Fulcrum: V Plague Book 12 (23 page)

“Yes sir, but not nearly so eloquent as Seaman Simmons.”

Packard stood and looked at Jessica.

“Make it work, Seaman.  We’re out of time.  The
Russians will be here soon, and it’s going to get very bloody.”

I raised my rifle, preparing to shoot the bitch that had
just given us away, but I never pulled the trigger.  Almost immediately,
there was an answering chorus of screams, followed by dozens of leaping forms
that began pouring over the seawall onto the beach.

“Move!”  I shouted.

Dashing to the closest boat, I grabbed a handle set high on
the sharply raked bow.  Lifting, I started dragging it across the sand,
towards the water.  The damn thing was heavier than it looked and I wasn’t
making much progress.  More screams sent a surge of adrenaline through my system
and I pulled harder as I glanced over my shoulder.

Females were charging through the deep sand, more of them
than I could quickly count.  And, they were still leaping over the wall
onto the beach.  The hotel must have been full of them.  The only
good news was the footing I’d been bitching about was slowing their normally
terrifying speed.  But not enough.

The boat suddenly surged forward, and I nearly lost my
balance.  Rachel and Tiffany were pushing on the stern.  Dog stood in
the sand behind them, facing the coming onslaught of infected.  He had to
recognize the impossible odds, but wasn’t fazed.

Working together, we reached the wet, hard packed sand and
were able to pick up speed.  I pulled with every ounce of strength I
had.  Wanting to turn my head to see how close the females were, I
resisted the urge.  Looking away would slow me down, and if we didn’t make
it into the water, we were dead.  There were way too many for us to hope
to make a successful stand.

Three seconds later I met the first wave head on.  It
crashed against my legs, soaking me to the waist and lifting the bow of the
boat.  I fought against it but made no progress until its energy was
spent.  I splashed forward, pulling hard as the bow remained afloat on top
of the receding water.

More screams from behind and I heard Dog’s savage snarls as
he began battling a female.  The next wave roared in, lifting the bow
above my head and drenching me.  Somehow I managed to prevent it from
pushing the boat back towards the shore.  It rushed under the hull,
lifting the small craft clear of the sand.

Spitting saltwater, I screamed at the girls.

“Keep going!” 

I turned for the beach to help Dog slow the infected. 
I knew the females couldn’t swim and wouldn’t be able to follow, but they could
overwhelm us before we reached water deep enough to stop their advance. 
The boat had to be out far enough to be safe, then Dog and I could swim out. 
I hoped.

High stepping through the surf, I moved past Rachel and
Tiffany as they struggled against the force of the ocean.  Drawing my Ka-Bar,
I stepped out of the water and slashed open the throat of a leaping
female.  I ducked to the side, and her body flashed past.  Spinning,
I located Dog, who had already killed two and was locked in battle with a
third.

I had to twist as another infected charged with outstretched
hands.  She was young, wearing a tattered gown that looked like she’d
fallen victim to the virus during her Quinceañera, or coming of age
celebration.  When this whole thing started, I might have paused in
sympathy for what had happened to an innocent 15-year-old girl.  By now,
I’d lost all compassion for whom the infected had once been.

Slicing down, with my weight behind it, the blade cut
through her wrist and severed her hand.  She didn’t so much as blink,
grabbing a fistful of my sleeve with her other.  Continuing the turn, I
brought the tip of the blade up and into her throat, ending her life. 
Kicking her body aside, I moved a step closer to Dog, who was having a harder
time than normal.

The female he was fighting was huge.  Probably larger
than me, and even though he was faster, Dog hadn’t succeeded in getting past
her thick arms to find a vital spot.  I started forward to help him but
had to battle two more infected that leapt at me simultaneously.

I managed to avoid the first, inflicting a deep wound across
her stomach, but the second one slammed into me, knocking me to the ground. 
She immediately wrapped me up, trying to reach my face with her teeth, and we
rolled into the water.

Unprepared, I inhaled seawater and my throat and lungs
locked up.  Panic surged, and I frantically began hitting her with the
hand holding the knife as I flailed with my other.  After what felt like
an eternity, I locked onto her throat and squeezed for all I was worth. 

