The Ashleigh Rhodes Chronicles (Book 1): Dark Rhodes

by Michael Canon

  I scrunched up my face and said, “No, not at all, thank you very much.”

  She gave me an indignant look, and said mockingly, “What’s wrong with me? You don’t like dark meat?” her musical laughter fills the small room, and a brilliant smile appears in stark contrast to her dark complexion.

  After she finishes untying me, she offers me her hand, and says, “Henrika Johansson, friends call me Hank, close friends get to call me Swede.”

  “Hello Hank, please call me Ash or Ashleigh. I hope I earn the honor to call you Swede."

  Returning to her seat, "Thank you, Ashleigh, let's both work towards Ash and Swede together, shall we?"

  I nod an enthusiastic yes at her question.

  Hank continued, "I was watching you and your friend fighting the fast ones on the deck of your boat."

  I interrupted her, "I call the fast ones Hunters.”

  She shrugs, "Call them what you want. I heard a lot of gunfire and explosions coming from north of here. Then your boat appeared, going like a bat outta Hell. I grabbed my NVGs and watched you, and your friend take out the first ones, then when you got attacked by the other ones. Your boat clipped my ship, then went airborne off a sunken cargo container before it hit another container at the high tide line. I'm sorry Ashleigh, your friend did not survive the impact."

  I hung my head, I didn't think Jason could have survived an impact like that. Hell, I wasn’t sure how I had.

  I stood up, Hank followed me vertical. I shook my head because I felt like I was leaning to the right until I realized it was the ship that wasn't completely level. Seeing my confusion, Hank waved for me to follow and headed out the door.

  We walk down a short hallway towards an open hatchway. As I stepped out into the sunlight, I’m amazed by the sight. I’m standing on a small deck near the middle of a giant container ship. The ship is beached on an island. The beaching caused the ship to sit with a slight list to port. A low stack of shipping containers stretched out both fore and aft of where we stood. I could see where the list had caused a few containers all along the port side to break free. These were now lying in heaps next to the ship.

  “Damn, this is a big ship.” was all I could say.

  Hank smiled, and said, “Ardent Venture is, well was, her name. She’s pretty big, been on bigger. It doesn’t matter anymore, she’ll never sail again. Couple Nor’easters or ‘canes and she won’t even be a memory for anyone but the sea and me.”

  “Your boat clipped the hull back there and then went airborne about there, then bulls-eyed that container,” as she pointed to an area forward of a group of spilled containers at the shoreline. I could see the damaged side of a container, along with the aft section of the boat I was on.

  Hank continued, “You’re damn lucky it was dark, I couldn’t tell what color your blood was when I dragged you out. Might have left ya’ there. Almost dumped you overboard when I saw you in the light. Scared the living shit outta me when I watched your injuries heal right in front of my eyes. But you kept talking about someone named Martin, your Mom, and someone named Christian, and I thought I should at least give you a chance to plead your case.”

  Well, thank you for not dumping me overboard.” I said with a small smile.

  Hank hesitated for a moment, then asked, “So you really ate those guys, then got all their skills and memories?”

  I frowned and nodded yes.

  She continued, “Bet you're glad they were both ex-military, their skills will serve you well now. Wouldn’t have done much good if they were accountants or lawyers, now would it?”

  I looked at her sharply, the mixture of anger and disgust on my face was something she picked up on immediately, and replied, “I’m sorry. That was really insensitive of me. I’m very “take what life gives you,” I sometimes forget others might not think this way.”

  I replied, anger apparent in my voice, “Well, fucking eating two people doesn’t make me glad about anything right now.” A cold rage washed over me as I turned away from Hank.

  I thought looking around the island would help me calm down, I was wrong. The island was covered with hundreds, if not thousands, of zombies! Hunters and Georges were milling around as far as I could see. Hank saw my look and pointed far down the beach on our port side. In the distance I could see a bunch of old derelict buildings with one new one near the waterline. I looked closer and realized the new one was a ship, not a building! A massive cruise ship was beached like us, but was lying on its side!

