by Mark Tufo
“Rose, I don’t think red-necking a plane bomb is a good idea,” I told her.
“Red-necking? You realize I’m a highly trained explosive technician, right? With all her fingers, no less! That’s a pretty rare occurrence.”
“I’m more concerned with the yield,” I told her. “The bigger the explosion, the bigger your eyes get. I saw your excitement when you got to take that mountain down.”
“I’ve matured, sir.”
I trusted her as much as I trusted Henry to not crop dust me with noxious gas while I was trying to eat a lasagna he had begged for and I’d not shared.
“Sir, I suggest we kill the horde we’ve got now before they reinforce themselves,” Baggelli said.
I was thinking about it. It was a crappy standoff. We wanted out the door and they wanted in. The choke point was going to make it tough to get past them. I preferred not to do any in-close fighting. I looked around; we were in a machine room. There were hoists attached to the ceiling. BT followed my line of sight.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“What?”
“I see what you’re looking at. I’m not flying around the room like some black Peter Pan.”
“Not Tinkerbell?” Stenzel asked.
“Brave woman,” I told her. “Let’s think…these hooks move around the room to go from station to station. We could rig some sort of platform to fire from, we let them in and clean house.”
“Who gets to open the door?” Kirby had his hand up as he asked the question.
“Damn admirable of you to volunteer.” BT clapped his shoulder.
“I wasn’t volunteering!”
“Nonsense, your hand was up in the air.”
“Yeah. I was asking a question.”
“Don’t worry, Kirby, we’ll pull you up as soon as you open the door,” I told him.
“As soon as,” BT echoed.
“Makes me feel real fucking swell.”
Twenty minutes later, we had a set-up that would make a net-free daredevil trapeze artist call OSHA. It might have been better to just open the door and let the zombies have their way. We managed to get four hooks into roughly a rectangular arrangement, then we lashed pipes to the hooks, forming some semblance of a ladder. Not picking on red-necks, but they would have cringed at the rigging. We were using duct tape, bungee cords, nylon rope, uniform fabric, belts…whatever we could get our hands on. Wasn’t one of us that didn’t step back when it was done and wonder what the fuck we were doing.
“Test run?” I asked hesitantly. “BT, you’re the biggest.”
“And as the biggest, I’m telling you to fuck off, right now.”
“Gary, you’re up.”
“This have anything to do with me ratting you out to mom that time you got drunk and took her car without telling her?”
“What do you think?” I responded as I pointed to where he should stand. Seemed solid enough with the “platform” on the ground. “Grab the chain. All right, let’s hoist him up.” BT, myself, Tommy and Stenzel were each on chain duty. The gear ratio in the pulleys made the job easy enough. Gary was swaying like drunk dancers at a Dead show. At three feet off the ground, I had everyone stop. “Move around a bit,” I told him.
“I already am,” he replied without releasing his clutch on the chain.
“I meant on your own.”
“This is too flimsy, too many people, not enough chains to grab,” BT said as he looked around the room. He was right; couldn’t shoot a damn thing if we were all trying to hold on for dear life.
“That workbench is good sized.” Rose walked over and tapped on the heavily scuffed up metal surface. Half an hour, eight rolls of tape, and most of the rope later, we had a ten foot by four foot zombie hunting stand. It was much steadier than the piping alone, but it was far from bedrock.
“It needs railings.” Stenzel was standing on it. We grabbed more pipes and taped them higher up on the chain. It was more like perceived safety than actual safety, kind of like knowing your airplane seat can be used as a flotation device, in the unlikely event of a water “landing.” We raised it five feet. It had six people on it, finally convinced BT to be one of them. It had some sway to it, but it was reasonably stable. BT’s weight alone seemed to anchor the structure; he was not flattered when I pointed that out to the team.
“Baggelli, Reed, Walde, do you perhaps want to lead a prayer for the major? I know this isn’t what any of us would have wanted, but we need to put him somewhere safe,” I said. I knew we couldn’t leave him on the floor; the zombies would eat him. He didn’t deserve that, and none of us wanted to be witness to it. A few solemn words were spoken then we cleaned out the bottom of a large tool cabinet. He fit but we had to do some bending. I felt bad for how undignified this was for him, even if he didn’t give a shit anymore.
