Craigson wanted to call somebody for help, but there was nobody to call.
Just them.
Just them and a ship full of bloodthirsty lunatics.
Chapter Five
Coleman sprinted toward the kiosk the moment he saw the woman’s suicidal plan.
He saw the hostiles force open the kiosk door.
He imagined the scene in the confined space as the enraged passengers fell upon the officer.
She’s made it this far, Coleman told himself. Don’t give up on her.
And then Coleman saw something amazing.
She’d been one step ahead of them all.
Only now did Coleman realize she’d left one shutter open on purpose.
At the exact moment the frenzied passengers should have reached the woman, Coleman saw her deftly slide out the kiosk window and yank down the roller shutter. Without pausing, she raced around and kicked shut the kiosk door.
The woman hadn’t been trapped at all. She’d been setting a trap for her pursuers.
Coleman’s relief lasted bare seconds. From behind the kiosk stepped a man holding a long wooden mallet. Coleman raised his weapon, but the mallet was already speeding at the woman’s head.
The woman ducked.
The mallet missed her head by an inch.
Coleman fired.
Thonk!
The electro-bolt missed the man and hit the kiosk, releasing its electric charge harmlessly.
‘Damn it!’ hissed Coleman.
The woman sprinted back into the water park.
The man with the mallet ran after her.
Shuck-shuck.
Coleman cycled a fresh round into his weapon and drew aim on the running man. He aimed slightly ahead of his target and...
The waterslide suddenly blocked his view.
No!
He couldn’t see either of them now!
Dashing to his right, he scanned the water park for where they should emerge.
They didn’t emerge from behind the slide.
Wait. That’s impossible. There’s nowhere for them to go.
Finally he spotted them.
They weren’t in the water park - they were above it.
The woman had reached the rope tower. She climbed desperately.
The man climbed faster.
He swung the mallet.
It struck the woman’s calf.
The blow dislodged her footing.
The man tensed to swing again.
Coleman used that moment to aim and fire. His target was well outside his weapon’s recommended range, but Coleman adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger.
He actually saw the projectile arc out over the water park, sail through the air and plunge into the man’s lower back.
The electrodes penetrated the man’s spine.
The mallet flew from his hand. His entire body stretched out ramrod straight. He teetered for a moment as the electric shock overwhelmed his nervous system.
Then he slowly fell back.
He fell backward off the rope tower like a professional diver. On the way down, his body made a perfect 180 degree turn in the air.
He struck the deck with his body in such a perfectly vertical position that had he been diving into water, he’d barely have made a splash. The wooden decking was far less welcoming than water.
Coleman winced.
When the man’s head hit the deck, even the electric current pulsing through his system couldn’t keep his body straight. His head splayed to one side. His body collapsed in upon itself, breaking bones and rupturing organs.
The mallet bounced off the ropes all the way down. It clattered to the deck a moment later.
Gunfire rang out behind Coleman.
Real gunfire.
After using their less-lethal weapons, it took Coleman a moment to recognize real gunfire.
It came from the helicopter.
Coleman spun as five bodies fell to the deck.
The co-pilot lowered his submachine gun.
The last five attacking passengers had almost reached the helicopter.
Almost.
Coleman heard Craigson’s voice over the radio. ‘Captain. Easterbrook is down!’
Coleman dashed back to Myers and Craigson. He knelt to check Easterbrook.
‘He’s dead,’ said Craigson.
Coleman didn’t need to check his pulse. Too much blood covered the deck for Easterbrook to have a pulse.
‘What happened?’ asked Coleman. ‘He was meant to be right behind me.’
‘He drew the sick passengers away from you,’ answered Myers. ‘They just swarmed over him.’
‘We couldn’t reach him in time,’ explained Craigson. ‘There were too many of them.’
Something black protruded from Easterbrook’s throat. Coleman pulled it free.
A fountain pen. A trained special forces Marine killed by a civilian with a fountain pen.
‘What the hell is wrong with these people?’ asked Craigson. ‘They weren’t rioting. They’ve lost their minds. They’re all insane!’
Craigson was right.
‘This isn’t a riot,’ agreed Coleman.
He turned to find King and Forest escorting the woman he’d saved back from the rope tower. She rushed toward him, limping slightly.
King looked totally drenched. He and Forest had obviously seen some close quarters action. Neither seemed wounded. The female officer looked at Easterbrook’s body.
Her eyes didn’t register any surprise.
She’s seen this before, realized Coleman.
‘I’m Erin Robinson,’ said the woman, still sounding breathless. ‘First Officer Ben Bryant sent me. He needs your team to help coordinate the evacuation.’
‘Wait,’ demanded Coleman. ‘What the hell is going on here? These people weren’t rioting. They were trying to kill you!’
‘They’re trying to kill everyone!’ replied Erin. ‘There’s a sickness on board. It spread overnight. It’s sent half the ship crazy. Psychopathic. We’ve already started evacuating, but it’s a nightmare in there. We need your help right now!’
Coleman had a dozen questions.
Pulling the map from under his body armor, he asked only one.
