The Final Outbreak

by M. L. Banner

  ~~~

  “Oy!” Boris yelled from behind Penny.

  She smiled at him and proudly showed off her blood-soaked glass fist.

  Boris tossed a blue-striped towel over her head and then yelled, “David. For Evie.” And he tossed him the other.

  David snatched it from the air, tugged Evie out from under the lounger and laid the towel over her head, pulling her behind him. As they moved in front of Boris and Penny, David hollered, “We’re going aft, toward the mid-ship entrances; the traffic’s lighter there.”

  Boris pushed his wife forward, and he took the rear of their human conga line to safety.

  Every once in a while, when they’d slow or stop to work their way around people, Penny would punch at the air yelling something like, “I am the immortal Iron Fist.”

  Boris couldn’t help but smile at this, as he was picturing himself as a cricket batsman—the best on the planet—each time he’d take a giant swing at one of the birds.

  Another run for the batsman.

  The oddest part of their mad journey across and around the jogging track to their exit to safety was the fact that none of the birds seemed to bother Boris. They swarmed most everyone he saw who was moving.

  What he couldn’t see because he was too focused on continuing their track was that he wasn’t the only one untouched by the birds: others, some hiding, some running, some just sitting in shock, were also completely ignored by the birds.

  43

  Wasano

  Wasano Agarwal halted at the turn of the railing of the half-deck stairwell, unable to move any farther through the swarm of passengers. He may have been Intrepid’s new Director of Security—he became senior director when Robert Spillman was gutted yesterday—but he didn’t feel like it. He’d already lost sight of his captain.

  Wasano craned his neck forward, attempting to catch a glimpse of Captain Jörgen, but it was impossible to see past where he’d turned from the half-deck and somehow slipped through the throng and up the stairwell toward the next deck. Wasano, on the other hand, hit a wall of people attempting to push down the blocked stairwell. This crushing mass oscillated like agitated cockroaches, trying to get out of the light. He could barely move, much less get forward.

  “What do you see, sir?” Wasano yelled out, doing his best to project his voice over the alarmed passengers and a few crew. Some of them were screaming, attempting to push down the stairs to get away from the sun deck and what he imagined must be awful outside. Some were bloody, but thankfully those passengers appeared to be only slightly injured. He was more worried about the majority, who were in some form of shock, their faces drawn and pale. A few were even non-responsive and looked like they might fall over. The crowd appeared to hold them up and shove them along. Other than these zombie-like passengers, everyone seemed to be infected by some form of panic. He knew he was. But it was the panic-filled screams that brought him back.

  They reminded him of the Express train platform in Mumbai, and his father.

  Amit Agarwal was a second generation coolie, and Wasano was destined to follow in his footsteps. After school, Wasano would help his father, to earn a little money for himself and his family, but to also learn from Amit, so that he could become just like him. Wasano even had his own license, which was required of all coolies. And he proudly wore the uniform: bright red shirt and yellow turban. Porting heavy bags for passengers from one train platform to the next was back-wrecking and neck-breaking work: most bags were carried on their heads. Wasano was always smaller compared to his friends and other coolies, so he became determined to make himself stronger and to work harder, just like his father. It was all planned out for him, until his father died.

  That day was a particularly busy one, with passengers crowding Amit’s platform, not unlike this mid-deck. Wasano struggled with half of one passenger’s load; his father, farther out front, had the remainder. Then something happened. A ruckus in the crowd caused people to rush, with little room to do this. Amit attempted to move along the edge, but the stammering crowds pushed him and his load pulled him over. He tumbled onto the tracks. Wasano dropped his bags and tried to make a dash for Amit, but he couldn’t get past the crush of people, who all seemed to be going the other direction. He yelled his father’s name, as the Tejas Express arrived. Even over the screeching of the train’s brakes, he heard his father scream.

  The inhuman screeching sounds, followed human screams, were in front of Wasano now.

  Somehow, he had gained a little ground on the mid-deck by inching forward, and he could actually see the stairwell open up to the next deck. He could also see the source of both the screeching and everyone’s panic. In response to his captain, whose head he could barely see, and to Urban, who was behind him, he hollered, “I see the birds!”

  Deck Officer Urban Patel had been following Wasano closely. He too must have given up moving against what felt like a stampede of sheep.

  At the start of the half-deck, just ahead of them, a large man tripped over his own feet and tumbled forward, taking down a half-dozen others in front of him. Still others, attempting to hold up, were driven forward by the swelling horde behind them, causing even more to tumble on top of the now-writhing pile.

  “People! Please slow down. You’re safe now,” Wasano yelled, hands held up. He didn’t believe it though, and instead he and Urban tried to move through the crowd and to help up those who had fallen.

  “Please folks, don’t panic,” the captain bellowed above them, still mostly out of sight. And then, “Wasano, I need your flashlight.”

  Wasano found an opening in the crowd that formed where the pile of toppled people stopped and the others still on their feet had continued downward around them. At the inside rail, he slipped around the edge where it moved up the stairwell. Now he could see Captain Jörgen reaching down to him. Wasano slid the large Maglite out of his belt loop and stretched it out over several bobbing heads, until Jörgen snatched it from him and plowed back through the bottlenecked crowd. They were milling on and above the stairs, twisting and turning to look back at where they had come from. Jörgen then began swinging at any bird within reach of his new weapon.

