“It was a clap shot and we’re conserving shotgun ammo,” Steve said. “Rotate for engagement.”
They continued to back down the deck and stopped at the point they’d planned. And waited. There were sounds from inside the ship but no zombies appeared.
“I think they stopped for a snack,” Faith said. It was hard to hear with all the gear on their heads.
“Bloody stupid…” Steve said. He lifted the whistle and gave another blast on it. That got some coming around the corner and he and Fontana began to engage.
The crackle of semi-automatic fire started to draw the zombies. But slowly. They came out even more slowly than at the theatre and the two riflemen continued to pick them off as they stumbled, mostly blind, into the light, looking for the source of the sound and thus food.
Finally there were only the growling sounds echoing from the hatch.
“Faith?” Steve said. “Don’t want you whining…”
“Going pistol,” Faith said. She started to reach for her.45 then pulled out one of the 10mms that they’d gotten off the Coast Guard cutter. They’d left the arms room alone but any weapons on the deck were considered fair game. “Cover me, Hooch.”
“Got it,” Hocieniec said, following her to the hatch.
Faith fired several slow and deliberate shots into the darkness and downward. Then she shifted up and shot twice more.
“I know this is a more powerful pistol,” Faith said, reloading and putting the weapon away. “But it really doesn’t
“Next time wait til they’re clear of the doors, then,” Hooch said. “Cover me.”
* * *
“Ready?” Steve asked.
All four had switched back to shotgun after clearing the lobby and theatre. Now it was time to start working up to the passenger cabins. That meant clearing the stairwell to the first three levels of passenger cabins.
There were two sets according to Chris, inboard and outboard. Based upon what they’d seen with the exterior ones, there might be as many as fifty survivors. Spread over an area the size of a skyscraper.
But first they had to clear the stairwells.
“Been that way,” Faith said. She’d insisted on point.
Steve keyed the door, which popped open dropping a decomposing corpse at her feet. It was wearing bermuda shorts and a flowered shirt. It was unchewed.
There were scratch marks on the inside of the door.
“Shit,” Faith snarled. “Shit, shit…” She turned around and walked to the far bulkhead and started kicking it. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT.” Then she reached behind her to cover the teddy bear’s eyes. “Don’t look, Trixie. It’s not nicey.”
Fontana looked at Steve who held up a finger. Hooch had turned away as well. Steve was nodding his head as if counting time.
“Faith,” Steve said as softly as he could through the respirator. “There are people who need saving upstairs. Do you need to head back to the boats?”
“Just give Trixie a second, okay, Da?” Faith said. She kicked the bulkhead a couple more times, then stuffed the bear’s head down into her assault pack. “I think Trixie needs some sleepy time.” She pulled off her outer glove, then reached into a pouch and pulled out an iPod. She put in the headphones, consulted the playlists, then turned it on. Last, she turned around and walked across and into the stairwell.
“What are you waiting for, an invitation?”
* * *
Robert “Rusty” Fulmer Bennett III had gotten over regretting this “pleasure cruise” a long time ago. How long he wasn’t sure. His buddy, Ted, had suggested they go halves on a room “cause chicks on cruises are easy.” He hadn’t managed to score before the news announced a plague on land. Then the word went around-rumor at first, then confirmed by the ship’s crew-that the “Pacific Flu” had gotten onboard. Things kind of went downhill from there.
When they started getting really bad, the crew had passed out cases of bottled water and cans of food to each room. The cans were Number Ten cans and “you get whatever we have.” There was one case of liter bottles of water per person and three Number Ten cans. That made two cases of water and six cans in their room.
Rusty was a big boy, over three hundred pound and six foot seven in his stocking feet. He could go through two number ten cans of food in a sitting. One of the reasons he wanted to do the cruise was the all you can eat buffets.
But he also wasn’t an idiot and had watched enough zombie movies that he realized that they might be stuck in that room for a long time.
Then there was the fact that they’d been handed six number ten cans of some weird ass bland paste. It said “hummus” on the side and had a smiling picture of some terrorist looking mother-forker spooning the stuff up and grinning like he’d just bombed a church.
So Rusty put them to the side and hoped they wouldn’t have to eat it. And then Ted turned. He hadn’t even shown any signs.
By the time the overworked security guards got there, Rusty had Ted tied up in some torn sheets and he’d managed to avoid getting bitten. Barely. He’d nearly lost it when Ted went. They had been friends since they were in grade school. But, face it, the reason they were friends was that Ted was the geek, Rusty was the muscle. If Rusty had went, Ted wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Rusty and Ted hadn’t been able to afford the expensive cabin with the ocean view. So they’d been watching the occasional zombie go for a couple of days. The ship was still serving, some. And Rusty had gone out a couple of times. But he sure wasn’t cruising for chicks. Just storing up fat and hoping like hell he wasn’t going to go zombie. The zombie plagues were the worst. Twenty-eight days and it was all going to hell.
Then the abandon ship call came. Rusty tried to get to the lifeboats but there were zombies in the corridor. So he ducked back into his cabin and tried to figure out what to do. Then the doors locked and that was that.
He’d drunk an entire bottle of water and filled it from the tap. He kept doing that for two days, drink the water, fill up the bottle. Drink the bottle, fill up the water. While the zombies howled in the mall. He could watch them. That was about the only entertainment.
Then the power failed and while he could still watch the zombies there wasn’t any more water. Along with the water stopping working, so did the shitter. That was okay, he wasn’t pooping much.
He’d conserved. He’d sipped even when he was desperate with thirst. He’d heard you could drink piss. When he filled a bottle, he drank that instead of water til it got dark and nasty. Then he’d sip water…
He could see the days go by but his iPhone ran out of power pretty quick and he had no idea what day it was. He had no idea how long he’d lived in that cabin. When he got up, he’d eat a teaspoon of that terrorist stuff, which somebody told him was made from ground up chickpea, though the guy called it “garbanzo beans,” drink piss and then a capful of water to wash it down, then sit and wait for all the zombies to die or somebody with, you know, guns to come along.
The ones in the hallway stopped making noise after about two weeks. He was surprised it was that long without any water. But he still couldn’t get out cause the door was locked and it was, like, steel. He’d pulled off the veneer to check.
He was thirsty all the time and he was down to pure piss in the bottles. And it turned out that piss turned. It was starting to smell like ammonia or something.
The zombies had, like, moods. Sometimes they’d be quiet, sometimes it seemed like for days. Then they’d get active and usually start fighting each others. He started calling them “orcs” cause they reminded him of those movies with the hobbits.
Then they day came when he could hear them getting really riled up. He could barely pay attention. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d gotten out of bed. He knew he was getting bed sores but it was just too much trouble to get up. But he could hear the zombies making noise and some sort of odd thumping. It was different but he really could care less. There’d been thumps before.
Then the door opened. He heard it but he realized he couldn’t even move his head.
“Another terminal,” a muffled voice said. It sounded like a chick but he’d had that dream before.
