Under a Graveyard Sky

by John Ringo

  “Roger,” Steve said, gesturing at Fontana with his chin. “Any way to upgrade your key?”

  “Only with power to the systems,” Chris said. “And you’d need to find and get into the Staff Side office . . . Break . . . Steve, I really don’t want to come over there. Can’t describe how much. But . . .”

  “Once we’re to that point, I’m going to need you to liaison with the Coasties on clearing,” Steve said. “But if you’re talking now, no. We can probably find the cabins that are occupied on our own. We’re going to need help when we start clearing the crew areas and the working areas. But by then maybe we’ll have found a map or something.”

  “Roger.”

  Fontana came back shaking his head. No badge.

  “Cooper, for what it’s worth, it’s not here. She’s not here. Will your badge get us into the interior?”

  “All common areas,” Chris replied. “Passenger and crew and most support supply areas. Food at least. But you’re going to be buggered getting to those passengers in cabins.”

  “What about security, over?” Fontana asked.

  “Security officers should, repeat, should have access to cabins. Also some housekeeping will access some but not all. Did you find a security officer?”

  “Minimal clothing and materials cast-off in this area,” Steve said as Faith clambered over the side. “Faith’s here. We’re going to continue this operation.”

  “Again, good luck, Wolf.”

  “Thanks, Cooper,” Steve said.

  “Chris said this isn’t going to get us in the cabins,” Faith said, handing him the card.

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  * * *

  “Zombies, zombies, zombies,” Faith said, banging on the hatch with the butt of her Saiga. “Customers.” She worked a stethoscope in under her gear and listened. “Okay, lots of customers.”

  “Okay,” Steve said, trying not to snarl. They hadn’t even gotten off the lifeboat deck, yet. This was the third hatch they’d tried and they all had “multiple customers” lined up. “Faith, Hooch and Fontana, form a line, five meters that way,” Steve said, pointing forward. They’d gotten away from the entry area and the deck was mostly clear except for the usual fecal matter and occasional gnawed corpse.

  “I will pop the hatch, then run like a bugger your way,” Steve said. “Do not fire until I clear the defense point. Let me make this very clear: Do not shoot me.”

  “Sir . . .” Fontana and Hooch both said.

  “Yes, one of you probably should do it,” Steve said. “But I’m going to. That’s an order. Just form up and don’t shoot me.”

  “Try not to, Da,” Faith said, walking forward. “Just better run like a roo.”

  “Weapons pointed down,” Fontana said when they’d lined up. “Locked and loaded, off safe, fingers off the triggers. Take position, prepare to point.” There was a large gap between himself and Faith. “Faith, locked and loaded?”

  “Ready.”

  “Hooch?”

  “Prepared, Sergeant.”

  “Ready when you are, boss.”

  Steve took a deep breath and keyed the door. It popped open slowly, fortunately, and he turned and started running like a scared roo.

  “Don’t look back,” he muttered. “Don’t look back.”

  He didn’t really need to. The howls of the zombies told him everything he needed to know.

  * * *

  “Oh, run faster, Da,” Faith said.

  Ten meters didn’t seem very far unless it was the distance your da had to run to outrun a pile of zombies that was, if anything, larger than her reception party. Da was loaded down with weapons, ammo and equipment. The zombies were not. They’d been slowed opening the heavy hatch but they were now catching up.

  “Fire!” Fontana said, putting words to action with a blast of 12-gauge into a zombie’s chest.

  * * *

  Steve skidded to a stop and turned around, then lunged to fill the gap in the line. There were at least fifty zombies in the group that had been following him. They were tripping over the bodies of the leaders but that wasn’t stopping them, just barely slowing them down. He lifted his shotgun as he joined the line and pulled the trigger. It wouldn’t move. He grimaced, jacked a round into the chamber, took it off safe and pulled the trigger again. That time it worked.

  “Back step,” Fontana called. “Stay on line.”

  “I’m out,” Faith said, pulling a pistol.

  “Going pistol,” Hooch said. Ten rounds goes fast when it’s a zombie horde.

