Under a Graveyard Sky

CHAPTER 29

“Dibs on direct commission.”

Lieutenant Colonel Justin Pierre had been missing meetings due to a recurrence of, of all things, malaria. He’d picked it up in Afghanistan. Doctors at Walter Reed thought they’d gotten out every trace with a new drug regime but it turned out they were, well, wrong. Which hadn’t been spotted before he was put on this assignment or he’d never have had it. In fact, malaria was now one of those things that was ground for medical retirement. Or, possibly, a letter of reprimand since you were supposed to take prophylaxis medication.

Colonel Pierre had not been lax in his use of prophylaxis medication. He had ended up way in the back of nowhere and cut off for about thirty days until he could E &E to friendly lines. Unlike the SEALs who had ended up in a similar situation, his team had never made the news. Probably because he had managed to extract all of them without any deaths. Wounded, yes, but they had an 18 Delta with them. Regular medics and corpsmen were trained to stabilize a patient until they could be evacuated. Special Forces medics were trained to heal people. They admitted they were not doctors, nor anywhere close, but Sergeant Ford had gone above and beyond.

However, they were planning for a seven day mission. Not thirty. All of them had gotten malaria.

But he was back in the saddle and determined to get that girl as a commissioned officer in the United States Army.

“I’ll throw in submitting a Memo for Record to the CJCS that they waive normal restrictions against women attending advanced combat schools, set up a quicky Q course and automatically pass her.”

“She’s thirteen, Colonel,” Brice said, drily.

“I think the youngest officer the U.S. Army ever commissioned was fifteen,” Pierre said. “ I can gin up a recommendation to the Joint Chiefs that given current global conditions we can waiver some people.”

“That’s a lot of waivers, Colonel,” Freeman said. “Besides, I think all things considered, she’s more the SEAL type.”

“Got any available SEAL instructors?” Pierre said. “I’m a qualified Q course instructor.”

“Actually I was thinking Marines,” Mr. Galloway said. “Colonel Ellington. I now have a better appreciation for your paladin in hell metaphor.”

Galloway looked over at Ellington and saw that the colonel’s face was covered in tears.

“Colonel?” Galloway said, carefully.

“She reminds me of my wife, sir,” the colonel said. “She was a lieutenant in the MPs when we met.”

“I am…” Galloway said. There was an unspoken rule against speaking about family. At least in these sort of circumstances. “Sorry. I hope to have the opportunity to meet her someday.”

“That would be difficult, sir,” Ellington said. “She was killed in Iraq. Long before this…debacle. Suicide bomber. I was standing about ten feet from her. Facing her, sir. They…picked parts of her out of my face at Walter Reed, sir.” He pointed to an odd bump on his face. “Then again, parts of her are still with me, sir. They believe it is a portion of a tooth. My wife had beautiful teeth.”

“Holy fuck, Ellington,” Brice whispered. “That wasn’t in your service report. Just that you’d been hit by an IED in Iraq.”

“That was personal rather than professional,” Ellington said with a shrug. “She essentially shielded me from the blast. I survived. She did not. It was tough, but we’d arranged to be on the same team, doing analysis of the Iraqi WMD program. She was commanding the security team. She was always…” His face tightened and he breathed hard.

“I am a Marine officer. I am versed in combat. But she was the warrior, sir, General. I was, am, a geek. I can fight. I have proven that. I have direct combat action in Iraq. But she was the warrior of us, Mr. Under Secretary, General Brice. She was our warrior half. Colonel Pierre, my wife was an Army officer. I would not prevent that young lady’s career in the Marines in any way. She would make a fine Marine. I would also not be upset if she chose the Army. Some Marines might. But I have known the warrior women of the Army and they are fine warriors. Honorable and courageous warriors, all.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Pierre said. “I wish I had met her in my career. Mr. Under Secretary, a serious suggestion?”

“Yes?” Galloway said.

“I would recommend that a recording of this be downloaded to all the still in contact submarines,” Pierre said. “There is damned little, currently, to build morale. Perhaps put it together with earlier bits such as Miss Smith’s response to her father’s question about back-up plans.”

“That, Colonel, is a really sensible suggestion,” Galloway said. “Commander, can we do that bandwidth wise?”

“Not an issue, sir,” Freeman said. “And, yes, I’d agree it’s an excellent idea. It sure as hell raised my morale.”

“Let’s hope her father is as heartened,” General Brice said. “I’m betting he hits the roof.”

* * *

“You okay, Faith?” Steve said, clearing the landing ladder. You couldn’t walk on the deck for all the bodies. He literally had to jump into an open ribcage to get off the ladder. When he’d gotten into contact with Sophia she’d been really noncommittal about how things were going. “Faith’s still there. No bites.” Now he knew why.

“No worries, Da,” Faith said, shrugging. She was absolutely covered in blood. “Fair dinkum scrum. Hooch handled it just fine.”

Hocieniec’s gear, while blood-splattered, was splattered, not covered. For that matter, parts of Faith’s heavy battle gear were torn. There were teeth marks everywhere. And she had some knives missing from their sheathes. And her machete was on the deck, bent. And her Halligan tool had matted brain matter and hair on it. It was long and blond and for a second Steve wondered if she’d somehow ripped some of her own hair out with it. Except hers was thoroughly covered by her gear.

“Trixie got a little messed up,” Faith said, reaching back to pat the teddy bear. “Trixie’s going to need a nice hot bath after this, isn’t she? Trixie says she got a little frightened but she’ll be okay. She shut her eyes during the bad parts.”

Steve had seen enough zombies dead from wounds at this point for a twenty-year career. And he knew wounds even before this apocalypse. Zombies were cut, smashed, bashed in heads, all the shot wounds had speckling around them from close or direct contact shots. Angles were insane on some of them. Shots down into the shoulder, which could only be done from…

“Okay,” he said. “No worries. Thanks for holding the high ground. You need to take a breather for a bit?”

