Norton nodded. “You know it.” He had actually only used it at the range, but he didn’t mention that.
“Good. If you have to shoot, go ahead and shoot. Protect yourself. Don’t wait for us. Got that?”
“Good copy,” Norton said. He’d been told by several military advisers on shoots that the phrase was the usual rejoinder when asked if something was understood, and he was proud to have remembered it.
“Okay, then. We’re going to jump off in maybe two minutes. Get all your shit together, and follow me out that door when I go. Don’t wait. Just follow. All right?”
“Good copy, part two,” Norton said.
Garcia smiled thinly. “Great. Sit tight.”
The van made a sweeping turn then several additional maneuvers. Norton figured it had pulled into the parking lot and was winding around either barricades, abandoned cars, zombies, or all of the above.
When the men began to stir and abandon their firing positions, Garcia motioned for Norton to get up. “Okay, thirty seconds,” he said.
Norton unfastened his seat belt, swung into his pack, and plunged a hand into his pocket to verify his keys were still there. He would need them to get through the dock gate. The van slowed to a crawl, its diesel engine cackling. One of the men pushed open the door and jumped out. Garcia was third out, and Norton went right after him.
It was cooler along the coast than it had been at the airport, and Norton almost shivered from the sudden chill. But the sun shone bright and strong, and the breeze carried the scent of the ocean. It also carried a strong hint of rot and decay and smoke. Current circumstances aside, he found he was eager to get aboard the Argosy. It had been too long since he’d walked on her decks.
A group of zombies took notice of their arrival and began moving toward them. The parking lot had been turned into some sort of campsite or rally point, and it had been either overrun or abandoned weeks ago. There were plenty of human remains lying around to suggest the former, and the stenches lingering in the area had apparently decided to hang out and wait for another course to be served up.
“On me,” the man in the lead said. He pointed west. “Norton, this way?”
“That’s it,” Norton said.
“Grab onto my pack and don’t let go,” Garcia told him.
Norton did as instructed and hustled to keep pace with the shorter man as the group scurried toward the dock’s gated entrance. Behind them, the heavy Ford van clattered away, crushing debris beneath its tires. The entire marina was surrounded by a black wrought-iron security fence that still looked sound. When the group got to the gate, they paused so Norton could unlock it. As he worked the key, he looked through the bars. Almost every slip was empty. Even the rubber-hulled inflatables that usually adorned the shore were gone. His boat sat all the way at the end of the dock, still tied to the piers. He couldn’t tell its condition, but he suspected people had been aboard.
When he started to push the gate open, one of the Marines grabbed it and stepped in ahead of him. The man moved down the weathered wooden ramp, rifle shouldered and held at the ready. Garcia went next, and Norton stayed right behind him.
Norton heard a splash and looked to his right. A ghost-white zombie was wading toward them through the shallow water. It was covered in algae, though if the stuff was actually growing on the dead flesh or if the creature had just been wallowing in it, Norton couldn’t tell. A rifle spoke behind him, loud and sharp. The stench collapsed into the water face-first and promptly sank out of sight.
The rifle shot worked like a dinner bell. Several shapes rose up out of the water. Norton was horrified at how many there were. At this point, the average water depth was maybe three feet, and the boat slips were easily accessible. The dead floundered toward them.
“Forget about them for now,” the lead man said. “Let’s just get to the boat!”
“Oorah! Right behind you,” Garcia replied. “Norton, stay with me, all right?”
“Damn right, I will!” Norton answered.
Norton heard a car horn, and he realized Lennon was probably making the noise in an attempt to lure off the larger herd of zombies that had been following them. He wondered how the man would be able to link up with them, but he didn’t give voice to the question. As far as he was concerned, Lennon had it easy. If Norton and the others were taken out before they could get to the boat, then Lennon had his little Ford tank to drive around in, and there was no way the dead could get at him.
Gunfire rang out as zombies began to haul themselves out of the briny, polluted water. Garcia fired on the move, so Norton shouldered his expensive H&K and flipped off the safety. He tried plinking a few of the stenches as he ran, but he missed completely. He’d never trained to engage a target while running, and his lack of experience was plain for all to see. When he slowed to try to decisively eliminate one zombie, the man behind him pushed him forward. Norton fired anyway and missed again.
“Keep moving, Norton!” the man snapped. “Don’t fuck this up for us, man!”
Norton lowered his weapon and picked up the pace, hurrying after Garcia. A stench stepped off a dilapidated 1960s-vintage trawler named Loose Crews as they passed it. Inside the vessel’s salon, other zombies stirred. Norton didn’t know the boat’s owner, but he did know the man had a family. The man in the lead shot the female stench stepping out of the trawler’s cockpit, blasting a wad of dark ichor across the boat’s sun-bleached mahogany transom. Then, they were past it.
When they finally reached the towering Argosy, Norton saw all the lines were still fixed and the fenders were in place. Everything looked to be good until he noticed that the davit on the second deck was extended out over the port side. Someone had made off with his tender.
