Dead Sea

Chapter Six

“Norfolk is definitely out,” Chief Maxey muttered around the stub of his cigar. “You have any idea how many personnel were assigned to that base?”

“No,” Mitch said. “How many?”

“Well, I’m not sure exactly. But it was a lot. Thousands. The naval base is the size of a small city.”

“Damn straight it is,” said Hooper. “Hell, the base is Norfolk. Everything else in the city is just there to support the base. It’ll be crawling with zombies.”

We were standing inside a shack on the ship’s signal bridge, planning our excursion to the mainland; me, Mitch, Chief Maxey, Turn, Officer Runkle, Basil, Tony, and Hooper. Chief Maxey had given Chuck a crash course on how to pilot the ship and put him in charge of the pilothouse while we met.

“Just steer it straight,” he’d said. “There shouldn’t be any other vessels out here for you to hit. And if an alarm goes off, call us.”

The chief and Turn were there because they knew the coastline and could read the maps and charts. The others were there because they had military or law enforcement experience and knew guns. I was there only because Mitch had insisted I come with him. I was cool with that. Fish weren’t biting anyway, and Tasha and Malik were busy with their studies—something they’d warmed up to after a few days. I think they liked having something to do, a challenge to occupy their minds, even if it was just school. Carol had found some paper and pens and had created study guides, since we had no books onboard. The kids took to her right away, and Tasha seemed especially fond of Alicia—and Alicia of Tasha as well. The night before, Joan had commented that the only time the teen seemed to open up was when she was with the kids. After three days at sea, things had begun to gel for all of us. One dysfunctional little family.

Runkle sipped water from a plastic bottle. “Before everything went to shit, FEMA had set up an aid station in South Point. I remember hearing about it on the radio. It was supposed to provide food, water, and medical assistance. South Point is pretty rural, so maybe it didn’t get overrun. Could we try for that?”

Chief Maxey shook his head. “South Point is in the Chingoteague Bay. I’d have to circle all the way around Assateague Island. That puts us close to Ocean City, which would have been packed with tourists this time of year. Too many potential zombies, especially given the way they roam. Plus, if the wild horses on Assateague got the disease, we’d have zombies on both sides. The horses were used to crossing the bay—chances are they’d do the same after death. I’d rather not risk it.”

“But horses are immune to Hamelin’s Revenge,” I said. “I saw it on the news, before we lost power. Sheep caught it, but not pigs. Horses were immune, but cattle were not.”

“Perhaps they were,” the chief said. “But the disease must have adapted later on because I saw a dead horse running around downtown. It was one of those police horses and it was chasing a live dog.”

“Are you sure it was a zombie?”

“It’s broken ribs were sticking out of its flesh and its tail had been torn out by the roots.”

“Something else to consider,” Turn said. “Wherever we dock, even if there are relatively few zombies, we might want to wear gloves and some type of face mask to breathe through. Maybe we can make something up with what we have on hand. One of the museum displays has cheesecloth. We could make a mask out of that.”

Basil, who had only been paying half-attention, sat up. “Why would we need to do that?”

“Disease,” Turn answered. “Think about it. Even if the army or somebody had killed all the zombies, they wouldn’t have been able to burn all the bodies. There’s simply too many of them. The fire pits worked early on, but once the situation got out of control, those failed, too. So now you’ve got thousands, maybe millions, of dead bodies lying around—or walking around. Corpses carry disease. Every zombie is nothing more than a walking biohazard.”

“Good point,” I said. “But if that were the case, then why aren’t any of us sick yet? We’ve survived this long. Wouldn’t we have caught whatever disease they’re carrying by now?”

“Not necessarily. I don’t know for sure because I wasn’t on deck when you guys shared your stories. But I’ll bet almost all of us survived by staying holed up somewhere and avoiding the zombies whenever possible. The fires were what forced us out of hiding, and we had limited contact with the dead before boarding the Spratling.”

Basil still wasn’t convinced. “You guys remember Hurricane Katrina, right? In New Orleans, people waded through the floodwaters, and there were bodies floating in the streets. There wasn’t a massive outbreak after that.”