“What I need to do is ammo up,” Faith said. “But I think most of my mags are so…messed up that they sort of need to be cleaned first. And I’m down to less than one mag of Saiga.”

“Pistol?” Steve asked.

“Uh, I’m down to three rounds.”

“I think that Fontana and I will hold this position while you go wash down your gear and ammo back up. Can you keep going? Seriously?”

“Try to hold me back, Da.”

* * *

“These doors are locked,” Fontana said, pulling at the hatch. The massive construction was one of the doors to the lifeboat deck and it was positively unwilling to open. A halligan tool wasn’t going to scratch it.

“Crap,” Steve said, looking around. “That means another pass card hunt.”

“Isn’t this Chris’s boat?” Fontana said. “Does he still have his?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said, keying his radio. “Sophia, all the exterior hatches we’ve found are locked down. Call Chris and ask him if he still has his pass key or whatever for the boat. And tell him we’re probably going to need his help finding our way around. Dallas, you monitoring?”

“Roger, Wolf actual.”

“Tell the Coasties as soon as they get here they’re to coordinate the evacuation teams. These people are going to need wheelchairs, stretchers, something. And right now getting them off the boat is going to be a professional evolution. They’ll need to primarily provide expertise and security. We’ll clear the zones, then they can come in and get the people. Copy?”

“Coast guard personnel to organize evacuation and maintain security presence, Wolf teams to clear.”

“Roger,” Steve said. “As soon as we can get a master key or something.”

* * *

“Wolf, Dallas, over.”

“Go ahead, Dallas,” Steve said.

“Retransing a call from the David Cooper, over.”

“Go ahead retrans,” Steve said.

“Wolf, Chris. Got in position to observe. First of all, you know this was my ship, over.”

“Roger, over,” Steve said. “What can you tell us, over?”

“Good luck. The Voyage is one of the largest liners in the world. Getting into it was only the first problem. The Staff Side Acting First intended to do a complete lockdown after all lifeboats were away. A complete lockdown closes and locks all interior doors and hatches including room doors in both directions. The only way to override it is from the central control, with the right codes or correct passkey, or using passkeys locally. Then it gets complicated. I’ve sent my key over for Faith to bring over to you. But it will only open certain internal common doors and doors specifically related to my job. I can move in all common staff areas and in all the kitchen and supply areas. It won’t, for most important example, open cabins. There was no reason a chef should have unrestricted access to the cabins.”

“Buggers,” Steve muttered.

“You’re going to have to hunt for a senior Staff side officer’s key… Standby.”

“Roger,” Steve said, looking at Fontana with a quizzical look. There’d been something in Chris’s voice.

“I didn’t really talk about leaving…” Chris said. “Or about before, much… By some sort of horrible coincidence you boarded right where I left. There was a…break… Standby, please. Sorry, Wolf…”

“Take your time, Chris,” Steve said.

“Steve, Paula, breaking in.”

“Go, Paula.”

“Look for the body or remains or clothing of a female senior staff side officer in that area,” Paula said. “First name is Gwinneth, don’t recall last, Third Officer, Staff side. Last seen directly opposite boarding area of Lifeboat Twenty-Six.”

“Cooper again,” Chris said. “With that key you’ll be able to access all areas except those specifically locked down by higher. That’s only going to be bridge and possibly engineering. If you can find Gwinn’s badge… That’ll do the trick. If not… You’re down to cutting torches. All the doors, including cabin doors, are steel.”

“Roger,” Steve said, gesturing at Fontana with his chin. “Any way to upgrade your key?”

“Only with power to the systems,” Chris said. “And you’d need to find and get into the Staff Side office… Break… Steve, I really don’t want to come over there. Can’t describe how much. But…”

“Once we’re to that point, I’m going to need you to liaison with the Coasties on clearing,” Steve said. “But if you’re talking now, no. We can probably find the cabins that are occupied on our own. We’re going to need help when we start clearing the crew areas and the working areas. But by then maybe we’ll have found a map or something.”

“Roger.”

Fontana came back shaking his head. No badge.

“Cooper, for what it’s worth, it’s not here. She’s not here. Will your badge get us into the interior?”

“All common areas,” Chris replied. “Passenger and crew and most support supply areas. Food at least. But you’re going to be buggered getting to those passengers in cabins.”

“What about security, over?” Fontana asked.

“Security officers should, repeat, should have access to cabins. Also some housekeeping will access some but not all. Did you find a security officer?”

“Minimal clothing and materials cast-off in this area,” Steve said as Faith clambered over the side. “Faith’s here. We’re going to continue this operation.”

“Again, good luck, Wolf.”

“Thanks, Cooper,” Steve said.

“Chris said this isn’t going to get us in the cabins,” Faith said, handing him the card.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

* * *

“Zombies, zombies, zombies,” Faith said, banging on the hatch with the butt of her Saiga. “Customers.” She worked a stethoscope in under her gear and listened. “Okay, lots of customers.”

“Okay,” Steve said, trying not to snarl. They hadn’t even gotten off the lifeboat deck, yet. This was the third hatch they’d tried and they all had “multiple customers” lined up. “Faith, Hooch and Fontana, form a line, five meters that way,” Steve said, pointing forward. They’d gotten away from the entry area and the deck was mostly clear except for the usual fecal matter and occasional gnawed corpse.

“I will pop the hatch, then run like a bugger your way,” Steve said. “Do not fire until I clear the defense point. Let me make this very clear: Do not shoot me.”

“Sir…” Fontana and Hooch both said.

“Yes, one of you probably should do it,” Steve said. “But I’m going to. That’s an order. Just form up and don’t shoot me.”

“Try not to, Da,” Faith said, walking forward. “Just better run like a roo.”

