Zombie Cruise Part V

Sweat poured into Buster’s eyes making it almost impossible to see. Buster was lost in the vent system and didn’t even know if he was close to the bridge. His portly body crawled with debilitating exhaustion and he lost the salt packets given to him. Suddenly, he heard some commotion nearby. Buster followed it until it lead him to a public bathroom near the atrium.

Drew waited for the help to break down the door. All of a sudden the outside became quiet. Drew approached the door and placed his ear against it to try to hear something, anything.

Then just when he thought the people had abandoned him, there was a loud thump, then another, then another until the door started buckle. Drew could finally get a glimpse of who was outside the door, needless to say it wasn’t what he was expecting.

“Bath tub anyone”, Drew thought while nauseated to a rancid stench.

Suddenly, while moving away from the door, he could view a little bit more.

“What….what is this?”, Drew asked himself out loud, this made the zombies more excitable.

Just as Drew backed away from the door, a petite arm reached through a little opening and clenched onto his shirt.

“You can let go of me, I’m alright!”, Drew reassured.

Drew twisted himself free, however she tore his favorite designer shirt.

“You better give me a ship board credit for that”, Drew barked.

“Hey….hey you lets get moving, we don’t have much time!”, a low deep voice warned.

“Who’s there?”, Drew asked.

“Look we don’t have time for introductions, come to the last bathroom stall and I’ll help you get out of here” Buster echoed.

Drew was slow to react, but he went over to the last stall.

“Where are you?”, Drew asked.

“Up here”, Buster said as he unscrewed the vent plate.

“As you can hear help has already arrived, thanks anyway”, Drew declined without realizing zombies were coming in to pull him apart like monkey bread.

“They are not here to help you, they are here to eat you! Give me your hands!”, Buster demanded.

BOOM! BOOM! The bathroom door broke in half and the swarm of zombies flooded in.

“Hurry! Give me your hands if you want to live”, Buster cried.

Drew now fearing for his life, grabbed Buster’s hands and was pulled to safety inside the vent just before the famished zombies could make a meal out of Drew’s dangling legs.

“What’s going on?”, Drew cried in confusion.

“This ship is infested with zombies”, Buster said while handing over the socket wrench to Drew to tighten the bolts down to the plate.

“Did you see the way they were looking at us? They are going to come after us!”, Drew panicked.

“Just tighten the bolts down, they can’t reach us”, Buster assured while getting impatient.

While tightening the last bolt, one zombie figured out how to climb on top of the toilet and attempted to bite Drew through the plate. His lifeless dilated eyes targeted a warm tender pinkie finger.

“That should hold, let’s get out of here!”, Buster ordered while moving backward and Drew moving forward.

“Do you know where you are going?”, asked Drew.

“I do now”, Buster replied.

“Where are we going?”, Drew asked while crawling through the narrow vents with his eyes practically closed, he was claustrophobic.

“The bridge. I’m looking for the Captain to call for help”, Buster grunted.

“I can’t go there! I have to find my wife Hailey!”, Drew challenged.

“Sorry, but that is where I’m going. Feel free to go another way, but just for the record your wife probably didn’t make it”, Buster bluntly remarked.

They crawled in silence for a while they heard screaming passengers trying to bargain for their lives, zombie’s belting gasping calls and smelling the horrific death stench that seeped through to the inside of the vents.

“We have reached our destination”, Buster cried in relief.

“Wait! How do you know there are no zombies waiting for us down there?”, Drew challenged.

“I don’t, but it is one of the safest areas on this ship to be in”, Buster rationalized.

“By all means, after you”, Drew said.

“It’s not like you can' t squeeze pass me string bean”, Buster huffed while tending to the bolts.

Buster gently removed the vent’s plate and lowered his head down to see while Drew steadied his legs and feet.

“All clear”, Buster said while lowering himself down and Drew following closely behind.

“Where is everyone?”, Drew asked like he had forgotten the circumstances they were in.

“Busy eating”, Buster said.

