Only the Dead Live Forever Read online

  Brooks moved to the first step and noted that the stairs went up, then cut to the left at the first landing. When he reached the landing he turned partway, careful not to expose his entire body, then waited for Sean to move to his position, followed by Brad. Once they were all back online together, Brooks moved to the next landing. At the top of the stairs they found another door; this one was also hanging open.

  Brooks again led the way into another long hallway that mirrored the one below them. Like before, once they were positioned in the hallway they all took a knee to listen for danger. Looking down this hallway, they found a tangled mess of bodies. Halfway down the length of the passage, positioned next to a door, lay a uniformed solder. His legs were missing, but the top half identified him as U.S. Marine Corps judging by the uniform jacket. The door itself had several bodies pressed up against its shattered window. Brooks pointed his IR laser at them to make sure the others had seen it.

  Initially the sight made Brad want to turn around and go back down the stairs to the locked doors of the lounge. Before he had time to totally comprehend his circumstances, however, he saw Sean tap Brooks on the shoulder and signal for him to move out.

  Again Brooks stepped past the first doorway and the piled bodies as Sean moved to the door and checked the handle. The lock was broken and had been pried from its frame. One by one, Sean grabbed at the bodies and pulled them aside. They hit the deck with a sickening thud. When the last body fell, a set of battered and broken blinds fell into place, keeping the men from being able to see into the room.

  When Sean went to open the door, it swung inwards and he felt the resistance of furniture barricaded against it. He signaled for Brad to ready himself, then he pushed hard against it, using his leg against the wall for leverage. The door produced a gap just large enough for the two of them to slip into the blacked out room. Quickly they rushed in, and immediately heard the distinctive click, click, click, sound of a hammer falling on an empty chamber. Scanning the room, they saw the crumpled form of a female Marine in the far corner, pointing an empty pistol into the darkness and dry firing vainly.

  Brad covered her while Sean verified the rest of the room was clear. Sean then turned his attention back to the Marine. She appeared uninjured, even though she was tucked back into the corner of the room with her knees drawn in. The room was very dark and it was obvious she couldn’t see them. There was an M4 rifle next to her with a pile of empty magazines.

  “Are you okay, Marine?” Sean asked in a low voice.

  “Who ... who’s there? Don’t come near me,” the startled Marine whimpered into the darkness, unable to see without the aid of night vision.

  “It’s okay Marine; we’re not here to hurt you. We just came in a helicopter. We’re here to help you,” Sean lied.

  “I think they’re all dead. I don’t know if there is anyone left … except them,” she said.

  “Slow down, Marine, how long have you been here like this?” Sean asked.

  “Last night ... This morning … I don’t know, the platform isn’t safe, we have to leave,” she whispered urgently.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yes … yeah … I think so … are we leaving?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we’re leaving, now let’s get you on your feet,” Sean said. “I know you can’t see me, but I’m going to reach out and take your side arm for safe keeping. I promise I’ll give it back, okay?”

  She pulled the pistol in, then reconsidered and pushed it away with her outstretched arms. Sean took the M9 pistol and dropped it into a dump pouch attached to his belt. He then reached down, took the empty M4 from beside her, and passed it back to Brad. Brad pulled open the bolt, verified it was empty, and then slung it across his back.

  “Okay Marine, I’m going to give you my hand and I want you to get to your feet and follow me out of the room, okay? I’m in here with another man and I have a third in the hallway. Don’t be alarmed, we have you, okay?” Sean calmly spoke.

  She nodded her head and Sean reached out his gloved hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. He asked her to grab onto the back of his jacket so he could lead her through the darkness. Sean and the Marine then slowly walked out of the room with Brad behind them. When he got outside, he signaled to Brooks that they were going back to the lounge. Sean took point this time and led them back though the hall and down the stairs. Brooks lagged behind, covering them as they moved.

