by Mark Tufo
“I will when you do.”
If I’d had the time, I would have railed at her about how this wasn’t the way the chain of command worked. Instead, we kept shooting, taking down enemies that threatened our people. Tommy was nearly carrying Gary, as my brother was falling behind. I sometimes questioned the wisdom of letting him on the squad, often, in fact. It’s not that he wasn’t an effective soldier, but, whereas I had a propensity for getting wounded, it was like he had been my inspiration, my serious injury sensei. And to add to that, with the many things my brother had been blessed with, being fleet of foot was not one of them. In a world where running fast and running long nearly always equaled living, he was our own personal Dan Marino, a quarterback that had spent seventeen years in the league and had barely rushed for over two hundred yards. About as close to a statute as one can be on the gridiron. They were thirty yards from us; the closest reavers couldn’t have been more than ten yards behind them. This wasn’t going to work. The reavers were too close to allow us the chance to escape the claymore’s back-blast.
“GO!” BT urged. How a man that big could run so fucking fast, I don’t know. Could not for the life of me imagine playing football against him. He wouldn’t just tackle his opponent, he would forever plant them into the ground to the point they would have to rename the field in memoriam. I did a quick calculation in my head—angles of attack divided by speed of pursuers versus those fleeing. If there were no missteps, they would make it past the impromptu wall of death. They, however, would still be bringing unwelcome guests home for dinner. I ran to where Rose had stopped, figuring if anyone knew where to pull up, it was her.
“Safe here?” I asked as I got back into position.
“We can hope. This is as far as my line goes.”
That was about as comforting as a blanket woven from fiberglass. Tommy and Gary just beat out BT as they deftly avoided colliding with the mines. The trailing reavers weren’t quite as careful; the back paw of one of them hit the mine hard enough to bend the legs backward so the mine was pointing straight up. About as effective as trying to get your wife pregnant over the phone—even if it was FaceTime, still wasn’t going to work. Stenzel and I had once again set up shop and were delivering our products as quickly as demanded.
Rose was quietly whispering, “Come on,” over and over. Explosive experts, by their very job description, have to have nerves steadier than the rest of us, but sitting there with your finger on a detonator as the enemy is coming straight for you will test the resolve of even the most stalwart. We’d done a good job of whittling down the reavers but had done nothing to stop the speeding horde behind them. If Rose didn’t press that button soon, they’d also be behind that line of projection, and there were pretty decent odds that with the sheer number of the zombies, they would knock over the other two and then the word fucked would come into play, and not in the good way.
Rose waited until the last possible millisecond. What happened next was a flash of light, a concussion of noise, and a destruction of beings. Rows of zombies were mowed down, torsos ripped open, heads disintegrated, legs completely shorn off. I realized I’d been warring against zombies long enough to know how they work but still…. A normal combatant, after seeing half its force torn apart by explosives, will break off engagement. Not the case with zombies. If anything, it spurred them on, not because of the revenge factor, which could be understood, but more likely because it meant once they caught their food, there would be fewer mouths to feed. The reavers did us a solid, doing their best to bowl over anything they ran into and were trampling their two-legged cousins. One even had its ass on fire like it had been part of a hot-wing eating competition. The side where the mine had been mostly pointing to the ceiling had taken the least number of zombies out. The speeders were coming.
“Now Stenzel! Rose!” We were up and running and by the time we got to pace, we caught up to the rest.
I had no idea where we were running to, unless you count away as a destination.
“I got it,” Gary huffed out. Tommy wisely didn’t let go.
“This way, Cap!” It was Bags and Walde.
We veered to the left, seemed as good a place as any. The speeders behind must have been a lot closer than I realized, because Baggelli was on full auto, and it is a difficult thing to run toward a hail of fire. Walde was handing him fresh mags and keeping the door they were drawing us toward wide open. Baggelli shifted to the side as we began to come in straight on, and he lost his angle of fire. I noticed he didn’t go too far. What I wouldn’t have done for a jumbotron to look up at and see how close they were. BT more or less tossed Tommy and Gary in than guided them. Stenzel was in next with Rose, followed immediately by Winters, Grimm and Kirby.
“Don’t stop!” Baggelli shouted—good thing, too, because I had every intention of turning to help. I was ten feet inside the room when the door slammed shut and then came the beating of hands, legs and snouts on that portal, and all along the wall. I was bent over, like the rest of my squad. My heart laboring so much it was forcing the air out of my lungs quicker than I could replenish the stock. Without standing, I turned slightly; Baggelli was at the door looking through the small port window.
“Appreciate the assist,” I told him when I felt as if I had enough air to speak audibly. “Everyone all right?” I asked.
“I don’t ever want to do that again, Mike,” my brother stated.
I got nods from the rest.
5
Mike Journal Entry 5
“Bags, where’s Overland?” I asked once I’d caught my breath.
His lips pinched as he looked over at Walde. “Far corner,” he finally answered.
