Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches

by Merritt, R. S.

  Springing back to his feet LeBron put the barrel of his M-16 on the side of the demon’s face and pulled the trigger. He looked up right as another shadow slammed into his own legs knocking him to the ground. He hit and rolled as fast as he could into the daylight. The child crawler avoided following him into the bright sunlight. Instead it launched itself at Mitch who’d just shoved the corpse of the other dead crawler off himself. LeBron rushed over to help him again, but Mitch got the drop on the much smaller crawler this time. He put a few holes into the infected adolescent from point blank range.

  “All right man! Nice shooting! Now get out here. Screw this bridge.” LeBron shouted. He was looking around for any additional threats that may be coming at them thanks to all the noise they’d just made.

  Mitch walked out slowly stopping a dozen paces from LeBron. He held his hand up in the air. It was covered in blood. Something looked off about it. LeBron focused and realized Mitch was missing a finger. On closer inspection the finger was still there it was just bent back and dangling off a thin strip of flesh. The bone was fully exposed.

  “Do you think this is ok?” Mitch asked holding up his hand. The shock obvious in the way he spoke and the paleness of his skin. It was not ok.

  LeBron wondered if maybe he’d shot Mitch in the hand by accident. That’d explain the dangling finger. That’d keep him from having to kill him. He’d been the one to come up with the plan to move the cars. They could’ve just gone around. Maybe Mitch would be fine?

  Mitch noticed that LeBron had his rifle aimed right at him. He started to go for his own rifle but ended up just staring at it. He was looking at it like he had no idea what it was. LeBron took a couple of steps back. He had to be sure. Up in the truck Mikey was watching in horror. He’d been friends with Mitch for a few months now. They’d been on plenty of the same guard details. Even to a noob like him it was pretty obvious what was playing out on the deserted debris strewn street in front of him.

  LeBron waited. He made sure to keep plenty of distance between himself and Mitch. He didn’t want to kill Mitch while he was still Mitch. He waited for the head to snap up and the teeth to gnash together. He waited for that eerie low growl that haunted his nightmares. Mitch was gone. A demonic surger now stood in his place. LeBron didn’t hesitate to put the creature down. Breathing hard from the adrenaline and fear he walked over to the winch and hit the button. The tires didn’t move on the wreck, but the winch worked to drag it out regardless.

  LeBron watched sadly as the ruined yellow pickup slid out from under the bridge. As a bonus the car the pickup had crashed into also came skidding loudly out at the same time. Mitch had died for no reason. Like so many others in this screwed up world. Once the wrecked vehicles were out of the way LeBron moved Mitch over to the side of the road and covered him with some of the parts that had fallen off the vehicles. The pragmatic part of him was happy to be removing the possible tire gouging parts off the road.

  Once he was done with covering Mitch up as well as he could under the circumstances he climbed back in the cab with Mikey. Without another word Mikey drove them carefully under the bridge and they continued on their way to the coast.

  Chapter 27: The King is Dead, Long Live the King!

  This time they were more cautious. They monitored each passageway and alerted groups individually by phone when they should make a run for it. They no longer bothered telling people to bring makeshift weapons. Unless they had a gun their best defense against the infected was to not be seen by the infected. Jeff ordered the men to proceed slowly and methodically with the evacuation. They were going room by room and individual by individual. It was during this monitoring process that a discovery was made.

  They got locked out of the monitors when the Marine controlling them went on a break and unthinkingly shut down the computer station he was at. No big deal except that he hadn’t been the one who logged into it originally. That guy was dead. They called down to one of the rooms a couple of the ship’s officers were still alive in. Jeff ordered them to give up their usernames and passwords. When they logged back in, they noticed they had access to a lot more cameras. When they asked, they were told since it was a coed ship there were varying levels of access to keep anybody from doing anything stupid. Evidently the system was setup so that only certain individuals could peek at the shower areas. Rank hath it’s privileges.

  “So now we can see in the women’s berthing areas on top of a bunch of other places we didn’t have access to before.” The Marine was explaining to Jeff what’d happened when the man at the workstation behind him suddenly held his hand up in the air. Wondering if he really expected to be called on like they were in English class Jeff coughed loudly and pointed at him. All eyes turned to look at the excited Marine bent over a video screen.

  “It’s the VP sir!” The Marine said pointing at the miserable looking politician hunched over on the deck in a large closet filled with cleaning supplies. There was a deep sink in the corner for washing out mop buckets, so he had access to drinking water at least. There were also a couple of corpses in the room with him. He’d pushed those over to the side so far that they were barely visible on the camera.

  Jeff and everyone else crowded around the monitor and began hurling questions at the Marine who’d located the Vice President. There were a lot of cameras on board. A lot of them hadn’t been accessible before they got the higher-level password. A good number of them just hadn’t been checked yet either. They had a very limited number of people to look at all the different cameras. The VP was a deck below the main hangar bays. Peering over the map of the ship Jeff traced out the best path to get to him.

