by Mark Clodi
Tom followed him to the door, which the zombie had managed to get open another couple of inches. The hand that came through in front of them was missing the smallest two fingers and the middle finger was broken and sticking up at an angle, giving Tom the impression that he was being flipped off.
Lance pushed the shotgun through the crack and pointed it down slightly towards where the ladder was. The shotgun wedged the doors open further and cast some light into the shaft, Tom still could not see anything, but then the gun went off, momentarily lighting up the entire shaft. Both barrels of the gun went off at point blank range and the projectiles hit the zombie in the ribs just below his outstretched arm. The force of the blow as enough to knock the thing off of the ladder with a muffled groan.
“Bean bags.” grunted Lance, “Probably not much use.”
“Did you see?” asked Tom.
“Yeah, I see 'em.”
In the flash of the gunshot both men had seen that the ladder was full of zombies all waiting to move up into the bridge. Even as Lance reloaded another shadowy zombie climbed into view.
Chapter 6
“Well, we can't stay here.” Tom argued, after they had slid the elevator doors together again.
“We could wait for a little while. We can hold them off for now.”
“Until they climb up the outside or come up the stairs.”
Lance pointed at the bolted door that led to the steep, narrow stairway. “Nothing is getting through that door, it is reinforced. I doubt these guys could climb up the outside either, not without ropes. We are pretty safe here. If we could get the radio working we might get help.”
Tom glanced at the jumble of electronic equipment that neither of them had been able to operate yet. The instructions were in a Scandinavian language neither of them could understand. “I don't think we will get it working.”
They had found the power switches and some hand written instructions in English on which breakers to turn on and off for controlling power to various parts of the ship. Most had been flicked to the 'off' position, except for the bridge. Even if the words were in English neither of them were familiar enough with parts of the ship to know which areas they should turn on.
Lance's solution to keeping the elevator doors closed was to use the ax to punch a hole in each of them near the seam. Then he took one of the brackets that had held the ax on the wall and pounded it into the holes until it was embedded into the doors. So far the door hadn't even cracked open, but that didn't stop the zombies from pounding on it.
“We've got no food or water. No place to go to the bathroom.”
“We can piss off the deck if it means living. Look sir, I don't mean to complain, but why do you want to move? We are pretty safe here.”
“They know we are here, they keep...” a loud thump sounded against the elevator door, “See! They keep thumping and they will find a way in.”
“Okay, yeah, defense never wins the game. We have to do more than keep the other team from scoring points, ah understand that. But can't we just take a breather here for a bit? Ah am hung over, bruised and tired. We've got weapons and we've a fairly safe place to hang out right now, so let's just relax a minute and then make a plan on what to do next. Does that sound alright with you?”
Tom gave in with bad grace; it was not like he knew what they should do next anyway. The lifeboats were still an option in his mind, but he decided not to mention this to Lance just yet. “Alright. We'll do it your way, but while you're sleeping I am going to be poking around and thinking.”
“Sure, why don't you mess with the radio? Maybe you can figure it out.”
Shrugging his shoulders Tom turned to the radio and powered it up, they had figured that much out at least.
“You gonna be okay if I go crash on the deck outside?” Lance asked.
“Sure, I guess.”
“Okay, look if you start freakin' or something happens just stick your head out and call me. I wake up pretty fast.”
“I'll be fine Lance, no one is getting through those doors.”
The radio had a number of knobs and buttons on it, there was also a headset, which wasn't plugged in, the static came out of a small speaker set into the front panel. Tom was surprised when he figured out how to switch bands and scan them, at least he thought that was what he was doing, there were numbers on a little screen that were slowly rising. Occasionally the number would stop and the static on the radio would be replaced with a clear signal, there were no words, but the static stopped completely leaving the bridge in silence. Then the radio would resume scanning until it found the next band of quiet. In less than five minutes the small screen was back to the beginning of a band that Tom had started on. It kept scanning and Tom let it, watching it repeat the process a second time.
Sighing heavily, Tom rose to his feet and looked around the bridge for anything else that might be useful. The shotgun was still next to him. Lance had reloaded it and given Tom some shells to put in his pockets. Tom picked up the shotgun and the fire ax and went over to the two doors off the bridge. He turned away from the door leading outside and put his ear up against the metal door that led to the stairway down.
'Nothing.' he thought to himself, 'there has to be a bathroom or break room close by. I can't imagine a captain ordering down to the cafeteria for his coffee or taking the elevator every time he had to pee.'
He unlocked the door and carefully looked through it. The stairway beyond was lit by the light from behind Tom, but it descended into darkness as it spiraled down. There was a switch in the wall next to Tom and he tried it.
To his surprise it flicked on, 'I should wait for Lance.' he told himself, yet when his foot stepped down to the first stair he didn't pull it back. Having an ax in one hand and the shotgun in the other left him a hand short for using the railing. 'I need a sling or I should leave one behind.'
