203
Ford Island Bridge
Pearl Harbor
“We take out the roadway, not the pilings it sits on,” Marc Micari said, as he pointed toward the center of the span between two sets of massive concrete pilings rising out of the calm waters of Pearl Harbor.
“I thought you always take out a bridge at its supports,” Jonesy said, though - upon consideration - he had no real basis for the assumption beyond what he’d seen on countless war movies involving espionage. Still, the movies were at least loosely based on fact. The events happened, more or less, and there were actual warriors and veterans of the Second World War in the audience when those movies premiered, and so they could stray from reality only so far, and, therefore, there must be some validity to it. But what the fuck did he know?
“Sure, if you want to blow it up so it can’t be repaired without a monumental effort,” Marc replied. He ticked reasons off on his fingers. “Zombies don’t build bridges. They’re not going to try and fix it after we blow it up. We, however, might want to at a later date, and it’s a lot easier to repair a span than it is to replace gigantic concrete pilings.” He held out both hands, palms up, as if he were presenting Jonesy with a gift.
Jonesy, himself didn’t need to have it spelled out any further. He replied with a be my guest wave of his hand. “Have at it,” he said.
204
Gooneyville Lodge
Midway Atoll
Samantha’s bullet struck the pirate square in the chest. She hadn’t aimed. She hadn’t been aiming all night. She saw it all, watched as the man - an actual, non-infected human being - staggered back a step. His head dropped to stare at the spreading stain of blood on his tee-shirt, which carried a familiar logo, and the words: Just do it. His head came back up. He stared right at Sam. Their eyes locked, and only unlocked when the guy crumpled to the ground, where he lay, not moving.
The world closed in around her. Nothing existed but herself and the man she’d killed.
Thou shalt not kill.
Samantha wasn’t religious. She’d been in a few churches over the years, at Easter and Christmas, and such, when visiting other family or friends, but she didn’t think she’d ever be accused of being a church mouse. Still, hard not to know one of the most famous things in the Bible.
Thou shalt not kill.
Just do it...
That was famous, too.
She sat there, behind the old concrete garden wall, staring at the body on the dead grass, not ten feet away.
She didn’t notice when the battle ended in more fire and blood.
205
Seaplane Wallbanger
Above Lisianski Island
“Below us on our right, we have Lisianski Island, which is a bird sanctuary, and also a superlative coral reef for scuba diving,” Harvey Walton said, acting as an unwanted tour guide, “if one isn’t bothered by the occasional mako shark.” He glanced over at Jim Barber. “I, however, am bothered, thank you very much, so I avoid the place like the proverbial plague.”
Jim stared at him. Was the man truly an around the bend fruit loop? Was he as batshit as he seemed? Or was he just a quirky sort of drunken fool, who preferred wit over normal behavior? He didn’t know. He pretended not to care.
“Fly the fucking plane,” he said.
“Shall I?” His near-constant companion for the last however many weeks it’d been asked, the picture of innocence. “I thought I might just let it fly itself and see what happens.”
Jim continued to stare. “Are you really this crazy?” Jim asked. “Or are you just being British?”
“Yes,” Harvey replied.
Jim raised his fists to the sky in frustration. He didn’t have time for this shit. His wife and his daughter were under attack. They were in danger. They could be–
No. He wouldn’t go there.
“Fly the plane,” he said. “And spare me the commentary.”
206
Entrance Channel
Midway Atoll
“We have to attack again,” Blackjack Charlie Carter said to Doug Hennessy, as he, Hennessy, and the two other pirates, who were all that remained of the ten-man force he’d led, exited the harbor, on their way back out to sea. They had come in two rigid-hulled- inflatable boats, each with five men aboard. They were leaving in just one, with just four men, total.
“Are you nuts?” Hennessy replied. “We got our asses kicked, and you want to go again?”
Blackjack did his best to keep from exploding in anger. It was all falling apart, and it was happening because the people beneath him, the people he was required to rely upon, were shiftless cowards who’d proven once again he couldn’t rely on them at all. This was their fault.
