02 Flotilla of the Dead (7 page)

It was a beautiful morning with the sun creeping up from behind the skyline of Long Beach.  Scott spent just a moment to appreciate that those high rise buildings were probably all overrun by zombies now.  Perhaps there were still a few survivors starving or dying of thirst in locked offices, apartments, and condos.  There was no more he could do for them right now than there had been for the people trapped in the hotels of Cabo or the houses in Malibu.  The best thing he could do for any survivors was to get more weapons to use against the zombies.  Only then could they think about mass rescue operations.

            The first part of the route was complicated, since the main roads from the
Queen Mary
and cruise ship terminal were intended to get people out of the Port area to the freeway or the city of Long Beach.  They had to cross those roads after leaving the parking lot and enter the maze of truck routes inside the port until they passed under the Seaside Freeway overpass at the official 710 terminus and looped back up onto the Seaside’s northbound lanes.   It was a short drive, only a mile or so, but quite confusing.  The lead Amtrac used its dozer blade to clear several crashed or abandoned cars and trucks from their path.  Apparently Mark had been able to go around them in the 4x4 H2, because he was already out of sight in front of them.

            Once they were up on the Seaside Freeway it was a straight shot to the bridge and, beyond it, to the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center.  Scott swerved out of formation to run abreast of the Amrac so he could see the road ahead of them.  There were only a few abandoned cars and trucks on this part of the highway and he could see the black H2 pulled up next to the barricade of containers that had been erected on the bridge.  He thought he saw movement around the containers, but couldn’t make out any details.

*****

            Mark and Jake were excited to be on this mission.  Jake kept talking about all the weapons they might find and claiming first dibs on some of them.  Clint was as calm and collected as usual, reclining in his seat and seemingly napping, as they sped up to the Gerald Desmond Bridge, even though he had been the one to suggest that they scout ahead of the convoy and secure the bridge.  Mark pulled to a stop one lane over from the steel gate mounted between the stacked cargo containers blocking the rest of the bridge.  This was an old bridge, obviously in poor repair.  A sign near the approach described a replacement bridge under construction and Mark could see the earthworks that had been in progress on either side of the existing bridge when Z Day put a stop to all such normal activities. 

When Mark got out of the H2 he walked to the side of the bridge and looked down.  Then he let out a whistle when he saw the nylon “diapers” wrapped under the bridge to catch big chunks of concrete that were spalling off the bottom of the roadway. 
‘Yes sir, they definitely needed a new bridge,’
he thought to himself.  He also remembered Scott saying that much of the nation’s containerized cargo had passed over this bridge and onto the LA freeway system, so he decided it would probably hold up to the passage of their little convoy.  Mark leaned out around the containers stacked up to the edge of the bridge and recoiled slightly as he saw diseased arms reaching around the other side of the containers, ten feet away.   The face of a zombie followed the arms and a deep moan sounded at that same time that Mark heard a scraping metallic clanking sound behind him.

Mark spun around in time to see his son Jake complete the action of pulling back the heavy steel bar that held the welded gate in place.  The idiot who had installed it had put the gate and hinges on this side of the containers, so the gate swung back towards the H2.  And swing it did!  With dozens of zombies pushing against it, the gate literally flew open, lifting Jake off his feet and smashing him back against the metal on the hinge side of the nearest container.  Only the hinge stops and angle of the adjoining container kept the gate from crushing the life out of Jake.

“Zombies!” yelled Clint, as he jumped out of the H2 and leveled his M-203.  His 40mm shotgun shell blasted the front rank of zombies head-on, blowing several of them to pieces and knocking others down as the bodies were propelled back through the wide open gate.   The gate was twelve feet wide, though, wider than even the spread of a shotgun grenade could cover effectively, and many more zombies were pushing through.  Clint shifted to rapid semi-automatic rifle fire and scored at least twenty head shots with his thirty round magazine.  Even that was not enough to stem the flood of zombie flesh that poured through the portal. 

“Oh shit!” yelled Mark as he unleashed a shotgun blast from his own M-203, careful to keep Jake outside of the spreading cone of buckshot.  The blast took out at least half a dozen zombies on his side of the stampede, but others poured around them.  All of them seemed fixated on Clint, who was directly in front of the undead onslaught. 

