by Smith, S. L.
He shifted the angle of the blade slightly and drew it to his side before slicing it upward through the neck of the next customer. He let the force of the swing spin him into the neck zombie. A few seconds more had resulted in as many kills. Micah and Eli had cleared out the zombies that lay outside the swordsman’s range. There were allowed just a moment to regroup and turn towards the oncoming wave of zombies from the ramp.
Isherwood sheathed his sword for the moment and switched to the 9mm pistols he had holstered at each hip. “Drop ‘em in a line!” He called over his shoulder to his brothers-in-law. They might just be able to slow the advance of the zombies with a barricade, he thought. It might keep them alive long enough for the cavalry to arrive. Maybe.
Isherwood positioned himself a few feet before the center and top of the ramp. From here, he was basically shooting point blank at a seven or eight foot line of zombies. There were equal lengths of battle lines on either side of him, just enough for the brothers. Together, they dropped the first wave more or less neatly along the top of the ramp. The ground on either side of the ramp had eroded away enough to prevent the zombies from flanking their line. While waiting for the zombies to climb and stagger over their heaped-up comrades, Micha and Eli had time to knock off the zombies approaching them from all the other angles or to reload. Glenn, still laying prone in the bed of the truck, took care that nothing slipped through the cracks.
“Kinda like turkey huntin’” Eli said, as the stress of the moment began to slip away. “The heads just sorta evaporate in the shot.”
Micha was focusing more on picking off the zombies at their flanks and back. The older of the two brothers, he had developed a bit of a perfectionist streak. He was distracted, waiting for a perfect shot on a zombie a hundred or so yards back up the road they’d come in on. In doing so, he was letting zombies breach the still-low barricade at the top of the ramp.
“Micha,” Isherwood grunted as he swung through the cervical vertebrae of a black woman. She was wearing the muddy remnants of a long pink pajama shirt. “Pay attention! Your line is breaking.” Isherwood had returned his pistols to their holsters after getting his line built up a little, trying to conserve ammo.
Suddenly, there was a hail of gunfire. Isherwood was about to turn and thank Micha for his renewed effort when he realized the fire wasn’t coming from behind him. It was coming from the other side of the ramp. The channel side.
“Keep it up, guys. Just hold them for a little longer. The cavalry has arrived. Hopefully.” Isherwood cheered down to his friends, raising his sword into the air. This was as much in celebration as practicality. He was covered in filth and didn’t want to be mistaken for a zombie.
Justin and Patrick cheered back. Padre was driving the boat. He wasn’t yet bringing the boat in too close. They couldn’t tell how quickly the land dropped away past where the ramp disappeared into the water. Even if there was no land, the piling up off zombies could have formed the equivalent of an undead coral reef. If they weren’t careful, the boat could be swarmed and brought down. Besides, they were diverting at least half and maybe more of the ramp zombies back into the water. This was making the situation atop the ramp much more manageable.
“Let’s put these things down.” Isherwood shouted over the roar of the gunfire to Eli and Micha. “Then, we’ll start carrying your mom down to the boat.” He did not mention their dad, thinking that even now, he didn’t want to offend the man’s pride.
Isherwood began kicking against the sacks of rotting meat that formed his section of the barricade. He was trying to angle them outward to make a spot they could pass through. He sliced through the oncoming zombies so they would fall to either side of the gap. After another minute or so, the waves of zombies charging up the ramp had dwindled away. Isherwood finally turned away from his post to begin gathering up the women. He trotted to the far side of the truck, the passenger side where Missy sat huddled against the door. She had yet to recover any of her strength.
“Come on, guys. Help me carry her.” Isherwood called to the boys.
“Okay, give me a second.” Micha mumbled. He was still picking off stragglers on the ramp. Eli was beside Isherwood and then in front of him, as he tried to pull his mother from the truck. The strength in Isherwood’s arms had mostly drained away after wielding the sword for so long.
“Micha, come help clear a path for Eli.” Isherwood called again.
“A minute. Just another minute.” The elder brother grumbled.
