by Bob Howard
Kathy got his attention and pointed at the starboard side. The Chief walked across the deceptively large wheelhouse and looked down at the water. There were infected dead popping to the surface on the other side of the Cormorant, but they weren’t staying afloat. After sliding over the surface for a few feet, they went back under for a second time. The Chief looked aft and saw bodies doing the same thing behind the ship, but instead of just popping to the surface, some were virtually launched into the air. Most were coming up in pieces. With more than a little amusement, he realized the twin screws were swirling the infected around under the ship and ejecting them.
Whitney saw the water was getting crowded and proved she had good sense by moving their boat to a safer distance. She also moved forward since most of the bodies were going aft.
They watched for close to thirty minutes as hundreds of infected dead walked over the side and fell into the water. Perry and Sam were worried that they could climb aboard at first, but they accepted Kathy’s explanation that they wouldn’t climb a ladder if you threw it to them. She also told them the bad news, and that was the infected dead were still dangerous in the water. She explained that they would sink, the current would carry them away, fish and crabs would eat them, but they could still bite you if you fell into the water with them.
“The crabs?” asked Sam in a higher than normal voice. “I love to go crabbing with my friends.”
“Well,” said Kathy, “I wouldn’t recommend eating blue crabs anymore.”
Sam looked a little sick, and that reminded Kathy of Jean. If there was ever anyone who got sick when she thought about the blue crabs eating the infected dead, it was Jean, and she was that way before she got pregnant. After getting pregnant, you could get her to turn pale just by mentioning blue crabs.
As the parking lot and ship loading areas emptied of the horde of infected that had swarmed into the base, the Chief continued to coax them forward over the loudspeaker. In the meantime, Kathy inspected the fifty caliber machine guns mounted on the bow. She was surprised to find there was no protection for the person firing the guns until she discovered they were remote controlled. That meant they weren’t aimed manually and were deadly accurate. She was also pleased that a third gun was mounted ahead of the other two on the bow. It was under a tarp, and had ammunition being fed to it from below.
Kathy found an interior communications microphone on a forward mount and keyed the switch.
“Chief, the hatches forward of the wheelhouse aren’t for passing ammunition to the machine gun operators. The fifty calibers are remote controlled.”
The Chief keyed the microphone to the loudspeaker and said, “Surprise.”
Kathy inspected all three weapons and thought about the Coasties and the parents who had gone topside to protect their children. They had told the kids they were going to fight to save them, and they should stay below. Maybe they had used the fifty caliber machine guns from the wheelhouse, but it was looking more and more like they had taken the fight to the infected dead out on the decks of the Cormorant. What they didn’t know, and what they could not have known was the extent of the crisis. They hadn’t known it was a worldwide apocalypse,
If they had known there was no way to win the fight, they could have sailed the Cormorant to safety. Then again, they would also have carried as many wounded as possible with them, so it was fortunate for the three survivors after all. If they had sailed out of Charleston harbor seeking the safety of the open sea, they would have been no different from the cruise liner that Kathy had escaped on. They would all have died from within.
The gap between the Cormorant and the docks had grown to yards instead of feet, and the last of the infected were falling into the water. There were a few stragglers, but they were still walking toward the sound of the ship as it was drifting away. The Chief called out on the loudspeaker to Whitney that he was coming to starboard, and she increased her distance ahead of the bow. Eighty-seven feet wasn’t a big ship, but it could do twenty-five knots and had some lethal firepower on its deck. The Chief found himself looking forward to running into the Cuban gunboats that had shot him down.
Kathy came through the door of the wheelhouse and was impressed by the spacious bridge and sophisticated electronics.
“Do you know how to operate all of this stuff?” she asked the Chief.
“Most of it is pretty basic. I’ll show you where the remote controls are for the guns in a minute. As I recall from a ship this size out in Alaska, they could single target or they could all be aimed at one target. If you’ve ever played a video game, it’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Eddie should really enjoy that part,” said Kathy.
“That’s what I was thinking a minute ago,”said the Chief. “Eddie’s going to get to play his video games after all.”
After they shared a laugh, Kathy asked the Chief why the Cormorant had three of the remote controlled fifty-caliber machine guns. She said she had seen plenty of the Coast Guard ships when she was a police officer in Charleston, and that they usually only had two guns.
The Chief, being a wealth of information when it came to ships told her the Cormorant must have been assigned to patrol near one of the Navy submarine bases at some point, maybe Kings Bay, Georgia. He explained that they typically were equipped with three guns to make them just a bit more deadly, and he wasn’t going to complain.
As the Cormorant turned to starboard and pulled away from the dock, Whitney powered up their boat and moved to the port side. She matched their speed and waved at her two friends who were still out on the bow. Kathy and the Chief could see all three kids were happy to be free of what had been little more than a prison for almost a year.
