C
H
A
PTER
20
The zombies wandered through the prop room for an hour before they gave up looking for him and started to wander off. Paul stayed still the entire time, trying to keep his breathing quiet.
But standing still for that long was hard on his back. His legs were sore, too. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and shifted his weight just a little, and when he did his knees cracked.
To Paul, it sounded like a gunshot, and he tensed every muscle in his body, bracing himself for the attack he felt certain was about to come.
But it didn't.
Thirty seconds went by. A minute.
Nothing.
Curious, he pried the uniforms apart just a crack, just enough to show a tiny slice of the room beyond.
It looked empty.
Spreading the uniforms a little more, he stuck his head out and looked around. It was empty. The zombies had moved on.
He let out a sigh of relief and stepped out of the clothes rack. He thought about what to do, where to go. He could go back up the stairs, maybe, take his chances with the exterior access. But he didn't like that. Outside, most of the decks ran the length of the ship. That was a lot of distance, a lot of straight lines. It'd be hard to hide and easy to spot him. So that was out.
So was staying here, in the prop room. It was close in here, too close, and he was beginning to feel claustrophobic.
Besides, what he really needed to do was to find Senator Sutton and Tess Compton. That was his best bet of getting out of this madness alive.
Which meant that his only remaining option was to go through the theater and take his chances in the interior corridors. He didn't like that much, but it was the only choice that made sense.
He went through the door marked for
STAGE ACCESS
, crossed from backstage to the stairs at the far side of the stage and started down into the rows of empty seats. With all the lights off, there was an eerie sort of stillness about the place, and it gave Paul the creeps. He wanted to get out of there as fast as he could.
But he had only taken a few steps toward the top of the theater when he heard a woman sobbing.
He stopped in his tracks. He waited and listened.
Yes, he could definitely hear someone crying.
“Hello?” he called out.
Again he waited.
The sobbing had stopped.
“Hello?” he called out again. “Is somebody in here? I'm not one of those things. I won't hurt you.”
Off to his left there was movement. He climbed a few more steps, craning his neck to see around the seats.
“Hello?”
A woman stood up. No, a girl, Paul corrected himself. Barely out of her teens.
“Are you okay?” Paul asked. “Are you hurt?”
He took a step toward her, but she quickly backed away and he stopped. She looked even more shaken than he was, and that leveled him out a bit. Made it easier to think.
He said, “My name is Paul Godwin. I'm notâI don't want to hurt you.”
She was trembling, hugging her chest. Her face had a red, mottled look to it, like she'd been crying for a long time. Her hair was damp around her face and he figured that was from tears, or maybe sweat. It was hot in here. She was staring at him, not blinking at all, but he couldn't read anything in her eyes except fear.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“What's your name?”
“Kelly.”
“Kelly,” Paul repeated. She was dressed in a crew outfit, he realized. Her white blouse and black slacks meant she was part of the Hospitality Staff. But maybe she knew what was going on. Maybe she knew what passengers were supposed to do. “Okay,” Paul said, talking slowly, with a forced calm that he most certainly did not feel. “Good. Are you here by yourself, Kelly? Is there anyone with you?”
She nodded.
“Oh, there is? Okay, good. Um . . .” He looked around and then back at her. He shrugged.
“It's okay,” Kelly said. “You guys can come out now.”
Paul looked around, confused. In the low light the theater seemed very close, the air stuffy and stale. But then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a little girl, standing between the seats a few rows away. Another little girl stood up behind her, and another a few rows off. More and more of them were popping up all around him, until at last he counted twenty-three of them.
Paul's heart sank.
He looked at Kelly and said, “Children?”
She nodded. “Will you help us, please?”
Paul looked around again, all those children looking at him, waiting. Christ, he thought, kids. So many kids. And all he wanted was for someone else to take charge, to tell him what to do.
“Please,” Kelly said. “Help us.”
C
H
A
PTER
21
Pilar rolled over with a groan. Gingerly, she touched her ribs where the lady agent's shot had grazed her. She winced at the pain.
Her fingers came away bloody.
It wasn't a serious wound, but it hurt like hell. It burned. She closed her eyes and ordered herself to master the pain.
“Just force it down,” she told herself. “Force it down.”
A few shallow breaths and she had it.
Or was close anyway.
