Under a Graveyard Sky btr-1

by John Ringo

  “I was expecting something Australian,” Hooch said. “Like, uhm, 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, which 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 further 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 wide-spread 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 the also stumbled to their feet and started to close on the hatch.

  “Back up,” Steve snapped, 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 12 is low and so is.45. 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 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 LOLKATZ 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 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, paralllel 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 the cleared the 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 24ft 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 the 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?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Gardner said, quietly.

  “What?” Woodman asked. She was shining a light into the interior. He craned his head around to look.

  On the deck was a skeleton. Some of the bugs seemed to be fighting for the last scraps of flesh but pretty much everything but bone and some scraps of skin and hair were gone. Bugs were even crawling in and out of the eye sockets, cleaning out the brains.

  “Holy crap,” Woodman said, “I don’t want those getting on me!”

  “I just figured out what they are,” Gardner said, stepping through the hatch after a flash around with her light. Every step caused a crunch. “And they won’t bite.”

  “They stripped that guy to the bone!” Woodman said.

  “That’s what they do,” Gardner said, bending down and picking
up one of the beetles. It skittered along her arm and she shook it off. “They’re carrion beetles.”

  “Carrion?” Woodman said. “So they eat people?”

  “They eat dead flesh,” Gardner said. “I’d heard Wolf say he’d ‘seeded’ the boat. I didn’t know it was with these.”

  “Wolf did this?” Woodman said angrily. “To our people?”

  “Six of us came off, Woodie,” Gardner said softly. “Ninety-four and twenty-six refugees didn’t. You’ve carried bodies. You know how heavy they are. Now…they’re not.”

  “That’s horrible,” Woodman said.

  “No,” Gardner said, flashing her light around. “It’s efficient, simple and brutal. It’s Wolf all over if you think about it. These things only eat dead flesh. They may get into some of the electronics but those are mostly thrashed by the infecteds, anyway. It cleans the boat out of the main issue, the dead meat on the dead people. If we ever get around to clearing this out, all we’ll have to do is bag the bones.”

  “We won’t know who’s who,” Woodman said.

  “Does it matter?” Gardner said. “There’s a big thing, it’s called an ossory, in France. All the guys who died in a certain battle in World War One. They buried them, waited for bugs like this to do their work, then dug them back up. All of certain bones are on the left, all the others are on the right and the skulls are in the middle.”

  She picked up the skull of the former Coast Guard crewman and looked at it as beetles poured out.

  “I don’t know who you were but you were my brother,” Gardner said. “This way, I know I can give you a decent burial. And I will remember you. Now, we’ve got a mission to complete, Woodman, and people waiting on us. Live people. Let the dead bury the dead.”

  * * *

  Chris hadn’t known the boat like the back of his hand, but he’d been able to determine the areas on the other side of several of the doors. The one they’d chosen was the “lobby” area between the, yes, bloody damned skating rink and the even more bloody damned “four hundred person theater.” Steve was starting to think that whoever had conceived this bloody beast had more megalomania than Napoleon.

  About half the doors were to stairwells to the passenger cabins. Steve was torn between wanting to clear the major areas and concentrate on the passenger cabins. But the way their fire had to be echoing in this ship the passengers surely knew they were on the way. And he wasn’t sure he yet wanted to clear stairwells possibly filled with zombies.

  “We’ll open and attract from, not clear, this area,” Steve said. “Then the theatre. Then start on the passenger zones.”

  “Roger, sir,” Fontana said, shaking his head at the pile of ammo boxes. They’d gotten boats alongside and brought up more people including some “trained” seamen who were willing to go into “non zombie” areas. With their help they’d brought all the ammo up onto the deck well away from the zombie bodies. Steve had also had them bring up some of his “little friends” and they had been scattered on the bodies. And gotten a bite to eat and rehydrated. Time to get back to work.

  The outer doors were already open. Faith checked the door, shook her head, put away the stethoscope, then pulled out the Halligan tool. This time Fontana and Hooch were on either side of the door, ready to pull.

  Steve swiped, then pulled back to cover.

  Faith popped the door, stepped back and started to put the tool on the deck. But there seemed like time so she stowed it away in its holster.

  Steve realized that they’d made a mistake. Not a major one but a mistake. He either should have had Faith take one of the rifles or have Fontana handle the Halligan. The shotgunners were the first line of defense with the riflemen backing them. It was a minor point. There was, again, silence and darkness on the far side of the hatch.

  The foresome lined up in the hatch and Steve lifted the whistle and blew.

  Again there was a guttural howling from the interior. They immediately started to back up and were to the exterior hatch before the first zombie appeared.

  “Wait,” Steve said, taking the shot.

  “I thought you said shotgun in here?” Faith complained.

  “It was a clap shot and we’re conserving shotgun ammo,” Steve said. “Rotate for engagement.”

  They continued to back down the deck and stopped at the point they’d planned. And waited. There were sounds from inside the ship but no zombies appeared.

  “I think they stopped for a snack,” Faith said. It was hard to hear with all the gear on their heads.

