Guardians of the Apocalypse Book Four:
Zombies of Infamy
a novel by Jeff Thomson
Copyright 2019, Twisted Synapse Books, llc, Las Vegas, NV
All rights reserved
Cover Art created by www.rockingbookcovers.com
The idea for this story was suggested by the scenario posited in John Ringo’s Black Tide Rising series; (Baen Books, Wake Forest, NC). As such, there are similarities: both are Military Theme Zombie Fiction, both take place in a marine environment, and both involve a viral outbreak. The plot, characters, locale, branch of service, and focus are all different. Some of the science is the same, but science is science, and you can’t just make stuff up. Having said that, the author believes in giving credit where credit is due, so thank you Mister Ringo. Well done, sir. You can find his books on Baen.com and Amazon.com
Thanks also to Mr Lane Keely, and Ms. Doc Fried, Ms. Pamela Troup, Mr. Jim Westhoff, and Ms. Theresa Shaver for being beta readers, along with an extra special thank you to Mr Jim Barber for his continued support and assistance in my writing efforts.
Feel free to contact the author: [email protected]
As was the first book in this series, You’re Never Ready for a Zombie Apocalypse, this book is dedicated to the men and women of the United States Coast Guard: past, present, and future. You do an incredibly difficult job, with incredibly few thanks, and are the butt of jokes from all the other services, but in my eyes (and in this book) you guys rock.
This is in many ways a love letter to the people I served with. Sorry, but with whom I served sounds far too pompous. The Grammar Nazis may feel free to kiss my ass.
I have “borrowed” the names of some of those people, because they are immortal in my heart, and so I thought I’d make them immortal in reality. You guys (and women) deserve it. You earned it.
For Frank Roesseler and Gus Perniola, just flip-flop the last names. Sorry guys, couldn’t resist.
The actions, thoughts and most of the literary personalities of those great people are of my own creation. I hope they don’t mind. As for the other names, I made them up. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead (or a zombie) is purely coincidental.
1
USS Paul Hamilton
07.484421N 162.794587W
“My Fellow Americans,” the Honorable Henry David Goddard began, and Blackjack Charlie Carter cringed, inwardly. Was this fucktard really going to start with that cliche? Was he really going to imitate Nixon?
“My fellow citizens,” Goddard continued. “My fellow survivors. We are met in the remains of the Old World. That world is dead. That world is gone.” He paused, casting his gaze around at the assembled remnants of the Hamilton’s crew. They were none of those things, anymore. They weren’t Americans, because America didn’t exist. They weren’t citizens, because you needed to have a country to be a citizen. They weren’t survivors (per se) because they were being held captive.
This was the sticky part. They were being held against their will, and their will was what Charlie needed. He needed their cooperation and assistance for one very simple reason: the Hamilton was sinking. And okay, it wasn’t sinking very fast, they weren’t going to have to abandon ship - at least not until the makeshift convoy arrived at Palmyra. Once there, Charlie needed their help to remove the weapons systems from the destroyer. Some of those systems would be going to the Corrigan Cargo III, which was keeping station not far off. Some would go to other vessels they had in their slowly growing fleet of yachts and island-hopping freighters. Some would be going ashore on Palmyra. All of them needed the Hamilton crew’s training and expertise to make it happen.
That wasn’t entirely true. Charlie’s band of pirates could - in theory - get the job done themselves. There were manuals for all of it - the Navy didn’t take a shit without a manual - and there were enough engineers and relatively competent buccaneers to make it happen. In theory. Eventually. But Charlie wanted it to happen now.
“The Chinese have a saying,” Goddard went on. “May you live in interesting times.” He chuckled, warming to his rhetorical task. The guy’s not half bad, Charlie wondered to himself. At least he can give a speech. “We are certainly doing that. But interesting times, trying times, times of disaster, and tragedy, and war, call for interesting measures. You are to be part of those measures.”
And if you don’t, Charlie thought. If you refuse, then I’ll kill you, and let the sharks feed on your carcass.
2
The Rooftop
Honolulu, HI
“What have you guys been eating?”
"Come on," Wendy said, with a wicked grin. "We'll show you."
The familiar tickle of fear rustled its way through the tumbleweeds inside Jonesy’s sleep-deprived brain and wound up - as usual - running laps around his gonads. What have they been eating? He thought, as he followed them to a small access door, near the large fans that gave ventilation to the tower. Am I really going into a zombie-filled building with potential cannibals?
The scenario scrolled through his mind in HD and Surround Sound: he follows them into the bowels of this monolith, chatting amiably about this and that, as they wind their way deeper and deeper into the darkness. One of them slows their pace. Probably the woman - Wendy. That would be the least suspicious. She gets behind him. Then it’s a club to the back of the head, and the next thing he knows, he’s Jonesy Tar Tar.
The idea tap danced around his cerebellum, twirling and cavorting, spinning faster and faster, like some mad dervish. They’re going to eat me. They’re going to fucking eat me. Then he mentally smacked himself upside the head for the foolishness of being afraid while covered in armor and deadly weapons. Let them try something...
