When he first spotted the effects of the virus on his face Tom applied over the counter salves, hoping it would help, and concealed the blemishes with a dab of his wife’s makeup. He even contemplated, for about half a minute, tapping into his nontaxable moonlighting money to get a skin graft to cover it up. He could tell Paula he got injured in the line of duty, a skirmish with a perp or something, and needed to be patched up. He presumed a skin graft would buy him some time. Skin graft sounded better than plastic surgery, which is what the tabloids reported the smarmy TV weather man on the national news, self-indulgent rich people, celebrities, and politicians did to cover up the calling card of the virus.
It was a scheduled drug raid that convinced him to stop hiding it and let the chips fall where they may. Tom hadn’t seen Carla in over a month, but was looking forward to reconnecting for a little celebration after the payoff for a tip off.
The lead team swarmed on the location and kicked in the door. Roger and Tom knew the drill. The room would be empty except for a small cache of drugs. Routine. Only this time was different. Tom heard officers shouting, “Hands behind your head! Hands behind your head!” Someone was there. Shots rang out as several officers fired at once.
Carla was still in the apartment, kneeling over her brother Hector’s bloody body, his intestines hanging from her mouth. When the police entered she seemed disoriented and wild eyed, ignoring the officer’s commands. She leapt at them like a rabid animal and they put her down with extreme prejudice. Her once pretty face blown apart. Tom was speechless.
He ran the time line in his head and presumed he would turn full zombie just like she did. It was only a matter of time. He stayed at the station as long as he could most days, sometimes burning the midnight oil, hiding behind his makeup. If he was going to turn he was going to make damn sure it wasn’t at home where his wife and daughter would be in danger. He was going to be surrounded by officers who would mercifully end him with a bullet.
But it didn’t come. And when it didn’t, Tom realized that he only contracted the flesh eating virus and nothing more. Carla must have recently contracted the mutated strain from one of her other men, or shared an infected drug needle or something. Tom was relieved, but his euphoria soon dissipated. The virus he had was a slow killer. It was going to take over—eventually win. Even now he could feel the noose tightening—the virus boring its way through muscle and tissue, showing its ugly face through his epidermis. If he bothered to go to a doctor he was certain that his internal organs were experiencing the same slow disintegration. So far, even though his face looked like it came from hell, all bodily functions seemed normal. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Tom couldn’t hide it from his wife forever. Hell, he knew she was smart enough to figure out he’d been with someone else, but the virus gave him clarity. He wanted his life back, despite how short it may be. He wiped the makeup off in front of Paula. He wanted her to see it, see him bare his soul. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. He had to come clean. He would work through his marital issues and his brothers on the force would rally around him with support. A new lease for his remaining days. He was wrong.
Paula listened, then stood and calmly, but authoritatively, tore him a new asshole and told him to get out. She further assured him that she would wait until their divorce was official before she told their daughter Holly the sordid details. Tom didn’t argue. Tears of shame and sorrow welled in his eyes. His plan backfired. He received no sympathy and knew he deserved none. Despite his actions, he loved his wife, always will, and agreed to leave without trying to dissuade her. He deserved to suffer his condition alone. He was embarrassed to face his daughter, but glad neither she nor Paula knew about the drug money. That would only compound things. Which was worse? Daddy’s a dirty cop, or he cheated on mom with a prostitute? Tie. But it was a tender mercy that Holly only knew the latter.
#
Tom was snapped from his daydream by something he hadn’t seen in days. Sunlight. He blinked and it was gone. At first he thought he imagined it. His eyes searched the darkness, passed the bodies blocking his view, and then he saw it again. A sliver of light like a vertical gash cut in the wall, but then it was gone with a loud clank. Tom worked his way through the throng to inspect where he’d seen it, pushing aside bodies as he went. The gash of light appeared again. Clank—it was gone. It appeared that one of the doors had been jarred loose somehow. The truck was moving, but it was still quite a smooth ride. A good opportunity to open the door and take a peek.
