Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 4): Zombies of Infamy

by Thomson, Jeff

  “So Captain Hall gave us a two-for-one deal on insanity, in other words,” Jonesy had said, knowing the mistake as soon as he’d said it. Wheeler’s patent-pending deadpan stare had been answer enough. “Yes, sir,” had been all Jonesy could say. “I’ll take Ms. Gordon, then,” he’d said, and received another raised eyebrow, in answer. Thank goodness they’d been doing this inside the Cabin, rather than on the Bridge, since most of Wheeler’s responses were non-verbal. The necessity of wearing gas masks would have rendered the conversation unintelligible.

  And so now there he was, taking a pleasant morning boat ride with the woman of his dreams, into a scene of abject chaos - which brought up the subject (and implications) of his no longer being enlisted.

  “Speaking of which,” he said, steeling himself to address the elephant in the room - or, rather, the elephant on the Zodiac, as they motored their way into the destruction of Pearl Harbor. It seemed an odd time to broach this particular subject, but the two of them were alone, except for the zombies, who seemed to be waving at them from the tip of Waipi’O Point, as the RHIB turned to enter the channel to the right. Jonesy waved back at them, then said: “I am an officer now, so...”

  “So...what?” Molly said, pointedly not looking at him. In fairness, there were plenty of other things to capture her attention - all of them bad. To the left, zombies, to the right, the wreckage of Hickam Air Field (with more of the annoying homicidal bastards), up ahead, still mostly obscured by a bend in the channel, Ford Island, and all around them, the debris of civilization floating in the calm water.

  “So the whole officer/enlisted thing no longer applies,” he said, spinning the wheel to the left to avoid some of that debris.

  She finally turned to look at him. “Don’t go there, Jonesy. Please.”

  He’d expected this response, knew it would be her immediate reaction, and so, was ready for it. What he wasn’t ready for, however, was the anger that came with it.

  Well, not anger, exactly. More like frustration, and a sense of the pointlessness of the argument. He loved her. Check. She loved him (whether she’d admit it to herself - or him - or not). Check. And in this fallen world, the rest was just senseless bullshit - the endless dance of a woman who was driving him up a damned wall.

  They’d had something good on the Healy. They’d had something good from the moment they met, so many years ago, in Alaska. Then, they’d avoided the subject like the proverbial plague, because she was too young, and her uncle was Jonesy’s boss. Okay. That had made sense. But when they finally got together, finally made the plunge toward what they’d both wanted for years, it had been amazing.

  They fit so well together. The chemistry was undeniable. And for a time, it had been the best thing that ever happened to him. Then the cruise ended, and she was headed back to the Academy, telling him don’t call, don’t write. He’d put up a good front, passed it off as a delightful fling, slipped their relationship into the mental file labeled Friends With Benefits.

  But all that had been bullshit. The way it ended hurt.

  Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Wasn’t the guy supposed to be the one who broke things off, and trivialized a great thing? Wasn’t he the one who should feel nothing?

  Then, that fucking asshole Murphy just had to send her orders to Sassafras. Okay. Wonderful. Just ducky. He was an adult. He was mature. He could handle it.

  Of course, the apocalypse helped. He’d been too damned busy staying alive, too damned occupied with killing his shipmates to dwell on what his heart wanted. Ditto, after the worst of it was over. They were too busy trying to rescue the rest of their world.

  But then had come The Shower. She made the first move. She came into his stateroom, not the other way around. She’d been seeking comfort, and the celebration of being alive. It had been her idea. Then she’d just walked away and expected him to forget it ever happened.

  Don’t take this the wrong way, she’d said, as she’d slipped naked into his arms. Well, just how the fuck was he supposed to take it?

  They rounded Hospital Point, and Ford Island came completely into view. But for a moment, Jonesy couldn’t see it. The sight simply didn’t register. Only the frustration did.

  “Fine,” he said, finally, the coldness of his anger filling his heart. “Have it your way. I’ll never mention it again.” He paused for dramatic effect, his heart both racing, and feeling as if it weighed a ton. “Ever,” he added.

