Convoy 19: A Zombie Novel (12 page)

Chapter 19

Kelly Damico held her breath as she unfolded the metal step stool. The screech of metal brackets on metal legs seemed deafening in the silence. After the stool was in position against the battered door, Kelly paused and listened for activity from the ground floor music store.

The gentle shuffling of the undead within the adjacent room was all she heard. A moan or vicious snarl would have alerted her that she had drawn the attention of the undead, but mercifully, she had not.

Kelly carefully set a clear plastic bin filled with pots, pans, and plates atop the stool. The door latch was splintered to pieces, and it could no longer be secured. If the door was forced open, however, at least she and the group of survivors who resided in the second-floor clinic above would have an alarm of clattering dishware. As long as everyone remained quiet, it would be unlikely that the dull-witted monsters in the neighboring room would notice any activity in the rest of the DDC.

As gently as possible, she added to the pile of debris she had placed at the foot of the door – a couple of dumb bells, a small television with a shattered screen, a vacuum cleaner, and a heap of clothes piled almost to the doorknob. The barricade wouldn’t prevent the undead from barging through the door if they were determined, but it would slow them and prevent some clumsy ghoul from setting off her alarm by accident. She did not want inadvertently to trigger a frenzy of activity that would place everyone on the second floor in jeopardy.

She took a step back and released her breath. The racket of Dr. Thomson’s death and Private Stenson’s escape had the benefit of drawing every walking corpse within the DDC into the music store. While the undead dominated the ground floor, for the moment, they were at least unaware of the living – many of whom were children – just up the stairs. It would take vigilance to keep it that way, but there was no choice. They were trapped.

Kelly turned to Private Stenson, who kept watch at the front of the DDC. Most of the windows had been shattered, but the lot was devoid of undead. The fenced enclosure was also still intact. Ghouls were haplessly wandering about beyond the perimeter, their clumsy forms visible through the ruins of French blinds that hung in tatters on the DDC’s windows.

With cautious and deliberate steps, Kelly and Stenson made their way through the DDC, over the fresh corpses created in the previous night’s carnage, and into the storage closet. The DDC sat in absolute ruin: cots, furniture, and personal effects lay strewn about, covered in gore. The storage closet, however, had remained secure. The food stores within, capable of feeding over seventy refugees, would stretch far longer feeding a couple dozen men, women, and children.

They each grabbed a plastic bin of food and supplies, and tiptoed back out into the clinic. The constant baritone moans of ghouls in the next room and outside obscured the sound of their footsteps. They quietly made their way back to the stairwell before Kelly stopped, set her bin down on the floor, and disappeared back into the storage closet. She reemerged with a bucket of wood stain before picking her bin back up and continuing up the stairs at the back of the room.

A man keeping watch gestured for them to hurry, and the second they were up and out of the stairwell, a dozen people reassembled the barricade they had thrown together the night before. The barrier was useless – perhaps capable of delaying an undead onslaught by a few seconds. The door behind it was less a door and more a tattered and broken strip of splintered wood, but it was all they had. Relocation was not currently an option.

“Okay,” Kelly whispered as the families gathered around intently, “we have enough rations for a few days right now if we stretch. I don’t want to have to go back downstairs for as long as possible. Keep your food on you at all times. If we have to leave here, we’re going to have to do it in a hurry and under uncertain circumstances. Make sure your kids have a couple days’ rations in their survival packs, and don’t forget to keep your water bottles full.”

“We should only run the bathroom faucet at a trickle. The noise of the pipes might…” someone said.

“Good idea… and keep your kids quiet. Talking should be fine, but no screaming or loud crying,” Kelly continued.

“No toilet flushing either. We need to use buckets…” Nicole, a blonde-haired woman who had shown some initiative, suggested.

“Good thinking. Make sure your kids know. Also, we need to start devising a plan if we have to evacuate. I believe we’re safe for the moment, but …” Kelly trailed off, “divide up the food fairly. I’ll be on the roof.”

Kelly left the families to separate the rations as they saw fit. She was in crisis management mode and had to trust that someone would take charge of rationing. There was plenty of food at the moment, but Kelly had figured it was a good idea to give everyone something to focus on. Without Dr. Thomson, guards, or staff, Kelly had realized that she was not only on her own, but she would also need some of her fellow survivors to step up and take charge. Private Stenson, Nicole… it didn’t matter, but she would need someone to rely on. Food rationing seemed like a good first test to identify both natural leaders and anyone who might be a problem.

She scooped up the bucket of wood stain and made her way to the roof of the music store. The heat of the midday sun was oppressive, but the fresh air – as fresh as it could be with the reek of decay wafting on the wind – was welcome over the stench of body odor and death festering in the clinic.

