The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 2, The Aftermath (20 page)

Calvin stumbled his way through the backyard all the while concentrating as hard as he could on reaching the driveway and garage. His sense of time was failing him and he couldn't say if Garrett and the others had entered the house five minutes earlier or fifteen. He didn't think it would take them more than a couple minutes to lock themselves in the garage and get the Range Rover loaded and ready to leave, at any time he thought he would see the large bay door starting to rise and a tide of zombies turning towards it and pouring into the garage on top of the small group.

When he was just about even with the back deck and still walking towards the driveway he pulled the rifle up as high as he could to try and squeeze off a couple shots and hopefully get their attention away from the garage, but the movement of his arms triggered a tight pain inside his chest and he thought for sure he was about to have a heart attack. He dropped to his knees, the rifle clattering to the ground in front of him as his hand involuntarily clutched his chest. His breathing was labored and difficult and his lungs were starting to burn from an insufficient supply of oxygen. He now noticed that his vision was starting to become frosted as if he was seeing the world through a pair of lenses coated in a film of milk. It occurred to him that it was possible that was how the zombies viewed the world around them after their eyes became completely milky white.

A steady banging sound caught his attention, at first he thought it as just a hallucination but as he concentrated on it he realized it was coming from inside the house only a few feet in front of him. The distinct sound of something banging relentlessly on a wooden surface. They had heard similar sounds enough times already for him to deduce its source. There were likely zombies inside the house trying to break down the garage door on the heels of Garret and the o
thers. With only a flimsy wooden door between the garage and house keeping those zombies at bay it was a good bet that Garrett had everyone moving as fast as possible to get ready to pull out of the garage. That notion helped feed a little more adrenaline into his system and gave him the energy to stand back up on his wobbling feet. Picking up his rifle as he stood, he decided against trying for any more ranged shots and instead walked a stumbling path forward until he was just at the edge of the driveway. He was sure that the zombies in the drive could easily see him but they were making no effort to come after him. Calvin had to assume that his body was already reaching a point where his scent and movements must have made him appear to be one of their own kind and they had no interest in trying to feed from him or impede his actions.

He was able to walk right up
beside what had once been a very attractive middle aged woman, someone who Calvin would have referred to as a MILF with his drinking buddies. She looked directly at him through those milky eyes but there was no change in her demeanor and no interest at all in his presence. She bumped against his shoulder as she continued walking a path around him and continued on. Calvin heard a distinct clunking sound from the other side of the outside garage door. He was positive that someone had just disengaged the motorized garage door opener and was now about to raise the door by hand. In the next few seconds he expected to see the door start to rise open exposing the lower half of Garrett's body to the outside and focusing the attention of close to a dozen zombies on himself. Mustering all the strength he could Calvin hefted the rifle in both arms and raised it the back of the MILF's head as she walked away from him, he heard the sound of the garage door starting to rise as the barrel of his rifle pressed up against the back of her head. He caught a flurry of motion near the garage door in his peripheral vision, without turning away from the woman's head he pulled the trigger and exploded her mangled brain out from a fist sized hole that materialized where her face had been and splattering remains across two other zombies walking a circle just in front of her. The round traveling out of her head still had sufficient velocity to punch a nice little crater in the back of a second zombie and knock him to the ground just in front of the garage door.

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Miranda had cried out in alarm as soon as the door started to open and she could see multiple pairs of feet and legs just feet from the door. She instinctively squeezed off a single round into the kneecap of a zombie standing just outside the door near where Garrett was crouched down lifting against the door. The shot knocked the zombie onto the ground as it blew his kneecap out and Miranda found herself staring into the enraged face of the man as he started crawling forward towards the opening at Garrett's feet.