Eli was able to carry his mother with little difficulty. She had grown very frail and weighed very little. She wrapped her thin arms around her son’s neck as best she could.
“Where are you going?” Glenn called out to Micha, as he lowered himself over the side of the truck bed. Glenn’s voice was still very weak.
“Y’all go ahead.” Micha called back. He, too, had left the relative height of the truck bed to wander off in search of more zombies. “I just can’t leave this place a mess.”
“We need your help over here.” Isherwood insisted. “Down the ramp. Who cares about back that way? That’ll take care of itself.” But he was soon distracted by Annie and Mary climbing out of the truck. They were clinging to him very tightly. Mary had handed over Isherwood’s second blade. Somehow, Isherwood noticed, Eli was carrying the bag of weapons in addition to his mother. Glenn, too, was carrying a load.
“All hands on deck, Micha – come on!”
Micha reeled around to face Isherwood and the others. His face was red with annoyance. Just as he was about to unleash a torrent of complaints at Isherwood and the others, a dark shape appeared beside the rusting hulk of a tractor behind him. He never saw it coming. His focus was on the zombies appearing at the edge of the clearing. That one could be so close never entered his mind until it was too late.
A second later, there was a terrible scream and Micha was standing speechless as the shotgun dropped clattered from his hands onto the wet ground. The creature never reached him.
Though she appeared only barely conscious, she must have watched the whole scene unfolding from just above Eli’s shoulder. It had been Missy. She leaped from Eli’s arms and threw herself the remaining twenty or so feet to the derelict tractor. She slammed her wrecked body against the zombie. It must have been every last ounce of her that she threw against that zombie. Because when the zombie started biting at her arm, she made no move to protect herself. She just stared helplessly up at her son. A small smile curled upward at the corner of her mouth.
Glenn, too, despite his weakened state, threw himself at the zombie now attacking his wife. He staked the butt of his pistol through the thing’s skull. Next, brandishing a hatchet from seemingly nowhere, he hacked at his wife’s arm above the shoulder. Within the merest moments, he had killed and removed the source of contagion. His wife just looked on without any pain.
In the blink of an eye, he had removed his belt and made a tourniquet around Missy’s upper arm. He was on his feet and carrying her down the ramp before anybody had time to comprehend what was happening. “Come on!” He barked at the others. “Get on that boat.”
The family galvanized into action. Eli grabbed his shotgun back out of the pack and began mowing down the zombies in his parents’ path. Isherwood tossed the girls one by one over the barricade. Micha even gathered himself together, picking up his shotgun from the ground. There was simply no time to process what had just happened. That could all happen later, if they survived the next twenty or so feet.
CHAPTER NINE: EVENTUALLY
The boat ramp consisted of a sheet of thick timber mats. The mats were the kind used to support cranes and were held in place by their own weight. They were slick with the gore of thousands of zombies that had passed this way before disappearing into the Pilot Channel. The place was littered with zombies whose bones had been crushed underfoot and pressed into the mud or the gaps between the mats. They would stay there until washed away by high water. For now, they would just be laying there helplessly
groping and slowly rotting. Their mouths were snapping open and shut, like a bed of Venus fly-traps, as Isherwood and the LaGrange family came hurrying down the ramp.
Isherwood signaled to Micha and Eli to take point around Glenn, who was still carrying his wife, and the sisters. Isherwood went ahead of them down the ramp. He stood about ten feet from the water’s edge. Many of the zeds were still trudging down into the Pilot Channel. Some were peeling away, however, and staggering back up the ramp towards the nearer prey. These were coming in a steady stream and Isherwood and his sword could keep pace.
The barricade they had made at the top of the ramp was now beginning to prove its worth a second time. Zombies, attracted by the sound of gunfire, were now filling up the clearing where they left the truck behind. If not for the barricade, dozens of zombies would now be sliding down the ramp. Even still, some were still coming over the small hill of bodies. On top of that, there was also the gap that Isherwood had made. In another minute, the ramp would again be full of zombies. Their small window of escape was rapidly closing.
