by Bob Howard
He snapped his fingers in the air to get their attention and said, "Okay, dirtbags. That's your last free meal if someone doesn't say this is a cool place in three seconds."
All three said it was a cool place, but with full mouths it sounded like it was their turn to speak in a foreign language.
"Okay, that was close enough. Now, do I need to repeat my question?"
"We were in a school tour group," said Sam. "Me and Perry. Whitney came along later. We went to College Park Middle School, and we came down here to meet with some Coast Guard guys for a tour of the ships. There was a much bigger ship here before, but it left. I think the Coast Guard people were trying to keep those dead things from getting on the boat because they were shooting those big guns up front." He pointed in the general direction of the bow.
"What about you, Whitney? How long have you been here?" asked Kathy.
Whitney looked uncomfortable remembering back to when it all started and everything she had been through.
"My parents brought me down here to show me where my dad used to work. He was in the Coast Guard, and he thought maybe I would like to join when I finished high school. He said it would help me build character."
Perry pointed at the Chief and said, "You look like you were in the Coast Guard, but you're too big for this ship."
The Chief always looked at home on a ship. When he stood on a deck and watched the rolling swells he looked like he belonged at sea. The comment made him smile at the boy, and all three kids visibly relaxed. He looked big and dangerous until he smiled. Then everyone around him melted.
"I was in the Navy, Perry. After that I was working for a cruise ship company. That's how I met Kathy."
"Are you two married?" asked Sam.
Kathy shook her head and told them that the Chief was married to the sea, that is until things went bad.
"Back to you guys," said Kathy. "So, you were on a field trip, and Whitney, you were here with your folks. You've been here since? That's a long time."
Whitney spoke for the group, "We've seen what happens when one of those sick people bites you. We didn't have any choice. Those Coast Guard guys, Coasties, they took really good care of us, but at the end they had to lock themselves outside because they were bitten. My mom stayed outside with them and helped fight them off at the beginning. My dad tried to get her to stay inside with us, but she said she wanted to be with him."
She told us about that first day when it seemed that you didn't know who was okay and who wasn't. Police came and tried to help. There were firemen, ambulances, and people who just wanted to do whatever they could, but gradually there was no one left that wasn't trying to bite someone else. She saw Sam and Perry's teachers attacking children in there classes, and then the kids were attacking each other.
She said they seemed like they were going to stop the infected people at the gates of the Coast Guard base, but someone inside had been bitten already, and they started biting other people who were inside. Then they had to back up to the ships. One of the ships left with a lot of people on it, but there wasn't room for everyone. They tried to get people onto this ship, but the same thing happened as before. People didn't tell anyone when they got bitten because they didn't want to get left behind, they wound up with a lot of infected people on board.
Whitney told it as if she was talking about someone else. After months of being resigned to this way of life, she had plenty of time to grieve. There was very little emotion in her voice when she talked about those last days when the Coast Guard base had been overrun by the infected. She understood her parents had stayed outside so she live.
She explained when the food started running low, they started going out for supplies and stocked up ahead of time. She said they talked about it after the first time scavengers tried to get in. They agreed they needed plenty of food for those times when they couldn't go out for more. One time the scavengers had camped on top of the Cormorant and tried to wait until the kids came out. They almost ran out of water that time, so they had made sure since then that there was always an emergency supply.
"Have you seen many of the infected in this area?" asked the Chief.
"Not for a long time," said Perry. "Even though Sam and I are just kids, we didn't want Whitney to be the only one who had to go out, and two of us could hunt for stuff faster."
"We've checked the houses for blocks. There were infected in some of them," said Whitney. "We took care of them."
Kathy and the Chief couldn't picture these three kids killing the infected, and their expressions didn't hide their thoughts too well.
Whitney didn't get angry. Being a teenager she always felt like someone was patronizing her, so it almost gave her a feeling of comfort and familiarity.
"We didn't try to stab them in the head, if that's what you're thinking," she said.
Sam said, "No, I'm too short to get most of them in the head, but it's really easy to make them follow you. We just let them out of the houses and then led them down here. When we got them to the dock we just hopped into this rubber boat tied up behind the ship and paddled away from the dock. The dummies would just walk right off the edge and sink."
"I didn't see a rubber boat," said the Chief.
"Scavengers took it," said Sam. "We weren't using it anymore anyway. We went back to the houses after we let everyone out and carried everything back here that we might need."
“Well, we won’t be needing anything from the houses around here,” said Kathy. “If this ship has enough ammunition left, it has everything we need. What do you say, Chief? Can this thing take on those gunboats we saw?”
The Chief had been thinking the same thing since he saw the Cormorant, but he wasn’t so sure. The odds were bad. The Cormorant had size and twin fifty caliber guns, but there were twelve of those gunboats. If they could reduce the number a bit and catch them by surprise, then maybe they had a chance. Of course this wasn’t the first time he was outnumbered and outgunned in his life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chief Joshua Barnes
Perry was a typical young teenager, and to young teenagers, there were very few topics that were off limits, including age.
