HAYWIRE: A Pandemic Thriller (The F.A.S.T. Series Book 2)

by Shane M Brown

  ‘Come on!’

  Myers grabbed Craigson’s body armor.

  As Myers hauled on Craigson, Craigson pulled the door handle...

  ...SLAM!

  Both Marines fell as the woman’s speeding body struck the door.

  CRAAAASH!

  Craigson scrambled back, expecting the door to collapse. And not just the door. The entire door frame and surrounding walls groaned in protest. For the moment the door was holding.

  ‘We’re in the service corridors,’ puffed Myers.

  Craigson listened for the woman.

  What will she do now?

  CRAAAASH!

  She launched herself at the door again. Craigson heard the door frame crack. Plaster dust fell from the corridor ceiling.

  ‘We really pissed her off,’ said Craigson, gaining his feet.

  Myers nodded. ‘That is one...big...momma. I don’t want to meet her again. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Hurry!’ bellowed Sergeant King. ‘Go! Go!’

  The deck had descended into complete chaos.

  King and Forest pushed forward one lifeboat at a time.

  Once a lifeboat filled with healthy people, they launched it and progressed to the next one.

  King counted every descending lifeboat as a major victory.

  They were sour victories though. King had hoped that combat would be the one place his mind could be at ease. The one place where he could stop thinking about Marlin J.

  But it was the opposite.

  He kept expecting to hear Marlin’s voice come over his radio.

  He expected to turn and see Marlin watching his back or making a joke.

  He found himself looking for Marlin instinctively.

  But Marlin wasn’t there.

  He would never be there again.

  Marlin was gone, but King couldn’t let it go. He’d tried. He’d tried hard. He’d listened to everything the counselor said. He listened to everything the Captain said.

  But the moment King saw Marlin’s daughter, Emerald, it felt as though his best friend, his brother, had died yesterday.

  It wouldn’t rest inside him.

  It festered.

  Every day he woke as angry as the day Marlin had died. And it was affecting him. It was affecting him in ways that Marlin wouldn’t have wanted. King knew that. All he could do was keep going.

  Like right now.

  He pushed aside thoughts of Marlin and focused on his orders.

  Your orders are to help people, King told himself. Your orders are to get these lifeboats away.

  At least he was doing that.

  All the boats they launched weren’t full, but they didn’t need to be. With half the ship having completely lost their minds, there were plenty of empty seats available.

  King heard Forest begin firing again.

  The Marines weren’t fighting alone though. The healthy passengers who’d made it this far were survivors. They fought ferociously. Many had moved beyond fear and looked absolutely furious. They attacked the hostiles head-on to reach the lifeboats.

  Bloody hand-to-hand fighting spread right along the deck. In the chaos, King could only identify the healthy passengers by their bright yellow life vests.

  The life vests were serving double duty today. The vests also acted as simple body armor. King witnessed several killing blows stopped by the vests.

  No one held back.

  King spotted an elderly woman helping to pin a hostile passenger down while another passenger stomped on their attacker’s throat.

  King reloaded his XREP as the lifeboat lowered to the water.

  Only one to go.

  King and Forest ran toward the last boat.

  On this section of deck, only one more lifeboat needed to be launched. For the passengers who’d reached this deck, the lifeboat offered their last chance to escape.

  The healthy passengers surged toward the boat.

  The hostiles pursued them.

  In seconds the adjacent deck became a riotous epicenter of violence. The healthy passengers tried to board the lifeboat. The sick passengers tried to stop them. No one could board the boat in the mayhem. Everyone was fighting for his life.

  King spotted another group of people in life vests appear at the rally point beyond the conflict. The newcomers carried makeshift weapons.

  Forest yelled at the new arrivals, ‘This is your last chance. Don’t let these crazy bastards stop you!’

  An army of yellow-jacketed passengers surged from the hallway. The newcomers launched themselves at the hostile force.

