Last Stand on Zombie Island

by Christopher L. Eger

  “I’ve been making it, lost my brother and mother,” Spud replied.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Everyone has lost someone these days.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So really, where have you been?” Stone asked, no smile remaining on his face.

  “Out by the fort, I’ve got a house out there. My uncle’s place.”

  Reid dope slapped Spud on the back of the head. “Cut the crap. The only uncle you have is probably at Donaldson wearing a skirt and lipstick.”

  Spud looked sideways at the sergeant, the huge dog at his feet staring up at him doe-eyed. He looked back at Stone and tried his best pitch.

  “No, really. There was nothing left in town for me so I moved out to a relative’s place. I’m doing okay out there but I’ve got mouths to feed and heard there was free meals in town. We can use them.”

  “How many mouths?”

  “A few.”

  “How many is that?”

  “Maybe ten or fifteen I guess, we have been taking in people wandering around.”

  “That’s a pretty big family kid. You got the Brady Bunch going on or something?”

  “I got a big family and lots of friends. Cut the shit guys, come on.”

  “There’s been a lot of looting going on outside of town. Seems like where the city limits stop, the thieves start. Know anything about that?”

  Spud shook his head and involuntarily swallowed.

  “Old Spud is too good for all that now—isn’t he Captain?” Reid said, dripping sarcasm.

  “We haven’t been doing anything but surviving. It’s like the damned end of the world these days if you haven’t noticed,” Spud protested.

  “Ok, let’s cut to the chase here,” the First Sergeant said. “We figured as soon as we started up regular patrols down the island from town to the fort that we would flush out whoever the looters were. By coincidence we started the patrols yesterday and today you pop up in town driving Elvis’s car.”

  “It’s my uncle’s…”

  Another dope slap. Jenny the German Shepherd stood up, looked at Spud, then at the Sergeant, then back at Spud, and curled a lip.

  “So, I have a proposal for you, Mr. Spud,” Stone said, leaning back into his office chair. “You come clean about how many people you have, and what kind of supplies your little group has put together and I may just leave you well enough alone.”

  Spud leaned forward and licked his lips. Gang rules be damned, when the going gets tough the Spud gets going.

  “I have about thirty all together,” he bluffed. “We have some stuff, not a lot mind you, but some stuff you may be interested in.”

  “Like what?” said Stone, skepticism screwing his face into a scowl.

  “Well I’ve got a pretty good amount of booze…”

  “Not interested. What else?”

  “I can lay my hands on a lot of cars and trucks.”

  “Go fish.”

  “How about some ammo?”

  “What do you have?”

  Spud smiled. You always give the first bump away free, then they come back for more, and that is when you start charging.

  ««—»»

  As he drove back to the Clubhouse along the Fort Road he looked down at his new identification card. His picture was grainy and a poor likeness, as were so many Alabama Department of Corrections ID’s that had passed through his hands in the past. This one was different. He was not an inmate anymore. He was part of society now. You could argue for the first time he was a legitimate businessperson.

  “Too bad mom isn’t here to see you now,” he said to his reflection in the rearview mirror of the Cadillac. First Sergeant Reid had tried hard to keep the car, but Spud had negotiated with Stone just as hard to keep it.

  He breathed deeply and smelled a delicious aroma of forty pounds of boiled shrimp wafting occasionally out of the cooler on the back seat.

  After an hour of negotiations, Spud had agreed to make daily runs in the car from the Clubhouse to the Armory. On the runs in he would drop off any items his people could find that was on Stone’s wish list: ammo, 2-cycle boat oil, anything that looked military, radio equipment, motorcycles and people who could ride them, electrical tools like soldering irons, ohms meters, and so forth.

  In exchange for these rare and now priceless items, Spud would leave with enough hot food to keep his people fat and happy. That would give him total control over his people. After all, who would bite the hand that fed them? His down payment had been the contents of the Cadillac’s trunk.

  Spud had seen to it that he was the only one to interface with Stone, and it would stay that way. He had twenty blank ID passes marked, Member of the Requisition Detachment, which he would dole out. The little cards were to serve as get out of jail free cards if shown to the MP beach patrols.

