Once again, a sense of the surreal struck. Trey inhaled the stale stench of piss and cheap hand soap, listening to some rich androgynous twenty-something crooning about a love they’d never experienced. As he stood there, hiding in a casino bathroom from zombies, he consoled someone else’s daughter. He wondered if one of those addictive, click-bait-y personality quizzes always circulating around the internet could have ever predicted this.

  A sound captured his attention. Turning to confront the source of the intrusive noise, Trey clenched one hand into a tight fist. His eyes narrowed. In a flash, he understood that things had changed. The stakes were higher. He felt an extreme protective urge covering Chloe.

  Indomitable rage threatened to kidnap his senses and take him to a jungle hideout of heightened violence. Whomever, whatever it was that was unlucky enough to stumble into this pathetic bathroom, interrupting the grieving of this little girl was about to get a bloody invite to the hereafter.

  Chloe walked slowly over to the sink. Trey moved his lips to speak, but no sound came out. He wanted to issue a warning. But his mouth was dry. He merely watched her for a moment. He listened to the sound of the faucet.

  Returning his attention back to the noisome casino lavatory, Trey tried to determine the source of that sound. Looking around, he didn’t see anything suspicious. He took a careful step forward. Scanning under the stalls, he failed to pick up any signs of activity. Am I going crazy? Trey wondered. He hated to think that he might be hallucinating at a time when his immersion in reality was so crucial. Inching forward, he kept his attention focused.

  Stepping up to the first stall he encountered, Trey paused. He glanced back toward Chloe to make sure she was okay.

  And then he fell.

  His foe struck.

  The thin metal door painted an off shade of pink that had faded with the effects of time tore open, colliding with Trey’s face. Trey heard his nose crunch. A nasty sound. Losing his balance, Trey fell backward, slipping on the tile underneath and clattering to the floor. His head hit the bottom of one of the porcelain urinals. He saw a flash as his body bounced in various directions.

  Blinking, tasting blood in his mouth, Trey fought hard to focus. He saw a balding man, short and skinny, approaching the girl. The guy didn’t appear to be growling.

  “Ooh, look what we have here,” the man said. His voice seemed to be so far away. Trey blinked, licking his lips, trying to figure out what was happening.

  “Chloe,” Trey managed to say.

  The girl turned. Her face blanched. She went rigid, staring at the man approaching her with lascivious intent burning in his eyes.

  “Don’t say anything, honey. It’s okay. Uncle Jerry is going to take gooood care of ya,” the man said. He chuckled.

  Trey began to understand what was going on. Awareness returned. The re-awakening of his senses provoked comprehension. And that, in turn, reignited his rage. It didn’t help that he’d just been ambushed by this foul piece of shit.

  Trying to move, to get up, a brilliant flash of pain exploded in him. Trey groaned.

  The would-be attacked turned and grinned at his victim. “That your old man? Too bad. He might like watching, you never know,” the man said.

  As the vile vermin gloated over his fallen foe, Chloe broke free from her grief and fear. Retrieving the can of Diet soda she’d been given to fight zombies, she deployed it against her very human enemy. She hurled it at the man’s head.

  He stumbled forward. The man reached up and held the side of his head. The blow confused him. “Oh, you little fuck,” the man said. He turned.

  Trey slid his modified spear forward and tripped the man. The guy was quick, though. He got up in an instant.

  Unable to surrender now, gripped as he was by his desire to insulate this poor girl from any more pain, Trey throttled his fear and threw the corpse into the cluttered lawn of his subconscious. He retracted the shower curtain rod. It made an odd sound as it scraped across the floor.

  The man smiled. A garish, ugly smile. He was missing a few teeth in the front. Bending down, a knowing look of imminent triumph in his cold brown eyes glaring back at Trey, the anonymous predator took hold of the sharpened end of the weapon.

  He yanked.

  Trey found himself, despite his resistance, being dragged forward.

  Just then, as he was pulled closer to the powerful hands of this attacker, Chloe struck.

  She jumped on the man’s back. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she reached around with her little hands. She gouged the man’s eyes.

