Why was that?
What was that?
An order...
Someone had given him an order.
Something popped his thought balloon - though Lawrence David Woodruff heard no accompanying sound, other than the echo of his shoes walking down the tiled deck. A conversation replaced it, driving everything else from his mind like a herd of stampeding cattle.
“As weapons officer,” an older man was saying, “you have one additional responsibility not spelled out in the Watch, Quarter and Station Bill. It doesn’t appear in writing at all, anywhere, except maybe some filing cabinet deep inside the Pentagon. It is to be considered above Top Secret.”
“Yes, sir,” Lawrence David Woodruff remembered himself saying.
“Should anything happen to me, anything to incapacitate me and/or render me unable to execute my duty, the duty falls to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Should this vessel ever be seized by a foreign or hostile entity, your job - your duty - is to destroy the ship.”
One nine November Echo six three two seven Charlie Golf nine-nine-five Delta Uniform Tango six STAR, STAR one-one-three EXECUTE.
Lawrence David Woodruff suddenly knew what he had to do.
But, wait... Something was off. Something was not quite right. This ship, the one he was on now, was different. It wasn’t that ship. Or was it? Things had become confused since...whatever...happened. He stopped and stood, like a statue, in the middle of the empty passageway. Off in the distance, a sound did break in, did penetrate his confused mind: the sound of gunfire.
Whatever ship he was on, was clearly in danger.
He knew what he had to do.
164
Warehouse 14
Ford Island, Oahu
“...Assateague, open fire!” The voice of CWO2 Jones called through the tiny speaker of the hand-held radio on which the remains of the First Squad of Hotel Company, Third Combat Logistics Battalion, Third Marine Regiment were listening to the rescue unfold.
In the distance - some seven or eight miles, as the crow flew - Staff Sergeant McNaughton heard the distinct thump of the Bushmaster chain gun. He doubted the Coasties called it that, though. No bushes on the water.
They’d all been glued to the radio, listening to the game that might very well determine whether or not they survived the apocalypse. They still had food, and they’d just been dropped an adequate supply of bottled water. They could survive for a while longer, but only a little while. Sooner or later, they were going to have to get out of that warehouse. He sincerely doubted they could do it without the Coast Guard’s help, and the Coast Guard was on a suicide mission.
But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe they would pull it off. Maybe enough of them would survive to come rescue what might be the only remaining Marines on Oahu.
“Rapid Response, this is Duck Bus,” the voice of the female officer, Lieutenant, Junior Grade Gordon, whose ass, he thought, every single man in his squad would dearly love to kiss (among other things), said.
“Go, Duck,” another female voice answered.
“Even the chicks are badass,” Private Chesney said.
“I’ll bet she’s hot, too,” Private Patrelli added.
“Shut your pie holes,” McNaughton snapped, not wanting to miss anything.
“Rendezvous at Kahanamoku Lagoon,” Gordon’s voice said. “Once we get in the water, come alongside to take some of these survivors off our hands, so we don’t capsize.”
“Roger that,” the other female replied.
“Mall Cop,” a male voice broke in. It sounded like the guy in the bulldozer.
“What?” Jones replied.
“Are you coming, or do I have to come save your sorry ass?” Definitely the guy in the bulldozer.
“Thought we’d stop for tea and scones, first,” Jones said.
They weren’t out of danger yet, McNaughton knew all-too well, after tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq - not by a longshot, not if they were still on shore - but the one constant in any military operation was gallows humor. Still, he marveled at the astounding esprit de corps these people - these Puddle Pirates - were demonstrating.
“Pay attention to this, my little babies,” he said. “And learn from your superiors.”
165
The Fire Truck
Ala Moana Park Drive
“Hope the insurance is paid up,” Harold said, when the top of the ladder scraped the bottom of Ala Moana Blvd, as they passed underneath the far side of the overpass, and onto the ring road, Ala Moana Park Drive. Seaman Dixon Grimes was trying to lower the thing, but he clearly didn’t know what he was doing.
