Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Zombies In Paradise

by Thomson, Jeff

  “There’s French Frigate Shoals, down there,” Walton said, thumbing out his window. “I have a fuel cache, if it becomes necessary, but the bird people don’t much like me, I’m afraid.” He smiled and shrugged, causing the radio headphones squashing the sides of his pilot cap to shift. He readjusted them and looked back down at the Shoals. “I don’t see any sailboats, so there may be uninfected people down there.”

  “Can you try them on the radio?” Jonesy asked.

  “I’m capable of it, yes,” he responded.

  Jonesy stared at him for several beats, wondering whether it would do him any good to smack the supercilious jackass upside the head. He’d been having similar violent thoughts more and more often, of late, and it disturbed him (a little), but now was not the time for such rumination. “Will you try them on the radio?” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Happily,” Harvey grinned. Switches were flipped and dials were turned on a radio that looked every day as old as this fifty year-old aircraft. He switched his own comm set from Internal to External and heard the white noise of static, and nothing else. “French Frigate Shoals Airport, French Frigate Shoals Airport, come in please. Anyone listening? Over.” Nothing but the hiss and crackle, phasing in and out.

  Jonesy began to get a nibbling at the back of his mind. Something he was forgetting. Something important. Then he had it. Covering his headset microphone, he reached over and pulled one of the ears off Walton’s set and said: “Not one word about the vaccine. We don’t need to broadcast it.” Harvey nodded and smiled in apparent delight at the deception.

  They had all received the primary injection, and none of them were feeling any negative effects - yet. They still needed both the initial booster and the secondary, for the vaccine to fully work its magic, but part of the treatment would be better than none, if any of them got bitten - or so he hoped.

  The radio hissed, then: “Walton, is that you?”

  “Barnstable, old bean,” he said, readjusting the headset. “How are you doing?”

  “Don’t you dare come down here, you son of a bitch!” Even through the static, Jonesy could hear the anger in the man’s voice.

  Walton gave him a sheepish grin and shrugged. “My biggest fan,” he said, then spoke into the radio. “I actually have a representative of the American Coast Guard with me, believe it or not.”

  “I don’t believe it, you lying, conniving bastard. I wouldn’t believe you if you told me water is wet.” the voice replied. “What scam are you pulling this time?”

  Jonesy tapped Walton on the shoulder and nodded, indicating he’d take over. “French Frigate, this is Petty Officer Jones, United States Coast Guard,” he said. “I don’t know your problem with Mister Walton, but having met him, I can guess.” Walton cocked a bemused eyebrow at him. “What is your status, over?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Barnstable came back: “We’re holding out. Plenty of food, thanks to all the birds and fish. Water is a bit tight, but that will improve if we get some rain.”

  Jonesy looked into the clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. “Any...medical problems?”

  “None,” the voice said. “And we mean to keep it that way.”

  “Good idea,” Jonesy said. “Midway let a few sailboats in. They got overrun.”

  ”We had two try to approach about a week ago,” Barnstable said. “We sent ‘em away.”

  “Roger that,” Jonesy said. “Anything we can do to help?”

  “The booze is running low,” the voice said with real regret. “Not much you can do about it, though.”

  “Sorry,” Jonesy replied. “Have you heard from any other ships?”

  “Negative,” Barnstable replied. “You’re the first voices we’ve heard.”

  “Understood,” he said. “We might be able to arrange a supply drop in the future, with a bit of advanced notice. Think about it, and we’ll contact you on the return trip.”

  “Will do,” Barnstable said. “Good to hear more people survived. Was beginning to wonder.”

  “Roger that,” Jonesy replied.

  “But keep that slimy bastard Walton away from here,” Barnstable added. “French Frigate Shoals, out.”

  Jonesy switched back to Internal comms. “They really don’t like you,” he said.

  “Can’t imagine why,” Walton replied, the picture of innocence.

  They flew on.

  25

  USCGC Sassafras

  Midway Atoll

  The chair tilted backwards, nearly spilling Bill Schaeffer onto his ass as he heard the words crash through the low hum of static he’d been listening to for hours. He heard the exchange between Jonesy and French frigate Shoals, albeit fuzzy and far away, but this was something new.

