Dead Sea

Chapter Eleven

At first, I thought the two blasts were actually one big explosion. The first one was muffled, occurring in another part of the ship, but powerful enough to jolt my feet. The Spratling rolled hard to starboard and I slammed against the bulkhead, dropping the shotgun. At the same time, there was a second explosion, this one much closer. Something zipped by my head, whining like a mosquito and plowing into the port bulkhead with a loud smack. It was only then that I realized I’d been shot at.

“Hey,” I shouted, dropping to my knees, “hold your goddamned fire!”

“Lamar?” The voice belonged to Runkle. A second later, he stepped out from around the corner and leaned through the hatch. “Oh, shit.”

“You stupid redneck motherfucker,” I spat, climbing to my feet. My legs were wobbly and I had to steady myself against the bulkhead. Then I realized that it wasn’t my balance at all. The ship was still leaning to starboard.

“I’m sorry, man.” He lowered his pistol and held up his hand in surrender. “1 thought you were a zombie. I heard shots and ran down here. Smelled all the gun smoke in the air and just assumed that—”

“Yeah” I interrupted. “Well you know what they say about assuming, Runkle. Makes an ass out of you and me. You nearly fucking blew my head off. If it hadn’t been for the ship rolling—”

“What was that, anyway? I felt it vibrate in my feet.”

“How the fuck should I know? I was too busy getting shot at, you stupid asshole.”

“Look”—he raised his voice—“I said I was sorry. Now we can stand here and argue about it or we can find out what the hell is going on. Do you want to fight?”

Shaking my head, I retrieved the shotgun. “No. I’m cool for now. You’re right. We need to focus. I’ll take this up with you later.”

“Well then, let’s just hope there is a later. What the hell happened here?”

I quickly filled him in on everything I knew, ending with Chuck’s suicide and me putting Tony out of his misery.

Runkle counted on his fingers. “So that leaves the two of us, the kids, Carol, Tran, Murphy, and Chief Maxey—and there’s been no sign of Professor Williams, correct?”

I nodded. “You see anybody other than the chief?”

“No. The passageways were all deserted. I figured everyone was asleep, until I heard the gunshots.”

The ship leaned farther to the starboard side, jolting us both again. There was a loud, metallic groan from beneath the hull. An alarm blared, and the chief’s voice came over the speakers.

“This is not a drill, this is not a drill. General quarters, general quarters. All hands be advised, we have a hull breach in the aft berthing section. Muster on the flight deck immediately. Again, this is not a drill. Prepare to abandon ship.”

Runkle found an emergency phone and called the bridge. I stood there wondering what the hell was happening while he talked to Chief Maxey. Runkle’s expression went slack. He stopped talking and just listened. He looked worried.

“Okay.” Runkle spoke in a monotone. “I understand. I’ll tell him.”

He hung up the phone and stared at the floor.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What the hell’s going on? He said to abandon ship?”

“We’ve got a hull breach.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means that we’re taking on water. We’re sinking.”

“Oh, shit…”

“Yeah.” He wiped sweat from his forehead. “Listen, Lamar, that explosion we heard? The chief says that whatever it was, it blew a hole in the side of the ship. It was… well, it was near your berthing area.”

I started running before he was even done speaking.

“Lamar!” he shouted. “Wait a second. You can’t just go running down there.”

“Tasha, Malik, and Carol are down there.”

“The compartment is probably flooded—maybe the whole passageway. And what about the professor? We still have to find him before he kills someone else!”

“You find him,” I yelled. “I’ve got to take care of my own.”

“Lamar! Goddamn it, get back here. This won’t help us.”

Ignoring him, I ran on, feet pounding, shoving through hatches, darting down passageways. I held the shotgun at the ready, just in case the professor or anyone else he’d managed to infect jumped me, but I saw no one. I slid through Nick’s remains, rounded another corner, and saw Carol, Tasha, and Malik running toward me.

“Lamar!” Tasha screamed. “The ship’s flooding!”

“I know, I know.” I leaned the shotgun against the bulkhead and hugged the kids tightly. Then I gave Carol a hug, too. She trembled against me, frightened and hyperventilating.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked, checking them over.

“We’re all right,” Malik said. “But we’re in deep shit. Them grenades went off.”

I sighed. “I thought I told you to stay inside the compartment. Why were you messing with Mitch’s grenades? You could have gotten infected or—”

“I wasn’t fooling with them,” he interrupted. “Honest.”

“Well, then what set them off?”

“Tran did it.”

“Tran?”

Malik nodded. “Yeah, he was one of them things.”

“Lamar,” Carol said. “We need to keep moving. The water is coming.”