  Can the lifeboat hold this many people? thought King.

  ‘The door isn’t open!’ yelled Forest, pointing at the lifeboat.

  King peered through the crowd. Forest was right. The lifeboat’s door had swung shut. Passengers were wrestling right up against it.

  ‘I’ll open it!’ roared King.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Forest.

  Until now, he and Forest had stayed together, rapidly dropping hostiles with weapon fire. Right along the deck they had turned the tide of conflict in the healthy passengers’ favor.

  But this tactic only worked from the edge of the conflict. Not when surrounded.

  ‘There’s no time,’ King shouted back. ‘We need that door open!’

  Forest nodded and lifted his rifle. ‘I’ll cover you as long as I can.’

  King watched the mayhem for an opportunity.

  The combatants moved like turbulent water. Like a sea of insanity he needed to swim across. Fighting people crammed the deck from wall to railing. People fell over each other in the turmoil.

  King needed a gap.

  Make your own gap.

  He pumped his rifle and fired three times, opening a hole in the crowd. Before his hostile targets even landed, King leaped over them.

  He landed and charged.

  Momentum mattered most.

  Crack! Crack!

  Two hostiles in King’s path dropped as Forest sent non-lethal rounds slamming into their chests.

  King struck out left and right with his rifle, delivering crippling blows to hostiles.

  Keep moving. Don’t stop.

  A man in the crowd locked his eyes on King.

  Nothing remotely human resided in those eyes any longer.

  They only knew violence.

  He rushed at King.

  Dressed in a checked orange shirt and cream chinos, the man looked like a retired school teacher on vacation. His fuzzy gray hair stood up wildly as he swung a camera tripod at King. The missing camera probably lay wedged in some poor soul’s skull.

  THUD!

  King’s electro-bolt struck home. A triangle of bright blue electricity arced between the man’s chest, his arms and his tripod. Shaking from head to toe, still clenching the tripod above his head, he toppled forward like a statue.

  King spotted the lifeboat door.

  He saw why it was shut.

  Four people had managed to get on board and shut the door against the hostiles. They couldn’t open the door again because of the two hostiles hacking wildly through the window with metal weapons.

  One wore filthy blue overalls like a ship’s mechanic or engineer. He swung a huge wrench. Dressed all in black lycra, the other hostile looked like a personal trainer. She kept bashing the door with a solid metal dumbbell.

  King aimed at the man swinging the wrench.

  BOOM!

  The electro-dart struck the man between his shoulder blades. Blue sparks leaped between his wrench and the lifeboat as he collapsed.

  The woman spun and hurled her metal dumbbell at King.

  King fired.

  They both hit.

  The woman contorted as fifty-thousand volts punished her body.

  Had King not turned his face away, the speeding chunk of solid metal would have shattered his jaw, fractured his cheek bone, collapsed his right eye-socket and broken his nose.

  Instead, King absorbed the sledgehammer-like blow through
his helmet. Without a helmet, the shards of his crushed skull would have lacerated his brain. With a helmet, the impact blinded him in a red explosion of shock and pain. His mind teetered on the edge of consciousness. He felt disconnected from his body as his brain decided whether to reboot or shut down.

  It rebooted.

  Everything came back into focus. He remembered his original intention and staggered toward the lifeboat door.

  The handle was gone. The door was warped shut. He hauled on the window frame.

  It didn’t budge.

  I need a pry bar.

  Wait. My shovel!

  He still had it. He swung it around, wedged the blade into the door, and then pulled....

  Metal twisted against metal as King used all the strength in his huge shoulders and back.

  Shrieeeek - Crack!

  The door flew open.

  He staggered back, gripping his shovel.

  ‘This way!’ he hollered as loudly as possible. ‘The lifeboat is open!’

  Chapter Eight

  Forest heard Sergeant King’s deep voice booming over the chaos.

