by Jeff Thomson
125
COMMSTA Honolulu
Sand Island, Oahu
“Newby and I will go in the front door, this time,” Duke said, from the driver’s seat of the Skull Mobile. “Gotta clear the building in any case,” he added, looking at Amber through the rearview mirror. “No sense making you stumble around in the crawlspace.”
“Oh, but I soooo wanted to,“ she replied, letting the sarcasm in her voice indicate the absolute bullshit of her words.
“Well, if you have your heart set...,” he said, calling her bluff.
“That’s quite alright,” she answered, definitively.
“Good call,” Scott Pruden remarked. “My knees would have to resign in protest.”
Truth be told, the last damned thing she wanted to do was go back into that comm center, and she suspected Scott felt the same way. They’d spent enough time in there, more or less trapped by the zombies. She didn’t exactly have nightmares of it, but she had to admit to a lingering sense of unease whenever she thought about the place.
Still, she understood why LCDR Wheeler asked her - okay, ordered her - to go back. Things were in the process of getting complicated. They currently had seven teams out - eight, if she counted the Sass, and it would be nine when the Star arrived. Plus the seaplane (whose pilot and co-pilot were now sleeping the sleep of the utterly exhausted), plus the base on Midway, plus the myriad islands of the Hawaiian chain, such as Kauai and French Frigate Shoals. Plus... Plus... Plus...
Somebody needed to keep track of it all. It wouldn’t be her, thank the stars, but that person would need the communication capabilities of the Comm Center, and so back she would go. Didn’t mean she had to be looking forward to it.
The big truck rumbled to a stop in front of the smashed atrium doors. She didn’t check - didn’t want to see - if the mangled bodies were still there, but she knew they were. Where else would they be?
In books and movies and on TV, zombies were the undead, which was patently absurd, of course. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. Biological processes were still biological processes, in spite of the Pomona Virus’s attempt to bring it all crashing down, and Nature was Nature. The laws weren’t going to change just because some asshole tried to end life as they knew it.
She spared a momentary thought about the lunatic who created Pomona. Why had he done it? Why would anybody do it? Because fucked up people do fucked up things. That was another inescapable Law of Nature.
Didn’t matter. Not getting those sheep shorn, Grandma.
“Zombies!” EM3 Eddie Martinez - another of the recent additions from the Star, who’d been working in the Sass engineroom, until they tied to the pier - all-but screamed. Obviously on the verge of freaking out, he tried to wedge himself as far into the rear corner of the Skull Mobile (was that really what Duke called this thing?).
“Calm the fuck down, Eddie,” ET1 Glen Newby said. He, also had come from the Star. So many new people. “You’re in a big-ass truck, full of weapons,” he added, turning in the passenger seat to look directly at the cowering electrician. He jerked his thumb in the general direction of the stumbling zombie. “That’s an anorexic, half-naked woman.”
She was all of those things. She was also vaguely familiar. It took Amber a few beats, but she suddenly realized she was looking at the shell of Ensign Crystal Hauer. If memory served, what was left of the woman had reported to the base a few weeks before Pomona. Just her luck. She’d been tapped to take over as Assistant Comms Officer, once the current one (now dead, most likely) transferred out. She became a zombie instead.
Duke, the driver, shoved his 9mm pistol out his window and put a bullet in her brain.
Too bad. So sad, Amber thought to herself, and immediately regretted it. These were people - had been people, anyway. Didn’t they deserve some modicum of respect?
Another zombie appeared. She recognized him at once: OSC Bernard - the raving lunatic who tried to yank her out of the overhead on her first attempt to access the roof.
No, she decided. No respect at all.
“Shoot that fucker,” she said aloud.
126
The Mess Hall
ISC Sand Island, Oahu
“You are to stay attached to my hip, daughter of mine,” John said, giving Samantha a one-armed squeeze. He used his left arm. His right held a Thompson submachine gun.
Had she really volunteered for this? Yes. She had.