Thinking it over he did back up into the bridge and went over to the first aid kit. After a moment of looking he pulled out a box of gauze and started unwinding it. He made a single long loop, like an old style bandoleer and at the bottom of that loop he tied another, smaller, loop, so when the gauze was laid out on the table it resembled a figure eight, albeit with a rather small loop for the top of the eight. Tom tied the gauze off and then put the large loop over his shoulder, so the small loop hung a little above his waist. Then he took the ax and fed it handle first through the small hole, the head of the ax would not let it slip through the loop and held the handle about two feet off of the floor. 'Perfect' he thought, as he picked up the shotgun. The ax was a little awkward and the gauze was digging in a little, but Tom didn't plan to wear it all day, just long enough to explore the stairs.
Before he headed back to the stairs he packed up the first aid kit, putting everything back in place, in case they needed it later. 'Now I am ready.' then he took the first step down the stairs for the second time. The stairs twisted around in a spiral about fifteen feet down before stopping on a landing. There were three doors at the landing, one was down a short hallway and bolted from this side, it resembled the heavy metal door on the bridge. The other two looked like the common utility doors that led everywhere else on the ship. 'Bingo! Score one for the Tomster!' Tom thought as he pushed open the door to his right, it opened into a small kitchen, 'A galley.' Exploring the kitchen he found a well-stocked refrigerator, there were the normal drinks Tom was familiar with as well as some foreign stuff that he couldn't read the labels of. There was also a selection of cheese, some grapes and some sort of spread, cracking the lid off of it, Tom sniffed cautiously, 'More cheese. ' He closed the refrigerator, then checked the cabinets and found a couple large boxes of crackers, a loaf of bread, some bananas and a jar of something called 'Nuttello'. There were also plates, silverware, mugs and a selection of teas and coffee. Despite his protesting stomach he turned to the other door before eating anything. It met his expectations by being a small bathroom.
Tom moved down the short hallway to the security door
there and very carefully he pressed his ear against it. He didn't hear anything, so he slowly twisted the lever to unlock it. Cracking the door he peeked through, trying to penetrate the darkness beyond. The sliver of light from the doorway revealed little about the area, except the drab paint on the floor that Tom had seen in other 'employees only' areas of the ship. The amount of light getting through wasn't enough for Tom to tell if he was looking at a hallway or a room. He was contemplating whether to open the door further when he heard it, a slight shuffle, a faint, wet sounding slap, like that of a child running through a puddle in bare feet. Tom slammed the door shut and twisted the lever to lock it. He then stepped back, pointed the shotgun at the door and waited. He waited for what seemed like half an hour before he heard the first low thump on the door from the other side. The small thump was followed by another, then another, until it became a repetitious pattern, similar to the one coming from the elevator door above.
Chapter 7
The sun woke Lance up. It startled the man and he rolled to a sitting position and glanced into the clear blue sky. He had chosen where to lay down when he came out onto the deck in the morning solely to avoid getting a sun burn. The position of the sun told him it was probably one in the afternoon, give or take twenty minutes. No matter what time it was Lance was concerned he had not meant to sleep that long. Slowly he stood up and looked through the window of the bridge.
Tom stared out at him with hungry eyes. The man's face was missing from the tip of his nose, to just under his ear and over the back of his head. A steady stream of black blood pumped out of the open wound where his skin was missing and dribbled onto his thin t-shirt. Behind him a dozen other zombies were milling about the bridge, one was at the door leading to the small deck that encircled the command center. Lance hadn't locked the door and he watched in horror as the zombie's hand came down on the latch and popped it open.
He reached down and picked up the assault rifle, only to notice that the magazine was missing from the gun. Peering through the window he saw it sitting on the small desk next to the first aid kit. Carl, the preacher, was the first zombie out onto the deck and Lance stepped up to club him down with the butt of his rifle. The weapon broke, sending shards of plastic into Carl's eye socket, bursting it like a water balloon.
“Fuck me.” Lance said, backing away from the still moving Carl while he clutched the shattered remains of the gun. Lance turned around and moved towards the upper deck, but before he could take a step he felt Dan grab him from behind. His training and combat experience took over and he landed a hard blow against Dan's head, but the zombie was not incapacitated and kept clutching Lance, while other zombies poured out of the doorway. Screaming in defiance Lance was pulled backwards into the pile of zombies, then the biting began and he started screaming.
A scream woke Lance up from his nightmare, the sun was just starting to peep over the front of the command center and he was bathed in sweat from the humid, tropical heat. Lance heard the door to the bridge slam open and then saw Tom, shotgun pointed in front of him, run into view. The man had made a make shift sling to carry the ax out of gauze. 'He is a bit cleverer than I thought.'
“You okay?” asked Tom, nervously pointing his gun in another direction.
“Bad dream.” Lance answered, eying the man closely; he noticed Tom had crumbs on his shirt and a bit of white just over the left side of his upper lip. “You find some food?”
Sheepishly, Tom nodded, “I went down the stairs, there is a small, uh, galley, there and a bathroom. I made coffee too.”
“All on your own?”
“I had to pee. And I hadn't eaten since yesterday around two in the afternoon.”
“Is there more?”
Tom looked at him and frowned, “I wouldn't eat it all! There is plenty, even for someone as big as you.”
“Sorry sir, ah didn't mean it like that...”
