Episode 29: That’s A Funny Import

Horrible screams were erupting from the cargo hold.
The seventeen untrained guards had no idea what to do. Well, the fifteen of them who were left. The two who had unleashed the hundred zombies-and that’s how many there were in that box, exactly one hundred, as if someone had counted them out to achieve a particular end-had already been eaten. Well, most of them had been eaten. The zombies who had done that bit had stopped eating them when they stopped twitching, leaving enough of them total to rise again in a few minutes. The fifteen remaining guards began firing wildly into the swarm of zombies. None of them thought to run. None of them managed to hit a head or the upper part of a spinal column either. The screams and gunfire echoed throughout the ship.
Captain Clark shot out of bed when the sound reached his ears. He threw on his captain’s jacket and hat and burst forth from his room to Jesus’s cabin.
“First Mate Jesus!” he boomed when he had unlocked the door with his skeleton key. Jesus was wide awake from hearing the screams, but had quite the opposite reaction to Captain Clark’s. He chose to stay in bed, eyes wide, covers pulled up over his head. When Captain Clark burst in, he groaned, realizing that if he wanted to keep his job he would have to leave bed.
“Oh, no, Captain, what’s happening?” Jesus pulled the covers down. He was not quite ready to get up.
“I have no idea, First Mate Jesus. But I’ve got a feeling it’s got to do with that cargo that we don’t know the contents of.” Please note that they were not actually speaking English, not being English speakers. They were speaking Italian. For convenience, I’m writing their dialogue in English. This will be a common practice for this plot line, as well as likely the Grecian plot. We should be returning to the plot now, by the way.
“What do we do, Captain?”
“You are going to rouse the Second Mate,” Captain Clark was unsure of that mate’s name, “And I am going to go up to the radio compartment and see if I can raise the coast guard or someone.”
Jesus groaned again. He didn’t want to get up and go out into the horror of a night that had, moments ago, been filled with the screams and wild gunfire of two, then fifteen men. Now he heard the vague echo of someone running through corridors and screaming something in a language that he couldn’t comprehend. He finally forced himself up, though, and left his cabin to go to the Second Mate’s-whose name he, too, didn’t know-cabin.
He knocked on the door and their was no answer. After a moment, he knocked more urgently and more heavily. Still no answer. Jesus tried turning the doorknob, but when he did, the door fell inward suddenly. He stopped, holding the doorknob in his hand right where it had been. He looked at the jagged and rusty part that had connected it to the door. He gripped it tightly as he slowly stepped into the sort-of-corridor before the actual room. He turned into the room itself.
Nothing at all to yelp at. He had been expecting to find something horrible, yelp, and go running up to the radio compartment. But there was nothing horrible in there. In fact, there was nothing in there. Well, no one, really. The second mate’s cabin was, somehow, smaller than any other cabin Jesus had been in on the ship. There was a bed that he couldn’t imagine even the people who put up with the bunks in the passenger cabins sleeping on. Beneath it was a small trunk, that looked like it would just contain clothes. On the far wall, which wasn’t very far at all, was a small coat hook-like outcropping. On Jesus’s right, there was a HAM Radio with the transmit button taped down. Jesus took the one step that it took to get to the radio and his feet bumped against something. On the ground was a small hoop, that looked like it had been marking a position directly in front of the radio. He began to shake nervously a little again, but still looked up at the radio again and slowly, slowly ripped off the tape holding down the transmit button. The radio began crackling and emitting horrible screams for help in a number of languages. Jesus stepped back, his jaw twitching, preparing to yelp. He stumbled backwards out of the tiny room, slammed into the wall of the corridor, dropped the doorknob, yelped, and went running up to the radio compartment.
“The Second Mate is gone!” Jesus yelped when he was in. Captain Clark was holding a transmitter unit in his hand. The speakers were emitting similar cries for help to those coming from the HAM Radio in The Second Mate’s room.
“Come to think of it, I didn’t see him much, if at all, during the night. No ships are answering. The frequencies are too crowded with people screaming. I’ve heard something about the dead in nearly a dozen languages. I think we’re on our own.”
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no...”
“Our first priority is supposed to be to protect our cargo, and then our passengers. But damn that. The cargo is obviously dangerous. And we’ll protect the passengers only if we can. Getting this ship to land is our priority. First Mate Jesus, go wake Mate Rozenkrantzandgildanstern. I’m going to navigate this ship myself.”
“Where is the helmsman?”
“He’s not here. He seems to have vanished.”
“Two of them?”
“At least. Now, go. Wake Mate Rozenkrantzandgildanstern, and have him make sure that the rest of the crew is active.”
First Mate Jesus saluted nervously and did as he was told. He shook all the way to the cabin that Mates Rozenkrantz and Gildanstern were forced to share. Captain Clark, before going to the helm, returned to the communication equipment to make a ship wide announcement.

