It was also loud. Unless you decapitated one of the infected, they made a lot of noise dying. On top of the noise you made shooting them or whacking away with a baseball bat or shovel or weed whacker or whatever random weapon worked in the video games. They didn’t just fall to the ground silently and slowly fade off the screen. They went down screaming and trying to claw their way back up to attack. They didn’t care about pain. They weren’t scared of the person who’d just shot them. They were nightmares wrapped in the flesh of your neighbors.
“I see you found someone to let you in the armory.” LeBron was snapped out of his musings by Leander.
“Yes sir. I wasn’t planning on trying to make it down to the hangar by talking those things out of eating me.” LeBron joked.
“Alright. Make sure you’re by the door at fifteen hundred sharp. We’re rolling out on the dot. I’m hoping it’s a contact free crossing but if not, we’re bringing an excessive amount of firepower with us.” Leander turned and walked away without waiting for a response. The special agent in charge of the forces here was more than a bit preoccupied. Considering his mission was crumbling around him while psychotic killers tunneled into his base LeBron chose to not be offended by the curt dismissal.
“At least you’re getting out of here. I get to stay and see if those things can get in or not so that’s pretty exciting.” One of the uniformed men who’d been watching the monitors had been close enough to overhear the short conversation between Leander and LeBron.
“If they get in at night you might want to lock yourselves inside the armory or something. It’s going to take a ton of firepower to get out of here if they get in. I wouldn’t hang out too long either. Wait for daylight and make a break for it.” LeBron said seriously. Everyone knew it was suicide to go outside at night now. There were way too many crawlerz around the base. It didn’t matter how well armed you were. Any weapon short of a tank wasn’t going to get you very far.
“Good luck with the hundred-yard dash of death. The worlds gone crazy right?” The man spun back around to his post once again leaving LeBron feeling like he was being way too easily dismissed.
LeBron lined up in the front corridor at the appointed time with the group that was already there. They waited as the rest of the barracks personnel headed to the hangar showed up. Only a skeleton crew was being left behind to man the operations center. LeBron wondered how that’d impacted the morale of the ones chosen to stay behind. It wasn’t like Leander couldn’t have chosen pretty much anybody to sit there and watch the monitors all day. There were no real special skills required or anything. At least not anything that couldn’t be taught in an hour or two. Everyone being left behind must know they were considered expendable.
“Sucks to be one of the ones left behind.” LeBron said as an aside to the man in line next to him.
“They’re not really being left behind. Everyone had the chance to volunteer. Everyone over eighteen anyway. We’d have all felt bad leaving you behind. Leander gave the rest of us a choice though. Stay here and watch the monitors or get on the short list for volunteering to go out in the field. We’ve got a lot of guys who are scared to leave the barracks after watching all the crap that’s happened outside. Those guys couldn’t wait to volunteer. No matter what might end up slithering in while they’re stuck here.” The man answered. LeBron considered himself corrected. It sounded like Leander might actually know his men better than LeBron had given him credit for.
LeBron hadn’t realized how terrified he was personally of leaving the barracks until the door opened and everyone rushed out. These weren’t the special forces operators that’d gone out previously. A lot of these men were in logistics and intelligence. Most of them had way less experience than LeBron with running around with weapons. None of them had killed anywhere close to the number of surgers LeBron had already put down since the pandemic hit their shores. Only a few of them had even dared to go outside the barracks since they’d been sent here. Especially since the barracks became a hot spot for the infected.
Once outside the illusion of safety the barracks offered the openness of being outside was putting everyone on edge. Agoraphobia had spread rampantly through their ranks. When you spend day after day watching video screens showing people being ripped apart by demons who streak out of hiding faster than should be humanly possible it gets to you. That fear had dug it’s claws in deeply. It was the main reason so many had volunteered to stay behind and continue their duties in the operations center. Not many people knew this, but Leander had actually received more volunteers to stay behind than he needed. A handful of the men making the crossing had desperately wanted to stay behind. Despite having seen the crawlerz digging in all around them.
The run proved gloriously anticlimactic. The men who’d arrived the day before to reinforce the base had done a good job clearing the area. There were more crawlerz hiding in the dirt than anyone wanted to think about but the rising tide of surgers had ebbed for now. They must’ve all been killed off or finally made the transition to crawlerz. Whatever the case LeBron was just happy that they made it all the way down to the hangar without needing to fire a single shot. The way the men in the group were waving their rifles around LeBron was beginning to think friendly fire may be a bigger threat than the infected.
Everyone started breathing again once the door closed behind them and they were gathered inside the cavernous hangar. After living in the tight confines of the barracks for so long the hangar felt ridiculously huge. Almost like they were still outside. Looking at the faces of the men around him LeBron could tell a few of them wouldn’t feel safe again until they were assigned some tiny sleeping quarters somewhere that they could wedge into. Leander immediately left with a few of his senior staff to go setup the alternative operations and communications center. They needed to make sure the carrier knew they were still alive, and the base was still functional.
