Stranded Series (Book 5): Into The Gulf

by Gray, W. S.

  Into the Gulf

  By: W.S. Gray

  © 2019 William Gray Entertainment Media

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This work includes graphic depictions of violence, intimacy, and strong language. Reader discretion is advised. Please do not engage in any potentially dangerous or illegal behavior; do not attempt to recreate any scenes in this or associated works… they’re for entertainment purposes only. They aren’t real.

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  Books can be a great way to improve employee productivity or team morale. Reading fiction improves concentration, creativity, language and writing skills, and empathy. Special bulk discounts are available. In addition, active-duty military and military spouses can order paperbacks at cost. For more information, please email us: willgray1111@gmail.com. Don’t forget to ask you post exchange or other retailer to stock books. Ask your boss to buy books as part of a wellness or incentive program.

  This work is dedicated to the memory of Peg Major. If one would like to honor her work and inspiring legacy, or merely contribute to the arts in a small community that doesn’t get much money for such, please consider the Storybook Theater. The author is not affiliated with this theater, nor does he receive any compensation for any actions related to this. The author does not endorse third-party sites, nor does he assume any responsibility for anything that happens or doesn’t happen on them.

  Other books by W.S. Gray

  Cops and Zombies

  Two Years Later*

  Cowboys & Zombies*

  Boogaloo: The Beginning

  Unit 9

  Surviving the Darkness*

  Up in Smoke*

  Gladiator Games

  Recovering Jonas*

  Flash Crash

  Love in a Time of Zombies*

  *books available for pre-order

  Chapter 1

  They were on the roof.

  Of an adult novelty store.

  A Mormon, a lawyer, and a French soldier walked into a dildo shop…

  Fighting the urge to laugh at the incipient germ of an obscene joke, Trey stared out into the foggy, humid night. The horde below them growled, their individual snarls rising into an ugly, collective cacophony that ruptured the stillness of a sleeping city. He gripped his HK-AG36, which had replaced his MP-5. Stationed at the left corner of the building, he hid behind the top of the sign that protruded just above the roof.

  Trey wanted to launch some grenades into the horde.

  But he needed to wait.

  Until the helicopter returned to rescue them, Trey was taking orders from the French soldier who’d established command of their small crew.

  In the distance, an explosion rocked the night, casting a warm, brilliant glow across the horizon. Trey winced and jerked his head away. He felt his body shaking with the residual effects of adrenaline and fatigue. His heart raced. Closing his eyes, he tried to tell himself that someday, all of this would be just some strange and surreal nightmare.

  Until then, however, it was his new normal.

  “Hey, Maxime, how we getting back to France?” Trey asked.

  The man turned at the mention of his name, his face blank.

  Trey chuckled. “What if I told you you’re a dirty cocksucker?” he asked.

  “Fuck you,” Maxime said. He spat.

  Harry laughed and shook his head. “He’s a soldier, son. He knows how to say cocksucker in at least six languages,” he said.

  “And ‘fuck you,’ apparently,” Trey said.

  Suddenly, the French soldier who’d been seen fleeing the scene of an apparent bank robbery upon the crew’s arrival into Papeete began speaking rapidly to Harry, Trey’s father. The military man with the stern face and brusque demeanor gesticulated with one hand as he glared in the general direction of Trey.

  “He’s asking what you said,” Harry said, again shaking his head. He wore a hearty grin on his bearded face.

  “It’s weird seeing you with a beard and long-ish hair,” Trey remarked.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Harry asked.

  Trey shrugged. “I don’t know. Just…general observation, I guess,” he said.

  “Well, what do you want to ask the man that’s so important it can’t wait until after the fucking zombie apocalypse?” Harry asked.

  Trey smiled. “And it’s even weirder getting used to you using foul language,” he said.

  “It’s the bishop,” Harry said. “The Mormons have tainted my soul,” he said. Then he grunted. “Could you just either spit it out or shut the fuck up and get back to your post?” he asked, his tone mildly irritated.

  “Ask him why I can’t just blow up some of these zombie shits,” Trey said. “Fried undead fingers,” he said, chuckling.

  “Gross, Dad,” Sofia said, groaning.

  Harry turned and spoke to Maxime. After several terse exchanges, Harry laughed. “He says go ahead and drop a few grenades,” he said.

  Aiming carefully down into the growling mass, Trey squeezed the trigger. He smiled as the heavy gun bucked in his hands. Watching, he traced the trajectory of the small explosive projectile. Seeing it impact the undead mob, Trey opened the barrel on the left side, removed the spent casing, and loaded another cylindrical, blue-tipped grenade. Shutting it, he once again used the iron sights to guide his shot.

  “Wowzah!” he yelled, giddy with excitement. “This thing is fucking awesome,” he said. Trey turned to Marshall, smiling widely. Then, belatedly, he realized his friend couldn’t hear him. “Fucking deaf bastard,” Trey said. It was hard, always remembering that the valuable contributor to their small and unlikely band of survivors couldn’t hear them.

  Holding up the weapon, he motioned to Marshall. “You ever use one of these things?” he asked, mouthing the words carefully.

