by Bob Howard
Kathy stepped in front of Tom and said, “Don’t pay any attention to him. You’ll get to meet Molly when we get back to our shelter.”
Up to now the kids hadn’t been told everything. It had been enough to feed them and protect them fro the scavengers at the Coast Guard base. It might have been difficult for them to told they were going to be leaving home behind, so Kathy and the Chief hadn’t mentioned the shelter.
“Are we going to live here now?” asked Whitney.
Kathy said, “Let’s go, guys. We can explain everything when we’re all safe inside.”
The Chief signaled for Tom and me to come with him and our Cuban friend. He explained that we were going to drop off the sailor with his shipmates, but we were also going to be faced with making them understand they couldn’t keep anyone alive who might have been bitten. The way the infected were dropping in from the top of the wall, it was possible someone had been a victim.
Kathy started for the fort as we pulled away. I was hoping to see the reactions of the three kids when they went down the rabbit hole. I was sure they would be as surprised as we were, but I would just have to wait to see their faces when we reached Mud Island.
Kathy told us later that the big difference for the kids was when they entered the tunnel into Fort Sumter. We had no reason to clean up the mess we had made when we had first killed the scavengers and then disposed of the infected dead that were left behind. Bodies were everywhere, and the smell was beginning to be overpowering. Kathy hurried them along as quickly as she could to get them away from the stench. She said they were more than grateful when she pushed them through the hidden door that led to the shelter below.
The Chief asked me to drive the smaller boat over to Castle Pinckney. Tom shook the Cuban sailor’s hand one more time before he climbed into the boat with me. I powered up and started across the harbor and was really surprised how quickly the Chief pulled alongside in the Coast Guard ship.
The Cuban sailors were still being rocked by the infected dead under their boats, but at least they had stopped raining from above. I saw one of the sailors had a towel or something wrapped around his right arm, and it was soaked with blood. They didn’t know why we were coming back, so they got on their knees again. Then they saw their shipmate with me and started waving like we were old friends. The Chief turned the Cormorant broadside to the two boats, and Tom kept the machine guns aimed at them as a safety precaution.
I pointed at the coiled ropes on the bow, and my Cuban passenger understood what I wanted him to do. He climbed onto the bow and scooped the line up. Without getting myself in the same mess the others were in, I got in close enough for him to throw the rope to the first boat. We backed away until the line was taut, and the boat pulled free, then repeated the maneuver with the second boat. There was cheering on the two Cuban boats even though they were most likely thinking they were going to be prisoners.
With the boats free to move again, I let mine drift in close enough for the Cuban sailor to jump over to his friends. He gave me a sharp salute, turned to the Cormorant and gave a salute in the direction of the wheelhouse, then jumped over. I could see I was right about one man being bitten, and the Cubans couldn’t have survived this long without understanding the consequences. Either way, I didn’t feel like hanging around to see how they dealt with it.
I turned my boat just ahead of the Cormorant and began racing back to the dock at Fort Sumter. We were doing much better than we had hoped by getting the Coast Guard ship. I imagined it could tow the barge back to Mud Island with no problems.
The only thing that could have made it a better evening for me would have been Jean being with me. I had tried more than once to establish radio contact with Mud Island, and I imagined Jean had Molly trying from their end. Sometimes I felt like it was better that we couldn’t talk with each other. If we had been able to, we would have worried Jean needlessly about seeing the Chief and Allison crash the plane into the harbor. We also would have been forced to tell Molly that the Chief had come back, but Allison hadn’t.
Our group had grown in size in a short time. Besides myself, the Chief, Kathy, Tom, and Bus, we now had Olivia, Chase, Whitney, Sam, and Perry. I wasn’t sure how we would manage with twelve people at Mud Island, but at least we had a large cache of supplies below Fort Sumter.
We talked about the possibility of splitting into two groups and having someone stay behind at Fort Sumter. It would be useful to us as a well hidden advance warning station, but the inability to establish radio communications from the fort only made it good for extra living space and storage. Kathy joked that we could use it as a vacation home. We all felt like we at least had some hope. With three shelters at our disposal, it would be possible to give safe haven to a few people.
Supper was a celebration again. This time we had overcome some major obstacles just as big as some we faced in the past, but the addition of the Cormorant was awesome. Of course it would only be a temporary addition because we didn’t want to advertise our presence on Mud Island, but it would at least help us get home with the barge we needed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Promises
Jean was experimenting with baking bread when Molly started yelling for her to come into the living room. Molly had been alternating between the radio and the cameras, and either one or the other had produced results. Jean couldn’t tell if the results were good or bad.
When she got to the living room, Jean saw it was the camera monitor that had caused Molly to yell. Molly was pointing at it and saying something about men, so Jean didn’t expect to see anyone she knew. Her first thought was that the Cubans had returned. When Jean was in position to see the monitor, she saw that the houseboat was occupied once again. By her count this was the fourth time.
