The Last Town

by Knight, Stephen

  They emerged behind the wet bar. The salon was large with a gigantic L-shaped settee at one end to their right, flanked by two leather occasional chairs and behind a cherry wood coffee table. Directly across the room from the bar was a formal dining area with a large lacquered table surrounded by six plush chairs.

  Norton began to sweat anew as he stepped toward the salon entrance. He knelt in front of the wall beside the door and opened a cabinet, exposing the yacht’s electrical bus. He inserted the boat’s keys into the panel to unlock it then began flipping switches that would activate systems to bring the yacht more fully to life. The climate control system kicked on, and cool air began issuing from the vents hidden behind cherry wood valances.

  “Come on,” he said, rising to his feet.

  Garcia stepped out ahead of him. They both hurried down the hall.

  As they approached a short set of stairs past the dining area, Norton pointed down a companionway to the right. “Master stateroom’s down there, if you want to check it out. Might be some stenches taking a bath in the Jacuzzi.”

  “I’ll stick with you, sir,” Garcia said.

  Norton led him through the galley to the main deck pilothouse. Two STIDD chairs were positioned in front of several black flat-screen displays. Norton switched them on, willing the Furuno black box system to boot up quickly. Outside, the gunfire picked up in intensity, and the men on the aft deck began firing as well.

  “Yeah, we’re working on it,” Garcia said into his headset. He looked over at Norton. “Listen, we need to push off from the dock.”

  Norton started to protest then thought better of it. “Okay, cut the lines. I can walk us away from the dock with the thrusters, but I’d rather do that from upstairs. Tell them to get on that.”

  He transferred control to the flybridge station then left the pilothouse. He ran up the gangway. Garcia kept up, passing on instructions as they moved. Norton unlocked the flybridge door and stepped outside.

  Again, the chill of the Pacific breeze struck him as he stepped outside. There was more gore across the white fiberglass deck, most of it surrounding the tender. The fourteen-foot center console’s canvas cover had been half removed, but that was as far as its would-be users had gotten. Bloody footprints were tracked all across the deck.

  Norton went straight for the flybridge helm station. He frantically removed the Sunbrella console covering and switched on the displays. The Furuno system had finished booting up, so the GPS came online immediately. Even though he didn’t need it just yet, Norton energized the radar system. From its mount high above the flybridge, the radar could see for over seventy miles. On the MTU control panel, he started the number two engine, which came alive with a shudder. The shudder gave way to a muted roar as the big motor powered up and revved normally. Norton repeated the process for the first engine, and it too awakened with a coughing rumble. Even though both engines were cold, they were operating normally. Norton studied the temperature gauge, watching as the latter slowly rose into the standard operating range.

  He stepped away from the console and looked out over the starboard side. Bodies lay all over the dock, many more than Norton had expected. A seemingly endless line of stenches was streaming into the marina, and they had formed a mound that abrogated the locked gate. The corpses were falling over it, picking themselves up, them shambling toward the idling Pacific Mariner yacht.

  “We good to go?” Garcia asked. He moved to the side of the flybridge and raised his rifle to fire.

  “Yeah, usually I’d wait for the engines to warm up,” Norton said.

  Garcia fired, and two hundred feet away, a stench collapsed to the dock. He repeated the process three more times, causing a miniature pileup that provided a temporary break in the dead’s advance. “I don’t think we’ve got a few minutes,” he said.

  “Can you give me two?” Norton had to shout over the firing.

  “Stand by.” Garcia spoke into his microphone as he continued to fire, dropping more zombies.

  Norton went back to the helm station and consulted the displays. The engines were still warming up normally, which meant the raw water intakes weren’t blocked. That was a great sign, because the last thing he wanted to do was go over the side and try to clear the sea chest if a zombie was stuck in it.

  Satisfied that the yacht was slowly inching its way toward an orderly departure, Norton joined Garcia at the railing and raised his H&K. There was already a decent-sized pile of motionless corpses on the dock, but he figured he might as well try to add some more numbers to it. His rifle cracked, and he was satisfied to see a stench drop as the back of its head exploded, showering the ghouls behind it with bone fragments and black ichor.

