Omega Days (Book 2): Ship of the Dead (29 page)

Evan heard the gunfire drop off and stop, immediately replaced by the moans of the dead. His boots hammered the deck as he charged the corridor, spotting a partially open hatch at the end, sunlight glowing at its edges. A drifter was dragging itself over the knee knocker on the way in.

He fired on the run, the Mossberg blowing the thing’s head apart from behind, and then Evan was swinging the hatch wide, leaping over the corpse and through, into the open-air fantail. He instantly took in the high space, the daylight and the sun beyond the wide opening. He saw bodies on the deck, fresh gore everywhere.

He saw the dead, all shambling toward an open hatch on the far wall, approaching from all directions.

He marched into them, firing, racking, firing. A moment later a trio of assault rifles joined in with Calvin to his right, Mercy and Stone on his left. Then Chief Liebs was there, the M14 bucking, his men on line beside him, pumping rounds into the dead. Finally Juju and Dakota, blasting shotgun rounds.

The fantail echoed with the unending ripple of gunfire, dead sailors crumpling to the deck, some turning to face the new sound only to be cut down. The group advanced with the deadly calm of professional warriors, changing magazines and feeding shells with precision, hippies and wanderers and boys in dirty uniforms, killers all.

Within minutes not a single zombie stood or crawled, and not one of them had managed to even get close to their executioners.

Evan saw the bloody oxygen bottle on the deck, and then there was no doubt.
Why? Why had they come?
He ran toward the hatch where the dead had been heading and saw a body lying half in and half out.
Why didn’t you stay?
he thought, tears leaping to his eyes. Calvin ran with him, making a long, low keening sound.

They reached the hatch together, and Evan went in. The bitter, coppery tang of blood was heavy in the air, mixed with a vile putrescence. It had been a slaughter, and as he saw what was at the end of the room, he let out a sob.

Maya stood with her legs planted in a wide stance, her body heaving as she breathed. Her hair hung damp and limp about her face, and she was bathed in blood. One hand held a glistening ice climber’s pick. The floor before her was layered with dead sailors, heads and faces pierced, motionless and staring. Behind Maya, a cluster of adults held children close to their bodies, crying and keeping their faces turned away from the massacre. The pregnant couple was there, and Big Jerry lay on the floor, propped on one elbow and holding an empty, smoking shotgun.

Maya’s eyes, hard and deadly, met Evan’s and softened at once. With a bloody hand she signed, “I missed you.”

Evan made a sound that was both a sob and a laugh and ran to her.

It was the wind, a lovely, stiff wind across the flight deck, a naval aviator’s friend. It meant lift.

Just before the failing Black Hawk was hurled against
Nimitz
’s unforgiving side, the wind cradled the bird from below and gave it lift—just enough. With less than six inches to spare, the helicopter’s wheels cleared the edge and thudded down onto the rubberized deck surface at the extreme bow end of the ship.

Vladimir and Ben bounced with the hit, and then the pilot was changing the pitch of the rotors, using that same wind to slow his rolling aircraft and bring it to a stop. His hands moved quickly, shutting his systems down as above him the turbines died in a long, sinking whine. The rotor blades began to slow at once.

The Russian stared out through the windscreen for a long moment, heart pounding like the hooves of a running horse, and then he let out a rush of breath. He looked over at his tiny co-pilot, who still wore the oversized ear protectors.

Vlad held out a trembling palm.

Ben laughed and slapped it.

•   •   •

R
osa saw what was happening at the superstructure, screamed, “No!” and started running at the two men, Tommy beside her. They both knew they would never cross the distance in time.

As TC rose up for the kill, she saw the zombie emerge from the superstructure’s hatch. It was female and half-naked, its remaining clothing torn and bloody, galloping at the two men, both arms coming up.

•   •   •

B
lood was in Carney’s mouth, leaking out the corners, TC’s weight crushing his lungs. He looked up at the face, at the man who had once been his friend and was now about to drive a screwdriver into his heart and cast him into darkness.

The sound of the shot came at the same instant the bullet punched a hole out the front of TC’s head.

The big inmate sagged off to one side, limp and boneless on the deck. Skye Dennison, staggering and unbalanced from her blow to the head, slashed clothing blowing in the wind, lowered her pistol as she reached the two men.

“No, fuck
you
,” she said, pumping three more rounds into TC’s body.

She dropped to her knees, then fell to the deck, landing partially on Carney’s chest. She closed her eyes and sighed, head resting against the man’s heartbeat.

Carney spat blood and choked out, “Skye . . .”

She found his hand and squeezed it, then whispered, “Some people just need saving.”

Carney faded.

