Convoy 19: A Zombie Novel (16 page)

Nostrum walked back over to Henry and leaned in. “The fleet is not a place for high ideals, Henry. People know your name, and you can’t expect them to understand what you do. There’s no in between for you. People love you or hate you. He…” Nostrum nodded in the direction of the captain, “hates you and he has more power to spread that hate than you know. You do not want him as an enemy.”

“It sounds like he’s already made me his enemy,” Henry replied. “We have to tolerate men like him? I could have the Admiral…”

“What? Kick him off his ship? Execute him? Banish him for being a womanizing asshole? For taking advantage of his position?” Nostrum interrupted. “Listen to yourself.”

Henry was about to argue back, but Nostrum’s words rang in his ear; “For taking advantage of his position…” the rebuke had touched on a sore spot.

“You’re a smart man, Henry, but you don’t know a damn thing about what’s going on out here. This isn’t Camelot, and there isn’t room for any white knights… Go to the Boxer. Go see your wife and let
me
do
my
job,” Nostrum continued. “When you get back you’ll have your Gulf of Mexico.”

Henry cocked his head curiously.

“I’ll give you the Gulf, but when I need a favor from you…you’re going to deliver.” Nostrum stepped away from the helicopter and smiled. “Deal?”

Chapter 26

Private Stenson took a running jump, and he reached up to catch the top edge of the second story clinic. A swarm of zombies burst onto the ground floor roof of the music store behind him. He pulled himself up with a grunt, and he dragged his body onto the ledge. Dozens of howling monsters reached after him in frustration as he crawled exhausted onto the elevated clinic roof.

Well out of reach of the angry horde, Stenson rolled onto his back and gazed up at the blue sky. Every part of him wanted to rest…to stay there and let exhaustion have its way with him. Sleep deprived and pushed to his physical limits, he let fatigue win for a moment. While the bright California sun warmed his weary body, the clamor of the undead swarm seemed to fade into the wind.

When he felt he had rested enough, Stenson crawled over to the front of the clinic. He leaned against a ventilation shaft and looked out over the lot. Thousands of undead were packed into the blacktop. They were moaning, staring blankly off into space, and wandering aimlessly. The gun towers that had once guarded the DDC resembled old stilt houses that rose from a rolling ocean of gray undead. The fence that had surrounded the DDC lay in twisted ruin.

“What are you gonna do with that, Private?” The first real conversation he’d had with the Tierrasanta DDC sergeant rang in his memory.

“That’s my magic bullet, sir!” He had replied with a smile. The sergeant had asked for a daily inventory of all the ammunition in the DDC, and every day Private Stenson had reported all the ammunition he carried on him – including a single Beretta pistol clip containing a single 9mm round. The number stood out in the reports, and eventually, the sergeant had gotten around to asking him about it.

The sergeant smiled and nodded. “Sometimes things get so fucked up that all you have are bullets.”

“Just making sure I have the bullet I need if things get too fucked up, sir,” Stenson replied.

Since that day, other soldiers had taken to carrying “magic bullets.” Some had them on necklaces…others had them on key chains or even bandoleers, but only a handful understood what a magic bullet was. They kept them in special clips that were separate from their combat ammunition.

Stenson closed his eyes and sighed as he rolled up a pant leg to examine his wound. During the morning’s escape from the quiet room and subsequent climb to the music store roof, he had felt the sharp pinch of jaws closing around his ankle.  It was barely hard enough to hurt, barely hard enough to break the skin, but it was hard enough. It had only taken a few hours for the tiny gash to spread black spider veins up his leg and numb his foot. Now, his entire lower leg was the same grey-green pallid rubber of necrotic flesh. He had kept the wound secret all day. Doomed as he was, he could still help, and there was no use in scaring everyone.

He sighed, fished a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it, and took a deep drag. After he had covered the convoy’s escape, he had fought his way out of the clinic office through a rampaging onslaught of ghouls…without being bitten. He had shot and stabbed his way through a long hallway crawling with undead without so much as a scratch. Finally, he had made it to the music store roof and then to the clinic roof untouched. All that was for naught, however, given the ankle bite he had already received. It felt so unfair that his fate would be determined by such a small thing – a split-second where he was a little too slow…and some random ghoul had been just fast enough.

