by Bob Howard
The Chief had to smile when he thought of the answer to Kathy's question.
"Ed's always talking about shucking the oyster. He says sooner or later, something will always pry the oyster open. He says the Mud Island shelter is like a big oyster just waiting for the right person to come along and pry it open."
"Do you think he's right?"
"Almost, but not quite," said the Chief. "Take this ship, for instance. Hatches can be blown open. Torches can cut through the metal in hundreds of places. Charges could be set that would sink it right where it sits. The worst part about it is its visibility. We don't know yet who blew up the Russian corvette, and we don't know why, but it could have been just because someone could."
"So, you think Mud Island is the perfect oyster because it would be harder to open?"
"Think about it, Kathy. If there are survivors inside this ship, they have to come out sooner or later. Their supplies won't last forever, depending on how many people are sharing them. You can stay inside Mud Island for years without coming outside."
"Why do we keep coming outside if we live in a nearly perfect oyster?" asked Kathy with a wry smile.
In the darkness Kathy could still see the Chief smile as he thought about his answer. Sometimes they talked about not being too bright and not being satisfied with what they had. Otherwise, they would just stay inside the shelter and wait until they had to do something about their power. They had a two year supply of power reserves if they cut back at all on their energy usage.
Kathy looked out across the darkness and strained her eyes to see the outline of Fort Sumter, and she thought about what kind of people they had become.
"You're thinking about Tom again," said the Chief.
"Close, Chief, but I was thinking about Ed. Remember when we met him and when he told us about how he had visited the shelter the first time? There he was inside the perfect oyster, and he left to go buy video games. It wasn't perfect to him."
"Don't forget," said the Chief, "the infection started to spread after he left the shelter. If he had turned on the TV and seen news reports about people eating their families, friends, and neighbors, I doubt seriously that he would have left the shelter. He would have gone into the kitchen and made himself a big bowl of Ramen noodles, cracked open a Mountain Dew and stayed glued to the news."
"You're right, Chief, but I guess I'm saying we would look for a reason to leave even if we didn't have to. Yes, we holed up for a while after we almost lost Jean on the Russian ship, but we would have stuck our heads above ground sooner or later no matter what."
Kathy looked from the harbor up at the dark hull of the Coast Guard ship. It looked dark to her even though the hull was white.
"How many people usually crew this ship, Chief?"
"Only about ten. That's why there wouldn't be enough supplies on board to keep survivors fed for very long. They would have to come out and go foraging before long, but I am getting an idea. The area around here has been picked clean by now. Whoever is hiding inside will have to come out soon. If they don't, we may have to try to persuade them to come out, but this could be our ticket out of here."
"I know what you're thinking, Chief. This thing isn't very big, but will it be able to tow that barge we need?"
"It would be slow, but if we get good weather, we could do it. These things are just under ninety feet long, so they have the power. Did you see what was on the bow? There were tarps over them, but there are twin fifty caliber Browning machine guns. If the ammunition hasn't been removed, we would also be able to defend ourselves."
"Time to get some sleep, Chief. We could both use a few hours, and I don't think this oyster will open at night."
The Chief couldn't disagree with Kathy about that, and he was definitely tired. He also didn't disagree with her when she handed him a blanket and told him to go first. The last thing he heard from her was when she said she would wake him up if anything happened.
******
When Kathy squeezed his foot harder, the Chief woke up and listened. He was too well trained to wake up talking or sitting up to see what was happening around him. Instead, he listened for clues that would tell him what action to take.
What he heard was voices coming from somewhere on the dock next to the Cormorant. Kathy gripped his hand and gently pulled him in the direction she needed him to go. The current had swung their stern over toward the ladder on the left side of the stern, and they were in a good position to peek around the port side of the Cutter. There were at least two people talking in low voices on the dock.
The Chief got closer to Kathy's ear and in barely a whisper asked her if she had been able to hear what they were saying. She answered just as carefully that she heard them say they expected someone to come out of the ship at any minute. Apparently, they had been watching the ship, and whoever was holed up inside had demonstrated a pattern.
The Chief looked to the east and saw that the sun was just below the horizon, and he guessed the pattern was to come out and go foraging at sunrise. This would be their best opportunity to show someone they were the good guys. He whispered to Kathy to use the ladder, and he would use the ramp. Then he moved slowly over the rail of their boat and slipped into the water. Kathy moved away from their stern into the protection of the hull of the Cormorant and pulled herself up the ladder. She stopped just short of the top and looked down to her right. The Chief was in a prone position facing up the ramp.
There was the faintest of sounds from the metal on metal friction of the locking mechanisms inside the main door at the bottom of the wheelhouse. Kathy could see a slender figure emerge from the dark interior, and the door was locked again from inside. In that same few seconds that it took for someone to come out of the protection of the ship, the two men launched themselves onto the deck and rushed forward.
