Last Stand on Zombie Island

by Christopher L. Eger

  A long, wooden-stocked rifle, almost as tall as the hippy, rested inside. A short metal scope about as long as a cola can was mounted solidly on the weapon.

  “Russian Mosin sniper rifle, eh?” Stone said as he peered in the bag. A product of Stalin’s WWII assembly lines, Stone had seen a few in Iraq where the local insurgents often made good use of them. They could reach out almost a full kilometer with pinpoint accuracy.

  “Ever shot that thing?” Reid asked.

  “I bought three, 800-round cases of ammo back for that Y2K scam and got about a case left. It’s a pretty groovy old gun,” the hippy said, putting the earpiece of his mp3 player back in his ear as he zipped his guitar case up.

  “You’ll do,” Stone said and patted the hippy on the back as the man nodded to the sound in his ear buds.

  “Yeah, yeah, fucking groovy, man. I beat up hippies in the ’70s, eat a dick,” Reid muttered through his dip behind Stone.

  “Let’s get them sworn in, Top, training starts tomorrow.”

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER 27

  USCGC Fish Hawk (WPB 87375), Gulf Shores Marina

  Chief Hoffman sat on the deck with his head resting against the life ring on the hook above him. He bounced the back of his head against the life ring rhythmically to a beat only he could hear.

  “This shit is gonna get old fast, kid,” the Chief said to Myers as he blew smoke up into the air from his menthol, the young Coastie standing by the Mark II machinegun on the port bow. The cutter’s only other seaman was operating the Mark II on the starboard bow.

  A 66-foot twin-masted sailing sloop from Destin was dead in the water 300-yards off the cutter’s bow. The sloop had appeared early that morning from the Gulf and signaled that they had no radio. A crowd of about a dozen stood on her deck looking across to the Fish Hawk and its ominous machine guns.

  “Fly a yellow Q-flag if you have one and remain on your boat for 72 hours, anchored away from the dock, or we will open fire on you, understood?” called out Jarvis’s voice over the loudhailer.

  The collective group on the sloop could be seen nodding and talking to themselves.

  “If you need food or water just signal and we will have some brought to you. We only do this for everyone’s safety,” Jarvis called out to the boat. This brought smiles from the new arrivals as they waved and began to make their way just off the harbor to drop their anchor and moor for the next three days.

  Since coming back from Dauphin Island, the Fish Hawk had anchored just off the marina, acting as quarantine vessel. It was their job to check every boat coming into the marina for infected, and add anyone clean enough to pass to the list of new residents. It was boring and usually they would only see one or two new boats a day. Refugees from Mobile or Pensacola who had been at sea during the outbreak on fishing trips or recreational cruises made up the most part. The boaters had found their original harbors overrun and wandered the coastline trying to find a safe port. None relayed good reports of the coastal cities of Florida they had passed to get to Gulf Shores.

  The cutter was able to maintain her existence but not much else. The Cook had fired up the desalination equipment; making their own freshwater at a rate of 200-gallons per day. This meant they had all the water they could drink, and short fresh showers. Commodities donated by a local restaurant whose owner was a retired Coastie augmented whatever they already had on board, and what they could catch with the fishing poles and tackle the crew had.

  This kept the cutter’s contact with the shore to a minimum, which is just the way Jarvis wanted it.

  The Fish Hawk had some 2800 gallons of fuel oil in her tanks when she left Dauphin Island on the first day of the outbreak but she was starting to run low. While at anchor she only used four gallons an hour on her generators, but after ten days, she was riding high in the water.

  Myers, the Coastie on the port machinegun, was an 18-year old fresh out of training. The poor kid had needed six months to get through Cape May. Somehow, he had been reverted twice during boot camp. On his first day aboard, Hoffman had caught the kid trying to sneak a four-pack of hard lemonade onboard in his bag. Now the young man looked like he was growing a mustache. The fresh faced kid needed to shave every three days, more out of principal rather than need, so his effort resulted in nothing more than a thin film on his upper lip.

