Season of Rot (11 page)

“Do you really want to know?” Scott asked,
suddenly forgetting about the food.

Steven nodded.

“I was a professional killer,” Scott said.
The table fell silent, but he continued. “I worked for the
government when I started out, then went freelance. I couldn’t
guess at how many people I put bullets in before the CIA caught me.
When the plague started I was rotting away in a federal prison, and
that’s where the dead found me, alone, unarmed, and locked up
behind bars.

“Obviously, they didn’t kill me. Maybe I was
so starved by then I didn’t have enough meat on my bones to be
worth their trouble. Who knows? So they took me to a new kind of
prison that they had created. It was called a breeding center, a
place where they herded us together like cattle and bred us for
food.”

“Well,” Steven ventured, “I, uh, don’t
suppose it matters now what you did in those days. You’re one of us
now, and I hope you will make the most of this fresh start.” He
turned in his chair to address Hannah. “And what of you?” he
asked.

“I...” Hannah began, and her voice cracked,
“I was a mother.”

21

As the days passed aboard the
Queen
,
Hannah found work in the ship’s daycare. Over the last few months,
the ship had picked up a couple of infants and nearly a dozen
children who either had no parents at all or whose parents held
jobs which occupied much of their time aboard the ship. Hannah
found happiness in her work with the kids. She even got along with
her sole co-worker Jessica, a young woman barely out of her teens,
but Hannah didn’t know how Jessica ever handled the children by
herself. She was a hard worker but lacked the emotional connection
with her wards that Hannah developed instantly.

Jessica, without resentment, let Hannah take
the lead, and the children took to Hannah’s new lessons in crafts
and educational projects with zeal. Hannah, despite herself, began
to let go of her past and embrace her future. The memories of Riley
and Brandon would always be with her, but she felt hope swelling in
her again. These children needed her, and she could offer them so
much more than just busywork to keep them safe and out of the
way.

Scott, on the other hand, was assigned to the
Queen
’s group of raiders and defenders, which was now sorely
diminished. He worked closely with O’Neil, whom he grew to hate
more and more with each passing day. O’Neil took a more military
approach to organization and training, whereas Scott taught the men
“dirty” tricks they needed to know to stay alive, discipline be
damned.

It wasn’t long until Scott met Luke, and the
eccentric genius and the occasionally psychotic former hit man
became fast friends. They’d attended some of the same schools in
the old world and both had done work for the government on Black-Op
projects, though Luke’s involvement was purely from a research and
development standpoint. Scott wasn’t anywhere near Luke’s level,
but he was sharp and he was a fast learner, fast enough to keep up
with Luke when he droned on about his various theories.

As the sun sank beneath the waves, Scott and
Luke relaxed in matching lawn chairs atop the highest point of the
Queen
above the command center. Scott sipped at the glass in
his hand, admiring the potency of the drink Luke had whipped up
this evening. It had the punch of whiskey without the burn.

“What was it like?” Luke inquired.

“What?”

“To kill people for money, man. How did you
cope with it?”

“To be honest, I just never thought about it.
A job’s a job, ya know? Besides, it’s not that much different than
things are today. Everybody has had to kill somebody to stay alive
and keep breathing, whether it was by a bullet through the brain or
watching someone you care about throw away their life so that you
could get away.”

Luke leaned forward and sat up on his chair.
“So what do you think about Captain Steven’s new plan?”

“I don’t think it matters, Luke. We’re all
living on borrowed time. Whether we die out here on the waves or
settle down and wait for the dead to come to us, they will get us
eventually. We lost the war the moment they started thinking like
we do.” Scott sat up and looked over the railing to the water
below. “You’re the resident genius. You tell me: have you ever
figured out what brought the dead back to life?”

Luke shrugged. “Not really. It sure wasn’t
radiation or a virus like something out of those old B movies,
though their bites are infectious just like in those films. Nothing
about the dead makes sense. They shouldn’t be able to move, let
alone reason like they do. Sometimes a body will reanimate with
partial memories of its life before death, and other times it’s
like there’s a whole new entity in the host body. They’re all
hungry for us though, memories or not. It doesn’t matter if they
know your name and who you are—they’ll eat you anyway.”