  He screamed. The horrific sound of this wounded man reverberated around the small room, echoing off of the walls.

  Trey seized the moment. With considerable effort, he forced himself to a standing position. He slowly hobbled over to the man and took hold of one arm. Leading the adult male toward the urinals, Trey took his free hand and began flushing the closest one. Repeatedly. The slim silver handle was cold to the touch.

  “Get off, Chloe,” Trey commanded.

  As she did, the defeated man crying and in pain, Trey smiled. He recalled the look of superiority the man had given him not long ago, as he dragged Trey across the floor with his own weapon.

  Gripping the back of the man’s head, he slammed it down into the urinal. Blood spurted out, mixed with the small amount of water from the base of the urinal. Trey just kept bashing the man’s head into the porcelain. Over and over, he rammed it into the wall-mounted toilet.

  When Chloe finally ripped him away from the repetitive brutality he was inflicting on the corpse, Trey blinked. He let the body drop to the floor. Staring at it, he laughed. It was an instinctual reaction. It lacked any mirth. Trey saw a puffy, crimson mass of torn and abraded tissue. He’d caved the man’s face in, rendering it effectively a horrific and unrecognizable body of flesh and bone.

  “They’re coming,” Chloe said.

  The words penetrated the fog of combat. Trey turned. They were, indeed, coming. In fact, the zombies had already come. They were far too close.

  Thinking fast, acting out of pure reactionary intent, Trey reached down and pulled a dripping wet blue urinal cake from the brownish water. Trotting forward, he shoved it into the open, growling mouth of the rapacious zombie at the vanguard of the approaching horde.

  Grabbing the top of the creature’s head, he forced its jaws down. Then he flipped it around and pushed it into the throng of four zombies meandering behind it.

  Plucking his modified spear off of the floor, he drove it through the back of the first zombie, penetrating the second creature as well. They weren’t dead, but they were impaled and connected, their further movements impeded.

  Switching his focus to the other three, Trey pulled out his multitool and rushed forward. He dispatched one quickly with a swift stab to the eye. He dropped down deftly to avoid the aggressive jaws of the next-nearest zombie.

  Thrusting upward, he caught it under the chin, driving the slim blade into the creature. Panic swirled around inside Trey when the knife offered some initial resistance as he tried to extract it from the putrid flesh of the zombie. But he pulled it out and pushed it deep into the eye of the monstrous entity.

  He jumped back. The third and final operative zombie was on him. Trey headbutted it. Then, reacting on pure impulse, fueled by adrenaline and instincts, Trey got up on the faux marble sink counter. Kicking out with one foot, he landed one well-placed blow with the small blade embedded in his shoe.

  The zombie was attached to his foot, however.

  “Chloe, help,” Trey called out.

  With trepidation, the girl came forward and gingerly pulled on the creature’s body until it collapsed to the tile floor.

  “We should probably get going,” Trey said, breathing hard. He found that he enjoyed the rush of fighting. But he also experienced simultaneous revulsion at the fact that he liked that feeling. The evidence of his combat record sat all around, and he wanted in that moment to retreat from it. It wasn’t a pragmatic desire to flee while they still could that impelled him. It was an urge to escape the person he was becoming.

  “What about your spear?” Chloe asked.

  “Forget it,” Trey said. He hopped down and rushed past the two interconnected zombies. They growled at him as he went around the corner and headed back into the casino.

  He could hear their growls. Zombies remained on the loose in the large, open room. Trey paused, trying to remember why it was that he’d ended up here to begin with.

  It almost physically sickened him to reflect on the fact that, in his blind fight for mere survival, he’d almost lost sight of the mission: finding Sofia. Stiffening his back, Trey gritted his teeth and vowed silently to himself to not allow such distractions again. Nothing, nothing could stop him from recovering his daughter and ushering her to safety.

  He shook. Trembling from the residual effects of violence as well as out of fear of what he was becoming, Trey tried to focus. The task proved difficult. Pausing at the entrance to the bathroom, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to only think about each inhalation. Slowly, he regained some of his composure.

