The Final Outbreak

by M. L. Banner

  At the exit marked “Open Deck” and “Smoking Permitted,” they examined the crimson splashes that also included boot prints, running away from the door, out of sight, toward the crew recreational areas. Flavio tentatively stepped through the door and came back out shaking his head. There was nothing. They continued along the trail, listening for any sounds that might cause them to change direction or spring into action.

  They started down the smaller hallway leading to all the crew areas: recreational, admin, and even a convenience store. The hallway didn’t connect with any other arteries, and the footprints only went one way. The monkey was down here.

  Jean Pierre lifted his walkie to his face and spoke softly. “Security, this is the staff captain.”

  “Staff Captain, this is Deputy Chief of Security.”

  “Wasano, we’ve found a dead body in the deck 8 aft crew stairwell. We’ve followed a blood trail down to I-95, and finally to the crew rec areas. Send personnel to secure these areas. And we need a weapon or two down here to deal with a crazed monkey. Get down here on the double. I’m now off comm.” Jean Pierre turned his volume down again, and trailed behind the other three, who followed two sets of fading bloody footprints: one human and one primate.

  At the Slop House, the crew’s mini-market, the group held up as Jean Pierre slipped in and grabbed two sets of silverware. He was about to exit when a meek voice wobbled unseen behind the counter. “Sir? You have to pay for that.”

  Jean Pierre grabbed his Seacard and flicked it over the counter. “Don’t lose it. I’ll be back.” He grinned at this: even in an extreme emergency situation, they were following the rules. “No exceptions!” the captain had drilled into them.

  He rushed to the group. “Here, Ted.” Jean Pierre handed him one of the sets. “Didn’t want you not to have some protection.”

  “Thanks,” he said, examining the cutlery, “I’m pretty vicious with a fork on Prime Rib Day.”

  “Inside,” Jean Pierre said as he opened the packaging, “you’ll find a rather substantial steak knife.”

  They pulled their knives out and carefully followed behind Flavio and TJ, tracking the blood-trail to the living room, where the crew went to relax, watch TV, and play games. They held up for the next body.

  It was a crew member. But other than that, it was hard to tell who it was. There wasn’t the slightest amount of Regal European blue or white showing on his ragged uniform, as it was covered in blood. The poor young man’s throat was ripped out and all that remained was a ragged opening.

  The body also looked like it had been chewed on.

  “Come on. He’s dead. Monkey in here,” Flavio announced and rose to proceed into the room.

  “Flavio,” Jean Pierre whispered, “I’ve called security. They’re bringing real weapons. I’d suggest we wait until they get here. We’ll keep the monkey in there.”

  “Don’t want to lose more crew, sir. I go in, you stay.” Flavio pushed through the swinging double doors. One by one, they followed him.

  The cavernous room appeared empty of crew, and certainly held no monkey. The only sounds were that of an old movie playing on the large flat-screen TV at the other end and distant tapping.

  Once inside, they all took knees and huddled closely. Flavio suggested he’d walk through the room slowly and they would back him up by spreading out. He wanted to make sure there was no crew inside. They agreed, and Flavio slowly advanced, making a trail bisecting the room, passing by a foosball table, a drum set, and a video gaming area, before he’d end up behind the couch in front of the TV.

  TJ followed Flavio part of the way and held up at the foosball table, while Ted stepped carefully over to the gaming area. He tested the weight of his newly gifted steak knife and wished he had kept Flavio’s more substantial one.

  Jean Pierre remained at the door, so he could quietly direct security when they arrived with their weapons.

  Ted noticed evidence of the crew being here besides the TV, as he negotiated his way past a couple of tables. One of these was obviously abandoned quickly, with cards splayed haphazardly across the table and on the floor. Curiously, multi-colored ravioli shells were in three tight piles in front of three pushed-out chairs, one overturned.

