Days With The Undead (Book 1) (19 page)

The fact that the Undead were moving in our same direction was both promising and frightening. Promising in that it meant that other survivors had been through here previously, leading the Undead along with them. Frightening because it meant that Waskaganish could be teeming with the Undead once we got there.

With a fair amount of driving, we finally got to a point where we couldn’t see any Undead figures shambling ahead of us and the major mass of the slowly moving horde was behind us. Maybe, just maybe we would beat them all to the port. Beat them to freedom.

Arriving in Waskaganish was somewhat anticlimactic. There wasn’t much of a town to speak of. More of a collection of Quonset huts. There was one thing that the port had going for it at this point though; it was free of the Undead. It was also full of other survivors. There must have been about three hundred or more other people, living people, all awaiting their chance at freedom.

The only problem was that freedom was sitting in the water, long kilometers off shore in Hudson Bay. The captain still hadn’t returned my email from the other day so we had no way of knowing if and when the ship would come into the harbor. In all honesty, we didn’t even know if the ship could come into the harbor. It was entirely possible that the water was too shallow in the port. Perhaps there was a ferry system that was taking the survivors a group at a time. Whatever system they had in place, I just hoped that someone was taking the time to check each and every survivor for possible infection. No use getting ourselves on a floating sanctuary only to be confined on it with a growing army of vicious, mindless Undead.

We parked the Escalade on the side of the main street and got out. It was the first time that we felt somewhat safe in leaving our vehicle for a few moments. We still brought our guns of course - no need to be stupid about things. There was a definite feeling of camaraderie among the survivors. The unity of the shared experience. Nothing needed to be explained. Some of us may have had to endure more but it didn’t take away from the fact that we all had a common enemy. The Undead.

We asked around to learn the procedure for getting to the cruise ship, assuming that something was already in place. No one really seemed to have any idea. One man had made it all the way from Columbia in South America, and had been in Waskaganish for two days. He relayed that he had yet to see any action from the ship since getting to the small coastal village.

While the news was startling and didn’t sit well, I chose to believe there was a reason for it. Perhaps, they had run into some trouble with their navigation system, or their engines. Even their communications could be out. One thing was for certain, if the gentleman from Columbia had not seen any action on the outer decks through his binoculars in two days it meant that at least the ship wasn’t inhabited by the Undead. Hopefully.

In the small amount of time that we were able to gather information from people, it looked like no one else had any kind of communication devices that were serviceable. No laptops with mobile Internet, no cell phones with Wi-Fi or Internet access, nothing. They had all come to this place with no way to communicate with the ship once they got here. There was one transport truck that had a CB radio but so far no one there knew how to use it. Max offered to give it a try and he was led off to the truck.

I didn’t reveal to any of the other survivors that I was able to keep in touch with the outside world. I kept quiet because I was afraid that I would be inundated with requests to check Facebook or email accounts. That was the last thing I needed at this point; to have someone accidentally sever my lifeline because they needed to harvest some crops or check to see if their on again, off again boyfriend is still out there.

I had already stopped checking my personal accounts weeks ago knowing that my parents are probably dead. Likely Undead too. My husband is dead. My friends are pretty much all dead, likely drafted into the army of the Undead… The only email address I use is the one attached to this blog. So if one of you is out there in the crowd and keeping a lifeline secret, I understand.

I won’t tell, if you don’t.

When Max returned, he let us know that the CB in the truck was useless. He couldn’t reach the ship and wondered if the unit on the ship had either been destroyed or turned off completely. There was also the distinct possibility that it didn’t even have one. CB radios aren’t exactly high end communications equipment any longer. Our only way to get a hold of possible salvation was to contact them through the address that the captain had used. The sooner the better. It wouldn’t take the Undead all that long to get here. In the meantime, Max and a few of the other men and women started to plan a strategy for the moment the Undead came shuffling into town.

I snuck away to work on my computer in the privacy of one of the Quonset huts. I needed to get through to Captain Kanelstrand. To find out what we were supposed to do. I already knew that the port had three motor boats that could act as ferrying vessels but did anyone else know how to pilot a motor boat? Was there enough fuel and enough time to get all of the survivors across to the cruise ship? We had to consider that without knowing what situation we would encounter on the ship, it was foolhardy to send survivors to their potential demise.

I knew from the map that there were three other ports towns along the coast of Hudson Bay: Eastmain, Wemindji, and Chisasibi. It was entirely possible that each of those ports could be free of the Undead. Would it buy us some time if we diverted many of the survivors to those little settlements?

God Sven, where are you?

Day 31:

In the early morning I finally heard back from Captain Kanelstrand. It was a relief to say the least. From the message, it appeared that communications on the ship has been temporarily down, but now that it had been restored, we learned that their plan for getting us to the cruise ship involved using the life boats.

Immediately, I wrote back telling him of the existence of the motor boats and of the impending army of the Undead. My intent was to hopefully impress upon him the need for speed in the execution of the rescue.

Within minutes of sending my email one of the survivors, who had been monitoring the cruise ship for any activity, sounded word that movement could be seen. The decks were alive with the crew lowering life boats into the water. At this point, I didn’t know how they planned to get us back onto the ship but as long as I was off land, I would cross that particular bridge when I came to it. Besides I was sure that the crew of the cruise ship had a plan. They had done this before according to Captain Kanelstrand’s message.

Knowing that we had to have a plan for evacuation, I chose a few of the more outspoken survivors along with Ben and Max for a meeting of the minds. Now, we all know that letting even one infected person get on that cruise ship could mean death, or even undeath, for all of us. It was just a matter of leading each of them to that final thought that may take some finesse.