Most of the few people on the ship who hadn’t been awakened by the gunshots and screams from the cargo hold were awakened by John the Thief’s screams. He ran through the passenger halls screaming, in English, something along the lines of “Deadcargo! Ohgod! Guardseaten! Ohgod! Cargodeaddeaddead!” Along with traditional screaming screams. The first to investigate the screams was paranormal investigator Gaz, who, in monkey-spattered pajamas, opened her door to watch him run by. Her crush on him was nearly instantly dissolved. But still, she picked up on what the blurred figure screamed as he ran past. She retreated into her room to get a notebook and a camera, and then rushed down to the cargo hold to get the scoop.
The next to act, beginning only seconds after Gaz, was Bob the Assassin. He calmly opened his eyes, listened for a moment to what was being said without moving, and then calmly sat up. He reached into the bunk above him and pulled down one of his suitcases. He slipped out of his bunk and opened the suitcase. After removing the layer of stealthy anti-x-ray clothes, and putting on his paint-stained leather gloves, he admired the pieces of metal and plastic resting in an insulated foam layer. He took them out one by one and began putting them together at a leisurely pace.
Quasimodo Weishaupt had not been sleeping. When he heard John’s screams, he felt that he had hit his first real obstacle in his quest to obtain the Sword of Greyface. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that he could no longer trust anyone on the ship. He decided that it was in his best interests to commandeer the ship and reach his destination under his own terms. He reached beneath his pillow and removed the pistol that he always slept within reach of. He brushed it off and reached under the pillow again for the box of rounds. He checked it to make sure that it was full, and then loaded the gun. He was smart enough not to sleep with it loaded beneath his pillow, except for one bullet that would fire after five pulls of the trigger. He put the box in his pocket, wielded the gun dramatically, and stepped out of his cabin. He headed for the bridge.
Meanwhile, both Burt the Broom Jitsu Monk and Daisy the Kung Food Master emerged into the ship, ready to protect it, its crew, and its passengers with their lives. Burt had been in the ship’s supply closet, preparing to mop one of the decks that was generally unused on these sorts of voyages. He heard the gunshots below deck, and had instantly affixed his deadly Household Cleaners belt to his pants, and then grabbed his sturdiest broom and his sturdiest mop. Daisy had been in the kitchen, preparing the Intercontinental Breakfast that was served every morning aboard the ship. She reacted quickly too; she always kept a pack with her “specialty” food prepared, and it was the first thing she grabbed. She slung it over her shoulder and slipped a number of kitchen knives, forks, and a couple of spoons into her belt’s camouflaged slots. She wielded in her right hand a heavy frying pan. They both ran towards the cargo hold from opposite ends of the ship, headed for the same door. They reached it at the same moment, examined each other momentarily, and flung open the doors.
Simultaneously, on the other side of the cargo hold, Gaz was peeking through the door that John had run through with her camera. She was deftly taking notes in her notebook simultaneously, a feat that most people with less than four arms and two sets of eyes can normally not accomplish. Between the two sets of people were one open box, sixteen intact but cracking and thumping boxes, and one hundred and seventeen walking corpses. They had been stumbling around the room looking for human flesh since the guards had risen to join their ranks moments ago. When Daisy and Burt had flung open the doors, it had attracted their attention. They shambled towards the two martial artists, who were prepared for them. Moments before Daisy and Burt were going to jump in wordlessly, Gaz took a picture of the scene with the flash. Most of the zombies were momentarily dazed by the sudden light, and some of them turned to see its source. They sensed Gaz at the other door. They were beginning to return to the pursuit of new meat when each of the sixteen boxes burst open in unison, each spilling out one hundred new zombies. The crack of the wood once more distracted the 117 zombies already out. The total horde was back at work in moments, however, and was split between the door Gaz was at and the door that Burt and Daisy waited patiently to begin battle at. Gaz, terrified now, began to run back to her room. And suddenly the ship’s PA system crackled to life. This distracted the zombies further, giving Gaz a chance to get farther. She could not understand the language of the ship’s announcement. The language was, in fact, Italian, and Burt and Daisy understood what their captain was saying.
“This is your captain speaking. This message will not be repeated, so please listen. A crisis of unknown nature, severity, and magnitude has gripped this ship and all other ships in radio distance. We are going to try to reach the nearest land mass so that, whatever this crisis is, we are not trapped on a small boat. Please remain calm. Please remain in your cabins and attend to your duties. And whatever you do, stay away from the cargo bay. I believe that our unknown cargo is a part of the danger. Thank you.”
Daisy and Burt both completely disregarded the message.
“I’ll take the eight hundred and fifty-eight on the right, you take the eight hundred and fifty-nine on the left,” Daisy said to Burt quietly.
“I had them counted first,” Burt said in a holier-than-thou voice.
“Can you count in action? I can. Rapid measurement is a part of my training.”
“Mine too.”
“Want to make this interesting?”
“A wager will complicate things. Just don’t die.”
And both of them charged at the horde.

