The Savage Dead (25 page)

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The second grenade was the worst. The slot machine she was using for cover took the full brunt of the blast. She was lucky her back was to it because the blast launched the slot machine into the air, throwing her into the wall and nearly crushing her. Had she been turned the other way it might very well have caved her head in.

But she wasn't much better for all that.

She was hurt badly. Her side was bleeding again, as was her mouth and nose. Her left shoulder was screaming at her, and there was a fierce and painful ringing in her ears.

She tried to get to her feet but she was so dizzy and disoriented that she gave it up and collapsed into the ash that coated everything. She rolled over onto her back and coughed. The air was swirling with dust and smoke, and the ceiling was burning. She needed to move or she'd die here. Pilar knew that instinctively.

Yet she couldn't move.

But then she saw a fish-eye security mirror near the front of the casino, and in it, the man who had nearly killed her.

The lady agent's boss.

Pilar coughed again.

He was doing something. It took her a moment to realize exactly what, but when she saw him using sign language she perked up.

Years before she'd tried to convince Ramon's men to learn it, but they were all stupid and shortsighted. None of them saw the tactical value in a silent language, and so they'd just laughed at her.

But she had seen the value in it, and she had learned it well.

And what she read in the signs this agent was sending both alarmed her and gave her hope.

She hadn't gotten rid of the lifeboats after all.

Most of them, but not all.

And now she knew where the senator was going.

She was still in the game. She still had a chance.

Mustering all the strength she had left, she climbed to her feet. Blood dripped from her mouth, pattering into the dust at her feet. Her vision was doubling and tripling everything around her. But she was determined, and she finally managed to stand.

She drew a deep breath, ignoring the sudden pain in her ribs, and ran.

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Juan jumped through the busted windows of the casino and chased after Pilar. She'd rounded a corner near the back, headed, it seemed, for the main hallway that ran the length of the ship, but when he got there, he saw no sign of her.

He stopped and listened, hoping to hear her footsteps.

Nothing.

“Where did you go?” he said.

There were three ways to choose from. The main hallway he could see already was a nonstarter. From the mouth of the hallway he could see quite a ways. There was a lot of smoke, and it got pretty dark farther in, but he felt certain she hadn't gone that way. That would be too easy.

There was a shorter hallway to the right that looked like it led outside, but he could tell she hadn't gone that way either. A zombie was at the far end of it, making its way toward the casino explosion. Juan figured there would probably be others attracted by all the noise, but they wouldn't still be headed his way if they had seen Pilar. They would have tried to go after her.

And that left the passageway to his left. There was a bad fire somewhere down there, because the smoke was pretty thick. He remembered the helicopter ride in, how heavily burned that side of the ship had been. Down there was the source of it. But it also made for the best hiding spot. If he were in her shoes, on the run and outgunned, that'd be the option he'd take. Level the playing field a little.

He took a few steps in that direction and almost immediately realized that he'd guessed right. The ash from the casino explosion had gotten all over her, and she was leaving traces of it on the maroon carpet.

Like footprints in wet sand, he thought.

He heard Tess's voice behind him and he turned. She was standing with Sutton, watching him, and in that moment he surprised himself with the depth of his feelings for her. They welled up in him all at once, unbidden, yet real and immediate. He wanted to pull her close and kiss the bruises from her face. He wanted to make all this go away.

Tess signed to him.
Should I follow you?

He shook his head and motioned for her to go down the main hallway to the back of the ship.

She signed again.
You'll be careful?

She paused, and then signed:
I love you.

That stopped him cold. He stared at her. The warmth seemed to leave his face. Her expression didn't change at all, but she started to turn away.

He gestured for her to look at him, and when she did, he signed back:
I'm in love with you. Get off this ship alive and I will, too.

Her only reply was a thin, wistful smile, but it lit her bruised and bloody face.

Then she grabbed Sutton by the arm and pulled her along.

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Juan knew he was going to need help. With all the smoke, he could walk right by her if he wasn't careful. He dropped his pack and fished out his night vision goggles. They hadn't worn them going in because they'd had an hour of daylight left and no one thought it would take them even half that time to finish the mission. But they'd packed them anyway, and Juan was thankful for that now.

