Hunter Wars Omnibus Edition (Books 1 - 3)

by SD Tanner

  Gears and Pax had mounted two M240 machine guns on each of the crew windows. Pax trained Benny how to use one, and gave him a brief walkthrough of a weapon he hadn’t used in quite a while. Now he and Benny grabbed the guns and, as Hatch flew low over the hunters, they opened fire and it didn’t take long to thoroughly strafe the hunters below. Staring down at their prone bodies, he felt a guilty satisfaction.

  Hatch resumed his original flight path towards the private airfield and through his headset, he asked, ‘What did ya see?’

  Benny replied, ‘An Olympic size swimming pool with a 1,000 sleeping hunters.’

  Hatch drawled, ‘Shiiit.’

  Shit indeed, he thought. He’d seen a lot of hunters in a lot of different places, but he’d never seen that many in one place. It was like it was a nest and he’d never seen them nesting before. He didn’t think it was a good development. It implied there was a growing cohesion between the hunters and they were forming packs. It led him to wonder if the hunters were now eating animals as well as humans. That could explain why he’d seen no herds in the area. If that were the case, the hunters could wipe out more than just the human race, they could destroy all life on earth. He realized if there was to be anything left of any species, they desperately needed the counter virus to work.

  The golf course was about 100 miles from the Base, and once they refueled at the private airfield, they planned to follow the coastline east from New Orleans. It wasn’t an area they knew well, but Fagan’s maps showed there were a lot of towns across the region. He’d spoken to a few of the survivors who knew the route they planned to take, and he was assured he would find a variety of hotels, businesses and depots. He figured it was worth a look and thought there might be survivors in the area.

  The private airfield only had a small office and hangar for repairs. They’d brought a small generator with them, which they planned to leave for the fuel pump and it was a straightforward refueling to get them ready to go again. Before leaving, they decided to have lunch and sat sitting in a row on the platform of the bird, dangling their legs outside the door. A Black Hawk has an adaptable interior and can carry up to 15 people including two pilots. This one was set up with eight seats, plus the pilot and co-pilot seats. With a range of about 360 miles, it extended well beyond their current 80-mile reach. Assuming they didn’t find another safe airfield, they could now reach a maximum of about 180 miles, but he was confident they’d find airfields they could use for refueling. In theory, they could now travel across the country quickly and safely.

  While Hatch chewed on a protein bar, he contemplated them and asked curiously, ‘Why are you guys workin’ so hard? It’s the end of the world and this is likely ya last chance to relax.’

  Benny shrugged and replied nonchalantly, ‘Why not? Aside from all the shit that wants to kill you, the end of the world gets kinda boring.’

  Is it, he wondered? Is the end of the world just a boring event? Turning to Benny, he said bluntly, ‘I’m not bored.’

  Shrugging again, Benny said, ‘Well, of course not. I’m too busy to be bored now, but before I met you guys there were short periods of extreme terror, but mostly it was boring. Hiding at night, foraging by day and dealing with hunters and assholes.’ Warming to his subject, Benny continued, ‘I mean life before all this happened was kinda boring too. Workin’ for the man, with a few weeks’ vacation, but at least you could do other stuff. We had the web, we had TV, the Super Bowl, music, games, and bars. We had lotsa stuff to do. But now? What do we get to do? Hide, forage and avoid crazies with guns. Travelling anywhere is practically a suicide mission, and there’s nothing much fun to break up the repetition. I mean that was true until I met you guys.’ Benny beamed at him and said excitedly, ‘Now I got a gun and I’m flying in a heli! It doesn’t get much better than that!’

  Hatch chuckled, elbowed him and said, ‘Kids eh, can’t keep ‘emselves amused without the web.’

  He hadn’t thought of it that way. Like most, he’d assumed the end of the world would be too terrifying to be dull, but the human mind was adaptive. Once the shock of any event wears off, the new status quo becomes the norm. Maybe we’ll all go mad in 20 years’ time when the PTSD kicks in, he thought, but in the meantime Benny had a point. Before they’d taken on this mission, he thought it was all getting to be a bit samey. Same shit, different day and, despite the moments of extreme adrenalin, it was pretty boring.

