Battle of Ash

Chapter 12

"In the end you have to protect yourself at all times."
Floyd Mayweather, Jr

2017.04.21 13:02
Ash shifted her position on the boat. The seats were cold and wet; uncomfortable to say the least. She kept thwacking against the water with her paddle but the island still seemed so far away.

"This is taking forever." She groaned, throwing her head back while slapping at the water ineffectively.

"It'll take longer if you keep- no Socks!- doing that you know."

She looked back to Dillon as he grabbed Socks by the scruff and tucked him back into the backpack. She stuck her tongue out at him and continued to paddle. Silence fell over them again as the fog drifted in denser than before. Her paddle hit something solid again.

"I swear I'm hitting things under here." She murmured.

"Me too." Dillon responded curiously keeping an eye on Socks, who was once again perched on the edge of the boat looking into the water. Then his gaze wandered further, drawn by something. "Oh Hell no. Look."

It was a struggle to see through the fog that had drifted in but off in the distance was a body floating. Ash looked all around; hard. The dark floating things she had once thought were debris all turned out to be bodies.

"Oh ew!" She pulled back to the middle of the boat.

Socks hissed into the water as one of the bodies drifted closer.

"They're all dead people." Dillon's voice was a whisper. "What killed them all?"

"Well," Ash struggled to paddle, wincing every time she hit something, "they might be the victims from the security check point."

Socks hissed again. The body bumped against the boat, rocking it slightly.

"Oh hush, Socks!" Dillon sighed, exasperated, grabbing the cat up again; she could see the horror masked behind his actions.

"Anyway," Ash continued, "when everything happened we had infected on the inside and the outside of our barricades. I mean we had been set up so tight; a bare bones shift if you will. At least one hundred of us to make sure things went smoothly between thousands of people." Nonchalantly she tapped one of the bodies with the paddle, pushing it out of the way to avoid running into it like the other one. "It was a recipe for disaster. To make it worse they pulled most of our people out front to the fence. When infected got out on the inside first it only made sense that the whole compound failed." She watched as the corpse drifted out of sight and into the fog, "when they decided to put people into the 'medical tents' after failing an inspection what else would they expect? Maybe they thought that the infected wouldn't turn, I guess; or maybe not that quickly? I don't really know what they were thinking. I mean, hindsight 20/20, it was one of the stupidest decisions my superiors had ever made. And..." She caught Dillon's vacant stare, "I'm rambling."

"No, no. I mean... well, yes-"

At sharp tug at the boat interrupted him.

"What the-"

Another forceful tug. They looked around frantically in the water. It could have been anything, a rogue shark, some debris, a body or two, even a strong current. That was when Ash saw the hand clutching the side of the vessel.

"Oh God, Dillon." He followed her pointing finger to the bloated, greying hand behind him.

With a sharp, startled yelp he smacked at the arm with his oar, prying the fingers off the side of the boat. A soft plop. Their eyes were trained on the water, watching as the body floated away. In a moment of horror, realization dawned on Ash.