by Luke Duffy
When Barry and Janet, a husband and wife couple who had served as city council members before the outbreak, suggested that they take up their old roles, Stan was happy to give them the reins. For years the system had worked perfectly. The men and women aboard would have meetings, discuss all matters, and Stan would be given a summary and consulted afterwards. The only time that he really intervened was when something affected the security of the ship or his men. He remained as the man in charge, but his influence was from afar and less overbearing for the sensitive civilians.
Barry was still talking when Stan had passed through the door. It was clearly something which he felt strongly about, but Stan’s body language betrayed the fact that he did not hold the same sentiment over the matter. He stopped and turned to the two councillors.
“All right,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do about it.”
“But this is important, Stan. I don’t know how much longer they will…” Barry protested, feeling that he was about to be dismissed and that he needed to press home his point.
Stan stared back at him, fixing him with his naturally cold stare, and prompting Barry to cease speaking. He looked back at the frightening veteran and began to shrink internally.
“Tell your people,” Stan said in a calm voice as his eyes bore into the councillor, “that we have bigger issues to deal with at the moment. The port generator is ready to die on us, we’re taking on more water than we should be, and don’t know why. The pumps are struggling to keep us afloat, and on top of that, winter is setting in, and we’re probably going to get the shit knocked out of us by storms again. You remember last year?”
Barry and Janet both nodded back to him, their faces dipped and appearing like children receiving a dressing down from their parents.
“Exactly,” Stan continued, fixing them with his unblinking eyes. “We only just stayed above water then. Tell your people to stop whining about the food, the library, the heating, or any other petty fucking thing. Get them to work on patching up this pile of rusting scrap, or there won’t be a ship to live on come spring. It’s your job to grip them, lead them, and make sure that they’re doing their bit. We’re not here to wipe their arses or hold their hands. Put them to work or I will.”
He turned away and allowed the door in the bulkhead to close behind him, leaving the two council members on the other side under no illusions that the conversation was over. Stan walked across towards the helm where everyone else was either seated or standing around idle and, waiting on him. He shook his head and ran his hand down over his face. At the beginning, when they had first began picking up survivors from the mainland, it had been pretty simple. The men and women brought on board were just happy that they had somewhere safe to live away from the infected. However, as the years grew, so did the gaps in their memories, and many began to forget that the world had changed and so had the priorities. Survival was everything now.
“Maybe we should start organising excursions to the coast for the civvies,” Taff suggested. “We could treat them as training exercises. Leave them there overnight, and then see who’s left in the morning. It would jog their memories about how shit it is out there, and how good they have it here.”
“It’s crossed my mind a few times, trust me.”
“So what’s the beef? Is something up?” Kyle asked. He was sitting on a high stool, leaning against the navigator’s table, and still brooding over his broken window.
“We’ve had word back from Charlie.”
Everyone turned, they’re attention now fixed completely on Stan. Charlie had been brought in with a group of survivors nine years earlier. He was an ex-soldier, having served most of his time in intelligence gathering units during the rough days in Northern Ireland. He was well into his sixties, tall and slender, but with an energy and enthusiasm that put a lot of the younger men to shame. He had a great ability for getting himself in and out of tricky situations, and some considered him a ‘trouble magnet’, but at the same time, he always seemed to successfully complete any job that was given to him.
He had proven his worth from the moment that the team had stumbled upon him. Stan and Bull had been out on a patrol to the mainland searching for a group who they had been receiving transmissions from but had since gone silent. They had found Charlie and the remains of his group living in a wood, having lost more than a hundred of their number when the farm complex that they had been living in was overrun. It was he who had kept the remnants together and alive, keeping them moving from one place to the next and searching for a new place to live. When Bull and Stan found them, they were weak and starving, close to collapse, and slowly dying. However, they could see that Charlie would never allow them to give up. They flocked around him as though he were some kind of post-apocalyptic messiah, turning to him for guidance and feeding off his energy and determination.
Within just a few hours of being aboard the ferry, Charlie was insisting that he go back and find any survivors from his group. His insistence was so strong that Stan and the team finally relented and set out with him. They returned almost a week later with fifteen more of his people that they had managed to round up.
The man had a natural ability to read the land, to think as an untrained survivor, judging what they would do and where they would go. It was not so much tracking, but being able to put himself into their shoes, filled with fear, panic, and desperation. That sort of empathy was something that Stan and his men lacked. They had always been soldiers, and so could not think as civilians. Although Taff could track anyone to any destination, there always needed to be a starting point. As tacticians, the soldiers could not always judge how the civilians would behave. The untrained men and women had no training, and their reactions were not always thought through with military logic when being attacked by the dead. The average man or woman did not think about the lay of the land, what their next move would be, or how to use the ground and environment to their advantage. They tended to be running for their lives with no long term plan.