Tom gripped the door firmly and proceeded to open it just enough to poke his head out. Suddenly, the door flung open, caught by strong wind, and Tom hung on for dear life. The daylight outside was blinding after being in constant darkness for so long. Fighting to hang on against the battering wind, Tom squinted against the brightness to look below, horrified to find himself dangling more than a hundred feet over open ocean. His legs flailed in search of footing.
A cross wind slapped the door pushing it closed, but it was difficult for Tom to get back inside as bodies were aimlessly shambling out of the opening and plunging into the ocean. Between the intermittent flow of bodies, Tom seized an opportunity to grab hold of the other door, which was still closed, and climbed it to the top of the container. Luckily for Tom, there were no other containers on top of his.
From his perch, lying flat on his belly, he caught his breath for a moment and reasoned that it must have been during one of his opportunities to get some sleep that the flatbed truck’s container was transferred to the ship. Tom observed that his container looked to be one of the last ones loaded. They were stacked five deep and the ship was longer that two football fields, packed full with containers. It looked almost surreal. My God! Are these all filled with zombies? Tom knew the closest ports able to handle a ship this big were in New York or New Jersey—a good twelve hours from Chicago. Come to think of it, those were the bumpiest hours of the trip. Recalculating his time spent locked in the dark—accounting for travel to the port—he surmised that he must have been at sea for about five days. At least it made sense as to why the trip was so long.
Tom looked over the edge and watched helplessly as more of his traveling companions dropped into the water from the opened container. I wonder if zombies can tread water, Tom thought out of morbid curiosity. Will they float, or eventually sink to the bottom, waterlogged, and walk aimlessly on the ocean floor?
He’d noticed some of the bodies hit a railing on the ship’s narrow rear deck before they entered the water. Climbing down to that deck was Tom’s best bet to avoid being spotted sprawled across the container tops by whatever crew members might be looking from the bridge. To get there he had to climb back into his container and regroup.
Once navigating his way back inside, Tom wanted to stop the zombies from falling overboard. The cargo container door was swinging haphazardly in the wind, but it never seemed to swing close enough to grab. Always just out of arm’s reach.
Tom though a moment. Two arm lengths might do the trick. He scanned the compartment for a suitable candidate and found one brittle enough. “Now, this won’t hurt a bit,” Tom said, as he placed his foot on a fallen zombie’s collar bone, gripped its bony arm in his hand, abruptly separating it from its decrepit owner.
After a few test swings of the arm, Tom was ready. He waited for the door to swing close enough, and on the third try his timing was just right. The gnarled fingers of the makeshift tool hooked around the edges of the door frame sufficiently to pull it within reach of his own hand. Tom then tore off one of his shirt sleeves, and used it to lash the doors together by their latches.
When he turned from the door two decayed faces met him. Their teeth were slightly bared, but cocked their heads as if uncertain of whether to bite Tom or not.
“Alright, fellas. Back it up.” Tom pushed them backward. “I’m one of you. Remember?”
The best way to climb down to the deck was to use some sort of rope. Lacking any rope, Tom recalled t
he medical examiner telling him once that the small intestine was about twenty-three feet long. Tom scratched his bearded chin—his condition reminding him that facial hair would only grow where his skin was not affected by the flesh eating virus—and calculated that it would only take five of his sacrificial passengers to make one hundred and fifteen feet of intestinal rope. He looked discriminatingly around the crowded container once more, but thought better of it. Nah. Too messy—and slippery.
Another zombie unexpectedly reached out for Tom, its mouth agape, and again Tom shoved it back. What the hell? The six foot tall half skeleton awkwardly tried to resist his shove but fell to the floor. Tom’s hand held onto its filthy shirt which ripped in the process. Tom looked at the shirt, then at his own shirt sleeve securing the door shut and got an idea. As fast as he could, Tom set about undressing every single one of the remaining undead carcasses and tied their clothes together to fashion a makeshift rope.
