Zournal (Book 1): It All Started

by Randall S. Merritt

  Ann must have noticed this as she looked at us approvingly. Or maybe that was her sarcastic look and she was still silently making fun of my pants. I pretty much suck at figuring out what women are thinking. Ann walked around behind the big generic desk in the room and sat down in a big leather chair and stared at us for another minute or so. Then she rummaged around behind her desk and pulled out some Oreos and Gatorade and a bunch of mushy cheese sticks which she pushed over to us. I grabbed one of each of and just enjoyed being sitting in a chair for a bit.

  She asked which of us was in charge. Reeves and Ginny both nodded towards me. Assholes.

  Ann asked me to tell her our story. I pulled out this Zournal and started reading it out loud for her. After about five minutes of me reading out loud while also trying to eat Oreos and cheese-sticks she took the phone from me and started reading it herself. She actually pulled out a box of wet wipes and used it to clean my phone pretty thoroughly before using it which I found to be a bit rude. I wasn’t that disgusting.

  She finished reading and passed me the phone back. This Zournal is turning into a great way to introduce ourselves.

  “Interesting read. Pretty much matches up with what we have seen here. You still planning on continuing to Tennessee?” Ann asked.

  “Yes. That’s the plan as of now. Although I’m a bit short on the how we’re going to get their part of the plan.” I responded.

  “I think everybody is having a hard time planning in this situation. A quick bit of advice, if you’re going to try and avoid telling people you have supplies in a Humvee down the street maybe don’t let them read your ‘Zournal’.” Ann smiled while saying it which took a bit of the sting out of my mistake and the fact that she was teasing me about the way I had titled the Diary Book app I was using. “Do you all want to go on to Tennessee or would you want to stay here or what?”

  Reeves said, “I’m good with these two. They seem to have more lives than a dumpster full of kittens.”

  Ginny gave Reeves a look at the weird analogy, “I’m good with staying with them too but I’m hoping we maybe hang out here for a little bit and recuperate at least.”

  I had not realized that they felt that way so hearing them vocalize it definitely put a bit of a lump in my chest. I swallowed that down quickly and flicked a chunk of Oreo at Ginny’s head while no one was looking at me. Looking at Ann I said, “I do need to get to my parents’ house and see how they are doing and if they made it or not. Knowing my dad, he has enough ammo to keep them safe for quite a while, although they’ll probably get sick of Venison at some point. I don’t know how many of you there are here but eventually it seems like every place gets swarmed so hoping you guys have a backup as well.”

  Ann had been looking at each of us intently while we had been talking. “Honestly, I kind of got stuck here when this all went down.”

  Entry 29: Ann’s Story

  Ann had been on a cruise with her sister, Beth, and nephew, Thomas, when the sickness had started spreading. In the bars and other public areas on the ship they had watched the news keep referring to it as the worse Flu epidemic since the black plague. At first, no one had really seemed overly concerned. Every year, there is some new disease the CDC and the news blow out of proportion. Zyka, Avian Bird Flu, influenza pandemics, H5N1 all scary names that people largely ignored by this point.

  Ann was of the same opinion as everyone else, she had been through the CDC sanctioned training on dealing with pandemics and knew that they were not something you should ignore. There trainer had used the analogy of the epidemics being like the hurricanes heading towards the Florida coasts every year. The newscasters build them up and freak out everybody but most of the time they end up only doing minor damage and causing a few fatalities. Every once in a while, one hits like Hurricane Andrew that does some real damage and that gets people on the alert for a little while but then they settle back down.

  Statistically though, there will be another Hurricane Andrew or maybe even something worse. It is just a matter of time. There are more defenses now against hurricanes, same as there are now more defenses now against a viral outbreak than there was even ten years ago. Historically, large outbreaks causing mass fatalities has already happened multiple times. Most recently, in 1918 the Spanish Flu killed between 50 - 100 million people globally, with a high percentage of those people being healthy young adults. The modern countries today have better hygiene standards, cleaner water, and people typically just live in an environment less conducive to spreading a virus. The whole world is one big petri dish though, so once a virus kicks up in nowhere, Africa it can be spread to the nicest neighborhood in Beverly Hills in a matter of weeks.

  Ann knew the virus was getting serious when all passengers on the ship were ordered to go to their quarters and ‘self-quarantine’. Announcements came over the PA system explaining that nothing was wrong and this was just a precautionary step to keep any sort of sickness that may be on board from spreading. The Captain and the medical officer both came over the PA system asking anyone with flu-like symptoms to call a special number and a medical team would come to their room and check them out. The ship they were on was one of the mega cruise ships built for 4,000 or so passengers and about 1,600 crew. The ship itself was huge. Ann and Beth had splurged on a Junior Suite with a nice sized balcony overlooking the ocean about halfway up the ship.

