Dead Meat | Day 5

by Clausen, Nick

  It’s only a matter of seconds. Better get my butt in gear and get out of here somehow …

  Despite the very clear command from her thoughts, Josefine doesn’t move. A strange sensation fills her. It feels like her body knows something she doesn’t.

  I can’t leave; not with the two of them outside. And I can’t leave him like this.

  It seems like two separate issues, but as they merge together, Josefine’s brain finally catches on and she knows what she needs to do.

  It’s obvious, actually, now that she sees it. She even spoke with Michael about euthanasia.

  At first, the notion is terrifying to her, impossible to even consider. But this is no longer her father. It never will be again. There’s absolutely nothing left of the strong, loving man who raised her. Letting him go on like this is undignified. He would have been mortified had he known he would end up a living corpse. He would probably have ended it himself if he could, simply stopped eating and drinking. There would have been no fear, no hesitation on his part whatsoever. Even up until the end he never lost his fierce determination.

  But I can’t do it … I’m not nearly as strong …

  “Sure you are. You’re my daughter, aren’t you?”

  The voice is so clear in her mind, it’s almost like he spoke right next to her.

  Josefine breathes deeply. Then she looks around the medical equipment, some of it still hanging on the walls, some of it has fallen to the floor. She sees a tiny utensil with a cap on. She picks it up and removes the cap. The silvery blade of a scalpel shines up at her.

  Josefine swallows, and for some reason, she feels a tingle at the back of her neck while Michael’s voice echoes in her mind: “A half-inch cut would probably do it.”

  She looks over at the gurney. One of the remaining straps has given way a few inches, enabling the thing to put one foot on the floor, kicking eagerly to get going, to get at her, its dead eyes fixed right at her chest.

  Josefine maneuvers around to the head-end of the gurney, making sure to keep out of reach of the flailing arms. The chest strap is still in place, hindering the thing in reaching its arms overhead. Instead, it cranes its nearly bald head backwards to growl up at her.

  “I’m so sorry about this, Daddy,” Josefine whispers as she slips the scalpel under his neck. She can’t help but feel the soft skin, and the coolness of it makes her flinch. It also solidifies her decision; whatever this thing is, it’s dead. It should have stopped moving by now. What she’s about to do is simply setting things right.

  She closes her eyes, tries to block out the groans and the creaking from the straps, tries to envision her father’s face, smiling up at her. Tears begin to spill from her eyes, her breathing grows faster, and her hand begins to shake.

  I can’t do it. I just can’t.

  “Sure you can. Go on, sweetheart.”

  Josefine shakes her head as she begins to cry out loud, still with her eyes closed.

  “I don’t even know if it’ll work,” she sobs.

  “It will. The doctor said so. Do it now, sweetheart. Before it’s too late.”

  Josefine clenches her teeth, gathers her willpower, focuses all her attention on the scalpel clutched in her sweaty hand.

  Then there’s a loud snap as the chest strap gives way …

  EIGHTEEN

  “Hello? Eli?” Claus’s voice in his ear, drowsy. “Why you calling so late? Everything okay?”

  Eli isn’t able to answer. He’s barely able to concentrate on driving.

  He’s staring in the rearview mirror. Staring at the backseat. The leather is bulging and moving where Axe’s hands are fondling it from the backside. It looks like he’s already torn out most of the upholstery, the only thing separating him from Eli being the leather. Luckily, his nails don’t seem sharp enough to penetrate it.

  “Cl … Claus,” Eli manages to croak. “I … I need your help …”

  “You sound terrible, buddy. Don’t tell me you used again?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “It’s even worse.”

  A brief pause. “How can it be worse?”

  “Look, I really need to see you.”

  “I’m sorry, buddy, but that’s not going to work.”

  Eli is so stunned he forgets about Axe for a moment. “What? You said I could always call you if I needed help.”

  “Wish I could, but you see—”

  “It’s a matter of life and death!”

