SurvivorZ: Grave Harbor

79

TOMMY

"Well, that's fucked. Now what do we do?"

Nobody replied to Tommy's question. Everyone stared at the mob of zombies sandwiched between the barricades of overturned vehicles, trees, and debris stretching across William J Day Boulevard. The potentially fatal roadblock on the road to Fort Independence was obviously intentional, meant to dissuade visitors from venturing any further.

A small handful of dead roamed freely outside the barrier. They staggered towards the parked trucks at a senior's pace, giving the group plenty of time to deal with them before they became an actual threat.

"We don't have enough ammo to shoot them all," Erica offered.

"Too noisy, anyway. Same goes for explosives. We don't need to get pinned between another herd while clearing out this one. We'll need to take them out by hand," Graves mused.

"It's a pretty confined space. Could be dicey." Mike scratched his cheek. "Can we go around them?"

"What about in there?" Eve suggested, pointing at the cement and iron wall dividing the street from the Cardinal Medeiros Dock next door.

"The wall to wall zombies are Milton's doing," Ed Stillson injected. "Milton Hewes. He's our resident genius. After getting us established at the power plant, Emerson put him in charge of setting up Castle and its defenses. If he's got these things here, you can rest assured whatever surprises he has in there are far worse."

Graves frowned and nodded. "They're probably shipping everything in by water, bypassing the roads completely."

"So where does that leave us?" Tommy wondered. "We can't very well hijack a boat from shore. Well, I mean, not unless we know where they're docking to resupply." He eyed Stillson. "Do we know that?"

"No," Stillson replied.

Tommy shrugged. "Okay, then. Back to square one."

"Maybe they had more luck finding another way in," Eve said.

She motioned to the lone army vehicle returning from its scouting mission along Pleasure Bay, the beachfront trail curling around to the southern end of Castle Island. The whine of the approaching motor aggravated the zombies, but their corral kept most of the man-eating blockade trapped in place.

The truck pulled up behind the other parked vehicles. Sergeant Lowe and a few other soldiers climbed out. She looked around, obviously searching for the colonel. Not finding him, her gaze eventually landed on their group.

She came over, greeting them with a tired nod. "Hey. Do you know where I can find Colonel Hayes?"

"He wasn't feeling well," Eve answered. "Maureen Sommers is apparently a doctor. She's tending to him now in the second truck."

Denise turned to leave. "Okay, thanks."

"What'd you find?" Tommy inquired. "Is there another way around this mess?" While gesturing towards the zombies, he noticed that several of the wandering ones outside the barricade were getting dangerously close.

"Not that we could see." Her gaze shifted to Stillson. "Looks like your friends commandeered the harbor walk, adding armed sentry positions. The only way we're getting near the fort is by swimming the bay under cover of darkness."

Tommy sighed and pulled out the military knife from the holster strapped to his leg. "Graves, give me a hand here?"

The old hitman produced a knife and joined him. Mike Edwards followed. "I'll help too."

"Don't bother," Tommy grunted. "We've got this."

He caught Carl's curious side-glance, but didn't stop to explain his immediate dismissal of the policeman's offered assistance. He figured he really didn't need to. The old man probably hated Edwards for a whole slew of reasons that had nothing to do with him stealing Eve away.