If any of them happened to be infected or they were harboring anyone who was infected, our plan could go south very quickly. It was also apparent that in order to get full compliance from everyone that Max, Ben and I would need to be among the last to be rescued. The main thing would be to make sure that all the children were rescued first, no exceptions.

The small group was very receptive to the idea that we screen the survivors for possible infection. After all, it was the only way to be sure. I left them in charge to spread the word among the rest of the group with instructions that anyone that was against the idea likely had something or someone to hide.

Max went back to check on the defense system that he had helped to put into place last night. Everyone that had a firearm had signed up for shifts knowing that if we let the Undead get into town, it would be the end of us. No one knew how accurate a shot anyone else really was but the fact that they had survived this long was a good sign.

I knew we had a while before the ten rescue boats reached Waskaganish and as all of the children had been gathered into one central location for safety, I went with Ben and Mary, another surviving doctor to check them all over. Technically, this should have been done sooner but at the time no one was really thinking much about safety. We were all too happy to have just met other living people. The good thing was that all of the children were guarded at all times, so if any one of them had begun to show any signs of infection, it would not have gone unnoticed for very long.

One of the survivors came running into the Quonset hut - I think his name was Kuthrapali - to tell us that one of the survivors was flatly refusing to submit himself and his family for inspection. Not good news. I sent him off to find Max as Ben and I followed the angry raised voices to a Recreational Vehicle parked on the edge of town.

Upon seeing us approach, all of the other survivors immediately stopped arguing. I spoke directly to the man standing in front of the door of his vehicle, barring entrance to those demanding it. I asked him why he was refusing to be checked for infection. Why couldn’t we assess the state of his family members?

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, a noise came from inside the vehicle and a face appeared in the window over his right shoulder. The grayish bloating face of one of the Undead.

We had our answer.

The man jumped back, afraid; obviously the last time he had seen his loved one they had been alive and not Undead. Getting a nod from me, Ben opened the door on its white and red striped side and stepped back, his gun up and ready to fire at all times. With a clumsy misstep, the Undead teenager was in the doorway. A single shot propelled her back into the vehicle and Ben closed the door. After that, the man freely allowed us to check him for any signs of infection.

The process went pretty quickly. In total, we only had seven incidents like the one in the RV. Like the one with Bob. In some cases, parents were harboring infected teenage offspring. In others, infected survivors were hiding bites from friends or travelling companions.

When it all came down to it, everyone had a choice; you could end it yourself and die on your own terms or we could wait and then once you succumbed to the infection, becoming one of the Undead, we would do it for you. Keeping in mind, of course, that if you hadn’t died before the rescue was over, you’d end up as one of the Undead for eternity.

As painful as it was, the parents chose to end the suffering of their children, not wanting them to become something so horrible. Most of the rest opted to take matters into their own hands and each of them disappeared into the woods with their firearm. The singular shots were our only indications of their lives ending.

We only had one hold out. One single person that wanted someone else to do the dirty work for him. His only demand was that we not ‘take care of him’ before he died his natural death. Knowing that we would have to keep an eye on him, we locked him in one of the Quonset huts and waited. I’m not sorry to say that we forgot about him…

By this point the first of the life boats had reached the shore. Amazingly Captain Sven Kanelstrand was among the crew manning them. He shook my hand firmly and told me what an honor it was to meet me. Meet me? This man was saving my life and
he
was honored to meet
me
?

Strange. I filled him in on our precautions and told him of our plan to get the children to safety first. He agreed and thanked me for my foresight in thinking; a lesson they had learned the hard way in picking up a few survivors from Newfoundland earlier in the month.

The lifeboats could only carry twelve people in total. Each one of them was manned by two crew members from the cruise ship, but there were extra oars in the bottom of each of the boats. My guess was that they had been taken from the other life boats to assist in today’s rescue mission. In total, we had sixty-four children to get to the ship first so we could send a few of the other survivors along to help row and get them across faster. Anything to shorten the time it took to get back across to the ship.

With our first one hundred survivors finally on their way, I breathed a little bit easier. This was actually going to happen. We were actually going to be free and have a decent chance at survival.

They made good time returning to the ship. I watched with my binoculars once they got closer so that I could see how they actually planned to get us all on the cruise ship. As they got closer, a door in the hull about five feet above the water line opened. It must have been the door through which they had accepted deliveries in the life before the Undead. Rope netting was lowered down and one by one each of the survivors was helped into the belly of the ship. Once aboard, Liam and Lily turned back and waved as if knowing that we would be there watching them.

Within minutes the life boats were on their way back to us. We started to gather up the next one hundred survivors, trying to leave who I thought were the strongest and most accurate shots within the last group to go. The three of us were obviously going to be among the last to leave. By our count we were now two hundred and ninety-eight living people. It would take three trips of all 10 life boats to get all of us to safety.

Coming back to the shore at Waskaganish, the life boats took a little bit longer than they had the first time. Fatigue must be setting in for the men piloting them. We knew that if they kept doing all of the rowing that we would end up having to stay on the shore longer than any of us wanted to. Especially now that rescue was so near at hand.

Once they were back on shore, Sven was asked if he had any other crew that could pilot and row the boats back a third time. His answer was a decisive no. The crew he had left on his ship were able-bodied but wouldn’t be of any use in a task such as this. As a precaution, it was suggested that the Captain and his men to save their strength on this return trip and allow the survivors to row themselves back. Hopefully giving them a bit of a rest would be enough at this point. The crew thought the plan was sound but made the concession to help out only to steer the boats, not to power them forward.