"I'm sorry, baby, Mommy's got to be here, it's important."

"Mommy, I miss you. Can't you leave? You're gone all the time."

"I know, baby, Mommy is trying to figure out a way to stop the bad people. Mommy is tired of the monsters and wants them to go away."

"I want them to go away, too," Laura said, frowning.

Putting Laura down with a grunt (she was getting bigger), Jan asked Tara how she was holding up with Kil being away.

"I'm all right," Tara said. "To tell you the truth, being able to babysit Laura keeps my mind off of him being gone. I'm helping out Dean with school lessons and that keeps me busy during the day. Did you know that Dean has nearly one hundred students now? It's practically a full-time job."

"Yeah, you won't believe this, but Dean came down to sick bay after teaching cla.s.ses yesterday and helped to get this place back in order. I have no idea where she gets her energy to teach kids all day and then volunteer down here."

Tara laughed at this and without warning, broke down into tears.

Jan comforted her. "It's going to be just fine, he'll make it back, I promise."

"It's not that, Jan. It's something else."

"Well, honey, do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm pregnant," Tara blurted out as more tears started to meander down her cheeks.

"Oh boy," Jan said with eyes wide open.

"Yay!" Laura appeared from under the lab table.

Danny hated the monsters. All the grown-ups looked at it much differently than he did. His whole family except for his granny had been murdered by the monsters-that's what his friend Laura called them. Being a little older, he knew they weren't real monsters, but it didn't matter. They acted like monsters and they chased you like monsters and they ate you like monsters. The grown-ups treated them like snakes or spiders-avoiding them and smashing them and shooting them only when they needed to. For Danny, it was personal. Danny knew that he wouldn't be alive if it were not for his Granny Dean. She flew them both away as far as she could.

Danny had been trapped on a water tower and peeing off the top of it onto the monsters' heads when Kil found them months ago. Before the tower he remembered the propeller incident. His Granny had to land to get gas for the plane. They were running on fumes when she touched down at the airfield. He thought he might have remembered the engine sputtering. They were about to be taken by monsters just before Granny decided to chop them up like vegetables with the plane. She took out a whole bunch, Danny thought. The monsters trashed the plane, sending Danny and his grandmother to the tower in exile and away from the safety of flight.

Then Kil came for them.

Danny was done with school for the day and had permission to roam about until dinner as long as he stayed on the 03 level, off the catwalks and out of the way. Danny loved to hide and listen to everyone as they pa.s.sed by. He thought he needed the practice. He hadn't spied on grown-ups since before his parents became monsters. That didn't bother him much anymore unless he thought about it too long. No one but him knew how tough his granny was. She saved him and smashed them. He never heard Granny tell anyone about that so he didn't either. She was tough, maybe tougher than Kil, he thought.

Danny was in one of the less-populated parts of the O3 level; he noticed the painted number on the wall was 250. Hearing someone stomping over a knee-knocker up ahead, Danny hid beside a firefighting storage locker and behind an open hatch.

As the sound grew louder, he overheard one of the men say, "How long are we going to hold those things...o...b..ard? They creep me the f.u.c.k out."

"I'm with you. I want to jettison the things ASAP. We are not getting a d.a.m.n thing from them. We don't have the equipment. The admiral wants to hold on to them until . . ."

Their voices faded quickly after they pa.s.sed Danny's hiding spot. He thought about following them for a moment but then decided against it and headed down the pa.s.sageway from where the men had come.

There were benefits to being small; it was a lot easier to hide. Danny had shown Laura all the secrets behind hiding like a boy. After being found a few dozen times when it was Danny's turn to seek, she had picked up some tricks of the boy trade.

Danny would tell her, "El, you gotta pick less easy places. I found you in two seconds."

Laura would pout and stomp off and begin counting to thirty, a bit faster than was fair. She was tired of being it. Danny was a hiding ninja and was rarely found, unless he was trying to boost Laura's self-esteem.

Danny had just overheard a curious conversation between what he thought were two soldiers-not knowing the difference between soldiers and sailors-about holding things...o...b..ard. His eavesdropping was abruptly cut off as the men kept moving down the pa.s.sageway. Danny had never been farther aft than where he was hiding now.

