Curt laughed, "I was a zombie fanatic long before this and I've always known what I'd do if the zombie apocalypse ever came about." He sobered, taking Sarah by the shoulders and turning her towards the boat. "Aisha sent you to me for a reason - she and I spent a lot of time theorizing plans for survival while watching zombie movies. If she wasn't able to get here, I'm sure she's found another way to survive."
They were outward bound less than twenty minutes later. Sarah remained on the deck, watching for signs Aisha until the slip was out of sight. The last thing she saw on land was several figures, stumbling out of the shadows.
Seasick...
"I saw her swing the bottle and then everything went black." Chagrined, Tomos ducked his head as the rest of the table laughed good-naturedly. Seven of them sat in the galley playing poker while Tomos, who'd woken up twelve hours earlier, regaled them with the story of his trip into the chaos of Galveston.
"Taken out by an angry old lady," Carmen ribbed him. "It's a good thing Quinn was there to rescue your sorry ass." They all laughed again.
"Speaking of Quinn..." Sarah glanced around the room, her eyes settling on Heather who was curled up with her nose in a book. "Heather, have you had a chance to check in on him lately?" Not long after setting sail, Quinn began to complain about being seasick and retired to the bunk above Tomos' in the stateroom; he hadn't come out since.
Heather looked up from her book, shaking her head. "No. The last time I was in to check on him he didn't want to wake up. When I finally roused him enough to get him to talk, he just told me to get out and leave him be."
"Men can be such bears to wake up." Tina giggled, casting a knowing look at her boyfriend, Caden. Sarah didn't know the two well since they were friends of Heather and Curt's, but the couple seemed nice enough. She knew Caden worked for Curt's fishing company, but knew little else about the two.
As most of them had been up for over twenty-four hours, the first thing they'd done after setting out was to get some sleep. After their naps, they'd worked at storing their previsions in the galley's pantry while discussing how to divvy up the daily chores and keep themselves from going stir-crazy. Since they weren't sure how far the contagion would spread or how long they'd be on the boat, Curt explained he'd charted a course for the Florida Keys, hoping the zombies hadn't yet reached the area. His plan was to stop, refuel the boat and pick up additional provisions so they could stay on A-Fishy-Nado indefinitely - no one disagreed. Now, after eighteen hours on the boat, they'd settled in and Sarah, Tomos and Carmen were getting to know Tina and Caden a little better.
"I suppose I should go check on Quinn since he did pull my ass out of that brawl." Tomos stood and stretched his lanky body; the boat swayed beneath him causing him to stumble as he walked towards the galley doors. "It's going to be hard adjusting to life on a boat," he said with a chuckle after catching himself on a nearby table.
"You'll get your sea legs soon enough," Heather said, not taking her nose from her book.
"I'll be back in a few," Tomos said as he rounded the corner and disappeared down the corridor.
"He's so thin," Sarah overheard Tina whisper to Caden, "Like scary skinny for a guy."
Caden hushed her with a look that Sarah couldn't read. "I'm going to check on Curt and see if he needs anything," he said, getting to his feet.
Sarah watched as Scott pushed through the galley doors and waited until they'd swung closed before saying, "Tomos is so skinny because last year he was diagnosed with Graves disease."
Tina flushed a deep red as she asked, "What's that?"
"It's an autoimmune disease where the immune system over stimulates the thyroid gland, causing hyperthyroidism. I don't understand the specifics, but I know it's rare for men to get it and causes severe weight loss. He's been on medication and it's seemed to help with his other symptoms, but he hasn't been able to regain the weight he lost before being diagnosed." Embarrassed, Tina got to her feet and walked over to stare out the porthole without another word. Sarah absently shuffled through the deck of cards she'd been holding. When the king of spades caught her attention, she pulled it from the deck and handed it to Carmen.
"She's fine Sarah." Carmen assured her after seeing the card.
Everyone in their small group knew that the king of spades was bad luck for Aisha; every time she lost big while playing, the king had always been in play. Seeing it now, Sarah's mind wandered to her BFF and she prayed that Aisha had somehow found safety. "You don't know that," she mumbled.
