Undead

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  Relief almost washed over Max when he rounded a bend and saw whitecaps breaking around the stream’s mouth, a few hundred meters distant. An overpass on the coast road would be the last obstacle to negotiate. Vehicle sirens approached quickly as he neared the overpass. He ducked into the brush and lay flat in the mud as several vehicles roared across the bridge and up the coast. Their wailing sirens faded yet did not go silent. They’re probably headed for the roadblock to question the survivors and begin their search.

  Max got moving again. The water beneath the overpass reached his shoulders, so he waded through with his rifle overhead until he finally reached the beach, at present a narrow, sandy strand as the tide began to recede. Sand dunes covered in sea oats and scrub separated the beach from the coast road. Good cover.

  He assumed a prone position in the oats and consulted the GPS—the cache was buried about three hundred meters up the beach. Waves crashed; sirens howled; trucks and jeeps dashed past on the coast road. Max tried to ignore it all as he crawled through sand and vegetation. Not the fastest way to reach the cache, but the most likely way to successfully arrive.

  He had almost reached his objective when he heard helicopter rotors thumping close by, no more than a couple of kilometers away. Nothing could have sounded more ominous at that moment. What’s in that cache? How the hell can I be extracted under these conditions? His mad dash to the coast would be all for naught if he had to call a helicopter, which wouldn’t dare fly in before nightfall. He would be caught or killed long before sunset.

  Max had reached the cache according to the GPS, though the device was only accurate to five meters. At present, he lay on the side of a sand dune with only a couple of bushes for cover. Not here. He crawled a few more feet and saw a hollow between two dunes, the oats and vegetation growing thick on both sides. There! He slid down to the very lowest point in the hollow, stuck the rifle in a bush to keep it out of the sand, and started digging like a dog searching for a beloved old bone. His shoulder and ribs ached with every hand scoop of dirt.

  His gloved fingers scraped steel about a foot down. It took him only a few minutes to unearth the cache: a green steel container larger than an antique steamer trunk. A SEAL team had likely buried it, slipping in and out at night. Max silently applauded their placement of the cache. Had they chosen a less conspicuous spot he would have wasted valuable minutes probing the sand for it.

  Max rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and to remove the sand. “What have I won, Johnny?” He popped the two locks on the case and raised the lid.

  Two M-4 carbines with several loaded mags, seven small black leather carrying cases, and one scrap of paper topped the cache. Max opened one of the cases and found a waterproof personal transponder beacon with GPS that fit in his palm. He powered it on, and a small red light on the device started blinking about every two seconds. Grid coordinates for a point somewhere out at sea were written on the paper. After he entered them into the GPS, Max ripped the paper to tiny shreds and tossed them into the ocean breeze to flutter and disperse.

  He found diving gear for seven—wet suits, fins, masks with snorkels, mini oxygen tanks with rebreather systems—carefully packed into the bottom of the trunk. Each of the tanks held thirty minutes of air tops. He would have to swim near the surface when his oxygen ran out. A first aid kit, a few energy bars, and bottles of water completed the cache.

  He left the Type 58 rifle in the bush and loaded one of the M-4s, a weapon he was intimately familiar with. He then stripped out of his combat gear, which reeked of shitty stream muck. The gauze wrapping his leg, soaked in water and blood, had loosened considerably since application.

  Max gritted his teeth and inhaled sharply when he dared to probe the gauze with a finger. He debated changing the dressing. There wasn’t time, and another gauze wrap would loosen from friction with the wetsuit. He removed the disgusting dressing from his leg and cast it aside, then nearly vomited at the stench rising from the still-oozing wound.

  Move it or lose it. It would be the latter if he didn’t get medical attention soon.

  He opted to leave in place the adhesive bandage on his shoulder, which had miraculously held fast. Though bruised an eggplant purple, his ribs only caused him moderate discomfort. Maybe they’re not cracked after all.

