You're Never Ready for a Zombie Apocalypse (Guardians of the Apocalypse Book 1)

by Jeff Thomson

  She cocked her head around to look at the crumpled form of Jackass laying outside the slightly open COMMCEN door. She should really just leave it there and get the flying fuck out of this corridor. She felt exposed, vulnerable. Glancing into the rear atrium, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. The glass doors remained closed. No bodies lay on the floor. No axes hung suspended in the walls.

  “This is just too fucking weird,” she muttered to herself, in what she thought was an inside voice, meant to carry no further than from her mouth to her own ears. But in the silent and empty corridor, it echoed, and in her heightened state of abject terror, it sounded as if she had been using a bullhorn. She slapped both hands over her offending mouth and cursed her stupidity.

  Nothing happened for a moment, then two, then three, then four. Her heart banged on the inside of her breastbone, as if to say Let me out of here!

  There came the sound of a chair or something scraping down at the far end, where the cafeteria sat in what she foolishly hoped was dust-swirling emptiness. Something banged. Something else fell over. And something moaned.

  A face appeared at the far doorway - crazed and demented and covered in blood. Its eyes turned to her, registered her presence as dinner, and it let out a hungry scream of rage, as it lunged into the hallway, followed by another, and another, and another. They began to lurch toward her, like a gang of drunks, stumbling home from the bar; some were naked, some in tattered remnants of uniforms, one (a woman) in a stylish, but conservative suit, now covered in gore.

  Amber turned and ran.

  126

  Duke banged on the DC Shop hatch, heard nothing in response, and opened it, with Jonesy and Harold covering. They’d used this method throughout the ship, searching for other crewmembers. Mostly, they found dead bodies. The one exception had been BMC Bernie Adams, whom they’d found wandering around the wide-open ship.

  If the fact his uniform was tattered and just as covered in blood as had been his face hadn’t informed them that the Chief had turned, then his growling charge at them sealed the deal. They couldn’t risk weapons fire, because they didn’t want to destroy the laundry, where they’d found him, and which they were going to need, but Harold had left his bat behind, in the Bosun Hold, and Duke’s hammers were stuffed in his belt, so he couldn’t get to them in time, which gave Jonesy the Golden Opportunity to try out his kukri-machete, which proved to be simply outstanding at beheading infected people. Any people, really, but they found it easier to use the word “infected,” or “zombie,” or some other damn thing, to keep from reminding them what and whom they were killing. It didn’t work.

  They were going to need to come up with suitable nomenclature to talk about this stuff, in Jonesy’s considered opinion. He favored “zombie,” but Harold kept insisting they weren’t the living dead, so perhaps a new name was needed. Or perhaps not. Harold could just shut the fuck up. That certainly worked best for Jonesy.

  The DC Shop held nothing - at least nothing living, or formerly living, or twisted into a pile of mangled guts, so...bonus. Jonesy had decided small blessings were what was important in extreme situations.

  They dogged the hatch closed and paused to consider. The sun was coming up on what looked to be a really nice day. Jonesy said so.

  “Nice day.”

  “Except for the end of the world,” Harold added.

  “Always so negative,” Duke said, giving Harold a mild shove. “You really need to adjust your attitude.”

  Harold seemed about to retort with what Jonesy felt sure would be a perfectly sarcastic remark, when they heard a noise coming from within the Lifejacket Locker. The glorified closet sat at the rear of the superstructure on the fantail, but they hadn’t considered it as a possibility. It was a lifejacket locker, filled with Type 3 PFDs and Survival Suits. Why would anybody be in there? Hello...zombie uprising...but still...

  They each took a defensive posture, with Duke and Harold pointing their shotguns and Jonesy pulling his right-hand .45. Slowly - ever-so slowly - the hand-sized dogs on the hatch came down, one by one. Whoever or whatever was in there, was being cautious, which should have been a clue the size of Nebraska that the occupant was not a zombie, but Jonesy didn’t feel the need to take any chances, and neither, it seemed, did the other two.

