Chapter 31

Land Ho

Our little flotilla of ships came into sight of Andros island early the next morning. The western side of the island is undeveloped and we are going to have to sail around to the east to find docking facilities. I am hoping that we can actually just sail right into the AUTEC facility and up Fresh Creek and dock at the base. We will find out soon. It is actually a large relief to see the goal of all that I have been planning right in front of me. As we sail around the island I watch for areas that might be opportunities or trouble spots for our group. Things such as resorts which may give us housing, but also may hide trapped zombies, rough terrain, and any place large enough to hide and protect zombies.

I am also pondering what our opening move should be. I think it would be a mistake just to land with guns blazing and a hope for the best kind of attitude. I have always favored planning and a more meticulous approach. I think our best bet in this situation is to clear the beaches and announce our presence at the same time. The easiest part of that will be that I don’t have to translate. One of the benefit of having the Bahamas as my goal is that the official language is English. Yes many locals speak a patois of English and other languages, but since English is the official language anyone still alive should be able to communicate effectively with us.

To clear the beaches, I think we will fall back onto our discovery of loud noises and music to draw close zombies to the dock and drown strategy. If we do this at every set of docks we come across until we get to the AUTEC base then we should be able to lower the risk of zombies on the island by a significant number. With only 8,000 people on the last census plus say a generous 1,000 tourists and people on the base we should not see a large amount of zombies. The numbers I saw on t.v. and have experienced in real life suggest that only 10 – 20% of the population successfully turns into the zombies. About 60-70% of those infected with the original virus just die. This leaves anywhere from a 10-30% survivor rate, which would be further reduced as zombies chowed down.

Realistically we should see between 700 and a thousand zombies and probably no more than 100 to 200 survivors. Our little three boat flotilla has killed more zombies than that. When the main group gets here we should theoretically outnumber any survivors if the infection and conversion rates were the same as the United States. It is that last part that worries me. I know that there can be a lot of external influences on diseases and there spread and lethality. So what was devastating in one area could have been mild in another. The news we received worldwide said that everywhere was suffering like we were or even worse, but in reality if one group was doing well would they really tell someone?

If I were in charge of a country and we somehow got an advantage over a killer disease that was devastating the rest of the world I would lie and report that we had trouble too. The last thing I would want is to have the rest of the world know that there is a sanctuary. We would be overwhelmed by survivors in that scenario. It would be better to lie about it and survive and then help the rest of the world recover than to be overwhelmed and go down with everyone else.

June 13th 11 a.m. was the start of the Island Alliance clearing of Andros Island. This day in the future would be equal to the Fourth of July in what used to be America. We pull up to a set of fishing docks first and implement the noise reduction of zombie’s plan. I ask someone from each boat to try and get a rough estimate of how many zombies we killed at each area so we could get an overall idea of infection and spread in the Bahamas. There were only 25 zombies at the fishing dock. Ten minutes of music and two minutes of gunfire and they were cleaned out. Onto the next set of piers.

The next set of piers was also a fishing village. We cleared out a few less here than at the first stop. After that though we hit the commercial and main docks of Andros town. Our stop here took much longer. The population here before the zombie plague was over 2,000 people. The number of zombies here reflected it. We were able to attract almost 300 zombies to the docks and eliminate them with the noise plan. This was a higher amount of zombies than I expected. The 10-20% zombie revival should mean that there is only around 200 zombies at most. Either the island had a higher conversion rate or perhaps people came to the main town after they got sick. That might have inflated the numbers artificially.

Whatever the cause for the abnormally large number of zombies we were still able to clear the area in less than two hours and saw that there was a small fuel tanker and two smaller container ships docked in the port along with several indeterminate boats of smaller size. They could prove useful in the future. We need to secure any and all sea craft for use as soon as possible. It would be a tragedy to lose a vessel to neglect that we might need later. The minimal amount of time to secure them against random loss is worth the investment in time.

When we had finished clearing out the commercial and main docks of Andros town there were a few people who wanted to land and explore. I explained my plan to the whole group at this point and pointed out the advantages of the AUTEC base. The best thing about the zombie apocalypse is that it has weeded out the dumb people. Everyone left is able to reason and plan. If they were not capable of this, they would not have survived to this point. I know that is an overgeneralization but it works in the short term. Basically everyone agreed and we headed on to the docking points at the AUTEC base a few kilometers down the coast.

