Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending

by Brian Stewart

  “From what you told me about your trip downstream from the farmhouse, I think it would be in our best interest to swap motors on the two bass boats. Yours is bigger, but only has a twenty-five horse engine. The boat from the cabin is two feet shorter, and it’s got a sixty horse motor. If you swap ‘em out, both of ‘em should give you a better run upstream.”

  “That’s a darn fine suggestion,” Michelle voiced.

  I turned to face her with my eyebrows arched in a combination of curiosity and amusement. “Did I just hear you say ‘darn’ instead of one of your other typically elegant expressions?”

  “I . . . uh . . . kind of maybe promised God that I’d try and change my ways if He’d get me out of the cabin in one piece.” Michelle's eyes looked skyward as she spoke.

  The smile on my face increased in direct proportion to the blush on Michelle’s cheeks. “Kind of maybe?”

  “Best I could do under the circumstances,” she replied.

  “Well I guess you’re off to a good start then,” I chuckled. “And speaking of being off, both of you need to be off to bed. I’d recommend that each of you lay across one of the bench seats. You’ll have to curl a bit, but it’s the best cushion you’re going to find since all of the life jackets are currently in use.”

  Neither of them gave me any argument, and less than ten minutes later, I was sitting in a swivel chair at mid deck with a rod in my hand and a tackle box at my feet. To my left and right, the sounds of snoring—some soft and childlike, some deep and bear-like—drifted to my ears.

  Chapter 75

  “It’s jiggling again,” Faith laughed musically as the tip of her fishing pole plunged towards the water. She handed me the rod and I reeled up another crappie to go with the eight already on the stringer.

  “You’ve got to be the luckiest person in the world to catch so many fish,” I chimed in as I rebaited her hook with a sliver of walleye skin. “If you’re not careful, you might catch every single one in the entire lake, and then the whole boat will be filled with fish. We’ll have to sleep on a pile of floppin’ critters, and even cover ourselves with a blanket made from fish.”

  She giggled again as she sat on my knee and dropped the line overboard in anticipation of another bite. The sun would be setting in about an hour, and I yawned for the third time in as many minutes.

  “Why don’t you go to bed, Eric?” Lynn whispered from the chair next to me. “I’m more than capable of scaling a few fish and throwing them in a pot, especially with my little helper.” She scrubbed her fingers through Faith’s curly hair with all the authority and pride of someone who found out they’d been recently promoted to the status of grandmother.

  “Maybe I will.” I yawned again as I caught myself in the process of checking for the time on my missing watch.

  “Seriously Eric,” Lynn said, “get some rest. I’ll wake you if anything comes up that needs your attention.”

  “OK, you’ve got yourself a deal. I gave Mack another dose of antibiotics when he woke up about two hours ago, so he can have two more pills around midnight. He can also have Tylenol or Advil any time he needs it since his last dose was this morning. Let Michelle and Shawn sleep as long as they can, OK? I’d rather you wake me up instead if there’s any problems.”

  “OK.”

  I lifted Faith off of my leg and spun her around to face me. “Alright tiger, I’m going to try and get some rest, so you stay out here with Miss Lynn, and she’ll show you how to clean those fish you just caught.”

  “But they live in the water, so they should already be clean.” She leaned forward and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. I returned the hug, and then set her in the chair. Turning to Lynn, I winked, silently mouthing “thank you” before walking to the front of the boat. It took me just a few minutes to arrange the loose life jackets into a cushion. With the addition of several wool blankets over top of me, my bed was complete. I’m almost positive I was out before my head touched the orange nylon covering of the life preserver seat cushion I had chosen as a pillow. At some point during the night I felt more life jackets being shifted around. The next time I awoke briefly from my haze, Faith’s snoring form was sandwiched between Michelle and I. All three of us were covered with an unzipped blanket made from a pickle bag.

  I woke again to the same situation several hours later. It was still dark, and the only sounds were the waves lapping against the boat. Michelle shivered and mumbled something as I stood, so I covered her and Faith with several additional blankets that had been tangled up around my legs. The barest shard of the new moon provided enough light for me to work my way around the familiar confines of the patrol boat, and I ended up next to one of the stern bench seats. Mack was still wrapped in a pickle bag, but he was sitting up on one of the benches. His dad was seated on the opposite bench with his feet propped next to his son. At my approach he dropped his boots and made room for me. I took a seat next to Mack and sat quietly, letting the hiss of the low blue flame of my backpack stove lull me into a familiar sense of relaxation. I honestly didn’t care for coffee, but right now the aroma wafting upwards from the pot began to tickle my palette.

  “Mornin’ sleepy head,” Shawn whispered.

  “Good morning . . . I think. What time is it?”

  I saw a faint glow as he mashed a button on his wristwatch. “4:34 AM,” he replied.

  I thought back to twenty-four hours ago when I was preparing my last will and testament in the veterinarian’s office. As I felt the low swells gently rolling the boat and the cool night air against my skin, I half wondered if I was still laying on the grooming room floor and dreaming as I slipped away from life. The not so distant splash of a fish jumping from the water registered through my fog, and I took a deep breath and focused on returning to this world.

