by Howard, Bob
Jean didn’t have the benefit of past experiences to fall back on, but she made herself move. She let her feet go out from under herself so her weight would pull downward from the infected that was holding her. She heard the material of her foul weather jacket tear, but the feeling of the teeth gripping her was gone, and it wasn’t replaced by cold air. That gave her hope that the material below the jacket wasn’t pierced by the teeth.
As she dropped to the ground, she also reached across her body for the long knife in the leg sheath. The infected had a grip on her arm that was too strong to break loose, but apparently its elbows weren’t what they used to be. The tendons made a loud popping sound as they tore free from their connections. The hand didn’t let go, but Jean found herself below the two infected dead with a forearm dangling from her arm. It seemed to her that she had seen that happen before, but she was too busy to worry about when. She had already found the hilt of her long knife with her left hand and pulled it free as the infected in the tan shirt fell on her.
Jean didn’t let time slow down, and she saw the blade of the knife go upward through the chin of the infected and out through the top of the skull. She didn’t stop to admire her handiwork as she swung the machete hard to her right. It seemed to move slower because of the extra weight of the dead arm that flopped around when she moved, but she was only aiming at the knees. The machete made a satisfying crunching sound as it went through the right leg of the monster that had bitten her.
She wondered if the Chief was right about time not slowing down for the infected, because she was about to kill the one that had bitten her. The severed leg lost its last connection with its former owner and the infected fell over on its right side. Jean let the momentum of her swing and the extra weight of the arm hanging from hers continue in a long arc and brought the machete down just behind the left ear of the second infected dead.
Everything was quiet except for the breeze, and time slowed down again as Jean looked at the torn material on her arm. She needed to know for sure, but she was afraid to look. If she looked, and if she saw torn material with blood underneath, she knew what it meant. She remembered when the infected had tried to bite her on the Atlantic Spirit, and all it did was tear her shirt. It was on the same arm and almost on the same spot. She also remembered telling the Chief and Kathy if she was bitten she would throw herself overboard on her own. If she was bitten this time, she would have to take care of it before the others got back.
Jean pulled the knife from the head of the infected in the tan shirt and used it to pry the fingers loose that gripped her right arm. When it fell away, she hesitantly pulled her upper arm around in front of her face to inspect the damage. Tears streamed down her cheeks when she saw that the outer material was wide open. There were impressions of teeth in the rubber of her wetsuit, and she could guess there would be bruising later under the suit, but there were no holes. She knew she didn’t have the luxury to sit and feel sorry for herself, but she couldn’t help it. She sat and sobbed quietly with her knees drawn tightly to her chest and her head resting against them.
She knew she didn’t stay where she was very long, but she still felt like it was far longer than it should have been. When she first made the decision to go outside, it had been enough to put butterflies in her stomach. When she put on her protective clothing, she had butterflies and a dry mouth. Now, the butterflies were gone, the dry mouth was gone, but her entire body felt wasted. She felt weak and mentally lost.
Somehow, she managed to lift her head and look around. Next to her were the two infected she had brought to a final end, and there was a stillness on the island she hadn’t really felt before. She felt like she didn’t know where she was because this strange island had become her home, and it had almost become her final home. She hadn’t realized until this moment what an awful thought that was.
She managed to gather up enough strength and her old determination to push herself to her feet. She checked in all directions to be sure there wouldn’t be anymore surprises. One thing in her favor was the knowledge that more infected dead would have shown up already if they were going to, because she had made enough noise thrashing around with the other two.
Jean looked up at the sky and guessed the time. Despite everything that had happened, she hadn’t been outside more than thirty minutes, and she still had work to do. She looked around for her bag of supplies and found it under the infected dead in the tan shirt. She snatched up the bag and doubled her pace toward the dock.
When she reached the spot where the dock met with land she noticed that the ground was a bit more worn on the path than it used to be. With all of the foot traffic from the Russians, the path wasn’t as well hidden as before. She sat down her bag and laid down on the ground facing out onto the dock. She wanted to be sure she could see all of the wires. As far as she knew, there were only two, but the reason they were called booby traps was because they trapped people who weren’t bright enough to look for them.
Once she had the right angle to the wires, Jean could see both of them, and there weren’t more of them that she had missed. She moved to the first one and checked to be sure that the wires were connected to one charge each instead of an explosive on both sides. She was happy to see they were only on one side. Next she studied the place where the first wire connected to its charge. She wanted to be sure that some trigger wouldn’t be activated if she removed the wire. She saw that it was a simple pin with a ring on it, and everyone knew what a grenade looked like. If you tripped over the wire, it would pull out the pin, and the grenade would explode.
It made her angry that these people from another country were trying to leave traps for her friends, and whatever sympathy she had for the Russians earlier was gone now. Whatever was happening over on the ship was fine with her. If people were dying from the bites they had gotten in the moat, and if it killed the entire crew, it would be fine with her.
