store.
“Just don’t start trying to have sex with a torpedo tube, OK?” Brit laughed at the crestfallen look on his face and his muttered “damn”.
We made good time down to Florida, cruising below the surface at around thirty knots. It was weird, because the crew of the Georgia had spent the apocalypse patrolling off the coast of America, and had actually launched a few tomahawks with nuclear warheads in a vain attempt to stop the undead hordes. So they hadn’t seen the devastation, though I knew it must have been hell for many of the crew, unable to communicate with their families. Some of the younger crewmen had joined the Navy after Z day, but they were small in number, and you could tell who they were by their pinched, lined faces.
“Yeah,” said Chief Gilbert as we ate in the Chief’s Mess one day (night?). “That was pretty rough. My kids made it through, but both of them were grown. Never heard from my ex, but I like to think she’s out there, somewhere. With red blazing eyes, rotting away and eating brains. Couldn’t have happened to a meaner woman!”
We laughed at that one, and he took a minute to light a pipe and continued. “Yeah, that was hard. We lost more than a dozen guys to suicide, and the Captain died from a heart attack. Thank God for the XO, he held the boat together. Then when we docked at Bremerton, almost half the crew deserted. Can’t say I blame them, though. Things were pretty crazy at the time. Most came back after the amnesty was declared. We’ve spent the last few years ferrying Special Ops guys and cleaner teams into and out of various derelict bases. Home ported in Providence right now.”
“Must be nice,” I said, looking around. “You’re all fat as hell!”
“That’s because we Navy guys know how to live life. Now pass me the butter.”
The only excitement on the trip was when the XO put up a video feed of the periscope. We watched in the exercise room as a cruise ship swam into focus. It was listing to one side, but still looked enormous on the screen. Whoever was on the scope zoomed in, and we could see the Disney logo on the hull.
“Oh boy, I went on a cruise on that ship when I was little!” exclaimed Shona Lowenstein. Her excitement turned sour as the view zoomed in further, to show hundreds of undead milling about on the deck. The view zoomed back out, and held steady on the ship for a minute. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a huge plume of water jumped up into the air, center of the hull, followed a split second later by another, closer to the stern. The ship started to settle, her keel broken, and soon slid beneath the waves.
One of the crew exercising with us answered our unspoken question. “There’s still a few like that, drifting around the ocean. More so in the Pacific. We take them out when they’re not too far off our course.”
“Yeah, but eight years later?” asked Shona.
“Big sucker like that will keep drifting for twenty years, trust me. Especially out in the middle of the doldrums. That one must have run into a storm and gotten blown closer into the coast.” He looked at her scarred face and pointed to his own, which had a pretty big burn mark on the jaw, a pale spot on his dark skin.
“Just be glad it’s not a tanker. We have to clear those of undead and then try to get them running; if we can’t, we burn them out with Willie Pete and then have to stand by to sink them. If you aren’t fast enough, something goes wrong with a timer, you can catch it pretty good, and there ain’t any place to go except into the water.” He didn’t say anything else, just went back to riding his stationary bike.
Yeah, it was a screwed up world we lived in.
Chapter 254
We were in the shit. Another round cracked over my head, the supersonic CRACK of a high velocity rifle making me eat the dirt.
“OBI! GET THAT GODDAMNED GUN GOING NOW!” I yelled. He was lying ten feet to my right, cursing furiously while trying to clear a jammed cartridge.
“Just don’t start trying to have sex with a torpedo tube, OK?” Brit laughed at the crestfallen look on his face and his muttered “damn”.
We made good time down to Florida, cruising below the surface at around thirty knots. It was weird, because the crew of the Georgia had spent the apocalypse patrolling off the coast of America, and had actually launched a few tomahawks with nuclear warheads in a vain attempt to stop the undead hordes. So they hadn’t seen the devastation, though I knew it must have been hell for many of the crew, unable to communicate with their families. Some of the younger crewmen had joined the Navy after Z day, but they were small in number, and you could tell who they were by their pinched, lined faces.
“Yeah,” said Chief Gilbert as we ate in the Chief’s Mess one day (night?). “That was pretty rough. My kids made it through, but both of them were grown. Never heard from my ex, but I like to think she’s out there, somewhere. With red blazing eyes, rotting away and eating brains. Couldn’t have happened to a meaner woman!”
We laughed at that one, and he took a minute to light a pipe and continued. “Yeah, that was hard. We lost more than a dozen guys to suicide, and the Captain died from a heart attack. Thank God for the XO, he held the boat together. Then when we docked at Bremerton, almost half the crew deserted. Can’t say I blame them, though. Things were pretty crazy at the time. Most came back after the amnesty was declared. We’ve spent the last few years ferrying Special Ops guys and cleaner teams into and out of various derelict bases. Home ported in Providence right now.”
“Must be nice,” I said, looking around. “You’re all fat as hell!”
“That’s because we Navy guys know how to live life. Now pass me the butter.”
The only excitement on the trip was when the XO put up a video feed of the periscope. We watched in the exercise room as a cruise ship swam into focus. It was listing to one side, but still looked enormous on the screen. Whoever was on the scope zoomed in, and we could see the Disney logo on the hull.
“Oh boy, I went on a cruise on that ship when I was little!” exclaimed Shona Lowenstein. Her excitement turned sour as the view zoomed in further, to show hundreds of undead milling about on the deck. The view zoomed back out, and held steady on the ship for a minute. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a huge plume of water jumped up into the air, center of the hull, followed a split second later by another, closer to the stern. The ship started to settle, her keel broken, and soon slid beneath the waves.
One of the crew exercising with us answered our unspoken question. “There’s still a few like that, drifting around the ocean. More so in the Pacific. We take them out when they’re not too far off our course.”
“Yeah, but eight years later?” asked Shona.
“Big sucker like that will keep drifting for twenty years, trust me. Especially out in the middle of the doldrums. That one must have run into a storm and gotten blown closer into the coast.” He looked at her scarred face and pointed to his own, which had a pretty big burn mark on the jaw, a pale spot on his dark skin.
“Just be glad it’s not a tanker. We have to clear those of undead and then try to get them running; if we can’t, we burn them out with Willie Pete and then have to stand by to sink them. If you aren’t fast enough, something goes wrong with a timer, you can catch it pretty good, and there ain’t any place to go except into the water.” He didn’t say anything else, just went back to riding his stationary bike.
Yeah, it was a screwed up world we lived in.
Chapter 254
We were in the shit. Another round cracked over my head, the supersonic CRACK of a high velocity rifle making me eat the dirt.
“OBI! GET THAT GODDAMNED GUN GOING NOW!” I yelled. He was lying ten feet to my right, cursing furiously while trying to clear a jammed cartridge.
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