The Best of the Brine

Plan Your Trip Well



I used to love vacations. And the water.

But when I think about them now, sickness overwhelms me.

It started three weeks ago, when my parents dropped Tyler (my boyfriend), Callie (my best friend), Matt (Callie's boyfriend)and I off in Miami for a cruise. At 22 years old, we were going to have the time of our lives. We documented the entire saga of boarding and took reaction shots of each other as we entered the room.

As my camera dies a slow death from lack of batteries, I idly flip through those first days of the cruise. Back when I loved vacations. When life was nothing but one margarita after another. The screen flickers once, twice, and then goes black. The faces of my friends are gone, and I can't get them back.

The glint from the water hurts my eyes, so I shield them. It reminds me that I lost my sunglasses. Callie had them last. But I don't know where she is. I wish I had my sunglasses. But more than that, I wish I could forget everything that has happened.



It was perfect until the second day of our week long cruise. We had danced and drank and tanned for 48 hours straight. Life was the shit. That was when I had wanted to stay on the ship for as long as possible, I never wanted to leave the party. It was all so great until Tyler touched my arm and asked a simple question as we sat at one of the half dozen bars.

"What's wrong with the TV?"

Not thinking much of it, I shrugged it off as technical difficulties. "Who the hell cares, did you order me another tequila shot?"

He eyed me carefully. "Do you really need another one?"

I smiled smugly. "You never know which day will be your last!"

"Right," Tyler sighed and handed me the shot with a lime. He used to hate when I said that. Now I hate myself for saying it.

Callie and Matt rushed up beside us. "Guys!" Callie shrieked in a half-drunken-half-freaked-out sort of way. "The communications are totally fucked!"

I rolled my eyes at her, because as usual, she wasn't making much sense.

Matt stepped up next to her. "No, seriously, something is going on. No one can get a hold of anyone off the ship, and there are no communications coming in either."

"No shit?" I asked, half amused by a problem that was of no concern to me at the moment.

Callie immediately picked up on my lack of enthusiasm for the topic. "You know what this means right?"

I shrugged. "No Perez Hilton for like, two hours?"

Tyler patted my shoulder, his finger running along my collar bone in a way that always made my skin tingle. "It means they will dock at the nearest port. Which isn't going to be Jamaica."

The memory stopped there. The sun is too bright to let me continue. Everything hurts. I hate dehydration. I wish I had a margarita, or anything at all. Just something to take the edge off. My tongue dances at the corners of my mouth, testing how dry it is. It reminds me of the moment we reached that first port. How the terror seemed to drain me completely.

Rumors had been flying about why communications had been cut, and how. So as we approached the harbor in Mexico, the whole ship was abuzz with gossip. The first sign of trouble wasn't spotted until we were nearly docked. A single stream of smoke appeared on the horizon. It was steady and thick.

The four of us stood on the deck, leaning against the rail.

"Is that a fire?" Callie asked no one in particular as she strained to see where the smoke was coming from.

We didn't answer, we were too busy watching the crew prepare to dock. But something was wrong.

A low roar emerged from the distance, across the pier. It almost sounded like a sports stadium after a really bad call against the home team. And then we saw them.

At first it was dozens, but they quickly multiplied into hundreds of people. All running. Towards the ship.

I felt Tyler's hand grip my waist, and Callie let out a whimper.

Matt leaned forward, his words long and drawn out. "What...the fuck?"

The ship began to pull away. As the people who were running reached the end of the pier, they started to launch themselves towards the ship. Not a single one made it. They drowned, or maybe just sank to the bottom, still screaming.

After that first encounter, my memory skips around. I think it's because of trauma, lack of sleep, shitty nutrition and my overall inability to deal with the seriously whacked-out crap that happened.

Day four, confusion runs rampant around the ship. Chaos emerges and spreads like a disease. But the crew do a good job calming down most people. Callie and Matt are sure that what we saw in Mexico was some kind of stunt. Like when people get together and plan a dance to some famous song in the middle of a train station. I wished I could have logged onto YouTube and proved that theory to be true.

