Best laid plans of Mice and Zombie Hunters...
Jonesy, Duke, and Jim had gone toward the Shipping Center, taking Weaver with them, while Walton and Perniola went in search of fuel. They’d thought of taking Dan McMullen, their resident electrician, but, number one, the Sass had a greater need for his services, and, number two, they weren’t planning on putting the Center back in operation, so they’d left him. He seemed quite happy with the arrangement.
Crossing the tarmac, hearing and feeling the silence, was creepy, to say the least. There wasn’t a sound. No planes moved, though there were a few there, sitting derelict, like relics from a lost civilization, which, Jonesy supposed, they now were.
There also weren’t any zombies. And if they ran into any, if Jonesy had been rosy in his predictions, well...they were armed to the teeth and rigged for battle.
The Center Team, as they’d taken to calling themselves over the radios they’d brought along, all wore the full rig: body armor, knee and elbow pads, helmets with face shields, MOPP gear, with additional firefighting hoods, a double layer of gloves, assault packs, and as many weapons as they could carry. Harold and John, on the Sass, with a little help from Gary, managed to get two of the Thompsons in clean, working order. Jonesy and Barber carried those. Duke carried a shotgun, and both Weaver and Roessler were outfitted with M4's. Jonesy had been reluctant to give the new guy a weapon, since he hadn’t been battle tested, like the rest of them, but then Molly pointed out that none of them had been so tested, either, until they were, a scant couple weeks ago. Suitably chagrined, he’d given in. Like he’d had any choice.
Walton carried his own .45, in a holster. They’d offered him an M4, but he declined, calling the weapon a “Plastic piece of shite,” which, Jonesy thought, wasn’t far from the truth.
Jonesy had his knives, and the two kukri machetes, strapped to either side of his pack. Duke had his two hammers, plus a fifteen-pound sledge with a three foot handle strapped to his back - their Master Key, as he’d named it.
They reached the loading bay of the Center without incident. Everything was going well - perfectly, in fact. This should have been a sign. Jonesy chose to ignore it.
“Use the Master key,” he said, when they reached the back of the rectangular building. There were several roll-doors (all closed) and two man-doors, one to a side. They’d chosen the one on the left.
“Gonna be noisy,” Duke said.
Jonesy looked to Jim Barber, who shrugged. He waved to Duke. “Carry on.”
With a mighty swing, and an even mightier CRASH, the door flew open. Jonesy, Jim, Weaver and Duke all stood at the ready, weapons drawn. Nothing happened. They looked at each other, questioning. They shrugged. Duke stuck his head inside the door.
“Clear,” he said. They entered.
The sun streamed in through skylights on the canted roof. Had the place been empty, they could have seen most, if not all of it at a glance. It wasn’t empty, of course. Racks, floor to ceiling, disappeared into the depths. A conveyor with stainless steel rollers threaded its way across the front of those racks and branched off into the unknown. Unmanned forklifts stood sentry. Motes of dust swirled in the breeze caused by the open door. Nothing happened.
And then the howling began. And then the zombies appeared.
45
Lihue Airport
On the Tarmac
Gus Perniola winced as Harvey Walton smashed the driver’s side window with the butt of his pistol. It made a lot of noise, but they’d found the fuel truck in the middle of the tarmac, at this airport in the middle of nowhere, with not a person in sight, so it wasn’t like they were going to attract a crowd, right?
The truck was locked, of course. Long gone were the days when people left things unlocked. Couldn’t trust anybody, anymore, when it became perfectly plausible that your neighbor could be Jeffrey Dahmer or the BTK Killer. Forget the end of life as they knew it. But Walton appeared unconcerned about the security measures the last person to operate the truck had taken. He simply pulled his .45, reversed his grip so he held it by the barrel, and smashed the window. Simple as pie. Really loud pie - pie that meant they’d have to clean a whole bunch of glass off the driver’s seat so whoever drove (and Gus just knew it would be him) didn’t cut his ass wide open - but still...pie.
