The Zombie Theories (Book 3): Conversion Theory

by Rich Restucci

  “Why Captain, are you robbing the US Navy?”

  “No.” It was his turn to smile a smug smile. “We’re robbing the US government. The item in question could provide us additional security. It would definitely be worth almost anything to the executive branch, if there are any left.” He looked me right in the eyes. “It’s probably worth them leaving you alone for a trade.”

  I looked at Ship. He had one thumb up. I looked at Remo, and he looked bored.

  “We’re in.”

  I worked for a day with Smithers on how to best get at Schumitz’s mystery item. “The safe is located in the captain’s quarters,” he told me and pointed at an electronic set of blueprints on his tablet (finally, like Aliens!), “here.”

  It was sort of in the forward-center of the ship, one deck down from the galley. Depending on how the ship looked when we got there, it would be an easy walk to the captain’s quarters, then cut the safe open with a torch, grab whatever it is that was needed, and bug out.

  Easy. I need to stop thinking that.

  Dawn of the following day saw me looking at the beached Kanawha. We were surveying the wreck from the rear deck of the Mary’s Joy, a forty-four-foot pleasure craft that had been used to get some desperate people from the mainland to Atlantis. This boat had been some rich guy’s pre-apocalypse toy. There were pictures of small children inside, and it made me sad.

  The fact that the Kanawha was 4/5ths sunk and at a twenty or so degree port angle also made me sad. These guys would have to dive, no two ways around it. The fact that there were a couple of dead crew members meandering around the foredeck gave me cause for concern as well. I just got back from a damn zombie-infested ship. Now I was ten feet from the rails of what could be another one. This one was mostly underwater, even if it was a mere eighth of a mile from what was once probably a beautiful Texas beach. Six or seven dead things had been on the shore, but when they heard our boat motor, they splashed into the surf toward us and disappeared.

  Fuck this.

  The Kanawha was a weird-looking boat. She had a bunch of big, gray cranes on her front and mid decks. Most of the mid-deck was sunk, but the front of the vessel was sticking out of the water. Waves slapped against the foredeck, and I saw an infected crawl up and out of the water. It came toward us, but slipped on the angled steel and slid back beneath the black surface.

  “How many crew were on this thing before it sunk?” I asked Ensign Everly.

  “One hundred and eight crew, but there were probably refugees as well. I know there were high-level US government officials on board too.”

  Smithers was suiting up and he had company. Five other guys were also getting ready to dive. They were kids. Young Navy boys about to dive into a hell most people couldn’t possibly understand. I grabbed one of the suits and began putting it on. It was a dry suit with an auger mask and a rebreather. Shit. So, for those of you who don’t know what that is; a wet suit is made of neoprene and lets a thin layer of water in to be warmed by your body and keep you warm when you dive. It’s very buoyant and you need weights and a buoyancy compensator to get you up and down in the water. A dry suit keeps you encapsulated in dry air and the water never touches you. The auger mask keeps your whole head inside an air-filled helmet so you can install a radio to communicate with your buddy. The re-breather acts like a scuba tank, but scrubs your exhalations so you can breathe underwater for a lot longer than with a conventional tank. Rudimentary explanation, but there it is.

  I felt a massive mitt on my shoulder. I didn’t stop picking up the suit, so using his Sasquatch powers, Ship spun me gently around like a child. He was nodding his head in the negative.

  “I have to, buddy.”

  He nodded no again, and mouthed, No!

  “I have more experience with this equipment than all these guys combined.” Everly and Smithers both looked at me. “They might need some help down there.” He scribbled furiously and turned the book to me, Which is why there is a communications system. You cannot go down there!

  “Have to, pal. I might have to see what they’re looking at, or think on the fly. What if Smithers buys it down there, they’ll need a backup.”

  “Thanks,” Smithers said with a wry smile.

  Everly moved over to us. “You really don’t need to go, they’ve got this covered. They’re all rated with this equipment.”

  “Sure. Rated. I was using it for two years solid in New England, some of the coldest, darkest water in the continental US, before they were even in the damn Navy.” I leaned in to whisper to him, “They’re babies for Christ’s sake.”

