by Bob Howard
The Chief gave Kathy a final squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. When they made close eye contact with each other, she saw the sadness in his eyes and the smile that wasn’t quite what it should be. She looked back over her shoulder at Tom and we could see the words form on her lips, “Oh, no.”
Tom stepped up to the Chief, and as Kathy backed away to give him room, he stepped in close to the Chief. They embraced each other as real friends do, and I saw Tom whisper something to the Chief. I didn’t know what it was, but the Chief just nodded and said something that made Tom appear satisfied. I would learn later talking with the Chief that Tom had simply said to him that he was glad the Chief had survived the plane crash, and he was glad that Allison had not. Tom told him it was far better that she died that way rather than by being bitten and to become one of the infected dead.
The Chief told me later that Tom told him which truth he wanted to hear, so he had told Tom the crash caused Allison to suffer a head injury. She didn’t suffer, and she didn’t turn into one of the infected.
CHAPTER NINE
Jean & Molly
Jean didn't think she would ever get used to being left behind, but at least this time she had Molly. They worked out a daily schedule that included meals, time on the radio, watching the security cameras, movies, and even homework. They both kept hoping there would be radio contact with their friends, but there was still nothing. If it did happen, it would be in some cryptic way that wouldn’t divulge the secret of Mud Island.
Jean didn't really know how to set up classes for an eleven year old, but she hadn't gone through college and nursing school by luck or looks, even though she felt like she had plenty of both. So, she taught Molly what she knew...medicine.
Molly was more than interested, and she soaked up the lessons like a sponge. She didn't understand some of the math, but there were plenty of books and computer programs in the shelter to practice such things as mixing prescriptions and drawing the proper dosages into a syringe. She was especially good at remembering anatomical terms. She had a long way to go before she could do surgery, but Jean had no doubt about Molly when it came to stitches or bandaging wounds.
Jean didn’t think about the long term implications at first, but she gradually realized Molly was part of the future. Somewhere south of Mud Island, her friends and the father of her unborn child were trying to solidify that future. They could hole up for a couple of years in the Mud Island shelter and then move to another one, but from what she could tell, Mud Island was still the safest shelter of them all. Eddie’s uncle had made a good choice when he decided on this location.
She looked over at Molly who was taking a break from her studies and sitting at the old style shortwave radio that had proven its value many times over. It was one of her evening routines she looked forward to the most. She was undoubtedly hoping to hear a broadcast that included the voices of her mother and father. The headphones would always look too big on her, but in a few months she would be twelve years old.
Then there would be puberty, but without the normal distractions of the pre-infected world, it would be interesting to see what would be a crisis and what would be something for her to be excited about. There were no more young rock stars for her to daydream about, no best friends her own age, no boys to pass notes about, and no outfits to die for.
Jean thought about that phrase and what it had meant a year ago. It was said by millions of young people every day, but now dying for something was exactly that. It even meant dying so someone else could survive. Now it meant sacrifice.
The cameras spread around on the island were next up on Jean’s list of things to do. She got herself comfortable at the controls of the console that operated the cameras and monitors and scanned the surface. It was too dark for normal vision, so she switched the night vision on.
Her thoughts were on Eddie as she surveyed the surroundings of Mud Island, and she couldn’t help but laugh. She remembered when she pulled her shirt over her head to show him she didn’t have any bite marks, and she thought he was going to fall out of his boat. She would deny it to her dying day if he ever guessed it, but all of the near death experiences she had been experiencing in the days leading up to meeting Eddie had left her a bit vulnerable, and she needed to feel alive again. She felt alive when she had shown her bare body to him, and he had reacted. He reacted pitifully, but he had reacted. The memory made her smile.
The camera on the southern tip of the island was acting odd. Instead of rotating slowly from left to right, it stopped in the middle of its turn and changed to a view of the sky. Jean was just beginning to wonder if the camera had fallen over when a face appeared on the monitor.
She almost turned the camera off, irrationally feeling like the face could see her if it was on, but Jean composed herself, understanding that she should get as much information as possible about the man. She didn’t know if he was alive or if he was an infected dead, but the infected didn’t tend to be interested in the cameras.
“Molly, are you getting any traffic on the radio?”
Molly used both hands to pull the headphones from her ears and said, “There’s someone out there talking in Hispanic. I don’t know what he’s saying, but he’s just broadcasting and listening. I don’t think anyone has been answering him.”
“Don’t talk with him. I think someone just found one of the cameras, and he looked Hispanic.”
In the days and weeks of her recovery from a nasty infection she had gotten from being scratched by an infected dead, the men had kept themselves busy by installing more cameras around the island. Since they were wireless, there was nothing to hide but the cameras. They had found a case of them in the supply rooms under the living quarters, and even though they were primarily intended to use as backups for the existing security network, they had decided it would be useful to have cameras located in places that would allow them to look back at themselves.
