Domain of the Dead

by Iain McKinnon

  “Get the fuck out of here and off this ship!” Nathan replied unhelpfully.

  “We don’t know if the whole ship’s been overrun,” Bates said. “But I think we should assume the worst for now. If I’m wrong then life’s easy, but its been quiet except for moaning, so my guess is we’ve been overrun.”

  Sarah nodded. “Agreed. We need to get out of here and get to Jennifer.”

  “Well,” Nathan said, pointing at the zombified guard, “our first problem is him.”

  “Same as with the key,” Bates said. “Two of us hold him by the arms through the bars. The other person opens the cell door and dispatches him.”

  “With what?” Sarah asked.

  “The gun?” Nathan said, pointing at where the discarded weapon lay.

  “Gun’s empty,” Bates reminded them. “You saw that when he tried to off himself.”

  “Is there any more ammo?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s a possibility, but not a certainty,” Bates replied. “He was just guarding us, so no need for more than one clip… normally.”

  Sarah swung her legs round to sit on the edge of the bed. “If there is any ammo, where is it likely to be?”

  “In a pocket or in the desk drawer,” Bates said. “If it’s in the drawer, it might be locked.” He started to pace the cell. He ran a hand through his hair before adding, “If there is a reload, it’ll be quicker for me to do it.”

  Sarah nodded. “Okay.”

  “Jeez, volunteered again,” Bates said, trying to lighten the mood. “I should just keep my big mouth shut.”

  Sarah took his attempt at humour as a disguise against nervousness. She couldn’t blame him; a bite or even a scratch could be enough to kill him and turn him into one of them. It was a prospect none of them relished.

  Bates spun the keys around on their chain, familiarising himself with what was there: A key for the cell, a key for the main door and a key for the desk. The desk key was a small thin silver thing with a reference number stamped on the head. The other two keys were more sturdy, heavier and longer, with a block of teeth at the end. There was no way of telling which were for what lock. He would just have to try both and that could mean a delay in getting the ammo. He knew the longer he took the more chance there was that the zombie would get loose and attack him. He’d never fought a zombie barehanded before and it wasn’t something he was keen to try.

  Nathan placed his hand flat on Sarah’s leg. “Are you up to this?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “If you can’t keep a grip on him you holler and let me know,” Bates said, just as concerned about Nathan’s abilities as Sarah’s.

  “Sure thing, Bates,” Sarah said as she stood up from the bed.

  Bates held the two likely keys in front of him. “Okay… go!”

  Sarah and Nathan raced forward, Nathan grabbed hold of the creature’s left arm, leaving Sarah to take its partially severed right. Bates knelt down in front of the lock and reached round, key in hand, to feel for the entrance of the lock. Neing a prison cell, the door only opened from the outside. The tip of the key danced around where Bates thought the opening should be. He swirled the key round, desperately trying to locate the opening. All the while Bates could hear the slap, and grunts and undead groans as his comrades struggled to control the monster mere inches away. Finally the key snagged. He gently eased it over and found the entrance. He pushed the key home, but the angle was too steep. It jammed against the cylinder inside. He pulled it out slightly and tried again at a shallower angle. This time the key found the seating. He twisted it and met with resistance. Again he tried a little harder but still nothing.

  “Shit!” Bates hissed as he pulled the key from the lock. He quickly selected the next one and found the keyhole. Something felt different. There was no play with the second key. It wouldn’t even turn. “Shit, shit, shit!” He realised the first key had been the correct one. He slipped it back into the lock and felt it connect. He turned it and again it stuck. He applied more strength to the turn and there was a deep clunk from within the lock as the key moved. Twisting it further and harder, Bates worried that with every extra ounce of force the shaft would snap, sealing them in.

  The bolt slipped out of the lock and the door swung open.