“Weapons pointed down,” Fontana said when they’d lined up. “Locked and loaded, off safe, fingers off the triggers. Take position, prepare to point.” There was a large gap between himself and Faith. “Faith, locked and loaded?”

“Ready.”

“Hooch?”

“Prepared, sergeant.”

“Ready when you are, boss.”

Steve took a deep breath and keyed the door. It popped open slowly, fortunately, and he turned and started running like a scared roo.

“Don’t look back,” he muttered. “Don’t look back.”

He didn’t really need to. The howls of the zombies told him everything he needed to know.

* * *

“Oh, run faster Da,” Faith said. Ten meters didn’t seem very far unless it was the distance your Da had to run to outrun a pile of zombies that was, if anything, larger than her reception party. Da was loaded down with weapons, ammo and equipment. The zombies were not. They’d been slowed opening the heavy hatch but they were now catching up.

“Fire!” Fontana said, putting words to action with a blast of 12 gauge in a zombie’s chest.

* * *

Steve skidded to a stop and turned around, then lunged to fill the gap in the line. There were at least fifty zombies in the group that had been following him. They were tripping over the bodies of the leaders but that wasn’t stopping them, just, barely, slowing them down. He lifted his shotgun as he joined the line and pulled the trigger. It wouldn’t move. He grimaced, jacked a round into the chamber, took it off safe and pulled the trigger again. That time it worked.

“Back step,” Fontana called. “Stay on line.”

“I’m out,” Faith said, pulling a pistol.

“Going pistol,” Hooch said. Ten rounds goes fast when it’s a zombie horde.

“Shit,” Steve said. One of the zombies was still wearing body armor and a riot helmet. No pants but body armor. And shotgun and.45 did poorly against body armor.

The zombie zoomed in on Faith and tackled her. It had apparently figured out how to lift its face shield to deliver a bite and bit down on the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

“Fuck!” Faith said. “Not again!” Her hand scrabbled for a weapon.

“Pistol…won’t work… Kevlar… Knife…!” She reached down to her leg, pulled out a nine inch Gerber Commando and started to stab the zombie repeatedly and rapidly in the back through its armor. “I looove youuuuu toooooo…”

The wave had receded, the security zombie was pretty much the last.

“Reload,” Fontana said. “Faith, you going to get back to work any time soon?”

“He’s heavy,” Faith said, pushing the dead zombie off. “Use a little help here.”

Steve lifted the security guard off his daughter by the neck of his armor and gave her a hand up.

“That is why I hate mall cops,” Faith said, pulling out the knife with a twist and wiping it down with a rag.

“For future reference,” Fontana said. “The pistol would have worked. He had his arms up. Stick the barrel in the armpit.”

“Point,” Faith said, putting the knife away. “But I was pissed off. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to eat me or…something else.”

Steve rifled through the pockets on the armor and came up with a security card.

“Tada,” he said, waving it.

“Cross load ammo and reload magazines,” Fontana said, pulling off his assault pack. “Hooch, Faith on guard. Wolf and Falcon to load. Commodore, I would recommend, despite that card, that we remain together as a four man team until we’re sure that we’ve dealt with all similar large groups.”

“Agreed,” Steve said, pulling out ammo and reloading his Saiga mags. He’d never pulled his pistol. He held out his hand for Faith’s and started loading hers. “What could we have done better?”

“The overall plan was good,” Hooch said. He’d turned to face forward while Faith covered aft. “Except for one thing. I think in future with large groups and multiple possible entries… Or… I understand the thing about bringing them to you not going to them. But… Maybe open the hatch, then call for zombies?”

“If you have reason to suspect a large zone with multiple zombies, open the hatch, back off and then draw them to you?” Fontana said.

“Reasonable,” Steve said.

“It’s not really relevant here,” Fontana said. “But the one rule of Zombieland I’d like to bring up is always have a way out. Preferably with a way to lock it behind you.”

“What if we run into more security zombies?” Faith asked. “I tried for a leg shot but missed. Sorry.”

“Shooting a person in the leg is tough,” Fontana said, closing up his assault pack and handing Hooch his refilled magazines. “Melee weapons?”

“If you’re talking about a machete,” Steve said, standing up, “I don’t think so. Kevlar takes stabs and it will cut by I don’t see cutting through it with a machete.”

“Machete or a kukhri takes off their arm,” Faith said. “With enough force. And I still say a chainsaw is the way to go.”

“They’re heavy,” Fontana said. “And if you tried to cut a security zombie with one the kevlar would jam the chain.”

“Come up,” Faith said, making a motion of cutting up between the legs.

“Ooooh,” Hooch said, grabbing his jewels. “There’s things you just don’t say around guys.”

The area the zombies had come from was a corridor about ten meters wide with more hatches off of it. There was a faint light area where the exterior hatch was open but most of it was shrouded in darkness. It was impossible to tell how long it was but at least there weren’t any zombies immediately coming into view.

“Where to?” Fontana asked. They’d decided to go for the quiet approach and see how it worked.

“Sweep this,” Steve said, pulling out a tac light. The powerful hand-light carried to the far end but barely. Turning around the same happened. The corridor was as long as a football pitch. “Bloody hell. Falcon, Shewolf, forward. Hooch, on me. Pick up any cards you find. Meet back here.”

* * *

“We need some cave lights,” Fontana said, sweeping the taclight on his Saiga from side to side. “This ship is too big for taclights.”

“No shit,” Faith said, then tapped hers. “I think mine took a beating. I’m going to need to switch it out.”

“I’ve got a spare,” Fontana said.

“So do I,” Faith said, stopping and pulling of her ruck.

“You guys had more Surefires than any one group should own,” Fontana said. “Not that I’m complaining.” He not only had one on his rifle but two duct-taped to his body armor facing forward and another in a helmet mount.