  He gobbled one energy bar in two massive bites; then he slowly ate another and drank water as he donned the skin-tight wetsuit, an exercise in frustration and pain. He thought he might pass out as he wrestled the suit over his injured shoulder. Ten minutes later he was ready to swim, clad head to heel in thick neoprene, his tank and rebreather functioning properly. The transponder, his most important piece of gear, he kept up the sleeve of his wetsuit. He would swim out far from shore before consulting it again. Right now he needed to get in the water and go.

  Max crawled from the hollow with the M-4 in his hands and slithered between more dunes before reaching the flatter portion of the beach. 1403. Surf crashed onto brown sands sixty feet from where he lay. He looked both ways down the strand and saw no one.

  Run or leopard crawl? He would make a prominent target crossing the sands either way, easy to spot in his black wetsuit beneath the midday sun. Fuck it. He stood and began running to the water, fins in hand, eager to defect from North Korean soil.

  24

  As he reached the surf, Max heard the first faint yet frenetic shouts in Korean, followed by distant rifle fire. He crouched, turned, looked around. Several soldiers had emerged from the dunes some two hundred meters away and paused to fire upon him. One of their bullets impacted in the sand near his feet; others flew past him or over his head, a swarm of lead that cracked and whistled even over the pounding surf.

  Max fired a burst at them with the M-4, hitting nobody but shooting up enough sand to make them drop and crawl for a few feet. He threw aside the rifle and stepped into the surf. Waves and tricky tidal currents conspired to sweep him off his feet as he pulled on his fins. The ice-cold water of the Sea of Japan almost took his breath away. Depth varied from nothing, to about a foot or two, when a wave broke and sloshed onto the beach, far too shallow for swimming. His fins severely hampered movement and forced him to walk in a crouch to maintain balance. The shouts grew louder as his pursuers closed in. Bullets whizzed past Max as they fired on the run, more for effect than for accuracy. He grew alarmed as he trudged through the water and prayed it would deepen. Two feet is all I need!

  A few seconds later he reached the sandbar where the first low waves curled and broke before expending their energy on shore. The bottom sloped sharply downward, and he dove forward into the water. Brilliant ripples of refracted light, bouncing off the submerged and barren sands, provided excellent visibility. Max descended to the bottom, about five feet below the surface, and took off swimming with nothing but clear water ahead.

  Or so he thought until he saw the outer sandbar looming ahead. Shit, I’ll have to crawl across. He would be exposed for a distance of roughly thirty feet crossing the bar before he could dive into deeper waters on the other side.

  A tiny streak of bubbles darted past a couple of feet to his right and terminated in a tiny puff of brown grit. But the soldiers had little chance of hitting Max at his current depth. They probably couldn’t see him, and his rebreather expended no bubbles to betray his position. But you’ll be a target on that sandbar. He considered swimming up or down the beach in the trough between the sandbars before crossing, but quickly dismissed the idea. There could be a whole company on that beach by now. There was nothing to it but to do it.

  He had distance on his side if nothing else. I’m at least two hundred meters out. The thought provided little reassurance, however. The worst shots in the Marine Corps could hit an easy target at that distance, and the men chasing him probably could as well. Still a long shot on a moving target. Just get over it quickly.

  He reached the sandbar, about eighteen inches deep and extending thirty feet to
another line of breaking waves. Walking upright would get him across no faster, so he crawled across the bar on hands and knees. Bullets popped and hissed through the air; mini geysers erupted when they struck the water. Looking back he saw only one squad firing from at least two hundred fifty meters away. He crawled fast, confident of success.

  In the next instant he tasted warm, salty air as opposed to cool bottled oxygen, and knew his rebreather hose had been damaged by a very lucky or skillful shot. He ripped the rebreather mask from his face and crawled on as more bullets splashed down in his vicinity. A six-foot rogue of a wave, double the size of the others, broke on the bar dead ahead of him. Max took a deep breath and dove into the roiling water. Fortunately, the rebreather and facemask were two separate units, and after swimming beneath the final wave he saw clearly what lay below and ahead: open water fifteen feet deep, the bottom sloping ever downward beneath a bed of sea grass bending to and fro with the currents.

