Alex could hear Smokie, but he couldn’t comprehend what she was on about, that is, until he reached the lake.
The group reached the dock. Or what should have been the dock. There was no water, just a trickle. The boat lay upon its side in the mud.
“What the fuck!” Alex shouted, looking around.
The lake had gone, replaced with wet, boggy mud as far as the eye could see, and clambering through the quagmire, toward the island that stood out of the mud like a sore thumb was hundreds of infected.
PART SEVEN
All Aboard
168
Bachman and Emma
On the artificial lake inside a submarine
Zone 9
The underground bunker
Quirauk Mountain, Pennsylvania
Bachman tried to get to his feet, as the submarine slowly started to roll over. He rubbed his shoulder where it had slammed into the hyperbaric chamber. Luckily, nothing was broken or dislocated, just jolted and bruised.
He knew he hadn’t blacked out, but the slam and subsequent pain muddled his mind for a few seconds. His thoughts cleared.
Shit!
He scrambled to his shaky feet.
He could feel the large mass of the submarine slowly turning in the water. The gradual rotation was making his unsteady feet slide along the metal decking. He slid to the hull and leaned against cold metal and stared out of a small porthole.
He could see a mass of creatures, with hundreds of black tentacles gripping the curved outer hull. They used the solid dock as a leverage as they pushed with all their might, as a pod walked back and forth, lightly touching them with a spindly leg as if urging them on – guiding them.
Bachman had no idea where the pod came from.
Was it on the dock, watching, or did it swim with the creatures?
He decided it didn’t matter; it was here now, guiding, and directing the others.
He could also see sections of what was once humans – the legs bracing against the wooden dock. The remains of yellow backbones, and partial ribcages waving in the air. The water washed the congealed blood away, leaving tatters of whitened flesh.
“What’s happening?” Emma shouted as she appeared at the hatch. She had a cut down her left cheek. Blood dribbled down her pale face. Her wet hair clung to her shoulders.
“It’s the creatures; they are trying to roll the sub!”
“What the…?” Emma climbed the steps, while constantly trying to readjust her footing, due to the rolling of the deck.
Banging and clattering could be heard as objects became dislodged from their resting places and dropped to the metal decking.
“Jesus, Mother Mary!” she muttered as she gripped the edge around the porthole to keep herself from slipping back, as she stared at the creatures on the dock.
“They can’t get in, so I presume they are trying to get us to come out,” Bachman said as he stood a few meters away.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Emma stated as she kept her balance by forcing a foot under an arm of the seat she was crouched on, as a section of the submarine started to emerge from the water.
A few creatures that were trying to get through the thick hatches had scurried along the vessel, and were now trying to get in through the torpedo tubes.
169
Alex, and the others
On the island in the camp
Somewhere in New York State
Alex wasn’t scared anymore; he was pissed off. Nothing was going their way. Everything seemed to conspire to screw up their lives. Not one single break. Days of constant fighting, running, hiding, and their numbers constantly dwindling as they dropped like flies. At this rate, he doubted he would survive the week.
The whole reason for leaving the city was to give them a better chance of survival. It had backfired – every decision they made killed more of them off. He quickly scanned those running next to him. Tierra wasn’t among them. The last he heard she was being sedated. She had suffocated her son, and now she was also going to die.
Once again, they were running for their lives, with infected everywhere, as if it was personal and the creatures followed them wherever they went.
We just need one fucking break! he thought as he ran past a creature intent on gutting him. He sidestepped. The naked tattooed teenager skidded past on the wet, muddy ground. Alex didn’t wait around for it to climb to its feet.
A few hour’s uninterrupted sleep sounded like a fantasy. He was running on pure adrenaline. When they eventually found somewhere safe, he would sleep for a week. If there was anywhere safe anymore.
Supposedly, we were going to become part of the crew of a huge six hundred or so foot cargo ship. We would be safe on the water. Wouldn’t we?
A scream to his right announced another person was down. He didn’t want to turn to see who it was. He saw enough death without witnessing one more person being ripped to pieces by frenzied hands and gaping mouths.
Heavy rain poured down, unrelenting. It chilled him to the bone.
“Over the bridge!” Smokie shouted. “The mud will be too difficult to run through. Follow the road and it will lead to the shore where the cargo ship is anchored. Just a few miles down the main highway.”
Alex scanned the murky horizon.
Dawn was breaking over the distant hills. The dark red, tinted purple rays glowed through the storm clouds like an angry bruise.
The screeching of gulls echoed over the landscape.
Glass shattered to his left as a creature dived through a window to get at someone within.
Another night over with, with only a handful of hours sleep.
He wondered how long the human body could go without proper sleep?
Sleep deprivation.
He remembered the term. The army would get soldiers to go days without sleep during basic training.
He knew everyone was in the same boat; everyone was running on the bare minimum. If life wasn’t stressful enough, now they had the effects of lack of sleep to add to their long list of troubles.
