Season of Rot

by Eric S. Brown

  All that mattered to Scott at the moment was finding a shred of peace. Meditation could take him away from the horrors of this place.

  Earlier in the day, he’d told David to stop hoping, that it was a lost cause, but now he wondered: wasn’t he himself seeking hope by leaving the pen, if only in his mind? He sighed and opened his eyes. The guards were already headed back inside the breeding center and the frenzy among the men for the slop was dying down. Scott slowly got to his feet, ignoring the taunts of his fellow inmates that he’d missed the meal.

  This time David saw him coming, then turned back to the fence as Scott reached his side. “How dare you tell me to stop hoping?” David whispered. “Hope is all that’s left to any of us now.”

  Scott accepted the stinging words as if he deserved them. He nodded towards the road leading out of the compound. “What exactly is out there that you want so badly? There’s no place left to go. The dead are everywhere. In here, we know we’re not going to be cut open and chewed on.”

  “What’s the point of being alive if you can’t live?” David shot back.

  “Hank and Buck, those two rednecks over there, would argue with you that we are living. They get fed, have their friendship, and once every couple of days they get to have the orgy of their wet dreams with the ladies inside.”

  “But would you argue with me?”

  “No,” Scott answered. “No, I would not.”

  David grinned. “Then what are we going to do about that?”

  Scott offered his hand, and the two men shook. “I’m Scott. Scott Burgess.”

  “And you can call me David.”

  “I know.” Scott laughed. “Well, David, it looks as if we have a lot to talk about.”

  5

  Steven placed the half-full bottle of whiskey atop his desk. All he wanted in the world was the feel of its fiery embrace as the alcohol slid down his throat, but he couldn’t bring himself to open the bottle. Too many people depended on him. He hadn’t asked for this job, but the Queen was his ship. She was all he ever loved in his life, and when the time came he’d go down with her. He knew every inch of her like the back of his hand, and yet she’d changed so much over the last few months he barely recognized her.

  Once upon a time, she’d been a gleaming beauty of magnificent white hulls, a floating paradise where dreams of love and adventure thrived. Now her hull was spotted with makeshift plates of armor and the scars of battle. Gun emplacements lined the length of the main deck on all sides. Where once she’d held hundreds of vacationers, she now contained barely one hundred refugees, tired, frightened and desperate.

  Someone knocked, and through the open door of the captain’s quarters Steven noticed O’Neil standing in the hallway. In one fluid motion, he swept the bottle off the top of his desk and into the drawer where it belonged.

  O’Neil shifted uncomfortably. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I have the inventory of our supplies that you asked for.”

  “Of course.” He motioned for O’Neil to take a seat across the desk from him. “And how do things look?”

  O’Neil slumped into the offered chair. “Not as bad as we thought. The last dock we raided gave us enough fuel for another two weeks or more.”

  “And it only cost us the lives of six men,” Steven added bitterly.

  O’Neil continued with the report. “Our ammunition stockpiles for small arms are holding up remarkably well, and Luke assures me that the new torpedo tubes he set up on the forward hull will work if we need them. Our only real pressing concern is food. Even with a rationing system in place and the reduced number of passengers and crew onboard, we’ll be out again in less than a week. The priority of the last raid was fuel for the Queen, so we didn’t have time to stock up like we needed.”

  “They came crawling out of the woodwork,” Steven chuckled.

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  “The dead, Mr. O’Neil. Regardless of where we put into port, they’re always there, waiting. We never have enough time.”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t like the thought of touching land again anytime soon.”

  Silence lingered in the room for a moment before O’Neil finally said, “Well, sir, what are we going to do?”

  “Pray,” Steven answered. “Pray our little hearts out… And while we’re at it, bring me a map of the area we’re in now. Going back ashore is really our only option, isn’t it? Since the damn fish are just as dead as the rest of the world. Besides, even if they weren’t, you know we couldn’t catch enough to feed everyone aboard this ship. It’s just not possible with our limited equipment and resources.”

