Under a Graveyard Sky-eARC

by John Ringo

  CHAPTER 17

  “Can I help?” Chris said to Stacey.

  “I don’t know,” Stacey said, smiling. “Can you help?”

  “I may be somewhat unconfident about your husband’s plan to clear the seas of zombies,” Chris said, grinning, “but I am a past master of galleys the world over.”

  “I was just putting some sushi together,” Stacey said. “We caught a big blackfin. I wasn’t sure what people…”

  “Please,” Chris said. “It would help me to spend some time in normal conditions. I’m a chef.”

  “Oh,” Stacey said, stepping back and raising her hands. “Go right ahead. I’m not even that good a cook.”

  “Do you have a primary role?” Chris said, starting to expertly slice the tuna. “I mean, your daughter… Sophie is it?”

  “Sophia,” Stacey said. “Or Soph.”

  “She’s the helmsman,” Chris said. “The other one is the bruiser…”

  “Call it ‘clearance expert,’” Stacey said, grimacing. “I really hate it but it’s what she enjoys and she’s good at it. And I guess you’d call me the ship’s engineer. I’m…mechanically inclined. Mechanical, electrical. I’m just good at it. Geek stuff sort of.”

  “I note you’re all armed,” Chris said.

  “Is that an issue?” Stacey asked.

  “No, I’d say it’s wise,” Chris said. “For myself… I spent ten years under discipline in the RN. Not great discipline, I was a cook, then a chef. But I am familiar with the need for discipline and authority at sea. Especially in small boats. I’m fine with taking orders from your husband, and you, at least for the time being. I even agree with his plan, grandiose as it seems at first glance. But others…” he shrugged. “Keep your weapons.”

  “Any particular others?” Stacey asked, quietly.

  “Jack Isham owned a small manufacturing company in the States,” Chris said. “Nori?”

  “We packed loads,” Stacey said, gesturing to a cupboard. “We figured we’d be eating a lot of sushi. When we ran out of gas for the stove… When we were running out I boiled up a bunch of rice. And it was sushi for the next week until we got this boat.”

  “As I was saying,” Chris said, laying out the nori. “Jack is not a bad person. But he insists on being in control. I guess it’s from being his own boss for so long. So he’s not going to just take orders and will, frankly, be a right pain to have around. Tom Christianson was a drug dealer taking a cruise with his stripper girlfriend. They both made it to the boat. She turned. He really didn’t seem to care. Not someone who looks out for others and I suspect not someone to let into your weapons stash.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Stacey said, tapping her pistol. She shook her head. “I guess it was sort of a bad idea for there to be only two of us on the boat, huh?”

  “They’re tired,” Chris said, quietly. “They’re getting used to being safe. Somewhat safe, anyway. But, yes, there may be problems in the near future. Sushi.” He presented the expertly arranged plate. “I’ll continue on this. You probably should be near the companionway below and the helm.”

  “Got it,” Stacey said, taking the plate. “Why? I mean, not why I should be there…”

  “I agree with your husband’s plan,” Chris said. “I’d even say I’m trustworthy enough to arm, but I wouldn’t suggest you believe it until I’ve proven it. And having survived everything I’ve survived, I don’t want to be caught in a firefight.”

  * * *

  “Sushi,” Isham said. “That’s it?” He took two, though, and stuffed them in his mouth.

  “Your stomach has to get used to food again,” Stacey said, sitting down between the group and the helm. And by the companionway below. “Sushi’s surprisingly easy to digest.”

  “We’ve been eating a lot of raw fish,” Paula said, taking one and biting it delicately. Her face assumed a beatific expression for a moment. “With rice and nori is exquisite.”

  “Anybody who has any energy and a strong stomach?” Steve asked. “Boat’s trashed. Zombie in the engine room. But there are a lot of supplies and we can cross-load fuel and water.”

  “I’ll help,” Patrick said, standing up. “I’m not exactly feeling great but the soup helped.”

  “Jack?” Steve asked.

  “Do I get a gas mask?” Jack asked, taking another sushi roll.

  “Sorry,” Steve said. “All out.”

  “Then I’ll pass,” Isham said.

