Another Zombie Game

[Irish Wolf]

Excerpts from the diary of Seaman Sinclair

February 15th, 1942

There were Limies in the mess this evening. The deckapes were talking about how we were nearly sunk by a Jap plane has we were loading them aboard. We got somewhere between twenty and forty aboard before a Jap patrol came along. They didn’t have any weapons. I guess they give them up during the surrender. Seems like a foolish move to attempt an escape and not bring a few guns along.

February 22nd, 1942

Limies are still aboard and eating our grub. Asked the Chief why we haven’t set them down on some island yet. The Chief said it was because we were supposed to meet up with some Dutch Admiral and didn’t have time to make towards an island in the British Empire.

February 27th, 1942

Goddamn! We were in a real battle this time! It was around four in the afternoon when the general quarters was sounded and then there was all manner of sounds. I could hear and feel the guns over on this Limy and Dutch cruisers, over the noise of our own four inchers. It was exciting! We ended up making smoke and running for it. The deckapes said we lost a few ships and hauled aboard a woman.

February 28th, 1942

We got cut off from the rest of the fleet while making smoke last night. Captain made an announcement, we’re not making for Surabaya but we’re gonna try sneaking up the coast of Sumatra and make for Ceylon. Goddamn Japs.

Spotted the deckape’s woman, very pretty, nice to watch.

March 1st, 1942

Limies are starting to get on my nerves. All they do is complain. We’re makin for a British port aren’t we?



Tomas wrapped the small diary up, in a pocket of rubber he had made during his spare time and slipped the pencil (which was growing short) in with it. As he settled against the warmth of the third stack, he slipped the whole package into the pocket of his dungarees and pulled the white cap over his eyes. It wasn’t like he needed to cover his eyes, as the stars in the sky we’re too bright and they we’re using running lights but it was a custom he had always done. A small huff and the fireman was drifting off to sleep.

He woken sudden, as his body was tossed high in the air, his ears filled with the horrible roar of an explosion aft and the screech of metal tearing apart. He came down with a thud upon the metal skin of his ship and started to roll, as the half of USS Swinburne he was one started listing heavily to starboard. With a second thud, his back smashed into the railing, knocking the breath out of a small, rodentish man. He gasped in pain and struggled to stand up, as he world flickered in the light of burning fuel, which was leaking out of his home.

Confused, feeling sick and unsteady, Tomas overbalanced and feel into the dark sea. Water rushed into his lungs, as he tried to breath underwater. Failing about, he managed to go up, his head breaking the surface just as the remains of the aged four-stacker destroyer rolled over, sending a wave of angry sea crashing over him. Buffeted under the water, he clutched at his face, holding the pair of glasses (which had remained perched on his nose so far). A few lung burning minutes later, he broke free of the sea’s grip again. The roar of flames filled it ears, as it mingled with the cries of his crewmates.

He couldn’t see. When the fireman has surfaced, he had been under a slick of oil (which wasn’t on fire yet) and the fuel had filled his eyes. As he sucked in a breath of air, he screamed in pain, as his eyes burned. Sucking in a second breath, he sank back under sea, opening his eyes to the ravages of saltwater to cleanse them of fuel, shaking his head back and forth, as he started swimming in a random direction.

Popping back up to the surface, Tomas still couldn’t see and his eyes felt like they were being jabbed with the devil’s pitchfork but the burning sensation was gone. Flailing about in the waves, he cried out for help. There was no real answer, except similar shouts coming from all around him. His fingers suddenly struck something. It was smooth and pliable, like the rubber rafts that had been strapped to the side of the ship. Flailing again towards the thing, he could the ropes attached to the side of the thing and awkwardly hauled himself aboard (nearly tipping the raft over in the process).

Unable to see and in a state of shock, he curled up in the bottom of the raft, being of no help to anyone. Slowly, his mind drifted into a state of blissful darkness but not before he felt the raft rocking, like someone was climbing into it…..

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Tomas’s eyes opened slowly. His vision was blurry, his eyes felt puffy and sticky. His whole body ached from his tumble last night. A powerful feeling of sickness sat in his very empty belly. In all, he felt wretched. His memories from last night were jumbled together. The raft gently bobbed in little waves.

“Ah Hell” moaned the fireman, as he forced himself to sit up and stare at the blob of green that was just a little way’s off. He really needed to rinse his eyes in fresh water, to get the salt and (hopefully little) remaining oil out. Not thinking straight, he stood up, took a few steps and overbalanced again, falling over the side and tripping the raft over. He, along with the several other bodies in the raft splashed into the shallows around Jacob’s Island.




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[Kravos]

Every wave would collide with the boat, even the smallest one could be felt. The British rifleman, Samuel Erickson stood above deck towards the back of the boat. It was easy to read his nervousness because every day he remained on the ship was just more nerve wrecking. His eyes constantly keeping watching over the waves and movements that fish made.

After five minutes or so he could feeling the disgusting taste swell up in the back of his throat. His eyes tearing up from both, disgust, and the lack of breath. Slamming his chest against the small rail as the fluids poured out of his mouth into the dark sea. Erickson was never one for the see, even when it came to fishing on one of those small boats he got sea sick. Every day for the past few weeks it has been like this. And he would sit with his back against that same rail trying to catch his breath as well as calm his stomach.

The sky, he remembered it well, it was just as dark as the water in the distance. The stars were the only thing that told him where the water ended, and where the sky began. When his eye caught something shiny in the water, he thought it was only the reflection of the moon on the watery surface. He never could of expected it to be a torpedo. The very thing that he feared was only seconds away.

Erickson just began to stand as the explosion rang out, his grip on the rail kept him from flying backwards, but as the ship protested and the weight shifted back over on the other hand. He was flipped over the rail, gripping onto it for dear life watching the waves crash against the boat. The metal was torn and bent out of shape like teeth of a hundred great white waiting for him. A second explosion, probably from a fire hitting the open fuel lines. The pressure threw him back, slamming his body into the sea. His right side landing on some of the metal that broke off the ship.

As his lungs filled with the cold liquid he gave up on life. Convinced that he would never make it back to his family, or the land. He could feel was another man's grip pulling him, the voice urging him not to give up. Trying to convince him that it was not over yet, life could still go on. And the same material of one of the life rafts remaining between him and the water. The force being exerted onto his chest as the water was released from his lungs. Salt water burned horribly, not like the normal pool water that one would use to cool of on a sunny day.

Erickson was drifting in and out of consciousness, he could barely see the people around him. Some looking more dead then the last, other unharmed but wet and cold. His own right arm looked mangled, probably broken from hitting the metal from such a height. As his eyes closed for the last time, he was thoroughly convinced that he would be dead before day break.

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Things came as but a blur at first, but when moments passed he could see things a lot more clearly. The sun was actually up, just seeing the light alone renewed his hope. He may have given up on life but for some reason he survived, he was granted a second chance. Though the people around him did not look to horribly well off either.

Some people were starting to wake up as well, others were either giving out cries of grief or pain. But good old Erickson, he pushed himself up and gave a full hearted laugh while saying, "Bloody hell, we actually managed to survive! That ought to be the damnedest thing I ever have seen."