LZR-1143: Evolution Read online

  “‘Cause if you are, you best get on with it.”

  The ship canted sharply again and my footing slipped.

  I looked around, noting the curving shape of the Bridge-Tunnel disappearing into clouds and fog as the weather worsened. The wind outside washed over the large windows and the rain blew in clouds of light mist.

  The flight deck was now dipping into the crashing waves, whitecaps licking the tarmac.

  I gave up. Removing the gun from his head, I leaned over, staring directly into his rapidly deadening eyes with an unwavering glaze. I suddenly realized what he was telling me.

  “You destroyed it, didn’t you?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “You realized what you had, and what you had done, and you destroyed it, didn’t you?”

  He simply glared, before spitting a final sentence at me as I turned my back.

  “Let’s just say, you’re never gonna fucking see it again,” he laughed, leaning back in his chair.

  A thin trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Then he coughed again, spattering blood on the floor.

  I moved toward the door, hoping against hope that the choppers had remained close.

  “I did what I had to do, you crazy shit,” his voice followed me, echoing in the empty room. “And it’s your goddamned fault. Now get the hell off my ship so I can die in peace!”

  He coughed again, a wracking, dying cough.

  I slammed my hand against the metal bulkhead in anger, turning to him as I walked out of the hatch.

  “My goddamn pleasure,” I said, slamming the hatch behind me.

  I moved quickly down the narrow steps, careful not to twist an ankle as I descended. Finding the entrance door shut against the outside, I took a deep breath and raised my gun. There were creatures out there, I knew.

  I wasn’t sure where I was going to go when I got outside, but there was only one way I was getting off this barge, and it was through those creatures.

  The hatch opened slowly, and I stepped through. There were hundreds of them, most following gravity as they milled around. In my mind, I imagined them confused and confounded, as their last chance at a fresh meal had somehow taken off into the air.

  As I climbed slowly onto the deck, the ship lurched once again, dipping further forward. The hatch behind me slammed into the metal side of the ship, and their heads turned, almost as one. Eyes locked on me, and they began to fight the pull of gravity toward the sea, shambling toward me as the ship sank.

  Shit.

  A group of ten emerged from behind the conning tower, knocking into a rack of fire equipment that had tumbled to the deck. I drew my pistol and emptied the magazine into the group, firing awkwardly as I ran. Several shots scored hits, but I wasn’t going to save myself with a pistol.

  I was being pushed toward the stern of the ship and I looked around, seeking any shelter or safe haven. Any weapon.

  My eyes fell on the last plane lashed to the deck, nose pointed at an angle toward the tower and the front of the ship.

  I had never driven a fighter jet before, but there’s a first time for everything.

  Chapter 11

  Truth be told, it was their fault for leaving it unlocked. If they didn’t want people playing with their toys, they couldn’t complain about me having some fun. Especially if it was the last thing I ever did.

  I sprinted past the large banner lying trampled on the flight deck, ropes that used to hold it aloft lying prone on the canted deck like downed spider webs. Stumbling briefly as a portion of the paper tore under my boot, I looked almost bemusedly at the words printed on the roughly and hastily made sign that the Captain had intended to welcome me to his reception: U.S.S. Enterprise Welcomes Mike McKnight!

  Nice welcome, Captain.

  Scrambling up the short metal ladder and slamming the cockpit glass down behind me, I settled in to the small seat, staring at the controls in front of me.

  I had actually trained on one of these before, but I’d be damned if I remembered much.

  Well, maybe ‘train’ wasn’t an accurate word.

  I had been given a day of familiarization training, which was essentially a pilot telling me what many of the knobs and buttons did, when I was filming “Airborne Assault” with Van Damme. I tell you, that guy made an awesome copilot. Nothing like a Belgian-French accent to strike fear into the hearts of a squadron of Libyan MIGs.

  I sat down hard and looked at the cockpit display. How hard could it be to figure out how to operate the guns?

  Oh boy.

