The Zombie Theories (Book 3): Conversion Theory Read online

  Then I grabbed Donna’s hand and we all ran, Alvarez selecting targets and firing his M4. That shit was loud too. We made it through the gap, and into the hold proper. We had gone maybe forty feet. “Loading!” I heard Alvarez yell again at the same time I heard several M4s firing. What? What did I just hear?

  Kinga yelped and fell forward on one knee, his hand on the floor. I heard a bullet whizz past me, and I spun around. Four dickheads in black camo were back by the ladder shooting at us. I caught one of their tactical lights with my NVGs, and was momentarily blinded. The pricks saved us though, as half of what was left of the crowd behind us made for them. Ship charged me with his machete, swung, and cleaved the thing that was about to bite me from the top of its head to the bottom of its trachea.

  There wasn’t a lot of time to take in my surroundings, but I could see that the large, open area we were in contained crates of stuff tied down with ratcheting straps and ropes. There were infected weaving their way in between the boxes toward the sound of dinner.

  Remo helped Kinga up, and they looked into the dead faces of three infected. I could see that Remo had three magazines in his MOLLE pack, but there was no time to reload. He fired point blank with his little 410 shotgun, and the melon of the dead soldier in front of him ceased to exist. Kinga lashed out with his right boot, and Remo blasted a second dead thing. The third grabbed Kinga and leaned in for a bite. Todd was there with his broomstick, and he caught the creature in the throat. It gave Kinga the one second he needed to back up, bring his MP5 to bear, and blast the thing in the forehead with a suppressed round.

  Ship boosted Donna up onto a medium-sized crate, turned to kick the festering crewman that was reaching for him, then the big guy grabbed me. He lifted me up next to Donna, and ran to help Alvarez, who was struggling with something in filthy BDUs. A quick survey of our situation put me in a bad place. There were dozens of undead coming from every direction, and suddenly, I didn’t know what to do. For some reason, all I could think of was Lynch. Everything else fled my mind.

  The sting of a slap brought me out of my daydreams. “Do something!” Donna screamed and pointed. One of the things was attempting to climb up the cargo net surrounding the crate we were on. I pulled my SOG and thrust it into the eye of the climber. Half a dozen others were reaching for us, their forearms scraping rotting skin onto the edge of the crate. We both had empty pistols, but I had one mag in my MP5, and one mag with fourteen rounds. I looked over at Ship and the three military guys. Alvarez had copied the industrious infected and climbed some cargo netting hanging from the side of a large crate. There were fifteen or so undead just out of arms reach of him. Kinga and ship were inside a Dodge Ram 1500 that was strapped to a giant metal pallet with big steel hooks. Remo and Todd were in the back of the truck. Todd was poking at anything that tried to get too close. Remo had taken up a firing position over the top of the truck cab, and was firing at the guys behind us. They were fighting their own battle, but more had come down the ladder.

  We were well and truly fucked. There were too many infected. They were everywhere and still coming. I suddenly got very angry. We could have pulled this shit off if these douche-canoes hadn’t shown up and pissed in the punchbowl. I sighted on one that was coming down the ladder and shot him in the back. Hands-down the best shot I had made to date. He fell about four feet, but the fucker got up almost immediately. Body armor. I put a different guy in my sight picture, aiming for his dome, but Donna shrieked and fell off the back of the crate. I looked at her, on her side on the deck. She was moving. I jumped down, helping her up. There were no undead on this side of the crate, but the first one showed its nasty face while I was helping my girl up by her armpits. I got her up and my suppressed 9mm round entered through the thing’s left eye. Donna had spun around and was climbing another cargo net, this one quite high. I put my hands on her ass and pushed, hearing sporadic gunfire, screams, and the sounds of the infected. Movement behind me made me spin to face a completely mauled specimen. Half its face was missing, as was the left arm and left side of its throat. The right side of its face belonged to Captain Bob, and that was my undoing.

  I blinked, not understanding why Bob would have left the wheelhouse so many weeks or months before. He must have run out of food. The plan was that he was to run this fucking ship of death aground on Mexico’s beautiful white-sand beaches, but that had obviously never happened. I was unable to find out what transpired or why nobody from Atlantis went to rescue him because, as previously stated, I had been captured and taken to Montana pretty much the moment I had returned from this metal tomb the last time.