I was angry at being on this fucked up mission and angry that my squad and myself had been left flapping in the ill wind. I planned on giving him a piece of what little was still intact of my mind. I was walking there with a solid determination, my stride surely signaling my intention. I began to falter as I saw PFC Reed hovering over a slumped-over person who could be no one other than Overland.
“Fuck,” I muttered. Now I wasn’t in quite such a rush to get there. “Reed?” I asked.
He shook his head and walked a couple of steps away. Overland was sweating profusely, his leg a bloody mess. Wasn’t difficult to see all the places where the pants had been ripped; a yellowy mucous leaked from half a dozen wounds.
“It hurts worse than it looks.” I looked away from his leg and to his face.
“Don’t know, Major, it looks pretty fucking bad.”
“You’re going to be in charge now,” he winced.
“I’m not a fan of filling vacancies this way. I like it better when it happens because a dumbass employee is terminated due to the fact that they keep stealing people’s lunches out of the fridge, even after we’d had three company-wide meetings about the problem. It happened so much the boss told us, fucking told us, he was installing a camera in the break room. Wasn’t one of those little spy ones either, thing was the size of a drum, pointing straight at the fridge. Had a blinking light on top, bright as a cop car with its lights on. There was zero doubt it was recording, but Sarah Larabie couldn’t give two shits. Still did it, like she was hoping for work-death.”
“Talbot.” Overland coughed.
“Yes, sir.”
“Shut the fuck up and listen.”
I was about as good at that as my wife was at letting me win an argument. Maybe better because I did shut up. (Tracy, if you’re reading this, it probably means I’m dead. I’m still sorry; it was just an analogy. Blame the voice in your head. If it sounds like Sean Runnette, that’s just a bonus.) When I didn’t say anything, he began to speak, although it was interrupted by an ugly coughing spell that produced blood. I gripped my rifle, not sure if I was going to have to use it on him. He held up his hand, though his head was down.
“Still here,” he wheezed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up with how closely his voice resembled the zombie in the stairwell and, subsequently, D
ewey. “I can feel it coming. I’m powerless to stop it, but it’s not here yet.”
“Do you want to talk to your squad…say your goodbyes?”
“I realize this can’t be easy to look at, but I’ve already done that.”
“Understood.”
“Doubtful, but that’ll have to do. There’re nuclear weapons on board this ship.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know how to respond. It was like him telling me there was a stuffed animal at a carnival, a fork in a kitchen, or a pretty girl hiding under nerdy glasses and over-big sweaters in just about every teen rom-com. Just some things that didn’t need articulating.
“Did they manipulate your ASVAB number so you could get in the Corps?”
The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery was administered to every entrant into the armed forces to determine their list of eligible vocations. The lower scores usually meant bullet catcher or, more aptly named, grunt.
“Why don’t you just spell it out for me. I’m not in the mood for guessing games.” Fucking guy was dying but still had it in him to give me shit.
“Bennington.”
I heard the name, put it all together. “Fucking colonel and his nukes. He planning on hoarding them? Putting them up on a display shelf? Or just leaving them strewn around the base? You realize he’s dead, right? I told you as much.”
Overland coughed. A thick, phlegmy chunk of blood rolled down his chin and sat upon his chest, it jiggled around as the deep bronchial expulsions wracked his body. When he was done, I could not stop staring at the crimson entity that sat nestled on his upper body; I figured it wouldn’t be too long before it began to move on its own and climb back into his mouth before ripping through his ribcage, like some so far unknown alien.
“He always knew he was never going to leave. He was worried that the bomb inside Etna had been compromised. Made sense. Enough people knew about its existence.”
“You need to let him rest.” Reed had come over to check on his major.
“I’m going to be taking an extended rest soon enough,” Overland told him.
Reed’s lips pressed together. Normally, you don’t want to hear a defeatist attitude out of the injured, but recovery wasn’t an option in this case.
“So, this whole ship thing was a cover to get a nuke?”
“Securing this ship is of the utmost importance. Getting the nuke and letting Eastman drop it on that bitch’s lap is right behind it.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around this. We should have come aboard with a large force, secured the ship, and then got the nuke. Unless. “She knows about this ship.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“So, we’re under the gun, so to speak.”
“Safe to say.”
“This whole thing is an extraction for a weapon? You could have told me that.”
“Would you have come?”
“Fuck no.”
He smiled. His teeth were so red it looked like he’d scarfed a whole can of jellied cranberry sauce.
“This ship might be the last chance humans have. There’s evidence to suggest that the CDC and the Pentagon had knowledge of or were working on a vaccine.”
“Is it here?”
“No, but the encrypted computers here will have access.”
I didn’t see how, but I wasn’t going to press him on it. I’d seen the ship as a means to keep my family safe; that, right now, was all I cared about. If there was some possible way to tap into more once I achieved that, then bonus. And now we needed a nuke to secure it. He coughed again, his body exhausted from the effort.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He pulled out his sidearm. “You might want to look away.”