  There were definitely a lot of buttons. And dials, and knobs, and lights, and computer screens.

  Okay, on second thought, this could be a little problematic.

  Hundreds of creatures were clustered together and moving toward me.

  I had grossly underestimated the number of them that had been able to get on deck after the helicopters took off.

  Well … at least the plane was facing the right direction.

  Toward the bad guys.

  I leaned forward, pressing a large button strategically located in a spot that could have been an ignition, or an ‘on’ button, or something similar. The aircraft shook suddenly, and for a moment I thought I had succeeded. Then I realized that it was just the flight deck of the massive ship shifting, its bow canting sharply forward as it took on water. The Enterprise was sinking fast. It was only a matter of time before she was lost beneath the waves forever.

  The airplane shifted slightly against its chocks, vibrating and then stopping. I scoured my head for any vestige of knowledge that I could apply to the situation. I vaguely remembered the pilot mentioning a touch screen something-or-other ...

  The best I got was a blurry memory of playing Top Gun on the Nintendo.

  Jesus. I was going to die on this ship.

  I leaned back, craning my head to see over the nose cone.

  Yep, they were still coming on strong. Nice to know something in this crazy world was reliable.

  My attention snapped back to the chore at hand.

  One button had to activate the onboard electronics. Without the plane being powered on, it wouldn’t do anything, right? So if you’re looking for an ‘on’ button, you can’t do too much damage. Just press buttons.

  When stuff lights up, you’re golden.

  Can’t see anything wrong with that plan. So I started punching buttons.

  Until one punched back.

  The voice was small and feminine.

  “Full weapons lock confirmed. Cannon disarmed.”

  Shit.

  That was pretty much the opposite of my intent here.

  Punch.

  “HUD activated.”

  Okay, now we were getting somewhere. A heads-up targeting display appeared on the front quarter of the windshield, glowing letters and numbers flashing with electronic mirth.

  Punch again.

  “Unable to comply. Fuel insufficient.” Useless piece of ...

  Punch.

  Suddenly a deep roar from the back of the plane. Engines were spooling up. Then lights, then computer screens. Finally, weapons dials. The little picture of a cannon on the computer screen to the right lit up green. It read 2500.

  Bingo!

  This part I knew. From years of playing arcade games and two different movies about hero-pilots, I was finally comfortable.

  Once it was powered on, I knew the gig.

  I grabbed the controls, inadvertently pushing the stick forward as I shifted my weight. The plane shot forward against the chocks abruptly, responsive to the movement.

  Crap.

  Didn’t mean to actually move.

  The zombies were close now, my incompetence in the cockpit allowing them ample time to play catch up. A group of seven or eight were in the front, all in some form of bloody disrepair or another.

  The Enterprise shifted again. Valiantly she was holding herself afloat, seemingly by sheer will. Her forward compartments had to be full of water by now, and the middle of th
e ship was destined to follow. Sickeningly, I watched the bow droop again, and more water crash against the flat top of the flight deck.

  It was now or never.

  I slowly moved the stick to the right, lining up the target sight in the HUD with the first group of zombies. Purposefully, I depressed the safety switch and squeezed the bright red trigger.

  “Weapons lock engaged. Please remove the safety before firing the Vulcan cannon.”

  Son of a bitch!

  The bottom right corner of the screen had a picture of a lock, flashing red. It appeared to be a touch screen. From my periphery, I sensed the front rank of zombies were close. Close enough to reach the ladder.

  I touched the lock and squeezed the trigger, hoping for the best.

  “Weapons lock released,” reported my new best friend.

  Almost simultaneously, the twenty millimeter Vulcan cannon came to life.

  It didn’t just shoot the zombies.

  It made them disappear.

  Shambling forms suddenly disintegrated into clouds of red mist. Shreds of clothing floated to the deck, which was already slick with blood. I slowly guided the controls to the left, strafing the oncoming forms at close range. Tracers lit into the crowd, rounds pulverizing flesh and bone and traveling through ten or twenty creatures at a time before moving past and into the water below. Nothing stood a chance against that onslaught. It was a killing field for the undead, and I was in control.

