“I suppose ray guns are out of the question?”
Duke grabbed Harold by the harness and flung him toward the ladder leading to the Buoy Deck. He staggered a couple of running steps, caught his balance, then headed forward under his own power.
“Everything ready, Petty Officer Peterson?” Molly asked, coming out of the hatch from the Cabin Vestibule.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Duke answered, then paused, seeing Jonesy’s head jerk in the universal sign of...Even Jonesy didn’t know what, exactly he was trying to convey. Get her out of here? Secret conference? He darted his eyes toward the fantail in theatrical fashion, in an effort to get the big Bosun to send her that way. “Uh...” Duke said.
“We need to get you a hand weapon, Ma’am,” Jonesy said. It was all he could think to say.
She hesitated, cocking her head as if t say I’m onto your bullshit, but nodded, finally, and headed aft.
Jonesy pointed toward her retreating backside, as soon as he deemed her to be out of earshot. “You see that fine pair of buttocks?”
Duke looked and smiled. “Nice turd cutter,” he said.
Jonesy stepped back and shook his head. “You really are a sick fuck, you know that?”
“I do.”
“Never mind,” Jonesy said. “You job is to protect that ass,” he said. “I expect it to come back here in pristine condition.”
“Roger that.”
“Now get the fuck out of here.” Jonesy said.
“I’ll be sure and stay safe, too, while I’m at it,” Duke replied.
“Whatever.”
117
USCG ISC Honolulu
Sand Island, Oahu
“Duke, you go first,” Molly said, whispering into the integrated microphone. “Then me, then Harold, and Gary, you come last.”
“Back of the bus, as usual,” Gary said. He was joking - or at least she hoped he was - but he sounded nervous. And why not? She was nervous as Hell. They were climbing onto a concrete pier filled with dead bodies, and surrounded by wandering, bloodthirsty homicidal maniacs, bent on... Okay, they weren’t bent on anything, really. Being bent on something indicated intent, and she sincerely doubted the zombies intended anything beyond their next meal. Her job, then, was to make sure she and her team weren’t on the menu.
Babbling inside my own head, she chided herself, as Duke began to climb the seaweed and barnacle-encrusted metal ladder leading onto the pier. It looked like a long way to climb, though she knew it couldn’t be, knew the tidal range in the Hawaiian Islands wasn’t that high, and, therefore, the distance between the water and the concrete couldn’t be that far. Babbling... Get a grip, Mol.
Duke’s feet disappeared over the top, and now it was her turn. She started to climb. The ladder felt slimy - a technical impossibility, since she wore two layers of gloves on her hand, and, thus, could only sense the slipperiness of the surface. But, dammit, it still felt slimy. Keep climbing...
The body of a woman lay not ten feet from her face as it popped over the lip of steel surrounding the concrete slab edge. Its eyes were open and staring right at Molly. She froze. Move, dammit! She moved.
Harold came up next, pulling the cooler up with him. Inside were bags of ice, wrapped in plastic, covered by a small plastic tarp, and several small, plastic garbage bags, into which they’d be placing the spinal chords. Her stomach lurched at the thought.
They were seriously on a mission to strip the spines from the corpses laying all around them - dozens of them. Jonesy and Harold had been extraordinarily efficient in their marksmanship. Somewhere out there on the pier, lay the body of their CO - their real CO, not the self-important, wife-killing blowhard, Medavoy, and definitely not some brand new boot Ensign so far out of her depth, she needed a submarine to survive.
What the fuck was she thinking? What the fuck was she doing out there, playing at leader, playing at being someone who knew what she was doing?
“Ma’am?” Duke asked, through her earpiece. He wanted orders. They wanted orders. They wanted her to lead them. She should turn around, head back down the ladder, get back into the boat and return to the ship. Jonesy could lead them. Or John. Or anybody other than– “We’ve got company.”
The nagging voice inside her head fell silent. Her darting eyes stopped their rapid movement, stopped trying to see everything and everywhere at once. They focused on Duke, on his pointing finger and hand, at the lurching crowd of three zombies headed their way.
