Z Plan (Book 2): Red Tides Read online

  Amun walked down the narrow corridors, each step rattling the metal grate beneath his feet. The sounds reverberated down the passageway. Amun entered his private quarters. Only he and Admiral Selim, the highest in rank, were allotted this privilege.

  Amun was second in command, but Selim definitely didn’t treat him that way, especially considering that, before this madness, they had considered each other friends.

  Since his rise to power, Selim had gone through an extreme change. Amun speculated it was the stress of being in charge. It was Selim, after all, who’d discovered the vice admiral’s plot. Once the other commanders agreed that Selim should be in charge, he appointed Amun to handle the refugees. It felt more like indentured servitude.

  Once they cleared quarantine, they were assigned to one of the vessels in the fleet. They were paired up and placed under the authority of a handler, who was, in actuality, an armed guard. The handlers would then take their charges ashore and gather supplies. Each ship was assigned a city, and each handler was assigned a zone within the city. This had been a plan that Amun had come up with, but Selim had taken credit for it. Many of the ‘refugees died, and occasionally a handler. Because of this, they continually had to restock their ranks. If a pair lasted long enough, and there was an opening in the crew, they would be forced to fight each other to the death for the spot.

  Amun thought about how much the world had changed in the past two months. The crisis of the plague only expedited it. It was amazing how fast men could turn on each other, when survival was at stake. Indentured slaves were only one aspect of the new world. Amun believed they were nothing more than pirates now. They were defectors, free to make their own decisions. He sat down at his desk to tally up the refugees they had and assign them to ships. None of them had any noticeable bites, but that was why they had the two-day quarantine. Symptoms of illness would start to show within that period, so they’d remain in quarantine until it passed. Most of the time, one of them would have the flu or a cold, but every now and then one would be infected. It didn’t matter; the refugees took care of any infected in their midst.

  Amun thought about the American they’d recovered. If he wasn’t infected, he could become a valuable part of the crew. They’d never found anyone with military training, and he’d made it far without becoming infected. He quickly marked the American to stay onboard under the direction of Pashet, the fat man. Ensign Pashet was the lowest ranking officer on board, but he spoke English; almost all officers were fluent in a handful of languages. Pashet wasn’t normally a handler, but being the lowest in rank, he’d have to deal with it. Amun wanted to keep the American soldier close.

  3.

  Tainted Cargo

  “Ya know you always quoted the rules of any zombie movie when we played video games. You never split up; someone always gets killed when that happens,” Zach stated.

  “Yeah, but those people aren’t you and I.” Cale smirked.

  Zach grinned back. “I guess you’re right. But if I get bit I’m coming for you, Cale,” he said, jokingly.

  The two of them shared a laugh, and started a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who would go where.

  “Winner takes ground floor?” Zach said, preparing his hands for their ritual.

  “Sounds good,” Cale replied.

  “One…Two…Three!” the two said in unison.

  Zach formed a ball with his hand making a rock, and Cale extended two of his fingers out, scissors.

  “Damn. Best two out of three?” Cale said with a smile.

  “Nope. Have fun,” Zach answered.

  Cale ascended the stairs cautiously, his rifle at the ready. Once at the top, he looked back down for Zach, but he was gone. The house filled with screams, and shuddered like a bomb had gone off, doors and windows rattling.

  “What the hell?”

  Cale awoke to Naeem’s terrified face. The room was filled with shouts and moans. Naeem was shaking Cale violently, pointing at their cellmate. He was convulsing on the floor, where he’d vomited blood.

  “Shit! He’s infected” Cale exclaimed.

  He wasn’t alone; the occupants of the two farthest cells were also infected. One of them had a death grip on the elderly woman through the bars of his cage. One of the younger women tried to assist her, but the old woman had already been bitten. The second young woman pressed against Cale’s cell, screaming for help. The Middle Eastern man sat up, awkwardly at first, but then jumped forward and grabbed her easily. Before Naeem and Cale could react, he’d pulled her arm through the bars and had taken a mouthful of flesh. She shrieked in pain and fell to the floor, clutching the bloody hole that was once her tricep.

