Clickers vs Zombies by Brian Keene, J.F. Gonzalez Page A

Ocean
     
    They were seven days out at sea from the pickup in Australia. At the rate they were going, they’d reach home—Newport Beach, California—in about two days. Perfect timing.
    Kyle Hodge reclined at the rear prow of the boat and closed his eyes, letting the sea smell wash over him. They’d been cutting a leisurely track through the Pacific for the past two weeks, embarking on a round-about fishing trip that was part leisure, part business. His brother-in-law, Hank, was up above, manning the wheel. His sister Carrie, Hank’s wife, was down below in the galley with his girlfriend, Melody, preparing lunch and probably talking about how fucked up things were going to be when they got back. It figures. Women always talked about how fucked up things might get. So long as they didn’t do the actual fucking up, things were going to be fine.
    Sitting at Kyle’s side was a large ice chest with today’s catch—a nice sized yellow-fish tuna. He’d caught it earlier that morning. Their previous catches from the past week resided in the large freezer below deck. Once back home they’d arrange to have the fish transported to a place Kyle knew of where he’d have time to properly gut and prepare it, then he’d arranged to have a couple of them stuffed and mounted. He’d already arranged that end of the deal with his contacts back home.
    Hank could deal with the delivery of the heroin.
    They’d received the heroin in Australia, on the north side of the continent, through Hank’s usual contact who was a first tier broker. Upon arriving in Australia, they’d taken quick possession of 100 kilos. The street value was ten million dollars. Once delivered to Hank’s contact in Newport Beach, they would receive ten percent. Split four ways, ten percent of ten million bucks was a lot of money.
    Kyle took a deep breath, gazing out at the ocean. This was the second such delivery they’d made in the past six months. He was also determined that it would be his last. He wasn’t a dope smuggler. This is not what he’d signed up to do. But with a job layoff from two years ago thanks to the shitty economy brought on by shitty business practices and shitty politicians, it had been hard to find a job in his line of work. Kyle was a DBA—Database Administrator. Unless you wanted to move to India, jobs as DBAs were hard to come by in the States. He was overqualified for everything else he applied for, and under-qualified for other things. And he lacked the financial resources to return to school to earn a degree in another discipline. As a result, he’d been forced to work at jobs that paid half of what he used to make. And with this lack of funds, he was now in danger of losing his house, his car, and going to jail for failing to make timely child support payments to his ex-wife. The court system didn’t care if you were underemployed. Ex-wives didn’t give a shit either. Both wanted their money.
    He didn’t join this operation to get rich. He just needed enough money to keep the wolves at bay and buy him enough time to tide him over until things got better.
    Movement in the water caught his eye and Kyle leaned forward, squinting. Fishing had been great so far. Hank said it was probably on account of that tsunami/earthquake, which had happened two weeks ago and had almost destroyed their plans. They’d been two days out from their journey when it hit. By the time they reached their destination in Australia the worst of it was over. Thankfully, due to the turmoil, they’d been able to make their transfer and pickup that much quicker. Who said natural disasters were a bad thing?
    Kyle’s pulse quickened as he frowned. He reached down to where he kept his binoculars and brought them up to his face. He adjusted the lenses, trying to get a sense of what was going on.
    There was a lot of activity and it was too far away for him to discern what was happening. Kyle put the binoculars down and frowned. Shortly after they’d set forth