  “We can give you two minutes, but we’ll need to leave sooner if you can manage it!” Garcia shouted.

  “Okay, let’s do this. There are boat hooks in the storage locker on the aft deck. We’ll use two hooks to hold us in place once the tie-downs are released. We can stand off maybe eight feet or so until the engines warm up enough to take us out.”

  “Do it!” Garcia said. “Do whatever you can!”

  Norton slung his rifle and sprinted for the winding gangway that ran to the aft deck. Dried blood covered the handrail, so he didn’t use it. The storage locker was underneath the cushions on the settee. He ripped off the Sunbrella covering, flipped up the cushions, and opened the locker. He removed two telescoping boat hooks and extended them to their full fourteen-foot length. He tossed both onto the dock, and the man guarding the swim platform waved one hand in quick acknowledgement.

  Norton waved back and returned to the controls. Garcia was still hammering at the dead, and the pile in the middle of the dock was quite substantial. The corpses trapped on the other side were clambering over it, but the obstruction slowed them down enough that Browning and the other man could continue their work. The two shooters standing out from the yacht weren’t in immediate danger of attack.

  Norton moved to the helm and checked the instruments. The engines were warming but still hadn’t entered the low band for operation. Ah, the joys of giant diesels, he thought.

  “How are we looking?” Garcia asked.

  “Well, we’re not dead yet,” Norton responded.

  Zombies had penetrated the walls surrounding other docks, which meant they would eventually be able to cross over to the one the Argosy was tied to. And others were splashing through the shallow water, advancing toward the idling yacht. They bobbed as they entered deeper water then slowly sank beneath the surface. Norton realized they were perhaps a bigger threat than those dockside. Even though the Pacific Mariner weighed seventy-plus tons, the propellers, rudders, and stabilizers were still vulnerable, and damage to any could leave the vessel disabled. He checked the temperature readouts: still not in the operating zone but close.

  “Garcia,” he said. “Get your guys aboard and have them hook us to the tie-down cleats on the dock. They can just let out the bow and spring lines instead. I’ll try to hold us in place with a little power.”

  “You got it, Mr. Norton!” Garcia passed the information over the radio.

  Norton put the bow and stern thrusters into standby, then he called up the chart-plotter display and activated the radar. Both inputs were transposed on the nineteen-inch flat panel, giving him excellent additional insight into the local environment. He heard a fusillade of fire, and he looked to starboard. The two security guys were falling back, and he could no longer see Browning and the other man. A moment later, Browning appeared, carrying a boat hook and running up the side deck. He leaned over from the box and managed to secure the hook on one of the stout tie-down cleats. He was just in time because the bow began to pull away from the dock in the gentle current. Then, the stern started to swing out... and kept moving.

  “Are we hooked up in the back?” Norton shouted.

  Garcia looked up from his rifle’s sights. “What? Say again?”

  “Are we hooked up in the back?”

  Garcia leane
d over the side of the flybridge. “No! Fucking Rowland dropped the boat hook!”

  “Browning, let go!” Norton yelled down to the deck. “Let go!”

  Browning unhooked from the cleat just as a zombie grabbed the long boat hook. The pair struggled for control for a few seconds before Browning yanked the stench off the dock and into the water.

  Browning pulled in the hook and held it up for Norton to see. “Got it!” he shouted with a smile.

  “Fucking great, you saved a forty-five-dollar boat hook,” Norton muttered. He grabbed the thruster joysticks and moved them to the left, walking the big yacht away from the dock.

  As the craft crept away at a leisurely rate, more zombies pushed down the wooden landing, surging toward it. They splashed into the water where Norton could no longer see them, but he saw Garcia lean over the side of the flybridge once more. His rifle cracked, again and again. Brass cartridges tinkled as they rolled across the deck.

