by Smith, S. L.
He looked ridiculous trying to put on a backpack while still wearing the two swords strapped across his back.
“Whoa,” Justin said glancing back toward Isherwood. “We’re doing this now?”
“No time like the present,” Isherwood answered.
Instead of protesting, Justin started giggling like a school girl. “I’m sorry – oh my God, I’m sorry.”
“What?” Isherwood was smiling despite himself and his predicament.
“It’s just. Oh, sweet –” Just squealed obnoxiously. “With the backpack and the swords! Tur—tur—you look just like a ninja tur—tur—TURTLE!” He mumbled something else resembling "kowabunga” and then dissolved into laughter.
Padre eventually interrupted Justin’s giggle fit by firing the AR and launching the hook. Their heads all jerked skyward. The anchor line uncoiled smoothly from the front deck as the hook shot high above the air. Patrick whooped as the hook cleared the pipeline.
The line suddenly tightened and snapped taut. The hook seemed to hover for a second in the air. Then, the line relaxed as the hook came plummeting down on the upstream side of the pipeline. It splashed into the water ahead of them. For a moment, the anchor line seemed to form a perfect triangle rising up from the anchor mount and sloping back down into the water.
“Alright, turtle power,” Justin said wiping away tears of laughter, as the submerged hook began floating towards the boat. “It’s all you.” He may have mumbled some words of concern between further giggles, but no one could really tell.
Isherwood didn’t hear anything further from Justin. All he could hear was the blood pounding in his head as his ladder skyward drew nearer. Isherwood dropped down into a crouch on the boat deck. It helped him conceal the sudden weakness he felt in his knees.
“Here,” Padre said after climbing down from the tower and stowing away the rifle. “Take these. For the rope.” He tossed a pair of gloves towards Isherwood. He thought that the priest might have sensed that his hands were sweating, or maybe just saw the wet smears across the deck.
By the time he had put on the gloves, the rope was nearly to the boat. It was passing close to the boat but still out of arm’s reach. Patrick grabbed a fishing pole that he’d found on the boat. He leaned over the boat’s starboard side and snagged the anchor line on the first try. As Patrick pulled the line in, the hook remained submerged.
Padre grabbed a hold of the line and quickly tied a loop into it. “Here,” he said, holding the loop near the deck. “Isherwood, put your foot put in here. Quick. This’ll make the ascent easier. Just don’t get your foot permanently caught in it, okay?”
“Thanks, Padre.” He said, stepping into the loop and grabbing a hold of the line, as well. The line was slowly rising back up to the pipeline as the boat crept downstream. The plan was to turn the boat back into the current and reverse the engines once Isherwood was clear and up on the pipeline. They wanted the anchor mount facing the pipeline once the line was secured to it.
It wasn’t long before Isherwood felt the tug of the rising line. As he was lifted in the air, they looked up to the pipeline, listening for any signs of distress. The pipeline didn’t even wobble.
“Whoa, man.” Justin said shielding his eyes as he looked up. “This might actually work.”
CHAPTER FIVE: RINGLING BROTHERS
It did work. Isherwood didn’t exactly climb onto the pipeline. He was dragged over the top of it. He just barely got his foot free of the rope loop before being yanked down into the infested river.
Isherwood just lay there clinging to the topside of the wide pipeline. Justin and the boys were giving him thumbs-up from the boat deck below. Far below, it seemed. The boat was about a mile below him, Isherwood estimated. His eyes swam. He choked down the contents of his belly as his stomach lurched. Acid burned through his sinuses.
Despite the burning liquid dripping from his nose, he was able to secure the anchor line to the pipeline. With the remaining slack in the line, he was able to swing the hook under the pipeline so that it came swinging upward on the downstream side. The hook nearly embedded itself in Isherwood’s eye socket. He caught it, tucked it under the anchor line, and knotted it. Somehow, he appeared – at least to the guys down on the boat below – to seem pretty adept at what he was doing. He wouldn’t be able to remember any of this later.
