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.”