by Jeff Thomson
The radio inside the Bridge crackled. Lane’s stressed-out voice came up through the light static. “Mick is down! Mick is down!” the radio voice shouted. “Oh, Christ, there’s a lot of blood.”
John keyed the mic. “Where?”
“Port side. Boat Deck. Fuck, he’s bleeding bad,” the voice came back.
John ran to the rear bulkhead, keyed the 1-MC and shouted “Doctor Floyd to the Port Boat Deck. Doctor Floyd to the Port Boat Deck, on the double!” He reached across and keyed the radio. “Lane,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “There’s nothing you can do for him at the moment. Doc Floyd his heading there, and there’s nobody else left on the fantail. I need you to keep watch. This ain’t over yet. There could still be more of them.” He wasn’t entirely sure their Mad Doctor would go where he was told, but that didn’t change things. Whether Mick lived or died was out of John’s hands, and they were still in real trouble.
“But...” Lane’s voice protested.
John heard the key release on the other end, so he stepped on any further disagreement. “Just do it, Lane. Keep watch so this doesn’t get any worse.”
And as if he had tempted fate with that statement, and as if fate had replied with a resounding fuck you, the interior Bridge door opened, and his ten year-old son entered.
“Davy! What the Hell are you doing here?” he shouted, rushing to his son and grabbing him in a bear hug. Whether to protect him or to strangle the little idiot, John wasn’t entirely sure.
The boy snapped a decent salute and smiled, saying: “Reporting for duty, sir!”
John’s heart filled with shock and wonder and pride and love and no small amount of growing hysteria as he looked at his son. “What...?”
But he didn’t get a chance to finish the thought, because that bastard Murphy with his fucked-up, ever-present, ever-dangerous Law came to call in the form of a new threat, a new enemy, a new pirate coming through the starboard Bridge door, wielding a shotgun.
108
If MK3 Danny Maury wasn’t dead, then he was having one Hell of a bad day. Night, Frank corrected himself, the thought floating through his mind with an unreality matching the circumstances of his current situation. He stared at the young man’s crumpled form, swimming in a pool of his own blood, and went through the catalogue of recent insanity.
He had just caved in the skull of his Engineering Officer with the BFW (Big Fucking Wrench) he held in a twisted sort of port arms in front of him, after watching the man/zombie tear the eyes out of Kiepelkowski’s head. His co-worker. Maury, lay mangled at his feet, and there was another fellow crewman wandering somewhere in the Engine Room, dreaming the dreams of the fucking insane. Talk about a shit sandwich!
I went back to my Mother, and said I’m crazy, Ma, help me / She said, I know how it feels, son, ‘cause it runs in the family...
The words to the Pete Townshend song, The Real Me, from The Who’s Quadrophenia album (one of Frank’s favorites) ran unbidden through his head. It seemed appropriate to the situation. If the crew of a ship at sea was a family (and Frank felt certain it was) then insanity most definitely ran through this one.
He looked around, at the roaring Number Two Engine, and at the silent Number One, where Danny lay. No sign of Moncrief. The Fireman had to be here, somewhere.
Frank was wearing the industrial headphone-type hearing protection, which might have been a problem, since he was searching for a man-turned homicidal maniac somewhere in the depths of the Engine Room, and hearing might mean saving his own life, but he couldn’t have heard anything over the engine noise, in any case, so he was better off with the headphones. He compensated by keeping his head on the swivel, trying to look everywhere at once. Just because you’re paranoid, Frank, doesn’t mean the zombies aren’t out to get you.
And as if on cue, Moncrief appeared. He’d managed to strip off his Coast Guard-approved dark blue coverall, but had only managed to get it past one still-booted foot, so the clothing dragged behind the Fire-zombie, in a comedic parody Frank might have found hilarious, if not, well...
It saw him, and charged.
109
LT Richard Medavoy, new CO of the USCGC Sassafras, opened the Cabin door and peered out. He saw the body of OS1 Carlton Bertram, folded half-on the vestibule deck, half-on the ladder leading below. He ignored it. The effort it would take to acknowledge a fallen crewman, or, for that matter, the death of a fellow human being, was beyond his capacity.
