Crossbones (12 page)

It was a foreshock, nothing compared to what was to come, but it was as strong as the quake that hit the Bay Area in 1989. Though it lasted only eleven seconds, its force was tremendous, and its violent tremor traveled up into
Nimitz
from the point where the bow of the ship was mired in silt at western Oakland's shallows. Positioned a little over a mile from the earthquake's epicenter deep under Alameda, the warship began to shudder. Everything shook, and the vibration swept through the ship. Anything not secured was thrown about, and many things that
had
been secured were shaken loose.

The foreshock was powerful enough to disrupt the silt bed that had held
Nimitz
to the bottom for so many months, and with a groan of steel grating against underwater rock, the current pushed the warship's bow loose and the entire vessel drifted sideways. It was at last free of the bottom, with steadily deepening water beneath its keel. Once again seawater poured in through the gashes in its hull, finding its way into forward compartments, and within minutes the aircraft carrier picked up another degree of list to the left and forward.

Untethered, and now at the mercy of the current,
Nimitz
began to move.

•   •   •

T
he dead were coming, thumping down the ladderway behind Michael as he ran down a dark passageway, gripping his hammer tightly, trying to keep the flashlight beam in front of him. His sneakers splashed through several inches of water, and each time he came down on his right foot, the twisted ankle caused a flare of pain that made him bite the inside of his cheek.

A short corridor to his left led to a hatch with
FORWARD BERTHING 4.07
stenciled above it. Milky eyes and a snarl waited at the hatch opening, and Michael kept going. Another short hall to his left, another berthing compartment from which came the sound of splashing. He let out a soft wail and ran on, the water to his shins now and slowing him down. From behind came a chorus of groans.

He turned right, then left at an intersection. The glare of his flashlight picked out a bloated, pale thing in a blue uniform hunching toward him, glazed yellow eyes reflecting the light. He backtracked and crossed the intersection, coming to a hatch marked
HANDLING GEAR
. Michael worked the handle and pushed through into a large chamber, where his light revealed seemingly endless coils of rope hanging on the walls, orange buoys, chains hung from hooks and still more rope coiled on the floor, these lengths thicker than one of his legs. There was water in here too, and he splashed through it, hurrying across the chamber, looking for a place to hide.

A figure moved awkwardly through the hatch behind him, its groan echoing in the room. Michael didn't dare to turn and put his light on it. He needed to find a way out, another hatch, a passageway, a ladder that would lead him up.

Something to his right rose from six inches of water, a woman with gray-and-white mottled skin, fluid drooling from her open lips. The flesh was sloughing off her fingers as she held on to a rope locker to help her stand. She gnashed her teeth.

Michael let out a cry and bolted left, away from her.

It was a stairway down to a forward magazine, an open rectangle set in the floor, just like the one he had used to get down to this deck. The space below was completely flooded, and the stairway opening was concealed beneath the six inches of seawater in the compartment. Michael ran into the opening without realizing where he was stepping, and plunged beneath the surface. His flashlight flew away, and he lost his grip on the hammer as he sank.

A pair of bloated corpses moved toward the opening from the chamber above.

•   •   •

R
osa was following the screams and came to a passageway with a pair of limping corpses in uniform heading for an open hatch on the left. She raised the M4 and fired, five times, six, seven before the pair went down. Without hesitating, she ducked through the open hatch and into a workshop.

Snarls echoed from an opening to her right, and she advanced with her light. Beyond was a second workshop, with another open hatch at the far side. A figure appeared in the light, a withered thing wearing a ball cap, and she shot at it, bullets sparking off the steel hatch frame before one found its mark. Shadowy movement came from the room beyond, and she went in.

It was a third workshop, one with countless lengths of pipe stacked and tied off against a bulkhead to the left. There were two corpses in here, both rotting and giving off a putrid stench, heading for a rectangular stairwell opening in the floor. Rosa fired again, the muzzle flash blinding in the black space, each echoing shot making her ears ring, the whine of a ricochet passing close by her head. Both creatures went down.

