Stranded Series (Book 5): Into The Gulf

by Gray, W. S.

  He smelled the main deck before he got there. The scent of the ocean had almost become comforting, now that he’d been consistently exposed to it over the course of several days. Trey had found solace in the repetitive work he did up there, even if it largely seemed pointless to the point of being humorous. The mindlessness of his janitorial duties had certainly helped him dull the pain of losing Marshall. It also didn’t hurt that few people normally occupied the deck, which allowed Trey much-needed solitude, quiet, and, most importantly, fresh air.

  Nonetheless, this time, when he got to the main deck, Trey discovered not a quiet refuge but a crowded mess. People were placing what appeared to be barbed wire on and near the railings. Others were setting up elaborate weapons systems that seemed more like futuristic ray guns than the equipment of a modern conventional military. Large security lamps had been established at regular intervals down the length of the craft, creating broad cones of light. A series of swiveling searchlights had also been stationed over the base, enhancing the brilliant illumination cast by various devices above.

  Maxime appeared suddenly, as seemed to be his wont. Grabbing a hold of Trey, he firmly steered him toward a small group that was working with a long hose. It appeared to be the sort of thing one might expect to see from a fire crew. However, Trey couldn’t quite be sure about the equipment, given the abundance of French writing stenciled in in faded black letters all over the beige hose.

  The French military leader barked a series of orders at Harry before quickly moving away, losing himself in the mass of humanity gathered on the boat.

  Hearing a massive round of gunfire rupture the air, Trey instinctively raised his hands to cover his hears. He lowered himself to the ground, shaking. The entire boat trembled with the effects of the large guns that sang their stentorian song. Anyone who hadn’t woken up to the sirens would have no excuse in the wake of such a display of force.

  After almost a full minute, Trey found himself able to get up. He blinked, massaging his jaw. Something about the sheer impact of the noise had made his face hurt. Looking around, trying to get his bearings, it was then that Trey noticed the boats.

  A series of smallish boats, most of them sleek and white, raced through the water around the French frigate. They appeared almost like the craft you might see on any ordinary day at most lakes around America. Except, these ones were faster. Much, much faster.

  Observing a small crew of between four and eight in each of the boats, Trey wondered what they were doing. They’d have to be crazy to get this close to our ship, he thought.

  Then a bullet whizzed past his face.

  Ducking, Trey let loose a string of expletives. “What the hell? Those fuckers just shot at me,” he said.

  Harry laughed as he moved in a crouch closer to Trey. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “That’ll wake you up,” he said.

  Trey let out a breath of air. Then he turned and stared, a look of incredulity crossing her features, at his father. Then he shook his head and laughed. “You’re nuts,” Trey said.

  “Yeah, well, be happy I am,” Harry said. “Otherwise, you think I would have made it even this far?” he asked. Then he grew serious. “So, we’re supposed to help these fellas here with this hose. Guess it’s got some sort of stinky slime. Or, that’s how I translated what the guy told me,” Harr said, shrugging.

  “Stinky slime?” Trey asked.

  “Yeah, beats me. But we better get moving,” Harry said. He stood up and began helping the others as they continued to unravel the hose.

  Another round of massive gunfire erupted. However, as Trey turned to look at the intended targets, he saw that they were simply too fast and adroit to be targeted with the large guns. He heard the helicopter on board as it moved into the fray, with a gunner stationed on one side.

  A deep voice began booming out of loudspeakers, speaking slowly in French.

  “What is he saying?” Trey asked, holding a length of rope as one of the soldiers unrolled the last of it nearby.

  “He’s warning them that we’ll use lethal deterrents,” Harry said.

  Trey couldn’t help but laugh. “They didn’t get that from the guns?” he asked.

  “He’s also telling them that they won’t be prosecuted if they fall back,” Harry said.

  “It’s the fucking zombie apocalypse,” Trey said. Then he shook his head. ‘Where are they supposed to fall back to?” he asked. Following this, he wondered where they even were aloud.

  “We’re going to the Ivory Coast. Don’t you remember?” Harry asked.

