Dead Air

by Ash, C. B.

  "Of 'em all, we got this one ta workin'." The Scotsman called down. "The rest took their fair share a' poundin' from parts of the roof fallin' in. We also found some rock salt that we went an' added ta the mix so it'll carry the current, good and true."

  Krumer stood and massaged a sore muscle that had developed in his right shoulder. Moira and Adonia took his place at the spool and connected it to the fire cannon using the last of the discarded knife switches they had come across. As the two leads connected, sparks arced out and flew across the deck with enough ferocity that all close by jumped aside.

  The first mate continued to massage his sore shoulder. "Good enough, one'll have to do. We've not enough hands to crew any more than that. Thorias, how does the ship fare?"

  In the chair of a non-functional water cannon, Thorias peered out among the clouds. "The frigate's taking the advantage. I don't give the schooner much more than a few minutes till she goes down. Wait ... the Griffin's just come into view ... but her angle's off." The doctor shielded his eyes against a spray of rain that shot mist at his face. His eyes widened slightly when he realized where the Griffin was headed. "Of all the bloody fool things to do! Surely, they wouldn't!"

  Adonia joined Thorias on the ruined fire cannon and looked in the direction that stirred Thorias so. A small, knowing smile with a touch of admiration crept across her face when she, too, guessed the Griffin's intent. "Oh, surely they would, Amigo. Especially if Anthony thinks it will save lives."

  "Bloody, foolish folly! He'll have one shot at best, perhaps two!" Thorias ranted.

  "Which is why, I bet, they will not miss." Adonia's smile turned to a grin.

  Krumer exchanged a confused look with O'Fallon. "Thorias, a translation please for the unenlightened?" The first mate asked wryly.

  The doctor waved a hand in their direction in a frantic motion for silence. "Yes, yes. Can't you see? Blast it, what I would not give for a spyglass. The Griffin is coming about underneath the wounded ship using the damaged schooner and the smoke she's leaking to conceal them from the frigate. If she stays her course, she'll rise up well out in front of the damaged schooner and behind that monster of a frigate. They'll have one, perhaps two shots at best. If that frigate turns even the slightest, she'll bring a full broadside to bear on the Griffin!"

  Krumer nodded while he worked out the ship's maneuvers in his mind. "He's likely hoping to damage her enough to rattle her crew or play on luck to hit something sensitive."

  "Bloody damn fool idea." Thorias spouted.

  "Which is why we're going to help. How long till the Griffin completes her maneuver?" Krumer asked quickly.

  Thorias watched the dance of ships through the air with a practiced eye. It had been many years since he was a forward observer for Her Majesty's Dragoons, right before he became a field doctor. He had always been grateful for the job, as it had taught him that he was more content repairing people than directing others to take them apart. However, at this point, he did not have much choice, and his aid might bring an end to the madness. "Three minutes, no more."

  "Then we have three minutes. O'Fallon!" Krumer cried. "Are we ready?"

  "Aye! As ever we be!" The quartermaster called back.

  "We've got three minutes before the Griffin is ready to fire. Aim for the frigate. When the Griffin fires, so do we!" Krumer raced over to one of the pressure wheels at the base of the fire cannon. "Dr. Von Patterson, take the other wheel and help me. Moira? Take Adonia, Tiberius, and his lion to keep watch."

  Moira gave Krumer a grin. It was the usual grin she always gave him when she was off to cause some sort of mayhem. Adonia, Tiberius and the gray-furred mountain lion were not far behind Moira while she ran, despite her bruises, for the top of the second floor warehouse stairs.

  Krumer gripped the wet, cold metal wheel firmly with both hands. "Once we fire, everyone will know we're here. So brace yourselves. Thorias? Call it!"

  "Ah, if only I had a spyglass and a compass," the doctor lamented, "I hope I'm right." He took as deep a breath as his fractured ribs would allow. "Fire for effect! Bearing north sixty degrees east, nine hundred yards! Fire on my call!"

  "Nine hundred! Aye!" O'Fallon called, spinning the fire cannon's wheel. With a free hand the Scotsman slammed the knife switch closed. Electricity arced wildly over the panel and threatened to electrocute O'Fallon where he stood. He recoiled backwards until the sparks subsided to an occasional burst. At the base of the cannon, Krumer and Dr. Von Patterson quickly set to work at each wheel, turning them to open the water valves for the device itself.

