Zombie Ever After

by Carl S. Plumer

  Cathren was uncomfortable; she smiled but said nothing. Donovan followed suit.

  “We have been trying to restore the island—the homes, the land,” Pallaton continued. “The prison, however, we have not touched. A terrible place. A place of pain. We wish we could burn the entire structure to the ground, to ashes. As you might expect, though, stone, cement, iron, and steel do not surrender so easily to the flame.”

  “No,” Donovan said, nodding in a noncommittal way.

  “Anyway,” Pallaton continued, “when we got here, we found, as you’d suspect, no game to hunt. Plenty of rats and other vermin, but we did not then, nor do we now, consider them suitable for eating. Such issues were not a concern for us, however.”

  “Why not?” Cathren said, hoping to seem engaged.

  “The stores here were surprisingly packed,” Pallaton went on. “The warehouse, on the other side of the building we’re passing right now, overflowed with goods.”

  “But hadn’t the food gone bad?” Cathren asked.

  Donovan put his arm around her.

  “Yes, a good portion had, in fact, done so. The rest, however, had been stored in colorful cans and containers or in piles of pinkish-purple pressure-packed plastic packages. For example, SPAM,” Pallaton said.

  Donovan and Cathren stayed silent as they walked across the island and through the fog with John Pallaton.

  “Canned bread. Dehydrated eggs. Powdered milk,” he continued. He talked without a pause while pointing out the infamous landmarks of the island. “All quite edible, despite their date stamps. Of course, for fresh food, the bay provides fish and crab. Alcatraz itself furnishes us with a significant amount of bird eggs. To be honest, though, these days something seems to have gone wrong with nature’s abundance.”

  Pallaton gave the couple a complete history of the island, like a tour guide, but strictly from the American Indian perspective.

  “Now these,” Pallaton went on, “are the buildings my people captured way back in November of 1969. That building, to your left, is where AIM members occupied the island. Trudell, Oakes, Thorpe, Means, Whitefox, Eagle, all the others. With the support of thousands across the Bay, the occupation lasted eighteen months.”

  Donovan and Cathren glanced at each other, not knowing how to react.

  “This is the water tower,” Pallaton said, coming to a stop. “It fills up every time the rain falls. Water runs down the pipe into the building to the right.” He pointed to a squat structure sitting on a stumpy hill. “That’s the pump room, where we fill our jugs. The water is purified, you know. At least we believe the purification system still works. We have no way to test it other than to simply drink it.”

  They approached the main prison building, where Cathren and Donovan had spent a fitful night the evening before.

  “Here we have the prison, or what is left of the wretched place.”

  “Yeah, we’re familiar with this,” Cathren said. “Why are we here? No offense, but I’d rather be anywhere else.”

  “I think I know the reason you feel that way. You must have heard the noises.”

  Cathren looked at Pallaton, surprised. “Right. The moaning,” she said.

  “And the chains,” Donovan said. “Don’t forget the rattling chains.”

  “I can explain,” Pallaton said. “Put your mind at ease. Well, somewhat at ease. This way, please.”

  They followed him into the prison, Cathren and Donovan, tense, nervous, and ready for battle—or to run away, whichever the circumstances allowed. Rather than head toward the center of the penitentiary where they’d set up light housekeeping, Pallaton turned right. They followed him as he then made an abrupt left and entered the hall along cellblock A.

  “Welcome to Sunrise Alley,” Pallaton said.

  About midway down the hallway was a large, solid metal door. Pallaton took out his own set of keys and unlocked it. He held the door open for the couple to pass through.

  “In we go,” he said. “Come on, you can trust me.” He laughed.

  “Well, I guess so—” Donovan started to say when the moaning in the dark interrupted him. “Okay, now what the fuck is that?”

  “The thing I wish to show you. Come.”

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Cathren said. “Not at all.”

  “Please, continue down the stairs,” Pallaton said.

  The moaning continued, intensifying as they descended. Then the banging of the chains commenced.