  When Brad made it back to the lounge door he quietly tapped it, then slapped at the door a bit louder when he didn’t get a response. Eventually he heard a rustling from inside.

  “Hey, is that you guys?” he heard Mr. Douglas call out.

  “Yeah, can you open the damn door?” Brad said back.

  He heard the officers drag the furniture out of the way and then they pulled the door open. Brad moved to the side and let Sean move through first, as he was still leading the way for the female. Then Brooks moved forward and into the lounge. Brad took one last look down the hallway before he slipped into the room to secure the door and help Brooks barricade it.

  3.

  They had the female Marine lay down on one of the long sofas that had been pushed against the wall. Once the sense of security finally hit her, she quickly collapsed and fell asleep. She was young, maybe mid-twenties, and she was small, barely over five feet, a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Once she had fallen asleep, Brooks gently inspected her for bites or scratches. Her uniform was filthy and torn, but she didn’t appear to have any open wounds.

  “She looks okay Chief, probably dehydrated though,” Brooks said quietly.

  “Okay good, thank you for taking care of that. So what do you think, you want to go back upstairs, continue the recon?” Sean asked.

  “Hell no, Sean! Let’s wait until she wakes up and gives us some info on what’s going on here. It’s a damn murder house up there,” Brad said.

  “I just don’t feel good not knowing what we are sharing a building with. From the outside, it looks like there are no more than three, maybe four floors on this structure. I think it would be better if we could clear it. Especially since nothing or no one appears to know we’re here,” Sean said.

  Captain Bradley stood and walked to the corner of the room to join the discussion. “That assumption makes no sense, Chief. The Black Hawk would have rattled this place coming in, and there's no way nothing heard it. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s a mess of them hiding behind a door someplace, just waiting for you to open it.”

  “No, you can’t go,” the Marine said, struggling to sit up.

  They all stopped and turned to look at her. “Oh, you’re awake. How are you feeling?” Brooks asked.

  “I’m a bit groggy and I feel like I got hit by a truck,” she said. “Do you have any water?”

  Brad walked across the room and reached into his pack, then handed her a bottle of water. She quickly twisted off the cap and guzzled down the entire bottle.

  “Whoa, take it easy! We got to make that stuff last,” Brad told her.

  “Don’t get stingy, Army, there are pallets full of water out on the storage deck,” she spat back.

  “Oh yeah? You want to go walk out there and grab some, Marine?”

  “Oh … well, I guess you have a valid point there. So, ahh … any food?” she said as she put the cap back on the bottle.

  Brad reached back into his pack and started opening his last can of the Afghan slop, which brought a smile to the faces of Sean and Brooks.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  Sean stepped forward and sat on a chair across from her. “Don’t worry about it, you’re going to love it, Corporal Swanson,” he said.

  “How did you know my name?” she demanded.

  “It’s written on your uniform, Corporal. You want to tell us what happened here?” Sean asked.

  Brad finished opening the can, stuck his MRE spoon into the top of the mix, and handed it to her. “Sorry I can’t heat that up for you, but trust me, it won
’t improve the taste anyhow.”

  Swanson took the can and scooped a large portion into her mouth before pausing. They thought she was going to turn green and spit it out, but after an uncomfortable silence she began to chew, then grudgingly took more. “This really is horrible, so thank you for sharing it with me,” she said sarcastically.

  Sean gave her an impatient look. “Back to where we left off. What is going on here, Corporal?”

  “They must have gotten in on the PAK-PETRO boats. I don’t know; it was in the middle of the night. I was sleeping in my cell when it started. Sergeant Johnson woke me up, told me to grab my kit because we were leaving.”

  “What do you mean, leaving?”

  “He said the platform was breeched and we needed to fall back to the Edwards,” Swanson said.

  “Edwards?” Sean asked.

  “The USS Edwards,” she explained, “It’s a submarine tender. It’s been tied up here for a couple of weeks. We’d been replenishing it, getting ready to make a cruise back to the States.”

