“Here, take this,” he said, passing me my broom spear and a second canvas bag to carry. We made our way to the right side of the kitchen, toward the one door we’d left un-barricaded.
“Let’s go!” Finn said forcefully as he gripped his broom spear.
I followed close behind as we made our way out. We veered left and headed to the front exit. I jerked my head in all directions as I looked for movement. I tasted bile, and I wasn’t sure if it was from fear or the smell of the ship. Somehow it was even worse than before.
“What if that was just a weird connection sound?” I asked as we paused at the double doors. Finn didn’t answer, but as we tiptoed out, two things happened: we spotted a handful of corpses spread out in front of some elevators to our left, and the unmistakable sound of a jet flying overhead. It reminded me of the air shows we’d gone to back home.
I didn’t have time to react as Finn gripped my hand. He steered us right, toward a starboard side staircase. He let go as we approached the stairs so he could dispense a lone corpse standing near the edge. Its body fell to the floor with a loud CRUNCH as Finn yanked his spear from its rotten skull.
We’d just gotten to the first step when the air to our backs expanded and pushed us forward. I tumbled forward into Finn, but he managed to brace himself on the railing. We never looked back as we ran down the steps. We both knew what had happened, but it was hard to accept that people were actively trying to kill us. Living people.
My pulse raced as I tried not to hyperventilate. We’d just narrowly escaped being blown apart, our hideout was destroyed, and we were running for our lives through a ship full of hungry corpses.
“Won’t the ship sink?” I huffed as we ran.
“The buffet is on the top deck, so maybe we’ll be okay.”
By some miracle we didn’t run into anything that wanted to eat us before we decided to rest in an open linen room.
“This might actually be a good thing,” Finn said after we’d caught our breath. “That explosion was probably like ringing a dinner bell. If we head in the opposite direction, we might be able to avoid the hordes that are probably making their way toward the buffet.”
“Finn… what made you run us out of there so quick? How did you know for sure?”
He hesitated and ran his hand through his hair. “I wasn’t sure, but I remembered that vampire movie with Ethan Hawke. I can’t remember the name of it, but it was the same sound. The humans were tracked by the vampires while they were calling their friends for help.”
“Are you kidding me? You mean we’re still alive because of something you saw in a movie about vampires?” I said in disbelief.
Finn nodded, and I burst into laughter. He shushed me, but he couldn’t keep from laughing either. It felt so good. I wanted the moment to last forever.
We were making our way through deck seven when we spotted an open cabin door. It was a deluxe suite, and as an added perk it wasn’t riddled with bullet holes. After we shed our chef jackets, I made my way around the cabin while Finn organized our supplies. The water from the sink and bath tub still worked, but it came out a dark brown color. There were three bottles of Fiji water, a sprite, coke, and a left over room service platter that was starting to fester in the mini fridge. I took the water bottles and placed them on top of the bed where Finn was quietly sitting.
I stood next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. He didn‘t look up.
“So what‘s our next move?”
Finn didn’t respond. He looked completely defeated. I knew what he was thinking.
There was no rescue coming, there never was.
August 28th
Not much to say about today. We still have the Iphone, but calling someone might mean putting the people on both ends in danger. We almost tried calling a news channel but we decided against it. For all we know the people trying to kill us are monitoring every call coming from the ship. Even if our call wasn’t monitored, there was no guarantee they would be able to help us. The last thing we wanted was to make escaping explosions a habit.
“You can’t really blame them, Lily,” Finn replied when I said the people who tried to kill us were pure evil.
I put my hands on my hips. “You‘re joking, right?”
“They’re trying to protect the world by containing this thing. It might seem heartless, but to them they’re sacrificing a few people in order to save millions. Maybe even billions. It just sucks that we are the unlucky few.”
I didn’t respond. What he said made sense, but for some reason I couldn’t shake my hatred for the people that bombed the kitchen.
We’ve kept the curtains drawn to avoid being spotted from the outside. The sound of helicopters outside almost never stops. Finn snuck a peek several times during the day, but each time he said there was just an endless expanse of water; no land in sight.
Thanks to our bug-out bags (that‘s what Finn calls our duffel bags, the one‘s we‘d packed in case we had to leave in a hurry) we still have food, but not nearly as much as we had in the kitchen. I figure if we ration carefully we’ll have enough for about a week. I just hope by then we’ve decided what our next step is going to be.
August 29th
I want to say today was boring, but it was safe, so I don’t want to complain. Still, it doesn’t matter what we do to pass the time, every hour feels like a year. I can’t remember the last time I had a shower. At this point I think I could give the corpses a run for their money. Finn still hasn’t noticed our need for personal hygiene. I’m not sure if I should be impressed or disgusted.
