“I preferred you with longer hair, Brett,” Batfish chipped in. “You look like a punk now.”
I turned away from the coffee machine and looked at Batfish. She held my gaze for a second, folded her hands across her bulging belly and then looked away to the floor. I knew in that instant that her pregnancy with my child had soured our friendly relationship forever. I never understood the internal functions of how the female mind worked but from the look on her face, she could no longer stand the sight of me. I felt another pang of sadness and longing for a previous time when we’d been good friends and trusted back to back allies. The vibe was different now. Maybe she blamed me for our irresponsible, drunken fumble in Belfast and thought I’d taken advantage of the situation. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what happened that night. Another one of my life’s fuck ups to add to the long and ever growing list.
“Okay, guys and girls, let’s get this meeting started,” McElroy said, addressing the room. “We need to form a plan here otherwise to put it bluntly, we’re all fucked.”
Sammy O’Neil tutted and flicked his eyes upward. “For the love of God, Thomas. Can’t you orate any better than using such crude language?”
I slid onto the vacant chair at the table beside Smith.
“Just saying it as I see it, Sammy,” McElroy said. “We need to find a way of moving those rocket launchers back here or we’re going to have to destroy the whole cache. We can’t afford to let those weapons fall into the wrong hands. An attack from those SMAWs from the shore would blow us out of the water.”
“How close are we to clearing the island of those walking devils?” O’Neil asked.
McElroy and Smith both groaned in unison.
“It’s not going too well, I’m afraid,” McElroy said. “We keep wiping out whole bunches of them but more seem to be crawling out of the woodwork. The bastards are everywhere and they keep on coming. It’s a bloody nightmare out there, so it is.”
O’Neil grunted and sighed then reached for his small glass of whiskey.
“That’s where those SMAWs would come in useful,” Smith said. “We could wipe out shit loads of the undead if we could get our hands on those things.”
“What happened to that launcher you got hold of?” Chernakov asked. “I thought you already used that one.”
Smith nodded. “I did and it’s still in the armory on the upper deck but we don’t have any more rounds for the launcher.”
“Okay, guys, let’s cut to the chase,” Wingate said, slapping the table. “We can look on the negatives all night but it won’t get us anywhere. We need to discuss options and figure out a positive plan of action.”
Sarah Wingate was never one to mince words or talk bullshit. She always talked straight and expected everybody else around her to do the same. She’d been a US Army medic before the apocalypse so I supposed she had to think and act quickly as part of her job to help save lives. I loved her for her honesty and mental toughness. Smith was a lucky guy to have her as a girlfriend. They seemed as different as chalk and cheese but always figured things out in their relationship. I admired them both for that.
“Sarah’s right,” McElroy said, nodding. “We can’t afford to keep fannying around anymore. The rainy hurricane season is coming soon and we don’t know how badly that’s going to affect us. We need to come up with a constructive solution before the weather turns for the worse.”
“Yeah, I’ve been out in those tropical storms before and I can assure you it ‘aint no garden party,” Smith said. “The soil gets so wet it becomes a sea of mud. The wind is so strong, it’ll blow you clean off your feet.”
“All right, so what are our options?” Wingate insisted.
“As in what?” O’Neil inquired.
Wingate slammed her hand on the table once again and sighed in exasperation. “As in are we planning on staying onboard this ship throughout the hurricane season? Is it viably possible to move those rocket launchers or are we going to have to blow the goddamn things up? Come on, guys, we need to figure these problems out.”
“Okay, Sarah, we hear you,” McElroy said, raising his hand in a defensive gesture. “We know we can’t move into the castle on the coast. That’s not a possible option. The castle is insecure and there are fucking undead all over the place up there.”
“Yes, because some fool blew the whole front wall to hell,” Chernakov said, glaring at Smith.
Smith shrugged and took a sip of his bourbon. “I did what I thought was necessary at the time,” he muttered.
