by JT Sawyer
“Sometimes you rely too much on your gut and not on your brains, Duncan,” said Lavine, who arched his shoulders back, returning the man’s glare. Then he pointed up to the main computer monitor. “Do you see that database there—the one that shows our current supply and fuel amounts? You know, just as I do, that we’ve got enough here to make it through this winter into late spring at best, and that’s at our current rate of consumption minus any mass influx of people arriving here suddenly. So don’t talk to me about sacrifice and who gets left behind because I deal in those realities every waking minute. I need rock-solid intel before I will risk sending any assets here out into the field beyond our state borders. Plus we don’t even know if there are fuel resupply dockets in that region to guarantee the return of any air elements.”
Lavine leaned forward to whisper in Duncan’s ear. “Don’t question my authority again in front of my staff. However valuable you may be on the battlefield your counsel is required only when I request it.”
Duncan removed his olive-drab cap, running his rough hand over the blond stubble on his head and then tilting his chin up at Lavine. “Sir, you’re standing so close I can’t tell if those are my toes I’m feeling or yours.” Lavine backed up a foot and then creased his eyebrows together. He looked past Duncan’s shoulder at the communications officer and snapped at the young man. “Send out notice that there will be a general assembly in two hours with all base personnel so I can discuss this tragedy.” Then he turned away, stomping past Duncan and briskly walking towards the entrance.
Chapter 5
When the orange fingers of dawn slid above the horizon, Carlie sat up and looked out through the tangle of bamboo to the serene waves beyond. She could hardly tell that it had poured for half the night. She and the others had slept around the dwindling fire as rain poured over their animal-like forms huddled in the sand, no different than the other jungle denizens. Looking over the ocean, she took a deep breath and hoped that the day would continue with clear skies. In another reality, she would have paid good money to take a vacation in such a seemingly idyllic setting but now she only felt like shaking her head to see if their castaway nightmare was still unfolding.
She looked over at Amy, who was still asleep but emitted the occasional moan when she moved. Shane and Matias were gone and she figured they were reconnoitering the tracks on the beach. Jared and Pavel were adding small twigs to the bed of campfire coals and fanning it back to life. She wasn’t sure why as there wasn’t anything to cook but, still, there was nothing like the constant company of a campfire to remove the edge of hostile surroundings.
As Carlie rubbed the sand out of her hair, she caught a glimmer of a reflection a few feet away to her right. Just outside the bamboo grove, near the small emergency exit, was a pile of canned goods. Carlie excitedly glanced around the area, looking for movement of any kind, and then sprang to her feet. Grabbing her machete, she motioned to Jared and Pavel to follow her while raising her finger to stay silent. As she crept outside the bamboo grove, she examined the ground for unusual tracks.
Coming around to the backside, she saw a neatly arranged grouping of canned tuna, pears, and beans along with a box of matches and an avocado-colored bar of soap. As Jared eagerly moved forward, she raised her machete at chest height to motion him to stop while she studied the sand for any tracks. Puzzled that she couldn’t discern any visible signs, she nodded for him to continue while she walked out to the edge of the treeline towards the beach.
“Gather up the goods. I’ll be right back.” Carlie saw Shane and Matias walking back and met them halfway on the white sand.
“Anything?” she said.
“No, the tide last night must have washed out the tracks you saw,” said Matias. “We walked for about a mile and didn’t see anything other than bird and turtle tracks.”
“Well, somebody paid us a visit last night,” she said, raising her machete and pointing back to their shelter. “There’s a pile of canned foods about six feet from where I was sleeping and not a single track to indicate that anyone had even been there.”
“That’s hard to believe—though I ain’t doubting you, Ms. Crusoe,” said Shane with a slight chuckle. “I’ve tracked fugitives in the desert for years and there’s no such thing as covering up or eliminating signs of your passage—only minimizing them and then only if you’re really good. The rain probably washed everything away.”
“Well, then this guy…or gal…is that good because there’s not a single track to indicate anything other than that these canned goods fell from above.”
“If someone went through that much trouble covering their tracks by our camp then why did you find some yesterday by our canoe?” said Matias.
“Maybe they didn’t know we had arrived yet or we pulled in right after they’d walked by…who knows,” said Carlie. “Either way, we’ve got some breakfast awaiting us for a change. Let’s grab some chow and then I’d like to scout the backside of the island and see just what’s here.”
As they walked back to their makeshift shelter, Pavel was trotting towards them.
“You should come—Amy, she is not well,” he said.
Chapter 6
Carlie sat beside Amy and placed one hand on her flushed forehead. “God, she’s burning up.” She carefully removed the soiled gauze from the thigh while Amy gave out a moan in her delirium.
“Those red streaks emanating out from the wound are a sure sign of infection,” said Shane.
“She needs antibiotics,” Carlie said, looking up at the jungle canopy and sitting still for a long minute, letting out an occasional sigh.
Jared came running back into the bamboo enclosure. “We’ve got a shit-ton of movement headed this way—probably twenty or more of those cheese-faces.”
“Can we get back to the canoe?” said Matias.