Carmen reached out, resting her hand on Sarah's, "she's hard-headed and stubborn. I doubt a few zombies could get the best of her."
A loud crash from the aft of the boat had all four women trying to look through the closed galley doors. "Tomos!" Sarah said, jumping to her feet. "I'm going to go check on him."
They heard something splinter and then everything fell silent. "I'm coming with you," said Carmen, hurrying after Sarah.
The two of them jogged down the corridor, listening for any indication of what had happened, but the only sound they could hear was the purr of the boat's engine. When they reached the stateroom Quinn had been sleeping in, Sarah stopped abruptly, making Carmen bump into her from behind.
"Why did you..." Carmen began, but stopped abruptly as she too noticed what Sarah had. Quinn lay sprawled at the foot of the bed, a chair spindle sticking out of his left eye socket. The room was a mess. Blankets from the bed were sprawled across the floor and the desk chair lay in smashed pieces. Books from the single shelf were scattered across the desktop. "Tomos?" Carmen whispered.
"Here," Tomos wheezed from their left.
Sarah and Carmen walked further into the room, careful to avoid Quinn's body.
"What happened?" Sarah asked as Tomos' legs came into view. He sat on the floor concealed by the wardrobe. She wasn't sure if she really wanted his answer.
"He... he was one of those things."
Carmen gasped and rushed towards Tomos when his blood-streaked arms became visible. "One of those things? What do you mean?"
Sarah glanced down at Quinn, really looking at him despite her churning stomach. His pallor was gray and his untouched right eye was a pale, milky white. To her horror, his bloody fingers still twitched erratically, but the rest of Quinn's corpse lay still and silent.
"He must have got bitten before he pulled me from beneath all those people." Tomos' thin frame shook as he spoke, his scratched and bloody arms held tightly to his chest. "I came in to check on him and Quinn was tangled in his blankets on the floor." He looked at Carmen with tears in his eyes. "He was thrashing around, so I figured he'd just fallen out of bed in his sleep. I tried to talk to him but he just moaned and kept struggling against the blankets wrapped around him. I managed to get him free, but when he turned to look at me I knew something wasn't right; his eyes were white and his skin was really pale."
"What the hell happened?" Curt boomed from the doorway.
"That's what we're trying to find out," Carmen snapped, not looking up from Tomos. "Aren't you supposed to be piloting this floating metal box?"
Curt waved her off as he knelt and felt for Quinn's pulse - as if the wooden spindle sticking out from his eye socket wasn't enough of an indication that Quinn was dead. "Heather called up to me on the bridge, said something was going on and that I needed to check on Quinn."
"He was already dead when I got here," Tomos said, refusing to look at his friend's body. "He was one of those things Curt. He grabbed my arm and before I knew what was happening, he was pulling my fingers towards his open mouth. I-I managed to pull free but he had a really good grip and his nails scratched me." Tomos held out his arm as proof. Sarah could see that beneath the blood, he had long nail marks gouged into his forearm and hand. "As I backed away, I bumped into the chair. I didn't see anything else I could use as a weapon, so I smashed the chair over Quinn's back." His voice went shrill, "It didn't even faze him. I grabbed a piece of the chair back from the floor and I... I..." Tomos' voice broke; his head dropped into his hands and his body shook with silent sobs.
"He didn't bite you did he?" Sarah asked, afraid to hear the answer; Tomos only shook his head. She looked to Curt who wore an expression somewhere between wariness and apprehension.
Turning to Carmen, Curt asked her to check Quinn's body for a bite mark. With a look of disgust Carmen did as asked and soon pointed out the infected area on his side. "We didn't even think to check Quinn for bites." Carmen finally said, flopping back against the open door.
Curt rubbed his fingers over his eyes and looked back to Tomos. "And you're sure he didn't bite you."
Tomos finally glanced up, his eyes bloodshot and his face tear-streaked. "I pulled my hand out of his mouth before he could bite down." Sarah wasn't sure, but she thought she heard him add, "His teeth only grazed the tip of my fingers," under his breath.
