by Rand, Thonas
Ardent and Bear led the way and the sailors followed as they moved away from the crematorium.
The sun illuminated the mayhem on the flight deck with frightening clarity. The bridge tower was now completely engulfed in fire that produced a thick plume of black smoke; it stretched into the sky as far as the eye could see. The undead were everywhere as they searched for anyone to kill and eat. There were a few normal crewmembers fighting in the midst of them, but they were being slaughtered one group at a time as the dead overwhelmed them. Some crewmembers and pilots attempted to leave in helicopters, but the dead gave them no chance.
One helicopter took off and more than a dozen fast moving corpses rushed the aircraft—stormed inside and killed everyone they could, including the pilots—the helicopter spun out of control and crashed on the deck. It exploded and burst apart into shrapnel that hit others, the dead and alive alike, and cut them into chunks.
Near the bow of the ship, Ardent and his group appeared on the flight deck through a hatchway. They saw the scene and couldn’t absorb the reality of it compared to when they left just under two hours ago. Ardent looked away from the violent scene toward the ocean and where his ship was heading—the San Diego shore was only two miles away—they were moving straight for it and nothing or no one could stop the one hundred thousand tons of the Ronald Reagan from reaching it.
The group realized there were no aircraft to be had—only death was left—and it immediately came for them. Right away they were in another battle as the dead charged at them and they opened fire. The stenches were dropping left and right, some within arm’s reach, and the sailors had no where to go, but towards the bow of the ship.
Towards the edge of the flight deck.
They retreated and kept a firing line formation; this was a last stand.
It was definitely their last stand.
Bear abandoned his shotgun for an assault rifle that he took from a dead sailor.
The dead had killed off just about everyone else on the flight deck and the gunfire from Ardent’s group attracted all of them. They were looking at a few hundred that were turning in their direction.
“Oh my dear God!” one of the sailors shouted at the sight of the approaching horde.
They reached the edge of the flight deck, only the ocean waited below as waves of water crashed off the bow of the ship’s hull. Two sailors rushed to the side of the deck and dove off haphazardly.
“No!” Bear shouted at them. “Don’t jump like that!”
But it was too late, the sailors hit the water that was some sixty feet down and they instantly broke bones and drowned.
Ardent yelled at the other sailors, “Remember your deep-water jump training, feet first! Go, all of you, we’ll cover you!”
The sailors wasted no time as they jumped off the flight deck, leaving Ardent and Bear to cover them. The security force leader, Commander Jansen, remained. “I’m not leaving you, sir!” he yelled and kept fighting.
The horde grew as it closed the gap between them.
“Bear, get out of here!” Ardent yelled.
“You first, sir!”
“Damn it, get in the water!”
The shore was less than a mile away…
Bear fired his last shot and his weapon went empty.
“Go, Bear!”
“Gimme another mag!” Bear shouted.
“Here!” Jansen said and tossed him a fresh magazine.
The mob of the dead was less than a hundred feet away, they were going to mow over the three of them in seconds when—suddenly—two missiles came out of nowhere and struck the deck at the head of the horde. The explosions vaporized dozens of them, blasting them apart and ejecting many off the ship. Ardent and his companions ducked and covered their faces from the blast because it was close, too close. The dead that survived the attack gathered themselves and got back on their feet. They continued to run at the three of them when they were attacked again—a volley of large caliber bullets swept across the horde and blasted them to pieces, spraying the deck with blood and body parts.
Ardent and Bear saw the origin of their salvation—a full size navy drone flew overhead—the dart-shaped aircraft streaked over them like an alien spaceship and fired its cannon again, destroying more of the stenches.
“That’s one of our X-47s,” Ardent said.
They watched the drone arc into the blue to circle for another pass.
“You hear that, Commander?” Bear said to Jansen, but he got no reply.
Bear turned to the man; he was on his knees with his face to the deck, dead.
“Shit.” Bear said.
Suddenly, the corpse jumped to its feet and roared for flesh as it looked at Bear.
“Shit!” Bear shouted.
The thing lunged for Bear and then its head exploded—Ardent shot it.
“Next time I tell you to jump in the water…jump in the water,” Ardent said.
“Yes, sir.”
Ardent saw that Jansen had a radio. He grabbed it off the body and tuned it to a certain frequency. “This is Captain Keller to drone operations center, do you copy?”
Static crackled from the radio and then a reply came through—
“Yes, sir. This is Ensign Hicks, sir.”
“Ensign, was that you who saved our butts?” Ardent asked with a smile.
It was dark in the drone operations center, its main source of light provided by the twenty or so computer screens that displayed tactical data and other combat information of the carrier drones. There were only six crewmen, two of which were naval aviators that sat behind drone control stations. Ensign Hicks was a twenty-two year old kid that looked fifteen because of his dimples.
“Sir, that was Lieutenant Van Lee piloting the X-47.”
“Tell him I said thank you.”
The pilot at the drone controls gave thumbs up to that.
“He heard you, sir,” Hicks said.
Something was going on in the control room—some kind of continuous noise in the background.
