by Sawyer, JT
Once they approached the wrecked ship, Carlie stopped to study the SAT imagery on her handheld device. Matias covered their rear with his suppressed MK4 rifle. Shane came up alongside her and surveyed the layout of the route ahead. The smell of the ocean and rotting corpses hung in the air like a heavy theater curtain. Once she confirmed the surrounding area was clear, she tucked the device back in her vest and continued behind Shane through the narrow walkway that led between a mangled building and the location of the freighter ahead. A few dozen palm trees, severed at their trunks, lay across the front of the hull and the pulverized remains of an ice-cream store faintly showed under the bow.
A single column of metal scaffolding was in place against the left center of the ship alongside the name, La Sabrina. Shane raised his fist and the group came to a halt. “I want this ascent to be quick but quiet. This type of rickety set-up can be prone to making a lot of noise so float up and over it like the fucking wind.”
Boyd and his men had spread out along the parkfront, concealing themselves amongst derelict vehicles or toppled structures.
Once Shane had led them onto the deck of the boat, he proceeded along the narrow walkway between the edge and the stacks of damaged storage crates that lined the center.
In the moonlight ahead, he caught a faint movement and motioned the group to stop and conceal themselves against the sides of the containers. Shane saw three disheveled figures in brown coveralls shambling along the walkway towards them. Dammit, no way to bypass these shitbirds, he thought, raising his suppressed rifle. He dispatched the first two, which collapsed onto the steel deck, but the third one spun sideways from the headshot and tumbled over the edge, landing on a vehicle whose car alarm began sounding. “Fuck me—what are the chances of that?” he muttered under his breath as he turned over his shoulder to look at Carlie, whose eyebrows were raised as high as his.
Shane heard the faint sound of suppressed gunfire come from street level as Boyd’s men sent several rounds into the vehicle below, causing the nighttime to return to its former silence. “Let’s hope that alarm didn’t have time to draw over any creatures,” Shane said.
“You mean Broccoli-Faced Mutants or BFFs,” whispered Jared.
“Shut it already with that shit,” said Shane.
“This hillbilly don’t know when to be quiet,” said Matias.
“Can we keep moving for crying out loud,” whispered Carlie.
Shane stepped over the splayed-out corpses and proceeded along the lengthy passageway until he reached a steel door that was ajar. He swept his rifle inside.
“Alright, everybody mask up,” Carlie said, pulling a biohazard respirator mask out from its bulbous nylon pouch attached to her belt. Once everyone was ready, Shane led them down the stairwell.
After descending three flights, they reached the cargo hold on the lowest level. Part of the ship’s rear hull that was still below water had made the metal hallway walls cool to the touch and caused light beads of condensation to trickle down. Reaching the rear bay door, Shane slowly turned the L-shaped iron handle but found it wouldn’t budge. He panned his flashlight over to the right and saw a numeric keypad.
“Carlie, hold your light on this security device while I get out a small charge to blow the thing.” As he went through his left vest pocket to remove a section of plastique breaching putty, Jared stepped past him.
“Hold on, Sheriff—this is a DN61 security keypad that could be opened by a second-rate thief in ten minutes, which means it’ll take me a few seconds. Besides, I value my hearing,” he said, looking at the explosive material in Shane’s hand.
“Alright—be my guest,” Shane said, shaking his head and stepping aside.
“Nurse—scalpel, please,” he said, motioning back to Amy for the multi-tool on her belt. She frowned and handed him the implement. Jared deftly manipulated the screwdriver on it to remove the keypad lid. After extracting two wires from a bundle of tangled lines, he stripped off the ends with the pliers.
“Steady your legs, folks—in case they start trembling at such wizardry,” he said as he twisted the two wires together. The metal gears inside the lock mechanism grated against each other as the large door sprung open.
Chapter 22
“Sarge, I got a shitload of tangos moving in along both sides of the freighter,” said the voice of the distant rooftop sniper into Boyd’s earpiece. They must’ve heard that car alarm go off. Looks like Carlie already screwed the pooch on this op. “Copy that,” Boyd said, squatting behind a row of empty blue barrels. “I can hear ’em moving in. What numbers are we looking at?”
