Hunter slowed down and they both looked to their left to see Dallas’s boat racing toward them.
When Dallas pulled alongside them, she jammed the boat to a stop and leaned over the side to help them up the ladder.
When Roper stood on the deck of the boat, all she saw was Akiko, lying bloody and still on the deck.
Hunter stopped at the top of the ladder and stared for half a second before climbing back down and getting on the jet ski.
“Hunter, no!” Dallas cried.
But it was too late. Taking off towards the destroyer, he was going back after Zoe.
“Is she dead?” Roper asked, kneeling next to Akiko.
“I don’t know. I didn’t have time to check.”
Roper felt for a pulse and nodded. “She’s alive.” Looking up at Dallas, her eyes asked the question her mouth would not.
“There was nothing else there, baby. I managed to get Kiko because she was still strapped to her seat cushion. I…we lost her.”
Roper fought off the tears that would come later…much later. For now, she had to check Akiko out and make sure she wasn’t severely or mortally injured. Now, she had to tend to the living and wait until later to grieve an inconsolable loss.
Rolling Akiko over, she clapped her on the back, and water drooled form her mouth.
Dallas kneeled down and pushed her out of the way. Holding Akiko’s nose, she performed CPR on her until she coughed and sputtered back to life.
“You’re okay. You’re okay.” Roper covered her with a blanket she found down below.
“Zoe? Yuzo?” Akiko tried to talk, but continued coughing up water. “What about Hunter? They’ll kill him. They’ll blow him up while he looks for her.”
“We have to go after him, Dallas,” Roper said, starting for the wheel of the boat.
Dallas gently took her good arm and shook her head. “We have to get out of here, love. We can’t risk going after him.”
Roper stared at her. “It’s Zoe, Dallas. Our Zoe.”
“I know, love, but trust me, she’s gone. She and Yuzo didn’t make it. We did what we said we were going to do and…and…” She bowed her head. “And we’ll never find her, baby. I’m sorry.”
“Then let’s at least get Hunter!”
Dallas put her hand on the throttle and shook her head once more. “He’ll never come in. Not until he is absolutely certain she’s not to be found. You know it. I know it. I won’t put us at risk that way. Don’t ask that of me.”
Roper wiped her eyes as she returned her attention to Akiko. The boat lurched forward and moved rapidly away from the destroyer, the chopper wreckage, and the sea grave that embraced their precious Zoe.
When they pulled up to the dock on Alcatraz, Einstein, Ryan, and nearly everyone else were waiting.
“We heard the––” The look of abject fear on Einstein’s face when he saw only Dallas, Roper, and Akiko was enough to break the human heart forever. Even after Dallas explained to everyone that Hunter was still alive, but looking for Zoe’s body, Einstein refused to leave the dock.
The SEALs carried Akiko into the nearest covered area, where she used the blanket to dry off with, and tried to stand on wobbly legs.
Dallas looked at them for a moment, wishing Butcher was here. She’d know how to fix this…what to do.
But she was gone.
So was Luke.
And now, Zoe.
It took everything Dallas had to remain standing, but she had one more man out in the field, and the sun was going down. She would not leave the dock until he came back.
But as dusk crawled over daylight and the moon shared the sky with the sun, Hunter did not return, and he was too far out to see with binoculars. Only when the moon was alone in the sky did Roper come down to the dock and pull Dallas away.
“Come on, love. Akiko is like a panther in a cage. She’s carrying some pretty bad scrapes and contusions, but she won’t even let us look at them. All she wants is to know about Yuzo and Zoe.”
Dallas did not move.
“Baby?”
Dallas bowed her head. “It was a bad plan. A plan born out of desperation. I should have known better.”
“Love, please. You can’t have a pity party right now. Akiko needs to be told about Yuzo and Zoe. That news needs to come from you.”
“I know.”
“And then Fletcher. He is going to need to hear it from you as well.”
“We don’t know Hunter is dead.”