After everything the Chief and Kathy had seen so far, the sight of Whitney cruising between the Cormorant and the homes along Charleston’s historic section was beautiful and somewhat surreal. The Chief almost let the beauty of the city make him forget just how dangerous it could be, and he used the loudspeaker to get Whitney’s attention.
“Cruise to my starboard side, Whitney.”
Over the drone of her engines Whitney heard the rather curt message and guessed the meaning immediately. She increased her speed and passed the Cormorant, taking up a position on the starboard side where she was protected by the larger ship.
Kathy said, “Did you know this type ship is known as the Marine Protector Class, Chief?”
“Pretty appropriate for what we have in mind. I’m looking forward to seeing those guys who shot me down. I think the reason I’m still so mad about it is because they didn’t have to shoot me down. They just did it because they could. I don’t have to sink them now. I just want to.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Siege
After the Chief and Kathy had gotten far enough away, and the lights had been turned off over the fort, the rest of the group began to feel the stress of the day taking its toll. There wasn’t anything we could do about the gunboats, and there wasn’t anything we needed to do yet. We would have to decide after the Chief and Kathy returned.
Chase took Olivia’s hand and led her out of the control room leaving me, Tom, and Bus. Of the three of us, Bus appeared to be to most down.
“Are you okay, Bus?” I asked.
I didn’t have to spell it out for him. There had been enough distraction for all of us to avoid thinking about Allison, but now that the day was over, and there wasn’t anything left to do about the threats outside, there was only time to think.
“I’ll manage,” he said. “I was just thinking about Molly.”
It was easy to see the effect that had on Tom. He was holding his head up as best as he could, but telling Molly was going to be hard.
“I think it’s time to get drunk,” said Tom.
Tom put his arm over his old friend’s shoulders and walked him out of the control room. I was left to watch over the dead world outside, but I couldn’t forget about the fleet of small gunboats that were floating not far from the jetti
es. I could see their shapes in the wide angle view from the satellite, but for some reason I couldn’t get the satellite to rotate for the view that would allow me to see far enough up the coast. It had been nice to see Mud Island, but maybe the satellite could only do so much before it ran out of fuel.
I knew enough about satellites to know this one was geosynchronous, meaning that it stayed in one spot, orbiting at a speed that matched the Earth’s rotation. Changing its view the way the Chief had done would require fuel for small rockets, and maybe it had already been low on fuel when the Chief had turned it.
Whatever was wrong, it was nothing but a small disappointment, and I had been learning how to deal with disappointments in the last year. At least the Chief had come back from the dead…not as an infected but as the living, breathing leader of our group. I smiled despite the loss of the satellite angle.
My eyes drifted over the monitors, and I saw there was nothing moving in the fort above us, and the gunboats had apparently dropped anchors. The tide was coming in, and the two that were trapped in shallow water were beginning to make some progress pulling themselves free of the muddy bottom.
I must have dozed off because the next time I looked at the screen, the two boats were almost gone from sight. They had undoubtedly gone out to deeper water than the rest of the boats, not wanting to be embarrassed by getting stuck in the mud for a second time.
The sun was coming up behind the fleet of intruders, so the lights weren’t going to be a deterrent until it got dark again. I zoomed in with the satellite camera, and I could see people in several of the boats had binoculars aimed toward Fort Sumter. They had to be trying to decide how to approach the fort, and they had no way to gather more intelligence. They could see bodies on the rocks, so they could tell there had been a recent battle. What they couldn’t tell was whether or not the battle was over. Fort Sumter looked quiet, but there could easily be a trap.
Putting myself in their shoes, I figured their best bet was to pass on this target, but they must have been hoping to find something of value, or maybe they just didn’t like losing two of their boats because someone had turned on the lights. I also considered which boat was the leader of the others, guessing that the others would be less organized if they lost their commander.
I watched for a sign and saw similar behavior from the crews on all of the boats until I saw the man with the binoculars in the closest boat signal with hand gestures for the second boat to come closer. When it pulled alongside the lead boat, the man pointed in the general direction of the harbor, but I was certain he was telling them to circle around to the other side of the fort.
The boat immediately increased its power and sped across the harbor until it came to a stop near Castle Pinckney. It was a relatively small island, and the remains of the fort were nothing more than a single wall and some sand, but it afforded cover for the boat from a possible attack from the rear.
It was in position for only a moment when a second boat followed it, and as soon as it arrived the two boats left together. They sped away from the small island to where the Ashley River marshes came up to the left side of Fort Sumter. I was thinking about how much fun it would be to see them get stuck in the mud. It was deceptively shallow in some spots, and I could see by the channel markers that they were very close to making that mistake.