  He looked at them, then back at me. “They’ll be fine. They’re trained.”

  “Nobody’s trained for that,” I said, and pointed at the undead who had struggled up the deck again and was reaching for us over the gunwale. Its head snapped back and there was a report from nearby. Remo holstered his M9 and I looked at him.

  “I am.”

  “You’re trained to kill everything else, not something that’s already dead.”

  “What’s the difference? Whether I get shot or eaten, I still have to kill the enemy before he kills me. Every operator would say the same.”

  Ship began searching for another set of gear, but Everly stopped him. “There are only eight rebreathers. Besides, on what planet would there be a dry suit big enough for you?” He turned his gaze to me. “I still say you don’t have to go, but Schumitz said not to stop you if you wanted in.”

  I smiled. That prick had me figured out. I wish I could figure me out. “Whatever is down there,” I thumbed at the sunken vessel, “could keep these government douches off of me and all of us. It’s a no-brainer, we have to get it.”

  Ship, obviously pissed, showed me his newest missive. How you have the ability to simultaneously exist as a smartass and a dumbass is beyond me. YOU MUST NOT GO!

  Twice he’d swore now. Granted ass was the worst thing he’d written. Another message: I can’t protect you if you pursue this folly!

  I smiled. “Touching, big boy, but I can’t be protected forever. Besides, who’s better qualified to go down there? I have the experience, and if I get bitten, it’s no big deal.”

  Your blood is key to this plague. I disagree with the methods employed by the government, to obtain it, and the fact that they kept you against your will, but if you die for someone else’s agenda, this planet may never recover. In addition, you are the only human being with my complete trust.

  I read that and smiled even harder. “I get that last part, buddy, I do. Those fuckers took every fluid I have and did every test they could and came up empty though. I’ve done my duty, and I don’t think I can help.” He began to write, but I put my hand on his book. He looked up in surprise. “Donna has eight vials of my blood preserved with EDTA on Atlantis. Doc H. has another twenty. Nobody’s getting any of my other fluids. Well, almost nobody.” – Lecherous smile there.

  I was attaching my ankle weights when Everly brought me the re-breather and helped me get it on. “Plan is to go in through the starboard window just there,” he pointed to a partially submerged window in the superstructure, “then follow the map to the safe, cut it open, grab the loot, and get back.”

  We had all seen the map in detail last night. It was fairly straightforward, and everybody had a laminated drawing with a red line for our course on a card zip-tied to their gear.

  I stared at the inky water surrounding the half-sunken ship. Jesus, I was doing it again. Hadn’t I just thought Fuck this? I got my helmet on and everybody checked in. Orca One, check. Orca Two, check. There were seven of us and when it got to me I said, “I want to be Red Five.”

  Quit screwing around. Check in and speak only when necessary.

  That had come from one of the kids. Oh shit, I had been chastised by somebody that had been in high school three years ago. “This is Orca Seven then.” Everly was chuckling as he passed me a cattle-prod-looking thing. It was a bang-stick. A twelve gauge shotgun shell on the end of a pole.
When you shoved the pole against something, the shell went off. Basically, a single-shot underwater rifle. It had been developed for shark defense. We each received ten special shells, and we all knew how to load them. That and my knife (not my SOG) were my only weapons.

  I heard two more shots through my helmet. Remo and Everly had dispatched the remaining undead on deck, and it was time to go. Most of the time when you see TV or movies with someone going into the water with dive gear, you see them fall in backwards over the side of the boat. We used a giant stride method, and scissored our legs as we hit the water. It felt fantastic to be under water again.

  Secondary comms check came through the headset. All six Orcas sounded off, and then so did I. I kept my mouth shut about being Red Five, even though that would have been way cooler. We adjusted our buoyancies, checked each other’s gear, and swam to the starboard window. We actually went a deck below, maybe ten feet underwater, and decided to go through that window, as it would be one less floor to negotiate. Our dive lights penetrated the inky darkness through the glass before Orca One, our dive leader pulled out a little device that looked like a pen. He pressed it against the window and the thing exploded into glass shards that looked like mirrors as they sunk. Cool tool, and I wanted one.

