by Bob Howard
“Sweet talker,” said Jean. “Have you always had such a way with words when you tried to charm a woman, Eddie?”
“I don’t think I ever charmed a woman before you,” I said.
She got a little impish grin on her face and said, “What makes you think you ever charmed me?”
I looked down at her belly and said, “Your Honor, I would like to enter Exhibit A into evidence…or would that be Exhibit B for baby?”
Jean laughed and hugged me even tighter.
“Okay, you lovebirds,” said Kathy. “Jean, leave the boy alone so he can get his gear ready.”
I reluctantly let Jean go and caught up with the others. Our standard list of supplies was enough food and water to last three days. If we were out longer than that, we were probably in some kind of trouble that supplies wouldn’t help us get out of. It was better to leave room for more ammunition than more food.
We gathered our gear up near the entrance of the shelter and began our routine for departure. One person always had the job of checking all of the camera angles to see if we had any infected dead roaming around on the island. This time it was Jean because she didn’t have to gear up to go outside. She scanned the whole island and gave us the bad news. She said the infected were all over the place. The good news was that they were still moving in the general direction of the moat. We didn’t have the ability to hear what was happening, but the hundreds of infected dead in the water were thrashing around so much that the noise had to be incredible.
Jean said some of the infected weren’t able to stand and were just squirming around on the beach. I went over to watch with her and saw that the beach was thick with their bloated bodies. The infected that had been caught in the nets were being washed ashore with the incoming tide, and they looked like beached fish. They were too waterlogged to support their own weight.
“How’s the area around the dock looking, Jean?” asked the Chief.
“Not as bad as the beach, Chief. There are a few that are trying to cross the path that leads to the dock. You’ll have to take them out before you can get to the plane.”
Allison looked like she was going to be sick again. She was wearing the heavy duty coveralls we had found in the storerooms, so she was well protected from her neck down, but she was holding her machete at an odd angle, almost as if she had no idea how to use it. I didn’t think this could go well.
After one last hug and kiss from Jean, we only had to wait while Molly was reassured by her parents that they would be fine. They took turns hugging her and telling her to be a good girl for Jean. Molly had been cheerful and always trying to help out with chores around the shelter, but she had stayed quiet, generally listening more than talking. She said she would be okay and that she would listen to Jean, but her lower lip was giving away her fears. Still, she managed not to cry when we began slipping out through the big door to the shelter.
I closed the door and blew one last kiss to both of them then ushered Allison away from the entrance onto the path. The Chief, Kathy, and Tom had already begun moving forward, stalking the first of the infected dead that were on the path. Bus hung back closer to Allison. Although he was like a miniature version of the Chief, he wasn’t as formidable when it came to killing with a machete. That was fine with us because he had other skills. Besides being really intelligent, he was a good doctor, and there weren’t enough of those to go around.
I kept Allison in front of me, partially so I could see if anything came at her from the sides, and partially because of the way she held her machete. I figured she was just clumsy enough to stab me in the back with it. I thought I saw Bus glance back at it himself a few times.
The first infected dead we came to had gotten much closer to the entrance of the shelter than I had ever seen before. The weather had really taken its toll, and it looked like more than one creature had been feeding on it. There weren’t any blue crabs clinging to its clothes, but there was no doubt there had been.
I had gotten into the habit of not thinking about what I was doing when I would kill another infected dead. I tried to ignore what they were wearing, how old they had been, or their gender. It didn’t matter what they had done for a living when they were alive. Some wore uniforms, and some wore business suits. I thanked God there weren’t many children.
This one was about as unremarkable as the rest, but it went down easier than usual when the Chief swung his machete. He looked back at us with an expression that said, “Did you see that?” Another stepped from the bushes, and Kathy swung low. The blade took off the left leg at the knee, and it fell helplessly backward into the bushes.
We never really stopped to watch when someone else in our group was busy killing an infected dead because it was while you were watching that you were most likely to be caught off guard. There always seemed to be another after you found one, and sometimes I wondered if they would ever stop coming.
A third infected stumbled onto the path, but this one came from the left where the ground sloped upward a bit. The slope made it stumble straight into Allison. Tom and Kathy were busy with their own infected and didn’t know what was going on behind them.
It reached for Allison with uncoordinated, grasping fingers, and her use of the machete for defense was less coordinated than the infected. All I could do was hope I didn’t cut Allison by accident as I shoved my own machete between them and then swung it in an uppercut motion. The blade came up across its chest and connected with its underarms both at the same time.
Its arms came off at the shoulders, and my blade went straight up under its chin. I watched it fall and was amazed to see my blade had severed the head from the body. Allison was screaming, undoubtedly attracting every infected dead on Mud Island, but the rest of us were looking at each other and thinking the same thing. The weather was breaking down the bodies of the infected and making them easier to kill.
We all converged on Allison at the same time. Tom tried to get her to at least stop screaming, and the rest of us formed a circle around her facing outward. For the next fifteen minutes, the bushes were constantly being parted as more infected would come through. We didn’t take turns because there were too many. We just kept swinging high and low.
