I wasn’t sure what was expected of us. We stood there for what seemed to go on for a while. Soldiers held their rifles. I noticed full magazine clips on their belts. I don’t remember giving back the sidearm. All I knew was I no longer had it.
The tension must have been thick, because no one talked. We all seemed to sense . . . it. No idea what ‘it’ was. Don’t know how I felt about docking. We were clearly safer on water. There was that movie. Costner was in it. A world with no land. Floating cities built on boats. Might be a viable alternative, once I figured out if zombies could swim or not. If they just didn’t like water, or water harmed them. Throw buckets of water on them, listen to them screech and watch them melt. That would make everything simple. So simple.
Cash squeezed my hand. I looked down. He looked to his right, pointed. I followed with my eyes. Land.
Felt like we’d completed a journey across an ocean. Left America for some unknown, uncharted location. We’d spent over four hours on a lake I’d swum in since I was kid. We’d met the St. Lawrence River, and although Canada was a hell of a lot closer, we were still in New York. Go figure. Makes you feel kind of small and unimportant. And it was just a lake. A big one, but still just a lake.
“When can we take these off?” Charlene tugged at her life vest.
“Careful of that pull-string. Those things swell up fast. Feel like it’s choking you,” I said.
“Can we take them off?”
The boat still swayed. While the idea of a meal sounded amazing, my stomach might not agree. Nauseated and rumbling, I felt pretty sure I’d puke up whatever I sent down. “Not just yet,” I said.
“Dad,” she said. “What do you think they’ll do with us once we get there?”
“It’ll be fine,” I said. The question filled my mind. I’d worried about what might be waiting for us, too. Might just be the thought of a camp designed to detain people that got to me most. We’d done nothing wrong, except survive. We weren’t prisoners, or detainees. It still felt that way.
Crystal Sutton looked down at my daughter, then up at me. Smiled. I looked away. Wasn’t in the mood for games. The smile meant shit. I was a liability to them.
I found Chatterton, locked my stare on his. Our eyes narrowed. Don’t think it was me being all paranoid. There was a question to his expression. Saw it clearly. Did he suspect I’d been awake and whether I’d heard everything said?
It was something. Might as well be that.
Let him wonder.
“Let’s go over here,” I said, and never looked away from Chatterton. Using my hands and arms to guide my people, yes, I thought it . . . my people . . . to one side of the vessel where there were places for us to sit.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Allison said.
“Ah, yeah. What was that? What was that all about?” Dave held onto Sues’ hand. I don’t think I’ve seen him not touching her since the Humvee rescued us. Never heard them talk, but they were always touching.
Chatterton, Sutton and Dentino were close. The boat was big, but not so big we could be alone. Nevertheless, with the waves, and the crewmen working, I didn’t think they could overhear us if I decided to retell what I’d heard. Question was, did I talk in front of the kids, or wait?
Waiting might not be an option, though. Opportunities alone might become less and less frequent. Having them five or six feet away might be the most privacy we’d get to experience for who knows how long.
I also had to think about Chatterton and about what he’d said.
My kids. They made me, us, a liability.
“We’re family now,” I said. They leaned closer. Maybe it was the tone of my voice, or a look on my face. I felt it the moment I spoke. It was a This Is The Shit talk. We all knew it. “Us. The six of us are family now and we need to watch each other’s backs. Okay?”
“Are you going to tell us what happened? What do you know that we don’t?” Dave grit his teeth. I liked it. Guy was more like me than I’d thought when we first met. Answers. Truth. It’s what he sought, too. No one had time for bullshit. Not anymore.
“When we were below deck, I woke up. I heard the other three talking.”
“What did they say?” Allison said.
I told them everything.
Chapter Eight
Dentino collapsed. He just, plop, went down.
“Sergeant, Sergeant!” Marfione said, and then ran toward Dentino.
The woman who had bandaged his arm yelled, “Don’t touch him!”
