Bryant O'Neill (corpseofaction) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-05-30 13:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | alternate universe, archer, avery, bryant, hunter, mallory, o'brien, walt |
Cruise Like a Norwegian. Kill Like a Frankenbrit.
PROMPT: May Day AU: Zombies, RUN!
WHO: Bryant, with mentions of Archer, Hunter, O’Brien, Walt, Avery, and Mal (in order of appearance)
WHEN: modern day, alternate universe
WHERE: on a ship somewhere in the South Pacific
WHAT: Zombies ruin Bryant’s vacation.
WARNING: character death, general crack!fic insanity, brief bad language, many apologies to an existing cruise line for this fictional situation and to writers whose characters I borrowed (in case they weren’t quite right).
Carnival had those dead-in-the-water catastrophes. Royal Caribbean had fires.
Norwegian Cruise Lines had zombie apocalypses.
Dr. Bryant O'Neill had chosen Norwegian for his vacation because of the general lack of disastrous YouTube videos showing overflowing sewage or burned-out hulls. The news had been rather full of such things this year. The company’s website had been easily navigable so after hearing the jaunty tune of their commercials for weeks on end, Bryant had booked a cruise almost on impulse. Madness for a man who'd never liked to take so much as a sick day, let alone paid time off for recreation. The idea of an excursion to the South Pacific -- Bora Bora was the final port: how exotic! how repetitive! -- appealed to him somehow. He imagined drinks with paper umbrellas, pristine beaches, local hospitals to explore.
In an effort to get into the spirit of things, the good doctor purchased a ukulele and spent his leisure hours away from the Medical Examiner’s office learning the ins and outs of what basically amounted to a diminutive guitar. More searching over the Internet gave him chords and tunes to try out. Bryant rather liked “Hey, Soul Sister,” though he only knew it by its tabs and hadn’t a clue as to how the words went.
So now here he was: sitting in a deck chair overlooking a calm ocean and happily running through his recently-acquired ukulele repertoire. Because he liked the unintentionally beachy pace of it, Bryant was playing “If I Only Had a Brain,” for the second time through when he heard the commotion coming from the rear of the ship (this was known as the stern, or the transom; he’d researched a number of nautical terms before booking his passage).
First, there was screaming. Then, there were gunshots. Bryant, more puzzled than anything else -- these were not noises one commonly associated with a modern sea voyage, better suited to the pirate tales of old -- stood and hesitantly crept closer to see what was going on. On the balcony above him (one of the upper decks; Bryant never did learn what the word was for such an overlook), the white-haired captain was in his shirtsleeves and aiming a shotgun into a crowd of people slowly shambling closer. “I say,” began the medical examiner, ukulele clutched to his chest as he tried to formulate the appropriate outrage at the idea of Captain Avery shooting the very passengers he was sworn to protect (Bryant was a little hazy on there being any actual vow of protection, but it stood to reason, didn’t it?).
He didn’t get any more words out when he saw one of the stumbling passengers come upon one of the screaming ones and proceed to strip the flesh from her arm faster than... faster than... well, Bryant didn’t have an appropriately speedy reference point here, but he imagined certain beetles and maggots going after a corpse in some fantastic time-lapse photography project. Except, you know, happening now and in real time and with another person eating the flesh, of course. Bryant was able to note that the zombie seemed to be gnawing at the bone -- terribly strong things, bones; arguably the densest structures in the human body and dashed sturdy, even for all the breaking they did in haphazard accidents.
Further observation was halted in favor of finding an appropriate exit route.
Above him, the captain discharged another round, another, picking off the walking dead left and right. He paused to toss a baseball bat down to a young woman standing not far from Bryant with no more warning than, “Catch, Hunter!” She in turn hefted it expertly, swung at the nearest animated corpse. There was time to notice that it was a very battered looking piece of sports equipment, stained with blood and gore and sharpened into a point at one end. Odd, Bryant considered as he hastened up the stairs to the upper deck, popular culture and common lore tells us that it’s /vampires/ that require a wooden stake through the heart. His questioning train of thought was answered when he heard the sound of bones crunching and something that in his vast experience with such noises must be wood ripping through cartilage and sinew, turned to watch Hunter disable one creature, which the captain then shot down. Then she started hustling over to save a trapped guest, brandishing the weapon. Oh, so the sharpened end of the bat was meant to tear at them, to slow them down? Fascinating.
