“It’s okay, man, it’s over.” This time, I intended to be loud. He turned to look at me. At first, his eyes expressed surprise; I don’t know if it was because we were not zombies or because we were not gowned. He started to say something, but his hood made him sound muddled.
“You can take your hood off.” I mimicked, unzippering it from the back and made the universal okay sign.
He was an older man, maybe sixties? And just looked at me with sad eyes, shook his head no and pointed at the floor.
The floor. The linoleum was new with this special anti-slip texture grey, which wraps up the walls a couple of feet. Let’s see; there are test tubes of various sizes, paper, a variety of equipment (scales, pipet guns, a small pump, etc…), several stainless steel trays covered in a light yellow powder. Lots of light yellow powder. Ah, crap. I turned back to the researcher. He now faced me full on. His right arm was shredded. There was so much blood it was impossible to tell exactly where he was injured, or how the injury happened. He leaned back in the corner formed by the lyo and the wall. He started to say something, stopped, and just continued shaking his head. Man, it is getting hot in here.
“Stay out of this lab!” I yelled, too late. The two were right behind me.
“Oh no.” It was Kathy.
“What?” Peter.
“Everyone stop moving and stand still! Kathy…”
“I see it. Peter back out into the hallway, very slowly. Let’s try not to kick up anymore of this yellow crap. John, what’s his story?” She nodded toward the researcher.
“He’s history.” Sweat was starting to be an issue with my glasses and I had to clean them every minute or so. Once I did get a good look around, I noticed a pair of gowned legs sticking out behind an overturned table.
“Hey, Kathy, there’s someone down behind that table to your right. Not moving, for now. I’m not sure what to …”
I swear to God, I saw it before I heard it; and then it was like seeing cartoon panels from a comic book, no captions, and everything drawn as exaggerated. Frame one, Peter flying backwards through the doorway. Frame two, Peter in the midst of being perfectly tackled by a zombie with the exact physique of a young Mike Tyson. The next frame is the tackle continued, but now, Peter has been lifted several feet off the floor. Frame four is the inevitable crashing to the already littered and highly contagious lab floor. The Iron Mike zombie had hit Peter so hard that even after tripping, the momentum carried them to the far side of the room and into the lyos. The angle of the light was such that I could easily see the huge plume of dust they raised. Dust? Dust is harmless. This isn’t dust. What the hell do I do now? Peter was firing, but it was not stopping the mini Hulk. I couldn’t go for a head shot, so I quickly put two in his back. Iron Mike turned and looked at me. Peter’s blood made the zombies face shiny and glistening. His eyes were so wide they seemed to glow. His face seemed paralyzed with this peculiar expression; a cross between ‘I hate you and will eat your liver’ and ‘don’t I know you from somewhere?’ Its face never changed, even when Peter blew the back of its skull off.
“Kathy, why is it so hot in here?” I didn’t want to focus on Peter.
“Ventilation is off.” I hope I don’t sound nearly as scared as her. She glanced over the table for a quick look, took a second to steady herself and then leaned back and fired a single round. I was just staring at her, watching her become absolutely still for a couple of seconds, and then as if a light switched on inside, she suddenly looked up and carefully walked over to a large grey metal box mounted on the wall.
“John, the negative pressure is not working, only positive.”
“You mean everything is blowing out of this lab?”
“Yes.” We just looked at each other.
“Kathy, what are the odds the…” The force of the body slam threw me to the ground. Holy crap, it’s Peter.
“You will not shoot me!” Both his hands were clamped on my right wrist, which he started banging on the floor. The only thing I could do is try to roll him off of me.
“Peter!” Then a very audible, click.
Our scuffle was over. He froze, Kathy had her gun about a foot from the side of his head, and I struggled to get away. Now with two guns trained on him, one being held by someone who is going to kill him, Peter gave up and started crying.
All right, there are four of us, two who are literally dead men walking. Who am I kidding? I looked at Peter, and he was coated in the yellow dust. I looked at my arms, coated in yellow dust. I looked at Kathy, and the lab, and I knew: total contamination.
“We have to close this lab.” I went over and looked at the Tyson zombie. He was a compact mass of muscle. Damn it! There it was again. He had cutouts on both shoulders. This sucks. I will never get to find out exactly what the fuck was going on, but this boy is military.
“Peter, let’s go.” I turned and walked to the research dude.
“John!” Kathy screamed, and in a flash, Peter was gone. Contaminated Peter was gone. I looked at the researcher and started talking with my hands, New England style.
“Let’s go. We have to go now!” I could see he was looking at me and knew what was going on, but he didn’t move. After a half minute or so, he held up his left, good arm, and gestured that he was staying. He also indicated he wanted my pistol. I looked around. Kathy was by the door covering us. I had to get out of here ASAP and hit a decontamination shower. Right, so if I give him the gun, I am weaponless in a ship full of zombies and now contaminated people. If I shoot him, I get to keep the gun.
So I turned and shot him in the forehead. I then joined Kathy by the door.
