14

Remy

After a morning scavenging around the mill, we headed down to the docks. Most of the town had been picked over, the way most everything was after so long, but we'd managed to find a large dog collar and leash. The dog it had once belonged to was long gone, but the pictures in the house showed some kind of gigantic mastiff with a thick neck and slobbery smile.

That proved lucky for us, because Stella had been worrying about how we'd get Ripley into Emberwood. After the way that Garrison and Lillian had initially been ready to kill the lioness, it didn't seem unreasonable. Lately, Ripley had been glued to Stella's side, but a heavy-duty collar and leash would go a long way to making the townsfolk and any guards feel safer with her presence.

The collar fit Ripley, but I didn't try using a leash just yet. I wanted her to get accustomed to the collar first, and she seemed to be tolerating it with only mild annoyance.

After the foraging had concluded, our group – now containing the six of us, and the five others – convened outside the mill. Once we were all together, we followed the street signs painted with faded ink that pointed the way to the Historic Landing District.

Before we even reached the dock, Garrison let out a loud whooping sound, startling nearby birds to take flight.

"Hey, man, I know you're excited, but maybe not alert any zombies," Boden chastened him.

"I'm sorry." Garrison looked sheepish but couldn't suppress his smile. "I can already see the steamboat. This might be amazing news!"

He burst into a jog, hurrying ahead. Boden cursed under his breath, then ran after Garrison, likely to ensure that he didn't run headfirst into danger, and then Castor sprinted after them.

"What are you doing?" Polly called after her brother.

"I wanna see the boat!" Castor replied and kept on running.

Stella wasn't about to run, and Max walked with her, so Serg and I lingered back with them. Lillian, Samara, and Polly were only a few steps in front of us, but eventually, Samara and Polly decided to run after the others.

By the time I reached the dock, Garrison had let out many more delighted squeals, and that had to be driving Boden insane.

At the end of the dock was a two-story boat with wrap around balconies on the top level, and large waterwheels in the back. It was filthy and weathered, so the white exterior appeared more like a dull gray. On the roof of the second level was another small, windowed room with a large smokestack on top.

On the side of the boat, painted in letters that had likely once been vibrant red but were now a washed out pink, was the boat's name: S. S. Barbarabelle .

Garrison had apparently been inside the boat, and he rushed back out and leaned against the railing at the end of the ramp to wave at us with a manic grin on his face.

"This is incredible!" he shouted. "Absolutely incredible! "

"That a boat is still here?" I asked dubiously.

"That this boat is here, and that I can get it to work."

"What?" Lillian asked, echoing my skepticism. "Really?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "It'll take some work, but yes!" Then he turned around and rushed back inside, calling for us to hurry.

It wasn't until we made it up the ramp and onto the boat that Boden came out to meet us.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"I don't know shit about getting an old steamboat running, but Garrison seems optimistic," Boden said. "I haven't had a chance to check the place over, and everyone needs to be careful. There's a huge dining room and kitchen and dozens of guest rooms, so there could be anything inside."

He held the door open, and we all went in. It was less musty than I imagined, although there was definitely an undercurrent of dampness. It was also significantly more opulent than I anticipated. The walls were covered in dark mahogany, and the floors had plush carpets and expensive rugs. A circular sofa sat in the center of the lobby, covered in a lux brocade, and a baby grand piano sat nearby. Light from the windows caught on the crystals of the small, elegant chandelier, and cast rainbows on the grand oak staircase.

"Holy shit, it looks like the Titanic," Serg said.

"Yeah, I noticed that, too, but I wasn't going to say anything," Boden agreed.

"That's because the 1900s were just a fantastic time for boating," Garrison said as he came out from around the staircase. "Around the same time, this was a booming logging community, and they used steamboats to travel and carry cargo up and down this river. The exterior and the engine room are near replicas of the exact steamboats that worked this river back then, complete with paddlewheels operated by burning either coal or wood."

"Are you trying to claim that this swanky boat is a replica of a logging vessel?" Lillian asked as she gestured to the lavish trappings.

