by Smith, S. L.
“You know,” Isherwood said. “That pipeline gives me an idea. But it’s – uh – dang, I can’t believe I’m about to even suggest this.”
“Go ahead, man.” Patrick said. “You’ve had plenty of good ideas so far.”
“All I’m gonna say is –” Justin also chimed in. “Fat boys don’t do climbing, okay?”
Isherwood tilted his head at his friend, wondering how he had managed to anticipate his thinking. “That’s it,” he said, nodding. “Climbing. Padre, you brought that grappling hook, right?”
“Onto the pipeline, right?” Justin asked. “Look, dude. You’re no Luke Skywalker, ah-ight?”
“You’re gonna shoot that grappling hook at an oil pipeline?” Marshall yelped.
“Wait,” Padre said, holding up a hand. “This plan will involve us passing under the bridge, won’t it?”
Isherwood nodded. “Right, Padre. We’d pull anchor and let the current take us just downstream of the pipeline. We’ll reset the anchor down there. You or whoever shoots that grappling hook up to the pipeline, and I shimmy up with a pack of food. If I stay low to the pipeline, it’ll be pretty easy – not like walking a tightrope or something.”
Patrick was shaking his head. “But what about climbing from the rope to the pipeline? None of what you’re describing is easy – not even for somebody who’s trained on that stuff. Especially over water.”
Padre was also shaking his head. “I don’t like it,” he said definitively. “Besides, it’s unnecessary just yet. Give it at least another couple hours before you – before we – take a risk like that. The shoreline might start to clear up, and then we could just park the boat and all go. Besides, just knowing we’re here is something. We’ve given the folks up at the camp hope, and that should give us at least another couple hours.”
*****
So that was what they did. They waited in the fishing boat another hour or so. The current batted them back and forth across the middle of the Pilot Channel, but the anchor held. It was an effortless way of removing the zombie threat. The waterfall of zombies off the bridge continued unabated. Thousands of zombies were falling into the river from the bridge every hour.
The men’s necks soon tired of looking up to the bridge to watch wave after wave of the undead falling down. Their eyes drifted down to the water level. There, they couldn’t help but return the stares of the zombies. They were still reaching for them as they plummeted into the water, and doubtless were still reaching even while being churned into the depths below.
Despite the constant carnage, the shorelines never seemed to run out of zombies advancing heedless into the current. Isherwood was beginning to wonder if his initial assessment of the number of zombies had been accurate. They just might be facing the full combined population of Baton Rouge and Lafayette.
Since the anchor was mounted on the forward section of the boat, the boat had rotated into the current. The front of the boat was now facing upstream, and Marshall was still sitting in the captain’s chair inside the boat’s open air cabin. He was dutifully checking the boat every couple minutes or so, while the rest sat transfixed staring at the undead masses marching towards them and dropping into the water.
The boat’s inboard motors were idling softly. They were ready, if needed, to be fired up at a moment’s notice. The fuel gauge, too, was holding steady above half a tank. Marshall frowned, though, as he checked the anchor mount and the line that disappeared into the water. He leaned over the starboard side of the boat a bit to get a better angle on the anchor line. “What the—?” He mumbled.
The others made no sign of having heard him. Justin was actually below-decks taking a nap. The older man climbed through the narrow space between the cabin and the forward deck. He steadied himself by clutching to the small hatch on the deck that led to the hold below. He could actually feel the hatch door rattling softly as Justin snored below.
“Ah, cat piss.” He cursed. “Looks like we got a nibble,” he yelled back to the men at back of the boat. Padre turned at the sound, but Isherwood and Patrick were on the brink of dozing off. Padre raised himself into a crouch and put his rosary back into his pocket.
The anchor line was moving oddly, more like a fishing line. Marshall reached out his arm to grab hold of it. He thought maybe he could slam it a couple of times against the side of the boat to knock off whatever was dragging against it. He thought it might be a submerged log getting slowly wound up into the line. He probably should have considered other possibilities.
