Scott looked back up, smiled, waved to the camera, and pulled the cyclic stick up and to the right to bank away in a descending turn that took his helicopter over the length of the Queen Mary and back to the helicopter pad atop the Sovereign Spirit where Mick Williams took the controls to make a perfect landing. Fox Rusher was back on the monitor by then.
“That was an amazing interview, Chet. This Commodore Scott Allen had some extremely controversial opinions. But it’s clear that he and his Survival Flotilla, if I heard him right, are making more progress against the zombie infestation here in Los Angeles than any of the local authorities. And he says he has a mandate from CDC and Homeland Security. So, if Commodore Allen or anyone on his ships can hear me now, I’d like to invite the Commodore to fly his helicopter to the GNN studios for a more in-depth interview as soon as possible. Can you try to relay that message to him now, Chet?
“I can still hear you, Mr. Rusher,” replied Scott on the helicopter radio. “I’m a little busy right now though. You see, we eliminated over 500 zombies today, but we lost two Coast Guard sailors in one engagement. One of my friends was bitten on the arm in another. I performed an amputation, but I’m not sure if he will live or turn into one of them. So I’ll have to take a rain check on that interview. Perhaps after I catch up with my work tomorrow? I could probably make it over to your studio in time for the evening news, if that’s okay with you?
*****
“That was frickin’ amazing!” said Mick Williams as Scott got out of the helicopter and headed below. “You handled that perfectly, buddy. And I’ll bet that millions of people heard you do it. GNN is the biggest news network that’s still broadcasting and it goes everywhere in the world on satellite and internet. You’re a star!”
“Shit,” muttered Scott. “That’s all I need.” He didn’t say anything else as he climbed down to the Sky Deck and walked back to his master suite. Michelle was waiting for him with a bigger smile on her face than he had seen since Z-Day.
“You were brilliant, honey,” she said as he walked in. “That should keep most of the survivors from trying to fight their way here. And you told them what they needed to hear, not just what they wanted to hear. I think you gave people some hope, Scott. But you weren’t just talking to the people in LA. You were speaking to the whole world! You gave them the truth and some advice to help deal with this disaster. I thought you looked very handsome in that cockpit too.”
Scott smiled and moved to hug her, then remembered that he still had Clint’s blood on his clothes – something he had only noticed while watching himself on TV. So he checked his impulse and said. “Baby, I need to get out of these bloody clothes and into that big steam shower, but I could use some help washing my back and some company in the Jacuzzi too. Mick says I’m a star now, so how would you like to be the first contestant on Bathing with the Stars?” Michelle smiled and stepped back as he began to strip off his blood stained clothes.
*****
Interlude in Hell
Plaza El Segundo, 4:44 Pm, April 10, 2012
As soon as Frank unlocked the doors Carl but his shoulder against one and pushed as hard as he could, succeeding in moving the body on the floor another foot away from the door and opening a two foot gap that he could climb through. He did so with his shotgun leading the way. What he saw on the other side was quite unexpected.
A young and attractive woman was taking on five zombies with what looked like a samurai sword. Four more bodies, apparently of former zombies, lay on the floor. Three of them were headless or close to it. As he watched, speechless, the woman swung her sword into the neck of another zombie, almost severing the head, and turned to give him an appealing look. That spurred Carl into action. He raised his shotgun and blew the head off of a zombie that was moving towards the woman, pumped another round into the chamber and plugged another. By then the sound of his shots had shifted the attention of the remaining two zombies away from the woman and towards Carl. They moved towards him fast as he chambered another shotgun shell. Before he could aim and fire again the woman leapt forward and sliced through the back of one of the zombies’ neck, severing its spinal cord. It dropped like a stone. Carl fired point blank into the face of the remaining zombie and turned to look at the woman more closely.
She was beautiful, even covered in blood and gore, with short auburn hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that, when it appeared, transformed her appearance from warrior to goddess. “Thank you,” she said in a husky and close to breathless voice. “I think I could have handled them all by myself, but you made it a lot easier. I’m Karen Slade,” she added with a wink, as she swiped blood off of the blade of her sword on the body of one of the zombies she had felled.
“Karen Blade?” Carl asked stupidly, having either misunderstood her or suffering from a minor Freudian slip.
“No, Slade, with an ‘S’, as in slash?” she answered with a smile. “But I guess you can call me Blade, if you want to. My father taught me how to use a sword. It was just a hobby, until last week.”
“Good hobby! I’m Carl, uh, Carl Stiller,” he said lamely.
“Well, they don’t get much stiller than that,” Karen said slyly as she pointed to one of the zombies that Carl had shot in the head. He had to laugh at that. “But we better move fast, Carl,” she continued. “Those shots will attract more of these things. There might even be more of them in the store already.”
“Don’t worry,” Carl reassured her. “I’ve got back-up.” He gestured towards the partially open door where Frank and Boomer were watching the exchange. “We have the loading dock secured and were in the process of cleaning out the stock room when I heard you out here.”
“Cool, I think,” said Karen as she eyed the burly oil workers with more than a hint of suspicion. “Who are you guys?”
