I spent today watching the kids play with the dog. (There are sixteen kids here, and school starts in three weeks. You should have heard the groans.) Richy, Chloe, Donna, and I are living together. In my shack. It’s basically a ten-by-ten room with three bunks, a door and a dirty window. The only stuff we have are things that will help us survive. I don’t have any trinkets in here other than my journals. Donna has her medical stuff. There is a Frisbee and a football for the kids. Chloe does not throw like a girl. Donna does.
Richy was not allowed to play video games when he was growing up. His parents were against it. There are several video gaming systems on board Atlantis, and this kid has been going HAM on them. Put an adult diaper on him, and he would starve to death playing those damn games. Video games are like heroin, I guess. Donna and I have spoken about limiting his time being a vidiot. Chloe has been helping out in the kitchen, and Richy is showing aptitude with our weather system’s analyst.
We are in the midst of a plague which turns your friends and family into murderous cannibals. Until a year ago, I had no such friends or family. Now I have multitudes of both, and the world, which had gotten huge for a while, has shrunk to infinitesimal. How can I protect all these people?
The dead can’t get to us, but eventually, we’re going to have to go to them. There are abundant supplies here, but abundant is also finite. Our stockpile will get low, and we will have to send teams out to procure more stuff. Although wounded, I’m up and around, and I’m going to suggest to Austin that we don’t wait. We should go out now so we don’t deplete our reserves. Now being in about a week. Donna will go bananas, and the kids will be upset, but I’m probably the third best qualified to go. I would say Ship would go nuts too, but I have no doubt he will say it’s a good idea, then accompany me. I think a team of about six is optimal, not big enough to draw attention, but not small enough to be outnumbered. I’m going to ask Remo if he will come. He spends most of his time on the Stockdale now, but he still comes up to check on us and listen to my journals when I read them out loud. He’s going to start a combat training class. Personal defense tactics (my idea).
Kat has taken to the kids as well as Donna. Kat lives with Alvarez across the deck from me. They share a shack with another two people who hot-bunk. One of those people is Tim. Tim is a bona-fide hero to these roughnecks, and not because of the stories I’ve told. Screw zombie hordes. Screw crazy bikers and super spies. Tim can fix shit. The various computer systems on this rig are Tim’s to command. This guy blows away anybody for probably a thousand miles when it comes to computers and networks and communications. He’s corrected a hundred problems already, and has only been here ten days.
The only issues I had were that my arm hurt, this piece of skin on my shoulder itched now and then, and I was bored. They wouldn’t let me work yet. Because my arm hurts. Did I mention my arm hurts? Because it hurts.
I would love to tell you that we all lived happily ever after. That we spent our days on the rig, making forays, and were finally able to live in peace once all the infected rotted away. Alas, this was not to be. It didn’t take long for everything to go to shit either.
I had finally been cleared to go back to work. Much like Tim, I fix stuff. Not computer stuff. F that noise. I fix mechanical things. Cuz I’m a mechanic. There was never a shortage of shit to fix on an oil rig either, and this one was huge. Not only that, but as I’ve mentioned in a previous journal, I get pimped out to other rigs and ships in the Gulf as well to fix their broken shit. That, as it happens, was where the proverbial feces struck the fan.
The Ocean Diamond, a semisubmersible drilling rig, had a failure in one of her air compressor motors. Yours truly was asked to come aboard and take a look. It was my first time being back on the job since I had been kidnapped. I jumped at the chance. What a fucking idiot. They sent a boat to pick me up. They offloaded two hundred gallons of fuel for us. Fuel was generally the mode of currency in the Gulf, although there were several others. You might think it odd that gasoline and diesel were currency when every ship and rig in the Gulf was mining oil, but oil was a resource everybody had and everybody knew that refined fuel was worth more than gold. Absolutely everything out here ran on fuel. Even the electricity was generated by fuel. Sure, there were wind and solar rigs, but they still needed gas. Atlantis had her own refinery, and there was a refinery ship aligned with us anchored not a thousand feet away, but we took the fuel anyway.
