Winchester Undead (Book 4): Winchester [Rue]

by Lund, Dave

  Patrol boat. Looks like it came from around the edge of the bay or one of the ships.

  A powerful spotlight blasted from the bow of the boat, which was over a mile to their north. The boat slowed and trolled slowly southward along the shore, shining the spotlight on the beach along the perimeter of the naval base.

  A hard concussion radiated out of the dark blob that was Kirk ahead of him; the suppressed sound of a ridiculously large .50BMG round wasn’t, in reality, very quiet. It just wasn’t as loud as it would have been. Snow watched the boat in his scope as the powerful spotlight exploded in a shower of shattered glass, draping darkness across the beach as a shadow fell from the bow of the boat into the water. It was hard to tell, but Snow believed it to be the man that had been operating the spotlight. The boat drifted towards the shore with the waves for a moment before the sound of the motors spinning up could be heard echoing across the water. Paralleling the shore, the boat rocketed towards where they lay. Snow tracked the boat with his rifle, moving ever so slightly to maintain his aim. He expected the vessel to look like what the U.S. Navy used, but this ship was smaller, much smaller, possibly something designed for rapid deployment and shore patrol. It all seemed surreal to Snow, in that the order was wrong. The container ships shouldn’t be anchored without a naval escort. At the least some sort of Corvette-class ship should be maintaining a patrol, with groupings of landing ships to offload men and material. The aerial lift campaign that they’d observed didn’t fit a normal operation for an invasion force.

  Maybe it’s all they had left to secure this bay? Maybe they fucked up and the virus got loose over there too?

  On the bow of the boat, as it quickly grew in the view of Snow’s scope, he could see a man standing behind some sort of heavy machine gun as they bounced across the incoming tide. The pilot house appeared to be unarmored. Snow placed the reticle of his optic just over the base of the man’s neck when he saw his head explode. Quickly shifting his point of aim to the pilot house, he could make out a shadow of the man at the controls as he heard the sound of the diesel motors screaming, pushed to full throttle. Snow fired and watched the figure disappear and heard the engines cut to idle. The boat continued in a long arc towards the beach, slowing as it drifted into the shallower water.

  The boat drifted towards the beach, being pushed by the tide inland; it appeared it would run aground about three-quarters of a mile north of their position. Kirk leapt to his feet and began a fast jog, as fast as his pack, large rifle, and ghillie suit would realistically allow him to run, trying to reach the boat. Snow followed quickly and Davis stayed in position, scanning their gloriously funny-looking run up the beach towards the approaching boat. Scanning the boat for survivors or any other personnel, Davis saw a figure climb into the pilot house; a gentle press of the trigger, and that dark figure fell out of view and the boat continued to drift towards shore.

  Davis scanned back and saw that Kirk and Snow were stripping out of their ghillie suits on the beach for the short swim to the boat. The swim against the tide took longer than the run, but he watched his teammates board the vessel. With pistols in hand, they cleared the boat quickly. It turned towards shore, and one of his teammates waved towards Davis to come to the boat before jumping over the gunwale into the chest-deep water. By the time Davis made the run up the shore, Kirk had gathered the ghillie suites, rifles, and rucks, acting as sherpa and carrying them out to the boat. Davis waded through the water, opting to leave his ghillie suit on, and a few minutes later was helped aboard by Kirk, Snow having taken the pilot’s position in the wheel house.

  Kirk quickly dressed and took the controls while Snow, shivering in the cold air, put his ghillie suit back on. Kirk guided the vessel gently northward along the shoreline, as if the patrol boat was continuing its previous search along the naval base. The discussion became lively, the remaining three dead bodies pooling blood on the rough deck.

  “Where do you think we should moor it on this side? Run it aground by our building?”

  “No Snow, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m just not sure we should go into the bay.”

  “Why the fuck not, Kirk? This is their boat, those are their own ships, and this is the first water-borne patrol we’ve seen. Not a single helicopter has flown overhead since dark and no planes are taking off or landing. This seems like the perfect time to steal a fucking boat and take it into the bay.”

