Death Tide

by Devon C. Ford

  The two medical orderlies, their backs turned to him as they chatted inanely about an upcoming baseball game, as though the world weren’t burning all around them, didn’t notice the small movements of what they thought was a dead body behind them.

  The engineer sat up slowly, demonstrating a core strength that he did not know he’d possessed when his actions were cognitive, then he bent at the waist and rose silently, fixing his half-blind gaze on the backs of the two young sailors who were still talking without a care in the world. Swinging his right leg off the cold gurney and slapping it gently onto the cold deck, he followed it with his other leg as his eyes stayed glued to the source of the sound. As his second foot slapped down, the slight noise made the hairs on the back of one orderly prickle, and he turned to see the dead body standing upright and staring straight at him.

  He turned back, frowning, and looked at his friend, before opening his eyes wide in terror as his head whipped back to the standing corpse.

  Too late, he found himself face to face with the body, which was a head taller than he was. Cold hands clamped either side of his face as the sharp fingernails dug painfully into the thin flesh over his skull, but no scream came from him as the open mouth of the zombie clamped hard onto his own and bit hard to tear his lips and the tip of his tongue away in one savage rip. The zombie rocked, staggered one pace to its right, then turned to mindlessly view the source of disruption. Dropping the shaking, gargling mess of the young man it had already infected, the thing that used to be an engineer turned and cocked its head slightly at the other sailor, who was nursing a hand with broken bones after throwing a pointless right hook into the side of its head. Stepping backwards and babbling incoherently, his shoulders clattered into a wall cupboard and bounced him back slightly.

  Directly into the jaws of the naked man, who bit into the right side of his neck so hard that the last sound he heard was a crunching noise followed by a squelch. Hot blood ran down his upper body and he blacked out, never to wake again. Not alive, at least.

  The second sailor’s body hit the deck and knocked down a tray of instruments, making a harsh rattle of metal echo into the gangway outside the sealed door. The falling instrument tray made an IV stand teeter, before finally toppling over to bang loudly against a metal surface just as two other sailors were walking past.

  The two men froze, looking at each other in silent question. One of them rapped his knuckles against the metal door and called out, asking if everything was okay in there. The only response was a strangled, screeching cry from inside, a cry that the two sailors had not heard before and did not have a hope of comprehending, and they threw open the door to offer assistance.

  “What do you think we will do next?” Berg asked Astrid quietly in their native language as they cleaned their weapons.

  “Probably go home and wait years for another mission,” she replied sullenly, before she remembered that she should act the part of the senior commando, even if there were only two of them left of their unit.

  “Will they try to reclaim the countries lost to the disease?” he asked almost rhetorically, “or just seal them off and let it die out?”

  “Will it die out?” she asked, perplexed that the concept of a virus burning itself out of a host was a possibility.

  Berg shrugged.

  “Who knows? Some scientists at home think that the infected hosts will all eventually die out.”

  Astrid stopped cleaning her MP5 as she considered what he had said. The theory was feasible, she had to admit, as the ones she had seen all smelt like they were rotting. She had to accept that if the infected weren’t preserved, then they would eventually decompose enough to not pose a threat to the living.

  Almost simultaneously, the two FSK commandos finished reassembling their clean weapons and clicked fresh magazines into place. Weapon discipline made them not chamber a round, as the effects of a negligent discharge inside a small metal box weren’t worth the risk, and both drew their pistols to clean them just as an alarm sounded. The two looked at each other, neither willing to take the risk that it was just a drill or a false alarm, and both stood to ready themselves for yet another fight.

  By the time the engineer had infected and killed four of the

  sailors, it had stumbled out of the open doorway, still naked except for a sheet of red blood down its front from the dark mouth that chewed at an unrecognisable chunk of gristly flesh hanging past the bloody chin. It paused in the empty gangway, head swinging left and right as it searched for the next sound to entice it onwards. A shout from the right made it stagger off in that direction, just as the first medical orderly, with a ragged chunk torn from his neck, rose to his feet, opened his own sightless eyes, and staggered off after his killer.

  The infection spread rapidly, as each open compartment was packed with people who had no means of escaping a threat they weren’t prepared for. The two zombies ravaged the human contents of three compartments, killing everyone inside without mercy or thought. Sailors beat at them with fists, with furniture, but the confines of the ship’s interior were too cramped, and nobody brought a weapon to bear. By the time the death toll had reached double figures, the three bodies from the medical bay had risen and wandered off in another direction, and so the disease spread undetected and rapidly below decks.

  By the time the first shot fired blew the entire right side of the engineer’s face away, there were close to twenty animated corpses roaming the lower decks, tearing flesh with nails and teeth. The engineer slumped forwards as though the power had been cut to his body, but stepping awkwardly over his prone body came more monsters just as eager to rip away skin and disembowel anything not already dead. The rest of the magazine was expended in rapid fire, but the shots were wasted into the chest cavity of the medical orderly, who fell upon the sailor with the gun, as his teeth found the exposed skin above the collar of his uniform.

