by TW Gallier
"Let me rephrase," I said. Pulling her into my lap, I began kissing her face and neck as she struggled a little too weakly to be convincing. Repeating over and over, "I'm sorry."
"Okay, I forgive you," she said. "Jeeze, Roger. People are watching us."
"They're jealous."
"Probably," she said, and giggled. Then she looked at the power plant looming above us in the early morning light. I tried to ignore those two huge towers. "I'll be glad to be away from that thing."
The nuclear power plant freaked everyone out. Some more than others. Sara, Paul, and the Ripas had studied up on the subject, and were confident we weren't in any immediate danger. They were all of the mind that the backup systems shut the plant down safely. I wasn't so sure, since there was an EMP blast and complete loss of electricity. Surely the plant's computers were destroyed.
We did bring a few Radiation Meters from the Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare room at the National Guard barracks, next to the arms room. They didn't pick up anything, so I was able to rest easier. Of course, we had no idea what was going on inside. It could be about the blow at any moment, but the guys who were in the know swore power plants cannot explode.
I had my doubts.
"You and me both," I said, letting her escape my clutches, but not without a loud smack on her sweet round butt. Her smile said she enjoyed it, too. "It's almost light enough to move out."
"Yeah, I better get back downstairs," she said. "We have to pack up the stoves and the last of the groceries."
I liked how she called MREs and canned goods groceries. To me groceries were perishables, like vegetables and such.
"Roger!" Sean shouted from the front deck below me. "We're moving out now. Break down the .50 cals and bring them down."
"You heard him," I said. "Mike, you disassemble it. I'll take this one down, and all of us can help carry everything down."
You didn't just pick up a .50 cal and throw it over your shoulder. Okay, maybe Rambo could, but he wasn't a real man. The .50 cals were on heavy steel tripods, and the barrel was long and thick and heavy, too. So there were three parts that had to be carried, each by a different person.
I removed the barrel first, unscrewing it from the receiver group. Jenny carried it down, since it had a handle on it. Brett came over and I gave him the tripod to carry, and I took the rest. Downstairs, Sean directed us to the boats to put them in.
Sean was supervising the loading of the eight johnboats. He evenly divided the food, ammo, and spare weapons. Everyone carried an M-4 now, plus some pistols. M60s, SAWs, .50 cals, and even the M203s, were issued out where needed. The plan was for each boat to have at least one person carrying a SAW and one person a M-4 with M203 attacked.
Zombies didn't worry us on the water. It was other survivors, and we weren't going to get caught with our pants down. Whether they were up for a real firefight, I didn't know. I could only hope.
I thought deploying the grenade launchers was our best tactic. Many survivor groups had automatic weapons, but few had grenades, much less grenade launchers. That would make me turn tail and run.
The combat and other veterans were spread out over the boats to lead the others if a fight came to us. Otherwise, we were going to just live and let live. Personally, I was a little more aggressive toward other survivors, but Sean was in charge and he was proving a kinder, gentler kind of leader than I would be.
Sean was already loading people into the boats. Our crew serviced weapons were the last to be loaded. My .50 cal went into the johnboat I'd be manning, along with Jenny, Timmy, Harlan, Brian, and Fiona. Since both Brian and Fiona were grieving lost spouses, Jenny arranged for them to be in our boat. I put Brian on the motor so I could be on the bow with the SAW. Jenny carried the grenade launcher.
Untying the rope from the houseboat, I shoved us away. Brian pull started the motor, and began moving slowly upriver. My boys looked around with big eyes. Their friend Spooky told them the rising mists were ghosts. Nothing I said convinced them otherwise.
That little girl will probably grow up to be a standup comedian, I thought.
I sat in the bow, weapon ready and intently watching the surrounding woods and what was ahead. Jenny watched the left side, and Fiona watched the right.