A dark and stormy day...
Sarah awoke sometime in the early morning, just as the eastern horizon was beginning to turn from a light purple to a pale pink; she hadn't slept much that night. After discovering Quinn's body, Carmen took Tomos to the galley, where she'd cleaned and bandaged his wounds. Curt and Caden carried Quinn's body up to the deck and threw it overboard. Tina freaked out when Sarah explained what happened to Quinn and Heather locked herself in her stateroom. After having his wounds cleaned and wrapped, Tomos retired to his berth for the night. During dinner everyone had been uncomfortably silent, no one willing to say aloud what was on everyone's mind - that even on A-Fishy-Nado, none of them were safe.
Making her way to the galley for a glass of water, Sarah's mind wandered to Aisha. She hoped for the gazillionth time that her BFF evaded the zombie plague sweeping across the state of Texas and had somehow found safety; for the first time, she was glad Aisha hadn't made it to Galveston. Most of the night she'd tossed and turned with Tomos' whispered words ringing in her ears:
'his teeth only grazed the tip of my fingers'
. Had Tomos been infected?
Will we lose another friend to this new, horrific plague? Should I have told Curt about what I thought I'd heard?
By not telling anyone had she put them all at risk?
Shaking the questions from her head, Sarah filled a glass and leaned against the counter, staring out the porthole at the approaching dawn. She watched as the horizon began to brighten with the rising sun, but the ominous feeling that had continuously disrupted her sleep didn't subside. Feeling like she needed some fresh air, Sarah made her way up to the deck where she found Curt staring over the vast expanse of the gulf.
"You can't sleep either?" she asked, smirking when Curt jumped at the sound of her voice.
"There's a storm blowing in," he pointed to the dark clouds moving in from the south, "and I find this time of the morning to be peaceful. When I'm out on the water, I enjoy having my morning coffee here." He patted the deck beside him, but Sarah just shook her head.
Glancing up at the dark clouds moving in, she asked, "Think we're in for a bad storm?" A flash of lightening backlit the dark clouds and Sarah shivered.
Without taking his eyes off the approaching storm, Curt replied, "Well, it's not a hurricane but I don't think it's just a spring shower either; I hope you guys don't get too seasick - I'd hate to have to clean up the mess." He laughed and Sarah's stomach gave a nervous little flip. Curt got to his feet, "Well I'd better check our heading and give Caden a break."
"I'm going to head back to the galley and get some coffee; I think I'll skip breakfast..." The rest of Sarah's sentence was cut off by a shrill scream from below decks.
"Heather!" Curt shouted as he raced for the ladder, which led into the belly of the boat.
Sarah followed close behind, but couldn't take the ladder as quickly as Curt had. Upon reaching the bottom, she glanced up and down the corridor but couldn't see which way Curt went. Another scream ripped through the air and Sarah took off at a run, towards the berths. Cory was shouting by the time she rounded the corner of the corridor; Sarah slid to a halt. Bloody handprints led down the hall and half way between her and Curt, who stood banging on his stateroom door shouting Heather's name, lay the body of Tomos - an axe protruding from the top of his skull.
"Where's Heather?" Sarah asked, approaching the open door to the room where she'd left Carmen and Tomos sleeping only an hour earlier. The room was empty. "Where's Carmen?"
Curt continued to beat on the closed stateroom door, ignoring Sarah's questions. "Heather, please unlock the door." A loud thump came from within the room. Backing up, Curt raised his foot and kicked in the door; he stopped in the doorway, unmoving.
Running footsteps sounded in the corridor behind Sarah. "What's going on?" Caden, out of breath, slowed to a stop beside Sarah. When he saw the body of Tomos, he shouted, "Tina!" and ran to the closed door opposite the one she'd shared with Carmen and Tomos.
Flinging open the door, Caden glanced into the empty room. Turning back to Sarah, he asked with panic, "Did you see Tina?"
Sarah shook her head. She turned back to Curt, who stood in the doorway of his stateroom and saw movement behind him. "Is Heather okay?" she asked, stepping forward. Something in the room made a wet, slurping sound.