“How old are you?” Perry asked around a mouthful of pizza and gestured toward the Chief.
Kathy grinned. She hadn’t even asked the Chief that. She knew he was around her father’s age, but he carried himself like he was much younger.
The Chief looked like he was having to add up the years, his brow furrowed.
He said, “I asked my dad that same question once. You know what he said?”
“That he wasn’t going to tell you?” said Perry.
“No, but close. He said that was for him to know, and for me to find out. So I said back to him that I was trying to find out.”
Perry said, “You just took away my answer. Does that mean I’m not going to find out?”
“That means I’m not going to tell. If you find out, it’s going to have to be some other way than by asking me.”
Perry was persistent, though, and fairly smart for a kid his age. Kathy was enjoying the exchange, and was privately rooting for the kid. The Chief was as physically fit as any man her age, but she had respected the Chief as her senior since the moment she had met him. Even then she had deferred to his wisdom because his age meant experience. She may have been given a blank check by the cruise ship to organize a way to stop the infection from spreading, but when she was introduced to him, he didn’t seem in the least bit offended that a young woman had been given the responsibility. The only person who had been offended was the ship’s doctor, and he was just an ego with legs.
The next question seemed to surprise the Chief, because his eyes found Perry’s as soon as the words left his mouth.
“So, if you won’t tell me how old you are, will you at least tell me when you went to Kodiak for your cold weather training?” he asked.
“Someone’s been paying attention in class,” said the Chief. “Okay, I’ll give you t
hat much. I went to Kodiak in 1988.”
“I knew it,” said Perry triumphantly. “You’re between fifty and fifty-five years old, but man you’re ripped like you’re twenty-five. You must’ve been hell on wheels in training.”
“Wait a minute,” said Kathy. She was digging up a memory from somewhere about 1988 and Kodiak, Alaska.
Perry, Sam, and Whitney were all focused on Kathy. It was her turn to furrow her brow, and she was looking up at the ceiling as if the memory was up above her. When she lowered her eyes down to the Chief, her mouth was half open, and the Chief looked uncomfortable.
Always modest when people talked about his abilities, the Chief looked away from Kathy. His achievements were likely to make it even more uncomfortable for him than his abilities, and Kodiak had been on the news for weeks. Everywhere he turned, someone was calling him the hero from Kodiak.
Kathy was only a few months old when it happened, but she remembered from a History class in school that there had been a weak attempt made by foreign troops to establish a foothold on American soil.
Her teacher had been talking about the War of 1812 and about how the United States was one of the few countries in the world that would be difficult to invade. For one thing, the Bill of Rights had ensured there would be armed resistance, but the US military was second to none.
Kathy’s mouth was still open when the Chief finally looked up at her. He asked, “Do we have to talk about it?”
“I think the kids would like to know what you did in Kodiak, Chief. I mean, hell. I’ve always felt safe with you along for the ride, but I would’ve felt even safer if I had known that was you.”
“What happened in Kodiak?” asked Perry.
The Chief still didn’t look like he was going to say anything, so Kathy gave the conversation a little nudge.
“You’re looking at the man who led a group of Navy SEALS in the successful defense of American soil. In 1988 a small force of North Korean soldiers managed to reach Alaska with the idea that they could set up a forward base and bring in more troops. The news said they probably had help from the Russians."
The Chief cleared his throat and said, “Maybe you should let me tell it, Kathy.”
“We’re all ears, Chief.” Kathy was more than glad to sit back and let the Chief take over. He so seldom talked about himself that there was plenty she didn’t know about him even after all they had been through.
“The training center is named Naval Special Warfare Cold Weather Detachment Kodiak,” the Chief began. “It’s where they sent Navy SEALS after the initial twenty-six week of SEAL qualification training.”
Sam said with awe, “You mean it was training for people who already finished SEAL training?”
“Something like that,” said the Chief. “The base was built as a cold weather training center to get SEALS ready for covert operations in North Korea. At least that was the original idea. The funny thing was that the North Koreans who tried to take the base from us didn’t know two things. They didn't know the base was a Navy SEAL training center, and they didn't know we didn’t have any guns.”
“Their intelligence was so bad, that they didn’t know anything was even located on the island except a state park, but the woods were so thick it was easy to get lost.”
“Did you say you didn’t have any guns?” asked Whitney. “Why wouldn’t SEALS have guns?”
“It was only training for survival in cold weather, not fighting,” said the Chief. “We only carried rubber rifles. They were as heavy as regular weapons with ammo, but they wouldn’t get messed up by being in freezing cold water, and they made sure we spent plenty of our time in freezing cold water.”
The Chief looked at the three young people in front of him, and he could see he had their attention. He also saw out of the corner of his eye that Kathy was looking at him with a kind of sparkle in her eyes. She was proud of him.
