The Infected Dead (Book 2): Survive For Now (9 page)

Some reasonable sized tents were set up, and people pitched in to help get a meal cooked for the survivors. Sergeant Gathers had the senior people from each boat around a folding table, and they had maps spread across its surface. I could hear him talking about their possible escape routes, and he was making it clear to everyone that it was an escape from behind enemy lines.

The Sergeant told them there were three sets of combatants in the area. There were the infected that were not capable of reason, there were the armed forces and police, and then there were the civilians who were capable of digging in for the long haul. At this point, he considered them to be just as dangerous as the infected.

The group discussed the options we had, and it seemed clear to everyone that we should work our way to the coast. Sergeant Gathers said he thought their best bet would be to try to make contact with a Navy ship that could extract them. He traced his finger down the Waccamaw River which meandered through largely unpopulated areas until it reached a stretch just before Georgetown. There was a muddy looking island in the river that looked like it had a small marina behind it where they could leave the boats. It was about forty miles downriver, and it had a road that would lead directly to the coast. Tom heard the Sergeant say it was Butler Island and Rice Bluff Road.

The Chief looked over at me and said, “Does that sound familiar to you, Ed?”

“Sure does, Chief,” I answered. “That’s the extension of the road from Mud Island back to Highway 17 just below Simmonsville. There’s no way they could have known what a hotbed that place had become, but if they got there before it became really bad, they could have made it across through there.”

“Well, as it turned out, there was no way we were going to get there before it became bad,” said Tom. “What should have been a few hours turned into weeks. We were fairly safe from the infected unless we got out of the boats, but the river became a good place to get shot. People set traps at the narrow spots, and they guarded fuel stations at marinas. We had to fight every inch of the way.”

When they left the camping area the next morning, the civilian boats left with them. They alternated the five civilian boats with the five military and police boats, and even though they were still a well-armed force, they were easy targets for survivalists who had dug in along the river.

“We spent a lot of time camping along the river, and we even became more and more like the survivalists, fighting for fresh water, food, and fuel. We lost people and boats and made very slow progress getting down the river.”

Tom went on, “One of the worst days was when we reached a place called the Bucksport Marina. We were down to five boats again, partially due to a fuel shortage, but also due to damage taken during attacks. It was a great place for a trap, and we lost three more boats. One of them was carrying Sergeant Gathers.”

The boats had just come out of a large bend in the river when they were faced with a big island right in the center. They passed to the left of the island and didn’t even see the civilian boats that came out from behind the island into their wakes. The boats closed in and started firing small arms at them, but they were having to drive straight at the Bucksport Marina, which was apparently the base of operations for the river pirates.

“Someone at the marina had an RPG, a rocket propelled grenade, and they opened up on us. Since our boats were full of ammo, the RPGs were effective, and no one survived on the boats that were hit. My boat and one other outran the attackers, but we were down to twelve people on two boats. I was grateful to see my friend Officer Barrett was still with me and Molly.”

“We limped into the small marina behind Butler Island several weeks after leaving Conway. From what we could tell, we were less than five miles from the ocean, and we felt like we could cover that distance on foot in three hours if we didn’t run into any trouble. We didn’t know that those five miles were so populated by the infected dead.”

“We considered going through Georgetown out into the ocean, but decided we had lost too many people on a desolate stretch of river. If we met any serious resistance we wouldn’t be able to defend ourselves, and a more populated city like Georgetown was likely to have more people with weapons.”

“All of us thought the area we were in was unpopulated enough for an easy hike to the shore, and the military had portable radios called MBTRS. They had good range, and they said we could reach the naval ships for extraction.”

“You were in the worst place you could be,” I said. “You were just west of Simmonsville. An accident on Highway 17 caused a big log jam in Simmonsville.”

The Chief leaned toward Tom and said, “Try to picture this, Tom. The infected dead were attacking the living, and there were so many people in the area that there wasn’t any place for them to go. The living tried to retreat from the log jam by going back the way they had come, and that caused even more dead to be in that area. It was like a wave washing up onto a beach and then going back in the opposite direction. It just kept doing that until the town of Simmonsville was a mass of infected dead.”

Tom said, “That would explain the welcoming party. They were spread out, but there were plenty of them. We tied our boats up as far out on the marina dock as we could, and we were unloading our gear to get ready for the hike to the coast when they started coming out of the trees. Fortunately for us, most of them tried to walk across the mud to get to us. Some stayed on the dock, and we didn’t waste bullets on them. We just pushed them off the dock into the mud.”

“We’ve seen that behavior, too,” said Kathy. “But we just shot the legs out from under the ones in front. The dead behind them weren’t coordinated enough to step over them, and the dead that went down flailed around, causing more of them to fall off of the dock.”

“We were a long way out on the dock,” said Tom, “so the infected had a long walk without good balance. One of the guys spotted a rack that was holding long boat oars, and they were perfect for silently sending the infected over the edge. While the rest of us stowed our gear in backpacks, a couple of the guys used the boat oars to clear the docks. We were glad we didn’t shoot them, because they just kept coming and coming. If we had fired shots, we probably would have had more of them arriving at one time than we could handle.”

“When we were ready,” said Tom, “we started for Rice Bluff Road at a trot. The temperature had dropped and it looked like it was going to rain, so we wanted to cover the five miles and get it over with. Things didn’t go too well, though. Less than a half mile from the start of Rice Bluff Road, we started to make the turn that would take us toward the coast, and it was wall to wall infected dead. As far as we could see, the entire road was packed. We didn’t have any choice but to keep going straight into a suburban neighborhood on the edge of Simmonsville.”

