“I guess you are.”
She turned to go. Something one of the Marines had said came back to him, and he called out after her. “Hey. You know my handle—is it true they call you Spork cause of something you did in a fight?”
Guglik turned. She had her sunglasses back on, but he thought he detected a hint of a smirk. “C’mon, Chuck. How insane do you think I’d have to be to take on a zulu with a spork?”
Chapter 21
March 29, 2026
Ventura Pier, Ventura, California
Z-Day + 3,084
Nick Avina survived the apocalypse because of his surfboard.
On that fateful day so many years ago, he’d strolled out of his abuela’s house with a low-grade dread that only calculus could elicit. The light breeze and the warmth of the sun on his skin made his decision to cut class an easy one.
Later, when the people sunning themselves on the beach decided to get all bitey, Nick figured he’d made the right call. Although he’d started the day more concerned about shark bites than zombie bites. Out past the breakers, he’d had a front row seat to the end of the world, but by the time the sun was dipping close to the horizon, he was racking his brain to try and figure out how to get out of the water without becoming a snack, himself. The biters got the slow ones, then most of the fallen got up themselves. While many of them had wandered off, plenty hadn’t.
Nick could see his minivan, plain as day in the parking lot, but if there were twenty creeps stumbling around on the beach, there were fifty or more meandering through the rows of cars. No way could he make it, but he kept watching, waiting for the best moment to make his move. If he got up enough of a head of steam, he could ride the board right up onto the beach and hop off. The things were slow, as long as he kept his head on a swivel, he could pick his way through them.
Right?
To his relief, Nick never got the chance to test his theory. While he was watching the beach, the captain of a small sailboat paralleling the shoreline spotted him and came over to say hello.
Louie Manucci was the last person Nick would have picked out of a lineup to survive the zombie apocalypse with. The portly Italian was going bald, though he kept his remaining hair greased and slicked back. He had a chest full of thick hair and a gut like a beer keg, but when he offered a hand to haul Nick out of the ocean, the muscles in his forearm were like iron bands.
“Had to pitch my Darla overboard,” he’d informed Nick sadly. Before the charge died, he showed off a picture on his phone, and the surfer couldn’t decide which was bigger—Darla’s hairdo, or her breast implants.
“People are going nuts,” Nick agreed diplomatically. He winced as he thought about his abuela, half-deaf and blind as a bat without her glasses. It was one of the hardest choices he’d ever made, but he’d had to force himself to let her go. Even if she’d survived somehow, there was no way he could help her.
They found the pier by accident. On the day of the outbreak, a box truck coming to load fish to take to market wrecked and turned over on its side, right at the entrance ramp. It was a stroke of luck that roadblocked the pier from easy access from the beach.
Louie and Nick took their time. They anchored Louie’s boat— Quittin’ Time —made a meal of the picnic lunch that the older man had packed for his lady and himself, and entered into an uneasy sleep.
The next morning, they made a game of drawing the few infected stuck on the pier to the rail, then luring them off the side and into the water.
By noon of the second day after the outbreak, the pier was empty.
They tied the boat between two pier supports. Louie was leery of leaving his pride and joy in such a precarious position, but neither of them was eager to go for a swim at that moment, what with the zombies in the water.
After they climbed up and stood on the pier, Nick put his hands on his hips and stared up at the flagpole. Old Glory hung limply in the still air.
There were no buildings on the pier when they started. It was a broad, doglegged wooden avenue with a fishing area on the end, but it grew organically over the years. Nick, Louie, and the ones that came along after made a home of it. Unwilling to depend on the box truck to be a permanent blockage, the Pier survivors stripped the decking back until the end of the pier closest to the shore hovered above the low-tide line. The decking provided the raw materials for lean-tos and make-do shacks, and they filled in the rest with sails, tarps, and colorful tents.
Almost nine years later, a dozen souls and a quartet of sailboats called Ventura Pier home. The ones who could tan were beechnut-brown, their hair bleached from the sun. They lived off the fish they caught with the boats, what little produce they could grow using sparse rainwater, and anything else they could scavenge when they found the opportunity.
