The Final Outbreak

by M. L. Banner

  Yacobus held tight on the other end of the coaxial line, while Deep clicked the door shut, although with some difficulty because the thick coaxial jammed open the bottom corner of the door.

  “Not yet,” Deep insisted to Jaga, who held the radio at his lips, ready to issue the next command.

  “Okay, Jaga, turn off the tone.”

  Jaga let go of the button.

  “Now.”

  That was Jaga’s invitation to call his little buddy back.

  “Return, Taufan. Return.” Jaga let his hand, squeezing the radio, drop to the floor, and he sprang up to look out the window with Deep. They waited.

  No sign of Taufan.

  They were startled to see several crazies running past their window, headed aft. They were headed toward Flavio and their antenna.

  Jaga, Yacobus, and Buzz crowded around the small window to the insane world outside the door, with Jaga bouncing from heel to heel.

  Deep stepped back. He knew there was nothing he could do, other than hope the ferret and Flavio made it.

  He dashed over to his table and gazed at the lone camera located at the crew entrance to the hallways around the MR, but didn’t see Flavio or the ferret. Really, he had only one measurement for success. He turned up the volume to his base unit, and waited to hear voices.

  It was nothing but static.

  57

  A Flawed Plan

  Their plan had been full of flaws. After ten minutes, both Flavio and Taufan were still missing. No signs of either. And with the infected running past the MR window, in both directions, their hope had ebbed further away with each tick of the clock on the monitor wall. The staticky blare from the base unit’s speakers, turned up high so that they wouldn’t miss anything, had been only occasionally interrupted by distant incomprehensible voices, before they too had bled back into the radio’s static murk.

  Yacobus and Jaga had stood vigil at the door, glad it was more of a reinforced hatch than a regular door, even though there was a little opening at the bottom where the coaxial snuck through. They took little comfort in their wall of protection. It had kept the infected out, but it also kept them locked in. They knew they couldn’t stay there forever.

  Jaga’s angst had been the heaviest. “I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to call him again: I don’t want to risk any more noise and attract more angries to him.”

  Yacobus had put his arm around his friend and offered reassurance. “He’ll be fine.” But his words didn’t sound believable when they had come out.

  They had continued to stare out the window and anxiously tapped at the floor with their heels.

  Buzz had made himself useful by working on a burned out circuit board, the one which had caused two of Deep’s monitors to not function perfectly and had seemed to set up a chain reaction in other systems. It wasn’t a high-priority task. But it was all he had thought he could do while they waited.

  Deep had simply focused his gaze at the base station’s speakers, as if that would improve the reception.

  Still nothing.

  Then it had come.

  As if someone had thrown a switch to give them instant reception, the speaker’s constant crackle had been replaced by a mélange of voices seemingly speaking over each other. Then the sonorous sounds of the most beautiful officer on the ship, Jessica Eva Mínervudóttir, the bridge’s navigational officer, sounded over all others.

  Deep would have known that voice anywhere. He was in love with Jessica, even though she was already married, with a child. Even when he would occasionally bump into her in the crew mess, she talked to him about her husband and son constantly. It was Deep’s little secret that he never shared with anyone. And upon hearing her voice, his whole persona changed. All he could think was, Thank God, she is safe.

  Then his heart had sunk upon hearing her plight.

  He could only imagine what she was going through on the swing deck, and that she’d be terrified not knowing what happened to her husband and child. Or with the outside world in chaos.

  Deep was then knocked out of his lapse when he realized he had an audience. Jaga and Yacobus had sprung up behind him, knocking their knees into the back of his chair. Buzz laid a palm on his Deep’s shoulder; a sort of attaboy for Deep’s accomplishment. All of them had silently gawked at the speaker when they heard the familiar voice of their staff captain, followed by the booming voice of the captain. They were all just connecting for the first time.

  When the captain had asked Jessica who was on watch, their hearts sunk further. They knew the answer, but they were hoping they had somehow hoped they heard it incorrectly. Jessica then destroyed that hope.

  What she said next was at first confusing, and then shocking: “we’ll hit our destination in just over an hour.”

  They were supposed to be in the middle of the ocean, and their next port of Nassau was at least four more days away. It was the use of “hit our destination” that was so jarring. It was code.

  When the radio paused, as the officers chewed on Jessica’s response, Yacobus and Jaga whispered, “What did she mean by that?”

  “It’s code,” Buzz answered. “They know passengers might be listening and don’t want to alarm them.”

  Deep went slack-jawed when he got it, and in case the others didn’t, he said it out loud. “Jessica just told us that we’re going to crash into land in an hour, unless they can take back the bridge or engineering and readjust our course.”

  While his friends gasped, Deep didn’t waste another moment, clicking the transmit button. He also didn’t waste time mincing his words.

