“I thought I told you to get back upstairs? If you look on the steps in front of me, you’ll see a prime example of what happens to people who don’t listen. Now, do you want to be the kind of people who listen or the kind of people I put on the ground? You need to figure that out right now cause I’m done talking to you.”
“Do you mind if I take that woman upstairs and see if I can get her into her bed?” Kelly asked the guardsman while keeping her hands in the air. That apparently did it for the guy. He fired two shots into the bannister directly in front of Kelly. Kelly jumped backwards. She turned and started running up the stairs. The man turned the gun on Randy. Randy turned and ran up the stairs closely behind Kelly. The whole way up the stairs he expected to feel bullets ripping into his back. At the top of the stairs he grabbed Kelly and they both went and locked themselves back in their room.
Kelly was crying while Randy held her in the bed. She was sobbing for that woman at the bottom of the stairs. She was sobbing from of the terror of having been shot at. She was sobbing for their plight but most of all she was sobbing out of frustration and fear for their children. If the island they were staying on was going this crazy already then what kind of insanity must be ruling the mainland?
“As soon as we get a cell signal, I’m getting straight on the internet. I’m going to destroy this place on Yelp.” Randy whispered to Kelly who snorted with surprised laughter before punching him hard in the stomach. She sat up as Randy struggled to regain his breath. Kelly worked out a lot. One of those classes was an aerobics kickboxing deal so she knew how to throw a punch. He’d been expecting her to do something similar, but it’d still caught him off guard. That little snort of laughter from her had been worth it though.
“Now what?” Kelly asked.
That was the million-dollar question. This wasn’t the kind of situation anyone was prepared for. They were stuck in a hotel on an island that was losing power in the middle of a massive storm. Their kids were thousands of miles away. There was some sort of chaos happening on the mainland that was making the authorities on the island feel like they needed to shoot people coming over on the ferry. The punk downstairs with the gun ordering them to stay in their rooms wasn’t a good sign either.
“Not a lot we can do. Other than go try and steal a boat but then we’d probably either get shot by the Coast Guard or need them to rescue us when we manage to sink the boat in the storm. Once things calm down there’s so many boats on this island maybe they’ll be willing to let us take one. They’re going to want less people on the island, so they don’t have to feed us all.”
“We need to get off this island now. We have to go find my mom and our babies.” Kelly said for about the fiftieth time today. Randy understood her frustration. He felt it too. There just wasn’t any scenario he could think of that got them off this island and back down to Florida immediately. It wouldn’t do their kids any good if they got killed trying to steal a boat. Rather than say something and risk an argument breaking out when they both wanted the same thing, he just slid closer to Kelly and wrapped his arms around her, so he could hold her while they lay there.
The hotel was quiet. Despite everything that was going on they still dozed off within a few minutes of lying down. They were woken up by pounding on the door and someone yelling for them to muster downstairs in the restaurant. Kelly looked around confused.
“Why’s he yelling about mustard in the restaurant?” She asked. Randy was already up and putting on his shoes.
“It means they want us all to go downstairs. Maybe they have some news for us. It might be our chance to ask about how we can get off the island.” Randy was excited. He was hoping whoever’d taken charge was downstairs and they’d be able to get some real news. Kelly seemed cheered up at the prospect of finding out what was going on as well so once they’d dressed, they went out in the hallway and joined the other guests streaming down the stairs.
As they walked down the stairs Kelly ran her hands over the splintered part of the bannister where the guardsman had shot at her the day before. Randy got chills as he thought back to that experience. There was a good chance that this meeting they were headed for was not going to give them the kind of information and news they were hoping for. At the bottom of the stairs they passed the same guy who’d shot at them yesterday. He gave them a sadistic grin and waved them into the restaurant.
Even though the hotel was not full due to the storm the restaurant was packed to capacity. All of the servers, maids, cooks and other staff were shoved into the room right along with the guests. A few coast guardsmen and one policeman were scattered around the room. They were carrying assault style weapons and had serious expressions on their faces. A man in a formal USCG uniform walked in and stood at the front of the restaurant to address them. He raised his hands for silence and waited patiently for the conversation to die down.
“Hello all. I’m Commander Nasser of the USCG Boat Station Block Island. As of a few days ago we received communications that martial law has been activated across the country. As the ranking officer on the island I’ve worked with police chief Walker to come up with a plan to secure the island and ensure everyone’s safety. Now – “
“Your man hit my wife! What are you going to do about that! She’s got a broken jaw and hasn’t gotten out of bed or talked since yesterday!” An old man was walking towards the commander shaking his finger at him angrily. The commander nodded at one of his men who came forward and knocked the old man to the ground and secured his wrists with a pair of zip ties.
“Take him outside and watch him please seaman. We’ll deal with him and his wife after this.” The commander turned his attention back to the crowd of people. A few of whom were starting to raise their voices at the treatment of the old man. The commander coughed a few times to get everyone’s attention again.