“How you wanna do this, Isherwood?” Patrick called from the boat, which was only another ten or fifteen feet past the ramp. Isherwood took a quick look back up the ramp. His eyes met Glenn’s and his huddled family and then darted away up the ramp to the oncoming hoard. He turned back to the boat, blinking as his eyes passed back over his wife’s family.
“Throw me a rope,” Isherwood shrugged. “You’re gonna hafta cut the engines or they’ll clog up with zombie meat.” Patrick relayed the plan back to Padre. The priest cast a dark glance back at Isherwood and nodded.
Isherwood charged down the ramp as with raised bayonet. He did his best to clear off the last five or six zombies waiting there. Glenn had begun moving his family farther down the ramp by the time Isherwood caught the rope and began pulling.
The boat was no flat-bottomed pirogue. It was heavy and Isherwood had little to no traction on the gore-painted ramp. He slipped and fell hard on his backside. Luckily, he had already sheathed his sword or he might have bisected himself. He slide nearly right up to the water line. As he splashed into the water, dozens of fingertips began emerging from shallows. Just below the surface, his boots had found traction against a set of shin bones, the owner of which was stuck doing upside-down, underwater sit-ups. Isherwood regained his footing on the zombies’ foot and ankle bones and began climbing back up the ramp with the rope over his shoulder.
“Watch out,” Isherwood shouted between heavy gasps. He was now far past the point of exhaustion. “Watch out, they don’t come up the sides,” he panted. “We’ll hafta push off with the rifles.”
The sisters and Eli were already aboard by the time Isherwood turned back to the boat. Glenn and Micha were – as gently as they could manage – lowering Missy into Eli’s arms. A hand reached out from the water and locked tight around Glenn’s boot ankle as he was boarding. Mary and Annie responded quickly. They grabbed their father’s shoulders and pulled. They both lost their balance and spilled into and against the swivel seat where Padre had been steering the boat. It had been enough, though. Glenn was all aboard except for one boot. Only Micha and Isherwood remained still on the ramp.
Micha, just as he had before, couldn’t tear himself away from the oncoming zombies. He wanted to keep shooting. Luckily, his shotgun clicked empty just as Isherwood was trying to throw him backwards into the boat. Micha landed softly on the aft deck and sat there, trying to reload from his pockets, as Isherwood jumped over and aboard. Justin knocked Micha hard with the butt of one of his AR-15s, and the younger man gladly dumped his shotgun along the floor boards.
Hands were reaching out from the water along all sides of the boat. The water-logged flesh of the hands made terrible squeaking, sliding noises against the smooth sides of the boat. Glenn put up a hand as Padre moved to turn the engine key. The older man shook his head. “Wait.” He said softly.
“Come on, help me.” Isherwood grunted as he attempted pushing off from the ramp with the butt of a rifle. “Hurry, or one of us has gotta get out and push.”
Soon, there were five men likewise pushing against the ramp, as zombies began spilling over the barricade and down the ramp. Annie and Mary had picked up spare weapons and were beating away the hands grabbing at either side of the boat.
The back of the boat suddenly lurched upward and rose almost a foot out of the water. A massive swell of zombie bodies suddenly lurched up from the submerged section of the ramp. The men pushing against the ramp from the back of the boat tumbled backward into the cabin. They were lucky it had not been the front section of the boat which had been lifted. All of them might have fallen overboard to be devoured by the thousand-mouth sea monster waiting below. As it was, the zombies helped dislodged the boat from the ramp better than the men could have done, even if they had all jumped out to push and perish. The boat was already drifting into the channel’s current by the time everybody had disentangled themselves.
“What the hell was that? Zombie Jaws? Moby Dead?” Justin sputtered as he scrambled back to his feet.
“Our Lady of Prompt Succor.” Padre prayed quietly. He had just called on her for help when the boat jumped out of the water and into the relative safety of the current.
“You stupid idiot!” Justin said, clapping Isherwood on the back. “You did it. The whole blessed lot of ‘em. They’re all here.”
