Steven smiled at O’Neil’s passion. “Sounds like you’ve really thought this out. All right, Mr. O’Neil, we’ll try it your way. As soon as we can be sure those creatures from the docks aren’t pursuing us, go ahead and plot a course for this island. And have those two new folks brought up here. I’m eager to hear news of the mainland.”
“I think you’ll find the new woman rather captivating, sir,” O’Neil commented.
Steven pulled a cigar from his desk and lit it up with an old fashioned wooden match. “Do I detect a bit of personal attachment in your voice, Henry?”
The younger man blinked. The captain rarely called him by his first name. Most people didn’t. It put him on edge, though he knew the captain was only teasing, trying to provoke a response. “No, sir. I just… I thought you’d like to be prepared is all.”
“Oh,” Steven snickered, “I see.”
Hannah lay on her bunk, staring at the ceiling. She’d tried to get some sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Riley and Brandon. Brandon would have been so happy on this ship. The Queen would’ve been like a paradise to him, the adventure of the high sea and children his age to share it with. It would have been like something out of a story book. And Riley… she missed Riley so much. Without him, she felt hollow, incomplete. A piece of her soul had died along with her family, just like the world had died long ago. She’d adjusted to the world’s destruction, but the pain of her own loss stung at her heart.
Someone knocked on the door of her quarters. Forgetting herself, she reached for her .30-.06 and slid a shell into its chamber as the door opened.
“Whoa,” Pete said, raising his hands and taking a step back. “It’s okay.”
Hannah lowered the rifle. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Old habits die hard.”
“Better them than me,” Pete joked uncomfortably. “The captain is waiting for you to join him for dinner.”
Hannah followed Pete out into the hall where Scott was waiting, clean-shaven and dressed in new clothes. His whole appearance was different on many levels. He actually looked handsome and, if possible, smugger than he usually was. “About time you got up, sleepy head,” he said to her as the trio made their way up to the captain’s quarters.
Captain Steven and O’Neil greeted Hannah and Scott as they entered. Hannah looked the captain over. He was in his later forties, his hair mostly gray, yet he possessed strength not only in his short, burly frame but in the very grain of his character. He looked like a man who’d seen Hell firsthand and who’d beaten it back by the sheer force of his will. The necessary introductions were made and Pete and O’Neil seated everyone at the table.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” O’Neil asked.
“No thank you.” Steven reached for a napkin to drape across his lap. “That will be all.”
O’Neil and Pete left the quarters, closing the entrance behind them.
The table was set with real china dishes and regal silverware, but it was the food that held Hannah and Scott’s attention. There was glazed salmon, freshly baked bread, spicy brown rice, stuffed crabs, and a bowl full of red apples placed alongside a salad of cabbage and chopped carrots. The captain must have noticed their hunger. “Please, help yourselves.”
Scott wasted no time in loading down his plate with everything in reach, plus a double portion of stuffed crabs.
“I assure you, we don’t eat like this all the time,” Captain Steven informed them. “We can’t afford to. Most of our meals are of much simpler fare, but tonight it seemed fitting to have this feast, not only to welcome you, but to celebrate a much needed change in the Queen’s plans for the future.”
“The future?” Scott mumbled through a mouthful of fish and bread.
“Yes,” Steven continued. “The future. I refuse to sacrifice more lives just to keep us on the sea. It’s time we found a new home and try to reclaim some of what mankind has lost to the dead.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” Hannah butted in. “The dead are everywhere. No matter where you go, they will find you eventually.”
“But their numbers are dwindling too,” Steven explained. “Their bodies rot. Time takes its due. We only have to last a couple of years, perhaps, before we outnumber them once more. Then we can truly retake the world, as it was meant to be.”
“How can you know the dead are dying? Have you discovered what brought them to life to begin with?” Hannah argued.
“Our crew may be made of refugees, Hannah, but some are rather extraordinary people. We have two medical doctors on this ship and one real scientist who’ve been studying the plague since the moment they came aboard. We still don’t know the nature of the force, or whatever it is that reanimates the dead, but we do know it doesn’t stop the decay of their flesh; it merely slows it. So in time, nature itself will destroy our enemy’s ranks. But enough of this. I want to know about you two. Who are you? What did you do before the dead walked?”
“Do you really want to know?” Scott asked, suddenly forgetting about the food.
Steven nodded.
“I was a professional killer,” Scott said. The table fell silent, but he continued. “I worked for the government when I started out, then went freelance. I couldn’t guess at how many people I put bullets in before the CIA caught me. When the plague started I was rotting away in a federal prison, and that’s where the dead found me, alone, unarmed, and locked up behind bars.
“Obviously, they didn’t kill me. Maybe I was so starved by then I didn’t have enough meat on my bones to be worth their trouble. Who knows? So they took me to a new kind of prison that they had created. It was called a breeding center, a place where they herded us together like cattle and bred us for food.”
“Well,” Steven ventured, “I, uh, don’t suppose it matters now what you did in those days. You’re one of us now, and I hope you will make the most of this fresh start.” He turned in his chair to address Hannah. “And what of you?” he asked.
“I…” Hannah began, and her voice cracked, “I was a mother.”
21
As the days passed aboard the Queen, Hannah found work in the ship’s daycare. Over the last few months, the ship had picked up a couple of infants and nearly a dozen children who either had no parents at all or whose parents held jobs which occupied much of their time aboard the ship. Hannah found happiness in her work with the kids. She even got along with her sole co-worker Jessica, a young woman barely out of her teens, but Hannah didn’t know how Jessica ever handled the children by herself. She was a hard worker but lacked the emotional connection with her wards that Hannah developed instantly.
Jessica, without resentment, let Hannah take the lead, and the children took to Hannah’s new lessons in crafts and educational projects with zeal. Hannah, despite herself, began to let go of her past and embrace her future. The memories of Riley and Brandon would always be with her, but she felt hope swelling in her again. These children needed her, and she could offer them so much more than just busywork to keep them safe and out of the way.