“Lot’s of people got sick in New Orleans,” Turn said. “But the difference was that there were aid stations and medical help on hand soon after.”

Tony lit a cigarette. “Maybe we’re immune to Hamelin’s Revenge. Maybe we’ve already been exposed and it just didn’t take.”

“Maybe,” Hooper said, “your ass should go first when we land. Let one of them fuckers take a bite out of you and then we’ll see if you’re immune.”

“No thanks.”

“I think we should keep an eye on each other,” Mitch suggested. “Make sure nobody is getting sick.”

“I agree,” Runkle said. “And if they do show signs of disease, we should quarantine them.”

None of us argued with him. Runkle may have been a prick, but he was right. No way could we risk everyone onboard the ship coming down with hepatitis or the bubonic fucking plague.

Chief Maxey tapped the laminated map. “That’s all the more reason why we need to find a place to resupply ourselves soon. In addition to food and water, we need medicine and first aid supplies. If we’d had insulin, maybe that poor woman would still be alive.”

“No sense beating yourself up over that, Chief,” Tony said. “It was just bad fucking luck on Stephanie’s part. There wasn’t anything we could have done.”

“I suppose not,” the chief admitted, “but I’ll be damned if we’re going to lose anyone else because of something like that. We’ve got one little bottle of aspirin and Murphy’s cough syrup supply—and he’s drinking through that like it’s a bottle of Knob Creek. If somebody does get sick or hurt, we’re going to need a lot more than those.”

“Okay,” Mitch said. “So Norfolk and Portsmouth are out. Same with Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads, Little Creek, and Ocean City.”

“Virginia Beach is a possibility” Chief Maxey corrected. “Down from the tourist area, there’s a stretch of national forest. There’s a small station there we could try.”

“What’s up north?” Runkle asked.

“The Isle of Wight.” Chief Maxey traced the coastline with his finger. “And up in Delaware, there’s Rehobeth Beach, Bethany Beach, and South Bethany—all of them are going to be packed with zombies.”

Turn said, “What about the lighthouse at Fenwick Island? That should be fairly deserted. I think the lighthouse itself is on automatic, so there’d only be a maintenance man, if anyone.”

“That’s a long way to go,” Chief Maxey sighed. “We’re closer to North Carolina and points south. I think we should consider one of those or the station near Virginia Beach—keep Fenwick as a last resort. Maybe we could try one of the islands off the Carolina coast.”

“I don’t know, Chief,” Turn said. “Those islands are all inhabited, and they had regular contact with the mainland, which increases the chances of infection. I think Fenwick Island is our best shot.”

While they were talking, I noticed a little red dot on the map, positioned farther out in the Atlantic Ocean. It looked like it had been drawn with a dry-erase marker.

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing to it.

“Oil rig,” Chief Maxey grunted.

I was surprised. “There are oil rigs off the East Coast?”

“Sure,” Turn said. “There wasn’t a lot of drilling going on off Florida because of political stuff, but there are lots of operations elsewhere in the Atlantic. Most of them are way off shore. The one you’re pointing at is a jack-up. It’s mobile, which is why we drew it on the map in erasable marker. That was its last known location.”

“What’s a jack-up?” Basil asked.

Hooper grinned. “It’s when I run up to Lamar and jack his ass up.”

“You’re welcome to try,” I said, keeping my voice low and steady. Things had not calmed between us since our initial introduction. He thought I was an Uncle Tom and had since learned that I was gay—two strikes against me. In turn, I thought he was a lazy, ignorant, punk-ass motherfucker.

“I’d like to see him try it, too,” Mitch said.

“Ya’ll are tripping,” Hooper muttered, backing down. “I’m just fucking around.”

“A jack-up is a shallow water rig,” Turn explained, ignoring Hooper. “Basically, it’s just a big barge with a drilling rig and living quarters attached to it. The oil companies float it wherever they need to drill and then there are literally jacks that extend down, raising the platform and stabilizing it on the surface. It’s a little smaller than a full-blown drill ship. They’ve got motion compensating motors and all that shit. But anyway, yeah, they’re out there. Not just confined to the Gulf. The oil companies are forever drilling test wells just to see what’s down there beneath the ocean floor.”