  He heard her draw in a deep breath next to him, as if he’d just gut-punched her, but he ignored it, the words having somehow cleared his vision. It might have been that he noticed the zombies stumbling along the shoreline, or, perhaps, the burned-out wreckage of some of the buildings on the southwest corner of the island. He could have seen the abandoned cars and other military vehicles dotting the landscape. He could have seen a whole lot of things. Instead, what drew his gaze into sharp focus, like looking through a rifle scope (or a bomb sight) was the iconic white shape of the USS Arizona Memorial.

  58

  Warehouse 14

  Ford Island, HI

  “Puddle Pirates in a dingy, Staff Sergeant,” PFC Claus Dittery said, his eyes glued to the binoculars, and his finger pointing. “Over by the Memorial.”

  “If just one more of you knuckleheads fails to show the proper respect to our fellow Armed Forces, I’m going to start skinning people alive,” McNaughton said, joining the young Private at the edge of the warehouse roof.

  Off in the distance, he could see the low, black and International Orange shape of the Zodiac. Two people were hopping onto the access ramp of the Arizona Memorial, having just tied off - one large and apparently armed to the teeth, the other smaller, and just as clearly female.

  “Sorry Staff Sergeant,” Dittery said.

  “Don’t be sorry,’ McNaughton replied. “Just pull your head out of your ass.” He thumbed toward the figures disappearing in to the white structure. “We’re going to owe them our lives.”

  “Yes, Staff Sergeant,” Dittery replied, sounding suitably chagrined. He was a good kid. They were all good kids.

  The notion jolted him for a moment, though he showed no outward indication. A dozen years in the Marine Corps had taught him how not to respond.

  But still... They were just kids. His oldest subordinate on the original mission, Lance Corporal Lanier, had barely turned twenty-one, when the virus happened. Dittery was only nineteen, and might have to shave twice a week to remain within standards. The other seven, Privates Davis, Chesney, Nicholson, Saperstein, Yaguda, Heidrich, and Patrelli, were each only eighteen, barely out of bootcamp. They’d been assigned as grunt labor, to lift and tote the disaster supplies. McNaughton, himself, was an old and wizened thirty.

  They’d started the mission with twenty men. Now they were down to only ten. And for all he knew, they were the only remaining members of the Marine Corps on Oahu. Fuck a duck, he thought, then mentally smacked himself upside the head. Square away, Marine.

  He turned to Dittery. “Go get the signal mirror.”

  59

  Dillingham Airfield

  Oahu, North Shore

  “Stand by!” BM2/DECK Ed Dickie shouted from the LCVP conning station. ET2 Scott Pruden felt a frisson of both anxiety and anticipation, mixed with an odd sort of historical twist. They were about to debauch from the Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel, and onto the beach on the North Shore of Oahu, like heroes of old upon the shores of Normandy on D-Day. Call this Z-Day, perhaps, since they’d be facing zombies, instead of Nazis.

  The Star had gotten underway, after taking the Skull Mobile aboard, along with certain of the combined base and Sass personnel, and headed around to the North Shore to facilitate this part of the day’s fun and games - for which Scott (and most, if not all of the big truck’s occupants) was suitably grateful. Landing craft were functionally excellent, but they didn’t exactly engender a feeling of comfort. And as for a smooth ride upon the ocean swells...? In short: they were jammed into the
truck far too tightly to want to risk anyone becoming seasick. Puking in such conditions would be messy.

  On the other hand, the alternative would have been for them to drive all the way across Oahu to reach their destination. There were zombies all over this island - a million or more homicidal mental patients who’d be perfectly happy to snack on a nice, juicy arm or leg. Scott liked his appendages right where they were, thank you very much. And while admittedly there were sure to be diseased assholes aplenty in their immediate future, this maneuver would dramatically decrease the numbers they’d have to face.