  O’Neil left in search of a map, leaving Steven alone once again in the darkness of the room.

  6

  No stars lit the sky. Thick, dark clouds let loose what seemed a never-ending shower of rain. Brandon slept peacefully under the small tarp Riley had set up for him. Hannah rested against a tree, drenched to the bone. Her long red hair clung heavily to her neck and shoulders. Riley leaned over and put his arm around her. To him, she was beautiful no matter the circumstances.

  “How far do you think we made it today?” she whispered, trying not to wake Brandon.

  “A pretty good distance despite the weather,” he assured her. “We’re safe here for the night, I think.”

  Hannah’s .30-.06 rested beside her, propped against the same tree. “Riley, do you think there’s anyone else left?”

  “Sure, honey. Sure. There’s got to be. If we’ve made it this long, it just makes sense somebody else, somewhere, has made it too.”

  “It’s not fair,” she muttered with a fresh wetness sliding down her cheeks. “Brandon doesn’t deserve this. He should be in school or playing video games. Think of all the things we took for granted, Riley, things that Brandon will never know except from our stories. If there are other people out there, we have to find them for his sake and start over somehow.”

  Riley listened to the rain as it bounced off the leaves of the trees around them. “Hannah,” he said softly, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry, Riley? It’s not your fault that the dead woke up or that we’re living through the end of the world. If it weren’t for you, Brandon and I would be dead. I’m grateful for the time we had in the cabin. How many other people even had a chance like that? To pretend things were going to be okay? Those months were like heaven. It’s just… it’s just Brandon.” She nestled her face into Riley’s chest and sobbed hard against the muscles she found there.

  Riley’s arms encircled her. “I swear, Hannah, if there is a place to start again, we’ll find it or die trying. We’ve just got to hold it together for a while longer. Rain or no rain, we’ll start moving again in the morning.” Riley shut his eyes and thought only of his wife’s body pressed against his until dawn.

  The clouds broke as the sun rose. Riley checked over their weapons to make sure the dampness hadn’t damaged them as Hannah and Brandon made a game of packing up and preparing to get on the move. The three shared stale granola bars for a quick breakfast and drank water from their canteens, then set out in the direction of the sun.

  7

  Scott didn’t like David’s plan. In fact he loathed it, thought it was insane. He had no better ideas to offer, however, so he went along with it. They’d carefully selected which guard to make their offer to, and the chance to go through with it had arrived. The guards were out in full force today, as it was time for the prisoners to be rounded up for a breeding session. Chief Hole in His Neck was in command, flanked by six more of the dead, each carrying some type of fully-automatic military weapon. His subordinates opened the gate to the pen and led the prisoners out.

  Scott, having been a captive for weeks, knew how things worked. He gave Hole in His Neck the sign that he wanted to make a trade. Hole in His Neck studied him, then motioned for his men to leave Scott behind.

  When the others were all outside of the pen, Hole in His Neck stepped inside. Scott could swear he saw the hunger burning in the dead ma
n’s eyes.

  “Screw it,” Scott mumbled, hopefully too quiet for Hole in His Neck to hear. He cleared his throat and said, “David and I don’t want to go inside today.”

  A look of utter confusion settled on the guard’s features. A human male who did not want to get laid was beyond his understanding.

  Scott saw the look and misread it. “David’s the new guy. The one you just brought in.”

  Hole in His Neck signed the question “Why?” He wondered if Scott had lost his mind, and he toyed with the idea of dispatching the human then and there. He needed more help tending to the women’s needs anyway; a new dead body walking around would help with his duty roster.

  Scott gritted his teeth, steeling himself for what he was about to say. “Look. We’re gay, okay? We just want to be by ourselves for an hour to breed in our own way. Just this one time,” he added hastily.

  Hole in His Neck smiled. A sick wet sound came from his exposed windpipe as he tried to laugh. He shook his head and shoved Scott towards the gate.

