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

  Their ostensible mission was to try and locate both a Scanning Electron Microscope and a Mass Spectrometer. Seemed simple enough - on paper. But first, there were zombies - live, stumbling, shuffling, snack-on-your-spleen-before-you-have-a-chance-to-get-it-removed zombies - milling around in the general vicinity, munching on their fellow fiends, who’d been recently killed during the speed-shopping spree at the retail super store. This was to be expected, Carol supposed, due to the apocalypse, and all, but expecting it and having to deal with it were, of course, two completely different kettles of infected fish.

  Then there was the Zeitgeist of wrapping one’s head around the idea that the items they were there to retrieve were to be used to turn these fellow human beings into vaccine, for the prevention of any more of them being created. To suggest this was a difficult concept for her was to understate the situation so far as to render it insensible.

  Finally, there was the awesome, and extremely distasteful fact that the order to begin the slaughter of these once-upon-a-time human beings needed to come from her. This wasn’t what she’d signed up for, five-something years ago, when she entered the Coast Guard Academy, raised her hand, and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. No place in that document mentioned killing zombies. Not one word of it. Yet, here she was, with Bobby V staring at her in growing frustration and anger and impatience, waiting for her to give that order.

  But what else could she do? This was the mission. This was the job: Kill former human beings in order to save current human beings. And she was in charge.

  “Let’s go.”

  23

  USS Paul Hamilton

  Palmyra Atoll

  “Get a move on, Swabbies,” the Australian pirate, Dirk-something, ordered, as he not-too subtly tapped the butt of the sidearm he wore. They weren’t pointing the weapons directly at them, anymore, not since the so-called President gave his speech and the remaining holdouts agreed to play along. This did not mean the threat had disappeared. The tapping finger served as an adequate clue. Morris Minooka got the hint.

  Now that the Hamilton was more or less secure within the shoal waters off Palmyra, and now that the pirates had obtained the Hamilton crew’s cooperation, it was time for the surviving members of the United States Navy to do their bit for the Good Old US of A. Or so Goddard had said. Morris knew who they were really working for. So did the others.

  And what did the pirates want them to do? Strip the Hamilton of its weapon systems. All its weapon systems - including the nukes.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  24

  The Wardroom

  USCGC Polar Star

  “Ack!” Jonesy swore, pouring the contents of his cup of mass-produced and caffeinated mud into the Wardroom sink. “Battery acid,” he added, in case anyone might need an explanation. They were milling about, waiting for the mucky-mucks to finish their confab in the Cabin. Jonesy keyed the radio handset at his throat. “Duke, got your ears on?”

  “That’s real good radio discipline,” the Bosun Mate’s voice replied, following a burst of static. Duke had remained on the Sass, his colorful witticisms not required for this particular meeting.

  “I’ll have myself shot at my earliest convenience,” Jonesy said. “Do me a favor. Have someone bring some of the Starbucks over. The coffee here is swill.” This was demonstrably true, as evidenced by the unceremoniously-emptied cup. It seemed odd that somehow, in the middle of an apocalypse, he’d become spoiled by good coffee. The Coast Guard variety had been good enough for years, even to the point where he actually liked it. Well, okay, not four-to-eight coffee. No one liked four-to-eight coffee, brewed at some remote point earlier in the night, and left to cook and burn and congeal, until the substance issuing forth from the urn at three-thirty in the morning resembled something out of the La Brea Tar Pits.

  “Would you like crumpets with your tea?” Duke’s voice asked, providing ample evidence of why he hadn’t been invited to this meeting.

  “Negative,” Jonesy responded, then noticed Molly looking at him. “May I help you, Ma’am?” He asked.

  “What, may I ask, are you doing? Or do I want to know?” She asked in return.

  “Seeing to the offence against my taste buds,” he replied. Things between them were...weird. They weren’t strained, exactly, or uncomfortable, or, for that matter, comprehensible, but they were weird.

  Their tryst in the shower seemed like weeks ago. Come to think of it technically was, if the definition of weeks were expanded to include anything more than seven days. Week-ish, perhaps, then. Didn’t matter, because there hadn’t been any repeat performance, and she seemed to be taking great pains to act as if it never happened.

