He held his breath as his companions hefted the dead bodies over the side, then sighed with relief. He smiled and pressed the button on the hand-held controls and the lifeboat lowered awkwardly into the ocean and away from the madness above.
The captain’s loyal crewmen stripped off their cumbersome helmets and gloves and high-fived as one of them used an oar to push them away from the disease-ridden death ship and towards freedom.
A sailor leaped from the edge of the aircraft carrier and hit the ocean with a mighty splash. He landed awkwardly and his flesh stung, but he ignored the pain and splashed toward the departing lifeboat and freedom.
The oarsman heard the splash and saw a desperate sailor swimming in their direction. The sailor swallowed mouthfuls of seawater in his desperate bid to reach the safety of the lifeboat, but as he reached the gunwale of the lifeboat, an oar viciously cracked him over his head. The sailor barely had time to register what happened when the oarsman stood and swung the oar with all his might and once again caught the sailor on the top of his head.
The first blow stunned the sailor, the second split his skull wide open, and he slowly disappeared below the waves.
The oarsman grinned and held his hand up for a high-five when his was shot by a bullet from a sniper back on the aircraft carrier, he dropped to his knees, blood bubbled from his mouth, he choked and then pitched forward, where he twitched and jerked spasmodically on the floor of the lifeboat, leaving only three. The captain, nodded and his two companions heaved the dying man over the side, then he fired up the outboard motor and the lifeboat puttered to the shoreline. They settled back down and grinned at the captain, they were now out of range of gunfire and they were on their way to freedom, when the captain violently sneezed. He heard the cocking of weapons; he turned to find that the previously loyal pair of supporters had their guns pointed at him. “Now, hold on just one doggone minu -” They fired in unison riddling him with bullets.
CHAPTER 41
20:45 PM
“Ah, this is the life,” sighed Luke slowly releasing the sweet smoke from his lips as he passed the joint to Sophie, who sucked at it tentatively. They were both lying on the floor of the main cabin; hands behind their heads in what they agreed would be the most likely hippy pose when taking drugs. “It’s so peaceful.”
Sophie choked on the joint, but persevered, “It is stronger than I thought,” she remarked.
“It’s Acapulco gold,” Luke said. “Erm, I expect,” he hastily added.
She regarded him balefully; he wasn’t fooling her for a minute.
“I could get used to living like this,” Luke sighed.
“You might have to.” She said.
“Come again?”
“If this outbreak spreads throughout the United States, or god forbid the world, the infrastructure would collapse with no one left to run it, gasoline would eventually run out, they’d be no electricity or gas almost immediately, no communications,” she took the proffered joint and took another hit on it. “We would be back to living in the middle ages, growing our own food, making our own clothes bartering our surplus for other necessities.”
“I’d love that,” he said, then giggled, stoned.
“Money, shares, stocks and bonds would all be completely worthless. Can you possibly grasp such an idea?”
“Bring it on,” he smiled.
She leaned on her side and said. “When we jumped the drawbridge, you said you’d done it before?”
“Yeah, that’s right, but that was in a car, and I was drunk, so I don’t remember much about it.”
“Who was driving that time?”
“I was.”
“Why did you jump the bridge?” she asked bemused.
“Because I was drunk. I thought I’d just said that?”
She laughed and rolled onto her back, took another hit on the joint and passed it back to Luke.
“So,” he asked. “What do you think of dope?”
“Not bad, but do we have to lie on the floor?”
“Where do you suggest?”
“The bedroom?”
“I thought we were in the bedroom,” he said in genuine surprise. “Lead the way.” He stood and nearly fell back down again, and smirked, stoned. He helped Sophie to stand as she was in a bad way too. She giggled, he held his hand up for her to high-five, which she tried to do but missed and ended up slapping him in the face instead, making her roar with laughter.
20:46 PM
Pandemonium reigned below decks of the USS Thomas Jefferson. The Commander had ordered the below deck doors locked, effectively sealing the men in to a metallic tomb.
Tyler Buckman was not going to lie down and die like some of the others He stood at the door in a short corridor on the lower deck. He and the other men trapped with him were Bilge-Rats, the guys who worked in the engineering compartments. He had always known that working on the lower decks in wartime would be dangerous, that his life expectancy would be considerably less, then that of someone topside. If a torpedo hit the ship that breached the hull and they started to take on water then it was standard procedure to contain the breach and seal the affected area, trapping men below.
Although the commander had earlier stated that the ship would be scuttled he had imaged that he would be out on deck, in the fresh air, on parade nobly going down with the ship. Not like this, locked in the bowels of the ship like rats. Bilge rats. This was not the way. He could not believe it when his fellow sailors locked them in. People he knew well, had gone drinking with, had stood shoulder to shoulder with in bar room brawls. Guys he trusted to fight alongside with in battle, to the point of sacrificing himself, only to find them quietly and cowardly locking him down in the airless bowels, while they breathed the clean air above.