  “Okay, so then what?”

  “I grabbed my gear and joined him in the hall. All of the housing cells are on the third deck; everyone was running around suiting up and heading below. There was a lot of screaming coming from the lower decks. Sergeant Johnson led the way, and when we made it to the first floor it was chaos. That’s where they had gotten in. Our Marines were fighting hard, but most of them had already closed in on us and they were inside …” She paused; a haunted look came across her face. “It was hand-to-hand.”

  “What did you do?” Sean probed.

  “They were already through the lounge and into the hallway. One of the Marines in the middle of it managed to lock the lounge door, but too many of them had already gotten in. Sergeant Johnson and I tried to make it back to the third level but someone had secured the doors at the bottom of the stairs and they wouldn’t open them.”

  “So you got caught in the middle?”

  Nodding, she continued. “We ran back to the second floor stairway … they were pouring in up the stairs … we fell back into the hallway. Johnson was firing at them, knocking them down, but there were just too many,” she said as her voice started to crack. “He shoved me into the office and told me to barricade the door.”

  “And?”

  “I locked the door … I pushed the desk against it and hid. I heard them coming for him. He fought them, and I heard him scream … it took a long time … but they didn’t leave, they started pounding on the office door, they broke the glass and tried to get in. I fired my rifle till it was empty, then I reloaded and fired more. When my rifle was done, I fired the pistol. I ran out of ammo and waited for them to come in after me … but … but something happened … They were distracted. I heard them crash through the doors and go up to the third deck. They never came back.”

  “Do you know where they came from?”

  “No! I told you already! I was asleep. Some of the men were yelling and blaming it on PAK-PETRO, since they own and operate these oil rigs. They had been pulling people back from the other sites all month, consolidating them here … waiting for the main evacuation order.

  “Everyone is supposed to get checked for bites and scratches, but sometimes people get through the cracks. We’ve found primals turned in their cells before, screaming and trying to get out … Plus there are a lot of people in the ships moored below and on the first level; they don’t get checked till they get to the second deck.”

  “Another classic cluster fuck,” Brooks said in frustration. “Who was in charge of security here?”

  “Officially the Marines were, but there were only twenty-five of us. There were over five hundred people on the platform plus I don’t know how many on the ships. And we aren’t grunts; most of us are wrench turners and technicians. We had to trust the locals to do most of the security since we were only in charge of the top deck. PAK-PETRO ran the lower two decks with the Pakistani Navy; they have a few boats down there. Our Navy never left their ships, they just plugged into the platform for shore power.”

  “So to sum it up, we have no idea what’s going on anywhere on this platform, how many infected there are, or how many survivors,” Sean grunted.

  4.

  They sat in silence and tried to digest the bad news. Swanson was asleep again. They still had plenty of questions for her, but Sean didn’t see any point in beating her up all night. They were locked into the lounge, but still felt uneasy when they stared at the door that led into the building, not knowing what waited for them on that third deck.

  Brad had collected his gear and was back in the overstuffed chair in a corner. He had broken down his rifle and was meticulously cleaning it. Brooks distracted himself by doing the same in the opposite corner of the room. Sean lay down to sleep on a pool table; the pilots were already sleeping against the front wall on a pile of sofa cushions that they had bunched together. The emergency lighting was still working, but they had no idea how long the batteries would last.

  Dawn came slowly; the rain was still coming down hard. The grey gloomy light was just beginning to pierce the glass windows in the door when Sean got to his feet and peeked out of the glass. Looking both ways as best he could, he seemed satisfied that the immediate outside was clear.

  “Brooks, Brad, why don’t you two start suiting up,” Sean said.

  “What are you thinking, Boss?” Brooks asked.

  “I want to take a quick look around so we can get our bearings. We also need to pull the gear and ammo from the Black Hawk,” Sean answered. “Captain, you two stay here with Swanson and hold the fort. We won’t be long. Keep an eye on those doors.”

