Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

CHAPTER TEN

0059, 17th November 1987

The East River, New York City

THE EDGE OF the ship’s stern was rushing up to meet Vadim. Cold fingers stretched out for it. The flames of the burning bridge glittered in the dark waters. Dead flesh touched metal, slipped. His right hand found purchase. He slammed into the hull, hard, and almost let go. He spent a few seconds hanging in space, finding an odd moment of peace. Then he felt his fingers starting to slip and reached up with his other hand to pull himself onto the deck.

The short podgy man with the G3 rifle stood at the aft corner of the tower; he still hadn’t noticed the dead woman crawling across the deck towards him. Vadim swung his AK-74 forward on its sling, raised the weapon to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger, blowing the top of the woman’s head off. The sailor jumped and started to swing round, and Vadim caught the barrel of the G3 and wrenched it out of his hands. The man looked terrified. Vadim wondered just how dead he looked right now.

“Do you have people on deck?” Vadim demanded in English. The man just gaped at him. “Answer me now!” He slung his AK-74 again and checked the G3 over. The man was nodding, but seemed to be struggling to speak. “Ammunition,” Vadim ordered. The stranger handed over two more twenty-round magazines for the rifle. “Okay, you need to listen to me and do exactly as I tell you if you want to live, do you understand me?” The man just nodded again. Vadim could hear the cracks of single shots from various directions around the ship. “Get all your people inside.” Vadim patted the superstructure of the bridge castle. “Anyone bitten, wounded, you leave them out here, understand me?”

A hatch in the side of the bridge castle opened, and another man in uniform, also carrying a G3, stepped out onto the deck. Vadim aimed his own rifle at the man.

“Don’t move!” he shouted, and the man froze, his back still to Vadim. The report of an AK-74 sounded, nearly on top of them, and the top of the man’s head exploded.

“No!” The podgy man found his voice, as his shipmate toppled to the deck. Vadim risked looking up. Gulag was standing atop the bridge castle, rifle pointing down.

“Just target the dead!” Vadim shouted. “Tell the others!” Gulag disappeared from view, and Vadim turned back to the podgy sailor. “Get your people inside, now!”

“You’ll shoot me!” the man protested as Vadim knelt over the corpse, searching him, removing two more magazines for the G3 before taking the weapon itself. Even wanting to preserve their own ammunition, he was carrying altogether too many weapons.

He didn’t answer the man; after all, it was a distinct possibility. He could hear the Fräulein shouting in Russian from the roof of the bridge castle, and saw muzzle flashes light up the night as she fired a short burst from her RPKS-74. This was not a good situation. They were spread out across the ship; there were zombies on board, though presumably damaged from the fall; and they had a civilian crew wandering around. Ideally, Vadim didn’t want to kill the civilians, but they were armed. “Fine,” Vadim finally said. “Go ahead and hide, your friends can take their chances.” He looked up at the man. He was pale, almost as pale as Vadim, and coated in a cold sweat. He nodded. He would help. “Stay behind me.”

“Wait,” the sailor said. Vadim opened his mouth to say something harsh, but the man had pulled out a radio handset and was speaking into it in German. He hooked the radio back on his belt. “Okay.”

Vadim moved forward along the narrow walkway next to the bridge castle, heading towards the stack of containers along the long flat front of the ship. Cranes fore and aft of the cargo area cast long shadows over the stacks. Vadim saw the spark of a muzzle flash from the fore crane, heard the boom of Skull’s .303 and assumed that something or someone had just died. He reached the edge of the bridge castle and found himself face to face with a young black man in a police officer’s uniform, pointing a pump-action shotgun at him.

“Freeze! Drop the weapon!” the police officer shouted. Vadim kept his G3 levelled at the man. He was young, late twenties at the oldest. Short, with neatly-cropped hair, he looked in good shape. He had a plain honest face, wracked with strain.

“Put the gun down,” Vadim said evenly.

“Are you Russian?” the police officer demanded.

“I’m trying to keep you alive…”

“Please, officer,” the German sailor said from behind him. There was more gunfire from above, on the stacks of containers.

