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Authors: Christine Dougherty
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harder.”
“It isn’t your responsibility…Mohammed wasn’t your responsibility. His aunt let him go. Not you.”
Steve’s hands balled into fists at his sides. Maggie, sensing his tension, glanced toward shore. Then she looked back down. “They’ll make it. Don’t worry.”
She felt his movement and assumed it to be a nod. She and Steve had become close. She liked him and sensed his willingness to have things between them progress beyond friendship. But she missed her husband.
“ Big Daddy , you have eyes on them? Over.” Steve’s shadow slipped over Maggie as he stepped past her to the bow.
“We’re all set. Ready to roll. No worries, man. Over.” Carl’s voice over the walkie was calm but somehow still burly as though his beard were a testosterone amplifier. Steve’s eyes went from the racing Jeep to Big Daddy , which sat idle, fifty feet from the end of a long pier. The Jeep rounded a turn and shot down the pier, headed right for the water.
A shambling crowd of corpses slogged their way onto the pier behind the Jeep. Many were forced to the sides and they tumbled down the steep shoreline and rolled into the water. Big, angry Atlantic waves rolled them like bundled sticks, bashing them into the pylons under the pier. Some of them broke apart like poorly constructed dolls. Others dropped off the sides and plopped into the water further down.
The Jeep reached the end of the pier and turned in a tight circle, facing the onrushing hoard. Two people in the Jeep jumped out and ran in the direction they’d just come…straight toward the advancing line of corpses.
They kneeled in unison and threw ropes over their shoulders. The pier developed a split as the section with the Jeep began to move with the waves. Big plastic barrels revealed themselves under the raft as it rocked. The third person raised his hand in an all clear to Big Daddy and her monstrous diesel roared to life. Big Daddy chugged forward. She was powerful, not fast, but still fast enough to put a gap of five feet between the Jeep’s raft and the crowd of dead.
The first several rows of corpses never broke their painful, shambling run and they dropped straight off the end of the pier, still reaching for the people on the departing raft. The crowds behind continued to push forward and more of them plopped into the ocean. They looked like the arcade game where you drop a coin down a chute and hope for a shiny cascade of quarters to reach a tipping point inside the machine, making you arcade rich.
On the deck of the ThreeBees, Steve lowered the binoculars. Part of him–the scared, despairing, flagging part–wanted too much to laugh at the tumble of reanimated corpses. To laugh at their flailing, their insectile stupidity. He wanted to see them as the enemy and revel as each one became a sinker, chum, fishfood.
But you may as well curse the rain , he thought. May as well give a tornado the finger; tell a tsunami to go fuck itself.
It didn’t help. And it didn’t stop them.
On Big Daddy , a winch whined, dragging the Jeep raft close. The railing was clustered with men. Normally they would be cheering and the people on the raft would be celebrating, hands clasped above their heads. The unpacking of each new treasure–food, water, clothing–would have been greeted with fresh cheers.
But there was no sense of celebration this time.
No one counted this run as a victory.
Not after losing Mohammed.
Steve turned back to Maggie. She was laying a bandage over the guy’s forehead and taping it down. She worked quickly and economically, wasting nothing.
Steve had been part of the boats for ten days before Maggie showed up. She had come through the Pine Barrens. She was bedraggled and too thin but she led the little girl, having found her in a trailer park near the shore. When she was finally on the boat, she’d been invaluable because of her nursing skills.
It was Adam who had told her to stay on ThreeBees instead of joining the
“It isn’t your responsibility…Mohammed wasn’t your responsibility. His aunt let him go. Not you.”
Steve’s hands balled into fists at his sides. Maggie, sensing his tension, glanced toward shore. Then she looked back down. “They’ll make it. Don’t worry.”
She felt his movement and assumed it to be a nod. She and Steve had become close. She liked him and sensed his willingness to have things between them progress beyond friendship. But she missed her husband.
“ Big Daddy , you have eyes on them? Over.” Steve’s shadow slipped over Maggie as he stepped past her to the bow.
“We’re all set. Ready to roll. No worries, man. Over.” Carl’s voice over the walkie was calm but somehow still burly as though his beard were a testosterone amplifier. Steve’s eyes went from the racing Jeep to Big Daddy , which sat idle, fifty feet from the end of a long pier. The Jeep rounded a turn and shot down the pier, headed right for the water.
A shambling crowd of corpses slogged their way onto the pier behind the Jeep. Many were forced to the sides and they tumbled down the steep shoreline and rolled into the water. Big, angry Atlantic waves rolled them like bundled sticks, bashing them into the pylons under the pier. Some of them broke apart like poorly constructed dolls. Others dropped off the sides and plopped into the water further down.
The Jeep reached the end of the pier and turned in a tight circle, facing the onrushing hoard. Two people in the Jeep jumped out and ran in the direction they’d just come…straight toward the advancing line of corpses.
They kneeled in unison and threw ropes over their shoulders. The pier developed a split as the section with the Jeep began to move with the waves. Big plastic barrels revealed themselves under the raft as it rocked. The third person raised his hand in an all clear to Big Daddy and her monstrous diesel roared to life. Big Daddy chugged forward. She was powerful, not fast, but still fast enough to put a gap of five feet between the Jeep’s raft and the crowd of dead.
The first several rows of corpses never broke their painful, shambling run and they dropped straight off the end of the pier, still reaching for the people on the departing raft. The crowds behind continued to push forward and more of them plopped into the ocean. They looked like the arcade game where you drop a coin down a chute and hope for a shiny cascade of quarters to reach a tipping point inside the machine, making you arcade rich.
On the deck of the ThreeBees, Steve lowered the binoculars. Part of him–the scared, despairing, flagging part–wanted too much to laugh at the tumble of reanimated corpses. To laugh at their flailing, their insectile stupidity. He wanted to see them as the enemy and revel as each one became a sinker, chum, fishfood.
But you may as well curse the rain , he thought. May as well give a tornado the finger; tell a tsunami to go fuck itself.
It didn’t help. And it didn’t stop them.
On Big Daddy , a winch whined, dragging the Jeep raft close. The railing was clustered with men. Normally they would be cheering and the people on the raft would be celebrating, hands clasped above their heads. The unpacking of each new treasure–food, water, clothing–would have been greeted with fresh cheers.
But there was no sense of celebration this time.
No one counted this run as a victory.
Not after losing Mohammed.
Steve turned back to Maggie. She was laying a bandage over the guy’s forehead and taping it down. She worked quickly and economically, wasting nothing.
Steve had been part of the boats for ten days before Maggie showed up. She had come through the Pine Barrens. She was bedraggled and too thin but she led the little girl, having found her in a trailer park near the shore. When she was finally on the boat, she’d been invaluable because of her nursing skills.
It was Adam who had told her to stay on ThreeBees instead of joining the
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