Clickers vs Zombies (8 page)

He didn’t need the binoculars to see they were drawing closer. In addition to dolphins, there were other fish big and small as well as whales, porpoises and what looked to be like sailfish and swordfish. And was that a shark? The ocean was now alive with the activity of fish and other aquatic life swimming quickly past them, some completely overtaking the boat. The bigger fish definitely had the advantage of speed. Kyle took a quick look around, his heart hammering, then glanced ahead at what was gaining on them.

The first wave was less than two thousand feet away and rapidly catching up. A whale leaped through the air and splashed back into the water. Great foams of water crashed over the other creatures. A dolphin leaped through the air, flinging itself like a missile. Kyle was transfixed by the scene. Dolphins don’t leap out of the water with that much strength! It was almost as if they were in a mad dash to escape from something that was chasing them.

Amid the mad cries of the birds and the sounds of the fish swimming by the boat, there was another sound that Kyle couldn’t place at first. The ocean was in turmoil, the foamy sea seeming to boil in a solid mass toward them. Kyle looked around at the ocean and his heart stopped as he saw a foam of red settling in the water. Blood?

“Oh shit!” Kyle breathed. He stared wide-eyed at the back end of a dolphin, its tail floating about fifty yards from the boat. Something had cut it cleanly in two. The engine’s rudder? Impossible!

From the upper deck where Hank was at the wheel, he yelled out. “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on? These goddamn things are swimming past us!”

The wave of sound that was riding the ocean suddenly became more discernable to Kyle. In a way, it sounded like thousands of castanets clicking together. Just a constant unsynchronized
Click-click, Click-click, Click-click!

A splash of red caught his eye and Kyle glanced to the left. A fish leaped in the air twenty feet away, half of its body sheared completely off. A giant lobster claw the size of a table crashed into the water amid the blood. From beneath the surface of the ocean, Kyle saw another gigantic claw snap shut over a large yellowfish tuna. Kyle gasped as he took in the size of the creature through the brief glimpse—it had to be the size of a small fishing boat!

It was obvious what everything was fleeing from. There were literally thousands of these things in the ocean!

CLICK-CLICK, CLICK-CLICK, CLICK-CLICK!

Kyle could feel the boat going faster, but it wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed both pairs of binoculars by their straps with one hand, grabbed the fishing rods with the other and took one last look just as something else leaped out of the ocean in a mad attempt at escape from the frenzied horde below.

Kyle gasped, frozen in terror at what was flying toward him. It was a Great White Shark over twenty feet long and it had launched itself out of the ocean!

“Oh fuck!” Kyle screamed.

Luckily he didn’t feel pain as it slammed into him mouth first and plowed into the rear deck of the yacht. Kyle was killed instantly.

His sister Carrie, her boyfriend Hank, and his girlfriend Melody weren’t so lucky.

Southern California Marine Institute, Long Beach, California

Dr. Alfred Post examined the shattered remains of the creature that had been transported from Huntington Beach earlier in the morning, his features grim.

He was safely ensconced in his lab with the best equipment in his field. To access the lab, one had to have a special security-coded badge. The only people who had access was Dr. Post, his colleague Dr. Pete Brunner, and three lab assistants—Julie Hawthorne, Dan Collins, and Chelsea King. Dr. Brunner was down south along the Baja coast with Dan and another marine biologist from Monterey doing studies on the long-term affects of oil drilling off the California coast. That left Dr. Post alone with Julie and Chelsea. Both women hated each other. Their disdain for each other affected their work so much that Alfred had thought of firing one of them just so he could have some cooperation. Chelsea was a good kid; he could tell she clearly loved the field and wanted only to contribute to it. Julie, on the other hand, was in it for the glory of getting the college credits. Julie was a junior at Long Beach State majoring in marine biology. Alfred had no idea why she’d chosen this field as a major. The girl clearly had no passion for it, much less aptitude.

