Dead Sea (14 page)

    I noticed that Officer Runkle was eyeing Mitch's holster, as if he were contemplating making a grab for Mitch's pistol. I tried to stay inconspicuous, but slid between the two of them, just in case. Runkle glared at me, but stepped backward. I smiled. He didn't smile back. Must have been straight. Shame. He was a good-looking guy. I would have enjoyed getting to know him better, but the vibe he gave off was definitely a warning. Plus, I never dated cops. The world may have ended, but I still had my standards.

    Runkle spoke up. "With all due respect to Mr. Bollinger, I don't think we can-"

    "He's right," Chief Maxey interrupted."I hate to admit it, but he's absolutely correct. What if something does happen to me or to the key? You'd all be shit out of luck if we really were attacked. But it doesn't sit well letting everyone carry them around, either."

    "If I could make a suggestion,"-the professor stepped forward-"why don't we agree to confine our personal weapons to our private quarters, and not carry them at any time while onboard ship, unless of course it's during a general quarters situation."

    "What is general quarters?" the redheaded woman asked.

    "An emergency," the chief explained. "If we were attacked, you would hear an alarm bell over the PA system. That's called general quarters."

    "I like the professor's idea," Mitch said. "How about the rest of you?"

    "Sounds fair to me," Murphy agreed. "I've only got a little twenty-two pistol, but I'd hate to give it up. It's kept me alive so far."

    "Ditto," said Basil.

    Officer Runkle looked unhappy with the decision, but all of the others agreed.

    The chief finally nodded with obvious reluctance. "Okay," he said. "I guess that's fair. A ship isn't exactly a democracy, but then again, you folks really didn't have much of a choice but to come aboard. If you want to store them in your compartments, that's fine. However, I think we need to agree that there will be penalties for anyone who breaks that rule."

    Mitch frowned. "Such as?"

    "The
Spratling
is also equipped with a stockade. It's down on the lower level, right between the ship's laundry and the boiler room."

    "And who's in charge of that?"

    Smiling, Officer Runkle stepped forward. "I am. Unless anyone has a problem with that? It makes sense. I was a cop, after all."

    He was going to be trouble-an inferiority complex with a badge, desperate for others to recognize his authority. I knew his type well. Had seen it before and hated motherfuckers like him. I'd been exposed to them all my life.

    The conversation continued. We discussed the ship's routine and schedule, and Chief Maxey gave everyone some tips about how to cope with things like seasickness, the proper way to stow our belongings, surviving inclement weather, what to do if someone fell over the side or if we had to abandon ship, and other factors of life at sea. He said that he and Turn would look over the maps and charts and try to pick a port with a minimal surrounding population. That way, there was less chance of it being overrun with the dead when we conducted our supply raid.

    After answering more questions, the chief wanted to know more about each of us and any specific skills or abilities we might be able to offer. We already knew that Runkle was a cop, and he didn't offer any other personal details. Basil Martin was a Web designer. He refused to tell us anything about his personal life, other than he'd been in the National Guard before going to college. Professor Williams told us that his fields of specialty were English literature and mythology. He was a widower- his wife had passed two years before, and his children were grown. His son lived in Thailand and his daughter in California. He hadn't heard from either since the nation's communication grid went down. Our new friend Joan Barnett went next. She was a dental hygienist. Turned out her spouse had passed away, too-dying from lung cancer in a room at Greater Baltimore Medical Center as the dead first began to stalk the streets. He'd died alone. She'd been unable to get to him because of martial law. The hospital had confirmed his passing. She never made arrangements because soon after, arrangements no longer mattered. Murphy's first name was Ollie. He was a boiler operator. Chief Maxey got excited by that news. He'd spent the last few weeks holed up in a bar on Pratt Street, which was no surprise, judging by the telltale alcoholic veins in his nose. Cleveland Hooper had been a cook at a diner. Twice divorced, he'd been hiding out from deputies looking to serve a warrant for non-payment of child support, and hadn't even been aware of the zombies at first. Hooper had also served a four-year stint in the navy. Nobody knew anything about Tran, and even if he hadn't been washing dishes, he wouldn't have been able to tell us about himself. Mitch told everyone he was a Bible salesman and firearms enthusiast. Then it was my turn. I introduced myself and then the kids.

