Chapter 17
Stella
The Barbarabelle didn’t have a true leader or mayor.
Anyone strong and smart enough had been taught how to operate the boat, and all major decisions were made as a group.
No one would stop us if we just tried to leave – as evidenced when Remy made off in the night – but it would be considerate for us to have a discussion with the community at large before we left.
Over supper in the dining hall, once everyone was gathered at the tables, Boden stood up and explained what our plan was.
Of course, he conveniently left out one key fact that he didn’t want everyone to know: Remy was immune to the lyssavirus, as were Fae and me.
Something that powerful was safer the fewer people who knew about it.
Instead, he kept it vague, saying that Remy simply wanted to join Cold Shore to help fight the zombies in a different way.
“Can anyone just walk in and get a job at Cold Shore?” Bianka was seemingly asking Boden, but her gaze was pointed on Murphy beside her.
Murphy snorted. “No, of course not. They have a limited number of positions, and the people who hold them have to meet very specific criteria and do this battery of testing called the ARK. I mean, their whole plan for surviving the end of days is by closing themselves off as much as possible in their frozen little bunkers.”
“But Cold Shore isn’t the only thing in Glacier Valley, is it?” Sienna asked. She stood off to the side of the room with her husband Oakley. He was usually still in the kitchen now, but he came out to hear what Boden had to say.
“The Cold Shore outpost ended up there because Glacier Valley was one of the first settlements post-civilization,” Murphy said.
“It wasn’t anything as big or as glamorous as it was before, but there’s a decent little town there.
The mountains to the west, the glacier to the north, and the canal to the south help keep it isolated from a lot of zombies. ”
“If it’s so great, then why didn’t you stay there?” Harlow asked.
“Because I can’t be anywhere Cold Shore is,” Murphy said. “Don’t get me wrong. They generally leave you alone if you leave them alone, but I went AWOL on a contract. So they won’t leave me alone.”
“Well, I guess we won’t be going with you,” Bianka said with a laugh.
“Oh. I didn’t really think that anyone else would be going with us,” Boden said. “I mean, you all weren’t as close to Remy as we were, so I didn’t expect anyone else to go on a search and rescue mission for her.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing more about this Glacier Valley,” Fergus O’Hara interjected in his lilting accent.
He and his older brother Dougal had joined our group last summer. They had been travelling from their home in Ireland since the outbreak began, moving further and further to the west to get away from the virus.
“Um, I don’t know a lot, really,” Boden replied uncertainly. “It sounds like Murphy knows a bit more.”
“We’d be better off in Glacier Valley, d’you think?” Fergus asked, turning his attention to Murphy.
Xe shrugged. “I haven’t been here that long, and I haven’t been in Glacier Valley in years, so I’m not really in a position to judge.”
“But it was a proper town?” Fergus pressed.
“Was there a pub, a bite to be had, and anyone knocking about?” Dougal clarified on behalf of his younger brother.
“When I was there, it had shops, places to trade, and yeah, it had a few different spots where you could get a cooked meal or a stiff drink,” Murphy said.
“Are you saying there is something wrong with my cooking?” Oakley asked from where he leaned against the wall next to Sienna. He still had on his chef’s apron, and his black hair was pulled back into a slick bun.
“No, no, I’d never say such a thing, or even think it,” Dougal insisted with a laugh. “Your meals are truly the highlight of the Barbarabelle. After the showers, of course. I only meant it’s good to have somewhere else to be. This barge’s a bit ripe, isn’t it?”
“So there’s trading and a major outpost there?” Leandro asked. He sat at the table on the other side of me, next to Ryder, and he leaned forward. “Do they have doctors or medicine there? Maybe something to help Cole?”
“They have medicine there?” Sienna reiterated, her interest clearly piqued.
“Maybe,” Murphy replied uncertainly.
Joseph Worrall – the boat’s only real practitioner of medicine since Mika Dumont was killed – cleared his throat. He’d been treating Cole in the infirmary since he’d been here. I hadn’t visited him yet, but Bianka had reported that he’d been sleeping a lot.
“It doesn’t really matter if they do or not,” Joseph said, speaking loud enough so that everyone could hear from the other end of the table. “Cole wouldn’t survive a journey like that. Glacier Valley is how far away?”