  The hatch cracked, and a brown eye peered outward, followed quickly by the smiling face of EM3 Dan McMullen. “Holy fuck am I glad to see you guys!” He said with glee. “What took you so long?”

  “We stopped for coffee break,” Jonesy said, droll as could be.

  “I forgive you,” Dan replied, grabbing Harold’s hand and shaking it.

  “That’s everybody,” Jonesy said. They had kept a list of whom they’d found, checking off shipmates one by one. McMullen was the only one unaccounted for. He keyed the mic on his comco. “Bridge, Search Team.”

  “Go,” Molly’s voice came up in a moment.

  “All accounted for. Found one more alive.”

  “Very well,” came the reply. “Is he ambulatory?”

  “Big words,” Harold quipped. Duke shoved him for his troubles.

  “Affirmative.”

  “Bring him and yourselves up here,” Molly’s voice said. “Time for a crew meeting.”

  “Roger that, Captain,” Jonesy said, then cocked his head at McMullen, who stared at him in disbelief. “She’s our new CO. Deal with it,” he added, then turned and started heading to the Bridge.

  127

  John gazed at each of his remaining crewmembers, gathered around him on the fantail. They were floating on the dawning sea - under power, but not going anywhere. He stopped the ship so they could hold the burial ceremony for Jason Gilcuddy and Mick Fincham. The mood was not great.

  As with the crew meeting before they left Astoria, everyone looked bleary-eyed with exhaustion. He always seemed to hold these gatherings when everyone was about ready to drop from sleep deprivation. Brave new world...

  They dumped the bodies of the pirates before stopping for the burial. There had been no ceremony for them, and only Jim, Gus, Lane and Bob-Bob had been involved.

  Spute had been green around the edges after he’d emptied his 9mm into the bastard who threatened Davy, but he seemed more relieved that John wasn’t going to kick his ass for losing track of the boy, in the first place, than remorseful for having shot the fucker full of holes. He’d also managed to shoot up the starboard side of the Bridge, and they were going to have to replace one of the windows, but John had stored spare everything for the journey: spare engine parts, spare line, spare supplies and dry stores, spare food, and, yes, spare window glass for each of the standardized sizes. Always Ready meant what it said, and John took the concept to heart.

  Of course, he didn’t think the people who came up with the Coast Guard’s motto had a zombie apocalypse in mind when they did it, but he forgave them their short-sidedness. There were just some things you could never be ready for.

  As, for example, being ready to give a pep talk to his crew in the aftermath of a pirate attack. That hadn’t been on his list of possible contingencies, and he mentally kicked his own ass for making the mistake. John believed - or tried to, anyway - in the basic good of people. He’d always felt it best to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, but it ignored the basic fact of what Jim said before the attack: There will always be assholes.

  At the moment, everyone was treating Clara as the Designated Asshole, and they had a point. Mick and Jason were dead as a direct result of the boneheaded mistake she’d made. But it had been done out of ignorance - monumentally stupid ignorance, but ignorance nonetheless, and not malice, which was the important factor he now had to convey. He took a calming breath, and began.

  “We’ve lost two shipmates,” he said, stating the obvious. “And that is tragic. It is terrible. It is heartbreaking.” He looked at each of them, including Clara who was staring at the deck. “And if anybody deserves the blame, it’s me.” He saw multiple pairs of eyes shift from him, to Clara, t
hen back to him again. “That’s right. Me. And only me. I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t allow for piracy and I should have. I screwed up. Me. And what happened was a direct result of it.”

  “John...” Jim began, but he stopped him with a hand gesture.