Tom said the infected were just standing around in a big crowd, not really showing interest in anything until his group showed up at the end of the road. They didn’t need an invitation as they all began to follow the first living things they had seen in weeks.

Simmonsville was so overrun by the infected that they had wiped out the population in a few days. People who had been told to stay at home by the FEMA broadcasts in the first few days lost all hope of escape as more and more people died. The only chance any of them would have had to survive would have been a fortified place with a large amount of supplies.

Tom said, “At the end of the paved road we followed a dirt path that led to the back of the first cul-de-sac. The good news was there was still power, so we knew we could at least find a warm place to sleep. Some of the homes still had their HVAC units humming outside, undoubtedly because someone had left the thermostats set too high or too low. Whichever it was, the infected were drawn to the sounds of the running units, and they were less likely to hear us.”

“I guess the bad news was that our group was a mixed bag of survivors, but not necessarily skilled people,” he said. “There were a few who wouldn’t listen to anyone. They did their own thing like it was a game. To them, the first house was fine, so a bunch of them broke away from the main group and just rushed into the first house. Five people ran in despite the warnings from me and Officer Barrett. They didn’t work together like a team clearing the house. They split up and rushed from room to room looking for the infected, but instead of finding and eliminating them, it was the other way around. They ran straight into waiting arms and teeth.”

“Ron and I hung back at first, but then we went to the door of the house and saw that the five had run into trouble. I had Molly staying back with a woman in the front yard because the shooting and screaming from inside was so bad. The rest of us knew that even if we took this house, it was going to be surrounded in minutes because of the noise. We needed to either take the house fast or keep moving.”

Tom ran his hands through his hair. He looked like he was reliving a nightmare. “I think there were at least two infected for every living person in the house,” he said. “And each of the living people had already been bitten. As they had split from each other and gone to separate rooms, they had all apparently retreated to a large living area, each with the infected in tow. There were more infected than normal, so the house must have been a last refuge for a bunch of neighbors when it had all begun. All Ron and I could do was pull the door shut and get our remaining group moving again.”

As soon as Tom and Ron had gathered up the last of their people, they saw there was no safe place inside the neighborhood. Even if they got lucky and found a house that had no infected inside, which wasn’t likely, they would be surrounded in minutes, and there would be no escaping.

They passed the homes one at a time looking for a gap that was free of the infected. There were infected everywhere they turned, and it seemed that they were trapped. Tom said they were tired, hungry, winded from running, and losing all hope when Officer Barrett said he had an idea.

He pulled Tom close to his face and said, “You have to get your little girl and the others to safety. We’re going into the next house and clearing it. Then I’m going out the back door to take care of distracting these things. I have an idea that should keep them busy long enough for you guys to get out of the area. If it works, I’ll catch up with you.”

Tom didn’t want to see his friend do anything crazy and said, “No, you’re not going to be able to do anything by yourself. We need to stay together.”

Before Tom could stop Officer Barrett, he ran up the steps onto the front porch of a modern home and went through the front door. Tom and the rest of their group had no choice but to follow. Molly, two men, and two women followed Tom and Ron into the house. Ron had already killed two of the infected before Tom came inside, and there weren’t any others in the main part of the house. Ron told them to all wait in the kitchen at the back of the house while he distracted the ones outside away from the house. He said that he wanted Tom to take the rest of the group out the front door and run like hell when the time was right.

Tom asked him when they would know that it was safe to go, and Ron just smiled and said he would know when it was time. They could already hear the groaning from the front of the house as more and more of the infected had gathered at the front door trying to get in.

Officer Barrett took a quick look out the kitchen window. He gave Tom and Molly each a quick hug and then disappeared out the back door. Tom went to the window to see where Ron was going and caught on to what he was doing.

The house Officer Barrett had chosen was facing inward toward a suburban street, but the back was facing one of those necessary evils of suburban living. The kitchen window faced an electric power relay station with a chain-link fence surrounding it. Tom realized that he had been able to hear the incessant hum coming from the station and had blocked it out. Officer Barrett was running straight for the only gate in the chain-link fence.

One of the other men left in their group asked what was going on. Tom had never asked his name. He had already gotten in the habit of not getting to know people because so few were surviving. As he watched out the window, he realized he was watching the last person from the convoy of boats that had left Conway with him, and Tom didn’t believe he would be seeing his friend catch up with them later.

Officer Ron Barrett ran the fifty or sixty yards to the power relay station with everything he had. When he got to the gate, it only took one shot to blast the lock apart that kept people safe from dying inside. He fired two more shots at approaching infected, but his goal was to draw attention to himself. Three shots was all it took. Every infected he could see turned in his direction at the sound of the first shot, and he was sure that every infected he couldn’t see did the same thing.

The gate was only a bit larger than the average door, and Ron Barrett didn’t plan to lock it behind him. He closed it and dropped the U shaped latch into place, but the sheer numbers of the infected dead bumping into it were more than likely going to cause it to eventually open. He looked around at the chain-link fence and saw that the warning signs on the fence about keeping out were probably not necessary because the concertina wire was going to keep anyone from climbing in or out. He began circling the high voltage equipment, staying as close to the fence as possible without getting close enough to be grabbed by the reaching hands that were extended through the fence.

The number of infected dead grew and grew until Tom couldn’t see inside the enclosed area, but he could see when the gate was finally pushed open. There was a logjam at the opening as too many of the infected tried to go through at once. Those in front were pushed to the ground, and the ones right behind them were landing on top of them. Tom watched in horrid fascination wondering if the infected weren’t doing a better job of blocking the entrance than the gate had, but eventually some of them managed to tumble over the tangle of bodies and roll into the enclosure.