The Chief went on, “They dumped us out in the woods with a compass, very little clothing to keep us warm or dry, and expected us to find our way back to the base. There were forty of us, and when we stumbled into the North Koreans, we thought it was part of the training at first. After all, we were training to fight those guys, and they showed up on our island.”
“What happened?” asked Perry.
“They opened fire on us, and we scattered. Half of our training class was captured and taken back to the base, and all we had for weapons were rubber rifles.”
“Chief,” said Kathy, “did you ever find out how the North Koreans even got to Kodiak? I mean, our defense systems must be watching for the Russians all the time, so how did they even get there?”
“As strange as it seems, Kathy, and in our case ironic, they used a cruise ship. Everyone monitoring the ship thought it was just an Alaskan cruise.”
“I’ll bet that doesn’t happen again,” said Perry.
That got a good laugh out of everyone, especially when the Chief said he didn’t think the North Koreans would make that mistake again, either. It might have worked if they hadn’t tried to take on the Navy’s best.
“Anyway, we were outnumbered and they had real guns, so we did what we were trained to do. We made weapons from trees and rocks and began taking them out. As we did, we took their weapons until we had as many as they did, and then we really took the fight to them. Every time one of their patrols would spot us, they would try to follow. We just led them deeper and deeper into the woods until they were lost."
"Did you kill them?" asked Sam.
The Chief thought it over for a moment, and he knew there really wasn't much sense in saying they didn't kill the North Koreans. They didn't know how many troops were in the invasion force, so they had to reduce the number of hostile combatants. They also didn't have the ability to take prisoners. There would be no place to keep them, and you only took prisoners if you intended to also take care of them.
"We didn't have much choice, Sam. They were holding half of our squad back at our main camp, and we learned they were torturing them to try to get enough information to figure out who we were and why we were on the island."
"When we were ready, we went into the water at night and began to swim down the coast on the mainland side of the island. It was deeper water, and we could go a greater distance without being detected."
"That had to be cold," said Whitney.
"That's why we were there," said the Chief. "We learned you could go into freezing cold water for a lot longer than we thought we could. Anyway, when we were far enough down the coast to come out of the water, the sentries weren't expecting us. They had their rifles slung across their backs, and they were messing up their own night vision by lighting cigarettes."
"We caught most of their force asleep, and to get them to talk about why they were on Kodiak, we just took their clothes away from them and tossed them into the water."
“What he’s leaving out,” said Kathy, “is that he was the leader of the squad that took out the invasion force. They called him the Kodiak Bear because of his size. The North Koreans they captured told interrogators that they had been afraid of the big bear that looked like a man.”
The kids laughed again, and for once the Chief looked like he was appreciating the attention. For a fleeting moment, Kathy thought it would be nice if he was twenty-five years younger.
“Did you get to do anymore real fighting after that?” asked Sam.
Whitney smacked him in the back of the head. Sam must’ve seen it coming because he dodged most of the impact.
“Are you a fool or something? The man led a bunch of SEALS with rubber guns against thousands of North Koreans.”
This time it was the Chief’s turn to laugh.
“It wasn’t thousands, Whitney, but every time I hear someone else tell the story something gets added to it. I’ve heard that we made bows and arrows, and I’ve even heard that we ate the ones we killed because we didn’t have enough food when we had to hide in the woods.”
That was meant to be funny, b
ut it reminded them all of where they were and what was happening all around the world.
“Do you think you can stop the infected from biting more people?” asked Sam.
We all noticed Sam’s voice crack just a little. He was sitting in the presence of a huge man who had done some huge things, and Sam was hoping the Chief could do some more.
“Sam, I may not be able to save the world, but I can promise to look out for you three.”
Kathy saw the hint of sadness in the way the Chief’s eyes were partially closed, and she could tell he was thinking about Allison. It would be a long time before he would forgive himself for her death, even if it hadn’t been his fault.
Perry brought the conversation back to the Chief’s history by asking if he was also a hero in Desert Storm. He said they had learned about Desert Storm in school, and he learned that Navy SEALS had been some of the first to go into Iraq by SCUBA diving.
“I was in Desert Storm, Perry, and there were a lot of heroes there. I was just one of the guys who did his job. There have been thousands of heroes since then, especially the ones who have given their lives over there in the Middle East.”
“I’ll bet the men who went into combat with you would say otherwise, Chief,” said Kathy. “Just knowing you were there with them had to make them feel better.”
Kathy reached over and squeezed his hand, and she could feel the bond between them. The kids, not wanting to be left out of the moment, all reached across the table and stacked their hands on top of Kathy’s.
A scraping sound from above broke the mood, and we all snatched our hands back to get ready to defend ourselves. There was a knock on the big watertight door that was unmistakably from a live person. It was quiet for a few moments, and then the knock was repeated.
A man's voice, muted by the thick steel door, called out to the kids.
"You have to come out sooner or later, you know. Why not get it over with? We'll even let you live."
"They don't know about me and you, Chief?"
"It would seem that way," said the Chief. "Just like the North Koreans. We need to find a way to use that to our advantage."