There was a female scream from the dark figure by the door, and triumphant shouts from the two men as one grabbed her arms and the other grabbed her legs. She was trying to kick and flail her way out of their grip, but she was far to small compared to them.
The flailing was cut short because none of them saw Kathy vault over the stern as the two men rushed past, the Chief emerged like a missile from the ramp. Both were trained in hand to hand combat, and their adrenaline was pumping as they hit their unsuspecting targets.
The men were too busy trying to control the struggling girl to even realize what hit them. Kathy's angle allowed her to come in low under the right arm of the scavenger who had the girl by her feet. He was laughing until Kathy punched him in the side just below his armpit. Then his laughter changed to a wheezing sound as the air left his lungs. A second punch in the same spot before he could let go of the girl produced the sound of a cracking rib that punctured the lung.
The Chief hit his target like a freight train. Since Kathy had gotten there a split second before him, the man had a chance to drop the girl's arms and reach for a weapon. That was his mistake. With the girl falling free from his grip, there was a little distance between him and his victim, and that enabled the Chief to hit him with his full weight without the girl in the way. They slammed into the metal door with the weight of the Chief on top of him. It sounded as bad as it had to have felt, and the man didn't move after the Chief backed away.
Kathy's victim was dying next to his friend. She stepped forward and put him out of his misery with a knife into the base of his skull. The Chief picked up the unconscious man he had body slammed and tossed him over the railing of the starboard side. Then he returned for the man Kathy had taken down and disposed of him the same way.
They had moved so quickly that it was over in seconds, and the girl who had come out of the ship was so sure she was next that she was curled up in a fetal position on the deck. She was a young, African American girl who had most likely been in high school when the infection started. She was sobbing softly and just waiting for her turn.
The Chief had seen the same behavior in combat, and Kathy had learned about it when she
was taught about hostage reactions during active shooter events. Some victims just gave up and waited for their turn.
Kathy knew it was important to get her to just calm down and get involved with her own survival. She had to get her to become aware that she was still alive, not a victim anymore, and able to help all of them.
The Chief took up a position over at the port side along the dock. He pulled his hand gun from a holster inside his coveralls and began searching their surroundings for more danger. The girl's screams weren't awful, but they were loud enough for others to hear if there were infected or living people nearby.
Kathy put her arms around the crying girl and was doing her best to soothe her by telling her over and over again that she was going to be okay. With the sun coming up on Kathy's face, the girl could see through partially closed and covered eyes that Kathy wasn't going to hurt her. When the full realization hit, she threw her arms around Kathy's neck and sobbed harder. Kathy let her cry it out and then gently pried the girl loose so she could be face to face with her.
"Do you have a special knock you use so someone inside will know to let you back in? You need to do it now so we can go inside where it's safe."
The girl only hesitated for a split second and then moved toward the door. The sunlight showed where they had taken care of the scavengers against the metal. She knocked on a spot that wasn't red with blood and waited. The lock began to turn after a few seconds, and a head started to poke out.
"You're back too soon. What happened?"
The boy looked young, and when he saw the girl wasn't alone, he went pale. Kathy didn't think someone could get that pale. He was so petrified by the sight of someone other than his fellow survivor that he didn't react fast enough. He was going to shut the door again, but a big hand had reached out of nowhere and grabbed the top of the door. The Chief pulled it open, and the boy was literally dragged out with it. This oyster was open.
"It's okay, Sam. Let us in," said the girl.
Despite the seriousness of the situation and the feeling of being exposed in the open with the sun rising, the Chief had to smile when the girl had told the boy to "let" them in. They were pretty much past the part when he would "let" them do anything.
The girl led the way past Sam with Kathy right behind her. Sam backed inside quickly when confronted with the size of the Chief who was ducking to get through the door. The Chief turned and dogged the hatch shut behind him.
There was surprisingly more space inside the ship than they had expected, but it seemed much smaller with the Chief squeezed inside. There was a small galley made up of the kitchen and dining area, and forward of that was the berthing space.
Kathy and the Chief smiled, but that was what almost everyone did these days right before they tried to take what you had. They saw there was a third teenager, also a boy, who looked like he was frozen in place.
"I'm Kathy, and my big friend here is the Chief. I'm mean he's Chief Barnes, but we just call him the Chief."
"Are you going to kill us?" stammered the boy who had opened the door.
"Of course they aren't going to kill us," said the girl. "They saved me from those two mutts who jumped me when I went out the door. My name is Whitney."
She pointed at the boy who had opened the door and then fallen back into the room and said, "He's Sam, and the guy standing there like a statue is Perry."
"How have you three survived in this ship for so long?" asked Kathy.
"We haven't been on this ship the whole time," said Whitney. "We've been here about three months. We were able to stay in the Coast Guard barracks for a long time. There were lots of supplies for the first two months, so we never had to go outside. We had lots of fresh water, and we've only been using the power during the day time. We didn't want to accidentally show off some lights or something when we turned the power on, so we never do it at night. This place worked pretty good until we had to start going out to search for food."