  “Where do we put it?”

  “Tie it up in one of the civilian docks, dump the bodies overboard and take the keys.”

  “What keys?”

  “Dammit Kirk, I was speaking figuratively. Point being we would have an enemy patrol boat we could use. We just have to dock the damn thing somewhere that would lead them away from us if they find it.” He paused. “I have an idea, but first, Davis and Kirk, why don’t you get behind the gunwales so you won’t be seen. Let’s slow-roll the ships at anchor, then take the chance to check North Shore and the bay on the way by. Davis, hit the comms and tell Chief we’re coming around the bay in a patrol boat.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Coronado, CA

  March 14, Year 1

  Long before first light glowed across the eastern sky, the patrol boat that Kirk, Davis, and Snow had liberated was tied in a slip, hidden between two impressively sized yachts in Glorietta Bay. The patrol boat’s new parking spot was nearly a direct shot across the narrow part of Coronado from where they had swum out to the boat, less than half a mile, but in terms of over water they were miles away.

  The radio traffic on the boat’s lone radio was constant; none of it sounded too excited, but the three of them had no idea what was being said. The special language courses all of them attended would have been useful if a northern tribe from Afghanistan had decided to invade, but training in Mandarin hadn’t been offered. Chief was excited to have the boat, as he said he had a special plan in mind for it, but they kept radio transmissions short. The team members weren’t sure if the PLA were employing signal intelligence devices or trying to fixate on any radio transmissions. Fixing a location on the transmission wasn’t a problem, but what would be a problem was if the enemy realized that the MSOT was in the area at all.

  Snow keyed the radio. “Chief, screw’em, let them know, let them be scared, make them divert men and time to trying to find us. That will at least slow down their mission, over.”

  “Snow, I agree. Complete this operation and we’ll plan it out. Chief out.”

  Before departing from their new boat in the marina, the three of them had already decided to break the mission profile and work across the eastern side of the island towards the NAS. There was more cover, and with daylight approaching with each passing minute, they could set an observation post in one of the parks or the golf course across the bay from where they all guessed a cargo offload would occur.

  “Kirk, I think you’re right, but we have to convince Chief.”

  Davis nodded at Snow’s statement.

  The three of them broke cover from the overgrown landscaping next to the marina’s edge and began a slow patrol walk to the north along Strand Way. Zeds shambled between the homes on their right; as the men walked about twenty-five yards apart from each other, the three of them looked more like walking shrubbery with the ghillie suits diffusing their form. The undead saw them, but only a few took any interest and tried to follow. The rest seemed to ignore them as the three-man team moved silently along the roadway.

  Kirk raised his right hand with a fist before slowly lowering it with his palm flat. All three of them melted into the shaggy grass next to a tree on the side of the road. Kirk, walking point, took the tactical area of responsibility to the front, Davis angled towards the homes on their left and Snow held tactical security to the rear. Their right flank was covered by way of the shaggy trees and fences separating the sidewalk from the tennis courts.

  Headlights bounced across the face of the houses ahead of them to the north. The headlights continued around the corner and soon wer
e visible and approaching quickly. The vehicle turned right and stopped in the middle of the intersection, engine running, headlights still on, but facing away from the Marines. It was a four-door ruck that looked vaguely like a Jeep. Davis resisted the urge to sweep the muzzle of his big rifle to the right, instead daring to only move his eyes. Kirk keyed the radio four times without saying a word. Four men. Davis and Snow both keyed once in succession to acknowledge the transmission.

  Kirk watched as the four men got out of the truck, leaving it idling in the middle of the intersection, while they lit cigarettes and pointed to the tennis courts and then to the homes. Their voices could faintly be heard.