“But Erway…”
“Stand back,” she said. She put a hand on Marf’s chest and pushed. “Back.”
Erway didn’t have a medical bag this time, but wore a patch on her uniform. It identified her as a Coast Guard paramedic. “Captain? Captain Keel, have the civilians go back below.”
I didn’t like being ushered away. We were not cattle, so no one was herding us. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Take your kids and go below,” she said, and stood toe to toe with me, her nose an inch from mine. The authority was there. The threat obvious. I wouldn’t have cared if she’d held a gun to my head. I would take my kids below deck, because I wasn’t sure what might happen next.
Not because I was being ordered.
“Sir,” a crewman said.
“Yeah,” Captain Keel said. He didn’t look to see who called out to him. His eyes were locked on Dentino. His tongue kept licking his lips. Where’s your stupid smile now, eh, Captain?
“Still can’t reach anyone at the camp. No one.”
Keel turned. I saw it in his eyes. If he could have shot the crewman, he would have. Guessing the fact that they couldn’t reach anyone at the camp was meant to be a secret.
“Try again,” Keel said.
“Have been. Nothing. I mean nothing. Static.”
“Storm might have knocked out the repeaters.” Captain Keel said, the smile back. Our, ever-smiling and optimistic leader, attempted reassuring everyone with a look. Don’t think it fooled a single one of us. Didn’t fool me. I’d caught a glimpse of Keel. An uncensored glance into who this man was.
“Excuse me, what?” It was Sergeant Landon Vitale. “You can’t reach anyone at the camp?”
The crewman looked at Keel, as if for permission to answer. “That’s right, sir.”
“But you said ‘still.’ Makes me think this isn’t something you’re just learning,” Vitale said. “What happened to the nice hot meal, and them keeping the kitchen open? That they were expecting us?”
“Please, downstairs everyone, so Lieutenant Erway can help her patient.” Keel waved hands back and forth. It looked like he thought he could dismiss us, make us vanish with a wave of those liver-spotted hands. “This patient is sick.”
“When was he bitten?” Erway said.
I thought she’d been talking to me. I opened my mouth, but then closed it.
Chatterton was kneeling beside Dentino. “I don’t know. A day ago. Two. Wasn’t much of a bite. Teeth barely broke the skin.”
“But the skin had been broken,” Erway said. Didn’t sound like a question.
Chatterton looked up at me. I had my kids behind me. Dave by my side. Was he somehow blaming me for this? It’s what his eyes said. That would be ludicrous. Might just be pure resentment in his stare. Again, ludicrous, but it was there. I wasn’t imagining it. Unless…unless it was shame. Anger and shame.
“Yes,” he said. “The skin was broken. We cleaned it real good. Poured stuff on it to kill germs. That clear stuff? I forget what it is called.”
“Hydrogen Peroxide?” Erway used a pen light and flashed it into Dentino’s eyes.
“That’s right. It bubbled, turned white, so we figured we’d cleaned it good. Then we bandaged it. Didn’t take more than a couple of Band-Aids, and we wrapped it in gauze, too.”
Dentino foamed at the mouth and his back bucked. His arms went out wide, palms against the deck, fingers spiked like spider legs. He shook, as if having a seizure.
/> It was in a million horror movies. The change.
“Sergeant,” Erway said.
There was a lot of confusion. Soldiers moving about. Some yelling. I couldn’t follow everything happening.
“Captain, how long have you been out of radio contact with the camp?” Sergeant Vitale said.
“Not now, Sergeant,” Keel said.
Erway looked up from her patient. “Sergeant, I need your soldiers. Now.”
Vitale stared at the Captain, but motioned at his men. They trained weapons on Dentino. The guy wasn’t going anywhere. That’s clearly what Erway wanted. She must not trust Dentino’s condition. Must feel threatened by him.
If he changed into a zombie, he was as good as dead, again, anyway. Spade leveled his sidearm, finger on the trigger, one eye closed, arms extended. Yes, Dentino was as good as dead.
