Season of Rot

1

The air stunk of filth and human waste. The summer heat heightened the smell, but Scott had long grown accustomed to the stench. Sweat glistened on his sunburned chest and shoulders. He reached up, running his fingers through his short brown hair. They came away wet and covered in grime. He couldn’t remember for the life of him when he’d last been allowed to bathe. There was a large tub of water in the center of the pen where the prisoners were kept. Scott eyed it, not yet thirsty enough to expose himself to the germs and bacteria it contained.

Eleven other men shared the small pen with him. Most of them sat around, lost in their own thoughts like he was. Buck and Hank played cards with a tattered deck for which they’d been able to bribe the guards. Hank had traded a section of flesh from his left thigh in order to get it. The bandage he wore had yellowed, and Scott guessed that soon Hank would succumb to infection and die. He had seen a lot of men die over the three weeks he’d been trapped here. The guards didn’t seem to care, as long as they had one or two healthy males.

The women that had been taken alive were treated much better than the men. Scott had never been inside their actual quarters, but he knew it was inside the breeding center, out of the sun. It had plumbing and was kept clean and free of disease. Unlike the pig slop the men were fed, the women were given real food. It all made sense in a sick kind of way. The dead guards needed the women to make babies, more “cattle” for the pens, whereas they only needed one man to knock them all up.

Of all the men in the cage, only David stood at the fence, peering through it at the hills beyond the compound. He was a newcomer to the breeding center and still hoped that someone would rescue them. He dreamed of escape. It was a dangerous thing. Scott knew there was no way out other than death; it was just a question of how one died and ended up on the other side of the fence.

If someone perished in the pen while the guards weren’t around, Scott and the other prisoners made damn sure the corpse didn’t get back up, even if it meant bashing its head with a stone until they were covered in blood. The newly risen dead weren’t always as evolved as the guards, and they often went on a feeding frenzy. Stopping that from happening was worth the lashing. The men took turns so that no one was overly punished or outright put to death for the deed. It was Scott’s turn now, and he figured it wouldn’t be long before he was bashing open Hank’s skull.

The guards mostly stayed inside the compound proper. Whatever force had reanimated them had also greatly reduced their rate of decay, but hadn’t stopped it. Being outside in the heat of summer was unhealthy for them in the long run.

Scott watched as “Chief Hole in His Neck” peeked out of the compound door for the hourly check on the pen; the dead man had gotten his name because his throat was torn open and his rotting windpipe dangled out. He was one of the few guards who couldn’t speak, but he held a high rank among the dead and was easy to get along with if you stayed out of his way and didn’t cause trouble. The dead man’s gaze lingered only for a moment on David, who still stood at the fence, then the mute guard popped back inside, closing the door to the air-conditioned compound behind him.

Scott tiredly pushed himself to his feet, wiping his hands on the pair of tattered black jeans he wore. David didn’t notice his approach.

“You’ve got to stop doing this,” Scott warned.

David jumped at the sound of his voice. His bloodshot eyes stared at Scott in shock. “Doing what?”

“Hoping,” Scott answered. “If you don’t, they’ll likely have you for dinner soon. It makes them nervous when one of us shows any bit of spirit left. Just be thankful you’re not one of them already and get over it.”

David started to respond, but Scott had already turned his back to the newcomer and was headed towards his spot, where he planned to sit and wait for the cool of the night.

2

The dead were getting closer. Riley ducked farther down in the brush, which grew on a hill above the gravel road. Two jeeps, flanked by a number of creatures on foot, crept their way up the mountainside. The whole scene was very troubling. Just how desperate were the dead getting for food if they were sending hunting parties this far out, and did it mean that all the cities had fallen at last?

The hunting party had stuck to the road so far, and Riley doubted they would stray into the woods, but his cabin was only a few miles north of the road. He counted eight of the things, including the drivers, all heavily armed. He couldn’t face a force of that size by himself, and even if he miraculously took them all out, more would come in search of their brethren, and likely in greater numbers. Then they would surely find his place.

Riley kept still and waited for them to pass by. When they were well out of earshot, he began to sneak back the way he’d come.

As he reached home and emerged from the trees, he saw little Brandon playing in the tall grass surrounding the cabin. The boy’s face lit up when he noticed his father. He dropped the stick with which he’d been hacking at the wild flowers and ran towards Riley with his tiny arms open. Despite his worries, Riley couldn’t help but smile as he swept Brandon up from the ground and clutched him tight to his chest.

“Where’s Mom?” Riley asked, cutting off his son’s litany of questions about his scouting trip.

Crestfallen, Brandon motioned towards the cabin, keeping one arm propped on his father’s wide shoulders. “She’s getting ready to cook dinner.”

Riley frowned and placed Brandon back on the ground. The last thing they needed were smoke signals pouring out of the cabin’s chimney today.

Brandon followed as Riley walked onto the porch and stuck his head inside the kitchen through the open front door. “Hi, honey, I’m home,” he called out, trying to hide his concern from Brandon.

Hannah looked up from the vegetables she was chopping and greeted Riley with a smile, which died on her lips as she saw the fear in his eyes. “It’s time isn’t it?” she asked.

Riley nodded. “We both knew this day would come sooner or later.”

She moved to take Brandon’s hand. “How long do we have?”

“I don’t know. An hour, a week, there’s just no way to tell. They may never find this place, but they’re close enough for us to be better safe than sorry.”

Hannah leaned down and kissed her child on the forehead. “Brandon, honey, would you please go play in your room for a few minutes? Mommy and Daddy need to talk, okay?”

As the boy marched off deeper into the cabin, Hannah got back to her feet and turned to face Riley. “Where are we going to go?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

3

It had been a tough decision but ultimately Riley had chosen to leave the truck. It was in great shape, perfect for off-road travel, and he had stored enough fuel to fill it up twice. But the dead controlled the roads now, and the truck was too risky, even out here in the wilderness. It was better, Riley knew, to set out on foot. They would travel slower and they wouldn’t be able to carry as much, but it would be far safer. On foot, they could stick to the trees and stay clear of the roads; they would be nowhere near as noticeable should they come across a group of the dead.

Hannah prepared some rations, and the family divided the load of food and water, with even little Brandon carrying a canteen of his own. Riley also let him carry a hunting knife, though Hannah had protested. The knife would be of no use against the dead as Brandon didn’t have the strength or the skill to drive it into someone’s skull, but it made the boy feel safer and that was what mattered to Riley.

Hannah carried an old-fashioned .30-.06 rifle, which once belonged to her father, and she also strapped a .38 revolver to her hip. Riley carried two holstered .45 automatics, an M-16 he’d bought illegally before the world fell apart, and numerous spare magazines for all three weapons in his backpack.

Leaving this place wasn’t easy for any of them. They’d been up here alone for a full three months since the dead first began to rise. In a lot of ways, it felt more like home than the house they’d lived in for years before they fled for the high country.

They made their way into the woods, and Riley watched a tear slide down Hannah’s cheek as she looked back at the cabin. It cut into his heart like a blade.

They still had no idea where they were headed. There was no logical place to head for, so Riley and Hannah had merely decided to set out east for the coast and hope for the best. If nothing else, maybe Brandon could see the ocean once before they all died.

Riley swore to himself the dead would never take his family alive, even if he had to kill them himself.

4

It was feeding time in the pen. The sun had long sunk beneath the surrounding mountains. Two of the dead guards emerged from within the compound, carrying a large bucket filled with slop as runny as cream corn. With the help of a third guard, they emptied the bucket over the fence onto the ground of the pen. The human prisoners pounced on it like hunger-maddened animals, scraping it up from the dirt with their bare hands.

Scott and David did not participate in the fight for their evening meal. David remained at the pen’s far side, staring at the roadway that lead up to the breeding center. Scott sat Indian style on the ground with his arms across his legs, palms open towards the stars. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and steady. Scott would find leftovers later, or he would fight with the flock at the morning meal. He doubted if David had any thoughts in his head about food, and he didn’t care. Let the newcomer starve if he wanted to. There were worse ways to die.