  They used the cameras to take a look at the best route to take through the ship to rescue him. It was crawling with cannibalistic crewmen. Lives were going to be lost to rescue the VP. Jeff looked at the map contemplating what he should do. Was risking the lives of four or five Marines worth pulling out an old politician?

  “We have a team we can send sir. I can have them start working up a plan.” One of the important looking Marines said. Drew had nicknamed him Jack because he looked just like Jack Nicklaus in that movie ‘A Few Good Men.’ Jeff continued staring at the diagram.

  “How many men do you think it’ll take to safely pull him out?” Jeff finally asked.

  “We have enough to get him out sir. We’ll just need to work up a plan.” The Nicklaus looking Marine answered. He seemed uncertain as to how to answer the question.

  “How safe will it be for the men we send down to get him out? What do you think those casualties look like?” Jeff asked.

  “He’s the President of the United States now sir. We can’t just leave him down there.” Drew was waiting for the right time to jump in and yell that none of them could handle the truth. Realizing he was actually thinking of doing that he put his hand over his mouth. He didn’t want to be dragged out on the catwalk and dressed down like the Marine earlier for not being able to keep his thoughts safely locked in his head where they belonged.

  “Of course. Carry on.” Jeff finally said. He never turned his head from the small map of the ship he was pretending to scrutinize. Yue saw his shoulders slump though. Sending men to die was never an easy thing to do. Sending men to die when you didn’t think the mission was worthwhile must be even harder. Based on the short exchange she’d seen Yue was thinking Jeff didn’t think the VP was worth it.

  The Jack Nicklaus impersonator was right of course. If they left their constitutionally appointed next in line down there to die, then they might as well throw out the whole concept of rebuilding the United States. Once you had the military doing things like standing around twiddling their thumbs while the next President slowly starved to death next to a shelf full of buffing wax the American dream could safely be proclaimed dead.

  A small planning team was thrown together with some of the more seasoned operators. Jeff let the captain of the submarine following them know they’d located a VIP. He was hoping he could offload the
guy straight to them. He knew the Vice President. Where the President had been a courageous self-made man adept at navigating the Washington politics the Vice President had been a third-generation politician. The VP had come from a family descended directly from a famed robber baron. Where the president had to be shown why it was needful to let the United States succumb to the infection the Vice President had been all about securing special privileges for the elite and wealthy.

  The Vice President was an old money slimy politician who only cared about himself. At least so far as Jeff had been able to infer from the limited time he’d spent in the other man’s company. It killed Jeff that at least one or two of the valuable assets they sent down into the depths of the ship to pull out the VP probably wouldn’t make it back. Any of the men on that rescue team were worth twenty DC politicians. Especially one like the VP. He’d been way more concerned with how his friends had been doing than with how the country was doing.

  Jeff had been forced to divert valuable resources away from building out the warehouses like the one in the south region to help with the VPs connected friends. There were numerous depots that’d been outfitted to get rich connected people through the dying times. Those bases had the full protection of the US military as well as stockpiles of weapons and supplies. They’d been setup as little self-sustaining cities. It was amazing what could be accomplished on short order with billions of dollars and the support of the government.

  Jeff knew he had no choice in the matter. If he ordered the rescue team to stand down, they’d probably just go anyway. The kind of man the VP was if he found out Jeff had told the men to stand down, he’d declare him a traitor and have him shot. No matter what his personal feelings were about the VP the man was next in line for the mantle of leadership for the United States. The USA may be more of an idea right now than a reality. However, with the might of the surviving military and the caches of supplies they’d staged around the country with some luck and hard work they could get back to something like normalcy. If not now than within two or three generations at least.

  He took a sip of his coffee and noticed it was cold. That meant he could head over to the coffee pot and get himself another cup. More important it meant he’d be able to take a quick Yue break. He’d just met her, and they’d really only had that one date, but he felt like there really was something there. He already depended on her. He hoped she was more than a temporary crutch. He also hoped she didn’t see the failure in his eyes that he felt in his heart at giving the order to collect the VP. Yue met him at the coffee station and poured him a fresh cup.

  “Hey, you can pour without spilling. There’s hope for you yet.” Jeff joked.

  “Maybe I spilled on purpose. You ever think of that?” Yue said with a flirtatious smile. Drew turned and walked away wanting no part in this scene. The age difference alone between his sister and Jeff was enough to make him want to start throwing punches.

  “Did you?” Jeff asked curiously. If she’d managed to pull all of that off on purpose, she’d missed her calling. She should either be a spy or a world-famous actress. The next 007 had been stolen from the world of motion pictures by the arrival of the infection.

  “Nope. Complete accident. I was hoping to get your attention though.” Yue said. She’d gotten close enough that his coffee breath was starting to make her have second thoughts about him. Luckily, he was so tall she wasn’t getting a direct hit. She thought about asking him to maybe look away from her while they talked. They really should have some mints at the coffee station.