Jean got her wire cutters and a roll of string. The first thing she did was run the string through the ring on the end of the pin and then tied it around the grenade. This way the pin couldn't be pulled out. No matter what, someone would have to cut the string to make the grenade explode. Then she cut the wire at both ends and replaced it with wire that was only connected to the piling next to the grenade and across to the other side. It didn’t take her more than a few minutes to set up the dummy wire once she decided how to do it. She moved to the next grenade and repeated the process in even less time. She inspected her work and was really pleased with herself. Unless the Russians got down and took a very close look, they would never notice that someone had rigged their booby traps not to work.
She picked up her supplies and was just starting to get up from her knees when something hit her in the back, knocking her flat to the dock with the air gone from her lungs. Something pressed hard between her shoulder blades, and she was only vaguely aware that it felt like a boot. All she really knew for sure was that it hurt.
Someone pulled a bag over her head, and her hands were roughly pulled behind her and tied. When she was lifted to her feet she could tell there was one man on each side of her. She felt herself being lifted into the air and unceremoniously tossed onto something that felt like rubber, and then her worst fears came true when she heard a motor start.
“No,” she said. “Don’t take me to the ship. That’s not a safe place to be.” Something hit her in the side of the head, and she blacked out.
When Jean woke up, the bag was gone from her head, and she was untied. She was in a cell. It was very small, probably because the ship wasn’t very big, and a brig was only meant for temporary punishment. At least that’s what she guessed, but she felt strangely safer than she should feel. She impulsively backed into the corner of the cell as far from the bars as she could get, and she knew why she felt safer. Nothing could reach her from the outside, and if things went the same way on this ship as they had on the Atlantic Spirit, this cell was going to be a safer place than anywhere else on the ship. She j
ust wished she was back in the shelter.
Chapter 8
Guntersville
At dawn I woke up and looked over at the Chief. The plane was gently rocking because a small storm had kicked up the water a bit. Rain was streaking down the windshield. Some time after we had stopped to spend the night, I had traded places with Kathy so she could stretch out in back.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” said the Chief.
Kathy added, “About time you woke up.”
If the Chief didn’t pick on me I would worry. It was just his nature to keep things light with a little kidding around.
“I was waiting for you to make breakfast for me,” I said.
Tom joined in with, “I’ll take my eggs scrambled, and make my bacon extra crispy.”
I asked, “Any coffee left?”
A voice from in back said, “You’re guys are going swimming if you don’t stop talking about hot food.” Kathy emerged between us and held a finger up at me. “Don’t tempt me again.”
I smiled, and she laughed when we heard the sound of Molly getting the last drop of chocolate milk through a straw. Molly grinned around her straw.
“So, Chief, what do we know about the problem at the grotto? It looked pretty bad in the dark,” I said.
The Chief motioned in the direction of the grotto and switched on the windshield wipers. Through the drizzle we could see there were still bodies falling from the tree line along the top of the cavern entrance, and they were still walking up onto the beach at the cave entrance. Some would linger where they came out of the water, but eventually they would start walking into the darkness and disappear.
I let out a low whistle. There was no way we were going in there. “Where are they all coming from?” I asked. “And don’t tell me to ask Mr. Obvious.”
“He’s right,” said Kathy. “We can see that they’re coming from the top of that mountain. Does anyone else think that’s a strange place to find that many infected dead?”
Tom said, “I may have an idea.”
“Well, lay it on us, Tom. I think we’ve all had to develop open minds in the last year,” said the Chief.
The Chief and I turned to face him, and we were all ears. Maybe if we knew where they were coming from, we would also know what to do about them.
Tom said, “I think you were right when you joked that Dr. Bus may have known your Uncle Titus, Ed. He was part of some super secret network that believed there would be an apocalypse of some kind. That’s why he built the shelter, right?”
“Do you think he really knew Uncle Titus, or are you saying he just knew people like Uncle Titus?” I asked.
“Oh, I think he knew your uncle very well,” said Tom. “As a matter of fact, I remember things he said that might give us a clue about how to deal with this.”
“Like what?” asked Kathy.
Tom thought for a moment and then started listing things that we all thought sounded familiar. From his philosophies about being ready to the way his shelter was designed, it was almost like Bus and Titus had planned everything together.
The Chief said, “Then there would be another way in and out that only he would know about. When you think about it, we wouldn’t have found our exits if Ed hadn’t seen the emergency escape hatches in the bedroom.”
Kathy said, “Look at that mountain. If there’s a secret door somewhere, Bus will have to tell us where it is, and everybody and his brother will hear him tell us.”
“We could just tell Bus to meet us at the back door,” I suggested. “We just leave it at that and act like we know where it is. Bus will know that we don’t have a clue where it is. If he can use his escape hatch, he will say so.”