A young woman wearing a familiar necklace with the letter S dangling from it was soon before Tom as he undressed her. “Susan. We meet again. Let’s call this our second date, shall we?” Tom undressed her, savoring the moment at first, but the discolored, mottled flesh of her torso, and exposed bloody muscle and tissue glistening in the sunlight, reaffirmed that his decision to not go all the way on their first date was a good call.
When he’d run out of clothes he prayed it was enough. With a belt at the end of his rope tied to the door’s hinge, Tom opened the door and began his slow descent.
The container was soon many feet above him and bodies still emptied out overhead. Most cleared him by a few yards, but Tom was always aware that all it would take would be for one of those bone sacks, now with exposed rotting genitals, to make contact and knock him right into the ocean.
Tom knew he couldn’t be quick, but he could be safe. Each footfall he found on latches, locks, rods and the like were a godsend for stability. Hand over hand, he worked his way passed the knots in the smelly, soiled clothing. Belts, shirts, T-shirts, camisoles, underwear, bras, socks and pants—all secure. Along the way he clutched one pair of pants with a familiar wallet protruding from the pocket. Tom looked below to the bodies bobbing in the water. “Thanks, Garvin.”
Part 3
On the ship’s bridge, Captain Johansen was once again attempting, in earnest, to reach someone on the radio. Anyone. The radio aboard the civilian container ship, the Georgia Rose commissioned by the U.S. Army, was in working order before leaving New York, but mid-way across the Atlantic it started acting up and Major Fleming instructed the captain to ignore protocol and continue on. Captain Johansen had put the ship’s tech on the case and, despite not knowing what the problem was, the tech promised to get it up and running before they reached their destination.
“Radio’s still on the fritz, major,” Johansen reported to the stern-faced figure hurriedly entering the bridge.
“To hell with the radio! I need the P.A. system,” Major Fleming barked to Johansen.
“Why’s that, major?”
Fleming cast his eyes angrily in the man’s direction. “This may be your ship, Captain Johansen, but its cargo belongs to me.”
“You mean it belongs to the United States Army,” Captain Johansen corrected with authoritative obstinacy.
Fleming’s nostrils flared. “One of my men spotted some of my… the army’s… cargo off your ship’s stern.”
“Then I am the one who alerts my crew to make sure that the rest of the containers are secure, major, not you.” Johansen took hold of the public address microphone.
Fleming snatched it from the captain’s hand. “I wasn’t going to alert your precious crew. The rest of the cargo is fine.” His voice then began to echo over the P.A. system. “Mr. Dexter, I must admit that I am surprised by your longevity.” There was a pause as if Fleming were waiting for his words to permeate every nook and cranny of the ship. “It seems you have eluded death several times, but I assure you that your luck will run out shortly. You were supposed to—shall we say—self-destruct after…,” he glanced at Johansen as he continued, “your meeting with the congressman, but that didn’t go according to plan, now did it? I actually thought that problem had been rectified when we lost our mutual friend Roger Norton in that horrible explosion. It wasn’t until I discovered that you had stowed away in one of my trucks that I realized you were the monkey wrench behind the NATO snafu. You’re quite the survivor.”
Captain Johansen looked perplexed. He then looked to the scant members of his crew on the bridge, whose faces looked just as confused.
“I am equally impressed,” Fleming continued, “at how you managed to get out of a sealed cargo container. They can’t be opened from the inside, so that must have been nearly impossible. Oh, wait… was it easier than you’d expected? Almost too easy perhaps?” Fleming chuckled knowingly.
“Mr. Dexter, you may be able to mingle amongst your zombie friends, thinking you blend in, but sneaking onto my base and stowing away in a truck does not go unnoticed by surveillance cameras. Now that’s sloppy work, even for you.”
Captain Johansen could hold his tongue no longer. “What the hell is going on here, major? Am I to understand that you’ve allowed a stowaway onto my ship?”