  Pulling the key from the lock, Bates sprinted over to where the gun lay discarded, and in all the excitement and adrenaline his boots lost traction on the blood-soaked deck. He threw his arms out to try to keep his balance as he went skidding across the floor, but it was too late. With his centre of gravity too far back for him to right, Bates threw his hands down to catch himself. His palms slapped the deck, spraying a fountain of half congealed blood into the air. His backside jolted to an abrupt stop in the pool of spilt blood. He sat in shock, feeling the droplets of blood splatter against his face. Instinctively he drew the back of his sleeve across his lips in an attempt to remove any of the infected blood. Placing his palm to steady himself, in one smooth action he swooped up the gun, turned, and dashed to the desk where he hoped to find ammunition.

  Every time the arm Sarah clutched moved, she could feel the muscles tear a little further. With every jolt the limb came a little freer. But Sarah dare not try for a grip further up. If she tried to hold the zombie at the shoulder her hands would be through the bars and perilously close to being bitten. The zombie jerked to the side, catching Sarah off guard. She stumbled, trying to keep hold of the ragged limb without ripping it further. The zombie pulled back, trying to get closer to Bates and Sarah tripped forward. Instinctively she threw her right hand out to stop herself, forgetting about the bandaged fingers. Her hand slapped against a metal bar. Pain stung at her hand then bolted up her arm, obliterating all of her other senses. She screamed, falling back into the cell. Her left hand still held the zombie by the wrist. As she fell backwards she felt the slightest tug from her left side before the last tendons snapped, severing the zombie’s arm.

  The sudden yank of the arm ripping free sent the zombie lurching backwards. Abruptly the direction of force changed, catching Nathan off guard. The arm Nathan held onto broke free of his grip, sliding back beyond the bars. As the zombie’s hand drew back its nails scraped along Nathan’s forearm, gouging out ragged furrows. Wincing, Nathan yanked his arm back. As he looked at the underside of his forearm, blood started to well up through the broken skin. He stared, frozen by the sight. The zombie’s hand had been soaked in blood—the blood the guard had tried to stem from the open wound on his neck—the blood which had poured out of his artery after he had been bitten open by a ghoul. The blood that almost certainly carried the contagion.

  Nathan looked up to see the zombie turn and shuffle off after Bates. He cried, “Look out!”

  Sarah threw the twitching limb into the far corner of the cell and sprung to her feet to see the zombie stagger towards Bates. A loud crashing sound filled the cell.

  Sarah didn’t take any time trying to figure out what had caused the noise. Instead she sprinted out of the cell and up behind the zombie.

  As she reached the shambling corpse, it stopped.

  Sarah froze. She hadn’t planned how to help Bates; only that she should. Slowly the zombie turned and she had no idea how to fend it off.

  As the creature spun round it corkscrewed its way to the floor.

  “Thank fuck!” Sarah heard herself say as the zombie fell to the deck, a broken chair leg embedded in its eye socket.

  She looked past the corpse to Bates. The desk drawer behind him was wide open, but empty, and across the floor lay the splintered remains of the guard’s chair.

  Bates smiled. “Adapt, improvise and overcome.”

  Oblivious to what was going on outside the cell, Nathan was transfixed by the blood on his arm. Some of it was his, some if it was the zombie’s. He heard himself bemoaning the fact that his leather wrist strap was on his right arm rather than his left. If only it had been the other side, the thick leather band would have protected him. It would have saved his life. There’s still
a chance, Nathan told himself. It was a scratch, not a bite. With a bite you were a goner for sure because the infected saliva always got into the wound. With the saliva round the wound some was bound to get in. But with the scratch, Nathan told himself, it could be different. The only fluid was from the guard’s blood, but that had pumped out before he had turned. The chances were there was very little contact with the contagion. Nathan assured himself that because it was a scratch and not a bite it hadn’t severed any veins. The blood on his arm had welled up through the skin and surely that would flush any contagion out.

  Bates bent down and started checking the guard’s pockets. “Bingo!” He held aloft a full clip of ammunition.

  Nathan stepped out of the cell. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

  “Get some weapons, get Jennifer, and get into a life raft,” Sarah offered.

  “No good,” Bates said as he loaded the ammunition into the gun.

