by Jeff Thomson
Three of the town men and two of the women were busily carving the spines out of the corpses - which seemed to lay everywhere. Jim remembered killing a bunch, and hearing the gunfire of other “shopping teams” killing a bunch more, but, looking at the carnage that had become the Lihue Walmart, he couldn’t believe there’d actually been that many.
There weren’t too many of the crazed fiends left - at least not in this particular store. Darren Yardly said there were plenty more wandering the town proper, though. Jim decided he’d take the man’s word for it.
“That looks like it,” Spute said, then stooped and reached onto one of the bare shelves. “Oops, one more,” he said, pulling out a one-pound bag of dried Navy beans. Dehydrated farts, Jim’s father had called them, many, many moons ago.
The old man died five years back. Just as well. He didn’t have to deal with this shit. The thought passed through his mind and out, as another zombie stumbled around the corner. He aimed and pulled the trigger.
He glanced at the carts, each about two-thirds full.
“What’s next on the shopping list?” He asked.
101
The Skull Mobile
The Container Port
“Hello world, it’s your wild girl!” Duke sang along with the Runaways/Joan Jett song, Cherry Bomb, coming from the Assateague’s loud hailer, at the top of his lungs, as he waded into the crowd of zombies occupying their designated kill zone.
“You turning chick on me?” Jonesy yelled back, as he pulled his machetes and joined in the bloody fun. Okay...fun was stretching it beyond the tolerance level of reality. Call it...Action, then.
There were about a dozen of the infected assholes clustered in more or less the exact spot they intended to place the Napalm. Several more, in singles and groups of two or three, were scattered across the tarmac. They needed to be eliminated to give Newby, Riley and Querec the opportunity to pull the barrels off the trailer without getting eaten, and gunfire was out of the question, since none of them particularly wanted to be turned into screaming alpha fires.
“Bite me,” Duke replied, crushing the skull of a zombie with a vicious hammer blow.
“Sorry,” Jonesy said, declining the sarcastic offer. “Not infected.” He executed a textbook Lakbay-Sinawali maneuver: diagonal step forward, downward strike with the left-hand blade, bringing the right blade up into the rib cage, slicing the zombie in the neck and beneath the armpit. The large former-man in chinos and a golf shirt dropped quite a bit like someone who’d just been sliced and diced in rapid succession.
Jonesy tossed a look over his shoulder toward the truck. “Get moving, idiots!” he shouted through the gas mask. The morons were just standing there watching the show, instead of doing their job. His barked order did the trick. They got moving.
Duke pulled a spin move, smashing a woman’s face in front of him, and backhanding a small man to his side. Jonesy was impressed - and a little scared. Duke didn’t have the training he did, hadn’t spent hours and hours on the mat, getting his ass kicked by people much better than he was. So how did he learn such a move? Didn’t matter. No time to wonder.
Three of them rushed toward Jonesy, and four had Duke surrounded. Not good! Tossing technique out the damned window, Jonesy just started swinging the machetes through the air, hoping to hit anything that wasn’t himself. He saw Duke headbutt one fucker with his helmet, kick a second one in the kneecap, and pound a third with his hammer, but that still left the fourth, and there were more where they came from.
And then, as if by a miracle, the fourth zombie attacking Duke just dropped. So did one of the assholes facing Jonesy. What the fuck?
He heard a POP that sounded an awful lot like gunfire, but too far off to be coming from the truck. Firing from there would be suicidal. He chanced a glance, saw the boys were all busy wrestling the barrels, as a third zombie dropped, right as he/it had been reaching for Jonesy’s favorite neck: his own. What the fuck?
102
USCGC Sassafras
Kapalama Basin
“That’s good shooting!” John exclaimed through his gas mask, shouting from the bridge wing deck below her, as Molly, wearing only a filter mask (with a liberal dose of Vapo Rub smeared under her nose - she wasn’t a masochist) took out another zombie that was about to attack Jonesy.