  “...Pan........Pan-Pan........Pan...” Three repetitions of the words: “Pan-Pan,” was the universal equivalent of I’m in deep shit, but I’m holding on. Not quite Mayday, not quite, Come save my ass or I’m going to die, but pretty damned close. To hear it now, after so many days of silence, so many days spent locked in the windowless Radio Room on Sassafras, sleeping in a cot he’d jammed into the already cramped compartment, was like a chorus of explosive flatulence in the middle of a moment of silence.

  “...ello all...ations....This.............olar Star.” The static cut right then, hard and quiet after doing its best impersonation of fingernails on a chalkboard. Bill waited, afraid to breathe, in case the minuscule sound blotted out any further message. None came, but what had worked its way through the ether and the untold miles of empty ocean, left one thing clear as a ship’s bell: The Polar Star had survived.

  “Left ten,” Molly Gordon said, not taking her eyes off the shoals on either side of the channel.

  “Left ten, aye,” Harold echoed, pushing the joystick to the left.

  It should be more dramatic, she thought. In her younger days, on Dependent’s Cruises with her uncle on the several Coast Guard ships he’d served, or during brief excursions on the Eagle, or some of the other ships in and around the Coast Guard Academy, the helm command would be called, the helmsman would repeat it, and then with a deft spin of hand and wrist and arm, the great ship’s wheel would spin until the rudder indicator pointed to the correct angle. It felt nautical. It felt right. But a joy stick was just a joy stick.

  “Rudder is left ten,” Harold reported.

  “Mark your head,” she called.

  “Passing one-zero-five,” he said.

  “Steady up course zero-nine-three,” she said.

  “Zero-nine-three, aye,” Harold repeated, continuing the precise dance of command and response, of decision and action.

  The turn complete, the course achieved, Lane Keely, who’d come aboard to help with navigation in Jonesy’s absence, took a bearing on the day board situated almost due North of the exit/entrance channel, and said: “Mark your turn. Recommend course one-eight-zero.”

  “Right full rudder,” Molly barked, Harold repeated, and made it happen. She marvelled at the simplicity of it. Modern technology notwithstanding, mariners had been doing much the same things in much the same way for centuries. “Steer course one-eight-zero.”

  “One-eight-zero, aye,” came the dutiful response.

  She tried her best not to dwell on the considerable technicality that she’d never qualified as an underway OOD. For that matter, she hadn’t qualified as an in-port OOD, or anything else, come to think of it. And yet she barked the orders and they were obeyed. The ship moved, the crew responded, as if in ignorance of her utter inexperience. She knew they weren’t ignorant - not by a long shot - but they were putting their trust in her, putting their lives in her hands. It frightened and excited her in equal measure.

  The interior Bridge door opened and Bill Schaeffer entered

  “The Polar Star’s out there,” he said in his laconic voice, delivering the news as if commenting on the weather. “Somewhere.”

  A sudden feeling of X-Files deja vu coursed through her. They were not alone.


  26

  USCG ISC Honolulu

  Facilities Engineering Building

  “Fuck!” Scott screamed. The first zombie attacked before they even got to the bottom of the stairs. Pruden swung at it with the swab handle he’d fashioned into a spear (at Amber’s suggestion), and missed. The former Coast Guard man in tattered blue coveralls lunged at him with clutching arms.

  Amber batted it away, with a glancing blow to the shoulder with her trusty crowbar, then followed through with a vicious backhand, catching the zombie in the side of the head and dropping him/it to the ground. One down, four to go, and the others were on their way.

  Zombies, she discovered, were not quiet, subtle creatures. They didn’t hide or dodge, they didn’t use strategy or tactics, or anything resembling sense. They attacked, period, and they yelled a lot while doing it. The yelling attracted others of their kind. They didn’t attack each other, apparently, which seemed odd to her, but she found herself a bit too busy to contemplate the fact.

