Omega Days (Book 2): Ship of the Dead

by Campbell, John L.

  Sophia, the self-appointed keeper of orphans, remained with the children in the van, and the others stayed close to the vehicles. Learning that the Black Hawk was not part of a larger force and was out of fuel had been crushing to every survivor who had come together under Angie’s protection in the Alameda firehouse. They had left their sanctuary in hopes of rescue, but they had also been forced to leave because of one man’s treachery.

  Vladimir slipped his small automatic into his hand and held it low, just out of sight behind his leg. Extremely tall and homely, nicknamed Troll by his now-fallen military comrades, he towered over the small Asian woman beside him.

  Margaret Chu checked the breech of her shotgun and put it to her shoulder, muzzle pointing at the pavement ten feet in front of her. In a short period of time she had gone from a passive, everyday person mildly afraid of firearms to a leader capable of more strength than even she thought possible. People looked to her for guidance and responded to her commands. Together, she and a man she had just met waited.

  The Harley’s powerful headlamp revealed the helicopter, two vehicles, and the people lined up between them. Evan slowed to an idle as he approached, stopping within shouting distance and climbing off with Maya.

  “Who are you?” a woman yelled.

  Evan held empty hands out to his sides. “My name is Evan Tucker; this is Maya. We saw the helicopter land.” Headlights and the metallic banging of a sick engine approached from behind. “Those people are with us, families and children, mostly. We came from Oakland.” He wasn’t sure what else to say.

  There was some conversation among the people by the chopper, and then a short woman with a shotgun and a tall man in a flight suit walked toward them. “I’m Margaret Chu; this is Vladimir.” No one shook hands. “We have children with us too, so we need to make sure everyone is respectful and careful with the firearms. Do you understand my meaning?”

  Evan nodded. No one wanted a mistake or sudden misunderstanding to end up in a close-range gunfight in front of a bunch of kids. “I’ll tell the others, if that’s okay?”

  Margaret nodded, and Evan squeezed Maya’s hand before jogging back toward the armored truck. Minutes later it was parked beside the Harley, and shortly after that Calvin’s hippies and Rosa’s boat refugees were mixing with the firehouse survivors. After some initial awkwardness, conversation took over. There was no aggression or suspicion, just frightened people finding others like themselves, relieved at the comfort that came from being in a large group of people with shared experiences. There was even some laughter, nervous at first, then genuine. Children from both groups found one another, and adults, strangers, stood together watching them play and interact, quietly marveling at their resiliency.

  Hungry people from Calvin’s group were given food from the Cadillac’s supplies, and the few refugees who smoked drew off to one side to share their own unique camaraderie. There was a naturalness to it all, almost a feeling that such a reunion with other survivors had been expected, and welcomed. Xavier stood to the side watching, and felt a small measure of reaffirmation in his fellow man’s capacity to care for one another in times of crisis. It was something he hadn’t seen in a long time.

  Xavier saw Carney, the armored truck’s driver, and his big friend TC speaking with the helicopter pilot. TC slumped his shoulders and shuffled away when he got the bad news. It was the behavior of a child, Xavier thought, at odds with his size and dangerous presence, and it worried the priest.

  “We need to tell them about the girl,” Rosa said, coming to stand beside him. “We have to tell them one of us is infected, or we’ll risk destroying this trust.”

  “How is she?”

  “The same. Fever, delirium. The condition of her eye bothers me.” Rosa checked her watch. “We’ll know in a few hours.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Xavier said, “when I think the time is right.” They were happy at that moment, sharing a breath of relief, all of them unsure of how long it would last. He wanted them to have that moment.

  “I’m going to get my bag,” the medic said, “start checking everyone over, Calvin’s group as well as these new folks. Will you keep an eye on the girl?”

  Xavier said he would, and went to the rear of the truck as Rosa carried her orange medical bag toward a cluster of people. The priest checked on the girl, saw no change, and parked himself on the truck’s rear bumper. He realized the downpour had ended. In the excitement of this new contact with other survivors, he hadn’t noticed. It was only misting now, and overhead the cloud cover had just begun to break up. He listened for a while to the conversations around him, people telling their stories, and then beginning to discuss their situation.