She stood up slowly, wincing again.
The lady agent was facedown in a puddle of blood on the other side of the bed. She wasn't moving. Pilar watched her neck for signs of a pulse, however faint, and saw none.
“Good,” she said. “That's one problem solved.”
But the senator was gone, and that was what really mattered.
Pilar stepped around the bed and stood over the lady agent's body. She tilted her head to one side, studying the scene. Something was wrong.
The pistol, she realized. It was gone.
That was more bad news than she needed. The senator must have taken it. Definitely not good.
Not that the senator knew anything about how to use a weapon. She was one of the few politicians from Texas to talk favorably about gun control and had, on a number of occasions, mentioned that she disliked guns with a passion. But she was armed now, and even if she didn't have any experience as a shooter, that was a wrinkle that Pilar just did not need.
She knelt down to make sure the agent was dead, but before she could check for a pulse, a man bumped into the doorway. He ran for her, and Pilar barely had time to squeeze off a shot. His head snapped back, and it stopped the man's advance, but it didn't put him down. Pilar moved into the open area at the foot of the bed so she had room to maneuver. There was a jagged hole where his left eye had been, and the other eye looked sealed by dried blood, but he clearly had no trouble following her movements. He staggered forward, like his legs wouldn't work right, and then broke into a run.
Pilar sidestepped him, and the man tumbled headlong to the floor.
Before he could get up, Pilar put another round in the back of his head, spattering blood all over the floor and the curtains.
Two more zombies, both of them girls in their early teens, ran through the door. But Pilar was ready this time. She held her pistol with both hands now, arms forming an isosceles shooter's stance in front of her chest, and double-tapped them both before they'd even made it through the entryway.
The slide on her pistol locked back in the empty position, but she didn't reload. She needed to listen, to take stock of her tactical situation.
She could hear footsteps somewhere down the hall outside, lots of them, and coming her way fast. She was about to have company, drawn no doubt by the sound of gunfire.
Pilar ejected her empty magazine and reloaded with her last one. Fifteen rounds left. She was going to have to make them count.
She went to the doorway and scanned the hall. A crowd of the dead was coming her way. She could see their eyes luminescing in the dark, a by-product of the bacteria controlling their bodies.
“I'm going to need my rifle,” she said.
The corridor was safe to her left, so she headed that way. First, she was going to head down to her cabin and get her MP5.
Then she was going to find Sutton and finish this once and for all.
C
H
A
PTER
22
Paul Godwin couldn't believe his bad luck. A theater full of ten-year-olds and their babysitter, who wasn't that much older, and all of them were looking at him, waiting for him to tell them what to do.
He let out a long, slow breath.
A few of the children were sobbing quietly.
Others just stared at him with glassy, vague looks on their faces. Shock, he figured. Of course, it wasn't like they didn't have good cause to be in shock. He had been there himself just a few minutes earlier.
“What are we going to do?” Kelly said.
He focused his attention on her. She was cute, with short brown hair and an oval face and a little nose that turned up just slightly at the end. A little mousey looking, but cute. She wasn't hugging herself anymore. She'd relaxed her arms a little. They were still crossed defensively under her breasts though, and he could tell by the little furtive glances she cast around the theater that she was scared and barely holding it together. She was hiding it pretty well at the moment, for the kids no doubt, but he could tell.
He motioned toward the stage, away from the kids. “Let's go talk over there?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Good idea. Okay, kids,” she said, raising her voice just enough for them all to hear, “you guys get back down, okay? We're going to talk for just a bit.”
The kids fidgeted, but none moved.
“I want my mom,” one of the little girls said.
“I know, Isabella. Please, everybody just duck down out of sight, okay?”
One by one, the kids went back to hiding between the seats and Paul started toward the stage, Kelly following along behind.
Paul leaned against the leading edge of the stage. “How did you get stuck with all these kids?” he said in a whisper.
“I'm one of the actors here,” Kelly said. “I teach a drama workshop for the kids on the days we're not performing. These kids were dropped off this morning at six. I haven't seen any parents since things started getting all crazy.”
“We have to get these kids back to their parents. You can't take care of them. Not with all this going on.”
“Don't you think the parents would have come to get them if they could?”
That stopped him. He didn't have a response to that.
