Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches

by Merritt, R. S.

  “Just thinking about what Samuel Jackson would say about all this.” Drew said. He fully expected the comment to fly right over the flyboy’s head. Instead flight suit’s demeanor completely changed as he slid into a respectable impression of the infamous snakes on a plane line swapping out snakes for zombies. As soon as he was done his face snapped back to all business like nothing had ever happened. All things considered the guy was getting a five-star rating so far from Drew.

  In the cargo hold of the plane there were five neatly lined up cages. The cages had been attached to the floor and ceiling of the plane with chains. Each of the cages was sitting there with its door wide open. The cages were big enough to wheel the infected into them without having to remove them from the dollies. That’s exactly what everyone did. Once the infected had all been secured the Marines left out the cargo door. Flight suit took one final look at the cages then went to tell the pilot they could take off. The ramp slammed shut leaving Blaze and Drew alone in the belly of the plane with five pissed off infected.

  “I think this one might get out of the bag.” Drew said watching in amazement as the monster he’d carried into the plane went so spastic the tape was flying off in big strips. Not that it was going to do the diseased freak any good. The cages that’d been loaded to take care of transporting the specimens looked like they’d been built by experts. The plane shuddered and began to roll down the short runway. Drew caught Blaze staring at his watch.

  “You have a date?” Drew asked curiously. Personally, he just wanted to lean back against a wall somewhere and go to sleep. Blaze gave him a big grin at having so easily walked into what he had to say.

  “I just wanted to be able to note the exact time the infection became airborne.” Blaze said somberly as the plane suddenly clawed its way off the surface.

  Drew completely ignored the comment rather than give Blaze the satisfaction. Inwardly he thought the joke hit all the marks as far as dark humor went. Seeing he wasn’t getting any sort of reaction out of Drew Blaze announced he was going to stick the infected with another round of the knockout cocktail. Drew sat up to help as Blaze counted out five of the syringes from the box they’d been given. Each of the needles was premixed and ready to go.

  “You lay back and enjoy the flight. I’ll handle the jab job.” Blaze said waggling his eyebrows comically. It was so stupid that Drew cracked a smile. With no further concerns Drew made himself comfortable while Blaze walked over to the first cage. The comedic look on Blazes face slid off like a mask revealing an expression of bitter hatred and loss.

  Chapter 13: Dinner Interrupted

  “I’m sorry Yue but you’re going to need to get with whoever assigns jobs and see if you can get another position. After last night I don’t think they’re going to let you near the VIPs again.” The senior chief in charge of the VIP dining area was staring at Yue oddly. She could tell he knew something was odd but that he was having trouble figuring out exactly what it was. He was probably completely confused considering Yue had shown up dressed for a date versus being in the uniform she’d been provided for serving the guests.

  “I’m actually here to have dinner with Jeff.” Yue said. She’d meant to announce it strongly and have her words reverberate off the haze grey bulkheads. Instead, she sounded like a little girl asking her teacher for permission to go the bathroom.

  “The Jeff that you almost killed giving a refill?” The senior chief in the crisp uniform asked incredulously. Yue noticed a few other members of the crew had wandered closer to listen in on the conversation.

  “That’s the one. He asked me to join him here tonight.” Yue said trying to maintain her composure. She could feel her cheeks starting to flush. She really started to sweat when a man in a dark suit and tie showed up and stood beside the chief. It was one of the secret service agents who’d interviewed her when she was escorted out the previous evening.

  “I’ve got this senior chief. Why don’t you come with me?” The secret service agent nodded in the direction he wanted her to walk. The senior chief looked relieved to not have to deal with that bit of social awkwardness anymore. He disappeared into the galley to make sure the food prep was going well. The secret service agent walked with Yue into a small office where he had her sit down.

  “Can someone please let Jeff know I’m going to be late.” Yue said.

  “I have a man taking care of that right now. The thing is you’re not going to be late so much as not making it in there at all. How we let you serve in there to begin with is a glaring hole in our security processes. We have no idea who you are. That dining room is filled with what’s left of the leadership of this country. The man you put on the floor last night has been described as our best hope of coming out of this mess alive by some very smart and important people. If he did invite you here for some reason, then he made a mistake. My guess is he might have done it out of pity. Honestly everyone feels sorry for you. The general consensus is that you’re a super nice person who had an epic klutzy streak.” The secret service agent stopped the patronizing drivel to listen to his earpiece. Yue sat there silently fuming while the agent held a quick and hushed conversation using way too many acronyms and codewords.

  “Who’s Big Bird?” Yue asked once the agent was done ignoring her to talk into his hand. The agent continued to ignore her. Before Yue could come up with a suitably condescending thing to say to the infuriating man in the dark suit the door to the small office swung open. Yue looked over curiously as another man in a dark suit entered. Walking in behind him was Jeff.

  Jeff ducked to make sure he didn’t hit his head on the door and entered the room. Noting his height and general gawkiness Yue made some connections in her head. She was about to ask about her hunch when Jeff started talking.

  “Hey. So, we’re going to skip the dining hall tonight and hit the flight deck for a steel beach picnic instead if that’s ok with you?” Jeff asked.