“You did this!” the police officer said. Vadim saw the pain on his face, and knew he was going to have to kill him. There was a soft whistle from behind the officer, and Princess stepped out of the shadows, her AKS-74 levelled at the back of the police officer’s head. Then the shadows at his feet shifted and pulsed, as if something overhead were –

“Move!” Vadim shouted. The officer, sensing movement, looked up at the dead man plummeting towards him. A shot echoed as the police office threw himself to one side, and the zombie hit the deck with the top part of his head missing. Princess lowered her rifle and calmly resumed aiming at the police officer.

The policeman was staring at the corpse in disbelief. In fairness, Vadim couldn’t quite believe it either. G3 levelled, he moved to stand over the officer.

“Don’t force us to kill you,” Vadim told the police officer, and lowered his gun, looking beaten. “Leave your weapons. You are going to go with this exceptionally dangerous woman.” He nodded towards Princess. “You’re going to send any of your people back to the bridge castle and tell them to lock themselves in. You leave anyone wounded out here for us to check, understand me?”

He was just shaking his head and mumbling to himself. Vadim couldn’t really blame him, but it wasn’t terribly useful.

“Officer!” he snapped. The man looked up at Vadim. “You have a responsibility; people still need your help.” The policeman nodded and stood up, leaving the shotgun on the deck. “Your revolver as well.” He removed the weapon from its holster and laid it on the deck as well. Vadim passed one of the G3s to Princess, who slung her AKS-74.

“I’m not a mule, you know,” she told him. She had a point, but they needed to conserve as much of their own ammunition as possible. He passed her two spare magazines.

“Where are the others?” he asked. He’d worked out most of their positions, but wanted it confirmed, the blanks filled in.

“Fräulein and Gulag are on the roof of the bridge structure. Skull is using the crane forward as a sniper’s nest. Mongol’s up on the containers and I don’t know where New Boy is,” she told him. The sailor and the police officer watched them talk in Russian with fear and suspicion on their faces.

“Okay,” Vadim said, nodding. “Fräulein, Gulag, Mongol, can you hear me?” he shouted. The Fräulein and Mongol answered; he assumed Gulag could hear him too. “Fräulein, cover us from the bridge castle. Gulag, Mongol, I want you on top of the containers. We’re going to sweep forwards. Check everything! I don’t want any surprises. We do not target civilians! If they’re not already dead, then do not fire unless defending yourself! Mongol, shout to Skull, tell him what we’re doing, tell him we’re going to be working forward on either side of the deck. We’ll announce ourselves, but he needs to check his shots.” He heard the Mongol relay his orders. There was a high-pitched electric squeal that put Vadim on edge and even made Princess tense for moment, as the PA system came to life.

“This is the captain speaking,” the voice was calm, used to authority, German accent. “All civilian personnel must make their way aft to the bridge castle. If anyone is injured, leave them where they are for the military personnel to deal with. It is imperative, for your own safety, that you do this now.”

Gulag appeared out of the shadows above them, leaping from the bridge castle to the top of the container stacks. Vadim pulled out a flashlight he’d taken from the outdoors shop. He had his AK-74 slung across his back, the G3 slung down his front. He pushed the police officer’s revolver into his webbing belt, switched on the flashlight, checked the officer’s shotgun had a shell chambered and then held the flashlight to the weapon’s slide as he shouldered it. He felt overburdened, but he didn’t want to leave weapons lying around.

“Let’s go,” he told the German sailor, making for the narrow walkway that ran down the port side of the ship. Princess and the American made for the starboard side.

He heard movement as soon as he reached the corner of the containers. He came wide around the corner, to find a huddled group of civilians, faces scared in the torchlight.

“Please don’t shoot!” An American accent.

“Are any of you armed? Injured?” Vadim demanded. There were three of them, all reasonably big; Vadim supposed they were longshoremen. They just shook their heads.

“Please, go back into the crew quarters,” the sailor said, gesturing towards the bridge castle. Vadim saw movement past them.