“Those zombies are all over the ship. And a few of the parents I saw this morning looked like they were sick. I don't think there are going to be any parents coming.”
“Do you guys have any sort of contingency plans for this?”
“For this?” she said. “For zombies? You're kidding, right?”
“IâNo, I know you don't. . . . I mean for, hell, I don't know, emergencies. You know, getting kids back with their parents when the ship's in trouble. Surely, you have something like that.”
She nodded. “All the kids have wristbands. You probably saw that.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“All the kids under twelve have to wear them. They've got their muster stations imprinted on them.”
“You're talking about putting them on lifeboats. Getting them off the ship.”
“Not exactly. In case of general emergencies there's a central Child Pickup Center on Deck 4. Our procedure is to take the kids there, and if the parents don't show, it's my job to make sure I get them on a lifeboat.”
“I don't know. That's three decks down. A lot can go wrong. Are you sure you're not better off here? I mean, I didn't see you guys at all. I walked right by you.”
“We were supposed to feed them breakfast and lunch. They haven't eaten. They haven't even had any water since this morning. We can't stay here.”
Paul sighed. He looked up at the theater seats and shook his head. “Well, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. But I think that's a really bad idea. You ask me, you should keep these kids here. There's a sink and a bathroom upstairs. And they can go a few hours without eating.”
He was going to say more, but her expression had gone sour.
“What?” he said.
“You're not going to help us?”
“Well, Iâ”
“Oh, my God. You'd really walk out on twenty-three children. Are you for real?”
A few heads were popping over the backs of seats. Paul could see their eyes burning in the low light.
“Keep your voice down,” he said. “Please.”
“Why? So no one will know you're a chickenshit coward?”
“Hey!”
She glared at him, and though she'd pissed him off, they both knew she was right. He started to speak, but there was nothing he could say that was going to change the truth. She'd known him for less than five minutes and she'd already found him out for what he really was.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I really am.”
He turned to leave.
“Just like that, you're going to walk out of here?”
He couldn't look her in the eye. “I'm sorry,” he said again.
“I know who you are,” she said to his back.
That stopped him. He turned around.
“You're here with Senator Rachel Sutton. I saw you with her yesterday. What are you, like her family or herâ”
“I'm her aide.”
“What is that, like a secretary?”
“I'm her chief of staff.”
“So . . . her secretary, basically.”
“Yeah,” he said, not wanting to argue any more, not wanting to do anything but get the hell out of there. How she'd gone from whining for his help to indignation to taunting in such a short period of time was beyond him, but he didn't want to stick around any longer.
He turned away again, this time determined to leave, and started walking toward the prop room.
“But if she's here, they'll come after her, right? They'll try to rescue her.”
He didn't respond, just kept walking.
Kelly ran after him and grabbed his arm. He stopped, stared at her hand on his elbow, and then finally met her gaze.
“They'll try to rescue a U.S. senator, right?”
“She has a Secret Service agent with her.”
“He's got guns with him, right? Maybe he could protect us.”
“The agent is a she, and yes, I'm hoping she can protect the senator until some kind of rescue party comes. I don't know about the ship's communications system, but I haven't been able to use my iPhone since I woke up this morning. It's like it can't get a signal.”
“I heard somebody talking about that earlier,” Kelly said. “The Wave Phones aren't working either.”
Paul nodded. The Wave Phones were for onboard use only, so that guests could call other guests on the ship. If they were out, and his phone and Internet were out, things certainly didn't look good.
“Paul, can I ask you something?”
He sighed again. “Yes, what is it?”
“Do you think this is happening . . . because of the senator?”
“What do you mean?”
“Those cartels, they tried to kill her in San Antonio last year. And then again a few weeks ago.”
“Are you suggesting the cartels turned the people onboard this ship into zombies in order to kill Senator Sutton? That sounds, I don't know, a bit extreme. Why not just shoot her?”
“I don't know,” she answered. “But doesn't it sound like a lot of coincidences piled on top of each other? First, she's here, on this ship. Then the zombies. Then your phone and the ship's communications system. That's a lot of things to go wrong, isn't it? I mean, what other explanation could there be?”
“For zombies?” he said. “Good God, I don't know. A couple hundred. Thousands maybe.”
“Yeah, but they've tried to kill her twice already.”