We ran back the way I’d come. I took the lead, heading for the nearest ladder so we could meet the other survivors topside.

“It wasn’t our fault,” Tasha explained as we fled. “We stayed in the room, just like you told us to. But then we heard someone out in the hall. Mrs. Beck thought it might be you coming back, so she peeked outside. But it wasn’t you. It was Tran. He was… all bloody. Some of his fingers were missing.”

“I tried to shut the hatch again,” Carol said. “But the children insisted on defending us. They ran out into the passageway before I could stop them.”

I frowned at the kids. “I told the two of you to listen to Mrs. Beck. You could have been killed.”

“On the contrary, Lamar,” Carol said. “If anything, it’s because of them that we’re still alive. If they hadn’t run out when they did, I hate to think what would have happened.”

“Tran was eating on Mitch,” Tasha said, her voice low. “He ignored us. I tried to shoot him, but I couldn’t get the rifle to work. Wasn’t until later that I remembered the safety was on.”

“You should have figured it out,” Malik teased.

“That’s why Mitch should have given the gun to me, instead of that big ass knife.”

“Shut up,” Tasha scolded him, before turning back to me. “Anyway, Tran picked up one of the grenades and started licking it. You know—Mitch’s blood was all over it. He was licking it like a lollipop and since I couldn’t get the rifle to work, we decided to come find you for help. We were scared. He had the grenade in his hand, and we didn’t know if he knew how to use it or not.”

Each time we entered a new passageway, Carol shut the hatch behind us and made sure they were sealed tight. I led us to a ladder and we started up to the next level. The air smelled charged, like the atmosphere after a lightning storm. Probably an electrical fire somewhere in the ship’s wiring. A thin line of smoke floated along the ceiling.

“We started backing away,” Malik said, continuing their story, “and got to the end of the hallway when he pulled the pin out. I don’t think he knew what he was doing. Just dumb luck.”

“So what did you guys do then?”

Malik laughed. “We got the hell out of there. Good thing we did, too.”

“It was horrible.” Carol shuddered. “Tran—that poor man—he just… exploded. It just smeared him all over the walls. And the blast set off the other grenades. The berthing area was destroyed. If we hadn’t already been through the hatch, we’d be dead. The entire passageway was just… gone. The last thing we saw before we closed the hatch was water gushing in. We couldn’t see anything else, because of all the smoke. The water came through the first hatch, and the second. It leaked right through the seals. We’ve been shutting them behind us, hoping to slow it down.”

I stopped at another emergency phone and tried calling the bridge. The phone wasn’t working. There was no tone or ring—just dead silence. The smoke in the passageway grew thicker.

“Did you guys hear the chief’s announcement?”

“No,” Carol said. “The speakers weren’t working in our section. The explosion must have damaged them.”

“He ordered us to abandon ship, so he knows about the hull breach. There must be sensors or something on the bridge that alert him. We’re supposed to meet on the flight deck.”

“How’s he gonna fix the ship?” Malik asked.

“1 don’t think he can,” I said. “That’s why he gave the order to abandon it. We’ll have to set off in the lifeboat.”

Tasha halted. “In the water? But you said the zombies were in the ocean now—that the fish were catching it, too. If we go in the water, what’s to stop them from attacking us?”

The three of them stared at me.

“Come on,” I said, trying hard to conceal my dread. “Let’s keep moving. I don’t think the fish can do much to hurt us. Fish are small and most of them don’t have teeth.”

“Shit,” Malik said. “You ain’t never seen that movie where Samuel L. Jackson fights the sharks? There’s some big ass fish in the sea, and they got teeth.”

The smoke grew thicker. It smelled acrid. Bitter. My eyes watered. A shower of sparks rained down from a ventilation shaft. We threw our arms up over our heads to protect ourselves. I led us down the passageway to another ladder, this one leading topside.

“Seriously,” Tasha said. “How are we gonna make it out on the water? We’ll be sitting ducks.”

“We can’t worry about that right now,” I said. “And besides, we can’t stay on the ship. We’ll drown.”

Malik wasn’t convinced. “I’d rather drown than get bit by a zombie shark.”

I handed the shotgun to Carol, went up the ladder, and opened the hatch. Cold drops of rain pelted my face and hands.

“Wonderful,” I told them. “Besides everything else, there’s a storm, too.”

“Lamar! Carol. Wait up.”

It was Runkle. I climbed back down the ladder and waited for him to reach us. He was out of breath and his hair was slicked to his head with sweat. In the time that I’d left him, he’d found an old peacoat and put it on. It was about two sizes too small for him, and the buttons bulged out.

“Any sign of the professor?” I asked.