“Gary, get to work,” she ordered, too busy to examine the reason why her voice sounded solid, confident, commanding. “Harold, stay with him.” She pulled the kukri machete from its backpack sheath. “Duke, let’s go.”
118
USCGC Assateague
Honolulu Harbor
“Ugliness inbound,” Frank Roessler said into Jeri Weaver’s earpiece. The two of them were on the forward Gun Deck, standing by the 25mm auto cannon. The Marines called it a Bushmaster, but there wasn’t a whole lot of shrubbery out on the high seas, so the Coast Guard just called it the Twenty-Five Mike-Mike. Some ships - all of them, really - made names for them. Some of the more formal Commanding Officers thought it sounded unprofessional, so sometimes the names remained underground, but a ship’s crew is a twisted assortment of people, and so the names stuck. Assateague’s was called Belinda.
“Roger that,” Weaver said, cycling the weapon and aiming it at the incoming zombies. Only three of them in sight. Belinda wouldn’t even get warm.
Opinions differed as to the origin of that particular name. Some believed the BM1 who named her was a big Go-Go’s fan, and so named the weapon after the band’s lead singer, Belinda Carlisle. Some thought the woman in question had been an ex-wife or girlfriend, alternately loved or hated, depending on the romantic history of the person claiming to know the answer. Jeri liked to believe it was the name of a beloved - if somewhat vicious - pet dog.
Whatever the reasoning, the chain gun - so named because of the roller chain used to draw the bolt back and forth - was capable of firing two hundred rounds a minute of belt-fed, 25x137 mm, MK210 High Explosive Incendiary ammunition, with a range of three thousand meters. The Army and Marines used it to take out lightly-armored vehicles. The Coast Guard used it to shoot down aircraft, or - more likely - blow through the hulls of drug-runner boats. It was one mean motherfucker of a weapon.
Some of the Buoy Tenders carried them, though not the Sass. The Kukui, on which Weaver had been a Deckie and part of the gun crew, did, however. And while he’d never used one in actual combat, he was trained on it. Frank, on the other hand, was not, but using the thing wasn’t exactly rocket science.
Jim Barber volunteered to be part of the gun team, but both John and Ms Gordon sent his exhausted ass to the rack. He and the pilot were now dreaming the dreams of the just - or so Jeri thought, though he didn’t really care.
Dan McMullen and Gus were over of the Sassafras Buoy Deck, gathering the ingredients for the explosive charges they would use to blow the bridge between Sand Island and Honolulu. As such, Jeri was more than happy to be on another ship, entirely. Mister Perniola seemed competent enough - in a gruff sort of way - but McMullen was just a little too gleeful about blowing shit up to make Weaver comfortable. Lane Keely was in the rack as well, since he had the mid watch, and Jonesy was on the Sass Bridge with Samantha Gordon.
What a crew, he thought. What a collection of misfits. He smiled, though with his face covered by the gas mask, no one knew it but himself. Just the way I like it.
Movement, off to the right, caught his attention - a whole bunch of it. Things were about to get real busy.
119
USCGC Sassafras
Honolulu Harbor
“Oh that is so gross,” Samantha Gordon said, turning away from the sight of Gary King - mild-mannered cook - carving the spine out of a zombie.
Jonesy sort of grunted in reply. He was too busy watching the rest of the team - watching her cousin, Molly - make their way down the pier toward
the growing crowd of live zombies that were coming to join the festivities.
Was she feeling jealous of Molly? Not for being out there with the crazies - oh no. Her cousin could have all of that she wanted - could have her share, as well. Grosvenor Park in Astoria gave her all the up close and personal time with the diseased freaks she could - or did - ever want. But the man now standing next to her, on the other hand...
Samantha wasn’t an idiot. She had eyes. She knew Molly and Jonesy had history. She also knew the bit about officers and enlisted not being able to hook up. Sixteen years in a Coast Guard family drummed all sorts of things into her head - most of which she forgot or ignored - but some things stuck. And some things resurfaced from her memory when she needed them to. Things like the romance restriction.