  “Sure it’s good,” Nathan protested. “This storm can’t last much longer and at least we’ll be safe from those things.”

  “The weather and the W.D.s are the least of our worries.” Bates swung his arm up to check his watch. “We’d all be dead in five hours.”

  Sarah’s voice was flat. “What do you mean, Bates?”

  “This is a research vessel. Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Robertson were working on the virus to find some way to beat it. There were concerns about the safety of the research.”

  Nathan jumped in, throwing his words out with nervous quickness, “So they stuck you on a boat so if this happened, it could be contained. We get it.”

  “No, you don’t get it,” Bates said. “They weren’t overly concerned about an outbreak on ship. Hell, the top brass figured a fuckup was inevitable.”

  In her most measured tone, Sarah asked, “So what’s the catch?”

  “An adrift ship infested with W.D.s wasn’t a concern. The nature of the infection was.”

  “I’m not following you,” Nathan said. “What do you mean, nature of the infection?”

  “Top brass were worried that Frankenstein’s tinkering would make the virus more deadly.”

  Nathan threw up his hands as if he were about to start pulling out his own hair, before slapping them down by his side. “How exactly could it get more deadly than fatal?!”

  Bates corrected himself. “Well, not more deadly—more dangerous.”

  “That’s the fucking same thing,” Nathan squabbled. “You don’t get worse than undead.”

  “You mean more contagious, don’t you?” Sarah clarified.

  “Again with the how.” Even in the red light it was obvious that Nathan was becoming flushed. “One bite and you’re a goner.”

  “What if they didn’t need to bite you?” Sarah looked over at Bates. “They’re worried it’ll mutate. They’re worried it’ll go airborne.”

  “That’s why they have a safety protocol in place,” Bates replied. “We need to radio our status every eight hours. If we miss one, then it’s kaboom!”

  “It obviously hasn’t gone airborne or we’d be contaminated by now,” Sarah said.

  Nathan was hopping around like a child bursting for the toilet. “Okay, so there’s a self destruct. We disarm it. You know, cut the red wire or the blue wire or whatever.”

  Bates shook his head. “Wouldn’t work ‘cause we’re not in charge of the explosion.”

  “Okay, so what’s there to stop us taking a life raft and abandoning ship?”

  “You couldn’t paddle fast enough,” Bates said. “If we don’t make that radio call in time, there’s a Russian sub with orders to nuke us.”

  Nathan pawed at his chin where his stubbly beard used to be. “Shit...”

  “We’re no closer to a plan,” Sarah interrupted.

  “Armoury is on this level but at the other end of the ship,” Bates said. “The radio room is halfway between the two, but a level up.”

  “Jennifer is two decks above us,” Sarah added.

  “Is she a smart girl?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to leave her alone.” Sarah’s thoughts went to the small girl locked in her cabin alone. “She must be terrified.”

  Bates read the concern on Sarah’s face. “Will she have the sense to keep the door locked and to stay quiet?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Sarah said. “Why? What have you got in mind?”

  Bates turned to face the door out of the brig as if he were trying to peer through it with x-ray vision. “Get to the armoury first. We can’t rescue anyone until we can protect them and ourselves. Agreed?”

  “I guess,” Nathan said with a shrug.

  “Once we have Jennifer, we radio the sub. We’ll be able to call from the bridge and bypass the radio room altogether.” Bates programmed in a countdown on his watch. “We should have just over four hours to check in.”

  Sarah walked up to the bullet holes in the wall and peered through to the darkness in the corridor beyond. “What can we expect out there?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Bates said.

  “Worst case scenario?” Nathan asked, rubbing his injured arm.

  Bates puffed out a shot of breath. “Let’s say the whole crew have got themselves killed then decide to get up and go for a walk. We’ll have around forty W.D.’s, give or take. With a little luck, some will be trapped in cabins too dumb to get out. There may be some so badly mauled they can’t resurrect.”

  “That’s not bad.” Nathan pointed to the weapon Bates held. “I mean, we’ve got a gun. You’ve got, what, ten shots?”

