“Yeah we could,” Jonesy agreed. “But we’re on the wrong island.”
“Better add it to the list for Oahu, then,” Duke said.
“I’ll get right on that,” Jonesy replied, easing his way to the corner of the building and sneaking a glance into the darkness beyond. Nothing stirred. Not even a zombie mouse.
What he saw, however, was a bread truck, parked nose-in against the corner of the next building. The parking job didn’t look intentional. It looked abandoned.
“Come on,” Jonesy whispered into the integrated microphone of his face guard. “Let’s see if the key’s still in it.”
66
COMMSTA Honolulu
Sand Island, Oahu
“...Honolulu, This is United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, two-one-eight-two. Over.” The static Amber had been listening to for hours suddenly sliced into sharp focus and the Star came through, loud and clear.
“Holy shit!,” Scott Pruden said, leaping out of his chair. Amber might have executed a similar move, but her left leg had fallen asleep, and her butt felt as if she’d been sitting on a bag of ice. “Where’d they come from?”
“Who gives a damn?” Amber snapped, snatching the radio microphone out of its cradle. She could have given him a detailed lesson on sky wave propagation and thermal inversion, but now was not the time.
“Polar Star, this is COMMSTA Honolulu, Over.” The words shot out of her mouth like a fat farm convention in Vegas heading toward the buffet line, as if wasting one single second on breathing might make the difference between connecting to the ship and losing it forever - which was, in fact, more than a little possible.
She waited, breathless, her heart not daring to beat. Please answer, she thought. Please Dear God, she added, giving proof to the adage about atheists and foxholes. She needn’t have worried.
“COMMSTA Honolulu, Jesus Christ, but it’s good to hear your voice!” The reply violated all sorts of military procedures covering radio discipline, but Amber heard none of it, registered none of it, and wouldn’t have cared in any case.
“Roger, Polar Star,” she said, struggling to remain calm. “Same, same. What’s your status, over?”
A burst of static cut through the air like a fart in church, and went over about as well, as it threatened to send Amber’s heart into defibrillation.
“...maintaining station, as per PACAREA orders. Over.” The static cleared, and her cardiac muscle stopped trying to dance the Rhumba.
She vaguely remembered seeing the message traffic, ordering the Star to run the Box of Death and wait for the High Endurance Cutters to come by for refueling, but that had been three weeks ago. Or was it four? Didn’t matter. Grabbing the Secret board from beneath a pile of magazines she’d been reading before the power went out, she tossed it to Pruden.
“Find the message,” she ordered. “PACAREA to Polar Star. Dig up that position.” Scott obeyed, though it seemed questionable whether or not he knew what he was looking for.
Another voice came up on the radio: deeper, more authoritative. The CO? She wondered. Probably. “Status of other units. Over.”
A momentary wave of paranoia took hold, as she questioned the advisability of broadcasting the information in the open, but she shoved it aside.
“Sassafras is operating off of Kauai, trying to get Assateague back in operation. They’ve set up a base on Midway, and they’ve acquired a seaplane and pilot.”
“Your status? Over.”
“Operational,” she replied. “Base is overrun, but some survivors have been sighted. No direct comms. Over.”
“Understood,” the male voice replied. “Proceeding north. Polar Star, out.”
67
USCGC Polar Star
14.01859 N 177.021631W
“Petty Officer Reilly,” the CO barked. “Plot us a course to Honolulu.”
“Aye, sir,” BM3/OPS Greg Reilly replied, spinning to the chart table.
Hall turned to LTjg Montrose. “Call the engineroom, have them light off Number Two. Turns for sixteen knots.”
“Aye, sir!” Amy Montrose picked up the center console phone and dialed Main Control, a feeling of mixed relief and joy dancing through her nerve endings, delighted at finally being able to do something.
SN Pat Querec slid into the helm position, ready for her order. Seemed everybody felt as she did. The pointless monotony, the physical and emotional sensation of drifting there in the Box of Death, the senselessness of the Pomona Virus and everything it wrought, combined into a feeling af oppressive weight in the soul of the entire crew.