“I’m a mechanical engineer, or I was,” said Carl quickly. “Most of the men with me worked at the oil refinery across the street. We came here to get supplies. And you are welcome to come back with us, if you need a safe place to go.”
Karen took this in as her head moved from side to side, scanning for any other threats. Her smile had faded and her sword was still in her hands. It was clear that she was weighing her options. She paused to look Carl in the eyes, lowered her sword, and said, “Yeah, I think I’d like to go somewhere that’s safe. Do you really have one?”
“Yes,” Carl replied honestly. “I think we do.”
“You think you do?” she shot back.
“Yes, I do,” Carl replied with more confidence. “These rabid zombies seem to hate our sprinkler system.” Karen seemed to freeze for a moment as she thought about Carl’s statement. Then she shrugged.
“In that case, lead on, Carl Stiller,” Karen said with a return of her unique and increasingly attractive smile.
“Come on in guys,” Carl called back to the men in the doorway. “Let’s make a quick sweep of the store and fill up some shopping carts on the way back. Go for dry and canned food. Fill the carts and roll them right into the trailer, if we don’t run into too many zombies.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Frank as he directed his men to split up and go down different lanes of the market to meet up in front by the shopping carts. Carl gestured for Karen to follow him and moved down another aisle with his shotgun leading the way.
“How did you get here?” he asked her over his shoulder.
“I walked here from my apartment in Manhattan Beach,” she replied. “It was a little hairy, here and there, but I needed supplies.”
“Wow,” said Carl with a low whistle. “That that does sound hairy. How did you make it through the streets without getting caught?” Judging from what he had seen of the residential streets nearby, it would be suicide for anyone to walk or run down them.
“I went through back yards, mostly,” she replied. “Climbed fences, went across roofs. I had to take out eight or nine of these monsters to do it, but at least a sword doesn’t attract more of them the way gunshots do. In fact,
I probably wouldn’t have made it at all if there hadn’t been some other survivors shooting at them from an apartment building. It drew all of the zombies away from me long enough to cross a few streets and get most of the way up here. I think your guys in the refinery helped me too, although I’m sure they didn’t mean to. There was a truck that drove by inside the fence every hour or two and all the zombies followed it down towards the beach. That’s when I made my dash over to this shopping center.”
“How long have you been here?” Carl asked as they emerged from the frozen food aisle near the checkout stands. There was still no sign of other zombies inside, but Carl could see a growing group of them clustered outside, pressing up against the doors and windows.
“I got here yesterday,” replied Karen. “I got up on the roof and came down a ventilation shaft, but there were a coule dozen zombies in the store. I was able to grab some snacks and hold out on top of these freezer aisles.” She gestured above her and Carl saw that much of merchandise stacked up there had been moved or thrown down to make room for her perch. He also spotted more bodies with sword wounds to the head lying on the floor below the freezer aisle.
“So you stayed up there and sliced up the zombies when they came at you?” he asked.
“That’s about right,”’ she confirmed. “I was lucky that the front doors were locked, or there would have been too many of them. It still took quite a while to kill off the ones in here. When I heard you in the stockroom I wasn’t sure if you were people, or the zombies had found a way in. Either way, I decided I needed to take care of the rest of the zombies in here. That’s what I was doing when you found me. But you better stay back from those windows, if you don’t want to set them off. There might be enough of them out there to break the glass now.” She pointed at zombies outside, some of whom seemed to be looking back at them.
“Good thinking,” said Carl as he ducked and moved past the windows to the racked shopping carts. “Grab a cart and pick an aisle,” he suggested. Karen nodded and pointed at the canned goods aisle as they each grabbed a cart. They moved quickly, sweeping cans off of the shelves and into the carts. Carl filled half his cart with canned soup. Karen cleared shelves on the other side of the aisle of canned beans, chili and vegetables. Frank followed them along the same aisle and cleared most of the cans that they had missed. All of their carts were full as they pushed them towards the doors to stockroom.
They were almost there when Carl heard Frank cry out in fear and pain. Carl grabbed his shotgun and spun around to see Frank grappling with a child. Of course it was no ordinary child. It was a little zombie and it looked as if it had taken a bite out of Frank’s leg because there was blood running down his ankle onto the floor. Carl hesitated, but Karen didn’t. She rushed forward and swung her Samurai sword at the undead child’s neck. Her powerful and precise swing decapitated what had once been a little boy of eight or nine years old. Frank stood stunned, holding the headless corpse up at arms’ length, and stared numbly at Karen and Carl.
“The little shit snuck up and bit my leg,” he said woodenly. “He must have come through the shelves from the other aisle. I’m gonna die now, aren’t I?”
“We’re all gonna die someday,” said Karen. “You just might get a head start on us, that’s all. Still, did it actually bite through your pants? Or just tear the skin with the pants in between?”
“I’m not sure,” said Frank with a hint of hope. “Does that matter?”
“It might,” she replied gently. “You’ll only be infected if you got some of its spit in the wound.”
“No time to check that right now,” said Carl. “Let’s get these carts and the rest of the men back into the stockroom and secure those doors. Move it.” They did.