  Thorias winced from the throb of pain, centered in his ribs. He took two careful breaths to steady himself. There, in the sky, the Brass Griffin turned, winds and rain whipping along her sides. Her nose angled upwards, as if she dared to reach for the clouds themselves. As if in reply, the wind turned and shoved at her back, the Griffin's sails billowed taught and her gas bag rippled slightly from the stiff breeze behind her. She soared upwards, like a racehorse that outpaced the wind.

  "Steady now," Thorias called as the Griffin leveled off. He could just barely make out the rush of activity aboard the Griffin's deck. The gunners would be prepping the cannon and a 'spotter', also known as an observer, calling the distance.

  "Steady," the doctor said again. Suddenly, the cannon roared, smoke billowed and the bright, explosive flash of lightning cannon erupted as the Griffin released a broadside barrage against RiBeld's gray-clad frigate. The frigate shook violently, the lightning exploding off her metal plates and sending wood fragments flying.

  Immediately, tarps were jerked aside from what looked to be stacks of barrels, only to reveal a trio of already prepared lightning cannon on the frigate's rear decks. She returned fire, an ugly yellow hiss, that screamed when it struck the Griffin. Wood exploded, metal twisting everywhere the lightning struck. Thunder rumbled through the clouded sky like the deep laughter of a demented man.

  In the wake of the explosions, smoke blossomed out from both ships in dark clouds that obscured them from view. When the smoke cleared, Thorias swore aloud. The heavily damaged schooner, the one the Griffin had attempted to save, had turned just slightly into their field of fire.

  "Bloody hell!" Thorias cried out in anger.

  "Ah got nothin'! Ah'll hit 'em if'n Ah fire!" O'Fallon called out. "There be na good shot."

  In the area between the fire cannon and the doorway, metal shrieked from the rooftop twenty feet above. With an ear-splitting rip, the metal roof plates fatigued and gave way. Sections of the roof collapsed inward to leave a giant hole, allowing the rain to pour through. Following the downpour, a dark figure dropped to the floor, landing with an ungraceful thud onto the debris. The fall would have crippled any normal person, but the figure that fell from the roof hardly looked like that. Torn clothes were wet and stained with blood. Dark hair was matted and the man's coal dark eyes burned with an inner light that crossed well beyond that of insanity. From beneath his shirt, an emerald glow in his chest pulsed like some unearthly heart beat. Occasional arcs of greenish electricity sparked over him between the glow beneath his shirt and his leather backpack, which hummed like a swarm of angry bees. Wires strung from the backpack traced over his shoulders to hastily attached electrodes in the base of the man's skull. Clutched tight in the creature's fist was a rain-slick pistol.

  "Don't worry Señor, I have one for you." The monstrosity once named Carlos rasped through ruined vocal chords. "And presents for your friends as well!" He looked over his shoulder toward the stairs that connected the first to the second floor. "Now!"

  On the first floor, only two doors provided any entrance or exit to the warehouse. These were ripped from the hinges as if from paper. In poured two tight mobs of the reanimated station crew, many still smoldering from their fight on the docks. Above, more figures hurried along the rooftop towards the recently torn hole.

  "Kill them all!" Carlos continued in his hellish, rallying cry. He wheezed out a metallic rasping sound, then sucked in
a deep breath. "But ... leave the chestnut-haired spitfire of a señorita ... my dear, dear Moira ... alive ... for me."

  He laughed. It was an ugly, grating sound that echoed off the warehouse walls and mingled with the roar of gunfire.

  Chapter 28

  The rasp of laughter echoed in O'Fallon ears. Diving to his left, he narrowly avoided a bullet. Instead, it struck a dial on the control panel, showering O'Fallon with bits of glass. Another shot burned his cheek, then echoed off the metal rim of a pressure gauge with the ugly whine of an irritated bee. His mind reeled. Carlos was dead. He had seen it. The knife had been buried in the man's chest. However, a small portion of his brain argued, the station's crew was also dead. O'Fallon had seen numerous wounds on them, from bullets to blades. Even so, they still walked. O'Fallon yanked the pistol free of its holster and eased up from behind the fire cannon's padded operator seat to aim at the dead man.

  Carlos, however, noticed the motion. He wheeled his gun arm around in a frightening blur of speed, and fired. O'Fallon dodged to one side, then the other. Each bullet whined closer than the last. Finally, the Scotsman threw himself from the operator's seat to the deck several feet below. Despite the chorus of aches that screamed at him, Conrad landed on the hard floor, rolled up into a crouch, aimed, and fired. The walking corpse jerked and stepped backward from the impact of the bullet into his chest.