  After what seemed like years of fleeing—sneaking and crawling and watching people die—I wasn’t prepared for my response. I quickly lost sight of the fact that these forms, these clouds of red spray and chunks of flesh, had been people not eight hours ago; that only mistakes piled upon mistakes had made them what they were now. No, this was not on the top of my mind.

  I just wanted to destroy them all.

  I slowly moved the nose of the plane from left to right, feeling the raw power of the twin turbines beneath me. It was a rush like none other. The cannon spewed large bore rounds by the hundreds every second, and I was powerless to stop myself.

  Finally, the empty sound of hollow clicking tapped against the hull of the plane like a metallic woodpecker. The cannon icon on the computer screen blinked red, and I realized I was done. I grabbed the lever on the side of the canopy and pulled up, air hissing out of the cockpit as I rose on the seat, looking out onto the flat surface of the deck. Suddenly, I lurched forward, losing my balance and tumbling down the nose of the plane.

  The Enterprise had started her final descent.

  The blunt, square nose of the ship was fully submerged in the waves. Asphalt sunk into the angry sea as the stern of the massive machine emerged fully from the water, towering over me. Her giant screws turned slowly in the afternoon air, water streaming from the dark metal. The chocks holding my Hornet in place dislodged, and it slid forward as I rolled away, just missing getting clocked by a mounted missile as it glided past me and stopped ten feet further on, held up by the protruding edge of another restraint.

  The flight deck was covered in the remains of zombies and slick with blood and rainwater. The clouds had opened up, cutting visibility. I searched the sky for my ride out and almost panicked. The helos were still AWOL, and I was running out of time.

  The sound of shattered glass punctured the air as I watched, dumbstruck, as the glass from the control tower fell to the deck in a cascading, rippling sheet. The radar array followed suit, smashing through the remnants of a destroyed Hornet lying shattered against the conning tower. A stream of undead suddenly filtered from the open hatch, falling instantly on the angled deck, but struggling forward and away from the door.

  Toward me.

  I was alone, I realized suddenly and fearfully. They had left and I was alone.

  Then I was sliding again, careening out of control as the flight deck tilted steeply, angling toward the cold sea. I reached out reflexively with my arms, searching for purchase against the slick surface. Blood and rain whipped against my face as my hand slapped against an errant protrusion and arrested my fall.

  I was hanging almost vertically from a cockeyed railing, hands burning from the effort. Dark, angry blue waves crashed over the black tarmac, licking the dashed white lines. The gray form of my F-18 slid by in slow motion, the almost comical form of an undead crew member lodged in an engine cowl.

  The port wing of the aircraft slammed into the water first, ripping it from the fuselage and changing the angle of descent, forcing the vehicle into the water headfirst. It sank quickly, disappearing deeper into the dark water. The crew member moaned once, the sound lost quickly in the tearing wind.

  I hung, feet kicking against the slick deck. Zombies slid and tumbled past me, struggling for footing on the steeply canted flat surface as the ship sank slowly into the channel, the dark linear form of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel winding into the distance. Beside me, the conning tower loomed like a dark sentinel. It was an ethereal dark shape canting awkwardly over the crashing waves at an angle never contemplated by the ship’s designers.

  Despite my circumstances, I chuckled to myself in morbid humor. There were a lot of things happening right now that weren’t contemplated by a lot of folks a little while back.

  The popping of steel girders and breaking glass echoed the death throes of the dying ship. Rain pelted the deck, cold against my bare face.

  A transport plane slid by my precarious perch, crashing to the water below and shattering open. Creatures spewed out into the water, thrashing in the water and trying to rise on the angled deck, even as it slipped beneath the water. The plane bobbed fitfully as the ship slipped beneath it, and floated dangerously closer each time the ship sank further. They slobbered and drooled, mad in their own special way. There were at least six. Maybe more. The rest were covered in water. But they were coming.

