The water was mirky and heavy at this depth. The only clear view was straight at the concrete wall. Trouble would almost assuredly come from the opposite direction. Eddie wished he could turn off the lamp, but he had to see to finish. He held the harpoon at his side while he scraped the next pipe clean of muscles. They were no bigger than his fingernail, but they could block the intake and shut down the whole site. Even at the end of the world, cleaning was his most important duty.
Bubbles surrounded his head as the hose was yanked loose from the tank and then the beast locked its teeth on his right forearm causing him to drop the harpoon. He shook in panic, but the zombie's mouth held on with shark like determination. He spun on it so that his lamp shined down into its empty sockets. The corpse's head was as brown and shapeless as the mud that held Eddie's feet. He would never know if his killer had been a man or woman and some day a diver would not be able to tell what Eddie had been.
Eddie's gloved fingers sunk through the biter's skull, but it still didn't turn loose. Just before the shoulder lamp slammed into the dam and went dark, he saw that a second zombie was still holding the disconnected hose from his tank. He kicked blindly at the second attacker once he pulled his own foot loose from the bed. It floated back, but yanked towards Eddie again when it reached the end of the hose. He desperately pressed the biter's head against the concrete. As he suspected, its rotten head gave way until the jaws went slack. A shock of pain rolled up to his shoulder.
He knealt and groped for the spear, but couldn't come up with it. The next set of hands began clawing at his mask and failing breather. He found the scraping pole. In a fit, he drove it up into the zombie. He wasn't sure he found the head much less the brain, but he took the opening to push off and press for the surface. It took everything he had to make a slow enough accent. He was still getting air, so he tried to stay calm.
After the light became clearer, he shed the tank and sprinted the last few feet to the desert air. Eddie Pain pulled off his mask and scrambled on to the floating platform tied to the inflow chamber.
"What the hell?" a voice demanded from the blinding Nevada sun.
Eddie knelt dripping on the wood planks of the makeshift dock. He stammered, "Walkers . . . two of them at least. I ended one, but the other . . . I don't know."
The soldier poked him on the back of his head with his gun barrel, "Are you bit?"
Eddie slapped the rifle away. He held out his bruised forearm and snapped, "Sharksuit. Take it easy, man."
The kid smiled at Eddie in a way that made his skin crawl. His name was Darrel or Daniel or maybe Dexter. Eddie wasn't sure even after a year couped up in the plant with him. Dexter had been a deputy in Clark County before Z Day. Now he was a citizen soilder in the Colonel's private army. Dexter shook his head and scolded, "Your tank, your tools, your lamp . . . that's an expensive swim, pal."
"Why don't you jump in and get them for me then?" Eddie barked as he stood up.
Dexter lifted his AK a little and whispered, "Why don't I shoot you in your smart ass and drop you back in as zombie chum, chum?"
Before Eddie could answer, a voice above them called, "Are you okay, Mr. Pain?"
They both looked up the alluminum latter at the bearded man on the concrete abutment arm. Eddie answered, "I had a scare, sir. The nets must be loose from the bottom again. There were a couple walkers. Still are, I'm afraid."
The man asked as he sheilded his eyes, "Did you finish the scrape?"
Eddie answered over the wind, "Mostly, I lost some eqiupment too, Mr. Cooper."
"We'll deal with it when we can get some soldiers to dive with you," Mr. Cooper assured, "I need your help inside for the moment."
Eddie began to unsuit as he climbed the latter. Cooper called down to Dexter, "Alert the guards of the breech and join the patrols."
Dexter said, "I don't take orders from the engineers, Cooper."
Mr. Cooper calmly explained, "I'm Army Corp. and just like everyone else around here, I out rank you, private. If that's a problem, son, we have a job scraping pipes down below."
For once, the boy was silent. Eddie couldn't help but smile as he turned his back on Lake Meade and headed towards Hoover Dam.
Despite being out in exposed desert this close to post apocolyptic Las Vegas, Eddie had begun to prefer it to the constant whine of the generators inside the dam. One year ago, Eddie had come to work on the day the world ended and he hadn't left since. The Colonel had arrived to secure the site with a unit a Army Corp of Engineers along with his regular army. There were two other divers employed by Hoover Dam, but they never came in that day or any day since. Now it was all Eddie's duty to scrape the intacts, search for cracks, secure the boat/ debree nets (now zombie nets), and clear the flood ways. It kept him busy most of the time, but at least it earned him a fair share of ration credits. Few others could do it all as well and no one wanted to. They had power, refrigerators, wide screen T.V.'s, video games, washing machines, sharksuits, and ice cubes. Who could complain about a little martial law?
Before dropping back inside the last working power plant on Earth, Eddie looked back over the lake. The fence lined shores were greened with irrigated crops fighting back from the decay of the dry, dead world -- a desert world where he spent most of his days soaking wet.
Mr. Cooper asked, "Are you okay, Mr. Pain?"
"Yes, sir" he answered as they plunged below again.
"We need to shut off Haven's power," Cooper explained as made their way along the catwalk.
"Oh?" Eddie said. Haven was one of four outposts that Hoover Dam still supplied with power in exchange for supplies, labor, etc. If they fell short on quotas, the Colonel would cut them off as motivation. When the government went dark, the Colonel decided control of the substations needed to be set up within the dam itself. Haven was a Mormon community that supplied the Colonel with crops. They must have been falling behind and now their substation near the Utah border was going out. Another trailer park precariously close to Vegas supplied the Colonel with home made ammunition and their power had never been cut despite high demand. They were called the Elvis's. Soldiers swore that the group of ten men were all Elvis impersonators and still dressed for the part every time patrols went by. Eddie couldn't bring himself to buy it.
Cooper answered, "For the time being anyway. The Colonel is coming."
"Really?" Eddie asked.
"He wants to speak with you," Cooper dropped the bomb.
Eddie stopped in his tracks causing Cooper to turn around. Eddie nearly choked, "Why? What's wrong?"
Cooper put his hand on Eddie's shoulder, "Be calm, Mr. Pain, the Colonel wants to discuss a job that employs your expert skills."
Eddie stared a moment before asking, "My Western style eggs?"
Mr. Cooper didn't smille at all, "Diving, Mr. Pain, your diving skills."
"We are in the middle of a desert. What diving skill does he need?" Eddie pressed.
Mr. Cooper cleared his throat, "It is complicated. Let's keep walking."