He stepped out, closing the door behind him. He didn’t want to think of what he’d left inside, but the thoughts came, anyway. His wife was there, in the middle of the carpeted deck, where he’d left her after strangling the life out of the woman. He’d wanted to do that for years, truth be told, but wanting to and doing it were two entirely different things. She was his wife, and he had taken the marriage vows seriously. Til death do us part, meant what it said. Now she was dead, and now he was free - not that it would do him any good.
He was finding it hard to think. His head was fuzzy, as if someone had filled it with one of the ubiquitous gray military wool blankets. Why had he killed her? He remembered.
His son, Carson, his little boy, lay on the bunk, his cherished face hidden from view by the pillow Medavoy used to suffocate the poor kid. Now why had he done that? He looked at his left forearm, at the white cloth wrapped around it, acting as a makeshift bandage to cover the torn flesh, and knew the answer at once. Carlton had bitten him.
When he’d finished, he’d taken the boy in his arms and laid him on the bunk, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. This was absurd, of course. His son was dead, but the thought counted, right?
Thoughts were getting harder and harder to create, to concentrate on, to hold. He un-dogged the exterior hatch to the Boat Deck and exited. The night air felt cool on his burning forehead. I have a fever. The thought bubble appeared in his mind’s eye. That means something, he thought. Something bad...
110
Jonesy gave the zombie hoard at the Bridge door one more whirlwind of LE batons, then spun and followed Molly out the starboard door. He slammed it shut behind him. That ought to keep them busy and confused for a bit, he thought. Then, out loud: “The Flying Bridge is that way!” he shouted, after seeing her bypass the ladder leading to first the Signal Bridge, then the Flying Bridge. She ignored him.
Instead, she ran aft to the center of the superstructure, heading straight for the fire axe cradled on the bulkhead. She grabbed at it, but it stuck, having been there for months since the last time anyone thought to check it out. With a growl of frustration that at first scared the crap out of him, thinking that maybe she was turning, she smacked the handle end with the upturned palm of her left hand, once, twice, a third time before it broke free of the salt and rust holding it in place. She snatched it off the bulkhead in triumph, and said: “I needed a weapon.”
“I’m mildly turned on,” Jonesy said.
“Shut up,” she snapped in return, reaching the bottom of the ladder. Molly looked from it, to the large axe in her hand, then to Jonesy. “Hold this,” she said, thrusting it into his hand.
He fumbled the grab, encumbered as his hands were with the two batons, but managed not to drop it on his own toe. Tossing it onto the deck above after she’d scurried up the ladder, he followed.
Scooping up the axe, he tried to hand it to her, but Molly’s attention was on the Flying Bridge. He glanced upward and saw why.
Seaman Ronald “Saigon Ron” Wilson had been acting as lookout. The man had been in the Army, once upon a time, but got out after six years, having realized the level of bullshit was too high for his delicate sensibilities. That’s the way he always put it whenever someone asked the inevitable question. He also boasted: “Yeah, I was in Nam,” and when people balked at the obvious inconsistency of time and his age, replied: “I played second base for the Saigon Tigers.” Hence, the nickname.
It was all a pile of bragging horseshit, of course. He’d never been to Vietnam -
had never been anywhere near it. The closest he’d gotten was Bremerhaven, Germany. None of which mattered, because Saigon Ron had become a zombie. He launched himself off the Flying Bridge, straight at Molly.
Jonesy learned a lot of Martial Arts philosophy during his years of training in Malibu, and then at the various dojos he’d managed to find in the far-flung places the Coast Guard saw fit to send him. Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee’s creation, had been chock-full of it (pun intended). But the best defensive advice he’d ever heard, came from the Seventies TV show, Kung Fu. The best defense is not to be there.