All at once the interior of the ship dropped into a greenish haze. He could see through the smoke without any difficulty now, and he advanced down the hallway. This one wasn't a straight line like the main corridor on the other side of the ship. It twisted constantly, opening up on shops and observation decks and even onto an ice skating rink. It made for slow going. Corners were a constant threat. He'd have to stop and check to see if it was clear before continuing, and he was never certain if she'd be waiting with her rifle at the ready, or if he'd turn a corner and step into the waiting arms of another zombie. So he went as fast as he could, studying the carpet for more telltale signs of ash.

He found it on one of the corners, a patch of it on the wall.

She must be getting tired, he thought, for it looked to him as though she'd leaned against the wall before continuing on. There was blood there, too. That was good news.

Then he heard a cough, very faint, muffled, but distinct. And it sounded like it was coming from right around the corner. He raised his rifle and stepped back so he could pie the corner.

As he swung around, slowly revealing the passageway beyond, he heard the sounds of a struggle. He went a little farther and saw a zombie struggling near the next corner. But his attention went immediately to Pilar, who was standing behind the zombie, holding it by the back of its shirt like a shield. And she had her rifle over the thing's shoulder, ready to shoot.

Juan dove for cover just as Pilar shoved the zombie in his direction and started firing. Bullets chewed up the wall right beside him and he felt a sharp, hot pain in his neck from the flying splinters.

He stuck his rifle around the corner and fired blind, swinging the rifle back and forth to hose down the whole corridor. His weapon was suppressed and he thought he heard the sound of bullets thudding into flesh, but he wasn't going to be taking any more chances like that. He swapped out the magazine for a fresh one and fired blind again, emptying the second magazine.

He swapped out magazines again and pied the corner.

Pilar was gone.

The zombie was on its knees in the middle of the corridor, bullet wounds all over its thighs and chest, trying to get back onto its feet.

Juan stepped around it and resumed the hunt.

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There was a knock on the metal cabinet door and Paul flinched. The little boy huddled next to him cried out. A moment of awful, complete silence followed. Paul had been folded up inside the cabinet for what felt like hours now and everything hurt, but he didn't move.

The boy began to whimper.

The knock came again. “Paul?” It was Kelly. “Are you guys okay in there?”

Paul tried to move but couldn't. “I can't get the door,” he said.

There was click and the cabinet door opened, light spilling across his face and stinging his eyes. He hadn't noticed it inside that cramped space, but he was soaked through with sweat.

Kelly helped the little boy out and then reached a hand in for Paul. He took it, and let her pull him out of the cabinet.

He rolled onto the floor, the muscles in his back screaming at him.

“Are you okay?”

He groaned, then slowly pulled himself up to a seated position. He looked up at her and nodded. “I think so. My back hurts.”

“We ought to go,” she said. “I think there's a fire onboard.”

“A fire? Where?”

“I don't know. Can't you smell that, the smoke?”

He sniffed the air, but all he could smell was his own body, the funk of all that tequila working itself out through his sweat.

“I don't smell anything,” he said.

“Paul, I really think we need to go. I've been hearing things, too. Like gunshots.”

Paul listened. He looked around and saw the kids were all listening, too, their faces and clothes wet with sweat. He turned back to Kelly.

He shrugged. “I'm sorry, I don't . . .”

“There were a lot of them just a few minutes ago. Do you think it's a rescue team?”

Paul studied her. If she didn't sound so rational, so calm, he'd think she was hallucinating. He didn't smell anything. He didn't hear anything. He shook his head, his expression apologetic.

“The Secret Service agent you guys had with you, did she have a submachine gun?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so. She said she had a lot of weapons.”

“Maybe it's her.”

“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “Here, help me up.” She offered him a hand and he stood. His back was killing him, but so were his legs and neck. “Oh, God,” he said, stretching his neck.

“Are you sure you're okay?”

He managed to chuckle. “Yeah, just getting old. How about the kids? Are they okay?”

“We need to get some water in them. It was hot in there.”

“Yeah, you're not kidding. I don't think the air conditioning's working.”

As soon as he said it he thought he smelled smoke. Very faint, but still there.

There was a sink along the back wall. Kelly went over to the coffee cups and handed each of the kids a cup and told them to drink as much water as they could. Several of them complained of being hungry, but there was nothing they could do for that. Not right now anyway.

