“I hope you’re saying we’ve past that point,” Hana joins the two. Her arms are crossed tight over her chest, and the dark under her eyes looks like a bruised apple.
“No, but we can go inland from here to Florida. Way easier that way,” Ian concludes. “It’s called the Intracoastal Waterway. Safe and slow waters.”
“We’re not going anywhere without a new boat,” Isabella mentions. “That might be more difficult with all those puppets on the beach.”
“We’re only sitting on a sandbar. All we have to do is dig ourselves out and wait for the tide to come back in,” Ian chirps. “Should be easy.”
Isabella grunts. Her whole body feels twisted. She grits her teeth and tucks the pain away. For the next four hours, Isabella, Ian, Hana, and Josh dive down to the bottom of the boat and scoop out sand from under the hull. They move lots of sand and silt. It’s not too hard, and the water is warmer. Over time, the tide rolls in.
Just after lunch, one of the puppets on the beach wades out into the waves and keeps walking. Isabella watches as its body disappears under the water, and then its head. “We’re almost out of time!” she yells.
More and more puppets follow the leader. They aren’t making good time, which helps. Isabella doesn’t have any energy left to crack skulls. They finish digging out a channel around the boat and climb aboard to dry off. The salt water seems to have washed away her sickness like bath salts. She feels energized and near normal. While they wait for the tide, she strips her weapons and cleans them with some oil she’d found in the engine compartment.
Suddenly, the boat rocks upright. Everyone cheers. And even though the puppets have arrived, they cannot reach above the water. They’re completely submerged and staring up like needy children.
Within fifteen minutes Ian fires up the engine and turns the rudder toward the deep blue. When the keel pops off the sand, they move.
Ben makes a light lunch while Ian steers into Pamlico Sound. To the east is a thin strip of barrier islands and to the west is North Carolina. Today, the ocean seems to have forgotten the violent storm of yesterday.
Isabella hoists the two mainsails for Ian, and he cuts the motor. The wind carries them down the coast. He has her and Hana ‘trim the sails’ as he calls it. It puts a new perspective on sailing for her. She finds herself actually enjoying it.
Because of the barrier islands, the big, deep waves and the rocking of the boat are pretty much gone. Isabella’s completely lost the sick feeling from the storm the night before, which is good because she was close to taking out her pain on Ben’s face. He wasn’t doing anything except being himself.
The next day the weather is still calm. They pass Harker’s Island at the far eastern shore of North Carolina. Isabella is getting the hang of finding landmarks. Ian helps some, but Josh is the best at what he calls ‘spatial dimensions.’
They’re going west now. So that means they’re passing through Bogue Sound. It’s pretty nice out here. Isabella lets her hair billow in the breeze, and that makes her scalp feel good. Her mind goes blank, and she feels the gentle rocking in every cell, in every muscle, in every thought. She lets herself feel the pleasure. Zero stress feels like a warm bath, and her nipples stand up and tingle. Her skin is cool and her back is loose.
Tanis sits next to her. His dog licks her feet every now and then like it’s kissing her ass or something.
Tanis asks her how she became such a good fighter.
“I was trained by the military, and when I got out, two nights a week, I trained in Tai Jujitsu. Fighting comes easy for me. I love it. Don’t ask me why.”
“But you’re a—” Tanis pauses.
“A girl? Yeah, so? I can still kick ass. It’s not about your junk; it’s about doing what you want. I want to fight. It’s like running for some. I feel good, strong, and in control when I fight.”
“Can you teach me some moves?” Tanis’s hair is dipping into his eyes. Isabella stands and teaches him some techniques. Two hours later they stop. It’s her turn to take the helm. “I’ll show you some moves every day so you can help me kick some puppet ass.”
“Deal.”
Isabella sits with Ian at the wheel. “I think that shadow in the water is the bottom,” he says looking over the back edge. Ian orders Hana and Ben to the front so they can tell him if he’s going to hit something.
