by Howard, Bob
The Chief looked at her to see if she was kidding, but he couldn't tell from her neutral expression. If he didn't know better, he would think she was teasing him because he knew so much, but she wasn't going to give him a clue.
They panned the flashlights back to the hidden spaces again, and the Chief went inside. Kathy was right on his heels, but she peeled off to the left as he went straight toward the helicopter. Tom went in on the right while Bus and I followed the Chief. He was carefully looking into the helicopter, and I could tell he wasn't going to assume there wasn't an infected dead inside.
"Chief, we can look at the helicopter later," said Kathy. "Right now we need to be finding the easiest way to get below decks and find Jean."
"That's exactly what I'm doing, Kathy."
He smiled at her in the dimly lit bay, and even though she couldn't see him well enough, she heard it in his voice.
"What is he up to?" She wondered.
The Chief worked his way forward from the cargo section of the Ka-27 to the pilot and co-pilot seats and didn't see anything inside. Tom and I kept guard over Bus in a safe corner while Kathy continued her sweep for exits. Without warning, the entire bay was lit up like broad daylight. The Chief had reached in through the pilot's side window and turned on the helicopter's landing lights.
"I was going to tell you to do that," said Kathy, but this time she had a grin on her face to match the Chief's.
With plenty of light we could see the hatches and doors that led from the helicopter bay to the other parts of the ship. There were three doors on the forward bulkhead, but we weren't interested in those. We were looking for the right hatch to use to go down one deck.
I asked, "What's below hatches one, two, and three Chief?"
"Believe it or not," he began, "I don't know everything about Russian ships, but if I had to guess, one hatch would go down to an accommodations section. That's where the off duty pilots would live. One hatch would go down to a service section. That's where the on duty pilots would be monitoring different stations while they wait for the orders to put the bird in the air. The other hatch would be a mechanical area, probably at the rear of the engineering compartment. That's where they would have the gear and the access to a refueling station. Helicopter fuel is different that the fuel that powers this ship, but the storage tanks would be located close to each other."
"If I had to guess what was below each of the hatches, I would have guessed down, down again, and more down," I said, "and no, I don't believe you when you say that you don't know everything about Russian ships."
Tom pointed to the hatch nearest to him and asked, "Which one is this, Chief?"
"That's the one where we are most likely to find people, whether living or dead," he answered. "That's most likely where we will find off duty crew, and just like on US Navy ships, off duty crewmen tend to gather with other crewmen. The on duty pilots have to be sharp and undistracted from their jobs. If they get the order to fly, they don't have the time to break up a party."
"So, that's where we should find Jean, but that's also where we're going to find the party," I said. "Why would she have to be in there?"
Kathy moved over to stand by the hatch. "We don't need to talk about it, we just need to do it. Every minute we stand here is one more minute that she could be fighting for her life."
The Chief was the strongest of our group by far, so he put one foot on each side of the hatch and got a grip. "I'm going to pull this thing fast, but we don't have to worry about them climbing up here if they're all infected. What I'm worried about is the possibility that there's a live one down there. If there is, then he's going to be jumpy. There's no sense in getting shot, so everyone stand clear until we know what's down there."
Everyone backed up a step, and the Chief pulled on the hatch. As it opened, he let it fall toward him, so he was able to back away at the same time. The stench that blew up into our faces was nauseating, and there was no doubt where it was coming from. The accommodations spaces had been full of crewmen when the infection had spread. The darkness below was a bedlam of infected dead who all wanted to reach whoever had opened the hatch and let the light come down on them. They were about fifteen feet below us, and they filled the corridor.
"Flashlights on single targets, please." Kathy had moved into position as soon as it was obvious that there wouldn't be anyone down there, jumpy or not, who was still alive. "You guys light 'em up, and I'll put them down one at a time."
We all shone our flashlights down in the hole and the noise level grew louder. We centered on the one infected dead face that seemed to draw our attention the most, probably because it was directly at the bottom of the ladder, and Kathy fired a shot through its forehead.
I couldn't help myself and had begun searching the faces below for the one I would recognize, but there were so many. They were pushing and shoving for position and stepping on the first one to go down. When one managed to get to the center that had been vacated by his former comrade, we all lit him up for Kathy. One by one the process was repeated, and the pile of infected at the center of the group became too deep for them to stand.
Kathy leaned in for a look, and I aimed my flashlight at the edge of the group. "Maybe we should have started at the outside edge and worked inward," I said.
"I'm not so sure that would have made a difference, Ed." Kathy sounded like she was thinking about something as she said it. There was a distant tone to her voice.
"Why?" asked Tom. "They're piling up so much that I don't see an end to them."
"Chief, would Jean have been able to isolate herself on this deck below us?" Kathy still had that tone as if she had something worked out.
"Only if she got here ahead of the infected," he said. "Why? What's on your mind?"
She shook her head as if something wasn't making sense. "Why would most of the crew be in this one section of the ship?"
Bus had been just listening to the trio because they had spent so much time together that they had started to think alike, but the thought had also crossed his mind that the crew should have been more spread out.