“No. But I did find Murphy. He was one of them.”

“Did you…?”

He nodded.

“Tran was infected, too,” I told him. “He set off Mitch’s grenades. That’s what the explosion was.”

Runkle looked at Carol and the kids. “The rest of you okay?”

“We’re fine,” Carol said, “but we really should find the chief, don’t you think? He’ll be waiting for us.”

“Good idea,” I said. I started back up the ladder again, and then turned and looked at Runkle. “Might want to turn that collar up, Runkle. It’s raining outside.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I put on the coat when I found it.”

I paused. “But how did you know it was raining? Weren’t you below decks hunting for the professor?”

He frowned. “Sure. But I talked to the chief on the phone. He told me there was a storm coming in.”

“That’s funny. The emergency phones weren’t working when I tried them. The explosion knocked them out.”

“Really?” He shrugged. “Must be a localized thing, then. I didn’t have any trouble getting through.”

Growing up where I had, I knew when somebody was bullshitting me, and I knew that Runkle was lying now. But I didn’t know what about or why. Was it because he’d stolen a peacoat? It seemed like a stupid thing to conceal, but then again, he’d been a cop. Maybe he had conflicting morals about it or something. Or maybe he was just scared in general. I certainly was, so why shouldn’t he be, too? I decided to let the matter drop.

Taking the shotgun back from Carol, I crawled up onto the deck. Tasha and Malik came next, followed by Carol, and then Runkle. The rain and wind lashed at us, and the salt spray stung our eyes. The temperature had dropped, and I shivered in the cold air. Basil’s thin T-shirt clung to my wet skin. Visibility was limited, but the flight deck appeared deserted. No sign of anyone else, dead or alive. The Spratling continued its starboard list, and as we approached the lifeboat it felt like we were walking down a steep hill. Worse, the deck was wet and slippery. Each time the ship crested a wave, we had to struggle to keep our balance.

“What now?” Carol shouted over the roar of the storm.

I glanced around, and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I raised the shotgun, but it was only Chief Maxey, carefully working his way down from the pilothouse. He held tight to the handrails as the ship twisted again. He was carrying a small radio, and struggled not to drop it.

“GPS,” he said, holding the radio up for us to see. “Global Positioning Satellite. Believe it or not, the damn thing is still working. I guess the satellite is still floating around up there, just waiting for somebody to tell it what to do. I’ve programmed in the coordinates for the drilling platform. We should reach it by morning.”

“Morning?” Carol looked startled. “So we have to be on the ocean all night?”

“We have no choice, Mrs. Beck,” the chief said. “You can remain onboard if you wish, but I’m certainly not staying here. If you come with me, I promise I’ll do my best to see to your safety.”

I wiped rain from my eyes. “I thought the captain was supposed to go down with the ship.”

“I’m not a captain, Mr. Reed.” He smiled. “I’m a signalman chief. And besides, the women and children are getting on first. Now let’s ready the lifeboat.”

Chief Maxey directed us on what to do. As we prepped the lifeboat, I noticed that Runkle kept wincing, as if in pain. He seemed to be favoring his left side.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Side stitch,” he gasped. “Too much excitement for one night. I just need to walk it off.”

The chief tapped me on the shoulder. “We’ll need a few supplies. Enough water and food to last us for a few days. Want to give me a hand carrying it?”

“Sure.”

We left Runkle behind to protect Carol and the kids and made our way to the galley. The ship was listing even worse now. We could hear the hull groaning as the intense pressure split it open wider. Black smoke belched from the open hatches.

Tasha had said that some of Tran’s fingers were missing. We found them in the galley, lying on the floor in a pool of blood along with his wedding ring. I’d never even noticed the ring on his finger before, hadn’t bothered to learn anything about him—and now I never would. Again, I felt sorry for Tran. Dying was bad enough. Dying and becoming a reanimated corpse was even worse. But somehow, his anonymous death seemed the worst of all. What was Tran’s monomyth? What kind of archetype was he—the forgotten one? The sacrificial lamb? The movie extra? The red shirt, like on Star Trek—destined only to provide cannon fodder?

I put my fingers to my lips and motioned for the chief to come closer.

“Runkle said he took care of Murphy. The professor must be around here somewhere. Be careful.”

He nodded. We moved into the dry goods compartment. I went first, the shotgun ready and loaded. The walk—in locker was deserted. Quickly, we each grabbed a burlap sack that had once held potatoes and stuffed them with as many water jugs and packages of food as we could carry. Then we slung the sacks over our shoulders and made our way back out into the storm.

“Did you find the professor?” Runkle asked when we got back on deck. He sounded out of breath.