  “What’s on your lip, kid? Forget to wipe it after chow or something?” Hoffman asked.

  “I was thinking of growing a ‘stache, Chief.”

  “Just hold up right there. A ‘stache is a commitment. It will change your life. A mustache will rock your world. It’s noble. You ever seen a porn star without one? All I am missing is a red Ferrari. Ever seen how a mustache can take a punch? The enemy sees this mustache and I am inside their OODA-Loop, which is right where I want to be. It repels cold sores, hell even Jesus had one,” Hoffman explained.

  The two stood there as the young seaman laughed and looked out over the calm water. A dozen boats were moored around them waiting for their quarantine to end.

  “Is it true what the Cook was saying about the Skipper, Chief?” the kid asked Hoffman.

  “Well that depends on what he said, Seaman Myers,” Hoffman replied.

  “He said that you two were stuck on that bridge fighting for your life, and the Skipper left you there with no support. He also says that the Skipper refused to let us handle business at Dauphin Island,” the boy said quietly

  Hoffman lit another cigarette. He was down to his last square and was dreading the end of the line. “The Skipper is young and this is his first command. You should know something about how that works. Didn’t your mom tell you that you learn as much from mistakes as you do from successes?”

  The boy blinked and shrugged, “Rodriguez and I wanted to go ashore with you guys at the bridge, but Skipper told us no.”

  “Cookie and I had it under control up there and besides, someone had to stay on the boat and man the machineguns, copy? Besides, doing anything at Dauphin Island would have been a waste of ammo.”

  The boy nodded. Once you have their buy-in, the rest was cake. Hoffman had been an NCO for years and knew that was the secret. Some kids had to be shown the light, others had to have their balls beaten down by the light, but it was all up to them and he could do it both ways. It may have been Jarvis’s command, but it was the Chief’s boat. When the first coastal cave dweller took a canoe out to sea that was large enough to have a crew, you can bet he had a Chief Petty Officer on board to make sure they came back.

  “Now quit talking shit about the L-T or I’ll fuck your world up and hide your body in the dirty oil tank,” Hoffman said as he stripped the butt of his cigarette and stepped inside the hatch.

  “Aye aye, Chief,” the boy said smiling.

  Hoffman moved through the hatch and down into the Cook’s gleaming stainless steel galley. The cutter’s two machinists, grimy from their daily work with the boat’s engines and generators, sat at the table in the salon and played chess on a small magnetic board. The Cook stood in his galley and was jotting items down on a steno pad, counting his dwindling inventory.

  “We’re gonna have to get some real groceries, Chief, the cupboard is pretty bare,” said the Cook, rubbing his bald head.

  Hoffman nodded and looked at the two machinists, “How are we looking on diesel?”

  “Down to the last two hundred gallons,” one said without even looking up from the chessboard.

  Hoffman nodded and climbed the ladder while looking back at the Cook. “Remind me to kick your nuts later,” he said to the man as he climbed the ladder up into the bridge.

  “What the hell did I do?” the Cook asked, pausing on his steno pad.

  Hoffman ignored the man as he rose up through the bridge’s floor on the ladder. He found Jarvis, along with the ship’s engineer, who was responsible for all things engine-room related, and the Bosun, who was effectively Hoffman’s understudy. The Engineer was busy working a calculator and jotting down in
formation with the stub of a pencil. The Bosun was busy transmitting on the ship’s RT-2400 HF radio just as they had every hour for the past several days. To conserve radiation being emitted from the device, they only powered up the radar every four hours for a few minutes to get a snap shot of the area out to 12-miles.

  The Cutter’s Skipper sat in his chair and glared out of the portside window at the same water they had been watching forever.

  “Afternoon, gang,” Hoffman said, his impressive mustache waggling like a furry seabird in flight as he spoke.

  The men nodded back and muttered.

  “Any luck with the radio calls, Ops?” Hoffman asked the man working the radio set.

  “We have been getting something fading in and out,” the Bosun said.