  Hank saw my shock and with a musical laugh, she said, “The view is impressive, but our neighbors are monsters.” I was still mad, but I smiled.

  Hank leaned on the railing as she explained, “She came in just like the Venture, as a partial Ghost Ship – lights were on, I could hear the engines running, but with a dead bridge - no one was in control. She slammed into the island just as I pulled your ass out of the wreckage of your boat. Felt the impact all the way over here.”

  “After I got you in bed and tied up, I came out and watched her death roll, it was like a slow-motion accident. Took her over an hour to settle. Between the angle she hit the beach at, and how much is above the water line, there’s no way she’d stay upright like the Venture. It was both sad and amazing to watch something that huge die. I went over there to see if I could help the survivors but saw only zombies coming out of the wreckage, so I high-tailed it back here. They started showing up on our doorstep about two hours ago.”

  I turned my attention to Boston. The skyline looked very different. It took me a moment, but I think I figured out where the Davron building used to be. The collapse seemed to have taken down a couple adjacent buildings also. Columns of smoke highlighted the fires that were burning all across the city.

  I felt lost and alone, again. I was pissed and terrified at the loss of my new Davron friends. It seemed like every time I lost consciousness, I woke up in a shiny new, fucked up situation! I was like 0 – 4 on the awesome vs. fucked-up wake-ups for the last few days. Hell, even an “Okay” wake up would be a vast fucking improvement!

  I smiled as I realized the new me liked to swear way more than I used to. Oh well, fuck it!

  Getting nothing but more uncertainty from the Boston skyline, I went back to the cabin to sit and think about my next move. I was worried about Martin, Nikki, Connor, and the others. Diana said the VIPs got out but to where? I had no idea where they were or how I could get a hold of them.

  “What’s on your mind girl?” asked Hank.

  I stood up to pace, sitting still was not my strong point right now and replied, “I was thinking about my friends from the Davron building. I have no idea where they went, of how to get a hold of them.”

  Hank said, “We could try the Venture’s radio if you want?”

  This brightened my mood immediately, and I nodded an enthusiastic yes.

  The ship shuddered like a groaning leviathan, stopping a few seconds after it started, but still causing me to jump to my feet.

  Smiling, Hank said, “It’s okay, she’s just settling deeper into sand, gravel, and mud. She did it a lot while you were unconscious. I checked the Venture’s GPS, we’re on Peddock’s Island. This island was already being used in the 1630s. The shoreline here is old and dense, so I don’t think she’ll roll. I keep checking the list gauge up on the bridge, we’re still at 4.52 degrees to port. If she moves anymore, I’ll add some water to the starboard ballast tanks to counter it. We can dump more boxes off the port side to reduce the stress too.”

  I sat back down and said, “I need to think about something else for a while. Talk to me; help me take my mind off all this crap. What’s your story? It seems like you know your way around here.”

  36

  Hank grabbed a chair, spinning it around backwards, resting her folded arms on the back as she sat down. “I born in late ’65, grew up south Boston, down in Providence, Rhode Island. Oh, how I loved the ocean from the first time I saw her. So powerful, majestic, I never feared her like some do, though
. It felt like she was calling to me from that day on.

  I joined the Navy as soon as I finished high school. I was a Machinist Mate for a while, then switched to gas turbines. Tell you what, it wasn’t easy getting there being a woman, never mind being a black woman. I became a Warrant Officer in ’96 and retired with my full 30 in 2013.”

  “I went over to the private sector right after retirement. Two failed marriages, no kids, the sea always seemed more like home to me. Let me show you around, there are a few things I need help with that will make life good for us for as long as we want to stay here.”

  We left the cabin and turned away from the open hatch. Hank led me down a couple steep stairwells, deeper into the ship.

  I asked, “Are you alone here? Where’s the rest of the crew?”

  Hank said, “We took a half load and pulled out of the MassPort docks late on February 5rd. We were headed to Savannah to switch out some containers and to fill her up before we headed to France. Bobby, one of the bridge crew, boarded with a nasty wound on his hand. Said he got bit by a woman as he entered the dockyards. We teased him about his taste in girls.”