The boat started to list, this frightened the men behind him, and they surged forward crushing him up against the door. “Back off! Back off!” he gasped as the air squeezed from his lungs, he was about to pass out when the crowd fell back and he could breathe again. “We need to bust open the door,” he said. “Fetch me something to lever it open.”
“Aren’t the doors watertight, Buckman?” asked his pal.
“They’re also airtight. Do you fancy running out of air, do ya, huh?”
“Fuck no.”
A sailor handed him a metal rod, and he worked it into the seal of the door and grunted as he focused his efforts into the door-jam. He sweated buckets and made little or no progress, when a taped message sounded accompanied by a siren. “Abandon Ship! Abandon ship!” The noise sent the enlisted men wild in panic and they surged forward once more and shoved Buckman into the door.
20:47 PM
In the bedroom cabin aboard the barge Luke and Sophie lay spent after making love for the second time in twenty-four hours. This time though they did not rush at it. They took the time to enjoy themselves exploring each other’s battered bodies seeing what got a response and what didn’t.
The bed itself was made of crushed velvet and heart-shaped, the point of the heart formed by the sides of the hull, meeting at the bow. “I hate hippies,” Luke said regarding the ‘way-out’ bed and the ‘far-out, groovy man’ decorations that consisted of a cherub and heart motif.
Sophie had her head rested upon his chest, her eyes closed, and she smiled dreamily, when Luke’s statement penetrated her thoughts. She stirred and looked up at him. “Huh?” she said puzzled by his statement.
He noticed the recent six-inch scar on her shoulder and traced it lazily with his finger, an angry welt, red and painful looking. Luke found it surprising that she hadn’t mentioned it, or appeared to find it sore.
“How did that happen?” he asked casually.
“I was in an auto-wreck. Three weeks ago, back in my homeland. I was on a quick trip. I volunteer at a hospital down there when I can.”
“What happened?”
“It was a gloriously hot day, a nice warm heat, not like this humid energy-sapping furnace up here. There I was happily scoot
ing along Main Street lost in my thoughts when I was side-swiped by a bus.”
“Who’s fault?”
“His, of course.”
“Do you have to go back for the court case?”
“There won’t be one.” She said.
“Why not?”
“He died in the crash along with five school children, turned out he was drunk.”
“Serves him right,” Luke said. “What happened to you?”
“I was in hospital, intensive care, I almost died,” she told him. “It was touch and go for a while. I had to have many blood transfusions -” she stopped mid-sentence. A thought had struck her but then vanished.
“What is it?” he asked.
“No it’s gone. I suddenly made a connection. I’m sure it was important, but it’s gone.
He cuddled her to him. “When did you get back?”
“I got back to the states Monday evening.”
“So you went straight into work?”
“I did not want to stay at home alone. I would have only dwelt on it.” She snuggled into his chest once more. “I wish I could remember what flashed into my mind.”
“We need to retrace our steps. What were we doing before hand?” He smirked lewdly. “Oh yeah, I remember . . .” He rolled her over and kissed her with passion.
20:48 PM
On the lower deck, Buckman frantically worked the metal rod into the crack of the door, having little effect, unsurprising as the doors function was to contain countless pounds of water pressure, but he persisted bravely making the smallest of indents. An idea struck him. “Get me a grenade,”
“That would kill us all!” said his shipmate, Joey.
“No, we’ll take it apart; pour the gun-power in the hole I’ve made. It might blow it open.”
“I’ll zip down to armaments,” Joey said. “I noticed that it’d been left unattended.”
Buckman continued with his endeavors watched by the restless crewmen.
Joey ran along the confined corridors, the temperature was rising, he thought with a panic, the air was definitely getting warmer.
He turned into the armaments room down near the brig and grabbed a couple of grenades, when he heard the whooshing of water. He stood stock-still and strained his ears, the sound was getting closer. The ship suddenly lurched to the starboard side as the scuttling continued and another hatch had been opened in the hull.
He looked down and saw water around his feet. “Oh Christ,” he muttered to himself. He glanced down the corridor and saw the water rising fast. He watched for a moment to judge its speed and calculated that it was rising two feet a minute. He had to get back to tell the others quick.
He glanced at the water filling the corridor and realized if the ship had not been listing front-to-back the water would already be up to his knees. “Fuck.” He spun on his heels and rushed back the way he came. He rounded the corner, took a fleeting glance backward and saw that the water level had risen considerably, almost up to the ceiling at the far end and would engulf him soon enough.
He debated whether to spend time closing the watertight door behind him, but the water was already around his ankles and if the boat should list the other way, water would engulf him. He chose not to waste time and sped along the next corridor.
CHAPTER 42
20:49 PM
Joey raced up to Buckman completely out of breath. He sagged against the bulkhead, drawing in the thinning oxygen. He pointed behind him, “The water -” he started.
“What about the water?” Buckman asked.
“It’s coming!”
The crewmen in the cramped corridor surged forward once more hindering Buckman’s labors. He took the grenade from Joey, and pushed the crowd back. “Gimme some room, for Christ’s sake.” He carefully took apart the grenade and fed the explosive powder into the small gap he’d created.