  “Shit,” Steve said. One of the zombies was still wearing body armor and a riot helmet. No pants but body armor. And shotgun and .45 did poorly against body armor.

  The zombie zoomed in on Faith and tackled her. It had apparently figured out how to lift its face shield to deliver a bite and bit down on the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

  “Fuck!” Faith said. “Not again!” Her hand scrabbled for a weapon.

  “Pistol . . . won’t work . . . Kevlar . . . Knife . . . !” She reached down to her leg, pulled out a nine-inch Gerber Commando and started to stab the zombie repeatedly and rapidly in the back through its armor. “I looove youuuuu toooooo . . .”

  The wave had receded; the security zombie was pretty much the last.

  “Reload,” Fontana said. “Faith, you going to get back to work any time soon?”

  “He’s heavy,” Faith said, pushing the dead zombie off. “Use a little help here.”

  Steve lifted the security guard off his daughter by the neck of his armor and gave her a hand up.

  “That is why I hate mall cops,” Faith said, pulling out the knife with a twist and wiping it down with a rag.

  “For future reference,” Fontana said. “The pistol would have worked. He had his arms up. Stick the barrel in the armpit.”

  “Point,” Faith said, putting the knife away. “But I was pissed off. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to eat me or . . . something else.”

  Steve rifled through the pockets on the armor and came up with a security card.

  “Tada!” he said, waving it.

  “Cross-load ammo and reload magazines,” Fontana said, pulling off his assault pack. “Hooch, Faith on guard. Wolf and Falcon to load. Commodore, I would recommend, despite that card, that we remain together as a four-man team until we’re sure that we’ve dealt with all similar large groups.”

  “Agreed,” Steve said, pulling out ammo and reloading his Saiga mags. He’d never pulled his pistol. He held out his hand for Faith’s and started loading hers. “What could we have done better?”

  “The overall plan was good,” Hooch said. He’d turned to face forward while Faith covered aft. “Except for one thing. I think in future with large groups and multiple possible entries . . . Or . . . I understand the thing about bringing them to you, not going to them. But . . . Maybe open the hatch, then call for zombies?”

  “If you have reason to suspect a large zone with multiple zombies, open the hatch, back off and then draw them to you?” Fontana said.

  “Reasonable,” Steve said.

  “It’s not really relevant here,” Fontana said. “But the one rule of Zombieland I’d like to bring up is always have a way out. Preferably with a way to lock it behind you.”

  “What if we run into more security zombies?” Faith asked. “I tried for a leg shot but missed. Sorry.”

  “Shooting a person in the leg is tough,” Fontana said, closing up his assault pack and handing Hooch his refilled magazines. “Melee weapons?”

  “If you’re talking about a machete,” Steve said, standing up, “I don’t think so. Kevlar takes stabs, and it will cut, but I don’t see cutting through it with a machete.”

  “Machete or a kukri takes off their arm,” Faith said. “With enough force. And I still say a chainsaw is the way to go.”

  “They’re heavy,” Fontana said. “And if you tried to cut a security zombie with one the kevlar would jam the chain.”r />
  “Come up,” Faith said, making a motion of cutting up between the legs.

  “Ooooh,” Hooch said, grabbing his jewels. “There’s things you just don’t say around guys.”

  The area the zombies had come from was a corridor about ten meters wide with more hatches off of it. There was a faint light area where the exterior hatch was open, but most of the corridor was shrouded in darkness. It was impossible to tell how long it was but at least there weren’t any zombies immediately coming into view.

  “Where to?” Fontana asked. They’d decided to go for the quiet approach and see how it worked.

  “Sweep this,” Steve said, pulling out a taclight. The powerful hand light carried to the far end, but barely. Turning around, the same happened. The corridor was as long as a football pitch. “Bloody hell. Falcon, Shewolf, forward. Hooch, on me. Pick up any cards you find. Meet back here.”

  * * *

  “We need some cave lights,” Fontana said, sweeping the taclight on his Saiga from side to side. “This ship is too big for taclights.”

  “No shit,” Faith said, then tapped hers. “I think mine took a beating. I’m going to need to switch it out.”

