Lilly was sitting in a plastic chair wearing a dead woman’s body armor, weighted down with her gear and looking pale. She gave Rosa a brief smile, then staggered off the chair and threw up. Eve went to her.
Tommy stood nearby with his shotgun. “I got two more down that way,” he said, indicating the direction of the hospital ward. “They looked like patients. I expected a lot more drifters in here, being as it’s a hospital.”
“It’s been a while,” said Rosa. “They’ve spread through the ship. This was probably the site of the initial outbreak. Any hospital would have been the scene of tremendous virus transmission. It would have gotten out of control after it broke here.”
Rosa told Tommy about the weapons cache, and he headed in to re-arm himself. Eve first got Lilly calmed down, then reported that she was happy with the shotgun and would take Tommy’s spare shells when he upgraded to an assault rifle. Lilly didn’t say anything, just nodded that she was okay.
Turning in a slow circle, taking it all in, Rosa was even more convinced that this was where it began, at least for Nimitz. Why should this hospital have been different than any other? Wounded personnel had come on board, likely SEALs from what she had seen, which was a common occurrence with aircraft carriers, and they were infected. Medics would have stripped them of their gear so they could be treated, dumping it all in one place so a gunner’s mate or masterat-arms could collect it later. The SEALs would have turned, started biting. Their victims would have turned. Security would arrive to find the place overrun, the dead already spilling out of the sick bay and into the rest of the ship. It would have been dominoes after that.
“We need to clear this area,” Rosa told the others. We need to lock it down and make sure nothing else is in here with us.”
It wasn’t until that moment she realized neither Xavier nor Brother Peter was with them.
• • •
The door marked CHAPEL closed silently behind him, and Xavier walked into a nondescript room with rows of chairs arranged to accommodate about twenty people. Cabinets lined one wall, and a pair of lecterns stood in a corner, one with a simple cross on its face, the other with the Star of David. The walls were unadorned, and as the priest moved to the front of the room he realized that, aside from the admiral’s quarters, this was the only other carpeted compartment he had seen. A single fluorescent bar was the only source of light in the room.
He leaned the fire axe against a chair and took a seat in the front row, leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees. The wall before him was blank. He assumed, with the multidenominational nature of the crew, that the celebrant for each faith would have his articles secured in one of the cabinets, bringing them out for the service.
Xavier clasped his scarred hands and lowered his head, closing his eyes. Dozens of prayers and litanies came to mind, meticulously memorized scripture passages, all quickly rejected. His shoulders sagged and he let out a deep sigh.
“I’m not sure I even have the right to speak with you, Lord,” he began, his voice soft, “so if it’s all right with you, I’ll speak plainly. I won’t blame you for not listening. I’d be surprised if you did, but . . .”
He was silent for a while, then said, “I want to be able to give them strength, to give them hope, but I’m so very tired. I need you, Lord. I have no right to ask, but I’m asking.” Xavier looked at the blank wall, his eyes moist. “I’m a sinner and a killer, and I broke faith with you when I should have placed myself in your hands. I’m so very sorry for that.”
He was quiet again, thinking of what it truly meant to be a priest. For much of his faith’s history, clerics had sanctioned and planned wars from afar, participated up close, even killed alongside their faithful warriors. All in God’s name. It was a part of his church’s history that few people were proud of, but it was their history nonetheless. Had those priests been forgiven, they who shed blood? Theirs had been a different time, a different world. Was this not a new world as well, demanding a different sort of priest? A warrior? Or was that just a convenient rationalization? Perhaps, now that the world had gone to hell, it was more important than ever to stand as a symbol for peace, to serve as a model of temperance and love. But how long would such a priest survive in this new world? And who was he to make such a decision?
Xavier looked at the blank wall again. It had nothing to say.
“I’ve taken lives, and nothing can justify that. But I know that I can still lift others up with your strength. I still want to be a priest, Lord, and if you’ll allow it, I know I can.” He lowered his head. “I won’t pretend to understand why you’ve chosen to destroy your world and your children, but I’ve been angry with you for it, angry and faithless. Let me be a shepherd in this new world. Grant me forgiveness, help me to make wise decisions. I beg that you not punish those around me because of my weakness. Help me to be the priest you need, Lord, whether a lamb or a lion. Let me renew my faith.”
Xavier pressed his forehead to his clenched hands and wept.
• • •
Oh, listen to this bullshit,” God said. He was sitting in a chair at the back of the room, legs crossed as He picked a piece of lint off His uniform trousers. “Bargaining, simpering. It makes me sick.”
Brother Peter used his fingertips to ease the door shut, then stood in the center aisle next to his savior. There were no more doubts about hallucinations. God was here beside him, as real as any man. “Do you hear his words?” the minister asked.
“Of course. He’s sitting right there.” God mocked him in a falsetto voice. “Don’t punish them for my failings, let me be your lamb.” He shook His head. “He makes me want to puke. Hey, Petey, at least you’ve got some backbone, man.”
Brother Peter looked around at the simple room, intentionally lacking the grandeur and icons of many places of worship. Military order, but with it came a simple purity. “Do you live here?” Brother Peter asked.