Somehow, he managed to turn himself around and shimmy a couple hundred yards down the pipe. Again, he would later be unable to recall getting across the pipeline. He would say the angels carried him. As it was, he saw they were wise not to wait for the shoreline to clear. Zombies must be spilling over the bridge onto the land, as well as the water, he thought. He could see that what they were doing was working, really working. He just hoped that the pipeline took him past the throngs pressing against the sides of the pilot channel. Even if the pipeline could take him into the clear, if they spotted him, he knew they would swarm the base of it before he could get clear. He thought for sure they had seen him climb onto the pipeline.
The pipeline curved sharply back into the ground on its far western end. As he approached the sharp turn, Isherwood saw green grass and smiled. Seeing the grass, he knew he hadn’t been swarmed. But it was tall grass. Tall grass is scary grass, Isherwood thought. As he slid down the pipeline, slowed by the junction collars, he saw that he had not been spared a welcome party, after all.
He hit the ground hard, cursing under his breath. The gentle curve of the pipe straightened suddenly, and he basically fell the last ten feet or so. Luckily, the ground was soft and damp. His boots nearly disappeared into sludge. He toppled over and landed on all fours. His hands were gloved with mud, but at least, he thought, his side arms hadn’t fallen into the mud.
With a loud slurping sound, he pulled his boots free of the mud. Arms lurched after him from the far side of the pipeline, but the mud slowed the already slow zombies.
He darted away from the end of the pipeline as fast as he could. He kept his feet moving to avoid sinking into the mud, even walking on all fours. Staying mobile, he knew, was the best way to avoid getting surrounded. This place had to be littered with oncoming zombies staggering towards the channel.
He looked ahead down a long clear line cut through the otherwise thick forest and undergrowth. They called it a “cut” or “cut-through,” maybe because it looked like a razor had just cut a bald streak through a thick head of hair. There were deer stands set up at intervals along the length of the pipeline cut-through. These, Isherwood knew, would be a tempting place to hide in if he got caught in a tight spot. However, the ten, twenty, and sometimes thirty-foot plywood boxes on stilts would quickly become death traps if swarmed. They would be top-heavy, too. No, he thought, it would serve only as a measure of last resort.
As he jogged down the pipeline, he could see heads and slumping torsos rising here and there from the tall grass. “Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs,” he mumbled to himself as he dodged here and there through puddles and pockets of mud.
Though he would prefer to have a sword in either hand, he was keeping his hands free, if only because he kept stumbling onto all fours. He needed to remember the lessons he learned in Kindergarten about running with scissors, much less samurai swords. If he wasn’t careful, he might accidentally perform suppuku on himself, falling bowels-first onto the blade.
Isherwood had been mentally planning his route inland to his in-laws camp. He had been forcing himself to think about it, actually. It was better than ruminating on the dizzying heights of the pipeline or the feeling of being watched by a thousand eyes.
He had a good mental map of the island in his head. He was looking over it as he jogged along one side of the cut-through. He needed to go about half a mile or so west along the cut-through. He would be paralleling the path of the I-10 overpass about another half mile north. After that half mile, he would run across another, slightly narrower cut through. This second cut would lead diagonally south and further west to the camp
. If he needed to, he could leave the cut. The going would be much slower, though, through the undergrowth.
******
Isherwood was making steady progress down the cut-through. He was now less than a hundred yards from the intersection of the pipeline cut and the cut that would lead to the camp. In hindsight, he should have approached the intersection with greater caution. He had just assumed that the numbers of the dead would diminish the farther he moved inland. They didn’t.
Isherwood was nearly face to face with a dozen zombies before he realized his mistake. A group of zombies had coalesced just south of the intersection. In the back of Isherwood’s mind, he thought that maybe a raccoon or deer had been brought down by the zombies near here. The animal’s screams had probably attracted a swarm. It could have been days ago, but the swarm had, apparently, not found a cause to move on from the spot. Until now.
