by Jeff Thomson
17
“Failing to prepare means preparing to fail,” Gilbert Farcquar said from within the darkened confines of the back of his gun store. He was a short man with a full beard, apparently grown to compensate for his male-pattern baldness.
“Sure, sure,” Gus said. “We’ll print up a greeting card, if it makes you happy.”
“What would make me happy,” Gilbert said, moving aside to let them enter, “would be going back to my dinner.”
Jim Barber guessed the dinner in question had to be weenies and beans, if the undercurrent of stale flatulence was any indication. The smell battled with the heady aroma of gun oil filling his nostrils’ He loved that smell - the oil, not the flatulence. He had, however, never liked Gilbert. He had never trusted Gilbert. He always felt certain Gilbert had been picked on as a child, and his dick-headedness was a natural extension, as if he were trying to compensate for past slights the way his beard compensated for his bald head.
Still, the man let them into his gun store, at night, in a zombie apocalypse. Had to count for something.
This was the thing about shipmates, Jim thought. Liking each other didn’t matter. The shared misery and danger and adventure and joy and sometimes terror of being on a ship at sea together, created a bond unlike most others in the civilian world. You trusted each other - of necessity - particularly on a Coast Guard ship, because of their small crews. It might be different on a Navy ship with several hundred in her crew, but Jim had known the name of every single person on every single ship he’d ever sailed, and even long after he’d served with these people, he still had their back. They were shipmates, past, present, and future.
Still, the guy was being a prick, and a shared bond didn’t mean he had to let it slide.
“You agreed to this meeting, Gilbert,” he said, with a touch of menace in his voice. He didn’t usually like to intimidate people, even though he knew he was capable of it. In Gilbert’s case, he was more than willing to make an exception.
The intimidation worked. Gilbert shuffled his feet, then turned them away from his meager rooms at the back of the store, and led them into the store proper.
They followed through a long corridor, separated from the main retail area by a thick curtain. The walls of the corridor had been turned into a series of alcoves, with various items arrayed in them. Jim saw several types of sound and flash suppressors in one, a shelf unit filled with various flashlights and chem lights and helmet lights in another, and a gleaming object, mostly covered by a thick cloth in a third. This one drew his attention.
“Is that a minigun?” He asked in awe.
Gilbert paused and looked back over his shoulder at them, then glanced toward the multi-barreled bringer of death. “Yes it is. My pride and joy.”
“Isn’t it illegal?” Jim asked.
“Not if it was manufactured before the Brady Bill went into effect, back in ‘86. As long as it was registered before then, which this was, it is one hundred percent legal,” Gilbert replied. “God Bless America.”
“What kind of ammo?” Jim asked.
“7.62 X 51, NATO,” was the answer. “And it burns through it like Congress through a dollar.”
“Dammit!” Jim said, with true admiration.
“If you’re quite finished gun-geeking...” Gus said, bringing Jim back to the reality of just how impractical a minigun would be in the current situation.
For one thing, 7.62 X 51, NATO, wasn’t a civilian shooter round. It could still be obtained, but it wasn’t as easy as, say, 9mm, or .203. Secondly, it required a shitload of the difficult to get ammo, just to keep the hungry beast fed, since its rate of fire would burn through a case load in about three minutes, thus turning the glorious minigun into a big-ass paperweight. And third, Jim doubted Gilbert would part with it willingly.
They continued into the main, public part of the store. The center portion was filled with racks and display cases filled with the various and sundry accessories to gun-nuttiness: Camo clothing and combat boots, freeze-dried foodstuffs and MRE’s, shooting gloves, hats, backpacks, tents and assorted camping gear, and otherwise useless geegaws meant for the weekend shooter, rather than the hardcore survivalist. Anything lethal, or even mildly dangerous, was kept in locked glass cabinets at one end, near the cash register, or on locked shelves behind the counter.
“So what is it you want?” Gilbert asked, lifting part of the counter and pushing through the gap to stand behind the display cases. He closed the gap, thus separating himself from the other two men.