With one hand on the rail and the other still clutching the musical instrument, Bryant continued to look about for some safe space he could be in. He could hear the captain muttering darkly, “Fucking zombies. Every fucking time we ship out. Worse than rats.”
His resigned monologue was cut off by the whine of feedback over the loudspeaker and a breathless, excited voice that tried to play it cool, leading with: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your first officer speaking. We seem to be experiencing a slight--”
“Brannon!” the captain snapped, bellowing it, making himself heard over the screams below as he reloaded the shotgun.
“Er, sorry, Archie,” the voice apologized, crackling through the speakers. “Zombies! We’ve got zombies, people! Crew to Deck 11 for standard elimination protocol. I repeat: Crew to Deck 11 for standard elimination protocol.”
Even as he was speaking, Bryant noticed other uniformed crew members among the inexplicable zombie hoard below. Two of the chaps that had been nice enough to let him peek into one of the engineering areas were standing back to back, weapons in their hands, identical expressions of resolve on their faces. Really, the main difference that Bryant could see between Walt and Avery was that Avery had nail-guns at his disposal, or riveters, or whatever tools those were. Walt had actual guns. Perhaps when you were a crew member it was easier to smuggle such items aboard; in the security process, Bryant had been made to remove his shoes and his belt and even then was subjected to a heartily embarrassing frisk.
Well, as interesting as this was to observe, Bryant decided that it was highly likely he should get out of the way. Back to his cabin, if the path there wasn’t overrun with the undead. It would be a good place to wait for some sort of all-clear to sound.
Of course, if he did happen to run into a zombie, he should be prepared to defend himself. It was a pity he’d been made to leave his scalpel collection on land. Bryant wasn’t entirely certain how useful they would be -- he hadn’t thought it necessary to look up zombies when he did his cruise ship research -- but they were comfortable tools in his hands and he rather missed them now. There wasn’t anything else on his person that could conceivably fend off a zombie hoard and he wasn’t keen on being bitten. Bryant was also not entirely certain how one became a zombie but he believed it had to do with the biting, which in any case was something to avoid even among the living, what with the possibility of rabies or bacteria.
Remembering the sharpened edge of the baseball bat, the good doctor looked down at his new ukulele and couldn’t resist a sigh. Well, best to be safe rather than to be sorry, yes? Yes. Sighing anew, Bryant took the instrument in both his hands and bent it. He broke off the headstock, snapping strings and leaving the fretboard as a nice pointy weapon.
Hearing a noise behind him, instinct -- or fear, more like -- took over and Bryant swung around, jamming his newly fashioned weapon into the throat of his would-be attacker.
...Except it... it wasn’t a zombie.
It was another guest he’d spoken to at the meet-and-greet before they set sail (well, not actual sails; this was a figure of speech). It was another guest and he’d been alive and well prior to the doctor’s hasty motion. Bryant watched in apologetic horror as Mal’s hands scrabbled at his neck, the body of the ukulele bobbing with his jerky movements. Broke the hyoid bone for certain, Bryant told himself sadly. After an especially vigorous spurt of blood, he added in, And ruptured the jugular. It wasn’t a painless death, but once he wrenched the instrument out of the poor boy’s neck, the blood flowed a little freer and the mortally wounded young man crashed to the deck. Bryant crouched over Mal and said, “Ah, I’m... I’m terribly sorry; I thought you were a zombie.” When he saw that Mal was beyond hearing, he murmured, “Poor little chap,” and idly wiped the ukulele’s neck on the dead fellow’s shirt.
Then Bryant trotted away, intent on getting back to his quarters before another such mishap occurred or the zombie hoard closed in.
Hm. Perhaps he should’ve played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” instead. “If I Only Had a Brain” seemed to be in poor taste, all things considered.