LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (14 page)

“How fast the infection came on, whether they were mid-cruise, whether this was used as an escape from somewhere else … a variety of factors. If it came on while they were on their way to work one morning, they could be spread out everywhere. If they had time to freak out and gather together, they could all be locked in one room…”
 

“Like the bar?” Ky asked warily, turning her flashlight to the signs ahead.

“That’s where I’d be,” I muttered, bending over to pick up Romeo under the front legs. Kate had made it to the next passageway, gave it a visual check, and reached down for the squirmy animal.

“Probably not,” said Kate, grunting slightly as the odd, squirmy weight of the dog hit her arms. She lifted him easily and deposited him in the hallway. Ky was making her way up the wall now. “They’d probably want to be somewhere with a view—somewhere less confining. The restaurants of these ferries and the passenger areas are all up near the bridge. Trust me, I think this thing is empty.”
 

I groaned as she moved forward confidently. Famous last words.

I threw the large bag of supplies and weapons above my head and made the climb, landing hard on the next passageway. Thankfully, this one seemed to stretch a long way—possibly half the length of the ship. The ceiling was peppered with more of the open doors we had seen in the last passageway, and I tried to make a mental map of how the ship was arranged. The ceiling—which had been an interior bulkhead before the ship was flipped—was solid steel. Rivets were in clear evidence in the girders above us. Multiple doors, and even a slight tinge of daylight filtering through in weak amounts.

The car deck. We were next to the car deck.

“Kate, slow down for a sec …” I began, but she had already passed underneath the first doorframe. Four arms snaked down, like anacondas from a huge tree. Fingers, bloated with death and moisture, grasped at her in blind hunger. One hand found a full grip of long hair.
 

“Down,” I said softly to Kate and Ky, trying to keep our noise level low. I pulled my long machete free of its sheath along my hip, enjoying the steely sound of its release. The metal flashed quickly, and an arm dropped to the ground.
 

“Thanks,” Kate breathed, as she looked up. The arms were attached to two bodies that had been crushed against the bulkhead by the shifting weight of multiple cars. A pile of vehicles smashed the two forms against the doorway, their heads barely visible as they craned for a look into the corridor.
 

“Car deck,” I offered. “We’re going to want to watch the doors beneath us too—probably some bathrooms and vending machines. Could be more below.”

Ky made a face as she walked, careful to step over the dark doorways below.
 

“Should we try to get up to the car deck?” Kate asked, seeing the daylight between the shattered vehicles. “Maybe we could get through quicker?”

I shook my head, taking in the destruction.

“Too dangerous. And likely slower. Even though it’s open to the outside, those cars will be piled on top of one another—very precariously. The boat could shift, there could be a hundred more of those things trapped up there. No, I say we stay with the corridors.”

Ahead, Ky had reached the next set of doors. She aimed her light down.

“Gross,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

My hand shot up and Kate’s went to her pistol.

“What is it?”

Ky looked away as Romeo bounded forward.

“Men’s bathroom. Smells horrible.”

***

The corridor led deeper toward the center of the ship, and we carefully dodged the yawning doorways until we reached the end. There was another drop down, similar to the one through which we had entered, on the other side.
 

The only problem was that this passage was submerged in water.

“Any idea how this thing is laid out?” I asked Kate.

She shook her head.
 

“This is much larger than the ones I used to ride in Jersey. My only guess is that the car deck has multiple entry and exit points, but we don’t want to risk it out there. Only other option is up,” she pointed above our heads, to a passage that led around the car deck, deeper into the interior of the ship. A sign directed foot traffic:
Bar, Observation Deck.

I felt the floor move suddenly beneath my feet. I fell hard to the bulkhead as Kate and Ky collapsed against the walls. The entire ship was shifting—turning slowly and falling more toward the stern.

“The water is winning the battle against this thing,” I guessed, connecting the direction of the shift with the direction of the cascading river outside. “It’s not going to stay this way for much longer. We can’t pick our way through the car deck—we have to get higher and out of these hallways. Zombies might not kill us if we move quick enough. The water surely will.”
 