It wasn't hard to tell Whitney was the leader of this group of survivors. The two boys looked like they wouldn't have made it too far without her.
"I'm sorry about my behavior out there a while ago," said Whitney. "I'm usually tougher than that, but they caught me by surprise."
"They've been watching your pattern. You've only been going out at sunrise, so they were waiting for you. Good thing we just happened to be in the neighborhood."
"I told you so," said Perry defiantly. "I told you to go out at different times."
"It didn't matter," said Kathy. "They would have just waited until you showed up. They only got the drop on you because it was still dark enough out there."
"Why were you guys there?" asked Sam. He was more composed now and had moved over to stand next to Perry.
"We were just passing through last night in a boat and decided to anchor next to the Cormorant. It kept us out of view of the docks. We heard something from inside the ship and decided to stick around," said the Chief.
The three kids exchanged looks, but the Chief and Kathy both caught the dirty looks Whitney and Sam both gave Perry.
Perry defensively said, "You may have heard something, but you didn't know it was someone alive."
"True," said the Chief, "but if it had been an infected banging around inside the ship, it would have kept banging around. It wouldn't have tried to keep quiet after that."
"Infected? Is that what you call the dead people?" asked Sam.
Kathy said, "That's what they called them on the news when all this started. They said an infection of some kind was spreading around, and not to let one of them bite you, so we started calling them infected, too."
"Do scavengers come around here much?" asked the Chief.
"Aren't you scavengers?" Sam asked accusingly.
"Depends on what you think we are," said the Chief. "If you think scavengers are people who can take you to a safe place, then I guess we're scavengers."
Whitney answered for the group, "We've heard them trying to get in about once a week, but sometimes it's every day and sometimes not for a few weeks. What do you mean that you can take us to a safe place?"
"First," said the Chief, "I'm going to see if I can power this thing up. If I can, it can be handled by one person if they know what they're doing. Next, we're going to make a short trip out to Fort Sumter."
All three of them stood a little straighter and looked like they were cornered.
"You are scavengers," accused Whitney.
Kathy and the Chief both saw their mistake immediately. These kids were especially aware of the people out at Fort Sumter and figured that a ticket to there was a one way trip.
"Hold on a second, kids." Kathy held both hands out showing her palms. "We're not the people you've been seeing from Fort Sumter. Those people are all either dead or gone. I know you don't know us well enough to trust us yet, but do you think we would be standing here talking if we meant to harm you?"
All three of them looked like they were underweight. Sam and Perry looked like they were underweight and generally undersized before the infection began. They were the kind of kids who were bullied at school, and they expected to be bullied every year. They were both fair haired and could use some time in the sun, but that wasn't really an option anymore. Whitney was taller and looked like she might have been either a cheerleader or an athlete in school.
"How old are you guys?" asked Kathy.
Whitney sounded suspicious when she answered, "Why do you want to know?"
"I wanted to make sure you're old enough to learn how to shoot a gun."
That got their attention.
Sam said, "I'm thirteen, he's fourteen, and she's sixteen."
"That's old enough to shoot," said the Chief. "Any guns on this ship."
Still suspicious, they all looked at each other before giving up their secrets.
"Did you just trick us?" asked Whitney.
"I have an idea," said Kathy. "Chief, cover me while I get some stuff from the boat. Whitney, I could use a han
d. As a matter of fact, Sam you close the door behind us. The Chief is going to cover us while Whitney and Perry are going to help me get some food out of the boat."
The truth was that Kathy didn't need their help. She just didn't want them to lock the door as soon as she and the Chief went to get them something to eat. They might eventually get them to open the door again, but it would be a big waste of time.
"You're a better shot than me," said the Chief. "You can cover us."
Kathy grinned at the Chief as they went through the door. She could tell he had figured out what she was doing. Besides feeding the three kids, she was making them feel just a little less like victims by giving them something to do.
It took less than five minutes to get to the boat, pass their bags up to Whitney and Perry and then get back inside, but doing it as the serious business that it was made the kids feel important. They were excited when they closed the door behind us and were giving each other high fives.
"Now, let's see what we have in here that you guys can force yourselves to eat."
They all gathered around the small "mess" area next to the galley and took their seats.
Kathy made a show out of selecting from the MRE's they had hurriedly packed when they left Fort Sumter.
"You guys just raise your hands if I call out something you want. I have pepperoni pizza."
Three hands were in the air.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing the Chief likes the pepperoni pizza, because I brought plenty of it."
Kathy showed them how to heat up the MRE's. It didn't look much like pepperoni pizza, but the kids didn't complain. She had second helpings ready at about the same time that they finished the first ones.
"So, who wants to tell me how you three managed to get such a cool place to hide?" asked the Chief.
They kept eating, but they stared at him as if he was speaking a foreign language.
"I'm not sure they say cool anymore, Chief. I think they would say this place is either lit or live."
The Chief looked like he was considering it for a minute, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything but cool.
