He throttled down the Fooly Involved as he came within a few hundred yards of the boat on the end, a blue steel-hulled behemoth that must have gone more than 120-feet long. On its stern was painted in white letters was the name Sea Horse, and under it Bayou La Batre.
“Ahoy there,” he yelled out at the men looking back at him across the water. They only talked to themselves and gestured. Billy could make out the singsong of Vietnamese floating across the water to him. No one raised the shotgun yet.
He had lived beside and worked with a number of Vietnamese his whole life. Many of their families had taken to shrimping as a natural extension of their former life as fishermen in the Gulf of Tonkin. The water was similar, the shrimp were smaller but more abundant, and the work was familiar. By the 1990s, many shrimpers in the gulf had sold their vessels to Viet captains who kept the same boat names and continued the family business they enjoyed. Many lived on their boats year-round and took shrimping very seriously. Some of the larger ones were completely self-sufficient with their own desalination plants, icemakers, and fully equipped workshops.
“Real warm characters, eh?” one of the Fort Morgan cousins asked Billy. “I’ve got my service revolver in my bag. I think I’m gonna get it before one of these gooks goes looking for a reason to use that shotgun.”
“Hold up,” Billy said to the man before calling out to the shrimpers again. “I said hello out there! Anyone want to talk?”
This brought more gesturing and talking from the group of Viets. Billy noticed that they were drawing a lot of attention and more and more people were lining the rails of the shrimp boats to get a look at the gleaming white charter boat and the goofy leather man yelling at them. Finally, one very thin man, barely five feet tall, climbed down a rope ladder in bare feet to a small dinghy tied to the scuppers of the giant shrimp boat. He started the small outboard and roared over to the Fooly Involved.
“Hey, baby girl, head for the cabin, and get behind the wheel. Keep a hand on the throttles and if I give you the signal, hit it, and get us the hell out of here, OK,” Billy said to Cat quietly.
As she nodded and moved away she asked, “What is the signal?”
“You’ll know,” he said and turned his attention to the dinghy whining over to him.
The small Vietnamese man quickly lined the dinghy to the stern of Billy’s craft. His weathered thin face held sharp almond eyes and a small mouth dotted with black and grey wiry stubble. His hand resting on the throttle of the outboard looked carved from a twisted tree root.
“What you want?” the Vietnamese asked in a singsong voice.
Billy had climbed down from the tower and over the deck, with Cat and the cousins behind them. “Don’t really want anything I suppose. We were headed back to Gulf Shores and saw you here so we figured we would stop. You have to admit, you don’t see a shrimp boat city every day,” he said, forcing a laugh to put the man at ease.
It did not work, “So what you want?” The man asked again with no expression. He spoke English well but had the diction and sentence structure that made you instantly feel he was better in Vietnamese.
“Just saying. We have room in Gulf Shores for you and your people if you don’t want to go back to Bayou La Batre,” Billy said to the man
“We don’t know anybody in Gulf Shores. No Vietnamese there man, come on,” he replied.
Billy shook his head, “Neither did I a couple years ago, but its home now. It sure beats bobbing up and down out here on the reef with winter coming.”
The little man looked up at him from the gently bobbing dinghy and blinked. “You have infection there? Cannibals, man?” he asked.
Billy shook his head, “Not anymore. A hell of a fight but we cleaned ’em all out.”
“That’s bad shit. We don’t have any infected here on the reef,” he replied. “How do we know you have space for us in Gulf Shores man, come on?”
“You want me to call ahead and roll out the red carpet?” Billy asked with a grin. “There are hundreds of rental condos empty on the island and they are working on having electricity here in the next few days.”
“We not paying rent man, come on,” the small man shook his head from side to side.
“I’m sure you won’t have to pay rent. We got a bunch of people there from all over the country that are staying on the island rent-free. Want me to get someone on the radio and have them tell you?” Billy argued.
