The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Weight (3 page)

Tick-T
ock lifted his makeshift face covering and hacked up a wad of phlegm before spitting it over the side and saying, “I feel like I’m trying to breathe inside a truck muffler. There’s no smoke but that smell… Jesus, it’s enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon. The whole city must have burned.”

Steve nodded in agreement. “Texas City was a
n oil town. Once a fire got going, it would have been tough to stop.”

“
No one to stop it either,” Tick-Tock said in a matter of fact way. “I remember hearing that Texas was one of the first states hit by the virus. If it was like everywhere else, then the emergency service people got wiped out first. I’m surprised it’s not still burning.”

Pointing his binoculars toward the flat
, black stretch of shore that used to be one of the most popular beaches in the world, Steve said, “Probably would be, but it looks like there’s nothing left to burn. All I can see is a seawall, and even that’s all busted up and cracked from the heat. Lots of wreckage, but I’d bet my top hat and my house cat that none of it’s standing over two feet high. When the refinery went up, it must’ve spilled burning oil and gas into the bay. The tide and the wind took over, and it flowed across to Galveston and torched everything.”

Tick-Tock lifted his binoculars and scanned the area beyond the beach, “Looks like the city’s the same. I can see some twisted iron and shit
, but nothing standing over two stories, and that’s just piles of rubble. There’s still a lot of gas and oil in the water, so go below and tell everyone there’s no smoking or cooking. I don’t know if the fumes are thick enough to catch fire and I don’t want to find out. We should be safe running the engine since it’s built not to throw off sparks, but with all the crap that got washed into the bay, we’re going to have to watch real close for anything floating just below the surface. I’m going to need you to grab the push pole and get out on the bow to clear the way. Last thing we need is a hole in the hull.”

The smell of petroleum and things long burnt grew thicker as they made their way cautiously
into the cut that led to Galveston Bay. The water turned rainbow colors mixed with a thick sludge that made a rainbow of swirls around the bow of The Usual Suspects as Steve pushed the occasional piece of flotsam out of their way. As they passed Pelican Island, the true devastation of Texas City became apparent.

Blackened
, twisted wreckage poked up from piles of debris. The occasional ruins of what were once buildings could be discerned, but these were few and far between. Some areas had been cleared by something that exploded, with the remains of what had stood in that spot scattered in a wide circle. Along the shoreline, little could be seen except burnt pilings jutting up from the water with the piers that they had once supported burned away. Ahead of them they could see the Texas City dike jutting out into the bay from the edge of what used to be the rail yards. Lying across it was the broken, rusted hulk of what had once been an oil tanker. From the looks of it, the huge ship had been lifted up and set down with enough force to split it almost in two on the breakwater.

Heather came up from the cabin and stopped in shock at what she saw. Only able to spin in a slow circle as she tried to take in
the utter destruction, she kept repeating, “Oh, my God!”

Shaking her head to clear it, she joined Tick-
Tock by the wheel.

“Lots of crap in the water so you might want to slow down a little,” Steve called from the bow. Turning to see Heather, he said, “Grab the other pole and give me a hand. All the crap that go
t blown into the bay is jammed up here at the cut and it’s turned into a big floating mass. We’re going to have to clear a path, but it looks like once we get further in it clears up though.”

Heather joined him and together they levered a woven m
ass of burned wood, plastic and unrecognizable remains out of the way. After an hour of work, Steve looked back to judge how far they had travelled so he could gauge how much longer it would take. The fumes from all the gas and oil were making him sick and he could see Heather’s face was pale. They had both thrown up repeatedly, and he knew if they didn’t get some fresh air soon they might pass out.

Steve g
azed at the path they had cleared and was reminded of pictures he’d seen of the wake left behind by an icebreaker. Using the broken oil tanker as a landmark, he estimated they would be into clear waters in about thirty minutes. Once there, they could pick up speed and get out of the polluted waters of the bay.

A
s he was about to turn back, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. He stopped to look closer at what he first thought was an arm waving to him from the midst of the debris, but it disappeared as soon as he focused on it. Shaking his head, he worried that the gas fumes were making him hallucinate as he helped Heather heave an algae covered mess of broken pallets out of the way.

Steve waved
Tick-Tock to move forward into the area they’d cleared as he put the end of his pole down onto a large chunk of fiberglass to push it out of the way. The top was slick and he couldn’t get any purchase, so he put the tip below the waterline and gave it a shove. The wreckage of what had once been part of a speedboat hull slid slowly to the left, but when he tried to bring the pole back in, he met resistance.

He t
urned to Heather and said, “Tell Tick-Tock to hold up, I’m snagged on something.”

Twisting back and forth
on the pole didn’t do anything so he tried pulling again. This time it worked, but something was stuck to the end. The chunk of hull was moving away, but he must have broken off a piece of fiberglass that had gotten stuck on the hook shaped gaff. He readjusted his grip then heaved up and over his right shoulder to see what it was. A shape emerged from the dark water, and when he saw what he’d hooked, he almost fell back onto the deck.

Blackened and covered in seaweed, the
zombie had both hands wrapped in a death grip on the pole. Its burned face grinned up at Steve and Heather in a rictus of fury as it let out a high pitched keening noise at the sight of food. Its nose and ears were gone, revealing gaping holes in its skull. With its lids burned or rotted away, its eyeballs looked huge. Water poured from its mouth as it gnashed its teeth and whipped its body back and forth, almost pulling Steve into the water.

