Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (19 page)

“Been there,” said Lopez, performing the sign of the cross
over his chest.

Griffin sighed. Said, “You know. It’s too bad the virus
really
took hold during daylight hours. If it had been after dark we could have just
used our night vision and boogied on out of Dodge without having to tangle with
so many of them.”

Knowing how the debrief after the debrief helped him get his
keel straightened out after a mission, Cade asked, “How far did you get before
encountering Zs?”

“Jolly and Diesel got bit before we made it three blocks. The
adam khor,
as we’d heard the Zs called, were everywhere. Skinny little
walkers biting anything that moved. We were still following Rules Of Engagement.
No one was shooting and we didn’t know the full scope of Omega yet. We only killed
the few Zs that attacked us ... which at the time we still thought of as just sick
locals. So we forced our way into a closed shop and I bandaged my teammates.”
He paused for a few seconds then went on, “Jolly was bit on the neck. Had a
nicked carotid. He bled out and died in the shop so I put him on my shoulders
and carried him the rest of the way. By the time we rendezvoused at our
vehicles ... less than twenty minutes had passed and ... craziest shit I ever
saw happened. Diesel, who was still ambulatory, fell down and stopped
breathing. He died just like that from a couple of bite wounds on his arm.”
Griffin paused again.

“Take your time,” said Cross, handing over a bottled water.

Griffin cracked the seal and slugged half of the water down
in one pull. He capped the remainder and went on, “No way we’re leaving our
bros behind. So we put their bodies in the trunk. Halfway to the docks they both
came alive back there. They’re kicking and moaning real loud ... both of them
are crammed in Cog’s trunk when we hit a checkpoint at the dock entrance. What was
usually manned by one keystone cop lackey is now being manned by half a dozen
hajjis trying hard to encourage us with their AKs to go elsewhere. Because he
has a fair grasp of conversational Urdu, Cog’s in the lead car and he isn’t
taking no for an answer. He gave one guard all the local currency he had to let
us through. I watched the hajji pocket the wad, expecting him to play it off
and go about business as usual, but he went ahead and waved us through. Both
cars ... didn’t check Cog’s trunk or ours or ask any of us for papers. Didn’t seem
to care. We found out why a few seconds later. Around the corner are more soldiers
in hazmat suits and they have six or seven cars pulled over. People are zip-tied
and lying on the ground, foaming at the mouth and fighting the cuffs like
crazed animals ... which wasn’t far off. Shit, we thought we were home free.
The six of us that were left were about to get out of the biggest shit storm
we’d ever seen. Made Fallujah look like a kid’s birthday party. Adults eating
kids in the street ... just tearing in and ripping out their guts. There were
people getting run over, seemingly on purpose—”

Interrupting, Lasseigne said, “So you had an American-flagged
ship waiting off shore?”

“No ... some CIA guy on a fast mover was going to scoop us
up at the docks. Thirty-eight foot Scarab off shore racer, supposedly. Didn’t
matter, though. The Pakis in the level four bio-suits wanted us to strip before
going any further. All of us had passed for locals dressed like we were, but they
wanted us to first prove that none of us had been bitten.”

In a knowing tone, Cade said, “Tattoos...”

“We all had em. Some specific ... most not. No way we’re
taking off our
Paki pajamas,
so Nilla, who’s driving our Suzuki, takes
out the three nearest with his Sig and the shit goes from zero to a hundred in
one breath. I’m in back of the Suzuki when the shit starts hitting the fan and
Stewie and Cooper fire up the Hajjis from the Hyundai ahead of us and we’re all
on our way. But by now ... so is the rest of the line ahead of us.”

Cade said, “They all panicked?”

