Undead Honeymoon (5 page)

“Damn right, you should be scared! I’ve been all alone, wondering if my husband was ever coming back. Wondering if he’d been torn apart, or worse, turned into one of those things. I almost left to go look for you!”

I caught my breath as my anger quickly turned into relief. He wrapped me in a tight hug as tears stung the corners of my eyes. I buried my face in his chest and realized he was still wrapped in the stupid duct tape.

“What took so long?” I asked, my voice muffled.

I felt his chest rise as he took a deep breath. “Well, at first I thought it would be easy to get to the galley. The first couple zombies I passed stood there, just like before. It’s too bad they’re not all in hibernation mode,” Finn said, shrugging. “Some of them are just pretending to be.”

It was then that I noticed his left forearm. The duct tape was pulled and twisted, and several grey fibers hung from its frayed edges. A black substance was caked and dried in several spots.  

My stomach tightened. “Were you bit?” I asked, failing to hide the panic that boiled up inside.    

Finn cradled my head as he spoke. “Yes and no. One of them caught me off guard and managed to latch on when I was walking by. It was incredibly strong, but I managed to shake the thing off before it broke through the tape.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off his arm as he spoke. The stuff caked on the tape smelled awful, the same stench from when we were in the highway.

“I think some of them are like watchdogs for the rest,” he continued. “They pretend to be dormant, but launch themselves at you as soon as you’re close. The worst part is the noise, they screech when they see you and it wakes the others around them up. It’s horrifying.”

“How do you tell if they’re sleeping or not?” 

“I have no idea. They all looked the same to me. You could walk right in front of some, even make a little noise, and they won’t budge. The banshees, however, will twitch and start screeching the second you get close. It’s almost as if they’re setting some kind of a trap. They lure the living in by making them think they’re hibernating, then sound the alarm.”

“I thought zombies were practically brain dead. How could they set a trap?” 

Finn shrugged again. “I don’t know, but these ones can. Thankfully I didn’t run into many until I got to the buffet. There was a group of about ten just inside the doors that I had to get by. I thought I was in the clear until I got to the galley door and heard one of them screech. I had to barricade myself inside the kitchen until they lost interest. Strangely enough they all went back to exactly where they were before I came in.”

The images going through my head were starting to make me nauseous. What little food I had in my stomach was threatening to make an appearance. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, now there were corpses setting traps for us.   

“I was lucky, though,” he continued, “because there weren’t any inside the kitchen. I was able to look around while I waited.”

He sat up and gestured toward the floor.

I leaned over the edge of the bed and spotted several black trash bags strewn across the carpet.

“Food?” I asked hopefully. He nodded, a satisfied grin on his face. He jumped from the bed and opened the nearest bag. From it he pulled handfuls of fruit; apples, bananas, kiwi, and more I didn’t recognize.

“We needed food that would keep without being refrigerated,” he said as he tossed me a ripe Granny Smith apple. I immediately sank my teeth into it. It was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

“I almost got some of the canned food, but it made way too much noise when I carried it. I didn’t want to take any chances on my way back. I did snag some knives from the kitchen, though. They should come in handy if we have to move.”

“I thought you said we should wait here? We can‘t go out again, not with those banshee things out there!”

Finn took a large bite from a banana and walked back over to me. “We’ll stay here for as long as we can,” he said as he plopped down on the bed. “I don‘t want to go back out there any more than you do, but I‘d rather be ready in case we have to.”

After finishing several more pieces of fruit, we spent the rest of the day trying to get signal on our cell phones. Finn managed to get a single, solitary bar near the balcony at one point, but his call never went through. 

Maybe tomorrow we’ll have more luck.                                      

August 19
th

The last few days have been the most boring of my life. Finn keeps saying we should sit tight and wait for a rescue team, but I’m beginning to think the zombies (if that’s what they truly are) might be better than the never ending silence.   

