by Howard, Bob
In the end, we decided to go with the simplest plan by stopping at the Key West Coast Guard Station. It was anybody’s guess whether we would be right, but it was a logical choice.
First, the population was low before the infection. Second, there was a really good chance that the infected would have been reduced in numbers by falling into the water somewhere. The down side of that guess was that the isolation of Key West meant there was very little chance that anyone had survived.
The other advantage of stopping there was easy access. The Coast Guard Station was wide open and not as far from the mouth of the harbor as the station in Charleston. If they ran into any trouble, they would have a shorter run to open water.
Last but not least, the stockpile of digital satellite photographs in Fort Sumter had some good shots of the fuel storage tanks at Key West. One picture was marked with familiar symbols that indicated they could get fuel for the Cormorant or for aircraft.
“You should get out here and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine while you can.”
I lifted my head up from the journal to see Jean standing in the door to the wheelhouse.
“Have you ever been to the Gulf of Mexico?” I asked. “That place is always sunny. We’ll probably be sick of it by the time we get back.”
The Chief was at the helm, and I could tell by his laugh that he was making fun of my theory about weather in the Gulf.
“The Gulf is just like anywhere else, Ed. Besides, it’s likely that we’re all going to get more sunshine than we planned to. Temperature gauges have been running higher than I like. I’m not happy about going into any big ports, but if we need to stop for repairs, we need to do it where we’re most likely to find parts. We might not need any, but if we do, the Mayport Naval Base near Jacksonville is our best choice.”
Hampton squeezed past Jean into the wheelhouse just as he said it, and his eyebrows jumped up to the middle of his forehead.
“You couldn’t find a more populated area to make port? There were just under a million people living in Jacksonville when the infection started. Add in the tourists, and way over a million people were trying to get across three or four bridges at the same time.”
“Mayport is surrounded by water. We should be able to at least get closer to a port that deep. There are smaller ports with less people, but I only want to stop once. If we hit a small port, we’ll wind up stopping twice because we won’t find what we need.”
The wheelhouse was getting crowded, but Tom was next followed by Kathy. Both of them were covered with oil, and their hands were a black mess. Cassandra pushed from behind them, and when we saw how much oil was on her hands, we all pushed ourselves into the port corner of the wheelhouse to give them room.
“Good news,” said Tom.
The Chief asked, “Did you find the problem?”
“With the help of these two ladies I found a blown valve seal. We don’t need a shipyard. All we need is a place with a decent marina. This thing isn’t like a destroyer or something bigger. We should be able to make a good replacement seal with parts from a marina that services deep sea fishing boats.”
“Break out a map,” said the Chief, “and give me a list of good candidates. Everyone else get yourselves armed with M4’s. This is one time I don’t want anything getting close to us. How much time do you need to replace that valve seal?”
Tom gave it some thought then reassured the Chief he could do it in a couple of hours, but he recommended that the sealant be allowed to set for a couple of hours before the engines are started.
“What if we need to get underway sooner?” he asked.
“It should hold. Letting it set is more of a precaution,” said Tom.
Kathy had the charts of the coast spread out on the table and ran a finger along Florida.
“This is the only place after Jacksonville that has a marina with a full service repair capability, and we won’t have to navigate along the Intracoastal Waterway to get there.”
The Chief handed the helm to Jean, and leaned over the map. She had her finger on Camachee Cove marina. He let out a long, low whistle with a heavy sigh.
“What’s wrong, it’s the least populated area with easy access to open water?”
“Two things,” he said. “That marina can handle a ship the size of the Cormorant, but there won’t be any room for fast maneuvering. It’s a tight fit.”
Hampton said, “River traffic is like that. I grew up backing boats into docks and slips. We can do the same thing before we start the repairs. If things get bad, we can at least push away and be facing in the right direction.”
“I agree,” he said to both Tom and Hampton, “and do something about the second problem for me while you’re at it.”
“What’s that?” asked Tom.
“Get your girlfriend to wash her hands before she handles the charts.”
Kathy put her hands behind her back, but there wasn’t anything she could do about the big black streak on the chart from our present position to Saint Augustine.
The Chief didn’t push the engines up to full speed for fear of damaging the valves, so it took us a lot longer to reach Saint Augustine than we had planned. We stayed well off shore until we were close to the harbor entrance, but all of us were glued to our binoculars when we were within range.
We saw exactly what we expected. The beach wasn’t crawling with infected, but no living person could be near the water without being attacked. After over five years, we had hoped to see wide open beaches with no infected dead, but we were realists. That’s why we expected to see them. It was one thing to know how many people lived in America when the infection began, but it was another thing entirely to try to imagine most of them dead. They outnumbered the living even though thousands, perhaps millions of them had walked into the Atlantic, rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific.
The remaining living population had permanently destroyed some of them, but there would be no studies or census bureaus trying to capture the numbers. What saddened and amazed us the most was how many infected dead we saw that appeared to be in relatively good condition. Aside from being dead, that is. Some of them appeared to have died only within the last day or two, and that was disturbing. We had survived over five years, and so had they, only to eventually be assimilated by a stupid bite or a meal with crab meat in it. Maybe that was why the Chief took Sam’s death so hard. He had made it so far.
