Carlie Simmons (Book 5): One Final Mission (5 page)

He hadn’t noticed it before from the sound
of the waves lapping against the concrete walkway but he could hear faint
screams emanating from across the bay. As he ran, Shiro saw people in a
high-rise apartment building jumping from their windows onto the streets below while
others were battling against dozens of enraged creatures on the roof. The
nearby buildings around the city held similar scenes of carnage and for a
moment Shiro thought he had emerged into a demonic netherworld. There were
mangled bodies floating in the water beside him and he gulped down a breath,
trying to reaffirm that he was still alive.

As he neared the docks, he saw Nora at the
helm of a jetboat shouting instructions at Yoshi, who was at the rear,
furiously manipulating something in the engine compartment. The dark-haired
woman was screaming at Nora to get them out of the bay while the others stood
huddled together watching the scenes of destruction unfolding along the city front.
Shiro ran along the tattered boardwalk of the marina and saw four creatures
pulling themselves up along the dock from the seaweed-coated surface of the
water.

The creatures were moving quickly once
they emerged, limp-trotting as shrieks emanated from their bloated lips. Two
that were clad in black business suits rushed towards the young woman, yanking
at her long, raven hair. She shrieked and fell back into them as they gnawed at
the soft flesh on her neck while jets of bright red blood spurted skyward. 

The rotund optometrist ran forward,
grabbing the woman’s arm, but a creature slithering up on its chest from the
water chomped on his calf, causing him to wobble and fall over the edge into the
greedy hands of more corpulent freaks.

The remaining survivors had grabbed oars
and reachpoles and were trying to drive the beasts back when Shiro arrived. He
saw black smoke coughing out from the rear exhaust pipes of the jetboat as Nora
turned over the engine. He quickly untethered the boat’s mooring rope from the
dock. Filling his peripheral vision was a stream of movement and he pivoted to
see thirty creatures floating down the sidewalk above; some tumbling over the
twenty-foot-high cement guardrail and landing on the pavement continued their
sprint despite the many bone fractures.

He yelled at the others to get in as he
stood with his metal pipe leveled against the first wave of ravenous
abominations rushing at him. He struck the first one with a vicious overhand
blow, collapsing the skull, then he sidestepped and swung his weapon like a
baseball bat, unhinging the head of another, driving it back into two others. As
he turned to run, another creature plowed ahead of the others and grabbed the
sleeve of his jacket. Shiro slammed the butt end of the pipe into its eyes
socket, causing it to recoil back, letting go of him. Shiro swept low, the pipe
making contact with the cyclops’ knee in an angular blow that crushed the
joint. Shiro spun around and leapt into the boat as it was beginning to move
forward.

“Go,” he yelled at Nora, who slammed her
palm on the metallic accelerator. Three creatures had already climbed onto the
rear diving platform of the boat but were beaten back into the water by the
improvised weapons of the adrenaline-soaked survivors. The jet boat swung out
into Osaka Bay, slicing through floating bodies and flailing arms as Nora
piloted their escape vessel into the murky waves ahead. 

Chapter 10

“This is going to be a bumpy thirteen-hour
flight across the Pacific. With the time difference between sunset and sunrise,
we should arrive there sometime in the early morning. Before you all settle in,
I want to go over the plan one more time and discuss everyone’s roles,” said
Shane. He momentarily reflected back on previous missions with the SEALs,
recalling how they usually strung up hammocks in the belly of the massive
transport planes and popped an Ambien for the long trip to some Middle-Eastern
or African sandbox. An uneasy feeling shot along his spine as he realized once
more that there would be no combat search-and-rescue team mounted if they were
in trouble and no back-up airstrike to radio in. The world felt immense, as if
it were conspiring to swallow him and his team. He forced himself to focus on
the outcome of the mission and their triumphant return to the submarine. Hope
coupled with raw determination and the comfort of having such skilled operatives
and friends allowed him to thrust his fear back down though he was uncertain how
or if he’d be able to patch the rift between him and Carlie. He narrowed his
vision and then let out a deep exhale while taking in the familiar faces around
him that were highlighted by the red glow of the cabin lights.

