Season of Rot

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