I kept going back to Jay. Would he have turned if we hadn’t of buried him? Had he turned and come back as a zombie, but was now buried in a shallow grave with no way out? Looking at Dentino, foaming, seizing, I think Jay’s death played out better. I don’t know what I would have done had he changed.
“I want the civilians down below,” Captain Keel said. “The military has this. They are going to handle it. They don’t need an audience.”
Handle this? An audience for what?
“You’re not killing him,” Chatterton said. “He’s sick. You can see it. He’s just sick. He’s not; he isn’t one of those things. He didn’t die. He’s not dead. Zombies…they were once human, died and then return from the dead. That hasn’t happened here.”
“This isn’t a movie,” Erway said. “Those are rules created by Hollywood.”
“He just needs help. Doctor, you have to help him,” Chatterton said. He held his hands clasped together in front of him.
Erway shook her head. “I’m not a doctor. You dressed the wound, but it still got infected. I don’t know what more we can do for him.”
Dentino groaned, sounding like he was in pain. Figured his body was in the midst of a transformation. His blood, organs, muscles, and tissue attempted to fight off whatever disease had been transmitted.
“Captain,” a crewman said. “We’re about to dock. I don’t see anyone. No one.”
I looked to the side of the ship. The coast we’d been following widened. There were at least twenty boating slips. This vessel was too big to fit into any of them except the one on the end.
The land itself was covered in fog. The cold and warm air, the storm, all perfect make-up for fog. Thick, it didn’t move. It just sat there, like a natural layer on green grass, and formed leafless trees. The light poles along the shore by the docks cast an iridescent glow over everything.
Everything happening screamed B-Horror film. Zombies and fog, and Dentino about to go from the living to the undead. I mean, what the fuck? Erway might have tried to distance this reality from Hollywood, but I wasn’t buying it.
“I need you to move away from him,” Erway said.
Chatterton’s hand shot out. He took a fistful of Erway’s uniform at the shoulder.
Weapons cocked and the uniform clicking of them made me stare around at the military. I didn’t know if they were marines, army, or what. They wore nothing that gave that away. I never thought to ask. Didn’t matter then; still didn’t now.
“Release her,” Vitale said. “Now. Then, do as she said. Back away from the man.”
It didn’t look like Chatterton meant his reaction to be threatening, but was clearly taken that way. I didn’t see it as such, though. The guy would never do well playing poker. His every emotion was visible in his eyes. His feelings were displayed through them as if a neon sign.
“I just want you to try to help him,” he said.
“Release the Lieutenant. Do you hear me? I will not ask again.” Vitale did not take any steps closer. Wouldn’t need to. Six armed soldiers punctuated his threat.
Chatterton let go of Erway. His fingers rolled into a loose fist. Nothing angry about it. “Please, just see what you can do.”
I hadn’t realized it, but Dentino’s body relaxed at some point. He was flat on his back. His hands still gripped at nothing. His eyes were open. Not blinking.
It might be too late, I thought, too late to do anything more.
“Back away,” Erway said. She sounded heartless and cold. Agitated.
Chatterton went from kneeling to standing in one smooth motion and took two steps back. Spade holstered his gun, grabbed the black man by the arm, spun him around and walked him to the back of the vessel.
“Docking sir,” the crewman said.
The drama unfolding held everyone’s attention. I don’t think I’d noticed Cash’s hands gripping my leg, his fingers squeezing my skin beneath the material.
I didn’t know what to do. Sheltering him made the most sense. He was nine. Just nine. But I didn’t want to go below. I needed to see what happened. I needed, not to witness, but understand. What were we up against?
What were the rules?
But he was nine.
Once Chatterton was away, soldiers now in front of him, Erway lowered her head. She listened for breathing. Her ear was an inch or so from Dentino’s mouth.
I turned around. “You stay up here,” I said to Dave.