  “I get that, Eli, but I’m just not—”

  “You’re just not what? In the mood for my annoying problems? Well, I’m fucking sorry to trouble you, but I almost got killed two times this morning already! How’s that for your—”

  He’s interrupted by a ripping noise causing him to look into the mirror once more. Axe is now biting his way through the leather, tearing at it like an animal. And it’s working. Within seconds, there’s a gash wide enough for his face to squeeze through.

  “Oh, fuck, no!”

  He didn’t look at Axe when they moved him; he made very sure not to. But now, his friend’s face is staring right back at him, protruding comically from the backseat.

  “Eli? Eli?” Claus’s voice calls from somewhere nearby, and Eli realizes peripherally that he must have put the phone back in his pocket without disconnecting the call, because it’s not in his hand anymore.

  Eli can’t get a word out. He can only stare at Axe.

  Axe’s eyebrows are gone, his lips are blistered and pulled back in a snare, revealing the pink gums and white teeth, a string of black leather caught between two of them. His skin is mostly black and has been peeled off in several places, causing the white cheekbones to peek through. Also, his hair is mostly gone, or rather, it’s melted onto the skull like a wilted flower bed.

  No wonder it stinks in here, a thought interjects in Eli’s mind, surprisingly clear. He looks like a pig roast.

  Axe begins squirming eagerly, trying to push his shoulders through the seat.

  Then, Eli is jerked out of his stupor, as the car bounces violently, making its way up onto the sidewalk, smashing a parking meter.

  “Fuck!”

  Eli jerks the wheel sideways just in time to avoid a light post. Instead, he crashes into a parked car. Something white covers his field of vision in a flash, and even before the sound of the collision reaches his ears, his face is slammed into something not quite soft.

  Eli sinks back into the seat with a deep sigh as he slips away into a freeing darkness. The last thing he hears is someone growling behind him.

  NINETEEN

  Iver just stands there for several seconds which feel more like hours, staring at the railing at the place where Mille stood just a moment ago.

  What brings him back isn’t the noises of people fighting and dying, but the toddler moving gently against his chest, whimpering.

  He looks down at the boy’s face, blinking like a sleepwalker being called back to wakefulness. And he recalls the fact that he’s now responsible for this little guy.

  Iver is eighteen and has only had one sexual encounter with a girl—which ended pretty disastrous, as most first times do. The experience did serve a useful purpose, though, as it brought home to him what he’d expected since early puberty, namely that he was gay.

  So being a parent is something very far from how Iver sees himself. He doesn’t have any younger siblings, either, so taking care of a toddler is pretty much completely foreign to him. The closest he comes to any kind of paternity is RuPaul, his Maine Coon, who’s waiting for him in his apartment back in Stockholm.

  Still, to his amazement, he feels a strong surge of protectiveness as he looks at the boy. It’s like a primal instinct coming to life, and he resolves himself to keep his promise to Mille, shoving aside the shock of seeing her jump over the railing, putting a pin in it for later processing, once he’s no longer in danger.

  And, speaking of danger, when he turns to look through the windows,
the sight that meets him is something straight out of a horror movie. Most of the people he sees inside are either dead or dying. A few of them are fleeing. Blood is everywhere, painting the floor and the walls and everybody, even staining the glass in several places. The doors to the elevator close and open again as they meet the obstacle that is a woman eating away at the face of another woman.

  Suddenly, a bald, blood-stained head appears right on the other side of the glass, as an old man rises and begins groping at the window with a hand that’s been gnawed to bloody stumps.

  The toddler whimpers and Iver turns his head gently towards his chest. “It’s all right, don’t look at them,” he whispers.

  The sound of the glass door sliding open causes him to spin around. A young guy not much older than Iver comes waddling out onto the walkway. For half a second, he stops, almost as though to take in the fresh air, tilting back his head slightly.

  He’s using his sense of smell, Iver thinks with a sinking feeling in his gut.

  And his thought is confirmed as the zombie turns towards them and begins staggering down the walkway.

