Voyage of the Dead
Book One of the Sovereign Spirit Saga
By David P. Forsyth
Voyage of the Dead: The Sovereign Spirit Saga (Second Edition, March 2013)
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead (except for historical and public figures), is purely coincidental. Although many of the places and things depicted do exist, numerous liberties have been taken and intentional embellishments made. This book does not purport to provide accurate descriptions of any actual locations, things, or entities. To the best of the author’s knowledge there are no such things as zombies and no plans by anyone to create them. This is an original work of fiction and all intellectual property rights are reserved by David P. Forsyth. Cover Art by William O. Rosenthal. Edited by Felicia A. Sullivan.
Interior design by The Mad Formatter
Copyright 2012 @ David P. Forsyth
All rights reserved
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: Breaking News
Chapter 2: The End of the World as We Knew It
Chapter 3: Networking Nightmares
Chapter 4: Dead Men Walking
Chapter 5: Escape and Evasion
Chapter 6: Land’s End
Chapter 7: Special Reports
Chapter 8: Safe Passage
Chapter 9: America’s Finest City
Chapter 10: A Few Good Men
Chapter 11: Search and Rescue
Chapter 12: Extraction
Chapter 13: Revelations
Excerpt
Prologue
Los Angeles International Airport: 12:05 AM, April 1
Carl and Pricilla Stiller were running late for their red eye flight to Puerto Rico. The plane was scheduled to depart in less than thirty minutes and they were still standing in line for security screening.
They’d arrived later than planned, and Carl’s wife blamed him for watching the end of his favorite TV show before driving to the airport. His apologies were empty and automatic as he willed the line to move faster. If they missed this flight, they would also miss their Caribbean cruise that departed from San Juan in less than fourteen hours. Carl was about to try bribing a TSA agent to cut the line when he noticed a commotion beyond the security checkpoint.
One of the TSA officers had collapsed and other officers were rushing to assist him. Then another officer stumbled and fell to the floor. Confusion spread as another and then another officer went down. They all seemed to be going into spasms. People in the front of the line began to panic. Carl was no genius, but his first thought was that this was a terrorist attack with some kind of poison gas. He grabbed his wife’s hand and pulled her back towards the ticket counters.
“What are you doing, Carl?” yelled Pricilla. “We have to get on that plane!”
“Be quiet for a second and look at what’s happening!” said Carl harshly. “Something’s wrong! It might be terrorism. We have to get out of here, now!”
Somehow he just knew they had to get out of the terminal. But as he pushed through the crowd, pulling his wife with him, he realized that the trouble had spread to the ticketing area of the departure terminal too. Screams were coming from the ticketing counters. Some people were running towards the doors. Others were running in from outside. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t localized at the security checkpoint.
“Come on, Prissy!” Carl yelled as he dragged her to a stairway that led down to the baggage claim area.
The situation on the ground floor wasn’t any better. If anything, it was worse. There was blood on the floor and more people were screaming. Carl ignored groups of people struggling in the baggage claim area and pulled Pricilla towards the exit doors. She was still yelling about missing their flight, but her protests faltered as soon as she recognized the panic that was spreading through the airport. Carl was focused on the exit doors when his wife’s hand was jerked from his grasp. He spun around and was shocked to see an airline employee tackling Pricilla and pouncing atop her. Pricilla was screaming.
Carl was an athletic man who had played soccer and been a football field goal kicker in college. His instincts kicked in at the same moment that he kicked his wife’s attacker in the side of the head. The man went flying, leaving Pricilla lying dazed on her back with blood streaming from a wound on her neck. Carl reached down and scooped her up in his arms, then turned and ran for the exit. He reverted to his football training and charged through the confused people crowding around the doors. Several of them were knocked to the ground by his passage. Then he and Pricilla were outside by the taxi stands.
Sadly, the situation outside didn’t seem any better. Screams filled the night. Cars were speeding, honking and crashing along the length of the terminal. People were running, screaming, crying, fighting and apparently dying. Carl didn’t pause to evaluate any of that. The only thing keeping him from going into shock was the adrenalin that fueled his terrified body. This was not the type of flight that he had planned for tonight, but it was becoming obvious that their vacation had turned into a nightmare, and they hadn’t even left town. Carl had no idea what was happening, but he knew that he had to get out of here and get Pricilla to a hospital.
People were mobbing the taxi stand, so Carl ran past the line until he spotted a cab that was just pulling into the pick-up lane. Holding Pricilla in front of him, he ran in front of the taxi cab and prayed it would stop. It did. Carl stepped up to the driver’s window and said, “I need to get her to the nearest hospital and I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to get us there fast!” The driver saw the blood dripping from Pricilla’s neck and the panic in her eyes. He nodded and waved them into the back seat. Carl moved fast and was glad he had approached from the driver’s side when he saw other panicked passengers rushing towards his cab from the curb as he placed Pricilla in the back seat. He barely got into the cab before the driver hit the gas and swerved away from the encroaching mob.
