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

by Thomson, Jeff

  She’d have bet money (had it been worth anything) against Hall ever approving anything like Gordon’s plan, and yet, it had just happened. She shook her head, exhibiting a little wonder of her own. Brave New World...

  Taking a deep breath, she made her decision, and issued the only order she could:

  “Get this thing underway, Mister Vincenzo. We’re going to give them what support we can.”

  110

  Warehouse 14

  Ford Island, Oahu

  “At the risk of incurring your wrath, Staff Sergeant,” Lance Corporal Lanier began. McNaughton noticed the young man stood just beyond his immediate reach, should a disciplinary backhand be required.

  “What?” He asked, letting his voice carry the menace his proximity could not. They were all standing atop the warehouse, clustered around the radio the Coast Guard had been kind enough to supply, listening with growing surprise and (he had to admit, if only to himself) respect for the people who were now discussing the finer points of their audacious plan.

  “I thought we Devil Dogs were the baddest-ass motherfuckers on the planet,” Lanier continued, clearly trying to demonstrate military decorum to his fellow junior enlisted.

  “Damn straight,” PFC Claus Dittery opined.

  “Can it,” McNaughton cautioned. He motioned for Lanier to carry on.

  “But if they pull this off...”

  “Not a chance,” Private Saperstein said, dismissively. That particular junior member of their surviving team was within range. McNaughton demonstrated as much by bitch-slapping the insolent bastard just below one conveniently exposed ear.

  “Yes?” The staff sergeant prompted.

  Lanier took one definitive step backward. “Then I will personally volunteer to father her children.”

  Get in line, McNaughton thought, but did not say. “Duly noted,” he said aloud. “But she’s an officer, and you’ll be jerkin’ your gherkin long into the night, Lance Corporal, because there’s no chance of you ever tapping that particular piece of duly-commissioned ass.” This was met with gales of bawdy laughter from the assembled Marines, just as McNaughton knew it would be. Technically-speaking, he shouldn’t have allowed the disrespectful remark, and he certainly shouldn’t have compounded the offense by adding his own two off-colored cents, but leadership was, to a degree, about knowing when to bend, and when to commence a beat down for insubordination.

  These men had been cooped up in this damned warehouse for endless weeks, since the Shit Hit the Fan, with no communication, no way to check on relatives, friends, or loved ones, and no clear end in sight. They were keyed up, frustrated, and if the night sounds were what he suspected them to be, expending their meager caloric intake in nocturnal exercise of the aforementioned pickle. Testosterone-inflamed Marines could only take so much. Still, he couldn’t let discipline fly completely out the window.

  “Listen up, my babies,” he began, his voice pitched to the appropriate growl. He jerked his thumb in the general direction of Honolulu. “You better damned well hope they can pull this shit off, because if they can, then our own salvation will be at hand.”

  “And if they can’t?” Lanier asked.

  “Then, gentlemen,” he said, “we are well and truly fucked.”

  111

  The New Rooftop

  Ala Moana Mall

  “She’s out of her fucking mind,” Harold said, after first making sure his gas mask comm unit was set for intercom, rather than broadcast over the radio net. He and Jonesy stood in the middle of the new rooftop, away from the others, though it hardly mattered, thanks to the wonders of modern communication. Jonesy could see Riley and Newby - the only other surviving Coasties - sneaking glances in their direction. He ignored them.

  “What’s your point, Harold?” Jonesy asked, as he scanned their current surroundings for...what, exactly? He wasn’t sure, didn’t know, couldn’t sense anything other than a generalized feeling of unease. Not surprising, given the circumstances, what with being surrounded by a gigantic horde of zombies - on the rooftop below, on the street, and presumably inside the building under their feet. If he weren’t feeling uneasy, he’d begin to worry.

  Still, everything seemed secure, especially after they’d welded the roof access door shut with a rig lowered to them by the helo. He’d sort of known how to weld, thanks to a high school shop class he’d taken so long ago he barely remembered it, but thankfully, Glen Newby had more of a clue than he did, and now he felt fairly sure the door would remain closed from now till the end of time - or, at least till the structure rusted through, by which point they’d either be gone, or dead.