Mitch asked aloud what I had been thinking. “So why couldn’t we just go to that rig?”

“There would still be zombies,” Chief Maxey said. “Even a small platform would have a crew. The company man, the tool pusher, driller, derrick man, floor hands, cooks, and roustabouts. Unless they evacuated the crew before everything on the mainland collapsed, they’d still be there.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said slowly, “but they wouldn’t necessarily be zombies. If they had no connection to the mainland, then there’s no way they’d have caught Hamelin’s Revenge. You’ve got to be exposed to it—bitten or come into contact with infected blood—to turn into one of them, right? Only thing that could get them would be the birds and the fish, and neither of them are carriers. Those crews could still be alive. They could help us.”

“He’s got a point, Chief,” Turn said. “In the Gulf, it’s pretty common for shrimp boats and the like to pull up and trade their catch for diesel. Stands to reason the same would go for Atlantic platforms. We could trade for supplies. They’d probably welcome us, especially now.”

“But we don’t have anything to trade.”

“We’ve got transport,” Turn said. “I doubt the oil company is sending a helicopter to pull them off the jack-up anytime soon. But we can. We’re their ticket off the rig.”

“Okay,” the chief argued, “but what if they don’t want to leave? What if they’d rather stay? Then what? What else do we have to trade?”

“The women,” Runkle suggested. There was no hint of humor in his voice. The guy was serious.

We stared at him in disbelief.

“Fuck that,” Hooper said. “The women are ours. We ain’t trading them. Need them for breeding purposes.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you two?” Mitch slammed his palm down on the map. “Do you hear yourselves? You’re talking about fucking slavery—like the women onboard are something to be used for barter or a harem.”

“You mean they ain’t?” Hooper grinned wide enough to expose his missing teeth.

My hands curled into fists. I kept them at my sides. It was hard to do. I noticed Mitch tense up, as well. He was shaking with anger and his face turned red. Chief Maxey interrupted, defusing the mounting tension.

“Knock it off, all of you. Officer Runkle. Mr. Hooper. While your contributions to this ship are valuable and needed, I won’t stand for that nonsense. I don’t ever want to hear either of you talk like that again. Not while you’re on my ship. Do I make myself clear?”

Hooper shrugged. “Whatever, man. I was just fucking around.”

“You’ve been doing that a little too much,” Turn said.

“Runkle?” Chief Maxey glared at him. “Do you understand me?”

Runkle nodded, but said nothing.

“So what’s the plan, Chief?” Turn turned back to the map. “We need a decision.”

“We’ll try for the small station near Virginia Beach—the one surrounded by the national forest. It should be fairly deserted. If we have no luck there, then we’ll consider Mitch and Lamar’s suggestion and try the oil rig. Fair enough?”

We all agreed that it was. Then we began planning the expedition. According to Chief Maxey, we’d have to take the lifeboat into shore, because the water at the station was too shallow for the Spratling. After some discussion, we decided that six people should be enough to make up the shore party. That would leave enough space in the lifeboat to haul back supplies. Chief Maxey and Turn were the only two people onboard qualified to operate the lifeboat, so Turn was picked to go ashore. Mitch, Tony, and Runkle volunteered right away. Hooper reluctantly agreed to go as well.

“We need one more,” Chief Maxey said. “Basil, how about you? Want to join the shore party?”

Basil looked startled. “Me? Why?”

“You’ve got National Guard training. It would be helpful.”

“Yeah,” Mitch agreed. “You know how to use a firearm, right?”

“L-look,” Basil stuttered, “thanks for the vote of confidence, but I can’t do it. No way. I just spent the last two weeks hiding out in a fucking restroom stall at the Baltimore Zoo. I barely made it out alive. There’s no way I’m going back into that shit again.”

“Pussy,” Hooper teased. “Chicken shit motherfucker.”

“Fuck you, man!”

Basil charged him, fists raised, jaw clenched. Runkle stepped out of the way. He looked eager to see them fight, and he licked his lips. Turn and Chief Maxey intervened, stepping between them. Basil tried pushing past the chief, but Maxey refused to budge.