  But it had happened. Oh, my, yes it had. And he wanted it to happen again. And again. And again. This could just be his over-active libido talking, he supposed, but he didn’t think so, and it didn’t feel so. Not that he could do anything about it - certainly not right then, as the door to the Wardroom opened, and Captain Gideon D. Hall entered, followed by Wheeler, Master Chief Wolf, and an officer Jonesy did not know, who looked almost - but not quite - like LA Lakers great Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

  “Attention on deck,” he called, and the crowded room fell instantly silent.

  “Carry on,” Hall said, making his way to the head of the long dining table. “Everyone find a seat, and let’s get started.” He sat, and went straight to it. “Perhaps there should be some ceremony and commendation for what has already been accomplished,” he began, most pointedly not looking at Molly, Jonesy noticed. “But we simply don’t have time, so...” He looked to Jonesy. “Who’s doing security for the helos?” He asked.

  “Petty Officer Riley and Seaman Querec,” he answered. He’d sent the two off to help resume plucking people off other buildings. There hadn’t been anybody else available.

  Hall stared at him a moment, then looked to Wheeler. “Are they...?”

  Jonesy picked up his question and answered, instead. “They’ve been riding around in the Skull Mobile for a few days, and haven’t gotten killed,” he said. “Under current manning standards, that makes them uniquely qualified.”

  25

  USCG 6583

  Over Honolulu, HI

  “Are you ready for this?” ASM2 Kyle Rogers, the Rescue Swimmer asked, looking with concern toward BM3/OPS Greg Riley, who - quite frankly - didn’t think he was the least bit ready for any of it.

  Six months ago, he was a happy-go-lucky navigator, on the adventure of a lifetime, steaming toward Antarctica, of all places, and looking forward to stops in Sydney, Australia, and Hobart, Tasmania, on the way down. There would be beer, and Australian women, and shrimp on the barbie, and beer. Two months ago, he’d been a tired, but still happy-go-lucky seasoned sailor, looking forward to getting out of the ice and stopping in Adelaide, South Australia, and Fremantle, on the Indian Ocean, then on to Singapore, where there would be more Australian women, and Asian women, and - just for fun - beer.

  Then came the Pomona Virus.

  Now he was riding in a helicopter (for the first and only time in his life), he was armed to the teeth, and he was supposed to be getting himself ready to be lowered onto a rooftop, in the middle of the worst disaster in human history, where he would be providing security to a massive rescue effort, and might, just maybe, have to kill zombies. Fucking zombies!

  Are you ready for this? He thought. Are you out of your fucking mind?

  26

  The Wardroom

  USCGC Polar Star

  Hall scowled. Jonesy understood his concern. But everything was operating so far out on the edge, that considerations like adequate training and time and acquired skill sets had to be thrown right out the window. Otherwise, BMC/OPS Jones - who, by pre-plague standards, was just barely qualified - would have to do everything himself.

  “And the rest of your crew?” Hall asked of Wheeler.

  Wheeler turned to Molly. “Ms. Gordon?”


  Molly pulled one of the ubiquitous small, green, government-issued notebooks out of her shirt pocket, flipped it open, and began to read. “Petty Officers Newby, Martinez and Pruden, along with Seaman Grimes, and Seaman Apprentice Nailor, are working on getting solar power from the COMMCEN Building, to the Clinic and Mess Hall. Petty Officer Weaver is in the Clinic, with Professor Floyd, taking care of the newcomers, and waiting for the Doctor you brought from Kauai.”

  “He should be on the way over, as we speak,” Commander Swedberg, the XO, interjected. Hall nodded.

  Molly continued. “Seaman Collins and Seaman Malone are, I believe, with Mister Keely?” She looked to John, who nodded. “In the Rapid Response Boat, on recovery watch in the harbor, just in case,” she said, leaving the end of the statement hanging. Nobody wanted to consider the in case scenario, because it would mean one of their only two helicopters had gone down in the drink. “Petty Officer Roessler, Petty Officer Dodge, and Fireman Tabinski are in the Sass Engineroom, doing Preventive Maintenance that’s way past due. Petty Officer Schaeffer is in the Sass Radio Room. Petty Officer Winkowski is back in the Comm Center. Petty Officer King is

  busy making soup for the refugees, Petty Officer Peterson is standing watch on our bridge, and Seaman McBride is assisting Petty Officer Claire with the organization of new personnel.” She looked around the compartment, where were arrayed her Uncle John, Gus Perniola, a still-sleepy Harvey Walton (who nonetheless somehow managed to look chipper), an even sleepier-looking Jim Barber, who looked surly (but that was normal), LT Montrose, CWO2 Peavey (looking unhappy, Jonesy was delighted to note - even if he couldn’t understand the reason), and their CO, LCDR Wheeler. Her eyes landed finally on Jonesy. “And the rest of us are here. Am I missing anybody?”