“Dude, this guy doesn’t give a shit about you, or Gulf Shores, and if we keep this up they are gonna put us in a tiger cage somewhere on one of these damned boats,” one of the cousins said low enough so that only he could hear. Billy made a face and shooed him off.
“So what you want from us?” the little man in the dinghy asked again.
“Nothing, just trying to help. Forget it,” Billy said finally and threw his hands up in the air, walking back to the cabin and away from the Vietnamese.
“Wait. Who you gonna call on the radio?” the man called after Billy.
Billy stopped and looked at him, “I was gonna see if I could get one of the people that’s juiced in on the committees to tell you the deal.”
With that, the man finally tied his dinghy to the Fooly Involved and came aboard. After radio negotiations with Mack back on Gulf Shores, all was well. The fact that giving a home to thirty shrimp boat refugee families, who brought their boats along with them and could help feed the island through the winter, was a good deal that was not lost on the civil leadership back on the island.
With the deal worked out, Billy extended his hand to the Vietnamese.
“Billy Harris,” he said with an outstretched palm and a crooked grin. The man’s small hand felt like steel when he grasped Billy’s. His palm was like cardboard from decades of sun and saltwater.
“I am Thanh Trung. In Vietnam, my family name means loyal and I am. These are my people,” he said pointing to the forest of shrimp boat masts off the bow. “We are all we have.”
“Not any more Mr. Trung, looks like we are all in this together,” Billy said to him.
“Thank you. For the past couple weeks our only home was wherever we drop anchor. That’s fine for us old men, but the sea is no place for our children. Trust me, I know, man,” Mr. Trung explained.
“What happened in Bayou La Batre?” one of the Fort Morgan cousins asked. The small town of about 2000, about half of whom were Vietnamese, was well known as the Seafood Capital of Alabama and was home to one of the largest shrimping fleets in the Gulf.
“Bad shit, dude. As soon as the cops disappeared, we packed up our boats and left town. We tried for Pascagoula but it was bad there, too, houses along the beach on fire, sirens everywhere, and gunshots. We started towards Gulf Shores and saw fires there too, so we went out in to the Gulf. Thirty years ago, I left Vietnam. We are used to surviving. Used to being a refugee. So now we are Boat People again, man,” Mr. Trung said.
“Seen anything since you’ve been out here?” Billy asked.
“A few boats come close but don’t stop. We only speak Vietnamese on radio to other Vietnamese. Like code talkers, man, come on. We did see a couple ghost boats though.”
“Ghost boats?” one of the cousins asked.
“Yeah, boat dead in the water, drifting around on the tide man. Ship full of cannibal. Scary stuff. The ferry is a ghost boat now, man.”
“The ferry? The Mobile Bay Ferry?” Billy asked.
“Yes, man, saw it floating five mile from here. Bad stuff. Floating towards Gulf Shores, you need to get on that man, if you want us to come back with you, come on,” Mr. Trung said.
««—»»
Billy was busy looking through the binoculars out over the horizon from the top of the tuna tower on the Fooly Involved. Cat was driving the boat back on a heading straight for Gulf Shores from the shrimp boat city at Sparkman Reef. The two cousins were down on deck looking out as well. After ten minutes of slicing through the waves, Billy could just make out the red car ferry wallowing on the open g
reen-blue sea of the Gulf off to his port side.
“Off the left side about a mile out—take a look,” he yelled down to the cousins on deck below as he climbed down the tower. He entered the cabin and walked up behind Cat at the wheel. “Come about to the port side a little and let’s get close to the ferry,” Billy said to her.
“The ferry? Our ferry from by the house?” she asked, with her face lit up like Christmas.
He nodded. Crap. Maybe he should have just left this for the Coast Guard. She had hung out with those two boys that ran the ferry terminal a lot. They were good kids, just out of high school. Taking a year off before going to college the one had said, the one that Cat had asked over for dinner one night before the outbreak.
Crap.
“Stay in here and don’t get any closer than a few hundred feet away, we don’t want a collision,” he said and walked out of the cabin.
