“Fine, I will help but as soon as this is finished then we are searching for them together,” Jason said.
“Deal, we will need to start preparing the fence, all of you can start there,” William said.
“No, there is no way that will help you, rather keep it for something else,” Jason said.
“Then what do you suggest we do, to slow them down?” William asked.
“Do you have fuel?” Jason asked.
“Yes we do, we have some diamond fence, we even have a few lights but can’t run the generator due to noise, as distraction we only have pots and pans,” William said.
“We need the fuel the most, we won’t need the lights, just cars, I have done a blockade like this before, and these things are stupid, now I know we will be overrun but apparently fire works great, they die pretty fast,” Jason said explaining.
“So what’s the plan exactly?” Conway asked.
“If we hurry, we can block the entrance with vehicles and use the fuel to light them on fire, and this will injure a lot of them at the same time keep them at bay, giving us less stress and the opportunity to kill any that gets too close to breaking through,” Jason said.
“How long do you think that will last until they break through with mass numbers?” William said.
“With one row not long, maybe an hour if lucky two hours, that is if the people here can fire accurately,” Conway said.
“That’s the thing we need a small group, to help us out with a second mission, once we start firing they will come and by the masses,” Jason said.
“Do explain more,” William said.
“On our way here, we saw a fuel tanker, we will use that to blow the bridge, it might be enough or it might not be, I don’t know but as long as that bridge stays intact, the more will come,” Jason said.
“That’s a suicide mission; you will have to go through all of them just to reach the bridge, park the truck and then what? You won’t be able to run through all of those creatures without getting infected, that’s if you survive that long, I can’t allow this,” William said angrily.
“We crash it, the ocean is right there, don’t worry about the escape, we just need a way to blow it from a distance,” Jason said.
“Sorry, but we don’t have anything,” William said.
“That’s too bad, would have been a lot easier, either way if you want to keep Key West safe then this needs to be done, it’s the only way that bridge has to go,” Jason said.
“We have gas cans, small and really big ones, we use them for the gas stoves, if you can find that to be of use then you can use the stock we have here,” William said sighing.
“That’s too heavy and since the group is small, we won’t have the power to carry them that far,” Jason said disappointed.
“We don’t need much, just one large can and we are golden,” Conway said smiling.
“So what are you suggesting?” Jason asked.
“We take one large canister, load it into the front of the truck, before we crash it, we drain some fuel over the body and some inside the truck, open the gas flow, crash the truck, make our escape and find a way to set it on fire, which won’t be a problem either, I mean its gas it will set fire fast, we can do that from a distance by just using a bottle of whiskey with a piece of cloth,” Conway said, explaining this will be safest and the easiest method.
“Sounds like a plan, we will do that then and pray thatit works,” Jason said.
“It will, I wasn’t done though, if we can scavenge some speakers from the cars I can wire them to the truck in a few minutes, we can make a lot of noise, we can lure a few then blow it, if it doesn’t blow the bridge then at least we know we took down a bunch of them,” Conway said, confident his plan will work perfectly.
“Then it’s decided, I will go with you, Jason I need you to stay and help out here, with your barricade plans,” William said.
“I am coming to, I feel safer on that trip then staying here to defend a full on assault,” Sarah said.
“Whatever you prefer,” Jason said.
“We will leave immediately, it will only take a few minutes to get to the harbor, where you have seen the tanker, that’s if we stick to the shores,” William said.
“If anything goes wrong and you can’t hold out any longer, here are the keys to the boats take the remaining survivors and retreat back to Fort Jefferson if you must,” William said.
“No problem, you better get going we don’t have time, the faster we can do this the faster we can put that search party together,” Jason said.
Chapter 10: Defensive efforts
William and Conway sets out with the gas canister, its large, full and heavy making them slightly slower, a long exhausting trip, if Sarah could only help. Jason was full on busy with everyone pushing around cars blockading them self in, they are getting more and more, yet easily contained, allowing Jason to get extra cars to enforce the strength of the blockade.
Jason rounded up everyone, handing out fuel that needs to be used on and inside the cars, they should also try and make holes in the cars gas tanks, its simply to get the extra juice and let fumes escape, they don’t want any explosion that could risk the strength of the barricade.
The defenses is looking extremely good to Jason, once they light up these cars there should be enough light for them to see, the generator is ready if they need it, all that is needed is a good distraction, Jason considers Martins idea to use pots and pans to lure them. He starts tying them to long pieces of rope, hanging them, the wind is blowing so it will make noise but anyone can bang on them to make extra noise.
Everything is set up, everything is looking good except for the weather, the clouds is thick and heavy, lightning but so far no rain yet, if it does rain the plan will be destroyed entirely, the won’t be able to destroy the bridge either.
Since the streets still look decently clear and safe, Jason orders everyone to take the remaining gas tanks and just set them at random places, once done each one should make a few Molotov cocktails, there is enough alcohol, this will surely make it one hell of a hard trip for them.
