At least they were closed up tight inside the bus. At least it wasn’t one of the open ones, with just a canopy to keep the sun off the passenger’s heads. If they’d grabbed one of those busses instead, they’d already be zombie-food. She lurched the bus forward, trying to follow in the path of the Zombie Crusher, as it bulldozed a path to bring them alongside the ladder truck, which had stopped to raise its ladder toward the waiting survivors.
Appropriate name,” she thought, fighting for control as the Duck Bus’s rear wheels spun out on the horrific paste that now covered the path blazed by the bulldozer through the Ala Moana Mall parking lot. The fish-tailing platypus of a vehicle finally found a dry spot and shot forward, bouncing off an abandoned car Duke hadn’t managed to crush in his rampage through the former monument to conspicuous consumption, and slapping three zombies with the long side panels, sending their blunt-force-traumatized bodies under bus and out the other side.
She checked the top of the Mall building, saw the ladder heading upward, saw the faces of the survivors, saw the faces of Harold Simmons, and Glen Newby, and that Riley kid from the Star; saw the face of Jonesy, as the gunfire raged through the windows of the Duck Bus.
145
Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB)
Honolulu Harbor
“Catch!” LT Amy Montrose shouted, as she heaved a fire extinguisher toward Jim Barber, who stood atop the smoking tail of the seaplane. He caught it - barely - by the ring surrounding the top of the CO2 cannister. “Are we having fun?” She added.
“Oh, yeah,” Barber replied. “Time of my life.”
The fact it had almost been the end of their lives, was not lost on Amy. “Any injuries?” She asked.
“I think I bruised my tailbone,” Rees Erwin said, sticking his head through the hatch about midway down the fuselage.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Barber said, as he began spraying the white fire-retardant at the smoldering tail section.
“Sorry, but do you have another one of these?” Harvey Walton said, as he poked first his head, then his arm, through the hatch above the wings. His hand held a smaller version of the fire extinguisher she’d tossed to Jim Barber. The engine to Walton’s left and her right belched black smoke, but Amy couldn’t see any flames. She tossed him another of the four extinguishers she’d brought with her from the Sass. She could have brought more - plenty enough room in the boat, with only her in it - but speed seemed preferable to plenty, so she’d only grabbed four. It looked as if they would be enough.
“Can you fix this thing?” Barber asked, as he gave the tail one last quick blast.
“The plane?” Walton asked.
“No, you tea-swilling idiot,” Barber replied. “Rees’s tailbone.”
Walton gave Amy a confidential smile. “He’s just grumpy because he hasn’t gotten to use his little toy.” The toy was a minigun. Where he’d gotten the thing, and whether or not it had even been legal prior to the Pomona Virus, she did not know.
“Damn right,” Barber agreed. “So, can you fix it?”
“Would you like to survive the test flight? Walton asked in reply.
“Preferably,” Barber answered.
“Then the answer is...” Harvey Walton paused the sentence for dramatic effect. “Maybe.”
“That’s it? Just maybe?” Barber growled.
“Well, yes. You see, the tail should be fairly simple. A bit of cutting, a bit of welding, and Bob’s your uncle. But the engine...” Walton said.
“Yeah?”
“Well, you see, there aren’t many parts laying around for a fifty year-old aircraft engine, as we’ve already established. We still have a few left on Midway, but in case you’ve forgotten, that’s eleven hundred and fifty miles from here. We could send True North back to get them, but I rather suspect it would upset both Mister John Gordon, and the plans of the good Caption Gideon D. Hall,” Walton explained.
“We can figure it out later,” Amy Montrose said. “Let’s concentrate on getting this fire out, so we can at least catch the end of the Operation.”
“Good point,” Barber agreed. “The game is still on.”
146
The New Rooftop
Ala Moana Mall
“Duck Bus, Mall Cop,” Jonesy said into the comm unit.
“Go,” Molly’s voice replied.
“Now would be a really good time to get us the fuck off this roof,” he said, intentionally dropping the F-bomb for emphasis.