All that mattered to Scott at the moment was finding a shred of peace. Meditation could take him away from the horrors of this place.

Earlier in the day, he’d told David to stop hoping, that it was a lost cause, but now he wondered: wasn’t he himself seeking hope by leaving the pen, if only in his mind? He sighed and opened his eyes. The guards were already headed back inside the breeding center and the frenzy among the men for the slop was dying down. Scott slowly got to his feet, ignoring the taunts of his fellow inmates that he’d missed the meal.

This time David saw him coming, then turned back to the fence as Scott reached his side. “How dare you tell me to stop hoping?” David whispered. “Hope is all that’s left to any of us now.”

Scott accepted the stinging words as if he deserved them. He nodded towards the road leading out of the compound. “What exactly is out there that you want so badly? There’s no place left to go. The dead are everywhere. In here, we know we’re not going to be cut open and chewed on.”

“What’s the point of being alive if you can’t live?” David shot back.

“Hank and Buck, those two rednecks over there, would argue with you that we are living. They get fed, have their friendship, and once every couple of days they get to have the orgy of their wet dreams with the ladies inside.”

“But would you argue with me?”

“No,” Scott answered. “No, I would not.”

David grinned. “Then what are we going to do about that?”

Scott offered his hand, and the two men shook. “I’m Scott. Scott Burgess.”

“And you can call me David.”

“I know.” Scott laughed. “Well, David, it looks as if we have a lot to talk about.”

5

Steven placed the half-full bottle of whiskey atop his desk. All he wanted in the world was the feel of its fiery embrace as the alcohol slid down his throat, but he couldn’t bring himself to open the bottle. Too many people depended on him. He hadn’t asked for this job, but the Queen was his ship. She was all he ever loved in his life, and when the time came he’d go down with her. He knew every inch of her like the back of his hand, and yet she’d changed so much over the last few months he barely recognized her.

Once upon a time, she’d been a gleaming beauty of magnificent white hulls, a floating paradise where dreams of love and adventure thrived. Now her hull was spotted with makeshift plates of armor and the scars of battle. Gun emplacements lined the length of the main deck on all sides. Where once she’d held hundreds of vacationers, she now contained barely one hundred refugees, tired, frightened and desperate.

Someone knocked, and through the open door of the captain’s quarters Steven noticed O’Neil standing in the hallway. In one fluid motion, he swept the bottle off the top of his desk and into the drawer where it belonged.

O’Neil shifted uncomfortably. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I have the inventory of our supplies that you asked for.”

“Of course.” He motioned for O’Neil to take a seat across the desk from him. “And how do things look?”

O’Neil slumped into the offered chair. “Not as bad as we thought. The last dock we raided gave us enough fuel for another two weeks or more.”

“And it only cost us the lives of six men,” Steven added bitterly.

O’Neil continued with the report. “Our ammunition stockpiles for small arms are holding up remarkably well, and Luke assures me that the new torpedo tubes he set up on the forward hull will work if we need them. Our only real pressing concern is food. Even with a rationing system in place and the reduced number of passengers and crew onboard, we’ll be out again in less than a week. The priority of the last raid was fuel for the Queen, so we didn’t have time to stock up like we needed.”

“They came crawling out of the woodwork,” Steven chuckled.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“The dead, Mr. O’Neil. Regardless of where we put into port, they’re always there, waiting. We never have enough time.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t like the thought of touching land again anytime soon.”

Silence lingered in the room for a moment before O’Neil finally said, “Well, sir, what are we going to do?”

“Pray,” Steven answered. “Pray our little hearts out… And while we’re at it, bring me a map of the area we’re in now. Going back ashore is really our only option, isn’t it? Since the damn fish are just as dead as the rest of the world. Besides, even if they weren’t, you know we couldn’t catch enough to feed everyone aboard this ship. It’s just not possible with our limited equipment and resources.”

O’Neil left in search of a map, leaving Steven alone once again in the darkness of the room.

6

No stars lit the sky. Thick, dark clouds let loose what seemed a never-ending shower of rain. Brandon slept peacefully under the small tarp Riley had set up for him. Hannah rested against a tree, drenched to the bone. Her long red hair clung heavily to her neck and shoulders. Riley leaned over and put his arm around her. To him, she was beautiful no matter the circumstances.

“How far do you think we made it today?” she whispered, trying not to wake Brandon.

“A pretty good distance despite the weather,” he assured her. “We’re safe here for the night, I think.”

Hannah’s .30-.06 rested beside her, propped against the same tree. “Riley, do you think there’s anyone else left?”

“Sure, honey. Sure. There’s got to be. If we’ve made it this long, it just makes sense somebody else, somewhere, has made it too.”

“It’s not fair,” she muttered with a fresh wetness sliding down her cheeks. “Brandon doesn’t deserve this. He should be in school or playing video games. Think of all the things we took for granted, Riley, things that Brandon will never know except from our stories. If there are other people out there, we have to find them for his sake and start over somehow.”

Riley listened to the rain as it bounced off the leaves of the trees around them. “Hannah,” he said softly, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry, Riley? It’s not your fault that the dead woke up or that we’re living through the end of the world. If it weren’t for you, Brandon and I would be dead. I’m grateful for the time we had in the cabin. How many other people even had a chance like that? To pretend things were going to be okay? Those months were like heaven. It’s just… it’s just Brandon.” She nestled her face into Riley’s chest and sobbed hard against the muscles she found there.

Riley’s arms encircled her. “I swear, Hannah, if there is a place to start again, we’ll find it or die trying. We’ve just got to hold it together for a while longer. Rain or no rain, we’ll start moving again in the morning.” Riley shut his eyes and thought only of his wife’s body pressed against his until dawn.

The clouds broke as the sun rose. Riley checked over their weapons to make sure the dampness hadn’t damaged them as Hannah and Brandon made a game of packing up and preparing to get on the move. The three shared stale granola bars for a quick breakfast and drank water from their canteens, then set out in the direction of the sun.

7

Scott didn’t like David’s plan. In fact he loathed it, thought it was insane. He had no better ideas to offer, however, so he went along with it. They’d carefully selected which guard to make their offer to, and the chance to go through with it had arrived. The guards were out in full force today, as it was time for the prisoners to be rounded up for a breeding session. Chief Hole in His Neck was in command, flanked by six more of the dead, each carrying some type of fully-automatic military weapon. His subordinates opened the gate to the pen and led the prisoners out.

Scott, having been a captive for weeks, knew how things worked. He gave Hole in His Neck the sign that he wanted to make a trade. Hole in His Neck studied him, then motioned for his men to leave Scott behind.

When the others were all outside of the pen, Hole in His Neck stepped inside. Scott could swear he saw the hunger burning in the dead man’s eyes.

“Screw it,” Scott mumbled, hopefully too quiet for Hole in His Neck to hear. He cleared his throat and said, “David and I don’t want to go inside today.”

A look of utter confusion settled on the guard’s features. A human male who did not want to get laid was beyond his understanding.

Scott saw the look and misread it. “David’s the new guy. The one you just brought in.”

Hole in His Neck signed the question “Why?” He wondered if Scott had lost his mind, and he toyed with the idea of dispatching the human then and there. He needed more help tending to the women’s needs anyway; a new dead body walking around would help with his duty roster.

Scott gritted his teeth, steeling himself for what he was about to say. “Look. We’re gay, okay? We just want to be by ourselves for an hour to breed in our own way. Just this one time,” he added hastily.

Hole in His Neck smiled. A sick wet sound came from his exposed windpipe as he tried to laugh. He shook his head and shoved Scott towards the gate.

“Wait!” Scott urged. “You haven’t even heard what I’m offering in return.”

Hole in His Neck paused. It was not permitted to feed on the prisoners unless they broke the rules or offered non-vital pieces of their meat freely. Scott had been anything but a normal prisoner, and Hole in His Neck admitted to himself that he enjoyed the way Scott was begging for such an unnatural and shameful act.

“You could send one of your people with us, to make sure we don’t escape. I’m only asking for an hour.”

Using gestures, the dead man asked what he would get in return and indicated that it had better be worth such an affront to the rules.