Everyone was topside as we approached, and we were all on watch. Even though we were making note of the infected walking on the beaches, we were more concerned about the hazards that could reach us. Submerged boats were a major threat, but five years of storms and coastal drift of sand would make shoals pop up where they hadn’t been before. We all knew the Chief would be staying toward the center of the entrance and hugging the line on the charts that showed the deepest water.
Fortunately, the location of the Camachee Cove was well away from the longshore drift, and there shouldn’t be any new shoals, but the Chief had seen firsthand what Charleston Harbor had been like at the start of the epidemic. Charleston Harbor had been deep enough for fully loaded container ships back then, but sand builds up quickly on sunken ships, and hundreds sank in the harbor on that day. Saint Augustine was no different when it came to boats sinking in the chaos of the first day, but the harbor wasn’t as deep.
We saw evidence of the way shallow areas seemed to reach out into the deeper water on our own Mud Island. It was actually mine, but I had come to think of it as belonging to my friends, as well. Without the jetties at the ends of the island, sand would fill in the northern and southern entrances to the waterway that surrounded the island. One huge boulder had been dislodged on the northern side, and it became shallow enough to walk across the waterway.
The evidence was raising its ugly head on the coast of Florida, too. We were entering the harbor outside Saint Augustine through an entrance that bore an eerie resemblance to Charleston but on a smaller scale.
Charleston sits
in the confluence of the Ashley River and the Cooper River, and the inlet that led to the city was where we had set up our home at Fort Sumter. Unfortunately, the other side was occupied by unfriendly neighbors who had shunned our peaceful overtures.
Saint Augustine sits in the confluence of the Tolomato River and the Matanzas River. We were watching the sides of the Saint Augustine Inlet as we cruised into the harbor, hoping there were no unfriendly neighbors here.
Another uncanny resemblance was the bridge that crossed the northern side of the inlet. It wasn’t as big as the one in Charleston, but it was high enough for us to pass under. Seeing it in the same place as the bridge in Charleston was a bit unnerving.
“The cove where we will make repairs is just north of the bridge on the mainland side,” the Chief called out from the wheelhouse. “Everyone stay low on the forward deck in case I have to use the fifty calibers.”
I don’t think any of us had forgotten about the trio of deadly deck guns on the Cormorant. They didn’t call it the Protector Class boat for nothing.
We rounded Vilano Point on the starboard side and turned diagonally upriver toward Camachee Cove, and as soon as we made the turn we knew Saint Augustine had experienced the same chaos as Charleston. Even after so many years had gone by, there were still hundreds of small boats piled up on Vilano beach and all of the shallows along the shores of the rivers. It was just like it would be if a large hurricane had made landfall in the harbor.
The Cormorant made very little noise as its bow sliced through the water, but the infected dead on Vilano Beach seemed to have no trouble seeing us. They flocked to the shoreline and walked into the water. It reminded me of when we entered the Folly River, and the dead followed us to the southern tip of Folly Beach. One by one they walked, waded, and then disappeared in the deeper water. Some may have washed ashore onto the new spit of land forming at Vilano Point, but most of them were washed out to sea in the swift current. Heads bobbed on the surface for a few yards making one last appearance before becoming part of the food chain.
The Chief let the Cormorant enter the marina at an angle and then began a slow turn to the right. He skillfully aimed the bow into the current and let the Tolomato River push the Cormorant back toward Camachee Cove. He gave a small burst of reverse from the engine, and the Cormorant drifted neatly up to the dock. Most people had trouble parallel parking a car, and the Chief had just parallel parked an eighty-seven foot long boat as if he did it every day.
It would have been nice to have a moment to tease him about bumping the curb with his tires, but we didn’t get the chance. We already had company coming our way.
We had faced the infected on docks more times than we could count, and in the past we would shoot the ones in front to cause a logjam behind them. This time that tactic wouldn’t work because the dock was concrete that was at least twenty feet wide, and the other side of it was occupied by a long building where repairs could be done. It was exactly where we needed to be, but we would have to find a way to close off the dock where it met the shoreline.
One quick glance in that direction was all I needed. There were dozens of infected coming to welcome our arrival. I was about to voice the question we were all thinking when Hampton yelled out the answer.
“They’re coming out of the river.”
There was a boat landing about fifty yards from the dock, and the asphalt surface disappeared at a gentle slope into the water. Waterlogged dead were walking heavily up the slope onto the main pier that was lined with slips and docks. They made a left turn and marched as a horde in our direction.
Camachee Cove was a curved opening into the Tolomato River that was acting like a net. The infected dead that walked into the water upriver were washed right into the cove. Worse, the infected that walked into the water inside the cove weren’t being washed out into the river. That could mean only one thing. The bottom of the cove had to be full of them.
