by D G Leigh
“Why don't you come down here and find out?”
Dorkins wasn't going to budge. “I can't let you pass.”
“My men are fine. Would've turn already if they had.”
“Maybe?” Dorkins had no intentions of letting anybody up regardless. “We just don't know what we're dealing. Need to be sure.”
Biehn's grip tighten on his Glock's hilt. “This is an order Lieutenant. Let us through. You don't what to piss me off.”
“Stand down Dorkins.” Hershel finally arrived. “That's enough.”
“I can't!” Dorkins would never disobey directly a senior officer. “The Admiral said a minimum of half an hour in quarantine. If I let them up they could infect the rest of us that are left.”
“Every minute you delay we're sinking. The enemy grows stronger. These brave men have vital intel. Been in the air for three hours, that's plenty quarantine. Do you want me to inform the Admiral that it was you that caused us to lose the war?” Losing meant the end of mankind.
The Lieutenant unaware that the Admiral was dead. “No, sir.” Stepped aside. “Sorry Capitan.” No more needed to be said.
Hershel instructed Biehn to bring in his passenger and the rest of his squad. Debriefing took place on the move to the operations room. “Where's Leslie Harris and who's this?” Susan carried up the stairs on Ward's shoulder. Ferguson the last to enter sealed the bulkhead hatch..
Ward held up his scanner. “Leslie harris, Captain! I to was expecting a man but her bracelet checked out.”
“Really?” Hershel wanted the scanner. “What happened to her?”
“Had to sedate her.” The med-tech sheepishly confessed.
“Couldn't you guys handle a little girl?” Hershel nudged Susan. “Wake up sweetie. Where's Leslie?” Scanned her wristband.
“I'm not suppose to say or I'll get trouble.” Came her drowsy response.
All the SEALs realizing the tags had been switched.
“Son of a bitch!” Biehn punched the air. “I don't f**king believe this?” When you see your Commander lose it you know the shit is bad, real bad.
“I would've done the same thing to save my kid.” Jennings and Ward agreed.
“Mr.Leslie isn't my dad.”
“Do you know where he is honey? It's important. Is he at the hotel?” Biehn gearing up to go back.
Susan shrugged her shoulders, went back to sleep. Ward laid her gently down across two padded chairs.
Hershel brought the conversation back to reality. “There's been no further contact with Major Wehrlein. Last message revived under heavy attack from Zak.” Nobody thought twice of how Susan might feel hearing this news.
“That just leaves Eugene's rock! We brought that back I hope and not this girl's pet hamster?” Biehn approached Ward. “You can tell the difference between a rodent and pebble right?”
“We got your rock Commander.” Ward open the box.
“Thank f**k for that!” Hershel moved onto stage two. “The USS Fortitude is between us and the Western seaboard. Stricken by the algae but safe two thousand nautical miles. If we strip bare your Blackhawk out-rig reserve tanks could she reach her? I should warn you it might mean flying through radiative fallout from the President's nuke.”
“Won't make any difference.” Ferguson and Fardip knew their bird far to well. “We'd slash down halfway there. Get the Fortitude to send up refuellers to met us.”
The bad news kept coming. “The Fortitude was undergoing sea trials after colliding with a reef. All her aircraft got reassigned during repairs. I hoped we could've used her to leapfrog back to California or better still a F-18 from the mainland meet us on her deck.”
Biehn trying to find solutions. “You've got no access to the hangers?”
“There's currently over 5000 crew members aboard this vessel. Less than fifty are in this tower. Maybe a few hundred scattered about the ship the rest are infected. Majority of the f**kers are in the flight bay. They knew exactly where to head. We barely cut this place off in time.” Hershel walked them into the briefing room next door. Monitors on the wall showed camera feeds from the hanger. Wall to wall of undead. Thousands crammed in. “I've got a pilot but no planes. Even if I did we can't raise the ramps without Zak coming up as well. We're out numbered.”
“We don't need an aircraft any more, no VIP to ferry. Couldn't we simply hit the Fortitude with a Tomahawk? Exchange the payload for the rock.” Everybody stared at Fardip and his crazy idea. Could it actually work?
Ferguson dashed that plan. “We'd pulverise the sample in the process. Plus it's still out of range.”
“Must be something onboard we could use?” Fardip paced in the confined space.
“Surveillance drone?” Hershel offered.
“Thought the hanger was a no-go-zone?” Fardip tapped the viewscreens. “Who's going to go in there?”
“These an outdated module created up in the munitions hold. It's due to be delivered to the Philippines. No need to go through the hanger it's serviced by its own elevator.”
“That'll take hours to assemble. Have you got anybody left that could do it?” Fardip went back to pacing.
“No.” Hershel had taken a roster of who survived. “All my engineers are gone. No one skilled at least.”
“I'd give it a go.” Ferguson seemed undaunted. “Been building model planes since I was seven. This is no different.”
