by Bob Howard
The kids panicked at first when they heard the adults were leaving, but calmed down when they were told what it was they were expected to do. Kathy told them there were over two hundred rooms in the shelter, and as soon as they were done with breakfast, they were going to inventory the rooms.
The Chief added, “We need to know what’s in this shelter before we leave. If we ever come back here again, it will be good to know that this shelter has something we need. We may also come back here after we’re done getting the barge just to get something that you find that we didn’t know was here, so you guys will need to work fast. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours for some of us to come back. If you don’t finish, that’s okay.”
Whitney looked thoughtful and asked, “Can we just take pictures with the digital cameras we found in that one storeroom?”
“That’s smart thinking, Whitney. As a matter of fact, we can make the lists from the pictures. Go get some breakfast and get started.”
The kids were excited. Exploring was something any kid would want to do, and discovering hidden treasure in the rooms was like being set loose at Disney World. They didn’t need to be asked twice, and they charged off in the direction of the dining room.
Kathy and the Chief followed the kids, and over breakfast the Chief laid out the plan. We would take the Cormorant and the other boat. The Coast Guard ship was for protection and towing, and the smaller boat was for mobility if we were in any tight spaces. The Chief also filled us in on another part of the plan that he hadn’t yet disclosed. We were going to find another seaplane.
None of us felt like we would disagree with the idea, but we didn’t know of any seaplane friendly docks in the area. There were pictures in the Fort Sumter shelter just as there had been at Mud Island and Green Cavern in Guntersville. The pictures we had at Mud Island had clearly shown us where the Tennessee Valley Authority seaplanes would be parked by the country club docks in Guntersville, but there wasn’t anything in Charleston harbor that showed the same.
It was doubtful that we would have gone near the seaplane docks if they were by the Patriots Point marina. That area was the most likely place to find pockets of survivors with guns. So far we had given that side of the harbor a wide berth. If someone had managed to secure the World War II aircraft carrier Yorktown that was parked at Patriots Point, it would be easily defended. As a matter of fact, we had considered an attempt to contact people who may have seen Fort Sumter light up when we had scared the Cubans out of the harbor. Whoever was alive over there, they were also curious about the Cormorant parked at the dock, and they were also aware of the heavy gunfight the night we rescued Chase.
After discussion, we had decided to let people come to us. If they were friendly, they would approach cautiously. If they weren’t friendly, we didn’t want to find out by crossing into their territory. We all agreed that there might come a time when we should visit the Yorktown, but this wasn’t the right time.
The Chief said between bites of food that he had been studying some of the high resolution pictures he had brought along from Mud Island, and one of them showed seaplanes parked at a small marina up the Ashley River. There was no guarantee that there would be one parked there now, but the pictures showed the pilings of the dock at the marina were the same type they had at their dock on Mud Island. If there was going to be a seaplane in the area, it would be parked at that dock.
“Okay, Chief. What’s plan A?” I asked.
“It’s a simple plan,” said the Chief, “but it could take over twelve hours because of the tides. Low tide will be around 1:45 this afternoon, and we have to go under the Ashley River drawbridge then. Since it won’t be open, we have to hope the Cormorant will fit under it at low tide.”
“How close will it be?” asked Kathy.
The Chief ran a big hand across the stubble on his chin and said, “Probably just a few feet.”
We all stared at him. The mental picture of the Cormorant passing under the bridge with a few feet to spare wasn’t too attractive.
“What’s the rule for drawbridges?” asked Kathy. “How did they decide before when it had to open?”
The Chief knew the rule, or he wouldn’t have even considered going under the bridge only at low tide. He knew it was going to be close even at low tide.
“If a ship has fourteen feet of clearance or less, the bridge had to be open for them to pass,” he said.
“Why do we need twelve hours?” I asked. “You don’t think we could make the trip to that boat landing and be back before the tide gets too high?”
“We might, but it’ll be close. I think we could try coasting up to the bridge before the tide is completely low. If it’s low enough, we can go through and make a fast run up river. Bus can get the plane in the air, and the rest of us can pour on the speed getting back.”
“Why do we need the Cormorant?” asked Kathy. “Do you really think we’re going to run into that much trouble?”
“There are at least six places where we could run into trouble, depending on what has happened since the first day. If it was as bad as Tom described on the Waccamaw River bridge, then the Ashley River bridges look like auto salvage yards. The infected dead may not be able to move around freely, but I expect there will be some that decide drop in. The Cormorant might not be able to get close enough to the marina, so we need to take both boats.”
“Did I hear my name?”
Tom sat down with a big plate of food next to Kathy. The others were right behind him.
“You guys got an early start,” said Olivia.
Chase was walking behind Olivia with a heaping plate of food, and the kids were returning with theirs. Bus had appeared out of nowhere, and he was all ears when we told him we were going to try for another plane.