  “What is this?” Donovan said, his anger rising, feeling Pallaton was leading them into an ambush. “Look, we’re not taking another step until you tell us what’s going on.”

  “I do not have a gun on you, do I? I am right here by your side, is that not true? However, you are free to leave, if you want. But I could use your help, your analysis about this thing I want you to view.”

  Cathren and Donovan exchanged glances for a second, and then she shrugged.

  “Okay,” Donovan said calmly.

  “Good. Thank you. Not much farther.”

  They walked down the stairs to the basement where Pallaton grabbed a torch from the wall and lit it.

  “I appear ridiculous, I know—velcome to Dar-racula’s Castle,” Pallaton said in a poor approximation of Bela Legosi’s famous accent. No one laughed. “Well anyway,” he said, clearing his throat. “The electricity, what little we have, has to be reserved for the main house.”

  They walked along in the flickering glow of the small torch. The moaning intensified, breaking out into screams at times. The chain rattling escalated, too, sounding like a subway train headed straight for them.

  “This is what I wanted you to observe. Welcome to the ‘Dungeon,’” Pallaton said, stopping in front of a hulking metal gate that trapped whatever was inside from getting out. He pointed the torch at the gate to illuminate the things beyond. The torch threw light into a large, cave-like area.

  It took a second or two for their eyes to adjust. After a bit, Donovan and Cathren began to make out beings up against the back of the cavernous space. Some stood, others sat. Still others lay flat on the dank, concrete floor. All had at least one ankle manacled to the wall.

  “There, you now can appreciate the scope of our problem.”

  “I think, well, I don’t know,” Donovan said.

  “What’s going on?” said Cathren. “Who are they?”

  “These are some of us, our people. They were healthy when we first arrived. Now they have changed. Come closer to the cage, I mean, the room,” Pallaton said.

  They peered deeper into the cave/jail cell. Each being in the cell was different from the others in some way. Some had decomposing arms, several had rotting legs, still others putrefying faces. They all made horrific noises. The ones with normal, human heads, however, drew the most sympathy. Especially in cases where the zombie-ism infected only a finger or a toenail.

  “How can this be?” Donovan asked.

  “That’s just it,” said Pallaton. “We don’t know. The problem started a few days ago, out of the blue. They each began to show these symptoms, but some are presenting more strongly than others, as you can see.”

  The contaminated rainwater, Donovan thought. Even here on this island, there was no refuge.

  The living but decomposing Native Americans made dreadful screeching and roaring noises, and pressed themselves against the metal bars. Even those with regular features no longer emitted human sounds. A couple of the creatures—not a pleasant term, but it was hard to classify them any other way—hissed viciously at the group. Donovan was sure these beings would gleefully have torn him limb from limb if given the chance.

  “We keep them chained and locked up,” Pallaton said, “because we do not know what else to do. It is not fair, not ideal, but it is necessary. As you can see, some retain human characteristics. It was difficult for us to put these here like animals, but we don’t know what will become of them, so to be safe, we’ve had to lock them in.”

  “Fascinating,” Donov
an said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “We are quite safe, though, you can be sure. Not only are they behind bars, but we have securely chained them to the wall, as well. Watch.”

  Pallaton inserted a key in a panel near the door. He pulled a lever in the wall and the dungeon door clunked open.

  “What the hell!” Donovan shouted.

  Cathren jumped backward as if playing hopscotch on an electrified floor.

  “No need to worry. See?” Pallaton said. “They remain chained and quite under control.”

  The zombie Native Americans howled and pulled against their chains. Now, normal humans would be out of luck if shackled in that way. A cuff and chain around an ankle would be security enough for permanent confinement. Not for zombies, though. With enough effort, the zombie limb, decayed and weak, would eventually break off. This allowed the zombie to go about his or her day unencumbered. In the dungeons of Alcatraz, this is exactly what happened.

  Snap.

  Crack.

  Over and over, the zombies mindlessly freed themselves, breaking the chains—and limbs—that bound them. Before long, they were all liberated, a wave of zombies storming at Donovan and Cathren. Curiously, the wave avoided Pallaton. Or, more accurately, the zombies swept around him like breakers washing past a boulder near the shore.

