The Osprey settled back down, and Potoski began his rhythmic fire once again. And as before, Shader joined the big Marine. At best, they’d buy the island a few minutes. Whether that little time would mean anything wouldn’t be known for a while. Maybe Shader would hear about it from some lucky sailor or family member when he returned to the Roosevelt. Until then, he’d continue sending .556 rounds down into the infected mob and hope it makes a difference.
— 30 —
Jennifer Blevins
Just north of Glorietta Bay
Coronado Island
“Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
–MARTIN LUTHER
Explosions ripped the road, sending the HUMVEE careening to the left. Garrett slammed on the brakes as the asphalt four-lane street erupted less than half a mile in front of them. Several jets streaked overhead as dozens of fiery clouds fused into a single maelstrom. The light from the combined explosions momentarily blinded them all.
“That’s close,” Jen said, her eyes adjusting back to a normal level.
“They’re dropping ordinance on the front of the horde,” Gardner said. “We don’t have much time. How far to the marina?”
“Just up there and to the left.” Jen pointed at an intersection about two hundred yards ahead.
“Move it!” Polodare yelled, pointing down the road. “We’re running out of time.”
Garret pushed the accelerator, slowly speeding up the sidewalk and back onto the street.
The marina came into view, boats occupying most of the hundred-or-so slips. Garrett swung left and ran parallel to the water. The billowing cloud from the bombing run was still glowing slightly in the dark sky, its clouds illuminated by the fires ignited by the detonations.
The flyboys caught the Variant mob on the isthmus, leaving the infected horde blocked by water on both sides and a fire to their front. The ensuing flames should buy them some time to find a boat and cast off.
“Cut right!” Gardner yelled. Garrett saw a parking lot and swung into it, sideswiping a few cars in the process. Several curses came from the passengers, but Garrett ignored them as he jammed the brake pedal to the floor. They screeched to a stop, and all four flung their doors open and ran to the harbor.
The wooden dock was dimly illuminated by the nearby fire. Jen was grateful she didn’t need to rely on one of the guys to lead her along. Their night vision goggles were great for them, but she would have needed their help if it was any darker.
They stepped across a ramp that hung over the water and walked onto the dock. It was in a “Z” shape. The boats were on the upside and top legs of the zig-zag.
They scurried down the base and turned right, moving further away from land and into the mass of schooners, offshore fishing boats, and trawlers that were parked along the way.
“Everyone! Take a boat. Look for a key and make sure there’s fuel.”
“I have no idea how to check on that,” Jen said. “And it’s pitch black in there. I can’t see a thing.”
“Dude,” Manny said. “I have no clue either.”
“How don’t you know?” Garrett shouted. “You were raised on an island.”
“Yo soy del jibaro!”
“English!” Gardner barked.
“I’m from the countryside! Dumbass.”
Gardner snorted. “A damn hick. Now it all makes sense.”
“Sure, Mr. Flo-ri-duh! Like your state is so fancy. You know how to run one of these things? You practically live on an island, you know!”
Gardner flipped Manny a one-finger salute and shook his head. “It’s not that hard. The gauges are marked.”
“Uh. Guys,” Jen said.
“Screw you,” Manny shot back at Gardner. “You don’t have a clue either.”
“Uh. GUYS!” Jen repeated.
“Let’s do this together,” Garrett finally said. “We can figure this out…”
“GUYS!” Jen shouted, grabbing Garrett by the arm. She twisted him around and pointed out to the isthmus.
“What?” Garrett yelled back.
The fires were still burning, the buildings and even asphalt smoldering from the bombardment. There was still a wall of protection between the rest of the island and the infected horde coming up the isthmus. At least, that’s what they all thought.
But they were wrong.
First a few small groups, then finally a large mass of the creatures broke through the flames. The Variants sprinted forward, the heat and fire failing to stop their advance.
Thousands poured through the inferno, their bodies and clothing alit with patches of fire. The jerky motion of their disjointed limbs had them bouncing up and down while the orange and yellow flames slowly consumed their skin and hair. Their shrieks and moans cut through the crackle of the fire. Their cries reeked of anger and starvation.
“Holy mother of God,” Jen gasped.
“Come on,” Garrett whispered. “We don’t have much time.”
The four stayed together. They scampered on adjacent boats, trying craft after craft. Each one proved fruitless. Either there was no key, or the larger boats were locked.
Jen jumped onto the back of a trawler. The forty-four-foot boat swayed after she landed, knocking a patio table and its two chairs across the rear deck. The entrance to the lower helm station and sleeping berths was behind a smoked glass entrance. There was a handle with a key lock. After trying over a dozen craft, she perfunctorily tugged on the ship’s sliding glass door, expecting it to be locked like all the others. It opened!
“Garrett!” she yelled.
She rushed into the dark compartment and was hit by a wall of odors from rotting food and mildewed linens. She covered her nose and gagged.
She heard the thump from one of the guys landing on the back of the boat. She was about to turn and call them in, when something groaned from in front of her. Jen froze, terror immobilizing her limbs. A groan, this one louder and more frightening, shook her to her soul.