  "Is that all you have left, Amigo?" The Spaniard laughed coldly while he reached up and briefly touched the large gunshot wound. "Just this?" With an unearthly calm, Carlos then opened the cylinder of his pistol and methodically reloaded.

  O'Fallon looked over at Krumer. "Ah think he be a bit miffed o'er bein' killed."

  "So I see." Krumer raised his own pistol and fired at Carlos. The bullets hit their mark and Carlos jerked twice: once in his shoulder and the other low on his midsection. The second shot hit the exact place where before, all other zombies had been vulnerable due to a particularly fragile glass jar. Although, a thought raced through Krumer's mind, the other zombies didn't talk. He took a step back and looked around for both cover and a makeshift weapon; something large, blunt and heavy.

  Across the room, where the only set of stairs connected the first and second floors, Tiberius pulled one of the tube-like grenades from his belt. He twisted a small knob on the top and then pitched it as far as he could towards the figures below. With a metallic echo, the grenade bounced once before it was consumed in a bright flash and deafening roar of noise. Zombies were flung up and out from the center of the explosion and deposited around the first floor in a ragged circle.

  "I thought he was dead?" Tiberius asked Moira, nervously glancing over his shoulder at Carlos.

  "He was!" She exclaimed while she pulled the goggles over her eyes. "Dead as anythin'." The goggles hummed softly a moment followed by a soft glow in the lenses while she turned the dials. "Oh, no." She lamented.

  Adonia, who knelt by an old metal handrail, took aim and fired once, then twice. Two zombies that had reached the bottom of the stairs immediately doubled over and collapsed, which temporarily blocked the path for the others. "Oh, no?" She echoed, her Portuguese accent growing thicker as her nerves grew agitated. "Do I want to know why you are saying 'oh, no'?"

  "Mostly likely ya don't." Moira answered quickly, turning to examine Carlos with the goggles. "But ya need ta know. In the journal, there be other parts ta the zombie makin'. There be the ones like below us. They be what was called 'phase one'. Kinda mindless, need ta be controlled, such as that." She gestured to Carlos. "He be 'phase two'."

  Tiberius pulled out another grenade, then paused before he primed it. "Phase two?" He echoed.

  Moira looked over at the zombies on the first floor, then at Tiberius. "Aye, phase two. Turnin' dead people inta some kinda stronger, better zombie. Can't die, much stronger, can keep their mind about 'em. Accordin' ta the journal, whoever dream't it all up figured not much would stop 'em. Fire maybe. A really hot one, like from a smelter. Na much else."

  Tiberius glanced over his shoulder at Carlos in amazement. "Fire? That hot? In this storm?"

  Adonia aimed, then shot two bullets down the stairs at another zombie. "You do not know the half of it, Amigo." The zombie she shot fell hard onto the stairs face first, only to be replaced by two more. She pointed beyond the zombies at one of the open doors to the warehouse.

  Behind the group of zombies, two men had entered. Dressed in neutral brown trousers, coats and cotton shirts, both carried a rifle. They knelt by one of the doors inside and fired at the trio atop the stairs. Adonia ducked and Moira fell flat to the floor. Tiberius twisted a knob atop another grenade, then tossed it below before he dropped flat on the floor, also. The grenade hit as the other had done before, then detonated in a brilliant flash of light and explosion. Bullets buzzed through the air around and above them.

  "There's two of 'em with goggles like mine. I can tell. They be just outside the door. I canna hear 'em but I can tell they're there." Moira told her companions.

  "Can you block them, or do whatever those goggles do to control the zombies?" Tiberius asked.

  "I'm tryin'!" Moira exclaimed, frantically working the goggle's controls while speaking softly under her breath.

  "I can feel you in my mind, Señorita. You singing ever so sweetly!" Carlos called out, his gravelly voice thick with a Spanish accent. "You want to turn the zombies, bend them to your will, eh?" He snapped the reloaded revolver shut. "I think it will not be so easy this time, Señorita, you see they are ready for you to try. But struggle away, I enjoy it when you struggle." Carlos chuckled evilly, electricity crackling along the wires in his neck.

  Moira slammed a fist onto the floor in frustration. Her latest attempt to control the zombies had failed, almost as if they had been ready for her to try, just as Carlos said.

