“Good copy, part two,” Norton said.
Mendoza smiled thinly. “Great. Sit tight.”
The van made a sweeping turn, then several additional maneuvers. Norton knew it had pulled into the parking lot and was either winding around barricades, abandoned cars, zombies, or all of the above. When the men began to stir and abandon their firing positions, Mendoza motioned for Norton to get up.
“Okay, thirty seconds,” he said. Norton unfastened his seat belt, swung into his pack, and reached into his pocket to verify his keys were still there. He would need them to get through the dock gate. The van slowed to a crawl, its diesel engine cackling. One of the men pushed open the door in the right side of the compartment and jumped out. He was followed by another, who was followed in turn by Mendoza. Norton went right after him.
It was cooler along the coast than it had been at the airport and in the van, and Norton almost shivered from the sudden chill. But the sun shone bright and strong, and the breeze carried the scent of the ocean. It also carried a strong hint of rot and decay and smoke, but that was to be expected. He almost didn’t notice those any longer, but the smell of the Pacific tickled his olfactory senses. Current circumstances aside, he found he was eager to get aboard the Argosy. It had been too long since he’d walked on her decks.
There were zombies in the immediate vicinity, and they moved toward the men as soon as they saw them. The parking lot had been turned into some sort of campsite or rally point, and it had either been overrun or abandoned weeks ago. There were plenty of human remains lying around to suggest the former, and the stenches lingering in the area had apparently decided to hang out and wait for another course to be served up. Norton was dismayed to discover he was next on their menu.
“On me,” said the man in the lead. He was already oriented toward the dock entrance. “Norton, this way?”
“That’s it,” Norton told him.
“Grab onto my pack and don’t let go,” Mendoza told him. Norton did as instructed and ran after the shorter man as the group scurried toward the dock’s gated entrance. Behind them, the heavy Ford van clattered away, crushing debris beneath its tires. When the group got to the gate, Norton pushed through with the key. The entire marina was surrounded by a black, wrought-iron security fence that still looked sound. As he pushed the key into the lock, he looked through the gate’s bars. Almost every slip was empty; even the line of rubber-hulled inflatables that usually adorned the shore were gone. His boat was visible, sitting all the way at the end of the dock, still tied up to the pier. He couldn’t tell its exact condition, but he had a sneaking suspicion people had likely gone aboard. He would have, after all.
The locked turned easily, and he started to push the gate open. One of the Marines grabbed it and stepped in ahead of him. The weathered wooden ramp angled downward, and the man pushed down its length, rifle shouldered and held at the ready. Mendoza followed him, and Norton stayed right behind him. He heard a splash and looked to his right. A ghost-white zombie waded toward them in the shallow water. It was covered in algae, though if it was actually growing on the dead flesh or if the creature had just been wallowing in it, Norton couldn’t tell. A rifle spoke behind him, loud and sharp. The stench collapsed into the water face first and promptly sank.
The rifle shot was like a dinner bell. Shapes rose up out of the water. Zombies, which had been content to lie in the sedate waters of the harbor, waiting for anything edible to arrive. Norton was horrified to see just how many there were. At this point, the average water depth was maybe three feet, and the boat slips were easily accessible. The dead floundered toward them, lifeless eyes fixated on the six men hurrying down the length of the dock.
“Forget about them for now, let’s just get to the boat!” the man in the lead said.
“Oorah, right behind you,” Mendoza replied. Over his shoulder: “Norton, stay with me, all right?”
“God damn right I will!” In the distance, he heard a car horn, and he realized Lennon was probably making the noise in an attempt to lure off the larger herd of zombies that had been following them. He wondered how Corbett’s senior military man would be able to link up with them, but he didn’t give voice to the question. As far as he was concerned, Lennon had it easy. If Norton and the others were taken out before they could get to the boat, then he had his little Ford tank to drive around in, and there was no way the dead could get at him.