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  This indeed was news. The last radio transmission received from a command element had been more than a week ago. The Skipper had ordered it posted in the galley before it was taken down and filed away in the chart drawer. It was not a warm and fuzzy note.

  “What was it?”

  “Some distress calls from a cruise ship out of Mobile. They aren’t giving a position but I got it on a radio bearing due south out into the Gulf,” the Bosun said.

  “We going out, Skipper?” Hoffman asked Jarvis, who was still scowling out the window. The ebony man was cracking his knuckles loudly.

  “No can do. They mentioned infection on board and they are dead in the water.”

  “We could set up a tow,” Hoffman offered.

  “We are a STAN-2600 design, can only tow 200-tons deadweight. We looked up that liner. It’s the Gulf Mariner. She goes 73,000 tons so that’s a big no-go,” the Engineer said, still working his calculator. “Besides, we have no idea of their location other than a bearing, and don’t have anything that big showing on the scope so it must be way the hell out there.”

  “We have been discussing this for a while, Chief. I hate it but there is nothing we can do for them,” Jarvis said.

  “But we have them on radio.”

  “And you know as well as I do that HF can reach a couple hundred miles with the right situations and we have no fuel to go anywhere. Besides we are under orders to maintain the quarantine on the port so we just sit here until further,” Jarvis spit out.

  Hoffman looked around and only got a shrug from the Engineer as the man grabbed his calculator and climbed down into the galley and out of the discussion.

  The Chief dug in the chart drawer and pulled out the last official communication they had with the rest of the service. He read it over again. It was as depressing as it was the first time he read it days ago.

  CQ CQ CQ DE NMN NMN

  BT

  010001Z OCT 13 FM COGARD CAMSLANT CHESAPEAKE VA/NMN

  TO ALCG ALNAV

  BT

  UNCLAS

  USCG NOW CLOSING DOWN CONTINUOUS HF WATCH CEASING ALL OPS IN THE HF BAND. AS WE CONCLUDE OUR WATCH, WE WISH YOU FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS.

  WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?

  SIGNEED CG COMLANTAREA, ACTING

  BT

  With that, they were on their own. The only ship left in the fleet as far as they knew. Hoffman slid the message back into the chart cabinet drawer and stared out the window.

  “Well Chief, let’s take the small boat out. I have a meeting ashore with Major Reynolds and the rest of the town apparently,” Jarvis said over his shoulder as he stood up.

  The Chief arched an eyebrow, “Meeting, Skipper?”

  “Yes, apparently there is a Russian submarine out here somewhere.”

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER 28

  The Community Center was standing room only. Most of what was left of town, along with the growing throngs of new arrivals, had gathered for the first town meeting since the outbreak. Nearly a hundred guardsmen, their ranks swelled by new volunteers, lined the exits and milled around the parking lot as a show of force. The new volunteer guardsmen were dressed in a myriad of uniforms but all wore the familiar ‘MP’ brassards on their sleeve as identification. It was the Major’s idea.

  Billy and his new extended family leaned on the wall of the center and shared stories with neighbors, former coworkers, and acquaintances that filed past them.

  “Looks like we have a good turnout, Major,” George Meaux said to the shorthaired woman as he walked up. He had a worn leather portfolio bulging with papers and looked to have lost twenty pounds in the two weeks since the outbreak. At the base of the stairs to the stage were Reynolds, Stone, Jarvis, and the 3-Blind-Mice exchanging military gossip.

  “It’s all yours, sir,” Reynolds said to the red-faced civil servant. The building had been hooked up to the Police Station’s emergency generator. The genny provided enough juice to power the lights and the public address system, but not the air conditioning, and the hall was already starting to smell with the odor of a few hundred unwashed bodies, burping fish soup.

  George cleared his voice as he took the stage, walking to the podium in the center. He tapped the microphone and waited for the feedback to whine over the assembled crowd.

  “Good afternoon, ladies, and gentlemen. For those who do not know me, I am George Meaux, the City Manager. For anyone that needs to see me—my office is across the street at City Hall and my door is as open as I can make it.”

