The Last Town (Book 6): Surviving the Dead

by Knight, Stephen

  “Same as before, sir. I’ll go up and check things out. You wait here.”

  “No, the boat’s too big. It’ll take too much time, and you wouldn’t know where to look,” Norton said. “Go up, I’ll be right behind you.”

  “You sure, sir? You’re essential personnel here.”

  Norton sighed. “God damn it, yes—I’m sure! Now go!”

  Mendoza pushed open the hatch and waited for a moment. When nothing happened, he cautiously eased up the ladder and raised his head through the opening. He twisted, looking around the salon upstairs before wordlessly climbing up as fast as he could. Norton went up right behind him.

  The salon was large and well appointed. A gigantic L-shaped settee was positioned to the rear, flanked by two leather occasional chairs across the cherry wood coffee table. Forward of that was a large formal dining area, with a large lacquered table surrounded by six plush chairs. Across from the dining area was the wet bar Norton had mentioned, in the perfect position to dispense drinks during a party. It was hot in the compartment. Norton began to sweat anew as he stepped to his left toward the salon entrance. He knelt and opened up a cabinet, exposing the yacht’s electrical bus. He inserted the boat’s keys into the panel, unlocking it for use, then began flipping switches, activating systems that would bring the yacht more fully to life. The climate control system kicked on, and cool air began issuing from the vents hidden behind cherry wood valances.

  “Come on,” he said to Mendoza, rising to his feet and hurrying forward. He pointed down a companionway to their right as they approached a short set of stairs past the dining area. “Master stateroom’s down there, if you want to check it out. Might be some stenches taking a bath in the Jacuzzi.”

  “I’ll stick with you, sir,” Mendoza said.

  Norton led him through the galley to the main deck pilothouse. Two Stidd chairs were positioned before several black flat-screen displays. Norton switched them on, willing the Furuno black box system to boot up quickly. Outside, the gunfire picked up in intensity, and Norton heard the men on the aft deck firing as well.

  “Yeah, we’re working on it,” Mendoza said. Norton turned to him and found he was listening intently to whatever was coming over his headset. He looked over at Norton. “Listen, we need to push off from the dock.”

  Norton started to protest, then thought better of it. “Okay, cut the lines. I can walk us away from the dock with the thrusters, but I’d rather do that from upstairs. Tell them to get on that.” With that, he transferred control to the flybridge station then left the pilothouse. He hurried up the gangway that led to the flybridge with Mendoza right behind him, passing on Norton’s instructions as they moved. Norton sprinted up the stairs and unlocked the flybridge door and stepped outside. Again, the chill of the Pacific breeze struck him as he stepped outside. There was more gore across the white fiberglass deck, most of it surrounding the tender. The small fourteen-foot center console’s canvas cover had been half removed, but that was as far as its would-be users had gotten. Bloody footprints tracked everywhere across the deck. Norton ignored it and sprinted for the flybridge helm station. He frantically removed the Sunbrella console covering that helped protect the hardened instrumentation from the environment and switched on the displays. As the Furuno system had already finished booting up, the GPS came online immediately. Even though he didn’t need it just yet, Norton energized the radar system. From its mount high above the flybridge, the radar could see for over seventy miles. A bit of overkill at the moment, but Norton was looking forward to using its full potential in just a few minutes. He reached for the MTU control panel and started the number two engine. It came alive with a shudder. The shudder gave way to a muted roar as the big motor powered up and revved normally. Norton repeated the process for the first engine, and it too awakened with a coughing rumble. Even though both engines were cold, they were operating normally. Norton studied the fuel flow and temperatures for a moment, watching as the latter slowly began to rise into the standard operating range.

  He stepped away from the console and looked out over the starboard side. Browning and the other man were wrestling with the lines while the other two men continued blasting away at the dead. There were bodies all over the dock, many more than Norton had expected. He saw why. There was a seemingly endless conga line of stenches streaming into the marina, and they had formed another mound that abrogated the locked gate. The corpses were falling over it, picking themselves up, and shambling toward the idling Pacific Mariner yacht. There were hundreds trying to get across the fencing.