  Hank paused to open a hatch before she continued, “We cleared the docks and were moving out when the Captain got a call to keep station in the harbor, something about a Federal Emergency. Same shit happened on 9-11, so we just sat there with a bunch of other ships. Shortly after we stopped all hell broke loose on the bridge and engineering. We started moving again, think someone hit something on the bridge. I would have checked, but I was too busy fighting off the guys I called my family for the last 4 years.

  We’re here.” As she pointed to a closed hatch. “Jonesy and I took care of all the foot-draggers, but he got himself a bit. He jumped overboard as soon as he felt the change comin’ on. Two of the crew turned into your Hunters. They’re in the cargo hold here, saw ‘em from one of the upper catwalks. Need your help clearing them out.”

  I frowned, and said, “You could have told me sooner; this is not how we get to Ash and Swede,” using a pointed finger for emphasis. “We’re going to need to work on our communication. At least if we talked earlier, I could have found a weapon.”

  Hank crooked her finger to have me follow her down a hallway to the left of the door, and into a small machine shop/tool room and said, “Take your pick.”

  The walls were lined with large wrenches and pry bars as well as tools I’d never seen before. I grabbed a 3-foot pry bar and headed back to the door.

  Hank touched my shoulder to stop me, producing my belt and 9mm. She apologized, “Sorry, needed to know you better before I gave it back. I cleaned it and your belt. I looked at her squarely, her eyes held only the truth.

  I replied, “Hold onto it for me, in case I need the back-up or I don’t make it out. Aim for their heads.” I opened the hatch and went through without another word.

  After locking the door, I saw I was at the corner of one long and one short hallway created by the stacked containers in the cargo hold and the hull of the ship. I tapped the pry bar on the container to my left a couple times and walked forward. I got about halfway down the row when I heard something moving behind me.

  A large orange Tom Cat came around the corner and meowed questioningly at me, to which I replied, “Hi buddy, I’m not going to eat you.”

  The big cat crouched down defensively and hissed, before taking off the way it came. I was about to respond indignantly when I heard movement behind me. I spun around to see a Hunter running towards me.

  I think in his past life he might have been Asian. Those who become Hunters go through some extreme physical changes. All Hunters are bald, even the female ones. Their skin color changes to light to medium gray, gaining pink hues as they feed. Physical characteristics that can help identify race, such as the set of the eyes and nose structure, start to fade almost immediately.

  During a side conversation I had with Nikki and Conner, both confirmed that a Hunter I dispatched in the garage had been one of Connor’s maintenance staff, they could tell by his shirt. Nikki said he was black with a head full of braids he kept up under a Jamaican flag Rasta hat while at work. Both were shocked that all his hair was missing, and many of the strong facial features that identified him as an African-American man were almost gone.

  I remember Conner joking sarcastically, “All it took is a world-wide zombie apocalypse to bring us all together,” causing the three white girls, the two black girls, the black man, and the Asian man in the Hummer to groan at his comment with ironic laughter.

  The Hunter charged me, never hesitating as the ones in the dock had. I waited until he got within my range, then struck out with a kick to his right hip joint, knocking him off balance and slamming him into the ship’s hull. Before he recovered, I struck hard with the pry bar. I heard the bones in its right arm break with a loud snap. The zombie hissed and pressed its attack. Ducking under its left arm grab, I used the pry bar on its left knee. With another satisfying crack, the monster tumbled to the floor.

  Hearing the running slap of feet on the deck behind me, I ran further down the corridor to put some distance between the new zombie and the one I just disabled. I turned to see the biggest Hunter I had ever seen standing 30 feet from me. He had to be 6’ 6” or taller and was so wide he made it seem that his shoulders would scrape the walls. While he had been a very strong human, it was obvious he carried a lot of fat during his living years. The virus was busy putting that material to use making new muscle. The skin on his belly hung in a huge, empty, pancake-like fold, which was a good thing because it hid his zombie junk.

