Last Stand on Zombie Island

by Christopher L. Eger

  “How long we get back to the harbor, Captain?” Ted yelled up to Billy.

  Billy looked down and advised that they were coming up into the marina in just a few minutes.

  The charter boat captain rounded the breakwater coming into the Gulf Shores marina and throttled down to avoid any collisions. There was little activity on the dockside and row after row of pleasure boats, charter boats, and sailboats bobbed gently in his wake as he motored to his slip. Sirens could be heard in the distance. In his previous life as a firefighter, he had learned to tell the difference from the sound of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances and to Billy it sounded like all three coming from multiple parts of town.

  “Get ready with that line, kid,” he said even as Lance, who had spent most of his life as a deckhand for one charter boat or another, already stood by on the rail ready to heave a line over the post and to step off onto the slip decking.

  Normally Billy would back the Fooly Involved into her slip to enable her to make a smooth and impressive sortie out of the harbor when carrying a charter out to sea, but that was the furthest thing on Billy’s mind at this point. He had not gotten to or from his kids in more than twenty minutes.

  He killed the engines as they drifted into the slip and the vessel glided to a gentle bump with her fenders out as Lance stepped off the fore of the boat and began tying her up. Billy had already stepped down from the cabin and was making his way to the rail.

  “Sorry about the way the trip turned out; call me if you guys want to reschedule. I’ll make you a deal,” Billy said as he stepped over onto the pier and moved to leave his boat, deckhand and charters behind.

  “Lance, lock up the boat and be safe, kid,” he said as he left the boat to the thoroughly pissed off deckhand.

  Billy jogged across the docks and through the fence into the parking lot. He felt his old .38 snub nose bounce inside the cargo pocket of his shorts against his right knee as he ran. He had slipped it in there quietly just before they made port. Within five minutes of coming into the marina, he had his truck started up and was on the main road to the high school.

  Gulf Shores High School was about a mile away from the marina and ordinarily would have been a short drive but this was not an ordinary day. He clicked on the truck’s FM radio and scanned for anything other than music.

  “Hurlburt Field in Florida has been hard-hit by an outbreak that has infected up to 100 airmen on the key Air Force Special Operations installation at Fort Walton Beach, Florida,” he heard on the radio.

  “‘Civilian workers fear the bug could spread to them,’ said a source who works in the Education Building on Lukasik Avenue. Some of the people there, we are told, worry about catching the virus and bringing it home to children and other family members,” the radio continued.

  “Meanwhile, closer to home, reports of hospitals overcrowded with massive outbreaks of the new virus in Mobile, Selma, and Birmingham has prompted Alabama Governor Patrick Evans today to declare a statewide state of emergency and activate National Guard units to assist with crowd control and possible rioting.

  “The Governor’s move came as the President today responded to Evans’ request last night for aid by declaring the state a disaster area, opening the door for federal funding to flow into Alabama.

  “‘I am thankful to the President for recognizing the havoc this crisis has inflicted on communities across the State’ Evans said in a statement. ‘Now that our request for a disaster declaration has been granted, critical federal aid can reach the individuals, families, and businesses that need it the most.

  “In last night’s press conference, Evans said 700 National Guardsmen would be deployed by noon, with the potential for up to 3,000 if needed, to assist with relief efforts. He did not call for any specific evacuations or quarantines, but warned residents of all areas to closely monitor the situation and prepare for the possibility of swift evacuation or extended quarantine.

  “‘These are very dangerous conditions, and they will be during the outbreak and after the outbreak stops,’ he said at the Alabama Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters in Clanton.”

  Billy’s truck ensnarled in traffic as he approached the high school. The school, a product of the expansion of the small gulf coast village, was less than a decade old and counted nearly 300 students. The parents of just about all of those kids seemed to be at the school trying to pick their children up.

  He parked his truck along the sidewalk a block from the school and went on foot. A group of crying young girls rushed past him, led by an ashen faced parent.

  “What is going on?” he called after them.

  “There was some sort of outbreak here and at the elementary school. Kids that were out of town for the weekend came in sick and had some sort of fit,” said the parent, pushing her sobbing teenage girls before her as she turned and hurried away.

  Billy stood there silent for a second to let what she had said sink in. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tried it again.

  No service. Call failed. No text messages. No updates.

  He threw the phone down against the pavement and was already moving toward the campus again as it shattered into a half-dozen components in his wake. His daughter was a sophomore at the high school. His son was in sixth grade at the elementary school three miles away.

  As he got closer, he pushed through a crowd of parents collected in groups speaking in excited terms and made it to the office. He heard names being read over the intercom speakers echoing off the concrete and cinderblock construction of the school.

  He wedged his way into the office. The fact that Billy had only moved to Gulf Shores a year ago made him an outsider to the local group of parents that had largely grown up together.

  “Catherine Harris,” he said to the numb looking administrator behind the counter, her hair a mess from running her hands through it, “I am her father and I am here to pick her up.”

  “Wait outside, let me call her. You said Cathy Farris?” the administrator asked.