  “But no shit, have your people keep an eye out and report anything murky directly to me immediately,” Stone had said.

  “Like what? Everything looks murky these days.”

  “Anything that looks out of the ordinary. Strange boats, outsiders, periscopes, Disease-K anywhere, anything.”

  “Ok, but I want to send some guys across the bridge and see if we can get anything up that way too.”

  Stone had shaken his head. “In time, but for now we need to take stock of what we have on the island before venturing off it.”

  “But eventually…”

  “Just keep your nose clean and we’ll see,” the Captain had said.

  Spud agreed. He had his marching orders and promised to play along.

  For now anyway…

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER 35

  October 25th–0600 hours, US Coast Guard Cutter Fish Hawk, leaving Gulf Shores

  Z+15

  Jarvis watched as the Bosun directed the mooring party to cast off the bowlines of his cutter from the deck. The Coast Guard officer had raised the ship’s underway ensign on the yardarm behind the wheelhouse. It was something the Chief had normally done and now Jarvis took over the responsibility. Everyone was going to have to step up and work a little more around the boat with Hoffman gone.

  Jarvis thrust his hands into the pockets of his blue fleece jacket to protect them from the chill morning air. Fall was gaining on Gulf Shores and the temperatures were dropping noticeably lower at night. During the day, it was still warm enough to wear shorts, but at night, a jacket was in order.

  He turned his face to the ocean air and looked out towards the Gulf from the marina. It had been less than two days since the Chief had been lost but it felt like an eternity. Jarvis wrinkled his brow as he thought of the conversations he had with Hoffman, and then about those he wished he had.

  He turned back from the sea and entered the bridge of the small cutter though the rear hatch. The Cook was at the helm backing the boat out gently away from the dock.

  “How was town last night?” Jarvis asked the bald man.

  “Well it’s not quite the same as the last time I was there, but it’s better than my rack for sure. Stone sent some MPs by with a couple bottles of booze, so we made do,” the Cook winked.

  Jarvis had stood down the whole boat and sent everyone ashore to get what rest and relaxation in they could. Reynolds had set them up with a furnished condominium within walking distance of the marina. He babysat the Fish Hawk alone all night with a SIG at his side and re-read The Caine Mutiny to keep awake. The Bosun had arrived back at the marina with the boat’s engineer at 0300 and relieved him.

  “I’m glad Captain Stone kept you guys in mind. You needed a break,” Jarvis said as he energized the cutter’s surface search radar and stepped across the compartment to the chart table.

  He had planned a roughly 100-mile circular course around Mobile Bay from Gulf Shores, across the bay to Dauphin Island, up the western shore of the bay to Mobile itself, then back along the eastern shore to where they started. It would cover the entire length of the island on both the Gulf side and the Bay side, as well as scout
out the huge port city of Mobile itself, and the suburbs around it. He planned to move just fast enough to be back by nightfall. The last thing he wanted was to bump around Mobile Bay in the dark under the current circumstances.

  As they increased forward speed and made their way out of the marina, Jarvis picked up the VHF radio and called out to the Reel Planning, a nice old Bertram charter boat moored just outside of the harbor on Quarantine Duty, that the Fish Hawk was leaving port on a patrol. The charter boat association members had taken over the Q-boat tasking as more of the shrimp boats from Bayou La Batre took over the fishing duties. It was fine with them as there was a chronic shortage of 2-cycle boat oil to keep the large outboard motors on many of the charter boats running.

  The Cook hit the foghorn briefly as they passed the Q-boat bobbing in the water. Two MPs lounging behind the M240 machinegun mounted among a pile of sandbags on the charter boat’s deck waved back, as did the civilian crew from the cabin. The sounds of music could just be heard wafting across the water from the sleek vessel as the Fish Hawk passed close by.

  “So what’s the sail plan today, Skipper?” The Bosun asked as he came into the bridge from below.

  Jarvis outlined his plan to the Bosun and the Cook. The two firemen and the Engineer would take care of everything below deck, while Jarvis, the Bosun, and the Cook would operate the bridge. The two seamen would stay loose to operate the .50-cals if something came up.