  Amber and Scott ran forward, dodging between vehicles and pallets, trying to keep as much stuff between themselves and the attacking four-zombie hoard. Four against two seemed pretty good odds, on paper, since the two held weapons and the four had no common sense or coordination of action, but she felt no desire to test the practical application of the paper theory.

  A naked lunatic ran at Pruden, who this time, used the spear as a spear, instead of foolishly trying to use it as a club. The jagged, sharp point cut into the thing’s belly, and Scott rammed it home by running the thing into the side of a nearby pickup truck. It slammed into the metal vehicle, the sound echoing inside the huge room, and the screams of the bleeding zombie felt like a needle-gun running up and down Amber’s spine. Pruden tried to remove the spear, but the naked man had grabbed it with both hands and clung to it with a death grip, which it surely was, judging by the blood flowing and the intestines hanging from the gaping wound.

  Two down. Three to go. But they were down to one weapon.

  A third zombie - another male, whom Amber vaguely recognized as an ignorant ass, notorious for making moronic sexual comments about female Coasties - had gotten itself trapped in a cul-de-sac, created by three tarp-covered pallets, a pile of what looked like solar panels, and a beat up Subaru. It had gone in one side, bumped up against the car, turned toward one of the covered pallets, and couldn’t seem to figure out that it couldn’t go through the solid object it contained. Amber and Scott were on the far side, and it howled at them in frustration, unable to go any further, and apparently too stupid to figure out how to retrace its own steps.

  Three down. One female, nude, with spiked, purple-hued hair way outside of military regs, thus meaning she was a civilian, screamed at them from the far end of the warehouse, which was about all she could do. They were much closer to the stake-bed truck than she was to them. Four down.

  The fifth zombie, who looked like an advertizement for steroid abuse, met them at the truck. He stood six-foot-six, maybe two hundred fifty pounds of homicidal fury.

  He could have just waited for them to come to him, making it necessary for them to get through him to get to the truck, but the virus-cooked brain inside the gigantic body couldn’t be bothered with such a stratagem. We don’t need no steenking strategy, it seemed to be thinking as it charged.

  “Keep it busy!” Pruden yelled, dodging to one side, and running away from the attacking monstrosity.

  “With what?” she screamed in answer. “My good looks?” She ran the opposite way, to the far side of the truck - the passenger side, where she hoped she’d be able to leap into the unlocked door, and slam it shut before the big fucker could get at her. Pruden had said the truck was unlocked, hadn’t he? If so, he’d been lying. Pulling the door handle did nothing but make her fingers hurt as she scratched for a purchase, but only found a locked door. And the zombie kept getting closer.

  She spun and swung at it, smacking the thing in the cheek, but if it had any effect, it was not apparent, as the leviathan kept coming. She scrambled backward, tripping over her own feet, as the gargantuan right hand swung at where her head had been and missed.

  She’d seen a stuffed Kodiak Bear in the main concourse of the Juneau, Alaska airport, once. The thing’s paws were as big as her head, and her hyperactive imagination had known that with one swipe, it could have removed her skull from her neck with no more effort than swatting a horse fly. The zombie attacking her brought the memory back in a rush, as the breeze caused by its own swinging paw skimmed over the top of her head, missing it by inches.

  She bounced off a covered pallet of what felt like bags of rice or grain, and rolled to one side as the huge man attacked again, and again, it missed her. She swung the crowbar as hard as she could, catching the thing on the back of its boulder-sized head. She heard a cracking sound, as a gout of blood spewed from the open wound. The behemoth grunted, moaned, gave one, final, gasping howl, and then died.

  Three dead. One too far away. One trapped by stupidity.

  Amber heard the roar of an engine starting behind her, and turned. Scott Pruden grinned at her from inside the cab. She heard a distinct CLICK, as the passenger door lock released.

  “About fucking time,” she said, opening the door and getting in.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, in an apologetic tone. She was too tired, and too revved up from the adrenaline needed for the battle to feel much about it, one way or the other. “So...” Pruden began. “Which way do we go?”

  27

  M/V Point of Order

  18.994157N 15.541154W

  “Palmyra,” Blackjack Charlie said, pointing to the tiny dot on the huge chart of the North Pacific Ocean.