Isabella looks at the map and the compass. “We’re going southwest now, probably by Myrtle Island. We’re at a weird spot with lots of little islands around. The channel we’re in is pretty deep, but it’s narrowing.” As they coast around the island she sees a bunch of docks jutting out from the beach. There are houses on big grassy lots right on the water and lots of little motorboats everywhere. Some have been sunk, but most are rotting in the sun.
It’s still and quiet, like it’s perpetually five in the morning. There isn’t any sign of a containment line or a safe zone so they keep going. It’s a deep silence on the boat. No one wants to talk about how the virus has traveled so far and done so much destruction. Puppets are everywhere, the new beasts.
Isabella gets antsy now that she’s thinking about how fucked they really are. She needs to be distracted. She expects everyone here to be asses or rude or to need to be put in their place, but they’re all tired. No one talks much, and everyone is getting along. She can’t stand it, but can at the same time. Maybe she should go ashore and bust some heads for a while to burn off her excess heat.
Markus makes some kind of racket, and everyone but Ian runs starboard. There are a bunch of sea birds on the beach. They’re all dead, lying in piles like raked leaves. Isabella’s not too into nature, but it makes her feel sad. “The virus got ’em,” she says. “That means that other animals are vulnerable, too.”
“So that’s why we’re not seeing many animals,” Josh says. “They’re running scared.” Rice starts sobbing. Kat barks at the dead birds. There aren’t many puppets out here, sparse and distracted. Isabella wonders if they’ve found something else to chase.
Ian needs her. She goes and sits by him with the map.
“We’ve run out of shoreline to follow,” Ian says.
Isabella points to the map and follows the channel until it goes inland. “We either go left up here out to the Atlantic, or we go right and stay in the narrow channel.” She pulls the top of her hair into a short ponytail, like a samurai.
“I don’t mind the channel, but we’ve been motoring for over two hours because of how narrow this is. We’ll burn more fuel this way.”
“We get more fuel,” Isabella says without hesitation.
“I agree. We’ve passed a lot of fuel docks. Out at sea there’s no way to get fuel, and we’re more vulnerable to the weather.” Ian shakes his head. “I’ll never forget that storm around Cape Hatteras.”
Ian chooses the channel. He keeps the mainsail up but reefed halfway, and they motor sail to keep the boat going at a steady pace. The breeze is perfect for keeping the boat heading right down the middle.
They pass under a bridge that’s got some puppets stumbling around on it. They look like fisherman. Ben points one guy out. “Sucker’s just walking in circles!” he says, laughing. Josh runs to see, along with Hana and Tanis.
“So, if they’re not clawing on anyone or don’t have anything to chase, it just keeps moving?” Tanis asks. “That’s messed up.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Markus mumbles. Isabella’s not quite sure why he said that. Maybe it was his version of a joke.
“Yeah, well, let’s hope they start to eat themselves. Then we’d be fine in a week or so,” Ben adds.
“They don’t seem to want to eat for sustenance.” Josh puts one leg up on the cushion. “It’s more about trying to tear open the skin and get those white root things into our bodies to spread the infection.”
As the boat passes under the bridge, a fisherman puppet looks at them, if you can call it looking. His empty stare locks on them and it screams but the Pioneer continues down the waterway.
More and more puppets come out of the brush and trees. They’re talking about the boat to every puppet in earshot. Isabella’s body goes on alert. This is the other bad part about being in the narrow channel. They can be seen, followed.
Hana approaches. “I’m thinking the channel might be a bad idea,” she says.
“Scared?” Isabella asks.
“Worried.”
“Let ’em try somethin’,” Isabella replies, then looks away.
An hour passes. The puppets are all around the channel’s edge. They anticipate the boats movements. One of them tries to jump off a small dock. It falls into the water stupidly. Tanis yells something and Hana runs off.
Isabella looks at Ian. They’re finally alone together. “I heard you last night,” she says to him. “During the huge storm, when we almost sunk.”
Ian pretends to not know what she’s talking about. “Hum?”
“You were fighting the storm and yelling at the clouds or God or somethin,” Isabella says quietly. His cheeks turn pink like a little boy. “What was it you were saying?”
“I was just freaking out. No big deal.”
