The Fall of Society (Book 2): The Fight of Society (8 page)

            Ardent and Bear, along with a dozen or so others, made it down to the flight deck via ladders, and they dropped right into an ongoing fight with the dead. They were everywhere on the flight deck. All of them had to immediately defend themselves.

            “We have to get to the combat direction center,” Ardent said.

            “Yes, sir, but first may I suggest that we get to an armory for some heavier firepower before we proceed to the CDC,” Bear said as he fired at a corpse.

            “Agreed,” Ardent answered.

            They headed toward a catwalk at the edge of the deck and had to fight their way to get there. Some sailors from the security force with assault rifles joined them and covered their descent into the catwalk. Ardent knew one of them.

            “Commander Phillips, good to see you,” Ardent said.

            “Sir, good to be alive!” he answered and Ardent saw the bite and scratch marks on his arms and legs.

            “Where’s the rest of your unit, Commander?”

            “Unaccounted for or dead, sir.”

            “Glad you’re still here.”

            “For the time being, sir,” he answered with a stone face.

            “We’re going to the closest armory and then the CDC.”

            “Yes, sir, we’ll cover you.”

            They headed into the ship as the security force covered them, but before he entered the hatch—Ardent stopped and looked ahead—he saw the burning city of San Diego, it was only ten miles away and closing. The ship wasn’t stopping because no one was at the helm. He headed in and once they were all inside, the security force sailors followed and secured the hatch. The dead were right on their tail and threw themselves on the hatch.

            Inside the ship was the same as outside on the flight deck—there was gunfire, people screaming, and the roars of the dead, all of it echoing through the corridors of the ship. It wasn’t in their immediate vicinity, but it wasn’t very far away, either. They headed down the corridor toward the bow of the ship, away from the stern, where it sounded like most of the battle noise was coming from, but it was hard to tell. The sailors used extreme caution and checked everything ahead of them. They moved slowly, but methodically. After trekking through a few sections, they reached a weapons armory. They carefully checked inside from the doorway. Once cleared, they all entered and secured the hatch tight.

            The armory had already been ransacked, many drawers and ammunition crates were opened, their contents either gone or nearly depleted. Many of the long guns and small arms were gone, but enough remained to arm this small group of wayward men and two women, one of which was bitten. They armed themselves with what little was left, restocked their empty pistol magazines, and then took any assault weapons that were available. Bear grabbed a pump-action shotgun and Ardent found himself a compact sub-machine gun.

            “In case any of you don’t know this, to put these things down permanently, you have to shoot them in the head,” Ardent said as he loaded magazines.

            “We know, sir,” Commander Phillips answered.

            “We have to get to the combat direction center and then to secondary control to stop the ship. We’re heading straight for San Diego. If she beaches, we’ll never get her out.”

            “Stopping the ship should be priority one, sir,” Phillips said. “And secondary control is aft, where most of those things are.”

            “We have to get there or the engine room to stop the ship,” Ardent said.

            “Secondary control is a suicide mission as it is, but the engine room is out of the question. We’d never make it there, sir,” Phillips told him.

            “Then we go to secondary control, Commander,” Ardent said.

            “No, sir. My team and I will go to secondary control. You and the others get to the CDC.”

            Ardent and Bear didn’t realize that most of the ones that were bitten or scratched by the dead were grouped together with Phillips. They knew their fate was sealed. Phillips addressed the ones bitten that weren’t standing with him.

            “Those of you that are bitten, you know what it means, just as I do. We need to stop the ship from beaching, at any cost. Are you with us or do you wanna die alone?”

            The others that were wounded from the infected considered his words and then, one by one, they joined his group. They were nine in total.

            “Sir, we’ll get to secondary control and stop the ship. You and the others should go to the CDC and stop this before we lose the ship altogether,” Phillips said to Ardent.

            Ardent was visibly moved by the gesture of his crew, but it was momentary as he had to maintain the appearance of a captain, “Very well, Commander. God speed.”

            “Thank you, sir. Same to you.”

            “Okay, sailors of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, let’s move out!” Phillips ordered.

            “Commander?” Ardent said to Phillips. “What you’re doing, what all of you are doing… it won’t be forgotten.”

            “Thank you, sir,” he said and led his group away.

            “Good luck,” Bear said solemnly.

            As Phillips headed to a back hatchway to exit, someone ran up to the door on the other side, shouting and pounded on it to get in. The man screamed as the dead attacked him. They could definitely hear him through the thick steel hatch. Phillips and his men prepared to open the hatch and when they did—they saw four stenches devouring a sailor as he fought back with sprays of his blood covering the corridor. Phillips and two others fired and killed the undead. The sailor remained on his back in a pool of his own blood and excrement from his ripped innards.

            Phillips finished him off.

            The group moved on cautiously through the dark bowels of the ship until they disappeared toward what they could hear ahead—the rampaging dead, the living that were either dying or fighting, and gunshots echoing everywhere—and it was the former that took precedence.

            Bear closed the hatch on them.

            Now they were only six.

            “Is everyone ready?” Bear asked the sailors with them.

            They acknowledged that they were.

            “Sir, ready when you are,” Bear said to Ardent.

            Ardent looked at the sailors with them. They were so young; too young to be going through this, but this was war—the death of the young and the loss of innocence. He looked at the female sailor with them. She was scared out of her mind and the assault rifle she held was almost as big as she was. Even though she wasn’t black, something about her face reminded Ardent of his wife when they first met. Her pure beauty shined that on him.

            He hated remembering that right now—not now—he needed his edge if he was going to save what was left of his crew and his ship. He needed to be sharper than ever before in his life, and his crew needed to see him strong. It would help their survival.

            “Hand me your weapon, Ensign,” Ardent said to the female.