  He dove to a depth of ten feet, shrugged off his tank and discarded the useless rebreather mask, then swam for another thirty seconds before resurfacing for a hasty breath of air. The cold water invigorated him as he grew acclimatized to the temperature. He dove and surfaced several times before daring a look back at the coast, where a company of men now milled about amongst a dozen jeeps and several police vehicles with red strobe lights.

  A jeep hauling a flatbed trailer loaded with two inflatable rafts bounced down the beach toward his entry point. This gets no better.

  He descended again, swam hard and kept a low profile when he came up for air. They’d have to run over you to find you. His discarded tank floating on the surface would draw attention away from him. Helicopters would search for him as well, but he would be hard to spot beneath the water. His situation could have been far worse.

  Two hours passed in a heartbeat as Max played mouse for North Korean cats in inflatable rafts and search helicopters. The cold water that had energized him now seemed to numb his entire being.

  According to his transponder/GPS the pickup point was still 12.1 kilometers out to sea. International waters. Did they really expect him to swim that far? Even if he’d had a tank, the oxygen would have run out by now. The beacon is on; they’ll come for you. But when? Not in broad daylight—the US isn’t about to start a war over the likes of you.

  After submerging to avoid a low-flying helicopter, Max surfaced and took a break to check his bearings: twelve kilometers from his GPS point; six kilometers from shore; time 1715. The sun had dipped noticeably toward the horizon. Solar glare reflecting off the water made him squint, though shadow filled the troughs between swells.

  The helicopter banked left and headed back to shore. It’s getting too dark. It appeared the inflatables had given up the chase as well.

  But a new threat presented itself an instant later, when a squat silhouette appeared on the northern horizon: a patrol ship. Max wasn’t overly worried; he would be hard to spot swimming on the surface, even if a searchlight fell upon him. Again, to locate him they would have to run over him. He swam on, keeping mostly to the surface.

  The sun set behind the mountainous Korean Peninsula at 1810. In its dying light Max saw two more patrol ships approaching from the south. Hope they don’t have infrared search capability. They moved fast before a wall of dark-gray clouds building behind them. A storm would hamper their search, but it might kill Max, who saw it as only one more hostile force to contend with on his swim to freedom.

  With the amount of blood you’re trailing, sharks are likely next.

  No sharks came, but the patrol boats arrived in his area and began searching. Two ran passes north and south covering a wide swath of ocean while the third circled them. One of the vessels, which resembled US Coast Guard cutters, sailed to within two hundred meters of him, its spotlight falling just short of his location.

  He breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the ship moved off, but the feeling disappeared a few minutes later when the storm blew in from the south, bringing spotty blasts of rain and howling winds that frothed the ocean into high, snarling whitecaps. The backlit ridges of Korea disappeared as tempestuous seas shortened the horizon.

  Max paddled onward through troughs and over swells several meters high. Rain pounded down and a multi-forked bolt of lightning split the sky to touch down upon the sea. He stopped looking pointlessly for the patrol boats and concentrated on the swim, though he found his strength flagging, limbs stiff and heavy from exertion and the cold water. He’d been in the sea over five hours now, and despite his exertions the chill took root in his core.

  Drysuits next time. Max would insist upon it. And why not? I’ll be in charge again.

  Another facet of his conscience responded, With a new team to lead to hell.

  Would that be the case? Would he contract once again for a foolhardy mission like Alaska? Or this one? Fuck, is anything in this world what it seems?

  Juno Rey came to mind. Death was the best thing for her.

  A wave crested over top of him, and Max dove just in time to avoid being smashed beneath thousands of gallons of water.