  “We good to go?” Mendoza asked. He moved to the side of the flybridge and raised his rifle to fire.

  “Yeah, usually I’d wait for the engines to warm up,” Norton said.

  Mendoza fired, and a stench collapsed to the dock two hundred feet away. He repeated the process three more times, causing a miniature pileup that provided a temporary break in the dead’s advance. “I don’t think we’ve got a few minutes,” he said.

  “Can you give me two?” Norton had to shout over the firing.

  “Stand by.” Mendoza spoke into his microphone as he continued to fire, dropping more zombies. Norton hurried back to the helm station and consulted the displays. The engines were still warming up normally, which meant the raw water intakes weren’t blocked. That was a great sign, because the last thing he wanted to do was go over the side and try to clear the sea chest if a zombie was stuck in it. Satisfied that the yacht was slowly inching its way toward an orderly departure, Norton joined Mendoza at the railing and raised his H&K. There was already a decent-sized pile of motionless corpses on the dock, but he figured he might as well try and add some more numbers to it. His rifle cracked, and he was satisfied to see a stench drop face first as the back of its head exploded, showering the ghouls behind it with bone fragments and black ichor.

  “We can give you two minutes, but we’ll need to leave sooner if you can manage it!” Mendoza shouted.

  “Okay, let’s do this—there are boat hooks in the storage locker on the aft deck. They’re locked, but I can unlock them easily enough. Take two hooks and use them to hold us in place once the tie downs are released. We can stand off maybe eight feet or so until the engines warm up enough to take us out!”

  “Do it!” Mendoza said. “Do whatever you can!”

  Norton slung his rifle and sprinted for the winding gangway that ran to the aft deck. There was blood splattered all over the handrail, but it had dried long ago. The storage locker was underneath the cushions on the settee, which was currently covered by a Sunbrella covering. He ripped it off, flipped up the cushions, and opened the locker. He removed two telescoping boat hooks and extended them to their full fourteen-foot length. He tossed them onto the dock, and the man who had been guarding the swim platform waved one hand in quick acknowledgement.

  “Get back on the controls!” he shouted as he slung his weapon and picked up the implements. “We’ve got this!”

  Norton waved back and ran up the gangway. Mendoza was still hammering at the dead, and the pile in the middle of the dock was quite substantial now. The corpses trapped on the other side of the pileup were clambering over it, but the obstruction slowed them down enough so that Browning and the other man could continue their work, and the other two shooters standing out from the yacht weren’t in immediate danger of attack. Norton hurried to the helm and checked the instruments. The engines were warming, but still hadn’t entered the low band for operation.

  Ah, the joys of giant diesels, he thought.

  “How are we looking?” Mendoza asked.

  “Well, we’re not dead yet,” Norton responded. He took a moment to survey the marina from his position, two stories in the air. Zombies had penetrated the walls surrounding the other docks, which meant they would eventually be able to cross over to the one Argosy was tied to. And there were others splashing through the shallow water, advancing toward the idling yacht. They bobbed as they entered deeper water, then slowly sank benea
th the surface. Norton realized they were perhaps a bigger threat than those dockside. Even though the Pacific Mariner weighed over seventy-plus tons, the propellers and rudders and stabilizers were still potentially vulnerable to damage that could leave the vessel disabled. He checked the temperature readouts. Still not in the operating zone, but close.

  “Mendoza,” he said. “Get your guys aboard and have them hook us to the tie-down cleats on the dock. If they can manage it, they can just let out the bow and spring lines instead. I’ll try and hold us in place with a little power.”

  “You got it, Mister Norton!” Mendoza passed the information over the radio, and Norton put the bow and stern thrusters into standby. He’d be needing them in a moment. Next, he called up the chart plotter display and activated the radar. Both inputs were transposed on the nineteen-inch flat-panel display, giving him excellent additional insight into the local environment. He heard a fusillade of fire, and he looked to starboard. The two security guys were falling back now, and he could no longer see Browning and the other man. A moment later, Browning appeared, running up the yacht’s side deck. He carried a boat hook and, leaning over from the box, managed to hook it onto one of the stout tie-down cleats on the dock. Just in time, too—the bow began to pull away from the dock in the gentle current. A moment later, the stern started to swing out … and kept moving.

