A Little More Dead (27 page)

Chapter
Forty-Three

DAY SEVENTEEN

Paul didn't remember coming into the
master bedroom. The last thing he remembered was the voice coming through the
radio the night before. He yawned and stretched out in the comfortable queen-sized
bed as daylight pushed through a small porthole window next to the closet. Then
he remembered that his wife was dead and never coming back. The revelation sent
an ice pick through him, bleeding his will to survive into the mattress. He
would wake up alone like this for the rest of his wretched life and there was no
changing it. That’s the hand he was dealt and it smothered the benefits of
their new home on water. Quietly, he crept out into the tiny hallway and opened
the door to the other bedroom to find Wendy curled up with a blanket in the
bottom bunk. The boat rocked and when he was positive she wasn’t dead and going
to come back to life and eat him, he shut the door and squeezed into the miniature
bathroom.

The clean toilet seemed like a mirage
and it was nice not to have to hold his breath for a change. It reminded him of
home. He tried to be grateful for their fortune but gruesome thoughts of Sophia
and Dan wouldn’t let him rest. He could barely fight them off long enough to
figure out their next move. The food and water onboard would last a few days
but they’d have to make a supply run soon.
A BIG one.
If they could haul enough back to the boat to get them through the next month
or two, they’d have some time to reset mentally and physically and maybe make a
stand.

After brushing his teeth with someone
else’s toothbrush, he rinsed and went up top for a look around. The dark clouds
from the day before had given way to the rising sun lighting up one side of a colossal
cruise ship barreling down on Wavy Gravy. Paul’s adrenaline shot through his
bloodstream. He tried to yell to Wendy but fear turned his vocal cords to ice. Paralyzed
by the sheer size of the massive vessel, he forced his hand to the keys in the
control board.

“Wendy,” he managed to say, starting the
boat and raising the anchor.

The cruise ship bounced closer, full
speed ahead and on a direct course for Wavy Gravy with black clouds coughing
from its periscope-like smokestack.

“Wendy!”

People ran about on the many rows of decks,
so high up
they
looked like insects.

“What’s wrong?” Wendy cried, from the bottom
of the steps, hair in a rats nest.

“Hang onto something!” Paul jammed the
throttle forward before the anchor cleared the surface, praying it was free of
any unseen rocks and that Wavy wouldn’t hook or stall.

Wendy shrieked and fell as the boat shot
forward, sending white smoke puffing out the back. “What is it?” she clamored,
crawling up the short flight of steps on her hands and knees.

The ocean liner looked much taller close
up, like a skyscraper on water. At the top of the stairs, Wendy screamed and
staggered with the ship’s violent wake. Paul cranked the wheel to the right and
floored it, watching people race up and down the decks, excited by he and
Wendy’s presence. Some wore straw hats and Hawaiian shirts and some flung
themselves overboard. Paul dodged the falling bodies like they were dropping
bombs. A woman in a tank top and denim shorts caught her head on a lifeboat and
flopped into the water with a bloody splash. Paul clenched his teeth and yanked
the wheel, a tendon bulging in his neck. The zombies that didn’t die upon impact
splashed their way to Wavy Gravy but didn't get far. Paul watched them drown,
wondering if they could learn to swim like some had learned to hide or ride a
bike with training wheels.

Wendy braced herself against the passenger
chair as Wavy rose and fell with the mammoth swells closing in from behind.

“Hang on!” Paul said, fighting the wheel
for control.

Wavy lurched to and fro, threatening to
roll. A man in a white captain’s hat and short sleeve button down followed them
along the top balcony as Wavy slid by. When he ran out of deck he climbed over
the railing and jumped, freefalling past rows of windows to a thundering splash
that Paul could hear over the cruise ship’s symphony of destruction. He turned
the wheel sharply to the left and floored it. The cruise ship hit sand, sending
a garish sound of twisting metal cutting through the salty air. The kind of
noise you can feel in your bones. Once clear of the hostile waters, he pulled
back on the throttle and turned the boat around, exhaling a heavy sigh of
relief. They watched the cruise ship slam into the beach, covering their ears
to block out the horrible screeching as the ship dug pyramids of sand around
the bow and teetered to the left, sending people and patio furniture catapulting
over the railings to the beach and shallow water below. Momentum carried the
cruise liner through a row of pink beach houses, turning the wooden decks and
walls into airborne spears. Flesh-eaters hurled themselves over the railings as
the ship docked into its final port with a massive explosion for its grand
finale.

Beneath a mushroom cloud of rising black
smoke, Paul and Wendy watched the living dead drown. One after the other, they
swam for Wavy Gravy and disappeared beneath the turbulent water. With one last
groan, the powerful vessel and its terrifying racket came to a stop. Seagulls
screeched above, angered by the ruckus or excited for some new scraps. Bloody
passengers staggered up and down the beach like wild dogs, watching their
shipmates drown, fixated on getting to Paul and Wendy one way or the other. He
had an eerie feeling he’d talked to some of them on the radio the night before.
It was hard not to imagine normal people still locked in their ship cabins,
waving to Paul and Wendy for help through the tinted windows. He used his hand
to shield his eyes from the glare, scanning the ship’s numerous windows he
couldn’t see through. An earthshaking explosion rocked Wavy Gravy from two
hundred nautical yards out, blowing Wendy’s hair back and pushing them further
out to sea.

“Jesus Christ,” Paul cried, correcting
their course.

Wendy righted herself and watched the
ship burn, unable to tear her eyes from the horrendous wreckage ashore. She
holstered her gun and released a long breath, blond hair blowing wildly behind
her through the air. “Well, so much for sleeping in peace at night.”