  “This is Whaudeep Reddy from the Monitor Room. I read you, First Officer, and you, Captain, and you, Staff Captain. I can provide you eyes above in your efforts to get to either the bridge or engineering. But I’m afraid there are many crazies between you and both locations.”

  ~~~

  “This is Captain Jörgen. Thank you Mr. Reddy.”

  Jörgen clicked transmit once more. “Staff Captain, can you try for the bridge and help the first officer, and we’ll head to engineering?”

  “We’ll do it, sir,” Jean Pierre’s voice crackled back.

  “First Officer, do you have an exact time of arrival?” asked Jörgen, his voice as steady as normal.

  “I would have to guess forty-seven minutes, sir. The bridge consoles and the swing deck console are all dead. Punta Delgado is close enough to see without binoculars.”

  Jörgen immediately set the timer on his watch for forty-six minutes and released it. The second hand exploded forward and raced toward a finish line that seemed impossibly short. He clicked transmit once more. “Not to worry, the staff captain is coming to get you. And I’m heading to engineering, just for insurance.” His words were offered with the same steady cadence his officers had come to expect.

  “Mr. Reddy,” barked Jörgen. “What is our clearest route to engineering, then report the clearest route for the staff captain’s group to the bridge?”

  The static barked back.

  Jörgen’s heart skipped a beat as he wondered if they had lost communication with the MR. But when Deep finally responded, Jörgen knew the man was simply checking his monitors for their safest route.

  “Captain, I’m afraid I don’t have a clear path for you. Outside of your emergency craft are at least five or six crazies... they’re ah... murdering a crew member. If you can get past them—maybe you can if you don’t make any noise—then take the crew access stairwell above you on Deck 6. Walk forward to the crew stairwell, which appears clear right now, up to deck 7. Then go aft, down the hallway for the senior crew quarters. You’ll have to exit the main hallway, where you’ll probably encounter more crazies. At least they’re intermittent. Again, if you’re quiet, it should be a few steps to the mid-ship crew stairwell. You can then take that all the way down to engineering. Getting inside engineering is another problem. The whole area is swarming with them. Sorry, sir.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Reddy. We’ll tell yo
u the moment we’re set to go. Then, if you can, keep watch for more of the... what do you call them, crazies?” He hadn’t heard the term before, but it was appropriate.

  “Aye, sir. As for the staff captain, the news is worse... I don’t see—”

  “—Don’t worry, Mr. Reddy,” interrupted Jean Pierre. “We have an idea. We’re going to take the zip line across. If you can get us the best route to the aft access, we’ll take it from there.”

  “Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Deep pleaded.

  “Thanks, Mr. Reddy. Are we clear from the crew access to the stairwell and finally the crew exit to the zip line?”

  “Hold on, sir... I thought I saw a crazy running around the spa... I don’t see him anymore. Stay on guard for him. Otherwise, you’re clear.”

  “Thanks again, Mr. Reddy. We’ll also tell you when we’re headed up. And we also need you to eagle-eye our passage too.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Jörgen glanced over to Urban. His face was slack and ashen, motionless. Then he looked at Wasano, who shook his head in answer to the question he knew he didn’t need to ask. Urban Patel, First Officer and member of his bridge for three years, was dead.

  “Wait,” Hans exclaimed, popping out of his seat. Jörgen figured the man’s addled brain just connected the dots to Jessica’s obtuse message. “You mean there’s no one driving this thing? Don’t you have a baby-captain or something?”

  Jörgen ignored him and looked back to Wasano. “You ready?”

  ~~~

  Jean Pierre clipped the radio to his belt and gave an unsure glance at his group. “All of you wait here, and either I or someone else—”

  “I have your back,” TJ barked and stepped forward, sunglasses glinting from the overheads.

  “So do I,” Ted stated, although with much less surety than his wife. “It sounds like you’ll need at least a couple of sets of hands.”

  “We’re not staying here,” declared David. “Besides, if two sets of hands are good, four more are better still.”

  “Don’t we get a vote on this?” begged Penny, anticipating her husband’s response.

  “We’re both going too,” Boris croaked.

  Jean Pierre opened his mouth to say “no,” and then hesitated. Under normal circumstances, he’d never have allowed guests to participate in something that was bound to result in one of them getting injured, or worse. But if they didn’t reach the bridge, and the captain didn’t reach engineering, in forty-five minutes, they’d all be dead. No, he did need all the help he could get. “Fine. But you all must do exactly what I say. No exceptions. Anyone who disobeys me will be left behind with the... the crazies. Am I clear?”

  All heads nodded, except TJ’s. She was already at the door, clicking it open.

  58

  Abyss

  The zip line spanned almost three hundred feet, easily one third of the length of the ship. Falling the thirty or so feet from the line to deck 10 would normally cause serious injury, perhaps worse if you landed on your head or if you plummeted the additional twelve feet to the sun deck and pool. Today, falling from the line would certainly result in death, as both decks 9 and 10 appeared full of crazy people, infected by a disease of madness, all of whom appeared to need to kill anyone not infected. And lest they forget, there were dozens of crazy birds still buzzing around outside, searching for the opportunity to nibble on any human stupid enough to slowly work their way across the zip line.