. . . "Things...o...b..ard . . . creep me out . . . jettison" . . . The conversation between the two men kept repeating in his mind. Danny hadn't yet learned what jettison meant, thinking it might mean to fly away or something like that. He would ask his English teacher at the next cla.s.s. She is the best, he thought to himself. He kept moving to the back of the ship, scouting hiding spots, jumping at every sound of footsteps.

He was far back in the ship when it came time to make a decision . . . go down the ladder or go back to his room. Danny didn't even think. He quickly and quietly scurried down the ladder. It was dark and unfamiliar, and it smelled funny. Reaching the last step, the sterile smell intensified. As his eyes slowly adjusted, he recognized the red night-lights that were sometimes on in the sleeping areas of the ship.

He could see a fan room just up ahead-his healthy young eyes could make out the label on the hatch clearly. Adjacent to the fan room was another door marked Restricted Access. There was a little box next to the door where he had seen soldiers enter codes before-not here, but where John worked-in the radio shack. With no one in sight he sprinted for the fan room. His heart thumped faster as he closed the distance . . . only one knee-knocker to hurdle before reaching the door.

In midair jump, he heard the metallic sound of the door handle from the other door turn. Quickly, he slung open the fan-room hatch and dived in under the air circulator; he didn't have time to shut the hatch behind him.

The mold was a quarter-inch thick under the circulator; the rapid transition from the hospital-like aroma to the mildew stench caused his stomach to turn just a bit. The light from the pa.s.sageway spilled into the fan room but was broken by a silhouette of legs. He could see only the outline of boots from his vantage point.

"Has maintenance been here today?"

"No, but we've hit some heavy seas in the last few hours. The hatch probably flew open in the chop."

The hatch slammed shut, leaving Danny in darkness; the voices slowly trailed away just like before. Inside the black of the cool steel around him, Danny's mind wandered into equally black parts of his imagination. He thought of the monsters and for a second imagined that they might be in this dark place with him. Rolling into the fetal position, he squirmed in fear on the damp and moldy floor until he was certain no one or thing was near.

His fear faded after his senses told him that there was no immediate threat. He lay there listening to all the ship noises-sounds he had started to tune out after his time onboard. Someone above him dragged chains across the deck and then some distant valve opened somewhere and the sound of steam escaping drowned out the chains. This duel of noises continued for a few moments, nearly hypnotizing Danny . . . and then silence. The fear he had shaken flooded back as the sound of something familiar, distinct, and terrible came through the vent above him.

Looking up, he followed the vent. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness. The vent connected to the wall and then into the adjacent s.p.a.ce-the restricted area. Danny was a boy with a wild imagination, no disputing that, but he had definitely heard that sound. The hair standing stiff on his neck confirmed it.

18.

USS Virginia-Pacific Ocean-0300 GMT Kil couldn't sleep. The USS Virginia had been underneath bad weather seemingly since they hit the blue water of the Pacific, leaving the Panama coast. They stayed submerged, cut off from the sun and all radio transmissions.

His watch was set to GMT time and he'd forgotten how that corresponded to where the sun might be at the moment. Sliding out of his rack, his feet hit his shower shoes perfectly. He grabbed his shower kit and scooted down the pa.s.sageway, b.u.mping his shoulder on one of the thousands of pipes and junction boxes jutting out from the bulkhead. This served to wake him up a little before hitting the showers. The Virginia had less than half the walk s.p.a.ce of the carrier and two people couldn't walk side by side in most areas.

The head was already packed by the time he arrived. He recognized some of the crew members, mostly enlisted. Addressing him as a commander, they offered to let him have the head of the line. He declined, fighting off the urge to tell them that he had been only a lieutenant until a recent and bizarre spot promotion. He brushed his teeth while moving forward along the line of sinks to the shower. As a long queue of sailors coming off watch formed behind him for the showers, he decided to put the soap in his hair before getting in, a time-saving measure.

"Hollywood" showers would make you the target of hate and discontent onboard any submarine. They had plenty of fresh water (they made their own onboard), but the Virginia was 105 percent manned at the moment with Kil, Saien, and the special-operations team onboard. As an officer, Kil thought it best to stay extra humble and quiet until he figured out how things ran onboard.

It was soon Kil's turn anyway. He quickly hung his kit on the hook outside and stepped in. The water was hot-better than the 50/50 hot shower he had had at Hotel 23. He sang "The Star Spangled Banner" in his head; by the time he reached "home of the brave," he knew he should be reaching for his towel.