  “That means I’ve been asleep for almost eleven hours.”

  Shawn grunted something into his coffee cup, stretched, and then yawned like a grizzly waking from hibernation. “You’re a sissy. You call eleven hours sleeping? I’ll have you know that real men can sleep for almost fifteen, as me and Mack just proved. Don’t be jealous though; it’s a skill that very few people can obtain until they’ve mastered the finer arts of Zen and other crap like that.”

  I grinned through the murky shadows that were waiting impatiently for the arrival of the morning sun. “So you’re a crap master?”

  Before Shawn could reply, Mack chirped in. “Dad is a seventh degree black belt in crap.”

  “Hey . . .,” Shawn laughed at his son’s poke. “you better take that back or I’ll make you walk the plank and then keelhaul you.”

  Without skipping a beat, Mack leaned forward in the pickle bag and pointed a comical, accusatory finger at his dad’s nose. “You don’t have a plank, and this boat isn’t covered in barnacles—and it’s not even moving—so keelhauling me won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Fine then Mr. Smart guy, if I can’t give you the traditional pirate punishment, I’ll do something even worse . . . if we ever make it back to North Carolina, I’ll make you take Cindy Manning to your senior prom.”

  “Ewwww!” Mack pulled away from his dad. A moment later they both began to laugh.

  When they finally settled down, we slid Mack out of the pickle bag and I took another look at his leg. As far as I could tell it was no different, which was relatively good news. His next round of antibiotics wasn’t due until about 8:00 AM, and he started to decline the ibuprofen until I insisted. “I’ll bet your leg is more painful than you’re letting your dad and I know, so take these pills or your dad will keelhaul both of us.”

  Mack frowned at my attempt to replay the jest, but he opened his hand and accepted the tablets. “Seriously,” I said, “I’m not very big on medicine myself, but last year my dentist gave me some wonderful advice after I had chipped tooth wrestling with a wolf. He said ‘pain sucks so take your medicine.’ And you know what? He was right. Besides, not only will it help with the pain, but it’ll also make it easier to move
fast if you’re ever being chased by Cindy Manning.”

  That brought a smile to his face, and he popped the pills into his mouth. When he had washed them down with a cup of water, Mack turned to face me. “I think you’ve got Dad beat in the crap department. Nobody wrestles with wolves.”

  It was my turn to smile and point my finger. “Oh . . . you just wait young man. When we get back to the marina, we’ll see which one of us fills our britches when they meet the werewolf.”

  “There’s no such thing as a werewolf,” he replied.

  “Well then you’ve got nothing to worry about, do you?” I matched his gaze, and after a moment I detected the slightest waiver of hesitation.

  “OK, back to bed with you,” Shawn said as he stood. A few minutes later he had escorted Mack up to the front of the boat and returned to the bench. He refilled his coffee cup and then turned off the burner. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Shawn faked sincerity as he sipped the scalding liquid, “filling the boy’s head with lies like that.”

  I thought about Max . . . about the last time I had been away from him for longer than a few days. Upon my return his “I’m so happy you’re back-I’m so pissed you left” greeting resulted in a thirty minute wrestling match that ended with a happy puppy and a chipped tooth.

  “Who said I was lying?”

  Chapter 76

  My breakfast was cold ravioli. Partially due to the fact that I didn’t mind eating it that way, and also because the fuel canister for my camping stove had been used up between the fish last night and the multiple pans of coffee this morning. After I ate, our convoy headed out with Mack at the helm. We kept the boat at a low cruise—fast enough to make reasonable progress, but slow enough for everyone to get a little more rest. I remembered to mount the reflex sight on the .22 before helping Shawn and Michelle reload the empty AR-15 magazines from our one remaining ammo can. After that, the batteries in our flashlights and radios were switched out. Michelle took the helm, so I sat back on the bench and closed my eyes for a minute. The memory of the large swarm of ghouls in the traffic jam by the bridge came to the forefront, and I dedicated some time to a possible solution. I ended up with three options—all of them risky. It was a call I didn't want to make by myself, so I rounded up Michelle and Shawn for their opinion.

  “My main concern is that we’ll be spotted by the swarm. There were at least 150 of them, and they were less than 200 yards south of the bridge. They could be anywhere by now, even on top of the bridge. Another concern I have is that if we’re able to slip through, I don’t want to chance leading them to Tater’s house.”

  “What about the kids in the root cellar?” Michelle asked.

  “I haven’t forgotten about them either,” I answered.

  “It seems to me,” Michelle turned her head to face me as she spoke, “that we’re trying to plan for an unknown. For all we know, both sides of that creek could be lined with infected, in which case we’ll be spending a lot of time in the middle of Silver Lake. On the other hand, it may be smooth sailing all the way up to Tater’s house. What I’m trying to say is that we won’t know until we get there.”

  “I agree,” I said, “which is why I’ve come up with a few options. I know which one sounds the best to me, but take a listen to all of them before you make a decision, and feel free to suggest something else, OK?”

