Convoy 19: A Zombie Novel by Mark Rivett Read Free Book Online Page B

his arms. As triage security picked up the little girl and carried her away, the medic followed with a teary-eyed plea for mercy. One security guard had already drawn his silenced .22 pistol, while the other laid the child on a bed concealed by a blue, bloodstained curtain.
    Despite the chaos of wounded soldiers, civilians, and the frenzy of emergency medical staff, the occasional pop of a silenced pistol cut through the clamor like a knife. Countless corpses lay in body bags piled high in an adjoining storage room. While the doctors and nurses were doing one job, the security staff was doing another behind bloody blue curtains and thick metal doors, ensuring the dead would not rise again.
    At least twenty people lay on gurneys or sat on the floor of the triage area. They had bandages on their wounds and letters written in permanent red marker or clumpy lipstick on their foreheads. Nurses bustled in and out, tending to the most grievously wounded first and making time for the less seriously wounded when they could. The stench of blood and feces permeated the air, and the sounds of wounded – cries, moans, and occasional screams—could be heard along with the orders of medical personnel working against the clock.
    While the Mexican military engaged the American naval fleet off the coast with air and sea power, small but fast squads comprised of mixed military and gang personnel raided the American civilian vessels that crowded together for protection. Yachts, sailboats, and rafts, armed with whatever small arms the people on board could find were no match for heavy machine guns and assault rifles. Despite the Navy’s best efforts to protect the civilian fleet, casualties were painfully high. Army Black Hawks would hunt for raiders, raiders would hunt civilians, and civilians could do nothing but group into small flotillas for protection – even if that protection was the hope that when the raiders came, they would come for someone else. Mexican attack craft that had eluded Naval defenses would speed up to a civilian vessel, hook chains to it, and drag the boat, people, supplies, and all—screaming back to some unknown fate.
    While the American military did what it could to protect resources and people, medical personnel were tasked with ferrying civilians in need of medical treatment to vessels that could provide it. A less obvious – but equally important – duty of the combat medics was to ensure any zombie outbreaks within the civilian fleet were contained before they spread out of control. Henry could imagine the tension in those moments pulling up to a yacht riddled with bullet holes. Would everyone be okay? Would someone have been killed and then reanimated to attack everyone else on board? Were they walking into a nest of ghouls lingering below deck and waiting for someone to stumble aboard? Or, maybe some confused civilian would just open fire on them as they approached, thinking the raiders had returned.
    It was a terrifying and deadly business in the waters outside San Diego. The wreckage of ghost ships meandered about, while haunting moans carried on the wind. Pockets of living dead floundered about in the ocean until they were swallowed by the waves.
    Private Tobias examined the wounds of a navy gunner who had burns over a large part of his body. The gunner was nearly naked: his clothes blown off by the force of the explosion that had mauled him. He lay silently in a morphine-induced sleep. Dr. Damico nodded as Tobias scrawled the letter O on the man’s forehead. The gunner needed immediate attention, but he could be saved if treated quickly.
    Audrey held the hand of a young man in his early twenties. The young man had been shot in the arm and was frightened, but he was a W. He had received the first aid necessary to keep him alive, and he was not in need of immediate care. The bullet in his arm could wait while doctors and surgeons attended to the much more grievously wounded.
    Audrey would run off to do