Part 15 (1/2)

”What's the situation?”

”Captain, there's nothing wrong with your periscope . . . those are mobs of creatures on the sh.o.r.eline. It might look like static to those of you not fortunate enough to have twenty-fifteen vision. Looks like thousands of them.”

”How could they know we're here?! We came in at the dead of night on a G.o.dd.a.m.ned fast-attack nuclear submarine!” the captain said angrily, addressing the whole conn.

”Captain, I don't think they did.”

”Then how can this be?”

Kil stepped up to the grease board and began to ill.u.s.trate.

”Captain, this is a rough representation of Oahu. Although not quite a circle, it is obviously an island. To understand why the dead are on the North Sh.o.r.e is to understand why they move, and the rudimentary way in which they think-so to speak. I, of course, don't mean they think in the same way we do, but in the way one of those automatic robot vacuum cleaners might move, or perhaps a child's toy. Do any of you know the term diaspora?

One of the sailors raised his hand and said, ”I'm Jewish-I've read about it.”

”Well, then you'll likely know what I'm getting at. In all my travels in and across undead-infested areas, I have learned their priority of movement. The number one influence to undead migration is sound. The number two is visual stimulus from something they identify as alive. If sound is not present, I think they may spread in much the same way as a good break in a game of pool: outward.”

The captain had the appearance of a student in a college cla.s.sroom, suddenly interested in the subject matter being presented. ”Are you saying that the dead have spread to the sh.o.r.e all the way around?”

”With Oahu being a relatively small landma.s.s with a relatively large population per square mile comparatively, I think what we see on the North Sh.o.r.e is not an anomaly. I'd be willing to bet that if we steamed around the entire island, we'd see creatures on every open beach. They have spread out as far as they can go. There may be inland pockets but the majority of the undead, based on what we've seen, are likely spread out around the edge of the island. Strange that they're not in hibernation like many I've come across, but it could be that the sounds of the waves are keeping them moving.”

”All right, Commander, if what you hypothesize is true, what are your tactical a.s.sessments for the incursion?”

Kil answered without much hesitation. ”If the SOF team can punch through this belt of undead, they may experience a lighter density as they move closer to the center of the island. This of course a.s.sumes they don't gather too much attention on their way in.”

”You're starting to earn your place around here instead of just taking up good bunk s.p.a.ce and drinking our coffee.”

The crew in the conn murmured a few laughs again at the captain's humor.

”Yes, sir, I've already started my submarine qualification. Looks like I'll earn my dolphins before we get back to CONUS.”

The captain nearly spit out his coffee. ”Like h.e.l.l!”

Kil suspected that his respectful banter with the captain might be good for crew morale. The submarine had no executive officer, and the old man had his hands full cracking the whip and managing the health and welfare of his crew.

”COB, order the Scan Eagle crew to unpack their gear and get ready for UAV launch at sunup tomorrow. We'll get a look for ourselves.”

”Aye, aye, Captain.”

Kil took another look through the periscope and adjusted the focus. There was no doubt: the North Sh.o.r.e crawled with creatures forming a dense barrier of death. It reminded him of playing Red Rover as a child.

Red Rover, Red Rover, send the warm bloods right over, he imagined the creatures saying with raspy dead voices while he watched them mill about on the beach.

31.

Arctic North Crusow sat shaking from the blood-freezing cold he had endured at the bottom of the gulch-the place where Bret had met his fate a few hours earlier. Crusow wore insulated long johns while he sipped hot tea. Mark and Kung sat beside him. Larry stared from across the metal research table, wearing a face mask to protect the others from the serious illness he continued to endure. Everyone heard Larry's labored breathing; his lungs sounded as if they were full of rocks.

Coughing violently, he flamed at Crusow. ”What the f.u.c.k happened? Were you settling a score down there?”

”No. Why don't you simmer down a minute before you get yourself worked up-it'll just make you worse off than you already are. We can all see the shape you're in.”