“Da always complains through movies, you know?” Faith said. “The idiot going into the basement in the horror movie with the light that doesn’t work pisses him off. We’ve got flashlights all over the house at home. And if we had to drop in the dunny in the dark he wanted plenty of light. But we never figured on clearing a bleeding cruise ship! What are cave lights?”

“You know those million candle power portable spot lights on boats?” Fontana said. “Like that but head-lights and hand lights. Smaller, too. They’d fill this up with light.”

“There,” Faith said, standing up and shaking her shotgun. “Better.”

“Must have been bad if you busted a Surefire,” Fontana said.

“Fair dinkum scrum,” Faith said. “And I don’t think it’s busted. Just messed up. This isn’t somewhere I want my taclight going out.”

The end of the corridor was a blank wall covered in instructions on boarding lifeboats. This was clearly the pre-boarding assembly area. All the hatches were either inboard or outboard. While there were plenty of “remains,” there were probably four times as many bodies as there had been zombies, all the zombies had been at the hatch. They picked up three security cards and moved back to the rendezvous.

“What now, sir?” Fontana said, handing over the cards.

Steve checked through them and stuck them in a pouch.

“No Gwinneth,” he said. “No senior officers.” He contemplated the hatches lining the corridor.

“Eenie-meenie-minie-mo?” Steve said.

“I was expecting something Australian,” Hooch said. “Like, uhm, g’dye or something.”

“Australians use it, too,” Steve said. “It’s a mnemonic of the Celtic numbering system. But that’s not important. The real question is, do we use this hatch, which is in the light, or one of the ones that is in darkness? If we use this one, it will automatically attract zombies when we open it. If they haven’t already gathered from the noise. If we use one further down either way, we might have the element of surprise but we’ll be fighting in the dark and silhouette.”

Faith pulled out her stethoscope and checked the door.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said. “But these are thick doors. No banging, no scratching.”

“I’d say this one, sir,” Fontana said. “First, we’re here. Second, we can see our exit.”

“Fair dinkum,” he said. “That’s Australian, Marine.”

“Roger, sir,” Hooch said, chuckling.

Like the exterior hatches it had massive double doors designed to open outboard. He swiped the reader with the security guard’s card and while the light went from red to green the hatch didn’t open.

Faith flipped out her Halligan and applied the prybar to the hatch which popped open, slightly.

Steve held up a hand, then waved to Hooch. Once it was moving, the hatch opened easily.

The room revealed beyond was apparently vast and entirely dark. It appeared to be an arena with a square deck in the middle.

“Is that a pool?” Faith whispered, pointing her taclight at the deck. “Or a basketball court?”

“I think it was an ice rink,” Hooch said. “No zombies, though.”

“Really?” Faith said. “OLLY-OLLY-OXENFREE!”

There was a wide-spread and growing growling and howling and heads started popping up all over the arena. The zombies turned their heads away at the bright lights after months in darkness but the also stumbled to their feet and started to close on the hatch.

“Back up,” Steve snapped, snapping up his Saiga and shooting the closest zombie. “ All the way outside. Exterior deck. Maintain formation. Back aft on exit.”

“Thanks a lot, Faith,” Hooch snarled.

“This was the plan, right?” Faith said, firing steadily. “Come get some, zombies!”

“This would have been the perfect time for some seven six two,” Fontana said.

The good news, this time, was that the zombies were half blind and instead of coming in a mass were trickling out. In large numbers and clots but not fifty in a bunch.

“Fontana, Hooch, reload,” Steve said, going to pistol.

“Up,” Fontana said. “Reload.”

* * *

“Okay,” Steve said. “We have something resembling a method for outer clearance. What did we do right and wrong? Faith?”

There had been nearly as many zombies in the arena as in the outer corridors. And in much better shape. When the wave had stopped they closed and latched the door to get some time for cross-load and another AAR.

“I shouldn’t have initiated without warning?” Faith asked.

“I’m going to put that in the area of a boo-boo,” Steve said. “But, yes, only initiate zombie call with warning. Hooch?”

“I fumbled my reload,” Hocieniec said. “I’m not that used to this AK system. Like it. Don’t get me wrong. These things are the shit. But I’m still getting used to the system.”

“Two things,” Fontana said. “Our store of 12 is low and so is.45. We’re fighting in fairly big areas and while this would be a weapons switch, I suggest we change out for your AKs. Seven six two would work just about as well as shotgun, we have more seven six two, this is one of the few areas where it will make sense and my shoulder is getting pounded by this twelve,” he added with grin.

“Whiner,” Faith said, grinning back.

“Makes sense,” Steve said. “You said two.”

“More, really,” Fontana said. “The initiation. Okay, so the zombies apparently spend a lot of time sleeping. We need an initiator. My first thought was a flash-bang but we don’t have any and it would probably be overkill. It would have been fun to toss one in the middle of that arena, mind you. But overkill.

“There is no such thing as overkill,” Faith said. “There is only ‘Open Fire’ and ‘Reloading!’ That that never caught on as a bigger meme than LOLKATZ just says it all about people…”

“Hush,” Steve said. “Continue, Sergeant.”

“I’d suggest a whistle.”

“Makes sense,” Hooch said. “May I suggest, with due respect, that the Commodore handle that?”

“Bite me,” Faith said, shaking her head. “It all worked out okay. But, yeah, Da can get his little whistle. You be coach.”

“Will do,” Steve said. “More, sergeant?”

“We probably should take some time and sit down with Chris and discuss the layout of this place. We should have known that door would lead to an arena. I mean, we could have gone back on deck, called him and asked him. He might not have known exactly but he probably would have had some idea. Also, and we should probably cross check this, it makes sense that the lifeboat hatches would open on large gathering areas. Thus another reason for the seven six two.”

“I’m fairly terrified of bouncers around all this steel,” Steve said. “I admit that’s because I caught one myself upon a time. But rifle rounds just keep going.”