Traffic should have been light at this time of night, even at the airport, but this was not a normal night. There seemed to be several traffic accidents blocking some of the lanes in front of the terminal. The flashing lights of a police car illuminated people struggling and fighting in the street. Several bright flashes near the police car might have been gun shots. A shuttle bus cut across lanes, over a median, and through a crowd of people to smash into the plate glass windows of the baggage claim area. Carl thought he had seen people fighting inside the bus as it sped past.
“Allah the merciful!” exclaimed the Pakistani cab driver as he swerved through a hole in the traffic created by the errant shuttle bus and aimed for the cross street between parking structures that led to an access road between the terminals. This road was empty and took them directly to the Pacific Coast Highway. “There is urgent care two blocks up Sepulveda. Hospitals are much farther,” said the cabby as more of a question than a statement.
Carl was holding Pricilla across his lap and applying pressure to her wound. There was a lot of blood, but not as much as there would be if her carotid artery or jugular vein were cut. She probably just needed stitches, bandages, and antiseptics, as well as treatment for shock. If he didn’t know better he would swear that it was a bite wound. “The urgent care should be fine,” said Carl. “Please hurry.” He looked back down at Pricilla, who was taking short and rapid breaths while her wide eyes stared up at him.
“What’s happening?” she gasped. “I feel strange.”
“It’s alright, darling,” Carl comforted her. “We’re taking you to a doctor right now. You’re going to be fine.”
“I don’t feel fine,” she moaned. “My head hurts.”
“You have a cut on you
r neck, Prissy, but your head is fine,” Carl explained.
“No it’s not,” she said. “It feels like something’s crawling around inside it.”
Her eyes rolled back and she lost consciousness just as the cab pulled into the parking lot of the urgent care center. There was already an ambulance backed up to the doors of the facility, so the cab pulled up beside it.
“Please wait here while I get someone to help me move her inside,” Carl said to the cabby as he passed him a bloody hundred dollar bill and slipped out the door. “We need some help out here!” he yelled as he moved past the ambulance. What he saw brought him up short.
The glass doors to the urgent care center were smeared and splattered with blood, but not enough to hide the horrors occurring within. People were scattered on the floor and other figures were bent over them, ripping and tearing at the bodies with their teeth! There would be no help for his wife here. The horn of the taxi began to blare, and Carl spun around in time to see the taxi surge forward and crash into the ambulance. The horn continued to sound as Carl ran back to the car.
He simply couldn’t believe what he saw. His wife, his gentle and kind Pricilla, was climbing over into the front seat, attacking the cab driver. Carl watched, frozen, as Pricilla sank her teeth into the cabby’s neck and ripped out a chunk of flesh. She must have found a major blood vessel because a fountain of blood splashed the interior of the windshield, mercifully blocking Carl’s view of whatever else transpired inside the taxi. He stood in shock - how long he couldn’t say - as the cab rocked back and forth from the movement within.
Eventually a sound behind him triggered Carl’s survival instinct and he spun back towards the urgent care to see a bloody paramedic stumble out the door. “Please help us,” said Carl weakly, but the paramedic didn’t look like he was in any condition to help anyone. His head jerked around at the sound of Carl’s voice and he snarled, charging forward with outstretched arms and bared teeth. His face was drenched in blood and he looked like something out of a horror movie.
Carl lurched away from the attack and vaulted onto the hood of the taxi cab, which was jammed into the side of the ambulance. He turned and threw a kick into the paramedic’s face, lifting the fiend off his feet and almost certainly breaking his jaw. But the maniac didn’t stay down, so Carl jumped off the other side of the hood and circled around the ambulance with the paramedic in hot pursuit.
The taxi’s horn, which continued to blare, must have attracted attention because more bloody figures were emerging from the urgent care center. Carl’s choices were limited. He could run towards the back of the parking lot and hope to escape in that direction, but he had no idea what was back there and it would mean abandoning Pricilla. That didn’t feel right. Instead he jumped into the open rear doors of the ambulance and pulled them closed behind him. He had just enough time to find and depress the lock before bodies began to slam against the doors.
Voyage of the Dead
Book 1 of the Sovereign Spirit Saga
"There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That's right; I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you'll be happy you read this…”
Centers for Disease Control, "Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse." May 16, 2011.
http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/
Chapter 1: Breaking News
“Never awake me when you have good news to announce, because with good news nothing presses; but when you have bad news, arouse me immediately, for then there is not an instant to be lost.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
The Sovereign Spirit was cruising 1,000 miles off the Pacific coast of southern Mexico towards Cabo San Lucas at a steady 15 knots when the world as we knew it ended. There were no obvious signs of impending disaster for the 107 souls aboard the 472 foot expedition mega yacht. No explosions or mushroom clouds. No tsunami, hurricane, or asteroid strike. Nothing obvious. No immediate panic or mayhem. The passengers and crew of the former long distance passenger and car ferry were geographically isolated from the traumatic events that began to sweep around the world on the morning of April 1. They were not, however, isolated from the news.