“No, they’re coming from that direction. These things look bloated, like they’ve been floating in the ocean for weeks, so they’re moving slow but they are headed towards us.”
“Grab all the gear,” Carlie yelled. “Someone help me hold the other end of this stretcher and we’ll head north, down the beach. This structure we built will hold off a few but I’m not taking my chances here with an entire herd of undead.”
As everyone scrambled to retrieve their meager items, they could already hear the sound of the leaf-littered floor rumbling from the movement of shuffling feet headed their way. Matias grabbed one end of the improvised stretcher while Carlie held the other as they moved at a brisk walk down to the treeline near the beach.
“Let’s stay just inside the cusp of the palm trees so we’re not exposing ourselves on the shoreline,” Carlie said in between breaths as she labored to carry her end. Her body was fatigued from lack of food and she found herself, once more, summoning already depleted reserves to push forward.
They pushed on down the beach as the growing menace behind them increased, the creatures flowing into one ribbon that cut through the jungle like a furious serpent. As Carlie and the others staggered along the beach trying to stay in a tight formation around the stretcher, they saw several more creatures ushering in from their left. Carlie tugged the stretcher, motioning Matias to head towards the shoreline.
“There’s nowhere to retreat,” yelled Jared, who had a machete in one hand and a club in the other.
As they crested a slight rise in the beach, Carlie could see that there were small mounds of sand that had been recently dug up. She turned back and noticed the zombies closing the distance. She stopped and lowered her end of the stretcher while Matias did the same. Carlie was hunched over, trying to catch her breath, then she stood erect and withdrew her machete.
As they formed a protective arc around Amy, who was semi-conscious, everyone reflexively crouched into a fighting stance with their bladed weapons outstretched.
Carlie took a step forward. “Shane, Matias and I will drive a wedge down the center. Jared—you and Pavel stay by Amy’s side. If things get really grim, hois
t her on your shoulder and head into the surf.”
The three of them waited until the horde was thirty feet away, their machetes poised and bodies tense. Then they rushed forward with ear-shattering cries to engage the first row of ravenous creatures.
Chapter 7
Carlie rushed towards two zombies on her left: one was rail-thin and clad in green swim trunks while the other was dressed like a yachtsman in a blue tunic. She cleaved open the head of the swimmer with a swift vertical strike. Then she pivoted on her bare feet and struck the other one across the neck with a slash that partially separated the head from the shoulders, sending the beast into a wave that had just rolled in beside her.
Carlie knew that she had to keep striking and moving and not provide any opportunity for a creature to grab her. It was the same tactic that she had used for years in personal protection training—to remain static in combat is to invite the reaper. Slice, spin, and move, then repeat. She did it without thinking, her skills honed from a decade of training and street application and further refined to match the unpredictable movements of this new scourge of the earth. Carlie spun to her right and clipped another zombie across the hamstrings, causing it to crumble to the ground. Before she could finish it off, an arrow whizzed by her waist from Jared’s bow and sunk into the temple of the beast, toppling it over.
She heard the familiar clatter of metal slicing through unyielding flesh and knew that Shane and Matias were dulling their blades in a similar fashion.
Carlie bent over and grabbed a handful of sand and flung it into the faces of the two approaching creatures in front of her. They paused in confusion for a moment, scratching at their eyes long enough for her to drive the tip of her rusty machete into the forehead of the nearest zombie. As she struggled to free her blade from the nearly limp creature, the other one pawed at the air for her. She used the swaying zombie with the blade in its head as a shield as she kept dancing in a circle to keep the other one away until she yanked her weapon free. Carlie rushed forward and delivered a vicious arcing slice above the left ear, removing the entire skullcap and dropping the beast to the sand, whose granules instantly transformed from tawny to pink.
She gulped in air and looked around, her heart punching through her chest. Carlie could see that there were at least two dozen more creatures still left. Carlie glanced at a body that had just slumped down by her feet and saw the zombie’s head had a tiny bullet wound in the side. Before she could inspect it further, a creature pawed at her from behind, grabbing her shoulder with its puffy fingers that resembled greasy black bananas. She ducked and spun around, slamming her machete into its ribs and then stomp-kicking it into the surf, its ropy innards uncoiling in the salty water.
Carlie rushed over towards Shane and saw two more zombies drop from precise headshots, the bullet wounds hardly making a dramatic exit in the skull. She knew it must be from a low-caliber rifle and she wondered if the person pulling the trigger was the same one who had left the canned goods at their camp. Carlie, Shane, and Matias were standing with their backs to each other amidst a scattered array of severed heads, limbs, and lifeless torsos as the remaining zombies closed in around their human triangle.
“Let’s back up and draw these things further away from the others,” said Matias.
As they started to retreat towards the incline where Carlie had previously noticed freshly dug sand, a series of rifle shots rang out from the canopy to their right. She hadn’t noticed the sounds before because of the battle but now the low-velocity crack of gunfire was clear. Within seconds, three creatures were down. Only four remained and Carlie and the others kept moving back, drawing in the remaining corpulent freaks. Another round of gunfire and the nearest zombie dropped to the sand, its head oozing out burgundy fluid onto the ground near a small blue crab that scurried up to the carcass.