  “Nope, sure didn’t remember that,” Trey said.

  One of the French soldiers spoke with Harry. However, the exchange was short. “He says you can just stand back. Tell them if anyone gets close,” Harry said.

  Not wanting to argue, the sound of the gunshot ripping through the air near his head still fresh in his memory, Trey stepped back and crouched down. Then he thought better of that and straightened up, moving back to the railing. He gulped as he looked down. It seemed like a long fall, if something were to happen. Turning, he watched as one of the French soldiers put a yellow strap over their shoulder, then pivoted around, holding the hose at hip-level with one gloved hand while positioning the other near the handle that would unleash the spray.

  Not far from that one, another French soldier crouched down, holding a segment of the hose, presumably to help ensure it didn’t flop around or get a kink in it. This process was repeated down the length of the hose until Harry and another Frenchmen, who stood near a large tank on wheels. It appeared similar to a propane tank, in many ways.

  Suddenly an explosion sent everyone near the hose, Trey included, down. Smoke and debris rose in the air for several seconds. When it cleared, Trey looked up and saw a small hole in the side of the metal wall. “Whoa,” he said.

  But he didn’t have much time to dwell on that, for his hearing returned to some semblance of normalcy, Trey heard something clink as it hit the deck. Turning, he saw a crude, rusted grappling hook had been thrown over the side of the rail.

  French soldiers erupted in a flurry of activity, many of them barking orders simultaneously. The ones with Trey’s small unit readied their hose, aiming it at the railing. Everyone became instantly tense. Trey moved to the front, glancing down over the rail.

  His heart raced when he observed several emaciated black pirates quickly scaling a rope. They moved with rapid synchronicity, ascending with startling speed and precision. Trey blinked. He looked back toward his dad. Then he gripped the railing and pointed, shouting vague words as he gesticulated wildly. He tried to convey as best he could to the French soldiers that there were pirates coming.

  Thoughts of Sofia and Melody moved through his mind. He tried to force them away, but they refused to become refugees in this mental war. Trey was forced to obliterate the memories. The situation at hand required his entire focus.

  He couldn’t remember ever being so scared. Not since the entire ordeal has started had such fear gripped him. Trey felt sweat on his palms. His throat went dry. His legs quivered. His muscles twitched. But he remained fixed to his position, unwilling to show outward fear in the perilous moment. For he knew that he would later be judged by the Frenchmen whose support his family’s lives depended on for his actions in that moment.

  Trey wanted to be a coward. He wanted to run. To hide. To stop being a poser in a world of professional killers.

  But he knew that he needed to be strong.

  He knew he couldn’t indulge his craven desires. The world where the weak could survive at the expense of the strong had passed them by. Trey didn’t like it. But he also knew that the pirates heading their way, filled to the brim with rapacious intent, cared nothing for what Trey thought. The zombies, also, would never care about any lingering sense of humanism. They lacked the basic capacity for ethics and morality. Their only distinction was between predator and prey.

  Taking a deep breath, Trey watched as his team unleashed a steady stream of thick
, putrid green liquid. It shot out over the rail, streaming down and hitting the closest pirates. The viscous flow sent them reeling backward. They fell the long distance back to the sea, hitting the roiling waters with a small splash.

  Some of the pirates didn’t come back up.

  Trey watched with horror as a growing pile of bright red filled with foamy waters below. He saw several of the pirates flailing, their poignant screams piercing the humid air. It wasn’t until several seconds later that Trey realized those that had survived the impact were being eaten by sharks. Their fins rose up ominously out of the ocean, slicing through the briny sea as they moved toward the fallen corsairs.

  The ones that remained on the rope wore expressions of pure, unadulterated terror as they held themselves fast to the only thing standing between them and the grisly fate below.

  But the French shot them anyway, sending stream after stream of the green goo down on them, going until all of the threats had been eliminated.