Being on a polar icebreaker, perhaps more than any other Coast Guard ship, meant long stretches of nothing but Underway as before - each day being no different than the last, or the one before that, or the one before that. It wore on people, the way the ground gets worn on a well-used path through the forest. But they’d always been going somewhere, doing something - not steaming in endless circles waiting for what they all felt certain was dead and gone: a sign of the old world they knew.
Amy felt a deep thrum as the Number Two Main Diesel Engine started. She gave Querec a smile. He returned it.
“Recommend course zero-five-two,” Reilly said, looming up from the chart.
“Helmsman,” LT Amy Montrose barked. Pat Querec didn’t quite snap to attention, but it was close. “Come to course zero-five-two.”
“Yes, ma’am!” He replied, with obvious relish. Time to move.
68
M/V Point of Order
Palmyra Atoll
Felix Hoffman scratched his ass and ruminated about life in general, and his own life, in particular, wondering: How the Hell did I get here? A valid question, to be sure.
Blackjack Charlie abandoned him, left him to babysit the Point of Order, while everyone else got to enjoy the fruits of their newest acquisition: Palmyra Atoll. It felt good to have a land base - or would, if he were able to actually set foot on land. But, no. Charlie wanted him to cover the boat, wanted him to babysit, wanted him to be the good little minion and take care of the job nobody else wanted. This, Felix mused, was an old, old story.
He had often been left behind, cast aside, relegated to the sidelines and forgotten. Through childhood, high school, college - always the last to be picked, always the last to be considered. Even as the chemist at what proved to be the largest Ecstacy lab in California history, he seemed to be secondary, as if his presence were unnecessary - in spite of all evidence to the contrary. He was ignored, always and forever, Amen.
We’ll just see about that, he thought. The idea made him smile. Soon... Not right away. Not today or tomorrow, or next week - maybe next month. But soon.
Felix Hoffman had a secret: he knew how to make the vaccine. He might not know the exact details, but he did know the process. The very nature of the secret, however, precluded him from telling anyone, least of all Blackjack Charlie Carter, but the knowledge, the reality, the truth of it made him smile, because he knew something else, as well.
He knew where that other ship had gone.
True North was its name, though they hadn’t known it when they tried to hijack it. Felix, himself, wouldn’t know, if not for a lovely little byproduct of being forever overlooked.
He’d been on the Bridge of the Corrigan Cargo III, which had since been turned over to the command of that Neanderthal, Davis McGee, who’d stuck him with the night watch, because no one else wanted it. During one of those watches, he’d been playing with the radio, which no one thought he knew anything about, and he happened upon a communication between Sassafras, and none other than True North. They were together, or had been.
And since they were together, and since they had established a base on Midway, there could only be one place for the True North to be - and nobody knew it but poor, forgotten, Felix Hoffman. He smiled.
Soon...
69
Medical Clinic/Lab
Midway, Atoll
; Clara Blondelle slid through the door, out of the moonless black of the Midway night, and into the utter black of the Medical Clinic building. Were she the ruminating sort, she might have pondered the loss of technology, of modern conveniences, of the social bulwark of street lights and neon and basic illumination, that banished the darkness of their ancestor’s past, making the world safe and secure, and a place in which one could actually see where they were going. She was not, however, so instead she thought: why’s it so fucking dark?
She’d brought a tiny flashlight, barely larger than a lipstick (stolen, of course - they were so gullible, so trusting), but hadn’t wanted to use it during her walk from the pier, for fear of being seen. Being seen would be bad. Being seen would tip people off to her plan.
They wouldn’t miss her, wouldn’t pine away for her to return, wouldn’t regret their harsh words and treatment, their bitchiness, their cruelty. They wouldn’t give one single, solitary rat’s ass that she left them, but they might miss the sailboat, and they would miss the vaccine.