“Upwards of a hundred at least,” was the response.
Hopefully Carlie and company will be out in the next few minutes or they’re gonna have to find an alternate route out. Boyd trained his night-vision scope on a cluster of approaching creatures that were shuffling along the port side of the freighter with their heads upturned, sniffing the air. The other five members of Boyd’s unit all began reporting in about significant movement creeping in towards their location. They were spread out around the bow of the ship in a half-arc and thirty yards apart from each other.
“Hold steady, boys.” As the horde of incoming creatures increased, closing in on their location like a flood of rainwater rushing down a hill, Boyd issued the retreat order. As he started silently backpedaling, he saw a cluster of creatures heading in his direction. Boyd paused to peer through his scope. He noticed the mutant was dressed as a security guard and had a bronze nametag. Boyd centered his rifle’s red dot on the head. “Sorry, Richard, you meatbag,” he said mordantly while firing a round. Behind the crumpled body, he saw four more creatures moving towards him. “I’ve got inbound tangos headed my way. It’s gonna get ugly down here real fast,” he said, steadying the red dot on the lead creature’s head and dispatching it.
Chapter 23
Stepping inside the chamber, Carlie swept her M4 from side to side. The bow-shaped room was eighty feet deep and twenty feet wide. Inside were two dozen wooden crates with Spanish inscriptions and two empty bird cages. She crept up to the first stack and saw a body lying sprawled out on the chrome-colored floor. It was a portly man in his thirties who had been shot through the head. His face had the sagging features of the other creatures. On his left wrist was a gold watch with a tattoo of a red stingray above it. The man’s boots were made out of an unusual hide with scaly ridges running down the middle. Beside him was a black canvas backpack. Carlie squatted down and pried open the pack, removing a ruggedized laptop in a waterproof Pelican container along with some spare pistol magazines. She stuffed the computer case in her own pack and then reslung it on her back while continuing to survey the room.
“My comms are down—how about yours?” said Matias.
Shane tapped his earpiece. “Yep, same here. This is probably a double-walled hull so we’re gonna run silent until we’re outta here.”
After they had finished clearing the cargo hold, she swept her rifle’s flashlight back along each crate then motioned Shane to help her pry off the lids. Lowering his weapon, he removed his fixed blade and cracked open the top of the first rectangular crate. Inside was contraband tequila and ornately decorated boxes of cigars.
Carlie walked over to a rectangular crate that was stamped with the words, “Medico Importante” on the sides, which she knew was probably a poor attempt to disguise the contraband inside. It resembled the photo that General Adams had shown her.
Shane slid the heavy lid onto the floor and then they swung their flashlights into the interior of the six-foot-long crate. Inside, amongst the copious amounts of bubble wrap, was a smaller container with the four silver military medallions and items she had seen in the photos back at White Sands. The noisy exhalations from their biohazard masks stopped abruptly as Carlie cautiously handled the antiquated items, studying the Russian inscriptions. Standing in the murky confines of the hull looking at the cultural remnants from another era made her feel like she had entered an alternate
reality.
“How the hell does something like this end up here on our shores—I mean, these are old Soviet medals and patches associated with the former bioweapons program out of Kiev,” she said as the others gathered around her. Carlie flipped over a tarnished medallion to examine the inscriptions again. “That program began during the early days of the Cold War—nearly 50 years ago.” She removed all the items and put them in her vest pocket.
“Wonder if Homeland Security knew what was happening here before it was too late?” whispered Matias. “Strange that we didn’t hear about the virus spreading until it had already crossed state lines in numerous areas.”
“Would you reveal to a terrified region that a contaminated ship from Cuba had run aground on our shores?” said Shane. “This had to be a media blackout maneuver by one of our government agencies. They probably didn’t know how this thing got started any more than we do.”