“So where does that leave you, since science
has failed and can’t explain it?”

Luke’s face flushed. “Science hasn’t failed,
Scott. Just because I don’t have an answer today doesn’t mean there
isn’t a plausible, quantifiable explanation to all this. It just
means I haven’t found it yet. I don’t believe in spirits or
Judgment Day. There is a sane reason for the plague, and I will
find it. I’m sure.”

“And you’ll just keep searching for it,
huh?”

Luke laughed. “Damn right I will. As long as
I have to.”

22

Steven bolted onto the bridge of the ship.
The whole area was a mass of activity. His crew darted about,
double-checking the data they’d just gotten.

“It’s true then?” Steven demanded as O’Neil
approached him.

“I’m afraid so, sir,” O’Neil said grimly.
“There are five vessels closing in on our current location, as if
trying to surround us.”

“Jesus.” Steven scanned through the stack of
reports O’Neil handed him. “Look at the size of them.”

O’Neil nodded. “Some are military in nature
for sure. This one has to be...” O’Neil pointed at a blip on a
nearby radar screen. “We think it’s an aircraft carrier, and the
two flanking it from the east and west are most likely destroyers.
It looks like they’ve finally got us where they want us.”

“Nonsense, Mr. O’Neil,” Steven said. “We’ve
been in tight spots before. We’ll get through this one too.” He
weighed their options in his head before he continued. “Can we
out-maneuver them and make a run for it?”

“We can try. I don’t think the largest one
can match our speed, but if the two flanking the large ship
are
destroyers, they’ll be able to overtake us even at our
top speed.”

“Change course and burn the engines at their
maximum,” Steven ordered. “And in the meantime, sound the alarm. I
want to be ready if we do have a fight on our hands.”

“Aye, sir,” O’Neil replied. He punched a
button and sirens squealed throughout the
Queen
.

A state of panic broke out on the ship. The
raiders, who were also the
Queen’s
defenders, Scott among
them, rushed to their battle stations. People and families ran for
their quarters, locking the heavy doors of their rooms against the
growing terror outside.

The daycare was in chaos. Hannah and Jessica
tried to calm the children and the parents who showed up demanding
their kids. Hannah had left her .30-.06 in her quarters, but she
concealed in her jacket a .38 revolver she’d looted from the ship’s
armory, thanks to Scott. Weapons weren’t permitted in the daycare
center, but right now Hannah was damn glad she’d been breaking the
rules. She’d watched her own son die helplessly and had sworn to
herself that these children would not share his fate.

In the sickbay, Dr. Gallenger prepared for
the wounded to start arriving, in case the coming battle couldn’t
be avoided. Luke, meanwhile, darted through the corridors of the
Queen
, attempting to reach the main decks with a short,
black metal tube gripped tightly in his arms.

O’Neil and Captain Steven watched from the
bridge as the destroyers crossed the horizon and came into view.
The ocean itself seemed to shake as the destroyer from the east
fired its main guns at the
Queen
.

23

The shot from the enemy ship hit the water
off the
Queen
’s portside, sending waves crashing against the
hull, though it didn’t strike close enough to cause actual damage.
The
Queen
lacked any sort of long-range weapon except for
her jury-rigged torpedo launchers, which at the moment were facing
away from the enemy vessels.

Captain Steven knew he had to do something.
The destroyers were too fast to outrun, and at present the
Queen
was a sitting target for their guns. Closing with the
two enemy ships for direct combat was a near suicidal option, but
it was also the only one left.

“Bring us about!” he shouted. “Get us between
them. Maybe they aren’t stupid enough to take the chance of hitting
each other with their main guns!” Steven turned to O’Neil. “As soon
as you get a shot with one of the launchers, take it!”

Scott and the
Queen
’s defenders stood
helplessly at their machinegun emplacements as the
Queen
veered to engage the enemy. The destroyers were still not within
range, but from the looks of things they would be soon. Scott
shoved a belt of ammo into the massive weapon in front of him and
began to pick a target for when the time came.

