03 Deluge of the Dead Read online

  Deluge of the Dead

  Book Three of the Sovereign Spirit Saga

  Copyright 2012

  David P. Forsyth

  All Rights Reserved

  Note to Reader: Deluge of the Dead is the 3rd book in the Sovereign Spirit Saga which is intended to be read in order, starting with Voyage of the Dead at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006Y3XF4A and Flotilla of the Dead at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007QOJJIC

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead (except for historical and public figures), is purely coincidental. Although many of the places and things depicted do exist, numerous liberties have been taken and intentional embellishments made. This book does not purport to provide accurate descriptions of any actual locations, things, or entities. To the best of the author’s knowledge there are no such things as zombies and no plans by anyone to create them. This is an original work of fiction and all intellectual property rights are reserved by David P. Forsyth.

  Acknowledgements:

  There are many people who have helped me to create the Sovereign Spirit Saga. Most notable among them is Pamela Rosenthal for her support, encouragement and often necessary criticism and suggestions, not to mention her struggle against my procrastination. Deluge of the Dead also includes contributions from readers who participated in the Role Playing Blog at www.sovereignspirit.net and/or a writing challenge in the Apocalypse Whenever group at www.GoodReads.com. I hope you enjoy their input as much as I did and wish to thank them all personally for granting permission to include their comments, which appear as emails and broadcasts received by the Sovereign Spirit. In no particular order, special thanks to Anthony Baker, Rejean Sours, Doyle Wren, Karen Benson, Mariusz Szymczak, Wanda P., Michael Flanagan, Ashleigh Wolfgang, Michael Lapointe, and Melanie Billings. I am also thankful for the advice and support provided by John S. Walsh since the inception of the Sovereign Spirit Saga.

  Deluge of the Dead

  “This is Fox Rusher at the beleaguered GNN studios in Los Angeles where we continue to broadcast breaking news of the Zombie Apocalypse. It’s been two weeks since the Super Rabies virus swept the globe, bringing human civilization to its knees and decimating a large percentage of the world population. We continue to receive reports from scattered groups of survivors and isolated strongholds. It now seems clear that no major nation has gone unscathed by these apocalyptic events, but some places are faring better than others. Ships at sea and isolated islands appear to be some of the safest places to be. Other strongholds have been reported in mountainous regions and wilderness areas. However, no major cities of any size are free of infection and most populated areas appear to be overrun by undead cannibals. Experts blame modern air travel for the rapid and nearly universal spread of the disease.

  Nevertheless, there may be some hopeful news on the local level here in Los Angeles. We have just received reports that a large group of the infected has been contained at the docks in San Pedro by elements of the newly formed Survival Flotilla. Our news helicopter is en route and we should be able to provide a live view of the scene shortly. We are also attempting to reach Commodore Allen for confirmation, but are told he is not currently available for comment. Let’s go live now to Chet Davis flying the GNN Eye in the Sky. Chet, are you there?”

  “Yes, Fox, I’m flying over San Pedro now. The sun has already set and it’s a little difficult to see exactly what’s down there, but I’ll activate the helicopter’s flood light if necessary. First I want you to see this view of the growing Flotilla gathered at the Terminal Island Safe Haven. As I pan across the port you should be able to see the lights from thousands of boats and over a dozen larger ships. I also see many lights ashore, including some streetlights, indicating that they have at least part of the power plant here running again. And now, looking out to sea, there seems to be a convoy of more ships and boats approaching from Catalina Island. It looks like there are four, no five cruise ships and hundreds, perhaps over a thousand small craft approaching the harbor. This is a truly impressive and inspiring sight, Fox.”

  “Indeed it is, Chet! The Commodore has obviously followed through on his plans to organize the Boat People off the coast of Southern California and form a safe haven for them on Terminal Island. But, Chet, can you see any sign of zombies being contained over in San Pedro?”

  “Yes, Fox, I’ve spotted a lot of activity at the southwest tip of the docks. I’m zooming in now… Dear God! Can you see this, Fox?”

  “Yes, Chet, what do you make of it? Please describe what you see for our listeners on satellite radio.”

  “Of course… Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure what I’m seeing. There seems to be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of zombies gathered together on a large finger of land jutting out into the bay. I can tell they are all zombies by the way they turn and reach towards the helicopter as I circle them, almost like a crowd doing the wave in a stadium. What I can’t quite understand is how they are being contained there. I don’t see any fences or walls holding them back, but there is some organized activity near the base of the little peninsula. I’m zooming in for a look… Now that’s strange. There seems to be a group of normal people down there setting up hoses and sprinklers that are spraying something towards the zombies. Are you seeing this, Fox? Whatever that liquid is, the zombies appear to be afraid of it…”

  “Turn that shit off, and hold her still,” growled Scag as he loosened his belt. He didn’t want the distraction of news reports while he was raping the girl. She was a cute little thing, even after being raped and beaten by a few of Scag’s gang of Surf Nazis. He wasn’t happy about that. As gang leader he should have had first dibs on her, especially since she appeared to have been a virgin, but everyone was getting tense these days. It was getting harder and harder to control his skinhead followers.