Terrance and Lindell raced ahead of him, heading for the bridge.
The concrete structure looked strange standing so high above what should have been the waterline. Now it stood sentry over mud flats, looking too tall for its surroundings.
The reasoning was sound. To wade through the boggy mud would be near impossible. The creatures were managing it due to their inhuman strength and unquenchable hunger. There were still many infected on the bridge, but then again, the creatures were everywhere, at least on the bridge, they would have good solid footing to fight them.
Screams and shouting rung around them as the group changed direction and started to head along what was once the shoreline, and was still solid enough to run on.
“I will meet you on the bridge; I have something I need to do,” Smokie shouted as she left the group and headed for the boat that lay on its side. She jumped down into the mud that squelched up to her ankles. She struggled to walk without losing her boots.
Alex gave her scant attention, if she wanted to go it alone that was her call; he didn’t know her well enough to be concerned with her well being. She was an adult capable of making her own decisions. He had his own skin to worry about.
He did notice the group of people running toward the bridge was large. As well as himself, Terrance, Lindell, Frank, Troy, and Naomi, there must be about twenty others charging along with them.
Unlike Alex and his group, who were trying to find weapons as they ran along, the group of mainly women all carried weapons.
There was the crazy, summer dress wearing Mollee, who was swinging two knives around like a professional. She ran, cutting, head butting, and kicking like the crazed Tasmanian Devil from the cartoon as her long wet hair flew around her.
Stu with his double handled machete, which as Alex watched, the large man deftly took the head off a naked female with one powerful slice.
He might be large, Alex thought, but there’s plenty of mu
scle under that mass. And the look on his face – it’s pure anger. I wouldn’t want to mess with him. I think there’s a lot more to Stu, under that jocular persona. We all have a story, which is ours alone to bear.
Andy, who was the captain of the boat they arrived in – and who would supposedly pilot the cargo ship – was swinging a long-handled axe, the sort that normally sat behind thick glass in case of emergencies. He was burying it in the head of a chubby, older woman who’s saggy naked breast swung as she tumbled like a fallen tree. He then wrenched the axe free and jumped over the large pale body.
Alex was surprised to see Donna running with them. She had a rifle over her shoulder, with a handgun in one hand, and what looked like an old-style police Billy club in the other, which she used to beat across the face of an infected man, before putting a bullet in the side of its head as it went down.
Sherry was right beside Donna, swinging her katana sword across the trunk of a creature. The blade sliced through like a hot knife through butter. The body slumped to the ground with its guts pouring everywhere, as she barged it out of the way.
Caroline was on Alex’s left. She swung a baseball bat studded with six-inch nails, making a home run on a deformed head that popped like an over-ripe melon.
Next to her was Kate, who had a rifle with a long knife strapped to the end. She stabbed it through an eye socket as she fired the rifle. One side of the creatures head vanished in a spray of blood and bone.
Jesus, these women are savages! Less than a month ago they would have been housewives, mothers, lawyers, or working dead-end jobs like everyone else. Now look at them, they are finely tuned killing machines. As deadly as they come. It just shows what we are capable of if push comes to shove.
Alex felt something being forced into his left hand. It was Donna, passing him her handgun. She then swung the rifle from around her shoulder without breaking stride.
“Thanks!” he shouted over the screaming.
The bridge was getting closer as they ran past buildings along the shoreline. Trees danced in the pouring rain, and mud splattered their cold legs as the group raced up onto the concrete bridge, straight toward the large metal fence that was keeping back the creatures that tried to get across while the lake was still full of water.
A thick chain wrapped around the metal fence.
Andy ran forward and swung the heavy axe down with all his might. It bounced off the thick chain.
“Stand back!” a woman shouted who was dressed in motorbike leathers. She held a pump-action shotgun. She braced and fired at the padlock. It clattered to the wet tarmac.
Alex realized it was the woman on the motorbike. He wondered how she got across to the island, and where was her bike?
As Lindell and Terrance swung open the metal mesh gates, the others raced toward the creatures with weapons raised.
It was time to fight or die.
170
Smokie
On the island in the camp
Somewhere in New York State
Smokie scrambled through the mud as best she could. She gripped the side of the boat. It had tipped over onto its side. She clambered up onto the curved portside, splattering wet mud everywhere. The wood was slippery due to the pouring rain, and the mud covering her boots didn’t help. She slipped twice but continued toward the hatch leading below deck.
Seagulls rested on the listing boat, watching her climb aboard. Their beady black eyes staring while ruffling a wing, unconcerned with the changing world situation.
The infected ignored the boat. Why search inside for food when warm meat was running around everywhere.
After she left the others, as she jumped into the mud, she pulled her headphones on to listen to her favorite group – Smokie, who gave her the strength she needed to do what she knew needed doing, and to drown out the sound of people dying around her.
She knew it was a risk, not being able to hear what was happening around her, but she wanted to go out her own way, and that was while listening to the greatest band in the world.