Charlie had the ability to always know where that starting point would be. As a result, he and his small section always volunteered to carry out the missions to the mainland when searching for missing survivors.
A few weeks earlier when the radio messages that they had been receiving from a particular group had suddenly stopped, Charlie and his small group of infiltration specialists were keen to go and investigate why.
“Well?” Taff asked. “How’s things looking over there?”
“According to old Charlie, not good. There’s still no comms with the people inside, and from what he was telling me in the morning sit-rep, it’s getting pretty grim. There are ‘millions’ of the dead there, apparently.”
“So why doesn’t he just turn around and come back?” Kyle asked, wondering why they were even discussing the matter.
“Is that what you think they should do?” Stan replied, sitting back on his chair and interlocking his fingers over his lower abdomen. “I’ll call an ‘end-ex’ if you like. If that’s what everyone agrees on, it’s what we’ll do.”
“You were just as keen to help them out as the rest of us at the beginning,” Taff grunted to Kyle. “Now you’re changing your mind?”
“Absolutely,” the veteran nodded back. “If it was just a case of going in there, helping them out a little, and then leading them back here, I’d be up for it. But now it’s looking more like they’re fucked, and we’ll be getting fucked in the process if we go off to be heroes which I know is where this little meeting is leading us to.”
“It’s nothing to do with us being heroes,” Mark, another of the survivors from the U-boat murmured from his seat close to the steering controls. “It’s about our own survival. We can’t move this ship, but they can.”
“That’s not for definite.”
“Well, we know that they have at least two members of the merchant navy with them. That’s two more than we have here. There’s close to two-hundred of them, and there’s always a ch
ance they might have some old sea-dog with them who knows the ship’s engines. If we want to get this ship out of here and down to the Azores as suggested, we’re going to need people who may know how to do it because I haven’t a clue. Have you?”
“I never said anything about the Azores. That was Taff’s idea. I still think we should head for Norway or Iceland. Somewhere cold enough to leave those fuckers frozen stiff and completely immobile. And besides, there’s too many assumptions, possibilities, and hopes involved with them. They might just be waffling out of desperation, saying that they can get a ship moving, if need be.”
During their radio conversations, Stan had asked particular questions. He had refrained from making it too obvious that they were on a ship and made veiled references to an island. They were unwilling to give their exact location and any details on their situation. Instead, Stan asked questions about their capabilities of using large boats or ships to ferry their group out to the ‘island’. When the response came back positive, the team saw it as a possibility that someone amongst them may know how to work the ferry’s engine and get it moving.
“Either way, we need them to help us, and we need to get them over here. We can’t get this ship moving but they might.”
“They might not know.”
“Fucking hell, Kyle,” Mark huffed and rolled his eyes. “You’re an obnoxious and obstructive cunt at times.”
“No, I’m a realist. We’re placing too much hope in a bunch of strangers. You can hope in one hand and shit in the other, Mark. Get back to me, and let me know which one filled up first,” Kyle snapped.
He paused and looked around at the others. He had never been afraid to help other survivors, but he felt that there was too much of a risk with this particular plan. The distances involved alone led him to believe that it was inevitable that something would go wrong.
“We’re alive here, and when did we become Samaritans?”
“Since the world went to rat shit, and living people found themselves at the bottom of the food chain,” Bull grunted. “We have a handful of people here, and we’re still missing skillsets that we’ll need. If we want to survive and build a life for ourselves, we need to put our necks on the line now and then. As far as I’m concerned, it’s worth the risk.”
Everyone in the room was now watching Bull. He had straightened up from his disinterested, slouched position by the large window. His massive size was dominating the area and the people around him, and his piercing eyes and frightening scars were commanding their attention.
“And besides, I’m getting low on golf balls,” he added with a shrug.
Everyone fell silent for a few moments. They were watching Stan, waiting for his decision. They all wanted the same thing. Living on the ship for all eternity was never a real option. The ferry was falling apart around them, and at some point they would need to either head for land or find a replacement vessel. Either way, action needed to be taken. Although many of them agreed with some of what Kyle was conveying and the need for self-preservation, they also understood that they could not continue without the help of others. Their group had accomplished near enough everything that it was capable of on their own and now, they needed to enlist the help of others if they wished to progress any further.
“Okay, we’re going out there,” Stan announced, sitting up in his chair and turning to the veteran. “Are the vehicles good to go?”
Kyle shrugged. Stan was referring to the two SUVs that were sitting just in from the shoreline, sheltered and away from the harsh sea air. The team had always kept them prepared and serviced, fully loaded with supplies, and ready for the team’s use whenever they needed to travel to the mainland.
“Of course. They’re always good to go.”