Isherwood gave a half-smile in response. “We’re not out of Dodge just yet, buddy. But thanks.”
“Yeah,” Patrick sighed. “Let’s see if we can start the engines.”
Padre leaned over to face Glenn. “Any suggestions before I try cranking this thing up? It’s been off and on, off and on a couple times already.”
Glenn was helping his wife unwrap an energy bar he’d found somewhere in the boat. “Can’t we just drift for a while? I haven’t felt this safe in a long time.” The man was smiling like an old fox.
“Eh – let’s get going, okay?” Patrick muttered, suddenly nervous. “I don’t want to get any farther from our convoy.”
Isherwood waved his hand. “Don’t worry, man. He’s only joking. Have you ever seen a man more in need of a hot shower?”
Patrick laughed. “Uh-yeah. You!”
“He’s right, dude.” Justin said as he went to pat Isherwood’s shoulder and then thought better of it. “You look like Carrie’s prom date. Gross.”
CHAPTER TEN: MOBY DEAD
“Like a champ!” Isherwood shouted in triumph as the boat’s engines roared back to life. Padre clapped his hands and slowly pulled back on the throttle. The sound of the water churning behind the boat was quickly growing louder and louder.
Mary sighed, “I’m just glad to hear something besides that constant moaning, moaning, moaning.”
“Oh my God.” Eli said, slack-jawed. He was staring up at the bridge beyond the pipeline. Zombies were still spilling over its sides. He raised a hand and pointed silently at the spectacle.
“I know.” Patrick nodded. “It’s crazy, right? We could sit here as bait for another week, and I don’t think they’d slow down one bit.”
“Get ready for when we drive under that.” Isherwood cautioned. “It’ll be raining men in no time.”
Eli stared awhile longer. Still staring, he remarked, “They’re ruining the whole island. Have y’all thought about blowing up the bridges on either side of the island? It could be, would be a good spot, if there wasn’t this direct line to the cities.”
The shadow of the pipeline crossed over Isherwood’s face. “You’re right,” he said. He sat down in the back corner of the boat. “Eventually, I think we will. We’ll need to start mapping out new territory to expand into. Places we could fortify or that have natural fortifications, like the island. The more survivors we find, the farther we can build out from St. Mary’s. But always using the new location to help defend the center, St. Mary’s. It will be a network of settlements expanding outward from St. Mary’s. This way they’ll be connected and mutuall
y supported, and we can always fall back to the center.” Everyone on the boat had gradually fallen silent as Isherwood spoke.
“Eventually, I think, the network of monasteries – that’s our model, you see? The model will take us pretty far. We’re bound to brush up against other groups trying to kick start society in their own ways, too. Good or bad. Our model will be tested against theirs. Eventually. But our model has been tested many times before.”
Patrick laughed. “Did you ever think you’d end up a Founding Father?”
Isherwood shook his head in exhaustion. “Most Founding Fathers meet their ends at the end of a rope. Not exactly a good mortality rate.”
“Heads-up!” Justin said, interrupting Isherwood as they neared the bridge. The falling zombies were now close enough that they could see their individual faces staring back at them. The men led the LaGrange family down into the boat’s hold, packing them in except for Micha. Then, they all hurried backed under the protection of the fiberglass canopy of the cabin.
“Steer to starboard! To starboard – to the right!” Patrick began shouting. He saw what looked like a long white snake suddenly loom up from the depths of the Channel. “Did you see that? It was like an albino anaconda or something, but thick around – almost as wide as the boat.”
“What?” Isherwood said. He hurried over to the side of the boat where Patrick had been standing as Padre steered them closer to the eastern bank.
“Not too far, Padre. If it gets too shallow, too quick that way, we’re in just as much trouble.”
“Ah, crap.” Isherwood shouted, as something beat hard suddenly against the underside of the boat. Isherwood was nearly knocked overboard. “Ah, crap. I just saw it, too. Let’s get out of here, okay? More speed, more speed.”