Carlie took out her phone and snapped several photos of the entire storage container. As she moved towards the exit, she noticed Jared had moved beside the dead body on the floor. “You alright?”
“This guy—he was a smuggler from Nuevo Gerona, the island just off the southern coast of Cuba.”
“How’s that?” said Shane, who had moved alongside him.
“His boots—they’re made entirely of stingray hide and damn pricey for one thing, plus that stingray tattoo on his wrist…only the Santa Ria smugglers have those—it was their trademark,” Jared said while slowly standing. “Word is that the Santa Ria black marketers controlled all of the high-dollar contraband coming in and out of Cuba. I’m not just talking about cigars and rum but weapons, designer drugs, endangered species, and even human traffic on occasion.”
Shane and Matias both gave each other sideways glances. “As I recall from my DEA colleagues working the U.S.-Caribbean smuggling routes, the Santa Ria cartel specialized in a very high-end drug known as chiva, a black tar heroin brought over from Southeast Asia. I didn’t think they ran their operation in Cuba though. How is it you know so much about them?” he said to Jared.
“Stories, mostly—some guys I used to run with in New Orleans had had a few dealings with their southeastern distribution network here but that was well over ten years ago.” Jared stood up and walked over to one of the crates and removed a handful of cigars and shoved them in his vest.
“Nuevo Gerona—there’s not much on that island,” said Carlie. “That place is mostly jungle and black sand beaches with a small population—the perfect place for low-profile activities during the Soviet Cuba era.”
“Or pirates trying to hock some war relics, it seems,” said Jared.
“We’ll hash the rest of this out when we’re airborne again. I need to relay these photos back to White Sands and find out what’s on this laptop. These are the two main items we came for, especially the laptop, which I wasn’t sure would even be here. It probably contains the shipment manifest and a more specific point of origin for this ship,” said Carlie.
“The sun will be up soon,” said Shane, glancing down at his watch.
As they left the cargo hold and entered the stairwell, Carlie could hear faint shrieking voices coming from above and then choppy sentences filtering in through her earpiece. “Sounds like Boyd’s got company outside. Everybody double-time it.”
Chapter 24
As they crested the stairs leading to the deck, Carlie saw nearby muzzle flashes along with the faint sound of suppressed gunfire echoing off the streets below in every direction.
“Your egress route has been comprised,” shouted Boyd into Carlie’s earpiece. “We are falling back two blocks to the roof of the casino. The stern of the ship near the river is clear so haul ass now. I’ll send the helo to you after my team has been extracted.”
Carlie was already headed to the rear of the ship and had unslung a coil of rope from her pack. As the rest of the group arrived on her heels, she deftly tied a bowline knot around the guardrail and flung the rope over the edge. The end landed in the water, forty feet below.
“Why can’t the Blackhawk just pick us up here?” said Amy.
“The same reason we couldn’t land here—nowhere to set down with all the damage to the surface of the deck,” said Shane. “For now, we’ll rappel down to the river, swim across, and lie low until the helo arrives.”
Shane looked at Amy and Jared. “Either of you ever rappelled before?”
“I have but it’s been years,” said Amy.
“I’m half spider and the other half billygoat, so what do you think?” said Jared.
“I’ll take that as a yes given your line of work,” said Shane, hastily securing the buckles on his vest and backpack. “Secure all your shit, sling your rifle, and follow me down.”
Shane wrapped the rope around his leg, then back around the front, and crossed it in front of his shoulder. “Without harnesses, we’re going old-school so descend slowly, making sure to slow your movement at least twice by bouncing your boots along the hull and you won’t fry your crotch or your hands,” he said as he climbed over the edge and disappeared below the hull.
“Amy, you’re next,” said Carlie, who had slung her rifle and was waiting for the rope to go slack so she could affix it to Amy’s body. Just as she felt a tug on the rope from Shane, she heard the clamor of movement on the deck near the scaffolding. Half a dozen creatures had climbed on board and were greedily sniffing the air for signs of them.
