“Maybe not, but something ate a bunch of people,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that a bunch of people are sick, and they’re eating each other on the Lido Deck.”
“If that’s true, then why are you down here?” I asked, gesturing to the area around us.
“I wanted to get my bag,” he said. “And I wanted to get my coworkers.”
“Your coworkers?”
“Yeah, we’re all here on a work cruise.”
“Sounds like a good job,” I muttered.
“It is. Come on.”
The young man gestured for me to follow him. I decided to go ahead and do it. After all, I was heading in that direction, anyway. Following someone wasn’t going to make any difference to me.
“So, your coworkers didn’t want to go to the lifeboats?”
“No.”
He didn’t say anything else, and he didn’t really need to. I was still worried that we were overreacting. I hadn’t overpacked, so if I got to the area with the life boats and everything seemed normal, then I could simply say I’d just been out for a casual walk. I didn’t have to make a big deal about it.
The lights started blinking on and off as we neared the deck we needed, though.
“That’s not good,” my new friend muttered.
“Not good at all,” I agreed.
I glanced around. The screaming seemed to have stopped, and the deck didn’t have as many people as I thought there would be. There were no crewmates here: just a group of confused passengers standing by the doors that led out to the boarding area for the lifeboats.
“What’s going on?” I asked the group.
“We’re trying to get on the boats but nobody knows how to get in,” someone said.
“How do you lower them?”
“Is there a key?”
“Should we just jump?”
“Don’t jump,” I told them. “Look,” I pointed toward one of the windows. “The waves are crashing like mad out there. If you jump, you’re going to drown.”
Chapter 5
Winter
There was a group gathering by one of the doors that led to the lifeboat-loading area. Even though there were lifeboats all around the ship, there were only a few areas where you could easily access them.
So, it seemed like it was really happening.
We were really going to abandon the ship.
I approached a little group who was hanging out near the boat when I heard a snarl. It wasn’t so much a scream as it was this feral, mutant sort of howl. It was gross and scary, and the noise frightened me a little bit. I spun around just in time to see one person racing toward another. The runner threw their body at the other person and knocked them to the ground.
Then they started eating their neck.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Zombies.”
It had to be. Part of me felt like I should run over and try to help, but the logical part of me knew there wasn’t a chance it was going to work. The person being attacked was screaming and a couple of other passengers ran over to try to help, but I found myself slowly backing away.
This was a lost cause.
I had to get off of the ship.
“Someone hit it on the head!”
A couple of people started grabbing things. There was a room service cart sitting around and someone grabbed it and tried to hit the zombie with the cart. That did nothing. The zombie just batted it away. Another person grabbed their own suitcase, which they’d brought up to the deck with them, and tried to hit the zombie.
There was even someone who tore out one of the service phones from the nearby reception desk and tried to use the cord to strangle the zombie, but it seemed unusually strong, and it just kept batting everyone away.
“We need to get the keys to get out of here,” a nearby woman said. She was an older woman with light hair – maybe grey or silver – and sharp eyes. She was carrying a shoulder bag that looked as heavy as my backpack.
“They keys to the deck should be with one of the crew members,” I told her. “I saw them using their keycards on these doors when we did our drill the first day.”
“See anyone around?” A guy who was probably around my age asked. He seemed like he was with the older woman. A grandson, maybe?
“No,” I said, looking around. Most of the crowd had gathered near the zombie fight. I wasn’t interested in getting any of that blood spatter on myself, thank you very much. Instead, I started scouring the groupings of people looking for any sort of crew member.
Then I realized the person being eaten was, in fact, a crew member.
Crap.
Their body was covered with blood, but the zombie had left them alone and was now fighting a couple of other passengers. The guy with the older woman seemed to see what I was going to do, and he shook his head.
“Don’t do it,” he said. “You might touch its blood.”
“And what if I don’t touch the blood?” I said. “If I don’t touch the blood, I’ll get the keys, and then we can get on those lifeboats.”
“Do it,” the woman said. “Just be careful, honey.”
“Okay,” the guy finally agreed. “Just be careful,” he echoed the woman’s words.
I moved carefully, crouching down as I slowly approached the corpse that was lying on the ground. It was definitely a corpse at this point. Whether it was going to become an animated corpse was left to be seen. I’d watched my fair share of horror movies, but nothing had really prepared me for this.
What was I supposed to do?
I’d seen crew members who kept their keycards on lanyards around their waist and a few who kept them around their necks. Both of these places didn’t seem especially good for security purposes.
I looked over my shoulder at the woman and the guy who were watching me. No one else was really paying attention. People were trying to kill the zombie thing, and another one had shown up. That had drawn the rest of peoples’ attention.
If this virus spread the way I thought it probably was going to, then we didn’t have much time.
Who knew?