Walton pulled the sleeve of his light jacket over his hand and wiped at the shards, then peered inside. Wouldn’t you know it? The keys dangled from the ignition. So, okay, the last person had been security-conscious and forgetful. Could have happened to anybody. At least it meant they didn’t have to hotwire the thing.
“We have a winner!” Walton said. “How delightful!” He gestured toward the driver’s seat. “Get in.”
Gus brushed at the glass as best he could, then slid into the seat. The truck had a manual transmission, so he depressed the clutch, made sure the truck was out of gear, then started it up - or tried to. The engine gave a weak whir-whir sound but did not catch. Wouldn’t that be perfect? They find a fuel truck, with fuel, and the keys inside, and the battery’s dead. Murphy’s Law wins again!
He looked at Walton, who stared back at him.
“Well?” the man said. “Are you going to give up? Or are you going to give it that All-American College Try?”
“Never went to college,” Gus replied, then turned the key again. Again, it whirred a couple times, but then it caught with a roar, as he pressed the gas pedal to the floor. He eased his foot, feathered it a few times, to make sure it would stay running, then put it in gear and headed for the Catalina.
They made it almost all the way back to the plane when the gunfire started. The two men looked at each other. Walton raised a questioning eyebrow.
“We’d better hurry,” he said.
46
Lihue Airport
The Shipping Center
Jim Barber let loose with a rip of automatic fire. “I love these guns!” He yelled, as the first rank of zombies fell like...humans hit by a barrage of .45 caliber fire.
Duke fired two blasts of his shotgun just as Jonesy opened up with his own Thompson Submachine Gun. Jim’s assessment proved to be accurate - bloodily so, as four former people fell to the slugs, plus two more from having their chests removed by twelve-gauge double-ought buckshot.
Jonesy had been worried about Jeri, the new guy, but he needn’t have been. The man brought the M4 to his shoulder, and took down zombies with precision; double-tapping to the chest, followed by one to the head. Dozens had already been taken out of the fight, but there were three times, four times, who the fuck knew how many more times as many.
They came from between the racks, from the side, from the back of the building, from the depths of shadow, howling, snarling, keening for fresh meat. They weren’t very fast, given the poor motor control caused by the virus, but they were persistant. They just kept coming.
Jonesy dropped his spent mag to the concrete floor, sparing the barest of moments to remind himself to pick the thing up when he got the chance, before slapping in a second magazine, charging the weapon and continuing to fire. It seemed to have no effect. The fucking things wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t run, wouldn’t retreat, in spite of so many of their numbers being blown away by the constant roar of weaponry. They were being overrun.
By coincidence (or maybe a sense of self-preservation) the team had been steadily backing toward the door as the zombie hoard advanced. This proved to be a good thing.
“Time to go!” Duke shouted, ratcheting the shotgun slide and pulling the trigger at a gigantic Samoan who’d been about to take a chunk out f Jim Barber’s ass.
Jim glanced at the mangled body, then at Duke, then at the dozens of homicidal maniacs coming from almost every direction. “Goddamned right!” He said.
Jonesy looked at Weaver, saw the young man still hanging in, still aiming, still killing with precision. He fired a burst, snapped his head toward the door, then said: “Run away!” The others didn’t wait to discover whether or not his patheti
c imitation of Monty Python had been a joke. They ran.
He looked for the lone magazine he’d dropped to the floor, couldn’t see it amongst the swarm of stumbling feet, then did see it, sticking from beneath the body of one of the fallen. Several of the advancing hoard apparently decided dead zombie would be an acceptable menu item, and started tearing at its flesh with their hands and teeth. No fucking way was he stupid enough to try and retrieve the spent mag. They’d just have to live without it.
He fired another burst, then Jonesy left the building.
47
Lihue Airport
The Tarmac
Gus stared toward the building as Walton took care of the fuel truck controls. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man close the valve, and unhook the hose from the aircraft end. He did not offer to help. He was too busy watching for the other guys.