  “Garcia, tell Browning or someone to get up to the bow and stay there!” Norton yelled. “I need someone to look ahead of the boat and make sure we’re not going to drive into something. There could be some sunken boats out there!”

  “Done,” Garcia said after a pause. “Hey, we’re about fifteen feet from the dock now.”

  “Everyone aboard?”

  “Yeah, except for Lennon. We’re good to go?”

  Norton advanced the throttles slightly, adding some power to the idling engines. They still weren’t fully warmed up, but he had no choice. The yacht would start drifting in the current, and he didn’t have enough room to spin it around into another position so the thrusters could keep it stable. There was very little engine noise as the twin diesels spooled up a bit, but the vessel stopped drifting. Using the thrusters, Norton held the big yacht in position a decent twenty-five feet from the dock. The water depth was just over nine feet, which meant the underside of the boat was still vulnerable to any zombies traipsing along the bottom, but the big Nibral screws were kicking up enough silt and sludge to blind them. He was willing to take the risk they couldn’t damage the boat’s running gear.

  “Another minute or so, and we’ll be underway,” Norton said. “Okay, what about Lennon?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to need to pick him up,” Garcia said. “He’s okay, but he’s getting into some tight spots, driving around out there.”

  “Understood. Where is he now?”

  “Hold one.” Garcia spoke into his microphone then listened to the response. “He says he’s still out front, on Harbor Drive.”

  “All right. Tell him to drive due south on Harbor. It curves to left at the end, and there’s a circular parking lot down there where it meets Ocean Drive. He should drive over the curb and as far onto the beach as he can get. Once he gets stuck, he needs to bail out and get to the end of the stone jetty. We can get him with the tender. Any of you guys know how to operate it?”

  “Hell, yes. We’re Marines, sir. We know boats.”

  Norton jerked his thumb to port, where smoke rose from the smoldering structures in nearby Port Hueneme. “Tell it to the Navy, champ.”

  “Hey, Norton! Let’s get going!” Browning shouted from the bow, where he was holding onto the stainless-steel railing. “What are we waiting for?”

  Norton peered at the temperature and fuel flow readouts. “The engines need a little more run-up time. Keep your shirt on, guy.”

  “Lennon wants to know when,” Garcia said.

  “I’ll need a few minutes. We need to pick our way down the channel then get into position. And then we’ll have to offload the tender. Can he hold out?”

  “He says he can, but he’s getting danger close out there on the road. The dead keep pouring in faster than he can run them down.”

  “Okay, we’re on our way. Browning, stay sharp! You see something, give me a bearing and position, all right?”

  “Oorah!”

  Norton pushed the throttles a fraction of an inch, and the Argosy began to advance into the channel. He kept an eye on the depth meter as it increased to thirteen feet, the maximum depth for that part of the estuary. It would decrease to ten feet closer to the harbor mouth, and the water would become particularly skinny off to starboard. At the far end, the water depth would increase to fourteen feet, which would give them enough depth to maneuver and deal with retrieving Lennon, assuming he made it to the rendezvous point.

  The channel made a hard turn to the right, and Norton followed it, cruising along at six knots. Moving so slowly was torture, but Norton didn’t want to go any faster for fear of striking something below the surface. While the Pacific Mariner had a thick hull, it was still only fiberglass. The last thing he wanted was to start taking on water, especially at a rate the pumps couldn’t handle.

  It took more than ten minutes to clear the channel. While the Argosy encountered no obstacles on the way, several abandoned boats had been grounded into the jetties on either side. Zombies shuffled around on the beach and picked their way along the rocky jetties. When they saw the large yacht steaming down the channel, they hurled themselves into the water and more often than not disappeared beneath its surface. Norton wondered what would happen to them as they cast about in the murk. Perhaps they would emerge again someday, waterlogged but still ready to chase down the living.

