The man slowly pulled off his mask and remained in the fetal position moaning in pain.

Embarra.s.sed, the little boy said, "Sorry, mister, I didn't know. Thought you were dead."

The woman walked up to the man on the floor and helped him to his feet. "What is this about? Do you spend all your time scaring children or just while on duty?"

Struggling and still dazed by the pain the man replied, "Ma'am, I'm sorry. The kids were being loud and driving us crazy and I thought it'd be funny to . . ."

"Funny until someone accidentally shoots you in the head! Give me that thing, I'm going to throw it overboard this instant. Consider yourself lucky I don't speak to the admiral about this."

The man quickly handed over the mask. Dean s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his hand like a striking snake.

"You better get used to the kids, too. I'm teaching cla.s.s up the hall and they'll be coming through here on the way to and from."

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry."

"While we're on the subject of apologies, Danny, care to say anything?"

"Sorry for kicking you in the nu . . . I mean, between the legs. You scared me good."

"Sorry, kid."

"S'okay," Danny said regretfully.

Dean boomed again with authority, "Danny, gather up the kids and get them back to cla.s.s. One of the doctors will be teaching first aid in fifteen minutes."

She didn't have time to explain to Danny the difference between a hospital corpsman and a medical doctor.

"Okay, Granny. Just like hide and seek. Bet I can find Laura first!"

A little girl's voice echoed, "No way!" from behind a fire hose down the pa.s.sageway, and the chase was on.

Dean shot a disapproving look past the radar operators and followed Danny to the cla.s.sroom.

"Youth is truly wasted on the young," she said.

9.

Disco tugged the rope tied securely to the door. Nothing happened.

"Hawse, the door opens outward. You're gonna have to kick it."

"All right, stand back, I'll . . ."

The door began to rattle and creak on its heavy hinges. It opened slowly; white bony fingers rounded the dark steel edges like hermit crab claws protruding from a sh.e.l.l.

"f.u.c.k, get ready, get on the radio!" Hawse said frantically.

While Disco relayed the situation to the control room he brought his carbine to his shoulder-one hand on the weapon, the other grabbing for another full magazine.

The door opened wider and wicked faces appeared in the darkness just beyond the cold steel door.

"I'm shooting," Hawse proclaimed.

"Kill 'em."

"They're already dead!"

Hawse began blasting the undead, aiming above the eyes. Disco knew the plan as they'd practiced it before. Hawse intended to drop the creatures quickly to construct a makeshift barricade of bodies, blocking the things from opening the door wider.

"This ain't f.u.c.king worth it, man!" Hawse screamed.

The report of the suppressed carbines temporarily deafened both of them, ringing their bells in the confines of the steel hallway. Suppressors don't actually work like they do in movies. Hawse pulled the trigger in controlled fire until he ran out of rounds; instinctively Disco stepped in front of him and handed him his full mag. Hawse slapped the mag in and pulled another one from his pouch to hand to Disco when they had to change over again.

The system seemed to work well. Disco had cut his teeth on tactics like this, seeing action during Operation Enduring Freedom in the Philippines. Based out of Camp Greybeard on Jolo Island, he had advised (and a.s.sisted) in his share of gunfights against the Abu-Sayaf Group terrorist organization. Often they'd change mags like this after firing all twenty-eight rounds at ghosts in the jungle just outside the wire. These creatures were no Abu-Sayaf terrorist group, but they were just as deadly.

The team's fear of running out of rifle ammunition was ever present. Without ammo to feed their carbines, they'd be limited to shorter-range pistol calibers. When that ran dry, they'd be forced to go hand to hand. Every man knew what that likely meant.

Disco counted fifteen rounds before the creatures no longer presented their rotting faces through the partially open door. They waited, guns at high ready, ears still ringing from confined shooting. Disco used up a few seconds of time on a tactical reload, topping off his gun with a fresh magazine.

They both nearly jumped out of their boots when Doc and Billy exploded into the room from behind with guns and knives drawn, ready to fight.