Buster quickly scanned all directions of the panoramic view from the bridge’s glass windows and saw miles of lonely open ocean, but he could of swore a small tan dot in the distance was a ship.

Buster checked the ship’s radio and tried to called for help.

“Mayday, Mayday….this is the Sea Starburst Cruise Ship over…..Mayday, Mayday can anyone hear us? Our coordinates are 500 nautical miles southeast from New Orleans Seaport…we have drifted off course and we need help!….can anyone hear us.. over”, Buster kept repeating until his words stumbled. There was interference with the radio frequency from a solar flare so his urgent plea for help was not getting through.

“UHHH….Buster you may want to take a look at this”, Drew warned with a doomed tone.

“What is it now”, Buster snapped.

“Look…on that chair over there….it looks like someone was scalped. We are all going to die, we are all going to die!”, Drew screeched.

“Na…..it’s okay….it’s Captain’s Pierre’s toupee. Stylish isn’t it?”, Buster said calmly with a little dry humor.

“That’s not funny”, Drew remarked.

Buster ignored Drew’s sobbing routine and searched for the ship’s log book and the access key for unlocking the life boats, both were not in their designated places. It seemed like one dead end after another.

“What now?”, Drew asked Buster expected him to have all of the answers.

“I’m going to keep trying to call for help on the radio”, Buster sighed.

***

Wally restlessly watched television as the lights flickered, until suddenly he fell strangely ill. It started with a massive throbbing headache and black cinder falling like snowflakes all around. He felt his eyes cramp and twitch until he no longer had the ability to blink. He felt frozen, very frozen, the kind of deep chill that shivers the bones and pricks the flesh . Wally hunched over while attempting to get up off the bed. He found that his motor functions were so impaired that he was reduced to baby steps that carried him fifteen minutes to the bathroom. He leaned against the sink and saw a gruesome sight staring back at him through the sheet mirror.

He had seen this type of face before when he used to visit his father in the morgue when he was young.

A day or two of death he was now masking. Wally had a deep contused waxy face with dim eyes. His crooked teeth were now serrated with a thick phlegm enamel and had the ability to retract like dentures.

Wally’s hair limped into a smoky grey with each strand becoming brittle. His neck seemed to have a life of its own, stiffly rotating into a slight slanted left position. He could feel the rigor mortis set in, but he was still breathing and had a strong pulse . Suddenly his clammy skin had an odor of raw sewage and a decomposed tint of greenish black.

Wally felt an overwhelming hunger that he never had before, one so primal he would do anything to satisfy it. Morals no longer grounded him, judgement no longer existed, memories emptied out like trash and sense of time was no longer apparent. Food was all he could think about and how he could get the most of it. He now knew steak and a baked potato wouldn’t nourish, iced tea could not quench his thirst, and BBQ pork ribs wouldn’t satisfy the bottomless pit in his stomach. Food just had to be human, there just wasn’t any other way around it.

Wally attacked the mirror image of himself thinking he was food and busted his forehead open forcing a gushing black liquid to spill in the sink. Wally did not feel pain or fear, just an incredible instinct to feed.

****

Olivia awoke on the Sports Lido Sundeck with a pounding headache and a burning red rash on her chest and arms.

“Man I partied like it was 1999 last night and now I look like a lobster”, Olivia said to herself not remembering much.

She sat up on the sun chair and checked her watch, it was now early afternoon.

“It’s so quiet”, Olivia thought while trying to gather herself.

Olivia wanted to head back to the cabin and find her friends, but she was very hungry. She decided to head towards the 24 hour diner to have brunch.

Olivia walked down the metal spiral staircase and strolled by the pool.

It was hot and the sun was beating down very hard on her. Not thinking anything through, she jumped into the pool with her clothes still on.

“This is what I’m talking about, a nice cool dip before brunch, all that is missing is the pool boy”, Olivia said floating on her back watching the clouds form pictures in the sky.

Suddenly she noticed a strange smell inside the pool and it wasn’t the chlorine. Olivia tried to ignore it and soaked up more of the open sea sun, she wanted a crispy tan. A second later she realized she was not alone

“Who’s there?”, Olivia asked after seeing a dark figure in the water.