It wasn’t much, but it was life.
Nick had kept the flag. It was faded and weather-worn, like pretty much everything else they owned, but whenever he looked at it, he remembered outbreak day, and appreciated his luck.
There was a bit of a chill in the air this morning, he noted as he surfaced from the depths of sleep. Just a bit longer. He pulled his blanket a bit tighter around his shoulders and settled into his bed—a mattress scavenged from a wrecked cabin-cruiser. His hand searched under the covers, and he found another source of warmth. His girlfriend, Amber, murmured in her sleep as he moved closer, seeking out the shared body heat.
“Nick,” a voice hissed. “Nick!”
For a moment, he thought it was a dream, but then someone reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. He groaned and cracked an eyelid open.
What remained of Louie’s hair was no longer slicked back, and his once-prodigious gut was almost svelte. Though his friend was older now, he was still sharp as a tack and happy to let you know it.
“Damn it, Louie. Where’s the fire?”
“Get up, man! It’s the damn Navy!”
March 29, 2026
Aboard the USS Jack Lucas, off the California Coast
Z-Day 3,084
Without a Sherwood Forest, the only exercise options below-decks were the treadmills and elliptical machines in the small rec room. With the extra personnel, getting a slot was so ridiculous that Del Arroz and Charlie had taken to jogging around the foredeck. It took a stupid amount of laps to add up to anything worthwhile, but they had the view and fresh air. Even with air conditioning and good ventilation, the rec room had an ever-present locker room smell.
Laps done for the moment, Charlie and Jon leaned on the rail and sipped on icy cold bottles of water. It had taken Charlie a while to get used to the freely-available amounts of clear, refrigerated water the ship had available. Nuclear power never slept, so refrigeration wasn’t the same luxury as it was back home.
Things will change when it’s time to fight zulus, but this has actually been a pretty solid vacation. Charlie grinned at the thought and finished off his bottle of water. The ship had moved closer to shore the further south they went, and the rocky California coast was a constant to their port, sliding by as the Lucas came closer and closer to her destination.
The land here was mostly brown, dried out for lack of irrigation. Every now and then they’d sail past a coastal town, though many of those were burnt to the ground. Wildfires, he supposed, or vestiges of the collapse of human civilization. The hand of man had been far more prevalent in making this part of the country habitable than it had in the Midwest. The desert had returned, where mankind had wrought an oasis.
Charlie tucked his empty bottle into the pocket of his gym shorts. They had a plethora of water—plastic was much rarer. He glanced to the side. “So, welcome to California. You think The Rock went zulu?”
Del Arroz shook his head and smiled. “Are you kidding me? Of course, he did. Maybe he got some good licks in first, but yeah, he turned.”
“Well, he’s no Kate Upton, that’s for sure.” Charlie grinned. “Guess we’ll find out.”
“Eh, I doubt it. This is the Central Coast, bro. We
ain’t getting anywhere close to Hollywood. Good thing, too.”
That sounded like more than a passing understanding to Charlie. “Where you from, Del Arroz?”
“Bay Area, man.” The ebullient Marine struck Charlie as suddenly introspective, but he didn’t pry. Friends and relations were the Sword of Damocles that hung over every conversation among the survivors of Hope. Charlie had learned that Marines and sailors were no different.
“I lost my wife and my son on Z-Day. I used to think that the worst thing about that wasn’t so much the fact that I’d lost them, but the fact that when they did come back, I didn’t release them. So back home, there was always a chance that I could happen upon them.” A small chance, to be sure—Sheila was likely still strapped into the passenger seat of their Tahoe, and Cooper’s body had been so shattered in the wreck that Charlie doubted that he could move. It wasn’t exactly a comforting thought, but rather than push it away he forced himself to focus on memories of them as they’d been, before. “My wife was my best friend, so it was hard enough to lose her, but losing my son felt like all the best parts of myself died.
