Invasion of the Dead (Book 1): Treasure Coast Zombies

by H. L. Murphy

  “Fuck me swinging,” I yelled as I marched directly into the three zombies between me and the aircraft Cooms was defending. My arms pumped and swung furiously, blood and bone bits flew on impact. Broken and convulsing, the zombies fell away. Some fucking asshole was screaming his goddamn head off, meaningless obscenities repeated with a general lack of creativity, but with remarkable volume. Oh, wait, I’m that asshole. I guess that’s me dealing with performing so astronomically stupid an action, because I drew the attention of half the infected shitheads surrounding Cooms and his people. A dozen gaping maws dropped open and a deafening roar assaulted me, stopping me dead in my tracks.

  “Son of an undead bitch.”

  I turned and ran, no tough guy bullshit in the world stood up to having a horde of zombies bellow their desire to sink cracked, broken teeth into your flesh. I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Let’s see you judgey fat bastards drag your sorry asses out of your safe, reinforced bunkers and go all Conan the Barbarian on fearless, driven flesh eating undead whose call for dinner quite literally hits you in the belly. I swear that call actually hit me like a physical force.

  My running feet took me to the side of the two story bathroom structure, to the unfinished side wall. Billion dollar company and they couldn’t be bothered to pretty up the work area, or replace tools broken for three fucking years. Digressing, digressing, digressing because the next part was going to suck.

  I ran up to the unfinished wall and started climbing as quickly as possible, using the cross members and electrical conduits to haul myself up. Not only could I hear the shambling footsteps of approaching zombies, one actually took hold of my ankle in a shockingly powerful grip. As if I wasn’t terrified enough of zombies eating me alive, now one of the snacky fucks had hold of me. Rapidly thundering heartbeats blocked out all sound, allowing me the full measure of my attention to focus on pulling myself free of the fucking zombie convinced that leg meat was the way to go. Cross country marathons may not have been my thing, but strength training had been for a number of years. Muscles bunched, tendons screamed in protest, but I pulled myself, plus one hundred ninety pounds of undead shitbird, out of reach of the other zombies. Not that the flesh craving things just gave up and took their cannibal tendencies home to pout.

  I fucking wish, and, while I was in the realm of fantasy disco, I really wished this fat fuck would get the unholy fuck off me.

  My other leg kept kicking at the fucker in a vain attempt to free myself of its grasp. Once, twice, three times my boot lashed out. Small, steely fingers refused to surrender its prize. Christ on a crutch, I was hurting myself more than the fucking zombie was hurting me. The tread of my boots was scraping the holy hell out of my shin.

  “Die, mother fucker,” I screamed frantically, and struck out one more time. Finally, I landed a blow on the very top of the zombies skull, the desired result had, at long last, been achieved. Not a moment too soon either as my arms informed me I was a world class asshole who had pressed them far beyond their stated operational parameters. Relieved of some extra weight I finally managed to pull myself up. Hand over hand, I pulled myself up the unfinished wall until I reached the metal stairs. I heaved air in and out of my overworked body as I crawled over the railing and dropped onto the goddamn metal steps in a mound of nearly exhausted muscle. My vision blurred, and I had to rub my eyes vigorously before they focused again. The door to the stairwell was still closed, but was rattling as someone, or something, tried to work the doorknob.

  “Give me a break,” I rasped in between hauling in as much oxygen as my aching lungs could handle. “Fucking zombies shouldn’t be able to open doors. That’s just not fair.”

  The door burst open in an explosion of screams, flailing arms, cheep perfume, and fake tits, all of which fell directly onto my crotch. It is impossible for me to overstate the waves of agony that radiated out from my groin. One hundred fifteen pounds of crazed bitch thrashed wildly, I would have let her have a moment, but her every movement caused further injury to my pulsating, abused junk. An impossible flurry of knees and elbows impacted my groin as the woman freaked out beyond all reason. My hands closed hard around slightly too thin arms, and held her until she stopped hurting my equipment. In an instant, I recognized the buster of my balls.

  Madalina fucking Hurgoi.