Marshall tugged on the line, drawing in some of the anchor line. He reached down along the waterline to pick up the slack. The water seethed as the current pushed against the side of the boat. The wash of bubbles hid the shadow that was rising out of the depths.
The older man howled as a hand suddenly emerged from the water and grabbed his wrist. He was already unbalanced as he had been reaching for the line. The pull against his wrist, though clumsy and groping, was enough for him to lose his balance completely.
Marshall slipped over the side of the boat just as Padre was rushing in to grab him. Padre was too late, but Marshall’s hand was still clinging to the anchor line. As he fell, his hand twisted into the line. He was caught. In better conditions, he may have been relieved to avoid drowning. As it was, he had no chance.
Other shadows swarmed up the line. Faces appeared in the water. Marshall howled in pain as his lower body was ripped apart. The water reddened. There were only three, maybe four, zombies that came up along the line, but they moved like ants over a carcass. Padre tried pulling his friend and parishioner back into the boat, but it was too late. It had been too late as soon as he hit the water. Whether it had been the zombies or the anchor line tightening around him, he was gone below the waist.
The others arrived in time to see Marshall let go of Padre’s hand and disappear into the water. It had all happened in just seconds.
Padre just lay still on the deck, as though he was still reaching for Marshall. The others let him be. The zombies had no way of climbing onto the boat, and they believed they were in no immediate danger. At least, they did for a couple more minutes.
CHAPTER FOUR: THINGS FALL APART
They felt the pull of the current first. They never heard the line snap. It was probably cut far below the waterline by a zombie chewing at the moving line or drawn by Marshall’s blood stains.
However it happened, they were nearly beneath the bridge before one of them thought to rev up the boat motor. By that time, fighting against the current to drive upstream would have trapped them under the falling dead.
All of a sudden, they heard the terrible heavy thuds of bodies falling across the decks and the roof of the tower.
“Just let ‘er drift past the bridge,” Isherwood called out as he unsheathed a single blade. There was just not enough room to even try to use both blades on the boat. They were floating backwards, but the current was gradually turning them broadsides. Despite the distractions, Isherwood saw that, if they were still broadsides at the wrong point when floating under the bridge and against the pilings, there was a very real chance of capsizing the boat. “Padre!” He yelled. “Help rotate us around to face forward when we pass those pilings. Push off against them.”
Despite his grief, Padre had got back up. He was still on the forward deck. He would easily get knocked off balance if tried standing, so he knelt there. The rifles across his back were sort of a liability in his present predicament. Even the pair of .44s had enough kick to send him over the side if he wasn’t careful. Or worse, he might punch a hole through the boat.
The zombies were raining down mostly feet first. They could hear their shin and calf bones cracking as they landed. Isherwood felt his blood chill. Despite bones visibly protruding from their legs, they kept coming.
All of a sudden, there were five surrounding Isherwood and Patrick on the aft deck. Some were crawling around the deck, snapping at their ankles. “Don’t shoot down into the boat!” Isherwood called as he
saw Patrick put his Glock to the temple of one of the ankle-biters. “The knife – use your knife!”
Even as he was saying it, Isherwood stabbed one of the zombies through the chest. He leveraged the sword against the zombie’s spine and tipped it over the boat rail. He did this twice more, while Patrick went about stabbing the crawlers through their temples. There was so little room to move around the back of the boat that they were soon stepping on the creatures. A sickening, fetid liquid was soon sloshing back and forth in the boat.
Padre had pivoted around so that his back was against the windshield of the cabin. Somehow, despite the narrow space across the forward deck, three zombies were crawling after him. He’d already knocked two off the side. He was just trying to get them off of him, so he could push against the bridge pilings. The boat was already beginning to tip heavily backwards against the oncoming current.