Reaching into his right pocket, he felt for the hard metal clip where he kept his magic bullet. His other hand reached for his sidearm, popped the empty clip out, and replaced it with the new one. After giving his sidearm to Liam in the quiet room, his first order of business had been to acquire a replacement. It made him cringe to loot the corpses of his comrades, but there had been no other choice. He then proceeded to spend all his ammunition on the defense of the convoy’s escape. Now, only his magic bullet remained.

He took another long drag from his cigarette before tossing the butt into the undead ocean below and lighting another one.

A million doubts ran through his head. What if he hadn’t been bitten? He hadn’t actually seen the zombie bite him, he reflected. What if he was just in some sort of shock? What if he was sleep deprived and making a dumb decision? What if the wound he thought was a bite was merely another gash from slamming into the broken window? What if there was a cure in the fleet? If he just waited long enough, maybe his immune system could fight off the infection.

Stenson closed his eyes and pushed the doubts away. He forced himself to alter his perspective. He was lucky. A lot of people, soldiers and civilians, didn’t have magic bullets. Billions of people all around the world were doomed to walk the earth as monsters. He didn’t have to be, and for that, he was grateful. He had given all he had and succeeded in saving civilian lives – children’s lives. Few people were so lucky.

“Sometimes things get so fucked up that all you have are bullets,” he growled.

With little hesitation, he brought his arm up and placed the barrel of his gun against his temple.

Chapter 27

“Sound off,” Carl ordered through the communications network. When a mere seven voices, including Pam and Miguel’s, came back…Carl felt heartbroken. Every fiber in his body wanted to turn the entire convoy around to pull those he’d left behind – dead or alive – out from the hell the convoy had just escaped. He had lost so many men and women under his command that it felt unfair that even more had given their lives on this last mission. The commander in him knew the futility of turning back and risking even more lives. The world wasn’t fair, and jeopardizing those who had made it through wouldn’t change that.

“You’re gonna want to take Highway 805 to 5. We’ll pass Miramar to the east, but the system says the Miramar STOG is concentrated south
and
east.” Pam had a map pulled up on her laptop and was working out the best route to San Onofre. San Diego itself was a deadly labyrinth of horrors, but traveling northward past Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, would require more care than usual. When DDCs began running out of space and had been forced to turn away latecomers months ago, military bases like Miramar were inundated by refugees from every corner of California. Thousands of campers, tents, trailers, and mobile homes cropped up overnight with the belief that mere proximity to the military would provide some measure of protection. That assumption could not have been further from reality, and as quickly as a ghoul claimed its first victim, infection spread through the camps like wildfire. A colossal swarm of man-eating carnage rose up to consume not only the refugee communities, but also the military bases they surrounded. All over the country, bases were either utterly abandoned or completely overrun. Miramar was the latter.

Carl nodded and punched the link on his communications network. “In about ten minutes, we’re gonna be passing Miramar on our right. I need gunners to hold their fire until we’re clear.”

“Hold on, let me… MMMMPH!” Miguel tried to pull himself to stand in his gun mount, but he fell back into his seat, gripping his leg in agony.

“Let me take a look at that. Do you have a first aid kit?” A blonde-haired woman sitting in the back of the Humvee asked. A young boy clung to her in terror, but she hugged him in reassurance. “I’m not going anywhere, honey. I’m just gonna help the soldier who helped us.”

Miguel hesitated, but pulled up his pant leg, reached under his seat, and retrieved the first aid kit. His calf was swollen, and it had an odd misshapen bulge to it. With the adrenaline gone from his system, the pain was beginning to take hold.

“I’m Nicole.” The woman said, as she crawled into position to take a look at Miguel’s leg. “This is my son, Vince.” She gestured to the boy. “I’m no Dr. D, but I think I recognize a broken leg when I see one. What’s your name?”

Miguel grimaced as Nicole examined his injury. “I’m Sergeant Miguel Ramos… thanks.” Miguel was not used to having anyone attend to him.

