At last, Tiny thundered over the hill in the distance, like a fat tick riding a bottle rocket straight toward them. The man screeched to a halt on his superbike and slid sideways, almost losing his balance. Stone saw that he was not wearing his trademark helmet and his bald head shone in the sun.
“What the hell happened?” Stone asked as Tiny caught his breath and killed his bike.
“We need to move out. Nacho, Fat Pete, and Spyder are gone, man. We ran into the goddamned zombie holocaust up the road, and it’s heading this way.”
— | — | —
ChapteR 48
2700-feet over Cuba, Alabama
“Sunset is at 1849. The way I figure it, we should cover the 112 miles from here to Montgomery by then and make the final turn south. With no clouds and the full moon, we should be fine to make the landing back home just before midnight,” Reynolds said as she worked the dividers on the folded up roadmap and looked at her watch.
The sun was already getting low on the horizon behind them and the temperature was falling. Reynolds bundled herself in her borrowed coat and went back to shoving her hands deep in her pockets.
For hours, they drifted over the fields of central Alabama. She tried to stay alert and anxious, looking for any moving cars, people walking, or any other signs of life. All she saw was pine trees, the occasional farmhouse, small towns where nothing moved, and wandering animals. Highways had turned to linear parking lots. The world was getting used to the sound of no people in it. Thankfully, Doug had stopped trying to talk to her. The man meant well, Reynolds was sure of that, but he was just so overpowering.
««—»»
The sun had set fully by the time they reached Montgomery, the capital city of Alabama. Most importantly for their trip, it was home to Maxwell Air Force base, which held the headquarters for the Civil Air Patrol, a wing of C-130s, and the Air Force War College.
The base was deserted with no aircraft on its tarmac. Abandoned and as lifeless as the dark side of the moon, it had been the last hope that they would pass over on their scouting mission.
In the cold dark twilight, the
Depplin
turned south for Gulf Shores again. The moon soon rose big on the horizon. It lit up the sky bright enough for Reynolds to read her map if she held it close enough. Their primary method of navigation was through dead reckoning, where she picked out a landmark below them like a river or town and, figuring their airspeed from their last known location and their direction from the compass, she could work out a position. However, the blimp moved like an unruly sailboat on a wild sea and refused to follow a straight line. She also did not know how fast the winds were that pushed them off course, another wild factor.
With the sunset, she struggled to find features and they hugged rivers as best they could in the crosswind, as she could see the reflection of the moon off their surface like a mirror. She had brought a sextant with her to shoot fixes from the stars around them in the sky but the bright moon and the fact that the
Depplin
moved irrationally both up and down and side to side meant that it was impossible to use.
“It’s so black down there,” Doug said. “Not a single light anywhere.”
Reynolds agreed as she looked out over the dark carpet of space laid out below them as far as the eye could see. There was definitely no light pollution anymore.
“Is this all that there is now?” Reynolds asked aloud without truly meaning to.
“I know what you mean. I’ve asked myself the same thing.”
Well crap, it looks like we are talking now, she thought. “So, you know about my family; what about yours, Doug? I saw the pictures at your house.”
“She is a good woman. They all moved to Arizona to her parents and I lost contact with them during the first week of the outbreak. They said I was a hoarder and it was the stuff or them. As you can see, I still have the stuff. Hindsight is always 20/20, I guess.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe it is better out in Arizona. Maybe they are okay.”
“That’s why I was so involved with the radio station and then with the
Depplin
. I thought that somehow…” he trailed.
“I know. Me, too.”
It was awkward talking to Doug as he sat behind her in the dark. With the unseen voice coming over the ear buds in her helmet, it was as if they were on opposite sides of the universe instead of less than a foot apart. Reynolds thought she could make out him crying softly over the drone of the engine.
After several long minutes he said, “You reckon that is the Space Station?”
She peered out to the horizon below them; high above it was a small dim star that looked as if it was moving, too high to be a plane, too big to be a distant planet. She had seen it before, flying in an exercise a few years before in the outback of Australia and it looked the same. She never thought she would see it in the sky over Alabama.
“Yes, that’s it. I bet it’s lonely up there, too.”
Doug grunted, “I suppose they are the last humans in space, period.”
“Could be.”
“I guess there will be no more space travel. I watched one of the shuttles at Canaveral once from like 10 miles away, back in the early ’80s. It took forever for the sound to reach us. I was sitting on top of my pawpaw’s van watching…the noise was like a shock wave when it finally hit. An audible earthquake.”
Reynolds remained silent and let the man talk.
“I always wanted to be a pilot,” said Doug. “My dad flew F-86s in the Air Force and I wanted to grow up to do that, too. I just could not pass the physical. Bad eyes. I went to college instead. Spent thirty years of my life working for the phone company and going to school to be an engineer. Four degrees later, I still work for the phone company. Or I guess I did until last month.”
Reynolds sympathized. “Yeah, I was eighteen years in the Air Force. Hell, I was supposed to go on terminal leave next December. Get a six-figure job flying roughnecks to oilrigs. Settle down with some nice young girl.”
Doug laughed. “Why does it say Moose on your helmet?”
She grinned in the darkness. “Wound up with the nickname because when I was 21, I was the smallest pilot in the 71st Rescue Squadron flying Jolly Green Giants in Alaska. The squadron-naming unit made much light of the fact that I slipped in a pile of moose-shit on my first day at the base that they came up with my call sign before the head was gone off the first beer. Been using it ever since.”
“Great story, everyone just calls me Doug.”
“You are a pretty good urban survivor, Just Doug.”
