Omega Days (Book 2): Ship of the Dead

by Campbell, John L.

  Angie snatched the walkie-talkie off her belt and was about to call for Rosa, when she looked up and saw the deck of the patrol boat empty. A horrid symphony of moans came from behind them as the horde drew near enough to break into that awful, predatory gallop. Without a word to one another, Angie, Carney, and TC slung their weapons and jumped into the cold water. They stroked hard toward the slowly drifting patrol craft, pulling even harder when they heard the rippling splash of corpses dropping behind them.

  Xavier had always been a powerful swimmer, as swimming was one of the ways he had maintained his boxer’s physique into his forties, and now he kicked hard and dug with his arms, clawing into the depths, heading for the jumping, pale beam of a flashlight far below. The pressure built with every stroke. The forklift had settled into the silt nearly thirty feet below the surface, the water cloudy as particles drifted on a lethargic current.

  Rosa managed to reach the vehicle, resting tilted at a sharp angle, and gripped one of the metal supports of the driver’s roll cage, kicking her feet to help her stay down, aiming the light. Little Bear hung in the water as if suspended, head down and arms floating out at his sides in a parody of crucifixion, his boot still hooked under the brake pedal. Rosa gripped him by the shoulders, shaking him, his body rolling in limp, slow motion. She took him by his bearded chin and raised his slack face.

  Little Bear’s eyes snapped open, yellow with constricted pupils.

  One of his big hands locked on Rosa’s wrist and pulled it to his now bared teeth. Rosa tried to pull away, had no leverage, and struggled to bring her legs around so she could brace against the forklift, gain some leverage. Too slow, and a panicked burst of bubbles escaped her lips. Little Bear bit down.

  But his teeth clicked together, half an inch from her skin.

  Xavier, feet planted on the back of the forklift, had two fistfuls of the big hippie’s hair and he hauled the head back, fighting to hold him. Little Bear pulled at Rosa’s arm, teeth furiously biting at the water, yellow eyes rolling. Rosa dropped the light and clawed at his fingers as more air erupted from her mouth and panic began to take hold.

  Shadowy figures appeared out of the gloom on all sides, shuffling along the bottom, their feet causing clouds of silt to billow about them.

  The priest used his right elbow to jam the hippie’s head against a roll cage beam, pinning him there, and then used both hands to pry the dead man’s fingers from the medic’s wrist. Freed, Rosa struggled to kick toward the surface, her arms moving slowly. Xavier pushed hard at the hippie’s head and kicked off the forklift, leaving Little Bear still trapped and reaching back over his shoulders. The priest caught Rosa under an arm and propelled them both upward, a crowd of dead white hands reaching up in their wake. Moments later, the pair broke the surface with an explosive gasp.

  Within minutes everyone was aboard the patrol boat, all of them soaked and shaking, watching the frustrated dead stumble off the pier with reaching arms. Everyone except Rosa, who clung to the side of the boat and stared down into the water, her gasps turning to sobs.

  Xavier took charge, pointing to the Bayliner, drifting fifty feet away. “We don’t have enough gas in these cans to get it back, and don’t have time to learn to drive it anyway. We’ll tow it.”

  The others nodded and prepared the rope they had brought.

  The priest went to Rosa and wrapped her in his arms, saying nothing until she stopped shaking. “We need our skipper, Doc,” he said when she finally pulled away.

  Rosa nodded, went to the wheelhouse, and throttled their craft toward the wayward Bayliner.

  FOURTEEN

  The original plan was for the assault group to make numerous trips out to the relatively close Nimitz, falling back to Alameda as a base camp for rest and resupply. Like many of the survivors’ plans, it fell apart almost at once.

  Shortly after the two groups departed for their respective trips to the San Francisco boatyard and to raid the convoy at Middle Harbor, the dead began pushing into the old naval base in numbers too great to ignore and too dangerous to risk having to use the hangar as a point of defense. Their moaning echoed down deserted boulevards and bounced off the walls of abandoned structures, thousands of lurching figures in the streets and parking lots, lawns and parks. Among those left behind, the decision was quickly made to pack every member of the group and what supplies they had into the remaining vehicles and relocate out to the naval piers. They would bypass the docks and drive straight out among the vintage warships, counting on their mass and remote location to hide them from the hungry dead.

  They knew there was no way their evacuation would go unnoticed, and they would be followed, the herd mentality eventually bringing the masses their way, out onto a dead-end pier where no boats were waiting.

  A hippie named Abel Younger, familiar with both motorcycles and tactics he had seen Evan Tucker employ on their journey down from the Napa region, volunteered to draw them off. He headed out on Evan’s Harley Road King, gunning the throttle and laying on the horn for maximum noise, roaring away from the hangar and out toward the airfield. He had grinned as he assured them he wasn’t on a kamikaze mission, and once he had as many of the walking dead as he could attract far out at the end of the tarmac, he would double back, leaving them behind to rejoin the group on the Navy pier.

  The tactic worked, pulling the dead’s attention, those flowing in from Alameda and beyond herding forward in slow but steady pursuit. Within a half hour, the roads around the hangar were empty, and the group hustled into the vehicles and sped away toward the old gray ships, carefully watching their rear for stray zombies that would have to be quickly dispatched. They saw none, and reached the pier in safety.