Gunfire rang out as the dead began to haul themselves out of the briny, polluted harbor. Mendoza fired on the move, and Norton finally shouldered his expensive H&K and flipped off the safety. He tried plinking a few of the stenches as he ran, but he missed completely. He’d never really trained to engage a target while running, and his lack of experience was plain for all to see. When he slowed to try and decisively eliminate one zombie, the man behind him pushed him forward. Norton fired anyway, and missed again.
“Keep moving, Norton!” the man snapped. “Don’t fuck this up for us, man!”
Norton desisted and picked up the pace, hurrying after Mendoza. They made it to the yacht a few minutes later, after a short delay caused by a stench stepping off a dilapidated 1960s-vintage trawler named Loose Crews. Inside the vessel’s salon, other stenches stirred. Norton didn’t know the boat’s owner, but did know he had a family. And that family was dead, staring at him and the rest of the men with dead eyes full of eternal hunger. The man in the lead shot the stench stepping out of the trawler’s cockpit, blasting a wad of dark ichor across the boat’s sun-bleached mahogany transom.
When they finally reached the towering Argosy, Norton saw all the lines were still fixed and the fenders were in place, preventing the vessel’s expensive white gel coat finish from rubbing against the dock. Everything looked to be in place until he saw the davit on the second deck was extended out over the port side. Someone had made off with his tender.
The first man bounded onto the swim platform, his boots hitting the teak over fiberglass deck with a loud thump. He immediately advanced up one of two gangways that led up to the aft deck. Mendoza went down next, and he surged up the other gangway, rifle shouldered. Norton landed with amazing grace and emulated the two men, bolting up to the aft deck holding his H&K. There was carnage everywhere; apparently, more than a few people had used the boat for temporary shelter, and they had been unable to hold back the zombies that pursued them. Blood was smeared everywhere, and rotting body parts lay scattered across the varnished mahogany deck. Norton knew he should have been shocked at such a discovery, but it was no great surprise. He was more discouraged to see the entrance to the main salon was damaged. Someone had tried to pry open the thick sliding door, ignoring the signs on the glass which stated the vessel was alarmed. Norton didn’t blame them. With carnivorous corpses coming up from the aft, he’d do exactly the same thing himself.
“Stay right here, give us a second to check it out,” Mendoza said. Another man dropped down onto the swim platform and joined them, then oriented himself facing the rear of the vessel. It was even cooler underneath the overhang, and Norton was surprised to feel sweat literally chilling on his brow and down his back.
“You’ve got two decks, this one and the one above,” Norton said, pointing at the starboard stairway that ran up to the next level. “Knock yourselves out.” With that, he hurried to the door and opened the alarm pad next to it. The numbers on the keys illuminated when he exposed the keypad. That meant the yacht still had power, even though he was certain the shorelines were dead. He tapped in his security code, and the display there changed from ARMED to STANDBY.
As the Marines did their thing, he heard gunfire from the dock. The remaining Marines were making a stand, gunning down the stenches that shambled toward them. It was easier than shooting fish in a barrel. The zombies didn’t try to evade, didn’t try to protect themselves. They just walked right into it. Norton ignored the commotion and tried to open the door, both with the electronic entry code and with his key. The lock was broken.
He tur
ned and headed for the nearest gangway leading to the swim platform. The guard standing watch there stepped into his path immediately without taking his eyes off the stern.
“Where you headed, sir?”
“Crew quarters, and then to the engine room. I can get into the salon that way,” Norton said. “The door’s busted, I can’t open it from out here.”
“Wait,” the guard said.
“For what, guy? We have to get this boat operational!”
“Let Mendy and Browning sweep the boat first, then we’ll get right on that. You can’t go inside by yourself anyway, we don’t know what’s in there.”
“No one’s in there, man. She’s locked up tight, and I made sure no one could get in without a lot of time and causing a lot of attention,” Norton said, exasperated.
“Just wait,” the guard said, and the tone of his voice indicated that was the end of the conversation.