Michael had been here, she was sure of it. That was what had stirred up the dead.
Or had it been her earlier rifle fire?
No, she told herself, shaking her head as she switched out the M4's magazine for
one that was fully loaded.
Follow your instinct. The dead were heading for that stairwell for a reason.
She did too.

Descending softly and cautiously, Rosa led with the light and the rifle muzzle, praying Michael wouldn't suddenly appear in its glare. She was wired so tight she might trigger a nervous shot into the boy without thinking. Midway down the steep risers, Rosa crouched and used her light to see what was below. There was a flooded passageway leading forward, ripples making her beam of light flicker on the surface. She raised the light and put it deeper into the corridor, picking out the backs of a pair of figures about twenty yards off, shadowy at the edge of her beam, facing away from her. They weren't moving, simply standing with their arms limp at their sides, heads tilted back and to the right.

They're scenting for Michael.
Her hand clenched the rifle's pistol grip and she continued down. She was still on the stairs when the tremor rumbled up through her legs, growing in intensity, and then she was shaken right off her feet, thrown to the bottom and landing painfully in several inches of water, her flashlight bouncing away, throwing the area into pale shadows. A tremendous crash of metal came from above, and for a terrifying second she thought the ship was folding in on her. She saw a tangle of long, dark shapes tumbling down the stairway—pipes that had broken loose from the compartment above—and one shot at her like a medieval battering ram.

The medic jerked aside and tried to roll out of its path, sparing her body but unable to prevent the edge of the pipe from clipping her forehead. There was a flash of white and pain, and Rosa collapsed in the water, her unconscious form sagging against a length of pipe that had come to rest against her side.

The shaking went on, creating a deep grinding sound below, and then it ceased. Up the passageway from the motionless EMT, the pair of corpses that had been facing the epicenter lifted themselves from where they too had fallen. Heads turned toward the stairwell, and dead limbs began to move.

•   •   •

R
osa was on the pole again at the Glass Slipper Gentlemen's Club, white stage lights turning the crowd into faceless shadows, a Beyoncé song pounding from overhead speakers. She was in ridiculously high heels and peeled off first one side and then the other of her white doctor's coat, revealing her heavy breasts as the shadow crowd whistled and hooted. She did a turn on the pole and threw her head back, letting her long hair swing free.

Howls came from the crowd and she saw hands thrust forward into the stage lights, fingers clutching tens and twenties.
Money that will pay for school.
She executed another turn and coyly covered her breasts with one arm, then put her back to the pole and began sliding slowly into a crouch.

Shame was burning inside her, and only the heavy makeup prevented it from coloring her face. Not that anyone was looking at her face, she knew. The shadows moved, pushing against the edge of the stage as she slowly slid back up the pole.
It's for school. That's all this is.

Then she thought,
A doctor's coat?
When had she ever used one of those in her act?

Jimmy's face appeared in the lights at the front of the crowd. Her EMT partner and former lover, a man she'd never really
stopped
loving. Gone now, turned like the rest. No, she didn't want him seeing this! He wasn't supposed to come to the club, they had an agreement. There was no color to Jimmy's face, and the ragged wound in his throat was colorless, like his eyes.
Oh, baby, you're hurt. You need a doctor.
She kept dancing.
Not much longer, honey, I promise. Another year at the most and school will be paid for.

Rosa's mother appeared next to Jimmy. Even through the peeling and blackened skin, the expression on her face was one of hurt and humiliation.
No!
Rosa spun again, turning her backside in a slow circle toward the hands now turned gray and torn, still waving bills.
Mommy, you can't be here. You don't know about this.
Rosa
began to cry, her tears making the heavy eyeliner run. Her mother said something, but Rosa couldn't hear it over the music.

