We hadn't spent too much time trying to figure out the layout of the ship. The plan was just to get to the upper deck and from there we had gotten the details of how to get to the Sunrise chapel.

As far as getting up there. Well it wasn't like we could take the elevator with the power out everywhere.

Not to mention the hallway was pretty dark with no lights. Even the emergency lights had long since burned out. The only light we had was coming from the windows from the few open doors.

At least until Tok began making some of her light bubbles and passing them around. "I'm keeping them dim so the animates don't react, at least not unless they're close up."

I nodded. "Good idea. Lester do you know where the next set of stairs are."

He shook his head but pointed up ahead. "Not exactly, but there are sure to be some up there sooner or later, and we got a evacuation plan posted right there."

Heading over I could see that of course, the plan was to head up the stairs Chloe and her group had gone to hold against the demon. I could also see several figures up in the hallway ahead of us. Just visible in the dim light, some of which were turning and heading our way.

Vern racked a shell into his gun. I waved at him to get his attention. "Not unless it's the only option. The demon will head right towards any gunfire." Actually that might be a good plan at some point, sent Vern off in another direction, guns a blazing and leading everything away from me.

Lester pointed at the map, "Looks like another set of stairs up ahead on the right." He turned and started heading up the hallway. "Follow me up close, I'll clear the path, you deal with anything coming out of those doors at me."

Putting deeds to words, the older man took up a two handed grip on his golf club and buried it into the skull of the first zombie, a older man in a tropical print shirt. Dropping the corpse to the ground.

Hitting them in the head looked like it would work on these ones as well. Good to know. But we also learned that hitting them that hard in the head gets your weapon stuck, which Lester found out. "Crap! I got another one coming at me."

I braced my self to rush forward, but Rill headed pass me to hook it's leg out from under it. Dumping it on the floor without killing it, just leaving it twitching on the ground.

Wait. "You got to let them take a swing at you first." I moved pass them toward the third one down the hall, while seeing some motion from the corner of my eye. A quick glance showed me Tok shoving another one back into it's room."

"Sanctuary, sanctuary, sanctuary." Getting all three of them set back up with the Rite. Then I held up Cutter as the next one in the hall raised it hands up and tried to push the former half of a branch cutter out of it's way.

Sanctuary activated. "Beast mode!" Shoving the undead away with a plus two to my might, I then hacked into the side of it's neck. Once, then twice. Hitting the bone hard enough that it started to go limp. Then a third time to take it's head halfway off and leave it lying there still on the ground.

I could see a few more down the hall, but even without any immediate danger, I could still feel the benefits of the rite running active.

Tok held her ground in the doorway until the one in the room tried to grab ahold of her again. Then shoved it hard back into the room before simply closing the door to trap it within.

Everyone looked at her. She shrugged. "The job is to get you upstairs, not kill everyone of them we run into. She'll keep."

I turned around and shrugged. "Well... I guess." Girls. Always with the nonviolent solutions. Phooey.

We headed to the door to the stairwell. Brody jogged up ahead of us to get to the door first, a length of pipe in his hands as he opened the door.

Only to get yanked inside by several arms that reached out and took ahold of him while he was too surprised to do anything but try to lean away.

Fortunately he was a big muscular kid, and got stuck halfway through the door. Me, Lester and Tok got ahold of him before the half dozen or so zombies standing around on the landing could pull him in all the way.

The kid was screaming in a surprisingly high pitch as he dropped his pipe and grabbed ahold of the door frame on both sides of him and pushed himself free. Ending up falling onto his back and taking me and Tok down with him.

Lester and Rill began swinging at the zombies trying to get through the door, while Vern looked down at me with a grin. "Does this constitute an emergency."

When since I was pretty sure all the screaming had revealed that someone was over here. Why not. "Go for it!"

Boom! Clickety clank. Boom!

Two round of buckshot really didn't do all that much damage, other then to the two directly in front of each shot. But more importantly it shoved those two backwards into the others and gave Lester a chance to step past the door and begin beating in skulls one handed. Rill focused on arms and legs to prevent them from getting back up.

Lester may have been taking two or more swings to put them down. But his golf club wasn't getting stuck this time and he was giving Rill the chance to cut things at the elbow and behind their knees and ankles which left them helpless on the ground for Lester to finish off.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I managed to get back up, and joined him as Tok helped up Brody. The kid looking both embarrassed and confused. "I thought they were going to bite me. All they did was try to grab hold of me?"

Like they were trying to take him prisoner rather then bite him. Maybe to take to someone else to bite?

Lester began to go up the stairs kind of sideways, cautiously looking up the nest flight of steps, before he cursed and came back down. "There's another bunch of them upstairs, just standing around inside of the door."

I cursed to myself. "Zombies are dumb, but they can follow orders. The demon wants them to capture us, and he probably has them in every stairwell on every floor."

Brody looked up from the bloody mess in front of him. "There are service stairs. They don't open up into the main hallways, just into the service areas."

Everyone looked at him. "What? I went on cruises all the time with my grandparents."

I nodded at him. "Okay. Great. But can you find one." Lester began working his way through the remains back to the door. "There's a bar up front."

Vern perked up. "Great! I can use a drink."

I started to say something about time and place. But hell, so could I.