  They turned the TV on in the cabin to the news channels and alternated between watching that and checking the ships webcam channels to see what was going on. It was because of their obsessive channel flipping that they noticed the first attacks. They were looking at the webcam that showed the ‘Central Park’ portion of the ship. This was a main feature of the ship that basically took up multiple decks in an open-air park with restaurants and such. They had been seeing activity in this area as the crew had been using it as a distribution point for food and supplies. Since they had been asked to stay in their cabins, their room steward had brought them meals three times a day along with fresh sheets and towels when requested. The steward had been wearing a yellow face mask and gloves each time he visited. The captain had been on the PA telling them they would be docked by afternoon and met by representatives from the CDC to explain the disembarkation procedures. Due to some changes in itinerary, they would be docking in Port Canaveral, FL instead of Ft. Lauderdale which is where they had originally left out of. Busses would be chartered by the cruise line to transport anyone needing transportation back to the initial embarkation destination.

  They sat around and watched the Webcam of Central Park now as a fight broke out among the crew. It was too far away to really tell what was going on but it looked like three of the wait staff had come out of the restaurant and ran full tilt into the two guys stacking boxes, knocking them on the ground and then jumping on them and ripping and biting at them. We saw several other crew members running down the middle of the Park area towards the men wrestling around on the ground. The crew members who had originally attacked all jumped up and started running towards the would-be protectors. Pandemonium ensued, with multiple men getting knocked to the ground and attacked, while others were beating the attackers with long poles. Ann and Beth watched the violence escalate until eventually the original attackers got up and ran off screen. The Webcam stayed on showing them that two of the men at least were probably not getting up again as they lay in pools of blood with large chunks of their exposed flesh missing.

  A few of the ones who had been attacked stumbled to their feet and wandered away from the area. Thomas pointed out he saw one of them run to the side by the restaurant and start doing something. They were trying to figure it out when Thomas spoke up, “I think he is trying to squirt the sanitizer spray all over himself.”

  Once Thomas had pointed it out, it became pretty obvious that is what the guy was doing. The PA system blasted on again a few minutes later. It was the Captain speaking, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have been instructed by authorities on the shore not to tell you what
I am fixing to announce. However, I feel it is my duty and responsibility to let you know what we are headed for. There is a sickness that is causing people to get sick to the point where they lose their minds and start attacking everyone around them. This sickness is running rampant throughout the Caribbean and on the mainland and based on reports I have received there is nowhere it is not currently spreading. It has spread on the ship substantially as well to the point where we will not be delivering food or drinks to your rooms.”

  The Captain paused to let the information sink in to his audience before continuing, “The crew of this ship that is still healthy remains focused on your safety and carrying out their official responsibilities as crew of this ship. Due to the quickness with which this disease is spreading I have issued the order to the crew for everyone to lock themselves in place until we have docked this afternoon at which point we will announce the next steps in coordination with the port authority and National Guard. My understanding is the current plan is for them to send in medical teams to evaluate anyone who is sick and bus the rest of us to the Vehicle Assembly Building over by Nasa which is currently being used as an evacuation shelter.”

  After another short pause to gather himself and let the information sink in and then the Captain continued, “Lock your doors, stay in your cabins, and pray. We will make periodic announcements and update you to any situational changes. Do not go into the corridors. Do not leave your rooms. May god protect us all.”

  Beth, Thomas and Ann had sat in there suddenly very small and confining Junior Suite and stared at each other for a while. Thomas, a 15-year-old red headed athletic looking kid, gave his mom and Aunt a hug then started digging through their bags looking for food. He looked up a few minutes later with a sheepish grin on his face and pulled out a giant rum cake they had purchased at one of the cruise port shopping areas they had stopped at.

  After breaking up and dividing the rum cake, they had a discussion around what they should be doing next. As Ann related there really isn’t much you can do when on a cruise ship slowly turning into a floating Zombie ferry. At the time, they did not know for sure that was what was happening but the webcams remained on and they seemed to confirm that larger and larger groups of the crazed people were running around the ship.

  The last time they heard the Captain he was coughing. The PA system came on one last time, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am sorry to inform you that it appears most of the crew and a lot of the passengers have been taken with the sickness. There are only a few of us left on the bridge and all of us are sick. Based on what we were seeing on the closed-circuit security footage once you get sick it is only a matter of hours in some cases before you go mad. We are on course to dock but I am unable to raise the team at the dock to see if they are available to tie us off or greet us. I am assuming myself and the rest of the bridge crew will have succumbed to this sickness within the next few hours. I swear to you all that we will spend our last and our best to try and position the ship so that any of you who manage to avoid the epidemic ripping the ship apart have a chance to make it off. May god have mercy on us all. We will announce our location and intentions again in one hour if able to do so.”