“I never thought I would say I liked powdered eggs,” said Bus, “but this stuff grows on you. I won’t even ask what this stuff is that tastes like bacon.”
Once everybody was situated at table, the Chief began laying out the plan. He explained that there were likely to be infected dead falling from the bridge onto the deck of the Cormorant, so some of us had to be standing by to pitch them overboard. The smaller boat would be tagging along astern of the Cormorant, and it would have to time its passing under the bridge so it wouldn’t catch any of the falling infected dead. Bus would be on that boat, and once they were clear of the bridge they would make a mad dash upriver to the marina where the planes might be.
The Chief explained that there was a minor league baseball park on the starboard side not long after they passed the bridge. He said he had studied the construction of the park in the pictures, and it looked like a good place to defend. He said he wouldn’t be surprised to find someone had moved into the park and secured it.
Tom said, “You’re right, Chief. I played in a lot of minor league parks. They have high walls, security gates, and good visibility from the highest places, such as the press boxes. They could have someone up there with a good sniper rifle ready to pick us apart.”
“I don’t know why the survivors of this mess have to be shooting at each other,” said Olivia. “If they would all pull together, they might be able to stop this thing from killing the rest of the people in the world.”
“I can’t argue with that,” said the Chief. “The people who shot down my plane didn’t have a good reason for doing it.”
“After the bridge, we’re going to increase speed for a couple of miles and make a run for the marina. We’ll drop Bus off at the planes, give him some time to get one in the air, and then make a run back the other way. Except for when we’re passing under the bridges, we’ll keep the smaller boat on the port side of the Coast Guard vessel. If someone takes a shot at us, the Cormorant can act as a shield. Any questions?”
No one had any questions, so we finished our breakfasts and got down to the business planned for the day. Whitney, Sam, and Perry got their digital cameras and started with the storerooms we had already been plundering. Taking pictur
es was a good idea right from the start. With over two hundred rooms to photograph, they wouldn’t be able to get done if they had to list everything now. Perry had the bonus idea of the day when he suggested that they make a sign for each room and take a picture of the sign with the supplies. A simple piece of paper with something written on it saying what level the room was on would save time if they had to come back for something.
The adults all packed their gear and weapons. All hands would be needed today for various jobs. I got the job of driving the smaller boat, and of course the Chief had the helm of the Cormorant. Kathy was manning the remote controlled fifty caliber guns from the bridge. Bus was with me so he could be dropped off quicker. Tom and Chase were on the deck of the Coast Guard ship ready to deal with any of the infected that fell from the bridge. Olivia wanted to go along, but she drew the short straw and got the job of monitoring the security cameras in case someone tried to occupy Fort Sumter while we were gone.
We still hadn’t been able to figure out why communications weren’t working at the fort. Something had gone wrong somewhere, but there would be time to deal with that later, so we worked out a series of signals Olivia could use. The lights installed around the surface of the fort could be individually controlled instead of all being on or all being off. If one was on, someone was in the fort. If two were on, it wasn’t safe to return, and we would come back for the kids and Olivia after delivering the barge to Mud Island. If everything went as planned, we would fly back and get them by landing down by the tunnel entrance hidden at the end of Morris Island.
Once we were all set, I saw the Chief holding a thumb in the air, so lines were cast off from both boats, and we pulled away from the dock. We coasted out about one hundred feet and then watched the lights on the fort. They flashed on and off three times at a slow pace.
The Chief had figured someone would be watching as we left the fort, and he wanted them to have no doubt that the fort was still occupied by a force powerful enough to remain in control. The boats and number of people observers would be watching should be enough to make people think we were at least an organized group. Whether the observers were friendly or hostile, it had to be convincing. If not, the fort would be occupied as soon as we were out of visual contact.
I pulled away to the port side of the Cormorant as the Coast Guard ship picked up speed. Within minutes we were passing White Point Garden again. This time it was beautiful in the noon sun of a clear April day. Everything was green and blooming, and it would have looked like the paradise that it was if not for the shambling infected dead that were walking along the railing of the seawall. They could hear our engines, and they were being drawn out of the trees, across Murray Blvd., and up onto the wide concrete sidewalk.
We passed the large L shaped dock at the Coast Guard base, and it was eerily still now. The hundreds of infected dead that had walked off the dock and were caught in the current of the Ashley River as it rushed toward the ocean had served one last purpose on Earth by washing in among the Cuban boats.
The James Island Expressway was coming up next, but it was so high above the water that we weren’t worried about it. We had passed under it not far from this same spot on our first trip down to Charleston, and it hadn’t posed a problem. If something fell from that bridge, we would have time to move out from under it before it reached the water. We all kept our eyes on the city marina to our starboard side and a smaller marina to our left.
Both marinas had their fair share of boats that were sunk right where they were berthed, and some were charred black from the fires that had spread from boat to boat. In among them were those rare boats that didn’t have a scratch on them. The Chief told us to watch for those because they were the ones that had arrived after those insane nights when everyone was trying to escape the spread of the infection.