‘What do you need us to do?’
The woman pointed at the map. ‘Here are the cabins. Here are the lifeboats. We need to get as many people from the cabins to the lifeboats as possible.’
Myers pointed at the hundreds and hundreds of little rectangles on the map that indicated cabins. ‘We’d need a hundred Marines to do that.’
Coleman studied the map, searching for where five Marines and a civilian officer could make the most difference. In seconds he recognized the patterns. He could see the paths the passengers would be taking. He could see the bottlenecks that would cause the most carnage. In a moment he broke the complex patterns down to what could be achieved with a small force.
‘Listen up!’ Coleman barked, tracing his finger across the map. ‘King and Forest. Go straight to the starboard lifeboats. Get those boats filled and away as fast as you can. Right now! Hustle! Go!’
King and Forest dashed off across the deck toward the stairs.
Coleman moved his finger on the map. He looked at Myers and Craigson. ‘This intersection is critical. Passengers need to pass through here to reach the lifeboats. If it becomes a bottleneck, they’re all dead.’
‘That’s the ship’s atrium,’ nodded Erin. ‘He’s right.’
Coleman said, ‘I need you to keep it clear. Get as many people through as possible. If you lose this position, fall back to the lifeboats.’
Myers and Craigson nodded and dashed off.
Coleman pushed the map back under his body armor. He knelt and took Easterbrook’s special ammunition.
‘What about me?’ asked Erin.
‘You’re with me. Are you a bridge officer?’
‘No. The bridge is locked down. I’m the hotel manager.’
‘Okay,’ nodded
Coleman. ‘Let’s move. Stay right on my heels.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Portside lifeboats,’ replied Coleman. ‘You ready?’
Erin nodded.
Coleman dashed off with Erin right on his heels.
Justin glimpsed a lifeboat ahead.
Thank God. We made it.
He pushed his mother’s chair faster. They’d used ramps to reach this deck. His mother navigated ramps faster with Justin pushing. He swung his mother’s chair around the last corner and stopped.
What he saw sent fear surging through his gut.
The crazy passengers had reached the lifeboats.
People were fighting everywhere.
Justin could barely tell the sick from the healthy. He saw a man wildly swinging a suitcase to clear a path for his pregnant wife. Closer, a young woman stood with her hands over her ears, staring down in panic at two men wrestling at her feet. Everywhere, everyone was fighting with a ferocity that Justin hadn’t imagined humans capable.
Bare yards away, two men fell over the balcony. Justin never heard their bodies hit the water.
His mother pointed.
‘That one, Justin. Let’s go!’
Justin’s mother was pointing at a full lifeboat. The boat had already begun lowering from the deck.
His mother shot forward so quickly that Justin lost his grip on her chair. He raced after her, jumping over a fallen man that his mother had deftly swerved around.
‘Open the door,’ yelled his mother as they reached the lifeboat.
The door had a window, and Justin saw a crew member struggling to open the door from the inside.
‘It won’t open,’ he yelled. ‘Climb through the window!’
‘You first, Justin,’ his mother ordered. ‘Then pull me through.’
They had only seconds before the lifeboat descended beyond reach.
Justin dove through the window. The crewman pulled him through.
Justin spun. His mother grabbed the window ledge. She had her head and one arm through the window.
‘Pull my shoulders,’ she cried. ‘Quickly!’
Justin grabbed her shoulders and pulled with all his strength.
It was too late.
Someone tackled his mother.
Justin glimpsed a blur of yellow as his mother was torn from his grasp and dragged from the window. Justin dove at the window.
Two crewmen stopped him.
‘It’s too late,’ one yelled in his ear.
‘Let go of me!’ roared Justin.
Suddenly the entire lifeboat fell away under their feet.
It only fell six inches, but far enough for Justin and the men restraining him to lose their footing.
From the floor, Justin looked up through the window. He only saw the side of the ship.
The lifeboat was descending!
They were leaving his mother. She was still fighting for her life back on the ship!
Justin scrambled up and pushed through the crowd.
‘Move!’ he shouted at a man sitting below a window.
When the man didn’t move, Justin climbed right over the top of him.
This time no one tried to stop him. Justin climbed straight out the window and up onto the lifeboat’s roof.
He stood up.
Holy crap!
The lifeboat swayed under his feet.
If he wanted to help his mother, he needed to jump. It wasn’t a long jump to the railing, but it was a long drop if he missed.
If I miss I’ll be sucked under the ship and minced by the propeller.
If he didn’t jump now, his mother was out of reach.
Justin jumped.
He leaped off the lifeboat and flew through the air.
His fingers just caught the decking.
His body whumped against the ship.
The table leg slipped from his belt and fell away, disappearing into the water far below.
Justin’s entire body was hanging off the ship.
But he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t scared at all now.
He was angry.
Angry with himself for leaving his mother and angry at whoever had dragged her from his grip.
Hold on, Mom. I’m coming.
Justin lunged up and grabbed the lowest railing rung. He hooked one leg up and then pulled himself up the remaining rungs as fast as he dared.