    After that, we met the other passengers. The redheaded woman was Carol Beck. She was a quality control manager at an injection molding plant and had been trying to flee the city. Stuck in a traffic jam on Interstate Eighty-three, she'd gotten out of her car to get a better cell phone signal. As she stood there, zombies had swarmed the on-ramp, forcing drivers to flee. She'd hid inside a factory. Next was Cliff Shatner, a young kid in his early twenties. He'd been a student at Towson University, majoring in journalism, and was partying in Fells Point when everything fell apart. He'd been trapped downtown, hiding inside the basement of the Soundgarden music shop. Stephanie Pollack didn't look so well when she introduced herself. Her skin was pale and dripping sweat. Her pupils were dilated. At first I thought it was the heat, but we soon learned that she was diabetic and had run out of insulin. The fires had forced her to flee quickly, and her supply of insulin had burned up with her apartment. We were concerned for her, but there wasn't much we could do. It was a hopeless, demoralizing feeling. It seemed so unfair-to survive the fires and the zombies, only to have your own body turn against you. And yet she was a trooper. She'd stood on the flight deck the whole time, baking in the heat, listening patiently as we talked and debated, and not once had she complained. Basil and Hooper, on the other hand, had done nothing but bitch since we'd got there. The chief told Stephanie to go lie down, promised he'd do anything he could to make her more comfortable, and had Joan escort her back to her compartment. He promised that if we could get to a port quickly, the first thing he'd look for was insulin. I thought the chances of that were pretty slim, but 1 kept that to myself.

    We had two teenagers in the group: a boy and a girl. The boy's name was Nick Kontis. His father had owned a Greek restaurant just off President Street. He'd watched his entire family get slaughtered by those things. He'd survived by hiding inside the restaurant's walk-in freezer. The night of the fires, he'd crept out, looking for water. He'd stumbled, literally, over a zombie a few minutes later. Legless, it had been crawling around in the dining area, munching on rancid, spoiled meat. The girl was Alicia Crawford. She was shy and soft-spoken, and we didn't learn much about her other than her name. She stared at the deck the whole time and kept cleaning her eyeglasses on her shirt. The last two passengers were Chuck Mizello and Tony Giovanni. Chuck was a forklift operator with four years of army experience, including a tour in Iraq. He'd taken shelter in a warehouse and survived on the contents of the vending machines. Tony was a tow truck driver. He barricaded himself in a hotel room across from the Inner Harbor. Like Mitch, he was a firearms enthusiast. I noticed that he scored points with my friend when he complimented the pistol at Mitch's side.

    Once the introductions were finished, each of us were assigned duties. According to Chief Maxey the biggest danger at sea was boredom, so each of us needed a task to perform. Keep our minds occupied. Hooper and Tran were in charge of the galley, and Nick volunteered to help them since he had a restaurant background. Runkle was going to help Chief Maxey and Turn on the bridge. Murphy was the obvious choice for engineering, since he'd been a boiler operator. Chuck, Tony, and the college kid, Cliff, volunteered to help him. Cliff didn't look happy when Murphy warned him it would be hot, dirty work, but he didn't change his mind either. Guess he wanted to fit in, make a good impression. Mitch, Basil, Professor Williams, and I pulled fishing duty. Carol suggested that someone should work with the kids, a shipboard school of sorts. Chief Maxey was hesitant about the idea, but she finally convinced him it was important. He didn't look thrilled. Neither did Tasha and Malik. I guess the one nice thing about the end of civilization was that they didn't have to go to school anymore. Carol would teach them in the mornings, assisted by Alicia. In the afternoons, they'd perform other duties, as would the kids. Joan was temporarily assigned to care for Stephanie.

