John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

“I don’t hear anything,” she said. “But these are thick doors. No banging, no scratching.”

“I’d say this one, sir,” Fontana said. “First, we’re here. Second, we can see our exit.”

“Fair dinkum,” he said. “ That’s Australian, Marine.”

“Roger, sir,” Hooch said, chuckling.

Like the exterior hatches it had massive double doors designed to open outboard. He swiped the reader with the security guard’s card and while the light went from red to green the hatch didn’t open.

Faith flipped out her Halligan and applied the prybar to the hatch which popped open, slightly.

Steve held up a hand, then waved to Hooch. Once it was moving, the hatch opened easily.

The room revealed beyond was apparently vast and entirely dark. It appeared to be an arena with a square deck in the middle.

“Is that a pool?” Faith whispered, pointing her taclight at the deck. “Or a basketball court?”

“I think it was an ice rink ,” Hooch said. “No zombies, though.”

“Really?” Faith said. “OLLY-OLLY-OXENFREE!”

There was a wide-spread and growing growling and howling and heads started popping up all over the arena. The zombies turned their heads away at the bright lights after months in darkness but the also stumbled to their feet and started to close on the hatch.

“Back up,” Steve snapped, snapping up his Saiga and shooting the closest zombie. “ All the way outside. Exterior deck. Maintain formation. Back aft on exit.”

“Thanks a lot, Faith,” Hooch snarled.

“This was the plan , right?” Faith said, firing steadily. “Come get some, zombies!”

“This would have been the perfect time for some seven six two,” Fontana said.

The good news, this time, was that the zombies were half blind and instead of coming in a mass were trickling out. In large numbers and clots but not fifty in a bunch.

“Fontana, Hooch, reload,” Steve said, going to pistol.

“Up,” Fontana said. “Reload.”

* * *

“Okay,” Steve said. “We have something resembling a method for outer clearance. What did we do right and wrong? Faith?”

There had been nearly as many zombies in the arena as in the outer corridors. And in much better shape. When the wave had stopped they closed and latched the door to get some time for cross-load and another AAR.

“I shouldn’t have initiated without warning?” Faith asked.

“I’m going to put that in the area of a boo-boo,” Steve said. “But, yes, only initiate zombie call with warning. Hooch?”

“I fumbled my reload,” Hocieniec said. “I’m not that used to this AK system. Like it. Don’t get me wrong. These things are the shit. But I’m still getting used to the system.”

“Two things,” Fontana said. “Our store of 12 is low and so is.45. We’re fighting in fairly big areas and while this would be a weapons switch, I suggest we change out for your AKs. Seven six two would work just about as well as shotgun, we have more seven six two, this is one of the few areas where it will make sense and my shoulder is getting pounded by this twelve,” he added with grin.

“Whiner,” Faith said, grinning back.

“Makes sense,” Steve said. “You said two.”

“More, really,” Fontana said. “The initiation. Okay, so the zombies apparently spend a lot of time sleeping. We need an initiator. My first thought was a flash-bang but we don’t have any and it would probably be overkill. It would have been fun to toss one in the middle of that arena, mind you. But overkill.

“There is no such thing as overkill,” Faith said. “There is only ‘Open Fire’ and ‘Reloading!’ That that never caught on as a bigger meme than LOLKATZ just says it all about people…”

“Hush,” Steve said. “Continue, Sergeant.”

“I’d suggest a whistle.”

“Makes sense,” Hooch said. “May I suggest, with due respect, that the Commodore handle that?”

“Bite me,” Faith said, shaking her head. “It all worked out okay. But, yeah, Da can get his little whistle. You be coach.”

“Will do,” Steve said. “More, sergeant?”

“We probably should take some time and sit down with Chris and discuss the layout of this place. We should have known that door would lead to an arena. I mean, we could have gone back on deck, called him and asked him. He might not have known exactly but he probably would have had some idea. Also, and we should probably cross check this, it makes sense that the lifeboat hatches would open on large gathering areas. Thus another reason for the seven six two.”

“I’m fairly terrified of bouncers around all this steel,” Steve said. “I admit that’s because I caught one myself upon a time. But rifle rounds just keep going.”

“Again, in this type of environment,” Fontana said, waving around. “This deck is fairly smooth walled. We should be able to fire, paralllel to the ship, without fear of bouncers. We’ll have to retreat outside before engaging with rifles.”

“Rifles and these?” Hooch said, patting the Saiga. “We’re already fairly Ramboed up as it is.”

“No,” Fontana said. “We’ll have to either use the rifles in close or use pistols on the retreat.”

“Two sets,” Steve said. “You and I will take the AKs. I’ve trained with them almost exclusively since I got out and fell in love with the bloody things. Hooch and Faith will maintain the Saigas despite Hooch’s discomfort with the reload. They will cover on retreat to exterior with us as back-up if necessary, then we’ll switch roles. And we’ll rehearse it, first.”

“That sounds like a plan, sir,” Fontana said.

CHAPTER 30

“Back on the Campbell ,” Gardner said nervously. She had a 10mm and a shotgun the Smiths had “borrowed” when the cleared the cutter. And they’d searched the whole ship for infected. But getting back on the ship was giving her flashbacks.

The ship was being towed by a submarine of all things. They’d taken a 24ft inflatable to make the rendezvous and pick up critical medical supplies. Everything else could wait until it was in place near the liner.

“It’ll be okay, PO,” Seaman Jeff Woodman said. “We just get the saline and go.”

“Easy enough,” Gardner said. She keyed open the deck hatch, started to step across the coaming the stopped. “What the hell?”

The floor was swarming with black bugs. There were so many it looked like the deck was black and moving.

“Oh…gross!” Woodman said. “Where the hell did they come from?”

“Jesus Christ,” Gardner said, quietly.

“What?” Woodman asked. She was shining a light into the interior. He craned his head around to look.

On the deck was a skeleton. Some of the bugs seemed to be fighting for the last scraps of flesh but pretty much everything but bone and some scraps of skin and hair were gone. Bugs were even crawling in and out of the eye sockets, cleaning out the brains.

“Holy crap,” Woodman said, “I don’t want those getting on me!”

“I just figured out what they are,” Gardner said, stepping through the hatch after a flash around with her light. Every step caused a crunch. “And they won’t bite.”

“They stripped that guy to the bone !” Woodman said.

“That’s what they do,” Gardner said, bending down and picking up one of the beetles. It skittered along her arm and she shook it off. “They’re carrion beetles.”

“Carrion?” Woodman said. “So they eat people?”

“They eat dead flesh,” Gardner said. “I’d heard Wolf say he’d ‘seeded’ the boat. I didn’t know it was with these.”

“Wolf did this?” Woodman said angrily. “To our people?”