To Sail a Darkling Sea

CHAPTER 2

“Paula and Patrick,” Sophia said. “Paula’s a mate. Patrick’s the engineer.”

“Sort of,” Patrick said, shaking Rusty’s hand.

“Where’d you find beanpole?” Paula said, shaking it in turn.

“Lounge on the Alpha,” Sophia said. “He’s sort of cleared for duty and he wants to do clearance.”

“And I wanted to get out of the Grace,” Rusty said. “I really don’t like being in cabins.”

“Voyage passenger?” Patrick said, wincing. “That explains the skinny.”

“Yeah,” Rusty said.

“We carried a lot of those over,” Paula said, sadly. “We lost a few, too. But, hey, you made it,” she added, brightening up. “And I am nothing if not a good cook.”

“She is,” Patrick said, patting his stomach. “I was pretty thin when they found me, too. But I’ve been putting it on since.”

“I read the whole thing about the rations schedule,” Rusty said, awkwardly. “I’m not sure… One of the reasons that I chose clearance, besides I like guns and I want to kill zombies, is the ‘double ration’ for clearance personnel. I was on a double ration when I could finally hold it down in medical, but… ”

“Don’t sweat it,” Paula said, grinning. “We mostly do small boat clearance. When we find a boat, we pull off the good rations first. So we’ve always got plenty. I don’t really get the rations thing, either. That’s for the big boats.”

“Positive to the big boats,” Sophia said. “They’re bigger and they’re a lot more comfortable in any sort of weather. And we do get weather. Don’t let this flat calm fool you. Downside, there’s a lot more rules. Have to be. Most people who’ve survived are pretty sensible. You had to be to make it. Some real idiots made it, though. Usually being carried by sensible people. But they made it. People who fill up their plates with food then just sort of look at it. Food that people like us transferred from one boat to another in a storm after somebody had gone into the shit and killed zombies, so they could just look at it? Don’t think so. So they’ve got the ration schedule. You get a big plate of food then just look at it, Rusty?”

“Ma’am, I get a plate of food, I chow it all down,” Rusty said. “Now, I tend to take my time these days and savor every bite. But I don’t let none go to waste if I’ve got the time to eat it all.”

“Do we have orders?” Patrick asked.

“Once we get the bigger boat, we’re supposed to move out of this area and start another search grid down in the area of the Canaries,” Sophia said.

“The birds?” Rusty said. “Sorry, I… ”

“Canary Islands,” Sophia said, pointing to the islands on a map of the Atlantic on the wall. “We’ll be working with the Large and we’ll have to scrounge for fuel and supplies. PO Kuzma will be in charge of the overall operation. He’s a nice guy and he’s getting used to working with us civilians but he can be sort of a stickler for safety. Which I guess is cool. We’ll be working in the Equatorial Current which means some tropicals, still. But just where they’re working up to a real storm. We’re not going to move into the rest of the tropical zone until we’re past hurricane season. Until the… No Tan Lines… ” Sophia hung her head knowing what was coming.

“No Tan Lines?” Paula said, snorting. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Sophia said. “I’m going to talk to Burnell about painting a new name on it. But until we get it, we’re to provide ‘logistics support’ to the recovery effort on the Iwo. Read, pick up any survivors and carry over ammo for my little sister to burn through… ”

* * *

“Finding the way back hoooome…!” Faith sang, dropping a mag to the deck and reloading with practiced speed.

Faith had a perfect soprano voice which was barely audible over the continuous fire. Because half the time zombies appeared out of nowhere and hearing was the best protection, she couldn’t listen to her iPod all the time. But in situations like this, when they’d opened up a hatch where they knew there were infecteds on the other side and had set up a kill zone, she’d hit her “blow them all to hell” playlist.

Currently it was Nightwish’s “Last Ride of the Day” and she was screaming the words over the torrent of fire.

The hatch in question had been from the interior of the ship to the port catwalk of the well deck. The “big hole” in the back of the ship extended forward nearly to the forecastle and held a plethora of, unfortunately useless, hover craft. Having cleared the well deck, they had to gain entry to the ship. So Hooch had popped the hatch he remembered as heading most quickly to the hangar deck, the next major area to clear, and had then more or less flipped off the catwalk to avoid the tidal wave of zombies. They had gone right past him since he was at this point hanging under the catwalk.

