It makes sense, though. With those boats, they need an easy way to get down to them.
A trio of battered fishing boats bobbed in the water, two on one side of the pier and one on the other. The pier folk had tied them in such a way to allow easy access from their platform while minimizing the chance that a wayward wave would dash a boat up against the pier. Lines at the bow and stern secured each boat between the vertical timbers supporting the structure above.
At a nod from McFarlane, Ropati and Osborne secured lines to the homemade dock to stabilize the RHIB. He waved for the two corpsmen to leave first, then passed a duffel bag of medical supplies and a cooler over the gunwale. With that, McFarlane and Ewald joined the corpsmen and the other two Marines on the dock. To its credit, their combined weight elicited no more than a few squeaks, and he raised his estimation of the carpenter’s skill. “Stay close,” he directed the Navy crew. “And for God’s sake, if we call for fire, watch blue on blue.”
Hand-sawn timbers nailed to the vertical supports made for a serviceable albeit nerve-wracking ladder. McFarlane took the lead here. The only people waiting for him were the man who’d spoken and the older man he’d conferred with. The rest of the survivors had either backed off or were preparing an ambush.
I suppose the latter is a long-shot, but this has been a long-shot sort of world over the years, hasn’t it?
He topped the ladder and swung his leg up onto the pier deck. On solid ground, he looked his greeting party up and down. Both were well-tanned, hair lightened by the sun and more than due for a good trimming. Their clothing was little more than rags held together by other rags, and he was surprised to see that neither man wore shoes.
The deck was plenty smooth for bare feet before eight years of wear and tear, I reckon. He stuck out a hand. “Master Sergeant Ainsley McFarlane, United States Marine Corps.”
The skinny guy glanced at his older companion, then accepted the handshake with a shrug. “Nick Avina. This here is Louie Greco. We’re the chief bottle-washers of this here going concern.”
He was too tense to let real humor through, but McFarlane knew that a smile was a good way to ease the tension. “Nice place you’ve got. What do you call it?”
Louie snorted, and Nick replied, “Not much of anything, I guess. The pier. What can we do for you, Sergeant?”
McFarlane stepped aside to let the others join him. “My team—Lance Corporal Ropati, Privates First Class Osborne and Ewald. Hospital Corpsman First Class Murphy, Hospital Corpsman Third Class Foster. Any medical needs? They can do quite a bit.”
Nick glanced at Louie, who shrugged. “I’m good. I’m on the end of the world diet plan. Never been better.”
“I’m good,” the younger man said. “My girlfriend is pregnant. I don’t know if there’s anything you can check, you know, before. Some of the others, bumps here and there. You’d have to ask them.”
McFarlane nodded at one of the Navy personnel. “Murphy?”
“Not a problem, Master Sergeant. If someone would lead the way, gentlemen?”
Nick turned. “Go ahead, Louie. Tell Amber and everyone else that it’s cool.” He turned to McFarlane. “I don’t think they’d bring medics with them if they had bad intentions. Care for a seat, Sergeant?” He indicated a battered picnic table against the guardrail of the pier, then sat down.
“Outstanding,” McFarlane said. He eyed the bench opposite Nick and decided that if it broke, it broke. He eased himself into a sitting position, wincing at every crack and pop of the sun-bleached wood. “Call me Ainsley. No need to be formal.” That, and that’s twice you’ve got my rank wrong.
“All right,” the younger man. He frowned as though trying to decide where to begin. “What can I do for you, Ainsley?”
“Well, being honest, not a whole lot. This is more coincidence than anything else. We’re about to launch an operation, and you happened to be hanging around. In the interest of comity and the continued survival of the human race, I guess you could call us an olive branch. So to speak.”
The younger man’s face shifted through several expressions. “Pretty bad out there?”
“Yeah.”
“Early on, we always hoped that this was just a California thing, you know? Like, all of a sudden, the Coast Guard would show up and haul us somewhere safe.” He sighed. “Stupid. Louie’s boat has a pretty good radio in it. Should have known shit was going down when we couldn’t get anyone to answer.”
