When one went he went back to work on the other as the boat started leaning to one side because of the pull of the barge.
“Slow down a bit more.”
The barge was getting closer. The affected on that side were already starting to jump at us to try to get to the boat, but not quite making it.
I knew he wouldn’t know what I was saying but I couldn’t help but yell it, “come on Tim Tom, hurry up.”
He got it as a few affected made it to the boat and we had to clear them off the deck with our .45s. As soon as the last cable snapped he turned to me and grinned, yelling, “hey Joe, Merry Fucking Christmas.”
I grinned then turned to the front. “Doctor,” I yelled, “full speed. Full speed!”
He cranked it up and we were off, and just in time. We were almost right under the other bridge now and the affected were leaping off at us.
A few hit but died on impact, and we went through fast enough that not many made it. We were able to get up enough speed, these things weren’t exactly built for speed, to get under those last two bridges and then we were out at open sea.
I took over.
All clear.
CHAPTER TWENTY
From the journal of Jude Guerrero
12/25/2012
I suppose now was the time to tell them my plan. My plan that I had written down back when we first saw the boat. None of them had really talked about what we were going to do after we got the boat. Where we were going to go. I’m sure they all had their ideas, some island somewhere, maybe Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket or maybe even somewhere farther away. An island with at least some resources; shelter, food, fresh water. They would start talking about it soon, after the shock of being free wore off, and then I would have to tell them what we were actually doing.
You see, after seeing the boat and reading my journal some, I realized there could, no, there probably are, people somewhere who were unaffected. I didn’t hold out much hope for most of civilization, the Phrase had probably been translated into most existing languages, had probably spread throughout the world. And those, like us, who were not affected because they were brain damaged, or deaf and blind, or for some other reason, they were probably dead. Let’s face it, if we hadn’t been able to get into an easy to secure ward for the criminally insane, with heavy gates, barred windows, locks, if we hadn’t had vans and someone who knew how to weld bars on the windows, if we hadn’t been on an island, if we hadn’t been so close to a state police station with guns and ammo and a place inside to hole up, if we hadn’t had a boat so close, and, honestly, if I hadn’t been an ex-Navy SEAL, and if we didn’t have these unique disabilities, then we would all be dead or affected.
But, I remember before my accident, hearing about lost tribes in the Amazon, tribes who had not yet come into contact with the rest of civilization. Tribes with unique, unknown languages. And there are other small pockets of people throughout the world who spoke old, almost dead languages. I had read about them when studying languages. Some of these people might actually survive, cut off from our dying, or rather dead, civilization. And maybe someday the affected would kill each other off or die. After all, they aren’t terribly bright. How long will they be able to live on their own? Maybe someday the affected will be gone and one or more of the small pockets of survivors might actually venture out into the dead world, the last surviving humans, and start to recreate, no, create a new civilization. But, what happens if they find our old writings and interpret our languages and eventually find the Phrase? Would it wipe them out too? Don’t they deserve a chance? A chance to start it all over.
The Phrase, it is probably everywhere. People were writing it in blood. True, Twitter and Facebook and all that were dead and gone. But people probably wrote it down, graffitied it, put it in their diaries. It might even be in newspapers and books. And what happens when they find it? Don’t they deserve a chance to start over fresh, without the Phrase?
You see, I may not remember what happened in that cell, but I did get a chance to write it down. Something happened to me, something in me changed, I can still feel it even if I don’t remember it. What are the chances that a brain damaged navy SEAL, with some knowledge of navy ships, would be in a well-protected forensic mental ward, and near enough to weapons and a boat? It’ no accident, you see. It’s no accident.
I have a mission now. I have something that I MUST do. This tugboat can get us down to Annapolis, Virginia, a place I am familiar with because I spent a great deal of time there before my injury. A place with warships, battleships, cruiser, destroyers. Of course, with this small crew I can’t get one of those big ships going on its own, but with the tugboat, or some of the navy issue tugboats, I can pull one of the smaller cruisers. I can pull it up and down the coast and I can use the big .50 caliber guns on board to hit any fuel tanks, oil refineries, anything else that will blow up to set the cities on fire. And maybe we can even figure out how to use the cruise missiles, the tomahawks, to hit targets farther in.
With no one coming out to try to stop us, we’ll have plenty of time to cruise right up to shore, take our time aiming and firing, and then we don’t even have to rush out. It’s not like the affected will be firing back at us. It could take us the rest of our lives, to go up and down the coast, slowly burning all the cities to the ground with our little tugboat dragging along a war ship. But we have the rest of our lives to do it, don’t we? We’ll have to find food and water along the way, and fuel. Maybe we can drag a few tankers and cruise ships out to sea, to an island somewhere. There are plenty near Virginia Beach, hell, there’s a whole long coast line that creates a harbor for hundreds of miles. We can blow up any bridges and the little bit of land that connects it to the mainland and easily secure the whole thing and anchor our ships in the harbor there along the coastline. Cruise ships will have a lot of food aboard, and we can figure out a way to get fuel from tankers into our boats.
We can start at the top of the east coast, that’s where most of the cities are anyway, and work our way down; Bangor, Boston, New York, Providence. Maybe we’ll even make it down to the Gulf, maybe. I doubt we’ll make it all the way to the West Coast, but we’ll try. The Northeast will take a while, with that concentration of cities, but burning it all down will have the biggest effect. And, if we can get the missiles working I know there are some nuclear warheads on some of the ships in Ann Arbor, I know that for a fact. We can use them to clear out even larger swaths of civilization. The fallout is only dangerous for a while, people are living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it’s not like a reactor collapse or anything, it’s much less radioactive material. Though, I suppose some reactors will be collapsing, won’t they? It’s unavoidable.
We just have to start the fires, and hope the flames will do the rest. Without anyone there to put out the fires they should spread easily. There’s plenty of fuel in a city, not just buildings but gas lines, chemical plants, cars full of gasoline, gas stations. Hell, New York is already on fire, we might find a lot of our work already done for us by the affected.
I can’t believe I’m writing this, or even thinking this. To set fire to my own country, the country I love, the country I fought for and almost died for. But, is it really my country anymore with everyone dead or affected? I can’t believe I’m going to burn cities down, cities full of people, full of books. Jesus, God, I’m going to become a book burner. And all those people. What will my body count be? Worse than a dictator’s? But, are they really even people anymore? They’re barely more than animals. And chances are any people who are left are already dead, or soon will be, devoured by those cannibals. Everything about the world I knew and loved, gone, burned down, by me. But what choice do I have? I must destroy my own civilization, or at least as much as I can, so that humanity has at least a chance to live.