The Beginning of the End (Book2): Road to Damnation (26 page)

Kaden searched the
coolers in the cafeteria. Each one smelled worse than the last. The
power on the Intrepid was sporadic and off more than on.

Most of the time,
they’d been trudging around in the dark, lighting their way with
some novelty flashlights Daniels found in the gift shop.

Some were in the shape
of mini aircraft carriers, while others took on the appearance of
airplanes. They weren’t very good lights, but better than nothing.

With no luck finding
food in the coolers, Kaden combed over the cafeteria tray line.

All of the chafers were
empty. Probably cleaned by the Intrepid staff before they closed
down. Kaden tapped his flashlight against the metal chafers as he
walked down the food line, anxious to find anything to eat.

The lights were on for
the time being, but he liked having the flashlight handy. He didn’t
want to be in complete darkness any longer than he had to be.

At the end of the food
line, he discovered a vertical glass case food cooler. From a
distance, he could see it displayed individual dessert plates. He
took a deep breath and held it, already sniffing enough bad food for
one day.

The cooler was filled
with slices of pies, cakes, and jello. He pulled out a square block
of green jello and ripped the plastic wrap off. He lifted the plate
to his nose trying to be slow and cautious. It smelled okay. Giving
the plate a little shake, caused the jello to wobble. It looked good
too. Everything seemed to be all right, placing his mouth over the
entire piece and sucking it in.

Kaden swirled the
gelatin through his teeth transforming it into lime liquid. It was
warm, but tasted good.

When he finished, he
set the plate down and pulled out a slice of chocolate cake with
chocolate frosting. With his fingers, he shoved half the piece in his
mouth. It tasted wonderful. With his mouth full he called out to the
rest of the group, “Wo gaa cake.”

Cecilia and Bunker were
down the hall, raiding the vending machines. Bunker was trying to put
his boot through the plexi-glass front of the candy machine. They had
already assaulted the Coke machine, leaving soda cans strewn across
the floor.

Cecilia finished
chugging a Coke and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she
cheered Bunker on, “Come on, kick that thing,” she encouraged,
eyeing the row of candy bars.

Beck came running
around the corner with his M4 raised, “What the hell is all the
racket?”

Cecilia and Bunker
looked back at him with their mouths wide open, staring down the
barrel of Beck’s rifle.

When he realized it was
them, he lowered the barrel, “Sorry, I thought you guys were in
trouble. What the hell are you trying to do anyway?”

Bunker used a finger to
point at the vending machine, “I don’t have any money, and
Cecilia wanted a candy bar.”

“Cecilia wanted a
candy bar, huh?” Beck teased.

Bunker shrugged his
shoulders, “I guess if we got it open, I’d have a couple too.
Hey, you got any more of that door blasting stuff. That would get
this thing open in a hurry.”

“I’ve got something
better,” Beck said, “move out of the way.”

Beck reached down to
his boot and pulled out a fourteen-inch survival knife.

Bunker eyed the knife,
“Ah, you never know when you’re going to need to cut up an apple,
eh Rambo?”

Beck smiled, “Yeah,
something like that.”

Beck put the point of
the knife against the top corner of the vending machine plexi-glass.
He gave the top of the handle a solid smack and the blade pushed
through. Then with a little effort, he was able to drag the knife
downward through the plexi-glass to the opposite bottom corner. He
slid the knife back in his boot and grabbed the glass in the middle
where he cut it. With both hands, he gave it a pull. One of the large
triangle sections came out in one piece.

He reached in, pulled
out a Snicker’s bar, and tossed it to Bunker, “Here eat this. You
know you turn into a weak bitch when you’re hungry, Princess.”

Cecilia laughed and
gave Bunker a slap on the belly, “Don’t eat too many, chubby.”

“Hey,” he
protested, “What is this, pick on the convict day?”

They all burst out
laughing.

* * *

While the rest of the
group filled their bellies in the Intrepid’s tourist areas, Daniels
followed Master Chief Sawyer through a maze of steel doors and
passages leading deep into the bowels of the boat.

At the end of the line,
an enormous steel door blocked them from going any further. Sawyer
laid his hand on a flat screen located next to the entrance and
watched as a green horizontal line traveled from top to bottom.