Olivia strained to see but it was hazy. Whatever it was it just sat at the bottom of the water staring up at her.

“Look I’m not here to play Marco Polo!”, Olivia shouted.

The dark figure moved towards her.

Olivia decided at that moment her fun little dip was over and headed to the ladder to get out.

When she reached the ladder and she felt a bite on her leg.

“Didn’t know pools on cruise ships had sharks”, she calmly thought. The bite didn’t hurt much and she was still in la la land.

Then a second bite on the same leg behind her knee, this one hurt.

“OUCH!!!!”, Olivia screamed.

She took her opposite leg and kicked the dark figure in the water telling it to stop because she was not that kind of girl.

Olivia was released and she made her way onto the deck.

“What a freak!”, Olivia said while trying to walk.

Almost immediately Olivia noticed she was bleeding, she turned her head to look at the back of her right leg and most of it was gone!!!

Olivia, in shock, noticed the black figure was slowly rising up out of the water like a gator.

As soon as the figure made its way out of the water, she knew she was in trouble.

She viewed a tall man dressed in a black tuxedo with a rose pinned to his upper left chest. His hair was a dark slick black, his eyes were a cool cucumber green mixed with a wasp yellow. His face was a beautiful surprise with beading water kissing his thin groomed goatee .

“Too bad you're a cannibal, or you would have been my type!”, Olivia screamed at him.

The zombie gave her a sincere smile of “that’s cute, but now it is time to eat”.

He sat down next to her, grabbed her long hair taunt and feasted on her jaw. Olivia didn’t know he was a zombie. All seemed grim as Olivia found it pointless to fight back against a serial killer that could overpower her with one arm tied behind his back.

Out of nowhere, the zombie was knocked to the ground by a powerful blow from a fire extinguisher. Olivia, held her bleeding jaw together and watched the fight. The man violently blunted the zombie’s head several times until the head was mush.

Olivia tried to move her mouth to thank the man who had saved her, but her jaw was useless now, she could only find comfort in being mute.

“Are you alright?”, asked the stranger.

Olivia, now getting a good look at him, slowly moved away and backed up to the edge of the ship’s railing out of his shadow.

“Don’t be afraid…my name is Lee Chin, I’m the ship’s first mate and I’m here to help you”, Lee Chin comforted while slowly placing the fire extinguisher on the deck and showing full exposure of his hands to prove he meant her no harm.

Olivia rapidly shook her head no and preceded to move further away from him.

“Please come with me”, Lee gently spoke while offering his hand.

Olivia shunned him and scrambled to the other side of the deck.

He didn’t understand why she didn’t come to him, she should have been thrilled to see another person that was not dead.

Almost immediately after his thoughts, two zombies came up behind Olivia and attacked her.

She fought hard, allowing her chewed up jaw to fling open. Olivia lost her footing with the zombies attached to her and while recovering she tumbled overboard with the zombies still feeding on her.

Lee tried to react, but she was just out of reach. He closed his eyes in despair and leaned over the edge to see what happened to her. Olivia was submerged by the zombies in the water, she didn’t come back up, the dead sea had swallowed her.

Lee stared upon the horizon of the sea and saw what appeared to be another ship, however instead of rejoicing he was flustered. The drifting cruise ship was on a direct collision course.

“I need to make it to the bridge so I can program a new course! What good is help, if we are all dead!”, Lee yelled out loud.

Then a moment later there were a least twenty zombies that Lee could count closing in on him. He knew he could take on a few, but the rest would have open season. They were slimy ones, a bit more primal than some of the others. They were circling him, like predators do before they attack their prey. Devious smiles crumbled their decayed faces, it was time to feed…. Lee waited anxiously, wondering if he should make the first strike….Lee waited some more, but nothing happened.

Perplexed, Lee extended his arm out for them to nibble, but they just sniffed him like a dog meeting a stranger for the first time and nudged his arm out of the way.

“Why aren’t they taking the bait?”, Lee questioned.