  Neither Abel Younger nor Evan’s Harley was ever seen again.

  When the maintenance barge returned shortly before the patrol boat and the Bayliner, those on the pier signaled before they could enter the seaplane lagoon and possibly alert the dead. All three craft moored in the massive shadows of the warships. When it was dark, several of them would row the Bayliner silently into the lagoon and pump its tank full of fuel, slipping back out the same way.

  The assault would begin in the morning. The rest of this day was spent planning, preparing, and mourning. Most hadn’t known Darius well, but he represented yet another hole in their lives. Little Bear, however, had been well loved within Calvin’s Family, a central member who had helped keep them all together when the world came apart. He was a man who always had a smile for others and was the first to volunteer for anything dangerous, so that someone else might remain behind in safety. His death today had saved someone’s life, and the Family would not forget that.

  Plans had changed. The maintenance barge would become their base, loaded with supplies and moored to the pier when the two power boats headed out. Those not joining the assault would remain close to it for a quick exit if necessary. Their vehicles were put into neutral and quietly pushed into position as a barricade that they all knew would not hold back the dead but might at least slow down a mass attack. It was something.

  Angie, Evan, and Vladimir stood leaning against a pier cable as thick as their waists, strung between short, broad pilings as a barrier to keep tourists from accidentally walking off into the water. They watched as people tore into the totes and boxes of newly arrived supplies, changing into clean clothes, eating, washing up, and trying to be normal for a while. Evan and Vladimir were sharing a cigarette from their dwindling supply.

  “Pray for the dead but fight like hell for the living,” Evan said.

  Angie looked at him. “Did you write that?”

  “No, Mother Jones did. I’m sure she didn’t have this world in mind when she said it.”

  “Should we know who she was?” asked Angie.

  “Probably not,” Evan said. “She died in 1930, supposedly a hundred years old. She was a woman before her time, fighting for railroad workers, child labor
ers, and miners. An activist and agitator, some said a terrorist.”

  “One of your heroes?”

  Evan shook his head. “Not particularly. Mostly it’s the quote. And she fought to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. I like that part.” They looked out at the many children among the supplies and clusters of adults, some of them quite young. Angie nodded without saying anything. Evan spotted Maya and went to her, and Angie gazed over the wide pier.

  With the arrival of the contents of Calvin’s caravan, the weapons from Carney’s Bearcat, and the considerable arsenal from her own van, their little group had been abruptly infused with firepower, a fair amount of it military grade, and none of it secure. She watched a toddler learning to walk while his parents looked on with smiles. The boy edged his little hands along the side of a wooden crate bearing markings for Claymore antipersonnel mines.

  Angie grew up around firearms, and joining the family gunsmithing business had been as natural as breathing. With that upbringing came intense and constant training and education, as well as a deep respect for weaponry’s destructive potential and the safety measures it demanded. She was intimately comfortable with a broad range of guns, did side work as a professional firearms instructor, and regularly participated in—and often won—combat shooting competitions. The sight of this much firepower in the hands of people with little formal training made her nervous.

  Vladimir seemed to pick up on her cloudy expression. “Citizen soldiers now, yes?”

  “They’re a mob,” she replied. “People are going to die, and there’s not much I can do about it. We don’t have time to train.”

  “Then why are you here?” the pilot asked.

  Her eyes found the toddler again, now taking a few wobbly steps on his own toward his clapping mother. It brought on a familiar ache, and one hand slipped into her pants pocket and closed on her daughter Leah’s teething ring, gripping it tightly.

  “Evan said it, didn’t he? When he talked about protecting those who can’t protect themselves.” She shrugged. “It’s the best answer I have, I suppose.” She thought about Evan’s words. There were people in need of protection who weren’t here, however. Then she looked at the homely pilot. “Why are you part of this?”

  He grinned. “Because I have no place to be and no way to get there.”

  Angie laughed.

  Vladimir looked at her, his face serious once more. “I am told you have a family out there?”

  Her chest tightened. “My daughter and my husband. They’re alive.”

  “I’m certain.”

  “They are.” Her voice was sharper than she had intended. She touched his arm and softened her tone. “They were in Sacramento while I was filming on Alameda. It was only supposed to be a day trip; I would have been home that night. But then this”—she waved a hand—“all happened, and I couldn’t get to them, couldn’t call.” Her voice caught, and she looked away for a moment. “Dean, my husband, will protect Leah with his life. But I need to get to them.” When she looked back at the Russian, her eyes were wet. “They’re alive,” she repeated.

  “I believe you.” Vladimir smiled again. “And I will tell you something, Angie West.” He gestured at all the activity. “I believe this is a fool’s adventure, and the cost will be far greater than we even suspect. Yet it is the only real option, is it not?”

  She nodded. Alameda, this pier, they were all death traps the walking dead would find in time, and they would all go down with their backs to the sea, every one of them.

  He lit another cigarette and blew the smoke skyward. “None of us will likely survive,” he said, and then looked at her. “But if by some accident we succeed, I will fuel that helicopter and take you in search of your family. I give you my word on this.”