  He died, gargling and spasming uncontrollably as his finger pulled repeatedly on the trigger to punctuate the sounds of his violent death with the sound of the gun clicking dry.

  “Something is definitely not right,” Astrid told her tall companion. In answer, Berg simply readied his MP5 and pointed it away from them as he chambered a round to make the gun ready. She copied his actions and the two settled into a ready crouch to make their way back towards sunlight, as though the outside offered any more protection than the tight corridors below decks.

  They stalked onwards, the harsh sound of the insistent, repetitive klaxon drowning out their words and forcing them to communicate on a level that only highly-trained soldiers could manage. With looks and nods they cleared the corners and secured doors so as not to leave any surprises behind themselves. As they climbed the ladder to the next deck they encountered people moving; running in panic, and amidst the chaos one or two voices rose to force order on the sailors. Lowering their weapons and keeping their eyes down, the two Norwegians pushed their way through the crowds, hearing snippets of conversation and questions. Wearing plain clothing with no insignia or rank helped, as they were assumed to be outside of any military hierarchy. As the mass of people dissipated, they rounded another corner and came face to face with two men dressed similarly. Both were fiercely bearded, all seemed to recognise the elite status of the others as one glance at their weaponry told them that they were on a similar level.

  “Larsen and Berg. FSK,” Astrid said over the sound of the alarm.

  “Bufford. SBS,” said the man at the lead, before nodding over his shoulder and introducing the other man as Owens.

  “What’s happening?” she said to him.

  “I overheard someone saying there was an outbreak below decks. It’s probably spreading fast on ship. The quicker they die the quicker they turn,” he added, making Larsen frown.

  “You’ve seen it?” she asked.

  “Not up close,” he replied, “and I don’t fucking want to either.”

  “Agreed. So how do we get off the ship?”

  “Two
of my boys are watching our helicopter. We’ve come back for the pilots,” Bufford answered.

  Astrid glanced at Berg, who simply nodded once.

  “Do you have room for two more?” she asked.

  The leader of the SBS team, having trained extensively in Norway with the Royal Marines before joining special forces, knew of the reputation of the FSK and agreed without hesitation. Another two well-handled MP5s supporting his team was not an asset to be ignored, in his opinion.

  “Let’s go then,” he said and led the way.

  EIGHT

  Lieutenant Commander Murray’s co-pilot and loadmaster fell without even having a chance to put up a fight. The three of them were alone in a small compartment, occupying three of the four bunks, with the vacant mattress becoming home to their flight helmets and the loadmaster’s rig. The door had been left open as they were waiting for orders, and they were as unaware of the drama unfolding on land as they were the lethal outbreak beneath their feet.

  A knot of four men, all in US navy uniforms and all soaked in blood, burst into the open cabin and tore into the co-pilot before he knew what was happening. Only Murray, who was pulling up the top half of his all-in-one flight suit, was spared as he had yet to unlock the door to the head. They, or at least Murray, had lucked out as very few cabins had a bathroom even close to them, let alone inside, and only their supposed temporary stay had granted them a cabin near to the flight deck at the stern.

  Now, with four strangers and two former friends banging and clawing at the door, he sat back down and waited for inspiration. Or death, whichever came first.

  Bufford led his now four-man, or three men and one woman, team through the deck with speed and purpose as the klaxon stopped howling over the speakers. His other two men had been sent topside to make their way to the stern and the waiting Sea King. Their drills were slick, having all learned from the same advanced rule book, and he was grateful of the additional firepower after less than a minute, when one of the faster ones dressed as a cook but looking more like a butcher rocketed around a corner at a full sprint and cannoned off the bulkhead to sprawl on the deck ten paces from them. Instantly, he and Owens dropped to one knee and opened fire with single, controlled shots, just as the tall Norwegian stood over them and added a burst of

  fire from his own weapon to ensure that the thing never got back to its feet. As they stood, Bufford looked behind to see the woman, Larsen, also rising up from her knee, as she had instantly turned to protect their rear. Satisfied that four was definitely better than two, they pushed on.

  Glancing at a scribbled note in pen written on his left wrist in the gap between sleeve and glove, he checked the cabin designations to look for the flight crew.

  He didn’t know why he had done that, but something deep inside him said that he needed to be aware of them in case they had to leave in a hurry. He doubted he would have been so cautious on a Royal Navy vessel, but being away from Her Majesty’s Forces’ hospitality set him on edge.

  “Four more, left side,” he called out for the others to hear. No sooner had he said that, than the sounds of shrieking and banging echoed down the tight gangway to his ears, and he knew with total certainty that it was coming from the fourth cabin ahead on his left. Stalking as silently as he could, he held up one hand and sensed the others stack up behind him until a hand rested gently on one shoulder. He held up three fingers for them to see, folded one down, then gripped his weapon again and swung into the doorway to duck low. Owens came in behind him, weapon up high at shoulder height, and immediately the rounds spat from their guns to drill into the backs of skulls as six of them fought for space at the front of an interior door. Berg stepped inside to lean his head and shoulders through the door to take out one of them, before a thudding stream of automatic fire sounded in the corridor. Berg ducked back out, doubling the fire out there, but the two SBS men had to trust them and remain focused on removing the threats inside the small compartment.