Tom had told us how he had passed boat landings and marinas on that night when he and Molly had escaped first to Conway and then south on the Waccamaw River. His descriptions were so graphically clear that we could picture what had happened at these marinas. There would have been people running to their boats, and people running from the infected. There would have been screaming, and there would have been gunshots. Now the marinas were graveyards, and hiding in among the tombs were frightened people who were watching us go by, unsure of whether or not it was safe to hail us.
It seemed almost too soon that the moment of truth was on us, and we were approaching the twin Ashley River drawbridges. There were so many cars on both bridges that we couldn’t tell at first if there were any infected dead walking around between them, but as we got closer the engines began to draw them to the railings. First there were only a few, then they were lining the railings like people at a sporting event. They weren’t coming to watch us go by, though. They wanted to get over the railing that was blocking their way.
The Chief was coasting toward the bridge at a very low speed, but because the tide was going out, he was having to maintain his speed against a strong current. I was having to increase my power to drive against the current too, and the engine noise was whipping the crowd up above into a frenzy. There must have been more of them than we expected because we could hear them above the sound of our engines.
We were arriving over an hour before low tide, and the slow approach into the current was giving the Chief a good opportunity to measure the height of the masts atop the Cormorant. From our angle in the boat, it looked like the Chief was going to rip the masts off, but he had a much better view. Kathy was probably giving him advice, as well. The kept approaching slowly, and we watched as the masts cleared the underside of the bridge by less than a foot.
Bus and I heard Tom yelling at Chase to watch out above, and we saw the first body falling toward them. This one landed on the port side rail down on the main deck by the stern. It couldn’t have been planned, but it looked like a perfect head first dive…straight into the metal railing. Since head trauma was the way to permanently kill them, this one wasn’t going to be a problem. The body crumpled outward and fell overboard on its own. We started through with the Chief and watched nervously for anything falling in our direction.
The second one hit in a flat landing down inside the boat retrieval well. It wasn’t going to be able to climb up onto the deck from down there, so we were able to watch for the next one. Number three missed the boat completely, and by then the Cormorant was past the first bridge into the space between the two drawbridges. We didn’t see more flying bodies from the first bridge because they had all crossed to the side of the bridge when we approached. They didn’t have the reasoning power to know we had gone under them.
The crowd on the second bridge was falling over the rails before we got there. We could see that it was going to be much worse than the first bridge because they were raining down the way they had at Green Cavern when we had watched the bodies shower from above.
Our momentum had us moving closer even though it was into the current. To turn left or right between the bridges could cause either boat to catch the concrete supports of the bridge and rip a hole in the hull. We were going to have to go through whether we wanted to or not.
We were only a matter of a few yards from the bridge when I saw the three bow mounted fifty caliber machine guns point skyward in unison. They only blasted a short burst of rounds as they rotated slightly to the left and the right, but it was enough. The wall of bullets may not have killed the infected, but the force knocked them backward into each other, and there was a brief pause in the shower of bodies. The Chief increased his speed, and I did the same as soon as I heard his engines increase their output.
A body landed in the back of our boat right in front of the bench seats. It was still moving, but when we increased our speed, the bow rose, and the stern dropped. Bus took care of the rest. The infected was facing directly away from us when it stood up, and Bus kicked it squarely in the middle of the back. It tumbled over the stern and disappeared in our wake.
Several bodies missed
or grazed the railings of the Coast Guard ship, but we were through the first hurdle of our trip upriver. The second hurdle was the baseball park, and it was coming up fast. Bus took over driving the boat so I could watch the shore with binoculars, He brought us up along the side of the Chief so we would be sheltered if there was a sniper on the starboard side at the ballpark.
Tom came around the port side of the wheelhouse and grabbed the railing. Chase joined him only a second later. He yelled down at us that there was someone watching us from the press box level. We didn’t know if they were friends or enemies, but it made sense not to give them a target.
After the ballpark passed from view, we had a long stretch of river ahead of us with no real threats except small docks. There could be people at them waiting for boats traveling on the river, but the weapons on the Cormorant would make anyone think twice. Tom and Chase moved from the side of the wheelhouse to deal with the infected dead that had fallen into the boat well. When they got there, they were surprised to see it walking out through the stern of the boat straight into the churning wake. The stern bulkhead could be raised and lowered to open the well when the Coast Guard needed to launch or retrieve a boat, and the Chief had simply raised it when he increased speed. The infected dead took the open door as an invitation.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Very Important People
Two hundred rooms at least, and what seemed to be going so fast at first was taking way to long. The three kids started out together at first, but they eventually decided they were just photographing the same things from different angles. They discovered that Sam was taking pictures of things that Perry had already done.
“There’s only one way to get this done faster,” said Whitney. “We need to do different floors, and we need to put an X on the door of each room we do.”