“Okay, guys, finger pointing and fighting isn’t going to get us any further forward,” Wingate snapped. “Come on, we need some positive suggestions here.”
“Maybe we need to think about coming from another angle on this thing,” Smith said, staring at his bourbon glass.
“Go on, Smith,” McElroy said, leaning forward across the table.
“Well, we’re going to the airport on foot from here. The terrain is just too tough to carry those ammunition crates. Why don’t we try moving to the airport from a different route?”
“What do you have in mind, Smith?” McElroy asked.
Smith took a sip of his bourbon before speaking; He turned to Hannigen at the far end of the table. “What kind of shape is that glass bottomed boat in?”
Hannigen shrugged. “It’s still tied up along the port side of us. I turned the engines over for an hour a couple of days ago just to keep it running. It seems to be fine.”
Smith and I had taken the glass bottomed boat, previously used for sightseeing trips from the port town of La Bahia Soleado to escape after an altercation with the South American militia and a whole bunch of undead.
“We can use the boat to take us around to the port town on the north side of the island. We left a working truck there on the outside of the town. The battery will probably be flat now but we’ll take the charger from the engine room. We fire up the truck and drive to the airport, fight off the fucking undead at the hangar and load up the SMAWs. We drive back to the port town and load the launchers onto the glass assed boat and sail back here. How’s that for a plan?”
McElroy, Dunne, Duffy and McDonnell all nodded. Chernakov and O’Neil looked indifferent and Hannigen looked as though he was mulling over the operation in his head.
“Sounds good, Smith,” I said. “But there’s one flaw in the plan.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“As we know from bitter experience, the roads in La Bahia Soleado aren’t wide enough to get the truck down to the jetty. The whole town is crawling with zombies. We wouldn’t make it without getting munched.”
An uncomfortable pause filled the room.
“Okay, I hear you, Wilde Man,” Smith said. “How about we use the SMAWs to clear a pathway through? Most of those buildings around the jetty aren’t anything more than tin shacks. One of those rockets will wipe out a whole bunch of those goddamn things in one go.”
I inwardly groaned. This was another one of Smith’s crazy plans that had the words screw up etched all over it. Because we were desperate and time was running out until the rainy season, I knew the other guys and girls sitting around the table would run with it.
CHAPTER SIX
As I expected, the whole contingent in the wardroom agreed to go ahead with Smith’s plan. Smith, McElroy, Sarah Wingate and myself were detailed to head inland from the jetty at La Bahia Soleado. Hannigen was going to steer the glass bottomed boat and Dunne, Duffy and McDonnell would guard the vessel whilst we went on our potential suicide mission to the airport. Chernakov and O’Neil were both too old for dangerous field operations and Batfish wouldn’t be taking part due to her pregnancy.
“We’ll take that militia guy I found at the airport with us,” Smith said. “He can act as a guide around the outskirts of the airport. He might also be a bargaining chip if we run across any of those militia guys still running around.” He looked at Duffy. “Is he still alive?”
“I take it you’re talking abo
ut Emilio Dante?” Duffy said. “Yes, he’s still with us. We put him on work detail with the Russian marine engineers running the systems below decks. We’ll go and hook him out from down below before we leave.”
Smith nodded. He’d taken Dante as a prisoner when he’d previously been to the airport on our first visit onto the island. Dante belonged to the South American militia who’d occupied the castle on the cliffs before we drove them out. The militia had been hostile and posed a big threat to our vulnerable position. By all accounts, Dante was an aircraft pilot by trade and had previously served in the Columbian Air Force.
“Right you are fellers,” McElroy said. “I suggest we get rolling at first light tomorrow morning. Get yourselves a good night’s kip and I’ll see you all at five a.m. on the boat deck. Dress code will be full black fatigues and full webbing. We’ll gear up and get going as soon as we can. Everybody happy?”