The Air Force shrink looked up at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s just so . . . plain,” the minister said. “It doesn’t need gold and statues and choirs. Can you hear us better in a place like this?”
God sighed. “Okay, let’s just settle down, Pete. Don’t get all ‘Filled with Glory.’ It’s a fucking conference room shared by half a dozen faiths who smile at one another and have nothing but hatred for each other.” God reached up and snapped His fingers sharply in Brother Peter’s face. “Focus.”
“I’ve broken away from the others,” Peter said, his eyes locked straight ahead. “The priest is a threat, and I need to kill him.”
God nodded.
Peter’s eyes were glassy. “I’m going down to the magazines. I’m going to find the nukes, wire them together, ignite your holy wrath. Praise God.” A trickle of drool escaped unnoticed from the corner of his mouth.
The Air Force shrink stood and clapped Brother Peter on the shoulder. “Good, let’s get to it. And by the way”—God looked back to the front of the room—“he can hear you.”
Brother Peter blinked rapidly, as if coming out of a half doze. God was gone, and the big, black priest was on his feet not far away, mouth hung open and staring at him. Peter realized his conversation, at least the last part of it, had been spoken aloud.
“Uhh . . .” Peter said, locking eyes with Xavier. Then he pulled a grenade from a jacket pocket and yanked the pin, letting the spoon fly. He dropped it on the carpet at his feet, then bolted out the chapel door.
Xavier was diving when the blast and shrapnel tore the chapel apart.
THIRTY-SIX
Mercy gave Chief Liebs her M4 and what little ammo she had left, as he was the professional marksman. The others spread around their weapons, and everyone supplemented from the big knife racks in the galley. The chief took point, with Evan behind him holding a flashlight and his Sig Sauer.
Liebs advanced with the rifle to his shoulder
, muzzle moving everywhere he turned his head. A pair of sailors staggered out of a hatch in the corridor just beyond the mess hall, and the chief put them down with a fast pair of shots, barely pausing as he moved past, setting a swift pace. The others peered through doorways and closed hatches as they went by, but the Navy man was all focus, moving forward.
Calvin fired four times to their rear, dropping a cook and a jet engine mechanic. Liebs killed four more corpses that tumbled into the corridor from a narrow ladderway, finishing them before they could disentangle themselves at the bottom of the stairs.
The group passed through a pair of knee knockers, then came to a four-way intersection with a set of stairs tucked into an alcove to one side, stairs that only descended. The decapitated and decomposing body of an officer was stretched out on the gray tile, his head a few feet away. The eyes rolled and a blackened tongue probed past its teeth.
“That’s nasty,” said Stone, booting the head down a passageway like a soccer ball.
“No, that was nasty,” said Mercy.
Chief Liebs held a finger to his lips and crept toward the stairway as the others kept watch down the four corridors. Evan moved up with him, holding his breath, and both looked over the railing. They heard the moans, a low hum coming up out of complete darkness. The depth of the sound indicated that there were many of them down there. Chief Liebs motioned Evan back from the rail, and the group came together in the intersection.
“Let’s just go past this,” said Dakota, and Juju nodded with him.
“We can’t,” said the chief, pointing to the stairway. “That’s the only way to reach the armory.”
Frightened glances from the others.
“Those stairs lead down to a good-sized compartment, sort of like a lobby,” the chief said. “To the right is the armory door, with a small service window about four feet to one side. Straight ahead is an office and quarters for the master-at-arms, and left of that is the brig. To the far left is a berthing compartment for gunner’s mates, an office for the chiefs, and then chief’s quarters.”
He explained that the area should be well lit, even on reduced reactor power, and speculated that a firefight might have damaged the electrical panels. He repeated that the stairway—he called it a ladder—was the only way in or out of the section.
“There’s twenty or more down there,” Liebs said.
“Do we really have to do this?” Juju asked.
The chief looked at Evan, who said, “We’re out of ammo and out of time. Even if we passed, we don’t have enough bullets to reach daylight again.”
“The armory will have everything we need,” said the chief. “My men are all trained in basic rifle, shotgun, and pistol. All of us together, plus what’s waiting down there, have a chance to take back the ship.”
“If we can get to it,” said Evan.
Liebs let out a deep breath. “Yes, if we can get to it. I’ll go down first.”
Off to one side, Stone laughed softly, shaking his head. When the others looked at him he said, “Don’t take this wrong, but you guys are really stupid.”
Calvin grinned. He had known the boy since he was born. “Enlighten us, wise one.”
Stone explained his simple but effective idea. It was brilliant.
• • •
They all had to admit that the kid was right, and even Chief Liebs gave him a pat on the back and told him he would have made a fine sailor. It was Stone who snapped them out of their frontal assault state-of-mind, and even showed each of them where they should stand in order to carry out his plan.
Once everyone was in place, Stone said, “Just call me Bait.” He jumped halfway down the stairs and shouted, “Dinnertime!” at the drifters waiting in the darkness. Stone backed up the stairs. “C’mon, sexy, that’s it, good little zombie. Come on. . . .”