  Together, Cale and Naeem pulled their undead cellmate to the floor and took turns stomping on his skull until it was a soggy pile of bone and brain matter. The man’s body continued to twitch, despite his brain being stuck to the bottom of Cale’s boot.

  The duo backed up against the wall, far away from the cages that contained the undead. They watched as the infected feasted on those who hadn’t reanimated yet, their mouths slurping and smacking. The sound was horrible, but the smell was worse. The stench of bile and feces flooded the tiny space.

  “Hey! We need help in here!” Cale shouted, hoping a guard would hear him, but no one came.

  Cale and Naeem watched in horror as their fellow inmates ate one another. The elderly woman, now fully infected, snacked on the woman that had tried to help her, gnawing on her forearm. She’d all but cleaned it to the bone before she stopped and moved toward the whimpering girl, who was still clutching her arm. The hag started on the girl’s face, digging her teeth into her soft left cheek. The girl, in shock, passed out; it was probably better that way. The old woman moved on to her left eye, greedily plucking it from its socket. She squeezed, and it popped in her fingers, oozing into the palm of her hand, where she lapped it up. The elderly woman’s first victim rose, and moved toward the feast of human flesh. She was only able to use one arm, the other having been picked clean. This didn’t slow her down however, and she clawed into the stomach of their meal. It was disgusting to watch her, pulling out organs and eating them, and then diving in for more, but Cale couldn’t look away. Naeem threw up in the corner of their cell.

  In the other two cells, the infected chewed on pieces that were perhaps too mutilated to reanimate. Two infected fought over a raw stump that was once the arm of their third cellmate. He’d been ‘parted out’ to the point that he couldn’t come back. His severed head lay on the floor, his brains scooped out. His entire body was littered about their cell. Urine covering the floor became the least of Cale’s worries, as the gore spread and flooded the entire holding area. He and Naeem could only watch, trapped, and unable to escape.

  The younger woman reached through the bars, clawing at the air between her and the two survivors. Cale closed his eyes and tried to imagine being somewhere else, but the sounds and smells snapped him back to reality. He looked at Naeem, who was doing the same. Together they pressed themselves as flat against the wall as they could.

  “Help!” Cale shouted again.

  Naeem did the same, but in Arabic. Still, no guard came or answered. Their shouts did, however, gain the attention of the rest of the tainted cargo. Bloody and mangled hands reached, despite being two cells away. Strips of flesh were wedged between their teeth, and Cale could see one of them had broken his teeth trying to bite into his victim’s femur. The now eyeless girl got up and joined her freakish comrades. Even blind, she attacked whatever she touched, testing it out like a toddler by first biting it. The other infected paid no attention to her annoying nibbles, and continued shouting and moaning for warm flesh.

  “Oh God, please somebody help!” Cale shouted again.

  Even though there were about four feet between them and the viral clutches of the undead, Cale felt claustrophobic. One of the women was attempting to crawl through the bars. Her body compressed as she did so, and it seemed only a matter of time before she’d
get through. Cale looked at Naeem and saw that his eyes were still closed tight.

  “Naeem!” Cale shouted as he grabbed him.

  Naeem opened his eyes and looked at Cale frantically. Cale pointed to the woman contorting her body and trying to get into their cell. Her head easily slid through the bars, and she had one foot in their cell. Soon, she managed to get half her body through, and time was running out. Cale reached out and grabbed her arm. He started to pull her, and Naeem prepared to do his part. Together, they yanked her the rest of the way through and pushed her to the wet floor. They took turns stomping on the poor thing’s head until it quit moving.

  The eyeless one chewed on the bars of her cage, desperately trying to find the meal she could smell and hear, and her teeth chipped and broke off.