“Then where is he? Why didn’t he come back? Baby, you have to deal with the reality of all this. He’s gone. Zoe’s gone. Akiko and Fletcher need to know.”
Bowing her head, Dallas walked back up the hill and into the dining hall.
When she started to tell Fletcher, he stopped her mid sentence and said, “If my boy was dead, I would know it in here.” He pounded his chest with his fist. “You go on and tell Akiko what you need to say, but me? I won’t believe it until it’s real, and right now, Dallas, it’s not real.”
And Akiko, true to her heritage, bore it like a stoic, never shedding a tear, never wailing or lamenting or cursing angrily. Instead, when Dallas finished telling her, she nodded once, muttered something in Japanese, and asked for help standing.
Once up, she took Dallas by the arm and walked away from everyone until they were under the moonlit sky. “Americans have no sense of duty, Dallas. You are soft people. Weak people. When life gets hard, you give up. Zoe was not an American. Not like that. She was…something outside of herself. Something she created from within. You will cry because she is gone and because you loved her. I will not. Not because I didn’t love her. I did…I do, but because she knew her own mind, and that, my friend, is something few of us walking this planet have. In the end, both of them had the control over their destinies, and that is something worth celebrating, not crying about.”
Dallas felt tears running down her face. “You are wrong, Kiko. I cry because I was the one in charge of her destiny and it killed her.”
Akiko patted Dallas’s shoulder. “Be careful you do not give yourself too much credit, Dallas. You’d be surprised at how little impact we truly have on each other.”
Dallas started to reply when Akiko suddenly wobbled slightly. “Come on. I’ll have the guys carry you back to the dining hall while we talk about our next plan.”
“No. I have it. Thank you. And thank you for saving my life back there.”
“It’s what I did for a living, remember?” When Dallas and Akiko arrived back at the dining hall, Einstein and Roper joined her on the docks.
“He’s not coming back,” Einstein said softly. “Not without her.”
Dallas and Roper each took one of his hands. “We can’t lose any more of us. I don’t think we can take it.”
“What do you suggest, then?”
“If the zombie bomb worked, Akiko should be able to determine whether or not we can climb aboard and finish them off. Then I say we load everyone on board and then get them the fuck out of here.”
Roper and Einstein nodded. “Agreed.”
As the three of them stood there, arm-in-arm, Dallas thought about Akiko’s words and knew she was wrong about one thing: this was her fault, and she would never forgive herself for it.
When Akiko woke, Dallas was sitting next to her. “I still have the helmet,” she said, laying it next to her.
Akiko slowly rose, wincing as she did. “Feels like I was shot from a cannon.”
“I’ll bet.”
Akiko picked up the helmet. “I’ll listen in and see what’s going on.” She hesitated. “No Hunter?”
Dallas shook her head sadly. “No.”
Placing the helmet on her head, Akiko listened for five minutes. Ten minutes. After fifteen minutes, she ripped the helmet off and struggled to her feet. “They’ve sent out an SOS. Another ship is making its way down here from Northern California. They should be here before dusk.” Akiko looked at Dallas. “It worked, Dallas. It worked. They are fighting o
ff the zombies.”
Dallas rose and began issuing commands.
Everyone gathered their things and prepared the smaller ships for them to leave in.
Dallas, Roper, Einstein, Fletcher, Ryan, Akiko, and all of the SEALs hopped on board one boat with as many rifles and ammo as they could carry. If there were Japanese soldiers left on board, they would finish them off and take control of the destroyer.
“Okay,” Einstein started as the boat pulled away from the dock. “Those of us who are not immune will climb up away from the zombies and pick off any living or undead while the rest go in after the zombies and get into the communications room. Do not, under any circumstances, come down from your perch until they’ve made a clear path to the engine room and the comm. You get bit, we’ll shoot you. You get scratched, we’ll shoot you. You put any of us in danger, we’ll shoot you. Any questions?”
The sailors shook their heads.
“Once we clear the comm and we have control of the ship, you are not to leave any safe areas unless accompanied by one of them. Is that clear?”
