She had tried Christine’s phone multiple times and on every occasion reached her voicemail, which of course only served to fuel her greatest fear, that her daughter was dead. To add to her woes, Edward wasn’t picking up either, but at least he was simply hanging up on her, most likely not in a position to talk.
Frustrated and trembling with fret, she tried the one remaining person she could contact, a person she rarely if ever spoke to and couldn’t recall the last time she did. As she glanced down towards the last call made, it pointed out that the last time they spoke was well over a year ago.
She tapped on the call icon and held the phone up to her ear.
“Nan?” She heard her granddaughter whisper.
“Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I don’t really know, there’s a group of us here, I’m with Lori. The place is swarming with those infected people, they’ve been killing people… so much blood…”
“Okay, stay calm. Are you safe?”
“For now, I’m whispering so those things don’t hear us. Nan, they ripped people apart like they were just butcher’s meat, it was… I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m terrified. I don’t think I’ve ever been this terrified, I feel physically sick and I’m sweating like… I don’t even know. I don’t want that to happen to me”.
“Dear, are you in a secure location?”
“We are, I think it’s a staff room or something, we didn’t really check before we ran in, we were being chased”.
“Okay, is the door secure?”
“We put a shelf in front of it”.
“Hmm, I guess that will have to do for the time being, is there another way out?” There was silence for a moment as Rachel surveyed her surroundings.
“Just a vent”.
“Okay, worst case scenario, you’ll need to use that as a means to escape”.
“Where are you, nan?”
“Hiding in the bathroom next to our cabin”.
“Oh yes, dad said”.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m safe for the moment, but I’ve heard nothing from your mother or father”.
“How much battery power do you have?”
Martha glanced down at her phone display, before returning it to her ear.
“Sixty-two percent”.
“Okay, I have eighty-six. Try to preserve it, nan”.
“I’ll keep trying your parents, you try that vent”.
“Okay nan, speak soon”. Rachel hung up.
Martha sighed, things were a great deal more difficult and dangerous than she could have possibly anticipated.
3:03pm - 8 hours, 16 minutes since outbreak in London.
1 hours, 53 minutes since outbreak aboard MS HotS.
Captain Photis had made umpteen attempts to organise a rescue to no avail, other vessels were having difficulty responding to his mayday call in this treacherous weather and for those that had, reaching him was proving a difficult task.
Already losing hope, it didn't help the cause that staff for the past hour were calling in from around the ship panicking and begging for a course of action, but what course of action could he give?
Believe it or not, there were procedures in place for handling terrorist threats, pirates and even epidemics, but an altogether new situation of all three threats compiled into one and spreading faster than he could possibly account for, what the heck was he supposed to do?
It wasn’t even so much the number of panicked calls he was getting that worried him the most, it was the fact that those same calls were one by one dropping off or going silent, which didn’t bode well.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Captain Photis on the MS Heaven of the Seas, I repeat, this is Captain Photis of the MS Heaven of the Seas. Call sign MSHOS2”, he provided their bearings and continued, “we are in need of immediate assistance, over”.
There was a tremendous amount of static on the line that wasn’t there prior, but someone came through eventually with persistence.
“This is the Captain Murdock of the Lully Empress answering your mayday call, Captain Photis, please state your emergency, I repeat, please state your emergency, over”.
“Oh thank God. Captain Photis of the MS Heaven of the Sea responding, thank you for answering us. We have… an infection spreading on board and need emergency assistance. Several are believed to be dead, several more in danger of death if they are not rescued, please assist, over”. There was a long pause before a reply came.
“Sorry, did you say an infection? Over”.
“Yes I did, one that we cannot identify and spreading fast, over”.
“Have you attempted to contain the epidemic? Over”.
Captain Photis looked towards his crew, his wife Irini in the corner, contain this? Who could contain this?
“We’ve tried and failed, over”.
“Have you been infected? Over”.
“No, none of us in the bridge have, over”.
“Can you confirm that? Over”.
“I can, over”.
“How many of you are there? Over”.
Captain Photis glanced around the bridge.
“About thirty-eight of us here, over”.
Another long pause.
“It’ll probably take us about an hour or so to get to you, even then I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to get too close to your vessel, over”. Captain Photis punched the dashboard in front of him.
“Dammit!”
What the fuck were they supposed to do now? They’d probably be long dead before that rescue ever came. Closing his eyes and leaning on the dashboard, he knew that the next words to come from his mouth could make or break him, but this was no sinking ship situation, maybe he could be forgiven, right?
He lifted the radio speaker to his lips once more and took a breath before replying.
“We’ll come to you. I repeat,