  When Trey opened his eyes, he could feel the girl staring at him. Turning, he smiled at her. “What?” he asked, raising one eyebrow at a jaunty angle.

  “Let’s get out of here, please,” Chloe said, her voice almost coming out in a harrowing plea. She spoke in a near-whisper that only served to intensify the effect of her words.

  Nodding, Trey peeked out. None of the zombies seemed to be in range. He looked back at the girl, making eye contact. Allowing his gaze to linger for several seconds, he tried to gauge Chloe’s mental state. After the trauma she’d already endured, was she ready for second helpings? A profound sadness reached out and punched him in the gut as he realized then that it didn’t much matter if she could muster the fortitude to continue fighting. Either she found a way to struggle on or she died. And turned. It seemed so cruel and cold, this deprivation of choice.

  “Alright, let’s do this,” Trey finally said. He’d wanted to give some solemn, inspiring speech, like something from a rousing battle movie, but that was all he could generate in the moment. He felt the effects of fatigue encroaching on his mind. He knew he needed rest. Maybe some food and water. But how could he relax without his daughter safely by his side?

  The answer was he couldn’t. So, he, too, would have to summon a way to continue on. There was no other option. Except death.

  Trey didn’t see himself as an ideal entrée for these drug-induced zombies.

  Returning to the casino, it remained as deserted as it had been before escaping into the outdated bathroom. The same bad music played overhead. Trey thought, as he stood there surveying the scene, that the tracks might be different, between the two areas. Which seemed kind of odd. Why would they have two separate streams of music, one for the lavatory and one for the main gaming floor? Shaking his head, he pushed the tangential thought aside.

  “Gift shop,” he muttered. Looking toward the end of the empty casino, Trey saw the small retail outlet. Packed with postcards and cheap, mass-produced t-shirts, the thing was the epitome of tourist traps. It appeared from a distance that there were a few racks of books and other items, as well.

  Advancing toward the gift shop, he tried to recall what was beyond it. His memory was clouded. It was hard to dredge up even one coherent thought, much less a mental blueprint of the ship. Giving up, Trey focused on the world around him. He needed to stay on his toes. Danger could lurk around every corner.

  He jumped. A loud sound broke through his rock-hard concentration. Swinging his head back and forth, Trey tried to identify the source of the noise. His heart thumped against his ribs. His palms began to sweat anew. His arms tingled.

  When he realized it was just one of the nearby slot machines, going through the mechanical process of trying to lure gamblers into its diabolical snares, Trey almost laughed, despite himself. “Sheesh,” he said. Turning slightly, he took the moment to make sure Chloe was still with him. He offered her a reassuring smile as their eyes met.

  Moving forward, they resumed their slow march toward the gift shop. Trey almost called it a grift shop in his mind, and the somewhat ironic malapropism almost elicited a cynical laugh. He felt a shiver of fear pulse through his body. The sense of imminent danger eradicated any desire to chuckle at quirky jokes. He began to wonder, as they walked ahead, navigating the maze of slot machines and deserted gaming tables, why no zombies had attacked.

  Trey recalled hearing them. They were certainly out there. Ambling around, waiting to stumble upon their next hapless victim.

  The constant rush of activity that had become his new normal made this period of relative idleness seem ominous. Trey determined to remain vigilant. He slowed his pace down even further, taking a long look around with each new step forward. Attempting to think ahead, he wondered what the gift shop might contain in the way of useful weapons. Thinking, Trey thought that a t-shirt or two might come in handy. If nothing else, they’d be good as a tourniquet.

  The air became cooler as they entered the small, dimly lit shop. A long glass display case dominated one wall. A clunky cash register rested on one end of the case, but no one manned it. The music from the casino somehow seemed diminished in the space, giving it a sort of secluded feel, as if it were, in fact, its own distinct entity. The air possessed what Trey could only think of as the characteristic smell of a tourist shop. Vaguely dusty, but with subtle hints of cheap fragrance and the slightest touch of something exotic.

