Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

Webb could still hear the old man's infuriating Rhode Island accent, so folksy and misleading: We're gonna have to let 'em below soona or later. Might as well be soona.

He should have killed the man himself, that first night, but like everyone else, Webb was in shock, clinging for dear life to obsolete notions of military discipline. Focusing on the task at hand. Helping fish those two injured Marines out of the water and carrying them below, where they were laid out on the wardroom table. He thought they were more stunned than anything, having been knocked overboard when Cowper crashed a huge truck into the brow, plunging the whole gangway into the water. But when Corpsman Lennox opened their clothes to check their vitals, it was instantly clear that something was wrong. This man's not breathing, Doc said urgently, and began administering CPR. Those were the last words Webb ever heard out of Pete Lennox. Then the shooting began topside, and all available hands were ordered to assist up there.

The sight that greeted him on deck was something beyond his wildest nightmares:

There was a riot. Not on the boat itself, but just above it on the wharf. A thousand murderous hooligans fighting, choking, whacking at each other with hammers. Hundreds of teenage boys were fleeing the melee, swarming over the edge of the quay and dropping from the pier to the dock below, where armed Navy crewmen were helping them cross a plank to the boat's stern. Helping them! Several officers appeared to be shooting into the crowd, and it took Webb a second to realize there were Xombies in the mix.

Holy God, he thought, a jet of ice water freezing his guts. There they are.

They were the first Xombies he or any of the crew had ever seen, having been sheltered from the plague in their windowless steel cocoon all these weeks. It was a shock actually to be in the presence of the blue devils they had heard so much about: unstoppable, ghoulish berserkers, the women worse than the men. He had to admire the way the rebellious shipyard workers were fending them off with nothing more than hammers and crowbars, holding the line even as skull-cracked creatures bounced back for more. The crew's bullets were not much better-Webb overheard one frustrated officer, popping a spent clip, mutter, Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down.

What the hell's going on up here? he demanded of the OOD, Tim Shaye.

Captain's orders! We're to assist in boarding the refugees! The man was sweating and half-crazed.

Are you kidding me? Webb couldn't believe Coombs could be so stupid as to give in to these people's extortion. What are we supposed to do with them? They're not coming below!

I don't know, you'll have to ask the skipper. Shaye's radio squawked the order to cast off. Excuse me, I have to tend the lines.

Incredibly, the boat managed to get under way and clear of the submarine pen without losing a single crewman. This miracle was accomplished by Webb's simple expedient of ordering the crew below and shutting the hatch, letting the massed refugees fend for themselves topside. No telling how many of them were lost before the last Xombie was finally expelled, but of the hundreds remaining, only a handful were adults. The rest were shell-shocked teenage boys… and one girl. Everyone, above and below, thought the worst was over.

That was when the real trouble began.

Webb was in Navigation, conferring with Rich Kranuski and Artie Gunderson about the best offshore anchorage, when the general alarm sounded.

Armed detail to the mess! someone shouted over the 1MC. Xombies on board!

What now? Gunderson groaned, and was suddenly knocked out of his seat by a hurtling blue body. It was the machinist's mate, Donald Selby, all wild hair and grinning bared teeth. Tackling Artie against the console, Selby forced his gaping wet maw on him, covering the other man's mouth and bending his neck so far backward it cracked, then in one grotesque slurp seemed to suck the very life from Gunderson's wilting corpse.

As Webb and Kranusky fought to pull the men apart, Alton saw Doc Lennox attacking Chip Stanaman in the control center. Chip's family had welcomed Webb into their home one Christmas when he was on break from nuclear power school, and still sent him cards every year with pictures of the kids. Fuck! Webb bellowed, unable to break Selby's grip-Gunderson already looked as dead and purple-faced as his attacker, eyes bloodshot and hugely dilated. Webb was on the verge of losing it. He was not a tremendously social guy, but these were his poker buddies, his friends, the only family he knew, and he was failing them.

Forget him! Kranuski barked. Damage control's not reporting any trouble amidships-we can still contain it right here! I need you to guard that hatch and make sure nothing gets aft! As Webb obeyed, Rich jumped for the emergency intercom, and said, Attention all hands. This is the XO: Evacuate CCSM and secure forward bulkhead. Repeat: All decks, secure forward bulkhead.

Things abruptly settled; the eye of the storm. The command section, which had been a bedlam of shouts and violent scuffles, was now silent. As Kranuski finished what he was doing and leaped for the aft hatch, Gunderson and Selby jerked upright like two fright puppets, lunging for him. It was close. With an assist from Webb, Rich cleared the heavy watertight door just as several more demonic faces came bounding up the companionway at his heels.

The hatch clanged shut with the finality of a tomb.

Game over, Alton Webb thought. If the boat's entire command-and-control section was infested with these things, and at least a dozen vital crewmen were down, including the captain, then they were lost. They had already been desperately shorthanded, with barely a third their normal crew complement; now they not only had to rig for auxiliary control and stabilize the boat but fight Xombies in the bargain. It was physically impossible.

Executive Officer Kranuski was not ready to give up. He had assumed the mantle of acting captain and was busily fielding situation reports. For want of anything better to do, Webb went along with it, pretending that Kranuski knew what he was doing even though the man had never commanded a sub in his life. At least his initial hunch had been right: Just about everything aft of the forward bulkhead appeared to be clear of Xombies. This was confirmed by the two other bridge officers who survived, Lieutenants Dan Robles and Phil Tran, who had already posted a lookout topside and transferred helm control to the aft maneuvering panel. But without some further miracle, they were just treading water until the ebb tide stranded them in the mud. Without proper soundings, they couldn't even drop anchor; its chain would swing them around the rocks and shoals like an immense wrecking ball.

It was Robles who made the suggestion, What about Fred Cowper?

What about him?

We have to recruit him, and anybody else he's got up there who can help.

That asshole's the cause of all this!

He's also got more experience than anybody else on board.

That's what makes him so dangerous! Forget it-we have enough on our hands without entrusting the boat to a guy who just threatened to sink it.

Okay, he's a ruthless old bastard, but we can probably trust him to pull his own fat out of the fire. You can always hang him later. Right now we need every available hand.

But what about that girl he's got with him?

You can hang her, too.

"Aim for that dock there," Sal said, consulting his printed-out map.

"What do you think we're doing?" Kyle Hancock said. "It's the current; it's wicked."

"Well, paddle harder-it's going to take us underneath the hurricane barrier."

"No shit."

"Paddle! Paddle!"

The paddlers paddled, putting their shoulders into it, trying to find a rhythm. Sal watched the great, gray barrier loom above them, its open gates like massive steel jaws and the river beyond a yawning gullet, eager to swallow them whole. It was so shallow in there at low tide that Xombies could wade right up and grab them at will. "All together!" he shouted. "Stroke, stroke, stroke…"