  Browning stayed at his post on the bow, keeping a lookout. Another marine remained aft, guarding the swim platform. Garcia and the rest of the team fussed over the tender. They used the davit to raise the small boat from its brackets and lower it off the port side. The center console’s outboard gas engine was slow to start, but it finally fired up. Norton used engine power to keep the Argosy where he wanted it, not wanting to take a chance on one or more zombies finding one of the anchor lines and coming aboard. The water off the boat’s transom and swim platform became foamy as the five-foot-wide Nibral props churned.

  On the beach, most of the zombies turned and looked back toward the line of houses and shops. A second later, the armored van crashed over the curb at the end of the parking lot, sending several stenches flying. The vehicle was covered with splattered gore, and the remains of a zombie was caught in its brush guard. While the ghoul had essentially been chopped in two, it still flailed about, trying to crawl up the vehicle’s blunt snout to get at Lennon.

  “Damn,” Norton murmured.

  The van raced onto the beach, blasting through a clutch of zombies without slowing. But when the sand became less packed, the heavy vehicle floundered. After chugging forward another thirty yards, it lost momentum. Its rear tires kicked up a rooster tail of sand, and Norton could hear its diesel engine bellowing.

  The driver’s door popped open, and Lennon alighted from the vehicle. He sprinted for the rock jetty, kicking up sand. Zombies moved after him, most at a shuffle, others at a surprisingly fast trot. Lennon mounted the jetty and raced to its end. At the same time, two Marines took off in the tender. The zombies in the water turned when they heard the outboard engine pick up, and the sight of the small vessel bouncing across the water energized them into action. Some of the stenches were in water shallow enough that they might be able to make it to the tender before it could take on Lennon and get away.

  Shots rang out from the Argosy’s deck as Garcia, Browning, and a third man opened up. Even from three hundred yards out, the three men found their targets with an impressive accuracy. In less than a minute, the immediate vicinity around the pickup point was clear of all ghouls.

  But hundreds more of the dead streamed onto the beach. The herd surged toward Lennon like an amorphous beast. Norton hit the yacht’s air horns, which ripped out a long, loud blare. That captured the attention of several stenches, and they slowed, momentarily captivated by the commotion. Norton kept at it, rhythmically firing off the horns. Many of the zombies on the beach actually altered their course, heading for the shoreline, as if they’d forgotten all about Lennon and the smaller boat.

  Man, these things really are dumb.

  Lennon
made it to the tip of the jetty before the boat pulled in. He turned and gunned down a couple of the faster stenches. Several others emerged from the waters of the channel and clambered onto the jetty. Lennon and the crew on the boat picked off as many as they could, but the numbers were in favor of the dead. Lennon was running out of time. He stared at the tender for a second then dropped his pack and dove into the water. Behind him, zombies leaped off the jetty to resume the chase.

  Norton continued sounding the horns, wishing he could do something more to help. “Come on, dudes,” Norton whispered. “How tough is it to pick up a single guy?”

  The tender reached Lennon, and the man in the bow bent over and grabbed onto Lennon. The boat rocked from side to side, and Lennon floundered in the water for a few seconds before he was able to clamber over the side. He collapsed on the floor, while the man piloting the vessel cranked the wheel hard to starboard. The tender accelerated away from the jetty just as hands emerged from the water. The zombies groped around but only managed to touch its fiberglass chines before the small boat powered away.

  A minute later, the tender arrived at the Argosy. Garcia returned to the flybridge and worked the davit, retrieving the small center console after Lennon and the others had safely disembarked. Norton used the throttles to keep the big boat somewhat stationary while the smaller one was brought aboard. A wet and bedraggled Lennon joined him and sank into one of the STIDD chairs, shivering in the wind.

  “About time,” Norton said.

  Lennon grunted. “You got any coffee on this tub?”

  “About fifteen different varieties. Why don’t you get down below and take a shower? Grab the VIP stateroom. It’s in the bow.” Norton gestured at the sliding, smoked-glass door that led below deck. “I’ll hold us here for a few minutes while you get yourself squared away.”

  “No, we need to get underway,” Lennon said tiredly. He checked his watch. “We’re over an hour behind schedule. Get us out to sea, Norton.”