  “What about the small boat, sir?” asked the Bosun of Jarvis.

  “We aren’t launching it if at all possible. We also are not getting within a thousand yards of shore. The Bay gets shallow quick and I am not looking to be stuck here. It would be extremely humiliating to have to get pulled off a sandbar by a shrimp boat.”

  “Aye.”

  “Man the helm, the Cook and I will take lookout positions.”

  “Aye.”

  It was silent for the better part of two hours as the Fish Hawk sliced through the cool emerald green waves just off Gulf Shores, moving down the island with the sunrise to their back. The Cook scanned the island with binoculars out the cutter’s starboard side, while Jarvis looked to sea from the Port side. For 26 miles down the length of the white sand beach and coastal highway, all they saw were condominiums, beach houses, the occasional shrimp boat trawling its green nets along the bottom, and sea oats waving at them from sand dunes.

  Twice, they saw an MP hummer driving down the coast road, arms hanging out the windows of the vehicles. Twice, they honked the foghorn. Twice the hummers waved back. Occasionally Jarvis would take a break from the lookout, look at the radar, and then update their position on the chart table. GPS was long gone and not coming back. He reckoned that even though the satellites were doubtlessly still in orbit around the earth, the land-based relay stations were offline. If they ever went out into the open Gulf of Mexico again, it would be by sextant and celestial navigation just like in Columbus’s times.

  As they neared the tip of the island, Fort Morgan loomed out to sea towards them. The immense brick structure was worn and weather-beaten by 70,000 sunsets and countless tidal crashes over the centuries. Like a stoic sentinel on Mobile Bay, the old guardian still flew its flag high on the flagpole. A man stood on the parapet by one of the huge black cast iron cannons facing to sea and waved at the cutter as it passed. One more light rap of the Fish Hawk’s horn and one more wave back to the cutter as they sailed by the fort.

  “Here goes nothing,” Jarvis said as the Bosun turned the patrol boat 90-degrees and into Mobile Bay itself. A nervous laughter among the three men broke the spell and they talked and joked about everything and nothing at all for a time.

  The sun grew warm on their faces as it rose from the horizon now to their right. The cutter moved north into the Bay, two dolphins rushing forward of her bow, breaching and popping up from the white foam and spray in front of her. The marine mammals easily outran the cutter but always looped back around to surge across her bow repeatedly. The seamen standing near their machineguns looked over the side of the rails and pointed, smiling. A large, fat seagull, his head grey and eyes black as coal, came to rest near the searchlight in front of the bridge window.

  “I had an old senior chief on my first boat in California. Superstitious as hell,” the Cook said. “He used to say that dolphins are a sign of good luck.”

  The Bosun agreed.

  “He also used to say that seagulls carried the souls of sailors lost at sea.”

  Quiet, the three resumed their watch stations as the cutter motored over the smooth-as-glass muddy water of Mobile Bay. Dauphin Island and its shattered Coast Guard Station passed by as they continued north. Fort Morgan grew smaller and vanished over the horizon behind them.

  Jarvis paid close attention to the depth sounder and the chart to stay in the deeper water of the shipping channel. Most of Mobile Bay was only ten feet deep on average and while the Fish Hawk only needed six feet of water to float when fully loaded, he did not want to push it. Nothing showed afloat on the radar for twelve miles in every direction and the only noise from the radio was the VHF chatter of the Gulf Shores fishing fleet, growing fainter and farther away with each minute.

  Standing a half mile offshore of the Bay’s west coast the cutter’s crew watched the shoreline along State Highway 163 through binoculars. The highway linked the metropolis of Mobile with Dauphin Island and on any day before the outbreak would be crowded with vehicles moving in both directions. While the vehicles were still there, none were moving. Some were pulled off the side of the road, while others were wrecked or burned. Occasionally a figure or three were seen shambling down the road.

  The figures had the jerking gait characteristic of the infected and no attempt was made to investigate them further. For two hours, the cutter continued onward up the bay. For those two hours, the view remained the same. No moving vehicles, no boats on the water, only a shoreline dotted with small groups of infected and abandoned homes passed them.