It was still pre-dawn in the Pacific when Scott Allen awoke from a fitful sleep. He snuck out of bed, careful not to disturb his beautiful wife, Michelle, and went to get a breath of fresh air. Scott strolled quietly out onto the Sky Deck. In years past he would have lit a cigarette, but he had quit smoking immediately after winning the lottery. Instead he took several slow, deep breaths of the clean ocean air and stared up at the unblemished glory of the star filled sky. The stars were slowly being overpowered by the glow of dawn to the east, but the sea remained silvery black as the open ocean swells rolled by. The sight, sound and motion of the ship’s bow breaking through the southerly seas were enhanced by the phosphorescence of the wake that broke through the waves. It should have been a marvelous experience. Unfortunately, Scott was disturbed by his already forgotten dreams. All he knew was that they had left a film of sweat which the subtropical breeze turned into a sticky residue on his bare skin.
Scott ran his left hand through his prematurely graying hair that he kept slightly longer than most men his age. He had always been considered handsome, but at the age of 47, and after winning hundreds of millions of dollars in the lottery, he was finally convinced that he needed to live a healthier lifestyle. No more smoking; less fast food; not as much drinking; and regular exercise to bring his six foot tall body back into the best shape that he could muster at his age. He had been 175 pounds in the Army at the age of 18 and, while he had put on some weight since then, he had never topped 200 pounds. Staring out over the phosphorescent ocean, Scott contemplated going down to his fully outfitted gym for an early morning workout, but there was something nagging at his mind that pointed elsewhere. Feeling the need for some form of distraction, he turned away from the rail and walked towards the multi-media room that adjoined his master suite.
Although the Sovereign Spirit was originally launched in the 1960s, she had been refitted and updated with the latest technology more than once in her long life on the seas, especially during her most recent conversion from specialty cruise ship to luxury mega yacht. Part of these upgrades included top of the line satellite telecommunications. That technology brought the atrocities of the day to those aboard the Sovereign Spirit in crisp HD detail. Scott was the first person aboard to witness these events when he turned on the big screen and tuned into the Global News Network.
“This is Fox Rusher with Breaking News from GNN headquarters in Los Angeles. For the past few hours we have been receiving numerous reports of incredible acts of violence erupting in cities and towns across America and around the world. Details are sketchy at best, but most accounts agree that significant numbers of people are engaged in spontaneous acts of brutal violence on their fellow citizens. There is no official explanation for these events.”
Scott took only a moment to digest the horrible news before he lifted the handset next to his recliner and punched in the extension for the night watch on the bridge. “This is Scott Allen. Please wake the captain and ask him to meet me immediately in the media room on the Sky Deck. Tell him it’s urgent.” After he hung up the phone, the bad news on TV continued to unfold while Scott began to contemplate who he could hit up for a pack of smokes.
“We now have live video feeds from various news sources around the world, but our producers have made the decision to delay and edit many of them due to graphic violent content. I am being told that some of the footage shows intense homicidal cruelty and apparent acts of cannibalism. We have prepared a partially edited feed from Times Square in New York City taken from the GNN studios there within the past few minutes. The pixilated portions of the screen have been intentionally altered to obscure the worst images of violence, but we highly recommend viewer discretion in watching this footage. As you can see there are
massive crowds of… Oh my God!”
The scenes from New York were impossible to sanitize. New York was four time zones ahead of Scott’s ship and it was a bright, sunny morning with a clear blue sky. Thousands of panicked pedestrians poured out of buildings, collided and stampeded along the sidewalks, and overflowed into turmoil on the streets. Many of those fleeing were clearly bleeding from injuries to their arms, legs and faces. Many others seemed to be pursuing the injured and healthy alike. When a pursuer caught someone, they fell upon them with obvious violent intent. That is where the pixilation took over, but it could not mask the sprays and pools of blood that spread across the pavement and throughout the crowd. The camera zoomed in on an NYPD cop who pulled his service pistol and fired into the back of one of the attackers who seemed to be biting a young woman on the arm. The perp took the round without flinching, then spun around and charged the policeman, taking three more rounds to the chest without pause. He sprang onto the cop, absorbing additional gunshot wounds without slowing, and sunk his teeth into the policeman’s neck.
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Captain Jordan Fisher when he glimpsed that scene on the 85-inch plasma display as he entered the Sky Deck media room to which he had just been summoned. “Is that one of your horror movies, Scott?”
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