“Don’t get too close to the ship!” LeBron said as a reminder when Jeff revved up the engine and took them in the direction the diver had disappeared under in. Jeff nodded and spun the wheel to avoid doing that. A huge splash directly behind them as one of the surgers tried their luck at jumping aboard.
The escaping sailor popped up. He was cutting through the water straight for them. He’d spent some time on a swim team somewhere given the impressive speed he was making. Although LeBron thought with that kind of hell behind him, he could probably doggie paddle faster than a dolphin on crank. The sailor came up beside their boat and stuck his hand up. LeBron grabbed his hand and had him halfway into the boat when he suddenly yelled and jumped backwards.
Jeff looked back to see what was going on and saw that the crewman had used up the last of his humanity to make it to their boat. At some point while LeBron had been hauling him aboard, he’d been inconsiderate enough to allow his body to succumb to the infection flowing through his veins. LeBron had sensed it and let him go before the newly infected could get his teeth into the hand helping him aboard. Unfortunately, the surgers other hand had found a tight grip on the side of the boat. His adrenaline packed body tugging him easily aboard. He was welcomed aboard by the gunfire of both Jeff and LeBron. Neither of whom were in the mood to conserve ammunition.
The corpse of the infected sailor hit the deck looking like someone had shoved a couple hundred pounds of bloody ground beef into a sailor suit. LeBron and Jeff stared down at the bloody mess for a second. LeBron jarred by how close he’d just come to becoming one of those evil things. He’d been holding a surger’s hand. It didn’t get much closer than that.
“That was close.” Jeff said taking a half step towards the corpse to make sure the surger was officially dead.
A huge splash threw water up on both of them. It dawned on both Jeff and LeBron at the same time that no one was actually driving the boat anymore. Spinning around they saw they’d drifted way too close to the carrier. Close enough that the surgers above were starting to jump for them. A loud smashing noise as one buried itself in the dashboard. The throttle snapping off under the weight.
LeBron and Jeff jumped backwards like they were at the front row of a Gallagher show and they’d completely forgotten to bring a tarp. The innards of the infected spraying out in every direction on impact. Jeff was spitting like a madman since he’d had his mouth open at the exact wrong time. LeBron was much more freaked out about the fact that they were getting closer to the ship every second. More splashes sounded all around them and another surger smashed into the deck. The two of them were trying to figure out if they should stay aboard or abandon yet another boat.
Another surger smashed into the back of the boat ripping a hole all the way through the hull. The boat began to sink. That settled that. Jeff told LeBron to jump off and swim for it. Then taking his own advice he dove off and stroked as hard as he could through the swell away from the carrier.
“Seriously?” Mikey said once they had LeBron and Jeff on board. Even Gus was shaking his head in disbelief.
“Hey just glad you were able to get out of there.” Gus said to cover up for Mikey being way too straight forward. Neither of them quite understood what Jeff’s role was now in all of this. They continued to circle the carrier futilely looking for any other survivors who may have made it off. A few more boats showed up and Mikey waved them over.
“You guys rescue anybody yet?” Carl called out seeing that Mikey and Gus had a couple of extra bodies in their boat.
“Just LeBron and Jeff!” Mikey called back unable to help himself. He kept his big grin up right until LeBron gently kicked him in his injured ankle. That shut him up and wiped the grin off his face.
Carl stared over at them for a minute. It was plain as day that he was full of questions. Finally, he just shook his head and piloted his own craft in the opposite direction to keep up the search and rescue operation.
Chapter 34: Home Sweet Home
They circled the shipwreck for three more days. No more non-infected were seen. At the end of three days, it was assumed that everyone on board was either dead or too weak to try and get out. Jeff offered the opportunity to any of the survivors living on Seabrook Island to come back with them. He told them about the warehouse and what they were trying to accomplish. Of the thirty something people still coming around for regular meetings at the demolished club most of them accepted.
One of the men who didn’t accept was one of the few lucky enough to have his family with him and still alive. His house had withstood the brunt of the storm. They had food and water to last them the next six months stored down in their basement. There was even more they could now work to dig up out of the wreckage of the other homes. He chose not to bet six months of guaranteed survival for his family against the uncertain future he saw with them on the road.
The survivors who were staying agreed to keep a sharp lookout over the next few weeks for any survivors making it off the ship. Jeff promised them they’d come back in a month or two and bring supplies to pay them back for anything they used helping out survivors. At that time if any of them changed their minds they’d be free to come back with them as well. With that piece all tied up in a pretty bow they loaded up the trucks and headed back to the warehouse.
