LZR-1143: Evolution (12 page)

Despite my circumstances, I chuckled to myself in morbid humor. There were a lot of things happening right now that weren’t contemplated by a lot of folks a little while back.

The popping of steel girders and breaking glass echoed the death throes of the dying ship. Rain pelted the deck, cold against my bare face.

A transport plane slid by my precarious perch, crashing to the water below and shattering open. Creatures spewed out into the water, thrashing in the water and trying to rise on the angled deck, even as it slipped beneath the water. The plane bobbed fitfully as the ship slipped beneath it, and floated dangerously closer each time the ship sank further. They slobbered and drooled, mad in their own special way. There were at least six. Maybe more. The rest were covered in water. But they were coming.

Three more heads appeared from the murky water, and pushed into the darkening twilight as I slipped farther toward them with the dying ship.

Oh yes, they were definitely coming.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he realizes that his number’s up; that in the game of man versus world, good versus evil, dead versus undead … that he was truly and honestly screwed. Here, hanging helplessly from the deck of a dying ship, surrounded by dead people that were trying like mad to eat me…well, let’s just say I was beginning to develop some realistic expectations about my future.

I sighed heavily, recognizing that my grip on the wet, convulsing railing was going to give out. Soon.

Chapter 12

A zombie toppled past, hands grasping for a grip on the slick surface. Almost absently, I lashed out with my foot, sending the bloated body careening off the angled deck, arms and legs pin wheeling in the twilight rain.

I hung, helpless and suspended, as the ship sank fast beneath me, water churning. The wind had increased, and was now slamming into me with enough force to make me sway. My arms burned, and my hands were raw. My grip was loosening, and I was merely minutes from plunging into the water beside my life-challenged friends below.

The rain was slick and wet on my face, and my clothes were heavy with water. From above, I heard the sound of the wind tearing and swirling. It was beating heavily against the steel ship as it slipped beneath the waves. Bodies floated below, bobbing in the abyss. A head stared up at me briefly as I glanced down in the fading light. Sunken eyes stared and broken teeth gnashed before it descended slowly under water.

I shivered involuntarily, remembering all those times I refused to go snorkeling or scuba diving in the Bahamas because I was afraid of a shark coasting up and biting my white ass.

This would be much, much worse.

In my exhaustion, I thought I heard voices over the wind. I craned my neck upwards, seeking the source of what I imagined to be fictional sounds. My eyes tracked along the flight deck, straight into the air.

I jerked my grip and my eyes widened.

Hovering above the inverted stern of the ship was one of the choppers. From the open door hung a man in black fatigues and a smaller figure.

Kate.

She was moving her arms and trying to say something. Her words were lost in the wind and the rotor blast, but I got the drift.

A black rope ladder fell from the open door of the helicopter and clattered against the tarmac above my head. It took only a hastily reached hand to grab the nylon and plastic as it moved fitfully against the deck. I wrapped my arms and legs through the openings and, with a hand stuck through the gap between rungs, I made a thumbs up gesture.

None too soon, I thought, as I looked down. The waves were lapping no more than twenty feet from my boots, and the ship was falling fast. It was a surreal feeling, to hang suspended as the ship sank alongside me, painted white lines of the flight deck clipping by as the helicopter gained some distance to the East. I slowly climbed the ladder as the rain and wind pushed me back and forth. I felt slightly motion sick as I crested the expanse and flopped into the cabin like a dead fish, breathing heavily and cursing at the abrupt movements of the aircraft.

“Sorry about the scare, but we had to move,” Kate’s voice was loud, as she had to scream to be heard over the beating rotor blades and tearing wind. “Any more movement and we would have slid in.”

Her hand was on my shoulder, comforting. I turned to her quickly and made eye contact, answering her silent question with a quick shake of the head. Her eyes turned down and she exhaled softly, looking past me into the night air.

I sighed and
nodded mutely, not yet able to speak.

A hand materialized from behind me and locked a black carabiner to a hook attachment on my borrowed ... well, I guess it was mine now ... flight suit. I looked below as we banked hard to the North and turned to follow the faint outline of the second bird, a mile ahead.

