The Savage Dead

The zombies wandered through the prop room for an hour before they gave up looking for him and started to wander off. Paul stayed still the entire time, trying to keep his breathing quiet.

But standing still for that long was hard on his back. His legs were sore, too. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and shifted his weight just a little, and when he did his knees cracked.

To Paul, it sounded like a gunshot, and he tensed every muscle in his body, bracing himself for the attack he felt certain was about to come.

But it didn’t.

Thirty seconds went by. A minute.

Curious, he pried the uniforms apart just a crack, just enough to show a tiny slice of the room beyond.

It looked empty.

Spreading the uniforms a little more, he stuck his head out and looked around. It was empty. The zombies had moved on.

He let out a sigh of relief and stepped out of the clothes rack. He thought about what to do, where to go. He could go back up the stairs, maybe, take his chances with the exterior access. But he didn’t like that. Outside, most of the decks ran the length of the ship. That was a lot of distance, a lot of straight lines. It’d be hard to hide and easy to spot him. So that was out.

So was staying here, in the prop room. It was close in here, too close, and he was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

Besides, what he really needed to do was to find Senator Sutton and Tess Compton. That was his best bet of getting out of this madness alive.

Which meant that his only remaining option was to go through the theater and take his chances in the interior corridors. He didn’t like that much, but it was the only choice that made sense.

He went through the door marked for STAGE ACCESS, crossed from backstage to the stairs at the far side of the stage and started down into the rows of empty seats. With all the lights off, there was an eerie sort of stillness about the place, and it gave Paul the creeps. He wanted to get out of there as fast as he could.

But he had only taken a few steps toward the top of the theater when he heard a woman sobbing.

He stopped in his tracks. He waited and listened.

Yes, he could definitely hear someone crying.

“Hello?” he called out.

Again he waited.

The sobbing had stopped.

“Hello?” he called out again. “Is somebody in here? I’m not one of those things. I won’t hurt you.”

Off to his left there was movement. He climbed a few more steps, craning his neck to see around the seats.

A woman stood up. No, a girl, Paul corrected himself. Barely out of her teens.

“Are you okay?” Paul asked. “Are you hurt?”

He took a step toward her, but she quickly backed away and he stopped. She looked even more shaken than he was, and that leveled him out a bit. Made it easier to think.

He said, “My name is Paul Godwin. I’m not—I don’t want to hurt you.”

She was trembling, hugging her chest. Her face had a red, mottled look to it, like she’d been crying for a long time. Her hair was damp around her face and he figured that was from tears, or maybe sweat. It was hot in here. She was staring at him, not blinking at all, but he couldn’t read anything in her eyes except fear.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“What’s your name?”

“Kelly,” Paul repeated. She was dressed in a crew outfit, he realized. Her white blouse and black slacks meant she was part of the Hospitality Staff. But maybe she knew what was going on. Maybe she knew what passengers were supposed to do. “Okay,” Paul said, talking slowly, with a forced calm that he most certainly did not feel. “Good. Are you here by yourself, Kelly? Is there anyone with you?”

“Oh, there is? Okay, good. Um . . .” He looked around and then back at her. He shrugged.

“It’s okay,” Kelly said. “You guys can come out now.”

Paul looked around, confused. In the low light the theater seemed very close, the air stuffy and stale. But then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a little girl, standing between the seats a few rows away. Another little girl stood up behind her, and another a few rows off. More and more of them were popping up all around him, until at last he counted twenty-three of them.

Paul’s heart sank.

He looked at Kelly and said, “Children?”

She nodded. “Will you help us, please?”

Paul looked around again, all those children looking at him, waiting. Christ, he thought, kids. So many kids. And all he wanted was for someone else to take charge, to tell him what to do.

“Please,” Kelly said. “Help us.”