When the pounding of Rosa’s boots arrived, Skye pointed back toward the superstructure. “Angie,” she said, and then she faded too.

Father Xavier couldn’t help but think of passages he had read, both biblical and literary, containing descriptions of the descent into hell. He was living it now, the stairway lit with red battle lights that cast a hellish glow on steel walls and railings. The reek of rotting flesh was thick in the unmoving air, and without air-conditioning the temperature climbed as he traveled deeper. He was sweating, and his hand was slick on the handle of the bloody fire extinguisher. He expected the undead to block his path at any moment, minions of the devil determined to stop him from getting to Brother Peter.

Was the man truly evil, or only psychotic? Did the devil dwell within him, as Xavier had been taught, or was he just a man, violent and deranged, hopelessly trapped within a fantasy? And if Xavier did find him, would he listen to reason? What could Xavier do if he didn’t? He had just renewed his faith with God, begged Him to live in his heart once more. Would he kill Brother Peter and, in so doing, ensure his own damnation?

Assuming he wasn’t too late. Instead of a soulless, shuffling corpse in his path, it might just as easily be a microsecond of white heat and incineration as the minister carried out his final task in God’s name.

Xavier reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the main hall of the magazine. There were no minions, no zombies with which to contend. He would face the Beast itself.

The blast doors to every magazine stood open, light spilling into the corridor from within. Xavier moved on the balls of his feet, breathing through his mouth to remain as quiet as possible. He looked into the compartments, eyes falling on the tools men used to destroy one another, silent couriers of death waiting to be employed.

How fitting that he should face the Beast in such a place.

Give me strength, Lord. Be my light in the darkness.

Xavier didn’t have to search every compartment. After looking inside only a few, he heard the conversation echoing from the far end of the corridor.

He moved swiftly now.

•   •   •

W
hen you get to heaven, I think we’ll have a luau,”
said God. The Lord was in the form of a beautiful, red-haired woman with heavy breasts, naked and straddling one of the MARS nuclear missiles a little farther down the row. She looked like the mistress Peter had kept in Chicago.

“Or an orgy,”
the woman said, stretching Her body across the missile in an erotic pose, stroking the metal skin.

“Don’t talk like that,” Brother Peter said. “It’s not . . . not right. Not for you.”

“You’re just shy,”
the woman said, transforming into Angie West, trailing Her nipples across the cold missile.
“I know what you like.”

Her bare hands and feet bled with stigmata, streaking the metal skin.

“Stop distracting me!” Peter shouted, pointing a pair of wire cutters at the figure. “I need to focus.”

“Fuck us? Is that what you said?”
Angie purred.

Brother Peter clamped his hands over his ears. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

God turned to smoke and drifted toward the ceiling as Peter went back to work. The first two missiles were wired to this one, armed and awaiting a charge. He finished arming the third warhead and stepped back from the weapon’s open maintenance panel. Peter smiled, looking at his work. Bands of colored wire looped between the three missiles and then connected to the wall phone across the room with a long stretch of red wire.

“Is that pride I see on your face?”
Peter’s savior was once again the Air Force shrink, standing a few feet away with His arms folded, frowning.
“Is it?”

Brother Peter hung his head. It was almost over, and then he could sleep forever in silence. “This is for you, Lord. Thy will be done.”

The shrink shook His head and began polishing His glasses.
“You’re such a schmuck.”

Peter threw the wire cutters down. “Why do you do that all the time? Why do you always make me feel bad?”

“Oh, did I make you feel bad?”
The shrink pointed at the minister.
“Go fuck yourself. I can’t stand you anymore.”

“Stop!” Peter cried. “You love me! I’m your chosen disciple, and you can’t talk to me that way!”

God stared and said nothing.

Brother Peter was crying. “All I’ve ever done is serve you. But you’re cruel. Why won’t you love me?”

God began to fade.
“You’re a fool,”
He said, and then He was gone.

“But you are loved, Peter,” said Father Xavier, standing in the opening to the magazine compartment. He set the fire extinguisher down and held out his hands, palms up. “You are loved,” he repeated, walking forward slowly. He saw the missiles, saw the wires and where they ended.

Brother Peter bolted for the phone, and Xavier charged him. The minister got there first, gripping the handset and holding it in the cradle.

“No, no, no, no!” Peter said, pointing a finger at the priest.

Xavier slid to a stop ten feet away. “Don’t do this, Peter,” he said. “Don’t hurt any more people.”

“They’re not people, they’re sinners,” he hissed.

“We’re all sinners,” the priest said. “Isn’t that what we’re taught?”