  “Bloody stupid…” Steve said. He lifted the whistle and gave another blast on it. That got some coming around the corner and he and Fontana began to engage.

  The crackle of semi-automatic fire started to draw the zombies. But slowly. They came out even more slowly than at the theatre and the two riflemen continued to pick them off as they stumbled, mostly blind, into the light, looking for the source of the sound and thus food.

  Finally there were only the growling sounds echoing from the hatch.

  “Faith?” Steve said. “Don’t want you whining…”

  “Going pistol,” Faith said. She started to reach for her.45 then pulled out one of the 10mms that they’d gotten off the Coast Guard cutter. They’d left the arms room alone but any weapons on the deck were considered fair game. “Cover me, Hooch.”

  “Got it,” Hocieniec said, following her to the hatch.

  Faith fired several slow and deliberate shots into the darkness and downward. Then she shifted up and shot twice more.

  “I know this is a more powerful pistol,” Faith said, reloading and putting the weapon away. “But it really doesn’t feel that way, you know? We gonna close these doors? I’m not moving the bodies.”

  “Next time wait til they’re clear of the doors, then,” Hooch said. “Cover me.”

  * * *

  “Ready?” Steve asked.

  All four had switched back to shotgun after clearing the lobby and theatre. Now it was time to start working up to the passenger cabins. That meant clearing the stairwell to the first three levels of passenger cabins.

  There were two sets according to Chris, inboard and outboard. Based upon what they’d seen with the exterior ones, there might be as many as fifty survivors. Spread over an area the size of a skyscraper.

  But first they had to clear the stairwells.

  “Been that way,” Faith said. She’d insisted on point.

  Steve keyed the door, which popped open dropping a decomposing corpse at her feet. It was wearing bermuda shorts and a flowered shirt. It was unchewed.

  There were scratch marks on the inside of the door.

  “Shit,” Faith snarled. “Shit, shit…” She turned around and walked to the far bulkhead and started kicking it. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT.” Then she reached behind her to cover the teddy bear’s eyes. “Don’t look, Trixie. It’s not nicey.”

  Fontana looked at Steve who held up a finger. Hooch had turned away as well. Steve was nodding his head as if counting time.

  “Faith,” Steve said as softly as he could through the respirator. “There are people who need saving upstairs. Do you need to head back to the boats?”

  “Just give Trixie a second, okay, Da?” Faith said. She kicked the bulkhead a couple more times, then stuffed the bear’s head down into her assault pack. “I think Trixie needs some sleepy time.” She pulled off her outer glove, then reached into a pouch and pulled out an iPod. She put in the headphones, consulted the playlists, then turned it on. Last, she turned around and walked across and into the stairwell.

  “What are you waiting for, an invitation?”

  * * *

  Robert “Rusty” Fulmer Bennett III had gotten over regretting this “pleasure cruise” a long time ago. How long he wasn’t sure. His buddy, Ted, had suggested they go halves on a room “cause chicks on cruises are easy.” He hadn’t managed to score before the news announced a plague on land. Then the word went around-rumor at first, then confirmed by the s
hip’s crew-that the “Pacific Flu” had gotten onboard. Things kind of went downhill from there.

  When they started getting really bad, the crew had passed out cases of bottled water and cans of food to each room. The cans were Number Ten cans and “you get whatever we have.” There was one case of liter bottles of water per person and three Number Ten cans. That made two cases of water and six cans in their room.

  Rusty was a big boy, over three hundred pound and six foot seven in his stocking feet. He could go through two number ten cans of food in a sitting. One of the reasons he wanted to do the cruise was the all you can eat buffets.

  But he also wasn’t an idiot and had watched enough zombie movies that he realized that they might be stuck in that room for a long time.

  Then there was the fact that they’d been handed six number ten cans of some weird ass bland paste. It said “hummus” on the side and had a smiling picture of some terrorist looking mother-forker spooning the stuff up and grinning like he’d just bombed a church.

  So Rusty put them to the side and hoped they wouldn’t have to eat it. And then Ted turned. He hadn’t even shown any signs.

  By the time the overworked security guards got there, Rusty had Ted tied up in some torn sheets and he’d managed to avoid getting bitten. Barely. He’d nearly lost it when Ted went. They had been friends since they were in grade school. But, face it, the reason they were friends was that Ted was the geek, Rusty was the muscle. If Rusty had went, Ted wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  Rusty and Ted hadn’t been able to afford the expensive cabin with the ocean view. So they’d been watching the occasional zombie go for a couple of days. The ship was still serving, some. And Rusty had gone out a couple of times. But he sure wasn’t cruising for chicks. Just storing up fat and hoping like hell he wasn’t going to go zombie. The zombie plagues were the worst. Twenty-eight days and it was all going to hell.

  Then the abandon ship call came. Rusty tried to get to the lifeboats but there were zombies in the corridor. So he ducked back into his cabin and tried to figure out what to do. Then the doors locked and that was that.

  He’d drunk an entire bottle of water and filled it from the tap. He kept doing that for two days, drink the water, fill up the bottle. Drink the bottle, fill up the water. While the zombies howled in the mall. He could watch them. That was about the only entertainment.