Katie was asleep too, obviously exhausted from their ordeal. Paul was drained physically and emotionally so he should have been out as well, but for some reason, he fought off slumber. He struggled to keep his eyes open as he continued to stare at England lost. Just under the sound of the rolling sea, Paul could hear the ferry’s engines. The soothing rhythm took hold of his eyelids and they began to fall with the setting sun. Darkness crept into his vision and in a moment that sounded off with each beat of his heart, it would take his soul to the dreamy unknown…
Paul Hubber was unconscious on the bed with Katie and the child. He was still alive and not infected. There was a three-inch gash on his forehead that bled mildly, but it was a shallow, cleanly cut wound from a piece of flying debris and not a bite. Consciousness whispered to him and he began to rise, he moaned from pain and slowly opened his eyes, but his vision was extremely impaired from the crash and his hearing was nothing but a deep ringing that distorted his equilibrium. He felt a strong pressure at his waist, but wasn’t concerned with that as much as he was with his sight . . . everything was a blur.
He looked up and saw what had to be the sky, because it moved, the ceiling of the passenger ferry was ripped open and dark clouds churned overhead. The ringing in his ears subsided some and he could hear thunder from the skies above, but it was so dark. He wiped his eyes and looked again—he saw dark patches of clouds, but they moved too fast and then his hearing improved and the thunder turned to growling. His head throbbed, so he touched it and saw the blood on his fingertips, which explained why his head hurt so badly. He felt all the blood that had rushed to his head and the pressure wouldn’t go away. After rubbing his eyes again, they finally focused.
He looked up at the sky once more—
The clouds were the undead.
Over thirty of them were gathered, reaching down trying to get at him and he thought, “How are they standing on the ceiling?”
His mind cleared and he realized that he was upside-down on the bed, along with Katie and the little girl. The dead wanted Paul badly and his blood dripping from his forehead agitated them. They jumped and clawed at the air because he was out of their reach, but it was a short reach of only about four feet or so. Paul saw that Katie was strapped in the seat next to him and she was dead. Her dead face dangling before him and looking at him with a twisted grin. Her head was still attached to her body, but only by a couple threads of flesh. The spinal cord was severed so she wasn’t going to reanimate with the use of her limbs.
Paul’s face stretched in terror and he screamed her name in disbelief, but couldn’t hear himself in this silent nightmare. Seated next to him was the small girl they had saved. This innocent was in the same state as Katie; her nearly severed head hung loosely a few inches from his shocked eyes. Tears ran down Paul’s forehead and fell toward the ghouls below, their snarling mouths snapping at the fluid, along with his droplets of blood.
To Paul’s shock, Katie spoke to him, “What are little boys made of?” she asked in a cheery demeanor.
He was too dumbfounded to speak.
“What are little boys made of?” the child’s hanging head asked.
“Slugs and snails,” Katie’s head said with a smile.
“And puppy-dogs’ tails!” the little girl added.
“That’s what little boys are made of,” Katie told him.
Paul saw that Katie’s eyes were infected with a deep red color, along with the child; both had undead eyes with terrible grins.
“What are little girls made of?” the child asked.
Katie repeated the same to Paul.
“Sugar and spice,” the little girl’s cracked lips spat, “And everything nice!”
“That’s what little girls are made of,” Katie said.
To Paul’s horror, the two of them began to eat their own hands. All they way to their wrists. Katie and the child devoured themselves like ravenous dogs, until the chewed flesh came out their severed necks above and tumbled off, little by little, like a meat grinder. The dead below fought for the scraps. Paul couldn’t take any more and screamed for them to stop, but they wouldn’t listen because his voice was still silent.
The flesh on Katie’s neck tore and her head fell to the horde below, the infected savagely clawing at one another for a chance at the bounty of brains. Then the child’s head fell free and disappeared into the circle pit of fighting corpses. Paul stopped screaming when he saw movement in the corner of his eye. He turned toward Katie’s headless body; it was motionless and still strapped into the seat.
Something moved.
Paul looked closer and saw that the stomach twitched. It twitched again, stronger this time, and it didn’t stop. The spasms became violent and erupted into hard jolts from something within. His eyes widened in utter horror as something ferocious tore its way out of the body’s abdomen. A fetus emerged, growling madly because it was infected; it caught Paul in its mutated sights and hissed at him. It wanted him. Paul sobbed uncontrollably as he looked at his monstrous unborn daughter.
The thing moved toward Paul, clawing at the body’s skin to move closer. It could only go so far before it was at the side of the body and the gap between them stopped it from reaching Paul. The undead baby swiped at him, trying to scratch him with its claws. Paul pushed himself away from the thing as much as he could, his vision now blurry from tears. He couldn’t tell if the thing was going to reach him until, suddenly, the seatbelt came undone and the body, along with the raging fetus, fell to the swarm of undead below. The things were torn to pieces. The seatbelt of the child’s body next to Paul came loose, it fell with the other. Speedy claws and teeth decimated it as well. The ghouls fought one another for morsels of flesh, tugging and pulling on the headless bodies, which caused the horde to sway away and move out from under Paul’s path.
He saw his chance.
Paul reached for his seatbelt and undid it. He fell immediately and landed just to the side of the cannibal group but, because they were too busy fighting for the bodies, none of them noticed him. The wind was knocked out of him on impact, but he recovered quickly and darted his eyes everywhere for a way out.
He saw one.
Behind him was a hole in the fuselage.