  “Really. Romantic walk on the catwalk? I need some air.” Jeff asked her. He stuck out his arm for her to hold once she nodded her agreement.

  Rather than stroll around the bloody one looping around the bridge Jeff took Yue up to the air traffic control catwalk. Standing there leaning against the safety railing Yue got a good look at how high above the deep blue sea they were. She also had a nice view of the sandy island they’d be making their way to later. The strong wind whipped her hair painfully against her face until she pulled it back into a ponytail. Jeff watched in amusement while she got that taken care of. The two snipers stationed up on the catwalk migrated over to the far side to give the two of them some space.

  “Not a fan of the VP?” Yue asked once she had her hair situation taken care of. Jeff looked momentarily surprised then smiled sheepishly.

  “I didn’t realize I’d made it that obvious.” He said fighting to keep his voice low enough to keep the snipers from eavesdropping while loud enough for Yue to hear him over the wind.

  “There’s a chance not everybody in the room picked up on it.” Yue said sarcastically. She put her hand on his arm to lessen the impact of the words.

  “It was that bad?” Jeff said. Both his hands were resting on the railing of the catwalk. His knuckles turned white as he gripped and ungripped the steel bar working the stress out.

  “Yeah, pretty much. I don’t think you were talking any of those gung-ho dudes downstairs into leaving the new President behind no matter how much of a prick he is. They’re going to go get him.” Yue slid her hand up on his bicep and gripped it tightly to get his attention. “Some of them may not make it back. They all know that. It’s what they do. It’s not your fault.”

  “Thanks.” Jeff said embracing Yue and giving her a slightly more passionate kiss than usual. He broke it off when he remembered there were a couple of enlisted men standing less than fifteen feet away from them. When he glanced over both men were doing their best to be looking in another direction.

  Ignoring the men who were busy ignoring them they embraced in the wind far above the sea for a few precious minutes. The moment was etched into their memories forever. Yue couldn’t imagine a more perfect embrace had ever happened in the history of hugs. With a sigh Jeff finally broke the spell by moving his arms away. He told her it was time they headed back downstairs. The snipers behind them didn’t even notice they’d left. They were too busy shooting the growing number of infected popping out of the hatches below. It was like playing a weird game of whack a mole with devils popping out of hell. The memories etched into their heads were of the grossly contorted faces of their infected shipmates. They had to stare into the faces of each one as they put the crosshairs on them to take them out.

  On the bridge the mood was somber. The lower level of the superstructure was at capacity. They were going to start sending the healthier crew members up the ladder after their quarantine time to sit in the air traffic control tower. The plan for how they were going to rescue the soon to be sworn in President was good to go. It was basically a full-scale assault on the spaces leading to the closet the VP was hiding out in. They’d be sealing off hatches as they went to create a secure route to take the VP back through as well as to protect their flanks. They’d seal up the hatch they went down into the ship through to keep the infected from following them down.

  Amazed by the audacity of the men who were ready to jump into the belly of the ship and fight their way down through multiple decks filled with these lightning-fast killers Jeff approved the plan. It wasn’t like there was going to be a better one. At least not that he could come up with. This is what these guys did. The problem was a good portion of their tactics were predicated on the enemy reacting a certain way. This enemy definitely didn’t react the way they were supposed to. A lot of the rules of warfare were based on the idea that most people have a deeply ingrained fear of being hurt. The crawlerz could care less.

  The lieutenant and gunny sergeant leading the rescue team left the bridge immediately once Jeff approved the plan. They met up with their men on the crowded deck level of the superstructure and stacked up on the door. They went out right as a small group of the crew who’d just made it out onto the deck came in. The rescue team moved quickly to the hatch and waited for the signal to move in. Back on the bridge the man on the monitor station doublechecked the passageway they’d be hopping down into.

  “Be advised there are multiple tangos in the passa
geway. Recommend a frag before you drop in.” The man on the monitor advised over the headset communication device he was wearing to talk to the team below. A small crowd of officers was gathered in tightly behind the communication lead. They were listening intently to his words while they watched the monitor and tried not to second guess the tactics. The grenades destroyed the cameras.

  “Be advised rescue team the grenades have taken out the camera. We have zero visibility.” The man on the monitor let the team know. They acknowledged and entered the hatch in a single file line. Drew watched them disappear into the dark hole. When they were all out of sight, he turned around to see what was going on at the monitor station. They had the next passageway pulled up that the team should be moving into.

  The man on the radio was letting the rescue team know there were a couple of tangos in the next passageway as well. This time they watched from the enemies point of view over the monitors as the stairs suddenly filled up with the body armor covered elite warrior rescue team. They moved smoothly forward with half of the team splitting off to cover the passageway in the opposite direction. Barrels spewed long streams of fire as the men moved aggressively at their targets. For their part the infected ran right into the barrage of hot lead with zero hesitation. Their massive adrenaline surges carrying a few of them all the way to the men shooting them. Even with massive wounds drenching the deck with their blood they kept coming.