Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
As the afternoon set in, the crew from Sandspit settled down to a waiting game inside their bunker. The motel room. No talk but a few whispers here and there, but it was more a time to take in some nourishment. A can of cold beans or fruit cocktail and some made coffee, while the generator still worked. While some chewed on strips of jerky.
One thing was certain. The foamers couldn’t smell or sense their own kind, otherwise the parking lot would be overrun.
“Now that’s the one item we didn’t think of.” Riley said albeit in a restrained tone.
“Whats that?” Chess answered.
“Socks. I’m stuck here without a pair of socks and I hate wearing combat boots without socks!” even in a whisper, Riley’s distaste was quite evident.
“Well, I’m not running back to the office to get you any, so you’ll have to make do.” Chess said.
“Make some strips from these blankets Riley, and wrap them around your feet,” Sam said. “It won’t be the best but better than bare-feet.”
“Yeah that might be an idea, thanks Sam.”
He does have his moments. Riley said to himself.
“I imagine,” Chess continued, “the rest of the foamers are wandering around the town with no idea where we are.”
Sam turned around and looked at Riley. “We have a living genius in our presence.”
“Very funny, but you know what I mean.”
“I do, but like the first lot, we could get foamers in here at any moment.” Riley’s tone reflected the seriousness of the moment.
“I propose we take the opportunity to get some rest while there's no activity outside.”
“I agree with you Sergeant Morris, and you can take the first watch.” Riley said.
Riley rolled up a blanket and put under his head as he lay down on the carpet. He pulled another over him and closed his eyes. A soldier, a cop and a combat vet, he knew the importance of rest between action. Even if sleep was only a light doze it was still beneficial to the body. If one could detach from the stress of the fighting, and the type of enemy, the advantage would be even greater.
More weary than he thought Riley drifted off to sleep. A moment before he did, the thought that Elliot or Chuck’s survival was no longer the main concern. It was the survival of the crew here at Sandspit. No one foresaw the foamers drift in on the sea—but why not? They’re already dead so they’d have no fear of drowning.
Hell, those sonsabithches could have walked along the bottom of the ocean, if they didn’t…
Sleep came over Riley before he finished his thought.
Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
An hour out of Richland, Elliot woke with a start, his eyes wide and face pale. “Chuck, we have to get back fast! They’re in trouble!”
“What, who is?”
“Riley and Chess and my-my dad, they all are.” Elliot had fallen asleep, along with the two in the back, only Chuck remained awake.
“You just had a night—”
“No, Chuck. It was more than that and you felt it too, remember?”
He did but had calmed since taking to the air again. “Yeah I do, but I can’t go any faster Elliot, this is it.”
“What is it? Is something wrong?” Tom stirred from the back seat from the discussion in the cockpit.
“We need to get back Tom, the others' are in trouble. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.”
“Well…” Tom rubbed sleep from his eye and reached for his bottled water. “I don’t think anyone here doubts your intuitiveness, Elliot. Especially in this situation.”
“Do you recall any specifics?” Chuck asked about the dream.
“No, not really. Just a sensation of being closed in, like surrounded by walls.”
Now that Elliot had mentioned it, the urgency returned for Chuck. He didn’t have any dreams about, but there was something in the back of his mind he couldn’t shake.
“I’ll get us back as fast as this old bird will take us Elliot.”
“I hope that’s gonna be fast enough.”
Chuck looked out of the window of the cockpit to get his bearings then turned to Elliot. “I do my best, Elliot.”
* * *
The mid-afternoon foray into the parking lot by the foamers was the first, and so far, the only attempt made. The sun was low in the western horizon and soon darkness would be upon them. Could it be that the foamers continued on their way, walked right on by the Sandspit Motel and continued into the heavy forest of the island?
None of those huddled in room 17 of the motel considered the likelihood of that for a moment, but neither did they contemplate the possibility of foamers laying in wait for them outside in the streets surrounding the motel.
That would be to assume the foamers had intelligence and were capable of formulating basic military tactics.
Chess sat bolt upright from the edge of the bed where he’d rested, beads of sweat ran down his face.
“My God if the foamers were to organize, we’re fucked.” He said before realizing his surrounds.
“You okay, Chess?” Sam, nearby on the floor, handed over a bottle of water.
“Yeah, yeah… sure, just a bit warm here. Thanks Sam.” Chess took the water and twisted the top off and gulped down the refreshing liquid ad rubbed a mouthful over his face.
“Who’s next on watch?” Morris asked quietly in the dark.
James was scheduled to be next but with Chess wide awake and with the jitters, told James to rest. “I’ll take it.” He eased over across the carpeted floor to the window and swapped places with Morris.
As he’d thought previously, the waiting game in a confined space proved to be as tough an adversary as the threat itself. Add the fact they’d walled themselves in, surrounded by the other rooms of the motel. It made for a great defensive position by daylight—not so good by night. And there was no possible chance for a retreat to a better position.
Chess pulled the magazine from its well on the M4 and eased out a single round.