  Marshall smirked. He nodded. Then he returned his watchful gaze back to the horde below.

  “How are you holding up over there, Chloe?” Trey called out. He was beginning to grow bored. They’d been sitting up on the roof, waiting for the French helicopter to return and get them the Hell out of there, for at least twenty minutes.

  “Still hungry,” Chloe said, sitting with her knees against her chest, a sullen frown plastered across her young face. “And I want to go home,” she said.

  Trey blinked. He opened his mouth to speak, but then elected to remain silent. No words came. At least, none that he felt capable of uttering. There is no home now, he thought. And the idea caused a deep sadness to slither through the grass of his mind. He briefly wondered how things were back in San Jose. He envisioned Jerry, his former boss, pacing around his comfortable corner office, screaming at his secretary through the phone because Trey hadn’t shown up for work. The vision caused him to smile.

  “What are your thoughts on these… creatures, Bishop?” Trey asked. He scratc
hed his face. Maxime suddenly unleashed a raucous volley into the horde. The noise caused Trey to jump. After a second, he recovered and returned his attention back to the Mormon religious leader. “Hey, dad, want to opine on this one?” he asked.

  “Not particularly,” Harry said gruffly.

  However, Bishop Bronson seemed to give the question some credibility. He scratched his chin as he stared pensively into the distance, a narrow cone of jaundiced light casting a sort of halo around his face. “That’s a tough one,” he said, finally, after what seemed an interminable silence.

  “What’s so tough about it?” Trey asked. He watched as the pulsing, teeming mass of the undead pushed toward the building. The mob filled the entire parking lot. It went back into the street and even beyond.

  “Well… Brigham Young did say that in the afterlife, we’d be ‘free to travel with lightning speed,’” Bishop Bronson said, smiling sadly.

  Trey waited. He expected the Bishop to resume his exposition at any time. But the seconds stretched themselves taut as a pregnant silence hovered in the air between them. Finally, he raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “That’s it?” he asked.

  “It’s… complicated,” the Bishop said.

  “Yeah, I get that. You mentioned that already. My question was, why,” Trey asked.

  “Well, it doesn’t take a genius to see that zombies kind of turn the whole idea of the spiritual realm on their head,” the Bishop said testily. He frowned and stared off into space, grappling with his own thoughts.

  Pondering that, Trey returned his gaze back to the growing horde. He felt some amazement at the sheer size of the force. That alone seemed worth some reflection. Because it wasn’t as if the city of Papeete were some massive urban entity. “What’s the population here, again?” he asked. “What is it, maybe a hundred thousand?” he asked.

  “Give or take,” the Bishop said.

  “Huh,” Trey said. “Looks like at least a tenth of that has decided to make an appearance here,” he said.

  “Bird’s coming in hot,” Harry suddenly said, gesturing.

  And, sure enough, a large gray craft grew larger as it sliced through the night sky, moving rapidly toward them. Its noise drew the ire of the growling mob below, the collective intensity of thousands of humanoids making the same ugly sound simultaneously creating a distracting din that drowned out thought.

  “Everyone ready?” Trey asked. Then it occurred to him that the bird had to land somewhere. Glancing around as he stood up, he realized that there wasn’t space on the roof for the helicopter to land. “Shit. Hey, dad, are… are we going to have to get down?” he asked.

  Harry wiped a hand over his face. He grew a peculiar shade of pale, visible even in the sallow shafts of silver light cast by the wan moon. Turning, he spoke quietly with Maxime. Then, after a discernible pause, he slowly nodded. “Appears so.”

  “Fuck,” Trey said. “How is THAT supposed to work?” he asked.

  Maxime began talking, his tone remarkably even and clear, despite the urgency of their circumstances. He stood up, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “We go. Now,” he said.

  Then he began moving toward the yellow metal ladder that descended into the small, smelly alley behind the adult novelty store.

  Shaking, Trey watched helplessly as Harry shuffled toward the ladder. He saw the Bishop following suit. “I guess we’re going down,” Trey said, his voice hollow. He wasn’t sure if he were issuing a command or speaking to himself. Taking a step forward, he leaned down and touched Melody’s shoulder. “You okay?” he asked.

  Looking up at him with glistening eyes, she smiled sadly. She nodded. Her red nose and puffy face signified that she’d been crying. Wiping a quivering hand over her face, she reached out, taking her husband’s hand, and stood. She looked around for a second, her expression almost confused. Then she turned and offered Trey a resilient grin. “Let’s do it,” she said.

  “Hey, girls, come on,” Trey said, motioning for them to get up. He went over and knelt down close to his daughter. “We need to go, sweetie,” he said. He patted Sofia’s knee. “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

  “But… what if it’s not?” she asked. Then she frowned and stomped a foot on the roof. “NONE OF THIS IS OKAY,” she shouted, her face pained. She glared up at her father, a rigid frown slicing across her face. “Just go without me,” she said, pouting, her arms crossed against her chest.

  “Sweetie…”

  “I DON’T WANT TO GO,” Sofia yelled.

  When Trey reached out to touch her, the girl got up and raced to the other end of the roof. She sat back down, Indian-style, glaring at him with hot contempt in her eyes.