“It’s not stupid to hope,” he mused. “We’re on the edge of the cliff, but we’re still sticking around. We’re getting a toehold, taking the fight to the zulus.”
“Zulus. You mean zombies?” Nick smirked at McFarlane’s nod. “We’re what, a pit stop on your way to battle?”
“More or less. But I think there’s an opportunity here.” McFarlane nodded toward shore. “What can you tell me about the local conditions here? Seems to be pretty thick.”
Nick didn’t even bother to look. “Yeah. For a long time, we tried to be quiet, but it got to be pointless. They know we’re here. We also ripped up a hundred feet of the deck. Even if they got over the block at the base, they’d have to walk a tightrope on a four-by-six member to get to us. So they watch. We flip them the occasional bird.”
McFarlane thought about the desperate fight at the raider compound, about the stories he’d heard from other Marines about the battle of Hope, and he wondered how tough that would be. “Nobody sneaks out to look for supplies?”
“We get most of our stuff from boats that washed up over the years, though we’re pretty self-sufficient at this point. There’s good fishing out there now. Guess there ain’t the competition there used to be. Got a couple of orange trees and a little vegetable garden we rigged up. The only one brave—well, crazy—enough to go out and scavenge is Braydon, over there.” Nick pointed out a skinny kid leaning against the guardrail on the opposite side. He looked all of eighteen, which meant he’d been depressingly young on Z-Day. “He got us the seeds and soil. Other odds and ends here and there. He’s a righteous little dude.”
McFarlane gave the kid the once over, noting his wiry build. He stiffened in shock as the boy noticed his scrutiny and turned to return the stare.
The unmistakable puckers of bite scars traced both Braydon’s arms and legs. McFarlane shot Nick a glance. “There’s more to it than being crazy-brave, right?”
The younger man shifted under the Marine’s stare. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Everybody else I’ve seen bitten dies and turns. Braydon doesn’t. Freaked us out the first time we saw it, too.”
“He’s not alone,” McFarlane said. “We’ve got an immune on our ship right now. Think Braydon would consent to a blood test?”
“Probably. I don’t know.”
“Look, Nick. We’ve got a mission, but if you and your people want off this pier, we can make that happen. There’s not enough room on the ship now, but we can get somebody else out to take you aboard. We’ve got cleared islands. No zulus. Your baby can grow up in a safe place.”
“What’s the catch?”
McFarlane shook his head. “There’s no catch. Like I said—we’re standing on the brink, here. Every warm body we can keep alive, that’s a small step toward victory.”
Nick swallowed and stared at McFarlane for a long time. “I got to be honest, I haven’t had a whole lot of lucky breaks in the last few years. I’m alive, sure, but it’s not living. If you know what I mean.”
“I’ve been on that ragged edge. I understand. It’s not a mirage. I can’t promise it’s going to be smooth sailing. We always need people to fight, if you don’t have anything else to offer, but it’s better than the alternative.”
The other man nodded. “All right. All right. We’ll discuss it, but I think it will go over well.”
“Hey, that’s all we can ask for.” McFarlane pointed out to the beach. “The fast ones not like the sand? What’s the deal?”
Nick gave him a blank look. “Fast what?”
�
�The zulus.”
“I got nothing. They’ve been stumbling around like that for years. I haven’t seen anything different.”
McFarlane grunted. “Interesting.”
Chapter 23
April 8, 2018
Southwestern Illinois
Z-Day + 172
Sandy and Jason were up at the crack of dawn, but neither man had slept well the night before. Stacy was holding up better than he’d expected, but Mason and Penny were a wreck. Their mother had tried to comfort them, within the confines of their own tent on the showroom floor, but it wasn’t like they had any real sort of privacy.
Frustrated and at the same time ashamed of his own frustration, Sandy had made his way to the workshop in the back of the building. He’d spent his time digging through the shelves and finally fallen into a fitful half-sleep with his head on his arms at a desk.
