Third Mate Dale Speith stood at the front of the room near the food and cleared his throat. "Hey, if I could, uh, have your attention! We are going to begin eating now. When the table next to you has come up, your table may come up. We want you to use this time at your tables to express what you're thankful for. Alright, let's eat!"
After dinner Andy returned to the helideck to gaze upon the stars. He silently prayed that somewhere, whether in Hattiesburg or Bay Saint Louis, Shelly was looking up at the same stars slowly circling the sky. A warm breeze continued to blow across the Gulf.
He heard footsteps climbing the stairway. He turned and saw Tyrell emerge onto the deck.
"Hey Tyrell," Andy said.
"Andy, I hope your dinner was good?" he asked.
"It was. Not like what Shelly can cook, but not bad," Andy replied.
"Hey, I wanted to talk to you alone. So we've received reports that someone in the crew is planning to cause a fire or explosion or something that would cost CPG a large amount of money, kind of as payback for abandoning us out here. We haven't received any reports of who is planning this or when it will happen, but I just figured you should know so that you can keep the Fire Team on their toes."
"I see," Andy replied, stroking his chin. "A lot of us are mad at CPG, so I can't say I'm surprised someone's considering that."
"Yeah, I know. Even so, such behavior would clearly open them up to prosecution once we got ashore. If we really resent CPG for what they did, court would be a more appropriate outlet."
"I agree Tyrell. But, I mean, the platform isn't pumping right now and likely won't resume pumping until after we go ashore. So there isn't much they could do to cause catastrophic damage to the platform, at least not without risking everyone's lives."
"Fair enough. I just figured I'd let you know."
"Thanks Tyrell. How are things going with Becker?"
He sighed. "Man, I don't know what to call it anymore. Something horrific happened to Becker and Kulik," he shuddered. "I have nightmares most nights about that Infirmary. I mean Dan just didn't even look human anymore!"
"I know. It was a horrifying scene to stumble upon."
"Yeah! He was eating her face! Faisal said that she was probably alive the whole time he was tearing her face off. I watched the security tapes and it would seem she was. It was sickening to watch."
Andy shuddered. "That's awful."
"Yeah! And the way he just kept trying to attack me! I've never seen anyone not cry out in pain after being hit by a Taser!"
"Yeah. What do you think happened to him? To Becker? To make them so violent?"
He shrugged. "I don't know man. It just seems like something straight out of a horror movie."
Andy nodded. "Yeah, like Night of the Living Dead."
He sighed. "Well, I'd better go down and relieve Robbie. Have a good night Andy."
"You too Tyrell."
The last few days of November passed without incident. Andy had the Fire Team perform a final drill and everyone packed what they needed to take with them in their backpacks.
On the morning of the last day before they were to abandon ship, Andy awoke to find a note that had been slipped under his door in the night. He unfolded it and read it.
"Attention crew,
On Monday, November 30 we will be conducting some tests on the pumping and drilling equipment to make sure the equipment of Bald Point 3131 is still operational before we leave for shore. These tests will be conducted before the lifeboats are loaded and launched. The testing will begin at approximately 10:00 and end around 19:00. At the conclusion of testing, the platform will be mothballed.
Testing will be conducted by the Drilling and Production Teams. All members of Drilling Crew and Production Crew should report to the drilling shack at 9:00. Additionally, the Derrick hands, Floor hands, Lease hands, Mud Engineers and Well Services Team should be present no later than 9:00. Control Room personnel should report to the Control Room by 8:30. Fire Team B will be on call in the event of an incident. Finally, all crew should report to their designated lifeboat stations at 6:00 on Tuesday, December 1.
Signed,
Carlos Rodriguez
Andy glanced at his watch. It was 8:48am. He hurriedly dressed and ran downstairs to Sterling's office. He knocked on the door.
"Come in," Sterling said.
Andy opened the door and entered his office, waving the letter. "Who authorized this?"
