“Where are you going?”
Char took her eyes off Maar. Spencer was by the side of the boat. He was yelling. Deisenroth had revved the engines. In the silence of the night, they sounded like rockets firing up on the space shuttle.
“We’re pulling out of the slip,” Keel said.
“No. You’re not. You want to keep the engines running, that’s fine. But you, Captain, are not going anywhere,” the corporal said.
“This is my ship.”
“And I have my orders, Captain.”
Travis Keel laughed. “What orders? I never gave you any orders.”
“You’re not my Captain, sir. I wouldn’t take orders from you under any circumstances,” Spencer said.
“These orders, what are they?”
“No reason I can’t tell you. You try moving this boat; I put a bullet in your skull. I’m paraphrasing. Kind of. I think you get it though, don’t you?” Spencer raised his rifle.
Maar looked sideways at Char. She cocked her head to the side. “No funny ideas,” she said. She motioned with her gun for him to step aside.
She wanted her back to Spencer and the Coast Guard personnel in front. “Allison, you and Cash get off the ship.”
“I don’t think now’s the time,” Allison said.
“We’re getting off,” Char said. “Now.”
“You must be out of your mind,” Keel said. “You are not going to shoot a captain.”
“I don’t care if you were the president. You try to move this boat, and you’re dead, and I’m not fooling around.”
Char jumped. Didn’t expect it. The gunshot boomed.
She stared at Keel. Thought he’d been hit. Way he put a hand to his chest, maybe he’d thought so, too.
“Was a warning shot,” Spencer said. “I’ve changed my mind. Shut the engine.”
Keel removed his hand real slow. His lips spread wide and he laughed. “You are out of your mind, corporal. You know how many guns are aimed at you right now.”
Char took a look around. All of them. Even Deisenroth with one hand on the wheel, one on a gun. Where were Allison and Cash? She didn’t want to take her eyes off the Coast Guard. She never let her gun waver; if she pulled the trigger, Maar was dead.
Despite the engine chugging, the river water slapping up against the side of the ship, there was no mistaking two sounds. If the wind wasn’t blowing, Char knew she’d smell them, as well.
Moaning.
Growling.
Both fast and sluggish zombies were coming.
She knew the sound attracted them. The engine. The warning shot. Calling cards. Zombies were coming. Getting off the boat didn’t make sense.
Keel must have heard them, too. He wasn’t laughing. His smile froze on his face. He looked up and to the left, but it was far too dark to see anything. He said something to Deisenroth, and then turned. “Get off my ship!”
Allison pushed Cash behind her. “The things are coming.”
“You wanted off. You wanted to go wait for your man. Go. It’s not a request. Get off my ship.”
Spencer climbed aboard.
A gunshot was fired. Char didn’t see who did it. She saw, instead, Spencer stumble back a step, another, hit the side of the boat before falling over and splashing into the icy river.
Something slammed into her arm. She dropped the handgun as she turned her attention back on Maar.
He twisted her arm at the wrist, spun her around and shoved her arm halfway up her back.
“Get them off my ship,” Keel said.
“You can’t do that,” Allison said.
“Break the girl’s arm,” Keel said.
Maar applied pressure. The threat, the possibility he’d break bone was very real. She didn’t want to cry out, but couldn’t hold it in. Pain shot through her arm to her shoulder. “Let go of me!”
Maar forced her to walk.
“Keel, tell him to stop,” Allison said.
Keel shrugged. “We’re pulling away. Either you get off right now, or once we pull away, we’ll throw you into the water. All three of you.”
“Captain,” Erway said.
“Stop choosing the wrong sides, Erway. Learn your place, dammit!”
Erway grit her teeth and hefted a medical bag over her shoulder. “I’m getting off, too.”
Again, Keel laughed. “You’re not going anywhere. I’ve had enough.”
The zombies were closer. Char couldn’t tune them out. She couldn’t look to see how many either. Cold tears filled her eyes. “Let me go, please,” she said in a whisper.
“You put a gun to my head,” Maar said. “Where was your mercy?”
“She’s a kid. Leave her alone. She doesn’t have a gun. She’s not a threat.”