Clint yelled a battle cry as his finger pulled the trigger of an empty weapon.  With no time to reload, he dropped the M-203 and pulled out two 9mm automatic pistols that he fired in rapid succession.  Almost every bullet was a head shot.  A few shots even took out two zombies as the bullet passed through one skull and into another.  But his two fifteen round pistol clips were not enough to defeat the number of zombies rushing towards him.  At least three of the terrifying creatures got through the hail of bullets and got their hands on Clint, lunging forward and trying to sink their teeth into his skin.  Clint used the empty pistols as hammers to pound their sculls. It was a valiant, but desperate effort.

Mark had also switched to rifle fire and was knocking zombies down as fast as he could pull the trigger.  He was able to keep most of the zombies away from Clint, but didn’t dare fire at the ones grappling with him.  The chance of hitting Clint by accident was too high.  Besides, his greatest concern was for his son, Jake.  The flood of zombies pouring through the open gate was still coming on strong as Mark paused to replace his empty magazine. 

Jake saw this and jumped out from behind the gate with a wild yell and opened up with well aimed bursts from his Tommy Gun.  Zombies fell like wheat before a scythe as the 45 caliber bullets tore them apart at head level.  Jake’s 50 round drum clip ripped a wide swath of oblivion through the flowing river of zombies during the five seconds it took for Mark to reload both the rifle and grenade launcher of his M-203. Jake ran out of bullets and ducked back behind the open wing of the gate.  Mark brought his weapon back to bear on the zombies.  Another shotgun blast from the grenade launcher blew most of the bastards back through the gate.  Single shots to the head took out the rest. 

“Close the damned gate!” yelled Mark.  He saw Jake push it forward but realized immediately that zombie bodies would stop it before it was even half way closed.  Before panic could set in his brain registered the thumping sound of a helicopter approaching.  He looked up and saw Mick Williams bring the helicopter into a hover as Marines leaned out the side doors to provide more firepower.  Jake saw them too and pulled the gate back to cover himself from both the zombies and any incoming fire from the Marines.

*****

Scott was horrified as he watched the zombies pour through the open gate and attack his friends.  The convoy was still 500 yards away when Scott floored the accelerator of the armored car and zoomed past the Amtrac.  Not only did he want to get to his friends fast, he also wanted to obstruct the aim of the grenadier in the Amtrac to make sure he didn’t take any indiscriminate shots into the zombies who were now mingling with his friends.  Scott screeched to a stop behind the H2 and told Billy and his friends to stay inside as he jumped out of the armored car with his own M-203 at the ready.

The fight was almost over by then.  Rifle fire from the helicopter had helped Mark dispatch the last of the zombies trying to come through the gate.  Mark had just found time to come to Clint’s assistance as Scott showed up.  Clint had bashed in the heads of two zombies, but was still grappling with a third that was hanging onto his left arm.  Scott ran up, stuck the barrel of his rifle into the zombie’s ear, and blew its brains out the other side of its skull.  Clint rolled away swearing.

“God damn it!” Clint bellowed as he clutched at wounds on his left wrist and forearm.  “I’m fucked!  The fucker fucked me!  It bit me!  I’m dead meat, man.  You might as well blow my brains out now, Scott.  I’m a goner, dude.” 

“Oh shit!” Scott swore.  “What the fuck happened here?”

“Mark’s kid, Jake, opened the gated and they rushed us,” Clint said in a subdued and resigned tone of voice.  “He didn’t know, man.  Don’t blame him.  None of us knew they were all waiting on the other side like that.   Someone should have thought to put firing slits in that gate so we could see what’s on the other side and shoot them before we opened the door.  But it’s too late for that now, damn it!  I’m dead meat.”

“Hang in there buddy.  I’ll call the chopper down to get you back to the ship for treatment,” said Scott, obviously refusing to accept the inevitable death of his friend.

“Treatment!” shouted Clint hysterically.  “What treatment?  You know there isn’t any fucking treatment for this!  The only thing they could do back on the ship is hand me over to your mad scientist and let him turn me into a lab rat!  No thank you, buddy.  Just shoot me now, or give me a damned bullet for my pistol, please!”

“Shoot him dad,” said Billy, who had disobeyed the instruction to stay in the armored car.  “He’s going to turn into a zombie.  You have to shoot him now.”