“Come on, pussy,” Hooper shouted. “What you got for me, huh? You ain’t got nothing. Bring it. I dare you. Fucking bring it.”

Turn shoved Hooper backward. Hooper took a swing at him but Turn sidestepped. Suddenly, Mitch had his pistol out of the holster and pointed at Hooper’s head.

“Back the fuck down.” He motioned with the pistol barrel. “Right now.”

Hooper’s eyes grew wide, but he backed down. “You gonna pull a gun on me?”

“Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?” Mitch turned to the chief. “See why it’s a good idea not to lock up all the guns?”

Chief Maxey wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand and then stubbed out his cigar. “I don’t give a shit who is at fault here. Each and every one of you will stand down right now, or I’ll throw you all in the brig. This is not a democracy, goddamn it, and I am in charge. What is wrong with you? Fighting? Pulling guns on each other? If I’d have known it was going to be like this, I would have left all of you back on the pier.”

“I’m sorry.” Mitch holstered his weapon. “Didn’t think you’d want your first mate getting the shit beat out of him.”

“Thanks,” Turn muttered.

“I’m sorry, too,” Basil said. “But I’m not going ashore and I don’t care what anyone thinks. I can’t do it.”

“Why?” Tony asked. “What happened to you at the zoo, man? We’ve all been through shit. What’s your story?”

Basil shuddered. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “I do want to know. Think we deserve to know. Every one of us on this goddamn shore party is risking our necks for the lives ofeveryone else on this ship. I think you owe us an explanation why you can’t do the same—especially since you’ll benefit from the raid, too.”

Basil didn’t respond. He walked over to the round window, put his hands behind his back, and stared out at the sea. When he finally spoke, we had to strain to hear him.

“I always loved the zoo. It was my favorite place to go when I was a kid. I grew up in Glen Burnie. Every weekend, I used to beg my parents to take me. We went maybe four times a year. When I became an adult, though, I got one of those lifetime memberships and went every chance I got. At least once a month. And when my wife and I first started dating, I used to take her to the zoo, too. She loved it as much as I did. I proposed to her in front of the monkey exhibit. It was our place, you know? Every couple has a place. Ours was the Baltimore Zoo.”

None of us spoke. The only sounds were the constant cries of the seagulls and Tony’s lighter as he lit another cigarette…

“So,” Basil continued, “we’ve got a good life. I’m doing Web stuff for Northrop. My wife, Kelli, is working for Southwest Airlines at BWI. We’ve got a nice house in Glen Burnie, near where we both grew up. Everything’s fine. Then her period is late. She takes one of those home tests where you pee on the stick, and it says she’s pregnant. And then, along comes Hamelin’s fucking Revenge. You guys remember how it was, when it first started. It was happening elsewhere. Localized. New York City is a long drive up Ninety-five, right? It wouldn’t spread to here. But it did. The last time I saw Kelli was when I left for work. She was going to be late coming home that night. She had a doctor’s appointment after work—they were going to tell her if the pregnancy test was correct or not. I got home and made dinner for us. Even stopped off at the store and got a bottle of that sparkling cider, because if she was pregnant, I didn’t want her drinking wine. Lit some candles and then I waited. She called from the car—the cell phone connection was bad. She was on the inner loop of the beltway, stuck in traffic. There was some kind of accident with an ambulance. She wasn’t hurt, wasn’t even involved, but the highway was shut down and she couldn’t go anywhere. That was the last time I talked to her.”

“The inner loop,” Mitch whispered. “Wasn’t that where the—”

Sniffing, Basil nodded. His voice was choked with emotion. “Yeah. There was a zombie in the ambulance. It got free. Killed somebody. More zombies came out of the woods and onto the highway. You all saw the footage on WBAL. My wife was there.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said, and I was. Basil had been kind of a jerk in the short time I’d known him, but still—you don’t wish ill of someone when he’s telling you how his wife died.