They were cautiously making their way toward the Mess Hall. Both Jonesy and Duke said all the zombies in it were dead, but zombies were sneaky, and not to be trusted. Not by her. Not ever. Not after the park in Astoria. Not after Justin.
“Yes, Father,” she said, giving the words just the right touch of sarcasm and sixteen year-old world-weariness. It was their thing, their pattern, their normal mode of communication - although it had been a long time since anything was normal.
At first, he’d denied her request to go along, hardly pausing to think before saying, Oh, Hell no. But she’d worked on him, wore him down, convinced him to say yes.
So why had she volunteered? Oh, yes. Molly.
Part of her wanted to forgive her cousin. Samantha didn’t exactly have a claim to Jonesy. Samantha didn’t exactly have an icecube’s chance in a volcano with Jonesy.
Like that mattered.
Their little chat on the Flying Bridge, after Jonesy left to do something brave and unselfish, as usual, had been about as uncomfortable as any discussion she’d ever had. Worse, even, than when her mother tried to tell her about the birds and the bees. Sam could have given her a detailed description of all the processes - with diagrams - thanks to Mrs. Bernicke’s Human Anatomy class. Come to think of it, maybe she had paid attention, after all. In any event, she’d remembered enough of what she’d been taught to render her mother’s fumbling attempt almost comical, but excruciatingly uncomfortable for her daughter to watch. The talk with Molly was ten times as bad.
Okay... Maybe not. But it was bad. Listening to her cousin trying to explain the bizarre love story of Molly and Jonesy, while her own heart was slowly crushing itself, out of despair... It wouldn’t be included in amongst her list of favorite conversations.
They climbed the short, concrete steps to the loading dock. There were seven people in the little party: herself, her Dad, Mister Perniola, the cook, Gary King, FN Martin Tabinski (was he from the base, or the Star?), Greg Riley - whom she knew came from the Star - and the unfortunately-named Harrison Dodge, who came from the base. Their task was to make the Mess Hall reasonably clean for the incoming refugees. The conscious part of her brain envisioned mops and sponges, brooms and dustpans. The unconscious part, however, knew there’d be dead bodies.
Did she really want to do this?
Yes.
They made their way through the back door and down the hallway toward the kitchen. The place was silent. She couldn’t smell anything, thanks to her gas mask, but she felt sure the rotting food alone would make the air noxious. She didn’t want to think about what might also be rotting. No. She didn’t want to think about that, at all.
They entered the dining area. There were bodies. Her stomach lurched.
Maybe she wasn’t so ready to do this, after all.
127
CG 6585
Over Honolulu, HI
“Lower away,” Jonesy said into the radio, as AT2 Fred Colson, on the hoist, began to slowly drop him toward the roof.
A dozen people were waiting for him, the clothes hanging on their malnourished bodies like rags and flapping in the rotor wash They were not, however, getting out of his way so he could actually touch the ground. Either from enthusiasm, extreme distress, joy at being rescued, or simple stupidity, several of them were grouped exactly below his feet. This would not do.
One of his hands was busy hanging onto the cable. The other was waving at the idiots to get the fuck out of his way. Aside from the annoyance and potential injury to either one or more of the knuckleheads, or to himself, there was the s
imple fact of static electricity buildup from the helicopter. Jonesy didn’t know the exact numbers (and couldn’t care less) but he did understand the simple truth that electricity seeks the ground.
For example, if they were lowering the Stokes litter (to carry injured people), they would need to let it touch the ground before anybody down there touched the litter. If they didn’t, that person could, and probably would get one Hell of a shock. Jonesy could be lowered to the ground without going through the process, because his rubber-soled boots would sufficiently insulate his body, but if one of those morons touched him before he made contact with the rooftop...? His weapons harness was mostly nylon and Kevlar, but there were metal parts to it - not to mention the various pistols, knives, kukri machetes, and the Thompson Submachine gun. If one of the survivors touched any of that before Jonesy’s feet touched the roof...? Odds are, they wouldn’t be survivors, anymore.