“Down! Now!” he snapped, and they flattened themselves against the deck and crawled past him.

Vadim saw the barrel of a rifle, and shone his light in New Boy’s face. He immediately dipped it again, so as not to further damage the scout’s night vision.

“Good to see you, boss,” said the younger man, lowering his weapon. Vadim wordlessly passed him the G3 and the two spare magazines, and the scout slung his own weapon and readied the G3. He glanced at the frightened-looking sailor, and without saying anything, fell in behind them both.

Vadim moved along the narrow walkway on the edge of the cargo area as the ship slid through the water. They were rounding a bend in the river: Vadim could just about make out a park on the Manhattan side, another bridge spanning the river ahead. New Jersey was still a glow to the west. He shone the torch into the narrow gaps between the stacks of containers, checking them thoroughly. He heard a scrabbling noise in front of him and shone the light along the deck. A man in pyjamas and robe, legs shattered, was dragging himself surprisingly quickly towards them. Vadim aimed his shotgun, tracking the corpse’s progress. He heard a gunshot from the other side of the containers, the deep boom of Princess’s G3, but did not fire.

“Boss?” New Boy asked. Patience isn’t a virtue of the young, Vadim thought. The zombie surprised him, using his arms to launch himself at him. The shotgun blast lit up the side of the ship, echoing out across the river and into the darkened city. The corpse slumped to the deck, its head hollowed out by buckshot. He worked the slide, ejecting the spent, smoking casing and chambering another.

Another gunshot, then a second from atop the containers: Gulag’s AK-74. Vadim checked another gap between the stacks and found a hissing zombie jammed in it, clawing at a refrigerated container.

“Gulag, Mongol, call out!” They answered. They weren’t near him. “Firing up!” He aimed carefully and then fired into the gap. Some of the buckshot sparked off the container, but enough caught the trapped zombie in the face, and it slumped and was still.

Skull’s .303 boomed, and something fell off the top of the containers, bounced off the railing and splashed into the river. “Careful, Skull!” Gulag cried, sounding less than happy.

Someone was staggering towards them, holding their neck. Vadim shone the flashlight straight in their face. The blood running through their fingers from the wound looked black in the harsh light.

“Please don’t shoot!” the man cried, voice heavily accented. Vadim assumed he was crew.

“Stay where you are!” Vadim commanded as he continued moving forward. “How did you get hurt?”

“It bit me!” the man howled.

“That’s…” the sailor started, but was cut off by the shotgun. “No!”

Vadim helped the body over the side with his boot.

“That was—”

“Shut up!” New Boy snapped in English.

“Clear!” Mongol shouted from ahead. Like fuck it is, Vadim thought.

“Work your way back, check the gaps between the containers!” he shouted. “Use your flashlights!” He was still moving forwards, but had allowed himself to become distracted in his irritation. The zombie lunged out of a gap between containers; it must have been the one that attacked the crewman he had just killed. Vadim threw himself out of the way, almost going overboard.

“Down!” New Boy shouted, stepping on the back of the sailor’s knees and sending him face first down on the deck. The zombie was flailing in the gap. Vadim heard flesh ripping as it tried to tear itself free. There wasn’t enough room to bring the shotgun up, so he dropped it. The G3 fired, throwing everything into negative, and Vadim grabbed for the revolver stuffed through his belt. New Boy’s bullet took the dead woman in the shoulder, almost severing her arm, and Vadim put the revolver to her head and pulled the trigger twice.

“Boss!” Mongol shouted from atop the container stacks.

“We’re good!” Vadim shouted back. He checked the zombie was dead and then picked up the shotgun. New Boy was chuckling.

“What?” Vadim demanded, more annoyed with himself than anything else. Stupid old man! The sailor was whimpering on the deck his hands over his head.

“Just like a cowboy, boss.”

“SKULL!” VADIM CALLED from the forward corner of the container stacks. “Three of us at the port corner; don’t shoot!”

