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

by Thomson, Jeff

  94

  USCGC Sassafras

  Hanapepe Bay, Kauai

  “Well, that was fun,” Jonesy said, dropping his helmet on the credenza next to the Wardroom table, around which Molly, John, Gus, Frank, Harold, Dan McMullen, and Jeri Weaver were seated. Gary King slid a carafe of steaming coffee down and smiled at Jonesy, as Duke came in through the Wardroom door.

  “Who’s your buddy?” The Bosun Mate said, grinning at Gary. “Who’s your pal? Who’s the greatest hero of all time?”

  “You are, Duke,” Gary replied., rolling his eyes. “Every day and twice on Sundays.”

  “Anybody want to let us in on the joke?” John said, bemused, looking from Duke, to Gary, to Jonesy.

  “We found a Starbucks,” Jonesy explained.

  “Make that, I found a Starbucks,” Duke corrected, shrugging out of his rig and tossing it - weapons and all - onto the sofa.

  “Yes, Duke,” Jonesy said. “We know. You are a God among men.” He turned to John. “Anyway, we liberated some of its inventory.”

  “Which you are now able to drink,” Gary said, flourishing a hand toward the coffee pot.

  “Well, shit!” Dan said, with enthusiasm. “Pass it over here.”

  Molly leaned back in her chair and smiled. The coffee hadn’t run out, exactly. No one in their right mind would have allowed that to happen. She had a course in supply and logistics at the Academy - an entire semester of it - taught by a crusty old Warrant Officer named Daniel Burke, who said the most important supply item of all - more vital than fuel or food or any of ten thousand things that went into keeping a ship in running order - was coffee. With it, the crew could move mountains. Without it, they were dead in the water.

  And okay, gross exaggeration, but she’d always remembered it, and after her months on the Healy and the admittedly short time on the Sass - rudely protracted as it had been by the zombie apocalypse - she could see the wisdom in those words. So a fresh stock of Starbucks was cause for a celebration. She raised her cup and motioned with it toward the pot.

  “Captain first,” Jonesy said, snatching it away from McMullen’s clutching hand. He handed it to her with a smile, and just the touch of a wink.

  1

  The familiarity should have irked her, and if not the specific act, then the intent behind it. She and Jonesy were no more - would always be no more - and even if, in her heart of hearts, and in the recesses of her mind where she never allowed herself to go, the spark still lived, still swam in the glow of good memories - it would always have to remain no more.

  She returned his smile, briefly, the mere hint of recognition for the warmth that once existed. She could give him that much. Maybe she owed him that much. And in any event, they had cause to celebrate.

  The rescue plan worked. No one got hurt, and twenty-two survivors were found - twenty five, if she counted the three Jim Barber and the crazy pilot found on Johnston Atoll. They were officially on their way back.

  “So what’s the plan, Skipper?” Duke asked, plopping himself into one of the remaining chairs.

  Molly sipped her coffee - damn, it tasted good - to give herself time to think. This was the ever-popular moment of truth. Back to business. She sat up and surveyed the assembled crew. The only ones not in attendance were Lane Keely, and Samantha Gordon, who were seeing to the refugees, and Bill Schaeffer, locked in his Radio Room. He came out, every now and then to get food, or use the head or shower, but for the most part, he remained in his electronic redoubt. Sparing a brief moment to wonder how he managed to do it without losing touch with reality or sanity, she steadied herself for the task at hand, pausing to take in each person around the table. Her crew. Her people.

  All of them were on the edge of exhaustion. All of them were operating on minimal sleep and zero down time. And the trained psychologist inside her knew each and every one of them had to be suffering various degrees of PTSD. The entire world was traumatic. Every moment of every day was filled with stresses none of them had been trained to endure. Yet all of them were, in fact, enduring it. She marveled at them, her heart swelling with pride. Her crew. Her people. Time to get off her intellectualizing ass and lead them.