And, naturally, the enthusiastically ignorant civilians were reaching their hands toward him as the helo brought him down. He waved a closed fist off to his side, and said: “Avast,” into the radio, hoping the pilots remembered that avast was the nautical term for stop.
Clearly, they did, as evidenced by the fact he was no longer going down. He stared at the people below him, waving his arms again, and hoping they got the hint. For their part, it seemed basic hand signals were a bit beyond their capacity. They stared right back up at Jonesy and stayed right where they were, in his way.
“Fuck,” he said aloud, and half a second later realized he’d said it on a live comm channel. Oops, he thought, not really giving a rat’s ass. So much for radio discipline.
“Is that an assessment, or are you wishing me pleasurable things?” The laconic voice of LCDR Sagona said into his ear. The sarcasm came through five-by-five.
“Stand by,” Jonesy replied, then took a deep breath (so he wouldn’t be tempted to suck air through his nostrils) yanked the gas mask up and away from the lower part of his face, and yelled: “Get out of the goddamned way!”
They finally got the hint.
“Lower away,” he said into the radio, once he reseated the mask on his face and breathed in the charcoal-filtered air. They would need replacement filters soon. Hopefully, the Polar Star would have some. If not, things were going to get awfully stinky. The filter masks were good enough on board the Sass, so long as he liberally applied Vapo Rub, and a painter’s respirator would do in a pinch, but for extended deployment in the middle of the Hell Hole of the New, post-plague Honolulu, the full mask was really the only thing.
His feet touched the ground, the cable slackened, he released the hook, and watched it rise back up toward the aircraft. He looked at the survivors, at their faces, at their expressions: expectant, hopeful, grateful. A couple of them looked pissed.
One of those strode up to him and shouted: “What took you so long?”
“We stopped for a picnic,” he replied, unlimbering the Thompson. “Now back up and give us some room.”
The rescue operation had begun.
128
Medical Clinic
ISC Sand Island, Oahu
“Dude,” Jeri Weaver said, finally having had enough of the Nutty Professor’s bullshit. “You bitch more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Himself, their resident Mad Scientist, Pat Querec, and Jerry Nailor (who spelled his first name wrong - the fact of which Jeri reminded him at every opportunity), were prepping the clinic for the first influx of survivors. That title, survivor, had taken on a whole new meaning.
Every one of them presently in the clinic, every one on the Sass and the Assateague (as well as, he supposed, the Polar Star, though their experience hadn’t been anywhere near as extreme as the rest of them), everyone they’d transferred to Midway, everyone on Midway, everyone on every island and atoll they had comms with, every member of every team now crawling around the wreckage of Base Honolulu, were - by definition - survivors. But those people now waiting to be airlifted off the rooftops of Honolulu, had lived through a whole ‘nother level of crazy. He’d spent what seemed like months in the dry storage compartment on Assateague - alone and frightened, to be sure, but the reality was, it had only been a couple weeks before Jonesy and Duke and Harold got him out of there. The people on those rooftops had been living this nightmare for months, surrounded by the kind of Dante fever dream, even the likes of Stephen King, Clive Barker, George Romero, and Wes Craven, on their best, sickest and most twisted day, combined, would have ever created. They’ve gotta be suffering from the Motherfucker of All PTSD.
So Professor Christopher Fucking Floyd should just quit his bitching and shut his fucking mouth. Jeri told him so.
“Your opinion is duly noted,” Floyd said, his words dripping with only as much sarcasm as would be necessary to sink a supertanker. Having said it, he returned to his inventory of First Aid supplies.
Admittedly, there wasn’t much. Not enough for however many hundred people would soon be making their way through this clinic. But there was (if Jeri’s memory hadn’t gone the way of the Dodo) a stockpile of disaster supplies in the Facilities Engineering building. There were also, if the word of Scott Pruden could be believed, a number of zombies at the very same location. It could be bullshit, but that chick from the Comm Center - Amber whatever her name was - had also mentioned everybody’s favorite homicidal maniacs, so maybe it was true.
In any event, sooner or later, they were going to have to find out.
