“I’m a civilian, dipshit,” Spute replied in an even voice that somehow still managed to convey his scorn.
“And in point of fact,” Stephanie piped up, “LTjg Bonaventura, as a duly-commissioned officer, outranks you.” She squeezed the Physician’s Assistant’s arm.
For his part, Doctor Delicious just smiled. Samantha didn’t blame Stephanie one bit for her acquisition. This, unfortunately, made her think of Jonesy.
He was out there, on the far end of the transmission, being suicidally brave, as always. One of these days, it would kill him, and that would kill Samantha - she just knew it would.
She also knew - and understood - that the Jonesy ship had sailed. His heart belonged to her cousin, Molly. She’d accepted it, made her peace with it, and could even (most of the time) make herself feel glad for Molly, but none of it changed the fact Jonesy (and the rest of the Sass crew she’d grown to know and admire) were in mortal danger. And where was she? Stuck on Midway, eleven hundred miles away, with the human equivalent of Gooney Bird guano, CWO2 Peavey, who huffed, puffed, folded his arms across his chest, and said nothing. The radio crackled to life.
“Skull Mobile, this is Duck Bus,” Molly’s voice rang out. “We are underway.”
128
The Bulldozer
Honolulu, Hi
“Roger, Duck Bus,” Duke said into his comm unit. “However, we’re no longer in the Skull Mobile, so you may redesignate us...” he paused and looked around at Marc Micari (squeezed into the‘dozer’s cab next to him), then at Scott Pruden, standing precariously outside the cabin, on the bulldozer’s meager platform. He shrugged, smiled and keyed the mic. “Zombie Crusher.”
This was nowhere near proper radio procedure, Scott knew, just as he felt certain Duke knew, and simply didn’t care. Neither did Scott. They were so far out on the proverbial limb, so utterly beyond the normal scope of Coast Guard operations, that normal rules simply didn’t apply.
Of course, he thought so now. He - and they - would almost certainly have another think coming after the rescue operation was over, and Captain Hall got ahold of them - if they survived the experience. Still, he could envision Captain Hall, LCDR Wheeler, and probably LTjg Molly Gordon simultaneously face-planting into their palms.
“Uh...” Molly’s voice came over the comm link. “Roger.”
They were picking their way through the wharves on one side of Highway 92, and diverting to the shops and restaurants on the other side, when whatever blocked their path proved to be too much for the bulldozer to bull through. There wasn’t much. Fences, stalled automobiles, various and sundry bits of wreckage and debris proved no match for the tracked leviathan, and Duke seemed to take great pleasure in adding to the general destruction. Concrete, however, caused problems, so they diverted.
The ladder truck, containing Seaman Grimes, PA3 Westhoff, and the newest member of their team, YN1 Dave Ablitz, picked its way along in their wake. They’d had to backtrack only once, when a concrete retaining wall blocked their path at a dead end. Doing so had not been pleasant, but their luck remained, insofar as they hadn’t encountered any significant crowd of infected homicidal maniacs.
And then they did.
As they came out of the Kaka’Ako Makai Gateway Park, and were heading toward the small side road that led along the Kewalo Basin small boat harbor, a phalanx of assholes appeared around a corner, choking the road with staggering bodies, who made such a racket, their keening wails could actually be heard over the deep thrum of the bulldozer’s engine.
“Get your weapon ready,” Duke shouted to Scott. “We’re going right through these fuckers.”
129
The Duck Bus
Off Ala Moana Beach
“Rapid Response Boat, this is Duck Bus,” Molly said into the radio.
“Go Duck,” the voice of Seaman Jennifer Collins replied. She’d been assigned as Cox’n of the vessel, mainly because she’d been the only one with any real training to run it.
“Head to Kewalo Basin Harbor,” Molly said. “Assist...,” Could she really bring herself to say Duke’s highly inappropriate name for his team? There were superior officers listening! Yes, and there were also the members of the various teams - most of whom were untrained, inexperienced, young kids, who were probably scared out of their wits - listening to her every word. They needed encouragement, they needed spirit, they needed something to lift their hearts out of the pit of black despair into which her own fears and insecurities were staring, as she hesitated. Hell yes I should say the name, she thought. “...Zombie Crusher with your fifties. Let’s start killing these bastards.”