  His words galvanized the healthy passengers. They threw themselves at the hostiles with renewed determination. Forest witnessed the last hostiles in their ranks being clubbed to the deck.

  The healthy passengers had the upper hand.

  For the moment.

  ‘Onto the lifeboat!’ Forest ordered. ‘Drag on anyone with a life vest and a pulse!’

  King lifted a wounded woman through the doorway.

  ‘Everyone find a seat,’ he bellowed. ‘Quickly. You don’t have long.’

  A crew member took up position to drive the lifeboat. ‘I’m ready.’

  Back on deck, King scanned the crowd rushing into the lifeboat. If any hostiles regained their footing, he was ready. He spun the shovel in his hands, primed to attack.

  Come on, you crazy bastards. Poke your heads up and see what happens.

  A dozen passengers suddenly pointed above the lifeboat.

  King spun.

  Four people had jumped onto the lifeboat’s roof from the deck above. King could only see their legs.

  He dashed to the railing.

  Are they hostile?

  He shouldered his shovel and swung up his XREP, feeding his last two shells into the weapon.

  He squinted against the sun.

  ‘King!’ Forest yelled. ‘Are they hostile?’

  Forest wanted confirmation to shoot.

  King shaded his eyes, trying to see faces.

  A shape blocked the sun.

  ‘Look out!’ Forest shouted.

  King realized the shape was a person jumping toward him.

  ‘Hostiles!’ King roared as he fired. His shot must have hit. The jumping man’s electrified body crashed into the handrail and then tumbled away down into the ocean.

  Another hostile leaped for the railing.

  King readied himself to knock this man overboard too.

  He’s not getting over this railing.

  The attacker sailed through the air. Just before he could grab the railing, King thrust his rifle out at the man.

  The hostile passenger surprised King.

  Instead of grabbing for the railing, he grabbed for King’s thrusting rifle. He caught it with both hands and held on. His bodyweight pulled King instantly off-balance and slammed King straight into the hand railing.

  King felt his shoulders and upper body being hauled over the railing. He released the rifle, but too much of the falling man’s momentum had been transferred to King.

  His hips struck the railing.

  He boots lifted from the deck.

  His upper body tilted completely over the edge.

  He couldn’t stop it.

  He couldn’t even snatch the railing in time.

  I’m falling!

  He saw the frothing white water beside the ship and then—

  — something made of steel wrapped around his legs.

  It was Corporal Forest.

  It felt like Forest’s boots were bolted to the deck, and from a nearly upside down angle King saw that Forest had wedged his boots under the railing as he’d grabbed King’s legs. If Forest’s boots dislodged, they would both tumble over.

  Forest was completely committed. He’d reacted in a split second.

  Straining, Forest seesawed King back in the right direction.

  He pushed King’s boots all the way back down to the deck.

  The moment his boots made contact, King shoved himself away from the railing. Both Marines fell.

  Forest didn’t stop.

  He scooped up his rifle and charged back into the crowd. One of the hostiles had leaped down among the crowd still boarding the lifeboat. Forest tackled the man, disappearing from sight.

  King stood, still reeling from his return trip over the railing. Forest had just saved his life.

  Something urgent tugged at King’s mind.

  There were four hostiles on the lifeboat, he realized. Where’s the—

  The fourth hostile landed on King’s shoulders.

  It felt like a giant spider monkey had dropped from a tree. But there were no trees here. This was no monkey.

  This was a woman.

  A small, skinny, bony woman.

  King glimpsed her purple hair. She wrapped her stick-thin legs around his shoulders and tried to gouge out his eyes.

  King wrenched her off his back and hurled her against the wall.

  He could have thrown her over the side, but he wasn’t going near that damn railing again.

  The woman struck the wall and fell.

  Spider monkey or not, she wasn’t getting up from that.

  King glanced at her wrinkle-covered face. She wasn’t just old; she was really old. Easily over ninety.

  She’d leaped onto King’s shoulders like a Chinese acrobat.