  Meanwhile, Donovan and Cathren ran like never before. These zombies were hungry mo-fos, with no respect for Cathren’s (currently suppressed) powers. The two of them shot out of the dungeon as if they’d seen the devil. Which, in a way, they had.

  Back in the foggy outdoors, they took a minute to take stock of their situation. Behind them, they could make out the stumbling and growling of the pack of crazed zombies lumbering inexorably after them.

  “I think,” Cathren said, “we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

  “I’m with you,” Donovan said. “Paradise lost, or Hades lost—not sure. Don’t care.”

  They headed toward the dock across the island, hoping to find something resembling a seaworthy craft for a way off the Rock.

  Chapter 64

  Cathren and Donovan skidded to a stop at the dock of the Frisco Bay. The situation upon arrival seemed bleak. The dock had fallen into disrepair, but it still managed to stay upright on its remaining intact pilings even if it wobbled while it did so. A scum-covered rowboat hung from a rotting rope that dragged in the murky water. Farther up, a bigger ship rotted in the sea, a large transport of some kind.

  Donovan had about given up when Cathren called out. “No way,” she said, eyeing a place down the path, hidden by overgrown eelgrass, duckweed, and cattails.

  “What’d you find?” Donovan asked.

  “No way,” she repeated, chuckling.

  “What? Tell me.”

  “A canoe,” she said, pointing through the plants.

  Donovan started laughing, too, as he caught up to her. Concealed in the underbrush, an authentic, American Indian canoe floated in the small inlet where it rested.

  “What the hell is that doing there?”

  “Well, kind of makes sense,” said Cathren. “I mean, another memento, a tribute to the ancestors, right? A canoe works nicely on a symbolic level.”

  “Yeah, but it looks like a kid’s canoe; probably not seaworthy. Nice to have for fishing offshore, though, I’d imagine,” Donovan said. “Enough talk. Let’s go down, get in, and get away from here.”

  They scurried down the embankment that ran next to, and just under, the dock. Once at the canoe, they hopped in, untied the line, and shoved off.

  The large canoe held two paddles along with, to Donovan and Cathren’s surprise, a small engine, about three and a half horses. If the thing ran, and if the tank still held any gas, the engine would have just enough steam to push the little craft through the choppy waters.

  “Here,” he said to Cathren. He passed one of the oars to her. “Have you ever paddled a canoe before?”

  “No, but—” she said.

  “Okay, we’ll be fine. You need to—”

  “—I’ve paddled kayaks plenty of times,” she said, finishing her thought. “I imagine it’s about the same.” She smiled.

  “Yes, of course,” Donovan said, returning her smile. “Pretty much exactly the same.”

  They paddled with all their strength, working to get as far away from The Rock as they could, as fast as possible. Not fast enough, as it turned out.

  “At the end of the pier!” Pallaton’s voice cut through the remaining fog. “They are escaping in our ceremonial canoe!” No doubt, Pallaton never intended for them to leave. It wasn’t their advice Pallaton sought, but their brains and bodies. A way to keep his zombie tribe-mates alive, a little longer.

  “Keep paddling and don’t look back!” Donovan yelled to Cathren.

  “I wouldn’t consider doing anything but,” she called back to him, disarming him with her cheeriness.

  They splashed across the waves about twenty yards from shore, still trying to get their rhythm. An experienced paddling team would have been a hundred yards out by this time. The problem was, Donovan and Cathren sometimes worked counter-productive to each other, as well as out of sync. He’d pull one way, she’d stroke the opposite. Twice they started to circle back to the island due to paddling on the same side of the boat.

  Within a few minutes, the pair got the hang of synchronized rowing. They managed to put some distance between themselves and the docks, but then Cathren’s oar started to act more like a rudder than a propeller, turning the craft back toward the dock again.

  They had lost their temporary lead. The zombie Indians had arrived, coming up over the crest. They roared past Chief Pallaton and the other “human” Indians who had dashed out of various buildings. The undead seemed to reject their fellow, still-alive native peoples as sources of nourishment.