Sawyer pulled his hand
off the screen and waited. The electronic beeps and errs coming from
above the screen reminded them of a computer from the 90s booting up.
The sounds stopped and a small steel panel, just large enough to fit
a key into, slid open. Sawyer reached up to his neck and removed his
dog tags. Next to the two identifying tags was a strangely shaped
key. It was like nothing Daniels had ever seen before.

Sawyer inserted the key
halfway, turned it to the left and held it for a few seconds until he
heard a click. After the click, he pushed it in all the way and
turned it to the right. There was a hollow thump, followed by the
sound of an electric motor. With the key still inserted, Sawyer
glanced back over his shoulder at Daniels, “It’s a good thing
we’ve got power right now, because this door would have been a
bitch to open without it.”

The motor moved slowly
opening the heavy door. Daniels found himself anxious to see the
weapon inside.

“Have you ever seen
one of these before,” Sawyer asked.

“You mean a bomb?
Yeah, I’ve got a television.”

Daniels expected to see
something missile like, that you’d strap onto the wing of an
airplane or shoot out of the top of a submarine.

Sawyer smirked, “This
one may look a little different than the ones on television.”

Now more curious than
ever, Daniels moved around the door for a closer look at the bomb.

The room was small,
only six-feet by six-feet, it was empty except for an army rucksack
and a set of steel sawhorses sitting a few feet apart. The sawhorses
had half circle shapes cut into the crossbar for holding things such
as missiles and bombs. There was nothing on the sawhorses now.

“It’s gone,”
Daniels said, in disbelief.

Sawyer released the key
and stepped into the room. He looked at Daniels with his mouth wide
open, “Oh, my God. It’s gone.”

Daniels stepped in
behind Sawyer and searched the room again, “Maybe terrorists stole
it after all this zombie shit started?”

Sawyer tried to keep
his composure, “There are two problems with your theory. One,
nobody knew the bomb was here. Two, I’m pretty sure all the
terrorists are zombies now, and in the same mess as the rest of the
world.”

Daniels threw his hands
in the air, “Then where the hell did it go?”

Sawyer pointed at the
rucksack and laughed, “It’s right there.”

Daniels looked at the
rucksack and back at Sawyer, “It’s in the backpack?”

Sawyer picked up the
rucksack and tossed it to Daniels.

Daniels caught it with
both arms and held it tight, “Are you crazy? What if it went off?”

Sawyer took the
rucksack back from Daniels and opened the top, “Don’t worry, it’s
not armed. You could drop this from an airplane, and it wouldn’t go
off. That’s why we're here, after we arm it, we’ll attach the
remote detonator.”

Daniels stepped over
and looked inside of the pack with Sawyer, “That little thing is
it? Is it even big enough to do anything?”

Sawyer closed up the
top of the rucksack, “We call these, backpack bombs, and you’ve
probably heard them referred to as suitcase nukes. It’s an MK-54
SADM.”

“Like Saddam, the guy
from Iraq?” Daniels interrupted.

“No, the SADM,
Special Atomic Demolition Munitions. They made a bunch of these
things in the 1970s. The United State’s biggest problem with these
now is making sure they don’t get stolen. So to answer your
question, is it big enough? Well, its yield is about one kiloton.”

Daniels looked
confused, “I’ve heard the term kiloton, but I’m not really sure
how big that is.”

“As far as nuclear
bombs go, this is just a baby, but keep in mind, New York City isn’t
a huge place. This backpack bomb will produce an explosion that will
level everything for over four tenths of a mile wide, and 200 meters
up. It will start large-scale fires and let’s not forget, New York
City runs on natural gas. The secondary explosions will be almost as
big as the nukes. If the initial blast doesn’t get them all, the
fires will and this place will burn for months. There’s no way they
can escape in time.”

Daniels leaned back
against the sawhorse, “I can’t believe this is happening. This is
the beginning of the end, as we know it. God forgive us.”