“Understood!” Skull called back. Moments later, Princess was shouting something similar from the starboard side. There had been a few more gunshots, but it sounded like Princess and the police officer had encountered more civilians without shooting them. They checked the bow of the ship in the shadow of the forward crane but found nothing else. The sailor sat down, his head in his hands. New Boy leant against the crane’s support and visibly sagged.

“What’s wrong with you?” Vadim demanded; it was only then he realised he’d been on the go for forty-eight hours with little sleep, and running and fighting for at least ten of them. The boy was drenched with sweat. He barely felt it now – he was dead, after all – but New Boy and Princess had to be exhausted.

There was an island in the river ahead of them, with another bridge running across it.

“What’s that building?” Princess asked, nodding toward a high, slab-shaped building on the Manhattan side of the river. The police officer evidently didn’t speak Russian, but he saw what she was looking at.

“That’s the UN building,” he told them.

Tonight, to Vadim, it looked like a tombstone.

“BOSS,” NEW BOY said.

They had been making their way back along the deck, past the containers, towards the bridge castle, with Princess and the two civilians. Vadim was less than pleased that Gulag had joined them.

They had left the others on overwatch; between them they could cover most of the ship. Vadim turned to see what New Boy wanted. The scout was pointing his flashlight at the deck. The rain had stopped, ash and dust was falling from the dark sky in big flakes, settling on the ship like snow.

“It’s blood,” Vadim said. He’d seen so much of it in his life. New Boy played the torch along the trail of blood, following it to the hatch. The sailor Gulag had killed was still lying on the deck in front of it, but judging by the body’s position the blood hadn’t come from him. Vadim turned to the sailor. He looked ashen and was shaking like a leaf. “What is your name?”

“I am First Officer Gerhardt Colstein,” he managed.

“Gerhardt, it looks as though someone has taken a wounded person in here. I need you to contact your shipmates and find out what the situation is.” The first mate nodded and started speaking into the radio in German. Vadim turned to the police officer. “Is anybody inside armed?”

The American pointed at New Boy and then Princess. “They look okay” – he pointed at Vadim – “but you don’t look well.” Then he pointed at Gulag. “And he looks like Frankenstein.”

“What’s he saying?” Gulag demanded in Russian.

“He thinks you’re pretty,” Princess told him.

“I fucking hate the militia,” Gulag muttered.

“Are you breathing?” the police officer asked Vadim.

“What’s your name, officer?” the captain asked him.

“Harris. Montgomery Harris,” the officer told him after a moment’s consideration.

“Do you know what we are?”

“Fucked-up walking corpses,” he spat. He glanced at Princess. “Some of you, anyway.”

“Beyond that?” Vadim persisted.

“Russian special forces?” he guessed.

“What do you think will happen if there’s any armed resistance?” Vadim asked. He leaned in close, and Harris shrank away. “I’ve had my fill of killing civilians today, but rest assured I will have not a single compunction in doing so if you force my hand, do you understand me?” Harris stared at him. “Are there weapons inside?”

“Yes,” Colstein said in English. “There are more rifles. I have spoken with my captain. He said if you wish access, then you need to turn your weapons over to me.”

Gulag was following the exchange, though it was doubtful he understood much of it.

“Fuck this,” he muttered and went to turn the wheel to open the hatch. Vadim cursed, but cleared Harris and Colstein out of the way, so they could cover the Muscovite.

The wheel didn’t budge. Gulag looked less than pleased. “Let’s kill this black pig,” he said, nodded towards Harris. “See if that makes them more reasonable.” Vadim ignored him and turned to Colstein.

“I think you know we’re not going to surrender. If you don’t let us in, two things are going to happen: if you’ve got any infected in there, then they could turn and kill everyone inside. Even if you don’t, we’ll blow the doors off here, probably end up fighting on the bridge, kill a lot of your people and possibly shoot something critical to the ship’s operation.” Threatening to blow the doors was a bluff; they didn’t actually have the tools.

Colstein stared at Vadim for a moment, and then relayed the message over the radio. This time Vadim listened. His German wasn’t nearly as good as his English, but it was passable. Colstein passed on his message almost word for word.

