The Final Outbreak

by M. L. Banner

  With the port stabilizer no longer providing resistance to the port side of the ship, and the starboard stabilizer continuing to provide the only resistance, he could feel the ship’s stutter through the water beneath them. His eyes were glued to the ECDIS display, eyeing their speed and heading, his mind going through the computations to make sure it was enough. It was. He could leave now.

  Jörgen spun in his chair to face his acting security chief standing guard at the door. “Wasano, if you’re ready, let’s get an update from Deep on the status of our hallway.”

  “Captain,” TJ demanded from the back of the room, stepping closer. She had found a back wall in engineering after the captain had cut her off from the radio. “You need me to go—”

  A double-pound sounded from the other side of the door.

  All heads but one turned to the door.

  TJ cast down her gaze, huffed out a frustrated humph, and ratcheted her arms around her chest.

  Wasano cracked the door open, his flashlight raised, just in case.

  This time, it was Flavio, who slipped inside, pushing the door closed behind him.

  The former waiter, and now the ship’s chief bad-ass, was a little more scratched up than before, and wore a few new splotches of blood, but he otherwise looked fine. He had halted just inside the door and quickly flashed glances at the captain, the German brothers, Dr. Simmons, Wasano, and then finally TJ. “Are we... Mrs. Villiams? Good to see you,” he said to her.

  TJ half-nodded a confirmation, without any smile or show of emotion. This was different than the Theresa Jean that Jörgen had met with several times. But on the other hand, she’d just escaped certain death.

  Flavio continued, returning his gaze to Jörgen, “Sir, what’s our status?”

  TJ jumped in, “We’re basically fucked. We’ve got ten minutes to get someone to the engine room now to stop the engines. Wasano volunteered and so did the captain. I told them both I should go, if someone would tell me where to go.”

  Flavio ignored her and responded with an immediate flurry of words to the captain. “No, captain must stay here and run ship. I get to engine room. Someone tell me where is stop controls. I am only one who can do this.” Flavio’s hand was already on the door handle, his body pointed in that direction.

  “What makes you think you can get through all of those crazy people and make it to the engine room in time?” Wasano asserted.

  “I deal with crazy passengers all the time, and now everyone crazy. No time to discuss. You and I go. Captain and others, vith Ms Villiams stay.” He twisted the knob.

  “Wait!” bellowed TJ. “I am going with you.” Her arms were down, her shoulders squarely pointed toward Flavio.

  “Absolutely not,” the captain, now standing, demanded.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Wasano yelled, taking a place behind Flavio, almost pushing him forward.

  TJ stepped in front of Flavio and pulled off her sunglasses.

  Wasano jolted backwards, hoisting up his flashlight to strike.

  Everyone in the room either gasped or loudly caught their breaths.

  Jörgen squinted and now understood why TJ seemed so different.

