The Fall of Society (Book 2): The Fight of Society (7 page)

            Groups of the dead converged on many as they swarmed over them like vultures, people were torn completely apart, others were just maimed and left to die as the dead moved on to other prey. Pools and splatters of flesh and blood were everywhere, dying people were dragging themselves in large smears of their own entrails to get away, but they were easy prey as they were attacked again by other ghouls. The ones that were bit near their hearts and brains transformed the quickest, within minutes after they bled out and died.

            The horde was increasing in size and it seemed that nothing could stop them.

            And they continued to spread throughout the ship…

            Ardent watched his aircraft land on the carrier deck when one of his officers answered a call, he listened incredulously, “What? Slow down!” the officer turned to Ardent and put the call on speaker. The speaker clicked on and what they heard was chaos—people screaming in terror, others in anger from fighting, gunshots ticking off every other second, and the sailor that placed the call was in utter panic, fear as he shouted into the phone—

            “This is hangar two, the infected are in here!”

            “Calm down, sailor,” Ardent said, “what’s happening down there?”

            “Didn’t you hear me, goddamnit! The infected are here, dozens of them!”

            “Is the security force dealing with them?” Ardent asked.

            “Security force? They’re all dead, sir!” the sailor shouted and then grunted as he was attacked. Static chirped over the line, and then they heard the inhuman growls of the dead and the sailor as he screamed in horrible pain.

            “Sound General Quarters and Security Alert!” Ardent ordered. “Get the security force down there now! Full tactical gear!”

            “Yes, sir!” an officer shouted.

            An alarm wailed throughout the ship and everyone was on alert as they rushed to their stations to prepare for battle.

            Ardent picked up a handset, “Give me 1MC.”

            A crewmember activated a communications circuit, “Go ahead, sir.”

            Ardent’s voice filled all the speakers on the ship, “This is the captain, we have an intruder alert of possible infected people in hangar bay two, security is on their way to deal with the situation. All crewmembers are to arm themselves and standby,” Ardent put the handset down and looked at his bridge crew. “That includes the bridge, arm yourselves.”

            Bear opened a weapons locker and handed out sidearms to all the bridge crew, they put their gun belts on and loaded their weapons.

            “What’s the engine room fire sit-rep?” Ardent asked.

            “Sir, we haven’t heard from the fire crew or anyone in the engine room,” Bear said.

            Bear saw the implications of that on Ardent’s face.

            “Send a security force detail down there as well,” Ardent ordered.

            “Right away, sir,” Bear said.

            Crewmembers armed themselves everywhere on the ship and prepared to do battle. Security force members were good to go, fully dressed in tactical body armor, with rifles and shotguns in hand. They marched methodically toward hangar bay two and the engine room, and they had no inkling about what they were about to face…

            “I want department heads to check in every ten minutes,” Ardent ordered.

            “Yes, sir,” an officer answered.

            Communication crewmembers began calling various departments of the ship.

            “We need to contain this quickly,” Ardent said to Bear.

            “Aye, sir.”

            “Sir!” a sailor addressed Ardent.”

            “What is it?”

            “Sir, many of the aft departments aren’t responding.”

            “Warn the security force of the situation,” Ardent ordered.

            In the sections forward of the engine room, even though the alarm still wailed and the strobe lights flickered like miniature explosions, the corridors seemed quiet, an eerie quiet devoid of any human presence. Air was pushing through the ship like the building force of a hurricane. The wind howled through the steel caves of the place, producing a sound as if it were the pulse of the ship, and it grew weak. Security force sailors appeared and moved through the corridors as one large snake, in unison—following their training in close quarter combat. At the head was the combat leader, who led his men with confidence as his disciplined eyes guided his weapon to what waited ahead, the powerful flashlight attached to his rifle flooding the path.