One of the crewmen spotted the water creeping along their corridor and screamed out. The panic spread, and the men surged forward en masse. Buckman pushed back against the heaving crowd. He lit a fuse fashioned from a paper straw. “Stand back!” he yelled and pushed everyone to the far end of the corridor, where the freezing water was already knee high.
Some of the crewmen were undecided, not knowing whether to face the blast or the certainty of drowning if they stayed in the sinking corridor.
The powder ignited with a ear-splitting roar in the short corridor the door blew open. The men surged forward with a cheer, and knocked Buckman down. He crawled on his hands and knees in the ice-cold water, and tried to stand, as men poured over him, but was flattened in the crush. He finally stood, felt groggy and realized that he was up to his waist in the freezing water. He waded up the corridor, as the ship tilted further backward and could see by the braying crowd beating on the next door, with dread in his heart that it was locked.
He splashed up to the group, where Joey pulled the pin of the second grenade and placed it in the handle of the locked airtight door. The men nearby had only a few seconds to register what Joey had done and no time to flee.
With a mighty bang the grenade killed the nearby men instantly, ripping limbs off half a dozen others, blinded several and concussed even more. Buckman was hit by smaller pieces of flesh and the odd piece of small shrapnel.
The grenade killed Joey instantly and Buckman sagged downhearted. He waded to the door through the waist high water. The grenade had had no effect whatsoever. He knew that the game was over.
The men shuffled close to the door, at the high end of the corridor, as the aircraft carrier sank fast. When the water reached Buckman’s neck, he took a few moments to think of his wife and kids, and a tear trickled down his cheek, as he knew he would never see them again.
The men to the side and behind him thrashed about as they ran out of life giving air. The water passed his mouth; he turned his head sideways to gain a last mouthful of air and then completely submerged. His cheeks puffed out, in the fading light and he could see the floating bodies of his crewmates, and one by one they sucked in the water, and drowned in what looked like agony.
His lungs burned and were fit to burst. He felt light headed as the air to his oxygen-starved brain diminished. He thought once more of his wife and kids then breathed in. The water stung his nose, he coughed and spluttered and as his lungs filled with fluid he eventually died.
In the conning tower of the USS Thomas Jefferson, Commander Roscoe watched grimly as the men rioted as the boat sank. The tannoy announced. “Abandon ship!” on a continual loop. Commander Roscoe had ordered that all doors be sealed, containing most of the men below decks. From his position on the bridge nine floors up the conning tower, he could still hear the screams of the dying men and the odd burst of machine gunfire. He remained resolute in his determination, along with his crew, to go down with his ship.
Lebec, one of the few men left on the bridge acted nervously. He wore a protective suit, and he was healthy, so no need for him to die. Lebec had valuable information to share with high command; maybe he should make a break for it. He shuffled slowly to the door and the ship suddenly lurched to the starboard side, listing as is slowly sank.
“Stay at your post!” said the commander, without turning. “Be a man, show some backbone.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Lebec said dejectedly. The commander must have eyes in the back of his head, he thought. Well, damn him, I’m getting off this sinking ship if it’s the last thing I do. The doors from the lower decks burst open interrupting his morbid thoughts and men swarmed out, most had weapons and fired up at them on the bridge. The commander stood firm as one or two shots were on target and ‘pinged’ off the bulletproof glass.
Lebec looked down on the throng, who appeared to be fighting amongst themselves. He saw one sailor sitting on the back of another repeatedly stabbing him in the throat, the arterial spray covering the attacker, painting him red with the blood. Others were kicking a fallen crewmate, until his neck snapped and his head flopped from side-to-side. Another gr
oup was in the process of gang-raping one of the enlisted men.
Lebec wondered what the sailors had done to warrant the wrath of their shipmates, then it dawned on him, they would have been the Swabbies instructed to seal the hatches and lock the doors, dooming their shipmates to death by drowning. Serves them right, thought Lebec, until he concluded that the mob’s next target would be the men in the bright orange suits, tucked away safely nine floors above them in the conning tower. This realization made him sweat even more in the stifling hot suit. He choked, the claustrophobic garment made him feel suffocated.
The ship made another lurch further to the starboard. Lebec used the distraction and promptly stripped off the telltale suit that would mark him out as one of the elite, deemed more special that the enlisted mob below. Ones considered worthy of saving. Unlike them, the great unwashed, who were about to be swallowed up by the mighty Atlantic ocean. He understood their rage and was determined to get off the gigantic metal leviathan that would suck them down to the bottom of the seabed.
He remembered a girlfriend who thought the ending of Titanic had been SO romantic, uh-uh, not him, he thought it stupid. There was plenty of room of the makeshift raft for two. Failing that, push the bitch off; he could have found himself a much hotter babe than that snooty broad. Nope, there was nothing at all romantic about drowning. He shuddered at the thought, imagining the water filling his lungs as he held his breath to bursting point, with his lungs burning as they were depleted of oxygen, fighting his body’s own reflexes to breath, and then the final, fatal moment when he would suck in a lungful of water.
The Doomsday Infection Page 27