The lead man bounded onto the swim platform, his boots hitting the teak-over-fiberglass deck with a loud thump. He immediately advanced up one of two gangways that led to the aft deck. Garcia jumped down next, then he surged up the other gangway, rifle shouldered. Norton landed with more grace than he expected and emulated the two men, bolting up to the aft deck while holding his H&K at ready.
There was carnage everywhere. Apparently, more than a few people had used the boat for temporary shelter, but they had been unable to hold back the zombies. Blood was smeared on every surface, and rotting body parts were scattered across the varnished mahogany deck. Norton knew he should have been shocked at such a discovery, but it was no great surprise. He was more discouraged to discover that the entrance to the main salon was damaged. Someone had tried to pry open the thick sliding door, ignoring the signs that stated the vessel was alarmed. Norton didn’t blame them. With carnivorous corpses coming up from the aft, he would have done the same thing.
Another man dropped down onto the swim platform then faced the rear of the vessel. It was even cooler underneath the overhang, and Norton was surprised to feel sweat chilling on his brow and down his back.
“Stay right here,” Garcia said. “Give us a second to check it out.”
“You’ve got two decks, this one and the one above,” Norton said, pointing at the starboard stairway that run up to the next level. “Knock yourselves out.” He hurried to the door and opened the alarm pad next to it. The numbers on the keys illuminated when he exposed the keypad. That meant the yacht still had power, even though he was certain the shorelines were dead. He tapped in his security code, and the display changed from ARMED to STANDBY.
Norton glanced back when he heard gunfire from the dock. The rear guards were making a stand, gunning down the stenches that shambled toward them. It was easier than shooting fish in a barrel. The zombies didn’t try to evade or to protect themselves. They just walked right into it.
Norton spun back to the door. He pulled on the handle, but the door didn’t budge. The lock was broken. He turned and headed for the nearest gangway leading to the swim platform.
The guard standing watch there stepped into his path without taking his eyes off the stern. “Where you headed, sir?”
&nbs
p; “Crew quarters then to the engine room. I can get into the salon that way,” Norton said. “The door’s busted. I can’t open it from out here.”
“Wait.”
“For what, guy? We have to get this boat operational!”
“Let Garcy and Browning sweep the boat first, then we’ll get right on that. You can’t go inside by yourself. We don’t know what’s in there.”
“No one’s in there, man. She’s locked up tight, and I made sure no one could get in without a lot of time and causing a lot of attention,” Norton said, exasperated.
“Just wait,” the guard said, his tone indicating that was the end of the conversation.
Garcia came down from the bridge deck. “Clear topside. Bow looks clear, too. Browning’s on his way back.” He nodded Norton. “Looks like someone tried to make off with the tender up there. They didn’t make it. The stenches got them while they were trying to get the davit operational.”
Norton sighed. Knowing that more people had perished aboard his boat was disheartening. Well, at least the insurance company won’t find out. “Great,” he said. “Can I get to work now?”
“Sure thing,” Garcia said. “Where do you want to start?”
“Engine room, but I’ll need to go through crew quarters to get there. The salon door’s fucked up from someone trying to get inside.”
Garcia nodded. “Okay. Lead the way, and I’ll check things out. You have what you need?”
“Except for access to the boat? Yeah. Follow me,” Norton said. He bounded down the gangway to the swim platform then turned back toward the rear of the boat. Where on larger vessels there would have been a garage for storing additional gear or jet skis and the like, on his, there was only a single bulkhead door. Norton put his key in the lock, and Garcia yanked him aside before he could open the door.
“You open the door, but keep it between you and the opening,” the short Marine said. “Use it like a shield. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. Got it,” Norton said.
“Okay.” Garcia raised his rifle. “Tell me what I’m walking into down there.”
“Crew quarters. Two staterooms, one with a queen-size bunk, the other with two single bunks, over and under. Captain’s stateroom is on the port side. Crew stateroom is off to starboard. One head, just past the crew stateroom. Past that, galley and dinette. And there will be a door in the bulkhead, a lot like this one here”—Norton indicated the door beside him—“only with a port in it, so you can look into the next room.”
“Okay, like a day room?”
Norton nodded. “Yeah, like that.”
“Got it. Okay, are you ready?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.” Norton said, getting a little frustrated with the Q-and-A session. There was still a lot of gunfire going on dockside, and he was eager to get to work. The sounds of combat would only serve to lure more stenches into the marina. He didn’t see a lot of sense in waiting for them to get to the yacht.
Garcia smiled thinly at Norton’s apparent discontent. “Take it easy, Mr. Norton.”
“I’ll take it easy when we’re a few miles off the coast, Garcia. I’m opening the hatch now. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir. I’m ready.”
“Here goes.” Norton undogged the hatch and pulled it open.
Garcia held his rifle on the opening for a second then edged forward. “Lights?”
“Switch is on the right, next to the door. Should be visible on the bulkhead.” Norton then remembered that the companionway would be dark. “You want me to get them?”
“No, I got it,” Garcia said. He fumbled about with his left hand, trying to find the switch.