  “Harold,” Jonesy replied. “You probably forgot about him because he’s kept his mouth shut for the last couple of days,” he added, seeing the horrified expression on her face. Clearly, she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten one of the original Eight, who’d survived the Pomona outbreak. “I damn near forgot about him, myself,” he said, trying to share the blame. Fact was, he didn’t blame her at all. With everything else going on, having Harold on bed rest meant one less thing for her - or himself, for that matter - to deal with.

  “That’s the injured man?” Hall asked.

  “He’s not really that injured,” Jonesy replied. “Got his bell rung pretty good. Mild concussion, bruised ribs and shoulder. I was thinking of putting his ass back to work tomorrow.”

  “Have the civilian Doctor look at him,” Hall said.

  “Yes, sir,” Jonesy replied.

  “And there’s also Samantha Gordon,” Molly said, suddenly remembering her cousin. “And she is...” She looked to John again.

  “Sleeping,” he said. “Either that, or plotting world domination,” he added, to puzzled looks from many at the table - including the Captain. “My daughter,” he explained. “My teen-aged daughter,” he added. “Sixteen, going on...”

  “...get the hell out of my way, you old bastard,” LCDR Stubbelfield (the Kareem Abdul Jabbar-looking guy, Jonesy had learned) said, surprising everybody. So out of character was this statement from that taciturn man, that it took a moment for it to sink in. Then everybody realized the absurdity, and broke into laughter.

  Hall allowed it to continue for a bit, and truth be told, Jonesy could feel what tension there had been in the room (natural though it may be, under the circumstances) ease. But one by one, the meeting’s attendees seemed to realize the origin of the joke, and its depressing implications.

  How else could Stubbelfield so perfectly understand the nature of an adolescent girl, except to have been the father of one, himself? This little gem led to the question of where that daughter was now, which - inevitably, inexorably - led to the answer:

  Dead, along with the rest of humanity.

  Jonesy could see the shift in people’s eyes, from mirth and amusement, to dawning horror and sorrow. Talk about a buzz kill, he thought.

  27

  Ground Team

  Lihue, Kauai

  “Kill that one!” LTjg Carol Kemp shouted at BM3/OPS Steve Bohenna, as yet another zombie fiend charged toward their group. Okay...Bit of an exaggeration. Zombies didn’t charge anything. They shuffled a lot, stumbled every now and then, and occasionally lunged, but something inside their virus-cooked brains just didn’t permit running, or anything remotely like it. Didn’t make them any less frightening.

  A one-time human being (this particular one looked like it may have been a Certified Public Accountant, judging from the tattered pants suit she wore), bent on rending human flesh, and proven both capable and willing to do so, based on hard experience, was a frightening thing. Before they began this particular exercise, she’d been unable to quite wrap her head around the whole right and wrong concept, when it came to killing them. Couldn’t get it straight in her own mind. She knew she had to do it, knew it was essential for both the success of the mission, and the safety of her crew. Intellectually, she got it. The cold, hard, pull-the-trigger-and-watch-them-die reality of it, however, had been something else, entirely.

  Until, that was, the zombies started attacking.

  After that, killing them became surprisingly easy.

  The CPA went down with a blast from Bohenna’s shotgun. Similar such creatures had been lurching toward them, pretty much since they left the relative safety of the trucks and headed for the hospital. It abated, somewhat, after they entered the building, but not entirely. That was odd.

  She thought for sure they’d all be long dead. After all, there wasn’t a whole lot to eat in a hospital, except - GULP- the patients, but they must have been...consumed...some time ago, They had to be. The outbreak was weeks ago, and they weren’t finding any live people. For that matter, there weren’t too many dead ones, either. But there were...remnants. What remained appeared to have been chewed.

