Cannibals (Completed)

Cannibals - Part 3

All the rooms on the ship are taken, most of them by more than one family, but eventually, we get lucky. We stumble on a member of the crew when he takes a mop out of a little utility room. Once he turns his back, we sneak inside.

It's a tiny place with one window, stuffed with buckets and mops, but it has a door that can be closed — if not locked — and that's better than nothing.

When the guy comes back, we sit there watching him.

"Oh," he says, startled. "Found yourself a place, huh?"

He puts the mop in the corner and gives us a long look. I expect him to try to kick us out, and prepare to resist, but he just separates one key from the bunch of keys he's holding and slips it into my hand.

"Lock the door," he says. "There's serious shit going on outside."

###

In the beginning, they even serve food, but it stops within days. The ship's not prepared for a sudden cruise with such an overwhelming number of passengers. And the original plan—quickly sailing to a safe port—proves unrealistic.

Because there are no safe ports left.

The radio transmissions paint a bleak picture. One after another, big cities have become infected. The epidemic has spread to other countries, and the reason is still unknown. If it was a terrorist attack, it certainly has gotten out of hand, for so-called zombies rage on every continent now, recruiting millions into their growing army.

We hear the news during the short trips we take to the public restroom. The rest of the time I insist on us staying in our room, even though it means that the kids go crazy with boredom. Under the pressure, I've developed a paranoid attitude towards other passengers. I'm sure that the moment I let my guard down, they will try to take possession of our little room and our tiny food supply.

Maybe I'm not all that wrong.

We don't eat whatever we got in our backpack as long as we receive food from the crew, but the moment their supplies run out, things really start to deteriorate. I try to seek help from Xavier, the guy who gave us the keys, and I do get a couple of bottles of water from him, but regarding the food he can't do much.

"Nothing's left," he says. "We can only hope to find a safe place to moor and then go look for some supplies. But those bastards follow us on the shore."

"I got kids," I say.

"Everybody do. This damned ship is packed with kids." He looks at me with pity.

Zombies follow us by the shore. People watch from the deck and discuss how long it would take for a zombie to starve to death, why they don't eat their own kind, and how on earth do they even know who is their kind and who isn't. What do they sense in each other? The infection? The madness?

A few days later, it starts to get really bad. We begin to eat the supplies from our backpack—the few tuna cans and chocolate bars that I took before we left the house. I lie awake at night thinking of what else I could have taken, had I spent just one more minute in the house. How much it could help us now.

In the beginning, people yelled and laughed and fought, and even at nights I could hear voices outside. Some brought pets, and I heard dogs barking and running after a stick on the deck. But with each passing day, the ship gets quieter. As the hunger begins to get to them, people prefer to sleep in their rooms, instead of going out. I hear no more laughter, only crying and cursing.

Eventually, the ship runs out of fuel and starts drifting.

"I'm hungry," Rick cries.

"Just try to sleep."

"But I'm hungry!"

"Give him some tuna," Annie says. "You greedy monster."

"It's for tomorrow. Sleep."

"I hate you." She turns her back to me, and I can't blame her. Haven't I failed? It's my job to make sure they are all right, and dying from hunger is in no way all right.

One night, I lock them in the room and go out. It's the second day we've eaten nothing. There is still some water left, but no food. I sit on the empty deck, listening to the waves, feeling helpless and exhausted, not even praying for a solution anymore.

But the solution comes nevertheless.

It has the shape of a cat. I've never seen this one before, but here it is, walking on the moonlit deck, skinny and businesslike, not noticing my presence. I must say I've thought about the dogs before, imagined one of them wandering into our room by mistake and never coming out. They have some meat on their bones, after all. But I haven't heard their barking in a while. I'm sure their owners have killed and eaten them already.

But a cat will do, too.

The moment it comes close enough, I pounce on it and grab it, not even sure how I'm going to kill it. It hisses and bites. I hit its head on the deck, and then try to strangle it with my bare hands. It scratches me fiercely with its back feet, and bites through the fingernail of my thumb. It's so painful that when the cat finally stops moving, I feel like killing it one more time, just to avenge my injuries.

I take its body to our room. Then I go to Xavier and wake him up.

"Can you get me a hotplate of some kind?" I say.

"Got something to cook?" He looks at me with his bloodshot eyes. He's pale, his hair is unkempt, and he has been sleeping with his clothes on.

"I killed a cat."

"I want half of it."

"Maybe one leg."

"Half. You won't get a hotplate without me."

"I'll eat it raw."

He contemplates me.

"I can kick your door out and just take it, you know."

"Try," I say. There are no more emotions left in either of us. We're just doing our best to survive.

"Okay," he says at last. "Two back legs."

"Deal."

We have something to eat that night, and the next day. Then it's over again.

During the days, I can hear the stewards throwing the bodies of the deceased into the ocean. They knock on each door to check who's alive. Despite their efforts, there's a stink of decay all over the ship.

Then even the knocking on the doors stops.

We just drift.

I lie on my back and look at the ceiling. The ship is quiet. Maybe we are the last ones left. Maybe we've left, too. Maybe we are ghosts. Maybe the ship is empty.

Except that I know it's not true.

Because someone's standing behind my door.