The Living Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Coast (21 page)

A breeze blew in through the windows bringing a trace of salt and dead things with it. It also brought the sound of the dead, stumbling around the moonlit beach, endlessly hungry and endlessly searching.

A
full moon shone coldly down on the creatures thronging the beach. Waterlogged, mutilated bodies slogged across the sandy surf, stepping on other undead bodies, spiky nails thrusting up from shattered wooden planks, broken glass, all with indifference. A mob of the creatures would be a threat but not if there were room to run. These ghouls were winding down, subject to decay in the moist heat and the sucking tides that pulled them out into shark-filled, watery hunting grounds. A group of dogs, almost but not quite feral, trotted along on the firm, wet sand. They were hunting as a pack tonight and didn’t hesitate to attack the slow dead and strip away chunks of stinking flesh to drag away and devour.

A hundred miles to the east the same moon lighted a different scene. Moving across a rolling landscape, herds of pronghorn antelope followed an ancient route their ancestors have traveled for millennia. Leaving their winter valleys and heading for springtime meadows on the coast, the nimble
Antilocapra americana
make an incredible journey that is epic in its length and difficulty. The female antelope are pregnant and within weeks of giving birth. Despite this they are able to ford rivers and outrun any predator on the continent. Even the fawns, just a few days after birth, are able to outpace that tireless predator, the coyote.

Hundreds of thousands of dead pursued them now and though the antelope were in no immediate danger themselves, they unwittingly led the dead along a path the infected would have been unlikely to find alone. Fumbling and lurching across the countryside, they had ‘survived’ the nukes detonated over the southwest and were now a different and hardier version of the living dead. The bacteria that should have been rapidly eating their dead flesh had been eradicated by the sterilizing effects of the radiation. Their bodies were sinewy and tough, their movements more controlled and quick.

Some were washed away when they plunged into the fast-flowing, spring-melt swollen rivers, tumbling helplessly among the rocks and currents. Others, distracted by unwary fauna, wandered into the greening woods and valleys. Despite this, the seething core of dead remained vast, a dark, moving cancer on the landscape, a surging, tireless threat that drew ever closer to the western coast.

~

Private Tsou, hollow-eyed and pale, accepted a sip of water and leaned back, keeping a wary eye on the door. Tremors still shook his thin frame and Mei continued to monitor his temperature. Convulsions had racked his body throughout the night, leaving him sore and exhausted.

They had no way to culture the virus from his blood to see if it was still there, no way to check for a possible antibody response. Mei continued to grind her teeth in frustration and mutter about “medieval” medical treatments and “stone age” facilities.

Despite this, by late afternoon the prisoner managed to keep down a thin broth with crackers and take a few shuffling steps, constrained by shackles and watched by armed guards. He showed no Z-virus symptoms and even had the beginnings of a scab covering the bite mark on his shoulder. Mei and Barry declared him ambulatory and prepared to remove his restraints before they were overruled by Ian.

“Sorry, guys. No way are we letting a member of a hostile, attacking force roam our facility. We’ll release him when it is appropriate and not a moment before.”

Ian was running on fumes. He kept a near-constant watch on the prisoner while doing his best to sell the brass on an idea that he and David had hatched, with Virginia’s help, in low-voiced meetings throughout the night.

Now that they knew no ships would be showing up to evacuate them, the work on the barrier wall commenced again at a frantic pace. With electricity still flowing they rigged lights and worked throughout the night, repairing the damage from the shelling and moving more of the concrete and steel forms into place. The wall rose slowly but solidly. No one knew exactly when the dead would arrive or how many there would be but pilots had seen enough over the last few days to know that if they didn’t have a strong wall soon, their little encampment would be overwhelmed. No matter how spirited their defense, how noble their sacrifice there would be no one to write their story if they didn’t survive.

Even if they did survive, they were still nothing more than a beleaguered outpost of a dying civilization. They needed to find a way to escape. The lush agricultural valley that was California was entirely dependent on a complex dam system that diverted water from other states. Unless that system was maintained, California would soon revert to a semi-desert environment, no longer suitable for growing crops.

Ian and David’s plan involved returning the cured prisoner to his ship and having him present the advantages of an alliance. With Mei’s help they questioned him at length and they now knew the one remaining ship was vastly undermanned and in desperate need of medical supplies. An early outbreak of the virus had been ruthlessly contained with the infected soldiers either executed or allowed to commit suicide. More had been killed in the onboard fire that injured the captain and several others. There was plenty of room on board for the refugees.

They planned to send a personal appeal in a letter dictated by Colonel Hamilton and written by Mei. A letter offering food and medical care and supplies in exchange for evacuation. The plan then was for the ship to take them up the coast in an attempt to find an area free of the dead. If such a place existed.

If they could get the go ahead. The colonel had yet to agree but in truth, now that the prisoner was (possibly) cured he was no longer a weapon. Ian had taken a lot of flak over that in private but held on doggedly to his proposal. The strain was visible on his face and now, having been awake for nearly 24 hours, he prepared to meet with the colonel. It didn’t begin well.

“We’ve just gotten word that the East Coast Command Center is gone. After several days of communications blackout Midwest Command did a flyover and found the facility on fire. No survivors were visible from the air. Gentlemen, our world is going dark. Now, to our present business.  I understand we have lost our weapon.” The colonel looked at Ian.

“No, sir. I believe that we still have our weapon and by curing him we’ve given that weapon even more reason to want to make our case. According to Private Tsou, ship’s command lost contact with Beijing days ago. Before that there were indications that their government employed tactical nukes in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces and possibly others. They probably don’t even have a country to sail back to if they could. If he is able to persuade his command to help us evacuate, we may live to fight another day. We have a cure, sir. Somewhat limited to early-stage at this point but as far as we know, no one else has achieved this. Dangling something like that out there could win us a lot of friends. And we need friends.