Mendoza came down from the bridge deck. “Clear up topside. Bow looks clear, too—Browning’s on his way back.” He turned to Norton. “Looks like someone tried to make off with the tender up topside. They didn’t make it. Looks like the stenches got them while they were trying to get the davit operational.”
Norton sighed. Not great news, knowing that more people had perished aboard his boat. Well, at least the insurance company won’t find out.
“Great,” he said. “Can I get to work now?”
“Sure thing,” Mendoza said. “Where do you want to start?”
“Engine room, but I’ll need to go through the crew quarters to get there—the salon door’s fucked up from someone trying to get inside.”
Mendoza nodded. “Okay. Lead the way and I’ll check things out. You have what you need?”
“Except for access to the boat? Yeah. Follow me,” Norton said. He bounded down the gangway to the swim platform, then turned back toward the rear of the boat. Where on larger vessels there would have been a garage for storing additional gear or pleasure craft such as jet skis, there was only a single bulkhead door. Norton keyed it open, and Mendoza immediately pulled him aside before he could crack it open.
“You open the door, but keep it between you and the opening,” the short Marine said. “Use it like a shield. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. Got it,” Norton said.
“Okay.” Mendoza raised his rifle. “Tell me what I’m walking into down there?”
“Crew quarters. Two staterooms, one with a queen-size bunk, the other with two single bunks, over and under. Captain’s stateroom is on the port side. Crew stateroom is off to starboard. One head, just past the crew stateroom. Past that, galley and dinette. And there will be a door in the bulkhead, a lot like this one here”—Norton indicated the door he was standing beside—“only with a port in it, so you can look into the next room.”
“Okay, like a day room?”
Norton knew the Navy term. “Yeah, like that.”
Mendoza nodded. “Got it. Okay, are you ready?”
“Yes, I’m ready,” Norton said, getting a little frustrated with the Q&A session. There was still a lot of gunfire going on dockside, and he was eager to get to work. The sounds of combat would only serve to lure more stenches into the marina. He didn’t see a lot of sense in waiting for them to get to the yacht.
“Take it easy, Mister Norton.” Mendoza smiled thinly at Norton’s apparent discontent.
“I’ll take it easy when we’re a few miles off the coast, Mendoza. I’m opening the hatch now. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir. I’m ready.”
Norton undogged the hatch and pulled it open. Mendoza held his rifle on the opening for a moment, then edged forward. When he saw nothing untoward, he stepped toward it.
“Lights?” he asked.
“Switch is on the right, next to the door. Should be visible on the bulkhead,” Norton said. Of course, the companionway would be dark. “You want me to get them?”
“No, I got it,” Mendoza said. There was a nervous moment as he fumbled about with his left hand, trying to find the switch. Norton looked past the hinges of the door and saw the light snap on, illuminating the narrow corridor with bright LED lighting. Mendoza slowly disappeared from view as he walked down the short gangway, rifle at the ready. Norton stood there by the open door, feeling naked and exposed. He heard the men on the dock above shouting to each other as they continued broadcasting hate at the zombies. The sentry above was joined by the element leader—Norton believed this was Browning—so he wasn’t exactly alone. He tried to calm down a little bit.
Take it easy, he thought. Everything’s under control …
A mottled hand emerged from the water and slapped onto the swim platform. Norton looked down at it, a little shocked, but also a little curious. Were there actually zombies at the bottom of the harbor?
As he watched, a large male stench pulled itself upward, its bald head gleaming in the sunlight. It reached up with another hand and firmed its grasp on the swim platform, its small, porcine eyes already locked on Norton. It opened its mouth, as if to moan. Instead, a gout of brine flowed from the opening, accompanied by a distant gurgling sound.
Norton stepped away from the open door, raised his H&K, and shot it right through the head. The zombie froze, then slowly descended beneath the water.
Hope to God it doesn’t foul the running gear, he thought, suddenly worried about the extremely vulnerable twin Nibral screws that powered the boat.