“You have to tell me.” She leans close to him. “Tell me. I don’t want to become your enemy.” Ian locks up. His eyes get hard. Her threat backfires so she tones it down. “I know what you said. Just clarify it for me. I don’t want to tell the others. Give me your side.”
Ian takes a deep breath. Isabella can tell he wants so badly to tell someone what’s on his mind. She usually wouldn’t give a shit, but he said something that made her so damn curious. He’d said he killed the world, and if God wanted him dead he should be killed in that storm.
Ian runs his fingers through his jet-black hair.
“Cough it up, man,” she urges.
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I just miss everyone. Even the people I thought I hated.”
Isabella folds her arms. One way or another he’ll tell her his secret. She’ll keep on it. Her obsession is heightened by the fact that she, too, had a secret.
“You’re getting too close to the edge!” Hana yells. Ian corrects the boat. They’ve entered a very narrow channel. He rubs his temples, fighting his mind. “First we have to survive.”
“No shit,” Isabella replies.
Three hours pass. She sits next to Ian in silence the whole time. The sun gets low in the sky, which blooms with reds and oranges. She looks at the map. “I don’t really want to be stuck in this channel after dark. It will make things more difficult and after the rough night, the barf fest, and diggin’ out the boat, I just want to sleep hard. I don’t want to worry or have to fight right now.”
“Same here. Is there a place to stop soon?” Ian asks. “With enough of a buffer between us and the puppets?”
“Nope.”
The boat passes a bunch of houses again. These are smaller and have tiny yards. But there are just as many small docks poking into the water. This time the yards and the docks and the shoreline aren’t empty. Hundreds of puppets are on to their scent.
Isabella stands and paces, winding herself up. She can hear those fucking things.
There are thousands along the shores, now. Everyone scampers up to the deck to see. The puppets look less and less like people and more like plants. The white roots inside their bodies are growing on the outside as well. One of the puppets steps over the edge of the channel and splashes into the water.
They pass by a pivot bridge that is open all the way, completely loaded with the dead.
The boat starts to turn. Its nose gets too close to the edge. It clearly excites some of the puppets, like creeps outside a college bar at closing time. Ian puts the boat in gear and throttles up.
The channel gets more narrow and the puppet crowd gets thicker and thicker. They’re moving faster, not stumbling around like fauns. Some are speed walking, shaking their asses, others are running. More homes line the right side of the channel and the small docks. After a half hour or so they approach a huge drawbridge platform half submerged in the water. It had been blown to bits, turned into rubble. As they get closer, a huge dog pile of puppets masses on the twisted steel girders. They’re climbing all over each other like roaches. Isabella tries to figure out what they’re up to. Maybe they are trying to climb over one another to get a glimpse of them.
“They’re using their brains,” Josh says. “I’ve been watching their behavior, and they definitely have motivations and memory. Maybe they’re using their hosts’ brains.”
Isabella has to agree with Doof. They’re after them in a bad way. “And they can move now. They’ve smelled our blood and called up the reserves,” she adds. She’s on edge, but it’s safe in the boat, isn’t it?
She gets closer to the dog pile growing on the edge of the drawbridge, and the pile suddenly swells. The puppets create a massive towering structure by clinging to one another. The squirming is unnatural. Body parts are bent back on themselves, and some of the puppets scream and gurgle like frothy lunatics. Isabella runs to the seat behind the pilot wheel and pulls up the cushion and grabs her clean and loaded M-16. She flips the safety off.
“What are you doing? What’s going on?” Rice starts to panic.
Isabella runs to the rail and braces herself with one foot and pops off a few rounds in the growing tower of bodies. The squirming increases. To her surprise the tower bends over on itself and arches over the channel waters. A massive cluster of bodies crashes onto the boat. Everyone on the deck scatters.
