“That’s quite a tale.” Captain Walker took a second, “Thank you.” He continued to look at us and you could tell more was coming. “There’s going to be some people who will want to talk with you. Meanwhile, let’s get you squared away and I will let you know what happens next.” Another officer entered the room.
“Don’t worry about your personal belongings. Dr. Barr, your vessel is being taken care of and you will both get receipts.” Once again, the Captain paused. “I don’t have to tell you that what you went through is remarkable. You two have had the most intimate contact with the infected I have yet encountered, and your observations are very important. I don’t know of any survivors actually spending time studying them. Almost everyone we have rescued have basically hidden themselves, either on a boat or in an isolated area. Are you gentleman hungry? Care to shower?”
“No sir,” we said in unison.
“You mentioned some video tapes. May we have a look at them?”
“Sir, I don't think either one of us will ever watch them.” Robert was right, so I just nodded.
“Okay, get some rest and let us know if you need anything. I’m sure I will see you before you go.”
“Go, sir?” I was a bit confused
“Yes, we are moving rescued civilians to secure areas. I believe our report on your activities will get some attention and more than likely, you will be transferred to the Truman, our base of operations.”
Robert looked at me and made a big grin, “Oh, John, you’re going to like this. It’s an aircraft carrier.”
We all stood and started to leave.
“Dr. Patrick, a second please.” Robert was led away.
Once again, Captain Walker took a moment to compose his thoughts. “Dr. Patrick, you already know the answer, don't you?” So much for beating around the bush.
“Well, I have a sneaking suspicion, sir.”
“On a scale of zero to ten, what are our chances?”
“Well, Captain, humans are spread out rather thin. There’s so much we don’t know about this disease and then there is the question of fertile women, and…”
“Dr. Patrick, just a rough guess please.” We looked each other in the eyes. I don’t know what mine were saying, but his was anything but confident.
“Three. Maybe.”
Robert and I shared a nice little (e.g., claustrophobic) room, from which he commandeered the bottom bunk immediately.
“Sorry, John, but I’m at the age where it’s convenience over status.”
“So you’re the military, guy, what happens next? And what the hell is with the receipt thing?” Holy crap, this bunk is a pain in the ass to get into.
“They will figure out something for us to do to earn our keep. Right now, I think everything is still in a cluster fuck.”
“Two months? Where are they getting the food and the fuel? Who’s in charge?”
“Get some rest, buddy. We’re safe.” Robert killed the light.
With no window and very little light creeping in from under the door, it was easy to shift about, get comfortable, and drift. The boat was not as noisy as I would have thought, just a nice steady hum. My mind went blank.
The auditorium was packed and I could sense something important was about to happen. Suddenly, there was some kind of load banging going on just off to my left and the whole audience turned to look. Oh, thank God. As if by divine providence, I was going to be saved from delivering the accumulation of my life’s work to a distinguished gathering of colleagues while naked.
It’s that weird interval between being awake and being asleep, you know you are in a dream and there is nothing you can do about it, but if you concentrate, you can have some fun, you can manipulate things. It’s okay, I can talk naked. Then the light, which I did not realize was approximately three feet from my face, went on.
June, 8th
“Okay, guys, it’s show time.” The voice was way too chipper for whatever the hell time it was. I just grunted and rolled over to see who was at the door. Robert farted and a way too young and perky blonde in a white lab coat entered.
“Sorry to bother you, gentlemen, but you have a meeting scheduled in three hours. Here are some clothes and I will be back in fifteen to show you where to shower and get some lunch, start some ship orientation. Oh, my name is Lorie.” So that was the end of my blue jean fashion period, which pretty much encompassed my entire adult life. We now had olive jump suits and cool all terrain sneakers.
“John. When you snore, you snore like a son of a bitch! God damn, son, if you pulled that shit back at the barn, we would have been toast. No, you would have been toast.”
“Yeah, like the barn.” Asshole.
Lorie came back after what I can only assume was fifteen minutes, since Robert and I and the room had no timepiece.
Showers were down the hall, but we both balked because of hunger. Lunch was Salisbury steak, frozen, and canned gravy. Sides were mashed potatoes, powdered, canned green beans, saltine crackers and a fresh salad. What? Lorie went over what we already knew, although she did add that orders were being sent to send some non-combat personnel to the Vineyard, so we may not be going to the Truman after all. I guess pacification operations were going better than anticipated.
Since there is no such thing as a free lunch or dinner, Lorie forced us sit and review some of the more important points of living under martial law. Just three simple rules: One, do as you are told and don’t fuck with the military or anybody in authority. Two, always remember rule one. Three, don’t fuck with the military. It turns out that all our personnel belongings were reviewed and items deemed necessary to the mission were confiscated. They get to take what they want with no questions asked. Robert got to keep his boat because he was still alive to say it’s his, but he still didn’t know what happened to her. After dinner, our photos were taken and we got ID badges; another rule, don’t go anywhere without your badge being visible.
“I’ve never lived under a military system.” I guess the closest would be with the Boy Scouts at Camp Yawgoog back in Rhode Island. Considering what has gone down, it makes as much sense as anything. The jumpsuit was making me itch.