“Ammo,” Jim replied. “.45 and 9mm, 30.06,.308, and 12 Gauge.”
“And .357 Magnum,” Gus added, since he owned a Colt Python, currently tucked into a holster beneath his shirt.
“Anything else?” Gilbert scowled, derisively. “You want maybe some cluster bombs or Napalm?”
Jim raised an eyebrow. “No. We’re cool.”
“You’re fools, is what you are,” Gilbert snapped. “If you haven’t loaded up by now, at this stage, then you’re shit out of luck.”
“You don’t have ammo?” Gus asked, worriedly.
“I have plenty of ammo,” Gilbert replied, the contempt evident in his voice. “Just not anxious to part with it for a couple of idiots who left it to the last minute.”
Jim thought he had a point. This was rather late in the game to be arming up in a zombie apocalypse. Then again, it had only started a couple of weeks ago. It’s not like the average Joe stocks enough ordinance to stave off hordes of flesh-eating assholes as a matter of habit.
At first, he hadn’t taken it seriously. A zombie apocalypse? Get real! Then he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Then the evidence left no choice but to believe it, and he had been concerned with other things, like getting himself and his wife to safety, and getting his daughter, Stephanie, who was studying psychology at NYU, the fuck out of New York.
He thought she would resist and hang on, with tooth and claw, to her independence. In the end, however, she’d come willingly, enthusiastically, as ready to get the Hell out of there as he was to have her back in the relative safety of Astoria.
He came to discover the reason was the warehouses NYPD had set up as “Infected Treatment Centers.” An ambitious (possibly suicidal) reporter for the New York Times had gotten into one of them with a concealed camera. What the pictures - broadcast that very night on every channel in the Five Burroughs - had shown, looked like Buchenwald on steroids. Dante, himself, couldn’t have imagined a more Hellish scene.
And so he had left ammo well down on the list of priorities. He shouldn’t have, and he knew it, but then, he had quite a bit more than the average Joe. For example, he had three thousand rounds of .38, for the pistol he had tucked into a holster at his back. But then again, there was never enough ammo for a zombie apocalypse.
“We’re willing to pay a premium,” Gus said. “We have gold.”
“At this point, ammo is more valuable than gold,” Gilbert replied, as if the suggestion of being paid with something as paltry as gold fell beneath his dignity. Jim really didn’t like him.
“We have vaccine,” Gus said, his tone almost pleading.
Gilbert’s eyes gleamed.
18
“You’re out of uniform, Petty Officer Jones,” Medavoy said as Jonesy entered the wardroom. The voice was filled with contempt, as if Jonesy were some shit-covered worm he’d just stepped on - or so Jonesy thought. “Aren’t you the OOD?”
“Yes, sir, I am,” Jonesy replied, hoping his “sir” held at least some of that same contempt. “And the last order the CO gave me was to rig up,” he added. “So I’m rigged up. The only thing missing is a sidearm, but I need BM1 Hurdlika to make it official, and he’s been busy loading weapons and ammo.” Hurdlika was the Master At Arms.
“You are not going to go armed!” the XO (and Jonesy steadfastly refused to give the man any higher recognition than his official title) snapped.
Jonesy took a seat at the table and stared at the bastard, ignoring
the others - especially Molly. She sat next to the only empty chair, and so once again, he had to sit next to her. The last damned thing he needed was to be thinking about the jumbled-up feelings he had for an officer he could not have anything personal to do with.
“The CO said the Rules of Engagement have changed. Deadly force is authorized.” He now had every eye at the table fully focused on him. “If I can’t draw a firearm, what am I supposed to use? Harsh language?” Even before the slam left his lips, he knew it was a bad idea, but he couldn’t help himself.
“The Rules of Engagement have not changed,” Medavoy retorted. “There has been no message traffic, no communication from Headquarters.”
“Actually, sir,” LTJG Bloominfeld, the Comms Officer, said, tapping the message board on the table in front of him, “The order was received about twenty minutes ago.”
