03 Deluge of the Dead (25 page)

Carl slammed on the brakes and exited the Suburban. Karen got out on the other side. Both had their weapons drawn as they approached the figure writhing in apparent pain on the ground behind the Suburban. It was the body of a young woman dressed in black leather motorcycle pants and jacket. She had been lying on her stomach in the middle of the street, several feet away from another body with a butcher knife stuck deep into its eye.  The young woman had stopped screaming and was moaning now, but she still sounded different than the zombies.

“Miss?” Carl called out. “Miss, are you okay?”

“Ooooh, arrrg, uhhh,” was her first response and Carl raised his Beretta. Then he heard her say, “No, I’m not okay, asshole. You just ran over me!” Carl lowered his gun as Karen sheathed her sword and ran to the woman’s side.

“Have you been bitten?” Karen asked the woman.

“No,” she replied. “I’ve been crushed, damn it! You ran over me! Don’t you people watch the road when you’re driving?”

“We were watching,” Karen said. “We thought you were just another dead body lying in the street.”

“Well, I’m not. In fact, I think you actually swerved to hit me! Why couldn’t you have just run over that body?” The woman gestured to the dead man with the knife in his eye.

“You were smaller and that knife could have blown out a tire,” Carl replied honestly, but in an uncharacteristically sheepish tone. “I’d never run over a living woman on purpose.”

 “Oh, so now it’s a sexist thing?” She grimaced as she tried to roll over onto her back, glancing down at her legs to see if they were still intact.

“Take it easy, sister,” Karen said firmly as she helped the woman sit up. “Carl here might be a gentleman, but he’s not sexist. He lets me run over zombies and dead bodies too. Now what the fuck were you doing lying down in the middle of a street during the zombie apocalypse? Are you an idiot, or what?”

That seemed to have an effect. The woman started sobbing for a moment and then got a grip and said, “I’ve been running for hours, ever since we got pulled us off Philip’s motorcycle. We left the house when the rain started. We’d heard part of a message from a helicopter’s loud speaker saying we should get to safety during the rain. They said zombies would hide from the rain and there was a safe place in El Segundo. Philip and I rode his Harley from our place on Century Boulevard. The roads are too fucked up to drive cars there… Hey! What are you doing?” She was terrified to see Karen draw her sword and move the blade towards her legs.

“Relax,” said Karen. “I’m just going to slit your pant legs so I can see if your legs are broken.”

“Okay,” the woman replied. “I hope you’re better with a sword than a car.”

“Carl was driving. Just keep talking. I still want to know why you were sprawled in the road here.” Karen slipped her blade up one pant leg, sharp edge away from the flesh, and sliced the jeans open from ankle to knee with a simple upward draw of the sword.

“Wow,” said the woman. “That must be sharp. Well, we made it down to LAX on the bike. It was scary going under the 405 freeway. There must have been a hundred zombies hiding from the rain there, maybe more, but we went through them at 30 or 40 miles an hour. I think we hit a few of them, but Phil could ride a bike better than anyone I know. He wasn’t the smartest navigator though. We made it down to PCH just fine, but then we had to go through the tunnel under the airport runways.”

“Holy shit,” said Carl. “I went through that tunnel in the first hours of Z-Day and picked up a zombie hood ornament with its head through the windshield.”

“You were lucky it was only one,” she continued. “That tunnel is crawling with zombies now. Phil didn’t see them at first, maybe because he was turning his head to yell, ‘Not much farther now,’ right when the zombies jumped in front of us. Bam! Just like that, and we’re flying into a bunch of them. Thank God for motorcycle helmets and full leathers. Still, if we hadn’t landed on all those zombies, we probably would have broken some bones. They cushioned our fall. We…Ouch!”

“Sorry,” said Karen as she gently probed the woman’s calves and shins to see it she could feel any broken bones. “Then what happened?”

“It was crazy. They were all over us, but they couldn’t bite me through these leathers and I was wearing a full face helmet and gloves. It was like a nightmare though. I had a butcher knife and Phillip had a hammer in his belt. We fought our way back out of the tunnel. It couldn’t have been more than fifty or a hundred feet, but it felt like a mile. Thank God they didn’t follow us out into the rain.”

