Zombie Anthology (15 page)

    
Hannah lay on her bunk staring at the ceiling. She'd tried to get some sleep but she couldn't stop thinking about Riley and Brandon. Brandon would have been so happy on this ship.
The Queen
would've been like a paradise to him, the adventure of the high sea and children his age to share it with. It would have been like something out of a story book. And Riley ... She missed Riley so much. Without him, she felt hollow, incomplete. A piece of her soul had died with them back in the mountains just like the world had died long ago. She'd adjusted to the world's destruction but the pain of loss for her family was fresh and it stung at her heart.

    
Someone knocked on the door of her quarters. Forgetting herself, she reached for her rifle, sliding a shell into its chamber as the door opened. Pete stood in the doorway with a horrified look on his face as he gazed down the barrel of the .30-.06 at her. “It's okay,” Pete said slowly, taking a step back. Hannah lowered the rifle. “I'm sorry,” she shrugged. “Old habits die hard."

    
"Better them than me,” Pete joked uncomfortably. “The Captain is waiting for you to join him for dinner."

    
Hannah followed Pete out into the hall where Scott was waiting. Scott was clean-shaven and had gotten new clothes from somewhere. His whole appearance was different on many levels. He actually looked handsome and if possible, even smugger than he usually was. “About time you got up, sleepy head,” he teased her as the trio made their way along the corridor and up to the Captain's quarters on the level above.

    
Captain Steven and O'Neil greeted Hannah and Scott as they entered. Hannah looked the Captain over. He was in his later forties, his hair mostly gray, yet there was no mistaking the strength he carried in not only his character but also in his short, burly frame. He looked like a man who'd seen hell first hand and beaten it back by the sheer force of his will. The necessary introductions were made, and then Pete and O'Neil seated everyone at the table. “Will there be anything else sir?” O'Neil asked.

    
"No thank you,” Steven reached for a napkin to drape across his lap. “That will be all."

    
O'Neil and Pete left the quarters closing the entrance behind them.

    
The table was set with real china dishes and expensive, regal looking silverware but it was the food that held Hannah and Scott's attention. There was glazed salmon, fresh baked bread, a spicy brown rice of some type, stuffed crabs, and bowl full of red apples placed along side a salad of cabbage and chopped carrots. The Captain must have noticed their hunger. “Please, help yourselves,” he offered. Scott wasted no time in loading down his plate with everything in reach and a double portion of the stuffed crabs.

    
"I assure you, we don't eat like this all time,” Captain Steven informed them. “We can't afford to. Most of our meals are of much simpler fare but tonight it seemed fitting to have this feast not only to welcome you but celebrate a much needed change in
The Queen's
plans for the future."

    
"The future?” Scott mumbled through a mouth full of fish and bread.

    
"Yes,” Steven continued. “The future. We can't go on living as we have up until this point. I refuse to continue to sacrifice the lives of my crew and those under my protection to keep us on the sea. It's time we found a new home and try to reclaim some of what mankind has lost to the dead."

    
"Do you really think that's possible?” Hannah butted in. “The dead are everywhere. No matter where you go, they will find you eventually."

    
"But their numbers are dwindling too,” Steven explained. “Their bodies rot. Time takes its due. We have only to last a couple of years perhaps before we may outnumber them once more. Then we can truly retake the world as our own, as it was meant to be."

    
"How can you know the dead are dying? Have you discovered what brought them to life to begin with?” Hannah argued.

    
"Our crew may be made of refugees, Hannah, but some are rather extraordinary people. We have two medical doctors on this ship and one real scientist who've been studying the plague of the dead since the moment they came onboard. We still don't know the nature of the force or whatever it is which reanimates the tissues of those who die but we do know that it does not stop the decay of their flesh, it merely slows it. So in time, nature itself will destroy the ranks of the dead for us.” Steven changed the subject, “but enough of this. I want to know about you two. Who are you? What did you do before the dead walked?"

    
"Do you really want to know?” Scott asked, suddenly forgetting about the food. Steven nodded.

