by Luke Duffy
Kyle was getting closer, and he did not want to take a hit on the chin because he was too busy laughing and forgetting that the man was capable of punching far beyond his weight.
“Taff’s already done it for you. He got shit faced last night and went on one of his angry Welshman rampages. You should see the state of my toilet. Broken in two.”
“You started wrecking the place before I did. I just helped,” Taff reminded him whilst keeping an eye on Kyle.
When he was a few metres short of them, the veteran stooped and picked up one of the many golf balls that littered the floor. He held it cupped in his hand as he approached. By now Taff and Bull had taken a few steps back, and were holding their clubs like baseball bats and knowing what was sure to come, but oblivious to who the target would be.
“We would’ve knocked, mate,” Taff joked. “But you can never be too careful these days. You could’ve died in your sleep and turned into one of them.”
Kyle stopped and glared at them both. His face was crimson, and he was becoming tired of being on the receiving end of their attempts at amusing themselves. Boredom and routine were having a detrimental effect on the people living aboard the ship. There was very little to do, and once the daily, mundane tasks were dealt with, it was up to the survivors to entertain themselves. They trained in the gym, ran laps around the decks, read, watched movies, and played games, but it was all becoming repetitive. Even the weekly sing-along and skit-night in the ship’s bar had long since become tiresome. However, for Taff and Bull to feel entertained, someone else needed to suffer.
Eleven years ago, the remains of Stan’s team along with two sailors who had survived the sinking of Werner’s U-boat, had climbed aboard the infested ferry. It had been a hard fight. There was very little in the way of ammunition for the weapons they had, and it had been mostly hand-to-hand, wielding knives, clubs, and anything else that could be used to smash the skulls of the infected. Picking their fighting ground with caution they had forced the dead into bottlenecks, making it easier for Stan and the others to decimate their numbers while keeping their flanks protected. Taking it in turns to rotate through like Roman Legionaries in their battle formation, they killed scores of the walking corpses. But the reanimated kept on coming, forcing the team to withdraw on numerous occasions to their own boat to catch their breath before launching a new assault.
Deck by deck, they cleared the ship. It was almost five days before they could declare with any certainty that the ferry was free of the infected. However, even weeks later, they were still finding bodies wandering through the bowels of the vessel, and it was quite some time before they genuinely felt secure.
Amongst the dead, a handful of soldiers were discovered. It seemed that they had chosen to live as deserters rather than dying with their units. No one could blame them. Stan and his men were doing the exact same thing. The weapons from the dead troops were collected together and redistributed amongst the team, ensuring that everyone had at least a rifle. Despite their initial suspicions when they had first come across the ship in the U-boat, there were no heavy weapons on board. It seemed that the soldiers, having made a snap decision, had grabbed only what was to hand before they deserted.
The clean-up had taken weeks. The dead had been found in every part of the ship and their rotting carcases had left their mark. Body parts, rancid fluids, and hunks of putrid flesh littered the corridors and decks. There was not a wall or surface that had escaped the touch of the diseased corpses, and the entire ship reeked with the festering remains of hundreds of people. Even the sea surrounding the ferry needed to be cleaned up. There were dozens of bodies bobbing around in the water, and they could not be left there to rot and turn the surrounding sea into a bio-hazard. The small fishing boat that the team had used to escape the mainland was loaded with the lifeless husks of hundreds of men, women, and children. It took them a number of trips, but eventually they were all unceremoniously piled together on the nearest beach of the Welsh coast and burned. The funeral pyre was easily visible even from the bridge of the ferry over ten miles out to sea.
From there, a complete search and inventory was carried out on what could be salvaged from the abandoned ship. In the hold, tons of food stores were discovered amongst the heavy goods trucks that had been parked in the loading bays. Crates of tinned goods of every kind were stacked from floor to ceiling, and the kitchens of the ferry were also fully stocked. The perishables such as meats, vegetables, and fish had long since spoiled and needed to be thrown overboard, but there was enough tinned food to last them for many years to come. It seemed that the infection had broken out on the ship not long after they had dropped anchor, believing themselves to be safe from the dead, and before they had the chance to settle themselves in for the long haul.
Water was plentiful, as was food and living space. Even more room was created once the trucks were unloaded of their goods, spare parts, and anything else that the team considered useful. The heavy vehicles were then dumped into the sea, creating what Bull referred to as the ‘recreation area’ within the cargo bays. That is where the men trained, continuing to refresh their skills, strength, and fitness. Scenarios were exercised, weapon training was carried out daily, and physical fitness was something that they all gladly threw themselves into with maximum enthusiasm.
Mark and Steve, the sailors from the doomed submarine, got to work on the power supply. There was plenty of fuel on board, but the machinery had sustained some damage. After a thorough inspection, however, they were certain that they could get the generators to work again, but they needed specific equipment and tools in order to do so.
The engines were another matter. They were offline and Steve, the mechanically minded survivor of the U-boat crew, freely admitted that he lacked the knowledge to fix them. Specific pieces of equipment were needed that could not be found on board or stripped from elsewhere, and even then, he doubted that he had the skill to repair them.
