by Howard, Bob
“Chief,” she said, “I think I see something on the dock.” She walked over and stood next to him then traced her finger from right to left. “This line right here looks unnaturally straight, and look over here.” She pointed at a line that was parallel to the first one and so straight it looked like it was drawn with a ruler.
“You have a good eye,” said the Chief. “Those lines begin and end at shadows that shouldn’t be there. I think those might be explosives strapped to the pilings, and the lines are trip wires.”
“I’m glad you checked, Chief. I would’ve just charged out there and gotten myself blown up,” I said.
“You can thank Allison, Ed. I was just making sure there weren’t any Russians or infected dead walking around out there.” He switched the view to the inside of the houseboat, but it was so dark inside that it was doubtful she was there. He switched to night vision, and there was no change. If she was hiding, I wouldn’t expect her to be standing in front of a camera, anyway.
The Chief said, “Here’s how we’re going to do this. We approach carefully, and someone stands watch over the trip lines while the rest of us check the houseboat. It’s too dark out there for us to disarm the explosives, and I don’t want any infected dead stumbling out onto the dock and blowing us all to pieces.”
Kathy had joined us, and she said, “Molly wants to make some cookies for Aunt Jean to eat when she gets back. Bus is helping her get started, but she wants her mom to show her how to do it. Bus wants to go with us.”
The Chief turned to Kathy and said, “I hate not having my favorite cop with me, but I need for you to stay here and watch the monitors for me.”
“What am I supposed to be watching for, Chief?” she asked.
“I need someone to keep a close eye on that Russian ship for me. I don’t want to be out on the houseboat if they launch those Zodiacs full of armed men,” he answered. “I’ll have a radio on me. Give it a double click on the switch and wait for me to talk.”
“Chief,” she said, “find her and bring her back.”
Chief Joshua Barnes had a look he would get when he was kidding around. He had a very special look he would get when he was up to something that involved a practical joke. He had a poker face you couldn’t read if your life depended on it, but he had a different look when he was determined to do something. We were seeing that look now. No smile, steely eyes, and a set to his jaw.
He said, “I can promise you that Jean will be back in this shelter tonight, Kathy. Ed? Are you ready to go find your future wife?”
“You bet I am, Chief.” I don’t know if I could ever look as fierce as the Chief, but this was likely to be the closest I would ever come.
We checked the monitors for infected dead or living Russians at the entrance, and then we made it the fastest exit we had ever done. The Chief was in the lead with me close on his heels. Bus was third, and Tom was covering us from behind. It was about a mile from the shelter entrance to the dock, and I don’t think we ever covered the distance so quickly. It wasn’t really rough terrain, but we have left it as wild as possible so it would look like no one ever came to this island.
Half way to the dock there was a clear section that allowed us to stop and look at the ocean. It was typical for us to at least slow down as we passed that spot just so we could scan the beach for infected dead. To our surprise, the beach was dotted with the dark silhouettes of the slumped shouldered and shambling creatures that had once been human. It had been a long time since we had seen so many on our island. While it was still raining bodies in Guntersville, it had become much slower here. The moonlight made the beach even more eerie than it normally looked when the infected were out for a stroll.
The infected dead were too far from us to be a concern, but it did put us on guard for more to be near the dock. We passed the signal to each other to keep our eyes open by pointing at our eyes with one hand, and then at the beach. We were all heavily armed and ready for anything, but as usual the machetes were our weapon of choice, and we all had them at the ready except Tom. He had his rifle ready with the safety off. The Chief had pulled him aside and told him we needed to move fast and without delays. He told him to put a bullet through the head of anything if we missed it up front, or if there were more than two.
We arrived at the dock in record time, and the Chief dropped to a knee and put his right fist in the air with a bent elbow. We all stopped a couple of yards apart and waited for his signal to move forward.
He double clicked the button on his radio and said, “Kathy, we’re at the dock. Any changes on the Russian ship?”
“That’s a negative, Chief,” she answered. “The dock looks the same, too.”
“Okay, we’re going in, Kathy. Keep and eye on Tom. He’s going to be standing watch over the explosives.”
The Chief moved only as far as the first trip wire where he laid down on his stomach and inspected the explosives. To his surprise, the wire was attached to the piling, and the pin in the grenade was tied in place with a piece of string. It wasn’t going to explode no matter how many times someone tripped on it. The Chief scooted over to the other side and found the wire was attached to the piling on that side, too.
Even though it was a dummy trip wire, the Chief stepped over it and went to the second one. It was also tied to the pilings, and a string was tied through the pin. The Chief looked confused when he came back to where we waited, and it wasn’t often that we saw him looking like that.
“The wires aren’t even attached to the explosives,” he said. “They’re both dummy traps, but I can’t think of a reason why anyone would want to even bother rigging something like that.”
“Do you think we’re being watched?” I asked.
“No,” said the Chief. “I’m sure there’s a reason, but I don’t think we’re going to get an explanation out here.”
