Guardians of the Apocalypse (Book 4): Zombies of Infamy

by Thomson, Jeff

  239

  Skull Mobile

  Enterprise Street, Ford Island

  “Slow down a little,” Jonesy said.

  “Are you nuts?” Scott Pruden asked, incredulous. From his position half in / half out of the truck’s sun roof, he could easily see the zombie horde in all its shambling, stumbling, staggering horror. No need to strain his eyes. The assholes couldn’t have been more than twenty feet behind them. If anything went wrong: a big pothole, engine trouble, another big-ass horde around the next corner - fucking anything - they’d be lunch in nothing-flat. And Jonesy wanted to go slower? “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  Jonesy ignored him.

  The Skull Mobile rounded the corner from Saint Louis Avenue, onto Enterprise. No massive crowd of bloodthirsty, human flesh-eating maniacs awaited them. The Assateague, however, did.

  “Frank,” Jonesy said into the radio.

  “Go,” the First Class Machinery Technician replied, immediately.

  “Here in about ten seconds,” Jonesy began, “you’re going to see a shitload of badness coming up behind us.”

  “Roger,” Frank Roessler replied.

  “I don’t want you to fire on them,” Jonesy told him, and Scott Pruden’s eyes actually bulged. An image of Gollum smiled crazily at his fear-stimulated brain. He shoved it into the background. Plenty enough to look at in the physical world, thank you very much.

  “You don’t?” Frank’s voice replied.

  As promised, the phalanx of zombies began streaming around the corner they’d just turned. If anything, the assholes were even closer than they’d been before.

  Run away! Scott’s brain said. He couldn’t actually do that, so he fired a burst of 7.62 x 51mm at them, instead.

  “Save your ammo!” Duke growled, smacking Scott in the knee.

  “Let them get bunched up between these two buildings,” Jonesy said, ignoring everything but his chat with the patrol boat.

  Never get out of the boat. Never get out of the boat, his mind chanted the line from Apocalypse, Now. Scott was out of the boat, alright - all the way out. Fuck a bunch of mangoes and tigers, he thought, keeping with the cinematic theme. Out here, there were monsters.

  “Okay...” Frank said, hesitatingly.

  “Let as many of them cluster as you can,” Jonesy continued, “then hit them with everything you’ve got.”

  240

  The Duck Bus

  Liscomb Bay Street, Ford Island

  “Holy shit,” Harold said, as Molly eased the Duck Bus toward the intersection of Liscomb Bay and Hornet.

  She seconded the sentiment, but didn’t voice her opinion. The sight greeting her eyes had momentarily rendered her mute. Bodies everywhere - dozens of them - ripped to shreds by weapons fire or crushed into barely recognizable piles of flesh and bone and blood. The bus bounced over what remained of a once-human torso. If they tried to go over a pile of them, they’d be stuck, and then they’d be screwed.

  “Ten points!” Wendy Micari shouted with glee.

  “Fuck this!” Harold said, as they slowly passed a small building, labeled NAVSUP 12 (whatever that meant), and Warehouse 14 came into view. So did a shitload of zombies. “Get us out of here!”

  241

  CG 6583

  Over Ford Island

  “Might want to get out of there,” the radio voice of Frank Roessler said into Carrie Scoggins’s ear. She kept the aircraft in a hover over the clustering crowd of infected. Jeri Weaver banged away at them from his MG 240 in the rear door. “We’re about to open fire.”

  This puzzled her. Why should it matter if they were overhead? The realization took about three seconds. They’re using incendiary rounds... Incendiary rounds tended to blow things up. They were up. Being directly overhead would be bad.

  “Roger,” she said into the radio, and banked the helo to the right.

  The maneuver brought them into a loop over the Assateague. She could see one man at the twenty-five millimeter chain gun, another on a fifty cal on the deck behind the pilothouse, and a third at another fifty on the fantail.

  Open fire, my ass, she thought. They weren’t opening fire; they were declaring war.

  She continued flying the loop, giving the helo a little altitude so she could get the full picture. The Sass was positioning itself at the foot of Liscomb Bay. A tiny alarm bell went off in her head. Something wasn’t right.