            The leader suddenly gave a signal to stop and the team ceased movement and waited in place with their eyes and flashlights checking every corner. The team leader listened to the radio earpiece in his ear. “Copy that,” he acknowledged and then he addressed his men, “Listen up, I’ve been informed by the bridge that they’ve lost contact with a number of departments aft. Keep your eyes and ears open, check every corner, no mistakes.”

            The men signaled that they understood and the leader prepared to move on again, but he stopped when he heard something coming ahead of them. He readied his weapon.

            “Look alive,” he said in a low voice.

            They looked down the corridor and waited. A moment later, they heard what sounded like muffled shouting, but they couldn’t hear it clearly because of the echo effect bouncing through the steel corridors. Suddenly, the source revealed itself—dozens of sailors ran past the security force. The team leader almost fired, but held his trigger when he realized the runners were normal sailors and not infected beasts. The fleeing men were terrified, more than a few of them were wounded with bite and scratch marks.

            “What’s going on?” the leader shouted, but no one answered as they ran by.

            The team leader grabbed one sailor and stopped him, this man had long scratch marks down his face, and his eye was torn and bloody.

            “What the hell is going on, man?” the leader demanded.

            “They’re coming, damnit! Let me go!” the sailor yelled terrified and tore away from him.

            “How many?” he asked, but got no reply.

            The last of them were gone and the security team was alone again. The eerie silence came back over them as they waited. Some were visibly nervous as they held their weapons tightly, sweat formed on their foreheads, their lips were tight lines, and their knuckles turned bright white from gripping their weapons so hard. Their eyes darted back and forth, scanning over every dark corner ahead of them, but there was nothing to see, only the shadows from the strobe lights and the constant alarm.

            And then they heard something—

            A strange echo wrapped around them. The team leader wasn’t sure as the stretched sound faded away and was replaced by another audible puzzle—squeals that twisted and thinned out quickly in their ears. They forgot about what they heard when they
felt
something. A low rumbling at their feet, which grew in intensity until they could hear what approached. A second later, it burst into their faces like a flashflood—

            A rout of the undead came around a corner straight at them, hundreds of corpses sprinted in a mad dash, the security team had no time to retreat.

            “Oh my God,” the team leader murmured.

            “Fuck!” a sailor behind him shouted in horror.

            All the sailors fired immediately, fully automatic gunfire screamed out for a moment with bullets hitting the undead across their dead bodies with little to no headshots. The horde collided with them in a violent crush. Many of the security force were knocked over with such force that their feet flew over their heads; they were taken down and ripped open before they even hit the deck. The men continued to fire their weapons blindly, hitting other team members in the process; it was a flash mob of death. The entire team of twenty-four men was gone and the horde continued on its rampage.

            On the flight deck of the ship, planes were still in the process of landing; one jet touched down and was moved out of the way for the next one in approach. The next jet glided down perfectly to the rear of the carrier and hit the flight deck spot-on. Its tires screeched in a quick burst of burned rubber and then the tailhook on the rear of the plane snagged an arresting wire that trapped the F/A-18 fighter to an abrupt halt. A successful landing.

            The flight deck crew rushed over to get the fighter out of the way for the next landing and as they were doing that, none of them noticed as fifty of the undead appeared out of a hatchway at the rear of the deck and attacked anyone they could reach. Some of the dead spotted the pilot in the fighter and went after him. They tried to climb on the wings and clawed at the fuselage just under the cockpit to reach the lone pilot. More appeared and surrounded the jet and the pilot went into a panic.

            He throttled his engine up and burned a few of the dead in the jet’s wake, they squealed as they were incinerated. More came for him so the pilot decided to take off. He increased power and the jet moved forward, but he didn’t realize that the flight crew hadn’t unhooked the landing cable from the rear of his jet. The momentum of the fighter jet suddenly jerked to a halt as the cable snapped taut and many of the dead clinging onto the plane were thrown off. The pilot increased power to break free and the cable stretched, but wouldn’t break. The dead climbed back onto the cockpit and banged on it. The scared pilot pushed the throttle to maximum and the aircraft jerked left and right as it pulled against the cable’s resistance.