“You should drink some, too,” she told Paul.

“You look like you're sweating pretty bad.”

Paul mopped a hand across his face and it came away soaking wet. She wasn't kidding. He felt light-headed and a little dizzy. His stomach felt queasy, too. He leaned against one of the metal prep tables and tried to catch his breath.

“You don't look so good,” she said.

“Yeah? I feel even worse.”

“You're dehydrated,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe.” He wasn't sure if it was that or his hangover coming back. Could be either at this point, he thought. His head hurt so bad.

And then:
Gunfire!

It was high above them, but the metallic clatter of small arms fire was unmistakable.

“Was that . . . ?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think it was.”

“What do we do?”

Paul thought for a moment. He had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to do, or even what they could do. A fire onboard was bad enough, but with gunfire, it was even worse. It probably was a rescue team up there. But if they were still firing, and the fire was still raging, they probably weren't doing much good in taking back the ship. Things would still be nuts out there.

“Should we go up top to see what's going on?”

“No,” he said quickly. “God, no. Not all of us. I'll go. You and the kids can stay here.”

“Like hell,” she exclaimed. “You're crazy if you think we're staying here.”

“There's water here. And you've got shelter here, too. It's a whole lot safer than trying to get twenty-three kids through a ship full of zombies. Especially if the ship is on fire. We won't make it three decks.”

“But it's our chance for rescue. Paul, what do you think is going to happen if we get separated? Even if you do make it topside, how long do you think it'll take to get a rescue party down here? Paul, we can't stay here much longer.”

“All right. All right, well, maybe there's another way.”

“Like what?”

“Those lifeboats, they've got signal flares, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, maybe all that gunfire will attract the zombies up top. You know, they key on sound, I guess. We've seen that already, back at the pub.”

“Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“So, if they're all moving topside, maybe it's not such a good idea to go that way after all. Maybe now's our chance to make a break for the lifeboats. Once we get there, we could use the signal flares to let them know where we are.”

He had no idea if any of that was true, but it sounded good.

“And if they don't see the flare?”

“Well, then we get in the lifeboat and drop overboard. They'll have to see a big yellow lifeboat drifting away from the ship. Either way, we get rescued.”

“Off this ship anyway.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

She hugged herself as she stared off at nothing, not blinking, barely breathing. Her lips were trembling at the corners slightly, but her eyes were steady, and he sensed her strength in them. She was tough, this one. Had to be, not to abandon all these kids.

“Okay,” he said. He nodded towards the kids, most of whom were still in line for more water. “Do you think they're ready to go?”

“I think so,” she said. “I know I am.”

 

 

A few minutes later, they were walking through one of the interior corridors toward the stairs at the rear of the ship. They had tried to walk along the exterior deck, but the smoke was bad out there. It'd only taken a few moments outside for Paul to admit that the ship was really burning. And if he needed any more proof, once they got to the railing and looked aft, they could see the enormous tail of black smoke trailing out behind the ship. It was hugging the water like fog.

And there were more zombies out on the deck. Not so many that they couldn't avoid them, but enough to make getting caught a matter of when and not if. There were fewer inside, and most of the ones they saw were so badly torn up that they could do little more than moan and raise a feeble hand in their direction.

The smoke was bad, too, but Paul and Kelly had the children pull their shirts up over their mouths and they trudged onto the aft stairwell that would take them up to the lifeboat deck. The kids kept to their line, just as Kelly said they'd do, and as they started up the stairs Paul began to feel a little better about their chances.

They made it several flights before they ran into any real trouble.

As they approached each landing, Paul would turn and motion for the kids to duck down and stay quiet. He would inch his way down the stairs, staying low so that he could see the landing they were about to take without being seen in turn by zombies who might be wandering by.

But as he was checking the landing on Deck 6 he realized they were going to have to come up with a different plan. There were two zombies there, a woman and a teenage girl, both of them feeding on what looked like the body of a waiter from the main dining room.

The stairwell ended there on the landing. To go farther, they'd have to cross the landing behind the two zombies to reach a separate flight of stairs that curved down and out sight behind them. They had maybe fifteen feet of clearance between the path they'd have to take and the zombies. The younger one was facing their direction, but still had her mouth buried in the waiter's open chest and hadn't noticed them yet.