Steve had taken a position on one of the hover craft in the well to take the zombies under fire as they passed. Unless, as some of them did, they jumped off the catwalk to come after him.

Fontana and Faith had taken the catwalk. And Faith was burning through magazines in two and three round bursts so fast it was like watching a human machine gun. The value of the 5.56 was finally coming into play. 5.56 might not kill very well but it went through body armor like nobody’s business. And about half of the infected had managed to strip off their trousers before turning but hadn’t managed the same with their body armor.

“Wake up, Dead Boy, Enter adventure land,” Faith caroled as Fontana tapped her shoulder. Despite the torrent of fire, the infecteds were closing. Kevlar was like that.

Faith stepped back, dropping another magazine, and continued singing without a pause.

“IT’S HARD TO LIGHT A CANDLE, EASY TO CURSE THE DARK INSTEAD,” she screamed the chorus, still in tune, reloading again. “THIS MOMENT THE DAWN OF HUMANITY. THE LAST RIDE OF THE DAY!”

The infected were getting close enough, about half the time she was double tapping one to the chest, one to the head. And she was getting at least eight out of ten head shots.

“She really gets into this,” Fontana yelled.

Steve just stuck his thumb up, double tapping a zombie trying to climb up the side of the landing craft.

The infecteds on the catwalk were clear and Faith ducked behind Fontana to shoot the last few that were attempting to get to her father. She popped nine rounds in a rhythmic pattern, dropped her magazine and held the empty weapon over her head.

“Yes,” she shouted. “Last one down right at the end of the song on the last ROUND, headshot through a helmet! That is AWESOME!”

“One just came out of the hatch,” Fontana said, pointing.

“Oh… ” she snarled, reloading. “Oh, that’s just… Upstager! Moment ruiner!”

“I got it,” Fontana said, putting one in the chest and one in the head.

“Can somebody get me down?” Hooch asked.

* * *

“Okay, Hooch, how the hell did you lose this thing?” Faith asked, stepping over body after body. They were all well decomposed, most of them were infecteds, judging by the lack of clothing, and they were all shot to hell. “You guys put up one hell of a fight.”

“We’re Marines, Shewolf,” Hocieniec said. “It’s sort of what we do. But when half the guys in your squad turn on you… It’s sort of hard to hold a position. Any position.”

“And, Faith, note the lack of ricochet marks?” Fontana pointed out.

“Only Imperial Storm Troopers are this precise,” Steve intoned.

“Tell that to Princess Leia!” Faith said. “Stormtroopers can’t hit the broad side of a barn!”

“You got any idea how hard it is to find your way around the Death Star!” Hocieniec said. “It’s the size of a moon. I was on the Death Star for four years and I never did find the cantina on level Sixty-Nine! They were being herded!”

“Compartment,” Fontana said. “I got it.”

“I used to enjoy knocking,” Faith said. She pulled out a billet of steel and banged on the walls. “Anybody home but the dead?”

* * *

“At least it isn’t as complicated as the Voyage,” Steve said, flashing a tac light at the ship schematics in damage control.

They’d known about the Damage Control Center in the Voyage. It was the obvious first place to go if you could get there. Modern damage control centers were mostly computer based and the Coast Guard had software that would allow downloading the schematics to even a smartphone. They also had detailed, hardbacked for carriage, maps that you could remove in case of loss of power or, oh, a zombie apocalypse.

The schematics for the Voyage had been twenty-eight six foot by six foot maps on a harder form of poster board. They’d taken one look and gone back to the brochures.

In this case, since they had Hooch to guide them at least this far, they’d decided to try to start with a plan.

“It’s still pretty… ” Hooch said, looking at the bare nine maps. “You’re right, sir.”

“Start looking for food storage lockers below the line of the main water tanks,” Steve said, as Faith started pulling out the maps and arranging them around the room. She was having to step over bodies but that was so normal at this point it didn’t even register. She propped one of the maps up on a lieutenant commander whose face had been eaten off.

“Let’s get started,” Steve said.

* * *

“You okay, Hooch?” Faith said.

They weren’t finding many survivors. The few who had apparently been uninfected in the upper reaches of the ship were dead from starvation, dehydration or suicide in the face of either.

“I am five by five, Shewolf,” Hooch said, closing the hatch of the compartment.