            “Get the security force out there now and tell that pilot to throttle down!” Ardent ordered.

            But it was too late—the cable finally broke and the jet careened out of control and collided with a row of aircraft parked along the bridge tower. The pilot screamed as the nose of his jet hit the wings of two other planes, fuel tanks ruptured and a spark set off an explosion. The pilot was killed instantly, along with a couple dozen of the stenches. Flames smeared the bottom of the bridge windows and black smoke obscured their view of the deck.

            “Goddamnit!” Bear said.

            “This is getting out of hand,” Ardent said quietly to Bear.

            “Sir,” a radio operator said to Ardent, “I can’t reach the security force.”

            “Turn us around, I want to bring us closer to shore,” Ardent said.

            “Helmsman, turn the boat around, get us toward land,” Bear ordered.

            “Yes, sir!” he answered.

            The Ronald Reagan turned back toward San Diego, which was about twenty miles away. The massive carrier moved in a wide half circle, trailing a bright white and light blue wake. Loud alarms reporting their dire situation.

            Ardent grabbed a handset, “Give me 1MC.”

            “Go ahead, sir,” a sailor said.

            “Attention. This is the captain. We have an intruder alert, infected are aboard the ship, keep all hatchways closed and use extreme caution if you see any infected people. Make sure to shoot them in the head to put them down permanently. Captain out.”

            As Ardent’s voice echoed through the ship—the dead were almost in every part of the carrier—attacking anyone they came across. Multiple gun battles were breaking out all over, on every deck and compartment. The infrastructure of the ship was coming undone and the bridge didn’t know it.

            Fire crews did their best to extinguish the burning aircraft on the flight deck, but they were also fighting off the dead. The fire reached another plane and it exploded just under the bridge. The plane had a couple of missiles on it and a moment later—they exploded as well—a blast wave rocked the control decks and blew out windows, flames shot inside, eager to burn anything or anyone. Caustic smoke filled the bridge and deprived everyone of air.

            “Evacuate the tower!” Ardent shouted.

            They began to leave the bridge through the thick blinding smoke and when some of the sailors reached one of the doors—a few of the dead rushed in and attacked them—sailors shouted in pain as the corpses tore into them.

            “They’re here!” a sailor yelled as one bit into his arm.

            The corpses rushed in and caught them by surprise; many weren’t able to draw their weapons before being bit. Ardent and Bear fired on the dead that they could see in the smoke, which grew in thickness from the fire that screamed through the broken windows. More of the dead were coming; they could hear them ascending the stairs.

            “This way!” Ardent yelled to his men.

            He led them to another door for escape and they stood by to guide the men out. They noticed the ones that had been bitten and they glanced at one another because they knew what it meant. Ardent and Bear fired to cover the last of the sailors that were retreating from the attacking dead. Ardent couldn’t believe how many of his crew had been turned into those things—he recognized many, almost all of the things that were attacking them—some were civilians, so he knew they had reached or it had started in hangar bay two. He also knew it probably meant over four hundred of the civilians had been attacked, and that meant over four hundred of those things could be loose on his ship. Ardent knew the infection spread fast, but this was faster than he had ever imagined.

            This was the moment that Ardent realized he could lose the Ronald Reagan…

            If he hadn’t already…?

            His men made it to the door, except for one. As this sailor retreated and fired his weapon, the mob tackled him to the floor. His pistol went empty and, as the dead ripped him open, he looked at Ardent as he screamed in utter pain.

            “Captain, help me!”

            He had no choice; Ardent shot the boy in the head. The dead were too busy to notice the single gunshot, but then they saw Ardent and Bear. They sprang for them, but Bear slammed the door and locked it as the dead pounded for exit. They were outside on the walkway, called Vulture’s Row. Other sailors were above them in primary flight control, known as Pri-Fly, and they were exiting as well, climbing down ladders to get away from the fire and the dead. Everyone scrambled to get out of there.