Molly embodied that advice when she sidestepped the diving ex-Army zombie, who landed in a belly flop upon the Signal Bridge deck. Jonesy tossed her the axe, which she deftly caught, raised over her head, and slammed down onto the prone, but still-moving former seaman. The blade and pick of the implement were both covered in leather, so as to protect the edge from salt and corrosion, and so the blow did not cut, but when the skull of their would-be assailant shattered, they both discovered that blunt force trauma worked fine in a pinch.
Jonesy watched Molly stare at her handiwork, her face white, in spite of the recent effort, in spite of the high blood pressure-inducing stress of recent events. He worried about her; worried she might not take this well, at all.
Killing wasn’t something the average human being experienced in the course of a normal life. He would have been perfectly content if he’d never had the dubious pleasure. But he was wired differently than the average bear. Maybe that’s what LCDR Sparks had seen in him. Maybe that’s why he’d been so sure Jonesy was the right man for the job of killing some of his shipmates to protect others.
You did a bang up job of that, didn’t you, Jonesy? He thought, bitterly. But such self-absorption was a waste of time. There were more important things, like whether or not Molly could deal with the guilt and shame of what she’d just done - twice, now. He needn’t have worried.
She looked at him and gave a wry smile. “That was easier than it should have been.”
111
This is almost too easy, Eddie Cochrane, escaped convict, newly-minted pirate and full time (whenever he could so indulge himself) child molester thought, as he entered the Bridge and leveled the shotgun at the man and - oh goody - child he found there. The shotgun had been lying next to the body of that fucking wombat, Hank Lazardo. The.38 revolver he’d brought on board remained tucked into his belt. A shotgun was so much better.
The man, his back to Eddie, was sheltering the kid with his body. That would not do, at all.
“Move away from the kid,” he said, trying to sound tough.
He’d never been very good at it. Truth be told, he had always been picked on by the bigger kids: the bullies and jocks, and various other Neanderthals during his years at public school in Schenectady, NY. They called him “wussy,” and “fag,” and “homo,” and a dozen other variations on the homosexual theme. And maybe they had a point.
He’d always been a bit effeminate, never masculine, never good at sports or chasing girls, or fighting. And he’d enjoyed - really enjoyed - getting buggered, as the schoolyard slang called getting done up the old poop chute.
The first time had been by his “uncle;” some loser his mother was banging, but who, it seemed, had been more interested in her little son. And he’d heard all the shrinks talking about how that led to his own “affliction,” as the more liberal of them called it. But it was all so much self-serving bullshit, voiced in an effort to understand what made him rape those three young boys. They couldn’t deal with the notion that he’d done it, because he liked it - a lot. It didn’t fit their suburban fantasy about the essential good in all human beings. Eddie Cochrane had been a homosexual, child molesting rapist because he liked it. There needn’t have been any deeper, more philosophical understanding than that.
“Please,” the man begged. “Not my son.”
“Move away from the fucking kid,” he repeated. “I promise I won’t hurt him. Not till I’ve had my fun.”
The man was truly cowed - by him. Eddie Cochrane had finally become intimidating! Would wonders never cease?
“Move away from him, or I swear I’ll kill him sloooow,” he said, drawing out the last word. “I’ll take my time. I’ll make it hurt.” Damn! This was fun!
But then, wouldn’t you know it? Everything changed. Everything got ruined. Same as it had always been. Same as the first time he’d raped a boy and had to flee Schenectady, same as the second, when he’d had to stop before finishing, because the kid had started to scream. Same as the third - and final time - when those dock workers in Oakland found him in the abandoned warehouse he’d used to have his fun. They kicked the living shit out of him, then turned him over to the cops. Not even his Public Defender had said a word about that. Same as always. Eddie Cochrane just couldn’t get a break.
The internal Bridge door slammed open, and Eddie’s world went away for good.
112
Teddy Spute was freaking right the fuck out. John was going to kill him, for sure.
The man had given him responsibility for that stupid bitch Clara, and he failed. Then John gave him the responsibility of watching over the families - of watching over his children - and he failed there, too.