The crowd of ghouls wandering about outside ignored her while she surveyed the area. As secure a position as the Tierrasanta DDC was, it was also isolated atop its rise. If they had to escape, it would be nearly impossible. There were nearby commercial buildings, abandoned and unsecured, but to get there would require a mad dash through a sea of undead. On the other side of the DDC, was a sharp drop into an overgrown lot. A rusty swing set sat in the middle of a ruined city park that was now occupied by roving corpses and abandoned vehicles. Figuring a way to get down would be challenging in and of itself, but once down, where could they go? Downtown San Diego was ruled by the dead, and finding a safe place would be a roll of the dice.

The DDCs’ natural defenses had become the very things that confined them. If they did have to evacuate, very few survivors—if any—would make it.

Frustrated, Kelly dipped a rag into the bucket of brown-colored wood stain and began scrawling on the wall of the clinic. The moans of the undead carried through the stillness, and Kelly noticed the absence of other sounds echoing through the city for the first time. The distant gunfire, the rumble of helicopter blades, and the far-away screams that echoed through the streets, were things she had grown accustomed. Now, they were all eerily lacking, and their absence was unsettling.

“What’s our best case scenario?” Private Stenson’s voice startled Kelly.

Kelly turned from her work to see him standing in the doorway. A few hours had passed since he had risked his life to rescue a handful of civilians trapped in the music store offices, and yet, he stood ready to help in any capacity he could. He had watched her back while she snuck down to the ground floor for food and supplies, and this eighteen-year-old kid had shown more presence of thought than many people twice his age. With the staff, guards, and Dr. Thomson all dead, and her husband, Henry, in some far off naval ship, Private Stenson was the closest thing she had to a friend.

“Best case…” Kelly thought for a few seconds as she considered the question. She hadn’t actually considered a ‘best case’ scenario until now. She had gotten used to living moment to moment. “Best case is if a military convoy swings by and gives us a ride out of here…ideally to the fleet.”

Private Stenson pondered Kelly’s answer as he limped toward her. He absently worked a piece of bloody glass out of his leg. He looked at it before throwing it away, and then he picked up a rag.

“You should let me look at that,” Kelly offered as she continued her work. As young men were wont to do, Stenson had stubbornly denied any medical attention after his escape from the music store.

“I’m fine.” Stenson dipped his rag into the wood stain and began helping Kelly thicken the letters she had been scrawling on the brick. “When might a convoy arrive?”

“We’ve been out of contact with the military for weeks now, and they haven’t been keeping to the schedule for months. Could be today, could be tomorrow, and could be never.” Kelly answered. She no longer had the strength to sugar-coat the situation, and honesty poured out of her. “Convoys have been taking more than giving these days anyway – food, supplies, and personnel. It’s entirely possible a convoy could arrive here, see the situation, and simply turn around and abandon us to our fates. Or maybe they’ll get here, take all our food, and leave without us.”

Private Stenson did not reply. He continued to help stain the wall with one hand while digging another piece of glass out of his hip with the other. His pants were soiled red with the blood of his effort.

They worked in silence, and the stillness of the city overcame them. A million emotions swam together as they considered their predicament of hopelessness, fear, and anger. It had been impossible to forget the apocalypse that threatened to consume them all, but they had slipped into a state of detachment within the DDC, protected and supplied by the military. They had assumed a false sense of security of the horror that was erupting all around was no longer happening to them. They had convinced themselves that the far off screams and gunfire were mere sounds of the city, not real events happening to real people. Now that their illusions had been shattered, and the adrenaline had worn off, it was time to embrace the reality of their dire predicament.

Kelly and the private finished their task, stood back from the wall, and assessed their work.

“So what’s the worst case scenario?” Stenson asked, sliding an inch-long piece of glass out of his hip and throwing it over the edge of the building.

“We’re on our own, the convoy will never come, we’ll run out of food eventually, or the dead will find us,” Kelly stated grimly.

Private Stenson nodded with a frown. “Are you an optimist or a pessimist, Dr. D?”

Kelly assessed the large letters scrawled in dark brown on the side of the clinic reading: ‘Alive Inside.’ There must be thousands of signs like this throughout the city on the sides of office buildings, skyscrapers, and houses. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellular phone. She looked at it, hoping she’d see a message from her husband. There wasn’t one. Only a flashing light that read ‘low battery.’

“I’m a realist,” Kelly replied.

Chapter 20

Captain Sheridan entered the stone-silent briefing room.  Five three-man convoy teams stood at attention in unison.

“As you were, soldiers,” he responded.

