Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches

by Merritt, R. S.

  It wasn’t long before the sailor with his face shoved into the radar system yelled out that they were getting close. Another sailor staring at the machine for plotting the water depth was screaming out course corrections as he tried to guide them into mouth of the river. An alarm was sounding over and over in a robotic voice informing them to immediately make course corrections. The men in the engine room had already flipped the battle mode switch to on. That meant none of the automated safety systems would interfere with this maneuvering. The man at the communications station picked up the handset and typed in the code for an all-ship page.

  “All hands brace for impact. All hands brace for impact. On impact abandon ship. Be advised this ship is being abandoned. There will be no rescue parties. Every man for himself. All hands brace for impact.” The communications officer kept repeating the same message. He’d have loved to give an estimate of when the big ship was going to smack into the floor of the ocean, but they had no idea when it was going to happen.

  Then it happened. The ship simply stopped moving. Everything else kept going. Drew had been holding on to a metal grip on the side of some equipment. His hand slipped right off. He smashed his face into another piece of metal equipment. Around him he heard others getting beat down similarly. Physics can be a real bitch.

  Spitting out blood and nudging a loose tooth around with his tongue Drew climbed unsteadily to his feet to see what was going on. The first thig he noticed was how weird the ship felt. He assumed that was because they were wedged into the seabed now instead of bobbing around freely like they were used to. The next thing he noticed was the almost imperceptible tilt they were at. The ship hadn’t settled smoothly in the seabed. They were definitely in there at an angle. He looked out the windows but all he could see was wind whipped rain lashing them.

  The bridge slowly came back to life. The men picked themselves up and wiped off their bloody faces with their shirt sleeves. It was obvious to all of them that trying to go out in this mess and jump overboard to swim to shore was straight up suicide. Jeff immediately urged the communications officer to pipe that information around the ship. They didn’t want to see a mass exodus attempted now. A plan that’d made sense to all of them five minutes prior now seemed like the dumbest idea in the world.

  “Kill the lights in here.” Yue said. Everyone looked over to see what the young woman was talking about.

  “It’s going to attract the crawlerz. They’ll come at us like moths to a flame.” Drew stated loudly. That explanation did the trick. The bridge turned to just the pale red glow as the overhead lights were immediately extinguished. It wasn’t going to be enough. Everyone who’d been around the crawlerz knew it wasn’t going to be enough. The strengthened glass that’d held its own against surgers wasn’t going to withstand the crawlerz. They could jump higher and hit harder.

  “They’ll be here soon. I think we need to find somewhere better to spend the night.” Yue said quietly to Jeff. She didn’t want to freak everyone out. Even though the exact right state of mind for the situation they now found themselves in was to be completely freaked out. All of this because they’d pissed Blaze off. That was a secret Yue was planning on taking to the grave with her. She just hadn’t expected the grave to be coming for her quite so fast.

  Chapter 30: Treadmills Aren’t just for Drying Clothes

  Staring at the map scored a zero on the helpfulness scale. There just wasn’t another way to do this. They needed a regular sized truck to haul the boat down to the water and they didn’t have one. None of them wanted to try breaking into another garage anytime soon. It wouldn’t matter in a few minutes anyway since the house the boat was at would be hosting a surger rave. No way a bunch of the freaks didn’t show up after all the noise the Marines had made blowing up the garage.

  “Where to?” Mikey asked. His leg may be torn up, but he was still the better one to back the big rig out of the driveway. The pills he’d popped had taken care of him worrying about the severe pain. The way he was slurring his words had LeBron hoping they actually made it out of the driveway.

  “Let’s go down the street to the last house and park down by the dock.” LeBron said.

  “Ok but we already checked that one for a boat.” Mikey reminded him. He sounded confused. Either because of the strange request or because he’d popped an extra pill. Given the trauma from the botched garage entry and the general suckiness of their situation the relief promised by those tiny white pills was pretty alluring.

  “It’s time for a Hail Mary. I’m going to get the raft out of the back and take it across the river to see if any of those houses have a boat rigged up and ready to go.” LeBron laid out the new plan he’d just come up with. The idea had come to him while he was staring at the river. Whoever had taken all the boats from this side wouldn’t have had any reasons to get rid of the boats on the far side. If the infected managed to get on that side of the river they should actually be encouraged to get in a boat and leave. It was unlikely someone recently bitten would be able to get a boat going and get across the river anyway. This bridge had been destroyed a while ago though. Probably at the very beginning before people really knew how any of this was going to work out.

  “If you’re trying to get that done today take Gus. I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. Feels like my boot’s full of water. Pretty sure its blood.” Mikey said as he hit the brakes too hard a couple of times at the edge of the driveway. His eyes had a glassy faraway look. As soon as he had the truck parked Mikey put his head on the steering wheel. A moment later he was out cold.

