by Howard, Bob
Janice didn’t know what it meant, and she wondered if she would be safe crossing to the ship again. She wondered if someone didn’t want her to see what was waiting for her where the cargo containers formed her bridge. She unslung her rifle and made sure a round was in the chamber. She flipped the safety off and decided she would meet this development head on. If she had to shoot someone, she would.
Without the stormy weather of the previous day, she made the trip across much easier and felt almost cheerful by the time she started climbing down the wall of canisters. There had been no surprises waiting for her at the bridge, and she decided to just keep her eyes and ears open.
The containers were stacked twelve high, and where they hadn’t slid apart on top, she saw there were poles, or corner posts, that held them in place. She was happy to learn they wouldn’t fall from where they were.
After finishing an entire column of containers she had found her TV sets, computers, and household appliances. She used a Sharpie to write a note on the door and doubted she would ever need to open them again.
She moved to the next container in line and started the process over again. It only took a minute to open it because she had better leverage standing on the main deck. That was when it dawned on her where she was. She stopped what she was doing and listened. It was quiet with the exception of the waves lapping against the sides of the ship and the occasional groan of stressed metal.
Janice decided it was a good time to take a break and find out what was happening around her. She followed the deck across the bow to the starboard side and peered around the corner. That was where the cameras had shown large rats and a few crew members that had become infected dead.
The deck was totally clear without any debris. She thought that this was probably one of the few places where nature kept it neat and clean instead of crumbling into crowded streets, and she had a wave of emotion she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Home…what had happened to it? Her parents, family, friends were all dead. She didn’t have the slightest amount of hope that any had survived. If they had, they would be competing with other survivors for dwindling resources and defending themselves from the infected at the same time. She had lived in the lap of luxury compared to them.
A hundred feet above the deck was her bridge crossing to the oil rig, and for the first time since arriving over a year ago, she was getting a close look at the massive towers that supported the rig. She could see the indentations where the handholds had formed a ladder. They were gone now, and she doubted she would ever be able to explain them.
The need to explore outweighed her search for supplies long enough for her to make the long walk along the rows of containers, and as she got a closer look, questions about how the containers were stacked and kept in place were answered. She saw that she would be able to reach the doors of almost every container, but she more importantly learned that the ships were most likely loaded based upon where they were going next. Food could be on the top or the bottom.
Janice found herself at the bottom of the ship’s superstructure, facing an open doorway. It towered above her, and she wondered if any of the crew had escaped to the living spaces. She couldn’t see anything except blackness inside the door a few feet in front of her, and when she leaned inside the opening to let her eyes adjust to the dark, she could see it was a steep set of stairs that went up and down. If it was dark at the door, it was pitch black above and below.
She knew they had battled rats and the infected, but if she had lived so well in a glorified mobile home, she considered it at least possible that there were people surviving in the safest parts of the ship. If they were watertight in some sections, maybe they had been able to seal themselves inside.
She reached into her backpack and pulled out a flashlight, and before she could change her mind, she stepped through the door. It felt like an empty tomb, but as far as she knew, tombs were silent. The hollow metal chambers above and below echoed the slightest sounds, and somewhere in the distance was the clang of metal against metal.
Janice didn’t have the slightest idea of where anything would be located on the ship, but she guessed that the bridge was at the highest level. She had more reasons to choose up than down, so she climbed the stairs.
Maybank was horrified to see her go through the door. He had been easily able to follow her and remain undetected. He didn’t have a plan for what he would do when he revealed himself to her, and when he saw the rifle slung across her back, he realized he’d better think of something that would keep him from getting shot as soon as she saw him.
He was watching from above on the top row of the containers closest to the superstructure, and when she disappeared into the ship, he panicked.
Like most people his age, he still believed himself to be far more athletic than he was. That included his ability to do things quickly. In his youth he was strong enough to free climb, so repelling had never been a challenge. He took pride in being a healthy nerd, and being a member of a group with people like Titus Rush made him act like he could do anything.
He was wrong. He lost control of his ropes and slammed into the deck. The only thing that saved his life was the fact that he had kept his legs under him, but that was bad news for his legs. Both hurt bad enough to be broken, but there were no bones protruding through the skin, so he silently begged that they were only bruised.
Maybank didn’t know how much time had passed when he finally pulled himself to a standing position. The fact that he could put his weight on his legs was good news, but walking was incredibly painful. He took a few tentative steps and felt like something moved in the wrong direction in his left leg. His right leg did better, but the knee was already beginning to swell.
He pushed himself away from the face of the container where he had landed and let his momentum carry him across to the open door of the superstructure. The bright light outside made him feel blind, but he could hear well enough, and there were footsteps on the metal stairs above him. It sounded like she was coming down.
He couldn’t let her see him the first time like this. If she saw him limping as much as he was, she would think he was infected and shoot him even though he would be speaking. Maybank did the only thing he could do to hide. He forced himself to enter the darkness and go down the stairs. It was like walking into black ink.
