Extinction Level Event (Book 2): Holding Ground, page 1
part #2 of Extinction Level Event Series
Extinction Level Event
HOLDING GROUND
Book Two
Edition One
K.J. JONES
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my dear friend Robby Sargent
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The usage of the word cos instead of ‘cause comes from the British. Since we have already changed words into how we pronounce them, such as gonna and dunno, it’s time ‘cause changed as well.
This book does not condone the looting of Walmart, Food Lion or any other store in times of crisis. Unless the zombie apocalypse is occurring.
This book is a figment of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or in between, is purely coincidental. Specified abodes, boats, and marinas are fiction. The towns, stores, and roads are all real.
Day One, Saturday
Chapter One
Aftermath
1.
Carolina Beach, south of Wilmington, North Carolina
Phebe Marcelino startled awake. A fluffy gray cat snuggled into the curve of her side. Dock Cat woke and looked at Phebe with annoyance.
“Where the hell am I?”
A meow answered her, but it was of no help. She didn’t speak cat, not having any pets of her own.
She laid on a single-sized bed. Her long hair rested on a naked pillow. Above her, wooden planks within arm’s reach. Below, a mattress without a fitted sheet. She didn’t have a blanket. Just a cat to keep her warm.
As she raised up, her black eye hurt like hell. It was hard to open.
Voices filtered through a closed door. Men laughing. Across from her, a bunk bed in the style used on boats. Its edges contained wooden bumpers. Someone slept in the lower bunk. His back to her.
It hadn’t been a bad dream. She was still in the hot zone. "Shit."
She wore a big army coat and men's sweatpants, held to her waist with a strip of thin rope and rolled-up at the cuffs. She remembered she owned nothing. It was all gone. Her lips felt chapped. She had no Chapstick. No creature comforts. Not even a purse. Escaping during the outbreak stripped her of everything. Now she even wore someone else's clothes.
Looking down at the floor beside the bed, she at least had her own shoes.
Mullen stirred in the bunk across from her. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Shit. It wasn’t a dream.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was saying too.”
“How come Dock Cat’s with you? Feline traitor.”
The cat yawned.
“It smells like boat in here,” she said.
“Ah… maybe it because it is a boat.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t start on that. You told me a thousand times yesterday to shut up.”
“Was that yesterday?”
“I know. Feels like years ago.”
“Is it morning? Where are windows?”
He sat up and scratched his head. He must have taken a shower. His hair lay flat to his head. Yesterday, it contained product and composed in a metrosexual stylish do.
"My parents are gone." He sighed. "Everything gone. My car. My equipment. Everything. I'm not even wearing my own clothes." He rubbed his beard stubble.
"Well, you still have your shoes." She pointed at his sneakers.
He looked over at her, then at the floor in front of her bunk. "So do you."
"I know. I'm terribly excited about that."
"So am I. Who needs anything else?”
She smacked her lips. "Maybe a toothbrush."
"Now you've gone wild. Toothbrush. Who are you, rich ass Donald Trump?"
"I know, right. A person needs nothing more than shoes."
"We got our own shoes." He punch-drunk laughed.
"Not even our own clothes." She laughed.
"But we got shoes."
"Woohoo. We got it all."
"You know,” he said. “Some people would say we're lucky to be alive."
"Yeah, but those people haven't lost everything but their shoes as their sole possessions."
"They don't know shit."
"Bunch of idiots."
Mullen's laughter died down. "Syanna said yesterday something about nothing would be the same again. She was right."
"Who'd think she'd have wisdom." Another giggle.
"We never will be again, will we?"
Phebe grew serious, "No. I don't think we will be. How do people defy death and come back the way they were before? Kill people and be the same. Fight so goddamn hard just to stay alive. I didn't think that was me." She closed her good eye tight, willing the memories of away.
"You were pretty awesome yesterday. I know I wasn't. But you were."
"I killed people. I left Syanna ... never mind that. I killed. More than one person."
"You had to. It was kill or be killed. Like the saying."
"Never thought I'd face such a thing."
"None of us did."
“I smell food," she said.
“So do I.”
2.
“There they are,” said Peter Sullivan. “The sleeping beauties.” He wore an apron and stood in the kitchen, or galley, in front of an oven, mitts on his hands.
“What’s for … what meal are we at?” asked Phebe. The port and starboard windows showed daylight.
“It would be breakfast, sweetheart.”
She pulled up her man sweatpants to mid-stomach.
“You’ve slept for a while. That’s good. But your black eye looks like shit.” He pulled a tray out of the oven.
“You cook?”
“Why, is that alien to you?”
She sat on a stool in the living room side of the galley counter. “The men in my family would starve with a loaf of bread under their arms, as my mom often says.”
“Italian men.” He scoffed. “So old fashion.”
“I’m sure not all. Just my father. Hmm, smells good. What are you cooking?”
“We got scrambled cheesy eggs, bacon, sausage, coffee, sweet rolls. I got steaks going.”
“A lot of food. Aren’t you the host with the most.”
“Yeah.” Peter leaned on the counter. He looked at her. “But I think I’ll have guests over-staying their welcome.”