“Let’s close this in the best way we can. Without air balance, it won’t seal,” Kathy yelled. We did get the door latched, but the amount of air being forced through the seals made a loud whistling noise. After the second door, we were in the clear, not really. I rushed both of us under a showerhead and pulled the steel rod down. Ah, man, that’s cold! Yes, I knew this was all just a game to convince myself and Kathy that the five minutes or so we spent in an intensely dirty lab did not contaminate us. Hey, maybe it’s not what I think it is. It hasn’t been milled, so maybe it’s not the right size to get deep into the lungs to the alveoli. Maybe it needs an activator and that is done on another ship; hence this good-for-nothing, shitty so-called BSL-4 crap setup. Yeah, and I’m just whistling past the graveyard. We’re toast.
After a few minutes, the water stopped and we were completely drenched. Kathy had on pink scrubs and for the first time, I noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra. Okay, one, the now soaking wet light colored shirt made this patently obvious, and two, I’m a fucking male with a death sentence, so get off my back.
“What now?” Kathy was shivering.
“Find out what’s going on, with the ship I mean. Topside?” I replaced my clip.
“Sure, why not?” We didn’t talk about it. For now, it was understood.
We made our way up several landings without incident, although we did hear an intense round of gunfire deep in the innards of the ship. When we got to the deck, people were scattered into small groups, usually around someone with a firearm. We went over to the nearest group.
“We’re alright. We’re not bitten.” Maybe this was the wrong thing to say when the leader of this small group is a huge Aryan looking dude, whose left hand was a bloody bandaged mess. Either he had been bitten or lost round one to the garbage disposal.
“Who are you?” Instead of even trying to be unobtrusive, he was staring at Kathy’s breasts. Yes, all men are dogs.
“We’re with research. What’s going on?” Kathy tried to sound officer-like.
“What’s going on? What’s going on is we’re being overrun by zombies.”
“Thanks for the news flash, but are there any orders?” I was way past tired of playing Captain Obvious. “I mean, what’s next?” The group was made up of four navy personnel and the big marine. One of the navy guys looked sick, really sick.
“Surviv
e. Where you coming from?”
“The forward labs.” Just then, there was gunfire aft of us, but close enough to get everyone nervous. Crates and various pieces of equipment blocked our view and this did wonders for our anxiety. Kathy and I backed up against a humongous wooden crate. Its contents registered as a series of numbers and capital letters that I was not meant to decipher. Kathy moved close to me, she was shivering.
I leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Let’s move around here in the sun and out of the wind.” It was kind of a mini hallway between the giant crate and the ship, maybe twelve feet long. It did put us with our backs to the sea, but we would only need one person to stand guard.
“Try to dry out the best you can.” I moved to the middle, hunkered down in a little patch of morning sunlight, and waited. I had a nice narrow kill lane, and what, thirty rounds? A good ten minutes went by with nothing happening, and by nothing, I mean no one and nothing went by and no gunfire. Kathy and I didn’t talk, we just waited. And waited.
At about the forty-five minute mark, just as my breathing was falling into the rhythm of Kathy’s snoring, all hell broke loose. I was thrown forward into the shipping crate. It was if the Cassandra had suddenly turned sideways. Lots of gunfire aft of us, smoke, the shuddering of the ship felt like bones snapping deep down inside. Kathy’s awake. What the hell do we do now? I got up and crept to the end of our hallway, hoping to get a look back and see what the fuck was happening.
“John!” Kathy cried.
I turned and wow. Kathy was standing by the ship’s railing, pointing outward. I don’t know how far, but like rock throwing close to the ship was a marine Harrier Jump Jet. It was simply hanging there, as if someone had it suspended by an invisible string. Between the shit storm happening behind us and the wind, we never heard it approach. The light was at a perfect angle and I could clearly see the pilot. He was just casually sitting there, glancing around and taking in the sights. You know, to see this huge majestic bird of war just hovering in the air would, for most people, make their year. For me, if the Harrier plays its cards right, it might make my hour. He gently moved off aft. Of course, he was trying to figure what the hell was going on, which meant…
“Kathy, what’s with that recon?” I shouted.
“I don’t know.” More stochastic automatic fire from somewhere aft.
“You look pale.”
“I don’t feel all that great. You know how you can sometimes feel something coming on?”
“Yeah, me too.” My lungs have been getting progressively hotter and raw for the last twenty minutes. No fluid or real cough, so far. This was not the time and place to think about it.
I must have zombie radar or something, because I turned and raised my pistol just as the creature came around the corner. This was no bald athletic male, but an anorexic female in dark pink scrubs and a lab coat. Her face and long blonde hair were covered in blood and one whole side was chewed up. Her speed and outreached arms made her too close to shoot. So while she lunged, I parried and tripped her. She ended up on her knees, about three feet from the end of the barrel of Kathy’s pistol. The creature looked up and they both seemed to freeze. The picture they presented was almost religious. There is the penitent, down on her knees, there was Kathy looming over her, ready to pass judgment, and there was the Great Atlantic, the Glory of God. Then she blew the back of its head off.