“Hah, I survived years of Y2K scare stories, Deflation in 2003, Inflation since then, The Perfect Storms of 2005, and a decade of reigning fears of Global Warming, $200 Oil, and the Sub-prime Housing Loan Crisis Implosion. And now I’m gonna die due to damn zombies.”
“Hell of a thing. Always lived in Gulf Shores?”
“Yeah. My sister and her kid left over the bridge just before they closed it. I hope they made it but I just don’t know,” he said. “What brought you to the island?”
“When everything went crazy after the nuclear strikes, they sent me out with a busted up plane and a crew that had never worked together to pick up some secretary of commerce or education or something. Word was that she was next in line to be president. I dropped off a Split-A detachment of 6 Green Berets to locate and retrieve the Secretary. They didn’t stand a chance. Our base was overrun while we were in the air and we made it as far west as Gulf Shores before we had to set down.” She did not even think about it before she blurted it out. A month ago, she had been sworn to secrecy never to reveal it, now it did not really make a difference.
They continued in silence again, cocooned by the darkness, and their thoughts.
— | — | —
ChapteR 49
Billy watched the familiar waters of the Mississippi Sound stretch out before him as they passed the GP buoy that marked the Gulfport Shipping Channel. Heavily silted from the waters of a half dozen rivers, the sound along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast was shallow and its waves chopped in short little crests like no other place in the Gulf. You always knew when you were inside the sound. The course Billy had recommended paid off.
It had only been two hours since they had watched the rotten freighter
Pamyat Ilicha
sink deep into the water of the Gulf of Mexico after the mine that Billy attached had exploded a hole in her side. Since then they had crossed paths with a 122-foot schooner sailing from Florida to Texas in hope of a new life. The schooner’s crew would not come within a half mile of the cutter and refused to heave to and be boarded.
Rigged as an 1812-privateer with four working 6-pounder cannons, they were firm in their conviction to head to Texas where they believed they could find a good anchorage. Flying the yellow Gadsden flag with a rattlesnake and “don’t tread on me” emblazoned across, they were not in the mood to talk.
“Standoff, Coast Guard. We have quarantined our ship and will not allow anyone aboard. We are healthy now and mean to keep it that way. If you get any closer than 2000 yards, we will open fire on you, sir,” they had radioed.
Jarvis has told them “Don’t be a fool captain, this is a United States Coast Guard Cutter, and we will send you to the bottom if you open fire on us.”
“There is no more United States, sir, please stand away. We have four working six-pounder cannons loaded and trained on you right now. We aren’t looking to fight, but we will.”
The schooner said something over the radio about a submarine that they had seen torpedo a cruise ship the day before, just south of Dauphin Island, as they sailed away from the cutter. The debris field that Reynolds had called in earlier confirmed their story.
That had been the only thing they had passed since coming into the Sound that afternoon.
The Bosun observed Ship Island’s beach from the port side window with the binos. “No zombies but I’ve got a tank and soldiers on the beach, sir.”
Jarvis and Billy picked up their own binos from the bridge and peered at the Bosun’s contact. Sure enough, there appeared to be a tall, block-shaped, tank of some sort on the beach of the island. Next to the tank was a small cluster of camouflaged soldiers who for lack of a better word appeared to be shipwrecked.
“Looks like we found the Marines. Let’s get the small boat ready to go check them out,” Jarvis said.
“Aye, sir.”
Jarvis looked at Billy. “You want to ride with them, Mister Harris? I need Boats here at the helm.”
“Sure.”
Billy exited the wheelhouse and descended the ladder to the stern deck where the Cook and a couple of the enlisted Coastguardsmen were grabbing float coats and brain buckets. The Engineer stood by to launch the boat. The Cook handed Billy a float coat two sizes too small that Billy had no chance to zip closed. Billy tried the coat on while doing his best Chris Farley imitation to the amusement of no one but himself. Even after the month-long fish soup diet, he still had more of a keg than a six-pack.
The stern door came up and the Cook pulled the pin holding the zodiac in place as he started the small boat’s motor. They found themselves floating behind the
Fish Hawk
in just a few seconds.
The Cook, obviously enjoying his time away from the food service deck, gunned the Zodiac from zero to almost 30 knots at full throttle and headed for the beach. Billy grabbed the ‘oh crap’ bar in front of his seat, like a professional rodeo rider trying to hang on to a champion bull, and gritted his teeth. He could just make out the sound of Jarvis calling to the Marines on the island over the ship’s loudhailer telling them to remain calm that he—as the US Coast Guard—was sending a boat ashore.
Billy could see three slim Marines standing around a burned out driftwood campfire pit talking back and forth to each other. One of them had an M4 in his hand. The fact that he just held it by the flash suppressor and had the butt of the weapon on the sand was comforting.
As the Zodiac skidded to a halt on the beach in about three inches of water, the Marines began walking the short distance from their fire pit to the craft.
“Man, are we glad to see you guys!” the tallest and very sunburnt marine exclaimed in a heavy Cajun accent before the Cook had even cut the motor. He wore the darker marine pattern camouflaged uniform that clearly set him apart from Stone’s Guardsmen and their ACUs. The two other marines were quieter but had hopeful eyes.
Cook spoke up for the group. “What are you guys doing out here?”
“Do you have any water?” M4 marine croaked. Billy and one of the Coasties reached into a small cooler that was bungee corded to the deck and found a few bottles of water in there, which they offered. The trio soon greedily sucked the magic water down.
The Cajun marine that appeared to be the leader of the group leaned up against the round sidewall of the Zodiac looked at Billy quizzically. Billy imagined his blue jeans, fisherman’s sweater, and too-small float coat, not to mention the fact that he was the only one not wearing a gun belt with a SIG hanging off of it, made him stand out from the three Coasties.