The pressure stopped. Just like that. Gone. Char pulled her arm up to her chest and cradled it.
Allison was wide-eyed.
Char turned around. Maar wasn’t behind her. He was balled up on the ground, out of it. Blood spilled from a crack on the back of his head.
Sues Melia held a fire extinguisher in both hands. She smiled. “Now what?”
The rest of the Coast Guard crew was on deck. Char counted them. Too many to fight. She bent down, picked up her handgun. “We’re out of here,” she said.
Allison said, “What?”
“We’re not staying on the ship.”
“Charlene,” Allison said.
Char faced her. “Staying on this ship isn’t safe. They’re crazy, Allison. We won’t be safe. Look at him. The captain has lost his mind. They’ll kill us. They just shot that corporal guy. See anyone flinch? We’re getting off.”
Char went to the side of the boat, put one leg over, and then the other. “Cash, come on.”
Allison held her brother’s hand.
Cash tugged and yanked in an attempt to pull free.
“She’s right,” Crystal said. She was on her feet, standing beside Sues. “I’m not staying.”
“Come with us, Allison,” Char said.
Keel fired three shots into the air. “Get off my boat. Now!”
“We were leaving. Why did you do that? Why did you fire that stupid gun? You just called more zombies over here!”
“Too fuck--”
Char shot him. She just raised her gun, pulled the trigger and shot the captain. The impact spun him around, arms flailing. He did more than a one-eighty, leaned over the helm, and swore as blood pooled and then spilled from the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, shit,” Allison said.
Char was far from done. She aimed, fired and fired and fired.
The Coast Guard returned fire.
Screams came from everywhere. Char drowned out the noise. She concentrated instead on targets. And fired. And fired.
She only stopped when she thought she heard Allison scream out a name. Her ears rang from all the gunplay. A slight shake of her head would clear the clouding. That was when she heard it again. Only Allison wasn’t screaming. Not anymore. Now she sobbed. Sobbed and said the same name, over and over.
“Cash. Cash!”
Chapter Eighteen
“I can walk,” Saylor said. He shrugged off hands trying to help him. He held up his handgun. “I’ve got this.”
He could walk. He’d never be able to run. He winced every time he put any weight on his leg. Ankle was probably worse than a sprain.
“We going for Marf?” I said.
“See if he’s out.” Palmeri checked the clip in her rifle. Seemingly satisfied, she locked it back in place.
“Marf?” I said into the radio.
“Yeah,” he said. No ‘over’ this time.
“You out?”
“No. Still here. Can’t get out through the floors. Place is kind of well constructed, surprisingly, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s even more zombies,” he said into my ear.
I told Palmeri, and then went over the radio again. “Anyone else copy this transmission? Anyone?”
Silence.
Ev
eryone looked at me. I shook my head.
The Coast Guard should hear us. They should be answering at the very least, but they weren’t. I couldn’t help wondering if we were going to return to an empty slip. The vessel gone. My kids, gone.
“Tell Lou we’re coming for him.”
It finally hit me. Lou, short for Lieutenant. I told him and he thanked us.
“You know where he is, right? You were at his apartment?” Palmeri said.
“About two back that way,” Dave said, pointing. “I’ll lead the way.”
Palmeri nodded. “Okay. We go slow. I don’t need to stress this, but we look in every direction all at once. Got it?”
We agreed.
Dave stood at the door with one hand on the knob. Saylor was by the window, silhouetted against the flames of the fire just beyond. He craned his head left and right.
“How do we look?” Palmeri said.
“Seven? Eight? I can’t see everything, but they’re out there.”
As if to illustrate the point, something knocked against the door. Dave jumped back.
“They’re milling around. They don’t look like they’re trying to get inside. Not really. They just look, I don’t know, kinda lost,” he said.
“Lost is good,” Palmeri said. “We can surprise them, hopefully.”
I took in a deep breath. Eyes closed. I saw the camp in my head, best I could remember it. The fence outlined everything. The apartments were in rows. We never made it past the center. Way it sounded, we never would. “I think we get Marf, and then we keep going west, toward the fence. Follow it around to the gate,” I said.