The saloon filled with humanity as they followed the smells.
“Are we going to be a problem?” she asked.
“Oh, stop being sensitive. We’re not used to that around here. Besides, I got a soft spot for girls with black eyes.” He winked at her, before turning to his cooking. “Want coffee, Rocky?”
“Absolutely.”
“How you take it?”
“Milk and sugar. Light and sweet, please.”
“How about a nice Yankees mug for the New Yorker?”
“You have a collection?”
“Totally.”
“Into baseball much?”
“Used to play it. Back in high school.” He studied her face. “We may have to cut the swelling around your eye. It’ll release the pressure.”
“Cut?”
Big Chris Higgins entered the saloon. He wore a Carolina Panthers football jersey. The blue color brought his eyes. But did nothing to hide his girth.
“Dang. Sully cooking.” He went to the large dinette table surrounded by U-shaped seating. “Push over, motherfuckers.”
“Good morning to you, too, Chris,” Matt Gleason moved over to allow him in.
“What did I tell you about morning shit, Corporal?”
“Don’t start. And it’s sergeant, dickhead. I got promoted, remember?”
Chris laughed. “Never ends, huh, kid?”
“Thirty-one years old.”
Chris ignored him. “What we got, Sully?”
“A trough of eggs. I wiped out a whole farm just for you, big man.”
Chris turned to Matt. “See, I’m his favorite.”
Matt rolled his eyes.
“Chris,” Peter reprimanded. “Don’t start stirring shit this early.”
He piled food onto Styrofoam plates. They each took one and sat back down.
He slid Phebe’s plate across the counter.
“Whoa. That’s a lot of food.” She picked up a fork and tried the cheesy eggs. Her stomach felt emptier the more she ate.
“You need the calories. You lost a lot yesterday.”
Mullen came for a plate.
“Wait.” Peter scooped a steak out of a frying pan and cut it in half. He placed the half on Mullen’s plate.
“I can’t eat all that.”
“Eat it anyway.” The other half he put onto her plate. “Both of you, take care of your bodies first. Plenty of water through the day.”
“I’ll try.” Mullen took away his plate, along with a bottle of water.
She dug in. Not eating yesterday caught up with her. With every bite, she wanted more.
“I had a good sleep.” Chris chowed down at the table. “That couch comfortable.”
“Stop spitting food.” Matt swept bits of eggs off his shirt sleeve.
“Hey, reta’d. Pretend you’re human being. Use a napkin. There’s women here.”
“What the fuck do I care if there’s chicks here?”
Peter looked at Phebe and shrugged. “That’s him being polite. He couldn’t have said worse.”
“I’m sure of that.” She forked sausage into her mouth.
“Talk about talking with your mouth full.”
“Sorry,
He handed her a paper towel to use as a napkin.
In between mouthfuls, she guzzled coffee from the blue Yankees mug. Not a drop of coffee yesterday. “Can I have some more please?”
“Absolutely.” He took her mug and refilled it. “Water too.” He gave her a bottle.
Mullen sat on the floor, eating from the plate on the coffee table. Dock Cat jumped up on the table, trotted to his plate and sniffed. “Mine. I’ll fight you.” He whisked it away from her. She meowed in protest.
“She’ll win,” said Peter. “She packs Freddy Kruger knives. Twenty of them. She’s not afraid to use ‘em.”
“Freddy who?”
“Kids today.”
Dock Cat jumped to the couch and walked to Mazy Baptiste. “Oh, no, cat. Get away.” She moved her plate out of reach. “You’ve eaten. I saw you.”
Dock Cat meowed at her.
“Don’t even start with me.”
“Hey,” Chris said. “Don’t be messing with Sully’s pussy.”
“Really?” said Matt. “It’s too early for you.”
Julio Reyes and Ben Raven, the snipers, took their plates up the interior stairs to the flybridge wheelhouse. It sat on the cabintop of the saloon directly above.
Peter ate at the galley counter, sipping coffee from his Red Sox mug between mouthfuls. He stopped and walked across the saloon towards the companionway to the below deck bedrooms. Flipping switches on a panel, the ceiling fans turned. He returned to the galley and his food.
The starving masses finished up fast. They piled Styrofoam plates in a metal outdoor garbage can that stood at the center of the saloon. Phebe hadn’t recalled it being there before going to sleep. Peter must have pulled it in from outside.
She ate everything. Just as he predicted. Mullen’s plate, too, empty when he threw it in the can. He grabbed another bottle of water. Peter gave him a cup of coffee in a Pittsburgh Pirates mug.
“Chin up, kid,” Peter said to him.
“Trying.”
“Just don’t think. Turn off your brain. Focus on the physical.”
The guys at the table looked at Mullen. She thought they’d say something to the wide-eyed young man.
“Any more food?” Chris asked.
Matt said, “You ate enough for two people. Maybe that apocalypse diet should start.”
“Are you my mama now?”
“Somebody’s gotta look after you. A heart attack won’t be an excuse to get outta gate guard detail.”
Chris laughed. “Feeling the love, kid.”