The gunshot from behind
him along with Miranda's excited cry of warning caused Garrett to release his grip on the door sending it crashing back to the ground with a loud bang. An instant before the door hit the ground they both heard the familiar report of an AK firing just outside the door. Things were happening almost too fast for Garrett to process. He had opened the door, Miranda had yelled a warning to him and fired off a single shot that missed him by inches and then a rifle blasted away on the other side of the door. There could be only one explanation for those mystery shots outside in the driveway. Calvin had made his way back to that side of the house and was providing covering fire for them. If that was the case then they needed to make their move right away, he wasn't sure how many zombies Calvin was up against outside that door but he knew that his friend would be low on ammo and not able to keep the top of the driveway clear for long. More shots echoed outside the garage door, Calvin was firing slowly and methodically, Garrett knew that he would be clearing those closest to the door first. He grasped the door handle again and motioned for Miranda to go ahead and get in the Range Rover.

"Calvin!" Garrett shouted
loud enough to be heard outside, "am I clear to open the door?"

Two more shots rang out and then he heard a strained reply coming back at him, "clear, but hurry your ass up!"

Garrett wrenched the door open with one single shoulder thrust and practically knocked it out of its tracks as it crashed into position above them. Outside the door he saw the bodies of several freshly killed zombies dotting the driveway just outside the door, some of them only a few feet away from him. Several more were still standing on the edge of the drive and then there was Calvin with his back to the garage struggling just to keep on his feet. Garrett immediately took note of the gaping wound on the back of his shoulder, a river of drying blood had soaked the entire backside of his shirt. Focusing on the wound he recognized it for what it was, the ragged edges of the skin and torn shirt still bore the distinctive signs of teeth marks.

"Calvin, what..." Garrett started to cry out, then his friend turned and faced him.

Calvin's skin tone had already taken on the pale washed out color that was reminiscent of a corpse and was common with almost all zombies they had seen so far. His eyes told the rest of the story, while Garrett was still able to make out a splash of color where he would have expected to see the brilliant emerald green that drove women crazy, he was now looking into the faded white eyes of someone in their last moments of life and in the process of being reborn into the world of the undead. Calvin didn't need to say anything, he turned around, locked eyes with Garrett for just a second and then turned back to the zombies in front of him. One zombie had spotted Garrett and was just about to rush past Calvin to get into the garage, when Calvin clumsily raised his rifle, jammed the barrel into the guy’s ear and squeezed the trigger sending him cartwheeling out of sight down the driveway. The fact that the remaining zombies at the edge of the driveway were all but ignoring Calvin was an even more damning sign that he was lost to them. Garrett knew that his friend was fighting hard to stay on his feet as the virus ravaged his body, he could see him cringing in pain and sweat had already soaked through the rest of this clothing that wasn't already drenched in blood. He was fighting as hard as he could against the inevitable to give them a shot at getting clear.

"Thanks man." Garrett called out to his friends back as he turned and rushed to the open
driver’s side door of the Range Rover and found the keys already in the ignition with the engine started.

"What about Calvin?" Miranda cried out as Garrett dropped the truck into gear and started easing out of the garage.

Garrett couldn't meet her eyes, he felt the moisture in his own eyes and the soldier in him refused to allow her to see tears rolling down his face. He shook his head and gritted his teeth to mask the pain in his voice as he replied, "there's nothing we can do for him, but he'll cover our backs so we can get out of this."

As the Range Rover pulled out into the open driveway clear of the garage
, Miranda whirled her head around and pressed her face up against the glass watching as Calvin methodically continued to approach each zombie in turn, lift his rifle to its head and pull the trigger. It seemed as though he was purposefully keeping his back turned to them as they turned onto the straight stretch of the driveway leading out to the street and relative safety. Miranda watched as Calvin dispatched the last of the zombies at the top of the driveway and continued to stand with his back facing them as he scanned the backyard for any further threats. When they reached the halfway point down the driveway she saw him stagger on weak legs and fall to his knees. The wound on his back now clearly visible to her but too far away for her to make out the same telling details that Garrett had seen. Even without seeing the small details of the wound on the back of his shoulder she understood exactly what it signified and the realization of why Garrett had left him behind hit her like a brick. During their time together she had grown to appreciate the bond that Garrett had formed with Calvin. Garrett had talked to her about some of his experiences when he was in the service. The one thing that she had taken away from those talks was that his fondest memories of those times always seemed to be when he and Calvin were together. She knew that their friendship was more of a brotherhood and she understood just how hard it was for Garrett to turn them away from that house and leave his brother behind.