  Ted’s heart almost burst out of his chest when he saw movement underneath the table. He was ready to hoof it in the other direction, but after a moment it registered he saw no fur—only a small man, curled up in the fetal position, eyes as big as dinner plates, staring at him.

  It was probably unnecessary, but Ted held a forefinger to his lips.

  Ted turned back toward Flavio and almost guffawed at the movie playing on the TV. It was the original Planet of the Apes, and Charlton Heston was demanding, “Get your hands off of me, you damned dirty apes.”

  There was commotion coming toward his end of the room. Ted stood up from his squatting position to see Flavio frantically pointing at a brownish form in the corner, previously obstructed by the couch. It was the Barbary ape, and it was much bigger than what Ted remembered of these monkeys.

  It was violently scratching at a cabinet, growling at it. A muffled whimper wafted through the slats of the beaten cabinet door. Someone had escaped the monkey and was hiding. But that door wouldn’t hold it back much longer.

  A pinball machine spontaneously sang out its rhythmic sounds, followed by a ding-ding-ding.

  The beast turned in its direction. That was also their direction, and the monkey instantly saw Flavio.

  Flavio reflexively tossed his knife, which sailed in a perfect arc and struck pay-dirt, hitting the beefy part of the monkey’s bicep, which had moved in front of its chest, as it turned to leap in his direction.

  It screeched a terrorizing racket and raced at Flavio.

  TJ was next and threw her knife, but it rotated one revolution too many and hit the monkey handle-first in the face. The monkey diverted its path and headed for her, as she panicked and flopped onto her rear. She had no protection.

  Ted jumped, unsure what he was going to do but knowing he wouldn’t be able to throw a steak knife effectively. He did the only thing he could think of. Clutching his knife, he leapt toward the monkey, who was completely focused on TJ. He connected shoulder and knife blade into the monkey’s chest, just before it could get to her.

  The monkey bounced in one direction and Ted came down hard on a guitar. A thud, a twang, and a crack, which was either one of his bones or the guitar neck breaking.

  The monkey hit the wall on the other side of the room, knocking down a shelf of books. It shook its head. Ted’s steak knife still protruded from its chest, Flavio’s from its arm. Then it focused its red, violent eyes at Ted. It snarled its anger and leapt the short distance between them.

  There was a loud explosion.

  The monkey’s head disappeared behind a spray of red, saturating Ted and everything around him. Its limp body crashed into a chair beside him, coming to a rest for good.

  By the front entrance, Deputy Security Chief Agarwal lowered his rifle.

  Ted let out a long sigh of relief.

  37

  Falling Apart

  “I heard what happened,” Captain Christiansen said, offering his staff captain a steaming cup of coffee. “Thank you, Jean Pierre, for mitigating the problem, before it got much worse.”

  Jean Pierre accepted his cup and sank into the sumptuous chair, one of six surrounding suite 8000’s dinner table. The plush cabin, contiguous to the port side of the bridge, was unoccupied during this itinerary. Its $9,000 price tag wasn’t a problem for its prospective Parisian occupants; they just never showed up. With the ready room damaged by the tsunami, the captain pressed this one into service.

  The message Jean Pierre received said this meeting was “important,” but no other information was given except that a similar meeting would follow with the remainder of the ship’s first and second officers. The implication was huge. On the other hand, it might have simply been an opportunity to refocus the troops, and to t
hank each of his officers for a great job during difficult circumstances. Jean Pierre had no idea which it was. He hoped it was the latter. Still, it felt odd to know that other than him, the captain and the two lone officers on the bridge, all the ship’s brass were waiting in the hallway, outside this luxury cabin’s door.

  “Actually, sir, it was one of our head waiters, along with the Williamses and Deputy Security Chief Wasano. They all came through and saved countless lives.”

  “Yes, of course. Still, I’m proud of the work you did.” The captain lifted his cup of coffee to his lips and sat beside his friend. The bags under his eyes were bigger, darker. “Did you find out what happened to Spillman?”