  “Anybody else?” Steve asked.

  “Steve,” Stacey said. “Let’s hold off on cross-load. We have enough stores for now and we know which EPIRB it is. We can always come back. And there are more lifeboats to check. Just leave the EPIRB going and we’ll come back. Let’s get you and Faith back aboard.”

  Steve started to speak, then noted where she was sitting.

  “Okay,” Steve said. “Sophia, next EPIRB?”

  “About ten miles,” Sophia called. “Lifeboat.”

  * * *

  Faith jumped aboard the inflatable liferaft and cut the wire to the EPIRB with her kukhri. She jumped lightly from the side onto the back deck of the yacht, then bent down and poked the fabric of the raft, holing it.

  “I hate the ones that are just empty,” Faith said as the lifeboat started to deflate.

  “How many have you cleared?” Paula asked.

  “I don’t know,” Faith said, shrugging her shoulders. “You’d have to check the log. Bunch. Clear, Da!”

  “Roger,” Steve said. “Next one, Soph.”

  “I sort of like the boats,” Faith said, shrugging. She hadn’t bothered to rig up for this one. “Creeping around in the dark looking for zombies may not sound like fun to most people, but it is to me.”

  “To each their own,” Paula said, laughing. “I’ll leave it to you.”

  “But the lifeboats and liferafts?” Faith said, frowning. “Usually everybody’s dead. And usually cause the zombies got them. What happened with you guys? No zombies?”

  “No,” Paula said, her face closing up. “There were infected.”

  “So how’d you make it?” Faith asked. “You didn’t have any guns.”

  “Right after we hit the water, Chris had us put on light restraints,” Paula said, carefully. “Just light knots. When somebody started to…turn, we could…restrain them.”

  “There weren’t any when we got there,” Faith said, then stopped. “I just realized this is something you really don’t want to talk about. Sorry. Me and my big mouth.”

  “No,” Paula said. “And, yes. I guess… I’m afraid it would be hard to understand. It’s not something that we even talked about on the boat. Chris and, while he was still with us, a guy named Donnie would…take them out on the aft deck and deal with them.”

  “Do I want to ask?” Faith said.

  “We never did,” Paula admitted. “The first time Donnie and Chris took a woman, it was Tom’s girlfriend. They went out back and then Donnie came back in and then a bit later Chris. And he just said he’d handled it. That happened nine times. Then Donnie got bitten and he turned. He stayed out on the back deck, tied up, knowing he would turn. He said he’d been special forces and he…he really went out like a hero, you know? And you could hear when he turned and Chris just went out and… Came back. And then it was just Chris. Nobody would help him with them. I…I wanted to but I… I’m not like you.”

  “I didn’t get bitten but I screwed up and got a cut,” Faith said, showing Paula her thumb, which still bore the mark of the injector needle. “Then I got into a fight with one on an elevator and the bitch bled all over me. And I got it. But I’d had the vaccine, at least the primer, and I only got a little. So I just got sick. Really sick. It’s the worst sick you can imagine.”

  “I sort of saw,” Paula said. “Donnie didn’t go down easy. You know what was really crazy about Donnie?”

  “What?” Faith asked.

  “He was missing both his legs above the knee,” Paula said, shaking her head. “He sa
id he’d lost both of them in 2001. In Afghanistan. Then went through all the process to go back on active duty and went back to Afghanistan.”

  “That’s double tough,” Faith said, shaking her head. “I can only wish I was that tough.”

  “So… What was the thing about the last concert in New York?”

  * * *

  “We need to have a crew meeting,” Steve said, poking his head out the back door. He wasn’t sure what Faith had been telling the survivor, but the woman’s face was dripping with tears. “You okay?”

  “Oh, my God!” Paula said, howling with laughter. “I can just see Voltaire doing that!”

  “It was sooo not my fault,” Steve said. “It was her idea!”

  “It was Uncle Tom’s idea!” Faith said. “And at least I remembered my shotgun!”

  “Anyway,” Steve said. “Crew meeting. Chris is taking the helm.”

  “Okay,” Faith said, getting up. “Work, work, work…”

  “At least I didn’t have you clean up that last boat,” Steve said.

