“Ed… ward?”
He gave her a smile that washed over her like a wave of warmth, as he knelt down in front of her.
“Hey there, tiger. I’m glad I found you okay”.
She leapt into his embrace without a second thought and wept harder than she had ever done before.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry for what I did…. what I said… everything, I am so sorry”, she apologised.
“So am I, including the despicable way I reacted when you told me. I was a shitty husband and if we get out of here, I'll do better”.
After a long and tight embrace, she composed herself, sniffled a little and pulled back to look at him. Her cheeks were puffy and her eyes most likely red, but yet a great deal less of a mess than he, covered from head to toe in blood.
“How on Earth did you find me?” She asked.
“It was a fight to get here. If you want to thank anyone or anything, thank your mother’s bad habits she refuses to kick”, he showed her the lighter and can of deodorant. “When I couldn’t find you anywhere in here, my heart sank and I thought you might already be dead, but when I came into this spa section and was about to leave, I heard a shuffling and muttering. At first I thought it was probably nothing, but I don't know, I guess curiosity got the better of me. Much to my relief, who should I find here, my tiger. You know, you really should pray quieter”.
“No… no, my prayers brought you right to me. I couldn’t be happier to see your silly face, my grizzly”.
He kissed her and got serious.
“I want this to go on, but I need to get us out of here, this ship is crawling with them”.
“What… are they?”
“People… people who seem to have lost their minds. I had to… I had to… you’ll see for yourself. They wouldn't stop, they don’t even flinch”.
“My mother! I left her in the cabin”.
“She’s okay, I made sure of it”.
“How can you be so sure?”
He pulled out his phone and showed her the missed calls.
“This last one was a mere few seconds before I found you”. He texted her back declaring that he had found her daughter and shortly after that she responded with relieved thankfulness, not without her usual snarky undertones of course.
“She’s okay...” Christine replied, relieved.
“She is, now to make sure you are too. I’m getting you out of here”. He took her hands and helped her up. “We may have to fight… no, we will have to fight”.
Before they could leave, Christine stopped him.
The sauna room door was open, what happened to the people inside of it? As she approached the open door, Edward stopped her.
“You don’t want to look in there, I thought you may have hidden in there and thank God you didn’t”.
“Why? What happened to them?”
“The heat must have gotten to them, I think one of them must have opened the door to breathe, some of the others may have already passed out before that. Needless to say… one or more of those twitching people got in and… I just don’t want you seeing that scene”.
He pulled her away and she turned around once more to look back.
God was most definitely good, she could have been one of the people in that sauna room.
They stepped out into the Zen room and the scene was really no better, what wasn’t a bloody corpse, was a burning heap of nauseating flesh.
“Was… was that you?”
“Don’t look at them”.
“My God, Edward, those are…” She put her hands over her mouth in shock and disgust.
“People? Maybe once they were, but now they’re monsters hell-bent on killing, Christine. I didn’t want to do it, I held back, honestly I did. I didn’t revel in doing that at all, but they just kept coming and they killed all those other people. I’m not a murderer, Christine, I’m the same man you knew, the man you fell in love with, the man who has a gambling habit admittedly, but wouldn't harm a soul unless his life and the life of his family were at stake, the same man that…”
“Edward… it’s okay, I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all, but I understand. Let’s just get out of here, this sight and smell, I can’t stand it”, she replied, her eyes averted from the morbid sight of bodies. He took her hand and led her away from the spa.
CHAPTER 20 - RACHEL
3:20pm - 8 hours, 33 minutes since outbreak in London.
2 hours, 10 minutes since outbreak aboard MS HotS.
. . .
. . .
Scrambling through a narrow and terribly claustrophobic air duct, the only means of escape, Rachel and Lori still had fresh on their minds the events of which occurred a mere moment ago.
They were in that room trying to decide the best course of action for quite some time, nine of them including a mother and her kids. The door barricaded and the haunting screams seemingly ceasing one by one, those in the room knew that if they hoped to escape, sooner was better than later. Even if rescue came, there was no chance they’d risk their lives in search of survivors, and after the captain’s cowardly move, it was most definitely every man and woman for themselves, leaving them with one of three choices, remove their barricade and run again with hopes of finding a safe space to hide in order to be rescued, wait it out here and be prepared to fight if necessary or try to escape through that air duct.
Two of those options were quickly crossed off the list when they heard
