“I’m Crystal Sutton,” the woman said. Her shoulder length brown hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail. She had white skin that clearly revealed that she had not spent the summer bathing in sunlight.

With introductions out of the way, an awkward silence ensued. The idea of getting sleep was attractive. Being able to sleep, as the ship tossed back and forth might prove difficult. Part of me wanted to talk and hear their story.

I wasn’t as interested in sharing mine, though. Talking was funny that way. Supposed to be give and take. People clam up if it’s too lopsided. I call it being cautious.

“You guys know where we’re headed?” Chatterton said.

I shook my head. I watched Dentino. He didn’t look well. The boat rose and fell on the swells. Might not be as high as seven feet, but they felt huge just the same. “Was told an internment camp. Somewhere in New York.”

“By boat? Where could that be?” Crystal said.

“Up the St. Lawrence,” I said.

My son yawned.

Hard not to feel like the last nine people who’d been found alive in Rochester? Could we have been it? Was Border Patrol flying around searching for more survivors? Even if they came across some, what then? The Coast Guard station was empty. No crew was left there, and we were cruising on the biggest of their boats.

“I’m going to get some sleep,” Chatterton said. He stretched; arms went wide.

“Good call,” I said. “Maybe we can talk some more once we get to the camp.”

The other three silently nodded, trying to make it look like that would be a great idea. I wasn’t buying it though. Not sure why, but they made me uneasy. Might be the way I kept catching Chatterton eyeballing me. Felt like more than a size-up, a once over. The look seemed filled with disdain and I didn’t like it.

The bunks were made for one person, if that. Conserving space had been the intent of the thin design. Cash climbed onto one. He patted the mattress. “Sleep here,” he said.

I sat beside him. “Want me to lie down with you?”

“Yes,” he said.

Charlene gave me a look. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“Know what?” I said. “I bet the three of us can fit.”

It excluded Allison. Four of us would never fit. No way.

Sues and Dave took one bunk. Spooned. Dave hugged the silent woman tightly. If I needed to find out more about anyone, it was her. She was with our . . . group, if you wanted to think of us in terms of them and us. I knew very little about her or her story. There just hadn’t been time.

“You guys get in, give me a minute,” I said.

“Gonna tuck me in?” Allison said. She smiled.

“You okay?”

“Of course, I am. I’ll let it go tonight. You sleep with them. Tomorrow we find a king size bed. You on one side, me on the other, with them sandwiched between us.” She mashed her hands together.

Now, I smiled. “Love the idea.”

She pulled back the sheets, lay down and pursed her lips.

“What?” I said.

“Can you sneak me a kiss?”

“I can do that,” I said, and kissed her.

“Are we going to be okay now? Is the worst over?”

“I want to say, yes,” I said.

“But you don’t know.”

“No. I don’t know. We’re all together. It’s a start, you know. It all seems to be going in a better direction.”

She touched my face, forehead, and stared into my eyes. “Go get some sleep. Hug your kids.”

“Good night,” I said. I knew it was barely 3:00 PM, but I felt exhausted.

I laid down on my back with a kid on either side, their heads and a hand on my chest.

The boat bounced and rocked. Thunder echoed down here like cannons firing. The aluminum must act like an amplifier or something. There was no room on the bunk to move even a fraction of an inch. To make matters worse, I never sleep on my back.

Regardless, I closed my eyes and must have fallen asleep immediately.

#  #  #

Maybe it was the silence that woke me. My eyes opened. It was dark. Took me a moment to remember where I was. Where we were. In the belly of a large ship on Lake Ontario headed for the St. Lawrence. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted. Kids were still asleep, using my chest their pillow.

As I was about to close my eyes, trying to grab a bit more sleep, I heard it. A whisper. Someone talking softly, anyway. I recognized the voice, deep, with a little gravel to it. All bass. “It’s all I’m saying. Something about all of this, it doesn’t add up.”

“But what do you mean?” Had to be Nicholas Dentino.

“The flu shots, the ones everyone’s been pushing about that swine flu, the H7N9, right? You go into any corner store pharmacy, any doctors’ office, they want to give you the shot, right? I was in the military. Joined after high school. We had to get vaccinated for everything. And if we went overseas, there were like three-hundred more shots we needed,” Chatterton said.

“Okay, so?” It was the female, Crystal Sutton. I barely heard her.

“So, if the virus that is turning everyone into zombies was in those shots, how come these military and coast guard guys don’t have it? How come they’re not zombies,” he said.

“Because they would have been vaccinated,” Dentino said.

“Exactly. No way around it.”

I remembered the 9-1-1 call I’d taken. The professor or doctor who claimed responsibility for the mess we were now in. He’d kept rambling on and on about a contamination.

Was the outbreak more limited than first expected?

I’d seen the news. Heard reports. The nation’s capitol was in shambles.

A contaminated batch would not infect the entire country.

That meant one of two, no, three things. Either more than a single batch had been contaminated--possible and likely, and biting or scratching did spread the disease. Or both.

The kid we’d found in the woods by the grocery store, Jay, had been bitten, but he hadn’t turned into a zombie. He’d been killed by one. Torn to shreds. Had he been torn to shreds before there had been time for him actually to turn? How long did it take to turn, if in fact people did turn after getting bitten by one of the zombies? With Jay, we didn’t really give time for change. We’d buried him.

That changed everything. I’d been taking solace, granted just some solace, in the idea that the virus wouldn’t spread. That bites were bites. They’d hurt, but heal. Now, I didn’t know what to think.

Chatterton was right.

Something did not make sense. Regardless of the spreading, why were these military folks not infected, not walking dead? Could they have been immune to the virus, the vaccination? Or could it be something as simple as they just hadn’t been vaccinated against the swine flu yet? Maybe there’d be answers once we reached the internment camp.

“I think, if we get a chance, we should run,” Chatterton said.

“And them?” Sutton said.

“Guy’s got kids. Nothing against him, but that makes the lot a liability, not an asset. No, we keep this to ourselves. Did you see how those things hate the rain and the way they were falling into the river? I’m going to find me an island. A hideaway. You two think about it. Better the three of us on an island together, than locked away in some concentration camp. Don’t take too long though. I’m just telling you. Me? I see a chance, I’m out.”

There was no falling back to sleep. I felt the heat in my cheeks. If they looked at me, they’d know I was awake, and that I’d heard the entire whispered conversation.

So, my kids and I were a liability, huh? We’d have to see about that, wouldn’t we?

Thoughts of sanctuary sank. Nothing was over. If anything, it all just began.

Chapter Seven

2013 hours