by J. W. Vohs
Everyone stopped what they were doing except Luke, who moved out into the pile of bodies and used his axe to finish off the wounded. Then he pulled as many corpses as possible into the mound that had grown in front of the shooters before moving back to help with the reloading.
David filled the shotgun back up with shells and radioed Christy. She told him that they were having some trouble moving through the wreckage, but they had manage to douse most of the boats with gas and puncture a few fuel tanks. David told her that would have to be good enough, and ordered them to make their way off of the pile-up while he picked up the shooters. He shouted for Father O’Brien to head back to the dock, and the lifting of the anchor chain told him that his instructions had been heard. As the yacht began to move slowly forward David heard a shout from Luke and looked toward the shore to see what appeared to be at least a hundred of the hunters running toward the dock from the marina. The sound of the gunfire was drawing every creature within a several mile radius, and they were wasting no time homing in on the sounds of human activity.
David yelled at O’Brien and told him to continue to the dock, and as they headed in he heard a loud “whoosh” to his right and saw the pile-up spouting flames in several places as Jim guided the motor boat back into the channel. The lead hunters were turning onto the dock just as the yacht pulled close enough for the fighters to begin leaping aboard. Even through the growing fear that they weren’t going to be able to pull away in time, David felt a surge of pride watching the team withdraw. Luke was the first to jump across when the distance was still about seven feet. The teen made it with at least two feet to spare and used his momentum to jump up on top of several water-proof chests holding some of their gear. He immediately nocked an arrow and began searching for targets as the hunters surged down the dock with hair-raising howls and moans.
Gracie was the next across, and knowing that she still had rounds in the Glock she nimbly stepped to the left side of the bow and raised the pistol to cover the rest of the group. Father O’Brien already had the engine in reverse as Blake, Lori, and Jerry leapt to the deck, the latter turning with the partially filled magazine now in his AR. Less than two seconds later the fastest of the hunters leading the massive pack reached the end of the dock and began their fearsome attack. With less than three feet of water to cross there was nothing between the monsters and the humans on the yacht except the weapons the people wielded.
The first creature fell head-first into the channel after an arrow passed completely through its open mouth, severing the spine and flying on to lodge in the shoulder of a second beast. Gracie shot another in the face just as its feet hit the deck, flipping it backwards into the water even as several others completed the jump and landed on the yacht. Then the massive booms of the shotgun roared as David cleared the deck with another three-second burst of fire and lead that killed five more hunters. His barrage slowed the suicidal charge of the monsters for only a moment, but that gave Blake and Lori the time to bring their weapons into play as Jerry finally opened fire with his rifle.
The distance to the dock was now about six feet and quickly growing, but the maddened creatures had no problem leaping across the water as fast as they were running. Blake caught a huge hunter on the tip of his halberd while it was still in the air. Another ran into the skewered monster before they both fell into the channel; the force of their collision sent Blake tumbling back into the crates that Luke was standing on. Jerry missed three times before finally dropping a small, wiry female, and Gracie killed another after missing with her first two shots at the creature. Luke hit one of a trio of jumpers with an arrow through the left eye socket, but the other two hit the deck and stumbled right into Blake.
Lori panicked and dove into the pile after her husband as David finished reloading and mowed down the next rank of hunters hurling themselves off of the dock. Now the yacht was twelve feet away and moving faster, and the next two monsters only managed to hit the bow chest-first. As they struggled to hold on Jerry shot each of them in the forehead at point-blank range, and they slowly slid below the surface as still more of their pack landed on top of them when they missed the deck completely.
Blake was having a rough time of it as he tried to scramble out from under the weight of the two hunters and his wife, finally managing to pull his dagger free and thrust it through the side of the skull of a monster he was holding by the hair. Gracie had run over and finally had a clear shot at the last hunter, shooting it through the ear as it reared above Lori while trying to tear her helmet off. Luke was there beside her an instant later, and together they threw the corpses into the channel and turned to see if their friends were all right.
Blake was very sore and could hardly walk, and Vickie guessed that he’d thrown out his back when he fell into the hard-plastic crates with several hundred pounds of hunters adding to the violence of the collision. Under doctor’s orders, he was lying in the cabin after taking a couple Vicodin, and for the time being he was out of action. For a few moments they were worried that Lori might have a concussion since the hunter she’d grappled with had slammed her helmeted head into the deck three or four times before trying to pull the protective gear from her body, but eventually Vickie decided that she was simply dazed and they sent her inside to catch her breath, recover her wits, and spend some time with Blake.
While the husband and wife were being treated, Father O’Brien had backed the yacht up to the bridge and recovered the burn-crew. Jim had wrenched a knee while jumping onto the shore to escape the flames, but other than that they had come away from the mission unscathed. Now they all stood on the deck, alternating their gazes from the burning pile-up a hundred yards away, and the howling, moaning hunter-pack running up and down the main passageway between the docks. The creatures kept moving along as they tried to find a route out to the boat, frustrated but not giving up on their prey.
