by H. L. Murphy
Interlude Seven
Zombies Everywhere And Not A Place To Hide
Dane and Gaunt both stared in absolute horror at the growing mob of undead filling the manufacturing floor before them as the maniacal laughter of Buttermilk Jones fell over all. Neither man was a stranger to the ravages perpetrated by the zombie plague, yet the twisted apparitions approaching were unlike anything either man had yet seen. The flesh of the oncoming undead was a pale, milky white interrupted by the occasional pustule oozing a sickly green fluid. Set deep in desiccated skulls were the blood red eyes of the undead, but tears of a greenish black puss ran down the brutalized faces. Cracked, blackened teeth snapped together in an involuntary seizure while unnatural sounds slid between chattering teeth. Moans, screams, the pleading of damned souls, and noises which could not be identified. These were the scions of Buttermilk Jones, and they seemed to have taken after their progenitor.
“Fuck this,” Gaunt snarled, then opened up with his hand cannon. While the manufacturing floor had been set up within an open warehouse like structure allowing for work upon massive projects, it was still an enclosed space and the ear splitting report of a S&W 500 was more than sufficient to fill every living ear with ringing, it also served to break Dane free of the mental infarction he'd been suffering. Up came the IWI Jericho to spit nine millimeter inoculations into the brains of the undead. A process made all the more difficult since Dane found himself running backwards, away from the massing horde.
A second thunderous report, surprisingly close to Dane’s ear, informed Dane his comrade was of the same mind, at least in regards to relocating. As the undead surged forward, both men spun about and ran for the door. A hundred yards ahead, the sealed security door cracked open as a pair of the most gargantuan pale hands either Dane or Gaunt had ever seen pulled the door, frame, and part of the wall away to reveal a bloated undead giant. The ten foot tall behemoth was, if possible, far more disproportional than any amalgam the men had seen to date. Still mostly humanoid in appearance, the creature was possessed of hands the size of manhole covers, feet like concrete barriers, and what Dane, at first glance, thought to be beach ball sized breasts. A more reasoned assessment of what he was seeing revealed the spherical objects to be heads deformed by the absorption of copious quantities of collagen, calcium phosphate, and calcium carbonate, the building blocks of the human skeletal system. Not having been present at the creation of this undead titan, Dane was unaware the creature’s skull bone density had been increased several times over. So much so, in fact, the nine millimeter rounds peppering its brain cases were next to meaningless. Dane burned through most a magazine before realizing the futility of his action.
At seventy yards from the titan, it occurred to Dane they might not be able to defeat the enormous undead albino. Instead, he pointed down a side hallway and shoved Gaunt into it. Though he stumbled, Gaunt remained on his feet and moving, half turning occasionally to fire a seven hundred grain bear killing round into the head of an entirely too aggressive zombie. In these moments, both men would spare the time necessary to view the targets head explode like a melon stuffed with dynamite. Moreover, the sheer destructive power of Gaunt’s round would often pass through multiple skulls before losing enough force to cease forward motion. Despite the obvious, breathtakingly final end presented by the hand cannon the undead pressed their attack. In moments such as this Dane understood why the human race was losing the battle for survival. The undead just didn't care how many of their own died so long as the objective, tasty human flesh, was achieved. Gaunt could exploded a thousand heads and the horde closing on them would never have one single fuck to give.
Metal shrieked as it was pulled apart, and the albino titan strode into the building, its massive feet punting lesser undead into the air. It bellowed in hunger, it's impossibly huge hands snatching the occasional zombie from midair to share between three ravenous mouths. After shredding through one undead, the titan let loose a roar comprised of a trio of disharmonious voices, a factor which only added to the sphincter locking effect. In the disharmony, in the fashion in which the trio of voices managed to blend, yet remain disharmonious came the collusion of sound waves which travelled along the skin of living things, into the nerve clusters, which in turn travelled to the brain in less than a blink of the eye, to the deepest, oldest part of the brain concerned with the survival of the body. Here, millennia old racial memories came to energetic life. Near fatal amounts of adrenaline were injected into the bloodstreams of each man, spurring each to previously impossible, for them, heights of physical ability. Provided they survived the day, each man would endure muscular agony caused by exceeding natures safety parameters. A small price to pay for survival.