  “How come Big Bird? They scared I’m going to spill hot coffee on the President?” Yue asked sweetly. Jeff looked over at the two agents who were watching with interest. They both suddenly became very interested in looking at files.

  “How’d you know they called me Big Bird?” Jeff asked casting another accusatory look over at the agents. Both men redoubled their efforts to locate much needed information in those pesky files. It was Yue’s turn to look slightly uncomfortable. How do you tell somebody it was pretty easy to figure out they were the one someone had code named Big Bird?

  “How do we have dinner on the flight deck exactly? I don’t think Uber eats is a thing anymore.” Yue had decided if Jeff and everyone else could avoid direct questions then so could she. Jeff laughed at her obvious redirect.

  “Trust me. I’m an expert at logistics. Uber eats has nothing on me.” Jeff said. He turned and held the door open.

  “Am I free to go or do you still need to see my papers?” Yue asked the agents. She slipped into a German sounding accent on the ‘my papers’ piece. She thought it was witty but neither of the hard-looking men in the dark suits seemed to appreciate her attempt at humor. One of them nodded dismissively at her and the other told Jeff to let them know if he needed anything.

  Jeff had Yue stand in the passageway while he went to go check on their food. When he came back, he was carrying a big cardboard box. The top was open on it, but he was so tall Yue couldn’t see into it. Jeff saw her trying to look and laughingly held it up even higher. The two of them navigated the various passageways until they finally went through an open hatch that took them out near the stern of the ship. Jeff carried the box over to an area painted yellow and sat down. A man wearing a white shirt ran up as they were getting situated. He seemed completely confused that two people in civilian clothes were looking to have a picnic on the flight deck.

  “Sir. There’s an inbound flight and flight quarters will be sounded soon. I’m going to have to ask that you go eat somewhere else.” The white shirted man said inelegantly.

  “I know. I ord
ered the flight. We should have at least an hour before it gets here though.” Jeff responded patiently.

  “Plus, we’re not allowed to eat in the dining hall. Or, at least I’m not. Mostly because of what I did to his face.” Yue followed up.

  “Uh. Can I get your names? I just need to verify with my chief.” The white shirted man was struggling to deal with the decidedly abnormal situation. He was obviously relieved when he saw an older man in a white shirt walking towards them. Based on his reaction it was his chief.

  “Why are you letting people have a picnic on my flight deck? Do you not understand your job? It’s not that hard. We’re in charge of safety. What part of safe includes having a picnic on a flight deck during wartime? Do you want to let them shoot the guns too? Get out of my sight.” The chief immediately ripped into the junior enlisted man. Before the man could skulk away Jeff coughed loudly to get the chief’s attention. Yue thought that was pretty brave. The angry Filipino looking chief scared her. The guy appeared very hard core.

  “Hey chief go easy on him we aren’t a situation he’s used to dealing with.” Jeff said loudly.

  “Why are you still on my flight deck? Are you deaf or just stupid? This is an active flight deck. This is not a park. I need you to pack up your picnic basket and be gone before I have to get security out here.” The chief was keeping the profanity in check only because he wasn’t sure who the hell these people were. Who dressed in civilian clothing and had the gall to assume they could have a little picnic up on deck?

  “It’s fine. We can go find a spot down in the hangar bay to eat instead.” Yue said. She wasn’t intimidated at all, but she did feel bad for the sailors having to deal with her and Jeff wanting to break all their rules. More importantly, she was starving. She couldn’t eat if someone was going to stand over her yelling at them the entire time. By now she was dying to find out what was in the box. One major disadvantage of being fired from the VIP dining room waitress gig was she wasn’t going to be able to eat food off their plates anymore. The regular galley didn’t have the fancy shrimp cocktails and all the fresh vegetables and fruit.

  “Are you sure? Chief where can we go that won’t freak everyone out. I need to be here to greet the plane that’ll be landing in about an hour, so I don’t want to go too far.” Jeff asked. The chief looked completely out of his element. He also seemed like he might blow a gasket or something if they didn’t get off the flight deck soon. He took them inside the superstructure and into a room with some tables and a large coffee station in it.

  “It’s the chiefs break area. No one will bother in you here. If anybody asks who said you could eat in here, just tell them it was me.” The chief pointed at his name tag then left. His body language very clearly expressing what he thought about them. Dismissing the latest incident Jeff started piling food on one of the tables. Yue’s mouth watered when she saw the bowl of freshly cubed pineapple. She thought she might have actually squealed in delight when he put a big bowl full of the jumbo shrimps and fancy cocktail sauce in the middle of the table.

  “You never told me how you guessed they called me Big Bird?” Jeff went for an awkward opening line as he pushed her a paper plate and one of those plastic collections of cutlery over.

  “I’m assuming because you’re so tall?” Yue said. She left off the part about him being a bit on the gawky side.

  “That’s what I like to tell myself too.” Jeff replied smiling broadly at her obvious discomfort. He pulled out two bottles of ice-cold soda and handed her one. The conversation dropped off completely as they spent a few minutes focused on the feast laid out in front of them. Once she’d worked the edge off her hunger Yue slowed down so they could talk.