Mac, the dog, wiggled his furry butt through the cramped opening, wagging his tail as he led the way into the darkness beyond.
“Come on, fat boy, we haven’t got all night,” Wendy said to the dog, who - admittedly - did not appear to be in any real hurry.
He also didn’t seem to feel any fear. Jonesy had known plenty of dogs in his life that were dumb as a post, but even the most brain dead of them sensed fear and/or danger with far greater acuity than their human counterparts. And Mac didn’t show any signs of it. Interesting...
Three possibilities occurred to him: either the animal was so perfectly laconic that he wouldn’t so much as twitch if an entire regiment of screaming zombies were on their way; or he wasn’t completely brain dead and there wasn’t any immediate threat; or, the dog - along with his masters - was batshit insane, and could, at any moment, turn and devour Jonesy.
Fat Boy...
What had the dog been snacking on? He didn’t look at all hungry. He looked as if this apocalypse hadn’t affected him in the least. Why? How?
The tingling sensation returned to his balls, as they led him down a metal staircase. They paused at the fire door in the stairwell, waiting for something. He looked around, straining his ears to see if he could hear anything, see anything, sense anything. But Marc and Wendy were paying attention to Mac, who, backlit by the waning evening light streaming through the open access hatch, sniffed at the door, paused, sniffed again, then wagged his tail and turned his head to give his humans a toothy, panting grin.
“Good boy, Mac,” Marc said, scratching the fuzzy ears. “He’s our early warning system,” he explained.
Jonesy tapped his respirator, and asked: “How can he smell anything in all this stench?”
Marc shrugged. “Hasn’t failed us yet,” he said. “Have you, boy?” Mac snorted, and flicked his tail a few times, then he sat, and looked as if he m
ight resume his repose upon the concrete of the stairwell.
“Excitable, though, isn’t he?” Jonesy marveled.
“Total maniac,” Wendy replied, opening the door and peering into the hallway beyond.
Jonesy followed husband, wife, and dog down a carpeted hallway. It was pitch dark inside, so he turned on one of his helmet flashlights. Marc looked around, as if this were an interesting, but unimportant development.
"What do you know?" He asked Wendy. "Lights do make it easier."
“Learn something new everyday,” she replied.
What Jonesy wanted to learn - needed to learn - was how they’d managed to survive all this time and come out looking better than their fellow refugees. He needed to know what they’ve been eating. The knowledge could very well save his own life.
They traversed the hallway, then came to another metal door. Mac did his sniffing trick again, wagged his tail again, and Wendy led them into another stairway. They descended through four more floors, with the dog sniffing at each fire door, before they finally entered another hallway.
This cavalcade of possible cannibals reached a door on the left side, about halfway down. Marc pulled a small black box from his pocket, trailing wires, which he attached to another small box (this one white, and looking like a garage door opener), which he pulled from his other pants pocket. Each time the man reached into a pocket, Jonesy’s fingers twitched toward his right-hand forty five. Something - some inner sense - told him they weren’t a threat, but that didn’t mean he’d be taking any chances.
Having put the two halves of the gadget together, Marc inserted two metal prongs - looking quite a bit like the cut remnants of a wire clothes hanger - into the electronic key assembly above the door handle, and pressed a button on the white box. Jonesy heard a quiet zzzt of electricity, followed by the audible click of a lock.
Marc looked at him and shrugged. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” he said.
“And larceny is the mother of your inventiveness,” Wendy said in mock-reproval. The handle was depressed, the door was opened, and Wendy led them into a spacious apartment. Or, at least, it seemed spacious, from what Jonesy could tell from the combination of ambient light, coming through the sliding glass door at the far end of the space, and the loom of his flashlight.
Wendy moved with apparent ease, except for nearly tripping over the suddenly underfoot dog, who plodded his way to the large couch, climbed up and assumed his clearly-favored, supine position. She plopped herself onto the few remaining feet of couch not occupied by a large chocolate lab, and said: “We were pretty well stocked when the world turned to shit.”
“That was smart,” Jonesy replied, cautious. He remained standing, keeping both husband and wife in view.
“And we rationed ourselves,” Marc added. “Though the junk food was the first to go.” He nudged Wendy with the toe of his sneaker. “This one used to live on junk food,” he said, sitting on the padded arm next to his wife.
“And I still managed to keep my girlish figure,” she teased.
“Yes, honey,” Marc said in that comfortable way couples who’d been together for years have of giving each other shit.
“But even with that, the food didn’t last long,” Wendy continued.
“So how...?” Jonesy asked. This was the question he wanted answered. Watching the two of them together, bantering in good-natured affection, might have been mildly charming, under other circumstances, but these weren’t those circumstances, and he needed a definitive answer - preferably one that didn’t include the consumption of human flesh.
Marc waved his two-piece gadget, and set it on the end table.
“We did a bit of breaking and entering,” he said.