  “Wait!” Scott urged. “You haven’t even heard what I’m offering in return.”

  Hole in His Neck paused. It was not permitted to feed on the prisoners unless they broke the rules or offered non-vital pieces of their meat freely. Scott had been anything but a normal prisoner, and Hole in His Neck admitted to himself that he enjoyed the way Scott was begging for such an unnatural and shameful act.

  “You could send one of your people with us, to make sure we don’t escape. I’m only asking for an hour.”

  Using gestures, the dead man asked what he would get in return and indicated that it had better be worth such an affront to the rules.

  “My legs,” Scott said firmly. “Both of them, all yours. I don’t need them to breed, and if I die from you taking them, you can stick me out here so you’ll have a permanent watchdog over the others until I rot away to nothing from the heat.”

  Hole in His Neck held up his fingers, saying two guards would go with them, not one. Then he added that this would be the only time, one way or another.

  Scott breathed a sigh of relief as the commander of the watch went to fetch David and the guards who would take them to the woods. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to work after all.

  8

  Bullets sparked and pinged off the asphalt as Riley ran for cover. He half fell, half rolled behind the carcass of an abandoned truck. The spray of bullets followed him, thudding into the truck’s frame.

  Hannah and Brandon were nowhere to be seen. Riley had been cut off from them when the jeep full of dead soldiers appeared out of nowhere.

  Riley cursed himself for leading his family here. There shouldn’t have been a road at all, not this far out in the country, much less a major one littered with the ruins of cars and trucks. The only things that should have been up there were trees and dirt trails. Riley didn’t have the faintest idea where the road led, but it had seemed safe. Figuring they didn’t have time to follow it in the woods until they could cut around, he chose to walk it. Now he was paying the price.

  He heard the crack of Hannah’s .30-.06 somewhere in the distance. Damn the woman! he thought. If she and Brandon had reached the trees, they should’ve just kept going; they shouldn’t have stopped to save him.

  Left without an alternative, he leaned around the end of the truck to see what was happening on the road. One of the dead stood several yards away, focusing its AK-47 on the tree line. Riley’s military training took over, and he seized the chance. His M-16 opened up, sending a stream of rounds into the dead thing’s chest and up its torso until, with a wet popping sound, the corpse’s rotting head burst like a melon, spewing brain matter onto the road below its feet. Its body spun, headless, and dropped. Riley was on his feet and running for a better vantage point before the body hit the ground. He’d only seen three of the things, and he figured he could handle them as long as he knew Hannah and Brandon were safe. But that was the problem, wasn’t it?

  Riley felt fire tear into his shoulder, and the impact knocked him down. His rifle went skidding away from him. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the dead man who’d shot him. The thing charged forward and lowered its rifle, to which was attached some kind of blade.

  Riley didn’t move, waited to the last possible second and grabbed for the weapon as the thing tried to spear him with it.

  Close combat with the dead was extremely dangerous. A bite, or sometimes just a scratch from their nails, was enough to infect a person with the lethal virus, or evil spirit, or whatever it was that gave the dead life.

  Taking his opponent by surprise, Riley ripped the weapon from its hands and sent the creature sprawling to the pavement beside him. It rolled at him, biting and clawing for his flesh. The thing never saw him draw the .45 automatic. He blew the brains out the back of its head.

  “Hannah!” Riley screamed, praying for an answer.

  In the distance, the monsters’ jeep roared to life. Riley scrambled for his gun, then stopped and let out a whoosh of breath as the vehicle retreated. The road fell silent.

  Blood stained the front of his shirt, leaking from the wound on his shoulder, but he didn’t feel it. He bolted, his legs pounding beneath him, to where he’d heard the shot from Hannah’s rifle. He skidded to a halt as he reached the tree line and saw Hannah in the dirt. His heart felt like it stopped beating as she looked up at him, revealing the tears on her cheeks, the blood on her hands. She was kneeling over Brandon, who lay in a growing puddle of red.

