HAYWIRE: A Pandemic Thriller (The F.A.S.T. Series Book 2) (13 page)

The bottle exploded against his helmet.

Before Easterbrook recovered, the passengers engulfed him.

They buried Easterbrook with their bodies.

‘Holy shit!’ swore Myers.

Craigson fired on the run. He couldn’t miss. The insane passengers covered Easterbrook like swarming ants.

Myers fired too. Together they dropped another five hostiles before reaching Easterbrook.

The five remaining passengers suddenly abandoned Easterbrook.

They weren’t fleeing.

They’d spotted a new target.

Craigson rushed in and knelt to help Easterbrook, hoping his injuries weren’t critical. The crazies had only swarmed over him for a few seconds.

Craigson stared down in shock.

Easterbrook was bleeding out everywhere. His throat was torn apart.

God, did they bite him? Did they bite his throat out?

Craigson saw a pen.

A fountain pen was jammed deeply into Easterbrook’s throat. The pen had been used like a dagger. Its sharp point had severed both of Easterbrook’s jugular arteries and torn massive holes in his trachea.

Craigson applied pressure.

Blood squirted from between his fingers.

Easterbrook choked and gargled.

‘Quick. Use these!’ Myers shoved medical supplies at Craigson, and just as quickly Craigson applied them to Easterbrook’s throat.

‘Hold on, Easterbrook!’ yelled Myers. ‘We’ll get you to the chopper. You just hold on, brother!’

Craigson looked in Easterbrook’s eyes to see if he understood.

At that moment, Craigson saw Easterbrook die.

One moment Easterbrook was looking at the sky, his expression lost and confused, and the next his open eyes weren’t looking at anything at all.

They were lifeless.

‘Easterbrook!’ shouted Myers.

‘We weren’t fast enough,’ said Craigson.

Craigson wanted to call somebody for help, but there was nobody to call.

Just them.

Just them and a ship full of bloodthirsty lunatics.

Coleman sprinted toward the kiosk the moment he saw the woman’s suicidal plan.

He saw the hostiles force open the kiosk door.

He imagined the scene in the confined space as the enraged passengers fell upon the officer.

She’s made it this far,
Coleman told himself.
Don’t give up on her.

And then Coleman saw something amazing.

She’d been one step ahead of them all.

Only now did Coleman realize she’d left one shutter open on purpose.

At the exact moment the frenzied passengers should have reached the woman, Coleman saw her deftly slide out the kiosk window and yank down the roller shutter. Without pausing, she raced around and kicked shut the kiosk door.

The woman hadn’t been trapped at all. She’d been setting a trap for her pursuers.

Coleman’s relief lasted bare seconds. From behind the kiosk stepped a man holding a long wooden mallet. Coleman raised his weapon, but the mallet was already speeding at the woman’s head.

The woman ducked.

The mallet missed her head by an inch.

Coleman fired.

Thonk!

The electro-bolt missed the man and hit the kiosk, releasing its electric charge harmlessly.

‘Damn it!’ hissed Coleman.

The woman sprinted back into the water park.

The man with the mallet ran after her.

Shuck-shuck.

Coleman cycled a fresh round into his weapon and drew aim on the running man. He aimed slightly ahead of his target and...

The waterslide suddenly blocked his view.

No!

He couldn’t see either of them now!

Dashing to his right, he scanned the water park for where they should emerge.

They didn’t emerge from behind the slide.

Wait. That’s impossible. There’s nowhere for them to go.

Finally he spotted them.

They weren’t in the water park - they were above it.

The woman had reached the rope tower. She climbed desperately.

The man climbed faster.

He swung the mallet.

It struck the woman’s calf.

The blow dislodged her footing.

The man tensed to swing again.

Coleman used that moment to aim and fire. His target was well outside his weapon’s recommended range, but Coleman adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger.

He actually saw the projectile arc out over the water park, sail through the air and plunge into the man’s lower back.

The electrodes penetrated the man’s spine.

The mallet flew from his hand. His entire body stretched out ramrod straight. He teetered for a moment as the electric shock overwhelmed his nervous system.

Then he slowly fell back.

He fell backward off the rope tower like a professional diver. On the way down, his body made a perfect 180 degree turn in the air.

He struck the deck with his body in such a perfectly vertical position that had he been diving into water, he’d barely have made a splash. The wooden decking was far less welcoming than water.

Coleman winced.

When the man’s head hit the deck, even the electric current pulsing through his system couldn’t keep his body straight. His head splayed to one side. His body collapsed in upon itself, breaking bones and rupturing organs.

The mallet bounced off the ropes all the way down. It clattered to the deck a moment later.

Gunfire rang out behind Coleman.

Real gunfire.

After using their less-lethal weapons, it took Coleman a moment to recognize real gunfire.

It came from the helicopter.