“We’re working on it,” an unfamiliar, deep male voice said. Must be the guy driving the fire truck, Jonesy guessed.
“Work faster,” Jonesy replied.
He could see the white ladder making its ponderous climb, but it moved too slow, and the sides of the doghouse enclosure were about three seconds away from exploding outward with the force of a million zombies. Well, okay, maybe not a million. Maybe it was only a few hundred thousand. The number didn’t matter. There were forty-odd civilians, and four Coasties on that rooftop. Whatever the actual number of crazed, infected, human flesh-eating monsters below them, inside the Mall might be, it was an undeniable certainty: the number would be greater than forty-four. And some of them would be on fire.
They really did need to get the fuck off that roof.
147
M/V Corrigan Cargo III
17.132751 N 159.767746 W
“We go in ten minutes,” Morris Minooka said to one of his fellow Fire Control Technicians, Roger Groves. There were so damned few of them left. Not even ten percent of the Hamilton’s original compliment. Maybe not even five percent. There were sixteen of them, including Morris (but not including LCDR Woodruff, who was still sequestered in an unused stateroom, and still mumbling his sequence of letters and numbers), and every last one of them was exhausted, after days of non-stop labor, with no sleep and little rest. “Pass it on.”
The younger man exited the compartment they’d jury-rigged into Fire Control, and went to spread the word. Timing would be key.
They’d decided on a staggered attack - en echelon, if Morris remembered the military history he’d taken as an extension class before the world went to shit. It was a more complicated approach, and required precise timing and coordination, but it seemed the best way to go about taking the ship.
The way an echelon attack worked, was that the first salvo, as it were, came in one place, to be quickly followed by another somewhere else, and then by another in a third place, keeping the enemy confused and unsure of where to concentrate their forces. It’s how the D-Day invasion had worked, almost by accident. The combination of the Airborne mis-drops, scattering paratroopers all over the place behind the lines, and the rubber dummies the Allies dropped on purpose, left the German’s counter-attacking in every direction, but concentrating in none. Such was the basic idea, anyway.
There were fewer pirates on the Corrigan than there were Hamilton survivors, but they had guns. Morris and his few remaining shipmates did not, and so they needed to resort to subterfuge, if this plan had any chance of success.
“This isn’t going to work,” Gunner’s Mate First Swaboda said. He, Morris, and one other were to attack the Bridge, once the rest of them had created enough confusion to make it possible without getting themselves killed. Their only weapons were a conglomeration of steel pipes and other blunt instruments. It’s all they had. It would have to do.
“There you go with all those negative vibes,” Morris replied, using a quote from a movie they’d both seen a dozen times: Kelly’s Heroes. Navy ships were always stocked with a variety of movies, but whatever pencil-pushing asshat in the Morale section of Navy Headquarters came up with the list of titles, clearly had the cinematic taste of a Chia Pet,- - as evidenced by the inclusion of such cinematic gems as Harriet, the Spy, and The Care Bears Movie - so certain of the movies ended up being watched over and over during long deployments. He slapped the gunner’s mate on the shoulder. “Be positive. After all, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“We c
ould all die.”
Morris didn’t bother with a reply. He looked at his watch. Eight minutes...
148
M/V True North
23.816419N 166.391568 W
“Do you suppose Samantha’s still pissed at you?” Lane Keely asked.
“Is water wet?” John replied. They were on the Bridge. He was in the process of taking the watch from Lane. They’d turned down the radio, and its broadcast of the Big Game, so they could concentrate on passing the necessary information.
“Last I checked,” Lane replied.
“She’ll get over it,” John said.
“Oh, sure,” Lane agreed. “But right now, she’s sixteen.”
John nodded. “And absolutely everything in her life is crucial,” he said, glad to have another person - another man - who understood the joy of raising a teen-aged daughter. “Or are they still using that word? Crucial... I’m not quite up on the latest lingo.”
