SPACESHIP ZOMBIE CRUISE

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Bella Starr

Above the blue curvature of the Earth, the sun shines a brilliant light through the viewport windows of the Interplanetary Space Station, otherwise known as the IPSS. Out of the nearly five thousand passengers and crew members of the Celestial Sea, I was one of less than a hundred that survived the first ever round trip cruise of the outer planets.

After all I've been through, I'm alive. That fact alone is remarkable, especially after I succumbed to the virus, having been infected by what scientists are now calling a Vestazine Induced Sickness. The Artificial Gravity Sickness drug had been administered to everyone at the Neptune Shores Beach Resort and everyone sailing aboard the space cruise ship, the Celestial Sea...and it had catastrophic ramifications.

The doctor who's been checking in on me in recent days, told me that a live but supposedly inactive virus mined from an asteroid named Vesta, had been purposefully used in conjunction with the specially designed gravity drives. The drives simulate Earth-like gravity conditions at the beach resort and on the space cruise ship. But the kicker is that the gravity drives are solely responsible for activating the virus that caused the outbreak. The moment the drives were powered down by the black ops unit, the virus became inactive. That means everyone who became infected and had not perished on the ship or the space station awoke from their zombie-like state with a sound mind.

As for Neptune Shores, only three people survived out of thousands, the owner of a Chinese Cafe and her grandson, and the resort manager, Grayson Flux. He'll have a ton of questions to answer when he goes before the Federation investigative committee in the months to come.

I turn to see three of the survivors from the Celestial Sea. All of them are in beds in a row down from my bed. First, there is the witty and talented swordsman slash technical wizard, Halo Mintaka, who narrowly survived a knife wound and a zombie infection. Next, the energetic and strong Astra Ganymede, and finally, the spunky blue-haired girl, Caprica Venatici. Each of them had transformed into dreadful monsters, but now they're in full recovery and resting comfortably, fast asleep beside me.

With the moderate gravity provided by the spinning wheel of the space station, the doctor on duty walks in and stops by my bed.

I'm relieved the IPSS doesn't use gravity drives, for obvious reasons, and the sight of Dr. Sol Mintaka brings a welcomed smile to my face. However, it seems odd that Halo's mother is employed on a space station orbiting Earth while his father had been employed by one orbiting Neptune.

Families of the twenty-fourth century are remarkable and resilient.

"How are you feeling?" Dr. Sol Mintaka says.

"Spectacular considering the circumstances." I perk up, warmth flooding my face.

"You'll be glad to know the virus itself has ran its course. It's interesting though," Dr. Mintaka pauses, her forefinger touching her chin. "The gravity drives produced the zombified condition in conjunction with the virus. Take either one of the two out of the equation and this apocalyptic scenario never takes place. And you'll be glad to know, it appears that you never really died. We believe your heartbeat slowed to undetectable levels and then your brain rebooted somehow, producing the zombie effect. When the gravity drives were deactivated, your brain did another reboot and here you are, alive and in your right mind."

I narrow my eyes. "Why were some people not affected initially when the outbreak started? Halo, Astra, Adrianna, and myself? We only turned when we were bitten by an infected person or came into contact with contaminated blood. Caprica wasn't so lucky."

"It appears that some people were only carriers of the virus, like yourself. When the active virus entered your bloodstream, you became infected like the rest. We don't know everything about the outbreak at this point, but we'll be studying it intensely so that it never happens again. That, I can assure you."