  The girl, Scag thought her name was Nicky, was the daughter of a man who had brought his family to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on the morning of Z-Day, probably before they realized that the end of the world was at hand. They were among more than a hundred people who sought shelter in the big aquarium building that day. The doors were strong enough to hold off a horde of zombies and the security guard had the presence of mind to let survivors in and lock up before the infected arrived. Those people had been safe in the Aquarium until Scag and his gang arrived on the third day.

  The Surf Nazis had spent the first two days of the Apocalypse looting and pillaging the suburbs of Long Beach on a drug fueled rampage. It was pure luck that over a hundred skinheads and their bitches had come to Scag’s Paint and Auto Body shop for an all-nighter on Saturday. They were all tweaking on crystal meth and working their way through the third keg of beer when the outrageous reports of zombies reached them. Nobody believed it, not until the first of the undead crashed their party about 3AM. The next 48 hours were a blur in Scag’s memory, full of blood, violence, drugs, laughter and screams, always the screams. Most of the terror and pain had been caused by the mindless zombies, but a good portion was also generated by his Surf Nazis after they realized that the cops were gone and with them all the rules of civilized behavior.

  Scag’s gang had saddled up at dawn on April 1st. More than half of them rode motorcycles. The rest crammed into several vans and SUVs. Scag drove the big tow-truck wrecker that he kept behind the auto-body shop. Several of the gang had pistols with them. Scag handed out two shotguns that he kept at the shop, keeping a 12 gauge pump for himself. He did his best to arm the rest of the gang with improvised weapons, such as wrenches, tire irons, and anything that could be used to club or cut the zombies, but it was clear that their top priority should be getting more guns and ammo.

  The first place they looted was S
am’s Gun Shop. Unfortunately for Sam – at least Scag assumed it was Sam – a bunch of zombies had attacked the old man as he tried to unlock the door that first morning of the apocalypse. The Surf Nazis found his body surrounded by five corpses and it looked as if old Sam had used the last 44 magnum round in his revolver on the roof of his own mouth. Three zombies were huddled over his body, eating his spilled brains, as the gang pulled up in front of the store. The skinheads who already had guns made quick work of the zombies and stayed on the street as Scag led the rest of them into the gun shop, pausing to relieve Sam’s body of the keys. After that they were the best armed group on the streets of Long Beach and the most dangerous.

  Scag led his gang on a thrill ride that included looting liquor stores, supermarkets and several medical marijuana dispensaries around town. He also took them to his secret meth lab where they picked up his stash of more than a kilo of crystal. All of them were constantly shooting zombies and doing drugs. They had many opportunities to save other people, but seldom got involved, unless there was something in it for them. That something was usually female. If they came across a woman or girl in distress, they would save her from the zombies and then take turns raping her. Scag thought that was a fair trade-off for all concerned.

  Some of the women they encountered joined the gang out of desperation; others were left on side of the road to fend for themselves. Most of those women probably didn’t survive for long – especially the ones who watched the Surf Nazis kill their husbands or boyfriends before being gang raped. Yeah, the rules had changed and Scag was riding higher than at any other time in his life.

  Of course he hadn’t always been known as Scag. His real name was Luther James Bishop and he had once been a good boy – at least that is what his parents and teachers said. It wasn’t until after his disfiguring accident that Luther became Scag. It was a freak surfing accident when he was seventeen. A younger kid caught a wave and ran over Luther with his surfboard. The board’s fin, or scag as surfers call them, ripped Luther’s face open from ear to jaw and back up to the corner of his mouth. The scar was shaped like the upside-down fin of a shark, or the scag of the surfboard that had done the damage.

  That was how he got his nickname, but it hadn’t stopped there. Luther never forgave the younger boy for maiming him. A year later he had spotted the same kid out surfing early in the morning, before the beach got crowded or lifeguards arrived. Luther had paddled out to confront him and Scag returned to the beach alone. The other boy was reported to have drowned in the high surf. From that day on Luther embraced the name Scag and turned away from the path his parents had hoped he would follow. Within a few years he was covered in tattoos and moving up the ranks of the Surf Nazi hierarchy. He also grew into a strong and intimidating brute that loved to fight and enjoyed inflicting pain on weaker beings. By the time the zombies arrived Scag had already become a monster of a different kind.

  The zombie apocalypse was a liberating experience for Scag and his followers. Those first two days of rampage on the streets of Long Beach had been horribly fun and exciting. Nothing and nobody could stand against them, nor tell them what to do, or not to do. They dealt death and destruction at will, and when a few Surf Nazis were pulled from their bikes and devoured by zombies, shit, that was just part of the game. It hadn’t been until the night of April 2nd that Scag realized their days of roaming the streets were numbered. They were all getting burned out on the drugs and violence. More and more zombies filled the streets and even Scag was starting to get spooked by the total collapse of civilization. They needed to find a safe place to make camp and crash out, but every place they tried was soon swarming with zombies. After a terror filled night of fighting off the undead, Scag was convinced that they needed to take over a secure location. He led his gang down towards the waterfront where there was more open space and large buildings, places they might be able to defend against the growing horde of zombies.

