Season of Rot (9 page)

Scott wiped the vomit from his lips and
rolled over onto the ground, stretching out. The noise of a rifle
chambering a bullet snapped him out of his thoughts.

A woman stood over him with the barrel of a
.30-.06 aimed at his chest. She was covered in blood that wasn’t
hers. Long red hair was matted to her face and shoulders by sweat,
blood, and dirt. She appeared healthy and well fed, but every inch
as tired as he felt.

“Hello?” Scott greeted her weakly.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked in a voice
filled with both anger and deep sadness.

Scott’s mind raced. What the hell was he
supposed to say? “I know a little,” he answered quickly, lying very
still so that the woman didn’t feel threatened.

She took a step away from him. “On your feet.
My husband and son are hurt. They need help.”

“Okay.” Scott pushed himself up, despite how
much his whole body ached.

The woman led him about a fifth of a mile
east. He knew instantly something wasn’t right, even before they
entered her makeshift campsite. He could see a young boy gagged and
tied to a tree, straining against the ropes; the body of a man lay
stretched out nearby.

Scott wondered if the woman had kidnapped the
child—until he saw the massive gunshot wound on the boy’s chest and
began to realize just how much trouble he was in. He forced himself
not to stare at it as it twisted under the ropes, tearing its flesh
as it tried to get free.

Scott knelt down beside the man, who was
alive, just barely.

“Can you help them?” the woman pleaded, the
barrel of her rifle still aimed at Scott.

He doubted very much he could fool the woman
into letting her guard down. She was too on edge. “Why did you gag
the boy?” he asked, hoping to lead her mind back to Earth.

Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. It was
clear she couldn’t rationalize her behavior without admitting her
son was dead. “He... he was just gibbering. Saying horrible things.
I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Was he really your son?”

“Yes,” she answered, not bothering to correct
the word “was.”

“And this is...?” Scott placed a hand on the
man’s arm.

“Riley. He’s my husband, Riley.”

“He’s going to die just like your son did,”
Scott said, staring down the madness in her eyes. “He’s lost too
much blood. There’s nothing we can do for him out here.”

“Liar!” The woman’s finger tightened on the
trigger as she shoved the barrel of her .30-.06 closer to Scott’s
face.

“Whoa!” He raised his hands high in the air.
“Careful there! I’m sorry, lady. I just call them as I see
them.”

The woman hesitated, lowering the rifle’s
barrel slightly. Scott grabbed for the weapon. Too bad for him,
Hannah was faster.

12

Hannah smashed the butt of her rifle into the
man’s face as he took a swipe for it. He fell backwards, cursing
and bleeding from his nose. The things he’d said had cut through
her illusions like a razor, exposing the truth: her son was dead
and her husband was dying. She’d be damned if this filthy punk was
going to take her dad’s rifle too.

She snapped the rifle’s butt back up against
her shoulder and braced it. The weapon barked as the shot smashed
open the skull of the thing which had once been her son.

The man cringed away, as if she were more
dangerous than ever. He raised a bloody hand to stop her from
hurting him. “Please.”

“What’s your name?” Hannah asked.

“Scott.” After a second, he added, “Ma’am, I
don’t mean any disrespect, but your husband just quit breathing. I
don’t suppose you’d be kind enough to shoot him too?”

“Riley!” Hannah cast her rifle aside and
threw herself over her husband’s corpse.

Its eyes shot open.

“Watch it!” Scott pulled her off the body and
shoved her aside as the dead man sat up and reached for his arm.
Scott pulled a .45 from the corpse’s own holster and gave it a
reason to lie down again. The shot seemed to echo in the air.

Hannah turned her face away from the gore,
sobbing, though she had no more tears. Scott made no move to
comfort her.

He popped the magazine out of the handgun and
took stock of the number of rounds left, then snapped the magazine
back inside the gun. He also sorted through a backpack, which
appeared to have belonged to the child. Whoever this woman was, her
family had been well supplied.

He opened a granola bar from the pack and
tore into it, unable to control himself. Scott couldn’t remember
the last time he’d had real food, and it tasted like heaven, stale
or not. “Where are you from?” he mumbled through a full mouth.

Hannah ignored him.

Scott finished the granola bar in a second
bite. “How have you managed to stay alive this long?”

“What does it matter?”

“Well for one thing, you have food. You’re
well armed. Hell, I even saw some antibiotics in this pack. If
you’re from some kind of settlement or shelter that survived, I’d
sure as hell like to know about it.”

“Where are you from?” Hannah shot back.

“Trust me lady, you don’t want to know.”
Scott snickered and ripped into another ration bar. “I’ve been
locked up by the dead in a camp straight out of Hell.”