Larry slammed both fists on the table, leaning over into Crusow's face. Larry was a tough read, as the mask concealed everything but his cold, bloodshot eyes. ”I was there when Bret said those things about your wife. I saw how p.i.s.sed you got. You sure some of that didn't come out down there at the bottom?”

”Larry, my wife is gone. And yeah, I hated Bret because he's a military a.s.shole, just like you're a military a.s.shole. That doesn't mean I'd murder him like an animal, no matter what he said about Trish.”

Larry leaned back and sat down on the cold bench. Although his face was mostly hidden, everyone noticed him slowly spinning down from his rage over Bret's unexpected death. He's probably delirious, Crusow thought.

”Larry, we're not military like you. I know you guys don't talk much about yourselves, and none of us really know why you are really up here anyway, but I think you're still human despite all that training. For example, if you were a selfish p.r.i.c.k like Bret, you wouldn't be wearing that mask.”

Larry adjusted his mask, tightening the straps. ”Well, if we lose your sorry a.s.s, we're all dead anyway.”

Mark jumped in to defuse the situation. ”Larry, that's the most I've ever heard you talk to anybody here, except your military buddies. They're all gone now, pal, so you're going to have to start opening up some if you want to work together.”

Even though none of them could see Larry's face, his eyes acknowledged that Mark was onto something.

”What were you guys looking for out there before all this s.h.i.+t happened?” Mark asked.

Larry looked down at his hands, tracking them as they reached for the teacup. ”Ice cores. We were drilling G.o.dd.a.m.ned ice cores. We have a rig set up a few klicks southwest.”

”What's so d.a.m.n Secret Squirrel about that?”

”I haven't spoken about this to anyone because I signed an agreement that would put me in prison if I did,” Larry said, coughing heavily into his mask. ”Remember back before all this s.h.i.+t, some a.s.shole on that watchdog site leaked those government doc.u.ments? He got his, but not before the economy started coming apart. I don't know exactly why we were drilling for the cores, but I do know a few things. I suppose since I've confirmed that the whole world is f.u.c.ked, there is no reason why I can't talk.” Larry was pale, looking as if he might need an IV bag, and twenty hours in his bunk.

”So what the h.e.l.l are you waiting for? Go on,” said Mark.

”Me, Bret, and the others weren't told much, just that there might be something of national security interest in the ice. Not just anywhere though.” Larry hesitated for a moment, standing up and limping to the other side of the room to remove his mask and take a sip of tea.

He put his mask firmly back in place and walked back to the table. ”Me and the other military folks were here for security and to make sure there were no leaks if we found something strange down here. We were told to expect anything. We were also informed that the core drillers were ordered to take the bit down twenty thousand years into the ice.

”Our chain-of-command was pretty specific. They wanted the ice from twenty thousand years back. Give or take a few hundred. The orders came down from the White House NSC, directly from the intelligence community. Apparently they were searching for something there right before all this s.h.i.+t went down. I got nothing linking any of this together, but me and the other cleared people suspected there was some sort of link. The timing was too suspicious. Half of this facility's military and civilian crew jumped s.h.i.+p last spring. I think a few of them knew more about all this than I did. That's all I know.”

”d.a.m.n,” Crusow said, spitting a stale sunflower seed sh.e.l.l into an empty Solo cup. ”You don't think that something out of that ice did this?”

”I don't see how-the world was crawling with undead and we didn't drill anything out of that ice but a few core samples. We didn't have time, everything happened so quickly. Those useless cores are locked in that s.h.i.+pping container, ready for transport. That'll never happen. I'm not saying that anything we were after caused all this s.h.i.+t, I'm just saying that the timing is strange. I've never seen orders like this.” Larry's cough was getting worse.

”You sound bad, like cat with hairball,” Kung remarked. ”Get rest. I take you.”

Larry nodded in agreement. Kung led him back to his quarters and made sure he was settled in as Crusow and Mark finished up the conversation.

”What about this s.h.i.+p business?” asked Crusow.