“Correct,” Smith said. “He had a whole stash of them in a supply crate at the airport. And I found them sitting right there in plain sight. A shit load of Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapons. SMAW for short. Pretty much the best rocket launcher you can get. The militia would have been virtually indestructible with a whole batch of those things.”
“So, where does this guy come into all this?” I asked, pointing to the man in the corner.
“Believe it or not, this guy is a pilot. I had a little shoot out with him and his buddies back at the airport,” Smith explained. “They were snooping around trying to find a small working aircraft to get off the island. I ran out of ammo but luckily found the batch of SMAWs. One shot wiped out all of them except Dante here. When he saw what was left of his buddies, he quickly raised the white flag.”
I frowned. “How come you kept him alive or even brought him back here with you? That doesn’t seem like you.”
Smith shrugged. “Hey, I’m not always a callous bastard. Besides, I figured he might come in handy, like a bargaining chip with the sniper. I still didn’t know where the hell she was.”
“Lucky you came back just in time to save me, huh?” I said.
Smith tossed his cigarette butt on the floor and trod on it. I didn’t like the shifty look on his face.
“You did get back to the port at that time, right?”
Smith nodded his head sideways and shuffled awkwardly on the spot. “I may have been waiting around a little while before you showed up.”
“Meaning what?” I pressed.
“Look, I couldn’t get back to that house I thought you’d stay at, Wilde Man. I figured you’d just wait it out. I heard the siren going off and realized you’d activated it to clear the zombies away from the port. I kind of guessed where you’d be heading.”
“Oh, so you waited in that alley for me to show?” I asked.
“That’s right, kid.”
“And you also stayed hidden because you knew the sniper would take a shot at either me or Tony? You used us to flush out the sniper.”
I turned and flicked my cigarette butt through the open door and over the side of the boat. I was struggling to stay calm. The outcome of the situation on the jetty would probably still have been the same but I felt as though Smith had used me unnecessarily as bait, yet again.
Smith shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. I had to find out where the sniper was or we’d all be dead right now.”
I huffed and turned away. Images of Smith callously executing Pete, Marlon and I in that shitty garage rolled through my mind. He’d used me as bait twice, once before the assault on the castle and at the harbor, he’d twice shot weapons close to my head, once in our escape from the first domed house and also at the harbor. I started to reconsider our so called friendship. Maybe he was still the same callous contract killer I’d first met all that time ago.
Smith and I barely spoke during the journey. I knew Smith had ultimately saved my life but he’d waited that little bit too long to do it. I wasn’t sure how long he’d lurked in that back alley with that rocket launcher, waiting to pounce but he’d obviously been there long enough to weigh up the situation. I dozed some of the way until the pain in my ass cheek stirred me from my dream filled slumber. The guy in the corner said nothing and I wondered what Smith had done to him to make him seem so traumatized.
It was completely dark and I had no clue what the time was when Smith nudged me from another snooze.
“We’re here,” he said. “We’re back alongside the warship.”
I blinked away the remains of sleep and glanced out of the side window. I saw red and white lights illuminating a wall of gray steel, towering beside the boat and heard voices yelling instructions in the distance.
“Go help them pull us alongside.” Smith smiled slightly and nodded to the open doorway. I stood and Smith touched my forearm. “I did what I had to, kid. I hope you understand that.”
I nonchalantly nodded and groggily stumbled through the open doorway.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Sarah Wingate patched up my wounds while Smith debriefed the gathering of
Thomas McElroy, Connor Hannigen,
Colonel Oleg Chernakov, Batfish
and Sammy O’Neil, as we sat in the officer’s wardroom drinking hot coffee.
“So, you know exactly where these weapons are, Smith?” McElroy asked.
Smith took a sip of coffee and nodded. “It’s a whole air freight container full. Those militia guys were going nuts trying to find them.”
“We could certainly use those rocket launchers,” McElroy said. He thought for a moment. “And you say this militia outfit is practically wiped out?”
“All but a few stragglers, like that guy I brought back with us,” Smith said. “Where is he anyhow?”
“He’s down below with McDonnell and Duffy,” Hannigen said. “They are extracting information from the guy.”
I wondered if that meant they were torturing the poor bastard down in the locker room.
“In your opinion, Smith, how difficult would it be to clear the island of all the undead?” O’Neil asked.
Smith nodded. “It’s certainly possible. Especially if we can get some more SMAWs. We can lure them away from the port town and out into open ground and then zap them with the rockets.”
“Sounds like a plan,” McElroy said. “We’ll take the boat you acquired at first light tomorrow and go and reconnoiter the island. The guys are giving the engine a fix up as we speak. We’ll land on the beach nearest the reef and make our way inland. If we take a small but heavily armed squad of able men and get a lay of the land, we can start landing more people and equipment as we require it. That militia guy can come with us and act as a guide.”
Smith nodded. “Count me in for the expedition. I’m kind of familiar with the layout of the island and I know exactly where the rocket launchers are located at the airport.” He glanced over at me. “You up for it tomorrow, Wilde Man?”
I glanced up at the clock on the wall and saw it was approaching three a.m. Daylight would be approaching in a couple of hours. I shook my head. “Count me out of this one. I need to rest and I ache all over. Besides, my ass is killing me.”
