by J. Thorn
Taking a few deep breaths I went under the water and started swimming out. The boat wasn’t far, but you don’t move fast with a ton of gear on your body and I was forced to surface for air about halfway. A chorus of screams greeted me and was almost instantly followed by splashes all around as they tried to catch me.
Rachel spotted me now and I saw her disappear off the flying bridge and a moment later appear at the stern of the boat, rope in hand. I struggled towards the boat, fending off a female that landed close enough to get a fingertip grip on my pack. I had to hit her twice and the loss of concentration caused me to sink. I fought my way back to the surface and struggled towards the boat as more splashes sounded behind me.
Already tired from the run to the lake I was weakening when a rope smacked onto the surface of the water a couple of feet in front of me. With renewed energy I swam to it, grabbed on and started pulling hand over hand towards the boat. Minutes later I was holding on to a small platform with a ladder that was bolted to the boat’s stern to allow easy access for swimmers.
Resting for a few minutes I looked up into Rachel’s smiling face and grinned like a stupid teenager, happy to be alive. Holding tight to the ladder I got my feet under me and with what felt like Herculean effort, slowly climbed out of the water and into the boat. Rachel greeted me with a hug then helped me out of my gear before I dropped to the deck, exhausted.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“Thought I’d lost me too there for a bit,” I answered, wiping water out of my eyes. “Thanks for the rope. Not sure I would have made it without it.”
Rachel held my hand for a moment then turned her attention to the dock. The infected had stopped leaping into the water and now stood staring at us and screaming in frustration. A dozen bodies floated between us and the dock.
“Did they figure out they can’t swim, or did they just give up?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s still enough working brain in there for them to understand they can’t survive in the water after seeing their companions die. Thank God they can’t swim or I’d have been toast.”
A thought hit me as I stood back up, “Did you clear the boat?”
The look on Rachel’s face answered my question before she could speak.
“Stay here, gun in hand. I’ll be back,” I said, drawing my pistol and checking the magazine to make sure it was fully loaded.
The boat was bigger than I had expected. I estimated it was fifty feet long and it was a luxury cruiser with three staterooms, four heads, a galley, a large seating area called a salon and multiple other compartments that were a mix of storage space and various nautical uses that I couldn’t identify. Checking everything thoroughly took 20 minutes. Fortunately we were alone.
I made my way up to the flying bridge and motioned Rachel to join me. “Do you know anything about boats?” I asked her when she arrived.
“Some. I used to date a guy that had one and we would go out almost every weekend in the summer. He always handled the boat, but I paid attention. What about you?”
“I know the pointy end is the front and they’re surrounded by water,” I answered with a grin. “So I guess that makes you the captain, especially since you got it out of dock without sinking it.”
“Guess you didn’t notice the scrapes along the side,” Rachel smiled and stepped up to the controls. Moments later the engine revved and she spun the wheel to set us on a course for the middle of the lake.
“Can we get out to the middle and drop anchor and stay there for a while?” I asked.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Rachel reached forward and fiddled with a couple of electronic displays. “Looks like we’ve got about 70 feet of water under us right now.”
We were maybe half a mile from the dock with shoreline on each side about a quarter of a mile away. In front of us the lake looked to continue for miles, and from what I remembered of how it looked on the map there was a myriad of small coves as the main lake twisted and turned.
Rachel cut the engine after using reverse to bring us to a stop in the water then flipped a switch on the console that was protected by a plastic cover to prevent accidental activation. I jumped as a loud rattling sound and splash came from the front of the boat, relaxing when Rachel laughed at me, “It’s the anchor. Nothing you need to shoot.”
I gave her a look that she ignored in favor of watching the heavy rope that was spooling out of a recessed compartment on the deck at the very front of the boat. When it stopped unwinding she lifted the plastic cover and set the switch into the middle position.
“Anchors down and locked. We’ll pivot around it at the end of the line if there’s any wind or current in the lake, but we’ll stay put in this area,” She said.
Looking around the flying bridge I found the pair of binoculars I expected to be there. Raising them to my eyes I focused on the dock we had escaped from. It was swarming with infected for its entire length and the paved area was packed with swaying bodies.
“It looks like that entire herd followed us.” I said, still scanning the distant shore.
“We have to be more careful,” Rachel said. “If we hadn’t been close to the marina we wouldn’t have escaped.
“Agreed. We got very lucky. We’ve been very lucky up to now. I just didn’t expect to run into another herd. Why the hell are they doing that? Where are they going?” My questions were really more rhetorical, but Rachel felt the need to talk about it.
“I don’t know. Maybe something in the way their brains are affected has caused the herding instinct to become dominant. Humans are by nature tribal animals, not herd, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she answered. “I’m also surprised that we’re not finding uninfected people. This has spread so fast it’s almost beyond belief. Especially when you try to explain why neither of us have been infected. Are we immune, or just very lucky?”
I lowered the binoculars and looked at her. “Good questions, but we don’t know enough to even start guessing.”