  Trey turned as the loudspeaker again began blasting out a message, this one sounding more exultant. He swiveled back to face the retreating pirates, trying to reconcile the horrors he’d just witnessed with their crimes. Part of him wondered just what it was that had inspired them to commit such acts. Trey couldn’t decide if he thought the pirates were incredibly brave or amazingly stupid. However, he knew that, whatever qualities it was that they possessed, they had to be characterized with superlatives. Was it extreme poverty that had caused the maritime raiders to conduct their operations?

  He figured he’d never discover the answer.

  As he returned his attention back to his dad, careful to avoid the crowds milling about around him, Trey wiped a hand over his face. “What’s he saying this time?” Trey asked.

  Harry smiled. He patted his son on the shoulder. “He’s saying welcome to the Ivory Coast.”

  Chapter 21

  They’d arrived.

  Trey knew because a small, dilapidated Navy vessel bearing a flag came out to meet them.

  Moving slowly through a narrow inlet, Trey stared out at the city they were about to enter. The first thing that struck him was the thick, acrid smog. It seemed to cling to everything, creating a dense and cloying presence almost ethereal in nature.

  Beyond that, at first blush, it bore the appearance of any modern urban center. Gleaming skyrises reflected the brilliant pink light of early morning. Smaller, less impressive buildings, dwarfed by the imposing presence of the tallest structures completed the tableau. Trees and houses could be seen in the distance, along with traffic and the other accouterment of life in a population center.

  Glancing down at the patrol vessel escorting them toward the port, now visible through the thick, gray cloud, Trey observed a crew of eight men, most of them wearing what appeared to be knock-off green camouflage from a bygone era. Even from the far height of the main deck, Trey thought they all appeared fairly skinny for professional soldiers. He tried not to judge, but when Trey inadvertently cast a look back at his French counterparts, he began to wonder just what might lay in store for them.

  “How long are we supposed to be here?” Trey asked, returning his attention to the scene unfolding below.

  “Isn’t that the question of the century?” Harry asked. “Could have asked that back on Sapphira Island. Or at Papeete, or whatever-the-fuck,” he said.

  Trey grinned but remained silent. An ominous feeling began brewing, fermenting inside of him. Squinting, he saw the slight flash and stream of smoke. And he knew.

  “Get down!”

  Finding cover behind a large wooden crate, Trey covered his ears with his hands as he braced himself for the explosion he knew was coming. He needed to get his dad. But he also understood that he didn’t have time. He’d done what he could. And Trey figured that the urgency of his elevated tone should have adequately conveyed his meaning. Panic is one of the many universal languages.

  Within seconds, the explosion rocked the deck, sending the nearby French soldiers in a frenzy of sudden activity. Black smoke plumed out of whatever had been struck. Trey took his shirt and covered his mouth, trying to keep from inhaling the toxic cloud. Glancing over, his ears ringing, Trey caught sight of dad, who’d found concealment approximately ten feet away.

  Harry raised one fist in solidarity, then sprang into action, going to several of the nearby French, who’d fallen to the ground, making sure they were okay.

  Trey followed suit, unwilling to be separated from his only reliable, hell, his only translator on board the frigate. While he remained surprised that he’d even made it this far, having sailed halfway across the globe and through some of the most treacherous waters known to man, Trey nonetheless didn’t want to tempt fate any more than he had to. As it stood, it seemed his mere existence served an inducement to the cruel and spiteful sprites in the celestial overwatch. They enjoyed offering him new challenges, even without any extra push.

  Luckily, the smoke quickly died down. Trey observed a hole in the craft only slightly bigger than that left by the pirate’s RPG. Nonetheless, the presence of the punctured metal only served to heighten tensions and degrade morale.

  Trey glanced out toward the city, which they were quickly moving toward. His heart raced. His throat constricted. Sweat slicked his palms. His skin grew clammy as he observed the chaos that he couldn’t have seen before, given the distance and the thick cloud of smog. “What the fuck?” he said aloud.

  Mortar fire suddenly began to whistle through the air. Several large splashes began appearing in the water below. Trey noticed the escorting craft race away, disappearing into the mists ahead just as the sirens began sounding.