Maybe it had a long incubation period and people who got infected on the island yesterday were just now showing symptoms. Maybe you could get it from being bitten or eating bad food. Maybe the way you were infected changed how long it took for you to turn, to become one of those things.
I didn’t know.
“Do it,” the guy whispered, urging me to keep moving.
“Shut up,” I snapped. If he suddenly wanted these keys so badly, he could help. There I was, risking my life for a stranger.
Well, that wasn’t really true.
I was risking my life for myself.
I understood that if I didn’t get the keys to the area with the lifeboats, we weren’t going to be able to board. There were probably extra lifeboats for the crew and the captain somewhere else on the ship, but I didn’t know where. I’d seen enough Internet videos of emergency lifeboats to know that there were different types and they were located on different parts of the ship.
Well, this was the only area I knew about, and besides, I was already here.
It was time.
I crouched, moving closer to the crewmate. I hated that I was doing this. It felt like graverobbing, and the body wasn’t even cold. It felt slimy.
I’d never really considered myself to be this morally superior person, yet something about what I was doing felt strange. It didn’t matter, though. I needed to keep reminding myself that it didn’t matter.
I spotted the keycard hanging from the crewmate’s pocket and I reached out, careful not to touch any of the blood. The keys were attached to a lanyard or a string of some kind, but it was coming from inside of their pocket. I tugged, locating a tiny hook, and then I released the key.
That was it!
I’d done it!
I turned around, excited and happy, but my face instantly fell.
Just a moment ago, there had only been one infected per
son. Then there had been two. Now, when I turned around, I saw even more making their way down the hallways toward us. A couple of people had stopped fighting the lone zombie they’d grabbed and realized there were more coming.
A lot more.
“Everyone to the lifeboats,” I said.
My voice came out scared and stuttering. It sounded like I was cold because my teeth were starting to chatter. I’d felt fear before.
Everyone had.
This was different than the fear you felt standing at the top of the high dive for the first time, though.
This was different than the fear you had when you were the new kid in middle school and had to introduce yourself to the class.
This was different.
“Run!” I screamed, and I charged toward the doors.
Chapter 6
Winter
Once we got to the area with the lifeboats, I headed as far down the balcony as I could. The boats were huge and were designed to hold large numbers of people, but if everyone crowded at the first couple of ones, we were going to have a traffic jam.
If the infected people on the ship really were zombies, then I didn’t want to take the chance that one of them might try to attack a huge group.
I also didn’t want to take the chance that someone in our lifeboat group might be infected and then attack all of us once we were at sea.
“Hey!” The guy from inside, as well as his grandma, jogged slowly behind me.
“Come on, then,” I said, striding toward one of the last lifeboats. “If you’re not infected, you can ride with me.”
“Gee, thanks,” the guy rolled his eyes. “I’m not infected, though.”
“Me neither,” said the woman.
“I’m Isaiah,” the guy told me.
“Greta,” the old lady said.
“Winter. Come on.”
There wasn’t really time for pleasantries. I started to climb into the boat, but I quickly realized that the thing was hue. It wasn’t like some little life raft you’d see on television shows or in movies. It was something else. It was big, and it was complicated, and it was-
“Honey, you have to take the safety pins out first,” Greta said gently. She pointed to a couple of pins that were keeping the lifeboat in place. “My late husband was a sailor. He made sure I knew about these,” she explained.
Greta walked over and started pulling the pins out.
“Woah, I never would have known that,” Isaiah murmured. He kept looking over his shoulder, trying to spot zombies or other people, I guessed. I couldn’t quite tell what it was that he was looking for. Danger, probably.
I should have been looking out for danger, too.
I felt stupid for being caught so unprepared by something like this, but logically, I knew that it wasn’t my fault. I had been on vacation, after all! It wasn’t like I’d been at a wilderness survival camp when this happened. Vacation was supposed to be the time when you were able to just really relax and stay calm.
It wasn’t supposed to be a time when everything was just horrible.
“You can learn a lot from a sailor,” Greta smiled.
My head whipped around so fast I almost got whiplash. Greta was smirking. What a sly fox. Also, what a wildly inappropriate time for any sort of innuendo. She just shrugged when she saw me, and we got back to work.
A moment later, the pints were pulled out and then we all looked at the boat. It was bigger than I thought it was going to be, but it still was so small compared to the cruise ship.
So, we were really doing this, weren’t we?
We were really about to go overboard in a lifeboat.
The idea seemed both crazy and perfectly normal to me. I didn’t want to have to say goodbye to the cruise ship, but it seemed like it was the only way to be safe. If we made it onto the lifeboat and in the morning, everything was normal, then we probably wouldn’t have to worry, right?
They could just pull the boat back up.
Only, I had a feeling that things weren’t going to be that simple or easy. Life rarely was.
“Anyone else want in here?” Greta called out to some of the other passengers who were gathering at the other end of the balcony. They either ignored us or couldn’t hear over the sound of the ocean. The waves were still roaring, hitting the side of the boat.