  Footsteps approached, and a group assembled around him at the back of the Bearcat: Calvin, Evan and Maya, the Russian pilot, and the woman named Margaret. Carney stood at the edge of the group, half turned away and watching outward with his rifle in his arms.

  “Your medic said you’re someone to talk to,” said Evan. Xavier started to shake his head, but Evan cut him off. “We need to figure things out, decide what happens next.”

  The priest nodded slowly.

  “We need to find a place to hole up, get all these people indoors,” Evan continued, “and make some plans. Margaret says one of her group is still out there.”

  Xavier rose from the bumper and put his hand on the truck’s rear door handle. “First we need to talk about this girl . . .” He didn’t get a chance to finish.

  “Drifters!” someone shouted, and the cry was followed by a woman’s scream. Everyone spun to see a dozen figures lurching toward them out of the dark, and then Carney’s M14 rifle began to fire.

  FIVE

  Faith and her brother-in-law Dane were standing at the rear of the white Cadillac, watching the kids play tag in the headlights. She smiled. Kids out late on a summer night, having fun. The young man called Mercury stood a few yards away, holding an assault rifle and straining to see into the darkness. The row of large hangars was no longer visible, and the cloud cover had yet to dissipate. Without city lights, it was as dark as a country night. Mercury was nervous; they were making a lot of noise, a lot of light, and seemed to think they had reached some point of safety where those things no longer mattered. It felt careless. He wanted to say something, but he was not a professional sentry; he was young and quite junior in the whole scheme of things, trusting in the wisdom of the elders in the group that had kept them alive this far.

  Dane watched the kids play. “Nice to see that they can just forget it all for a while.”

  Faith nodded. “Even a little while is a good thing.” She looked at Calvin’s brother. “I’m sorry about the hospital ship. Sorry I brought us here.”

  Dane shook his head. “We all wanted that ship to be there, and it was. You were right. How could we have known it was . . . dead?” The vision of the long, white USNS Comfort tied to an Oakland dock and swarming with the dead was something both were certain they would never forget.

  “Cal didn’t want to come, tried to talk me out of it. I forced him into it.” Faith started to cry. “I led us here.”

  Dane took her in his arms and held her.

  “My kids are going to die because of me,” she whispered through her tears, and that set off more sobbing.

  Mercury looked back at them, wishing he could do something. Faith was a mother to all of them, and it broke his heart to see her like this. With his back turned to the darkened airfield, he didn’t see the trio of corpses galloping at him out of the night.

  The first one threw him down and fell on top of him, knocking the wind out of him. The second dropped as well, pinning him. Gasping for air, Mercury couldn’t even scream as they started clawing and biting flesh out of his arms and belly. The third corpse went past, intent on different prey. Dane looked up at the sudden stench in the air in time to see a rotting face sink its teeth into Faith’s bar
e shoulder. She screamed as blood sprayed into her brother-in-law’s face, as rotting hands pawed at her eyes and mouth.

  “Drifters!” Dane screamed, punching the corpse in the face as hard as he could. There was a wet, snapping sound, and his fist plunged through a decaying nose, collapsing it and the eye sockets inward, his hand suddenly buried in a cold, sticky mass. The thing’s teeth didn’t let go of Faith’s shoulder, however, and it sank its fingers into one of her eyes as the filthy, broken nails of its other hand wiggled into her mouth, searching for her tongue. She tried to scream, fought to stand.

  Dane clawed at the pistol he wore on his hip, his now-slippery hand unable to close on the grip. Shots were fired from somewhere as the corpse pulled Faith down, embracing her from behind, ripping at her shoulder until the white of bone appeared. She thrashed against it.

  Finally Dane had the pistol in hand and aimed for its head, not wanting to risk hitting Faith, aware of the sound of running feet approaching. He also didn’t see the creature that had detached itself from Mercury and scrambled toward him on all fours. It bit him in the back of the knee just as he squeezed the trigger, making the gun jump in his hand.

