Extinction Level Event (Book 2): Holding Ground, page 6
part #2 of Extinction Level Event Series
Mullen’s gaze dropped to the carpet. Depression threatened.
Matt came in the cabin door. He slipped off his jacket and dropped it on the table. A few steps into the living room and he eyed the beer can.
“C’mon, Sul. You can’t be drinking alcohol on opiates.”
Peter took up his can and leaned back. A challenge in his eyes.
“Matty?” Syanna called from the bedroom. “Is that you I hear?”
“Your master calls.”
Matt sighed. “It’s me.”
“I need to pee. Could you please help me?”
Peter cocked a brow. “She’s being nice.”
“Yeah,” said Matt. “It’s frightening when she does that.”
Chapter Five
Guns, Guys & Guidos
1.
Peter exited to the hangout deck. Phebe sat on the floor with Mazy. Guns surrounded them. He recognized Mazy taught Phebe how to dismantle each weapon and clean them.
“Good stuff, Maze,” he said.
“You feeling better?” Phebe asked him.
“Yeah. Just bruised. I’m good.”
“I’m learning.”
“Maze, you gonna speed race her?”
“Thinking about it.”
“What’s that?” asked Phebe.
“Break them down and rebuild them fast,” Mazy answered.
“So I have to do this faster? Why?”
“It’s so if you get a jam in the field, you can break the weapon down, find the jam, and rebuild it and get back to firing.”
Peter said, “We all have to learn to do it as second nature. You can’t think the steps through when you’re under live fire. Your brain can’t do it. Well, you know from yesterday. It’s like that, but with bullets whizzing past your head.”
“That sounds worse,” Phebe said.
“No. I’d not say that after what I experienced today.”
Mazy chuckled. “They’re some manic fuckers, the zoms.”
“Hate 'em. They're worse than the fucking stoned-outta-their-minds jihadists. Ya know, if we were going to have the zombie apocalypse, I was really hoping it would be the slow living dead kind. They're make good target practice. Rednecks wouldn't even spill their beers when hunting them. But this? What's this? You can’t drink a beer in this."
“What if we knocked out their teeth?” asked Phebe. “North Korea them.”
“North Korea them?” he said. “That sounds like World War Z.”
“I’ve been reading up.” She pulled out books from behind her. “Hope you don’t mind. I saw them on your bookshelf and borrowed them.”
One was World War Z. The other The Zombie Survival Guide. Both by Max Brooks.
“No no. That’s good. They’re slow in those. Good target practice.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “And they don’t smell either. Somehow. I don’t get how corpses don’t smell. Or how corpses can reanimate. But some ideas may apply. I don’t know.”
He and Mazy shared a smile. They laughed.
“What? Are you guys laughing at me?”
“Not at all,” said Mazy.
“Because I’m studying the zombie apocalypse through fiction? A nerd to the end?”
“No,” said Mazy. “You need to learn. I’ll read them after you.”
“Well, ladies. I must go do something unpleasant. The old people are nagging for a talk with me.”
The civilian houseboat retirees had loitered on their back decks all morning. They waited for someone to tell them what was going on. He looked up at the overcast sky, wishing it would hail so he’d have an excuse—the floating dock too slippery to walk there.
A glance at the wooden-hull Orca. Closed and quiet. Too early in the day for burn-out Kenny.
The dock rocked with his footfalls. The water sloshed a bit. Maybe a great white shark could breach and attack him on the way.
2.
Phebe went to the side of the boat to watch him go into a houseboat.
“What do you think of Peter? I know what you said before about him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know about the smuggling and pills.”
Mazy laughed. “Oh, girlfriend. You should have been in intel.”
“I had a hunch you knew.”
“Yeah. You’re good. We definitely need to train you up. You’ll be a good warrior.”
“You’re avoiding.”
“I got no answer for you. He maintains on drugs. We deal with shit as it comes. He’s the best of this group to lead. He’s experienced and smart.”
“But you were an officer.”
“Officers don’t mean much to men like this.”
“What about the gun smuggling?”
“Serendipitous.”
“How so?”
“He had the AR-15s. We needed them. That’s God in action to help us survive.”
“What does it say of his morality?”
“Whose morality? Come and sit with me, cher.”
Phebe sat crossed legged on the floor across the guns from her.
“Do not apply comfortable civilian morality to them. To any of us. There may well come a time when we have to do things that the civilian world would be shocked and appalled by.”
“Am I safe with them, as a woman?”
Mazy smiled to her. “Yes. Emotionally, no. Men like them fear no man or beast, but a woman they care about terrifies them. You saw Sully yesterday, beat that punk who hit you, yelling about never hitting a woman. These men pride themselves as warriors. All of us share in that honor. We are the strongest, so we protect the weaker. It would be dishonorable to do otherwise. Now, I’m not talking some he said-she said bullshit if you get yourself involved with one of them. I’m out on that.” She reached out and took Phebe’s hand. “I promise you, sister. If someone hurts you, I will punish him. Okay?”
Phebe held her gaze. She nodded.
“You feel lost. I get that.”
