“Maybe they can’t pick up our signal?” Dallas queried. “Any fours?”
Rick looked thoughtful as he said, “Go fish. Maybe.” He squinted his eyes further in thought. “We can reach the east coast and Montana, but not the Gulf? Doesn’t sound right.”
“Naw. It don’t at all.”
The groups talked all day, with people coming to visit Dallas well into the evening. Sam sat with Anna and Rick the four of them playing cards together through the bars of Dallas’ quarantine cell. Suddenly, a middle-aged man with glasses was standing next to Rick. Pickles, who had been curled up next to, of all creatures, the bloodhound Clyde, jumped up and slunk away. The dog stared after his new friend as the cat trotted down the cell block. Clara reached through the bars and scratched the pooch’s head as she spoke with her husband.
“Welcome back, Mr. Dallas,” the newcomer said. Sam gasped and suddenly needed to pee.
“Well, thank you, but it’s just Dallas, please. How’ve you been, Mr. Martingale?”
“Very thankful that I have a safe place to stay. Your trip must have been terrifying. The other members of your group have been regaling us with your exploits.”
Dallas glanced at Rick. “They have, huh? It was a team effort.”
The man laughed a bit. “Of course. Welcome back either way.” He strode off.
Sam stared at the man as he walked away. “What is it, honey?” Rick asked noticing.
“I don’t like him,” she said immediately.
“Me neither,” Dallas agreed under his breath and winked at the girl. She smiled at him then continued to stare at Martingale’s back until he started down the stairs.
The following morning, the Navy corpsman who had admitted the new arrivals to quarantine stood in front of Dallas’ cell with Meara and McInerney.
“Dallas,” McInerney said with an odd look on his face, “you have a phone call.”
“Guy says he knows you,” Meara added. “Says he met you in Montana.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t allow this,” the corpsman told the group, “but none of you are sick, and you’ll be coming right back into quarantine when you get back anyway, so you can go.” He produced a key and opened the lock on the chains threaded through the bars.
Dallas looked bewildered. “Go where?”
McInerney answered, “To meet your friend. You can take the other men who came in with you if you like.”
“I would. Thank you, Cap’n.”
Beach Street, San Francisco
Vanessa stood on the roof of the Maritime Museum. Kyle and Billy were sitting a bit away from her in lawn chairs talking and taking in some sun, but she stood, gazing at the beach and the bay beyond. Alcatraz sat high in the water, a little more than a mile away. They had made the museum home for almost five weeks now. Although she had no idea what day it was, she had been counting the mornings since they’d first arrived.
The museum had been under construction when the plague had struck. Caution tape blocked off several of the exhibits, which were boats and ships. Construction equipment and supplies were there for the taking, so Billy and the kids used some of the stuff to block the main entrance. They got in and out using a construction scaffold and a roof access, although Billy rarely left, and the kids hadn’t been outside other than the roof for more than a month.
Someone had been using one of the large storage areas as a hidey-hole, but that person either bugged out when Billy and the kids showed up, or they had left before then. Several weeks-worth of rations and some camping equipment awaited them to their utter surprise. A short-barreled sawed-off shotgun also awaited them, and Billy appropriated it for himself, wearing it constantly strapped to his back.
The young girl was itching for a shower. She hadn’t had one in weeks and felt dirty. She ran her fingers through her dark hair while she watched some seagulls out on the hooked jetty. A large black vehicle moved through the air to her right. It was coming in for a landing at Alameda to her southeast.
“Billy,” she called. He and Kyle were sitting in beach chairs, catching the sun on their faces. Billy looked at her and she pointed. The three of them stared at a plane as it descended out of sight presumably onto one of the runways on the island.
“You’d think,” began Billy, “what with the end of the world and all, there would be less trips scheduled. This is, what? The second plane in a month? I guess they don’t cancel flights for a little thing like the apocalypse.” He stood, clapping his hands on his thighs. “Well, kids, I think it’s time we got to Alcatraz. I also think those folks might need some help.” He pointed to the plane.