  “Okay, can do, Chief,” Bradley answered.

  The team suited up and gathered at the double doors. Sean pulled the bolt back and slowly opened the right side, slicing his viewpoints until he had a full view of everything to his left. Then Brooks eased open the opposing door and sliced to the right. When they were confident the way was clear, the left door was closed and they slid outside before closing the right door behind them. They heard the officers latching the door locked.

  They stood tight against the wall, looking in all directions. The rain was still coming down hard but the thunder had faded. They could hear the waves crashing against the ships and the pylons below. Normally, the ships would have untied and taken the storm in open waters instead of being thrashed against the platform, but there must not have been anyone to pilot them.

  Sean looked down at the deck and grimaced. “I hope those vessels aren’t doing permanent damage to the structure. We’re in bad enough shape as it is.”

  Brooks lifted his rifle and scouted the area beyond the building with his optics. “I don’t see any movement, Chief, and the far walkway looks clear.”

  “We don’t have the manpower to leave a guard here to cover our six, so we’ll just need to keep our heads on swivel,” Sean warned.

  They turned and slowly patrolled toward the helicopter pad, stopping often to listen and check their back trail. It was hard to hear anything through the pouring rain and the sounds of the water beating off the steel buildings. The floor was made up of rigid steel grates; even so, it was hard to see through the tangle of pipes to the working spaces below.

  The path back to the flight deck was clear; they could just barely see through the rain to the landing. Blowing rain was washing across the metal deck grating. The winds rolled the wash up and blew it across the deck at them. They were already soaked in the chilled water. Brad had removed his goggles and was wearing a fleece watch cap. He held his rifle at the ready and tried to stay in position just behind Brooks as they slowly made their way down the walkway.

  They reached the landing and, after a brief pause, Brooks made the turn around the corner, with Sean and Brad behind him. They found the helicopter just as they had left it. They moved about the landing pad and used the elevated position to survey the platform. Even in the stormy conditions they were able to see a great deal more than
they had the night before.

  They could clearly see down onto the storage deck where a large number of crates and plastic containers were neatly stacked in rows. There were obvious signs of a battle on the deck. The dead were scattered about and concentrated near a hasty barricade, close to what appeared to be another staircase leading to the second deck. There were two other metal buildings on the two remaining corners of the platform; one appeared be a control building containing large windows, and the other was only a two-story with no windows.

  The southwest apron of the helicopter pad leaned out over the edges of the platform. By pushing up against the railing, they were able to see hundreds of feet below to the crashing sea. There was no large submarine tender as the Marine had suggested. They could see a couple of Pakistani-flagged fast attack boats, a few tugs labeled with the PAK-PETRO logo, and a larger civilian fishing boat. All of the vessels appeared to be dead in the water and were taking a beating in the storm.

  Sean tried the satellite phone; even though he was pulling a strong signal, he couldn’t get an answer. Frustrated, he powered it down and stowed it back in his assault pack.

  They opened the doors to the helicopter, quickly loaded the large rucks onto their backs, and stacked up to make the return trip to the lounge. Brooks was partway down the stairs to the first landing when his fist shot in the air. Brad struggled to kneel on the uneven surface of the stairs, battling the weight of his pack as he strained to turn his head to see what had alerted Brooks. Far in the distance he spotted it.

  “Oh fuck,” he gasped.

  There was a small pack of ten to fifteen primals gathered below them near the entrance to the lounge. So far they hadn’t been alerted, or they would have been moaning. The team froze on the stairs and watched the pack. The primals had gathered outside of the lounge. One of them seemed to be the leader. It was larger than the rest and wore part of a Marine Corps utility uniform. Its face had been torn open above the cheekbone, and a large portion of its scalp was missing, but it didn’t seem at all bothered by the wounds. It slapped at the steel doors of the building but quickly lost interest and started to make its way closer to the team’s current position. Quickly and quietly they backtracked up the stairs and to the landing pad.