  “That boat needs to be sunk not cleaned,” Faith said.

  * * *

  “We have a potentially serious security issue,” Steve said.

  “Who?” Faith asked.

  The meeting was taking place in the master cabin, which was the only place outside the saloon or the back deck that would take them all.

  “All of them,” Stacey said.

  “I like Paula,” Faith said. “You’re talking about them taking over the boat? I don’t think she’d take over the boat.”

  “I like Paula, too,” Steve said. “Paula, Chris, Patrick, I like all three. I’m not sure about the lady with the white hair.”

  “Jack’s a dick,” Faith said.

  “But I don’t fully trust any of them,” Steve said. “And, yes, Jack’s a dick. That was one of the big glaring holes in my plan that I can see but not really fill. There’s no…the term is ‘controlling legal authority.’ There’s no government to enforce anything. If one of them tries to take over, the best we’re going to get is a firefight.”

  “There’s guns,” Sophia said. “And we’ve got all the guns.”

  “Which is the point,” Steve said. “And we’re going to have to keep it that way for a while. But that means keeping someone on the guns at all times.”

  “I don’t want to just sit in a cabin, guarding guns,” Faith argued.

  “Isn’t how we’ll do it,” Steve said. “We’re going to have to hot-bunk, anyway. So… All four of us will hot bunk in here. With the door locked and bolted, whoever is in here will have plenty of time to respond if anyone tries to break in. Carry at all times. We were when they boarded. We’re just ‘one of those families.’ Gun nuts. And if anyone goes for a gun, we’ll deal with it.”

  “That’s a way of putting it you might want to avoid,” Faith said. “‘Deal with it’ has a really special meaning for these guys…”

  * * *

  “You guys have been asking about the land,” Steve said as they left the next EPIRB. The liferaft had held only two corpses. “We’re going to kill two birds with one stone. Bermuda is about two hundred miles from our current position. We’ll clear in that direction. When we get there we’ll spend some time in the harbor. You can get a look around.”

  “I could do with a Bermuda vacation,” Tom Christianson said.

  Until the conversation with Stacey, Tom hadn’t really been on his radar. Now he was keeping him under more or less constant covert surveillance.

  “Like I said,” Steve said, shrugging. “Anybody who wants to get eaten can go ashore. Up to you. This is an all volunteer operation.”

  “If it’s all volunteer, where can I get off?” Isham scoffed.

  “You want off?” Steve asked, calmly. “There’s a great big ocean. Go jump in it.”

  “Fuck you,” Isham snapped.

  Steve drew his pistol, walked over and put it to the man’s head.

  “When I kill a zombie, I kill a human being,” Steve said. “I am fully cognizant of that. Zombies are not, by a long stretch, the first people I’ve killed, Mr. Isham.”

  “Mr. Smith,” Paula said, shakily. “He was just…”

  “He was just being Jack,” Steve said, pulling back the hammer. “Mr. Isham, there is no controlling legal authority, period. Now I’ve said, as soon as I can find a place to put you, I’ll move you off this boat. You can go ashore. But if I put a bullet in your head right now, who can gainsay me nay?”

  “Wh…what?” Isham stuttered. “Can you just put the pistol down?”

  “No,” Steve said. “That’s the problem, you see. I can’t put it down. Because I can’t trust you, Jack Isham. Because you are a revolving pain in the ass, want to be the boss and contribute nothing. Why, exactly, shouldn’t I put you over the side? You’re just consuming stores that others need and everything about you tells me you’re a threat to this boat, myself and especially my family.” He pulled the pistol back, decocked it and holstered it.

  “I swear to God I won’t try to take over your boat,” Isham said. “I mean, if you’re mad about me not helping…”

  “‘If it’s all volunteer, where can I get off?’” Steve quoted. “You’ve said repeatedly that you’re not interested in helping others, period. You dominate and wrest for control…”

  “You’ve been talking to Chris too much,” Isham growled.

