SPACESHIP ZOMBIE CRUISE

FILE ENTRY 30.0

Sun Wu

Sun Wu is the owner of the Chinese Cafe located on the main concourse of Neptune Shores, across from the resort manager's office. She's been waiting for the right moment to make her move, waiting for the chaos to die down, for the infected to kill each other or take a swim in the giant wave pool that washes up on the only beach in the outer solar system, unless you count the methane seas on Saturn's moon, Titan. She had turned away the doctor and the security chief, refusing to let them inside her restaurant. She hadn't witnessed what happened to either of the two men, but after both of them fled her storefront, she'd overheard the frenzied cries of the infected growing into a fevered pitch. Fortunately, it's been a while since the security chief tried to bang his way into the cafe, and since then, the action outside has grown quiet.

Wu has a grandson who came with her to Neptune Shores, but he hasn't answered her repeated video calls to his holographic tablet. He's supposed to be in their room on level seven where all the station's crew and other employees reside. Wu wanted to leave the restaurant earlier, but she couldn't amidst the chaos. She's sixty-six and doesn't like her chances if it comes down to fighting her way through a hoarde of sick people. And she needs to be alive if she's going to be able to help her grandson.

In the back of the restaurant, in the corner of a walk-in closet, a long slender object catches her eye. It's only a mop. She sighs. She needs something large. She doubts a kitchen knife will get her very far.

Out of options, Wu considers the mop. The stick part is made of steel, so she can't snap it in half. All she can do is rip the stringy head off. She places the mop head under her foot and tries to gain leverage but she can't break it. It's too strong, meant to last.

The mop and it's dangling strings will have to do.

Wu takes the mop and goes to the steel curtain, peers through the rectangular slits in the metal links. To the left...a pair of legs on the floor. To the right...arms stretched out, head somehow strangely hidden or missing from the body. In front of her lays a pile of stinking corpses. The smell will only get worse over time.

Other than the bodies, the corridor is void of the groans or growls or shrieks of the infected guests loitering the concourse.

Down on a knee, she turns the key and removes the padlock. The security chief had already unlocked the floor mechanism that secures the curtain.

Wu grimaces, anticipating the clanking of steel. She hesitates, nudges the bottom up from the floor. Metal clinks against metal as the wheels in the side-frame tumble through the tracks.

It's now or never.

Wu raises the curtain two feet off the floor, enduring the brief but loud jangling that reverberates through the concourse. She pauses, straining to listen for the sounds of the infected.

Nothing.

Flat on the floor, Wu presses her stomach against the cold tiles and wiggles her way under the curtain until all of her body is exposed in the corridor. In the concourse, she pushes up to her knees and stands, reaches down and grabs the mop by the handle, her head swiveling left and right. She gives the door to the resort manager's office a quick glance and then hurries down the hallway in the opposite direction from the debarkation bay, heading toward the elevators and stairwell at the end of the hall.

Wu steps over severed limbs, the legs and arms of what used to be human beings, most of them good people that didn't deserve to die in such a horrible manner.

On the wall, she glimpses splattered blood that's trickled to the floor. There's an ear laying on a square of tile. Just an ear. Her stomach retches, but she looks away and moves on, exhaling, trying to rid herself of the sickening smell of the place and the gory shreds of what used to be humanity. People.

Wu cracks open the door to the stairwell. It's dark.

No way is she taking the stairs.

She walks up to the elevator, expecting it to be out of operation or filled with ravenous infected people, but it's empty and clean. Wu sighs and enters, allowing the door to close behind her.

On level seven, the door opens and she creeps out into the hallway, mop head out in front of her, teeth grinding together.

Further down the hall, out of sight, she hears a groan. A miserable sound that could have only came from an infected person. She hopes it isn't her grandson, Chen. He's only nine and doesn't deserve any of this to befall him.

Wu hurries down the hallway toward her quarters where Chen is supposed to be. She hopes he hasn't grown curious and gone to investigate the sounds from the corridor, or gotten frightened and fled for his life when he could have stayed in the safety of their room.

Down at the end of the hall, the infected she heard rounds a corner...and starts for Wu. As the man garners speed, he screeches, blood stains dried to his chin.

Wu reaches the door to her room and waves her wrist over the bio scanner. Normally, it would register her DNA signature six feet away and unlock the door, but the scanner can't hone in on her as she runs.

The infected thunders in her direction.

The bio scanner turns from red to green and the latch unbolts within the door frame.

The infected is ten feet away.

Wu screams, her blood pulsing through her veins.

She does the only thing she can...she throws the mop at the man and watches him sidestep the flying stick.

The action buys her time.

Wu shoulders through the unlocked door and shoves her way inside, turning to close the passage with a fraction of a second to spare. The door closes. The locking mechanism clicks, and she's safe.

The infected man pounds at the door but it holds, at least for now.

Weary and fear stricken, Wu traverses the short hallway that leads to the main area of her quarters. She tip-toes as quietly as she can. When she reaches the open space that contains her couch, bed, and a small kitchen, she angles to the right. There are only two doors inside her room. A closet and a bathroom, both closed.

To be certain, she opens the closet and finds nothing.

Process of elimination.

The remaining door is the bathroom, light spilling from the crack at the bottom.

Wu falls to her knees and presses her ear to the door. "Chen," she calls. "Are you in there?"

For a long moment, she hears nothing...then the door opens and the boy hurries into his grandmother's arms. He hasn't been curious or foolish; he's been smart and cautious, and his behavior, wise for a nine year old, has saved his life.

Now, all they can do is wait for rescue, if it ever comes.