Sawyer picked up the
bomb and slung it on his back, “Well, you can ask for his
forgiveness when we’re dead, and let's just hope that’s a long
time from now. We’d better round up the troops and hit the bunks.
Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”

The motel’s curtains
weren’t enough to keep out the morning sun. I rolled over and
pulled the pillow over my head, and I was face to face with Charger’s
ass. I lay there falling back asleep until I heard her release a waft
of air.

I moved away waving my
hand in front of my nose, “Oh my God, you stink dog.”

I reached over and
picked up my phone, looking at the time. I’d have to get a watch
soon, who knew how long cell phones were going to work. Not far in
the future, would come a day when their screens would go black for
the last time. I prayed that wasn’t until after we found Dad.

The thought of Dad made
me antsy to get up and get on the road. It was 5:45 am. Time to get
everyone moving.

“Chevy, it’s time
to get up. We need to get on the road soon.”

Chevy pulled the
blankets over his head and turned his back to me, “Five more
minutes and open the window it stinks in here.”

“That’s the dog,”
I said, giving her a few pats on the hip.

“You ready to get up
and go potty?” I asked.

Charger hopped off the
bed and went to the door. I was slow to follow. I sat on the side of
the bed and watched as she gave the motel door a couple of scratches
with her paw.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m
coming girl.”

I threw on a t-shirt
and slid my bare feet into my shoes. I opened the door, and a cold
October breeze sent shivers down my spine.

The wind made the dead
fallen leaves dance in the parking lot. Charger chased after one,
before finding a grass area to do her business.

Everything looked okay.
The motel ended up being a good place to stop for the night. The cold
breeze was beginning to be a little too much for me, so I called for
Charger. She pranced around the parking lot looking like a sleek
miniature gray horse. I called her again, and she sashayed in my
direction.

Chevy was still in bed
and started snoring, “It’s been five minutes. Let’s go, we need
to find Dad today.”

Too tired to answer, he
responded with a grunt.

It didn’t register at
first when I heard the dog barking. I turned to look outside. Charger
was near the back of the Humvee. Her jowls were raised, showing her
teeth, as she growled at something behind the Humvee. I watched as
she crept backward.

There was something
wrong. I reached toward the motel table grabbing my Ronin sword.
Chevy sensed there was something wrong, as he went for his tomahawk.
We were out the door a second later.

Charger was trying to
stand her ground, but was gradually giving up real estate.

“Charger, get back
here!” I screamed.

Chevy and I made our
way out to the back of the Humvee. At first, we didn’t see anything
standing there. It wasn’t until we looked down at the grass. There
was a dead man, without legs, dragging himself out from under the
Humvee. Black blood and ooze trailed from the wooded area to the
man’s stubs. I stood there baffled by the zombie. “What happened
to him?” I asked.

“He’s all torn up.
It looks like the animals got to him,” Chevy speculated.

I agreed, “Those
injuries aren’t from a weapon. They look more like claw and teeth
marks. He’s all kinds of fucked up. Put him out of his misery.”

Chevy wound up and sunk
the tomahawk in the back of the man’s head. His face collapsed into
the grass.

“What are we going to
do with him?” Chevy asked.

“What do you mean?
Why would we do anything with him?”

“We’re not going to
leave him here for everyone to see are we?” Chevy asked.

I shrugged my
shoulders, “What does it matter?”

Chevy thought about it
for a second, “I just don’t want to gross out the girls. I mean
you have to admit he looks pretty nasty. Look at his guts, hanging
out the hole where his leg used to be. How does that even happen?”

“If you feel the need
to move him, go ahead. I’m not touching the rotten corpse.”

Chevy bent over taking
a handful of the man’s shirt and gave it a pull. He released the
shirt almost immediately, “He’s heavy, and he stinks like sewage.
Maybe I’ll leave him here.”

When we looked up,
everybody was standing there watching us.

“Black bear.”
Cowboy said.

“What?” I asked.

Cowboy pointed at the
marks on the back of the man’s torso, “Bear claws.”

I hadn’t seen the
claw marks on the man’s back before. Chevy must have exposed them,
when he pulled up on the shirt.

Luther put his hand on
his knees and bent over for a closer look. Without standing back up,
he asked, “We know if these things bite you, you turn into one of
them right?”