  The Bob-thing already had one hand and one nub on me before I realized that all those thoughts you just read in the last paragraph had taken the requisite time necessary for Bob to make such a move. I lifted my MP5, and the suppressor hit Bob in the balls, keeping the business end of the weapon safely away from his noggin. Then he did what any self-respecting undead monster would have done during this state of affairs: he bit me.

  Now, as you are aware, I had been bitten before. A dead man had been under a truck, I hadn’t seen him, and he had chomped down on my calf. It left a semi-circle bite mark through my jeans, and it had broken the skin, undoubtedly infecting me. Before I could hide away and try to die in peace, a duo of heavy éclair-eaters had set upon me on the road, and one of them had taken a scrap of skin off of my collarbone. I had survived both bites. I had gotten tagged again in Tennessee, when one of the things had taken a nibble out of my shoulder. Just a nip, but death to everyone else but me.

  Captain Bob, while probably enjoying several hundred rum nips over the course of his seafaring career, had simply ceased believing in nipping of any sort during his undeath. I threw my left forearm up to catch him under the chin and force his head back, but to my everlasting shame, I missed. I put my damn arm right in his friggin mouth. He wasted no time in removing a substantial chunk from the underside of my arm. I screamed a high-pitched squeal that was exceptionally undignified when Bob pulled his head back, ripping a big piece of me with it. I watched in horror as he chewed briefly before swallowing.

  Sometimes when there’s a large wound, the blood doesn’t come right away. Sometimes it takes a moment for the veins and arteries and capillaries to realize there has been a WTF moment. Then they catch up and blood floods the area, the pumps returning to normal. This was not one of those times. When the good captain had yanked his head away, my red stuff shot out of me at 867 miles per hour, coating his dead face in thick crimson.

  And we had been pals.

  I continued to yell, my arm continued to leak, and Bob continued to hold on to me. We grappled for what seemed like three weeks, but in reality was only three seconds. I used one of the techniques I had been taught by Remo, punching my uninjured right arm up under poor Bob’s remaining elbow and dropping my left foot back. There was an audible snap as my former friend’s arm broke. He didn’t consider this an issue, keeping me with his right hand. I brought my right arm up, over, and down, landing my good arm over his newly broken one, and he (grudgingly, if that were possible for these things) released me as I followed through, carrying his face forward and down. I brought my knee up into his face and he went ass-over-teakettle. Before he could do much more, I shot him and the one behind him with my MP5 in their decaying faces. Bye Bob.

  “There’s more coming!” Donna yelled pointing. She had made it on top of a large box, and was bleeding from her right shoulder. Another of the things came around the corner, and I hastily shot it, then began my climb. I pulled myself up with my right arm, but my left arm weighed an extra twenty pounds. You would think, what with me just losing a few ounces of arm, and a few more of blood, said appendage would be lighter, but no. Lefty didn’t want to function properly, and when I finally did get my hand to grip the net, I caught my wound against it and yelled. This was a manly yell, and nothing like the scream that I let loose when the Bob-zombie started to eat me. My lady helped me, and soon we were several feet
above the reaching hands, and safely behind a crate of who knows what, that was protecting us from gunfire. With my current luck, said crate was probably housing nitroglycerin.

  As previously mentioned, the guys in black camo were getting their own dose of infected, at least two of which were Runners. There were more of the bad guys now though. Several reinforcements had dropped down the ladder. I looked right and saw Remo and Todd doing their best to keep a shrinking number of infected from gaining access to the back of the Dodge. The rear window exploded outward, and Kinga climbed into the back, followed by Ship. I have no idea how he had fit through that window, but he had. Kinga was favoring his right side as he leaned over the cab to fire back at the men in black. Todd was doing quite well with his broomstick, while Ship was cleaving anything that got close with his machete and ventilating craniums with his Glock.

  Donna pulled a tube from her pack and squeezed the entire contents into my wound. I gritted my teeth, hissing when she put it in me before I realized the goo didn’t hurt at all. A white gauze pad followed by a bandage was next and she began to wrap my arm. It hurt. It hurt worse than my side right now. “I was quite specific about asking you not to get hurt.”