“I didn’t know,” he said. “I kept looking for her on television. Kept looking for her car as the news chopper did flybys, but I didn’t know what had happened to her. Her cell phone wasn’t working. Kelli never came home. I waited all night but she never came home. I fell asleep around four in the morning. When I woke up, I thought she’d be there. She wasn’t. I tried calling in sick to work but by then all the phone lines were down. So, I decided to find Kelli myself. Figured I’d check the highway and if I didn’t have any luck there, then I’d check with the hospitals. Hopped in the car and made it to the highway before the National Guard turned me back. I got caught in the detour and ended up downtown. After that, I went to the zoo. You’ve got to understand—I couldn’t find her. Thought that maybe she was looking for me, too. So I went to the zoo and I waited. It was closed, but I hopped the fence and waited for her to show up. She never did. She’s out there somewhere still, along with our baby.”

“Basil,” Tony said. “I’m really sorry that happened to you and your wife, man. Seriously, I am. But that doesn’t explain why you’re afraid to go ashore. You need to pull your weight if you’re gonna be part of this group. I lost my whole fucking family. I had to smash my daughter’s head in with a goddamn shovel…”

His voice cracked. Basil looked at him with red-rimmed eyes.

“At least you know what happened to them. I don’t. I have no idea! Do you understand what that’s like? I hid in a restroom at the zoo. It was too late to leave—the zombies had already broken in. You can’t imagine it. I know, I know. All you guys hid out, too. All of you saw zombies. But you didn’t see anything like what I saw. The animals… the elephants and the zebras and the monkeys. They all turned. The rats got through the bars of their cages and attacked them and then they turned into zombies. They rotted inside their cages. And the lion, when it got loose…”

Runkle frowned. “There was a zombie lion on the loose?”

Basil nodded his head. “Yeah. Some gang members let it loose. I think they were looking for somebody. They had guns, and I didn’t have shit, so I hid from them. I heard one of them say they’d let the lion out of its cage by accident. And then it showed up and it was horrible. The way it smelled… the sounds it made. How it looked. While the lion was killing them, I managed to escape. I ran…”

He paused again, and asked for water. Turn gave him a sip from his bottle.

“Thanks,” Basil said. “As I was escaping the zoo, I saw a woman. She was dressed like a prostitute or something. Very skinny. Track marks on her arms. She was a zombie, but it looked like she’d just turned. You know? She still looked fresh. She had a baby with her. It was dead, too—and it was nursing.”

“That’s impossible,” Runkle said. “Are you saying these things are smarter than we thought?”

“I don’t know,” Basil admitted. “Probably not. But one of her nipples had been bitten or cut off and she held the baby to her breast and it… it nursed. Do you have any idea how bad that fucked with me? My wife and baby were missing, but these… fucking… things…”

He closed his eyes and shuddered.

“After that, I ran. Managed to get a pistol off one of the gang members. I was out of ammo by the time I reached the Inner Harbor. There were zombies all around by then—I guess the fires were flushing them out. But so many of them were children. So many…”

He stared at Tony, unflinching.

“If I go back out there and I see another dead child, I’ll kill myself. It’s that simple. I don’t want to die, but I know my limits. I can’t do it. Does that answer your question, Mr. Giovanni?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, placing an arm on Basil’s shoulder. “Yeah, man. You don’t need to say any more. It’s okay.”

“That’s bizarre,” Mitch said. “All the zombies I saw before boarding this ship, I didn’t see any of them displaying traits like that. Maternal instinct? Does that mean they can learn? Evolve?”

“If it does,” I said, “then we are truly fucked.”

“Like I said,” Basil whispered, “she was fresh. Maybe she still had some rudimentary instincts left in her.”

Chief Maxey cleared his throat. “So who replaces Basil on this mission?”

I raised my hand. “I’ll go.”

“You?” Hooper snorted. “I don’t want you watching my back.”

“That’s a shame,” I snarled. “You’ve got such a nice ass.”

“Motherfucker…”

“Knock it off, Hooper,” the chief warned. “Lamar, are you sure about this?”

I nodded. Mitch slapped me on the back. The others seemed okay with it.

“Okay,” Chief Maxey said. “Then let’s take inventory. Mr. Bollinger, how many weapons did you bring aboard?”

