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

  It had always been thus, and thus it would always be.

  All women knew it, but only a few truly embraced it: Cleopatra, Mata Hari, Jezebel. And their reward for enlightenment, for seizing their one true power? To be forever shunned by the rest of their gender, who couldn’t quite bring themselves to take control, to take over, to use their bodies to get precisely what they wanted, when they wanted it. Instead, they did it in little ways, subtle ways, as if acknowledging their power and using it to their advantage, directly, honestly, and without the bullshit niceties of form and decorum and feminist dogma, might make them have to face the fact that their minds, creativity, drive, and character were nothing more than the worthless trappings of a game rigged to give all the advantages to men.

  But not Clara. Never Clara.

  Dirk, the Australian, sneered at her, theatrically licking his chops, like a dog eager for his evening meal of canned horse meat. She’d known so many men like him, so many sweaty, grunting pigs, whose dick size was greater than their IQ; the countless peons of this misogynistic culture, rutting around in their clumsy rush to get the scraps left over from people like Blackjack; the Beta to the pirate king’s Alpha; the Pig to Charlie’s Dog.

  “And what’s he going to do that hasn’t been done by more men than I can count?” She asked.

  In answer, Dirk removed the huge knife from the sheath on his belt, and said: “I’m going to cut you into little pieces.”

  29

  The Wardroom

  USCGC Polar Star

  “Status of the civilian refugees?” Hall asked.

  “Still in shock of course,” John Gordon answered. He’d been getting them settled, according to the plan they started out with yesterday. Jonesy - still somewhat in the dark about what had gone on while he was frolicking about inside a highrise building in the middle of a zombie apocalypse - didn’t envy the man.

  On the rooftop, they’d been a mixed bag, mostly relieved to be getting rescued, although some were none-too happy about how long it had taken. But there, at least, they’d known they were being rescued, and the knowledge helped keep their bitching to a minimum (the shrunken woman, whom he’d had to keep separated from Marc and - especially - Wendy, notwithstanding). Once on terra firma, however, he could just imagine how much of a pain in the ass they’d been.

  “Malnourished, certainly,” John continued.

  “And bitching up a storm,” Gus Perniola interjected, thus confirming Jonesy’s suspicion.

  “Any of them useful?” Hall asked, ignoring Gus’s comment.

  John shrugged. “Unknown,” he said. “But probably not. Most seemed to be retirees, or maybe former executives. Of what, I have no idea.”

  “There are two,” Jonesy said. “Came in with me this morning. A husband and wife.”

  “And their dog,” Molly added her two cents. She looked at him with an odd expression - half bemused / half something else Jonesy couldn’t quite grasp. He did a slow double-take, then shook it off. Now wasn’t the time to try and analyze it.

  “That’s the one I’m talking about,” he said, giving her a last, puzzled look before resuming his part of the report. “I think they’re gonna be quite useful.” The assembled mix of the two crews, from the Star and the Sass, all seemed to perk up - except for Peavey, who still looked sullen. Jonesy wanted to find whomever pissed in the man’s Corn Flakes, and offer that person a drink of the booze he’d confiscated from the building.

  “The man is former Air Force - an aircraft mechanic,” Jonesy continued, his slowly-recovering hangover wanting to sprint away from any thoughts of alcohol. “He invented that stupid toy everybody seemed to have a couple years ago - The Twirling Twidget?” Marc had told him of his invention at some point during the third - or was it fourth - glass of tequila. Everyone in the room seemed to know what he was talking about, judging from the groans and grimaces.

  “How is that useful?” Peavey asked, with derision.

  Jonesy stared at him, trying with his eyes to transmit his feeling of disdain for the man. Didn’t seem to work, so he ignored him and carried on.

  “He also invented a device to open the electronic key locks of the building, even though the electricity was off.” He looked first to Hall, then to Wheeler. “Trust me, the guy will be useful.”

  “And his wife?” Molly asked.

  Jonesy smiled. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to piss her off.”

  30

  The Mess Hall

  ISC Sand Island, HI

  “For the love of God,” one of the newest refugees that came in with Chief Jones - Wendy Micari - snapped at another, older, female refugee, named (Lydia consulted her growing list) Mrs. Dolores Eddington-Smyth. “If you don’t shut your fucking cake hole, I will end you, bitch.”

  “Well put,” Tara McBride, sitting next to Lydia, said. “Eloquent, yet straight to the point,” she added. “I like it.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Lydia replied.

  The woman in question - Mrs. Eddington-Smyth - had been going on for some time, complaining about this, that, or the other thing, and generally making a nuisance of herself, so from a certain perspective, Lydia could understand both the Asian woman’s outburst, and Tara’s support of it. But it looked as if Wendy might actually carry out the threat, which would not be good. The very last thing they needed, as they tried to bring some semblance of order to the growing chaos of the refugee problem, was a brawl.

  “Easy, honey,” Wendy’s husband (Lydia checked her list again), Marc, said, laying a gentle but restraining hand on his wife’s arm.

  “Fuck easy,” Wendy spat. “We’ve been listening to that useless bitch flap her gums for weeks,” she added, still looking as if she might launch her attack at any moment.