  Throwing his hands up into the air, Trey grunted. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked, looking up to the gray clouds hovering in the night sky as if for guidance. “Sofia, we have to go,” he said, trying to keep his tone even. Glancing over, he saw that the Bishop had already disappeared over the edge.

  “I WANT TO GO HOME,” Sofia screamed, her eyes closed, her mien distorted by a volatile brew of emotions. “I HATE YOU!” she shouted.

  “You don’t mean that…”

  “I do! I do mean that. All you do is run around, bossing around… and everything you tell us to do is DUMB. We keep getting in MORE trouble,” Sofia said.

  “Well, Sofia, this time, your dad wasn’t the one telling us what to do. It was that nice Frenchman,” Melody said, stepping up beside Trey. She placed a gentle, reassuring hand on the small of his back. “If you want to go home,”

  “SHUT UP!” Sofia yelled, interrupting. She began rocking back and forth. She clamped her hands over her eyes and squeezed her eyes shut. She did this for several seconds before seemingly calming down. “You’re not my mom,” she said, finally.

  “I know I’m not, Sofia. I’ll never replace your mother. And I’m never, ever going to try. Okay? But… please, will you listen to your dad? I know this sucks. I mean…” Melody gulped. “I was raped,” she said. “Do you think I like any of this, Sofia? Do you think I asked for any of this? None of us did, sweetie. We all want to go home,” Melody said. She glanced back toward the ladder. “But to get home, we have to trust these French soldiers, okay?” she said, her tone lower. She gazed at her defiant step-daughter for several long seconds before smiling slightly when the girl finally got up.

  “Well, I’m just doing this because I like Chloe,” Sofia said. Then she stomped off in the direction of the ladder.

  Trey mouthed a thank-you to his wife and breathed an intense sigh of relief as he watched the girl begin climbing down the ladder. Then he turned and looked at Chloe. “Hey, speaking of, how are you?” he asked. Then he shook his head. He placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been infected by whatever crawled into my daughter’s butt,” he said.

  Chloe cracked a smile. But something in her eyes was haunted. Instead of responding verbally, she instead shuffled toward the ladder.

  Left alone on the roof with his wife, Trey turned and looked into her face. He searched her eyes. Leaning forward, he kissed her. A certain urgency and hunger filled him as he pressed his lips against hers. Her touch reawakened something inside of him that had gone dormant in the last few… days? Weeks? The concept of time had been extirpated by the traumatic incidents they’d been forced to endure. Regardless, as he lost himself in that kiss, osculating the woman he’d once loved fiercely, Trey felt alive.

  “Come on, guys,” Harry yelled, his tone hoarse.

  Backing away, Trey simpered. He caught Melody wiping her face in his peripheral vision. Forcing himself to focus, he looked at her. “Hey,” he said, his tone husky and laden with lust. “I love you,” he said. And he realized, with some relief, that it remained true. In the depths of his heart, he understood that it wasn’t as true as it had been prior to being stranded on a cruise ship full of zombies, but the degrees of his affection didn’t seem to matter in that moment. It felt trivial. What he needed was love. And to be
confronted by the raw emotion in his wife’s eyes, her fierce loyalty and unswerving trust in him, Trey knew that she offered him that in spades.

  “Guess we better get going,” he said.

  Chapter 2

  Maxime tossed Trey a handgun.

  “Who throws a fucking pistol?” Trey asked, catching the firearm with two hands, his heart galloping through his chest.

  Harry chuckled. He winked when he caught his son’s eye. “Nice catch,” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Trey said, shaking his head. Examining the slide, he saw PAMAS 9mm G1 imprinted into the metal. “What the fuck is this?” he asked.

  Moving closer, Harry inspected the pistol. He scratched his chin as he peered at it. “Hmmm… looks a lot like the M9A1,” he said. Then, turning, he shouted at Maxime, who was directing his attention toward the other end of the alley.

  Harry laughed when he heard the man answer. “He said they only give the Marines here shit equipment,” he said. He shook his head. “Sounds like some things aren’t limited to the good ol’ US of A,” he said, smiling.

  “Okay, well… what’s that got to do with this?” Trey said, redirecting his dad’s attention back to the gun. “And… what the Hell am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, holding up the heavy grenade launcher.

  Shrugging, Harry chewed on his lower lip. “Toss it, I guess,” he said. “Anyway, yeah, that basically is their version of the M9A1… uh, the Beretta 92…” he shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. He took the handgun from his second, ejecting the magazine. Examining the contents of the clip inside the magazine, he testified to the weapon’s capacity. “You have fifteen rounds. Other than that,” he said, reloading the gun and handing it back to its new operator. “Just point and shoot. Same as always.” Harry reached out and patted his son on the shoulder, then walked away, rejoining Marshall and Maxime at the front.

  Examining the gun once again, Trey made a small sound and shrugged. “Hey, let’s join the others,” he said.

  As he walked forward, he realized how odd it was, to be alone in the alley while thousands of the undead creatures milled about just on the other side of the wall. Trey laughed at the profundity and surreality of everything that seemed to come with the new world they’d somehow inherited.