“Again, in this type of environment,” Fontana said, waving around. “This deck is fairly smooth walled. We should be able to fire, paralllel to the ship, without fear of bouncers. We’ll have to retreat outside before engaging with rifles.”

“Rifles and these?” Hooch said, patting the Saiga. “We’re already fairly Ramboed up as it is.”

“No,” Fontana said. “We’ll have to either use the rifles in close or use pistols on the retreat.”

“Two sets,” Steve said. “You and I will take the AKs. I’ve trained with them almost exclusively since I got out and fell in love with the bloody things. Hooch and Faith will maintain the Saigas despite Hooch’s discomfort with the reload. They will cover on retreat to exterior with us as back-up if necessary, then we’ll switch roles. And we’ll rehearse it, first.”

“That sounds like a plan, sir,” Fontana said.

CHAPTER 30

“Back on the Campbell,” Gardner said nervously. She had a 10mm and a shotgun the Smiths had “borrowed” when the cleared the cutter. And they’d searched the whole ship for infected. But getting back on the ship was giving her flashbacks.

The ship was being towed by a submarine of all things. They’d taken a 24ft inflatable to make the rendezvous and pick up critical medical supplies. Everything else could wait until it was in place near the liner.

“It’ll be okay, PO,” Seaman Jeff Woodman said. “We just get the saline and go.”

“Easy enough,” Gardner said. She keyed open the deck hatch, started to step across the coaming the stopped. “What the hell?”

The floor was swarming with black bugs. There were so many it looked like the deck was black and moving.

“Oh…gross!” Woodman said. “Where the hell did they come from?”

“Jesus Christ,” Gardner said, quietly.

“What?” Woodman asked. She was shining a light into the interior. He craned his head around to look.

On the deck was a skeleton. Some of the bugs seemed to be fighting for the last scraps of flesh but pretty much everything but bone and some scraps of skin and hair were gone. Bugs were even crawling in and out of the eye sockets, cleaning out the brains.

“Holy crap,” Woodman said, “I don’t want those getting on me!”

“I just figured out what they are,” Gardner said, stepping through the hatch after a flash around with her light. Every step caused a crunch. “And they won’t bite.”

“They stripped that guy to the bone!” Woodman said.

“That’s what they do,” Gardner said, bending down and picking up one of the beetles. It skittered along her arm and she shook it off. “They’re carrion beetles.”

“Carrion?” Woodman said. “So they eat people?”

“They eat dead flesh,” Gardner said. “I’d heard Wolf say he’d ‘seeded’ the boat. I didn’t know it was with these.”

“Wolf did this?” Woodman said angrily. “To our people?”

“Six of us came off, Woodie,” Gardner said softly. “Ninety-four and twenty-six refugees didn’t. You’ve carried bodies. You know how heavy they are. Now…they’re not.”

“That’s horrible,” Woodman said.

“No,” Gardner said, flashing her light around. “It’s efficient, simple and brutal. It’s Wolf all over if you think about it. These things only eat dead flesh. They may get into some of the electronics but those are mostly thrashed by the infecteds, anyway. It cleans the boat out of the main issue, the dead meat on the dead people. If we ever get around to clearing this out, all we’ll have to do is bag the bones.”

“We won’t know who’s who,” Woodman said.

“Does it matter?” Gardner said. “There’s a big thing, it’s called an ossory, in France. All the guys who died in a certain battle in World War One. They buried them, waited for bugs like this to do their work, then dug them back up. All of certain bones are on the left, all the others are on the right and the skulls are in the middle.”

She picked up the skull of the former Coast Guard crewman and looked at it as beetles poured out.

“I don’t know who you were but you were my brother,” Gardner said. “This way, I know I can give you a decent burial. And I will remember you. Now, we’ve got a mission to complete, Woodman, and people waiting on us. Live people. Let the dead bury the dead.”

* * *

Chris hadn’t known the boat like the back of his hand, but he’d been able to determine the areas on the other side of several of the doors. The one they’d chosen was the “lobby” area between the, yes, bloody damned skating rink and the even more bloody damned “four hundred person theater.” Steve was starting to think that whoever had conceived this bloody beast had more megalomania than Napoleon.

About half the doors were to stairwells to the passenger cabins. Steve was torn between wanting to clear the major areas and concentrate on the passenger cabins. But the way their fire had to be echoing in this ship the passengers surely knew they were on the way. And he wasn’t sure he yet wanted to clear stairwells possibly filled with zombies.

“We’ll open and attract from, not clear, this area,” Steve said. “Then the theatre. Then start on the passenger zones.”

“Roger, sir,” Fontana said, shaking his head at the pile of ammo boxes. They’d gotten boats alongside and brought up more people including some “trained” seamen who were willing to go into “non zombie” areas. With their help they’d brought all the ammo up onto the deck well away from the zombie bodies. Steve had also had them bring up some of his “little friends” and they had been scattered on the bodies. And gotten a bite to eat and rehydrated. Time to get back to work.

The outer doors were already open. Faith checked the door, shook her head, put away the stethoscope, then pulled out the Halligan tool. This time Fontana and Hooch were on either side of the door, ready to pull.

Steve swiped, then pulled back to cover.

Faith popped the door, stepped back and started to put the tool on the deck. But there seemed like time so she stowed it away in its holster.

Steve realized that they’d made a mistake. Not a major one but a mistake. He either should have had Faith take one of the rifles or have Fontana handle the Halligan. The shotgunners were the first line of defense with the riflemen backing them. It was a minor point. There was, again, silence and darkness on the far side of the hatch.

The foresome lined up in the hatch and Steve lifted the whistle and blew.

Again there was a guttural howling from the interior. They immediately started to back up and were to the exterior hatch before the first zombie appeared.

“Wait,” Steve said, taking the shot.

“I thought you said shotgun in here?” Faith complained.

