And the Blood Ran Black

by Nathan E. Harvey

  An elderly man, whose version of broken English hinted that he was a local, moved in to defend Moto, and shoved at one of the large Russians as he yelled. Another of the sizeable men, who had been vocal in not letting Moto aboard, moved in and separated the two with extended arms. Unprepared for the shove, the old Puerto Rican man tripped over the foot of someone behind him, and fell head first into the ship’s railing. The harder John and the others all fought and pleaded, the more men came to hold them back as Moto was dragged away.

  “What are you doing with my brother? Let him go! There is nothing wrong with him! Someone, please stop them!”

  One of the Russian men who had previously remained silent spoke up on John’s behalf. Whatever he said caused the other men to stop dragging Moto away. He spoke calmly with the other men and, on occasion, would translate for John.

  “I tell them you don’t think your friend turn evil. I tell them he no bit,” the man said.

  “Yes, yes!” John said. “Tell them they don’t have to kill him. Tell them everything is okay, they’re safe.”

  The man spoke some more in Russian, and it appeared that the other men were considering whatever he’d said. After a brief conversation, the Russians that had been holding John back pushed him forward toward Moto. The two exchanged a brief hug that was cut short as the Russians grabbed each of them and began dragging them both away.

  John yelled, as he searched frantically for the translator. “What? What did you say? You’ve got to believe me! What did you say, you moron? What are you doing?”

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  John stumbled around in the darkness of the unfamiliar room, fumbling around sacks of flour and scattering canned goods across the floor before finally finding a light switch. Light spilled across the room from a lone, naked bulb. Silently propped against a bare wall sat Moto, gingerly touching the gashes that covered his lower legs. Moto’s concern for infection trumped any curiosity one would normally have for their indefinite holding cell. The storage room was small and, for the most part, devoid of any useful items--aside from the extensive canned food supply. There was a vent for air circulation, but John noted that it was much too small to escape through. The lone door had been sealed tightly, though John did notice that the hinges were facing inward. The room was never intended to keep someone in.

  “I think I can get us out of here,” John said.

  “There’s no point,” Moto responded, still inspecting his wounds. “We’re on a ship. What would we do, go hide in another store room? Besides, they wouldn’t lock us in here with their food if they thought of us as enemies. They’re just holding us here, waiting to see if I turn into a zombie.”

  “How’s your leg?” John asked. “It doesn’t look like it’s bleeding too bad.”

  “Nah, nah, I’m good. I can walk fine and everything. I just can’t help but wonder if this is the beginning of the end for me.”

  “Moto, nobody has seen as much of this stuff as we have. These guys are just paranoid. Remember the guard in the lab? He died right in front of us before he turned. He was completely normal up until then.”

  “I know, I know. But I can’t stop thinking that some of those chemicals that spilled are what infected him, and that’s why he reanimated when he did. He may have been clean before you tackled him.”

  “If that’s the case, don’t you think you would’ve turned by now?” John asked.

  “You’re right. Logically, I know that you’re right. But… it’s just a weird feeling, ya know? You start wondering if you’ll be able to feel pain when you become one of them. Wonder if you’ll still comprehend what you’re doing, but you just can’t stop yourself. If there’s any chance you could be normal again.”

  “Tell you what,” said John. “The second you start drooling and coming at me all aggressive-like, I will personally put you out of your misery.”

  “Well, maybe get a little more confirmation before you off me. You pretty much described every morning that you’ve had to wake me up,” Moto said.

  “Deal,” John said with a slightly crooked smile. “I mean, it’s the obvious choice. What else would I do, let you eat me?”

  “Whatever,” Moto laughed. “You know you’d cry yourself to sleep every night if you ever really had to…”

  The door unexpectedly swung open. An American-looking man with closely cropped, brown hair that was beginning to show specks of grey poked his head inside. He smiled uncomfortably and tried to look casual while checking the brothers’ hands for weapons before partially shutting the door behind him with one arm, blankets folded neatly under the other.

  “I’m Jim,” he said softly. “Sorry none of us could really do much more for you guys back there. I’m so glad to see that you’re both okay.”

  “I mean, it would’ve been nice to know they weren’t dragging me to put a bullet through my head and toss me over the side of the ship,” Moto grumbled while bracing himself to stand.

  “No, you don’t have to get up,” Jim said before tossing each of the men a blanket. “I didn’t come to let you out; they’d throw us all overboard. You just have to understand the guys’ paranoia with this whole thing. They roll in to find the docks have all been blown to hell, and there’s no one answering the radio. They start spotting these cadaverous things crawling around with no legs. Half of them burned head to toe, others with holes through their chests and eyes hanging out. Before we even realized what was going on, we found ourselves knocking zombies off the deck to try and save the ship. We were just about done cleaning up all the blood and guts when we found you guys. I wasn’t even sure we were gonna be able to convince the Russians not to just leave you in the water. Anyhow, they just want to hold you here for the night, make sure everything’s cool. I felt bad that I didn’t do more for y’all earlier, so I thought I’d at least bring you some stuff to sleep on and let you know where you stand.”

