He drops the microphone and walks offstage. Sarah starts crying, but Sam tries to calm her down.
“Hey, I’m going to need you to calm down.”
“What do we do?” Sarah cries.
“Nothing. We do nothing unless we want to be dead. Well just, wait for Dylan. He probably has something up his sleeve. Until then, we do nothing and wait.”
Julie starts to panic, “Where is she?”
“Who?” Sam asks.
“My sister, Jessica.”
Sam looks around for Jessica, but he doesn’t see her. “Well, try not to look too much. You’ll attract them.”
Julie nods while Sarah wipes her face.
In the bathroom, one man walks in with a gun looking around because he heard noises. Dylan keeps still and waits for the man to get in front of him. The man starts pushing the stalls open, but grunts each time. He finally gets to Dylan’s stall, but Dylan forces the door open and hits the man in the face before he could do anything and starts wrestling with the man for the gun. The man hits Dylan a couple of times in the groin, but Dylan hits the man in the head, gets control of the gun, and shoots the man in the stomach. The man falls to the ground and struggles to breathe, but Dylan stares at him in disgust. Blood had gotten on his shirt and he just stands there in shock. He had never shot a man before, but he knew it was for the best. The man laid defenseless on the ground, but he still reached for Dylan. He takes no chances and shoots him two more times. Paul’s men hear the gunshots, but thinks it is one of them shooting a passenger. Dylan stares at the body in disgust and immediately throws up.
“Oh, God!” Dylan moans. He wipes his mouth and heads out of the restroom.
Paul is walking around when one of his men comes to his attention.
“Sir, the Z virus is ready.”
“Perfect. Get it ready to release.” Paul mutters.
Paul’s radio sounds:
Sir, this is Alfie. You need to get up here fast.
“What is it?” Paul responds
I can’t explain it. Just get here.
Paul puts the radio away and goes to meet Alfie. Dylan walks around the corner and sees that Sam and Sarah are still in the same spot. He goes over to the edge and tries to wave them down, but they don’t see him.
“Dammit!” he says to himself.
Paul’s men walk on the stage carrying devices of some sort and Sam notices very quickly.
“What is that?” he asked.
The men brought out small cylinder containers with a big “Z” logo on them.
“Z,” Sam said to himself.
Paul gets up to the Captain’s quarters and addressed Alfie with an impatient attitude.
“What Alfie?”
“Look,” Alfie pointed outside the ship ahead of them and there was a wave forming larger by the second.
“If it gets to us, it will be huge!” Alfie pointed out.
“Shit! This is ruining our plan! Turn around. We have to go.”
The men each grabbed a container and looked at the passengers.
“Your end is here. You just don’t know it yet. You will.”
The man nodded at the others and they each started to release the containers, but Dylan jumps from around the corner and starts shooting at the men.
“Run!” Dylan shouts as he shot one of the men in the head and keeps shooting.
Everyone starts running everywhere, which causes the men to have difficulty shooting back at Dylan. Sam gets up and takes off to Dylan with Sarah and Julie.
“Dylan!” Sam yelled.
One of the men got a knife out of his back pocket and cuts open the container and throws it into the crowd, but he started coughing from the smoke that released from the container. Inside the container was red smoke that flowed out of the container as it was being tossed around as the ship was turning, making anyone who inhales the smoke feel as if they were taking their last breath. Julie strays away from Sam and the others in search of her sister.
“Jessica!” she yelled repeatedly through the ship. Sam sees her and grabs her arm.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Julie snatches away from Sam, “I have to find her.” Julie begins running the other way and disappears into the crowd, but Sam can’t grab her in time to run.
Meanwhile, Paul is pressuring Alfie to steer them away from the wave. “Let’s go, Alfie!”
“I’m trying! I think it’s too late.”
Paul looks to the side and notices the wave has gotten larger, but instead of them taking it head-on, the wave was about to hit them from the side, which causes Paul to freak out.
“We have to get off this ship!” Paul demanded.
“What about the others?”
“They’re already dead.”
Sam and the others start running outside the ship, walking over bodies that passed out from the smoke, but everybody stops and looks as they stare at the wave approaching. The wave hovered over the ship with the waters making a loud roar that scares Sam and the others into going back into the ship.
“Get back inside! Go!” Sam yells.
Everyone starts running back inside, but the door crowded with people. Others start to run around and go to the edge of the ship. Sam grabs on to the wall and alerts everyone,
“Hang on!”
The wave suddenly hits the ship with a massive blow, shooting its water inside the ship and swinging everyone around the ship. Paul and Alfie get a heavy impact from the water, killing both of them instantly. Sam and Sarah are holding on tight, but Dylan’s hand slips from holding on and the water drags him away.
“Dylan!” Sarah screams.