“It’s weird, you know. He was a pretty good blend of Sheila and I in looks. And in a lot of ways, he acted like me. But man, that kid was smart. I was a construction foreman, I didn’t know a musical instrument from a hole in the ground. Cooper, man, he played guitar, he could sing. The kid could sit down and draw like you wouldn’t believe. I’m great if I’ve got a ruler, I can sketch out a blueprint or a cabinet design, but anything else I’m all thumbs. Kids are our hope, you know? In some small way, they’re our chance to fix our screw-ups, to succeed where we failed. When I lost it, a big part of it, other than actually seeing what I saw, was the realization that I was nothing. Everything worthwhile that I ever built in this life was gone, turned to dust in my hands. Now though, I feel like I’ve found something. Being alive—that’s my second chance. And I helped build a community that, God willing, should still be there long after I’m gone.”
Water sluiced against the hull, and a flock of birds arced and glided over the water closer to shore, on the hunt for a meal. To say he would never have attempted such a speech before regaining his voice was too simple a description. Before, he might not even have let himself examine that part of himself. In a very real sense, the events of last week had healed his spirit as they’d healed his body.
Del Arroz finished off his own water. “I was six years old on 9/11. We didn’t see it on TV, not live, anyway, but all the kids knew something was going on. Parents started coming, we got to go home early. Back then, getting out of school was a great day. But it wasn’t, of course. I think we could all pick up on that. We flew to my aunt’s for Christmas that year, and there were soldiers in the airport, still. I was a kid, so I wasn’t really scared, more curious than anything, I guess. But my dad, he sees me staring, and he says, ‘No worries, niño, the soldiers are here to keep us safe. I always remembered that you know? So, when I graduated high school, I was on a bus to boot camp not long after.” He winked at Charlie. “Marines had the best dress uniform, so that’s how I rolled. Z-Day, I was a corporal. Good times—stationed at Kaneohe, Hawaii. Island paradise, brother.” Del Arroz shivered. “Turned into Hell on Earth fast as you please. But we’re still here, eight years on. We’re still fighting.”
“Pete, on the days when we weren’t sure we were going to survive to see the next, he used to bark at all of us. ‘Charlie Mike, Charlie Mike.’ I asked him who the hell Mike was, once. Should have seen him turn red.”
“Charlie Mike,” Del Arroz echoed. “Continue mission. I’d drink to that, but I’m tapped out. Let’s go get a refill.”
“Sounds—” Charlie fell silent, then squinted at the shore ahead. Light glinted off something long and lean, and after the ship moved a bit closer, he realized that it was a flagpole.
A flagpole surrounded by people gesticulating and pulling on the cords to loft a flag into the air.
“I’ll be damned,” Del Arroz said.
Chapter 22
March 29, 2026
USS Jack Lucas, off the coast of Ventura, California
Z-Day + 3,084
Pete stepped onto the bridge for the first time since he’d come aboard. As he might have expected from the rest of the sci-fi tech the ship boasted, the bridge looked like something straight out a television show—banks of flat screen monitors, Naval officers wearing headsets, and enough control panels to make him dizzy. Captain Wilhite rose from her seat on the right side of the room and greeted him with a firm handshake.
“Welcome to the Death Star, Major.” She smirked. “If you think this is bad, you should see the CIC.”
The CIC, or Combat Information Center, was the true heart of any modern Naval warship. The crew could run the ship from the bridge, of course, but in a fight against any opponent armed with modern weapons, an elevated position surrounded by windows wasn’t exactly the best place to be. This battle didn’t offer those dangers.
Captain Wilhite handed him a pair of large binoculars and pointed. “There, off the port bow.”
Pete took a moment to get the lenses adjusted to his eyes and scanned the shoreline. Most of the buildings still stood, though they’d all suffered broken windows and looked the worse for wear after years without paint. There was, to his surprise, little in the way of weeds. As he scanned down the beach, he noted with some discomfort that more than a few zulus stood around buildings or lurched down the beach.