A few members of the group headed for shore in search of the tools and parts required. Once Mark had what he needed for the generators, they were soon up and running, and auxiliary power was quickly restored. By being frugal, ensuring that no energy was wasted with unnecessary systems and lighting, they were able to make the fuel last, squeezing out every drop of electricity they could from the huge generators, but no matter how much time he spent staring at them, Steve was never able to get the complex engines working again.
Electrical and mechanical equipment were not the only things that Taff and the veteran returned with from the mainland during their hunt for generator parts. There was a group of twenty-three survivors also crammed into the fishing boat with them. They had been hiding in a church since the beginning, living like rats and covered in their own filth, afraid to even look outside beyond their doors. It had taken them a while, but eventually Taff had persuaded them into going with them to the ship.
They were not the only survivors to join the group. Over the years, more were stumbled upon. Some by chance during raiding missions to the mainland while others were picked up over the radio waves. Each time they were checked and confirmed by the team as being friendly. Nothing was taken for granted; each and every person they brought aboard were first quarantined and then put through a lengthy period of interrogation and vetting, ensuring that they were not a threat to the people already on board.
Stan and the others had seen all too often how human beings continued to act even when the walking dead were their biggest threat. They had escaped Gibson and his invading army, but they could never be certain that the man was not still searching for them. To some, it seemed like paranoia, but to the team it was merely prudence.
None of the men objected to picking up survivors. They were well aware that living on a ship with no one to interact with other than themselves would eventually be detrimental to their continued survival. They spent most of their time bickering and fighting with one another already, so being confined to the ferry with no one else to interrelate with, regardless of how la
rge and spacious the vessel was, would only worsen the situation.
Now there was close to seventy people living on the ship. There was space enough for all and then some. Compared to life on the mainland and the conditions that the civilians had become accustomed to, the ferry was a luxury cruise liner. There were families on board now with children and adults of all ages. The children attended school, and the adults each had jobs that contributed to keeping them afloat and safe. As a result, a society developed with everyone playing their part, and in turn, something that resembled a faint flicker of normality began to grow within the ship’s community.
Inevitably, the ferry, floating in the Irish Sea for years on end, began to develop problems over time. Its engines remained useless, corroding away with no one on board with the knowledge to fix them. Instead of being a ship sailing them to somewhere far away where they could live, the ferry became nothing more than a floating island, swaying in the Irish Sea, and slowly rotting from beneath the feet of the survivors.
Without the ability to dry-dock and carry out professional maintenance by expert engineers and mechanics at the shipyard, it was up to the men and women aboard to keep it afloat and functioning. There were skillsets amongst the survivors that were vital to the daily running of the vessel. There were carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and even a chef, but there was no one who had any long-term maritime experience.
Mark, despite his protests, became the main man in charge of powering the ship due to the fact that there was no one else who knew maritime electrics as well as he did. It was down to him to do what he could through trial and error, to keep the lights burning. Everybody else added to the mix, making the place liveable and as comfortable as possible and forming a hive of humanity that despite its relatively small size, thrived in a world that had done all it could to destroy them.
They settled in, hoping to wait out the infection and eventually, return to the mainland and rebuild their lives. However, it became apparent after a while that they were in for a long wait. Many had hoped that the dead would soon succumb to the natural process of decomposition, and that they would all die their final deaths within a couple of years. But it was discovered that their hopes were dashed, and what they had presumed would not be the case.
For some unknown reason, which even the most intellectual brains aboard could not fathom, the infected continued to function. The decomposition seemed to slow within them, and despite the damage caused by the inevitable rot of a human corpse, they continued to roam the land. They became slower, that much was clear, but their vast numbers remained, and in groups they were still a serious threat.
The people on the ferry despairingly accepted that it would be much longer than anticipated— or hoped—before any degree of normality would return. With no other choice, they made the best of their situation.
Inevitably though, and after years of safety away from the rampaging infected that infested the world, the people on the ship began to ask themselves if there was more to life. At first they had been happy just to be away from the mainland without the need to barricade their doors or sneak about through the shadows. However, just being alive was not enough after a while. The human mind soon forgets hardships once they have passed, and the group living aboard the ferry was no exception. They needed more from their lives than mere day-to-day existence, the soldiers included.
Stan and his men were becoming victims of the same monotony, pining for the action of the old days, without consciously meaning to. They carried out the same tasks each day, played the same pranks, and joined in on the same conversations. It had gotten to the point where many of the ship’s compliment had unknowingly slipped into auto-pilot, mindlessly drifting from one day to the next. They should have been satisfied with what they had, but they were not. People needed more than a safe place to hide and wait for things to blow over.
Kyle continued to glare at them. Bull and Taff, amused but also nervous, stared back, their eyes watching his and glancing at the golf ball in his hand from time to time. They knew for sure that he would hurl it at one of them at some point. They just did not know who.