“My legs,” Scott said firmly. “Both of them, all yours. I don’t need them to breed, and if I die from you taking them, you can stick me out here so you’ll have a permanent watchdog over the others until I rot away to nothing from the heat.”

Hole in His Neck held up his fingers, saying two guards would go with them, not one. Then he added that this would be the only time, one way or another.

Scott breathed a sigh of relief as the commander of the watch went to fetch David and the guards who would take them to the woods. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to work after all.

8

Bullets sparked and pinged off the asphalt as Riley ran for cover. He half fell, half rolled behind the carcass of an abandoned truck. The spray of bullets followed him, thudding into the truck’s frame.

Hannah and Brandon were nowhere to be seen. Riley had been cut off from them when the jeep full of dead soldiers appeared out of nowhere.

Riley cursed himself for leading his family here. There shouldn’t have been a road at all, not this far out in the country, much less a major one littered with the ruins of cars and trucks. The only things that should have been up there were trees and dirt trails. Riley didn’t have the faintest idea where the road led, but it had seemed safe. Figuring they didn’t have time to follow it in the woods until they could cut around, he chose to walk it. Now he was paying the price.

He heard the crack of Hannah’s .30-.06 somewhere in the distance. Damn the woman! he thought. If she and Brandon had reached the trees, they should’ve just kept going; they shouldn’t have stopped to save him.

Left without an alternative, he leaned around the end of the truck to see what was happening on the road. One of the dead stood several yards away, focusing its AK-47 on the tree line. Riley’s military training took over, and he seized the chance. His M-16 opened up, sending a stream of rounds into the dead thing’s chest and up its torso until, with a wet popping sound, the corpse’s rotting head burst like a melon, spewing brain matter onto the road below its feet. Its body spun, headless, and dropped. Riley was on his feet and running for a better vantage point before the body hit the ground. He’d only seen three of the things, and he figured he could handle them as long as he knew Hannah and Brandon were safe. But that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Riley felt fire tear into his shoulder, and the impact knocked him down. His rifle went skidding away from him. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the dead man who’d shot him. The thing charged forward and lowered its rifle, to which was attached some kind of blade.

Riley didn’t move, waited to the last possible second and grabbed for the weapon as the thing tried to spear him with it.

Close combat with the dead was extremely dangerous. A bite, or sometimes just a scratch from their nails, was enough to infect a person with the lethal virus, or evil spirit, or whatever it was that gave the dead life.

Taking his opponent by surprise, Riley ripped the weapon from its hands and sent the creature sprawling to the pavement beside him. It rolled at him, biting and clawing for his flesh. The thing never saw him draw the .45 automatic. He blew the brains out the back of its head.

“Hannah!” Riley screamed, praying for an answer.

In the distance, the monsters’ jeep roared to life. Riley scrambled for his gun, then stopped and let out a whoosh of breath as the vehicle retreated. The road fell silent.

Blood stained the front of his shirt, leaking from the wound on his shoulder, but he didn’t feel it. He bolted, his legs pounding beneath him, to where he’d heard the shot from Hannah’s rifle. He skidded to a halt as he reached the tree line and saw Hannah in the dirt. His heart felt like it stopped beating as she looked up at him, revealing the tears on her cheeks, the blood on her hands. She was kneeling over Brandon, who lay in a growing puddle of red.

Spots engulfed Riley’s vision, and Hannah watched him collapse.

9

Scott and David put on a show for the two guards accompanying them outside the breeding center. They held hands and acted eager to reach a place in the hills where they could be together intimately. The guards led them about a mile and a half from the compound before the group stopped and one of the dead men pulled out a stopwatch from its pocket. “This is as far as we’re going,” the guard informed them, and he started the watch. “You better get to it. The clock is ticking.”

“You’re going to watch us?” David asked, horrified. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Tough,” the other guard grunted. “Get to jerking each other off or whatever so we can get back.”

“What’s the matter?” Scott laughed. “Are you horny too? Wanna join us?”

The guard blinked his single eyelid while the other laughed at him. Scott sprang forward, grabbing the laughing guard’s head and twisting it around so fast the neck broke with a sharp crack. It wouldn’t kill the dead man, but breaking his neck would immobilize him and leave him helpless.

The remaining guard raised the barrel of its weapon toward Scott, tightening its finger on the trigger, but David tackled the dead man; they went down in a mess of tangled limbs as the guard’s rifle blazed away.

Scott instinctively ducked out of the line of fire and snatched up the rifle of the guard he’d killed. He whirled to see David lying atop the other guard, his intestines scattered everywhere. The burst from the thing’s weapon must have disemboweled him.

Scott squeezed the trigger of his rifle and held it, emptying the clip into David’s corpse and the guard below. Done, he tossed the rifle aside. Neither David nor the guard would be getting up again.

He felt a pang of loss and guilt over David’s sacrifice, but he didn’t have time to think about it—the whole compound must have heard the brief battle. So Scott sprinted into the trees and didn’t look back.

10

O’Neil and Captain Steven studied the map spread out on the table before them. Steven stabbed at a point on the map with his finger. “We’ll put in here.”

“South Carolina?” O’Neil asked.

“Why not? This port here is out of the way in terms of the old commercial traffic routes, and it’s close enough for us to reach it within two days.”

“It’ll still be guarded. If nothing else there’ll be those things all over the docks. I don’t like the idea of taking the Queen that close to land again.”

Steven smiled. “We’re not. Not this time. We’ll sail in just close enough for the lifeboats to make it ashore.”

O’Neil looked at the captain and blinked, completely baffled.

“Stealth, Mr. O’Neil. It’s something we haven’t tried before. If we go in at night instead of all guns blazing, the Queen herself may still face an attack, but the dead may not notice our smaller boats until we’ve had time to do everything we need for once.” Steven saw the way O’Neil was glaring at him. “Yes, it’s more of a risk to the raiding party if the dead do notice them, and it’ll mean less supplies brought back overall because we won’t be loading straight onto the Queen, but I’m willing to take the gamble in hopes that it will save us some lives. If it works, it’ll give the raiding party a better edge than they’ve ever had before, and, well… if the Queen does become engaged, I think she can handle herself. We have before, and we’ll do so many more times, I’m sure.”

“Sir,” O’Neil said, “I think you should know most of the crew and the people onboard still just want us to take some little island, put down some roots, and finally get off the waves.”

Steven grinned. “No, our mobility is what’s keeping us alive, Mr. O’Neil. Perhaps you should remind these people that if we lose it, we’ve lost the war.”

O’Neil changed the subject, avoiding an argument. “How many men will be needed for the lifeboats in this plan of yours?”

“I was thinking about sixteen, total. That should give them the firepower and the free hands they’ll need.”

“But who’s going to lead them?” O’Neil asked.

11

Scott hadn’t stopped moving for nearly twelve hours, pushing his underfed and exhausted body far beyond its limits. He nearly fell into a tree, grabbing its bark to keep his balance, but finally he dropped to his knees and vomited into the wet grass.

So far he’d seen no signs of his pursuers. When he’d first started running, it had been like something out of a nightmare. Jeeps full of the dead had come roaring out of the breeding complex. The first two hours of the chase had been the roughest, ducking in and out of the trees, zigzagging his path, eluding both those chasing him and the normal patrols in the area. He hadn’t seen or heard a jeep or dead man in the past seven hours though, and he couldn’t force himself to go any farther at this point. He needed rest desperately.

Scott wiped the vomit from his lips and rolled over onto the ground, stretching out. The noise of a rifle chambering a bullet snapped him out of his thoughts.

A woman stood over him with the barrel of a .30-.06 aimed at his chest. She was covered in blood that wasn’t hers. Long red hair was matted to her face and shoulders by sweat, blood, and dirt. She appeared healthy and well fed, but every inch as tired as he felt.

“Hello?” Scott greeted her weakly.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked in a voice filled with both anger and deep sadness.

Scott’s mind raced. What the hell was he supposed to say? “I know a little,” he answered quickly, lying very still so that the woman didn’t feel threatened.

