Chapter 33
Pam stepped quietly toward Cubicle Twenty-Six. She reached down to her sidearm, and a sickening sense of vulnerability washed over her. She suddenly realized that she had left her weapons in her cube before visiting Carl and Miguel. ‘There’s no need to carry a weapon,’ she had thought — ‘the ships were safe.’ Taking a deep breath, she gripped the sheet covering the cube’s entrance. She then slowly lifted it to glance inside. The interior of the cubicle was dark, but the storage bay lights cast the silhouette of a kneeling figure through the blue translucent tarp.
“Hello?” Pam asked. She hoped that her imagination wasn’t getting the better of her. She told herself the noise that she had heard was not what she feared it might be.
“Uhhhhhhh…” the kneeling form let out a piercing moan and began to amble toward her.
“WD!” Pam yelled. She dropped the sheet and took several steps back. A chorus of screams erupted all around her. Hundreds of men and women who had been soundly sleeping within the cubes all around her awoke in terror. Their nightmares were realized and panic spread like wildfire.
Pam glanced around frantically, trying to remember her cube number. She dashed down the aisle to retrieve her weapons.
A young woman emerged from Cube Twenty-Five, which was directly across the walkway from Twenty-Six. She was wide-eyed with fear, and stood in a daze just outside cube’s entrance. A crying little girl in pajamas hid behind the woman, clutching a teddy bear. They stood together watching a clumsy woman with a matted mop of blonde hair stagger out of Cube Twenty-Six. The woman’s vacant eyes locked upon prey, and the zombie rose to its feet. A waterfall of gore drenched the front of its shirt.
The young mother screamed in terror. With an inhuman growl, the ghoul dove to tackle the woman. Bodies tumbled backward into her Cube Twenty-Five, and the linen door of the improvised living space tangled around the violent struggle. In seconds, the white sheet became soaked in blood.
The little girl scrambled away from the carnage in horror. She stood dumbfounded in the aisle for a moment, unable to tear herself away from her mother. Terror overtook her as another moan from within Cube Twenty-Six rose up behind her. She slowly turned to face a young boy with shredded lips and a gore-stained maw. The “boy” stared back at her with lifeless eyes. The little girl let loose a high-pitched wail as the ravenous child-ghoul wrapped its arms around her, sunk its teeth into her neck, and dragged her screaming into the darkness.
Mayhem consumed Cube City. Men, women, and children emerged from their living quarters to dart toward the exits. Navy security guards ran through the aisles against the traffic of panicked civilians. A crowd formed at an interior gate just as two guards were closing it. One attempted to hold it shut against the tide of panic, while the other fumbled with a steel padlock.
“Let us out!” a woman screamed.
“We can’t! We’ll lose the whole…” One of the soldiers pleaded. A gunshot cut him off. The guard with the lock dropped to his knees. A dark red stain spread over the front of his uniform. The gate burst open, and the guard who had held it closed caught an elbow to the face before being knocked to the ground and trampled.
Three more guards stood just outside the main gate, aiming their rifles at the oncoming swarm of terrified civilians. Hundreds of people were screaming and shouting at each other as they pressed through the aisles toward the exit. A navy clerk rushed over to a phone on one wall, picked it up, and looked back fearfully at Cube City, while she reported the situation to security. More gunshots rang out, some from the civilians, some from the navy guard. The armed guards looked at one another with uncertainty and fear. If they tried to hold back the stampede, they would be overwhelmed. The outer fence shook violently and bulged outward as the weight of hundreds of people fought to escape.
Pam had reached her cube where she collected her sidearm, rifle, and laptop. She quickly checked the clips and gathered her courage. There was no telling how many ghouls were lurking about through Cube City, and she was out of her element. She was trapped on this strange ship.
Stepping back into the aisle, Pam stumbled over a body that had been trampled to death. She regained her footing and backed away as the corpse rolled its head with reanimation. The cadaver of a young man blinked its eyes and locked on the commotion of the mob. With floppy broken arms, the shattered heap drug itself away from Pam and toward the compacted mass of panicked people.
Pam drew her rifle and took aim. Suddenly, a small child, a boy no more than four years old, darted into her line of fire. She took her finger off the trigger “Dammit!” She cursed.
More gunshots rang out, and someone else screamed. The outer fence toppled over. There was a torrent of more gunfire, and Pam crouched down. The newly animated shattered corpse flopped along, leaving a trail of blood as it went. With a gurgling moan, the fleshy blob reached toward the nearest prey. The civilians at the back of the mob turned to see the monstrosity crawling after them, and another chorus of screams rolled through Cube City. Some people panicked and redoubled their press against the mob. A few simply dove atop the mass and began crawling over fellow civilians. Others realized they were trapped, and they darted back into Cube City in desperation.
“Pam!” Miguel’s voice called out.
“Miguel!” Pam yelled back. She quickly poked her head up above the cubes to spot Miguel struggling on crutches to make his way down an aisle toward her. Carl followed behind, rifle at the ready.
A woman in a nightgown lumbered out of a cubicle near Pam. The experienced convoy team immediately recognized her slow and stiff undead motions. Carl fired, and additional gunshots rang out from all directions. A few navy guards as well as some terrified and confused civilians had spotted the undead creature and joined the fray. The zombie’s head erupted in a torrent of brains and gore.
Loud cracks of stray bullets sang off the walls of the storage bay. A terrified teenage boy running shirtless through an aisle was taken in the back by a ricochet. He jerked violently and tumbled out of view. A bullet thudded into a cubicle wall near Pam’s head, and the convoy team ducked down. The entire storage bay had become a deadly gauntlet of random gunfire as civilians and guards let fly.
“This can’t be our luck.” Miguel crawled towards Pam with crutches in one hand, rifle in the other. He took a seated position on the ground next to her and began scanning the vicinity for ghouls with his rifle. “This cannot possibly be our luck!”
The storage bay was filled with a cacophony of moans, screams, and gunfire. Confusion and mayhem favored the dead, and with every passing moment, their numbers were growing. Gunfire had already begun echoing throughout the rest of the ship. The infection had in mere minutes, begun to consume the titanic military vessel.
“What’s the plan?” Pam watched a ghoul stumble out from an aisle between cubes, a navy guard in a blood-soaked uniform. It locked eyes with Pam and lurched mindlessly toward her. Pam took aim at the creature’s head and pulled the trigger. The walking corpse’s head snapped back and it tumbled lifelessly to the ground.
“We have to get off this boat,” Carl stated.
“Let me talk to Cap!” Pam replied. She sat next to Miguel, her back against a cubicle, and popped open her laptop. Mind-bendingly slow seconds passed as the computer booted up and connected to the ship’s combat network. She slid on her headset, and resumed the role of a military specialist.
A little boy and little girl wandered into the aisle, their bare feet pattering on the cold steel ground. Carl examined them through his scope and held up his hand indicating to Miguel and Pam that they were living children. The kids turned and began calmly walking toward the soldiers.