John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

“I’d say I’d be happy to drop you off on some nearby landfall,” Steve said, shrugging. “Where you can compete for resources with the zombies. But we’re still in clearance mode. We are, clearly, going to have to find more boats. But that is the point. There are other people out there who need to be rescued as much as you did. Once we find another boat, it will go to people who want to continue the rescue. If we find an excess, I’ll be glad to turn some over to people who don’t support rescuing others. They can then go do whatever they’d like. But in the meantime, there are people to be saved. We’re currently on our way to another distress call…”

“‘Whereever a Tardakian baby cries out…’” a young man said, grinning.

“Oh, please, Pat,” Paula said, despairingly. “Not that again.”

“Well, it’s what he’s saying,” Patrick Lobdell said.

“I’m sorry?” Steve said.

“As Paula said, we’ve been in each other’s pockets for two months,” Chris said, drily. “Pat is an SF movie nerd par excellence.”

“I can quote over thirty movies,” Pat said. “Verbatim.”

“As he has, repeatedly, demonstrated,” Chris said. “If I recall correctly, that was a quote from Galaxy Quest. One of his favorites.”

“‘Whenever a Tardakian baby cries out,’” Patrick said, thrusting his fist in the air. “‘Wherever a distress signal sounds among the stars, we’ll be there… This fine ship…’”

“‘This fine crew,’” Paula said, shaking her head.

“‘Never give up,’” the entire group chorused, tonelessly. “‘Never surrender.’”

“Oookay,” Steve said, putting his hand over his mouth to contain the chuckle. “I can see that it’s a bit of a sore point…”

“And, Jack,” Paula said, dangerously, “ don’t get started on football scores…”

“If you will stop talking about sewing ,” Jack snapped.

“And we’re going to go back to the original discussion,” Chris said, firmly. “In which Mr. Smith was outlining his plan to clear… How much?”

“You want to see the EPIRB map for the North Atlantic?” Steve said. “There are over two thousand distress beacons. About ten percent are hard aground and, well, they’re screwed.”

“One boat of people cannot clear two thousand lifeboats,” Isham said.

“When we find a functional boat,” Steve said, “as previously noted, it goes to someone with something resembling experience and agreement to keep searching. And so on and so forth. I’d guess Mr. Phillips.”

“I’m a cook, not a ship’s officer,” Chris protested.

“Ever conned a boat?” Steve asked. “Something this size?”

“Well, bigger, actually,” Chris said. “But…”

“Sophia, what had you driven before you started conning the Mile ?” Steve asked.

“My bike?” Sophia said from the helm. “You might remember I’m still fifteen, Da.”

“Fifteen?” Paula said.

“Faith’s thirteen,” Steve said, gesturing to the girl lurking in the corner. “And she plowed the road out of Washington Square.”

“Excuse me?” Isham said. “Washington Square Park?”

“We are four of the ten survivors from the last concert in New York City,” Faith said. “Which we got out of by blowing away so many zombies you could follow our path by the bodies. So don’t get me started on how hard it’s going to be to clear a bunch of boats. Boats are easy . Hey, Patrick is it? Bet you’ve played all sorts of video games. Want to fight some real zombies?”

“Uh…” Patrick said nervously.

“Faith,” Steve said.

“No, Da,” Faith said angrily. “What Tina said. They wanted to be rescued. I bet you were praying to God every day that somebody could come to rescue you. And now you want to…what? Curl up and cry ? While there are people out there that need you? Screw you .”

She turned and stalked out of the saloon, slamming the door behind her.

“Bloody hell,” Chris said.

“Faith is a little passionate,” Steve said in apology. “We don’t expect any of you to go charging aboard zombie infested freighters any time soon. You need to get your strength back. But you need to start thinking about how you can help and if you want to. If you don’t…well, we’ll find something to do with you eventually. For now, just rest up.”

“Da, this is another sport fisher,” Sophia called. “About five minutes.”

“If you’ll pardon me,” Steve said, standing up. “It probably is a derelict but there may be some supplies.”

* * *

As Sophia blasted her horn, a zombie stumbled out onto the aft deck of the yacht. Female, she was in surprisingly good health.

“I guess we’d better rig up,” Faith said, drawing her sidearm. She fired one handed and hit the zombie in the upper chest. The woman had been at the rail, clawing in the direction of the Toy and flipped forward into the water. “That made things easy.”

“Don’t fall in,” Steve said, pointing at the water. A fin cut through the water and the shark rolled over and tore into the still thrashing zombie.

“Guess not,” Faith said, holstering her pistol. “I think I just figured out why you’d want a gun that shoots underwater…”

* * *

The 50' sportfisher, christened “Reel Fast,” had two more zombies, one dead of apparent starvation, four other dead bodies, including two children, all well gnawed, and no survivors. The dead zombie had been in the engine room and before succumbing to starvation had well and truly trashed it. The engines would probably still work but every other system was damaged. Beyond repair from their point of view.

What it did have was stores. The group had stocked up heavily and apparently been hit by the plague shortly after setting to sea. The reason the female zombie was in such good shape was that a large amount of the stores had been freeze-dried rations, ubiquitously called “Mountain House” although most of these were a different brand. Many of the boxes were in the saloon and open. The zombie had figured out how to rip them open, with her teeth from the look, and had had plenty of supplies for the voyage.

“Where’d she get water?” Faith asked after they’d pieced it together.

“Rain?” Steve said. “The self baler was stuck. There’s a puddle.”

“You’d think she’d get sick,” Faith said, pointing to the water. It was mixed liberally with fecal matter.

“Surprising what people can survive,” Steve said. “They’re still homo sapiens after all. And we’re a resilient species.”

“Can I help?” Chris said to Stacey.

“I don’t know,” Stacey said, smiling. “Can you help?”

“I may be somewhat unconfident about your husband’s plan to clear the seas of zombies,” Chris said, grinning, “but I am a past master of galleys the world over.”

“I was just putting some sushi together,” Stacey said. “We caught a big blackfin. I wasn’t sure what people…”

“Please,” Chris said. “It would help me to spend some time in normal conditions. I’m a chef.”

“Oh,” Stacey said, stepping back and raising her hands. “Go right ahead. I’m not even that good a cook.”

“Do you have a primary role?” Chris said, starting to expertly slice the tuna. “I mean, your daughter… Sophie is it?”

“Sophia,” Stacey said. “Or Soph.”

“She’s the helmsman,” Chris said. “The other one is the bruiser…”

“Call it ‘clearance expert,’” Stacey said, grimacing. “I really hate it but it’s what she enjoys and she’s good at it. And I guess you’d call me the ship’s engineer. I’m…mechanically inclined. Mechanical, electrical. I’m just good at it. Geek stuff sort of.”