She took a step away from him. “On your feet. My husband and son are hurt. They need help.”

“Okay.” Scott pushed himself up, despite how much his whole body ached.

The woman led him about a fifth of a mile east. He knew instantly something wasn’t right, even before they entered her makeshift campsite. He could see a young boy gagged and tied to a tree, straining against the ropes; the body of a man lay stretched out nearby.

Scott wondered if the woman had kidnapped the child—until he saw the massive gunshot wound on the boy’s chest and began to realize just how much trouble he was in. He forced himself not to stare at it as it twisted under the ropes, tearing its flesh as it tried to get free.

Scott knelt down beside the man, who was alive, just barely.

“Can you help them?” the woman pleaded, the barrel of her rifle still aimed at Scott.

He doubted very much he could fool the woman into letting her guard down. She was too on edge. “Why did you gag the boy?” he asked, hoping to lead her mind back to Earth.

Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. It was clear she couldn’t rationalize her behavior without admitting her son was dead. “He… he was just gibbering. Saying horrible things. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Was he really your son?”

“Yes,” she answered, not bothering to correct the word “was.”

“And this is…?” Scott placed a hand on the man’s arm.

“Riley. He’s my husband, Riley.”

“He’s going to die just like your son did,” Scott said, staring down the madness in her eyes. “He’s lost too much blood. There’s nothing we can do for him out here.”

“Liar!” The woman’s finger tightened on the trigger as she shoved the barrel of her .30-.06 closer to Scott’s face.

“Whoa!” He raised his hands high in the air. “Careful there! I’m sorry, lady. I just call them as I see them.”

The woman hesitated, lowering the rifle’s barrel slightly. Scott grabbed for the weapon. Too bad for him, Hannah was faster.

12

Hannah smashed the butt of her rifle into the man’s face as he took a swipe for it. He fell backwards, cursing and bleeding from his nose. The things he’d said had cut through her illusions like a razor, exposing the truth: her son was dead and her husband was dying. She’d be damned if this filthy punk was going to take her dad’s rifle too.

She snapped the rifle’s butt back up against her shoulder and braced it. The weapon barked as the shot smashed open the skull of the thing which had once been her son.

The man cringed away, as if she were more dangerous than ever. He raised a bloody hand to stop her from hurting him. “Please.”

“What’s your name?” Hannah asked.

“Scott.” After a second, he added, “Ma’am, I don’t mean any disrespect, but your husband just quit breathing. I don’t suppose you’d be kind enough to shoot him too?”

“Riley!” Hannah cast her rifle aside and threw herself over her husband’s corpse.

Its eyes shot open.

“Watch it!” Scott pulled her off the body and shoved her aside as the dead man sat up and reached for his arm. Scott pulled a .45 from the corpse’s own holster and gave it a reason to lie down again. The shot seemed to echo in the air.

Hannah turned her face away from the gore, sobbing, though she had no more tears. Scott made no move to comfort her.

He popped the magazine out of the handgun and took stock of the number of rounds left, then snapped the magazine back inside the gun. He also sorted through a backpack, which appeared to have belonged to the child. Whoever this woman was, her family had been well supplied.

He opened a granola bar from the pack and tore into it, unable to control himself. Scott couldn’t remember the last time he’d had real food, and it tasted like heaven, stale or not. “Where are you from?” he mumbled through a full mouth.

Hannah ignored him.

Scott finished the granola bar in a second bite. “How have you managed to stay alive this long?”

“What does it matter?”

“Well for one thing, you have food. You’re well armed. Hell, I even saw some antibiotics in this pack. If you’re from some kind of settlement or shelter that survived, I’d sure as hell like to know about it.”

“Where are you from?” Hannah shot back.

“Trust me lady, you don’t want to know.” Scott snickered and ripped into another ration bar. “I’ve been locked up by the dead in a camp straight out of Hell.”

“A camp?” Hannah was stunned. “Why didn’t they kill you?”

“Where have you been, sister? How do you think the dead get their food these days? There aren’t enough of us left out there for them to just round up and slaughter for dinner anymore. They’re trying to breed us like cattle so that they’ll always have food.”

Hannah stared at him in horror.

“Yeah.” Scott nodded. “It’s all that and worse. I still want to know where you came from. You sure as hell weren’t in a camp.”

“My husband and child are dead.”

“I’m sorry.” Scott twisted the top off of a canteen and helped himself to some water. “Seen a lot of people die. One of my friends died just so that I could make it out of there. It looks like your husband died trying to take you to greener grass too. Better get used to it, people dying. That’s how things are with the dead ruling the world. Speaking of which…” Scott closed the canteen. “We need to get moving. Staying in a single spot for a while can be suicide. Who knows who or what heard those shots.”

13

Luke was anything but your typical engineer. Long black hair with spots of gray hung over his purple flannel shirt. He sat crouched on the knees of his worn blue jeans, fiddling with a homemade torpedo casing. He heard O’Neil enter his workshop, but made no move to stop fine-tuning his current project. “I’ll have two more live ones by tomorrow morning,” he said.

O’Neil sat on Luke’s unused workbench. “Why do you always work on the floor?”

Luke smiled. “The freedom,” he answered simply. “It helps me think.”

O’Neil grunted. “Whatever works, I suppose. As long as you don’t blow a hole in the bottom of the ship.”

“You didn’t come here to talk about my work habits, Mr. O’Neil. What’s up?”

“The captain’s planning to raid a port in South Carolina tomorrow night. I’ve got the usual crew ready, and I’ll be in command of the operation. I thought I’d stop by and see if you’d come up with anything new.”

Luke glanced back at O’Neil. “If you’re talking about understanding the dynamics of what makes the dead get back on their feet with hungry stomachs…” Luke pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “No, I haven’t. That’s Doc Gallenger’s area, not mine.”

“I thought you were helping him.”

“Sure, when I have the time. You might have noticed I have been rather busy lately, what with keeping this old girl running and designing these new toys for the captain.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust that Gallenger’s doing his best, Luke, I just thought—”

“What? That having nine degrees in everything from pathology to physics makes me superhuman? That I am supposed to be able to wave a magic wand and save your ass? I wish.” Luke shrugged. “I ain’t God, ya know.”

“I didn’t say that you were. God has a social life,” O’Neil teased.

“You want me to go with you tomorrow?”

“Hell no! Steven would have me shot if I let you off the Queen. You’re the only real brain we’ve got.”

“So you say,” Luke said. “There are plenty of people on the boat who could do what I do around here.”

“Maybe, but not one of them could do it all.” O’Neil got up from the bench. “Just promise me you’ll get to helping Gallenger, okay? We need a way to stop the dead more than we need the weapons to keep running.”

As O’Neil turned to leave, Luke muttered, “Be careful out there, you idiot.”

“I always am,” O’Neil responded with a flash of his teeth, then he was gone.

14

Scott figured Hannah was whacko after what she’d endured, with every right to be, so he let her brood as they walked. The woman insisted on traveling east to the coast, so that’s where they headed.

Scott had managed to get a few hours of blessed sleep while she kept watch, and he counted himself lucky she hadn’t killed him while he dozed. When he woke up, they buried her family and moved on.

“What the heck is that?” Scott asked as he noticed a building ahead of them.

Hannah paused. “It’s a cabin,” she said, and then continued towards it.

“Whoa. What are you doing?” Scott grabbed her by the arm. “We don’t know if anyone’s in there.”

“There’s not. Not anyone alive anyway.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Hannah pointed through the trees. “The door’s been busted open. The windows are shattered. And that appears to be dried blood all over the outer walls.”

Given little choice, Scott followed her into the clearing in front of the cabin. Several bodies, all dead from head wounds, littered the grass.

“Looks like somebody put up a good fight,” Scott commented.

Hannah headed straight for the main door, which dangled by a single hinge. She stepped past it and into the building.

A body missing its legs and arms watched her enter. Old blood stained its mouth and chin. Hannah was sure its tongue had been cut or bitten out; otherwise the thing would have been screaming obscenities at her.

