“The layout of this boat is screwy,” Kuzma said, weakly. He leaned up against a bulkhead for a second. He knew he’d get his strength back eventually. But lagging behind a thirteen-year-old girl who was weighed down like an infantryman was embarrassing. “The design looked great on paper but it’s not what you call efficient.”
“Okay,” Shewolf said, banging on the hatch. “Zombies, zombies, zombies! Hello!”
“You sure about that?” Kuzma said, his eyes wide.
“Let them come to you,” the girl said. “Bring them into your zone of fire, don’t go into theirs.”
There was an odd thump from the door, then more.
“And we have a winner,” Shewolf said. “I need you to back up into that cross corridor. In fact, I need you to back way the fuck up.”
“Why?” the Petty Officer asked.
“Because if there’s a bunch, I’m going to have to back up,” the girl said. “And you’re not moving real quick. So back way the fuck up. And around the corner so you’re less likely to get hit by bouncers.”
Kuzma backed into the cross corridor, flashing a light around to make sure where weren’t zombies there. He had a pistol but he wasn’t sure that he could even raise it much less shoot straight. God he was tired.
Thinking about what the girl had said, he backed further into the corridor. The bouncers point was important.
“Olly-olly-oxenfree! Come to momma…!”
Kuzma heard the hatch undog, then slam back on its latches.
“Fudgesicle!” the girl shouted followed by a series of rapid fire shotgun blasts.
Shewolf backed into the cross-corridor, dropped her shotgun on its harness and drew her pistol with lightning speed.
“Say hallo to my leetle friend!” she shouted, double tapping. She pivoted into the corridor backing towards Kuzma, clearly covering him. “You want some?”
Infected came around the corner after her, lunging at her as she expertly double tapped. The worst thing, for Kuzma, was that he recognized most of them. Some of them were refugees the Campbell had been ordered to rescue in the early days of the plague. They were probably how the plague had gotten onboard. Others were fellow crew members, bearded, filthy, naked, covered in sores, feces, vomit and dried and fresh blood. Houston P. Barnes, who had just reported to the Campbell before the outbreak but who he’d known for years. He had bits of flesh in his unkempt beard and then his face buckled under when the second.45 round hit him. Tommy E Craddock Jr., “don’t forget the junior,” one of his closest messmates. He clutched at the round that hit him in the chest, howling the weird cry of a wounded zombie, half keen, half snarl, then it was stopped by another round to the forehead, which left a round, blue hole.
“You gonna back up or not?” Shewolf screamed. Her pistol locked back so she tossed it forward onto a dead body and ripped another from her chest holder. The plethora of weapons was starting to make sense.
Bobby couldn’t back up, couldn’t lift his own weapon, all he could do was stare mutely at the black tide pouring down the corridor.
And then it was done. A refugee was the last, dropping more or less right in front of him, so fixated on the light-covered girl she hadn’t even noticed the frozen petty officer.
“That was almost too exciting,” the girl said. She reloaded both her weapons, retrieved the dropped pistol, reloaded that then hefted her shotgun. “Real zombie apocalypse moment there. You done with your break?”
“I think I’m done,” Kuzma said. “I think I’m just…done.”
* * *
Bobby sat on the flying deck of the Toy watching the dinghy coming back from the Campbell. He’d been in similar dinghies hundreds of times doing inspections of boats just like this one. In fact, he was pretty sure they’d done a stop on this boat. But when they were done, they went back to the cutter. They always went back to the cutter.
This time he wasn’t going back. He was never going back. After the scene in the corridor, he was never, ever going back. Not love nor money nor orders could make him go back aboard the WMEC-909, United States Coast Guard Cutter Campbell, “Queen of the Seas.” He wished he had a Harpoon missile to sink her like her previous namesake.
“You going to be okay?” Captain Smith asked, sitting down next to him. “I hear you had a little ZA moment.”
“That’s your daughter?” Kuzma asked, tonelessly. Shewolf was riding back in the dinghy. Second on, last off. The helmsman must have said something funny because the thirteen-year-old was grinning with her fine, blond, blood-splattered hair blowing in the freshening wind.
“Yes.”
“Is she…okay?” Kuzma asked. “I mean…”
“Do you mean is she freaked out by what happened?” Smith asked. “She said it was almost worse than New York. But not quite. If you mean is she insane? She was a fairly normally adjusted girl before the plague. She never threatened to bomb her school or shoot it up. She played soccer and was starting to date. She chased boys, sometimes literally. But she’d always quip that the worst thing about a zombie apocalypse would be pretending you weren’t excited by the prospect. So…she was fairly well adjusted to the previous world. She is well adjusted to this one. So, yes, she is okay. She’s even sensitive, which is hard in this job. She hates to shoot the children and lets others do so when possible. I take it you’re not okay.”
“No,” Kuzma said. “Not okay. Glad to be out of there. Just…glad to be out.”
“I am sorry that you observed the termination of your shipmates,” Smith said. “That is a very close bond.”
“I had to shoot some myself, getting to the stores locker,” Bobby admitted. “But… That was bad.”
“A large group of apparently uninfected had locked down in another stores locker,” Smith said. “And then apparently taken insufficient precautions to prevent spread.”
“And then eaten each other?” Bobby asked.
“More or less,” Smith said. “Which was why there were so many survivors. Zombie survivors, that is. I take it you don’t want to participate in the salvage operation?”
“Salvage?” Kuzma said. “You can’t salvage a U.S. Coast Guard cutter!”
“And there were survivors onboard,” Smith said, nodding. “But salvage it we must. For the small arms locker if nothing else. Petty Officer, I left New York with seven thousand rounds of double ought buckshot and a thousand rounds of frangible. For what I had originally planned that would have been more than enough. For this? I’m down to four thousand rounds. I’m half way through my supply, more or less, and I have an ocean of ships and boats to clear. I can find diesel, food, water from recyclers, even parts. But munitions? Weapons? If not from your storage locker, then where?”
“That’s a tall order,” Kuzma said, breathing out hard. “I mean… Will we help? Yeah, of course. But turning over the contents of a 270 to civilians…? If there ever is a Coast Guard again, I can’t see them not hanging my ass for that.”
“Well, I already purloined one thing from your boat,” Steve said. “Step out on the foredeck with me Petty Officer.”
Steve and Kuzma walked up to the front of the boat and Steve pulled out a Coast Guard walkie-talkie.
“I presume this doesn’t use civilian frequencies?” Steve asked, holding it up.
“No, sir,” the PO said, his brow furrowing.
“U.S. Navy, this is Commodore Wolf on Coast Guard frequency. I know you’re not going to talk to me, but will you talk to a Coast Guard petty officer? Here’s PO One Kuzma, spelling, Kilo-Uniform-Zulu-Mike-Alpha. Turning over now.”
“It may take a bit,” Steve said. He handed Kuzma the radio and walked aft.