“Roger that!” Collins replied, and Molly could hear the burst of enthusiasm in her voice.
She could see it, as well, in the faces of the crew on the Duck Bus. She had an Electronics Technician (Luton), a Damage Controlman (Dodge), a Seaman (Collins), three Seaman Apprentices (Nailor, Tabinski, and Malone) and one potentially insane civilian (Wendy Micari), none of which had any real experience in what they were attempting to do, but her order to the RRB seemed to galvanize them all. Now, if she could only figure out how to do it to herself.
What she really wanted to do was take the Duck into the channel and open fire on the creatures threatening Duke’s team, herself, but that wasn’t their mission and it wasn’t her job. Her job was to command the operation, not to get hip deep in blood and guts and falling fifty-caliber machine gun casings. For one thing, they didn’t have a fifty cal on the Duck, and if they had, she doubted any of them had ever used one. Maybe Collins and maybe Tabinski, since they’d both done training on the RRB with Lane Keely, but she doubted it. The bus carried two MG 240s, but those were different, and less deadly to their own forces, should anything go wrong. A seven-point-six-two round would definitely kill someone, but it didn’t have the range of a fifty, and probably wouldn’t go straight through an engine block and into, say, Jonesy. Probably...
She brought the binoculars to her eyes and watched as the RRB sliced into the basin, nosed up as far as they could go, then opened fire on the large crowd of zombies choking the road in front of the bulldozer. Bodies exploded with the overpressure from the heavy rounds, killing three or four of them with a single shot, and a dozen or more with a three-round burst. What remained, quickly turned to goo under the tracks of the bulldozer. Zombie Crusher, indeed, she thought.
“Hot damn!” Wendy shouted with demented glee. “I want one of those!”
No, Molly thought. I’m definitely not letting that woman get behind me.
130
New Rooftop
Ala Moana Mall
“That’s gotta hurt,” Harold said, as several infected assholes burst into distant puffs of red.
They had a clear line of vision toward the action, thanks to the lucky coincidence that Ala Moana Boulevard split the buildings between the Regional Park, on the shore-side of the street, and the various and sundry hotels, condos and retail establishments lining the primary artery of one of the most famous tourist destinations in the world. Of course, that was pre-plague. Now, the boulevard was little more than an abandoned and/or wrecked car-strewn site-line between the Mall and the Basin Harbor, where Duke and company were bulling their way through a crowd of zombies, with the aid of fifty-cal fire from the Rapid Response Boat.
Context and perspective, it would seem, were everything.
Jonesy dragged his eyes away from the tableau and scanned their surroundings. The refugees (or maybe just survivors, he thought, since they needed to be rescued before they could achieve the lofty status of refugee) were all gathered around his own, pathetically small team, and none of them were watching anything other than the carnage taking place a mile or so down the road.
He turned to Glen Newby. “Keep an eye on that door,” he said, nodding toward the doghouse structure. They’d welded the thing shut, but nobody really knew how many dozens, or hundreds, or maybe thousands of zombies trying to find their way to the smorgasbord of human flesh upon the rooftop. Since h
e was one of the entrees, as it were, he wanted to make sure it stayed shut, just in case.
He grabbed Harold by the arm and none-too-gently shoved him in the general direction of the slightly lower roof of the next building, where the remains of Pat Querec, Kyle Rogers, Ronny Wallace, and an untold number of civilians were being snacked upon. “Watch the assholes,” he told the newly-minted Third Class Bosun Mate.
“What am I supposed to do if they start to climb?” Harold asked.
“Don’t keep it a secret,” Jonesy replied.
The younger man looked at him for a moment, nodded and said: “Good safety tip,” then eased his way toward the roof edge.
Jonesy checked the progress of the bulldozer/fire truck convoy, saw that it continued to make its way ever-closer, and turned his attention offshore. The Assateague sat there, at anchor; its guns (for the moment, silent) pointing toward the Mall. Squatting beyond it, looking like an enormous, red football, the Polar Star waited for the action to begin. He could see the 6583 perched on her flight deck, presumably taking on fuel. No point in it hovering overhead, making noise and drawing still more zombies. They had quite enough, already, thank you very much.