She glanced about the remains of the simple room. Someone had taken shelter in this place, seeking safety in the wilderness just like her own family had done, only these poor people must have been discovered before they could run.

Hannah jumped as a gunshot sounded behind her, sending the limbless monster on its way to Hell.

Scott shrugged as she glared at him. “It was creeping me out, okay?”

The pair carefully searched the place for more of the dead or anyone left alive. They met back in the cabin’s main room, alone.

“We’ll take what we can,” Hannah said. “Food, ammo, whatever, but we’re not staying.”

Scott was too delighted to be put off by her air of superiority. “You’re not going to believe what I found out behind this dump!” He smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you!”

15

The cabin had been a godsend. Scott couldn’t believe their luck. With their stock replenished and their stomachs happily full of canned corn and dried tomatoes, they journeyed east again, much richer. Hannah still carried her .30-.06, which she never set down for a second, but now she also carried a functional AK-47 assault rifle. Scott himself had added a pump-action twelve gauge to his arsenal. Their best find, however, had been the bike. It allowed them to continue traveling off–road, yet much faster.

Scott held onto Hannah’s waist as she throttled the small bike’s engine at over forty miles an hour. She jerked the handlebars from side to side, dodging trees, and Scott wasn’t sure but he thought for the first time since they’d met he saw the slightest smile on her lips.

“If you don’t mind if I ask,” he yelled over the bike’s roar, “why the hell are you so set on going east?”

Much to his surprise, Hannah answered him. “I want to see the ocean one last time before I die!”

Scott mulled over this revelation for a second. “Works for me!” he shouted, and Hannah charged down a tiny hill.

16

The Queen sat in the harbor, motionless and far from the docks. No organized attack had been launched against her yet. Henry O’Neil admired her from a distance as his lifeboat drifted toward the shore. There were four boats, each carrying an equal share of the raiding party.

O’Neil’s heart pounded in his chest. A long time had passed since he’d been on shore. He’d fought numerous battles aboard the Queen and occasionally ventured onto a dock to hold the hordes of the dead back for returning raiding parties, but this was different. He was excited and scared shitless at the same time.

An African American man named Roy sat across from him, loading a shotgun. O’Neil didn’t know Roy well, but he knew him to be a veteran of raids.

The plan was simple. Land on the beach near the warehouses along the dock, hit the shore running, and stock up on whatever nonperishable foodstuffs they could get their hands on; they would then steal one of the boats that lined the port and ferry the goods back to the Queen. This operation would cost them most of the remaining lifeboats, but if they could steal some decent motorboats, it would be more than a fair trade.

Jennifer and Jason also shared O’Neil’s lifeboat. The twins were inseparable. Jennifer was the warrior of the pair. Muscles bulged from underneath the jumpsuit she wore. In addition to the rifle and sidearm she carried, she hefted a machete. She was something of a legend among the Queen’s raiders, and her confidence made O’Neil feel safer.

Jason, by contrast, lacked muscle. He was the party’s medic and an assistant to Dr. Gallenger. The young man’s brow was creased in thought as he checked over his medical kit.

O’Neil held no official rank, having come aboard the Queen after the plague started, yet he was second only to Captain Steven; everyone treated him with respect. He hoped he lived up to it out here where it mattered most.

The lifeboats reached the sand of the shoreline. O’Neil screwed a silencer onto the barrel of his pistol and stepped onto solid ground. His land legs were clumsy, but as he raced after the others toward the docks, he got the hang of it.

The party split up and headed for different warehouses while one group went in search of a getaway boat. There was no sign of the dead, but O’Neil knew it wouldn’t be long.

Within minutes they located a pair of small motorboats, the only ones around that appeared functional, and soon after, men brought the first load of canned and freeze-dried foods. That’s when the shit hit the fan.

One of the raiders screamed, “They’re coming!”

Before O’Neil could shout orders, the dead charged forward from the town, and the docks were suddenly ablaze with gunfire.

17

The would-be raiders quickly found themselves pinned down and outnumbered. “It’s a trap!” someone shouted, and O’Neil cursed the idiot. It wasn’t a trap, it was probability: the creatures were everywhere these days.

Jennifer threw O’Neil off his feet as a bullet whizzed past. “Better keep your mind on the fight, sir!” Then she raised her M-16 and swept their enemies with rounds.

O’Neil hated the dead. Why couldn’t they be the lethargic automatons driven purely by instinct like in the movies he’d seen as a kid? Life freakin’ sucks, he thought. Pushing himself up, he took aim at a creature with a hole in its chest and a butcher knife held above its head. With a single shot from his pistol he dropped the thing to the ground.

The dead were attempting to flank the raiding party and cut them off from the boats. O’Neil knew if that happened, they were all screwed, so he bolted for the docks. He saw Jennifer wrestling with a dead woman who’d made it past their wall of fire. Jennifer’s rifle was gone and she struggled to bring her machete into play. She never got the chance. The dead woman lashed out with a straight razor, and Jennifer’s throat sprayed blood.

As O’Neil reached the boats, Roy was there waiting for him.

“We’ve got to get the food back to the ship!” O’Neil shouted.

Roy nodded. Most of their party was already dead or dying, and they couldn’t risk trying to save the others. Too many people on the Queen depended on them, and if they failed, a lot more would die.

“What the hell is that?” Roy yelled, pointing.

O’Neil turned to see a dirt bike zigzagging towards them through the midst of the battle. Two human shapes rode it, one clearly a woman at the handlebars.

“Fuck that,” O’Neil said, bringing up his pistol to take a shot at her. If the dead thought they could crash a suicide bomber on a damn dirt bike into the motor boats, they had another thing coming.

Roy struck O’Neil’s arm, knocking his pistol downward so that he fired harmlessly into the wood of the dock.

“Why the—” O’Neil started, but Roy cut him off.

“Those ain’t dead folk!”

O’Neil glanced at the bike again as Roy fired up the boat with the most cargo. The motorcycle skidded to a halt a few yards from O’Neil, and the passenger—a haggard young man with lashing scars covering his bare back—jumped off. “Going our way?” he asked.

O’Neil ignored the young man’s joke, gazing into the green eyes of the woman who drove the bike.

“Get in!” Roy screamed from below, and O’Neil watched this woman, this angel, dart by him and leap into the boat.

“I think he means you too!” the young man said, grabbing O’Neil as he jumped into the boat; the stranger laughed as they crashed to the deck together.

Roy kicked the motor into high gear and left waves in their wake. The docks and the nightmare faded behind them as a few desperate shots thudded into the sides of the boat and the dead howled in vain.

18

“Who are you people?” Scott asked. “And what was all that back there about?”

The redneck-looking black man answered, “I’m Roy and this is Mr. O’Neil. We’re from the Queen.”

The man identified as O’Neil just kept staring at Hannah as she asked, “What’s the Queen?”

“That.” Roy pointed out over the water.

“Holy shit,” Scott muttered. The Queen was a ship, and a damn big one from the looks of her. She was as long as a battleship, but certainly not military; or at least she hadn’t started out that way. Her overall hull, tarnished white, was spotted by the odd piece or plate of armor welded on. Jury-rigged gun emplacements ran the length of her decks from port to stern. She’d definitely seen better days, but even with the tiny amount Scott knew about ships, he could tell she had a lot of power left in her.

Roy piloted the motorboat right up to her side. Heavily armed men and women threw down cables from the deck to haul up the supply crates. “Too bad we can’t keep this baby,” Roy said mournfully. “She’s a fine little boat in her own right.”

“We’re keeping her fuel,” O’Neil said as he finally snapped out of the haze he’d been in. “Make sure you drain her tanks before you go up.” He caught one of the ropes raining down around them and handed it to Hannah. “Welcome aboard, ma’am,” he said with a smile that lit up his face.

She and Scott scurried up the rope into the crowd of people waiting on the Queen’s main deck. Both were overwhelmed by their welcome. Hannah couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so many people alive.

O’Neil pulled himself up behind them and was barking orders at the crowd before his feet even hit the deck.

“Let’s get loaded up quickly, people,” he yelled over the chaos. “We need to get out of here before the dead get it together and come sailing after us.”