The minister sneered. “
You
are, praying to your idols and make-believe saints, bowing and scraping to your master in Rome.” He stabbed the air with his finger. “You are! You are!”

Xavier Church was no expert in nuclear weapons, but he knew they needed an electrical charge in order to detonate. If the televangelist had done what it appeared he had, lifting the phone receiver from its cradle would open the circuit. The charge would travel down the wire in a millisecond, and then there would be the slightest instant of searing heat, followed by a vast nothingness.

“This isn’t God’s work, Peter,” Xavier said, easing forward, palms still open and empty. “Wrath is His privilege, not ours.”

Peter bared his teeth. “He works through me. I am His instrument.”

Xavier shook his head slowly, still gliding forward. “You’re a man of deep faith,” the priest said. “I can see that. And sometimes a man, a
good
man, can lose his way.”

Peter began to cry again. “Stay there! I’m not lost. I’m doing God’s work. Just ask Him.” He gestured at the room, keeping his eyes on the advancing priest, still gripping the phone receiver.

“We’re alone,” the priest said gently, a step closer, another. “Just you . . . just me . . .”

“Liar!” Peter spat. “Behold the Lord our God!”

When Peter Dunleavy glanced over to where God should be standing, Xavier Church struck. Peter looked back just in time to see it coming, and Xavier would never know who said the words, him or the minister.

“Forgive me.”

Xavier’s right fist shot out with the speed and power of a professional boxer, connecting with the minister’s chin. There was an explosive
crack
as the force of the impact snapped Peter’s neck, killing him instantly.

As the body sagged to the floor, Xavier leaped for the phone receiver, clamping his hands over it and holding it firmly in the cradle as Peter Dunleavy’s hand slipped away.

“Forgive me.”

This time, Xavier knew that it was he who spoke.

Early January, the outbreak now five months past. Life on the
Nimitz
was chilly, and much colder on the open deck as light rains and a regular breeze came in off the bay. It was cloudy most days, but it was still California and rare for the temperature to drop below forty degrees. Everyone wore light, thermal-lined jackets, all Navy blue.

There was little free time, and everyone had a job, some several, and all were important. Everyone traveled the ship armed, and no one went anywhere alone.

In the months following the assault, Chief Liebs wore many hats, and his most important task was organizing and leading hunting parties. By the time January arrived, Liebs had collected nearly four thousand dog tags and compared them to the ship’s roster. By his estimation there were still close to a thousand drifters on board. Many were suspected to be trapped in sealed, watertight compartments—where they would remain—but there were countless other places they could be.

The hunting parties went out daily. Other groups in hazmat suits, under the watchful eyes of people with rifles, scoured the ship and placed corpses in body bags, dropping them over the sides. Fire hoses were used to wash down rooms and corridors. Four more people died during the clearing process, including Juju, who opened a hatch without listening at it first and had his throat torn out by a woman in surgical scrubs.

When he wasn’t hunting, Chief Liebs gave firearms instruction. Both he and Xavier insisted that everyone age twelve and up learn to shoot. His two best students turned out to be Stone and Mercy, and they accompanied him on every hunting party.

•   •   •

V
lad was happy with his new family. Sophia, who had organized a school for the children on board, shared his quarters, as did Ben. The boy called the pilot “Papa.”

The Russian was busy as well. He interviewed and selected four men and women from Calvin’s Family and began to teach them helicopter maintenance and fueling. He relearned a great deal about it himself in the process, and he built a ground crew. He also began teaching Evan to fly the carrier’s SH-60 Seahawks, smaller and simpler versions of the Black Hawk. There was no shortage of fuel. The Russian was fond of repeating that having a single qualified pilot on board was madness, and despite the fact that Evan was just north of incompetent, he was satisfied with the young man’s progress. Evan was bright and picked it up quickly, realizing that the joy of riding his Harley was nothing compared to the freedom of flight.

•   •   •

M
aya wanted to fly as well, but her inability to hear cockpit warnings or communicate by radio kept her grounded. Instead she had been chosen as one of those learning ground maintenance, specifically electronics. She wanted to do it as long as she was physically able.

One evening, after work on the carrier’s six helicopters was done—Maya had been noticeably absent—Evan returned to the quarters they shared to find her sitting on the edge of the bed.

“You weren’t at work today,” Evan said. “Are you okay?”

Maya nodded and took his hands, guiding him to sit beside her. “I was with Rosa,” she signed.

Evan’s breath caught. Ever since he had seen her in that tool compartment, covered in blood, he had feared that she had been exposed to the virus, even months after the battle. He knew it was irrational, because the symptoms would have presented themselves long before now, but it scared him all the same. Losing Maya would kill him.