On his way out of the head, Kil noted that one of the submariners wasn't wearing shower shoes and thought to himself, nasty b.a.s.t.a.r.d; he'd rather get in the wrestling ring with one of the undead than go barefoot in a U.S. Navy submarine shower-almost.

Back in his stateroom, he was careful not to wake up Saien-still sawing logs and saying something to himself in his sleep. He threw on his coveralls, ball cap, and sidearm and headed for the galley. The officer's mess was shut down in an effort to pool resources. For better or worse, officers and enlisted men dined together onboard.

Kil pulled his coffee cup off the hook on the wall. He was very happy to see that his cup was starting to grow a pretty respectable coffee residue on the inside. Since you did your own dishes...o...b..ard there was no risk of his coffee cup being accidentally washed. Most officers made fun of him for this but Kil was prior enlisted and liked his cup with a full coat of old coffee on the inside. Better for the flavor, and this boat's coffee needed all the help it could get. They were operating on low rations and the coffee tasted on par with dirty dishwater most of the time.

He ordered a powdered egg and cheese omelet from the kid working behind the grill. While his omelet cooked, he scooped himself some oatmeal into a chipped bowl. He'd noticed the cooked weevils in his oatmeal from the first breakfast he'd eaten onboard but decided it was best to imagine they weren't there. He sat alone at the table, watching the boat's TV feed. The movie playing on the screen hanging above the dining area was Logan's Run. Kil remembered watching it years ago and laughed to himself at the shiny robot flailing around on the screen, 1970s style.

Captain La.r.s.en-commanding officer of USS Virginia-walked into the dining area with his tray of food just as Kil shoveled a spoonful of powdered eggs into his mouth and began to chew.

"May I join you?" asked the captain.

"Yes, sir," Kil replied, trying to talk and eat at the same time. "How's it going, Skipper? Anything happening?"

"You know better than calling me skipper-this isn't a ready room," the captain said, smiling. "But to answer your question, the ship is still fully mission capable and we're only a week out from seeing Diamond Head from the sail hatch. The only negative to report is that our communications with the carrier are spotty. We can only connect for a situation report when the fickle HF wave from our radios decides to bounce the right way."

Kil thought for a moment before asking, "What's the main objective in Hawaii? I've heard the crew rumors about resupply but it seems like a pretty risky thing to attempt."

"Go on, tell me why you think that," the captain said.

Reluctantly, Kil began. "Well, for starters, it's an island. Oahu and especially Honolulu were highly populated when the dead started coming back, and because it's an island, there would have been no escape from the creatures. It will be very risky to attempt resupply with that many of those things ma.s.sed in the areas we'll be operating. Also, I overheard the cooks talking in the pa.s.sageway. If rationed, Virginia has six months of food onboard; that's more than enough to make it to China and back to Panama, or wherever our port call might be."

Nodding, the captain said, "Very good. Although this would be cla.s.sified top secret at one time, I suppose that there is very little security risk in discussing it at the table. Resupply is an objective, but only a secondary priority. We are going to need the ability to monitor the situation as we transit west from Hawaii. We are going to need indications and warnings. We have no idea who or what survived. There may very well be a fleet of Chinese warships operating in the green water off the coast of China. If that's the case, we don't know their rules of engagement and without the ability to monitor their intent ahead of time, we could be at a severe disadvantage."

"What does Hawaii have to do with this?" asked Kil.

"You should know. You're the former airborne SIGINT guy," Captain La.r.s.en said sarcastically.

After hearing that, Kil knew instantly. "Kunia?"

"Yeah, you got it. There is a Chinese linguist onboard who will soon find himself as the last resident of the RSOC Kunia facility. Our spook was stationed there two years ago and knows systems. He will be providing support to Task Force Hourgla.s.s after we clear out the cave facility."

"How exactly are we going to clear anything? There are probably eight-hundred thousand creatures on that island, and I bet that underground facility is no different."

The captain took a long sip of coffee and said, "Last intelligence estimates have Oahu very spa.r.s.ely populated, maybe two hundred thousand on the whole island."

Kil replied skeptically, "Where exactly did you come by that number? I'm no census worker, and I know it was outside tourist season back in January when this went down, but that seems just a little on the low side."

