by Mark Clodi
The non-English speaking cook placed the hot cheese pizza on the serving deck and Tom stepped in to grab it up. At the same time a couple came through the hallway leading to other places on the lido deck. They didn't look good and Tom paused as he scooped up his pizza, burning his hands. Looking down he quickly pushed the pizza onto his place while making apologies to the man. That was almost the end of him as the balding male fumbled to grab Tom while he was distracted.
“S'cuse me.” Tom mumbled, backing away. The guy must really want some pizza. But the man followed as Tom backpedaled, reaching towards his plate.
“Dude there is more, get a new plate.” said Tom, pulling the plate sideways from the man's contaminated, grasping hands. Still the guy persisted and the woman was coming towards him now too, when her face turned his way for the first time, Tom sucked in his breath. “What the hell happened to you?”
The woman, a young twenty something had a horrible, bloody hole below her right eye, through which Tom could see her teeth and the ragged muscles of her face. She grunted as Tom continued backing up, it was a low, guttural sound, something an animal makes. Her eyes were glazed over to the point that Tom could not tell what color they had been. Looking her over a little better he saw that she was also bleeding from her right leg, where part of the bone was showing through under her knee.
“Dude, something happened to your girlfriend! You better get her some help! No. Stop! She's hurt!” Tom fended the man in front of him off with his plate of pizza, “Here take it! You want it so bad just leave me alone!” Thrusting the plate at the man, Tom shook in fear as the thing slapped it to the ground and continued to pursue him. A blur flew from the hallway where the man and woman had emerged from and a moment later one of the lightweight chairs off of the deck slammed the woman over, shattering in the process.
A determined looking young man yelled at Tom, “Did they bite you?”
“Wha-what?”
“Did you get bit? Or scratched or get their blood on you?” The young man used the remaining bit of chair to hold the woman at bay while he slide closer to Tom.
“N-no, nothing. I just got here. Are you sure you should be hitting her like that?” Tom asked as the kid finally knocked the woman to the ground.
“Yes! Grab a chair and knock that one over, then follow me.”
“What?” Tom asked, staring at the kid. This pause finally gave the man in front of him the opportunity he needed and he grabbed a hold of Tom's shirt and started to pull them together.
“Oh for Christ's sake! Why is everyone so stupid! It's a zombie! If it bites you, you die!” The youth ran up behind the man holding Tom and swept its legs out from under it. The zombie didn't let go of Tom, he just maintained his cold, dead grip and they both tumbled to the ground.
“Don't let him bite you!” Screamed the man as Tom wrestled on the ground. The man was trying to bite him too. The zombie's jaws were making a creaking sound as they opened, like rusty hinges on an old door. Tom pushed his forearm up underneath the thing's chin and shoved him hard. A firm hand jerked Tom up by the shoulder and pulled him back into a pile of deck chairs. The man who had helped him was knocking the stacks of chairs over in front of the man and the woman and as a strategy it seemed to be working. The two coming after them couldn't seem to navigate the deck furniture very well, Tom didn't get the chance to watch them however as he was pulled backwards by his new friend.
“C'mon! We gotta get out of here!”
“What?”
“Do you know any other words than 'what'?”
“What?” Tom asked, not understanding.
“Do you speak English?”
“Yes.”
“Good, try to follow along. These people are not sick, they are zombies, like in the movies, they want to eat your brains or bit your arms or something. Whatever they do to you will be bad and even if you only get bit, I bet you will still die. Those two were not that bad from what I've seen so far tonight.” The man continued dragging Tom along, moving higher up the ship, until they came to the section where the basketball court was. Ahead of them was a chain link fence, with a gate and on the gate was a padlock.
“I've never seen them lock it before.” Tom commented, pointing at the lock.
“Me either, I need a breather, so over the fence we go, it should keep the riff-raff out too.” the other man started to climb the fence and soon enough he was on the other side, staring expectantly at Tom.
“I don't think we are supposed to go in there, they had it locked for a reason....”
“Wake up! The guy just attacked you! It is an emergency! Now get over the fence!”
With some reluctance Tom climbed the fence; he was not built for fence climbing anymore, though he remembered doing such things when he was a kid. His flip flops made the process more painful than it should have been on his feet. Once on the other side Tom smiled ruefully and said, “I think I need to lose a few pounds, that was a lot of work.”
The other man laughed and gestured at Tom to come away from the gate, which was near the stairway down. When they were over at the men's locker room the guy pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. He then looked at the pack and offered Tom one. Tom tentatively took one and lit it from the other man's cigarette.
After a single, deep inhale, Tom let out a cough and smile sheepishly, “I haven't smoked since I was twenty two. Never really picked up the habit. I kind of like it now.”
“Don't get too used to it now, but enjoy it while you can, if the rest of the world went 'zombie' we won't be getting any more. My name is Daniel, by the way, call me Dan. What is yours?”
“Thomas, call me Tom.”
“Two men with long and short names. Aren't we a couple for the record books?”
“What?”
“Well we survived our first zombie attack, that has to be a record of some sort, even if it is just a personal one.”