It was a fantastic sight, the sinking aircraft carrier. Once it had begun its descent, it slipped beneath the dark waves quickly with the whitecaps, seemingly angered by its disturbance, angrily lapping at the gray metal. Debris bobbed on the surface, and a slick of dirty oil trailed into the sea. Where once stood a symbol of American military power, nothing but water and scrap metal remained.

From the destroyed remnant of the Bridge-Tunnel, pieces of cement hung suspended from strands of rebar. The jagged edge of the causeway yawned into the channel. Several seagulls, sensing no immediate danger, alighted on the guardrail merely feet from the twisted end of the metal barrier. A single abandoned car sat on the concrete bridge, mere feet from the chasm, miraculously unaffected by the massive collision.

I turned from the window and released my death grip on the handle in the doorway. The heavy chop of the rotors battered my ears as I sat heavily on the floor, exhausted legs giving out beneath me. Another hand shot out from behind me and handed me a dark green helmet with a raised visor. I stuck it on my head, if for no other reason than to keep warm.

A crackle from the sides of the helmet announced the presence of embedded com equipment. Cold water drained from my flight suit and my teeth chattered uncontrollably as the wind whipped through the cabin from the open door. As I took a deep breath and focused on the occupants of the cabin, I shivered again. These guys meant business.

There were twelve of them, all men. They wore black, and their faces were painted in tones of black and gray; each wore an array of weaponry on their waist and chest, with knives and extra magazines filling every conceivable space in their belts and assorted bandoliers. Automatic rifles were slung and pistols holstered, but they looked about as cheery as a one eyed paraplegic at a bikini contest. I made eye contact with the man closest to me, who bore the insignia of a Lieutenant on his chest. It was my friend from the machine shop and flight deck, finally sans mask and goggles.

“So...come here often, sweetheart?” I joked, smiling despite the cold.

He stared, eyes unmoving. Beside him, his men did likewise. No humor, no response.

Suddenly, he spoke, eyes still serious and dark.

“Lieutenant Peters,” he said quickly and curtly. “Rick Peters. And if it were up to me, you’d still be on board. You have your friend to thank for the rescue, but otherwise ... Jesus Christ, man! Running to the bridge while the ship is sinking? And don’t think for a minute we didn’t know you were under some sort of arrest in the infirmary.” He shook his head as if regretting his decision.

“Just so we’re clear, I just watched thousands of my crew-mates die on that ship, and the only reason I’m not with them is that we were prepping for a mission when the shit hit the fan. Instead, I had to shoot most of them and lock the doors behind ‘em as they came on deck, and I think you had something to do with it. I am well fucking aware of your history, so don’t try to make friends, shit head.” His eyes were blazing and his voice cracked with emotion.

I sat in silence, gazing out the open door, watching the coast line pass by to the east of the aircraft as we moved north.

I turned to Kate, making a face with wide eyes and a slightly tilted head. I reached up and grabbed the cord on my headset plugged into the ceiling, twisting it out and indicating to Kate to do the same. If the headsets weren’t plugged in, they wouldn’t transmit, and I didn’t want to broadcast our conversation.

“What happened back there? With these guys I mean. Why weren’t there more survivors on deck?”

She grimaced, glancing at the Lieutenant before answering.

“Hartliss said that Captain ordered the exterior bulkheads sealed and the SEALs to dust off an hour ago. They didn’t get the drugs, since they had this mission planned. The whole ship was supposed to be locked down, but the initial couple hundred that got injected turned pretty fast, and they couldn’t get ahead of it. So these guys followed their orders. Locked it down and shot anything that came out. Problem was, their second pilot and his crew never made it up. Got stuck in the galley and ... Well, hence their need for Hartliss.”

I frowned, mind flashing to the thousands of souls that had died, or were dying in ice cold seawater as I sat here. Shaking my head, I asked her the pressing question.

“You know where we’re heading?”

She nodded once.

“Same place they were getting ready to go before the shit hit the fan onboard,” she said. “Dover Air Force Base.”

