“Well, to be honest, none of our programmed tactile weapons were intended to live beyond their usefulness, so we don’t know how long the necromones from the extracted zombie enzymes we injected them with really last. I actually thought that you’d be devoured inside the cargo container, but then, this is new to all of us, isn’t it? A few more hours inside that container and I would have been deprived of the pleasure of witnessing your death for myself. So, there’s that.” Fleming sneered with morbid delight.
Tom processed the facts. So, not only did he brainwash me, but he injected me with some sort of fucking zombie-juice so these brainless savages think I’m one of them? That’s how he creates his so-called ‘programmed tactile weapons’. Fleming is the real monster.
The major enjoyed the spectacle of five more undead creepers lumbering to Tom’s vicinity. However, these were clothed and not twisted and battered like the naked stray that fell to the deck. Fleming had secretly held these in reserve aboard the ship for just such a fortuitous occasion.
Red lights began flashing from strategic locations accompanied by a blaring siren. The ambling corpses were distracted by the sound and, although they were now clawing at the pipes to get at Tom, they seemed to be losing their ferocity.
“What is that damn Johansen up to?” Fleming raced to the bridge, hating to tear himself away from the show, but confident with the inevitable outcome once he silenced the alarm.
#
Johansen had assembled his fifteen person crew on the bridge and waited, knowing that Fleming would burst in demanding answers.
“There’d better be a damn good explanation for sounding that alarm, Captain!”
Johansen flipped off the alarm, his stare was ice. His crew stood behind him like chess pieces, but with their king positioned unprotected in front of them. Fleming’s men were fewer in number, but even the five soldiers that entered the bridge with the major, firearms at the ready, were far more formidable.
“Despite you thinking this is your ship, major, my men still have their jobs to do and, in assessing the rest of the containers, several of my crewmen spotted your so-called cargo that fell into the North Atlantic.” Johansen gripped his console firmly as he spoke to help control his rage that was boiling just below the surface. “My men are scared. Frankly, so am I. We thought we were transporting military supplies to the Keflavik air base, not containers full of… full of zombies. And what about your little stow away?”
“Dealt with,” Fleming spat as if the issue of the stowaway were a moot point.
“Bottom line is you’ve put my crew at risk, major, and…”
“And, what?” The major scoffed, taking a glance out of the window to notice that land was in sight. “We’re nearly to shore, so what are you going to do? Turn the ship around and go home?”
Johansen raised an eyebrow and bit the inside of his cheek contemplating what he was to say next. “Major, I’m perfectly content to anchor this vessel right here indefinitely unless…,” the captain looked over his shoulder at his crew, then back at Fleming. “Unless we get hazard pay.”
A sardonic grin crept across Fleming’s face. “Why, Captain Johansen. I misjudged you. I had no idea you were such an opportunist. It takes some guts to try to blackmail the United States Army.”
“The army. Just you. Either one. We don’t care where the money comes from. Once the radio is fixed you can contact whoever you need to make it happen.”
The captain called to the young technician still fidgeting with the radio’s innards beneath the console. “How long before it’s up and running, son?”
“Well, there were some parts missing, so I had to MacGyver it a bit, but I think it should just be a few minutes more, sir,” the young crewman answered with pride.
“Very resourceful. But, how unfortunate,” said the major before pulling his Beretta M9 from its holster and firing two shots. One into the radio, the other into the young technician.
“Are you insane?” The captain demanded, rushing to the side of his fatally wounded crewman.
“Captain, I need you to maintain our course without any more foolishness.”
“We need the radio to communicate with the shore team at the quay for safe docking.”
“You are experienced and resourceful. I trust your abilities, captain,” Fleming said smugly. “Besides, the radio won’t do you any good anyway. There is no shore team. It’s just us now. We can do this ourselves.”
The Captain was confused and felt helpless for the first time in his career. “What do you mean there is not shore team? No tug boats to guide us in?”
Not bothering to respond to the captain, Fleming handed his service revolver to his aide and instructed all his soldiers to hold Johansen and his crew at gunpoint, making sure they navigate to the quay’s container terminal without any delay. Major Fleming then headed off to check on the other matter from which he’d been so abruptly pulled away.
Part 4
Once the cacophonous siren had stopped, leaving only the loud chugging noise of the engine room – now seemingly quiet in comparison—the small group of zombies trained their full animalistic attention to Tom. For the first time in a long while Tom’s fight or flight reflex was kicking into high gear, however, maneuverability beneath the large pipes was limited making fight fruitless and flight impossible.
He had gotten used to being resistant to zombie attacks. Being pinned down by a gang of them restored the raw terror he once felt at the prospect of being torn to shreds.
What was it Fleming said? Necromones? That’s the stuff dead bodies produce – like the opposite of pheromones for the living. That’s why they thought I was one of them. Like I was wrapped in a freakin’ zombie skin or something. Tom shuddered at the thought. Then, the thought didn’t seem so surreal.
The gnarled hands that grabbed for him came within inches of hooking into his flesh. It was only through a rhythmic bob and weave that Tom kept just out of reach.