There was a lot of static from the radio. He assumed the interference was the result of atmospheric ionisation from the New Jersey nuclear detonations. He suspected any attempt at long-range radio communication was a waste of time at the moment.

“What are we doing with them?” New Boy asked, nodding towards Colstein and Harris.

“Keep an eye on them out here until we know the situation inside.”

New Boy nodded and shifted both the civilians to one side as the wheel on the hatch started to turn, his G3 at the ready. Princess and Gulag raised their guns as the hatch opened. A frightened-looking man in a thick jumper looked up at them.

“Move back,” Vadim told him. He hadn’t brought the shotgun up to his shoulder, although it was now reloaded, and Harris had given him spare ammunition. The man backed away, his hands up, and Vadim stepped over the lip of the hatch.

A corridor stretched out in front of him, lined with cabins on either side. Crew quarters, at a guess. It was packed with people, spilling out of the cabins. They weren’t all crew. There were two men waiting for them: an older man, big but running to fat, and a youth in oil-stained overalls, thin, with a pockmarked face. Both of them were pointing G3s at Vadim. That was less a problem than how nervous they looked. Nervous people and guns were a poor mixture. The kid was practically shaking.

“You need to lower your weapons before you’re killed,” Vadim told them, deciding directness was the way forward. He didn’t like how their fingers were curled around the triggers. He stepped into the corridor proper. To his left were metal steps, both up and down. He moved towards the armed crew members, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible for a walking corpse bristling with weapons.

Then Gulag stepped in behind him, and the older one panicked. The sound of the G3 in the cramped corridor was deafening. Vadim felt the bullet pass close by him and heard a grunt from Gulag. Another gunshot from behind him, the bullet passing close by on the other side. He went deaf in one ear. The young man’s head snapped backwards, spraying the wall behind him as his legs buckled.

“No!” Vadim shouted, interposing himself between Princess, who’d just killed the mechanic, and the sailor who’d just shot Gulag. He grabbed the barrel of the man’s G3 and pushed it up, his ears ringing, as it fired again. He slammed his elbow into the man’s face, breaking his nose, and wrenched the rifle free of his grip. Then he heard the screams.

“I’m going to fucking kill him!”

Vadim turned to face Gulag, who was missing most of his left ear. Vadim got in his way and shoved the G3 into his hands.

“Stand there and shut up!” Vadim said. Gulag’s eyes went wide. There was madness in them, and Vadim had no time to deal with it; if Gulag pushed now, he would put a bullet in his head.

The Muscovite managed to master himself, and Vadim took one of the biggest risks of his career and turned his back on him. The sailor who’d shot Gulag was on his knees.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he muttered, rocking back and forwards. Vadim levelled the shotgun at his head.

“The wounded! Where?” he snapped. The man had wet himself. Vadim knew just how much of a monster he must appear to these people. How much of a monster you are. He shook his head; the thought had come unbidden.

He was suddenly aware of the life all around him. The smell of their meat suffused the corridor. Shaking, the shooter pointed at the closest cabin. Vadim was salivating as he followed the direction. It felt like he was wading through noise. Someone got in his way; he swung the butt of the shotgun into their face and they were gone.

There were two wounded in the room, in bunks. Both men. The one on the bottom bunk was trying to push a screaming woman and child away. They were throwing themselves over him, pleading with Vadim. He could see their mouths moving, but he couldn’t make sense of their words through the roaring in his ears. They were dragged out of the way.

The man looked up at him, his face a mask of terror. Then the face was gone.

Vadim tried not to open his mouth as the blood spattered him. He stared down at the ruin of the man’s head, wanting to sink his mouth into it. He didn’t even notice the body on the top bunk sit up. The blast of the G3 in the close quarters of the cabin brought him suddenly back to his senses, as the zombie in the top bunk collapsed back onto a pillow.

Vadim turned. Gulag stood in the cabin’s doorway, lowering his G3. Suddenly Vadim had to get out of this blood-stinking cabin. He pushed past Gulag and made it out into the ash-filled humid night.