At the end of the hallway stood two massive roll up doors, receiving dock partially covered in cases which would likely never be processed, and a smaller emergency exit. At one point, in the Old World, men had slipped through the door to enjoy a quick smoke break before throwing themselves back into the controlled chaos of manufacturing. Now, the door offered the one and only avenue of escape.
Dane slammed into the steel security door at full speed, white hot agony in his left shoulder announcing in nauseating detail how much of a macho asshole mistake that was, while Gaunt spun about to fire three quick shots at the titan stomping its way up the hallway. He was determined that if this was his day to die, Kyle Gaunt would not die without a fight. Behind him, Dane slowly fell through the doorway as the hydraulic safety installed at the top of every industrial door since nineteen forever released pressure at an infinitesimal rate. The cylinder had just snapped shut on Gaunt’s anti-armor cannon when Dane managed to huff out a word or two.
“Get…over…here,” Dane wheezed while dragging himself to his feet. Playing through the pain, Dane forced his left hand to seek out a fresh magazine for his Jericho. Sliding the magazine home, Dane braced himself against the security door and laid down a deliberate covering fire. Against the titan Dane’s nine millimeter rounds were little more than an annoyance, but when that annoyance was directed against the creature’s eyes even the mammoth titan gave pause. Time enough for Gaunt to slip through the doorway, and both men to run for the parking lot.
Hollow reports of fists on steel floated to the men, until the unmistakable tumult of the titan removing the door, and a good part of the wall, riddled their hope with machine gun fire. As they ran past another roll up gate, Dane and Gaunt heard the motor whine to life and spotted the gate begin its slow ascent. The horde surged against the moving gate, giving the impression the building itself had come alive and was drawing its first breaths.
Over the fence and into the parking lot they went, sprinting for their motorcycles, and escape. As Dane and Gaunt swung into the saddle, the albino titan exploded through the security turnstiles, its fury ten fold as terrible for having to chase its prey. The math played out in Dane’s head in the space of a heartbeat. The titan would be on the them before the first spark of ignition occurred.
They were dead.
End of the line.
Immense, powerful, ravenous, the titan moved with impossible speed.
Though not, it seemed, so impossibly fast it couldn't be targeted by aircraft mounted machine guns followed up by a single air to surface missile. Pale, undead flesh exploded in all directions, mixed with a sickly greenish black fluid the consistency of hot molasses. A more disgusting combination Dane couldn't think of, especially as he found himself struggling to his feet again. The pressure from the detonation had thrown both men from their motorcycles, and, indeed, had knocked over the motorcycles as well. Unable to rise from his knees, Dane watched as a small, ridiculously fast helicopter passed over head. Though it moved at a speed which made identification next to impossible, Dane couldn't help but recognize the silhouette. After all, the AH-99, had been the companies latest and greatest prototype with capabilities so beyond the accepted technology standard the stats alone had given the Pentagon appropriations committee members erections s
olid enough to hammer eight inch spikes through a plank. The only problem Dane was having with the reality of the moment lay in the accepted scuttlebutt prevalent before Outbreak Day. That being the only prototype had been grounded due to damage to the cutting edge rotor blades in use.
As Dane watched the helicopter bank sharply and approach at speeds well above two hundred sixty nautical miles per hour, he couldn't help but to make a professional observation.
“I guess they solved the rotor fracture issue,” Dane quipped.
Then the world turned to fire, ash, and pain.