When Jason shook him awake, the younger man seemed resigned. “You ready? We need to start hauling stuff over. I just hope it’s enough to keep them happy.”
They went through the motions, gathering what they needed to make the crossing. Stacy was awake, sitting in one of the chairs, but she made no attempt at conversation as she rocked Penny back and forth. The children had succumbed to exhaustion, and the rings under their mother’s eyes told Charlie she wasn’t far from there herself.
It was a bit more work to juggle the process of towing the boat down to the river with only two sets of hands. As soon as they had the Ranger in the water and dropped the boat trailer, Jason sprinted toward the open driver’s door and drove the truck up the ramp to put it into blocking position.
Could use another good truck or two. Sandy scanned the countryside, but their luck held. The coast was clear.
When Jason rejoined him at the water’s edge, they climbed aboard and made their typical looping path to the bridge. The mud-stuck infected was an old friend at this point, and Sandy could have half-convinced himself that the clawing motions it made in their direction were a wave if his mood wasn’t so dark.
By the time they pulled the boat up onto the bank and tied it off, Sandy’s arms were shaking with fatigue. With unspoken consent, the two of them sat back to back, watching while they rested.
A bit before Sandy would have considered himself ready, Jason pushed himself to his feet and moved over to the collection of crates and bags they’d arranged under the bridge. He opened a box, assessed its contents, then closed it and moved onto the next. “Think we can get away with giving them mostly food?” Jason wondered out loud.
Sandy frowned but didn’t reply. He stood and moved to the first crate that Jason had opened. It was built of thick, injection-molded plastic. The heavy latch and thick hinges seemed over-engineered for such a simple container. As he opened it and studied the contents, he understood why.
This was the case of anti-personnel mines that Richard had pointed out. What had he called them?
Claymores.
Olive-drab bags filled the box. He pulled one out and looked through it. Jason asked him a question, but Sandy was so focused on his study that he missed the question.
The claymores themselves were dense, heavy things of green metal. They were roughly rectangular, though curved just a bit. The outward curve held the warning ‘FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.’ He slipped the mine back into the bag and studied the rest of the contents, which struck him as straightforward enough. There was a spool of wire and a small device with a lever that he assumed was some sort of detonator.
Sandy looked up at the bridge above them, deep in thought. A kernel of an idea wormed its way through his head, but it was so outlandish that it seemed to be the fever dream of a sleep-deprived mind. He forced himself to stop and review each step, in turn, to analyze all the angles.
“It should work,” he said to himself. He glanced at Jason. The other man’s jaw was hanging open at this point, and he had nothing to offer the conversation. Sandy latched the box of claymores, rapped his knuckles on the lid twice for luck, and turned on his heel. He was halfway up the hill before Jason hissed after him.
“Sandy! What are you doing?”
He looked back and patted the air in a placating manner. “I’ll be right back.”
He peeked his head up over the edge to ensure they were clear. Yesterday, when they’d started moving the gear down the hillside, they’d had to stop and defend themselves every so often against infected attracted to the sound of the Humvee’s engine. The truck sat abandoned, now, parked at an angle that allowed for easy access to the rear from Sandy’s side of the bridge.
He moved to the storage compartment and eased it open. They’d cleared out the salvage yesterday, but some of the supplies they’d brought on the ill-fated run still rested inside. Sandy grabbed a rubberized body bag and ran his hands over the exterior to ensure that there were no holes in it. It was intact, and he nodded to himself in satisfaction.
Sandy moved as fast as he could while keeping quiet. When he had the bag full of what he needed, he zipped it shut, then scrubbed his hands and forearms in the grass before using a rag to clean up as much as he could. If he’d thought ahead, he would have brought gloves, but the job could have been worse.
Jason threw his arms wide in confusion as Sandy half-walked and half-slipped down the bank, dragging the stuffed body bag on the grass behind him. “What the hell are you doing, man? Will you talk to me?”