  “Try to find good weapons,” Trey said, careful to keep his voice low.

  Scanning the rows of items contained in the display case, Trey chewed on his lower lip and frowned. He nibbled on the inside of his cheek. He saw necklaces and bracelets made of various colorful shells of dubious origin. Probably synthetic, he thought. A reminder of a case he’d been sent to Vietnam to investigate creeped into his mind, but he shoved it away. That was his past life. There was no time for such casual dalliances with what had been.

  A wire rack nestled between two displays stuffed with vibrant postcards caught Trey’s attention. He walked over to it. Smiling, he reached out and grabbed a plastic-coated compact disc case. Tearing the thin transparent film off of the packaging, he gritted his teeth at the odd feeling it gave him as it slid across his fingertips. For some reason, the stuff had always made him feel icky when ripping it. Discarding it idly onto the white tile floor, Trey slit the small piece of tape that held the case together, then extracted the small metallic item from inside.

  “Great,” he said. Trey began pulling more CDs out. Within a few minutes, he’d managed to stack a pile of around a dozen silver circular discs on the counter near the old cash register.

  Pivoting, Trey looked to make sure Chloe was still there. Her presence, strange as it was to think, offered a bit of reassurance to him. Smiling when he saw the girl studiously studying rows of goods on an old metal file cabinet, he yawned. Stretched, raising his arms high. He took the moment of calm to lean against the counter and relax his tired muscles. As he did so, Trey stumbled upon a wonderful vision.

  Bottles. All shapes and sizes, colors and flavors. The beautiful bounty seemed to call to him from the sturdy shelves located above an array of large teddy bears wearing characteristic cheesy smiles. Tall glass containers with ornate white labels and fancy foreign names showcased powerful magical elixirs. Curvaceous jugs boasted amber liquids guaranteed to douse the fires of one’s anxieties and inhibitions. Trey felt transfixed. It was almost too good to be true.

  Taking a step forward, he almost stumbled into a display of thin brochures advertising all of the various offshore excursions and amenities the cruise ship company had to offer. “The hell,” he said, frowning as he looked down. He wondered who’d thought it was a good idea to place those there. Trey figured those were the sorts of things to place right near the cash register.

  Pausing, Trey took that moment to heed the implicit warning. He looked around, trying to see the small gift shop from a fresh perspective. As he did so, Trey picked out a number of things that appeared odd. Out-of-place. As if the retail outlet had been hastily re-stocked to look innocent. Flowers, bright and vibrant in ornate vases and baskets, rested in the back shadows. A plastic yellow wet floor sign, displaying warnings in various languages, leaned against a dimly lit refrigerator filled with bottles of soda and other beverages.

  Someone had tried to mask the fact that they’d been there.

  Chapter 11

  It all happened at once.

  Someone emerged from behind the teddy bears.

  Wielding a large butcher knife, the young black girl came at him. Trey, caught off guard, could only raise a forearm to deflect the blow. She sliced the area near his elbow, a deep wound opening immediately. Bright blood spilled onto the floor. Trey slipped. Falling forward, his eyes widened as he thought that this might be the moment. His ignominious demise. It would be funny, if it weren’t for the fact that it was happening to him. Trey was going to die to an attacker who’d sprung from a bank of teddy bears.

  His mind registered a sound. A thud.

  Blinking, he saw that his opponent had stumbled back, getting tripped up by a cabinet filed with tchotchkes. Turning his head slightly, Trey observed a slight smile of triumph on Chloe’s face. “Good aim, kid,” Trey managed to say. His senses returning, Trey reached back. His fingers fumbled upon the controversial squirt gun. Unable to think of anything better at the moment, he seized the opportunity given by the attacker’s momentary confusion.

  Pulling the squirt gun out, he shot a stream of soapy water right into the attacker’s face. She screamed. She reached up and wiped at her face. “Ah, shit. It burns,” she said.

  Stumbling forward, his vision becoming blurry, Trey bent down and twisted the girl’s wrist. He pointed the tip of the knife away from his body as he tried to pry it from the attacker.

 

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