Chapter Twenty
You One-Eyed Bastard
Honestly, I shouldn't have been surprised the one-eyed savage had found me again. It was inevitable given how close behind us he'd been. Always snapping at my heels, but just that little bit too slow to catch me. Allowing us to become entangled with this ghost ship and the few remaining assholes aboard proved the distraction necessary for my shadow to close the distance. Stupid, so fucking stupid. I shouldn't have come aboard, potential supplies or not.
Are you going to cry like child all night, or do you plan to do something about it?
Kindly go fuck yourself.
Crushing repost. What are you going to do as a follow up? Grab your crotch and waggle your tongue obscenely?
Seriously? You're giving me shit now? That psychopath is aboard ship, we're trapped in a hangar surrounded by the undead, and, oh, somewhere out there is a team of Russian operators who are likely carrying a grudge because I dropped a frag on them, twice, and, hey, for the second time I've left Carroll alone with our scrounged supplies. I'm taking odds on whether either one is still where I left them.
Provided Eric Linner didn't kill him and sink the boat out of hand?
Great. I hadn't even considered that possibility.
Well, that's why you have me. To point out alternatives. Besides, unless yet another amoral psychologically unhinged woman has found her way aboard the boat chances are good Carroll will stay right where you left him. Given the extent of his injuries it's unlikely he could do much more than fall overboard.
You are a continued source of comfort and reassurance.
I’m here to help.
Then start by helping me decide what to do with the squids.
What?
The sailors. What the fuck am I supposed to do with them?
What makes you think you need to do anything for them, or with them? After all, these people have been killing anything and everything coming out of the Quarantine Zone with extreme prejudice. And if they knew what you've become, what wouldn't they do to exterminate you? Or capture you? Do you think your family would be safe from them?
The asshole in charge might be that shady, but the other two are just cogs doing nothing jobs. I doubt they even understand how fucked the situation was.
Are you defending them now? I seem to remember someone fitting your description wishing them all to hell. All of them, no exceptions.
I don't need you to remind me of my own thoughts, thank you. As always the situation in the flesh is infinitely more complicated than the situation in theory.
Meaning?
Meaning the human race is dire enough straits without me indiscriminately adding to the body count. If this whole cluster fuck goes the way I think it's going to, the human race is going to need to adjust its hierarchy of needs to include the protection of its reproductive resources.
Ah, procreation. An endeavor far less dangerous to our continued existence than continual forays into undead infested lands.
Stow your demented harem fantasies, fucking pervert. Lizzy is all I want or need. Romantic devotion aside, keeping a harem is just poor thinking. Imagine a dozen women like Lizzy, each vying for my time and attention. I'd last three days before they all decided it was my fault and strung me up by my testicles.
So, what? We take her with us to make babies?
No, if she wants to come with us it has to be her decision. Otherwise we take a huge step backwards in cultural development to when people were treated as property, and that's the rebirth of slavery right there. Fuck that noise. As a people, we've fought too long and too hard to establish a society wherein all human beings are equal to throw it all away at the first hurdle.
The Zombie Apocalypse is hardly the first hurdle. It's more like a seven car pile up on an overpass just before a plane falls out of the sky onto the pile up, driving the whole flaming mess onto the traffic below.
I don't care. I do not fucking care. Just because we have to do savage things doesn't mean we allow ourselves to become savages. We don't throw everything out the window simply because it becomes inconvenient.
Aren’t we high and mighty all of a sudden? Hypocritical of a thief and killer to hail the virtues of civilized society, don't you think?
Fuck off.
Well said.
Not every aspect of society is worth keeping, but I believe it's essential to preserve the belief that no person breathing should be treated as property, no matter how bad the situation has gotten.
Okay.
Okay? That's it? No fight?
Nope. You were suffering a moment of cognitive dissonance, and I just wanted to help you through it. The more focused you are on the moment, not on troubling moral quandaries, the less riddled with bullets we remain.
Lovely.
Quite. Now, get your head back in the game and kill that one-eyed bastard before he does worse to us.
Oh, I hear and obey Great Poobah.
If only that were so.
Fuck. Off.