I sighed once, hoping that they would divert directly to the Pentagon, but I wasn’t about to question my new friend too closely.

“Lieutenant Peters said they got some radio transmissions from the inbound Air Force flights right before we took off from the deck. Said that it sounded like the first of the transport planes were short on gas and had to land soon.” Her voice was concerned, and she turned to Peters again, plugging her headset back into the ceiling.

“Lieutenant, have you received anything from Dover itself?”

He looked at her sharply before responding; apparently she didn’t warrant the same silent treatment. Go figure.

He shook his head and the headset crackled as he replied over the sound of the thumping blades. “None. Not for eight hours. That’s why this was a priority for us. We’ve got a lot of assets coming through, and Dover is one of the biggest transport bases we’ve got on the East Coast. If it’s lost, they’re going to have to divert a whole lot of flights, and we’re really damn short on bases we still hold.”

“Where to after Dover?” I asked, forgetting myself.

He just glared.

“Pentagon,” said Kate, glancing at him before answering.

I leaned back in my seat, and exchanged looks with Kate. We were heading where we needed to be. We just needed to deal with one stop in Dover on the way.

No problem.

Peters looked at me briefly, and I smiled again.

He glared, fingering his weapon as he did so. Slowly, he raised his other hand and deliberately extended his middle finger.

This was going to be an interesting trip.

Chapter 13

Dover was slightly more than a hundred and fifty miles from the site of the crash, and the flight was uneventful. The wind had kicked up and the rain was furiously beating against the glass of the cockpit, but the pilots were unfazed, and the course relatively undeterred.

I let the reality sink in as we flew. The steady beat of the chopper blades was an oddly relaxing cadence, set against the dissonant reality that we had lost the vaccine. I cursed my hastily conceived plan to save Hartliss, but weighed it against the other option: letting him die. I knew that it wasn’t my fault the Captain had injected his crew, but the effect was the same. Thousands had perished from an agent that I brought on board; an agent that was, ironically, the last hope of a dying nation. Perhaps a dying world.

I looked down at my arm and stared at where the bite wound had been. I wondered, in a fit of optimism, if the vaccine could be copied or synthesized, or whatever the hell those smart people did in the movies, from our blood. I glanced over at her, beautiful hair drifting in the slight wind of the cabin, and knew she would have an idea. A plan to keep hope alive.

In my movies, there was always a plan.

I
always
had a plan. Even if someone else had to write one for me.

But for once, I had nothing.

And it felt like shit.

We followed Route 1 along the Maryland and Delaware coast, all of us peering out of the windows as we flew merely hundreds of feet above a seemingly placid landscape. Despite the grim darkness of night falling and rain pelting the air, the ground looked quiet. Stores and gas stations, neighborhoods and hotels all passed underneath the dark gray belly of the helicopter. Oddly, only a few ghouls were discernible from above. I noted this to Kate over the intercom.

“I know, it’s weird, right? When we flew out of Long Island, we could see them everywhere. They were wandering aimlessly all over the damn place. Even in the areas that had been less populated, you could always see a few around.”

I squinted as I watched a solitary shambling figure stop in the middle of a cul-de-sac below, head canted up, mouth open as it watched us pass overhead. Its arms raised to the sky, unappreciative of the distance between us.

“Captain Allred mentioned the herding instinct, but it’s weird to see from the air; it’s like they’re all inside or moved away or ... something. This area isn’t that remote. This is tourist season, and this is a tourist place. We’re only 40 miles South of Ocean City, this place should be crawling with folks stuck on the eastern shore when this shit started, right?”

My memory of the area was coming back to me in fits and starts, but one thing that you remember about Ocean City, Maryland was the God-forsaken traffic. There was only one way in and out of the eastern shore resorts from the D.C. area, and that was across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on Route 50, then across painfully slow two-lane highways designed in the 1950’s for at least three hours before you branched North or South to your destination. During the summer months, it took forever to get to and from the beach, and I used to hate it. Maria loved the beach, but I couldn’t get into it.