“Good shot, Norton,” said the team leader from above and behind him. “You’re an expert marksman inside of five meters.”
“Thanks a million,” Norton replied.
Mendoza emerged from the crew quarters a moment later. He immediately saw the wet handprints on the deck, and looked to Norton. “What happened?”
“Nothing unusual, just a stench rising up from the depths,” Norton said. “Everything cool down below?”
“Yeah, got as far as the engine room. No zombies, no nothing.”
“Good,” Norton said, slinging his rifle and walking around the open hatch. “Now get the hell out of the way and let me get to work.”
“You need me for anything?” Mendoza asked. “How are you going to get inside if the door’s busted?”
“There’s a service entrance from the engine room,” Norton said. “You wouldn’t know it unless you knew where to look—”
“I’m coming with you,” Mendoza said. “Go on, get down there.”
“Suit yourself.” Norton vaulted down the gangway and walked through the crew quarters. The door to the engine room was already open, and the lights were on. He walked into the square room, ducking a bit so as not to hit his head on the stringers that supported the deck above him. The sounds of combat became suddenly distant as Mendoza slammed the hatch closed behind him, then dogged it in place. Norton checked the bilge, and found it wasn’t any wetter than usual—only a thin trace of moisture from the usual seepage from the stuffing boxes, where the driveshafts extending from the twin MTU engines passed through the hull and mated with the propellers. He then checked the batteries and found they were at about eight percent charge. That was great, but shore power was definitely off; the yacht’s systems had been running off the cells for at least two or three weeks. He definitely wanted to get the generators running so he could charge them up before trying to start the engines. He could do that from down here, or get up to the main deck and switch them on from there.
“So what do we do first?” Mendoza had been watching Norton from the open engine room hatch.
“Generators need to come online,” Norton told him. “We have two of them, but I only need one running at the moment. I need to charge up the batteries, just in case we need to go through multiple starts. I’m not expecting any problems, but she’s been sitting for a couple of months. Just want to ensure we have enough juice to run what we need.” As he spoke, Norton walked toward the door. He stopped short of Mendoza and patted the two big, white cubes on either side of the aisle. Each soundproofed enclos
ure bore the logo for Northern Lights. “These guys right here,” he said, as he knelt and quickly checked the fluids on the two gensets. They were both good to go.
“So you do that down here, right?”
“I can. You need to tell your guys to get ready for some noise. Okay?”
Mendoza nodded and spoke into his headset’s boom microphone. Norton reached for a pair of noise-cancelling earmuffs hanging next to the door and slid them on. He figured it might be a good idea to keep them handy, just in case. It was remarkable he wasn’t already deaf after all the firing in the van. After a moment, Mendoza gave him a thumbs-up.
“You’re good to go, sir,” he said.
“Why, thank you. You want to step inside and close the hatch after you?” When Mendoza did as he asked, Norton turned to the generator on the port side. He pressed the red start button on the control box, and the generator turned right over. Norton pumped his fist, then turned to the genset on the starboard side and replicated his previous success. Thanks to the dampening enclosures, the gensets merely purred away inside the engine room.
Norton quickly checked the two big, ten-cylinder MTU diesels. All fluids were fine, air filters were fresh, Racor fuel filters were clean, and the panel diagnostics indicated both systems were in perfect shape.
“We’re looking good down here, but now we need to get topside,” Norton told Mendoza.
“Sure. How do we do that?”
Norton pointed to the fore end of the engine room where a bulkhead separated the chamber from the mammoth diesel fuel tank on the other side. To the right of the fire extinguisher system was a small ladder that led to a three foot by three foot fireblocked hatch.
“Through there,” he said. “It’ll take us right to the wet bar. Climb up, turn right, and pour yourself a cold one.”
“Yeah, sounds great. Let’s do that once we’re out of here,” Mendoza said. He advanced to the hatch. It was dogged closed in two places, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to open it. Once he unlocked it, the short Marine pulled his pistol.
The Last Town (Book 6): Surviving the Dead Page 8