Good shooting be damned, she thought. This was desperation shooting. This was shooting to keep the man she had...certain feelings for...alive.
The non-skid texture of the Flying Bridge deck made her knee hurt, but kneeling was the only position from which she could steady the barrel of the M-4 on the rail. Without it, there was far too great a risk of missing the zombies and hitting, say, Jonesy, or Duke, or the barrels of Napalm. She considered herself a decent enough shot, and had, in fact, scored Expert during her time on the range at the Academy, but firing at a target from a position designed for such things, and doing it from the Flying Bridge of a ship at a gang of diseased freaks who were trying to kill her (lover) shipmate, were as different as, well, she couldn’t think of two related things being more different.
She squeezed off another round, missed the large, bald man, wearing tattered coveralls that was lunging toward Duke, snapped off another round, and - amazingly - hit the bastard, square in the forehead. It fell onto the growing pile of bodies at the Bosun Mate’s feet. She saw Duke turn to look toward the Sass and wave, as another three zombies attacked.
Molly’s finger tightened on the trigger, squeezing that extra few pounds per square inch that would send the 5.56mm round speeding toward her target, when Jonesy stepped into her line of fire and began slashing at the bad guys. The trigger jerked, just as she swung the barrel to the side, and the round ricocheted off the concrete pier, far too close to the three men struggling to position the Napalm One of them - she thought it was the Electrician, Newby - shot a look in the Sass’s direction.
“That was way too close,” John said, his voice calm. Of course it was calm. He wasn’t being shot at by his Operations Officer.
“Watch what you’re doing!” Samantha screamed from behind her. “If you hit Jonesy...”
The dangling sentence held all the menace necessary to give Molly a graphic idea of just exactly what would happen if she did. What is with Samantha? She wondered. The girl had been all teeth and claws for days now - since before the new people came aboard, since before everything changed.
But not before she slept with Jonesy.
Who was she kidding? There hadn’t been a single second of sleeping involved. There hadn’t been anything but soap and hot water, and that wonderful way he nibbled on her ear lobe. There hadn’t been anything but–
Running into Samantha as she did the walk of shame back to the Captain’s Cabin, with dripping hair and a clingy tee shirt.
Could that be it? Could that be the prickly thorn that crawled up her cousin’s butt? Could that be why Sam seemed to hate her now?
Of course it was.
The thought jolted her. Then it pissed her off.
What the fuck, God? She asked. The apocalypse wasn’t enough? Losing McMullen wasn’t enough? The burden of command wasn’t enough? Now I have to deal with a love-sick teenager? What the absolute fuck?
The defiant prayer shot through her mind in a split second, bouncing off the inside of her skull like a ricocheting round, leaving cracks in its wake. Another split second, and the guilt added its two cents. Two cents? More like two million. Sam was her cousin, her family. She loved the girl. How could she be so cold, so heartless, so vindictive?
A humongous zombie in a Hawaiian shirt and (disgustingly) a Speedo, lurched toward Jonesy.
“Shoot that guy,” Samantha yelled.
Molly took aim. There was so much action out there, with three guys unloading napalm, and Duke and Jonesy (her man) fighting hand to hand with the charging horde of zombies, that it made her hesitate. She didn’t want to hit any of their guys. She didn’t want to hit Jonesy. But none of them were staying still. All of th
em were moving - rapidly - to and fro, without any real pattern. If she should fire too soon, if any of them should step into her line of fire at the last second... She didn’t want to think about it.
“Shoot that guy before he gets Jonesy, you bitch!” Samantha screamed.
Enough is enough.
She wasn’t entirely sure what had crawled up her cousin’s backside (though she suspected she knew) but this had gone on long enough.
“Go below, Samantha,” Molly said, striving to keep the anger out of her voice.
“The Hell I will!” The girl protested.
“Go below or you’ll be relieved of all duty,” she replied, her eyes never leaving the rifle sight.
“No!”
Final straw. “John,” Molly called. “Come and get your daughter.” She pulled the trigger, and the behemoth fell like someone who’d just lost half his skull.