  Why couldn’t it have been a zombie?

  Interlude One

  The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Constellation, last of the Kitty Hawk super carriers, was steaming through the South China Sea, ostensibly to thumb America’s nose at the saber rattling PRC. Though how Admiral Horace Mayweather was supposed to intimidate anything larger than a tuna boat with the pitiful excuse for a carrier group assigned to him currently, escaped the man. The entire purpose behind secretly refitting the aged carrier was to provide the United States Navy with a completely deniable black ops fleet. Years of painstaking labor had gone into convincing the world the old girl, Connie, CV-64, had been decommissioned and scrapped. The reality, however, was she had been overhauled from stem to stern, given a nuclear reactor, squadron of the new F-35 fighters, and beyond next generation surveillance equipment. Naturally, the crotch sniffing mongrels in the White House couldn't be bothered to maintain operational security concerning the Connie’s new existence. Oh, no, they were only interested in currying favor with the President, and maybe getting that much coveted fourth star. The very day the President discovered exactly how many F-35 fighters had been transferred under Mayweather’s command he had issued a directive to reassign the cutting edge planes to state side bases where they would be of absolutely no value to anyone in the world. When Mayweather had dared to voice his discontent, the President had responded by stripping the carrier group of its Arleigh Burke class destroyers, saddling Mayweather with the Navy’s antique fighters, and threatening to relieve Mayweather of command. The last, it had been Mayweather’s pleasure to inform the President, was not within the power of the White House. In fact, as the head of the T.R. Society and holder of the San Juan Mandate, Admiral Horace Mayweather was answerable to practically no one in the government. A very pleasant bonus feature of running the countries oldest special operations division.

  An aged F/A-18E Super Hornet leapt into the air, propelled by the ship’s powerful catapult system from standing still to stall speed in the blink of an eye. A former aviator himself, Mayweather recalled the terrifying thrill of a carrier launch. The Super Hornet was, in many ways, superior to the Tomcats Mayweather flew twenty years before, but in the Admirals mind the twin engine, swing wing fighter was still the Ferrari of jets.

  “Admiral,” Chief Petty Officer McNeil called from behind Mayweather. “You have a call from Admiral Sandoval. He extends his compliments, and if you have a free minute he would appreciate the pleasure of your company.”

  Mayweather repressed a grin as he listened to his aide perfectly mimic the Royal Navy officer. From anyone else, the Admiral would have considered the impression insubordination, but McNeil and he had been together many years. Chief McNeil held Sandoval in high regard, though not so high as to bypass an opportunity to twist the Englishman’s nose.

  “That will do, Chief,” Mayweather said as he passed into the ship’s interior.

  “Yes, sir,” McNeil nodded his ascent. “It’s hardly sporting for a good Irishman to visit his razor wit upon those ill equipped by nature to defend themselves, most especially the English.”

  This time Mayweather laughed softly as he moved through the passageways, sailors of every stripe making way for the admiral. In the comm center, Mayweather picked up a secured handset currently employing an encryption sequence well beyond the ability of any government agency to violate on a whim. While he hadn’t been surprised to learn the NSA had tapped every communications device in the United States, Mayweather had still been disgusted with the entire affair. Secret hearings to obtain secret blanket warrants based on secret information from a judge whose name had been declared a secret. Completely, utterly unconscionable, not to men
tion how distinctly it smelled of Gestapo tactics. It had taken a considerable effort to pull off the shell game necessary to fund the encryption code in use on the Constellation, but Mayweather knew it would pay off in the end.

  “Admiral Sir Harry Sandoval,” Mayweather spoke pompously into the handset. “ How the holy hell are you?”

  “You do realize the impression you give of being at least somewhat civilized is ruined whenever you speak,” a very cultured, very dry voice responded.

  “It’s nothing more than an attempt to placate my peers. If they truly understood just how overwhelmingly superior I am, the whole lot would throw in together and knife me like Julius Caesar,” Mayweather returned.

  “I see that dementia has set in. Unfortunate, but given your advanced age it was inevitable,” Sandoval came back smoothly.