The SEALs nodded.
“Good. Until they can scour every nook and cranny on the ship, we have to assume it’s infected. The moment you stop making that assumption is the one time you’ll regret it.”
Dallas stared straight ahead, barely listening to Einstein’s admonitions. She didn’t want to bring the ZB’s, but she had no choice. It was a race against the clock now. They had to get in there, clean up, and get folks from Alcatraz all before the rescue ship made it to the bay.
Tick tock.
One of the SEALs raised his hand. “How come they ain’t shootin’ at us?”
Roper answered, “They’ve got their hands full right now.”
“All right everyone, Einstein has briefed you,” Dallas said, breaking out of her fog. “I don’t have to reiterate that we’re alive because we never assume. I know there are thirty-two zombies on board. We have no idea how many Japanese there were, but we absolutely must take a head count. Nothing gets thrown overboard until we have a head count. This will help for cleaning. We do not shoot the survivors until we get intel from them. Above all, remember…protocol saves lives.”
One guy raised his hands. “Are you sure you guys aren’t military?”
Dallas smiled. “Bite your tongue. So, if there are no questions, you’ll stay up until we clear an area to the comm and corral what’s left of their crew. And one last thing––”
“Did you stop for donuts or what?” a voice shouted down from the deck of the destroyer.
“Jesus, Dallas Barkley, you are getting too old for this shit. I expected you at dawn.”
Dallas looked up at the woman leaning over the railing, and the biggest smile she’d ever smiled spread across her face. “I slept in. I figured you had it all covered.” Tears welled up in her eyes.
Zoe laughed. “Of course you did. You let us do all of the heavy lifting. There’s really not much you can do except get your asses up here and drive this fucking thing.”
“Us?” Fletcher asked.
Hunter leaned over the side. “You didn’t think I was gonna let her have all the fun, did you?”
Fletcher growled, “I am gonna whip your ass, boy!”
Hunter laughed, and they lowered ladders right to the boat.
Dallas and Roper flew up the ladder and crushed Zoe in a three-way bear hug. Fletcher wasn’t far behind, and he, too, hugged his son in a crushing vice grip.
Akiko was the last person who struggled up the ladder, and Zoe had her arms around her neck so fast, she almost knocked her off the ship.
“What happened?” Akiko asked, pulling back to look into Zoe’s bruised face. “One minute you were there, the next––”She stopped and glanced around the deck of the ship lined with dead and undead alike. “You two have been busy.”
“I’ll tell you guys everything later. Right now, we’ve got a brig with a couple of really pissed off Japanese, a few areas we need to double check for eaters, and a ship to get moving.”
Dallas stared at the stacks of undead and dead crew members. “I can’t wait to hear this.” She hugged the little woman once more.
Zoe smiled. “Aww, you thought I was dead,” she said as they walked across the deck. “You didn’t see me jump into one of those mechanical thingies when the chopper got closer enough?”
“Noooo, we did not.”
Zoe shrugged. “I had to. They were getting ready to take the big guns out, so Yuzo…” Zoe stopped walking and glanced around the deck. “Yuzo?”
Akiko shook her head. “She did not make it, my love.”
Zoe inhaled deeply and nodded. “She saved me. I jumped and fell off that thing. Landed on my back, winded. She just started shooting and taking out guy after guy until I could get up and take care of business. Are you sure she didn’t make it?”
Akiko nodded. “She was hanging out the door when we were hit. I survived because I was strapped in.”
“Oh. Man. I’m so sorry.” Zoe continued walking.
“Do not be. Yuzo went out the heroine she was. Her family would be most proud of her. That is something…important to my countrymen.”
When they reached the comm, there was blood on the consoles, floor, and windows.
“You really were busy.”
“Had to use stealth. Hunter and I have been up all night taking guys out. We’re pretty sure we got most of them, but we don’t speak Japanese so we couldn’t really ask. We did put one of the eaters in the cell next to them, so I’m pretty sure they’re more than ready to talk now.”