David was talking with O’Brien about how long he thought they would have to wait for the channel to be clear, and the priest confessed that he had no idea. The wrecked watercraft were burning fiercely, and several small explosions indicated that a number of gas tanks had succumbed to the flames. David speculated that the pile-up would burn to the waterline in another hour or two, but wondered what would happen after that.
He asked, “Hey Father, what are we gonna do about the stuff left after the fire burns out?”
“Well, my hope is that the boats will sink once their hulls are holed or cracked by the fire, but we may have to tow some of the wreckage to the side once the flames are out. We have no way of knowing if that pile-up was caused by a bunch of vessels hitting a narrow opening at one time, or if they were getting hung up on a sunken ship. My guess is that it was just a crash because this channel is pretty deep. But we’re gonna have to wait for the fire to do its work before we find out.”
The sun was low on the western horizon by the time the last of the flames had flickered out. The number of hunters had quadrupled on the shore, with at least as many zombies wandering the docks as well. The sight of hundreds of the monsters so close to the yacht was unnerving, and Luke sat up on top of the cabin with his bow and one of the ARs the entire afternoon. None of the creatures willingly went into the water, but a few of them were accidently pushed in by the restless crowd. Usually they would find the bank and use the rocks to pull themselves out, but several of the zombies never reappeared.
Finally David yelled up to the teen and told him that they were ready to try to float over the wreckage, and he needed to come down to the deck where he would be safer in the event of a collision. Father O’Brien moved the yacht forward at the slowest possible speed, and Gracie was at the bow keeping a sharp eye out for obstacles below the surface. As they covered the final yards to the crash site the priest set the engine to neutral, ready to reverse course at a second’s notice. The vessel crept slowly forward with dwindling momentum, until Gracie held up a closed fist, giving the prearranged signal to stop. O’Brien briefly hit reverse before return
ing to neutral, then dropped the anchor and headed to the bow.
“Well,” he called to Gracie as he approached her observation post, “What did you see out there?”
“I can’t see much of anything, Father,” she replied. “The water is oily and murky, with all kinds of junk floating in it. Still, I think I can see a few feet below the surface, and I didn’t see any masts or anything else to indicate a sunken ship blocking the channel.”
O’Brien looked over at David and said, “Your call.”
Luke had been standing by Gracie and David asked him, “Got one of your ‘feelings’ by any chance?”
The teen shook his head, “No, but this yacht has a pretty shallow draft, and I know the hull is solid.”
David turned to Jerry, “What do you think?”
“Well, I think we should give it a try, nice and slow.”
Christy chimed in, “If we hole this boat we’re going to drown. I’m not heading to shore to be eaten!”
“And if we get hung up out here,” David added, “we’re gonna starve to death.”
He looked around the group and said, “I’m outta my depth here. Anybody got anything?”
Sal just shook his head and explained, “ I don’t know if it means anything, but I could feel that mess moving beneath my feet when we went out there to set the fire.”
Jim agreed, “That’s right. Maybe if everything had been hung up on some crashed ship it would have felt more solid out there.”
David nodded, “Okay, that’s something to consider.”
Father O’Brien added, “These yachts are built well, David. This one can take a few scratches below the waterline. And if we do hole her and get through into the lake, the pumps can probably keep us afloat till we’re free of the marina and all of those creatures on the docks.”
David felt relief flooding in as he allowed himself a smile. “Again, that’s good to know!”
Trudy raised her hand timidly before speaking, “When Jim and I went on a fishing trip out here a couple of years ago, the guides had some sort of radar or something that could see underwater. Do you think something like that might be on this boat.”
David’s jaw fell open, and after a moment of astonished joy he stepped over and grabbed Trudy up in a bear-hug. “Oh my God, you have no idea how much I appreciate you, Mom!”
Everyone was smiling broadly, and Jerry said, “I’ll bet the house that there’s a fish finder on that motor boat!”
Luke and Gracie raced over to the craft and began unclipping the tarp covering. A few minutes later Jim nearly shouted, “There it is! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it!”
Jerry reached in and switched it on, and found that it still had power. “Let’s winch this baby over the side again and I’ll take her out over the crash site! We’ll know soon enough what’s under there!”
On a day with a lot of close calls the next half-hour went amazingly well for the group. Father O’Brien, Jerry, and Jim knew exactly what to do, and Luke and Gracie returned to their lookout spot while the men put the small boat in the water and took it out over the area where the fire had left the surface nearly opaque. They floated around the site for a while, carefully watching the screen of the fish finder and quietly talking with one another until they finally returned to the yacht with big smiles.
“There’s a lot of junk down there,” O’Brien explained, “But if we stay a bit right of center we’ll be fine.”
David felt Christy’s reassuring hand on his shoulder as he finally made the call, “Let’s get underway, Captain!”
Twenty minutes later the yacht cleared the last breakwater protecting the marina and they all looked west to see a beautiful sunset taking place. Father O’Brien used the fading light to put some miles between the vessel and the hundreds of hunters back at the marina, finally taking them into shallow water and anchoring about a hundred yards from the shoreline. The old ship lacked modern depth finders, but the pilot’s room was filled with charts of the lake that the priest knew how to use. He also assured everyone that the weather would be fine for at least another day.