  “Why there?” The Honorable Henry David Goddard, late of the US House of Representatives and potentially the new President of the United States, asked.

  “Multiple reasons,” Blackjack replied.

  “Which are?” George Potter demanded, clearly drunk again. Charlie would have to do something about him - and soon - though what that would be, he didn’t yet know. Going forward, they would need several engineers, if there were to survive this apocalypse, so he had no desire to kill off the only one he had, but the drunk fuck was really getting on his nerves.

  “Hawaii is out of the question,” Charlie said, beginning to tick the reasons off on his fingers. “The cities are overrun and uninhabitable. The only choice would be the island of Molokai, but there are three thousand people there, most of which would be infected. I have no desire to take on three thousand zombies, but if you’re dumb enough, I’ll drop you off and you can be my guest.”

  “Fuck you!” George snapped.

  Blackjack Charlie began to reach behind his back for his namesake, but Goddard - ever the politician - intervened. “Everyone remain calm,” he said. “Mister Carter has raised a valid point.” He nodded to Charlie. “Do continue.”

  George glowered, but he’d become a devotee of the Congressman; another thing Charlie would have to watch. Couldn’t let the man get too much power. His own personal opinion of the politician leaned toward just this side of low-grade moron, with the potential for clinical insanity, but he understood the Zeitgeist of the situation, and the mentality behind it, so - for now - he would let it ride.

  “Palmyra is about nine hundred miles South. Still close enough to be within reach of Hawaii, if we ever need to come back for any reason, as well as being close to the major shipping lanes. We need to keep salvaging,” he said, using the euphemism he’d adopted to describe their clear acts of piracy.

  “Before the plague, there were - at most - twenty-five permanent residents. If they’ve been visited by other ships, there might be twice as many now. Whether or not they’re infected remains to be seen, but fifty is a whole lot easier to manage than three thousand.”

  He looked around the table in the Point of Order lounge. Doug Hennessy, sat beside Felix Hoffman, on the opposite side of George and Goddard. Both were nodding. Davis McGee, wh
o’d done well with the last boarding, sat at the far end. The seat would have ordinarily gone to Goddard, if the man had at all concerned himself with decorum, but he hadn’t, so McGee had taken his spot. He wasn’t nodding, but his eyes were alert and focused, and that would have to do.

  “We need a land base,” Charlie continued. “If for no other reason than we can’t keep burning fuel - at least not until we find a large enough store of it.” He paused to see if there were any arguments. “Palmyra is my recommendation,” he said. “If anyone’s got anything better, now is the time.” No one spoke for several moments.

  “The motion appears to be carried,” Goddard said, at last.

  Blackjack Charlie Carter nodded, satisfied. “Let’s get underway.”

  28

  Seaplane Wallbanger

  23.014121N 161.916504W

  “Can we try and raise the Assateague?” Jonesy asked, watching the nothing of a spec upon the mote of the giant Pacific Ocean, called the Island of Nihoa, slide beneath them though Walton’s window. Kauai, still a hundred twenty or so miles distant, could be seen as a shadow against the Eastern horizon.

  “Only of you’d like to kill the people in the back,” Harvey replied. They’d been flying for almost seven hours, the scenery broken with the occasional green dot of an atoll in the otherwise blue emptiness. Jonesy’s ass had begun to hurt in the none-too comfortable co-pilot seat. He could only imagine the misery of the rest of their team, seated on the hard benches in the next compartment.

  “How’s that?” Jonesy asked, snapped out of his stupor by the comment.

  “Would you like me to explain line-of-sight-propagation?” Walton asked.

  “Not so much, no.”

  “If one uses the Pythagorean Theorem, one may calculate the altitude necessary to reach a given distance,” Walton said, ignoring Jonesy’s negative response. “At this range, we’d need to be at about fifteen thousand feet, where the air, as they say, is rather rare.” Harvey smiled at him. “You and I have oxygen.” He thumbed back toward the passengers. “They do not. We would survive at such an altitude. They might survive, but I wouldn’t want to place a bet on how long they might do so.”