Leftovers

(estimated 13 minute read)

Previously - Nick and Sydney awakened to a strangely quiet cruise ship and even stranger ship mates. Even after witnessing Nick accidently murder a woman, then claim that she was already dead, Sydney decided to take her chances with him rather than go it alone.

    "Do you remember where the lifeboats are?" he asks as they turn toward the ship's exterior. She shakes her head, then sneaks a glance over her shoulder at the creatures shoving each other, and the barricade, with renewed vigor. Picking up the pace, they both release their held breaths upon reaching the railing of the ship. They chuckle nervously at each other, but swallow it quickly before hysteria sets in.  
    "There they are, down on the next level." She points as she speaks. Nick grasps her hand and tugs her down the gunwale. 
    "Only one is left down there, did you notice?" He tosses the words over his shoulder. "There's two just floating on the water." Sydney shifts closer to the railing, without losing a step, as she clips along behind him. Two bright orange lifeboats drift on the ocean as if they were deployed just moments ago.
    "That must be where the survivors like us are," she brightens. Nick gives her a quick look, but doesn't comment. As they junction with an interior hallway, he stops and presses a finger to his lips to keep her quiet. He peers around the corner into another dark, disturbing passageway. A shiver races through him at the thought of entering the confined space. It is the stuff of nightmares; a hallway where the light at the end moves farther and farther away as you stumble ahead of the faceless horror chasing you.  
    He swallows the terror, along with his heart, which has thumped its way into his throat. Instinct screams Run! Run! but he fights the urge. Sydney follows his lead. Her breath sounds ragged in her own ears and she's convinced the shadows can hear her. That thought only makes her breathe faster. 
    Nick halts so abruptly that she bumps into him. He backs her gently into a darkened portion of the passage. A couple enters the hallway, halfway between them and the bright exit at the opposite side of the ship. One of them turns toward the light while the second stops dead. Minutes pass as the figure remains perfectly still, silhouetted against the light at the end of the tunnel. There is nothing particularly threatening about it, but as Sydney waits and watches, fear swells into almost uncontrollable terror. The only thing keeping her from running back to the side deck and jumping overboard is Nick's hand grasping hers. 
    The figure begins stumbling in their direction. This time Sydney twitches, but Nick nods back the way they'd come. A stream of creatures files past the exterior deck behind them. Turning back to see the person emerge into the light, Sydney bites into her own palm to keep from crying out. She was already dead, Nick had told her. But that's impossible. Now here, in front of her own eyes, is a human body with half its face missing and no left arm below the elbow; and it's walking straight toward her. It should not be walking. It should not be alive. It should not be.
    The thing fades into darkness, then emerges again, then darkness, then light, dark again...now Sydney's body shakes so hard she can barely stand. It is in the light right next to them, like a spotlight on stage. But instead of a prima donna with the voice of an angel, here stands a monster with torn flesh and labored breathing. It stands still again, staring at nothing, staring through everything. Sydney wants to close her eyes. If she continues to look at this horrible creature, she will snap and run right into its one-and-a-half arms. 
    Nick's hand is a vice on hers. He breathes through his mouth, struggling to retain control. He's run through four survival scenarios in his mind, refusing to allow panic and fear consume him. He begins a fifth plan as the monster takes a step. It stands on the edge of their shadowed hiding spot in the narrow passageway. A sixth scenario pops into his mind when he realizes, with another two steps in their direction, that thing is going to walk into him. There just isn't enough space. He is about to flatten himself against the wall, but freezes. It's too late. Any twitch would be a neon sign announcing EAT HERE--->. 
    Three creatures stumble noisily into the hallway. They make gagging and groaning noises, and one of them pushes the other into the wall with a loud thud.  The monster in the spotlight turns slowly toward the chaos. It cocks its head, then decides to join the group, forgetting what it was doing. It finally meets up with the other three creatures and, without pausing, it leans forward to kiss the nearest monster, but its angry cry betrays that the kiss has too many teeth. 