  Well whatever, assholes, at least you don’t know we’re here, and if you’re stupid enough to stand in the middle of a road to smoke you don’t deserve the opportunity. Kirk slowed his breathing and lined up the first shot, the man who appeared to be in charge. He was the only one of the four without a rifle, only a pistol holstered on his right hip. Letting out his breath slowly, Kirk slowly pressed the rifle trigger to the rear. Just as he fired the impossibly large 50BMG round, decapitating the officer, one of the other men’s head exploded. A follow-up shot from Davis left a fist-sized hole in the third man’s chest, and Kirk’s last shot resulted in the last man’s head vaporizing into a fine mist. Less than one hundred yards away, the huge, nearly six-inch-long round’s fourteen-thousand-foot-pounds of force was designed to punch through armored plating. Against four men the results were nearly comical, if especially violent.

  The three of them stood and sprinted towards the still-running vehicle, Davis shouldering his short-barreled M4, Kirk and Snow both with pistols out, their four-foot-long Barrett-made rifles left behind temporarily.

  “Turn the lights off.”

  “Sure Snow, I’m trying to but I can’t read this damned shit.”

  Davis, ignoring both of them, went to the front of the vehicle and smashed in the glass headlights with the butt of his M4.

  Kirk laughed. “This thing looks like the bastard love child of a Jeep, a Humvee, and a Land Rover!”

  “Whatever, clean the scene and exfil … let’s take our new transportation on a tour of the island.”

  With Davis’ suggestion, they each dragged a body out of the road and hid them behind a low railing on the front porch of a home on the corner. The only body of the four with a head received a pistol round to the skull to keep it from walking back later. The three Marines checked in the cargo area of the vehicle and climbed into the Chinese-made Jeep-truck thing, not knowing or caring what it was really called.

  Looking around the dash, the labels on all the switches and gauges might as well have not been there for all the help they gave Davis, but fortunately the numbers on the gauges were regular numbers. After a few moments the vehicle was in drive and the team continued on their journey in the second commandeered vehicle of the evening.

  “Shit, guys, if this keeps up we’ll be able to open up a used car and boat lot in a few days. We could offer financing in-house, like you pay three chickens a month for thirty-six months and this beauty could be yours.”

  Davis and Snow both looked at Kirk and shook their heads. Choosing to ignore the bad joke, Snow said, “Headlights, no operational security, no tactics, I think that tells us a lot about what our invaders think.”

  Glancing at Snow, Davis asked, “Like what?”

  “First of all, if a patrol was worried about an oppositional force they would have been traveling dark, using NODs, and they sure as shit wouldn’t have dismounted to smoke in the middle of the damn road.”

  Kirk shrugged, unnoticeable in the heavy ghillie suit. “Who knows, maybe they have night vision and weren’t using them? Maybe the air patrols already called this area clear?”

  “Speaking of which, they haven’t been flying at night.”

  “You know what that means, Davis; they don’t have shit for night vision gear.”

  “Then fuck’em, we own the night; let’s gate crash the NAS and see what we can find.”

  The other two nodded. Davis turned left onto Third Street and drove at a steady fifty kph, remembering that was near thirty mph.

  San Diego Harbor

  The Zodiac slowed at the edge of the wall along the walkway of the bay side of the Hilton Hotel. Rows and rows of Dole tractor trailers sat in the shipping yard next to the hotel, and the smell of rotting bananas was surprisingly strong. Hammer and Gonzo climbed out of the boat and onto the large concrete walkway. Moving slowly and methodically towards the hotel’s parking garage, they would take the next to highest level to give them overhead coverage, using the shadows to observe the commercial pier to their left.

  Over the sound of the water lapping against the built-up shoreline, thumps of Zeds against the windows of the high-rise hotel could be heard. Aymond shook his head. Seems like an impossible task. Millions of Zeds, trapped, walking, waiting … all it takes is one bite, one fucking bite …

  The original recon boat patrol that Happy, Chuck, and Aymond had planned was essentially accomplished by Kirk, Davis, and Snow after they stole the Chinese patrol boat. Adapting the mission, Aymond and his crew now had time left to wrap around North Island and check Point Loma, specifically the Naval Base and submarine berths there. Even if the Naval Base was home to the dead, on the point near the historic lighthouse they would have a good vantage point to observe the big Panamax ships at anchor. First they had to get around the bay, land and stash the Zodiac.