Mitch gave him a rundown of his guns and grenades, and how much ammunition he had left for each. In addition to those, Runkle, Tony, Hooper, and many of the others also had weapons. There was also Basil’s empty pistol, which Mitch said he had ammo for. We divvied up the firearms and agreed that Runkle should act as team leader.

And then we were ready.

“Okay,” Chief Maxey said. “Turn, you prepare the lifeboat. The rest of you arm yourselves. I’ll go relieve Chuck on the bridge and take us in.”

We should have smelled them first, but the breeze was blowing toward the shore. We saw them soon enough, though. Lined up along the ship’s port side rail with several pairs of binoculars that we’d taken from the ship’s displays, we stared in horror and disgust. The summer heat and exposure to direct sunlight and the elements had done a job on them. The dead looked like bloated, oversized ants shuffling along the beach. They crawled through the sand and sprawled in the surf, wandering aimlessly in search of prey. Seagulls darted down out of the sky and plucked away bits of rotting flesh and the insects that burrowed inside the zombies. Then they’d take flight again and fight each other in midair for the choicest morsels. Decaying ears, cheeks, eyeballs, and noses dangled from their beaks. Occasionally, a bird moved too slowly or sat on a zombie’s shoulder for a second too long. Then, dead hands lashed out, seizing the birds-ripping and chewing in an explosion of blood and feathers. As we stared through the binoculars, we saw more zombies on hotel balconies and patio decks. Virginia Beach’s boardwalk was actually off the beach, hidden behind a row of hotels and restaurants and stupid trinket shops. We caught glimpses between the buildings as we sailed by. Both the boardwalk and the streets were choked with corpses. I couldn’t believe how many of them there were. We saw no signs of anyone still alive—the zombie’s food source had to be running out. Why didn’t they move on?

“Look at them all,” Chuck gasped. “If you didn’t know they were dead, it would be like a regular day at the beach.”

Joan paled. “I can’t watch. I’m going to be sick.”

She handed her binoculars to Nick, and then leaned out over the rail and threw up. Nick adjusted the focus, peered through the binoculars, and then closed his eyes and turned away.

“Jesus.” He sounded like he might be getting sick, too.

“I want to see,” Malik said, reaching for my pair of binoculars.

“No,” Carol admonished. “You don’t need to see that.”

“Damn straight I do. Let me get those binoculars, Lamar.”

“Malik.” Carol’s voice grew stern. “What did we agree in regards to your cursing?”

“You said I shouldn’t use swear words, but I don’t remember agreeing to it.”

Tasha slapped him on the head. “Quit being a dork.”

“Stop hitting me! Lamar, Tasha hit me.”

Sighing, I handed my pair of binoculars to Basil. Then I bent down and put an arm around each of the kids.

“Listen, guys. Mitch and I have got to go with the others to the mainland, so while I’m gone, you need to behave. Don’t fight. Don’t give Miss Carol or Miss Alicia any shit.”

Carol pursed her lips and scowled at me.

“Urn, I mean, trouble.”

“Why do you and Mitch have to go?” Tasha asked.

“Because we need stuff’ Food, water, medicine. We don’t want what happened to Stephanie to happen to anyone else.”

Malik pulled away. “Can I go, too?”

I shook my head. “Not this time.”

“But I can fight zombies. I’m good. Just give me another grenade.”

“I know you can, but we need you here, Malik. We need somebody that we can count on to stay behind and keep everyone on the ship safe. Can you do that for us? Protect everyone?”

He nodded. “You can count on me.”

“Okay.” I gave them one more squeeze and they hugged me back.

Eventually, we passed beyond Virginia Beach.

The hotels and developments vanished, replaced by trees and dunes. Within a few more miles, the forest grew thicker. Tall pine trees towered over the shoreline. The only sign of civilization was a cell phone tower sticking up above the treetops. Then the rescue station came into sight. It wasn’t much—just a small cove with a single dock, and a few white, cement block buildings and a long, tin-roofed warehouse. There was also a tiny chapel. Someone had mounted a basketball hoop in the parking lot. A single vehicle, a dark green Ford Explorer, sat beneath it. A tattered American flag fluttered in the breeze at the top of a pole in the compound’s center.