Janice had come to a watertight door that she couldn’t open. It frustrated her to make it this far and be stopped by a door, so she decided to come back with anything she could find that would help her gain enough leverage to turn the big wheel in the middle of the door. There was a sound below her that was partially muffled by the echo of her own footsteps.
She stopped and listened. A dragging sound that was all too familiar. The infected all shuffled their feet or dragged their mangled legs. She had always considered that a good thing because she would be able to outrun most of them, but in this case it had given away its position somewhere below her.
The sound of her getting her rifle ready to fire would be too loud, and she didn’t relish the idea of blowing out her own eardrums, so she hefted her pipe wrench and got ready. She needed to see the steps and knew the infected would see her flashlight, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn it off. She would just have to face the infected from the advantage of a higher step, and if she was lucky, the creature would be at a lower level than the door she had entered.
Luck was definitely on her side when she made the turn from the landing above and saw the light from the open door. The shuffling sounds were coming from below the first level, and she could feel the vibrations in the metal stairs as the infected climbed below her.
Her only question was whether it was climbing up or down. If it was coming up, she had to hurry. She tried to stay as quiet as possible, but she noisily banged into the railings with her pipe wrench as she took the steps faster. The metal banging startled her, and she screamed just as if she had come face to face with an infected.
Maybank
screamed too, but his old man’s voice didn’t rise to the level of the woman’s scream, and to her it was no more than a loud moan.
“Nooooooo…,” was all she heard.
When she slammed the heavy door shut, she slid the handle of the pipe wrench into the locking wheel to wedge it shut and ran for the bow. Her frightened mind didn’t even see the ropes left by Maybank when he fell from the containers.
Adrenaline carried her back to the bridge above, and she crossed quickly to the safety of the oil rig. Once she hit the catwalks, she didn’t think she was safe yet. She felt like danger was still behind her so she ran in the direction of the Wellbay Tower and climbed ladders toward the crew quarters. She didn’t know she had taken a wrong turn until she found herself climbing onto a large flat area that had to be a helicopter landing pad. She was confused and lost, but a slight turn to her left brought the crew quarters into full view below. She had never gone upward, always preoccupied with the ship and the catwalks below her, but she had seen the top of the ladder ended at a higher level.
“So, this is what’s up here.”
Aside from the view, she didn’t see where it would ever be of any use to her. The observation hut was probably so someone could watch a helicopter landing without getting blown over, but it was the strange hatch next to the hut that caught her eye. It was similar to something she would expect to find on a ship, and when she thought about it, it wasn’t so strange to see it on an oil rig. There were probably hundreds of hatches and doors just like it that she had never found.
Curiosity was what had given her the nerve to walk through the open door on the ship, and curiosity was what made her tug on the hatch and lift it open. A ladder descended into a well lit chamber, and it was far less threatening than the dark stairwell of the ship, so she climbed down.
As soon as she reached the bottom and turned from the ladder, there was a faint hiss of air, and the door above her closed on its own. It frightened her at first, and she almost retreated up the ladder, but she felt safer with the door shut. Then she saw the panel on the wall with labeled buttons. One said Escape Hatch Lock, so she pressed it.
******
In the blackness of the ship, Maybank could only hear the blood pounding in his ears. He had broken the one rule that Titus Rush said would get survivors killed. He had left his shelter. Now he couldn’t see his nose, and he couldn’t hear because he was having a heart attack. It felt like an elephant had stepped onto his chest, and he fought to breathe.
He pressed his face against the cold steel of the door, and his arms were so numb from trying to turn the locking wheel that he could hardly feel them. His left knee was swollen until it stretched the leg of his pants tight, but that was his good leg.
When he finally moved, he tried to remember where he was when he had put his hand on a metal rail. He wanted to go up, but his chest and his legs wouldn’t let him. His only hope would be to go down and find a room that was safe.
He found the railing and shuffled down one flight. There was no one who would hear his screams, and the heart attack spared him from wondering why it didn’t hurt as something used its teeth to remove the calf from his left leg.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Endgame
Year Six of the Decline
Pleasant Oaks had been terrible, but it had been a tiny cemetery compared to this tropical burial ground. People had been being buried in the cemeteries of old New Orleans for hundreds of years, but the last six had turned the cemetery into a botanical nightmare. If the Chief was wrong, he would begin all over again. Stokes could have left clues everywhere, and the Chief would see clues where there weren’t any, but this was a good place to start. He couldn’t ignore the obvious.
The Chief tore away the vines at the base of the statue and almost missed the thin piece of pipe, but he was sure he had found a breathing tube. His only thought was how afraid Iris had to be at the other end of that tube. He didn’t know if she could hear him, but he whispered across the top of the tube and then put his ear above it.
“Hang on a bit longer, Iris. We’re getting you out of there.”
He didn’t hear words through the tube, but he heard the sobbing. He was so afraid that it had been a groan.