“Is the boat ready?” Kyle asked a bit nervously. He never doubted that they would eventually have to leave this new place, but he had become accustomed to the safety it afforded. They would have to traipse a full two hundred yards down the dock to Billy’s boat. Two hundred yards was a long way to go in San Francisco nowadays.
“Yup! Put the finishing touches on it last night.” Billy furrowed his brow in thought. “Couldn’t find a pirate flag though. And thinking about it, maybe that isn’t a good idea considering where we’re about to go?”
Vanessa looked over her shoulder at the boys. “Alcatraz?”
“Yup!” Billy said a bit too loudly.
“It’s a fishing boat, right?” Kyle inquired. “Do you think we can go fishing?”
Billy stuck out his lower lip and nodded a couple times before smiling. “Yup!”
“We have to get to it first,” Vanessa said and pointed. A baker’s dozen infected had shown up at the dock when they heard the plane. They milled about the planks, moving to the chain railing and shuffling in several directions.
The young man pointed at Kyle’s foot. “How’s the ankle?”
“Fantastic,” the boy said and moved his bare foot in a circle. “Doesn’t hurt at all.
Billy glanced at both kids, then to the infected on the pier, then back at the kids. He nodded. “Let’s do it.”
They had moved all the items blocking the rear entrance. The sturdy doors were now all that separated them from the infected on the dock to the left. The museum had its own dock, but Billy hadn’t been able to figure out how to get the big boat into the small concrete channel outside the museum. He’d had to anchor the forty-foot fishing vessel further down the pier a bit.
He stared intently at Kyle and sighed. “Here.” He passed the boy his katana. “It’s longer than this.” Billy hefted a wooden baseball bat he had appropriated from the cache of stuff they had found in the museum. Vanessa had the spear she had fashioned out of a broomstick.
“Me, first, then you guys. Don’t shoot unless you have to.” Billy pointed to Kyle’s small pistol. “We go fast. Get by them if you can, I’ll clear a path. Ready?”
Both kids nodded. Kyle drew the sword from the makeshift sheath. Billy pushed the door open and peeked out, looking both ways. He was out the door and holding it for the kids in a moment and soon the safety of walls and doors was gone.
They hurried down the concrete walkway next to the water and stepped onto the dock. One of the things began its trek toward them, but the others hadn’t noticed yet. The creature let loose with a rasp, and the others turned and headed toward the survivors like a flock of birds.
Billy strode forward and swung the bat in a sideways arc into the head of a dead fireman. The thing crumpled, and the living man brought his weapon overhead, smashing it down on the top of a dead woman’s cranium. Her head split like a rotten melon, fluids spraying.
“Ugh!” Billy shouted and continued his mayhem. They made it to the boat without incident. Neither of the kids had to use their weapons. Kyle and Billy cast off the lines and Billy started the boat.
“Dave taught me how to do this!” he shouted.
“Who’s Dave?” Vanessa asked.
Kyle shrugged. “No idea.”
The boat pulled away from San Francisco, making its way to Alameda Island in a short time. Billy showed both kids how to start, stop, s
teer, and throttle the boat. “This is neutral. Neutral is your friend.” He killed power to the engines and chucked an anchor overboard when they were about eight feet from the cut-stone embankment of Alameda. He brought out a gangplank he had made from two 2x12 pieces of wood nailed together at intervals with 2x4s. It was heavy, but he and the kids were able to get it to the land from the boat.
“Stay here,” he told the kids, pointing at them. “Pull the board back when I’m over. If I’m not back in a couple of hours, or if anybody else comes in a boat, you get to Alcatraz. If they start shooting at you, just keep your heads down, point the boat at Alcatraz, and push this all the way forward.” He indicated the throttle.
“We’re supposed to stick together,” Vanessa told him.