If we had sent him back to infect his people, we would have had to clear every nook and cranny of that ship before we could use it and who knows how many of our own people we would have lost in the process.

The virus has destroyed our world. We have to build it again. I propose that we start off the right way, with mercy and kindness.” He stopped, mouth suddenly dry, and took a drink of water.

The colonel laughed incredulously but he looked at Ian with compassion. “Son, how long do you think we’d last if we dealt like that with the enemy?”

David said, “This might be a way to neutralize this enemy. The prisoner should be returned to his ship as soon as possible. Even if they don’t allow us to board their ship, perhaps they won’t fire on us this time if we try to board the ship that is still afloat and clear it out. We have the inflatables still in storage. Enough to get us out there.

Ian is right. We
are
building a new world and this is the right way to do it. The infected from the strike zones are approaching rapidly; they’ll be here in a few days. Our defensive wall is as strong as we could make it but I doubt that it will give us more than a brief respite. If we can’t find a way to evacuate, ultimately we’re lost.”

Colonel Hamilton made a steeple with his fingers. He looked like a man wrestling with a problem he couldn’t resolve and it had exhausted him. Finally he spoke.

“Return the prisoner. If this fails we can still try to take the drifting ship.  It’s going to be hell getting out there if they decide to shell us again. May God protect us.”

The meeting broke up and moments later Moshe shot a string of lit firecrackers tied to an arrow to the north side of the beach. The sharp pops drew the attention of the roaming dead who began a slow shuffle up the shore.

A small armed patrol slipped quietly out the gate and picked their way down the hillside to the rocks where the private had hidden his small boat. He made it into the surf without incident and paddled out to sea. He seemed ludicrously cheerful and even waved as a strong offshore wind sent him racing through the waves.

The team were up the hill and inside the gate before the dead were really aware of their presence. All they could do now was continue to work on the wall and wait.

~

An Australian soldier penned the following narrative in late 1972 or early 1973 then put it away for twenty years. It was discovered after his death by his grandchildren whose attempts to publish it brought it the attention of H. M.’s government. The Ministry was unsuccessful in purchasing the work and it was eventually published, but as fiction, in a tabloid popular in America where it spawned a short-lived spin-off of apocalyptic/combat, comic books.

Da Nang 1968

They called it war crimes. Didn’t feel that way at the time. It felt like survival. What else could we have done? I’ve asked myself that a million times since they pulled us out. We’re not supposed to talk about it. That was one order that was easy to carry out. It’s hard to find the right words.

It was my first deployment. We trained for weeks back home, trained until we were so knackered we nearly dropped dead every night. By the time we finished basic, some of us actually looked forward to the combat zone. We didn’t think it could be any worse than what we had just been through.

The ship that took us from Brisbane Bay to Da Nang was enormous. This was Sergeant Wall’s second deployment and he had a thick, red scar on his neck that went up the side of his mouth then into his scalp. I never knew what caused that but he was lucky it missed his eye. He kept us busy with calisthenics every morning and every evening we had target practice off the bow, shooting at clay targets. I guess they wanted us busy so we wouldn’t have a lot of time to think about what we were sailing into. The food was good, too.

Once we got off the ship we saw Vietnamese everywhere wearing white pajamas. There were more out in the fields wearing those black, conical hats. It was confusing. Were these the enemy? They didn’t even look up when we walked by, like they weren’t interested in us at all. The whole place was green and lush with trees and vines everywhere except in the water-logged fields those people were wading through. I reckoned they knew what they were doing but I would have been worried about crocs lurking in there.

After we disembarked the first thing they had us do was load a bunch of trucks with supplies. It was hot and you could almost see the moisture in the air. I remember feeling like I would die if I didn’t get some water soon. Just when I reckoned I was going to keel over, the water trucks showed up. It tasted a little off and wasn’t cold but we gulped it down anyway.

The supply trucks took off and the transport trucks rolled in and we were loaded this time. Before we left, Sergeant Wall gave each of us forty, live rounds. I attached one magazine to my SLR and stowed the other in my belt, wondering if I had enough ammo to stay alive. I felt like a sitting duck in that transport and I stared hard at all that greenery flashing by, expecting snipers in the trees.

The smell was something I wasn’t prepared for. Mold mixed with the oil they poured on the roads to keep the dust down mixed with sewage gave off an unforgettable odor. It got in your nostrils and stayed there. I’ve never smelled anything quite like it anywhere. Sometimes it shows up in my dreams.

We went by more fields and again saw those little people in their pajamas and hats, never looking up. We could have been ghosts they ignored in the hope that we would just go away. We would have happily gone away but all of us were committed for a year.

The road began to wind up a mountain and that’s when we got to see the top canopy of the jungle that dominated the area. The sight was breathtaking with more mountains visible in the distance, near the coast. Silvery waterfalls cascaded down the sheer, rock cliffs. The sergeant said he had seen panthers, monkeys, and even the occasional elephant in the early morning. For a few minutes I forgot why I was there and I just enjoyed the beauty of it all. The truck continued up until we reached a plateau with good visibility all around.

Camp was primitive. Latrines were out in the open and the most personal bodily functions were on fairly public display. We had tanks of water for drinking but most everyone bathed in the stream on the edge of camp, if we bathed at all. They passed packs of cigarettes out like candy and the tobacco aroma helped mask the body odor. Most meals were eaten cold even though we had cans of sterno. Private Dalton showed us around and made sure we had our rations and ammo.