My boat took the lead, with Sean bringing up the rear. He wanted to do one last walk-thru before abandoning the houseboat. We were all going to miss its comfort, and especially the AC. He was going to shut everything down so if someone else commandeered it, they could enjoy its amenities. Well, after they found some more gas. It was almost empty.
We had two plans in place. If the dam area was free of zombies and other survivors, then everyone would help drag the boats up to Watts Bar Lake. All the food, ammo, and gear would remain in the boats during this time. But if there were zombies or survivors to fight off, the combat vets would spread out to defend while the rest dragged the boats over. Either way, Sean would supervise moving the people and boats up into the next lake.
I had Brian keep the speed down while rounding the bend. The sound of our motors would travel far in the still morning air, though the surrounding high hills and forest would help us immensely in that respect. The noise would still draw in any zombies within hearing. I lifted binoculars to search for any threats along the dam and road on top of it.
"Well, that just sucks," I whispered.
"What?" Jenny asked, and then looked at the dam. "Oh. Zombies. Figures."
I scowled at them. There weren't as many as there could be. Still, one zombie was too many. The western side was too high for us to see how many zombies were over there, but there was some open ground on the eastern shore. That was our destination. The western shore was quite steep and we couldn't drag the boats up that grade with them full of our stuff. The eastern side had low banks, but we'd have to drag the boats close to a thousand feet all totaled to get around the dam and bridge over it, and get to the lake shore beyond. Fortunately, johnboats were flat-bottomed so should slide over the grass relatively easy. It would still be quite a chore to drag them uphill and would take some time, since I wasn't sure the five to six people per boat could all drag their own boat that far or fast. Sean wanted to try, but conceded we'd probably have to take them one or two at a time.
Once I saw what we were up against, I signaled Brian and he throttled up to full speed. We charged toward shore like the light brigade, eight johnboats in a V-formation. The zombies kind of went crazy, none of them smart enough to figure out where we'd land until we were almost to shore, and then I saw a general turning into that direction. Still, I counted only thirty-two.
Brian ran us up onto the rock-covered shoreline, killed the motor and pulled it up. Jenny, Fiona, and I jumped out and walked in-line up the shore gunning zombies down. We were quickly joined by other armed adults. It only took a few minutes to kill all of the zombies on our side of the dam.
"Mike, Charlie, Terrel! Let's go!"
I led those vets up the hill toward the road. We all carried SAWs with 200-round ammo pouches. We each had an M-4 with grenade launch slung across our back, too. Just in case. Yeah, we were loaded for undead grizzly bear.
I took Terrel and guarded the road coming off the dam, while Mike and Charlie took the road in the other direction. If zombies began coming out of the surrounding trees, then we'd redeploy our resources. By the time we were in position, Sean had two boats being dragged up toward us. I was pleased to see that Jenny and our boys were with the first boat.
"Here comes company," Terrel said, taking aim and opening fire.
"I hate uninvited guests," I muttered, and joined him in lighting those murderous zombies up. "Try to keep it to three round bursts."
Terrel laughed. "Yeah. Mike warned me you'd immediately warn me about wasting ammo."
"Am I becoming a joke?"
"Pretty much."
The metal johnboats made a god-awful sound when dragged cross the pavement. Once across the road they moved quicker, going downhill to the wate
r. That's when Mike and Charlie opened fire on more zombies coming from that direction.
We didn't let the zombies get anywhere close to us. They were being funneled down that road, so we used it to our advantage and slaughtered them mercilessly. There were, as usual, a lot more than it looked like initially. I didn't even try to count how many we killed, but we had to hold that spot for a good half hour. The men and women hauling the boats were quickly exhausted and the operation slowed to a crawl by the time they dragged the last two boats over.
So we cleared the road of zombies one last time, and ran down to the waiting boats.
Chapter 23
Once on Watts Bar Lake we stretched out in a long line of boats, running at about half-speed up the middle of the lake. The thought was it would make it harder for gunmen to fire upon us if we were stretched out. They could only engage one or two boats at a time. I took the lead again.