☠

Wavy rocked back and forth against the
anchor wedged into the sea floor below. Blue skies made an appearance for the
first time in days and the warm sunshine seemed like a long lost friend, like
it could make everything okay again. Wendy scooted closer to Paul, absorbing
his body heat despite the sunlight streaming through the tinted cabin windows. After
putting several miles between them and the thick smoke from the cruise ship, they
spent the next one hundred and twelve minutes eating microwave popcorn and York
Peppermint Patties while watching
Fool's
Gold
on a
Blu
-ray disc they found inside the
player. To say it was surreal was an understatement. They’d gone from a massive
catastrophe to Matthew
McConaughey
in the blink of an
eye and it didn’t seem right. But it felt good. Damn good to step away from the
horror for a minute and time travel into the past where movies and candy still
played a role. Even Sophia and Dan faded to the back of Paul’s mind as he
watched the movie with one eye on the TV and one on the windows. They could see
for miles around from the leather sectional and Paul wondered when airplanes
and space stations would start falling from the sky next. He took a drink of
the cold beer they’d stocked in the mini-fridge the night before, seeing the
colossal cruise ship barreling down on them at top speed in his mind’s eye.
That memory would trouble him for the rest of his life but it would have to get
in line.

A wispy trail of smoke rose from the end
of Wendy’s cigarette as the credits rolled, her body heat flushing Paul’s left
side. “I don't care what anyone says,” she said, lighting up a joint and
passing it to Paul. “I love that movie.”

He took it from her and stopped it in
front of his lips. “Where do you keep getting these?”

“From Dancers.
Joe always kept
at least a pound of the good stuff locked in the safe.”

He passed the joint back and she took a slow
hit, looking out the windows for the same thing he was. But the water was calm,
the temperature rising as fast as their blood-alcohol level.

She exhaled a rolling cloud of smoke
through the sunlight. “Let’s go swimming.”

“No way,” he said, taking the joint
back.

“Why not?”

“One word: Sharks.”

“Oh, come on,” she laughed, slapping his
bare leg and getting up. “There aren’t any sharks in there.”

“Look how far out we are. This is some deep
water.” He pointed to land. “No way in hell I’m escaping all those things on
shore to end up getting eaten by a great white.”

Wendy snuffed her cigarette into an
empty beer can and stretched, staring out into the sun-splashed day while Paul wet
his fingers and put the joint out.

“I can’t believe it’s finally March,” she
sighed, wiggling out of her jeans in the middle of the living room.

“Whoa!” Paul shielded his eyes from her
red lace panties with his hand. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going swimming in the ocean for the
first time,” she casually answered, pulling her t-shirt over her head and throwing
it at him. “I stink and so do you.”

Paul peeked through his fingers,
heartbeat quickening when he saw her matching bra. “Do you have to do that right
here?”

“Sorry, Paul, but I forgot my suit.” Wendy
planted her hands on her hips, striking the Victoria’s Secret Angel pose and
pulling it off.
“You coming or what?”

“Now way; that water is probably
freezing.”

She grabbed his hand and hauled him off
the couch. “If you think I’m going in there by myself, you are crazy.”

He grabbed his beer and followed her out
onto the back deck. “Do you even know how to swim?”

“Of course I do.” Wendy set her beer on
a patio table and stepped to the end of the boat, staring out over the glistening
water with her toes hanging over the edge. She shivered in the sunshine. “I’m
scared.”

Paul took a slow sip, studying the
purple butterfly on her back. “Maybe you should wear your gun.”

“Are you really not coming in?”

“I’m really not coming in.”

She shot him a sidelong glance and
turned back to the ocean, balling her hands into white fists. “Chicken,” she said,
leaping forward with a high-pitched scream and splashing into a patch of sun
sparkles. Wendy popped up like a cork, inhaling a sharp breath. “Oh my God, it’s
freezing!”

Paul thumbed inside. “I think I’ll use
the shower. It’s got a full tank…and heat.”

She pulled her hair from her face,
revealing a blue-eyed glower. “Come on, Paul, get in.”

He looked down at the clean cargo shorts
and tank top he found in the master closet. “
Mmmm
, I
guess not.”

“Just go in your underwear. They need to
be washed anyway.”

His lips pulled back into one corner of
his mouth, Wendy’s breasts floating like milky bobbers on the water. “They’re
brand new. Found a whole pack in the dresser.”

She splashed him.

“Perfect fit
too.”

“That guy obviously wasn’t married
because the only sign of a woman I’ve found in there is a stack of Penthouse
magazines in the bedroom closet.”

Paul spread a wry grin. “How lucky was
that?”

She rolled her eyes and splashed him
again before disappearing under water. He inspected their surroundings and tipped
the beer can back, a seed of hope budding inside. It was a clean slate and those
fucking
things
couldn’t swim. Other
than going on deadly supply runs, it would almost be like being on vacation. Something
banged against the bottom of the boat, jolting him from his daydream. He leaned
over the edge, seeing the cruise ship captain burst from the water and pull him
in, challenging his entire theory on whether or not those things could swim.
Wendy popped up instead and laughed. “Scared
ya
!” she
said, quickly scaling the ladder like something was after her.

Paul handed her a towel and sat in a
patio chair, ignoring the way her wet bra clung to her breasts.

“That was so cold and scary,” she said,
toweling off. “I don’t think I liked it.”

He sipped his beer, eyes avoiding the way
the sunlight licked her smooth skin. “We need to find a Target or a
Walmart
and load up as much as we can pack onboard.”

“We should just get it over with tomorrow
so we can relax for a while.” Wendy bent over and vigorously rubbed her hair in
the towel. “Can you imagine how much better this will be?”

“There’s some fishing gear up top we can
use; the good stuff too.”

She flipped her long locks back, sending
golden water droplets spiraling through the air behind her. “This is a floating
house.”