I couldn’t. Whether I felt it was a sense of duty to watch his final moments or just the old train wreck scenario, I watched. He raised his head and placed the barrel between his chin and Adam’s apple. He didn’t say anything, no final words, no prayer, nothing. I flinched when the back of his head blew out, blood and brain splattered then slowly ran down the cold, gray steel. I turned quickly, not sure if I was going to cry or puke. Baggelli was wiping his face with the back of his hand, I could only walk in a daze to the far side of the room. The zombies were still beating on the door to get in; I hardly even heard the noise. It was many minutes later that I was able to think of anything other than the Major putting a bullet through his skull. I turned; Reed had found an old tarp to cover up the remains. Now, if he could do something about the graphic multi-colored reminder painted across the wall, that would be great.
“Walde, where is the rest of the team?”
“I uh…” She wasn’t even looking at me, she was too fixed on her commander’s final resting spot.
“Walde.”
“Um, yeah, sorry, sir,” she said. “We were securing the rear. The other team was on retrieval. We lost contact with them when we were overrun.”
“Baggelli, how many of them are out there?” He was looking out the door; somehow that gruesome scene was easier than the one inside.
“Hundred or more,” he said flatly.
I stepped away from the door.
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” BT asked.
“This mission is for a nuke. Deneaux knows about this ship, and we’re supposed to go on the offensive before she can once again destroy our happy home.”
“I thought the base was supposed to go supernova?”
“I’m guessing command figures it was compromised.”
“Compromised how?”
“Don’t know. Her lackeys or minions…there were a few people that knew about it.”
“What can she realistically do to an aircraft carrier with a few planes and helicopters?”
“Want me to list a couple of things?”
“I’m listening.”
“If she knows about the nuke…”
“That means she has a nuke,” BT said suddenly. I could see it in his worried face; he wanted to ask if she would actually use it, but that was like asking a ten-year-old if he would use a squirt gun against his older sister. It was a foregone conclusion.
“Even if she decided to keep the bomb for reasons other than our annihilation, she has enough weaponry at her disposal that she could wreck the conning tower on this ship, basically making it a bobber. Might be something she’d do just to watch us swim. But I don’t think you can ever take the nuclear option away from her; can’t imagine she’d get any more satisfaction than the thought of us frying under the explosion of a sun.”
“So, the small team?”
“Probably thought we’d be in and out without being detected.”
“That didn’t work out.”
“Not at all.”
“Now what?”
“Now we need to get out of this room, find the rest of the platoon, and get off this ship.”
“And the nuke?”
I had to think on that. Overland was right; this ship was the key. Whether there was a chance at a vaccine or not, any land-based hold out, no matter how strong, would eventually fail. “If they have it, we protect it and get the damn thing off the ship.”
“And if they don’t have it or they’re gone?”
I’d already started down the path, might as well keep walking. “Then we get it if we can.”
BT pulled off his helmet and ran his hand over his head. “I don’t like it.”
“No shit, BT. In what world is me being the steward of the most powerful weapon on the planet ever a good idea?”
He grunted. I’m sure he had a half dozen things he could have tossed at me that were better than me having a nuke. A rhino with a clutch of Faberge eggs, a monkey with a chainsaw, a philanthropist with bouncing checks, that type of thing. But with Overland’s body still far from cool, the fact we were trapped, and that we had no idea where the rest of the platoon was made cracking any sort of joke in bad taste. To be fair, it doesn’t often stop me, but then again, I’d not been presented with a tempting opening yet.
“Let’s get the group together. The SEALs too.”
BT nodded.
“Okay, so I just found out that the mission was a little different from what I was led to believe.”
“Sir?” Stenzel asked.
“It seems we’re part of a group to safeguard the removal of a nuclear weapon.”
“Again?” Gary asked.
“Again. The thing is, we need it. The major seemed to believe that Deneaux likely knows about this ship and will actively attempt to destroy it.”
Kirby groaned. “We had her. We had her in our clutches for a couple of weeks.”
I held up my hand. “I know, I know, opportunity missed, but we were still dealing with her rigged wall. Only so many problems we could have dealt with at a time.” Even as I said the words, I was thinking about my last hours on the base, having her directly in my sights. I was so blinded by my ill-placed hatred for another, I couldn’t chance not being able to get to him if I took her out.
“Fucking should have. Just shot her and dealt with the fallout,” Kirby was muttering. That sentence applied to both of us.
“Kirby.” Rose placed her finger across her mouth; he immediately complied. I guess that’s what happens when you have a girlfriend that can blow you up.
“The rest of the platoon?” Stenzel asked.
“Don’t know. They went to get the nuke. Overland’s team here was protecting their flank and withdrawal, as were we. Bags, do we at least know where they went?”
“There’s a hangar on the other side of this one that houses the munitions; that’s where they went, sir.”
“The first of many problems we have is getting out of here. Rose, what do you have left in your bag of tricks?”
“I’ve only got three sticks of dynamite left, but if we can get to the munitions room, I’m sure I can rig something.”
“To be clear, we’re talking about bombs and missiles that hang from aircraft in there, right?” I asked.
“I would imagine, sir. I’ve never been stationed aboard an aircraft carrier,” Bags replied.
“I have been,” Walde interjected, “and you’d be right.”
