John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

* * *

Steve skidded to a stop and turned around, then lunged to fill the gap in the line. There were at least fifty zombies in the group that had been following him. They were tripping over the bodies of the leaders but that wasn’t stopping them, just, barely, slowing them down. He lifted his shotgun as he joined the line and pulled the trigger. It wouldn’t move. He grimaced, jacked a round into the chamber, took it off safe and pulled the trigger again. That time it worked.

“Back step,” Fontana called. “Stay on line.”

“I’m out,” Faith said, pulling a pistol.

“Going pistol,” Hooch said. Ten rounds goes fast when it’s a zombie horde.

“Shit,” Steve said. One of the zombies was still wearing body armor and a riot helmet. No pants but body armor. And shotgun and.45 did poorly against body armor.

The zombie zoomed in on Faith and tackled her. It had apparently figured out how to lift its face shield to deliver a bite and bit down on the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

“Fuck!” Faith said. “Not again!” Her hand scrabbled for a weapon.

“Pistol…won’t work… Kevlar… Knife…!” She reached down to her leg, pulled out a nine inch Gerber Commando and started to stab the zombie repeatedly and rapidly in the back through its armor. “I looove youuuuu toooooo…”

The wave had receded, the security zombie was pretty much the last.

“Reload,” Fontana said. “Faith, you going to get back to work any time soon?”

“He’s heavy,” Faith said, pushing the dead zombie off. “Use a little help here.”

Steve lifted the security guard off his daughter by the neck of his armor and gave her a hand up.

“ That is why I hate mall cops,” Faith said, pulling out the knife with a twist and wiping it down with a rag.

“For future reference,” Fontana said. “The pistol would have worked. He had his arms up. Stick the barrel in the armpit.”

“Point,” Faith said, putting the knife away. “But I was pissed off. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to eat me or…something else.”

Steve rifled through the pockets on the armor and came up with a security card.

“Tada,” he said, waving it.

“Cross load ammo and reload magazines,” Fontana said, pulling off his assault pack. “Hooch, Faith on guard. Wolf and Falcon to load. Commodore, I would recommend, despite that card, that we remain together as a four man team until we’re sure that we’ve dealt with all similar large groups.”

“Agreed,” Steve said, pulling out ammo and reloading his Saiga mags. He’d never pulled his pistol. He held out his hand for Faith’s and started loading hers. “What could we have done better?”

“The overall plan was good,” Hooch said. He’d turned to face forward while Faith covered aft. “Except for one thing. I think in future with large groups and multiple possible entries… Or… I understand the thing about bringing them to you not going to them. But… Maybe open the hatch, then call for zombies?”

“If you have reason to suspect a large zone with multiple zombies, open the hatch, back off and then draw them to you?” Fontana said.

“Reasonable,” Steve said.

“It’s not really relevant here,” Fontana said. “But the one rule of Zombieland I’d like to bring up is always have a way out. Preferably with a way to lock it behind you.”

“What if we run into more security zombies?” Faith asked. “I tried for a leg shot but missed. Sorry.”

“Shooting a person in the leg is tough,” Fontana said, closing up his assault pack and handing Hooch his refilled magazines. “Melee weapons?”

“If you’re talking about a machete,” Steve said, standing up, “I don’t think so. Kevlar takes stabs and it will cut by I don’t see cutting through it with a machete.”

“Machete or a kukhri takes off their arm,” Faith said. “With enough force. And I still say a chainsaw is the way to go.”

“They’re heavy,” Fontana said. “And if you tried to cut a security zombie with one the kevlar would jam the chain.”

“Come up,” Faith said, making a motion of cutting up between the legs.

“Ooooh,” Hooch said, grabbing his jewels. “There’s things you just don’t say around guys.”

The area the zombies had come from was a corridor about ten meters wide with more hatches off of it. There was a faint light area where the exterior hatch was open but most of it was shrouded in darkness. It was impossible to tell how long it was but at least there weren’t any zombies immediately coming into view.

“Where to?” Fontana asked. They’d decided to go for the quiet approach and see how it worked.

“Sweep this,” Steve said, pulling out a tac light. The powerful hand-light carried to the far end but barely. Turning around the same happened. The corridor was as long as a football pitch. “Bloody hell. Falcon, Shewolf, forward. Hooch, on me. Pick up any cards you find. Meet back here.”

* * *

“We need some cave lights,” Fontana said, sweeping the taclight on his Saiga from side to side. “This ship is too big for taclights.”

“No shit,” Faith said, then tapped hers. “I think mine took a beating. I’m going to need to switch it out.”

“I’ve got a spare,” Fontana said.

“So do I,” Faith said, stopping and pulling of her ruck.

“You guys had more Surefires than any one group should own,” Fontana said. “Not that I’m complaining.” He not only had one on his rifle but two duct-taped to his body armor facing forward and another in a helmet mount.

“Da always complains through movies, you know?” Faith said. “The idiot going into the basement in the horror movie with the light that doesn’t work pisses him off. We’ve got flashlights all over the house at home. And if we had to drop in the dunny in the dark he wanted plenty of light. But we never figured on clearing a bleeding cruise ship! What are cave lights?”

“You know those million candle power portable spot lights on boats?” Fontana said. “Like that but head-lights and hand lights. Smaller, too. They’d fill this up with light.”

“There,” Faith said, standing up and shaking her shotgun. “Better.”

“Must have been bad if you busted a Surefire,” Fontana said.

“Fair dinkum scrum,” Faith said. “And I don’t think it’s busted. Just messed up. This isn’t somewhere I want my taclight going out.”

The end of the corridor was a blank wall covered in instructions on boarding lifeboats. This was clearly the pre-boarding assembly area. All the hatches were either inboard or outboard. While there were plenty of “remains,” there were probably four times as many bodies as there had been zombies, all the zombies had been at the hatch. They picked up three security cards and moved back to the rendezvous.

“What now, sir?” Fontana said, handing over the cards.

Steve checked through them and stuck them in a pouch.

“No Gwinneth,” he said. “No senior officers.” He contemplated the hatches lining the corridor.

“Eenie-meenie-minie-mo?” Steve said.

“I was expecting something Australian,” Hooch said. “Like, uhm, g’dye or something.”

“Australians use it, too,” Steve said. “It’s a mnemonic of the Celtic numbering system. But that’s not important. The real question is, do we use this hatch, which is in the light, or one of the ones that is in darkness? If we use this one, it will automatically attract zombies when we open it. If they haven’t already gathered from the noise. If we use one further down either way, we might have the element of surprise but we’ll be fighting in the dark and silhouette.”

Faith pulled out her stethoscope and checked the door.