  “Taken a look in the mirror lately, Harry? You’re not exactly a spring chicken anymore. Last time I saw you that golden mop you were always so proud of had gone white,” Mayweather replied, trying to buy time in order to piece together some crushing rebuttal.

  “I only wish the color of my still full head of hair were our only concern,” Sandoval changed his tone to full business, though he managed a parting shot at his long time friend. Mayweather could see, in his mind’s eye, the tall, slim figure of Harry Sandoval, a reserved half smile on his aristocratic face. The two of them made for unlikely friends coming from such different backgrounds, Sandoval being from a less well known branch of the Royal Family while Mayweather had been born to a poor inner city couple and had managed to overcome a practically non existent economy, gang infested neighborhoods, and a generally inadequate educational system to win a coveted appointment to the naval academy. Yet, the two men became fast friends during a brief joint intelligence assignment.

  “What trouble have you brought me today, Harry?” Mayweather asked carefully, his free hand swept over his freshly shaved head.

  “Do you remember the summer of 1997?”

  Admiral Mayweather nearly dropped the handset, his mind flashed to the single most terrifying, not to mention most restricted, event of his life. His marriage came far too close to ending because of the constant nightmares after the fact, made worse since the event was declared beyond need to know. Despite the acceptance of PTSD within the military, Mayweather had been forbidden to seek any kind of therapy. Had it not been for his wife’s deeply stubborn streak and loving dedication the Admiral would probably have gone insane, and been alone when it happened.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “By telling you this, Horace,” Sandoval said lightly,”I am committing high treason.”

  “Then don’t tell me, Harry,” Mayweather cut in. “What ever it is, it isn’t worth throwing your life away.”

  “Yes, it is,” Harry Sandoval argued. “As you know, I am currently heading up a reconnaissance on Iran. I have the good fortune to have been given a berth aboard HMS Indefatigable.”

  “Indy is a LPH, isn’t she?” Admiral Mayweather asked.

  “Indeed, and a fine example of her class,” Sandoval affirmed. “However, during our evaluation of the dubious situation it came to our attention that an object had fallen from orbit to land within Qatar. I would have simply dismissed it as another example of space debris finding its way back to Mother Earth, except that all communication with the capital city of Doha has been lost.”

  “Time from impact to communication black out?” Mayweather asked, his mouth suddenly dry. Fear, so long a conquered and controlled foe, rose up fresh and new to menace the Admiral.

  “Elapsed time is estimated to be no more than twelve hours,” Harry Sandoval answered

  “Jesus Christ,” Mayweather swore.

  “Yes, indeed,” Sandoval agreed. “I believe prayer may be in order. Ground intelligence indicates the Outbreak has spread to the shoreline, particularly close to Bahrain. If the Outbreak should spread from Qatar to Bahrain, it will spread from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia in a matter of days.”

  “What is White Hall’s stance on this?”

  “The official line is see no evil, hear no evil,” Sandoval spat the words with, for him, considerable passion. “However, unofficially I have been informed to take no action unless the Outbreak appears in danger of spreading to Bahrain, then I am to launch a specially equipped assault helicopter. Horace, I have been given nuclear authority.”

  “My god, Harry,” Mayweather breathed quietly. “Nuclear authority?”

  A small lieutenant came up to the Admiral, handed the older officer an urgent communique, and quickly returned to her station. Mayweather glanced over the print out as his mind reeled from the thought of a modern nuclear device being employed to stem the Outbreak.

  “Oh, shit,” Admiral Mayweather spat. “Harry, things are worse than you thought. I’m reading a report concerning unrest in Moscow, Beijing, and Dhaka. Assets are reporting abnormally violent behavior, animalistic attacks, and rioters walking into police gunfire. Dear god, Harry, multiple Outbreaks. It’s happening, just as Dr. Zhao theorized it would.”

  “So it would seem, Horace,” Sir Harry Sandoval agreed. “Do you think anyone will institute Dr. Zhao’s steps to preserve our species?”