  Suddenly overcome by panic, Trey rushed toward the stairwell that would lead him down to the lower decks. He needed to get to the sick bay. Before it got overwhelmed by any casualties. Trey needed to make sure Melody and Sofia were safe. As he went, thankfully going against the flow of human traffic, he felt rather than saw his dad’s presence. Turning slightly without breaking stride, Trey smiled at his father, grateful to have him along for the epic journey.

  “I hate those damned metal pieces,” Trey said as they moved down the musty, dimly lit stairwell into the bowels of the ship. He felt the sudden need to explain why he was walking slower than normal. “I’ve hit my shin on them so many times,” he said.

  “Yeah, I get it, son. I’ve had the same experience,” he said.

  It wasn’t long before they got to the appropriate deck. As soon as went through the arched doorway, Sofia and Chloe both rushed Trey, enveloping him as one. He smiled gently, reaching down to idly tap them both on the shoulders as he looked around, trying to find Melody. He nodded toward her, mouthing a silent thank-you as he sought to extricate himself from the grip of the two adolescent girls.

  “What’s going on, dad?” Sofia asked, looking up at him.

  Trey gulped. Seeing his daughter right then, he felt an acute and profound sense of… something, regret, perhaps, at the absence of fear in her eyes. It seemed such a shame that her innocence had been defiled by the violent vagaries of the corsair of fate. She’d been exposed to such barbarity already that some shrieking sirens and explosions did little to disturb her. Instead, it was almost as if she were merely asking for a status update. Oh, hey, dad, I heard some stuff getting blown up. Does that mean we can’t have breakfast?

  Reaching out, he ran a hand through her hair, noting how dirty it had gotten. “When’s the last time you took a shower?” he asked.

  Just then, another explosion, this one far greater than any of the others, rocked the ship. Trey instinctively lurched forward, covering his daughter’s body with his own. He tried to still his frenzied heart as he stood there, eyes closed, waiting for total blackness to consume him.

  But things slowly returned back to their abnormal state of normalcy.

  “Sounds like we’re here,” Harry said suddenly. “We better go rendezvous with Maxime,” he said. And, with that, he was already moving back up the stair
s.

  Trey exchanged a solemn look with his wife before quickly pecking his daughter of the cheek and rushing off, following his dad back into the danger zone.

  The main deck was immersed in chaos. Trey had a difficult time keeping track of dad as he moved through the crowds. Everyone screamed orders as the various crews sought to do whatever tasks they’d been bidden, oblivious to all except the immediate world around them. The senescent sun sent belligerently brilliant rays of light down to attack Trey’s eyes, making navigating the crews even more difficult.

  Finally, a small space opened up. And Trey, catching his breath, saw that Maxime and Bishop Bronson helped occupy it. Inching closer to his father, Trey tried to pick up what little he could from the body language and tone of the French commander.

  However, small arms fire disrupted their palaver.

  Ducking, Trey glanced around, wondering just where in the hell the shots had come from. Then he realized- belatedly- that they’d arrived at the port. Which probably meant they were coming from the ground.

  Great, he thought. Another one of these, Trey thought.

  “Can someone grab me a gun?” Trey asked. It seemed an odd question, springing from his lips. He briefly recalled his days as an IP lawyer in San Jose, which, oddly enough, hadn’t been all that long ago. A hyper-liberal attorney accustomed to the relatively staid life of the intellectual, most of his clients died-in-the-wool communists or anarchist libertarians who’d become venture capitalists after cashing out their stock in whatever random tech start-up had wowed the voracious banksters enough to pump and dump another IPO, he’d been so adamantly opposed to the protective devices. That is, until zombies destroyed civil society.

  Now, he felt empty without one. And, having spent approximately two weeks at sea, Trey needed to get his fix in.

  Somehow, a rifle materialized. Trey hefted its weight, smiling wide as he held the gun. Such a wonderful thing. Everything felt right.

  Returning his attention back to the discussion, Trey once again tried to decipher any meaning from Maxime’s body language. He didn’t know much- if by much, one meant absolutely nothing- about the Ivory Coast. But Trey hoped at least someone there would know English. Though, he suspected, with his current luck, they’d be the ones shooting at him.