered, wiping water out of my eyes. “Thanks for the rope. Not sure I would have made it without it.”
Rachel held my hand for a moment then turned her attention to the dock. The infected had stopped leaping into the water and now stood staring at us and screaming in frustration. A dozen bodies floated between us and the dock.
“Did they figure out they can’t swim, or did they just give up?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s still enough working brain in there for them to understand they can’t survive in the water after seeing their companions die. Thank God they can’t swim or I’d have been toast.”
A thought hit me as I stood back up, “Did you clear the boat?”
The look on Rachel’s face answered my question before she could speak.
“Stay here, gun in hand. I’ll be back,” I said, drawing my pistol and checking the magazine to make sure it was fully loaded.
The boat was bigger than I had expected. I estimated it was fifty feet long and it was a luxury cruiser with three staterooms, four heads, a galley, a large seating area called a salon and multiple other compartments that were a mix of storage space and various nautical uses that I couldn’t identify. Checking everything thoroughly took 20 minutes. Fortunately we were alone.
I made my way up to the flying bridge and motioned Rachel to join me. “Do you know anything about boats?” I asked her when she arrived.
“Some. I used to date a guy that had one and we would go out almost every weekend in the summer. He always handled the boat, but I paid attention. What about you?”
“I know the pointy end is the front and they’re surrounded by water,” I answered with a grin. “So I guess that makes you the captain, especially since you got it out of dock without sinking it.”
“Guess you didn’t notice the scrapes along the side,” Rachel smiled and stepped up to the controls. Moments later the engine revved and she spun the wheel to set us on a course for the middle of the lake.
“Can we get out to the middle and drop anchor and stay there for a while?” I asked.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Rachel reached forward and fiddled with a couple of electronic displays. “Looks like we’ve got about 70 feet of water under us right now.”
We were maybe half a mile from the dock with shoreline on each side about a quarter of a mile away. In front of us the lake looked to continue for miles, and from what I remembered of how it looked on the map there was a myriad of small coves as the main lake twisted and turned.
Rachel cut the engine after using reverse to bring us to a stop in the water then flipped a switch on the console that was protected by a plastic cover to prevent accidental activation. I jumped as a loud rattling sound and splash came from the front of the boat, relaxing when Rachel laughed at me, “It’s the anchor. Nothing you need to shoot.”
I gave her a look that she ignored in favor of watching the heavy rope that was spooling out of a recessed compartment on the deck at the very front of the boat. When it stopped unwinding she lifted the plastic cover and set the switch into the middle position.
“Anchors down and locked. We’ll pivot around it at the end of the line if there’s any wind or current in the lake, but we’ll stay put in this area,” She said.
Looking around the flying bridge I found the pair of binoculars I expected to be there. Raising them to my eyes I focused on the dock we had escaped from. It was swarming with infected for its entire length and the paved area was packed with swaying bodies.
“It looks like that entire herd followed us,” I said, still scanning the distant shore.
“We have to be more careful,” Rachel said. “If we hadn’t been close to the marina we wouldn’t have escaped.
“Agreed. We got very lucky. We’ve been very lucky up to now. I just didn’t expect to run into another herd. Why the hell are they doing that? Where are they going?” My questions were really more rhetorical, but Rachel felt the need to talk about it.
“I don’t know. Maybe something in the way their brains are affected has caused the herding instinct to become dominant. Humans are by nature tribal animals, not herd, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she answered. “I’m also surprised that we’re not finding uninfected people. This has spread so fast it’s almost beyond belief. Especially when you try to explain why neither of us have been infected. Are we immune, or just very lucky?”
I lowered the binoculars and looked at her. “Good questions, but we don’t know enough to even start guessing.”
Making a final scan of the two closest shorelines I put the binoculars back in their spot. “I’m going to take these wet clothes off and get my gear dried out. Do you mind checking the galley to see if there’s any food and water on board?”
“Will do, and I’ll bet a boat like this has a washer and dryer on it. I’ll see if I can find them and we’ll get your clothes drying.”