  “I’ve got a spare,” Fontana said.

  “So do I,” Faith said, stopping and pulling of her ruck.

  “You guys had more Surefires than any one group should own,” Fontana said. “Not that I’m complaining.” He not only had one on his rifle, but two duct-taped to his body armor facing forward and another in a helmet mount.

  “Da always complains through movies, you know?” Faith said. “The idiot going into the basement in the horror movie with the light that doesn’t work pisses him off. We’ve got flashlights all over the house at home. And if we had to drop in the dunny in the dark he wanted plenty of light. But we never figured on clearing a bleeding cruise ship! What are cave lights?”

  “You know those million-candlepower portable spotlights on boats?” Fontana said. “Like that, but head lights and hand lights. Smaller, too. They’d fill this up with light.”

  “There,” Faith said, standing up and shaking her shotgun. “Better.”

  “Must have been bad if you busted a Surefire,” Fontana said.

  “Fair dinkum scrum,” Faith said. “And I don’t think it’s busted. Just messed up. This isn’t somewhere I want my taclight going out.”

  The end of the corridor was a blank wall covered in instructions on boarding lifeboats. This was clearly the preboarding assembly area. All the hatches were either inboard or outboard. While there were plenty of “remains,” there were probably four times as many bodies as there had been zombies; all the zombies had been at the hatch. They picked up three security cards and moved back to the rendezvous.

  “What now, sir?” Fontana said, handing over the cards.

  Steve checked through them and stuck them in a pouch.

  “No Gwinneth,” he said. “No senior officers.” He contemplated the hatches lining the corridor.

  “Eenie-meenie-minie-mo?” Steve said.

  “I was expecting something Australian,” Hooch said. “Like, um, g’dye or something.”

  “Australians use it, too,” Steve said. “It’s a mnemonic of the Celtic numbering system. But that’s not important. The real question is, do we use this hatch that is in the light or one of the ones that is in darkness? If we use this one, it will automatically attract zombies when we open it. If they haven’t already gathered from the noise. If we use one farther down either way, we might have the element of surprise, but we’ll be fighting in the dark and silhouette.”

  Faith pulled out her stethoscope and checked the door.

  “I don’t hear anything,” she said. “But these are thick doors. No banging, no scratching.”

  “I’d say this one, sir,” Fontana said. “First, we’re here. Second, we can see our exit.”

  “Fair dinkum,” he said. “That’s Australian, Marine.”

  “Roger, sir,” Hooch said, chuckling.

  Like the exterior hatches, it had massive double doors designed to open outboard. He swiped the reader with the security guard’s card, and while the light went from red to green, the hatch didn’t open.

  Faith flipped out her Halligan and applied the prybar to the hatch, which popped open slightly.

  Steve held up a hand, then waved to Hooch. Once it was moving, the hatch opened easily.

  The room revealed beyond was apparently vast and entirely dark. It appeared to be an arena with a square deck in the middle.

  “Is that a pool?” Faith whispered, pointing her taclight at the deck. “Or a basketball court?”

  “I think it was an ice rink,” Hooch said. “No zombies, though.”

  “Really?” Faith said. “OLLY-OLLY-OXENFREE!”

  There was a widespread and growing growling and howling, and heads started popping up all over the arena. The zombies turned their heads away at the bright lights after months in darkness, but they also stumbled to their feet and started to close on the hatch.

  “Back up,” Steve ordered, snapping up his Saiga and shooting the closest zombie. “All the way outside. Exterior deck. Maintain formation. Back aft on exit.”

  “Thanks a lot, Faith,” Hooch snarled.

  “This was the plan, right?” Faith said, firing steadily. “Come get some, zombies!”

  “This would have been the perfect time for some seven six two,” Fontana said.

  The good news, this time, was that the zombies were half blind, and instead of coming in a mass, were trickling out. In large numbers and clots, but not fifty in a bunch.

  “Fontana, Hooch, reload,” Steve said, going to pistol.

  “Up,” Fontana said. “Reload.”