“I got nothing but shoes.”
“What?”
Phebe shook her head. “A Mullen and me thing. Half the time, I feel like I’m going to throw up. Honestly, I just want to go home.”
“I know, baby. But you have to be strong.”
“What if I fall apart?”
“Don’t. You are underestimating yourself. You rise to the occasion. Trust you will keep doing that. We’re gonna train you. Between your powerful survival instinct and training, you got this. I assure you, honey. You got this.”
Not convinced, Phebe nodded anyway.
“Break it down.” Mazy handed her a handgun. “We’ll go over bullets next. Which one takes what.”
3.
Peter punched a wood piling.
“Oh good,” said Phebe. “Break your knuckles. Very helpful.”
“I’m gonna kill a guido.”
“Many have felt that way. I saw that guy and his wife. They sound from my way.”
“Jersey. No, Joisey. That’s how that prick guido says it. For years, I have dealt with Southern rednecks. Decades. But this guy … at least rednecks will fight you. You don’t feel like if you hit them, they’ll whine like bitches and threaten to sue you.”
“I don’t know how bitches whine, but usually guidos aren’t afraid to fight.”
“Well, this one, this Joey Martino, I think will threaten to sue me.”
“Good luck to him to find a lawyer. Are you sure you’re reading him right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Not to be stereotyping or promote prejudice --”
“PC disclaimer noted. Get on with it.”
“Italian American men tend to take a long time before they actually throw punches. A lot of rooster strutting and talking shit.”
“Maybe that’s the part I’m missing. Irish don’t have such foreplay.”
“Yeah, the British are the same way.”
“Don’t compare the Irish to the English.”
“You gonna blow up my car?”
“Funny. Isn’t that stereotyping the Irish?”
She shrugged. “Seemed to be the theme of the moment.”
“Smart ass.”
As she walked away, she turned. He smiled as he watched her.
4.
Peter hummed to himself while he wrote a list on paper with a pencil.
“Tell me this fucked up situation doesn’t really make you that happy?” Mullen demanded from the cabin doorway.
“What?”
“The humming.”
“How do you know I don’t normally hum?”
“You don’t seem a humming kind of guy.” Mullen sat across from him at the galley table. “Where is everybody?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making a list, Einstein.”
“I can see that. Of what?” Mullen craned his neck to see.
Peter whipped the paper away and hid it to his chest. “You can’t see.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more fun to fuck with you than not.” He put the paper back on the tabletop.
“Am I just for your amusement?”
Peter chuckled. “That would sound so much better coming from a girl. But I’m not Lyons.”
“Oh shit. You’re really going to joke about that?”
“Absolutely.”
“For how long?”
“Until the zom apoc is over. Or I die. Whichever’s first.”
“We’re now calling it the zom apoc?”
“You know all those initials and acronyms the military uses?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s a special department in the Pentagon, the Division of Initials and Acronyms, next door to the Division of Figuring Out New Camouflage Patterns Per War. They’re all gay. Then the Department of Redundancy Department, which every government agency has, and the Department of Army Chaos, which is specially trained. But I always wanted to work for the Division of Initials and Acronyms.”
Mullen stared at him. “I always wanted to work for the Ministry of Magic.”
“Yeah? I always figured I’d get hat matched to Slytherin. Though the good guys were Griffin.”
“You’d have to wear a lot more black to be Slytherin.”
“I like that we can have these deep conversations. You’re a good kid, Mul.”
“You’re alright, too.”
“Are we bonding? I don’t hug guys. It’s a rule. Except Julio. But he makes me.”
“He makes you hug him, should I be worried? Report this to someone.”
“No, not in a creepy uncle way. More of a Dr. Phil way, which confuses me. A creepy uncle, I’d just punch him in the dick. But Julio talks about feelings.”
“Not about Harry Potter?”
“No, he will talk some Potter. Though he looks Slytherin, he’s really very Hufflepuff.“
Mullen laughed. “What the hell does Hufflepuff look like?”
“I’m not sure. Except for that chubby girl they showed once in the first one. Maybe when Hufflepuff chubby girls grow up, they’re like that fat chick from that houseboat. The daughter of the Isleys. Or Beasleys. One of them.”
“I said hello to her. She seemed nice. Are you fat prejudice?”
Peter thought about it. “I may be. Okay. I’ll own that. But that’s not what my problem is with her. I think she may be a man masher.”
Mullen repeated slowly, “A man. Masher. Hmm. She mashes men?”
“Not like potatoes. Ya know, like a woman masher, except everything’s flipped around.”
“What’s a woman masher?”
“A creepy guy who makes unwanted passes at women.”
“So … okay.”
“Not that I think every girl is after me. I’m not Chris.”
Matt walked into the saloon from the companionway.
“Hey,” Peter said. “That fat girl in the houseboat, the what’s-their-faces’ daughter. Is she a man masher?”
“I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a room with her. She strikes me as a bar closing Horndog specialty.”
Matt resumed his crossing the saloon to the exit door.
Mullen said, “That pretty much tells me she’s not that physically attractive but could have a great personality.”
