The Gathering Dead (25 page)

“Six, everything all right down there?” Leary asked. “I just heard several shots. It sounds like you’re in a gunfight, over.”

“Six, hit us back with your status, over,” Gartrell broadcast immediately, stomping on McDaniels’ first attempt to reply. McDaniels kept his stance, scanning the roiling mass of dead for any sign of the OMEN trooper. He caught a flash of something in the glare of the chemstick, infrared light reflecting off metal. He had just enough time to make out the outline of an arm protruding from the pile. Gripped in the hand at the end of the arm was an Mk 23 pistol, its muted surface dully reflecting the light. He waited for a moment, his sights trained on the arm as he searched for a face. He found it as one of the zeds shifted to one side, and Sergeant Larrabee’s lifeless eyes met his. McDaniels fired a round through the zed’s face, right below the rim of its helmet. The pistol fell from the outstretched hand, and the corpse sank back into the heaving mass of the dead.

“All, Six has just been engaged by two zeds from OMEN. I think I bagged one, but the other got away. Both used their firearms. Gartrell, you and Rittenour had better be ready for company, things are a lot more fluid now. Looks like OMEN means business, over.”

“Roger that, Six. Odd that they would try and shoot you. If they can remember that stuff, surprised they wouldn’t remember they aren’t supposed to shoot superior officers, over.” It was meant as a half-hearted joke, but McDaniels ignored it.

“I think they want to drop me since I’m interrupting their plan to get to the rest of the group,” he replied. “Looks like they’re willing to sacrifice one meal in order to get into the a la carte line, over.”

“Sounds like OMEN’s operating at a different capacity than the rest of the stenches, Six,” Gartrell said. “I’ll bet Safire could confirm that, but that’s a discussion for a different day. What’s the op now? Are we still a go with the transfer to the garage? Over.”

McDaniels thought about it long and hard for a moment as he watched the dead mound reform. He knew he had only eight more rounds in his current magazine, and after that, he had only eight mags left. Not a hell of a lot. It was time to go.

“We’re on, Gartrell. Once I break station here, the stenches will eventually gain access to the stairs and make their way upstairs, so let’s be damned quick about it, over.”

“That’s a great big roger,” Gartrell said. “I never liked New York all that much before, so getting the hell out of here is music to my ears. Elevator’s on its way up with the key and ropes, over.”

Below, the pile of the dead grew once again with single-minded ferocity, the corpses moaning as they added their bodies to the column of twisting, necrotic flesh. There was no sign of any of the OMEN troopers, but he did catch flashes of battle dress in the rancid heap. Other soldiers from the assembly area, or perhaps from the blockades, had joined the mass of ghouls in their attempt to overrun the building.

“Roger that, Gartrell. I’ve got to hold these things back for a little bit longer, but I’ll be up. Break. Leary, hold the elevator for me unless there’s another incursion. If the twenty-seventh floor is threatened, get the hell out of there, over.”

“Ah, roger that, Six.”

“Will see you in about ten. Six, out.”

McDaniels raised his M4 to his shoulder and squeezed off a round, blasting apart a zed’s skull and sending it tumbling down the pile. He pulled a grenade from its mount, yanked the pin free, and hurled it into the midst of the swarming dead. It exploded, sending a shock wave throughout the stairwell. McDaniels heard a sudden crack, and felt the stairway he stood on shift to the right. With a muted curse, he turned and bolted to the safety of the landing as concrete gave way and rebar twisted. Brass cartridges rained down on the ghouls below as the stairway nosed down into the pit of the dead. The entire stairway followed a moment later, twisting and tumbling as it tore free of the landing and fell with a loud thud, flattening the mound of zombies beneath its weight. A great cloud of dust rose into the air, and McDaniels coughed. Then the landing trembled and shook, and he jumped over the bodies there and ran up the next stairway. He stopped on the sixth floor landing and looked back as the fifth floor landing tilted crazily. It didn’t collapse, but it continued to shake and tremble on overstressed rebar supports. As he watched, the painted concrete cracked and crazed beneath the strain. One of the dead zombies slid across its surface and disappeared into the dark abyss below as cement chips zipped through the air and bounced off the cinderblock walls. Finally, the landing came to a rest, tilted downward. The first few steps on the stairway leading to the sixth floor landing were badly cracked as well. McDaniels figured it wouldn’t take much to get the landing to tear free and tumble down below. If the zeds down there had any capacity left for surprise, they’d likely realize it when the huge slab of concrete fell their way.