3
USCGC Polar Star
22.252085 N 160.896775 W
“Star fix, minute fifty eight has us dead on track, making eighteen knots,” BM1/OPS Jeff Babbett announced, with a mixture of both pride and relief. Pride, in that the evening star fix at Nautical Twilight had actually worked, and relief, in that it had actually worked in front of the Conning Officer, Master Chief Wolf - his boss - who now wouldn’t have an excuse to tear him a new asshole for failing to get it right. It’s the little things, he thought.
The Master Chief grunted something that sounded like, “Very well,” then asked: “ETA?”
“It’s one hundred eighty-one miles to Honolulu. Eighteen knots, ten hours,” he replied. “Put us there right around 0600.”
“Very well,” Master Chief replied, then resumed his grumpy silence.
“What do you think it’ll be .like when we get there?” Seaman Apprentice Tyler Jacoby asked. It was the question every member of the crew had.
Up until this point, the idea of the apocalypse had been just that - an idea. Yes, they’d seen Guam. Yes they’d talked endlessly about the chaos and horror they found there. Yes, it still gave some of them nightmares. But Guam was a speck in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, and what they’d seen there was nothing compared to what awaited them in Hono. They all knew this. They all feared it. And Jeff Babbett had the sinking suspicion that even their worst fever dreams wouldn’t come close to the reality of what they were sailing into.
So what did Jeff think it would be like? “Hell,” he said. “We’re heading into Hell.”
4
USS Paul Hamilton
07.484421N 162.794587W
“We all must do our part,” Goddard - who may or may not be the new President of the United States (and Fire Control Technician - Aegis, Second Class, Morris Minooka was reserving judgement on that score) - said, in a calm, even, friendly voice. It sounded good. It sounded reasonable. But from Morris’s experience, bullshit was often presented in a calm, even, friendly, voice, and it always sounded reasonable - unless the person presenting it was so obviously bad at bullshitting a ten year-old could spot the lie. “And your part, now, is to help us with this Great Endeavor.” The man paused for dramatic effect. All politicians paused for dramatic effect, as if there were some school where they all learned how to twist the English language into sound bites suitable for mass-manipulation. The Machiavelli School for Advanced Horseshit, Morris thought. He could just see the sign now.
“You may think you’re just a tiny cog in the great machinery of government and world power, but let me tell you, folks, right here, right now, you’re some of the most important people in our world.” He made a point of meeting each and every eye, as if to convey how with them he was. If Morris didn’t know better, didn’t know the lengths to which they were prepared to go, hadn’t seen them torture that poor bastard, Abernathy, he might actually start to believe the guy.
Abernathy...
He’d hated the fuckwad, despised almost everything the asshole stood for, but what they’d done to him, what they’d put him through... That was fucked up. A chill ran through his spine, raced around his heart, did a few laps around his tail bone, and ended up lodged in the bottom of his scrotum. It could have happened to me. He looked toward the head pirate - the real man in charge, the Pirate King. It still might...
And yet, there might be an opportunity, here. Goddard could be the actual President. Morris had his doubts., but, at the very least, the pirates would need to keep up the facade of the man’s position. If they weren’t going to, then why expend the effort now? But if they were going to, it’d mean they had to at least present the appearance of legitimacy. They would have to stop the constant threats, stop treating them like prisoners or slaves, and therein lay their opportunity: Get the pirates to ease off, gain access to the weapons, and then strike. All they needed to do was survive.
“Because we’re alone out here in the wilderness,” Goddard continued. “And out here, there be monsters.”
5
Polar Star Ground Team
Lihue, Kauai
“Jeez,” Rene Batiste, their token Public Affairs guy, swore - as much as he ever swore. “Doesn’t that thing ever shut up?” He was referring to the
howling zombie, who’d been going at it for... LTjg Carol Kemp consulted her watch: over two hours.
“You’d think he’d lose his voice,” Carol replied.
Batiste had been elevated from Public Affairs to Official Historian, by order of Captain Hall. He was there to document all they did. Not that they were going to do much, compared to what the rest of the crew would be doing in Honolulu (where their other PA, Jim Westhoff, would have the unenviable task of putting into words the unspeakable horrors they would witness), but, here on Kauai, this was their first direct involvement with the civilians they were sworn to protect.
And yeah, okay, the helo crews were rescuing people, but those hotdogs always got the limelight. About time the mere mortals shared it a bit
They’d be getting their chance in the morning, because the morning would bring with it the assault on the hospital. She would be leading that assault. It was correct and proper she should do so, given her lofty rank. She was in charge. She would need to lead them. But just now, in the night, with so many long thoughts swirling through her head, she was scared shitless.
6
USCGC Sassafras
Sand Island, HI
“...Ground Team, Eight-Three.” LT Carrie Scoggins voice called over the radio. Molly listened in - both because it was her job to monitor this operation, and because of a particular someone out there on top of that building, in the middle of the nightmare of Honolulu. She tried to be dispassionate, tried to be professional, tried to ignore her feelings. Tried and failed.
He was out there, again; in the thick of it, again; risking his life for others, again, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about any of it. She couldn’t directly control what would happen to him, what he would face, what he would need to do to survive, any more than she could control her feelings, her desires, or her heart.
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