“And why am I just finding out about this now?” Medavoy snapped.
“Because I only got it in my hand ten minutes ago, sir,” Bloominfeld said, his voice a combination of both nervousness and resolve. Forget Medavoy being the sudden Captain. The XO of a ship - particularly one as small as a buoy tender - was damned-near God to the junior officers. One bad FITREP, one negative word in the service record, and any hope of flight school or grad school, or command afloat on a Patrol Boat, or any of a dozen other possibilities were tossed right out the window. And Medavoy used that power like a club.
“Your incompetence is duly noted,” Medavoy said, “and it’s no excuse.”
“The fact remains, sir,” Jonesy cut in. He didn’t give one single flying fuck what the asshole could do to him - with the CO gone and possibly dead, and with the looming possibility he might have to kill his shipmates, might even need to kill his friends, and the lunatic reality that they were in a zombie by-God apocalypse - and so he threw caution to the wind and sent it sailing toward Shanghai. “The Rules have changed. Infected are to be terminated.”
He heard a small, barely audible gasp next to him, from Molly, but he ignored it.
“Am I supposed to do it with my bare hands?” He let the insolent question hang there for a moment, before adding a derisive “Sir.”
Medavoy stared at him, his face going from pink to red.
Maybe the fucker will have an aneurism, he thought, and the thought didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was probably going to have to kill somebody - maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe half the goddamned crew. He had no problem at all starting the festivities with LT Dick Medavoy.
“Hold on just a minute here,” CWO4 Kincade, the Engineer, said. “You want to let the rest of us in on what’s going on?” The question was directed at Medavoy, who continued to stare at Jonesy.
“The CO was infected,” HS2 Donny (Doc) Harris said from the far end of the table. Jonesy hadn’t noticed he was there. “Or at least he thought he was.” The focus of the entire table shifted to the young man, whose eyes were hollow with shock. His light blue uniform shirt carried a sideways “J” of smeared blood, just above the left breast pocket. “His last orders were for Jonesy to take charge of security, to...terminate, if necessary.” His voice was a flat monotone. He paused before continuing, as if he didn’t want to say what came next. “He then turned over command to the XO.”
“And as CO,” Medavoy said, with a look of satisfaction on his rodent face, “I’m saying you will not go armed on this ship, Petty Officer Jones.”
“But–“ Jonesy began. LT Fucktard cut him off.
“That’s final,” he said. “Is that clear?”
Jonesy leaned back in his chair and stared at Medavoy in disbelief. There was a shitstorm coming, the like of which had never been seen or experienced by anyone in the room, aboard the ship, or on the entire planet, and Jonesy didn’t even have an umbrella.
19
The minuscule parking lot behind the Medical Sciences Building was dark, adding to John’s general sense of unease. They’d managed to load all of Floyd’s stuff from his lab/classroom into the back of the rental truck (and it was a back-breaking lot of stuff) without getting caught pilfering what John was sure couldn’t be Professor Christopher Floyd’s personal scanning electron microscope, centrifuge, and mass spectrometer, but it had been a near thing.
The Department Head, Professor Douglas Pemberty, who should by all rights have gone home hours ago, had bumped into them - literally. Spute just finished shoving the final box (which happened to contain miscellaneous glassware that could, conceivably, belong to Floyd) as deep as it would go into the truck, and pulled the sliding door closed, when Pemberty rounded a corner and bumped right into John, who, to his infinite chagrin, had almost screamed.
“Excuse me!” the man sputtered, then seemed to realize he had no idea who John was.
The faculty at the College wasn’t large, but the departments rarely mingled, so John, who was part of the Extended Education Department, had never met the Department Head of Physical Sciences. He’d never met any of the teachers from the department, except Floyd, and that was only because Floyd heard John owned an ocean-going ship. The College’s resident mad scientist had then put two and two together, saw they equaled a way to escape the zombie plague, and then approached John with the proposition, which led them into this farcical situation.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” Pemberty asked, his tone brusk and authoritative.