  “He was a casualty too, along with one of our masseuses and one of our guards. The three were found in cabin 8504. We’re not sure what happened, as some of their wounds seemed to be self-inflicted, and there were lots of bites, too. Our best guess is that the monkey was accidentally locked in the room with Spillman and the masseuse; maybe it followed one of them inside. I’m sure you are aware they’ve been having an affair since the last itinerary. And I had just learned that Spillman, in an attempt to cover his tracks, was messing with the security cameras. We’re also pretty sure he was the one who shorted out the electrical, and blamed it on one of his security monitors, who has since been cleared of all charges. Anyway, they were killed by the monkey and the guard must have heard it, went inside and was attacked as well, and in the process, she must have let the monkey out. Yet... some of what we saw is impossible to explain.”

  “Like what?”

  “We found the guard’s and the masseuse’s bodies together, propped up against the door—this made it really hard to enter the cabin. The masseuse’s body had multiple wounds, and substantial blunt force trauma to the head. It was dark, and so we believe that the guard thought the masseuse was the monkey, and because the guard’s throat was ripped mortally, she must have panicked and killed the masseuse with her flashlight.”

  Jörgen shook his head and then said, “Okay, that mostly makes sense. So what was impossible to explain?”

  “The masseuse had skin and muscle tissue in her mouth which corresponded to the bite to the guard’s throat.”

  Jörgen looked at his friend like he’d lost his marbles; for a moment his mouth dropped open, as if he wanted to ask a question. Then his mouth closed, and his expression changed from incredulous to grim. “So our total casualties from the animal attacks and the tsunami stand at nine crew and three guests?”

  Jean Pierre gazed into his coffee, and then back up to Jörgen. “Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.” He’d learned of the numbers, and who the casualties were, only minutes ago, and he almost fully accepted all of this. He had to. But hearing it from his captain’s lips made it seem so much more... horrible. On all the ships he’d served, after all these years, the most crew or passengers he’d lost on one ship had been two passengers. And they were fairly old folks who died of heart attacks.

  Yet the Intrepid’s circumstances were so extraordinary. And from that standpoint, any one of these issues could have caused many more deaths. It was horrible, but considering what they had gone through, they were lucky.

  Jean Pierre added, “We’re still looking for Mrs. Carmichael. But we think she might have gone overboard during the tsunami, after she killed her husband. Her body will probably never be found. Even considering all that’s happened to us... we were damned lucky.”

  Jörgen was quiet. He seemed lost in his own thoughts.

  Jean Pierre knew that as bad as he felt, his friend was burdened even worse for being the captain. But there was more to his friend’s look than just the weight of their losses. He knew that Jörgen had something even more serious to say. That had to be the reason for this meeting, before the one with the other officers. His stomach started to churn when he asked, “We are through the worst of it, right?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Jörgen responded as if receiving the verbal cue he had been waiting for. He handed Jean Pierre the TV remote and looked him straight in the eyes. “No one on this ship, except me, has seen what you’re about to see.”

  Until that moment, Jean Pierre hadn’t realized they were facing the TV. But now he knew this, too, was on purpose. “But I thought we didn’t have sat...” He didn’t need to finish his sentence, and clicked the “On” button. This was the reason he was here, alone with the captain, with the rest of their officers waiting outside. Jörgen had been building up to this.

  When the giant screen flicked on, Jean Pierre nearly dropped his coffee.

  There were eight separate news channels in boxes, all displaying similar images. The volume was on for the first box, which was the Fox News Channel, but set very low, almost inaudible. Tucker Carlson was reporting about fires, mass deaths and vast damage to property. The lower-third crawl reported the numbers of dead in various countries. Every channel appeared to be discussing similar chaos and mayhem: cities damaged, fires burning out of control, people dead or dying. Intermittently among the pictures of destruction were reports of animal attacks: incidents of most every kind of mammal attacking people and other animals.