  Flavio didn’t flinch. “Okay, you come then. We go now. Follow me, I know shortcut to engine room.” He dashed out the door.

  ~~~

  Only moments ago, Eloise had felt satiated. Fulfilled. But she had also known that she still needed... something.

  She had had her fill of food and felt better in what she’d become. It was a warm feeling, like a... soft blanket came to mind; this made no sense to her, though the thought felt right. And although she had a strong urge to sleep, she fought it. She just didn’t know why.

  She could have slept right where she stood. This part made sense. She was exhausted. But at the same time she felt exhilarated. It was better than after sex. That was one thing she remembered very well, and another urge she needed to fulfill. But she would satisfy that urge another time. Sleep was needed now.

  She glanced at her misshapen wrist and the missing digit on her hand. She understood instinctively that her body needed sleep, if only to repair what was damaged. Her wrist was swollen. She remembered that it was called a sprain—she’d had had one of those before... she couldn’t remember where. Her finger wasn’t bleeding anymore. Another instinctive thought instructed her that her body was already healing. This instinct also told her that it wasn’t yet the right time for sleep: something else needed to be done.

  But what? a voice in her head yelled.

  She started searching, first with her eyes. Then her search moved her and she lumbered around the open Promenade deck.

  The public deck was littered with discarded cups, towels, purses, splotches of blood, and an occasional body. She had no idea what she was searching for amongst the debris. Only that like everything else that now came to her, she knew what she was searching for would come to her soon. She stumbled around, one foot shuffling after another, until she tripped over a corpse.

  No, it was another person like her. This person was resting, just as she wanted to be doing.

  Eloise took a few more slow steps and stopped over the body of a pretty officer, lying on her back, eyes opened, pupils dilated. Eloise knew instantly several things about this woman: she wasn’t someone who had become like Eloise, and that was the reason she was dead.

  Eloise examined the dead officer more closely, sensing she’d find a clue to her search.

  She started her inspection with the dead woman’s hair. At one time, before her rebirth, the old Eloise would have been interested in how this woman prepared her hair—what was this called? She would have thought it cheap-looking, but still pretty. The new Eloise had no interest in such things. But she felt there was something else important about this officer. So she continued her examination.

  Eloise scrutinized every part of the dead officer, knowing now what she was searching for was here. It must have been something she had glanced at that made her stop. The dead woman’s mouth was wide open—a scream interrupted: her jaw slack and silent; her neck a ragged mess, but no longer releasing her life’s blood; her chest unmoving; the tag above her breast told others that she was Cruise Director; her ripped shirt was made from a cheap polyester material, just like her faux leather belt; the radio...

  That was it!

  Eloise snatched the radio from the officer’s belt and fumbled with the controls. She’d never worked one before, but she knew she could figure it out. She twisted a miniature knob marked “V” and the radio came to life.

  People were speaking on it. They were people who had not become like her. They were the Other People who she needed to kill.

  They were talking about stopping the ship. They were saying that they needed to stop the ship before it hit an island.

  Eloise realized right then that she needed to be on that island. She needed to get off this ship and get on the island. Her mind searched for the reason why, but there wasn’t any. Nor was there a struggle with this decision. Once again it came to her intuitively, just like how to hunt, or eat, or kill. She knew that this ship was now useless to her. Most of the people had already become like her, or they would eventually; everyone else on this ship would be dead by tonight. But on the island, she felt... No, she knew, there would probably be many more Other People on the island, rather than on this ship. So she had to get there.

  Right at that moment she knew what she must do: get off this ship and get to the island. And to do this, she needed to stop these Other People talking on the radio. She didn’t know how, but she knew this, just as she knew everything else, and that this too would come to her. She listened intently to everything the radio told her.

  A scream from an Other Person—she definitely knew this was not one of her people—forced a small tick in Eloise’s face, but she didn’t turn her head from the radio or adjust her position. She remained mostly still, crouched down beside the dead officer. After another terror-filled scream, she reluc
tantly lifted her eyes from the radio, and glanced sideways.

  It was a woman in a one-piece bathing suit, perfectly sculpted to her body—a Ballet Maillot by Amaio, with the French mesh. This wasn’t one of those things that just came to her intuitively. It was an old memory, from the old Eloise... She had had one just like it. Before becoming. The old Eloise would have stopped this woman and told her how good that suit looked on her. The new Eloise only wanted to kill the woman. But she’d leave that to one of her own people.

  The woman raced by Eloise, a feline yowl escaping from her rapid puffs for air, her strides choppy but quick. The woman’s head snapped to her right, just as two people who had also become tackled her to the floor. The woman screamed once more, and then was silent.

  Eloise returned her glare back to the radio when she heard one of the ship’s officers say they were going to deck 1 aft... Eloise knew for some reason that she was already aft and near a crew stairwell that went to deck 1. She remembered now that one of the officers told her about the aft stairwell—she glanced at its door a few feet away from where she was at that moment.

  Someone on the radio said that First Officer Helguson was going to disconnect the anchor automatic release. He was already headed that way. Again, she didn’t know why, but she knew that she had to stop this person. Somehow by preventing this Officer Helguson from doing what he was about to do, she could get onto the island.

  Eloise quickly learned not to question these thoughts, where they came from or why. She just accepted them. It was all part of her becoming.

  She sprang from the dead officer, surprised at how quickly she was already at the crew access door and inside. She felt so alive and so full of anticipation once again.

  66

  TJ

  “This way,” Flavio stated in his usual matter-of-fact tone. He grunted as he struggled with a large hatch in the floor. It moved an inch, but then his wrench slipped out of one of his hands and he lost his grip. The door and wrench thunked back to the decking, with a deep thunder-like tremor.

  TJ pushed past Wasano, who was doing nothing but stand in her way, grabbed the handle and heaved. The thick metal door flew open, its metal clanging hard against the steel frame. Flavio shot her a stunned glance, one that said both “What the hell?” and “Damn, you’re stronger than you look.”