“We should stay between apartments,” Saylor said. Again, he spoke loudly, forgetting that his booming voice could attract unwanted attention. “We need to hide, get away from them, and the fence isn’t going to help.”
He might be right. “Okay,” I said. “I agree.”
“How lucky for me,” Saylor said.
“Cool it,” Palmeri said. She knew how to yell without raising her voice. “We’re behind you, Dave. As soon as you’re ready.”
I exhaled.
“As ready as I can be,” he said. He looked at me. I nodded. “Here we go.”
I took a knee, raised my rifle and aimed.
Dave pushed open the door.
The door knocked two zombies over, sending them to the ground. Their arms and legs flailed; looked like they were making mud angels. I almost fired at nothing. Didn’t have to wait long. Another creature stuck his head in the doorway. It was a woman who had long curly hair. Most of it was matted against her face, and neck. Her arms reached for us and we could see that her flesh was clearly bitten. Mouth-size chunks were missing up her forearm and the bone was exposed under what was left of her decaying meat and tendons.
I fired.
The bullet went through the bridge of her nose. Her eyes crossed as she fell forward. Dave kicked her body out of the doorway. He sent a few rounds into the mud angels. Their bodies danced as the bullets slammed into them, then nothing. They lay flat and still.
Three down, five to go, if Saylor had been correct. Five, if our gunshots didn’t attract more.
“Move,” Palmeri said.
Dave stepped out of the apartment. I was right behind him. I held my gun up, swiveled left and right. To the right were three more. I fired, missed, cursed, and fired again. Chunked out a slab of shoulder. The zombie jumped back, off balance, but didn’t go down and didn’t stop advancing. It slowed him, but nothing more.
I closed one eye and lined up the cross hair, ignored the sound of firing weapons, yelling and screaming around me. I fired again. Hit the eye. It popped in a spray of the black goo that once had been blood. Dropped it.
We were going to the left. The zombies were behind us, moving slowly. Steady, but slow.
I didn’t want to take my eyes off them. I kept the rifle raised, but I didn’t shoot. We were putting some distance between them. I kept an eye on Palmeri and Saylor.
I chanced a look around.
Dave was low, checking the corner before rounding it. He fired his rifle.
“Got a few over here,” he said. “Shit. More than a few.”
“Shoot ‘em,” I said. “Shoot them all!”
I hoped Saylor and Palmeri had our backs. I stood above Dave. We aimed at the zombies coming up the alley between apartment buildings and fired.
Two ran at us fast. They were decked out in military camo.
“Hit ‘em, hit ‘em,” I said.
I was shooting. Headshots were tough, especially with them running. Heads bobbed. In shows and movies, the good guys hit everything. Destroyed brains like there was no way to miss. Crossbows sent arrows true. In real life, the here and now, it was different. So fucking different. The more apprehensive the situation made me, the harder it was to aim, but I kept firing.
And firing.
There was no other choice. None.
We nailed the fast ones. Might have been Dave or it could have been me. Like to think, it had been me. I gave up on keeping score. My ratio sucked anyway.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter, anymore. I was out. No more clips on me. No ammo left. “I’m out, got nothing left!”
I held onto the rifle. It was my bat, my sledgehammer. It, and my knife, they were all I had to keep me alive.
“Get up!” It was Palmeri. I looked back and saw that Saylor had fallen and was face down in the mud.
I stopped.
Dave grabbed me by the shoulder. “Keep moving,” he said.
I heard gunshots. Lots of gunshots. It wasn’t us and didn’t seem to be coming from the camp, so it had to be from the boat. I needed to get back to the boat. Dave was absolutely right; we needed to keep moving.
“Can you help me,” Palmeri said. It was like she was crying out in desperation. I heard it in her voice. I shouldn’t have done it, but I looked back a second time.
Palmeri kneeled next to Saylor. She had her handgun out. She used her free arm and snaked it under Saylor. He was not helpless, so he struggled to help her lift him.
“Dave,” I said.
He fired at a zombie. “We keep moving.”
I went back. Could not ignore the smell of the apartments burning. The raging fire kept getting closer. There was no worrying about the moon hiding behind clouds now. Flames lit the night sky better than the sun during most days. I dropped on the opposite side of Palmeri.