“I think I should do it,” Faith said. “Trixie says you shouldn’t look in any more compartments unless we hear survivors.”

“Tell Trixie I’ll be okay,” Hooch said. “But thanks. Honestly, I didn’t expect anything more on this level. And it looks like a lot of them saved the last round.”

“So far I will admit to some disappointment,” Steve said. “It looks as if this was the aviation officer’s quarters.”

“It was, sir,” Hocieniec said.

“I was hoping to find at least one helo pilot,” Steve said.

“Having a helo pilot would be cool,” Faith said. “We could, like, drop in on these things instead of climbing. I don’t like heights. Heights over water is better. Except for the whole we’re wearing ten billion pounds of gear and there are always man-eating sharks. So, yeah, helo would be nice.”

“Thank you, Faith,” Steve said. “I had a broader reason but that’s a good point.”

“Just here to be helpful,” Faith said, banging on the bulkhead. “Anybody hooome…?”

* * *

“No Tan Lines?” Steve said, trying not to snort.

“Oh, my God,” Faith said, gleefully. “That is so you, Soph!”

After the continuous nightmare of clearing the Voyage, Steve decided that there was only so much any one person could do. Not to mention he rarely got to see his kids who were still growing up. Okay, he probably saw too much of Faith. But the same could not be said of Sophia.

So while they were around he tried to have a family dinner, just the four of them, at least once a week. They were the only intact family in the Squadron. They might as well make the most of it.

“All it takes to change it is some paint and a good hand,” Stacey pointed out.

“You know, we talked about it and decided to keep the name,” Sophia said, spooning up the ikan santen. Da’s one real “perk” as the boss was that he had one of the better cooks they’d found. Sari was a real find. She’d had it as hard as anyone, harder than some, but she just sailed along. She didn’t talk much about when the Alpha was in the hands of its “security contingent.” The security, a group called Socorro Security run by a former SF major Fontana knew, and loathed, was one of the last, and worst, decisions Mike Mickerberg ever made. Dad had boiled it down to: If you have to use mercenaries, choose wisely. Socorro Security had not been a wise choice.

“That was somebody’s pride and joy. It’s a nice boat. Changing the name would be sort of dissing the dead. So we’ll keep it.”

“I’m sure you’ll… overcome it?” her mom said.

“Actually, Mom,” Sophia said. “Hate to tell you this but I don’t have much in the way of tan lines.”

“How’s your new security guy?” Steve said, to fill in the gap in the conversation.

“I think he’ll do,” Sophia said, shrugging. “And if not, I’ll find another. He’s no Fontana. No real training. But he says he grew up with guns. Redneck, you know? I gave him a pistol and he knew which way the magazine went in. I had to explain that on my boat, you had better clear every single time. I’ll make sure he stays safe. Best I can do for now.”

“We haven’t found any survivors, yet,” Steve said. “But it’s early days and the areas we’re checking we weren’t really expecting any.”

“I hope they’re in… ” Stacey said then glanced at Faith.

“Better condition than the ones we found on the Voyage?” Faith said. “Me too. And when we don’t get any response, I haven’t been checking the compartments. Hooch has, which is sort of… ”

“He’s handling it,” Steve said. “What do you think about the trip south, Soph?”

“Looking forward to it,” Sophia said. “I want to get back to nautical, you know? Do some fishing, do some rescuing. Clear some boats.”

“You’re going to need a better, and bigger, base than the Large eventually,” Steve said. “Keep an eye out for something. If it’s too big for your group to clear, we’ll send down a team. Hopefully, anyway. Assuming there’s anything to find.”

The problem with distress beacons was that they lasted a far shorter time than humans could. With a solar still, a fishing line or spear gun and some luck, people could survive a long time on rafts or lifeboats. One guy in the ’80s had drifted across almost the entire Atlantic in a life raft. Some lifeboats had solar powered distress beacons. But their range was short. And boats’ and ships’ distress signals stopped when their batteries ran out. It was mostly a matter of “Mark One Eyeball” finding the boats these days.

“There’ll be stuff,” Sophia said. “There always is. I’m not sure about survivors. I’m sort of going to miss the tuna tower on the Endeavor. It was good for spotting stuff. The new one is lower even though it’s a fishing boat, too.”

“ ‘Oh, I just get a pleasure yacht.’” Faith mimicked. “All I get is a ton of stuff and a Barbie gun!”