So I get on the boat, and Remo and Ship both decide that today is the day that they are going to come with me. I think they were both worried that I would get hurt my first day back because of my preexisting injuries. The three of us zip six miles across the waves, and are soon standing on the deck of the Diamond, Ship carrying my tools. A smallish woman, whom I had never met, maybe in her early fifties, greets us and introduces herself as June. Hands are shaken, pleasantries exchanged, and soon we are sitting in June’s office with six of her guys pointing at maps of the rig and where the compressor in question is located. She asks me about my bandaged arm, and I tell her it was a rig injury. She nods and gets us three cups of coffee, me thinking it would be rude to say No thank you, coffee tastes like dirt, but I could really use a Mountain Dew. I have never had a cup of coffee in my life, and I wasn’t about to start another habit now. I accept the coffee, as do Ship and Remo, and suddenly we are staring cross-eyed at the business ends of every weapon in the room.
June opens a drawer, pulls out a very familiar, laminated but weathered photo and slides it across the desk. It’s a picture of me, my dome adorned with gauze.
“Sorry,” she said, and looked the part.
It started with a tomato. A little grape tomato in a salad. June and the guys from the Diamond, the guys with guns, escorted us to the galley. The brought us in lunch, which consisted of: you guessed it, a salad. They had that oil and vinegar dressing with those friggin herbs that I absolutely love. Anyway, they were sitting around us, sort of paying attention to us eat while talking. They were talking to us, questioning me as to who I was. I would not answer. They didn’t seem to get frustrated or angry at my refusals. I got the impression that these weren’t bad people.
These were not professionals either. I know this because had they been, they would have separated and bound us somehow. They had disarmed us, but just looking at Remo and Ship should frighten most people. I believe that these people were not used to the shitheads that seem to flourish during an apocalypse. Other than point weapons at us, the worst thing the folks from the Diamond had done to us was serve us lunch.
So the tomato. There had been several in the salad, and I was going to eat every damn bit of this salad because number one: it was delicious, and number two: I was thinking I was going on a long trip that would end with me strapped to a hospital bed in another government facility, and the food there couldn’t compare. I got to the last tomato, and it was covered in that fantastic dressing. I stabbed at it with my plastic fork and missed. I tried again, and was able to puncture the tomato, but it fell off the tines. The third, fourth, and fifth times the little round devil rolled off the tines un-punctured. I got mad. Pissed at that fucking piece of fruit, then at the assholes who were prepared to turn me over to another, worse group of assholes, and for what? Payment? More fucking tomatoes? I began to shake, and my eyes began to water. Of course, by this time, you know it wasn’t water.
I was a bit hunched over, looking at that damned tomato in the bowl, and shaking when one of the gun-toters asked to the general public: “What’s wrong with him?” They had taken me prisoner and were going to sell me and they wanted to know what was wrong? REALLY?
As my hands turned into claws, I said, “Remo, try not to kill anyone.” Before anybody except my buddies could process that, I launched myself at the nearest asshole, hitting him under the jaw. He went sprawling and this shit was on. I punched the guy to his right in the temple, then kicked the guy on the ground in the balls. I heard a shot fire and had to hope none of us was hit. I looked t
he standing guy in the face as he held his head and he saw my blood red eyes and screamed, dropping his weapon. I grabbed his head and smashed my forehead into his nose before he could move. I turned to June, and she screamed as well, fumbling for her sidearm. Remo had already incapacitated the two idiots near him, and Ship had taken out both of his captors with one backhand swipe. Remo was pointing the gun at June, and she just lifted her hands in the air and begged Please! I shot across the table, taking her to the ground and straddling her. I snarled the most terrifying sound, and her bladder let go. I screamed and slapped her with an open palm. She began to cry frantically, and I removed her .357 magnum, standing and cocking the hammer. “Get up.” She was beyond hysterical, so I nudged her with my boot. Okay, so it was more of a kick, but I hadn’t hurt her. “GET UP!” I pointed the cocked weapon between her eyes and she just closed them, crying.