“Fardip! For the love of God stop moving.” Biehn took him firmly by the shoulders. “I need you to relax. You're going to assist Ferguson in building that bloody thing understood?”
Fardip snapped off a crisp salute, basic training kicked in. “Yes, sir.”
“That's not our main problem.” Hershel continued with the doom and gloom. “We tried to get down there earlier for weapons but there's an obstruction blocking the lift, the safeties are engaged, it won't lower. We think crew have blockaded themselves in. Interior fighting has damaged some ship wide communications. No response from our hails.”
“There must be another way in? Can't we get next to the section cut our way through with acetylene torches. At least pass a message to them?”
“It's the armoury. The place is sealed tighter than a nan's sweet spot! Ceilings, deck, walls even the damn shitter is triple plated and reinforced.”
“Bring up a floor plan?” Biehn motioned towards the banks of computer screens.
Hershel summoned a technician from the bridge. Only nineteen years old but the Ensign proficient with computer systems. Brought up Endeavour's schematics, stern to bow. Charts and mechanical drawings. The SEALs huddled in a semicircle around him.
Biehn hot off the mark. “What this corridor? It goes directly into the ordnance room. Why can't we use that?”
Ensign Wilbur highlighted that specific section. “Wouldn't even call that space a duct! It's an auxiliary shell feed to the front cannons.”
Biehn didn't care what it was. “Can I crawl through it?”
“No, sir. It's a rat hole!”
“What's stopping us sending back a cartridge with the words open the bloody door written on it?”
“Protocols! The conveyor belt can only be operated from inside the chamber.” Hershel knew his ship inside out.
As the adults argued over what to do a little voice piped up. “I'll go.” Susan had woken up alone. Came looking for them. Nobody had thought to stay with her. “I can fit in there.” Peeking through the gaps in-between the SEALs studied the readouts. “It's like the play area at JC Penny's.”
None of the men wanted to send a child. “That's kind of you honey but we'll take care of it.” Hershel shooed her away.
“It's okay. I'm not scared.” Susan right of course, they'd no other choice. Clutching her soft unicorn went back into the quiet room to sleep.
“Unless we can come up with something better that little girl is our only hope.” Biehn used to fighting on an ever changing battlefield. Constantly adapting and improvising. He'd use her if he had to.
---
Eleven ---
Among mighty redwoods odd butchered stumps at irregular intervals. Evidence of cropping activity. Alyx lead Fontaine, Miscavige and McCormick to his illegal site.
“Park rangers fly over looking for gaps in the canopy, that's how they spot an unlawful operation so we spread out our felling. It'll be nigh on impossible locating Dr.King. My loggers ain't shop workers! Their workstation might be ten square kilometres.”
Fontaine ran his hand over a fresh buzzsaw cut. Resting on top a single stone lay off centre. “This is better.” Sat down. The decapitated willow's truck still sprawled across the forest floor. It's branches and bark unstripped.
Fontaine tossed the new found rock between his hands. “He's closer than you think. Don't you think it's unusual that your crew felled a regular species? Before leaving they left him a note on this stump. There's ink stained on the rings. This stone kept it in place. I'm guessing Dr.King came down when the workers didn't return, found their warning message.”
“So he may not even be here!”
“He's here alright. What person would believe such a outlandish story? You've been trying to catch him for years. This would've actually be a good ploy if you studied what motivates him but this man doesn't have family or anything worth returning for.”
None of this got them any closer to Dr.King. “He won't talk with you and he certainly hates me.”
“I'm counting on that. That's why he'll come.” Fontaine plays life as one massive chess game, always thinking countless moves ahead.
Fontaine's radio blasted scaring the birds off.
“Major?” Stacy sounded troubled.
“What is it?”
“The chopper is gone!”
Fontaine dealt in precise information, settled for nothing less. “Explain gone?” Stacy the only team member able to fly.
“A chainsaw started. Paxton went to investigate. Somebody shout timber and a f**king tree fell crushing the tail boom. It's screwed. We're going nowhere.”
“Looks like Dr.King found you first!” Alyx knew just how much of a pain the doctor could be. “Probably snooping around the river camp wondering where everybody had gone. Watched us land. Made sure we were well on our way then struck.”
Fontaine never predicted this. “Why would he do this?”
Alyx claimed the willow stump throne for himself. None of them were flying out of here now. “Is the helicopter expensive?”
Silly question. “What do you thing?”
“There's your answer.” Alyx not surprised. “The good news he's still in the area.”
“Shall Paxton and I go after him?”
“No, stay put. We're on our way. King won't have more than an hour's head start. In the meantime see if you can get any of those abandon logging vehicles running.”
Alyx heard an urgent tone in Fontaine's voice. “Relax chief! Just request another whirly bird. This time with two extra seats.”