  As the last body, wearing the flying uniform of a Royal Navy officer, fell to the deck, the sounds of gunfire outside were replaced by metallic scrapes and clicks of guns being reloaded.

  “We’re clear,” announced Bufford in a low voice.

  “Clear here also,” responded the woman’s voice from behind him.

  Bufford carefully stepped forward, firing one more single shot into the skull of a sailor who still twitched, and raised his gun again as another sound startled him. It was the sound of the door being pushed open and hitting the knee of a body, preventing it from opening more than a few inches, and the movement of his gun was met with a sudden cry of, “Don’t shoot!”

  “You the pilot?” Bufford asked as he lowered the gun all the way.

  “What’s bloody well left of him, yes,” Murray spat back angrily as he shoved the door hard to make a big enough gap to squeeze out of. As he emerged, one shoulder of his dark suit seemed almost black in the unnatural light.

  “Which one of you damned fools shot me?” he snarled through gritted teeth as the injured arm hung uselessly to drip fresh, bright red blood onto the corpses.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Bufford muttered before raising his voice, “either of you two medics?”

  “I am,” came Larsen’s reply as she stepped carefully over the broken bodies and visually assessed the pilot.

  “Sit down, take this off, please,” she said as she slung her weapon and reached into a pouch to retrieve a package that she tore open with her teeth. She wiped the fresh blood away from the wound high up on Murray’s right arm and pulled him around roughly to check for further injuries. Murray protested, issuing a few choice words in a hissed voice.

  “Seems to be a flesh wound only,” Larsen said, uncoiling the clotting bandage and wrapping it tightly around the injured body part, despite the pained noises coming from her patient.

  “We are good to go,” she said, the words sounding only slightly awkward in her mouth.

  “Can you still fly?” Bufford asked intensely. Murray seemed to consider the question seriously, as though the concept of him flying with a bullet wound in his arm was even a possibility, and he flexed his bloody hand a few times as he rolled his shoulder with a wince.

  “Not very far, but yes,” he said quietly.

  “Good. Can we get the fuck out of here then?” Owens said from the doorway, where he had joined Berg in protecting their exit.

  With the same formation of the two SBS men in the lead and the two FSK commandos at the rear, they had Murray protected in the middle and holding a semi-automatic pistol taken from the holster of one of his besiegers. They moved more cautiously, more slowly as the injured Murray would not have been able to keep pace with their drills, even if one of them hadn’t accidentally shot him with near catastrophic results. Gunfire rattled dully from the lower decks, muted by layers of metal which prevented the shrieks of attacking zombies from being clearly heard. The resulting cacophony was more of a white noise than any discernible sounds; more the absence of silence, or at least the absence of the normal sounds expected in that environment, that became deafening.

  Corridor after corridor, ladder after ladder, zombie after zombie they moved onwards. They fought every step of the way, senses so heightened that their breath came in rapid gasps, and they cuffed at the sweat running into their eyes in the unnatural environment of heat and thick air that seemed to contain less oxygen than it should. The desire, the pathological need to get outside overtook them and heightened their stress levels immeasurably.

  Eventually, to their great relief, they broke out into the afternoon sunlight and set foot onto the flat helicopter deck. Immediately the two pairs fanned out left and right to clear the wandering bodies in their path. The last few, too consumed with devouring a kill, didn’t even turn around to face the new threat as they gorged on the fallen body they obscured from sight.

  “No,” Bufford said aloud, “oh fuck, no!” and ran forward towards the last few zombies.

  “Buffs, wait,”
Owens growled before following, as he knew he would be ignored.

  Bufford ran forwards, taking shots at the bloody beasts as he went, until his magazine ran dry. Reaching the supine body the zombies were gorging themselves on, he let the gun drop on its sling and reached for his right hip behind the pistol to draw his polished pioneer’s axe. The final zombie, tall and broad and dressed in black with a beard as wild and unruly as Bufford’s, rose up to stand over him and bear its teeth.

  The axe swung downwards savagely, making the sickening crunch of bone and brain echo across the deck as it crumpled under the blow to land hard on the deck. Placing one boot on the shoulder of what had previously been his team mate, he pulled the axe clear and looked down at the second man he had personally sent to secure the area.

  “Buffs,” Owens said, placing a hand gently on his friend’s shoulder but keeping a very wary eye on the hand holding the gore-smeared axe, “it’s okay, mate. They’re gone now…”

  Owens trailed off as he looked down at the last member of the team. The two Norwegian commandos approached and glanced down at the two dead soldiers, both face-value carbon copies of the men they had joined forces with, from their weaponry down to their beards.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here, then,” Bufford said in a dead tone as he stripped the spare ammunition from his former team mates; acting as though he had washed away the loss and guilt but knowing that he was merely ignoring it for the time being.

  Bypassing almost all of the checks required by the manual to safely get a Sea King helicopter into the air, they did the equivalent of jumping in a car and driving off without even adjusting the driving seat.