“There is no way someone doesn’t know we’re stranded,” he repeated for the hundredth time. “We’re on the biggest ship in the world, and we never made it to our next port of call! Even if there was no distress signal sent, Imperial Cruise Lines probably knew something was wrong within minutes of all this.”

“They know, but something else is going on,” I said. “Every second we’re here is another chance for us to be eaten by those things. Imagine the press coverage for all this. They’ll probably go bankrupt with all the lawsuits.”

Finn huffed. “That’s for sure. If someone can make money because their coffee was too hot then just imagine how much an undead lawsuit will net them. Then again, if we really are the last people left alive there won‘t be anyone else to sue.”

Finn laughed and walked out onto the balcony. I stared at him as he leaned against the railing. 

He‘s trying to hide it, but I know he’s worried.

I’m worried too.

August 20
th

This morning we were woken up by the sound of helicopters.

There had to have been at least half a dozen of them. Finn was already peeking through the curtains we’d drawn across the sliding glass doors when I woke. The one nearest to our balcony had a channel 9 news logo on its side, the rest were all dark green and black. We slid the doors open and jumped onto the balcony. Two of the helicopters turned in our direction as Finn and I waved frantically.

“Over here! We’re here!” Finn yelled. I joined in and felt an uplifting sensation of hope course through me.   

As they drew closer Finn suddenly stopped waving, and I noticed he was focusing on one of green and black helicopters. He turned to me with a confused look on his face.

“Look at the guns and missiles on that thing, it looks like some kind of attack helicopter. Why would they send something like that? And other than the news chopper all the rest look the same. No markings, no logos, just weapons.”

I shrugged. “What’s the difference? As long as one of them can fly us out of here, I’m happy!” 

They hovered a hundred feet from our cabin balcony for what seemed like an eternity. The one on the right was the news chopper, and the crew was leaning out with their cameras trained on our balcony. 

A man’s voice suddenly boomed over loud speakers from the dark green chopper.

“This is quarantined air space, you are to vacate the premises immediately and report to Fort Buchanan for questioning. This is your one and only warning. You have ten seconds to comply before the use of deadly force is authorized.”

For a brief moment the news crew shifted their cameras in the direction of the man‘s voice, but quickly turned back toward our cabin.

Finn and I exchanged confused looks. “They wouldn’t really shoot them down, would they? Freedom of press and such, right?” I asked, looking back at the helicopters.

Finn nodded.

“There’s no way, imagine the uproar if they shot and killed members of the press. They probably just want to make sure they don’t get too close to the infected, otherwise they might-”

He was cut short as gunfire exploded in front of us, riddling the news chopper with plate sized holes. Its metal body twisted and shrieked, and before Finn and I had a chance to react, the bullets reached the gas tank.

It exploded with a deafening
BOOM
, and I felt a sudden pressure at my sides. Hands were grabbing at my waist. I was yanked to the ground, hard. Before I knew what was happening Finn threw himself on top of me. Milliseconds later our balcony was pelted by burning metal. I heard the cracking of glass, followed by a huge
SPLASH
. I looked up to see the glass paneling of our balcony was all but shattered. The shrapnel had sent cracks radiating out from the center like a spider web.   

I could feel Finn’s hot breath on my neck, and my nose burned with the smell of fuel.

“Are you okay?”  

“I think so, are you?” I asked, suddenly aware that he could’ve been hit by the shrapnel. 

“Yeah, we ducked just in time.”

He stood and helped me to my feet. I was trembling as I peered over what was left of the railing. I stared, dumbfounded, as the smoldering remains of the news chopper slowly sank to the bottom of the ocean. A trail of dark, thick smoke twirled up from the blackened water as smaller pieces of debris floated toward the surface.

We looked up to see the attack helicopter facing us again. The wind from the blades made my eyes water, making it hard to see what was going on inside it. I started to feel very uneasy. Something was definitely not right. I felt Finn’s hand close around my own and noticed his eyes were locked on the chopper.

“Lily, I don‘t think we should stay here. We should go.