  This brought a few low boos and murmurs from the crowd.

  George plowed onward like a pro, “We called this meeting to bring everyone as up to date as possible with our current situation, and hopefully we can all get on the same page here.”

  He pulled his glasses from the pocket of his stained suit jacket and unfolded them with one hand as he pulled notes from his portfolio with the other.

  “First of all, I just want to express my thanks to the city public works department. They have kept the water system up and running, have cleared the streets, and managed to collect most of the victims of the outbreak. If you should come across a victim that has not been picked up, please contact my office and we will take care of the situation. For sanitation reasons, we ask that you not perform any home-burials as we have a very low water table here on the island.

  “The next order of business. We are forming a beach patrol to comb the island on both the bay side and gulf side. Captain Stone has detailed a few of his hummers and a number of guardsmen to both ride along and perform foot patrols. They have full law enforcement authority and we expect to have them start these patrols tomorrow.”

  “Can these things swim?” a faceless voice called out from the crowd.

  This brought a chorus of questions from the crowd; George motioned to the front row of the crowd and waved an overweight young man to come up.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please. Please bring it down so we can get this information out. I would like to introduce Mr. Michaels; he is a biologist who taught science at Gulf Shores High School up until the outbreak. Many of you may remember him as our baseball coach who took us to the 2A finals this last year.”

  “Isn’t that your science teacher?” Billy whispered to Cat as the man walked past them to the stage. “The one who had the mask on when I came to get you at school during the outbreak?”

  Cat nodded.

  As the man lumbered up the stairs, George continued talking, “Mr. Michaels has been helping us by pooling all the research on Disease-K we can come across, so that we have a better idea of what we are dealing with.”

  The teacher replaced George at the podium, “As far as the question of if we think the infected can swim, all I can say is that we don’t think so. No one has ever seen an infected victim swimming. It does not appear that they are capable of the complex coordinated muscle movements required to keep afloat and move about in water. This would make sense as most primates—with the exception of humans—can’t even swim.”

  The chorus of voices in the meeting ranged from doubtful to hopeful in their vocalizations.

  The teacher raised his hands in a c
alming manner, “It should be stated however, that it is conceivable for one of these infected persons to fall into the water and sink. If carried by the tide and current they could wash up on shore and with that possibility, coupled with the fact that we are not sure if they have to breathe or not, we feel these precautions are in order and hence the reason for the daily beach patrols coupled with other measures.”

  “What the heck is Disease-K anyway? I thought zombies were impossible,” a man asked the teacher.

  “Well the term zombie isn’t actually correct. That is a mythical creature. Our victims seem to have passed clinical death and yet somehow remain animated. The last actual news broadcasts we received mentioned the metabolite Hydroxy-Kryptopyrrole Lactam in the brain of infected victims. High levels of Kryptopyrrole cause extreme stress and psychotic tendencies. Abnormal levels of Kryptopyrrole have been noted in the brain stems of executed psychotic killers for decades. It’s basically liquid crazy, and if you have enough of it in your system it takes all inhibitions away and turns the victim into a rabid beast in a human’s body,” the science teacher explained to the crowd.

  It was as much a no-shit statement as anyone could have said. Everyone present had his or her own experience with that fact. Infected children had slaughtered each other, women flayed their husbands, and kindly old grandfathers raped the family dog to death. The most insane perversions had taken place. Destruction took an epic scale. Windows run through, cars overturned, furniture smashed. The infected had attacked everything and everyone around them.

  The zombies seemed to want to destroy anything they could get their hands on, not just uninfected humans. One reanimated and immediately took to destroying a brick wall with her bare hands. After a few hours, her fingernails were gone, followed by the fingertips and then the whole fingers. When an MP shot her through the brainpan with a 12-gauge slug the next day she had ground herself down past the elbows. Her bloody stumps no more than exposed pink bone and red-blue muscle wailing away on unharmed Chicago red brick.