“Are you sure they are not...” Tom's voice trailed off as he remembered the woman's face, “No, I suppose not.”
“I don't think they are going to recover from this Tom. Say, do you think we could break into the men's room here?”
Tom looked at the door; it was wooden and had large shuttered vents in the top and bottom. He checked and it was, indeed, locked. “Yeah, but why? I don't want to have to pay for it if we mess it up.”
Dan looked at him and said, “We have an emergency situation here, I am not too worried about running up some bills.”
“Okay, then yeah, I think we can get in. Let's try not to dama...”
The door crumpled as Dan kicked it in with one foot. “There, now I can drop a deuce in a proper toilet instead of on the basketball court. You want to keep guard out here. I doubt you'll appreciate the smell if you came in anyway. Here, take another cigarette.” Dan handed over the package.
Chapter 2
Tom was leaning up against the drinking fountain between the doors to the bathrooms where he could hear Dan grunting inside. After a moment of listening to the other man he stepped out of the alcove to stand closer to the edge of the basketball court. The chain link gate rattled at the far side of the court.
“Uh....Dan?” Tom whispered back at the bathroom.
“Busy.”
“Something is rattling the fence...”
“So? They are too stupid to get over it, I've seen how slow they are. That fence is like Fort Knox to them.”
Tom turned with a sigh and immediately let out a startled cry as a massive body loomed up in front of him out of the night.
“You say something?” Dan called, “Tom?”
Built like a linebacker, the man in front of Tom approached swiftly, only to jump back at the last second with a startled cry of his own.
“It's okay!” Tom said to the other man, “I'm not one of them!”
A soft, southern accent called back to him, “Thank goodness for that sir. I thought maybe this place would be free of them.”
A smell accompanied the voice, a
strong reek of alcohol.
“Are you...are you drunk?”
“Mighta had me a few. The bar on the Lido deck is open until sunrise, serves anything you want, all night long. They just charge it to your room, so it isn't like it costs me anything yet.”
“That's going to hurt when you leave the ship though.”
“S'okay. It's covered, my mama is paying, said I need to meet someone.”
Tom laughed, “Me too!”
“Mama's; what can you do?” The tall, short haired blond man looked Tom over, but didn't say anything.
At that moment Dan burst out of the bathroom, hissing “Tom! Where are you?” Catching sight of the two men standing off to the side of the bathrooms, he fell backward with a cry and ended up on the ground.
Tom was able to catch the newcomer's reaction too, the man crouched down and looked like he was preparing to leap onto Dan.
“It's alright Dan, this guy just climbed up here like us, figured it was a safer place.”
“Sorry to scare you mister.” said the southerner putting out his hand to help the fallen man up.
Dan looked the man up and down and said, “My aren't you a big boy. You some sort of football player?”
“Army Ranger.“
Shaking the hand that had lifted him off of the deck, Dan said, “Am I glad to see you! My name is Dan, he is Tom.”
“Pleased to meet you Dan.” then he turned to shake Tom's hand as well, “And you Tom.”
“Ah, and you are?” asked Tom halfway through the abnormally long handshake.
“Oh my! Sorry sir, I am Lance Charleston, from Ludowici Georgia.”
“Pleased to meet you Lance. So I take it you know about the zombies?” said Tom.
“Cannibals.” I saw them two ladies come and eat this guy at the end of the bar, the bartender got out of there real quick, about two steps ahead of me. Probably saved my life too, he ran into three other guys outside the bar and I slipped by them.”
“You didn't fight them?” asked Dan, sounding somewhat surprised.
“What? No, I mean I coulda, but I'm not a cop or anything, I told the ladies to back off and leave the guy, but they just looked up and...the blood! There was so much all, over them. I took one of the bar stools and held it up in front of me, tried to poke them off a the guy. Nothin' doin', they just kinda hissed at me and kept eatin'. When the guy started to move again, they lost interest in him and started lookin' at me and the bartender! That's when we bugged out. He made it first, on account of the door behind the bar was easier to get to than the one by the stools. Plus I hadda go over a few tables and stuff. Those gals, they weren't that good at walking. Outside the darkie got caught by these three guys, they looked at me, but didn't come after me.”
“Jeezus!” Dan said, “Like what happened to me, kind of. I am bunking with a guy and got hungry. I knew the pizzeria was open all night long, so I was making my way up here and ran into one of the cruise people, he was cut open from tit to groin, guts hanging out like a grass skirt. But he kept coming at me until I took an ashtray to his head, one of those trash can kind, it was heavy enough and after a few bashes it stopped moving. I found Tom here near the pizzeria, probably saved his life. He just thought the zombies wanted to butt in line.”
Tom nodded meekly. “So now what do we do?”
“Sit tight up here, I guess.” said Lance.
Dan nodded, “No sense in moving unless we have to.”
“Yeah, that makes sense, but shouldn't we try to save some of the people? Or get to the captain or something?”
The other men shook their heads 'no'.
“You ain't getting me back out there. I don't even like fighting the ragheads that much, but hear I don't even have a rifle.”
“Well...shit.” said Tom, “I feel sort of...”