Coleman spun as five bodies fell to the deck.

The co-pilot lowered his submachine gun.

The last five attacking passengers had almost reached the helicopter.

Almost.

Coleman heard Craigson’s voice over the radio. ‘Captain. Easterbrook is down!’

Coleman dashed back to Myers and Craigson. He knelt to check Easterbrook.

‘
He’s dead,’
said Craigson.

Coleman didn’t need to check his pulse. Too much blood covered the deck for Easterbrook to have a pulse.

‘What happened?’ asked Coleman. ‘He was meant to be right behind me.’

‘He drew the sick passengers away from you,’ answered Myers. ‘They just swarmed over him.’

‘We couldn’t reach him in time,’ explained Craigson. ‘There were too many of them.’

Something black protruded from Easterbrook’s throat. Coleman pulled it free.

A fountain pen. A trained special forces Marine killed by a civilian with a fountain pen.

‘What the hell is wrong with these people?’ asked Craigson. ‘They weren’t rioting. They’ve lost their minds. They’re all insane!’

Craigson was right.

‘This isn’t a riot,’ agreed Coleman.

He turned to find King and Forest escorting the woman he’d saved back from the rope tower. She rushed toward him, limping slightly.

King looked totally drenched. He and Forest had obviously seen some close quarters action. Neither seemed wounded. The female officer looked at Easterbrook’s body.

Her eyes didn’t register any surprise.

She’s seen this before
, realized Coleman.

‘I’m Erin Robinson,’ said the woman, still sounding breathless. ‘First Officer Ben Bryant sent me. He needs your team to help coordinate the evacuation.’

‘Wait,’ demanded Coleman. ‘What the
hell
is going on here? These people weren’t rioting. They were trying to kill you!’

‘They’re trying to kill everyone!’ replied Erin. ‘There’s a sickness on board. It spread overnight. It’s sent half the ship crazy. Psychopathic. We’ve already started evacuating, but it’s a nightmare in there. We need your help right now!’

Coleman had a dozen questions.

Pulling the map from under his body armor, he asked only one.

‘What do you need us to do?’

The woman pointed at the map. ‘Here are the cabins. Here are the lifeboats. We need to get as many people from the cabins to the lifeboats as possible.’

Myers pointed at the hundreds and hundreds of little rectangles on the map that indicated cabins. ‘We’d need a hundred Marines to do that.’

Coleman studied the map, searching for where five Marines and a civilian officer could make the most difference. In seconds he recognized the patterns. He could see the paths the passengers would be taking. He could see the bottlenecks that would cause the most carnage. In a moment he broke the complex patterns down to what could be achieved with a small force.

‘Listen up!’ Coleman barked, tracing his finger across the map. ‘King and Forest. Go straight to the starboard lifeboats. Get those boats filled and away as fast as you can. Right now! Hustle! Go!’

King and Forest dashed off across the deck toward the stairs.

Coleman moved his finger on the map. He looked at Myers and Craigson. ‘This intersection is critical. Passengers need to pass through here to reach the lifeboats. If it becomes a bottleneck, they’re all dead.’

‘That’s the ship’s atrium,’ nodded Erin. ‘He’s right.’

Coleman said, ‘I need you to keep it clear. Get as many people through as possible. If you lose this position, fall back to the lifeboats.’

Myers and Craigson nodded and dashed off.

Coleman pushed the map back under his body armor. He knelt and took Easterbrook’s special ammunition.

‘What about me?’ asked Erin.

‘You’re with me. Are you a bridge officer?’

‘No. The bridge is locked down. I’m the hotel manager.’

‘Okay,’ nodded Coleman. ‘Let’s move. Stay right on my heels.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Portside lifeboats,’ replied Coleman. ‘You ready?’

Erin nodded.

Coleman dashed off with Erin right on his heels.

Justin glimpsed a lifeboat ahead.

Thank God. We made it.

He pushed his mother’s chair faster. They’d used ramps to reach this deck. His mother navigated ramps faster with Justin pushing. He swung his mother’s chair around the last corner and stopped.

What he saw sent fear surging through his gut.

The crazy passengers had reached the lifeboats.

People were fighting everywhere.

Justin could barely tell the sick from the healthy. He saw a man wildly swinging a suitcase to clear a path for his pregnant wife. Closer, a young woman stood with her hands over her ears, staring down in panic at two men wrestling at her feet. Everywhere, everyone was fighting with a ferocity that Justin hadn’t imagined humans capable.

Bare yards away, two men fell over the balcony. Justin never heard their bodies hit the water.

His mother pointed.

‘That one, Justin. Let’s go!’

Justin’s mother was pointing at a full lifeboat. The boat had already begun lowering from the deck.

His mother shot forward so quickly that Justin lost his grip on her chair. He raced after her, jumping over a fallen man that his mother had deftly swerved around.