  He gripped the counter, “Catherine Harris,” he said placing emphasis on each syllable.

  “Ok. Wait outside please, sir,” she said.

  He ebbed back into the crowding sea of parents and sidestepped through the office door into the hallway. Other parents were there trying desperately to get their phones to work. The group collectively complained about the poor cell service amongst themselves. A short bearded man with a pair of wire cutters in a leather sheath on his belt and a phone company polo shirt shook his head and spoke up to them.

  “Unless you have WPS, you can hang it up,” the phone technician spoke between crooked teeth.

  “What the hell are you talking about? I have every service they offer,” an indignant parent in an expensive button-down, stated.

  “Not WPS you don’t,” the telephone technician parent continued, “It’s a service they only provide to the government cells and then only a small amount of them. Unless you have it all you get is system congestion and static, because everyone everywhere is using the cell phone at the same time and the network can’t take it.”

  “So now what?”

  “It will work eventually once the traffic dies down, but for now who knows,” the technician shrugged. “Same thing happened on September 11th.”

  Billy heard his daughter’s name read out over the intercom along with several others. He grew anxious as he continued to wait for her.

  “I heard from a lady I passed coming in that there was an outbreak here—is that true?” Billy asked to the technician directly in a hushed tone. It is hard to make small talk in a crisis.

  “That’s what they say. I’m just here to pick up my niece. An ambulance left here as I was pulling in. I heard some of the teachers talking about a shooting.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “I know right! Never thought this crap could happen here.”

  Billy was watching anxiously down the hallway as a group of four students led by a teacher made their
way down in a fast walk down to them. The teacher, a chubby man with a half un-tucked shirt had a rag tied around the bottom of his face under his glasses as a mask and was wearing a pair of latex gloves.

  Billy stepped forward as he saw his daughter in the group, her blonde hair bouncing on her shoulders as she lead them in a jog.

  “Oh, Daddy, it was so scary,” she said as she closed the gap between them and rushed into his arms. He sideways-grabbed her with one outstretched arm as he simultaneously began moving back towards the exit to get away from the school. Getting to the elementary school and his son was already at the front of his mind.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “They shot James Soto.”

  He looked hard at her then swallowed and eked out, “Shot him?”

  “Yes, I saw it. He was freaking out and running around fighting people. He bit Officer Johnson and the officer shot him.”

  “Officer Johnson?” Warren Johnson was the schools resource officer, an older police officer assigned to the school as security. Billy had taken him and his grandsons out on a charter trip to the Spur earlier in the summer. They had caught a great big 63-pound yellow-fin tuna and he used the picture in advertising handouts. To think that kindly old man had to kill a berserk teenage boy was a heady thing.

  “Yes, right in the middle of the quad. His body is still there. They threw a tarp over him so people would stop looking at him.”

  “Let’s get your brother and get home.”

  “Mr. Michaels said that there was some sort of problem at the elementary school.”

  “Wasn’t that him who brought you down the hallway?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the deal with the mask?”

  “Do you blame him? If I had a mask I’d wear it too!” she said, almost crying.

  They made it back down the sidewalk to his truck. There was a line of a dozen more cars parked behind his. He unlocked the vehicle and drove over the curb to get back on the road.

  The radio had changed from the newscast to a monotone young man reading a prepared statement.

  “The National Command Authority signed Executive Order 10995 into effect at 10:05 Eastern daylight time today. This order states that all radio and television stations, print and voice media are now under the Emergency Alert System. Executive Orders 11003 and 10999 are now in effect that has closed all air and seaports and the control of all federal highways and freeways. There is a nationwide halt to interstate travel until further notice.

  “All military leaves are canceled; all troops in all branches are ordered to report back to their duty bases or to the nearest military installation if unable to travel. All US forces overseas except those in immediate combat operations are returning to the continental US. The National Guard of the United States as well as all categories of the Reserves are ordered fully activated and all members are to report to their armory immediately. All members of the Individual Ready Reserve or IRR are to report to active duty at the closest Military Base or National Guard Armory. All military bases are to go to Defense Condition 3. All military bases are closed to civilian traffic,” the voice droned on and repeated.

  Billy looked at his daughter as he drove. She sat in the passenger seat staring at her iPhone. She was scrolling through her text messages and toggling back and forth between her applications.

  “You get any news or any contact with anyone?” he asked.

  “Every now and then I’ll get a group of text messages all come through at once. I get the internet, but every time I click on something, it won’t load. Twitter seems to still be working though because I keep getting occasional updates.”

  “You have to be kidding me!”

  “No. Everybody is posting but nobody is really saying anything other than freaking out and jumping to conclusions.”

  He closed in on the elementary school. The first thing he noticed was that there was not a huge crowd milling around the parking lot as at the high school. Other than twenty cars lined up and seemingly abandoned there did not appear to be any anxious parents at all.

  The second thing he noticed was the bodies.