"No, of course not," Garrison said with a laugh. "Only the exterior is related to the original working boats. All of this interior is the Louis XV style that was very popular among the luxury liners of the same era as the original steamboat was working. Most notably seen in the Titanic.

"This current boat was built about two years before the zombie virus appeared," he went on. "It was meant to be a tourist draw with forty guest rooms and a grand dining hall, and it travelled up and down the old logging route on the Staulo River."

"He read a lot of that off the wall." Samara was sitting on the circular sofa, and she pointed to the giant painting of the S. S. Barbarabelle in its glory, and below that was a sign with small text. "But he did know some of that off the top of his head. He's always been a boat nerd."

"This boat will still run?" Serg asked.

"I think so, with your help," Garrison said. "And then we can take it straight down the river to the waterfall beneath Emberwood. That could cut as much as 4-5 days off our trip."

"Seriously?" Max asked, already excited about the prospect of Stella travelling quickly with ease.

I tended to believe that if something sounded too good to be true, it usually was. How had I not taught him that?

"What do you need from us to get it going?" Serg asked.

"Well, I'll need at least two of you, I think." Garrison's gaze went to Serg and Boden, who were stronger and taller than the rest of us.

"While you two go with him, I should scope out the boat and make sure it's safe," I said. "If this thing does get going, I don't want to end up trapped on it with a bunch of zombies or a grizzly bear."

Boden nodded and looked over at me. "Be careful."

"You, too," I said, and turned back to the others. "Max, Stella, and Ripley can hang out here in the lounge. The rest of us should split up with one group going up to the second level and the other should stay down here and check out the main floor."

"We'll take the main floor," Castor offered, motioning to between himself and his sister.

"I'll go with them," Samara volunteered.

I looked to Lillian. "It's me and you versus forty guest rooms on the second floor."

"Sounds lovely," she said with a wry smile, and we started toward the grand staircase.

The hallway down the center of the second floor was wider than I'd expect for a boat of this size, and it was styled in the same fancy way as the lobby. There were surprisingly few signs that this had survived a zombie apocalypse: a blood stain on the elegant rug, a tear in the gilded wallpaper, a nautical painting broken on the floor.

The doors to the staterooms closest to the staircase were open, so Lillian and I peered inside with our weapons in hand – my crossbow, and her axe. The brocade curtains were torn, but the sliding glass doors that led onto the private balcony were still intact. The bed was even made in the plush linens, although they were rumpled and dusty, and the sitting chairs were tipped over.

"It's small, but it's a nice room," Lillian commented and poked her head in the on-suite bathroom. "I would've paid to stay here. "

"It seems weirdly nice for a riverboat cruise in the middle of Canada," I said.

"We're not quite in the middle of Canada," Lillian corrected me. "And I see the appeal. The river is gorgeous, and a cruise into a bygone era is a nice escape from reality."

"Well, I can always appreciate the appeal of escapism," I admitted grudgingly.

The two of us continued down the hall, checking the rooms and finding more in similar states to the first few. Some were a bit worse for the wear. One had a decomposing arm in a bed, and several others had shattered balcony doors, which had let in enough harsh weather to render the rooms unusable.

As we made our way closer to the other end of the boat, the rooms got a bit nicer and bit larger with more high-end features. When we reached one that was nearly immaculate, aside from a little dust, Lillian let out a contended sigh.

"This one is mine, if Garrison does actually get the boat running," she declared.

"We can call dibs already?" I asked. "Although all I really care about is a large comfy mattress and a door that locks."

"I know what you mean." Lillian ran her hand over the satiny comforter. "My back isn't really cutout for bedrolls on a hard floor."

I grimaced in agreement. "It did seem easier when I walked across the continent ten years ago."

"Everything was so much easier and so much harder back then," Lillian reminisced. "In those early days, I thought civilization still had a chance to rebound. I held onto that hope for far too long, but I was also the last one in my grade school who still believed in Santa Claus. My mother used to call me pathologically optimistic."

"There are worse things to be," I said as I stepped out into the hallway, and there was a loud banging sound, followed by an all too familiar groaning."

"Zombies," Lillian said, and then I heard the screams coming from downstairs.