Chapter 12
SOS
Kathy couldn’t believe her eyes. She was watching the Chief and Ed on the dock. She knew Bus and Tom were somewhere just out of her field of vision, and the beach had more infected dead wandering around than normal. The moon was so bright that she didn’t need to switch to night vision.
She almost missed it, but Allison had come up behind her and asked, “What was that?”
Allison pointed at the monitor that displayed the dark Russian ship, and Kathy looked at it just in time to see the message begin and end one last time. Then it became random. There was no mistaking what the first part said.
Kathy keyed the microphone and spoke with the Chief. As soon as she finished explaining what she had seen, she signed off and told Allison to take over watching the monitors. She ran for her room, strapped on her gear and went through the door of one of the several escape hatches that led to the surface of Mud Island.
……
We started forward as a group going over the trip wires carefully, but before we got to the houseboat, the Chief signaled for us to stop again. We watched as he pulled the microphone loose from the radio and keyed the talk button. He was wearing an earphone so we couldn’t hear what Kathy said to him, but whatever it was made the Chief reflexively turn and look in the direction of the moat. Even though we couldn’t see the Russian corvette, we all knew the Chief looked that way because it was somewhere around the curve. He keyed up and spoke several times before reacting, and we were surprised when he sprang from his crouched position by the door of the houseboat and jumped into the big boat we had tied to the dock.
I looked at the others, and I saw Bus and Tom were as much in the dark as I was, literally and figuratively. I saw Tom shrug his shoulders, but we stayed where we were supposed to be. I saw a flashlight come on under the dash of the big boat, and I moved a bit closer to see what the Chief was doing. It appeared to me the Chief was working on the wiring that he deliberately sabotaged to keep anyone from taking the boat.
The flashlight winked off, and the twin motors on the boat came to life. There wasn’t any use for stealth anymore, and we did
n’t need an invitation from the Chief. It was obvious that we were going somewhere. Bus and Tom caught up with me as I was climbing over the rail into the boat. Tom grabbed the lines tied to the dock and tossed them into the boat. He gave the bow a shove and easily jumped over from the dock.
“What’s up, Chief?” I asked.
Before the words were even out of my mouth, the Chief turned the wheel hard to starboard and hit the gas. I had to grab the back of a seat to keep from flying right out of the boat, and even Bus with his low center of gravity was pinned to the back rail practically on top of Tom. Wherever we were going, the Chief wanted to get there in a hurry.
The Chief aimed the boat toward the mainland dock, which happened to be a direct line for the Russian ship. He turned and yelled over the sound of the engines and the wind, but I couldn’t understand a word until I pulled myself up to the front seats.
“Do you know Morse Code, Ed?” he yelled.
“Never learned it, Chief. Why?” I yelled back.
He answered, “Well, then it’s a good thing Kathy stayed behind to watch the security cameras.”
Tom and Bus had managed to pull their way up to the front of the boat, and they arrived just in time to hear the chief answering me.
He yelled loud enough for all of us to hear, “Kathy was watching the Russian corvette for signs of life, and she saw someone signal the shelter with a flashlight.”
“Why would the Russians signal the shelter if they don’t know it’s there?” I yelled.
“Because it wasn’t a Russian signaling the shelter, Ed,” he answered. “Kathy knows Morse Code, and she said the message was spelled out SOS JEAN.”
All four of us turned our heads in the direction of the dark ship that was rapidly growing in size as we sped toward it.
……
The Chief didn’t look too comfortable knowing he was passing over the nets that ran across the moat because he had seen that particular form of hell first hand. There was no way to explain without guessing why that Morse Code signal had come from the ship, but the best guess was that Jean had sent it. To him and the rest of us, it was a no brainer that we had to board the ship to find out for sure.
The boat banked hard to port this time as the Chief pulled the steering wheel in that direction. I was almost ready to ask the Chief what he was doing when I saw a flashlight signaling us from Mud Island. It didn’t take long for me to make out the shape of Kathy moving quickly to a stretch of beach that was beyond the dangerous oyster beds. If we were going to board that ship, we were going to need her training. She may have been a rookie when the infected dead had taken over the world, but she had become a pro in a hurry. Her blonde ponytail was bouncing as she jumped from the beach into the boat.
The Chief didn’t wait for instructions on where to go. The best place to board the ship was going to be where the Zodiacs were tied up. They couldn’t see any infected out on the deck of the dark ship, but they needed to make sure it was clear before they went into the belly of the corvette to find Jean.
Kathy squeezed up close to the Chief and said, “The signal came from a porthole directly below that big box-like structure between the middle of the ship and the stern. Does that help?”
The Chief got one of his looks, and to our relief he had a slight smile on his face. “Yes, that helps, Kathy. I’ve been thinking about what that corvette might be carrying in there, and if we’re really lucky, it’s a helicopter bay.”
“Do we need a helicopter?” I asked.
I thought the Chief was going to laugh for a moment, but he said, “Sure we do, Ed, but one thing we need even more than a helicopter is a way to get into the ship that won’t involve going through every level just to get to the space where that signal came from. The helicopter bay should have hatches we can use to get to the next level, and I’d rather shoot something looking down through a hatch than facing them head on.”