"Where's the sick bay located on this ship, Chief?" Bus sounded like Kathy.
"I don't think the Russians are much different from us, Bus. Sick bay is almost always located somewhere near crew accommodations because they don't have room for extra beds. They treat people, and then they put them in their own racks."
The Chief was explaining it to Bus, but as he did, he slowed down as if he was understanding the question and the answer the same time.
"Kathy, Bus, you two are geniuses," he said. "Ed, you're pretty smart too, but I think they figured it out. The divers were bitten by the infected in the nets, and when they were brought back aboard, they were treated and then placed in their own bunks. When they turned, they had a target rich environment because there were so many crewmen around trying to save their shipmates."
"And that probably included the on-duty pilots who were in the ready room just down the corridor from crew's berthing," added Kathy. "They saw that the divers were coming back in bad condition, and since they hadn't been in the air on a mission for a long time, they left the on-duty ready room to help."
I looked toward the hatch behind the Chief and asked, "Didn't you say that hatch was likely to be over the on-duty ready room, Chief?"
"Yes, I did, Eddie, and that would mean the room was most likely abandoned when everyone started attacking each other. If Jean managed to get into that room and close the door, it's the only one with a porthole in the right place.”
"Let's get back to work, gentlemen." Kathy took aim at another infected dead, shot it, and moved immediately to the next.
Even with every bullet counting for another infected dead being put to its final rest, it still took several minutes more to shoot every one that appeared below us. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, but we still had to go down that other hatch, and we knew the entire crew couldn't have been in the accommodations space. Counting the o
nes we had seen on our island, we still had half of the crew to account for.
One of us had to be first to go down that ladder, and as I started forward, the Chief got a gentle grip on my arm. He didn't need to say a word because they were all thinking the same thing I was. Jean couldn't be down there and still be alive, and it wasn't the best idea for me to be the one to find her.
While the Chief held me, more with his eyes than with his hand, Kathy sat feet first through the open hatch. She had slung her rifle across her back and had her Glock ready in one hand.
"Guys, I need a wide spread of lights down there. Chief, are there any portable emergency lights in your new helicopter? I don't want to step down into that mess and have my ankle get ripped open by an infected dead that can't move anything except its mouth."
The Chief looked at Kathy like she had just given him a new toy then went to look through the supplies in the Ka-27. He came back just a few minutes later with a large halogen light attached to a huge battery and had a handle on top.
"This is the best I could find, but it should do the trick. We can attach a line to it and lower it into the corridor. If any of those infected are still alive, it should cause them to move."
Tom produced a nylon climbing rope that looked like it was used as a safety line on the helicopter, and the Chief tied it to the handle. He turned on the light, and it would definitely do the trick. It lit up the helicopter bay even more than the exterior lights from the helicopter had done. When he lowered it past Kathy's feet into the corridor below, it was like broad daylight, and at least a half dozen heads began rotating and snapping.
"Look at that," said Kathy. "I would've looked like one of the infected walking down the beach covered by blue crabs."
I leaned into the hole head first and started counting. "Let me get you a moving count first, Kathy. You can count them off as you shoot them. Okay, I see eight."
Kathy unslung her rifle again and counted off eight shots. I did another quick look, and seeing no movement, she started down.
"It smells like a meat packing plant on a hot day down here, guys. I suggest you find something to put around your noses."
When she reached the bottom rung, Kathy searched for a spot to put her feet and couldn't see a clear piece of floor. She wasn't about to start stepping on them and have one wind up to be still capable of biting. She was just about to tell the men looking down at her that they had to find a way past the bodies when she felt the pressure on the back of her boot. She had never been bitten by anything in her life, and she was amazed by the power behind the jaws. It felt like her foot was being crushed, and the pain made it impossible to tell if the teeth were breaking through the material of her boot.
We all saw the head come through the rungs of the ladder at the same time, but from our angle there was no way to get off a shot that would get the infected in the back of the head. It was protected by Kathy's body, and shooting it in the back wouldn't make a difference.
Kathy didn't scream, but the pain did make her cry out. She pulled as hard as she could, but she couldn't get far enough away from the front of the ladder, hang on, and shoot all at the same time.
For a big man, the Chief was surprisingly agile. He dropped through the hatch and swung around to the back side of the ladder all in one motion. He took both feet off of the ladder, took aim at the shoulders of the infected dead that had its teeth buried in Kathy's boot and just let himself drop. He guided his fall down the hole by keeping his hands on the sides of the ladder, and his size fourteen boots landed squarely on each shoulder of the infected. The result was an awful tearing sound as the body was ripped free from the head and pushed the remaining distance to the floor.
The Chief reached through the bars with one hand and grabbed a big crop of hair in his huge hand and pulled the head back to the ladder where he could reach it. With his other hand he reached around and shoved his hunting knife through its head. Kathy pulled herself tight to the ladder and waited as the Chief used his knife to pry open the jaws that were as tight as a steel trap. The head dropped off to one side, and Kathy felt instant relief from the pain, but she was afraid to look down.