The ship starts flipping over and suddenly splits in half leaving Sarah and Sam to split up. Many passengers start falling out of the ship, but Sam still manages to hold on, but a chair flies by him and strikes him in the head that makes him lose grip and flies off the ship.
CHAPTER TWO
STRANDED
Waking up only to discover that he is not on the ship, Sam sits up with dried sand all over his body and looks around. He wipes the sand off his face and looks behind him. There was nothing in sight. He was in the middle of nowhere. Around him is an island, and to his surprise, he is not alone. The island was huge, with many trees and the shore filled with sand and large rocks. He notices a body on the ground next to him, but the person beside him was stripped of his life. He looks out into the water and notices part of the ship with others appearing to be dead floating in the water. Sam begins walking around to see if anyone was alive or if he was alone.
“Sarah! Dylan! Julie!” Sam yells.
All Sam heard was the cool breeze of wind and the calm movement of the trees. Sam keeps walking along the shore, fearful to walk into the island. Sam comes up to a large rock and starts climbing it, but when he looks up, he noticed many people that were alive.
“Thank God!” Sam murmurs as he jumps over the rock and walks up to the survivors.
Somebody comes up to him and touches his shoulder. This person was extremely excited to see another survivor. In his case, he looks like he’s been through more due to his clothes being ripped up. “We have a live one!”
He looks at Sam, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Where are we?”
“I don’t know.”
The man starts to help Sam, but Sam backs away, “I’m fine. I just need to find someone.”
“Well, good luck with that. Everyone has split up. We believe that another group may have crashed on the other side of the island.”
“It won’t hurt to try.”
Sam walks around looking for Sarah and Dylan, but as he looked around, his facial expression changed when he observed a woman holding her child crying. “Oh man.” Sam sighed.
The woman was not the only one suffering. There were many others passed out and in critical condition from the crash. Sam walks over to a person and gets his attention, but another man gets his attention, “Excuse me. You were the one
who just showed up?”
“Yes. How did you know that?”
“That young man over there just told me. You’re not feeling sick, are you?”
“No. why?”
“Whatever those men had in those containers are dangerous. Those who inhaled the smoke started coughing. Badly. Now they’re feeling sick. We were lucky we weren’t all caught up in that.”
“What was that? Like a terrorist attack?”
“Maybe. We’re just lucky to be alive. Whatever they did to us is taking a huge toll. It’s like a poison, but worse.”
“Yeah, maybe. How long has it been? You know, since we’ve been on this island?”
“If I had to guess, I would say about 5 hours.”
“Why us?”
“We can’t change what happens to us, but we can either give up or fight. In this case, I don’t think we have a choice,” the man extends his arm to Sam, “My name’s Matthew.”
Sam looks at him quickly and gives a blank reaction, “Sam.”
Sam looks at all the sick, “And they’ve been like this since?”
“Yeah. No telling what the hell was in that container.”
Sam drifts off in his mind and thinks to himself, “I knew this was a bad idea! I should’ve stayed at home when they asked me! Now I’m just like Dad and-”
A scream interrupted Sam’s thought and caught his eyes instantly. He rushes to one of the sick who appeared to be shaking very heavily and rapidly with foam coming out of his mouth. A woman was holding him down, but she was panicking too much to hold him down tight.
“What’s happening?” she cried.
“Whatever was in that container is taking effect on him,” Matthew explained.
“What’s going on?” Sam said.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen this happen. I know they’re not going to make it.”
Suddenly, many of the sick started doing the exact same thing, but even worse. Everybody started holding down the sick, but there were too many of them to try to contain them all. Sam starts helping the woman hold down the man, but he stopped shaking, but also stopped breathing. Sam puts his ear on the man’s chest, but he heard no heartbeat.
“He’s not breathing.” Sam nervously sighed.
The woman started crying, but Sam did not give up hope. He started giving the man CPR, but the man did not respond. It was too late. The poison had gotten the best of him. Sam steps away from the body with such shock to see someone die in front of him for the first time. The woman lays across the man crying, but others try to get her off him, but she refuses.
Soon, every sick person started dying one by one like dominoes tipping over and no one could stop what was occurring.
“None of them are breathing.” one man yells from a distance.
Sam starts breathing hard trying to figure out what to do. He did not know how to calm everyone down. He wanted to keep them from freaking out. This was something that none of them could handle right now. They have no kind of equipment to try to help them.
“Shit!” Sam says to himself.
Crying and mourning started covering the silence of the island and Sam could not deal with it. He walked into the forest of the island and leaned against a tree.
“What the hell is going on?” Sam whispers.
Sam knew whatever was happening had something to do with the poison the terrorists had. He was scared. Defenseless. Alone.
The woman was still crying on the dead man, but she suddenly heard a low groan. She lifted her head off him and looked at his face.
“Daniel?” she cried.