  Ted, like the rest of his group, considered this insurmountable span and their mission. He mentally climbed the entire span of the line from the porthole they looked through to the broken antenna tower and out of sight to their final destination, the bridge. Even if they made it there, they still had to somehow lower themselves from the outside into the nearly impregnable shell of the bridge that mostly withstood a giant tsunami. And if they managed to make it inside the bridge, they’d have to battle more crazies to save two officers and wrestle back control of their helm. And because that wasn’t enough pressure, added to an already near-impossible situation was the fact that they had to do this in around forty minutes, or they’d crash into an island and die.

  “So are we all ready?” TJ bellowed.

  This elicited a scowl from everyone.

  Ted’s wife often demonstrated acts of fearlessness that surprised him, in spite of her rabid fear of animals. But bravado now seemed reckless in this situation. Then again, a lack of fear would be welcomed: Ted felt practically paralyzed by it at this moment.

  He stared at his wife, wondering what was going on in her head. Curiously, she was standing away from everyone, staring at her feet while rubbing the Orion necklace he’d just given her. Maybe she was trying to call up her inner warrior.

  “Please, Lassie. You go right ahead,” quipped Boris. He waved his palms in the direction of the zip line, a taunt to her, obviously viewing her as some sort of rah-rah, I-can-do-anything, body-Nazi. Ted guessed the rotund man was just as scared about this as he was. So what came out of Ted’s mouth next, surprised even him.

  “I’ll go fir... first... to help everyone off,” Ted barked, though he heard his own voice warble a little at the end. He instantly hated his volunteering to go first. He had no interest in doing this at all, but he felt every second evaporate and knew if they didn’t do something quickly, everyone on the ship might die anyway.

  Jean Pierre, thankfully asserting his authority, stated, “I’ll go first. Penny, you follow, and then Bor—”

  “There’s no blooming way I’m going across that,” Penny cut in with a nervous chortle. Then her face crumpled into a panicked scowl. She appeared close to tears.

  “I second what she said,” protested Boris.

  “Fine. Anyone who wants to sit this one out, stay here,” Jean Pierre peeked out the porthole, no doubt eying a couple of birds fluttering over one of the corpses on the pool deck. “Just stay inside here. When we’ve secured the bridge, we’ll send someone back for you.”

  “I’m going too,” David stated resolutely and then turned to Evie, “but I want you to stay here with Boris and Penny.”

  “Wherever you’re going, so am I,” she responded, equally resolute. Evie’s arms were wound around her chest like a tight garment that constricted everything. It was her way of saying she was intractable on her not going.

  He softly squeeze one of her arms and gazed into her eyes, “I’m worried you won’t make it across the one hundred meter span, upside down, especially with your arthritis.” He spoke almost at a whisper. “You were having difficulty holding onto a pencil this morning. This is far more difficult. And if you fall, I’ll never forgive myself. Please allow me to go and help these people, and I’d ask you to stay and look after our new friends.”

  While listening to David’s plea, she slowly released all of the tension in her arms, until she finally let go. “Okay,” she huffed, “Just promise you’ll return to me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, “I’ll do my best.”

  David let go, turned to Jean Pierre and said, “All right, let’s do this.” Even though he sounded resolute, gravity pulled at his wrinkled face abnormally. He looked very tired and very old, completely different from when they first met in the spa.

  “All right then. I’ll go first, then you Ted, then David, and TJ will bring up the rear. How’s that?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Wait until the person in front of you is halfway across. I don’t know if the line could take more than two of us at a time.”

  “Guess I shouldn’t have eaten that full breakfast then,” Ted joked. His voice had raised at least an octave over normal. He glanced at his wife, who usually laughed at his jokes, no matter how stupid they were. She was stoic. No, focused, and now eying the other side, almost like she didn’t want to be here, with them. Everyone else ignored him too. He couldn’t blame them; there was a lot riding on their success, or failure.

  They filed out of the hatch, one by one. TJ stopped upon
exit and double-slapped the portal window, a signal to lock them out. A heavy thump sounded behind the door.

  Jean Pierre, already at the edge of the platform, grabbed the line with both mitts underneath. Then he curled one leg around it, followed by the other so that he was hanging.

  Like a piece of meat on a spit, Ted thought.

  Ted turned to his fellow adventurers, just to confirm that he didn’t actually say it out loud. He didn’t.

  He turned back to watch Jean Pierre dangle just above the edge of the tower skirting they were all standing on. The wind whipped at Ted’s clothing and batted at his eyes. As Jean Pierre slowly crawled upside down, one hand and foot over the other, sliding along the line, Ted let his mind wander. He, the storyteller, had difficulty imagining what lay ahead of their little group on this life-or-death mission. Harder still was imagining what promised to be their new world, even if they miraculously got command of the helm of the ship and steered it to safety.

  They talked around the periphery of this larger question inside, but Ted hadn’t until this moment considered what it might be like to live in a world where fifty percent or more of the human population might be so crazy that they wanted to kill everyone else who wasn’t infected. Then add a trillion infected mammals, picking off the survivors. This truly was an apocalypse, more vast and horrible than he could have ever imagined. Worse than all of those he had conceived, combined.

  In his book called Madness, he’d only considered fifty percent of the animal population going crazy. That logically would result in a near extinction-level event for humanity. But in this real-life scenario, it was not only most of the animals, but half of the humans too. How could they possibly survive this one? Would they?