“How many have you killed?”
“All but that one. Thirty one so far. One hundred and four crew members.”
Everyone looked to Akiko, who nodded. “A Zumwalt destroyer typically carries around a hundred and forty. This bag of bolts probably closer to one-twenty.”
Zoe nodded. “That’s about right then. I’ve got nine in the brig, and I’m pretty sure there’s a half dozen hiding. I thought maybe we could use the one dude left as a bloodhound and sniff ‘em out.”
Dallas pulled Zoe to her with one arm. “Have I told you how much you mean to me?”
“Not often enough.”
Dallas laughed. “Well, I’ll make a note of that.”
When they got to the bridge, the SEALs kicked into gear and got the ship ready to roll. While they worked, Dallas left Hunter and Akiko to guard while the rest went down to the brig to have a conversation with the men whose cell mate was a snarling, drooling bag of putrid flesh and bones.
“Hi, fellas,” Dallas said, walking up to the cell. “I’m sure you want to pretend to not speak English, but in case you are going to act like jackasses, I have my own translator. So, what’s it going to be?”
One man stood up and walked up to the bars. The brig was makeshift at best and clearly not part of the original design. “I am Captain Yamamoto. Who are you?”
“I am an American who has taken your ship, killed your crew, and will feed you to this handsome fellow here if you lie to me once or make this any harder than it has to be. Are we clear so far?”
He nodded.
“Good. I want you to go back online and tell the ship that is coming you have everything under control and they need not continue. If you say anything else, we will toss you in here and let the zombie eat your tongue for lunch.”
The captain, a short man with thick lips, nodded. “Very well.”
Dallas turned to the SEALs. “Two of you take him to the bridge. If he says anything more, bring him back down here.”
“Yes ma’am.”
When they were gone, Dallas watched the men cowering from the zombie. “How many of you are there?”
No one replied.
“Einstein?”
He asked the question in Japanese. No one answered.
Dallas nodded to two of the SEALs, who ripped one of the men out of the cell and waited for Dallas to open the cell up and kick the zombie back so they could throw the man
in there, which they did.
He screamed when the man eater cornered him. He fought him and fought him, punching and kicking, losing steam with every punch.
“Please! Please…”
“All I want is a number. How many men are on the ship?”
The zombie’s teeth found their mark and the man screamed and screamed until the man eater tore his throat out.
“Who’s next?” Dallas asked while the men looked on in horror as the zombie ate their friend’s face.
“One-thirty-five,” one man finally answered. “I say truth. I tell the true. One-thirty-five!”
The other men pushed and shoved him.
“That’s enough,” Dallas commanded. “The next man who harms him gets to be dessert. Is there anything else anyone has to say that will make me spare your lives?”
The men looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Very well, then. If your captain has not done what he was instructed to do, you will all suffer the same fate as your friend over there.” Dallas glanced over at the zombie as it ate the man’s face. “And as you can see, it’s not pretty.”
She waited until the SEALs brought the captain back down. “Well?”
They shook their heads. “He would not speak those words, ma’am.”
Dallas opened the cage. The zombie was still feeding when she shoved the captain in kicking and screaming, trying everything in his power not to be tossed in.
But he was, and he attacked the zombie from behind and tried to twist its head off. They fought hard for several minutes until the captain managed to get the head off of the zombie.
He stood there a moment, holding the head on his hip like a basketball. “You cannot beat the rising sun, you piece of shit Americans! You have no idea how to win at anything!”
Dallas folded her arms across her chest and grinned. “Oh, really? I’m thinking in about five seconds, you’re going to see just how well we know how to win.”
The man who had lost his throat, nose, lips, and cheek rose, took two steps, and then sank his teeth into the captain’s shoulder. The captain let out a curdling scream as his crew member ripped a chunk of his shoulder off.
“That, you motherfucking cocksucker, is how we Americans win.”
Pedal to the Metal (Riders of the Apocalypse Book 4) Page 25