William waits patiently as Conway set up the last few speakers, the truck starts perfectly, it’s hard to breathe in the truck with all the fuel, William can only hope Conway knows what he is doing, one wrong move and this entire thing can go up in flames with them still in it.
Without another second going to waste, they take off; driving slowly for as long as they can before they are forced to speed up as much as possible, there is so many, William won’t be surprised if the truck just stops moving.
“Damn it, it stinks badly,” William said.
“Stop complaining, get ready we are only a few blocks away,” Conway said.
“Let’s do this, go faster,” William said.
“This is the fastest it will go, beside don’t want to jack knife this around a tight corner,” Conway said.
“I just realized, this plan will only work if we destroy the bridge before entering Stock Island,” William said.
“I know, it’s a long shot but we have to try,” Conway said.
“Once we get on that bridge there is no going back, we also have to set fire to it manually there won’t be time to clear distance to use a Molotov, unless there isn’t to many of them around , otherwise we head for the roof of the truck, set it on fire and make a jump for it,” Conway said.
“Agreed, try to go not too far, I’m not the fittest person and I hear Florida rank high when it comes to shark attacks, I’m sure a bunch fell of and it’s a feeding zone by now,” William said.
Conway tries to speed up on the bridge but instead the truck only slows down, the bridge is full of them, Conway crashes the truck into a bunch of cars, its far enough, it will have to do, he turns on the radio playing a music Cd as loud as possible, both of them head to the roof, those monsters are everywhere along the bridge as far as the eye can see, so much that some of them get forced over the bridge and into the ocean.
“You were right there are a lot that falls over the edge, we need to swim deeper when we jump, you will never know how long they can keep their breath for,” Conway said.
“Just a good distance from the bridge, that’s all we need they can drown like any normal person,” William said.
“If you say so,” Conway said as he prepares his lighter.
Conway put his lighter back into his pocket then aims his gun at the cars, firing only a few shots at the tanks, leaving the fuel to run out, Conway makes sure that William is ready, both are ready to jump, Conway lights his lighter and hold it up against the part where they leaked some fuel, William jumps, though Conway makes sure the flames are spreading fast like it should and only jumps right before it could enter the tanker.
They swim fast as far as possible, it wouldn’t be wise to be under the bridge, and Conway can only hope, hope that part of the bridge is weak and it will collapse easily, the two stares patiently at the burning tanker, no explosion, it’s simply burning.
William is starting to freak out, if that thing doesn’t explode like planned, then they are stuck with a long swim back to land, the gas can explodes into a large ball of flames setting many of them on fire, but the tanker haven’t gone of yet, approximately 4 minutes later after they started swimming back to land they hear a loud explosion, looking back they can see only a trail of black smoke and burning hot flames.
“See now we need to swim back and actually see if it did any damage to the bridge,” Conway said as he starts swimming back.
Close enough, Conway could see that their plan failed, the blast wasn’t powerful enough, the bridge is perfectly fine, he could see that some of the other cars also went up in flames, followed with a small explosion, there were at least, a large crack in the bridge, large enough for them to fall through, though with the steel reinforced beams, there is no way this bridge will collapse.
It will stop some of them but eventually they will pass as they fill up the crack with their own rotting flesh. The two starts swimming back it’s going to take a while, it is most likely that they will be dead before they get back. Hopefully Sarah is ok, what a brat to come along just to steal a boat and take off like that, Conway wonders, if she ever knew that this is a global epidemic and that there is no safe place to hide.
Sarah is already miles away from land, only to realize she has no idea where she is going, the sea is rough, with the thunder strikes in the distance it’s a sure way to freak her out, making things even worse the boat suddenly dies, even the lights went off, she is left on the water in the pitch dark night.
Water splashes against the boat; Sarah can’t help but pray as she cries, she hears the water splash against the boat but she can tell, some of the splashes aren’t against the boat directly, too afraid to stand up, she sits down holding her knees up to her face, while something keeps bumping into the boat.
Sarah believes that this is water that got splashed into the boat and with the little courage she have, she gets up to find a bucket in order to remove the water. Little does she know that there is a leak in the front of the boats nose, too dark to see, busy for several minutes she realize that the water is only getting deeper.
With the boat almost entirely sunken, she knows there is no point of staying on it; she slides into the water with a life jacket to help her float. She has never been so afraid in her entire life, every few minutes there is a flash of light caused by the lightning, she swims slowly, another flash of light before its pitch dark again, she continues to swim in the direction that she believe is the right way to Key West.
Another flash of lightning and she could see that she wasn’t alone in the water, she can hear splashes, freaking out she swims much faster, continues flashes of multiple lightning strikes and she could see multiple fins, not a second later she could feel this tight pressure over her ribs, another grab her left arm, before she was dragged down, deep into the dark ocean.
Chapter 11: Revenge
Jason and everyone else are ready and prepared, ready to take down this horde approaching, knowing that there will be a lot. If they only had the view Conway had, only then they would know they had absolutely no chance of surviving the attack.
