World War Z

[Darren Ellis was a trainee navigator aboard the seismic vessel the Viking II when the war broke out. He spent the duration of the war at sea, sailing constantly and rarely docking. With satellite TV feeds keeping him informed, he turned to his previous career as a journalist and worked on documenting what he though was the end of mankind. I interviewed him in a bar over a few beers.]

I remember when I first heard about the outbreaks, and my first reaction was one of anger -- who’s playing this fucking joke? But as we sailed on and we kept getting feeds from the satellite TV system onboard I realised that no, this was no joke and that the world was fucked.

We kept sailing for weeks, but we’d stopped working by then. What was the point? There was nothing like mutiny on board, but things weren’t quite as civil as before. The camaraderie was still there, I mean it had to be -- 57 people in close quarters, just sailing along, no end-goal or port in mind.

Head office sent a directive to the fleet too. Keep sailing, don’t dock. And trust me, we had a meeting with the crew and although some wanted to return home it was voted that we sail as long as our stores would last, and we keep away from land. Zack was infesting the world, and while we were in deep waters we were safe.

Of course that didn’t last long -- after two months we were running short of supplies and we had to dock somewhere to re-supply.

We chose one of the Philippine islands that we were near, figuring that they would be safer and more isolated from the infestation.

Fuck were we wrong.

[Did you get supplies?]

Oh yeah, we got enough to keep us running for years. We’d pooled everything we had that was non-essential, including our watches, jewelery, cash, even the ship’s DV D players and stereos. Some people still thought that consumer goods were the way to go, where from two months of sailing and watching the satellite feeds, the “how to be self-sufficient” shows and the news, the fucking news, we knew that food and water was what was going to keep us alive.

And so these guys, these poor peasants on the island helped us clear out an entire warehouse. Half the time we didn’t know what we were getting, but you could see them eyeing off the 52in plasma, or the LCDs we used with our PCs and we knew we were loading pallet after pallet of boxed and canned food.

The whole town was pretty much there, helping out on the dock and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down. They seemed really nonplussed about the rioting and infestations in Manilla and Cebu and were more interested in scoring some immediate riches.

When Zack came, all this changed. At first there was a commotion at the head of the dock, where the boom gates were, and the crowd was surging forward. A lot of screaming. And then suddenly there was panic in everyone’s eyes and boxes were dropped and people started running and boarding our vessel.

I saw my first real Zed then -- already in the crowd, swinging and biting and moaning. God, that sound.

[He shudders, looks away, clears his throat]

I don’t know who it was, but the engines started and we began to leave the dock. I could see more of Zack, hear the moaning over and under the screaming and the panic, and the engines getting louder and screaming too. People were leaping from the dock onto the ship. Some made it, some didn’t. They were there, scraping at the sides, trying to find a grip. I saw someone get yanked under.

We weren’t moving. The moor lines were still affixed.

Someone yelled at me, and I ran to one of the thick lines and started sawing at it with my knife. The other line went first, and I didn’t get to finish cutting mine as the tension snapped it. I wasn’t hurt, but as we sped away from the dock and people poured into the water, I saw our Captain standing frozen at the edge, staring at us in disbelief.

The last I saw of him was when the crowd knocked him into the water and he went under. He was a speck by then.

I hope he survived.