“Maybe they don’t prefer my pasty white skin”, Lee grinned.

He figured there was a real chance to make it to the bridge so that is where he headed.

Lee made it to the bridge’s heavy metal door and typed in his access code to enter, but he was denied. He tried a second time, but the same thing happened, then he and went at it a third time, but nothing.

Drew and Buster heard someone trying to access the bridge and used the peep hole to see who it was.

“I don’t know…. he looks human”, Drew shrugged.

Buster pushed Drew out of the way to get a glimpse.

“I know that dude….that’s Lee Chin….the Captain’s first mate, he can help us”, Buster said with excitement while attempting to unlock the door.

“Wait…are you sure he‘s not one of those dead things?”, Drew asked.

“I’ll look again if it makes you feel better, but you are such a cry baby”, Buster huffed.

Buster knew Drew had a point, but he didn’t want him to know that. Buster squinted, scanning every detail of Lee Chin. After about two minutes, right before allowing Lee to enter, Buster saw two nasty bite marks on his wrists, exposing his bloodless veins. He also was see through pale, but he had been always pale, so he took that in consideration.

Lee and Buster locked eyes. Buster saw a shiny red residue glazed over Lee’s pupils, he looked like he had an albino rat’s eyes.

“Let me in! We are on a collision course with another ship!”, Lee yelled.

“Man, Lee almost had me fooled!”, Buster cried.

“What gave it away?”, Drew asked.

“He‘s been bitten, his eyes are red, but what sealed the deal for me was his low toned groans and gasping gibberish; the man couldn’t talk”, Buster responded in disappointment.

“What’s the matter with you! Didn’t you hear what I said!”, Lee shouted while pounding on the door.

Lee sounded crystal clear in his mind, but all Buster could make out were groans of a man turning zombie.

“Man… Lee is a wild and woolly one, he must be hungry!”, Buster commented.

“Hey Buster! Do you see what I see?”, Drew asked with happiness.

“What?”, Buster asked.

“Look out there on the horizon”, Drew directed.

Buster took a deep breath and looked out on the horizon.

“ I don’t see anything….wait there is something out there, I need binoculars”, Buster said.

Buster was hoping there were binoculars in the one of the drawers, so Drew jumped in with the search.

“Found them!”, Drew proudly exclaimed.

“Good, you may be useful after all”, Buster insulted while patting him on the head.

“Well…what do you see?’, Drew asked.

“Quit hanging over my shoulder like we are friends. Watch outside of door to see what’s going on, if any zombie could find his way in here, that son of a bi*ch is Lee Chin”, Buster commanded.

Buster looked in the direction of the ship and to his utter shock it was not a ship at all, it was much worse. They were on a direct collision course with an oil rig platform.

“Not good…not good…not good!”, Buster repeated to himself.

“UHHHH….Buster we have company!”, Drew said.

Buster walked over to the door and peeked out.

“Oh! S*it!”, Buster gasped.

The outside hallway was filled with more zombies than the eye could see, he knew zombies were on the way through the vents too, cause he could smell them.

“They’re coming! We have to secure the vent plate now!”, Buster yelled while springing into action.

Drew darted over to the vent and supported Buster on the chair as he worked to bolt it shut. They completed their mission just in time.

“We’re trapped!”, Drew screamed.

“I know that! The only thing we can do now is to keep trying to call for help, maybe someone will hear us”, Buster suggested.

“Can’t you do something?”, Drew asked while sitting down against the door.

“Before the renovation we had more options, but now with all this new technology installed requiring access codes and card keys we’re s*it out of luck”, Buster said while giving the wall a swift punch.

****

Hailey struggled with the group of survivors hunkered down in the dining room.

“It's my choice if I want to leave and look for my husband, you can’t force me to stay!”, Hailey wailed.

“Will you please shut your trap, they will hear us”, the man pleaded.

“Look, I want to search for my husband…. I know he is not dead! I know he is not dead!”, Hailey cried.

“If you go now we risk being found, I can’t allow that!”, the man firmly spoke.