Thinking quickly – he had already mused about a strategy for a situation like this – Isherwood darted north through the intersection. He was moving in the opposite direction from the camp. Just as well, he thought to himself, breathing deeply to help regulate his heart rate. He had acquired a fair-size swarm of groupies following behind him, as well. He was headed straight for the woods on the north side of the intersection. He was clapping his hands as he went, too. He was going to lead them all, both swarms, into the woods and double-back. If he just dodged them now, he’d have to face them all over again when he had his in-laws in tow. He would likely be moving much slower by that point, and the double-back maneuver would not be impossible. He actually anticipated doing a few of these clean-up maneuvers along the way – just in case he didn’t find a suitable transport vehicle at the camp.
Leading north from the intersection, Isherwood was relieved to stumble across a trail. It was maybe five or six feet wide. It had been made for four-wheelers or Mules to drive through. It led, he thought, to a tree stand he had hunted the year before. If he remembered correctly, this path took him closer to the bayou. This meant more mud and likely large patches of standing water. His mind drifted to images of zombie mouths rising from the muddy water and snapping at him. He shook his head free of these images. He just hoped his rubber boots were bite-proof.
Once he had walked a few paces down the trail, he looked back to see what was following him. Even without turning, he could hear the clacking of teeth of the half dozen or so that were nearest him. The moans of these were rising nearly to shrieks. They sounded as though they could almost taste him. The nearest zombie was a squat black man with torn jeans. One entire pant leg was missing and he had worn the pads of his feet down to the bone. Isherwood labelled this one Derrick Todd Lee, the serial killer who had dumped his bodies under the I-10 bridge not far from this spot. Isherwood looked quickly away from the next zombie. It was a college-aged guy who looked every bit the part of a frat boy. Its collar was even still popped and sunglasses hung from a cord around its neck. From the waist down, however, he was naked. Isherwood winced as he looked away because there was only a dark hole where the frat boy’s manhood was supposed to be. Perhaps the Apocalypse reveals the truth, after all, Isherwood thought to himself.
Isherwood could see that his plan was working. It was working a little too well, he thought. Behind the nearest group of dead stalking after him, behind Derrick and the frat boy, were nearly a hundred zombies. They were moving quickly, too. There was a sound of desperation in their moans, as though they hadn’t seen live prey in a very long time.
The mobs of zombies disappeared as Isherwood turned a corner along the trail. He took the opportunity to dispatch the nearest zombies. There was an electric hum as he unsheathed the first katana. The frat boy and Derrick Todd were side by side now. Several more were also coming into view. Isherwood smirked. He reared back, intending to sweep off both their heads with one swing. The sword swept through the air. Unfortunately, he didn’t take into account the difference in their heights. The sword lodged midway through Derrick’s skull. It was enough to drop the black man, but frat-tastic was on Isherwood before he could get his second sword out.
Isherwood fell backward into the mud. He had been attacked while still off balance. He gave up on the sword and went for one of the 9mm pistols holstered at his sides. He pushed fratty’s head back with his right hand against its forehead and the butt of the pistol under its chin. He fired. Still pinned under fratty, he aimed and fired at the remaining zombies still advancing on him. “I need to make noise, don’t I?” He said out loud. “Then let’s do it.”
He scrambled out from under the frat boy and tried not to think about the stain its body had left behind. He put a boot against the base of Derrick’s skull and slid the katana out with some difficulty. Looking up, he saw the main body of the hoard squeezing into the narrow trail. “That’s right! Look at me. Come on, worm sacks. Focus on this guy.”
After mocking the zombies a few seconds longer, he turned and ran. He needed to get out from the locus of the gunshots quickly. He ran about a quarter mile along the trail in a west-northwesterly direction. He fired a couple more shots towards the hoard which was now long out of sight. He wished he had a wind-up toy or an alarm clock to leave behind. He would need to add an item like that to his arsenal – just a cheap casio watch could do the trick, if he could program it in a pinch.