“When we land at the small airfield on the
bay, we will all head as one group to the hangar and recon the area. If
everything looks good, we’ll split into our respective units. My team will
provide cover for Carlie’s team who will head to the docks where Jared will
hopefully work his magic and provide us with a suitable boat. Duncan identified
several there that should work but our satellite intel is a few weeks old so we
may have to adjust accordingly.” He leaned forward, his hand holding onto an
overhead leather strap to cope with the turbulence of the plane. “Once we’ve
secured a ride, we will proceed down to Kitano hospital, two miles north. Once
we secure the package, we’ll rendezvous back at the riverfront park adjacent to
the hospital grounds and extract from there on the boat. After that, the USS
Olympia
will rendezvous with us in Osaka Bay and then we’re homeward bound.”

“Sounds easy enough,” said Jared with a
smirk. “Just keep in mind that many of those jet boats have been sitting for
close to a year and the gas may be foul in the tank. If I can’t obtain one that
works, and the gas we brought along won’t fix the problem, then we’ll have to
search for a sailboat or rope together a flotilla of dolphins.”

“Any more intel on the undead on the
ground or any potential survivors?” said Matias, who was sitting on the bench
opposite Shane.

Carlie raised her chin up. “The place is
overrun by zombies, maybe more so than any other region we’ve been to. Seems
like they got hit hard there which is why we’ve only had intermittent radio
reports from Japan since the pandemic began. There are going to be far more
creatures on the ground than we’ve ever had to contend with before.”

The group was silent, glancing at each
other and then back to the front of the plane at the moonlight filtering in
through the cockpit windows. “That’s why we’ve brought more firepower than
usual plus plenty of rocket launchers and C4,” said Shane, looking back at the
extra rifles, ammo crates, and munitions lining the side walls. “I want this to
be a quick snatch-and-grab mission but do whatever you have to do to make sure
you and your team are not placed in a compromising position.”

“What if we run across other survivors?”
said Eliza, who was sitting beside Carlie. “Say, a lot of them.”

Shane ground his teeth for a second, shooting
a sideways glance at Eliza before answering. “Our primary objective is the
vaccine replication hardware. After that is secured and we’re all safely back
on the sub, then we can discuss further options for rescuing others.”

Carlie knew Shane had a lot of hard
decisions to make and would probably face even more before this was over. They
all would. The entire mission was a crapshoot with too many variables to
predict. If this was pre-pandemic, this op would’ve already been shelved due to
the overbearing risks and the lack of real-world intel. She had been in many
death-defying situations but this precarious undertaking shook her to the core.
She understood that the plan seemed cut-and-dried but she also had a gut
feeling that they were about to leap off an already rickety diving board into a
black abyss. With each bump from an air pocket, she tried to submerge her
feelings and temper her gnawing uncertainty with the fact that there was no other
option but to plunge ahead. Carlie took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes,
preparing herself for what was to come and making sure to present a steely
exterior to the others looking to her for guidance, including Shane, however
aloof he seemed.

Chapter 11

USS Olympia SSN 17,
Fast-Attack Submarine

Sitting in his small room in the officers’
section of the
Olympia
, Commander Matthew Ellis, the last remaining sub
commander of the Pacific Fleet, had just finished his journal entry for the
day, the whiskey on his breath rolling out from his heavy exhalation. He closed
the leather book and slid it back in the desk drawer then peered at his
bewhiskered image in the circular mirror on the wall opposite him. “Hmm…should
shave,” he muttered while rubbing the stubble on his chin. He looked at his
haggard appearance and then down at the photo of him on the wall from when he
was first commissioned as commander of the submarine six years ago. He was
dressed in his officer’s uniform, standing beside a brunette woman and a young
girl in pigtails outside his two-story house in Honolulu. The clean-cut, proud
image of the figure in the photograph hardly resembled the gaunt man in the
mirror.
Should look more presentable than this today. The crew deserves
better.