  There was nothing else to be done. He kicked to the surface like an injured seal. Daggers of pain from his shoulder pierced his brain. The joint had yet to grow stiff, but he knew it would if he rested it too long. Still, I only wish that—

  Enough already. She’s gone, just one of many. And she betrayed you, got you into this fine fucking mess. You were dumb as a post and pussy-whipped, thinking she would give up that password.

  He fought on through the fury of saltwater and wind, reminiscing as his limbs grew cold and slowly stiffened like concrete drying into a dense heaviness that would pull him to the bottom of the ocean.

  Next time, my way. He would handpick another group of mercs; only retired servicemen with stellar records and extensive combat experience need apply. No one from the CIA. Never again.

  So how many men die next time? his other voice interrupted. Six, eight, a dozen? Hell, what do you care? You’ll probably survive; you’re pretty good at that.

  The final words uttered by over a score of men assaulted his soul, an unholy chorus of voices self-assured, alarmed, frightened, angry, sentimental, frantic, and a host of other emotions. If I could only have saved one of them. LT came to mind, his old XO and the last man to die in Alaska. The helicopter was right there. But LT died before Max could get him aboard. There hadn’t even been time to load his body so that he might get a decent burial. Vaporized, him and all the others.

  But I got Banner.

  Saltwater filled his mouth as he barely struggled over the crest of a swell.

  Big fucking deal. It’s not over, not until you find that other bastard.

  He lost momentum swimming over a wave. His left shoulder appeared to have gone on strike, perhaps in demand of better healthcare. Again. He slipped under the water but found himself up and bobbing just in time to face the next swell.

  Mine, whoever the fuck he is...

  Yeah. Okay.

  Under he went, but a couple of desperate kicks with his right leg returned him to the surface. He shook from a chill, yet somehow crested another swell and prepared to do so again, and again...

  A bobbing searchlight of about a billion lumens struck his eyes and blinded him. “Shit! No!” The last remnants of his strength deserted him as he roared the words. They’d found him; he was finished.

  Max floated in a trough, rode another mild swell upward and again found himself in the spotlight. He’d already stopped swimming, merely treading water now, and not for much longer.

  The patrol boat closed in, no longer disappearing when Max descended into a trough, which he noticed were getting shallower. The winds too were dying down as he stared mesmerized into the approaching spotlight that had him locked in its glaring grip.

  You can’t have me. I’m going to join my family and my men.

  H
e stopped moving his aching, leaden limbs and began to sink.

  The blinding light of God Almighty, or whatever force ruled the universe, lit the sky in fantastic orange as his eyes slid beneath the surface. Finally. Take me.

  God complied—an angel in the murky depths grabbed hold of his ankles and yanked him deep beneath the waves to his new home.

  I’ll be in good company.

  He opened his mouth and breathed water.

  25

  Fulgent light pried open Max’s eyelids. What is this place? It looked nothing at all like his bedroom or anyplace else where he’d wish to awaken. Pipes and conduits sheathed in insulation snaked in precise bends across a ceiling that appeared far too low. A groan came from somewhere behind the teal curtain that encircled the narrow bed in which he lay.

  Where the hell am I? He wished to exit this place immediately. Unfortunately, merely gathering enough energy to move his head proved a daunting challenge. The entire left side of his body ached. Pain stabbed at his thigh when he moved his leg, cutting short his attempt to get out of bed. His ribs caught fire as his breathing rate increased.

  He then noticed the IV tube stuck in his arm. Hospital? But how?

  The curtain flew back to expose a young black man wearing a naval work uniform, a first-class petty officer with several days worth of stubble on his face. A sigil of a snake wrapped around a rod adorned his rank patch. “You’re back,” he said to Max with a hint of amusement. “We were taking bets on when you might wake up.”

  Max took a few moments to decipher the words in his foggy mind. One of the three bags hanging from his IV tree must have contained a powerful painkiller. Not powerful enough. “So are you rich now?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t say I am. I didn’t think you’d be up until tomorrow, so it’s back to my day job.”