“Barrels set,” John’s voice said, as the ground team waved to indicate completion of the task.
Jonesy’s voice sounded in her ear, suddenly. “We need suppressing fire so we can break away from these assholes.” He’d broken radio silence - broken his own cardinal rule he, himself had imposed in the wake of the McMullen disaster. Things must really be turning to shit.
She blinked, trying to process far too much in far too little time. Jonesy, Samantha, Jonesy, Duke, Samantha, Jonesy, Duke, Riley, Querec, Newby, zombies, Napalm, Samantha. Her brain wanted to explode; felt like it might, at any moment, just erupt in a thousand different directions, spinning off into infinity, taking what little of herself remained with it on a journey into self-loathing and guilt, and confusion, and–
“That’s you, Molly,” John’s voice said, as her uncle placed his large hand on her shoulder.
She blinked again, tried to clear her head, failed. She hadn’t even noticed John’s arrival.
“Do something, you bitch!” Samantha screamed. Or was it the voice inside her own head?
“We need suppressing fire now, dammit!” Jonesy voice added to the noise.
“Get her out of here, John,” she repeated.
Her eyes swam into sharp focus. Jonesy and Duke were all-but surrounded by zombies, as they tried to back away, toward the truck. Both men were fighting for their lives, and here she was wallowing in self-loathing and pity, and dealing with a pissed off sixteen year-old with a crush, and a serious case of jealousy.
Do something, you bitch. This time she knew it came from inside her own head. Get your shit together, Molly.
Standing, she wrapped the shoulder strap of the weapon around her forearm, took the Academy-trained shooter’s stance, and opened fire.
103
USCGC Polar Star
22.446812N 162.481868W
“We can make it to Honolulu, sir,” LT Carrie Scoggins said to Captain Hall. They were gathered around the Port Console, staring at a chart of the Hawaiian Chain. “With a hundred nautical miles to spare. But, as I understand it, they don’t have a secure fuel point yet. If we’re going to start hoisting survivors, we’ll get one, maybe two runs, at the most, before we’re on fumes.”
Her boss, LCDR Randy Sagona, nodded in agreement. LTjg Carol Kemp had to admit (if only to herself) she found the pilot-in-charge more than a little attractive. Of course, this was neither the time, nor the place for such fantastical ruminations, but pretty quick, they were coming to the point where they might just become so. Sure, they were in the military, and so they were under the restrictions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which forbade fraternization between senior and junior officers, but the UCMJ wasn’t written with a zombie apocalypse in mind. It made no allowances for the need to repopulate the species, and Carol Kemp knew who she wanted to do the repopulating with - it was just going to be a while. She could wait. Neither of them were going anywhere.
“There are reports of a civilian presence at the airport in Lihue, on Kauai,” LCDR Stubbelfield said, pointing to a spot on the chart. Carol knew they’d heard chatter - some of it broken - between the seaplane and the Sassafras, and the seaplane had flown over them four times now: twice in each direction between Midway and Honolulu. With only one pilot and an eight hour flight time, one way, the British guy had to be running on fumes, himself. From what they were getting, everybody involved in Ops on Oahu were in the same boat - so to speak.
“You can top off fuel there,” Stubbelfield added.
“Yeah, but there are security concerns,” Sagona said. “We’re going to have to shut down completely. There’s no way I’m doing a hot refuel with civilians.”
Hot refuel, Carol knew, was the act of taking on fuel with the rotors still turning, which generated all sorts of static electricity, so the explosion hazard wasn’t just possible, but damned likely, with civvies involved. Courageous was one thing; suicidal was something else, entirely.
“Concur,” Hall said.
“They have weapons,” Master Chief Wolf said, adding his two cents to the conversation with his usual gruff style. “You can assess the situation when you get on scene, and if it doesn’t look kosher, you can always return to the ship.”
“That maybe pushing it a bit,” Scoggins replied. “But at the very least, we can proceed to Honolulu. There just won’t be much we can do once we get there.”
