by Howard, Bob
“We should slow down our approach,” he said.
Tom became visibly rigid from head to toe, and Sim was sure he would be shot if he said another word. The Chief stepped between them, but his eyes were fixed on Sim. Kathy got close to Tom’s face to make him get good eye contact.
“We’re close,” said the Chief, “and you want us to slow down?”
Sim had been the navigator of Executive One, so he wasn’t stupid. He knew that most of us were ready to charge the rest of the way to the house that was hidden by the trees up ahead. He also knew that the next thing out of his mouth had to be something that made instant and perfect sense to all of us.
“What’s your plan, Chief? Are we going to assault the place like a SWAT team?”
The Chief had a plan for everything, but the plan for finding Molly was to search quickly so she wouldn’t get too far ahead of us. That plan hadn’t worked out so well because we had lost a lot of time in the college buildings.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say we should slow down,” Sim added. “Maybe I could have said it better, but if the kids are close by, we don’t need to sound a bugle charge. That could make them run, and this isn’t a good place for them to run.”
Tom surprised everyone. All of us thought the Chief would be the one to agree with Sim first, but Tom beat him to it.
“Thanks, Sim. It took a lot of nerve for you to stop me, and you’re right. If they blindly run from us, they’re going to run right into the infected.”
Everyone breathed easier. The Chief grabbed a stick and drew a map in the sand that included the house and their approximate position. As soon as he did it they saw Sim had been right. If they had continued on their present path, they would have found themselves stopped short by the tidal creek. They could see a dock in the distance that was likely to be the same dock that was attached to the house where they were going. The only way to get there was by boat or to go up into the trees above them.
“But they needed a boat,” said Jean. “We know Molly was here because of the necklace, so they didn’t go through the trees. That means they must’ve gotten a boat from somewhere.”
“Maybe they weren’t alone,” said Colleen.
That should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t. Everyone looked like they were immediately on guard. There was something ominous about the necklace being at the bottom of the steep bank, and it wasn’t likely that it just fell off her neck. Our intuition told us that something had happened here that made it fall off. Something violent.
“Okay, we don’t have a boat,” said the Chief, “and even if we did, I wouldn’t want to be out in a tidal creek approaching the dock. I don’t like being that exposed, and we all know how these tidal creeks can be. One moment you’re alone, and the next moment something has a grip on your ankles. We have to double back.”
“What about the water that surrounds the house?” asked Hampton. “Can we cross it?”
“It doesn’t look deep on maps and the photos we have,” said Kathy. “If it turns out to be too deep to cross, we can always keep going until we reach the road that goes straight to the house.”
There was a rumble in the distance that signaled the arrival of a storm. It was going to be typical for this area with the usual lightning and heavy raindrops.
“The sound of the storm will give us a little cover,” said the Chief, “but remember it will do the same for the infected. No talking and stay in formation. We don’t need to get bunched up against a horde, so we’ll move single file until we reach the house. The bank will be to our left the entire time. If we get swarmed, everyone go over the bank. No one stays behind, and we’ll take our chances with the creeks.”
We didn’t have to double back as far as we had expected because there was a place where we could use tree roots to climb the steep bank. Cassandra, Tom, and Hampton went up first and set up a perimeter for the rest of us to join them. When we were all ready, the column started for the house. The rain got as heavy as we expected, and soon the only sound in the trees was the downpour. Talking wouldn’t have done us any good because we would have been forced to shout.
The house was only about two hundred yards away, and we only had to slow down twice when we saw a dozen or so of the infected trying to walk through the dense brush. While we lifted our feet to go over logs, branches, and vines, they tended to trip and fall every few feet. Even if they had spotted us, we would have been able to out distance them without jumping over the bank again.
We eventually came to a spot where the tidal creek wrapped around a small, muddy island. The walls of the house blended into the trees and blocked out the light. We could make out its shape long before we could see details, but we could see why it would have been a safe refuge if resources were used wisely. The house sat on a base of broad tree trunks that acted as stilts. Stilts were common along the rows of beach houses, but they were almost always man-made. These trunks were either trees that had been cut to the present length or had been pushed into the marsh like pilings. The seemingly random pattern of the trees suggested both methods had been used for maximum support.
The end result was a house that would survive a flood during a really high tide or hurricane, and was also impossible for the infected to reach. The tidal creek was deep around the house, but it obviously flooded under the house at high tide. Any infected that managed to get under the house probably became food for the thousands of blue crabs that would swarm onto the banks at low tide.
We followed the bank of the tidal creek, circling the house and watching for a place to cross. It became obvious that we weren’t going to find a place and would come to the road sooner or later. We were surprised when we finally reached the road and came to a crude drawbridge. It was in the down position.
Kathy said, “That’s not good. If the bridge had been up, it would mean someone was still home. Being down might mean someone has already left.”