  They were landing at the airfield, from which they were to push inland, heading south, then turn east and work their way up the mountain to where the FAA kept their tracking station, and the Coast Guard maintained their repeating antenna. They’d chosen this method of approach for one, very simple bit of reasoning: there should be far fewer zombies on that side of the island, away from Honolulu, Pearl Harbor, and Waikiki Beach. It sure sounded good on paper, but now, as they approached the shoreline, with the LCVP ramp closed, they couldn’t see what they were headed toward, and the cox’n (young Ed Dickie) sounded just a little bit freaked.

  To be sure, they were closed up, nice and tight, inside the Skull Mobile (which barely fit in the cargo well of the vessel), and most of them were armed. But, then, all of the soldiers who’d stormed Omaha Beach had been armed, and backed up by battleships (not an icebreaker) and for a while there on June 6th, 1944, they had gotten their asses kicked.

  The annoying and alarmingly familiar tingle of fear tickled its way along his scrotum. Thoughts of Elsewhere filled his head, but to no avail. There was no elsewhere in this fallen world, and even if there had been, he was far too wedged in to move toward such a place. Along with Duke and himself, the truck contained OS1 Rudy McGuin, from the Star, Seaman Dixon Grimes, from the base, the civilian tech expert from Raytheon, Marsha Gilbert, the odd guy Chief Jones picked up from Honolulu, Marc-something (without his wife for probably the first time in months), and Ensign Jaime Devon, from the Star, who’d pompously taken the shotgun seat, instead of giving it to Ms. Gilbert, or Scott - the only two who actually knew where they were going. Apparently, the Ensign’s comfort had been deemed far more important, and so the people who would be giving Duke directions had to do it from the cramped rear compartment, which wasn’t equipped with anything like, oh, say, seats to keep them from busting their ass-bones during the jolting ride up mountain roads.

  At the last moment, just before the Skull Mobile rolled into the LCVP, a tall, skinny figure, his neck festooned with camera equipment, had come running up to the truck Duke had given him his best You gotta be fucking kidding me expression.

  “Jim Westhoff, Public Affairs,” came the out of breath reply.

  “So?” Duke growled. Scott Pruden had marveled at the skill it took to infuse a simple, two-letter word with true menace.

  “I’m here to record the operation,” Westhoff had said, clearly trying to not seem intimidated, and (almost) succeeding.

  “Why?” Duke had asked.

  The camera-covered man had looked at him in astonishment before answering. “Are you kidding?” Westhoff had asked. “This could be the start of rebuilding our entire planet. Don’t you think people in the future will want to know how we clawed our way back from the brink?” His words had been met with blank stares.

  “Think about it! This is the Gettysburg Address, man walking on the moon, mankind taking their first steps away from the trees.” More blank stares. “This is Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa, the first ever performance of Hamlet, the Beatles playing the strip club in Hamburg! This is history, damn it!”

  Duke had looked him up and down, as if examining a not-at-all interesting bug. Westhoff had groaned in frustration, then played his trump card. “The Captain ordered me to go with you.”

  Duke’s glare had turned into a glower, but his response had been preordained by a four-striper Captain. “Get in,” he’d said.

  So now they were jammed into the back, six of them, along with all the gear they needed to accomplish their mission. One of Westhoff’s larger lenses was sticking into Scott’s back.

  “Ramp lowering!” Dickie shouted, and the hydraulic hum sounded as the ramp opened and revealed:

  “I’ll be damned,” Duke said, as the beachhead came into view, his voice sounding disappointed. “Nothing. Not a goddamned thing.”

  “Watch the profanity, Petty Officer Peterson,” Ensign Devon said, sounding as if he wasn’t joking. Duke slowly turned his head to give the idiot a perfect Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot glare.

  From Pruden’s left side came the voice of the one and only female in their little expedition. “Why the fuck would he want to do that?” Marsha Gilbert asked.

  “Fuckin’ A,” Marc agreed.

  The others remained silent, knowing the ramifications of bucking a clearly power-mad Boot Ensign. In Scott Pruden’s considered opinion, they were the worst of all officer-types.