The last eleven months had seem him taking
his rag-tag bunch of navy personnel and rescued civilians to numerous ports
around the north and south Pacific in search of the other submarines. He was originally
tasked by President Huntington with deactivating the nuclear cores in the subs
he found which were idle at various ports around the Pacific
—
six in all.
However it was the other nine that had disappeared into the murky depths of the
ocean that made him lose sleep each night
—
knowing they would eventually
succumb to time or the wrenching pressure of their watery graves. These missions
to far-flung regions had cost him eighteen personnel, most of whom were his
closest colleagues and friends. After Sec-Def Lavine’s demise, he curtailed their
grueling quest and planned to temporarily refocus on cross-training his ad-hoc
crew, searching for survivors around the western coastline of the U.S. His
original crew of fourteen officers and one-hundred twenty-four enlisted personnel
had been eroded away by the virus in the early weeks of the pandemic. He was barely
able to get out of their home port in Honolulu, operating on a skeleton crew
but picking up survivors during the ensuing months. These were hastily trained in
the minor functions of the vessel while his remaining senior members were
stretched thin holding together the critical day-to-day operations.

The three-hundred sixty-two-foot submarine
was powered by a nuclear core which required refueling every thirty years,
making it a nearly inexhaustible water taxi. They had to put in to a new port
every twenty-five days to replenish their food supplies and clean out the saltwater
desalination filters but, otherwise, they were self-sustaining.

Ellis glanced at himself in the mirror
again, trying to see beyond the haze in his eyes and instead diverting his
attention to the streaks of gray hair on the side of his head. At fifty-three,
he was the oldest member on board. During the past year of travel, he could
count on one hand the number of people over the half-century mark that he had seen
alive. He glanced at the notes scrawled on a sheet of paper next to a partially
empty bottle of Jack Daniels. His mind sifted over the coordinates that were
handwritten on the map of Japan beside some notes.
August 25,
Osaka
Bay, 2100 hours, extract eight personnel from Fort Lewis.
He started to
reach for the bottle but heard a knock on the door and instead swung his hand
over to the map and picked it up. “Enter,” he said, turning to face the
entrance.

Master Chief Petty Officer Nicholas Degan,
a stocky man in his mid-thirties, walked inside and closed the door. “Skipper,
we just received radio contact from Fort Lewis. Sergeant Major Duncan said the
team departed on time and we are a GO for rendezvous with them in Osaka Bay as
planned.”

“Very good, very good, indeed,” Ellis
replied, trying to make sure his words weren’t slurred while keeping half of
his face hidden behind the map. “I’ll be on the bridge shortly. Just have to
finish reviewing my notes here and finalizing our plan for inserting into the
bay.”

Degan nodded and then turned, pausing in
mid-reach for the door handle. “Sir, there’s talk amongst the crew about the
cure. People wanting to know when they’ll be able to get vaccinated and if they
can return for good to the coast.”

“I know as much as you do, lad. Duncan and
his people have apparently made the breakthrough on this goddamned virus. Now,
we just have to get that team and the device out of Tokyo and we may have a
shot at turning things around.”

“You mean Osaka, don’t you, sir?”

“Yes, Osaka, right. Osaka
—
my
mistake.” Ellis cleared his throat a few times as if he had something stuck
there impeding his judgment. “Carry on, Degan. I’ll be up there shortly.”

After the door closed, Ellis rested his
elbows on the table and sunk his head into his palms. “Osaka, for Christ’s sake!
What the hell is wrong with you, you old bastard?” He ran his fingers through
his scraggly hair and glanced down at the elixir before him then at the
crumpled map, staring at the hospital location.
Can this nightmare possibly
have an end?
He reached for the bottle, squeezing it like a desperate
mountaineer hanging onto the last crag on a crumbling ledge.
Just one sip to
see me through the day then I’m done for good.
He pressed the rim to his
lips and swigged down a mouthful. Then he fumbled around for his razor and
began shaving, continually glancing sideways at the haunting figures of his
family in the old photo.