Father Simeon used the imbalance against his attackers. He had stabilized his position by holding onto the metal railings on either side of the boat’s windshield. He kicked at their faces with his boots. He was lucky to have worn heavy, high black boots beneath his cassock. He freed one hand from the railings and unholstered one of his .44s just as he placed a boot square against the chest of one of the zombies. Pushing the thing’s torso up and backward, he fired at close range and blew the creature’s head off. Its body slid limply off the front of the boat.
With one gone, he was able to maneuver easier against the other two zombies. They were clinging to his legs and feet. As he kicked them away, he reached out against the bridge pilings, struggling to turn the boat into the current.
More zombies came spilling on top of them. Patrick was nearly knocked overboard by a falling body. As he lay stretched out, clinging to one of the swivel chairs to prevent himself from spilling over the side, one of them grabbed at his ankle. Hands were drawing his ankle to the zombie’s waiting, snapping jaws. Another pair of hands grabbed at his ankle. There were two piling on top of him.
Patrick turned in surprise as he was suddenly released from their grasp. He turned to see Justin, having just emerged from below-decks, with a knife in either hand. He had skewered both of the zombies’ skulls onto the deck.
Justin yawned. He looked around sleepily. “I’m out of it for a while and all hell br—”
He was stopped short of finishing, as zombies fell across him. They had apparently rolled off from the fishing tower above the cabin. They didn’t come feet first, nor at the same velocity.
“Happy to return the favor.” Patrick grunted as he stabbed the two zombies that had fallen across Justin. They we’re beginning to writhe feverishly atop the live meat. Patrick pulled the first body off of Justin and slumped it over the boat rails. He pulled up on the corpse’s legs and the rest slid over the side.
There was finally a reprieve from the falling bodies, as the boat drifted under the bridge. Zombies had begun collecting at the base of the bridge pilings, like a seething undead reef. The water under the bridge was a thick stew of zombies. They could hear them scraping and banging against the keel of the boat, as it slipped past them.
After a couple moments of shelter under the bridge, they had mostly removed the threat. They watched as the far side of the bridge began to drip with zombies as the hoards above shifted towards them.
“Get ready for round two!” Isherwood called out. “Look, we’ve got no anchor anymore and they’re still coming. Padre, let’s use the grappling hook on the pipeline to hold the boat in place.”
“Or just motor to shore,” Justin said, sliding into the captain’s seat and revving up the inboard motors.
“Won’t they start collecting against the boat if we anchored or whatever down from the bridge?” Patrick asked.
“Yeah, maybe,” Isherwood answered. They were having to yell to be heard. The moans of the dead were echoing loudly in the cavern made between the water and the underside of the bridge. “But they won’t be able to climb on board regardless, and they’ll eventually slough off back into the current.”
“Let’s give it a try,” Padre nodded. “The zees are still too thick coming off that bridge and everywhere else to attempt a landing. Besides, if we can keep drawing them into the water, we might be able to clean out this whole area, or at least the island. We could use the island, I think.”
“Fine,” Justin relented. “Try that hook-gun thing. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have the boat ready to drive us ashore.”
“I thought of something else to get me on that pipe—” Isherwood began, but wasn’t able to finish.
“Heads up!” Patrick called out as more zombies began thudding against the boat. They were passing now under the other side of the bridge. The echo chamber of moans dissipated as they floated past the bridge.
Fewer zombies were dragging their broken legs across the bridge deck this time. And there was no element of surprise this go-around. The men quickly dispatched the zombies with their knives and Isherwood’s katana.
“Shoot, man.” Patrick howled in surprise. He was clutching his ear after Isherwood’s blade had passed inches from his head. “Be careful with that thing, or you’ll Van Gogh me.” They would find out later that, though the injury had been surprising bloodless, the sword had actually sliced into Patrick’s ear a half-inch or so.
“Oh, dang. I’m so sorry.” Isherwood raised his hands in apology.
“I’m okay,” Patrick waved him off. “Just help me with this massive hairy beast, eh?” Isherwood had stabbed his sword through the temple of an unusually large zombie.