“This is absolute bullshit,” Kirby said as the rest of us hoisted ourselves into the air. The plan was for him to open the door, run to the middle of the room, climb on top of a cabinet where we would pull him up, then raise the platform just a little higher. Plans are good. Plans are, in fact, necessary, even if plans hardly ever go as planned. The general consensus was to sit down with legs dangling over the edges, for stability and comfort. We were locked, loaded, and, speaking for myself, somewhat terrified. The platform creaked and groaned like the buttons on Dolly Parton’s blouse. Didn’t seem like it would take much more than an abrupt move to have either of those things fail. One would be horrible, the other not so much. Back in the day, I mean, forget it. I had no desire to see the zombiefied breast of any celebrity, regardless of the size.
“Ready?” Kirby had his hand on the door handle and was looking up at us.
I was in mid-nod when BT shouted for him to stop.
“I don’t like this,” BT said.
Kirby expelled a long gust of air in relief.
“Tie this around your waist and to your belt.” BT tossed him the last bit of rope.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“He’s gonna fuck this up, I can just about smell it,” BT said.
“What are you going to do, use him for chum?” Stenzel asked.
“Not the worst idea.” BT pulled up on the rope, he had a very uncomfortable Kirby a few inches off the ground.
“You, um, might want to readjust that rope,” I told the poor kid. He was looking a little worse for wear but that’s what happens when you attempt to bisect your boys. Wasn’t a guy up there that didn’t sympathize with that pain.
“My bad.” BT winced as he let Kirby down.
A couple of minutes later and with a much improved complexioned Kirby, we were again on the precipice of letting the zombies in.
“Hold on, hold on!” Baggelli shouted.
“Oh, for fucks sake! I’m not going for another ball ride,” Kirby snapped.
“Yeah, don’t break my boyfriend’s balls,” Rose said. “I like them; they’re like plump little plums.”
“Can we get off the balls wagon? What’s going on, Bags?” I asked.
“Might want to check on the number of zombies, make sure there’s not five hundred of them now.”
That was a good idea. Being stuck in this room was bad enough, being stuck in this room on this little platform would be unbearable.
“Looks about the same,” Kirby announced, peering through the window. “Them dog things are up front though, and they’re watching me. Creepy ass motherfuckers. Ready?”
Rose gave him a thumbs up, I nodded. He spun the wheel. It didn’t technically go to shit…what’s bad but not quite as bad as liquidy human offal? Vomit? That’ll work, but vomit produced from food that already looks a wee bit like vomit, some chunky beef stew vomit. That’s about what happened. It’s tough to say whether they had always been pushing on the door or if as soon as he started turning the handle they decided to force the issue, but Kirby had no sooner unsecured the lock when the door swung open, pushing him backward in a skidding manner. He was never quite able to get his feet
underneath correctly, as he scrabbled back toward the makeshift ladder. He did have a stroke of luck as the first zombie through blocked the progress of the reaver right behind it, poised to pounce on its prey. Kirby’s hip clipped the corner of the bench, stopping any momentum he had as he tried to jump up. The safe money was on the zombie getting him first, but the reaver wasn’t considered a long shot.
BT didn’t have an opportunity to warn us as he heaved on the rope. Our life-preserving platform moved quickly and in a jerked manner as BT flew his Kirby kite upside down in a tsunami. I grabbed Gary’s shoulder before he could pitch off, face first.
“That almost sucked.” His eyes were big as saucers. Everyone had the memo now to hold on as BT grunted, reeling in a big camo-clad fish. The reaver launched. I watched as an outstretched paw ripped through the bottom part of Kirby’s pants. He screamed.
“Get him up here!” I yelled to BT, who was leaning back, veins as big as a baby’s forearm bulging from his neck, his teeth gritted. “Winters, do you have any sedatives?”
Kirby was now on our mini-walkway and flopping around like the landed fish he was.
“What’s wrong with him?” Rose had a horrified expression.
Baggelli, along with a few others, began to shoot down into the invading mass of the undead.
