That also probably made it incest. Ali winced slightly as she slithered up a narrow ladder.
Worst of all, she knew that he considered himself still married. Married in the eyes of God. And he would still be married until the day his wife was put in the ground.
Which might not be until the end of the world.
Regaining Alpha’s area, she stuck her head into her billet. Pope was on his rack, on his back, reviewing map packs on a tablet on his belly.
She smiled before asking, “Got time for some Ji-geiko, your Holiness?”
Pope looked up and smiled as well. Of course they’d brought their kendo equipment along.
And out on the flight deck of a supercarrier would be just about the baddest-assed place they’d banged swords yet.
RAPTURE
Homer lay where he was for a few minutes after she left, on their improvised bed of duffel bags in the corner of a nearly dark storeroom. But then he prodded himself to rise. It wasn’t good to be idle. Too many thoughts. Plus that chapel service would be starting. At least there he could pray for forgiveness for his sins.
He rose, buttoned his shirt, and checked his watch. Though the true max cruising speed of the Ford-class carriers was classified, Homer knew it to be a blistering 40 knots. He also knew the distance of the Atlantic crossing from Portsmouth; and figured they had about 80 hours at sea. Most of that time would be given to mission planning and prep. But, as usual in the military, there was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait at the front end while things got organized.
He thought he could make his way to the chapel by memory, but ended up having to ask directions from a couple of Aviation Machinist Mates along the way. When he slipped in the back hatch, about two dozen men and women were already seated and the service underway. He took a seat at the edge of the empty back pew. The chaplain was warming up.
“…and now, after a brief respite in a safe harbor, we are put to sea again. Amidst the storms, amidst the chaos, and amidst the Judgement.”
The chaplain was a mystery to Homer – not like any naval chaplain he had ever seen. He was in uniform, a mere E2, a junior enlisted rank, with an Apprentice Steelworker rating. All this was evident from his shoulder insignia. He wore no clerical scarf, and he spoke with a deep southern accent – and with a palpable fervor.
“Yea, truly are we all judged. Mankind has been judged for its sins. And we will be judged for what we do here in these End Days.”
Uh-oh – one of those, Homer thought, more amused than anything. The preacher raised an index finger to Heaven as he went on, picking up steam.
“Yes, verily, we have been judged, and afflicted with this plague. This plague of soulless who swarm across the land and the oceans. These soulless dead, whose souls are ascended to Heaven, while their bodies remain on Earth to finish God’s cleansing…” He paused to wipe his forehead with his sleeve. “And yet still we thwart them – with our man-made warships and our weapons and our armor.”
Now Homer’s brow furrowed. This man wasn’t just one of these – an End of Days type, who were common enough amongst those few believers who had made it this far into the ZA with their faith intact. No, this was worse…
“These swords and shields of ours were built to oppose Satan on Earth, his evil minions in the mortal realm. America and its military were a great force for God and for good.” His voice soared now, accenting with abandon, as his open hands gestured. “For opposing those who blew up innocents in orgies of sin, and who worshipped a false God… But now – America itself has fallen, for its many sins. For hedonism, for gays in the military, for the abomination of so-called gay marriage, for licentiousness, for lack of thrift, for greed… America fell. It was God’s will.”
This was clearly a lay preacher of some type – and also clearly one of the fire-breathing Pentecostal sort. Homer wondered where the real ship’s chaplains were – a supercarrier would have at least one of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith each. This guy was freelancing. Plus giving Homer a very bad feeling.
“How long, brothers? How long will we sail? Two long years we’ve been crossing the seas, staying alive, keeping the Final End of Days from coming, dragging out the Rapture, and keeping the faithful, including ourselves, from ascending to Heaven. How much more misery, how much more waiting?”
To survive long as a special operator one had to have, along with about 500 other skills, a pretty decent sense of folk psychology. And Homer was sensing a definite psychological aspect to these guys – assuming this congregation were in agreement, which from their nodding and humming, they seemed to be. And that psychological aspect was despair.
“And now, crossing the Atlantic again – God alone knows what for!” The preacher was near frenzy now. “To try to destroy all the soulless in America? To seek some kind of quote-cure-unquote? No cure will bring their souls back to Earth! This is God’s will, these are supposed to be the End Days! Just finish it, and it will be over! Let God’s cleaners do their last work on Earth.”
Yep, Homer had it now. He knew in his bones these were simply people who just couldn’t take the fight anymore – the fear, the hopelessness. The only way they could bear it now, he knew, was to decide that it was all supposed to be this way – and the only “problem” was our continued resistance and survival.
It was life under the ZA they couldn’t face anymore.
Which was understandable. In fact, it all sounded awfully like guilty thoughts Homer had been having himself lately, in the privacy of his head. And, while hearing this said out loud might have been seductive for that reason… in fact it had the exact opposite effect.
It reminded Homer of his duty.
Because, while these people might have been free to give in to despair, and to capitulate, and to advocate surrender, if they were civilians on dry land… as it was, they were uniformed military personnel deployed on a surface vessel in a time of war. And this kind of shit was dangerous. Worse than bad for morale, it was borderline treason.