The ice breaker lounge looked like it had gone though a fight. Tables and chairs scattered. Spilled drinks and a broken door to the ladies room. Vern headed right back toward the bar, pausing only to put down an older woman with a prosthetic leg who had been lurking behind a toppled table. "Sorry granny. Not my type."

Lester checked the bathrooms. Not sure if it was for more zombies or survivors. Brody pointed over to a door near the side of the bar. "That should be the back room. There might be a set of stairs back there."

Even as he pointed Tok hissed at us. "A bunch of them just came out of those stairs. They're not coming this way, yet. Just bunching up outside the door."

Lester headed over to the door Brody had pointed out, feeling the door for a moment before shoving it open while he jumped back out the reach of anything that might have been coming out. "Looks like nothing was waiting right by the door." He pointed to the big teen. "Family size. Cover my back." Then he headed in. Followed by the teen.

Vern was downing a glass of beer, spilling a good portion of it on himself in his haste. Then refilling it. I decided to try one of the still intact bottles. Something clear and amber colored with a label in Spanish.

I got offered a shot glass by Vern, but I shook my head and as I twisted off the cap and drank from the bottle instead. He frowned at me "I meant for you to fill it for me." I held the bottle out to him, but he just sadly shook his head. "No thanks, who knows what a alien lover might be carrying."

Staring him down, I finally asked him. "What is up with you anyways? We desperately need anyone that counts as people, and you are constantly trying to drive half of them off."

He grimaced. "Look kid. You mix two kinds of people together and one of them ends up being the disadvantaged one by default. If it's two kinds of humans, well, the next generation will end up fooling around with each other and eventually you just got one group. Us and aliens? We will never be one people, and I don't want our kind to be the ones on the bottom forever."

He finished off his drink. "Better to avoid the problem right from the start."

Lester popped out of the back door. "Found a service corridor, we got a flight of steps going up two floors." Tok began heading his way. "They are coming."

"Yeah. Good talk Vern." I headed into what looked like a stock room, then out the back to a side corridor with a steep, bare steel, set of steps. Tok began to catch up to us after doing something to the door to the bottom of the stairs with the Branch tool.

The door on top opened up into another, smaller stock room. Brody stood there peeking out a doorway. I got out of Tok's way as she huffed her way up the stairs. "What do you see out there?"

The teen glanced over at me. "The back of another bar that's open to the deck. There's a bunch of them out there."

"Well. Then I guess it time for part eight or something of the plan." Then I called out. "Big boy?"

The familiar feeling of a large mind touching my own filled my head. =Yes Sean?=

I grinned. "If no one is on the upper decks, other then the empties, could you and your underlings clear them for us?" For a moment I could feel some unspoken protests at the term of underling from some other minds before the sea serpent replied. =Certainly tiny one. Just wait for the all clear before you step out. We don't want any mistakes=

There were no screams, no sounds of panic. Just the occasional loud echoing thumping sounds as bus sized lizards reared up to snatch away the deceased from as high as they could reach, and slammed up against the side of the ship as they did so.

Brody gasped and slammed the door shut. "Jesus! They're eating them." He glared at me. "You had us swimming in the same water as them!"

I waved him down. "It wasn't a issue. Zombies can't swim. You were fine." Before he could respond, we all heard. =All clear. From my minion, heh, heh, at least. Their are still many of the empties higher up then we can reach=

"Thanks Big boy, and to all the rest of you." I looked around the group. "Best plan I got is we go for the chapel. We only stop if it looks like we can't push through, and then Vern clears us a way."

I pulled open the door and headed for the open staircase. Almost immediately what all the noise had been about. The sea serpent had only taken parts of the dead as they had leaped up to snatch them off the lower open decks. Body parts, sprays of gore, and bent railing covered the deck. Some of the zombies, while being of no real danger, were still moving, or at least twitching on the decks.

Heading over to a still intact railing, I hurled what was left of my light breakfast out into the water. A moment later Brody joined me while Vern didn't even make it to the rails.

Rill stood watching our back with a fist full of her sheet bunched up in front of her face. A second set of eyelids I didn't know the Verco had flicking over and over sideways over her eyes.

Tok has simply stumbled back into the bar. "I... I can't do this. Too much. Too much."

I headed in and took her hand. "Just close your eyes, and let me walk you past them."

That worked, but I could feel her flinch every time I had to stop and kick something out the way. After all, I can step over things, but she can't see them. I was only able to do it because there wasn't anything left in my gut for me to bring up.

There were only a few straggler left up on the uppermost deck. It looked like someone had set up a barricade at the top of the steps from a sitting area up there at some point that had kept most of them out. From here we could see a few people as they cautiously opened a door at the top of a short flight of steps heading up into the raised bridge area. "Should we come out? Is there anything we can do to help."

The crew member offering had armed themselves. Another fire axe and a broom handle. But from their looks at Rill and Tok I guessed they would more worried about them, then paying attention to their surrounding. "No, stay back. The zombies are only going to get more dangerous after I claim the chapel. We'll regroup after the rest of my people get up here."

From there is was pretty much anti-climatic. Tok did her thing with blue constructs of light to the door to the chapel. A room with some white pews and a bunch of vaguely angelic but non denominational statues in some alcoves. With everything centered around a white lectern which I guessed was going to be the stand in for a alter.

I came, I saw, I claimed another holy ground.

Then I heard a shotgun racking another shell in preparation to fire.