Beside of the over whelming numbers, Jason had no idea of what would happen next. Luke had finally reached him and he can’t wait to put an end to Jason’s miserable life, staring from a distance patiently, observing them, it didn’t take him long to figure out their plan.
There is a lot more with him then he expected but he will make use of the neatly placed gas cans, he will use that in order to get to Jason. Luke knows as soon as the defenses are broken they will all freak out that will be his chance to take him out.
The moaning is getting louder and louder, Jason and everyone is standing ready to fire, Jason is in open sight, and Luke readying his gun figuring a good shot will do good, it will save him a lot of effort, before he could pull the trigger Jason hear screaming, Jason knew that scream, that sounded exactly like Jacky.
Jason order everyone to set the vehicles on fire as he leaps over a car, he can see the horde, he could see a flash light from one of the homes nearby, knowing that must be them and if not obviously someone else that is still alive.
He rushes over, firing his pistols multiple times, barely making it to the front door, with joy and happiness he starts to cry, he finally found his daughters and Conway’s girlfriend.
“We can’t stay here, we have to head back now,” Jason said.
“We need to reach the barricade and help defend it for as long as possible,” Jason said as he opens the door, pushing Jacky slightly to start running.
They run over to the barricades climbing over the car Martin kept unlit, Jason opened fire on the horde as soon as he got over. Martin lit the car and it went up in flames, the entire idea is working well, the bodies are stacking up fast, those that catches fire only lasts a few seconds before dying. At this rate they will have it cleared in no time, before it got better it only got worse as it started to drip slightly only for a minute or two until it started to rain heavily.
The rain quickly killed any large fires it’s dark and hard to see, especially with the rain; Jason tries to start the generator with Martin but realizes that it’s too late, with people screaming horribly some out of fear others out of pain and suffering.
The blockade had fallen it’s a fact, the only reason for such screaming, they have no option but to head back, Martin convinces Jason to stay a little longer, try and hold the Fort slightly longer, they still have enough ammo and for all they know not there could be only a few left.
Jason send his daughters to the boats to take cover and if anything had to happen or these things had to reach the boat they should take off and head straight to Fort Jefferson, Maggie knows exactly where it is, it’s her favorite place to go snorkeling.
Jason and Martin quickly return, trying to assist anyone one with cover fire, only three of them made it back, together as five they stood strong taking down a lot more then Jason figured.
They are getting less and less by the minute, Jason could only hear one loud scream, as he runs back to the boat with Martin following, he can see a man holding a weapon toward Maggie’s head, Martin lights up the man’s face with a flash light and to Jason’s surprise, he sees Luke holding a revolver to her head, before Jason could even think of taunting him he pulls the trigger and makes a run for it.
Jacky cries alongside Ashley as Jason runs after him while firing on Luke, Luke took a tight turn and jumped into the sea, diving making it impossible for Jason to track down or follow. Jason heads straight back, praying that he somehow missed arriving at her lifeless body, Jason grabs Martins flash light to be able to see better.
It’s a direct shot and she is dead, Jason cries loudly as Martin tries to calm him, trying to get Jason in the boat to retreat, gun fire from the remaining three survivors stopped minutes ago, it could mean only one thing, they have failed.
Jason placed h
er body gently on the deck of the boat covering her body with his jacket, promising himself and her sister Jacky that he will find a way for them to pay he promise his life on it.
Luke stares aimlessly at the boat as it drives off, knowing exactly where he will be going, Luke is happy with his progress, he managed to at least make Jason suffer for now by losing a loved one, just like Luke lost his brother.
William and Conway swim from pillar to pillar with small breaks in between, it’s felt like ages when they were laying on the beach, tired and exhausted.
“It’s late, we should get going,” Conway said as he got up.
“Just five more minutes,” William said breathing heavily.
“That’s five more minutes you will have all to yourself, as I am leaving now,” Conway said laughing softly.
“There is no way I am staying here alone,” William said as he got up fast.
“So the plan didn’t fail entirely,” William said.
“It still counts as failing in my books, it doesn’t matter now,” Conway said.
“We should stick to the beach, it will be safer than taking any road,” William said softly, still out of breath.
“It sure will be, let’s just take it cool and calm any faster and I am sure you will die on the spot,” Conway said smiling.
“Real funny smart guy,” William said.
“Hey, exercise can come a long way, you know,” Conway said laughing softly.
“Sorry, I am just playing around I don’t mean to mock you or try to make you feel bad about yourself,” Conway said.
“It’s ok, I never was a fit guy, and in fact believe it or not I was bigger than this before I came to Florida for my short vacation,” William said.
“Must be one hell of an adventurous vacation so far,” Conway said laughing.
“Jip, beside from that it’s the worse vacation ever,” William said.
“I can’t hear any gun fire, they must have retreated or failed horribly, and died,” William said.
The End Page 15