"Nice timing, a.s.sholes!" Hawse whined.

"You f.u.c.kers called us crying like a bunch of babies, so here we are. What's the problem?"

"I think we got 'em all," Disco said.

"It was pretty f.u.c.ked up . . . I saw lots of fingers grip around that door," Hawse said nervously. He jerked his weapon about the room as if the area were crawling with manhole-sized spiders.

"Okay, well since we're all down here, lets get the comm gear set up. Billy, take your mirror and have a look out the door."

A faint rustling noise came through the small gap from outside, causing all of them to grip their rifles a little tighter.

Billy reached into his pack and pulled out a small signal mirror, attaching it to the end of his suppressor with a thick rubber band. Walking slowly and quietly to the door, he extended the mirror out into the blackness. His goggles were constantly and electronically adapting to the darkness. Through the small mirror he observed at least three dozen bodies scattered about outside. One creature still twitched on the ground. Billy had seen this happen more than once before.

"I don't see nothin', Doc. A twitcher a few meters out and lots of rotters piled up against the door. Gonna need a couple shoulders to push it open."

"Okay, let's put our backs into it. Billy, you stand behind us in case you missed one in the pile."

"Roger."

"Okay, on my mark . . . one, two, push."

The door surged open a foot or so, moving the pile of rotting corpses enough for them to squeeze through, barely.

The four carefully spilled out the door into the dark night made bright by technology that Billy suddenly realized would probably never advance beyond its current state.

"Straggler," whispered Billy, almost inaudibly. He brought his carbine up to high ready, mesmerized for a millisecond by the way the unholy thing stalked them.

It moved with hungry purpose, arms clenched, claws gripping. Billy noted that it lacked lips. Its stained teeth shined brightly with reflected and intensified moonlight. He smoothly squeezed the trigger. The magnified muzzle flash illuminated the bullet impact. Billy was so close he felt the earth thud under his feet when the creature hit the ground.

That was a big one, Billy thought.

"Thanks, man," Hawse said a little too loudly. Hawse was closer to the creature than he was.

Billy gave a hang ten sign with his support hand, in a You're welcome gesture. "Who's got the comms?" he whispered.

"f.u.c.k."

Disco ran back to the door; Billy followed without being told. No one went anywhere alone-that was the most important rule. A few minutes pa.s.sed before the men returned with the heavy communication equipment.

They went to work quickly, choosing a spot out of the way so the gear would not be accidentally rendered inoperable by the undead. Using some debris, they constructed a makeshift enclosure out of a section of damaged fencing. Disco worked inside the small confines. He opened the comm box and arranged the power panels so that they would have maximum southern exposure. Booting up the system on battery power, he connected to the ruggedized laptop within seconds.

He then sent out a burst message to the USS George Washington: "GW DE TFP, INT ZBZ . . . k/disco."

Again he sent: "GW DE TFP, INT ZBZ . . . k/disco."

After a few minutes the laptop beeped loudly, indicating a new burst transmission had been received from the ship: "TFP DE GW, you are spittin' nickels . . . Admiral wants your status . . . k/IT2."

Disco responded, "DE TFP, Hotel 23 up and online, systems green, confirmed zero one (01) bolt in the quiver . . . k/Disco."

"DE GW, be advised sun up in 58 mikes . . . this station req you check back in 24 hrs . . . AR/IT2."

Disco shut the clamsh.e.l.l on the computer and slid it into his pack. "Comms are full up, Doc."

"Good to know. Let's get below before sunup and lock the place down. No one goes out during the day. Those things plus the other event that happened here make it too dangerous. No RF transmissions unless it's burst. I doubt we were lucky enough to go undetected but we'll keep trying to stay out of sight and mind, if able."

"Good f.u.c.king plan. Don't want one of those huge lawn darts dropping on us," Hawse said half-jokingly.