“And doesn’t plan to come back,” added Jean.
Cassandra took the lead again. She had a keen eye for traps because of her time fighting in Afghanistan. She had told us once that there were so many IED’s over there that there had to be less infected dead. Hordes would be tripping over every improvised explosive device in the country. We all took it more or less as a joke, but there was a certain amount of ironic sense to it.
After Cassandra pronounced the bridge safe, we all crossed and then took a few minutes to raise the bridge. There wasn’t any sense in allowing unwanted company onto the little island while we were visiting.
We picked up our pace a little, reasoning that keeping to the center of the single lane gravel road was likely to be safe. The rain had stopped, so the only sound was our boots crunching into the gravel as we ran.
The big house came into view, more exposed from our side than from the others. A steep set of wooden steps came right down to the road. The bottom had been fortified by a steel gate that had probably been in place before the infection had begun. Someone valued their privacy when they built this home.
There had been no signs of the infected since we crossed the bridge, and we had a nagging feeling that the bridge hadn’t been open very long. That quite possibly meant someone had left only a short time ago. We had to know if anyone was at the house, though.
The Chief signaled for everyone to spread out and wait while he took the radio from Jean’s backpack. He called chopper two and told them to locate the road that led to the house and follow it in the other direction.
While we waited for chopper two to report back, the Chief spread out his map again.
“The good news is that we have almost made it back to the Sikorsky. It’s not far from here to the north.”
“The bad news?” I asked.
“The woods are too thick. We would be better off using the road to get back. We’ll check out the house as soon as we get a report.”
Chopper two didn’t take long. The gravel road looked like it had been traveled by a piece of heavy equipment, but there was
nothing moving on it now. The Chief asked them if it was visible anywhere along Fort Johnson Road, and chopper two replied that there was a backhoe parked just inside a cemetery gate. It looked to be about the size of the tire tracks on the gravel road.
“Okay, folks. Let’s check out this place and then head for that cemetery.”
As everyone started for the steel gate, the Chief radioed chopper two and instructed them to land and see if the engine was still warm on the backhoe. The answer came back before they were halfway up the steps, and it only added to their sense of urgency. It was still warm.
“Change of plans,” yelled the Chief. His lack of concern for stealth didn’t go unnoticed by anyone.
“Two teams. Sim, Jean, Hampton, and Colleen are with me. The rest of you search the house fast and then wait for me to pick you up where the road is in the open so I have a clear landing zone.”
“You don’t expect to find anything here, do you?”
Tom wasn’t showing fear when he asked the question. It was more like dread.
“I think they were here, but we missed them. If they are here, it would be best if you were the one to find them. Move fast, and they won’t be too far ahead of us. If nothing else, they might have left us a clue.”
The two groups split quickly, one sprinting up the stairs and one sprinting down.
******
There was a wide porch on the house that wrapped around all four sides. As was the case where most small groups managed to survive, the place had probably kept the original occupants alive for only a short period of time.
Until people caught on and stopped trying to save their loved ones after they had been bitten, most survivors died from within their sanctuaries. When survivors began culling the bitten from their groups and doing formal inspections, places like this became safer and took in new occupants. The question now was whether or not the occupants were still here, and did Molly and Sam stay here with them.
The remaining members of the group reached the top of the stairs and chose to go in through the front door rather than to look for another place to enter from the wraparound porch. Speed had become more important than caution.
The first floor layout was designed to show off the size of the house, so we could see the living room, kitchen, and dining room all at once.
The only doors turned out to be a small bathroom and a pantry. The pantry still had food on the shelves, so we knew that someone had left in a hurry. It also gave us some idea about whether or not the kids were alone. It was looking more and more like they had hooked up with another group.
I took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. Cassandra was right behind me, and Tom was on her heels. There was a balcony overlooking the living room and a hallway beyond the balcony. I crossed the opening and only took a glance down the hallway. Before I could even get in position on the other side, Cassandra had her handgun aimed around the corner toward a series of doors.
“Go,” she said to Tom.
Tom almost jumped over Cassandra getting to the first door. His foot flew up and connected with the door, and it shattered. Two infected dead were just inside the door, and Tom collided with them both. They went flying across the room and landed in a pile on the bed. Tom managed to keep from falling with them and placed well timed shots into their heads.
Cassandra said, “I didn’t expect infected, did you?”
I looked past her into the room. “Maybe we should open the next two a little more carefully.”
This time we did it by the book. With two of us in place to the sides of the doors, Tom kicked in the next door. Cassandra and I each shot one infected dead.
“What are the odds of two in each room, and what do you want to bet there are two in the last room?” I asked.
We weren’t surprised when Tom kicked in the third door and two infected tried to come out. Each of the rooms were furnished, so we quickly searched for clues. One of the closets had a lot of mud on the floor. That could mean anything, but the mud was fairly fresh. There was at least the possibility that someone had been held prisoner inside the closet.