  “Twenty years ago,” Mayweather spoke slowly, thinking back over his career,”I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute. Now, though, my government is a screaming cluster fuck more concerned with victory over their political enemies than actually fulfilling their sworn duties.”

  “I fear a similar situation has taken hold in Parliament,” Sandoval said. “Perhaps, just perhaps, it is our sworn duty to take it upon ourselves to institute Zhao’s plan.”

  “That’s an ambitious decision, Harry,” Mayweather offered.

  “Do you disagree?”

  “No,” Mayweather said, the weight of the coming nightmare suddenly bearing down on his shoulders. “I believe events are already spiraling out of control, so the sooner Zhao’s plan is put in place the better for our entire race.”

  “Horace, would it be appropriate to suggest we should reacquire the good doctor?” Sandoval asked quietly.

  “Appropriate? You’re damned right it’s appropriate,” Mayweather returned,”but I have no idea where she is. The CIA disappeared her into an absolute black hole. Ten years and not a single word, not the faintest glimmer of her location. Of all the times to get their goddamn job right, they pick hiding Dr. Zhao.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, old boy,” Harry Sandoval said loftily,”but perhaps we should make every effort to locate her.”

  “Harry,” Mayweather drew a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “If we do this without orders and we’re wrong, we’ll be lucky to get through this to a firing squad. The NSA has subcontracted containing Outbreaks to a mercenary group. These bastards are ruthless and practically untouchable. If they get wind of this, of us horning in on their territory, we could very quickly become the unfortunate recipients of a terrorist driven conspiracy ending in a suitcase nuke.”

  “Yes, blasted Soviets never could manage to keep anything locked up,” Sandoval quipped. “I understand the risk we run if we sit by and do nothing, Horace. My daughter was just elected to Parliament, one of the proudest moments of my life. Has a touch of Churchill about her. Her oldest boy is set to enter university next year. He worked hard to move past the loss of his father in Afghanistan. Thoroughly admired his father in every way, James did. Rather fond of the man myself. I put violence upon myself not to launch everything in my arsenal at that wretched little spit of land. I do believe I’ve had enough of burying my children.”

  “Goddamn, Harry,” Mayweather whispered. “All this time, and that's the most passionate I've ever heard you. I’ll get on locating Dr. Zhao on my end, as well as implementing her plan. Contact you in twelve hours.”

  Chapter Four

  “Get the fuck off me,” I finally squeaked out, doing my very best to maneuver Madalina’s weight off my balls. She shifted her weight suddenly, and Madalina’s spear point like knee foun
d an entirely new method to inflict pain on my battered groin. I don’t know if she did it on purpose, or if it was just an unfortunate coincidence, but I was done with taking it in the nuts. With a grunted curse I hefted Madalina into the air, where she windmilled her arms and legs. Thankfully, she didn't land another shot to my crotch, though my shins weren't so lucky. “Christ on fire, woman. Can you not?”

  “Asshole,” Madalina sneered as she alighted on her feet. She ran her hands over her clothes, probably trying to smooth them back into maximum attention grabbing position. I thought she was going to pitch a screaming fit when she discovered a huge rip in the seat of her yoga pants.

  Yup, fucking yoga pants.

  Company dress code specifically forbids a number of clothes styles, most of which Madalina wore on a daily basis, but singled out yoga pants in a paragraph long article. Today’s skin tight, quasi-translucent pants were a bright pink which did nothing to conceal the pair of black thong panties delving into the crack of her ass like a deep submergence vehicle poking around the wreck of the Titanic. An ass that was now mostly visible through the rip in her yoga pants. This I noticed while I curled in on my shrieking crotch, the signals from my aching balls to my stomach called for an immediate, involuntary purging of its contents. The problem with those signals was that my stomach had already purged itself a few minutes previous.

  Purge, purge, purge, my balls screamed between gasped breaths.

  Sorry about your luck, lads, my stomach returned in its best Jason Statham imitation, but we’re all done here. Got to find your relief somewhere else.

  “You did this on purpose, you fucking asshole,” Madalina shrilled.