“Reaver toxin. He won’t die.” I said those words, but honestly, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. It might have been my less-liked bitter half that had saved me; the only other example I had was McCabe, and he was dead. “He’s going to be screwed in the head for a while. We need to keep him calm, maybe tie him to a chain.”
Kirby was kicking out and thrashing. It wouldn’t be long until he punted someone clean off the ramp. Winters stuck him with a needle, and he immediately calmed.
“Sedative?”
“Morphine,” Winters said as he tossed the spent hypodermic away. I gave him a look. I wasn’t so sure giving the man something that would suppress his respiration was such a good idea, given that he’d been poisoned. Although, I suppose a sedative would have done the same thing. “You have experience with this?” Winters asked as he was taking the other’s pulse.
“I got scratched going to help Dallas.” I thought I’d told everyone that. Either he hadn’t been present or it was something I’d so wanted to forget I’d left that part of the story out.
“How long did it last and what was it like?”
“I’m not sure about the time, ten minutes? The effects were hallucinogenic with some DMT properties.”
“Pretty specific.”
“I’ve had a run-in or two with both.”
“If they are only short-lasting, fast-acting psycho actives, he should be fine.”
“Should?” Rose asked.
We had another problem. We were down another person, which meant another two to help carry. We were starting to get a log jam in front of the door as Baggelli wouldn’t even give them a chance to cross the threshold, like he was playing a video game and he wanted to horde all the loot the enemy dropped once they were killed.
“Bags.” I had to shake him to get him to hear me. I’d riled Baggelli a few times since I met him, mostly in jest, and I’d seen him red-faced and mad, but none of those previous occasions had anything on the hatred now etched into his features. Every kill was given with as much malice as he could muster. He wasn’t killing them to save us, but rather to avenge the death of his commanding officer. I got it. “Bags, let them in. It does no good if they can’t get in.” He finally relented.
The reavers hopped over the pile, as the zombies pulled the chattel away. Within a few minutes, the gang was all present. It was the reavers that discovered our perch first and subsequently the first to see a way up. I watched as they were figuring out the problem, tracking their heads as they looked to us, then the cabinet with the chair atop it.
“Oh, these fuckers are smart,” BT swore.
“Now!” I ordered. You’ve all heard the “shooting fish in a barrel” analogy; this could be as close to a literal translation of that as possible, but without fish. It was slaughter, and I was okay with that. Zombies were dropping fast. I stopped wasting bullets, as I was oftentimes the third or fourth to riddle a body as it fell to the deck. Kirby was out cold, Grimm was slightly rocking back and forth, the blistering sound of the shots had to be vibrating the loose bones in his eyes and beating on his battered brain, must have hurt like hell. I debated telling Winters to pop him a dose, too, but moving one comatose patient was enough. After ten minutes, the room was a haze of swirling smoke. The only thing moving down there was a river of blood with dozens of flowing tributaries, all sloshing toward a drain in the middle.
“Cease fire!” I yelled. There were a couple more rounds popped off; it’s not always easy to shut off the flow of battle adrenaline. We were all looking down at the bodies. I was just about to head off when something on the far side of the room moved. Had my leg hanging way over the edge and everything. I blinked and the reaver was up the fallen body of a zombie, onto the cabinet then the chair, and had launched. It was at the midway point between take-off and taking a bite before I could get my leg back up. All I could manage to do in that timeframe was my best to keep myself away from that saliva-dripping maw. It was Tommy that caught it in the side of the head with the buttstock of his weapon. The reaver hissed and yelped as its head bounced off the heavy chain to my immediate left. It did a complete three hundred and sixty degree turn before falling to the ground. Tommy’s sudden movements had caused our platform to swing like a rubber floaty in rough seas. His momentum sent him pitching to the side. I swiped to grab hold of anything, missed by a foot. He was heading straight for the reaver. I was in no position to shoot. I saw more movement out of the corner of my eye. Another reaver, maybe two. No one needed orders from me to continue the fight.