  The elderly woman’s body was almost too wide to fit through the narrow gap, but she continued to try. Behind her, the reanimated bodies of the other captives followed suit, and began squeezing through the bars. If Cale and Naeem hoped to survive, they’d have to take them all down, one by one.

  Naeem seized the old woman by her disheveled hair and began to yank her through to their side. Her breaking ribs could be heard over the animallike calls of the other infected. She wasn’t as easy to put down on the floor, but with Cale’s help, they managed it. Once she was down they began stomping her head like the two before her, her brain matter spilling out of the fractures in her skull.

  The two of them, out of breath now, took a moment to rest. Some of the undead had made their way into the second cell, and were now trying for the third.

  In the third, the blind zombie continued biting whatever she touched; she wasn’t as much of a threat as the others. Soon one of the men wiggled his mangled body into her cell, and wasted no time in assaulting the bars that led to Cale and Naeem’s section. His ravaged arms reached through, and Cale grabbed them and held them in place.

  “Naeem!” he shouted.

  Even with the language barrier between them, Naeem knew exactly what to do. He reached through and locked his hands behind the man’s neck and then slammed the zombie’s head into the bars, repeatedly and with great force. The man’s nose broke with the first blow, and with the next, his jaw. Naeem slammed its face forward into the thick metal bar until its face folded to accommodate the steel. He drooped limply, and Cale released his arms. Bits of his face clung to the metal, and slid to the floor.

  “Four down and six to go,” Cale said.

  4.

  Gory discovery

  Outside the brig, the guard stood, completely unaware of what was transpiring inside. He heard shouts from time to time, but that was normal among new refugees. They’d try almost anything to get out. What these new recruits didn’t know was that once you were collected you didn’t have a choice; it was serve or die. At least that was the choice the men were given. The women were traded between vessels for various and obvious reasons. He thought about the last time he’d felt the touch of a woman. It had been a long time, a very long time. He hadn’t had anyone special before things changed and hadn’t really given it thought. The guard reminisced about the last time he’d been with a woman. She’d been an olive skinned beauty; he remembered her soft grunts as he pushed deep inside of her. Just remembering, he felt a twitch in his loins, and his pants grew a little tighter. He quickly thought about something else to avoid further arousal. He jumped when the inmates shouted, startling him, and cursed them out under his breath. Whoever was yelling was doing it in English, a language he didn’t know. It was followed by a plea in Arabic, a claim that the illness was on board. The guard laughed and listened while they continued to shout.

  He stood at his post a while longer, nodding to the occasional passerby. The yells for help were something they’d all become accustomed to. The guard hardened his demeanor as Lieutenant Commander Amun approached him; it was time to feed the refugees. The officer was followed by three men carrying the brown plastic bags they’d acquired from the American’s boat. They hadn’t bothered to read the MRE bags as they rummaged through the box. The contents were edible and that’s all that mattered. The guard offered a salute that Amun ignored. Inside the brig, the survivors yelled for help again.

  “How long has this been going on?” Amun asked in their native tongue.

  “About twenty minutes, sir.”

  “Have you checked on them?”

  “No, sir.”

  Amun waved him aside and lifted the metal latch that secured the door. The smell spilled out and assaulted their senses as he pulled the door open. The men stepped over the threshold and into puddles of blood and brains. Amun watched as the last two living refugees took turns stomping on one of the undead. The guard raised his firearm to dispatch their infected cargo.

  “Think of where we are,” Amun said, and raised his hand to the guard. “Breach the hull and we’re all dead.”

  The foolish guard lowered his weapon. There were four infected left, and their attention turned to their new guests. Bloody mangled hands reached out for them, making Amun shudder. The American and the refugee from Sudan were all that remained; the floor of their cell was littered with the corpses of a number of infected. These two had done a fine job.

  “Use your clubs,” he ordered his men.

  The men dropped the MRE’s into the putrid mess at their feet, and removed extendable batons from their holsters.

