John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

When they started getting really bad, the crew had passed out cases of bottled water and cans of food to each room. The cans were Number Ten cans and “you get whatever we have.” There was one case of liter bottles of water per person and three Number Ten cans. That made two cases of water and six cans in their room.

Rusty was a big boy, over three hundred pound and six foot seven in his stocking feet. He could go through two number ten cans of food in a sitting. One of the reasons he wanted to do the cruise was the all you can eat buffets.

But he also wasn’t an idiot and had watched enough zombie movies that he realized that they might be stuck in that room for a long time.

Then there was the fact that they’d been handed six number ten cans of some weird ass bland paste. It said “hummus” on the side and had a smiling picture of some terrorist looking mother-forker spooning the stuff up and grinning like he’d just bombed a church.

So Rusty put them to the side and hoped they wouldn’t have to eat it. And then Ted turned. He hadn’t even shown any signs.

By the time the overworked security guards got there, Rusty had Ted tied up in some torn sheets and he’d managed to avoid getting bitten. Barely. He’d nearly lost it when Ted went. They had been friends since they were in grade school. But, face it, the reason they were friends was that Ted was the geek, Rusty was the muscle. If Rusty had went, Ted wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Rusty and Ted hadn’t been able to afford the expensive cabin with the ocean view. So they’d been watching the occasional zombie go for a couple of days. The ship was still serving, some. And Rusty had gone out a couple of times. But he sure wasn’t cruising for chicks. Just storing up fat and hoping like hell he wasn’t going to go zombie. The zombie plagues were the worst. Twenty-eight days and it was all going to hell.

Then the abandon ship call came. Rusty tried to get to the lifeboats but there were zombies in the corridor. So he ducked back into his cabin and tried to figure out what to do. Then the doors locked and that was that.

He’d drunk an entire bottle of water and filled it from the tap. He kept doing that for two days, drink the water, fill up the bottle. Drink the bottle, fill up the water. While the zombies howled in the mall. He could watch them. That was about the only entertainment.

Then the power failed and while he could still watch the zombies there wasn’t any more water. Along with the water stopping working, so did the shitter. That was okay, he wasn’t pooping much.

He’d conserved. He’d sipped even when he was desperate with thirst. He’d heard you could drink piss. When he filled a bottle, he drank that instead of water til it got dark and nasty. Then he’d sip water…

He could see the days go by but his iPhone ran out of power pretty quick and he had no idea what day it was. He had no idea how long he’d lived in that cabin. When he got up, he’d eat a teaspoon of that terrorist stuff, which somebody told him was made from ground up chickpea, though the guy called it “garbanzo beans,” drink piss and then a capful of water to wash it down, then sit and wait for all the zombies to die or somebody with, you know, guns to come along.

The ones in the hallway stopped making noise after about two weeks. He was surprised it was that long without any water. But he still couldn’t get out cause the door was locked and it was, like, steel. He’d pulled off the veneer to check.

He was thirsty all the time and he was down to pure piss in the bottles. And it turned out that piss turned. It was starting to smell like ammonia or something.

The zombies had, like, moods. Sometimes they’d be quiet, sometimes it seemed like for days. Then they’d get active and usually start fighting each others. He started calling them “orcs” cause they reminded him of those movies with the hobbits.

Then they day came when he could hear them getting really riled up. He could barely pay attention. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d gotten out of bed. He knew he was getting bed sores but it was just too much trouble to get up. But he could hear the zombies making noise and some sort of odd thumping. It was different but he really could care less. There’d been thumps before.

Then the door opened. He heard it but he realized he couldn’t even move his head.

“Another terminal,” a muffled voice said. It sounded like a chick but he’d had that dream before.

“I’ll check.”

A bright light was flashed in his face and he flinched. That hadn’t happened before.

“You’re real …?” he croaked.

* * *

“I need a stretcher team,” Faith said over the radio. “Some big guys. Even as a skeleton, this guy is big.” She unkeyed the radio. “I thought he was a deader. My bad.”

“Just drink,” Hooch said, giving the guy a sip of water. All the survivors looked like they’d been in the death camps but this guy was particularly bad if for no other reason than being so big to begin with. His feet were hanging off the end of the bed. “A couple of sips. Your body needs to get used to it, again.”

“You’re really real?” the guy croaked again.

“We’re really real,” Hooch said. “Sorry it took so long but the world’s gone to shit. We’re going to get you over to the boats in a bit. Tell them to bring an IV or this guy’s going to go into shock.”

“Bring an IV,” Faith said. “Cabin Three-Nine-Eight-Four. Hooch, we need to keep clearing.”

“Can you hold the bottle?” Hooch asked, putting it in the guy’s hand. “We need to keep looking for survivors. Don’t die before the medical team gets here, okay? Don’t give up.”

“I won’t,” the guy said. “Thank you. Who are you?”

“Wolf Squadron,” Hooch said. “Long story. They’ll explain it later. Just hang in there. We’re going to prop the door. We’ve cleared the zombies.”

The guy just barely nodded and tried to raise the water bottle. He couldn’t even manage that.

“Straw,” Faith said. She’d spotted one in an old coke bottle. She cleaned it off, put it in the bottle and propped it where the guy just had to turn his head. “Can you do it now?”

“Yes,” the guy said. “Thanks.”

“Just hang in there,” Hooch said. “You made it this long. Don’t give up.”

“Not gonna,” the guy said. “I want to kill zombies.”

“Okay, now you’re talking my language,” Faith said, patting him on the shoulder and sticking the straw between his lips. “We’ll talk in a couple of weeks.”

* * *

Rusty couldn’t believe how good water tasted. It was, like, orgasmic . He didn’t have to worry about drinking too much. Every time he took a sip he had to let his body and brain settle down from the intensity of the experience. Sip, fireworks. Sip, twitch. Sip, more fireworks. There were, like, stars in his eyes. Then he realized it was a flashlight.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” a voice said. “The guy doesn’t have any veins to put a stick in !”

“Let me try it,” another voice said.

“Like you know how any better than me. Hey, guy, this is gonna sting a little.”

Rusty felt the needle go in but he’d just taken a sip of water and the fireworks sort of made it unnoticeable.

“Shit…” Another probe. “I cannot find a vein…”

“Let me…”

Rusty wasn’t sure how many times they tried to put an IV in but he did notice that he was out of water.

“Water?” he asked. “Bottle…?”

“Yeah, got it,” the guy said. Unlike the first two who had been covered in weapons and what looked like firefighter gear not to mention gas masks, the guy was wearing a raincoat and a gas mask but that was about all. He pulled the straw out and got another bottle, then inserted the straw back in Rusty’s mouth.