Five or six people burst in, but we had all of our former captors including the leader of the Diamond on the ground and covered. “Drop your weapons or we kill you all,” Remo said calmly. I think his tranquil demeanor was more terrifying to these people than if he had fired his weapon. Every one of them acquiesced immediately. I heard weapons hit the floor. Remo was telling everybody what to do, but I wasn’t listening. I was heaving, and thinking about Donna, the kids, and that damn dog.
Without altering my gaze, I pointed at the guy I had kicked in the balls, “You, help her up.” He limped to her and did just that. She had calmed, but the place was still as tense as the OK Corral just before high noon. I looked around, and all the douches were on their knees, hands behind their heads, ankles crossed. Ship was behind them and Remo in front.
“What now?” MARSOC asked.
“How about we tie them up in this room and I fucking bite her?” I pointed at June, and everyone in the place went dead silent. “Why?” I demanded. “Why would you do this? Do you have any idea what the assholes you were going to give me to are going to do now?”
“They have my husband and brother,” she shouted, beginning to cry anew. “They’ll kill them if we don’t deliver you!”
I uncocked the hammer on the .357 and sighed. “Well, shit.”
Exchange
Hostages. What’s left of the American government had procured hostages in order to procure me. That was a crazy time. I pointed at one of the guys that had just shown up. “Get me a radio.” He stood, obviously terrified. “If you bring anybody else back here, I will tear them and you to pieces, and my buddies will execute every last one of these assholes.” Tear him to pieces. Epic. These people thought I was some kind of sentient infected, and I wasn’t going to let them off the hook so easily.
Scaredy-cat returned in a few minutes, and handed me a radio. It was big, and it had a huge collapsible antenna. Looked like something left over from Khe Sanh. We had all our captives facing the wall, on their knees, ankles crossed, hands on their heads, just like before. I made a call to the Stockdale, and Schumitz was on the line pretty quickly. We hadn’t thought to initiate call signs. Everything alright?
“Decidedly not. They pulled guns on us, tried to subdue us, and had plans on shipping me off to what I’m guessing are the same assholes who had me before.”
Any casualties?
“One guy will have sore nuts for a while, and the boss over here,” I looked at June, “is going to need a change of panties, but other than that no, everybody is okay.”
I meant were any of our team injured?
“Oh, no, we’re good.”
Dispatching a team now. Glad you boys are okay.
“Yeah, about that. I’m having a hard time believing that whoever wants me decided to come to these idiots first. Why didn’t they contact you and demand you roll me and hand me over?”
He paused for the slightest of moments. They did. I told them to fuck off. We are now rogue elements of the US Navy. They told me they were dispatching a carrier group to Atlantis to relieve me of command.
“And you didn’t think to tell me this?”
I don’t work for you. You’re not even Navy. Like I’m going to inform you of classified communiques. This having been said, I was going to discuss it with the group tonight. I just found out you weren’t on Atlantis right now.
I looked at Remo, who looked back at me. “I didn’t know any of that,” he said.
Fair enough.
“Captain, would you mind sending two teams? I have a plan.”
Another slight pause. They’re on the way. ETA one hour.
“Thanks, I’ll talk to you when we get back.” We ended the call, and I sat at one of the tables. “Everybody up. Sit over here.” Both Remo and Ship tensed, not knowing what I was up to, but the crew of the Diamond did as I asked.
I looked at June, “Look, I’m sorry for any part I caused in the capture and holding of your family. At the end of the day, it’s not really my fault. I get what you did to us and why, but that doesn’t excuse it.”
“They’re going to kill them.” She looked down and started to cry again. “They’re going to kill my husband and my brother.”
“No,” I said, “they’re not.”