His eyes opened, but his pupils were turning a dark color and his eyes started to look rotten. His fingers started twitching and his mouth opened and made a loud screech. The woman was startled and tried to get away from him, but he grabbed her and started biting her throat. She screamed with pain, but no one could get to her in time. The man had already started chewing on her neck. Sam hears the scream and runs to her help, but she was already gone. Matthew pulled him off the woman, but Daniel stood up and let out a loud screech.
“What the hell!” Matthew yelled.
Daniel jumped on Matthew and started biting him on his arm. Sam’s eyes widen as he saw the horrific view and ran to Matthew’s aid. Sam pushed Daniel off him and kicked him on the ground. Sam helped Matthew up and ran away from Daniel as he chased after them. Daniel was no longer himself.
The rest of the sick people started waking up, but they were now flesh-eating infected. Many people were screaming for their lives while being eaten alive by the infected, but others ran into the forest. The infected started running into the forest also, and at the same time, letting out a scary scream.
Sam and Matthew are running as fast as they can, but they seem not to be moving so fast. Daniel was approaching them at a fast pace and screaming at them.
“Come on, Matthew. Help me out here!” Sam demanded.
Daniel finally catches up and leaps on Matthew and started biting the back of his neck. Sam falls and watches Matthew scream as his life is being taken away from him.
“Run!” Matthew yells.
“I’m sorry.” Sam gets up, starts running, but the infected grabs Sam’s leg and pulls Sam towards him.
“No! Let me go!” he yelled.
Sam starts kicking the infected, breaks free from him, and jumps up. Sam looks around and finds a large stick, grabs it, and starts hitting the infected in the head multiple times until the infected was on the ground with blood covering his head completely. Sam looks at the infected and breaks the stick. He then grabs the sharp end of the stick and sticks it in the head. Breathing very heavily, Sam continues to run, but he hears his name. When he turns around, he gasps as Sarah immediately hugs him with nothing but joy in her eyes.
“You’re alive!” she exclaims.
“Yeah, but we have to go. It’s not safe.”
Sarah looks behind Sam, notices the two dead bodies, and covers her mouth in shock.
“What happened?”
“It’s hard to explain, but-”
Sounds of the infected ruins their conversation and Sam grabs her hand and takes off running.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked.
“No time!”
As they’re running, Sarah hears footsteps behind her and she screams as multiple infected are seen running around looking for people to chew on. Her scream attracts the attention of the infected and they began running after them. While running, they run into a man covered in blood with an infected woman, but they kept running.
“Wait!” the man yelled.
He and the bitten woman ran alongside Sam and Sarah as they try to bypass the infected.
“Watch out for the branches!” Sam shouted.
Sam alerted them, but the woman was not listening to them and trips over the branches. The man stops and tries to help her, but another older man jumps in front of them and swings a broken metal object at the infected, cutting its head off instantly. A woman appears behind the older man with bruises all over her and looks very scared.
“Let’s go!” the man yelled.
The woman got up and continued running, but more infected started coming. Sam and Sarah stopped and looked back at the group.
Sam looks at Sarah, “I’m going to help them.”
“Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t feel right to just leave them.”
Sam runs to help the infected, but Sarah froze. She didn’t know what to do, so she decides to keep running. Sam comes to help the group fight off as much infected as they could.
“It’s only four of them!” the older man yelled.
“Only?” the younger man asked.
The infected runs towards them and attacked, but the older man took one out instantly with his metal weapon while the other three headed straight for Sam and the younger man. Sam takes the sharp side of his stick and shoves it towards the infected, but only pierced it through its chest, which doesn’t kill it at all. This send
s Sam to the ground struggling with the infected. The younger man holds the infected by the shirt and starts bashing its head with a rock. The infected were still alive, but he continued to do so until it falls to the ground. The younger man then stomps its head in and looks around for the woman.
“David!” the woman yelled.
David, the younger man, turns around and the last infected plunged on him, but the older man stabs through its head, squirting blood in David’s face. David jumps up and wipes his face. Sam looks around and starts to panic.
“Sarah,” he mutters.
Sarah is running through the trees, trying to get away from the infected, but she notices that she has nowhere to go. She runs behind a large tree and stays there so she wouldn’t be seen by any infected.
Sam starts running, but David and the woman follow him. The older man just looks at them, but his wife looks at him puzzled,
“We should go with them.” She mentions.
“Why?”
“Mike, we need them.”
“Bitch, you know I don’t need anybody!”
The woman looks at him and takes off running to the others.
“Get your ass back here Melissa!” Mike yells.
She ignored him and ran towards the group. Mike grunts loudly and chases after her. As soon as Sarah turns around from the tree, she sees that there are no infected around, so she starts running again, but an infected attacked her to the ground and tries to bite her. She holds the infected by its neck and screams.
Z Island Series (Book 1): Escape From Z Island Page 2