  “Thank God. Help us,” Cale pleaded.

  The armed men began beating the extended arms of the undead, breaking and immobilizing them. Soon, the useless limbs of the infected hung down unnaturally, slapping at the metal as their users flailed with frustration. The men brought their clubs down through the bars and onto the heads of the zombies, the sound of cracking skulls echoing throughout the room. Once they were no longer a threat, Amun turned his attention back to the two survivors. He was pleased, but not surprised that the American had made it. They’d both have to remain in quarantine of course, especially now that they had been exposed to infected persons.

  “Where the fuck were you guys twenty minutes ago?” Cale shouted.

  “That’s an interesting way to thank your saviors,” Amun replied smugly.

  Cale and Naeem were out of breath but quite capable of handling the rest of the infected, and Cale didn’t feel he owed anyone a ‘thank you’.

  “Fuck you,” Cale said.

  Amun smiled at the soldier; his behavior was typical. Americans. Overly confident in their abilities and never thinking they owed anyone a debt of gratitude. That was the western way, wasn’t it?

  “Give us a moment to ready some new…” Amun paused for a moment to look around the room, “quarters.”

  * * *

  “What do you want with me?” Naeem asked in Arabic.

  “In due time,” Amun answered.

  The lieutenant commander left the two of them in the custody of the armed guards. Quickly, he walked down the corridor toward the bridge. If his plan to make the American part of their crew was going to work, he’d need to better accommodate him. A bloody cell full of bodies wasn’t going to bring him around any time soon.

  Amun entered the busy command center of the submarine. Admiral Selim looked at him, confused; Amun raised his arm to salute.

  “What is it?” the admiral asked, returning the salute.

  “Sir, it’s the cargo,” Amun fell silent for a moment, trying to find the best way to explain without angering his superior. “We brought infected onboard, sir.”

  “Any survivors?”

  “Two, sir, the American and a Sudanese refugee.”

  Selim was angry but pleased that at least some of the cargo had made it. The number of scavenging teams was starting to dwindle. Too many of them were going ashore and getting infected. His fleet was out scouring the areas for survivors, and each day there were fewer and fewer of them to find. Each vessel was responsible for finding their own food, water, and medical supplies in their respective sectors. This method would only work until the resour
ces of each area were exhausted.

  “Good.”

  “We have another problem, sir. The brig is….well…”

  “What is it, Lieutenant Commander?”

  Selim was annoyed; it was hard to believe the pair had once been friends.

  “We’ll need to surface to dump the bodies and clean the brig, sir.”

  Selim didn’t like Amun’s tone. We’ll need to surface? This was his ship now, and he didn’t take orders on his ship.

  “Pick a team to gather the bodies and put them into the torpedo launch tubes. I’ll decide when we need to surface.”

  “Sir,” Amun replied, as he saluted his commander.

  Selim returned the salute, dismissing him. Amun turned to walk off the bridge.

  “Tell your team to avoid infection, and put the refugees where you see fit,” Selim said, as he turned back to observe the command deck.

  Amun trekked back through the narrow corridors to make the necessary preparations for their guests.

  Back in the brig, Cale and Naeem were herded like cattle out of their cell. Men still armed with clubs surrounded them. Naeem, who was much taller than anyone else in the room, towered defiantly over them all with his chest puffed out. One of the guards didn’t like the way he stood and used his club on the back of his thigh. The strike caused Naeem to fall to one knee; his pants immediately absorbing some of the bodily fluids there. The guards all laughed at his misfortune.

  “Leave him alone,” Cale demanded.

  All of them were lower enlisted, and didn’t know English; nevertheless, the American would need to learn his place. A different guard struck Cale in the same spot. The American tried to endure the hit, but his body’s natural reaction was to go down. He didn’t call out in pain; he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. The group of men laughed anyway, and one of them spat on him as he rebelliously climbed back to his feet. Naeem also stood.