  “You must be pretty important to rate getting a box full of food this good at a moments notice.” Yue said smiling and sipping at her soda.

  “Well. I’m extremely important of course.” Jeff joked. They both laughed but the laughter was a bit forced. After saying it out loud they both realized the truth was that Jeff really was very important. It was his plan being followed to try and save the world. He normally ate dinner at the same table as the President. “I may be connected politically but the chief who threw this together for us was the guy you used to work for. When I told him that it was for you his eyes lit up.”

  “Whatever I did to make his eyes light up I hope I can repeat it. This stuff is ridiculously good. Definitely beats the hell out of a dented mystery can ration per day.” Yue said. The conversation turned towards the time Yue had spent on the road with her dad and brothers. Jeff asking questions and showing tons of empathy at all the right times. Yue unthinkingly repeated some of the jokes they’d made early on about the President’s speeches. Looking up from her slice of blueberry covered cheesecake she saw her comments had hit Jeff pretty hard. It suddenly struck her that she was talking to the guy who’d been instructing the President on what he should do and say.

  “It was hard. When it all started no one knew what to do. The only plan out there that made any sense was the one I’d put together with my team. We were the only ones who’d really considered this as a possibility. We were constantly scanning for the beginnings of events we hoped would never happen. It was all an intellectual exercise really. A way to stay employed and keep living off the taxpayers. None of it seemed real. We were fanatical about it though. We were like an insanely enthusiastic Dungeons and Dragons group. None of us were really ready when it actually happened though. I think of all the people who died because we followed my plan.” Jeff stopped and put his soda down. An alarmed Yue saw that Jeff had tears pooling up in his eyes. That wasn’t a great sign that she was rocking this date.

  “Your plan may end up saving us all. It was impossible to save everybody. You could’ve loaded up all the ships on both coasts and it wouldn’t have been enough. You did what you had to do. No one could’ve done any better. We all saw what happened to Europe.” Yue had a hard time finding the right words. The plan Jeff had concocted was the reason both her parents were dead. It was the reason she was out here on a giant warship eating shrimp cocktail while her brothers were both stuck back at camp charnel house. His words and the plan he’d delivered had led directly to the massacre of hundreds of millions of innocent people. That was a lot of guilt to carry. Hopefully he wasn’t Catholic.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get quite that dark on our first date. There’s not a lot of other stuff to talk about really, I guess. It’s like the elephant in the room of every conversation.” Jeff said using the tiny napkin that came with the plastic silverware to dab away at the tears pooling up in his eyes.

  “It’s a herd of elephants and they’re stampeding straight for you. I get it.” Yue said stretching her arm out across the table. Jeff saw her hand and put his big mitt in her delicate palm. He smiled when she intertwined her fingers with his. Yue was starting to get confused about what she was trying to accomplish here. The main goal was still to free up her brothers, but she wasn’t having to work very hard to like Jeff either. Telling herself to make sure and keep her eyes on the prize she held his hand in a comfortable silence while they both took the time to study the other.

  “You know your beautiful right?” Jeff said. Yue smiled back at him.

  “Is that your best line? You want to try again?” She asked him with a big grin splitting her face.

  “I’m sticking with that one. What do you think about me so far?” Jeff asked.

  “Is this one of those speed dating things? We have time you know. It’s not like we have anywhere to go. I mean do you even own a mirror? You might want to wait until the swelling goes down to ask how you look.” Yue joked.

  “I’ve got to sink my claws in fast. You’re on a ship with a few thousand single sailors. They’re going to be staring at you like you’re an ice cream truck driving past a weight watchers meeting.” Jeff said as he shoved all of their garbage back into the box. They’d managed to make it through the entire meal without anyone barging in on them which was a
minor miracle. Jeff was thinking if someone did bust in and saw the garbage all over the table that they may have to endure yet another dressing down. He could always do something crazy like put the President on the phone to tell the person off but that wasn’t a card he wanted to play unless he really needed it.

  “Woah. Are you saying I’ve got my pick of a few thousand single sailors and I’m up here spending all my time with some dude nicknamed Big Bird?” Yue said pretending to look out the window in the hopes of seeing a few sailors jog by shirtless.

  “I think I’ve got an ace in the hole as far as that goes. I can give you something those other guys can’t. At least not most of them anyway.” Jeff said continuing to clean up the mess they’d made. Assuming this was all building up to some silly macho joke Yue decided to lay into it like it was a ‘knock knock’ joke. Faking a very impressed face she put her hands up to her face.

  “Oh really. What is it that you can give me that the horde of desperate sailors can’t supply?” Yue asked. She helped wipe the table off then sat sipping on her soda waiting to see what was next.

  “Ok. I haven’t been a thousand percent honest with you. I might have reviewed the secret service files on you. The ones they put together on anyone who’s going to be near the President or other VIPs. They have a lot of info in there like who you’re related to, what your known associates think of you and any known love interests or weird ideologies. You know all that kind of stuff.” Jeff said. He looked like he was about to break into a cold sweat. Yue was wondering where all this was going. It wasn’t like she had anything to hide. Except maybe for the reasons she’d pushed for this date in the first place.