No other clues were found in the bedrooms, but there was a crude drawing on the mirror in the bathroom located in the master bedroom. It was a drawing of several large trees with thick trunks. In between the trees there were stick figures of people with wings, and above the trees in big, bold letters was the word “PLEASANT”. Spaced between the trees there were four crosses.
Bus had been feeling like he was just along for the ride because everybody was moving so fast. He was still in good shape, but he was the oldest member of our group, and the pace was wearing him down. His real value to our group was the fact that he was an outstanding doctor. If someone needed emergency treatment, we all wanted a good doctor, whether he was athletic or not.
“What do you think that means?” I asked.
“Angels,” said Tom. “Those must be angels. Do you think it has something to do with that tourist attraction with the big oak tree? Isn’t it called Angel Oak?”
“Yeah, but the word above the trees means something,” I said.
Bus was rubbing the stubble on his chin when he asked, “What’s the name of that cemetery where chopper two said they saw the backhoe?”
Even before we got confirmation back from chopper two, we knew they would say the cemetery was named Pleasant Oaks, and our biggest fear was not knowing why the clue had been left for us. The question on all of our minds was what would we find at a cemetery except graves, and did four crosses mean something. If it had been two crosses, we would have felt more dread, if that was possible.
We ran outside onto the wide porch of the house and started trying to get the Chief on the radio, but there was no response. Tom was frantically yelling into the radio for the Chief to get the helicopter back to the house as fast as he could. Then he raised chopper two and told the pilot to land at the cemetery and have the men begin looking for graves that had fresh dirt piled on top as if they had been recently filled.
The Sikorsky wasn’t coming in over the treetops yet, and as much as we hoped the Chief would arrive soon, we couldn’t help but try to get to the cemetery in time, so we ran down the road. In time for what, we didn’t know, but the unspoken fear was that we would find new graves at the cemetery. Graves that belonged to Molly and Sam.
CHAPTER NINE
A New Life
Year One of the Decline
The first year was what Maybank called his year to worry. For some reason he felt like that was when something would go wrong, and he was sure he would survive if he made it a full year. He was having plenty of doubts by the end of the third day.
Boats had him on edge. Every time he saw another on the horizon, he worried that it was coming to his oil rig. Every time they continued in his direction, he was convinced they were going to attack. By the time the tenth boat sped past without slowing down, he was a nervous wreck, and that was only the third day after the world fell apart.
The news broadcasts continued, and he was grateful for those satellites that kept sending their signals back to an ever diminishing audience, but what he saw was not what the survivors club had expected. Even though it was on their list of catastrophes, none of them thought it was a real possibility. As a matter of fact, they only added it last because they felt like everything before it on the list was possible. They tried to explain to the military why they believed an alien invasion was possible, and a zombie apocalypse was not. The problem was that their sponsors had totally bought into their shelter project, and if it was on the list, they believed it could happen.
There was no shortage of experts who gave explanations for what was happening, but none of them satisfied Maybank. He could believe it was an infection, and he could believe it made people sick enough to eat people, but he couldn’t understand how an infection could reanimate dead people.
His interior communications phone rang, and despite his ragged nerves, he didn’t even flinch. That was when he realize
d he was too tired to react because he hadn’t slept since it all started. He felt far too old to be losing sleep. Answering the phone just seemed like the right thing to do.
“Hello?”
He absently wondered if he had really spoken or if he had just thought the word.
“I’m surprised you answered, old man. Are you going to let me in?”
“No, but you’re welcome to stay in the crew’s quarters as long as you want. I’ll even resupply you.”
The phone disconnected, and Maybank wondered for a second time if there was something wrong with his mind. He saw the answer to the question in the monitor that showed the crew’s quarters from the outside.
The door into the crew’s quarters was very similar to a mobile home. The only difference was that it was elevated high above the Wellbay module, and when someone would walk out through the front door onto a small platform, they had a spectacular view of the Gulf of Mexico. When the rig was under construction, the quarters provided housing for the Army engineers, and it wasn’t unusual to see them standing on that platform at the railings before they started work each day.
Today it was the view of the platform that was spectacular because so much blood had been sprayed on the door. In the morning sunshine it appeared to be even more red than it was, and the two men wrestling on the top of the steps rolled under the bottom rail, bounced against several levels of pipes, and dropped out of sight into the ocean below.
Maybank had something on the tip of his tongue that he was about to tell the man before the phone had disconnected. He was going to tell him that he could only stay if he disposed of the man who had been bitten. The man was dangerous and would attack him sooner or later.
He tried to remember what he was going to say but decided that it didn’t matter anymore, so he pushed himself up from the bank of monitors and staggered away in the general direction of the stairs. He hated the idea that his quarters were on another level, but at least it was down and not up.