“Faith …”

So maybe a family dinner wasn’t the best idea…

* * *

“Oh, yes,” Sophia said, pulling away from the cluster of craft around the Iwo Jima. They hadn’t managed to sneak quite all of the Endeavor’s “special stocks” over to the new boat, but they’d gotten a lot of them. And she wasn’t having to ferry stuff back and forth from the Alpha or Grace anymore. “The freedom of the open sea… ”

“Kuzma Flotilla, form line astern of Vessel One,” Kuzma called. “And when I say, ‘form line,’ I mean something resembling an actual line.”

“You were saying?” Paula asked.

“Son of a bitch… ”

* * *

“Son of a bitch,” the sailor said, covering his eyes.

“I told you to cover your eyes and not open the hatch all the way up,” Fontana said, tossing a chemlight into the compartment. “That will give your eyes some time to adjust. How many in your compartment?”

“Four,” the Petty Officer said. “Left.”

“Here’s four pairs of sunglasses,” Fontana said. “Put them on when we come back.”

“You Coast Guard?”

“No. Nor Navy, Marines or Sea Scouts. Wolf Squadron. I’m Special Forces, she’s some sort of psycho anime chick come to life… ”

“Hey!”

“Long story… ”

* * *

“I’m up for a threesome if anybody’s interested…?”

When you were so bored and tired of being in a compartment with people you no longer could stand that you couldn’t even get a flicker out of Mister Willy at a suggestion like that, you knew it was bad. And he was out of Copenhagen. Bad on toast.

Turned out that Gowen had never had group sex. Group sex hadn’t been what Januscheitis had actually suggested but the idea got floated about two weeks after their little discussion. After the first time, she got really into it. By a couple of weeks after that it had been ongoing. There was flat nothing else to do in the compartment. He’d tried reading by the light of his watch and decided that was a bad idea. And he was out of Copenhagen. The senior NCO in the compartment had not been a happy camper for a few days when the Copenhagen ran out.

He’d maintained PT every day. Some of the guys thought that a go around with Gowen should count. They’d done PT, even Patel the swabbie. So had Gowen even after it was pretty clear she was preggers. How they were going to explain that, he wasn’t sure.

They’d checked the corridors to see if the zombies had left. On one end the answer was they’d all died of dehydration. Which meant that the watertight doors on the other side were dogged. They’d checked that and run into more zombies. So their perimeter had expanded but that was about it. They’d knocked on a couple of bulkheads and found out there were other survivors in the area. But nobody they could link up with. The zombies held all the intermediate areas.

They’d used tap code to get a roster and passed their own on. They’d tried to use it to pass information and converse. That had worked for prisoners of war but there was no real point with this situation.

One of the compartments had run short of water after a short while. They’d tapped about ways to get some to them but they had nothing that could cut through the steel bulkheads. L-4-638 tapped that they drew lots and were going to “terminate” two to conserve water. It was three dudes and a split and the dudes had agreed that she wasn’t in the lottery.

Semper Fi, dudes. Both of the Marines had “terminated.”

638 was just about down to the final male swabbie terminating. They were drinking piss mixed with water and everything that anyone could think of to hold out. 642 had dudes slowly scratching through with a crowbar, trying to cut a hole to the compartment. Like their own, 642 had a tap and was below the main fresh water tanks. So far they’d had a steady stream and they were putting more into every ration can they emptied.

649 was low on food. But they figured they had about another two months on short rations. 642 had reported that when they were through to 638 they’d try to find a way to 649. Eventually you could cut through steel with a crowbar. They weren’t reporting their progress, though, which didn’t bode well for either compartment.

“I wouldn’t turn down a blowjob,” PFC Rodas replied.

“Patel, you’re up,” Derek said.

“That is getting really old, jarhead,” Seaman Patel snapped.

“Come here, honey,” Derek said. “If none of these other gentlemen are up to the challenge of satisfying you… ”

“Freeze,” Smitty said.

“What?” Gowen said. “Why…?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Januscheitis snapped. “Smitty?”

“Freeze,” the Sergeant replied. “Listen.”

“Got noth-”

“I hear it,” Gowen said. “Banging?”

“So somebody’s banging on a compart-”

There was the clear echo of a burst of fire in the distance.