  * * *

  “Okay,” Steve said. “We have something resembling a method for outer clearance. What did we do right and wrong? Faith?”

  There had been nearly as many zombies in the arena as in the outer corridors. And in much better shape. When the wave had stopped they closed and latched the door to get some time for cross-load and another AAR.

  “I shouldn’t have initiated without warning?” Faith asked.

  “I’m going to put that in the area of a boo-boo,” Steve said. “But, yes, only initiate zombie call with warning. Hooch?”

  “I fumbled my reload,” Hocieniec said. “I’m not that used to this AK system. Like it. Don’t get me wrong. These things are the shit. But I’m still getting used to the system.”

  “Two things,” Fontana said. “Our store of twelve is low and so is forty-five. We’re fighting in fairly big areas, and while this would be a weapons switch, I suggest we change out for your AKs. Seven six two would work just about as well as shotgun, we have more seven six two, this is one of the few areas where it will make sense—and my shoulder is getting pounded by this twelve,” he added with a grin.

  “Whiner,” Faith said, grinning back.

  “Makes sense,” Steve said. “You said two.”

  “More, really,” Fontana said. “The initiation. Okay, so the zombies apparently spend a lot of time sleeping. We need an initiator. My first thought was a flash-bang but we don’t have any and it would probably be overkill. It would have been fun to toss one in the middle of that arena, mind you. But overkill.”

  “There is no such thing as overkill,” Faith said. “There is only ‘Open Fire’ and ‘Reloading’! That that never caught on as a bigger meme than LOLCats just says it all about people . . .”

  “Hush,” Steve said. “Continue, Sergeant.”

  “I’d suggest a whistle.”

  “Makes sense,” Hooch said. “May I suggest, with due respect, that the commodore handle that?”

  “Bite me,” Faith said, shaking her head. “It all worked out okay. But, yeah, Da can get his little whistle. You be coach.”

  “Will do,” Steve said. “More, Sergeant?”

  “We probably should take some time and sit down with Chris and discuss the layout of this place. We should have known
that door would lead to an arena. I mean, we could have gone back on deck, called him and asked him. He might not have known exactly but he probably would have had some idea. Also, and we should probably cross check this, it makes sense that the lifeboat hatches would open on large gathering areas. Thus another reason for the seven six two.”

  “I’m fairly terrified of bouncers around all this steel,” Steve said. “I admit that’s because I caught one myself once upon a time. But rifle rounds just keep going.”

  “Again, in this type of environment,” Fontana said, waving around. “This deck is fairly smooth walled. We should be able to fire, parallel to the ship, without fear of bouncers. We’ll have to retreat outside before engaging with rifles.”

  “Rifles and these?” Hooch said, patting the Saiga. “We’re already fairly Ramboed up as it is.”

  “No,” Fontana said. “We’ll have to either use the rifles in close or use pistols on the retreat.”

  “Two sets,” Steve said. “You and I will take the AKs. I’ve trained with them almost exclusively since I got out and fell in love with the bloody things. Hooch and Faith will maintain the Saigas despite Hooch’s discomfort with the reload. They will cover on retreat to exterior with us as back-up if necessary, then we’ll switch roles. And we’ll rehearse it first.”

  “That sounds like a plan, sir,” Fontana said.

  CHAPTER 30

  “Back on the Campbell,” Gardner said nervously. She had a 10mm and a shotgun the Smiths had “borrowed” when they cleared the Coast Guard cutter. And they’d searched the whole ship for infected. But getting back on the ship was giving her flashbacks.

  The ship was being towed by a submarine of all things. They’d taken a 24-foot inflatable to make the rendezvous and pick up critical medical supplies. Everything else could wait until it was in place near the liner.

  “It’ll be okay, PO,” Seaman Jeff Woodman said. “We just get the saline and go.”

  “Easy enough,” Gardner said. She keyed open the deck hatch, started to step across the coaming, then stopped. “What the hell?”

  The floor was swarming with black bugs. There were so many it looked like the deck was black and moving.

  “Oh . . . gross!” Woodman said. “Where the hell did they come from?”