    
"I was a professional killer.” The table fell silent at Scott's disclosure. “I killed anyone for the right price. I worked for the government when I started out, then went freelance. I couldn't guess at how many people I put bullets in before the CIA caught me. When the plague started, I was rotting away in a federal prison cell and that's where the dead found me, alone, unarmed, and locked up behind bars. Obviously, they didn't kill me. Maybe I was so starved by then I didn't have enough meat on my bones to be worth their trouble, who knows, so they merely took me to a new kind of prison that they had created. It was called a “breeding center". It was a place where they herded us together like cattle and breed us for food."

    
Hannah's mouth still hung open from Scott's announcement of his old job and Steven appeared bothered by it as well, though not as much as he was by the concept of the “breeding center".

    
"Well,” Steven ventured, “I don't suppose it matters now what you did in those days. You're one of us now and I hope you will make the most of this fresh start.” Steven turned his body in his chair to address Hannah. “And what of you?” he asked her.

    
"I...” Hannah began and her voice cracked, “I was a mother."

21

    
As the days past aboard
The Queen
, Hannah found work in the ship's daycare. There were a couple of infants as well as nearly a dozen children that the ship had picked up over the last few months who either had no parents at all or who's parents held jobs aboard the ship which occupied much of their time. The daycare served the needs of those children and Hannah found happiness in her work with the kids. Jessica, a young woman barely out of her teens was the sole other adult worker, and while Hannah liked her as a person, Hannah didn't know how Jessica had handled the children by herself before she had come along. Jessica was a hard worker but she lacked the emotional connection with her wards that Hannah developed instantly. Jessica, without resentment, let Hannah lead in how the children were handled. Things changed a great deal as the children took to Hannah's new lessons in crafts and educational projects with zeal. Hannah, despite herself, began to let go of her past and embrace her future. The memories of Riley and Brandon would always be with her but she felt hope swelling in her again. These children needed her and there was so much she could offer them beyond just keeping them busy and out of the way.

    
Scott, on the other hand, was assigned to the nearly depleted group of the Queen's raiders and defenders. He worked closely with O'Neil whom he grew to hate more and more with each passing day. O'Neil took a more military approach to organization and training where as Scott taught the man the “dirty” tricks he thought they needed to know to stay alive in the new world of the dead, discipline be damned. It wasn't long until Scott met Luke through his work with O'Neil. The eccentric genius and the occasionally psychotic former hit-man became fast friends. They'd attended some of the same schools in the old world and both had done work for the governments on black-op projects though Luke's involvement was purely from a research and development stand point. Scott wasn't anywhere near Luke's level, but he was sharp and a fast enough learner to keep up with Luke when he droned on about his theories of this and that.

    
As the sun sank beneath the waves, Scott and Luke relaxed atop the highest point of
The Queen
above the command center in matching lawn chairs. Scott sipped at the glass in his hand admiring the potency of the drink Luke had whipped up for them this evening. It had the punch of whiskey without the burn.

    
"What was it like?” Luke inquired.

    
"What?"

    
"To kill people for money, man. How did you cope with it?"

    
"To be honest, I just never thought about it. A job's a job, ya know? Besides it's not that much different than things are today. Everybody has had to kill somebody to stay alive and keep breathing; whether it was by a bullet through the brain or watching someone you care about throw away their life so that you could get away."

    
Luke leaned forward and sat up on his chair. “So what do you think about Captain Steven's new plan?"

    
"I don't think it matters, Luke. We're all living on borrowed time. Whether we die out here on the waves or settle down and wait for the dead to come to us, they will get us eventually. We lost the war the moment they started thinking like we do.” Scott sat up too looking over the edge of the railing at the water below. “You're the resident genius. You tell me, have you ever figured out what brought the dead back to life?"

    
Luke shrugged. “Not really. It sure wasn't radiation or a virus as we know them like something out of those old B movies about the walking dead though their bites are infectious just like in those films. Nothing about the dead makes sense. They shouldn't be able to move let alone reason like they do. Sometimes a body will reanimate with partial memories of its life before death and other times it's like there's a whole new entity in the host body. They're all hungry for us though memories or not. It doesn't matter if they know your name and who you are because they'll eat you anyway."