  She could see three men - one each at bow, midships, and stern - each manning an MG 240 machine gun. This made perfect sense, so...? It took a moment, but she found her clue.

  “Sass, Eight-Three,” she said into the radio.

  “Go,” the accented voice of LCDR Wheeler answered.

  “Hold your fire,” she said. “Do not open fire.”

  “Eight-Three, Skull,” Jonesy’s voice cut in. “What’s going on?”

  She ignored him. “Sass, you see those barges off your port quarter?” She asked. Seven flat, grey barges, with what looked like stand pipes scattered along their decks, lay tied in two groups of two, and one of three, along the pier off which the Sass was about to open fire.

  “Yes,” Wheeler replied.

  “I think they’re fuel barges,” she said. Tanks of gas, plus zipping and ricocheting bullets, equaled ugliness on a colossal scale.

  Silence.

  “What’s happening?” Jonesy asked again.

  “Roger, Eight-Three,” Wheeler’s voice said. “Thank you.”

  “We’re here to serve,” she said, and continued flying the helo.

  Straight ahead lay Warehouse 14. No Marines appeared on the rooftop. What did appear, was the strange, yellow Duck Bus, and beyond them an even larger gang of zombies than the one they’d just left behind.

  “Uh, Skull Mobile,” she said, “we have another problem.”

  242

  The Skull Mobile

  Essex Street, Ford Island

  “What now?” Jonesy said into the radio. That’s it, he thought. One more fucking problem and my happy ass is gonna resign.

  The Big Damn Truck, now going considerably faster, rounded the corner of Hornet and Essex. Duke swerved to run over the already dead bodies of three former humans, lying in a heap, next to the tennis court.

  “Was that necessary?” Marc Micari asked from the back.

  “Strictly speaking, no,” Duke replied. “But it makes me feel better.”

  “Of course,” Marc said. “Perfect time to get in touch with your feelings.”

  “You need to get to Warehouse Fourteen,” Scoggins’s voice said.

  “Why?” Jonesy asked. The truck rolled around the curve along the shoreline, and then he knew. The Duck Bus was gone.

  243

  The Duck Bus

  Warehouse 14

  “Open fire!” Molly shouted, though she hardly needed to. Harold, Wendy, Jim Westhoff, Jerry Nailor, Martin Tabinski, Sherman Malone, YN1 Dave Ablitz, ET1 Glen Newby, and BM3Tim Luton were already doing it. They had plenty of targets.

  A pair of explosions rocked the parking lot, followed by a fusillade of fire from above, as the helo arrived. It barely made a dent in the mass of former humanity. Zombies streamed in from between the buildings to the southwest, and from around the far corner of Warehouse 14. A quick check of the mirrors showed even more coming from around the buildings on the shoreline, behind them.

  “We are fucked!” Harold said. He, also, hardly needed to.

  To their right lay another parking lot. No zombies coming from that direction. Didn’t matter. The parking lot and street were choked with bodies. No way the Duck Bus could go through them.

  “Get us out of here!” Wendy Micari cried. If she was losing her nerve, then they really were fucked.

  Guilt slapped Molly’s face, and squeezed her heart like a vice. She’d done this. She’d been driving. She’d put the bus into gear and headed out of the cover where Jonesy ordered them to stay. Her mistake, her impatience, her fuckup was about to get them all killed.

  244


  M/V True North

  Ten Nautical Miles off Midway Atoll

  “Can’t you make this piece of shit go any faster?” John said, bad-mouthing his own ship. He tried to reign in his anxiety, tried to push aside his deep sorrow over the death notices his wife had given him, tried to ignore the rising anger, desperately tried to stop himself from becoming unhinged.

  ”The engines are already overheating,” Gus explained, casting an eye toward the indicator panel on the steering console. John glanced, as well, and sure enough, the temperature gauge blinked red. “If I push them any harder, they’ll seize, and we won’t be going anywhere.” He wiped a greasy rag over his already dirty face. “Don’t know about you,” he added, his expression turning dark, “but I want some fucking payback.”