“So why have you two pricks gone so far out of your way to ruin my afternoon?” the veteran asked, allowing his shoulders to sag a little and his stance appear less aggressive. “Surely there’s enough people on this tub to annoy.”
“Yeah, but we like you, so we prefer to piss you off. We don’t just go about upsetting anyone, you know. You should be flattered,” Bull offered.
“Yeah, and Stan said we need to do some weapon training with the civvies sometime this afternoon. They’re getting lazy, apparently,” Taff added.
“Oh yeah, that, too.”
“Why didn’t you just knock and tell me that?” Kyle growled, clenching his fists and feeling his anger begin to surge again.
Taff shrugged and glanced at Bull with a grin.
“We sent you an email.”
“Wanker,” Kyle roared, and in a flash he threw the ball at Taff, aiming for his head.
Taff was too slow to move out of the way, but managed to get his arms up as the ball reached him. It thwacked powerfully against his forearm like a hammer, and he let out a high-pitched yelp as the dull pain travelled up through his radius and ulnar bones.
“One of you can fix my window,” Kyle snarled, and turned away, headed back to his private retreat.
“Stan wants us all up on the bridge at fourteen-hundred,” Bull called after him.
Kyle stopped and turned around, realising that there had been a genuine reason after all for them putting so much effort into annoying him.
“What for?”
“Don’t ask me, mate. I only work here. Whatever ‘Julius Stanius Caesar’ wants he gets. We’re just his messenger boys these days.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place?”
Bull looked across at Taff who was rubbing the spot on his forearm where the golf ball had struck him. It was already turning a deep blue colour, and the swelling was visible. Bull turned back to Kyle and shrugged.
“This way was more fun.”
The men were prompt. They arrived, as was the standard operating procedure, five minutes before the meeting was to begin. It was something that was engrained in all of them from their early days as recruits in the British Army. As boys still in their teens, they were hounded by their depot instructors over the smallest matter. Punctuality was always a major issue, and bad time keeping would always result in a period of extensive pain and suffering. Some of the team were already there, having arrived much earlier so that they could check on the radio communications to the mainland and, of course, reach the coffee and freshly baked biscuits before Bull arrived and snapped up the lot for himself.
The bridge was far from what would be expected on a modern ship. Although it had the same controls, radar systems, and communications equipment, much of it was out of action. The radar and radios still worked, but no one had any real knowledge of the engines and steerage controls. For years the ferry had sat at anchor, floating in the Irish Sea, and slowly rusting away. Despite their efforts, the salt water seemed to penetrate every surface, corroding the metal and slowly eating away at the ship. The ferry’s paintwork was steadily changing from clean white and blue to a dirty orange, and many began to wonder just how much longer they could keep the vessel afloat.
“Looks like that Orca Whale is back,” Steve mumbled as he looked out from the large windows fixed into the bridge.
The sun was getting lower and the sea was growing dark, but a hundred metres off the port-bow a large black fin could clearly be seen cutting through the choppy water. From time to time it would disappear beneath the waves, only to resurface a minute later and giving the men on board a view of its large, glistening back.
“It’s a Killer Whale, you bell-end,” Bull snorted, seeing the animal for himself as he joined Steve at the front of the bridge.
“Yeah, a Killer Whale is an Orca Whale, bell-fucking-end.”
“Who are you? David Attenborough?”
“No, I’m just someone who actually reads books rather than using them for a door-stop or toilet paper.”
Bull grinned at him. He liked Steve. The man was much younger than him, but over the years he had grown from being a boy in his late teens who was unsure of himself and with no combat experience, and into a soldier who could be depended upon. He had developed into a confident, intelligent, and aggressive man who was not afraid to stand up for himself or others. He was only of average height and build with a mop of mousy, blonde hair and bright blue eyes that were set into a face that looked much younger than his years, but his wit was sharp, and his courage unquestionable.
He had no real military background; only what he had learned over the past decade. Before the outbreak, he had been studying in college. When the dead began to rise, he found himself press ganged into the military and, eventually, as part of the submarine’s crew due to his limited knowledge of mechanics.
Steve knew that Bull was far brighter than himself. The man had a very high IQ, degrees, and a seemingly inexhaustible wealth of knowledge. However, the mighty Bull always went out of his way to come across as nothing more than a lump of muscle and brawn. Steve knew full well that Bull would have known that Orca and Killer Whales are the same animal, but it was just Bull’s way of interacting with people, and if he could get a bite along the way, he considered it as a bonus.
Stan entered through a door on the starboard side, closely followed by a middle aged man and woman who seemed to be concerned about something that Stan should address. They were the senior council members for the people aboard the ship, and it was their job to act as the primary link between the team and the rest of the survivors.
Early on, as the numbers began to grow, Stan was the man that everyone turned to for guidance and solutions to all problems, no matter how small. However, Stan was far from being the diplomatic sort, and after a while the politics on board began to resemble a dictatorship, with Stan’s primary focus being on the welfare of his own men and their continued survival. The petty problems that the survivors suffered and dealt with on a day to day basis did not interest him. They were unimportant to him, and his approach was less than understanding.