My fingers hadn’t fully encircled her neck, and as I applied
pressure, their tips sank in on either side of her trachea.  Pulse
pounding in my ears, I dug in until they pierced her flesh, then tore her
throat out.  Hot blood splashed across my face as she went limp, then
another wave inundated me and washed it away.

Struggling to my feet, still unable to breathe, I whipped my
rifle around and slammed the stock into the face of my next attacker.  She
was stopped cold, dropping dead or unconscious into the water at my feet. 
Dozens more were right behind her as the main body of the small herd approached
the compacted sand.

Aiming, I pulled the trigger just as a wracking cough hit
me.  My body expelled the seawater, violently, throwing the rifle off. 
Trying to control my convulsing lungs, I reacquired my targets and pulled and
held the trigger.  Bodies fell as I quickly ran through a full magazine.

Dropping the empty and slapping in a fresh one, I kept
firing, aiming for knees and hips.  Right now I didn’t care if they were
dead.  I just needed to slow them down and buy some time.

Dog had finished off the big female and was scrambling off
her corpse when he was tackled by a flying body.  I shot the three females
who were right behind his attacker before they could join the fray.  His
snarls were loud, drowning out the roar of the surf and my suppressed,
full-auto fire, but that was probably because I was focused on him as I kept
fighting.

Another magazine change, and I finally remembered to check
on Rachel and Tiffany.  I glanced over my shoulder, surprised to see the
boat floating fifty yards off shore.  They both stood, apparently shouting
at me that they were clear, but I hadn’t heard them during the heat of battle.

 Screaming for Dog, I began backing into the surf while
still firing.  Females were dropping, but there were still more coming
than I could handle with a single rifle.  A wave crashed into my back,
nearly knocking me over and causing me to waste half a magazine that fired uselessly
into the sand. 

Regaining my balance, I took another step back, now in water
above my waist.  Firing, I screamed again for Dog but didn’t have even a
heartbeat to look for him.  More than twenty females were in the surf,
struggling against the waves as they tried to reach me. 

I kept firing, shooting one who was hardly more than an
arm’s length away.  Another step back and the water was to my chest. 
A wave broke over my head, momentarily submerging me and masking my view of the
infected.  It passed quickly, and I emerged, blowing water out of my mouth
and nose as I resumed firing. 

Where the fuck was Dog?  I screamed for him again,
still not seeing him and no longer hearing his snarls.  I took another
step back to stand in neck deep water.  Spread out to my front, female
heads bobbed as they continued wading out to attack me.  Firing the rifle
was becoming problematic as I had to hold it over my head so it was clear of
the water.

My aim suffered, rounds punching into the surface of the
water well off target.  Hands flailed beneath the surface, grasping for my
body.  There were too many.  If they were able to get a solid hold, I
would be dragged under and overwhelmed by their numbers.

With another scream for Dog, I pushed away from the females
into water over my head.  Letting the rifle drop to hang from its sling, I
swam backward, fighting to keep my head above the surface.  At least I was
now bobbing with the waves instead of having them crash over me.

Somehow, my night vision goggles had remained in place through
the fight.  I had a good view of the females in the water, and they were
already struggling to return to dry land.  One of them went under and
didn’t reappear.  I didn’t care.  I wanted to spot Dog.

I was now more than forty feet from the beach and nearly
jumped out of my skin when a hand grabbed the back of my collar and pulled
hard.  Whipping my head around, I reached for the arm, expecting to see an
infected who had been carried out this far and had managed to latch on. 

“Get in the goddamn boat!”

Rachel screamed in my face as she hauled on me, nearly
pulling herself into the water in the process.  Tiffany was next to her, a
long handled paddle in her hands as she worked hard to control the boat. 
Between them, looking like a drowned rat, Dog stood with his head hanging over
the rail as he stared at me with his tongue hanging out.

It took some effort, actually a lot of effort, but with
Rachel’s help, I finally managed to haul my big ass into the boat.  As I
flopped onto my back, dripping water, Rachel grabbed another paddle and helped
Tiffany move us far enough off shore to be away from the influence of the surf.