A man was just inside the door of the houseboat with his back to the camera, and another was on the dock. The one on the dock was in a low shooter position and was rotating back and forth toward the dense brush of Mud Island. Both were wearing military combat uniforms, but the shooter had his arms in a position that kept her from making out the patterns on his sleeves where insignia would be worn.
Jean switched on the camera inside the houseboat just as the man inside stepped into the area that the camera didn’t cover. A moment later he passed by it again as he walked out onto the deck of the houseboat. She thought she saw something like an American flag on one arm, but she still wasn’t sure.
“Are they bad guys, Aunt Jean?”
Molly still sounded so young and innocent to Jean, and it made her just a little sad that Molly had sorted people out as good guys and bad guys. Still, it would help her stay alive longer to think that way.
“I don’t know yet, Honey. I can’t make out the sleeve patches yet, can you?”
She had no sooner asked when the man in the houseboat stepped back out onto the dock. He turned left and right assessing his surroundings as if he expected to find more than he was seeing. Jean felt a lump in her throat when she saw the American flag was one of the patches, and she was fairly sure the bars on the collars of the uniform made the man a Captain.
“Aunt Jean, that’s an American flag. Those are the good guys, right? We can let them in?”
Jean almost said yes just out of reflex. When the infected dead began attacking people, it was the United States military that everyone had turned to, and she had continued to hope for rescue by the military long after. When she and the others had tried to seek the protection of the US Navy at the Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek, they had blindly pinned their hopes on joining up with them. They had been turned away by the Navy because the infection had gotten to them from all directions, and to this day, they didn’t know if anyone had survived.
“Molly, we don’t know them. If your daddy was here right now, he and the Chief could decide if we should talk with the men outside, but since they’re not here, I have to keep the door closed.”
The Captain was standing on the dock next to the houseboat. Another s
oldier had approached him from the beach side of the dock, so Jean switched the monitor to display several cameras. She saw at least twenty men and women in US Army uniforms on the beach. They appeared to be setting up a camp on the beach. Several were carrying branches they had cut from trees and building a crude fence. With as much firepower as they had, the trees were only intended to slow down anything that came out of the water. As Jean knew all too well, the infected dead washed up on the beach in unpredictable waves. You could go weeks without seeing any, but then you would see plenty of them every day.
Jean realized the soldiers were cutting some big trees, and the big trees were close to their main entrance. It wasn’t visible from the beach, but if they ventured far enough into the island for trees, they would eventually find the door.
When she brought the camera view of the front door up on the screen, there were two young soldiers standing directly in front of it. One of them was talking into a satellite phone. Jean glanced at the view of the dock and saw that the officer standing in front of the houseboat had a satellite phone to his ear, and it didn’t take a genius to guess who he was talking to.
He brought the phone down from his ear and looked at the end of the dock where the camera was well hidden, and Jean had the distinct impression that he was looking right at her.
“That man is looking at us,” said Molly.
“Not yet, Molly, but he knows we’re here. He just doesn’t know where we are.”
The Army Captain said something to the other soldier and started walking toward the end of the dock. He walked right by the hidden camera, but it was no secret that he had found the path toward the center of the island. He only had to walk a mile to join the two soldiers out front by the door, so Jean switched to the beach view and the front door.
The soldiers at the front door weren’t doing anything in particular to try to open the door, so Jean assumed they were just standing guard for the time being. On the beach the sun was still in the east, and it looked like mid-morning. It was a fairly clear day, and the weather was warm enough for the soldiers to be comfortable. She saw tents being set up, and it looked like they planned to stay. The sides of the tents were rolled up on the inside perimeter of the camp, and since the camp was roughly a horseshoe shape, she was able to see their progress.
“What are they doing, Aunt Jean?”
“They’re setting up camp. See that tent with the table? That would be the command tent. There’s a guy getting ready to use a radio. Why don’t you get ready in case he talks with us?”
Molly looked at Jean with surprise, but she didn’t look afraid. Although Jean was wary of everyone, she had a lot of hope that the US Army was going to be helpful. Her biggest fear was that they would take away their shelter in the name of national defense. She had seen enough movies and read enough books to believe that was possible. The country was in a state of emergency, and that could mean the military was as rogue as gangs they had seen.
Jean saw what looked like a mess tent being erected, and she got nervous. She hoped they weren’t eating seafood. After this much time since the end of civilization, the ocean may have become the only food source. The idea almost made her turn green again. The site of the boated bodies coming to the surface after the Russian ship had blown up, and the crabs roaming from body to body had caused her to have a bad day.
They had never seen evidence that eating the seafood after the crabs and fish had eaten the infected dead would be dangerous, but they didn’t want to find out the hard way. They had seen an entire community of about five hundred people who had cut themselves off from the mainland by severing an entire marina from land access. They were using the bodies of the infected dead as bait for blue crabs. They would never have a shortage of food, but the crabs were eating poisoned flesh. Jean couldn’t help believing the crabs were poisonous to eat.