“Good evening, Douglas,” Floyd had said, rounding the side of the truck. “What brings you here so late?”
“Ah! Floyd!” the man exclaimed. “Forgot some of the budget summaries in my office. The Dean has asked for a full accounting, in case...” He let the sentence peter out.
John knew what “in case meant.” Everybody, from the College Administrators, to the Mayor of Astoria, the Chief of Police, and even (presumably) the Dog Catcher, and every other mucky muck in between was making sure all their ducks were in an appropriate row, should the worst happen and they needed to evacuate. He could have told them they were wasting their time. The goose of the United States of America was cooked by the microscopic evil of the Pomona Zombie Virus.
“Yes,” Floyd had answered. “I’m picking up a few of my personal items,” he said, then added: “In case.”
Pemberty eyed the truck. “A few items...?”
“I also have several things in storage downtown,” Floyd replied, the lie seeming to roll off his lips. At least John thought it had been a lie. He did not want to be stuck cleaning out the man’s storage locker on top of all this clandestine skullduggery. “Papers and such from my days at Stanford.”
Oh!” Pemberty had exclaimed, impressed by mention of that prestigious university. Backwater college professors tended not to be from top-shelf schools - more bottom shelf, or even stuck in some cobweb-filled closet, instead of a shelf. “Yes...” The man seemed flummoxed, and had been about to leave when he paused and looked at John, Spute, and Floyd with sudden suspicion. “I found an invoice for three hundred pounds of polyacrylamide gel powder, charged on the department credit card,” he said. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
Floyd shook his head, a puzzled look on his face - the picture of confused innocence. “That’s used for cancer research, isn’t it?”
Pemberty had shaken his head. “Some. But mostly Immunology.”
“No, sir. Haven’t used any of it in years.” The lie again slid off his lips like a snake over glass. John was clearly going to have to watch the guy, if he could lie so convincingly. Even John had been convinced, and he had been more or less certain the gel powder was, if not outright stolen, then certainly missapropriated.
“Very well,” the academician had replied. “Are you coming to the staff meeting tomorrow?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Christopher Floyd, consummate liar, had replied.
“See you there,” Professor Pemberty had said, and then - finally - walked off.
And now they were skulking around the back of the Medical Sciences building, in the dark, and Jo
hn was hoping against hope their run-in with Pemberty hadn’t used up all their luck for this night of criminal activity. They were going to need it.
He was alone, in the first place. It was dark, and he was acting as lookout for this bit of Grand Larceny. Make that Breaking and Entering, he thought, looking at the crowbar in his right hand, as if it had just appeared there with no conscious effort on his part. They had used it to pry open the back door of the building, had, in fact, nearly wrenched the door knob completely free of the door with it. The fact there hadn’t been an immediate shrieking of some security alarm, seemed a miracle. Still, B & E was, after all, a crime, and if the cops came, their gooses would be boiled, fried, sauteed and slow roasted in jail, if they were caught. And if they were in jail during a zombie apocalypse, then they would either starve to death, when everybody else evacuated, or be eaten, if the zombies overran the jail. Neither option seemed good - or survivable.
He calmed his fears. With the tipping point so near, the police were, in the first place, focused on more important things than stolen dental x-ray machines, and, in the second place, were busy dealing with insane, naked, homicidal victims of Pomona. Or so he hoped.
He jumped at the sound of something clattering off in the distance. A dog. Nothing but a dog, he thought, his heart feeling as if it were beating a John Bonham drum solo. Please dear God, let it be a dog... The sound came from the right side of the building. His once-calmed fears decided a vacation would be a good idea, and a crawling sensation emanated from the vicinity of his nut sack, then exploded into his chest when the back door banged open and Spute and Floyd stumbled out, wrestling with a large and cumbersome machine strapped to a dolly.
“Little help!” Spute grunted. “This fucker is top-heavy!”
John headed toward the door - or started to - when a zombie came staggering around the corner of the building, and saw Spute and Floyd.