They turned out onto the road and Garrett started picking up speed as he pointed the
m out of the subdivision. All of them could see zombies converging on Cameron's house from different parts of the neighborhood, some of the undead turned and started following after them as they drove past but they all felt a degree of safety knowing that they were on the move and capable of easily outrunning any pursuers. They were just reaching a point where Cameron's house was dropping out of sight as they started to round a tree lined curve. Miranda had not taken her eyes off Calvin as he remained on his knees struggling with something in front of him and out of her line of sight. Her last image of the man was of him falling backwards on his ass as he lifted an object up in line with the side of his head. Calvin disappeared from view as a thicket of woods came between him and the Range Rover and Miranda was thankful for that. She knew what Calvin was about to do, she understood what was coming next and why he was doing it, now she was somewhat thankful that she was spared having to actually witness it. Miranda couldn't help but let the tears flow as she felt a wave of pain wash over her body. She wasn't even sure if she was sad at the simple loss of a man she considered a friend or because of what his loss meant to the rest of them. Even though he was a perverted pain in the ass who spent a lot of time trying to get a peak down her shirt as well as the other women in their group, he was also a brave soul who had saved all of their lives time and time again. She would miss him and she felt that all of them would suffer his loss in terms of just how safe they would be from that point forward.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was still eight hours from its assigned patrol area off the coast of Virginia and Lt. Alan "Crusher" Chapman had been grabbing a few hours of sleep before he was due to begin giving the first warning orders and mission parameters for the upcoming flights around the Washington, DC area when the emergency klaxon's ripped him from sleep. The Abraham Lincoln left Cuban waters under wartime conditions meaning that at all times a pair of F-18's were on the flight deck ready for launch and alert crews were on a fifteen minute alert status. This meant that Crusher and his wingman were both already in their full flight gear while in their racks. They had practiced the alert procedures so many times that their responses were automatic. Jumping to their feet they met in the hallway outside their wardrooms raced down the corridor towards the ladder that would take them topside to their waiting planes. The aircraft carrier had been designed to put pilot’s quarters within a short run to the flight line for just such a situation. While this tended to make for restless periods of sleep when off duty with aircraft landing or taking off, it allowed them to be at their waiting planes in moments. Even before they had left their cabins, crews on the flight deck were already lighting off the engines for both planes, removing safety catches from their ordinance and unshackling their wheels to ready them for takeoff.

Hitting the flight deck they both scrambled for their planes where a crewman met each of them and handed off a notebook containing appropriate radio frequencies and other data specific to their flight. Four minutes after jumping from his bunk Crusher already had his helmet seated and plugged into his planes instruments and was running through an abbreviated preflight checklist. Had the ship been under attack he would have been instructed to skip any preflight activities and prepare for immediate departure. As he completed his initial preflight checks he contacted the tower to report his ready status and receive information on the emergency. Crusher was surprised to learn that his flight of two was being directed against a
cluster of unidentified surface targets just over a hundred miles to the northwest of the carrier. One of the contacts was radiating a radar signal and they had also detected emissions that would indicate the presence of an aviation radar unit, most likely from a helicopter of some sort. The radar returns they were receiving indicated multiple vessels too large to be pleasure craft but they were also too close together to determine their actual configurations or numbers. The carrier would be able to safely bypass the craft and would have simply ignored them while keeping tabs on them via radar, but the emissions from the radar they had registered indicated that it was likely they had spotted the carrier already. If a craft with that type of radar capability was in the area it was possible that they would recognize the radar image on their screens as being a large naval vessel and may attempt to approach them at some point or at least follow them until they reached their assigned patrol area. Acting under the assumption that any crew on those vessels were likely infected, it was deemed prudent that they investigate while still underway and learn all they could about the contacts. Their F-18's were not armed for any type of significant surface engagement, their Vulcan cannons could ravage the top decks of a surface ship, but it was not likely they could sink anything of significance so they were instructed to conduct an overflight and maintain an observation position over the contacts. If it was deemed necessary to engage the ships, the Cheyenne had a full complement of Harpoon anti-ship missiles along with a collection of torpedoes that were well suited to take care of any such threats.