Jean activated a camera they had put on the other side of the moat, the waterway that served as their protection from the mainland. It was a bit grainy because of the darkness and the night vision, but it was good enough. She slowly panned it straight at the place where the other camera had been aimed into the face of a rough looking, dark skinned man. From behind she could see there were two men now. They were wearing camouflaged uniforms of some kind, and each of them had AK-47 automatic rifles slung across their backs.
There was a boat partially in the view with them, so Jean rotated the camera slightly to get a better look. She couldn’t really identify the weapon mounted on the bow, but she knew it was some type of heavy machine gun. It looked to her to be something from an old movie she had seen about Viet Nam, and she thought it might be a fifty caliber machine gun. She remembered something from the movie about how the bow and stern mounted guns could be as deadly as a Rocket Propelled Grenade when they were working right.
The men both turned at the same time, and for the second time Jean felt like they were looking right at her, but this time the view wasn’t blocked by a living face. An infected dead shambled into view and walked away from the camera toward the two men.
With the moat separating the mainland from the two men, they showed little interest in the nuisance that only wanted to bite them. Most of what Jean could see for a few moments was the back of the infected dead. The shirt it was wearing was probably tacky before its owner had become a victim of the infection. It actually looked like a tourist from Myrtle Beach, about forty miles up the coast. It was wearing socks with sandals and Bermuda shorts, and an already bad hair style looked even worse.
The two men in uniform paid it no attention until it reached the water. As soon as it was a few feet out from shore, it dropped into the deeper water, and the stiff current began pulling it out to sea. The men turned and waved at the infected as it was swept away, almost as if it was going to wave back. Jean couldn’t be sure, but she thought one of the men pretended to be hurt when the infected didn’t return the courtesy of a wave, then the two of
them started laughing.
Jean moved the camera back to the boat, and she saw a third man lounging at the stern. He looked totally bored, but he was in no hurry for his shipmates to come back. He was swatting at mosquitoes and had a bright lantern on top of a small camping table. Jean switched to normal light because the lantern was like a hot flare. When her eyes adjusted and let her distinguish colors again, she noticed a patch on the sleeve of his uniform, and she zoomed in on it. It was red, white, and blue, but it wasn’t an American flag.
“Molly, do you know the flags of different countries?”
Molly grinned at Jean and nodded. She was always so happy when she was able to contribute to the group.
“Okay, then help me out with this one. There are three blue bars, two white bars, and a triangle on its side with a white star in the middle of it.”
Molly said, “That’s an easy one, Aunt Jean. That’s a Cuban flag.”
Jean thought, “Great. Just what we need.”
CHAPTER TEN
Chase Kennedy
Getting down from the wall by using the steps was almost impossible, but the Chief led the way as he dumped bodies over the side. We were all being careful of the possibility that one or more of the infected dead were in need of another bullet, and from time to time someone would say, “Live one”. Then a shot would ring out. We hadn’t forgotten that they were not alive, but there wasn’t really anything else we could call them that would get everyone’s attention.
When we got down to the end of the long barrier of bodies, we circled around and began working our way over to the cage where Chase was stilled curled up in a fetal position in the center. He had his arms wrapped around his head and wasn’t moving.
Kathy got down on one knee and spoke to him softly.
“Chase? Chase, can you hear me? My name is Kathy. We’re here to get you out of there.”
When Chase finally moved his arms away from his face, he only stared at Kathy. It was still a bit dark despite the lights, so his features weren’t clear. He didn’t appear to be hurt, but he was still in shock and was clearly expecting to die.
The rest of us were standing behind Kathy, and it may have appeared as if she was being backed up by a gang of her own, but all of us were wearing the same coveralls, so we were different from the people who had put him in the cage. They had been a ragged looking bunch that sneered at him and threatened him at every opportunity. At least when he looked at us, he saw a group of people who were waiting for him to answer instead of ordering him to speak.
“It’s okay, Chase. We’re friends. Nobody’s going to hurt you now. Give us just a minute to get this thing open, and then we’re going to go somewhere safe.”
He still didn’t move until there was a new voice behind us, but even then it was barely more than lifting his head from the ground.
“Chase, it’s me, Olivia.”
Olivia sounded out of breath, and her voice was higher than normal. She had apparently run from the control room to the tunnels and then climbed the ladder as fast as she could.
“They’re friends, Chase. They saved me, and now we’re getting you out of there, too.”
The lock that held the door shut wasn’t much trouble, but even with the door open Chase stayed where he was. He was still not sure of what was happening around him. Olivia motioned for us to stay back while she went in to him.
I didn’t know how old Olivia was, maybe just under forty, but she had the appearance of an athlete much the same as Kathy. She moved to Chase’s side and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. He flinched and pulled his arms back over his face again.
She kept talking to him as she slowly lifted his arms away from his eyes. He watched her closely, and I think we all felt like he was going to spring into action and attack her at any moment. He blinked his eyes a few times, and through a parched throat he tired to speak.
“Olivia? Is that you?”