  Angie stared at him, and then the tears fell and she hugged him fiercely. Vladimir laughed and embraced the woman who was so petite against his towering frame. “I told you we’re all going to die!” he said. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  She pulled away and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.” Then she left, heading into the crowd. The least she could do was use the time remaining to teach some basic firearms safety. Vladimir watched her go, then gazed at the clouds, wondering silently to a God he wasn’t sure he really believed in if he had just made a promise he couldn’t keep.

  • • •

  Brother Peter leaned against a piling on the opposite side of the pier, watching them all. God leaned against a cable beside him, no longer looking like the Air Force psychiatrist. Now He had taken the form of Sherri, the staffer who in her final days had attempted to use sex as a survival technique, and whose face Peter had maimed before sacrificing her to the dead. God’s face wore that bloody, ragged slash too, but it seemed to cause Her no discomfort. When She spoke, however, it was with the male psychiatrist’s voice.

  “You need to be on that boarding party, Pete.”

  Peter wasn’t especially surprised that his hallucination had returned. He had been through a great ordeal, after all, and it would be natural to be suffering some sort of disconnection. It was actually sort of cool when he thought about it. Like having an invisible friend. “Screw that,” he said “It’s a suicide mission. Let those idiots charge off to their deaths.”

  “You’re being disrespectful, Pete. Don’t make me slap you in front of all these nice people.”

  Brother Peter dipped his head. “Forgive me, Lord.” Might as well play along.

  “You’re going on this trip, and you’re getting on that carrier.”

  “May I ask why it’s so important?”

  “Because it’s all part of my plan. I am the mystery.”

  God could be frustrating, Peter thought. And now, because of the wound he had given Her, She was difficult to look at as well.

  “Maybe next time I’ll take on a more pleasing form,” God said. “Like your mother.”

  Peter shook his head. “Please, I couldn’t—this is difficult enough.”

  “Then stop complaining.” God threw an arm around his shoulders and lowered Her voice, leaning in. “Your time is coming. Shall I reveal my plan?”

  The televangelist’s heart raced. If God was real, and he wasn’t ready to really admit that as truth, but if He was, then Peter wanted to be a part of His plan. “Yes, Lord.” He stared across the pier at Angie West, watching her move, struggling to control a dark fantasy.

  “Stay focused, Pete, or I’ll set your pecker alight with hellfire.”

  Brother Peter’s eyes snapped open. Now God was the junior high gym teacher who used to keep him in the locker room after the other kids had left, presumably to help clean up, but in reality to satisfy his own twisted urges with a confused, pubescent boy.

  “I don’t like that form,” Peter hissed.

  The gym teacher gave him a smile the minister remembered well and still dreamed about on occasion, often waking to find he had wet the bed. Then God became the Air Force psychiatrist again, and Peter’s body visibly relaxed.

  God’s voice dropped to a conspirator’s whisper as He pulled Peter close. “Here’s what I had in mind.” As He spoke, a wide, glorious smile spread across the televangelist’s face.

  • • •

  All through that evening and into the night, the dead poured into Alameda.

  FIFTEEN

  It was misting rain, the early-morning sky returned to its flat, shale color, a stiff breeze coming in from the distant mouth of the bay and turning the water to chop. Rosa piloted the Bayliner, and Evan, with his brief experience driving the barge making him the next qualified, had the helm of the patrol boat. Both vessels were overloaded with people, weapons, and gear, so they traveled at an easy pace with a hundred feet between them.

  The discussions and decisions as to who would go and who would stay had lasted well into the night; most of the volunteers accepted witho
ut argument, but not entirely. Some who elected to remain behind, like the young man with the pregnant wife whom Rosa had rescued from San Francisco, were embarrassed and felt the need to explain their reasons. Others volunteered to be part of the boarding party and were rejected by the group. Most of these were the older kids, fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. It was Calvin who announced that no one under sixteen would be part of the assault. No one challenged his decision.

  Maya wanted to go. Evan told her no, she told him it wasn’t his choice, he got angry and she got angry. Eventually Calvin came in on Evan’s side, explaining to his eldest that he needed her to look after her younger brothers and sisters. She reluctantly agreed but made it clear to Evan that she was mad, and that he wasn’t off the hook just because her father had backed him.

  Those staying behind included most of the people from the firehouse: Margaret to lead them; Sophia to watch over the children; Larraine and her elderly husband, Gene, who knew they would only be liabilities; Elson and Big Jerry for protection. Several adults from Calvin’s group would stay as well, to protect their own children and the others. The pregnant couple would stay behind as well.

  Vladimir accepted that he must remain close to the helicopter.

  The boarding party consisted of Calvin and eighteen adults and teenagers from his group, along with Evan, Rosa, Xavier, Angie, and Skye. Carney and TC were in, as well as the high school girl named Meagan. Brother Peter managed to include himself, stating that he had electronics training that could prove useful on the aircraft carrier.

  Now their destination awaited, a slab of Navy gray a half mile out. The closer they got, the more massive the supercarrier became, and as the fearsome presence of one of America’s most destructive weapons of war drew near, Xavier began shaking his head.