  Just a quick side thought. All you guys that think it would be “cool” to become a Hunter need to understand something. While Hunters may have become the fast, strong, Alpha predators of your fantasies, the virus seems to have no need to extend these traits between their legs. As a matter of fact, speaking from an evolutionary viewpoint, it appears that things were going the other way. Bummer dude, no big, killer-zombie junk for you!

  I was a little worried about taking on this behemoth in such a narrow hallway, so I backed around the corner. While out of the monster’s sight, I quickly climbed a container to get to the walkway above me. I wanted a moment to think about how I was going to take down Goliath.

  I heard Hank’s voice echo through the hold, “You’re supposed to kill it, not run from it.”

  I yelled back up, “He’s fucking huge! You could have told me he was the size of a frigging refrigerator! Why don’t you come down here if you think you can do better?” This Swede / Ash thing was not looking good right now.

  “Because I’m a 50-something, semi-retired sailor, and you’re a young, super-human zombie killer,” was her retort, and I couldn’t really fault her on that.

  I yelled, “I need space, it’s too cramped here!” as the giant monster pounded on the container next to us.

  Hank replied, “Follow the catwalk, there’s space at the far end. Might be some more tools to use, too.”

  I ran quietly to the far end and hopped the railing to the deck below. Hank knew her ship, there was a large open area at the corner. I grabbed a six-foot pry bar I saw hanging on the wall. I had an idea on how I was going to take out this huge Hunter. Looking down the hall, I saw the zombie was still pounding on the container where it heard me talking. Like I said, fast and strong, but not very smart.

  I yelled, “Hey Princess, I’m over here!”

  The monster spun at the sound of my voice, launching itself in my direction before it had reacquired me visually. It ran towards me at full speed, its face masked in rage and hate. I darted around the corner like I was running from it again, but turned back and grabbed the long pry bar. As the zombie cleared the corner, I slid the long bar between its legs, letting it go as the zombie crashed face-first onto the deck. Without hesitating, I grabbed the shorter pry bar, jumped on its back and drove the point through the back of its skull.

  With the giant dead, I walked back to the disabled Hunter, hitting a light swi
tch on the wall as I passed it. My side of the cargo hold was plunged into almost total darkness.

  Hank exclaimed, “What gives, you okay?”

  I ignored her as I found the damaged Hunter dragging itself down the hall to join us. I used the pry bar on its one good arm, dropping it on the deck. I rolled it over, pulled its head back and fed.

  I turned the light back on and rejoined Hank outside of the cargo hold and asked, “Can we to dispose of the bodies without carrying them up all these narrow stairs?”

  Hank replied, “Yes, there are smaller cargo doors on both sides of the ship, though with her listing as she is, the port side might not be accessible. The doors are near where you took down Harris.”

  She paused for a moment before continuing, “You look a lot better.”

  I said, “I feel better,” but did not elaborate.

  Hank took the hint and didn’t press me for details and said, “Come on, I’ll show you where the doors are and help you get rid of them.”

  37

  “I can see it from here, just sitting there in the wreckage of the boat. I’m going to go get it tonight.”

  Hank shook her head, and replied, “Girl, the beach is loaded with monsters, even with your abilities, there’s no way you’d survive it.”

  I shook my head, and said, “I have a plan. I got it from one of the zombie shows my crazy brother and father loved so much - the walking one. I just need to catch and gut me a George.”

  Rolling her eyes, Hank replied, “I know the episode you’re talkin’ about, they almost got their asses eaten, can’t see it ending up much different for you either.”

  The darkness of the early evening enveloped me as I snuck up to the starboard side railing, about 15 feet from the bow. I had masked my scent with the gore and entrails from a captured George. After a few deep breaths, I leaned over the railing and purposefully fell off the ship to the beach below.

  Yes, it friggin’ hurt like hell and broke quite a few bones, but I recovered quickly. I figured if I could survive having half of my face burnt off, the fall would be a piece of cake.