Dave ran at us. A spattering of flame burst from the front of the rifle barrel. I threw up an arm to shield my head. If Dave was shooting at me, my arm wasn’t going to stop shit. It was just a reflex. Dave wasn’t shooting at me. He was hitting, with pretty dead-on accuracy, the zombies coming at us from behind.
He reached us and dropped his rifle by my side. “I’m out, too!”
In a single, fluid motion, he had his knife out and was in the air. He slammed the heel of his shoes into a zombie’s chest. The thing would have gotten me, no doubt. I hadn’t seen it, or heard it, but it had been right behind me.
With a scream, Dave scrambled, spun around in the mud and threw his body across the creature. I stood up as Dave drove his blade into the zombie’s throat. He tugged his knife across the flesh, sawing at the spine. He grabbed a fist of its hair and pulled on it as he snapped the head one way, the other, and back again until he was able to pull it free. He removed the whole head from the body and cast it aside.
Palmeri was up, too. She fired at the zombies coming from where we had been heading. She aimed and fired. Good shots. Dropped zombies like a pro.
However, we were stuck. With Saylor struggling to stand, we were trapped between two apartments with nowhere to escape to. We needed an out, and right now, I didn’t see one.
I gripped the barrel of my rifle and swung at the head of a fast zombie. I knocked it off balance. It fell against the siding, clawing at the apartment to keep from hitting the ground. It knew it wanted to stay on its feet.
I raised the butt of the rifle and drove in
to the thing’s face. Its head smashed. It looked like an overripe melon of some sort. The thing’s nose was lost inside the skull and thick black blood oozed from where cheeks and teeth had been. It slumped to the mud, and then just sat there. Battered brains spilled from the huge orifice that was now the center of its face.
“We’re surrounded,” Dave said.
I looked left. Right. Wasn’t quite surrounded. Sandwiched, yes. Sandwiched between the two buildings, and both possible ways out were filled with zombies. They were either slow or cautious. I preferred to think slow. Slow meant they weren’t learning, weren’t getting smarter, and were not afraid of us bashing in their brains.
Slow, or smart, didn’t matter. We had nowhere to turn. Nowhere to go. “Dave,” I said, holding up my knife.
The two of us could fight our way out.. Three, if Palmeri came. Saylor would be fucked though. No way to cut a safe path through with Saylor saddling down two of us. Just wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work.
Palmeri insisted on helping Saylor up. He stood with one arm out, as if reaching for a wall to support him. Palmeri slid under that arm. “I’ve got you,” she said.
She didn’t. He weighed twice as much as her. He’d bring her down. With the wet grass, the mud, no way they could run. Fucking zombies slow as turtles would be able to catch and eat them.
“Keep moving,” Dave said.
I pursed my lips and tried to swallow. My throat felt dry, raw and my tongue swollen and thick. Sweat, rain, or mud slid down my forehead. Streaked my face. I wiped it with the back of my sleeve, and my sleeve onto the stomach of my shirt.
I didn’t want to leave anyone behind.
Dave stared at me. He didn’t say a word, but I saw it in his eyes. He screamed it with his eyes. We keep moving.
Chapter Nineteen
0512 hours
Our predicament resembled a mini-football field, and there were two teams involved; us versus Them. Felt like we were in the fourth quarter, at the two-minute warning. While I hoped we’d end this, worst case, I wanted to hang on long enough to go into overtime. It didn’t look good. In fact, it looked down right terrible.
Two rectangular apartment buildings sat, one on our left, and the back end of an identical one to the right. To the west, behind us, six or seven zombies approached. Two wore simple hospital gowns with bare limbs exposed to the elements. If I had to guess, flaps were open in the back. Why I thought that, why that popped into my mind, I have no idea. Another wore unidentifiable clothing. It was burnt and melted to her body. Her face and arms had been blackened by heat and fire. If the hair around the charred face hadn’t been so long, I’d never have known it was a woman. The others four were a mix of military and civilians. Men and women with bite marks evident and decay apparent. They were all obviously anxious to sink teeth into our flesh.
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