  Ensigns tended to come out of the Academy in three varieties: Clueless, Harmlessly Clueless, and Clueless Asshole. Every now and then, you’d come across someone like Ensign (now Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Molly Gordon, who actually seemed to - both - have a clue and know what to do with it, but such things were an aberration. Most of the rest fell into the first two categories, and they tended to either understand and accept their cluelessness, or were at least capable enough to learn from it, after having it (tactfully) pointed out to them - generally by non-comms, like Duke. The Clueless Assholes, on the other hand, were the bane of enlisted people everywhere. Having one of them along on this questionable and potentially life-threatening mission did not bode well for its probable success.

  At least there weren’t any zombies in the immediate area.

  They found out why shortly after they turned south toward Schofield Barracks.

  60

  Nawiliwili Harbor

  Lihue, Kauai

  “I will be dipped in shit,” CWO4 Vincenzo said, scratching his head in amazement at the plethora - no, cornucopia - of small vessels moored at the small boat harbor, a few miles west of the Lihue Airport. And while LTjg Carol Kemp wouldn’t have put it in exactly those words, she had to agree.

  It’s probably a fool’s errand, but we want you to check out the Coast Guard Station at the Port of Nawiliwili, LCDR Stubbelfield had said. He’d been wrong. Fool’s errand, my ass, she thought.

  They’d appropriated a cargo van from the rental agency at the airport, after breaking into the office there. She was still getting used to sanctioned larceny. She was still getting used to a whole lot of things, and the list grew every day. For example, the scenes of devastation they’d seen on the road trip to the port were observed, and the obligatory exclamations of Jesus Christ and fuck me were voiced, but it was beginning to sound rote. They’d seen similar, multiple times, since their arrival on Kauai. For that matter, they’d seen enough in Guam to last a lifetime - and that was just a small taste, comparatively speaking. She could only imagine (and sincerely didn’t want to) what the rest of the Polar Star crew were seeing in Honolulu.

  They’d swung by the Kauai State Police Department, between the airport and their current location, and it had looked like something out of a Stallone movie. Bodies were everywhere - evidence of one hell of a fire fight. Zombies were there, too - evidence of which side won. Vincenzo had wanted to stop and kill some of the murderous plague victims, but she’d overruled him. The sound of gunfire would have drawn every single infected creature to them like moths to a flame. This was a recon mission, and they weren’t Patton’s Third Army, much as Bobby V wanted them to be.

  They’d kept going, down the Kapule Highway, till it merged into Rice Street, following the map Bob McMartin (one of the senior survivors on the island) had given them, past the commercial district, past the Marriott, and the Banyan Harbor Resort (where several of their crack team of misfits voiced certainty that untold treasure troves of alcohol might be found), and
finally into the Port, itself, and to the Cruise Ship Terminal. They found the Terminal blessedly empty.

  The intel they’d gotten from one of the surviving base personnel, in Hono, revealed that shortly before the plague hit, a tug and barge had run aground at the harbor entrance, and several loaded containers had fallen overboard, potentially fouling the channel. The Captain of the Port (otherwise known as the CO of the Coast Guard Station) had closed it to cruise ship traffic as a precautionary measure. Then the Pomona Virus arrived with a vengeance, and all inbound cruise ship traffic diverted to supposedly safer locales. Where, exactly, such safer places might have been, Carol had no idea, and strongly suspected those floating parties were now death ships. What she did know, with absolute certainty, was a nearly euphoric feeling of relief at seeing the pier empty.

  “No cruise ships,” Public Affairs Specialist Rene Batiste observed, stating the obvious.

  “And thank God for that!” BM3/OPS Steve Bohenna exclaimed.

  “Why?” Bobby V snapped, the disgust in his voice no more obvious than a three hundred foot flashing neon billboard.

  “No disrespect intended,” Bohenna began, meaning nothing of the kind. “But do you really want to take a stroll on a cruise ship full of zombies?”

  “I second the motion,” ET2 Kyle Fegley said. “No thank you.”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?” Seaman Jarod Sinclair asked, facetiously.

  “Left it in my other pants,” Bohenna replied.

  “You all disappoint me,” Vincenzo said, though Carol suspected he was only half-serious. Okay...maybe three-quarters.