“It was a clap shot and we’re conserving shotgun ammo,” Steve said. “Rotate for engagement.”

They continued to back down the deck and stopped at the point they’d planned. And waited. There were sounds from inside the ship but no zombies appeared.

“I think they stopped for a snack,” Faith said. It was hard to hear with all the gear on their heads.

“Bloody stupid…” Steve said. He lifted the whistle and gave another blast on it. That got some coming around the corner and he and Fontana began to engage.

The crackle of semi-automatic fire started to draw the zombies. But slowly. They came out even more slowly than at the theatre and the two riflemen continued to pick them off as they stumbled, mostly blind, into the light, looking for the source of the sound and thus food.

Finally there were only the growling sounds echoing from the hatch.

“Faith?” Steve said. “Don’t want you whining…”

“Going pistol,” Faith said. She started to reach for her.45 then pulled out one of the 10mms that they’d gotten off the Coast Guard cutter. They’d left the arms room alone but any weapons on the deck were considered fair game. “Cover me, Hooch.”

“Got it,” Hocieniec said, following her to the hatch.

Faith fired several slow and deliberate shots into the darkness and downward. Then she shifted up and shot twice more.

“I know this is a more powerful pistol,” Faith said, reloading and putting the weapon away. “But it really doesn’t feel that way, you know? We gonna close these doors? I’m not moving the bodies.”

“Next time wait til they’re clear of the doors, then,” Hooch said. “Cover me.”

* * *

“Ready?” Steve asked.

All four had switched back to shotgun after clearing the lobby and theatre. Now it was time to start working up to the passenger cabins. That meant clearing the stairwell to the first three levels of passenger cabins.

There were two sets according to Chris, inboard and outboard. Based upon what they’d seen with the exterior ones, there might be as many as fifty survivors. Spread over an area the size of a skyscraper.

But first they had to clear the stairwells.

“Been that way,” Faith said. She’d insisted on point.

Steve keyed the door, which popped open dropping a decomposing corpse at her feet. It was wearing bermuda shorts and a flowered shirt. It was unchewed.

There were scratch marks on the inside of the door.

“Shit,” Faith snarled. “Shit, shit…” She turned around and walked to the far bulkhead and started kicking it. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT.” Then she reached behind her to cover the teddy bear’s eyes. “Don’t look, Trixie. It’s not nicey.”

Fontana looked at Steve who held up a finger. Hooch had turned away as well. Steve was nodding his head as if counting time.

“Faith,” Steve said as softly as he could through the respirator. “There are people who need saving upstairs. Do you need to head back to the boats?”

“Just give Trixie a second, okay, Da?” Faith said. She kicked the bulkhead a couple more times, then stuffed the bear’s head down into her assault pack. “I think Trixie needs some sleepy time.” She pulled off her outer glove, then reached into a pouch and pulled out an iPod. She put in the headphones, consulted the playlists, then turned it on. Last, she turned around and walked across and into the stairwell.

“What are you waiting for, an invitation?”

* * *

Robert “Rusty” Fulmer Bennett III had gotten over regretting this “pleasure cruise” a long time ago. How long he wasn’t sure. His buddy, Ted, had suggested they go halves on a room “cause chicks on cruises are easy.” He hadn’t managed to score before the news announced a plague on land. Then the word went around-rumor at first, then confirmed by the ship’s crew-that the “Pacific Flu” had gotten onboard. Things kind of went downhill from there.

When they started getting really bad, the crew had passed out cases of bottled water and cans of food to each room. The cans were Number Ten cans and “you get whatever we have.” There was one case of liter bottles of water per person and three Number Ten cans. That made two cases of water and six cans in their room.

Rusty was a big boy, over three hundred pound and six foot seven in his stocking feet. He could go through two number ten cans of food in a sitting. One of the reasons he wanted to do the cruise was the all you can eat buffets.

But he also wasn’t an idiot and had watched enough zombie movies that he realized that they might be stuck in that room for a long time.

Then there was the fact that they’d been handed six number ten cans of some weird ass bland paste. It said “hummus” on the side and had a smiling picture of some terrorist looking mother-forker spooning the stuff up and grinning like he’d just bombed a church.

So Rusty put them to the side and hoped they wouldn’t have to eat it. And then Ted turned. He hadn’t even shown any signs.

By the time the overworked security guards got there, Rusty had Ted tied up in some torn sheets and he’d managed to avoid getting bitten. Barely. He’d nearly lost it when Ted went. They had been friends since they were in grade school. But, face it, the reason they were friends was that Ted was the geek, Rusty was the muscle. If Rusty had went, Ted wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Rusty and Ted hadn’t been able to afford the expensive cabin with the ocean view. So they’d been watching the occasional zombie go for a couple of days. The ship was still serving, some. And Rusty had gone out a couple of times. But he sure wasn’t cruising for chicks. Just storing up fat and hoping like hell he wasn’t going to go zombie. The zombie plagues were the worst. Twenty-eight days and it was all going to hell.

Then the abandon ship call came. Rusty tried to get to the lifeboats but there were zombies in the corridor. So he ducked back into his cabin and tried to figure out what to do. Then the doors locked and that was that.

He’d drunk an entire bottle of water and filled it from the tap. He kept doing that for two days, drink the water, fill up the bottle. Drink the bottle, fill up the water. While the zombies howled in the mall. He could watch them. That was about the only entertainment.

Then the power failed and while he could still watch the zombies there wasn’t any more water. Along with the water stopping working, so did the shitter. That was okay, he wasn’t pooping much.

He’d conserved. He’d sipped even when he was desperate with thirst. He’d heard you could drink piss. When he filled a bottle, he drank that instead of water til it got dark and nasty. Then he’d sip water…

He could see the days go by but his iPhone ran out of power pretty quick and he had no idea what day it was. He had no idea how long he’d lived in that cabin. When he got up, he’d eat a teaspoon of that terrorist stuff, which somebody told him was made from ground up chickpea, though the guy called it “garbanzo beans,” drink piss and then a capful of water to wash it down, then sit and wait for all the zombies to die or somebody with, you know, guns to come along.