“Go help him, you lazy bastard,” Jonesy replied, from his still-prone position atop the fire truck. His body hurt. His everything hurt. He was sore, he was tired, and he sincerely needed a fifth of really good tequila and about three days on a zombie-free beach - preferably with a scantily-clad woman. Or two. Three would be getting carried away, but he supposed if he had to, he could make do.
The pylon stabilizers were still extended to the sides of the truck, and one side or the other would scrape asphalt or dig grass and dirt with each and every bump or chunk of debris they rolled over in their clumsy race to the harbor and safety. It ain’t gotta be pretty, an old Master Chief Bosun Mate he knew used to say. It’s just gotta work. Of course, the man was almost certainly dead now, along with most of the seven billion people on Planet Earth. Too bad, so sad. Life goes on; another of the Master Chief’s pithy phrases.
Jonesy groaned to a sitting position and looked behind them. The zombies were back there: hundreds, thousands of them, stumbling and staggering after the truck. The horde lost ground with every passing second, but he knew those weren’t the only infected assholes on Oahu - not even close. He turned his head toward the front, but found his view blocked by several survivors who were standing, and/or sitting, and/or lying on the fire truck’s roof. He grabbed the bottom of the still-descending ladder and pulled himself upright.
“It’s alive,” Glen Newby quipped in a deadpan voice.
“If you say so,” Jonesy replied.
There didn’t appear to be any zombies up ahead, and that made him instantly suspicious. He remembered a line from a book he’d read, We Were Soldiers, Once, and Young, about the first major engagement between US forces and the North Vietnamese Army: Nothing’s wrong, except that nothing’s wrong. Murphy (along with several thousand zombies) was still out there, lurking, waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting, newly-appointed Chief Warrant Officer.
He saw the horde when the truck rounded a bend in Ala Moana Park Drive, just past the Waikiki Yacht Club. The sneaky bastards had cut through the park, rather than going around it, unlike the vehicles that were stuck using the road.
“Oh, now, that ain’t right,” Harold said. “The fuckers cheated.”
“We’ve got a welcoming committee,” Duke’s voice called over the radio. Of course we do, Jonesy thought, eyeing the ladder with the idea of climbing it to get a better view. He took one look at the moving mechanical parts squeezing the structure back down into its proper place, and decided he liked his limbs right where they were. He pushed his way forward, through the crowd of survivors.
“Make a hole,” he shouted, but he might as well have been whispering. Nobody paid any attention. They were all shell-shocked, like so many concussed gooney birds. Didn’t matter. He shoved his way through, and onto the roof of the truck’s cab.
“I told you assholes to stay off the roof!” The bear-like Yeoman, Dave Ablitz, shouted out his driver’s side window.
“Unclench your butt cheeks,” Jonesy advised. “It’s me.”
Ablitz craned his neck out the window, saw Jonesy, then popped his head back inside and resumed the not inconsiderable task of driving the unwieldy truck. A quarter-mile ahead, Jonesy could see the back of the Duck Bus, its roof jammed with people, and beyond it, the yellow bulldozer. Beyond that, there were zombies. Lots and lots of zombies.
166
CG 6583
Over Kahanamoku Lagoon
“How much ammo do you have left?” LT Carrie Scoggins asked over the intercom in all their helmets. From their lofty position, she could clearly see the three vehicles, and the crowd of zombies in front, behind, and on the side of them. They weren’t quite trapped - not yet - but they weren’t far from it.
“Two belts,” Jeri Weaver, sometime Hospital Corpsman and current MG 240 machine gunner for the Coast Guard helicopter, replied. “Then we’re gonna have to resort to throwing rocks at them.” A hundred rounds. Maybe less, if he’d fired some of the belt currently in the weapon. It would have to do.
“I’ve still got a grenade,” Mark Columbus, the flight mechanic said.
“Were you keeping it as a souvenir?” Weaver asked.
“Thought I might,” Columbus joked. “But I guess we can always find another one.”
