He reached for the radio handset.
One step.
Two.
Three, and the knife slammed into Blackjack Charlie’s exposed back, right to the handle.
221
The Skull Mobile
Ford Island
“Open fire!” Jonesy shouted, as Duke slammed his foot on the gas. Scott Pruden felt as if his back might bend ninety degrees in the wrong direction, as the big-ass truck lurched out of the LCVP, before the ramp was completely down. They caught immediate air and slammed onto the sand, rocks, and dead weeds lining the shore of Ford Island. Scott’s body flopped forward, doing wonders for his spinal chord, as the Skull Mobile bounced over a hedge and onto a concrete courtyard and rounded the corner of a building, that loomed dangerously close to the grill of the truck, before Duke spun the steering wheel hard over and careened onto the wide sidewalk paralleling the harbor side of the concrete and glass structure.
Zombies splatted off the grill and front bumpers, some slamming into the building, some being squashed underneath the large, knobby tires, and some being propelled into the hedgerow blocking the view toward the beach. They dropped like fleshy bowling pins, their guts and blood spraying everywhere, but it didn’t matter. Plenty more where they came from.
“Open fire, goddamnit!” Jonesy yelled.
Scott cocked the MG 240 and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The trigger didn’t depress, the weapon didn’t fire. What the fuck? The thought screamed inside his head, and only stopped screaming when the realization hit: Release the safety, you fucking idiot!
He released the safety. Now the weapon worked just fine.
Wonders of modern technology, Scott’s thoroughly freaked out brain mused, as he sprayed 7.62mm rounds into the gang of infected hooligans blocking their path down the sidewalk. What the rounds didn’t tear apart, the truck smashed into goo. Scott had to wipe the gore from his face shield, so he could see. What he saw was Essex Street.
A crowd of zombies waited for them like a cannibal jamboree, in a patch of dead grass next to a tennis court. A flagpole and a large anchor took up one end of the patch. The tennis court sat to their right, and the whole thing was bordered by the street, that bent around the corner, before once again paralleling the shoreline. A tall hedge separated their makeshift road from the shoreline.
A massive building, housing Lord only knew what, separated the street from the rest of the buildings and the island beyond, leaving only two directions from which the infected assholes could attack them: either end of Essex Street. The ones behind were a bloody stain, and the ones in front numbered less than a dozen. Scott took care of three; the Skull Mobile handled the rest.
Duke braked the truck to a jerking halt, causing still more future spinal issues, Scott felt certain. The idling engine thrummed, like a resting big game cat. A slab of bloody meat slid off the left side of the hood and fell to the ground with a splat. The ringing in Scott’s ears slowly faded, but didn’t entirely go away.
“Waiting for an invitation?” Marc Micari asked, from below him.
Scott leaned back so he could see down through the sunroof. Jonesy was twisting and turning in the passenger seat, looking to their front and back, as if searching for something. He stared up at the large building.
“What?” Duke asked him.
Jonesy didn’t answer him directly. Instead, he keyed his helmet microphone. “Duck Bus, Skull Mobile...”
222
M/V Point of Order
Off Midway Atoll
“You bitch,” Blackjack Charlie Carter swore, spitting blood with the effort. He couldn’t catch his breath. His back and chest were on fire. He tried to turn and raise the nine millimeter, but his right arm didn’t want to work right. He failed to turn, failed to shoot the bitch, failed to do anything but slide to his knees onto the deck.
Failed...
“Midway Tower, Midway Tower,” the radio voice droned on and on.
In the distance, he heard the buzzing drone of the seaplane’s propellers getting closer.
“Man the machine guns,” he coughed, and more blood sprayed from his mouth. His body slid sideways, his shoulder hit the deck. Her opened his eyes.
Felix’s dead face stared back at him, the hole in his forehead looking like a third eye. Charlie coughed again, but the blood didn’t quite make it past his windpipe. He was aspirating, and he knew it. He was dying. He knew that, too.
The fight was over. It was done. He was done.