“Good Lord,” Isherwood breathed in deeply. “Where’d this Gump come from? Justin, can you give us a hand?”
Justin ignored them. He was busy steering the boat into the current and keeping it away from the shore. There was some minor turbulence downstream of the bridge. Padre, however, had finished disposing of the zombies on the forward deck and was climbing to the back. As he passed, he checked out the fishing tower above the cabin. He was greeted with a gruesome sight.
Apparently, a zombie had fallen across the tower railing at just the right angle. It had been a youngish man, maybe college age. He was, incredibly, still wearing his college hat. One of his legs was resting on the fishing tower and sort of scratching back and forth. The other leg was swinging over the other side of the railing. The railing, itself, was lodged somewhere inside his chest cavity. The round metal rail had split him up the middle. If it wasn’t for the creature’s sternum and rib cage, the railing would have perfectly bisected him.
Isherwood followed Padre’s eyes to the fishing tower. He winced, “How the heck? Didn’t that dude have a hip bone or something?”
“Ouch!” Patrick said, finally noticing the grizzly sight. “That’s just not supposed to happen.”
Padre just shook his head. He unsheathed one of the rifles from his across his back. In one whirling motion, he slammed the thing across the neck and face. Slowly at first, the split zombie began tilting over the side. By the time Padre had slipped into the back of the boat, the thing had fallen off the boat and splashed into the water.
*****
“Okay, you got it in your sights, Padre?” Justin called up to the priest, who was standing on the fishing platform above the cabin area. He was aiming an AR rifle at the pipeline.
Justin was trying to keep the boat steady. He had turned the boat downstream, but had thrown the inboard motors in reverse slowing their progress downstream. He thought it would be smoother than pointing the boat upstream against the current.
Isherwood had snuck in one last idea to his scheme of anchoring off the pipeline. If they purposefully overshot the pipeline with the grappling hook, he thought, he could retrieve the hook end, tie onto it, and ride it up to the pipeline as the boat pulled the line downstream. This way he wouldn’t have to climb up – he’d just ride up.
The grappling hook, an Army-issue launched grappling hook or LGH, was made to attach to the end of an AR rifle and was launched with a bullet catch. They h
ad tied the grappling hook, itself, onto the remaining anchor line. They didn’t want to successfully launch over the pipeline only to have the whole thing get torn from the boat accidentally. They had pulled out the remaining line from the anchor mount, hoping it would uncoil smoothly when the hook was launched. The line that came with the LGH felt pretty thin, anyway. It probably was just enough for a man to climb on, but not enough to hold a large boat against the current. At least, that was what they decided after a quick fifteen second discussion.
“Ready,” Padre called back from above.
Isherwood was starting to feel the blood drain from his head as he stared up at the pipeline. It was a good thirty feet above the water. He had thought it could work, but he hadn’t – until just now – started visualizing himself making the climb. But then, he thought about how his father-in-law had sounded over the radio. Weak. Really weak. He’d never heard the man’s voice sound like that. He also began to think about his wife, too. He couldn’t let Sara down. He couldn’t let his kids down. “What the hell am I doing?” He couldn’t help but mumble to himself.
“Having cold feet, buddy?” Patrick asked. He was standing beside Isherwood in the back of the boat, which was now facing upstream and towards the pipeline and bridge.
“More like wet feet.” Isherwood said, shaking his head. “Wet pants, too. I think I might have already wet myself.”
“You’ll be okay.” Patrick reassured him.
“How do you know?”
“Because you have to be.”
“Okay.” Isherwood nodded in satisfaction. “That actually makes me feel better. Thanks.” He tapped his pocket and necklace a few more times to make sure his rosary and rings were safe. He always strung his rings through his necklace when getting into dicey situations, which was pretty much constantly these days. He clicked into place the chest straps of the backpack he was wearing. It was filled with provisions for the starving family and was pretty heavy. It also had a shortwave radio in it, so he could communicate with the boat once he was ready for pickup.