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER 6

  The arm patch for the Gulf Shores Police Department is a blue square with a boat inside of a life ring surrounded by blue crabs, pelicans, and shrimp. Under the life ring is the motto Outpost of Paradise, and most of the residents, even the cops, took it seriously.

  Police Sergeant Cam Durham’s autumn was not going as planned.

  While waiting for the positive 10-27 driver’s license check on wants and warrants for dope broker Spud Barnes, he was urgently dispatched to the scene of an assault in progress. Stuffing a handcuffed and complaining Spud into the back of his patrol car, he drove full out to the address that Dispatch had given him. If he had to arrest anyone, he would wait to put them in the supporting officer’s car.

  When he showed up it looked like a scene from a Hollywood movie. The first thing he noticed was an ear in the driveway. Neither an ear of corn, nor an ear from a stuffed animal, but an actual honest-to-God severed human ear like you would see in a Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield fight.

  The next thing he knew, two men were charging at him from the front porch of the house. Blood was splattered across the pair. One had been the original owner of the ear and apparently had also lost an eye and large chucks of flesh on his cheek. The second man was crazed; his skin gouged all the way down his face by lines of fingernails where someone had tried to rip his face off.

  They did not look like they were about to invite him to a game of patty cake.

  He had been in a hundred simulated gunfights—and zero actual ones. Despite ten years wearing a uniform and all his training, he had never shot anyone in his life. Mostly what he did in Gulf Shores was drive around in a patrol car, waiting for radio calls and reading Black Belt magazine in the squad room near Dispatch when there was nothing going on.

  Durham unsnapped and drew his Glock Model 22 .40 caliber sidearm and immediately leveled it in a combat crouch.

  Watch your threat. Breathing. Grip. Sight alignment. Trigger control. Your index finger is your safety, his training reminded him.

  He was aware that he was yelling at the men to stop. That he was identifying himself as a police officer. That they were not even slowing down.

  Sights on center mass. Take up trigger slack until it begins to stiffen. Breathe.

  “Stop! Police!” he yelled.

  The weapon was recoiling back and into his hand as he was already lining it back up for a follow-up shot. Three shots center mass into bad guy number one, the modern van Gough emulator.

  Side step. Moving heel to toe while firing just like training. Never take your eye off the target yet continue to scan for threats. Three shots center mass into bad guy number two, the frantic freak.

  The two bad guys didn’t drop magically like in the movies. In training, they had been drilled that this was typical with assailants wearing body armor and they were taught the classic body-armor-cover drill. Body armor meant you had to go to headshots.

  Two rounds to the head, centered in the playing card-sized square above the nose and below the hairline. The North Hollywood Shootout had made this standard practice even in small departments for fishing villages along the Gulf Coast.

  Bang-bang. Realign on second bad guy’s nose. Bang-Bang.

  Two dropped bad guys. Ten rounds fired. Scan for threats.

  Sergeant Durham dropped his magazine from his weapon and put it in his pocket then quickly inserted another one from the pouch on the left hand side of his belt.

  Insert-rotate-operate inside your workspace.

  His original magazine still had a few rounds left in it, but you never wanted to find yourself without a fully loaded weapon. It is known as a tactical reload, and it too was part of training.

  He turned and looked at his car. Spud was still in the back seat, mouth wide-open, eyes big as saucers, and glued on the police off
icer. It is not every day that you see a cop shoot two guys in the head on a nice manicured lawn in October.

  The pounding in Durham’s ears began to subside just ever so slightly enough to hear the radio call ordering all officers to the elementary school immediately. Durham called in to Dispatch that he had just had an officer-involved shooting and to roll emergency services to his location. It was while he listened to the deputy chief order him to leave the scene and head immediately to the elementary school that Durham noticed the two suspects he had just shot in fact did not have body armor.

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER 7

  Billy felt his cargo short’s pocket, assuring the .38 was still there before he got out of the truck.

  “Stay here, Cat,” he said to his daughter.

  She was already out of the truck and closing the door. “Not on your life,” she said firmly without a hint of sarcasm.

  He grimaced and nodded slightly, still at least making an effort to imply he was in charge of her. She always had been a good girl, intelligent but strong-willed.

  The scene at the elementary school was surreal. There were more than a dozen bodies lying akimbo across the parking lot and all the way into the school. Most of the bodies were adults but a few were smaller. A trail of shoes, backpacks, books and hoodies, abandoned by their former owners littered the grounds. They seemed to have been thrown away in a hurry.

  “Let’s go find your brother. Try to get ahold of 911 but stay right by me,” Billy said firmly, looking directly into his daughters big blue eyes.

  As they made their way from the truck across the parking lot, they passed a body of a young nurse, hay colored hair matted to her head in blood. It looked as if a wild animal had clawed out her throat. Years of being a first responder at car accidents told him without stopping that she was way past anyone’s help. Her face was already turning blue and lifeless as the blood ebbed away from her body.

  The pair entered the school walkway. The metal and glass front door was propped open by a pile of a half dozen backpacks. They were heavy with books and obviously belonged to students, as at least half of the backpacks in the pile were comic book and cartoon-character themed.