The gunfire had been constant and heavy. The warehouse must be a nightmare. So much for Jonesy’s assessment that this would be a piece of cake. More like a piece of shit. Time for recriminations, later.
Walton removed the truck end of the fuel hose and simply dropped it to the ground. “Move the truck, while I start the plane,” he said.
Gus spared another look towards the Shipping Center, saw nothing, and then hopped in. He drove it about thirty yards away, set the brake, and turned it off, then ran for the seaplane. He did not get in, though. The still-warm aircraft started at once, but he didn’t move. His eyes remained glued to the door through which the others had gone. A minute went by, then two, then three, then five. Nothing happened. No one showed.
Then everything happened at once. Barber was the first through the door, followed by the new kid, Weaver, then Duke, who backed out, firing his shotgun. Had Jonesy been killed? He did not want to have to explain that to John. The man loved the kid like a son. His death would break John’s heart.
But Jonesy finally appeared, firing a continuous burst from his machine gun.
“Get in,” Walton shouted from the open pilot’s window. “Or I’ll leave you behind!”
Gus didn’t doubt the man’s threat for a second. Harvey Walton was absolutely enough of a self-serving asshole to do it. He climbed in, and the plane began to taxi.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Gus yelled, as he realized they were turning away from the Shipping Center - away from their team. He’d taken a seat in the back out of habit. He could have hopped into the co-pilot seat, but they’d fallen into a particular seating arrangement on the two long flights they’d taken, and he’d just maintained the status quo without thinking. So if Walton responded, he couldn’t hear it. There was no intercom, no radio in the passenger compartment. The guy could have given him the recipe for Trout Almandine, or told him to fuck off, for all he knew, and there wouldn’t be a whole lot he could do about either, except kick the shit out of the bastard as soon as they landed. He couldn’t do it before. He didn’t know how to fly a plane, didn’t know the first fucking thing about it. He would just have to let the fucker leave their friends behind and hope the revenge would be as sweet as all the stories say.
Then he saw the wisdom to Walton’s madness. Their looping path would take them right along the front of the warehouse, right past where the others would be running for their lives. Plus, they were lined up on the runway. He’d been an idiot, automatically thinking the worst of the man, while Harvey had been doing the right thing. You’re an asshole, Gus he thought, then pushed all that bullshit aside as he saw the crowd of zombies pouring through the door of the Shipping Center.
In twos and threes they came, stumbling, shuffling, tripping over those who’d fallen, then being tripped over themselves. He’d seen the imagery before, but couldn’t place it at first. Then he did. It looked like the result of a kicked ant hill, the occupants scrambling to get out, crawling all over themselves, each of the tiny insects looking somehow pissed off.
They shambled after the four human men, who were running for their lives. Walton slowed the craft, trying to match their progress toward them. Barber arrived first, grabbing Gus’s outstretched hand as he leapt aboard. Then Weaver tried and failed to get a grip. Duke came rushing behind him, picked the kid up off the ground and tossed him, face first, into the aircraft. He fell with a thud. Gus and Jim dragged him inside, getting out of Duke’s way as the large man dove straight in.
Jonesy came last, tossing his Thompson in first, then gripping both sides of the door and heaving. Barber yanked him by the collar, just as Walton shoved the throttle forward and the seaplane picked up speed.
Weaver slammed the door shut, and sat down hard on the wooden bench. He looked both flushed from exertion and whitewashed from shock - an odd combination. Barber scowled, Duke stared out the window at the disappearing hoard of zombies. Jonesy, still lying on the deck, smiled and gave a thumbs up. They had escaped. They were unhurt. They were alive.
Jonesy rolled to his feet, then shouted: “I thought that went well.”
48
USCGC Sassafras
23.0348491N 169.5300029W
“That was a gigantic pile of horseshit,” Jim Barber growled. They were seated around the Wardroom table: Molly and John at the head and foot, Jim and Gus and Harvey on one side, Jonesy, Duke and Frank Roessler, on the other. Molly could feel the tension in the room, but didn’t quite know what to do about it.