  Jörgen spoke over the low chatter of the TV. “The tsunami devastated every coastline on the Atlantic, with those closer to the source suffering the greatest damage: Lisbon, Portugal; Brest, France; and Bristol, England, for example, were wiped out. The damage decreased as the waves spread farther. Large portions of Bermuda were destroyed, because it’s so low-lying. The Bahamas and most of the East Coast of the US suffered significant damage, but nowhere as bad as other places. Then there are the animal attacks. They are exploding all over the world: Europe, Asia, and Africa. America has a few reports sprouting up, but not too many at present. The places least affected appear to be out of the reach of the ash cover from all of the volcanic eruptions.”

  Jean Pierre continued to sink deeper into his chair, letting the sounds, sights, and stories from the Chyron crawls of each program wash over him.

  Jörgen said nothing more. He wanted to be sure Jean Pierre had a few minutes to process the enormity of what he was seeing. He had had all night to come to terms with this new reality.

  Jean Pierre turned his watery eyes to Jörgen and said, “We need to get to Florida as soon as possible.”

  “I thought the same thing. But I don’t believe it would be safe there, either. I used our sat phone and spoke to several port masters in Florida and one in Charleston.

  “All East Coast ports are closed from tsunami damage, though all are working on repairs and should be back open soon. They haven’t yet heard reports or seen incidents of animal attacks at their locations, only north of them. And perhaps the Rage disease—as the newscasters are still calling it—might not spread there, but then again it might. If when we arrive we’re allowed to disembark, what if the animal attacks have started? We are safer on this ship, waiting it out. So I came up with a plan, and it was accepted by corporate.

  “We were already scheduled for Nassau, Bahamas, as our last port before heading to Miami, Florida. Their port sustained only moderate damage from the tsunami. They expect to have it open again in forty-eight hours. So far, there are no reports of animal attacks on Nassau.” He was going to add, Though I wouldn’t count on that by the time we get there, he left that part out. “So our plan is to still port in the Bahamas, but we won’t go ashore until we can guarantee this Rage thing has passed or the area remains unaffected. I’m still hopeful that this thing has a short fuse and will burn itself out in a matter of days. Either way, we can try to resupply and sit it out until it does.”

  Jörgen paused to make sure Jean Pierre didn’t have any other questions. The staff captain was still in the shell-shock phase. He continued, “In the meantime, we say nothing about this to the rest of the crew and guests. We’ll be in Nassau in five days. We’ll use those five days to watch and carefully plan what we’ll do next. I’m going to tell this to the first and second officers, right after we're done.

&n
bsp; “The good news is, with the route I’ve plotted outside the ashfall, we should have sunny skies most of the way, and it’s warmer outside. I intend that we all put on our best faces for the guests, and make sure they enjoy their cruise. Happy guests are manageable guests.”

  Jean Pierre was sitting up straight now. He turned his chair toward Jörgen. “What do we say about the TV reception and the Internet?” Jörgen could see Jean Pierre had fully accepted his plan and was already preparing himself for the days that lay ahead.

  “We lie. Maybe tell them we won’t be able to fix the satellite and Internet service until after we have made it to Nassau and get new equipment. We should know for sure what we’re facing when we get that far. Then we can tell them the truth. But not before then.”

  “What about the Williamses?”

  “Tell them. Keep them in the loop, as you would other first officers, at least until this crisis passes. And update the two officers on the bridge too.”

  Jean Pierre nodded. That was it. There was nothing more to say. Jean Pierre trusted that Jörgen had considered their options and, as he said, received authorization from corporate. They’d have five days to watch, wait, and then figure out all the details. In the meantime, their job was to make their guests feel safe. He could deal with the next five days. They’d worry about after when “after” came.

  Jean Pierre stood up, straightened his uniform, cleared his throat, and saluted his captain. “Sir!”

  Jörgen rose, returned the salute, and warmly shook the hand of his friend and Number One. “Thanks for being someone I can always count on.”

  Jean Pierre offered a small grin. “Should I let in the other officers?”