“Neither am I,” Lane confessed. Both his daughter and son had been living with their families, up in the wilds of Alaska, before Pomona, John knew. Whether or not they were still alive...?
“But Honolulu’s already a nightmare,” John said. “And it’s only going to get worse,” he added. “I wasn’t about to let her stay there.”
“Oh, I understand,” Lane said. “Completely.” He turned to face John. “You know she’s going to try and pull something, right? Some way to show her independence.”
John nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Yes, sir I do.”
149
The Pier
Midway Atoll
“Thinking of stealing a sailboat?”
Sam spun, as her heart leapt into her throat, like a gymnast on twelve cups of coffee. Shilo Grant stood there, looking statuesque and beautiful and sexy and everything Samantha Gordon wasn’t.
Funny thing, though: the green monster of jealousy wasn’t rearing its ugly head. Sure, she’d done an instant comparison between herself and the young woman. That was natural, normal, instinctual. She’d automatically compared herself to all the females on the atoll, just as she’d done to all of them in Honolulu, just as she’d done since puberty hit, in Astoria - if not before then. It was simply part of being a girl.
No, she corrected herself. It’s part of being a woman.
In the past (and she had to admit, sixteen years wasn’t much of a past), those comparisons, if they fell on the side of the other female, the other girl, the other woman, then the Green One would wake up, and she’d spend the next five to seven days in a blue funk, convinced of her own worthlessness. It usually wasn’t that bad, actually. Most of the time, the jealousy was just a twinge, just one more thing to add to the pile of reasons for self-loathing.
But not now.
Now, she saw who it was, compared herself to the young woman, found herself obviously not in Shilo Grant’s league, considered it, and decided she didn’t feel much about it one way or another. Talk about progress, she thought. Maybe I’m just growing up. Or maybe the zombie apocalypse just added a stronger sense of perspective to counteract teen-aged angst.
“Hello...Samantha?” Shilo said. Apparently, she’d been trying to get Sam’s attention.
“Yeah, sorry,” she stammered. Yep. Real grown up, Sam...
“It’s what I would do if I were in your shoes,” Shilo said, and it flew straight over Sam’s head.
“What?”
“Steal a sailboat,” Shilo said, lowering her voice.
“Uh...” It’s all she could say, because it was exactly what she’d been planning to do.
“I’m in,” Shilo said.
“What?” Sam asked.
“When you steal the boat,” she replied. “I’m coming with you. I want off this boring rock.”
“Uh...” Sam said agin. “Okay.”
150
The Ladder Truck
Ala Moana Mall
“Take it easy,” Jim Westhoff cautioned, as the first survivor (wearing dirty chinos and a dingy gray wife beater) shot past his position on the ladder, scarcely bothering to touch the structure with his feet.
“Fuck easy,” the man snapped, and then he was gone, ushered off the truck and over a wooden ramp to the Duck Bus, by Seaman Apprentice Sherman Malone.
Another survivor came down the ladder, then another, and another, and another; all of them running down the sharp incline, as if chased by the hounds of Hell, itself. Maybe that wasn’t so off the mark, Westhoff thought, running the linguistic possibilities through his writer’s mind. Or perhaps he should be saying the zombies from Hell. He could see the terror on their faces, see the fear in the mask-covered eyes of a young black Coastie he didn’t know, who was helping them onto the ladder at the top, and constantly cocking his head back over his shoulder to look at something that clearly scared the crap out of him.
“Zombies on your left,” Dave Ablitz called from his position in the fire truck’s cab.
Plenty of things down here to be scared of, Jim Westhoff thought, as he opened fire.
151
M/V Corrigan Cargo III
17.259253 N 159.618941 W
Morris Minooka clicked the hand-held radio he had concealed behind his back three times: the first GO signal. The pirates had allowed them to use the radios simply because it was the only efficient way they had of communicating between the various work groups, though he doubted their pirate minder would appreciate the use to which Morris had just put his.