  The glass door is the only way for passengers to enter and exit the walkway. There is, however, another way, which is only meant for emergencies. Iver can’t really think of a situation more emergent than the one he currently finds himself in, so he turns to the other end of the walkway.

  A ladder poised at eye level can be slid down, offering a way to enter the front deck. Iver reaches up and pulls down the ladder. “Listen, little buddy, I need to hold on now, okay? Hold on to me.”

  He’s not sure whether the toddler understands him, but there’s no time to find out, because the young guy is closing in on them, so Iver begins climbing, squeezing the toddler while climbing awkwardly using only one hand.

  It’s difficult but doable, and as the zombie reaches the ladder, Iver’s shoes are just out of its reach. Iver has never been much for heights, and he feels his muscles begin to tense up as the ladder shakes.

  For a terrifying second, he’s sure the zombie has taken up pursuit and is also scaling the ladder. But as he glances down, Iver sees it simply bumping into the ladder, aimlessly groping for Iver’s legs, not even trying to climb up.

  Iver is already several feet above the walkway, yet he’s only halfway to the front deck, and he can’t help but notice how easy it would be to slip and fall over the railing from here, only to plummet to the sea below.

  “Don’t look down,” he breathes, focusing on the ladder. “Just don’t look down.”

  It’s an increasingly difficult task to convince his limbs to keep working, as sweat pours down his forehead despite the chilly sea breeze. But finally, there are no more rungs, and Iver climbs onto the deck, stepping quickly away from the railing, as though some strange vacuum could pull him back over the edge.

  “We made it,” he whispers, offering a weak smile to the toddler, who’s resorted to suck his index and middle finger in an obvious effort to console himself.

  Iver looks around. The deck is lit up by the early day sun and mostly empty but for a couple of smokers. None of them have the slightest idea of what’s going on a couple of decks below them.

  “So far, so good,” Iver says. “Now, let me just think for a second. How do we get off this ship?”

  There are really only a couple of options when wanting to leave a ship at sea.

  Someone picks you up from the air; another ship invites you aboard; you launch a lifeboat; or you jump in the water and begin swimming.

  Iver looks west. Denmark is still very much visible in the horizon. In fact, they seem to be only around eight nautical miles out, which translates to a little over nine miles. That’s a long way to swim, but Iver might be one of the only ones aboard the ferry who could actually do it. He’s an excellent swimmer, having competed at the Swedish national youth championship for the past three years. He’s even trained at swimming long distances at open sea, and right now, the water isn’t even that cold.

  So it’s probably doable. The thing is, he could never do it with a toddler. And he’s not going to abandon either the boy or his promise to Mille.

  Contacting another ship or a helicopter is also out of the question; even if he could get access to a radio and call the Danish authorities, they would need to know why he needed their help.

  Which leaves only one option; the one Charlotte spoke in favor of.

  Iver turns to look up at the bridge—from this position he doesn’t need to worry about the captain or the second mate spotting him, as he’s too close to the bridge. The orange lifeboats, however, are clearly visible from down here, suspended in heavy wires from which they can be lowered down to sea level.

  Lowering and launching the lifeboats is a surprisingly simple task, and it can even be done by only one person. The entire process is operable from inside the boat and is done with no electrical systems, but solely by mechanical and hydraulic means. It also doesn’t require any special access key or the like; only knowledge. And Iver has that knowledge.

  The only challenge, really, is getting to the boats and lowering them without anybody noticing.

  If a passenger spotted the lifeboat being released, panic would quickly spread across the ship.

  If a crew member saw it, word would soon reach the captain, and Iver is pretty sure Sorenson would order security to stop him or maybe even apprehend the boat, should Iver manage to get it launched.

  He even suspects that, failing to stop the lifeboat, Sorenson might feel forced to take more drastic measures, like alerting the authorities, or, even worse, take direct action to sink the lifeboat.