“Three against three—I like these odds better,” said Shane, who rushed forward and sunk his soiled blade into the left temple of a long-haired creature dressed like a waitress. Matias and Carlie finished off the remaining zombies and then stepped back to examine the battlefield, their chests pumping furiously and rivulets of sweat running down their blood-freckled hands.
The majority of headless corpses were strewn along a fifty-foot stretch of beach as seagulls and crabs greedily made their way to the bodies. The sun glistened off the crimson granules of sand, making the beach seem like it was covered with miniscule gems.
Carlie glanced over to the shoreline and saw Amy was still safely surrounded by Pavel and Jared, who were standing with their crude bows poised at chest level. She knelt down and thrust her dripping blade into the sand and looked over to the treeline for any further movement.
“Looks like .223 or maybe .22 magnum rounds,” said Shane, poking the crumpled head of a zombie with the tip of his blade.
“That didn’t sound like a .223 though,” said Matias.
“Well, we won’t have to wait long for an answer,” said Carlie, pointing her machete to a cluster of bushes near the forest, fifty yards away, where a lone figure with a scoped rifle had stepped into view.
Chapter 8
The man slung his rifle and slowly walked forward. He moved gracefully but with purpose, his gait narrow, like someone used to gliding along sylvan trails. His pepper-flecked gray beard was neatly trimmed and his skin was dark brown. A wiry figure, no more than five foot eight and one hundred and forty pounds, Carlie figured. He wore faded khaki shorts, leather boots, and a green cotton pullover shirt with a brimmed hat. It looked like he had just stepped out of an Eddie Bauer catalog and she marveled at his neat appearance.
“Please back away from that sand formation,” he said, waving his hand furiously. “Quickly, before you do any further damage.”
Carlie and the others gave each other dismayed looks and then glanced around at their feet. She looked at the man, raising up her shoulders and scrunching her eyebrows together.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she said.
“Please, Dios Mio, move away from the mounds,” he said with an edge to his voice, motioning them to follow him a few feet back from where they were standing.
“That area that you so carelessly stumbled onto is the nesting site for leatherback turtles, whose eggs are buried by the hundreds under the sand.” The man leaned forward to inspect the beach and then shot a searing glance at the others. “Thank heaven I was nearby and got here in time to prevent you from destroying this precious site.”
Shane rubbed the thick whiskers on his chin. “Yeah, right, thank heaven.”
Carlie looked back down the beach, examining where the battle had begun and where they ended up. “Is that why you waited so long to start dispatching those zombies—because we were getting too close to this nesting site?”
His angry expression had eased as he saw the mounds were unaffected. “Forgive me but it looked like you had things under control when it all began. I would have intervened if any of you were in grave danger. This turtle nesting site however is another story. This island is one of two regions in the world where leatherbacks lay their eggs,” he stepped towards the others and stretched out his hand. “And I am the caretaker of this island. My name is Alejandro Bestizo.”
Carlie reluctantly shook the man’s hand and examined the .22 magnum rifle. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to thank you or not.”
“Were you the one who left us the canned goods and supplies?” said Shane.
“That’s right,” Alejandro said, looking beyond them at the approach of Jared and Pavel who were carrying Amy on the makeshift stretcher. “Though it looks like you may need more than that.”
“She’s got a pretty high fever. She took a fall on…”
“The bamboo, I know,” he said. “I saw it happen just after you arrived here.”
“You’ve been watching us this whole time? Why didn’t you offer a hand?” said Jared.
“It is just me alone on this island. I didn’t know what kind of people you were. I was h
oping I might provide you with a few goods and that might give you the energy to push on to the mainland.”
“What mainland?”
“Over that way,” he said, motioning over his left shoulder. Alejandro looked over the group, staring at their haggard appearance, gaunt cheeks, and torn clothes. “How long have you been living like this?”
“What’s the date?” said Matias.
“It’s October 8.”
“Damn…I didn’t think we’d been gone that long,” said Shane.
“We punched out of the Farragut around September 2,” said Carlie.
“Where are you all from?” said Alejandro. “I figured maybe you washed up here from one of the cruise ships near Cancun.”
“Cancun—Mexico?” said Carlie. “We’re off the coast of Mexico?”
“I thought we were somewhere near the Caymans,” said Matias.
Amy began moaning and thrashing on the stretcher. “Come,” Alejandro said, waving his hand and turning towards the jungle. “Follow me back to my lookout and we can talk more from there, and I’ll see what I can do for your friend.”
Chapter 9
The wind was ripping through the large metal culvert beneath the two-lane bridge where Eliza, Willis, and Adams were holed up. After waiting several days near the wreckage of Air Force One, they realized that rescue was not coming. Adams suggested making their way north in the hopes of encountering a settlement or a small National Guard facility that might still be operational. After six days the constant movement north along rural roads and small towns at the mercy of the ever-changing weather was wearing on them. Though they had outfitted themselves with suitable clothes and footwear they’d scavenged along the way, their bodies still ached from the bite of the cold at night, the food deprivation, and the unrelenting wind which seemed to taunt them at every bend in the road.