“So the options are:” Sagona began,”fueling in Lihue is a non starter and we can only do maybe one or two lift operations once we arrive; or, we can coordinate security, top off the tanks, and then do four or five.”
Hall nodded. “Time frame?”
Sagona pursed his lips, considering. Very kissable lips, Carol thought, then chided herself for not concentrating on the task at hand.
“Hour to Kauai,” he said. “With civilians involved, call it another hour to fuel, then a third hour to Hono.”
“ETA to Honolulu, Master Chief?” Hall asked.
The Old Salt stared at the overhead for a moment, his lips moving silently, as he calculated. “Call it eighteen and a half hours to Honolulu, seventeen to get within easy range to retrieve the helos.”
Hall nodded. “That means you’ll be spending the night on Sand Island.”
“Which we don’t know whether or not it’s secure,” Stubbelfield said.
The Captain looked at Carol’s immediate supervisor, then his eyes drifted to her. “I’d say it’s high time we found out, Ms. Kemp.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, then turned and headed for the Radio Room.
104
USCGC Sassafras
The Radio Room
“So...” Bill Schaeffer said, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence.
You’re an idiot, Amber Winkowski condemned herself. And what’s worse, it was demonstrably true. She’d decided a few weeks ago that she would plant a big, fat, wet kiss right on the Sass Operations Specialist’s lips, and by God, she’d done it. Naturally, it hadn’t gone as planned, given the fact that the man had been wearing a full-face gas mask when they first met in person. Then there’d been the thing with the asshole Lieutenant getting shot. From what she’d been able to glean, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but afterwards, kissing hadn’t seemed appropriate.
The arrival of the new people put the kibosh on any such activity shortly thereafter, then the Change of Command (such as it was), then the rush to continue the assault on the base, then..., then... It felt like the God in whom she didn’t believe was conspiring to ensure there would be no lip-lock.
Getting settled filled a bunch of time, as did getting to know her new roommates, working out the security for the shower she desperately needed, the uncomfortable fact there were no uniforms in her size, so her fashion statement - with its tee-shirts and men’s board shorts, showing the knobby knees that simply were not suitable for public consumption - bordered on the ridiculous.
But today - ah today - mere moments ago, she’d finally stopped paying attention to all the excuses, steeled her nerve, and the moment she walked into the Radio Room to assume the watch, she’d grabbed h
im by both sides of the face and kissed him. It hadn’t been in front of God and everybody, as envisioned, but such details were secondary. She’d done it. The genie was out of the bottle, and could not - could never - be put back.
“Sorry,” she said, turning to hide the deep crimson of her cheeks. Breathing deep, she dropped into a chair and examined her surroundings.
The cot he’d set up out of the necessity of being the only Operations Specialist aboard, was now gone, and the musty smell that greeted her the first time she was escorted into the compartment had lessened, thanks to the considerate application of liberal doses of air freshener. A scattering of the ubiquitous military hard plastic coffee cups, along with a mess tray smeared with the remnants of Bill’s lunch would need to be tidied, but otherwise...
She breathed in again. “I promised myself I’d do that the moment I saw you,” she continued. “Which didn’t quite go as planned, what with one thing and another.”
“Ah!” Bill said.
“So...” Now it was her turn to start the uncomfortable silence.
A crackling of the low hum of static came through the speaker nearest to the air-comm radio. “Sassafras, this is Wallbanger, two-forty-three megahertz. Over.”
Saved by the bell, so to speak...
It wasn’t the British guy, so it must be the retired Coastie, Jim Barber. Bill grabbed the handset - a bit quicker, perhaps, than necessary.
“Wallbanger, this is Sass. Go. Over.”
“Relay comms from Polar Star,” he said. “Request security status of the base. They want to land their helos.”
“Roger,” Bill said. “Base is more or less secure. Might be a few of the insane buggers lurking here and there,” he added. “But most of them are on the far side of the Container Port.”