“Again. I wish to remind you that martial law has been activated. That means that as the highest-ranking officer I am in command of this island. Anyone who does not follow the lawful orders of myself or the people I appoint will be dealt with. Is that understood?”
“What do you mean dealt with? I’m a veteran and this ain’t right. You – “The man yelling at the commander shut up when the commander drew his sidearm and casually pointed it at the man’s head.
“The mainland has turned into a slaughterhouse. The only reason any of you people are alive is because my men and I have been killing refugees from the mainland before they can contaminate the island. From now on I’m the one who determines what is right and what is wrong. Anyone who wants to argue can get off my island. As a matter of fact, why don’t you go join the man out in the parking lot.” The man who’d professed to be a veteran didn’t look like he wanted to back down.
When the man just stood there defiantly the commander shot him. The loud report of the pistol hung in the air like a thunderclap. Everyone watched the man fall to his knees grasping his stomach and trying to breathe with blood pouring out between his fingers. The commander walked over to the gasping man lying on the ground. He looked down at him for a second before putting another round into the man’s head. Looking around the room he put his pistol back in the holster and continued addressing the people in the restaurant as if nothing had happened.
“We have limited supplies. We can survive for a while off what we have stockpiled, and we can supplement it with fish and deer but we’re going to need supplies from the mainland eventually. Hundreds of Indians lived out here for hundreds of years without any of the benefits we have so I’m sure we can figure it out.” The commander took a breath and seemed to be working on the phrasing of his next words carefully.
“Having limited supplies means we don’t really want to have a lot of mouths to feed. I’ve got men who want to get back to the mainland to go check on their families. I’m sure a lot of you also want to get off this island and head back to your families. That’s not going to be an easy task. When I said the mainland has turned into a slaughterhouse, I meant i
t. A virus has spread that pretty much emulates every Zombie movie you’ve ever seen. Mobs of infected people are tearing around everywhere ripping any non-infected people they find to shreds. That’s why we’ve been killing anyone who tried to make it out here. This crap spreads like crazy and we do not want it on this island.” The commander’s eyes widened, and his breath deepened as he sought to emphasize that he didn’t want the virus on the island.
“For those of you who want to leave you’ll need to earn your way off. If we take you over to the mainland that uses up precious fuel on our part. We’re going to try and use wind power as much as possible since we have plenty of sailboats moored out in the harbor but it’s still going to require some fuel to be efficient. That fuel needs to be paid back. You’ll need water, supplies, food and some sort of weapons to have the slightest chance of making it very far over on the mainland. We’ll make sure you have what you need but we expect you to contribute and follow all orders and wait your turn? Is that understood?”
“Yes sir, it is.” Kelly had raised her hand and started talking. Randy’s mouth dropped as he struggled to become psychic and broadcast a message into her brain to shut up. Maybe she’d missed the part where the commander had just shot a guy for questioning him. Randy interrupted his attempts at mind control to try and hear what she was saying over the rising fear in his gut that she was on the verge of being shot.
“How soon do you think we’d be able to arrange travel to get over to the mainland, sir? We’re worried about our kids and need to get back to them.”
“Your kids are probably dead.” The commander answered without the slightest trace of sympathy. “Most people on the mainland are dead. If you really want to try and get back there, we’ll drop you off once you’ve earned passage. We’ll be asking people to join work and scavenging parties. You go over and you gather the stuff we need and get it back on the boat. You do that for us it pays for you to get a ride to the mainland and some supplies for the journey.” Dismissing Kelly, the commander signaled to one of his men standing in the corner and walked out.
The tall man from the corner stepped into the space vacated by the commander to address everyone. “Hello, I’m Chief Stringer. We need the manager and the head cook to stay here. We’re going to need to take an inventory of the supplies in the hotel. All hotel employees please remain in this room. All hotel guests should proceed upstairs and grab one suitcase worth of supplies and head out to the parking lot. You’re going to be transported to the high school. That will become your new home away from home. We’ll be arranging for mattresses and cots to be sent over. We expect you all to be in the parking lot within the next fifteen minutes. Also, if any of you are found with any weapons on you, we have authorization to shoot you on the spot. Leave any weapons you may have brought with you on the dresser in your room and let one of us know where it is.” Chief Stinger stood there with everyone staring back at him. Looking slightly exasperated he raised his voice and let them know it was time to get moving.
“Now! Move it people. You have fifteen minutes to be out in the parking lot. If I was you, I wouldn’t be late. Remember, you owe us for this bus ride.”