  Harold F. Simmons, jr., didn’t answer right away, but Jonesy could hear his breathing through the intercom. It sounded ragged - not as if he were having trouble breathing, but more like something was interrupting the rhythm. “You alright?” he asked.

  “What?” Harold replied, as if jerked away from his own thoughts.

  “You gonna stroke out on me?” Jonesy asked.

  “Maybe,” he replied. He waved his hand at the roof. “This place ain’t doing my blood pressure any good. And I should still be on bed rest.”

  “Get over it,” Jonesy replied. “And quit bad mouthing our Glorious Leader,” he added, mainly for the benefit of the others who were listening in.

  All of his team were nervous - and rightfully so - but the last damn thing any of them needed was a lack of confidence. Doubt from them would spread like the plague to the forty or so remaining refugees, and then they really would be in deep shit.

  “But–” Harold began, but Jonesy cut him off.

  “She’s gotten us this far, hasn’t she?” He asked.

  “Yeah,” Harold agreed, albeit begrudgingly.

  “Then have some faith in her.” Whether or not he believed this, himself (he sort of did), whether or not he thought her lunatic plan had any chance of success (he doubted it), whether or not he thought they’d survive another hour (which, oddly enough, he did, though he didn’t know why), his job as the man in charge of this shit show, was to convey the idea that the answer to all those questions was a definitive yes.

  “In other words, Petty Officer Simmons,” Glen Newby’s voice said through the static, “shut the fuck up.”

  “Well put,” Jonesy said.

  Peripheral movement caught Jonesy’s eye, and his heart spiked into the red zone, then dropped back to normal when he realized it was only a couple of survivors near the roof edge, who were pointing out to sea. He walked over to them, Harold at his heels.

  There floated Polar Star, slowly making the turn at the sea buoy, positioning themselves to enter the harbor. Butterflies danced the Macarena in his gut, as the adrenaline began to flow.

  “Showtime, boys,” he said.

  112

  Skull Mobile

  Gustav H. Webling Elementary School

  “I wonder who Gustav H. Webling was,” PA3 Jim Westhoff said, as the Skull Mobile smashed through the school’s perimeter fence and bounced onto its athletic field.

  “Does it matter?” Seaman Dixon Grimes asked, as he slammed into the side of the truck. They were bouncing around pretty good down there, Scott Pruden mused, glad to have the sides of the sun roof to hang onto. Even so he would need some serious chiropractic work when this was over - if he still lived when it was over.

  “Of course it matters,” Westhoff replied. “As I keep trying to tell you, this is history, guys. People fifty or a hundred years from now are going to want to know what we did. And details matter. Details are what make stories come alive.”

  They banked around a sea blue metal outbuilding of unknown utility, and shot the gap between the larger building next to it, and the substantial hedge bordering the property line. Scott ducked in time to avoid being smacked in the face by a wayward branch that served as evidence of just how long it had been since anyone maintained the shrubbery. He thought, but couldn’t be sure, he saw a disembodied arm reaching out through the branches, but they wer
e past before he could confirm the sighting. He jerked his head around to look behind him but saw nothing. This didn’t disappoint him in the least.

  They had come to this place after careening through the side streets of Aiea, the community perched along the eastern side of Pearl Harbor, not too far from the Aloha Stadium, where once Scott had watched the NFL Pro Bowl with forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight total strangers, and one female Coast Guard Electronics Technician, named Clarice. He’d had better luck with the game than with Clarice. He’d won fifty bucks on the game.

  Highway Ninety-Nine had taken them as far as the junction of the H2 and H1, where the traffic had been snarled so badly with abandoned and wrecked vehicles, they’d had to cut through several homeowner’s yards to get around it, finally ending up in the Pearl Harbor National Wildlife refuge, where they’d run into a large contingent of zombies. Duke and Marc Micari, both sitting in the front seats, used the confrontation as an opportunity to try out some of the hand grenades they’d pilfered from Schofield Barracks. Turned out, they worked just fine. He’d never seen anyone blown up before. On reflection, he’d rather not see it ever again.

