ALBATROSS--Part1

"This REO STREET GANG, Repeat this REO STREET GANG.....Is anyone out there??"

Static was all I could hear on the radio.

I repeated the message and added "We are survivors at Warhawk Light", "We need medical and food and any help that you can send us".

"REO STREET GANG OUT"

Nothing but static. Great. I turned off the radio. It had been about six months since our last contact the out side world and it wasn't getting any better.

It started about a year ago,[maybe more] when people started to get sick.
We first thought it was a form of avian flu but what ever it was spread like wild fire.

The first reports of the flu which people were calling "Narcissus" or "Dreamers" started to come in sometime about the 4th of July back in "08".
People who had it were either walking around in a daze [Dreamers] or had just started to stare at their reflections in the mirror[Narcissus] and would not look or speak to any one else.

Narcissus was a Greek who spent way too much time looking at his reflection to pay attention to anything else. Classic myth.

The "Dreamers" were getting sick at an alarming rate. At first they would suffer chills and fever. Not eating or drinking. But they could cough like a chain smoker.
That's how it spread.

They got to the point were they were exuding a greyish ooze from their skin and soon filled up the local hospitals. The ooze also made people sick.

It stared in Arkansas and Louisiana but some how manage to pop up in South America
and Eastern Europe all at the same time!!

The politicians claimed that the out breaks were unrelated.
BULLSHIT!!

Reports of people dying from the flu came from all over the world. It took about 3 days after getting for you to die. Then the reports got stranger, loved ones who had died were getting up from their death beds, coffins - what have you and attacking people usually biting into their flesh and eating it. those people in turn died and then started attacking other people.

ZOMBIES-- I think that what the News Service were calling them.
The Big cities were the first to fall, then the surrounding country side.
Our Last call was from somewhere in Texas. Midland I think. Said it was a Zombie Free Zone.

Fat lot of good that would do us stuck here at Warhawk Light.

Warhawk Light is a oil drilling rig that was set up a working lighthouse here in the middle of the Gulf Of Mexico. 350 fucking miles from land and we had no way to get there!

There was about 17 of us. Mostly maintenance workers and a few fishermen who had run out of fuel waiting for resupply. Few of us were willing to try rowing and using make shift sails to get back to the main land.

Damn storms were wrecking havoc all over the gulf.

I turned the radio back on. Static. I turned off the set. I could here seagulls calling out side the rig. I smelled fish frying from the galley.
About all we had to eat. Water desalination was what we needed to work on.

Caught site of a trawler at noon. About 7 miles off to the east.
Could it be that rescue was upon us?? We could only hope.

I turned the radio back on. "THIS IS REO STREET GANG","CAN ANYBODY ON THE TRAWLER HEAR US?"...... Static at first, but a crackling message was heard.

"SS. SASKATOON Calling oil rig########This SS. Sa####toon answering call.
More static. Damn.

The Trawler looked to be deep sea and was big. About 200ft. Must be from a big company. It turned and headed in our direction. But something wasn't right. We've been calling for help for six months. This was the first ship to reply to our calls.

And the Trawler SS. SASKATOON had been lost in the Devil's Triangle 3 years ago in a bad ass storm. Right off of Bimini.

Just what was it doing here??? Didn't matter. Another ship came along side it. This one a freighter. Where it came from was something else. Our radar was scratchy at
best and somehow neither ship were showing up on it.

We all made the sign of the cross. Both freighter and trawler were picking up speed.
GODDAMN!! They were going to ram us!!!

"THIS REO STREET GANG CALLING FREIGHTER ", "Avert course, Avert course." "YOU ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH WARHAWK LIGHT!!"

Did not do a damn bit of good. Cocksuckers rammed into our south-east support column. The whole damn rig shook..

I began calling S.O.S. I thought that I had heard something. Cook said he heard the same thing.

We got a crew to board the freighter to find out what the fuck was going on.
Sent five men to their doom. We had heard what was a running gun battle.
Heard someone say something about zombies.

GODDAMN FREIGHTER had been loaded with zombies!!!

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End part 1