There was nothing more to do. McDaniels turned and hurried up the steps, on his way back to the 27th floor.

Surging along at twenty knots, the ride aboard the
Escanaba
was uncomfortable as all hell, for the ship kept taking rollers over the bow. As she steamed into a quartering head sea, the twenty foot waves hit her 270 foot long hull with all the tenacity of a relentless prizefighter seeking to score a knockout. But the
Escanaba
was no lightweight. She pushed through the seas, taking all the punishment they could muster as her white steel bow sliced through each advancing wave, then dove down into the trough on the other side.

Commander Hassle and the rest of the crew on the
Nob
’s bridge grabbed onto anything that would support them so they wouldn’t be knocked sprawling across the deck. As they drew closer to the entry point to New York harbor, called Lower Bay, the sea state began to diminish thanks to the terrain on either side. Ahead and to the left of the
Escanaba
’s bow lay the New Jersey shoreline and Staten Island. To the right was the western portion of Long Island. The land masses were mostly dark, punctuated here and there by the orange blaze of raging fires. Occasionally, the glow of smaller lights
—
headlights perhaps, Hassle thought
—
would break through the shroud of blackness, but the
Nob
was too far to offer any refugees even a glimmer of hope if they happened to catch sight of her running lights. They were on their own.

For her part, the
Escanaba
had the sea lanes to herself. Other ships were in the water, of course, but most of them were dark, unlighted. Many were at anchor; others, like the six hundred foot container ship to the
Nob
’s port, were adrift. Hassle and others looked at the vessel through the FLIR systems mounted on the ship’s mast. Dark figures stumbled across the container ship’s decks, looking toward the
Escanaba
’s lights as she drew past. The figures on the ship’s decks had long ago stopped paying any attention to the driving rain or raging wind that battered their vessel. The container ship belonged to the dead now.

Jesus Christ,
Hassle thought to himself.

Coney Island slowly came into view, its carnival rides forever at an end. The great rollercoaster, the Cyclone, was a skeletal presence in the obsidian night, the remains of some great beast whose passing had gone mostly unnoticed. Hassle did not turn one of the FLIR scanners in that direction, for fear he might see a legion of dead tottering through the remains of the amusement park. He had happy memories of summers spent at Coney Island, and he did not want them violated by images of the dead claiming their new kingdom.

More and more boats became visible through the radar and the FLIR as the
Escanaba
rounded Coney Island and Sea Gate and propelled her way into the waters of the Upper Bay. The Port of New Jersey was dark, desolate, illuminated by only the battery-powered buoys that marked its harbor lanes. Governors Island was similarly nondescript, a lump of darkness against the gray waters as it slid off to the ship’s portside. To starboard, lights still gleamed in Brooklyn, but there were fires as well. Beacons strobed in the water ahead as NYPD launches maneuvered against the weather.
Escanaba
’s radio operator contacted the launches and briefed them on their mission.

The response was terse: “Do what you gotta do and get out.”

“Guess they won’t be helping us out,” said Lieutenant Commander Miles Sullivan, the ship’s executive officer.

Hassle shrugged. There was nothing else to do.

Then, Lower Manhattan lay before them, an inferno of flame and smoke and windblown sparks that flared and glittered before the storm consumed them. The skyline of the city was different; the Woolworth Building as no more, apparently the victim of a collapse. The half-completed Freedom Tower stood in high relief against the glowing backdrop of flame, a testament to dreams unfulfilled. As the
Escanaba
drew nearer, the smell of acrid smoke reached Hassle’s nostrils. Off to port, the Statue of Liberty stood silent witness to the fall of the Greatest City in the World. The crew standing watch on the
Escanaba
’s bridge surveyed the destruction from inside the comparative safety of the pilothouse. No one spoke. There wasn’t much that could be said.