Another glance toward the convoy found them surprisingly close; now just smashing their way over shrubbery in Ala Moana Regional Park. They disappeared from view as the bulldozer and ladder truck entered what looked like a tennis court area, then reappeared, as the yellow leviathan bulled through a chain link fence between two clumps of trees at the near side of whatever building happened to be in their immediate vicinity. Jonesy could envision smashed tennis rackets, torn white outfits, and mangled ascot ties and scarves littering their wake. Why he should think such pointless nonsense was beyond him, but there it was.
With a deep-throated roar, the Seaplane Wallbanger buzzed the rooftop. This was completely unnecessary, and might serve to attract unwanted attention from the homicidally crazed predominant demographic of Honolulu’s current population, surrounding the Mall, but it left no doubt the party was about to start.
As if to accentuate the point, Molly’s voice came over the radio: “Zombie Crusher, Duck Bus.”
Jonesy stepped over to Greg Riley, who still looked badly freaked. Not that he could blame the guy. He’d been down on the other rooftop, had seen the Eight-Five crash, had seen Querec and Rogers and all the others overwhelmed and torn apart.
“You ready?” He asked.
“Are you fucking kidding?” the young man replied.
Before he had a chance to answer the (probably) rhetorical question, Molly’s voice resumed transmission.
“We’re coming ashore,” she said, and proved it by moving the absurd combination of school bus and motor boat straight toward the beach. “Break, break,” she continued. “Ground Team, this is Duck Bus.”
“I assume she means us,” Jonesy said to Riley, then keyed his mic. A sudden thought interrupted the process. Ground Team is about to become a redundant term, his brain said, thinking there were about to be not one, not two, but three teams on the ground. I wonder...
Why not? He thought. Duke could claim the ridiculous title of Zombie Crusher. And there were sound reasons for him to do so - not the least of which was the esprit de corps it created amongst the people who were about to engage in something clearly insane, and potentially a suicidal. Why the fuck not?
“Roger Duck Bus. For the sake of clarity, we will redesignate our team...” He let the sentence dangle in the soft breeze coming off the ocean. What would be a good name? He looked at the cluster of buildings around him. Well, why not? He thought. After all, they were at the Mall. “Call us Mall Cop,” he said.
He looked at Greg Riley and shrugged. “Had to call us something.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” Riley repeated, though for a different reason, this time.
“Uh...” Molly’s voice said, over the airwaves. He could just picture the expression on her face. It almost made him smile. Almost. “Roger...Mall Cop,” she continued. “You have the best vantage point,” she carried on, valiantly. “Shifting Scene Commander to you,”
“Roger,” he said, his voice surprisingly calm, in spite of the uneasy tingling in his scrotal region.
“Call the ball,” Molly added, giving the standard phrase used to inform pilots they were in charge of their own fate.
“Roger,” Jonesy replied. “Break, break. Wallbanger, this is Mall Cop.”
“Hello, chaps!” The crazy Brit, Harvey Walton replied.
“Start the fire.”
131
Seaplane Wallbanger
Over Ala Moana Mall
“Making final approach!” Harvey shouted through the open cabin door. He had to shout to be heard over the roar of the seaplane’s engines. Since Jim Barber wasn’t sitting in the cockpit, and so wasn’t hooked into the comm system, it was the only way they could communicate.
“Don’t fly too damned low!” Jim shouted back. “Don’t want my ass barbecued!” He glanced over at BM3/OPS Rees Erwin, who would have looked out of place, even if he hadn’t been wearing his tropical dress uniform. “Steady, boy,” he cautioned, though it probably wouldn’t do any good. The poor kid was the original fish out of water: used to being on a big ship, with all sorts of steel around him, and surrounded by his shipmates, as they steamed across the wide ocean, not flying in a bucket of bolts seaplane, piloted by a deranged British ex-pat, with a retired Coastie he’d never met, getting ready to drop homemade Napalm on a shit ton of zombies.