Even so, regardless of how loud she turned up the volume; Smokie could hear screams of pain through the wooden hull over the top of her music. She reminded herself that she couldn’t save everyone. It was a cruel way of looking at the situation, but it saved her from going mad.
I’m only one person, was her mantra. She used it before the world turned to shit, because she was always trying to help everyone, sometimes to her own detriment, but it was even more apt now than ever.
The boat was hard to walk through due to it listing so far and her feet being so slippery.
It was ironic; the song was from the 1981 album Solid Ground. Long Time Coming played through the headphones.
It is a long time coming; she reasoned. I should have done this days ago. I made a promise that I was too slow fulfilling.
Smokie made her way along the corridor, as the wood creaked and the boat settled in an unnatural position.
There were no lights on inside the boat, but it was designed to have portholes situated to bring the light from outside in to all its dark corners. The first dull morning rays – that managed to break through the thick storm clouds above – made an eerie glow below deck, washing the wood a dull reddish-purple – the colour of a bruise.
Everything was listing to one side. She walked along part of the wall, kicking pictures with her boots. There was debris everywhere, having been dislodged as the boat slowly tipped over as the lake drained out to sea.
Smokie clicked off the music and dropped the headphones around her neck.
Now, above all the shouting outside, she could hear heavy breathing.
She slowly made her way towards the cabins.
Laying wedged up against a gas cylinder was a long curved machete that had fallen off its hook. It was here for one purpose, put aside for the promise she had yet to fulfill – sharpened by her own hands and love.
She hooked her weapons back into place on her belt and picked the long bladed machete up. The blade glistened in the morning light. She remembered the hours she’d spent sharpening it with oil and a whetstone.
Smokie moved into the cabin.
The sound of the heavy breathing intensified. She could also hear the sound of the gulls screeching and their clawed feet scratching over the wooden hull.
Laying strewn over what was once the wall, was Tish, having tumbled from the bunk bed as the boat rolled onto its side.
Tish’s face was deformed by the infection. Her neck was inflamed and bloated, with thick bulging black veins. She lay on her back, with her chest pumping up and down as if she was running a marathon. Blackish blood trickled from slit open veins on her face and neck.
Tears rolled down Smokie’s face. Her best friend was changing. Deformed by the infection that was ravishing the world – creating a new world order – one of chaos and nightmares.
“I know I should have come sooner,” she muttered. Tears flowed down her rosy cheeks, blushed with anguish and heartache.
She used a hand to brush the remnants of Tish’s hair away from her bulging red eyes that stared blankly at the wooden wall. Most of her hair lay in clumps beside her.
“We have been through so much together. You know you are like a sister to me.”
Tish’s hands started to clench and unclench. Her breathing started getting faster, and a low groan started to emanate from her chest, with spittle flecking from around the gaping maw of her mouth that was now a circular opening of broken teeth and swollen red flesh. A large bloated tongue was rolling around the maw of her mouth, like a fish floundering on dry land.
“I hope you can forgive me? You know I will always love you, my sister from another mother.”
Tish’s oversized blood-red eyes started to slowly roll in their large broken sockets. Her tongue started to lash around, feeling around the fractured teeth.
“I will see you again soon.”
Tish’s pale hands started to spread, clawing at the wood below her. Her nails ripped
free as they dug into the splintered wood.
“I love y–”
Tish lunged.
The machete swung in a blur of metal. Tish’s head disconnected from her bloated neck.
171
Bachman and Emma
On the artificial lake inside a submarine
Zone 9
The underground bunker
Quirauk Mountain, Pennsylvania
Bachman was running all the scenarios through his head.
Can they get through the torpedo tubes? Surely there’s a failsafe to stop unwanted entry via ports? Will the sub roll right over, and would it continue rolling if they assert enough pressure? Can we survive in a rolling vessel? He pictured lottery balls bouncing around inside a turning tub.
Emma’s eyes were locked on the remains of the humans that had alien tentacled creatures growing from them. It was a horrific spectacle.
Bachman scanned the dry deck shelter.
“Maybe this can work in our favor,” he muttered.
“What did you say?” Her breath steamed up the glass.
Bachman moved away from the porthole and stared at the section where the delivery vehicles exited via the double hatches.
“Before we would have had to drag those mini sub things onto the side of the submarine and drop them over the edge, with the chance of being seen. Now, if we are under the water, we can get out without being spotted. Plus the second hatch will fill with water, so we can simply float out.”
Emma looked at the different delivery mini subs as her feet slowly slid along the deck.
Some of the diving gear started falling off the hooks and clattered to the metal deck.
“Then we’d better get suited up,” Emma stated as she moved toward the scuba gear as she kicked off her heavy boots. “Because I’m starting to feel like a pig on a spit!” She shook her head. “I would kill for a bacon sandwich right about now!”
The Sixth Extinction: America (Omnibus Edition | Books 1 – 8) Page 39