  “I am to blame,” he repeated. “I accept full responsibility. And I have every intention of learning from my mistake.” He gazed out to sea to give himself a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing. “This is a new world, we’re entering. A dangerous world. A world filled with hazards and enemies and fear and death. It’s not a question of whether or not we will have to face anything worse. It’s a question of when.” He gestured toward the starboard side, where they’d committed their shipmate’s bodies to the sea. “We’ve seen the result. We feel the pain and the loss. But we must all learn from it. We must all steel ourselves for the challenges and dangers of the future. And that future can be bright. There can be hope. There can be light at the end of the darkness. We must face it together. And together we can.” He shook his head and gave a wry laugh. “Hate to use a cliche, but they are occasionally appropriate. Ready?”

  He looked at them, caught a few smiles and many more nods.

  “United we stand. Divided we fall,” he intoned. “And I have no intention of falling. Are you with me?”

  Davy took a step forward, separating himself from his Mom and sister. He stood to attention, snapped a parade ground salute that would have passed muster at the strictest boot camp, and said: “Yes, sir!”

  John nodded and returned the salute with all solemnity. “Set the watch,” he said. “Let’s get back underway.”

  128

  “...All Officers, your presence is requested in the Cabin. All Officers...” BM3/OPS Eric Riechert said into the 1-MC. He turned and addressed BMCM Wolf. “He said to include you too, Master Chief.”

  BMC/DECK Dan Huffman, who currently had the Deck and Conn, glanced at the Master Chief and shrugged. “Sucks to be so popular,” he said.

  BMCM Philip C. Wolf grumbled his way off the Bridge. Riechert could have sworn he heard him say “Fucking Officers,” under his breath, but he was neither brave, nor stupid enough to comment. The Master Chief was an entity unto himself. Normal rules of decorum simply did not apply.

  “What do you suppose that’s about?” Eric asked, after Wolf closed the interior Bridge door behind him.

  “No idea,” Chief Huffman replied. “Apparently, we’re not qualified to know.”

  Capt. Gideon Hall sat behind his desk, waiting for all the officers to arrive. He was not a happy man, but he took solace in the fact that his unhappiness had nothing to do with his officers. They had done their job. They had done their duty. They saved the ship. Now he must ask them to save the crew, as well.

  LT Wheeler was the last to arrive. He looked as if he had just woken up, which made sense, because he’d had the midwatch last night, after being up all day in Guam. The Captain stood, and left the other officers standing as well.

  “We have a problem, gentlemen, ladies, Master Chief,” he began. He hadn’t meant it as a joke, but that’s how it went over. Chuckles flitted through the compartment, and the assembled officers relaxed, just a bit. They knew what he’d said was true. He hadn’t, in fact, needed to say it, but sometimes stating the obvious was a good way to enter into difficult areas.

  “The Captain of a ship should never explain himself,” he continued - also obvious, as anyone with any training or experience in command would know. “But just this once, I’ll explain it to you.” They stood there, looking at him, not nodding, not shifting, not glancing at each other, their eyes fixed upon him. Good.

  “Guam was a tragedy. There are times in this profession, if you’re in it for long enough, when you are faced with a situation for which there are no good answers. When that happens, the only real choice is to fall back on your orders. That is what I did.” He paused, both to let it sink in, and to gather his thoughts.

  “Our orders were to top off fuel, under conditions which would not risk infection any more than necessary. We are to act as a beacon in the darkness for whatever remains of our fleet and our forces. We could not and cannot do that, while also fighting the spread of a plague more disastrous, more dastardly than any before in history. To that end, what you did, Mr. Vincenzo, what your boys did, was essential.” He clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace. This was old and hackneyed and seen in countless movies about sea Captains and men in positions of authority in extreme circumstances. But cliche had its place, as well. Sometimes a bit of theater, no matter how familiar, was necessary, precisely because it was familiar.

  “The crew is understandably shaken. They are shocked, they are wounded to their souls, and sooner, rather than later, they are going to start looking for someone to blame, if it hasn’t already started.” He looked at Bobby V. “They’re going to want to blame you, sir, because you are the one they saw give the order. We cannot allow that to happen.” He looked at all of them, each in turn, making certain they understood. “Therefore, I want you to tell them it was all my fault. I want you to convince them that it was entirely my responsibility and that I am the one to blame - the only one. Were I to try and do it myself, it would put me in a position where I’d have to explain myself to them, and as we’ve already discussed, that cannot be. You must do this. Each of you. All of you.”