“How can you be sure about the weather?” Christy asked.
“I hope you noticed that I only predicted twenty-four hours out, and that’s because I want everyone to have a restful night and not worry about us being out here on the water. If you want me to be specific then I’m only promising eighteen hours, but I spent years working on this lake, Christy, and after a while you begin to know what the weather’s going to do in the short term. Back in my day, if you didn’t pick up weather instincts pretty quickly you died or lost your ship within a year.”
“I suppose you’re right, Father. I guess I forgot about all of the experience you’ve had out here.”
He just smiled and promised, “I’ll get you to Toledo, don’t you worry about that!”
David listened politely to the conversation then asked everyone to join him in the relatively small cabin. When he had everybody’s attention he explained, “We’re not gonna use any lights tonight, so everyone grab a bite to eat and then settle in for some sleep. It’ll be light enough to travel in about nine hours, so even though we’re crowded on the ship, let’s just deal with it and we’ll try to find a place on shore tomorrow night.”
All the members of the group had stocked some basic foods in their packs, and that’s what they ate for dinner before trying to rest. A watch rotation was set up for the night and the group settled down after about an hour and remained fairly quiet until dawn. No zombies, no hunters, no storms, and no other boats bothered them that night, and after one of the most traumatic days of their lives, everyone appreciated the peaceful rocking of the gentle waves as they realized that day one of their journey was over.
CHAPTER 14
David and Christy had taken the last watch. They roused everyone before the sun broke the horizon, a pink glow providing enough light to see what they needed to see. By the time full daylight spilled over the water, the yacht was headed west and David was discussing their needs for the day. Gas was at the top of the list, but they also had to find batteries and canoes. He was open to suggestions.
Blake offered, “I went to college in Toledo. I didn’t spend much time on the river, but I did drive around town a lot, and I’ve seen the Maumee from bridges. There are plenty of marinas there, and I’m pretty sure this yacht we’re on now will get us ten or twelve miles upstream. I remember seeing that the river went shallow, with rapids, a little ways past the I-80 bridge. There are plenty of houses from there back to the bay that are right on the river. A lot of them have docks with all kinds of boats tied up there. I know I saw canoes too, sometimes right downtown. I think we can find plenty of boats and trolling motors in the Toledo area, which means that we don’t need to try to find some now and carry them across the lake.”
Father O’Brien nodded his agreement, “I spent time on the river when I was in the fishing business. The spring walleye run on the Maumee is something to see. I’ve been well past Perrysburg too, which is where virtually all river navigation from Toledo stops. The main thing I remember is that there are islands in that river, and I’m hoping they’ll be safe refuges for us as we travel upstream. But I want to warn all of you, we’ll definitely be doing some wading, pulling those canoes through rapids and other shallows. It will be slow-going for me and the little ones.”
David sighed, “Yeah, I figured we wouldn’t be breaking any speed records on the river. There’ll be dams, too. Anyway, we’ll take our time once we get there. So unless anyone has any other ideas, I suggest that we stay on the lookout for some of those shore mansions and head in on the motor boat to look for gas once we find a promising location. As soon as we have enough in the tanks we’ll just head for Toledo as fast as possible.”
Nobody had any objections, so after a quick breakfast they lifted anchor and headed west. Again the weather was nice, but David had noticed Father O’Brien staring at the sky several times with a frown on his face. He hoped the old
fisherman-turned-priest wasn’t seeing bad weather on the horizon. An hour later Luke yelled down from his observation post that they should probably go in for a closer look at the house they’d just passed—he’d gotten a decent view of it with the binoculars he was using to keep watch, and what he’d seen looked promising.
They moved in to within a few hundred yards of the home and glassed it for about twenty minutes. Most of the adults spent some time looking the place over to see if there was anything the others had missed. Nobody saw any sign of people or hunters. The house was huge and luxurious, and the dock was large enough to hold several cabin cruisers, which were missing, and the nice bass boat that was still tied up and gently bobbing in the breeze. A large building near the dock offered the prospect of finding gas without requiring the dangerous, nerve-wracking chore of clearing the house. Finally David looked over to O’Brien and waved for him to drop anchor, then he nodded at Jim and Sal to lower the motor boat.
David and Christy were going in on this trip, along with Luke, Jerry, and Gracie. They kept their helmets at their sides but otherwise were completely armored and armed for their trip to shore. They used the trolling motor to take them in silently, and after tying off at the dock next to the bass boat they left Gracie guarding the two watercraft with an AR and the Glock while they headed toward the large building that appeared to be a boat-house.
The swinging doors to the front of the structure were wide open, slowly swaying back and forth with every gust that passed by. Luke and David went in first, and they both froze at the horror that met their eyes when they entered the building. Two rather fresh, picked-over skeletons were tied to chairs lying on their sides in the middle of the blood-stained, concrete floor. Jerry came up and whispered, “Damn!”