  They’d gone off-road until they reconnected with the Ninety-Nine, but only as far as the Pearlridge Center Mall, where their way had been blocked by the worst traffic pile-up they’d yet seen, involving not one, not two, but three fire trucks, and an unknown number of cars. The reason for the fire trucks became evident when they cut across the mall parking lot and saw what the fire left behind. It wasn’t much, but it had enabled them to cut through part of what Scott thought had been a movie theater, if the blackened seats were any indication.

  This little detour led them under the H1 and through the Pearl Country Club golf course, where Duke had sent a stumbling former human in a golf shirt and a torn pair of filthy, heart-covered boxers flying through the air, as he shouted an obligatory: “Fore!” All of this had gone by in the blur of Scott Pruden’s stunned and overtaxed brain.

  These were the details etched into his psyche; the details he doubted he’d ever forget - assuming they survived the day’s festivities. The identity of whoever the elementary school had been named after didn’t even make the list.

  The Skull Mobile broke out into the open, long enough to cross a parking lot, then they were speeding down Paihi Street, which was wide and clear, but also headed in the wrong direction.

  “We need to be on the H201,” Marc - who had the map - said, as they reached a T-junction, crossed by a street whose name Scott didn’t even try to pronounce. Far too many vowels. Also, as it turned out, far too many zombies.

  “That’d be great,” Duke said, swerving to take out a trio of stumbling assholes, all ironically wearing Hawaiian shirts, “if I knew where we were now.”

  “Head due south,” Marc replied, without looking up. Had he pulled his face away from the map, he might have noticed they were in the middle of a residential neighborhood, filled with cookie-cutter houses, and winding streets that had probably been laid out by a child with an Etch A Sketch.

  Duke turned his face from the road long enough to give him a You-gotta-be-kidding-me expression, then turned it back in time to see a gaggle of four more zombies, just waiting to play bumper pool. The large man obliged them. Scott had to duck to avoid a severed leg, as it went spinning past, the blood from which splashed across the front and shoulder of his dark blue uniform shirt, and the skin on the back of his neck.

  He waited for his gag reflex to start him retching, but it didn’t come. Could he be getting used to this shit? No, he decided. He wasn’t. His brain had just gone too far past the saturation point. Is there anybody in there? The line to the Pink Floyd song flashed across his mind, then went away again.

  No, he thought. Nobody home.

  They kept going.

  113

  The Mess Hall

  ISC Sand Island, Oahu

  “You’re going where?” Lydia asked, her eyes bulging, her mouth agape, and her heart heavy, but at the same time thumping like the USC Marching Band’s rhythm section playing with Fleetwood Mac, while on speed. She and Tara stood outside the Mess Hall, in the unused Chief’s Mess. Tara been assigned to the suicide mission scheduled to be kicking off shortly.

  The alarmingly attractive woman eyed her with mirth, and nervous excitement, and (could it be) triumph. Now why should I think triumph? Lydia asked herself. And why did Tara’s departure feel like a kick in the chest?

  “I’ve been assigned to Sass Two,” Tara said, still staring at her with twinkling eyes.

  “So you’re not going ashore?” Lydia’s hand involuntarily reached out and touched the girl on her shoulder.

  “Oh no,” Tara replied, inching closer. This was entirely unnecessary, as they were already close enough, thank you very much - isolated and alone. There wasn’t another person in sight, so moving closer served no purpose, except... Tara stepped even closer and squashed her maddeningly soft breast against Lydia’s arm. “I’ll be safely off shore.”

  How did the girl make that sound sultry? Lydia wondered, utterly aware of Tara’s proximity, and the smell of her hair, and the feel of her breast. The girl’s lips were close enough to Lydia’s nose she could smell her saliva, the way you sometimes do when you’re a moment away from...

  Kissing somebody...

  Run away! Run away! But Lydia did not move.

  “...All personnel muster at your assigned stations,” Amber Winkowski’s voice boomed over the base PA system.