The deep thump, thump, thump of a fifty caliber machine gun vibrated through the yacht’s hull. He felt it as he slipped into the void.
223
CG 6583
Over Ford Island
“Lower away,” Jeri Weaver said to AT3 Mark Columbus. This is certainly an interesting turn of events, he thought, as the Aviation Technician lowered him out of the helo and down toward the waiting refugees on the building below.
He’d been a Corpsman, before the plague - just a simple pecker-checker, minding his own business and surfing on his days off. He’d been training himself, preparing himself to take on the Bonzai Pipeline, on Oahu’s famed North Shore. Then came Pomona. Then came orders to the Assateague, and everything that followed.
He’d become a helicopter door-gunner, after first becoming a twenty-five millimeter chain gun operator, and blowing the hell out of zombies. Wasn’t that a kick in the ass?
And now? Now, apparently, he’d been transformed again - this time into a Rescue Swimmer, being lowered onto a rooftop filled with Navy and civilian refugees. Interesting turn of events, indeed.
He’d also briefly become lab assistant to Doctor Dickhead, Christopher Floyd. He’d rather forget that rude, arrogant bastard completely, so he did. Plenty of other things to occupy his mind.
His feet touched the rooftop, his body felt the drop-line slacken, and his hand unhooked himself from the tether and examined his newfound friends.
“What took you so long?” One of them asked.
224
Seaplane Wallbanger
Over Midway Atoll
“They’re shooting at us,” Harvey Walton commented, as if he were a golf announcer describing the action for a non-existent television audience.
“What was your first clue?” Jim asked, as tracers shot toward them. He heard a loud PLINK-PLINK, as one of the rounds entered one side of the fuselage and exited the other.
He could see the gun, now, on the forward deck of the yacht below. Two men were down there, one firing the weapon and the other, feeding the belt of ammunition into it. Two more were amidships and three more stood at the stern. All of them were firing what looked like AR-15s, directly at the plane.
“Get me close,” Jim said, heaving out of his seat and racing into the rear compartment, where he grabbed his toy: the minigun he’d stolen from Gilbert Farquar, all those weeks ago, in Astoria.
“What are you planning?” Harvey Walton yelled, now that Jim was no longer attached to the cockpit intercom.
“Watch and learn,” Jim replied, returning to the cockpit with the minigun cradled in one arm. He used the other to open the overhead hatch. The roar of the engines grew in intensity and volume, and a blast of wind slapped at Jim’s face, as he attached a bracket to the side combing of the hatch.
The Damage Controlman, with the unfortunate name of Harrison Dodge, had fabricated that bracket for the weapon, with a clamp designed to attach to any convenient part of the airframe. It didn’t fit the combing properly, and felt a bit loose, and the thin aluminum of the aircraft’s skin felt as if it might bend like a soda can, but it would have to do.
More rounds struck the seaplane as it nosed down toward the yacht. A large one ripped through the deck, and cut diagonally across the co-pilot seat, where he’d have been sitting, if he weren’t about ready to open fire.
Part of Jim’s brain - the part that wasn’t a husband and father, with a wife and daughter on the atoll below - knew this attack run was suicidal. They were flying di
rectly into the fire of a fifty caliber machine gun, and several small arms, all of which were aimed at them, and the bullets were hitting their target. Hard not to as they sped closer and closer to the yacht.
The minigun was equipped with an electric motor, powered by a large battery. It had a selector switch designating the rate of fire, from two thousand to six thousand rounds per minute. He cranked it all the way up, released the safety, depressed the trigger, and unleashed a torrent of 7.62 x 51mm death toward the pirates below.
An insane number of tiny splashes stitched their way through the water, as he worked the barrel upward, adjusting his fire till the rounds struck home in spectacular fashion. The top of the superstructure, just behind the pilothouse, held a Jacuzzi Jim could see was empty of water. It wouldn’t have mattered if the thing were full. Roughly three hundred rounds of 7.62 slammed into it in three seconds, shattering it as effectively as if he’d dropped a bomb on it. And then the rotating barrel of the minigun did nothing but rotate. He was out of ammo.