"Carlos did," Sterling said as he leaned back in his chair. "You look like you disagree with the decision?"
"I do," Andy said, sitting down.
"Why?"
"Did Tyrell not tell you about the supposed conspiracy to destroy the platform?" he asked.
Sterling nodded. "He did, which is why we have a Fire Team on duty."
"Why not Team A?"
"B Team is just as capable."
"Why didn't I know about this?"
Sterling stared at him for a moment. "Andrew, you've been working a lot lately. I know about the extra shifts. I appreciate the work, I do, but you could use a break. Nick came and told me about how hard you work. I figured you could use the break. Besides, it's just routine testing. It makes sense."
"Why did they wait until now?" Andy asked suspiciously.
"Nathan and Josh wanted to perform the testing three weeks ago but Maintenance had to repair a lot of equipment on the production deck that was damaged in the storm. Maniczewski just signed off on the repairs yesterday."
Andy sighed. "I don't think this is a good idea."
He shrugged. "Take the day to pack and rest."
Andy exited Sterling’s office and grumbled under his breath. So Nathan Howell, the head driller, and Josh Hammond, the director of Production had wanted to perform the testing for a while?
Andy shook his head as he walked back to his room. It made sense to test the equipment following a major storm to see if it still worked. The platform could have been knocked loose from the well during the storm, for instance. Still, something didn't feel right.
Chapter Twenty-One
Randy Eccleston
Day 10
The group stayed in Odell for a day and a half and then set out again, heading toward Chicago. They saw a few zombies while they were resting at the feed store, but didn't see nearly as many as they had seen in Bloomington-Normal. Randy was also grateful they hadn't seen any more soldiers.
It was cloudy and cold when they left the little village. Randy was startled by how desolate the prairie looked as they drove through it. In less than two weeks it seemed, civilization had collapsed. They drove by abandoned cars on the side of the highway every mile or so.
"You know," he said as they drove past an exit for Dwight, Illinois, "I'm starting to think it's unlikely my brother and parents are still alive."
Adam patted his shoulder. "Hey man, I know it looks bad. You have to hold out hope though."
He shrugged. "I guess. I don't know, I think I was hoping to see more signs of normalcy as we drove north, but everything I've seen so far is indicative of continued collapse."
"We could try the radio," Casey suggested.
Randy turned the radio on and scanned through the available stations on FM first. Nothing but static. Then he tried AM.
"Static," he murmured as he swept the dial down the frequency range.
Suddenly he heard speech. He stopped and turned the radio up.
"Attention all who can hear this radio broadcast. My name is Sergeant Rory Niedemeyer with the United States Army. My group of soldiers has seized Bloomington-Normal and has defeated the Wolf Pack. We offer safety to every able bodied citizen. Come and find salvation," a man's voice droned.
Randy turned the radio off. "See?" he asked. "The only thing we've seen that hasn't been utterly indicative of societal collapse has been soldiers fighting over the establishment of a fiefdom in Bloomington-Normal, and that’s still a troubling sign of collapse. Who knows how many houses the Wolf Pack torched before they were s
ubdued? Besides, there were so many zombies." He shook his head.
"Still, we don't know who survived," Adam said. “There are surely a lot of people who didn’t succumb.”
"You all are the first group of survivors I've encountered who haven't been crazies or perverts," Penny spoke up from the back of the van. “And there have been lots of crazies and perverts.”
"I haven't really heard your story," Randy said. "What exactly happened that brought you up here?"
"I woke up a week and a half ago and heard my parents growling from their bedroom. You see, I lived with them when my show wasn't taping. Anyway, I woke up and heard them growling. I thought they were just, you know, doing married people things," she said.
Randy suppressed a laugh and heard others in the van snicker.
