by Mark Tufo
Stenzel added herself to the mix. She placed the barrel of a suppressed twenty-two right upon its skull and pressed the trigger. The sound was not much louder than the action of the gun. The zombie dropped immediately to the ground. Bags thanked her. I asked her what the hell took so long.
“You’re welcome,” she replied; I wondered briefly if I’d left my cart in her way at some point.
“Clear,” a breathless Baggelli whispered. He turned and was getting ready to head back in.
“Bags, stop,” I told him. “You’ve got a tear.”
“Are you sure? O levels are fine,” he replied.
“I’m looking at two-inch gash. Did we bring tape?” I saw him shake his head; Stenzel said no. I watched another bar vacate my display. “You’re out, Bags. Hand over your tank.”
“Bullshit.”
“You have a thing for organ liquefaction?” I asked.
“It’s too dangerous for just two; we should all go back,” he offered.
“How far from here?” I asked, taking a look down the darkened hallway. If when you die, you see a tunnel of light, this was the opposite of that; no, not like going back up a dark birth canal and into a warm watery womb, but something far more sinister.
“A couple hundred feet down that hallway is the main machinery room. They’re in there.”
Again, I wanted to ask him how he knew, but that would just be stalling on my part and as much as I didn’t want to go, this was something that needed to be done, and I’d learned that the best way to get something distasteful out of the way is to just do it. (Sorry, Nike. I’m sure that’s not what you meant with your catchphrase.)
“Stenzel?”
“I’m with you, sir.” It would have been impossible not to hear the trepidation in her voice.
“Fuck.” Bags was legitimately pissed off. I don’t know if I would have been doing a jig if the roles were reversed, but I’d be leaning heavier to the gleeful side than what he was. “I’ll watch your six.”
“How far away is safe, once we release these?” I asked. He handed over the bag of death. I pulled a canister out and stared at the bio-hazard symbols and the two paragraphs of warnings listed on the side.
“Tell me when you set them off and I’ll start moving.”
I looked at him. “Are you sure that gives you enough time?”
“Should be fine, as long as I’m not there for the gas. After that, it’s transmitted by close contact.”
“Zombies aren’t known for holding hands or kissing,” Stenzel said.
“We’re going to have to stay separated once we set this off; we’re going to have to remain under the assumption we’ll be contaminated,” I told him. “Until we know we’re not.” He strapped his discarded tank next to the other two.
“Understood.” If he was worried, he didn’t show it.
“You’re positive they’re down here?” I asked. I was more concerned that if we separated now, we wouldn’t be able to reunite.
“You’ll know it when you see it, Cap. Good luck.”
“You, too.” We shook hands. I’m not psychic, but I knew that was the last time we would ever do that. Make of it what you will; either he died or I did.
“Stenzel, stay behind me. If we run into a bunch of them, just turn and run. Got it?”
“I move when you move.”
It wasn’t what I said but splitting hairs wasn’t going to work with her. Hell, it had never worked with any woman in my life, why start now.
“Now I know how much of a pain in the ass I am to my superiors. Might have to do a little leadership by example.” I blew out a heavy gust of air, not even realizing I’d been holding back. “Let’s go.” Night vision goggles would have been great; how to flip them down and turn them on would have been a neat trick, too. It wasn’t quite a “coffin buried six feet deep in concrete” dark, but anything more than three feet away might as well have been. There were some small light sources that bled out from various places, but a night light would have laughed at their dimness. I have claustrophobia issues, sometimes worse than others. Oftentimes I can deal with it using some coping tactics. Other times, it rears its gripping head so tightly I don’t feel like I can shake it loose. Between that fucking suit and the clinging gloom, I could feel my psyche closing in on itself, making the situation somehow worse—if that was even possible. How do you make shit, shittier? I had to stop, take a few calming breaths. It works to a point, but panic attacks are very rarely thwarted that easily, and, you know, just because why not, another bar began to blink. So, the thing that was going to have any chance of keeping me functioning was also in jeopardy, namely, air.
“Sir?” Stenzel, I’m sure, had picked up on my rapid breaths and my stuttering steps.
“I’m good, I’m good.” I wasn’t, but what are you supposed to say in those circumstances? Hey, I’m carrying a highly infectious disease into a zombie stronghold and I’m about to have a breakdown. Honesty can be highly overrated. No way she didn’t figure it out with the clipped way I said the words, anyway. Tough to talk when you can’t hold air in your lungs. I was leaning somewhat and almost fell into an open doorway before catching myself on the jamb. That would have looked great if I'd toppled over, and that’s not even talking about the noise of all the biohazard canisters rolling out of the bag and clanking along the deck plates. I steadied myself and forced my way forward. There was no time for retreat or for much of anything besides the mission—if my meter was to be trusted.