The weapon might have been capable of firing six thousand rounds per minute, but Jim couldn’t carry six thousand rounds on his own. He’d had enough fun just carrying the five hundred with which he’d loaded it, and now it was empty. Just as well. The Wallbanger reached the yacht and kept right on going, as Harvey struggled to pull the aircraft out of its diving attack.
“Get us back there!” Jim yelled, as the world around him exploded.
225
Warehouse 14
Ford Island
“Duck Bus, this is Skull Mobile,” the male voice Staff Sergeant McNaughton (and presumably the rest of First Squad) had identified as Chief Warrant Officer Jones, said over the handheld radio around which they were all, once again, gathered to listen in on the Big Game.
“Go,” the female voice of Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Gordon answered.
None of this was a game, he knew. His babies knew. But he couldn’t help feeling excited as the deadly serious action took place around them. Unlike the rescue at the Mall the day before, however, this was happening right in their front yard. They could see, as well as hear, everything.
“Can you see where we are?” Jones asked.
“Yes,” Gordon replied.
So, okay, they couldn’t see everything. They couldn’t see where Jones and that ridiculous truck were. Too many buildings between them. But McNaughton knew where he was, regardless. An enormous warehouse, nearly filled the entire block, between Liscomb Bay Street and Essex. It had once been the main supply center for the ships along Battleship Row, but the structure had been heavily damaged during the attack on December 7th, then rebuilt during the war, then torn down and rebuilt again in the Seventies, and yet again in the early Two Thousands, as most of the major activity moved across the harbor, to the Pearl Harbor Base, proper. Now the structure had been designated for multi-purpose use, so it contained the large warehouse, an assortment of offices, and a secondary fitness center, with attached tennis courts. He couldn’t recall the exact building nomenclature, but it didn’t matter. He could picture where they were in his mind’s eye.
“This is where I want you to take station,” Jones said. “And I want you to stay here,” he added, with emphasis, “while we recon the rest.”
“Roger,” Gordon replied.
“Seriously, Molly, don’t move from this spot till I call for you.”
“Roger,” Gordon replied. She didn’t sound happy.
“Goddamnit, I want that woman,” Lance Corporal Lanier exclaimed, to the general agreement of the rest of First Squad.
“Shut the fuck up,” McNaughton barked.
“Break, break,” Jones’s voice said. “R-R-B, you provide cover for them.”
“Roger,” another female, younger, and unidentified by name, answered. McNaughton could see her inside the cockpit of the bad-ass small boat she piloted. The girl looked like his niece.
He shoved the thought aside. “Alright, my babies,” the staff sergeant said. “We can’t do much to help them, but we can do something,” he added, and began issuing orders to his men.
226
M/V Point of Order
Off Midway Atoll
“We need to–” Hennessy said, as he entered the Bridge. He didn’t finish the sentence. The man he’d tried to say it to was dead.
Clara Blondelle leaned against the far bulkhead, the knife still clutched in her hand and dripping blood. She watched the new Pirate King assess the gruesome scene.
Felix lay on his side, beneath the helm station, with a small hole above his left eye, and the back of his head gone; his blood, bone and brains covering the entire console in a ghastly, multi-colored, chunky goo. Charlie lay face down, with his head toward Felix, and his back covered in dark red blood.
She watched Hennessy take it all in, before finally, his eyes met hers.
She should have run as soon as she’d done the deed. She should have gotten the hell off the Bridge, gotten the hell off the boat, but instead, she’d stayed put. Too late.
Hennessy stared at her, his eyes slowly working their way down to her hand and the knife.
This is it, she thought. I’m going to die now.
“We’re leaving,” Hennessy said. “Are you staying, or...?” She didn’t answer, didn’t know what to say. He turned and picked up the VHF handset. “Charlie’s dead,” he announced. “Raise the anchor. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
227
Seaplane Wallbanger
Over Midway Atoll
“I do believe I’ve been shot,” Harvey Walton commented in an almost conversational tone. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Jim didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. He glanced down at his own torso, saw the blood soaking his shirt, over the left side of his abdomen. No pain. Odd...