“Ensign, I gave the order to abandon ship, I want you and the others to get out of there, immediately.”
Hicks glanced behind him at the banging sound that wouldn’t stop, “We will, sir, we’re just gonna cover you until you leave.”
Ardent looked at the horde the drone had blasted—there were still many of them intact and they were gathering themselves. They would be at them soon…
He looked ahead—the shore was less than half a mile away.
“Son, get out of there now, that’s an order,” Ardent said into the radio.
Hicks and the rest of them in the drone operations center knew they couldn’t follow that order, even though they wanted to. The banging noise came from the hatches of the room they were locked in—the dead were outside their doors and pounding as hard as they could for entry.
One hatch was very near defeat; the latches and hinges were near their breaking points from the force of the dead. A one-inch gap in the hatch seam was the growing result of the efforts of the relentless ghouls. Many decaying hands were jamming in and out of the gap like stabbing knives. Their cracked fingernails scratched at the metal, some breaking off as they tried to grab a hold of anything. They were feverishly slamming their dead bodies against the hatch and their blood spilled in through. They were beating themselves into pulp to get in. The room had three hatches and the corpses were outside all three.
There was no hope of escape for them.
“Sir…” Hicks said with despair, “I’m afraid we can’t follow that order, sir.”
Hicks stopped talking and held his microphone in the direction of the hatches—
Ardent and Bear heard it, and they knew that those men were trapped in a tomb.
“Do you…” Ardent tried to think, “do you have any weapons?”
“Yes, sir, some small arms, but not enough.”
“We’re coming to get you out,” Ardent decided and meant it.
“No, sir, you are not,” Hicks said hard, “Th
ere’s too many of them; get off the ship, sir, save yourself, Captain.”
Ardent looked at the horde—
They were coming…
Ardent didn’t want to leave them, but he had no choice.
“What’s your first name?”
“James, sir,” Hicks answered.
“God bless you, James, and thank you,” Ardent said and his voice almost broke as he struggled to keep his composure.
“Thank you, sir, it was my life’s honor to have served under you,” James said proudly.
The sailors with James echoed the same in the background, Ardent heard them and even though he tried to keep his wits about him, tears tracked down his trembling cheeks.
“Take care, sir,” James said and the radio went silent.
“Sir!” Bear said.
Ardent knew what Bear wanted to tell him…
The horde was about to reach them…
Both of them strapped their weapons over their backs, turned around, and ran for the edge of the deck, just as the horde was upon them. Ardent saw the shore only a few hundred feet away and as they launched themselves off the deck…
The hull of the massive aircraft carrier hit the bottom of the bay—
The dead on the deck were jolted and tossed around from the impact force…
Ardent and Bear were in the air as they kept their legs together and their arms across their chests and they went straight down like spears, feet first…
Dozens of the corpses were thrown off the deck above them as Ardent and Bear hit the water and disappeared with white water splashes…
Below the surface, they swam away like the professionals they were.
They swam for their lives and so far—they still had them…
The aircraft carrier’s nuclear powered engines kept on giving its four huge propellers power…
The metal of the hull structure moaned and wailed massively as it dug into the shore. It finally came to a stop after it cut through all the sand and hit bedrock, but the propellers still thrust millions of gallons of water. They wouldn’t stop until someone turned off the engines and that might be never. The huge ship listed to one side and anything on the deck that wasn’t tied down slid off into the sea—some aircraft, including a few burning wreckages, and many bodies, dead and undead, fell off the ship.
The X-47 drone dived down from the clouds and fired its machine guns at the undead in the water and on the beach—destroying many of them with hundreds of projectiles—the drone ceased fire, pulled up and spiraled into the clouds…
In the drone operations center, Van Lee, the drone pilot, was happy with his skills, “How do you like that, you dead fuckers?”
The undead at the hatches were still hitting them with everything they had; the weakest hatchway now had a two-inch gap between it and the frame as the steel latches and hinges continued to weaken. It would fail soon and they knew it.
Scores of the undead wanted in.
Their roars were deafening.
The six men looked at one another…
This was their decisive moment…
“Are we gonna do this?” Van Lee asked.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” Hicks said.
“Do it, Lee,” the other aviator said.
“Okay,” Van Lee answered.
He worked his drone controls…
In the sky, the large drone was high above the carrier. It flew up and gained altitude, and suddenly took a nosedive straight down for the Ronald Reagan. The missile compartments underneath the aircraft opened and two large missiles dropped out—they were bunker busters—the engines of both metal slivers ignited and they took off, outpacing the drone as they streaked towards the ship and rapidly increased their velocity to Mach four.
“It’s done,” Van Lee said. “Just a few seconds.”
“You hear that, you dead pieces of shit!” Hicks shouted to the dead at their doors. “You’re not gonna get us, you got a big surprise coming!”
He laughed and the rest of the men joined him, they had the last laugh…
The two missiles hit the flight deck amidship in a speeding blur, but they didn’t explode, they punched their way into the ship, through two decks, and down to the drone operations center where they exploded. The sailors’ laughter was cut off, forever, and all the dead within a couple hundred feet were vaporized. A large portion of the flight deck mushroomed from the blast within as the explosion then ruptured outward in a ball of fire, smoke, and undead flesh.