One of the arms reaching for him was the twisted arm of the naked male creature that fell from the container to the deck. Its range of motion appeared more limited than the rest. Tom reached for the chef’s knife he took from the galley and grabbed the wrist, tugged hard, pulling the beast snug against the pipe. Tom’s knife had no trouble slicing off the fingers. Can’t have them grabbing while he was trying to work.
The slobbering face of the living corpse was protruding between the pipes above Tom, its cold dead eyes bugging out from the pressure of its head being squeezed. The mouth was chomping like a machine, teeth so discolored they appeared to be made of jagged wood, and webs of thick stringy saliva – if it even was saliva – dripping down on Tom.
Tom’s knife came up quickly between the creature’s eyes, ending its undead existence. The lifeless body hung there as Tom pulled the arm downward, like feeding dough through a pasta machine. Crack went the skull between the pipes. The left clavicle snapped like a twig as the body was tugged sideways to allow for narrower passage. The rib cage flexed inward against the steel conduit with only a few pops in the mid thorax. The pelvic region was never going to fit, but Tom had all that he needed.
Acting quickly, Tom slashed the corpse from chin to belly button like a barbarous medical examiner. The torso’s long-dead tissue and sinew no longer retained the strength to contain bodily contents and innards poured forth onto Tom, the perforated stomach spewing undigested rat. A ghastly surprise, from which Tom gasped like a coach who had just had a cooler of rancid Gatorade dumped on his head. Vomit instantly rose up into his throat; bread and banana puree splashed onto the floor.
Recoiling from the shock, Tom slung off the goopy mess, then returned to slicing off the skin covering the torso, careful to keep it in one piece creating his wolf in zombie’s clothing disguise. The knife peeled away the flesh easier than from living tissue until Tom had a nice swath for his concealment. The zombie cloak, combined with the internal goo that spilled onto Tom’s head, was working.
The hands reaching
for him lost their fervor and slowly drew back. The animated carcasses sniffed around in animal-like confusion until they caught the feral aroma of a rat scuttling nearby.
As if their meager brainpower all combined to move them en masse, they shifted their focus and ambled toward the rodent.
The rotten hide was wrapped around Tom like a warm, wet blanket as he came out from his burrow, his entire body dripping with the necromones of a corpse. The pungent stench gagging him reminded him of his time confined in the darkened cargo container. Familiar, but not comforting.
He now stood among them, out in the open, but Tom was keenly aware that he was not safe. The siren had been silent for a while now, and there was a good chance that Fleming would be back to check that Tom was dead once and for all.
Surveying the scene the only thing that looked like a partially devoured body was the carcass Tom had stripped, still dripping its dark bile-like fluids onto the floor. Was there a chance that Fleming would think that the shredded corpse was his? Tom felt a sensation in his bladder. He’d consumed several bottles of water while he was in hiding to quench his dehydration, but it had since done its job of replenishment and any residual accumulation needed release.
Tom considered how some animals mark their territory, covering it in their scent by urinating. Must be pheromones doing the trick. Only one way to find out.
He unzipped his pants, shielded himself from getting any sort of drippy zombie goo on his exposed penis – not that it mattered – and set free a stream of urine onto the foul remains wedged between the large pipes.
A female from the nearby pack was the first to raise its head, detecting the scent. The rest soon followed suit. Uh oh. C’mon, Tom. Pinch it off. The mob spanned the ten feet in seconds to converge on the carcass, as Tom’s last few trickles subsided and he tucked himself back into his pants. He furthered the decoy by hunching over the remains and pawing at the torn flesh. He didn’t know how long he would have to keep it up.
The rapacious horde bit and ripped at their fallen pack member, any inherent doubt of the meat’s freshness overshadowed by the innate lure of fresh human pheromones.
The carcass was yanked free of the pipes and splayed onto the floor for mass consumption. Tom adjusted the skin draped over his shoulders and positioned himself among the crowd, pantomiming their lead.
Several minutes later, Tom saw a figure out of his peripheral vision appear on the steel mesh grate catwalk above. As he predicted, Major Fleming had returned.
#
Fleming assessed the scene below him and was content. The disemboweled body, being devoured by ravenous zombies was the only personal satisfaction the major could revel in. It was a long overdue ending, but although it didn’t seem to matter anymore, it had to matter. Fleming clung to the fact that it mattered. He drummed his fingers on the metal railing and then retreated down a short hall and into a room whose door was labeled Engine Room 2.
For Fleming, the NATO attack – had it gone as planned—was going to be the big game changer. Had the president been killed, it would have been blamed on some radical anti-America terrorist group. The vice president, in order to not look weak as acting president, would be pressured to allow Major Fleming, and his superior, General Madsen, to pursue Mortuus Vivens – Project Living Dead—to unleash zombie hordes throughout the world as surreptitious cover for programmed sleeper soldiers to eradicate anyone the U.S. saw as a threat – or possible threat. The deaths would never be traced back to the U.S. They would simply be the result of an untamable zombie epidemic. Naturally, with smaller targets handled in this covert way, larger threats would be captured or killed by U.S. forces to maintain a position of overt military supremacy. Washington’s secret intelligence channels would all know that Madsen was the catalyst that positioned the U.S. so its unchallenged world dominance would take shape.