Making a final scan of the two closest shorelines I put the binoculars back in their spot. “I’m going to take these wet clothes off and get my gear dried out. Do you mind checking the galley to see if there’s any food and water on board?”
“Will do, and I’ll bet a boat like this has a washer and dryer on it. I’ll see if I can find them and we’ll get your clothes drying.”
I moved down to the deck where my pack was lying in a spreading puddle of water that was seeping out of it. Moving the pack to the edge of the deck so it would drain overboard into the lake, I sat on a thickly padded bench and pulled my waterlogged boots off. Opening them up to the sun I pulled off my vest and harness, then stripped down to my underwear. The hot Georgia sun felt good on my skin as I worked to unpack and spread everything out.
“Found it,” Rachel announced as she walked out onto deck. She gathered up the clothes I had taken off as well as the wet clothes from my pack and headed back inside.
I spent almost an hour stripping, cleaning and oiling weapons. Loaded magazines were emptied, dried, lightly oiled and reloaded. Fortunately modern ammo can easily survive a casual dunking in water and I wasn’t particularly worried that any of it would fail to fire when needed. The sun was setting as I was loading the last magazine and Rachel slid open the glass door that accessed the salon and called out that dinner was ready.
21
Whatever Rachel had put together for dinner smelled wonderful as I entered the cabin. I sat down at a small table that folded out of the way when not in use. That’s when it hit me.
“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed, leaping to my feet and nearly upsetting the table in the process.
Rachel froze in place with a look of barely contained panic on her face, “What?” she whispered.
“Dog,” I said, my gut churning. “We left him in the truck.”
The look on her face morphed from fear to shock, then sadness. “But… how?”
“He was in the back seat when we baile
d out of the truck. Son of a Bitch!”
I headed back to the open deck and started arranging the items I needed. Rachel followed, still holding a bowl of food she had been bringing to the table before my outburst.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to get him. He’ll die in that truck and I’m not going to let that happen.” I started filling pockets and pouches on my vest with full magazines and spare ammunition, mentally cataloging what I thought I’d need for a quick raid to rescue Dog.
“Are you crazy?” There was a note of hysteria in Rachel’s voice. “You can’t fight through all those infected, save Dog and make it back here. You’ll get killed and I’ll be on my own.”
I finished loading the vest and started checking the loads in my pistol and rifle. “Rachel, this is exactly the kind of shit I trained for and pulled off for nearly half my life. It’s getting dark, it’s not far and I’ll be in and out before any of the infected even know I’m around.”
She reached out and put a hand on my arm. I looked up and saw a tear rolling down her cheek. “I’m afraid,” she said in a low, emotion choked voice.
I holstered my pistol and straightened up. “Me too. I’ve never been scared of anything in my life, but honestly this whole thing scares the living shit out of me.”
Her lower lip started trembling and I pulled her into a hug before she completely lost it.
“Rachel, you’re smart and strong. You survived where most people didn’t before we even met. But there’s no point in even thinking about that because I’m coming back with Dog. Now, can you help me finish getting ready?”
Rachel squeezed me hard then she pushed away and wiped the tears off her face, sniffed and tried to put on a smile that only half made it. “What do you need?”
“I want to swim to the shore. Starting this engine will alert all the infected and I don’t want them stirred up and waiting for me. Can you search the boat and see if there’s any snorkeling gear? You know, flippers, goggles, breathing tube, whatever you can find. I could also use a waterproof bag and if there aren’t any flippers then some kind of flotation device. I’m going to be weighed down pretty heavy with weapons and ammo.”
Now I was a Green Beret, not a Navy SEAL. Yes, the Army trains us to operate in water, swim with gear on our backs and boots on our feet, but I’m not 20 anymore and besides, I hadn’t lived in the water the way SEALs do.
Rachel went into the cabin to start searching for my requested items while I finalized my equipment load. A few minutes later she returned with a big grin on her face and an armful of gear that she dumped on the deck.
I sorted through it and was pleased to find a set of swim fins, goggles, a couple of large rubberized canvas bags with rubber zip seals and a red buoy with a white diagonal stripe on it. Apparently the boat’s owner had been a diver since the color scheme on the buoy is the international symbol used to warn other boaters that there are divers in the water.
I unlaced my boots and placed them and my socks in the waterproof bag, sealing it tight. There were two sturdy nylon ropes attached to the bag and since I was leaving my backpack on the boat I slipped my arms through the ropes and wore the bag like a backpack. I slipped the flippers on my feet and wasn’t thrilled with the too tight fit, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Swinging my legs over the stern of the boat I put my finned feet onto the small swim platform and leaned down to dunk the goggles in the water to wet the inside of the lens and prevent them from fogging up on the swim to shore.
I debated using the buoy for flotation, but decided it would be more of a hassle than it was worth. I was as lightly loaded as possible for the situation I was headed into. I had on a pair of black quick drying compression shorts with matching sleeveless shirt, my vest with all my spare mags and ammo, combat knife, pistol and rifle. I slipped the goggles over my head and adjusted them. I have a big head and they were too small, but again when you’re a beggar…
It was almost fully dark when I was ready to go. To the west the sky was a deep shade of purple that would fade to black very quickly, but there was enough light for me to see the heavy bank of clouds that looked to be heading our way. All the better. Easier to operate under the cover of a storm.