Maya knew his fears, and smiled broadly, hugging him close. Then she sat back, still smiling. “I’m pregnant,” she signed.

It took Evan a moment. They signed constantly, and he had been learning, but the word caught him off guard. Then it hit.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered, his hands going to her still-flat stomach. “Is it healthy? Is it a boy or girl? When are you due?”

Maya laughed. “It’s early,” she signed, “but I’m healthy and Rosa isn’t worried.” She needed to use a pad and paper for the next part, unfamiliar with how to sign a particular word. “We’ll know more once Rosa figures out how to operate the ultrasound.”

There were tears and more long hugs. Finally Evan held her face in his hands. “I’m a little frightened,” he said. “A baby in a world like this, what kind of life will it have?”

Maya nodded, signing. “I’m scared too. But we made a place for her, didn’t we?”

Evan smiled and nodded. “Hoping for a girl?”

She nodded back.

“Well if it is,” Evan said, “we’ll name her Faith.”

•   •   •

C
alvin did his best to heal, but he grieved for his decimated Family. They had lost so many. The man was quieter now, taking on less of a leadership role and becoming more of a caregiver, ensuring that everyone was comfortable in whatever quarters they had chosen, seeing that they were well fed and had whatever they needed. He hunted alongside Chief Liebs and the others, dispatching the dead with cold ruthlessness. To Calvin, with every kill and every small comfort he could arrange, he gave people the sanctuary for which so many had died. He thought Faith would approve.

•   •   •

A
lthough her head required seventeen stitches and she lost a molar, Skye recovered from TC’s assault and was soon stalking the corridors of
Nimitz
with her M4. Chief Liebs took special interest in her and provided individual shooting instruction. He acknowledged that she’d had a good teacher and also possessed natural talent. He was also very direct in pointing out that she had much to learn and had developed some bad shooting habits. With his tutoring, Skye became truly lethal.

One afternoon in November when they were doing target work out on the bow end of the flight deck, taking a break and looking out at the water, Liebs asked Skye about her original weapons training, and what it was like for her in the days following the outbreak. She didn’t reply, and they were quiet for a while.

“Were you scared?” Liebs asked at last.

Skye took her time answering. “Yes,” she finally said. “Not so much of the drifters, but I was scared to fall asleep most of the time. I still am, I guess. Sometimes the dreams are worse than facing the actual dead.” Then she looked at him with one clear eye—she had covered her unsettling one with a proper eye patch for some time now—and said, “What scares you?”

Chief Liebs, Navy sniper and leader of a zombie-hunting party, looked down and turned red. “Ferris wheels. Tell anyone and you’re dead.”

Skye laughed until tears ran from her good eye.

•   •   •

A
fter Carney’s nose was set as well as it could be, his belly stapled closed, and his slit-open cheek sewn up, he and Skye began spending a lot of time together. At first it was simply hunting the dead. Then it was shared meals after hunting, and working out in the aircraft carrier’s gym. They came to enjoy one another’s company.

Near mid-November, they found themselves sitting on a high catwalk late at night, having coffee and looking at the sky.

“I dreamed last night that I was fighting zombies with a Wiffle bat,” Skye said.

Carney smirked. “How did that work out for you?”

“It was about what you would expect.” They both laughed and looked back at the stars. “They’re brighter,” said Skye. “There’re no city lights to compete with. I never realized how many there were.”

Carney took a deep breath. “Skye, I went to prison for murdering two people in their sleep. One was my wife.” There was a long silence, and he couldn’t tell if she was waiting for more, or if he had just completely screwed things up. He plunged ahead, telling her about the murders that had put him there, and about the child he had lost. He held nothing back, wanting to be completely honest with someone for the first time in his life. When he was done, Skye was looking at him in silence. Carney felt an ache he couldn’t explain, and his shoulders sagged. So much for honesty.

“My parents were killed right in front of me,” Skye said softly, “and I watched my kid sister turn.” Now it was Skye who spoke of unspeakable things, and together they talked until dawn. When the sun came up at last, they were sitting close, his arm around her shoulder, her head resting against him.

“I still can’t explain why I saved you in Oakland,” he said.

Skye liked the warmth of him and pressed in closer. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Carney tilted her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “Saving you matters more than anything else in my life.”

In the weeks that followed, Carney told her about life at San Quentin, and Skye spoke about the National Guardsmen who had rescued her from the campus, about her solitary days and nights in the weeks following, and how she feared that she was going slowly insane.

They were both torn, inside and out, and might never be fully healed. What healing they did, they did together.

On a night in December Skye came to Carney’s quarters and, without a word, undressed in front of him. She let him see the ash-gray skin, the scars, even removed her eye patch.