  They both nodded, so I continued. “Option one is for us to switch the motors on the jon boats and convoy upstream at the same time. Kind of a ‘once and done’ type of approach. We stay together and deal with any issues we encounter. Option two is similar in that we all leave at the same time. The difference would be the tailing boat would stay a reasonable distance behind the lead, and would proceed forward only when the lead boat—the scout boat—gives the all clear. Option three is different. We’d leave the larger motor on the small boat and have two of us head upstream all the way to the bridge . . . maybe even a bit farther. This would be primarily a scouting mission to see if the way is clear. If the scouts run into any interference, they either handle it if it’s small enough, or turn tail and run downstream.”

  We talked it over, and both Michelle and Shawn voted for option three. It had been my choice as well. The rest of the journey to Silver Lake—almost fourteen miles—passed in relative silence. We made two stops on the way. The first was a restroom stop for everybody on a small wooded peninsula. The second one was about a mile from our destination . . . another potty break for the coffee drinkers, and a sight check for the .22. It was dead on.

  Chapter 77

  “Michelle, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, but you’re a little crackly. Not too bad though.”

  “We’re at the bridge. We’ve got three ghouls moving slowly right in front of us, but they’re the only ones we’ve seen so far.”

  “Can you take them out safely?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I whispered. “Give me about ten minutes to make sure they’re alone, and then we’ll whack ‘em and call you back.”

  “10-4.”

  I was hunkered down across the front seat of the small bass boat with the suppressed rifle in my hands. Shawn was with me, and had proven himself to be a more than adequate pilot as he steered the small aluminum craft through parts of the channel that had been barely wide enough to turn around without scraping the bank.

  “What do you think?” He whispered over the deep, bubbling chug of the idling outboard motor.

  “Let’s wait and watch . . . see if they’re really alone.”

  He said nothing in reply, and I kept my rifle pointed in the general direction of the ghouls as I scanned the rest of the area by the bridge. As far as I could remember, it looked unchanged. The three infected—two women in their forties and an elderly man—were kneeling by the creek bank next to the bridge foundation about forty yards ahead. As we watched, they lowered their faces to the water and drank. When they finally finished, they stood and began pacing back and forth, like they were curiously trying to figure out how to cross the water, but were unaware of the bridge just above their shoulders. Another five minutes of observation brought no changes, so I whispered over my shoulder.

  “OK, it looks like we’re going to have to take them out. On my signal, move us forward and close the distance—not too fast though. Keep your eyes on them, and the moment you see them notice us, cut the throttle and hold position. Ideally, I’d like to be pretty dang close before I take the shots . . . especially from a boat.”

  “Got it,” he replied.

  I settled into position, and after another fruitless glance around the area, I motioned the boat forward. We cut the distance in half before the elderly ghoul tilted his head slightly sideways and began to moan.

  “Keep going . . . get me closer,” I hissed as I tried to steady the crosshairs on my target. Shawn pushed the boat another seven yards upstream before angling it toward the opposite bank. As soon as the bottom of the boat began to slide on the water flattened grass, I braced myself and focused. With a faint screech, the aluminum boat came to a halt against the vegetation and silt that lined the edges of the streambed. When the deceleration sway ended, I lined up the illuminated reticles and brushed the trigger.

  Thack-thack.

  The old man with red eyes slumped forward and settled to the muddy ground as I shifted my aim.

  Clack-thack . . . clack-thack . . . thack.

  The two gray-skinned ladies fell—one of them pitching backwards and landing motionless against the concrete of the bridge, and the other one dropping forward into the current of the creek. Her thrashing, vibrating body was still churning the water even as she floated face down past us, and Shawn followed her with the barrel of my AR-15 until her quivering ceased.

  “Three down at the bridge. Waiting to see if we stirred up anything.”

  “10-4,” Michelle answered.

  We waited another five minutes with no encounters, and then using mostly hand signals instead of voices, Shawn and I got t
he boat oriented downstream in case we had to make a speedy exit. The engine was left idling in neutral, and we quietly worked our way up the shallow bank and onto the bridge. There was nothing. No ghouls, no boys, no movement. Nothing. A thorough search with binoculars yielded no other clues, and I radioed our status in to Michelle. When I finished, Shawn and I crept over to the farmhouse where the boys had indicated they were staying. As we took turns leapfrogging and covering each other, it was obvious to me this wasn’t Shawn’s first rodeo, and I made a mental note to ask him at some future point. All of our stealth amounted to nothing when we found the doors to the root cellar torn off their hinges. I knelt next to the entrance and shined my flashlight down the crumbling cement stairs. The picture that greeted me below reminded me of the time I had seen a dump truck-sized pile of fermenting guts behind the swine processing plant during a high school field trip with my agriculture class. I bowed my head and tried to think of something—anything—that I could offer as a prayer for the kids. I don’t remember what I ended up saying. It was either a bible verse or the lyrics to a Christian song. Maybe both. I straightened up and turned to find Shawn staring into the root cellar as well.