Out in the water, Ardent and Bear broke the surface and they watched the tail end of the missile attack. Then, in disbelief, they saw the drone come straight down out of the clouds and impact the carrier exactly where the missiles hit. The destruction was fierce and the listing carrier was engulfed in flames and smoke.
Ardent and Bear didn’t linger. They swam toward shore. They didn’t know where they were going, but they would push on…
DAY 45:
MILLA and DEREK
THE U.S.S. RONALD REAGAN, A ONCE PROUD AND MIGHTY VESSEL, WAS RUN AGROUND AND BURNING ON SAN DIEGO’S SHORE. Just a few miles from the carrier’s black smoke trail was downtown and it was in chaos. Hundreds upon hundreds of the rabid creatures were in the streets. Attacking anyone they could in small groups or large hordes, they were everywhere. Uninfected people were trying to get away. Many had to fight for their lives, and many died in the attempt. Even though some had guns, they were useless when groups overwhelmed individuals out in the open.
Undead numbers were thicker in the northern part of town because that’s where the infection came from—Los Angeles—and they moved like a swarm. There were people watching from rooftops and the dead burst onto some of those roofs and killed everyone they found. First responder vehicles were all over, but most were burning wrecks—others were fleeing town. There were also SWAT vehicles here and there; specially-trained police were fighting the ghouls, but their training didn’t help when they were attacked by mindless creatures that only wanted to feed . . . and feed they did. Little by little, the citizens of San Diego were either torn apart and eaten, or wounded and became one of them.
In the south part of town, where the dead were fewer in numbers, a car raced down the streets at breakneck speeds. It was a red crossover SUV and the driver was alone.
It was Milla Siln.
She was stressed out as she jerked on the steering wheel to zigzag her way through the obstacles in the streets. Some were other cars but most were people. And most of them were infected. At the speeds she was driving it was hard to tell which were which.
“Get out of the way, goddamnit!” she yelled at someone in her path.
The person turned out to be a slow moving corpse and she purposely ran it over. It blew apart into red chunks on the car’s grill and hood; some splattered the windshield so she turned on the windshield wipers. Red smeared in half circle patterns and she activated the wiper fluid, which cleared it up for her to see—
Another one appeared in her path and she dropped her foot on the accelerator, intent on destroying it. Just before she hit the creature—it turned, and she saw his eyes—they were normal. His body rammed against the hood and flipped over the car. He was thrown into the air.
“Fuck!” she shouted.
She looked in her rearview and saw his lifeless body hit the pavement, and then some of the dead feasted on the road kill. She couldn’t pick and choose anymore, if she tried to avoid hitting someone that she thought was normal, she could lose control of the SUV and crash, and that would be it for her. She decided that if anything else got in her way from this point forward, alive or dead, they were fodder. Up ahead, she saw some cops that were surrounded by the dead, fighting the best they could, but they were being overrun.
Milla headed right for them and she wasn’t slowing down.
One of the cops saw her coming and ran in the middle of the street to flag her down, but Milla didn’t reduce speed. She plowed through several of the stenches and then saw the cop; he was in
her direct path. At the last second he sidestepped out of her way, and just missed being hit by inches. He fired his handgun at her in anger, hitting her back window, fracturing it into a spider web pattern. He took better aim to fire at her again, but before he could pull the trigger—a fast mover tackled him and ripped into his flesh—Milla didn’t look back. She had to be somewhere and she wasn’t going to fail. Her car moved at a solid sixty miles an hour and she checked each street sign as she zipped through intersections.
As she sped through another intersection, she looked to the right and was shocked at what she saw a couple blocks down…
“Jesus!” she gasped.
The street was completely filled by a horde of the undead, literally thousands of them, and they were headed in her direction. It was a large storm of decay, a fetid wave growing in size and consuming everything in its path. Milla increased her speed. When she reached the next intersection, she took a right at a familiar street sign.
A few blocks later she got to her destination—a police station—and it looked empty. Two police cars were parked in front, but they were destroyed, smashed to bits by rioting, regular people. Milla sped up then slammed on the brakes. The car slid sideways and she gunned the gas to enter the parking lot on the side of the building.
Except for three cars, the lot was empty, but Milla parked far in the back and hopped out of the vehicle. She had on skintight black jeans and a military green tactical jacket with multiple pockets—end of the world, no matter, she was hot—she ran as fast as she could to a side door and tried it. Locked—she pounded on it, but no one answered. She ran to the front of the building.
She closed the roll gate of the parking lot and when she got to the sidewalk, she could hear the horde approaching. Only a few blocks away. She rocketed to the main entrance and tried the doors, but they were locked too. She banged on them, but no one came. She cupped her hand over a window and saw movement. There were three or four cops and they were in the middle of reinforcing the windows and doors. One of them placed a sheet of plywood over the window she was at and began to nail it down. “Hey!” she shouted and slapped the glass. “Let me in!”