Watts Bar proved to be a much more substantial lake, as in wider. There were a number of islands, some pretty large. I spotted tendrils of smoke rising above one named Thief Neck Island on the map. It was huge and heavily wooded, so I could only hope the men staying on the island did come after us. I had Brian throttle up to full speed while passing by it.
No one came after us.
"How is the fuel situation?" I asked.
"Half a tank," Brian said, giving me the thumbs up. "And one more full tank."
That should be enough. It was hard to estimate distance on a cheap map, especially with the lake twisted around like a river, and half the distance we needed to cover was on the Tennessee River above the lake. Still, we figured each boat needed two full tanks to reach our objective. My boat started out with two full tanks, and a few boats had as many as three 5-gallon tanks. Still, there were boats and docks all along the shore. If we ran low on gas I was confident we could find more.
If not for the maps the trip to Kingston could easily have taken twice as long. The lake twisted and turned, with off-shoots here and there that were clear on the map, but not so obvious on the water. One of them was our turn just below Kingston. The lake looked like it extended past the city, but the Tennessee River looked narrower from the water. If not for the golf course there, and on the map, we would've blown by it.
"Wow. It looks like zombies are out playing golf," Brian said.
There were several small groups of three and four wandering around.
We turned right, heading east up the river. There were a lot of homes along the river, and many parks, campgrounds, and even a church retreat marked on the map. I could see zombies moving around, and some people I wasn't so sure about. Soon some islands appeared before us, listed on the map as a wildlife management area.
"Roger!" Jenny cried, pointing to the right.
"Boats!" Fiona cried, pointing to the left.
A dozen boats were converging on us from the islands and a church retreat within a cove to the south. Mike's boat was behind us, and every one of them opened fire. Our attackers also started firing.
"Fire!" I shouted, leveling the SAW on the closest boats coming at us from behind the islands.
We took out one, two, three boats in less than a minute, but the rest of them were still coming. The best I could tell, maybe, three of the boats had an automatic weapon, while the rest fired hunting rifles and pistols. But there were a lot of men in each boat, up to ten in some of the ski boats. And all of their boats were bigger, faster bass boats and ski boats.
We were better armed.
"Hit them with grenades," I said.
Jenny was already sighting in with the M203. Poof! I looked to my right just in time to see the grenade hit a few feet to the side of a bass boat, and explode. I think it was more surprise than anything that flipped the boat. Either the driver turned too sharply or released the wheel, but a boat with seven men inside flipped three times.
Fiona fired next, but her grenade sailed over the four boats still attacking from the islands. Didn't matter, because a grenade from Mike's boat landed in a ski boat, killing everyone inside. And then that out of control boat turned and T-boned another boat with ten men.
They gave up the attack just as our third boat back, commanded by Terrel, started firing at them. We continued to fire at them, taking out at least a third of the men, but no more boats. Then more gunfire erupted behind the islands.
"Oh my God, two of our boats went on the other side of the islands," Brian shouted.
He turned us around to go after the retreating raiders. I immediately spotted Sean's and Brett's boats. They had all guns firing full auto at the bad guys. We added our firepower to the mix. Boats flipped. One blew up.
Turning back upriver, we throttled out of there at full speed. It was another mile or so before we caught up with Mike's boat. And then I stopped everyone next to a boat-shaped island to access the damage.
"Report!" Sean commanded. "Anyone hurt or…?"
Four people were wounded, including both Paul and Amy Sutton. Spooky was wailing over her unconscious parents. I groaned when I saw their wounds. Both had sucking chest wounds. Mortal wounds. I wanted to go back and kill the rest of those sorry bastards.
Sean had us all go to the island to administer first aid. He posted guards on all four sides of the island, and then we carefully removed the Suttons from the boat. Amy was already dead.
Jenny held Spooky tight when Leslie closed Amy's eyes and shook her head sadly. Her sobbing had most of the other children crying. Hell, I was crying. And soon we had more reason to cry when Paul passed away.