“You’ll get used to the whole rank and orders thing. We’re civilians, so they’ll generally cut us some slack and leave us alone. Martha’s Vineyard. I haven’t been there in over thirty years. I was too stuck up to visit during tourist season.”
“My last time was at least twenty years. Oh, and I am this huge Jaws fan. They filmed the movie there.” I started to examine one of two little black bags left on our desk, toiletries, well all right! I know I stink.
“I will see you shortly, my good fellow.” I stood up and went down the hall. The showers were empty and just standing under all that hot water, feeling it cascade over my naked body, was truly a transcendental moment. Wow, did it feel good to relax.
When I got back, Robert was asleep. Instead of waking him, I decided to sit down at the small desk. It took a full two minutes before my head was down on my arms. Sometime later, there was another knock and we were off to our next meet and greet.
“Nice hair, John.”
Ah, crap! All attempts with the shitty little black comb the navy provided probably made things worse. On the way, we were informed that we would present our survival story and take some questions from the group.
What group?
It was a small auditorium with maybe thirty people: a mix of officers, navy, marines, doctors, army, and couple of civilians. From the number of cameras, I guessed this was also being taped and maybe teleconferenced to somewhere else. The two of us sat at a table up front with a couple of bottles of water.
“This is a standard debrief?”
“No.”
It started with a short introduction by a female navy doctor with great legs. As expected, Robert and I would tell our heroic story of survival and answer any questions. So off we went and Robert gave them a five minute synopses of the last two weeks. So far so good, I think. T
hen the questions started.
The room had no clocks or windows and after a bit of time, I started to wonder how long this was going to last. We had to have been going at it for at least an hour and no one had mentioned zombies; just background stuff, work, education, research, travel, special interests, where I grew up. Who the fuck cares about how I grew up. Who are these people and why are we here? Eventually, it did roll around to our escape from Bangor and fighting the undead. It very quickly became clear that this was going to be a long afternoon.
The first time had been relatively easy, one on one and just the facts. Now it seemed like everyone, including people from who knows where, had to ask a question about everything we did, and sometimes, why we did it. It seemed, at times, like I was being cross examined. Not what I expected. We eventually started to stray into areas I was not comfortable talking about and decided on a mini conference with Robert. He was not happy about the tone of some of the questioning and deferred to my judgment. So we basically told everyone that some things were off limits. This went over like a fart in church, and a break was ordered.
The nice navy doctor came over.
“Guys, I know this has to be hard, but we need to know as much as possible.” She leaned over to get her head at our level. This makes the patient feel more comfortable, and I was able see the open folder she was carrying. The top sheet, among Dr. Good-legs scribbling, was a printed copy of our interview with Captain Walker. I was also able to glance at her watch. We have been here for over three hours.
“Hey, whoever you are, you have our story. You know some personal shit went down. Right here, right now, is just not the right time, okay?” I got up to try to find a bathroom.
When I got back, we were ready to go again. I have always had a short temper, particularly when being interrogated by the military, but I may have jumped the gun. Once we got into zombies, things settled down and we really got into zombies. All formality disappeared and it turned into a nice old bull session. It then occurred to me that all these people didn’t come from the Kauffman, and may have never met each other. There were three distinct groups. The first one seem to have members from all the military branches and asked general questions like zombie activity, response to stimuli, possible thought process, tool use, horde formation, horde psychology, etc. The second, also all branches, stuck to physiology, anatomy and epidemiology. The third, all marines, was tactics. Their research extended only as far as a video screen. Robert and I had a more personal touch when it came to data collecting. Their biggest advantage was the bazillion hours of video to study and giant piles of reports to digest. The more we talked, the more it became apparent that these guys saw it all as something that happened in the theoretical. I’m not saying they didn’t understand what was happening or try to empathize with Robert and me; they were all just a bit distant. I guess everyone thinks they are going to survive this. I did. Now, I didn’t give a damn about the time. This was interesting and actually fun, for me at least. Everybody seemed to be on the same page as far as our general situation; we’re screwed. The real differences came about when we got into specifics. Rickenbacker was right; the devil is in the details.
The first point of contention was the most important, decay rate. Essentially, how long is your average zombie’s lifespan? Two sides quickly formed.
A. Standard decomposition. Summer heat and zombie activity should speed up the rate. Maybe two months.
B. Decomposition rate is unclear. Bodies do not appear to be undergoing normal post mortem changes. They consume food and drink water. Time is unknown.
Both sides did agree on the importance of ongoing research (ongoing?) and we slipped into a long back and forth over whether we could distinguish between a new zombie, say a one day old, and an old zombie, a week plus old. In the end, we had to say we could not.
This was the key issue, because it set the stage for what we do next, get busy or wait it out. I started to hear both sides mention some new insight presented on the video. What video? After another undetermined length of time, the meeting was adjourned and we went back to our cabin. Well, all right! Somebody put cool navy wristwatches on our bunks.