“No bites or scratches?” Karen asked as she proceeded to slice open the other pant leg.

“Not on me,” the woman answered. “Phil wasn’t as lucky. He was only wearing a little brain pan helmet, the smallest kind that’s legal, so his face and neck were exposed. He got plenty of scratches on his face and a nasty bite on his neck. I knew it was all over as soon as I looked at him. So did he, but he wanted to help me get to safety before he turned. We ran around the end of the airport and up here, towards the refinery. Phil made it this far.” She ended her story with a note of finality.

“This far?” Carl asked lamely.

“That’s Phillip,” she said, pointing to the body with the butcher knife stuck in its eye. That seemed to explain everything else, including why she was lying face down in the middle of the street when they ran over her. Carl couldn’t imagine what he would have done if he had been forced to kill his wife when she turned. That thought only made him feel worse as he wondered if Pricilla could still be stuck inside the taxi cab in front of the urgent care building, munching away on the cab driver.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Karen said to the woman, but Carl silently accepted her condolence too. “It looks like your legs aren’t broken, but your calves are already starting to bruise,” Karen continued. “We’ll get you back to the refinery and put some ice on them. I’d say you’re very lucky. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Lucy.”

“That’s damned close to lucky, isn’t it? Come on Stiller, let’s get Lucky into the back seat,” Karen said with a grin. Turning back to Lucy she added, “Stiller is Carl’s last name and it’s damned close to killer. I’d say you were both given good names.”

“What’s your name, sword lady?” Lucy asked.

“Karen Slade, but he calls me Blade.”

*****

FBI Special Agent in Charge Ralph Corrigan was losing his patience.  He had flown down for a final meeting with Commodore Allen, but had been kept waiting for more than an hour. He understood part of the delay. A new contingent of Marines had arrived unannounced and many of them were still surrounding the Commodore’s ship.  That development, along with the Super Huey sitting on the ship’s helicopter pad, had prompted him to land on the
Sea Launch Commander
instead of the
Sovereign Spirit
. The rocket scientists had been quite hospitable, even offering a tour of their space age ship, but he had not been able to make direct contact with the Commodore yet. It was troubling. Had Scott already succumbed to the virus? Had the Marines taken him prisoner? So many of the plans already set in motion were devised by the Commodore that Ralph felt it imperative to get a final briefing, or debriefing, before he was gone for good. 

He found it hard to concentrate on information that the attractive woman named Nancy Epstein was giving him about the Sea Launch program, but she caught his attention when she mentioned the International Space Station. “What was that about the space station? Is it free of infection?” Ralph asked.

“Oh yes, they were unaffected,” Nancy said. “They had a ringside seat to the apocalypse, but they don’t have enough room on the Russian Soyuz capsule docked there to bring everyone back. Their supplies are limited with no hope of getting more, so they’re sending as many as possible back down. They drew lots to choose who would get to come back to Earth. I hope they make it. The commander and several others will be stuck up there and they won’t last more than a year without resupply. We’re in contact with them and they are still providing important observations about the weather and some monster wildfires in Australia, Brazil, Argentina and Spain. But there’s nothing we can do to help them. I always thought it was a mistake to turn all of the Space Shuttles into museum displays. They should have refurbished the
Endeavor
and sent her on a final one-way trip to the Space Station where it could have been kept as a lifeboat in case of an emergency like this.”   

“That would have been a good idea,” Ralph agreed. “But I don’t think anyone was prepared for a situation like this. So you people can still launch rockets from these ships?”

“Yes,” Nancy confirmed. “We have components for nine Russian made rockets in the assembly building ashore here and two fully assembled rockets aboard this ship that could be launched from the Odyssey Launch Pad. We’re probably the only ones left on Earth with that capability. I’m sure there are still plenty of missiles capable of being fired from submarines roaming the oceans, or underground silos, waiting for orders to fire that will hopefully never come, but those missiles are carrying nuclear weapons and aren’t designed to put payloads into orbit.”

“But yours are,” Ralph said. “So couldn’t you send supplies to the space station? Or re-entry capsules for them to escape in?”