“About 800 km, which should take us just over two-months to hike,” Boden said, having already calculated it with the map that Lazlo had given us.
Joseph pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head. “No. There is no possible way he could handle it.”
“Have you figured out what’s wrong with him yet, Doc?” Bianka asked.
“It is difficult to get a clear diagnosis given our limitations here, but I have been unable to rule out acute myeloid leukemia,” Joseph explained sadly.
“Well, what about us?” Leandro asked. “We could go with them, and maybe we’ll find medicine.”
“Some chemotherapy medications do have a long shelf life,” Joseph allowed. “But if I’m being candid, I’m not optimistic about his prognosis. At his current stage, I don’t know that he’ll survive until you return even if you were to find the ideal treatments.”
“But it would help, right?” Leandro asked. “If he survived long enough?”
“And even if it doesn’t help him, it could help someone else,” Bianka added. “It’s not like this boat is overflowing in life-saving medicine, is it? Maybe it’d be good for Leo to go and bring some back, no matter what happens with Cole.”
“That is true,” Joseph said, and his weathered gaze settled on Leandro. “I could give you a list of medications we could use, in addition to the ones to treat your friend.”
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Leandro agreed readily.
“Well, we weren’t really inviting folks along,” Boden said carefully.
“What?” Bianka glared over at him. “Are you going to stop them from helping people?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Boden said. “We’re trying to find someone, and I hadn’t planned on taking a whole bunch of people with me.”
“You know, I wouldn’t mind having a look at this bustling Valley,” Fergus said and wagged his eyebrows at his brother. “What do you reckon? Will we go see what’s out the far side of it all?”
“Aye,” Dougal agreed with a smile. “You know I’m not one for staying put.
“I really hadn’t planned for all these other people coming along,” Boden tried to dissuade them.
“Well, you’ve no need to worry about us,” Dougal insisted. “Fergus and I have been traipsing about since we were young lads.”
“Young lads?” Fergus replied with a scoff. “You were sixteen when the virus hit. You were well on your way! I was just a wee boy of nine when we took to the road.”
Dougal rolled his eyes. “We’ve been knocking about for eleven years, even across the Atlantic. That’s the main thing, isn’t it?”
“Leandro and I know how to take care of ourselves,” Ryder said, speaking for the first time since the meal began. “You’ll need to hunt with a journey that long, and you already know that we can help out in a hunt.”
“Sending out a small group on a medicine run would also help with our reliance on crops,” Joseph reasoned.
“We aren’t in dire straits yet, and I’m not suggesting that we kick anyone out, but if some are utilizing other food sources while we have time to replant and regrow, that would be beneficial. ”
“We’ll go, too,” Sienna suddenly said, and her husband Oakley looked at her in surprise.
“What are you doing?” Oakley asked in a shocked whisper.
“It isn’t safe here, Oakley,” Sienna said without looking over at him. “There’s not enough food or medicine. And we have a daughter to think about. Juniper’s already lost two friends in the past year.”
“Yes, but what happened to Clementine happened because she was off the boat, remember?” Oakley asked. “She was playing on land when she got attacked by zombies.”
“And three people died of pneumonia because we didn’t have enough medicine,” Sienna argued, and she finally looked over at Oakley. “After what happened with the outbreak, how can you think that the Barbarabelle is the best place to raise our child?”
He scowled, and lowered his voice to just above a whisper, “I cook for these people. I can’t leave them.”
“Someone else can learn to cook,” Sienna replied simply.
The room had been relatively silent even before the couple had started arguing, but now, I could practically hear a pin drop. Oakley seemed more acutely aware of this than Sienna, glancing anxiously out at us.
“We can talk about this later,” he said finally.
For his part, Boden tried again to encourage anyone from joining us. “Well, I still don’t know if it’s a good idea for a whole gaggle of us to go. It needs more planning.”
“Your friend Remy’s been gone for like six or seven months, right?” Bianka asked. “What’s another day or two to make sure you’re all prepped?”
The table was all restless energy now, everyone shifting in their seats, exchanging glances both anxious and excited. Boden cast a wary eye over our group, but he offered no more protests.