Dog, also soaked to the skin, sat and looked down at
me.  Water was steadily dripping off his muzzle, falling on my face, but I
didn’t care.  Reaching up I rubbed his ears, and he slowly lay down until
his head was resting on my chest.  I wrapped my arms around his neck and
hugged him tight.

“Thought I lost you, fur face,” I said softly.

His big eyes looked at me for a moment, then slowly
closed.  As the girls paddled, I closed mine, too.

“What the hell were you doing?”  Rachel asked.

I cracked open an eye and looked at her.  She was
holding her paddle out of the water, looking down from where she was seated on
a built in bench.

“Buying us time,” I mumbled.

Dog opened his eyes when I spoke, then when he didn’t see
anything interesting, closed them again with a sigh.

“We were screaming at you.  He heard us and swam out,
but you just kept fighting.  We had to paddle back in and get you.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving her a grin.

“You really should pay more attention,” Tiffany said.

I looked at her and thought about saying something really
sarcastic, but she was a bit young for that side of my personality.  She’d
shown she was more than capable of contributing, and might take my comment as a
slight.  Nothing would be farther from the truth.

“You’re right,” I settled for saying.

Moving Dog’s big head off my chest, I sat up and looked
around.  We were more than a hundred yards offshore, bobbing in gentle
swells.  The beach was full of females.  Nearly half of them stood in
place, watching us, while the rest paced back and forth.  Occasionally,
one of them would step into the surf, but would quickly retreat when a wave
crashed against her legs.

We seemed to be slowly drifting south and east.  Tiffany
frequently had to stick her paddle in the water for a few strokes to keep us
away from the shore.  The wind was pushing us towards the beach, which was
to the east.  The southerly drift could only be explained by a current.

Climbing up on the bench next to Rachel, I took a longer
look around.  Nothing but empty, dark stretches of water in every
direction other than east.  I knew we were near the northern reaches of
the Sea of Cortez, and it was roughly 80 miles to the Baja shoreline. 

What I didn’t have a good idea of was how the hell we were
going to search for the pilot in a rowboat.  I sat there, trying to recall
what I did know about the Sea of Cortez as we kept slowly drifting south. 
I knew that in the scheme of things it was a very small body of water. 
But, scale is relative.  Sitting there in the tiny, wooden boat without
even a trolling motor, it felt as large as the Pacific Ocean.

“What next?”  Rachel asked after several minutes.

I looked back towards the beach, unhappy to see that the
females were following us.  We weren’t far enough out to sea to be hidden
from them, and as we drifted, they paced us.  Had to do something about
that.

“First thing,” I said, pointing at the beach.  “We need
to get far enough out for them to lose sight of us.”

“Then what?  We can’t perform a search in this thing.”

I nodded, my attention drifting to the small marina at Rocky
Point, still more than a couple of miles south.

“We head straight out so they quit following,” I said. 
“Once we lose them, we come back in, nice and quiet.  Paddle into the
marina and find a fishing boat.  There used to be some nice big boats for sport
fishing that ran out of here.  Hopefully one of them is still there. 
It’ll be fast.”

Rachel looked at me for a long moment, then nodded her
head.  Without saying anything else, she dipped her paddle and began
stroking.  Tiffany had heard the conversation and joined the effort. 
Soon, we were moving at not much more than a snail’s pace.  But, at least
the beach full of females was finally receding.

“Are you just going to sit there and watch us work?” 
Rachel asked forty minutes later.

I was sitting in the middle of one of the benches, watching
the eastern shoreline slowly fade away.  Dog was stretched out in the
bottom of the boat, asleep on top of my feet.

“My daddy always said, don’t take over someone’s job if you
can’t do it better.  You two seem to be quite capable.”

They were quiet for a moment, then a large splash of water
from Rachel’s paddle hit me squarely in the face.  A lot of it also landed
on Dog, and he raised his head with an indignant expression on his face. 
Before I could say anything, a blast of water from Tiffany soaked the back of
my head.  I endured their retaliation stoically, figuring I deserved what
I got. 

    “I think we’re good, anyway,” I
said.  “Even with night vision, the shore is just a faint line.  I
don’t see how the females could still be tracking us.”

“So, time to head in?”