A mere six months ago, this room would have been filled with sixty crewmen who would sit and joke amongst each other, receive mission details, and rush out to man an armada of Humvees and trucks.  Back then, the San Diego docks housed all the convoy teams, ferry captains, maintenance crews, and administrative personnel tasked with front-line logistics. Today the docks were empty: a huge sprawling complex of vacant corridors and silent barracks. Now there were only fifteen crewmen, and only one convoy remained, Convoy Nineteen.

When military operations in California began, no one suspected that the convoy teams would endure such staggering casualty rates.  These were the kind of statistics that would one day share a page with World War 2 RAF bomber squads and German U-Boat crews. Over time, the joking and sharing of adventure stories had been replaced with quiet discussion of past missions, or of fellow soldiers who were now either dead or walked among the ranks of the dead. Today, no one spoke, as morale was low, and the soldiers had been pushed to their breaking point.

The convoy team sat back down, and the Captain stepped behind a podium at the front of the room. The tension was palpable - briefings like this had been rare in recent months. They had been reserved for only the most complex and dangerous of logistical operations involving dozens of teams. Being summoned to the briefing room had become a bad omen among the soldiers.

Captain Sheridan stood quietly for a moment and looked at the men and women under his command. In a year’s time, they had gone from inexperienced soldiers – many fresh out of high school – to hardened veterans aged beyond their years. His eyes lingered on Sergeant First Class Carl Harvey. That man had never lost a soldier to desertion, but he had seen more men and women die under his command than any other team leader. This was due, in part, to the fact that he was the longest active-duty team leader by far. Carl hid the pain as all commanders do, but Sheridan could sense it – leaders haunted by their losses shared a silent bond as powerful as it was intangible. If this was not to be the last convoy mission, he would have placed Sergeant First Class Harvey on leave, sending him and the rest of his team to the fleet to heal the scars of the past year. The man had already endured too much.

“Today’s the day, ladies and gentlemen!” he said with a forced smile. He hadn’t smiled a genuine smile in months, but he kept as positive an outward demeanor as possible for the sake of morale. His leadership style was not the “do or die” hardnosed style of men like Patton. It was rather a softer and more empathetic, yet, direct approach that fostered morale like the precious resource it was. Even Patton had deserters who — in this new world –needed to be avoided at all costs. Every soldier who
des
erted, not only took with them precious training and manpower, but vital resources such as ammunition, rations, even vehicles. No one would be served by adding weight to spirits that already struggled under their existing burden.

The dour group sat up in their chairs, their interest piqued by the Captain’s upbeat tone – forced as it was. Their glum looks changed to furrowed brows of curiosity. Nervous leg-shaking ceased and brooding minds focused on a man who never delivered new orders with a smile.

“I have here the details of our next mission – our very last mission – the mission we’ve all been waiting for.” The captain held up a manila envelope, taunting his team.

“We driving to Honolulu, sir? I could use a vacation,” someone joked. No one laughed.

Captain Sheridan’s smile broke into a frown at the thought.  He considered telling them the news that Hawaii was no longer under U.S. control, but he thought better of it. “Better! We’re going to take a picnic on the beach outside the San Onofre nuclear power plant, so bring your swimsuits. WDs aren’t invited.”

“They tend to be party crashers, sir.” Someone else attempted to lighten the mood. For the first time in months, morale lifted. The end was in sight, and the excitement began to build.

“Well, actually, this is a boat party. Your orders are to head north, get some personnel and supplies from the Tierrasanta DDC, then head up to San Onofre where the Howard and Boxer will be waiting offshore. A Chinook helicopter will load you and your cargo onto the ships, and we’ll be kissing the mainland goodbye for a little while.” Captain Sheridan attempted to make the mission sound as simple as possible. “Sergeant First Class Carl Harvey, Specialist Pam Grace, Sergeant Miguel Ramos… you already know you’ll be lead car. Try not to get killed. I’d like to get my picture taken while pinning medals on you before that happens.”

“Medals?” Miguel asked with a smile, “How about a nice steak dinner instead?”

“Sorry, Ramos, you know cows can’t swim. I’ll see if I can rustle up some frozen ground-beef patties though, and you can have a hamburger,” he grinned. “Twenty minutes, soldiers. Dismissed!”

Pam smiled as she stood and approached the podium with her four fellow communications specialists. Sheridan handed out manila envelopes filled with requisition orders, directions, and satellite photographs.

“This really it, sir?” Pam asked, and never shy about communicating her desire to put the convoy runs to an end.

“This is it, Specialist,” the Captain nodded, “and another thing…” Sheridan spoke up, addressing the soldiers shuffling out of the briefing room, “as soon as we close the gate behind you, we’re abandoning the docks, and the ferries are joining the civilian fleet. This is a one-way trip, soldiers, so make sure you’re packed and ready to go.”