Tommy, for the next few moments, was on his own as he landed heavily on the reaver. I heard the cracking of bones, but it was impossible to tell whose. There was hardly anyone more capable to deal with the threat than that boy, but that didn’t stop me from jumping down to help. In my haste to get there, I misjudged my jump and landed awkwardly. Instead of trying to stay standing and risk the chance of twisting an ankle or worse, I rolled with it. A zombie’s chest took the majority of my weight; I appreciated the cushion, but the luster wore off my gratitude when, in return, he expelled thick chunks of slimy black material into the air, which splashed down across my neck and ribcage. Tommy was in a sitting position. He had the jaws of the reaver in his hands, doing his best to keep them from clamping down. The reaver was going batshit crazy doing everything it could to wriggle free or bite down. Bags jumped down to the side of me and immediately ran to help Tommy. The reaver, seeing him, began to whine, a loud, high-pitched whistling noise coming through its strange snout.
“It’s calling for help!” I stood.
Bags had his knife in his hand, looking for a clear place to stab. The reaver was scrabbling to the side, spinning Tommy on his ass. Tommy strained; I could see the muscles in his back clearly though his uniform. There was a clicking sound, and the reaver’s legs went rigid for a moment before again kicking around, looking to be free from its human restraints. Bags ran and jumped, slicing a four-inch-wide gash along the animal’s side. The maneuver wrenched it free from Tommy. The reaver lunged; its jaws were locked wide open. Its eyes were red-rimmed in panic and I would imagine pain when it realized it would not be able to feed and that only death awaited it here. It took one look around and then headed out the door, another strategy we’d never seen from a zombie. Two bullets were fired at it, neither hit. If this were a movie, that wouldn’t bode well. Any enemy that gets away under spectacular circumstances generally comes back around to inflict harm in one way or another. The star doesn’t die, but one of the supporting cast pays for the mistake, usually tossing the lead into a revenge-fueled funk. I could only hope we wouldn’t live that overplayed trope, as it loped quickly away. I helped Tommy up.
Within
five minutes, we had everyone down, including our wounded. BT ended up carrying Kirby, slinging him over his shoulder like a swimmer might a wet towel. Felt bad for the kid; no way BT was going to let this ride go unpaid for. I’d nearly forgotten what fresh air smelled like by the time we made it out into the main part of the under deck.
“Now what?” BT asked.
“Good question. I’d hoped that all the shooting would have brought the remainder of the platoon. We’ve now got to operate on the belief that they’re gone,” I said.
“The mission?” Winters asked.
“We finish it,” Baggelli said. “We have to, otherwise the major died for nothing!”
Easy enough to see he was getting worked up, and me informing him that he’d died for nothing, either way, wasn’t going to help the situation.
“We need to get to the bridge,” I said.
“Then?” Winters asked.
“Our primary mission now is to rid this vessel of the infection. We get the lights and comms running, we get some help. Then we’ll find a fucking nuke to ram down Deneaux’s throat, repeatedly.”
“I like the way you’re thinking,” BT said. “The repeatedly down the throat thing might have been a bit too much; there’s the potential to kickstart other visuals.”
Gary gagged. I could have said it was in response to a wafting from the killing room, but when I looked back at my words, they were the more likely culprit. A deep-throating lemon-lipped snake was not on my list of things I ever wanted to see.
“I’ve been on this clunker before; I can get us to the bridge,” Reed said.
“Lead on.”
Grimm was mostly walking on his own, with Winters’ assistance.
“Sir, we’re low on ammo,” Stenzel said quietly as we moved.
That could have been a line from Justin’s book: Captain Obvious Looks at the World. About as useful as saying Henry was hungry. Henry was always hungry, and for whatever reason, we were always low on ammo. I caught up to Reed.
“Where’s the armory on this tub?”
“Shit. Should have maybe headed there first. Two decks down and behind us. We’re about halfway between them.” He stopped walking. Froze me in my tracks for a split second as I played out as many scenarios as I could. Getting the ammo was way up there on the charts, but I wanted to do it with the lights on. I wasn’t one of those people that would venture into a darkened basement to chase down an errant noise so I could be the first killed during the opening credits of a horror flick. The set-up death, so to speak. Usually a no-name actor, good looking, just didn’t make the cut…but every once in a while they’d throw a star into that role, just to screw with people. And since I was the star of this particular journal, I was not willing to take that risk.