  Spots engulfed Riley’s vision, and Hannah watched him collapse.

  9

  Scott and David put on a show for the two guards accompanying them outside the breeding center. They held hands and acted eager to reach a place in the hills where they could be together intimately. The guards led them about a mile and a half from the compound before the group stopped and one of the dead men pulled out a stopwatch from its pocket. “This is as far as we’re going,” the guard informed them, and he started the watch. “You better get to it. The clock is ticking.”

  “You’re going to watch us?” David asked, horrified. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Tough,” the other guard grunted. “Get to jerking each other off or whatever so we can get back.”

  “What’s the matter?” Scott laughed. “Are you horny too? Wanna join us?”

  The guard blinked his single eyelid while the other laughed at him. Scott sprang forward, grabbing the laughing guard’s head and twisting it around so fast the neck broke with a sharp crack. It wouldn’t kill the dead man, but breaking his neck would immobilize him and leave him helpless.

  The remaining guard raised the barrel of its weapon toward Scott, tightening its finger on the trigger, but David tackled the dead man; they went down in a mess of tangled limbs as the guard’s rifle blazed away.

  Scott instinctively ducked out of the line of fire and snatched up the rifle of the guard he’d killed. He whirled to see David lying atop the other guard, his intestines scattered everywhere. The burst from the thing’s weapon must have disemboweled him.

  Scott squeezed the trigger of his rifle and held it, emptying the clip into David’s corpse and the guard below. Done, he tossed the rifle aside. Neither David nor the guard would be getting up again.

  He felt a pang of loss and guilt over David’s sacrifice, but he didn’t have time to think about it—the whole compound must have heard the brief battle. So Scott sprinted into the trees and didn’t look back.

  10

  O’Neil and Captain Steven studied the map spread out on the table before them. Steven stabbed at a point on the map with his finger. “We’ll put in here.”

  “South Carolina?” O’Neil asked.

  “Why not? This port here is out of the way in terms of the old commercial traffic routes, and it’s close enough for us to reach it within two days.”

  “It’ll still be guarded. If nothing else there’ll be those things all over the docks. I don’t like the idea of taking the Quee
n that close to land again.”

  Steven smiled. “We’re not. Not this time. We’ll sail in just close enough for the lifeboats to make it ashore.”

  O’Neil looked at the captain and blinked, completely baffled.

  “Stealth, Mr. O’Neil. It’s something we haven’t tried before. If we go in at night instead of all guns blazing, the Queen herself may still face an attack, but the dead may not notice our smaller boats until we’ve had time to do everything we need for once.” Steven saw the way O’Neil was glaring at him. “Yes, it’s more of a risk to the raiding party if the dead do notice them, and it’ll mean less supplies brought back overall because we won’t be loading straight onto the Queen, but I’m willing to take the gamble in hopes that it will save us some lives. If it works, it’ll give the raiding party a better edge than they’ve ever had before, and, well… if the Queen does become engaged, I think she can handle herself. We have before, and we’ll do so many more times, I’m sure.”

  “Sir,” O’Neil said, “I think you should know most of the crew and the people onboard still just want us to take some little island, put down some roots, and finally get off the waves.”

  Steven grinned. “No, our mobility is what’s keeping us alive, Mr. O’Neil. Perhaps you should remind these people that if we lose it, we’ve lost the war.”

  O’Neil changed the subject, avoiding an argument. “How many men will be needed for the lifeboats in this plan of yours?”

  “I was thinking about sixteen, total. That should give them the firepower and the free hands they’ll need.”

  “But who’s going to lead them?” O’Neil asked.

  11

  Scott hadn’t stopped moving for nearly twelve hours, pushing his underfed and exhausted body far beyond its limits. He nearly fell into a tree, grabbing its bark to keep his balance, but finally he dropped to his knees and vomited into the wet grass.