  “Me too,” Lane Keely said from his position at the bridge windows. He continued scanning the horizon with binoculars.

  “Fuck!” John swore. He needed to get himself under control, needed to clear his mind, needed to pull his head out of his ass. Jim and Teddy were their friends, too. What’s more, they were shipmates. The title might not mean anything to people who’d never been through what they’d all shared, but it meant everything to them.

  “Sorry,” he said, rasing his hand to ward off a rebuke that never came.

  “Stop your grinnin’ and grab your linen, boys,” Lane said, turning to smile at them.

  “What?” Gus asked.

  Lane pointed out the window. “Land ho.”

  245

  Frigate Point

  Midway Atoll

  The liferaft - or what remained of it - grounded on the reef off the southwest corner of the largest island. A tearing sound, followed by the hiss of escaping air told Clara Blondelle everything she needed to know. All ashore who’s going ashore...

  She splashed into the warm tropical water, thankful she hadn’t lost her shoes in the mad rush to get off the yacht. The coral felt sharp and rough beneath the soles of her Sperry Bluefishes. They’d been stylish, once upon a time; top of the line, eighty bucks, on sale. That was BP, Before Pomona. Now they were battered and torn and waterlogged, as was she.

  She stumbled ashore, onto white sand at the end of the airstrip. She dropped to her knees. She might have cried, then, had she been prone to do so. She wasn’t, so she didn’t. What would be the point? No one would comfort her. No one would hold her in their arms and tell her everything would be okay. She was alone. Again. As always.

  Same as it ever was... The words to the song, Once in a Lifetime, by the Talking Heads ran through her own head. Into the blue again... She gazed into the clear sky. Same as it ever was...

  She cast a glance over her shoulder, saw the burning wreckage of the Point of Order. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the same. Maybe it never would be again. Didn’t matter.

  Through all the men who’d pawed at her with their hands and tried (and usually succeeded) to stick her with their things, through all the times she’d used her body and her sex to get what she’d wanted, one thing remained constant: her loneliness. It had always been there, and she had always been alone. Now, her only companions were the idiot gooney birds, waddling down the airstrip and clacking their beaks, as if nothing at all unusual was going on.

  Movement caught her eye. A golf cart was moving down the runway, headed toward her. She couldn’t tell who it was right away, and then she could: Stephanie Barber.

  Could be worse, she thought. Could be the girl’s mother, and wouldn’t that just be a kick in the ass? Still, it shouldn’t be too bad. Stephanie hadn’t exactly liked her, they hadn’t been friends, but at least the young woman had been civil to her, during their voyage across the Pacific. More than she could say for the rest of those bitches. She rose to her feet and gave the girl her best greeting smile.

  She watched the woman pull the cart to a stop, hop to the ground and stride forward with a determined look in her eye. Something seemed off, somehow, but she couldn’t quite figure it out. She did, finally, about one second before Stephanie Barber shot her in the forehead.

  246

  The Skull Mobile

  Warehouse 14

  “Cut between the bus and the building,” Jonesy said, and Duke complied.

  Scott Pruden thought the maneuver foolhardy at best, and abso-fucking-lutely insane at worst. What could Jonesy be thinking? Was he thinking, at all? Was he so focused on rescuing his goddamned girlfriend that he would condemn them all to certain suicide?

  The zombies surrounded the Duck Bus, at least half-a-dozen deep on all sides. Looked like about three hundred of the diseased motherfuckers, and they all looked hungry.

  He fired the last few rounds in one ammo belt, and reached for another. The ammo case was empty. “I need more ammo,” he shouted into the truck. “Now!”

  Marc Micari dropped another full cannister onto his right foot. Thank God for steel toes, he thought, scrunching down through the sunroof to retrieve the ammunition. Duke ran head-long into a gaggle of about twenty of the infected assholes, one of which flipped right over the hood of the truck and went sailing through where his head had been a moment before. Blood sprayed everywhere. Scott grabbed a belt out of the can, opened the feed tray cover on the weapon, ripped the old belt out, slapped the new one in, pulled the bolt and opened fire.