His plan had been perfect: two, ten-man teams attacking from opposite directions, against a hodgepodge force of civilians and Coast Guard castoffs, of women and children, and men deemed unsuitable for the more important mission in Honolulu. This should have been a walk in the park. This should have succeeded, with flying colors. He should be steaming away with a scientist, his equipment, and a shitload of already brewed vaccine. Instead, he was slinking away with Hennessy, and two underlings, both of whom were wounded.
The abject failure of it hit him like a hammer blow, but instead of doubling over in pain, it filled him with a murderous rage.
“I’ve been shot, Charlie,” one of the others, whose name Blackjack couldn’t remember, cried. The fucking wimp.
“We need to cut our losses,” Hennessy said. “And get the fuck out of here before reinforcements arrive.”
“No,” Charlie said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Count me out,” the other underling, whose name was Greg or Gary or something like that, said. Blackjack couldn’t remember, and it was just as well. The chickenshit bastard wanted to be counted out? Okay, then.
“Have it your way,” Charlie said, and shot the fucker in the forehead. He tumbled overboard and splashed into the water, where his body rolled in their wake before disappearing into the deep. He turned to look at the remaining two men - those traitorous, disloyal, cowards. “Anyone else want me to count them out?” Charlie asked. It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t get a response, nor did he expect one.
The Point of Order loomed into view as they came out of the entrance channel. He could see the other small boat, already tied up to the side of the waiting yacht. Cowards. He was surrounded by cowards. No wonder the plan hadn’t worked.
He turned back to Hennessy. “Refuel the boats, and re-arm the men,” Charlie said. “We’re going again, and I’ll kill any fucking coward who doesn’t do their job.”
207
Ford Island Bridge
Pearl Harbor
“Get us as far away as you can,” Jonesy said to Duke, who was acting as cox’n for this latest stage in their little adventure.
“You think?” Duke replied.
“When you think we’re far enough, go another quarter mile,” Jonesy added. He wasn’t taking any chances. His parents (such as they were) hadn’t raised any idiots. Fact was, they’d barely raised him, at all, but at least the genetic material they’d provided hadn’t included the gene for drooling idiocy. He learned from his mistakes. Most of the time. This time, in any event, he wouldn’t be making the same one. Maybe a different one - probably a different one, considering his track record.. He’d been in charge. He hadn’t followed the simple, basic rule of turning off any and all radios when they were anywhere near things that could explode. His mistake had gotten Dan McMullen killed. He wouldn’t make it again.
Sass Two raced past the Arizona Memorial. Every other time he’d been by the headstone of those eleven hundred sailors and Marines, it had been slow and solemn, with all hands manning the rail and rendering a salute of honor. Not this time. Jonesy hoped the heroes of December 7th, 1941 would understand. He, and Duke gave the best salute they could. Marc Micari stood and removed his baseball cap. It would have to do.
They ke
pt going, past the USS Missouri battleship memorial; the Mighty Mo tied silently to the pier, never to set to sea again. Her battles had been fought and won. She’d be sitting this one out.
Jonesy tried to catch a glimpse of the building with the Marines, as they went by, but too much blocked his view. Only when they reached the extreme southwest end of the island, did he give the order to stop.
“That’s far enough,” he told Duke.
Off in the distance, at the harbor end of the entrance channel, the Assateague waited, with the Rapid Response Boat, the LCVP, and the absurd Duck Bus, keeping station in the eddies created by the mildly flooding tide. He wasn’t taking any chances with them, either. He turned on his radio.
“All stations, this is Sass Two,” he said into the microphone inside his helmet. “Prepare for detonation.”
208
M/V True North
26.790651 N 173.888588 W
“True North this is Wallbanger, winging our way overhead,” the British-accented voice of their one and only seaplane pilot came through the small speaker attached to the flight radio, which was set to 121.5 MHz. John plucked the handset out of its bracket.