They should be able to keep up the same level of communication from here as they had at the barracks. They’d just be blind as far as being able to watch what was happening outside. Hopefully the perceived danger of the crawlerz tunneling into the ground turned out to just be them all being overly cautious.
“You LeBron?” A large redheaded man with a serious case of five o’clock shadow asked.
“That’s me.” LeBron answered.
“Not sure why I really even asked. Not too many black teens wandering around in civilian clothes. I’m Master Chief Mattison. You can call me Vic or Victor when we’re not being super formal. Mostly you should just call me master chief, so you don’t weird out everyone not wearing a Penn State hoodie.” The red headed warrior said with a grin. He stuck his hand out and LeBron reached out for a bone grinding handshake. Victor had the handshake you’d expect from a man who’d spent his life in the worlds hotspots swinging a hammer in between fighting off the enemy.
“What were you looking for me for?” LeBron asked curiously.
“According to the CO you’re the one who has the ideas that’re going to save the world. My job’s to take your ideas and turn them into reality.” Victor replied.
“Cool. Let’s grab a couple of waters and head downstairs to get started. Probably shouldn’t procrastinate too much if we’re in charge of saving the world and all.” LeBron said turning in the direction of the stairs leading downwards. He’d never been in the hangar physically before, but he’d stared at it through the CCTV cameras so much it felt like he’d actually been there. Kind of a weird technological déjà vu.
Chapter 20: If at First You Don’t Succeed
“Hey you ok?” Drew opened the door to the small office Jeff was in. The tall man was hunched over the desk with the lights turned out and his head in his hands.
“Is that a real question?” He asked without even looking up.
“Yeah. I mean this all sucks but we’re alive. Yue’s alive. We need to fight our way out of this coffin shaped lab and up to the sunshine. We need you to be able to do that.” Drew said.
“’This all sucks’ doesn’t really begin to cover it. You just got here. Your sister’s alive so you’re happy. I had friends on this ship. People I’ve known for years are now laying in a bloody pile on the floor out there. The plan I built to save the world depended on this ship. The President and every other VIP we had onboard. They’re all unaccounted for. I have no clue who’s in charge anymore. They were a bunch of pricks but at least they held everything together. We can’t even fall back on the CO or XO for this ship because I just found out they both got turned into surgers then shot in the head by the Marines. But yeah. Let’s fight our way to the flight deck. Then we can stand there and watch the world go down in flames while we try to figure out how to sail this ship. I don’t suppose you happen to be a certified nuclear reactor operator? Yesterday we had a ton of those nerds. Now the only one we have is the one trying not to fall asleep in the engine room. The rest are either dead or on the hunt for fresh brains.” Jeff had gradually gotten louder during his tirade. By the end of it he’d sat up in his chair to turn around and glare at Drew.
For his part Drew was thinking the next time he was close to a library he was going to grab a book on interpersonal communications. He obviously needed to improve his communications skills. Here he was again proving he had the empathy of a rock. He started to back out of the room to give Jeff space. If what Jeff said was all true though then they couldn’t afford to let the man just sit in a dark room and pout.
“You like my sister, right?” Drew asked. Jeff was thrown off by the question. He’d been ready to unleash on Drew.
“Yes. I do. She’s hopefully been rescued and taken to the flight deck by now. I’d love to call up and make sure she’s ok. If the rest of the leadership on board is dead though then it won’t look good if I keep calling to ask for a status on my girlfriend.” Jeff said. His head was going back into his hands as he slowly turned back towards the desk in the dark room. Drew was losing him.
“My sister, me, everybody left alive on this boat’s depending on you. You helped put this all together in the first place. You know what it means to have to make cuts and make sacrifices. Don’t give up now.” Drew finished feeling like he’d crossed the line well into drama queen territory. He was also making some pretty big assumptions off the limited knowledge he had about Jeff’s role. By the way Jeff reacted to his words it looked like he might have said something right though.
“Alright. If you promise to stop talking, I’ll try and figure out what we can do next. Do me a favor and go count up who we have left. Find out which ones know how to shoot. I’m going to find out if anyone can pull up the camera feeds and tell us what we’re going to have to do to fight our way out of here.” Jeff reached for the phone which Drew took as his cue to get to work.
Glancing around the lab space wasn’t filling Drew with a lot of hope. Most of the Marines responsible for guarding the area had gone out earlier with the staff sergeant. Of the ones who’d made it back only two were still standing after all the screwups with the infected who’d breached the hatch. About a dozen lab techs and scientists were standing around in their white lab coats. Only a couple of them looked like people Drew would be comfortable handing a gun too. Which was good since they only had a handful of weapons to hand out anyway.
Drew and the two Marines dutifully circulated around the room to try and see which of the nerds in the white coats had any experience with firearms. They weeded out the ones who just felt like they should be given a weapon by explaining that the men with the weapons would lead the way out into the hallway. At the end of the day only two of the white coats had any experience with guns and were willing to go out the hatch first if need be.
