“Let it be known that Chief Boatswains Mate Hoffman has stood watch, laid before mast, made rounds, checked the navigational lights, and otherwise attended to the watch, quarter, and station bill for all evolutions required to guard the coast and protect the Nation,” Jarvis said, with all the reverence of a Baptist minister delivering a solemn funeral.
He continued reading aloud from a note card, his smooth voice carrying across the ship and over the water. “Our Lord has called our shipmate to sail with Him in eternally calm waters forever free from the storms and tempests of mortal life. We honor and cherish the memory of our shipmate, but we do not mourn for him, for he has found refuge in the great harbor of eternal peace. Rather, it is for ourselves that we mourn; a good friend has slipped his moorings in the night and is no longer among us. We will miss his hand on the helm. We will miss his shoulder next to ours. We will miss his encouragement and counsel as we meet the storm and strife of life. We bid you hail and farewell, shipmate, until we drop anchor beside you at the last, great, rendezvous.
“Accordingly, let the deck log of the US Coast Guard Cutter
Fish Hawk
forever read that at this location, a hero was buried at sea and that those venturing offshore shall show due honor and respect when passing here at all times. Amen.”
Billy did not say a word and watched as the marines fired three precious bursts over the water where the
Pamyat Ilicha
had sunk earlier that morning. He just hoped that Hoffman did not pop up to attend his own service.
— | — | —
ChapteR 50
November 14, 0100
“It’s frickin cold,” Doug said as he shivered. Reynolds agreed. It
was
freaking cold. Even though the ambient air temperature was only at about 45 degrees, with the altitude and wind chill it was hovering around zero for those perched on the ladder-platform gondola of the
Depplin
.
The original flight plan had them landing in the flat open space in front of Fort Morgan by 9pm the night before, just a few hours after sunset. However, the air currents coming up from the warmer water of Gulf were stronger than expected, and Doug was only able to force the blimp to make about 20mph into the wind, even with their decreased weight due to being almost out of propane and fuel.
“So where are we, anyway?” Doug asked with chattering teeth.
“As far as I can tell, we are southeast of Evergreen, looking for Castleberry.”
“I still think we should have just stayed following I-65 south to Mobile, and then navigated over Mobile Bay.”
“Really, Doug? You want to navigate over the water near a city that we know to be filled with infected in an airship that could be out of fuel any minute?”
“Don’t go making good points with me, Major. I haven’t listened to them in years and I am not about to start now.”
She peered in the darkness and saw a break in the trees below. A small town with several church steeples and water towers appeared in the moonlight.
“I think that is Castleberry,” Reynolds said.
“GGG-Good deal. Right where we left it, huh?” he shivered.
“Looks like,” she replied. “Only 70-miles to go.”
“Great,” Doug said, squirming on his bicycle seat. “I have to urinate so bad that at this point I have to uri-nine.”
««—»»
The closer they got to the Bay, the more the winds buffeted the airship. At several points, the
Depplin
was flying sideways and Doug had to wrestle the ship, blow the burners hotter to make the taco envelope more solid, and crank the Geo engine up to the maximum rpms to get the airship back on track.
As best Reynolds could tell, they were only making about 11mph towards Gulf Shores. The early morning sunlight was peeking over the horizon as they passed what she believed to be Daphne just over the top of Mobile Bay’s eastern shore.
“I don’t have anything showing on the propane tank gauge anymore,” Doug said. “I don’t think it’s empty, but we can’t be too far off.”
“Well we are still about 30-miles out. Do you think we can make it?”
For the only time on the overnight trip, Doug did not respond to conversation. Reynolds took that as his answer and scanned the ground below to be aware of nice comfortable places to crash at.
“Holy shit, do you see that?” Reynolds said as she began to take in what was below her.
An army of the undead, thousands strong stretched shoulder-to-shoulder down the highway for as long as they could see. The dense swarm of rotting humanity could be smelled even at altitude above them and Reynolds forced herself to breath from her mouth so she would not gag.
“There must be thousands of them,” Doug said. “It’s as if the whole undead population of Mobile decided to go for a shamble.”
“And they are going our way, too,” Reynolds said, fumbling with the Army radio that she had gotten from Stone. After several calls greeted by nothing but dead air, finally the TOC answered from the edge of the radio’s range.
“SALUTE report, goes as follows, prepare to copy,” she said to the MP on the radio.
“Go ahead.”
“Line Sierra,-thousands, too many to estimate. Line Alpha—walking due south, speed one kilo mike. Line Lima, Daphne, Alabama. Line Uniform, N/A. Line Tango this time. Line Echo, they are infected. How copy, Spice Rack?” she read into the radio, enunciating each syllable for clarity.
“Solid copy, Slingshot,” came the reply.
“Also be advised that we are bingo fuel and may not make it back. Our current location is over Daphne. Will keep you informed.”
“Roger.”
“Slingshot, out.”
She put the radio back down and continued watching the ground below, the tops of the heads of infected passing below her as they moved south together.
The Geo engine began sputtering and finally fell silent for the first time in more than 24-hours. The peacefulness of gliding through the air suspended under the envelope of hot gas above them struck Reynolds in a sort of grim prelude to the afterlife.
Doug tried to crank the engine several times but it refused to turn over. “Did I mention that the gas gauge wasn’t registering either?”
“No, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. At least we should be able to continue moving forward with the momentum for a few more miles anyway. As best I can tell, we are almost to Loxley. As long as we can get ahead of that parade of infected down there, we should be ok.”