But the captain hadn’t summoned him to see that. The presence of the infected was a given, at this point, even though the sheer number of them was a gut punch. No, she’d wanted him to see the pier.
From here, he couldn’t see how the survivors had blocked off access from land, but it must have been good enough. A cluster of people in threadbare clothing waved, and as he shifted his view upward, he could see the worn and faded American flag fluttering in the breeze on the pole at the end of the pier.
He lowered the binoculars and didn’t bother to conceal the smile that spread across his face. “Well, how about that. What’s your standard for first contact, Captain?”
“Senior enlisted in charge of the away team along with a few medical staff to check for any bumps and bruises, that sort of thing. Doesn’t look like there are too many people, but we’ll get on the horn and arrange for transport to Guam or Diego Garcia if they’re interested in pulling up stakes.”
“If?”
“You’d be surprised. It’s usually a 50-50 proposition if survivors even want to leave. They’ve spent years carving out a niche and figuring out how to survive under their local conditions. Change is frightening, Major. Sometimes the monster at the foot of your bed is less frightening than the one in your closet.”
There is that. Pete settled for a nod by way of reply.
“COB, round up a few corpsmen and a small boat crew and have them assemble aft. We’ll send a RHIB over to say hello.” Captain Wilhite crooked an eyebrow at Pete. “If you’d care to contribute a few Marines, Major?”
“I’m sure Master Sergeant McFarlane’s fire team will do. Sidearms only?”
“No need to spook the natives,” she agreed. “Even if they decide to stay, I imagine they’ll be a wealth of information about conditions in the local area. I’ll see if Agent Guglik would care to join them. And if they do cause any trouble, well, we left the .50-cal on the small boats.”
Pete glanced at the pier again and shuddered. Most of it looked to be made of wood. If anything, heavy machine guns would be overkill.
March 29, 2026
Ventura Pier, Ventura, California
Z-Day + 3,084
McFarlane fingered the grip of his sidearm and kept his eyes locked onto the growing shape of the pier. They’d spotted at least a dozen survivors on the rickety structure. The Navy crew running the RHIB were staying in the boat, but a pair of corpsmen, Foster and Murphy, accompanied McFarlane and his team. If things went south, the people on the pier would outnumber them
two-to-one, and only McFarlane and his three Marines had sidearms.
Well, it beats the last mission.
He took a deep breath and tried to force himself to relax. He’d made some variation of this contact procedure a dozen times or more since the outbreak, and for the most part, they’d been smooth sailing. The majority of them had been smooth and easy. Raider crews like the guys back in Indiana were the exception rather than the rule. In the end, McFarlane had reasoned once, groups like that were more likely to burn out than thrive. The world was hard enough without worrying about whether the guy in the stronghold with you was going to stab you in the back over a can of beans.
McFarlane turned and nodded to the coxswain driving the boat. “That’s close enough. Pull alongside and we’ll hash things out.”
“Aye-aye, Master Sergeant.”
He stood, and cupped a hand to his mouth to better direct his voice. He used the other to steady himself. What a sight that would be if he lost his footing and went over the side. “Ahoy the pier!”
A cluster of people appeared at the side. None seemed to be carrying any weapons, which was a good sign, though welcoming expressions were far from universal. A slender, tanned man in the center of the group mimicked McFarlane and called back out, “Ahoy yourself!”
“Permission to come aboard?”
Their greeter and another, older man exchanged looks and a few quiet words. After a short conference, the former replied, “Down there! Mind the boats!”
McFarlane gave the coxswain the nod, and he revved the engine just enough to maintain steering.
There was a square opening in the pier at the end—for fishing, McFarlane guessed. He’d seen similar before. Closer toward the surface, below the opening, the pier boasted a wooden platform and a ladder ascending to the upper part of the pier. As he studied it, he realized that the survivors had built it from reclaimed wood. The craftsmanship was too poor to have been done with anything other than hand tools.
A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2) Page 23