We split a can of cold beef stew for dinner tonight. It was actually really tasty, and he even lit a candle that he’d been keeping in one of the bug-out bags. Only Finn could try to be romantic while surrounded by dead people and homicidal maniacs in helicopters.
Friend or Foe?
August 30th
The Iphone rang today!
I was napping when it went off, and I nearly rolled off the bed when I heard it. By the time I sat upright Finn had already snatched it up. He stared at the phone, letting it ring…
“Just answer it Finn!” I yelled, jolting him out of his daze. I couldn’t take just sitting around anymore. Anything would be better than spending our time waiting on our food to run out, even if it meant fighting for our lives again.
Finn slowly slid his finger across the screen and put the phone to his ear.
“Hello,” he whispered.
I waited anxiously for him to talk, but he didn’t. His eyes narrowed, and I saw the knuckles on his hand turn white as he clenched the phone tighter. After several tedious seconds, he hung up without speaking a word.
“Well?” I asked, refusing to wait a moment longer.
“It was a man who said we were being rescued. I didn’t recognize the voice, but he said the phone call would be cut off before we reached a minute. Any longer and it would be traced.”
“We’re being rescued?” I asked incredulously. “When? How?”
“He said we have to reach the top of the Ferris wheel in three days, any longer and it won’t matter. Apparently that part of the ship is being monitored by people who can get us out of here. From there we’ll be extracted by helicopter and taken to Miami.”
“What did he mean by it won’t matter after three days?”
“I’m assuming they’re planning on destroying the ship after that. Remember what my mother said?”
As Finn spoke my stomach unclenched for the first time in ages, but I didn‘t want it to. After all the horrors we’d been through, all the sleepless nights, it wasn’t easy to let hope creep its way back in. I jumped off the bed and swung my arms around him, causing him to almost drop the phone. I felt the familiar sting of tears as I squeezed him tight.
After a moment he returned the hug, and I let myself believe in the possibility of getting off the ship.
I’m not sure how long we stood there. Neither of us wanted to let go. My fatigue had all but evaporated at the though
t of setting foot on dry land again. Slowly, and without warning, a horrible thought started to chip away at my newfound hope.
“Finn… what if it’s them?” I asked, unable to hide the tension in my voice.
“It’s not,” Finn said, tapping his fingers on the phone.
“How do you know? You said the voice wasn’t one you knew. Did he leave a name?”
Finn shook his head.
“Then how do you know it’s not them?” I asked tentatively.
“Blue iguana.”
I snorted. “What?”
“The man on the phone, he said it just before he hung up. Up until that point I thought it was them, too.”
“Blue iguana? What in the world is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s something my mother used when I was a kid. It was a secret phrase in case anyone we didn’t know tried to pick us up from school. We would ask for it, and if they didn’t know we were to run away; she was always a little paranoid.”
“And this person you didn’t recognize… he knew it?”
“Yes.”
I thought for a moment, and a sickening possibility occurred to me. “What if they got your mother to tell them?” I swallowed hard. The idea of Mrs. Datson being tortured was too horrible to think about.
“She would die first, Lily. You know she would.”
“Does anyone else know about this safe word?”
“My dad and brother. We never even used it, either. I’d forgotten all about it until he said it.”
“Do you think they could’ve told them? If they disconnected your mother’s phone, they could’ve contacted your other family members to see if you’d talked to them, too.”
Finn paused for a moment before answering. “I don’t know, it’s possible. If we don’t try something soon, we’ll run out of food and water anyways. Then again, if we wait my mother might still call and let us know what’s going on. If it somehow was them on the phone, they’ll kill us if we go topside. What do you think?”
My nostrils flared as I tried not to scream. As quickly as hope had taken over, it’d been replaced by the fear and doubt that I‘d come to loathe.
“Every time we go out we risk death,” I said angrily. “And what if we do manage to survive longer? You heard your mother; they’re preparing to bomb the ship in order to contain the infection. Even if they don‘t destroy the ship, we’ll still eventually run out of food. And we aren’t the only one with a dwindling food supply. Every day that goes by means there will be more sprinters out there.”
My skin crawled at the thought of a thousand lightning fast zombies. “So, we’re going to trust the call, because it’s the only chance we‘ve got.”
Finn nodded and sat on the foot of the bed. He stared at the floor while he flipped the cell phone over in his hands. I sat beside him and put my arm around his waist.
“Do you think we’ve got a chance?” I asked. “To actually make it out of here?”
