John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Need a Break

“Yeah, Marion grabbed it when you went running. Did you see what she did to Markus’ face?” Ethan said as he scraped coagulated gore off his boots.

“What the hell were you doing poking around my ship Zimanski; you cost the life of one person, and endangered countless others…”

“Its SA-manski sir, the Z is silent.” I interrupted his cliché speech. I’m sorry, but I can’t stand clichés when zombies are involved.

“Dammit man, those zombies were for Dr. Morano. Do you have any idea what she’ll do to me if I don’t deliver her specimens?” said Commander Owen angrily.

“Yes sir, I’ve heard stories about her, I will find you some more live zombies.”

“They can’t be just any zombies. They have to be long dead. Something about the closer she can get to patient zero the better her chances of synthesizing a cure.”

“I will take care of it, I owe you one.” I said even though I had no idea how I would wrangle a group of ‘old’ zombies, while still carrying out my mission. I pushed that thought to the back burner.

After I was dismissed I decided to mess around on the internet. It was still a few hours until we would be close enough to Baltimore to begin the mission.

I pulled out my laptop to check my emails. Damn, another one from Mom. It was filled with the usual stuff; my baby sister was dating another soldier, the family was trying to find a way to get her medically disqualified from military service. The army was still more or less all volunteer, but there was definitely a lot of pressure to join up. My sister cannot handle pressure. That should be enough to medically disqualify her; I guess that’s why she is seeing a shrink. Dad lost more weight; I don’t know if that’s good or bad at this point, my younger brother is trying to become an officer in the chair force. Probably the best place for him if he intends to serve. I doubt he had developed the right stuff.

I replied to the email, “We’re still alive.” That’s all I ever had the patience to write. I made a mental note to inform Ethan and William of the news from home.

The one good thing about the end of the world is there isn’t any spam any more, well I should say there aren’t any spam emails anymore. All the Nigerian princes must have been killed, and girls don’t really care how long your penis is when you’re one of the last men on earth.

That said there is still spam. Lots of spam, in fact I bet the company that makes spam is making a killing. The army recently re-released C-Rations. Apparently MREs are too difficult to manufacture, so C-rats are making a comeback. Yuck. I used to like spam too, but after a month of eating it day-in and day-out it started getting old. We always ended up with new C-rats instead of leftover MREs. That was the only new thing we ever seemed to be issued.

Next I did something I had not done in a very long time. I went on the missing person’s database and began filling in information in the various fields.

Sex—female

Race—Caucasian

Hair—blond

Eyes—green

Age—20-25

Last known location—Austin TX

Identifying marks—scar on bridge of nose

I had no picture of her anymore so I hoped my memory served me correctly. I started scrolling through the mug shots of dead zombies. It was disgusting, and I hated myself for doing this again, it had been months since I had last searched.

Sometimes soldiers had time after a firefight to take pictures and upload them here. Sometimes you saw who you were looking for so you didn’t have to hold on to hope anymore. I could never find her.

I was about a hundred pages into my missing person’s search when I heard a series of splashes. I ran up on deck. The ship was passing under the Francis Scott Key Bridge which spans the Patapsco River near where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. It is almost directly above where Francis Scott Key watched the first battle for Fort McHenry and wrote the Star Spangled Banner. I had not seen the bridge in two years.

On our port side, falling astern was Fort Carroll, the island fort designed by Robert E. Lee before the Civil War. On our starboard side was Sparrows Point, site of the old Bethlehem Steel Mill. It was one of the places we would be inspecting. During World War II more liberty ships had been built there than anywhere else in the world. Hopefully it could be used for that again.

Another splash stirred me from my reminiscing. I looked up; the bow of the ship was just passing under the shadow of the bridge. The bridge was covered with the undead, looking down at the first fresh meat they had probably seen in years. Some were jumping, despite their usual aversion to water. Most hit the water harmlessly, but a few hit the deck. They landed with a bone crunching splat of congealed black goo all over the forward portion of the deck.

Standing at the very bow of the ship a sailor stood repeatedly dropping a weighted piece of line into the water. He was sounding the channel, making sure it was deep enough for us to pass through.

As I watched, fascinated that he could continue to perform his essential task while we were in essence being bombed by zombies, one of the falling zombies fell right on top of him, breaking his spine.

The sailor broke the zombies fall just enough that it was able to continue to function. It bit into the paralyzed sailor then started to wander further aft. I pulled my pistol and rushed forward as the first zombie was joined by a second, the reanimated corpse of the sailor.

I swear I cannot make this stuff up; the undead sailor must have had a bullseye on his hat because another zombie landed on him, luckily with enough force that it killed both the falling zombie and the sailor zombie. Now only the first zombie remained for me to shoot.

As the ship continued sailing under the bridge more and more undead jumped onto the deck or into the water. I grabbed Marion, who was in the garden, a plot of potted plants (try saying that ten times fast) on top of the forward vertical launch tubes, letting Penny eat leaves off one of the plants. I pulled them back towards the superstructure as the shadow of the bridge overhead chased us and the splat, splat, splat of zombies grew nearer.

A marine on a .50 caliber machine gun amidships opened fire on the zombies on the bridge. His rounds knocked loose a support girder that plunged towards the ship. It landed alongside with a big splash. There’s no telling how much damage it would have caused if that hit the ship.

An alarm sounded, followed by an announcement over the ships 1MC, the ship wide PA system. “All hands clear the main deck. Set condition Z throughout the ship.”

We ran into the forward superstructure and I grabbed the nearest sailor, “How do I set condition Z?”

“Close all watertight doors,” he said

“Z has nothing to do with zombies?” I asked.

“No sir, it’s just the highest level of watertight integrity, condition X is the lowest.”

Slightly dejected that there wasn’t a special condition for zombies, I dogged the quick acting watertight door behind me and began to head for the bridge. The number of splats from zombies hitting the deck was increasing in frequency. I mounted the last ladder to the bridge when the ship groaned and shuddered, throwing me off the ladder and onto the hard deck.

The ship stopped moving forward. Marion picked me up and we continued to the bridge. Commander Owen was calmly ordering the quartermaster at the helm “Full Astern.”

I asked, “What happened?”

He responded, “We’ve run aground, I was afraid of this. The channel is normally kept dredged out so that deep drafted ships like ours can safely navigate, but it’s been two years since this harbor was dredged and the channel must have silted up. We are going to have to change our plan for getting into the harbor.”