“A camp?” Hannah was stunned. “Why didn’t
they kill you?”

“Where have you been, sister? How do you
think the dead get their food these days? There aren’t enough of us
left out there for them to just round up and slaughter for dinner
anymore. They’re trying to breed us like cattle so that they’ll
always have food.”

Hannah stared at him in horror.

“Yeah.” Scott nodded. “It’s all that and
worse. I still want to know where you came from. You sure as hell
weren’t in a camp.”

“My husband and child are dead.”

“I’m sorry.” Scott twisted the top off of a
canteen and helped himself to some water. “Seen a lot of people
die. One of my friends died just so that I could make it out of
there. It looks like your husband died trying to take you to
greener grass too. Better get used to it, people dying. That’s how
things are with the dead ruling the world. Speaking of which...”
Scott closed the canteen. “We need to get moving. Staying in a
single spot for a while can be suicide. Who knows who or what heard
those shots.”

13

Luke was anything but your typical engineer.
Long black hair with spots of gray hung over his purple flannel
shirt. He sat crouched on the knees of his worn blue jeans,
fiddling with a homemade torpedo casing. He heard O’Neil enter his
workshop, but made no move to stop fine-tuning his current project.
“I’ll have two more live ones by tomorrow morning,” he said.

O’Neil sat on Luke’s unused workbench. “Why
do you always work on the floor?”

Luke smiled. “The freedom,” he answered
simply. “It helps me think.”

O’Neil grunted. “Whatever works, I suppose.
As long as you don’t blow a hole in the bottom of the ship.”

“You didn’t come here to talk about my work
habits, Mr. O’Neil. What’s up?”

“The captain’s planning to raid a port in
South Carolina tomorrow night. I’ve got the usual crew ready, and
I’ll be in command of the operation. I thought I’d stop by and see
if you’d come up with anything new.”

Luke glanced back at O’Neil. “If you’re
talking about understanding the dynamics of what makes the dead get
back on their feet with hungry stomachs...” Luke pushed his glasses
back up the bridge of his nose. “No, I haven’t. That’s Doc
Gallenger’s area, not mine.”

“I thought you were helping him.”

“Sure, when I have the time. You might have
noticed I have been rather busy lately, what with keeping this old
girl running and designing these new toys for the captain.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust that Gallenger’s
doing his best, Luke, I just thought—”

“What? That having nine degrees in everything
from pathology to physics makes me superhuman? That I am supposed
to be able to wave a magic wand and save your ass? I wish.” Luke
shrugged. “I ain’t God, ya know.”

“I didn’t say that you were. God has a social
life,” O’Neil teased.

“You want me to go with you tomorrow?”

“Hell no! Steven would have me shot if I let
you off the
Queen
. You’re the only real brain we’ve
got.”

“So you say,” Luke said. “There are plenty of
people on the boat who could do what I do around here.”

“Maybe, but not one of them could do it all.”
O’Neil got up from the bench. “Just promise me you’ll get to
helping Gallenger, okay? We need a way to stop the dead more than
we need the weapons to keep running.”

As O’Neil turned to leave, Luke muttered, “Be
careful out there, you idiot.”

“I always am,” O’Neil responded with a flash
of his teeth, then he was gone.

14

Scott figured Hannah was whacko after what
she’d endured, with every right to be, so he let her brood as they
walked. The woman insisted on traveling east to the coast, so
that’s where they headed.

Scott had managed to get a few hours of
blessed sleep while she kept watch, and he counted himself lucky
she hadn’t killed him while he dozed. When he woke up, they buried
her family and moved on.

“What the heck is that?” Scott asked as he
noticed a building ahead of them.

Hannah paused. “It’s a cabin,” she said, and
then continued towards it.

“Whoa. What are you doing?” Scott grabbed her
by the arm. “We don’t know if anyone’s in there.”

“There’s not. Not anyone alive anyway.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Hannah pointed through the trees. “The door’s
been busted open. The windows are shattered. And that appears to be
dried blood all over the outer walls.”

Given little choice, Scott followed her into
the clearing in front of the cabin. Several bodies, all dead from
head wounds, littered the grass.

“Looks like somebody put up a good fight,”
Scott commented.

Hannah headed straight for the main door,
which dangled by a single hinge. She stepped past it and into the
building.

A body missing its legs and arms watched her
enter. Old blood stained its mouth and chin. Hannah was sure its
tongue had been cut or bitten out; otherwise the thing would have
been screaming obscenities at her.

She glanced about the remains of the simple
room. Someone had taken shelter in this place, seeking safety in
the wilderness just like her own family had done, only these poor
people must have been discovered before they could run.

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.