“Stay sharp for surface contacts,” Hassle warned. “No telling what’s in the water now.”

The lookout called then from his position at the bow. “Con, Bow... got people in the water, a
lot
of people!”

“Bow, Con. Do you mean actual people or bodies?” Hassle asked over the intercom.

“Ah... Con, Bow Lookout. A lot of ‘em are moving, so it’s tough to say. No one’s screaming for help, but they try to swim toward us. Don’t really know what to say.”

“All lookouts, Con. Report on bodies in the water,” Hassle ordered. The reports came back immediately. Many bodies were motionless and severely damaged, missing limbs and suffering from what Hassle imagined were severe deboning injuries from the reports. But a good portion of these bodies were still moving. Not swimming, exactly, but reacting to the presence of the
Escanaba
as she pushed past them. Several of them made to climb aboard, but with only a smooth steel hull available, there were no handholds.

Sullivan looked at Hassle, his face composed and calm in the red light that illuminated the bridge. “I’m thinking we might need to issue some weapons to the lookouts, just in case. From everything we’ve heard, we do
not
want one of those... zombie things... to get on board.”

Hassle nodded. “Agreed. Get it done.”

Sullivan picked up the ICS and issued the order for the lookouts to be armed. Hassle reminded the bridge crew to be vigilant for waterborne obstructions, and advised them to not respond to anything that was not a clear signal for help from actual, live human beings. And even as he said this, he found his gaze continually straying to the great city that lay to port. Using light-intensification binoculars, he scanned the ports and shoreline of Manhattan. The East River Drive was packed solid with abandoned vehicles, from the Financial District to as far north as he could see. Several vehicles were on fire, and silhouetted against the flames, the walking dead slogged through the wet night. Hassle watched as zombies standing along Peck Slip took notice of the
Escanaba
’s passage and literally climbed over the pier guardrails and flung themselves into the river, in what he believed could only be a vain attempt to get to the ship. New York City, the Big Apple, was essentially a giant graveyard filled with the walking dead.

This is unbelievable. Just totally, completely unbelievable.
Hassle was a rational, educated man, a skilled sailor and a more-than-just-merely-competent officer. He believed that an open mind and developing a personal flexibility to challenges were the cornerstones of a successful career in the U.S. Coast Guard, but what he saw now simply blew those things away. He and his crew were able to zero in on drug runners and illegal aliens trying to gain entry into the United States, and they had all been recalibrated to serve as one of the most potent lines of defense against terrorism. But nothing in their experience or training could prepare them for this. Nothing.

But he kept his best commander’s face on, and never let his true feelings show. For the sailors and officers aboard the USCG
Escanaba
, he was totally calm, cool, and in control. Under his watch, the ship would prevail. They would succeed in their mission.

There was simply no alternative.

Ahead, great flashes of light strobed across the dark waters of the East River, illuminating everything for miles. Sparking explosions besieged an entire span of the Brooklyn Bridge, which lay only five hundred meters ahead of the
Nob
’s bow. Revealed in the sudden light were dozens of small boats, and floating in the swollen, windswept river, hundred
—
maybe even thousands!
—
of bodies, some of which clumsily pirouetted in the water to regard the explosions with dead eyes. A startled rush went through the bridge crew, and the ICS went wild with shocked reports from the lookouts.

“Helm, slow to eight knots!” Hassle said as he trained his binoculars on the span ahead. He watched as a great section of the Brooklyn Bridge slowly collapsed, great chunks of concrete and steel and asphalt slamming into the water with incredible force. Plumes of water shot up even higher than the bridge itself, showering it with muddy river water.

“Eight knots, aye sir!” the helmsman manning the con repeated. He grabbed the engine throttle levers and pulled them back to the required setting, and the white-hulled
Escanaba
immediately slowed.

“Christ, you think they would have waited until we’d passed!” Petersen said from his station at the radar console. As he spoke, more explosions tore through the night as the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges were also attacked.

“Everyone take it easy!” Hassle said, his voice sharp-edged. “We knew this was going to happen, and we knew the Air Force had orders to bring down the bridges. It sucks that we have to pick our way through the mess, but this is what it is. Now everyone cut the chatter, and get back to doing your jobs!”