The ones in the hallway stopped making noise after about two weeks. He was surprised it was that long without any water. But he still couldn’t get out cause the door was locked and it was, like, steel. He’d pulled off the veneer to check.

He was thirsty all the time and he was down to pure piss in the bottles. And it turned out that piss turned. It was starting to smell like ammonia or something.

The zombies had, like, moods. Sometimes they’d be quiet, sometimes it seemed like for days. Then they’d get active and usually start fighting each others. He started calling them “orcs” cause they reminded him of those movies with the hobbits.

Then they day came when he could hear them getting really riled up. He could barely pay attention. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d gotten out of bed. He knew he was getting bed sores but it was just too much trouble to get up. But he could hear the zombies making noise and some sort of odd thumping. It was different but he really could care less. There’d been thumps before.

Then the door opened. He heard it but he realized he couldn’t even move his head.

“Another terminal,” a muffled voice said. It sounded like a chick but he’d had that dream before.

“I’ll check.”

A bright light was flashed in his face and he flinched. That hadn’t happened before.

“You’re real…?” he croaked.

* * *

“I need a stretcher team,” Faith said over the radio. “Some big guys. Even as a skeleton, this guy is big.” She unkeyed the radio. “I thought he was a deader. My bad.”

“Just drink,” Hooch said, giving the guy a sip of water. All the survivors looked like they’d been in the death camps but this guy was particularly bad if for no other reason than being so big to begin with. His feet were hanging off the end of the bed. “A couple of sips. Your body needs to get used to it, again.”

“You’re really real?” the guy croaked again.

“We’re really real,” Hooch said. “Sorry it took so long but the world’s gone to shit. We’re going to get you over to the boats in a bit. Tell them to bring an IV or this guy’s going to go into shock.”

“Bring an IV,” Faith said. “Cabin Three-Nine-Eight-Four. Hooch, we need to keep clearing.”

“Can you hold the bottle?” Hooch asked, putting it in the guy’s hand. “We need to keep looking for survivors. Don’t die before the medical team gets here, okay? Don’t give up.”

“I won’t,” the guy said. “Thank you. Who are you?”

“Wolf Squadron,” Hooch said. “Long story. They’ll explain it later. Just hang in there. We’re going to prop the door. We’ve cleared the zombies.”

The guy just barely nodded and tried to raise the water bottle. He couldn’t even manage that.

“Straw,” Faith said. She’d spotted one in an old coke bottle. She cleaned it off, put it in the bottle and propped it where the guy just had to turn his head. “Can you do it now?”

“Yes,” the guy said. “Thanks.”

“Just hang in there,” Hooch said. “You made it this long. Don’t give up.”

“Not gonna,” the guy said. “I want to kill zombies.”

“Okay, now you’re talking my language,” Faith said, patting him on the shoulder and sticking the straw between his lips. “We’ll talk in a couple of weeks.”

* * *

Rusty couldn’t believe how good water tasted. It was, like, orgasmic. He didn’t have to worry about drinking too much. Every time he took a sip he had to let his body and brain settle down from the intensity of the experience. Sip, fireworks. Sip, twitch. Sip, more fireworks. There were, like, stars in his eyes. Then he realized it was a flashlight.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” a voice said. “The guy doesn’t have any veins to put a stick in!”

“Let me try it,” another voice said.

“Like you know how any better than me. Hey, guy, this is gonna sting a little.”

Rusty felt the needle go in but he’d just taken a sip of water and the fireworks sort of made it unnoticeable.

“Shit…” Another probe. “I cannot find a vein…”

“Let me…”

Rusty wasn’t sure how many times they tried to put an IV in but he did notice that he was out of water.

“Water?” he asked. “Bottle…?”

“Yeah, got it,” the guy said. Unlike the first two who had been covered in weapons and what looked like firefighter gear not to mention gas masks, the guy was wearing a raincoat and a gas mask but that was about all. He pulled the straw out and got another bottle, then inserted the straw back in Rusty’s mouth.

“Finally,” the second guy grunted.

The sensation coming up Rusty’s arm couldn’t be an IV. It felt like somebody had shot him up with freezing cold coke. Then it spread through his whole body. He wasn’t sure he was going to survive the rush. He groaned.

“You okay?” one of the guys said. “You know, that’s like the stupidest thing I’ve ever said.”

“It’s right up there,” his partner said. “Let’s get him on a stretcher.”

“Should we call for help?”

“Seriously? I think this guy might weigh ninety pounds.”

* * *

Rusty was in a haze the whole way out of the cruise ship. He could sort of recall swaying in the air. And the feel of wind. It was cold after so long in the stuffy cabin. They’d wrapped a blanket around him but his feet stuck out.

He saw people climbing up ladders on the side of the ship and had a vague impression of what looked like charter fishing boats or something.

Then he was in a room in a boat that was bobbing up and down. A girl with black hair was holding onto his IV bag. She was a girl, too young, but she was the prettiest girl in the whole wide world.

“I need another bag,” the girl said. “This one is nearly out already.”

“Going to have to wait,” a male voice said. “We don’t have any. They’ve got some on the Grace.”

“I don’t think this guy can wait,” the girl said.

“What’s your name, angel?” Rusty said.

“Tina,” Tina replied. “You’re on the Changing Tymes. We’re going to take you over to another ship called the Grace Tan in just a little while.”

A stretcher was set down next to his holding a woman who looked like one of those survivors from a death camp. Her skin was pulled back against her cheeks and she was, really, literally, was skin and bones.

“Can you hold two?” one of the stretcher bearers asked.