“You zombie bastards won’t get me.” He said under his breath. He scanned the others' in the room for any reaction—no one had heard him. Satisfied, he slipped the single cartridge into his shirt breast pocket for safe keeping.
* * *
The wheels of the Cessna continued to roll as the door flew open. Richland airport was much bigger with two runways and a tanker on the tarmac, but as they now used auto gas it mattered little.
“Get those cars over here,” Chuck ordered as he stepped from the plane.
“What can I do?” Tom asked.
“You did pretty good with an M4 in Hammett so you can stand guard with me.”
“Gotcha!”
Chuck took two rifles out, passed one to Tom then assessed his surrounds. “You keep a watch on that side, I’ll take this side okay?”
“Got it.”
Elliot and Tristan didn’t have to venture far for the vehicles. Each had taken a wrench from the plane and smashed the windows to gain entry. Both returned to the plane in less than a minute and jumped out to siphon the fuel for the plane.
Richland had a population of over fifty-thousand and the chances that many now roamed the streets as the undead was high—very high. The first time Chuck and Elliot came through they thought themselves fortunate, but in a world of zombies, how long could that last?
“Let’s get the gas in there fast, just in case we have to make a fast getaway, okay.” Chuck felt nervous, and was sure it showed. He flew into the airport a little faster than he should have given his lack of recent aeronautic adventures, the whine of the Cessna more pronounced than it should have been. If anything would attract foamers, in a city now devoid of all noise, then that would have been it.
“Okay, that’s all the gas for that car,” Elliot said. He then started it, the last of the fuel in the lines enough to drive it off the runway.
“That should put us to more than half full, let�
�s get going!” Chuck rushed to the cockpit.
“Let’s fill it all the way Chuck, won’t take but a few minutes more.” Tristan implored.
Chuck understood. It did make sense but as he looked around over toward the center of Richland, the unease grew.
Eyes. A thousand eyes on him, of that he was sure.
“I don’t know man, I—”
“C’mon Chuck, it won’t take long.”
“Oh, all right but hurry.” Chuck relented.
Tristan moved the other vehicle closer to the plane then attached the siphon pump, improvised with a garden hose to cover the extra distance to the plane. After driving the other car off the runway, Elliot ran back to assist by connecting the larger hose end to the plane.
“We’re good to go!” Elliot yelled. “Tristan, I said—”
“Back in the plane, get back in the plane!” Chuck yelled.
From the southern end of the runway, hordes of foamers came running—it was the charge of the dead brigade.
Tristan pulled the hose from the old Ford while Elliot tackled the clamp on the other end.
“Come on Elliot, come on!”
“It’s stuck, its fuckin’ stuck.”
Chuck pushed his younger companion aside and wrapped his huge hands around, but was unable to budge it.
“The thread’s over-lapped. We don’t have time to fuck with it now. Get in.” Chuck cut the excess hose off but the main part of the siphon hung limp to the fuselage of the plane.
“But—”
“Get in the fuckin’ plane!” Chuck ordered.
The foamers, egg-white eyes and decayed beyond recognition, ran like Olympic sprinters—and were close.
Chuck started the engine as soon as he climbed aboard.
“Have we got enough runway?”
“I’ll turn onto the other runway to make sure.”
With twenty yards before the first of the foamers reached them Chuck gunned the Cessna and headed to where the runways crossed. But he now realized they were so close he had no choice but to go straight.
“Hold on!”
The take off on the Cessna wasn’t as sharp on auto-gas as with aviation fuel, Chuck compensated by running it on the runways faster than it was meant to go.
“Here we go…” Chuck yanked back on the yoke and with a shudder and a groan of metal, the Cessna lifted from the ground.
They were in the air once more and with it, safety.
“Man, will ya look at that!” Tristan remarked from the rear of the plane as Chuck banked hard left for a better look.
Thousands of foamers covered the runway below and more were headed in that direction from the town itself. A rhythmic clunk echoed in the cabin as the siphon pump banged against the plane.
“We got away just in time,” Tom said.
“How do they survive? I mean, they’re… oh, shit, this is too much for my brain.”
“It’s okay Tristan, don’t try to rationalize it. It’s messed up my thinking too.” Chuck told him.
“I want to know one damn thing.” Elliot’s voice firm and direct. “Why is it every time we look like we have a chance, we face another set-back?”
No one responded—how could they, when no one had an answer?
“I mean our first night of this pandemic and we were attacked, then just after we picked up the Grigsby’s we were attacked by ex-army or something, then on the Canadian border a legion of pygmies storm our position and then Roger gets-gets…”
“Its all right Elliot, it’s all right.” Chuck saw the tears roll down the young man’s cheeks—even from underneath his black leather patch. “I know what you mean, it does appear that we’re thwarted at every turn, but there’s not much left in this world to assist us anyway. So things are bound to go awry.”