Hearing the gunshots, he raced up the Bridge ladder, hoping against hope nothing had happened, that Davy Gordon had just slipped away to take a nap, that they’d find him curled into a ball under a table or a bed or something when this was all over. But deep down, he knew it was a fool’s hope. Davy was up there, and he knew it. John was going to kick his fucking ass.
Teddy pondered the 9mm pistol in his hand. It was loaded, cocked and off safe. Maybe that would give him time to explain. Maybe that would make John hold off from turning his face into a pile of goo.
He burst through the Bridge door, saw John shielding Davy, saw the man with the shotgun and knew why. He didn’t think. He didn’t plan. He opened fire.
113
“What the fuck are you doing?” Harold asked, deeply concerned as he watched Duke gearing up into his full tactical rig.
They’d stacked the bodies into one corner of the Bosun Hold, a task Harold planned to never think of ever again. It had been a nightmare, at the end of a series of nightmares. Fighting his shipmates was bad enough. Killing them had been even worse, but that was self-defense. No choice. If he hadn’t killed them, he’d be Zombie-Chow right about now. He’d done it without thinking, allowing his instinct for self-preservation to take over and do the nasty deeds without any conscious involvement on his part. But moving those bodies - looking at the faces of his friends - sucked more than anything had ever sucked before.
Now it looked like Duke was getting ready for more of the same.
“We’re going out, Harold,” Duke said. His voice was calm, but left no room for discussion or debate. “Get some gear out of the LE Locker and put it on.”
“Why would I want to do that?” he asked. “We did our bit.” He waved toward the corpses. “We killed the zombies. What more do we need to do?”
Duke paused in donning the body armor, and stared at him, as if surveying an interesting, yet inexplicable insect. He pointed at the bodies. “Do you think that’s all the zombies on our ship?”
Harold didn’t answer.
“They’ve taken over,” Duke said, shrugging into his Tactical Harness and slipping each of the two hammers into the waste belt on either side. He bent and searched the clothes of BM1 Hurdlika. Harold soon found out what he was looking for when Duke stood back up, bouncing a large set of keys in the palm of his hand.
“Fuck Medavoy,” he said. “I’m arming up. Are you coming or not?”
“We’re getting guns?” Harold asked.
“We’re getting guns.”
“Fuckin’ A,” he replied. This was more like it!
“Time to take back our ship.”
114
Petty Officer Jackass was dead. Amber refused to call him by his actual name, as
if using the name would require her to acknowledge that he had once been a human being, and she had killed him.
Obviously, she had. The ex-Operations Specialist lay in a pool of his own blood, leaving a mess behind in death as he had often done in life. The guy was a pig. She couldn’t quite make herself go to the dark place and suggest he deserved to get a swab handle shoved into his throat, but facts were facts. She and the world were better off without him.
Gorge rose in her throat and she thought she might have to race back to the head and barf her dinner into the toilet, but she managed to keep it down. Some warrior princess, she thought, then chided herself for wasting time to wax self-effacing. She had a job to do, and standing there feeling sick and morbid and just a little glad the fucker was dead, wasn’t getting the sheep shorn, as her Grandmother used to say.
She held her breath as she stooped and grabbed him by his shirt collar, not wanting to smell the blood and urine and shit created by the recent violence. No, she really didn’t need that at all. Thankfully, the jackass had been a scrawny little pain in the ass, instead of some behemoth, and so he came away from his swimming pool of blood with little effort.
She got to the door, let go of the dead jackass, and paused, feeling sure she was forgetting some important fact. The zombie was dead. Check. She would be safe inside the Comm Center now, there being no more zombies in the room. Check. The body would begin to decay, thus causing rot, bad smells, insects, nastiness and all manner of unpleasant health-related stuff if she didn’t somehow dispose of it. Check.
So what was she missing?
She stared at the door and contemplated the dilemma.
What’s on the other side of that door?
A very good question, the answer to which could mean life or death - her death, to be precise. There could be nothing. There could be a hoard of homicidal maniacs bent on turning her into Amber Tartar. Nope. That wouldn’t do, at all.