"Anyway, my dad burst out of their room and he was covered with blood. He was missing half of his face. He tried to attack me but I held him off. I roundhouse kicked him into the wall repeatedly. Then I saw my mom. I guess my dad had disemboweled her at some point in the night, but she was still walking around with the same ravenous look in her eyes as my dad. I ran away. I ran to my boyfriend's house, but he was the same way. Everyone in Phoenix was the same way. So I got in a car, I drove to an airport outside Albuquerque, I stole a helicopter and I flew as far as Oklahoma. Then I stole another car and drove as far north as Bloomington and then I met you guys. But seriously, you are the only sane people I've encountered."
Randy nodded. "That's tough."
"Yeah, I guess that several years of hosting Survive This prepared me for the apocalypse, sort of."
"I wish they hadn't kept your show on the Hardcore Network," Jamie said. "Your show should have been on a major network. Primetime, you know?"
She laughed. "Well, my producer said we were in talks with NBC about a month ago. But, my guess would be that's going nowhere."
They drove over the Kankakee River. Randy knew they were getting close to Chicago. A few minutes later they crossed the Des Plaines River.
"So where does your family in Chicago stay Penny?" Missy asked.
"Real close to the Magnificent Mile," she replied. "My aunt and uncle live there."
"That's cool," Missy replied.
Randy looked in the rearview mirror at Jillian. She rolled her eyes as Penny spoke.
She and Penny had fought a few nights before, very briefly. Even though Randy and Jamie had broken up the fight, it was clear that neither Jillian nor Penny liked each other very much.
They suddenly approached a traffic jam on the highway as they passed through Joliet.
"Whoa," Adam said as Randy slowed the van to a stop.
Ahead, decaying arms reached through the windows of stopped cars.
"Zombie highway," Casey said.
"Can we go around?" Penny asked.
"Yeah, it looks like we can squeeze the van onto the right shoulder," Randy said as he drove to the shoulder. There was just enough room to drive by the jam.
Rotting hands beat angrily on the side of the van as they passed the stopped cars. It took several hours for Randy to thread the van through the fifteen-mile long jam, but they finally emerged onto open highway just south of Bolingbrook.
"Ah Chicagoland," he sighed as they passed a burned out Ikea just off the highway. Zombies roamed the parking lot.
The highway was clear until they passed I-355. Then it became more crowded with abandoned cars. Randy had to slow down significantly to steer around stopped cars. Finally, around 5:00pm they reached the Des Plaines River again. They crossed it and Randy was forced to swerve to a stop as they approached the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal; the bridge had been destroyed.
Randy got out and walked to the edge of the pavement and looked down. The bridge deck had collapsed into the canal. He saw several corpses tangled with the wreckage of the bridge far below. Rusty rebar stuck out from the edge of the pavement, arcing downward toward the river. Across the collapsed span, an old Mitsubishi sub-compact dangled over the edge.
"Well, now what?" Casey asked as he walked up alongside him.
"I don't know," he replied. "Look!" He pointed upriver. "Those bridges are out too."
Casey nodded. "How much gas does the van have?"
Randy frowned. "The needle's on E. We don't really have enough gas to drive around looking for a river crossing."
Casey murmured under his breath.
"It's getting late. We should find some place to spend the night. We can come up with a solution tomorrow," Randy said as he looked down at the canal.
"You know," Casey said, "if we could find some little boats, we could just float down the canal pretty much all the way to your brother's."
"Yeah, that's probably not a bad idea Casey."
They spent the night in an abandoned mechanic's shop near the highway. The next morning as they ate breakfast, Randy stood up.
"Okay guys, we are going to try to find some jon boats to go down the canal in. The canal eventually joins the Chicago River. We can bypass all of the traffic on the roads and we can avoid a bunch of zombies," he said.
"We're going to your brother's house, right?" Adam asked.
"Yeah, they live just north of Wrigley Field," he replied.
"I think me and Jill are going to go with you until we get there, then we're going to go look for our families," Adam said.
Randy nodded. "I understand that."
"Me and Missy are with you all the way Randy," Casey said.
"Me too," Jamie said.
Randy looked at Penny.