The ferry loomed into view, bobbing on the gentle three-foot swells like a forgotten raft in a swimming pool. Billy could not make out much more than its distinctive shape at the distance but once he put the binoculars to his eyes he found out all he needed to know.
The ferry wasn’t large by big-city standards, 140-feet overall with room for thirty cars, but it was a regular sight along Mobile Bay and linked the two towns of Gulf Shores and Dauphin Island across the bay year-round. It was loaded down with at least a dozen cars and what looked to be forty or so passengers and crew. Blood streaked the cars, windows were busted out, and at least one body was folded over the railing with its arms reaching out lifeless to the sea below. No smoke came from the ship’s stained diesel stack and no lights shown from its cabin or sides. A number of shuffling human forms could be seen lurking around in the shadows.
“What’s it look like, Billy?” one of the cousins asked.
“A bad Friday night,” he answered.
“Damn.”
Billy turned and headed back to the cabin. He was determined to get moving again and put as much distance as he could from the cursed ship and his boat as possible. He had heard what the science teacher had said about zombies swimming but the last thing he wanted to do was prove the man wrong with first-hand experience.
“Pull away and head back toward the marina at 270 degrees and step up the throttles. Let’s get back home,” he said to Cat.
She looked heartbroken, “What is it? What did you see, daddy?”
He shook his head, “Throttle up, and place it on 270,” he said as he punched up the GPS to get their coordinates to pass on.
“Did you see Kevin, Daddy?” she asked and she turned the wheel to the compass heading and pushed the throttles forward. As the boat accelerated below their feet, they both braced themselves instinctively as the two cousins out on deck almost fell over.
“Kevin?”
“You know, he came to dinner last month. He’s like two years older than me. He wants to be a physical therapist. He likes guns, he’s in judo, he’s into weight lifting. He wants to go to Auburn next year. Typical boy but he’s really sweet,” she said smiling.
Billy just looked at her a second before shaking his head, “No, baby girl, I didn’t see him. He may have gotten off at Dauphin Island. The ferry looked empty.”
She grimaced and looked out over the chart plotter.
“Wait, was Kevin the 19-year old emo kid with metal crap in his face and holes in his ears?” Billy asked
“No, he was the other one,” she said, eyes glued to the chart plotter.
“Ah ok.”
“Our position isn’t updating, Daddy. It says we are still out over the reef even though we are at least a mile away,” Cat pointed out.
Billy looked at it, and then back to his GPS. Neither was updating. Both were plugged in and working, but they did not seem to be getting a signal. He tried rebooting them and unplugging them and the same thing happened.
No signal.
“Well, it looks like we are back to the old days,” he said as he dug through the cabinet to get the NOAA paper charts, divider, and parallel ruler out of storage.
He fixed their position as best he could with dead reckoning and marked where the ferry was before sending Cat out of the cabin on the pretense of checking on the fish and the cousins. She was only out on deck thirty seconds before he called the Fish Hawk on the radio to report the ferry, its cargo, and its heading.
— | — | —
CHAPTER 30
The Cutter Fish Hawk, Gulf Shores Marina
The Chief was already tweaking out as he oversaw the detail weighing the Fish Hawk’s anchor. He had smoked his last cigarette and had been grumbling all morning. Jarvis had just gotten off the radio with the Cap’n of the Fooly Involved about the location of the Mobile Bay Ferry then he started barking orders. The charter boat captain had been emphatic that the ship was loaded with infected and drifting to shore. Jarvis called Stone on the secure tactical net, which in turn sent it up the chain to Reynolds.
“I have the Fooly Involved coming in hot now, captain,” the Cook advised as he looked out from the cutters window with the binos. “She is flying tuna flags!”
Jarvis moved to the radio, as he squinted into the horizon at the white Hatteras coming into view. From her tower she flew several small white flags with a blue tuna outline on them. “Fooly Involved, this is Cutter Fish Hawk, remember you need your federal tuna permit if going out for those species and need to keep your daily limits in mind even with the current circumstances, copy?”