  It’s a crazy scenario, but given the situation and Sorenson’s dedication to his duty, Iver doesn’t find it all too far-fetched.

  So he needs to not only lower the lifeboat unseen, he also needs to get as far away from the ship as possible the moment the lifeboat hits the water.

  Iver looks up at the lifeboats, brooding over the difficult task, trying to find a way to go about it, when, suddenly, a movement by the rear lifeboat catches his eye. He squints to see better.

  A person is handling the crane. Another one pops up from behind the lifeboat. Both are wearing life vests. And one of them looks a lot like …

  “Charlotte,” Iver breathes.

  “Excuse me?” a voice behind him.

  Iver turns around and sees an old lady approaching. Her husband is sitting on a bench, looking this way.

  “Do you work here?” the woman asks in Danish, smiling at him.

  “I … I do,” Iver says.

  “Could you tell me why we’ve stopped? Is there some sort of problem?”

  “It’s, uhm …” Iver fumbles for an excuse. His mind is still working on understanding the fact that he just saw Charlotte prepping the lifeboat—he had taken it for granted that she was long gone by now. But she obviously decided to not go about the task alone, and has spent some time to find someone to help her.

  The old woman is still looking at him, her eyes hopping back and forth between Iver and the toddler in his arms, her expression growing more confused by the second.

  “Listen,” Iver says, deciding suddenly to be honest. “There’s been an outbreak of the Rhabdo-virus on the ship. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I suggest you return to your cabin immediately and lock yourselves in. Bring some food if you have any; you might have to stay there for a while.”

  Iver waits only long enough to see the look of terrified comprehension on the woman’s face, then, before she can ask him anything else, he turns and heads for the nearest door.

  TWENTY

  “Sorry, you guys,” Eli whispers hoarsely. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. We should’ve never left town.”

  Axe looks at him, a curious look on his face. “The fuck are you on about, dude?”

  “You’re dead,” Eli says, feeling like crying. “So is Malthe. It’s all fucked up. Everything is fucked up.”

  Axe scuffs. “Dude, you need to get
a grip.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Eli repeats, and now he can actually feel the tears spilling down his cheeks. “I’ll really fucking miss you guys. You were my best friends, you know. My only friends, really. And the band … how the fuck am I going to live without the band?”

  Axe moves closer. It’s a weird movement, almost like his face is drifting on its own. “Listen, dickbreath, you really need to get yourself together. We all feel sorry for ourselves now and then. I know, believe me. That doesn’t mean you just lie around and cry like that. You either get on with it or you put an end to it.”

  Eli sobs. It’s very dark in here—wherever “in here” is. There’s also an unpleasant smell. And a strange noise. Eli couldn’t care less about any of that, though. All he cares about is that Axe and Malthe are both dead.

  “I’m so sorry,” he sobs. “It’s all my fau—”

  “Hey!” Axe says, his voice turning weirdly distorted, like he’s growling. “You listening to me? If you don’t want to end up like us, then you need to get the fuck up and keep moving!”

  The words are becoming harder to discern as Axe speaks, and something’s happening to his face as well—it’s morphing into something else. Something dead.

  “What … what’s going on?” Eli mutters, trying to sit up, trying to look around, but it’s very hard to move, like he’s being pinned in place by something, and he can’t take his eyes off of Axe’s face, which is still transforming in front of him, the skin flaking and darkening, the features contorting into an angry mask, the pupils fading and leaving the eyes as white, empty balls.

  Axe’s expression turns into a sneer as he croaks: “Get … away … from … me!”

  With each word—which is more of a snarl now—Axe seems to lunge at him, opening and closing his mouth, his teeth clapping right in front of Eli’s face. Spit drizzles onto his face and now the stench is so intense, it finally snaps Eli back into a waking state.

  The surroundings change all at once, and in a flash, Eli realizes where he is: in the front seat of Axe’s dad’s Mercedes, squeezed in between the door and the steering wheel. The airbag is lying on his lap like a big, flaccid balloon.