A name came to her.
Michael. Was that one of her professors? No, he was Calvin's son. He was too young to be in the club.
But that wasn't right. He was lost and needed her. Her mother had vanished, but Jimmy began to climb onto the stage. So did the others, middle-aged men with rotting flesh falling off their bones, all of them waving money at her.
They're dead, Jimmy's dead, Michael's . . . no, he's alive, he needs me.
Rosa squinted. The lights were so bright. It was making her head hurt.

Rosa opened her eyes. She was lying in water, a cold length of steel pressed against her side, her head throbbing. In the muted glow of the fallen flashlight she saw a pale hand slide over the curve of pipe above her, followed by a fish-colored face with white eyes.

Her right hand went to her hip, found the butt of her automatic still in its holster, and jerked it free. She thrust out her arm and fired at point-blank range. The dead face burst open in a wet spray, and the zombie collapsed onto the pipe. She felt its stinking droplets on her cheeks. Another figure started over the pipe, and she shot this one too, holding up her other palm to shield her face from blowback. She hit the mark, and it slid back down the other side of the pipe.

A moment later she was on her feet and had retrieved her flashlight, splashing water into her face and wiping away the gore, praying she hadn't gotten any in her eyes or mouth. A wave of dizziness hit her and she fell to her knees in the water, supporting herself with one hand against a bulkhead to keep from going all the way down. Something warm ran into her eyes, and she wiped away blood, her fingers finding the gash in her forehead.
Had any of that thing's gore gotten into the wound?
When the dizziness passed, she panned the flashlight around, seeing a passageway that was empty for now. The ladderway above her was hopelessly choked with a snarl of steel pipe. There would be no exit by that route.

The medic took several minutes to bandage her head with supplies from the pack, swallowing a few pain relievers. The wound would need stitches, she knew, and was almost certain to get infected in this damp and rotting place, but there was no time to give it the attention it required. She crawled on her hands and knees in a circle, searching under the water until she found the M4. A quick inspection showed that instead of caving in her head, the pipe that had shot down at her hit the rifle instead, crushing it against the deck like a hammer on an anvil, bending the magazine receiver. The weapon was useless.

Standing now, waiting to see if the dizziness would return, Rosa aimed her light down the passageway again. It was the only way Michael could have gone. With her pistol held before her, the medic started down the corridor, shin-deep in seawater.

From somewhere in the distance came a deep, baritone gurgle as the crippled warship took on more of the San Francisco Bay.

•   •   •

M
ichael screamed as he plunged through the opening in the floor, then choked as he swallowed stagnant seawater. His arms flailed and he kicked violently, one hand rapping hard against metal, a foot connecting with something solid. He opened his eyes, but there was only darkness followed by the vicious sting of salt. He pushed off with one foot and propelled himself upward, through the stairwell opening. As his head broke the surface he sputtered, arms thrashing until he caught the edge of the opening and pulled himself against it, as if clinging to the rim of a swimming pool.

There was light coming from somewhere. He choked and spat, rubbing one fist at the burning in his eyes, straining to keep his face above the surface. His flashlight was lying submerged several yards away, glowing up through the brine, creating a sphere of gray in the otherwise black chamber. Michael started to pull himself out of the water but then froze.

Not three feet away, the bloated dead woman was facing him. Her arms were limp, and rivulets of water ran from her hair and mouth. The thing's head was tipped slightly back and tilted to one side. Michael tensed for the attack, but the creature simply stood there, unmoving.

The ten-year-old didn't understand what was happening but took advantage of the moment and moved hand-over-hand down the lip of the submerged stairwell opening, feet kicking free in the water below, until he reached the end farthest from the corpse. He planted his hands and prepared to lever himself up and out.

The foreshock hit the compartment, making the deck beneath his palms buck, and he let out a cry, trying to hold on. He felt his grip slipping, his body vibrating away from the edge. He kicked hard, hands scrabbling for a hold on the wet metal.

“Daddy, help me!”

The shaking stopped, and Michael was still holding on. He saw the woman's corpse turn its head and look at him with dead eyes, and water bubbled past her lips as she tried to make a sound.