“Relax, Captain. This man has been a thorn in my side for long enough, but he won’t be a burden much longer, I assure you. He has nowhere to run. I will flush him out and put an end to his meddling before we reach Iceland.”
Iceland? Had Tom Dexter heard right? Fleming was so caught up in his own bravado that he’d forgotten to release the button on the microphone.
#
Tom was headed below deck when Major Fleming’s familiar voice cut to his core. So much for the element of surprise. He had not anticipated that the major would be aboard, let alone be aware that Tom had hidden in one of the containers, but now that the gauntlet had been thrown down, Tom needed to prepare for a showdown.
Tom continued down the flights of metal stairs below deck presuming there would be more cover of darkness there in which to hide. He was wrong. Fluorescent lights illuminated everything. He saw a sign pointing to the galley. He didn’t know how much time he had before Fleming and his men would come searching for him, but after almost a solid week with no food or water he needed sustenance.
He grabbed only what he could find quickly—a loaf of bread, a bunch of bananas and four bottles of water. He also snatched the eight inch chef’s knife from its magnetized holder on the wall before following signs further below deck to the engine room. He thought there must be a thousand hiding places down there.
The labyrinth of rooms were filled with pipes, large machinery and assorted mammoth contraptions. It was nothing like the movies that feature dim lighting on ships to create a mood. The fluorescent lights illuminated everything with only a few dark places in which to hide.
The noise in the engine room was a constant loud chugging sound, like amplified industrial sewing machines.
Deep in the bowels of the ship, Tom had hunkered down in the shadows between massive pipes and hoped that the horrific stench he carried on him from being cooped up with rotting cargo didn’t give away his position.
He hid for an hour, content to be consuming his much needed food and water, and was surprised that he didn’t detect soldier’s boots on the hunt for him.
He checked his watch. It would be nighttime soon, and venturing out again under the cover of darkness might help him regain the element of surprise.
From his position he spotted something out of the corner if his eye. He sighed with relief that it was only a rat scurrying by, sniffing at the air, catching the scent of Tom’s food. It drew closer and closer to Tom’s hiding place.
“Oh, go away. You’re going to blow it for me.” Tom pinched off several pieces of bread and tossed it behind the rat hoping to lure it away from him. It worked. The rat turned and ate its way along the trail Tom created more than twenty feet away.
Gorging itself, the rat stalled to ea
t some of its bread near a large piece of machinery that stretched to the ceiling.
As quick as a snake, a crusty hand reached from behind the machine and snatched up the rat, startling Tom who sunk as deep as he could into his burrow.
A lumbering zombie came into view gnawing on the rodent, now as lifeless as a cupcake. Tom observed, as the creature feasted, its naked body and battered twisted limbs. From its appearance Tom reasoned that it likely hit the deck rather than falling in the ocean when it tumbled from the opened container and eventually made its way below deck.
When the rat was as stripped as an apple core, the staggering mutant sniffed the air and turned its head in Tom’s direction as if registering fresh meat. It began to walk to his location.
What the hell? Tom thought. Why is he coming after me?
In vain, Tom tossed a slice of bread at the creature. It kept advancing. A banana didn’t work either. Hell, there was always a chance that it would slip on the banana like in a cartoon. No such luck.
“It looks like he will be feasting on two rats, Mr. Dexter.” Major Fleming’s voice cut through the noise of the machinery. Tom noticed that it wasn’t booming like before over the P.A. system. Fleming was speaking loudly from nearby, but from Tom’s precarious position he couldn’t pinpoint where.
The foul creature reached between the thick pipes for Tom, but Tom was able to flatten himself behind them enough to stay out of reach.
Fleming observed from a narrow catwalk high above the engine room like a Roman emperor watching a lion about to tear a Christian to shreds.
“You are probably wondering why you no longer seem resistant to this creature’s craving for fresh meat.”
The contorted body of the naked zombie pressed itself against the pipes even harder.
The Tale of Tom Zombie (Book 3): Zombie Resurrection Page 2