At some point in time, Allison let go of her machete and just sat down on the ground. In a way it made it easier for the rest of us because we could cover her better. Tom was also able to help us instead of trying to calm her down.
Eventually there was a quiet that settled over the group as no more infected dead came at us. Allison was curled up on the ground covered in more human remains than she would have been if she had stayed on her feet. She was crying softly, but at least she wasn’t screaming.
“We have to take her back,” said Tom.
“No,” she yelled.
All of us made a shushing noise at the same time. She didn’t yell again, but she glared at each of us one at a time. We were all just waiting for her to make the next move.
She said in a low voice, “I’m not going back. I’m going with you, and I’m going to help.”
Allison looked straight at Kathy and said, “I’m not losing my husband to another woman just because she kills zombies better than me.”
There it was, finally out in the open. Kathy seethed with anger because Allison’s jealousy had gotten them swarmed by the infected dead. Tom was too dumbfounded to speak, and I heard the Chief mutter, “They aren’t zombies.”
Despite the tension, Bus said, “One of these days someone is going to explain to me why they aren’t zombies.”
That made us all relax just in time for the next wave, but this time Allison picked up her machete and started swinging at the infected that came through the bushes near her. She made us all nervous with her wild swings, but at least she was contributing.
When it was all over, she asked us in a softer voice if she had caused that last attack, and we all nodded at her. She put one finger to her lips to show she understood, and we started moving again. From my position
at the rear I saw Allison giving Kathy scathing looks, and I saw Kathy ignoring her. That was the difference between a pro and an amateur out here. One knew who the real enemies were.
When we reached our dock, there were several of the infected walking off the flat wooden boards straight into the water. We just stopped and waited for the last of them to fall in. They were apparently still being drawn in the direction of the place where the Russian ship had sunk. Even from this far away we could hear the chorus of groans from the hundreds of infected dead that had surfaced when the ship sank below the surface.
“Let’s get going,” said the Chief.
We all threw our gear into the plane that was tied to the dock and untied the mooring lines while the Chief climbed into the pilot’s seat. He always did something to foul the wiring under the instrument panel so no one could steal the plane while we were in the shelter. Whatever it was, he could fix it in a heartbeat, and he had it ready to go before we were done with the lines.
The powerful engine of the de Havilland DHC-3 Otter roared to life. Tom and I gave the plane a hard push and then jumped onto the pontoon and through the open door to the passenger and cargo hold. The Chief let the plane rotate to the starboard until he was pointing away from the dock and then increased the power. He brought the plane around the dock in a hard, sweeping turn to the right as he passed the houseboat tied to the very end of our dock.
I don’t know how many times I had seen the houseboat, but I remembered how I had felt the first time. As a matter of fact, I remembered how Jean, Kathy, and the Chief had reacted the first time they saw it. They had been awestruck to be so lucky to have found a place where they could be safe after the infected had swarmed through the cruise liner they were traveling on. Not knowing that I had a buried shelter with all the trimmings, they had been prepared to beg to stay in the houseboat.
I had been the same way when I saw it the first time, but to me it was like a cool place to live. The world hadn’t come to an end yet, and I just thought it was going to be my new apartment tied to a remote island. If it had been just a houseboat without the shelter, I probably would have just sold the whole thing because there was no internet. In reality, it was nothing more than a really good decoy. If anyone spotted the houseboat, they wouldn’t look for the shelter.
The forward motion changed from a roar and bouncing to the smooth droning of the engine and a gliding feeling. I knew the Chief had lifted the plane free of the water, and we were on our way again.
The Chief and Bus were in the front seats because they were both pilots. There was plenty of room in the passenger section of the plane, but Allison was sitting as close to Tom as she could, and that gave me more room to stretch out. Tom was visibly uncomfortable about Allison’s jealousy, but Kathy was acting like it was just another day in South Carolina. She wasn’t going to give in to Allison’s petty behavior at a time when their lives were at risk. Unlike Allison, Kathy didn’t think everything was all about her.
To lighten the mood, I called up front to the Chief and asked him to tell me again why we had to keep leaving the shelter. It worked for me and the Chief because he started laughing.
“I’m glad you asked, Ed,” he yelled over his shoulder. “The fact is that we don’t have to leave the shelter. We just do it because we’re too stupid to know any better.”
“I do it because it’s the only real entertainment we have,” said Kathy.
Not to be outdone, I said, “I do it because I like to meet new people.”
“I want to leave the shelter because I don’t like the food,” said Bus.
Tom was feeling the spirit of the moment and said, “I only do it because the pay is good.”
Five of us were laughing until Allison said, “You’re all going to die because you don’t have the sense to stay safe in the shelter.”
I thought Kathy could be scary when I saw her in full-attack mode, but the look she got on her face passed anything I had ever seen.
“Say something like that again, and I’ll put you out of this plane before we land,” said Kathy. Her voice was calm and controlled, but that look was not something I ever wanted to see aimed at me.