Crusher and Huntress were both given vectors to intercept the ships and then given clearance for immediate take of
f. Settling back in his seat he fired off a thumbs up to the crew member watching him from the flight deck and seconds later he felt an intense g-force pushing him backwards against his restraints as his plane was fired from the deck and into the air in a matter of seconds. Continuing his climb to their assigned approach vector, Crusher dialed up his radar and scanned the air all around him for electronic returns. Seeing no airborne threats on his scope he contacted the Abraham Lincoln to report his status and request any changes in their targets relative aspect. He was informed that it appeared the targets were getting underway and starting to drift apart from one another but had still not gained enough separation to determine number or type. The next bit of information was more alarming to him, the electronic sensors on board the aircraft carrier had detected a limited fire control radar system firing up in the last few minutes. That last bit of news was alarming to any pilot, fire control radar systems meant that at least of one of the ships they were approaching had some type of weapons system that was radar controlled. Hand held weapons systems were not a real threat to modern fighter aircraft and even those with their own internal guidance systems, such as surface to air missiles, could be evaded with avoidance techniques and the countermeasures available to the pilot. Radar controlled systems were much more dangerous because they could lock onto the aircraft and guide a weapon directly to it, negating any fancy flying and the flares and chaff dispensed to fool less sophisticated systems. The good news was that the report identified it is a limited fire control system meaning that it was likely not tied into any long range missile system and more than likely linked with machine guns or other similar close in weapon platforms. The fact that they had fired up that radar system meant they had detected the Abraham Lincoln and noted that she was launching aircraft. If they were making ready to defend themselves then they had a reason to fear the planes launched from the carrier and that also meant that it was likely they had some kind of hostile intent.

"Huntress, keep your systems idle for now. No need to give away any information about us ahead of time." Crusher called out to his wingman. By keeping their radar and fire control systems on standby they were making it much more difficult for the seaborne radar system to get a fix on them. While the F-18 had not been designed as a total stealth capable aircraft, its shape and their aspect to the radar system would give on
ly the faintest return to the radar operator. By maintaining their bearing and keeping a tight formation they stood a good chance of appearing like nothing more than a flock of birds to anyone but the most well trained radar technician. Crusher was hoping to get at least one flyby of their target before they realized that fighter planes were overhead. After they had eyes on the craft and could identify them visually they would turn their electronics on full blast and see what else they could learn. Being identified on radar would make little difference after the crews on those ships saw and heard them flying past. As long as they didn't hear the electronic warble sound of a fire control radar locking onto either of them they could maintain a safe distance and monitor their activities while leaving little for those on the ships to do about it.

"ETA to target, one mike. We will cross their bows at two miles. Signal when you have visual." Crusher instructed his wingman, a double break of radio static signaled her acknowledgment.

Crusher was the first to spot a small group of ships making way towards them. At his altitude and speed he was not able to make out specific details but he could see that there were three ships, a cargo container, a medium sized fishing trawler and most troubling of all a large Legend-class Coast Guard cutter. The cutter was easily recognizable by the telltale red slash painted along its sides. The sleek and modern design along with the presence of an obvious helicopter pad along the aft of the vessel helped him identify the class. Passing by at just over two miles off their starboard side and at their current speed and altitude they would already be visible to the crews on the ships so Crusher flipped his radar and fire control systems on full power and signaled Huntress to do the same.

"Guntrain, this is Champion 56 with a tally on those ships." Crusher called back to the carrier to report the contacts.

"Go ahead Champion 56." The reply came back instantly.

"We have a sighting on three vessels, one medium sized civilian cargo vessel, one civilian fish
ing trawler and a Legend-class Coast Guard cutter complete with at least one helo visible on deck." He reported.