“Thanks. Can you still see the jet?” I turned back to cover the opening.
“No, but a Blackhawk just flew by.”
“Landing?”
“No, just low, slow, and tight.” The wind died down and I could tell she was looking at me.
“John, you know how we usually travel in a nice tight flotilla with lots of friends around?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, from my vantage point, we are now sailing solo.”
“Kathy, I think we’re screwed.”
“We knew that an hour ago, but I know what you mean, and I think you’re right.”
Well, someone had to say it, and at least I now know we are on the same page.
“I am going to die on a ship in Long Island Sound. I guess it could be worse,” I whispered to myself.
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s get out of here. Forward?” I glanced around the corner and the coast was clear. Whatever had been going on had subsided.
“Why not.” So, yet again, I slink forward doing my best impression of someone who knows what they were doing.
“How about up here?” Kathy pointed to a ladder that we could use to climb on top of a really big crate. Easily twelve feet high, it would keep us safe from attack, well, at least from a zombie attack. The ladder was attached to the ship and had a safety cage around it. You had to climb outside the cage and make an interesting giant step to get to the top of the crate, a series of maneuvers I assumed would slow down even the most determined and ambidextrous zombie. I helped Kathy over and for the first time, looked around.
“Ah crap.” The back of the boat was on fire. At least something was burning and putting off a lot of black smoke. The wind kept the worst away from us. A traditional Cassandra zombie came running down the hall we had just climbed up from, never looking up at us. He just made this determined beeline sprint up the ship. After what, I have no clue, but that was one angry zombie late for something. I think the monkey house has been officially overthrown and I was starting to sweat and felt like shit. I knew I was starting a temperature and really needed to sit down.
“Hey look,” Kathy yelled. On the other side of the ship was another group on top of another gigantic crate, four in all. They were something like thirty yards from us and there was really no reason to try to communicate, so we both gave this really weak, playground-esque, half wave to each other. Do they also know the game’s over? Would I, if I hadn’t seen the lab? I didn’t know how many zombies are now onboard, but my best guess is that it just doesn’t matter anymore. An injured sailor came down the main corridor; staggering and holding his left arm. He passed directly below me.
“Hey! Up Here, Look out!” He didn’t even glance up, but just kept trudging along. At the next intersection, he half turned as if surprised by something and was gone in a grey flash. I started to cough.
Kathy and I found a semi comfortable place on some coiled rope, and sat back to back. From my position, I had a magnificent view of the Connecticut shoreline and the fires still burning inland. I suppose they will be all summer and well into the fall, maybe till the snowfalls. We held hands. Even on a hot day out in the sun, her warmth was comforting. It was nice not to be alone. I think we were both relatively calm, no shaking, no sweating, no nervous rambling, just quiet. You could smell the sea and all seemed good. God, what a beautiful day! Who knows, maybe we’re not infected. Maybe rescue is on the way, maybe.
I could hear the roar of jets off in the distance, screaming our way. It was over, oh well. It is as it is, and in a surprisingly slow calm voice, I asked, “You know, Kathy, what I really like about the ocean?”
“No, John, what do you really like about the ocean?” I could tell from the inflection in her voice that she was ready for a bad punch line.
“Well, now that you ask. It’s so…
Martha’s Vineyard
Robert was sitting on the small porch of a grey-shingled cottage, reading, when the car pulled up. He kind of knew why they were here, but still thought it was funny that they arrived in a lime green Kia. The navy had allocated him a one hundred year old cottage within sight of the sea. He was still considered something of a hero for his actions with John and the zombies, one of the stars of the now famous video and now a consultant, for what I don’t know. Ah, there was Captain Walker with someone who looked official. Well, here we go.
“Hi, Robert.”
“Captain, good to see you.”
They walked up to the porch and stood a second, both seemed a bit nervous. Robert took a deep breath and looked out to the sea. All things come to an e
nd, he thought.
“Robert, he is gone. The Cassandra became contaminated. They had no choice.”
Robert continued to stare at the ocean. There was no shock or grief. He knew this was going to happen eventually, and so did John.
“John was on a ship? Contaminated? Contaminated with what?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned and looked at Captain Walker.
“David, I thought he was on the mainland goofing off with the marines?”
“The Admiral pulled him for research over a week ago. He volunteered. Word is they figured something out about the virus, but I don’t know what that really means. It must mean something. I don’t have to tell you that I liked him. A strange guy and a bit bat-shit crazy, but he got the job done. Was he police or military in the real world before the university stuff?”
“No…he was an Anthropologist. And yup, he was bat-shit crazy.”
The other gentleman just stood there cradling a little box in his hand and sweating. He looked to Captain Walker who nodded.
“Sir, on behalf of a grateful nation, we would like to present John Ross Patrick the Navy Distinguished Service Medal for services…”
“Son, you can stop right there. John would not give a damn about a piece of metal and you know what I am going to do with it. So just hand it over and have a good day.”
He reluctantly handed the small box over and stepped back. David had that shit eating grin and extended his hand.
Brutal Planet: A Zombie Novel Page 34