  “Are we hooked up in the back?” he shouted. “Mendoza! Pay attention, man!”

  Mendoza looked up from his rifle’s sights. “What? Say again?”

  “Are we hooked up in the back?”

  Mendoza leaned over the side of the flybridge. “No! Fucking Rowland dropped the boat hook!”

  “Browning, let go!” Norton shouted. “Let go!”

  Browning unhooked from the cleat just as a zombie grabbed the long boat hook. The pair struggled for control for a moment before Browning yanked the stench right off the dock and into the water. It lost its grip, and Browning pulled in the hook. He held it up for Norton to see.

  “Got it!” he shouted with a smile.

  “Fucking great, you saved a forty-five-dollar boat hook,” Norton said to himself. He grabbed the thruster joysticks and moved them to the left, walking the big yacht away from the dock. As it crept away at a leisurely rate, more zombies pushed down the wooden landing, surging toward the Argosy as she slowly moved away. They splashed into the water where Norton could no longer see them, but he saw Mendoza lean over the side of the flybridge once more. His rifle cracked, again and again. Brass cartridges tinkled as they rolled across the deck.

  “Mendoza, tell Browning or someone to get up to the bow and stay there,” Norton yelled. “I need someone to look ahead of the boat and make sure we’re not going to drive into something—there could be some sunken boats out there!”

  “Done,” Mendoza said after a pause. “Hey, we’re about fifteen feet from the dock now!”

  “Everyone aboard?”

  “Yeah, except for Lennon. We’re good to go?”

  Norton advanced the throttles slightly, adding some power to the idling engines. They still weren’t fully warmed up, but he had no choice—the yacht would start drifting in the current, and he didn’t have enough room to spin it around into another position so the thrusters could keep it stable. There was very little engine noise as the twin diesels spooled up a bit, but the vessel stopped drifting. Using the thrusters to keep it more or less in place, Norton held the big yacht in position a decent twenty-five feet from the dock. The water depth was just over nine feet, which meant the underside of the boat was still vulnerable to any zombies traipsing along the bottom, but the big Nibral screws were definitely kicking up enough silt and sludge to blind them. He was willing to take the risk they couldn’t damage the boat’s running gear.

  “Another minute or so, and then we’ll be underway,” Norton said. “Okay, what about Lennon?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to need to pick him up,” Mendoza said. “He’s okay, but he’s getting into some tight spots driving around out there.”

  “Understood. Where is he now?”

  “Hold one.” Mendoza spoke into his microphone and listened to the response. “He says he’s still out front, on Harbor Drive.”

  “All right. Tell him to drive due south on Harbor. It curves to left at the end and there’s a circular parking lot down there where it meets Ocean Drive. He should drive over the curb and as far onto the beach as he can get. Once he gets stuck, he needs to bail out and get to the end of the stone jetty. We can get him with the tender. Any of you guys know how to operate it?”

  “Hell, yes. We’re Marines, sir—we know boats.”

  Norton jerked his thumb to port, where smoke rose into the air from the smoldering structures in nearby Port Hueneme. “Tell it to the Navy, champ.”

  “Hey, Norton! Let’s get going!” Browning shouted from the bow. He held onto the stainless-steel railing there. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Engines need a little more run up time. Keep your shirt on, guy.” Norton watched the temperature and fuel flow readouts. The Argosy was just about ready for the open sea.

  “Lennon wants to know when,” Mendoza said.

  “I’ll need a few minutes. We have to pick our way down the channel, then get into position. And then we’ll have to offload the tender. Can he hold out?”

  “He says he can, but he’s getting danger close out there on the road. The dead keep pouring in faster than he can run them down.”

  Let’s get on with it. “Okay, we’re on our way. Browning! Stay sharp, man! You see something, give me a bearing and position, all right?”

  “Oorah!”