“South for a bit,” I said.  “I don’t think we’ve
drifted more than a quarter of a mile.  Let’s go about a mile and a half,
then with the drift, we should come right into the marina.”

Rachel nodded, then handed me her paddle.  Smiling, I
moved Dog off my feet and slid to the side so I could reach the water.  We
kept at it for some time.  When I could just make out the stone jetty that
served as a breakwater for the marina, I turned us to the east.

Having gotten some rest, Rachel took over for Tiffany. 
The young girl quickly crawled into the center of the boat, curled up with her
head on Dog’s side and went to sleep.  Rachel and I paddled with long
strokes, moving us towards the jetty.

“Think this will work?”  Rachel asked in a quiet voice.

“Marina may be full of infected,” I said. 

“Then what?”

“We paddle back north of the hotel, give it a wide berth and
take the Tahoe.  Drive down the shore and hope.”

“Are there more towns south of here?”

“No idea,” I said.  “Never been south of Rocky Point,
but I’d think there probably are.  Lots of fishing here.  As far as I
know, other than drugs and tourism, it was
the
economy for this part of
Mexico.”

Falling silent after that, we kept working.  With
painstaking slowness, we drew closer to the jetty.  I’d gone fishing here,
once, and remembered that it protected a long channel that connected the sea to
a protected harbor.  I just hoped this all hadn’t been a wasted exercise,
and there were still boats in the marina.

Finally, we reached the curving jetty.  Small waves crashed
against it, and I steered us wide to avoid the turbulence.  Rachel shook
Tiffany awake as we rounded the breakwater and entered the calm waters of the
channel.

It was perfectly straight and half a mile long.  Sand
beaches lined both sides, and at least for the moment, they were both
empty.  Looking around, I signaled to Rachel that it was time to be as
quiet as possible. 

I wasn’t worried about infected reaching us in the water,
but if we were spotted, they’d follow along on shore.  If that happened,
we’d be cut off from any boat we did find.  Concentrating on not making
splashing sounds with the paddle, I kept a constant scan of both shores
going.  So far, so good.

As we drew closer to the harbor, I began to make out a few
boats tied to the dock.  Most of the slips were empty, but there were a
few shrimping boats and a couple of sport fishing boats with tall towers
sticking up.  Either would be perfect, as standing in one of those towers
would give a commanding view of the ocean for miles in every direction.

Tiffany tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at a long,
wooden wharf.  Four figures were standing perfectly still, as if on sentry
duty.  Fortunately, they were all facing away from us and hadn’t detected
our presence.  Holding up my fist, I signaled for Rachel to stop paddling.

I spent a minute surveying the marina.  There weren’t
any other infected, at least that I could see.  The four females that
Tiffany had spotted remained stock still.  But, to reach any of the boats,
we’d have to go right past them.  I wasn’t confident we could do that
without making enough noise with the paddles to alert them.

Turning around, I leaned towards the middle of the
boat.  Rachel and Tiffany did the same so we could speak quietly. 
Dog, thinking he was the center of attention, sat up and licked my face.

“I’m getting out here and swimming,” I mumbled.

Rachel and Tiffany both looked at me as if I had gone off
the deep end.  Dog just kept trying to lick me.  I pushed him away
and held up a hand before the girls had a chance to voice a protest.

“I can move quieter in the water than we can paddle. 
I’ll swim to the boats and find one that will start.  While I’m doing
that, you two turn around and get outside the breakwater.  When I’ve got a
boat, I’ll be right there and pick you up.”

Rachel was opening her mouth to argue, but I held my hand up
again and shook my head to stop her.

“It’s the best way,” I said.  “If I’m spotted, or if I
can’t start a boat, I’ll swim back out.”

I didn’t wait for either of them to agree.  With
extreme caution, so I didn’t bump or bang against something, I began removing
my rifle and vest with its spare magazines.  Gently placing my gear in the
bottom of the boat, I removed my boots and socks, took off the NVGs and peeled
my shirt over my head. 

Settling the night vision goggles back in place, I checked
the security of my knife and pistol.  Tiffany reached out and tapped the
goggles on my head.

“Waterproof,” I said, giving her a smile.

She nodded and smiled back.  I met Rachel’s gaze, then
silently slipped over the side of the boat into the water.