Paul crawled rapidly and in his haste, kicked a large piece of debris, sending it back at the feasting corpses. The pieces of steel hit one of the undead. The ragged creature turned, spotted Paul, and came at him but, as it did, its bones broke at the waist. Its pelvis and lower backbones snapped, and the ghoul’s upper body bent over and dropped to the floor. As if it were a slinky toy, it transformed into a nightmare coil that sprang after Paul. The arms of the beast became winding claws that propelled the thing forward as it twisted like a huge drill bit that dug its way for Paul.
He kicked his legs as hard as could to move himself back from the attacking nightmare that rotated toward him. Suddenly, the air marshal’s Glock was in his hand, appearing out of thin air. Paul didn’t question it. He aimed the weapon at the drilling thing and fired. The gun burst out dozens of rounds in full automatic, more ammunition than the magazine could hold, but it kept firing in a surreal God mode. The gunfire had no effect on the twirling ghoul; it sped faster toward Paul. Its jaws snapped with tornado speed, creating a grinding noise from its teeth that pierced Paul’s ears.
He thrust himself back as fast as possible toward the hole to escape. He reached the jagged exit and pushed himself through, his clothes hanging up on the thorn-like edges of the torn fuselage. Paul struggled to free himself, his pants ripping from his relentless tugs. He continued to fire at the spinning cannibal and then tore free just as the creature pounced on him. He fired at its face, but it knocked the gun out of his hand. A hard boot to its mangled, raging face, and that gave him time enough to get away but—just before he was free—the ghoul swiped its claws and scratched his calf.
Paul cried out from the burning pain and fell
…
The ground beneath him was gone and he was in a freefall through darkness that had no definition or depth, just ungraspable blackness. His arms and legs flailed wildly and he tried to grab anything to save himself. There was nothing. He screamed out of blind terror, but he had no voice. The dark void ended as Paul crashed through the roof of the passenger ferry. He landed right in between Katie and the little girl, who were both asleep on a bench at the side railing of the ferry. Surprisingly, the two didn’t wake when Paul plopped in between them. He dropped in perfectly, like a cork into a bottle and rested his head on Katie’s shoulder. The child rested her head on Paul’s side as if she expected him. Both girls remained in perfect slumber.
Paul was confused because he didn’t realize he was dreaming, which explained why he didn’t notice that the gun had vanished. He didn’t want to move for fear of waking the girls, but there was something he wanted to check, something he needed to see—he was desperate to do so. He carefully moved forward. Katie’s eyes remained closed as they moved in REM sleep. The child remained in slumber as Paul gently laid her against the back of the bench. He leaned down and looked at his legs, but didn’t realize his pants weren’t torn from exiting the jagged hole in the fuselage. They were actually new and pressed nicely. Paul reached down with trembling hands and pulled up the pant on his right leg—he was relieved to see that his skin was untouched and had no scratch from the coil monster.
He looked at his left leg; the clean khaki material covered it evenly that he couldn’t even see his ankle. He needed to see his calf. He felt no pain or discomfort from any hidden wound, but he needed to see for himself.
He had to.
The anxiety of not knowing was killing him.
He reached down and grabbed hold of the pant leg.
Slowly, he pulled up the material.
Sweat tracked down the sides of his face, over his hollow temples, and past his widened eyes.
He raised the pant leg to his knee and when he looked at his exposed calf—
It was gone.
From the knee down, his leg was gone.
Paul was baffled, especially since he felt nothing from his limb being severed. He looked around in a panic, but his leg was nowhere to be seen—it suddenly appeared as it was stuck right in his face. Paul jerked back of repulsion from smelling his bloody limb dangling before him; he didn’t understand what was happening, until Katie’s wicked face appeared next to the leg. She held Paul’s calf as if it were a treat for a dog.
“Looking for this?” Katie’s twisted vocal cords hissed.
Paul looked into her eyes and saw infected madness staring back at him.
She dropped his leg in favor of attack as she lunged at Paul and bit into his neck. The little girl awoke as a ghoul and tore into his side, ripped through his clothes, dug her nails into his skin, and began to savagely gnaw on Paul’s ribs. He felt a splash of warm blood on his clothes and skin, which quickly turned cold. His clothes became wet rags of red and the hairs on what was left of his chewed neck stood up through the layer of cooling blood. The two beasts ravaged him to death and just before the last light left Paul’s eyes, he saw his severed leg on the floor before him and he could clearly see the infected scratch mark on his calf.
His eyes dilated for the last time
…
Paul awoke startled from his night terror, back on the bed in the ferry captain’s quarters, lying with Katie. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes squished tightly, tears streaming down his cheeks. Not wanting to see what could be another nightmare, he didn’t open them. The child still slept at the foot of the bed, but Katie slowly awoke from Paul’s movement on her belly.
“Paul, are you alright?” she asked with heavy eyes.
There was no reply as he struggled to shake off his haunted sleep.
“Paul?”
He still wouldn’t open his eyes; he wiped the tears from his face and beads of sweat replaced them.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asked.
Paul opened his eyes and stared at her. Katie couldn’t believe what she saw
—
his pupils were deep red in rage and barbed wired with a greenish iris.
Paul was no longer himself.
Paul Hubber was infected.
He growled madly at her with barbarically twisted lips and Katie gasped in horror as she looked into his depthless stare. She tried to get away, but he grabbed onto her waist and pulled her in. The thing that was Paul tore through her clothes and stabbed her with his claws. His gray fingers pierced her skin and ripped her open. Her blood sprayed the white bed sheets in layers; it dappled her face, drops landed in her screaming mouth. It was evil. The creature dug both hands into her abdomen and pulled out her insides and, even though it couldn’t be seen, Katie’s unborn child was destroyed in Paul’s clutches. The ghoul filled its mouth with her innards, as she kept trying to pull away, but it was futile.