The things had limited range - barely line of sight - so no one else outside the ship would hear them. The GSB 900 on the Bridge, however...
Taking the Bridge would be necessary, but it was essential for them to broadcast the situation to the Coasties, who were spread over a thousand miles of ocean: some on Midway, some on Kauai, and the bulk in Honolulu. They needed to be warned, just in case this crazy plan failed. Morris gave them even odds, at best. And they needed to come rescue Morris and the rest of the Hamilton survivors. Without them, he suspected, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
He looked at his watch. The first attack group should be causing chaos and confusion down in the stern, near the missile silos. The Corrigan Cargo III was only two hundred and twenty-five feet long - shorter than a football field - but getting from point A to point B wasn’t as simple as strolling in a straight line. There were ladders and hatchways and water-tight compartments. There were holds, and machinery spaces, and various other obstacles.
He heard a distant POP. It wasn’t a Bang, wasn’t a loud report, just a noise, like somebody on the other side of a large room were opening a bottle of champaign, but Morris knew: gunshot.
He gave the radio two more clicks: the second GO signal for the second attack. Whether the first had succeeded or not, whether the three men who’d launched it were even still alive, he didn’t know, and, if pressed, would have to admit he didn’t much care. The reaction on the face of the pirate who’d been guarding them, there, in Missile Control, near the centerline of the ship, told him it had the desired affect.
Gunner’s Mate First Swaboda, fidgeting next to him like a nervous cat on crystal meth, slid the steel pipe from its hiding spot, behind one of the computer stacks they’d laboriously removed from the Hamilton, then rewired to fit into a cargo ship that had never been intended to act as a platform for weapons of mass destruction. The room smelled of conditioned air and ozone. The computer stacks hummed with the sound of a couple dozen small fans.
Their pirate babysitter stood from his position, sitting atop a desk that had been shoved into one corner, near the forward hatchway. He looked toward the doorway, then at Morris, and Swaboda, and Electronics Technician Third, Parker Forrest, who stood like innocent puppy dogs. Of course, puppies were rarely innocent, but unlike the young creatures, Morris and company knew full well the consequences of their actions. If they got caught, if they were stopped, they would all die.
“Stay here,” the pirate said, after a few moments of indecision. He turned to go. Taking two great
strides, Swaboda swung the pipe with everything he had.
152
The Duck Bus
Ala Moana Mall
“Don’t send any more inside,” Molly shouted into the comm link. Again, she didn’t need to shout. Barely needed to raise her voice, thanks to one of the very few wonders of modern technology remaining in their post-apocalyptic world, but - again - shouting just felt right. “There’s no room,” she added, and that was certainly the truth.
All the seats were filled, many with people on the occupants’ laps, and the entire aisle, from the back of the bus, around the two narrow spiral staircases leading to the observation deck atop the main cabin, and all the way to Molly’s position in the driver’s seat was jammed with people. She doubted they could get another one in there with a shoe horn.
“Roger that,” Seaman Apprentice Malone called in reply. The young Coastie had moved from the top of the fire truck to the top of the Duck Bus, as the survivors (soon to be rescued refugees, Molly hoped) began flowing down the fire ladder.
Now they would begin loading the top of the semi-aquatic vehicle with as many people as they could fit on the roof. She only hoped that once they got on the water, the damned thing wasn’t so top-heavy they would capsize. There were sharks in the harbor.
It came down to three choices: zombie food, shark food, or threading the needle between the two of them, and hoping like hell they would all get out alive.
153
The New Rooftop
Ala Moana Mall
“Keep moving,” Glen Newby barked. Not that he needed to. The survivors weren’t exactly waiting for engraved invitations. The ones with mobility issues had either already been evacuated (since those were the first to be airlifted off in any rescue situation), or were now dead, eaten, and/or burned alive on the rooftop below and to the west of them. Thirty left, then twenty, then ten. It looked to Jonesy as if they might actually pull this off.
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 4): Zombies of Infamy Page 26