  Hitching himself off the platform, he walked away from the pump and called, ‘If anyone needs to see man about a horse, do it now. We should get moving.’

  Heading up the coast from New Orleans, he kept a look out for anything that might be useful. Benny brought a tablet cam and was recording clips for Fagan to match to maps back at the Base. He knew there was a naval yard just inland from the coast around this area, but aside from the golf course, the trip was proving uneventful and uninformative. He was starting to understand what Benny was saying about post-apocalyptic boredom and he felt his attention drift.

  Before the end of the world he’d had his job, liked to read, hunt, travel, usually had a girlfriend and he’d always managed to keep himself busy and entertained. He was a serial monogamist and his dating history read like a train schedule. His relationships usually lasted two to three years, and then would end abruptly or peter out and within a few months his next relationship would kick off. He’d learned women tended to leave him one way or another. Some just left, others departed with a dramatic scene and he knew a few had two-timed him on their way out the door, but they all ended the same way. The woman would leave and he would go find his brothers, grab a beer, briefly commiserate and then forget about it. Occasionally it occurred to him there was something wrong with his relationships and that he was the common denominator, but none of them had gotten married. He’d been engaged quite a few times, but the relationships never made it up the aisle. Gears was with a woman for eight years, but that ended abruptly and, to his knowledge, Gears never asked her to marry him. As for Pax, where to start? His taste in women was so bad, they wouldn’t let him bring his women back to wherever they were living. They only had to be robbed a couple of times before that house rule came into play.

  While his mind had been wandering, Hatch had flown out to sea and finally noticing, he shouted, ‘Where are you going?’

  Hatch called back, ‘Look down!’

  He stuck his head out of the crew window and the strong wind instantly buffeted around his head. Craning his neck and peering down, he saw a huge white cruise ship with a helipad.

  Hatch shouted, ‘Wanna land?’

  Yes, he did, but he didn’t want a repeat of what happened earlier that day. Hightailing it from the golf hotel with 40 hunters on his ass hadn’t been fun and he shouted, ‘Recon from the bird first.’

  Hatch circled the cruise ship slowly, staying far enough away to avoid the wind pushing him into the ship, but close enough for them to get a pretty good view of it. From the air, they could see it was a spectacular luxury cruise ship named, “Destiny”. It had at least four levels of cabins and three of the levels seemed to have balconies. The bridge was a curved set of dark windows on the second level down. At the top of the boat was a huge communications tower that stood high in the air, and further back was some sort of boxy looking construct he assumed was used by the engine. Hanging on either side of the construct, were four enormous lifeboats ready to be lowered into the sea. As they flew over the top of ship, he could see the top level was a hollow oval-shaped walkway and on the level below was a now empty and enormous swimming pool. The top level was designed to allow the sun to shine over the pool, while shading the guests lounging around it. At the back of the ship was a helipad.

  For some reason the cruise ship was anchored about a mile from the harbor. He assumed whoever was in control of the ship left it far enough away from the coast to make it difficult for anyone to board it. There was nothing moving on the deck of the ship, and he couldn’t see anyone through the windows either. Given
the bird was closely circling the ship, he thought if anyone or anything was on board, he should have seen something move.

  Benny shouted, ‘That’s weird!’

  It’s more than weird, he thought, it’s a little creepy. He vaguely remembered seeing a movie where a ship was found floating empty, and he recalled it was filled with ghosts. He didn’t believe in ghosts and he mentally shrugged off the idea and continued to study the ship.

  Calling to Hatch, he said, ‘Let’s land! Benny look lively. We could have company down there.’

  Over excited, Benny shouted, ‘Looks dead to me.! I saw a movie like that once, and the ship was full of ghosts.’

  Rolling his eyes, he said loudly, ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts, Benny. Dead people stay dead.’

  Hatch laughed and declared cheerfully, ‘Not anymore they don’t.’ Hatch began to sing, ‘Yippee yi ohhh, yippee yi aaaay….Ghost riders in the sky...’