“I had debated many times, as far back as my college days in fact,” Tom leaned forward to be heard, “society has increasingly become more and more reliant on technology. It always has, but the technology now has superseded everything. Computers, they control everything. Planes, hospitals, pharmacies, your service bills, your pay check, the military, nuclear missiles and every thing. You may remember the panic over the Y2K bug. It was as fake as a three dollar bill, but the anti-virus companies made a few hundred million selling software to prevent a non existent threat and that’s what it was all about—money. Though, it did bring about the realization of how reliant on computers the world had become and we’d have that to be thankful for, if we had heeded the warning. And if the world wide web went down, their would be total gridlock.” Tom slumped back into his seat. “Now you take that, add a few million zombies and basically you have the situation we’re in now.” Tom reached forward once more and patted Elliot on the back of the shoulder. “With all we’ve been through, we’re doing pretty damn good, Elliot.”
“Yeah, and there’s bound to be more people once we get off this island when that sub comes back for us.” Chuck encouraged.
“Do you believe that?”
“I have to Elliot—we all have to—otherwise theres no point is there?”
Chuck then told everyone to hang on for the ride back. He believed with a tail wind they might have enough gas to get there without another stop.
The truth was, with Elliot’s reminder of his unpleasant suspicions over Sandspit, and the way the kid questioned their actions—as well as himself—Chuck just wanted to get back to Sandspit.
Like right away.
As the dark approached from the East, Chuck’s plans to fly straight through would be ill advised under normal circumstances. With no lights on the ground to assist the inexperienced pilot it made for a dangerous task—eased somewhat by the fact there was no other air traffic to be concerned over. He would have to fly by compass heading and hope there would be enough starlight to see the tiny town of Sandspit.
He’d worry about landing the plane on the single runway that was as wide as a two lane access road when he got there.
One thing at a time Chuck, just one at a time.
Chapter Twenty
Twenty
Chess had been right about the tarps that stretched across the parking lot. They did hold out the rain but now did the same to what available light there was. Inside the motel room was pitch black. The ex-military men were trained to load their weapons blind-folded and would have no problems in the dark but for James and Sam… it would be a difficult proposition. A clear path had been made—just before the dark took over—along the wall and to the bathroom.
No lights were to be used under any circumstances.
Water, hard biscuits, dried fruit and jerky were left on the end of one bed were it could easily be found in the dark. Movement was restricted to bathroom, food or water and when it was your turn to take watch at the front window.
The silence and the pressure built up and though the weather cold, each of the men inside wiped perspiration from their foreheads.
Several hours passed before the first disturbance was heard nearby. A vibrating, guttural growl like a large dog protecting its bone, but far more menacing, echoed through the night. It was hard to determine the direction or proximity of the noise because of their location in the rear of the motel. The trees and the hills around the town, made it difficult. Heavily wooded area to one side, the Pacific Ocean on the other and strong winds deceived the listener. No matter where the howl came from, the occupants of room 17 were now on full alert.
“Cleav, you cover the back door okay?”
Cleavon didn’t answer but when Chess felt a light tap on his shoulder he knew his instructions were to be followed.
“Riley, Riley. Were are you?”
“I’m right behind you and keep it quiet will you?”
“Who’s on guard?”
“I am.”
“Sam?”
“Yeah, who else did you—”
Sam’s instant halt conveyed the message everyone in the room had been dreading. Foamers, in the parking lot and in the dark.
&
nbsp; The metallic rattle of a magazine forced into it’s well was the loudest noise heard for hours.
“Careful Chess, keep the damn safety on.”
“You got it.”
Chess slithered across the filthy old carpet, not quite with all the grace of a snake, but more like the awkwardness of a legless Orangutan.
When he reached the couch in front of the window Chess put hand out until he found Sam. “See anything?” he whispered.
“Not a damn thing. But there’s something out there, listen.”
Chess took a breath, tried to quieten the beating of his heart. It took nearly a minute before he heard it. Footsteps, heavy, determined footsteps and close, very close.
“Sounds like only one, huh?” He asked Sam.
“Yeah, that’s what I reckon.”
Chess then turned to the dragging sound on the carpet behind him. “Whats going on?”
“Shhh! We got someone out there, Riley.”
“Wadda ya mean someone? You know there’s only foamers about.”
“I know that Riley, but this one sounds strong, healthy like, in his movement.”
Riley went quiet and listened for a moment.
“You think it mightn’t be a foamer?” He finally asked.
“What if it’s Chuck or someone from the submarine?”
Chess felt a hand reach out and grab him by the epaulet’s of his shirt. Like the others' he had dispensed with his jacket and his Australian Army pullover long ago.
“So how would you find out?” Riley whispered.
“We open the door real quiet. Two people, Cleavon and me, one shines a flash on our friend out there. If its a foamer I’ll pop it with a bolt from the bow if its Chuck or Elliot—”
“Yeah, yeah I get the drift.” Riley cut him off. Chess was one for long explanations. Had to be the chattiest Special Forces team-leader he’d ever met. “But if that light draws other foamers we’ll be up to our necks in shit. I say we sit tight and hope it moves along.”
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