“You’re welcome,” Steve said. He pulled a chemlight out of pouch and dropped it on the floor in the compartment. “Here’s some water,” he said, taking the bottle from Faith and getting it into the man’s hands. “We’re going to keep clearing and come back when we’re sure we can extract you safely. Just hang in there.”
“Not a problem,” the man said, taking a swig of the water with his eyes still closed. “God that’s good. God almighty that is sooo good.”
“Just hang in there,” Steve repeated. “We’ll be back.”
* * *
“This place is a maze,” Faith said, swinging her taclight around. “Do you know where we left that guy?”
“I think we’re going to have to find the bridge again and follow the trail of bodies,” Steve said, opening a hatch. He held his hand up to the descending sun and grimaced. “Okay, based on the bodies, this is where we first were…”
“Then the bridge ladder should be up and to the…left? Port, right?”
“Starboard,” Steve said. “See why that’s important on a boat?”
“Let’s just see if we can find that guy again…”
* * *
“Some of the guys brought their families,” the survivor said, pulling the blanket up as he sipped tomato soup. He still was wearing the sunglasses Faith had found for him. “We figured if we stayed at sea we could avoid it. Somebody, maybe a couple, were infected…”
The survivor’s name was Michael “Purplefly” Braito, deckhand and assistant engineer on the oceangoing tug
“Anybody else?” he asked, pushing up the sunglasses and grimacing.
“I didn’t hear any more banging,” Steve said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s
“Not if you know it,” Braito said. “I could… Christ, I don’t want to back on but I could help you find your way around?”
“Tomorrow,” Steve said. “And we’re going to need to figure out some better protocols for boarding and clearing…”
* * *
“Okay, why didn’t we do this the first time?” Faith asked. She had a line clipped to her gear which was being belayed by Steve from the deck. She’d held a line from the dinghy as he’d climbed the ladder.
“Because I didn’t think about it,” Steve admitted as she cleared the railing. “Makes a lot of sense in retrospect.”
“So does marking everything,” Faith said, pulling out a can of spray paint. “We’re going to need more of this. Okay,” she continued, unclipping and throwing the line over the side. “Your turn, Fly.”
* * *
“Zombies, zombies, zombies?” Faith said, banging on the hatch with the butt of a knife. “Sounds clear, Da.”
“Open,” Steve said, taking a two-handed stance with his.45, covering the opening hatch. He’d picked up a head-lamp and had two more lights duct taped to his gear pointing forward.
“Stuck,” Faith said. The dog had released but the hatch wouldn’t open.
“Crowbar,” Steve said. “Carefully.”
“There is no careful with a crowbar, Da,” Faith said, pulling it out.
“Wait,” Braito said. “There’s something better…”
* * *
“I need, like, a sheath for this,” Faith said, hefting the Halligan tool. “This is, like, totally made for zombie fighting.”
She jammed the adze portion into the seal of the door and pushed on the bar. The hatch gapped slightly.
“There’s a rope holding it closed,” Steve said, shining a taclight into the interior. “No zombies. Not alive anyway.”
“Can you get the rope?” Faith grunted. “Hang on, let me…” The tool slipped, fortunately missing Steve. “I need this in further.”
“Hammer,” Mike said. “And you might want me to do it next time.”
“No way,” Faith said, hefting the halligan. “I
* * *
“No survivors,” Steve said. Getting the hatch open had involved hammering in the Halligan, gapping the hatch and cutting the rope with a machete.
The room had held five people: male, female, three children. Now there were five corpses.
“One guy with a gun,” Faith said, picking up the pistol. “Wife and kids went zombie and he killed himself?”
“Looks like,” Steve said. “One of the kids is still dressed. Trapped in the room, no food, zombies outside… Murder suicide is my guess.”
“Bill Carter,” Mike said, shaking his head. “He’s the engineer. Sort of my boss.”
“Sorry,” Faith said.
“He wasn’t the greatest boss in the world,” Mike said. “But I sort of liked his kids. Can we…”
“We’ll clear all the bodies,” Steve said. “They’re people. We don’t do the full flag and sheet thing but we give them a burial at sea. We try not to just toss them to the sharks.
“Thanks,” Mike said. “That’s…good.”
“Onward,” Faith said, spraying a C on the hatch, then putting an arrow on the bulkhead next to it pointed to the nearest entry point. She shook the spray-can. “I don’t suppose you guys have some more of this onboard?”
* * *
“Lots of supplies,” Steve said, whistling thoughtfully. The small hold was packed with cases of Number Ten cans as well as general “groceries.” It looked like the back room of a grocery store except for everything being tied down under cargo nets.
“We were figuring on being at sea for a while,” Braito said. “We were going to need it.”
“So why the hell is she dead?” Faith asked, looking at the bloated corpse. “I think she. She’s been dead a while.”
The corpse was clothed and lying up against the bulkhead. She, probably, didn’t have any evidence of wounds and was in a hold packed with food.
“Remember how sick
“Moving all these stores is going to be a pain in the patootie,” Faith said.
“We’ve got cranes,” Mike said, pointing up. “Open up the top hatch, winch it out.”
“That…works,” Steve said. “If it’s flat calm.”
“You can tow a tug boat,” Mike said. “The main transfer is shot but that doesn’t mean you can’t tow it. How far to the nearest harbor?”
“Bermuda’s about a hundred miles away,” Steve said. “Last time I checked the position. Put it in Bermuda harbor and call in the boats to load up? Hell, it’s got enough
“What about Isham?” Faith asked.
“I think we can spare some,” Steve said.
“I hate to point this out,” Braito said nervously. “But this isn’t, technically, salvage.”
“You don’t have to finger your pistol, Mike,” Faith said. They had loaned him one for his own security on the boat as well as body armor. “And it makes me nervous when you do. You don’t want me nervous.”
“Down, Faith,” Steve said. “Mike, you can claim it as last survivor I guess. There’s no owners anymore that we know of. But what, exactly, are you going to do with it? You don’t have a boat to tow it to Bermuda. It’s drifting.”