  Thankful they hadn’t ended up parked in the river LeBron maneuvered his way out of the cage. He looked up to see the other Marine, Gus, was pulling in beside them. These houses had ridiculously large driveways. Together the two of them dragged an unconscious Mikey out of the cab and got him situated in the back. LeBron was rapid fire telling Gus the plan while they got everything situated. Gus pointed out if they could find a truck on the other side then they didn’t necessarily need a boat. They could drive the whole way to the island from there. The crew from the Ford may wind up scattered all along the coast anyway. It’s not like they’d hang out for too long on an overgrown sand dune.

  Mikey was in bad shape. The next truck that was supposed to meet them hadn’t made it into radio range yet. LeBron didn’t think they had time to wait. His stomach was twisted in knots with worry. They made sure Mikey was comfortable and pulled out the assault raft. They dragged the heavy raft down to the water and figured out how to inflate it. It had excellent instructions written right on the side of it. LeBron really wished civilian contraptions were the same. Like the tarps on boats for instance.

  Sealing Mikey up in the trailer Gus took control of the little outboard. They made short work of the trip across the river making landfall at the public beach access on the far bank. A few docks that needed a coat of paint and a large sandy parking lot sat beside the highway. The road became whole again on the other side of the river.

  “You sure about this?” Gus asked. He was going to be dropping LeBron off in the middle of nowhere while he went back to watch over Mikey. LeBron looked around. There was no real sign of civilization anywhere except for the road. He had no clue how long he’d have to jog before finding a vehicle he could use. There’d been a bike back by the other house but both tires had been flat on it. He had an extremely heavy pack strapped to his back. The contents being almost exclusively small shiny explosive objects.

  “I could use the exercise. I’ve been cooped up back at the base forever. Probably should’ve used the gym a little more.” LeBron said. He wasn’t sure about this at all.

  “Ok. Stick to the main road and turn on your radio the top of every hour to check in. If the other truck shows up, we’ll float across and come up the main road to help out. Hopefully with some mountain bikes or something. You might want to rub some Vaseline on your nipples to avoid the chafing you’re about to get.” Gus advised. He smiled at the expression o
n LeBron’s face before hopping back in the raft with a halfhearted wave. LeBron turned and began jogging through the sandy parking lot in parallel with the highway.

  He was seriously kicking himself before he even got out of the parking lot for not taking advantage of the treadmills in the gym back at the warehouse. He was sweating in places he hadn’t realized he could sweat in. He was also flashing back to the Vaseline comment. He was indeed going to be suffering from chafing. Unfortunately, it was an even more sensitive area than his nipples that had him concerned. By the time he got to the end of the parking lot he was barely even walking fast. More of an inspired trudge than the valet jog he’d been trying to maintain.

  He was daydreaming about shooting a ton of crawlerz. The more of them he shot the lighter his pack would get. Thinking of the pack getting lighter made him smile. He’d almost convinced himself to dump out some of the bullets when a familiar mechanical sound hit him from the distance. He stopped pretending to walk fast and stared up into the sky. He was rewarded a minute later by the sight of a huge helicopter flying by. He watched it as it banked and made its way inland. It was a big machine that could easily carry fifty people he estimated.

  He wondered if Yue and Drew had managed to worm their way on board. That’d be pretty ironic if he was killing himself trying to get to them and they’d just flown over him. Especially if they were on the way back to the base he’d just left. He’d know soon enough one way or the other. He jogged slowly past a beat to hell general store. His back killing him from carrying the pack he’d opted to torture himself with. He didn’t see any vehicles that looked like they might run so he kept going. He walked past the burnt-out husk of a large garbage truck. There had to be a good story there. Garbage trucks didn’t just spontaneously combust as far as he knew.

  A couple of hours later he found a house with a detached garage right off the side of the road. The best thing about the garage was that it had regular sized windows placed all around it. The windows allowed him to see inside the well-lit structure and verify he wasn’t walking into another crawler nest. Inside the fancy garage there was a pickup truck and one of those upgraded golf carts. The golf cart looked like it could handle any kind of terrain thrown at it. Most importantly a golf cart wouldn’t make that much noise. That was going to be critical since he was going to have his back to the ocean soon. He’d rather not advertise his presence by rolling up in a pickup truck if he could sneak in on a golf cart. The solar panels on the roof even had him optimistic the cart may have a full charge on it. He was gaining a newfound love for rich people and their environmental virtue signaling.

  Cart or truck he was hopeful he wasn’t going to be trudging along with the damned pack weighing him down much longer. He’d take either option at this point. He also needed to go find some new clothes since the ones he was wearing were drenched in sweat. He knew he’d probably passed right by a hundred houses by now. The trees towered over the road in most places. Because of that he’d been unable to tell if there were houses near him or not.

  None of the windows or doors opened on the garage when he tried them. He hadn’t expected them to, but it was always best to try the easy way first. He’d gotten lucky enough in the past that he always tried to check first now. Drew would’ve already broken a window and been putting the garage door up. They’d had their fair share of arguments over the best approach.

