to free his pistol. The shock must have prevented him from doing so, because his fingers slid away. Joan lurched through the hatchway chewing the missing piece of Mitch’s arm. She was obviously dead. The left side of her face and neck had been gnawed off. The bites still bled, so she hadn’t been dead for long. Her hands and face were smeared scarlet.
With an angry yell, Mitch spun and delivered a kick to Joan’s ribcage. More blood jetted from his arm. We heard Joan’s ribs snap, yet in death, she was unaffected. The blow knocked her backward. Grunting, she slammed into the passageway’s far bulkhead and slumped to the floor. Then her broken form stumbled slowly to her feet again, licking Mitch’s blood from her lips.
“Shut the hatch,” Mitch shouted. He held his forearm just below the wound and squeezed, trying to stop the flow of blood.
I slammed the hatch shut just as Joan reached for the doorway. I heard her fingernails screeching on the other side of the steel. Then she started pounding. I turned back to Mitch. He was crouched in the corner, staring at his arm in shock. Tasha grabbed a pillowcase and approached him with it.
“Here, Mitch. Let me stop the bleeding.”
“No,” he gasped. “Just hand me the pillowcase and then stay back. Don’t get my blood on you. And watch out where I’ve already bled on the floor. Don’t go near it.”
“But you need help. You need—”
“I need you to
Flinching, Tasha took a faltering step backward.
“I’m sorry,” Mitch apologized. “I don’t mean to be harsh, Tasha, but I’m already infected and I don’t want you getting it, too.”
From out in the passageway, I heard Carol call out. Her voice was muffled, but alarmed.
“What’s going on? Did someone scream?”
“Carol,” I shouted through the closed hatch. “Stay in your compartment. Joan’s a zombie!”
“What?”
“She’s right outside our door. Just keep your hatch closed.”
I took a step forward, making a wide berth around the half-dollar sized drops of Mitch’s blood.
“Mitch, it might not be too late. We could…”
The look he gave me froze the words in my throat.
“You’ve seen it happen, Lamar. So have I. Too many times. Infection is instantaneous. It doesn’t matter if we cut my arm off or burn the wound or pour a gallon of fucking bleach on it. We both know what’s going to happen.”
Tasha began to cry. A second later, Malik joined her. The muffled pounding continued outside.
“Goddamn it.” I punched the locker in frustration. “God fucking damn it.”
“Yeah,” Mitch said, wrapping the pillowcase around his arm like a tourniquet. “Believe me, I feel the same way. But that ain’t gonna help us right now, Lamar. Hold it together for the kids. We need to come up with a plan.”
“We’re supposed to be safe,” Tasha whimpered. “You guys promised. You said we’d be safe on the ship. You said the zombies couldn’t get us!”
“Yeah.” Malik wiped his runny nose on his shirt sleeve. “How did they get onboard?”
I shook my head. “We don’t know guys. We just don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Moaning with pain, Mitch tightened the pillowcase. It was already soaked through with blood. Brushing away her tears, Tasha stripped the sheet off his bed, grabbed Mitch’s pocketknife from his locker, and began cutting the sheet into strips. Joan kept clawing at the door.
“Can Joan work the latch?” Malik asked, glancing at the door.
“I don’t think so.” I turned back to Mitch. “There has to be a way. Amputation? Fire? You can’t just give up.”
Teeth clenched, he finished tying off the bite. The linens were stained red, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
“I ain’t giving up,” he said. “Just making better use of my time. Don’t know how long I got, so let’s not mess around. Get the guns out. All of them.”
Malik stopped crying completely. “The grenades, too?”
“Yeah, Malik.” Mitch grinned, despite the pain. “The grenades, too.”
I lifted up his mattress and pulled out the rifle and the shotgun. Then I grabbed the ammunition and grenades. Mitch propped himself up against the wall and nodded.
“You’ll have to load them. And Tasha, you’re gonna have to carry a rifle this time. I can fire the pistol, even with this bum arm. But there’s no way I’ll be able to handle a rifle.”
“I can do it,” Tasha said, “if you teach me how.”
“Won’t be much time,” Mitch said. “But I’ll try.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have a gun at all,” I suggested. “1 mean, no offense, Mitch, but you said it yourself. We’re on borrowed time here.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t dead yet. What—you think I’m going to turn on you guys? I’ve got to die before I become a zombie, Lamar. So I might as well take out as many of these damn things as I can before that happens. Who knows how many are loose on the ship.”
“How did they get onboard?” I asked, echoing the kids.
“Well, let’s think about it for a moment. However it happened, they got to Joan first. By the looks of her, she hasn’t been dead long. We saw her at dinner, right?”
The three of us nodded.
“Okay,” Mitch said. “Then it happened between the time she left the galley and now.”
“Was there anybody else in the passageway?”
“I don’t think so.” Mitch shrugged, clenching his teeth as more pain shot through him. “I really… didn’t get a chance to see. She attacked me… right away. She must have been coming down the corridor.”
I frowned. “Do you remember which direction she came from?”
Mitch paused, thinking about it. “Forward.”
“Her compartment is aft. So she wouldn’t have been coming from there. After dinner, Joan and Alicia were going to check in on the professor and Basil…”
My voice trailed off. The realization jolted me. My stomach lurched and my head swam. I thought I might pass out, so I sat down on the floor.
“Lamar,” Tasha cried out. “What’s wrong?”
“The professor and Basil. Both of their berthing areas are in the forward section. Joan was coming from their compartments.”
“Maybe,” Mitch said. “But that still doesn’t explain—”
“The fish.” I slammed my palm down on the floor. “The tuna—the one that swallowed the hook. Don’t you see? It kept thrashing around even after it had been out of the water for so long. It was wounded. Bleeding! And the professor had an open wound on his hand. His hand was covered with
Malik frowned. “What are you talking about?”
I jumped up. “Remember when the dead first started coming back to life? There were cross-species jumps. Well, that’s happened again. Hamelin’s Revenge has spread to the fish. It’s in the rucking ocean now. The tuna was already dead. We just didn’t realize it. Remember that sore on its tail? We thought it was some kind of fungus or parasite, but you were right. You said it was a bite, Mitch. We should have listened to you. We should have paid attention, especially after all we’ve seen. Horses were supposed to be immune, but the other day, the chief said he’d seen a zombie horse. It can jump species.
“Lamar.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Get a… grip on yourself, man. You’re hysterical, and that’s not… going to help us… right now.”
“Lamar,” Tasha pleaded. “You’re scaring Malik. Please help.”
“Sorry.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, guys. It’s just not fair.”
“No,” Mitch said. “It’s not. But it happened anyway, and we can’t… change that. Right now, we need to stop it before anyone else gets… killed. Please, Lamar—while I can still think and move?”