“Don't.” warned Lance, “Just let that feeling go. I've seen good guys die for that 'sort of' feeling. We'll just squat here and wait until the morning to see what comes with the sun.”
“What about food?” Tom asked.
“You want to try for some more pizza?” asked Dan.
“Well I am hungry.”
“In the morning.” Lance advised, “We deal with it then.”
The three men climbed the stairs up from the basketball court to the nude sunbathing deck, which was the second highest spot on the ship, the captain's level was a good fifteen or twenty feet higher up and a world away, because it was separated from where the men were by a wide swath of decks that included a stage, several flights of stairs and two swimming pools.
“There is a light on over there still. Think they can see us?” asked Tom, pointing to the captain's tower.
“Wave and find out. I'm gonna lay down for a bit, here.” Lance said taking a lounge chair from off of the stack where the cleaning crew had piled them off to one side.
Waving his arms Tom tried to get someone in the captain's deck to respond to him. Dan snickered and said, “It's dark Tom, they can't see you from there.”
“Oh.” Tom's shoulders slumped and he went to the one side of the sunbathing deck to look down at the gangway below him. It was about two stories down to the portion of the deck, where the running track was. There wasn't anyone there.
“Hey Tom.” called Dan.
“Yeah?”
“I'm gonna lay down too, why don't you keep an eye on things. If you get tired wake me up, so we aren't jumped by those things, okay?”
“Sure, I don't know how you can sleep at a time like this.”
“Alcohol helps.” mumbled Lance from where he lay under a ship's towel, trying to get comfortable.
Tom continued to watch the decks below, occasionally he would hear a scream or the sounds of fighting, but whatever was going on below was out of where he could see the action. Sighing heavily he leaned back on the stack of lounge chairs near the railing. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 3
Drifting off to sleep caused Tom to wake with a start, he was still standing by the rail and things had gotten quiet down below. Pulling out his smart phone he checked the time, four minutes after three. The phone didn't get a signal this far from land, but he could still access the applications he had installed on it. He hadn't paid for access to the ship's wireless, but was considering doing so when he heard the voice below.
“And so ye shall back away from me, oh Satan! I cast you out, I compel you to flee this place and not return!”
The voice was a man's and coming from almost directly below him, but from the deck below the running track, where Tom couldn't see.
“Back Satan! Leave this place and trouble me no more!”
The words droned on for a few minutes and were starting to fade when Tom yelled down, “Hey! Wait! We're up here!”
There was a pause in the voice below, then a question.
“Lord? Was that you?”
“No! It was me! I'm on the nude sunbathing deck.”
“Begone foul beast!” then a pause, “How do I get there?”
“Go up to the running track, there should be signs for it near where you are.”
“Give me a moment and, God willing, I will be there.”
Tom looked towards Dan and Lance, neither had been awakened by his conversation with the unseen man below. He thought about waking the men, and then decided he didn't want to try it on a half drunk Army Ranger and left them alone while he went down the basketball court. The gate rattled as the other man tried to push it open.
“Let me in brother! I don't think anyone followed me up here, but I can't be sure.”
“Uh...I don't have a key, we climbed over the fence. Can you get over?” The man on the other side was dressed in sandals, blue shorts and a light white t-shirt. In one hand he held a hefty looking wooden cross, his other hand was free.
“Okay then. They didn't cover this in seminary, but I think I remember how from when I was a kid.” The man's first effort led to failure, he reached the top of the fence, then the crucifix int
erfered with his grip and he hung by one hand, slipped and dropped to the ground, still on the wrong side. “Lord give me strength. Catch this will you?” The man tossed the cross over the fence.
Aghast Tom lunged for it, barely catching it before it hit the ground. “You threw it!”
The other man had better luck with his hands free and was already straddling the top of the fence by the time Tom had recovered. Climbing down the man gestured for Tom to step back, saying, “We should stay out of sight.” He held his hand out as they moved away from the stairs on the other side of the fence. Tom realized he wanted his cross back.
“I am kinda surprised you tossed the cross to me. Aren't you supposed to hang on to it or something?”
“Faith, is more important than a cross I bought in the Bahamas three days ago brother. It is just a symbol.” he fumbled in the dim light for something around his neck, pulling out a smaller, silver crucifix. “This means far more to me than that piece of wood. I don't think it matters to them, though, those who have returned to unholy life in this end of days. Holy God throws them back.”
“Have you tried it without the cross?”
“Well, no. Not yet.” the man admitted.
“We're up here.” said Tom pointing at the stairs.
The two went up and found the other men still sleeping. Tom walked to the rail where he had been minutes before and the other man followed him.
In a quiet voice, the new man said, “I am Pastor Finch, you can call me Carl.” he said, holding out his hand.
Tom took it and answered, “Tom. You look awful young to be a priest.”
“Pastor, a Lutheran Protestant. I am young. I haven't even gone to my internship yet. I am supposed to start that when I get back from this cruise.”
“Your mom sent you on this cruise?” asked Tom, thinking of how he and Lance came to be here.
Carl nodded, “Well, my parents, as a way of celebrating my graduation.”
“A singles cruise? I would have thought that would be, I don't know, sinful?”