She had a vague notion where in the building they made the lab: towards the back. She heard Stephanie Barber talking about it with her mother. But kind of knowing, and finding the place with this tiny flashlight were two different things. It was just so goddamned dark. And the light did little more than make shadows. But that, dear friends, was the reason for her little nocturnal excursion.
It was a test run. She wouldn’t be leaving tonight. Too soon. She didn’t yet know enough to make the journey on her own. Not yet. Tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Soon.
Waiting for the Barber bitch’s daughter and the Nutty Professor to come back to True North, she’d poured through a book called: Sailing Directions, trying to decide where she would go. North was out of the question. Nothing that way but empty ocean, and maybe Alaska. Too cold. Too far. Heading East would only bring her back to America, and America was filled with zombies. Too scary. West, maybe. Nothing that way but Guam, between her and Japan. Not good enough. South seemed promising. Plenty of islands to the South. Big damned ocean, though. Finding them would be a bitch. If she missed... Better not. Good reason to wait another day or two, and learn more from Teddy.
She found the lab, entered, found the refrigerator, vaguely understanding the vaccine needed to be kept cool. Opened it.
Inside were three racks containing vials, each with a different colored label: red, green, and white. The red ones, she knew, held the secondary booster, which she’d been given just yesterday.
It felt wrong, seemed as if injecting the stuff into her veins was like inviting a serial rapist into her home, but the actual sensation was always mild. Odd. She understood the basic process, knew it sent tiny bits of the zombie virus into her bloodstream, so her immune system could identify the stuff and kill it. They didn’t think she knew - didn’t think she knew anything - but she did. She knew plenty.
Unfortunately, she did not know which of the two remaining racks contained Primer vaccine, and which contained Booster. Not a good thing to leave to guess work. One more reason to stick around another day or two. She closed the refrigerator and began retracing her steps out of there.
But where to go?
The big map showed all sorts of tiny islands to the South, and with a little trial and error (and instruction from Teddy) she managed to identify the names and find the appropriate entries in the Sailing Directions. The closest would be Johnston Atoll, but, number one, the book said it had been used to store toxic chemicals, and, number two, Barber and that crazy British pilot were in the process of evacuating the three survivors they’d found. The place would be empty. Clara Blondelle did not want to be alone.
By process of elimination, then, she’d chosen her destination. It had people, should be isolated enough to have escaped the plague, and those people would, in any case, be grateful she came bearing vaccine. She thought of the atoll’s name as she exited the building, back into the moonless dark: Palmyra.
70
Port Allen
Kauai, HI
The body lay half-in/half-out of the bread truck. Mangled was the best description for its condition, but it seemed inadequate, given the lack of a head.
“It’s over here,” Duke whispered into the integrated microphone, pointing to a lump beneath the right front tire.
The guy had been short and thin, and apparently into Lady Gaga, judging by the tee-shirt he wore beneath his Happy Bread Co. coveralls. Jonesy swallowed his rising gorge and peered past the body into the cab, at the keys dangling from the ignition. “We’re in business,” he said. “Get in,” he added, dragging the poor bastard the rest of the way onto the ground. Might as well have been a bag of laundry, for all the effort it took.
The key was turned to the off position. It seemed odd, given how the truck was “parked,” as if crashed and abandoned. Didn’t make sense that the engine would have been turned off, but then, very little made sense these days, and in any event, he didn’t have time for a forensic investigation. They had work to do.
The engine caught with a quiet purr. Somebody had taken good care of it. Maybe the Lady Gaga fan. Maybe not. Didn’t matter.
“Will you look at that?” Duke said, staring into the rear compartment.
Where there should have been bread - would have been bread in a world not overrun by zombies - there was instead stacks and stacks of ... stuff, was the best way Jonesy could think to describe it: camping gear and dry food, water bottles and loaded backpacks, books, unmarked cardboard boxes, a boom box (though where the guy thought he’d find electricity for it, remained a mystery). And right in the middle of everything sat a big damned motorcycle. Harley, he guessed.