“I can for a while but we need some way to hold them up,” Tina said. “And more. This guy needs another one!”

“We’re running out,” the stretcher bearer said, shrugging. “I’ll see if I can find something to rig up…”

“…I said we need more IVs. These people are so gone…”

“We’ll float everything we’ve got off. Charlotte is about two hours out with the Campbell. They have plenty…”

“Roger, Dallas. Thanks again for the assist…”

“Dallas, Squadron Ops, tell the Charlotte, we’re sending an inflatable up to pick some up. We’ll handle the boarding…”

Rusty wanted to hold on. He was afraid if he closed his eyes he’d die. But finally they closed.

* * *

The passenger cabin areas didn’t really involve “clearing.” It just involved opening the cabin door and seeing if the people inside were dead or alive.

“I can kill zombies all day long,” Faith finally said, shaking her head at the door. “And I’m fine with this. But Trixie cannot walk into one more cabin and find a family dead of starvation.”

“Tell Trixie that’s fine,” Hooch said. “I’ve got this. You and Trixie guard the door.”

“Sorry, Hooch, but…”

“Faith, you’ve got nothing to apologize to anyone, ever,” Hooch said, going in the cabin, then coming back out. “Empty.”

“Really?” Faith said. They’d found some like that.

“Shhh…” he said, leaning forward and whispering. “That’s all Trixie needs to know.”

“Okay,” Faith whispered, nodding.

* * *

“You know your daughter’s going a little bat shit, right?” Fontana said, checking the corpse for pupil response. It seemed like some of them weren’t even decomposing they were so dried up. But this was a corpse.

“I’ve noticed,” Steve said. “The question is if it’s functional bat shit or nonfunctional bat shit.”

“There’s a difference?” Fontana asked as they checked the room across the hall. There weren’t any surviving zombies, period. And the only human survivors were those who had been very very careful using their supplies. And there weren’t many of those.

“One of my grandparents had been a prisoner of war during The War, as it’s referred to Down Under,” Steve said, closing the door on the dead. “To his dying day he never drank more than one cup of water with breakfast, one with lunch and one with supper. That was exactly all he drank. Doctors told him it was bad for him. He didn’t listen.”

The next room contained a family that had zombied. Or at least some of them had. One young male was still wearing scraps of clothes. All the corpses except one had been thoroughly gnawed.

“And he had about a million other quirks. Like reading so slow it took him a year to finish a book. He’d read one word, savor it like the water, then read another. He’d developed what looked like bat shit habits that kept him alive and sane in the camps. This world isn’t going to get any better soon. The question is if Faith’s, face it, schizophrenia is a functional response or if it’s going to cause a real split personality. Because, right now it’s the only armor her brain has against this horror. And, face it, whereas Granpa’s bat shit was weird in the normal world, Faith’s going to have to grow up in this bat shit world.”

“She’s only thirteen,” Fontana said, walking in the next room. That was the pattern. Fontana took outboard, Steve took inboard. “Ever thought about, you know, pulling her back? We’ve got the Coasties now to help with clearance.”

“The Coasties have other skills,” Steve said. “And when they say ‘clearance’ they mean rounding guys up, searching for drugs and maybe getting shot out. They don’t mean blowing their way through zombies.”

“They’re still adults with some weapons training. Got a live one. Not thirteen-year-old girls.”

“On the face of it, you’re right,” Steve said. “I should pull her back. You wanna tell her? Medical team to cabin Two-Nine-Seven-Four.”

“No,” Fontana said, giving the woman some water. “Hey, you’re gonna make it, okay? Just hang on. We’ve got medical teams on the way.”

“Th’nk u…” the woman whispered.

“Just sip the water…”

* * *

“So, about Faith,” Fontana said. “The zombies don’t bother her. Much. This shit is killing her.”

“I know,” Steve said. “But the damned stretcher teams will barely come up into the dark areas. And they won’t go anywhere we haven’t cleared for zombies. Even when all the zombies are dead. Find somebody who’ll do this besides you, Hooch, me and Faith and I’ll send Faith zombie hunting.”

“Get the Coasties,” Fontana repeated. “This is their kind of shit.”

“I will,” Steve said. “When they get here. Some. Some are going to have to help with just keeping these poor bastards alive. We’ll go back to heavy clearance. But for now, we’re all we’ve got.”

“And we can’t do this all day and all night, twenty-four seven,” Fontana pointed out.

Steve reached up and changed the frequency on his radio.

“Dallas, you got me?” Steve asked, walking into the exterior cabin. There was a body on the bed. He pointed.

“Gone,” Fontana said. “No pupil response.”

“Dallas, here.”

“Can you retrans to squadron ops, over?”

“Roger.”

“Squadron ops. Jesus, Wolf…”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Isham, we’re going to call this at twelve hours from when we went over the side. Whenever that is. The clearance teams that is. If the Coasties are on site by then I’d like them to manage the recovery work. But nobody works on it for more than twelve hours at a time. The clearance team is going to need some bunks on the Alpha or the Grace. And somebody who has a clue about gear to get this shit cleaned up. All that we’re going to be able to do for the next… God knows how long is clear, eat, sleep and clear. Can you manage that?”

“I’ve got it under control, Wolf,” Isham replied. “I’ll get all that set up.”

“All the zombies are dead in the passenger cabin areas,” Steve said. “We’re getting about one survivor per ten cabins. As soon as some of the Coasties get on site, have them replace Faith and Hooch. Then us. Faith and Hooch go down for longer than we do. We’ll both start again tomorrow at the same time but get them replaced as soon as possible. We are going to be clearing this…floating den of horrors for a long time. We need to think about how we’re going to sustain this.”

“Roger,” Isham replied. “Got all that.”

“Thanks,” Steve said. “Wolf out.”

He changed the radio back over to the medical channel, then shrugged.

“Best I can do,” Steve said.