Everyone worked methodically, digging with our machetes first at the end farthest from the air tube so we wouldn’t disturb it. Tom carried a small camping shovel in his belt and was able to remove large scoops of soft dirt. Stokes didn’t have the luxury of digging with a backhoe this time, so the casket was only a few feet below the surface. He had tried to put it back into its original hole, but the sides had collapsed and filled it to half of its existing depth. It didn’t matter that much to him because he never expected us to find her in time, but it was a stroke of luck for us. His only reason for putting an air tube in was to make sure we spent time digging her up instead of coming after him. He knew we wouldn’t let her die of suffocation in the coffin if there was the slightest chance she was alive, and we all hoped it wasn’t a fake air tube like the one in Pleasant Oaks.
We were interrupted by an infected that fell over a headstone nearby, and Tom hardly skipped a beat digging by hitting it with the blade side of his camping shovel and then immediately shoving it back into the dirt.
The shovel made a hollow sound as it hit the casket, and we all moved to that spot. It was rapidly uncovered from that end up until we got to the tube, and we saw that it had been driven through the casket. At least it was real, and we heard the scraping of fingernails against the inside.
Each of us had our own private thoughts about what we would find. Stokes was so cruel that he could have selected any grave at random and simply put an air tube in it. There were plenty of caskets that were buried in shallow graves, and not all of them were enclosed with concrete vaults, but we didn’t have time to worry about what else he had done. If we did, she would die while we worried.
As if our deepest fears were put into words, Hampton yelled a warning to us all not to open it yet. The Chief had his hands in position and was two seconds away from ripping it open. He only stopped out of reflex, and Hampton pointed at the next grave over. It had an air tube extended above the surface.
The Chief nodded his understanding and braced himself to be able to jump back if he had to move in a hurry. His big shoulders flexed, and the lid flew free of the casket.
The burst of stale air that rushed into our faces was old and musty with the odors of the corpse that had decayed inside it. She was wild-eyed and gasping for air, but Iris was alive. She reached above her with bloody fingernails and flailed at the air as if she could grab it and pull herself from the casket. Forced to breathe the foul smell of rot inside the casket had pushed her to a limit she had never experienced, but when the Chief got his arms around her and lifted her to freedom, they both sobbed with relief mixed with joy. Iris actually laughed between sobs.
Jean tried to get the Chief to hear her.
“Chief, let me check her for injuries. She’s been bleeding.”
Colleen and Tom unfolded a small camping tarp, and we got the Chief to lay her on it. Iris didn’t want to let go of him, but gave Jean enough room to get a look at her scalp.
Cassandra got a water bottle in between all of the faces and had to wrestle with Iris to be sure she only sipped.
There was overwhelming happiness in the moment, but when I looked at the Chief I could see the anger boiling up inside. If he found Stokes, he would rip out his arms and beat him to death with them.
We also had to at least dig up the grave with the other air tube. There was no way we could be certain that there wasn’t another victim. Just like Pleasant Oaks, we only expected to find Molly and Sam.
While Jean took the time to be sure Iris could be moved back to the Cormorant, we split up into groups to see if we could pick up Stokes’ trail. We had to be sure the place the Chief had already found where a boat had been wasn’t left by Stokes as a decoy. Colleen stayed behind to give them cover if they needed it
.
The rest of us spread out, and about an hour into the search we found that the water had encroached all the way to the back wall of the cemetery. One more big storm would flood the entire area, and the walls would be breached one last time.
There was evidence in the mud at the base of the back wall that someone had very recently launched a boat from the spot, and it didn’t take a genius to know it had been him. We knew his goal had been to reach an oil rig, and if he wasn’t on one yet, he would be soon. We may have lost an hour, but his decoy would have cost us more if we had fallen for it.
Hampton had spent his life around small boats, and he examined the drag marks closely.
“V-shaped hull judging by the shape of the keel marks. Most likely twenty-three to twenty-six feet long. He would have tried for twin engines for the speed. Fuel wouldn’t be a problem for him if he was satisfied with one of the rigs close in.”
“How are we going to find which one he went to?” I asked.
We could see the Chief already had something on his mind by the way he was rubbing his chin. It was one of his habits I had noticed when we played poker. It was something he did when he had a good hand, so he did it when he bluffed. He wasn’t bluffing this time.
“It depends on how fast we can get the Beaver in the air and how long ago he left. I’m only guessing, but since Iris is still alive, he’s still on the water.”
It was about as fast as I had ever run just to keep up with the Chief, and Hampton had to climb the wall first. He still passed me and caught up with the Chief.
The Chief took a couple of minutes to be with Iris, and I overheard him say to her that he would give her his undivided attention as soon as he got back. She knew him well enough to know what he had to do. It wasn’t revenge. It was a guarantee that Stokes wouldn’t do the same things to someone else. The last thing I heard made me move out of earshot because I didn’t think they wanted anyone to hear something that private.