I turned to Rachel who stood on the deck watching my preparations. She had a look of worry that reminded me so much of my wife that for a moment my heart ached that I wasn’t in Arizona to take care of her.
“Leave the emotion behind, soldier. Emotion distracts us. Emotion gets us killed.” The voice of my favorite instructor from the land warfare school at Fort Bragg was so loud in my head I almost looked to see if he was standing behind Rachel.
Suppressing the feelings that were running through me I gave Rachel my best, brave smile. “I’ll be back. With Dog. But, if I’m not back in 24 hours you need to move on without me. Understand?”
Rachel nodded, stepped forward and leaned over the rail to kiss me on the cheek. “Come back. I’ll be waiting.”
I squeezed her hand, turned and slipped into the dark water of the lake.
22
The dock was still swarming with infected. Either side of the dock the shoreline was heavily forested except for occasional breaks where large homes had been built and lush green lawns ran all the way to the water’s edge. In my survey with the binoculars before the sun went down I had noted that all of the lawns close to the dock had also been swarming with infected, but there were less and less bodies milling on the grass of the houses along the shoreline to the west of the dock. This was also the right direction to come ashore as close to the truck as possible.
I had chosen a particularly large mansion that also sported its own dock and boat house for my landing site. I had a good third of a mile swim ahead of me, but the lake was calm and the water warm. I started kicking, careful to keep my feet below the surface at all times so as not to make any splashing sounds that would alert the infected to my approach.
One third of a mile doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re not accustomed to swimming that far with over forty pounds of weapons and ammo on your body it takes a bit of time. Forty five minutes later I made it to the boat house without incident. I stood in chest deep water, silently surveying the area for any sound or movement. I gave it ten minutes before moving into shallower water.
Moving carefully to maintain noise discipline, I approached the boat house from the lake side. The boat house was large, basically a floating building anchored to the shore and open underneath so all I had to do was duck under the wall and surface inside the house next to a speed boat.
Again I stood perfectly still, only this time in waist deep water, and listened for any threat as it was pitch black in the boat house. After a few minutes of silence I carefully moved between the speed boat and its access ramp, slowly pulling myself and my gear out of the water and onto the ramp. I immediately went to one knee and raised my rifle to scan for threats.
When nothing materialized I removed the swim fins and swapped them in the waterproof bag for my socks and boots. The goggles joined the fins in the bag and a couple of minutes later, feet dry, I was ready to go.
Silently stepping to a small window that faced a lawn and massive home with white clapboard siding, I paused to survey the area and again saw no sign of infected. I moved to the door and froze as it emitted a loud squeal as it swung open. It sucks getting old. Twenty years ago I would have anticipated this and been prepared. Leaving the door a few inches ajar I searched a small work bench in the boathouse, finally finding a rusting can of WD40. A few squirts on each hinge and I went back to the window to watch while the chemical lubricants had time to do their job.
Five minutes later I was able to swing the door open with only the faintest of sounds, closed it gently behind me and headed up the lawn. I moved at a fast walk, rifle to my shoulder at the ready, and angled across the hundred yards of green grass toward the right side of the house.
Approaching the house I quickly changed direction an
d put my back against the wall when I heard the sound of a shoe scraping against the ground from around the corner. I had my rifle at the ready, then thought better of firing off a shot unless I had no other choice and risk alerting every infected around the lake that I was available for dinner. Lowering the rifle and letting it hang from its sling I silently drew a Ka-Bar fighting knife with a wicked eight inch blade and moved to the corner of the house.
Peeking around I saw an infected male stumbling around a large patio area. He was dressed in what I suspected were once natty boating clothes, but were now a muddy and bloody mess. I took my time to scan the area for any more infected, and when I felt it was clear I stepped around the corner and moved quickly behind the male and drove the Ka-Bar into the soft spot at the base of the skull where the spine meets the head.
He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, my knife pulling out of his skull with a wet, sucking sound. I bent and wiped the blade clean on his clothing before re-sheathing then brought my rifle back to the ready and moved across the patio and into the woods that had been neatly cut back from the lawn.
It was dark in the woods. Back in the day I would have had night vision to help, but unfortunately the gun shop I had raided either hadn’t had any or they had already been taken. I had to move slowly to maintain noise discipline as well as not stumble upon an infected that just happened to be standing there. I didn’t really expect to meet any in the woods, but at the same time I wasn’t going to take any chances.
It took me an hour to navigate the woods at my slow and cautious pace. My face and arms were scratched from vines and small branches I couldn’t see in the dark and it felt like a family of mosquitoes had taken up residence on every inch of exposed skin. Ignoring the discomfort I stopped when the woods ended at the road where we had abandoned the truck. To my left the road rose up and disappeared over a rise, and if my navigation was good that would be where I would find the truck.