She shook her head and said, “Theoretically, perhaps, but we don’t have the type of orbital bus delivery vehicles that could carry supplies, let alone match orbit for docking or capture by the ISS. And we certainly don’t have any re-entry capsules to send them. No, anyone left up there is doomed. Unless Russia can launch another Soyuz soon, but I highly doubt that.”   

“That’s a shame,” Ralph said. “But I guess we should worry more about saving the people down here right now. I appreciate the tour of your amazing ship and I’m glad you and your team are working with the Flotilla, but I really need to see Commodore Allen as soon as possible. Can we go back to your bridge or mission control room and try to get through to him again?”

“Of course, Agent Corrigan, this way please,” Nancy said. “I’m sorry for the delay, but since we had to wait anyway, I wanted you to have some of idea of what Sea Launch has to offer this safe haven and whatever is left of the world too.” 

Ralph nodded and followed her back along the catwalk overlooking the cavernous rocket assembly bay inside the
Sea Launch Commander
where two orbital rockets sat waiting to be fitted with payloads. He wondered if they would ever be launched and what they would carry into space. Would there still be a demand for communications and weather satellites after the apocalypse? He hoped so, but at the current rate of attrition it would be a miracle if one in ten humans lived through the next few months. And there was no telling how much worse things were going to get before they started getting better, if they ever did. Day dreaming of space ships was the last thing he should be doing at the moment.

“Captain Volstok?” Nancy called out as she led Ralph onto the bridge. “FBI Agent Corrigan needs to see or speak with Commodore Allen right away. Is there any word from him yet?”

“Nyet,” replied the grizzled Russian. “No reply in zee last hour, but no sign zat the Marines have boarded his ship either. We are trying not to attract zee attention of zee Navy and Marines, in case they want to take our ship too, but I shall try to contact zee commodore again.” He signaled a Canadian bridge officer, identifiable as such by the maple leaf badge on his collar, to make the call and turned back to face Corrigan. “It is wery sad about zee commodore. We all had such high hopes for zee Flotilla.”

“Don’t lose hope yet, captain,” Ralph replied. “I think that what Commodore Allen has set in motion is strong enough to outlive him.”

The captain nodded as the bridge officer turned from the communications console and said, “The Commodore is still unavailable, but Captain Fisher says he is still alive.”

“That is good, no?” said Captain Volstok.

“It could be worse,” Corrigan agreed. “But he must be running out of time and I have some vital questions to ask him.” Turning to the Canadian he asked, “Did you tell Captain Fisher that I am here on urgent business?”

“Yes, sir,” the officer replied. “He said to stand by while he passed along your request to see the Commodore.”

“Alright,” Corrigan said impatiently. “Can I use your radio to contact one of my teams in the field?”

“Of course,” Volstok said. “It’s right over there.” He directed Ralph to the communications console and the Canadian showed him how to change frequencies.

“This is Corrigan calling HRT Bearcat. Slidell, do you read me?” Ralph waited a moment and repeated the message.

“Bearcat to Corrigan, Special Agent Slidell speaking. Over.”

“Helen, what is your status and location? Over.”

 “Conducting rescue operations inland from Redondo Beach. We dropped off a couple busloads at the refinery you told us about. Collecting more survivors now, sir, over.”

“Copy that, Helen,” Corrigan paused as he decided what to tell her next. He didn’t want to interrupt the rescue operation, but he had a strange feeling that he was going to need his agents by his side soon. “Continue the mission, but expedite your arrival at the port. There are some interesting developments here and I’d like your input.”

“Ah… Roget that,” she replied. “Should we abort the grid sweeps and go there directly?” Ralph could hear the uncertainty and concern in her voice.

“What are conditions like on the streets?” he asked.

“Wet, dark and empty, except for the traffic jams,” she replied. “We’ve picked up a few survivors out on the streets trying to relocate during the rain, but most are still holed up, waiting for us to drive close enough for them to hear our horns and loud speakers. Then they run out to get on the buses. If we start skipping blocks, we’ll be leaving some survivors behind, over?”

“Understood,” Ralph confirmed. “But you don’t see any hostiles on the roads?”

“Negative,” she replied. “No zombies in the open now. We see plenty of them hiding under any shelter they can find, from porches and carports to covered gas station pumps and parking structures, as well as any unsecured buildings, but they’re staying off the street, over.”