“We should of just let lover girl pass us by, she is nothing but trouble”, a woman said in a Jamaican accent.

“Who are you?”, Hailey asked in a snotty tone.

“Nettie James, I’m the ship’s activities coordinator, and if you know what’s good for you, you will stop giving me attitude!”, Nettie snapped while glancing up from reading the ship’s blue prints.

“Well excuse me…..”, Hailey sniffled.

“Look… we can hide in here being sitting ducks or try to find a real way off of this ship”, Nettie spoke.

“Well what do you have in mind?”, the man smartly asked.

“If we can make it to the aquatics bay, there is an entrance to the water. The ship has jet skis and wave runners in there, maybe we can plot an escape”, Nettie revealed while pointing to the area on the blue print.

“That sounds peachy, but how are we going to get all the way down there without being detected?”, the man challenged.

“We use the air duct vents”, Nettie answered.

“Well let’s get a move on”, the man pushed on.

“No wait! That’s not going to work. I forgot the fuel tanks are empty because this is a cruise to Nowhere”, Nettie frowned.

“We can still go down there to use the life preservers and jump in”, another crew member suggested.

“Not a bright idea. The water temperature is still cooler this time of year, we probably would have hypothermia within thirty minutes, besides we probably are in the middle of the ocean”, Nettie said.

“What about the life boats?”, Hailey asked, getting involved in the discussion instead of whining.

“They would have been dispatched hours ago if it was not for the missing access key, without it the boats will not move an inch”, Nettie sighed.

“Great, that is just great!!! We are screwed!”, another crew member yelled, but this time it got some wrong attention.

“Remember we have to be quiet!”, the man whispered.

CHHHH….CHHHHH.

“What was that?”, Nettie said while huddling with another crew member.

“Don’t make a sound”, the man whispered.

The man looked up and saw what he feared all along. Dozens of zombies lined up outside waiting for the human brunch buffet. He could tell that they were organizing to break the glass wall because they had heavy objects in their hands.

“We have to get out of here!”, the man shouted.

“Where can we go?”, Hailey asked.

During the drama , the group failed to hear the zombies that made their inside through a side employee door Nettie forgot about.

As they turned around to run, they saw several zombies heading straight for them, starving, moaning and salivating. Their mouths were ajar, limbs knocking and wide eyes roaming the room deciding which ones to feast from first.

“To the kitchen!”, one of the crew members squealed. They closely followed one another to the kitchen.

“Quick, inside walk in fridge!”, a crew member said while wheezing.

The group piled inside the fridge and secured the door just in time.

“Good quick thinking”, Nettie complimented.

“I cook on ship for many year… fridge very safe”, the cook remarked with broken English.

“PLEASE…tell me your like that guy from the movies who said he is just a cook, but is really a p*ssed off Navy SEAL has like mad knife throwing skills, can make bombs in a microwave or has a secret stash of guns somewhere….you know…. just in case”, Hailey babbled.

“Sorry, I’m just lowly cook…but good with skillet”, the cook assured.

“We are all going to die”, Hailey cried.

The walk in fridge was surrounded by more of the undead. They paced around waiting…they could wait forever.

****

Mitzy was armed with a bloody fire axe for hacking in one hand and a bright shaded lipstick to keep her pretty in the other.

“It’s only a matter of time before there are too many to handle, I have to find a place to hide until I can find a way off of this ship”, Mitzy said to herself.

She tip toed down the upper decks corridor like walking on egg shells. Along the way, she tried to open several cabins, but all were locked. Then at the end of the hallway she stumbled upon an open cabin. Mitzy was not about to make the same mistake twice, she did a thorough sweep of the cabin to seek out any zombies that may be hiding.

Behind the cabin door clear, Hailey locks the door behind her. Behind the bathroom door, nothing but towel hooks. She flung open the shower curtain, nothing but shaved hair remained. She even glanced under the small vanity sink, hey some of the zombies seemed double jointed but only found a scrub brush.

Hailey wormed her way into the wardrobe and found nothing inside except for some drop dead gorgeous shoes.

“She’s got great taste”, Hailey commented.