We only had two entrenching tools, so dug one shallow grave for both of them. Spooky wanted them to be together. Sean led us in prayer, and then we reorganized, shifting people around between boats. Most of the dead and wounded were in two boats.
I took the point again. Jenny brought Spooky onto our boat.
I think we just adopted a daughter, I thought.
Timmy seemed to be a calming influence on Spooky. They'd already bonded over the past few weeks. Jenny was more attentive to the child than our security, but I began watching her area of responsibility.
We increased our speed up the river. Going faster gave the bad guys less time to react. It also burned up our dwindling gas reserves. We did have the foresight to redistribute the last of the gas so that all boats had the same amount, which gave my boat more gas.
That National Guard facility better have working vehicles, or we're in trouble.
We passed through a wilderness area until we reached I-75. Civilization returned after we passed under the bridge. Shortly after that we reached Loudon. As we approached the bridge, someone started shooting at us. Just a single shooter. We gunned the motors and got out of there as fast as possible. There were no boats in the water for them to pursue us, but I worried about an ambush around the bend that didn't materialize.
"He just shot at us for no reason?" Fiona asked. "What kind of person does that?"
I shrugged. "A very angry man."
With the increase of farms, individual homes, and even subdivisions butting up to the river, I became increasingly tense. I could see scattered groups of zombies. I even spotted one big enough to be called a horde. We could hear sporadic gunfire around us as we raced up the river, but no one was shooting at us. It still made us paranoid.
After we passed under the I-140 bridge, Sean broke ranks and sped past me to take point. He was the man with the plan and knew where he wanted to be dropped off. His family had lived in Knoxville for a few years when he was a teenager, so he had a good idea where he needed to go. Or at least I hoped so.
He landed at a wooded stretch of bank, with homes and businesses beyond. I could see a subdivision to our right, and the map showed a golf course where we landed.
"The Cherokee Country Club is above us," Sean said. "North of here is the Army National Guard where I hope to find us some vehicles." He pointed upriver. "After you round that bend, you'll see Cherokee Farm, with the University of Tennessee Medical Center behind it. Just a
round that bend is a bridge over the river. I'll meet you there."
"So we'll need to stay in the boats until then?" I asked. "There aren't any islands we can land and wait?"
"Well, there's Looney Island, but it's not close enough to see the bridge."
"That's fine," Jenny said. "We don't want to stay on anything called Looney."
"Cherokee Farm is not a working farm. I really don't know what it is, but looked like a park from the road when I passed by," Sean said. "It might be open enough to land and be able to see if any zombies come after you in time to escape."
"We'll check it out," I said. "You guys be careful, and don't take your time."
"Sure thing, Sarge," Sean said, grinning. He looked at Charlie, "You're right. He is bossy."
Sean took Mike, Charlie, and Brett with him. I watched them slip into the trees and vanish. My stress level spiked. Now I was responsible for everyone.
I moved some men around now that we were down four, and put Kate in charge of Brett's boat. Brian and Vince were ticked off they didn't get the job instead of her, but honestly she was a better fighter and leader than them. Boat commanders were me, Greg, Terrel, Larry, Oscar, Fred, Dan, and Kate.
It only took a few minutes to reach Looney Island, and it was next to the southern point of Cherokee Farm. The "farm" was an open, grassy park-like area. But more important was the USMC and Navy facility right there on the river. Including a motor pool with military cargo trucks.
"Oh my God," I said, just staring at it.
Gunfire sounded behind us in the middle distance. That had to be Sean's team, and they'd already engaged some zombies. Their fight was on all the way to their target. It was too late to go back and collect them. I looked at Jenny and sighed.
Chapter 24
"Watch out, Sean," Charlie whispered. "Zombies at ten o'clock."
We stopped and dropped to one knee. I was at point, with Charlie, Brett, and Mike bringing up the rear. Three zombies were beating around looking for anything alive between the treeline and the country club building. We could barely see them through the vegetation.