"Is there any blood, Chief?" she sounded more like a kid to herself than she could ever remember. It was like asking her dad to help her.
The Chief turned the powerful halogen light on the end of the rope toward Kathy's boot and looked at the marks the jaws had left in the leather.
"It was close, Kathy. As a matter of fact, you still have a tooth stuck in the boot. Get back up there and have Bus take a look at you. If nothing else, that's going to be one hell of a bruise."
Kathy pulled herself up the ladder with her arms and by hopping with her other leg. We caught her under her arms and pulled her the rest of the way. As soon as she was on the floor, we were working at the laces of her boot and getting it off of her. Bus drew a sigh of relief when he aimed the light at her ankle. The area was already turning black and blue, but there was no blood. As an extra test, I shoved a flashlight down inside her boot and then inspected the outside of the boot for light shining through.
"No light, Kathy. It would look like a Halloween pumpkin if the teeth had broken through."
"Thank God," she said, "but man does it hurt. I had no idea they could bite that hard."
Bus looked at the marks on the shoe and said, "The human bite can range from over fifty pounds of pressure up to two hundred and seventy-five pounds of pressure. I've got to get me a pair of these boots."
Despite her obvious pain, Kathy had to laugh at his remark, especially when he held the boot down to the bottom of his foot to see if they were his size.
Kathy snatched it away from him and said, "Hey, I'm going to need that."
"You're not going back down there," I said. "What are you going to do, hop around looking for Jean? Besides, with all that swelling, I don't think you'll be getting that boot on any time soon. You stay here with Bus while Tom and I go down there.”
We hadn't even noticed that Tom had already joined the Chief below. They were still on the ladder using their flashlights to study the unmoving infected dead.
The Chief was also aiming his light down the corridor looking at the ceiling toward amidships.
"I can see the other hatch down by the on-duty ready room," he said. “I'm not sure we would have been able to get it open as easily."
He lifted the large halogen light higher and aimed it down the corridor. About thirty feet away was another ladder leading to the hatch that the pilots would have used in a flight mission, and there was a body hanging from the locking wheel in the center of the door.
To keep from taking on water, hatches on most warships use a wheel that expands a watertight seal as the door is locked. If we had tried to spin the wheel from above, we wouldn't have known what was holding the wheel in place, but the arms of the dead man were so entwined in the wheel that it wasn't likely we would have unlocked it without ripping out the arms.
The man hanging from the ladder wasn't moving, and from their angle they could see that someone had put him out of his misery as he hung from the ladder.
Tom said, "Looks to me like he was hanging onto the locking wheel trying not to be pulled down by the infected, and someone did him a favor."
The Chief nodded his agreement and rotated the light down the corridor. About twenty more feet away was the ready room, and the door was closed. With a little luck Jean may have made it to that door, and the room would have been vacant because the pilots would have been out trying to help control the mayhem that had broken out on their ship. It may have been her only hope for survival.
I looked down on Tom and the Chief as I climbed a few rungs down to join them. "What are we going to do, hang around and wait for her to find us?" It may have come out a little more sharp than I intended, but they knew what was at stake and gave me a lot of leeway.
The Chief pointed down the corridor and said, "There's a row of service areas, places where men worked at duty stations. N
ot everything is located in the operations center. If a ship takes a hit, command and control can be switched to another location. One of them would be the ready room for pilots, and that closed door down the corridor is likely to be the ready room. It's facing the island, I don't doubt that it has a porthole at the location Kathy saw.”
"I think we're clear of any infected for the moment, but we don't know if the other compartments are closed off to them," said Tom.
As if inviting trouble by his observation, we heard a series of metallic rumbles. We looked at each other to see if anyone could identify the sounds. It was like identifying a song you only heard once every few years. The Chief was the first to get it.
"Ever hear a body falling down a set of metal stairs? I think we just did."
Groaning started from the corridor past the door we needed to get to, and as the groaning started, we heard the tumbling sound again. Apparently, there was a gangway at the end of the corridor that probably came down from either the main deck or from the operations compartment. The beauty of gangways, as far as we were concerned, was that they were always very steep. Sailors usually just put their hands on the railings and slid down them at high speed. Going up was another matter because it was more like climbing a set of stairs than walking up them.
"Let's move, and we have to control the area beyond the ready room before we open the door. I know you're hoping Jean is in there, Ed, but we can't just expect to open the door and have her rush into your arms." The Chief wasn't warning me that it could be too late, but I knew what he was saying.
We dropped onto the bodies piled up at the bottom of the latter. There wasn't time to be sure they were all down for good, but it had been several minutes since Kathy had been bitten on her boot, and we couldn't wait all day. We turned and checked the corridor leading back toward the stern and saw a gangway leading upward. The Chief told us that set of stairs would exit away from the flight deck along the side of the box-like hangar structure.
The Chief explained, "It exits along the side of the hangar because it wouldn't be a great idea to have people popping out of a hatch near a helicopter that was landing on a ship that was going up and down in rolling seas. It must be dogged from above or we would have seen the moonlight coming down through it when we opened the hatch over the accommodations area."