After a dramatic delay, “Copy, Coast Guard,” came the reply.
Jarvis nodded and picked the mic back up. “We are heading out to your ferry now, Fooly Involved. The MPs are waiting for you at the dock. We will be back to relieve you as soon as possible. Fish Hawk out.”
“Wait what do you mean relieve me, Coast Guard?” the charter boat Cap’n called back over the radio.
“The Charter Boat Association voted to become part of the Coast Guard Reserve this morning, and you have been chosen to relieve us on quarantine duty until we can get back to port,” Jarvis radioed.
The Fooly Involved suddenly veered off course on its way into the marina on a collision course with the Fish Hawk and picked up speed. It was a thousand yards away and closing fast.
“What the hell is he doing, Captain?” The Cook asked.
“Looks like he is disinclined to agree with being the Q-ship for a while,” Jarvis said as he picked up the 1MC intercom mic that addressed the whole ship. “Rig for collision, all Z-doors dogged. Chief, get ready to put a shot across his bow from the forward mount,” the coast guard officer said calmly.
Jarvis picked up the radio again, “Fooly Involved, correct your course please,” he said calmly, noting that every charter boat skipper in thirty miles could hear and was probably listening to their conversation. There was not much entertainment in Gulf Shores these days. He nodded with approval as he observed the two 50-caliber machineguns train on the onrushing charter boat. They had yet to fire in anger during the outbreak, but he would be damned if he let some pissed off charter boat kamikaze him without a fight.
The Fooly Involved slowed almost to a creep and veered to come alongside of the cutter. Jarvis could see two chubby men on deck, and a teenage girl in shorts and a bikini top looking out at him.
“Stand down, gunners;” Jarvis called over the 1MC. “Looks as if he got the message.”
Jarvis turned to the Cook and nodded, “Go ahead and get underway as soon as the Chief gets the anchor cleared and the Engineer calls up to say the engines are good to go.”
As the charter boat pulled abeam of the Fish Hawk, it killed its engines and coasted neatly to a stop thirty feet away. From out of the cabin popped a darkly tanned man wearing cargo shorts, an old t-shirt, and a Calcutta fishing hat. His face was seamed by the weather, and wrinkled into an expression of distaste.
“What the shit is going on?” he yelled across the gap to Hoffman on deck as Jarvis stepped out of the bridge and climbed down to them.
“I’ve got a load of fish to unload at the dock. I don’t have time to play Captain Crunch with a bunch of Grouper Troopers,” Billy yelled back across the gap between the two white boats.
Jarvis walked up behind the Chief, “Unload your fish on the dock then come back out here and anchor. Keep anyone infected from coming in. All new boats have to moor away from shore for three days before coming ashore.”
“I have a 36-foot Hatteras, not a patrol boat!” Billy yelled.
“There is a National Guard sergeant with a few MP’s there waiting for you. They will ride shotgun with you until we get back. Thank you for your service!” Jarvis said to the charter man and walked off.
Hoffman shrugged his shoulders and waved at Billy as the engines of the Fish Hawk fired up. Belching black smoke from her stack, the cutter began to move forward into the blue-green waters of the Gulf.
««—»»
Jarvis had the ship at full action stations as they cut through the gentle seas across the empty shipping lanes towards Sparkman Reef. The cutter’s GPS was not working but the Bosun had laid out a route to intercept the ferry on the chart and had fired up the surface search radar to see what they could find. Between the fathometer and the radar tied into the chartplotter, they had an accurate idea of where they were. The scope showed a large, near-stationary ship nine miles offshore at about the same area that the charter boat captain had called in.
“Bring up the diesels to make 15 knots over ground, Bosun. No need in burning all our fuel when this bad boy is adrift,” Jarvis said as he consulted the informational graph on fuel consumption on the chart table. At that speed, the ship burned an economical 50-gallon per hour, and it would only take slightly over a half hour to get where they were going.
Last Stand on Zombie Island Page 18