    When the group eventually disappears from the hallway, Sydney drops on all fours and gasps for air. Nick stares at her, his heart still racing and his brain still obsessing over plans for escape. He can't return to the moment. There's something they should do, he knows that. They were trying to go somewhere specific, but where? He can't remember, and he really wants to get out of this creepy hallway, except those horrible things went toward the light. There's no way he's going to follow them. 
    "Nick." Sydney's breath is even now and she can finally speak. "Where is the stairway? We need to keep moving." 
    "Huh?" He can't make sense of her words. She rises and leads him from the shadows. He resists. There's no way he's leaving the safety of the dark. 
    "Come with me," she reaches for him from the light. "Now is the time before more arrive." He stares at Sydney for a long moment. His mind slowly catches up. She's right. More of them will come. They need to move. He takes her hand and moves into the light. Their eyes meet for a moment and strength somehow flows between them, just like before. "We're going to take the stairs. They can't be far." 
    When they find the stairs, Nick groans audibly. Each step in the stairwell is lit, and that's it. Somewhere, some sadistic interior lighting designer is giggling maniacally right now as there is truly no way this could be more disconcerting. Cave darkness would be better than this dimly lit stairwell descending to nowhere. 
    "There has to be a door down there, right?" Nick's mouth is dry. It takes a lot of rationalizing to convince his feet to move. Once he's dedicated to the descent, Sydney follows. "If we run into something, throw it down the stairs without hesitation." She nods in understanding, even though he's facing forward and wouldn't be able to see her in this suffocating darkness anyway.
    There is one switchback but no door, so they continue down the next flight of stairs. When they feel their way along the wall at the next platform, Sydney finds a handle. The door clicks open into another dimly lit hallway. She listens for shuffling footsteps or moaning, but only hears herself. They slide silently through the door and she shuts it carefully. 
    "Isn't there a law about exit signs? The lighting in this place can't be up to code," Nick complains in a whisper as they move toward the brightest light, assuming it's an external door. His phone lights up.
    "What are you doing?" she hisses, glancing around as if his phone is enough to bring out the dead. 
    "Googling the laws about exit signs," Nick explains.
    "Put that away. It doesn't matter right now." 
    "I don't have any service anyway," he mumbles. She rolls her eyes and smacks his arm gently with the back of her hand. His glance is puzzled and he shrugs.
    Sydney reaches to open the glass door, eager to enter the light, but Nick stops her. "Let me go first," he whispers. Despite her initial anger at his chauvinism, she withdraws. He slides the door open and peers in one direction, then the other, then he whispers, "Holy shit." He backs heavily into the hallway. Believing he is making room for her, Sydney starts toward the door, but he stops her. 
    "We can't take that lifeboat," his voice cracks even though it is barely above a whisper. "Let's just go to the other side and look at those."
    "Why?" Sydney places her hand to her chest, just below her neckline. "Nick, what's out there?"
    "Let's just go." He tries to lead her away, but she refuses. Yanking her forearm from his grasp, she turns back to the door. "Syd, no. You don't want—" but she has already seen the carnage. The lifeboat is the last one on this side, farthest away from them. The orange, pill-like structure sways slowly as if there is movement inside. Outside the door are body parts, some still covered in torn clothing, others only identifiable by the red muscle and white bone glistening in the sunlight.  
    Sydney feels vomit in the back of her throat and instinctively runs to throw up over the railing. Her reaction is so sudden that Nick has no chance to stop her. He watches from the hallway as her body convulses and she releases what's left of lunch from yesterday. Once she recovers, he ventures to her and takes her in his arms as she cries silently. 
    "Let's keep moving," he kisses the top of her head, then lays his cheek on it. Something about holding her, feeling her arms around his waist, focuses his mind. His survival instinct kicks in. "Come on."
    "How many do you think are in there?" she asks as he moves toward the hallway again. He furrows his brow and focuses on the lifeboat, not the horrors around it. 