As soon as the doors were secured again Carl rolled his cart into the trailer. Karen followed him and paused to look at all of the other supplies being moved in on pallet jacks. Her expression was unreadable, but Carl thought that perhaps she was wondering why he had bothered to fill shopping carts with canned food when they already had all of these crates. Was it Carl’s fault that Frank was bitten?
“We don’t know what’s in most of these crates and boxes,” Carl explained, as if she had asked a question. “The carts are full of canned food that we know we’ll need.” He hoped he didn’t sound too defensive.
“Well,” said Karen slowly, “You got a lot of stuff here. How many people do you need to feed anyway?”
“Close to a hundred now that we rescued a bunch of families from the RV park on the beach,” Carl replied.
“Families?” Karen looked up at him with interest. “You’ve got women and children in the refinery?”
“We sure do,” Carl confirmed. Karen looked at him with penetrating eyes, saying nothing. “We can save more, if we can get enough supplies to feed them,” Carl continued.
“Then let’s get back to it,” said Karen Blade with a return of her unique smile. They turned and went back onto the loading dock where several men were gathered around Frank, inspecting the bite on his leg. Carl caught Boomer’s eye and was disappointed to see the big man shake his head and look away.
“Don’t stand around looking at my leg, you apes,” said Frank in a loud voice. “Let’s finish what we came here to do. If this is going to be my last mission, then it had better be a successful one! Get back to loading up the truck, damn it. I want to throw a party when we get back to the refinery. I hope someone grabbed the booze.”
“We got plenty of booze, boss,” responded Boomer. “There’s at least a case of that Gentleman Jack that you like.”
“Excellent,” said Frank. “Why don’t you fetch me a bottle of it? I’m just going to relax in the shuttle bus, if you all don’t need me right now.”
“Go ahead, Frank,” said Carl. “We’ve got this handled.” Carl looked up and down the alley to make sure that it was clear of zombies before Frank climbed down to the shuttle bus. He noticed Gus jogging towards them from the end of the building and waving excitedly. “What’s up, Gus,” called Carl.
“Almost out of water for the fire truck,” Gus panted as he reached the loading dock. “They sent me to tell you to be ready to roll in a minute or two.”
“How many zombies are at the gate back there?” Carl asked.
“All of them!” Gus blurted. “There must be a thousand of them back there now. I think all the ones along our fence followed us back there.”
“Great!” Carl exclaimed. This was better than he had hoped for. It meant that there wouldn’t be many zombies at the gate when they got back and, if they were lucky, a lot of the zombies that had followed them down the tracks wouldn’t find their way back to the refinery either.
“It won’t be great if they break through that gate,” Gus said. “It’s not built near as strong as the ones at the refinery. They’re already charging it every time we shut off the water cannon.”
“Okay then,” Carl raised his voice. “Pack it up, guys. It’s time to load whatever is in your hands and lock up this loading dock. Make sure you all have your weapons and get ready to board the vehicles. We’re getting out of here in one minute!” Carl turned back to Gus and gestured towards the woman standing beside him, “Gus, let me introduce you to Karen Blade, uh, I men Slade. She can use sword better than you can use a gun. Karen? This is Gus, he’s a good man to have around in a pinch.” They eyed each other and Carl could see that Gus was somewhat stunned by her beauty. “Gus, clear yourself some space in the back seat. She’s riding shotgun on the way back.” Carl knew that Gus was in awe of Karen when he complied without complaint.
As soon as the loading dock door was secured again and everyone was getting back in their vehicles Carl drove back to the fire truck and waved for them to disengage and follow down the alley. Gus had not been exaggerating about the horde of zombies that had massed on the other side of the gate. As soon as the big fire truck started to move they all swarmed towards the gate and fence, causing it to noticeably bend and buckle.
“Here you go, Carl,” said Gus as he produced the requested item within seconds. “What are you going to do?”
“Well,” Carl said as he rolled down his window and drove towards the gate, “we know they hate water. Let’s see how they feel about fire.” He broke off the end of the flare and struck it against the igniter, sparking it into an orange blaze. Then he turned parallel to the gate and threw the bottle as hard as he could towards the zombies. The glass bottle shattered and flames erupted through the chain link, igniting the first few rows of zombies. They moaned and shrieked and thrashed, but didn’t show the type of fear that water caused. Most of them were too wet from the water cannon to actually catch fire, but they were burned, and eventually they did shy away from the flames.
“Give me another one,” Carl demanded and Gus was already waiting to place it in his hand. Carl lit and threw a little way from the first one with equally effective results. “I don’t know if it will stop them, but at least it’s slowing them down,” Carl said. He rolled up his window as he turned back down the alley to join the rest of the convoy. Karen watched it all without saying a word.
The Suburban took the lead as they left the shopping center and drove straight across the street to the south-east entrance to the refinery. The sprinklers along the perimeter were all working and there were no zombies in sight. They all must have followed the convoy down the train tracks. Carl wondered if that was a trick that would work more than once. They had only had time to explore one of the stores this time and hadn’t come close to cleaning it out of valuable supplies. Of course they might be losing one of their team to infection tonight, so it wasn’t a total success, but at least they were learning how to outsmart and outmaneuver the undead.
02 Flotilla of the Dead Page 10