He left the trail and darted through the woods. He thought he had maybe a minute before his crashing through the woods would lead them off the trail. For now, he didn’t think they were bright enough to sense the change in direction. He hoped. In a minute, he bet that he could be back in the pipeline cut-through and, if he was quiet, out of dead ear shot. Regardless, he’d be putting some distance between himself and the hoard.
Whether for better or worse, he didn’t know, but the undergrowth was pretty light getting back to the cut. The ground was full of palmettos, but he could mostly weave around these. He just hoped the piles of leaves didn’t hide one of the deep holes left behind from a rotting cypress. Despite jumping over fallen logs and crashing through brambles without knowing what lay on the other side, he made it with both ankles intact.
It probably took him closer to five minutes to reach the cut, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to be gone before the hoard started drifting out of the woods like a line of Confederate soldiers, as they had back at the levee in St. Maryville.
When he had finally returned to the intersection of the pipeline cut and the cut which would lead him to his in-law’s camp, he paused panting. He ducked behind a tree while he briefly scanned the intersection and caught his breath. It had worked! The place was deserted. He could hear, not see, maybe one or two stragglers, but it had worked. Without waiting for his pulse to settle down, he pushed himself onward. He didn’t want to screw up a job well done. Plus, he was nearly there. He could almost taste the sweetness of the rescue.
CHAPTER SIX: THE CAMP
Isherwood saw or heard only scattered zombies as he speed-walked a mile or so down the second cut. The adrenaline of the double-back maneuver gradually gave way once more to the exhilaration of the rescue mission. Nevertheless, he began ticking off a list of possible scenarios he might encounter at the camp. Disregarding injuries and half-starved relatives, he may well be walking into a massive swarm still surrounding the camp. He had begun to doubt this possibility, though. He was now close enough to the camp to hear the tell-tale signs of a swarm, especially in a swamp, if the dead had amassed in such numbers. There would be a smothering roar of moans. There would also be the insectile clicking of a thousand feet slapping and mounding in the mud. There would also be an overpowering stench of death, like opening a casket.
Isherwood guessed that there were just enough zombies still gathering around the camp to keep his family pinned in. Most had probably drifted towards the ruckus in the Pilot Channel, and his father-in-law, Glenn, was too smart to draw them right back in with gunfire. They had likely heard the pop-pop of his pistol, as well, and knew that Isherwood was on his way.
T
his was what he was hoping, anyway, as he came around the last turn. He had slowed his approach significantly. The sound of his footsteps were now barely audible, though the pounding in his chest seemed to him almost deafening. Around the far side of the next tree, he thought he’d finally be able to see the camp.
There it was. In a dark hollow of trees, a wood-shingled box rose above the swamp on narrow legs. There were no architectural adornments to the simple structure, but it was sizeable. It could sleep nearly twenty people in bunk beds. If not for the misfortune of the swarm and proximity to I-10, it would have served as a great hideout. And may yet.
Though he could see the structure, Isherwood could not yet see what, if anything, was assailing it. There was a rise in the land between him and the camp. It blocked his line of sight to the camp’s footings. Isherwood momentarily considered shooting his pistol into the air to draw what zombies were in the area to him and performing another double-back maneuver. He shook off the thought. This could very likely do more harm than good. The camp might actually be swarm-free. He scoffed at himself for thinking the world of zombies might cut him a break. He survived by banking on Murphy’s Law, not ignoring it.
There was a roofed structure between him and the rise before the camp. It was an open air tractor barn, like a carport for heavy equipment. He ducked down and sprinted over to it. There were plenty of places to take cover between the rusting hulks. He leaned back against a stacked pile of fifty pound bags of deer corn and rice bran. He sniffed at them absent-mindedly. They didn’t smell of rot and may prove useful in the short-term. He listened for a moment for the clumsy sounds of approaching zombies. He was clear.