“With guns. Not by turning six thousand innocent people into zombies. How would the cartels even do something like that? Why would they do something like that?”
“I told you I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. Maybe they're trying to do something like 9/11. You know, strike fear into the heart of America or something. I don't know.”
“Yeah, well, I don't either. But I refuse to believe that this is Rachel Sutton's fault. I can't accept that.”
“I didn't meanâ”
“It's fine,” he said, cutting her off. “Listen, you do whatever it is you gotta do to keep these kids safe. And good luck with that. Me, I'm outta here.”
“No,” she said. “You can't leave us here like this.”
“I told you, I'm notâ”
One of the kids screamed, her voice amplified by the theater's acoustics. Paul spun around and saw one of the little girls running between two rows of seats, a woman hobbling along behind her.
“Oh, crap,” Paul said.
Beside him, Kelly let out a sound of helpless terror.
The little girl was just a few steps ahead of the zombie. Other kids were screaming, scrambling over the seats and running for the stage.
Paul ran up the stairs, the bat held high and ready to strike. The little girl cleared the seats and ducked down the stairs, nearly knocking him over. She got behind him and her screams turned to whimpers. He flinched from shock as a snarl sounded next to his right shoulder and, lurching to one side, nearly screamed as the woman's face filled his rapidly tunneling vision. She moved so fast.
Adrenaline took over as he began to swing the bat. She clawed at his face. Paul pushed her arms aside and swung wildly, hitting her in the chest and the stomach and the hip, but doing little good. It was enough to create some distance though, and that was what he needed. When she came at him again, he was ready. He swung the bat for her head and caught her with a glancing blow on the chin.
The zombie went tumbling into the rows, landing with her neck in the narrow gap between two seats.
Paul didn't hesitate. He jumped from the stairs onto her back, jamming her neck deeper into the gap. Her snarls turned to a gasping, choking sound. She put her hands on the seat backs and tried to push herself up and out, but she was jammed too deep.
Paul circled around her, the bat gripped tightly in both hands.
“You bitch. Fucking die!”
He swung the bat down as hard as he could, again and again, turning her head to a mashed bloody pulp, even as her body continued to twitch and dance under the blows.
When he pulled the bat back from what he'd done, a large, hairy section of the woman's scalp slid off into the seat beside her.
He turned and looked at Kelly and the children down by the stage. His chest was heaving from the exertion.
But she wasn't looking at him.
She was staring up at the top row of seats, her eyes wide. He followed her gaze and saw a bald man with bite marks all over his scalp coming through the lobby toward the stairs. He made it to the top row of seats, locked eyes on Paul, and started running down the stairs, arms out ahead of him.
Paul's heart was thundering in his chest. His breath shuddered and his hands felt numb as they gripped the bat. Sweat was rolling down his forehead now, popping out all over his arms, but he paid it no heed. There was no pain, not yet anyway. His palms were slick with sweat and he rubbed them on his shirt so he could grip the bat better.
To Kelly, he said, “Get the kids through the prop room back there. Go!”
“What are you doing? Run!”
“I'll be right behind you.”
She said something else, but he didn't hear her.
The zombie was charging down the stairs. Paul turned to face him, asking himself what in the hell he thought was doing.
When the zombie was just a few steps away, Paul dodged to one side and swept the bat across the thing's knees. The bones shattered with a loud crack and the zombie went tumbling down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom.
Paul headed down the steps, and strangely, all he could think about was that New York Yankees gang The Furies from
The Warriors
, a movie he'd seen at least a dozen times growing up.
The zombie pulled itself up to its knees just as Paul reached the last step. “Warriors,” he said, half singing it, “come out to pla-ay.” He took steady aim and swung for the fence.
The sound of the bat striking the man's head echoed all around the theater, as did the thud of his body hitting the floor.
He turned and scanned the theater. Where there was one of those things there had to be more. But to his surprise the place was empty and quiet, the darkness pooling under the mezzanine deck halfway up the stairs. It occurred to him then that he could run for it. He could leave now and go try to find Senator Sutton and Tess and wait for somebody to come and save them. But if he did that, he might as well toss himself overboard, because he'd never be able to live with himself.
And just like that, he knew he'd sealed his own fate.
He turned and followed Kelly and the kids through the stage door.