As a result, Julie thought Chelsea was a kiss-ass and that she was sleeping with Alfred, Pete, and Dan, which was impossible. Pete was gay and was infatuated with Dan, who was clearly straight and was as oblivious to Pete’s homosexuality as Chelsea was. While no complete dummy, Pete was clearly as clueless as Chelsea was in a lot of things. They’d make a great couple.

Al pursed his lips in contemplation, looking down at the remains before him.

Dissected on the stainless steel table before him lay the body of the specimen delivered to his lab last night. Al had gotten the call last night at home that it would be transported to him, and rather than have it delivered at his office at Long Beach State, he’d directed the animal control warden to have it delivered to the Institute, which was situated between San Pedro and Long Beach proper, on a man-made island close to the Port of Los Angeles. Chelsea had checked the specimen in and had called him at home last night around ten-thirty. “You gotta see this thing Dr. Post! It’s frickin’ weird!”

Alfred had been enjoying a glass of wine with his wife, Janice, on the veranda of his friend Manuel Diaz’s home in Palos Verdes. Manny owned a communications company that specialized in marketing and corporate communications—direct mail, email lists, the works. Al and Christine loved spending time with Manny, who was twice divorced and currently single, the father of two adult daughters. Manny had a sunny disposition that never failed to brighten Al’s day. “The reason I like spending so much time with you is because your happiness rubs off on me,” he always told Manny with a laugh.

The specimen on the table resembled a cross between a
Homarus americanus
and a
Hadrurus arizonensis
. It had arrived at his lab with several gunshot wounds to the back of its thorax, which had shattered its hard shell, the bullet fragments completely destroying its heart; the accompanying report stated the creature had taken several rounds from a police standard-issue .45 caliber handgun, which had initially done no harm. It had the round fired from an M16 semi-automatic rifle that had finally killed the thing. Amazing when you stopped to consider it. It’s shell had been powerful enough to withstand multiple rounds from a .45 caliber handgun.

Al had performed a necropsy on the animal, first donning the necessary protective gear that was required when dealing with previously unknown or unidentified specimens—latex gloves, rubber vest and apron over the blue knee-length lab coat, surgical mask over his mouth and nose and a large, clear plastic face mask over his face. It was the first time he’d ever taken such extreme measures during a necropsy, but the guidelines at the Southern California Marine Institute were clear—when working with previously unknown species, all personnel who came in contact with the specimen were to use extreme caution at all times and were to wear the necessary protective gear. In hindsight, the guidelines were a good thing—they saved his ass after the specimen was brought in.

The necropsy started out normal. After starting audio and video recording to capture the necropsy, Al started by making a diagonal slit down the soft underbelly of the abdomen, slipping his fingers past the exoskeleton and gently pulling it apart. As he worked, he narrated his findings. Internally, the creature had the same physiological make-up as a common-day scorpion or lobster. As Al removed organs and set them aside for further testing and weighing, he noted several key differences.

For one, the creature possessed both gills and lungs. Second, its claws were considerably stronger and heavier than those of a common North American Lobster of similar size. The serrated pincers were beautiful, in a way—tinted with a delicate crisscross pattern of red and magenta, deepening to a thick, almost obsidian shade of black at the tips. Alfred took density tests of both claws, then amputated the limbs from the thorax, which was harder than he’d originally thought. He wound up having to use a pair of heavy duty shears, like the kind used to cut through rib cages, just to cut through the heavy cartilage and exoskeleton. Once he had the limbs severed he set them aside for later study. He turned his attention to the tail.

When he pinned the tail back and prepared to cut into the lower portion of the thorax to get at the lower digestive tract and the reproductive organs, the body began to move. Al gasped and took an involuntary step back, almost colliding with the table behind him. His heart leaped into his chest as he watched the creature writhe on the table. The rear portion of the creature was moving more rapidly, and as Al watched he realized that what he was seeing was a result of post mortem nerve stimuli, which caused the muscles to spasm. A moment later the writhing movement slowed, then ceased altogether. With a relieved sigh, Dr. Post warily approached the table again and resumed his work.