129
CG 6583
Enroute Sand Island, Oahu
“Six aboard, cable is secured,” the voice of AT3 Mark Columbus sounded in LT Carrie Scoggins’ ear. A bit of collective and a touch of left rudder, and they were on their way back to the Coast Guard Base with the first of what they hoped would be at least three runs into Honolulu before they ran out of fuel - preferably without dropping out of the sky.
The helo felt heavy, and it most certainly was - even though they’d left their Rescue Swimmer, ASM2 Kyle Rogers back on the rooftop. He would be prepping the next batch of survivors for transport, along with ASM1 Ronny Wallace, from the 6585, and BMC Jones, from the Sass. The extra weight came from the six passengers they’d plucked off the building.
From what she could glean of the conversations she’d heard between the Chief and the two Swimmers, over the comm channel, some of the survivors were less than happy to have been watching their military do everything except rescue them over the last several days. She could understand their frustration, but felt zero sympathy. What the Sassafras and Assateague had accomplished during those days - at the cost of one man injured and another man killed - was nothing short of miraculous.
They’d picked up snatches of conversation on their trip east with the Star - fragments, really, since the COMMSTA had been down for most of it - but enough to know they’d been fighting a battle for both their own lives, and the lives of the people on the base, but also for the future of their presence on Oahu.
Without Sand Island Base, without its stores, and warehouses, and repair facilities, and Mess Hall, and Medical Clinic, and the COMMSTA, those people on those rooftops didn’t stand a single chance of being rescued. Ever. They’d still be waiting and starving and dying. What they wouldn’t have had, however, was hope. Everything that little band of battered and exhausted Coasties and civilians had done was to give those people a chance; to give them hope.
And as far as LT Carrie Scoggins was concerned, the complainers could either say thank you, or shut their yaps.
“6583, 6585. Clear to approach,” LCDR Sagona’s voice said into her ear.
130
USCGC Sassafras
ISC Sand Island, Oahu
“It seems we’ve forgotten one key aspect to our plan,” Wheeler said, looking directly at Molly.
A flush of guilt, and embarrassment, and pain shot through her - though now that she was no longer Captain of this fine ship, the responsibility no longer sat on her shoulders like a hungry vulture, ready to rip out he
r heart. Didn’t matter. This was still her ship, and that was still her crew out there, risking their lives once again.
“What did I forget?” She asked, through the paper filter mask. The pungent petroleum jelly smell had long since faded, and the stench of the city lingered, but she’d either gotten used to it, and/or simply grown to ignore the urge to vomit.
“Not you, Ms. Gordon,” he replied. “Me.” He turned so his whole body faced her. “You’re not responsible for this ship any more,” he added, as if sucking the thoughts from her brain. “It’s mine.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, still disagreeing.
“What we’ve forgotten,” he said, “Is how to get the survivors from the ball field to either the Clinic, or the Chow Hall.”
“The Skull Mobile,” she replied, throwing correct military-speak out the window. Technically, per the plan, Duke, and, therefore, his truck, were designated Team Four, but the operation was complicated enough, without trying to keep track of which number had been assigned to which location.
“Is busy at the Comm Center,” LT Montrose reminded her.
“Well, yes,” Molly said. “But there’s also a large stake-bed truck on one side of the Comm Center building,” she reminded them, certain she’d heard it mentioned by either OS2 Winkowski, or ET2 Pruden, during the planning meeting.
“What we’ve forgotten,” Wheeler began. “Is who’s going to drive it.”
“Is Mister Barber awake yet?” Montrose asked.
Molly waved Jim Barber off as a possibility, rifled through the filing system inside her brain for a viable alternative, and came up with only one.
“Let him sleep,” she said. “I’ll drive.”
“You’re not going alone,” Wheeler cautioned.
“Peavey?” Montrose suggested, though she seemed more than a little doubtful.
Good God no, Molly thought, inwardly cringing at the idea. Or maybe not-so inwardly, she realized, seeing their new Commanding Office’s face, as he raised an eyebrow - just one eyebrow.
