Season of Rot (10 page)

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?”