Now why does that make my brain tingle? He thought. Something
caught in his head, scratching at his consciousness - an idea yearning to be free. Then he had it.
He keyed the radio over to broadcast. “Sassafras, Ground Team. Over.”
“Go ground,” John Gordon’s voice replied into Jonesy’s ear.
“Get Gus Perniola out onto the pier,” he said, looking at Duke, who raised a questioning eyebrow. “We have a job opportunity for him.”
71
USCGC Sassafras
Port Allen, Kauai
“You want me to do what?” Gus snapped, staring at Jonesy as if the young man had lost his mind - which he clearly had.
“We want you to be the rabbit,” Jonesy replied, swinging open the large back door of the bread truck and revealing one of the sweetest sights Gus Perniola had ever seen: a Harley Davidson Electra Glide, dark blue, 1980, he thought. “Holy Christ in a sidecar, where did you find that?”
“In a tree,” Jonesy replied, deadpan. “Where do you think?”
“What are you thinking, Jonesy?” ENS Molly Gordon asked. She had come down to the pier in the small boat with John and Gus. John thought she was nuts, thought she should stay with the Sass, but she had insisted.
“Once we chase the zombies away, how are we going to gather the survivors?” Jonesy asked. “Can’t just have them stroll down the street.”
Made sense, Gus thought, still eyeing the gorgeous bike. He’d owned several Harleys over the years - his favorite being a 1980 Harley “T”: thirteen hundred. Forty CC’s of glorious thunder - though he’d always wanted an Electra Glide. But did he really want to be bait for a bunch of fucking zombies? He did not.
“So...” Molly prompted.
“So we empty out the bread truck,” Jonesy explained. “Take station near the residential area, while Gus runs through it on the bike shouting Hello Zombies.”
This was where the plan went right off the goddamned rails, in Gus’s not-so-humble opinion. He’d been called many things over the years, but zombie bait had never been one of them. He was about to expound on this certainty, when John spoke up.
“That bike should be loud enough, Gus,” he said. “And it’ll definitely be fast enough for you to get away from any unpleasantness.”
“Unpleasantness?” Gus blur
ted. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” He shouted, flicking his eyes toward Molly - the only woman present. If she’d been offended by the f-bomb, she didn’t show it. His wife always gave him shit about his salty language, bless her heart, but now was not the time to mince words.
“I’d do it,” John offered. “But the only thing I’ve ever ridden was a dirt bike.” He waved toward the Harley. “That thing’d kill me.”
Gus just stared at him. He was being manipulated, and he knew it.
“It’s the right idea, my friend,” John added.
“And you’re the only one who can do it,” Jonesy tossed in his two cents and sealed the deal.
He looked at them all, looking at him, then he glanced at that great big beautiful motorcycle, just sitting there, willing in him to say Yes.
“Fuck,” he said, hanging his head.
72
Kaumualii Highway
Port Allen, Kauai
Gus merged the Harley onto the highway off of Waialo Road. It was loud, the suspension felt wonky, and the motor ran a tad rough, but being on the big bike made him regret he’d left his Harley-T on True North. His own bike was in much better shape, and he wished he’d brought one of his few remaining Cuban cigars, but this was still pretty awesome - if he forgot the reason for the ride.
He’d roared past a few of the deranged former-humans (still had trouble calling them zombies) on the way through the wharf area. They’d seemed more like scenery, than any real threat, but as the bike sped down the highway, the doubts he’d been keeping in check resurfaced.
What the fuck did he think he was doing? He was fifty, for Christ sakes. You don’t go playing chicken with wandering maniacs at fifty. You were supposed to sit in a nice easy chair, smoke cigars, eat good food cooked on a grill, maybe go camping every now and then, hang out with old friends, laugh, fart, and talk about stupid shit, like what you used to do back in the day. You were supposed to grow old - if not willingly, then at least gracefully. You were not - absolutely not - ever - supposed to go on a suicide run in the middle of the zombie haunted darkness.
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Zombies In Paradise Page 18