  "I wish someone'd shut him up." Moira growled and tried another sequence on the dials.

  Just forty feet away, Dr. Von Patterson had stepped out with a broken chunk of wood, four feet long and easily as thick as a man's arm. Carlos' sudden turn caught the archeologist flat footed without any cover. The zombie raised his pistol with a sneer and fired twice. Startled by the shot, Dr. Von Patteron tried to dive for cover. Instead, he slipped on a patch of rainwater, fell flat onto his back, and hit his head hard on the floor. That one accident saved his life, as two bullets screamed through the air where the archeologist's heart had just been.

  "For a learned man, Señor, you have so little sense. How to do you even stay alive, eh?" Carlos demanded in a rage. "You were to be brought back alive... I do not think now I care anymore for Señor RiBeld and his ultimatums. Señor RiBeld can be angry if I return you broken. What can he do, kill me? I am already dead!" The zombie laughed, slowly stalking toward Dr. Von Patterson. Meanwhile the archeologist rolled onto his side, his mind a daze and unaware of the imminent danger so close to him. "I have grown tired of you, Señor. I will start with your legs. I will shatter them bone by bone. No more running then, eh? Then, I will break more of you, until you scream for me to end it. But no, I will make you wait and watch, while I break your friends. Starting with that pig, O'Fallon." Carlos stopped two strides away from the dazed researcher, shoved his pistol in its holster and looked around for a suitable club. "Now, be still. This will hurt very, very much."

  Suddenly, Carlos' head jerked to the side as a large chunk of broken wood the size of a man's fist hit him squarely in the temple. The Spaniard's eyes blurred, and he sidestepped away from Dr. Von Patterson, shaking his head. He blinked twice, then turned around to see where the attack had come from. Next to a small pile of broken wood, O'Fallon had removed his shirt and was using it as a makeshift sling.

  "Krumer, now!" O'Fallon shouted, reaching down for a metal pipe next to him.

  With a roar, Krumer raced out of hiding and buried a shoulder into Carlos' right side. The impact doubled the zombie over sideways and tossed him into the air, then down hard onto the floor. Meanwhile, Krumer staggered forward two pac
es to a stop, breathing hard from exertion. Carlos bounced once then rolled over, a blind rage hot in his eyes. Krumer's hand instinctively dropped for his pistol, but he was not fast enough, not nearly by half. Before Carlos fully settled, he grabbed a pipe from a damaged fire cannon and, ripping it loose, threw it in one swift motion. The steel pipe slammed into the first mate with the crunch of bone before the pipe and Krumer both skidded across the floor, coming to a stop five feet away.

  "Stupid. You think you can out muscle me?" Carlos said icily. "You are nothing to me!" He screamed. "Nothing!" Slowly a grin spread over the zombie's face. "You are like the little ant to me ... so I will slowly step on you, just to hear you crunch under my boot."

  Krumer shook his head to clear his vision. The fiend stepped forward, rubbed his hands and flexed his undead fingers, then abruptly jerked backwards as a solid mass of metal slammed into his lower back. Carlos' spine snapped him forward, pitching him headlong into the floor.

  Directly behind the zombie, O'Fallon rechecked his grip on the pipe, then swung again. Carlos blinked back the haze and rolled aside just before the pipe fell. He jumped up and smashed his fist against O'Fallon's jaw. The Scotsman staggered back, dazed from the hard blow. He raised a hand to block, but Carlos swatted it aside and pummeled O'Fallon repeatedly. Until at last Carlos reached out and grabbed O'Fallon, lifting him up and throwing him against the side of a fire cannon. O'Fallon grunted and slid down onto his hands and knees, shaking from the pain and abuse, unable to stand.

  The Spaniard paused, breathing heavily. "Now, where was I?"

  "Right here!" Krumer shouted, smashing the pipe that had hit him against Carlos' already wounded ribs. The zombie grunted with the impact, staggered back, then yanked the pipe away from Krumer. Immediately, he smashed a quick right, then left fist into the first mate's jaw that staggered him backwards. Carlos growled, then stalked forward, hammering away at the first mate repeatedly. Krumer finally collapsed to the floor. After a moment, the first mate drew his hands up under him and hauled himself slowly into a kneeling position. With each motion, his limbs shook in pain, but regardless, the first mate refused to stay down. The zombie knelt down close to Krumer's ear.