Holding the tail end of the creature flat to the table, he continued to cut into the lower portion of the creature, revealing the lower intestine and bowel and reproductive area. Surprisingly, Al discovered the creature possessed both sexual organs, which wasn’t normal for most lobster species he knew. He set this set of viscera aside for further tests, then turned his attention to what he presumed to be the poison sac, located at the base of the tail.

He removed the poison sac, set it aside, then turned his attention to the tail itself. Smoothing it out lengthwise on the table, he marveled at the size of the stinger—it was a good six inches long and as hard as steel. So far, from what he’d seen, the anatomy of its defense mechanism was very much like a common scorpion. With that in mind, Al set the blade of the scalpel at the base of the tail and began to slice downward toward the stinger.

He was halfway down when a yellowish liquid began to spurt from the tail and pool along the edge of the sheet of plastic the specimen had been laid on. Alfred paid it no mind; that’s what the latex gloves were for. He recognized it as the creature’s venom, which was unusual. In modern scorpions, the venom sac was located in the telson section of the tail, right at the base of the stinger. He paused for a moment, noting that the stinger on this specimen was positioned much differently than that of a scorpion. While the tail was segmented, the last piece—the telson in a normal scorpion—was not present. This meant the venom sac was located elsewhere, probably at the very base of the tail. He would have to root around in that area when he was finished slicing through the length of the tail and pay greater attention to that. Most likely venom was sent through the poison sac through a tube that ran lengthwise along the tail to the hypodermic-like stinger.

Dr. Post turned his attention to the stinger itself. He sliced carefully at the base of the stinger, sliced through the vein-like tube that delivered venom, then plucked the stinger free. He held it up to the light, noting the hollowed center. My God, he thought. This thing is capable of delivering a huge dose of venom. Probably a good five ounces or more. I wonder what the toxicity rate is?

On the heels of that thought, he noticed that his hands were growing warm.

Al frowned and brought his gloved hands up. They were slick with the creature’s blood and other abdominal fluids, now bubbling and frothing intensely. With rising alarm, Al detected a faint odor beneath the surgical mask as his palms grew hotter. A second later, he felt the first sting of acid burn—like hot grease landing on your bare skin while standing at a stove. Al yelped and quickly tore both gloves off his hands and let them fall to the floor.

“Ahhh!” Al yelled. He backpedaled, crashed into the table behind him again, noting that the skin along the base of his left thumb was turning fiery red. The pain was a burning sensation but it started to fade immediately once the gloves came off. Likewise, the warmth that he’d felt along both hands—palms and the back of his hands and fingers—was starting to fade as well. He rushed over to the water station and washed his hands. Then he splashed water on his face guard, just as a precaution.

Jesus Christ, what the hell?

Al looked at the floor with wide-eyed amazement. The bubbling, frothing of the fluids on the gloves continued, culminating in a cauldron. They were melting.

It’s the venom,
he thought, his breath rising and falling fast.
My God, its venom is so toxic that it’s—

It wasn’t impossible to come across a creature so toxic that having its venom touch the skin would cause a reaction. Certain snake venom had that capability. But to completely melt a pair of latex surgical gloves?

Alfred was overwhelmed. He needed assistance and he needed it ASAP. Stepping away from the shattered remains of the creature on the examination table, Al lifted his face mask, pulled down the surgical mask and picked up the phone on the wall near the locked door. He dialed a series of numbers and waited until the line was picked up on the other end. “Dr. Post here,” he said. “We have a problem.”

Redondo Beach Pier, California

Gary Goodman and John Hydo were playing games in Ted’s Arcade halfway down the pier when Steve Watanabe peeled in. He was out of breath, eyes wide, tan features deathly pale. “Guys, you hear what’s going on at Catalina Island?”