  Rolling his eyes again, he shouted, ‘Even I’m too young for Johnny Cash.’

  Howling with laughter, Hatch shouted, ‘You’re not too young if ya know who he is!’

  Benny looked back him, clearly confused, and he assumed Benny didn’t know who they were talking about. Hatch landed the bird on the helipad at the back of the ship perfectly. He thought that considering he’d failed his training, was mentally unstable and an alcoholic, Hatch was a pretty good pilot. Much to his surprise, as long as they could live with his truly awful choice in music and his even worse singing voice, they’d really lucked out with him. After their run in with the hunters that morning, Hatch wisely kept the bird idling and ready to fly.

  He looked warily out onto the deck. It was a little salt spattered with tracts of bird shit, but there was no trash anywhere and it looked clean. They climbed out of the bird, walked down one side of the ship and peered through the darkened windows. He thought the noise of the still running bird would no doubt bring any hunters to the windows to investigate. Putting his face up to another window, he peered in and could see a bar with a lounge, but there didn’t seem to be any damage to the interior. Hunters were destructive and if any had ever been in the room, it would have been wrecked.

  Turning to Benny, he said, ‘Place looks clear of hunters. Let’s go in.’

  The door had a simple gold metal plate gracefully etched with, “The Midway Bar”. Benny stood with his weapon ready and he pushed the heavy dark glass door open. Given they could see into the bar through the windows, it was unlikely there was any risk, but these days it was good practice to go into any room ready to kill. He followed Benny through the door, and they both stopped and gazed in awe.

  Benny whistled appreciatively and said gleefully, ‘Wow! Check it out!’

  He thought if anyone or anything was near the bar, they now knew they were there and said sharply, ‘Benny! Keep it down!’

  Remembering his training, Benny said sheepishly, ‘Aww, yeah. Sorry.’

  Looking around the bar, he had to admit it was spectacular. It was hard to bridge the gap between the luxury he was looking at now and the downtrodden conditions they lived in at the Base. Everything in the bar was coated with a very fine layer of dust, but the fixtures and fittings still looked polished and bright. Along the back wall of the room was a long black glass-topped bar, with a fat cream leather trim where guests could rest their elbows comfortably, while sitting on the wide-based matching cream-colored leather stools. Behind the bar, there was an almost endless row of bottles of every kind of liquor ever made, and the mirrored background on the back wall of the bar added to the illusion of an eternity of alcohol.

  Turning to Benny, he said dourly, ‘Better keep Hatch out of here, or we’ll never make it home alive.’

  Looking in front of the bar, he saw a collection of low marble-based glass topped tables circled by cream-colored over-sized and over-stuffed leather chairs in clusters of two, four and six seats. He could smell the faint odor of cigars and, when he looked across the low tables, he saw some of the large heavy crystal ashtrays favored by old-fashioned cigar lounges.

  Impressed, he said, ‘This must have been some sort of private cruise ship. Guess you can do whatever you like once you’re out at sea.’

  ‘It does look pretty classy,’ Benny observed. ‘But then I’ve never been on any cruise ship, so maybe they’re all like this.’

  Shaking his head, he said pragmatically, ‘I don’t think so, but for an upmarket cruise ship, this one is huge.’

  Judging by the size of the ship and the number of portholes they had seen from the air, he guessed it might have 200 guest rooms, plus whatever rooms they had for crew. It wasn’t a small ship, but it wasn’t one of the cruise liners designed for thousands of people either. Benny had dumped himself in one of the over-sized chairs and was bouncing up and down, testing it for comfort.

  Amused and happy, Benny declared enthusiastically, ‘This feels great. I haven’t sat on a sofa in months.’

  Ignoring Benny, he walked over to the doors opposite the bar that led deeper into the ship. The double doors each had a stylized porthole filled with darkened glass and he peered through one intently. Beyond the bar was a dim and wide corridor with dark glass walls on either side. He couldn’t quite see what was behind the glass, but it all looked quiet and undisturbed.

  Turning to face Benny, he said, ‘Come on, Benny, let’s check it out.’