  The aquarium was one of the first buildings they decided to try and it turned out to be one of the best possible choices. The survivors already barricaded inside had been foolish enough to look upon the Surf Nazis as saviors at first, opening the doors as soon as the skinheads had dispatched the crowd of zombies laying siege to the building. By the time they realized their error it was too late: Scag and his gang had taken control of the aquarium. Some of the gang complained that they should have taken over a hotel where they could have kicked back in style, with plush furniture and real beds. Scag shared their desires, but it didn’t take long to recognize the one resource that the aquarium offered above most other buildings in town: food. It was swimming all around them. Tens of thousands of fish and other sea creatures were just waiting to be scooped out of the display tanks and cooked up for supper. The other survivors in the aquarium also formed a convenient pool of servants to clean, cook and wait on the Surf Nazis. The younger women and children served another purpose as well.

  Over the next week the skinheads developed a routine that consisted of eating (mostly fish), drinking booze from their pile of loot, doing drugs that Scag doled out, and raping the women. It had been fun, but Scag knew it couldn’t last. Something would come along to spoil it eventually. That something turned out to be a fleet of ships that sailed into Long Beach harbor in the second week of the apocalypse. Led by what looked like a cruise ship that somehow disgorged soldiers and armored vehicles across the bay in front of the Queen Mary, they were soon joined by hundreds of other boats full of people who seemed determined to restore civilization to the port. Within days they had set up the Queen Mary as a fortress and built barricades of shipping containers on the bridges and roads leading to the port. They had even started up the old power plant and restored electricity on Terminal Island. Some of the skinheads and all of the other survivors in the aquarium wanted to go join the newcomers in the safe haven across the bay, but Scag knew that wouldn’t work.

  The people from the boats would never accept the skinheads into their ranks, especially if the other survivors from the aquarium told their tales of rape and abuse at the hands of the Surf Nazis. If Scag ever decided that his gang should leave the aquarium, he wouldn’t be able to leave any of the other survivors alive. It reminded him of the old saying by pirates that dead men tell no tales. The thought was almost enough to make him laugh, but he was too angry at the moment because his men had jumped the gun by raping this girl and killing her father.

  “I told you assholes not to mess with this one,” growled Scag as he moved to mount the terrified girl. “I was saving her for a special occasion and her father was useful too. He knew how to keep the damned filters running in the fish tanks. But no, you idiots killed him when he tried to defend his daughter, didn’t you?” He glanced down at the battered girl. “And now you bring me damaged goods?” He shook his head and growled as the other men cringed almost as convincingly as the girl he was about to rape.

  *****

  Chapter 1:

  To: Sovereign Spirit (@sovereignspirit.net)

  From: Doyle’s Southern Comfort

  Jimmy Doyle here with a status report for Mr. Hammer and Commodore Allen. We were turned away from US waters by the Navy south of San Diego, but Jimmy Doyle doesn’t give up that easy. We sailed due west for two days before sailing north again for another two days. No sign of the Navy this far offshore. We watched the Commodore on GNN via satellite, including his speech from Catalina. Good show, mate. We have turned east again, towards the Santa Barbara Channel, hoping to bypass the Navy’s quarantine and exclusion zone picket ships. We plan to rejoin your Flotilla soon. Be advised that we have encountered a storm approaching your coastline with heavy rain, moderate winds, and two meter swells.

  To: Doyle’s Southern Comfort

  From: BillyAllen (@sovereignspirit.net)

  CC: ScottAllen (@sovereignspirit.net), CptFisher (@sovereignspirit.net)

  Thanks for the status report, Mr. Doyle. Glad to hear you made it around the Navy. You will be welcome here. Forwarding your mes
sage to my Dad & the ship’s Captain. We appreciate the weather report too. Keep us posted.

  Scott Allen and Carl Stiller spent the evening aboard the Sovereign Spirit getting to know each other and discussing their strategy for incorporating the newly arrived convoy from the refinery into the Flotilla’s safe haven on Terminal Island. There were only about a hundred people in the convoy, including the families who arrived in their own RVs and the bus full of people they rescued from the Target store. However, the thirty refinery workers would be extremely valuable in the process of transferring fuel from the giant tank farms in the port to the ships of the Flotilla. They also discussed sending a few of the oil men back to the refinery in El Segundo by helicopter to keep the compound safe from zombie incursions.

  “If that refinery remains secure, it could become a major safe haven in its own right,” commented Scott. “It’s right next to a major power plant too. If we could get that started the same way we did with the smaller one here on Terminal Island, it could supply power for many other safe havens around Los Angeles.”

  “I suppose it could,” Carl agreed. “We didn’t worry about that because we had our own generators and an almost endless supply of fuel at the refinery, but that power plant really would be a valuable asset for the rest of the city. To tell you the truth, we were a little worried that the mayor would consider us squatters and looters for doing what we needed to do to survive at the refinery. That was one reason we formed the convoy to come down here and join your safe haven.”