  LeBron took his pack off. He took his soaking wet undershirt off and wrapped it around the barrel of his rifle. He used that to break open a window as quietly as he could. Then he threw the glass shard covered soaking wet shirt to the ground and pulled a fresh one out of his pack. He had some extra clothes strategically shoved in the bag to try and keep the noise down from all the bullets bouncing around when he ran. Acutely conscious of the rapidly fading daylight he got the window open and scrambled into the garage.

  He opened the truck door first and was treated to a blast of obnoxiously pungent air. The cab of the small pickup contained the body of a dead woman. She’d been shot a few times at close range based on the holes in her slowly mummifying body. The obviously illegal tint on the windows hadn’t let him take a look inside before he’d cracked the door open. Even if he could find the keys he was leaning towards the cart after seeing what was in the truck. He closed the door and went to check out the golf cart.

  The golf cart was plugged in with its key sitting in the cupholder. LeBron unplugged it and let the retractable cord zing its way back into the cord hole on the side of it. He closed the little cover to hide the cord and began looking on the ceiling for the emergency release to open the garage door. He walked around the cart randomly smacking the garage door opener on the wall as he did so. The garage door hummed and shook and then did what garage doors are supposed to do when you press the button to open them. Loving the way this solar obsessed homeowner had outfitted their garage LeBron hopped in the cart and drove it out the door.

  It began to rain as he loaded his bulging pack into the passenger seat of the cart. He made sure his rifle and pistol were in easy reach and took off down the road. The cart went way faster than he’d expected it to go. Now he just needed to figure out how long the charge would last. His head was on a swivel as he kept a lookout for any random surgers who might come at him. The nice thing about the truck would’ve been the enclosed space he’d have been traveling in. A nice solid metal door was a lot more protection than the open air he had now. Fast or not when a crawler poured on the speed, they’d be able to catch the cart with plenty of energy left to attack him.

  Between the rain and the increased distance, he couldn’t raise Gus the next time he tried checking in. Dropping the radio into the opening in the console he focused on driving in the increasingly heavy bursts of rain. He was running low on power and sunlight when he finally made it to the ocean. He knew he was right across the sound from the small island the survivors from the aircraft carrier were supposedly making for. He stood by the road looking out over the dark ocean but couldn’t see anything. Strong gusts of wind drove the rain into his eyes.

  It was dusk. It was dusk and the clouds were rolling in effectively blotting out the sun. LeBron didn’t have time to screw around. Being out at night was a death sentence. You’d never see the crawler that stealthily stalked you from the darkness before surging forward with preternatural speed to end your existence. Looking around nervously LeBron jumped back on the golf cart and headed a little further up the main road. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself get caught out like this. His fear for the safety of his siblings overriding his own survival instincts.

  Soaked to the bone from the rain pouring sideways into the golf cart he turned off the main road and saw what looked like a big building in a parking lot. He was hoping it might prove to be big enough for him to find a closet or something to lock himself up in for the night. He drove his cart under the large overhang in front of a large revolving glass door. The door was locked so pushing on it didn’t have the desired effect. It was too late to even think about doing something stupid like shooting out the glass. The last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to the fact that there was a human out here messing around.

  He gave up on the revolving door and started trying doors and windows one after the other. When none of the main ones worked for him, he ran into the bushes to try some of the windows on the side. He put his hands up against a small window and pushed hard. Nothing happened. He pivoted to move to the next window. The curtains moved around and out of nowhere a young girl was staring at him. LeBron’s first thought was she was a crawler. He came dangerously close to shooting her. Stopping himself before the barrel of his rifle was fully extended, he motioned for her to open the window.

  The girl disappeared to be replaced by an exasperated looking older man with thinning white hair and a scraggly beard. Based on the resemblance LeBron was thinking it could be either her father or grandfather. Whoever he was he unlocked the window and stood back for LeBron to climb in. LeBron ran back to t
he cart and grabbed his bag and radio after signaling to the man he’d be right back. He pulled himself in through the window and stared expectantly at the man. The girl was shyly hiding behind the man now.

  “Close that window and follow me. Do it fast. What kind of idiot are you? Don’t you know better than to be caught outside at dark like that?” The man asked before turning and walking briskly down the hall with the girl by his side.

  LeBron hurried to get the window closed then turned to follow them. He was really hoping they had a nice secure place to crash for the night. He totally agreed with the man’s assessment of him being an idiot.

  Chapter 31: Sardines

  It stunk in the enclosed space they were all wedged into. Jeff had ordered everyone to move down into the small section of the superstructure on the deck level. It was a windowless rectangular box intended to be used as a wide passageway. It was standing room only in the excessively cramped space. The smell of body odor and the musk of death heavy in the air. They couldn’t open the doors as the flight deck was covered in crawlerz. The massive storm was whipping gigantic waves into the carrier as well. There was a very real fear they may come off the beach and drift out to sea.