Matt smiled. “You’re an idiot.”
“I gotta take a shit now.”
“You using the head first is not a good thing.”
Chris stood and walked through the saloon towards the bathroom.
“We need another bathroom,” said Mazy. “It’ll be toxic after he uses it.”
“Oh yeah,” said Matt. “Paint will peel off the walls.”
Peter yelled, “Open the window in the head, reta’ded redneck.”
Phebe chuckled. The war vets behaved so normal. It helped. She wanted to be like them. Instead of the feeling she had, as if every cell in her body awaited monsters to appear and the fight to resume. She wondered if they felt traumatized by yesterday’s outbreak. Or did it add to the trauma of war they already had. None of them looked deer in headlights, unlike Mullen. He tried to behave as if he was alright. But when Dock Cat jumped onto the couch with him, he startled.
While she looked around, she noticed Peter faced the sink with his back turned to everyone else. She caught him popping several pills into his mouth from a medication bottle that held no label. Something about his composure seemed suspicious, as if he didn’t want the others to see. She noted it but said nothing.
3.
Into the companionway hall, between the panel and stairs to the wheelhouse, she found the bathroom, or head as it was called in boat lingo. Across from it, built in shelves and cupboard made of varnished teak. Overhead lighting helped her find the other doors. In what she assumed was Peter’s bedroom, Syanna Lynn Claiborne slept in a queen-sized bed. Matt attended her.
“How is she?” Phebe asked.
The ceiling fan turned at slow. Round porthole windows along one wall.
“Pupils match. They’re responsive to light. That’s good. Shows the brain swelling is going down. She slept through the night well. Knocked out on morphine, though. She’ll live.”
“That’s a relief. But what about walking again with the femur break?”
He sighed. “I set it the best I can without an x-ray machine to see the bone.”
“Will she be in a wheelchair?” Phebe looked around at the awkwardness a wheelchair would be on a boat.
Even in the master bedroom, passage was tight.
“Crutches, maybe. Which fortunately Sully has. He has a cane, too.”
“Uhm … how is Syanna Lynn going to handle that? I mean, as her?”
“Let’s cut that swelling eye.”
“Are you avoiding my question?”
“Yup. I look forward to fighting the infected more than her.”
“I hear that. What’s cut my eye?”
“You’ll see.”
“Have you done this before?”
“Have you met the men I used to serve with? Think black eyes are unheard of among them?” He disinfected a scalpel. “To be honest, me, too.”
“You used to get into fights?” She sat on a low dresser below the porthole windows. Decorations sparse. A money tree on one side. A small palm on the other. No photographs. A hairbrush. A small bronze Buddha statue.
“Coming back on leave during the wars. It’s hard to turn it off. Then you go somewhere bound to get you into trouble, a redneck bar or something. That would be a Georgia redneck bar. Seventy-fifth Regiment’s stationed in Georgia. Chris was always leading us to places like that. With Sully, who made his dislike of Southern rednecks known.” Matt cut the side of the swelling.
“Ow!”
“Easy. Just a second.”
The relief of the swollen pressure instantaneous.
“Feel better?”
“Much. Thanks.”
“Never saw that in the boxer movies?”
“At what point did you get the impression I watch boxer movies?”
“Okay.”
Syanna stirred in the bed. “Where am I? Matty?”
“I’m here, Sye.”
He kneeled at the bedside and took her hand.
“Do I have the zombie disease?”
“No, honey.”
“I had a dream I was a zombie. But I could think. But I kept attacking y’all and I couldn’t stop myself.”
“It’s okay.” He got on the bed and bundled her in his arms. “You’re not sick.”
“We’re here,” said Phebe. “We’re fine.”
Syanna studied her face. “Sugar, you don’t look fine. Who beat up your face? Matty, did you beat them up for her? Nobody can hit my girl.”
“It’s okay,” he reassured. “Sully beat him up.”
“Y’all, are we in the zombie apocalypse, or did I fall asleep watching The Walking Dead?”
Matt said, “We are in a viral epidemic crisis situation in which a lyssavirus has mutated, causing furious rabies-like behavior in humans and requiring a quarantine of the area.”
She stared at his face, then looked at Phebe. “What did he say?”
“We’re trapped in the zombie apocalypse.”
“That’s what I thought. Why can’t he speak plain English?”
“Because,” Matt protested. “They’re not zombies! There’s no such thing as zombies. When a dog presents furious stage rabies symptoms, we don’t call it a zombie.”
“But when humans do it, apparently we do call it that,” said Phebe. “You gotta go with the flow, Matt.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’re so stubborn, Matty.” Syanna tried to lift into a sitting position. “Ow.”
Matt bolstered her back with pillows. “Better?”
“No. What happened to me? Did Chris Higgins do this to me?”
“Why would you think he did this to you?”
“Did he try to kill me?”
Phebe stiffened at the memory of Syanna screaming in pain in an aluminum shed with the immediate world melting down around them. “Of course not. In fact, he saved our lives.”
Syanna looked doubtful. “Chris Higgins? Saved our lives?”