“Yes, Baby, it’s me. It’s Olivia, and we’ve got some friends here to help us. You can trust them.”
Olivia gradually got Chase to sit up and face her, and he could see us over her shoulders. I think we all tried to look harmless to him, but that’s hard to do when one member of your group is as big as the Chief. Still, his size was somehow tempered by the kindness of his face, and Chase studied us with curiosity instead of fear. He pushed himself to a standing position and allowed himself to be led out of the cage by Olivia.
Kathy told Chase there would be time for introductions later, and that we should all go somewhere safe. It was still too dark outside to be standing around in the open with spotlights shining on us. If there was anyone we had missed, dead or alive, we were far too exposed.
Tom took the lead as we navigated through the bodies back to the hidden tunnel entrance. We filed through one at a time, and then I sealed the door. By the time I got down the ladder everyone was already in the main corridor that went to the shelter. I saw Chase up ahead looking like I must have the first time I saw my shelter on Mud Island. Of course I wasn’t being rescued from a locked cage and hadn’t been brutalized by a gang of survivors.
I had walked into my shelter when things were normal and had seen the shelter as something fun to own, not something that would keep me safe from harm. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think it was perfect because there were no video games. I seriously doubted that Chase would criticize the shelter for any reason, especially the lack of video games.
Olivia was helping Chase walk down the main corridor, and it suddenly struck me that he had a serious limp.
“Hold up just a second,” I said.
Everyone stopped, not just because I said to, but because the tone of my voice was different from what they normally heard. I think we had all become that way since the first day when we had met. There was a way to talk that meant more than what was being said. Sometimes it was joking around, and sometimes it was so serious it could stop everyone in their tracks. That’s what happened this time.
“What is it, Ed?” asked the Chief.
“I hate to ruin the party, but Doctor Bus should take a look at his leg.”
I gestured toward Chase, and everyone instinctively looked at him with an accusing look.
“I haven’t been bit,” he said with a little too much defiance.
“No one says you have been,” said Kathy, “but ask Olivia. We have to check everyone just in case.”
Olivia took Chase by the shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw some attraction Olivia had toward the younger man when she got that close to his face. He was about twenty-five years old, and even though Olivia was ten to fifteen years older than him, he seemed to enjoy her attention.
“Listen to me, Chase,” she said. “These people saved my life, and now they saved yours. They did it because they’re good people, so what more do they need to do before you really begin to trust them?”
Chase looked from one of us to the other, and his defiance melted. He leaned against the smooth wall of the corridor and let himself slide down to the floor. He pulled up the leg of his pants and showed us a nasty raw area that went completely around his ankle.
“Rope burn,” he said. “They tied a rope around my ankle and dragged me behind a boat when they brought me here.”
Doctor Bus got down on the floor and took a closer look.
“This should have been treated days ago,” he said, “but it should heal well once I clean it out. It’s not infected yet.”
To show him there were no hard feelings, I offered him a hand to help him get up.
Doctor Bus said, “Let’s get him to the infirmary, but I’m just going to clean the wound. I think a hot bath and some food are what he needs right now.”
Bus and I took Chase from Allison and supported him the rest of the way to the surgical suite. We could see that he was beginning to loosen up around us, but I couldn’t really blame him for wondering if he hadn’t gone from one cage to another. He had seen what Larson a
nd his men had done to the other prisoners, and he had fully expected to be a victim of their treatment, too.
The Chief took Tom aside and whispered a few words. They walked off together with their heads aimed toward the floor. My guess was that he wanted to talk with him about Allison, and it was a conversation that needed to be private.
Kathy and Olivia took another turn in the corridor and headed for the kitchen. I could hear the excitement in Olivia’s voice as she talked about putting together a big meal for the men. Kathy had been around us long enough to know we would eat anything, but Chase was probably who Olivia was trying to impress.
Bus helped Chase up onto an examining table and cut away his jeans with a pair of scissors. The antiseptic he used made Chase wince, but it was obvious that he knew he was being helped, and his attitude toward us began to soften.
“Who are you guys anyway,” he asked, “and where are we?”
“I’m Ed, and this is Doctor Bus,” I said, “and you’re in a bunker under Fort Sumter. A bunker that was supposed to save any high ranking politicians who could reach it in the event of a major disaster. But I don’t think they planned on zombies.”
“They aren’t zombies,” he said. “Zombies are controlled by people. Those things aren’t controlled by anybody.”
Bus and I looked at each other with an expression that asked, “Did I hear him say that?”
“Run that by me again, Chase. Did you just say they aren’t zombies?”
He started to repeat what he had said, but I put up a hand and stopped him.
“Never mind,” I said. “You and the Chief are going to get along with each other just fine.”
Over the next hour while I helped Chase get to one of the many private rooms where he could get a hot bath, I learned that he was from Atlanta and had moved to Charleston to go to college. He had seen Olivia around campus, and had a crush on her. He knew she was a lot older than him, but he had been trying to work up the nerve to ask her out when the infection began.