Day five and the ship pulls into another harbor. Half the ships are on fire, the other half are in the process of sinking. The captain comes over the speakers and says he cant maneuver the ship to the dock through all the wreckage and that we'll have to move on.

When we look down into the water, we see bodies floating. But they aren't all dead.

Day six. People are becoming frantic with worry that food will run out because its only a week long cruise, and what about the fuel? The crew assures everyone that they have enough for several extra days. Tyler and I share a concerned expression because we know it can't all be true.

On the seventh day, we pull into a harbor of a small island that has no wreckage at its port. Everything is quiet as the crew slams down the gates. People begin to rush out onto the dock. The four of us stand against the railings of the deck and watch as frenzied passengers run over each other to get off the boat. For only a moment I am jealous of them. We decided not to get off.

Callie seemed to be feeling the same as me. "Maybe it's okay down there..."

I hugged her close and Matt squeezed her to keep her quiet.

It seemed like half of the passengers had gotten off when the first blood thirsty monster appeared at the edge of the dock. The crew spotted him immediately and began to pull up the gates. The screaming increased ten fold when all the people who had left the ship realized they were surrounded. Frantically, they all turned back to the ship. But the bridges were no longer lowered.

My stomach turned when I realized we were leaving them, that the crew had needed to empty the ship in order to ration the food that was left.

As the ship floated away, we heard the screams of our fellow passengers on the dock as they were slaughtered. The silence on the ship once we reached deeper waters was deafening.

Day eight and we pass another harbor that cannot be penetrated. Everyone remaining on the ship is suspicious of each other. For good reason.

Day nine. Raiding has started. First, people ransacked the rooms that had been left by those who ran off the boat. But afterwards, no one was safe. The four of us were forced into hiding, defending our food stores savagely for survival. It seems like the only people who have any sense of togetherness are the crew, they stick together.

Day ten and we pull alongside a harbor that can only be entered by small boat. A few crew members pack into the boat and head for shore. That was the day any kind of loyalty disappeared. The ship pulled away, leaving the dozen crew behind.

For the next days we aimlessly drift around the Caribbean.

Day fifteen. Everyone left on the ship, which I think was about three hundred, piles into the largest theater. There is a raffle. If you win, you are handed a life raft.

None of us win. A few dozen people depart on their life rafts within hours. That night there is a horrible storm. For the first time in my life, I'm glad my luck was never with bingo or raffles or tic-tac-toe.

Day sixteen. People begin to jump overboard, just deciding to end it all on their own terms. I give Callie my sunglasses because she has a headache from the sun. I look away for only a moment. And then I can't find her.

Day seventeen was when the ship pulled into a sketchy looking dock as a last resort for food and water and fuel. But the monsters were there. With axes the crew and whoever else that had volunteered to go battled their way through the monsters to get to the food storage facility.

They returned, but with far less then we needed.

Day twenty. We learn that the ones who had gotten off the boat returned with something besides food and water. Different portions of the ship are locked down in an effort to contain the disease. Fires break out. Matt is pushed off the boat by stack of deck chairs. His screams echo in my ears.

We retreat to the main helm, where the captain sits with the last remaining crew. He is old and looks as if he hasn't slept in weeks. I look around and realize there are thirteen people left, including myself and Tyler. It seems like such an unlucky number.

The constant pounding against the doors drives Tyler mad. I am so sea sick that I cannot keep anything down. After six hours, the captain orders us to abandon ship.

So now we drift in the last life raft, sharing five bottles of water and watch the floating hotel disappear on the horizon. The captain says if we find a remote enough island, that perhaps the disease may not have reached it. I wonder to myself that if something is that remote, how would we survive on it?

Day twenty one. In the distance, we spot a small island. It could be what we have been hoping for. With each minute, our raft draws nearer. Soon enough, we realize there are a few people on the shore. The captain swears and says he forgot to bring his binoculars. Against the glare of the sun on the water, none of us can tell if the people on the shore are infected or not.

Tyler leans in close and says something that chills me to the bone. "It doesn't matter, does it? Even if they aren't infected, they'll probably kill us anyways."

And I know he's right.

God, I fucking hate vacation.