Again, she wasn’t an idiot, knew Jonesy was, like, almost twice her age, that he was a man and she was still a girl. But this was a whole new world, wasn’t it? Didn’t that mean the rules changed as well?
Dream on, Samantha, her rational side told her. And she should pay attention to it, accept it, learn from it. Isn’t that what her Dad kept telling her it meant to grow up? Yeah, okay, whatever. Maybe it was true. Maybe it was correct and right and the way of the world. Did that mean she had to like it? No. It did not. And it certainly didn’t mean she couldn’t dream - especially since reality was a man using a butcher’s knife to remove the spine of what used to be a human being. Dream on, baby, she thought. While you still can.
She felt more than saw Jonesy stiffen next to her. Zombies. Three of them.
But he was next to her. Right there. She could reach out and touch his solid muscles, feel them ripple beneath her fingers, feel their warmth, their heat.
Ooh, boy, is it ever getting warm in here!
Snap out of it! That rational inner nag could really be a bitch sometimes. She glanced at him. So near. So far. He leaned forward, all of his attention locked onto the pier. She looked, and suddenly one thought took all the other nonsense straight out of her head, wrestled it to the ground, and danced hip hop upon it - complete with twerking.
Molly’s in trouble.
120
USCGC Polar Star
26.551187N 117.383385W
“Hundred miles out,” BM3/OPS Greg Riley announced, after plotting the latest sun line. They’d been navigating by the sun and stars for a couple weeks now, and his brain still hurt every time he did the calculations, but less so than it had been when they started. Progress, he thought, rubbing his temples.
“Very well,” Master Chief grunted, picking up the center console telephone and dialing. “Evening, Captain,” he said. “We are one hundred miles from Midway.” Greg watched his craggy, impassive face as he took in whatever the CO told him - even though he knew what it would be, “Roger that,” Wolf said, hanging up. “Set Flight Quarters.”
Riley, already at the 1-MC, started the pipe. “Now, set Flight Quarters Condition One...”
“Midway on radar...” the phased voice of LT Carrie Scoggins said over the Air Comm Radio. LTjg Amy Montrose felt the frisson of excitement, knowing it was silly to do so. They were on the ship, steaming at a stately fifteen-point-five knots, to conserve fuel. The HH65 helicopter was still a good fifty miles out from the atoll. A whole lot of not much was currently happening, and she couldn’t even affect what little of it there was. Still, it excited her. One step closer to civilization.
This was also a silly thought. Patently ridiculous, come to think of it. Equating Midway with civilization before the plague would have been like calling a pup tent the Taj Mahal. But it was land, terra firma, solid ground that didn’t roll side to side, didn’t require sore knees to compensate for the imbalance caused by the sea.
Any port in a storm.
And there were people - new people, faces she hadn’t been staring at for months and months and months, first during their deployment to Antarctica, then their exile while the world fell apart. There might, she thought, even be a little bit of alcohol.
She wasn’t a drinker - not really. But seven months at sea - let alone the harsh reality of a zombie apocalypse - had really built up a thirst. In short, she wanted to get hammered. Hell, the entire crew wanted to get shitfaced, falling, down drunk, and she, by God, wanted to join them. She grinned at the idea.
“Why does your smile scare me?” Wheeler said, sidling up to her at the forward Bridge windows. Neither one of them had the watch. Neither one of them had any real responsibility while the helo was in the air. Didn’t matter. Everybody - officers and enlisted - were up and waiting in breathless anticipation of this new thing, this new reality.
“It’s a hopeful smile, sir,” she said.
“Oh?” He asked. “And what are you hoping for.”
Her grin widened. “An open bar on Midway.”
He laughed. “I’ll buy the first round.”
“Polar Star, 6585. Over.”
Wheeler walked to the Port console and picked up the handset. “6585, send your traffic. Over.”
There was a pause. Lungs throughout the Bridge breathed in air and held it. Then the pilot spoke the words they’d all been dreaming of for weeks: “Land ho!”