June 9 and 10th
The next two days were just R&R. Robert and I played a lot of chess, he won most. Lorie scrounged and found me Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, all three books. Captain Walker ate most of our meals with us and gave us more insight into our strange new world. Yes, there was a government on St. Croix in the Caribbean. Yes, the legislative, judicial and executive branches of the US were still working. Russia, Britain, via the Falkland Islands, Greece, Iceland, Greenland, Australia, and a number of other countries still had functioning governments who were trying to work with each other. The captain thought the Kaufmann would stay in this area, in US territorial waters, for at least the next couple of months, although he would have liked to go further north. David was a nice guy. Originally, from Indiana, he ended up at Annapolis through a hilarious series of unlikely twists of fate. He had a ring on his left hand, but we didn’t talk about that.
At our third lunch together, we got the news.
“Guys, I got the report from the lighthouse rescue party this morning. The operation was delayed due to some unforeseen issues I will not discuss. The place was abandoned; doors left wide-open, rotting food, lots of empty wine bottles, and the lighthouse was turned on. They found what are apparently their shoes just above the lowest set of cliffs, sorry.”
I had received some demographic information from the captain the night before, just a quick overview; age, sex, and a bunch of other metrics I didn’t care about. I should have jumped right in, but I knew this data was incomplete, and biased or not, the results would have depressed me. I hoped he wouldn’t bring it up. I also kept hope that a cruise ship full of sixteen to twenty year old healthy girls would be rescued. We did find out that there was thirty seven ‘major’ outposts scattered around the continental US. By major, he meant a population in excess of one thousand people and the military is giving what help it can. David would not get into a whole lot of details, but the general gist was that things were better than I had anticipated. What I didn’t find out until later, was that originally, there were over three hundred outposts and that only the biggest and best organized were still with us. On average, we were losing contact with one every week.
“There is another thing you two should be aware of. Your video, your group’s video, has been worked over by our AV/IT techs.” He stopped. I think he was anticipating a dramatic response. “You guys have never reviewed it?”
“I have no interest. John.” I didn’t say anything and just waited for the other shoe to drop.
“The only reason I mention it is because there was quite a bit of video, different levels of quality but...guys, they have put the tapes together in chronological order and with some editing, it is a very sobering and powerful story. I have seen it only once, and I will tell you I came away moved. I don’t know if I could have gone through it. I have no clue what command will want to do, but I just thought you should know.”
We eventually got our marching orders and I was going to get to see a real functional nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and named after my favorite underappreciated president.
June 11th
Just before sunset, we were coppered over to the Harry Truman on a SH-60 Seahawk. Like the type of helicopter really mattered. This was only the second one I have been in and the first one never left the ground. This is what I call a boat. At over a thousand feet, it is absolutely fucking massive. Plus it has a bunch of other, smaller boats all around it, which just gives it an even more regal look. When we got closer, I could see sailors, who looked like ants, scrambling over the flight deck. There seemed to be lots of activity. We stayed well off her port bow while waiting for a jet to take off. It gave me time to study this behemoth; a nuclear powered ship, one of the pinnacles of human ingenuity. As a liberal pacifist, I never thought it would be so easy to become spe
llbound by an instrument of war.
“I think we’re getting what we deserved.”
I forgot the mike was on and Robert quickly turned and looked at me, our eyes made contact and he slowly nodded his head yes, but in that Robert way of telling me to shut the hell up. The jet looked like a small rocket as it as it streaked skyward, banked, and headed south. Where the hell was he going?
After landing, we were quickly led off the flight deck, and taken to individual staterooms to rest for a bit, while they organized a meeting for another debriefing. From the sound of it, the Admiral and some other big shots will be in attendance. Holy shit, I am going to meet an actual Admiral! This would not happen until the following day, so we had time to kill.
We handed in our flight stuff and were told to sit down in a lounge area and wait.
“Robert, how the hell are they keeping everything running? Feeding people? Energy? Yeah, the ships nuclear but…” I said this in almost a whisper, thinking that somebody might be listening in.
“John, no one is listing in. You don’t have to whisper.” He sat down on this blue generic government issue couch.
“I have no idea how they keep the show on the road. I have been thinking the same thing, so keep your eyes open.” He cupped his hands behind his head, leaned back, and shut his eyes. Keep your eyes open. WTF Robert? Keep your eyes open was the phrase you used to let your partner know something was wrong. What the hell was wrong?
After hanging out for an hour, we went on a tour of the ship with three other civilians. No introductions were made, just a simple ‘hi’, ‘how ya doing?’ Robert and I had our jumpsuits on, but these guys were in shorts, polo shirts, and deck shoes, very Club Med. It seemed to be the standard PR tour. The Harry S Truman is a Nimitz Class carrier, commissioned in nineteen eighty-nine, her homeport is Norfolk, Virginia. The ship’s company is normally around fifty-seven hundred, but we were now at seven thousand, and with nuclear reactors, her range is essentially unlimited. The carrier’s last upgrade was in 2010, making her one of the most advanced in the fleet. These are cheat sheets on how to get to the cafeteria and the rec. rooms, observe all restricted signs, obey all rules and regulations, and have fun.
Brutal Planet: A Zombie Novel Page 12