“Concentrate all your fire on the group in front of the convoy,” Scoggins ordered. There were at least a hundred deranged ex-humans clustered together like wobbling, blood and gore-covered penguins, between the bulldozer at the head of the column, and the boat ramp, where both the RHIB and the Rapid Response Boat were waiting to pick up survivors.
“Roger that,” Weaver replied.
Carrie toggled the selector switch to Radio and called: “Mall Cop, Eight-Three.”
“Go,” CWO2 Jonesy replied.
“Permission to direct fire from above.”
“Be my guest.” He sounded relieved. She didn’t blame him.
“Break, break,” she said into her integrated helmet mic. “R-R-B, Sass Two, concentrate all fire on the approach to the boat ramp.”
“Roger,” SN Jennifer Collins called from the Rapid Response Boat.
“Got it,” SN Tara McBride said from Sass Two. “But I don’t have any weapons.”
“Have you got a sidearm?” Carrie Scoggins asked.
“Yes, Ma’am,” McBride replied.
“Use it.”
“Roger that,” Tara said. The girl sounded almost chipper. Weird. No time to think about it.
“All units,” she said, pausing before the command: “Execute.”
167
Anuenue Fisheries Center
Honolulu, Hi
An excited whoop went up from the assembled crowd of survivors and what few Coasties weren’t directly involved in the operation, as the Assateague, Rapid Response Boat, and helo blasted 7.62mm, .50 caliber, and 25mm rounds into the cluster of zombies now clearly visible to the spectators at the abandoned fish hatchery. Lydia withheld comment, along with her breath. Mac, the dog, lifted his head for a moment to see what all the fuss was about, apparently decided there wasn’t any food involved, and flopped back down onto the dusty ground.
Tara’s out there, Tara’s out there, Tara’s out there, kept running though her brain on an endless, worried loop. Nothing else mattered. Her focus had narrowed to one salient fact, and wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t a military thought, wasn’t a Coast Guard thought, wasn’t a yay team - let’s all-work-together-to-get-the-job-done thought. Instead, it was the thought of someone deeply concerned about the welfare of just one member of that team: Tara McBride, Titsy McGangbang, the hyper-sexual lesbian who’d been hitting on her for what seemed like her entire life.
The young woman’s annoying, disturbing, frightening, delightful, exciting, arousing presence had become so much a part of her existence, the absence felt palpable, even though the girl was just right out there, almost - but not quite - close enough to touch. She wanted to touch her, badly, achingly - to wrap Tara in her arms and never let go.
Before the kiss, that terrifying, wonderful kiss, this realization would have scared the living crap out of Lydia and sent her running for the hills. Not anymore.
Was it the kiss, itself? Was it the fact of the kiss? The reality of the kiss? Was it just a biological reaction to the fact Tara McBride was an attractive woman, and Lydia hadn’t had sex (give yourself a really good orgasm, then get on with it) in almost an entire year? No. It wasn’t. This was something more, something deeper, something she hadn’t felt ever before. The idea still scared the living crap out of her, but she didn’t care. She was in love with another woman, and it felt right.
A single BANG echoed off the skyscrapers and storefronts, and damaged, destroyed ruins of Honolulu. A single word: grenade, rose in her mind, then was shunted aside.
Tara’s out there, Tara’s out there, Tara’s out there...
168
Ala Moana Park Drive
Honolulu, Hi
“Glad to see you finally stopped fucking off,” Duke said, coming up beside Jonesy. They were facing inland, with Kahanamoku Lagoon at their backs. The bulldozer and fire truck were abandoned in the middle of the street, some twenty yards away, sort of blocking the approach - but only sort of. Too much open ground, too many ways for the very bad things to come at them. Three zombies staggered through the tangle of Dragon Boats, directly to their front. Duke blasted them with his twelve gauge. The street, the strip of dead grass, and the broad concrete sidewalk lining the shore were littered with bodies. All of them were zombies. None of them were human.