19

A yeoman named Pete led Scott and Hannah to their quarters, two Spartan bunkrooms side by side on the same hall. “I know it’s not much,” Pete apologized, “but here you’re going to be safe.”

Scott was still trying to absorb it all. “You mean you guys have really been sailing around out here since it all started?”

Pete nodded. “The Queen was at sea when the dead woke up. We haven’t put to port yet except to raid places for food or supplies. The captain figures we’re safer on the waves.”

“Have you heard from anyone else, other survivors like yourselves?” Hannah asked.

“I hate to say it, ma’am, but… well, no. Benson, our communications expert, stays at it around the clock though. We’ve never come across more than a few at a time. We’re always glad to see new faces, and I’m sure you’ll fit right in among the crew. Either of you have experience sailing or know anything about ships?”

Hannah and Scott shook their heads.

“No worries,” Pete said, waving his hand. “I know we’ll come up with something for you to do. We try to pull our weight on this ship.” He looked them over again and stopped. “I’m sorry, you probably want to get some rest. I’ll leave you to it. Just one quick thing: the captain will want to meet you tonight. He likes to welcome everyone aboard and see if you know anything about what’s left out there. You’ll be having dinner with him in about five hours. I’ll be back to get you and show you around.”

Pete shook Scott’s hand again and bowed to Hannah, then he was gone. Hannah and Scott looked at each other, as if asking whether they really wanted to be alone. Silence lingered in the air until Scott finally made a move. “See you at dinner then.” He stepped into the room he’d been assigned and shut the door behind him.

He plopped onto his bunk and fell instantly into a deep sleep. His dreams were dark, but his exhausted body didn’t care.

20

Steven shook his head in disgust. “We lost fourteen hands and gained two. We can’t keep up this rate of attrition. Perhaps you’re correct, Mr. O’Neil. Maybe we should think of finding an island and starting over.”

O’Neil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Captain Steven was agreeing with him after refusing for months to even consider the possibility.

“There is an island not far from here, sir, the one I’ve told you about. I think it was called Cobble or something like that. It was just a tourist trap before the plague. You could only reach it by boat or helicopter. I doubt we’d find much resistance there, and it’s in a temperate zone so we could grow a wide assortment of food stock between the winters.” O’Neil grew excited as he let out all the details he’d been plotting. “I bet there’s even a fuel depot there, at least for the smaller boats. We could leave the Queen just offshore, and she’d be well within reach if we needed her again.”

Steven smiled at O’Neil’s passion. “Sounds like you’ve really thought this out. All right, Mr. O’Neil, we’ll try it your way. As soon as we can be sure those creatures from the docks aren’t pursuing us, go ahead and plot a course for this island. And have those two new folks brought up here. I’m eager to hear news of the mainland.”

“I think you’ll find the new woman rather captivating, sir,” O’Neil commented.

Steven pulled a cigar from his desk and lit it up with an old fashioned wooden match. “Do I detect a bit of personal attachment in your voice, Henry?”

The younger man blinked. The captain rarely called him by his first name. Most people didn’t. It put him on edge, though he knew the captain was only teasing, trying to provoke a response. “No, sir. I just… I thought you’d like to be prepared is all.”

“Oh,” Steven snickered, “I see.”

Hannah lay on her bunk, staring at the ceiling. She’d tried to get some sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Riley and Brandon. Brandon would have been so happy on this ship. The Queen would’ve been like a paradise to him, the adventure of the high sea and children his age to share it with. It would have been like something out of a story book. And Riley… she missed Riley so much. Without him, she felt hollow, incomplete. A piece of her soul had died along with her family, just like the world had died long ago. She’d adjusted to the world’s destruction, but the pain of her own loss stung at her heart.

Someone knocked on the door of her quarters. Forgetting herself, she reached for her .30-.06 and slid a shell into its chamber as the door opened.

“Whoa,” Pete said, raising his hands and taking a step back. “It’s okay.”

Hannah lowered the rifle. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Old habits die hard.”

“Better them than me,” Pete joked uncomfortably. “The captain is waiting for you to join him for dinner.”

Hannah followed Pete out into the hall where Scott was waiting, clean-shaven and dressed in new clothes. His whole appearance was different on many levels. He actually looked handsome and, if possible, smugger than he usually was. “About time you got up, sleepy head,” he said to her as the trio made their way up to the captain’s quarters.

Captain Steven and O’Neil greeted Hannah and Scott as they entered. Hannah looked the captain over. He was in his later forties, his hair mostly gray, yet he possessed strength not only in his short, burly frame but in the very grain of his character. He looked like a man who’d seen Hell firsthand and who’d beaten it back by the sheer force of his will. The necessary introductions were made and Pete and O’Neil seated everyone at the table.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” O’Neil asked.

“No thank you.” Steven reached for a napkin to drape across his lap. “That will be all.”

O’Neil and Pete left the quarters, closing the entrance behind them.

The table was set with real china dishes and regal silverware, but it was the food that held Hannah and Scott’s attention. There was glazed salmon, freshly baked bread, spicy brown rice, stuffed crabs, and a bowl full of red apples placed alongside a salad of cabbage and chopped carrots. The captain must have noticed their hunger. “Please, help yourselves.”

Scott wasted no time in loading down his plate with everything in reach, plus a double portion of stuffed crabs.

“I assure you, we don’t eat like this all the time,” Captain Steven informed them. “We can’t afford to. Most of our meals are of much simpler fare, but tonight it seemed fitting to have this feast, not only to welcome you, but to celebrate a much needed change in the Queen’s plans for the future.”

“The future?” Scott mumbled through a mouthful of fish and bread.

“Yes,” Steven continued. “The future. I refuse to sacrifice more lives just to keep us on the sea. It’s time we found a new home and try to reclaim some of what mankind has lost to the dead.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?” Hannah butted in. “The dead are everywhere. No matter where you go, they will find you eventually.”

“But their numbers are dwindling too,” Steven explained. “Their bodies rot. Time takes its due. We only have to last a couple of years, perhaps, before we outnumber them once more. Then we can truly retake the world, as it was meant to be.”

“How can you know the dead are dying? Have you discovered what brought them to life to begin with?” Hannah argued.

“Our crew may be made of refugees, Hannah, but some are rather extraordinary people. We have two medical doctors on this ship and one real scientist who’ve been studying the plague since the moment they came aboard. We still don’t know the nature of the force, or whatever it is that reanimates the dead, but we do know it doesn’t stop the decay of their flesh; it merely slows it. So in time, nature itself will destroy our enemy’s ranks. But enough of this. I want to know about you two. Who are you? What did you do before the dead walked?”

“Do you really want to know?” Scott asked, suddenly forgetting about the food.

Steven nodded.

“I was a professional killer,” Scott said. The table fell silent, but he continued. “I worked for the government when I started out, then went freelance. I couldn’t guess at how many people I put bullets in before the CIA caught me. When the plague started I was rotting away in a federal prison, and that’s where the dead found me, alone, unarmed, and locked up behind bars.

“Obviously, they didn’t kill me. Maybe I was so starved by then I didn’t have enough meat on my bones to be worth their trouble. Who knows? So they took me to a new kind of prison that they had created. It was called a breeding center, a place where they herded us together like cattle and bred us for food.”

“Well,” Steven ventured, “I, uh, don’t suppose it matters now what you did in those days. You’re one of us now, and I hope you will make the most of this fresh start.” He turned in his chair to address Hannah. “And what of you?” he asked.

“I…” Hannah began, and her voice cracked, “I was a mother.”

21

As the days passed aboard the Queen, Hannah found work in the ship’s daycare. Over the last few months, the ship had picked up a couple of infants and nearly a dozen children who either had no parents at all or whose parents held jobs which occupied much of their time aboard the ship. Hannah found happiness in her work with the kids. She even got along with her sole co-worker Jessica, a young woman barely out of her teens, but Hannah didn’t know how Jessica ever handled the children by herself. She was a hard worker but lacked the emotional connection with her wards that Hannah developed instantly.