121
S/V Annie’s Birthday
22.314729N 172.562836W
“...O’er the Land of the Freeeeeeeeeee,” Clara sang, loud, off key, and incredibly, stupidly, irreversibly drunk. “And the Hoooooome of the Braaaaaaaave!” Had there been fish present, they’d have swum to calmer, quieter waters. Fuck em, she thought. “Fuck em!” she screamed.
On top of stealing the sailboat, and their stock of vaccine, and several arm-loads of food and water and fuel and everything else not nailed down and capable of being secreted away on the sailboat while no one was looking, she’d also found four - count them, four - bottles of premium liquor. The current example was scotch - fifty year-old Chivas Regal Royal Salute, to be precise. She didn’t know bupkis about scotch or any alcohol, in general, but she had developed an encyclopedic knowledge of expensive.
One of the lawyers at her job in Astoria - a slimy creature who enjoyed having her sit on his face and smother him with her private area - told her one intoxicated evening that this particular scotch went for ten grand a bottle. She took an enormous swig from said bottle, grimaced at the taste, and shouted: “Fuck em!” again. And fuck Lazy Boy Face, too, while I’m at it.
Fuck them all...
No. Oops. Sorry. Not going to fuck any of them again.
They were gone, a memory. Or maybe a zombie. Or maybe dead. What the fuck do I care?
She stared at the compass in front of the steering wheel helm-thing, at the back of the cabin area, where she should have been sleeping this particular drunken day off. But one thing Teddy taught her kept rolling around in her inebriated brain: Never leave the sails unattended.
He pounded that idea into her head, over and over and over again - even going so far as to question her on it while he was in the middle of pounding her from behind, during one of their breaks. What must you never do? He asked, still fucking her, still plowing away. Didn’t even lose the rhythm.
She took another sip - smaller this time. It was getting really drunk out, that was for sure.
“Woo Hoo!” she shouted. Had there been sea birds, they’d have flown the coop. But there weren’t. There wasn’t anything. Just the sea and the waves and the wind and the slap of the sails, and Clara Blondelle - all alone.
I’ll drink to that, she thought, but didn’t do.
Why should you never leave the sails unattended?
Because doing so might get you killed.
That bit of her training had sunk in, right to her toes. Because doing so might get you killed. The thought sobered her - but not much. She looked at the bottle. Ten thousand dollars... Still about half-full. Might get you killed.
The bottle went over the side. Time to make some coffee.
122
USCG ISC Honolulu
Sand Island, Oahu
“I�
�m gonna fucking die!” Harold shouted, swinging his modified baseball bat into the skull of a former Lieutenant from the Office of Aids to Navigation. The uniformed zombie fell to the concrete. Plenty more where he came from.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Duke chided, kicking the knees out of another zombie who’d been about to tackle Molly. She chopped the head off of a third with the Kukri Machete.
When she’d gone aft, so that Jonesy could be a complete sexist with Duke (you bet your ass she’d heard what he said) her original intent was to grab another of the fire axes off the superstructure bulkhead, but half a second’s thought changed her mind. While an axe served her well on the Flying Bridge, during their battle for control of the ship, they were, as a weapon, too long, too unwieldy, and required too much upper-body lumberjack strength. She was no slouch, when it came to physical fitness, but Paul Bunyan, she was not. One trip down to the Bosun Hold later, and she had herself a machete.
“It is getting kind of lively, though,” Duke added.
She couldn’t argue - for a number of reasons: he was right - that was the first one. She was too damned busy, for the second. And it wouldn’t have made any difference, for the third.
“Ground team, this is Sass,” Jonesy’s voice came over the radio.
“Go,” she yelled. Wasn’t necessary for her to do so, of course. Tucked beneath the gas mask, the microphone wouldn’t pick up anything but her own reply, but the current situation seemed to call for yelling.
“Large group of bad guys headed your way,” he said, not sounding at all calm about it. “Permission to open fire.”
The plan was to hold fire as long as possible to avoid attracting every zombie in Honolulu. They seemed to be attracted by noise, and gunfire tended to make a lot of it, so hand-to-hand methods were preferable. She cast her eyes around the pier and nearby buildings. Staying quiet didn’t seem to be doing much good.
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Zombies In Paradise Page 27