He
tried to push the end of the pole into the thing’s face, hoping to knock it off, but the Z’s grip was so strong that it only moved a few inches and stopped short of contact. He was about to rear back to give himself more room for a forward thrust when Heather’s pole shot forward like a spear, its end punching through the Z’s eye socket and rocking its head back. From behind them they could hear Tick-Tock yell for Brain to get his ass up on deck.

Heather s
hook the now dead Z off the end of her push pole and called out, “We’re good. We don’t need Brain. We got this.”

“You may have that,” Tick-Tock said
, and then pointed to their left adding, “but you don’t have
that
.”

Looking to the port side of the boat
, Heather and Steve saw what Tick-Tock meant. The pass was bottlenecked by the enormous amount of debris that had been pushed into the Gulf of Mexico. It created an interlocking surface on which thousands of the dead were now staggering and crawling across. Some were burned and charred like the hitchhiker they’d just sent to the bottom of the bay, but most seemed intact except for wounds and gouges leaking putrid, black puss. A few were clothed but most were naked, their clothing worn out or torn off since they were turned into the walking dead months ago.

As Heather watched, one of the Z’s fell between a gap
in the flotsam and disappeared. Another’s leg dropped into a hole and staggered it. Extracting itself, it crawled along until it could regain its feet, ever moving toward its food. Looking beyond at the shoreline, she could see thousands more dead emerging from the destruction that had been Texas City.

Coming on deck, Brain took one look at the mass of dead flesh approaching and uttered, “We are so screwed.”

“Not yet we’re not. Take the wheel.” Tick-Tock shot back at him as he picked up his M-and called out toward the bow, “Steve…”

“I’m already on it,”
Steve replied, even as he and Heather started attacking the flow of trash that locked them in place. They worked with frenzied speed, managing to clear a path that kept The Usual Suspects moving forward at a slow but steady pace.

B
ut the approaching wave of dead was faster.

Tick
-Tock opened fire, taking out the closest of the Z’s. More were coming at them from the shoreline ahead and to their left, so he called for Sheila and Connie. If the dead got in front of them, they’d be cut off. The three of them took up positions on the bow and started picking off the dead. Heather had taught everyone to shoot, but with the amount of fire being poured into the wall of zombified flesh, Connie soon had her hands full just keeping their magazines loaded. Pep followed the women up and raced around the deck. As if knowing what they were trying to do, he pointed his body in the direction of the nearest creature and barked at it until someone shot it through the head.

With only a thin wedge of debris standing between them and safety,
Steve could see they were close to open water and safety. There were still a few of the dead in position to cut them off, but Sheila and Tick-Tock made short work of them. Steve turned toward Brain to tell him they were almost there, but his words caught in his throat.

T
hey had been concentrating so hard on what was in front of them, they had neglected to keep an eye on the dead approaching from their left rear quarter.

Steve watched as a waterlogged
Z latched onto the side of the cockpit and tried to pull itself on board. It slipped and fell into the gap next to the hull with a splash and vanished but was immediately replaced by three more of the rotted, dead things. Too out of breath to scream a warning, he ran the length of the boat and jumped down into the cockpit. Thrusting out his boat pole, he skewered one of the things through the mouth. It squealed in rage but didn’t die, its brain still intact. He pulled the pole loose and thrust out again, this time punching through the thing’s forehead with a sound like a hand thumping an overripe watermelon.

Brain
, seeing what was happening, drew his .45 and shot the other two in the face while Steve dropped into a crouch, preparing himself for the next Z that tried to come on board.  The front edge of a horde of more than a thousand walking dead was within feet of The Usual Suspects. Not wanting to go down like this, Steve re-gripped the boat pole, fear sweeping through him as he tried to figure a way out. They were locked in by the trash in the bay, but if they could hold off the dead long enough, they might be able to escape across the wreckage on foot, like the dead had come at them.

Then the thought struck him.
Escape to where?

A hammering noise
began to fill the air, causing the almost motionless sailboat to shake with the concussion. The familiar sound of the .50 echoed around them as Tick-Tock brought the muzzle around and swept the mass of dead converging on The Usual Suspects. His first burst came in low, cutting some of the dead in half while others were pushed back by the impact of the heavy rounds, but his second burst was right on target. Heads exploded in sprays of black puss as Sheila, Connie and Heather added their fire into the mass. The volume of outgoing fire was tremendous and gave them hope, but the dead outnumbered the bullets flying at them by ten to one.

Seeing they would soon be overrun
despite the reinforcements, Steve dropped his boat pole and rushed to the wheel. He nudged the throttle forward until he felt the bow stop against the debris holding them fast, then pushed it all the way forward.

The little engine at the rear of the sailboat screamed as it fought against the mass blocking it. Slowly at first
, but with more momentum as the interwoven edge of trash broke apart, The Usual Suspects pushed forward. The Z’s continued to come at them in waves from behind, while safety lay only a few feet in front. The dead reached over those being shot down and clawed at the sides of the sailboat.

S
teve saw the first of them climb over the transom and retrieved his boat pole, preparing for the final stand. He moved to stand next to Heather. They were exchanging quick glances of what they thought would be their final farewell when a sudden lurch threw them to the deck.

Steve looked up
at the sky from where he lay on his back, then let out a whoop of triumph as the sailboat freed itself and shot into the open water of Galveston Bay.

***

Pulling back on the throttle, Steve idled the boat. He moved to stand next to Tick-Tock and took in the grotesque mob of dead standing at the edge of the debris field. Some tried to pursue them and fell into the water, but most just stood and looked at them with dull, glazed eyes and expressions of hunger as more Z’s staggered and crawled their way from land to join them.

From where he
was slumped against the gunwale, Brain said, “Fuck me running.”

“They might if they catch you
, but I think they’d eat you first,” Tick-Tock replied.