“Yeah. Two or three drivers popped the clutch so to speak
and tried to drive away. That’s when the cops ... or ISI ... that are left
start sprayin' them and us down and then Snip buys the farm ... and he drives
the car right over the cops. Grinds a few of them into the road. That’s when
they got Coop and Stew. Had to be a hundred rounds peppered their little
Hyundai. Then the trunk pops open and I see Diesel roll out. He’s six-two and
all muscle and pale as a ghost. Unfazed, he walks through a hail of bullets.
Pieces are falling off of him and he’s jerking forward and ... and then he just
lifts this little brown fucker into the air and eats his face off. Then Jolly
... he’s not green and he’s no giant. He’s this wiry white guy who tans good
and can grow a full black beard in a week ... looks just like a native when
he’s in country. Anyway, he’s out of the trunk now and walking all stiff and he’s
white as Elvira’s ass—” He cracked a sad half-smile at the visual. “Jolly, he distracted
them and didn’t even know he was getting our backs. But there wasn’t time to
put them down,” said Griffin, again shaking his head. “We had to leave ‘em
there tearing shit up.”

“I know the feeling,” said Cade. “I had to make the same
decision ... had to leave a good man behind at Grand Junction Regional.”

Griffin said nothing.

Cade sees that the SEAL is sweating. No doubt reliving the
moment as if he was still there. More statement than question, he asked, “So you
and your other two teammates made it to the Scarab.”

Shaking his head, Griffin said, “Negative. Just me and
Nilla. One round found Snip. Right in the head. Golden effin BB. He died
instantly. I know this ‘cause I was wearing his brains.”

The helicopter made another course correction and Cade said
to Griffin, “Just you and Nilla made it to the Scarab?”

“Yep. We get aboard and below deck and the spook, who has
already bribed the dock workers to look the other way, he takes us just to the
other side of international waters and kills the engine and we wait. Had a lot of
time to think about how everyone died and how we couldn’t bring their bodies
out. And all that time while we’re lolling and seeing Paki patrol boats we’re
trying to wrap our minds around everything and we can’t make the shit we saw jive
with reality. Still hard to believe five weeks after the fact.” Griffin went
silent again.

The helo had been in the air for thirty minutes and everyone
had been listening to the story with rapt attention—especially Cade, who had
been privy to little, save for the missions he was on, up until three weeks ago—and
had been totally in the dark since. “So who picked you up?” he asked.

“The
USS Texas
, a Virginia Class attack sub, she surfaces
right beside us in broad daylight in the Arabian Sea with no apparent concern
about being spotted. So we ditch our ride without scuttling it and board the
sub. That was Z-Day plus two ... and it got worse after that. The
Texas
sets course for, we were told at the time, Hawaii. I figure it should be pretty
safe there but the commander tells us as soon as we’re underway that it’s a
shit show there too. Pearl is holding their own ... but the virus jumped from
the mainland already. Came on commercial airliners and was spreading like
wildfire.”

“Same in Portland, Oregon,” said Cade.

“D.C. fell like a fat lady on roller skates,” said Cross.
“Fast and hard, and though I feel nothing for the lobbyists and most of the
government types inside the Beltway ... it hurt to watch it happen.”

Lopez said, “Frisco and L.A. and San Diego didn’t last long.
I lost a lot of family—”

Lasseigne said through clenched teeth, “New Orleans, I
heard, looked like it did after Katrina ... minus the missing roofs and boats thrown
up on shore. Again people were looting and killing and FEMA and DHS were
nowhere to be found. Then my girl leaves a message saying the
biters
were everywhere. Talked to her only once after that ... just prior to the
phones going down. She was scared to death and I’m hundreds of miles away
protecting the lowlifes in D.C.” He shook his head and pounded a fist on his
thigh. “Nothing I coulda done to help her. And I have no idea where she is now—”

Griffin said, “The quick spread that swallowed everyone up I
think can be attributed to
normalcy bias
. The notion that the first
responders were going to swoop in and right the ship is what did most of the population
in.” He shook his head and looked around the cabin. “Just like our man in
Karachi, nobody had an inkling of the true nature of the virus. Thus the danger
wasn’t real to them. Hell, half of the crew on the sub were talking like
everything was going to be fine and their families would be waiting at Pearl when
the boat docked. Wasn’t the case, though—”

Lopez asked, “Where’s the
Texas
now?”

“No idea. I got off and caught a Galaxy to Springs. I
presume she was resupplied and is out hunting our
new
enemies.”

“Back to
your
story, Griff.
Nilla
... what
happened to him. And who are our
new
enemies?” asked Ari, who had
obviously been listening in over the comms and whose pay grade wasn’t high
enough to afford him more intel than what he’d already seen from the air during
the dozens of missions he’d been on since Z-Day.