“Fire one!” O’Neil ordered.

A torpedo, dropped into the water, flared to
life and raced towards the lead destroyer even as O’Neil ordered
the remaining torpedo launched in its wake. Moments later, the
first missile struck the destroyer just below the waterline,
sending waves of fire and ocean spray up onto the decks of the
military vessel. The second torpedo got lucky; it collided with
something inside the destroyer, which turned the entire ship into a
blazing wreck of secondary explosions.

Cheers went up on the bridge and the decks of
the
Queen
as it angled towards the remaining enemy ship,
which fired. This time the
Queen
was hit dead on. The blast
ripped a hole in her side, killing many of her defenders
instantly.

“Damage report!” Steven snapped, knowing full
well that the
Queen
faced a new problem now—and not just the
damage to the ship. Those killed or mortally wounded by the blast
would soon reanimate.

“No damage to the engines!” O’Neil reported.
“The hull breach is being contained. We’re not taking on
water!”

Finally, Luke reached the deck and positioned
himself to get a shot at the enemy ship. He extended the black
metal tube he was carrying and slashed out a section of power
cables on the wall near him to hook into the weapon. He had spent
all of his free time in the last few months refining the invention;
he was fully aware of its capabilities. What he was about to do
would cripple the
Queen
in some respects, and he certainly
wouldn’t survive, but it was worth the risk. He aimed the tube at
the destroyer and pulled the trigger.

A beam of energy leapt from his weapon,
striking the destroyer’s ammo stores for the main guns. The energy
melted through the destroyer’s armor and reduced the ship to a ball
of flames, which lit up the sea even under the midday sun. Luke,
his weapon, and a large chunk of the
Queen
vaporized in the
energy weapon’s backwash. People screamed, both inside and
abovedeck, as the
Queen’s
engines blew from the surge.

“What in the hell was that?” Steven
cried.

“I don’t know!” O’Neil yelled over the chaos
on the bridge. “We’ve lost main power, and the engines are burnt
out. Power is out everywhere on the ship. The backup generators are
keeping the internal comm. system and the emergency lights working,
but that’s about it. We’re dead in the water, sir!”

“Shit!” Steven whirled about to the officer
at the radar station. “What about the other three dead ships?”

“I... I don’t know, sir,” the officer
stammered. “It looked as if the big one was keeping back, maybe
even changing course away from us before the screen went dead. The
two smaller ones were still on an intercept heading. They should be
on us in the next few minutes, tops.”

Steven slammed his fist against the radar
station. “Somebody tell Luke I want those fucking engines back
on-line now!”

24

Dr. Gallenger got to his feet—or tried to. As
he attempted to stand up, the fractured bone of his left leg tore
through his flesh, and he hit the floor hard. He felt no pain as he
examined the rest of his body, saw the piece of shrapnel protruding
from his right lung. He had to get up. He could sense that his
brethren would be here soon, and he was hungry. Hungrier than he’d
ever been.

He deemed the shrapnel to be irrelevant, but
snapped his broken leg back into place and used the materials
scattered about the sickbay to fashion a splint. Then he did get
up. He hobbled across the room to check on Nurse Jones and found
her lying in a pool of blood.

Tilting his head like an animal would as he
observed her, he watched her eyes flutter open, then dart this way
and that as she realized she couldn’t move. A huge medical cabinet
had fallen on her and had broken her neck.

Taking pity on her, Gallenger picked up a
piece of debris and smashed in her skull.

He found the remains of his desk and the .45
he’d kept in the drawer. Feeling suitably armed, he left the
sickbay. Soon he would taste flesh for the first time.

#

Everyone on the
Queen
had been tossed
about as the destroyer’s shell had hammered into its hull. Hannah
struck her head against one of the children’s lockers in the
daycare center. As her vision focused through the blood in her
eyes, she became aware that she was still alive. She hurt too much
to be dead. Her head especially. She also realized she was alone.
She felt a twinge of anger at Jessica for leaving her for dead, but
then realized she would’ve done the same. It was the kids who
mattered, not them, and Jessica had probably taken them somewhere
safer in the ship.