“Get to the Hummers!” Miguel shouted, gesturing to the vehicles that were strapped to the port side of the ship.
The ragtag group dashed across the deck toward the Humvees. Pam flung open a passenger side door and began flinging the cargo on the deck.
“Everyone! Start unloading.” Miguel noticed a handful of ghouls breaking off from the fighter jet and beginning to wander curiously toward them.
“Is the Navy really going to break quarantine?” Henry was dumbfounded. He helped Miguel to the driver’s side of the vehicle. “For me?”
“Hurry! Get inside!” Pam threw Renee and Roger into the back seat. When there looked to be enough space, the civilians piled into the Humvee with Kelly and Henry. Miguel slid into the driver’s seat, and Pam slammed the passenger front door. Snarling undead faces instantly pressed up against the windows. With a sigh of relief, Pam slid out her laptop and put on her headset. “Control, this is Convoy 19. We have the VIP’s in car four. Get us the hell out of here!”
“Copy that, Convoy 19. Air transport inbound,” a voice came back.
Kelly watched as a large group of ghouls poured onto the landing deck from the flight tower. The wounded soldier who had been guarding the exit fired his pistol three more times… before turning the gun on himself. Kelly averted her eyes to watch the marines fighting atop the fighter jet.
“Oh my God” Henry gave voice to Kelly’s thoughts as they watched one of the soldiers lose his footing, slip, and tumble into the ravenous hordes below. The monsters descended upon him like a pack of wild dogs. The lone marine who remained, drew his pistol, took careful aim at his comrade below, and fired.
“We can’t leave these people!” Kelly exclaimed.
The sound of approaching helicopter rose in the distance. Two bright searchlights hovered in the blackness beyond the living nightmare of the U.S.S. Boxer.
Miguel nodded. “They’re going to pick up this car and carry us to the Reagan. Everyone else is on their own.”
“Start up the car,” Kelly instructed.
Miguel looked back at her, confused.
“Start up the fucking car!” Kelly repeated. “Draw the ghouls away from the other four Hummers. Go get the people on that jet and behind that barricade and whoever else you can. We’ll empty the rest of the cars and load everyone up.”
“They won’t take us,” Pam replied. “They only want Dr. Damico. The rest of us are just tag-alongs.”
“They’ll take us.” Henry shot back, his gaze meeting his wife’s confidently. “I’m not going anywhere until these vehicles are full.”
Miguel looked at Pam, and Pam looked at Miguel.
“Fuck it.” Miguel started up the vehicle and turned on the headlights. “This is for Carl.”
“For Carl,” Pam nodded.
“What’s going on down there? Why is that vehicle running?” Captain Sheridan’s voice came through the communications network. He was, no doubt, looking on from the Chinook helicopter above and assessing the situation.
Pam responded to Captain Sheridan. “Change of plans, sir… stand by.”
“Let me do one quick pass to pull the WDs away from the Hummers. I’ll drop you off on the return trip.” Miguel buckled himself in.
The Humvee lurched forward, slammed into a walking corpse, and crushed it beneath its bulk. The vehicle’s tires squealed as it sped around in a tight loop… taking out ghouls as it went. He repeated the maneuver again, taking out even more undead. After a third rotation, the immediate area was clear. Miguel pulled the vehicle back up to where the remaining Humvees were parked. The doors flung open and Kelly jumped out. Henry moved to follow when Pam grabbed him by the arm.
“No! You stay with Miguel.” Pam then stepped out of the vehicle.
Henry hesitated. Everything in him wanted to stay with his wife, to help her unload the remaining vehicles and usher other survivors to safety… but he forced himself to stop and heed Pam’s order. Without him, no one was getting off this ship. If anything happened to him, everyone—including his wife—would be doomed.
“I’ll be okay…” Kelly looked lovingly into her husband’s eyes. “Stay here, Henry.”
Henry nodded fearfully.
“Here!” Pam flung off her headset and handed her laptop to Henry. “Keep Command in the loop.”
Miguel floored the gas before Henry could even close the Humvee door. He slammed into another wandering zombie before aligning the vehicle with the mob that surrounded the fighter jet. Henry kept his gaze locked on Kelly as she turned toward the task of emptying the other Humvees with Pam.
“What the fuck are you up to?” Captain Sheridan’s voice boomed over the communications network. “Pull over! NOW!”
“Um… this is Dr. Henry Damico…” Henry answered. “We’re going to try to save some people.”
Miguel pulled his vehicle up to the wing of the fighter jet and rolled the window down a crack. “Come on! We’re getting out of here!”
“We can’t take anyone except you and the VIPs! We can’t risk infection spreading to the Reagan.” Captain Sheridan shouted impotently. “Put Officer Harvey on!”
“Officer Harvey’s dead,” Henry answered. Henry cast a furtive glance at Miguel as the last of the survivors jumped atop the Humvee.
Captain Sheridan did not respond, and silence fell over the network.
“Captain… You’ve got doctors aboard the Reagan, right?” Henry mustered his most authoritative tone.
Captain Sheridan, still shocked by the news of Carl’s demise, took a few moments before he answered. “Yes…”
Miguel returned to Kelly and Pam with his civilian cargo, dropped them off, and peeled away toward the aft barricade. He swerved into wandering corpses as he drove, and their bodies thudded off the front of the vehicle. The undead packs were dense, but nowhere near as dense as the writhing walls of flesh-eating corpses that roamed San Diego. This vehicle had survived much worse.
“Have the DDC doctors ready to screen the Humvee occupants as they land on the Reagan flight deck. I’ll help… but I am not going anywhere until every last Humvee is loaded up with as many survivors as possible and taken off this ship.” Henry hoped his hypocrisy would be forgiven in the court of martial law. He had ordered that infected ships be quarantined — mandated that countless soldiers and civilians be sentenced to death, because it was too risky to help them. Now, because he was important, because the military needed him to continue doing his job, he had the power to break that mandate at will.
‘Is this how it starts?’ he wondered, thinking back to the letter written by the former Secretary of Health and Human Services. That letter had so plainly illustrated the incompetence and corruption of leadership.
“No, sir. There are protocols in place to protect the fleet. No exceptions!” Sheridan answered back. “Now pull over!”
“You made exceptions for me!” Henry replied.
The communications system was silent, and for a moment, Henry was struck by the terrifying possibility that he had overplayed his hand. He worried that he, his wife, and everyone aboard the Boxer would be abandoned after all. A few seconds passed, and the helicopters slowly hovered into place above the lead Humvee that was loaded with civilians. The Chinook was outfitted with a mounted machine gun, and it began to cover the area. A long hook descended to the deck from the aircraft and lifted the vehicle into the air.