  Beth and Thomas were looking to Ann to lead them out of there. Ann had no idea how she was going to make that happen. It sounded like the Captain was going to try pointing the ship at the docks and go for a controlled crash. Thomas brought up that he had seen an episode on TV where they had shown off the bridge of one of the new cruise ships and basically it looked like a star ship so there was probably an auto-pilot feature of some kind. They continued to watch the cams on the different channels and wait for more announcements. No new announcements came. They could hear people moving in the hallway though. The people moving in the hallway were alternately screaming and hitting things.

  There was no way to tell how many people were in the hallway but the number seemed to steadily be growing. Based on what they were seeing on the TV they did not want to go out in the hallway. Continuing to flip through the Webcams they got to the one where it showed the sides of the ship and they could see people moving around on a couple of the balconies and as they watched at least one person went over their balcony into the ocean. Ann tried again with the phone in the cabin to get an outside line and kept being told there was currently no service. Same thing was happening when they tried using their cell phones to either connect to the ships wireless or get a signal from there Carrier. They all had the same carrier as Ann since she had a departmental issued phone she used for pretty much everything and Ginny and Thomas wanted to be able to call her without worrying if she was getting charged for it or not.

  Thomas was looking at his phone for the millionth time, “I think I just got signal!”

  Ann and Beth both pulled out their phones and stared at them for a second before simultaneously al trying to make calls. Thomas tried calling his dad, Beth tried calling their mom, and Ann dialed the backline to the dispatch center at the Sheriff’s office. Thomas and Beth both got ‘We’re sorry, your call is blah… blah… blah…’ or something like that while Ann’s call actually went through.

  “Brevard County Emergency Dispatch Center this is Diane speaking is this medical, fire or health related?”

  Ann had known Diane for years and was beyond happy to have reached her on the phone. “Diane, it’s me Ann, what is going on? I’m on a cruise with my sister and her son and everyone on board is sick and attacking each other. What are you advising people to do? How do we get assistance?”

  Diane came back in a sad tone of voice, “I’m sorry Ann. The whole EOC is surrounded and none of us can get out either. I’m manning the phones kind of just trying to provide some hope to people. Basically, you want to stay quiet, you want to move mostly at night, try to avoid crowds, and as far as being stuck on the ship I don’t know what you should do there. Once you land though stay out of sight and quiet and if you can get somewhere with food I’d say just hole up for a while. Avoid shooting at the crazies as that just attracts more of them. That’s what is going to be our downfall here. I’d say -”

  The call cutoff abruptly and Ann could not get a good signal on her phone again. Other than the ships channels none of the other channels on board were working either. They were just displaying the emergency notification signal with no useful advice associated with it. The ship webcams kept showing larger groups of the sick people wandering around. The bridge cam pointed out across the bow seemed to have a shadow on the left side they were all hoping might be shore line but it was tilted to mostly show the bow area so they could not really tell by looking at it. Looking out the sliding glass doors by the balcony did no good either, since they were on the starboard side of the ship and travelling in a Northern direction they would not be able to see the coast until they turned to pull into port.

  Which they did. Very abruptly. Ann was assuming the captain or someone from the crew managed to hang on long enough to try and get them into port. The problem was they were now cruising up into Port Canaveral with no pilot ships guiding them in and no one to hit the brakes or reverse the screws or do whatever you had to do to stop a big ass ship from ramming into the pier hard enough to kill them all. They could see the shore going by at a pace that was disconcertingly fast.

  Ann told Beth and Thomas to start looking for anything they thought may be useful for when they got to shore and to get them off the ship. She went to the closet the life jackets were in and helped Thomas and Beth get those on then let them help her get hers on. They were bulky and got in the way but Ann was thinking abandoning ship may be the only option pretty soon. Everyone was digging through luggage but no one was really finding anything that looked very useful.

  They had been yelling back and forth in the excitement of pulling into port and the inevitable crash. They heard something start beating on their cabin door and screaming. Ann hissed for everyone to quiet down and stop moving. The beating on the cabin door continued for a little while then gradually died off as
whoever it was eventually either wandered off or just got tired of beating on the door.

  The ship shuddered and lost a good part of its momentum. Ann and Thomas and Beth were all thrown against the cabin bulkhead. The sound of people screaming and falling and glass breaking filled the air. Then the ship made it over whatever it had hit and continued forward, starting to build back up some speed. For whatever reason, the ship was now on a collision course with a freighter docked up ahead. Ann eyeballed the height of the freighter and thought this might be there only chance.

  “Guys, when we smack into that freighter if we’re above the height of its deck and it doesn’t look too far I think we should jump for it.”

  “Are you crazy?” Beth asked. “That’s suicide.”

  “Staying on this ship is suicide. Even if it pulled in nicely to the dock we’d have no way to get off and we’d be stuck in here until we went into the hallway and got attacked.” Ann reasoned to Beth. “Besides, we’re only going to jump if it looks doable. This might be our one and only chance.”