  “Gotta go,” Tara said, softly, almost a whisper. And then she did it. All the oceans in all the world were rushing inside Lydia’s head as Tara leaned in that extra fraction, that exquisitely short distance between what had come before and what (oh what?) would come after.

  Her lips were soft, the kiss, delicate - not hesitant, not self-conscious, but exploring, testing, tasting something new. Suddenly, the fear was gone, the excuses and rationalizations blown away by the puff of breath passing between them, as Lydia kissed her back.

  114

  The Buoy Tender Pier

  ISC Sand Island, Oahu

  “Listen up!” LTjg Molly Gordon said, almost surprised to not hear her voice trembling like the little girl she could feel screaming inside her head. This was huge. This was solemn and frightening, and exhilarating. “Petty Officer Babbitt, Petty Officer Stern, you’ll be going to Assateague. Muster with the RRB crew. They’ll take you there,” Molly said, reading off the names on her clip board. These were people from the Star, totally unknown to her. She had to trust that Hall had given her the cream, rather than the dregs of his crew.

  They were assembled in a semi-formal Officer’s Call, on the pier occupied by Sassafras. Since she’d volunteered herself to run this operation (and since she’d come up with what was, in all probability, an insane plan) she was tasked with coordinating the disbursement of the newly-arrived personnel.

  I could be sending these people to their death, and I don’t even know who they are. The thought squatted in her mind like an ugly version of Jabba the Hut, staring at her with cold and malevolent eyes. She had to push it away, had to ignore it, had to kick its ass out of her skull.

  Why?

  Because she might be sending them to their death, but if she didn’t, then she’d be condemning the survivors at the mall to the certainty of it.

  They couldn’t risk a repeat of the disaster that wrecked the 6585. A crowd of shit-scared civilians waited on the new rooftop, and even hoisting them one at a time would be a dicey proposition for those remaining behind, since the constant drone of the helo would draw zombies like moths to a flame.

  The Eight-Three now hovered at a respectable distance, and had only come closer to drop the welding rig, once the initial need for close air support and the MG 240 machine gun (wielded by Jeri Weaver) became unnecessary. They would be used again, as part of her Grand Plan, but only once the real noise began. Then, it wouldn’t matter anymore.

  Something had to be done. By her
.

  Why? Because Jonesy’s up there.

  Have it your way...

  I’ll never mention it again...

  Ever.

  Those three simple lines ran in a continuous loop inside her head. Most of the time, she could shunt it back to the recesses, but not all the time. Not now.

  Now, more than ever, she needed to ignore it.

  “BM3 Treherne, BM3 Sanderson, MST3 Glens, you’ll be aboard the RRB,” she called to three more from the Star, staring resolutely at the clipboard, lest her expression reveal some crack in the armor. She pointed toward Jennifer Collins. “Muster with Seaman Collins.”

  This would be a complicated operation, and any number of things could go wrong, but once it began, it would no longer be her problem. Hers would be keeping her people alive.

  115

  COMMSTA Honolulu

  ISC Sand Island, Oahu

  “Anybody home?” OS2 Bill Schaeffer, freshly showered, and in a reasonably unwrinkled uniform, asked, stepping into the Comm Center, after entering the code given to him by ET2 Scott Pruden, three days previously. It seemed an unnecessary security procedure, given the only real security threat came in the form of mindless, pissed off, crazy people who occasionally added human flesh to their diet (and hadn’t the intellectual capacity to negotiate anything as complicated as a door knob), but old habits died hard, he supposed.

  It was the first time he’d been off the Sass in...what day was it? Damn near the first time he’d been out of the Sass Radio Room, except for the occasional trip to the restroom facilities. Now that all sorts of multi-unit chaos was about to commence, however, he’d decided his skills might be put to better use in the Comm Center, and LCDR Wheeler agreed.

  OS2 Amber Winkowski nearly jumped out of her chair at the sound of his voice.

  “I see you didn’t get the word,” he said, in his laconic drawl.

  “What word?” She asked, clutching her chest.