  “Jonesy,” she began. “I want you, Duke, Harold, Frank and Jeri Weaver to crew the Assateague.” First names weren’t exactly military, but the remaining people were so few - survivors themselves. Formality seemed wrong, somehow. “You will get her underway, and follow the rest of us on the Sass. Mister Barber and Mister Walton will meet us enroute to start ferrying the passengers. We won’t want them aboard when we reach our destination.” Understatement. The last damned thing any of them needed was a gaggle of whining civilians bitching about the way they were rescuing what’s left of the world - yet another problem on her plate. Push it aside. Deal with it later.

  “I want to be anchors aweigh by zero seven hundred tomorrow,” she continued. Five crew wasn’t anything resembling minimal manning standards for a one hundred and ten foot Patrol Boat, but, then, it would only leave herself, John, Lane, Gus, Gary, Duke, Bill Schaeffer, Samantha (who, for all her enthusiasm, was still a sixteen year-old child) and Dan to navigate the larger buoy tender, and see to the needs of the refugees. No one would be getting much sleep.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Jonesy replied.

  “And our destination is...?” Dan McMullen asked.

  “Sand Island,” she replied. “Time to take back our base.”

  95

  Medical Clinic

  Midway Atoll

  “White to clean the system,” Clara Blondelle whispered to herself, carefully placing the rack of white-labeled vaccine bottles into the gym bag. These, she’d discovered, were doses of primer. “And green to be good to go,” she finished the mnemonic, placing the green labeled ampules of booster into the bag. She already knew the red labels meant secondary. The little microbiological dead zombies were swimming through her veins, keeping her alive and sane. She put the third rack in with the first two.

  These would be transferred into separate coolers, once she got aboard the Annie’s Birthday. Carrying a bulky Styrofoam box would have been a bit obvious, even at this ungodly hour.

  Two in the morning. Her mind boggled. Before the Pomona Virus, two in the morning meant maybe she was just getting home from the club - maybe alone, and maybe not. Maybe she’d be spending the better part of what remained of the night getting her brains righteously fucked out of her head. Or, maybe she’d be spending it with one of her wide variety of toys, giving herself pleasure before catching what few hours of sleep she could manage before heading into work at her receptionist job for Steinman and McDougall, Attorneys at Law.

  She’d been steadily moving her way up the ladder, by benefit of spending time on her knees or bent over the desk of one or more of the male lawyers, with panties around her ankles and skirt around her waist. She’d started out making copies and coffee, then moved to receptionist. A few more blowjobs, and she might have made it to legal secretary - if she could have passed the online course, which she’d tried and failed twice. Maybe. Maybe not. Couldn’t suck off a computer. And time was running out.

  She wasn’t eighteen anymore. Thirty came and went before she knew what hit her. Forty was still a ways away, but close enough to cause concern. Her tits were still perky and her butt was still firm (thanks to religious use of the stair-climber in her apartment), but age and gravity would change both in due course. The law office had been a speculative investment of time and personal lubricant. It might have worked. It might not.

  Then the virus came. Then everything changed.

  By that point, however, she’d met Teddy Spute and taken him into her bed - in retrospect, the best piece of ass she’d ever bestowed on a man. It had been easy and it had been fun - sort of - and in any case, it saved her life. She’d still be in Astoria, either dead or a zombie, and no amount of self-prostitution could have changed it.

  She eased through the outer door of the clinic building, keeping silent, keeping stealt
hy. Unnecessary, perhaps, given the hour and the darkness, and the trusting nature of the fools she was about to royally screw, but why take chances?

  Teddy was one of those fools. Seemed as though there should be some pang of guilt, or regret, for leaving him behind, but there wasn’t. Clara Blondelle had never gone in much for those emotions. Waste of time, she thought. Pointless, she thought. And in the end, they served no purpose and certainly did nothing to benefit her. Look out for Number One. Isn’t that how it was supposed to go? Wasn’t that the general theme of Twenty-First Century life in America. What was that line from the Disney version of The Three Musketeers? All for one and more for me? If that didn’t describe the American Experience, then nothing did.

  Her feet never left the sidewalk or the paved street. Cutting through the trees might have ensured her safe and unobserved arrival to the harbor and the small dinghy she’d hidden, but getting lost in this damnable darkness would be foolish and might get her caught. Any of a dozen things might get her caught.