The plan was simple. June was going to call the dickweeds who were threatening her family. We would agree to meet at a neutral location, and June would pretend to exchange me for her men. The twelve men Schumitz had sent, Remo, and Ship would jump out, yell Surprise, the bad guys would surrender, and we would send them packing with a simple but efficient message: Fuck off.
Remo was torn. Everything in him said to kill whoever showed up, but as they were probably guys he served in the same armed services with, he was unsure if the murder was necessary. The guys that were on the Majestik had killed some of us, so it was self-defense on our part. This was different. We would be holding all the cards; at least we hoped so.
We had discussed the plan in front of June and her second, the rest of the douches were being watched by six of Schumitz’s heavy hitters. Max, June’s lead roughneck, raised his hand, “So does this mean we’re cool? Can we have our guns back?”
“No, and most fucking definitely no. You cannot have your guns back. If you reach for them, we will shoot you. If you ask again, we will shoot you. In fact, if I hear you fart loud, we will fucking shoot you.” The guy swallowed hard. “Once we get your people back, we’re done. We’re going to leave and you assholes will never do business with us again. At least if I have any say about it anyway. If something breaks on this POS, you can read a fucking manual.”
Both of them looked down and nodded. I was shooting for shame and had hit a bullseye. I reaffirmed my notion that these were not bad people, just desperate. I felt a twinge of guilt for shaming them until I realized what would have happened to me if their evil plot had succeeded.
“Why do you look like one of them?” June asked me, horror and revulsion evident on her teary face.
She was sitting and I was standing, so I got down on my haunches and looked deep into her white eyes with my red ones. “I am one of them.”
Her eyes widened, and I stood. “If word should make it off this piece of shit rig that there is an infected monster with a toolbox roaming around the Gulf, it will become my personal mission to make you all dead and turn this tub into singed scrap metal. Spread the word not to spread the word.”
They both nodded again.
“June, you look,” I glanced down at her urine-soaked jeans, “pissed. You need to change. Two of my guys will go with you, then you’ll all come right back.” I did the red-eye stare again. “Don’t dawdle, June.”
She was back in twenty minutes. All fourteen of my team were talking over the plan when one of the stooges from the Diamond showed up with his hands raised. We let him in the cafeteria-galley, and he passed her a much younger and smaller radio. “It’s them.”
Remo was suddenly standing next to us. He put a hand lightly on the terrified woman’s shoulder, “Like we planned, June.”
She took in a deep breath and depressed the send button, “
This is the Diamond, over.”
Diamond, this is Ares. Have you secured the package?
The package? I’m the package? If I hadn’t been so enraged by this situation, I would have burst out laughing at his colloquial indiscretion.
“Yes, Ares, do you have our men?”
Affirmative. We will be landing on your helipad in thirty minutes. We don’t want to see any weapons. Repeat: No weapons. Understood?
Yes, Ares, we understand.”
See you in thirty, out.
Why did they want to meet here? Why not on their home turf, or at least someplace neutral. I looked at the commander of Schumitz’s two teams, “Can you be ready in thirty?”
“We’ll be ready in three.” He spun on his heel and began to address his men.
True to their word, the douches were landing on the helipad in exactly thirty-one minutes. I’m not good with helicopter models, but this one was big and black and military looking. Six guys, also in black, with those balaclavas on their faces, fanned out with their M4s panning in all directions. I was on my knees, hands behind my back, with June and Max on either side of me. I was also wearing sunglasses. One of the guys strode forward, extremely confident looking. Apparently, he and I had come to the same conclusion; that the folks on the Diamond were completely useless, and destined to die. He lowered his M4, which had been pointing at Max’s face, and snorted the snort of the complacent. He looked over his shoulder at one of his stooges, “Bring ‘em out.” Two guys were dragged out and placed in front of the douche in charge. They both had hoods on their heads with their hands bound behind their backs.
The Zombie Theories (Book 3): Conversion Theory Page 10