A murmur of agreement rang around the room. Dunne, Duffy and McDonnell looked excited they were going into action once again. Those guys lived for danger, so did McElroy and Smith to a certain extent. They were simply molded that way. Smith had been a US Marine and a former New York street cop. Also, I knew he’d grown up in the Crown Heights and Brownsville area of Brooklyn, which prepared him for a life on the tough side.
I didn’t fully understand the Irish situation in Belfast but O’Neil, Hannigen, McElroy, Dunne, Duffy and McDonnell had obviously all been hardened by the troubles. Sarah Wingate had served in the US Army and Batfish was naturally a tough cookie. I was the odd man out, never having served in the military or been on the side of a rough upbringing. These guys and girls I sat around the table with were born survivors that would figure a way out of any bad situation thrown at them. On the flip side, I was lucky if I could fight my way out of a wet paper bag.
“Okay, meeting concluded,” McElroy said. “Stay off the booze tonight and I’ll see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed at oh-five hundred tomorrow morning.”
Drinks were downed and cigarettes stubbed out. Everybody rose from their chairs and made their way to the exit door. I stayed in my seat for a moment, hoping to catch a few private moments alone with Batfish. She noticed me staying put but glanced away again.
“Can we talk?” I asked quietly.
Batfish glanced at Wingate as if she was asking for permission or approval if it was a good idea to converse with me. Wingate smiled and nodded before glancing back at me with a look that said ‘play nice, asshole.’
Batfish stood behind her chair, leaning her elbows against the back frame. She waited for everybody to clear the room before she spoke.
“What did you want to talk about, Brett?” she asked, tucking a lock of long, black hair behind her ear.
I recognized a sense of exasperation to her tone. Her dark eyes momentarily flashed at me then looked away. Her complexion was paler than usual and the dark rings around her eyes made her look tired. I guessed she probably was. I didn’t know shit about pregnancy and she wasn’t sharing the burdens she was going through. Maybe that was for the best for both of us.
“I just wanted to know that you’re doing okay,” I said. “We don’t seem to talk much anymore.”
Batfish sighed. “There’s not really much to talk about, Brett. You do your shit and I do mine. It was different when we were on the road and it was just a few of us. Now we’re living on a ship with a whole bunch of people. It’s nothing personal but did we ever have that much in common?”
I supposed she was right but the words still hurt. I always figured Batfish and I had a kind of special affinity. Perhaps I was wrong.
“I thought we were close,” I stammered.
“Yeah, we were,” Batfish said. “And we got a little too close that night in Belfast, Brett.” She rubbed her bulging stomach, stretching out an otherwise baggy black sweater. “I always wanted to be a mom one day but not like this. I’ll have this kid, sure but it wouldn’t be fair to have any more and to be in any kind of loving relationship. I did that with Gera and look how that ended.”
I nodded, remembering Batfish’s former boyfriend, Gera. He was serving in the US military when we’d met him and had stuck with us through good and bad times. He was a good guy who’d been brutally slain by a psychotic woman in a Scottish castle in a time that seemed like a million years ago. My gaze dropped to the coffee cup on the table in front of me. The faces of all the good people who’d fallen by the wayside on our perilous travels flashed through my mind.
“I don’t want to be in a relationship with somebody and then they’re not there the next day,” Batfish continued. “I’m sorry and I know that doesn’t sound fair but that’s the way of the world now, Brett.”
“You’re right, of course you are,” I said. “I’d just like us to talk a little more. That’s all.”
Batfish sighed. “There’s no problem with talking. You don’t seem to want to talk to me, you don’t seem to want to talk with anybody. I’m sorry for saying this, Brett but I’m only going to tell you what most people are thinking. They all think you’re on the edge. They think you’re unstable and can you blame them? What’s with the shaven head? First of all you grow long hair and a beard and look like some kind of caveman and now you’ve gone from one extreme to the other.”
I shrugged. “It’s only hair, Batfish.”