Both men heard a thumping sound, sharper than the zombies who were still persistently pounding on the elevator door, then they saw a flare fly out perpendicular from the ship and burst over the ocean.
“What the fuck?” Tom asked.
“Just a flare. Someone is alive down there. Go grab a flare from the box and shoot it off that direction.”
Tom stood there a moment, then turned and ran back into the bridge and fumbled around in the weapon locker, he came up with a shell and moved back out onto the deck. The way he broke open the shotgun made Lance think that the man had practiced it a few times. 'No he ain't so dumb.' After loading the gun Tom turned off the safety and aimed over the open ocean, the flare sped from the gun like an angry bee and hit the water perhaps fifty yards off the side of the ship before it had a chance to explode.
“Better get another one.”
Tom repeated the process and aimed higher this time, which resulted in a satisfying detonation a few hundred yards away. His flare was answered by another from down below, after which Lance leaned over the railing and yelled, “Hey! Can ya'll hear me down there?”
A faint voice called back, “Yeah!”
“You got any zombies down there with ya?”
“No. Do you have any up there?”
“No.”
“Where are you?” the voice asked.
“On the bridge.”
“Bridge over what?”
Lance chuckled at this and answered, “The place they run the ship!”
“I am on the main deck, where the lifeboats are. Do you have a rope?”
“A rope?” asked Tom, “You think he wants to climb up the side of the ship?”
“I would, rather than go through it.” then Lance called down, “No sir! We haven't found any.”
“I got some out of one of the lifeboats, with the flare gun, but I don't think I can throw it up to you.”
“Probably not, unless he were the world's best baseball pitcher, it's gotta be sixty meters straight up.” Lance said to Tom, then yelled down again, “Probably not. You'll have to get higher!”
The conversation went on for a bit, with the men up top learning that the man below was named Paul Lee and that he had the doors to the main deck blocked off near where he was. He had broken into a lifeboat and recovered a flare gun and a first aid kit, and found spools of heavy rope there as well. Lance yelled their story down to him in a series of short sentences and then Josh decided he had better stop yelling because it was making the zombies behind the door close to him agitated. The last thing Josh said was that he was going to try and climb up to the next deck level on the outside of the ship, and if he could go up one deck at a time he might be able to make it to Lance and Tom.
“Think he will make it?” asked Tom.
Lance shook his head, “It'll be hard, not a lot of people can do that sort of thing, maybe he knows how to climb or something. He sounds like a kid too.”
“He can't be too young, it's a singles cruise.”
“True. But ah think he sounds just old enough to be here.”
“Does that work against him?”
“He may be stronger, more agile, but the problem with us young folks is we think we are invulnerable. That nothing bad will happen to us.” Lance stared out over the ocean, his eyes unfocused.
Tom cleared his throat, “Lance? I have food inside and coffee if you're hungry.”
Swinging his head around Lance's face pointed squarely at Tom's, but his eyes didn't refocus, it was like he was looking through Tom, not at him, his voice, low and husky said, “Yes sir, that'd be good.”
Tom led the way back inside, he pointed out the food as he reloaded his shotgun with a bean bag shell.
Lance noticed and asked, “Why the bean bag?”
“Well I am kinda saving the real ones, I figure if I am just knocking zombies off a rope the bean bag will work fine.”
Lance nodded and stuffed a cheese covered cracker into his mouth, “You aren't so dumb, you know that?”
Blushing Tom nodded, “I think a lot, maybe I am not as fast as some people, bu
t I usually get there in the end.”
“Good.”
Chapter 8
They finally got a glimpse of Paul later that afternoon. The young man was on the 'Lido' deck, where all the pools and deck chairs were, running from several slower moving zombies and leading a group of half a dozen people. Tom didn't have a clear view of the people with Paul, it looked like there were a couple of women and five men altogether. Both Lance and Tom were unable to see what happened down below clearly because the captain's deck didn't wrap around towards the middle of the ship, it only formed a 'U' around the front.
They could see several zombies crawl out of the woodwork on what Lance said was the 'port' side of the ship. For a short time the group of survivors was visible, with Paul in the lead, he had rope wound around from one shoulder to his opposite hip and was carrying a gun of some sort. Tom found out just what sort of gun it was when the man fired point blank into the head of a nude bronze skinned woman who was groping for one of the men with Paul. The flare covered the short distance in a flash of burning light and embedded itself in the woman's gaping maw. Her mouth momentarily channeled the bright light from the fire back towards Paul's surprised face, then the zombie's cheeks melted away and the flare burst, showing the group with burning chunks of skull and brain matter.
One of the women started screaming as her bikini bottom caught on fire almost dead center on her crotch. The other survivors stared dumbly at her for a moment before Paul yelled something at them, setting them into motion. While he reloaded the others threw the woman in the nearby hot tub and doused the flames, when they pulled her out she was still clutching her groin and screaming. One of the men, a big blond that looked like he could give Lance a run for his money in an eating contest, grabbed the woman by one arm and tossed her over his shoulder. The survivors disappeared after that, moving out of sight and into the ship.
“Shit.”Lance said, blushing, “Sorry.”