The question had been on the tip of my tongue for days, but I hadn’t found the courage to ask. Finn’s spirit had taken a hit after our experience in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer.
His face was gaunt as he sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “I just don’t know. I want to say yes, but I can’t bring myself to lie to you. There are so many scenarios I see playing out, and not many of them see us alive at the end.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “Whatever happens, we’ll be together, and that’s what matters.”
“Always, beautiful,” he replied, kissing my forehead.
We didn’t speak again, which I think was Finn’s way of silently agreeing the Ferris wheel plan was our best bet.
He’s sleeping next to me as I write this; he looks so peaceful. I keep running my hand through his hair, thinking about what will happen to us in the next few days.
We’ve been taking turns sleeping so there’s always someone keeping watch. It’s time to wake Finn for his shift. Good thing, too, because I can barely keep my eyes open.
August 31st
I woke up to a weird clicking noise this morning. After wiping the sleep from my eyes the room slowly came into focus.
I really wish it hadn’t.
My husband was sitting at the vanity, and propped up in front of him was the head of a particularly fowl looking corpse. Its eyes were sunken so deep into the sockets that it looked like a Halloween mask. The grayish skin covering its protruding cheek bones was starting to crack in several places. A towel was folded beneath its severed neck, and a mixture of congealed blood and black slime was already beginning to dry beneath it.
The strange noise was its teeth, clicking feverishly as Finn poked and prodded at it with a clothes hanger.
“What in the hell are you doing, Finn?” I questioned, causing him to jump.
“Oh, we umm… have a guest. I was going to say something, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
“This isn‘t something to joke about! What is that thing doing in here? Where did it come from? Wait… you went out again without me!”
I was fuming as I realized he’d left while I was asleep. Without me. Again.
He put his hands up in defense. “I heard the thing fumbling around outside our cabin. It must have suffered a pretty horrible death before turning. Both legs were gnawed to stumps, so it couldn’t walk. I’m pretty sure it would’ve been a sprinter too. The stomach was caved in so far I could see its backbone from the front.”
“So you thought you’d just take the head as a souvenir?”
I jumped from the bed, making sure to keep a wide berth between myself and the clicking skull. I paced back and forth in an attempt to quell the mixture of anger and confusion coursing through me.
“Just calm down, Lily. This is a chance to study these things up close before we try to make it to the rendezvous point at the Ferris wheel. I’ve been trying to figure out what sets them off.”
I put my hands on my hips and sighed. As crazy as my husband seemed to be, he always managed to make sense in the end.
“So have you found out anything useful?” I asked, allowing myself to slowly inch my way closer to Finn.
“Not really. This one doesn’t seem to be a banshee, and it hasn’t gone dormant since I brought it in. I’ve tried blocking its vision, not making a sound, and covering it with a towel. It hasn’t responded to anything. So far all it’s done is try and bite me for the last three hours.”
“Well, if it’s not sight or sound, it must be scent, right?” I replied. “Maybe our smell sets it off. We’re not pieces of rotting flesh like the rest of the ship.”
“Huh, why didn’t I think of that?” Finn exclaimed as he jumped from his seat. He closed the distance between us and gave me a big, overly wet kiss. “Thank you.”
He turned and quickly walked toward the door, snagging his duct taped chef coat from the counter on the way.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he slung the coat on and grabbed his knife. Its once shiny blade was almost completely black.
“I’m not going far. There’s a maid’s cart a few cabins down, and when I was out earlier I didn’t see any other corpses.”
“What do we need-” I stopped as he opened the door without looking through the peephole.
I think my revelation about our scent made him reckless with excitement. He’d been stuck on what to do up until I said something.
He peeked outside the cabin, looking left and right as he stepped into the hallway. I stood in place, suddenly nervous that we’d hear a banshee. Or even worse, the sound of a sprinter blazing a path toward my husband and me.
He disappeared into the hallway, leaving me alone in the cabin with the skull. It watched me move nearer the door, making my skin crawl as I peaked down the corridor. Finn was already coming back, his arms full of cleaning supplies.
“Now let’s see what will happen if we mask our scent,” he said as he gently closed the cabin door.
The next two hours were f
rustrating for Finn, and actually kind of amusing for me. He’d put some latex gloves on and told me to sit on the couch near the opposite end of the cabin. After spraying the air between us with lemon scented freshener, he set to work trying to hide his smell from the head.
Nothing seemed to work.
Finn tried pouring bleach over a towel and wrapping his arm in it. He covered his gloves with hand sanitizer, and even tried scented wet wipes on his forearms and face. Each time the creature’s beady eyes followed his every move; jaws snapping each time he drew near.
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