“Go,” he said. He and Lane Keely remained on the Bridge. Gus Perniola had gone below to see to the engines. None of them had slept.
He spotted the aircraft off to starboard, flying low and waggling its wings. He thought of waving, but felt nowhere near enthusiastic enough.
Jim Barber’s voice replaced Harvey Walton’s. “We’re loaded and ready for war,” he said through mild static. “We’ve got Napalm and my minigun.”
“Make the bastards pay,” John said.
He looked at Lane as Barber replied. “Count on it.”
209
M/V Point of Order
Off Midway Atoll
“You have to do it,” Clara said into Felix’s ear. This time they weren’t grappling in a pre-coitus fever. This time, she didn’t have her hand wrapped around his cock, and so this time she didn’t have him wrapped around her fingers, but with the small boat and Blackjack Charlie returning from the catastrophe on Midway, she didn’t think she needed to. “You have to kill him,” she added.
They stood, side by side, at the Bridge windows, watching the rubber boat arrive. It carried only three men. The first boat, returning half-an-hour ago, had carried four. Twenty went out; seven came back. The pirates were finished. Question was: did Charlie know it? Would the Pirate King accept defeat, or would he throw aside reason, logic, common sense, and self-preservation, and attack again?
Clara Blondelle knew Alpha males. She’d been seeking them, hunting them her entire adult life. She knew the answer: Charlie would keep going till the bitter end, because defeat was the one thing he would never accept, could never accept, if he wanted to retain his top dog status, and he’d drag the rest of them down with him.
“I know,” Felix said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know.”
210
Comm Center Rooftop
ISC Sand Island, Oahu
“I feel like we’re waiting for the Super Bowl to start,” Amber Winkowski said.
“I know, right?” Bill Schaefer replied. They were back on the rooftop. Amber carried a commco. Bill held the baby monitor, so they could listen in on the GSB. He’d scrounged two straw sun hats from somewhere - one in decent shape, which he’d given to Amber, and one in rather disreputable shape, which perched upon his head. They waited.
The commco crackled to life with CWO2 Jones’s voice. “All stations, prepare for detonation.”
“Here comes the kickoff,” Bill said, in his usual dry and laconic tone.
The ravaged city at their back was quiet. Off in the distance toward the south and east, a thin column of black smoke rose into the air, the remnants of the fire still consuming the Ala Moana Mall, an untold number of zombies, at least thirty or forty civilians, the Six-Five-Eight-Five, and LCDR Randy Sagona, LTjg Jacob Vastic, AT2 Fred Colson, Seaman Pat Querec, ASM1 Ronny Wallace, and ASM2 Kyle Rogers.
Amber sighed heavily. No time to grieve them now.
The whine of Six-Five-Eight-Three’s starting engine broke the silence. The explosion shattered it into a million pieces.
211
The Duck Bus
Pearl Harbor Entrance
“Wahoo!” Wendy Micari shouted above the roar of the exploding bridge. Molly barely heard her. Even this far away, she instantly felt the pressure wave in her ears.
Please, dear God let everyone be alright, she prayed, proving the adage about atheists in fox holes. Please let Jonesy be alright, her mind added, though it hardly needed to. She’d been thinking of almost nothing but, since the final, stolen-moment kiss they’d shared before he headed off to retrieve the Skull Mobile.
Dan McMullen was up there, as well, swimming in the background of her psychological soup, never letting her forget how she’d failed him, and all the rest of her crew. He was dead, she was alive, and in a certain deep and dark part of her psyche, she hated herself for it.
No time for that now.
A massive column of smoke and flame and debris appeared above all the buildings and warehouses and workshops and museums dotting Ford Island’s historic landscape.
“Oh yeah!” Both Seaman Dixon Grimes and Seaman Apprentice Jerry Nailor shouted in unison, as Molly slowly regained her hearing. She swallowed and worked her jaw in an effort to make her ears pop. It worked, after a fashion. The ringing remained, but at least she could hear again - sort of.