At the top of the railing he jumped over, landing on the deck.
Where are you, Mom?
Most of the lifeboats had launched now. The remaining lifeboats were epicenters of violence.
There!
He spotted his mother lying on her back, using her wheelchair as a shield. A woman in a torn yellow dress was trying to wrench the chair away.
As he sprinted toward them, Justin noticed something familiar lying on the deck. He snatched it up.
Whack!
Justin hit the woman in the yellow dress with the clothes iron.
She dropped instantly.
Justin stood panting over his mother, scanning her for injuries, ready to clobber anyone who tried to hurt her again.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.
His mother stared at him as though she were seeing a ghost.
‘I saw you get on the lifeboat,’ she said.
‘Quickly. Back in your chair.’
Justin flipped the chair. His mother climbed in.
‘But I saw them lowering the lifeboat,’ his mother repeated.
Justin didn’t want to explain how he’d jumped from the roof of the lifeboat and been hanging off the side of the ship by his fingers.
‘We’ll get off this ship together or not at all,’ he said. ‘Come on. We can’t use any of these lifeboats.’
His mother glanced at the chaos around the remaining lifeboats. ‘We’ll try the boats on the other side. We can cut through the atrium.’
Justin dashed after her, praying she was right.
Ben studied the monitors.
He’d sent two armed officers out to help the trapped passengers.
The restaurant was the closer location.
On a monitor, Bryant pointed at the officer sneaking into position behind the sick passengers.
‘There’s Buchanan.’
The bridge staff clustered behind him.
I hope this works, thought Bryant.
The people inside the restaurant had barricaded the door, waiting for help to arrive.
Well, here’s your help, thought Bryant. Make the best of it.
Buchanan began firing his pistol into the group of crazed passengers assaulting the restaurant.
The group broke apart. One half maintained their assault on the restaurant’s double doors while the others charged toward Buchanan.
Bryant watched in amazement as the sick passengers ran fearlessly into gunfire. Seven of them charged Buchanan. They ran in a pack, almost impossible to miss. They didn’t duck or dodge.
They just ran headlong into the gunfire.
Buchanan shot all of them.
The people in the restaurant reacted.
The restaurant doors flew open and the passengers charged out.
Buchanan fired twice more, dropping two more sick passengers before the people in the restaurant were among the sick passengers, hitting them with chairs and fists and broken off table legs.
The battle only lasted seconds.
Ben nodded in relief as Buchanan waved the healthy passengers after him toward the portside lifeboats.
What about the people trapped in the Duty Free Shop? Where was Officer Reynolds?
Ben checked the other monitor.
It was too late.
The Duty Free Shop’s front doors collapsed. The violent passengers surged inside.
Ben searched desperately for any sign of Reynolds.
He should be there by now. Those people don’t stand a chance without him.
‘I don’t think Reynolds made it,’ said Karen. ‘He’d be helping by now.’
&nbs
p; Ben imagined the panic and screaming as the sick fell upon the healthy.
A few healthy passengers climbed over the broken doors and sprinted for their lives. The rest never left the store.
Craigson and Myers scanned the atrium’s entrance over their weapon sights.
‘This is it,’ confirmed Myers.
Craigson keyed his headset. ‘Captain. We’ve reached the atrium.’
‘Is it clear?’
‘It looks clear, but we’ve picked up about twenty healthy passengers.’
‘Send them through,’ ordered Coleman. ‘We’ve cleared a path. It won’t stay clear for long. There are too many hostiles. Set up a defensive position in the atrium. Be prepared to pull out quickly and reach the bridge.’
‘The bridge?’ asked Craigson. ‘Won’t you need us at the lifeboats?’
‘This disease can’t reach the mainland,’ explained Coleman. ‘I need you on the bridge. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ both Craigson and Myers responded into their radios.
Craigson scanned the atrium.
The ship’s atrium looked like the primary information center for passengers.
Dominating the atrium was a ring of marble service counters for exchanging currency, booking day trips, making shore side reservations and purchasing future cruises.
Luxury stores encircled the atrium. Wealthy passengers could spend a lot of money here. Craigson spotted Gucci, Rolex and Versace store fronts. The stores’ marble entrances and glass facades blended into a continuous circle of shop fronts that only paused when a corridor branched off.
Craigson advanced cautiously.
The atrium ceiling came into view.
Wow. Look at that.
Several stories high, the huge stained glass ceiling depicted a tall ship sailing through crystal blue water. It was massive.
Vertigo gripped Craigson a moment. He snapped his attention back down to the floor.
He wished he hadn’t.
Bodies lay scattered all around the atrium floor.
Where are the rest?
Given the number of fatalities they’d passed in the corridors, Craigson expected the carnage in the atrium to be knee deep.
He peered over the marble service counters.
Oh, God no.
He’d found the bodies.
At least thirty people had made a final stand behind the counters. They’d been overrun. Craigson turned away from the terrible sight.
HAYWIRE: A Pandemic Thriller (The F.A.S.T. Series Book 2) Page 7