“Mommy, what’s that?” Vince asked. A distant and barely intelligible voice began to echo over the sound of the vehicles.

“Okay, gunners. Hold your fire,” Carl ordered.

Highway 805 sat at the base of a rise that obscured Miramar. While the highway itself was littered with the broken down vehicle graveyard and wandering dead that was typical of all San Diego’s out-bound highways, the adjacent hillside was relatively clear. Atop the peak of the rise, stood a battered fence where dozens of mindless undead gathered on either side. Some were turning in impotent pursuit, while others were corralled by the chain links of the military base they had overrun. They watched the convoy pass with blank stares or lazily rolled their heads back and moaned. A thirty foot pole stood every couple of hundred yards along the fence. Mounted atop the poles were loudspeakers blasting out a recording on an endless loop. The convoy team and their passengers sat silently while the monotone male voice calmly spoke; “Keep out. Danger. This is an infected zone. Do not enter.  Keep out. Danger. This is an infected zone. Do not enter. No Entran. Peligro. Este es una zona infectada. No Entran. Peligro. Este es una zona infectada.

“What isn’t an infected zone anymore?” Miguel grumbled, as Nicole wrapped his leg in a splint with a length of tape.

“That message has been running for months. It wasn’t until after Miramar was overrun that things got really bad. Whoever made that message probably thought he was doing San Diego a favor,” Pam replied. “How many desperate people got it into their heads that all they had to do is make it to Miramar and the U.S. military would take care of them? Hearing that message might have been heartbreaking, but it probably saved lives.”

A few minutes passed and the repeating message began to fade into the distance. Highway 805 merged into highway 5 and the convoy continued to make its way through and around the human wreckage of the zombie apocalypse. A burnt-out gas station still displayed prices for regular unleaded fuel at $242.99 a gallon. Earthen graves crowned by plain white crosses dotted the hillside by the hundreds. The words ‘Do not open. Dead inside,’ were scrawled on the back of a tractor-trailer in large red letters. One empty and blood-stained truck sported a large sign on its tailgate that read, ‘Girls! Girls! Girls! $20.’ Right next to it sat another gore-covered truck with a sign mounted atop the cab that read, ‘Canned Vegetables: $70, Canned Soup: $50, Canned Pet Food: $30.’

The living dead slowly wandered amongst it all, their mangled forms meandering between vehicles.  Heads turned to acknowledge the military convoy that passed through their midst. Hollow moans passed through cracked and bloody lips as they stumbled forward in pursuit.

“Specialist Grace?” A voice came over the network.

“What is it?” Pam responded.

“We have a Dr. Kelly Damico in our car that’s asking to talk to the commanding officer,” The voice came back.

Pam looked over to Carl, who kept his eyes on the road but nodded back to her. “This is Sergeant First Class Carl Harvey. What can I do for you, ma’am?”

Kelly’s voice came back over the network. “We need to be screened. We’ve all had contact with WDs and we need to make sure everyone’s checked out before we’re admitted into any secure areas.”

Carl thought for a second before answering. The request was simple enough. Every soldier and civilian in the convoy had been in a life and death struggle with the walking dead. If any one of them were knowingly concealing a bite or unknowingly bitten, entire ships could be in danger. He glanced at Miguel and the blonde woman, Nicole, in his rear view mirror, and thought about Miguel’s leg. Was his leg broken or was he bitten? What would happen to him if he had been bitten? He considered the consequences for his wounded comrade.

“Yes, ma’am. I will call ahead and make sure a screening facility is set up before anyone is transported to the fleet,” Carl answered. “Specialist Grace, call ahead to San Onofre and have them set up a screening area. We need everyone checked out.”

Pam did as she was ordered, and the vehicles continued in silence. Minds began to wander. Was it possible to be bitten and not know it? Was that scratch actually a bite? Was the infection transmitted in ways other than bites? Was that bruise a sign of infection? After all this time, after all their sacrifice, would some of them be denied transport to the fleet?

“So how you gonna prove that isn’t a bite, Miguel?” Pam awkwardly tried to break the tension, but she realized how bad the joke was as soon as she heard herself say it.