There were a couple Drew considered throwing out the hatch first as human shields after talking to them. The discussions quickly sliding into a one-sided conversation as the scientists whined that the Marines were supposed to protect them not the other way around. Drew found himself in the awkward position of keeping the peace between the two remaining Marines and the arrogant scientists. One of the senior scientists was especially arrogant. He didn’t hold back in blaming the whole situation on the sergeant who’d failed at clearing out the hallway.
“You do realize these guys you’re insulting right now are going to be the ones keeping you alive once we go out that hatch, right?” Drew told the man to try and shut him up. That’d led to a whole other sidebar where half of the scientists announced they weren’t leaving the lab until the passageway outside was cleared. Rubbing his temples in frustration Drew walked back over to the office Jeff was in. He got there right as the arrogant scientist he’d dealt with earlier was storming in to speak to Jeff. Rather than get in the middle of all that Drew picked a spot outside the office and stood there listening.
“You don’t expect us to go out in that passageway with the soldiers, do you?” The scientist asked. His tone of voice clearly showing what he thought of that idea.
“I’m having a rough day here Neb.” Drew heard Jeff say. Drew assumed the guy’s name must be Neb. He hadn’t gotten far enough in his earlier conversation to get his name.
“We’re all having a rough day, but you still can’t expect us to run out there and die. We all saw what happened the last time the soldiers went out in that passageway.” Neb said. His voice taking on a wheedling tone.
“First of all. They’re Marines not soldiers. Soldiers are the ones in the army. You probably don’t care about the difference, but I assure you they do. In case you haven’t noticed they’re all fully capable of beating you to a pulp while eating a ham sandwich at the same time. Secondly, we’re getting to a point where a soldier, sailor or a Marine is about ten times as valuable as a scientist. If you want to sit here and wait for the passageway to be clear I don’t care. You’re not super valuable to me anyway. I don’t see you whipping up a vaccine soon enough to turn the course of this infection. We won’t be sending anyone back to get you so if you don’t come with us then you’re on your own. I’m going to be assuming command of this ship and the forces on it so there won’t be anyone you can call to send help. Do what you want but quit whining. I simply don’t care. Science has failed us. You have failed us.” Jeff said. He said it loudly. He said it right into Neb’s shocked face.
Drew was wishing he’d walked in with Neb. He hated that he was missing the facial contortions that must be showing up on the arrogant asses face. He wanted to be sitting in the corner with a tub of popcorn. He didn’t bother hiding his smirk when the man walked out. Both of the Marines had also fully enjoyed the show. Jeff hadn’t tried to be quiet and the door had been hallway open. Neb’s associates worked to distance themselves from him when he walked back over towards them. Drew had minimal doubt that Neb would be bringing up the rear of their party when they went out the hatch.
“Drew, you out there? Come on in and bring in those Marines you were talking to.” Jeff’s voice drifted out of the office. Drew and the two Marines walked in on him feverishly scribbling a set of notes in a notebook. They waited patiently until he’d finished. Without any additional preamble once he was done writing Jeff leaned back and asked Drew to give him a sitrep. Once Drew was done Jeff leaned back and once again put his head in his hands.
“The plan still to try and bust out of here sir?” One of the Marines asked when the silence had drawn out longer than was comfortable. In way of an answer Jeff spun the monitor around so they could all see it.
“I finally got access to the cameras.” Jeff said wanly.
The monitors showed the passageway outside their door as well as multiple other passageways and spaces on board the ship. Ships were compartmentalized so that sections could be sealed off in the event of fire or flooding. An unintended benefit of compartmentalization should’ve been the ease of restricting the movement of the infected inside the ship. The ship builders probably hadn’t war gamed that exact scenario, but it still should’ve worked.
It hadn’t worked. Hatches that should’ve been secure
d weren’t. The infected had free reign over most of the ship. They were blocked from getting topside by closed hatches and there were some sections that’d been closed off. For the most part the thousands of crawlerz now haunting the passageways of the ship had unfettered access to roam wherever they willed. They’d be able to quickly move through the ship in the direction of the sound of gunfire. That wasn’t even taking into account the rumors of a psychic connection that formed between the infected.
“That’s a lot of crawlerz.” Drew announced unnecessarily. He just felt like he needed to say something. If they were able to hit three crawlerz every time they shot one bullet, then they’d make it maybe a hundred feet down the passageway before being overwhelmed and shredded. Considering it realistically took a half dozen bullets to put a single crawler on the ground their situation wasn’t looking good.
“Ideas? So far, I’ve come up with we can go in the passageway and die, or we can sit in here until we run out of food and die.” Jeff said.
“Have the guys up topside come down to rescue you sir. The rest of us aren’t worth the risk but you’re the closest thing we have to a commander, right? If you order them to come down, then they’ll come.” The younger Marine said hopefully.
Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches Page 18