  “You said shot. I didn’t get shot.” My eyes went wide, and I brought my hands up to her shoulder. The bandage flew from her hand when I bumped her, and unraveled as it plummeted toward the deck. “Fuckin’ idiot!” she yelled in tears. I didn’t care as I tore her shirt and looked at what was bleeding. I sighed that wonderful sigh of relief when I finally understood it was only a bullet graze. Funny how getting shot is way better than getting a scratch from an infected. She began pulling up the bandage and I realized that the shooting had stopped. How many rounds had I fired?

  There were still meandering dead, but the ones at the truck were down, and the ones at the bad guys were down. As no bullets were flying, I can only assume a ceasefire had been called on both sides.

  “Everybody okay?” I heard over the radio.

  “Yeah, Remo, we made it. How’s Kinga?”

  “He took one in the shoulder. He needs the doc.”

  “Busy!” she yelled as she continued to wrap my arm.

  “We heard you yelling,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Took one on the arm. It isn’t bad.”

  Donna looked at me, then yanked my mic to her face. “It’s bad! His basilic vein may been severed. I’ve bandaged it, but he needs to get home or there could be permanent damage. I need to get him on a table for both injuries, but I think this is worse than the bullet wound.”

  I pulled the mic back. “What’s going on with the douches in black?”

  “Seven of the nine have gone back up the ladder, but they lost one. The last one is climbing back up now. I think the dead made them think twice. They’ll be back shortly.”

  I peeked around the corner of my box and saw three dead looking up at me. I shot them one at a time, my arm throbbing. “Remo, is it clear from us to you?”

  “Looks to be. You stay there, I’ll come get you.”

  I could hear that growling that some of them do, and I told Remo as much. “I’ll be on my toes.” I could see him coming, and I tried to cover him, but one of the fuckers surprised us both and latched on to him from the left side. Didn’t matter much. This is Remo we’re talking about, and he dispatched it quickly. The growler showed up, and I shot it. Easy-peasy. When Remo arrived, he put his back to us to cover us, and Donna and I climbed down.

  We threaded our way through the various crates and containers, making it to the truck in short order. Kinga was covering the ladder down the corridor, sixty feet or so away. Remo traded with him, and Donna got to work on the wounded MARSOC’s shoulder. His expletives when she dumped that clotting powder on him made me smile. “I would have ducked,” I said.

  Looking at my bandage, he said, “Should have ducked better, Round-Eye,” and smiled back.

  “This?” I asked holding up my wounded arm. “I didn’t get shot. Captain Bob bit me.”

  Todd backed up so fast he would have fallen out of the back of the truck if Ship hadn’t grabbed him.

  “You saw him?” asked Alvarez. He had just climbed down from his perch and was now standing with us next to the truck.

  “Yeah. Up close.” I held my arm up again. “I took care of him.” He nodded.

  Remo smoked a straggler pus-bag with his knife near the back of the truck. “Stay frosty,” was all he told us.

  “Hello down there?” someone yelled down the ladder. “Anybody home? I would like to come down and speak with you about our current situations if that’s okay? I’m armed, because I would be nuts not to me, but I will keep my weapon holstered.”

  We conferred for a moment. Kinga was dead-set against it, citing that the bad guys would know our numbers, but the rest of us wanted to talk with someone. “Come on down,” Alvarez yelled, “but just you.”

  A dude in black BDU-type pants and a black T-shirt slid down the ladder like it was a fire pole. He turned, looked at us, and raised his hands. He did a complete circle with his hands in the air and began walking toward us.

  “Well isn’t this… behind you.” He pointed at Ship. The big guy spun, taking out a shambler with his blade.

  “As I was saying,” the new guy continued, “isn’t this nice. Everybody in one place.” He looked around. “You’re not getting out of here other than back the way we came,” he nodded his head toward the ladder, “so I think we should talk.” The guy was wiry. All muscle, but not muscle-bound. He moved with a catlike grace, sure of every step. The arrogance with which he spoke, his athletic build, and the way I just knew he knew about everything in this room with one glance, expressed to me exactly who he was.

  “May I put my hands down?”