Rees gave him a nervous grin in reply. Jim had to hand it to the young man. He was holding up pretty well, all things considered. At least he wasn’t flipping out, or curled into a ball in the cargo compartment in the rear of the plane. Jim would be needing his help, shortly.
The wind struck him with a foul-scented blast as he stuck his head out the open hatch and peered through squinted eyes, behind sunglasses, at the approaching shopping mall. The scene before him had become all-too familiar: enough destruction and horror to make Dante, himself, say: Nope, I’m headed somewhere less terrifying, like, say, the Ninth Circle of Hell.
And then, of course, there were the zombies.
The infected assholes were everywhere: standing in clumps, shambling in great, disorganized columns, or wandering aimlessly, alone or in groups of two or three. The greatest concentration, of course, was around the Mall. Naturally.
The plan seemed simple enough: create a barrier of fire around three sides of the Mall complex, thus cutting off any Creatures from Beyond Rational Thought who might wander into the rescue zone. They carried fifteen, red, five-gallon containers of homemade Napalm, mixed to the specifications of the late, lamented, Dan McMullen. Each container had a hand grenade duct taped to its top. The idea was to pull the pin, shove the container out the door, and hope they were far enough away when the thing exploded. Piece of intensely dangerous cake.
They made their first pass along the city side of the Mall - the opposite side being the beach, where the rescue would take place. Jim readied the first container in the doorway. He glanced at Erwin again. The kid wore the same nervous grin, as if it were painted there, like a Coast Guard version of the Joker.
“As soon as I drop this one, you shove the next one toward me,” Jim said. “Got it?”
Rees nodded.
Timing was critical. At a stall-speed of just above seventy nautical miles per hour, and a distance along the long axis of the Mall of just over a mile, they would fly across it in just over fifty seconds. They wanted to drop at least eight, and preferably ten of the containers on that side, meaning they had just five seconds to slide each container, pull the pin on the hand grenade, and shove the whole thing out the hatch - without blowing themselves up.
The Mall, itself, was bordered by Ala Moana Boulevard, on the beach side, Piikoi Street, and a large parking lot, to the west, Kona Street, and another, longer, large parking lot on the city side, and the conglomeration of Atkinson Drive, Kona Street, Mahukona Street, and another parki
ng lot (this time triangular, and interspersed with smaller buildings) to the east. Other buildings, ranging in height from three, to thirty stories, ringed the perimeter on those three sides, with Ala Moana Regional Park sprawling between the Mall and the beach. This was where the Duck Bus would come ashore and rendezvous with the bulldozer and ladder truck.
The Napalm fire - in theory - would close off the city, and east sides of the Mall, but they wouldn’t be closing off the west side till Duke’s team arrived. Once they did, they were to fly along that side, dropping the last of their flammable cargo to close off the approach
And then - finally - Jim would get to use his minigun.
He turned his head toward the cockpit. “Let’s go!”
Harvey waved, and- bizarrely, even for him - began to sing, at the top of his lungs: “Oh...What shall we do with the drunken sailor/What shall we do with the drunken sailor/What shall we do with the drunken sailor early in the morning/Shave his balls with a rusty razor/Shave his balls with a rusty razor/Shave his balls with a rusty razor early in the morning!”
“Shut the fuck up, you crazy bastard!” Jim shouted, pulled the pin on the first grenade, and shoved the container out the hatch.
132
USCGC Assateague
Off Ala Moana Beach
“Keep your eyes on the fathometer,” MK1 Frank Roessler said to Gary King, who stood at the helm. This wasn’t entirely necessary, since they were anchored in place, but being at anchor wasn’t exactly like being parked at a Walmart. Asphalt (earthquakes not withstanding) didn’t tend to move around at the whim of Mother Nature, for one thing, and for another, they were really damned close to the shoals. Running aground would be bad.
The fathometer, itself, or, rather, its display element, hung from the overhead, just forward and to the right of where the helmsman stood, making it easily visible to Gary, who glanced at it, then replied: “Roger.”
He looks nervous, Frank thought, then added: Look who’s talking, to himself.
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 4): Zombies of Infamy Page 23