Rice is caught underneath the mass of bodies. Tanis gets hit and is thrown into the port railing. The boat rocks heavily, then hits the opposite side of the canal. Water sprays upward. Isabella stumbles and falls. Puppets that had been waiting on the opposite side, mouths watering, leap from the bridge platform and onto the boat. Ian slams the throttle into full gear and the Pioneer careens down the canal, overloaded with the infected. The bodies untangle like the relaxing of a muscle. They stand and fill the walkways between the cabin and the settee. It’s like they’re lining up for burgers. Isabella guesses her shift is about to begin.
She’s guarding Ian, who is white knuckling the steering wheel. Hana and Ben are on the port side of the cabin. Rice is buried, Josh and Tanis are at the bowsprit, and Markus is below. He comes up top with weapons in hand.
Hana takes her rake and holds it like a battle-axe. Isabella takes her Beater and hangs the rifle on her back. The first ugly fucker gets a jab to the jaw. It cracks and folds inward like bungled origami. She knows he can’t kill the thing so she knocks it into the safety railing and pushes it over.
The next one is shorter. It won’t go over so easily. Isabella knocks its grabby hands away and smashes it between its shoulder blades. Her Beater pierces the frayed shirt fabric and sinks into soft flesh between the ribs, releasing a gush of black blood. She pulls the Beater free, snatches the thing’s ankle, and lifts it over. It’s heavy, and it leaves her exposed. She’s grabbed by another puppet, but it can’t hold her so she pulls away. It gets a strike across the cheekbone and a kick in its chest.
Ben screams. He and Hana are overwhelmed, and he’s clutching a wound on his arm. Isabella turns back to her line of puppets and moves faster. It’s like flipping cards. One after the other goes off the boat. She clears her side of the cabin and moves to the center. Rice isn’t dead. She’s screaming for help. Isabella smashes knees and bats off puppets one after the other.
Markus is behind her. He has his baseball bat and is doing a good job keeping them off her right side. Tanis climbs the shrouds, which have rope ladders that lead to the top of the masts. He’s over their heads and starts kicking field goals with their skulls.
“Everyone hold on!” Ian yells.
“Grab something!” Isabella repeats and grabs the nearest rail. Ian turns the boat starboard and the whole ship rocks. Puppets near the side fly off. Others fall like dominoes only to regain their feet and continue trying to claw everyone to death.
Isabella finally reaches Rice and pulls some ha
iry, guy off her. The girl’s face is split and a piece of her ear hangs off her head. Her blouse is shredded, and she’s covered in worms. Blood oozes from everywhere. Isabella takes her hand and pulls her away from harm. Josh and Tanis get the deads attention by screaming and flailing their arms.
Ian orders us to hold on again so he can rock the boat. Some fall away, but not enough. The safety line helps to keep them aboard. Markus has his back to Isabella. “I’m tired. I might not—”
Hana screams, which distracts Isabella for a moment, allowing one to grab her. Then another. They’re strong. This isn’t working. Isabella pushes them away and, with Markus, backs up into the narrow space between the cabin and the railing. The sails are down and bundled on the booms. Black shit covers the deck in splatters and chunks.
Josh fights them off with the secondary anchor. Good boy. Isabella waves him to her. He ducks under the grabbing arms and snarling faces and jumps on the settee. He bashes some puppets off the seat in the middle of the boat and jumps to Isabella.
“The Anchor!” she yells. He’s smarter than he looks, and she knows he’s got a clue about what to do. He rams the puppets that crowd around Isabella like a pro football player. She kicks away the fucks that grab at him. After he falls behind her, she picks up the anchor chain. The chain is thick and heavy. She quickly wraps it around the neck of the ugly puppet in front of her. “Toss it!” She yells to Josh. He hefts it with all his might over the railings. The line goes taut and catches a dozen puppets all the way to the bow, smashing them into the lifeline.
“Ian! Hit the gas!”
“I’m going full speed!”
No matter. It only takes a moment. The anchor catches the bottom of the canal and turns the anchor line and the lifeline into a scissor. The dozen puppets are cut in half. Their tops fly into the canal and the bottoms crumble to the deck, spilling their rotten guts and a gaggle of worms.
“I’m dragging!” Ian yells. The boat slows. He doesn’t know it’s the anchor.
Fools' Apocalypse Page 28