  One used his bang stick to clear away errant glass debris, and he swam in. The rest of us followed. As I was the odd man out, I had two buddies, Five and Six. Smithers was Six. We both had cutters consisting of two oxygen cylinders, a line, the cutting tool, and six cutting rods. The small gas tanks were so heavy that they had their own buoyancy compensators.

  Everything looked wrong, as the ship was partially leaning on its side. Our light beams were thin columns of visibility in the blackness of the sunken vessel, and they cast eerie shadows against the gray steel. It was weird to see seven shafts of light cutting in so many directions. Orca Two was passing an open door when he freaked, swimming back against the bulkhead quickly. It was short-lived because the fish-belly white dead man floating in the doorway was truly dead. When I swam past, I saw a wicked wound on his neck, and a bullet hole in his forehead. He was floating with his arms out like a zombie trying to attack. The sound Orca Two had made when he saw the thing was undignified, and everybody laughed at him. Everybody but me. I was starting to wonder if what little sense I possessed had fled the building.

  The first stairwell loomed in front of us, a black cavity that descended at a sideways angle off to the right. Orcas One and Two were in the hole after a quick check with their lights. The rest of the team moved into the darkness. God help me, I followed.

  Stuff was suspended in the water a deck down. Paper mostly, but some other crap too, most of it unidentifiable. What I mean is, our lamps showed us only that there was shit in the water, not what it was. This is also where we found our first signs of trouble. One of the Orcas panned his light down, and he told us to look. The beam showed us dozens of expended bullet casings, the light glinting off the brass in stark contrast to the gray of the bulkhead. The nylon sling of an MP5 undulated above the discarded weapon it was attached to as we moved past. There were bullet dents in the steel ahead of us as well as another unmoving corpse. The Kanawha must have had her own outbreak, and there had been a stand here. There was only one weapon left behind, but there were several calibers of brass. The fish that were nibbling on the severed arm a bit further down the stairs swam off when our lights hit them. This shit was getting real. I’m not liking this, one of the Orcas said as he swam past the appendage.

  The ship decided to make an awful sound right then. It was like bending metal, and it was scary enough that everybody grabbed something to hold on to. The horrible noise echoed through the black water for a moment and subsided. The boat hadn’t moved though.

  Moving down another two decks via the stairwell, we discovered our first moving corpse. It was horribly mauled, and handcuffed to a railing. It had its back to us, and was trying to get at the beams that were shooting past, putting spots of light on the bulkhead in front of it. The thing was pawing at the lights like some demented cat chasing a laser pointer. It was stretched out, using its legs to pull against the handcuff so hard that bits of its wrist were flaying off and drifting briefly through the water before they slowly sunk.

  It was gross.

  I’ll take this one, one of the Orcas said, and moved forward. He pulled his knife, swimming in just behind the dead man. He grabbed its hair to drag its head back so he could stab it, but the scalp came off in his fist. The thing, now exhibiting extreme male pattern baldness, spun around as fast as a dead thing can spin, and latched onto the kid. It leaned in for a bite, but the kid was faster and jabbed his blade into the side of its melon. When the kid jerked his knife back out, my light showed some foul fluid dispersing through the water in a nasty cloud.

  The boss kid’s voice came over the radio, Everybody stay on their toes, there’s bound to be more of them. We swam-walked down the corridor until we got to a big room. It had higher ceilings (decks) than the previous steel tubes we had traversed. Two of the kids moved into the room, panning their lights back and forth. Clear, One said before a white hand snaked from above and latched onto his auger mask. The thing pulled up, but in doing so came down on the kid, latched its other hand onto him, and bit his mask. By this time, the boy was struggling with the creature, but the dead man wouldn’t let go. It couldn’t get purchase, and just as I could hear panic coming through the radio, I saw a stick dart forward and impact the thing’s head. The creature’s noggin came apart like an over-ripe cantaloupe, all kinds of nasty shit literally exploding into the water. The boom of the stick was muffled, but wicked loud too, and it scared the shit out of me. The shot shell must have been heard over the comms by the crew of the Mary’s Joy, because Everly demanded a report.

