Chapter 35
“Don’t look at it, Roger. Look at me.” Miguel held the eye of the young boy as they passed another corpse in a pool of gore. The back half of its skull was hewn away and a bloody axe lay on the ground next to the lifeless body. The wall and floor were drenched in blood. The fact that the axe had been discarded, indicated that whoever had killed this woman was likely now wandering about the ship as one of the living dead.
Going was slow, and Miguel’s broken leg did not speed their process. Ascending the stairwell to deck three had been time consuming and painful, but they were making progress. The ship’s corridor was long and narrow, but the maps on the walls indicated they were approaching Dr. Henry and Kelly Damico’s quarters.
Roger and his older sister, Renee, had behaved. They had stayed silent, stifling screams of terror whenever a ghoul wandered into their midst. They had held Miguel’s crutches when he needed to use his hands. The notion that their missing father was most likely dead seemed lost on them. They calmly accompanied the convoy team, confident that they would eventually be reunited with him.
Carl, at the lead, had run out of ammunition during their last encounter. He crouched down to pick up the bloody axe while keeping his eyes focused on the junction ahead.
Pam had been able to conserve some of her rifle ammo. She scanned the area behind them. Occasionally, a corpse would wander into the hallway, moan, and then drop dead with a well-placed shot. The sound of shooting was thunderous, but the echoes of distant combat indicated that struggles were taking place in every corner of the vessel. This would draw the attention of the undead. Though the living was losing their fight to save the U.S.S. Boxer, they would not go quietly.
“Hide!” Carl whispered harshly as he pressed himself up against the wall. He attempted to hide behind some vertical pipes.
Pam and the children pressed themselves against the opposite wall and behind a grey steel crossbeam. Miguel looked around helplessly for a moment before dropping to his stomach and lying motionless behind the dead woman on the ground.
Carl looked down the hallway toward an intersection about ten feet in front of them. A group of over a dozen men and women lumbered slowly through the junction from the left. Their clothing ranged from pajamas to blue jeans to uniforms, but one thing was consistent — they moved with the slow gait of the walking dead. Their eyes stared blankly forward as they limped down the hallway perpendicular to the convoy team. Ragged bite marks, bullet holes, and missing limbs dripped with blood and left a slick red trail behind them as they went.
A little girl—no more than ten—followed at the back of the procession. She stopped in the intersection and cocked her head awkwardly. She turned down the hallway, revealing the missing flesh over the left half of her face and the severed arm below the elbow. Her one good eye fixated on something, and she stumbled towards the group.
As she moved to within a foot of Carl, he brought the axe down hard on her head with a sickening thud and a wet splatter. Roger and Renee buried their faces in Pam’s leg and sobbed. Carl brought the axe down again for good measure, and he paused for a moment to ensure he had not drawn the attention of the undead procession.
“Come on,” Carl ordered. Miguel struggled to his feet, and the group continued forward until they arrived at the intersection. Several closed doors down the long hallway to the right indicated that they had found the officer’s quarters.
Carl watched the wandering pack of ghouls turn right down an adjoining corridor that ran parallel to the one they had come from. There were now no undead in sight. A stairwell at the far end of the hall would connect them to the landing deck where they could make their escape.
Quietly, Carl stepped up to the first door within the hall and knocked.
“What are you doing?” Pam asked, noting the number on the portal indicated that this was not the officer’s quarters they were looking for.
“I’ll be goddamned if these VIP’s are they only ones with a ticket off this boat,” Carl replied. “There may be people hiding in here who think help is coming. We’re it — we’re their only chance.”
“WDs!” Miguel warned as he hobbled on crutches into the corridor with Carl.
The children and Pam followed as a mass of shadows shuffled quietly into the other end of the corridor they had just vacated. They were clumsy and slow, but they would eventually arrive at the junction. If Carl, Pam, Miguel, and the children were still here, they would be noticed. There was no time to waste.
A young man in a sailor’s uniform opened the door Carl had knocked on. He poked his head into the hallway and looked around.
Carl put his finger against his lips to signal the need for quiet, and he motioned with his head for the sailor to move.
The young sailor turned back inside and addressed some people out of view “Everyone… shhh.” The door opened, and three adults and two children followed behind him as he stepped into the corridor.
“Pam, get this group to the stairwell and guard that junction.” Carl gestured toward the stairwell. “Miguel, knock on the rest of these doors.”
Pam and the two children hurried to the stairs at the end of the hallway with the other civilians behind them. A dim yellow light flickered within the shaft, illuminating gore-covered walls… but no bodies.
Miguel swung himself on crutches toward the next door in the hall. He knocked, waiting patiently for a few moments before knocking again. He confirmed no answer was coming and moved to the next.
Carl stood with his back to the group. He gripped his axe like a baseball bat, awaiting the first ghoul to turn the corner into their passage. The pack behind them would soon fill the corridor. Carl’s axe and a handful of Pam’s bullets were all that stood between the civilians and a wandering horde of hungry corpses.
“Ruhhhhh…” The unmistakable groan of the unhallowed signaled that their group had been noticed.
Miguel moved to the next door and knocked. It cracked open, and a blood-covered woman stared back at him with discerning blue eyes. “Go! Go!” He hissed.
The woman and an old man dashed up the hall towards Pam.
Pam stood anxiously in the stairwell’s portal, aiming her rifle down the perpendicular hallway. “C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!” She growled quietly. “They’re coming!”
THUNK. The sound of Carl’s axe connecting with a skull caught Miguel’s attention.
A bloody corpse fell to the ground in front of Carl, and he began to backpedal toward Miguel. A press of ghouls filled the hallway in front of him, moaned with hunger, and fixed on their fresh prey with maniacal stares. The vanguard stumbled and fell over the body on the ground, but they merely crawled over one another.
Gunfire rang out from Pam’s position. She knelt, aiming down the adjacent corridor. “Come on! Come on! WDs! You’re gonna get cut off!” Another pack closed on Miguel and Carl from behind. The window for the two men’s escape was closing rapidly.
Miguel arrived at Officer’s Quarters Four. The gore-stained door did not bode well for the cabin’s inhabitants, but he knocked anyway. He anxiously looked back to where Carl backpedaled toward him in front of a growing swarm of undead. He then cast his glance up the other where Pam was quickly spending the last of her ammo.
His heart thumped with realization. If Pam’s position were to be overrun, he and Carl would be trapped between two converging packs of undead.
The door to Officer’s Quarters Four cracked open and Kelly and Henry Damico cautiously peered out.
“Run!” Miguel turned and swiftly hobbled toward Pam and the civilians.
THUNK. Carl’s axe made contact with another zombie, and a second body fell headless to the ground.