Jen searched but couldn’t see anything moving. It was like staring into a pool of black ink. She heard shuffling from her left. She held her breath, daring not to make a sound.
Another creak on the wooden floors! It felt like someone or something was lurking just ahead. She searched futilely for anything that would tell her where it was. Nothing but a curtain of darkness stared back at her.
Jen took a small step back and hit a weak spot in the floorboards. It loudly creaked.
A primal screech echoed from the left. Jen screamed. She looked into the inky blackness and saw two glowing embers staring back at her from below.
It was a Variant moving at her from the lower berth. It bellowed a horrifying cry, freezing Jen. Her legs refused to respond. The creature leapt, its eyes wide in anticipation of a fleshy fresh meal.
Jen closed her eyes and let out a final cry. She was dead, and she knew it.
Garrett
It was getting difficult to swallow the terror growing inside. They’d checked fourteen boats so far and were just starting on the docks at the furthest end of the marina. They’d come up dry.
The owners had locked their crafts as they normally did when they weren’t in use. The infection had spread rapidly, and the likelihood that any one of these had their keys was slim to none. They were on a fool’s mission, and Garrett was likely the only one who knew it.
The others had no boating experience. That surprised him. Both Manny and John had come from boat-rich areas. Manny from Puerto Rico and Gardner from Florida. How they hadn’t set foot on anything larger than a Jon boat was beyond him.
It was up to him to find their salvation. Garrett knew it was unlikely they’d find something other than a dinghy or a smaller tender. But even those would be locked to their boat’s cranes. It wasn’t looking good.
Garrett had just landed on the back of a super sport fishing boat. Its fishing tower swung lazily above him as he tried to open the back door. It was locked.
He was ab
out to smash through the glass, hoping the keys had been left inside. He knew it was a fool’s errand. If someone had locked the access door, they’d taken all the keys with them. It was the natural thing to do.
“Garrett!” he heard Jen yell.
She sounded excited. It probably meant she’d found an open boat.
He turned and leapt onto the dock and sprinted around to the adjacent dock, where Jen had just gone. He saw the back door slide open on an old Thompson trawler. Garrett smiled. He’d spent time on a similar boat a few years back.
Garrett dropped onto the back of the Thompson. He was about to call Jen’s name when he heard her scream. He flipped his NV monocular down over his eye and brought his rifle up just as Jen screamed again. This one, however, held as much despair as it did fear. Garrett knew his fiancé was about to die.
He spun into the doorway just as a Variant leapt at Jen from the lower berth.
There was no time to stop the attack. Garrett futilely brought his rifle up to bear, but the creature was already airborne and would be latched onto Jen before he could do anything about it.
Jennifer
The eyes! That’s what she would remember. Not the heart-stopping scream, nor the rancid, pustulant odor. It would be the eyes, radiating a hate and hunger that bore into her soul. She watched, almost in slow motion, as the two burning orbs flew at her through the air. She waited for its hands to clamp down on her with a pincer-like grasp. Would she feel the shark-like, razor-edged teeth slice through her flesh, or were they so sharp that her nerves would fail to register her death? She would soon find out.
Then something incredible happened. The eyes stopped their ascent and suddenly plunged out of sight. The Variant lunged for her but hit the overhang above the lower berth’s door. Then, just as she thought she would escape death, a hand grasped her from behind and pulled her back. She never saw the other creature as it flung her onto her back. How fitting, she thought. I’m going to die, and I never saw it coming.
Jen closed her eyes once again. She’d lost the ability to care anymore.
“Jen!” Garrett screamed.
She opened her eyes and saw Garrett standing over her. He held his slung rifle in his right hand and was reaching down with his left to pull her up. It had been him that flung her back out of the hold. She was lying on the back deck, staring up at the torn, canvas Bimini above.
A scream bellowed out of the boat. Garrett spun just as a Variant flung itself out of the darkened interior, its deformed arms extended and round maw snapping and spitting.
Garrett just had time to put his rifle up and shove it into the creature’s chest. He dropped as the creature was pushed away and over him, slamming into the aft gunwale. It bounced onto the deck and twisted itself up before rearing its head back with a shriek.
It squatted down to leap at them both, Garrett having landed next to Jen on the deck of the craft. Just as it started its final jump, two rifles erupted nearby. The Variant was rocked by automatic fire from twin M4s, shredding its upper body with .556 rounds. Its torso and head disappeared in a cloud of infected chunks of flesh. The force of the strikes sent the rest of the corpse over the back and into the water. Jen looked up and saw both Gardner and Polodare standing on the dock, their rifle muzzles billowing smoke from the sustained gunfire.
A moment of quiet had them all feeling like they’d dodged a bullet themselves. They had just enough time to crack smiles at each other before an answering scream came at them from the shore. Jen and Garrett stood and looked to the parking lot where they’d left the HUMVEE. It was thick with the infected, and the creature’s scream had alerted them all to the fleshy meal it had found. As one, the mob rushed to the nearby shoreline.