  I flashed my light up, and looked into Hell. Hell looked back as a dozen or so dead folks fought physics to reach us. They had bloated with gases though and weren’t getting to us anytime soon. They were only about ten feet above us, but couldn’t figure out how to swim, so they just reached for us, wiggling around like nasty worms on the ceiling of the room we were in. The one that had grabbed the Orca must have been less gassy, or maybe the gas had leaked out of the multiple bullet holes in its chest and abdomen.

  We were all looking up. Orca One had been very wrong when he said the room was clear. Nothing, sir, the kid told Everly, just a few dead people trying to eat us. Tangos are down… er… up. Orcas are clear, over.

  We moved as a unit through the big room, which looked to be some type of storage from the shit all tied down with ratcheting straps. It was unsettling swim-walking underneath the dead things. They really wanted us, and we really wanted not to be there. It was terrifying. They were totally silent, their lungs no doubt filled with seawater.

  We made it to the second stairwell and started down into more foreboding darkness. We got to the second landing before we saw our next zombie. It had been burned so badly some of its skeleton was visible, the bones a sickly yellow instead of white. This particular zombie was one of the nastiest I’d seen. It looked broken in addition to burned, and part of its shoulder blade stuck up out of its back. This one was not gassy. It started toward us immediately, its scorched boots making scary, echoing noises as it thudded up the slanted steps. It was using the railing as a… well… a railing, and pulling itself toward us. One of the kids waited patiently until it was almost on him, then he stabbed it through the left eye.

  Two more decks down, and we figured out why the ship was under water. There was a giant, blackened hole in the side of the hull. Had to be ten feet across and eight feet tall. Torpedo? one of the Orcas asked. No, couldn’t be. Torpedo would have cut her in half, or at least shown more damage than this. Looks like a mine, or a shape charge did this.

  “It came from in here too,” I said. “Look at the way the steel is bent outward.” I panned my light across the charred breach, pointing.

  Smithers agreed. He’s right, you can see the scorc
h marks and the way the metal is going. Somebody sunk her from on board. Why would they do that?

  Our mission is to retrieve the package, Orca One communicated, I don’t give a shit about how this tub sank.

  “Well you fucking should,” I answered, ire in my voice. This kid was starting to piss me off. “Whatever reason someone had for sinking this ship could very well mean our deaths if we aren’t careful.”

  You’re a consultant, he shot back. When I need consulting, you consult. Until then be quiet and— the Kanawha made another one of those rending metal sounds, and this time, she did move. Only a bit, but it was there. The good news was if something happened right now, we could just swim out the breach in the hull that was right next to us.

  Unless, of course, the entire angled stairway we were standing on and part of the deck near it gave way, crashing into the ship below us. The clamor of stretching metal reached its crescendo, something snapped incredibly loudly under us, spewing bubbles skyward, and we were all sucked down through a huge chasm that had appeared in the deck. The metal must have fatigued enough from the blast that our weight on the steps was the camel’s straw.

  I twisted as I fell, the cutter handle being torn from my grasp and my light beam going in all directions as it spun away from me. The total darkness was made absolute when something heavy struck me in the back of the head as I tumbled to the depths.

  Deep Shit

  Noise. There had been a loud noise. I blinked my eyes but couldn’t see anything. I brought my hand to my face to check what was wrong, but my hand hit some type of barrier. Panic began to well up, and I heard Sound off! This is Orca One! come through my head. I remembered I was underwater in the pitch black, with a helmet on my head. That was why I couldn’t see or touch my face.

  Then the pain hit me. My fuk’n dome was splitting again. I couldn’t rub or cradle my noggin either. I don’t care who you are, from the President to the Pope, if you can rub your head after you bump it, it feels better. Screw you if you disagree, I’m not in the mood.