            “Yes, sir,” she answered and handed it over.

            Ardent gave her his smaller machine gun, “Take this one, it’s easier to handle.”

            “Thank you, sir.”

            “Okay, listen up,” Ardent told them. “Remember, shoot them in the head and only the head, anything else and it’s your life. Don’t fire fully automatic, single fire only. Make every shot count. Are we clear?”

            “Yes, sir!” they all confirmed.

            “Commander Reyes, bring up the rear.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Let’s move,” Ardent said.

            They headed for another hatch on the other side of the armory. They listened, heard nothing, so they opened it cautiously. The corridors were empty and they proceeded toward the bow of the aircraft carrier…

• • •

            Commander Phillips’ group eased down the quiet corridors of the lower decks; they were single file and moved a section at a time after they cleared the path ahead. Phillips led the team of nine and at the rear was a young male sailor. He didn’t look good; he was sweating too much and appeared disoriented. The female sailor in front of him didn’t notice. He fell behind as he became more ill, which worsened with every passing moment, and with each heavy step. Until his milky eyes rolled in their sockets and he dropped to his knees, the girl in front of him didn’t hear and she kept going. The man dropped his head and raised his weapon in the air out of some kind of strange reflex, it arced slowly down until the tip of the barrel contacted the deck and stopped with a soft
clang
.

            The female sailor heard that and looked back.

            “Hold up,” she said to the others.

            She aimed her weapon at him and slowly stepped closer.

            “Hey, you okay?” she whispered.

            There was no response.

            “Heyyy?” she whispered more intensely.

            No response and she took aim at his head.

            “Shoot him,” Phillips ordered.

            Without warning it sprang to living death and howled as a rabid animal. Before the female could fire, it squeezed the trigger of the weapon that it still had in its hand. A dozen blind-fired rounds erupted and ricocheted everywhere. The first bullet bounced off the deck and struck the female’s chest, killing her instantly. The rest hit three other sailors. The thunderous noise alerted the undead in the vicinity and they rushed to the area. Before Phillips and the remaining sailors could regroup . . . they were swarmed . . . their was mission over.

            A failure resulting in blood and torn flesh.

            The area Ardent and his group were in was presently clear of any infected or anyone, for that matter, but up ahead of them they heard something—muffled echoes that gradually became clear—it was a gun battle. They became apprehensive as they moved closer to it and then the epicenter revealed itself with a bang. Ardent and Bear came around a corner and they saw a dozen or so security force sailors in a moving gun battle with an aggressive horde of dead cannibals. The security force retreated as they fired at the stenches; the battle stretched across five or six corridors and compartments. The fighting was fierce; it was more of a point-blank fight because there were so many of the dead
crammed i
n the corridors and bulging through the compartments to get at the sailors. They were doing their best to fend them off. The sailors were exhausted and the dead had wounded some, but they kept on fighting—there was no other choice. They had assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, and some only had pipes, or axes.

            It was a desperate situation.

            Ardent directed his sailors to join the fight, “You two, cover the left side! You and you, cover the right! The rest stay with me!”

            They did as instructed, scared shitless, but they joined the fight. The female sailor rushed to a position with three other security force men. They didn’t notice a slow moving stench coming at them from the side.

            “Look out!” she shouted.

            They didn’t hear her and she took aim, carefully squeezed the trigger and fired a single round—grazed its ear, but didn’t kill it. She extended the small buttstock on her weapon and pulled it tight to her shoulder. She aimed carefully and fired again—hitting it in the eye and it dropped dead at the feet of an unaware sailor.

            “Fuck!” he said when the corpse hit his feet—he saw the female that fired. “Thanks!”

            They had to retreat more, the flow of the dead unrelenting, and it appeared that the largest horde on the ship was before them.

            “Back! Move back!” a security force sailor shouted.

            They withdrew in unison, firing their weapons with each backward step.

            Ardent was with the team leader of this group. “Commander Jansen, any word on the CDC?”

            “The CDC is gone, Captain!” he answered as he fired his weapon.

            “How much of the security force is left?”

            “As far as I know, sir, we’re all that remains!” he shouted as he quickly reloaded his weapon. “This goddamn infection has spread throughout most of the ship, sir!”

            Ardent didn’t want to accept the obvious, “Commander, we need to find as many uninfected crewmen as we can, regroup, and take control of this situation.”

            “Captain, this is already out of control!”

            “I’ll be the judge of that, Commander.”

            “Sir, with all due respect, the ship is lost! You need to make the call and save what little of the crew is left!” he said and turned away from the battle to look him in the eyes, and Ardent saw the long, bloody scratch marks gouged down the side of his face; he was infected.

            Ardent realized the truth of the situation—

            He’d lost control of his ship.

            He’d lost the Ronald Reagan.

            Now his only purpose onboard was to save as many of his crew as he could.

            “Thank you, Commander.”

            “Sir,” he said and continued to fight.

            A few feet away, several of the dead tackled a sailor who moved too slowly. He tried to shoot them all as they clawed into his flesh. He screamed in agony and another sailor put him out of his misery.

            “Move back!” Ardent shouted.

            More of the dead appeared and the battling sailors were overwhelmed, and the ghouls took down another one, gutting him in seconds. As Bear fired from a doorway, he recognized some containers in the storage room he was in. He grabbed one of the large bottles; it looked like some kind of chemical container, and threw it down the corridor into the cannibals. He took aim with his shotgun and fired, the buckshot hit the jug and it exploded. Napalm-like tentacles of fire burst out and set many of the corpses on fire, they ran in every direction to get away from the flames. Besides shooting them in the sweet spot, fire always worked. It took a little longer, but it did the job. The ones ablaze ran into walls and each other, screeching with horrid howls that stretched out inhumanly as they burned.