“Don't take this the wrong way, Finn,” James’ voice cut through my inner debate, “but I don't want to hang out with you anymore.”
“What?” I managed to mumbled, ever the witty conversationalist.
“You are a total shit magnet,” James shook his head in disgust. “Everywhere you go bad turns to worse, worse turns to cluster fuck, and cluster fuck turns to a no win shit sandwich scenario ending with shotgun shoved into my pie hole to avoid being eaten alive.”
“Goddamn, dude,” Jenkins commented quietly. She shifted nervously as James and I turned our combined gazes upon her. “Sorry.”
“Don't be,” I breathed. “It's true enough as far as it goes.”
“Goddamn, dude,” Jenkins repeated.
“Yes, thank you, I heard you the first time,” I sneered. “Listen up, kids, we're blowing this popsicle stand, and if you want off, you need to follow us, do what we say when we say, and don't add to the galactic shit salad before us.”
The prick pretending to be ‘in charge of the situation’ was sucking air to fuel another authoritarian diatribe, but I beat him to it.
“You, cockcobbler, are staying right here,” I stared firmly, the muzzle of my Kalashnikov denying any rebuttal. Suddenly, Mister Martial Law seemed a little put out by the prospect of my departure, though I rather think it's the loss of my rifle which affected him most.
“You can't tell me what to do,” Mr Martial Law ground the words out through clenched teeth. His groin was obviously still throbbing with agony, but, give him credit, he rallied enough reserves to force the words out. “This is…a United States…naval vessel, and I…am the ranking officer. I decide the fate…of this crew.”
“Laddie,” I cut him off, “this is the Quarantine Zone. You're in charge of Jack and shit, and Jack joined the undead. You two want off this ghost ship, follow us.”
“What about that mercenary?” James asked, giving Linner entirely too much credit as a human being by calling him a mercenary. Technically, yes, the label applied, but I believed the bastard would happily kill for the sheer deranged pleasure of it if outfits like KnightStar didn't pay.
“Fuck him,” I said with far more confidence than I felt. I'd done my best to kill him on three separate occasions, and the bastard kept coming back. Briefly, I wondered if there might be someone out there thinking the same thing about me.
‘I swear I capped his ass,’ Thug Gunner One tel
ls his pal, Thug Gunner Two. ‘Dumped an entire mag center mass, and the bitch just shook it off and killed Thug Gunner Three and Four.’
I suppose it could be possible if not probable. I didn't tend to leave problems vertical and ambulatory.
“I agree with the sentiment,” James held up a hand, “but that isn't a plan.”
“Right, okay, how about I dump a magazine in his face, and shove a frag up his sorry ass?” I offered.
“Disturbing imagery, but at least it has elements that could be loosely associated with a plan,” James acknowledged.
“I'm not looking for a fight at the moment,” I explained. “This fucking wreck is moving into shore and has been ever since we boarded. Which means we are goddamn near running aground, and having ten thousand undead pricks come knocking while a category four hurricane bears down on us with its ship killing waves, rain, and whatever the fuck else could ruin our night.”
“Good point,” James nodded. “So, if we see him, we kill the mercenary, but otherwise we just get the hell out of here?”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said.
“Who the fuck are you guys?” Jenkins spoke up, her countenance one of utter confusion. It was one thing to be rescued from certain death and to be asked a few simple questions, but apparently it was quite another to be faced with an Abbott and Costello routine focused on the unquestionably serious matter of escape.
“Well, he's Harley Davi…” I began quoting an all time favorite movie, but came up short as James elbowed me in gut.
“I am not Mickey Rourke,” James growled.
“You fucking shoot like him,” I wheezed out. James snorted out offended noises and flipped me the finger with definite enthusiasm. Our latest acquaintances stared at us with growing unease, almost as if they felt a bloody death at the hands of undead cannibals preferable to what they were seeing now.
As far as I was concerned they could stuff all that judgement up their salty asses.