Norton looked past the hinges of the door and saw the light snap on, illuminating the narrow corridor with bright LED lighting. Garcia slowly disappeared from view as he walked down the short gangway, rifle at the ready. Standing by the open door, Norton felt naked and exposed. He heard the men on the dock shouting to each other as they continued broadcasting hate at the zombies. The sentry above was joined by the element leader, so he wasn’t exactly alone.
Take it easy, Norton thought. Everything’s under—
A mottled hand emerged from the water and slapped onto the swim platform. A bald head came up next, gleaming in the sunlight, then a pair of small, porcine eyes, which immediately locked onto Norton. the stench reached up with its other hand and firmed its grasp on the swim platform. It opened its mouth as if to moan, but instead, a gout of brine flowed from the opening, accompanied by a low gurgling sound.
Norton stepped away from the open door, raised his H&K, and shot the zombie through the forehead. The stench froze then slowly sank back into the water.
Hope to God it doesn’t foul the running gear, he thought, worried about the extremely vulnerable twin Nibral screws that powered the boat.
“Good shot, Norton,” the team leader called down. “You’re an expert marksman inside of five meters.”
“Thanks a million,” Norton replied.
Garcia emerged from the crew quarters. He spotted the wet hand prints on the deck and looked at Norton. “What happened?”
“Nothing unusual, just a stench rising up from the depths. Everything cool down below?”
“Yeah. I got as far as the engine room. No zombies, no nothing.”
“Good,” Norton said, slinging his rifle and walking around the open hatch. “Now get the hell out of the way and let me get to work.”
“You need me for anything? How are you going to get inside if the door’s busted?”
“There’s a service entrance from the engine room. You wouldn’t know it unless you knew where to look.”
“I’m coming with you,” Garcia said. “Go on. Get down there.”
“Suit yourself.” Norton hustled down the gangway and through the crew quarters. The door to the engine room was already open, and the lights were on. He walked into the square room, ducking a bit so as not to hit his head on the stringers supporting the deck.
The sounds of combat dimmed as Garcia slammed the hatch closed then dogged it in place. Norton checked the bilge and found it wasn’t any wetter than usual, only a thin trace of moisture from the usual seepage from the stuffing boxes, where the driveshafts extending from the twin MTU engines passed through the hull and mated with the propellers. The batteries were at about eighty percent charge, which was great, but shore power was definitely off. The yacht’s systems had been running off the cells for at least two or three weeks. He needed to get the generators running so he could charge them before trying to start the engines.
Garcia had been watching the inspections from the doorway. “So what do we do first?”
“Generators need to come online,” Norton said. “We have two of them, but I only need one running right now. I need to charge up the batteries, just in case we need to go through multiple starts. I’m not expecting any problems, but she’s been sitting for a couple of months. I just want to make sure we have enough juice to run what we need.” Norton walked toward the door and patted the two big white cubes on either side of the aisle. Each soundproofed enclosure bore the logo for Northern Lights. “These guys right here,” he said, as he knelt and checked the fluids on the two gensets. They were both good to go.
“So you do that down here, right?”
“I can, but you need to tell your guys to get ready for some noise. Okay?”
Garcia nodded and spoke into his headset’s boom microphone. Norton picked up a pair of noise-cancelling ear phones hanging next to the door and slid them on. He figured it might be a good idea to keep them handy. It was remarkable he wasn’t already deaf after all the firing in the van.
Garcia gave him a thumbs-up. “You’re good to go, sir.”
“Great. You want to step inside and close the hatch?”
After Garcia did as he asked, Norton turned to the generator on the port side. He pressed the red start button on the control box, and the generator turned right over. Norton pumped his fis
t then turned to the genset on the starboard side and replicated his previous success. Norton checked the two ten-cylinder MTU diesels. All fluids were fine, air filters were fresh, Racor fuel filters were clean, and the panel diagnostics indicated both systems were in perfect shape.
“We’re looking good down here, but now we need to get topside,” Norton said.
“Sure. How do we do that?”
Norton pointed toward the fore-end of the engine room, where a bulkhead separated the chamber from the mammoth diesel fuel tank on the other side. To the right of the fire extinguisher system was a small ladder that led to a three-by-three fireblocked hatch. “Through there,” he said. “It’ll take us to the wet bar. Climb up, turn right, and pour yourself a cold one.”
“Yeah, sounds great. Let’s do that once we’re out of here,” Garcia said. He advanced to the hatch. It was dogged closed in two places, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to open it. Once he unlocked it, he pulled his pistol. “Same as before, sir. I’ll go up and check things out. You wait here.”
“No, the boat’s too big. It’ll take too much time, and you wouldn’t know where to look,” Norton said. “Go up, and I’ll be right behind you.”
“You sure, sir? You’re essential personnel here.”
Norton sighed. “Damn it. Yes, I’m sure. Now go!”
Garcia pushed open the hatch and waited several seconds. When nothing happened, he cautiously eased up the ladder and raised his head through the opening. He twisted, looking around the salon upstairs, before climbing up quickly. Norton followed, staying close behind him.
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