  Wasano gazed at the hordes still frantically attempting to move as far away from the Sun Deck as possible. They pushed forward, only gaining room when those at the edges of the pile toppled over into it. They still looked either panicked or forlorn, but some of the faces were twisted with anger, spitting out profanity-laced commands demanding others move.

  The pile of people continued to grow, with many flailing around, desperately trying to get loose of the others. Some were clawing and kicking, and hurting others in the process.

  Wasano was always amazed at how illogical people became when they panicked. He felt the panic swell that day in Mumbai, when others seemed to be pulled into the well and tumbled into the tracks right after his father. If the people had remained calm, no one would have needed to get hurt, not the least of which his father. If they had just done what they were supposed to. Like these people.

  He saw a woman at the top of the pile and he reached down and helped her onto her feet.

  Urban worked his way through another opening, over to the other side of the large half-deck separating the two stairwells. Urban lunged for a large man covered in blood in a vain attempt to help pull him up. But when he grabbed the panic-stricken man’s arm, the man clawed him with his other hand, gouging bloody nail marks across his forearm. Urban let go, reared up and clutched his arm, to stem a trickle of red starting flow. “Dammit, man. People, settle down,” he demanded.

  Seeing that this was getting worse by the second, Wasano pulled guests up and out of the pile more aggressively now. He was worried there would be more serious injuries if they didn’t mitigate this immediately.

  Another crew member arrived, and started to help them pull people from the top of the pile collecting on the half-deck.

  With more room up and down the stairs, and along the railings, passengers be
gan to flow around the obstruction at the half-deck landing. They processed down the stairs, relieving some of the tension against the human barricade, which also appeared to thin. This had a calming effect on everyone, even with the screeching and screaming above.

  Then something happened.

  It was as if a panic switch was flipped on once again, but elevated to a nonsensical level.

  A surge in the middle of those still on the stairs pushed out hard, causing more to flop back into the pile. The screams started up again, loud and piercing. They were panicking again. Many turned and ran back up or tried to shove their way by the pile and continue down. More people fell, some tumbling down the stairs. Others were stepping on top of those in the pile.

  At least a couple of people in the pile—now numbering thirty or more—yelled animal-like screeches, and more were flailing, causing more harm to those around them.

  Urban was fighting with the same large man who had scratched him. Now this man appeared to focus all of his anger on Urban, as if he were the cause of this problem. The man must have become insane, because he ignored an open compound fracture to his own forearm: it was bent at an odd angle. When the large man lunged for him, Urban was careful not to touch the man’s broken radius, shooting straight up out of his skin like a flagpole. Instead, he tried to block the man’s shoulder, but he missed and fell forward into the man. The crazed man’s head hit Urban’s neck and then something ratcheted down hard onto his scruff and ripped. It was Urban’s turn to panic. He yelped when he saw the large man pull away, face crazy, bloody mouth full of organic tissue—his tissue. The large man’s eyes were a crimson fury.

  44

  No Help

  The crush of people was almost overwhelming.

  Ted focused on Jean Pierre’s back as the three of them swam up the mid-ship stairwell against the sea of humanity racing past them. Equally reassuring was knowing TJ was behind him, her vise-like grip on his shoulder to keep her from getting separated.

  He had definitely not thought through this action, like he normally did with anything he did. Had he thought about the prospect of rushing out to face thousands of bloodthirsty birds to save some people, especially after seeing their panic firsthand, he probably would have chickened out of the whole thing. But everything was set into motion.

  Focus on Jean Pierre, he told himself.

  They halted at deck 9.

  Jean Pierre snapped his head from side to side, scanning the flood of people frantically milling past them.

  Ted eyed the doorways leading outside to the pool and Jacuzzis. They were clogged with people stopped by the doors from streaming inside, and others holding up just inside the doors, waiting to continue up and down the stairs. A good number were going into the Solarium’s two entrances, just off both sides of the stairwells. This made sense to Ted because the Solarium was a separately enclosed giant atrium, with a large indoor pool and spa as its centerpiece, surrounded by tables and chairs, and a small restaurant completely forward, just above the bridge. It had two smaller doorways which could easily be sealed, whereas the entry/exits leading outside from the stairwell in between were large sliders and he heard one radio report that at least one of these leading to the Forward stairwell and elevators were stuck open. There was no way to go against the crowds, and no way to go outside, at least until they thinned.

  Obviously, Jean Pierre was thinking the same thing, because he led them through the throng of people and into Solarium’s starboard side entrance. It seemed like a good strategy, as they could close off the Solarium from the birds and help those people first, before then moving out to the pool decks when they cleared out.

  Upon entry to the Solarium, Ted was struck with the sheer number of people there. It appeared that at least half the passengers from the pool deck and sun deck above were now here. Cruise ships and their schedules were designed in such a way that passengers were segregated—of course they never knew it—so as to not congregate too many in one place at one time. Only during muster drills at the beginning of a cruise did you get the full sense of how many people were on the ship at one time. But musters were well organized. This was chaos.