“Yeah, about that. This twin bladed wooden propeller is gonna windmill because it is not variable pitch. That means we are gonna land short, instead of glide with the wind. It’s gonna drag us.”
She started calling in mayday warnings to the TOC and strongly advising them against a rescue mission to come get them.
“I always knew that flying this thing would be a game of Russian roulette. Guess we found out which cylinder the bullet was in, huh?” Doug said as the
Depplin
slowed and began to descend to the ground below them. They seemed to be just ahead of the column of steady marching zombies but the only option was to put the 140-foot long nylon blimp down either on top of buildings or on the abandoned car-dotted highway.
With the propane supply exhausted, Doug could not blow the burners to keep altitude any longer, especially in the headwind they were facing. As the ground moved up to meet them, the taco envelope sagged suddenly in the middle while they were still 200-feet in the air, and the gondola, with its crew gripping their ladders and bicycle seats, dropped like a stone.
The last thing that Reynolds could see before everything went black was the asphalt of the highway rushing up to meet her.
— | — | —
ChapteR 51
“Loxley,” Stone said to the assembled group. “That’s where we think the Horde is now.”
Billy sat at the table as the representative of the Charterboat captains. Mr. Trung, bundled in an oversized parka, sat next to him as the mayor of Little Saigon. Mack was the local media as well as the voice of a dozen other small special interest committees on the island. Across from them was Stone, George, Jarvis, the science teacher Mr. Michaels, and the 3-Blind-Mice.
“So, from Reynolds last radio transmission, confirmed by the sighting from your motorcycle reconnaissance group, the Horde has moved about five miles a day,” the Ringknocker said.
“That means they will be here in five days,” George did the math.
While the infected themselves had not made a press release to the effect, it had been deduced by the council that the swarm had followed the
Fish Hawk
across Mobile Bay and, once there, had followed the motorcycle scouts down Highway 59. Now, with the highway open before them and nowhere else to go, they simply were taking the path of least resistance and shuffling ever south. Observers had been sent out to quietly monitor their progress every day, and found them farther south each time.
Billy looked at Mack, who had gone pale and for the first time since he met her and was not speaking. He reached under the table and took her hand in his. She squeezed it and he squeezed back.
“So at this point, we only have two options,” the Ringknocker said gravely. “Fight or flight. I for one, vote for fight. I think we can hold them at the bridge. Our only evacuation options seem to be the old naval base at Singing River Island off Pascagoula, which is simply not big enough and has no fresh water supply. What do you think, George? Anyone?”
George replied, “I think it would be impossible to evacuate the island in five days. Moreover, I think that many of these people simply will not go if we ordered an evacuation. You have to remember a lot of these people won’t leave for hurricanes, and most survived the outbreak here once already.” George looked at Billy and asked, “Billy could your people even supply enough boats?”
Billy shook his head. “I’m not sure. Its 60-miles by sea from here to Pascagoula. I know the MPs just scored us some more unleaded and diesel but many of our boats are out of oil and are not going to be able to move. How many people do we currently even have here?”
“We have issued 1840 ration cards in the past month,” Mack interjected.
Billy shook his head. “With the hundred or so boats we have left, I may be able to pull about half of those people off, and I’m not sure we would have the fuel to come back for the second half. Even with Mr. Trung’s people helping. Then there is the task of trying to move food, weapons…”
“Well, I think we have our answer now,” said the Ringknocker. “There is no escape; we must fight for it. We will have to have our strong Plan A as being defense of the island. Here we have to make our stand.”
Everyone murmured in agreement.
“Captain Stone, you are in tactical command of the ground forces. We need to get everyone who can fire a gun on the frontlines for this one,” the Ringknocker said.
Stone nodded and looked to Mack. “Can you put out an announcement that all able-bodied men should report to the armory at dawn tomorrow?”
“Why just men? Women can shoot, too,” Mack asked.
“I think legally the Militia Act is restricted to all men. Women are not obligated, but if they want to, they are more than welcome. We will need all the help we can get,” Stone said.
Billy noticed Trung looking baffled at the conversation but not saying anything. “Can we get an exemption for the Charterboat guys and shrimpers? We are still the ones providing most of the food as well as gopher duty all over the island.”
“I want to fight,” Trung said loudly, slamming his hand on the table. “We are not running anymore.”
Jarvis interjected before Billy could. “Everyone knows you want to fight Mr. Trung, however, I agree with Mr. Harris. I think that we should prepare for an emergency sealift off the island should the defense fail. In a worst case scenario we won’t be able to take you from the front lines to man a boat; you would need to already be on standby and ready to take on evacuees.” Images of Biloxi beach replayed in Billy’s head.
Trung smiled and nodded. “Ok, but we will not run.” The Vietnamese man and his lost tribe from Bayou La Batre had meshed well into the community. The fact that everyone was fed daily was testament to the shrimper’s dedication and sacrifice.
“Lieutenant Jarvis, go ahead and head up a detail with Mr. Harris and Mr. Trung to organize a sealift as Plan-B. Keep it as quiet as humanly possible so we do not have a riot. If the population even thinks we are going to bug out then we’ve already lost,” the Ringknocker ordered.
“Mr. Michaels, what kind of threat are we looking at in this Horde as we are calling it?” George asked the science teacher.
The man pushed his glassed up on his nose and looked around. “Baldwin County had a pre-outbreak population of 165,100 and Mobile County right at 400,000. If you use assumption that 75% of those people were killed and not reanimated; we should not have more than 100,000-150,000 zombies out there.” He paused to let that number sink in before continuing. “We estimate we killed nearly 4800 here by ourselves— so you can remove those off of that figure,” the science teacher explained.