Bob finished assembling his high powered, large-clipped rifle, and smiled at it admiringly. He reached into the other top bunk, pulling down his stained jacket and spotty sunglasses. He flipped both open and put them both on in one fluid motion. And then he melodramatically put his rounded, floppy hat on. He lifted the rifle and calmly unlocked the door to his room. He opened the door and stepped out, just as calmly.
He was not surprised to find a gorgeous, dark skinned, very short, young woman about to run past him. He was never surprised. The beautiful young woman stopped and stared at his rifle.
Bob was surprised.
It was the first time in many years that an innocent person had noticed him while he was on a job. It may have been the first time an innocent had noticed him while he was on a job. He wasn’t sure.
“You have a weapon?” Gaz asked urgently. “Please! You have to stop them! They’re all over down there!” She ran up to him and stared into his shades with her dark and sweet orbs. Bob sort of stood there in-between actions for a few seconds. He had not been unsure of what to do for quite a long time.
“I... Er... I’m here for Weishaupt.” He tried to say dramatically. He suddenly realized that he had just given away his target. He was about to shoot her to eliminate the only witness he had had in a long time, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
She stared at him in confusion. “There is an army of the undead coming from the cargo hold!” she yelled.
The first of the zombies who had followed her up appeared in the corridor. They both turned and stared at it as it shambled towards them. Bob slowly rose the rifle and fired. It pierced the zombie’s head and it fell to the ground. He lowered the rifle, still confused.
Two zombies appeared.
And then more.
Bob’s sunglasses slipped off.

“Captain?” a voice from the door asked in poorly pronounced Italian. Captain Clark looked up from the helm, and slowly turned around. A pistol was pointed at his face.
“Captain, I’m going to have to take control of your ship,” Quasimodo Weishaupt grimaced.

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