They were almost loud enough to drown out the screaming coming from inside of the cruiser.
“Let’s just go,” Isaiah said.
“We could help them,” Greta looked over. A group of people was climbing into one of the lifeboats.
“Remember to remove the safety pins!” I called out, trying to be helpful.
One of the passengers from that group flipped me off as their little entourage started climbing into one of the lifeboats. They weren’t interested in having anyone help them, apparently. They weren’t interested in anything but their own survival.
Unfortunately, that was going to carry a cost.
Just then, the doors leading back into the main deck, the area where I’d first stolen the keys, burst open. Out poured a group of people who were definitely, totally, completely infected.
“Get in the boat,” Isaiah said. Greta was staring at the zombies as they tore through the first group of would-be escapees. “Get in the boat!”
Together, the three of us hurried into the lifeboat and closed the canvas flap that acted as a door just as the first zombies neared us. I heard one slam against the outside of the lifeboat, and then another one hit. The canvas cover bounced, but held. The top of the boat was a harder plastic material that I knew nothing would be able to break through. It was the “door” I was worried about.
“What do we do?” I yelled. It was dark in the lifeboat. I hadn’t thought to grab anything like a flashlight or lighter. Not that it was a good idea to use a lighter in an enclosed space like that. Maybe Greta knew. There had to be a way to lower the lifeboat from inside of the boat, right?
It couldn’t just be an exterior lever because if it was, it would mean that everything was done for.
It would mean that we were done for.
“Isaiah, what do we do?” I asked. “Greta?”
“Hold on,” Greta said. “Anyone have a flashlight?”
“Uh, no,” Isaiah muttered. “Should’ve kept one of those keychain ones, huh.”
“No worries,” Greta fidgeted with something, and a moment later, there was light. She held up her phone. “Everyone told me I was too old to be playing around with cell phones,” she laughed, “guess they were wrong. Now, let’s see...”
I watched as she looked around for a moment until she found the lever she was looking for.
“This should lower us,” she said. “As long as nothing goes wrong. Better put some life preservers on, just in case.”
“Life preserver?” Isaiah looked confused.
“She means life jackets,” I tossed him one of the orange monstrosities. Yes, they would keep us safe, but at what cost? I slipped mine on, too, and handed one to Greta. Once we were all safely protected from drowning, she pulled the lever.
We could still hear people hitting the outside of the boat, which was pretty frightening in and of itself, but once the boat lowered into the water, it would all be okay, right? The lifeboat was completely covered. It was more like a life-submarine. Nothing could get in here if it couldn’t open doors.
Right?
Only, as the boat started to lower, we heard a loud thud on the top of the boat.
“What the hell was that?” Isaiah asked, looking up.
Greta and I didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. Something had jumped on top. We all knew what it was. We all knew this meant the infection was going to follow us.
We didn’t know what exactly had just happened on the cruise ship, but we weren’t children. We knew that this meant everything was going to change. Everything was going to be different. Moving forward, everything we faced was going to be hard.
No matter what hap
pened after this, the world would never be the same.
I’d never imagined that taking a cruise would lead to me needing to use one of the lifeboats. I never thought I’d pilfer keys from a dead body. I didn’t think I’d group up with a ragtag group of fellow survivors.
I didn’t think I’d ever use the word survivor to refer to myself.
The banging sounds on the top of the lifeboat continued as the boat kept going down. It seemed like we’d been going down for a long time. Then again, it was a huge ship. It was bigger than anything I’d ever been in before, and honestly, it was bigger than anything I’d probably ever go on again.
After all of this, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to want to travel again for a long, long time.
“It’ll fall off,” Greta said. Her words were more confident than her tone.
“How can you be sure?” Isaiah asked quietly.
Greta’s light was still on, and it was easy to see the fear reflected in his face. Was that what my face looked like? Did I look that afraid? That scared?
Was that what I looked like to both of them?
“Nothing can survive long floating around on the ocean,” she murmured.
I didn’t want to point out that we were going to be floating around on the ocean. Maybe she realized that and she knew. Maybe she was quite aware of the fact that we were going to be sitting ducks.
Once this lifeboat hit the water, then what?
Even if the zombie on top fell off, what about us?
There was probably some food on the lifeboat. Most likely, we would find things like a first aid kit and some water bottles, but what happened after that?
What happened when that stuff was gone?
“Do you think someone will come rescue us?” I asked.
Nobody said anything, though, and a second later, our boat hit the water. It landed with a loud thud that jolted all of us. I was glad for the lifejackets. Mine kept me from hitting my body against the hard siding of the boat.
And then we were free.
Then we were floating.
We were probably supposed to do something to start steering the boat, but we didn’t do anything at first. We just sat there, listening to the sound of the creature hitting the top of our lifeboat.
Stay Dead | Book 1 | Wild Undead Page 4