Even though the dock was too wide for us to cause a logjam, we had to start shooting. The horde coming down the dock had grown quickly, and they would be on us in a few minutes.
We all felt the vibration through the deck as the Chief started the engines again, but instead of pulling forward away from the dock, the Cormorant backed up toward the advancing horde. Because the bow was facing out toward the entrance of the cove, the fifty caliber machine guns were facing the wrong way, and the Chief had a plan, but he didn’t have time to explain it to us.
The Cormorant’s stern stayed close to the dock, but the Chief left about ten feet between the boat and the dock. Just enough to be out of reach. At the same time the bow rotated to the left, and the synchronized guns were facing straight at the boat ramp.
We all moved to the stern to get a better angle, and laid down a withering wall of fire. Whatever we didn’t kill was shredded to the point where it couldn’t even crawl in our direction, and the horde dwindled in size. The wheelhouse was blocking our view, but as we finished off the last of the slow moving, waterlogged infected, we saw that the fifty calibers had created the logjam we needed on the boat ramp.
The Chief maneuvered the Cormorant back into position and signaled for us to tie her off at the dock.
He called down to us, “I need two people on deck shooting anything that comes out of the water onto that boat ramp and two people shooting anything that approaches the dock from those restaurants over there. Everyone else will be making repairs. When we’re done feel free to get a bite to eat at that place.”
Needless to say we knew we weren’t getting off the boat to sample the local cuisine, but when someone points you have to see what they’re pointing at. The Chief was pointing at a restaurant named The Crab Shack, and there was a big wooden cutout of a blue crab above the front door.
Jean yelled up at the wheelhouse, “You know we could shoot you, right?”
The Chief had already closed the wheelhouse door and throttled up the engine so he couldn’t hear her.
******
We were still sitting alongside the dock at sunset because the repairs had been more time consuming than expected. We decided that we would be better off staying where we were for the night rather than to navigate the cove and harbor without using our lights. Bright lights were not only an invitation to the infected, they were another way of painting a target on our backs. We didn’t know if anyone was out there to see the lights, but we didn’t want to give away the advantage if there was.
There were enough of us to have three people on watch at the same time. One watch was on the bow and stern, and one was in the wheelhouse. That person would be able to start the engine in a hurry if we needed to make a fast exit. Night vision goggles were passed out as we took our posts. I drew first watch on the stern, so I was facing down the length of the dock toward the pile of bodies.
If you stare long enough at something at night, it will eventually appear to move. If you stare at a tree, you’ll swear there’s someone standing next to it. If you stare at a window, someone will walk by on the other side of it. If you stare at a dark corner of your room, that coatrack or bookshelf will be someone just waiting for you to go to sleep.
From the stern of the boat, the largest thing in my field of vision was a pile of bodies. They were a bright green, but if I saw any movement in that pile, I wasn’t going to be surprised. My problem was that I kept thinking there was something moving in my peripheral vision, but every time I faced straight at it, there was nothing there.
I finally got tired of thinking something had moved and radioed Cassandra on the bow and Sim in the wheelhouse.
“Stern to bow and wheelhouse. Please check my nine o’clock, over.”
“Roger, stern.”
I knew that both of them were staring into the darkness to my left while I faced straight ahead, and it seemed like I had only asked them to check the dock when Cassandra opened fire. She didn’t come close to shooting me, but it sounded like the bullets went right by my head. I don’t know if I dropped to the deck, or i
f my legs collapsed.
Something on the dock ran for cover, too.
“Stern, what was that, over?” Sim asked over his radio.
I didn’t get a good enough look at it to answer Sim, but Cassandra did because she fired again. I lifted my head in time to see something change directions as bullets hit where it would have been. Another burst from the bow and whatever it was she was shooting at flipped over, but it didn’t stop moving.
Cassandra came all the way to the stern and stood next to me, and Sim was right behind her. The door to the cabin below the wheelhouse was big and heavy, but it literally flew open as the Chief and the others all emerged onto the stern with their rifles ready.
“Everyone stay in the boat,” said Cassandra.
She turned to the Chief and said, “We need to pull in the mooring lines and drift clear of the dock, and we can’t drop the anchor.”
The Chief always said there was a time to talk and a time to do things, and this was obviously not a time to talk. He would let Cassandra explain herself after we did what she said. We all scattered and brought in the heavy mooring lines. A shove on the dock from fore and aft was enough to get us away from the dock.
The stern of the Cormorant dropped down in the middle. The area was roped off because it was a boat ramp. The stern literally opened like a big door while the ship was at sea to allow a raft to enter at high speed. Cassandra peered over to check the bottom of the ramp and appeared satisfied that there wasn’t anything down there to worry about.
“Is that thing still moving on the dock?” she asked me and Sim.
“Yes,” I said, “but I still can’t tell what it is.”
I spoke to her, but I had stepped up on a piece of gear to get a better view. Whatever it was, it was moving a lot, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
The Chief borrowed my goggles and stared in that direction for a minute.
“Now I know why you said we couldn’t anchor,” he said. “That thing could climb the anchor chain. How close was it?”