“Sounds good,” said Kathy, “but how will we know where he’s going to come out? Like you said, Chief, that’s a mountain.”
Everybody looked at me like I had the answer, and I relished the moment. There were so many times that I felt like a spectator in a room full of survivors. It felt good to be the leader for once.
“It’s simple,” I said. “We just tell Bus good morning, and to wave at us when he gets to the back door. We put the plane in the air and watch from above for him to signal us.”
He laughed, but the Chief said, “That might actually work, Ed. As simple as it sounds, it might work because we would be the only ones to see his signal. The only problem we might have would be getting to his escape hatch from the water, but let’s find out where it is before we worry about that.”
The Chief started the engine and rotated the plane toward open water where we would have the room for a take off. The plane picked up speed fast, and we made a wide turn that gave us a good view of the mountain. We saw at once that the mountains in this area weren’t as big as some people would expect. They were certainly higher than the flat land I was used to in South Carolina, but they weren’t peaked or snow capped. As a matter of fact, they looked like a great place to ride out a zombie apocalypse.
Since we had arrived in total darkness, all we could see was the great mass of the mountain. It was all shadows from above, and we couldn’t make out the difference between a man and a tree. Now, in the light of day we saw that it hadn’t been just a tree covered mountain. The top of the mountain was broad and flat, and it had been cleared of most trees. There was a circle of cabins and a larger building that looked like a barn. The entire compound was surrounded by a tall wooden fence that was strategically placed along the steepest edges of the mountain. A single, narrow road wound from the base of the mountain to a huge gate, and the gate was closed.
A low pass over the community gave us a better view of the buildings, and it wasn’t hard to imagine what had happened inside the fence. There were bodies everywhere, and none were walking around trying to bite people. We passed over the trees on the side of the mountain that faced the lake where we had spent the night, and we saw there was a big gap in the fence. There were still a few infected dead near the gap, and we watched as they walked through it and dropped to a plateau about twenty feet below. The plateau had been cleared and fenced in just like the community above, and it was completely crowded from wall to wall with the infected.
“What in the world are we looking at?” asked Kathy.
“The houseboat and the moat,” said the Chief.
I agreed. The houseboat was the little settlement on the top of the mountain, and the moat was the plateau, but it didn’t look like it had worked out so well for someone. The plateau was supposed to keep the dead from coming up to the fenced in compound on one side of the mountain, but just like our moat, it had become a reservoir for the dead to either rot or fall into the lake below. I wondered if there were any predators like our sharks around that were getting their fill of the infected.
I pointed at the top of the mountain and said, “When we talk with Bus, he’s going to tell us that the community on the top of the mountain was built as a distraction. People who would find the fenced community would be content not to look for anything under the mountain.”
“What about that plateau?” asked Kathy.
“I have a guess about that,” said Tom.
As the Chief brought the plane around for another pass, Tom pointed at the gap and said, “Look at the hole in the fence. You can see that the boards from the fence are still at the bottom where they landed. The lower fenced plateau was meant to be a buffer against people getting to the top, but it looks like it became a trap for the infected just like the moat around Mud Island.”
“That’s what I was just thinking, Tom,” I said.
He looked like he was waiting for me to finish a sentence, so I explained.
“Let’s say you decided to escape from the area when the attacks began. You’re living down there in the valley along the river. You have a nice house, maybe you’re retired and do a lot of fishing, or you live over at that resort and play golf. This stuff starts happening on TV, and you look out your window and see your neighbor snacking on the mail man.”
The Chie
f looked at me like I had lost my mind, and when I looked at Kathy for help, I saw she was looking at me the same way. I didn’t know how else to say it, so I guess I was saying it the way it had felt to me on that first day. I didn’t see it on the news. I saw people biting people, and the police were shooting people who were biting people.
“Anyway,” I continued, “where would you go? You already live in a gated community if you’re the guy who plays golf, and that didn’t do the mail man much good, so you know you’re not safe. Or you’re the guy who lives in a cabin down by the lake and you just fish, and these things are walking off your dock trying to get to your bass boat. Where would anyone around here go?”
Tom answered even though it was pretty obvious what the answer was. “People think it’s safer on top of a mountain, but there are some drawbacks. For one thing, supplies don’t last forever. There’s only so much you can carry up a mountain, and water is going to be the first thing to go.”
“And,” Kathy added, “there are lots of mountains around here, but how many of them have a ready built community sitting on top of them? When the attacks began, people must have flocked up the hill to those cabins.”
“What happened when they got full?” I asked.
Tom said, “It doesn’t take long for someone to step up and take over as the leader, and it’s not going to be your golfer or your fisherman. It’s going to be some jerk with a big gun and some followers.”