There it was. The goal I have been working towards for the last few weeks. This military base would be the start of our new society. Who knows, in the future I might even become famous and have a statue erected for my work and planning? Better yet they could name a high school after me. Enough daydreaming, it is time for action. I make sure that we are ready and start the now familiar process of loud music zombie attraction and eradication plan.

Music started blaring and zombies started approaching. Too many zombies. There should not be this many zombies here, what is going on? First there was an abnormal amount of zombies in Andros town. Now there are too many zombies here. What exactly happened on this island? There are at least three times the normal zombies here than the infection rates predict. Was the infection milder here which resulted in more zombies surviving the initial sickness or is there something else going on? My biggest worry is that it is a hardier mutation of the virus and that my surviving group could still get sick.

I suppose that there is nothing that can be done about it until after we clear the zombies and search for answers. Time to start the zombie shoot. Three hours later, and thousands of rounds of ammunition we have killed over 2,000 zombies. The normal infection rate that I knew of meant that there should have only been 800 to a 1,000 zombies total on the entire island. The ones that we have killed here at the AUTEC base along with the stops that we have made add up to over 2,500 zombies. Either Andros island got a sever bump in population before or during the initial infection or the survival rate of zombies is higher here on the island. Either one is a little worrying. I hope that we can find some survivors to help clarify the situation.

Now that the zombies have been cleared out and dealt with we can approach and land the ships and start exploring and claiming the island. I signal to the other ships that we will be the first to land and secure the area. I make sure that my group is entirely kitted out with everything that we need. This initial landing will consist of myself, Michael, and Olivia only. I figure the three of us have worked enough together that we can stay safe and quickly scope out the situation in all the nearby buildings. I want to have at least a 400 to 600 meter cleared area before I let the others off the boats. That way if anything happens there should be enough time for them to re-board and escape if necessary.

My little group landed our dinghy about 200 meters from the dock. The main reason for our landing so far away was to avoid all of the bodies that were left on the dock from our extermination of the zombies. It looked like a charnel house. Once we tied up I signaled Michael and Olivia to follow me. We were travelling in a standard V formation. I was leading and I had each of them about 2 meters back on either side of me. I decided to start on the right hand side of the base and work my way around in a large semi-circle clearing buildings and areas as we went along. When we came back to the dock we would signal the others that it was safe to land.

Our little sweep was going well. We had cleared several buildings so far and had only found two more zombies which were trapped inside buildings and thus could not get out when the music was played earlier. As we approached the fifth building I noticed that it seemed different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was different though.

“Michael, Olivia, something is up with the building in front of us. It seems different than other buildings, but I don’t know why. Can either of you spot something wrong before we try to enter?”, I said.

After a couple of minutes Michael spoke up, “It is too clean. Someone has been taking care of it, or at least they were taking care of it longer than the other buildings.”

That was it. It was hard to spot actually. There was enough trash and other things around that it was hard to actually spot at first but Michael was right. There were signs all around that this building was taken care of more recently than the others. Less mold on archways, fewer pieces of trash, etc. If it was just one of those things it could be a coincidence, but having more than one took it from the realm of coincidence into the realm of survivors.

“Let’s be very careful here. There is a possibility of survivors, we have all had both good and bad experiences with survivors. We can hope for the best, but I want us all to be prepared for the worst. Lock and Load.”

I decided to be direct but smart about this. I walked up to the door and stood to the side in case someone fired through it, and then I knocked.

“Hello is anyone still alive in there. My group and I are survivors from the mainland and are willing to help anyone that needs it. We will be coming in no matter what in thirty seconds if we don’t hear a response.”

I heard some shuffling inside and then a young voice called out, “Are you army men like Uncle Billy?”

“No sweetie, we are not, is there an adult there we could talk too?”

“No sir, Aunt Maddie is sick in bed and Uncle Billy went to get her some medicine and has not come back yet. I am not supposed to open the door for anyone else.”

“Well how about this, I have a friend here who is named is Olivia. She is an honest to goodness Nurse. If my other friend Michael and I go away will you let her come in and help your Aunt Maddie?”

“Okay, but don’t tell Uncle Billy.”

“Of course not. You can watch me and my friend walk away from the window and then you can let Nurse Olivia in to help you okay?”

“Yes sir.”