The Spratling slowed to a halt and Chief Maxey dropped the anchor. Turn, Mitch, Tony, Runkle, Hooper, and I boarded the lifeboat and took our seats. Chuck and Chief Maxey lowered us down to the surface and then we cast off. Turn started the motor and we cruised toward the cove. While en route, he turned on his battery-operated radio and checked communications with the ship. Chief Maxey answered him, his voice loud and clear.

The shoreline was deserted. The flag slapped against the pole. A few birds perched on the roof of the warehouse, but there was no other movement. I sniffed the salty breeze but smelled no sign of zombies. Turn pulled alongside the dock and shut off the motor. Hooper stood up carefully and tied us off. He glanced around, nervous. After confirming the coast was clear, the rest of us climbed up onto the dock. We agreed that Turn would stay with the boat just in case we had to make a quick getaway.

“Mitch,” Runkle said, “you take point. Hooper, you bring up the rear. The rest of us will move spaced ten feet apart. Everybody with me?”

We nodded.

“Good. We’ll start with the closest building. Once it’s clear, we’ll move on to the next. We do this as a group. I don’t want anybody going off by themselves. And if we do get into some shit, watch your shots. Last thing we need is to catch each other in a fucking crossfire. Understood?”

We nodded again. In the trees, a flock of crows suddenly took flight, startling us all. I nearly squeezed my trigger.

“Weapons check,” Runkle said. “Everybody make sure you’re locked and loaded.”

Once that was completed, we moved forward. Mitch approached the Explorer first and peered inside while the rest of us hung back. He opened the door and checked the interior. Then he popped his head back up.

“Empty.”

“Anything we can use?” Runkle asked.

“Not unless you guys are into Fallout Boy, John Tesh, or gospel music. There’s a bunch of CDs in the console, but they’re all shit. End of the fucking world and Fallout Boy is all that’s left for our descendants to find.”

Tony and I snickered. Runkle motioned toward the first cement block building. Mitch crept toward it, weapon at the ready. We followed. My palms were sweaty, and I had to keep switching the pistol from hand to hand so that I could wipe them on my shirt. My armpits grew damp. My ears felt hot and my pulse pounded in my temples. A headache started to bloom behind my eyes.

Mitch flattened himself against the wall of the first building and listened at the door. He looked back at us, nodded, and then reached out and tried the handle. It was unlocked. Taking a deep breath, he lunged forward and threw the door open. Runkle and Tony ran through it, their pistols extended. Hooper and I followed. Mitch came in behind us. The room, some type of communications center, was deserted. A massive, dust-covered two-way radio sat on a shelf behind the front desk. A microphone dangled from it, swinging by the cord. There were two telephones, a box of what looked like replacement parts for the radio, and several maps and charts. Taped to the wall were a list of maritime distress signals and important emergency phone numbers. There was a single closed door at the back of the room.

Hooper picked up one of the phones and held it to his ear. The rest of us looked at him hopefully.

“Dead,” he told us. “Didn’t figure it would be working, but it never hurts to check.”

Mitch inched to the second door, listened carefully, and then tried the handle. The door swung open, hinges creaking. Mitch reached inside, found the light switch and turned it on. Then he whistled.

“Got some stuff we can use here, I think.”

Runkle told Tony to guard the entrance, and the rest of us filed into the room. Cardboard boxes were stacked against the walls. Mitch pulled out his pocketknife and sliced one open. It was full of D-sized batteries. The next one contained AA batteries. We continued going through the supplies, and found more batteries, emergency flares, portable two-way radios, extension cords, rope, steel chain, shovels, rakes, brooms, and other assorted tools. There were also cases of spark plugs, engine oil and bearing grease, and several marine batteries for a small boat.

“Haul the batteries out and set them on the sidewalk,” Runkle ordered. “The flares, walkie-talkies, and oil, too. We’ll wait and see what’s in the other buildings before we grab any of this other stuff.”

We carried the boxes outside and stacked them against the wall. There was a stack of magazines near the front desk-months’ old issues of Time, Newsweek, and Outdoor Life. I flipped through one of them and sighed wistfully.

“What’s up?” Tony asked.