Jessica, without resentment, let Hannah take the lead, and the children took to Hannah’s new lessons in crafts and educational projects with zeal. Hannah, despite herself, began to let go of her past and embrace her future. The memories of Riley and Brandon would always be with her, but she felt hope swelling in her again. These children needed her, and she could offer them so much more than just busywork to keep them safe and out of the way.

Scott, on the other hand, was assigned to the Queen’s group of raiders and defenders, which was now sorely diminished. He worked closely with O’Neil, whom he grew to hate more and more with each passing day. O’Neil took a more military approach to organization and training, whereas Scott taught the men “dirty” tricks they needed to know to stay alive, discipline be damned.

It wasn’t long until Scott met Luke, and the eccentric genius and the occasionally psychotic former hit man became fast friends. They’d attended some of the same schools in the old world and both had done work for the government on Black-Op projects, though Luke’s involvement was purely from a research and development standpoint. Scott wasn’t anywhere near Luke’s level, but he was sharp and he was a fast learner, fast enough to keep up with Luke when he droned on about his various theories.

As the sun sank beneath the waves, Scott and Luke relaxed in matching lawn chairs atop the highest point of the Queen above the command center. Scott sipped at the glass in his hand, admiring the potency of the drink Luke had whipped up this evening. It had the punch of whiskey without the burn.

“What was it like?” Luke inquired.

“What?”

“To kill people for money, man. How did you cope with it?”

“To be honest, I just never thought about it. A job’s a job, ya know? Besides, it’s not that much different than things are today. Everybody has had to kill somebody to stay alive and keep breathing, whether it was by a bullet through the brain or watching someone you care about throw away their life so that you could get away.”

Luke leaned forward and sat up on his chair. “So what do you think about Captain Steven’s new plan?”

“I don’t think it matters, Luke. We’re all living on borrowed time. Whether we die out here on the waves or settle down and wait for the dead to come to us, they will get us eventually. We lost the war the moment they started thinking like we do.” Scott sat up and looked over the railing to the water below. “You’re the resident genius. You tell me: have you ever figured out what brought the dead back to life?”

Luke shrugged. “Not really. It sure wasn’t radiation or a virus like something out of those old B movies, though their bites are infectious just like in those films. Nothing about the dead makes sense. They shouldn’t be able to move, let alone reason like they do. Sometimes a body will reanimate with partial memories of its life before death, and other times it’s like there’s a whole new entity in the host body. They’re all hungry for us though, memories or not. It doesn’t matter if they know your name and who you are—they’ll eat you anyway.”

“So where does that leave you, since science has failed and can’t explain it?”

Luke’s face flushed. “Science hasn’t failed, Scott. Just because I don’t have an answer today doesn’t mean there isn’t a plausible, quantifiable explanation to all this. It just means I haven’t found it yet. I don’t believe in spirits or Judgment Day. There is a sane reason for the plague, and I will find it. I’m sure.”

“And you’ll just keep searching for it, huh?”

Luke laughed. “Damn right I will. As long as I have to.”

22

Steven bolted onto the bridge of the ship. The whole area was a mass of activity. His crew darted about, double-checking the data they’d just gotten.

“It’s true then?” Steven demanded as O’Neil approached him.

“I’m afraid so, sir,” O’Neil said grimly. “There are five vessels closing in on our current location, as if trying to surround us.”

“Jesus.” Steven scanned through the stack of reports O’Neil handed him. “Look at the size of them.”

O’Neil nodded. “Some are military in nature for sure. This one has to be…” O’Neil pointed at a blip on a nearby radar screen. “We think it’s an aircraft carrier, and the two flanking it from the east and west are most likely destroyers. It looks like they’ve finally got us where they want us.”

“Nonsense, Mr. O’Neil,” Steven said. “We’ve been in tight spots before. We’ll get through this one too.” He weighed their options in his head before he continued. “Can we out-maneuver them and make a run for it?”

“We can try. I don’t think the largest one can match our speed, but if the two flanking the large ship are destroyers, they’ll be able to overtake us even at our top speed.”

“Change course and burn the engines at their maximum,” Steven ordered. “And in the meantime, sound the alarm. I want to be ready if we do have a fight on our hands.”

“Aye, sir,” O’Neil replied. He punched a button and sirens squealed throughout the Queen.

A state of panic broke out on the ship. The raiders, who were also the Queen’s defenders, Scott among them, rushed to their battle stations. People and families ran for their quarters, locking the heavy doors of their rooms against the growing terror outside.

The daycare was in chaos. Hannah and Jessica tried to calm the children and the parents who showed up demanding their kids. Hannah had left her .30-.06 in her quarters, but she concealed in her jacket a .38 revolver she’d looted from the ship’s armory, thanks to Scott. Weapons weren’t permitted in the daycare center, but right now Hannah was damn glad she’d been breaking the rules. She’d watched her own son die helplessly and had sworn to herself that these children would not share his fate.

In the sickbay, Dr. Gallenger prepared for the wounded to start arriving, in case the coming battle couldn’t be avoided. Luke, meanwhile, darted through the corridors of the Queen, attempting to reach the main decks with a short, black metal tube gripped tightly in his arms.

O’Neil and Captain Steven watched from the bridge as the destroyers crossed the horizon and came into view. The ocean itself seemed to shake as the destroyer from the east fired its main guns at the Queen.

23

The shot from the enemy ship hit the water off the Queen’s portside, sending waves crashing against the hull, though it didn’t strike close enough to cause actual damage. The Queen lacked any sort of long-range weapon except for her jury-rigged torpedo launchers, which at the moment were facing away from the enemy vessels.

Captain Steven knew he had to do something. The destroyers were too fast to outrun, and at present the Queen was a sitting target for their guns. Closing with the two enemy ships for direct combat was a near suicidal option, but it was also the only one left.

“Bring us about!” he shouted. “Get us between them. Maybe they aren’t stupid enough to take the chance of hitting each other with their main guns!” Steven turned to O’Neil. “As soon as you get a shot with one of the launchers, take it!”

Scott and the Queen’s defenders stood helplessly at their machinegun emplacements as the Queen veered to engage the enemy. The destroyers were still not within range, but from the looks of things they would be soon. Scott shoved a belt of ammo into the massive weapon in front of him and began to pick a target for when the time came.

“Fire one!” O’Neil ordered.

A torpedo, dropped into the water, flared to life and raced towards the lead destroyer even as O’Neil ordered the remaining torpedo launched in its wake. Moments later, the first missile struck the destroyer just below the waterline, sending waves of fire and ocean spray up onto the decks of the military vessel. The second torpedo got lucky; it collided with something inside the destroyer, which turned the entire ship into a blazing wreck of secondary explosions.

Cheers went up on the bridge and the decks of the Queen as it angled towards the remaining enemy ship, which fired. This time the Queen was hit dead on. The blast ripped a hole in her side, killing many of her defenders instantly.

“Damage report!” Steven snapped, knowing full well that the Queen faced a new problem now—and not just the damage to the ship. Those killed or mortally wounded by the blast would soon reanimate.

“No damage to the engines!” O’Neil reported. “The hull breach is being contained. We’re not taking on water!”

Finally, Luke reached the deck and positioned himself to get a shot at the enemy ship. He extended the black metal tube he was carrying and slashed out a section of power cables on the wall near him to hook into the weapon. He had spent all of his free time in the last few months refining the invention; he was fully aware of its capabilities. What he was about to do would cripple the Queen in some respects, and he certainly wouldn’t survive, but it was worth the risk. He aimed the tube at the destroyer and pulled the trigger.

A beam of energy leapt from his weapon, striking the destroyer’s ammo stores for the main guns. The energy melted through the destroyer’s armor and reduced the ship to a ball of flames, which lit up the sea even under the midday sun. Luke, his weapon, and a large chunk of the Queen vaporized in the energy weapon’s backwash. People screamed, both inside and abovedeck, as the Queen’s engines blew from the surge.

“What in the hell was that?” Steven cried.

“I don’t know!” O’Neil yelled over the chaos on the bridge. “We’ve lost main power, and the engines are burnt out. Power is out everywhere on the ship. The backup generators are keeping the internal comm. system and the emergency lights working, but that’s about it. We’re dead in the water, sir!”