  One of the others might decide to get up early - though she couldn’t imagine why they would. There were no watches being kept. No zombies, no need. The Nutty Professor and that Barber bitch might decide to head to the clinic early, but why? They’d been there until almost eleven o’clock last night. And dear Teddy Spute, whom she’d fucked into a coma before feigning the sleep she really should have gotten, would be out cold for hours yet.

  As if on cue, a yawn struggled to escape through her lips, but she fought it back. No time to be tired. No time to be lazy. The harbor came into view.

  Time to get going.

  96

  COMMSTA Honolulu

  Sand Island, Oahu

  “Finish what you’re doing and get out here!” Scott Pruden shouted, pounding on the head door. Amber’s bathroom meditation came to an abrupt end. It had been her routine for as long as she could remember: wake up, go to the ladies to relieve the excesses of the previous day, and spend a moment meditating on the needs of the day to come - a necessity, along the same lines as dreaming, to clear her mind of all the useless crap life tended to stuff inside her skull. But now Jurgen McAwesomeness just had to interrupt her.

  “What?” She snapped.

  “Get your butt out here!” He snapped in reply.

  She rose, flushed, adjusted her clothing and washed her hands. One look into the mirror was enough to tell her the candle she’d been burning at both ends was shrunk to a nub. Something had to give and soon, or she would simply drop. She pulled open the door and instantly heard the source of all the fuss.

  “COMMSTA Honolulu, COMMSTA Honolulu, this is Coast Guard Cutter Assateague, Channel One-Six. Over.” A male voice - not the one she was used to hearing from the Sass. This was new.

  Giving Pruden her best exasperated expression, she picked up the radio handset for the VHF, and waggled it at him. “You take this little thingy,” she said, her words dripping with condescension. “You press this little thingy,” tapping her finger on the transmit button, “and you talk into it.” He stared at her, blank-faced. “I know it’s rocket science, but try and keep up. Watch and learn.”

  “Cutter Assateague, this is COMMSTA Honolulu, Channel Sixteen. Switch and answer Channel Two-One. Over.” Waggling her eyebrows at her sole companion for the last...however long it had been...she punched in the desired channel. “Assateague, COMMSTA, Two-One.”

  There should be some feeling of guilt, she supposed. Scott really didn’t deserve to be treated like an idiot child, but close proximity, combined with sleep deprivation, combined with a zombie goddamned apocalypse had trampled her last nerve into mush.

  “Good morning, COMMSTA,” the voice said, managing to sound both cheerful and sarcastic at the same time. “How is everyone this fine tropical day?”

  “We’re having the time of our lives,” she replied, with equal cynicism. The conversation had thrown standard radio procedure right out the window, but this was not the time to be a stickler for form over substance.

  “As are we, COMMSTA,’ he said. “As are we.”

  “Is this a call for idle chitchat, or...?” She let the sentence hang. Two could play this game. But if it were to go on much longer, coffee would become essential. She gave Pruden the universal curled-finger symbol for a cup of Joe. To his credit, he understood. Really should be nicer to him, she thought.

  “The idle chitchat will come in due course,” he replied. “But if you’d like to go up on the roof and cast your eyes toward the harbor entrance, you might find something of interest.”

  Amber’s heart did the cartwheels Amber’s body had never been able to perform. The cavalry had arrived.

  97

  USS Paul Hamilton

  12.493106N 165.521408E

  “That’s gunfire!” Culinary Specialist Second Class Roger Dawson said. “Hot damn!”

  Five people were in the Lower Dry Stores compartment with him, and while they tolerated each other well enough, he was sick and tired of every last one of them. He knew he shouldn’t be, knew he should value and treasure these few remaining sane human beings, but so many days locked within these four bulkheads left him bereft of all tolerance for the foibles of others.

