Under a Graveyard Sky

point the carry line parted, throwing the unfortunate officer upwards in a ballistic arc. The lieutenant at the conn of the destroyer panicked, ordered a radical course correction to starboard, towards the carrier, just as the officer landed in the water between the two vessels, which promptly collided. The lieutenant commander was assumed to have been crushed as his body was never found. The irony that the lieutenant commander, the carrier vessel battle group’s inspector general, had just written a scathing report on the conn training of the officers of the destroyer was not lost on the incident report board.

Thereafter the Navy went to all helo or boat transfers for personnel at sea.

* * *

“You know we just hit the four hundred mark?” Steve said, keying the double doors.

“Four hundred days?” Fontana asked, popping the hatch with the Halligan and moving back.

“Four hundred people,” Steve said. “Four hundred known survivors of humanity. Plus the Hole and CDC and whoever they’re in contact with.”

“Holy crap,” Faith said softly.

“I know it’s not a lot,” Steve said, shining his taclight around the cavernous room. A zombie in the distance growled, then howled. It couldn’t even be seen, but it alerted others who stumbled to their feet and headed to the lights. “But we’re getting there. Back to defense positions.”

“Not that,” Faith said, taking up her position behind a counter. “That room. What was it?”

“Casino I think,” Fontana said. He began slow aimed fire at the blinded zombies stumbling through the door. He already had four magazines laid out on the counter.

“It’s huge,” Faith said, sticking a finger in her ear to cut down on the cracks from the AK.

“Should have seen the ones in Vegas,” Fontana said.

“Maybe someday,” Faith said. “When I’m, like, ninety. Zombie clearance, Vegas.”

“Resident Evil: The Cruise Ship. You can see the game, right?” Hooch said.

“I think we’re playing it,” Steve pointed out.

* * *

“How come when I’m shooting, my ears don’t ring?” Faith asked, tagging a zombie in the chest as it tried to figure out how to get around a roulette table with a Surefire in its eyes. “The beauty of this ride ahead…” Tap, tap…

The zombies were having trouble with the complex layout of the casinos. Casinos were designed to get people to change directions so they’d go “Oooo…I bet I can win that game!” The zombies could see the lights, they just couldn’t figure out how to get to them. Then, all of a sudden, they would. For that matter, it wasn’t always clear where the open areas, or the zombies, were to the clearers.

Clearing them out was a painstaking process of zombies howling and thrashing in the darkness. When they could, they took them at range.

Faith had had to break out the kukhri. Twice.

“Aural damping,” Fontana said.

“Checking right,” she said, shining the light around the other side of the roulette table. For some reason, the chewed up people just weren’t horrible anymore. She could even slide her eyes right over the kids. “There’s an answer? I was sort of asking one of those rectangular questions.”

“Rhetorical,” Fontana said, chuckling. “Clear left. Clearish. I think we’re going to have to sweep and resweep.”

“Works for me,” Faith said. “Hang on, stumbler coming around my side.” She took the shot. She’d stopped double tapping to conserve ammunition but the.45 round was usually good enough with one shot. It didn’t kill the zombies immediately, but they bled out pretty quickly. “Reloading. Hang on. Da?” she said, over the radio.

“Go.”

“I’m running out of forty-five mags. I’ve got ammo but I don’t exactly want to reammo in here.”

“I’ve got mags,” Fontana said.

“Like I’m gonna use a Colt if I don’t gotta,” Faith said. “I could also use a break.”

“Roger. Pull back to the entrance.”

“This does get the adrenal gland, don’t it?” Fontana said, firing twice in rapid succession. “They just seem to come out of nowhere.”

They’d learned when they cleared the theatre to shut the door behind them. It meant they didn’t have a way out. It also meant they didn’t have leakers that suddenly appeared when they thought they were at a “secure” point.

“And I think if we’re going to keep clearing this thing we might as well all go to carbines,” Faith said, starting. She fired two rounds into a body on the floor. “It moved. I swear it did.”

* * *

“How long can I stand under here?” Faith shouted as the water from the fire hose poured over her.

“As long as you want!” the guy manning the system wasn’t Coast Guard. She didn’t even recognize him. “It recycles!”

“Cool,” Faith muttered, giving him a thumbs up. She was just going to stand there for a while then.

* * *

“Be careful not to fire in the direction of the other team,” Fontana said nervously. “And watch the bouncers.”

“No worries,” Faith said, hefting the AK variant. The Arsenal SLR-107 would only have been vaguely recognizable to Mikhail Kalashnikov. It had an improved safety, AR buttstock, rail with lights and Trijicon TA11F. But the guts were still the reliable system Kalashnikov had stolen from various WWII assault rifles, then refined. “I have fired this thing before…”

A zombie charged out of the shadows to her right and she turned and double tapped it in the chest. The rounds continued through the body and bounced off a bar on the other side, and pinged off into the darkness.

“Oops,” she said as the infected collapsed on the floor.

“You hit?” Fontana asked.

“No. You?”

“I’m good.”

“I hate full metal jacket…”

* * *

“Okay, okay, okay,” Faith said. “I just… Seriously? An indoor pool? Seriously?”

The cavernous room was marked “spa.” Faith had always wanted to go to a spa. She’d sort of envisioned small rooms with hot tubs and massage tables or something. She’d always wondered what a “walnut scrub” was.

There were hot tubs scattered around in various styles. There were Roman baths, Japanese baths, stone flagging and walls… The ceiling, far, far overhead, was a massive skylight, which gave them an unfortunately clear view of the interior.

Zombies would eat each other for food. All they really needed to survive was something resembling water. And the “spa” had had lots of water.

So there were lots of zombies. And although they’d been awakened by Steve’s whistle, it had echoed in the cavernous interior and they weren’t sure where to go. The room was lit well enough they’d turned off their taclights. Not to mention, there were pools of water all over the place so even the zombies that noticed them were having a hard time getting to them.

Except for the close ones.

“I’m really glad we went to rifles,” she said, targeting one of the nearer zombies. It was having to go around a counter to get to them and she got it with a deflection head shot on the run and it dropped out of sight.

“Nice,” Fontana said, taking two more down.

“Is it just me, or was that exactly like shooting a duck in an arcade?” Faith said. She fired at another one but missed. “We going to move forward?”

“Yes,” Steve said, firing. “But one team. Head for that high ground over there.”