We came to a stop between the Zodiacs. They were tied to the side of the corvette, so we could tie off to them. There was a body lying in the bottom of one of the boats, and Tom aimed his flashlight at it while Kathy, Bus, and I had our weapons pointed in the same direction. It didn’t take long to see that the cause of death was a bullet through the forehead. We could see the tears in his uniform and the exposed bite marks on his hands. We knew there must have been a battle here, and from the looks of things so far, it was a total loss.
The deck of the corvette wasn’t very high above us, and a section of railing had been removed for easy access to the Zodiacs. The Chief looked up and reflexively put reverse throttle on the boat. Everyone was caught off balance, but no one went overboard, and we were all just starting to yell at the Chief for the sudden movement when an infected dead bounced face first off our bow and then backward into the water. It disappeared below the surface just as quickly as it had appeared out of nowhere. It was a good thing that we hadn’t tied our boat to the Zodiacs yet.
“C’mon, everyone,” said the Chief. “We need to climb up there before another one finds his way to this section of the deck.”
The Chief pulled us in close for a second time and switched off the powerful engines. We tied the lines to the Zodiacs, and before I could even reach the bow, Kathy and the Chief had gone up the chain ladders that still hung from above. The sound of a quick burst of gunfire was all I needed to get me up the ladder as fast as I could go.
The deck was broad and flat, and there had been some kind of confrontation judging by the amount of blood. There was a big white circle in the middle of it, and there were no masts or cables anywhere on the stern. The Chief had been right about the box-like structure just aft of amidships. We found ourselves facing a big hangar door just like the avionics maintenance building at the resort near Guntersville. The body of an infected dead was sprawled in front of the door.
The Chief said, “Hold your positions until Tom and Bus get up here. Keep Bus formed up behind our kill zone at all times. If Jean is hurt, she might need treatment before we can move her.”
Tom and Bus came up behind us, and Kathy guided Bus to a position between us.
“Stay between us at all costs, Bus,” she said. “You have your medical kit with you?”
He reached to the backpack he was wearing and gave it a silent pat. Kathy gave the Chief a thumbs up, and we moved together across the broad deck to the hangar door. There was a smaller door to the right of the big door. It had a big wheel lock in the center. Kathy positioned herself about ten feet from the door, ready to shoot anything that came out while the Chief began spinning the wheel counter clockwise to the open position. The wheel was silent, but the opening door would allow enough moonlight to splash into the helicopter bay to draw out any of the infected that had been trapped inside.
None of us were surprised by the loud groans that started as soon as the Chief swung the door outward. There had been over fifty crewmen on the corvette, and even though they could already account for a few, there would most likely be infected dead in every compartment. I just hoped Jean had managed to find a place to hide after she signaled the shelter for help.
The Chief quickly moved to Kathy’s side, and both were taking aim into the dark interior of the hangar bay as the groaning got louder and closer. As we waited for the infected dead to appear, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that one of them could be Jean. Kathy had seen the signal, but after it had winked out, it never started again. If she was still able to send the signal, she would have kept sending it.
A shape appeared in the doorway, and my imagination was going wild. It looked like her. Before I could even yell her name, Kathy pulled the trigger on her rifle and the shape was gone.
The Chief said, “Let them come out in the open, Kathy. We don’t want them blocking the others from coming through.”
We all backed away from the door to give Kathy and the Chief a little more time to shoot, and even as we did, the dark shapes began emerging again. The light was playing tricks with my eyes, and even the tall one
s looked like they could be Jean. I thought to myself that the Russian navy probably had women on ships just like our navy, and if she was captured, they may have put her in a Russian uniform. I didn’t know that the Russians did not have women stationed on their ships yet, but that didn’t stop me from worrying that we would mistake Jean for one of them.
“Kathy, wait,” I said. “What if one of them is Jean?”
Everyone looked at me with sympathy, but I could see the hard set of Kathy’s jaw, and knew the answer to my own question. If Jean came out of that door as an infected dead, she would want us to end it. She wouldn’t want to exist as one of them.
Tom put his hand on my shoulder as Kathy and the Chief turned back to the door. One after the other, six of the infected came out of the helicopter hangar and were shot in the head.
We waited for about a minute after the last one had come through the door, then we started in. Kathy went to one side of the door, and the Chief went to the other. The infected didn’t hide around corners, they came right at you. That gave us the advantage, because we always had time to take up a defensive position depending upon their numbers. The fact that no more were coming out of the door to the helicopter bay was a good sign.
Kathy shined a flashlight across the entrance to expose the inside of the bay immediately behind the massive door. She could see the back of the helicopter, but there wasn't anything moving behind it. The Chief did the same from his side of the door, and his flashlight illuminated the corner to the right of the door. He panned it along the bulkhead on the right and gave the all clear signal. Both of them aimed their lights to the center of the bay, and the Chief identified the craft as a Kamov Ka-27 helicopter. It wasn't heavily armed and was best suited for reconnaissance missions.
"That would have been my first guess," said Kathy.