She squinted into the morning sun and located Sass Two. Jonesy was there, standing next to Duke and flanked by Wendy’s husband Marc. All alive. All still alive. Thank you, God... The extra prayer couldn’t hurt. Amen...
“Eight-Three, Sass Two,” Jonesy’s voice sounded in her earpiece.
“Go,” Carrie Scoggins’ voice replied.
“Hold launch till the debris stops falling around our heads,” Jonesy said, exaggerating. None of the actual debris fell anywhere near them - by design - but it served its dramatic purpose.
“Roger that,” the pilot of their sole remaining helicopter replied.
“Break, break,” Jonesy said. “All other units, let’s get this party started.”
212
Gooneyville Lodge
Midway Atoll
“Samantha, honey, are you okay?” Her mother’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. Sam blinked, and shook her head, trying to clear it. “Honey?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” she lied. “I’m fine.”
This was demonstrably untrue - at least from the inside looking out. The body lay where it had lain for an indeterminate, potentially infinite amount of time. It might have been moments, or hours. It might have been forever.
Well, no. It couldn’t have been forever. Clearly not. Many things had come before. Many things would come after. This she knew instinctively, intrinsically. She understood it, accepted it, then shelved it in favor of the vision right in front of her eyes: the dead body of the man she’d shot.
She had taken his life. She had extinguished the divine spark, as Shakespeare put it. Wouldn’t Mrs. Manelli, her old English Lit teacher, be proud of her memory of the Bard? I wonder what Mrs. M would think of you, she thought, addressing the corpse on the grass, ten feet away. Would she offer something else from Shakespeare? A bit of Hamlet, perhaps?
The rest is silence...
She wondered if this were true. Was death silent? Was it peaceful? Or did the wailing of the dead make whoever she’d shot want to scream in immortal terror?
An elbow dug into her side. “Wake up, kid,” the voice of Shilo Grant interrupted her descent into self-loathing.
Was that true? Was she still a kid? Did she want to run to her Mommy’s arms? To be soothed and caressed and told it would all be alright?
Yes, of course she did. But would she?
It’d be easy enough to do. All it would require was for her to give in, to give up, to wrap herself in Mother’s embrace, to gr
ab onto childish things and not let go. She could go back to being a kid.
Was that what she wanted? Part of her said: Yes.
Another part of her, the part still clinging to the memory of her time in Honolulu, with her Dad, and Molly, and Jonesy, when she was part of something, a member of the Sassafras crew, said, as loud and emphatically as her own mind could conjure: Screw that!
“I’m fine, Mom,” she said aloud, tearing her gaze away from the body on the grass.. “Really.”
Her mother folded her arms and regarded her teen-aged daughter. She didn’t say anything. After several moments, she nodded.
“Good,” Shilo Grant said. “Because we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
213
LCVP
Off Ford Island
“Eight-Three, this is Skull Mobile,” Jonesy said into his helmet mic.
“Go Skull,” the voice of Lieutenant Carrie Scoggins answered.
“The air is clear. You are free to launch,” Jonesy replied. As the debris from the bridge explosion continued to fall - safely on the other side of Ford Island - they’d handed off the Sass Two to Seaman Tara McBride, who’d been waiting on Assateague, she’d taken Harold on a little boat ride to join Molly in the Duck Bus, and then they’d rejoined Scott Pruden in the LCVP, where the Skull Mobile waited in deadly anticipation of the battle to come. The operation could begin.
Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our Coast Guard dead... Shakespeare’s (slightly adjusted) words from Henty V, floated across his consciousness. Somehow, he remembered another bit from that same speech:
Disguise fair nature with hard favored rage...
He remembered still another quote, something much more recent, from his favorite Western of all time, The Outlaw Josey Wales:
...things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. Plumb, mad dog mean...
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 4): Zombies of Infamy Page 34