Their group had never been back to that marina, so they didn’t know if those people had survived, but in her mind, Jean expected they were dead by now. She also didn’t see how those people could have lost their humanity by using the once living people as bait, and she saw it as only a short leap between that and cannibalism. If they ever ran short of crabs or maybe just got tired of such a narrow diet, they may have started eating the bait.
Now she found herself watching very closely to see what went into the pots that were being set on cookers in the mess tent, and she wondered what was in the crates that had been stacked by the cookers. Fresh water was poured into the pots, and flame cookers were being turned on.
Jean looked back at the front door view and saw the soldiers were still alone, so she turned to the other camera views around the island. She saw on the mainland side that there were still bodies on the surface, but not as many. The current had been gradually tugging at the twisted mass of bloated, floating bodies, and some were being carried away to the south where they would exit out to sea. She couldn’t look at that view very long because they were still crab food.
The camera on the southern end of the island was the camera they had placed on the other side of the moat that separated Mud Island from the mainland. The camera discovered by the Cubans in the gunboats was long gone.
She saw several of the infected dead emerging from the thick trees headed for the general direction of the moat. They were walking past the camera as they stumbled toward the water. She didn’t know if they could hear the activity of the Army camp in the distance, or if they were just doing what they do, which was just wandering around. Sometimes one would groan, and others would flock to that spot. More of them would groan, for whatever reason, and the next thing you knew you had ten or twelve more join in on the groaning. Any given place could become a horde gathering in a hurry.
The view of Mud Island wasn’t great news. There were several soldiers examining the area around the hidden boat. When they had built the hiding place for the boat, they knew it would pass inspection from the casual observer, but the soldiers had been sent out to see what they could find, and it wasn’t long before they determined the deadfall covering their hiding place didn’t look natural.
It occurred to Jean that the inspections she saw happening at the ends of the island could only mean one thing. Someone knew the shelter was there. The two soldiers standing at the shelter entrance had been part of the team that had been sent to the middle of the island.
One of the soldiers inspecting the deadfall of branches had just gone down to the place where the sand met with the slight rise toward the trees. He found the edge of the big door they had made and lifted it upward as a fellow soldier covered him. From Jean’s angle, she could see their Boston Whaler on its trailer. She was slightly confused when the soldier lowered the door again, and everyone took a minute to carefully restore the hiding place.
Molly said, “Aunt Jean, the man on the radio is talking about something, but I don’t know what he means.”
“What did he say, Molly?”
“He said a lot of funny words in a row like bravo, echo, and tango.” The last word she said with a giggle.
Jean giggled too. It had to sound funny to a kid. “That’s the way they speak so you know what the first letter is. Try to remember the exact words and then spell a word from the first letters.”
Molly got out a pad of paper. She waited until the broadcast began again, started writing. When she stopped, she handed the pad to Jean. In clear writing for a child Molly’s age, it said, “Charlie, Hotel, India, Echo, Foxtrot, Bravo, Alpha, Romeo, November, Echo, Sierra,”
Jean stared at the pad. She didn’t bother to ask Molly if she was sure she had gotten it right. It was too obvious they were broadcasting a message to the Chief. Jean felt her heart racing at the implications.
“You did good, Molly. Please keep listening to see if they keep repeating the same message or if they change to something else. Don’t worry if you miss the start. They’ll repeat it.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Molly, “but foxtrot and Romeo are funny.” Molly was smiling fro
m ear to ear.
Jean smiled too. She still didn’t know if she should let the Army know their message was being received, but she was hopeful. One thing was for sure. Now that they knew about the hidden boat, the door, and the dock, they were also sure that Chief Barnes was somewhere within radio range.
The officer arrived in the view of the camera over the front door. He said a few words to the soldiers who were standing guard, and then he smiled at the camera. Jean expected him to say something, wave, or give some indication that he knew he was being watched, but all he did was walk away. A few minutes later she saw him reappear at the tent where the radioman was broadcasting. He handed a sheet of paper to the radioman who turned back to the microphone.
Jean saw Molly begin to write again, and then she handed the pad to Jean.
It said, “Callsign Chief, callsign Miller. Respond when you are ready. Will wait.”
Jean had no doubt that the message was asking for the Chief, and she wished she could answer for him. She still hadn’t been able to reach the Chief or anybody else in her group, and she wasn’t sure if she should answer, but she was sure of one other thing. The officer had to be Captain Miller, and if he was, he was a man who said he owed a debt to the Chief.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Mission
Everyone got a good night of sleep at Fort Sumter, even though we rotated standing watch on the bridge the Cormorant. The harbor had been dark and quiet with no surprises. If everything went well we would be heading home to Mud Island by the end of the day. The Chief told us he felt like he could tow the line laying barge with the Cormorant at night if the weather was good, so we might be able to complete our plan once we got started.
The kids had all discovered they really didn’t mind bathtubs as much as they remembered, with the exception of Whitney who had always appreciated soaking in the tub. After they had eaten the night before they were all tired, but they were given a big surprise. Kathy and the Chief sat down with them and explained they would have a big job to do the next day while the adults were away.