  Benny bounded over to him and they pulled out their flashlights, leaving the bar to continue their exploration. On the left hand side of the corridor was a large well-equipped gym and on their right was an entrance to an area labelled, “Personal Pampering”. Judging by the décor behind the glass wall, it was some sort of spa treatment area. Further down the corridor were shops, a guest reception area and an internet café. Beyond the reception area, was another set of heavy looking double doors. He peered through them, but could only see two doors to the left and right before it was too dark to see anything further down the corridor. While looking through the port window of the door, he accidentally leaned against it and realized it was a swing door that was not locked in position. If there were hunters down the corridor, they could have easily swung the door open and he assumed it was clear of hunters.

  He turned and faced the reception area. It would have looked like any hotel reception area, except the main desk was marble topped with curved, but still crisp edges that gracefully encircled the staff that must have once stood there. Deep plush velvet chairs, with low polished dark wood tables were scattered elegantly around the room allowing guests to rest in complete comfort while staff did their bidding. To the left of reception, was a concierge area with both a standing and sitting height table where people would have organized their events and needs with the staff. Off the reception area, was a wide polished staircase leading up and down the ship and behind the stairwell was a set of four shiny silver and gold elevators. He shook his head and thought, how the other half live, although he seriously doubted half the people had ever lived like this. Only a very small number of people could have afforded this sort of luxury, and he certainly had never been one of them.

  Returning his attention to the double doors behind him, he said, ‘Come on, Benny, let’s keep looking.’

  Pushing through the doors, they trained their flashlights ahead and saw it was a long corridor with a row of doors leading off it to the left and right. It looked like they were guest rooms. They listened intently, but the ship was as silent as a ghost ship. He could feel a faint vibration through his feet, but he thought that was probably the still running Black Hawk. They walked the length of the corridor, but heard and saw nothing and the level appeared to be empty, so they returned to the reception area and the staircase. Tucked around the corner of the reception area and hidden from view, they found a smaller set of stairs that led to the decks below.

  Benny turned to him and asked,’ Up or down?’

  He decided he wanted to check if the ship had any obvious signs of damage to the engines and said, ‘Let’s do a qui
ck recon of down first. I want to see if this ship might still be able to sail.’

  They went down the narrower and distinctly plainer set of stairs, and faced another long corridor. At one end of the corridor were service elevators, and at the other a large well equipped kitchen, and next to it was an equally well-equipped laundry. The kitchen was so large, he assumed it must have supplied the food for the whole ship. The rest of the level was a utilitarian corridor, and there were doors to rooms with several plain looking stairways leading below, plus there was a service elevator at one end. Judging by the sudden loss of luxury, he assumed these were the crew quarters. They went down one of the stairways into what was obviously the engine area for the ship. This level was a maze of small corridors and doors that opened out into the engine room itself. The engines were as silent as the ship, but there was no obvious signs of damage.

  Returning to the reception area, they continued exploring the more luxurious areas of the ship. The next level contained a large restaurant, another reception and concierge, casino, games room and more guest rooms. Above that level were two more restaurants, a library, another beauty and spa area with sauna, a large show room for events and even more guest rooms. The next level contained a large pool and decking area, an outdoor bar, barbeque area and an indoor bar. The hollowed out top level was just a walkway that rimmed the pool and decking area below. It had a jogging track and another gym at one end, but the bulk of the level was occupied by the radio tower and a huge ventilated construct that he believed had something to do with the engines.

  Earlier they’d radioed Hatch to shut down the bird, but told him to wait on board. He thought the ship was safe, but he didn’t want Hatch unsupervised in the well-stocked bar. They hadn’t checked every room, but he figured if there was anything alive or moving it would have heard them by now and reacted. On the main deck, they’d found signs of a gunfight. There were bullet holes along the barriers and some streaks of old blood in the corners of the deck. With the rain, it was hard to tell how much blood had ever been there, but clearly there’d been a violent fight. He assumed whoever brought the ship out and anchored it at sea, was probably dead and most likely fallen overboard. Although they hadn’t checked every room, they hadn’t seen a single body anywhere. It’s like the Marie Celeste, he thought, floating abandoned and no one will ever know why.