A second pair of boats sped past Castle Pinckney and joined the other two, so that made four boats trying to reach the dock to Fort Sumter by skimming along the edge of the mud flats on the left. Two more boats entered the harbor, but they stopped at Castle Pinckney. There were ten boats all total. Four were on the left side, two were more or less toward the front, and four were still on the right side by the jetties. I wondered if those morons had read some American history. Fort Sumter was surrounded during the Civil War and easily captured. In this case, there wasn’t really anything to capture. There were still weapons scattered among the dead, but it wasn’t like we really cared if they found them. There wasn’t anything sophisticated, and since they wouldn’t suspect a hidden bunker to be under the surface of the fort, there wouldn’t be any strategic value for them to occupy it. They were more of a problem to us as long as they were in their boats. If they were inside the fort, we could always consider doing the same thing to them that we had done to the last occupants.
I watched for almost an hour as the boats on the Ashley River side of the fort slowly inched their way forward. It certainly appeared they were aiming for the dock. Zooming in with the camera I could see that one of the crewmen was using a pole to test the depth of the water, and my best guess was they were only clearing the bottom by about a foot. It would get deeper as they got closer to the dock, but they were trying to skim along the marsh much closer inland where the mud was thick. I wondered how they would feel if they knew all they had to do was just drive straight up to it. Since tour boats had docked there before the infection, it had to be deeper water.
The sun had risen well above the horizon, and I had all the camera angles I needed. The harbor was probably more beautiful than it had ever been. The morning air was so clear that I could make out details in the shallow water, and because there hadn’t been any big container ships stirring up the mud on the bottom I could see deeper than ever. I saw shadows moving that looked larger than sharks or alligators. From above it looked like dark clouds under the surface of the water. I aimed a camera toward the sky just to be sure it wasn’t a cloud blocking the sun, but there was nothing but blue sky.
When I brought the camera back down, I saw that the first boat trying to reach the dock was directly in the middle of the shadow under the surface of the water, and the shadow appeared to be growing. The crew of the second boat was slow to realize that the first boat had stopped moving forward, and the man with the pole was pulling on it like it had become stuck in the mud.
The second boat moved over the growing shadow to join the first boat, and the second pair coming down the Ashley River behind them was following the same path as the first two.
I suddenly remembered that I could record the events from the console where I was seated, and I hit the red button. I had a feeling that I was seeing something that could be important later, and I also had a feeling that we had been seriously lucky that what I was going to see hadn’t happened to us already.
There had been so many times in the last year that we had been out on the water, and sometimes it had been shallow water. I wondered how many of those times we had moved away just before disaster was about to strike. It was like we had walked through the alligator pits at the zoo, but we weren’t attacked because we didn’t make enough noise.
The two boats were practically touching each other at the bow and stern when they started to rotate in unison. They both began to turn clockwise as if they were synchronized. The shadow under the boats had also turned darker, and it looked almost like an oil slick. There were four men in each boat, and they were all looking for something to hang onto. One man on the lead boat jumped onto the bow and grabbed the fifty caliber machine gun. He pulled back on the handle on the side of the weapon and aimed as low as he could at the water. The weapon sprayed the huge bullets into the water at the shadow as the boat began to turn faster and rock from side to side as it rotated.
The scenario on the second boat was strikingly similar, with the exception of the man with the pole. I watched as he struggled with something trying to pull it from his hands, and he didn’t know when to let go. He lost his footing in the rocking, rotating boat and was pulled overboard.
I remembered when we had docked our seaplane at a marina near Guntersville, Alabama, and we found that the bottom of the lake near the shore was crowded with the infected dead. There had been no current to push them away from the place where they had entered the water, so they had just been standing there on the lake floor just waiting for unsuspecting prey to pass too close to them. The difference there had been that the lake bottom had been about ten feet below, so they were unable to reach high enoug
h to grab us. There had been some close calls, but the depth of the water had kept us relatively safe.
Here in the harbor along the marsh that lined the Ashley River, there was a treacherous bottom of mud that that could suck your feet under and never let you go. The depth that you would get stuck depended on what was under the mud. If there was an old oyster bed hidden below, you would get sucked down and left standing knee deep in the mud. When the tide would go out, your head might rise above the water, but you would never leave that spot.
The shadow I had seen growing under the boats was simply more and more infected dead joining their unfortunate brothers and sisters as they became stuck in the mud. Unable to move and unable to pull themselves from where they were held in place, all they could do was reach up and touch the bottoms of the two boats. I could see arms from the elbows to the fingers reaching, trying to find something to grasp. They couldn’t reach into the boats, but hundreds of wet hands slapped against the hulls.
The rotation began to slow, but both boats were pointed straight toward the shoreline and the marsh grass. The second boat had also opened fire on the infected dead that were holding the boats in place. The flat surfaces of the stern on each boat presented more area for the slapping hands, and the boats began to be pushed toward the shallower water.
Someone on boat number two decided the engine propellor would be a good idea, and they increased the throttle. Their mistake was only that the propellor was in the water, so they succeeded in driving the boat straight into the mud flats only inches below the surface. They were safe from the infected dead because they couldn’t flow the boat through the sucking mud, but the boat wasn’t going anywhere for a long time.