“Thank God…” Pam mumbled, as she popped open her envelope and disappeared down the hallway.

The laughter and rowdiness trailed out of the briefing room and into the hallway until Captain Sheridan was left with his thoughts. It felt great to deliver good news for a change, but there was bitterness too. He scooped up his paperwork and ran his fingers along the wrinkled binding of the small black Bible he kept hidden within. “Thank God,” he repeated Pam’s words as he considered them.

He made his way out of the briefing room and past the boisterous soldiers horsing around and packing their belongings. He then entered into the docking bay that housed the remaining convoy vehicles. The first time he entered this room, there had been over a hundred Humvees and trucks assembled in an orderly lot and equipped with enough ammunition and supplies to fight a small nation. Now, only five battered and dented Hummers remained. Once, several hundred maintenance personnel bustled about, attending to every detail from tire pressure to ammunition supply. Now, the needs of the fleet overshadowed the needs of the convoy teams.  The number of vehicles diminished over time, and there were but a handful of mechanics remaining.

It was striking how empty the dock looked now. Just the previous day there was a choreographed ballet of logistics taking place. Only three lonely Landing Craft Utility boats patiently awaited the last of their cargo before they would join the rest of the fleet. A civilian ferry sat ready to take on any additional civilian refugees remaining in the docks. It felt good to leave all this behind, but the Captain wondered if this was victory, defeat, or something else entirely that his military trained mind could not fully process. He made his way up the stairs to the command platform that overlooked the docks.

He sat down in his chair next to a lone communications officer, an eighteen or nineteen year-old technician who likely drew this detail for being the least senior among his team. Sheridan patiently waited for the convoy crews, opened his Bible, and felt the pages. They were thin as tissue paper between his fingers. Carefully, he thumbed to the verse he had been pondering for some time and read it again.

Revelation 14:13 - ‘And I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from now on: Yes, said the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.’

He then folded open the papers he used to keep his place - a handwritten list of the names of the men and women who had died under his command. The list was long and the paper was worn from having been folded opened and closed hundreds of times. Though they had died under his command, they were not all resting now – many of them still walked the earth as undead monsters.

His meditation was broken by the sound of the barracks door swinging open into the garage. The ruckus shattered the eerie silence, the convoy voices of the team echoing through the cavernous building. The soldiers walked in a single file line and carried heavy backpacks, bed rolls, and rifles. They dispersed to their vehicles.

Moments later, the voices came back over the communication network.

“Car three ready.”

“Car one, ready to rock.”

“Car four ready.”

“Car five standing by.”

“Car two ready.”

Captain Sheridan took a deep breath before giving the order. “Convoy Nineteen… go!” He gave the order for the last time.

The gates to the warehouse slid open, and the five Humvees jolted forward before disappearing through the door. Moments later, dozens of personnel who had been manning guard towers that protected the docks shuffled inside. They were carrying all manner of heavy machine gun, ammunition, and equipment.

“Good luck, Nineteen. See you in the fleet. Stay safe.” Sheridan turned off his microphone and looked around his command platform. He felt a reluctance to leave, a sense that he had left something unfinished. He had a feeling that a chapter in his life was now closing, and a nagging fear about what the next chapter would bring.

Two enormous tanks that had flanked the entrance to the warehouse began rolling onto the docks. The awe-inspiring beasts had stood as the implacable defenders of the gates for months, and their withdrawal into the warehouse stirred something within Sheridan. It was as if those monstrosities, who could endure an eternity of relentless dead, were saying to the legions that now controlled North America, “You win this round… but we’ll be back.”

“We’ll be back.” Sheridan whispered, as he flipped the breaker switches to the command platform and thrust the dock into near twilight. The last of the soldiers meandering through the garage toward the ships became nothing more than a somber procession of faceless shadows. His teenage communications officer slid past him on the stairs and jogged away until he disappeared into a boat.

Captain Sheridan paused for a moment, gazing upon San Diego through the closing garage doors. It was a dead city that had cost him too many good men and women. He felt the Bible’s textured cover in his hand, slid the list of names out, and placed the paper in his pocket. As San Diego disappeared from his view, he set the book on the arm of his former command chair and placed his hand upon it.

He thought of the soldiers he had lost and the soldiers he would yet lose. He thought of the millions of men, women, and children of San Diego who now walked among the living dead – their hopes and dreams cut short. He thought of the hardship facing the survivors in the fleet and all around the world.

“You stay here. You have work to do,” Sheridan whispered. He gave his Bible a gentle pat, sighed, and turned to take his leave of San Diego.