The Final Outbreak

by M. L. Banner

  And since there were no shoremen on the dock to disconnect the lines from the dock, that meant Flavio had to lead a capable team of men and women, only a few of whom were expert in detaching the heavy mooring ropes from dock’s bollards, onto the dock.

  Flavio wasn’t sure what they would do if the parasitics swarmed the dock. And that’s when he saw they had caught a giant-sized break. Before meeting his team at the port-side gangway on deck 2, Flavio first checked out the dock from the deck 10 outside running track.

  The heavy downpour of cold rain must have driven away the mostly naked parasitics. They were now gone, except for a few bodies, and so was the rain.

  Now, just before opening up the door, he checked once more with Ted on the radio, who had eyes on the dock from the port-side swing deck.

  “Okay, open up, Ms. Johansson,” Flavio stated, rifle at the ready.

  The door slid open and Flavio stepped out onto the gangway bridge and searched their perimeter.

  It was clean, other than the three dead parasitics and two dead islanders, who must have killed each other in the initial waylay. There were no other signs of anyone, anywhere.

  He stepped up to the first body, giving it a kick, to make sure it wasn’t faking it. In the distance, he heard something.

  Flavio held a bald-fist up in the air, letting everyone know to be quiet and wait for him.

  Mixed in with the growing commotion building on the ship, as their search and clean up teams started spreading out, finding their way topside, he heard something else. From the island, he heard an occasional scream or even grunt. He assumed this meant that their parasitics had gone on to feed on the rest of the islanders, who were probably easier to get to than the passengers of a sealed up, steel cruise ship.

  He stepped over to the next body and gave it a kick. None of the others stirred, not even a little.

  But then one did.

  Flavio flipped off the rifle’s safety and pointed at the clothed form on the deck, surrounded by a puddle of red. It was breathing. With his finger on the trigger, ready to put an end to its obvious suffering, he recognized quickly it was Ágúst Helguson, the parasitic who singlehandedly saved their ship.

  Flavio cupped his hands around his mouth before he spoke, so that only those in the gangway could hear him. Just above a whisper, he said, “I need a medical team here.”

  He turned over the former second officer, who looked unconscious, but whose chest was still moving.

  Three people, who represented their medical team, all recently recruited crew, took over and went to work on attempting to save the near dead man.

  He’s a parasitic, no longer a man, Flavio corrected himself in thought.