    "Didn't they say it could hold 150 at the safety thing yesterday?" He turns to Sydney to see her staring at him with a strange expression of terror and determination. "You don't think there's 150 zombies on that lifeboat, do you?" 
    "Zombies aren't real," she corrects him. 
    "There are dead people trying to eat us. I can google the definition of zombie, but I think that is pretty much it."
    "They aren't dead. Dead people can't move, can't breathe. They are alive." Her voice quivers. "Zombies aren't real. These things are...are...ah...crazed cannibals." Nick's mouth drops open a little in disbelief. Sydney trembles in front of him, wringing her hands together and flicking her eyes from him to the lifeboat over and over again. He realizes she is clinging to some type of sanity lifeline.
    "Okay, Syd," he says gently. "I can't google it anyway, still no service." He shakes his phone at her and cracks a smile. 
    "We need to deploy the lifeboat," she whispers.
    "What?" he gasps.
    "We need to take out as many of these things as we can in case we can't get off this ship." He feels a rush of anger and wants to slap her; a thought that frightens him even more than being trapped. He clenches his teeth and sucks in a sharp breath, cursing his temper.
    "We will get off this ship," he growls. 
    Her shaking increases from his anger, but that does nothing to lessen her conviction. She marches toward the lifeboat, until she comes within about 6 feet of the death scene and halts. "Nick I can't," she admits, covering her mouth and gagging again. "I can't do it." 
    "Yes, we can," he tells her, overcome by the need to dig deep and find the courage to conquer this nightmare; and to show Sydney that she can too. 
    "All right, then how do we do it?" she asks through her fingers. Nick takes stock of the lifeboat in front of them. An extended gangplank culminates at the open door of the oblong fiberglass capsule. Giant steel hooks hang from thick chains connected to either end of it. The chains link to heavy gauge wire. He follows the wire with his eyes to huge pulleys at the top of the crane extending over the water. The wire runs along the crane then disappears behind an I beam above his head. He can't determine where it connects from this angle, but his investigation leads to placards under an emergency light on the wall.
    "There," he points to them and steps forward. She grabs his shirt. 
    "Wait, let's see if there are some instructions that aren't surrounded by dead meat," she suggests. Nick glances over his shoulder at her, then nods toward the crane behind them where another lifeboat was already launched. The area is free from body parts, but just as chaotic. Two long, narrow benches line the wall with the lids thrown open. Life jackets litter the side deck, some splotched with dried brown blood, and a bag lies upon the deck. Flares and communication devices, along with some first aid supplies, are among its contents. 
    Sydney collects the spilled items into the bag before slinging it over her shoulder, then sorts through the life jackets to find a pair that fit. Nick pores over the instructions, leaning over the open bench and drawing with his finger while he skims the words and pictures. As Sydney approaches him, he tugs his phone from his back pocket.
    "Now what are you googling?" she bites. "How to deploy a lifeboat on Zombie Cruise Lines?"
    He shoots her an evil eye. "I didn't think the name was literal when I booked the trip." She can't help a much needed snort of laughter at his response, and this time his smile is genuine. "I'm going to take pics of these instructions. You should do the same in case my phone dies. How much juice do you have, anyway?" 
    "I charged overnight, but it stopped when the power went out. Looks like 67%." She snaps away. There are instructions and diagrams on deploying the lifeboats, but also a map of safety equipment locations and muster routes around the ship. "Nick, look. There's a life raft. I didn't see anything like that on the water."
    "Here, it shows them on the map near the lifeboats," he muses as he scans the area. "There's one." He points to an object near the railing that resembles the propane tank at his dad's cabin. 
    "Everything's going our way," she beams, handing him a life jacket, "just like in the movies." 
    "No, don't say THAT," he warns. 
    Her eyes widen, then she adds, "like in a slasher movie, I mean." 

Continued in Part 3 - Face-to-Face with Death 
Thank you for reading!

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©2024 Lauren K. Wells Do not reproduce or distribute without written consent from the author

This story was written with a human hand, a human mind and a human heart. Do not use this for AI.

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