She made her way over to the double beds and looked under, only to find some slippers. She checked the closet, only to find an iron board, robe and two carry on bags.

Mitzy, for the h*ll of it, scrolled the ceiling because you never know where a zombie might hide, no wall flies this time.

Mitzy scanned the empty balcony and slowly sat down with a wine cooler from the mini-bar in one hand and axe in the other.

Mitzy stared out into the royal blue sea and discovered some of the dead had gone overboard, then reality hit, she was never going to see Beverly Hills again.

****

“I have a ship on radar sir”, Tommy said.

“What is it…..a cargo ship….a battleship….?”, Ron asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s heading straight for us”, Tommy answered.

“Hand me the radio”, Ron ordered.

“Yes sir”, Tommy quickly replied

“This is Ron Boil of the United States Gulf Of Mexico Oil Rig, come in over…”, Ron loudly spoke.

There was no answer and the frequency had a lot of interference.

“What do you want me to do?”, Tommy asked.

“Son, I need you to alarm an evacuation and get the Coast Guard standing by, this is may get ugly if the ship keeps this course”, Ron spoke.

“Right away sir”, Tommy said. He sprinted down the hall sounding off all the alarms and following brace impact protocols.

The ship kept drifting in and out of the collision course. The waves were getting a bit choppy and a storm seemed to be rolling in.

“I don’t believe it…..a cruise ship…”, Ron said while having the ship in his sight.

Ron made one last attempt to have radio contact with the ship before he evacuated, but there was nothing.

Ron could not understand why the ship was drifting, it seemed like a ghost ship, helplessly swaying along. Ron secured the area and was the last one to leave.

Drew and Buster looked at each other in silence knowing it was the end. They could see the oil platform closing in and there was no way they could miss it.

****

Monday, April 23^rd 2012 at 4:45 p.m. The news covered a breaking story on the internet.

A cruise ship carrying 1500 passengers and crew collided with an oil rig platform today in the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities say around 4:00 p.m. The Sea Starburst, a cruise ship from the Royal Maid Cruise Liner Company, drifted off course and was unresponsive to radio contact. Sources say at this time they don’t know if there are any survivors onboard the capsized ship, but recovery efforts are underway. The oil rig had been evacuated prior to the explosion and we are told there no life threatening injuries to their work crew. It is estimated the damages total over two hundred million dollars and it is still unclear at this moment what caused this deadly accident.

Monday, April 23^rd 2012 at 5:23 p.m.:

Breaking News: It appears that the rescue crew has recovered several dead bodies…..also I‘m told…the crew has found at least 100 survivors but they are badly burned and are being transported to an undisclosed hospital in New Orleans……..

The breaking news article suddenly disappeared, something was very wrong.

****

“I’m telling you Neil! This is going to happen soon!”, Maggie Mackey warned. Neil was a close friend of her father’s that worked for the CDC.

“So, let me get this straight Maggie….you have had nightmares and visions of these so called events for the past two weeks?”, Neil inquired.

“Look, I’m not crazy… I can explain…”, Maggie said while biting her nails.

“Okay….since you father and I have been friends since college, I’ll hear you out”, Neil said while pulling out a note pad and pen.

“It started with the headaches, then vomiting, and then after that the nightmares began. I was dressed in a show girl type costume on this cruise ship called the Sea Starburst. It was their first single’s cruise, but I was there for some other reason. All of a sudden I‘m this vicious zombie. I attacked a poor guy in his room and ate him in the shower without feeling guilty. I could see everything, feel everything, smell everything, but could not change the taste for human flesh. For some reason I felt like this was all my fault, then later on… we drifted off course and collided with an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. There were survivors but everyone was already infected. The infection spread when they were pulled out of the water and flown to a hospital. This is the end of the world as we know it”, Maggie spilled her guts.

“You have quite an imagination….tell me Maggie how are you responsible for so many causalities?”, Neil said while clicking his pen in boredom.

“If you stop interrupting me, I’ll explain it!”, Maggie remarked.