Scott still couldn’t accept that.  Thinking fast, he took off his belt and wrapped it around Clint’s wounded arm just below the elbow, tightening it quickly to improvise a tourniquet.  Then he turned to the Marines who had deployed from the Amtrac.

“Get me a real tourniquet!  And some morphine!  And find me a saw!  Hurry!” yelled Scott.

“What the hell are you doing, dude?” asked Clint.

“What do you think, man?  I’m going to cut off your arm,” replied Scott with a fake smile.  “It’s the only thing that might save your life now, so that’s what we’ll do.  Okay?”

“Oh shit, man,” Clint moaned and looked like he might faint.  Billy started to say something, then turned and walked back to the armored car.

“Here, let me look at that bite,” said Scott.  He reached down and pulled Clint’s right hand away from the wound.  A piece of flesh about the size of a golf ball was missing from Clint’s forearm and blood had flowed freely, but Scott didn’t think any major veins or arteries had been torn open.  There was a chance that amputation at the elbow would stop the spread of the infection.  He had to try it.  “Hang on, man,” Scott said to Clint.  “This is going to hurt, but it just might work.”

The Marine medic, Corpsman Jeff Reston, ran up with the field surgical kit from the Amtrac.  Another Marine brought a battery powered reciprocating sawzall with a ten inch blade that could cut through almost anything.  The Medic installed a proper tourniquet above Clint’s elbow and prepared two injector tubes of morphine.  Scott took the saw and met Clint’s eyes as the medic injected the morphine. 

“Relax, Clint.  Everything will be fine when you wake up,” Scott said softly and saw Clint’s eyes roll back in his head as the morphine took effect.  Then he turned to the Marines and said, “Let’s pull him back, away from all the zombie blood.  And we need to do this fast, if it’s going to do any good at all.”  A few moments later, Scott placed the blade of the sawzall against the inside of Clint’s elbow and pulled the trigger. 

Scott fought back nausea as the saw bucked in his hand, bit through flesh and into the joint of the bones in Clint’s elbow.  Blood spurted out in a massive gush at first, under pressure from the tourniquets above and below the elbow, but quickly died to a trickle.  The “operation” seemed to take forever, but couldn’t have lasted more than a minute or two.  By the time Scott cut through the last cartilage and skin below the elbow, a crowd composed of most of the people from the other vehicles had gathered around to watch.  

“Okay,” Scott said to the medic.  “See what you can do to cauterize and bandage the stump and prep him for dust-off.”  Scott turned to the crowd and raised his voice, “Clear back everyone, the show’s over.  Let’s make room to land the helicopter back there on the road behind the bridge.  And remember what happened here.  I don’t want to ever have to do that again.  So wise up right now!  No more cowboy bullshit from anyone!  Now move!” 

It took less than a minute to clear a space on the highway for Mick to land and pick Clint up.  He would be flown back to the ship and taken to the sickbay.  Scott issued instructions for Clint to be kept under constant armed guard, in case he woke up as a zombie.  Scott held out hope that the amputation had stopped the infection in time, but he had to plan for the worst case possibility too.

With the helicopter gone, Scott went to speak with Sergeant Major O’Hara.  “That was a fucking bitch.  The bite was low on the forearm though,” said Scott.  “I hope I got it in time.” 

“Me too, sir.  That would be the case of surviving a Z bite.  Either way, you handled it well, Commodore,” replied O’Hara.  “But now we need to decide if we’ll continue this mission.”

“Of course we will,” Scott confirmed.  “If nothing else, this was a good lesson to keep everyone on their toes.  All it takes is one little mistake, one reckless move, and one little zombie bite to ruin your whole day.  We can’t let anyone get overconfident or relaxed, and we can’t let them see us turn tail at the first casualty.  This incident should wake everyone up to the danger out here.  For example, when we get to the Marine Reserve base, I don’t want to see anyone open a door until we know what’s on the other side, or we have enough firepower ready to handle whatever could be there.”

“Yes sir,” agreed O’Hara.  “You want to push ahead now?  Or wait for the helicopter to come back?”

“Is that a test?” Scott asked with the same stiff grin he had used on Clint.  “Get everyone back in the vehicles and take the lead Amtrac across the bridge to scout and clear the route.  But we’ll hold the rest here until we get our air support back.”