I squeezed his hand and gave him the slightest of nods to let him know I agreed.

“Let’s go,
slowly
…” he whispered, never taking his eyes off the chopper.

We started to back up through the sliding glass doors, but just as we stepped onto the carpet one of the machine guns started to rotate. Finn and I turned and bolted inside the cabin. I made for the door but Finn screamed at me.

“No! Those things could be right outside the door!”

He spun around frantically as bullets started shredding our balcony. The pilot lowered the chopper so its guns were level with our cabin.

Finn yanked the bathroom door open and pulled me inside just as the bullets started whizzing past us. He closed the door and pointed to the tub, which was still filled with water. I quickly lowered myself into it, and Finn practically jumped in on top of me.

Water splashed onto the linoleum floor as Finn and I pressed ourselves as low into the tub as we could. Bullets passed through the bathroom door as if it were made of tissue paper. They peppered the walls around us as falling plaster turned the tub water into a milky white soup.

I don‘t know how long it was before the gunfire stopped, but it felt like hours. My ears were still ringing when Finn peeked over the top of the tub. He made sure to keep me from doing the same. I could still hear the sound of the helicopter, but it seemed further away. Finn slowly lifted himself out of the tub and walked toward the bathroom door. It looked like a piece of burnt Swiss cheese as he peered through one of the holes.

“I don’t see anything,” he said. “I think they‘ve moved on.”

“For now,” I mumbled as I raised myself out of the tub. Water dripped from my clothes as I stepped across the tiled floor.

“If they’re willing to murder people that are just near the ship, just imagine what their plans are for the people
on
it. My guess is they’re trying to contain the infection. So that means a distress signal was probably sent out, but instead of rescuing the ship, they’re quarantining it.”

As Finn spoke, the hope I‘d felt earlier seemed a million miles away; all that remained was anger and fear. My hands started to tremble as I thought about the people in the news chopper. 

“So much for a rescue.” I said solemnly. “What should we do now?”

“We need to sit tight for a moment,” Finn replied, “just in case that helicopter or any of the others are waiting to see if we’re still alive. The gunfire probably drew a lot of those corpses our way, too. I think the best thing to do now is be patient, and quiet. Very quiet.”

My journal was sitting on the countertop next to the sink. I’d put it there earlier when I was checking to see if the water was still working. Other than a few chunks of plaster I had to brush off, it was still in one piece. 

I’m so thankful it survived the onslaught of bullets. It has given me something to do while we wait, almost like an escape from the nightmare. The dread that’s engulfed the whole of this ship somehow can’t reach me when I write, and I’m learning to savor every moment of it. The hard part is looking up from the pages and realizing what I’m writing isn’t fiction. 

The sight of Finn low crawling out of the bathroom probably would’ve been hilarious if we weren’t scared of being killed at any moment. He came back after a few minutes with a pile of clothes. I slipped on some dry jeans and a blue tank top as Finn put some jeans and a t-shirt on. One of his pant legs had black stuff all over it.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, pointing to his jeans.

“It’s not from the corpses. It’s gun powder from the bullets I think. A lot of our clothes are covered in it, along with most of the cabin.”     

“Speaking of the cabin, the door is still holding,” he whispered, “but just barely. One of the hinges didn’t survive the gunfire, and there are several large holes in the door itself. If those things try to get inside, it probably won’t hold for long.”

I didn’t respond. Instead I just stared vacantly at the busted remains of the bathroom door. We were so exposed and vulnerable. Only now we didn’t just have reanimated corpses to worry about, but helicopters with machine guns hovering over us as well.

We spent the remainder of the day hiding in the bathroom. Finn laid a few of the towels that weren’t singed too badly on the floor for us to lie on. It still wasn’t very comfortable, but I didn’t say anything.

The cabin is getting dark, and unless the power magically comes back on my writing will dwindle with the fading sunlight. 

Finn and I will think of what to do tomorrow. There has to be a better option than holding up in a destroyed bathroom, waiting to be shot, or eaten…