Batfish shook her head. “It’s not only about the hair, Brett. It’s about your whole behavior. You talk to yourself; you seem to be talking to people that aren’t there. You go off on your own on the island when Smith and McElroy and the rest of those guys are trying to eliminate the undead. I know we all have our own shit to deal with, Brett but what the hell is going on inside your head?”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “Wow! You really don’t want to know that.”
“Oh, what, are you going to tell me you see dead people now?” Batfish spat. “Like that kid in that movie.”
I raised my hand to my forehead. “Actually, yes I do. And I see and talk to another version of myself.”
I knew I’d said too much. Batfish screwed her face up in a combination of revulsion and disbelief.
“You’ve gotten yourself too weird, Brett,” she sighed. “Seriously, you need to straighten yourself out.” She shook her head, pulled herself up knocking the chair over in the process. She flashed me one last despairing glance before she turned away from the table and left the wardroom.
I sat alone and stared at my empty coffee cup. Batfish’s words kept repeating themselves in my mind. ‘You’ve gotten yourself too weird, Brett. Seriously, you need to straighten yourself out.’
If only it were as simple as how Batfish described it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I played chess against Chandra Yadav in the communal mess deck during the evening. I lost heavily against the Indian doctor in all the games we played. Maybe it had something to do with how much Caribbean rum I consumed during our lengthy tournament. Chandra asked me if I was okay on more than one occasion as I slugged down mouthfuls from the bottle.
“Don’t forget you have to get up early tomorrow morning for the mission you are going on,” Chandra reminded me.
I loved Chandra to bits and drunkenly slapped his face in a friendly way.
“Don’t worry about me, pal,” I slurred. “I’m on the express train to Weird Town.”
Chandra laughed and shook his head. “You are one crazy son of a bitch, Brett. You know that?”
I laughed out loud, maybe too loudly. “You’re right there, buddy. Everybody thinks I’m crazy. Maybe I am, who really knows?” I laughed again but felt an overwhelming sense of sadness wash over me. I wanted to cry. I didn’t want to be me any longer. I wanted to be somebody else, someone better than me. That was the last thing I remembered that night.
Booming gunfire awoke me from a deep, alcohol induced slumber. I sat bolt upright in my bed inside my cabin and quickly realized two things. Fact one was there was no gunfire, it was somebody banging furiously on the outside of my
cabin door. Fact two was my head ached so much it felt like it was going to explode.
“Hey! Kid, are you in there?” a voice hollered from outside the door. The banging started again, both inside my head and against the door. “Come on, Wilde Man, you’re late on parade. McElroy and the other guys are going nuts out there on the boat deck.”
I glanced at the clock on the bedside cabinet. The digital red numbers looked blurred but melded into a readable form after a few seconds. The clock read 05:17. I was already behind time. Some bright spark in their wisdom had figured out the time zone for our location and now we were being ruled by the clock again.
I hauled my naked body out from under my duvet at the same time as Smith barged in through the door. He was already dressed up in his black fatigues, suited and booted, looking focused ready to go to war.
“Jesus Christ, kid. What the hell are you doing?”
I stood hungover and naked in a pathetic, withering stance. I didn’t gain any sympathy from Smith. He glanced me up and down, shaking his head.
“It looks like a cock only smaller,” he said.
“Very funny,” I muttered. “Give me a minute, okay.”
“You got thirty seconds to throw your shit on or we’re going without you,” Smith snapped. “Black fatigues, remember?”
“I remember,” I groaned, heading to the small bathroom in the corner of the cabin. I splashed some cold water on my face and glugged down a swig of mouthwash. I left the door to the bathroom open and heard Smith barking on from the cabin.
“What in the hell were you thinking getting wasted last night, kid? We got a big day ahead of us. I tell you something for nothing, Mac and the rest of his crew are having serious doubts about keeping you in the loop for the A team. I mean, if it wasn’t for me putting in the word you’re a stand up guy and my right hand man, they’d drop you like a ton of shit. Are you listening to me in there?”
The Left Series (Book 7): Left Amongst The Corpses Page 3