  He stopped his pacing directly in front of the center of his desk, giving it that final touch of theater. “They are going to grumble, they are going to grouse, they are going to bitch, and they are going to hate me for this. Let them.”

  “Sir,” Commander Swedberg tried to begin, but Hall cut him off.

  “Just this once, XO, just this once, all of you, I want you to let this go on. Do not stomp on it. Let them focus their anger on me.” He looked toward Wheeler and Montrose, who were standing next to each other. “How goes the plan for the Crossing Ceremony?”

  Wheeler - for once - was momentarily speechless. The abrupt change of subject and colossal non-sequitur, made him pause, but only for a moment. “More or less ready, sir,” he said. “All we need to do is pick a time.”

  Hall nodded, then looked at the Engineer. “EO, how much fuel did we get?”

  LCDR Douglas Chezku stiffened a bit, as if coming to attention. “Topped off on JP5. That’s the good news.”

  “And the bad?” Hall asked, patiently.

  “Three-quarters on DFM,” he said. “We had to leave before...”

  “Yes,” Hall said, nodding. He looked to Wheeler again. “I’m afraid the “X” is out of the question, then. Can’t afford to waste fuel.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant replied, his expression neutral, but Hall had long ago learned to read men’s eyes, and Wheeler’s registered a touch of disappointment.

  “Having said that,” Hall continued, “We will still be crossing the Date Line, and there are many among us who have not had the pleasure.” he said. “The Ceremony will go on.” He breathed in - almost, but not quite a sigh. “Some of them may not want to participate. Encourage them otherwise.”

  “Should we make it mandatary?” LTjg Montrose asked, the skepticism evident in her tone.

  “No,” he replied, simply. “At least not overtly.” This was met with more than a few raised eyebrows. “Nudge them in the right direction. We need them to blow off steam, or we risk an explosion.”

  129

  “Good to see you’re still breathing, Petty Officer McMullen,” Molly said, as they all gathered on the Bridge. The ship was maintaining station with the Dynamic Positioning System doing the work. The only one they were waiting for was Bill Schaeffer, still down in Radio.

  Jonesy admired the way she was holding up. No, it was more than that. She carried herself differently. In spite of her new and awesome responsibility, and the insanity that had swept the ship during this bloody night, she was now calm, and solemn and utterly professional. It didn’t make what he had to say any easier.

  “A
s a reward for having survived,” she continued addressing McMullen, “I’d now like you to do a survey of all the electrical systems throughout the entire ship. We need to make sure everything works, and keeps working. Understood?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Ma’am?” Jonesy said, reluctantly.

  “Jones?”

  “If I may, there’s something we should probably do first,” he said. “A matter of security.”

  “Which is?” She asked, looking at him with cool eyes.

  He hesitated, really not wanting to go there, but knowing he needed to. “We need to ensure that all of us are infection free,” he said, hedging.

  She stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded. “Very well.”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have a corpsman,” he said, still hesitant.

  “I’m aware of that,” she replied, her tone held just a tinge of annoyance.

  He took a deep breath. “The only way I can think to do this is to give each other a visual examination,” he said, pausing. “For bites.”

  She stared at him and blinked.

  “It would require us all to...strip, Ma’am.”

  She blinked again, her skin tone flushing pink. Jonesy flicked his eyes to the others and saw they were pointedly looking anywhere but at their new CO. She looked at him a moment longer, then gave a small grunt of frustration - whether with the situation in general, or with him in particular, he did not know.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake,” she said, moving toward the interior Bridge door. “Chartroom, Jonesy,” she barked. “Now.”

  He followed, obediently. As he was closing the Bridge door behind him, he heard Harold mutter, “Lucky guy.”