Allison looked at Tom for help, but the anger on his face wasn’t for what Kathy had said.
“Allison, when we get to Morris Island, you fly out with Bus while we go to Fort Sumter,” said Tom.
She started to say something back to Tom, but she moved away from him instead. She crossed her arms across her chest and fixed her eyes on a spot on the ceiling of the plane. That was somewhat of a trademark reaction from her when she knew she had gone too far. I half expected to hear her say she would be talking with her lawyer after she got back to Mud Island.
The Chief steered a course straight out to sea. We had all agreed we were less likely to be shot down by Navy ships than by land based shooters. We didn’t want to advertise our arrival at Charleston harbor, and we didn’t want to take any damage before we got there, so the plan was to fly out far enough to where the plane couldn’t be heard from land, then we would fly down the coast until we were southeast of Morris Island.
Bus was scanning the water in front of us with binoculars. Chances were that any military ship we saw would already have us in its crosshairs by the time we saw it, but it would be good to know if we had any company. After all, something had blown the Russian ship to pieces, and the odds were good it had been the US Navy.
He pointed about ten degrees to the left of center, and we strained to see what he had spotted. Bus passed the binoculars to the Chief, and he took a quick look before passing them back to me. It was a military ship, but it was too far away to tell what navy it belonged to. The Chief adjusted our course so we would be heading more to the southeast, and he gave us a bit more speed to increase our distance from the ship a little more quickly. There was no sense in provoking the ship, no matter who they were. If we weren’t a threat to them, there would be no need for them to shoot us down.
Sooner than I had expected, the Chief began turning back toward the mainland. It was a beautifully clear spring day, and the view was spectacular. Of course it wouldn’t be so spectacular close up. Even though we couldn’t see the city streets of Charleston and didn’t plan to do any sight-seeing, it wasn’t hard to imagine what it must look like. There would be no safe place for a living being to hide.
We were within view of Morris Island in only a few minutes, and the Chief adjusted his course again to bring us more to the south before approaching the island. He also lowered our altitude until we were just a few feet above the water. Atlantic swells aren’t as high as Pacific swells, so it was easy for him to keep an eye on them. I had faith that he wouldn’t clip the top of a wave and send us into a cartwheel, but at this altitude, the plane seemed to be traveling faster. The water rushed past and the shoreline grew in size.
The Chief steered down the length of Folly Beach and then came in close to shore for the final turn toward the north. It gave us a clear view of the beach houses we had passed when we traveled by boat down to the Stono River. The wide porches of the beach houses weren’t occupied this time. There were no zombie watching parties and no decks painted with signs begging for rescue.
The beach was littered with trash and long dead corpses of animals and people. When the end came to the people trapped in their beach houses, it was probably a mixed bag of attempted escapes and failed attempts to keep the infected dead from getting inside.
Kathy pointed at something on the main road behind the beach houses, and we all looked in that direction. Someone was speeding between cars and debris on an ATV. The rider looked like a well muscled surfer with long hair, and he knew how to handle his four wheel vehicle. He disappeared under a beach house that was on high stilts and emerged again on the beach. We could see tracks in the sand that he appeared to be following, and they led back to another house down the beach.
“Smart,” said Kathy. “He’s holed up in the last beach house toward the southern end of the isl
and, and he draws the infected away from the house before using the beach to get back to the house.”
The Chief said, “While he’s drawing them away, someone else either leaves or returns with supplies.”
“Should we try to recruit them?” asked Tom.
“We don’t know if they’re friendly,” said the Chief.
We were past the last house too soon for us to see if he had fellow survivors either coming to or leaving from the house. I imagined the scenario was being repeated up and down the coast, and on a less successful scale in the cities.
The lighthouse at the end of Folly Beach passed by at high speed, and the Chief gently lowered the plane to the water. He coasted toward the beach with just enough power to keep us moving forward, but the sound of the engine attracted the attention of several infected dead that appeared from behind the sand dunes.
They had undoubtedly washed ashore on Morris Island because they were of the waterlogged variety. They were almost too heavy with water to reach the crest of the dunes, and when they did, it was more like stop, drop, and roll than an attack. We would have plenty of time to unload our gear and prepare for their arrival on our part of the beach.
As the Chief brought the plane to a stop, he reminded all of us to check the water before jumping off of the pontoons. There could easily be infected under the surface or stuck in the sand. All I saw was blue crabs scurrying away from the plane, and I thought about Jean.
I was a little less worried about Jean this time than I had been when we left her at the shelter the last time. She had Molly to keep her company, her pregnancy made her less capable of going on any missions, and she had learned some valuable lessons the last time. The Russian ship was gone, but someone had sunk the ship, and they were still out there. Mud Island was also swarming with the infected dead, and she knew it.
Once everyone was out of the plane, Bus started to circle around to the other side to get to the pilot’s seat.
The Chief caught his arm as he went by. “Not so fast, Bus,” he said. “We need to make a change of plans.”