Zombie Anthology (16 page)

    
"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 one day. I'm sure."

    
"And you'll just keep searching for it, huh?"

    
"Damn right I will,” Luke laughed. “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. O'Neil spotted the Captain and made his way to Steven. “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 flipped through the stack of reports O'Neil handed him scanning their contents. “Look at the size of them."

    
O'Neil nodded in agreement. “Some of them 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 corrected him. “We've been in tight spots before. We'll get through this one too.” Steven 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 I don't know anything about the two smallest ones. However if the two flanking the large ship are destroyers, they'll be able 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 and punched a button which sat sirens squealing throughout
The Queen
.

    
A state of panic broke out on the ship.
The Queen's
raiders who were also its defenders rushed to their battle stations, Scott among them. 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 assure them everything would be fine while at the same time attempting to deal with frightened parents who showed up demanding their children. Hannah had left her .30-.06 in her quarters but she carried a concealed .38 revolver she'd looted from the ship's armory thanks to Scott in the pocket of her jacket. 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 child die helplessly and swore inwardly that these children under her care would not share his fate.

    
Dr. Gallenger prepared the sickbay for the wounded to start arriving in case the coming battle couldn't be avoided. Luke 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 coming in from the east fired its main guns at
The Queen
.

23

    
The shot from the enemy ship impacted with the water off the Queen's port side sending waves crashing against the side of ship though it didn't strike so close as to do actual damage.
The Queen
lacked any sort of truly long-range weapon to return fire except for her jury-rigged torpedo launchers which at the moment were facing away from the closing 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 even pushing her beyond their limits of endurance. Closing with the two enemy ships for direct combat was a near suicidal option but it was also the only one left available to him if there was to be any hope of
The Queen's
survival.

    
"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 in range of
The Queen's
heaviest guns but from the looks of things, they would be soon. Scott readied the massive weapon in front of him, shoving a belt of ammo into its side, and began to pick a target for when the time came.

    
"Fire one!” O'Neil ordered. A torpedo flared to life, dropping into the water. It raced towards the lead destroyer as O'Neil ordered the remaining torpedo launched in its wake. Moments later, the torpedo struck the destroyer just below the water line with the sound of shredding metal sending waves of fire and water up onto the military vessel's decks. The second torpedo got lucky. There was no better term for what happened. Whatever it collided with in the destroyer did far more damage turning the ship into a blazing wreck drifting on the ocean as secondary explosions tore the vessel apart.

    
Cheers went up on the decks of
The Queen
and on the bridge alike as
The Queen
shifted course again slightly angling towards the remaining enemy ship. The second destroyer's guns fired. This time
The Queen
was hit dead on. The blast ripped a hole in her side killing many of her defenders instantly and causing damage to
The Queen
internally as well.

    
"Damage report!” Steven snapped, knowing
The Queen
would be facing a new problem now and not just the damage to the ship. Those killed by the blast or mortally wounded would soon reanimate, giving the dead soldiers on
The Queen
as surely as if she had been boarded. “No damage to the engines!” O'Neil reported. “The hull breach is being contained. We're not taking on water!"

    
Luke reached the deck of
The Queen
and positioned himself to get a shot at the enemy ship. He extended the black, metal tube like device he was carrying and slashed out a section of power cables on the wall near him hooking the weapon into it. He knew what he was about to do was going to literally cripple
The Queen
in some respects and he certainly wouldn't survive this course of action but the way things were going it was worth the risk. With the power hooked up to the invention he'd spent the last few months refining in his free time he aimed at the tube at the destroyer. As he pulled the trigger a bunch of things happened at the same time; a beam of energy leapt from his weapon striking the destroyer's ammo storage compartment where the shells of the ship's main guns were kept. The energy melted through the destroyer's protective armor as if it weren't there and reduced the enemy ship to a ball of flames which lit up the sea even under the midday rays of the sun. Luke, his weapon, and a large chunk of
The Queen
around where he stood were vaporized from the energy weapon's backwash. People screamed both inside and on the deck of
The Queen
as her engines blew from the strain the weapon had put on her.

    
"What in the Hell was that?” Steven cried.

    
"I don't know!” O'Neil yelled back 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."

    
"Somebody tell Luke, I want those fucking engines back on-line now!” Steven raged.

24

    
Dr. Gallenger got to his feet, or at least tried to. As he attempted to stand up the fractured bone of his left leg tore through his flesh, buckling under his weight, and he hit the floor hard. He felt no pain as he examined the rest of his body and saw the piece of shrapnel protruding from the right side of his chest. 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 irrelevant and snapped his broken leg back into place. He used the materials scattered about the demolished sickbay to fashion a splint for it. 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 newly opened eyes flutter, darting this way and that, as she realized she couldn't move. A huge medical cabinet lay on top of her broken body. Apparently her neck had been snapped as it had fallen on her and bashed her into the floor. Taking pity on her, he picked up a piece of debris and smashed in her skull. “What point was there in even un-life if it brought you nothing but pain?” he mused. Gallenger found the remains of his desk and the .45 he'd kept in its drawer. Feeling suitable 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 was sent sprawling and struck her head against one of the children's lockers in the daycare center. She awoke with blood in her eyes and her skull pounding. As her vision focused, she became aware that she was still alive. She hurt too much to be dead. Jessica, her fellow caretaker of the children, must have taken them and fled for somewhere safer in the ship. Hannah 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 that mattered, not them. Hannah's hand dug inside her jacket and produced her .38. She had no idea how the fight outside was going but she knew Jessica would need help. Jessica, like the old saying said, was not the sharpest tool in the shed. Hannah didn't trust her to see the children through this battle. Hannah pulled herself up and headed out of the daycare, running down the corridors. “Jessica!” she screamed hoping the woman was still in earshot.

    
Hannah rounded the corner of the passageway coming face to face with a dead man dragging his insides behind him on the floor. He lunged at her, grunting. She narrowly sidestepped his attack and shoved him as he went by her. He toppled to the deck and twisted about, already trying to get up and come after her again. She popped off three rounds into his forehead spraying his brains out the back of his head onto the wall. Hannah stood a moment, her breath coming in ragged gasps, as she tried to collect herself and calm down. She could hear
The Queen's
machine guns chattering above so she knew the fight hadn't been lost yet. She took a deep breath calming her frantic breathing and set out in search of Jessica though much more cautiously.

    
The two yachts had swept in quickly managing to survive and mostly evade the fire from
The Queen's
defenders as they closed with her. Both of them came up along her port side, floating close enough for the dead to attempt to scale
The Queen's
hull as they traded small arms fire with those left alive on her decks.
The Queen's
gun emplacements were useless with the yachts so close. They couldn't be angled downward to engage the dead so Scott had abandoned his post spraying the climbing dead men and women with AK-47 instead. One, a middle-aged man covered in burns, lost his hold and plummeted into the water as Scott's rounds peppered the man's back. A creature hauled itself onto
The Queen's
deck beside Scott as Jim's twelve-gauge thundered and sent it careening over the side of the ship. Scott motioned his thanks to Jim then returned his attention to the dead as he loaded a fresh clip into his weapon.

25

    
The struggle for control of
The Queen
raged on. Her entire exterior deck was a war zone and smaller battles filled her corridors. Captain Steven took it all in from his vantage point on the bridge. If there was hope left of making it out of this confrontation, it was fading quickly. “Sir,” O'Neil said trying to draw the Captain's attention away from the carnage below them. “Captain, we can't hold her.
The Queen
is lost. We need to give the order to abandon ship."