“That’s not funny!” Carl replied with a scowl. “I’m sure people who aren’t infected get turned away all the time because of injuries that look like bites. Your leg is just broken, right Miguel? I mean, I heard it break. It sounded like a break.”

“It’s a break,” Miguel grumbled.

“It sounded like a break,” Carl mumbled. “I won’t let you get left behind.”

Pam looked at Carl and back to Miguel. Awkward silence passed until Pam punched a button on her headset. “San Onofre, this is Convoy Nineteen approaching from about a mile south. Five vehicles, eight crew, and a dozen or so civilians.”

“Copy Convoy Nineteen. We’ve been expecting you. The south gates will be open. We’re kinda short-handed, and we could use some strong backs.”

“I can help!” Nicole answered immediately.

Pam furrowed her brow in confusion. Civilians, as a general rule, were content to sit back and watch military personnel do the grunt work. “Sure thing, San Onofre. We have some people who can lend a hand.”

Dome-like cooling towers loomed into view as the Humvees approached the power plant. A helicopter had just taken off, and it was heading toward a large gray military ship just offshore. A second helicopter was returning from the same direction. Along the perimeter of the power plant, was another tall razor-wire fence reinforced by sandbags and protected by watchtowers. The undead gathered in gangs. There was very little gunfire around the perimeter; however, the entrance was another story.

The vehicles made their way toward the gates where two ten-man teams of marines stood in formation and fired their rifles at the ghouls wandering about the immediate area. Hundreds of bodies lay about the ground in crumbled heaps already, and the soldiers were adding more with every shot. Mortar teams within the compound were raining death into dense swarms. The roadside resembled a crater-marked moonscape inhabited by shattered corpses…pulling themselves along on mangled limbs.

The marines broke formation, followed on foot, and closed the gates as soon as the convoy was inside. No sooner had they retreated than the screeching forms of hungry dead pressed themselves en masse against the fence.

“Look…” Pam pointed out the window as the convoy pulled to a stop in front of a small office building. The rolling hills of the California coast stretched south, north, and east as far as the eye could see.  Endless ranks of walking dead shambled about in loose packs. Slowly and implacably, they converged on one point – the San Onofre power plant—and the activity within.

“Sergeant First Class Harvey?” a uniformed man with the insignia of a Lieutenant Commander approached the lead Humvee. His hair was disheveled, and the pits of his arms were stained with sweat.

Carl stepped out from his driver’s seat and saluted. “Yes sir?”

The man appeared anxious and nervously chewed his bottom lip. He kept his eyes fixated on the wailing ghouls massing on the fence as he spoke to Carl. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Holt. I need you and your drivers to pull your vehicles over to the Building Two loading dock, so we can load them up with supplies.” He pointed to an area bustling with activity. Twenty or so civilians and soldiers milled about, stacking boxes and bags of equipment. “Chinook helicopters will then deliver them to the U.S.S. Boxer. I need some of your men to help with Building One.” Holt gestured to a smaller building connected to the cooling towers that appeared to be set up as a living area with clothes lines, lawn chairs, and a fire pit outside the main entrance. “The screening center you requested is over there.” He gestured to a sad-looking area sectioned off by police tape and shower curtains. “Understood?”

“Yes sir…” Carl responded, but the Lieutenant Commander had already turned on his heels and made his way back toward the power plant.

“Why aren’t they clearing the fence?” Miguel asked, as he limped out from the back of the vehicle.

“They’re out of ammo…” Pam realized. “Whatever ammo they have, they need to defend the plant if the fence fails.”

“What do you mean ‘if the fence fails’?” A civilian man asked.

“Alright!” Carl ignored the civilian’s question and exercised his tone of authority. “Dr. Kelly Damico?”

Kelly stepped forward.

“Get screening… Miguel, go with her and get patched up.” Carl nodded toward the makeshift screening area. “Pam and I are going to supervise things at Building Two. Everyone else head to Building One, and see what you can do to help.”

Kelly Damico and the soldiers instantly broke off to do as they were ordered. The civilians meandered about, unsure of what to do with themselves.

Carl sighed. “Everyone! Make yourself useful! The sooner we load up, the sooner we get the hell out of here! Go!”