  “Fifteen,” Bates corrected.

  “Christ, that’s enough to put half of them down.”

  Bates held the gun in front of him, twisting it, slowly examining it. “Problem is, though, if we meet any former members of the crew it’s going to be in close quarters. We won’t get a clean shot. So don’t let the gun give you a false sense of security.”

  “But there’s more than enough guns and ammo in the armoury, right?”

  Bates smiled. “Sure, but I’m worried about getting jumped. If we end up going hand-to-hand, chances are you’re going to get bit.”

  Sarah decided to look for the positive. “What’s the best case scenario?”

  “Hopefully we’re not the only ones left alive,” Bates answered. “Hopefully a few of the marines have started to clean up. If that’s the case, best watch out they don’t get too trigger happy and mistake us for W.D.’s.”

  “The last thing I want is a bullet in the brain,” Nathan said.

  Chapter 8: Infection

  “I can’t see a thing,” Nathan whispered, his complaint competing against a dissonance of unsettling sounds.

  The emergency lighting in this part of the corridor was sporadic. What lights that did work spluttered and coughed on and off, casting disturbing shadows.

  “Close your eyes for a few seconds,” Bates said. “It’ll help you adjust to the low light.”

  Sarah placed her good hand gently onto Nathan’s shoulder so as not to frighten him. “And try and squint.”

  Nathan turned in the blackness at the sound of his friend’s voice. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  Sarah spoke softly into Nathan’s ear, “No, the cones in your eyes that see colour are at the centre, but they don’t work well in darkness. It’s the rods at the edge that see in black and white that give you your best night vision.”

  “Thanks for the science lesson,” Bates grumbled. “Now if you’ve quite finished, can we go with stealth mode here?”

  Unfamiliar sounds burst out from the darkness. Metallic creaks from the vessels hull. Resonating clangs and dull clunks carried through the ship’s seams. Far off crashing and splintering.

  Catching the start of an unusual sound, Sarah’s mind half twisted them into screams or moans until she heard enough to identify the sources.

  Sometimes the cries were human. The desperation in their tone still carried some hope for Sarah. There were people alive, somewhere onboard
.

  But even this consolation couldn’t allay Sarah’s fears for long. Often she couldn’t tell the difference between a person or the ship groaning, but the moans. The moaning seemed to travel unattenuated through the ship. That breathy sound forced out across stiff vocal cords. Those whispery vowels that slipped out from between dead lips. The call of the undead that Sarah could always make out.

  She listened like she were waiting for the rising thunder clap after a lightning strike. She listened out for each moan, marking it off as being closer or further away than the last one. But in the enveloping darkness everything felt louder and closer. She had no way of judging how accurate her guesses were.

  Bates suddenly froze. His gun raised, he cocked his head, looking up the corridor.

  Sarah squinted through the shadows, and there up ahead was a dark mass swaying from side to side.

  Bates let his finger slip from the trigger guard onto the trigger. A trickle of sweat formed on his upper lip but he suppressed the urge to wipe it away. Pushing the crook of his index finger against the trigger, he eased it back gently. The trigger pivoted backwards until a slight tug of resistance told Bates he’d found the biting point. He could squeeze a shot off from here aimed at head height. He couldn’t make out a head, just the rhythmic swaying of a shape in the darkness. If he shot and missed, the creature would turn and come for him, in which case he would shoot it in the head when it got closer. But that would mean wasting a shot. Bates knew he had to conserve his precious ammunition if there were to be any chance of reaching the armoury.

  Keeping the gun levelled, he took his supporting hand away from under the butt of the pistol and wiped the annoying sweat from his lip. He smeared his damp fingers across the breast of his shirt, drying them, before returning his hand to the gun.

  He edged forward, determined not to fire until he could see his target.

  As he drew closer he could hear a strange high pitch groan. A squealing like rough hinges in sync with the rhythm of the movement. Pushing closer, the dark shape seemed to be surprisingly straight-edged.