“Shit!” Steven whirled about to the officer at the radar station. “What about the other three dead ships?”

“I… I don’t know, sir,” the officer stammered. “It looked as if the big one was keeping back, maybe even changing course away from us before the screen went dead. The two smaller ones were still on an intercept heading. They should be on us in the next few minutes, tops.”

Steven slammed his fist against the radar station. “Somebody tell Luke I want those fucking engines back on-line now!”

24

Dr. Gallenger got to his feet—or tried to. As he attempted to stand up, the fractured bone of his left leg tore through his flesh, and he hit the floor hard. He felt no pain as he examined the rest of his body, saw the piece of shrapnel protruding from his right lung. He had to get up. He could sense that his brethren would be here soon, and he was hungry. Hungrier than he’d ever been.

He deemed the shrapnel to be irrelevant, but snapped his broken leg back into place and used the materials scattered about the sickbay to fashion a splint. Then he did get up. He hobbled across the room to check on Nurse Jones and found her lying in a pool of blood.

Tilting his head like an animal would as he observed her, he watched her eyes flutter open, then dart this way and that as she realized she couldn’t move. A huge medical cabinet had fallen on her and had broken her neck.

Taking pity on her, Gallenger picked up a piece of debris and smashed in her skull.

He found the remains of his desk and the .45 he’d kept in the drawer. Feeling suitably armed, he left the sickbay. Soon he would taste flesh for the first time.

Everyone on the Queen had been tossed about as the destroyer’s shell had hammered into its hull. Hannah struck her head against one of the children’s lockers in the daycare center. As her vision focused through the blood in her eyes, she became aware that she was still alive. She hurt too much to be dead. Her head especially. She also realized she was alone. She felt a twinge of anger at Jessica for leaving her for dead, but then realized she would’ve done the same. It was the kids who mattered, not them, and Jessica had probably taken them somewhere safer in the ship.

Hannah dug inside her jacket and produced her .38. She had no idea how the fight outside was going, but she knew Jessica would need help. Jessica, as the saying goes, was not the sharpest tool in the shed, and Hannah didn’t trust her to see the children through this battle. She pulled herself up and headed out of the daycare.

“Jessica!” she screamed as she ran down the corridors, hoping the woman was still in earshot.

She rounded the corner of the passageway and came face to face with a dead man dragging his insides across the floor. He lunged at her, grunting, but she narrowly sidestepped his attack and shoved him as he went by her. He toppled to the deck and twisted about, already trying to get up and come after her. She popped off three rounds into his forehead, spraying his brains onto the wall.

Hannah stood a moment afterward, her breath coming in ragged gasps; she tried to collect herself and calm down. The Queen’s machine guns chattered above—the fight hadn’t been lost yet. She took a deep breath and set out in search of Jessica, though with much more caution.

The two yachts had swept in quickly, managing to evade most of the Queen’s defensive fire. Both of them came up along her portside, close enough for the dead to scale the Queen’s hull as they traded small arms fire with those left alive on her decks. The Queen’s gun emplacements were useless with the yachts so close. They couldn’t be angled downward to engage the dead, so Scott had abandoned his post and began to spray the climbing dead with an AK-47 instead. One of the attackers, a middle-aged man covered in burns, lost his hold as Scott’s rounds peppered his back, and he plummeted into the water.

While Scott was sidetracked, a creature hauled itself onto the Queen’s deck beside him—Roy’s twelve-gauge thundered and sent it careening over the side of the ship.

Scott motioned his thanks to Roy, then returned his attention to the dead and loaded a fresh magazine into his weapon.

25

The struggle for control of the Queen raged on. Her whole exterior deck was a war zone, and smaller battles filled her corridors.

“Sir,” O’Neil said, trying to draw Captain Steven’s attention away from the carnage below the bridge. “Captain, we can’t hold her. The Queen is lost. We need to give the order to abandon ship.”

O’Neil’s words jarred Steven out of his own thoughts. Abandon the Queen? Had O’Neil gone insane? He turned to argue, but the door to the bridge opened and Doc Gallenger staggered inside. Before anyone could react, the good doctor’s corpse raised the .45 in its blood-smeared hand.

The first shot slammed into Steven’s shoulder. The second and third burrowed into his chest. Benson, the communications officer, took a round to his throat before O’Neil managed to draw his own sidearm and shoot the doctor in the face.

O’Neil rushed to Steven’s side and squatted beside him.

“Leave me,” the captain ordered, coughing blood onto his lips. “I’m staying with the Queen.”

The other command personnel were fleeing the bridge as O’Neil stood up. Most of the Queen’s lifeboats were gone. Finding a way off the ship would be difficult, but not as difficult as surviving afterwards. The dead would be waiting.

In a corner of the Queen’s main deck portside, Scott and Roy were holed up behind one of the large metal cooling pipes and were running out of ammo fast. “Roy, you’re a good man,” Scott said, “but how would you feel about leaving all this and not looking back?”

Roy could see the gleam of an idea in Scott’s eyes. “I reckon what’s gotta be is gotta be. I’m guessin’ you have something in mind to save our asses.”

Scott grinned. “You could say that. Come on!” He charged across the deck through the ranks of the dead and the few humans left alive. Scott reached the railing and didn’t stop. He hurled himself over the side and landed on the yacht below, completely surprising the five corpses still aboard it. With his AK-47 on full auto, he cut them down where they stood.

Roy followed him, but skidded to a halt at the edge of the deck. “Crazy mother fucker!” he shouted and took the leap. He landed on the yacht with the sound of snapping bones.

O’Neil dispatched a corpse blocking his way in the corridor. If he’d counted his shots right, he had three rounds left in his pistol. It was beginning to sink in that he was royally screwed.

From outside, someone called his name. He jerked open the hatch to the exterior deck, and Hannah threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his body. He hugged her back tightly, then forced himself to push her away, despite how much he wanted to hold her forever. He knew she didn’t feel the same about him; they barely knew each other, yet she’d won him over the night he’d met her on the docks, had given him more purpose to his life than anyone or anything ever had. “The captain’s dead,” he informed her. “We’ve got to get off the ship if we want to stay alive.”

A dead woman darted towards them through the open hatchway, a piece of glass raised like a knife in her rotting hand. O’Neil tried to get a shot, but Hannah was faster. She emptied her .38 into the woman’s neck and face.

O’Neil moved to lead them outside onto the deck, but she grabbed his arm. “Wait! What’s that noise?”

“Oh God no.” O’Neil stuck his head outside and looked up at the sky. “It can’t be.”

An F-16 fighter roared over the Queen. Its wings wobbled; whoever was flying it certainly wasn’t an experienced pilot.

O’Neil and Hannah stepped outside to watch the jet turn and streak back at the Queen on a collision course.

“Would this be a bad time to tell you that I love you?” O’Neil asked as they watched the plane race closer.

“No, I don’t suppose it would.” Hannah tried to smile weakly as she took his hand in hers.

26

Scott could still remember the death throes of the Queen after the jet had plowed into her, the way the flames had danced over her frame as she sank into the waves. The image haunted his dreams at night. He remembered Roy as well. The black Southerner had been as tough as they came, but with two badly broken legs and the meager amount of worm-infested food they’d found on the yacht, Scott had no choice but to kill him. So he shot Roy in the stomach with his own shotgun and dumped him overboard before he could reanimate as one of the dead.

Only a week had passed since their flight from the Queen, but it felt like months. He lay stretched out atop the cabin of the yacht and stared up at the stars. The engines were shot and he was thirsty. Sweat glistened on his bare chest in spite of the cool night air. He knew he was sick, whether from the rotting food he had been eating or just the fact that his body had finally suffered all it could take. If he could make it to land and get some medicine, proper food and a little rest, he might be his old self, but those things seemed like pipe dreams in the face of what the world had become.

He felt his eyes close, then forced them open to glance at the shotgun propped up on the deck near him. Scott started to consider all his options again as a gentle rain began to fall and the heavens wept.