“No,” I said. “Any sign of him out here?”

“Nothing. And like I said, I took care of Murphy earlier. Didn’t see the old man, though.”

Another tremor rocked the ship, knocking Malik and Carol to the deck. The waves crashed over the handrail, which was now facing the ocean. Lightning flashed across the sky.

“We’re out of time,” Chief Maxey said. “You’re both absolutely positive that no one else is left alive onboard?”

Runkle and I both nodded.

“Then I suggest we go. Carol and the children first. Then you gentlemen.”

We climbed into the lifeboat and Chief Maxey started the winch while I stored our supplies in a dry spot beneath a bench. I noticed the chief taking one last look around. He seemed close to tears. The winch’s gears and pulleys squeaked as the boat began descending toward the ocean’s choppy surface. As we sank lower, the chief jumped aboard. The ropes swayed from his added weight and the lifeboat crashed against the side of the ship. Carol screamed and the rest of us held on tight. There were six of us and four life vests. Runkle declined his, and the chief insisted I take the spare. The others went to Carol, Tasha, and Malik. Once the lifeboat had splashed into the water, the chief released the ropes and started the motor.

“Thank God we refueled after your trip to the rescue station,” he said. “Or else this would be a very short trip.”

We pulled away from the Spratling, and I got a good look at the hole in her side. It was huge—twisted, blackened steel stuck out like jagged teeth. Wave after wave surged through the gash, flooding the interior. Almost half the vessel was beneath the surface now, and I wondered if there were fish swimming around in the passageways. The stern tilted up into the air. Water cascaded off it in sheets. Thick, black smoke and orange flames erupted from a bilge pipe.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered. “Look at it.”

The bow nose-dived for the ocean floor and the stern rose higher. The Spratling sat in the water like an arrow. We continued retreating from the sinking ship. Chief Maxey pushed hard on the throttle and increased our speed. Despite the rain, oil fires were beginning to cover the ocean’s surface. A whirlpool swirled around the wreckage, sucking in some floating debris that had slid off the flight deck.

“Look!” Malik stood up and pointed. The boat rocked from the sudden movement, startling us all.

“Malik,” Carol scolded. “Sit down before you capsize us.”

“But it’s Professor Williams.”

We all looked where he was pointing. Sure enough, the Professor’s undead corpse was bobbing up and down in the water, caught up in the churning whirlpool. His arms flailed uselessly, almost as if he were waving good-bye. And then he was gone, sucked beneath the surface. Grief tugged at my heart. I’d liked the old man. I would never be able to smell pipe tobacco again without thinking of him. But even in my sadness, I knew that he was gone long before this. He’d died when the fish infected him.

Soon the Spratling slipped beneath the waters as well. Huge bubbles burst on the surface, marking its departure.

Tears welled up in Chief Maxey’s eyes as he watched it sink.

“There goes everything I’ve ever had,” he said. “My entire life was tied up in that ship. It gave me a purpose. The best friends I ever had were the guys I served with onboard her. We were so young back then. Good bunch of guys. The absolute best. They were the salt of the earth. I haven’t spoken to any of them in years, but I used to think about them all the time. Never knew what happened to any of them after they got out. I guess it’s like that for most military personnel. You serve together, live together closer than most folks live. Bonds are formed—unbreakable bonds that are hard for a civilian to understand or appreciate. You rely on those guys for your very life. You trust them in ways you will never trust another person, including your spouse or children. But then, when it’s all over, you lose touch with each other. I tried writing to some of them and got a few letters back—the occasional Christmas card or pictures of their children. But over the years we all lost touch with one another. Ran out of things to talk about, I guess. Seemed like all we did was reminisce about the old days. When the maritime museum hired me to serve as the curator and tour guide, I had lots of time to think about them. That ship was haunted. I saw ghosts around every corner.”

“Ghosts?” Malik asked, sitting back down.

Chief Maxey wiped his eyes. “Not real ghosts, Malik. Not the scary kind. More like ghosts that existed in my memories. Nobody knew that ship better than me. We were a part of each other. But when they saved her from the scrap yard, I never thought it would end like this. Not after everything she and I have been through together. Never thought she’d die.”

“Look at the bright side,” I said.

“What’s that, Mr. Reed?”

“The Spratling may be dead, but at least she gets to stay that way. She doesn’t have to come back.”

“Good point.”

He continued piloting us through the storm. Carol and the kids huddled together beneath a sheet of plastic and tried to stay warm. I rubbed my tired eyes and tried to stay alert. Runkle hunched over on his bench and closed his eyes.

Lightning crashed overhead. Death lurked beneath the waves. We floated into the darkness.