  What the hell is going on here? How can these old people suddenly be so...so...young?

  These people had been changed.

  They were mentally psychopathic, but physically rejuvenated.

  ‘They’re all on board,’ yelled Forest.

  King dashed to the lifeboat. ‘I’m launching it.’

  He broke the button’s protective glass with his shovel. Normally a staff member would mark off names on the passenger manifest, perform a headcount, and then provide reassuring words to the passengers about the unnerving launch procedure.

  King and Forest kept it less formal.

  ‘Hold on!’ King yelled to the passengers. ‘I’m launching this fucking thing!’

  ‘Wait!’ blurted Forest. ‘There they are!’

  Two people were heading toward them.

  King recognized the retired cop they’d saved earlier. Weaponless now, he carried his granddaughter in both arms. He couldn’t run. He had blood all over him.

  Stubborn determination drove him forward.

  King saw a man who’d been through hell and back, and would probably do it again for the person he carried.

  Five crazies pursued them.

  The man didn’t glance back. He trudged and stumbled forward.

  Crack! Crack!

  Forest fired twice. Two crazies tumbled to the deck.

  ‘I’m out,’ declared Forest. ‘I’m out of ammunition!’

  King charged.

  He was closer than Forest to the struggling man, but the hostiles were closer still. One lunged for the protective grandfather’s hair.

  King hurled his shovel.

  He hurled the shovel with every ounce of strength in his body.

  The shovel sped through the air.

  The blade buried itself straight into the lunging hostile’s face. The man’s head snapped back. He crumpled to the deck.

  King sprinted passed the stumbling grandfather and snatched up his shovel. Without slowing, he swung the shovel.

  The hostile didn’t even duck.

  They were running in different directions, and for a moment all that opposite
momentum connected through the shovel.

  Slam!

  King heard the ghastly sound of the shovel demolishing every feature on the hostile’s face.

  The last hostile was too quick for King.

  He was also the largest. Barefoot and wearing only boxer shorts, he looked and moved like an athlete.

  He also carried a blood-covered kitchen knife.

  Before King could halt his own momentum, the hostile sprinted passed him.

  Damn it!

  King skidded along the deck, desperately trying to change directions.

  Spinning, he saw the tall, heavily-muscled hostile would never reach the man and his granddaughter.

  Forest stood in his path.

  The hostile man lowered his head, charging at Forest.

  Forest looked calm.

  Take him down, thought King.

  Forest obliged.

  The hostile lowered his shoulder, trying to tackle Forest around the waist.

  Forest stepped aside and swung his rifle butt in a short, powerful temple strike.

  King didn’t even hear the impact.

  He just saw the large man charging one moment, and then sliding along the deck the next.

  Forest instantly ran to help the man with his granddaughter.

  King ran back to the lifeboat and hauled open the door. ‘Hurry. Get on. You’re safe now.’

  The man stumbled into the lifeboat with his granddaughter.

  King slammed the door behind them and then thumped the lifeboat’s launch button.

  ‘Erin. Erin! Are you all right?’

  Erin fumbled for her belt radio.

  ‘Ben! Yes. I’m here. We made it.’

  ‘Are you in a lifeboat?’

  ‘No. There wasn’t time. I’m with the Marines. Did the starboard lifeboats launch?’

  ‘They’re all away,’ confirmed Ben.

  Erin felt truly relieved. She lifted the radio again. ‘The Marines were ordered to secure the bridge until the Pegasus arrives. I’ll bring them now.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Ben. ‘Patch them into our emergency frequency.’

  Coleman had heard. He checked Erin’s radio and then directed his team to the new frequency.

  ‘This is Captain Coleman, United States Marines.’

  Erin could hear both Coleman and Ben’s voices over her radio now.

  ‘Captain. This is First Officer Ben Bryant. Thank you for your help. You just saved a lot of lives, but I’ve received some bad news.’