  At the top of the gangway, he stated loud enough so all could hear, “Okay team, it is clear. Work quickly and quietly!”

  ~~~

  Wasano was charged with carrying out the captain’s second order, making sure they were properly fueled and then detached from the refueling barge. It was also to protect their engineering chief, “at all costs.”

  The captain was concerned that they were running out of engineering personnel, since most had either been killed or had become monsters. As many as half of their remaining engineering staff died when toxic gas was released into the engine room by their own crew, in a traitorous attempt to kill the parasitics on board. When they were safe, Wasano planned to demand the captain hold a trial and punish any of those involved who were still alive.

  The shortage in capable engineering crew meant that Niki Tesler, their punk-haired chief of engineering, was almost as important to their ship as the captain, when it came to crucial ship-knowledge which couldn’t immediately be taught to someone else.

  “Okay, first officer, can we get started?” Niki requested.

  “Captain?” Wasano asked on his radio. His ear-piece immediately squawked back with the captain confirming from above that it was all clear.

  “You’re good to go, security chief.”

  The door opened with a gnawing creak, revealing a slaughter fest outside. There were over a dozen of their crew murdered and lying topside on the fueling barge. And as bitter a pill as it was, they were not going to collect these men and women and hold a proper burial at sea, like they did earlier for those who died during the first wave of attacks. Instead, one of their team was tasked with taking a picture of each dead crew member, for later identification, and then several of their team were tasked with tossing the bodies overboard.

  The captain’s orders were explicit when it came to this. There simply wasn’t enough time. And their medical director said the bodies were too much of a health hazard to hold on board for later burial.

  The rest of the team scurried out to each of the hoses, Niki behind them barking off directions to pull one hose off, which represented their heavy fuel. And then to attach the other hose, which was for their GMO. Niki told them that they had enough heavy fuel to last them for months, if they were judicious in its use. And so all they needed now was the GMO. They’d be done in less than an hour.

  They had also decided to anchor the fueling barge off the dock and moor it to a mooring float, so that they’d have access to it later, if they needed it. There was no telling when they’d ever see another place to refuel.

  As Wasano looked over the activity on the barge and most especially Niki, he didn’t even want to consider the idea of returning to this place. As far as he was concerned, they couldn’t leave soon enough.

  115

  After-Effects

  Finally, when they had powered away from the Via de Corvo’s dock and completed their search of the entire ship for the dead, confirming as well that there were no more parasitics or islanders on board, they invited the man they knew as Tomas Novo to board. He was promptly arrested.

  Ted and TJ had been asked to be a part of their interrogation of Mr. Novo, so they could decide what to do with him after this. The security director and the captain would be conducting the interrogation.

  Ted was the first to arrive at an unmarked room, next to the also unmarked brig, on deck 1, where they held the symptomatic islander whom Flavio and TJ had interrogated earlier.

  While Ted waited for the others to arrive and for their “guest” to be escorted in, Ted reviewed his notes from the day. He planned to move these details into his log when he had a chance.

  One thing bothered him, and he wanted to know the answer before anyone arrived. Each number in his notes, he mentally added to the last one, scratching a sub-total to the right of each number on the page. At the bottom of the second page, he wrote a final number and circled it. 215. That was preliminary number of reported dead their teams had found, which included both infected and non-infected, regardless of whether they died from the parasitic or islander attacks or succumbed to the toxic gas, or even somewhat more natural causes. These were rough numbers, but from what he remembered, that meant their total crew now, both existing and newly recruited, was somewhere south of four hundred.

  He wondered how many crew it took to run a cruise ship this size, questioning if they had enough, even after the newly recruited were made useful.

  The door clicked open and the captain walked in.

  “Hello, captain,” Ted welcomed.

  “Ted,” he acknowledged. His tone and face were of someone very tired and heavily burdened. It was the same look Jörgen had before he was viciously killed. Ted knew this to be true of any leader of a large group which experienced much hardship. And they certainly had.

  The captain took a seat and glowered at Ted, like he wanted to tell him something horrible, but he wasn’t sure if he was willing to at this point. But then, in a blink, he finally decided not to.

  “How is your ankle?” the captain asked. His face and body language all at once were more relaxed, though he still showed concern.

  “It’s fine. I’m more concerned about TJ, and of course, all the others with much greater injuries than mine.”

  His face immediately switched
back again to that of the leader who felt crushed by the burden of knowing some secret which caused him great pain. It hit Ted that whatever Jean Pierre was unwilling yet to tell him probably concerned his wife. And it was bad.

  Jean Pierre tried to hide his emotions again, only partially masking his true mental state with a forced grin. “She’s one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. She’ll be fine. Doc Chloe says she’s already healing, thanks to... well, whatever is happening to those infected like her.”

  “I know, I checked in on her earlier. Doc gave her a heavy sedative to knock her out for a while. That’s why I’m surprised she was joining us on this... interview of our guest.”

  “We’ll only need her for one purpose, to confirm whether or not Mr. Novo is a bad pear—”

  “You mean apple.”

  “What?”

  “You meant, whether or not Mr. Novo is a bad apple.”

  “Yes,” his brow furrowed, and once again the whole complexion of the man changed. “And we can dispense with the pleasantries. This will be at minimum an interrogation and at worst an execution. You’re here for one purpose too: yours is to observe and to render your opinion, only after we’re done and only when I ask for it. I trust your opinion, Ted. But I will be the one who decides what happens to Mr. Novo. Are we clear?”

  “Very.”

  The door opened, and in walked TJ, cleaned up and now wearing a light jacket, zipped up over her running outfit. Last time Ted saw her, she lay on a cot in their medical clinic, half asleep and still covered in dried blood, which was caked over her multiple scratches and two bandages covering her bullet wounds: one on her cheek and the other on her leg.

  She limped in, assisted by crutches, looking dazed. “Hi Ted,” she smiled and sat in the chair next to his. The only blood on her was that blood that still stained her nose plug, firmly clipped to her nose.

  Before the door could close itself, Tomas Novo, in handcuffs, was led in by Wasano.

  Mr. Novo was seated in a heavy chair in the center of the room. Wasano pulled out another set of handcuffs and clicked them around the chain of the handcuffs he already wore. The other end quickly clasped to the arm of the chair.