  Thing was, though, there used to be eight. His eyes flicked toward the shadowy corner where they’d stacked the bodies. One died from injuries sustained when the shock wave smacked their ship like a child with an unwanted toy. Boxes and cartons and bags containing all manner of dry consumables lay about the compartment in semi-reorganized confusion. They’d put minimal effort in re-stacking everything. No one had much heart. Their situation just seemed too dire, as evidenced by bodies two and three: a Logistic Specialist named Mary Winterhaven, and a Personnel Specialist he only knew as Skip. He’d never gotten to learn Skip’s actual name, because the fucker turned zombie and tried to simultaneously rape and eat Mary, killing her in ways none of them now talked about. Roger and one of the others, Ship’s Serviceman Third, Peter Donitella - the ship’s barber, for Christ’s sweet sake - strangled Skip’s ass and dumped him in the corner.

  They could see. There remained some amount of power, though it was clear the nuclear plant tripped to its failsafe when the shock wave hit. The ship couldn’t go anywhere, he supposed, but at least they had lights. Having to think about those bodies in that corner in the dark would have been too goddamned much to bear.

  He scratched at the stubble on his chin - nearly a beard, since they hadn’t wanted to waste their limited water for anything like shaving or bathing. He could live with a beard, but he was getting really sick of the smell. Now, whether the stench came more from the dead bodies in the corner, or the live ones who hadn’t bathed in however many days or weeks, he didn’t know. And now it didn’t matter, because there was by-God gunfire. Somebody was going to rescue them - and soon, by the sound of it.

  “So what do you think?” Donitella asked. “Marines?”

  “Could be the fucking marching band, for all I care,” Yeoman Third Nick Pemberton replied.

  “Or the Coast Guard!” Personnel Specialist Second Guillermo Sanchez joked, to relieved laughter all around.

  “Right!” Logistics Specialist Striker Alex Zalinkov added. “Puddle Pirates to the rescue!”

  Roger laughed along with them. It felt good, after so long with not a single funny thing about any of this shit. “Wait,” he said. “It can’t be the Coast Guard. The water’s more than six feet deep out here.” It had them rolling on the deck. It wasn’t that good of a joke, he thought, but their collective entertainment threshold had taken an awful hit, of late. Anything would have left them rolling on the deck.

  Naturally, therefore, somebody needed to be a buzz kill. “Let us give thanks to God,” Religious Program Specialist Third Joshua Eversoll said.

  Roger did his best not to groan. Josh Eversoll was about as useless a POS as he’d ever met. How the kid, with those pencil-thin arms and that pasty white skin ever made it through boot, he would never know. He’d always considered
religion to be a waste of time, though he knew at least three of his compartment-mates disagreed. The wimpy shit conducted prayer meetings - actual fucking prayer meetings - like a zombie apocalypse was a good reason to thank the Almighty. If you asked Roger (and nobody did) God had some serious explaining to do.

  “Let’s bow our heads,” Eversoll said, and then thanks be to God, there came a knock at the compartment hatch.

  “Prayer meeting cancelled,” Culinary Specialist Second Class Roger Dawson - highest ranking man in the compartment - declared, standing and making his way toward the hatch. The others rose behind him and followed.

  As his hand reached toward the hatch’s dogging arm, whoever stood on the other side did the job for him. The arm rose with a CLANK, the hatch opened and - to his great surprise and confusion, three men stood there, clad in civilian clothes, covered in an odd assortment of what looked like clear garbage bags, their heads covered with shower caps. They wore gas masks. And were those dishwashing gloves? They were armed to the teeth and pointing their weapons in his face.

  “Whoa, whoa, easy, fellas,” he said, hands up and clear as he backpedaled away. “We’re friendly. And sane.”

  The man who came in first - and who looked to be in charge - stood about as tall as Roger. His face couldn’t be seen, but his eyes, through the mask, looked about as unfriendly as any he’d ever seen.

  “Hi,” Roger said, his voice tentative.

  “Who are you people?” The man asked, his voice muffled, weapon still pointed straight into Roger’s face. The two men behind him entered and fanned out to either side.

  “Uh,” was all he could think to reply.

  “What’s your rating?” The man asked. It seemed more than odd, but Roger felt at least a semblance of normalcy. This was a question he could answer.

  “I’m a Culinary Specialist,” he said. “A cook.”