  The bullet caught Faith just above the right eye, at a range of three feet.

  Dane screamed at both the pain and what he had just done. Faith’s attacker took no notice of her sudden stillness and continued to chew into her arm, groaning.

  Calvin got there first, stumbling to a halt at what he saw, letting out a wail. Evan came in a second later with his hatchet and buried it in the back of the head attached to Dane’s knee. The creature made a sighing noise and collapsed to the asphalt. Margaret strode to the drifter feeding on Mercury, blew its head off, racked another round, and did the same to the dead hippie. Xavier stomped a foot on Faith’s attacker until its head came apart and its hands fell away from her. The woman stared up with one intact eye, her tongue torn out and still between the zombie’s fingers, blood from her massive head wound pooling about her on the tarmac.

  “Baby,” whispered Calvin, dropping to his knees and cradling her. “Oh, baby, no.”

  Maya fell to her knees and hugged her father, crying silently, as Vladimir quickly moved to intercept the children racing toward them. Carney’s M14 cracked several more times and approaching corpses fell. TC arrived and grabbed a flashlight from the back of the truck, panning it through the darkness as Carney tracked the light with his rifle. A drifter appeared in the white glow, a woman green with rot wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Carney put her down.

  “Faith!” Dane cried, collapsing on the wounded leg but trying to pull himself toward his brother’s wife. “Faith!”

  Rosa came on the run, dropping beside Dane with her bag. “Lie still,” she ordered.

  “Faith!” Dane raised the pistol, pointing it at the corpse with the crushed head.

  “Father, get that!” Rosa shouted, and Xavier quickly took the waving gun from Dane’s hand. Rosa pressed the man to the cement as a pair of women arrived to hold his shoulders down, smoothing his hair and repeating his name. Rosa pulled on her gloves and used a small flashlight to inspect his knee. She cut away his pants leg and looked again, then cursed.

  They all saw the ragged bite, except for Calvin, who saw only his dead wife.

  Evan took Xavier by the elbow. “We have to get these people inside.”

  • • •

  The man had ambushed and murdered her uncle, intentionally let the dead into the firehouse that had become their fortress, and stolen the van full of weapons. Now Angie West, former reality show star and professional gunsmith and shooter, was going hunting.

  She figured Maxie would have tried to put distance between himself and the firehouse before going to ground. After radioing her intentions to Margaret and breaking contact, she drove a mile before starting a grid search, street by street. There was no way he could have gotten off Alameda, she knew, given the conditions of the bridges and approach roads, but finding him would still be long odds. All the son of a bitch had to do was pull the van into an open garage and close the door. In addition, driving slowly through the neighborhoods would not only stir up the dead but provide a nice target for the now heavily armed Maxie.

  She didn’t care. If he took a shot, he had better put her down, because she wouldn’t miss when she returned fire.

  Brother Peter rode in silence beside her as she cruised Alameda a block at a time, wiper blades thumping against a slackening rain and headlights revealing streets containing empty cars, dropped possessions, and drifting corpses. He sneaked little glances at her, figuring that she was in her late twenties, maybe ten years younger than him. She was lean and athletic, hard-looking with breasts on the smallish side. He preferred his women softer, with more curves, but there was still something arousing about her. He imagined that taut body bucking beneath him in a wicked little fantasy involving handcuffs, moans of pleasure, and ending with him using the box cutter to slit her throat at the moment of orgasm.

  His box cutter. That lovely metal tool, cool to the touch, that he had used to open a woman’s face in order to leave her for bait as he made his escape. Now, as he sat filthy and coming down from amphetamines beside a woman who had threatened to kill him and then changed her mind, he stroked the box cutter hidden inside the pocket of the ratty, soiled hoodie jacket he wore.

  Peter felt himself stiffening and tried to suppress that as well as a smile. “We’re hunting a man?” he asked. “The one who killed your uncle?”

  Angie said nothing.

  “He’s dangerous. Can I have my pistol back?”

  Still nothing.