“Copy that,” said Ky, jumping up and making her way along the wall, seeking footholds for the climb.
 

It took some wrestling, but we were able to manhandle the begrudging dog to the next corridor. Ky sat solidly with her light shining brightly down the dank, musty passage. Smells of rot and decay permeated this floor, and we could very clearly hear the sound of movement against the doors in the ceiling.
 

Romeo shook himself once and stared into the hallway along the beams of our flashlights. He whined once.
 

Kate grimaced and pulled her rifle around, charging it after checking the magazine.
 

“I suppose we’re not big into the silence thing by now, huh?”

I shook my head slowly and peered up at the thick metal doors.
 

“No, I suppose not. We’re sure we have to go through there?”

She shrugged.
 

“No, but I don’t feel like swimming toward the engine room, and this is the next option behind the car deck. So we’re a little short on alternatives.”
 

As if punctuating her comment, the deck swayed slightly, then canted hard to the starboard again. The water was winning the battle with the ship. We didn’t have much time.

“So what’s the play?”

She strode down the hall, ignoring the wretched smell of decay and the sound of the dead on the opposite side of the wall.

“Position here,” she said, pointing to one side of the furthest hatch. “We make noise, open the hatch, and let them come. When we’re sure they’re all pushing forward above us, we retreat here,” her finger selected the door closest to where we had come up. “We pop this hatch, and go up. Quietly. If it works out, we flank them while they’re pouring down to come after us.”
 

“How many do you think are in there?” I asked, moving to position.
 

Kate grabbed Ky’s arm and herded Romeo behind her.
 

“Enough,” she said, raising her rifle.
 

“Open the hatch and let them fall. Wait for five or six of them to pile up, then fire. I’ll mop up after you as you focus on new ones pushing through.”
 

“Copy,” I said, shaking my head.
 

Unbelievable.
 

“Wait,” she said quickly. “Let’s make some noise first.”

Before I could brace myself, she flipped her selector to full auto and fired into the door. I brought my hand up to my face, expecting the ricochet of a torrent of rounds bouncing off the steel plated bulkhead door—before remembering her odd choice at the last ammo stop. A man who had apparently believed that the government would be invading his farm with Abrams tanks had stocked thousands of rounds of armor piercing ammunition—ammunition that just so happened to be loaded into Kate’s rifle at this moment.

Instead of the metallic ping of bouncing bullets, the satisfying thud of metal piercing metal resounded in the small space. Romeo barked, as if sensing the desire to occupy the creatures’ attention, and Ky whooped loudly. The rounds shredded the door and the acrid smell of gunpowder started to overcome the strong odor of decay. Kate’s rifle clicked empty and she reloaded quickly, reaching into a hip pouch for another magazine.
 

“Good to go?” I asked, looking at the mangled door, and the multiple holes—some of which were slowly disgorging a fountain of black filth as bodied behind the metal, crushed against the surface, oozed ichor after the onslaught.
 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said, taking a breath and backing up. I passed her on the right, readied my weapon, and reached my hand up to the horizontal lever—the only piece of the door not pierced by Kate’s destructive volley.
 

“Okay, time to party,” I muttered, and pulled the lever down.

The door flew open, slamming back against the bulkhead and narrowly missing my head as I fell backward quickly, a flood of bodies cascading into the passageway. Several of the forms didn’t move, having been mangled beyond recognition by the heavy onslaught of munition that Kate had pumped through the door.
 

But the rest of them did.

I flipped into semi-auto and took my time. They were clumsy and bedraggled, falling awkwardly one after another, fleshy sounds of falling bodies filling the corridor in staccato sequence with my gunfire.
 