  “I told you this is not necessary. I’m the one who killed Salvatore,” pleaded Mr. Novo. His accent seemed strange. Ted guessed that was his Portuguese, with which Ted had little familiarity. “I will tell you whatever you want. Just please don’t send me back to that island. I’ve been trying to leave it ever since I was sent there.”

  Their interrogation, which turned out to be more of an interview, went well as the man gave them every detail about how he first came to the island as a lowly deputy, or what they called an agent. And how he’d been trying to get transferred to Lisbon, but his boss wouldn’t let him leave the island.

  Then he told them about the barge that crashed into their town and how over three-quarters of their town went crazy or at least showed signs of the Rage disease.

  Tomas said that he wasn’t completely opposed to Salvatore’s methods to segregate the infected from those who were not infected, like him.

  Each time Mr. Novo mentioned the infected or what he called crazy-people or the Rage disease, he’d eyeball TJ, who remained quiet the entire time, only twice pulling off her nose clip, sniffing and then turning to the captain with a head shake, which Ted guessed meant that Mr. Novo wasn’t infected.

  Tomas said that he noticed that his boss’s behavior had been changing, that he showed less compassion and constant anger. One night, Mr. Novo said he followed his boss and witnessed him torture and murder a man who was showing signs of the disease. It was also the first time he saw that his boss was one of them, with red eyes and pale skin, just not as out of control as the others.

  Before this, he had just assumed his boss was fighting a cold.

  Mr. Novo then went on to the elaborate plan that his boss and two other men had come up with to lure in a ship, like the Intrepid, pretending that they were offering fuel for food, when in fact, the offer of fuel was only to trap a ship and hold the people for food.

  He’d been trying to find a way to leave them, but he was under the constant threat of death. It wasn’t until he was alone with his boss that he found a way to stop him.

  Wasano showed him a picture of the squat islander TJ had tortured earlier and then interrogated with Flavio. Then, he had heard from Flavio that the islander boasted about the plot that Mr. Novo just confirmed. Mr. Novo not only ID’d the men, he gave them the names and details of these men.

  “So where did you get the military ship?” asked the captain.

  “Oh, you mean the P114?” asked Mr. Novo. “My boss stole it from the closed military base on the other side of the island.”

  “The former US military base, closed years back?” the captain asked.

  “Yes. We were looking at the base as a place where we could keep the crazy people separated from the ten or so regular townspeople, like me, and the fifteen or so men, like Salvatore, who showed signs of the Rage.

  “We went there a few days ago and happened to arrive the same time as that patrol boat. We’re not sure where it came from, because Salvatore and his men killed the two military guys and took the boat. He told me it was to limit the threat and because he really wanted the boat.” Tomas was looking down at his handcuffs and then had a thought. “Hey, you can have the boat if you want. I can show you how to work it.” He glanced at the captain. “Although you probably already know how.”

  “Did you find any supplies there?” Ted asked, forgetting he was supposed to be quiet and just listen.

  “Not that I saw, or was told, but the whole base was intact. And it didn’t look like the tsunami damaged it at all. I wondered why we never used it for the crazy people. Until your ship answered Salvatore’s call. Then, only after he released them today, did I understand why he wanted them kept close.”

  Mr. Novo fell silent, but so did everyone else.

  Because it was the captain’s show, everyone looked to him, waiting for some cue as to what he wanted to ask next.

  Jean Pierre’s eyes were drilled into the floor in front of him, his face drawn down into a scowl, like he was calculating something in his head. Then he arrived at an answer, his head popped back up and he asked, “Mr. Novo, will you take us to this base tomorrow?”

  116

  News

  TJ Williams frowned at her reflection in the mirror. She was already getting used to the stranger staring back at her each morning, but she wasn’t used to all of the added effort she had to go through to cover it up for the benefit of others. Dabbing at her lips with Hollywood Red, her preferred shade of gloss—actually their preferred shade—she tried to figure out some sensation which seemed out of place. It began in her stomach. This quickly grew into a scratchy feeling in her throat. She swallowed back the raw bitterness, like something trying to come up. “Oh no.” She bent over and puked in her sink.

  “What the hell?” she asked herself, pushing up from the cool basin, holding back the next wave of nausea that wanted to take possession of her. She scrutinized herself once again in the mirror, focused on every detail or nuance in her face, looking for some sign to tell her what was going on. Am I getting sick? she wondered.

  As she examined her tongue for spots, her neck for swelling, her head for heat, she began to panic. Illness for people who were symptomatic meant a fever. A fever meant becoming parasitic. She did not want to turn into one of those things, not after fighting so hard to remain human.

  She thought she had become one, when she took those men’s lives, consumed some of their blood and then almost attacked her husband. But Wasano’s bullet brought her back. She wanted to avoid another episode, at all costs.

  A quick look at her clock confirmed she could make it to the medical clinic before she met with JP, who had something important to tell her before they sent a team in to inspect the military base. She would thankfully sit that one out and maybe take some time to apologize to her h
usband. The last three times he’d seen her, she was either crazy or drugged.

  Doing a final check of her look and outfit, she noticed right away she’d forgotten her contacts. No time, she told herself. She’d wear sunglasses; otherwise she looked fine.

  The sunglasses went over her eyes and she slipped out the door, now only needing one crutch to move around. She bounded down the hallway, so focused she didn’t even hear Jaga yelling her name from a cabin door close to hers.

  In the two minutes it took her to drop down the two decks and get into the RE Medical Center door, the nausea had a firm grip over her once again.

  ~~~

  “What is it?” Vicki asked. She flopped her head up to look at him, her eyes expectant, a giant smile was plastered her face. Flavio thought then, if she didn’t like the gift, it was worth it just for that look.

  “Maybe you open up and you find out,” Flavio stated, trying to make his words sound matter-of-fact, as if this box wasn’t anything more important than a lost hairbrush he’d found or a stick of her favorite bubblegum. But it was something he knew she would love.

  “I can’t believe you bought me a prezzie.” Vicki flashed him another smile and turned to address the box. Each of box’s flap corners were tucked in under the next, loosely sealing the top closed, but for a small square hole in the middle. She stuck her forefinger into the hole and felt something soft. And then that something moved.

  She pulled her finger out and glowed at him. “You didn’t?”

  Flavio shrugged. At this point, he just wished she’d just open the damned box.

  The box meowed at her.

  She opened it up, reached in and pulled out Cat, immediately plowing her face into its soft belly, Cat purring in response.