  Norton advanced the throttles a fraction of an inch, and the Argosy began to advance into the channel. He kept an eye on the depth meter. It increased to thirteen feet, which was the maximum depth for this part of the estuary. It would decrease to ten feet or so closer to the harbor mouth, and the water would become particularly skinny off to starboard—three feet or so several dozen yards from the jetty. At the far end, the water depth would increase to fourteen feet, which would give them enough depth to maneuver and deal with retrieving Lennon. If he made it, that was.

  The channel made a hard turn to the right, and Norton followed it, cruising along at an average of six knots. It was torture to move so slowly; while the harbor regulations required it, Norton didn’t want to go any faster for fear of striking something below the surface. While the Pacific Mariner had a thick hull, it was still only fiberglass. The last thing he wanted was to start taking on water, especially at a rate the pumps couldn’t handle.

  It took more than ten minutes to clear the channel. While the Argosy encountered no obstacles on the way, there were several abandoned boats that had been grounded into the jetties on either side. They were lifeless and vacant. Zombies shuffled around on the beach and picked their way along the rocky jetties. When they saw the large yacht steaming down the channel, they hurled themselves into the water and more often than not disappeared beneath its surface. Norton wondered what would happen to them as they cast about in the murk. Would they emerge again at a later date, waterlogged but still ready to chase down the living?

  Browning stayed at his post on the bow, keeping a lookout. Another remained aft, guarding the swim platform. Mendoza and the rest of the team fussed over the tender. They used the davit to raise the small boat from its brackets and lower it off the port side. The center console’s outboard gas engine was slow to start, but it finally fired up. Norton used engine power to keep the Argosy more or less where he wanted it, not wanting to take a chance one or more zombies might be lucky enough to find one of the anchor lines and come aboard. The water off the boat’s transom and swim platform churned and became foamy as the five-foot-wide Nibral props did what they were supposed to do.

  On the beach, the zombies that were regarding the big yacht’s maneuvers suddenly turned and looked back toward the line of houses and shops. Norton saw the armored van crash over the curb at the en
d of the parking lot he had mentioned, sending several stenches flying through the air. The van looked disgusting. It was covered with splattered gore, and there was even the remains of a zombie caught up in its brush guard. While the ghoul had essentially been chopped in two, it still flailed about, trying to crawl up the vehicle’s blunt snout in an attempt to get at Lennon.

  “Damn,” Norton said to himself.

  The van raced out onto the beach, blasting through a clutch of zombies without slowing. Then, as the sand became less packed, the heavy vehicle floundered. After chugging forward another thirty yards or so, it became completely stuck. Its rear tires kicked up a rooster tail of sand, and Norton could hear its diesel engine bellowing. It didn’t budge. The armored driver’s door popped open, and Lennon alighted from the vehicle. He ran all out for the rock jetty some forty feet away, kicking up sand. Zombies moved after him, most at a shuffle, others at a surprisingly fast trot. If Lennon knew this, he didn’t let the knowledge hold him back. He mounted the jetty and continued running, racing to its end. At the same time, two Marines in the tender took off, guiding the small boat in to pick him up. Those zombies in the water nearby turned when they heard the outboard engine pick up, and the sight of the small vessel bouncing across the water energized them into action. Some of the stenches were in water shallow enough that they might actually be able to make it to the tender before it could take on Lennon and get away.

  Shots rang out from the Argosy’s deck as Mendoza, Browning, and the other man on their team opened up. Even from three hundred yards out, the three men were lethal. They found their targets with an impressive accuracy, and in less than a minute, the immediate vicinity around the intended pickup point was clear of all ghouls.

  But hundreds more began to stream onto the beach. The herd oriented on the jetty and surged after Lennon like a single, amorphous beast. Norton reached over and blared the yacht’s air horns, ripping out a long, loud blare. That captured the attention of several stenches, and they slowed, momentarily captivated by the commotion. Norton kept at it, rhythmically firing off the horns. Several zombies actually altered their course, heading for the shoreline. It was as if they’d forgotten all about Lennon and the smaller boat hurtling toward the tip of the jetty.