As heads emerged from the growing pile, they disappeared in clouds of red mist. Our rifle-mounted flashlights combined with the flashing strobe of our gunshots created an eerie discotheque vibe as bodies flashed into view, and were blasted back again, falling heavily against one another. They continued to come, and many were now falling forward—because there was nowhere else to go.
 

Kate cursed behind me.

“Shit, didn’t think of this,” she muttered. “Running out of space, here.”
 

“Time to go?” I asked, siting the next two victims and taking them down as they tumbled through the open hatch. The space between the pile of bodies and the hatchway to dubious safety above us was now no more than three feet. Two more creatures piled through and instantly rolled down the side of the mountain of bodies, one of them reaching almost to my feet before I turned its head into jelly.

“Yeah, let’s check it out,” she said, lowering her rifle and turning around.
 

More bodies fell through, now mostly rolling forward on the gradual slope of decaying flesh. They were becoming difficult targets in the tight space, limbs flailing and heads moving at awkward angles. I lined up on two more, my first shots going wide. The creature closest to me seemed to sense the vulnerability and lunged forward, faster than I thought possible. I stepped back, losing my footing briefly, and stumbled. Its head darted toward me and I grimaced, seeing my left arm come up to ward off the attack, imagining the pain of the bite.
 

As the rotten head approached, an arrow suddenly sprouted from its right eye, bringing it down hard.
 

“It’s no squirrel, but you’re welcome.”

I didn’t have time to deliver the sarcastic reply that I wanted to throw back at Ky. The second of the two creatures was pushing past its friend and I got my rifle up in time, releasing a full volley of semi-automatic fire. The shots were low, but caused the thing to back up under the force of the blows, giving me time to find its head. It fell to the floor in front of several more, rising from their own roll down corpse hill.

“It’s getting a little dicey here,” I yelled back to Kate.

“On it,” she grunted, and I heard the hatch swing down.
 

“Any minute now,” I muttered, taking two more with careful head shots.
 

I was running out of room. I was nearly backed up to Kate’s legs, and Ky was merely feet behind me. That meant that the corridor back to the water below us was close. We were getting pinned.

Another arrow shot over my shoulder and took a wobbling, overweight black woman in the mouth. She fell forward, her head barely missing my foot.

“Save your arrows, kid,” I said, switching my selector to full auto.
 

Here’s the thing they never tell you about firing an automatic weapon on full release. First off, yes, it’s amazingly fun. And fulfilling. And a little arousing.
 

Second, it kicks like a damn rented mule.
 

The trick is to simply find the
level
you want to shoot at—not the
target
—and just keep the horizontal axis fixed.

That much, even I could handle.
 

The weapon kicked against my shoulder, spraying projectiles into the assembled faces in front of me. A line of steel shattered the collection of bones, brain pans, and visages, turning their swollen bodies into wasted flesh.

“Any time, now!” I yelled up to Kate, pushing the empty magazine from the rifle and slapping a new one in. I backed up one more step and felt the soft tissue of a foot beneath my own.

“Out of space, bud,” said Ky.

Kate’s legs disappeared above us and her hand shot back down, gesturing up quickly.

“Get him,” I said, waving at the dog and flipping back to single shot and taking my time. We were feet from me going to machete. And that meant we were feet from being in some serious crap.

The dog disappeared as Ky nearly shot him through the open hatch.

A hand brushed the flashing muzzle of my rifle as I shot into the growing crowd. The stench was overpowering, and the air filled with acrid gun smoke, reducing the poor visibility even more. Moans accompanied the rifle’s noise.
 

Behind me, Ky threw her pack up and jumped, pulling herself through the hatch.
 

Another hand made it to the rifle barrel, this time close enough to knock it aside, causing several shots to go wide. I cursed, pulling it back and over my shoulder in one move, pulling the machete from its sheath. The weapon flashed in the glare of the flashlight as I swung, taking the waterlogged head from the shoulders of a skinny woman in bike shorts and a halter top. A man in a suit reached out for me, and I glanced up, checking to make sure the hatch was clear, before taking off his arm at the elbow.