Season of Rot

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.”