John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Need a Break

As he said that the ship jerked free and started to move backwards. Once we were no longer under the bridge he ordered, “All stop. Drop anchor. Lieutenant Simpson, have your Marines sanitize the deck and post an anchor watch, I don’t want any of them climbing aboard… unless they are very old,” he added for my benefit.

We went to his cabin to redraw our plan. “I had wanted to put this ship in the most central point between your objectives so our artillery would be in the best spot while your team was using the helicopter. I’m going to have to keep the ship out here unless we find a deeper section in the channel. I am going to use the helo’s dipping sonar to measure the channel depth and drop navigation beacons for us to use, assuming there is enough of a channel. In the meantime you can borrow the PBR to start your mission, and we’ll assist if possible.”

“Understood,” was all I could get out before we were interrupted by gunshots on deck.

“Commander, there are so many zombies in the water now some are climbing the anchor chain.” Said Lt. Simpson as she entered the bridge.

“Chief, give me a full pattern with the K-guns. Mister Szimanski go with the Chief, you should get a kick out of this.”

We walked out on deck; chief walked up to one of the sailors whose rating may have been torpedoman, and said, “Time for you to earn your pay, Skipper wants a full spread.”

“Aye Aye.” He responded and ran off.

Chief Aquia walked me to the side of the ship and simply said, “Watch this.”

On each side of the ship groups of men were hoisting what looked like black 55 gallon drums onto K shaped devices mounted on the deck. Once all of them were in place an alarm sounded, followed by a loud series of popping sounds. The cans were shot about fifty yards from the ship and began to sink. After a brief time in the water they exploded with a massive muffled boom and shot towering geysers of water into the air. Within seconds, scores of zombies started floating to the surface.

“What just happened Chief? Were those Depth Charges?” I asked.

“Yes they were. We brought em back from retirement recently to help protect ourselves against underwater zombies. The gases released by the explosion shoots up the zombie’s tight little rigor mortised asshole and fills it up. That makes it buoyant enough to float up where we can see it.”

The marines manned the rails all around the ship and started methodically shooting the impotent floating zombies.

While the Seahawk helicopter hovered over the channel, using its dipping sonar as a sounding device the eight of us began to navigate the rope ladder from Sterett to the PBR below.

Chief Aquia kept repeating “Hands on the vertical, feet on the horizontal!” as we climbed down.

When Markus yelled “Shit you just stepped on my fingers!” at Baublitz I knew he had not been listening to the chief. He was really off his game. I was beginning to think sticking him with Marion had been a bad idea, funny, but not smart now that I needed him at a hundred percent.

In peacetime Arleigh Burke class destroyers like Sterett each carried two rigid hulled inflatable boats. Wartime shortages, combat losses, and normal wear and tear meant that there were not nearly enough RHIBs to go around. It was necessary to have fast, armed boats assigned to the big destroyers, especially when they were performing inshore missions like Sterett.

To fill the gap civilian boats were converted for military use and dubbed PBRs. Patrol Boat River, like the old Vietnam era craft made famous in Apocalypse Now. I could not tell what type of civilian pleasure boat this one had originally been. It was painted OD green, the cabin had been chopped off and replaced with some posts amidships over the wheel, shaded by camouflage netting. There was a twin .50 cal mounting sunk into the deck forward of the cabin, a Mark 19 grenade launcher at the stern, and an M-240 SAW mounted on each side of aft of the cabin. This particular craft had a blue stripe painted on the bow, similar to a coast guard stripe.

Then I noticed the word Pabst was scrawled in cursive behind the blue stripe. I grinned at that. Behind me on the ladder Ethan laughed as he realized the other meaning of PBR.

Some crew members on deck, under the watchful eye of Chief Aquia lowered the rest of our gear down to us and we pushed off from Sterett, still anchored in the channel, a short distance from Fort Carroll.

From the bridge wing where he was monitoring flight operations Commander Owen saluted as our motor fired up and we pulled away, towards the north bank, and our first objective. Marines on deck, manning their various guns, waiting for us to call in a fire support mission, waved as we left.

It was a short bumpy ride from the ship to Sparrows Point, our first objective. This area had been a major industrial site for most of the twentieth century, but in the years leading up to the plague it had gone through a series of bankrupted owners, and finally been fenced in and shut down for good.

Satellite images showed very few undead in the area despite its proximity to the former major population center of Baltimore. That’s why it was our first stop; hopefully the harbor equipment that had once been used for everything from unloading iron ore to building, repairing, and scrapping large ships were left intact when the peninsula was abandoned.

The sea was choppy and the speed at which Chief Warrant Officer Magann was driving his boat did not help any. Marion and Markus were both looking green. When Marion leaned over the side to throw up, Markus ran to the opposite side to do the same. An auspicious start.

Besides CWO Magann at the helm impassively standing behind a pair of Oakley shades there were three other sailors on the PBR. PO1 Ramsey was at the stern gun, she looked like she was in her early teens, but when she gave an order, by god I jumped to it. PO1 Dillon was fidgeting with something concerning the motor while Baublitz looked on, and PO3 Gill sat high in the forward gun tub scanning for threats as we approached the shore.

No threats were in evidence as we pulled up to a pier. The eight members of IST5 jumped off, covered by the crew of the PBR. As soon as we were off, CWO Magann pulled away about 100 meters to wait for our signal.

Because we would be using the PBR as a base of operations for this mission as we criss-crossed from one side of the river to the other checking port facilities we left most our gear on the boat. We had just enough that if something went wrong and we were stranded here for a day or two we could continue the mission.

Marion being the untested newb was taking pictures of the facilities, guarded by Ethan. I couldn’t hear the joke Ethan must have told, but judging by Marion’s insulted expression and Ethan’s own look of self satisfaction I assume it was sexist.

William and Walls had climbed to the top of one of the dockside cranes to be our lookouts. William called down “I don’t see any walkers anywhere.”

Bull and Markus began to search further into the overgrown harbor front part of the facility. They also reported no biters in the area.

Baublitz and I were inspecting the dry dock and one of the cranes, well he was inspecting that; I was just standing there trying to act leaderly.

After thirty minutes or so Baublitz gave his report. “The dry dock is in good enough shape, but none of these cranes look like they’re any good. I would need power to know for sure, but I doubt any of them will ever work again.”

“Alright, let’s move into the steel mill and see if there’s anything there worth scavenging before we head out.”

For those of you who have never been to a facility like this you can’t imagine how big it is. It was about 3 klicks inland from the dry dock to the steel mill (the only reason I am any good at mile to kilometer conversion is because of the number of cross country races I used to run). All we saw were old, rusty warehouses, completely empty, and other industrial type buildings. All of them were completely cleaned out of all but the biggest most immovable equipment. This wasn’t the work of looters though; all this had been done before the end of the world. The Navy wouldn’t have much use of these facilities.