No one gave an approving laugh. They all wanted to deny the possible deployment of what the intelligence briefers referred to as Project Hurricane, as there would be no convoy or helicopter evac for these men. The carrier was still far to the south, near Panamanian waters.

Billy was again last man as he spun the wheel securing the door to the world outside. They would all now live as vampires.

10.

Doc lay in his rack, drifting somewhere in a world just before sleep. Since the fall, most of his dreams had involved the undead. His special-ops team had been haphazardly thrown together by national command authority after he and Billy escaped Afghanistan. When their ship finally arrived in U.S. territorial waters, a giant swarm of undead stood fast on the eastern sh.o.r.e to greet them.

Before it got this bad, Doc heard stories of people burning money to stay warm, and using two-hundred-thousand-dollar sports cars as road barricades. Hawse told a tale of a Washington, D.C., street vendor trading candles and antibiotics from an armored car in exchange for ammunition and bottled water. That was before the undead population exploded to the point that it wasn't even safe to look out of your boarded-up windows.

Hawse joined them sometime after he fled Washington, D.C. Disco showed up after they lost Hammer. Doc moved slowly toward sleep as he recalled Hammer's last mission.

A helicopter screamed up the Louisiana coastline, well inside the New Orleans hot zone. Doc knew Sam, his pilot, as this was not their first ride together.

"I want to make this quick, Doc," Sam said into his headset.

"Me, too, I don't like going overland these days anymore than you do."

"We lost another bird last week. A friend of mine, Baham, was the pilot. Hope he's okay."

Knowing that he was very likely not okay, Doc said comfortingly, "He's probably trying to get back home on foot."

"Yeah, if you say so." Sam wasn't buying it. "I see those steel cages back there and I know what we're after but I gotta tell you right now, Doc, I don't like this s.h.i.t. The first sign of trouble, you toss those cages out the door, and we are gone, got me?"

"Yeah, you won't have to tell us. Hawse said the same thing. He doesn't want any part of it either," Doc said. "Besides, our job is to grab 'em and secure 'em. We don't know where you're taking them. Want to tell me?"

Sam looked over with a conspiratorial grin and said, "You're gonna find out anyway when we get there. As a reward for delivering those radioactive pus sacks, I've secured you boys one night living in the lap of luxury. After we pick 'em up, we're takin' 'em to the carrier. The researchers want to poke and prod 'em. See what's makin' 'em run."

Doc sat up in his seat. They could see the outline of Lake Pontchartrain now.

"Sam, I don't think me or the boys will want to stay on that carrier with those things...o...b..ard. I don't care how soft the beds are or how nice the air-conditioning is or how hot the showers might be."

"No choice. We gotta stay and get fuel and maintenance on this bird so I don't end up like Baham down there somewhere . . . okay, we're getting close. You guys check your HAZMAT suits and put those hoods on, for f.u.c.k's sake. Intel says it's hot enough to melt your face off down there. Don't get too close to the cars and trucks or anything metal. They'll be throwin' out the radiation. Who's staying up here to work the winch and tend the cage?"

"Hammer volunteered." Doc looked back at Hammer just in time to see him give a thumbs-up.

"Roger that. I'll keep you steady when Hammer drops the hook. Our recon photos show a small group of them trapped on the causeway. We'll be cruising over in a minute or two. Get ready."

"Roger." Doc began to unstrap and head back. Sam stopped him, grabbing his arm.

"Be safe and have a good 'un."

"Have a good 'un," Doc replied.

Doc scanned the team, checking all harnesses. "Billy, good to go. Hawse, tighten your s.h.i.t."

Hawse reached down and yanked his harness tight. Doc looked over to Hammer, no harness. He wasn't going to the ground today.

"Hoods on!" Doc yelled. "Sam is taking us low. The dust won't be breathable. You'll end up one of those vets with cancer lawsuit commercials in thirty years when things get back to normal."

"Ha ha f.u.c.king ha," Hawse said as he slid his mask on.

Billy and Hammer followed suit.