The tide pushed in from the Atlantic. Turk swam against it. The constant current wore him down stroke by stroke. His muscles ached. Joints groaned. Lungs burned. He needed to get out of the water soon, but first he had to get past the city.
The Fort Sumter National Monument rose in the distance. A small spit of land with an old brick fort. A number of shipwrecks existed in between, acting as both obstacle and opportunity. Turk approached each with a glimmer of hope, like an impoverished child on Christmas morning, hopeful that just this one time what he wanted most would be under the wilted tree.
Every investigation led to more disappointment.
The fort stood a couple hundred yards away. Turk had to make a decision whether to go on land and investigate. It wasn’t like the island was far enough from society that the virus couldn’t reach. But it was the kind of place where survivors might band together. How would they take to a guest?
Turk had other concerns. The island was a point of no return. Go past and he risked getting swept into a strong current that could bury him under tons of water and carry his body out to sea. On the right, it was a short swim to Folly Island. But on the north side, it looked to be about a mile across the mouth of the harbor from the fort to Sullivan’s island. He’d have to backtrack to where he treaded water now in order to safely reach shore.
What if they’ve got supplies? What if they’ve got a boat? What if one afflicted made it there and turned the fort into a raving mad community?
And then, again, w
hat if they’ve got a boat?
What if. The great killer of minds and men.
With the base so close, Turk had to try.
Half of the island was grass ringed by a sandy spit of beach. The other half housed the skeletal remains of the old fort. Hundreds of thousands of red bricks stacked one on the other. Cannons ready to blast through bricked-in windows. Turk had visited the fort once, four or five years ago, but recalled little about the trip. Wasn’t all that much to see.
A pier stretched from the gates of the fort into the harbor. Turk ducked under the water and swam straight for two minutes, surfacing twice to reset his bearings. He reached a pylon. Barnacles felt like tiny razors against his palms. He floated to the surface and refilled his lungs.
Looking left, Sullivan’s Island didn’t seem as far off as it had from the middle of the harbor. He could risk a straight swim as long as the tide headed in.
A voice in his head told him to go now. Leave the fort. It, like the nautical graveyard formerly known as the Charleston Harbor, had been picked dry.
Unless it hadn’t.
And that’s the thought that won out. Turk swam under the cover of the pier, in between the two rows of pylons. Under ideal circumstances he’d wait under there until dark. Hell, his body could use the rest after the day he’d had. That option did not exist. He couldn’t stop. There’d be no rest. His family was waiting for him. Every minute they were alone put them that much closer to something happening without Turk there to defend his wife and child.
Something.
There were too many possibilities to put into thought.
The water lapped gently against the packed mud shoreline beneath the pier. The smell of gasoline and sewage wasn’t as strong here.
Turk collapsed onto his back in a couple inches of water. His hands and feet floated freely, rising and falling with the gentle swell. He felt as though he’d drift off if he closed his eyes. Tempting. Wouldn’t be the first time he slept half submerged. Only this time, there’d be no pay for doing so.
He followed ten minutes of rest with another fifteen of active listening. The wind howled across the island. The faint sounds of a dog barking rose and fell. The animal yelped a couple times and went silent. The pier creaked against the heavier gusts that blew through. Without maintenance, how long would the structure stand? The base would be there long after the pier had fallen.
Turk recalled that the fort entrance stood a few feet from the pier. If the place had been occupied by an organized group of survivors, they’d have someone posted there. Maybe even someone armed.
He rolled over and inched forward until he reached a spot where headroom had shrunk too much. He had hoped there would be enough of a gap between the last wooden plank and the ground for him to see through. Didn’t work that way. No light seeped through. Mud and wood faded to shadows. The only option was to leave the relative safety of the pier to check the entrance. Doing so on land carried too much risk, so Turk crawled in retreat until the harbor hid his body once again.
He reached down and scooped up the silty mix and piled it on his head, covering himself from his eyebrows up and around his stubbled head. The mud would provide him camouflage from a casual scan of the water for a distance as close as thirty feet away.
He pushed off the pylons, propelling himself backward. He kept his head out of the water. Even the tiniest splash could have a runoff effect and neutralize the matting.
After several seconds, he used his left arm to swim away from the pier. Cloudy skies nullified the sun’s bright rays, casting a gloom over everything. Better for him. The water would reflect the gray.
Turk treaded the same patch of water for a few minutes. He focused on the entrance. The shadows past the domed opening made it impossible to see more than a few feet in. But he watched, looking for any sign of a guard. The glowing cherry of a cigarette. A glint of light off a ring or watch. Shifting shadows, indicating someone moving. There was none of that. Didn’t mean that the entrance was unguarded. What it meant was that Turk could remain clandestine while approaching the gate at an angle.
The large fort offered several other places to position sentries. The way Turk recalled it, some spots along the roof had a walkway bordered by a brick railing. Someone standing there would be visible from the waist up. But if they knelt, the walkway offered a suitable play to stand watch. Three people on duty would be enough. One watching the Atlantic. On a watch dial, he’d be at twelve o’clock. The other two would be positioned at four and eight, with responsibilities to watch from the tip of the beaches inward to an imaginary line that ran from the pier through the harbor into Charleston.
From Turk’s position in the water, the eight o’clock sentry would be easiest to spot so long as the guard hadn’t already noticed Turk floating below.
He watched the roofline for five minutes.
Nothing moved. He surmised the fort was either empty, undermanned, or run by idiots.
He considered going on shore. But doing so while unarmed exposed him to a great amount of risk. Was it worth it?