“There isn't one! No back-up. No support. We're on our own. That's how we operate.”
Alyx found that hard to believe. “What sort of tin cup army is the country running these days that they can't spare a helicopter, even in a crisis?”
“We're not enlisted in your Army!”
--- Thirteen ---
The silence of two people alone shattered by a reverberating disturbing boom from the far end of the building. Leslie and Jo rushed to investigate. Garage style roller shutters, used for bringing in larger scientific equipment, rippled as infected pounded against the flexible metal slats. Persistent but lacked any ferocity. Leslie disconnected the power.
Fresh zombies started to arrive. The pair split up. Jo pushed foyer furniture against Keck's main entrance while Leslie did the rounds bashing off door handles to susceptible ground floor offices vulnerable to break in, whacked the spindle out the other side, a quick and simply trick that took less than five seconds to secure each room.
Meeting back at reception. They watched the infected feeling and slamming against the glass.
“Can they smash through?”
“Don't think so?” This the weakest part of the building.
“Couldn't you lie to me just once?” Jo softly punched Leslie's shoulder.
“By law it's safety glass, laminated. Cracks but doesn't shatter.”
“Was that a lie?”
“... No!” He grinned. “All the same though I think we should work on the possibility of them getting in.”
“Where are they coming from? Have they re-animated?”
The pair backed away out of sight. “The dead ones are from last night. This lot found their way up from the volcano's visitor centre this morning. It's warm enough now.”
“Those poor – poor people. Thank God we got Susan to safety. Do you think any of them survived? There were thousands of Zaks. If the army couldn't stop them how the hell can we?”
Leslie didn't answer that question. Thought about their odds against such numbers. “I guess tomorrow we'll find out if I'm right.”
Jo gave the gruesome corpses the finger. “Hope you f**kers freeze.”
--- Fourteen ---
Stacy unsuccessful with getting any of the rusting vehicles working, it'd been worth a shot. Parts from one block used to replace another. Cowling on the chopper raised, working components cannibalised in hope of fusing together a regular serviced engine with neglected mechanics had also failed.
Fontaine turned to Alyx for help. He knew the area better than any of his men. “We need transport. How far to the nearest town?”
Alyx scoffed. “A week! Quicker to wait at the highway and thumb a ride. A seldom car passes every few days, perhaps sooner when people start evacuating the main towns.”
“That'll be sooner than you think. We've got less than forty-eight hours.”
“It takes longer than that for a vehicle to reach to us. Haven't you seen the movies? Zombies can't drive.” Alyx a self proclaimed expert on the undead.
“It's going to rain seeds from the red algae. Those will germinate into sentries, melt and spawn gargantuans.”
“I've seen the cacti sentries. All you've got to do is steer well clean of their barbs. What's a gargantuan?”
“The news hasn't show it yet. Kilometre tall trees, achieve maturity overnight.”
“Bullshit! I've been a woodsman all my life. Ain't nothing that can grown that high or fast. I'd make twenty lifetime fortunes from slicing down just one tree.”
“They're armed with zombiefication projectiles if you're unlucky enough to fall within range. Cutting their trucks releases toxic sap that blinds. You'll be a dumb-blind Zak well before the horde ever reached here. Now I'm going to ask you again so think hard! Is there anywhere closer – a ranger station or another logging outfit that has transportation?”
Frozen to the spot Alyx rigorously shook his head. “No, nothing.”
“Paxton, have you manage to salvage the life-raft?” Fontaine shouted without taking his eyes off Alyx.
“Yes, sir”
McCormick gave Paxton a hand to placed the large package in the river, pulled its release cord. Compressed air cylinders fully inflated the raft in seconds. “We're good to go!” Thumped the rock solid pontoons.
“Okay Mr.Chaplin you're free to go.” Fontaine turned on his heel walked away.
“That's it? I can go?”
“Yep!” Miscavige Slung Alyx's kit bag towards him. “Good luck out there.”
Scooped his satchel up. Check it over. “Where are you guys going?”
Fontaine's men got ready. “We'll take our chances downstream. The current is faster than walking. See if we pass any small holdings.”
“You said I could have a weapon.”
“Not unless the good doctor comes strolling out of those woods of his own free will before we cast off.”
“Don't hold your breath.” Alyx knew when to cut his losses. Took off into the forest. “I'm outta here.”
--- Fifteen ---
Biehn used the mobile deck cr
ane to drive Susan to the forward .50 caliber defensive batteries. The cab only had one seat. Susan sat very still in the SEAL's lap making sure she didn't touch anything.
“My dad never let's me sit up front when we go out.” Those days would never come around again.
“What's your name kid?” Strange that no one had asked her. Easier to tolerate when part of your group dies. Better to not know their name if you wind up having to shoot them in the head.
“Susan. Mr.Leslie promoted me to Supreme Special Agent Susan Shaunessy.”