At the bottom, Sandy paused a moment to catch his breath. He eyed the bag he’d brought down, then made eye contact with Jason. “I’ve got a plan. But you’re not going to like it.”
March 30, 2026
Aboard the USS Jack Lucas
Z-Day + 3,085
The briefing room wasn’t as crowded this time around. Most of the chairs sat in neat stacks against the wall, with the rest arrayed around a folding table at the center of the room. The same electrician’s mate who’d run the projector for the last meeting fiddled with a laptop on a small table as everyone in attendance settled in and laid out notes, writing instruments, and other necessities.
After his own lack of communication had almost doomed his home, Pete had made the conscious decision to bring everyone in that might have something to offer the mission this time around. McFarlane, Captain Wilhite, Ross, Foraker, Guglik, Charlie, Lieutenant Brumley, and Eberman filled the rest of the seats around the table.
He nodded to the big Marine to open the meeting. “As everyone has heard, Master Sergeant McFarlane brought some interesting intelligence back from his visit to Ventura Pier. To sum it up, the survivors in this area have seen no sign of enhanced infected, and they also have a member of their community who seems to be immune, like Charlie.”
The rumor mill must not have been working because his friend raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair.
“The lack seems—unlikely?” Ross commented.
McFarlane spread his hands. “Independently confirmed from multiple survivors on the pier. On top of what we could see with our own eyes.”
“What do you and your fellow big brains say, Doctor?”
Eberman tapped his pen on his notebook for a moment, keeping his eyes down. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “In a sense, it seems that Master Sergeant McFarlane’s bits of information are interrelated.”
Pete leaned forward, interested. “How so?”
“The team brought back blood samples from the immune individual. When I compared the blood to Charlie’s, there were distinct differences.” He glanced at Charlie. “As with you, the young man reportedly has suffered multiple bites, but unlike you, there are no nanomachines in his blood.” Eberman shrugged. “That would seem to indicate that the enhanced infected have never bitten or wounded him. We have been able to isolate differences between the two varieties in a lab environment.”
“The fast ones never bit him,” Foraker chimed in. “That doesn’t mean that they aren’t out there.”
“Correct,” Eberman agreed. “Though, for whatever reason, they either haven’t cong
regated in this area.”
“Your take?” Pete asked.
The doctor sighed. “We’ve seen enhanced infected in every area of high density. This qualifies. It seems to function as a sort of, I don’t know, distributed computer system, for lack of a better term. The more nanites in a given area, the closer they get to a tipping point until they exhibit the characteristics we refer to as ‘enhanced.’”
Pete frowned. “Is this a change in the actual virus, or something different?”
“The nanomachines will have consumed or discarded the virus shells at this point. The change isn’t so much a mutation as it is…” Eberman sighed. “I’m a virologist, so bear with me, the terminology is a bit foreign to me. It’s an upgrade. As best we can tell, it’s spread by short-wavelength UHF signals. The range is no more than a few feet, though we’ve also seen enhanced infected utilize touch to pass along the upgrade.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t always take. They even seem to ignore specimens that exhibit gross physical damage. The important thing is this—Charlie’s blood samples have enhanced nanomachines. Braydon’s did not. His blood is capable of quite literally destroying non-enhanced material. However, when I introduced samples from Charlie’s blood, I saw similar effects. Braydon’s blood damaged the improved nanomachines, but it didn’t destroy them.” He sighed. “I’ve monopolized quite a bit of transmitter time passing data back and forth with my colleagues, and, uh, there’s no easy way to put it. This doesn’t bode well.”
They sat in silence until Ross murmured, “Lay it on us, Doc.”
“Consider non-enhanced nanomachines as stage one. Enhanced nanomachines as stage two. That’s clear evidence of progression. If they reach a stage three at some point, it’s possible that even Charlie’s immunity wouldn’t be able to fight them. Now, admittedly, with access to untainted samples of immune antibodies, we have something to work with in terms of formulating a vaccine, but it may very well be time-limited as far as effectiveness.”
A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2) Page 24