The four stood, transfixed. The horde wouldn’t push into the water. It was as before. Back at the bridge, the creatures refused to go anywhere near the ocean, making the bridge a fatal choke point and perfect funnel to prevent the base from being overrun. Now, the water was providing them a barrier as well.
Their newfound sense of security was short-lived. A few found the ramp to the dock and began leaping from boat to boat. Almost a dozen advanced on them. They had less than a minute.
“Jacobs! Clear that craft and get us the hell out of here!” Gardner yelled.
“Cut the lines and push us off,” Garrett answered.
He pushed Jen to the side and strode into the craft as Manny took his KA-BAR and began cutting the lines holding them to the dock.
The Variant horde trying to get at them from the land was growing in size. In just a minute, what had been a few hundred was now in the thousands, as many of the creatures coming up the isthmus had directed their attention at them. The back of the horde was pushing hard to get to the front. The seawall was lined with the infected, all screaming at the meal that lay just beyond their grasp.
Gardner opened fire. Nine of the Variants were jumping from craft to craft, and they were closing in on the four survivors. Gardner’s suppressed rifle spat lead at the lead creature. With it leaping and bouncing from deck to deck, John’s shots failed to find their mark. Five more creatures were not far behind with three of them having disappeared, slipping into the surrounding ocean.
Gardner swapped magazines just as Manny cut the last line tethering them to the dock. He brought his rifle to bear. The two guns now erupted together, cutting down the lead creature.
“JACOBS!” Gardner shouted.
Garrett reappeared from inside, adding his rifle to the other two. Within seconds, the three men put the remaining five advancing Variants down.
“Get in there and start this damned thing!” Gardner screamed.
“Battery’s dead,” Garrett said glumly. “We’re not going anywhere.”
As if they could hear Garrett declare that they were stranded, the horde of creatures back on shore let out a scream that shook the very decks of the nearby boats. The four looked back to the mass of infected and watched as the front creatures were pushed into the water by those in the back. It almost looked comical as the infected lost their purchase and fell forward into the murky ocean. The next in line were pushed into the water as well, followed by even more. The back of the horde had grown. They were too numerous to count. Tens of thousands were pouring through the dying flames at the mouth of the isthmus, many of them turning toward the sound of the wails and cries from the shore.
Then, a strange thing happened. The leading edge of the infected stopped falling into the ocean. They seemed to be getting closer. They were still being pushed, but it was like the land was reaching out toward the group.
It took Gardner just a moment to understand what was happening.
“They’re stepping on the ones that’ve already dropped into the water. We have to get the hell out of here. NOW!”
“Push us off,” Jen pled. “At least, let’s get us away from the dock.”
The three men leapt out of the boat and began to push the forty-four-foot trawler out and away from the mooring. At the last minute, they jumped onto the back of the boat.
The craft slowly drifted towards the center of the harbor, as more and more of the Variants were pushed into the sea. The line of creatures was never ending. They all realized that, given enough time, the Variants would create a mass at the bottom of the harbor that would eventually reach them.
Jen looked up at Garrett and saw, for the first time, fear in his eyes.
She clutched his chest, hugging him tightly as the boat slowly drifted. Its momentum would eventually be overcome by the tide. At some point, they’d be moving back into the clutches of the infected.
“Can we use the dinghy?” Gardner asked as he stared at the Variants being pushed into the water.
“The crane runs on electricity,” Garrett replied. “It won’t lower into the water.”
“Can’t we cut it loose?”
“No. It’s bound by steel cables. I checked.”
“What do we do?”
“Find life preservers and get ready to ab
andon ship. The only thing we can do is swim for it. Maybe if we go in the water, they’ll lose track of us.”
Jen pulled herself from Garrett’s chest and looked up at him. “You think that will work?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
He kissed her forehead.
She smiled but held her thoughts. Garrett may have said it would work, but his eyes betrayed his true beliefs. He was still frightened. His uncertain gaze told her he didn’t think they would make it. She could see that as he looked down.
Jen grabbed him tightly. It was all she could do.
— 31 —
Porky Shader
Raven 14
V-22 Osprey
Shader had emptied most of his magazines into the advancing horde. The fires that had been lit by the F-18 bombing run were now starting to dissipate.
Watching the creatures push through the flames was probably the most amazing and horrifying thing he’d seen to date. The leading edge of the monsters had been engulfed in fire, running forward like human torches. They’d lasted almost a hundred yards before they started to lose their direction. Hundreds began to wander aimlessly as the ones behind pushed past. The best he could tell, Shader figured that their eyes had been burned through, leaving them blind. Yet, they continued to haphazardly advance, searching for their next meal.
Potoski was loading his last of the belt-fed ammunition. His barrel glowed red from sustained fire. It might even warp with their last 800 bullets, but they didn’t have a spare barrel to swap out. He ripped the empty drum magazine from under the weapon and dropped it to the floor. It joined over a dozen other empties. He slid one of the four remaining 200-round drums under the weapon, locking it in place. He pulled a belt of ammunition from the oversized drum and laid it on the top of the machine gun’s open chamber. He dropped the cover back over the belt and pulled and pushed the charging handle, putting the first round into position. He was ready to rock and roll.
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