I moved down to the deck where my pack was lying in a spreading puddle of water that was seeping out of it. Moving the pack to the edge of the deck so it would drain overboard into the lake I sat on a thickly padded bench and pulled my waterlogged boots off. Opening them up to the sun I pulled off my vest and harness, then stripped down to my underwear. The hot Georgia sun felt good on my skin as I worked to unpack and spread everything out.
“Found it,” Rachel announced as she walked out onto deck. She gathered up the clothes I had taken off as well as the wet clothes from my pack and headed back inside.
I spent almost an hour stripping, cleaning and oiling weapons. Loaded magazines were emptied, dried, lightly oiled and reloaded. Fortunately modern ammo can easily survive a casual dunking in water and I wasn’t particularly worried that any of it would fail to fire when needed. The sun was setting as I was loading the last magazine and Rachel slid open the glass door that accessed the salon and called out that dinner was ready.
21
Whatever Rachel had put together for dinner smelled wonderful as I entered the cabin and sat down at a small table that folded out of the way when not in use. That’s when it hit me.
“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed, leaping to my feet and nearly upsetting the table in the process.
Rachel froze in place with a look of barely contained panic on her face, “What?” she whispered.
“Dog,” I said, my gut churning. “We left him in the truck.”
The look on her face morphed from fear to shock, then sadness. “But… how?”
“He was in the back seat when we bailed out of the truck. Son of a Bitch!”
I headed back to the open deck and started arranging the items I needed. Rachel followed, still holding a bowl of food she had been bringing to the table before my outburst.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to get him. He’ll die in that truck and I’m not going to let that happen.” I started filling pockets and pouches on my vest with full magazines and spare ammunition, mentally cataloging what I thought I’d need for a quick raid to rescue Dog.
“Are you crazy?” There was a note of hysteria in Rachel’s voice. “You can’t fight through all those infected, save Dog and make it back here. You’ll get killed and I’ll be on my own.”
I finished loading the vest and kept checking the loads in my pistol and rifle. “Rachel, this is exactly the kind of shit I trained for and pulled off for nearly half my life. It’s getting dark, it’s not far and I’ll be in and out before any of the in
fected even know I’m around.”
She reached out and put a hand on my arm. I looked up and saw a tear rolling down her cheek. “I’m afraid,” she said in a low, emotion choked voice.
I holstered my pistol and straightened up. “Me too. I’ve never been scared of anything in my life, but honestly this whole thing scares the living shit out of me.”
Her lower lip started trembling and I pulled her into a hug before she completely lost it.
“Rachel, you’re smart and strong. You survived where most people didn’t before we even met. But there’s no point in even thinking about that because I’m coming back with Dog. Now, can you help me finish getting ready?”
Rachel squeezed me hard then she pushed away and wiped the tears off her face, sniffed and tried to put on a smile that only half made it. “What do you need?”
“I want to swim to the shore. Starting this engine will alert all the infected and I don’t want them stirred up and waiting for me. Can you search the boat and see if there’s any snorkeling gear? You know, flippers, goggles, breathing tube, whatever you can find. I could also use a waterproof bag and if there aren’t any flippers then some kind of flotation device. I’m going to be weighed down pretty heavy with weapons and ammo.”
Now I was a Green Beret, not a Navy SEAL. Yes, the Army trains us to operate in water, swim with gear on our backs and boots on our feet, but I’m not 20 anymore and besides I hadn’t lived in the water the way SEALs do.
Rachel went into the cabin to start searching for my requested items while I finalized my equipment load. A few minutes later she returned with a big grin on her face and an armful of gear that she dumped on the deck.
I sorted through it and was pleased to find a set of swim fins, goggles, a couple of large rubberized canvas bags with rubber zip seals and a red buoy with a white diagonal stripe on it. Apparently the boat’s owner had been a diver since the color scheme on the buoy is the international symbol used to warn other boaters that there are divers in the water.