  “No,” Kinga, Remo, and Alvarez all said at the same time.

  “Wow, tough room. Anyway, let me introduce myself, and tell you exactly what’s about to happen. My name is—”

  “Lynch,” I finished for him, “his name is Lynch.”

  The Hulk Feels No Fear

  No, Dear Reader, it wasn’t the same guy who took me away months ago. My Lynch is either stumbling around looking for someone to eat, or more likely, was torn to literal pieces and would never rise. I could just tell that the guy in front of me and the guy that kidnapped me were of the same ilk though. I met a guy named Dallas maybe ten weeks ago who told me he had also met a spook named Lynch who was equally as douchey as my Lynch. I successfully negotiated kindergarten, and can put two and two together. This shit just added up.

  “How astute,” the guy said with a giant smile as he stood between several recently destroyed infected. “But no. I do know a few Lynches, dicks mostly. The kind of dick who would offer a reward for some guy, but offer up no reason as to why. The kind of dick who has a big mouth, and gets the rest of us dicks sent out on retrieval missions. I will say that if you’ve met someone named Lynch who was capable, that man takes orders from the same powers-that-be who provide mine. My name is irrelevant, but what is wicked relevant is that no matter what happens, I will not allow this man” (he still had his hands up, but he nodded toward me) “to leave this ship except in my custody.”

  Wicked relevant? “Shoot him,” I said. “Just fuk’n shoot him now.”

  He raised his left eyebrow, but didn’t tense in the least. “White flags were shown, bruh. That would be all kinds of wrong. Like, breach of etiquette wrong. If you think for one second—”

  The guy’s head snapped back at the same time I heard a report from behind me. I jumped as I hadn’t been expecting it. Ship’s Glock was still raised. The big guy had wasted this asshole in the semi-darkness with a quick draw. Evil government dicknose had never even lowered his hands. Everybody was looking at Ship now, even the zombie who was casually strolling in from the left. Ship holstered his weapon, drawing his machete, but Remo, who was wearing an uncharacteristic grin, got to the thing first and drove his knife into its melon. When the zombie stabbing was compl
ete, Ship’s notebook was turned around so I could see it. It is unlikely he would have kept whatever promise he was about to make. I thought it prudent to be the aggressor in this situation. They will only take you again if I’m dead.

  “If that says that we needed to kill this fuck,” Kinga nodded toward the freshly murdered scumbag, “then Ship gets an A+.” I was going to say something monumentally witty, when I heard three metallic thumps in front of us. Well, I was turned around looking at Ship, but it was still technically in front of us. Back by the ladder.

  Here’s a scenario for you: You’re on a boat. Boat catches fire. No way to put it out. Shark is in the water. Big one. What do you do? Stay on the boat and you are certainly going to die horribly. Jump in the water and the potential for dying in an equally as horrible fashion exists. Answer to this trivial quandary? You jump in the fuk’n water.

  “Grenade!” screamed Alvarez and we all dove for cover. Dove into infection. Except Todd. He was just a second late, but that was enough. Well, Donna didn’t hit the deck without help, I dragged her down. The grenades were about forty feet away from us, but there wasn’t a lot other than the bodies on the floor to protect us from shrapnel. Unfortunately, those bodies were all mangled, rotten, and most importantly, infected. We were laying in a pile of infection, and pretty much everybody was in some way injured such that there was an open wound.

  Ears ringing, NVGs knocked askew, and on my stomach, I felt someone tugging on my right shoulder. I blinked a few times trying to figure shit out and looked at who was yanking on me. When my focus returned, I could see the tugger was a dead kid, and she was chewing on my tactical vest. She didn’t like what she was eating, (it was probably a texture thing, you know how some folks just hate coconut?) and she looked me right in the eye as she opened her horrid mouth, leaning toward me. I got my uninjured hand under her chin and pushed. Her grip was like iron, but her body was like mush, and my hand went right through everything, my digits latching onto her spinal column. You know what? You weren’t there, so all your eews and yucks and grosses at the thought of what was happening can’t compare to what I was going through as it actually transpired. I couldn’t really do anything with the kid’s spine, so I viciously twisted my hand and the bones and cord snapped like rotten twigs. The little girl thing crumpled instantly.