  “I didn’t have to have Petty Officer Phillips’ confirmation,” Steve said. “I don’t care who or what you were before this plague. What you are, now, is a passenger on my boat. I am the captain, the chief, the boss, the head guy. And given the situation, I cannot afford or abide any threat to that authority. So, Mr. Isham, you will need to swallow your pride, swallow your sarcasm and understand that you are under discipline on this boat or I will, I assure you, put a bullet in your head and put you over the side. Do you understand.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Isham said.

  “How ’bout me?” Faith said, coldly. “Cause I really, really think you’re a prick.”

  Isham felt the barrel of her pistol against the back of his neck and blanched.

  “Ah,” Steve said. “That you can believe I see. Now, I’m going to give you some words to say. And if you cannot say them, then Faith will pull the trigger.”

  “Please let me pull the trigger,” Faith said. “I bet you dollars to donuts this guy’s hurt plenty of people in his time.”

  “I…” Isham said.

  “Repeat after me,” Steve said. “I, Jack Isham…”

  “I… Jack Isham…”

  “hereby swear…”

  “Hereby swear…”

  “To do my level best…”

  “To do my level best…”

  “to quit being a prick…”

  “to quit being a prick…”

  “to follow the orders of the crew…”

  “to follow the orders of the crew…?”

  “without the question mark, Mr. Isham and, yes, that includes the young lady with the gun to your head…to follow the orders of the crew…”

  “to follow the orders of the crew…”

  “of the rescue boat Tina’s Toy…”

  “without backtalk…”

  “or sarcasm…”

  “to the best of my ability…”

  “until I can get the hell away from these nutjobs…”

  “So help me God.”

  “You can holster, Faith,” Steve said.

  “Damn,” Faith said, decocking and holstering.

  “For everyone else,” Steve said. “I was a para in the Australian Army. I am a combat veteran long before this current brou-haha. I am a naturalized American citizen. Immediately prior to the plague, I was a history teacher. I actually understand these times because they have been common in history. Oh, not zombie plagues but similar situations. Once we have more than one bloody boat for people to be on, we can determine who gets the boat and who goes on it. And we’ll do that by vote. N
ot that you get a vote about taking this boat anywhere. But when one comes open, anyone who fears for their safety with we mad people, or who is unwilling to aid in this Great Endeavor can move to that boat. Or, as I’ve said repeatedly, when we approach shore you can take your chances. But until I’m assured that you are not going to mutiny, do not become a security threat. Do I make myself very clear? A chorus of ‘yes, captain’ would be appropriate.”

  “Yes, captain,” the group said.

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Chris said from the galley. He was spinning a rather large knife. “I’ve got asahi coming up if that meets with the captain’s approval?”

  “Thank you, Chris, that would be superb,” Steve said. “The next boat that we come to, if there are no security threats, you’ll be clearing the EPIRB Mr. Isham. Clear?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Isham said nervously.

  “Clear, Captain or Aye, aye, captain,” Steve said, trying not to sigh. “There really is a reason for it. So… Try it again…”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Toy, this is Cooper.”

  “Cooper, Tina’s Toy, over,” Sophia said.

  Sophia sometimes thought about complaining that she was on the helm about fourteen hours a day. She, like, never got a break. The problem being, she knew she loved being at the helm.

  They’d picked up two other boats and six more survivors. Isham, Christianson and four others that volunteered to leave had been put on one of the yachts and told they could go anywhere they wanted, don’t let the door hit you in the ass and don’t get in our way.

  Chris was now running the Daniel Cooper, a 75' “flush deck trawler.” It wasn’t as cool looking at the Toy but Sophia had to admit it had more room. And it had taken less of a beating from zombies.

  “Uh, Captain Chris wants you to come over here…”

  “Where is here and why, over?” Sophia asked.

  “There’s a big boat here. He says it’s a Shewolf job.”

  “Give me your location, over,” Sophia said, trying not to snort. She was actually at fault for the nicknames. She’d been talking to Paula, at the helm as usual, and telling some stories from Da’s old days. His old para nickname of Wolfsbane had come up. That got changed to “Captain Wolf.” Then people started calling her, Sophia, “Seawolf.” So now it was “Papa Wolf” or “Captain Wolf,” “Mama Wolf,” “Seawolf” and “Shewolf.”