  Instead, the creatures headed straight to the dock with a bead on the struggling Donovan and Cathren—who continued to swirl helplessly in the breakers. The zombies, focused on their victims/dinner, stepped right off the edge and into the water, as if they didn’t know that the dock would end, that there would be no more walking surface. The mutants plunged in like windup toy soldiers, and then sank like anchors, one after another after another.

  Turned out, zombies couldn’t swim. If any question remained on the topic, this laid it to rest.

  Cathren and Donovan’s non-zombie pursuers, however, were excellent swimmers, arcing into the water like Hawaiian cliff divers. Donovan and Cathren stroked; their pursuers stroked. The couple drifted; their hunters gained.

  The first was upon the canoe in minutes. Donovan smacked him in the head with the paddle, but the man shook the blow off like a weak insult and grabbed the side of the craft, nearly capsizing it. Donovan hit him again, and again, and yet again, harder. Finally, his attacker went under.

  Cathren dealt with a similar situation on her side of the little boat. However, she was bolder than Donovan was with her initial blows. She dispatched both aggressors with a mere two smacks each. They, too, sank in an instant, resurfaced after a few seconds, and floated back to shore like driftwood.

  Back by the docks, Pallaton was calling and waving his warriors to return to shore. The Indians still swimming toward the canoe collected their unconscious comrades and then side-stroked with them back to the island. By the pier, the undead bobbed to the surface like wine corks. Pallaton’s men swam around them, once in a while colliding with a waterlogged zombie as it rose to the surface.

  It appeared to Donovan and Cathren as if they were going to get away. Their pursuers had failed and their big chief was calling off the chase. Donovan paused his paddling and pulled his paddle aboard. Cathren did the same.

  “Whew,” she said. “That was hard. They almost had us.”

  “Well, they can’t get us now, unless they have a secret weapon or a nuclear sub. We’re free of those sons-of-bitches, both the living ones and the undead.”

  “Yes, thank goodness.” Cathren exhaled h
eavily.

  They allowed themselves to relax for a bit. It would be a long haul to get to the mainland, and they wanted to take a few minutes to regain their strength before they started out again.

  However, that was not meant to be.

  Around the point of the island, they heard voices, shouting, and general commotion. Next, they saw the front tip of a canoe, and then the entire canoe, much larger than the one in which they drifted. The bigger vessel was filled with warriors—at least a half dozen—like a Native American waterbus, and was clearly an historic ceremonial craft. The canoe jetted toward Donovan and Cathren, controlled by experienced and fit paddlers who’d been well-trained for the task.

  “Fuck the fuck!” Donovan yelled, grabbing his paddle.

  “That’s not a real expression!” Cathren yelled back, grabbing her own. “But sentiment understood!”

  Cathren and Donovan started their frantic, ineffective paddling once again, stroking their leisurely way out into the middle of San Francisco Bay. The rougher waves pounded against the bow of the small canoe with vigor, making progress forward even more difficult. As they punched their way through the strident sea, the last of the human side of the Indians of All Tribes bore down on the two with grim determination.

  The Indians’ canoe cut through the water like a wooden torpedo. Donovan’s and Cathren’s floundered like a drunk in a swimming pool. The warriors closed in rapidly and efficiently. Donovan and Cathren knew they’d soon be prisoners to be fed to the tribal zombies.

  From out of nowhere, the 3.5-hp motor lying at the bottom of the canoe popped into Donovan’s frazzled brain. It was their last, and only, chance. He picked up the machine and placed it outside the canoe, into the water.

  “Cathren, give me a hand!”

  “Sure, what can I do?”

  “Hold this motor in place, like this.” Donovan demonstrated holding the motor against the boat, the propeller and rudder below the water line.

  Cathren held it as directed while Donovan tightened the thumbscrews on either side of the engine. Meanwhile, the grunts of their pursuers grew louder, the warriors’ oars scooped rhythmically through wave after wave.