There was a soft red glow up ahead, what one might expect as they come upon the gates of hell. No disappointment in regards to that, what we saw exceeded those expectations. Stenzel gasped; I would have, but I think I was in too much shock. It was singularly the largest pile of stasis zombies I had ever borne witness to. It was like a canned ham facility had screwed up and shoved two hams and an extra heaping of that gelatinous goo into one container. The room was wall to wall, floor to ceiling stacked zombies, reavers, and greavers. My hands shook as I pulled a canister out. Even fumbled the thing—caught it less than a foot from the ground. Slo-mo replay would show it as a catch, but it was close. As I stood back up, I saw a large eyelid flip open and swivel toward me. In less than a second, the greaver recognized me as the enemy and let loose an ear-piercing screech.
“Go!” I yelled to Stenzel. As it began to move, a ripple spread throughout the entirety of the jiggling structure. I twisted the knob, nothing, no hiss, no expelling of what I figured would be a green mist, the greaver was pulling himself free; the slurping, squelching, squishy sounds as he did so were fraying what little nerves I had left. I hit him in the head as I tossed the useless container. The top half of its body was nearly free. I spent entirely too long watching it claw its way out before I reached in the bag and grabbed another. If this one didn’t work, I was going to be seriously pressed for time to get another going. Luckily, Stenzel hadn’t gone anywhere and had reached into the bag herself and got a canister, unlike me she had no desire to overstay her welcome and witness what looked like a greaver being born. She twisted the knob. Mist shot out and to the side, coated a good portion of my visor. I would have shit myself if my butt hole wasn’t so puckered—fucking thing was so far up my ass, it was like it was performing a DIY high colonic. I was inches away from Ebola. Seems all of my parts were pulling themselves in like a threatened octopus. My nuts had retracted, and my Adam’s apple was firmly entrenched in my throat, making it difficult to get air past. If I dared to look, I had to figure the rest of my junk would look like I’d been born with an innie.
“Shit, I’m so sorry, sir!” She lobbed the billowing canister in. The greaver was three-quarters free. Fear was making it difficult to do anything else besides quake. I finally twisted the damn knob and got the new container to work. I had to think that the only thing that saved my life was muscle memory from opening beers—I told my wife they were good for me. Not sure this is what I was prepping for, though, and I wasn’t going to take a drink of this particular brew
. I underhand tossed the gas-expelling canister at the emerging greaver and pushed Stenzel to get moving.
“I hope two is enough,” I told her as I put a couple of bullets into the greaver, might as well have been lobbing stale Twinkies at it for all the damage done. “Bags, go!” I said through my mic. “I’m compromised, you can’t be anywhere near me.”
“Moving,” he answered, it was nearly drowned out by my heavy breaths as Stenzel and I were heading back the way we’d come. He mumbled a few choice swears. I heard the canister behind us clang into a wall as the greaver must have kicked it or tried to eat it and spit it out; couldn’t tell as my back was to it and I was doing my best to keep up with a fleeing Stenzel.
“Contact! Don’t come this way! Too many!” Baggelli warned right before we heard a trio of shots. There was no other way. I could hear the heavy footfalls of the greaver as it started the chase. Normally, I would have been, Storm the gates! Launch the torpedoes! and all that shit to help Baggelli, but just showing up to the party put him at risk. If he were to survive the attack, it was likely that the help we brought would kill him. We were twenty feet down the corridor when I not only heard but felt the ping of the greaver’s location sense. More shots up ahead.
We had to hide—escape wasn’t going to happen. “Left!” I yelled to Stenzel. She immediately dipped into a bulkhead. I was right behind her. I closed the door just as the greaver thundered past; it stopped and turned and smacked its head against the heavy steel barrier. In terms of potential hideouts, this was right up there with rabid bat enclosure or poisonous spider lair. I’d been hoping for an Executive Suite in Vegas, ended up with one of Baggelli’s supply closets, five by five at best, and crammed with shelves filled with cleaning equipment and supplies. As big as this ship was and the thousand rooms we could have ended up in, that it was this one, blew. I wanted to give Lady Luck a little what for. We were still alive, so I decided to keep my opinion to myself. Still, though, I was way past up-to-my-neck sick of being stuck in enclosed spaces.
Unlike every door we’d encountered so far, this one did not have the ability to spin a latch and lock. I suppose it made sense as no one was going to willingly go into a supply closet, a place reserved for the lowest of ranks to do the most menial of tasks. Lot of free time on a ship, and command is always big on cleanliness. I mean, basically, because they don’t have to do it. Clean is fucking great when someone else is making it happen. That’s why men get married. (I didn’t fear retribution for that sexist remark because I was fully expecting to die.)
I could feel the vibrations of the greaver thundering down the hallway through the handle I was clutching tight. Because that wasn’t bad enough, the beast began to use its tail weapon. Intimidation…frustration…just because it could—all viable reasons. Each strike to the walls in the corridor sounded and felt like the footfalls of Godzilla. I was bracing my body against the door; Stenzel had her rifle at the ready. What both of us were doing was useless, but just because you’re pulled a half-mile out to sea in a riptide doesn’t mean you automatically stop flailing about.