Homer slipped out the back of the room. As he did so, he could hear the sermon reaching a climax and then winding down. He looped back around to scope the area. He found the chaplains’ quarters, tried the doors and found them locked. Toward the end of the same passage, and around the corner, he heard a door opening. Stopping dead, peeking around, he saw the flash of a room as the door closed. Inside, he could make out pallets, crates – and a rack of M4 assault rifles.
A voice spoke behind him.
“Greetings, brother.” It was the preacher, with two other men standing beside him.
IN DARKNESS THEY DWELL
Four hours after he entered the Channel Tunnel, his feet drenched to the skin from standing in six inches of muddy water, Lieutenant Jameson turned his head across a full panoramic sweep of the tunnel blockage. The last few hours had pushed his marines to the limit, as it had those behind him tasked with clearing up, filling the gaps in the line, and resupply. He had sent three of his men back with minor injuries – none of them, fortunately, from the undead they had put down. The tunnel was a danger in itself, with railway lines under the water and all manner of debris, most of which one didn’t want to contemplate too closely, floating around their feet.
The battle of the last four hours had calmed somewhat, and Jameson’s breathing was slowing to a steadier pace as his heart worked to catch up with the rest of his body. Not far away from him floated the decapitated head of the creature he had just killed. The rest of it was under the water, which still rippled from the splash the body had caused. The fight reminded him of his platoon’s trek across Europe, mostly on foot, all the way from Germany. He had thought nothing could compare with what he had experienced during those months, but he had been proven wrong. This battle with the dead had been hard fought.
And they had killed a lot. Though still not as many as he had expected – not as many as the analysts had predicted might be down here. The hardest part of the journey through the tunnels was trudging through the ankle-deep sludge a
nd water. It slowed their pace and wore him and his men down faster than solid ground. Spotting zombies in the dark with only mining lamps to light your way was difficult enough without the terrain being against you as well.
The first sighting had happened barely a hundred yards inside the tunnel. Flickering lights highlighted the skulking figures of zombies moving slowly toward them – slower even than normal. At least the stinking sludge slowed the zombies down as well, but another thing it did was hide those lying down in it. Several times he nearly lost a man as a hand came groping up from the murky waters to latch onto a leg or a boot. The first time, the creature had actually bitten into the squaddie’s boot, but a shot to the back of the head had stopped it before its teeth could sink through the thick leather. From then on they were more careful, moving more slowly and in a straight line, watching the water as well as the darkness ahead of them.
That first encounter had fired Jameson’s nerves and surged adrenaline through his veins, and it fueled him throughout the whole journey. Which was a good thing, since they would encounter many more groups of undead along the way. They didn’t come in waves as the Royal Marines had experienced before; these creatures were somehow dulled and much clumsier, much slower than what were generally encountered on missions. It was as though the darkness and nearly excruciating confinement – the claustrophobia – of the tunnel had somehow stupefied even the already mindless dead. A ridiculous notion, Jameson thought, but he couldn’t deny the difference. They didn’t notice the living down there as quickly as they did on the surface.
They had moved slowly toward them, barely a dozen at first, and all in a rotten state like nothing he had seen in the last two years. The nearest, and the first to be cut down by gunfire, was barely held together. Stretched and pale sinews of what once might have been muscle covered it like a spiderweb; its bones clearly visible as they poked out of torn flesh. There was no skin on its face, and instead a grotesque moving skull stared at them through the darkness, the jaws twitching right up until the moment when several 5.56mm rounds slammed into its grin.
Mile upon mile of muddy tunnel had confronted them, until half an hour ago they had come across the barricade. It loomed out of the darkness and blocked the tunnel, standing nearly six feet high. At first, as the torn and broken metal frame came into view, Jameson had thought they had already found some remnant of the supply train they had been told to look out for. But it was far too close to the British side of the Channel, and he was sure they hadn’t covered enough ground to be near the midway gate yet.
Train parts, panels tied together with cabling, chairs and doors and seemingly any loose part of the train wreckage available had been piled together and stacked up high in a makeshift blockade that went the full width of the tunnel. The rotting dead were piled up high on this side, though very few of them moved.
First Squad had approached very slowly, aware that at any moment the entire mound of dead things could rise up from its slumber and come crawling toward them. But that hadn’t happened. As the lights from the soldiers’ lamps lit the area more brightly upon approach, it became obvious that these creatures had already been dispatched.
These dead were dead forever.
From this initial assessment, they decided that the barricade was more of a trap than a defensive wall. And from the bodies entangled in the wreckage, Jameson imagined any survivors that had once lived down here must have visited this place regularly – to deal with the creatures that had stumbled into it and gotten caught amongst the wires and the sharp metal, entangled and desperately flailing around until they could be destroyed with relative ease.
Grews had nearly gone through the roof with excitement at this news, and Jameson had found himself grinning as well, as he used his helmet-cam to show the major the defensive wall. He imagined that the major would have given anything, well, almost anything, to be down there himself.