“Threesome hereby terminated,” Januscheitis said, rolling to his feet. “Somebody survived with rounds! Git it on, Marines!”

“OO-RAH!”

* * *

“I think we got customers,” Faith said, listening to the distant banging.

“Supply areas,” Fontana said. “Makes sense.”

“Hooch,” Faith said, keying her radio. “We got more customers in Sector L.”

“Good to hear,” Hooch replied. “We’ve got some in M as well.”

Rain had blown into some of the open outer hatches. That had, in turn, worked into pools in the upper area corridors, some of them all the way to the coamings. There were dead bodies and shit in most of the water but the zombies drank it anyway. It was amazing what the human body could withstand. Some anyway.

They’d been following a series of open hatches, finding live zombies all the way down. The surrounding compartments had all failed to respond to banging. Somebody else would have the fun of checking them later.

“This way,” Fontana said, turning his head from side to side.

Faith banged on the hatch and was rewarded with the irregular banging, scratching and howling they’d come to associate with zombies.

“Right about now I’d like a grenade or something,” she said, putting her hand on the hatch’s locking mechanism.

“Never use a frag on a boat,” Fontana said. “About the only thing I knew about clearing boats before this. Ready?”

“Hang on,” Faith said, reaching for her iPod. “Or a chainsaw maybe… ”

* * *

“Open the hatch,” Januscheitis said.

“You su-?” Derek said then recalled he was a Marine again. “Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant.”

They didn’t have much in the way of melee weapons but if the rescuers needed help they were going to give it. Januscheitis figured that it must have been a group like themselves who had somehow held out long enough to access a magazine. And the rescue team’s noise had drawn the infecteds away from hatch 943.

Derek popped the hatch and Januscheitis went through, crowbar up and at the ready.

What he had forgotten was that there was little or no way that any rescue group could clear without having lights. Derek popped the hatch at almost exactly the same time as the rescue group opened theirs. He wasn’t even in direct line and the lights had him blinded. They must have been using about fifty tac lights or some sort of super-power spot.

Then he heard the singing. Everybody heard the singing.

* * *

“I’m one with the warrior sign,” Faith caroled. “My dominance can’t be denied! Your entire world will turn into a battlefield tonight!”

She was taking point, multi-tapping in time with the rhythm and dancing as she backed up from the oncoming infecteds. When she hit the end of the chorus she rolled to the left, popping out her magazine as Fontana took over. After a quick reload, she had taken the back position as Fontana continued to engage the infecteds. When he was out, she took over again. “Come on bring it, you can’t see it… ”

* * *

Januscheitis had taken cover behind the hatch at the fire from down corridor but while there were some bouncers from pass-throughs, the fire was remarkably accurate, given that the shooter seemed to be a split with an addiction to Disturbed. What was… disturbing was that the shots were in time to the music. There was a second shooter that took over with what was to his ears really solid timing. He’d tuned his ears to combat in plenty of actions and he caught the very quick reload, in time to the song again but fast. This was an experienced two-person team that had worked together a lot.

The firing finally settled down and Januscheitis stuck his head back out. The months had really wrecked his eyes but he could sort of pick up, from the singing and the way that the lights were flashing around, that the split had continued to dance after the firefight was over.

There were lights moving their way, though, and he slit his eyes against them, then covered them entirely.

“Sorry about her,” a voice said. “Chemlight coming through. Once she starts a song she’s impossible until it’s done. And that wasn’t enough infecteds to run through Warrior. Thank God it wasn’t Citadel or Winterborn. We’d be here all day.”

“No issues, dude,” Januscheitis said. “Never been gladder to hear fire. Or meet new people. I guess you’re not guys from the Iwo.”

“One of us is,” the dude said as the split continued to sing. And apparently dance. “Hooch is with the other team. But, no, Wolf Squadron. Volunteer group. Mostly civvies with some odds and sods of others. Staff Sergeant Thomas Fontana, Fifth Special Forces Group. And I was just a castaway myself.”

“It’s that fucked up?” Januscheitis said.

“It’s that fucked up. Pretty much totally fucking gone. Chain of command is guys on a radio in the Hole in Omaha. And they’re not moving.”

“Jesus.”

“As I stand before you. With a warrior’s heart now. I can feel the strength that will.

Ensure my victory this tiiiiiiiime… ”

“Okay,” Fontana said. “I guess we can get going now… ”