Read Online Last Stand on Zombie Island by Christopher L. Eger - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Christopher L. Eger
Tags: Horror
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Station Dauphin Island. The small SAR station sat at the western end of Mobile Bay. Eight miles behind him on the eastern side of the Bay lay Fort Morgan at the end of the Gulf Shores. Jarvis waved back at a deckhand on the Mobile Bay ferry, which ran the 45-minute trip across the bay as many as nine times a day.
“I’d much rather be headed back to Mobile, sir,” Chief Hoffman said.
“Noted and agreed with, Chief. I would have preferred to stay at the bridge,” Jarvis replied.
The Perdido Pass bridge at the far end of Mobile Point had been struck by an out of control barge earlier in the morning and a span had fallen into the pass. Jarvis and his cutter raced to the scene after an uneventful morning stopping a few fishing boats. There were no injuries and the Alabama State Police on either side had shut down traffic going each way, to prevent a Wile E. Coyote ride into the green water 80-feet below.
The Fish Hawk had done the initial investigation and taken names and numbers of the push boat crew responsible for the eight lashed together barges. Two of the push boat’s crew were missing: the helmsman and the captain. The remaining crew had said the helmsman had been sick all morning.
Sick or not, you cannot just ram a bridge over a navigable waterway without expecting to answer for it. The accident had left the 26-mile long Mobile Point peninsula and the town of Gulf Shores dependent on just the ICW Bridge going north from the city’s center as its sole link with the mainland until repaired.
“Still can’t get any news out of Mobile, Skipper,” the ship’s Cook said. Situated in the cutter’s small galley/mess room in the center of the boat directly under the bridge, the Cook had the benefit of having a 35” flat screen hooked up to a satellite in his workstation.
“Any other news?” Hoffman asked the Cook.
“Looks like crap all up and down the West Coast. New York and Chicago are crazy. It’s bad overseas, too. Worse in Asia, apparently that is where it first started. They say Indonesia and Australia appear to be ground zero. Europe is showing outbreaks, too. Said it is a virus that causes extreme psychopathic behavior. Takes about an hour to take effect and then you go batshit. Spread by bites and fluid. Of course that’s just what the guys and I can figure out from the BBC and Al Jazeera.”
The good thing about the satellite service was that the Coast Guard, outside the regular Department of Defense food chain, was not chained to the filtered AFN network, thus they could receive a feed from all over the world. This meant that when the regular US-networks switched over to the Emergency Alert System, the cutter could still watch Spanish game shows and topless Italian soap operas interspersed with the occasional news forecast.
“Anybody got phone calls from Mobile?” Chief Hoffman asked the Cook.
“No, Chief, just the occasional text message, and most of those sound crazy. People everywhere going apeshit. Schools closing. National Guard called out. Bad stuff. And almost zero www-action, the internet decided to quit this bitch.”
The Chief nodded and exchanged looks with Jarvis. This gelled with what they had been hearing from scanning the local FM radio stations on the bridge’s radio and the VHF traffic they monitored from fishing boats and recreational vessels.
The Fish Hawk was home ported nearly 30 miles north at the top of the Bay in Mobile itself along with her sister ships, the Cobia and Stingray . They had been called over the HF radio by Sector Mobile while at the sunken bridge and advised to return to base. Then, only an hour later, they were given a direct order to stay away from Mobile by a Rear Admiral in New Orleans, and divert to Dauphin Island instead. New Orleans advised that Sector Mobile was offline.
Jarvis and the Chief had failed to raise their sister ships in Mobile by radio. The three Mobile cutters typically pulled a 21-day rotation, with one ship on a seven-day
“I’d much rather be headed back to Mobile, sir,” Chief Hoffman said.
“Noted and agreed with, Chief. I would have preferred to stay at the bridge,” Jarvis replied.
The Perdido Pass bridge at the far end of Mobile Point had been struck by an out of control barge earlier in the morning and a span had fallen into the pass. Jarvis and his cutter raced to the scene after an uneventful morning stopping a few fishing boats. There were no injuries and the Alabama State Police on either side had shut down traffic going each way, to prevent a Wile E. Coyote ride into the green water 80-feet below.
The Fish Hawk had done the initial investigation and taken names and numbers of the push boat crew responsible for the eight lashed together barges. Two of the push boat’s crew were missing: the helmsman and the captain. The remaining crew had said the helmsman had been sick all morning.
Sick or not, you cannot just ram a bridge over a navigable waterway without expecting to answer for it. The accident had left the 26-mile long Mobile Point peninsula and the town of Gulf Shores dependent on just the ICW Bridge going north from the city’s center as its sole link with the mainland until repaired.
“Still can’t get any news out of Mobile, Skipper,” the ship’s Cook said. Situated in the cutter’s small galley/mess room in the center of the boat directly under the bridge, the Cook had the benefit of having a 35” flat screen hooked up to a satellite in his workstation.
“Any other news?” Hoffman asked the Cook.
“Looks like crap all up and down the West Coast. New York and Chicago are crazy. It’s bad overseas, too. Worse in Asia, apparently that is where it first started. They say Indonesia and Australia appear to be ground zero. Europe is showing outbreaks, too. Said it is a virus that causes extreme psychopathic behavior. Takes about an hour to take effect and then you go batshit. Spread by bites and fluid. Of course that’s just what the guys and I can figure out from the BBC and Al Jazeera.”
The good thing about the satellite service was that the Coast Guard, outside the regular Department of Defense food chain, was not chained to the filtered AFN network, thus they could receive a feed from all over the world. This meant that when the regular US-networks switched over to the Emergency Alert System, the cutter could still watch Spanish game shows and topless Italian soap operas interspersed with the occasional news forecast.
“Anybody got phone calls from Mobile?” Chief Hoffman asked the Cook.
“No, Chief, just the occasional text message, and most of those sound crazy. People everywhere going apeshit. Schools closing. National Guard called out. Bad stuff. And almost zero www-action, the internet decided to quit this bitch.”
The Chief nodded and exchanged looks with Jarvis. This gelled with what they had been hearing from scanning the local FM radio stations on the bridge’s radio and the VHF traffic they monitored from fishing boats and recreational vessels.
The Fish Hawk was home ported nearly 30 miles north at the top of the Bay in Mobile itself along with her sister ships, the Cobia and Stingray . They had been called over the HF radio by Sector Mobile while at the sunken bridge and advised to return to base. Then, only an hour later, they were given a direct order to stay away from Mobile by a Rear Admiral in New Orleans, and divert to Dauphin Island instead. New Orleans advised that Sector Mobile was offline.
Jarvis and the Chief had failed to raise their sister ships in Mobile by radio. The three Mobile cutters typically pulled a 21-day rotation, with one ship on a seven-day
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