  “Thank you, Jim. Thanks so much,” John said with a handshake.

  “Anyhow, we’ll catch you guys in the a.m.” Jim said while opening the door. “You guys hang tight, and we’ll have you back to the States in no time.”

  The door lock clicked as John processed Jim’s last sentence and looked up at Moto who paused his languid effort at arranging his bed. Moto raised his eyebrows with a new, optimistic countenance, and John let slip a full smile.

  Moto awoke to the slight tinking sound from a large mosquito bumping into the bare light bulb. John, it appeared, was fast asleep. John had always preferred leaving a light on at night… something he had never even attempted to outgrow. Every time Moto tried to point out how juvenile this was, John would fire back with Moto’s desperate need for a fan or music in order to doze off. He had unknowingly become more and more dependent on the white noise in order to slow his racing mind each night. The comforting hum that protected his slumber was so engrained that even basic training couldn’t break him from it.

  Before he had acquired his handy portable fan, he’d woken up constantly each night to the squeaking of the patrolman’s shoes on the pristine floor. This served as a more effective deterrent to his mischievous nature than the actual punishment of cleaning the floors with a toothbrush. The nights following Moto’s punishments always produced unbearable squeaks with every step of a rubber-soled boot on the immaculate floor.

  Though his phone’s case had protected it from the ocean’s water, his battery had long since been depleted. Moto squinted into the bright light, and began letting his mind ponder the grotesque nature of mosquitos. It was truly the only one of God’s creatures that Moto had never found a purpose for. He began to wonder if even mosquitoes could transmit this new outbreak the way they could other diseases. What if it could extend beyond being just a carrier, and there were undead mosquitos to worry about? Could this plague reach other animals and not just humans? His mind started to run wild with ideas of the fast-spreading epidemic and what could possibly stop it before things got even more out of hand. At the height of his paranoid p
onderings, the mosquito floated down next to him. Moto emphatically slammed his hand down on the bare floor, forming a perfect “splat” of potentially infected blood on both his hand and the concrete.

  “Bastard!” Moto said and quickly wiped his hand across his chest.

  He looked up to see that John was now awake and looking at him curiously.

  “Were you able to sleep at all last night?” John asked as he extended his legs with a yawn.

  “Not really,” Moto answered. “My phone is dead, so I could hear everything that went on. It seemed like every time I was almost out, something would jolt me back awake. I’m surprised you were able to sleep through it. The way they were banging around, it sounded like they were rebuilding the ship out there.”

  John’s stomach growled violently. He rubbed one hand against it and pushed off the ground to stand. He raised his arms up into an action figure pose and twisted at the hip to pop his back. Looking at his watch, he noticed that it was already past noon.

  “Hm, that’s odd. They should’ve come for us before now. I can’t remember the last time I slept ‘til noon. Surely they didn’t leave us here expecting us to gnaw these cans open.”

  “It’s noon?” Moto asked. “No wonder the night dragged on.”

  “How long has it been since you heard any banging?” John asked as he knocked loudly before pressing his ear to the door.

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to tell when you’re in and out of sleep. Maybe a few hours,” Moto said as he yawned and ran his fingers through his short hair. He caught a concerned glance from John and realized why he’d asked. “You don’t think…?”

  John walked over to an opened, wooden crate and wiggled out a loose nail. Grabbing a can to use as his hammer, he walked back over to the door and began work at tapping loose the bottom hinge’s pin. Moto grew suddenly concerned by the eerie quiet of the ship and pulled loose a small pole from one of the shelves, gripping it like a baseball bat. John pulled out the first pin and held it up to Moto.

  “Even easier than I thought it’d be,” John said.

  “Are you sure we want to go out there?” Moto asked. “If the guys catch us, they’re pissed. If they’re zombies, they eat us. Shouldn’t we just stay in here with the food?”

  “If they’re zombies, who’s gonna steer the ship?” John responded as he pulled loose the second pin and started working at the third. “Besides, I don’t hear any zombies out there.”

  “It’s a big ship, John. I don’t see the pressing need to get out of this room.”

  John pulled loose the last pin and turned to look at Moto. “No offense, but you’ve got better company in here than I…”

  The bottom half of the door collapsed inward, hinging at the doorknob and making John jump backwards. A pustule-covered hand emerged with a grotesquely disfigured face following behind it. Its facial musculature was visibly stretching beneath the few remaining jaundiced strings of skin as the zombie let out a miserable groan. Moto recognized the man as one of the more aggressive, outspoken Russians from the night before. The zombie looked up as it crawled into the storage room and snarled at the sight of Moto and John backing against the opposite wall. It appeared as though the man had received a violent blow to the head. Dried, darkened blood now covered half of his face, and the rest had run down and absorbed into what remained of his shirt. When his weight shifted to crawl, Moto caught a glance underneath his loose hanging shirt. The man had been almost completely disemboweled. The destruction to what remained of his organs made it appear that the man had been made into a meal before rising again.