There was no way they were going to make this happen, he thought.

Paul looked back at Kelly at the end of the line.

When he did she screamed.

“No,” he whispered. “Oh, God, no!”

He saw some kind of commotion among the kids in the back of the line, and then grunts and more screaming and the sound of Kelly swinging her baseball bat against somebody's head. The next instant she and the rest of the kids were running down the stairs. There was blood all over her shirt.

“Go!” she yelled at him. “They're coming!”

“Can't go this way either,” he said.

She ignored him and continued charging down the stairs. “Hurry!” she said, pushing some of the smaller kids in front of her.

“Wait!” he said.

But the next instant he saw that wasn't going to happen. There were ten, maybe fifteen zombies coming down the stairs, and more behind them. He had no choice. He ran to the foyer where the two females were rising from their kill, eyes locked on him. Three more zombies were coming up the stairs behind them.

“Crap.”

Paul turned and gestured the kids toward the exterior door. They were going to have to chance running down the deck again. “Get them out there,” he said to Kelly, and before she had time to acknowledge him, he turned and charged the two female zombies.

The older of the two lunged at him, fingers swiping at his face. Paul ducked under her arms, jamming the baseball bat under her breasts and shoving her back. She tumbled over the dead waiter and into the younger zombie. The younger one was fast though, and she sidestepped the woman completely.

Paul raised the bat to swing at her head, but the girl slipped in the waiter's blood and went facedown on the tile.

Paul was running for the deck before she could even look up to find him again.

When he rounded the corner, smoke was drifting down the deck. Up ahead he saw Kelly and the kids, their legs pumping as they sprinted away from him. He looked behind him and saw half a dozen zombies clamoring toward him. He ran after Kelly and the kids, his legs driving him over a chaise longue and onto the wooden deck beyond. His heart was thudding in his chest. They're right on me, he thought! Christ, right on me. The thought wouldn't go away. He'd managed to quiet his fear for several hours, but now it was back with a sudden vengeance.

The kids couldn't run nearly as fast as he could. He was on the slowest of them almost immediately. One of the little girls looked over her shoulder at him, smoke curling off his face, and her eyes went wide.

“I got you,” he said, and scooped her up into his arms.

One of the kids ahead of him tripped and crashed to his hands and knees.

“Get up!” Paul shouted. “Let's go, move!”

With a whimper, the boy scrambled to his feet and continued running, Paul right behind him.

“Keep going,” he said. “I won't let them get you.”

For an awful moment there was no sound but the thudding of his sandals on the deck. The little girl was getting heavy in his arms, and he felt like his muscles were about to give out. He slowed long enough to put the little girl down and look over his shoulder.

There had to be twenty of those things coming up behind them, coming up fast.

He reached for the nearest chaise longue and threw it into their path. There was a whole row of the things and he began throwing them at random across the deck. The first zombies to reach them tried to jump but misjudged the distance and tumbled over them to the deck in a tangle of arms and legs. Working quickly, he went down the row, throwing chaise longues into their path, and when he ran out of those, he started to run again.

He gained on the little girl again and heard the tortured rattle in her chest. The girl was frightened beyond her understanding, but there was no time to sooth her. Paul scooped her up again and started to run as fast as the added weight allowed.

They reached a small, white metal stairwell. Kelly was at the top, gesturing them forward.

“Hurry!” she yelled to Paul. “It's clear all the way to the lifeboats.”

Paul didn't chance another look back. He didn't need to. He could hear the snarls and panting of the dead as they ran after him, closing the gap. He hit the stairs at a run and slogged his way up.

Kelly was right. The way was clear right up to the lifeboats.

But something was wrong. He saw that right away, and slowed to a walk.

He could see the davits where most of the lifeboats had been, but weren't now. They were empty. He saw a lifeboat that was hanging from one of its davits, and another that had partially dropped but was still caught up in the side of the ship, but most of the others seemed to be missing.

There was only one still attached to both its davits and ready for boarding.

“What happened?” he asked Kelly.

She got to the lifeboat first and popped the doorway in the hard shell roof. “Hurry, kids, everybody inside!”

“What happened to the other boats?” he asked her.

When she met his gaze her eyes were wild with fear, and the thought struck him then that maybe they were among the last of the living to leave the boat.