  Three more heads appeared from the murky water, and pushed into the darkening twilight as I slipped farther toward them with the dying ship.

  Oh yes, they were definitely coming.

  There comes a time in every man’s life when he realizes that his number’s up; that in the game of man versus world, good versus evil, dead versus undead … that he was truly and honestly screwed. Here, hanging helplessly from the deck of a dying ship, surrounded by dead people that were trying like mad to eat me…well, let’s just say I was beginning to develop some realistic expectations about my future.

  I sighed heavily, recognizing that my grip on the wet, convulsing railing was going to give out. Soon.

  Chapter 12

  A zombie toppled past, hands grasping for a grip on the slick surface. Almost absently, I lashed out with my foot, sending the bloated body careening off the angled deck, arms and legs pin wheeling in the twilight rain.

  I hung, helpless and suspended, as the ship sank fast beneath me, water churning. The wind had increased, and was now slamming into me with enough force to make me sway. My arms burned, and my hands were raw. My grip was loosening, and I was merely minutes from plunging into the water beside my life-challenged friends below.

  The rain was slick and wet on my face, and my clothes were heavy with water. From above, I heard the sound of the wind tearing and swirling. It was beating heavily against the steel ship as it slipped beneath the waves. Bodies floated below, bobbing in the abyss. A head stared up at me briefly as I glanced down in the fading light. Sunken eyes stared and broken teeth gnashed before it descended slowly under water.

  I shivered involuntarily, remembering all those times I refused to go snorkeling or scuba diving in the Bahamas because I was afraid of a shark coasting up and biting my white ass.

  This would be much, much worse.

  In my exhaustion, I thought I heard voices over the wind. I craned my neck upwards, seeking the source of what I imagined to be fictional sounds. My eyes tracked along the flight deck, straight into the air.

  I jerked my grip and my eyes widened.

  Hovering above the inverted stern of the ship was one of the c
hoppers. From the open door hung a man in black fatigues and a smaller figure.

  Kate.

  She was moving her arms and trying to say something. Her words were lost in the wind and the rotor blast, but I got the drift.

  A black rope ladder fell from the open door of the helicopter and clattered against the tarmac above my head. It took only a hastily reached hand to grab the nylon and plastic as it moved fitfully against the deck. I wrapped my arms and legs through the openings and, with a hand stuck through the gap between rungs, I made a thumbs up gesture.

  None too soon, I thought, as I looked down. The waves were lapping no more than twenty feet from my boots, and the ship was falling fast. It was a surreal feeling, to hang suspended as the ship sank alongside me, painted white lines of the flight deck clipping by as the helicopter gained some distance to the East. I slowly climbed the ladder as the rain and wind pushed me back and forth. I felt slightly motion sick as I crested the expanse and flopped into the cabin like a dead fish, breathing heavily and cursing at the abrupt movements of the aircraft.

  “Sorry about the scare, but we had to move,” Kate’s voice was loud, as she had to scream to be heard over the beating rotor blades and tearing wind. “Any more movement and we would have slid in.”

  Her hand was on my shoulder, comforting. I turned to her quickly and made eye contact, answering her silent question with a quick shake of the head. Her eyes turned down and she exhaled softly, looking past me into the night air.

  I sighed and nodded mutely, not yet able to speak.

  A hand materialized from behind me and locked a black carabiner to a hook attachment on my borrowed ... well, I guess it was mine now ... flight suit. I looked below as we banked hard to the North and turned to follow the faint outline of the second bird, a mile ahead.

  It was a fantastic sight, the sinking aircraft carrier. Once it had begun its descent, it slipped beneath the dark waves quickly with the whitecaps, seemingly angered by its disturbance, angrily lapping at the gray metal. Debris bobbed on the surface, and a slick of dirty oil trailed into the sea. Where once stood a symbol of American military power, nothing but water and scrap metal remained.