“I knew it,” Grews had breathed. “I knew they’d done it somehow. Look at that. A defensive wall made of train wreckage. It means they survived long enough to put that damn thing up. Where did they find the tools, though?”
Jameson peered through, to the other side of the wall.
“It’s pretty rudimentary, mostly held together by cables. They would have had to work hard to keep the thing upright if faced with a big mass of the dead. It looks more like a way to trap the creatures than to stop them completely. I don’t think it would hold a Zulu more than a few hours if it was determined.”
“How many undead so far, though?”
“Maybe five hundred. Not nearly as many as we first suspected might be in here.”
“Why so few, I wonder? We expected thousands.”
“No idea, sir,” said Jameson, suddenly breathing heavily.
Grews frowned.
“Are you all right, LT? Is everything okay down there?”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t think that air pump is doing much good. Maybe the vents are blocked or something. Seems that the further into the tunnel we get, the harder it is to breathe. There isn’t a lot of oxygen down here.”
“Make sure everyone has their masks on. Those re-breathers should help you some.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Another hour later, and there was no sign of even a single zombie along the remaining stretch of tunnel. As Jameson stood scanning the midway defense gate, and the remaining framework of the train wreck, they had their answer.
“So the gate did close,” said Grews.
“Yes, sir, it would appear so. And it seems to have cut the train in half, quite literally. From what I can see, most of the wreckage had been compacted somehow, like it had been crushed before the gate even closed in on it.”
Jameson cringed as an unwelcome stench flooded his nostrils for the hundredth time. The signs of survivors were everywhere. Piles of trash and human waste were dotted about on this side of the barricade. Grews was even more excited about that, but then he hadn’t had to smell the damn stuff, or trudge through it. He also hadn’t had to see the piles of zombie remains littered intermittently along the tunnel.
“And the maintenance tunnel? The door that they opened?” Grews’ voice was quiet now, and the line crackled audibly. Evidence of old equipment gradually failing.
“We’re just cutting it open now.” Jameson glanced back down the tunnel, where he could see the glow of several welding torches burning. “Should be open in…”
The radio signal went quiet for an ominous moment. But then, instantly, Grews heard shouting from multiple voices on the squad net. The three screens that relayed the headcams of his squad leaders blurred with movement.
“Jameson. Sitrep.”
Not now, thought Grews. Don’t fall apart now.
Only Jameson’s panicked breathing came back down the line.
He peered at the first screen and saw the doorway where two soldiers had been welding rushing up to meet him as Lieutenant Jameson sprinted to close the distance. More shouting, and movement from the darkness of the door. Muffled shouts as the world on all three screens went crazy for what was only a few seconds, but which to Grews was a lifetime of waiting.
Finally, Jameson’s voice was back on the net.
“Sir, we have survivors.” More heavy breathing. ”Repeat, we have survivors here.”
Grews sat back in his chair, stunned. The world was spinning around him and all he could do was try to take it in. They survived all this time, he thought. They actually managed to survive down there, even after we switched off the power, bombed the damn tunnel, and flooded it. They still survived. It was unthinkable.
“How many? How many are down there?” His voice cracked with urgency.
But Grews could already see the dirty face of a man in the doorway, speaking rapidly. His eyes were wide and glaring for a moment, before squinting against the bright light of Jameson’s weapon-mounted light. The man wore some sort of jumpsuit, similar to the ones that the UK Security Services issued its officers. But this was diffe
rent, with no logo on the front, no markings at all for that matter. The man’s head was almost clean-shaven, as was his face, and there was a deep scar running down the middle of his forehead, like something had gouged him. Now, as Grews watched intently, almost standing up and out of his seat, the man spoke rapidly to Jameson – but also covered his eyes, blocking out the unaccustomed light.
Finally, the man nodded and smiled, showing a neglected set of brown and yellow teeth.
“Thirty-eight survivors sir. I repeat, three eight,” reported Jameson across the line.
“Say again, Lieutenant,” said Grews. “Was that thirty-eight?”
“That’s affirmative.”
Grews shouted out loud this time, unable to restrain himself. He glanced around at his small command team, who looked back at him, their amazed expressions quickly turning to smiles that reflected his own emotional state.
“Lieutenant. Get them out of there, ASAP. Get them out before someone stops us. If we get them onto British soil then there is nothing anyone can do.”
“Roger that, sir. Do we need to quarantine?”
Quarantine. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Because he hadn’t expected them to still be alive. Body bags were what was waiting for them outside the tunnel. But for once body bags wouldn’t be needed.
“Yes Lieutenant, but I’ll deal with that. Get them out of that tunnel. And exfil your team as well. Get your boys out.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Thirty-eight survivors. My God.”
“Copy that, sir. Actually, I can’t totally make out the French guy, but I think he just said that one of them is only eighteen months old. A baby was born down there.”
Deep in the tunnel, Jameson coughed, looked around at his men, and then addressed the dazed Frenchman in front of him.
“You say you cleared the maintenance tunnel all the way to the entrance?”
Arisen, Book One - Fortress Britain Page 14