“Nilla got a little bite when we were fighting our way out
of the store. More like a scratch from a canine tooth we figured later. But it
was enough to kill him slowly. He got sick and was put into four-point restraints
in the infirmary. Later I heard someone call the way he turned a
‘slow burn.’
Lucky him ... he wasn’t around when the shit hit the fan again.”

Cade said, “Again?”

Ari said, “New enemies ... let the man talk.”

“We rendezvoused with the Fifth Fleet near New Guinea and
then inexplicably we’re about facing and word is we’re heading back towards the
Torres Strait to go silent and escort a boomer ... never heard which one,
though. Not long after that the Fifth Fleet is in an all-out surface engagement
with both remnants of the Chinese North Sea fleet and a few destroyers and
frigates of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.”

Cade found himself sitting on the edge of his seat,
straining against his shoulder straps. So much for the Cliff’s Notes version.
He wanted to know as many details as possible. “What happened then?”

“Kicked the shit out of them,” Griff said, all serious and
unsmiling. “Tomahawks flying everywhere. Thirty or forty Marine FA-18 Hornets
in the air and taking it to them.” Griffin went silent again.

“Sorry I asked,” said Cade, looking out the window and
seeing the terrain had changed from smooth horizontal wave-like rock flows to knobby
spires and arches eroded from the earth, monuments all eons in the making.

Meanwhile, two hundred miles away at FOB Bastion, Jamie and
Lev were in the same single-wide Cade and the Kids had spent the night in weeks
ago. The wall-mounted A\C unit was rumbling and their weapons were in pieces on
a blanket spread out on the floor. There was little small talk; for a long
while both seemed content to solemn introspection until Jamie brought up the
sailboat full of survivors anchored in the Pineview Reservoir.

“It looked like those folks on the sailboat were in big
trouble,” Jamie said. “You know ... the way they were jumping up and down ...
waving at us.”

Lev said, “They were just reacting that way because of the
helicopter’s markings.”

“What do you mean?”

“They thought we were an arm of the government finally
coming to their rescue.”

“DHS,” she said, nodding. “Department of Homeland Security.
Some security they provided.”

“You see Cade’s point, though? There really was no way we
could have picked up all of them.”

“It just sucks,” Jamie said. She brushed some dirt off her
carbine’s bolt carrier group then paused and looked up, adding, “And it sucks
how Cade scolded me in front of you and Daymon.”

“He was right. You’ve got to keep your weapon clean.”

The two-way radio sitting on the blanket amidst the rifle
parts and spare magazines came to life. It buzzed on as both Lev and Jamie
stared at it.

“You get it.”

Shaking his head, Lev said, “No. You.”

And she did. She snatched it up, said, “Jamie.”

She nodded as Daymon told them they were needed at the
hangars. “What for?” she asked.

He said, “Bring Lev. It’ll be fun.”

Grumbling, she set the radio down and went back to
reassembling the carbine.

A short walk away from the single-wide, inside a much
smaller hangar than the ones at Schriever, Daymon was sitting on a plastic
chair, bending its legs back and forth as he craned around doing his best to
watch the techs and learn a little about the DHS Black Hawk without getting in the
way.

Thinking about the trap he’d just baited, he smiled and put
the radio away in his pocket.

Four hundred yards east of the row of hangars, inside a
building once used as a waiting area for outbound travelers but now converted
to a sort of base PX, Duncan was all alone and sniffing around for something
with a little more of a kick than watery coffee or a Rip It energy drink.

He walked the
aisles,
which consisted of a couple of
rows of opened cardboard boxes that no one had seen fit to cut the tops off.
There were energy bars and applesauce in single-serve squeeze containers and
Slim Jims jerky sticks and processed cheese and crackers, but no booze. Seeing
as how the zombie apocalypse had rendered paper money good for only two things—burning
and wiping—Duncan figured anyone
shopping
here was operating on the
honor system. So he took a couple of each. Left with a wide enough variety to
share with Jamie and Lev with a few leftovers earmarked for Sasha and Raven. He
mined some Snickers bars and M&Ms from another row of boxes, stuffed his
pockets and exited the building.