Turk decided to circle around and investigate the Atlantic side of the island. The grass and sand might offer better cover for an approach. It might also be where boats were stored since none were moored to the piers. It made sense. The barren stretch of land was not visible from much of the harbor. If they butted the boats up to the fort walls, they’d be out of sight. And if there were people there, some had to have arrived by boat. The vessels might be damaged, but if they made it to the fort, they were worth investigating.
Rounding the island to the north, he reached a point where he could see past the fort. His hunch had been right. There were a few small boats and kayaks close by.
He fought to keep the discovery from hastening his approach. His weakened condition meant his muscles could cramp up at any time. Better to take it slow. Also, boats meant people. And he hadn’t seen a damn one of them yet. Where were they? Inside? Fishing on the shore? Dead?
How long can I stay out here?
His arms, shoulders and back burned. He had to hydrate and rest his muscles before they locked up on him. Twenty years ago, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But on the other side of forty, there were limitations.
Get to the point of the island.
That was all he had to do. The grass was tall and unkempt and stretched to the shore there. He would have a view of the broad side of the base and the barren side of the island, and could plan the best approach to reach the boats.
He made it twenty yards when he heard a voice carried on the wind.
“There.”
Turk allowed only his eyes and forehead to break the water’s surface. Didn’t matter. He’d been spotted.
“He’s right there. He’s watching us!”
There was no chance for a rebuttal. Turk saw the two men rise. Then they brought their rifles up and aimed at him. The first one shot before Turk could get his arms out of the water.
The bullet smacked the gentle surface of the water a foot from Turk’s head. Too close for a warning shot. Turk sucked in enough air to fill his lungs and pulled himself under. Four more bullets hit where he’d treaded water a few seconds ago. They sounded like hollow thuds as they penetrated the surface.
Turk dove forward and down and twisted and turned near the bottom. He could stay under for more than three and a half minutes if he conserved his breath and got maximum distance out of each stroke. No problem, so long as he didn’t have to over exert himself.
Go with the current.
He stretched his arms ahead then pulled them back as he kicked with his feet. It propelled him forward. The push of the water took over from there. The seconds stretched on. Turk had no way of knowing how far he’d gone, or if the men had alerted others, who then might have boarded the boats. Hell, he didn’t even know if that would make a difference, because he hadn’t seen whether the small vessels had engines.
Turk continued on what he assumed was a north to northwest trajectory. On a direct line, the beach was about a mile away from where he went under. But he was being pulled back into the harbor. How far? He wasn’t sure. He figured that by the time he surfaced, he’d be halfway between the fort and landfall. Far enough away from the fort not to have to worry about overzealous survivors with rifles.
But then something changed.
It felt as though he’d been smacked in the gut, and his body was jerked backward, as though launched from a slingshot. He tumbled in the water, foot over head, head over foot. The shock of it caused Turk to expel half the remaining oxygen from his lungs.
How long could he last? A minute? After being flipped several times, he could not even tell which way was up.
To get through all this and then drown? I’m a fucking SEAL!
That was the first sign he’d adjusted to the situation. No matter how weak his body felt, his mind was strong. It and his training took over. Turk quit fighting against the current and allowed it to carry his body. The covered sky darkened the water to the point that he couldn’t tell if he faced the surface or the bottom, but by expelling a mouthful of air he was able to figure it out when the bubbles wrapped around his nose. Turk angled his body up and tugged at the water, fighting through the current.
When the ocean finally spit him out, he was still mired in the current. He knew it would only last so long, and only stretched so far. But how far? The powerful push of water was capable of dragging him out for as far as it stretched.
Think, Turk. It’s basically a riptide. Simple enough, right?
He began swimming to his left, not with or against the current. Through it. He fought with every ounce of strength his depleted muscles had left. Concern grew that it wouldn’t be enough. It was more than a riptide.
The current struck back, pulling his legs and feet around to its center, trying to flip Turk over. If he went under again, that was it. He would not resurface. The ocean would claim Turk.
And then it was over.
He broke through the wall and the current ejected him. Turk swam as hard and as fast as he could until he’d made it twenty yards.
Treading water, he glanced around and the realization over how far he’d been dragged out into the Atlantic set in. The current must have been moving twenty miles an hour. He’d only been caught in it for a few minutes, yet land looked like nothing but a tiny strip of sand.
There’s no way I’ll make it.
Another voice piped up.
Just swim, Turk
. Over and over, the voice repeated while morphing. His wife’s voice. His daughter’s. All of his instructors during BUDS. Fallen SEALs he’d been in teams with. They spoke in unison. His mother sang it like she was in the church choir again.
Every damn one of them commanded Turk to continue.
So he crawled forward. Right arm only, on his side. Then the left. Then a breaststroke. Then a backstroke. He tried everything he could think of to allow muscle groups to rest. Halfway there, he stopped and floated, allowing the rolling waves to inch him forward. He hit the first line of breakers. There, Turk stretched his body and rode a wave for a good distance. Shore was close. He saw the houses rising up out of the sand like corpses escaping their shallow graves.
A burst of energy spurred Turk on. He dove down and found he was in less than ten feet of water. Pushing forward, he reached the shore breakers. A final wave crested and washed him to shore.
His face scraped against the coarse beach. Wet sand filled his mouth, sticking to his tongue and the insides of his cheeks and lips. Foaming water enveloped his legs, and then dissipated. He dug his fingertips into the ground and pulled himself forward. The final burst had drained him of all but the last bit of remaining strength. His muscles no longer burned. They barely functioned.