“How’d you get that?”
“Look at his girlfriend.”
Peter opened his mouth to protest, reconsidered, and shut it. “Hmm. I could see your point there. But I don’t have that problem.”
“I don’t see what you date.”
“No one does. Because they’re invisible.”
Mullen chuckled. “Makes a dinner date interesting.”
“Yeah, sitting there, talking to myself. People are like, ‘Not another fucking PTSD war vet. He’ll flash back and kill us all.’”
Phebe crossed through the saloon from the exit. They smiled to her. She scowled at them, wondering why they were smiling at her.
She continued to the companionway.
Mullen whispered, “I’d date her.”
“Wow. The girl who punched you in the stomach?”
Mullen shrugged.
“Fair enough. But, still, you and imaginary Phebe can double date with me and my invisible girlfriend.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Really? How about I kick you in the balls rather than kick you in the obviously inflated ego.”
“Don’t - don’t kick me, please. I’ve suffered enough injury today. I said I would date her, not she’d date me. But you never know.”
“Yeah. She definitely has some geek past to her. But it’s that part where she’d carry the balls in the relationship that may be a monkey wrench in your plan.”
“Some women like that.”
“Uhm, yeah, that’s true. Or so I hear. Mostly from TV. The only women I know that like having the balls, they usually cut them off their husbands.”
“You never know, though.”
“Well, there are zombies, so yeah, anything can happen. But I’m still going with: Dream on, Mullen. I’m sure she was really turned on by the screaming and running you did yesterday when she was fist fighting that punk. She didn’t seem all too happy with you afterwards. Or do you think that’s a prelude to melting her heart? Maybe she has a secret fetish for a guy she can Tarzan carry around?”
“Tarzan carry? It wasn’t that bad.”
“It was pretty bad, Jane.”
“You were the rescuer, not her.”
“I’m not Tarzan-carrying you around. I have no such fetish. But Lyons …”
“Stop!”
Peter laughed. “Never gonna get old.”
“Already is.”
“Chin up, Robin.”
“The Joker never threatened to ass rape Robin.”
“Maybe it'll be in one of the many Batman remakes.”
“Oh God.”
“I think it may have been implied in the original TV series. Some kind of gay overtones. A lot of tights and colored jockey shorts going on there.”
“I’ve actually seen those.”
“Great stuff, huh? Pow! Poom! I grew up on those reruns. Mostly because I hid the remote control from my siblings. Back then, there were thousands of remotes on coffee tables. I marked which one controlled the TV and snatched it up while they were still reading the make names on ‘em.”
“I have no siblings.”
“Man, you missed out a lot of fun. Endlessly harassing sisters. Good stuff. But I didn’t have a little brother. One sister is older than me and more man than me any day.”
“The longshoreman?”
“Yeah. You’d totally dream of climbing her, if you think you have a shot with Phebe. The other is very Catholic. She cried when I bugged her and called mom. She caused me a lot of punishments. Now she says I’ll burn in Hell, so kind of the same thing. She tells on me to the St. Brigit instead of our mother. Albeit, my father would tell you there’s no difference between the two. I’m losing you, aren’t I?”
“I’m not Catholic.”
“Fucking Protestants. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I’m not really anything.”
“What did your parents believe in?”
“Money.”
“Well then. There’s a good religion. Did wonders for Trump. Even made him a US president.”
“Is your sister straight or a lesbian?”
“Really? You’re into pain with girls, aren’t you? Maybe you should go for the understated nice girls who won’t punch you.”
“It’s just the way you talk about her.”
“Caitlyn’s straight. With phenomenally bad taste in men. If it was an Olympic sport, she’d win the gold. I wish she’d be a lesbian. But, then again, she’d probably date bad women. Then she’d be like my friends. I’d be more familiar with what to say to her after a breakup.”
Chapter Eight
Funeral, Friends and Funky BO
1.
Phebe tried to figure out a way to jog. It was chilly. The sky gray and heavy. Further inland such a sky would mean snow. But it didn’t snow this close to the ocean. Her muscles felt tight. They hurt from yesterday. The only way to loosen them was to jog. However, that meant jogging around the marina within the confines of the fence.
So be it. After stretching, she set out, in the wrong shoes for running and wearing men’s clothes with a rope belt threatening to drop her man sweatpants. She jogged up the floating dock, which bounced from her rapid footfalls. She held her pants up, since she was commando beneath. Undies got nasty after twenty-four hours of wear.
Up the gangway ramp and through the dock chain-link door and onto the parking lot, where the sunbaked blacktop had weathered cracks.
She stopped.
Matt performed CPR chest compressions on the old marina owner.
Chris stood nearby, cradling his AR-15. He looked from the lifesaving efforts to the main gate.
Heavy running footsteps up the gangway. Peter ran past her with Matt’s medical bags. He slid next to the emergency.
“The defibrillator,” Matt barked.
Matt cut open the old man’s clothes to reveal his chest. Peter pulled out a red pouch and unzipped it, revealing a small heart defibrillator. Matt removed the backing from the sticky panels and attached them to the old man’s chest and side.