  247

  CG 6583

  Over Warehouse 14

  “We are Bingo fuel,” LTjg Zack Greeley said, meaning they needed to leave now, or they wouldn’t make it back to Sand Island.

  “Couple more minutes,” Carrie said. The people on the ground needed every available gun. If they left...

  “We were Bingo ten minutes ago, Carrie,” Zack said and she knew he was right.”

  Shit,” she swore, and keyed the radio.

  248

  The Duck Bus

  Warehouse 14

  “Skull Mobile, Eight-Three,” Molly heard Carrie Scoggins say from on high. “We are Bingo fuel.”

  “Roger,” Jonesy replied through Molly’s earpiece. His voice sounded flat, which belied the extreme position he and the rest of the guys in the truck were in. They were still moving - which was more than she could say for the Duck Bus - but they were still surrounded by clutching and clawing zombies. She could see Duke. His face carried a maniacal expression as he bulled his way through the throng. An explosion behind the truck sent body parts and blood everywhere.

  “Back as soon as we can,” Scoggins said. The helo lifted, but not before dropping two more grenades. Their detonations echoed off the warehouse and painted the building in disgusting, chunky red.

  The fire from inside the bus was constant, as was the ringing in her ears, but now came a new wrinkle: the bus began to rock, as if the zombies were drunken revelers after their team won the championship. Apparently, they couldn’t get at the people inside the odd vehicle, so they decided to go after the bus itself.

  “Somebody better do something, awfully goddamned quick,” Harold said, as he ejected a magazine from his M-4 and slapped in another.

  “I’m down to my last mag!” Somebody - she thought it might be Sherman Malone - shouted from the back of the bus.

  “Jonesy!” She shouted into the radio. “I hope you have a miracle up your sleeve.”

  Another voice cut into the conversation: male, growling, like some of the saltier Senior Chiefs and Master Chiefs she’d known. “Not a miracle, ma’am,” the man said. It sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Then he solved the puzzle for her. “Just the United States Marines.” The bay door of Warehouse Fourteen shoved upward.

  249

  Comm Center

  COMMSTA Honolulu, Hi

  “...we need help,” the voice of CWO2 Francis Peavey cried over the GSB. “You’ve got to come help us.”

  “Roger, Midway,” the calm, deep voice of OS1 Rudy McGuin, who Amber Winkowski knew had returned to the Polar Star before it set off for Midway, sounded through the small speaker set into the console next to the Ultra High Frequ
ency radio. “What is your exact situation?”

  “Break, break,” a new voice - this time that of John Gordon - cut in. “Peavey, you idiot. The pirates are all dead.”

  “But...” Peavey started to protest. “How do you know?” This final question sounded as if it came from a small, scared child, which she supposed the useless P. O. S. was, when it came right down to it.

  Gordon ignored him, which, of course, was the right thing to do, in her estimation. She glanced at Bill Schaeffer, who’d plugged headphones into the VHF unit, so she could concentrate on this conversation, while he listened in on the action from Pearl Harbor. He raised a single eyebrow at her. She shrugged.

  “Break, break,” John Gordon said again. “Polar Star, this is True North. We have arrived on scene, but the fight is over. Will brief you as soon as we can.”

  “Roger, sir,” Rudy replied. He sounded relieved, as if the adults had just come home, which, she supposed, they had.

  250

  The Skull Mobile

  Warehouse 14

  “You guys had ammo this whole time?” Jonesy asked, incredulous, as ten Marines took the mass of zombies on their flank and chewed the hell out of them with aimed fire.

  The staff sergeant, who stood slightly behind the rest of his men, fired a round through the skull of a formerly large bastard whose filthy flowered shirt now looked like a tent on the emaciated body, then took another step back toward the warehouse and keyed his radio.

  “Little present from your helo,” he said.

  Jonesy, momentarily taken aback, glanced at Duke, who was busy playing Monster Truck Rally with a pile of flesh that used to be human, before Pomona. The truck bounced off the zombie speed bump, tilted crazily to one side, then righted itself and - with tires spinning in the goo created by his little game - Duke slammed his foot on the gas pedal and the Skull Mobile shot forward into another cluster of infected assholes.