“I’m staying,” Charlene said.
I let her.
Allison and I took Cash down the stairs, back to the bunks.
“Is that man going to die? Is he going to become a zombie?” Cash said. “Are the soldiers good people, or bad?”
I had the same questions, and answers to none of them.
I lifted my son into my arms and sat on the bunk, Allison beside me.
“What do we do?” she said.
We all had questions, and the fear was evident in each one.
What do we do?
A gun fired. Cash wrapped his arms tighter around my neck. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to breathe.
The gunshot wasn’t loud down here, but we heard it. No mistaking what it had been. I waited for more. I counted to ten, but nothing else.
Allison had her hand on my knee. A tight, tight grip.
Dave came down the stairs. His skin was pale.
Sues walked down behind him. Once below, they held hands again. I gave them a look. I was about to ask where Charlene was, when she came down last.
“Dentino was sick,” Dave said. “We thought he died. Erway checked for a pulse. He didn’t have one. No sooner had she stood up, he sat upright. Bolted upright. His eyes were…they were like their eyes, you know. And that one guy, the one who’d walked Chatterton away, he did it.”
What do we do?
A valid question. I’d made assumptions. All along, I’d been making them. Guesses that I believed. I made them seem plausible, possible, and probable. I’d fooled myself. I figured the zombies here was all there would be. Eventually, humanity could step up and wipe them out, once we got a handle on the situation. Once the initial shock ended. Once the survivors gathered and unified.
“Here’s the thing, Chase. I think we were the only ones who were surprised that he changed into one of those things. I couldn’t tell, but it was almost like the others. They seemed to expect it.”
“Can’t be. If Erway thought he was going to turn, they would have isolated him. They wouldn’t have let him down here with us,” I said.
“They wouldn’t have?”
I shook my head, but didn’t say a thing. Couldn’t, because I wasn’t positive. Thought about what Chatterton and his group talked about before everyone went to sleep. Why weren’t these particular military people zombies? The military is huge on vaccinating the shit out of its boys. Sounded so sarcastic, but in a time of crisis, who can you count on if not the military?
What do we do?
They’d get hungry and die off. The vaccination itself would gradually kill them. Undead would have to go back to being dead at some point. The virus already infected all those that could ever be infected through
the vaccinations. It wouldn’t spread. It couldn’t spread. It couldn’t get worse.
What do we do?
I had the answer.
We don’t get bitten, that’s what. We don’t get scratched and we don’t get bitten.
Chapter Nine
Cedar Point State Park--NY Interment Camp, 2120 hours
Captain Keel ordered everyone back up on deck. Lieutenant Marfione gathered us, ushered us to the stairs.
“What’s going on?” I said. We needed answers and it was about time we got them. At this point, we deserved them. Being kept in the dark wasn’t going to cut it.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it,” Marf whispered. It was honest. I respected that. “Just stick together. We’re all in this, you know what I mean?”
“I do,” I said. “Thank you.”
We climbed the stairs. Couldn’t get closer if we’d been medically joined. Lights on the vessel helped. The boat seemed to be hovering in mist. Not floating on the river. The mist moved like water, rolling all around.
Sergeant Vitale stood among the six Coast Guard crew, along with Lieutenant Erway, and their captain. They were up by the helm. We filed in and faced them. They’d have to talk down to us. Had to be on purpose. A power play.
Cash and Charlene were in front of me. Allison, Dave and Sues stood beside me. Chatterton and Crystal were side-by-side. Spade, Spencer and Marfione huddled together, with hands on their rifles. Three other military people we hadn’t yet met were shoulder to shoulder by the edge of the boat.
I needed to know where everyone was, help keep track of things. Might be OCD. Could be, I just didn’t like surprises.
Keel cleared his throat. “Military is going to explore the compound. We’ve lost all radio contact. We’ve not seen any signs of people, or zombies for that matter. We need to know what’s happening out there before we all get off the boat.”
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