  The more injuries Moto observed, the more amazed he became at the being’s ability to function. As the zombie pulled clear of the door and started to stand, Moto stepped forward and swung the hollow piping at the creature’s head. The brittle shelving piece snapped on impact, leaving nothing but a short, jagged edge in his hand. He instinctively thrust the pole’s sharp end into the zombie’s eye socket. The thing slumped lifelessly to the ground without theatrics. The black, gelatinous substance which had replaced the man’s blood poured neatly out the other end of the pole. It reminded Moto of the PVC pipe he would use in creeks when hiking in order to capture clean, flowing water into his bottle without stirring up silt. Moto caught himself staring at the even flow that was not gushing with propulsion as it would from a heartbeat, but simply flowing with the pull of gravity. Moto held one boot against the zombie’s forehead and dislodged the weapon from the corpse, a small stream of black liquid still dripping from its eye. Moto quickly followed John out under the catawampus door and cautiously ducked outside.

  Walking a short distance along the deck revealed a gruesome scene with bodies scattered everywhere. Many members of the deceased crew were still grasping makeshift weapons in their hands, now rigid with rigor mortis. One man’s intestines had been spilled from his belly and trailed several feet behind him. A trail of blood marked the path he’d crawled along the deck before succumbing. At the beginning of his trail, it was obvious that the eviscerated man had been able to take some revenge against his attacker. The axe’s head was stuck firmly in the wooden deck with a section of arm lying next to it. He went down fighting, John thought to himself. As the trail continued, the blood became noticeably darker before reaching the corpse. The attacker was still slumped lifelessly over the railing, one arm missing from the elbow. The haggard corpse’s gray skin was splattered with the familiar black discharge and a knife wound to its temple. Someone else had finished the job, and John assumed used the same knife to lay the eviscerated victim to rest as well--the knife still lodged in his skull.

  Suddenly, the ship swung harshly starboard. Ahead they saw the reason for the sudden redirection. A small island was quickly approaching from dead ahead. It appeared to be too late to avoid the obstacle, and the two brothers dove to grasp onto the nearest bolted down object. The unavoidable impact thrust the ship further starboard, sending the zombie corpse overboard.

  Soon after, the ship was motionless, and a loud banging rang out from up above. John raced toward the noise and Moto started to but stopped to first release the lodged axe. He’d need a weapon upgrade before pursuing the source of all the commotion.

  At the top of the stairs, John found one of the Russians banging at the captain’s latched door. The man turned, and John thrust his feet in front of him to stop his forward momentum. John slipped in a trail of gore the man had left behind and fell flat onto his back. The man’s movements weren’t yet rigid, but up close the inhuman expression and the dead pupils were obvious giveaways.

  John’s feet skidded along the metal floor as he struggled to get back upright. The zombie redirected his focus from whatever hid behind the door to John, and bared his blood-stained teeth. Almost upon him, the zombie stopped and let loose an involuntary spray of vomit that streamed seemingly without end. John rolled over onto his stomach and covered his face as best he could to shield himself. Moto reached the top of the stairs and saw the torrent of gore spraying out of the zombie’s mouth and nose, soaking John’s pant legs. Moto had never seen such projection behind vomit but for movies like The Exorcist. Ignoring his gag reflex, Moto started his rotation, and slid both hands to the base of the axe handle, heaving it in a perfect cutting motion and releasing it straight toward the infected Russian. The stereotypical whooshing sound indicated the great force behind the throw as the axe spun, splitting the air for one clean rotation before splitting the zombie’s head. The lodged axe’s handle clanked against the metal floor as the zombie fell limp at John’s feet. Moto helped pull John back up to a standing position with a big grin.

  “Dude, did you see that?” Moto asked. “I can’t believe I actually got him!”

  John nodded, and opened his mouth to speak before succumbing to the unavoidable impulse to hurl.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  Whoever was behind the latched door must have been listening attentively, because, soon after the infected had been dispelled, the captai
n’s door swung open. It was Jim.

  “I’m so glad to see you guys,” he said with red eyes and a relieved voice. He cautiously looked over the two men’s shoulders and motioned for them to quickly enter.

  “My God, what’s happening?” Jim murmured as he sat. His eyes began to tear up, and he buried his face into his blood red hands. When the brothers said nothing, he finally spoke again. “I just froze. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t make myself help.”

  Moto inspected every hidden corner and closet, making sure the coast was clear. “We’re safe, but there are a couple bodies in the bedroom,” he said.

  “It’s okay now,” John said and patted Jim on the shoulder. “What happened?”

  “Man, and I feel terrible for not coming to get you guys,” Jim said as he stood and began to pace back and forth. “I guess I convinced myself that you were safer in the food closet than any of the rest of us running around out here. At least the others were finally able to let you out.”

  “You mean there are more that survived?” Moto asked, hopefully.