“Be ready to move by twenty-three hundred,” Stan said, issuing his warning order and climbing up from his seat. He paused, eyeing each of his team, and then turned to his second in command. “Taff, get comms with Charlie and let him know. Orders will be at eighteen hundred, so go get your shit together and carry out your personal battle-prep. It’s over a hundred kilometres inland from the coast, and I’d like to be in position by last light tomorrow.”
7
They had waited for almost the whole day, unwilling to take any chances, and inadvertently thwarting all prospects of reaching safety through a premature escape attempt. It would soon be dark again, and now was the time to move. To wait any longer would mean them negotiating their way through the infested parking complex in the dark and then the ruined city that was swarming with thousands of agitated infected.
“It’s now or never, mate,” Al sighed, tightening the chin-strap of his helmet and checking that his gloves and vambraces were secure.
Tommy also carried out his own equipment checks before nodding to his partner and giving him a thumb’s up to confirm his readiness to move.
They stealthily climbed out through the passenger door, gritting their teeth in anticipation. The air outside of the van was much cooler, and their skin rippled with the sudden chill and apprehension. The place reeked of the dead; the smell of decay and putrid bodies was strong in the atmosphere despite the wind that blew in from beyond the parking bays. Al paused, keeping himself tightly pressed against the side panels of the vehicle as he checked the immediate vicinity. To his right, he could not see any of the infected in and around the parked cars, but he could hear noises to the left beyond his sight. The scrape of feet and the hoarse grunts echoed hauntingly through the expanse of the parking level. He pointed to his ear, turned to look at Tommy, and received a nod of acknowledgement.
In a squatted position and shuffling on his haunches, Al crept towards the rear wheel, and then carefully lowered himself to the floor, peering beneath the bumper and towards the door leading back into the stairway at the far end. He could see dozens of legs, covered with tattered and discoloured clothing, and shuffling randomly in all directions. There was still a large number of the infected scattered throughout the parking level. For a moment he wondered why, but then surmised that they were most likely completely deaf and could not hear the music that was still playing in the distance. Their sight was probably non-existent, too, explaining why they had not followed the others, and without the proximity of other bodies to guide them, they would probably remain trapped there for years to come.
“There’s about thirty or forty of them still mincing about. They’re pretty spread out,” Al whispered over his shoulder as he climbed back to his feet. “I don’t think they can see all that well, though.”
“I suppose we’ll soon find out.”
They slung their rifles over their backs and drew their pistols. The silencers on their handguns were much more effective than the suppressors fitted to their long barrelled weapons. They expected to be in a close quarter fight, and the pistol was also better suited for confined spaces. Together, they inched their way forward and slowly exposed themselves into the open while nervously remaining close to the van.
Just twenty metres away a corpse shuffled through the open area that dissected the parking bays, its feet dragging over the ground and trailing a long strand of weeds that had become entangled around its ankles. Its grey face remained pointed towards the floor as it sauntered along with its arms swaying slightly to the rhythm of its gate. The roots that were wrapped around its legs suddenly became taught. The corpse tripped and slammed into one of the vehicles nearest to it, the sound of its head impacting with the rusted metal sending out a dull but loud clunk through the parking level. None of the other wandering figures turned or looked in the direction of the noise, confirming to Al that his guesswork had been accurate. They were blind and deaf.
He stole a glance to his left. Tommy looked back at him with trepidation clear in his eyes. Even beneath his armour, Al could see the rise and fall of his chest as his nervous breathing came in rapid gasps. They nodded to one another, confirming that now was the time for them to make their move. They checked their immediate vicinity again, taking not
e of the nearest of the infected. The body that had fallen was still down and pathetically struggling to regain its feet as it lay squirming and thrashing amongst the thick clusters of weeds that had sprung up around the wheels of the vehicle.
Making their way across to the parking bays opposite the van, they stopped at the wall and looked out over the rooftops. The sun was getting low, and the visibility was gradually decreasing. It would not be long before the streets were completely cast in gloom. They turned their attention down to the streets below. It was a sight that caused their bodies to tense and a shiver to ripple over their goose-bumped skin. Below them there was a dark shifting blanket of ghostly figures that were endlessly pouring out from the ramps leading into the ground floor, their conjoined voices creating a raucous roar as they staggered away from the parking complex.
“Jesus. How are we going to get through all that?”
“Where there’s a will, there’s always a way. We’ll just have to think on the move, mate, because right now, I haven’t a fucking clue,” Al grunted.
They searched the area, scanning the rooftops and upper floors of the buildings nearby, looking for the source of the music that was now almost completely drowned out by the noise of the excited mass.
“You see anything?” Tommy asked, glancing back along the parking level, and checking on the infected that were close by. The corpse that had tumbled had now given up on trying to stand again, and instead had resorted to crawling out from the other side of the vehicle and reverted to dragging itself along the tarmac.
“Nothing. I can’t hear the music anymore, either. Is it still playing?”
“Yeah, it’s still playing. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, though.”