Safety blanket

Chapter 2

All of a sudden it goes quiet, the night is still.

And it seems as if the nightmare is finally over, you can wake up now. The single, utter most, breath you've been holding can be freed of its bondage.

Imagine: You're a small mousy figure huddled by the thick metal rails that enclose the ships patio area.
The ship was scheduled for early evacuation effective immediately. And in the mass of frantic and slightly suicidal strangers, fighting to escape this cruise ship to hell; you lost your family.
One after one, passengers and staff roped lifeboats and drifted to sea not at all caring of the frightened girl they were leaving behind. That they were leaving you behind.
A mass of lifeboats scurry from the ship, bright lanterns fill the sea around you as the distance between you and man increases. You count the distance it takes to reach the awaiting shore by the number of times the paddles enter the water. At around 382 the light becomes dim and so does your hopes of survival.

The loud slapping of the waves, and slight kerplunk of objects breaching the surface greets your ears.
You watch in horror as a man clasps a tightly wound infant, no older than a month, to his coated chest before covering it head with a thick quilt.
He mumbles a prayer and quickly leaps to sea, engulfing himself and the baby in the salty waves. Scared and in full on hysterics, you sink to the ground and plant your back to the cool surface of the metal, as people continue to gamble with their lives and exit the ship.

Long forgotten the figure stalking in the shadows.

Kids are crying, mothers are wailing, men are screaming; but despite this apparent havoc, the world grows seemingly quiet. You timidly poke your head out from behind the side railings of the patio and search for any signs of danger, when none is found your shoulders sag in relief; You can come out now.

I, however, am smarter than that. Though not many are as fortunate.

I watch in visible unease as a child around the age of five crawls out from under her hiding spot several yards away; a conveniently over turned table.
Her face is clear despite the distance. I push back an oncoming wave of fear as I notice the location of the kid; on the other side of the ship. The side crawling with the infected.

I shake my head frantically and thrash my arms around in hopes that the small girl will heed my warning and go back to safety.
She noticed my psychotic waving but instead misinterprets my message. She looks close to tears and crawls the rest of the way out from under the wreckage. I sigh sadly, as her bottom lip trembles in fear and she wraps her frail arms around herself to perhaps try and fight off this harsh, cold weather.
Her bright blue eyes bore into my nearly black ones as she takes a hesitant step forward. The words they scream are clear: Help me.

Despite my not knowing the child my heart instantly goes out to her, she must be so scared. The deafening silence just before the kill is always worse than death itself, or so I've come to gather. I realise that I must do something or this child will surely die. After scanning the area, I gulp and slowly stand from my crouched position behind the wall of thick rails that separate the main deck and the dining patio of the ship.
It's not exactly the safer or even smartest place to hide but between me and two thousand other passengers, I didn't really have a choice. Although that number is dropping drastically as we speak.

I shudder at the still very prominent sound of screaming on the other side of the ship, the more populated side. Getting back to the problem at hand, I take cautious steps in the direction of the girl but stop when my eyes catch something just behind her advancing in the distance.
And the worst part; it is quickly filling the gap.

I act on instinct and run straight for the creature. Despite the expression of obvious fear that is probably permanently sketched onto my face, I pump my arms faster and tuck my chin closer to my chest in order to gain speed.
A surge of adrenaline possesses me as I notice the vile beast is closer to the girl then I am. Determined to get there first, I push my body into overdrive, my worry for the girl quickly overpowers my incessant need to cower away with my tail between my legs.