“I used to read these all the time. I was a news junkie.”

“Not me, man. I never bought into stupography.”

“Stup—what?”

“Stupography. Media that makes you stupider the longer you watch it. Everybody talks about how biased the media is. Either for the left or the right. What they don’t realize is that it all comes from the same source. They wanted us to stay asleep, and look what happened.”

He went back to work. I dropped the magazine back on the pile. Then I noticed four comic books amidst the stack—New Avengers, Spider-man, The Simpsons, and The Walking Dead. I stuffed the first three in my back pocket, thinking Tasha and Malik might like them. I left the last one lay where it was. Didn’t think the kids would want to read about more zombies. But then I changed my mind. Judging by how much Malik liked blowing them up, a comic about destroying zombies might be exactly what he’d enjoy. Wasn’t like it would give him nightmares. Real life could do that just as easily.

Then we moved on to the next building, where we hit the fucking jackpot. It was a bunkhouse and living quarters, and in the rear were a small kitchenette and a walk—in pantry. The metal shelves were lined with cans and dry goods, bags of flour and noodles, snack food, and cases of soda and bottled water.

“Holy shit!” Tony gaped at the rows of canned goods. “Green beans, peas, corn, peanut butter, kidney beans, succotash, fruit fucking cocktail—we are good to go.”

“I can’t believe they left all this stuff behind,” Runkle said. “Doesn’t make sense.”

Mitch nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. If you knew this stuff was here, and the zombies were on the march, wouldn’t you hide out here? Makes sense, right? But it looks deserted. No people and definitely no dead. Can’t even smell them nearby. There’s no blood, no signs of a struggle anywhere.”

Runkle picked up a jar of jelly. “Maybe the personnel assigned to this station went out to perform a rescue at sea and didn’t get the chance to come back?”

“Could be,” Mitch agreed. “Sucks for them. Good for us.”

“Let’s check the rest of the compound,” Runkle said. “Make sure it really is free and clear. Then we’ll start hauling this stuff back to the boat.”

The next building was a small infirmary, and we found a large stockpile of medicine. Since none of us were doctors, we didn’t understand what a lot of it was, but we grabbed the stuff we recognized and set it by the door. The warehouse was full of vehicles and equipment—lawnmowers, a forklift, tractor, several old pickup trucks, and a speedboat sitting atop a trailer. Another boat was suspended on jacks. It looked like someone had been working on the hull at one point. Now it would probably sit here for all time. Outside, behind the warehouse, we found skids with fifty-five gallon drums of motor oil, gasoline, diesel fuel, and kerosene, along with propane bottles, a pump, and several empty plastic gas cans.

“The chief will flip when we bring all this back,” Runkle said. “Unbelievable.”

I tapped a drum. “How are we going to get these down to the boat?”

“The forklift.” Tony laughed. “We should have had Chuck come with us. He drove a forklift for a living. But I can run it, okay long as there’s keys and fuel in it.”

For a moment, I thought that I heard Turn’s voice, calling out for us. When I glanced around, I didn’t see him, and nobody else mentioned it. I figured it was my imagination.

“I got to take a piss,” Hooper said. “Be right back.”

“Wait a second.” Mitch grabbed his shoulder. “We still need to clear the chapel.”

Hooper brushed his hand aside. “Man, ain’t nothing in the chapel. Look around. This place is deserted. Anybody that was here ain’t here now.”

“Well,” Runkle said, “you still shouldn’t go walking off by yourself.”

“I got to piss, and I ain’t pulling my dick out in front of Lamar. Fucker might try to molest me and shit.”

“Trust me, Cleveland—I’m not interested.”

He scowled at me, and then stalked off into the trees, muttering under his breath. We watched him go, shaking our heads.

“Asshole,” Mitch said.

“He may be a dick,” Tony said, “but he’s right. We’re all on edge. But this place is zombie free, man.”

A crow flew overhead. Something pink dangled from its beak. I thought I knew what it was. Before I could say anything, the wind shifted, blowing from inland out to the sea.

Mitch cringed. “Oh yeah? Well if that’s so, then what’s that smell?”

Deep inside the forest, Hooper screamed.