It began to occur to Fleming, as he sat in contemplation at the systems control console of engine room 2, that his general had grander plans for himself. Was Madsen positioning himself to surface as the hero of the ‘zombie days’ and hoist himself on the shoulders of the Republicans as a presidential candidate? The damn lunatic might actually win. Fleming chuckled to himself at the irony of how the mastermind behind the epidemic would be praised as a hero in its aftermath.
The long game presumption was that zombies would eventually die out if they were kept away from their living food supplies, and by that time Madsen would have achieved all that his plan was designed to do. All that was needed were enough zombies to assure the appearance of a world epidemic. Fleming assured General Madsen that local authorities, with the assistance of the army, could contain any zombie pods. Other countries would have to fend for themselves, but the United States would fare just fine. Survival of the fittest and all. But, what is it they say about best laid plans?
After the debacle at McCormick Place, Madsen had been strategizing with Fleming about other ways to make their plan a reality, but in the days that followed reports were coming in through secure channels that the epidemic was spreading faster than it could be contained. Local authorities and military had been able to put a tourniquet on the problem—not perfectly, but enough to keep the public thinking it was under control. TV news reports were always presenting lower percentages of attacks than there actually were.
Creepers were expanding beyond their borders in parts of towns that were allowed to be abandoned by living people in favor of infestation. Containment was no longer effective to inhibit the spread, but the media had to be controlled to prevent worse mass hysteria than was already developing.
The new plan was simple. Get the hell out. By the time the general populace knew the true severity of the epidemic the powerful and elite of Washington would be underground waiting out the epidemic in bunkers, as if the air were contaminated from nuclear fallout.
Doomsday preppers around the country had read the writing on the wall months ago and were already secure behind their fortifications. No one ever gave them credence of being harbingers. The rest of the country would learn quickly that they could only fend for themselves until they couldn’t anymore.
The directive came and forced Fleming to prepare accordingly. To ensure that the United States would not lose its footing in the world order, Madsen was allowed to enact his plan after all. Fleming would coordinate transportation of any stockpiles of zombies the army had in its possession to the Naval Air Base in Keflavik, Iceland.
The air base was abandoned in 2006, but was reactivated, much like Fort Sheridan, before the virus outbreak. Iceland was chosen as the original testing ground for programming soldiers and deployment of Project Living Dead. The base had a hospital and other adequate facilities, as well as being located in the best neutral location so as to not come under global scrutiny. Only a handful of key officials knew of the full measure of what was being developed at the base. For all outward appearances it was the best globally strategic facility to study the effects of the new virus and try to discover ways to combat it. Ironically, it was NATO that sanctioned reopening the base for this specific altruistic purpose.
Project Living Dead was too important, and would only be viable as long as the zombie epidemic existed. The seedy underbelly of Washington’s military intelligence community sought to make hay while the sun was shining, and capitalize on such a devastating and horrifying global event.
From the base, Fleming was expected to continue his work on Project Living Dead. Satellites, and what global operatives remained would still be the eyes of the U.S. and allow for political objectives to still be orchestrated from underground bunkers. The stage would be set for the United States to reemerge in the aftermath still on top.
Being at sea for nearly a week was another week that the epidemic spread exponentially, and Fleming’s decision to disable the ship’s radio after they left the states was essential. The crew had to be kept in the dark about what was going on back home. If they knew that they would have no home to go back to they would want to turn
around mid-course to be with their families in their last days – maybe try in vain to get them to safety. No. This is the way it had to be, Fleming justified to himself. Shooting that boy was unfortunate, but I actually didn’t expect him to be able to rig the radio so it would work.
Fleming studied the engine room’s control console of digital displays for rudder angle, RPM, trip distance and direction, and various other readings he had become vaguely familiar with. The speed log showed the ship cruising at thirty knots. Based on the trip distance reading, they should be slowing down soon as they neared the waterway of Reykjanesbær.
The secret satellite phone Fleming had brought aboard was in his quarters. As of this morning it was no longer of any use to him. He had spoken with General Madsen for the last time just after morning coffee.
“You’ve been a fine officer, Donald,” the general had told him. His voice held some portend of finality in its tone. Calling the major by his first name was obviously meant to soften the blow of the news that was to follow.
“This thing’s out of control. The entire might of the armed forces is being brought to bear on this situation, but we were never prepared for this.”
The general relayed to Fleming the details of how the menace – as he referred to the zombies – seemed to be multiplying faster by the day.
“Project Living Dead is finished. We won’t have any political enemies once this is all over. It’s a moot point. Most of Washington is already underground. Apparently, it’s a very exclusive club and unfortunately, I didn’t make the cut.”
“But, general… the project? All our work? We can still…”
“It’s a non-issue, major! Didn’t you just hear me? My family and I are as good as dead. I’m sorry, but we just don’t matter anymore. This country’s in the shit now and who knows for how long.” There was a long pause between the two officers who were once equally feared and respected, set apart from most men. Now, the reset button has been pushed reducing them to mere humble mortals.
The Tale of Tom Zombie (Book 3): Zombie Resurrection Page 3