On the one hand, Barber was right: the mission had been a spectacular failure. On the other hand...
“We got out alive, didn’t we?” Jonesy said. He sounded defensive, but not overly. It had been his plan. It failed. But they had gotten out alive.
“No thanks to your great plan,” Barber replied.
“As I recall, you didn’t object to it,” John said, in a calm voice.
“But you did,” Gus chimed in. Of the bunch, he seemed the most shaken by the experience. Seemed odd, since he’d stayed with the plane, but Molly could understand how he felt. She hated remaining behind.
“Yes,” she said. “John did, and so did I - at first. The reasoning behind the plan was sound. The problems, it seems to me, stem from the lack of knowledge we all had, going in.”
Barber pointed at Jonesy. “He’s had the training. We haven’t.”
“Yeah,” Jonesy replied, a touch of anger in his voice. “I’ve had the training. In boarding vessels with humans on them. Real humans. Non-insane ones, not fucking zombies.” He looked at Molly. “Pardon my French.”
“Everybody take a breath,” Molly said. She needed to get control of this meeting before it spiraled out of control. “None of us have training or experience in this,” she said, looking at all of them, but directing her comments toward Barber. “Not me, not you, not him. Each and every time we reach out into this New World, we’re heading into uncharted territory. Mistakes are going to be made. Unforseen problems will come up.”
“And people could die,” Gus interjected.
Molly nodded. “Yes. They can. Almost certainly will.” She let the last bit sink in. She remembered an age-old screed: You gotta go out. You don’t have to come back. This had been the unofficial mentality of the Coast Guard since time immemorial, though never the official policy, of course. Such an idea would have been considered impolitic, at best, and blasphemy, at worst, regardless of its essential truth.
“Look,” Jonesy said. “Yeah, this was a shit-show. Yeah, we ran into problems.”
“Problems?” Barber exploded.
“Yeah, problems,” Jonesy said, his hackles up. He pointed at each of the assembled people. “This has always been a dangerous business. Forget the apocalypse. Before the Pomona Virus, we routinely went where no one in their right mind had any business going, either because some dumb son of a bitch just went there and we needed to rescue his ass, or to keep some other dumb son of a bitch from doing it in the future. That was the nature of the beast. That was the job.”
“Not for me, thank you very much,” Harvey Walton said.
“Like it or not,” John said, with a wry smi
le. “You’re in the Coast Guard now, Mister Walton.”
Harvey looked as if he might continue his objection, but then he leaned back into his chair and shut his mouth. Good, Molly thought. The last thing she needed was an objection from the peanut gallery.
“I’ve never had training or experience in invading enemy territory.” Jonesy continued. “I’m in the Coast Guard, not the Marine Corps. This is as new to me as it is to all of you.” He glanced around the table. “So, yeah, mistakes were made. My mistakes,” he said, eyeing Jim Barber, who looked about ready to launch into another tirade. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I learn from my mistakes.”
“And what did we learn today?” Duke said, with a sarcastic grin on his face.
“We learned that zombies are like cockroaches,” Jonesy replied.
Molly passed a hand over her head. “You lost me.”
“If you see a couple cockroaches running around, odds are there’s a couple hundred in your woodwork,” he explained.
“Good analogy,” Frank Roessler said.
Molly took heart in the loyalty being shown by the Sass crew. The plan had been a disaster - one which easily could have resulted in the death of one or all of them, and Jonesy sat at the head of the pecking order when it came to the blame game. But none of the Sass crew were taking advantage of the opportunity. None of them were joining in the bitch-fest. They were, to a man, remaining loyal.
“Thanks,” Jonesy said.
“So we learned...” Duke said, giving Jonesy the cue.
“We learned there could be a world of hurt behind every closed door. Everything we do, from this moment forward, is going to be a calculated risk.” he replied.
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Zombies In Paradise Page 14