The aircraft lurched to the right and shuddered. Somehow, Harvey (shot at least twice, from what Jim could tell from his position slumped in the passenger seat) managed to bring it back under control. Didn’t matter. Nothing but a band-aide on a gunshot wound. The Wallbanger was riddled with holes. Its port engine sputtered; its starboard was on fire.
How the thing still flew, he had no idea. That didn’t matter, either.
“Well, fuck,” he said, wincing with the effort.
“Indeed,” Harvey replied.
Walton banked the plane, turning it in a wide U. The yacht came back into sight. Jim could see activity in the bow. They were raising the anchor.
“We can’t let them get away,” he said.
“No,” Harvey agreed.
“Fuck it,” he coughed.
“Yes,” Harvey said. He pointed the plane directly at the ship. “It’s been a pleasure,” he added, reaching into the pouch and withdrawing the blessedly still-intact bottle of gin. He raised it in salute, downed half of what remained, and passed the bottle.
“Go fuck yourself,” Jim replied, toasting the strange man who’d become his friend. “Let’s do it.”
Harvey pushed the steering column forward.
228
The Skull Mobile
Ford Island
“Die, motherfuckers!” Duke shouted, and slammed into another crowd of zombies - this time on Liscomb Bay Street. Jonesy tossed a grenade out the passenger window, and opened fire with his Thompson. The .45 ACP casings pinged off the side of the truck as they shot out of the ejection port. One of them ricocheted off the door post and nearly took out his eye, but he dodged sideways just in time, and it hit glass, instead, cracking it.
“You just bought me a new windshield,” Duke informed him.
“The check’s in the mail,” Jonesy replied.
Scott Pruden hammered away with the MG 240 above and behind them. Marc Micari tossed another grenade out of the back hatch, as the first grenade exploded off to their right. The zombies dropped like humans shot to shit, blown apart and/or run over by a big-ass truck. In some cases, all three.
It didn’t seem to matter. The zombies kept coming.
They crossed Hornet Avenue, zoomed between two small buildings, and came in sight of their destination, off to the left. Ten Marines stood on the rooftop. They were cheering.
“I need another belt!” Pruden shouted to Marc, who scrambled among the ammo cans, trying to find one that hadn’t already been emptied. The filled ones were disappearing at an alarming rate.
“Son of a bitch,” Duke growled, and it took less than a second for Jonesy to understand why.
The warehouse sat sandwiched between two larger buildings on its left, and one even bigger on its right, with Liscomb slicing between it and the one on the right. A large asphalt parking lot separated the warehouse from the smaller building the Skull Mobile had just passed. It should have provided more than adequate access to the warehouse. It should have made the extraction easy as really difficult pie.
No such luck.
At least a hundred zombies were packed together, as if in a macabre mosh pit, dancing the pogo to music only their diseased brains could hear.
“Run away!” Scott Pruden urged, as the mosh pit began to move in their direction.
Another, even larger parking lot sat to their right. Strangely, it was almost empty. Almost.
Maybe two dozen assholes were clustered near its center. Twenty-four sounded much better than a hundred. Jonesy pointed.
“That-a-way,” he said, and Duke spun the steering wheel to the right.
229
The Airstrip
Midway Atoll
“NO!” Stephanie Barber screamed, as the smoking and burning seaplane dipped into a nose dive, heading straight for the yacht. She tried to run forward, tried to cross the airstrip and run to the beach. What she thought she’d do once she got there, she had no idea, and didn’t stop to think of one. Her father was on that plane, and it didn’t look like they intended to stop. The rational part of her brain not screaming right along with her vocal chords, knew that even if her father and Harvey Walton wanted to, the seaplane couldn’t have pulled out of the dive. It was just too wrecked.
Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 4): Zombies of Infamy Page 36