She shook her head. "I think this is where we need to part ways," she said.
"You know, you're welcome to come with us. I mean, if your family didn't make it, you could go with us," he offered.
She shook her head. "No, I need to go alone. If my family is alive, that's great! If not, I don't want to be a burden on anyone."
"You wouldn't be a burden," he replied.
"No Randy. Thank you, you've all been great, really. But I must go the rest of the way alone."
"Okay Penny. If you change your mind, come to Twenty-Fifty-Four West Dakin Avenue, just north of Wrigley Field. That's where we'll be, either way."
She nodded. "Okay. Thanks Randy. Twenty-Fifty-Four West Dakin Avenue, just north of Wrigley Field.”
"Alright guys, let's get going. I don't know how far we'll have to hoof it," Randy said.
Everyone gathered their belongings and walked out into the chilly morning. Casey walked down to the riverfront ahead of the others. Randy heard him laugh.
"Guys! There are boats down here!" he yelled.
Everyone walked down to him and Randy saw two small metal jon boats tied to a dock.
"That's great!" he exclaimed. "Look! They even have motors! This might not take too long at all!"
"Okay, this is where we part ways," Penny said. She hugged each of them. "Be careful out there. I hope you all find what you're looking for."
"I hope you find what you're looking for too," Randy said.
"Goodbye guys," she said. Then she turned and walked back up the embankment.
"Goodbye Penny!" he called.
Casey, Missy and Jamie boarded one boat and Adam and Jillian boarded the second boat with Randy. They all untied the boats and fired the engines up. Then they began motoring down the canal.
They spent the morning steering around fallen bridges and floating by abandoned chemical plants and factories. Here and there they passed corpses floating in the foul water. Gradually the skyline of downtown Chicago came into view.
"I'm glad Penny didn't come with us," Jillian said.
Randy laughed. "You and her didn't see eye to eye, did you?"
She shook her head. "No, I think everything was fine until she suggested abandoning Adam the other night."
"What? She wanted to abandon me?" Adam asked. He seemed taken aback.
Jillian laughed. "Yeah, when we were waiting for you to catch up to us when we escaped to the Quad at ISU, she suggested we just le
ave without you."
"Wow," he said.
"Yeah, I slapped her and tackled her. I wasn't about to leave my man!"
He laughed. "Man Jill, you're tough, aren't you?"
"Well, she was pretty tough too. I'm glad Jamie broke things up."
Randy laughed.
"What's so funny Randy?" She sounded offended.
"I'm just laughing at the fight the other night," he replied.
She punched him mockingly. "Don't mess with me." She laughed.
“Aw Jill, you know he just thought Penny was cute,” Adam said.
Randy laughed. “Even though she smelled terrible, yes, I must admit I thought she was pretty hot back in her TV days. I think with a good scrubbing she’d be hot again.”
Jillian shook her head. “Either way, I’m glad she’s out of our hair.”
It took them all morning to float down the canal and up the Chicago River. As they floated past downtown Chicago, Randy saw thousands of zombies on Lower Wacker Drive. He and the others floated past Goose Island and finally landed just north of the Cortland Street Bridge. He and the others killed several dozen zombies when they disembarked from the boats and made their way to Ashland Avenue.
As they walked north they passed dozens of burned out shops. The streets were littered with trash. Orange body bags lay piled up on the sidewalks, presumably with corpses inside them. Some buildings were wrapped in huge sheets of orange and white plastic with large biohazard symbols printed on them.
"So this is what a pandemic looks like," Adam said somberly as they walked through the desolate streets.
"Yeah," Randy said quietly.
They passed a block of stores with boarded up windows. Missing person posters lined most of the sheets of plywood. Randy walked over to the sidewalk and surveyed the posters.
"Have you seen my sister? Have you seen my brother? Have you seen my son?" he murmured as he read the posters aloud. He saw photos of children, of smiling women, of older people, of happy families. He shook his head.
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