  Cortez, CO

  “Dude, there are a shit ton of them out there still. Seems like the whole town went on vacation and then came back to say hi to us! So we’re stuck in here, no wheels, surrounded by the dead …”

  “Bexar, you worry too much. Adapt and overcome, remember? All we have to do is work the problem one step at a time. Besides, we still have those giant cans of refried beans we found in the cafeteria; that’ll feed us for a couple of weeks.”

  “As bad as you smell already I don’t want to be around you for two weeks of nothing but refried beans.”

  Chivo continued, unphased. “What do we have we can use for a diversion? Something simple but something that will be big.”

  “You could whip up your secret squirrel solution in glass jars like before, but we didn’t find any glass jars. Think you could do it with a lifetime supply of Styrofoam cups from the cafeteria?”

  Smiling, Chivo said, “That’s it, mang. Styrofoam. How much fuel did you find over in the athletic faculty’s storage?”

  “About ten gallons between three cans and a UTV.”

  “Go get it and meet me in the cafeteria. Also, we need bungee cords or surgical tubing or something, but that’s for later; see what you can get.”

  Before Bexar could ask what the deal was, Chivo was already headed down the hall towards the cafeteria, singing “Napalm sticks to little children, all the children of the world …”

  “Seriously, something is wrong with that guy,” Bexar muttered to himself.

  He walked through the locker room and weight room towards the football faculty’s storage they had found the previous night, but stopped at a squat rack. Hanging on the wall were large silicone bands that were used in weight training. Different colors for different band resistances. He grabbed all of them and stuffed them between his ammo carrier and his shirt. In the faculty’s storage Bexar picked up the two plastic gas cans and shook them. They were both practically full, so if Chivo needed more than this he would have to return and syphon gas out of the UTV.

  Ten minutes later, Bexar walked into the cafeteria to find Chivo standing over four large stainless pots; each of them so large they had to be measured by gallons and not by quarts. Two boxes of Styrofoam cups were open next to him. Pulling groups of cups out of the boxes, Chivo crumbled them into one of the pots.

  “Come give me a hand with this; we need to crumble all of the cups into this pot before we pour the gas into the other pots. Then we slowly stir in the Styrofoam.”

  “What then?
”

  “Didn’t you ever read the Anarchist Cookbook? Napalm, mano, well, not real napalm, but not a bad substitute for our needs considering the circumstances.”

  “Great, then what?”

  “Did you find any bungee cords?”

  “I have these.”

  “Perfect. We pour this shit back into the cans, light ‘em with a rag and launch them like a fucking water balloon into the singlewides across the street. Maybe fire a few rounds off and let the flames bring the fucking dead to the fire like bugs to the zapper. We sneak out the back and hop the fence into the neighborhood to the north. We still don’t have wheels, but have faith. We work the problem one step at a time.”

  Bexar shrugged and crumbled a handful of cups into the large pot.

  Groom Lake, NV

  “Bill, I appreciate what you’re doing. So many survivors are still out there, and the fact that they’re coming here and we’ve started a new community is really all your doing. I’m impressed.”

  “Thank you, Jake. My concern is that we’re only reaching out via different radio frequency broadcasts. I wish there was a way we could reach more people. How many people can the facility hold at maximum capacity?”

  “Wright says twenty-five hundred, but I’m not sure that people would like to be packed in here like that. Right now we have a certain level of comfort and privacy, which would be lost. What do you think about establishing aboveground “towns”? There are supposedly thirty dormitories aboveground here.”

  “If we could power them … perhaps with power from this facility, or maybe they have their own power source that we don’t even know about … and if we can establish security aboveground, then it would be a good idea. Power might be the easiest hurdle to overcome; I know that we still have undead meandering in over the mountains somehow. I know some of our residents are glad they don’t have to worry about surviving, but are unhappy about being forced to live underground. They want sunsets and rain.”