Carney didn’t flinch. “I’m so much older than you,” was all he said.

Skye put a finger to his lips and entered his arms.

She kept her own quarters, and they weren’t together every night, but it worked. They had no expectations.

•   •   •

A
rguably the busiest person on board was Rosa Escobedo, whom everyone simply called Doc, for that was what she had become. Chief Liebs, who outranked her, gave her the respect he had reserved for officers. Rosa had completed pre-med and developed a wealth of skill and knowledge both through the Navy and as a paramedic, but she had much to learn. Most of it was on-the-job training, placing open manuals on tray tables and referring to them as she performed small medical procedures or used the X-ray machine and ultrasound. In what little time off she could find, she studied the many medical texts she found in the ship’s surgeon’s office. Most of the time she functioned with dark circles under her eyes.

She made mistakes. Carney’s abdomen got infected and she had to remove and reapply the staples, treating him with antibiotics. The pregnant couple lost their baby, and she had to learn to deliver a stillborn as the mother wailed with grief. Rosa took it personally.

One afternoon Xavier came to her holding a white coat, looking at her scrubs. “Wear this,” he said, slipping it over her shoulders.

“I’m not a doctor.”

“It will give your patients confidence,” he said, walking out of the room. “And yes, you are.”

Rosa did a lot of apologizing at first for her lack of skill, for sloppy stitches or for causing pain as she treated injuries and tried to set bones, for not knowing as much as she should. In time, however, she came to be comfortable in the white coat, and her mannerism became more professional, though no less compassionate. She learned to be stern when she had to be, especially when the patient was a pain in the ass.

Like Angie West was.

It was a constant battle to keep the woman in bed, to keep her from undoing the amateur healing Rosa could provide. It didn’t help that they were both strong, opinionated women, and it finally took Father Xavier weighing in on the doc’s side before Angie grudgingly relented and promised to be a good patient.

It had long been Angie’s habit, even back in her gunsmithing and firearms instruction days, to wear light body armor under a jacket, and she had continued the practice. It had saved her. TC’s first bullet hit her just below the left breast, the impact cracking ribs and causing massive bruising, but the body armor had displaced the energy sufficiently to prevent it from entering. The second bullet, fired down at her while she was lying on the deck, had probably been intended as a throat shot. It went wide, clipping the collar of the vest and slowing before punching through the meat of her shoulder and breaking her collarbone, but exiting without further damage. No surgery had been required other than stitching, and the flesh wound and collarbone would heal in a few months.

“The path of that bullet was one in a million,” Rosa told her. “Lottery-ticket lucky.”

Angie had to admit that the doc was right, and that knowledge helped her to not be
too
much of a pain in the ass.

The broken arm was another matter, with fractures to both the radius and ulna, but fortunately they were not compound fractures. Rosa set them as best she could and opted for the flexibility of a splint and sling instead of a cast, so adjustments could be made as needed.

Angie was physically fit, a nondiabetic nonsmoker who ate well and did her physical therapy as directed. She would heal quickly, and Rosa predicted three to six months for the bones to knit, possibly a year or more before they were back to normal. The problem was Angie’s tendency to overdo it, to try to do too much, too fast. She wanted to hunt with the others, wanted to shoot, wanted to be useful, but she had to rest. It hurt, and not just physically.

Father Xavier visited with her every day, talking about her family, the goings-on of the ship, helping her with her guilt and grief for her daughter and husband, out there somewhere. Sometimes he simply held her when she cried.

Angie did as she was told. The aircraft carrier’s computers reunited them all with the passage of time and dates, and Angie watched the days tick away. By the new year she was fit, although the arm ached in the cool, damp weather and wasn’t as strong as it had been. Chief Liebs took her on at once, working her back to combat readiness.

•   •   •

W
ith unspoken and unanimous understanding, command of the
Nimitz
and its new occupants went to Xavier Church. He didn’t turn from the responsibility, and took on the role of administrator, counselor, father, protector. When the others insisted he take the admiral’s quarters as his own, he opted for a single-occupant officer’s room, where he spent little time. He was forever walking the ship, checking the progress of countless projects and joining the ongoing hunt when he could, constantly touching base with the souls now in his care.

He limped and had to rest frequently. Rosa had been able to pluck out all but one piece of shrapnel from Brother Peter’s grenade, and that one, deep in his thigh near his hip, caused him discomfort. The doc was afraid to go in after it because of the potential bleeding, and thought it might slowly work its way close enough to the surface for her to reach, but she wasn’t sure. Xavier didn’t let it slow him down, and even spent time in the gym working the speed and heavy bags.