He smiled. “I know. Those folks might need my help, and you have each other. Get out of here fast if anybody comes. The water is too deep here for anything to climb aboard, but if anything tries, don’t let it.”
Vanessa appeared frightened, but Kyle had a look on him that said he wouldn’t fail.
He hugged them both. “They grow up so fast,” Billy mock-cried as he put his boots on the island. He waved as the kids pulled the gangplank back.
They watched their protector make his way across the giant parking lot and disappear into the structures on the island. Two huge planes sat abandoned on the old runway to the far northwest.
Billy ran across a huge southern runway noting the two vacant airplanes to the north-west. He hadn’t made it ten steps into the industrial/residential area of the island when the keening scream of a Runner echoed through the abandoned structures. The noise was immediately followed by several gunshots
“Uh oh.”
He hurried toward a group of the things. They were seemingly intent on heading into an alley. Billy figured out why quickly. A tallish man was trapped halfway down the alley. A living man, with dead on both sides, converging on him. The man had nowhere to go but rather than panic and start screaming, he did something that made Billy smile.
“Come on then,” the man said loudly. “Come on!” The guy fired into the crowd with a suppressed pistol. Billy’s eyes went wide he thought that was so cool.
“I want a silencer…” he said thoughtfully, then yelled, “Howdy, partners!” The dead did what they always did when confronted with Billy; they turned to glare at him for a moment then resumed their relentless pursuit of something they thought they could eat. He waded into the ones in front of him, sounding off his count as he smashed them with his bat. He had left his sword with Kyle. “Fifteen! Woo-hoo!”
He tired quickly, and soon was huffing. “Nine…nineteen.” Two of the things had reached the guy and Billy smashed one as it grabbed the man. The poor guy was using his knife, and he stumbled when a large undead fell on him snapping. Billy brought the bat around into the side of the creature’s head, the crunch of the impact quite satisfying.
The man struggled to extricate himself from the two re-killed infected, but the ones from the far end of the alley had reached them. Billy drew his shotgun and fired point blank into the face of a dead thing. The number 11 on the creature’s Utah Jazz basketball jersey was all but obscured by brown stains.
Billy fired again, jacking a fresh shell into the chamber. The man rolled toward his savior and Billy helped him up. The man made for the clear end of the lane. “Come on!” he shouted.
“Be right there!” Billy joyfully shouted back. He had holstered the shotgun and returned to his bat. He destroyed a few more of the undead before he realized there were too many. He pushed his way through the rest of them and caught up with the man, disbelief all over the newcomer’s face.
The man was cradling his arm, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed to Billy. “Hurt it earlier in the week,” the man told him when Billy pointed at it and asked.
Weapons fire came from in front of them and two men rounded the corner of one of the buildings. Billy didn’t know if these men were part of the group of killers from the city and was prepared for a fight, when more people, including a couple of kids, followed the initial two around the corner. One of the men was the biggest human being Billy had ever seen.
“Who’s he?” one of the men demanded. Billy raised his eyebrows and pointed at himself questioningly. “Me?” He told them his name and that there were hundreds of infected on the way. “I got a boat,” he added and after a moment, the folks agreed to come with him. They followed Billy and soon were standing on a cut-stone embankment, the fishing boat fifty or so feet away.
“Mickey! This is Bugs! Come get us!” Billy turned, checking the status of the Alameda infected. He pointed back the way they had come. The group followed his finger, noticing a thousand or more infected coming toward them. The infected were a few hundred yards away when one of the fast ones fought its way to the front and began to scream.
A handmade gangway was pushed with some difficulty toward the shore, and the group boarded the boat. Kyle applied the throttle and the vessel made its way into the bay.
“Where would you like to go?” Billy asked.
“Alcatraz,” replied the first man Billy had helped. Apparently, the man had run across Dallas in the past, the Texan extending an invitation to join the Alcatraz Island community.