“Seemed like you were having so much fun, I thought I’d join in,” Jonesy replied. He held a nine millimeter in each hand. The Colt .45s on his hips, and the Thompson strapped across his chest, were out of ammo and useless. The nines didn’t have much left, either. Just one - count it, one - full magazine remained for both pistols. When that was gone, there’d be nothing left but the twin kukri-machetes strapped to either side of his now empty backpack.
Three more infected assholes approached from the left, half a dozen from the Dragon Boats, and another four more from the right. Duke fired three times, and the weapon clicked on an empty chamber. Jonesy cleared both pistols, holstered one, reloaded the other, and emptied it, as well, in less than a minute. Zombies dropped like the bags of blood and guts they were, but not enough of them, as thirteen people-eating maniacs became twenty, then thirty, then forty, as more and more descended on the small boat ramp, where Riley, Newby, Harold, the civilian Marc Micari, Dave Ablitz, Dixon Grimes, the Public Affairs guy, Jim Westhoff, and Scott Pruden were cramming onto the filled-to-beyond-capacity RRB that was now taking them out into the water.
Time to go.
Duke dropped the shotgun and pulled the hammers from his belt. Jonesy pulled first one, then the other of the curved blades from his backpack. They looked at each other. They looked at the ever-growing crowd of zombies. They looked at each other again.
“I don’t think so,” Duke said.
“Run away!” Jonesy added.
169
M/V Corrigan Cargo III
18.368229 N 159.284347 W
Two sharp reports sounded, almost simultaneously: the first, from a nine millimeter pistol, the second, from a twelve gauge shotgun. The pistol shot missed the nearest target - the Australian, Dirk Parker - and struck Davis McGee behind the right ear, as he was cocking his head to look behind him. The left side of his skull splattered the bridge wing with gore.
The shotgun eliminated Gunner’s Mate First, Ernie Swaboda’s chest in a spray of blood and bone and lung tissue.
Morris Minooka had one chance - just one. He dove to the deck, scrambling for the pistol once carried by Electronics Technician Third, Parker Forrest, whose own chest had a big hole, through which Morris could swear he saw the deep green deck tile beneath him. Somehow, he came up with the pistol. One moment, his hands were empty, the next, he was spraying the exterior doorway with nine-millimeter rounds.
He doubted he hit anything - or anyone. Dirk Parker was gone. Morris Minooka was alone on the Bridge with three corpses. He didn’t stop to think about them in his rush to grab the GSB 900 handset.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday...”
170
Comm Center
COMMSTA Honolulu
“...this is Motor Vessel Corrigan Cargo Three, in position one-e
ight decimal four, north, one-five-nine decimal three, west, on a course of zero-zero-eight. Not sure about the speed.”
Bills eyes met Amber’s. His gaze was steady. She wasn’t too sure about her own, as she wrote down the position information.
“We have retaken the ship from pirates,” the male voice said. The man on the other end of the radio waves seemed calm, but rushed, as if trying to get the info out as quickly and succinctly as possible. “This vessel has been outfitted with missiles. Some of those missiles are nuclear, and the pirates are planning to launch them at Honolulu.”
Amber’s heart fluttered violently, as if the fear was using it for a hacky sack. She looked to Bill for confirmation that she wasn’t somehow mis-hearing the transmission; that this was all a silly joke, and some jackass was waiting to drop the punch-line.
He leaned back into his chair and let his breath out with a whistle.
“Murphy’s Law,” he said.
“There is another vessel, the Point of Order, headed toward Midway. I say again, it is headed toward Midway.”
“Anything that can go wrong...” Bill didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.
“...We need–” The transmission cut off, abruptly, and with finality.
Amber and Bill stared at each other for a moment longer, then her brain, and the years of training and experience took over. She picked up the GSB 900 handset.
“Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star...”
171
Rapid Response Boat
Kahanamoku Lagoon
Make it. Make it, Scott Pruden willed, but did not say aloud, as he watched Duke and CWO2 Jones running down the short strip of concrete boat ramp jutting out into the lagoon. A shitload of zombies staggered in pursuit.
“Run, you bastards,” Glen Newby’s voice yelled through the comm unit.
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 4): Zombies of Infamy Page 28