While he waited for further instructions
from the carrier he punched a set of commands into his onboard flight computer and was presented with the specifications of the cutter. For a Coast Guard vessel he was impressed with its armament, the main gun was a Bofors 57mm with fire control system. That explained the fire control emissions they had detected. It would also be carrying a pair of 20mm close in radar controlled autocannon's, several .50 machine guns and a collection of smaller 7.62mm machine guns. The 57mm and 20mm weapons gave him some concern, but if they kept a respectable distance and speed they should be alright. Those weapons were intended for engaging other surface vessels and structures along shorelines. They were accurate but the slow firing of the 57mm and the limited range of the 20mm were easily avoided in their fighters. His computer also helped him identify the helicopter he had spotted on the aft landing pad, it was most likely a MH-65c Dolphin search and rescue helo. It was a capable and fast bird with a respectable range when fully fueled, but posed no real threat to them. While the helicopter was capable of being armed it would only have light machine guns and small arms aboard.

Even though the ships and helicopter posed no real danger to either of their planes, the main 57mm gun could deal some damage to the carrier if the cutter managed to get in range with hostile intent. The helo could also attempt a forced landing on the
carrier’s deck with sick people on board turning it into a modified biological weapon. In a normal situation the carrier would be traveling with a flotilla of surface ships that would be charged with intercepting any such threat long before it got anywhere close the carrier. Lacking long range weapons the greatest offensive power an aircraft carrier brought to the table was its compliment of aircraft. In this case they had not anticipated surface action against other ships and all of their antiship weaponry remained stowed in the farthest reaches of the Abraham Lincoln's massive weapons lockers. That left the Cheyenne to deal with these ships if it was deemed they were threatening the carrier or the mission. Crusher anticipated that he would next be ordered to raise the cutter on the radio and determine their situation and intentions. It would be his job to attempt to warn them off if they made any attempt to close on the carrier or enter the patrol zone they were steaming towards. US Navy carriers automatically declared a one hundred mile exclusion zone while in transit, it was a widely known fact that any ships attempting to enter that zone ran the risk of being fired upon. The crew on board the cutter should be well aware of that fact and hopefully willing to respect it.

Crusher's computer beeped in his ear alerting him to additional information. Scanning the readout he saw that his radar had identified the transponder beacon of the cutter. It was the USCGC Bertholf, and as he had suspected it was a Legend-class National Security Cutter. One point of interest that caught his attention was that the ship was listed as being home po
rted out of Alameda, California. It was operating in the wrong ocean and on the wrong side of the country. Its crew compliment was declared at one hundred and thirteen, fourteen officers along with ninety nine enlisted sailors. The rest of the information only confirmed the capabilities and armament carried on such a vessel. They were too far off to identify the other two civilian ships, but he wasn't really concerned about them, any weapons they carried would be limited to small arms, possibly a light machine gun or two on the cargo ship, nothing that would pose a threat to them or the carrier.

His instructions came back from the carrier to maintain visual contact with the ships and attempt to make radio contact to determine their intentions, just as he had predicted. Crusher instructed Huntress to
sustain a loose formation with him, he wanted good separation between them just in case someone on the cutter got a little jumpy on the trigger of that 57mm. He found it hard to believe that they had reached a point where there was a fear of being fired on from their fellow men in uniform, but he also knew that desperate people would do desperate things.

"Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf, this is US Navy
Hornet flight circling your location, do you copy?" he called out over the open frequency.

The reply came back immediately, "Navy flight, this is the Bertholf, thank god you are here. We have crew and refuges in need of medical attention and require resupply of food and water. Can you assist?"

"Shit" he muttered to himself. Although he had half expected something like this, he was now faced with the task of refusing their request. There was a level of desperation in the man's voice on the other end of that radio that sent a shiver up his spine and made his task all that much more difficult. In any normal situation a call for help like that would have resulted in the carrier sending a helicopter with medical personnel and supplies to board the cutter and render aid. They would also make contact with shore based stations to dispatch rescue craft to this location. There would be no such assistance or rescue for these people.

"Bertholf this is Navy flight, that is a negative on your request. Your current course has you approaching a naval exclusion zone and we are here to advise you to change course immediately." He tried to keep his voice as
neutral as possible.