  TJ turned away, wincing at the pounding reverberation in her head: a throbbing echo of the hatch’s banging sound. Her features bunched up, as if she were in horrible pain, while she focused on quelling something worse than pain that wanted to come out: a darkness, more loathsome than the most abhorrent pain she’d ever felt. And like her body’s previous responses to pain, she felt jolted and unable to stop its coming. Also like pain, which she used to just accept, this dark urge didn’t give her the luxury of choosing. It rose up and demanded her acceptance. But she couldn’t. If she did, she would lose control over that urge. So she dug her fingernails into her palms, nearly piercing skin, and pushed it back harder.

  Then she stopped to listen. They all did.

  The sound echoes from the hatch-banging must have vibrated throughout the metal structure of this hallway, as there was a growling response forward from them, just out of sight.

  TJ looked up at Flavio, who was studying her with suspicion, just as he had been since they left engineering. “Are you going down first or am I?” she flared. They had so little time left and she wasn’t sure she could hold it together much longer.

  “Follow me,” Flavio said, grasping the ladder with both feet and one hand—the other now clutched both the bloody wrench and glove-weapon. He slid down the ladder with dogged determination, until he hit the deck 1 flooring with a teeth-rattling thud.

  TJ followed, sliding down in one fluid motion, her landing cat-like. She waited until Wasano was with them, after shutting the hatch. “You see, the... crazies, as you call them, are both attracted to and hate loud noises.” She whispered this not only for their benefit but for her own. She was desperately trying to understand all that was going on in her and around her. Recalling the clang-echo which had thankfully started to fade, she continued, “It’s like ringing the dinner bell, but at the same time, you’re rattling their mental bells. In other words, when you make a loud noise, you might as well be calling them to you.”

  “You know this because you’re one of... th-the infected?” Wasano stammered, his voice a little too loud and shaky. He didn’t want to hear her answer. His eyes darted around the area in which they were standing, in an attempt to gather in any movement: it was a narrow utility hallway, marked with emergency lights that faded into the darkness in both directions. Flavio continued to study TJ, his demeanor also jumpy, but in a different way. She sensed no fear in him; he was simply ready to strike her down the moment her actions became aggressive.

  Yeah, she knew the whole sound-thing quite well. And while she culled some of this from recent observations and suspicions, she mostly perceived it instinctively, like so many things she seemed to just fully know, ever since her... what, rebirth? When she had the time, she wanted to mentally explore and understand why a simple loud noise made her head scream. And not the dull banging pain that she’d always felt... no, scratch that, pain she used to feel in her head and side since the dog attack. This wasn’t pain. The urge that she pushed back was rage, pure and simple. She wanted to wallop on that hatch for making that noise, but also on everyone around her, including Wasano and Flavio. So yes, she understood this, because she knew exactly what the crazies felt.

  She glanced back at Flavio, still scowling at her, and she motioned to the aft-side of the darkness. He nodded and then held out his two makeshift weapons, in preparation for combat against more—dementeds came to her mind and seemed like a better word than crazies. Crazies felt demeaning, and far too close to home.

  Flavio waddled into the darkness, with her close behind.

  “Okay, fine. Don’t answer me,” Wasano whined. He kept a couple of paces behind TJ, watching her more than anything else.

  Flavio abruptly stopped and turned to face TJ. He leaned in so close TJ could feel his breath. She reflexively twisted back a little at the move, almost as if she were repulsed by his breath. She couldn’t smell him. Mostly. With her nose plugged, she couldn’t smell anything. But it was reflexive, because she knew what he smelled like and that terrified her.

  He breathed, “You’re not going to try and eat me, are you, Ms. Villiams?”

  Once again, she had to suppress a natural emotion. This time, it was something she hadn’t felt since all these changes took place: laughter. She gulped it back, but enjoyed the moment and said deadpan, “I do have a weird hankering for rare Romanian meat right now.”

  At least I haven’t lost my sense of humor.

  “Humph,” was Flavio’s only response.

  He turned back and continued walking a few more steps before stopping once more, this time less sudden. He pivoted to face a sealed hatch in the wall pulling up the latch with his glove-whacker hand until it clicked. Then he pulled at it.

  A shaft of light shot through, illuminating them.

  Flavio gestured at the thin opening. “What is it you Americans say... Ladies first.”

  She nodded and slipped through, the hatch swiftly closing behind her.

  Almost immediately, she thumped twice from the other side.

  It was their agreed upon all-clear signal. There were no dementeds on the other side.

  Flavio cracked the door open again and whispered through it, “Nothing?”

  “Nope,” she said.

  “Do you smell them?” Wasano breathed.

  “More like, I don’t smell them. But I do smell both of you, ah... very strongly.” She positioned the orange nose-clip back over her nostrils and squeezed.

  “It’s my manly scent,” Flavio quipped, as he slid past her and continued his track aft.

  “What do we... non-infecteds smell like?” Wasano glared at TJ.

  She suspected he would be less
likely to ask this question if she’d taken her sunglasses off and he had to stare directly into her eyes. “If I told you, you’d freak out.” She moved past him and caught up to Flavio, leaving Wasano with that thought. For the second time since her change, she felt her cheeks crease into a smile. It felt good, even though she had to work hard not to think about what both of them smelled like. Again, thoughts of a dinner bell came to mind. In truth she was more afraid of freaking herself out.

  Flavio held up at another door. He leaned forward, beckoning them both to come closer, so they could hear him.

  “This starboard engine room,” he told them. Then he faced Wasano. “You must enter security key.”

  Wasano tapped in the numbers on the pad below the handle. It clicked and so did a solid lock in the door.

  A blast of heat and noise pushed through the door and spilled into their hall.

  TJ didn’t wait for the offer. She pulled off her nose-clip, letting it dangle around her neck, and slipped her head and part of her body in, stopping midway. She tilted her head back and whispered, “Wait here for a moment.” She silently stepped through, clicking the door closed behind her.

  Flavio put an ear to the door, while Wasano eyed him and waited to glean something from his facial reactions, or for some sort of report from him.

  Wasano shrugged his shoulders. What?