They spoke about Dallas and Alcatraz for a few minutes before Billy began to speak to Richy and Chloe, the two new kids, about cartoons. Kyle and Vanessa also sat with them, and the five of them chatted until a radio call needed to be made. Billy didn’t know how to work the radio, so one of the newcomers showed him. In short order, two boats from Alcatraz were on their way to escort the group back to the island.
Billy pulled his new friend aside. “You have to take my kids to Alcatraz too.”
The man looked confused. “You’re not coming?”
Billy didn’t want to get into why he couldn’t come. He certainly didn’t relish the thought of being incarcerated in a hundred-year-old prison, especially when he was one of the good guys. He thought about seeing Sam again, but then thought that she would have to talk to him through the bars of a cell if they let her. Then again, they might just kill him. Billy smiled when he thought of the ruckus that would cause. A few of the people there would go nuts. He smiled broader at the nuts thought. Just like me!
In the end, he hugged his kids and the new kids too. He took a small dinghy to one of the docks on the eastern side of San Francisco. The dock was teeming with infected, but Billy rowed right up to it and climbed the short ladder. Several of the dead things splashed into the water when Billy pushed them, a wicked smile on his face. He waved enthusiastically to the boat then disappeared into the throng.
San Francisco Bay
A grin appropriate to his size enveloped Dallas’ face. The man he was looking at across forty feet of inky black bay water had saved his life a few times after Dallas had split from Rick to find Captain McInerney’s wife. Literally pulled him out of the arms of the dead at great personal risk. More than that, this man had skulked into the teeth of thousands of undead to procure medical supplies for sick kids. That alone had been very telling for Dallas. This man could be trusted. The newcomer would still have to be vetted through action before he would be completely trusted by Dallas’ friends, especially Meara and McInerney, but Texan’s word held a lot of sway, especially to the rest of Rick’s core group and the captain of the USS Florida.
One of the soldiers that had helped Dallas, McInerney’s wife Clara, and her friend Eleanor travel from Montana to California, spoke to one of the men on the other boat, and tensions relaxed on both sides when everyone realized that some of the folks on each side knew each other.
The boat Dallas was on tied up to the fishing boat. A third vessel that had come from Alcatraz sat off a bit and the men aboard looked in all directions with binoculars. Dallas boarded the fishing boat and enveloped his friend in a great Dallas bear hug. Ali had also come with Dallas. She immediately asked for Billy.
Ali was distraught when she heard that Billy had g
one back into the city. She stared at the infected falling into the water a few hundred yards away and shook her head. She looked at the kids and smiled. They smiled back.
Within the hour, the three vessels had returned to Alcatraz and the new folks were on their way to quarantine. The following day, all the new residents of Alcatraz were let out of confinement to begin their assimilation.
Four of the newcomers were being debriefed by McInerney, Pitt, Seyfert, and Meara in the command center. Rick and Dallas were present as well. Dallas had vetted them, and they had had their weapons returned. One of the strangers was the largest man McInerney had ever seen. Until this man had shown up, Dallas had been the largest person on Alcatraz. The top of Dallas’ head barely made it above the shoulder of the new giant, and he had to weigh four hundred pounds, all muscle. The huge man hadn’t uttered a single word since he and his friends had been brought to the island. Two of the four were military; one soldier and one marine. Their mission had been to establish contact between Atlantis, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and an enclave of survivors in Montana. Unfortunately, Atlantis had come under attack by a paramilitary group. The entire rig had been destroyed. The man whom Dallas had befriended, a taller man with brownish hair, possibly in his early thirties, introduced himself then his friends. “This is Alvarez, he’s Army. This is Remo, he’s retired MARSOC.” Both Pitt and Seyfert looked impressed. The man reached his hand up to put it on the giant’s shoulder. “This is Ship. He doesn’t speak. He is a genius. He is also my comfort animal.” The man smiled a wry smile as Ship looked down on him and shook his head like the new guy was the problem child.
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