  Brother Peter fingered the box cutter like an Irish worry stone. “Wouldn’t it be smarter if we were both armed? Look at how the dead are coming into the street. The truck’s noise attracts them, probably the lights too.” He looked at her. “How about that pistol?”

  Angie stomped the brake, throwing Peter against the dashboard. “Get out.”

  “Hold on, I just—”

  She gripped the butt of her automatic in its shoulder holster. “Get out,” she repeated.

  Peter raised his hands and ducked his head, his voice turning to a whimper. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m just scared, and you’re not talking to me. I’ll shut up.” Oh, how it sickened him to demean himself to this woman. It was necessary, though. It was his way in.

  Angie looked at him for a long moment, and then the Excursion was rolling again. Block after block passed and the last of the light was gone from the sky. They traveled through streets filled with broken glass and burned cars, houses with doors standing open, and lots of closed garages. No sign of Maxie. The dead staggered down steps and out from behind cars, reaching and pounding on the SUV as it passed. Many staggered into its path only to be run down, and many of these were left broken on the pavement, struggling to drag their crushed bodies after the departing vehicle.

  The Excursion’s dashboard clock ticked past midnight, then 1:00 A.M. Peter fell asleep, his head leaning against the window, unable to stay awake despite the increasing thump of dead hands on metal and glass. It had been a long, long day for him: trussing Anderson to that pipe, preparing to eat the young male staffer, carving up Sherri, and running, running, running. The escape from the airport, wandering the golf course, Alameda, and meeting lovely Angie made for such a busy day. He began to snore lightly.

  Angie was exhausted too, her eyes raw and dry. It would be easy to tuck the Excursion into a garage of her own, secure her hitchhiker (she had a handful of police zip-tie cuffs in the center console), and catch some sleep. She wouldn’t, though; she had to find Maxie. She was still undecided about her passenger. He had pointed a gun at her but surrendered it easily enough and said he was scared. He was creepy and he smelled bad and asked annoying questions, but did that mean he was dangerous? Her uncle Bud had said at the beginning of this, We put down anything that’s a threat. Did this
man qualify? She had been collecting strays for weeks, but of course none had pointed a weapon at her. So far he was behaving, so she decided to let him stay, at least until she had more reasons to put him out.

  As the small hours of the new day crept on, she began to consider how impossible this hunt would be. The dead were increasing in number by the hour, and soon the streets would be impassable; the massed strength of corpses would be able to stop and tip over even the heavy SUV. She couldn’t stay out here. Maxie might be an evil bastard, but he was far from stupid. He wouldn’t just show himself in order to make it easy for her to—

  The Excursion’s lights revealed Angie’s van sitting half a block away.

  It was midway up the street, crooked and crunched against a fire hydrant. The driver’s door stood open, and a corpse was on its hands and knees on the ground below it, face pressed to the asphalt. The van had come to rest in front of a small tavern, an unlit neon sign over the door showing a shamrock and reading Lucky’s.

  Angie pulled to the curb and killed the headlights, searching for signs of movement, the glow of a flashlight, anything. It was dark and quiet, and the corpse near the van appeared to be the only such creature in the immediate area. At this distance she couldn’t tell if it was Maxie. She looked at her sleeping companion. Dangerous? Trustworthy? She couldn’t assess those things at the moment, and she certainly didn’t know him well enough to take him with her.

  She retrieved a pair of hard plastic, prelooped zip-tie cuffs from the console and slipped one over Peter’s left wrist, jerking it tight and hauling him over to the steering wheel. He snorted and sputtered as he was yanked from a deep sleep, slow to resist. In seconds both hands were tightly cuffed around the steering wheel.

  “What . . . ?”

  Angie got out, bringing her Galil assault rifle, tossing Peter’s .45 and clip into the rear cargo area. She shoved his hunting knife in her belt and pulled the keys. “Don’t make noise, don’t hit the horn, or you’ll attract them.” She held up the key fob and locked the Excursion with the button on the driver’s door. “If you do anything to let him know I’m coming, I’ll unlock the truck from a distance so they can get in and eat you.”