The dead scrambled over one another in their rush to follow the live meat up the stairs. The first drifter to set both feet on the tile of the intersection caught a butcher knife through the ear. The body was still stiffening from its brain being pierced when one of Liebs’s sailors rushed it from the other side, half tackling, half carrying the body away and dumping it in a corridor. The chief prepared his knife again, and another sailor stepped into tackle position.
Stone stood ten feet away from the top of the stairs, hooting and tormenting the dead, even turning and smacking his behind at them. The drifters were so fixed on the difficult task of first climbing stairs and then getting to the lively meal that was so very close that they didn’t stand a chance against the chief and his butcher knife.
One by one the walking dead climbed up the narrow ladderway to their doom. The chief broke three knives in the process, instantly rearmed by Mercy standing behind him with two fistfuls of fresh blades from the galley. Dakota and Evan joined in the tackling process when the dead came too fast and too close for the sailors to keep up. Calvin saw none of it, facing away from the action so he and his assault rifle could watch the corridors.
It was a smart move. Stone’s howling and catcalls echoed down the steel passages, and called to the dead. Calvin took careful aim and squeezed, well aware of the thin supply of bullets, determined to make his shots count. He fired on corpses up the center, down to the left, over on the right, pivoting back and forth. Shuffling figures in blackened uniforms emerged from the darkness, sliding along walls and filling the halls with echoing cries.
The pile of brain-stabbed drifters now nearly filled the opening to the right corridor, limp bodies spilling into the intersection. Live drifters, attracted to all the sound, clawed at the mound from the other side, unable to get through. Calvin didn’t bother shooting these, grateful that his area of responsibility was now effectively down to three hallways instead of four.
His rifle clicked on an empty magazine. “I’m out,” he shouted.
Dakota handed him a shotgun. Two minutes later Calvin called it empty as well.
“Use the M4,” Liebs yelled, stabbing a man he had known for two years. He tried not to think about it, about the fact that he knew everyone coming up out of the darkness, people he had laughed with, whose stories of family were as familiar as his own. The growing fatigue in his right arm and shoulder was a welcome distraction. “I’m going to need a relief soon,” he called.
Evan took a butcher knife from Mercy and handed her his Sig. “Give this to Calvin.”
He was about to tap Liebs on the shoulder when the chief lunged with his knife. The drifter, moving on a fractured leg, abruptly staggered sideways, and the blade cut a neat slice through its scalp but didn’t pierce the head. The bosun’s mate was already running, and he grabbed the live drifter around the waist, hoisting it, preparing to run it to the pile.
The drifter snarled, grabbed the young man’s head, and bit his ear off.
The bosun’s mate screamed and tried to throw the wriggling creature away, but it hung on and bit a large chunk of meat out of the boy’s cheek.
Mercy dropped her knives, stepped forward, and with Evan’s pistol shot the drifter at point-blank range. The wet blast out the back hit Dakota in the side of the face, and he staggered away, wretching. The bosun’s mate flung the body to the floor and clamped his hands to his savaged face, stumbled to a wall, and collapsed.
“Keep up the relay!” Chief Liebs shouted, stabbing the next creature to emerge from below. His petty officer second class moved in, hauling the corpse out of the way.
“There’s way more than twenty,” Stone yelled.
“No shit, kid,” the chief growled.
It seemed to last for hours, but in just over ten minutes it was done. A few more pistol shots from Calvin cleared the halls, and there were no more drifters coming up out of the dark. Flashlights revealed none on the stairs or in sight at the bottom.
Dakota was in a panic, scrubbing blood and brains off his face, and Chief Liebs went to his wounded ma
n, a boy, really, kneeling beside him. The kid pressed his hands to his ear and cheek, blood seeping between the fingers. “I don’t want to die, Guns,” the bosun’s mate cried, looking up and trembling. Mercy knelt down too, trying to replace the boy’s hands with gauze pads. “Don’t let me die,” the sailor said.
Chief Liebs gripped his shoulders. “You’re going to be fine, shipmate. Don’t you doubt it.”
“But the b-b-bite!”
“You’re going to be fine,” Liebs repeated. “You just stay quiet and hang on. Your chief’s going to look after you.”
Evan saw the strained look on the chief’s face as he turned away.
“We need to get down there,” Liebs said, his voice cracking. He took the Sig Sauer, the last weapon in the group that still had bullets, and only four at that, and went down the stairs with a flashlight. The others followed, two of the sailors helping their maimed friend.
The compartment was exactly as described and, because of Stone’s plan, free of the dead, except for some thumping and muted moans coming from behind the brig’s bolted steel door, which they all ignored. The chief had explained to them that the armory door normally required that it be buzzed open from inside, but both he and the division officer carried a key in the event of an emergency. The armory’s solid steel door was the only option for entry, as the service window had been designed to be too small for an adult to crawl through.
“The armory is staffed twenty-four-seven by a pair of gunner’s mates. I expect they’ll still be in there,” said the chief, “so stay alert.”
Liebs keyed his way in.
Two dead sailors came at him immediately, and the Sig barked three times before Liebs called, “We’re clear.” Everyone came in, securing the door behind them.
Omega Days (Book 2): Ship of the Dead Page 27