  So how did they survive without a food source? The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question. She didn’t have an answer.

  28

  Housing Unit Three

  Palmyra Atoll

  “You ride me,” Clara Blondelle said, sounding a lot more confident and defiant than she felt, “then you cast me aside, throw me in with your crew sluts, as you call them,” she went on, the anger and indignation building within her, “and then you expect me to give you the keys to the kingdom?”

  This, she thought, was an accurate assessment of the current situation, though it left out one important detail: she was currently tied to a chair in an otherwise bare room, and the Pirate King, Blackjack Charlie Carter, was threatening to beat her bloody if she didn’t tell him where they were making fresh vaccine.

  A bit of bondage could be fun, she thought, idly. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time, though, in her pervious experiences with it, she’d usually been wearing a skimpy schoolgirl outfit, while tied to a nice soft bed, and it was being done as a kinky (if creepy) form of foreplay. One of the senior partners at the law firm in Astoria, had been into it. But he’d been a weak man, with an unnatural obsession for his teenaged daughter. Blackjack Charlie was something else, entirely.

  Felix, their token science nerd, was there, along with the Australian who’d done such a wonderful job of groping her when they’d come upon her sailboat. They stood silently, staring at her. Felix’s eyes were wary and cautious, while at the same time seeming guilty, and a little frightened. The other man’s eyes just looked hungry.

  “You will tell me what I want to know,” Charlie said, in a calm, almost bored voice. He was anything but weak. And if their session on the trip down to Palmyra had been any indication, his tastes were for more mature women, not girls, not his daughter. “Or I will turn you over to Dirk,” he finished, thumbing over his shoulder toward the Australian brute.

  How many days ago had they taken her captive? How much time had she luxuriated in that wonderfully soft, obscenely huge bed, with the afterglow of aggressive sex filling her body? And
how long had she spent in the small lounge, with the sullen, beaten women, who were being used as morale gear for the pirates? She had no real idea.

  Time had become a funny thing, since last she’d stepped through the doors of the law firm in Oregon. Then, she’d been an ambitious woman, looked down upon the by the other bitches at the firm, who’d resented pretty much everything about her, from the revealing, form-fitting clothing she wore, to the fact she’d been promoted three times for her willingness to work on her knees, or on her back, or, for that matter, tied to a bed as a surrogate for a lecherous would-be pedofile with incestuous fantasies.

  Then had come the Pomona Virus, and the exodus from Astoria. But while the scenery and accommodations had changed, nothing else had. She’d still been looked down upon by the other women on the True North- those morally superior bitches who couldn’t stand the fact she’d used her pussy to save her own life - like it wasn’t something women had been doing since the dawn of civilization.

  Men wanted one thing, and women controlled it. Thus it had always been, and thus it would always be. Forget women’s liberation. Forget the Equal Rights Amendment. Forget #Me Too. Pussy Power was the one and only tool women had at their disposal, the only thing that kept men from being the savage brutes they all wanted to be, with their clubs and their loin cloths, grabbing women by the hair and dragging them into their caves.

  She’d known this, learned this, from an early age, when her body first grew beyond the stick figure dimensions of girl-hood, and her nipples first started peeking through her tee shirts and bikini tops, her hips flared, and her bottom became something more than just padding on which to sit. She could see men following her with their eyes, felt them undressing her, devouring her, their fevered minds envisioning scenes of untold depravity. She’d felt their hands roaming all over her, trying to conceal their true intent by helping her into cars, or through doors, or up ladders, with their meat hooks on her waist and hips, and their gaze on her other parts. She’d seen the teen-aged boys desperately trying to hide their erections (hard enough to cut diamonds), and the men who didn’t hide them at all, as if the mere sight or feel of them would automatically cause her clothes to fall off her body like leaves from an autumn tree. They’d rub up against her in the crowded hallways, or bump into her from behind on the bus, their crotches grinding into her backside, as if they thought it would somehow be a turn-on. She’d felt their caresses on her butt, and the accidental way they’d rub the side of her boob. And when the clumsy ritual of high school romance graduated to the back seat of their parents’ car, she’d discovered that she could get exactly what she wanted by the simple expedient of giving them what they wanted - just so long as she got those things before she spread her legs.