“Forgive me, carry on”, Neil smiled. He could only hear the coo-coo clock in his ears.

“Alright …..anyway….a month ago I was snorkeling with some friends and we decided to have a beach picnic on an uninhabited island that my friend knows of. Well…. I wandered off to explore and found a waterfall. I knew not to drink from it, but it was such a hot day and it appeared clean, so I drank some. I kept drinking until I was no longer thirsty and that is when the headaches started. In my nightmares it was suggested that I contracted an unknown parasite that would feed off the water in my brain. However, that alone did not cause everything to happen. Wally, this smart passenger discovered there was a virus inside the parasite. That same virus was living inside my body since I was born, its genetic. There was a perfect bonding of the two and once the incubation period was up, I became contagious. I infected the ship”, Maggie concluded.

“You don’t expect me to believe this, do you?”, asked Neil.

“Look I wouldn’t believe it either, but I know this will happen and when it does there will be no stopping it”, Maggie argued.

“So how do you get aboard a cruise ship you have never heard of ?”, Neil asked while steepening his fingers.

“I don’t know, that’s the strangest part….”, Maggie pondered.

Just then Maggie’s cell phone rang.

“Excuse me for a moment……hello……”, Maggie answered.

“Hello Maggie”, the low familiar voice soothed.

“Scott….I told you not to call me anymore…it’s over”, Maggie said while getting up and walking to the other side of the conference room for privacy.

“I know…baby…..but I just can’t stay away from my girl”, Scott murmured.

“Okay…What do you want?’, Maggie asked with a soft heart.

“I want you….I always wanted you….I just made a wrong decision, but now I know you are the one….I can’t be without you…I love you”, Scott whispered.

“I proposed to you six months ago! You denied me…you denied me…”, Maggie cried knowing she still was not over him.

“I know, I know… but I am ready now. I know talk is cheap but let me spend forever making it up to you”, Scott begged.

“There is nothing you can do to make me forgive you”, Maggie said with a stubborn grunt.

“I want us to get married next week! I have everything arranged including your show girl wedding dress you wanted from C.C. Hart, my black tuxedo with a rose pinned to my upper left chest, the custom five tiered red velvet wedding cake and a romantic flower filled ceremony with dinner and wine on the Sea Starburst next week!”, Scott explained.

“Where again?”, Maggie asked.

“On the Sea Starburst, I got us a great package deal because it is a single‘s cruise, but they promised me we wouldn’t be bothered. Maggie you always wanted to get married on a cruise ship remember…just you and me sailing away”, Scott excited.

“Scott…I have to call you later….”, Maggie said while hanging up the phone.

“Is everything alright?”, Neil asked.

“The love of my life finally agreed to marry me…”, Maggie gasped.

“Congratulations”, Neil grinned.

“On the Sea Starburst….”, Maggie dreaded.

“Isn’t that the cruise ship from your nightmares?”, Neil asked.

“The same”, Maggie said.

“So, you‘re predictions are coming true”, Neil stated.

“Looks that way”, Maggie said.

“I’ll tell you what…I’ll get the staff doctor to order an MRI of your brain, that way we can ease your mind”, Neil said.

Neil did not believe her story, however, he wanted to be sure she was not a public threat to anyone, parasites were serious business.

Maggie underwent the MRI then waited for a few hours. It was confirmed there was something in her brain, but they didn’t know what. They had to extract it.

Maggie agreed for the CDC doctors to perform surgery. Hours of tedious surgery went by and they removed thirty-five almost microscopic worm like parasites from her brain and sealed them in an alcohol filled jar. They induced Maggie into a stable coma to quarantine her until they felt that she was no longer a risk to infect anyone.

The CDC ordered for the parasites to be destroyed, but as fate would have it, the man carrying the jar to the incinerator had a heart attack and collapsed, breaking the jar open, allowing the parasites to escape.

By the time the lab went on lock down, it was too late. The virus infected parasites were on a mission to find a host, drain the brain and infect others. The birth of the zombie plague was close at hand.

THE END……….(or if enough fans want more, I may continue the saga)…