  With so many panicked people clustered into one area, even one with a two-story windowed-atrium, the echoing din was almost deafening. And a few of the crazed birds had found their way inside as well, continuing their relentless assault. Shrieks from passengers marked their location.

  Jean Pierre hopped off to the left, in the direction of one of the screams, while Ted felt drawn toward another.

  Ted felt a tap against his back and realized it was TJ. He had been so intently focused, he didn’t remember her letting go of his shoulder. She handed him one of two serving trays she had collected from an abandoned cart they’d passed. He was only momentarily unsure why, and then understood: she was intending for him to use it as a weapon.

  He tossed a quick glance at her, first catching the glint of her Orion the Warrior necklace he had given her for their anniversary—was that only yesterday? They needed her warrior side right now. He then found her eyes: piercing blue, intently fixed on their target up ahead. Ted couldn’t help but flash a smile at how well she was handling the prospect of dealing with more wild animals. Only moments earlier, up on the bridge, she seemed overwhelmed with the news and seeing the incoming birds. Her FBI training must have kicked in, and she somehow pushed aside her abject fear of animals. It was like something in her had changed and the fears that had possessed his wife no longer had control over her.

  She stood resolutely, wearing her body-hugging running outfit. A Nike swish on the hip of her compression shorts confirmed her body language: “Let’s do it!”

  A man and woman screamed beside him, and Ted turned that way. A black bird had clawed its way into the woman’s hair, screeching and pecking at her head, clawing its way for her eyes—they seemed to be always going for the eyes. Her husband or boyfriend attempted to dislodge the bird from her, reaching up to grab it, or swat at it, in an attempt to get it away from her. But he was too slow: with each swipe the bird got him, drawing blood and profanities from the man.

  Ted lunged forward, tray clutched and drawn back.

  “Watch out!” Ted yelled at them, but realized that was a dumb command, because he really wanted them to duck. The man seemed to understand his Ted-speak by ducking, just as Ted swung. Ted’s tray connected with a thunk, and the bird shot outward, spinning in the air and then splashing into the pool.

  The man remained crouched low, just behind and below the woman, which was good, because she collapsed into his arms, as if she lost all strength to stand. Either her injuries were greater than they appeared, or she had just fainted. The man shot a glance up to Ted. He didn’t verbalize his thanks, but his face said it.

  A scream behind Ted, pulled him away from his momentary feeling of triumph. He spun around, expecting TJ to be right there, but she wasn’t. Farther away than he expected, he saw two women entangled... struggling.

  One of them was TJ.

  He dashed in their direction.

  Clawing at TJ was a rather large, pale woman in a pastel-colored onesie. A small older man was cowering under a table, eyes dinner-dish wide. TJ was barely holding the pastel woman back as the two rolled on the wet decking. Partially out of shock, but also because he couldn’t see a way into the scuffle, Ted stood before both of them, hesitating, with arms drawn back; a home-run slugger, about to rip the cover off the baseball, if he were just given the right pitch. Then he saw his opportunity.

  TJ flipped the pastel woman around and held the woman above her. For a moment, it almost looked to Ted like Pastel Woman was trying to get away from TJ. Just a moment’s hesitation, and in that moment, upon seeing Ted Pastel Woman squealed her frustration at him, just before he silenced her.

  He released his swing, swatting the woman’s forehead with the flat end of the tray. She buffeted back, momentarily confused as TJ slid out from under the rotund woman. Then Pastel Woman snarled again at T
ed, her face twisted and bloody. He momentarily wondered if he had caused this, but saw flecks of organic material around her mouth. Her skin was pale and sickly, as if she had a really bad fever. Her movements were erratic, like a confused animal; her guttural grunts, like some hellish beast and not the sounds he would have expected from an older woman; her eyes were shiny red and wild with insanity: they were the same eyes as the dog, as the birds, as the rats, and as the ferret.

  The infection had crossed over to people.

  “Holy shit,” he mumbled.

  Pastel Woman sprang up on her feet and lunged for Ted, knocking him down. The woman grabbed him with such force, he would have thought her to be a male body-builder not a flabby woman who was older than him and most probably hadn’t even seen the outside of a gym in decades. He could feel the putrid warmth of her breath on his neck, and he thought for a flash this might be it. She was about to get him.

  Then he heard a deep thwack and the woman released her grip, and her weight tumbled off him. His wife’s voice trumpeted, strong and absolute as she stated, “Get your hands off my husband, bitch!”

  She must have swung her tray edge-first, connecting hard across Pastel Woman’s face, because that woman lay in a heap, unconscious.

  Ted glanced up at his wife. TJ stood triumphantly above him, hand thrust out. She was breathing heavily, her face still intense, but mostly unreadable. At some point she’d put her sunglasses on. Then her lips curled and a grin formed. He accepted her hand and she pulled him up easily.

  He quickly cast his gaze upon the Solarium’s convulsing crowds.

  Only then was it obvious to him: close to a dozen people—passengers and crew—were attacking other passengers and crew inside the atrium.