  “And you’ve shown remarkable restraint in not killing her,” Marc soothed. “Why break your streak?”

  “How dare you?” The Smyth woman yelled.

  People were beginning to back away, leaving room for the fight they all saw coming. Lydia could see, clearly, that these survivors - all of whom had come from the same building - were equally fed up with Mrs. Charles Eddington-Smyth’s bile, and seemed eager to see her put down, once and for all. It reminded her of those testosterone-filled fight-circles in high school, where one idiot pushed the other, as the crowd shouted encouragement and vitriol. It had sickened her then, and it sickened her now. Somebody needed to do something about this.

  “Fight, fight, fight,” Tara whispered in her ear, as if reading her thoughts.

  “You’re not helping,” Lydia scolded, turning toward the woman, and suddenly finding her face (and lips) mere inches from Tara’s.

  Run away! Run away!

  This was absurd and pointless, of course, because, tucked into one of the picnic bench-like mess tables, she was trapped - couldn’t run, couldn’t hide, and couldn’t stand the sudden flush she felt rising within her. “Stop,” she said, softly, almost pleading. Her gaze flicked from Tara’s eyes, to her lips, then back to her eyes in time to see the left one flick closed in a semi-lecherous wink. She reached out, tried to push away, and instead brushed the side of the girl’s none-too-subtle breast. A wave of heat slapped at her like the Bonzai Pipeline, and she felt panic rising like a tsunami, but it was Tara who backed suddenly away, as if shocked by the contact. They stared at each other for a moment, then two, then three, and then all Hell started breaking loose.

  “I’ll show you what I dare!” Wendy shouted, and leapt toward her adversary.

  31

  The Hospital

  Lihue, Kauai

  The butt of the M-4 connected with the side of the zombie’s head, as Rene Batiste used the weapon like a club.

  “You’re supposed to use the other end, dumbass,” CWO4 Robert “Bobby V” Vincenzo chided, shooting the crazed, and now off-balance asshole in the head with his nine millimeter.

  “Didn’t want to shoot Miss Kemp,” Batiste countered, defensively.

  “Thank you,” Carol sa
id, slowly releasing the gasp of air she’d been holding for what felt like minutes.

  The zombie had come out of nowhere, around a corner of the loading dock, where they were trying to load the Scanning Electron Microscope and Mass Spectrometer onto a waiting truck. The sneaky bastards had been doing that all morning - popping up when they were least expected - and this one did so right on top of her. If the Public Affairs Specialist had used the business end of the rifle, instead of the butt, his round would have gone right through the zombie and into her.

  Bobby V grumbled something unintelligible, then resumed his ramrodding of the loading operation. “Be careful, Bohenna,” he barked. “Those are medical instruments, not your dick.”

  She paused a moment to ponder the highly inappropriate comment. In the civilian world, it would have caused shock, indignation and possible litigation, but in the military, it was just business as usual. Perhaps she should feel offended, but she didn’t. It was just one of those things civilians couldn’t understand, and military people took for granted. Well...not exactly for granted. Had the comment been made in front of the Captain, or the XO, or in someplace where such things went over like a fart in church, as for example, on the Bridge, during Nav Detail, or in the Wardroom in the middle of a meeting...that would be bad. That would cause trouble - official trouble - for somebody. But out there, in the field, as they were fighting zombies and appropriating a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment, it was just the way they talked.

  She’d done a paper on it, at the Academy, for a class on linguistics. The gist of her thesis had been that there were three basic elements to standard military speech patterns: jargon, sarcasm, and insult. Profanity might be added by some as a fourth element, but she considered it to be covered by the first three. Even jargon, the common (if not quite official) lexicon of military communications, was laced with it. FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair), SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up), and BOHICA (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again), were all common terms, all readily accepted, and all sincerely profane.

  And what any of it had to do with a salvage operation in the middle of an apocalypse, Carol had no idea, except, perhaps, that she’d been using the brief intellectual exercise to counter the fact she’d damned-near gotten her ass chewed off by a fucking zombie. She shook the thoughts out of her head, and joined Vincenzo at the edge of the dock in time to see the two machines getting strapped into place, alongside several boxes filled with a variety of drugs.

  “Let’s get out of here, shall we?” She said.

  32

  The Wardroom

  USCGC Polar Star

  “We can refuel at Port Allen on Kauai,” John said, in answer to Captain Hall’s question about the status of the True North. “I think.”

  Once upon a time, Jonesy briefly entertained the notion that things would get simpler, once the Star arrived, but then common sense laughed at the absurdity, and he pulled his head far enough out of his own ass to realize the opposite would be true. Things were about to get extraordinarily complicated.

  John continued. “The town was pretty well cleared, last time we were there,” he added. “But...”

  “Cleared how?” The Master Chief asked.

  “Screaming Alpha,” Gus Perniola replied, referring to the letter designation for a type of fire - which wasn’t exactly accurate, since it described the burning bodies, rather than the gasoline/acetone/Styrofoam concoction designed by the late, great Dan McMullen. “The same way we cleared the container port.”