Muted and stifled laughs went around the table. The news of my ass injury had already spread around the ship’s community, much to their amusement.
“All right, kid,” Smith said, smirking. “You take a day off.”
“Call me when you need a hand clearing the island,” I said, not wanting to totally isolate myself from the mission.
“Will do, Brett,” McElroy said, glancing between Smith and I. “Good work on that island. I know it can’t have been easy for you guys out there on your own.”
“We did have a little help,” I said. “But unfortunately, those guys are all gone now.”
McElroy nodded. “Their efforts are appreciated and will be remembered once we start our community ashore on Saint Miep.”
“Thanks for that,” I muttered, thinking of all the guys who hadn’t made it out alive. I figured if it all worked out for us on the island, we could build a monument or something to remember those brave guys.
Smith and McElroy decided who they should take with them in their expedition party and Wingate immediately volunteered. She finished patching me up, applying a fresh bandage to my ankle, cleansing, stitching and sticking a field dressing to the stab wound on my ass.
The meeting seemed to have petered out and run its course. I was glad as I desperately needed to sleep. The others began drifting away from the room and I watched Batfish go by. She didn’t say a word and only flashed me the briefest of glances.
Wingate watched me watching Batfish.
“Have you talked to her yet, Brett?” she asked me.
Her voice shook me from my inner thoughts. “What?...Oh, er…no. I don’t think she wants to talk with me. She’ll probably be off on the expedition tomorrow and I won’t see her for a while. That’s how it seems to work nowadays.”
Wingate sighed and looked down to the floor. “No, she won’t be going on the mission tomorrow, Brett. She has something important to tell you but she doesn’t know how.”
I felt another embarrassing conversation was about to commence. “What? Let me guess. It goes something like,
Batfish really likes you but she’s confused at the moment and just wants to stay friends, without actually ever talking to me again.
Is that how it goes?”
“No, Brett,” Wingate snapped. “That is
not
how it goes.”
Her brusque tone not only shocked me but caused me to recoil in my chair. I shook my head and Wingate must have picked up on my confused expression.
“I didn’t want to have to do this, Brett,” Wingate said in a softer tone. “But I’m going to have to spell it out for you.” She paused and looked me straight in the eyes. “Batfish is pregnant and it’s your baby.”
The words hit me like a punch in the gut and a slap around the face at the same time. I couldn’t believe what Wingate had just said.
“Yes, she is confused, yes she is worried,” Wingate continued. “She needs all the support she can get right now and she really doesn’t know how you’re going to react. Are you going to be mad, are you going to hang yourself, are you going to be happy, sad or are you really going to give a shit?”
I let out a long breath and rubbed my face. My stomach churned and I needed a cigarette. I took out my pack and lit up, realizing I’d certainly have to give up the habit for good. I felt shocked but elated.
“Wow!” was all I could muster. I was going to be a father. I wanted to stand on the upper deck of the ship and yell the news out as loud as I could. I, Brett Wilde was going to be a father!
Doubt crept into my mind. Not crept, more like sprinted. What kind of father would I be? Was the baby really mine? The product of a drunken fumble in the dark in a tower block in Belfast. Wingate was really good at reading facial expressions.
“She hasn’t been with anybody else, Brett if that’s what you’re thinking. She hasn’t been with anyone since her relationship with Gera and he’s been dead for a while now. She wants to keep it only because it’s yours,” Wingate said softly.
“I need to talk to her,” I stammered. “I’ve been such a douche bag.”
“Calm down, Brett,” Wingate soothed, gripping both my hands. “I’m really not sure I should have told you.” She sighed. “But it’s done now. I couldn’t stand by and watch you two drift along any longer. Let it sink in for a while and talk to her sometime tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Okay, that’s a good idea. I’ll leave it for now.” My mouth hung open and I felt my eyes bulging. It certainly had been a day for shocks.
“I’ll leave you to it then, Brett,” Wingate said, touching my shoulder. “Get some rest but make sure you get your head together before you talk to Batfish, huh?”
I nodded again. She smiled and left the room, leaving me alone in the wardroom. That last request was a joke. Get my head together?
Ha! Fucking comical
. But I had to now. I was going to be somebody’s dad.
Clarity replaced the fogginess of shock. I had the power to make this work. We had doctors and medical equipment onboard and a fertile land on our doorstep, just waiting to be reclaimed from the undead. I was youngish, fairly fit and healthy and so was Batfish. Why couldn’t we bring up a child? It was going to be hard work and probably a pain in the ass at times but when had life ever been simple?
I decided I was going to help clear the island of undead after I’d rested and talked things through with Batfish.
I felt I had a new purpose in life. I was responsible not only for my own miserable life but for my unborn child. Life felt exciting again. A few years from now I could be living the perfect life on an idyllic, zombie free Caribbean Island, with a family of my own to love, treasure and take care of.
The undead apocalypse had tossed my life in one direction, now I was being thrown another way. This time though, it was something good. This time I welcomed the change in my life.
For the first time in a long while, I actually felt happy and was looking forward to the future.
THE END