  Occasionally, bodies could be made out on docks and piers, or lying in the reeds like so much clothed driftwood. They passed the 130-year old Middle Bay Lighthouse. The hexagonal shaped house, looking like a big squat Victorian-era home with a light stuck on top of it, still stood in the center of the Bay. From a platform on the roof of the structure a red light, powered by solar panels, could be made out.

  “Think we could talk a volunteer or two from the charter boat guys to shack up out here?” Jarvis asked aloud.

  “Well they would have some power from the solar cells and it’s within VHF range of town. Would make a good lookout point over the bay,” the Bosun agreed.

  “I’ll bring it up when we get back to Gulf Shores,” Jarvis said.

  Galliard Island came into view as they passed the Theodore Industrial Park just south of Mobile. Hundreds of nesting seabirds lined the triangular gravel and clay island. Brown pelicans, terns, seagulls, oystercatchers and cormorants stood in long lines as if waiting for a show to start.

  “First time I haven’t seen jet skis running round everywhere out here,” the Cook said as they motored by the island. It was true. The man-made island created from dredge spoils by the Corps of Engineers was always teeming with boats and the Fish Hawk typically had to stop every time it left port to warn boaters not to disturb the seabird hatchery there.

  “Nobody to run off today,” Jarvis said.

  As they moved further north, the Bay narrowed to a point and they could see Mobile growing larger in front of them through the haze. The 745-foot tall Battle House Tower, standing downtown as the tallest building in Alabama, stood like a flagpole beckoning them onward. Railroad tracks and urban sprawl replaced the inlets and coastal wetlands of the lower bay as they sailed closer to town.

  Past the downtown airport, they moved on. The runway ended in the Bay and Jarvis could see a number of aircraft lined up everywhere. Some had burned. A legion of infected covered the landing strip and runways with their vulgar jerking walk. Wandering around in circles and t
earing random items apart, they were everywhere.

  On the other side of the airport was the McDuffie Point Coal Terminal where stacks of black-grey coal stood in giant twenty-story high hills waiting for shipment that would never arrive.

  Past the bend of the coal terminal was Coast Guard Station Mobile. At the end of South Broad Street, the station was the homeport of the Fish Hawk, two other patrol boats just like her, the sector headquarters, and a 175-foot black-hulled buoy tender. In total, over a hundred Coastguardsmen were stationed there. Every eye on the cutter was glued to the bend when the station came into view.

  The docks that should have held patrol boats and the buoy tender were vacant. Instead, a number of civilian recreational boats and a beaten-up tugboat were tied up. Bodies littered the grounds, but none wore familiar blue Coast Guard uniforms. Infected walked the grounds and stood watching the cutter approach.

  “Where the hell is the Stingray, and the Maybrity?” the Cook asked.

  “Or the Cobia?” said the Bosun.

  Jarvis shook his head, “Not here apparently. They must have pulled out. Maybe for Gulfport or Venice.”

  “Why didn’t Sector tell us to go with them?” asked the Cook.

  “Our last orders were to stay at Dauphin Island. They may have sent them there to rendezvous with us while we were at Gulf Shores. When they didn’t find us, they kept underway,” Jarvis said, thinking aloud.

  He did not know where the rest of his sector’s units were but they obviously were not there. Just a mile from downtown was the Station, it was within walking distance of a quarter-million people before the outbreak. It did not take a genius to see that it was indefensible in an urban pandemic riot.

  Without orders to stop, the Bosun kept the cutter moving forward at nine knots past the shipyards where no workers toiled for the first time since World War II. The skyline of Mobile came into focus and the individual windows of the Battle House Tower, a bright blue in the sunrise could be seen. The high construction cranes of the shipyards along the docks stood still and quiet over downtown. In the calm water of the bay, the refection of the skyline mirrored the scene in tranquility. Peace had come to the metropolis. There were no industrial sounds, no cars honking on I-10, no crowds of talking people, no recreational boats zooming around, no planes, and no helicopters. The only motorized movement was the Fish Hawk. The only sound that of her diesels thrumming below.