“I got this—you all get below,” whispered Matias, who began moving along the walkway in a crouch with his rifle trained forward.
After Amy was on her way down, Carlie yanked Jared forward by the straps of his pack. “You’re next, hotshot,” she said while maneuvering the rope under and around him.
He peered over the edge into the inky water below and took a hard swallow. “You know, my granddad used to tell stories about a sixteen-foot alligator that roamed the old Miss. Sure as hell hope that he was the lyin’ son of a bitch we all took him for.”
The sound of Matias’ rifle began ringing out in controlled bursts as he began dispatching creatures at the juncture of the scaffolding.
As Carlie sent Jared on his way down, she turned and ran back towards Matias and began shooting alongside him. The first rays of dawn were shooting across the sky as his body count rose. “Let’s go,” she said as they both began backpedaling towards the stern while shooting. As they neared the rope, she could hear the sound of the helo landing on the roof of the casino hotel in the distance.
“Here—get your ass out of here,” she said, shoving the rope into his chest.
Matias took another shot at a nearby creature beyond Carlie’s shoulder and then slung his rifle. She leaned on a stack of wooden crates and began surgically removing the incoming horde, which numbered over fifty creatures, as they shoved each other out of the way to get to their intended prize. Carlie squeezed the trigger repeatedly, watching each creature hurl backward as their heads shattered in clouds of red mist. Wave upon wave of the undead poured forth over the tangled corpses on the soiled deck. Carlie heard a rumbling sound and realized it was her own voice, elevated into a predatory howl of fury as she rapidly fired off rounds into the growing horde of flesh-eaters.
With her M4 barrel smoking, she slapped a fresh magazine into her rifle and continued the assault, only stopping to tug on the rope behind her to check for slack. As she did, she saw the heads of several mutants explode, the work of a distant sniper. Thank God Boyd is reliable under fire, she thought. With a rapid burst of gunfire from her M4 she killed five more creatures within thirty feet of her then yanked the rope. Her heart raced even faster as she pulled the rope up and began wrapping it in place.
While securing her makeshift harness, she saw a creature in a tattered red tank top bolt past the others and rush forward over the mangled deck with its eyes glaring ahead. The others started to follow as if being guided by a pack leader. She finished tying off the rope and then raised her rifle scope back up, sighting in
the creature’s bobbing head. Her finger hesitated on the trigger as she stared at its determined face. It didn’t have the usual sagging facial features of the others though its smooth, waxy face bore a yellow complexion. The creature tightened its fists and hissed through its clenched teeth then bounded in the air between storage crates, closing the twenty feet of distance between them. Carlie redirected her weapon as the oncoming beast filled the eyepiece of her scope. She fired off a single round, splitting its head open.
What was that? It moved like a fucking cheetah just like the other one at White Sands.
Seeing the other creatures coming, she slung her rifle and climbed over the guardrail. Pausing, she pulled a grenade off her vest and removed the pin, tossing it into the oncoming mass of twenty creatures, then sped down the rope. She slowed her descent only once to bounce her feet off the hull. With her leather gloves nearly burned through from the rope, she plunged into the chilly water while the deck of the ship exploded in an orange haze. Pulverized limbs and heads rained down in the river beside her. She unfurled the rope and swam into the espresso-colored current while the approaching sunrise backlit the smoking leviathan behind her.
Chapter 25
As Carlie swam, she felt the swift current whisking her away and the weight of her pack pulling her under. The opposite shoreline was still a long way off as she struggled to make headway and stay afloat. As she swam her body momentarily angled towards the freighter and she could see dozens of creatures flinging themselves off the deck into the murky water.
She increased the pace of her strokes and was mid-river, with still a quarter of a mile to the opposite shoreline, when she caught sight of Matias and Amy clinging to the roots of a massive oak tree a hundred yards distant. She nervously scanned for Shane for a second before choking on a mouthful of silty water that tasted like sour pudding. She gasped for air, coughing, and then fought her way through the current as she glided past a mangled leg in burnt jeans.