    After we had our assignments, the chief excused us all, promising to give us an update as soon as he and Turn decided on a safe destination. The group separated, some of them moving off together, others leaving by themselves. Chuck had a tennis ball (I don't know where the hell he'd found it) and gave it to Malik and Tasha to toss around. I warned them not to get too close to the edge of the flight deck, and then let them run off. Felt good to see them having fun, if only for a little while. They tossed the ball back and forth, bouncing it off the flight deck's black, sun-baked surface. I pulled away from the others and stood by myself against the railing. Gazed out at the sea. I'd never been on the open water like this, and despite the seasickness and the memories of what had led us to the
Spratling
in the first place, I was enjoying it. When I looked out at the water, there was nothing in all four directions. No buildings. No mountaintops. No land at all. There was just an endless, flat sheet of gray and white, broken only by the rolling waves. It was easy enough for me to imagine that there was nothing else beyond the horizons-no cities or countries or people. No dead. As I watched, something-I think it was a dolphin-jumped from the water, spun through the air, and then splashed back into the ocean, disappearing beneath the surface. I smiled. Three more appeared and did the same thing. It was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.

    "Dolphins," a voice beside me said, confirming what they were.

    I turned. It was Tony Giovanni, the tow truck driver. He'd moved next to me along the railing while I was watching the waves, but I'd been distracted and hadn't noticed.

    "I wasn't sure what the hell they were," I admitted. "Sort of look like sharks."

    "Sometimes it's hard to tell," he said. "Especially when all you can see is their dorsal fin sticking out of the water."

    "You been around them much?"

    Shrugging, he patted his pockets till he found a half pack of cigarettes. He put one in his mouth and then offered the pack to me.

    "No thanks. I don't smoke."

    "I don't guess I'll be smoking much longer, either. It's gonna be ugly when I run out. Not as ugly as if that Murphy guy runs out of booze, but still…"

    He thumbed his lighter, shielding the flame with his hand so that the wind wouldn't blow it out, and then continued.

    "My wife and I used to take trips-you know, those whale watching or 'Swim with the Dolphins' things? She loved nature. So do I. Paid sixty bucks a month for cable TV and the only thing either of us watched was the Discovery Channel. So yeah, I've seen them up close. Usually, they just follow the boat, looking for handouts. Same way the birds do."

    He pointed upward. A flock of seagulls circled overhead, squawking at one another.

    "They'll follow us for days, just waiting on any scraps we throw them. They're trained, almost. Fuckers love to eat. If the birds ever caught Hamelin's Revenge, we'd all be fucked."

    I nodded, and then turned my attention back to the sea. The dolphins were gone.

    He exhaled smoke. "You ever been on a boat?"

    "No," I said. "First time. Still a little seasick."

    "Next time you go down to the galley, see if that Hooper guy has any crackers. Saltines work best. Eat a bunch of those and try not to drink much, and you'll be okay. They soak up all the liquid in your stomach."

    "Thanks. I'll try that."

    The tennis ball rolled over to us, bounced off Tony's shoe and almost went over the side. Tony bent down, picked it up, and tossed it back to Tasha.

    "Thanks," she shouted.

    He smiled, watching them play.

    "Cute kids," he said. "Got to tell you, until we introduced ourselves, I would have sworn you were their daddy."

    I laughed. "Not me. It's funny, though. You're not the first person that said that. The professor thought the same thing, and the chief brought it up just a few minutes ago."

    "You must look alike."

    I wasn't sure what to make of the comment. Was it innocent or was he implying that all black people looked the same? He must have known what I was thinking.

    "Hey, man, don't get the wrong idea. That's not what I meant."

    "Sorry," I apologized. "Old habits die hard, I guess."

    "Yeah, I hear you. No sweat. Just didn't want you to get the wrong idea. All I meant is that you guys looked like family."

    "I don't have much of a family. Just a brother, and he's long gone."

    "Well," he said, "you do now. Those kids dote on you. Can see it in their eyes, the way they look at you when you talk. My kids used to…"

    Tony couldn't finish. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, but no sound came out. Tears welled up in his eyes.

    "Sorry," he said after a moment. "Every time I think I can talk about them… Shit. Guess I should get down to the boiler room and let Murphy show me what to do. If I can even find it, that is. This ship's like a damn maze. Nice talking to you, Lamar."