  Thoughts of his friend stabbed briefly at his heart, but Jonesy shunted it aside - that is, until Molly’s hand found his under the table. The emotions were still raw. She blamed herself, he blamed himself. Neither was, perhaps, right, but this didn’t stop it from hurting. He gave her hand a squeeze, feeling it’s warmth, and a slight tremble, and tried to focus on the meeting. The last thing he wanted to do was look at her, see the pain in her eyes, and feel his own heart crack, yet again, like glass under great pressure, slowly building toward shattering into a million pieces.

  Hall looked to Wheeler for clarification. “Barrels of Napalm,” Wheeler explained. “Designate an area, place the barrels, bring the zombies into it, then detonate.”

  “Screaming Alpha,” Gus repeated, to the grimaces of understanding around the table, as the newcomers imagined the ghastly scene. Master Chief gave a short, sharp, snort, which may or may not have been a chuckle.

  I laugh, so I don’t start screaming, Jonesy thought, remembering what he’d told Lydia Claire the last time they’d used the trick. It might have been bullshit when he’d said it. Didn’t feel like bullshit now.

  “I...see,” Hall said, then returned his attention to John. “And now?” He asked. “Is the town still cleared?”

  “We have no idea,” John replied. “The zombies may have moved back in.”

  “Zombies...” Hall repeated, as if not liking the taste in his mouth.

  CDR Swedberg picked up on the Captain’s distaste. “Isn’t there something better we can call them?”

  “Infected?” Stubbelfield suggested.

  “Combatants?” LT Montrose gave her two cents.

  Jonesy waved them off. “We call them zombies,” he began.

  “Or assholes,” Jim Barber interjected.

  “Because it makes it easier when we have to kill them,” Jonesy continued, stifling a laugh. “Anything less graphic reminds me that they’re still human - if only just,” he said. “And I’ve lost count of how many of them I’ve killed.”

  This, perhaps more than anything else, brought it home to the new arrivals, who would now be in charge of the grizzly work they must - of necessity - do, in order to rescue the people - real, live, sane people - still trapped in and on buildings throughout Honolulu. Jonesy stood as a sobering, undeniable representation of what they, themselves, would need to become, in order to complete the mission.

  But then Peavey just had to open his mouth.

  “Hyperbole,” he said.

  “Is it?” Jonesy asked through gritted teeth. He’d had as much of this dumb motherfucker as he could stand. “Then by all means, grab a rifle, suit up, and head out there.” He placed both palms on the table, ready to push himself up, ready to lunge at the ass-hat and commence to beating. But then Molly laid a restraining hand on his thigh. If felt warm there. It felt good there. It felt...distracting...which was something he didn’t need, but still, somehow, managed to be exactly the right thing to stop him from leaping toward Peavey. He settled back down and continued.

  “You can have my spot,” he said, then pointed to the pile of armor and weapons laid haphazardly near the door. “I’ll even give you my rig.” And if he’d left it at that, what happened next might have been avoided, but he couldn’t just let it rest. The weasel-ly fucktard sincerely needed to be put in his place. “If your balls are as big as your mouth.”

  Peavey leapt to his feet. “How dare you?

  33

  Housing Unit Three

  Palmyra Atoll

  “Wait!” Felix squeaked, in a quavering voice. “Stop.”

  Dirk, the Australian brute with the wandering hands, whose left hand was now wandering over Clara’s breasts, which lay exposed, the bastard having sliced open her blouse and cut the fabric of her bra between the two cups, turned to look at the thin, pale man. His right hand held the knife. Its tip had been very slowly slicing a red line into her flesh.

  “Bloody wimp,” Dirk snorted in disgust.

  He really seemed to enjoy inflicting pain. She’d met men like him plenty of times; men who’d pull her hair, slap her, spank her, penetrate her nether regions - not for fun, not for pleasure, but to hurt, to make her scream. And what had she done in those circumstances? Why, she’d given them a good, swift kick where it would do the most good. This didn’t, however, seem to be a viable option, at the moment. He might even like it.

  “Calm yourself, Felix,” Charlie said. “This is necessary.”

  “If it�
��s necessary,” Clara said, spitting blood from her lip, where Dirk had so recently backhanded her. “You made it that way.”

  “Shut up,” Dirk said, punctuating the order with another backhand.

  “Which is it?” She replied. “You want me to talk, or you want me to shut up?” This time he answered by punching her in the stomach. The air flew out of her lungs, and she felt as if she might throw up. Wouldn’t that be nice? To spew her meager lunch of canned pork and beans right into the Australian’s crotch. The idea almost made her laugh. Maybe she would have, if she’d had the breath to do it.

  Slowly, painfully, the tightness in her chest eased. She drew in a small breath. It hurt, but the dizziness in her head seemed to fade.

  “I’d have told you what you wanted to know,” she gasped, looking straight at the pirate king. “Willingly, happily,” she added. “But you just had to be an asshole.”

  Blackjack Charlie stared at her a moment, frowning. Could she have struck a nerve? Was he getting a clue?