La.r.s.en sat back in his chair and pulled a map from his shirt pocket. "I guess they never told you? Take a gander at that."

Unfolding the map, Kil saw the answer to his question.

As the captain took the map from Kil's grasp, he said, "As you can see, a strategic nuclear weapon pretty much ended the tourist season on Oahu forever."

At that moment, Kil didn't feel like finishing his powdered eggs.

19.

The stretch of highway near where Doc and Billy trailed was overgrown with tall gra.s.s jungles in the median and on the sides. They were deep into the Texas wastelands now, on their way to retrieve a mysterious supply drop, represented by nothing more than a small symbol on a cryptic map. They could see the road every now and again in places where debris stunted vegetation growth. The seasonal freeze and thaw and complete lack of maintenance had converted some sections of the road into gravel pits. Doc recalled the faded remnants of old railway tracks from the 1800s around his hometown. It won't be long until the highways go that way, he thought.

Doc had a map in a clear pouch attached to his left forearm, folded to the area they now traversed. He kept pace count, checking their position every hundred meters.

Doc quietly updated Billy: "One thousand meters to target."

"Roger," Billy whispered in response.

They moved along an old cattle trail very close to the highway. There was no sign of the undead; only the night wind and partial moonlight accompanied them.

"Billy, we got an overpa.s.s up ahead. We need to get on the road and take it across, man."

"I don't like it, boss. Bad call."

"Well, what are you thinking?" Doc asked, putting Billy on the spot for an alternative. He often did this with his men, pushing them to make quick tactical decisions on the move. He thought it made them better leaders.

"Let's stay offset from the road a few meters, and get as close to the overpa.s.s as we can, and look down below. If it's infested, we take the overpa.s.s. If it's not, we take the low ground."

"f.u.c.k that. Didn't you see The Rock? Never take the low ground," Doc replied jokingly.

Laughing together at a whisper, they approached the overpa.s.s at an offset. Doc was in charge, but he wasn't stupid; he listened to his people, especially Billy Boy. Billy was Apache Indian and his instinct was uncanny. Billy was cautious like a wolf; if Billy ran, raised his carbine, or hit the deck, Doc would do the same, and fast.

Doc took a look across the overpa.s.s with the magnifier on his carbine. The span was packed with cars both above and below. He carefully studied the details through his optic; Billy instinctively covered him. Panning back and forth, Doc could see only a few undead corpses hibernating inside cars or stuck between pileups.

Billy abruptly smelled a wisp of rot on the wind, slapping Doc's shoulder in warning. Billy clarified the alarm with a silent signal by pinching his nose. Within seconds, they both saw the leading edge moving down the road around a bend in the distance.

"They're coming. I smell 'em strong now. There's a lot of 'em."

"Let's sit here for a minute and see what's up. We don't want to haul a.s.s right into their arms," Doc replied.

A few stressful minutes later, the choice became obvious. A large, bellowing swarm approached from the north and moved directly at them along the highway running under their overpa.s.s.

They had little time.

"Billy, we need to move, now. We don't want to get trapped on this side of them-we'll never reach the drop if we do."

Both operators sprinted, the sixty pounds of kit seemingly light as a pillow as the adrenaline pushed them to the west side of the overpa.s.s. They ran perpendicular and above the road. The moans of the approaching horde jolted the creatures nearby out of hibernation.

Billy turned his head over his shoulder to Doc. "Engaging."

Billy's suppressed carbine dropped three creatures on the crumbling overpa.s.s. Doc followed with shots on two more; he aimed low on the second one, the round pa.s.sing through the creature's neck, missing the spine and slinging dead muscle and fat onto an overpa.s.s guardrail. Doc quietly scorned himself for not remembering his gun's point of aim, point of impact. Like most red-dot optics, his Aimpoint Micro was mounted a few inches above the bore of his M-4, resulting in a low point of impact if not compensated higher at close ranges. He took another shot at the top of the dome, hitting the creature's switch.

Timers and switches, Doc recalled. The human body was composed of several kill timers but few kill switches. Hitting a femoral artery was a timer. Hitting the heart or brain was a switch. But that was on a living human. The rules were different now-only one switch mattered. The undead didn't respect timers.

The SEAL accuracy bar had been raised since the dead began to walk. A center-ma.s.s switch hit was now a miss; the only valid hit was above the nose and below the scalp.