Chapter 11: He is Risen
Brenda spent the next hour exploring the supply closet they were trapped in. The space was around ten yards long by three yards wide. Both sides of the hall were lined with deep shelves that held donated supplies. There were stacks of batteries and hurricane type supplies like tarps and bottled water. Bottled water took up a large amount of the space. There were boxes of donated clothes and shelves filled with various donated canned food as well. The canned food all looked like the kind of crap people liked to donate. Canned vegetables and off brand pasta being very prevalent.
There were a few shovels in the corner by a pile of empty sandbags. The shovels were the closest thing Brenda could find to a weapon. Although, she guessed canned food worked for her pretty well considering the preacher still hadn’t budged. Having completed her inventory of the closet she sat down and calculated how many days they could survive off the food and water she’d found. She decided she needed to figure out one more variable. She squatted down next to the preacher and felt his wrist for a pulse. There was an easily detectable pulse beating in the man’s wrist.
“Are you awake?” Brenda asked while shaking his hand back and forth. The man groaned a few times and rolled to the side. Brenda poked her finger into the part of his head where she’d hit him with the canned green beans.
“Ow! What is your problem woman!” The preacher sat up and looked at her angrily. He looked like he was going to try to knock her out of his way when Brenda raised her hand to show she had a can of beans ready to let fly. That shut him up. Cringing away from her he started trying to come up with excuses.
“How’s the little girl? I thought you were going to be captured by those things and I wanted to keep the children safe – “Brenda interrupted him by coughing quietly. Once he’d shut up, she allowed him another few seconds to stare at her and wonder if she was going to go ahead and crush his head with the beans regardless.
“You broke my little girls’ arm. You broke her arm trying to save your cowardly ass from the monsters you should’ve been jumping in front of to try and save those children from. Now we’re stuck in this pantry you conveniently forgot to tell anyone about surrounded by those demons. They’re trying to get in here and kill us. We’ve got limited food and water. Why should I let you stay in here? Why should I let you live?” Brenda whispered the last part with emphasis. She wanted this guy scared of her. She needed to be able to control him and keep him from doing anything stupid. She knew she couldn’t trust him to do anything that wasn’t in his own best interests, so she needed to make doing what she told him to do something he strongly considered to be in his own best interests.
“I’m so sorry about your little girls’ arm. Is she going to be ok? I can show you how to get out of here. I’ve been the pastor here for almost five years. I know every nook and cranny of this place. You’ll want to have me around if you plan on doing more than just sitting in this room until you starve to death or that thing knocking on the door manages to bust its way in.” His arguments were sound. Brenda figured he knew that she probably wasn’t going to kill him anyway. It’d been easy to peg him in the head when she’d been in a rage over what he’d done to Doreen but now she couldn’t really summon up the level of hatred needed to bash his head with the family size can again. She decided to be magnanimous.
“I don’t want to kill you. I want us to work together to try and figure out a way out of here. Our first job is protecting these kids. You do anything else that puts them in danger to try and save your own ass and I will put an end to you. Understand?”
The preacher nodded in the affirmative.
“Ok. Good. Let’s forget this happened and just try to move on then. I’m Brenda. These are my grandbabies Doreen, Zoey, Myriah and Caitlyn. This other little girl over here playing with Zoey is named Alice. She’s the one I rescued out in the hallway. Her daddy made sure she escaped. What should I call you? Pastor Methot seems a bit formal given our current situation.”
“You can call me Bill.” The pastor answered. He was rubbing his head and wincing like he was in some pretty serious pain. Brenda figured he deserved it.
“Alright, Bill it is then. Any other treasure troves of supplies you’ve been hoarding?”
The pastor gave her a hurt look. “This was it. Once we opened this one up and used these supplies we’d have been done. If the infected people hadn’t gotten in when they did, we’d have only had a few more days before we would’ve had to either make a break for it or die of starvation in the church anyway. I know running to save myself wasn’t brave. It wasn’t what I was supposed to do. My faith failed me. All I could think of was those things ripping me apart with their teeth while I screamed. I’m sorry – “Brenda cut him off again with a quiet cough and a shake of her head.
“Stop saying you’re sorry. Do b
etter next time. I don’t think they’re sick people either. I think they’re past that stage. They’re demons. They’re Zombies. I don’t know why they’re here, but we need to figure out how to get out of here. Then we need to know where to go once we’re out. Any ideas? I don’t suppose you have a hidden stockpile of weapons somewhere?”
“No weapons. The shovels in the corner are the closest thing we have to weapons. Some of the policemen and the others out in the main area may still have some bullets and weapons on them. I don’t think we’d make it out that way though. It’s probably still crawling with the Infect - With the Zombies.”
Brenda continued to work on coaxing information out of the disgraced pastor. After another twenty minutes of whispered conversations she’d finally determined he didn’t know anything else that was of any use. He did seem like he wanted to cooperate, so it was a little less likely now that she’d have to kill him. Every time she looked over at Doreen’s arm, she felt a rush of anger she had to fight to keep down though.
A Small World Page 8