Blind luck on the part of the greaver was nearly my undoing. His tail smashed into the door, well, the door handle, specifically. I lost my grip and the entirety of the mechanism was rocketed into my abdomen. If not for the chain mail, I had no doubt that would have been lodged inside my stomach, along with that stupid granola bar. As it was, it felt as if I’d been punched by a gorilla. I was doubled over, my hands resting on the door as I tried to get my breath. Stenzel was next to me, placing her weight against it. My head was hanging low as I fought through the pain. When I could begin to do something besides wallow in my misery, I noticed the new spyhole drilled into the door, great to see who was outside, horrible in terms of trying to keep them out there. The greaver was right outside, could hear him huffing and puffing, wanting to blow the house down. It smacked the door a couple of times but it couldn’t get a running start to give it a good ram. It smacked the wall next to the door. A foot or more to the creature’s right and it would have blasted straight through, launching Stenzel and myself into the shelving behind us hard enough that we would have been trisected or quadrasected or whatever bisected twice is. This I figured as I counted the shelves. Then, finally, we could tell by the way crashing sounds retreated that the greaver was moving along on its merry way. Bags was drawing it away with his private battle.
“Are you all right?” Stenzel whispered.
“Eventually,” was all I could muster. I was peering through the hole. There wasn’t a whole bunch to see, but I could hear movement. It was coming from the machine room. The hive had been disturbed and the bees were going to protect their home. “We need to barricade this door.” I pulled on the shelves, but like everything else on this fucking ship, they were bolted to the wall. Had plenty of mops and brooms; we used them to prop against the door. There was just enough room to place one end against the door and the other wedged on the back wall. Had six of these in place when I saw the first shadow blot out the most minimal of light bleeding through the hole. I tapped Stenzel and placed my finger up against my faceplate to let her know we needed to be quiet. Our improvised door lock should hold, unless a greaver or bulker decided to give it a go. The best thing we could do now was nothing. Once the zombie passed, I sat down, my back against the door. There was not enough room to completely stretch out, but it beat getting eaten. After a moment, Stenzel slid down next to me. Within a couple of minutes, there was a full-blown zombie exodus happening in the hallway.
“Shit,” I whispered. This was when I noticed my third bar blinking its warning. “O is getting low.” Had some red lights blinking frenetically. I was looking at the three bottles we still had left. There was no way to tell how long we could be stuck here if all the zombies in that pile got up and got moving, it could take hours. Also, there was the very real possibility that they would just stop moving once they got an all-clear. They could mill about for days, the hallway looking like all day cancellations at LaGuardia. There weren’t many scenarios I could play out that didn’t screw us. The only thing going for us right now was the zombies couldn’t smell us because of the suits, but that very same pro was going to become a con once we ran out of air. We were safe-ish. The zombies weren’t getting in, that was a fair statement, us not being able to get out was also a fair statement.
Could hear a constant stream of zombies passing by. Sometimes one would bump against the door or a zipper would scrape, but other than that, it was high odds they didn’t know we were in here. Couldn’t smell us, and besides the greaver who had moved on, none had seen us.
It was a half-hour later when I picked up a very static-laced Tommy. “Bag…here…you?” Best I could decipher, Baggelli had made it back and he was wondering where we were. I answered, but I had little confidence anything had got through. Felt like we were in a Faraday cage with all the damn shelving.
Stenzel had grabbed a gallon container of Simple Green, the beloved cleaner of every US military installation, everywhere. As Motrin was used for every ailment, this smelly liquid was used for all cleaning purposes.
“We can decontaminate with this, it has alcohol. You need to be cleaned up.” Stenzel spoke softly through the throat mic.
I was all for that, but we were stuck in ground zero. Even if we were clean as a whistle, once we ran out of air, we would have to take off the suits and then we’d be exposed to what we’d let loose. The virus had a shelf life, they all did, but there was no sunlight down here, no UV rays to break down cell walls. It was wet and dank; I think that was damn near a perfect environment for bacterias and viruses to proliferate, and as long as a host was still alive, so was the bug. The weaponized Ebola was deadly; we knew that. It was how fast it worked that was going to be the question, and I’d had enough exposure to deadly viruses to know that there was a good chance that a few of the zombies would be immune, too, although, maybe not; rabies is a hundred percent fatal. But in terms of infectious diseases, that one is a rarity.
“We’ll wait,” I told her as she began to unscrew the lid.
“Did I ever tell you how much this blows, sir?”
“We just got here,” I told her.
“Seriously? Seems like forever.”
“You should keep talking,” I told her. I was starting to feel the effects of the enclosure. Her being within my personal sphere was bad enough, and being in this fucking rubber suit in what should have been a standing room only, darkened, closet illuminated by a red-lensed flashlight didn’t make it any more appealing.
“Do you think Corporal Baggelli is cute? I mean, in a tough guy, New York kind of way?”
“Isn’t this a conversation you should be having with Rose?”
“Naw, all she thinks about are sticks and dicks.”