They left first thing in the morning to avoid getting stuck out on the road after dark. Sitting in one of these trailers while the crawlerz attacked it was a traumatic experience. Considering they were transporting families that included small children they wanted to avoid having to deal with any of that. Amita had hooked up a TV and DVD player in the trailer powered by rewiring an overhead dome light. The kids were all sitting up in sleeping bags watching a Disney movie with magical princesses and talking snowmen. Amita was going to be worth her weight in canned spam. Or whatever the equivalent of gold was in this new normal. Possibly wet wipes?
Jeff spent the roughly four hour drive up in the cab on the lead truck wondering exactly what he was going to say to the President when they reported in. Their fearless leader had taken off in the helicopter after demoting him and leaving him to die. He was pretty sure the man wasn’t going to be happy to see him again. He knew for sure he wasn’t going to enjoy seeing the pompous bastard again.
They pulled into the base through the gate they’d bashed open leaving and parked the trucks in a row over by the doors leading into the warehouse. The open door and bodies scattered around the field told Jeff what he needed to know as far as why the warehouse hadn’t returned any of their radio transmissions. Sitting on the tarmac was the Chinook helicopter that’d carried the President from the carrier to the warehouse. Jeff went through all the radio channels again and they blasted the truck horn once for good measure.
All the noise managed to generate was the appearance of a handful of surgers. The surgers came running out of the warehouse and immediately jumped up on the cages surrounding the cabs. LeBron was sitting in the cab of one of the trucks with Mikey. They were both saddened to see one of the surgers was Victor. Mikey recognized a few more of the men from his team as well.
“I wonder if prioritizing the trucks was such a great idea now. I bet the infected came through the walls here like they did in the barracks.” LeBron said sadly.
“I’m not leaving them like that.” Mikey said and proceeded to roll down his window and yell for the surgers to come at him. Pretty soon he had a crowd of the surgers hanging off the cage three feet away from him. Their arms swinging wildly through the holes in the cage to try and get at him. For the first time it dawned on LeBron that if they ran into a bunch of little kid crawlerz they might have an issue. Toddler sized crawlerz could easily slip right through the holes in the cage. The sharp retort of Mikey’s gun in the cramped confinement of the truck’s cab pulled LeBron out of his musings. He made sure his magazine was full then rolled his window down to get to work as well. He was with Mikey on not letting their former friends wander around soullessly for all of eternity.<
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Jeff waited patiently for them to finish before picking up his microphone and keying it to transmit.
“Well, this was a bust. Let’s try and fuel up on the tarmac once we’ve thinned out the surgers. Once we’re topped off there’s a top-secret VIP location about six hours from here. It has plenty of supplies and basically everything we need to live long happy lives. That’s where we go from here.” Jeff let go of the mic.
“These VIPs going to be ok with us crashing their post-apocalyptic party?” Mikey asked over the air.
“They’re not going to have a choice.” Jeff responded in a voice that didn’t leave any room for argument.
The trucks lined up on the tarmac by the diesel pumps. The men piled out with weapons held high and went to work thinning out the surgers. Not even stopping at the gas station was easy anymore. Luckily, they had plenty of snacks packed in the back for the long road trip ahead.
Author’s Note:
Thank you so much for continuing this journey with me. As we all continue to journey through this global pandemic, we all grow closer. Just one big human race slowly beating our way through this crud. All of us going through similar struggles between school, work and trying to live our best lives. Many of us dealing with the sadness of relatives and friends who’ve passed or are in the hospital struggling with this disease.
In our case my family has always been into doing homeschool and I have the privilege of being able to work wherever I can find a power outlet and a flat surface. It hasn’t been a huge adjustment for us thanks to those pre-existing lifestyle choices. It’s still scary. Plenty of people in the high-risk category in my family plus a newborn bouncing around with us everywhere we go. In the midst of all this I spend my time imagining a world a million times worse off and putting that down on paper as an escape from the reality we all face daily. It can be a bit surreal.
Thank you again for the kind words, awesome reviews, and for picking these novels as your escape. Please leave a review if you’ve enjoyed them. It’s very much appreciated. Now to continue on to Book 3 where some good old boys are about to find out their network is very much dated.
Other Books by RS Merritt
Try an excellent 7 Book Series built around a Zombie outbreak:
Zombies!
Need more Zombies? Check out the 6-Book Zournal series:
The Zournal Series
Looking for something a little different? Try the Son of the Keeper Series:
Son of the Keeper
Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches Page 31